Taken (2 page)

We leave Roger’s office about an hour later after hashing out some additional details—one of which was ensuring we get time for a proper honeymoon once this fiasco is over—and we head home, all the while discussing our plans to tell our families not only of the engagement, but also of the plans to televise our planning process as well as the wedding itself.

It’s staggering to think how many times my world has completely flipped upside down over the last couple of months. I went from barely watching TV to now being set to star on my own reality show.

Suddenly, Brandon lets out a hollow laugh that echoes inside the car. “This is total bullshit.”

I stay silent, watching his knuckles turn white as he grips the steering wheel tighter and tighter.

“It’s blackmail. Completely legal blackmail. I should just tell them all to screw themselves and walk away. They think that I need them, but really it’s the other way around. If they replace me now, the franchise will fail.” His voice trails off as if he is uncertain of his last statement. Currently there have been two movies released in the series, with the third set to release in two months…eight weeks…right after our televised wedding spectacular.

I feel dizzy and grab a hold of the car door handle as if to steady the spinning of my mind.

“The worst part is that it’s not just affecting me anymore, it’s upsetting your life too. This is insane.”

“It’s all right,” I say, but I know my voice is far from convincing.

“It’s not all right, Cherry. It’s okay to get angry and pissed off about this ya know.”

“I guess you’re right, but what would be the point? We can’t fight it. You heard Roger. We have to do this, it’s only a few weeks, and we’ll make it through.”

Huh? Where is all this coming from? The words coming out of my mouth are in stark opposition to the thoughts rushing through my mind. Maybe I’m the calm, rational one in this relationship after all.

“Oh no! My cookbook! The photo shoot is scheduled to happen the same day that the filming is now supposed to start!”

Ah. Welcome back panic-mode Charity.

Brandon smiles. “That’s actually perfect!”

“How so? I think a photo shoot and a whole camera crew, sound guys, and director might be a bit much. I mean I know our kitchen is ginormous, but that’s probably pushing it. Plus I’m going to be nervous enough, without it all being filmed for television.”

“No, no, it’s perfect. Everyone will see your food and we can have them link to the book on our website so you’ll get a ton of sales!”

“What website? We have a website?”

“Cherry, all TV shows have websites. Where have you been?” He’s teasing, but looks a little concerned as he considers me. “It will probably just be a page on the network’s site, a photo gallery of us, information about the show, maybe an episode recap…”

He’s still talking, but I tune out. Bless his heart. His brain does work in mysterious ways. Personally, I think he’s been drinking the PR Kool-Aid a little too long, but I have to admit he does have a point. Although, my nervousness over the photo shoot just got dialed up a few notches at the thought of all the new exposure.

“What if they don’t want to include it though? I mean, doesn’t a ton of footage get cut out from the final show?” I say, halfway hoping he says yes.

“We’ll make sure that doesn’t happen. When we meet with the producers, we will let them know that is to be left in.”

Ohhh. Welcome back silver lining Brandon.

Everything is right in the world again.

Well…mostly.

“So, you want to call your family when we get home?” he asks, returning to our original topic.

I cringe at the suggestion. Although it’s only been roughly twenty-four hours since the scuffle at the baby shower, it feels like it was a long time ago. I’m actually surprised neither my mom nor Valerie has tried to contact me after hearing about all the drama with Brandon. My mom, for one, religiously watches the gossip shows at night, and I can guarantee Brandon was the story of the night.

I glance down at my phone to see if I’ve missed anything.

Nothing. Not a good sign.

“To be honest, stabbing my own eye out with a toothpick sounds less painful than that conversation is going to be.”

Brandon laughs, but he reaches over and squeezes my hand.

“Are you sure we can’t just run away to Bora Bora or something? Leave all this insanity behind and just lay around in hammocks all day sipping fruity drinks and getting tan?”

“I have to admit, you make a strong case,” Brandon says. “But unfortunately, you think the studio is cranky now, imagine if I abandoned ship without finishing this film. If they’re willing to do all this for a stupid fight, I’m sure breaking my contract and virtually disappearing would be a nightmare.”

