The Holdout Read online

  the holdout

  a novel

  by

  Laurel Osterkamp

  PMI Books, Boulder, Colorado

  the holdout

  a novel

  by

  Laurel Osterkamp

  PMI Books, Boulder, Colorado

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2013 by Laurel Osterkamp

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.

  eISBN (Kindle): 978-1-933826-41-7

  Published by PMI Books

  an imprint of Preventive Measures, Inc.

  254 Spruce St.

  Boulder, CO 80302

  http://www.pmibooks.com

  Discover other titles by Laurel Osterkamp at

  http://www.laurelosterkamp.com

  Praise For Laurel Osterkamp's Books:

  Campaign Promises:

  "Short and sweet, Osterkamp creates a world of politics and high school memories that meld together to form a novella that works." – Keri English (Indiereader.com)

  "Campaign Promises is a intelligent peek into one woman’s journey into adulthood as her naivety and idealism are nurtured into mature self-awareness. At 75 eBook pages, Campaign Promises is the perfect companion for short trips, lunch hours, or an early afternoon with a cup of tea that leaves you feeling accomplished and satisfied. " — Christine @ Bitchlit.com

  November Surprise

  "Well developed and spotlessly executed... Bravo to Laurel Osterkamp for yet another chick-lit title that charms the reader, and leaves us rooting for Lucy and Monty as if they were friends of our own." -Keri English for IndieReader.com

  "Very well done! I enjoy books that mix politics and love, they give more depth and texture to stories, so I would highly recommend this book for anyone who seeks a good, brainy romance." --Fountainheart "Z," Amazon reader

  "Having read everything Laurel Osterkamp has published, November Surprise continues to reflect Ms. Osterkamp's excellence as an engaging, intelligent, creative author. Stylistically interesting with each chapter written beneath a short depiction of what had recently occurred in the political arena, the main character of November Surprise is a young woman whose depth, nature, and relationship style evolved like a fine wine throughout her life (and therefore throughout the book). --Love to read chick lit and beyond, Amazon reader.

  "I absolutely loved this book! It was a great read from start to finish! I really liked the main character Lucy. She is smart and interesting and I was rooting for her throughout the whole book. The author's writing style is excellent. I can't wait to read more books by this author. I definitely recommend reading this book!" --kateshines, Amazon reader

  Starring in the Movie of My Life

  Award Winning Finalist 2011 International Book Awards (Women's Fiction and Young Adult Literature)

  Award Winning Finalist 2011 Indie Excellence Awards (Chick Lit)

  Book Reviewers:

  "A riveting romance and drama. Highly recommended." —Midwest Book Review

  “Two stories collide in this novel that deals with acceptance, love and revenge. This story will stick with you long after it's come to an end.” (4-Star RT Rating) — RT Book Reviews

  “Starring in the Movie of My Life is fast-paced, engaging, and a recommended read.” —All Books International

  Book Blogs:

  “This is a great love story, very deep and complicated and messy, but very real.” —ChicklitPlus.com

  “I'm not one for giving out 5 stars all willy-nilly. I am deadly serious about my 5 star rating and have only given out two so far this year. Pretend you can see my serious face. Okay? Well, I am giving my third 5 star rating for this incredible and surprising novel by a new favorite author, Laurel Osterkamp.” —StephTheBookworm.blogspot.com

  “Starring in the Movie of My Life is about second chances at any age. It's also about discovering how to fulfill your needs without expecting an outside source, especially a relationship, to magically fix everything. I really enjoyed reading this novel.” —Bitchlitblog.wordpress.com

  “Laurel Osterkamp is an author to watch.” —GirlyScribbles.wordpress.com

  “The story is emotional and intense… I can certainly see why Starring in the Movie of My Life is a 2011 International Book Award (Women’s Fiction and Young Adult Literature) and 2011 Indie Excellence Award Finalist. I can’t wait to see what’s next from Laurel Osterkamp!” —ReelSwellBlog.com

