Eight Weeks to Mr. Right (2 page)

I laughed. “I was very careful not to make a fool of myself,” I assured him, but I was still doubtful. “But do you really want to watch reality TV? You seem like someone who would just hate it.”

“Oh, I do,” he said. “It’s so fake. It’s ridiculous. And it glorifies idiotic drama. But I can’t miss this.”

I felt myself giving in, despite my embarrassment. Besides, what other options did I have at this point? I didn’t want to miss the very first episode.

“Okay,” I said. “If you really don’t mind, that would be great. But,” I couldn’t resist adding, “it’s
not
fake. I thought so too before I was on it, but now I know how much goes on off-camera that doesn’t make it into the show.” I knew I should stop there, but I didn’t. “There’s real stuff that happens, they just can’t show it all. It may look like people are faking emotions, but that’s only because you miss the hour of heartfelt conversation and only see the crying at the end.”

Like falling for Andrew,
I thought, though I didn’t say that part out loud.
 

Ben raised his eyebrow at me again. “And you’re not worried about being portrayed that way?”

“Nope,” I said. “I know it’ll all get edited into a dumbed-down version, but I didn’t do anything I’m not proud of.”

He just nodded, and I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “What’s the show called?” he asked instead of responding.
 

“
Eight Weeks to Mr. Right
.”

“Eight weeks? Why so short?” he asked.
 

I shrugged. “It’s a summer show. I think they just wanted to create something that would wrap up in the right amount of time.

“Hmm,” he said. “That’s not nearly long enough to fall in love.”

Now it was my turn not to respond. Instead, we signaled for the bartender and we paid our tabs to head out.

I followed Ben up the stairs to his apartment, the smell of cured ham from a deli down the street following us as he unlocked the front door and led me into the living room.
 

“Nice,” I said, looking around at the clean, comfortable-looking room. “Do you live alone here?”

“At the moment,” he said, heading into the kitchen. “Can I get you a drink? Beer? Wine? Orange juice?”

I didn’t usually drink much, but I was so nervous tonight that I knew I’d need a bit of liquid courage. “A glass of wine would be great.”

Ben reappeared with a bottle of red and poured us each a glass. “Yeah, my roommate moved out at the end of last month,” he said. “It’s been really nice to have the place to myself, but pretty soon I need to start looking for someone to take his place.”

I picked up the remote from the coffee table and switched the TV on, kicking off my shoes and settling into the couch with my wine. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude,” I said, suddenly realizing how quickly I’d made myself at home. “I just don’t want to miss it.”

“Of course,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “Neither do I.”

There were a couple of minutes of ads, and then my heart leapt to my throat when the show’s intro came on. A few of the scenes from the preview ad flickered across the screen, and then the announcer’s voice: “It’s all starting now, right here on
Eight Weeks to Mr. Right
.”

“Oh god,” I moaned, and took a few more gulps from my glass.
 

The scene shifted to Andrew swimming underwater through a shimmering pool, shirtless, then coming up for air with water streaming off his tanned skin. He was muscular, fit, and handsome, and the way he smiled at the camera you could tell he knew it. My chest tightened. “By day, Andrew Audrave is the CEO of La Joie Parfumerie, which is quickly becoming one of the biggest names in perfume,” the voiceover said. His stats flashed across the screen: Age: 35. Location: Los Angeles. Occupation: CEO. “But the demands of his high-powered job leave little time for finding love.”

Carson Carmichael, the show’s host, strode into the scene in a dapper dark blue suit. “That’s where we come in,” he said. “Over the next eight weeks, Andrew and twenty women will go through all the most important aspects of getting to know one another to see who has chemistry and will go on to the next round, and who’s just plain incompatible. Each week they’ll explore a different aspect of relationship bliss. They’ll go out on the town, cook a meal together, meet each other’s families…and maybe” — he lowered his voice intimately — “even engage in some extracurricular activities, if you know what I mean. It’s all designed to help Mr. Right figure out which of these women — if any — could be his happily-ever-after.”

