For the Right Reasons (33 page)

Believe it or not, it worked.

The first time we conducted this undercover operation, a driver picked me up at the airport and took me to a secret house. Brenner was already there, preparing for our arrival.

“We’ve come a long way since Emily dumped me in Curaçao and you ate wasabi to cheer me up,” I said.

“If you want wasabi”—he laughed—“just let me know. But hopefully, you won’t be a blubbering mess this time around.”

“I think we’re safe on that.”

“I’ll be getting your groceries and any movies you may want to see,” he said. “You guys
have
to stay in this house. You can’t venture out.”

When I saw Catherine again, I couldn’t believe how much I’d missed her. Just a few months before, I was a happy single guy who liked my space. Now I felt a little weird when she wasn’t with me. We ate tons of food. We pigged out on those weekends, and I tried a lot of her vegan food (which I have to say wasn’t all that bad). We discovered that we were both movie buffs, so we whiled away the hours watching movies—no chick flicks allowed.

We also had a chance to talk about our faith—without members of the production staff waiting outside the door. As she had explained the night before the proposal, her mother was Catholic, and her dad had been practicing Buddhism over the last several years. Though she went to Mass every Sunday with her mom and grandmother, she didn’t feel like she really knew God. Plus, there were many things she didn’t understand. For example, in Christianity, God is described as being the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit. Commonly referred to as the “Trinity,” it’s one of those foundational teachings of the Christian faith.

“I just don’t get that,” she said. “I’ve always grown up thinking of God and Jesus as two different beings.”

“Try to think of God as three-in-one,” I said. “Every part has different roles.”

“Okaaay . . . ,” she said hesitantly. “Like what?”

“Well, the Holy Spirit does a lot of things—comforts you when you’re sad, gives you strength. But the Spirit also opens your eyes to your need of God.”

She didn’t say anything, so I went on. “Once the Spirit draws you, that’s when you encounter God the Father. He loves us so much that he sent his Son to pay the penalty for our sins.”

I could tell this was hard for her to really comprehend since she’d spent her whole life thinking differently. I let it drop. I knew God was working on her heart, and I didn’t want to get in the way. If Catherine came to faith, it would be on her own time, in her own way. I was thankful to see her wrestling with Christianity and also thankful to have the time to sit around and talk about these issues without having to worry about cameras or deadlines.

We had four or five “Happy Couple” visits but were forbidden to see each other anywhere other than this hypercontrolled, secure location. It got old. One day when I missed Catherine so much, I texted her:
Let’s sneak you down to Dallas.

Really?
she immediately texted back.

It was a few weeks before the show aired, so no one would be able to identify Catherine. I figured it was worth the risk.

“What the producers don’t know won’t hurt them!” she said. That’s what I love about Catherine—she is always game for everything.

Catherine flew down to Dallas, and I didn’t even go inside the airport
to greet her. When she got her luggage, she met me outside the airport, where I whisked her away to meet my friends. Laura, Stephanie, Austin, Jeremy, and Kevin all loved her. And I got the feeling she loved them as well. The next day I took her to my parents’ house, where we got to hang out with family. My fiancée fit in very well, and I loved introducing her to the people I love.

“I have some news,” she said during this trip. “I went to church!”

“You did?” I asked. “All alone?”

“No, my friend Crista went with me,” she said. “It’s a nondenominational church in Seattle.”

“What was it like?” I asked, hoping it was a good experience.

“It was contemporary,” she said. “Very different than the services I used to attend. The pastor even wore jeans!”

Though Catherine still hadn’t committed her life to Christ, I was happy to see that she had made it to a church service. I so wanted to take her to my church, Fellowship Church, in downtown Dallas. I knew she’d love my pastor Ed Young, the cool vibe of the church, and—of course—the message of hope and truth. However, there was no way we could risk being seen in public together, so I’d have to wait to introduce her to that very important part of my life.

All in all, Catherine’s trip to Dallas was a success. Mostly because the producers never found out about our secret rendezvous. (Until now, I guess. Sorry, Mary Kate!) After she went back to Seattle, we texted, FaceTimed, e-mailed, and called. Being apart was tough, but it was the price we had to pay for meeting on the most popular dating show of all time.

One day, however, my phone rang. I answered it, wondering about the unfamiliar number. It definitely wasn’t Catherine.

“Sean?” asked a sweet voice. “This is Lindsay.”

“Lindsay who?” I asked. I wasn’t expecting this call, though I should’ve been.

“Lindsay
Yenter
,” she said. I stood there in the health-food store, completely immobilized.

