The Set Up

I

As she walked down the quaint path to the house she tried her best to calm her nerves. Unfortunately, thinking about what lay ahead only made them worse. She mentally cursed the death traps that the producers forced her feet into. The saddest part was that she knew there were higher stilettos waiting for her in the future.

She took a deep breath as she approached the door. It was a cottage, but larger than she expected. There were flowers everywhere, and she briefly wondered if she could get the number of the gardner. But then she realized she was stalling and raised a fist to the door. Hesitantly, she knocked.

Almost immediately, the doors opened with six pairs of eyes staring expectantly at her. "Welcome Thea! We are so excited to have you here! Most of the other girls are waiting in the green room." One of the women said. She was the one in charge. Her clipboard and do-good attitude made that obvious to Thea. 

"Thank you for having me. This is all very..." She was speechless. The other people were dressed in all black. They were the technicians and "elves" of the industry.

The woman laughed, not at all surprised by her speechlessness. The interior of the cottage was lavishly decorated with paintings and priceless vases filled with even more flowers. The furniture was both classy and homey, which was an oddly comforting combination for her. But the coup de grâce was the chandelier hung from the enormously tall celling. What appeared to be millions of tiny crystals shined together to form something that stole Thea's breath away.

"If you'll follow me, we can get you comfortable. Would you like anything to drink?" The woman asked, snapping Thea out of her thoughts.

She gave a nervous smile and replied, "Thank you, but I'll be fine m'am."

The gorgeous blonde scoffed at the name. "Oh please darling, just call me Emma. I'm your go to gal for anything you need on this show. Don't worry about boundaries, I've already seen it all. Been working the show for close to ten years now." She lowered her voice, "And I always have supplies for when mother nature calls," she finished with a wink, and Thea felt at ease with Emma. She was obviously someone who genuinely cared for the experiment.

They walked through a set of heavy wooden doors to a sitting room filled with models. Or at least, they all looked like they could be one if they desired. Thea became almost queasy at their superior beauty, but her curiosity about each of their stories quickly squashed it. After all, she would be spending the next one to twenty weeks with these girls. She did a quick count of the people there, seventeen pairs of long toned legs and long hair. So including her, there would only be two more people arriving after her. She wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad thing.

"Hello everyone, please welcome our next contestant, Thea Bradley. While you girls acquaint  yourselves, is there anything else I can get you?" People gave responses to Emma, some as simple as water and some as complicated as whatever a Jackie O was. Emma took it all in stride, not even bothering to write down any of it before striding away to fill the orders.

"So, Thea, is that short for anything? It is a very pretty name," someone asked her. 

Thea couldn't really tell where it came from, so she just addressed the entire room in response, "No, it is just Thea. And thank you. What are all of your names?" She winced at the awkwardness in her voice, but at least she would get to know some of them through their responses. 

They all went through their names, though many of them obviously had no interest in being friendly towards her. There were simple enough names, like Sarah and Taylor, but there were also really cool names like Leandra and Juniper. Thea couldn't yet tell if their personalities were as beautiful as their appearances, but she figured they were making the same assumptions about her, so she let it slide.