Friendly Shy Lovers

“There she is,” Beau said as I walked through his front door with our daughter, Mariah. I loved seeing his happy face when he saw her. 

             He got down to her level and grabbed her hands in his and squeezed them. He then let go and let her go to her room. 

             He looked at me seriously, very seriously. “We need to talk.” He walked to me and hugged me. 

             “I know,” I started to bawl in his shoulder. “She just keeps getting sicker.” 

             “I’m so sorry, this isn’t what we meant by the plan.”

             “I know.” I said to him then letting go. I exhaled and went to go sit at his kitchen table. “So, what’s the plan?” I wiped the last of my tears. “How are we going to come up with the money?” 

             He looked me in the eyes and shook his head. “I don’t know.” 

             Beau had beautiful blue eyes and wrinkles showing all that he has been through. He used to be good looking but then Mariah’s cancer hit, and he aged. He aged a lot.

             We made a pact when we were younger that if we were still not in a relationship when we were 35, we were going to have a baby together. We have always wanted a family. 

             “You know how most people get rich,” I laughed. 

             “How?” 

             “Reality TV, think about the Kardashians.” He nodded taking it in. Then he laughed, “Reality TV.” 

             I laughed along. “I don’t know how true this is, but I saw that Country Couples is coming to Philly.” I said making a joke. 

             “Couples?” 

             “Yeah, it is where they get this nice, huge house in the town and get a bunch of couples usually four or five. They aren’t aloud to leave the property for about eight weeks which is kind of crazy and always proves the toughest couples. The toughest couple wins at the end. It’s always what I’m watching when you have our kid.”  

             “I’m pretty sure all the women at my work watch that!” He exalted. “They are always talking about it in the lounge area.” 

             I laughed, “yeah a lot of women watch it.” 

             “How much do the winners win?” He asked seriously and I laughed. “How much Lizzie, how much do they win?” 

             “Ten-thousand.” 

             “Ten-thousand!” He leaped with joy. “That is a lot of money! Think of how many bills we could pay?” 

             “We aren’t even a couple,” I said to him. “Also, what about your job? You can’t take an eight-week leave.” 

             “Well, I would need a good reason.” He changed the subject, “I think you should apply for us. We would be good for it. I mean, we know each other like a couple.”

             “Yeah but, we don’t act like a couple.” 

             “We can practice. Practice can simply change that. What do couples do anyway? Kiss, we can work on that. Sleep in the same bed, just pretend like every day is a sleep over. Cuddle, now we can do that one non-sexually.” 

             “Ok,” I nodded. We really needed the money our daughter’s life depended on it. “Go get your laptop.” 

             “Yes, ma’am.” He said grabbing it and we walked over to me and set it down. I opened it and signed into it. I know his password and everything because we are best friends. Then, I got on the website and stared at the laptop.          

“Do you really want to do this?”

“Yes.” 

“Ok, so our names. Beau Bird and Elizabeth Jameson. Birthdates. Easy!” I typed them in. “Our couple history?” I looked at him. 

“Met at a coffee shop.  I spilt coffee on you because I had just started the job and you were on a blind date with this horrible guy.” 

“We don’t believe in marriage because it is just an extra load of taxes. We live happily with our daughter Mariah who has cancer.” 

“Oh, and also, you thought I was a jerk and I thought you were a priss when we first met.” 

“Done!” I hit enter and we sat and waited until we got a call back. “I guess we should start studying each other.” 

“Yeah, what is my favorite color?”

“Green,” I rolled my eyes. “I would know that!” I slapped his shoulder. 

“Fine, what was my favorite shirt in high school?” 

“Your football jersey, they aren’t going to ask us that though. They are going to ask you stuff like ‘where did you go to college’ and yeah.” 

“Well, we don’t have to lie about those things,” he said to me, “we went to different colleges and our high school was big enough that we probably didn’t even know each other.” 

“That sounds reasonable.” 

“Ok, look back at the website and see if they accepted us.” 

“We won’t know yet!” I said to him. “You never know.” I opened it up and it had this huge hooray sound.

And read,

“Miss Jameson and your companion Mr. Bird have been accepted to be on the next season of County Couples. You are a last resort and filming starts tomorrow. Pack your bags be here at 8:30 stat.” 

             Then it read an address. “Well, that is unrealistic.” I said to him. 

             “Agreed.” 

             We both awoke the next morning; not very well rested. We were extremely nervous; we had just lied to be on one of the best TV shows. I walked across the hallway to his apartment and just walked in; that’s what friends do. 

             “So, your mom is going to take care of Mariah while we um are out of town?” 

             “Yes,” he said to me. 

             “Ok, and you printed out the address?” 

             “Yes.” 

             I helped him get our daughter up and into the car while he managed all of our luggage. We walked out the front lobby and into his car. His car is the ugliest thing that ugly has ever made. I told him that when he got it, but he didn’t listen. 

             First, we dropped our sleeping daughter off at his mother’s, my second mother, and then we drove to the mysterious address. 

