Million Dollar Marriage Page 5

  We all clap and cheer, pumped. I give a wolf whistle as Ivy rolls her eyes and claps her hands. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” she growls.

  She’s a fucking beast. If anyone’s my competition, it’s her. There are a few more seriously athletic people out there, but I’ve made friends with all of them. I’m ready to rule.

  “And three . . . two . . . one . . . camera’s on,” the director says.

  “Hello, coming direct to you from the Georgia Tech rec center, welcome to the first season of the newest sensation to sweep the country! Tonight, we have fifty contestants who have absolutely no idea what they’re going to have to do to achieve our prize. The one thing they all have in common is that they’re raring to win this season’s top prize of ONE MILLION DOLLARS! This. Is. MILLION. DOLLAR. MARRIAGE!”

  He runs backward as he talks, introducing some of the contestants, then shoves open the door. I clench my fists and follow the leader.

  I can’t believe I’m here, doing this. That I gave Jimmy and another friend of mine named Flynn the reins at Tim’s for the next three weeks and told them to do their best to check in on Gran. Before I left, I told Gran that I was going away for a while to be on television and that for the next three weeks I’d have no idea where I’d be or what the hell I’d be doing. And I still don’t know. All I know is it’ll be played out for the entire country to see.

  I’m game.

  I run through the doors, and it’s like it’s the big game and we’re the home team. People are screaming from packed bleachers—they must be actors because they look way too excited about this. They’re screaming and trying to touch us as I run through, and HOLY SHIT.

  I nearly stop in my tracks when I see what’s in front of me.

  It’s an Olympic-size swimming pool.

  It looks like it’s full of balloons.

  One of the contestants behind me nudges me, so I find my mark, an X on the ground that has “LCROSS” on it. I stand there and wave at my fake fans. Blow a few of the cute girls kisses. They cheer louder.

  “All right, here’s the name of the game!” Will Wang shouts when we’re all assembled. He climbs to a podium overlooking the pool, and there’s a cameraman there, filming us from above. I’ve counted at least ten cameras. I look for Penny and see her way on the other side of the pool. She looks terrified. “We have loaded this massive pool full of balloons. There are nearly one million of them. When the whistle sounds, your job is to dive in and find the balloon with your name on it. Simple, right?”

  I scan the balloons. I notice two first off that have writing on them in Sharpie. I look up and note that one of my biggest threats—this shaved-head dude called Ace, who’s tattooed and pierced within an inch of his life—is doing the same thing.

  He looks up at me, and a snarl appears on his face.

  Oh, he’s fucking going down.

  “There is one catch!” Will Wang smiles. “If someone finds your balloon first, they might choose to hand it over to you, out of the goodness of their hearts.”

  I almost laugh at that. I haven’t met a hell of a lot of people who are that good when it comes to sharing a million dollars.

  “Or you can pop it, in which case that contestant is out of the game for good.”

  Several people gasp.

  Hell no. That isn’t happening to me. I’ve come too far to be here. And I have my alliances.

  I’m ready.

  “If your balloon is popped, only one thing can save you, but we’ll get to that later. However, keep in mind before you go around popping everyone’s balloons . . . you might need these people later. It’s up to you how to proceed.”

  I wipe my chin and get ready to dive in. Name of the game: find my balloon. No popping.

  “At the end of this round, we will narrow it down to eighteen contestants. Yes, over half of you will be eliminated. The first to find their balloons will advance to the next round.” He takes a breath and raises a hand. “Any questions?”

  We all shake our heads.

  “On your mark! Get set! Go!”

  All at once we jump in, some shitty canned music playing overhead.

  It’s havoc. Balloons of all colors are flying everywhere.

  And then it hits me when I feel it squishing through my toes. It’s not just balloons in this pool.

  It feels like . . . jelly.

  I take a whiff as I push through. And then I see it. Sticky, sweet, lime Jell-O.

  Screaming. Shouting. Fights break out, and overhead Wang shouts, “No fighting!” And there’s the sounds of latex sliding together, Jell-O sloshing, and the even more jarring sound of balloons popping. All over.

