Page 13 of Alice Chen's Reality Check

STORY NOTES FOR EDITORS: SEASON 1 TV SPOT “DAWN TAY’S INFERNO: LOVE IS HELL”

Executive Producer(s): Dawn Taylor, Peter Dixon

DAWN TAYLOR, VOICEOVER:Get ready for the newest reality show to hit the beach! Can love survive a journey through HELL?

[B-roll footage: Contestants in bikinis splash in the water.]

[Dawn Taylor, barefoot and walking across a sandy beach, straight to camera.]

DAWN TAYLOR:Babes, it’s Dawn Taylor calling, and you better pick up. Here on this sexy, sexy tropical island, I’ll be putting ten couples to the ultimate test. If their love can survive my inferno, one couple will winone million dollars!

[Footage: Chase De Lancey and Alice Chen on yacht in talking head interview.]

CHASE DE LANCEY:We’re in love, and we’re ready to prove it to the world!

DAWN TAYLOR, VOICEOVER:But to secure the bag, they’ll have to pass through all my circles of hell: lust, treachery, anger…and some other ones.

[B-roll footage: A couple kisses passionately.]

[B-roll footage: A woman runs from the competition in tears.]

[B-roll footage: Multiple people vomiting.]

DAWN TAYLOR, VOICEOVER:Welcome to…Dawn Tay’s Inferno!

Chapter Four

Hell Is Your Past Coming Back to Bite You in the Ass

It’s hard to believe that just last week, I was going about my normal, everyday life: teaching my last class of the school year, signing yearbooks, and wrapping farewell gifts to hand out during the eighth-grade graduation ceremony. Now here I am, on a luxury yacht, speeding toward paradise, about to be on reality TV for the first time in my life.

They took my phone away when I stepped on the yacht, but not before I sent a text to my mother promising that I would drink water, and then another text reminding her where I’d left a Post-it note of emergency contacts. She’ll be fine, I remind myself. She’s in between treatment rounds, so she shouldn’t be too worn out. Plus, she has friends checking on her, and Auntie Yee from church is bringing home-cooked meals to her every day. I told my mom I was going to a teachers’ conference in Arizona and wouldn’t have time to check in. It might be wishful thinking, but I’m hoping my mom just never finds out about this. I don’t think she even knows what reality TV is.

Without my phone, I’m forced to admire my surroundings. I squint against the sun and fight the urge to beg the PA to let me send one last text. I’m already antsy without a phone, which is kind of sad, given that it’s only been, like, forty minutes. My hand keeps straying to my empty pocket to check for messages or alerts.

Chase lounges beside me, his tanned shoulder pressing warmlyagainst mine. He’s handsome as always, but there’s something about being in this setting, with the sun catching the gold in his enviably wavy hair, that makes him extra jaw-droppingly hot. He’s got a jawline that could cut butter and a body destined for 4K resolution.

The water around us is the kind of deep and fathomless blue that you see in cruise ship commercials. Everything about this moment screams romance. If a Hollywood filmmaker was going to direct the story of my life, this would’ve been the scene where Chase drops down on one knee and proposes, rather than where he actually proposed—in the middle of Arby’s.Thisplace, however, is the perfect setup.

Well, except for all the people congregated in front of us. At the very front of the crowd is our producer, Leah, standing beside the cameraman and a sound tech. They’re all laser-focused on me, waiting for me to deliver the soundbite they want.

“Alice, just say what you feel,” Leah advises.

I nod, even though there’s no way I’m doing that. If I said what I felt, I’d be talking about the mosquito bite that’s already starting to swell up on my left arm or the slight nausea I feel from the rolling waves buoying up the yacht. And that’s not fair to Leah, who, judging by the way she’s raking her manicured hands through her mass of red curls, has decided that I’m either going to be her greatest success or her greatest failure. My money’s on the latter. At this point, Leah’s made no fewer than seventeen corrections to my posture, my stance, my tone, and, bafflingly, my vibe.

“We’re in love. And we’re ready to prove it to the world,” I say brightly, my forced smile making my cheeks hurt.

“Again, but this time, hold Chase’s hand,” Leah says, her green eyes projecting earnestness even as I notice her mouth thin. She’s clutching a snakeskin notebook and aggressively clicking the pen sandwiched between the pages.

I take Chase’s hand, and he winks at me. Unlike me, he’s a natural at all of this. Anything that would check a D&D character’s charisma stat, he’s going to nail. That’s what drew me to him in the first place.(That, and the free coffee.) He’s got enough confidence to bend reality, and it made me want to hang around him, as if that confidence could rub off on me. At the very least, I get the halo effect of his good luck and charm.

But that’s not enough to allow me to coast like him. I have to work to get what I want. I mentally review my checklist.

Day 1 goals:

Analyze competition for weaknesses

---