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“Okay, we’re on in three…two…one.”
Silence reigned, the camera snapped into focus, and Graham stepped into the spotlight. “Welcome to Everlasting – the Reunion Special. I’m your host….”
And Rachel tuned out. She turned a critical eye to the women in front of her – they’d had an 80% willing return of their top contenders and a couple of forced contractual appearances. Anna, however, was out. She’d grudgingly agreed to give a statement to the cameras, a pre-recorded message for Adam, but she was done with the show and all the drama. Completely, utterly done, and Rachel didn’t blame her. Nor would she pressure her into appearing. It was nice having that much decision-making power.
The reunion special was hers. Sure, Quinn was around, but she’d stepped up to become Executive Producer, meaning the day-to-day running (and the on-the-ground shenanigans) were hers. No interference from above, no more late nights trying to come up with a Concept for the new season (“Bigger! Better! More Scandalous!” the suits kept insisting), and a chance to revisit the women she’d come to know over the past several months.
Not Adam though. Her new role kept her thankfully distant from their so-called star, who presumably was only participating under duress in a vain attempt to rehabilitate his image. Again.
She’d successfully avoided him throughout the process so far, only now that they were filming, she finally had to face him.
He stepped out of the shadows, ridiculously charming and as good-looking as ever. Rachel swallowed down the iota of emotion that threatened to bubble up. He had played her, she had played him, and they didn’t owe each other anything.
“I’m very glad to be back,” he said sincerely to the cameras. “It gives me a chance to explain to each of these amazing women how much pressure I was under from my family to choose someone who they deemed suitable, instead of listening to my heart.”
Incredibly, it looked like a couple of them were buying it. For a moment, Rachel wished that she hadn’t been the one to have an affair with Adam. Imagine if it had been a pretty girl from the set, someone that they could have played the rags-to-riches story with. The sweet make-up girl with a heart of gold who stole his heart out from under the competitors’ noses.
But instead they got her. A complete fuck up who didn’t know what the hell she wanted in life and was only working in this industry because she fell into it by accident and Quinn held all the power.
At least, that was how the story had started. But now. She was here because she wanted it, right?
Shrugging aside the troubling thoughts, Rachel focused on the scene at hand.
Faith came forward and gave Adam a huge hug.
“Well, well, well, look at you!” His grin actually seemed legitimate. “Someone’s had the Hollywood makeover!” It was true. Faith looked amazing. She was glowing, too, probably a lady in love. “You look more beautiful than ever.”
She smiled back at him and it was direct and honest. The blushing girl from the early episodes was totally gone. “That’s sweet of you to say,” she replied. “And you don’t look so bad yourself for someone who got left at the altar!”
Heaving a theatrical sigh, Adam said, “Not my finest moment, I admit, but we can talk about that later.”
In fact, he’d pre-recorded several diary-type confessions to be inserted into the show. How sorry he was, how the excitement of the wedding had blinded him to the truth, and how grateful he was to Anna for actually taking a stand and putting an end to it.
Adam continued chatting with Faith, and sure, it was sweet, but it didn’t make good television. “Get Grace in there,” she directed over her headset. It was time to let sparks fly.
---
“Is that all you need?” Anna’s lips were pursed in a thin line. Rachel wasn’t sure if they’d captured anything interesting here, but the idea that Anna had anything more compelling to say than her tear-stained declaration in a wedding dress was laughable. The drama would have to come from the other contestants, the ones left fighting over Adam.
She tried one last approach. “What about the other women? Was there anyone you felt you developed a friendship with?”
Giving her a shrewd look, Anna said, “You know, there was one person I thought I could trust. One person who I thought was actually looking out for me in the middle of this whole mess.”
“Anna, I’m-“
She cut her off. “Even if you apologized, I wouldn’t believe it.” Anna took a deep breath. “I feel sad for you, Rachel. I think you really did fall for Adam, just like the rest of us.”
Rachel was shaking her head no, that was just one crazy night where too much sleep deprivation had caused her to think a couple of things that weren’t true. “I like Adam. But fall for him?” She laughed.
Fixing her with a shrewd look, Anna said, “Well then you should be on the show because you’re a hell of an actress.”
“Anna, no, look, I know that some things happened, and I was jet-lagged and out of my mind and the idea of actually spending any more time with that man….” Her stomach flipped, and not in a good way. What if she had to face him? Tell him?
She must have looked a little queasy, because Anna reached out, put a hand on her arm. “Are you okay?” She seemed genuinely concerned. Another shred of proof that Anna was a far, far better person than Rachel would ever be, because she actually cared about people even when she hated them.
