First Date (14 page)

Addy closed the journal and saw the village again. But this time, it wasn’t the vision of leaving her parents in the center, guns held to their heads. It was through her mother’s eyes, seeing it all for the first time. Mom was going to a tribe in the middle of the jungle, and she was thrilled. Not a complaint in there. She was doing what God asked her to do joyfully and wholeheartedly.

Did she have even a fraction of the faith her parents had?

God, I didn’t even want to leave Tampa. And even though I’m here, I‘m still too scared to tell anyone I’m a Christian. What would my mother think of me if she were alive? I’m sure she’d be disappointed. I’m too scared to do anything that matters. Way too scared to tell people about you. She and Dad sacrificed everything for you, and what have I done? Nothing. Oh, God. Help me
.

Chapter 20

O
h, Lex, it’s so good to see you.” Addy looked into her computer screen and the face of her best friend smiled back.

“Technology is a wonderful thing,” Lexi replied. “I’m glad you finally got around to doing more than just texting me.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault.” Addy adjusted the laptop’s monitor. “Hank has kept us on a tight leash.”

“And now?”

“Now he’s so mad about all those pictures that came out he’s decided that phone calls and video chatting aren’t such bad ways to spend our time.”

“Man, you guys are all over the magazines in the grocery stores.” Lexi laughed.

Most of the pictures were a result of the errant guard who was recently fired, but Addy couldn’t share that information with Lexi.

“Is Jonathon as gorgeous in person as he is in print?”

Addy laughed. “Our first face-to-face conversation since I got to Tennessee, and you want to talk boys?”

“Not ‘boys.’ Jonathon Jackson. Seriously, Addy. I’m watching this show to see him, not you. I mean, he’s perfect.”

“Thanks.” Addy looked at her friend. “He is pretty nice to look at.”

“Nice to look at? A new basketball uniform is nice to look at. Jonathon Jackson is stunning.”

“Enough.” Addy’s face warmed. “Can we please change the subject?”

“Fine.” Lexi paused. “So . . . the commercials are saying this is sports week. I know about the golf—lucked out there, huh?”

“Oh, Lexi, you have no idea.”

“Is that all, though? I mean, golf is all right. But if they really want to check out your athletic ability, they need to put you guys out on the basketball court.”

“We are not having this discussion again.” Addy rolled her eyes. “Actually, that’s not all. They’re having us do some kind of ‘academic competition’ this week too. But it’s also sports related.”

“What?”

“That’s all we were told,” Addy said. “We’re supposed to study until the competition starts.”

“Well, study hard.” Lexi pointed her finger toward the webcam. “I am enjoying the popularity I’m getting here. All these years of being your friend are finally paying off.”

“Glad I can help.” Addy laughed.

“So what are you studying?”

“My mother’s journals.”

“That’ll be very helpful for the competition.” Lexi crossed her arms and leaned back into a stack of pillows.

“Lexi, it’s amazing. It’s like she’s talking to me and giving me advice.” Addy pulled a journal from her backpack and opened it. “She’s so honest. Listen to this.”

These women run around with no tops and they’re tattooed all over. They use dirty needles and a strange concoction of plants and animal debris for the ink. Don’t they know how disgusting that is? How unhealthy? But when I try to tell them, they laugh and say I am unlucky. Unlucky. Well, if wearing shirts and a bra and not sticking feces in my skin is unlucky, may I be cursed.

Lexi laughed loudly and Addy turned some more pages. “See? Here’s one where she is really mad. Look at her handwriting: it’s all big with words scratched out.”

I hate this place! Tonight Josh shook a man’s hand.
Shook his hand
, and the whole village went crazy. How was he supposed to know that was an offensive gesture here? He was trying to be nice. He was introducing himself, for goodness’ sake. This guy was a medicine man from another village. When Josh shook his hand, the medicine man screamed at the top of his lungs and demanded Josh be killed for the insult. But then the chief said, “Oh, do not be upset. This is just a stupid foreigner. Forgive him.” A stupid foreigner! My Josh, who graduated at the top of his class in medical school and could be back in the States making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from people who didn’t think he was the village idiot, called a stupid foreigner. But Josh, ever humble, apologized. In front of the whole village. I know that was the right thing to do, but I don’t have to like it.

“Most of this journal is like that,” Addy said. “She really struggled for a while.”

“I always thought missionaries were perfect.”

“It’s kind of comforting knowing they weren’t. But Mom always wrote out prayers after those kinds of entries, asking God to forgive her. Listen.”

Oh, Father, you brought me here to serve these people, and I love it. As long as they love me. But when they start treating me with disrespect or, worse, treating my husband with disrespect, suddenly my calling is gone. I’m so weak. Keep stripping away my pride, God. I need your humility so I can love others the way you love me. Thank you for reminding me I can’t do that on my own.

Addy wiped a tear just as Hank’s voice came barking over the intercom.

“Okay,
ladies
.” Addy could just picture the sneer on his face when Hank said, “The competition starts in ten minutes, and it’s going to be dirty. Literally.” He laughed. “I’m talking good old Tennessee mud. So put on something you don’t mind getting messy and meet me out back.”

“Guess I have to go.” Addy shut her computer as Kara walked into the trailer.

“What’s this about mud?” she asked. “This must be Hank’s paybacks. I thought we were supposed to have an
academic
competition. I was thinking
Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?
or
Cash Cab
or something.”

“I have no idea.” Addy shrugged. “But I guess we better get ready to go.”

In ten minutes the girls were huddled around Hank, all smiles with invisible halos hanging over their heads. They were
way
too scared of Hank’s temper to risk ruffling even one designer feather.