“Fine, but I’m adding Bora Bora to our list of potential honeymoon spots.” I pout.

“I’m not going to argue with you,” he says before leaning over and giving me a quick kiss.

By the time we arrive back home, it’s been decided that we will call Brandon’s family first and tell them the news. We huddle together in front of the laptop and wait as the video call rings through.

“Hey!” Brandon’s dad, Rick, answers with a big, warm smile.

“Hey Dad,” Brandon says and I wave at the screen. “Where’s Mom?”

“We just got back from the hospital. She’s a little worn out, so she’s taking a nap on the couch.” There is a flicker of sadness in his eyes as he explains. Brandon tenses up, and I realize that he saw it too.

“Wait. I’m coming!” Sandy’s voice chimes in off screen. A few moments later, her face appears alongside Rick’s. “How are you two? Charity, you look beautiful!”

“Thank you Sandy.”

“What was all the stuff on the news, Brandon?”

“I didn’t raise a street fighter,” Sandy says, and I hold back a laugh.

“Well that is sort of the reason we are calling,” Brandon begins. He briefly explains the whole thing and lets them rant and rave about the unfairness of it all. Apparently the clip being shown on the news only shows part of the fight and leaves out all the audio of what the guy was saying to Brandon to egg him on, which, I am partially grateful for. It makes Brandon look worse, but it’s also nice to know that the insults about me and my appearance aren’t being heard by everyone over and over again.

“Anyway, this has set off a chain of events, and my PR firm and the studio that produces my movies want Charity and me to do a short stint on TV in our own reality show.”

“What?”

“Their theory is that it will help people see the real Brandon. You know, the charming, funny, sweet, amazing guy that you all know and love,” he says with a laugh.

I shove him playfully and roll my eyes. “Okay, Prince Charming, come back to earth for a minute.”

“Well if I’m Prince Charming, that means I would be nothing, without my princess. And apparently people are obsessed with Charity, not that I can blame them. So what they want is to do a show with both of us to get some positive publicity before my next movie is released.”

“What will you be doing on the show?” Sandy asks.

Brandon looks at me and I give him a slight nod. “Event planning, so to speak. You see, a couple of weeks ago I asked Charity a very important question—”

Sandy squeals and starts to clap her hands. “Let me see the ring!”

Brandon and I both laugh at her reaction and I proudly hold up my left hand to the camera so she can see the engagement ring. I twist my hand so it sparkles in the light.

“Oh honey, it’s beautiful! I’m so happy for you both!” She tears up and Rick rushes off screen and returns a few moments later with a box of tissues for her. She takes a wad and leans her head on his shoulder as she dabs at her eyes.

“Thanks Mom,” Brandon says. “So basically, the show will revolve around us planning the wedding, and then the final episode will actually be of the wedding.”

“But isn’t your next movie coming out in like two months?” Rick asks.

“Yeah, that’s the thing; the wedding will likely take place in three or four weeks.”

Crickets.

It’s an odd moment, as all four of us sit staring at the screens that connect us, no one really sure what to say.

“Really, this is all just a conspiracy between me and the studio to get Brandon down the aisle as quickly as humanly possible. I figure it reduces the risk of him running off on me again,” I say.

Everyone laughs and I smile to myself, happy to have broken the tension.

The conversation shifts, and we start talking about the wedding. By the end of the call, I think it is safe to say we all feel much better about the entire situation.

The happy, good vibe bubble pops pretty quickly as we end the call and Brandon’s finger hovers over the call button next to my mom’s name. She doesn’t do video chat, so we will stick to an old-fashioned phone call for this one, which is probably for the best. This way, I can roll my eyes and sigh dramatically, without her seeing.

I take a deep, deep breath, release it slowly, and give Brandon a nod to confirm that I’m ready. Or at least as ready as I’m going to be…

The phone rings and my mom answers, sounding a little flustered. “Hello? Charity?”

“Hello, Mother.” I squeeze my eyes shut. “How are you?”

