For Real (8 page)

Miranda shudders. “That is disgusting. Hey, do you see the other registration table?”

“No. Maybe we should ask at the front desk?”

“I’ll do it. Be right back.”

As Miranda walks away, someone calls my name, and I see Will Divine waving at me from across the lobby. Today he has on a Superman shirt with a button-down over it, the sleeves rolled up over his muscled forearms, and he’s still wearing that gray knit hat. I’m so happy to see him here that my stomach does a little flip, and I break into a goofy grin as I wave back. Then I remember Charlotte’s instruction not to communicate with any of the other teams, and I quickly lower my hand in case someone’s watching. Instead, I pull out my phone and text him.

ME:
You trying to get me in trouble for fraternizing with the enemy?

WILL DIVINE:
What can I say, I’m a rebel. How do you feel about bad boys?

ME:
Not good enough to risk my million dollars …

WILL DIVINE:
I’m sorry, YOUR million dollars? I believe you mean MY million dollars.

Miranda reappears by my side. “They said to walk straight back toward the coffee bar and there’d be a table on our left.”

My phone chimes again.

WILL DIVINE:
If you’re as good at racing as you are at trivia, I have my work cut out for me.…

I bite my lip to keep from grinning, and Miranda looks at me curiously. “Who’re you talking to?”

“Will Divine.”

A crease appears between her eyebrows. “That guy from the last audition?”

“Yup.”

“How did you get his number?”

“He gave it to me the other day.” I tuck my phone back into my bag.

“Oh. Well, just be careful, okay?”

“Of what? We’re texting. It’s not like he’s going to give me an STD through the phone.”

Miranda rolls her eyes. “Whatever. Let’s get more coffee, okay?” She goes ahead of me, and I manage to sneak a little wave at Will before I follow her.

Miranda stocks up on espresso, and then we find the right registration table, where five PAs are lounging around, chewing matching wads of green gum. When we give our names, one of them pulls out a clipboard and makes a couple check marks. I try to see how many other names are on the list, but she puts it away too fast. “Follow Ashleigh, okay?” she says, and a girl with blond pigtails hops up and bounds toward the elevators. She looks younger than me.

Ashleigh leads us to room 618, and by the time we get there, my palms are sweaty and my heart is performing a polka on fast-forward. “I’m really nervous,” I whisper to my sister.

“It’s going to be fine,” she whispers back. “They loved us the other day.” But she and I both know it was only her they loved—there was no
us
about it. I vow to do better this time.
You’re the one with all the knowledge
, I remind myself.
It takes more than charisma to succeed in a race
.

Ashleigh knocks gently on the door before she swipes it open with a key card. “Which of you is Claire?” she asks. “You’ll be in here with the producers first. Miranda, you have your psych eval first, so you can follow me to the eighth floor.”

My whole body goes cold. “Wait a second,” I say. “We’re a team.”

“Yeah, I know.” Ashleigh snaps her gum.

“So aren’t we auditioning together?”

“Not today. Good luck! Have fun in there!” She gives me a perky little smile, then shoves me through the doorway. I whirl around and meet my sister’s eyes for a split second before the door swings closed between us. She suddenly looks wide awake.

On the opposite side of the room are six people in suits, seated in a row behind a boardroom table. One of them is Charlotte, and I’m relieved to see a familiar face. There’s also a large camera on a tripod, manned by a guy with those weird plugs in his earlobes. Everyone is facing the Interrogation Area, where a single chair is flanked by white-hot lights. The pigtailed PA hasn’t made a mistake. I really am supposed to be in here alone. What if Miranda was right and I can’t handle it? She’ll never forgive me if we get eliminated because I pass out on the floor. I squeeze my clammy hands into tight fists and order my body to keep breathing and stay upright.

Charlotte beams at me like we’re best friends. “Claire! I’m so glad to see you. Let me introduce you to our casting team.” She points at each person in turn and rattles off a rapid-fire
stream of names, none of which I retain. There’s a guy with a bushy Santa Claus beard, a platinum-blond woman who looks like she just downed a shot of lemon juice, a fidgety guy with a lot of piercings, a freckled woman with a sunburned nose, and a woman who looks remarkably like Oprah. I move forward, shake each extended hand, and try not to look like someone has shot me between the eyes with a stun gun.

“It’s nice to meet all of you,” I say, and my voice comes out steadier than I expect.

“Have a seat, and let’s get started,” Charlotte says.

I perch on the edge of the chair and fold my hands in my lap, trying my best to look relaxed. It’s easily ten degrees warmer under the lights, and a bead of sweat crawls down my spine. I’m not sure if it’s from the heat or the fear.

“How are you this morning?” Santa asks.

On the verge of hyperventilating, thanks. Anyone have a spare paper bag I could breathe into for a while?
“Um, fine, I guess,” I say. “Surprised. I thought I’d be auditioning with my sister, since we’re, you know, a team.”

“We like to get a sense of what each individual person brings to the table,” Charlotte says. “So, let’s dive right in. We talked a lot about Miranda and Samir the other day, so we know why she’s here. But we didn’t get to talk much about you. Why are
you
here, Claire? Why do you personally want to be on
Around the World
?”

Thank goodness we’re starting with something easy—this time, there’s no one to take over for me if I start babbling
like an incoherent fool. “Well, I’m here to support my sister,” I say. “I was there the night Samir cheated on her, and it was a seriously ugly scene. I’ve never seen her fall apart like that. Honestly, from the second I met him, I thought Samir was a total douche bag—oh God, sorry, can I say that in here?”

