Soupe Jeannette

Caleb made his way to the dining hall and arrived to see two groups of three and the conspicuous absence of Lily or Eliza. Caleb felt his shoulders slump. He was worried about Eliza. This was now her second day not coming out of her room. Mira had told him not to worry about it, but still… Now with Lily missing from breakfast, he couldn’t help but feel like he was missing something. He decided to go to the person most likely to know.

After grabbing a simple breakfast of cottage cheese and some fruit, he sat down next to Noemi, who beamed even as he turned to look towards Amy, “Lily’s not eating today?” It came out more accusatory than he meant, but from her expression, it didn’t look like the Oni had taken any particular offense.

She took a bite of toast and just gave Caleb a level look. “She was crashing out over something Stella said to her yesterday, and I made it worse by being honest with her.”

Trying not to jump to conclusions, Caleb still glanced towards the imp and then back to Amy, “Can you please tell me what it was in regards to?”

Putting her food down, Amy leaned back in her chair. “Only if you promise not to fixate on it today.”

“Amy…” Caleb was staring her down and could feel his body tense. Noemi putting her hand over his helped, but it wasn’t making his blood pressure drop.

The oni’s expression didn’t change. “Listen, Caleb, I know you want to help, but today is your day with Maya, you need to be focusing on that. Each of us only has four weeks now to make it to 100 VP, and if you’re not giving us your full attention, it’s doing us a disservice.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “So unless you can promise me that it won’t distract you and harm Maya, I’m not going to tell you.”

Caleb sighed and gritted his teeth, “I’ll be more distracted by not knowing what is going on, Amy, please tell me. I promise I won’t let it interfere with my dates.”

Maddy stared over at Caleb. During the first week, the Master had given the impression of a sweet, if poorly put together, man, and the sweetness had been what attracted her to him during their date. Now, the expression on his face was **** and hardened like a man being chased. She found herself reaching out and putting a hand on his shoulder, causing Noemi to give her a sly smile.

Shaking her head and uncrossing her arms, Amy relented. “She was just called out on some behaviours, her need to feel she’s doing the right thing, short-sightedness, unintentionally harming people, none of this catches you by surprise?” She was staring into Caleb’s face, which had slackened in relief.

“I-uh…well, we did date for two years y’know? So no… these eccentricities don’t surprise me. It’s not my place to air out her issues, though, just please be a bit patient with her. She’s got some complexes surrounding…everything from her family.” Caleb reached up and patted Maddie's hand and turned his other hand over to squeeze Noemi’s to her delight. He stared down at Amy, “Is that everything?”

“No,” the Oni said flatly, “I tried to reason with her by explaining that her impression of who was good and bad was flawed, given my own status as a free agent; this upset her, especially when I revealed how I influenced her during the challenge.”

Maddy froze. This was news to her. “What do you mean you influenced her?”

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Amy sighed, “I knew when I told her about my VP situation that she felt she owed me a favor, and understood it might push her to vote Betray if I put the decision in her hands.” There was a moment of silence as Maddy’s eyes narrowed and Caleb absorbed what he was being told, “I didn’t strong-arm her or guilt her…I merely shared the information, knowing that it might influence her decision.”

Caleb was about to speak when he was cut off by Maddy stepping in, “Why get her to do it instead of voting for it yourself? If there was nothing to feel bad about?”

Lowering her hand, Amy lightly gestured as she explained, “Because Lily defending me against her own interests is more likely to be forgiven than me voting to protect myself, even if it is the logical decision to make, and everyone would agree it's a better outcome than me being potentially lobotomized. But people don’t think like that in the moment or in high-stress situations. For as much flak as Lily get’s her thinking in terms of good or bad is typical.”

Maddy bit her lip; she hated this. Why couldn’t people just…do their best without all this maneuvering and finagling of each other? She didn’t disagree with Amy’s logic, but why did it have to be that way? Why couldn’t they all trust each other to do what was best for everyone?

It was Caleb’s turn to sigh, “I understand what you did, and I won’t hold it against you. I think the challenge was hard on everyone, but we gotta stop this. Using each other to get our way, even if it makes sense to do so, we can’t start seeing each other as tools and obstacles, ok? We’re all stuck together after this, no matter what. I’m not going to judge how anyone gets through this place, but we need to at least see each other as people. If we can’t do that, then Lucian was right about us the whole time.” Caleb formed a fist in his hand and squeezed, “No way do we give that demon that satisfaction.”