  “Starring in the Movie of My Life was immensely involving. I truly enjoyed Laurel’s writing and I am looking forward to her next book.” —PiaBernardino.com

  “This book definitely took me by surprise and really held my attention the whole way through. If you are looking for a great read then this is it!” —ChickLitCentralTheBlog.blogspot.com

  “Get your copy today & weigh in on a rising star, before she jets off into the Milky Way.” —ElsieLovesFiction.blogspot.com

  “This is one of those rare reads I come across where I'm so enthralled from the first page that I can't stop reading and nothing else gets done until the book is finished.” —TheBookFetishBlog.com

  Table of Contents

  Prologue: November 2012

  Chapter 1: December 2011

  Chapter 2: May 2012

  Chapter 3: May thru June 2012

  Chapter 4: November 2012

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17: December 2012

  Epilogue: January 2013

  Preview of The Next Breath

  Prologue: November 2012

  My only mistake was falling in love. Other than that I played a nearly perfect game. But it doesn’t matter. Do you remember Janet Jackson’s halftime performance during the Super Bowl back in 2004? It was stunning but nobody will ever recall the actual dance because at the end of it, she showed her nipple on national television. Well, Janet and I have something in common. I didn’t think things through, I exposed myself to the nation, and now that is what I’ll be remembered for.

  Except it hasn’t happened yet.

  I filmed the current season of The Holdout months ago, but it’s still airing. There are three episodes yet to be broadcast, and my most humiliating moments are still to come. Right now I only occasionally get spotted on the street, but I was edited out of a lot of the earlier footage. I’m not naïve enough to believe that will be the case later on. What happened was devastating but it will undoubtedly make delicious TV.

  So I’m wondering if anyone will recognize me today, and if so, will that increase or decrease my chances of being dismissed? I park my car and walk from the lot to the federal court building, clutching my jury summons in my hand. If I’m chosen, it will be the second jury I’ve been on in a year.

  Inside, I give my bag to the security guards and walk through the metal detectors. They give me my bag back on the other side, and I take the elevator to the fourth floor, which is where my summons said to go. When the elevator doors open I immediately see a desk and behind it stands a perky brunette wearing an adorable suit jacket with bell sleeves and a Peter Pan collar. She totally pulls it off.

  I pull on the edges of my oversized sweater and smooth out my skirt. My outfit seemed reasonable when I left this morning but I’ve never work
ed downtown and I’ve never owned a pair of heels. What do I know?

  “Hi,” she says, with a floating voice. “Can I help you?”

  I hold up my summons. “I’m here to report for jury duty.”

  She takes the summons and looks it over. “Robin Bricker. Great. Please sign in.” She gestures toward a clipboard with a sign-in sheet. Mine will be the fourth signature.

  “Here’s your card.” She gives me a new piece of paper, and it has a stamp with today’s date on it. “Hold on to this. If you’re selected for a jury, you’ll present it every morning to be stamped and that will be documentation for your boss.”

  “Oh,” I stammer. “I'm sort of between jobs right now, so there's no need.” I tilt my head to the side, trying to stretch away the tension. Who cares if I don't have a regular, nine to five gig? I'm not obligated to explain how I support myself.

  She nods and oozes sincerity, and even though she’s wearing heels I tower over her. She’s the sort of girl I wanted to be when I was in high school. “Well, then you’ll get paid for your time here!” Her perfect brown bob curls just so, right under her ears. Maybe if I blow-dried my hair every morning I could get my hair to do that too. “You’re a little early, but go ahead and have a seat in the lounge. There’s coffee, juice, and muffins, and in about half an hour, we’ll get started!”