  I grab for the two balloons I saw before and notice the first one says “SHVETA PATEL.” I wade over to the other one and grab it before the kid on my foursome, Silas Chen, can. I grin when I see the name on it. “PENELOPE CARPENTER.”

  “Whose are those?” he asks me, sifting frantically through the balloons and handfuls of lime shit.

  “Not yours.”

  “You’ll give me mine if you see it, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  I whirl in a different direction and dive through a sea of lime and latex as a woman throws herself at me. She’s crying, tears running down her face, a glob of jelly between her tits. “This is so nasty!”

  “Fuck you!” someone screams behind me, and more balloons pop. “Give me that fucking balloon! You asshole!”

  So much for keeping it clean.

  “Our first contestant, Greta Waltz,” Will says solemnly, “has been eliminated.”

  I can’t see any more balloons with writing on them from my vantage point, so I straighten and look for Penny. She’s all the way on the other end of the pool, slowly and carefully going through each balloon. I start to wade toward her, sloshing through Jell-O as I go. As I do, I run across a girl in a sari who’s practically buried to the nose in balloons and trying to keep her head above them. “Shveta?”

  She almost doesn’t hear me, the noise is so loud. “Yes?”

  I hand her her balloon.

  “Are you serious?” She lifts it up and stares at it. “Oh my god. Thank you.”

  I keep wading through the chaos to get to Penny as Will Wang announces, “We’ve found our first contestant, ladies and gentlemen! Shveta Patel from New Jersey!”

  He proceeds to give a long rundown on Shveta’s background. All the while, I’ve got my eye on the balloons around me as I make my way across the pool.

  Five more people are disqualified, one from my athletic foursome, who I see stalking to the edge of the wall with the rest of the losers, muttering curses under his breath. Then I see Ace. I watch as he squeezes a balloon in his hands, popping it.

  “And yet another one bites the dust!” Will Wang cries. “Ace Moulder is on a tear, people. He’s already sent three people to their doom. The rest of the contestants better hope that their balloons don’t end up in his hands!”

  Fuck. But I’m still in it. As I get closer, I notice Penny is looking a little more worried. She’s still methodically checking each balloon, but there’s a little crease on her forehead, and she keeps looking up at the losers’ wall, as if she can see herself there.

  “Penny!” I shout.

  She doesn’t look up.

  Right. She doesn’t go by that name.

  “Penelope Carpenter!”

  She looks up this time, and her eyes light when she sees the red balloon in my hands.

  Just then, out of nowhere, Ace comes up behind me and makes a dive for the balloon in my hands. I yank it away in the nick of time, but I lose my grip on it and it floats into the air. I grab for it, but it’s just out of my reach. It floats aloft, toward Ace.

  Who’s grinning at it.

  He holds his hands up for it, and it floats right to his fingertips.

  Shit.

  Clenching my fists, I run for him and dive onto his shoulders, taking him down under the waves of latex and lime. Away from the eye of the c
ameras, I deliver a punch to his throat that makes him choke out all the air in his lungs. When I surface, there’s a spotlight on me.

  Will Wang’s annoying voice blares: “Would you look at that, people. That’s Luke Cross, playing Prince Charming to Penelope Carpenter. Ladies, isn’t he a dream?”

  Wiping globs of green shit from my eyes, I grab the balloon solidly in my hands. By now, Penny is in front of me. “Are you going to pop it on me?” she asks, worried.

  “Nah.” I hand it to her. “Who do you think I am?”

  “I guess I don’t know,” she murmurs, pushing her glasses up on her nose. “Thank you.”

  She starts to climb out of the pool as Will Wang announces, “Our next contestant through to round two—Penelope Carpenter!”

  She looks back at me and smiles broadly.

  Well, well, well. So she can smile. Maybe she’s not so uptight as I thought.

  “Hey. Pussy boy,” a voice calls behind me.

  I turn.

