The meeting is being held in one of the executive offices on the ground floor of the hotel, right off the lobby, where they have the archaic “business center,” pool and gym. I see Mrs. Pathmoore immediately as I turn the corner past the hotel’s front desk with Jason, and she motions very dramatically for me to come with her and for Jason to stay behind.

She brings me into the small office and shuts the door behind us. At least they have refreshments here.

“Who is the gentleman?” Mrs. Pathmoore asks as I pour myself a small plastic cup of water with lemon and grab a tea biscuit.

“That’s an old friend of mine,” I answer without skipping a beat. No use to draw attention to real nature of our relationship, not that I know what the hell it is.

One night stand? One week fling? I feel my face grow warm in the realization that I have absolutely zero clue what is going through Jason’s head. Even worse, I haven’t had a chance to consider what I want this to be, either. I just haven’t had time for it yet. So far it’s just been an absolutely ecstatic swirl of one incredible night and a quick cup of coffee the next morning. I know he said he wanted to spend more time with me, but so far it’s just been sex for both of us.

And is it wrong that I can’t get my mind off it?

“Is he here to support you...as a friend?” Mrs. Pathmoore asks, her tone dripping with condescension and judgement.

“No,” I reply, “as a matter of fact, he is working here. He is a security guard for the pageant. He has been a bouncer for some of the biggest rock bands in the country. He comes highly recommended. He is very good at what he does.”

I shoot of that rapid-fire series of half-truths and white-lies, caught up in wanting to defend him and maybe make it seem like he really belongs here, despite what Mrs. Pathmoore thinks of him. But I immediately realize it’s silly, because of course he belongs here. He’s being paid to be here, after all.

I hear the door to the office click open behind me and two of the higher-ups of the pageant appear from behind the door - the Vice President of the organization, and host of the whole thing.

I start to put my hand out to greet both of them, but they both rush past Mrs. Pathmoore and me, guiding us toward the big desk in the middle of the room. Their expressions are cold and uninviting.

“Is it really that bad?” I say with a laugh in a vain attempt to lighten the mood. My attempt is less successful than I’d hoped. I knew these people would likely give me shit once I was in the meeting, but the mood in here is really not good.

I glance from Mrs. Pathmoore to the two women sitting across the table from us, and they look at me with folded hands and judging scowls.

“Like I said on the phone earlier,” Mrs. Pathmoore says, “it’s not good.”

“No, it’s not good,” the VP of the whole shebang says.

Vivian Rose Garnelle. Her reputation precedes her. I’ve never actually met her until now, and I’m just realizing this. She has a big, beauty queen bouffant atop her head, all southern charm on the outside and a sly, calculating, whip-smart tongue on the inside.

“What am I going to do about it?” I say, partially defeated and partially hopeful. “I mean, if you guys called this meeting, I assume there’s a reason I’m here. Something I can do to make this whole thing go away. I have an interview a little later this morning, and I can say the whole thing was a big joke if that’ll make it better.”

“No,” the pageant host, a woman in her late forties who is on one of those early-evening gossip shows says, “that is the absolute last thing we need. That would draw more attention to the problem.”

“That’s correct,” the Ms. Garnelle says, “what we need to do now is change the conversation entirely.”

I don’t understand what the hell is happening, and I suddenly become very aware of the possibility of getting kicked out of the pageant entirely. That would probably be the easiest thing for them to do. And talk about changing the conversation - removing me from it completely would certainly achieve that.

“Please don’t get rid of me,” I say, searching the women’s faces for traces of sympathy. “I really love being here, and I’m really sorry about this whole thing.”

“Darling,” the Ms. Garnelle says elegantly, flitting up from her seat to take a small waltz around the room, “we are not removing you from the competition. Trust me, the idea was floated, but the truth of the matter is that we need you just as much as you need us.”

“You’re a real draw, Cassandra,” the host says. “My network’s polling shows that a lot of people tune in just to see you.”

“Really?” I say in disbelief. I mean, I know I have a following and I knew that the pageant considered me a frontrunner - it’s why they paid for me to have my own room and gave me all kinds of little perks - but I thought I was kind of being kept around as a token competitor. It’s not a secret that I look slightly different from most of the other contestants.

“Really,” Mrs. Pathmoore, putting her hand on my shoulder in a rare gesture that shows she really is human and not some perfect fembot with no real feelings.

“Okay,” I say, “I mean, thank you. Please just tell me what to do to fix this.”

“The whole problem stems from the fact that you were quoted as saying something that is completely antithetical to what your public persona is supposed to be...and, in addition to that, you were seen canoodling with a man who is not your husband, not your boyfriend.”

“I thought we weren’t allowed to be married to compete,” I say, feeling my brow furrow. “So it would be a problem if I were married, and in fact would disqualify me, and it’s a problem that I’m not married?”