“Quite frankly, I’m a little busy dear. Valerie is at the hospital, and I’m at her house, gathering things she needs for the baby.”

“What? Why didn’t you call me?”

“Well after your display at her baby shower, I didn’t know that you would care.”

I open my mouth, fully prepared to launch into a tirade, but Brandon puts up a hand to stop me. “Mrs. McAdams, its Brandon. Is there anything we can do to help?”

“Oh, uh, hello Brandon. Thank you, but no, I have it under control.”

“All right. Well please keep us informed on how things are going. I know Charity wants to be kept in the loop, and we will try to make arrangements for her to fly home as soon as possible once the baby is here.”

“Thank you, that would be—“ she pauses “nice.”

He wraps up the call quickly, with formal sounding good-byes, and hangs up.

“Thank you,” I say, my voice a whisper. I can’t believe my own mother didn’t call me to tell me my sister is going into labor. How messed up is that?

“You want to talk about it?” he asks.

I shake my head. There isn’t time to even begin to unpack how this new development in my family drama makes me feel. Not when there is a full-blown parade of people about to make their grand entrance into our life.

“We can tell them later, even if that means we have to include it in the show,” I say.

Oh I can just imagine how that’s going to go…that is exactly how I want to introduce my family to the American public.

Cue the circus music folks…

At precisely eight o’clock, the doorbell rings twice, accompanied by two sharp knocks on the door. Brandon and I both look at each other, our own pits of fear reflected back in the each other’s expression. We join hands and walk towards the door together.

United front. Us against them.

Before we left Roger’s office earlier, he had a speakerphone call with the production team he had waiting on standby and the main producer, Kira. They arranged a meeting at our house tonight to go over the project as well as the schedule.

We open the door to reveal a small gathering of people. There is a woman in a black pantsuit at the head of the column, I assume her to be Kira. To her left is a man, also in a suit, typing furiously into his cell phone. Behind them, there is an assortment of people, all in casual dress; each has a backpack or hard plastic case in hand, which I guess must be the equipment.

“Brandon! Charity! Lovely to meet you both,” Kira says, stepping into the foyer and forcing us to take steps back to scurry out of her way.

I remind myself to breathe.

“You must be Kira,” Brandon says, extending a hand, which she shakes vigorously.

“Yes, yes. I’m Kira Powers. This is my partner, Taylor Vincent. And this is the crew. We aren’t going to be filming anything tonight, obviously; they’re just here to scout out the location, see the lighting, etcetera. I do hope that’s all right.” She says it as if there is no room for objection, even if we
weren’t
all right with it.

“Uh, no, that’s fine,” Brandon says. The crew members seem to take this as their cue and scatter through the house.

“So where shall we go to chat? The dining room, perhaps? I always do my best work with a proper table,” Kira says, peeking around Brandon to look down the hall.

“Sure, this way,” I say, side-stepping around Kira and Taylor—who still has yet to look up from his phone—and leading them down the hall to the formal dining room. Taylor follows along blindly, and I marvel at how he manages to keep from colliding with things as he goes along, focus glued to his screen. I run into things on a nearly daily basis and that’s with both eyes on the path in front of me.

We settle in at the table, and it’s almost like being transported to someone else’s house. Brandon and I never use the formal dining room, so being seated at the gigantic table in the very polished room seems unfamiliar and sterile to me. I awkwardly put my elbows on the table, before realizing that it goes against a certain code of conduct; I lay them against my waist instead. Brandon seems to see my struggle and takes my nervous hand in his underneath the table, a silent reminder to chill out.

“Let me just start by saying that we are
thrilled
to have you sign on for the show!” Kira looks like she’s about to pounce on us from across the table. I seriously think this woman needs to switch to decaf.

“We have been pitching this to Roger for quite some time, and he always turned us down. So we were
floored
when he called today! You must be pretty eager to get going as well, am I right?”

Interesting. They appear to have no idea that they are filming two highly unwilling participants. In some ways, that is preferable, because it means they might be more likely to let us have control over how the show actually plays out, since from their point of view, we are doing them a favor.

