Page 48 of One to Watch

Hometown: Short Hills, New Jersey

Favorite place you’ve traveled? Cambodia

Favorite ice cream? Mint chip. No, fudge ripple. Or peanut butter! Also Cherry Garcia. And Phish Food. Wow, I have a thing for jam band ice cream flavors, but I hate their music. What do you think it means?

Who is your role model? My mom, Claudette, is the chief cardiac surgeon at Mountainside Hospital. She’s brave enough to hold people’s lives in her hands, and strong enough to live up to the responsibility.

If you could accomplish just one thing in your life, what would it be? Okay, Main Squeeze, getting deep with it. Respect. Oh, you want an answer? I have no idea.

The next morning, Bea had to get up at an ungodly hour for her date with Sam. Alison dressed her in artfully tattered boyfriend jeans, a whisper-thin Monrow tee, a men’s soft leather bomber with the sleeves pushed up to Bea’s elbows, and vintage Nikes, so Bea knew they were going somewhere casual, but she had no idea where. And Lauren insisted that the surprise not be spoiled—so Bea and Sam were going to be blindfolded for their limo ride to their date.

“Seriously?” Bea asked when a PA produced two black satin blindfolds emblazoned with rhinestones that formed the Main Squeeze logo.

Sam looked skeptical, too, but Lauren was having none of it.

“I promise,” she assured them, “you’re going to be more upset than I am if we lose time at your destination, so can you put on the blindfolds so we can get moving?”

And that’s how Bea and Sam came to be blindfolded, led into a limousine with two cameras trained on their every move, and driven clear across Los Angeles at six o’clock in the morning.

“Where do you think they’re taking us?” he asked.

“Maybe some sort of escape-room scenario?” Bea ventured. “Otherwise I have no idea what’s with the blindfolds.”

“I gotta say, this is some real Eyes Wide Shut nonsense for a first date.”

“Oh,” Bea deadpanned, “did I not tell you we’re going to a secret murder orgy?”

“Way better than a public murder orgy,” Sam quipped. “Those always end in jail time.”

“Crap, do you think they’ll be mad about all our cameras?”

Bea heard a fluster of movement that sounded like Sam was flailing wildly around the limo.

“Guys! Guys! Did you know they don’t allow cameras in secret murder orgies? Our date is ruined!”

When the limousine finally rolled to a stop, Bea and Sam stumbled out of the limo together, still blindfolded, and were forced to walk another five minutes or so before they stopped for the official unveiling.

“Bea and Sam, welcome to your very first one-on-one date!”

“Thanks, Johnny!” Bea said brightly.

“Now, tell me,” Johnny said smoothly, “do you two have any idea where you are?”

“We drove for about an hour,” Bea started, “and without traffic at freeway speeds, that puts us maybe sixty miles from the compound? But it’s much sunnier and hotter than it was when we left, so that would mean we drove inland, and probably south, too, and if you account for—”

“Okay,” a producer broke in, “that was a rhetorical question. Bea, Sam, can we take that again and have you guys just shake your heads?”

“Damn,” Sam whispered, “remind me to take you with me if I ever actually get kidnapped. What are you, a secret agent?”

“Or a superhero whose primary power is having spent half my life in L.A. traffic,” Bea whispered back as they both shook their heads solemnly, per the producer’s instructions.

“All right,” said Johnny grandly, “on the count of three, go ahead and remove your blindfolds. In three, two, one—”

“Holy shit!” Sam blurted in the same second Bea shouted out, “We’re at Disneyland!”

“I can’t believe this!” Sam guffawed.

“Right?” Bea laughed. “Happiest Place on Earth!”