  I thank her and walk into the lounge, a large room with oversized windows and strategically placed tables and chairs. Although I’ve had breakfast, I grab a chocolate muffin because I’m still hungry, and besides, it’s my policy never to turn down anything chocolate. I lost a lot of weight while filming The Holdout, but even if I gain it all back I’ll still be thin. For the first eighteen years of my life I hated that I was always the tallest, scrawniest girl in my class. No cute curves for me. But once I went to college I appreciated that I could eat cafeteria food and still fit into my size six jeans, while my friends all struggled with the freshman fifteen.

  I sit down in one of the many cushy chairs, take out my book, and settle in to read while enjoying my muffin. Who said jury duty has to be awful? But then the television that’s mounted to the ceiling switches from the morning show to commercial, and an ad for The Holdout comes on. My castmates are walking along the beach, some wearing teeny tiny bikinis, others shirtless in swimming trunks. Joe Pine’s voice can be heard over it all, loud and clear.

  “This week, on The Holdout. The stakes are high, loyalties are tested, and hearts are broken.” Then it switches to a close up of Grant. He’s sitting and smirking; even the way he blinks seems self-satisfied while the waves lap the shore behind him.

  “The Holdout is a game,” he says, “and I’m not here just to play. I’m here to win. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  Then – oh my God – it switches to a shot of Grant and me, locked in an embrace. But even worse, it switches again, and now Grant and Klemi are making out. Finally it switches back to Grant, sitting alone on the beach, laughing to the camera and clapping his hands. Joe Pine’s voice comes on again. “Will lover boy Grant endure? Will he persist? Will he be the holdout?”

  The commercial ends and I shrink down in my seat. I look around the room and see that others are all busy on their phones or reading the paper or nodding off as if they’re practicing sitting in the jury box. Nobody seems to recognize me, which is my goal. I’ve cut my hair since the show and I dyed it a darker blonde. I’d have gone more extreme, but contractually I’m only allowed to make minor changes to my appearance. So I’m wearing thick rimmed glasses with fake lenses, and I dress in ways that will hopefully help me blend into the wallpaper.

  All my life I’ve wanted to be famous. Now that my day has arrived, I’m clinging to my old, faceless existence like J.D Salinger gone into exile after writing Catcher in the Rye. Except instead of publishing a groundbreaking classic novel, I got duped by a pretty boy and his girlfriend and cheated out of a million dollars. What’s worse though, is soon the world will see it all play out on national television.

  Chapter 1: December 2011.

  Imagine you were born with only one arm. If you had never known what it was like to have that second arm, would you miss it or would you just never think about it at all? I suppose you’d have to think about it sometimes. Gym class. Grocery shopping. Finding sneakers with Velcro. But other times, would the idea of a second arm seem unnatural or even unnecessary?

  That’s what it’s like for me. I have two arms but I don’t have a mother. She died in a car accident when I was two, so my memories of her are predominately from stories or old photographs. And most of the time I don’t think about her. My older brothers and my dad took terrific care of me even though I was the only girl, born years after my parents thought they were done with babies. We all got by, however, and now I’m a fairly well-adjusted, thirty-one-year-old woman (with a focus on the fairly.)

  But there are times when I feel a part of me is missing. There was never a smooth voice or soft arms to soothe me when I fell. I missed her then. I missed her when my dad left a copy of Growing Up: It’s a Girl Thing on my pillow one night, which was his attempt to guide me through puberty. I wanted her then. And every year, I wish she was around for Christmas.

  I take a bite of turkey and mashed potatoes, glued together with buttery gravy, and wash it down with a sip of merlot. The food here is always tasty because my Aunt Natalie does most of the cooking, and she reads Martha Stewart Living the way middle-aged guys read porn. Dad invites himself, me, my older brothers Ted and Ian, and their families to her house every year for Christmas dinner, even though his brother (Aunt Natalie’s husband) has been dead for over ten years.

  Across the table my dad is describing, in detail, his latest injury. Aunt Natalie takes neat bites of turkey and little sips of wine while he talks. “I didn’t even see the dog coming,” he says. “Ran right into my bike. Fell head first onto the sidewalk. Good thing I was wearing my helmet. But I busted my knee. Had to wear a brace for over a month.”