Noemi squealed and wrapped her arms around Caleb’s shoulder and kissed his cheek, “Caleb, you sounded so manly just now!” She nuzzled against Caleb as he tried to create some distance. Maddy sat staring at him, clutching her hands together. It hadn’t been what she wanted to say, but the fact that he just cared about them this way, most of them practically strangers, hit her deep inside. Seeing his face earlier, she had been worried that the kindness she had seen in Caleb was eroding away, but instead, she now saw that it was just buried deep and informing his behaviour.

For her part, Amy’s expression remained unchanged, “Ok, I can agree to that.”

Caleb raised an eyebrow, “No push back?”

The oni simply shrugged, “No reason to. Listen, I’m not trying to make enemies or anything like that. It isn’t my intention to hurt people; that stuff gets messy. I just try to do things the way that makes the most sense logically in the moment, but your reasoning against it in the long term is persuasive. Also, doesn’t make much sense to fight it; you could always strip my VP rights away until I acquiesce, so it makes more sense to go along with it.”

Caleb recoiled slightly. “I wouldn’t do that.”

Shaking her head, Amy stood up and grabbed her plate. “No? But you could. You always have that trump card in your back pocket to get people to behave how you want them to. As long as that’s the case, no dictation as to how things should be done is a gentle request. There’s always a gun behind your back.”

Maddy frowned. “Do you really think that?”

Amy shifted her glance to Maddy, “It’s not a matter of what I think, it’s a fact. Caleb ultimately has a unilateral destructive weapon against us. It makes any request he makes potentially coercive. I missed it when Lucian was offering it, and that’s on me, but just you having this power? Significantly increases the discrepancy between our positions, probably to make it difficult for us to trust you. Well and of course, to tempt you into abusing your position, I’m sure if you started seeing us as objects, the audience wouldn’t complain.”

Caleb rose from his seat. “It was impulsive when I took the offer, and admittedly, it makes me feel more in control of the situation, but I have no plans to use it unless someone is in danger from the threat of someone else.”

Beginning to walk away with her plate, Amy leaned back, “That’s great and all, and I believe you, just letting you know, trying to be helpful, that sort of thing.” She dumped her remnants in the garbage and put the plate in the collection bin. “I’ll see you tomorrow for our date, Caleb. Try not to stress about anything I’ve said.” The oni walked off

Caleb looked around, and most eyes in the room were now on in, having attracted attention from standing suddenly. He swallowed and tried to put the discussion behind him; he might as well use the attention for what he had planned earlier. He took a step towards the center of the room and tried to smile at everyone, “Good morning, everyone!”

“Oh no! Camp counselor Caleb is back. He’s gonna make us hunt snipes!” Stella called out from her seat.

Wrinkling his nose, Caleb nonetheless cracked into a chuckle at Stella’s outburst, temporarily distracting him from everything else before continuing, “I just wanted to let everyone know that after some hard work yesterday and some assistance from Noemi,” He smiled at the Chilean woman who beamed back enthusiastically, “I am not restricted to the hotel anymore, fully outdoor dates would probably still be difficult but if there’s someplace you want to go I can manage that.”

Mira raised an eyebrow skeptically, “You expect me to believe you got over your phobia in just under a day of ‘hard work’?” Probably being the most familiar with how debilitating his condition was, the Bengali woman was extremely dubious of any proclamations that he had fixed it.

“Nothing so dramatic, um, I’ve made the panic attacks…manageable, I guess, would be the best way to describe it.” Caleb gave a sideways smile, “I’m still gonna hyperventilate, have chest pain, possibly become weak at the knees…but I’m less in danger of collapsing or passing out.”

Mira regarded him evenly, “So to reiterate, you’re letting us know you are willing to suffer a bit so that we have a wider range of options for our outings with you?”

Wincing, but trying to keep a smile on his face, Caleb nodded, “That’s a blunt way of putting it, but I suppose it’s an accurate one.”

Maya frowned from her seat, “What if we don’t want you to go through that, though?”

Maddy nodded and chimed in, “Honestly, Caleb, it’s ok if we just have to stick around to the hotel.”

Caleb shook his head, “I appreciate what you are saying, but…no, it’s not ok. We have four more weeks together, and I don’t want anyone handicapped in their chances to make it to the end because of me. I’m not saying disregard my health and safety, but just…if you have something you want to do, don’t count it out because of my condition. That’s all.”

