Who Wants To Marry a Heartthrob?. Stephanie Doyle

Maybe even do a cosmetics commercial one day.”

      Bridget considered the women downstairs and didn’t imagine that their reasons were all that different. Except for hers, of course. Her reasons were perfectly legitimate. She was going to do the show to make her employer—who she secretly feared she was developing feelings for—eat crow for thinking she couldn’t make the cut, and to prove to him that she was more than just an assistant. What more noble reasons could there be than that?

      “All done,” Raquel announced.

      Bridget pulled back and took the hand mirror that Raquel handed her. Wow! She looked different. Not hooker-different, either. Raquel had just added subtle shades under her cheekbones, over her eyes and on her lips that seemed to make her features stand out in the best sort of way. And she did it all without adding any more eyeliner.

      So much for Bridget’s great makeup rebellion. This actually looked good on her.

      “You are an artist.”

      “Told you.” Raquel closed her case and started for the door. “Come on, we don’t want to be late.”

      Bridget agreed. She reached for the glasses in her pants pocket and put them on.

      “Eeek!” Raquel screeched when she saw her. “You can’t wear those, you might smudge. Besides that, I don’t like to see my work go unnoticed. Call it the creative genius in me.”

      Great, Bridget thought. Between Buzz, Richard and Raquel this show was going to have more geniuses than it knew what to do with. “But I can’t see. Seriously, after ten feet everything blurs.”

      The blonde held her two hands palms up then shifted them back and forth as if weighing the choices. “Beauty. Sight. Beauty. Sight. Beauty.”

      “How do you figure that?”

      “Silly, beauty always wins.”

      “Fine,” Bridget grumbled and put the glasses back into her pocket. She would just have to try really hard not to squint. She didn’t imagine that Brock had a secret desire for squinters.

      Carefully, she followed Raquel down the stairs and knew that the foggy blur at the bottom was Richard.

      “Hurry,” he urged the two women on.

      “I can’t see,” Bridget hissed.

      “And I can’t hurry in heels,” Raquel told him, pouting.

      Finally, they made it to the bottom of the stairs. Richard took a hard look at Bridget, and up close, she could see that he nodded in satisfaction. “Okay, now let’s get you both on the set.”

      Buzz directed them where to sit. He picked out a single hardback chair for Bridget and placed her in it. “Sit up, chin out, boobs…oh. Never mind.”

      Bridget tried not to take offense. She saw Brock leaning against a wall in the foyer and tried to get his attention. At least she thought it was Brock. It could have been a coat rack for all she knew.

      “Okay, this is it,” the host announced. “Smile, ladies, and remember you are trying to win the heart of America’s daytime heartthrob, so dirty tricks, cat fighting, name calling and tears are all perfectly acceptable. Good luck.”

      Bridget saw one of the cameramen circle the room bringing the hulking piece of equipment with him. She tried to brace herself for the impact of knowing that in less than five, four, three…seconds, the camera was going to be on her.

      She turned her head and saw Richard standing just out of range of the camera with his two thumbs in the air. Or were they two fingers?

      Don’t think, she told herself. If she began to think she might begin to realize that she was going to be on TV and that might cause her to panic.

      Too late.

      Breathe, she ordered herself. She was doing this for a reason. She was doing this to prove something to her family, to Richard…maybe even to herself. She could compete for a man’s affection with gifts like intelligence and humor and she wasn’t completely unworthy of a man’s attention. She would show Richard that she could make the cut and then maybe he would stop taking her for granted.

      That’s right. It wasn’t about any hidden feelings she had for him. It certainly wasn’t because she wanted to make him jealous. That would be ridiculous. She only wanted him to see how wrong he was about her.

      “Hey, can you pull back a little,” she heard Richard say to Buzz, who now had the camera focused on her. “I think she’s got something in her nose.”

      She was an idiot.

      2

      “SO BROCK,” Chuck, the show’s host began, as most hosts do, with a fake smile and an even faker-sounding voice. “Tell us what you are looking for in a woman.”

      Brock, who sat next to Chuck in the center of a half arc of fawning women, seemed to ponder the question. He rubbed his chin for a moment, turned to the camera that was focused on him and gazed directly into it, as if letting the viewing audience in on his thoughts before he said anything aloud.

      “So many things, Chuck,” he responded. “I’m not looking for someone who is just hot. You know what I mean?”

      “I do, Brock. I do.”

      Not just hot. Suddenly, Bridget perked up a little. She had to admit she’d been feeling somewhat disenchanted after she’d spent time conversing with the other contestants during the first commercial break. Apparently they were all as equally determined as her to land Brock’s affections and at least make the first cut. Only the most pathetic would be getting the boot tonight, and she sensed that most of the women she talked to counted her as being on that list.

      Their reasons for wanting to stay did vary. Some wanted to continue because they thought he was a babe. Some because they wanted to be the wife of Dr. Noah Vanderhorn, the legendary thoracic surgeon with a troubled past and a vulnerability for dangerous women, from the daytime television show The Many Days of Life. Most of them, however, wanted their own career in daytime television and starring with Brock Brickman, even if it was on a game show, seemed to be the best approach.

      When Bridget suggested training as an actress, preparing a headshot and a résumé and going on auditions, they looked at her as if she was crazy. What did she know about anything? they asked. She wasn’t even showing cleavage.

      Well, now she knew that Brock wanted more than just someone who was attractive.

      Take that, girls!

      “I want someone with a soul, too,” he confessed to Chuck. Soul. Bridget glanced around the room and decided that most of these women had foregone soul for silicon. It was beginning to look as though she had a shot at him after all. She smiled and tried to flutter her eyelashes, but Raquel had gone a little thick on the mascara and they ended up sticking a little.

      “Of course, hot doesn’t hurt,” Brock added, then nudged the host’s elbow with his own as if sharing a private joke.

      The women, who had been slumping progressively throughout his little speech, suddenly came to life again. Shoulders were thrown back, chins were lifted and hair was flicked. The blonde next to Bridget caught her square in the mouth with a chunk of hair. Bridget turned her head away and the hair was gone, but the taste of hairspray lingered. She tried not to make a horrible scrunch face as she attempted to lick the spray from her teeth.

      Please don’t let the camera see me doing this.

      “WHAT IS that one woman doing?” the Breathe Better Mouthwash executive asked, pointing to the screen.

      Richard stood next to Dan or Don—he really needed to learn which one was which—off camera watching the show on a television monitor. He didn’t have an answer for the CEO because he really didn’t know what Bridget was doing. First, her eyes had started blinking furiously. Now, she was doing something with