  She nods patiently. “Was the dog okay?”

  On the other side of the table, Lucy and her parents coo over the newest addition to the family, baby Noah. Lucy’s married to my cousin Monty and she has no siblings. Since her parents live in town, they come to Christmas dinner too. But they always seem sort of shell-shocked, as if they were airlifted into this loud, messy meal without their consent.

  Beside me sits my oldest brother, Ted, and his cologne is even more powerful than the wafting aroma of the green beans in mushroom sauce. He’s taking efficient bites of the salad his wife brought, and he’s baiting our cousin Monty.

  “So Monty, how’s the job going? Have you moved up yet?”

  Monty’s dark head turns away from his daughter and his dimpled chin shifts in tension as he answers Ted. “It’s great. I’m actually happy in the position I’m in. What I was hired for is higher than what most people ever get at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.”

  Ted straightens the collar of this polo sweater, swallows a bite of turkey and smiles. “What’s your title, again?”

  Monty’s face remains stoic. “Senior Program Officer and Counsel for the Malaria Initiative.”

  Ted nods. Under the ceiling chandelier, the frosted tips in his light brown hair are more noticeable than usual. Nobody would ever guess that my brother Ian is the gay one. “Wow, that’s great. If it was me, I’d be frustrated that so much of my job isn’t about law, but if you’re happy with that, more power to you. Personally, I spent far too much money on my MBA to be happy with anything less than a high level gig in business administration.”

  “Well,” says Monty, “I had more scholarships than you did, so my tuition wasn’t as expensive as yours.”

  “Harvard is simply more expensive than NYU.” Ted laughs, but actually it’s a challenge with a squint, and Monty raises his chest as if to accept.

  Lucy, who had been focused on their baby son, pops her head up as if propelled by instinct. She puts one hand on Monty’s arm while using her o
ther hand to tuck an escaped corkscrew curl into her bun at the back of her head. “How’s the restaurant, Jack? Have you recovered from the recession yet?”

  Monty’s younger brother Jack smiles with his entire face and his hazel eyes shine as he answers. Drawing my cousin Jack into conversation about his restaurant is a temporary solution; Jack isn’t super competitive but the subject morphs into talk of money, time management, and family. Soon my two brothers and my two cousins, all of whom are in their late thirties to early forties, are one-upping each other like they’re in a high school locker room. They do this every year and nobody ever bothers to ask me about my life. It’s hard to get upset though, because I usually don’t have much to brag about.

  I majored in theater in college, and I’ve spent most of my post-college years floating from one job that’s beneath me to another, and my taste in men is even worse than my taste in employment. But this year I can actually compete in the game.

  It’s hard to hear myself think over the cacophony of voices and the clink of silverware, but when there’s a lull in the conversation I take my chance. “I have news,” I say.

  All heads turn towards me. My aunt Natalie brings her hands together and smiles. She probably hopes that I’ll announce a new relationship; Natalie worries a lot about my romantic life. “What’s your news, Robin?”

  Everyone is listening. My skin prickles underneath the cashmere sweater my father gave me this morning for Christmas. “I’ve been selected to be on The Holdout!” I smile in triumph, ready to accept everyone’s sincere congratulations and expressions of pride. Instead, I’m met with blank stares.

  Jack’s wife, Petra, breaks the silence. “You mean the TV show?”

  “Yeah!” I say, and again I wait for the response I’d anticipated. Aunt Natalie, bless her heart, at least tries.

  “I watch it. They all wear bathing suits all the time. God knows you have the body for it, darling. But I certainly wouldn’t want to be on that show. It looks pretty difficult.”

  Jack speaks up. “Is that the one where they’re all on an island, and they have to find their own food and water, and every week someone gets voted off until the last person gets a million dollars?”