Chapter Twenty Five
Clandestine, Orpah, Yilin, and Ornette were the four girls assigned to Varner for the week. He got four, while Uncle Bear and Brother Bear only got three each. That was because they only had ten contestants left. However, to act like the choices were random was ridiculous. Varner got perfect diversity in his haul. Clandestine was a redhead, Orpah was black, Yilin was Asian, and Ornette was a blonde.
Ornette got an itinerary through her bracelet the next morning.
Day 1 - Shopping. Varner was sending them to a mall on Venus. The goal was that they needed to buy everything they needed for the week with Varner by the end of the day. It was a shopping challenge. The contestants had to buy four dresses, including the one they would wear for the episode filming on Day 7, plus accessories. They also needed to be measured for two athletic suits. That was straight-up scheduled for the afternoon. They could continue shopping in the evening if they hadn’t finished their shopping that morning.
Day 2 - Photoshoot. Ornette guessed Varner wanted to make a memory by getting his photo taken with all four women surrounding him before he booted one of them off.
Day 3 - Bubble Sailing. That was when you shot through the clouds in an individual aircraft. The vehicle was surrounded by its own bubble so that the person flying could see as much as possible without all the ugliness of a spacesuit. It was terrifying for people who were afraid of heights, but honestly, if you were afraid of heights, you should not have agreed to be on Venus in the first place. There would be an elimination at the end of the day.
Day 4 - Meeting Mother. Varner was taking the remaining three contestants to visit his mother, and she was going to interview them at a garden tea party. Another elimination.
Day 5 - Meeting Father. Varner’s parents were divorced. The remaining two contestants were meeting his father at a sky shield. They were going to be bungee jumping. It was all going to be inside a bubble large enough for a city, but there was no ground at all where they would be falling. It would look like falling from the top of the atmosphere to the cloud line that hung closer to the surface. The last elimination would take place that night.
Day 6 - Spa Day. Then, dinner with Varner for the winning contestant.
Ornette put on the runners Joel had given her for the shopping trip. Then she wore her crappy tie-dye skirt and an athletic bra. She had nothing to wear over it, so she went like that.
Orpah was at the helocarrier pad waiting for the others when Ornette strode over.
Orpah was dressed perfectly. She had sunglasses (practically a necessity on Venus) and a white pantsuit with a silver sequin top on.
Ornette felt wildly outclassed with her crunchy blonde hair tied up in a Barbie bun, but that didn’t stop her from gushing at Orpah. “You look exquisite.”
Orpah gave her a funny look over the rim of her sunglasses and didn’t acknowledge the compliment. “After last night, that’s what you’re wearing?”
Ornette shrugged like a ditz. “I never dress up to shop.” There was a camera crew with a camera in her face, so her next line was chosen with care. “It’s more fun for everyone if the sales girls can give you a little makeover. Besides, when you’re with a man like Varner, and everyone knows it, no shopkeeper is going to be snooty. You can basically walk all over them.”
“Can you?” Orpah said, pulling her sunglasses clean off her face. “Is that professional behavior?”
Ornette didn’t flinch. “We have to get four complete formal looks. We have three hours before lunch. After lunch, all of us are being removed from the shopping mall and are being measured for flight suits. If we don’t finish, we’ll be allowed a little more time after dinner, but keeping the entire mall open just for us after nine will not work. We’re going to need to make time. We can’t keep them open after midnight. I bet the sales girls would prefer us to be bossy than make them work overtime. Finding four formal outfits is going to be hard. When I have an important event I’m shopping for, sometimes I need weeks to bring it together. We have one day for four looks. It’s going to be tough.”
Orpah’s look of hostility vanished. “I didn’t think of it like that.” She took a step closer and lowered her voice. “Why are you sharing this with me? If you hadn’t said something, I might have been time-blind and done exactly what you said, keeping the mall open after hours thoughtlessly. I might have been eliminated for such a thing. Why are you giving me the edge?”
“I’m not,” Ornette protested. “We can say the same thing to Yilin and Clandestine. We can even work together to get this done right. Besides, none of us will be competing for the same clothes. We all have different coloring. What we really need to do is keep all of us in mind when shopping. If I see something that I think will look amazing on you, I’ll ask the shopkeeper to hold it for you. It would be lovely if you could do the same for me.”
“How will I know what you want?” Orpah asked.
“I’ll tell you right now, I’ve worn a lot of gold and black on the show so far. For this week on the show, I want to wear turquoise. If you see anything dazzling in turquoise, set it aside.”
“What if I wanted turquoise?” Orpah protested.
“Then I’ll pick a different color,” Ornette offered flexibly.
Orpah put a hand on her hip. “Really? What color will you choose?”
“Hmm… I could choose yellow, or white, or red.”
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“Why are those the colors you chose?”
“Well, Clandestine is likely to choose green because she’s a redhead, and Yilin is likely to choose pink because she’s Asian.”
“You are both nice and sucky,” Orpah observed honestly. “You really are. You’re helpful, but you’re also sneaky. If you go out in yellow, that will be the same as the gold you’ve worn so far and will solidify your brand. If you go out in white, you’ll look like a bride, and if you go out in red, that will make all the men mentally ill like they’re wolves, and you’ve just brought out a fresh steak. You’re not leaving me any choices except to give you what you want because that’s the least offensive.”
“Fine,” Ornette shrugged. “I’ll choose something else. I’ll look good in anything. How about purple?”
Orpah dismissed her. “Fine, I’ll take white. You can have your turquoise.”
