The Collective(36)

I scan the crowd for my new friend with the clear-framed glasses and the Western wear, hoping I’m able to recognize her. For the past week, she and I have been openly and purposefully chatting on a Bachelor subreddit called Pilot Pete Belongs with Alayah. But beyond that, I know nothing about her other than her first name. Wendy. Her name is Wendy. I think about what I said to Luke, about meeting new people who know me for who I am rather than what I’ve lost. A partial truth. I am who I am because of what I’ve lost. I can’t change that, and so I have found new friends who are as burned and shaped and redefined by loss as I am.

“Camille!” Wendy is standing up. She’s saved us a table for two near the TV, and she says my name so loudly, it cuts through the music and the whoops and the chattering voices. More than half the bar turns to look at us.

I smile, like someone smiling at an audience. Then I rush at my new friend Wendy and embrace her as though we’ve known each other for years.


WENDY DRINKS TOO much. It’s intentional—part of our script. But she is getting so shit-faced, it concerns me. She and I have a long evening ahead of us.

We’re well into the last half hour of the show, and here at the Wild Rose it’s gotten increasingly rowdy, all of us fans cheering for our favorite contestants and booing the ones we hate and chugging our drinks whenever anyone on-screen says, “She’s here for the wrong reasons,” “at the end of the day,” or, of course, “journey.”

But even in this Bachelor bedlam, Wendy stands out. Half an hour ago, I had to break up a fight between her and another woman over whether or not Victoria P. is surgically enhanced (Wendy was Team Yes and apparently felt so strongly about that, she was willing to “take this outside”). And now that Alayah has returned to set the record straight with Pilot Pete about what a scoundrel Victoria P. is, my Reddit friend has gone into overdrive again, standing up at the table and screaming at the screen, “Tell it, bitch! Tell it like it’s the last thing you’ll ever tell anyone!” as shushes erupt all around her.

“Can you please control your friend?” says a woman at the next table. “I can’t even hear what’s going on.”

I look up at Wendy, who has just polished off her fourth Final Rose. I’m midway through my first glass of wine, which I doubt I’ll finish. “Hey, take it easy. People are trying to watch.”

“Camille, come on.” She drains the rest of the glass and slams it on the table, sending shards of ice flying. “It’s Alayah’s moment of truth.”

“Quiet down!” shouts someone at another table.

“You quiet down!” Wendy hollers. It sparks a mini-riot, the women in the bar yelling at Wendy as Alayah’s fellow contestants yell at her—a strange mirror image, though Wendy gives it back a lot better than Alayah does.

“Get her out of here!”

“Hey, fuck you, it’s a free country!”

“Sit down and shut up!”

“Don’t you tell me to shut up, bitch! I’m a paying customer!”

She’s going to get us kicked out of here. She’s supposed to. For reasons unknown to me, that’s part of the script too. My guess is, we’re building an alibi. But I didn’t expect her to be this disruptive. I’m having flashbacks to my own behavior at the Brayburn Club, and I’m half-expecting a bouncer to grab Wendy and wrestle her to the floor.

The show is ending now, TO BE CONTINUED . . . at the bottom of the screen. Alayah will live to see another week, but, because of Wendy’s antics, no one’s been able to hear how. Someone throws a glass of wine at Wendy, and her jaw drops open. I gape at her, the purple stain spreading down the front of her white shirt like a gunshot wound. She whirls around, red-faced. “What the fuck?” But then the bartender is at our table in her evening gown, arms crossed over her chest, one of the hunky waiters standing behind her. “Excuse me,” she says quietly.

“You’re going to pay my dry-cleaning bill, you piece of—”

“Excuse me. I’m going to have to ask you ladies to leave.”

Wendy collapses into her chair. “Why?”

“Well, for your own safety, for one thing.”

Wendy says, “I think I’m gonna throw up, Camille.”

“Oh Jesus,” the waiter says.

I turn to Wendy. “You think you can make it outside?”

“Maybe.”

I lean over, and she puts her arm around me. “I got her,” I tell the bartender. “I’ll give her a ride home.”

The table next to us starts slow-clapping as I pull Wendy to her feet. She’s broad shouldered and strong, with about five inches on me in those cowboy boots. I’m struggling to hold her up.

“I’ll help.” The bartender puts her hand on Wendy’s shoulder, and Wendy flings her other arm around the waist of her glittery gown, the remains of her drink still in her hand, red droplets flying.

As we move past the bar and to the front door, the whole room claps us out.

We have another assignment after this. I’ve yet to know the details—Wendy supposedly has a burner phone that will receive them as texts, one by one, throughout the evening. According to 0001, the assignment is better accomplished with two people, but from the looks of things, I’m going to have to drive Wendy home, take the burner, and do it alone.