Authors: Sarah Gates
‘Welcome to
Love Elimination
, Anna! I’m the director, Joseph Burning; you can call me Joe.’ He nodded from his position behind the camera. ‘We’re about to escort you down the beach to the villa where you’ll be living. How are you feeling right now?’
‘Nervous, I guess.’ Anna offered a small smile as the crew chuckled politely. The director circled his hands around each other. Anna blinked, trying to remember if Kate had ever mentioned the signal or what it meant.
‘Keep going,’ Joe instructed.
‘Oh, okay.’ Anna fumbled with the bracelet on her wrist. She just wanted to get the interview over as quickly as possible. ‘I’m excited and terrified to meet everyone. I’m also hoping that, at some point, I’ll be given a full itinerary for the rest of the show. It would be great to
not
be in the dark. But I have a feeling that’s not going to happen …’
It seemed her answers were sufficiently ‘peppy’: the word Anna had been hearing from Kate and the crew since agreeing to the sham. She’d been instructed to be honest (unless her answers were likely to get either sister into trouble) and give elaborate, energetic, upbeat answers. She was supposed to be ‘a character’ or an ‘exaggerated version of herself’ in front of the cameras. There had been so many marketing buzzwords thrown at her she’d felt like she was the victim of a particularly persistent salesperson.
‘Great, great.’ Joe nodded and the red recording light on the camera flicked off. Anna didn’t think any of it could be edited into something the resident bitch might say, but she struggled to remember exactly what she had said only moments after the words spilled from her mouth.
Another staffer moved forwards and Anna found herself led down the beach to another camera setup. This time, she was instructed to walk between the markers lining a stretch of the beach towards the trees about twenty-five metres away. With the cameras trailing behind her, her mind focused on the sashay of her bum. The width of her thighs. The straightness of her back. The crinkle of her dress around her waist. Not looking like she needed to pee. How had she ever walked confidently in everyday life?
Anna forced herself to take a deep breath and tried to let the tension drain from her body.
You are a fully capable, intelligent person
, she told herself.
You will not be caught up in insecurities. You flat out refuse.
Only then did she notice the sound of the ocean lapping against the scattered shells, the sounds of night animals in the distance. She was surrounded by pure paradise and she was worrying about her arse. How ridiculous. The thought eased some of the knot in her shoulders.
‘Wait, just a minute.’ She bent down and slipped out of her shoes, letting them hang from her fingers. With each step, sand squelched between her toes and the tiny grains exfoliated the skin on her feet. It was better than a five star–resort massage. She kept walking until she reached five bamboo lanterns sticking out of the sand. It felt like a survival reality show rather than the dating variety it was supposed to be. She waited for the crew and their handheld cameras to catch up, having captured their long shot of her approaching the lanterns. With the crew following closely behind and more cameras filming in front, Anna crossed over the tree line. The palm trees didn’t grow particularly thickly, but they did manage to conceal a villa with a thatched bamboo roof hanging over wood pillars. The building was two storeys, with geometric patterns in the veranda’s wooden balustrades. Either the large villa had no windows, or they were so clean they’d become invisible to the naked eye.
The cameras watched silently as Anna took in every part of the building. If she’d known what to wish for, her heart would have wanted this. When she and Kate were young, their dad had taken them on snow trips once a year. Not once had she seen sand on a holiday. The only warmth had come from open fires and the hot chocolate in their mugs.
‘When you’re ready, you may make your way inside,’ Joe murmured. The villa seemed to be made up of three buildings: one large one in the middle, and a smaller building on either side. Anna strode into the courtyard the buildings formed and through the double doors in the middle.
She found herself in a living room as large as an Olympic swimming pool. Dark grey couches with white cushions were placed around the room. Following the corridor to the right, she found the kitchen of her dreams: fully equipped with industrial ovens, stove tops and a fridge, and filled with luxury appliances atop drop-dead-gorgeous white marble benches above dark cabinets.
High-pitched giggles echoed through the air and as Anna gravitated towards the sound, Joe stopped her.
‘Stop there,’ he said. ‘There’s a bathroom through here. You can relieve yourself while we set up the cameras for you to meet the others.’
