“If that’s all true,” Jenn said, putting her hands on her hips, “why wouldn’t I just break up with him?”
Wilde sighed. “Are we really going to play it that way? Okay, fine. If you broke up with Peter, the perceived nicest man in the world, you’d be the bad guy. You couldn’t have that. But once you were the one wronged—pretty much the minute your sister went on the podcast—the fans flocked to social media to defend you and villainize Peter. Suddenly your social media engagements soared. You were bigger than ever. You set it all up, Jenn. You hired Henry McAndrews. You, of course, took the compromising photographs of Peter. Who else? It couldn’t have been hard. You just hid a camera. You cut yourself out of the photographs. You were even smart enough to not do it in your own bedroom—someone might notice the background. But here you messed up a little. The EXIF data showed two of the photos were taken in Scottsdale. It wasn’t hard to check. You and Peter were in Scottsdale on those dates. I’ll be able to get someone to match up the background with your hotel room that night. There will be more proof. You paid Henry McAndrews via a law firm, but now he’s been murdered, the cops will demand to know who his clients were.”
Big Bobbo looked at her. “Babe?”
“Shut up, Bob,” Jenn said. “This is all nonsense.”
“We both know it’s not. We both know it is all going to fall apart. I’m a little surprised though. I figured you”—Wilde turned to Big Bobbo—“were in on it. But of course, she couldn’t trust you. Or anyone. Not even Marnie.” He looked back at Jenn. “You knew Marnie would do anything for fame—she’s just like you that way. So you set up Marnie’s ambush with that producer. The woman who told Marnie the story about Peter roofying her—was she a producer too? Doesn’t matter. But I do wonder why you didn’t just ask Marnie to cooperate in your scheme. That part surprised me. But maybe even Marnie wouldn’t have gone that far. Maybe you worried that if Marnie knew the truth, you were more vulnerable. I don’t know. But tell me: When Peter swore up and down to you that he was innocent, what did you really say?”
Jenn smiled now. There was still denial, but there was also something akin to relief. “I told him I didn’t believe him. I told him to get out.”
Wilde nodded.
“And you’re right for the most part,” Jenn continued. “Peter and I had become boring TV. I thought about just breaking up with him, but like you said, how would I come across? I thought about asking him to manufacture a way to have us split up, but I couldn’t think of a way, and Peter’s game was to play it straight.”
Big Bobbo said, “Babe?”
She sighed. “No, I didn’t tell you, Bob. I didn’t tell Marnie. Because neither of you are good enough actors to pull it off. This is a game, Wilde. Survivor, The Bachelor, Big Brother, Love Is a Battlefield—they are contests and entertainment. That’s all. I used to watch Survivor and some pathetic contestant would get tricked and voted off and he would be throwing a hissy fit about betrayal, but of course, that’s the whole game, isn’t it? Someone has to come out on top. Someone gets the fame and the riches. Our life—Peter’s, mine, heck Bob’s—it’s a game.”
She moved closer to Big Bobbo and put her hand in his. “I wanted Bob from Day One on that show. Do you know what the producers told me?” Big Bobbo puffed out his chest. “They told me to keep both of them for now, but in the end, I had to pick Peter.”
“So you never loved him? It was all a scam?”
“Not a scam,” she said. “Our whole life is playacting. It’s not a question of what’s real and what’s fake—there are no lines, no distinctions. Before I was on Battlefield, I was a filing secretary at a small law office. Do you know how boring that was? We all want to be famous. That’s everyone’s goal, if they’re honest. Even the most pissant social media account wants more likes and followers. Should I just let myself go back to that mundane life without a fight? No way. Survivor, Bachelor, Love Is a Battlefield. They’re contests with winners and losers. In this case, I won. Peter lost. That’s how it works. It was him or me, and guess what? It ended up being me. And what did I really do to him, huh? He wasn’t thrown in jail. He wasn’t being investigated or arrested. He just lost some fans—so what? He knew that the allegations against him weren’t true. Shouldn’t that have been enough? Anonymous losers online said mean things about him—big deal. Take yourself off social media if you can’t handle that. Meet another girl. Live a simpler life. Peter could have chosen that, right?”