The Standout by Laurel Osterkamp Page B

in and whispers in my ear. “You didn’t hear this from me, but Hilaire was against your being added to the show. She said she wants designers, not reality TV stars. I said you are a designer, but she can be. . . well. . .” Jim straightens up, steps away, and speaks at his normal, nasally pitch. “Well, hang in there, Robin. And good work with your dress! You can do this!” He pats me on the arm to be reassuring, but suddenly there’s a pound of gravel in my stomach and I don’t even know why.
    I need a break.
    I leave the workroom and go outside, to the rooftop terrace. The air is crisp and the evening skyscape is millions of tiny lights. Although I’m not up very high I still feel small and unsteady, and just gazing at the stars gives me the sensation that I could fall. But I imagine that Nick is standing in our backyard right now and he’s looking up at the same sky. I hope that he’s missing me and I hope that he isn’t. He should be both happy and miserable, just like me.
    I think about how I was here in New York many years ago, with a different love, dreaming of a future with him in this very city. And for years I believed I would never recover from the loss of him or from the loss of that dream. But I did, and if I can do that, I can go a few weeks without Nick. I can trust that he’ll take care of my cyber-stalker for me while I’m gone, that I can focus on winning while I’m here, and that once I get back we’ll figure out everything else.
    I go back inside, resolved to finish the straps of my dress before it’s time to go. But as I approach my work station I see that someone has been messing with my Samsung tablet, which all the contestants were provided with as a perk for doing the show. Mine had been put away in my desk drawer but now it’s sitting out and the power is on.
    The internet has been accessed. That’s totally against the rules and I’m about to exit out before I get caught, but too soon I’m hit with a sickening realization: my tablet is on something called The Rotten Robin Website . There are multiple unflattering photos of me and my cheeks sting as I read the bullet points:
    ·          Robin is an adulteress: She slept with a married man and now she’s cheating on her fiancé.
    ·          Robin is a whore: Do you know how long her “list” is? It’s well into the double digits and I can give you the names to prove it!
    ·          Robin is a cheater: She cheated on The Holdout and she’s cheating right now, while filming The Standout .
    ·          Robin is a liar: She lied about her past, she’s lied about her present, and she’s lying about her future. Does this girl ever tell the truth?
    Then there’s this tirade of made up accusations, but made up or not, shame blisters my lungs as I try to breathe.
    And that’s not even the worst of it. At the bottom there’s some video footage.
    I don’t want to press play but my finger acts independently of my brain, and it touches that little arrow. I see a montage of carefully selected moments: me on The Holdout , saying “I’ll do anything to get ahead.” Me, making out with Grant (who I actually trusted) on the beach. Me, on a talk show, saying, “I did what I had to do. Cheating and lying were just part of the game.”
    After that there are clips from plays I’ve been in, some dating all the way back to college. Who had access to my computer so they could post these? There’s me as Karen in Speed the Plow , admitting I only had sex with a guy so he’d green-light a movie; me, taking off my blouse and making out with the guy; me in more clips from more plays.
    I never realized how slutty my characters were.
    But they were just roles I stepped into. Maybe it was typecasting, but I have been misrepresented and I don’t know who to blame. I could blame Clara, or Andrea—hell; I could blame Nick for not taking care of things like he said he would. I could even blame the Internet or