The scene shifted to Andrew being interviewed in a darkened room lit with candles — the one-on-one confessional. He was wearing a low V-neck shirt that revealed a fair amount of his bulky chest. “I’m not just looking for a woman to spend time with, I’m here looking for a wife,” Andrew said, running his fingers through his wavy blond hair, a gesture I knew well. “I’ve been very fortunate to have a lot of success in my professional life, but behind every great man is a great woman. I believe that woman, for me, is here tonight.”

“Does he always talk in clichés?” Ben asked, and my attention shifted him, sitting on the couch beside me. Ben had medium brown hair, those intense green eyes, and was fit but much slimmer than Andrew, who looked like he spent a lot of time in the gym.
 

I frowned. “He was just nervous,” I said, a little too defensively. “He’s a good guy.”

My mind drifted to the first time I’d met Andrew. I didn’t expect to have any romantic interest in him, and at first, I didn’t. In fact, my reaction had been similar to Ben’s that first night. All of us women had been gathered in a ballroom mingling and drinking, and it had been hours before Andrew had finally arrived. Some were already smashed by the time he appeared, which I was sure was the producers’ intention. It created more drama that way.
 

But I was clear-headed, if tired. He’d walked in with Carson and looked around the room, taking in all twenty of us. “I see I have my work cut out for me!” he’d said, and as the women around me tittered with anxious laughter, I remembered thinking,
What does that even mean?

I was a woman on a mission. Unlike the other women, I wasn’t there to find love. I’d seen photos of Andrew before and found him attractive, but knew from seeing still images alone that he was a little too full of himself for my taste. I was there to get to know him, show him how good I was at scent recognition and fragrance development, and make him realize he needed me working at his company. La Joie Parfumerie had been on my radar for years now, and to work as a fragrance developer for the company was my dream job. They were a hard company to get in with, I’d always heard, and knowing someone was a huge leg up.
 

But something had happened over the course of those weeks together. I’d gotten a peek below Andrew’s polished, overly confident exterior, and I’d fallen for him. It was hard watching this all play back, I had to admit, knowing how things ended up. It hurt like hell.

But my goal was still the same. Even if Andrew hadn’t gotten down on one knee for me at the end of the show, he could still decide to hire me. After the show had aired, all bets were off, and I could contact him and let him know of my interest in any open perfume development positions. Surely he had gotten to know me well enough that I’d be on the short list if he were hiring. We could get past any initial awkwardness, I was sure.

I tapped my fingers against the arm of the couch as we watched all the women doing their intros. “Hi, I’m Brandi, and I’m a dental hygienist from Alabama. In my spare time, I like doing karaoke and having fun with my friends. And I know how to cross my eyes!” On the screen, the platinum blonde with carefully sculpted eyebrows demonstrated her eye-crossing skills and nearly fell off her stool.

“Not much going on with that one, huh?” Ben commented.
 

“She was a little bit vacant,” I admitted.
 

“I’m Abby, I’m twenty-seven years old, and I’m a waitress from Vancouver, Canada. I’m here because I’m looking for love, and I want to see if Andrew might be the one.”

“She was nice,” I told Ben.

“A friend?”

I hesitated. I’d tried hard not to make friends with the other women. We were all in competition with each other, after all, and it had seemed like becoming friends would make things more difficult. Besides, I’d been worried about slipping up and saying more to them than our very strict contract allowed, not that most of the others paid any attention to that.
 

“We were friendly,” I conceded.
 

There were a few women who had gone home early enough that I hardly remembered them, and then Isabella flashed on the screen. My nemesis. Just the sight of her made me tense up. Without meaning to, I groaned out loud. Ben laughed.
 

“Hi all!” Isabella waved at the camera, fluttering her long, fake lashes in a way that was surely designed to look charming. “I’m Isabella. I’m Italian.” She smiled, clearly proud of herself. “And I believe that I am Andrew’s one true love. I currently work as a nurse, but after we get married I hope my full-time job will be taking care of all of our babies!”

“Oh no,” Ben said.
 

“Oh yes,” I said. “She really was that awful.”