  Ace is holding a yellow balloon. I can see “LUKE” written on it.

  Shit.

  Before I can think to do anything else, he squeezes it between his palms, and it bursts, leaving me looking at nothing but his ugly-ass satisfied smile.

  SURVIVING ROUND ONE

  Nell

  What is my strategy? I don’t know. I suppose I’ll use my brain, since I’m not very athletic. I once nearly drowned in two feet of water.

  —Nell’s Confessional, Day 1

  Even though my entire lower half is covered in lime jelly, I stride to the winners’ risers, feeling like I could float on air.

  I can’t believe it. I survived round one.

  Thanks to him. My dirty boy who can’t stop looking at me.

  Courtney and I joked that I’d probably be the first one eliminated. We’d bet that I’d probably be home snug in my bed by the end of day one of filming.

  But not only am I not eliminated . . . I’m not one of fifty anymore.

  I’m one of eighteen.

  I have the prize schedule from the black folder tattooed on my brain, so I know what each of the eighteen will get. Fifty thousand dollars.

  Fifty thousand dollars!

  And I barely had to lift a finger. I just got the right balloon, and . . .

  “Our next elimination—and ladies, I’m sorry about this one, I know it’s gotta hurt—Luke Cross. I’m sure our entire female audience is crying out right now. The knight in shining armor is no more. I really thought he’d get a lot farther in this competition,” Will Wang says, a note of sympathy in his voice.

  I look up in horror in time to see Luke, covered in a head-to-toe glaze of gelatin, heading to the other wall. The losers’ wall.

  No. No.

  Did I do that? Is it my fault?

  I hold the balloon in my hands, the one with my name on it that Luke rescued for me. And I can’t help feeling that it should be his. That he should be here instead of me.

  Shveta comes over and hugs me. “I can’t believe this! We’re going to the next round!”

  My heartbeat is thudding in my ears as I watch Luke standing there, against the wall, a mildly pissed-off expression on his face. He’s probably ruing the day he ever helped an incompetent like me. He crosses his arms, and his eyes stay trained on the ground.

  And I. Feel. Like. Crap.

  Another ten minutes go by, and that’s all it takes for the rest of the balloons to be either popped or found. When everyone has exited the pool and is standing on either the winners’ or losers’ side, Will Wang says, “Well, here we are. We have seventeen people who have found their balloons. Thirty-three who have had their dreams crushed in the first moments of Million Dollar Marriage. But as I mentioned before, there is still a chance for those who don’t have a balloon to be put back in the game.”

  He comes down from the podium and walks to Shveta. He smiles at her. “Our first winner. And now we get to what Million Dollar Marriage is all about. You’re going to be divided into teams now. On the count of three, I’d like you to pop your balloon and find the sheet of paper inside.”

  He counts, and the second he reaches three, Shveta squeezes and pops the balloon. A piece of paper falls to her feet. She reaches down and opens it.

  “Please read the name for the audience,” Will Wang says.

  She wrinkles her nose. “Ace Moulder.”

  The crowd cheers. “Come on over here, Ace!” the announcer says. Ace struts from farther down the winners’ side over to them, looking warily at Shveta. Will Wang takes his balloon, pops it, and pulls out the name Shveta Patel. “You two are partners and must work together!”

  Ace lets out an audible “Fuck,” and Shveta looks nothing less than horrified. Will motions them over to a set of bleachers, where Ace is positioned behind Shveta. They both look utterly thrilled.

  Then Will Wang looks at me. “Our number two, the lovely and brilliant Dr. Penelope Carpenter.”

  There’s mild applause as I suddenly realize that I’m going to be paired with one of these men. Will looks down at my balloon. I struggle to pop it, squeezing my eyes shut as it does. Will picks up the paper and looks down at it. “As we mentioned, there is still a chance for our people from the losers’ wall. And now one lucky loser is about to come back into the game, courtesy of our fair doctor.” He hands me the paper. “Please read the name aloud.”

  I look at it, and for the first time, I’m glad. Because for the first time, I think I might be in good hands.

