Falling Fast Page 4

  “Are you crazy? Did you see her? You were going to turn that girl away?”

  Brenda rubbed her arm and whined, “I didn’t get a good look at her face, Joe.”

  But Joe wasn’t interested in anything the receptionist had to say, too busy rubbing his hands together with glee, thinking about how good this new woman and Mr. Right were going to look together on screen.

  Joe hurried back inside to continue briefing the final two hundred women auditioning on the reality show, secure in the knowledge that as long as Alexa ended up falling for Brandon, he had just opened the door for his next promotion towards becoming head of the network.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Alexa looked at the women she was competing against and had to fight the urge to run from the room with her tail between her legs. Oh sure, she could beat any of them in a vocabulary test. But given the criteria on which the judges were sure to be basing their selections, how could she possibly compete? No amount of waxing, makeup classes, and personal shoppers could ever make her seem as polished and confident as these women.

  A cute blonde with bright blue eyes and a wide smile leaned over and said, “I love how you got right past the receptionist. She was giving us nasty looks all day.”

  Alexa couldn’t help but smile, there was something so innately likeable about this girl sitting next to her.

  “I’m Brigit,” she said, reaching out her hand.

  Alexa clasped it firmly. “I’m Alexa. Frankly, I’m wondering if it was worth the effort.”

  Brigit cocked her head to the side in surprise. “Why would you say that?”

  Alexa waved her arm in the general direction of the rest of the women in the room.

  “Look at everyone, including you. You’re so good looking.”

  “So are you!” Brigit said, fervently. “In fact,” she said in a quiet voice just meant for the two of them, “I don’t think you have a thing to worry about. You’re stunning.”

  Alexa turned bright red and peered closely at Brigit. “Are you making fun of me?”

  Brigit shook her head, and her blonde curls bobbed around her pretty face. “Oh no,” she said, putting her hand on Alexa’s arm. “I would never do that!”

  Alexa appreciated the effort Brigit was making to help her feel like she actually belonged in the same room with these women.

  Brigit was about to say something further, when Mr. Randall walked back into the room sporting a wide, smarmy smile.

  “Sorry about the commotion, ladies.” He resumed his seat at the center of the sound stage below them. “As I was saying, as the producer of Falling For Mr. Right, I am extremely pleased to have you all here for the auditions. San Francisco is the last stop on our nationwide search for thirty gorgeous, accomplished women who would like to date and marry Mr. Right.

  As you already know, we will be filming the show in your beautiful city by the bay beginning this Saturday.”

  As he droned on, Alex couldn’t help but think how fake and unnatural his smile seemed.

  In fact, when he had briefly touched her by the door when she barged in, she had felt an overwhelming urge not only to recoil, but to wash her hands as well.

  The investigative journalist in her told her to keep a close watch on him. She reached into her bag for her notebook to make some quick notes, then thought better of it. She didn’t want to make herself stand out by acting different. She shrugged, figuring it would give her good practice in flexing her memory muscles. Like the great undercover reporters who came before her — Gloria Steinem being her all time favorite — she would rely on her memory to be faultless.

  Alexa hoped that there would be some good dirt for her to dish up in the magazine, something sensational that would guarantee a cover worthy story. That is, she reminded herself as she surfaced from her conspiracy dreams, if she made it through the auditions. Reminding herself to focus on the #1 goal for the day, she caught the tail end of the smarmy producer’s long winded, self-serving, and extremely boring speech.

  “While you are waiting for your interview, go ahead and fill out the questionnaire underneath your seat. And please, ladies,” he added with a wink, “give us your honest answers, not what you think we want to hear.”

  “After all,” he said, wagging his fingers in what Alexa assumed was supposed to be a playful manner, but fell far short of it, “Mr. Right is going to be the lawfully wedded husband for one of you lucky ladies on July 1st!”