             “Wow, these are nice houses!” I exalted.

             “Yeah! Woah! Look at that one. It’s got that window thing that you always wanted!”  

             “It does!” We kept driving. 

             Then, we came up on one house that looked really nice. Nicer than any of the others. It had big bronze balloons in front of it. “This must be the one,” Beau said turning into the driveway. 

             “I’m kind of in love with this house!”

             “Me too!”

             I exhaled heavily. “Right when we step out of this car, we have to pretend to be a couple.” I tried to smile but couldn’t. How could we pretend to be a couple? 

             Then there was a knock on our car window. This lady who wore green and sneakers was motioning for us to get out. “You must be Beau and Elizabeth we’ve been expecting you. Well, there are cameras in all of the rooms except for the bathrooms and then there are some in the bedrooms, but you have to turn those on. Turn in your phones.”

             “What?” I asked. 

             “This is an unplugging TV show, hand in your phones.” I put mine on silent then handed it to her. Beau did the same. “Ok, so you get your phone for twenty minutes a day. When you go upstairs you will know what room is yours because it says your name on the door. Only go in that one. Don’t go in any of the other rooms. I mentioned everything, meet the other couples.”   

             There were two couples sitting on the couch. One looked our age and the other looked in their early twenties. “Hi,” the women of the older couple said, “I’m Margret and this is Ernie, we’ve been married for almost twenty years. We have four kids and the reason we came was to get away from them.”

             “Hi,” I put on my fake face, “This is Beau and I’m Elizabeth, but you can call me Lizzie. We’ve been together for over twenty years. We have a daughter that is about seven and yeah.” 

             “Why aren’t you guys married?” She asked. 

             “Well,” Beau replied, “We don’t believe in marriage. It’s just a load of extra taxes.” 

             “Yeah,” I smiled going along with it. 

             “Just one kid?” Margret asked. 

             “Yeah, she is seven and all we can handle. She has a really free ranged spirit. So, who are you guys?” I turned to the other couple on the couch. 

             “We are Jason and Brittney.  We are newlyweds,” the girl said looking at her husband and kissed him. Which, I had to look away because they weren’t going to stop. 

             “Is there another couple?” I asked looking around realizing that there are usually four but there are only three. 

             “Well,” Margret started, “There is supposed to be, but we found out that they were imposters and weren’t actually a couple. They had been friends forever and just wanted the money.” My heart dropped and Beau grabbed my arm. 

             “Oh god,” he said “That is terrible. Why would someone do that.” I nodded sternly, going along with everything that he said. “How did you figure it out?” 

             “Well, the producers obviously asked the girl what his favorite shirt was in high school.”  Wow, couples actually do know that about each other. “Are you guys imposters, what is Beau’s favorite shirt in high school?”

             “His football jersey, he never stops talking about it.” 

             “I think we are going to go to our room,” Beau said. We both kind of ran to our room. Remembering that the cameras aren’t on in our room, we locked our door. 

             “Shit!” I screamed, “Oh god! Shit! We are going to get caught!”  I whisper-yelled. 

             “It’s ok, we just gotta stay away from the nark. I feel like she already knows.” 

             “Probably.” 

             “God Lizzie, you aren’t helping!” 

             “I wasn’t trying to.” 

             “Ok, put your happy face on mess up your hair a little bit though. Make it look like you just put your clothes back on.” 

             “Ok.” We walked back downstairs. 

             Everyone from the shooting team was gone and we were left there with the two couples. For the next couple of weeks, it was pretty fine. The newlyweds rarely left their room, and the other couple slept a lot. It was easy to hide that we were imposters. The house was big and had a library in the basement. I liked to spend my time, but it was getting extremely boring. Eight weeks is a long time. 

             “I’m bored,” Beau said. 

             “Me too, I miss Mariah.” 

             “I talked to her last night. She’s getting worse.” I laid my head on his shoulder. We were laying in our bed and our characters were becoming us. 

             I thought of everything to get my mind off the fact that our daughter was at home dying. “I’m going to tell you a secret.” 

             “Ok, but I bet I already know it.” 

             “I bet,” I said sarcastically, “I liked you in fourth grade.” 

             He laughed, “wow, what an interesting secret. I liked you sophomore year of high school. You went with Justin and that pink dress made you look so hot. That’s when I fell deep in love with you and it never really faded. I mean yeah, it’s in the past but I get jealous when you have boyfriends.” 

             “You think of me like that?” I turned to face him. 

             “Well, I mean I guess.” 

             “Well, if it makes you feel better, I get jealous of your girlfriends. I always thought we were going to get together after Mariah was born but we didn’t.” 

             “You never acted interested. You always act like we are never going to be more than friends.” 

             “I was nervous. What we have is special. I wouldn’t want to end it because of stupid unmutual feelings.” 

             “But they weren’t unmutual.” I was getting annoyed. Then, I stared into his eyes and kissed him. He didn’t stop me. I felt like the half of me I didn’t know I was missing was found.