The One - Hardcover

Argy, Julia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593542789 ISBN 13: 9780593542781

Verlag: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2023

Inhaltsangabe

A razor-sharp and seductively hypnotic debut novel about the very fantasy of falling in love.

Emily didn’t join the cast of The One for fame or for a relationship. She simply didn’t have anything better to do. Newly fired from her dead-end job, it doesn’t take much convincing when she’s recruited as a last-minute contestant for the popular reality dating show. Emily has been performing her entire life—for her family and friends, former boyfriends, and coworkers. How different could it be playing herself in front of cameras?

But the moment Emily arrives, it becomes clear she’s been tapped to win it all. Emily’s producer Miranda sees her as the golden ticket: generically pretty, affable, and easily molded—all the qualities of a future Wife. Emily herself is less certain. It’s easy enough to fall in love under romantic lighting and perfectly crafted dates, but it’s harder to remember what’s real and what’s designed. And as Emily’s fascination with another contestant grows, both Emily and Miranda are forced to decide what it is they really want—and what they are willing to do to get it.

A brilliant send-up of our cultural mythology around romance, The One examines the reality of love and desire set against a world of ultimate artifice and manipulation.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Julia Argy received her MFA in fiction from the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan in 2021. Before that, she graduated from Harvard University with a degree in statistics. She lives in Massachusetts.

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Night One

Miranda wants me to act like I'm about to meet my husband. She says I should walk toward him like I'm walking down the aisle. Through the dark tinted window of the limousine, Dylan looks like the model in a Folgers commercial, so blandly hot that he could be anyone's husband, which is exactly why he was picked for the role. Miranda starts counting down for the woman across from me to exit the car first. The next time she gets to one, it will be my turn. I'll step out of the limo and make my debut on national television. The first woman seems composed as she greets him, her cornflower blue silk dress flowing over her thin frame, and her skin like the skin of a regal baby in a painting. They hug, talk back and forth a bit, laugh, and hug again.

I want him to look at me the way he's looking at her already, his eyes crinkling at the edges with a smile. I can be desirable if I try hard enough. In my regular life, I do it all the time, pouting about the heat so my downstairs neighbor will install my window A/C unit for me, laughing too hard at barely a joke from a man on the phone to get a discount on my renter's insurance. It's never come naturally to me, not that it needs to. I learned how the world works by being a quick study. When the tall double doors of the mansion close behind the first woman, Miranda starts counting again.

On the ride over, all of us took tequila shots. I sweated through each curve of the desert road, up the scrubby hills toward my potential future husband. We bit down on pristine wedges of lime from the minifridge, careful to not smudge our lipstick on the rinds, and then we screamed. I tried not to think about what I was getting myself into. Earlier today, when I modeled different outfits for Miranda, she said it was an asset that I never watched the show.

"What's he going to be like?" I asked her for what felt like the hundredth time. I was in a ribbed butter yellow dress, so cheaply made that it pilled beneath my armpits within fifteen minutes of wear, as though it was only ever supposed to be looked at and never used.

"Tall," Miranda said. I spun, and Miranda shook her head no, vetoing the dress. "Stop overthinking. He's going to like you."

"And if he doesn't?"

"Then eventually you'll go home, and then three months from now, you'll see yourself on TV and think, 'My whole life is different now. Better. Thanks, Miranda.' Trust me," she said.
 
"I do trust you," I said.
 
"Good. You'll need to."
 
When Miranda gets to one, the driver opens the door and the damp skin on my thighs, exposed through the slits of my jumpsuit, shears off from the leather seat. In my peripherals, there's an encampment of tents, travel trailers, filming equipment, and porta-potties. Two women dressed in black sit on a grassy slope behind the limousine, staring at a phone. The blue light illuminates their faces. My own phone was taken away as soon as I landed at LAX, and I miss its pretty, sedative glow. I had trouble falling asleep the first few nights at the hotel away from it, my brain unable to slow down without the anonymous lull of my Instagram suggested page, filling in square after square of lithe dancing teens and reports of dogs elected as small-town mayors. Next to the women on the grass, a cameraperson sits behind a rig the size of a medieval catapult and turns the camera toward me.

