For the Right Reasons (10 page)

“Um, no,” I said. “But I’d love to be in your video.”

“You should also think about getting some professional photos done,” he said. “I have a guy in Los Angeles who is an amazing photographer.”

“Why?” I asked. “Do you want a picture of me to put on your desk?”

“Look at you!” Sagi said. “You’ve worked hard. You should see if you can get some freelance work as a fitness model.”

A fitness model? Me? Could this be my path out of the insurance agency? Even though it cost me my very last dime, I packed my bags and headed to Los Angeles for a photo shoot.

I was sitting in my office at State Farm, working up the nerve to move on to the list of people I needed to cold-call that day, when I got a text from Andrew.

Hey, send me one of your photos from that photo shoot.

I didn’t think anything of texting Andrew one of the photos. Everyone in my family thought it was all a lark—the video was fun, and I’d already gotten a few magazine gigs.

Here ya go
, I texted Andrew, attaching a photo.

Little did I know, this text would change the direction of my life.

A few weeks later, I was walking the dogs when my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number, but the area code indicated it was from Los Angeles.

“Is this Sean Lowe?” a bubbly person asked when I pressed my phone up to my ear. Lola and Ellie were pulling on their leashes.

“This is Tabby from the casting department on
The Bachelorette
,” she began. “Thank you for submitting your application for our hit ABC show.”

The Bachelorette
?

Of course I knew about the show. It was the show that Shay—and even Andrew—watched. Well, I guess millions of people watch it. So do my friends Laura and Stephanie, who watch it with more regularity than some people go to church.

But I certainly didn’t apply to be on it.

“I think there’s been a mix-up,” I told Tabby as I tried to sort through what she was saying. As she talked about “my application,” it didn’t take long for me to figure out what was going on. Andrew and Shay didn’t want me to end up alone, and they wanted to be my matchmaker as I’d done for them.

“I’m sorry,” I said, so shocked that I was having a conversation with
The Bachelorette
that I stopped on the sidewalk as Lola and Ellie waited patiently to continue on their walk. “I have no interest in being on the show.”

I didn’t want to subject myself to public criticism, after all. And I certainly didn’t think finding real love was possible on a reality TV show.

“Just consider it,” she said. “There is travel, adventure, and—of course, romance!” Tabby was one of the most enthusiastic people on the planet. “You should at least submit a video of yourself in case you change your mind and want to move forward in the future.”

I agreed to think about it, ended the call, and kept walking the dogs.

A neighbor waved hello. Lola lunged for a bird that had landed on the sidewalk but lazily flitted away before coming to any harm.

The Bachelorette
?

I called Shay. “What have you done?”

Shay could hardly contain her excitement. “That’s great!” she said. “It sounds like they’re interested!”

“Do you really want a sister-in-law who was a contestant on that show?”

“
Contestant
isn’t the right word,” Shay said. “You aren’t going on
The Price Is Right
.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

I said that sentence a little too emphatically. I was twenty-eight years old, stuck in a job I didn’t love. Every day, I answered questions about floods, lightning, and automobile collisions and ate my lunch watching
Seinfeld
reruns. It wasn’t a bad life, but I didn’t feel I was headed to anything more. “I’m not going anywhere,” may have been a truer statement than I wanted.

“It doesn’t have to be trashy,” Shay said. “We think you’d be great. You’re nice, you’re handsome, and—honestly—you aren’t getting any younger.”

For the rest of the walk, I couldn’t think of anything else. A couple of days later, I got an envelope in the mail with details about the video and twenty pages of questions. I sat at my desk and looked at the stack of papers. Next to that stack was a stack of insurance claims I needed to get through by the time I left that evening.

Insurance.

The Bachelorette.

Insurance.

The Bachelorette.

I picked up a pencil and started to write. The form was fill-in-the-blank, like an elementary school test, except back then things were simpler.

Do you love me? Yes? No? Maybe?

“Sean Lowe,” I wrote, trying to suppress a laugh as I wrote my name.
What am I doing?
I thought. I answered all their many questions, and finally got to the end of the forms.

I had to include a couple of photos. Thankfully, I had the fitness images taken in Los Angeles. But I also had to submit a video, and I knew I couldn’t do it by myself. I texted my friends Laura and Stephanie:
Help!

It was as if I’d just sent the bat signal to Batman. They agreed to come the very next day, with years of
Bachelorette
knowledge at their disposal.

