Page 20 of Unscripted

Harry must have finally picked up on my anxiety because he softened his voice and leaned in toward me.

“Poppy,” he said, reaching out to squeeze my limp forearm. “It’s going to be okay. Hell, it’s going to be great. You’ve already made it this far. Now it’s the fun part.”

He held my arm for a moment longer before muttering something about a timetable, fires to put out, and coming back to get me for glam. Then he was off to his next task, and I was alone once again.

I let the hotel door slam shut behind me and crossed to the bed, plopping myself down on the rumpled sheets. I inhaled a deep breath of air, visualizing it filling my lungs, and then expelled it as slowly as possible.

I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.

I repeated the mantra to myself as I began to get dressed, steeling myself for the day ahead.

***

Hours later found me tweezed, bronzed, blown out, and hair sprayed within an inch of my life. Harry did have a point, I admitted to myself as I made my way out of the hotel and to a waiting van. This was the fun part.

I enjoyed getting dressed up as much as anyone, but to have a full glam team work their magic on me was something else entirely. It also turned out to be exactly what I needed. To have been professionally coiffed and polished worked wonders for my anxiety. I might have been overwhelmed by the start of filming, but at least I felt good in my own skin. I would use all the makeup layered on my face and the hair extensions glued onto my scalp as a type of armor. When I thought about it that way, my nerves began to ease.

Harry climbed into the van behind me and pulled the door shut. The driver took off out of the hotel driveway, carrying me closer to the inevitable. I turned to Harry.

“This is really it,” I said.

It was all happening. All the stress and anxiety and excitement of the last week had all led to this moment.

“It is,” Harry said, smiling at me.

As the van coasted through the streets of Ischia, it felt like I was being driven to the edge of a cliff. Like when we arrived at our destination, it wouldn’t be a villa I would come to call home, but to a rocky ledge I would be forced to jump off.

It was bizarre, being an active witness to the moment your life changed. In big ways or small, whether I stayed on the show for one day or six weeks, I knew my life was heading in a new direction.

The van came to a stop at the base of a massive driveway, shaking me from my contemplative daze. White canopy tents were set up along one side of the driveway, and large trucks were parked along the other. Crew members ran back and forth between them, loading and unloading whatever equipment their department needed. Looking out the van’s window, the buzz of the production setup gave me a familiar sense of calm.

A young girl in a headset stood outside the van and pulled open the door. This time, the sight of the PA didn’t send me into a tailspin, which I took as a personal win for the day.

Harry hopped out and started chatting with her. There was mention of wardrobe tents and makeup touchups, but I tuned it all out.

For one moment I simply sat still, trying to settle into my skin. Trying to take it all in.

This was really happening.

I was doing this.

I can do this, I repeated to myself once more.

I took a deep breath, straightened my shoulders, and stepped out of the van.

12

The Bella Amore villa sat atop four acres of rocky coastline. The property actually had two houses: the main villa the cast lived in and a second, smaller house production had taken over for their own operations.

When I got out of the van, Harry either sensed my bubbling anxiety or simply had time to kill before I was needed in wardrobe. Either way, I was all too happy to oblige when he suggested a tour of the property. A production golf cart magically appeared, and we were off, driving down a footpath and snaking around the grounds.

We came to a stop at the edge of the cliff the villa was situated on. Down below, nestled between the curve of the coastline, was a private, white-sand beach.

“Don’t count on going down there much. It’s a pain in the arse to get equipment down and back up, so they try to avoid planning beach shoots unless it’s something major like a dumping,” Harry explained as we stood on the edge of the cliff and looked down. The beach below looked like something out of a dream: untouched and idyllic. I would have loved to spend most of my time down there.

We climbed back into the golf cart, and Harry took me to the production house.

“We call it the ‘Hut’ for short,” he told me as he propped open a door so I could peer inside.