"Thank you," I say to the driver as he shuts the door behind me, a habit ironed into me by my mother. Thank the bus driver when you leave. Thank the men who hold doors for you at church. Thank the cashier at 7-Eleven for giving you free coffee every morning for being pretty, sixteen, and in a Catholic school uniform. Thank as many people as possible, and then, every morning and night, thank God for all your blessings. The driver nods and backs away. When I feel brave enough to look up at Dylan, he's focused on Miranda, who has slunk out from the passenger door.

"Again," she calls out. The catapult camera swings back toward the fountain to recapture my entrance. "Don't thank the driver. I thought I told you that."
 
"Oh, sorry," I say. I apologize more loudly to Dylan, who's smiling at me across the driveway.
 
"Think of them as moving furniture." He gestures to the vast number of people responsible for creating the atmosphere for us to fall in love, which seems at least a little ungrateful. Dylan tries to ask my name, but Miranda yells at him from inside the limo to cut it out.

"Patience is a virtue," I respond, and I know it's a good line, that I'm being alluring. Back in the limo, Miranda starts counting as soon as the door shuts and the other women stay silent. As we drove here, I tried to think about what made me stand out from them, but we're all slim and beautiful, dressed up like it's an adult prom. I've heard that in the dank corners of boys' locker rooms women are ranked by two factors: tits and ass. Whatever television executives chose Dylan to be the One would pick someone more evolved, surely, but as each of us parades in front of him for ninety seconds max, he can't rank us on much else. My assets on both counts seem to be lacking. I'll have to make a go of it based on a sugar-sweet personality.

When I get out the second time, I stare at his hair, parted down the middle. It's almost unfashionable, but for some reason it looks good, so precisely tousled that he must have his own hairstylist. He may even be wearing makeup. Later tonight, I could touch his hair and find out if it's stiff with gel or crispy with mousse. Now that I'm here, I could press my lips, coated in a dry cupcake-flavored liquid lipstick, against his and see if any of his balm comes off on my own. The makeup artist kept referring to the color as "your lips, but better." This seems to be the general perspective of the show. I'm going to date, but better. I'll showcase my personality, but better. If I do a good enough job, my life, too, will end up being better.

"Hi, I'm Emily," I say.

"Dylan," he answers. "You look great in that dress."

For a second, I go to correct him, but decide against it. I'm not even sure if men like him understand what a jumpsuit is and, further, I'm not sure how I would explain it. It's a dress, but it has legs. It's supposed to be sexy, as the entirety of my naked back is visible, but cool, in that I'm in the minority of women not wearing sequins tonight. Because I'm trying to show that I have independent thoughts: I'm supposed to wear a formal dress to this event, but instead I'm wearing something that only looks like a formal dress. It's meant to be subversive.

"Oh, thanks," I say. "I've been looking forward to meeting you and to beginning this adventure."

Miranda told me to call my time on the show an adventure or a journey, and never a process, situation, or circumstance. She kept telling me I needed a hook for when I introduced myself to Dylan. I tried to make a pirate joke and she didn't laugh. She offered up ideas about costumes, fancy transportation, animal sidekicks, special gifts from home, and musical performances. She said I should show him that I'm down-to-earth. She asked if I had any cute photos of me and livestock that I could share with him, or if I had a sweet old granny who lived on a farm who could write an encouraging note for me to carry around. If it happened to slip out of my pocket and fall directly at Dylan's feet, then so be it. I failed to answer a series of probing questions about what I liked. "I don't know," I kept saying. "I like everything." Eventually, she told me to say my name and something flattering.

The day before I auditioned for the show back in Boston, I had been fired from my job as an administrative assistant at a biotech start-up. My boss told me that, as I could probably guess, it wasn't working out. I nodded, though I hadn't...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: G.P. Putnam's Sons
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2023
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593542789
• ISBN 13: 9780593542781
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 304
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar