As Seen on TV (11 page)

T
hirty minutes later I walk out of the room in a mild state of euphoria.

I think I’m a natural.

“How’d it go?” Carrie says, jumping off the couch.

“I’ll tell you about it outside.” She deserves to be kept waiting as punishment for not telling me about my competition.

When we reach the concrete stairs outside the TRS building, I decide to put her out of her misery. “It went great,” I say, and do the little hooray jump I usually reserve for when I’m alone. The hooray jump is not as easy to do in stilettos. “I think they liked me.”

Carrie does a jump, too. “They did? I knew they would. What did they ask? What did you say? Tell me everything.”

“Can we get something to eat? I’m starving.” Stardom has made me hungry.

We go to Salad Time, a restaurant down the street. We’re the only ones in line. It’s too early for the lunch crowd.

“I want to hear every detail,” Carrie says. “Romaine lettuce, Asian chicken, mandarin oranges, a few Chinese noodles, carrots and a dash of low-fat sesame dressing, please.”

“That sounds good,” I say to the woman in the hairnet across the counter. “But I’ll have a Caesar salad instead.” She mixes the ingredients in a metal bowl and switches the concoction into a plastic container. “They asked me a million questions. Worst experience. Best experience. How old I was when I lost my virginity.”

Carrie opens the refrigerator and takes out a purple Vitamin water. Those drinks are everywhere in this city. I wish I had come up with the idea. “How old did you tell them?”

“Seventeen.”

“You were seventeen when you lost your virginity?”

“No, I was eighteen. But I lost it to my best guy friend on prom night so I had to come up with something a little less clichéd.” The woman across the counter hands me my salad. I take a Coke from the fridge and we carry our trays to the cash register.

“I was fifteen,” Carrie says, pulling out her wallet. “Both,” she tells the cashier.

“You don’t have to pay for mine,” I say. “What? Fifteen? That’s young. Thank you.”

Salad Time’s round, barlike tables are mostly empty. We pick one by the window and put down our trays. “Not that young,” she says.

I take the top off my salad and dig my fork in. “You don’t even have pubic hair at fifteen.”

“I had everything at fifteen.”

Yum. I love Caesar salads. “I remember. Every day you’d ask us to tie up the strings to your porn-star bikini tops.”

“Great role model, huh? You should have seen what I was doing after daylight. Or who I was doing.”

“Did you lose your virginity at camp?” I lost a sweatshirt and a couple pairs of socks there, but that’s it.

“On the beach in the sailboat shack.”

“But that place had nails sprinkled all over the floor. You could have picked up tetanus.”

“I could have picked up gonorrhea. Not an experience I want to relive.”

I don’t want to know from my dad’s girlfriend and gonorrhea, but I can’t help myself, and I ask, “Who was it?”

She smirks. “You don’t remember the story?”

“No, should I?”

“There was a whole scene about it in
Staff Laugh.
”

Every summer two male counselors wrote
Staff Laugh,
a play that makes fun of and often makes cry as many counselors as possible. Usually the female counselors. The oldest campers in camp perform it for the entire staff. “I don’t remember,” I say.

“It was Mark Ryman. We were in the sailboat shack and he asked me to masturbate for him. And then we had sex. And then he told the whole camp.”

Mark Ryman was three years older than Carrie. He would have been eighteen. I had just been thinking about him recently. Why was I thinking of him? Oh, yeah. “Howard reminds me of him.”

Carrie spears a slice of mandarin with her fork, lifts it and then puts it back down. “I was in love with him. Thought he was so hot. That gorgeous, thick hair and that yummy body. You really don’t remember the play? They had one of the fourteen-year-old girls play me. She stuffed her bikini top with melons, and randomly appeared on the stage with her hands down her pants pretending to masturbate.”

If that had been me, I would have anchored a brick to my leg and jumped in the lake. “But you were only a CIT at fifteen. I thought CITs weren’t allowed to be made fun of in
Staff Laugh.
”

“A special exception for me, I suppose.” Carrie shrugs, brushing off the memory. “So now we wait. With our fingers crossed.”

“But that’s it? One interview?”

“Not everyone only had one interview. The other three girls
filled out a written application, sent in a demo tape, had two interviews and a thorough character evaluation,” she says.

