The drizzle smothers the campfire, leaving the contestants to scramble to save their marshmallows. We of the producers and crew wonder what Jessica would do. Would she go after Allison? This season’s hero, a twentysomething finance bro, has a type—either Allison, the All-American girl next door, or Jessica, the blond corporate bitch from Seattle. 

We had caught Jessica scoffing at Allison’s dream of becoming a good housewife and mother on Day 1. We watched as Jessica apologized but Allison only nodded as we hid around the corner armed with our phone cameras during the snack break. We deleted the footage from when they played video games together after bonding over their favorite TV shows later after we shooed away the other girls from the rec room for one-on-one footage.

We zoom into Jessica’s marshmallow dripping gloopy tears in the rain. She holds her lighter in the other hand and a wet cigarette flickers in her mouth, and she resembles a Virginia Slims model post breakup. She waves, then gives us the finger. The other girls think the finger was meant for Allison. We pan to their outraged reactions. 

Yesterday, we needed more footage for Jessica’s downward arc to foreshadow the hero choosing Allison over her in the final episode. When we asked them to fight over the final pancake, they were giggling like old friends the entire way through. When it was time for the orange juice, Jessica refused to knock the glass over. We knocked it over for her. Just a gentle flick was enough. The juice bruised Allison’s white sundress with orange she couldn’t wash out, and both their faces made for perfect shots.

The other girls gather around Allison, armed with soaked marshmallow sticks, protecting her from the rain and Jessica. Jessica flings her marshmallow stick with as much force as Marlboro Man punching a cowboy. The stick heads not toward Allison, but towards us. It breaks cleanly into two at our feet. 

You’re the real villains, we think she says, as the rain drowns out her voice.

We pick up the fragments of the stick. We take it back to the producer cabin to get a better shot under studio lighting. 

Once the rain stops, let’s film another take of the campfire scene again tomorrow, we say to ourselves. Let’s get the storyline right this time.

***

Tina S. Zhu writes from her kitchen table in NYC. Her work has appeared in Lightspeed, X-R-A-Y, Lost Balloon, Sundog Lit, and other places. She can be found at tinaszhu.com.