Anna stumbled through the door he’d pointed out and found herself in a bathroom with the perfect combination of marble and dark rainforest wood. It was perhaps the fanciest she’d ever encountered. When she emerged again, she felt much more human. Of course, half a second later she was an insect under a magnifying glass again. The cameras had moved to catch her ascent of the stairs.
With another instruction from the director, Anna climbed the wooden staircase against a side wall and found herself in a hallway decorated with tribal art. All of the doors were open. Anna poked her head through the first and found two girls sitting on a massive bed. The room itself was beautiful, with rose petals scattered over the white doona and matching curtains draped on either side of the window. Another bed was pushed up against the right wall. The cupboards and wardrobes blended into the walls, so Anna didn’t notice them until she stepped into the room.
The girls leapt off the bed mid-titter when they spotted Anna. They ran up to her and threw their arms around her.
‘Hey, I’m Rachel! A 26-year-old social media analyst from Adelaide.’ It was the introduction they’d been instructed to give in front of the cameras. Anna had already listed her own tagline about seven times, and that was just for the promos. How long did they have to keep it up?
‘Hadie, twenty-three, language teacher from Sydney.’ The woman had an open face, wide eyes and a smile that brought dimples to each of her cheeks.
‘Can you believe this place?’ Rachel asked. She spoke twice as fast as anyone Anna had ever met. ‘I would’ve signed up just for the size of the baths.’
Anna grinned, glancing between the two women. ‘It’s great,’ she offered. ‘I’m Anna. Nice to meet you.’
Damn. She was two sentences in and she’d already forgotten to follow the script. But before she could rectify the mistake, the other woman was talking again.
‘Did they put you through hair and make-up too?’ Rachel barely waited for Anna’s nod before continuing. ‘I was just telling Hadie, they are not going to be able to control this hair. Just look at it!’
Granted, the woman’s red hair was voluminous and curly. The fly-aways poked out like misplaced sticks in a bird’s nest. Apparently the spray that had been used on Anna had not been potent enough to tame Rachel’s locks.
‘Seriously! They won’t be able to fit my face in the screen. They’ll try shooting this conversation and all they’ll get is a screen of red wiggly worms.’ She slid her fingers through her hair, only managing to increase its height, and raised an eyebrow at the camera in the doorway. Anna didn’t miss the way the girl made eye contact with the lens, nor the tiny smile at the corner of her lips.
Rachel ran to the bed and flung herself across the mattress. ‘Feel it, Anna! It must be made out of angel feathers.’
Anna followed, shuffling towards the centre of the bed and folding her feet under her. Despite her efforts, she may have just flashed her underwear to the entire nation. That risk would take some getting used to.
She massaged her fingers into the sheets. ‘You’re absolutely right. This is heaven.’
‘If you think that’s good, wait till you see the rest of the house!’ Hadie said, pulling Anna from the bed. That time, Anna’s dress definitely lifted too high. If only Kate had let her wear one of her own dresses, the long hem would never have embarrassed her like this.
Hadie and Rachel led her to the bathroom, and then into six more identical bedrooms. They were interrupted twice by new arrivals: French-born Yvette, a 33-year-old flight attendant from Melbourne and 26-year-old netballer Sandra from Adelaide, who immediately bonded with her fellow Adelaidean, Rachel. Each time a new contestant was introduced, they all had to pause, stand against the walls and wait for the cameras to be rearranged.
They completed the tour after the sixth arrival—19-year-old Tamsen from Tasmania, on her gap year after high school—and opened a bottle of champagne found in the fridge by entrant number seven: 32-year-old Brooke, a commercial lawyer from Sydney, and also the one with a PhD and the body of Beyoncé. It was enough to make Anna’s self esteem plummet. Anna greeted the last few women from her perch at the kitchen counter, giving each new tour a miss and instead getting to know Hadie over a refreshing glass of bubbly.
Anna and Hadie welcomed five more glamorous ladies into the villa, starting with Tallulah—22 years old from Darwin and a student of dentistry. Followed by Jessica—26 years old from Sydney, who was a magazine editor, and Dee from Perth—a 27-year-old accountant. After a long delay, Liu Kun arrived—a 24-year-old writer from Melbourne. The last to arrive was a 22-year-old law student from Sydney, Christina.
