I tilt my head, looking at the bio once more.
She points to the second line. “Sharp-witted humor means ‘sarcastic jerk.’ High-stakes Scrabble? More like a gambling addiction. Single lifestyle? Sounds like he’s got a thing for one-night stands.”
I look at her once again, trying to size her up. Sara Claire is not what I expected. “How do you know all this?”
“I’m in the business of business. Hedge funds. Family business in Texas. Daddy calls me his BS radar. I go to meetings and look pretty. Everyone underestimates me, and I hear all the things their mouths aren’t sayin’.”
“Whoa,” I say. “That job sounds wild. What are you even doing here?”
She shrugs with a smile. “Would you believe me if I said true love?”
“Wait. You mean you actually buy into all this stuff?”
“Listen, I’m thirty-two. In Southern years, that’s ancient. I’ve tried every app. Every church singles group. Every website. Every friend of a friend.” She shakes her head, thinking of something to herself. “When the casting scouts approached me, I figured I couldn’t tell my mama I tried everything to give her grandbabies until I really had tried everything.”
She must notice how wide my eyes are at that statement, and she swats at my leg. “You’re young still, but one day you’ll wake up and wonder where the time went.” She laughs. “Or maybe you won’t.”
“But you really want to fall for some playboy looking to rehabilitate his reputation?”
She waves. “I’ve worked with all kinds of scum, and what I can tell you is that one thing we all have in common is skeletons in the closet.”
We drive for another hour, but the whole time, Sara Claire’s words sink in. I don’t know what my skeletons would be, but I’m sure they’re there.
I feel fidgety and anxious without my phone, so I guess it turns out I’m more addicted to that little brick of technology than I thought. Eventually I just press my head against the glass and watch as Los Angeles slips by us as we drive deeper into the mountains.
A few girls complain of motion sickness, and I hear someone behind me whisper, “I always thought the château was on a studio lot.”
Another voice replies, “I heard it’s on an old compound some cult used to own before they had a big shootout with the FBI. Supposedly no one would buy it, so the network got a great deal on it.”
I chuckle to myself, knowing that both of those stories are a little bit true. The show started out on a studio lot but quickly moved out to the mountains when they got a steal on the property formerly owned by Vince Pugh, a ’90s teen movie star who turned out to be an actual serial killer in real life. He’d bought the property from a studio exec whose wife wanted to bring the French countryside to Southern California.
When we pull through the gate of the château, there’s a lot that looks familiar and more that doesn’t. Just on the other side of a stretch of tall hedges are rows of trailers and trucks full of equipment strategically tucked away. On the other side of the hedges, a long driveway with elaborate landscaping on either side leads to the front entrance, which welcomes us with its marble staircase and stately turrets. It’s a little dingier and much smaller than it appears on television, but that doesn’t stop just about everyone from gasping. And I have to admit, something about the dramatic roofline speaks to me.
As the bus door wheezes open, Beck jumps on board. “Okay, ladies, you are responsible for getting your bags to your room. This might be the notorious château, but it is not a hotel. There is no valet. Pay close attention to your house map. If a door is locked, it is locked for a reason. If it’s not on the map, you don’t need to know what it is. And honestly, if you find a locked door, I can nearly guarantee you that the only thing behind it is old camera equipment. And before you ask, yes, the suitor is staying on the property. And no, I won’t tell you where.”
A few women shriek, and then Beck steps back, clearing a path for us.
We all pause for a second, then make a run for it. It reminds me of exiting the plane when I first landed at LAX, and Prince Charming—I mean, Henry—and I bonded over our annoyance with the chaos before he kindly helped a whole slew of people with their bags.
I let the others go ahead of me until it’s just Beck and me on the bus. When I walk past her, I wait for her to give me some kind of sign that I’m not just another contestant to her. She scrolls through her phone as I make my approach, and I feel a sudden pang of jealousy at the sight of someone with a phone.
Whoa, maybe I do need a technology detox.
Beck looks up just as I walk past her and gives me a big wink. “Sara Claire is a good egg. Stick with her.”
“Well, she is my roommate.”
She smirks knowingly. “And you think that was an accident? Very few things on this show happen by chance. You’ll like Stacy too.”
“Thank you,” I tell her, before jogging down the steps and dragging my two hulking bags up to the château. I can’t expect Beck to play favorites, but at least it’s nice to know that I’ve got a friend in this place.
All the rooms are upstairs in a long corridor with two large dorm-style bathrooms.
If I wasn’t so busy with my own luggage, I would find it highly entertaining to watch all these women dragging huge overstuffed suitcases up the expansive spiral staircase. In fact, one contestant loses a grip on one of her suitcases and it comes barreling down the stairs, nearly taking me and one other girl out.
At the end of the hallway, I find room six, where Sara Claire is already hanging up her suitcaseful of colorful dresses. “There she is!” She turns to Addison. “This is Cindy!”
“Oh, we’ve met,” says Addison dryly. “Cindy seems to know everyone.”
I smile tightly. “Hi, Addison.”
Perched on the bed across from her is a Black girl with springy curls dressed in an adorable floral crop top with matching skirt and a pair of white Air Jordans. Her skin is perfectly dewy with just the right amount of highlighter, and her black liquid eyeliner is the most precise cat-eye I’ve ever seen.
“And this is Stacy!” Sara Claire tells me.
“Hey,” Stacy says nonchalantly. And I immediately know that Stacy is the exact kind of girl I gravitate toward. She’d totally fit right in with Sierra back in the city. They’re both the kind of girls whose confidence and calm energy make them the coolest people at every party.
“Hi! I love your shoes. Where are you from?” I ask.
“Thanks. I’m a total sneakerhead. Chicago. Born and raised. Librarian by day. Makeup artist by night.” She pulls a small oil diffuser from her bag. “Will this bother anyone if I use it?”
“Oh Lord, no,” says Sara Claire. “I welcome it!”
Addison wrinkles her nose. “I guess not, as long you don’t use any patchouli. Bleh.”
I turn my back to Addison and give Stacy a wide-eyed look. “Doesn’t bother me at all.”
Stacy chuckles at my expression as she continues to unpack her bag. “So, Addison, what is it that you do?”
“I’m an actress and model.”
Sara Claire gasps. “Would you have been in anything we’d know?”