  “Luke Cross.”

  Luke

  My strategy? I have the same strategy in life. Be good to people, and the rest’ll take care of itself.

  —Luke’s Confessional, Day 1

  “Luke Cross has been saved by the shy but very lovely Dr. Carpenter!” Will Wang shouts. “Come on over here, you big lug!”

  Will Wang has already begun to annoy me, but fuck it.

  I’m going to round two. Fifty thousand dollars.

  I pump my fist and break free of the losers’ wall, then give him a hug, waving to the cheering audience of fake fans. “Don’t thank me—thank your girl,” he says.

  I advance on her to give her a hug, but she takes a step back, almost falling into the pool again. She has that deer-in-the-headlights look on her face, I think from all the cameras. I give her a thumbs-up.

  “Is he my partner?” she mumbles softly, looking shell-shocked.

  “Indeed he is! But we’ll get to that part in a minute!” Will says, so brightly I wonder if he had crack for breakfast. “Let’s meet our next seven couples!”

  Will goes down the line, pairing off couples. Next is Ivy, my bodybuilder alliance, and Cody, this slight Asian guy I don’t know. I stand next to Penny on the platform, and I can almost feel her shaking.

  “You okay?” I ask her.

  “I—I can’t believe I made it this far,” she says.

  “Yeah? Well, I’m going all the way,” I tell her. “You can come with me.”

  She raises an eyebrow. “You’re not going to clean the floor with my ass?”

  “Hell no. Not now that you’re on my team.”

  She’s quiet for a minute as the applause from the next announced couple—one of my athletics, Brad, and an older, badass motorcycle woman in a leather bustier and piercings by the name of Natalie—dies down. “I think I’m going to weigh you down.”

  I laugh. “How much can a little thing like you weigh?”

  “I’m just saying . . . if you want to win, I think you’d be better off with—” She points to the others. “Any one of them.”

  “Maybe. But I have you. I’m good.”

  The rest of the teams are decided, bringing us up to nine couples. Will Wang says, “Here they are, people! Your original Million Dollar Marriage teams! Each individual here is guaranteed a minimum of fifty thousand dollars!”

  We all cheer. Fuck yeah.

  “But, losers . . . there’s still a chance that you can get into the game, and we’re going to go over that rig
ht now.”

  The lights dim, and some intense music plays overhead.

  Will Wang says, “Teams, you have the choice to participate in the next challenge. If you decide to, you’ll receive a minimum of seventy thousand dollars! All you have to do is say YES!”

  I shrug and call out, “Hell YES!”

  Will laughs. “Hold on, buckaroo. There’s a catch you might want to know about. And that brings us to the main premise of the show. John Phillips, are you out there? Please, join me on the podium.”

  A man in a suit stands up, and the crowd parts to let him through. He jogs up to the podium, shakes Will’s hand, and stands beside him.

  “John is here for a very special reason. A very special ceremony, if you will.”

  The cameras are focused on our faces, and I know something is up.

  “Yes, in fact, John happens to be a justice of the peace.”

  The crowd gasps. Next to me, Penny’s body stiffens.

  “Yes. In order to participate in the next challenge and any challenges going forward, you and your partner must be man and wife!”

  Louder gasp. The screens overhead focus in on the shock of the contestants. Penny’s trembling. Ivy looks pissed. Ace is hurling out f-bombs into the air. The Indian girl has sunk to the ground and is covering her face in her palms. It’s chaos.

  Me? I’m calm as can be.

  It’s called Million Dollar Marriage. Did they think marriage wouldn’t factor in?

  I’m in.

  “You will need to spend the rest of the time living with your partner as a unit. You’ll do everything together for the duration of the contest. There will be challenges that test your endurance, your strength, and your ability to work together as a couple. If you win, you’ll each get two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and the opportunity to have the marriage annulled, should you choose. BUT, if you decide to stay together as lawfully married, you’ll together receive the grand prize of ONE MILLION DOLLARS and an all-expenses-paid honeymoon package!”