“Come on, Emma,” he continued. “Get up. I’ll help you.”
“I’m sorry, Richie. It’s just… I’m in love with Bellamy.”
There was a collective gasp followed by excited buzzing whispers and high fives.
“She said it!”
“We’ve got another one!”
“Did you catch that on camera?”
“Awesome!”
I closed my eyes, hoping when I opened them that everyone would be gone. Especially Richie. Instead, when I opened them he was still hovering over me and now Vanessa was also two inches from my face. She drew in a deep breath, raised her eyebrows, and smiled. “Hi again, Emma. Excuse me, Richie.” She elbowed him out of the way. “I’m so happy for you. I totally know Bellamy’s going to pick you. Especially once you tell him you love him! Alanna is still off walking around with that hockey guy, and Klassie is still in the hospital, so you’re pretty much competition-free. I think we should do a double wedding special. Maybe we could do it live. What do you think?” She turned to the producers and camera guys. “Wouldn’t that be great? Seriously, if Bellamy picks Emma, and he totally will, I want to have a double wedding. Could we do it here in Paris? Please?”
“Sure. That’s a great idea,” said the producer with the legal pad.
“I’m not sure about this,” I said.
“Why not?” asked Vanessa. “We could have matching dresses. No, on second thought, that would be lame.”
“Aren’t we putting the cart before the horse?” I asked.
“Cart before the horse. Where do you come up with these things? You’re so funny. But I love you. I hope you know, you’ve totally been my best friend on the show. Where is Bernie? Bernie, come over here. I want you to meet Emma. Bless her heart, she is just the best. We’re all going to have a double wedding together. Oh, her eyes are closed again. Emma! Snap to it. Emma, sit up!”
“Could I have a minute?” I asked.
“Get her some water,” someone said.
“No. I don’t need water. I just need some space.” I stood up, wobbly, and somehow found my way out of the room. As I exited I could hear Vanessa saying, “But if Bellamy and Alanna end up together, which they totally might, then could Alanna and I have a double wedding special instead?”
“Sure. That’s a great idea,” the producer was saying.
I looked behind me as I made my way back up the stairs. Miraculously, no one was around me. I still had a mic on, of course, but I was alone. I took off my shoes and sighed, contemplating my escape routes. Feeling too defeated to come up with a scheme, I sank down on the stairs and surveyed my beautiful surroundings. I was too numb and exhausted to care much about a lovely old Parisian hotel.
I evaluated what had just happened. I had just received a marriage proposal. Not from Pete, not from Bellamy, not from any guy I’d dated in the past ten years, but from Richie Buffalo. And to make it all even more insulting, there hadn’t even been a ring involved. “What kind of a loser proposes without a ring?” I wondered aloud.
Who could possibly have told them that Richie Buffalo was my great lost love? The producers of the show came up with him somehow. Did my mom throw me under the bus? My old high school principal? Who would have done this to me? I tried to picture everyone I knew. Before long I decided it had probably been Judijean. She had always had a thing for Richie Buffalo and could never believe that I wasn’t just as in love with him.
“Why didn’t she go after him herself?” I heard myself mumble. Ugh! It was happening again! I pressed my fingertips to my lips. I thought perhaps I had kicked the habit, but it seemed that anxious, nervous words were always waiting for their chance to spring from my mouth. Perhaps some meditative breathing would help me. I drew in a deep breath through my nose and exhaled through my mouth. Or was I supposed to do it the other way around?
“This is all so embarrassing,” I whispered, giving up on meditating, instead playing with my raveling hem. “I’m never going to recover from this. Never.” I tore a thread off my dress and the remainder of the hem loosened up. I kept talking: “Why am I even on a show like this? It’s so inelegant. Look at me! First I wear stupid shoes, then I faint, and then Richie Buffalo shows up wanting to marry me. Without a ring. And it’s all captured on camera for the whole world to see.” I yanked the hem off my dress. It came off in one tidy strip. “That was strangely satisfying,” I told myself. By this point, I was on a roll: “If they were going to pick some random jerk from my past they could have at least picked someone cute. But Richie Buffalo? Richie Freaking Buffalo? Really? I mean, please!” I started to cry and went into hardcore self-sabotage mode: “It just proves that I have no great love. Everyone else, by this point, has had some miraculous love story. Some amazing story that made their life worth living. But not me. I’m so pathetic. What’s wrong with me?”
“I’m on it! I said I’m on it,” said Bob the cameraman, yelling back at the ballroom, running down the hall towards me. As soon as he saw me sitting on the stairs he screeched to a halt, his sneakers leaving black marks on the marble floor. “Oh. There you are. Hi there, Emma,” he said.
“Hi Bob,” I said.
“Sorry. I didn’t realize we’d left you alone during such a critical scene. You should have said something.”
“I didn’t mind,” I told him.
“Yeah, but still.”
“You didn’t miss anything,” I said.
“Did you want to say anything to that Richie guy? I think they’re going to send him home now, so if you want to say goodbye you probably should.” He wasn’t suggesting I do it for the show, but was speaking to me like a friend offering me some advice.
“I guess it would be the nice thing to do, but I don’t really care right now,” I said.