The Final Rose

Chapter One: Round 1

I stared out the rain-streaked window at the red adobe hills of New Mexico. It was just after dusk and the starless sky was a deep shade of purple. I'd never been to this part of the country before, and I was still getting my bearings. It had taken a long time to get to Santa Fe. I didn't live close to any major airports, so just getting here had been an ordeal. After multiple flights and too many layovers, I'd had only enough time to check in to the hotel where we weren't really staying, wiggle into a cocktail dress, and jump into the back of a limo with a gaggle of women whom I'd never met before.

I looked around at the smiling, eager faces of the six other women sitting in the back of the black limo. They all chattered excitedly while bits and pieces of their stilted conversations filled my head.

"I wonder if he's as handsome in person as he is on TV," a blonde girl in a bubble-gum pink dress thought aloud. She reminded me a little of Malibu Barbie.

Her sentiment was echoed by several others while I continued to stare out the limo window. The weather had cleared and beyond the water lines streaked across the windows, there was no sign that it had ever rained that day-a symptom of life in the high desert, I supposed.

"God, I'm so nervous," the brunette sitting beside me muttered. She wore an off-the-shoulder green dress that matched the color of her emerald eyes.

"What about?"

She turned in her seat and looked at me as though I'd grown a third eyeball. "Everything!" she exclaimed. "Everything we say and do is going to be on television. They could edit us to look like lunatics."

"Then why do it?" I asked.

"B-because-because." She stammered and looked flustered by the question. "Why are you doing it?"

"My mom signed me up."

"Really?"

"When the show's producers contacted me, I thought it was a joke," I shrugged. "But I said yes because my mom was so adamant about me doing it."

She stared at me blankly. "So you're not here because of Jacob?"

"Oh, is that his name?"

Her green eyes widened even more. I allowed myself a private smile; I knew his name, but I couldn't help having a little fun at her expense.

The limo turned left onto an unpaved road and we bumped and jolted along for a few hundred feet before stopping in front of a palatial mansion that spread out in either direction along the horizon. The quiet chatter in the backseat came to a stop as realization simultaneously hit us: We were here. This was really happening.

The partition window rolled down to reveal two figures in the front seat: our uniformed driver, and one of the producers from the show.

"Okay, ladies," the show runner announced, "it's time to meet our lucky bachelor."

The other women primped their hair and checked their teeth for lipstick residue while one thought ran wild in my head: Was it too late to change my mind?

The door nearest to me opened, and the driver stuck out his hand to help me out of the low-riding car.

"Thank you," I said with growing apprehension.

I stepped out of the limo and self-consciously brushed my palms down the front of my dress. The women in my group looked like disco balls and prom queens. In my short black dress, I felt very plain in comparison. We had only been allowed two suitcases, yet we'd been instructed to be prepared for any occasion, in both warm and cold climates, in addition to fourteen gowns for the rose ceremonies. I hadn't owned a single dress prior to this experience. The cost of me being a contestant on this show had been a financial burden on my mother, but she had been relentless in her pursuit to get me here. My father had passed many years ago and it had only been the two of us for some time. My static love life had been on her radar ever since I'd returned to Michigan to take care of her.