“I’m fine.” She was fine. Totally fine. Just because there was that niggling worry, no, not even a worry it was just a possibility that she certainly wasn’t prepared to think about; it didn’t impact her life.
“Rachel, I’m saying this because I once thought we were friends – that show is toxic. You need to get out of there.”
She heard Anna’s words but couldn’t agree with them. After all, if she didn’t have the show, then what the hell was she supposed to do with her life? She was not going back home again. Hell, she could easily continue living on the set if she had to, not that that was any place for….
“The show is my life,” she replied. Quinn was right. She needed the job. “No one else will hire me.”
Anna looked sad, but she didn’t say anything more. Rachel was right.
---
The days were long and draining but at least that kept her mind off things. It was actually kind of great having Faith back – she was the one person that didn’t have to be manipulated into giving Adam a second chance and more than that, she genuinely seemed to like Rachel.
Now if she could just survive until the end of this shoot, then she could figure out what was next.
“You’ve been avoiding me.” That was Adam, direct as always.
Damn. He’d caught her. He’d actually followed her into the bathroom, and was closing the door. This wasn’t good
“I’ve just been busy,” Rachel lied. “It’s a big step up, producing the entire show instead of just….”
“Me?” he offered. He looked her up and down and surprisingly, there wasn’t the animosity she expected. “You tried, Rachel, but I got to see the real you. The girls didn’t get that.”
“Well, it was the real me that caused you being stranded at the altar, so what do you think of that?”
He began to laugh. “Rachel, I owe you a huge thank you for that.” He folded his arms across his chest, fixing her with a direct gaze. “I know you set me up, it was obvious from the moment it happened. And yes, I was mad, but then I stopped and thought about it and realized that marrying Anna – I would have had to live a lie for another year or more.”
“We’re all liars here,” she countered.
“Anna wasn’t.”
And it seemed Adam did have a heart after all. “And no matter what you think of me, believe me when I say this. I never wanted to cause pain to her, or to you, for that matter. But if I had married her, she would have wanted me to be that good man for her. The man who would never leave her.
“I couldn’t be him. Not for her.”
“You might have surprised yourself.” She found herself hunching up against the basin, protecting herself from getting too close to him. She hated him – no, wait, she didn’t care about him – but she didn’t want to be having this conversation.
“I think there are very few people in this world who would inspire me to take on that level of responsibility. And what if I got her pregnant, like Granny wanted? Then I’d be stuck!”
Hearing that hurt more than it should have.
“So having a child traps you?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“It’s what you said.”
He stared at her with a piercing gaze. “Rachel, is there something….”
“I have to go,” she blurted before he could finish that thought. She pushed past him, memories flashing as she brushed against his chest (skin to skin, and it had been a bad idea from the start and she knew she should never have slept with him but she had wanted it and look what had happened….)
She fled.
---
Rachel was downing her 3rd? 4th? tequila shot when Faith caught her by the pool.
“I swear, I try so hard to like Britney, but she gets cattier by the minute!” She heaved a theatrical (but probably honest) sigh and flung herself down into the adjacent chair.
Rachel poured her a drink. Surprisingly, Faith took it. “Now I know I shouldn’t be drinking, not with tryin’ to have a baby and all, but I don’t think Amy will fault me for this one!”
Sitting bolt upright, Rachel said, “You’re pregnant?”
“No, no, not yet!” Faith seemed a little flustered and embarrassed. “There’s a lot of hoops to jump through to find a donor, but it’s something we want to do and so I’m trying to get my body ready.” She smiled. “Eat healthy, get lots of sleep, avoid stress….”
They both laughed at that one, although Rachel’s was faked. “I’m sorry, Faith, for dragging you back into this.”
The taller woman shook her head. “No, don’t be sorry. I signed a contract; I knew what I was getting into way back when. Besides, you helped me so much. I owe you one.” She looked around, checking for cameras. “I still can’t thank you enough for what you did for me and Amy. Did I tell you that we’re getting married?”
“What? No!” Rachel was genuinely pleased. “That’s got to be a first for this show, a genuine marriage.” She tried her best to keep the bitterness out of her voice - she was happy for Faith, but it brought into question everything she wondered about her own future. She was surrounded by romance, love, but was her destiny just like Quinn’s? The slut on the side who entertained the husband before he went home to his so-called happy family?
Did she even want a family of her own?
She wasn’t ready to think about it. She’d never allowed herself to think about it, well, not since the disaster with Jeremy. And momentarily with Adam. She knew she had a tendency to fall head-over-heels in love, throw herself into it, not think of the consequences….and then end up broken. And yet she would do it all over again in a second.
“Honey, what’s wrong?”
She looked at Faith, really looked at her. A glowing, confident woman. Someone who had faced her biggest fear head-on and won.
