Eight Weeks to Mr. Right (13 page)

“Yes, please come!” Ben said. I sat back in my chair and enjoyed this perfect moment. Ben got along with my family, wanted to spend more time with them, even. He was fun to be around, lighthearted, and his small talk felt natural rather than schmoozy, like Andrew’s had.
 

Mom brought out the mimosas, and we clinked glasses. As I lifted my glass to my lips, Ben winked at me. “Don’t have too much there,” he warned, deadpan. “You’ll be smashing glasses all over the place.”

“I’m not the one who needs to be able to drive,” I teased back.
 

He raised his hands as though in surrender. “Last one, I swear.”

Megan texted as we were eating our last crumbs and settling back into our chairs to stare up at the sky. “What are you up to?” she asked.
 

“Having brunch with Ben at my parents’ house,” I wrote back, the bubbles from the mimosa going to my head and making me feel light and happy.
 

“Fun!” she said. “All right, we’ll catch up soon. Maybe for the next episode?”

I knew this was going to be a hard one, and the thought of watching it with Megan — and possibly a bored Mario — sounded awful. For something this difficult, I needed Ben, and only Ben.
 

“Can’t this week,” I texted. “But let’s make a plan in the next few days.”

I didn’t want to think about the upcoming episode, not yet. Right now, everything was good. I was just where I wanted to be.
 

Several hours later, once the alcohol had worn off and the post-meal heaviness had dissipated, we headed back home. We’d only made it a few blocks, though, when Ben’s gas light came on.
 

“I need to stop for a moment,” Ben told me, and I nodded.
 

“Did you have a good time at brunch?” I asked as he pulled into a gas station.

“I did,” he said. “It was really nice to be back there. Your parents were always favorites of mine.”

“Good,” I said. He pulled up to the pump, turned the car off and got out, leaving his keys in the ignition. Once he’d started the gas pumping, he popped his head back into the car. “I’m going to grab a bottle of water. Want anything?”

“Nah, thanks,” I said, and lay my head back against the seat, listening to the rhythmic hum of the gasoline filling the tank.
 

When the pump clicked off, I opened my eyes. And saw a man across the lot pointing a camera with a long lens right at my face.
 

“Shit!” I said out loud, and held my hand up to cover my face. How long had he been there? How much had he seen?

Ben would be back out here any moment, and if another photo of us made it into a tabloid, I didn’t know what the
Mr. Right
producers would do. I knew they could theoretically sue me for breaking my contract, though I wasn’t sure how serious an infraction it would take to get to that point. But I’d rather not find out. And I certainly didn’t want my relationship to be public fodder for any more criticism.
 

I made a split-second decision. I jumped out of the passenger side of the car and ran around to the driver’s side, keeping my hand up in front of my face and hoping the photographer wasn’t getting anything worth using. I prayed he had just gotten here and hadn’t been following me and Ben this whole time, hadn’t been spying on us at my parents’ house. I didn’t want to drag my family into this.
 

In the driver’s seat, I turned the key and popped the sunshade down, then reached for my phone. The paparazzo was getting into his car too. I found Ben’s number as I pulled out into the street.
 

“Come on, come on, answer!” I said as the phone rang and I started down the block, a little too fast. In my rearview mirror I saw the man pulling out into the street behind me.
 

“January?” came Ben’s confused voice. “What’s going on?”

“Some asshole was taking photos!” I said. “I had to leave. I’ll lose him and come back to pick you up. Wait for me out front.”

“Okay,” he said, and I heard the irritation in his voice but didn’t have time to think.
 

I hung up the phone. How could I lose this guy? I turned right without putting on my turn signal, but the man was right there behind me.
 

Part of me thought I should give up, that it wasn’t worth all this, that we’d already been caught and I should let whatever came next come, but I was angry. I wanted to be left alone, and I wanted to be able to go for a drive with my boyfriend without risking ending up as a source of national gossip. Even more than I already was.
 