Ornette gave her a cute smile. “So, you want to look like a bride? For Varner? That’s very interesting.”
She shook out her well-manicured nails and took a side-step away from Ornette. “It’s a complete mystery why all the men like you.”
“They don’t like me,” Ornette bantered. “They’re trying to vote me off.”
“Only so they can start abusing a professional relationship as soon as possible. You’re never going to struggle to get a buyer again.”
“Please tell me I won’t be peeling men’s hands off my ass for the rest of my life!” Ornette gasped.
Orpah huffed. “You know as well as I do that would be the mark of a good career.”
Ornette sighed.
Yilin and Clandestine joined them. Before they got on the helocarrier, Orpah told them the idea about them all choosing one color for their outfits for the week to help streamline the shopping process once they were at the mall. She said it like it was her own idea, which Ornette thought was hilarious because there were so many cameras pointed at them. The woman probably didn’t want to say that or mean to say that. She was just so used to taking credit for other people’s work that she couldn’t stop, even when she knew it was a terrible idea.
“I’ll take gold,” Clandestine said easily. “That was my plan anyway. Got to make a strong brand statement, and if Ornette wants to look like a mermaid instead of an Academy Award, that’s great for me.”
“I’ll take black,” Yilin said sharply. “That will make the best impression with all of us together. Black, white, gold, and turquoise. The pictures tomorrow will look best that way.”
Ornette took a step forward. “Are you sure that isn’t taking one for the team a little too much?”
Yilin glared at Ornette. The expression meant one thing and one thing only. If she had spoken, she would have said, ‘I want off this damn show.’
Ornette took a step back, and they all got aboard the helocarrier.
***
At the mall, they split up, and all went to different stores. When Ornette stepped into a store, she had a camera crew following her. She found the manager and told her to make piles of their four chosen colors. It would save time. When she went into stores the other contestants had been in, she found they were sometimes trying on clothes in the changing rooms. She would take a stall next door, but she wouldn’t talk to them. They needed to do the challenge independently, and so did she.
The two easiest looks were the one for the garden party and the dinner out with Varner at the end.
She started with the garden party dress. It needed to have a high neckline. It needed to stay off the floor. If it leaned a different color, it needed to lean toward white. A day dress needed to scream, ‘light feminine energy!’
She ended up with a dress with a petal skirt and a boat neck. It had a belt with a huge white flower on it that sat over her left hip. The belt was tied in a bow in the back, and the tails were longer than the skirt. The skirt ended at the knee. Ornette got matching white flowers to go in her hair and turquoise heels that were almost the right color.
At this point, she found The Coordinator in the hallway.
“What’s my budget?” she asked him breezily.
He looked at her blankly. “There is no budget. Spend whatever you like. It’s on Varner.”
“Do I get more favor for spending more or spending less?”
He rolled his eyes. “That’s something for you to figure out.”
Off at the next store.
For her maybe/maybe not dress for the dress with Varner (she hoped she’d be eliminated before she got to wear it), she opted for a strapless dress with very little adornment. It was long. Hopefully, she wouldn’t step on it. She got a thick crystal necklace with many strands to wear with it. Then she got flesh-colored ballerina flats to wear with it. She did not need to be off-balance when she was out with him. High heels were not your friends when you were with a man you didn’t trust.
The second two dresses were tougher. The one for the photoshoot was important because she would bet money that when everything was over, the photos taken with all three of them and Varner would probably be what was shared more often. They might even use footage from that shoot to advertise the show for years to come. The one for the filming of the episode was important because she was unlikely to be on another episode.
For the final episode, she opted for a mermaid dress with the nearest thing to a bustle that anyone wore. It gave the back of her bottom a look it would never have had on its own, and if Ornette could have one thing for the final episode, she wanted something that made her bottom look amazing. When a girl walked away, she wanted her butt to look spectacular.
The hardest was the one for the photoshoot. She didn’t get it before lunch.
The contestants had a reservation at the fanciest restaurant in the mall, and they sat together and chatted about their finds.
“I got two,” Orpah bragged.
“I got one… and a half,” Clandestine complained. “I would have finished the second look if I had just ten more minutes.”
“I got all four,” Yilin said, not bragging in the least. She didn’t give a rip what she wore, and so she’d made her selections quickly.
“I got three, so I’ll be back tonight,” Ornette volunteered.
“Which one are you missing?” Clandestine asked curiously.
“The photoshoot. What are you all wearing? Can we do a theme? Wait… I have an idea. If Yilin already got her dress, what did she get? Can we get the same dress in different colors?”
Yilin nodded. “I made all of my selections from a bridal boutique. It was a bridesmaid’s dress.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a strapless dress with a pencil skirt and a tulle peplum.”
“I can get behind that!” Ornette cheered. “What do you all think? Can we all wear that?”
Yilin put her eyebrows in the air and said disinterestedly, “I don’t care what you wear. It doesn’t matter to me if you impress Papa Bear. You could probably set fire to him, and it wouldn’t change the result. Every single one of us has immunity this week. You’re getting voted off.”
“Yeah, I know,” Ornette shrugged. “But let’s not think about that. What do you two think?” She turned to Orpah and Clandestine. “Have you already got your photoshoot dresses?”
“I haven’t,” Clandestine admitted. “I’m happy to strike one off my list by following the norm. Which boutique was it?”
“I’ll do it too. I look good in anything,” Orpah said in a complete reversal of attitude and saying the exact words Ornette had said in front of the helocarrier that morning.