So Rachel told her.
---
Pulling her jacket free from the corner she’d stuffed it into earlier, a piece of paper came fluttering out. Frowning, Rachel picked it up. It was an envelope with her name on it, and inside, a check for $1000.
No note. No explanation. But she recognized the signature on it.
Storming across the set, she demanded, “What the hell is this?” She certainly didn’t want to speak to Jeremy but it was inevitable on a small shoot like this. (Quinn had promised he wouldn’t be offered a job next season, but for now she still had to deal with him. Union rules or some crap like that.)
Jeremy gave her a scandalized look. As if to say, “You really want to discuss this now?”
“Don’t give me that look!” Rachel knew all of his expressions: the love, the hate and the contempt that had become the default over the past few weeks.
He set the camera down and told his crew to take a break. “Look, Rachel, it’s so you can,” and he swallowed, looking pained, “…so you can take care of things.”
“Take care of things?” She shoved him in the shoulder. “You think I can’t look after myself?”
“No, it’s not that!” But he still refused to meet her gaze. “Look, I just don’t want things to get complicated. Take it for what it is and we don’t have to talk about this again.”
And then it dawned on her. “What the actual fuck, Jeremy? What gives you the right to tell me what to do with my own body?”
“I have every right if it’s mine!” he flung back. “Of course, knowing you, it could be anyone’s, but I’m not willing to take that risk.”
She wanted to hit him. Wanted to throw herself at him and scratch his eyes out. The only thing stopping her was the fact that they were still on set and that could get her fired and she couldn’t afford that right now. She needed that money.
But there was no way in hell she was accepting it from him.
“Screw you,” she spat as she tore up the check. Rained confetti down on his head. And walked away with her head held high.
---
That night, she curled up in the trailer and hugged her knees. She didn’t know what to do. This was pure torture, it was hell. Was she pregnant? Or was it just the stress? She was too terrified to even take a pregnancy test. She’d do that after the shoot, she promised herself, when things were calmer. As long as she didn’t know for sure, there was a chance that it wasn’t real.
She didn’t want it to be real.
She couldn’t be a mom. Not now. Maybe not ever. She had so much to do, and there was no way she could take care of a kid. So the solution was obvious.
But there was part of her that wanted a baby. Maybe this would be her only chance.
Faith had offered to adopt it. It was such a neat solution…if she wanted to put her body through 9 months of hell, that is. And what about the show? She couldn’t work if she was fat. This was Hollywood. She knew that to get anywhere at all, as a woman, you either had to be a tough-as-nails bitch or sleeping with a director, and in both of those scenarios, fatties need not apply. It was harsh. It was cruel. It was true.
She pictured herself waddling around with a headset, screaming orders…they would laugh at her.
Then again, she could take it. She was Rachel Goldberg. She’d been humiliated so many times in front of these people, what was once more? And being pregnant shouldn’t be humiliating. Even if she wasn’t sure if it was Adam’s or Jeremy’s.
Fuck. She’d have to get a paternity test done. Jeremy obviously wanted no part of it and she hadn’t wanted Adam to find out, although given how gossip spread on this set, she was sure he knew all about it by now.
She should’ve checked for mics when she talked to Faith. Rachel didn’t blame the other woman; Faith kept secrets well. It could have been almost anyone who overheard. Even Quinn.
Would Quinn really throw her under a bus again?
She didn’t know. She didn’t know who to trust – there wasn’t anyone she could go to who wasn’t somehow involved in this ridiculous façade that was Hollywood. Rachel had burned all of her bridges several months ago, any last vestiges of friendships lost in alcoholic and occasionally drug-fueled hazes.
Alcohol. She shouldn’t even be drinking if she was pregnant.
But maybe she wasn’t. She kept hoping and praying that she wasn’t, invoking a God she wasn’t even sure she believed in any more. She didn’t want to make the hard decision, she didn’t even want to think about it. She was too young, she wasn’t ready, and it wasn’t her fault that birth control had failed. It was her body that was failing her.
Which made her think that maybe it was supposed to happen this way.
She reached behind her pillow for the emergency bottle of tequila. Then put it away. She needed to numb the pain somehow, but all she could do right now was lie there and look at the ceiling.
---
There was a gentle rap at the door, but before she could yell at the person to go away, Adam climbed up and in. “You’re seriously still sleeping on the set?” he asked, incredulous. “You’re in charge now and there’s a whole house right there!”
She fixed him with a stare. “I like it here.” It was true, living without comforts kept her focused. (Besides, with her abysmal credit history she couldn’t get a lease anywhere even if she was getting paid this time around.)
“You should come live with me.”
“God, not you too!” Rachel buried her face in her hands so that she didn’t have to look at him.