  All of the women giggled. Alexa, who was fighting the urge to snort derisively while rolling her eyes, realized she needed to chime in or be the odd woman out. She forced a giggle from her throat.

  “Are you all right?” Brigit asked her, turning to face Alexa with concern in her pretty blue eyes at the horrible screeching noise.

  “I’m fine, thanks. When I giggled at what Mr. Randall said, I accidentally choked on my gum,” she improvised, plastering a huge smile on her face in the hopes that Brigit would buy her story.

  “Oh,” Brigit said, clearly not convinced, but nice enough to let it go. “You sort of scared me.”

  “Sorry,” Alexa muttered, feeling lamer by the minute. What had she been thinking coming here, trying to be all girly? She was way out of her league and her pathetic approximation of a giggle proved it.

  She didn’t have long to dwell on her female unworthiness, however, because everyone was grabbing the clipboards from underneath their seats. Alexa followed suit and answered the easy questions like height, weight and eye-color.

  Jane had told her not to say she worked for the magazine, so under Occupation she wrote Waitress. Under Schools Attended she wrote Berkeley, but decided to leave off her degree in English Literature. The less said the better. If they check up on her, no one could say she had lied about anything. She had simply omitted a few small things.

  The next question, Have you ever been arrested? stopped Alexa in her tracks. Should she should mention the two hours she had spent in jail when she was protesting the unfair hiring practices that favored male professors over females by refusing to unchain herself from the provost’s chair? Given that it had been seven years since the incident, she wrote, No.

  The next question, however, was nearly enough to make her run screaming from the room. Are you genuinely looking to get married? “Thank god this is a yes or no,” she whispered, sorely tempted to write, “And be some guy’s slave for the rest of my life?” in the margin. Circling Yes she moved on to the next whopper: Why do you want to find your husband on our TV show?

  Why indeed? It was hard enough to find a boyfriend in the normal world, but to try and do it on TV while in competition with twenty-nine other women? It boggled Alexa’s mind. On the other hand, she needed to get into the mind-set of a serious contestant, or she’d be out on her butt faster than she could say, “Patriarchal Oppression” three times in a row.

  “Let’s see,” she said as she chewed on the end of her pen, “what is the right answer here?” Brigit looked up at her and Alexa said, “Sorry, I always talk to myself when I’m filling out forms,” which seemed to pacify the blonde. Alexa made a mental note to shut up before resuming her quest for a passable answer to the question. She decided to compose a response from her mother’s and sister’s point of view. Stepping into their psyche she wrote, I’m ready to settle down and I’m looking for a man who also wants to settle down, not one who is ready to run at the slightest hint of commitment. After so many years of going after Mr. Wrong, I hope that this TV show comes through with its promise to deliver Mr. Right.

  “I deserve the frickin’ Booker Prize for fiction for that answer,” she told herself smugly.

  “You deserve what for what?” Brigit asked.

  “Oh it’s nothing,” Alexa said, fumbling for a cover-up response. “I was just saying that I deserved the Booker T. Washington prize for excellent penmanship that they used to give out at my elementary school when I was a kid.”

  Brigit glanced over at Alexa’s questionnaire. “I don’t want to hurt your fe
elings, Alexa, but your handwriting isn’t all that neat.”

  Alexa smiled. She really liked this girl. “You should see how bad it is when I’m not trying to impress the judges.”

  They shared a quick laugh. A redhead in the front row, who looked none too friendly, turned around and loudly shushed them, so they put their heads back down to finish writing down their answers.

  Alexa read the next question and nearly screamed in frustration. How many serious relationships have you been in and why did they end? How pathetic would she seem if she told the truth? “Really pathetic,” she muttered softly. Alexa didn’t like to dwell on her dearth of male companionship, but late at night she sometimes wondered why she had never had more than two semi-serious boyfriends. Granted, she didn’t go out of her way to dress up and simper, but shouldn’t there have been at least more than two guys who were willing to look past the outward trappings of clothes and hairdos?