“Thorough enough that they missed at least one penchant for shoplifting.” I take another bite of my salad and then put the lid back on. I’ll save the rest for dinner. Steve will probably eat at the restaurant, and I’m too tired to even think of joining him there.

“I hope you get this. Did I tell you Howard hired me as a consultant for the show? He wants me to help the girls find the right look and hang around at the tapings, making sure everything runs smoothly. Won’t your father be thrilled that we’ll be able to get to know each other all over again?”

Thrilled. Especially once he’s over you and on to the next girl. I nod and try to change the subject. “I wonder what happened to Mark Ryman.”

“He got married. Lives in Connecticut. Cheats on his wife.”

“Men don’t change.”

“Sometimes they do.” Carrie stands up and puts on a pair of Jackie O sunglasses. “He went bald and gained a hundred pounds.”

When I get home I have to go to the bathroom. Badly. And I mean number two. As I unlock the door I’m praying Steve is still sleeping.

Nope. He’s picking up a long-sleeved shirt from the floor. He pulls it over his head. “So how’d it go?”

Why can’t he hang up his shirt? You take it off, you hang it up. You finish the tissue box, you throw it in the garbage. Why not take the next logical step?

“Good, I think. Who knows?”

He kisses me on the cheek. “I’m sure you were outstanding.”

I shrug. I might have been. It’s not hard to tell people what they want to hear. Instead of saying this out loud, I take off my pants and set them on a hanger.

“What do you want to do today?” he asks.

I want him to go back to sleep so I can use the bathroom.
I know it sounds stupid, but what if he can hear? What if I make noise? Won’t listening impair his sexy image of me? The bathroom door is really thin. I normally hold it when I’m at his place and wait for him to go to work. I know it’s weird and that eventually I’ll be able to go to the bathroom when he’s in the apartment. But I can’t yet. I just can’t. I can hold it.

“What time do you have to go to work?” I ask.

“Not till six. What time is it now?”

Not till six?

Steve doesn’t wear a watch. He claims not to like watches. Can you have negative feelings toward something that tells the time?

“My watch says two,” I say.

“I know, let’s go to Roller Dee’s. They have bowling and minigolf and laser tag. It’s awesome.”

I’m a little too tired for that. “But it’s so nice out. We shouldn’t waste the day.”

“Let’s go to Central Park. We’ll throw a Frisbee.”

There’s no way they have decent public bathrooms in Central Park. “We don’t have a Frisbee.”

“No? We’ll stop at Toys ‘R’ Us.”

Steve reminds me of a windup toy that shoots across the table until it dies or falls off the edge.

I smile, trying to create that I’m-the-perfect-girlfriend-who’s-up-for-anything glow.

I have a plan.

When we’re in the lobby I say, “You know what, Steve? I heard it might rain. I’m going to run up and get the umbrella. You wait here.”

He peers outside.

I jump into the elevator and hit Close Doors before he can comment that the sky is bright blue.

Ten minutes later, I return to the lobby. “Sorry,” I say. “Couldn’t find it.”

After the afternoon of Frisbee, Steven walks me through the park, showing me his favorite places. We stop at The Great Lawn, the Angel of the Waters Fountain at Bethesda Terrace and Bow Bridge. Bow Bridge is a stunning cast-iron bridge spanning sixty feet across a serene lake. Green, red and orange trees frame the lake and look like they’ve been finger-painted. Office buildings tower in the distance, and I’m reminded of the feeling of being at peace in a canoe in the middle of the Camp Abina’s lake, the sun warming my face. I wrap my arm through Steve’s and say, “I think this is the most beautiful spot I’ve ever been.”

Steve suggests I spend the evening with him at his restaurant, and gets so excited by this idea that I can’t say no. “What else are you going to do?” he asks.

“Sleep?” I’m tired. Frisbee is hard work. “Okay, okay.”

“You always want to sleep.”

It’s true. “Maybe I’m sick.” I’ve been thinking there might be something wrong with me. Some disease that attacks your immune system, sucking energy. Mono, maybe? Cancer? HIV? Wouldn’t that be my luck. I get a part on a TV show and then can’t take it because I have to be admitted to the hospital. My health insurance lasts another three months, and right now I can’t afford a new policy. If I got a disease now, no one would ever insure me and then I would never be cured and I’d die broke and alone.

I don’t share my thoughts with Steve as I don’t want him to realize how crazy I am.

