Page 28 of Fan Favorite

28, Lawyer

Washington, DC

Chantel’s a small-town girl with big city dreams! Born on the Louisiana bayou, Chantel always knew she wanted to leave the crawfish behind to attend Howard University (with a major in political science) and then Harvard University (law). After a lot of hard work and dedication, Chantel’s career as an attorney is soaring, and she’s ready to make time to find her perfect man. He brings her coffee every morning and a glass of wine every night. He’s career oriented with the kind of smarts that can solve theNew York Timescrossword, even on Sundays! During the week, you can find Chantel stomping Capitol Hill in her designer shoe collection, and on the weekends, stopping by her favorite spa or watching her guilty pleasure,The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

10

Who’s that girl?” Edie asked, stumbling over her mules as Jessa dragged her across the patio.

“What girl?”

“What girl?”Edie gestured incredulously at the second coming of Megan Fox. “That girl!”

“Oh,” Jessa said, nonchalant. “That’s Zo. Don’t worry about her, she’s cool. So, you’ll just walk up again, same as last time.”

“Uh, she doesn’t seem cool, Jessa! She’s literally flicking me off right this second.” Edie craned her neck as she careened along behind Jessa. “She looks like a movie star.” Was Zo the NBA cheerleader? The heiress? One of the models? “Is she a model?”

“Ballerina.”

Gah.The ballerina with afavorite serial killer.

“Oh my god, she’s going to kill me, Jessa.” Edie gasped. “And that’ll be on your conscienceforever. When she smothers me dead in the middle of the night, you’ll have only yourself to blame.”

They arrived at the patio doors and Jessa took Edie by the shoulders.

“Listen to me. You just focus on being your fabulous self—”

Across the patio, silhouetted behind the living room windows, was a cluster of blurry bobbleheads peering through the drapes. Edie was going to beliving with them, these girls who probably would hate her, just for being here! Obviously, Edie knew every single girl in the cast was better than her, but she’d just assumed they’d know it, too—and, well, be nice to her? Leave her alone? But all at once Edie realized it didn’t matter if you were a regular person who ate carbs, barely exercised, and bought clothes at the Gap. OnThe Key, everyone was a threat. Behind every pretty pink pout would be some girl ready to cut a bitch because only one woman would emerge from the rubble of her fallen sisters, trudge across their sequined backs, and arrive at Bennett Charles’s mountaintop engagement, victorious.

“Holy shit, there are, like, twenty more gorgeous women inside the house, Jessa! Waiting to murder me!”

“Twelve,” Jessa said, arranging Edie’s hair prettily around her shoulders. “Twelve more women waiting to murder you.” Edie snapped her attention back to Jessa, alarmed. “I’m kidding!” Jessa rubbed Edie’s arms like a comforting mother. “It’s going to be fine. No one’s going to murder you. You’re adorable; you’ll make friends. Let’s just reset and then you and Bennett will have your talk, okay? We’ll get rid of Zo, you’ll have your chat, we’ll do some quick product placement, roll into the key ceremony, and then, boom, night’s over, and it’s time to start thinking about your first date with Bennett!”

With that, Jessa turned and crossed the patio to where Charlie was gesticulating at Peter.

Edie chewed her thumbnail. Charlie did not look happy. Like,at all. Charlie’s new thirty-five-year-old man voice rang in her ears—Fuck off, Peter. You think you’re so fucking clever—and a lightning bolt of doubt cracked through the psychotic optimism that had convinced Edie to present herself as a marriage optionto a man who was both a stranger and not. It was a little late now, but she had to consider it—what if seeing her again was the absolute last thing Charlie wanted? For the first time, Edie allowed herself to think about all the emails and phone calls that had gone unanswered, about all the years that had passed by without even a Facebook friend request. She’d forgiven him ages ago—they were just a couple of kids, untrained in both foreplay and conflict resolution—and, truly, she’d thought that no matter what, after all these years, he’d be happy to see her, Edie Pepper, his former kindergarten bestie. But what if that wasn’t true at all? What if he really didn’t want her here? What if her presence was actively ruining this experience for him?

Suddenly Edie felt like the only sensible thing to do was flee.

“It’s not you,” the camera guy said as he hoisted his camera back to his shoulder. “He hates when they surprise him. The other day they brought in a horse for a Prince Charming promo, and he flipped out. He’s nervous like that.”

“He’s allergic to horses,” she said without thinking. Edie turned to the camera guy, but before she could remember his name or get a good look at his face—Ted, that was his name, Ted—he disappeared again behind the camera. Edie knew the crew was strictly forbidden from speaking to the cast, so naturally she understood that she should take Ted’s transgression seriously. Some oracle of truth dispensed from the reality TV gods.

Charlie hated surprises. Charlie was just surprised.

A PA rushed over and began frantically shooing her back on set for take 2, and as Edie made her way across the patio, she decided the only way forward was for her to hold this mantra close to her heart.Charlie hates surprises. Charlie was just surprised.And when she reached the couch and met his eyes once again, for a second, she almost believed it.

“Edie? Edie Pepper?” Charlie exclaimed. He aimed a torpedo of a smile directly at her heart as he used Zo’s miniaturethigh to springboard off the couch. “I can’t believe it. What are you doing here?”

But in that moment, he seemed so fake to her, like some bad actor on some bad soap opera, and not like the Charlie Bennett she knew at all, or even the Bennett Charles she’d stalked from her living room. The cameras, his seriously white teeth, both their first greeting and now the second—none of it felt real. She’d thought when they saw each other again, it would be effortless. But it was a mess. She had to do something. She had to fix it.

“Yes. It is I, Edie Pepper,” she said in a playful announcer voice. “Your high school girlfriend, here to rekindle our love.” She shrugged, “I’m sorry, I can’t take this seriously. Can we just talk? Say hi like normal people?” She opened her arms to him. “Charlie, it’s me! Edie!”

And then the new and improved Charlie Bennett finally smiled a smile that Edie recognized, sheepish, with that one crooked tooth. He stepped forward and enveloped same-old-nothing-special Edie Pepper in a hug. He smelled nothing like she remembered. Her memories were of Play-Doh. Root beer. And, later, too much Drakkar Noir. But now he smelled like a man. Like leather tinged with sweat. Edie melted into his chest, closed her eyes, and savored the feeling of her cheek against his blazered shoulder.

“That’s right, Bennett, it’s your high school sweetheart, Edie Pepper,” Adam Fox boomed, suddenly standing right next to them. “Here all the way from your hometown of Chicago, Illinois, to see if the spark’s still there. And, maybe, if you’re lucky, the wedlock you two always dreamed of.”

Wedlock? Adam Foxneverbrought up wedlock this early in the season!!!

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