Everybody Knows Your Name (11 page)

The kiss:

I mean, I don't know the reasons behind why Ford kissed me. I can't even begin to tell you if that kiss was actually a real thing between us. When the reporters at the after-party asked me if there was a burgeoning romance, I said that it was nothing, just showmanship. And maybe what I said to them was actually true, and that was just Ford being an entertaining person for the people at home. But there was the way he looked at my mouth before the show, and the way I was drawn to his. So there's also the possibility that he actually meant it. Maybe it
was
real, but he only kissed me during the show because it was the atmosphere of the show that carried him away, like what happens when couples who barely know each other get married at four a.m. in Vegas because the lights and the
ching-ching-ching
sounds do something romantic to their brains.

As for whether that kiss was a real thing from my end, I temporarily forgot I was on a stage. I felt like a warm hood had been pulled up over the back of my head. I wanted to be there. I moved my mouth. I kissed him too. Does any of that make it real?

Why do I not know the answer to that?

Anyway, that's the entirety of what I know about the kiss.

Scott tries to fish, saying, “You looked surprised when he kissed you.”

He wants to know where I stand. We are not going to sort through my feelings together. I refuse to do that. “Yeah, I must have,” I agree.

Scott stares at me for a moment, like he can't believe that things are really going to be this stiff between us. Then he pulls and stretches out the collar of his T-shirt in frustration. “I'm jealous, okay? I'm jealous!”

Even though this truth doesn't come as a surprise to me, hearing him admit it does. And it makes me really angry instantly, because here Scott is, changing before my very eyes, acting different, showing a new side, when I just seem to be stuck in my old behaviors and feelings and thoughts. He's come here to make sure I didn't feel anything when Ford was kissing me? To make sure I'm the same person who used to cling to him, even though I'm living a different life on this show? And it turns out that maybe I am that same person, because here I am, walking next to him, aren't I?

“Well, good for you, Scott!” I say. “Good for you!”

“What does
that
mean?”

“It means your need to express yourself isn't my problem,” I tell him, and then I leave him to walk back toward the house.

It's seven a.m. the morning after our first elimination show, and I'm awoken by the sound of Belinda the not-hippie hippie throwing a suitcase down the stairs, wheels clanging against the wrought iron banister.

I open my eyes. My first thought is that I can't believe it wasn't my name. When Lance said Belinda's last night, I could hear my mom's gasp of relief from the studio audience. I knew it was her, even in the dark. It took me a good few seconds to begin to grasp that I wasn't going home.

“America couldn't see that it was next-level. Assholes!” Belinda yells, and then I hear a sound like a dead body sliding down one step at a time. I hope this is just a heavy duffel bag and not her.

On the other bed in the room, the down comforter starts moving. Mila rolls over and gives me a bleary stare. “What?” she just says.

“Belinda's leaving,” I tell her. My speaking voice, which is already kind of low to begin with, sounds like it's bending to get under a limbo bar in my throat.

From somewhere underneath our room Belinda screams, “Peace out!” and then, for good measure, “Assholes!” I don't know if this time “assholes” is the rest of us, or if it's still America. The front doors, both of them, open and slam.

I can't say that I'm going to miss her, but she's not wrong that her performance was next-level. I guess the problem was just that not enough of the viewers at home were hallucinating too, so they couldn't join her on it.

The salvia she smoked in her dressing room was in effect by the time she hit the stage. She was supposed to be singing Lenny Kravitz's “It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over,” but it really ended up being more of an interpretation. At the after-party something started going on with her facial expressions. Sometimes it looked like she was trying to touch her upper lip to her nose, and in other moments she kind of looked like her head was on backward, if you know what I mean.

I had figured the viewers might send me home before her, since I think you see depressing pretty often, but it's not every day that you can watch possessed.

But here I am, lying in bed, and Belinda's out the door. Maybe America saw something in me?

“Assholes,” Mila repeats, and laughs to herself. She sits up in bed and unties the silk pillowcase she keeps over her weave while she sleeps, and her hair comes down. Last night she made me laugh because her head looked so tiny surrounded by a pillowcase that was also surrounded by a pillowcase.

I roll over and look at my own pillowcase, which is turning pink from my fuchsia hair.

“She didn't really say bye,” I say. When we got home from the results show last night, Belinda locked herself in the garage; that was the last I saw of her.

