When I’m done with hair and makeup, I’m guided to the couch, where some random person shoves a pillow behind my back so I’m forced to perch on my ass.

Beck sits down on an ottoman across from me and behind the camera. “Okay, we’re just going to have a conversation. I’ll ask questions and you answer. If something else comes up, just keep talking. We might have to pause every once in a while, for noise. When that happens, Ash, Ginger, or Irina might swoop in and fix your hair or whatever. Cool?”

“Uh, sure. There are…a lot of people here.” I force myself to breathe evenly before I hyperventilate.

Beck comes to sit down next to me on the couch. “Listen, if we were doing your pre-interview weeks ago like we did for the other girls, we’d be able to ease you into this a little bit more. But as it stands, we’re running against the clock with little time to be precious. I want you to be comfortable, so I can send everyone who doesn’t need to be in here right now outside, and we can do this with a skeleton crew. You also need to know, though, that when you get to the house, it’s going to be this but on steroids. I’m talking vein-busting, ball-shrinking steroids.”

I nod. I hear what she’s saying. There’s no time to ease me into this, and maybe that’s what I need—to just be immersed in something so fully that I can’t even think too hard about it. “They can stay. But, um, could I have a glass of water or something?”

Beck nods and snaps her fingers. “K! Water.”

Within seconds, a gangly-looking white boy is holding a bottle of water with a straw in front of my face. “Sip,” he says.

“I don’t need a straw,” I tell him.

“Yes, she does,” Ash, Irina, and Ginger say in unison.

“It’s paper,” he tells me, obviously bored. “Save the turtles.”

I oblige and take my sip while he holds the bottle for me, and the moment I’m done, I say, “Well, that was awkward.”

Beck waves me off. “That kid just got paid to serve you water. He’s fine. You’re hydrated. We’re all good.” She stands and heads back to her ottoman. “How’s our light? How do we look?”

Irina rushes in. “Lose the necklace.”

I hold my hand over it and instinctively say, “No.”

“It ruins the shot,” Irina says with defiance.

We both look to Beck for a tiebreaker, and I think if Irina takes this necklace off me, I might cry, which is ludicrous, but I’m about as high-strung as an extreme couponer waiting for her grand total right now. “Necklace stays. It’s…approachable-looking.”

Irina mutters under her breath, and I think she and I might go toe-to-toe before all this is said and done.

“Quiet on set!” a South Asian girl with two long braids and a clipboard covered in band stickers calls out.

“Thank you, Mallory,” Beck says.

The whole room goes completely silent. So silent, in fact, that I’m scared I might be breathing too heavily, and what if they can hear it on the mic dangling above my head just out of frame?

Beck nods to the guy behind the camera.

“Rolling!” the girl with the clipboard shouts.

On and off for the next hour, Beck pretty much does a post-mortem of my life leading up to this moment. The only exclusion is any specific details about Erica. Other than that, she asks about everything. My dad’s death. The triplets. Fashion school. Moving back home to California. Eventually Erica enters, stepping in and out periodically, giving her nod of approval, and I try not to let my eyes stray. We pause a few times for planes overhead or car alarms, and sometimes I say something that I’m asked to repeat, but with more “emphasis”—whatever that means.

When we’re done, the whole room collectively sighs, and within seconds, the volume of the crew has exploded again.

Beck pats my knee. “You did great.”

“You didn’t tell me you were basically going to neatly display my guts for the whole world to see.”

She laughs. “It feels like a lot, but we need options. Different angles. And don’t worry about all these people. A lot of them just check out while the cameras are rolling until it’s time to do their job again. And anyway, all this is going to get cut down to, like, two minutes of actual footage.” She holds a finger up and listens to something in her headset before running off.

I think all that is supposed to be comforting, but going through the labor of putting my whole life on display is a little bit painful in a different kind of way.

Erica plops down on the couch beside me, and crew members skitter away like little ants fleeing a destroyed anthill. “They could have at least cast someone who looks like me,” she says, motioning to the woman in the kitchen, where Beck is setting up a shot. “Sorry that I can’t actually play your mom,” she tells me.

“It must have been really weird for Drew and Anna.”

She lets out a dry chuckle. “Their fake mom’s name was Natalie. They were very into it, actually.”

“How am I not surprised?”

“I wish I could have been here this morning. Our suitor was having a…situation.”

I nudge her with my elbow. “Wow, talk about vague.”

“You’re lucky I even said that.”

I swivel, turning into her. “Just tell me one thing. Do you think I’ll even like him?”

I expect her to brush me off, but instead she presses her finger to her lips and thinks for a long moment. “You know, up until last week, I would have said no way…but people have ways of surprising you…and the two of you—” She stops suddenly, returning to her poker face, like she’s just realized she accidentally traded producer hat for stepmom hat. “Come on. Let’s get you touched up.” She stands. “We need touch-ups!”

Within seconds, we’re swarmed.

Erica squeezes my hand before leaving me with Ash, Irina, and Ginger.

For the rest of the afternoon, my fake stepmom, Tammy, and I bake fake cookies and do fake dishes and have fake conversations and have fake fun. The whole time, from behind the camera, Beck urges, “Smile! Act natural!”

Those three words spin circles in my head for the rest of the day and well into the night as I pack my bags and tuck the triplets into bed once more. Smile. Act natural.