This is it. There is no turning back. It's now or never.
“And ten! Five! We're back!” Phil informs us.
Keiran has more than held her own. It's my turn to pounce. “I guess this meet-and-greet was a waste of time,” I say. “We should have known nothing was really going to change. You two like how things are.”
“What's not to like?” Brooke asks me. “Marleyna and I have a great time together. We're not competitive. We're not trying to be the star. We respect each other. Marleyna respects me and our friendship in a way you guys never did.”
I could make a dig, but there's no time. “I'm sorry you feel that way, Brooke,” I say. “We've changed, I guess. We don't want the same things that you do. None of us do.” I look at the girls. “We're tired of the games and the backstabbing.”
Here it comes. Here I go. I take a deep breath. I've got to say it. “We want out.”
Brooke looks confused. “Out of what?”
I close my eyes for a second. Just say it. Say the words. “Out of this show.”
Brooke laughs nervously. The room is so quiet you could hear a pin drop. “What show?” her voice cracks. “You mean our friendship, right? You don't want to be friends anymore?”
I shake my head. “No, I mean the show. You can have it. It's all yours.”
“She's lost her marbles,” Marleyna says shrilly. “We're here to talk about the friendship! The one you girls think I stole from you.”
“We're here to talk about us,” Keiran informs her. “You're not part of that equation, but you are part of the reason our friendship has collapsed. But I'm not angry anymore. I should really thank you for it.”
“Excuse me?” Marleyna snaps.
Hallie gives her a small smile and jumps in. “What Kiki is trying to say is that you reminded Charlie, Keiran, and me what friendship is all about—it's being there for each other. Putting each other first. Not putting a show before your friends’ needs. And that's why we've decided we want off this merry-go-round. You can have it. We don't want to be part of it anymore.”
Brooke is panicked and is still trying to keep us on point. “You can't just disappear! We're in the same town, same school, our parents are friends. We're going to see each other.”
Now that we've gotten the ball rolling, it's gaining momentum. There is no stopping it. “We're tired of being pawns in a game we don't want to play. We hate the lies and the fabrications, just like my date, Danny, said a few weeks ago to the papers. The Cliffs is all about staging things. The producers pick locations and set us up for catfights and confrontations, like this one. They add new characters without telling us.”
I look at Marleyna. “They make us repeat dialogue.”
“You're lying,” Brooke hisses and stares directly at the cameras. “They're lying!”
“It's true,” Keiran says. “They said I was too drab to be on the show. They wanted to drop me because my story line,” she uses air quotes, “ ‘wasn't exciting enough.’”
Brooke is shaking her head back and forth. Marleyna is speechless.
“Go to commercial! Go to commercial!” I hear Hank whisper. “COMMERCIAL!” he says loudly.
Susan is on the floor in seconds. She storms over and looks like she wants to flip the table we're sitting at. Addison runs in behind her. “WHAT do you girls think you're doing?” she says, her voice booming, and I literally start shaking. “We're live. LIVE. Do you girls know what that means? Everyone at home is hearing you spew this rubbish! We do not talk about being on the show while we're on the show.” She looks at me icily. “And we don't talk about what it takes to put on such an elaborate production. You three are heading into dangerous breach of contract territory here.”
I'm shaking, but I manage to say, “I don't think it's breach of contract if we can prove we've been lied to this whole time.” Susan looks momentarily flustered, but I can tell. She knows I'm right.
“Back in five!” Hank yells. There is a ton of commotion behind us. Addison's phone is ringing. The reporters are writing furiously. Kayla pulls a camera in for a close-up.
“FIX THIS,” Susan yells at us, but I can see she's shaking too. “Fix it or… or… you'll regret it for the rest of your lives. You'll never work in television again, and that will be the least of your problems!” She whirls around and answers her phone. “Yes? Yes, sir,” she says calmly. “I'm taking care of the situation as we speak.”
“What are you doing?” Brooke hisses. “You're going to get yourselves kicked off the show.”
