Page 7 of Unscripted

“Basically,” she continued, “I think you should say ‘yes.’”

It had worn me out, all the overthinking and analyzing. I felt, not for the first time today, simply exhausted by my own brain. I was tired of second guessing myself, of worrying about every move I made and stressing over where it would lead.

I looked at Blair across the kitchen table. Was her insistence I give this a chance really that crazy?

I had so desperately wanted to get myself back on the track I had been on just two weeks before, when I had a goal and a sense of where my life was headed.

But going back wasn’t an option and if I wasn’t ready to return to New York and face the music there, I needed to take control of the hand that had been dealt to me in London.

Maybe Blair was right.

Maybe it was time to blow up my life a bit.

Looking down at my phone, I found another voicemail from him waiting in my inbox. Seeing his audacity displayed in the simplicity of a voicemail notification tipped something over in me.

I got up from the table and grabbed my bag, rifling through it until I found Harriet’s business card.

I dialed the number and listened as it rang.

My heart was in my throat, but my mind was surprisingly clear as I waited for her to pick up. Maybe a part of me deep down knew that no matter how long it took and how many ways I would need to talk it out, the day was always going to end here, with this phone call.

“This is Harriet,” the voice on the other line answered after the third ring. Her tone was crisp and to the point, just as it had been earlier.

“Harriet? Hi, it’s Poppy.”

“Poppy, wonderful! Have you made a decision, then?”

This was it. Once I said the words out loud, I knew there would be no going back, no time to change my mind.

I took a deep breath and let it out.

Then I pulled the pin on the grenade, disrupting my previously well-curated life, and said, “I’m in.”

5

The days following my call with Harriet were a blur of physical and emotional preparation.

Blair took it upon herself to be my guide on the journey into the world of reality television.

This meant, first and foremost, what she was calling an “emergency glow up.”

I tried to tell her they had cast me based on my already existing way of looking, but she was hearing none of it.

“You’re stunning, obviously, but this will just be a little boost before your face is broadcast on every television screen in the United Kingdom.”

The reminder of what was ahead of me had any objection I might have had dying a quick death, and soon I was at the mercy of the team of beauticians Blair traipsed into the flat. I was waxed, manicured, exfoliated, and plucked within an inch of my life until I was a sparkling, shinier version of myself.

The second part of my preparation was “TV boot camp”, which primarily meant that we watched as much Bella Amore as humanly possible.

The show, which would air in the UK every night for six weeks straight, averaged forty episodes a season. With six seasons consisting of one-hour episodes, that was 240 hours of television ready for the viewing public’s consumption.

I managed to get through four seasons—a total of 160 episodes.

It was on in the apartment at all times. We never turned it off. Sometimes I would even have one season on the living room television while another played on my laptop.

We watched and watched and watched, and by the end my brain was mush and my vision blurry, but at least I knew what I was getting myself into.

I also got it. I saw the appeal. To be quite honest, I was hooked after the first episode.