Chapter 36: Back to Reality

Two Weeks Later...

Cora sat on the couch with her legs tucked underneath her, blowing steam from the cup of chamomile tea Penny had brewed. It felt good to be home. Back to reality, in the familiar surroundings of her Upper West Side apartment.

She was still reeling from the events of the last 24 hours. The Bodies of Water live reunion special had been taped at a soundstage in Queens, one week after the final episode had aired. Cora hadn't stuck around to see how Jamie's interview ended. The episode was available to stream, but Cora refused on principle to subscribe to the streaming service that had produced Bodies of Water—not after the way they'd exploited her. So, her closest friends, Penny and Lauren, had called an emergency viewing party.

Penny brought the tea and cookies.

Lauren brought the whiskey and sarcasm.

They'd exchanged hugs when they first arrived, followed by an awkward attempt at a reunion of their own. The conversation skirted around the fact that both her friends had seen her naked, with only a bit of blurring to hide the body parts forbidden by the FCC. Or the fact that the censors didn't have any rules when it came to the most revealing things of all...

Cora pushed the thought away with a shudder. She had a therapy appointment on Thursday, and she would unpack it all then. For now, she sat between her two best friends, so different from one another. Penny, with her blond ponytail nearly as pale as her complexion and her tendency to see the best in everyone. And Lauren, with her raven tresses and warm brown skin, the friend who believed in honesty at all costs.

The three of them peered at the screen of Lauren's laptop with the reunion episode cued up. Lauren fast-forwarded to the start of Cora and Jamie's segment.

The instant Cora saw her own face appear on screen, she covered her eyes. "Ugh! Pause it. I'm not ready."

Penny gave her arm a squeeze. "You don't have to do this," she said. "We can just have a nice tea party and call it a night."

Cora shook her head. She needed to see the end of Jamie's interview or it would haunt her. Too many questions would go unanswered if she didn't watch and analyze every word he said.

She held out her teacup toward Lauren. "I'm ready for the whiskey now."

"Way ahead of you." Lauren handed over a different cup, already pre-prepared. "This one's spiked."

Penny crossed her arms and let out an exaggerated harrumph. "Only you two would use my fancy loose-leaf chamomile as a drink mixer."

Cora took a tiny sip from the cup to test the temperature before committing to a larger swallow. To test the temperature... She sighed. Even a normal act like this made her think of him.

Jamie.

That was one of those expressions he liked to use. She could hear the echo of it now, delivered in the playful tone he adopted for their games. "I'd test the temperature before jumping in the pool, if you know what I mean." He'd said it the first night she'd spent in his room—the night she couldn't sleep, and he found her talking to herself in the bathroom mirror. Cora felt a little dizzy at the memory.

The tea was cool enough by now. She took a long gulp, coughing as the whiskey burned down the length of her throat.

Cora remembered all of Jamie's favorite lines. She should. She'd reviewed the tape. She'd already watched back most of the clips floating around YouTube. She'd stayed up late last night, watching video after video. She needed to know exactly how much of herself she'd unwittingly exposed.

And of course, Cora couldn't possibly watch those scenes with her friends around, no matter how close they might be. It only reinforced the fact that people she knew—people she had to interact with every day—had been made privy to all her deepest secrets.

Like the fact that she detested kissing, at least 99% of the time... the fact that she had fallen out of love with Steven and into the dreaded ick.... or the fact that her thoughtless actions had led directly to his death.

Now everyone knew. Her friends. Her work colleagues. Strangers on the street, pointing at her and whispering. They all saw her now. The real her, exposed from behind the mask she'd always kept carefully in place.

Cora took another long pull of her spiked tea.

There was another reason she'd stayed up all night after she left the reunion taping yesterday. She couldn't sleep in any case. And she had to examine the evidence. She had to search for clues, one way or the other, to answer the question screaming in her mind:

Did Jamie know about the hidden cameras in the bungalow? Or had they both been in the dark?

She still couldn't say for sure, and the thought made her stomach twist. She didn't want to believe him capable of such a betrayal. She thought she knew him.

But did she?

A few more sips down the hatch, and she began to feel the whiskey's effects. Probably not the best decision to drink after a string of sleepless nights, tossing and turning in her empty bed, but she needed something to calm her nerves.

"OK, I'm ready."

"Are you sure?" Penny asked.

Cora nodded firmly. "Fast-forward to the part after I walked out. I need to see what else he said." That was the only piece of the story she hadn't witnessed in-person or watched play back on tape. The final puzzle piece. Maybe it would give her some answers.

