Page 5 of Most Eligible
Lainey Williams’s personality is six-foot-ten, but she can’t be more than five-three. Magazine profiles never reveal quite how tiny she is. It’s usually hidden behind power suits and shoulder pads; in plain sight but invisible, like most of the Hollywood underbelly.
Her stylishly grayed hair makes it impossible to tell how old she is. Somewhere between thirty-five and sixty would be my guess, but if you told me she’d had the world’s strongest Botox injection at age ninety, I’d believe it.
Oversized lime-green glasses are the only colorful part of her look. She’s dressed in sheer black-and-white organza with a black bodysuit underneath. Somehow, it seems professional even though we can see her entire (very toned) ass before she turns and starts toward me and Brooklyn where we’re hovering near the mansion’s open bar.
For a moment, time stops, the click-clacking of her go-go boots echoing in my ears. It’s a movie moment: the assassin laying eyes on their mark for the first time while casually sipping a martini at a casino bar. Their eyes lock and the mark shivers, caught between intrigue and fear. But Lainey doesn’t shiver, and my Bloody Mary sloshes out of my mouth as I try to take a sip.
I should be the assassin, the investigator, ready to expose allthe cracks in Lainey’s facade, but in a millisecond, we’re reversed. I’m the one who’s shivering.
Lainey peers at me and Brooklyn from behind her glasses. She purses her lips.
“You,” she says sharply, pointing at me. For a second, I’m sure it’s all over. She’s about to hold up my burner phone and announce to everyone that I’m not here for the right reasons. Why else would she leave her producer hidey-hole?
But then she crooks a bony finger and motions for me to follow her. “Time for you to talk to our dream boy,” she calls over her shoulder.
I almost laugh at my own relief, but I can’t let my guard down.
As I follow Lainey, I toss one last, helpless look back to Brooklyn, who gives me a weak thumbs-up and orders another glass of wine from the nondescript bartender.
Lainey and I pass producers who scurry to the sides of the hall as she makes her way through the mansion. We pass Olie sitting on a chaise lounge, staring so seductively at the camera, you’d think she was doing a boudoir photo shoot. No matter where I look, there’s no sign of Rhett. Maybe he’s escaped for the night.
I wish I had that luxury. But I can’t write an exposé on TV’s biggest reality show unless I’m in the thick of it.
If Lainey only knew who was following her barely covered ass through the mansion.
She leads me onto one of the patios sticking off the house like barnacles. On a love seat surrounded by potted plants, Roland sits with a tall woman wearing a sleek white bodycon dress. I recognize her immediately, and not just because she was in the limo ahead of me and got out swinging a racket, neatly serving a tennis ball into Roland’s outstretched hands. She was one of the only women who didn’t interact when we were in the sitting room. She’d stayed focused and intense, like nothing could get between her and winning.
Monica Kitajima is the tennis star you know even if you don’t follow tennis. Besides Roland himself, of course. And unfortunately for me, she’s just as devastatingly beautiful in person as in her twoTennis Monthlycover photos. Her long black hair reaches to her waist, her posture is impeccable, andshedoesn’t look like her dress is slowly suffocating her. I bet she could win a tennis match in her four-inch heels and not even break a sweat.
“Monica,” Lainey barks, “Georgia is going to interrupt in just a second. Be gracious.”
Monica blinks at her and nods, then turns her sharp gaze back to Roland.
I’m taken aback by Lainey’s brazenness. While watching the show, I always assumed the interruptions were genuine, women actually taking initiative to rob each other of time. But, like so much else, it’s all an act.
“Where were we?” Roland says easily, his focus back on Monica.
“I was telling you about my parents,” Monica says. “They both moved from Japan when they were young. They’re my model of what a strong relationship looks like.”
“My parents are for me as well,” Roland says, taking her hand.
Monica rubs her thumb over his knuckles. “Ever since we met in Paris, I’ve felt such a strong connection with you.”
Alarm bells ring in my head. Shouldn’t this be a major red flag? The producers around me don’t seem surprised. One is yawning and another appears to be peeing into a potted plant.
I remember scenes of screaming women from previous seasons, shouting it from the rooftops when they found out about history between the lead and another contestant. In a particularly nasty clip, one woman pushed another into a hot tub after finding out that she had exchanged flirty Instagram messages with the lead prior to the start of filming.
With a jolt, I realize I don’t remember which season that wasfrom—was it one of the ones I watched in its entirety? Was it in a highlights reel on YouTube? A video of “Love Shack’s cringiest moments, ranked”? Was Rhett the lead? All the images blur together in my head, a melting montage of hysterical women and deflating flamingo pool floaties.
“Georgia?” Lainey prompts. Monica and Roland are still chatting mere feet away.
“Sorry, what?”Get it together. I can’t go off the rails this soon.
“You can interrupt whenever you’re ready,” Lainey says.
“Right,” I mutter. I square my shoulders and tune back in to the conversation.
“That last match at Roland-Garros was brutal,” Roland says. “I don’t think I could’ve returned Dolgova’s serves as elegantly as you did. But you’ve always been better than me on clay. Maybe the court’s offended I stole its name.”