“I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean,” Adam said, “But I am being deadly serious here. My place –my actual apartment, not the house we did up for the show – has a spare room. It’s yours.”
She knew he was just saying that because of the baby. The potential baby. Which might not even exist.
Since she hadn’t actually thrown anything at him yet, Adam seemed brave enough to approach. He perched himself at the foot of her bed, looking at her with sympathetic eyes. “I am truly, deeply sorry for everything, Rachel. I promised I’d get you out of here and I reneged on that promise.”
Staring him down, she said, “Is that the best you can do?” It was his camera-voice, his fake smile, the one that had once convinced her that he actually cared.
He looked stricken, knowing he was caught.
“Look, Rachel, I know I fucked up. And I got dumped on live television as a reward and I know you had something to do with that.” He held up a hand, as if to stop her protests. “The only reason I came back for this reunion special was so I could talk to you. Because despite everything that happened – you frustrate me like no one else, Rachel Goldberg – but you also make me laugh. You are the only un- genuinely real person on this entire set… and I think I'm one of the very few people who ever got to see a little of the real you.
“And what I have seen of the real you – I like her. I like her a lot.”
It was too much. What was Adam? A best friend? An ex-lover, for sure, but was there any possibility of a future together? Did she even want to consider that?
“What do you want, Adam?” she said, keeping her voice as flat as she could. “I’m not moving in with you.”
“Not even if you’re carrying our child?”
And there it was. Laid out bare between them. She hesitantly looked up and met his eyes.
“I appreciate your support, but this is something I have to do on my own.”
“You don’t have to,” he quickly said.
“I need to.”
He sighed. “I shouldn’t have expected you to say anything else.” He tentatively reached forward and took her hand. “Just know this. If you have a baby, I will be there for you. If you don’t, I’ll still be there for you. Forget what happened in England, forget what happened prior to that.” He took a deep breath. “I’ve met so many women in the last few months, women who have absolutely thrown themselves at me, but not one has been even a fraction as interesting as you are.”
She let him hold her hand, even squeezed it a little. “Interesting, huh?” Her eyes were watering. She blinked back the tears.
“Yes, interesting. In all the best ways.”
She smiled, the tiniest bit of relief slipping past the endless panic. He didn't want anything from her. Yet he wasn't running away either. That was what she needed most of all.
“Well, I guess I can take interesting.”
He hugged her then, and even though nothing was resolved, and nothing was okay, she knew that at the very least, she still had a friend.
---
Day nine, and Grace had just pushed Britney in the pool. It was wonderful, glorious, perfect. And Grace hadn’t even been prompted to do it.
“Close in for reaction shots!” she reminded the crew, but they were already on it. Britney climbing out of the water with a murderous look on her face and Grace already fleeing the scene, a laughing Adam in tow. They’d probably set it up.
And then she felt it. A sudden sharp, stabbing pain in her side.
As soon as she was able, she called for a break and dashed off to the nearest bathroom. Hoping against hope that it meant what she thought it meant, that her far-overdue-period was finally making an appearance.
There it was. A spot of blood. Oh god. She stared at it in stunned silence for ten seconds, then burst into tears.
---
She stayed in the bathroom for as long as she was able. Just sitting there. Staring. Sniffing back tears every so often. She didn’t even know what she was crying for. Relief? Lost opportunity? Freedom.
It was all of those.
She kept wondering why this had happened. Surely there had to be some meaning to a pregnancy scare, some great life lesson to learn. But she had nothing. The only thing she really felt she’d discovered was that if she was sleeping with multiple men, they all felt like they had a say in what she should do with her own body. And that in itself was fucked up.
If there was a lesson in this, it was that she was stronger than she thought. She could have done this. And it was good to know that there were at least two people in the world who called her a friend.
And now that she wasn’t pregnant, she could move in with Adam.
Maybe.
She’d talk to him again soon.
--
“Rachel! Last day of shooting! How are you holding up?” It was Quinn, who’d been off-set most of the shoot but reviewing dailies on a regular basis.
“Doing great, thanks!”
“There’s nothing I need to know, is there?” Quinn fixed her with a direct gaze.
“No, everything’s fine!” she said. “Grace promised to give Adam another shot and it looks like we can go to the network with the Redemption of Adam, Series 2.” That was, if Adam signed on. But of course he would. She could convince him of anything.
“Good, good,” replied Quinn. “I would hate to lose my best producer.” She reached out and gave her a weirdly maternal pat. “Just let me know if you need anything, a couple of days off, whatever. As long as you’re in fighting form for next season.”
She pasted a huge smile on her face. “I’m fine, Quinn.”
And even if it wasn’t quite true right now, it would be.