Lauren knelt before the laptop to advance the video. The clips from the reunion show whizzed by, and Cora drained her cup down to the bitter dregs.

Penny eyed her, and Cora could sense her friend's concern. It was funny how Penny had morphed over the years into the mother hen of their friend group. It hadn't always been that way. Once upon a time, Penny had been the one with her life falling down around her ears, back before she got together with David and finally headed to med school.

"Cora," Penny murmured in her ear, low enough not to be overheard by Lauren. "You know I can give you a referral, right? If you need to see someone."

"I have a therapist. I'm seeing her on Thursday."

"That's good, but I'm just saying..." Penny tilted her head toward the teacup. "There might be healthier ways to self-medicate."

Cora set down the empty mug. Maybe she should take Penny up on it. Some prescription medication might help with the insomnia she'd been experiencing every night, ever since she last shared Jamie's bed. "I'll think about it," Cora said.

"Ready!" Lauren resumed her position beside Cora. "Go ahead." She turned to Cora. "I'll let you do the honors."

Cora leaned forward and hit Play.

***

Jamie walked across the stage, partnerless, with a grim look on his face. Only the host remained to greet him. The dragon lady, as Cora thought of her. That woman definitely had it in for Jamie. At least that much wasn't fake. Danna Morton looked positively giddy at the site of Jamie's doleful expression.

"Ah, here he is! Our poor Jamie, all alone."

"You sound awfully cheerful about it..."

Cora felt a stab of misery at the sound of Jamie's voice. The sight of him didn't affect her quite so much. But that voice... That low husky voice in the darkness. That was what she fell in love with, in spite of her best efforts.

Jamie's voice and Jamie's touch.

Cora hit the Mute button. She would rather read the closed-captioning instead.

The host displayed a screenshot of Jamie's Instagram account. Cora had always avoided social media, but she knew enough to get the point: 1.5 million followers. Enough, perhaps, to resurrect the career prospects of a failing model?

Lauren let out a low whistle. A litigator at one of the city's most prestigious law firms, Lauren said out loud what Cora had been thinking: "Damn. If he's guilty of the crime, there's the motive."

Cora picked up her mug and held it out for a refill. No tea necessary. Straight whiskey would do.

Could Jamie have been using her for fame? To save his own career? Could that really be who he was?

He was laughing now on screen. Head thrown back, laughing hard enough at something the host had said to bring tears to his eyes. That didn't do much to exonerate him. Maybe he'd been laughing at her expense the whole damned time.

Cora tore her eyes from his face and forced herself to read the captions.

HOST: Is something funny?

JAMIE: The gap between the scenes, eh?

HOST: Go on. Fill us in.

JAMIE: You want to know what Bond and Moneypenny got up to after the camera cut?

HOST: If that's what you're calling yourselves now.

JAMIE: What happened between Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester in between the chapters?

Cora shook her head. She turned the sound back on. She wasn't good enough at reading his facial expressions. She needed to hear his voice, as painful as it was, to be certain of the tone.

"My dear Danna, I've already told you several times. In the gaps between the scenes, that's where the real story unfolds."

"And luckily we have you here to provide a recap."

"No, I think not."

Lauren chimed in, talking over the dialogue. "He's deflecting. In the courtroom, this is what we'd call a hostile witness."

"They hate each other," Cora murmured.

Penny turned to her, surprised. "Who?"

"Jamie and the host." Cora pointed at the host. "She's had it in for him since the first week because he refused to stay on script."

"Danna Morton?" Penny asked. "Cora, you know she's not just the host right. She's Danna Morton."

Cora looked at Penny blankly. "Is she famous?"

"Only if you watch reality shows," Lauren provided. "She's got a whole production company at this point. Pretty sure she's one of the executive producers."

Cora hit Pause on the laptop, too distracted by her friends. Executive producer? Something in this revelation brought back to her the echo of someone else's words. In Cozumel, after her on-screen stint had ended, the show had required her to remain sequestered in a nearby hotel until the reunion special aired. No phones. No internet. No books. No Jamie for company. Cora had been tearing out her hair with boredom until Mel had stopped by her room to check on her one night.

Cora had been puzzled at the time by something Mel had said. The producer's usual sunny expression had been shadowed with apology. "We wanted to fill you in. Me and Robbie both. It was the execs who made the decision to keep you guys in the dark." Cora hadn't understood what Mel was talking about at the time, but now it was all too clear.

"The execs," Cora said slowly. As in executive producers? Could it be possible that she and Jamie were both the victims of Danna Morton's petty ire?