Mila sings, “It ain't over 'til—” and does an “oh, shit” face that makes me laugh. Then she turns serious. “Well, I'm still here.”

“Mila, there was no way that you weren't going through.”

Now I know what Mila meant when she told me not to think of her differently after seeing her perform. She sang “Come to My Window” by Melissa Etheridge, but her voice wasn't raspy like the original. She sings like a pop star. She's all breath and charisma. But it's more than the shininess of her delivery; it's that she completely becomes someone else when she's up there. She's “on” in the way that the princesses at Disneyland are “on.” Like the world's most impressive animatronic girl. But the girl on the other bed across from me is the most dry and down-to-earth person you could ever hope to share a bedroom in a mansion with.

So it's like Mila is her own twin too. She doesn't have to worry about me judging her though. Because I just find it impressive.

“Okay, I trust your opinion,” she says. “And you don't have to worry for a while either. No one's sending your tortured ass home, now that you're in a romance.”

“I'm not going to say it again. One televised kiss isn't a romance.”

I had to explain the same thing many times over to Lucien during our story meeting. Before he gave up, he'd crossed a foot over his knee and flipped open his notebook. “It could be like a
Wuthering Heights
thing. Ford
is
homeless, in a way, and so maybe you're the moodier one, which is sort of a character reversal, but it still works.”

“I'm not moody,” I snapped at him.

Now Mila gives me a skeptical glance. “You haven't seen Ford looking for you in a room?”

“No.”

Ever since they moved us into the mansion, things have been so chaotic that it's pretty impossible to tell if Ford and I are actually avoiding each other or this is just what life is like now.

“He's constantly doing this—” Mila's eyeline slips away from the conversation and searches in the distance. She puts on this pining expression that's supposed to be Ford. “But you've usually got your mom glued to your side.”

“Oh yeah, my conjoined twin.” I actually know that what Mila is saying is true. I'm just playing dumb because I don't want to sit around and analyze it another second. If I let myself analyze, I can analyze into infinity. I'm trying to teach myself that no good comes of that.

There was one moment late last night when I could have gone and talked to Ford alone. The camera guys weren't around. My mom and McKinley's mom had gone to sleep in the guesthouse. Nikki and her girlfriend, Rebecca, were sitting at the kitchen island eating leftover desserts from the party, trying to have a date. Everybody else was upstairs, except for me, and Ford, whom I saw through the dining room window sitting out on the patio by himself. He was facing the pool, watching the fountain. His guitar was on his lap, but he wasn't playing. His right arm just hung over it and he was leaning back in the chair.

I could have taken that moment, but I didn't, and so now I'm shoving myself to move forward mentally.

“Okay, I can tell you don't want to talk about it. We won't talk about it,” Mila says.

I nod at her with gratitude. It seems simple, but really, not that many people are able to back off without hurt feelings when you shut down. Part of why I already feel so close to Mila is that she's so comfortable with being quiet together.

And we get to hang out quietly lying in bed for all of a minute before Felicia pops into our room—pops exactly like a kernel bouncing out of the bag in the microwave. She has so much energy. Every sleepwear item she's wearing says
PINK
.

“Hey, guys!” She sits on her sister's bed. “Oh my God, Magnolia, I just saw Ford look over at your guys' bedroom door when he was finished brushing his teeth like he was thinking of coming in here, but then he saw me coming in here and he went downstairs. Did I just ruin your life? Do you think he brushed his teeth because he was going to come in here and grab you and kiss you again?”

I look at the twins sitting there like the living embodiments of those drama and comedy masks. Felicia has her mouth wide open, and I'm tempted to grab one of the peppermints on the nightstand (I took a handful from our dinner at the restaurant last night) and try to land it in there.

“Mila and I just decided to take a break from talking about Ford. Let's pick another topic.”

Felicia pretends I'm speaking another language. “As you know, I think what's happening between you two is cute, totally cute. Still, maybe you should be careful about that kind of thing.”

“What kind of thing?” I'm not sure if she's talking about kissing in general or getting involved with Ford. Maybe she knows something about him. Like maybe it's about someone from back home.

“It's different for girls and guys on these shows because it's all these young girls at home who are doing the voting. So you want to watch out when they get the impression you're the crush of the guy they're getting a crush on—”

I interrupt, “Okay, cool, I'm really done talking about this now.”

“Are you hesitant because of the blond guy at the gate? Is that your secret boyfriend?”

“No. He's not even a friend.” After Scott yelled that he was jealous and I yelled back at him, I left him standing outside. Things feel like they've come to a real end. It took three miniature breakups to add up to one that finally would put us out of each other's lives. My anger stepped on most of my sadness. That's what it took.

“Okay, well, listen. When Ford kissed you, he became very desirable to all those girls watching. But the more desirable he becomes, the more they'll want to believe he's free for the taking. Even if that isn't, you know, realistic because they're thirteen and living in Wisconsin. So just watch out.”

“This is crazy,” I say. It's very hard for me to believe that these imaginary girls would have fallen in love with him through their TV sets overnight. I'm pretty sure love at first sight is something that happens in person. It involves eye contact and signals between actual physical bodies.

“Craaaazy in love,” Felicia sings.

“Okay, time for you to get out of here,” Mila tells her twin.

Felicia turns around to look at her. “What? We're just getting started with this conversation.”

“We're going to meditate,” says Mila.

“Since when do you meditate?”

“You know how sometimes when you're talking and talking and you say my eyes goes blank?”

“Shut up!” Felicia says, and smacks her sister in the head—not too hard.

“I want to. That's why I'm trying to get rid of you.” Mila smacks her back.

I roll back over on my pillow and try to clear my mind for the day ahead.

The vans show up at nine to take us to the studios. On my way downstairs, I pass McKinley trying to casually knock on a wall, as if he's just a guy walking along without a care in the world, rapping his knuckles against the hallway. It's pretty obvious he's trying to find the hidden Superstar. I've been keeping an eye out, but I'm not going to extraordinary measures to find it. I want to be on the show because the audience is latching on to me, not because of a trick. I pat McKinley on the back and go out front.

Catherine is practically floating around on the driveway, she's in such a great mood. Final ratings for the week are in, and the show's doing better than anyone expected.

“Off we go, cuties!” She giggles like a completely different person. Of course, Ford and I are put into different vans. The drivers take us over to the studios, past the soundstages and to the back lot, where we stop on an exterior set that's built to look like a suburban cul-de-sac.

We're here to film a fake-charity video package for the next show. It's going to look like us nine remaining contestants are all working together to fix up a house for an underprivileged family. The producers want the show to seem conscientious. But what's really happening is that we're pretending to fix a house, and the house is actually a façade. It was built for a sitcom that never got picked up.

I don't feel great about this charade, not great at all, and I just get more down when Catherine divides us into two groups for the shoot. Once again, Ford and I aren't in the same one. I don't understand why she's splitting us up when Lucien says she's excited about something happening between us. If she's going for tension, then she's successful. Because I feel tense. When Ford goes off to hammer the finished roof, I'm put with McKinley, Ricky, and Nikki to plant tulips in the windowsills. The flowers will come back out again when we're done.

Ford doesn't look over at me when Catherine splits us. I'm watching as he goes, and he doesn't. Noticing this means I have to admit I care. I guess I was hoping that we'd at least pass each other today, and we would flirt or stare at least once. And then I might know that he liked me and it wasn't just the show.

But he goes off and climbs up to the roof, joking around with a tool belt like he doesn't have anyone on his mind.

For the rest of the day I'm sent back and forth between pretending to plant tulips and studying with my tutor at a folding table they've set up on the side of the set. For an hour Hector films me patting down the dirt and talking to Nikki about how nice it is to get flowers. I tell the anecdote about my dad and his feelings on carnations because I want to say something true. It feels so skeezy to have to plant these tulips from four different camera angles for a family who doesn't exist, so that's why instead of lying about what these tulips mean to me, I talk about how my dad loved carnations because they're a flower you give to your little girl. I don't care that I have to tell it ten times so they can get the sound right.

Then it's an hour with the tutor, Felix, who's walking me through how to graph ellipses. I'm trying to pay attention to him, but my mom keeps coming over every second, happily reading to me from her iPhone. She's tracking every single conversation about me on the Internet, since to her that's more important than passing Algebra II. But I don't want to fall behind and mess up my life in some bigger way. It's weird for me to think about everybody back in real school, which has quickly become an alternate universe in my mind. I wonder if my classmates are confused about seeing me on TV. One day I'm there, one day I'm gone. I didn't announce it or anything.