God Bless This Mess(41)

Right before the big weekend, I prayed: “Okay, God. This is it. How could it not be? You’ve led me this far. I’m supposed to be Miss USA . . . aren’t I?”

I guess God’s answer was “No,” because I didn’t even place.

I was so confused. I couldn’t understand: Why would God give me this amazing opportunity, but then put this barrier in my way? I was always told I had a pretty face, and my body needed work. Now my body looked right for the competition, but my face was a mess.

The acne did me in. When all was said and done, Miss USA was still a beauty pageant, and caked-on makeup over zits just wasn’t gonna win it. I finally thought a part of me was fixed, and then this other thing happened.

I honestly dealt with the loss okay. I was already so down about my acne that not placing in the competition didn’t make me feel much worse. I felt like nobody was looking at me, anyway. They were just looking at my acne. So in a way I was glad when it was all over.

*

A month later, I went out with a couple of friends of mine, and over lunch they asked me what I was gonna do next.

I really had no idea.

They asked me if I was seeing anyone, and I laughed. I’d had no time.

“Plus, how am I ever gonna meet someone now?” I said. “I don’t know how to meet anyone outside of school.”

“You should go on The Bachelor!” one of them said.

I laughed. “Maybe,” I responded. “At this point it might be my only option.”

I wasn’t serious. I had barely even watched the show. I had only seen a few episodes, ever. But it’s so weird that it came up that day, because that same afternoon I got a call from a phone number I didn’t recognize. I recognized that it was an LA area code, though, so I picked up. I thought maybe it was somebody I’d known from my Paul Mitchell days, or something.

It wasn’t.

It was a producer from The Bachelor, saying that someone had nominated me, anonymously, and they wanted to know if I was interested in auditioning for the next season of the show.

“Is this some kind of a joke?” I asked.

“No,” they said. “We really liked the application they sent in, and we love that you were Miss Alabama. We’re interested in seeing more. Can you send us a video, just telling us a little more about yourself? It doesn’t have to be anything formal or professional, but we’d need you to send us something in the next forty-eight hours.”

“I . . . um . . . sure!” I said.

They gave me all the info I needed, and I immediately called my friends from lunch.

“Did you do this?” I asked.

They insisted it wasn’t them. They were as shocked as I was. I called my mom, and it wasn’t her. I had absolutely no idea who submitted my name to the show.

I shot a little audition tape on my phone, and then I went and rented the most recent season of The Bachelor, starring a guy named Arie, just so I could see what I was getting myself into. I sat on the sofa and took notes on it. I counted the number of outfits the girls wore, and it was a lot! I wasn’t sure I could afford to buy that many outfits. I took note of what happened each week, and what happened on the group dates and the solo dates. I loved that they were traveling around the world and seeing such beautiful places. I wanted to travel the world and see beautiful places! What’s the worst that could happen?

At the same time, I also started watching the latest season of The Bachelorette, which had just started airing that May—and after seeing that show, I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it. I looked at all of these guys they’d cast in The Bachelorette, and only one of them seemed like somebody I might like to date. It was a guy named Colton Underwood, a twenty-six-year-old who talked openly about how he was choosing to remain a virgin until marriage. I respected that about him. Not only that, but he was super cute, and he played football, and he’d started a charitable foundation, and he just seemed like the nicest guy.

I actually told some of my friends, “The only way I’ll do this show is if they choose Colton as the next Bachelor.”

In the meantime the producers watched my cell-phone video, and they invited me to come to Atlanta for an in-person interview. Atlanta was one of the last locations for casting calls around the country. The show selected everybody by the end of August, they said, so there wasn’t much time.

I still had the acne issue, and I didn’t think I wanted to do it, so I really didn’t take it that seriously. But my mom said, “Just go! Give it a try. It’ll be fun!”

So I went.

On the way to Atlanta, I got a text from a videographer I had hired to shoot some footage for me just before the Miss USA pageant. She was a friend of a friend, and I didn’t know her very well, but she texted me a “Hey girl!” and told me that she was the one who had sent in the anonymous application!

I called her from the car. “Why?” I asked.

“I woke up in the middle of the night,” she said, “and felt like I should nominate you for The Bachelor. I don’t know why. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Well, they called me! I am on my way to an audition right now,” I said.

“I knew it,” she said. She was so excited for me. “And now I’ve just been watching the show, and I love Colton.”

“I’ve started to watch it too, and the only guy that I want to date is Colton.”