The idea should have made Cora angry. But for some reason it only flooded her with a strange sense of relief.

"We wanted to fill you in. Me and Robbie both."  Mel could only have meant the hidden cameras. She had to know that Cora was ignorant of their presence. But Robbie was Jamie's handler. Could that mean...

Cora sat up straight. "He didn't know!"

"You arrived at that how, exactly?" Lauren, skeptical as ever, added some tea to dilute the liquor in Cora's cup.

Cora left it untouched. She massaged her temples, trying to think through the haze of alcohol. Another theory clicked into place. A stretch, yes. But possible. "My producer wanted to clue us in about the cameras. Jamie's producer too. But the executive producers told them no." Cora pointed at the freeze-framed image of Danna Morton. "The dragon lady. He knew he'd made an enemy of her. That was her revenge."

Penny looked from the whiskey to Cora and back again, gesturing meaningfully with her eyes. "OK," she said in a singsong voice. "I think you've had enough."

But Cora knew it wasn't the alcohol talking. An overwhelming relief washed through her, and she knew the reason why.

Jamie didn't know.

When he'd chased after her backstage yesterday, he'd been telling her the truth. And that meant the other thing he'd said to her backstage might be true as well. "I meant everything I said to you that night. Every word." Maybe the man she'd fallen for wasn't a complete fiction after all.

Not that it mattered in the end. The outcome wouldn't change. She would never see Jamie again. But maybe it would help her sleep at night.

"I need to see the end," Cora said, a little breathless. She started the video again. They'd missed a chunk of dialogue, but she would fill in the blanks later. She was too caught up in listening to what Jamie had to say.

".... Reality? Nothing but an illusion that changes color depending on the quality of light."

Cora recognized this trick of his from her own maddening conversations. He would usually wax poetic when his real intent was to avoid answering a question.

Danna Morton's irritation only confirmed Cora's hunch. "Just a simple rundown of the events, please."

"Very well. We both got lost in the darkness. We wandered aimlessly for hours and never once crossed paths."

"He's lying," Cora whispered.

"I don't believe you for a second," said the host.

"No, no one ever does. But if I told you a different story, would you believe it any more?"

Danna wouldn't get any more out of him after that. When Jamie started answering  questions with other questions, you might as well give up and call it a night.

He could have revealed what Cora really said on the cliffs that night. Was he lying to protect her privacy? Or only to protect his own?

The host on the screen huffed and puffed, but Jamie stared her down.

"We're almost out of time. Let's pick back up with a clip from the morning after that missing night. We all remember this!"

Cora hunched forward, intent on the screen. Penny had her arm around her shoulders, trying to ease the tension. "Cora, you don't have to watch this."

"No, it's OK."

Her friends didn't understand.

The clip appeared to show the aftermath of a lovers' quarrel. The Cora on the screen looked at Jamie with a feigned hostility. And Jamie, in his understated fashion, had merely told the cameras that their time together had come to an end. He fetched the long forgotten poster in the corner of their bungalow and presented it at last. "I would like my new partner now, if it's not too late."

"Cold as ice," Lauren hissed.

But her friends knew nothing about it. No one did. Jamie had kept the secret as she'd asked. No one else but she and Jamie could have imagined what happened on the foggy cliffs in the moments after their kiss broke and he released her from the confines of his sweatshirt.

There were no clips of that conversation on YouTube or anywhere else. But Cora remembered every word.

"Will you do something for me?" she had asked him as the crew approached.

"Anything," he'd said.

"Send me home, please." That was all. "Pretend we had a fight and send me home."

She could see the emotions play across his face. He normally kept his true feelings guarded under lock and key, but not that day. She saw the change from love to stunned incomprehension to pure anguish. Jamie only had time to ask one question before the cameras reappeared and held them captive. "But why?"

She couldn't bear to meet his eyes. She'd looked down and away. "I made a promise to the universe."

That was all she could manage. She had no time to explain. But he had gone along with it all the same. He'd done everything she asked.

And now he had kept her secret, too.

Danna Morton might wheedle and berate him, but she'd have better luck talking to a lump of stone. The rest of the interview unfolded, and Jamie steadfastly refused to explain why he'd chosen to eliminate a woman he said he loved a few hours prior, and spend his final week in paradise with someone new.

The girl on the poster, Camilla, turned out to be even more of beach babe than her portrait had suggested. They made a gorgeous couple. Jamie had shown her nothing but polite attention during the show's waning days. But at night, when the cameras had left them, he'd slept outside on the hammock.

And the beautiful Camilla had slept alone.

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