“You at least should brush your hair,” Laura said when I opened the door to her and Stephanie. I laughed. These girls were like my sisters, and I knew I could count on them—for support and also a little good-natured ribbing.

“Are you excited?” Stephanie asked.

“There’s no harm in sending in a video,” I said. “There are probably thousands of men across America who are taking it more seriously than I am.”

“Yes,” Laura said. “But they don’t have us. Hand me the letter.”

She and Stephanie looked over my letter and began reading the requirements. “Okay, so there’s a list of things you have to talk about—what you do for fun, how your past relationships usually end, where you live . . . You know, the basics.”

After a little strategic talk about how to shoot the video, they went to work.

“Action!” Stephanie said, holding up her cell phone.

“This is my house,” I said, walking through the living room of my house.

“Cut!” she said.

“Can you make it less cheesy?” Laura asked.

“Who are you, Steven Spielberg?”

“I’m just trying to give you the best shot at this!” she protested. “Now, take two.”

We were laughing so much, I’m surprised we got any usable footage.

“Okay, so this is my house,” I said again. “This is the couch where I watch football on Saturdays. This is where I grill my chicken because I want to be healthy.”

Stephanie and Laura, as much as we had joked, did a great job with my audition video. I took the footage we’d shot, plugged in some of my fitness photos, and I submitted the video to the producers in October.

During November and December, I went on with my life and only occasionally daydreamed about what it would be like to be on the show. Most of the time I trudged through my work. I was thankful to have a job—one that wasn’t putting people’s personal finances at risk but was actually protecting them. However, I was bored. Now, I know that lots of folks build businesses and do great things in the insurance industry. My dad put food on our table our entire lives this way, and Andrew was a third-generation insurance man. The problem, honestly, wasn’t the job. The problem was me.

“Your policy covers theft, lightning, and windstorm,” I was saying into the phone to one of my clients. Just then, Andrew popped into the doorway. “But I’m sorry to say it doesn’t cover your watercraft.”

I continued with my conversation, wondering why Andrew was grinning as though he knew a secret.

“Thanks, Mr. Elias,” I said. “Call me if you have any other questions.”

I hadn’t even said good-bye before Andrew started talking.

“You have a call,” he said. “On line three.”

“Who is it?” I asked.

“Do I look like your secretary?” He smiled.

“Hey, Sean,” the person on the other end of the line said. “This is Tabby from casting at
The Bachelorette
. How are you?”

My heart jumped into my throat. Andrew stood awkwardly in the doorway, waiting to get a signal from me about whether it was good news. He was
texting Shay everything I said. It was pretty obvious this was more exciting for them than it was for me. Some couples grow a garden; others get an aquarium. Andrew and Shay’s hobby was getting me on
The Bachelorette
.

The call was brief, friendly, and inconclusive.

“So?” Andrew looked at me expectantly.

“They were just calling to check in on me.”

“Doesn’t it seem like that’s a good sign?” he asked.

“Well, they didn’t say they wanted me,” I said, shrugging. “I gotta get back to work.”

“Hey,” Andrew said. “I’m your boss. Shouldn’t that be my line?”

A week later, I discovered a very strange coincidence. I was taking a road trip to Baton Rouge with my good friend Austin to catch an LSU game, which meant we had about four hundred miles of music and conversation. I was somewhat embarrassed to tell him about the possibility of being on
The Bachelorette
, but it felt weird to keep it from him.

“You’re never going to believe what Stephanie and Laura got me to do,” I said, bracing myself for a few jokes. When I told him we made a
Bachelorette
audition video, his eyes got big, and then he broke into laughter.

“Well, I’ve got some bad news for you,” he said. “I’m working on the same video.”

“You applied to be on the show?” I asked, stunned. Not only was it a weird coincidence, he just didn’t seem like the type of guy who would want to be on that show. I guess I didn’t either.

“My friends submitted an application without telling me.”

“Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could go together?” I asked.

“Yeah, you think that now,” he said. “But you’ll be heartbroken when I end up with the girl.”

“Have you heard anything from casting?” I asked.

“Not yet.”

Suddenly, it hit me. If Austin hadn’t gotten a call—and I had—the
show might actually be interested in me. I played it off in the conversation, but that night my mind reeled with the possibility.

How strange would it be if they were truly interested?