“Good,” Marleyna mumbles.
“Isn't that what you want anyway?” I dare Brooke to answer. “You said you're sick of the Charlie show.”
Under the table, Hallie grabs my sweaty hand. Hers is shaking too. This is rough, but we can do it. We're in the home stretch now and Susan can't stop us.
“And four! Three! Two! One! We're on!”
I go in for the kill. “This show is not reality. To those watching and loving it, know what is going on here. We're scripted reality. The Fire and Ice Network treats us like puppets. We get paid to pretend to be people we're not.” I look at Keiran and Hallie. “And we're not going to lie to you anymore. We're done.”
The three of us rise from the table and remove our mics.
“What are they doing?” Phil freaks. “Stop them! We're live.”
Susan appears in the doorway looking as red as a tomato. She doesn't seem to care anymore that the cameras are rolling. “Charlotte, I will tell you this one last time: If you walk out that door you'll never work on this network or any network again,” she says, sounding eerily calm. “None of you will. Your career, your college dreams, it will all be over.”
I don't look at her. The three of us place our mics and battery packs on the table.
“Addison!” Susan sounds shrill now. “Do something! You're letting them ruin your show! Talk. They'll listen to you.”
Addison doesn't move. “I think they've made their decision, don't you?”
Susan looks on helplessly.
Brooke grabs my arm. “Are you crazy?”
“Goodbye, Brooke,” I tell her, and she just stares at me, like a ghost of someone she once knew.
“Charlotte, don't do this,” Susan tries again, looking suddenly very nervous.
“We have six minutes to fill!” Phil is freaking out.
But I can barely hear any of them. Hallie, Keiran, and I make a chain and walk out the door, and don't look back.
epilogue
A New Reality
Our walk-out was three weeks ago. Getting fired wasn't as easy as removing our mics, of course. As threatening as Susan was, she still raced out the door after us and begged us to come back. We told her there was nothing left to say. The reporters on set were right behind her. They all wanted exclusives, but we agreed to give one interview, at that moment, if they wanted it. Once Susan heard us say that, she knew we weren't joking. She headed back to Milk and Sugar, hugging her jacket tightly to her chest, her high heels click-clacking down the street. That was the last time I saw her.
Lawyers handled the rest of the dirty work. Even though we were in breach of contract, our lawyers were able to successfully argue that the network was deceptive in their true motives when they hired us. Fire and Ice agreed to let us out of our remaining episodes if we'd agree not to publicly speak about the show anymore. (The fallout from the interview we had already given caused major ripples at the network. I read in Newsday that all future reality show programs that Susan is in charge of are currently on hold while the network makes decisions about what to do with her.)
Addison made good on her promise to kick her reality television career to the curb. She gave notice at Fire and Ice the day after our live episode and immediately started sending out grad school applications to half a dozen schools on the East Coast. Addison said Susan didn't try to stop her. Susan suspected her of having something to do with our live meltdown, but she couldn't come out and accuse Addison of anything when her o
wn head was possibly on the chopping block. The dirt Addison had on Susan's show tactics was enough to get Susan fired on the spot. So Addison struck a deal too—she wouldn't talk about what went down behind the scenes if Susan didn't give her a hard time about breaking her contract.
Two weeks ago, Hallie, Keiran, and I gathered at the Crab Shack to say goodbye to Addison in person. Her huge collection of Vera Bradley traveling bags was packed and she was taking the train from Greenport back to New York before spending a few weeks with her family in Connecticut.
“So I guess this is really it,” Addison said after hugging the three of us at least six times each. Hallie's parents had
put out a celebratory spread of clam strips, lobster rolls,
and assorted finger foods in Addison's honor. They were thrilled to have Hallie off the show, as I think both my parents and Keiran's were. We never gave them all the details of what
went down, but they knew enough to know all the college money in the world wasn't worth their daughters’ lack of privacy or the lies.