I cursed under my breath, determined to get rid of him. In front of me, a traffic light turned yellow. There were no other cars between me and the light, but there were cars waiting in either direction to cross. I slammed on my breaks, forcing the paparazzo to stop too, and then hit the gas the moment the light turned red, skidding through the intersection just as the opposite light turned green and the other cars eased into motion.
 

My adrenaline was pounding, and so was my heart. I glanced in my rearview mirror. The man was still caught at the light. I’d done it. I’d lost him.
 

I couldn’t stop smiling as I made my way back to the gas station and found Ben, waiting out front just like I’d asked.
 

“Hey, get in quick,” I said.
 

“What the hell, January?”

“I didn’t have a choice!” I said, pulling out of the lot. “I don’t want us to end up in a tabloid again.”

“How did he even know where to find you?”

“I don’t know!” I said helplessly. “It’s like they have a sixth sense for it. I don’t even understand why I’m so interesting to people!”

“You did choose to put yourself in the public eye,” he said pointedly.

I glanced at him. “Why are you so upset?”
 

He sighed. “It’s just…Andrew meets your parents and invites camera crews. When I do it, I have to hide.”

His words hit me right in the center of my chest. I felt awful. “You’re right,” I said quietly. “I’m so sorry.” All the good feelings from earlier in the day had evaporated, and I just wanted to be home, securely, privately inside our apartment, snuggled in Ben’s arms. “It’ll all be over soon, I promise.”

“Will it?” Ben asked doubtfully. That question held so much in it, and I knew he meant more than just the show. Once I’d been eliminated, we could be seen together in public…but what would it mean if we were? Was I really ready to give up everything the show represented to me? There was no doubt in my mind that Ben was good for me, but to be with him — to really be with him — meant giving up so much.
 

But at that moment, I glanced in my rearview mirror and groaned.
 

The paparazzo was back. I fled.
 

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I want to be with you publicly. We just can’t be in a tabloid again. Please. They could really make us look bad. The producers might even sue me.”

He glanced behind us, looked at me, and nodded. “Go for it. I support you.”

Ben sunk down in his seat as I drove.

I sped up, making a series of rapid turns, my eyes darting around me and praying none of the other drivers would do anything unexpected. I thought the man was gone, but a moment later he reappeared in my rearview.
 

I sped up, checking my mirrors frantically. I signaled right and then turned left, but again the guy was right there behind me. I shook my head in disbelief. This guy was like something out of an action film, and I was totally unprepared to be the next Fast and Furious driver.

As I sped down the street toward the city, a car on a side street to the right started to pull out into the lane in front of us, then stopped short when the driver saw how fast we were going. I swerved to miss him, but overcompensated. A car was coming straight at us in the opposite direction. I swerved back to the right, and
crunch-diiiiiiiing.
The passenger side of Ben’s car crashed into a stop sign and we were both thrown forward into the seat belts, the pole ringing out its objection for several seconds after impact.
 

Through my own shock, I saw the look of surprise on the paparazzo’s face, followed by the realization that he could be implicated in what had just happened. He pulled out around us and sped away.

WEEK 6

“We were lucky no one got hurt,” Ben said. This had been his refrain for the past several days since the accident, but it wasn’t doing a lot to make me feel better. He’d been astonishingly nice about it all, but I felt awful.
 

“Yeah,” I sighed. I’d offered to pay for the damage, of course, but I couldn’t change the fact that I had smashed the front of Ben’s car into a stop sign while running from a paparazzo.
 

For a girl who hated drama, I sure was getting myself involved in a lot of it lately. And dragging Ben down with me.
 

But I was just trying to protect him, after all. At least, that was part of it.
 

I remembered what he’d said to me before the crash. “Andrew meets your parents and invites camera crews. When I do it, I have to hide.”