Oprah smiles. “You can say anything you want. We’ve heard a lot worse than ‘douche bag.’ ”

“Okay, well, um, that’s what he is. Really smug and pompous and self-centered, you know? Like, he has his IQ tattooed on his arm, if you can believe that. I don’t know what Miranda saw in him—he’s not nearly good enough for her. I can’t wait to help her take him down.”

“Sounds like you really idolize your sister,” Lemon Juice says.

That makes me seem like some sort of Miranda groupie. “I don’t know if ‘idolize’ is the right word,” I say carefully. “But I really admire her and respect her, if that’s what you mean, and I love her more than just about anyone.”

“Do you think she loves you back?” asks Sunburn.

“Well, yeah, of course. She’s my sister.”

“And do you think she respects you?” Charlotte asks. There’s a weird look on her face. Is that … 
pity
?

“Yes,” I say. “I think she does.”

“You don’t sound so sure about that,” Charlotte says. My voice sounded pretty confident to me, but now I start to doubt my conviction. Maybe she heard something I can’t detect because I’m too nervous. “I’m sure your sister always
means well, but she was pretty patronizing to you in your audition the other day, didn’t you think? How did that make you feel?”

These questions are starting to make me uncomfortable. Are they trying to drive a wedge between Miranda and me on purpose?
The network loves drama
, I remind myself.
You don’t have to do what they want. Stay in control
.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.

Now there’s pity on
everyone’s
faces. “We’ve all seen the tape, Claire,” Charlotte says gently. “You don’t have to pretend for us. Miranda basically said that you’re reluctant to try new things and that you need to be sheltered and protected. I mean, it doesn’t seem that way to
us
. You’re an adult, too, and between the two of you, it sounds like you’re the one who really understands the strategy of this race. But your sister obviously wasn’t taking you seriously. Does that happen a lot?”

I swallow hard. Even if they are trying to manipulate me, Charlotte’s validating everything I’ve been feeling over the last few days. I
am
the key person on this team, the one who got us here and did all the research and taught Miranda how to handle herself. And she’s been breezing along and taking credit she doesn’t deserve. If other people think that, too, maybe it’s not just me being resentful. Maybe it’s a fact.

“It’s okay to talk about it,” Oprah says in a soothing voice. “We’re not going to tell Miranda, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

I take a deep breath. “I
don’t
need to be sheltered,” I say. “And I do try new things. I was a super-shy, scared kid, and
Miranda still sees me that way sometimes, but that’s not who I am anymore. It was my idea to audition for this show in the first place, not hers. She didn’t even want to do it.”

“I think it’s a brilliant revenge strategy,” Piercings chimes in. “Kudos to you for coming up with it. Why was she against it?”

“Miranda doesn’t understand reality TV,” I say. “I mean, she gets that it’s entertaining, but she doesn’t understand why it’s actually important. When I talk about how I want to be a field producer or a story editor someday, she tries to be supportive, but I can tell she doesn’t see what I see in it. To her, it’s all just fluff.”

“Tell us what you see, Claire,” Charlotte prompts.

For most people, this wouldn’t be a personal question—they like reality television because it’s funny and takes their minds off their lives, like I told those stoners at the graduation party. But for me, it has always been more than that. This is something I’ve only ever discussed with Natalie, and I’m not sure I want to spill my guts to six strangers and a camera. But I guess this is what I signed up for when I agreed to audition.

“Reality TV is a great equalizer,” I tell those six eager faces. “Pretty much everywhere else, in entertainment and in real life, the beautiful, charismatic people like my sister get special privileges. They don’t have to try, and things just happen for them. But on reality shows, you have the same chance of succeeding even if you’re awkward and average-looking, like me. As long as you’re smart and creative and you have an interesting story to tell, nobody really cares if you suck at small
talk or if you’re wearing the wrong jeans, you know? Like, have you guys ever seen that show
GuilloTeen
?”

“Once or twice,” Charlotte says. She looks really interested in everything I’m saying.

“There was this guy last season—Ray, I think? He was like a hundred pounds overweight, and he had this awful mullet, and he talked about comics constantly. If he went to my school, he’d be a total laughingstock. But he outsmarted everyone, and he won. And when they interviewed him afterward, he started crying, and he talked about how nobody had ever taken him seriously before because he wasn’t suave and thin and hot. But the producers of that show gave him a chance when nobody else would. And now people all over the country know how awesome he is, and they know that people like him
can
be awesome. That’s what reality TV is about for me.”

“Wow,” Santa says. He’s nodding slowly, like I’ve given him a lot to think about. Oprah is scribbling notes in her pad, and Piercings looks like he’s about two seconds from starting a slow clap. For the first time, I’m relieved that my sister’s not in the room. I would never have been able to get all that out with her looking at me, not to mention talking over me.

“Those are very astute observations, Claire,” Charlotte says. “You’ll make a great producer someday. Thank you for sharing that with us. Now, let’s switch topics for a few minutes. What can you tell us about your dating life?”

At first I think I must have heard her wrong. “I’m sorry, my … what?”

“Your love life,” Sunburn says. “Do you have a boyfriend? Or a girlfriend?”

What does this have to do with racing around the world? Are they asking because of the Samir situation? “No,” I say. “I like guys, but I don’t have a boyfriend. Is that a problem?”

Sunburn laughs. “Of course not. Tell us about your last boyfriend. How long were you together?”

And just when I thought I had my feet under me, I’m totally out of control again. The casting team looked so impressed with me a minute ago, and I don’t want to tell them that I’ve never even had a real date, unless you count the handful of times Doug Garfield and I cut study hall to make out in his car. “Um,” I say, scrambling for a way to spin the truth. “I’m not really into serious relationships. I like to keep things casual, keep my options open, you know?”

“Are you telling us you’re totally inexperienced with boys?” asks Sunburn.