“Well, it wasn’t without some concern,” Brandon starts. “We do have some things we need to make clear from the beginning.”

“Of course! Our goal is to tell your story, the way you want it to be told. Right from the beginning, we wanted to do a show about you, Brandon. Your sudden rise to fame is fascinating and I’m sure that would have made a great show, following along as you found your fame and how you handled it all. Ohh! It would have been amazing!” For a moment she seems lost in her own mental movie reel, staring into space with a look of glee.

Awkward.

Eventually she comes back. “But no matter! That’s the past. And now, it gets even better than I could have imagined. I mean, really, talk about a fairy-tale romance. You two have stolen the hearts and imaginations of all the hopeless romantics out there!” Everything she says is punctuated by grand, sweeping hand gestures.

Brandon catches my eye and I can tell he is struggling not to laugh. I force myself to look away because I am about to dissolve into giggles myself, and watching him is only making the temptation worse.

“We will make this the best show ever, I promise. We will capture the essence of your love and contain it in this wonderful series to forever hold these beautiful memories.” She collapses her arms against the table. “Taylor! The list.”

At this directive, Taylor springs to life like a robot that just got powered up. Within a split second, he hits something on his phone and sets it on the table in front of him. Instantly, a large screen is projected onto the dining room wall.

Kira launches into an explanation of each bullet point, but it is essentially an episode-by-episode listing of everything she ’envisions’ for our future wedding and how best to package it for the audience.

Episode One: Recap of love story; home movie montage

Episode Two: Choosing the venue; tour of three

Episode Three: Wedding dress selection; groom’s fitting

Episode Four: Choosing the cake, flowers, and decorations

Episode Five: Rehearsal dinner

Episode Six: Day of the wedding

Somewhere during her speech, I think Brandon and I both become paralyzed by the sheer amount of stuff to do, and the reality of the time frame we are being directed to work with. I think back to the wedding magazines and just how many options there are for everything. It was overwhelming enough to think about then, without putting such a tight deadline on everything.

I look at Brandon, and his eyes are glazed over. Poor thing. He is
way
out of his element here. He thrives in a world of big guns, even bigger explosions, and epic fight scenes. Gold leaf invitations, crystal chandeliers, and chiffon bridesmaid dresses aren’t exactly on his radar.

Truth be told, this isn’t really my thing either. This project has Ashley written all over it.

Ashley! In all the chaos of the day, I haven’t even been able to catch her up on the insanity.

“Charity? What do you think?” Kira asks, snapping me back to the present. I had been mentally figuring out how I am going to explain this mess to Ashley, and also trying to pre-emptively guess the sage advice she will have for me…after she gets done laughing, that is.

“I’m sorry, I missed that last part. This is a lot to take in,” I say, hoping she will take pity on me.

“Of course. Well we are working with a limited timeline so unfortunately, it’s going to have to be this way. Why is there such a rush? Are you expecting?”

I am startled that she would ask such a personal question.

Luckily, Brandon snaps out of his wedding planning coma in time to save me. “No, nothing like that. We just want to do it before I go on the promotional tour for my next movie. Then we can do the honeymoon after the tour, before I start my next project.”

She looks disappointed for a moment, but bounces back quickly. “Excellent! Well, I will set some things up, and we will start filming on Thursday. Will that work?”

Taylor shuts off the projection and immediately bows his head back to his phone and continues working. I am dying to see that screen. Ten bucks says he’s just playing Candy Crush to pass the time.

“About that,” Brandon says. “Charity has something on Thursday but, if possible, we would like to talk about including it in the show. Another……angle, you might say.”

Kira lights up in anticipation. “Of course!”

Brandon explains about the cookbook and luckily, she loves the idea, and promises to feature it in the show as much as possible.

With that settled, we all go about our good-byes and watch as Kira and Taylor lead their crew—I had forgotten they were even there—down the front walk. They drive off in two unmarked vans, leaving an almost spooky silence behind, as if the whole thing was some top-secret, covert-op type plan.

“Well that was …interesting,” Brandon says, wrapping an arm around my waist.

“That is certainly a word for it.”