The Charm Offensive(7)

They’re rolling. The sound of horse hooves on wet flagstone fills the now-silent set, and then the carriage comes into view, rolling up to the fountain where Charles is waiting. Camera one stays trained on Charles, while camera two films the door opening. A woman in a blue dress steps out: big blue eyes to match her dress, blond beach curls, slender figure. She smiles shyly when she sees Charles, a cross necklace framed in her plunging neckline.

Her name is Daphne Reynolds, and she’s the former beauty queen from Dev’s limo. It’s no surprise Maureen sent her out of the carriage first. Quite frankly, she looks like someone fed a 3-D printer the algorithm for creating an Ever After winner. Dev knows from her file she has a college degree and her father’s a reverend, which means she perfectly straddles the line of catering to the show’s large conservative fan base without alienating its even larger feminist fan base, which claims to watch ironically.

“Hi,” Daphne says, her heels now clacking on the stones. Charles does not say hi back. Charles does not move. He stands by the fountain, his arms stiff and awkward and maybe not attached to his body, and he does not react to the beautiful woman approaching him. No smile. Not a flicker of lust.

Perhaps in response to his indifference, Daphne hesitates as she gets closer. Sputters, stops, and briefly looks like she’s contemplating a leap over the gate. She takes another step forward, and her silvery heels either catch the hem of her dress or an especially wet stone, and she slips, topples forward directly into the immovable, stoic wall that is Charles Winshaw. It’s almost a perfect—albeit unconventional for this show—meet-cute, except instead of putting out an arm to rescue Daphne, Charles flinches backward at her physical contact with his chest. She manages to right herself without his help.

“Stop! Stop!” Skylar screams. The director bursts out of the Command Central tent and into the shot, even though the cameras never stop rolling on Ever After. “What the hell was that? How can two sexy people be so offensively unsexy together? Take it again!”

Daphne’s handler escorts her back to the carriage, and they take the scene from the opening of the door. This time, Daphne doesn’t trip, but Charles still looks disinterested, and they shake hands like this is a board meeting. So they film the scene again. And again. By the fifth take, Jules is turtling into her overalls from secondhand embarrassment, Charles looks like he might vomit again from the stress, and Skylar is screaming profanities into everyone’s earpieces.

Dev has to do something before the season actually is epically fucked. He waves his hands in front of the camera to get Skylar’s attention back at Command Central and requests a five-minute break. Then he darts across the courtyard toward the first limo, where the contestants wait for their carriage ride.

“Ladies!” he greets as he slides inside. “How’s it going in here?”

They’ve all had another two hours’ worth of limo champagne fed to them by their new handler, Kennedy, who looks slightly shell-shocked by their sudden, unexpected promotion. The women hoot and holler in response. They seem to be in the middle of a dance party. Dev briefly mourns the fact that he’s not going to be spending the next nine weeks with these amazing women. “Sorry I abandoned y’all, but they’ve got me working with your Prince Charming. He’s a little bit nervous about meeting so many beautiful women.”

A collective aww ripples through the limo. Perfect. “I think he needs y’all to help him loosen up.”

Dev turns to Angie Griffin, the medical student, and the next woman out of the carriage. Angie has a beautiful, heart-shaped face framed by a pretty Afro and bearing a mischievous smile, which suggests she’s the perfect candidate for loosening up their tech nerd.

“Here’s what I’m thinking: Angie, what if you go out there and get him dancing a little bit?” Dev shimmies his shoulders demonstratively.

Angie appears to weigh the risk of potential humiliation on national television against the thrill of dancing with Charles Winshaw and slams back the rest of her limo champagne. “Let’s do it!” she says excitedly, and Dev knows it will be perfect. That part is done.

He climbs back out of the limo and jogs back to Charles for part two.

“I’m going to touch you again,” Dev warns, and good Lord—Charles blushes as Dev reaches up and adjusts his blond curls beneath the crown. Dev can’t imagine how he’s going to survive nine weeks of being groped by the women. “Okay. I need you to turn it on now.”

“Turn it on?” Charles repeats each word slowly, turning them over on his tongue. Dev watches his mouth puzzle it out, watches him press his tongue against the back of his very white, very straight teeth. Dev gently reminds himself to stop staring at this man’s mouth.

“Yes. Become the cologne ad guy. Whatever you used to do when you had to perform in front of crowds at WinHan. Turn it on.”

The expression on Charles’s face would be comical if it weren’t so thoroughly pathetic, and if this man weren’t at risk of ruining their entire show. “You can do this,” Dev says without evidence or proof that he can. But he’s good at putting faith in things other people are quick to dismiss. “I believe in you.”

Dev slides back out of the cameras’ view.

When Angie comes out of the carriage a few minutes later, she sambas over to him, and Charles doesn’t look repulsed when he sees her. He lets Angie put her hands on his hips and tango him around the courtyard, and he smiles genuinely for the cameras. It’s reality television gold. Skylar sounds pleased in Dev’s earpiece.