“That’s not what I said,” Ms. Garnelle says impatiently. I can read that the whole mood of the room has shifted suddenly. Maybe it’s because I’ve actually hit on something that has the ability to strike a nerve. “The problem is what you said, coupled with how you said it.”

“I can’t believe this is really happening,” I say, “all because of this stupid comment.”

“You do have a clause in your contract that dictates you must adhere to a certain image,” Mrs. Pathmoore reminds me, as though I didn’t realize this is the topic of the whole meeting.

I sigh deeply, my heart pounding deep inside me. I guess I allowed myself to get a little bit too caught up in Jason. Even though I stopped him before he put his lips to mine at the bar...even though I wanted him to take me right then and there. I shouldn’t have let him touch me the way he did.

“We do have a way for you to walk this back,” the host says optimistically, snapping my mind back to the present.

“What is it?” I ask, flopping my hands on down my lap. “What can I do to make this go away?”

“Well,” the organizer says, “who was the man you were speaking with?”

That’s certainly a fantastic question. Just the boy I don’t know if I can have. Just the man I want.

“He’s an old friend,” I say. “We were neighbors back in our hometown.”

“He’s actually already employed by the organization,” Mrs. Pathmoore says. “He came highly recommended. He’s doing security. He’s got a fantastic resume and an even better reputation.”

I watch as smiles grow on the faces around me. Infuriating, annoying smiles, and I feel like I’m being left out of the best inside joke in the cafeteria.

“What about him?” I ask, searching their faces.

Ms. Garnelle slips back into her chair and smiles at me, folding her hands in front of her and picking up a pen, sliding a crisp sheet of paper out of a big leather portfolio on her desk that I’m just now noticing.

“What if he were your boyfriend?” she asks, sliding the paper across the desk to me. “What if he were something more than that, even? Your fiancé?”

I feel my jaw drop open as I am rendered speechless, snatching the document from her and scanning it from top to bottom. I’m no stranger to contracts in this business - I’ve even had a few endorsements in my time - but I’ve never seen anything like this before. It is boilerplate, with all of the pertinent details omitted, but it is specific. And specifically, it says I would be pretending that the man these people around me are talking about as if he’s no one at all is actually my fiancé, real as day and airtight as the black ink on the white page in front of me.

“It’s a tidy solution,” Mrs. Pathmoore says. “If you think about it, it would make complete sense to move forward with this, or something like it.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, my fingers flying to my temple. “You want to essentially cover up the fact that I am single and some kind of pessimistic, love-hating monster, and make it seem as though I’m engaged? All to make me look like the good girl that...what? The good girl I’m supposed to be? The kind of girl you want in your pageant?”

“Well, yes,” Ms. Garnelle says plainly, placing her elbows on the desk in front of her and folding her hands under her chin, “precisely.”

I nearly choke on the air in my lungs.

This is not going to work for me. It’s preposterous.

Obviously, these people are high off their asses if they think I would go for something like this.

“If you ask me,” I say, rising from my seat, “this is antithetical to the spirit of the pageant. This is a lie. This is…”

I watch the three perfect, beautiful faces around me. I watch as they exchange glances, and the girl in front of them, struggling in this moment with the very real prospect of all she’s worked for going down the drain in one moment of stupidity and one moment of some unscrupulous reporter thinking she’s got the scoop on me, questions her resolve.

I slowly sit back down and yank the contract off the desk.

“It’s not crazy,” Mrs. Pathmoore says, “it’s a little white lie. It’s a way for all of us to move on from this. And most importantly, it’s a way for you to remain in the competition.”

I imagine Jason Anderson’s name on the contract in front of me. I let out a chuckle as I remember how I’d once written a birthday card to him and snuck over to his house in the middle of the night to stick it in his mailbox before he got home from wherever the hell he was, doing everything forbidden and wrong with people I’d only ever heard about in the vaguest of terms.

And I remember how my brother had looked over my shoulder when I was writing out the card, and how he’d said my handwriting looked different.

That’s because it was. I wanted to give it a little bit of extra flair.

I just wanted Jason to see me as something...something else. Something other than what I was for all those years.

“I would have to talk to Jason about this,” I say, my voice shrinking as I glance at the line mentioning a yet-to-be-determined amount of money Jason would earn should he go along with this circus. “I see here you guys would be paying him for this?”

“So the mystery man has a name,” Mrs. Pathmoore says gleefully. “Jason...and what is his last name?”

“Anderson,” I say, my voice coming out as barely a croak, “his name is Jason Anderson.”

Jason Anderson, my soon-to-be-fiancé.

This is great. This is everything I’ve always wanted.

Yeah. Right.