“Okay, here’s what’s going to happen,” he began as the crew set up around an immense obstacle course surrounded by mud that looked like hot fudge. “You’ll be given a topic—history, science, English, math, or ‘other,’ and you’ll have sixty seconds to answer the question. If you cannot answer or you answer incorrectly, you’ll be sent through the obstacle course.”

He walked over to a six-foot-tall ladder covered in blue foam. “Climb this, then swing across the rope to the platform on the other side. The rope is covered in oil, so it won’t be easy.” He laughed a wicked laugh, then went on. “From there, you walk across the balance beam—also coated in oil—to the next platform. You climb down that and race to the flag all the way at the end. Any questions?” Hank’s tone implied there had better be none. He continued by numbering the girls and making sure there were cameras at every station.

“By the way, ladies, Jonathon will be right over there, and he’ll give a surprise announcement at the end, so be on your best behavior.”

The other girls squealed and tied their already super-short, super-tight pseudoshirts in knots, revealing as much skin as was possible on a prime-time show.

“This is going to be great,” Lila said. “America is going to love seeing us all down and dirty.”

“What about being smart?” Anna Grace asked.

“Hank doesn’t have all this mud here for us to stay clean.”

“But he said—”

“I know what he said.” Lila looked at the course. “But that’s not what he means. Of course he wants us in all that. It’s going to look great on camera.”

Jonathon walked over to his seat. Half the girls ran to greet him. Addy refused to be among that group but watched to see how Jonathon reacted.

Anna Grace was the first to reach him. “Jonathon, I just love your shirt. Is that American Eagle?”

“I’m not sure, Anna Grace.” Jonathon smiled at her, and Addy resisted a sudden urge to join the group of admirers.

“What’s the announcement, Jonathon?” Renae tied her shirt back to reveal her flat, tan belly.

“Can’t say.” Jonathon turned away from Renae to take his seat. Hank yelled for the girls to get in their places.

Addy was eighth in the lineup. Lila was ahead of her, making every effort to flick her long, black hair in Addy’s direction as often as she could. Addy was sure she had permanent grooves in her eyeballs from Lila’s ultra-hair-sprayed locks scraping through them.

Addy thought the questions were too easy. “What is the smallest unit of an element?”

Atom, duh
.

But Jennifer answered, “H
₂
O,” and began the slimy, slick trek across the course. By the end, she was covered in mud and flanked by cameras. The other girls apparently followed her lead, answering, “George W. Bush” for “Who was the first president of the United States?” and other similarly ludicrous responses.

When Addy’s turn came, she chose English, and Hank asked her to name the author of
Jane Eyre
.

“Charlotte Brontë,” Addy said.

“You’re right.” Hank nodded. “First one today.”

Addy returned to the end of a very muddy line, giving Kara a high five as she passed her.

Kara was last and had no problem identifying what continent Kenya was on.

The game continued—a total of five rounds. Addy successfully answered all her questions. Kara got stuck on the third—“What was the
Enola Gay
?”—and so was forced to go on the course. Kara took her time, though, and ended up with only her lower half muddied.

The entire competition took over three hours, with breaks for the girls and the crew, technical difficulties, and Hank’s angry outbursts constantly causing retakes.

Hank was furious at the girls’ wrong answers, though Addy had no clue why. She assumed he would like all the mud and falls and screams. It made much better TV than just answering questions and moving on. “America” would surely prefer the dirty dummies.

But Addy soon understood the source of Hank’s frustration.

Jonathon walked over to the smiling, mud-covered young women.

“Hi, girls.” He smiled. All the girls sighed. “That was a lot of fun. Some of you are definitely not afraid to get dirty.” He laughed and the girls congratulated themselves on their victories. “However, my date has to be pretty smart. My parents have high academic standards for me, and they expect the same of my dates. So”—the girls winced and Hank stormed off to the front of the house—“the winner of this competition is the one who answered the most questions correctly: Addy Davidson. And, as winner, I am happy to tell Addy that she will have immunity for the week.”

The girls applauded politely. That was expected of them, after all. But Addy could tell they wished their hands were hitting
her
. Eric yelled, “Cut!” and Jonathon waved a quick good-bye.

“I’m sorry, but I have to run.” Jonathon looked right at Addy before continuing. “But I’ll be back later tonight for our talks. See you then.”

The girls watched Jonathon get into his limo. As soon as it was out of sight, they erupted in screams of outrage.

“This whole thing was fixed,” Jessica said, her caramel-colored skin dotted with mud. “Girl, somebody better hold me back or so help me—”

“Jessica, don’t stoop to her level.” Lila put her mud-covered arm through Jessica’s. “Of course it was fixed. Little Addy Sunshine never would have been able to pull this off on her own. But now’s not the time to get our revenge . . .”

Hank rounded the corner and silenced Lila with a loud clap. “You girls are out of your minds if you think we fixed this for Addy to win. You idiots just dropped the ball. I gave you—” Hank must have realized he said too much. Addy and Kara hadn’t been given anything.

What a jerk. Hank did everything in his power to ensure we lost
. Addy smiled.
Too bad his plan backfired
.

He continued, quieter. “Addy now has immunity. She will not be getting kicked off this week.” Hank breathed loudly. “I suggest you rest up for your interview tomorrow and try a little harder next time. You are competing to go to
prom
with the president’s son, not be the next WWE star. You would do well to remember that.”

Kara looked at Addy and winked conspiratorially, then grabbed her by the arm. “We better run back to the trailer before we’re attacked.”

Chapter 21

G
reat job today.” Jonathon was in The Mansion’s living room, and Addy was the last one to meet with him for their “talk.” This would be aired after Addy’s immunity was revealed. That knowledge made her relax a bit more during her interview.

“Thanks,” Addy said. “It was interesting.”

“So golf and academics. Both strong suits.” Jonathon leaned forward. “What are your weaknesses?”