“It's not really goodbye,” Hallie told her and us. “We'll talk to you on Facebook and e-mail, and I'm sure we'll trek into Manhattan over the summer. I really want to see Jersey Boys.”
Addison laughed. “Maybe I'll go with you. I haven't seen the show either.”
Addison looked at me and smiled. I think we both knew that even though we claimed we were going to stay in touch, we probably weren't. What did we have in common other than the traumatic experience of the show? Too much had happened between us. Even though Addison was apologetic about doing Susan's dirty work, she still did it. She was still our boss. Does anyone have that much in common with their boss? I like Ryan well enough, but I don't think I'd invite him to my parents’ clambake on July fourth.
“I guess I should get going,” Addison told us. “My train is going to be here in fifteen minutes.”
“Actually it's more like twenty to twenty-five minutes,”
I joked. “The Long Island Rail Road is never on time.”
Addison laughed. “Still, just in case. If I miss it, the next train doesn't come for another two hours.”
I gave her one last hug. “Thanks, Addison. For everything,” I tell her. “We couldn't have pulled this off without you.”
“I'm the one who should be thanking you,” she said softly. “You got me out of a potentially life-ruining career.” She looked at me. “Take care of yourself, okay?”
I nodded. “You too.”
We walked Addison to the train station, which is only feet from the main drag in town, and waved till her train rolled away (ten minutes late, I might add).
A few days later, we read on the Fire and Ice website that The Cliffs was going to continue on without us. They had changed the name to The Cliffs: New Beginnings. Brooke was the new lead and Marleyna her trusty sidekick. They planned on taping new episodes all summer long and the rumor at school was that Brooke wouldn't be coming back for senior year. She and Marleyna were going to have a set tutor so they could devote more time to taping.
The news was sort of a relief to me. When we saw Brooke in the halls, we usually went in the opposite direction and she did the same whenever we were around. As much as we weren't giving each other nasty looks anymore, seeing Brooke every day at school still made me sad. I'll always wonder if her allegiance to Marleyna would have happened if we'd never agreed to do the show.
With Brooke finally getting her star turn, our contract kaput, and Addison back in New York, the rest of life went back to normal. Well, as normal as life can get after you've exposed your secrets to the world and on TV. Cliffside Heights did several stories. One was about Keiran's, Hallie's, and my exit, another was an interview with Brooke about what she was calling a “spin-off,” and the third was an editorial on reality television in general. Ms. Neiman wanted me to write it, but I didn't have the heart.
But forget the show. I'm sure what everyone really wants to know is what happened with Zac.
A few days after the live episode, when things had calmed down just slightly, I asked him to meet me at Milk and Sugar so I could explain everything. After facing Susan, talking to Zac should have been a snap. But knowing the way Zac felt about me made me feel all tangled up inside.
“Hey,” he said, sneaking up on me. I was so freaked out I dropped the iced latte I was making and the ice and milk spilled all over the floor.
“Hi,” I said awkwardly. “I've got to clean this up.” I dropped to the floor. Ryan raced to my aid and I glared at him menacingly. “You were supposed to warn me,” I hissed.
Ryan gave me a crooked grin. “Talk to the boy,” he whispered. “Is that so hard?”
“Yes,” I said, and threw the wet, milk-stained kitchen towel at his face. I heard Zac clear his throat and I slowly stood up. “Hey.”
Zac smiled. “Hey.”
We stared at each other awkwardly. Not a word popped into my head. I couldn't ask him about the last newspaper meeting because I was there. And it seemed lame to bring up the weather or the history exam we had that week. He was close enough now, just the counter between us, that I could touch him if I reached out my hand. He smelled like Downy, just as I remembered, and I inhaled deeply.
“Ready to spill all the dirty details about your escape from TV prison?” he said with a wry grin.
I stopped breathing in his heavenly scent and smiled. Leave it to Zac to put me at ease.
“I wanted to call and congratulate you on the breakout,” Zac added with a sly grin. “But I figured between Barbara Walters and People, my Cliffside Heights press badge wouldn't hold up.”