“Did she actually think some guy she’d never met before was her soulmate, or was she badgered into saying that for the cameras?”

I opened my mouth to answer, then forgot all about his question as my own face appeared on the screen and my stomach turned another nervous somersault. A makeup artist had done all the women’s makeup before the first meeting in the ballroom, and I’d had my choice of dresses from an extensive collection — the only time during the whole shooting that I hadn’t had to do my own makeup and wear my own clothes. Then we’d been pulled aside one by one to do our intros. I loved the soft bronzed look the makeup artist had given me, not to mention the perfectly fitting green dress that I had chosen because it was both beautiful and would’ve been appropriate for a work function. I wanted Andrew to know I was a professional.

“I’m January, and I’m a fragrance developer from New York City,” TV-me said. Damn, I looked good. I could stand to learn a tip or two from the makeup artist. “When I heard that Andrew was going to be this season’s Mr. Right, I just knew I had to be on the show. I’m looking forward to getting to know him and seeing if we could be a good match.”

I glanced over at Ben. He nodded at me and winked. “Well done.”

After the rest of the intros, Carson reappeared to explain the premise of the show. In each episode, we’d explore a different aspect of romantic relationships with Andrew to see if we were similar where it counted. Those of us he wanted to keep on for the next week, he’d give a red paper heart. No heart, and you were gone. He also explained that none of the women were allowed to talk with each other about what had happened on our dates — a rule I knew many of the women had broken.
 

Episode 1 was basic getting-to-know-each-other, but with the twist that all the dates were two-on-one. The producers had paired each of the women up and created first date–type scenarios for us, and Andrew had met us in coffee shops, bars, and restaurants for our dates. Then, at the end of each date, Andrew had given a paper heart to one woman from each pair.
 

It was strange watching these dates, because I’d had to sign an agreement before going on the show that I wouldn’t discuss my dates with Andrew with any of the other women while on the show. None of us knew what any of the others of us were doing — or at least, that was the idea. In practice, I knew that many of the women talked about the dates later, trying to be discreet. But when you had a microphone on you at all times, how discreet could you really be?

We watched Brandi and another woman go on a date with Andrew to grab coffee, and at the end Brandi remained. We watched a ditz named Alexis get chosen over a strange, awkward girl named Mira. We watched Abby and a girl named Toni have a picnic in the park, and Abby’s infectious laughter won out over Toni’s dark, brooding personality. We watched dinner dates and awkward, three-person strolls by the water.
 

And then there was me, at the very end of the episode.
 

I’d been unenthusiastic about date number one all around. First of all, they’d paired me with Isabella, whom I’d taken an instant dislike to from the first moment we’d met. Second, I didn’t usually drink much — today’s nerves notwithstanding — so I’d been hesitant to agree to the producers’ idea to meet Andrew at an L.A. bar called the Tipsy Cockatoo. It didn’t sound like the best first date if I’d been looking for love, and it certainly wasn’t the place to go with someone I was hoping to impress as a future employer.
 

But in the end, I’d agreed. I was afraid of pushing back too hard and getting the producers on my bad side, especially knowing how much power they had over how I was portrayed to the nation.
 

So Isabella and I had set out on our first date to meet Andrew at the Tipsy Cockatoo, a bar that turned out to live up to its name. I watched on the screen as the TV-me pulled open the bar’s brightly colored doors and walked inside with Isabella. I was in a light gray sweater dress, way too subdued and high-cut for the location — I’d thought it looked professional but fun, exactly what I’d wanted to convey to Andrew in that moment — but Isabella fit right in. She wore a bright red number that was both low-cut over her cleavage and landed high on her leg.
 

Isabella was just as awful on screen as she’d been in real life, and for that I was grateful. We sat together for a few minutes in the bar making small talk — it had felt like an eternity at the time — and then Andrew had arrived.
 

I remembered the way my stomach had flopped when I saw him. I took a few deep breaths to calm my nerves. The camera focused on me as I breathed in and out, something I hadn’t realized had been captured on film.