One To Watch (18 page)

“Yeah! I had this client who wanted to show me how big she used to be, except she couldn’t find any old pictures on her phone, so she pulled up your feed! And I was like,
Wow, I could really help that girl.
So it’s wild that now I actually get to meet you.”

Bea’s expression went dark. “Help me how, exactly?”

“I mean, obviously you don’t
want
to look like that, right? There’s so much we could do together! Diet, exercise regimen, but like, really holistic stuff, mind-body wellness—it wouldn’t be about changing your looks, per se. It’s more about helping you be healthy.”

Bea could hear her heart pounding in her ears. She could deal with Ben K.’s absurdity and Nash and Cooper’s insults and Marco’s fetishizing, but this was a step too fucking far.

“Tell me, Kumal,” she said, her voice low, “what exactly do you know about my health? Have you seen my blood sugar? My heart rate? My cholesterol?”

Kumal looked completely baffled. “No?”

“No, you haven’t. Yet you assume I’m ‘unhealthy’ because of my weight. Is that right?”

The conflict had attracted the attention of a few of the other men: The two Bens, Jaime, Nash, and Cooper approached to see what was going down.

“I just think that you can change,” Kumal insisted.

“No,” Bea countered, “you just think that I
should
change, because you can’t imagine I could possibly be happy and healthy and fat all at the same time. You’re presenting yourself as some great guy who’s just concerned for my health, but you and I both know you aren’t. You’re concerned with getting some camera time, and with telling everyone at home that it’s not okay to be fat and that you’re not attracted to me. All of which you’ve now done. Congratulations!”

“You’re seriously overreacting,” Kumal said with a condescending laugh. “I was trying to help, but hey, if you want to die at thirty, that’s your business.”

“Well, I don’t turn thirty-one until September, so I guess there’s still time.” Bea smiled. “And if you really want to help me, I know how you can: by leaving this show right now.”

A stillness fell over the group. Kumal looked like he couldn’t quite believe it.

“Don’t be upset, Kumal.” Bea smirked. “You don’t want to date me. And now you don’t have to.”

She spun around and marched back toward the bar—she’d broken her glass of Prosecco getting away from Marco, and after those two interactions, she damn well deserved a fresh one.

The men were still talking among themselves near the hot tub, so the bar was blissfully empty, save for the camera that never left Bea’s side. After a moment, though, Asher sidled up and took a seat next to her—it was the first time all day he’d left his book and his little table, far from the action of the rest of the group.

Bea looked at him expectantly, but he didn’t say anything—just watched her drink, as if he were a field scientist and she were a rare breed of puffin.

“What?” Bea asked curtly, pleased with how good it felt to stop giving a shit what any of these men thought of her.

“Nothing,” he mused. “I’m just trying to figure out what you’re doing here.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bea turned to face him, taking in the angled slopes of his frame, his jaw, his cheekbones.

“Exactly what I said,” he clarified. “I was roped into watching a few earlier episodes of this series, and it’s my impression that usually, the leads come here looking for love. They spend every minute telling every suitor they can find how eager they are to fall in love—but from what I’ve observed, you haven’t done that once. In fact, you don’t seem eager to talk to us at all. So I’m trying to figure out what you’re doing here.”

“Excuse me?” Bea was at a total loss for what this man wanted from her.

“Maybe you came here to prove a point. Or to improve your career? Both of which are fair objectives. But you can understand how my participation under those circumstances would seem like a waste of time.” He took a sip of his beer; having made his logical point, he awaited her logical response.

But Bea didn’t feel logical. She felt exhausted. She felt hopeless. She felt exposed—as a fraud, and worse, a failure.

“Why don’t you tell me how you want me to behave,” she pleaded, her voice scratchy with emotion, “after I spend the day being mocked, and manhandled, and insulted. Do you want me to be flirty and coquettish? A tough vixen? A doe-eyed ingénue? Just tell me, Asher. Tell me how to be the woman you thought you came here to meet, tell me how
you
would handle it if every person you encountered found a new sadistic way to make you feel terrible about yourself and your body, and I’ll do whatever I can to stop being such a monumental disappointment.”

Bea saw the pain in her expression mirrored in Asher’s face—he clearly hadn’t intended to hurt her. It was all much too much, this man and this place and her wet body and stringy hair and the awful things these men had said to and about her—nothing, she was sure, compared to the awful things America would say to and about her when this episode aired next week. Bea excused herself and went down to her cabin, and she wouldn’t come out again until Lauren promised that the little speedboat was waiting to take her home.

When Bea finally made it back to her apartment at the compound, it was dark outside, and she wanted nothing more than to curl up and sob. She put on the comfiest clothes she could find, silently blessing Alison for leaving out some cashmere sweats. Cocooned in layers of softness, Bea turned on some music and tried to forget the sound of Asher’s words, echoing over and over in her brain.

I’m trying to figure out what you’re doing here.

After the events of this day, Bea was no longer sure she knew.

She decided her best option was to go to bed and try again tomorrow, but instead, she heard a knock on her door.

“Fucking Lauren,” she muttered under her breath, “can I not get one damn moment of peace without—”

She swung the door open—it wasn’t Lauren.

It was Luc, the devastatingly handsome Frenchman she’d met at the premiere, with a metal bowl full of ingredients in his arms and a camera crew at his back.

“Bea, hello.”

“Luc, um, hi? I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I hope I am not disturbing you, it is just, I heard you had a difficult day, and I thought, perhaps, I could keep my promise to make you something sweet?”

He held up the bowl hopefully, and Bea caught a glimpse of eggs and vanilla. He was completely right—this was exactly what she needed.