“Oooh,” I said. “Listen, I’m getting some groceries. Let me call you back
in five minutes.” I bought my groceries—and a little time to collect myself. When I got back out to the car, I took a deep breath and dialed her number.

“Hey, what’s up?” I said, trying to sound casual.

“I just wanted to call you, because . . .” She paused. “I’m still in love with you, and I still pray over us. I think it’s important that you know that.”

I was so sympathetic—empathetic, really. I’ll never forget picking up my phone a thousand times considering whether to dial Emily’s number. As kindly as I could, I said, “I didn’t really give you closure, so I hope I can give you closure now. I’ve fallen in love with Catherine.”

The call lasted fifteen minutes, and she handled it very graciously. I left that conversation convinced Lindsay really was a class act.

“Sean, you’ll need to fly to Los Angeles to do some pickups,” Mary Kate said.

“I don’t do pickups anymore,” I said. “I’m engaged, in case you didn’t notice.”

Mary Kate didn’t laugh at my joke. Even though this was a downtime for Catherine and me, the producers at
The Bachelor
were frantically trying to make all that footage into an actual story. The story producer had taken notes throughout the season, just like the producer, and was now busy formulating everything that happened during the season into a narrative.

Now that the season was over, I had to fly to LA, where I discovered they had my entire wardrobe from the season all neatly arranged—down to the belts and socks. When I’d been a contestant on
The Bachelorette
, I had to bring my own clothes. But one of the perks about being
The Bachelor
was the wardrobe they provided.

“How did you do all this?” I asked.

“Remember when Brenner took photos of you before each date?” Mary Kate asked. “Well, that wasn’t for Facebook. He was documenting exactly what you were wearing on each date so we could replicate the outfit down to the detail.”

“Why?”

“Put on week-one clothes to find out,” she said before leaving the room. “Actually, you only have to put on the top half. Here’s the Polaroid for reference.”

There, laid out perfectly, was the suit I wore with Des on our first one-on-one date.

After I put on the top half, the producers came back in with a cameraman, and I’d say things like, “I’m having a blast with Des tonight, and I can’t wait to see what the future holds.” It wasn’t disingenuous, because I expressed what my true feelings were at the time. Mainly, it was boring. I did pickups for countless hours over probably four days. Even though I’m pretty good at public speaking, I was surprised at how hard it was to remember six sequential sentences of pickups.

When I went back to Dallas, the producers contacted me again, saying they needed a bit more.

“This time, we need audio to play over the footage of your date,” Travis e-mailed. “You can do it on your iPad.” What he didn’t know was that I lived in a loft with concrete floors and a good amount of open space. The only place I could get decent audio was in my closet.

“I don’t think the girls like Tierra,” I said into my iPad, crouching in my closet weeks after the actual date had occurred.

Although they were able to clean up the audio a little bit, I laughed when I watched the show and heard the substandard quality. No one would’ve guessed I recorded that while in my closet in Dallas, weeks after the fact.

While watching the show, I told my friends these behind-the-scenes details that made it interesting. Plus, it was enjoyable to relive that fun season of life. As I watched the show in Dallas, however, I worried how Catherine would react to seeing all this footage of me kissing other girls—in some cases, girls who ended up being her dear friends.

This, of course, is the inherent problem of the show: relationships solidified in the final days of the show are immediately put at risk when the newly engaged person watches ten weeks of his or her future spouse making out with other people. Emily Maynard, after she got engaged to Brad Womack on the show, said she turned into a ball of anxiety and self-doubt
every Monday night when she tuned in to see the show. This ultimately contributed to the demise of their already shaky relationship.

Would Catherine and I be able to withstand it?

Since she was watching two thousand miles away, I had no idea how she was feeling.

“How’s it going?” I asked her during the first episode.

“I can’t believe the show has started!”

“I know,” I said. “But how do you think you’ll feel while watching it from week to week?”

“Sean, I understand everything you did on the show ultimately led you to me,” she said. “It’s all a part of it. We’re good.”

And that was that. Even as the show progressed, she never gave me grief over anything that happened.

“Guess what,” Catherine casually said one day. “Crista accepted Jesus into her heart.”

“Really?” I couldn’t believe my ears.

“Yes, we met with the pastor,” she said.

“The one who wears jeans?”

“Yes, that one,” she said. “And she decided she believed.”

I was thrilled to hear Crista’s news, but noted that Catherine herself hadn’t taken the plunge. It might seem like Catherine is the type of girl who makes decisions quickly—if based alone on the fact that she accepted my marriage proposal! However, she is normally a very deliberate, careful person. I knew she wasn’t going to jump into anything without counting the cost.