Except for the help, the restaurant is still empty when we get there. We sit on the cushioned stools by the bar and open a bottle of overly sweet Manashevitz wine.

I’m reintroduced to Jerry, the assistant manager, then the cooks and the waitresses as they begin to trickle in. Thank God for his incredible staff, especially Martin. If it wasn’t for them, Steve would never have been able to take off time to visit me in Florida.

It’s been a while since I’ve spent an evening here.

The restaurant is small, with only fifteen tables and a bar next to the kitchen. Eight-by-ten black-and-white photographs of Italian synagogues line the wall. Behind each picture is a light, and the effect makes the photographs look golden, almost holy.

I should just work here. It would be so easy.

And then I’ll never bother finding my own job, my own life, will I?

I decide to play hostess instead of offering to work as one. I watch Steve move and schmooze and take control around the restaurant. He’s amazing here, everyone loves him, everyone wants to talk to him as he walks by. He shakes hands, waves, smiles and makes this place run. And he’s all mine. He introduces me to all the regulars.

“We’ve heard so much about you!” Mr. Weinberg announces, patting me on the head. “What a face! Such a
shayna punim.
We’ve been friends with Joy and Abe forever, and they absolutely love you, honey, love you.”

They do? Good to know. Joy and Abe are Steve’s parents.

“So when are you two going to have some news?” Mrs. Weinberg asks, wagging her eyebrows.

Maybe I should tell them that I’m pregnant. “Guess what, Mr. and Mrs. Weinberg? We’re having a baby!” What would they do? Would Mrs. Weinberg have a heart attack? Instead I play dumb. “What type of news?” I ask.

“Sunny is moving to New York this week,” Steve says.

“Really,” Mrs. Weinberg says. “Where are you going to live?”

“With—” Right. Not with Steve. Oops. Almost blew that one. Good thing
Party Girls
isn’t a sitcom. I’d never be able to remember my lines. “I found someone nice in the Village who was looking for a roommate.”

“Jewish?”

I consider answering Palestinian, to see what she’ll do. “Jewish.”

“How wonderful. Tell me, have you found work here yet?”

“Not yet.” I’m not sure what Steve’s plan is regarding the
show. His parents probably wouldn’t approve of their potential future daughter-in-law parading around the city, drunk and slutty. “Still looking,” I add.

“Talk to the kids. They all have terrific jobs,” Mrs. Weinberg says. “They’ll be here soon.”

I nod, but have no idea what she’s talking about. Kids? What kids have jobs? What kids are coming here? And why would these kids want to talk to me about my job?

At ten-thirty I’m exhausted and thinking about taking off. Take your girlfriend to work day is about over.

By ten-forty the place is packed, the “Central Perk” of the twenty-something religious scene. These must be the so-called kids Mrs. Weinberg was referring to. Steve pats them on the back when they pass him. Except some of the women, who apparently aren’t allowed to be touched by men other than their husbands. Not that all of them are that religious. One particular curly brunette (every woman in here is a curly brunette) seems happy to run her palm up and down Steve’s arm.

I decide to find Steve to say goodbye. He’s in the kitchen, pulling bags of noodles out of a cupboard. “Who’s the girl who keeps touching you?” I ask him. In a boxing match, jealousy would beat the crap out of exhaustion.

“Keeps touching me?” he repeats, blushing.

“The brunette. In the skirt.”

“Oh, in the skirt,” he says. All the girls are wearing skirts.

“The one whose skirt has a slit halfway up her thigh? Don’t they wear skirts to be modest?”

“Ruthie?” he says.

“That’s Ruthie?” I say, surprised. “
Ruthie
Ruthie? Your ex-girlfriend Ruthie?”

He shrugs. “That’s her.”

Steve pointed out Ruthie in his Carmel High School year-book. I asked to see it, wanting to patch together the seasons before me in his life. If only you could rent the earlier episodes from Blockbuster. Season One: childhood. Season Two:
Carmel High School. Season Three: NYU. Season Four: working for Dad. Season Five: taking over for Dad and meeting me. Season Six:…tbd.

His year-book picture looked like a caricature of today’s Steve. His nose and chin were exaggerated, too large for his skinnier face. The caption had included all the regular cheesiness (“What a long strange trip it’s been” and the note to the person he then believed was the love of his life: “Ruthie, 1 day we’l gt marEd, IluvU.”)