“I'm sorry it took me a few days to call you,” I apologized.
“You had a lot going on. I watched the show,” Zac said. “Remind me never to get on your bad side.”
Then I gave Zac the short version of events—from our breakup with Brooke, to the truth about Addison, to Susan's puppet-mastering. He already knew about Brooke's so-called spin-off. Okay, so my talk wasn't that short, but Zac listened the whole time, never once interrupting until the very end.
“So,” Zac said when I was finally finished, “if you wanted off the show, and I was willing to go on the show, and there is no more show, is there a reason why we're still not together?”
I wasn't sure what to say to that. Together? As in dating? As in boyfriend and girlfriend? Zac said he liked me, but I guess the boyfriend part of the equation wasn't something I had dared hope for. “I don't know,” I said lamely.
Zac moved around the counter and I stood as still as a statue. My face started to feel hot. “Do you want to be together?” he asked softly.
All I could manage was a nod. And then, not thinking, I fell into his chest and buried myself there. Zac wrapped his arms around me. “The show we were doing wasn't real at all. What happened to reality TV being reality TV ?”
“I don't think it ever was reality TV,” Zac said with a small smile. “Fame does funny things to people. They think they're being honest and truthful, but you can't ignore the camera staring at your face. People start to change. They crave the stardom and they'll do anything they can to keep it. Think Paris and Nicole. Pauly D. and Snooki. The list goes on. That's what Brooke and Marleyna are doing, aren't they?”
His arms were still around me and mine around him and I didn't want to let go. Instead I continued to gaze up at him. He's a few inches taller than me, which I really like. “I thought you hated reality shows,” I tease. “How do you know who Paris and Nicole are?”
He chuckled. “I don't live under a rock, you know. Those two are annoyingly everywhere.”
“I'm happy to report, I won't be,” I said. “I feel so
stupid,” I told his wonderfully smelling green shirt. “I was so embarrassed. I took this show for the money and it turned out to be a nightmare, and then I gave up you for the show, went on a fake date, and blew my chance with you.”
“Is that how you think it all went?” Zac's muffled voice traveled to my
ear. “I told you. Charlie, show or no show, I missed you. I missed joking around with you. I knew I'd rather be with you than without you. That's why I came back.”
I look up. “I'm glad you did. And I'm glad we didn't have to date on camera,” I admit. “At least I got something out of this whole experience. I may not have made enough money for four years of college, but I definitely have a good chunk saved. But that's still a huge price to pay for losing one of my best friends.”
“What happened with Brooke really bites.” He rubbed my back. I couldn't stop thinking about his hands, his smell, his everything. My pulse began to race. “Thankfully, you still have Hallie and Keiran. And me,” he added, his face questioning. “Is there anything I can do to make this all better?”
“I don't know,” I said, feeling short of breath.
“How about this?” Zac said, and then before I could react, he was tilting my chin up and his lips were planted on mine. And that helped me forget about everything that happened, if only for a few minutes.
And now, well, things are pretty great. Zac and I are officially
seeing each other. Keiran and her mom worked out a babysitting schedule that nixes weekends so that she can have a life, and Hallie is seeing a cute college freshman who just came home for the summer and is working the dock at the Crab Shack. School is officially out in a week, and the three of us can't wait.
“I'm not working this summer,” Hallie says as she bites into the ice cream cone we just got at Licks in town. “I think I've worked hard enough this spring, don't you?”
“You're not working at the Crab Shack?” I ask.
“I mean, except for there,” Hallie clarifies with a laugh. “I keep thinking we have this crazy shooting schedule and we don't anymore. We're free.”
“We deserve a little break, don't you think?” Keiran asks, licking her Rocky Road. “I was talking to my mom and she said she wants to take us up to Rhode Island for a week in July. She said we could use some R&R.”
“I'm in,” I agree. “I need to rest. I'm still having that nightmare where I'm being videotaped in bed.”