Will You Accept This Rose?

2. Compatible

Room assignments were doled out by John with three women per room in the Bachelor Mansion.

Lucy went up to her bedroom and reintroduced herself to her roommates: Monica Stevens and Sandra de La Cruz.

"I don't do bunk beds. I get the other bed, and I can't stand snoring, so if you do, you need to move rooms," Sandra said by way of greeting.

"Whatever. I get the bottom bunk, and I need a drink," Monica said, annoyed, as she plopped her bag onto her bed.

"A drink sounds great," Sandra agreed and followed Monica out of the room.

"It's 7 in the morning, and we spent all night at a cocktail party and rose ceremony," Lucy pointed out, but they were not listening as they exited. "That went well," Lucy muttered to herself. She stripped off her long, gold, sparkly dress and sighed as she put on a comfortable pair of well worn sweatpants and an old LAPD t shirt. There was a moment of apprehension as she glanced up to the top bunk, because she had not slept in a bunk bed since summer camp as a teenager, but she needed to sleep. Commotion in another room called her attention, and as a natural born peacekeeper, she abandoned her plans to rest and raced over to find out what had happened. Apparently, most of the other women were not getting along with their roommates, which was expected to occur with a collection of grown women forced to live together while dating the same man. Two of the Ashleys were quarreling about something that made no sense, Simone Clark was working tirelessly to get them to see reason, but she was only escalating the situation. Try as she might, Lucy realized that the arguing was too petty for her to even try to be rational with the other women, so she returned to her room to sleep with raised voices still sounding from outside her door.

John arrived to the house in the morning to speak with all of the women as they ate their breakfast. "Good morning, ladies. Now that you've had a chance to settle in, it's time for some ground rules. No, you cannot switch rooms, you are not allowed to leave the grounds of the mansion unless you are going on a date, which means anything beyond the fence including the orange grove behind us is off limits, and you can't make contact with Tim outside of dates with him. There are cameras in all of the common areas of the house, but the bathrooms and bedrooms are completely private. No phones or laptops of any kind can be used, but the producers should've already collected all of your devices from you already. You are responsible for an interview after every date where you'll speak with a producer alone, and those interviews are called confessionals. Aside from that, your camera time depends on how much Tim likes you and how much attention he gives you. Every single week will be the same with three days of dates on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, with three days in between to rest on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and at the end of each week on Sunday, there will be a cocktail party and rose ceremony. During your three days of rest, like today, you can do whatever you want. If you have any other questions, ask one of the producers. Got it? Great."

Lucy listened intently; she always cared about following the rules and intended to adhere to each one. She was ready to read an entire library of books during the long days of waiting to see Tim. Other women seemed to have other plans like yelling at one another and drinking. To get away from them, Lucy slipped away into a sunroom on the second floor to read.

"Hey," Angela said when she came upon her.

She shut her book and sat up straight. "Hi."

"I'm one of the producers. We met in the limo. I'm Angela."

"Right. That was a blur. It's nice to meet you under less stressful circumstances. I'm Lucy."

"Yeah, I know. I remember reading your application written by your friend. It was sweet."