He was right; that was completely unfair. I didn’t want to have to hide Ben. So then why was there still some tiny part of me that couldn’t let go of Andrew? Was it just because I’d been thinking about him for so long, first as a potential employer and then as a potential husband…or maybe even both?

Maybe it was just that I couldn’t stand to see Isabella and Brandi think they were right, and for the rest of the viewing public to agree with them. Maybe I was clinging to the notion of being with Andrew in part because if I dated Ben, out in the open for anyone to see, people would judge me. They would believe what the producers were trying to make me out to be, this horrible, manipulative person who would play with people’s emotions to get my own way.

At the same time, even if the show’s viewers thought I was just using Andrew to get my way, it was clear to me while watching the episodes that the woman I was watching on the screen was falling for Andrew, and hard. And if it was apparent to me, I feared it was apparent to Ben too. I knew it was hard for him to watch. It was hard for me to watch too, especially as more and more of Andrew’s true character was revealed through the dates with the other women.

And this upcoming episode would be the hardest of all. Thank god there hadn’t been cameras for all of it. Thank god the majority of The Horrible Day would be lost forever to the TV audience. I could only imagine how they’d crucify me if they knew the full story of what had happened that day. As it was, they’d cheer for me getting eliminated. But at least I’d get to escape with some of my dignity.

But I didn’t know how much it would matter anymore.

And then there was the fact that none of this was entirely up to me. Would Ben even still want to be with me after all this? He was nice about the car, but I had seen how it had bothered him. Having to hide, having to watch me get close to Andrew. Was our relationship strong enough to get through it? Did he even want to get through it?
 

Maybe I was misreading the whole thing. Maybe I was just an in-the-meantime thing for Ben, someone to have fun with who would move away before things got too serious, before he risked getting attached. He’d run away from things getting too serious with me once; who was to say that he even wanted to try again?

I’d been avoiding having the conversation that I knew we needed to have, a conversation about the future. I didn’t know where I’d be in several months, so it seemed wrong to force him to decide what he wanted.
 

I did know what I wanted, though: Deep down inside, I wanted to be with Ben. I just didn’t know how it was possible.
 

It was the day before my final episode was set to air, and I was antsy. I couldn’t stop thinking about how hard it would be to watch myself get eliminated by Andrew at the moment when I was most vulnerable, when I was most caught up in him.
 

And so to take my mind off what was coming up, I gave Megan a call. Even though it was a Tuesday, she said she was going out dancing, and invited me to come.
 

I wasn’t big on loud, dark clubs or getting groped by strangers, but I’d been the one to call her, so it seemed rude to say no. We met that night at a club she said she visited often, where bass-heavy music vibrated the walls and colored lights flew back and forth over the crowd.
 

“I didn’t even know stuff like this happened on weeknights!” I yelled to her as we made our way to the bar through a surprisingly thick crowd.
 

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “This is where I met Mario!”

What did she see in Mario, exactly? And what did Mario see in her?

Actually, that second part I could answer, at least in part. Megan was attractive. She was brash and crass and loud, but she had a nice body and a pretty face. I hoped there was more to it than that, but given what I’d seen of Mario at dinner the other night, I didn’t have a lot of faith in him.

Megan and I were very different, and I wasn’t sure how much time I’d be spending with her if she hadn’t been one of very few people I still knew in town. But surely she had good reasons for being with her fiancé.
 

“How is Mario?” I asked. I wanted some clue as to what held them together, what they got from each other that they didn’t get from anyone else in the world.
 

I thought of Ben, of what I liked about him. The way he raised an eyebrow at me to call me out on my shit. The way he teased me about drinking too much that first night at his place, but didn’t hold it against me. The way he’d helped me through a difficult time and always knew exactly what to say — or what not to say — on Twitter and the blog.
 

And then I thought of Andrew. What did I like about him? It was harder to name. He exuded power. We had perfumery in common. But hard as I tried, I couldn’t put my finger on what it was about him that I’d fallen for.