Mira leaned back in her chair and smiled. “An admirable effort, I will keep it in mind.” She paused and then softened her expression, “Caleb, as someone who has seen you struggle and knows how much of a wall this has been for you, you’ve done a good job and should be proud of yourself.”

Caleb was taken aback slightly by the earnestness behind the Bengali woman’s words, “I um…thanks, Mira.”

The talent agent rose from her seat and began to throw out the remains of her breakfast, and seemed to signal to the rest that with this announcement, breakfast was over. Everyone began clearing out, though Noemi stopped by to give Caleb another kiss on the cheek. As everyone left, Maya was the only one left and stepped up to him.

She put her hands behind her back. “So, did you have anything you wanted to do for our date?”

Caleb froze, admittedly, with everything else, the drama between contestants and trying to be able to go outside, he hadn’t thought too much about what they might actually do. His face fell, and he looked embarrassed. “No, I’m sorry, Maya, I actually hadn’t thought too much about it.” He paused and had a flash of inspiration, “Hey, we could go back to the game room, you said there were more games there you wanted to play, right?”

Maya’s face lit up with excitement, and she stood up on her heels before her face falling and sinking back, “No, we can’t do that.”

Caleb raised an eyebrow, confused by Maya’s flipping reaction, “Why can’t we?”

Maya frowned and seemed to be struggling with putting together words for a moment before saying, “We did that last time.”

Relaxing, Caleb smiled, “Well, we don’t have to play Mao, we can play something else. Though I wouldn’t say no to playing more Mao now that I know the rules.” His face fell as he watched Maya’s expression become increasingly frustrated. He paused, “Is that something that doesn’t sound fun to you?”

Maya flailed her arms gently at her side, “No, it sounds fun and I want to do it, but we can’t do that.”

Caleb scratched the side of his head. “You’re going to have to help me out a little here, Maya. I’m very confused. If it sounds fun to you and you want to do it, why can’t we?”

Scoffing slightly and wrinkling her nose, “Last time we did something I wanted to do. We can’t do that this time. This time we have to do something you want to do.”

“I mean,” Caleb felt he understood better, but it was like driving in the dark and only seeing half a road sign, “I do want to do this, it sounds like fun.”

Crossing her arms in front of her chest, Maya pouted, “It may sound fun to you, but if you weren’t doing it with me, would it be what you wanted to do?”

Caleb was so lost at this point, he just figured answering honestly might make things clear, “No, probably not. It’s something I want to do because I know you enjoy it, and it’s also fun.”

Maya pointed an accusatory finger at Caleb, “That’s what I mean!”

It felt like Caleb was having a conversation while simultaneously viewing a conversation from the outside. What Maya said made sense, but it felt like all the context was missing. He closed his eyes, exhaled, and put his hands together almost as i he was praying before gesturing to Maya, “Let me make sure I’m understanding this correctly. You don’t want to do this because even though you do, and it sounds fun, I wouldn’t be doing it if it wasn’t with you?”

“Why do you make it sound so unreasonable?” Maya pouted, “Last time I shared something important to me, I want to learn about the things you like now, and if we just do the stuff I like, I won’t get to do that!”

“Oh!” Realization dawned on Caleb as if he had been reading a test question backwards, “You want to do something that I find fun?”

“That’s what I’ve been saying, isn’t it?” Maya asked, completely oblivious to Caleb’s earlier confusion.

Caleb let out a sigh of relief, now knowing what Maya meant, but still feeling slightly lost on what they could do together. Watching films or anime was an option, sure, but it didn’t really speak specifically to who he was. Voice acting wasn’t really a paired activity, and it wasn’t really as if it was something he was passionate about; it was just his job. He paused, and then an idea came to him.

He looked at Maya, “Do you mind getting a little sweaty?”

Maya raised her hands to her chest and looked at him, concerned, “Um…I’m not ready to do things like that until this evening.”

Caleb stopped, blinked, and then waved his hands in front of him, “No! I didn’t mean- No. Not that.”

Raising an eyebrow, Maya regarded Caleb carefully, “Um, I guess it’s fine then?”

Caleb smiled, “I have to double-check that we have the equipment, but I swear I saw it the other day. Go change into some clothes that are easy to move around in and meet me at the Gym, ok?”

“Ok?” Maya blinked as Caleb ran off, unsure of what she had just agreed to. Though Caleb seemed excited, and she had said she wanted to learn more about what he liked. She just hoped she could enjoy it too.