  She thought for a moment and then wrote, While I have had many boyfriends, I have only had two truly serious relationships. Both times, I thought I had found a man who would love me as passionately and deeply as I loved him, but unfortunately, both times my heart was broken.

  Alexa practically had to hold back the applause from her heart-wrenching performance on the page. I’m not a writer for nothing, she thought proudly before she moved on down the page.

  What is a unique talent that you are proud of? Knowing she could never admit to being a writer, lest they find out about her undercover story, she thought back to something her sister Mel had said once. I can ride the bull at the rodeo bar in town for five minutes straight without falling off.

  Barely able to keep from bursting out with laughter she read the last question on the page: List three adjectives that best describe you. Looking out at the group of highly lacquered women gathered in the studio, she wondered how many of them even knew what an adjective was. She chewed on the tip of the pen again and tried to think seriously about what a guy, who was willing to find his wife on national TV, would want in a wife. Big boobs, probably, she mused, but she didn’t feel that it would be a significant enough response to the question. Plus, her boobs were more medium-sized than huge, so they would know she was lying for sure.

  She figured Mr. Right was in the market for someone willing to get down and dirty with him, so she wrote, Sexy. Even though it was clearly preposterous she resisted the urge to cross it out. It was time to walk the walk and talk the talk. Jane hadn’t sent her to be waxed and outfitted and made up for nothing.

  What else would the mysterious Mr. Right want? She tried to get inside the mind of her character. Although he probably wanted a dumb-blonde who would obey his every whim, he would never admit it to anyone. He probably said he wants someone with a brain, so that he could impress the producer with his requirements, and then he’ll pick the dumbest girl in the lot, she thought contemptuously. She wrote, Witty.

  She had only one left and had practically chewed her pen tip down to a nub. Uh oh, she thought suddenly, I hope I haven’t chewed off all of my lip gloss, and wanted to throw up at her ridiculously vapid train of thought. Fishing around in her bag, she got out the gloss and reapplied.

  “Good idea,” Brigit said, as she followed suit.

  “Thanks,” Alexa replied, wondering why she felt slightly pleased by the tiny compliment.

  Shaking off the thought, she returned to her dilemma. Having written Sexy and Witty, she was stumped. She turned to Brigit and asked, “What’s an adjective you would use to describe me?”

  Brigit smiled, clearly pleased to have been asked. “Self-confident.”

  Alexa looked at the blonde in surprise. “Really?”

  “Oh yeah, definitely,” Brigit replied. “But I can’t think of any good adjectives to describe myself that don’t sound boring.”

  “How about reassuring or delightful or fun?”

  Brigit smiled so deeply, Alexa was treated to the dimples on either side of her mouth.

  “Do you really think I’m all of those things?”

  Alexa nodded. “Honestly, if you weren’t sitting next to me being all of those things, I’d have hightailed it out of here long before now.”

  Finding herself enveloped in a strong hug, happiness welled up inside of her. She had found a new friend in her most uncertain moment. When Brigit wrote her adjectives down, Alexa added Self-Confident onto her own questionnaire.

  She had just put her pen down when Mr. Randall appeared beside her and offered her a hand to stand up. “My dear, it is time for your live interview with the camera crew.”

  Alexa forced herself to smile into the man’s beady eyes and took his hand.

  “Good luck,” Brigit called out to her as he led her off and Alexa smiled and said, “You too!” with far more confidence than she really felt.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know your name,” the producer said unctuously.

  “Alexa,” she replied.

  “A beautiful name for a beautiful lady,” he replied. “I am so very pleased that you made it here for the auditions today. Our Mr. Right is going to be a very lucky man.”

  Alexa raised an eyebrow at his statement, but decided to play along. Squeezing his arm like she had seen her mother do a thousand times to her boyfriend of the week, she leaned in and said in a breathy voice, “Oh, Mr. Randall, I sure hope that means I’m going to get the chance to meet Mr. Right in person.”