“Sure.” She opened the door wider. “Come in.”

As it turned out, Luc had come to prepare one of the desserts from his restaurant, a lavender-honey crème brûlée.

“This way,” he said as he went through her kitchen in search of a whisk, “if you are angry at a man here, you can beat the sugar with the spoon and pretend you are cracking open his head.” He tapped Bea’s forehead gently with a silver spoon. “You see?”

Bea laughed. “It’s very cathartic.”

“Good! So you sit, relax, and I will bake.”

“No, you have to let me help! I can be your sous chef.”

“Ah, so you want to work under me? But this is a coveted position. I only hire the best.”

“I think you’d be very happy with me under you,” Bea teased, wondering how it was possible this obscenely handsome stranger made her comfortable enough to flirt this brazenly.

“Do you know how to separate the egg yolks?” he asked softly.

“I know the gist.”

“Here.” He put his hands over hers. “I’ll show you.”

So together they cracked the eggs and gently tossed the yolks from palm to palm, letting the slippery whites run through their fingers.

“You are a woman of hidden talents.” Luc chuckled as Bea deposited the final yolk in a bowl.

“She blogs, she bakes, what can’t she do?” Bea laughed.

“Tell me. You must have some weakness.”

“Besides my obvious weakness for desserts?”

She handed him the bowl of yolks, and he caught her arm for just a moment, running his thumb inside her wrist.

“It is no weakness to enjoy something sweet.”

It turned out the most time-consuming aspect of preparing crème brûlée was waiting for it to cool—for an hour or more—after it had been baked. The camera guys were on overtime, so Luc had premade a couple of dishes of cream that were already cool so they could skip ahead to the fun part: burning the sugar.

“But wait,” Bea said, “when did you hear I’d had a bad day? I just got back an hour ago, when did you have time to make these?”

Luc looked to the camera guys, who just kept rolling.

“I don’t know if I am supposed to tell you this, but Lauren called another producer earlier to come talk to me. Something about a swimsuit? She felt really terrible. She asked if I could think of a way to make your day better.”

“Oh.” Bea looked down, the reality of the situation seeping in. This wasn’t a man who genuinely liked her—this was another staged scenario of Lauren’s, a backup plan to make sure the week wouldn’t end without Bea getting her first kiss.

Well. If that was what Lauren wanted, it was Bea’s job to deliver. She forced her face into yet another smile, and readied herself for her final performance of the day.

“I guess you’d better show me how to burn some sugar!”

Luc showed Bea how to use the brûlée torch, and it really was fun to make the brittle crust and crack it gently with a spoon. The dessert was thick and sweet; they ate it sitting on the carpet in front of a roaring fire some PAs had surreptitiously built while they were baking.

“The fire, the ocean, the homemade dessert … this is a lot,” Bea observed.

“Yes, it’s a bit excessive, no? And I am French, so my tolerance for romance is very high.”

“So that’s what this is? Romance?”

“Is that what you want?”

He leaned into her, his body just inches away. Maybe he really did like her—or maybe he was acting. Maybe it didn’t make a difference.

“Luc, can I tell you a secret?” she murmured.

His voice was barely above a breath. “Tell me.”

“I don’t know what I want.”

He ran a finger along her jaw, and she nodded, yes. He kissed her softly, playfully, searchingly, and she thought of Lauren, and she thought of Asher, and she thought of Ray, and finally she leaned into him until there was nothing left to think about except Luc and the taste of sugar and cream.

When plus-size blogger Bea Schumacher was announced as the star of this season of
Main Squeeze,
I was over the moon: Was it possible that, after all these years, my guilty little pleasure was going to be interesting, and even—forgive me for saying it—
woke
?

The answer is no.

Or it might be yes.

Or it might not even matter!

Because here’s the thing: Right now, the show is
bad.

Last night’s episode was one of the most painful I’ve seen—even worse than the one where they forced the racist guy and the black guy into a hot-dog-eating contest. Because while that was disgusting, it was also absolutely entertaining.

Not so, last night’s horrific adventure on the high seas, where Bea was forced to wear a bikini (at least, I assume she was forced—she certainly looked unhappy about it), endure the snide taunts of men with the emotional maturity of Lindsey Graham, fend off one man who sought to fetishize her body, and finally capitulate for some light frenching with a Frenchie who couldn’t be more obviously vying for camera time. (To be clear, ABS, I will absolutely watch whatever hot-chef Luc spin-off you decide to make; you don’t need to force Bea to make out with him to get me on board!)

The only moment of last night’s episode where Bea seemed at all happy—well, not happy, exactly, but at least like an actual person—was when she was telling off Kumal, the trainer she kicked off the show for insulting her body to her face. It was nice to see Bea stand up for herself, but the show can’t keep going back to that well. It will get too boring too quickly, and we’re not watching this show for a seminar on body image; we’re in this for the romance! For the drama! For the
fantasy
of it all!

But there’s nothing fantastic about what we’re seeing now. This part of the season is always a little awkward: We don’t yet know the suitors well enough to be particularly attached to any of them, so we’re dependent on our connection to the Main Squeeze to stay invested in the season. I’ve spent the last two weeks ready to stan Bea harder than I’ve ever stanned before, but even beyond the show’s terrible one-liners, she just seems stilted and uncomfortable—and frankly, it’s hard to watch, let alone root for her. Understandable? Definitely. Enjoyable? Not in a million years.

It’s not clear whether the problem is Bea’s negative attitude (as Asher contended last night) or if the entire setup of this season is simply an exercise in schadenfreude at this poor woman’s expense. But there’s one thing I’m sure of: If next week’s episode is as grim as this week’s, it will be the last one I watch this year.