But of course everyone wanted a piece of the show today; Tara and Rob getting back together counted as a Big Event. Marketing was putting together a whole promo campaign that had already started even though the episode wouldn’t air for six weeks. They had pulled a lot of shots from last season, singles of her and Bradley turning toward the camera with smoldering determination. She felt like Scarlett O’Hara, about to be ravished by Rhett Butler; their reunion had legendary status, and they hadn’t even shot it yet.
Everybody knew it was going to be a blistering scene. During their initial stint as network television’s hottest couple, she had loved having fake sex with Bradley, who was great looking and funny and unabashedly turned on by her. The first time they made out for the camera—almost two years ago now—he whispered jokes in her ear and made her laugh, then stuck his hand up her shirt and his tongue down her throat. It was a definite shock, but good Catholic girl that she was, she just went along with it, until take three, when she decided to enjoy it. On take four she even reached for Bradley’s belt buckle, which all the cameramen loved. When she went back to her trailer to change into her street clothes, the PA who served as her bodyguard made a quick dry comment about Alison’s “chemistry.” Alison didn’t see the footage until it was all cut together on the air six weeks later, and she was shocked at how raw the sexuality seemed. They were only kissing, for crying out loud! But the high-def camera caught an astonishing level of detail, physical and otherwise. Even though the kiss was shot in close-up, the moment she reached for Bradley’s belt was caught in the specific shift of her shoulder, which left no room for doubt about what else was going on here. Bradley’s answering shift—it was more like a grind—left even less doubt about what he was doing and where that would go, if he had any say about it. On top of which, by cutting the first and last takes together, the editors created a mysterious moment in which the defiant intelligence of Alison’s gaze seemed to simply evaporate as she fell into the kiss. After the show aired Rose called immediately, asking point-blank if Alison was going to be involved in “all that sex” they put on “shows like that.”
Alison felt like hanging up on her. But she didn’t. Don’t be ugly, she thought, it was becoming increasingly clear that her mother had always been right about that one. Be nice. Be pretty.
“There is going to be some sex involved, yes, Mom,” she said.
“I just don’t know why you have to do all that.” Rose was, apparently, just revving herself up. This could go on quite a while.
“Hey, there’s someone on the other line,” Alison replied, trying to be nice and pretty. “I’m so sorry, Mom. If you don’t want to see me doing that stuff, then just shut your eyes at those parts. Because I’m pretty sure that I’m going to be doing all that stuff.”
She was right. The fans loved all that stuff, and Rob and Tara’s explosive first kiss made Alison a bona fide television star. The blogs which obsessively shredded every moment of nighttime television were entranced and turned on. “Tara and Rob tsunami report,” one anonymous blogger announced. From then on, every scene they had together came out under the hashtag #TsunamiReport. “I wanted to fuck them both,” one viewer noted in some comment stream. That got retweeted, too.