And then it comes. My answer. A faint beep, letting me know I have a new private message from 0001. “Please.” I open it, my hands trembling. . . .
0001: Do you watch The Bachelor?
Eleven
Weird that 0001 would bring up The Bachelor. When Emily was eleven, I caught her watching the dating reality show on her iPad and got so angry with her, I took her device away for a week. An overreaction, I know—particularly since I’d never watched The Bachelor myself and was basing everything on preconceptions. But somehow the idea of all these intelligent young women competing pageant-style for the love of some blandly handsome pharmaceutical sales rep who kept talking about his “journey.” . . . It seemed to me like the ultimate wrong lesson for a girl her age to be learning. （If she wanted to watch reality TV, I reasoned, why not something like Survivor or The Amazing Race or even American Idol, where winning was based on real skills?） I suppose deep down, I was afraid of her growing up with the priorities I’d had as a young woman in Southern California, when I spent a year and a half saving eight thousand dollars for a boob job because, college education or not, design skills or not, my dream, as taught to me by my own mother, was to be the final destination of a man’s journey.
Anyway, as far as I know, Emily stopped watching. And I didn’t think of The Bachelor again until one time a few years ago, when Luke and I were talking about the Harris Blanchard trial, and he said to me, “You got the villain edit.”
When I asked him to explain, he somewhat sheepishly told me that it’s a “Bachelor Nation term” for how one’s words and expressions can get spliced together to turn even the most reasonable person into the bad guy （or girl, as it were）， all for the purpose of creating the most compelling narrative.
I said, “Did you really just use the phrase Bachelor Nation term?” And he confessed: Not only were he and Nora card-carrying citizens of Bachelor Nation who faithfully watched the show and all its incarnations, from Bachelor Pad to Winter Games, he also had a personal connection. Years before he met Nora, Luke had actually auditioned for The Bachelorette. “Ali’s season,” he told me. “I got a callback, but I didn’t make the final cut.”
At the time, I said something like “Ali’s loss is Nora’s gain,” and quickly moved on to the next topic to save him any further humiliation. But now that 0001 has told me that the first part of my next assignment is to 1） catch up on this season of The Bachelor via streaming platforms and recaps, and 2） announce my newfound love of the show to whomever I can, I’m on the phone with Luke for the third time in six days, reiterating my anger over the current Bachelor’s poor choices. “I don’t understand why he kicked Alayah off,” I’m saying now, the passion in my voice surprising me. “Sure she’s a little annoying and over-the-top. But if Pilot Pete were to send home every single person on that show who is annoying and over-the-top—”
“This is weird, Cam.”
“What’s weird?”
“This. The Bachelor talk. I mean, come on. You don’t even watch TV.”
“What’s weird,” I tell him, “is that I didn’t discover The Bachelor earlier.” I’m surprised at the conviction in my own voice. But then again, when I commit to something, I do it fully. “I don’t know. Maybe starring in a viral video has made me rethink my feelings about shows where people humiliate themselves.”
“Really?”
“Also, I love the travel photography.”
He laughs a little. “Hey, maybe if you’re in the city sometime, you can hang out with Nora and me and watch Pilot Pete make more bad decisions.”
“I’d love that.” The back of my neck is starting to sweat. I’m not used to keeping things from Luke—not important things, anyway.
It’s necessary. I understand that. I can’t tell anyone about the collective—for their safety as well as for the safety of the many women involved. But it is disheartening that, for the sake of my “sisters,” I have to pull away from the one person in my life who truly feels like family.