One To Watch(31)

She was grateful, too, that the men were already on deck, so none of them were around to witness her awkward embarkation up the yacht’s ladder from the little speedboat. Once aboard, though, the yacht was as spectacular as Bea had hoped: The spacious cabins belowdecks were plush and comfortable, outfitted with thick carpets, mirrored dressers, marble bathrooms, and cushy beds.

“I could get used to this,” Bea cooed as Lauren showed her to the cabin that had been set up as her private dressing space.

“I’m glad you’re happy.” Lauren rubbed Bea’s shoulder, and Bea felt a surge of affection for her producer, who really was doing her best to make this whole adventure feel special.

“Okay,” Lauren went on, “the guys are all waiting on deck; we’ll give you some privacy to change your clothes and then you’ll head up to meet them?”

“Change? What’s wrong with the dress I’m wearing?”

“Nothing! But you can hardly wear a dress to a hot-tub party, can you?”

Bea felt her stomach drop. “Hot-tub party?”

“Yes! For your first date, I wanted to go full luxury: a hot tub on the deck of a yacht on the Pacific. Wow, right?”

“Wow. Right.”

“Great! So we laid out some swimsuits for you to choose from—”

“Lauren, no. I’m not wearing a bathing suit on TV. Just—no.”

“I’m confused—you said it was really important to show America that you’re proud of your body. And you post bikini selfies on your blog all the time!”

Bea closed her eyes. “That’s different.”

“Why? Help me understand.”

“Because it’s my blog. I’m the one in control: I get to approve the photos, I’m the one choosing to publish them, and I feel proud of every single image. With this—it’s video, and it’s high def. If I wear a swimsuit on this show, hideous trolls are going to find the least flattering shots of me and turn them into memes and GIFs, they’re going to say disgusting things about me and tweet them at me every day.”

Bea’s breath was shallow, and her palms were sweating. Stay calm, she willed herself. Don’t panic.

“But Bea,” Lauren said softly, “don’t you think you have a better chance of fighting those trolls if you go out there with your head held high, if you show them that it doesn’t matter what they think? Don’t you think that’s the best way to shut them down?”

Bea laughed bitterly. “The only way to shut them down is not to feed them. Believe me, they’re going to make a meal out of this.”

“Well—then what about not letting them win? Not letting them control what you do with your body?”

“Sure, if they were stopping me from doing something I actually wanted to do, but I don’t want to do this! Please, Lauren—can’t we just do a regular cocktail party and nix the hot-tub thing? I don’t understand why this is such a big deal.”

Lauren shook her head. “The guys all wore their swimsuits here—they don’t have changes of clothes. If I send them all back to the compound and bring them back out here, it’ll take too much time; we’ll lose the light. We don’t have a lighting setup to shoot here after dark, and we only have the boat for today.”

“Okay, so they can wear their suits, and I can wear this dress. It’s beachy, right?”

“Bea, if you want to wear the dress, that’s your prerogative, but …”

“But?” Bea prompted.

“If they’re all in swimsuits, and you’re in regular clothes—it’ll just look ridiculous, you know? It’ll seem like you’re ashamed of your body, and I know that’s not the message you want to project.”

Bea wished there were some way to make Lauren understand what she was asking, to help her see how hard Bea had to fight to maintain control over who saw her body and how: carefully choosing outfits that made her feel great about herself, shopping almost exclusively online to avoid the indignity of pitying salespeople explaining that they simply don’t stock her size, finally buying her own personal seatbelt extender for air travel so she’d never have to endure the snide looks of another flight attendant or fellow passenger when she was forced to request one. And now, with millions of people tuned in, more people than had ever looked at her in her life, Lauren wanted to obliterate her ability to exert any power over how she was seen. She wished she saw a way around it—but Lauren was right. They were out of options.

“If I do this,” Bea said with resignation, “will you promise not to use it as a storyline for the episode?”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

Bea narrowed her eyes. “Yes, you do. The way you had that man walk off last night to create sympathy for me—do not do that with this bathing suit, with my body. Do not film the men saying wretched things about me to make America like me better. If I’m going to treat this situation as normal and nothing to be ashamed of, then they should too.”

“You’re right, Bea.” Lauren met her gaze. “I promise.”

Bea waited for Lauren and the other crew members to leave and shut the door before she closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. Bea modeled on her blog, but she wasn’t a model by any means. Her figure wasn’t perfectly proportional; her round belly gave her more of an apple shape, and she’d worked for years to overcome her insecurities about the puckering dimples in the skin of her arms and thighs. She knew these parts of her were deeply normal, but all the same, she usually kept them covered or minimized with an army of fashion tricks.