attention, hard pink nubs notifying me and the rest of the universe that yes, I was turned on. I wondered sheepishly if I might be blushing again.
“I’m not sure I’ll be the only one who matters when twenty-five of us are fighting for the attention of one guy we’ve never met,” I said, trying to seem casual.
“Well, you’re the only one who matters to me.” As he said this, Tristan leaned in close to my ear, his hand still on me. I could feel his warm breath on my neck and I felt myself shudder gently.
If only my adventure on reality TV could end here, and I could take this man home as my prize. But involvement with producers was a no-no, particularly since we were all supposed to fall madly in love with the main character.
“Excuse me, Nikki” said a male makeup artist behind me. “We’re waiting for you.”
Tristan’s face changed now. I’d only ever seen him look friendly, smiling. But he glared at the man authoritatively, in a way that said, “Another word and I’ll kill you.”
“Sorry, Tristan,” said the voice. “Take your time.”
I could see that Kate had been right; Tristan was very much in charge in spite of his friendly demeanour.
“I’d better go in,” I said, studying the producer’s face, which had settled back into a calm sort of grin. “I’ll talk to you soon, yeah?”
“I hope so,” he said. As he turned to walk away, his hand slipped off my shoulder where it had remained all this time, and I felt his fingers brush against the back of my hand. I watched him disappear between wandering women, wondering when I would see him again.
Four :
Eyeshadow and Twists
“I look like a cross-dressing hooker,” I said to Julia when we’d found each other. We were both clothed in our fancy new dresses and caked in makeup. She looked great, but I felt weird; I wasn’t used to looking like this. There was more eye shadow, liner and mascara on my eyes than I’d owned in my life. The makeup artist had used an airbrush to spray a mist of foundation on my face and I had to admit that my skin looked amazing; it probably hadn’t looked this smooth since I’d been about a year old.
“Y ou look gorgeous, actually,” Julia said, putting her fingers through the ringlets they’d made of my blond hair. “Really. I mean, you’re gorgeous anyhow, but now you look like a fucking plus-sized supermodel.”
“Thank you.” I’d gotten to know her well enough in our brief time together to trust her word on things like this. Her compliments were easy to take because she didn’t sugarcoat them. “You look amazing yourself.”
“I feel bizarre. But it’s sort of fun to have people pamper me. I’m not exactly used to it,” she said. “I lived on the street for a few years and this is a new experience, to put it mildly.”
This brief history lesson explained why Julia was so good at being aggressive and blunt. I had a new respect for her, and liked her all the more for any past struggles she’d had to endure.
We were brought back into the first large room and given lists that told us which groups we were in for the limos to take us to the house, and where to find them. I was delighted to discover that Julia was to be in mine. I’d dreaded the idea of spending time cooped up in a vehicle with a bunch of plastics, or even just one generally unpleasant woman.
We were assured that our luggage would be taken to our rooms if we made it through the elimination that was to take place later that night when more than half of us would be sent packing. But that the first thing was to meet Craig and make enough of an impression to be kept on the show. We were each given a small clutch which contained a list of the other women’s names and a bit of makeup for touchups. I wondered why there was no barf bag, because I thought I might need one. Then again, there would be nothing quite as memorable for my first moments on TV as projectile vomiting.
Julia and I made our way outside and