  Alexa hoped she hadn’t overdone her performance, but was fairly certain she was right on track when he gave her hand a squeeze. “I will do all I can to make your dreams come true.” He opened the door to the interview room where a cameraman and interviewer awaited her presence and left her to the hardest part of the job yet: Convincing the camera that she was pretty and charismatic enough to be on screen.

  *

  Midway through the videotaped interview, Alexa decided she should change her career from writer to actress. She couldn’t believe how easy it was for her to fool the cameramen into believing she was excited about the prospect of becoming Mrs. Right.

  Since she guessed the smarmy producer was probably in another room watching her every move, she forced herself to tap into whatever sexy feminine reserves she had in her genetic makeup. Which meant that she pretended she was a combination of her mother and her sister during filming.

  When the interviewer asked, “Why do you want to be a part of the show, Alexa?” instead of answering honestly with, “My editor forced me to do it to get the cover story,” she planted a winning grin on her face and said, “Who wouldn’t want to be on the show? As soon as I found out about the auditions I started planning what I was going to wear!”

  And when they said, “How do you feel about the prospect of sharing a house with so many beautiful women, all competing for the affections of the same man?” she kept the grimace off of her face. Though she was unable to think of a worse living situation — it would be like living with her mother and sister multiplied to the nth degree — she beamed at the interviewer and replied, “From the girls I’ve talked with already today, I just know we’re going to have a super fun time!”

  It was difficult for her to get the word “girls” out of her mouth, considering that she thought “girl” was offensive terminology when referring to adult women. But since she had already heard the demeaning word bandied around quite a bit in the auditorium between the contestants, she figured she’d better get with the program.

  But the real doozy, which nearly had her bolting for the door was, “Alexa, if you think Mr. Right is the one and you have the chance to get intimate with him, will you take the chance?”

  Alexa wanted to rip the knowing smirk off of the interviewer’s face. They actually expected her to prostitute herself? She fumed inwardly, but they’d have to play a much tougher game to throw her off of her assignment.

  Playing her feminine role to the hilt, she sat back in her chair, uncrossed and re-crossed her legs. Staring off in the distance she envisioned something that filled her
with longing - a pepperoni and sausage pizza – then closed her eyes and licked her lips. Reopening her eyes, she leaned forward slightly to give the camera a good shot of cleavage.

  In a husky voice she said, “You bet I would.”

  When they stood up to shake her hand at the end of the interview, Alexa saw the undeniable proof of her sexual prowess in the front of their pants. She had given an Oscar-worthy performance.

  Alexa prayed that Mr. Right was going to be as much of a sucker as everyone else.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “So that’s why I need you to take over for the next few weeks,” Brandon said to Jon Montgomery, his best friend and Senior VP of Sales at the Idea Factory.

  Jon whistled softly between his teeth and shook his head. “Frankly, man, I’m having a hard time believing that you actually signed on for something like this.”

  Brandon grimaced. “No kidding. I’m having a hard time believing it myself.”

  In an obvious effort to cheer him up, Jon smiled and said, “At least they’re going to set you up with a bunch of good looking ladies, right?”

  Brandon stared blankly at Jon, thinking about the woman who had been haunting his dreams for days.

  “It’s just that I met this woman…” He let his words drift off. Jon was not the person he needed to discuss this with. He grabbed his jacket. It was time for a long overdue discussion with his mother about the birds and bees.

  “I never heard about any girl,” Jon probed, following closely on Brandon’s heels.

  Sidestepping his friend’s question, Brandon got into the elevator. “You’re acting CEO

  while I’m gone.”

  Brandon got into his car and forty-five minutes later he was turning down an oak-shaded lane and parked his hunter green Ford Expedition in the driveway of a yellow 1950s ranch style house. His mother, Elaine, popped her head out of the front door.

  “What a wonderful surprise!” she said, heading towards him with her arms held out wide for a hug.