As soon as they finished their introductions, Anna forgot practically everything about them. She was usually good with names but that skill deserted her in the face of these eleven stunning women, all of whom could have doubled for models.
Looking at 19-year-old Tamsen and 22-year-old Tallulah, Anna’s curiosity was sparked. Weren’t women settling down later in life these days? Shouldn’t these women be busy kicking arse in their careers or following their passions, if all the articles about body clocks and IVF were to be believed? Anna herself hadn’t even begun to think about children or even finding love, really, until she was conscripted to
Love Elimination
.
Yet here they were, wanting to fall in love so desperately that they’d subject themselves to potential national humiliation, even signing a contract to that effect. The thought shocked Anna back into her right mind. She wasn’t a contestant. She didn’t want a boyfriend, much less a husband. All she wanted was her dessert café in Sydney. She would have to keep her guard up against the crew, who were keeping watch of the women with cameras in every corner, even outside. She fought the urge to hide behind the large pot plants in the living room. If there were women here for fun or an adventure, she feared they’d made a gravely misinformed decision.
At another set of instructions, the group poured the champagne in the kitchen and the party spilled out onto a patio surrounded by hundreds of lights.
A voice drifted from within the villa: ‘Good evening, ladies.’
Love Elimination
host, Mason Lockier, emerged. Kate had truly gone above and beyond, scoring the highest grossing television personality in Australia. Not only was he popular, he was also known for being funny and quick witted. Mason had a fake tan, chemically whitened teeth, ten distinct on-camera laughs—and a wife. Anna grinned. None of the women would be getting distracted by his appearance on the show.
‘Welcome to
Love Elimination
!’ he called. ‘How are we all doing this fine summer night?’
The typical responses were drowned out by Yvette’s contribution of ‘Bored! Bring out the man!’
Anna was content to offer a smile and a nod. Sometimes she had nightmares about getting called on to speak publicly, like having to give a talk in her high school assembly and forgetting her speech. It felt like the beginning of one of those nightmares now. Anna felt every nerve in her body tense as she spotted one of the cameras pointed straight at her. Did the operator know something she didn’t?
‘Now, I know you just want to meet the man you’ll all be competing for … and you’ve all been very patient.’ Mason winked at a woman who seemed to be salivating at his words. Her name might have been Christina? Anna’s forehead scrunched as she tried to remember. ‘But that’s not how reality television works.’
A collective groan rose from the group. Anna joined in a minute late, and then failed to resist shooting a look at the camera. It was still trained on her. She took a deep breath and willed her face to remain blank.
‘So tell me, Hadie, what does your fantasy man look like?’
‘He needs to be handsome, funny, kind and have a high pain threshold for stepping on Lego.’
‘That’s great! And how about you Yvette?’
‘Drop-dead gorgeous and rich as an emperor—just kidding! He just needs to have a great personality.’
Mason’s face broke into a wider grin at Yvette’s teasing. It was editing gold and even Anna knew it. She was willing to bet that just the first part of Yvette’s answer would make it into the episode, maybe even the ads. Did Mason get a bonus for prompting such a goldmine of content? Did Yvette realise she would be cast as the money-grubbing, shallow villain of the show? It was even in their contracts: a clause stating that they may be portrayed as a ‘character’ distinct from who they actually were. And if Yvette didn’t scream ‘resident bitch’ to the producers, Anna didn’t know who did.
‘Anna!’ Mason zeroed in on her. ‘What’s the one thing that will turn you off any man?’
Anna stared, but she wasn’t seeing anything. Her brain had left all her other senses behind to focus on the nausea pushing at her throat. Her clammy hands felt through empty air for something to grab onto, but there was nothing.
‘What’s the absolute worst trait a lover can have?’ Mason tried again.
‘Cheating,’ Anna blurted out, thinking of her ex. Yvette barked out a laugh and a few of the others smirked, even the crew behind the cameras had trouble containing their amusement.
‘It’s a bit unfortunate you’re on
Love Elimination
then, isn’t it?’ Only as Mason said it did Anna realise how dumb she’d been. ‘How will you cope with falling in love with a man who is dating eleven other women?’