As Seen on TV (32 page)

Just go with it.

“Can you just take off your boots?” he asks. “The carpets are white.”

Of course I’m wearing white sweat socks under my black boots and black pants. I look like an extra in
Thriller.
Good thing the hallway is pitch-black. He still has my hand. His skin is
so
cold. He leads me down the hallway, into the bedroom.

He picks up a remote and a fireplace on the far wall roars to life.

The bedspread is leopard skin.

Yikes, are those mirrors on the ceiling?

He’s kissing me. Wet, hard kisses.

I hear a creak.

“Mattie?” a woman’s voice says. Suddenly the room floods with light, and I blink repeatedly. A petite blonde is leaning against the doorway in a velour beige bathrobe.

What the…?

Matt lifts himself off of me. “Where were you?” he asks in a whiny voice.

She slides her bathrobe off her shoulders and hangs it over the back of a chair. “Taking a bubble bath.”

While watching my face he says in a voice I recognize from when he’s trying to seduce a criminal into confessing, “Sacha, come join us.”

The naked woman walks toward the bed.

Um…I don’t think so! I try to find my voice and ask, “Who’re you?”

“Sunny, this is my wife, Sacha. Sacha, this is the girl from
Party Girls
I told you about. She wants to get a little wild with us.”

His wife? The girl I told you about? Wild? With us?

Sacha sits on the bed and begins massaging my shoulders. His wife? As in
married?
She wants to have a threesome? She knows about this and doesn’t care? Her long nails nip my skin, scratching me.

He kisses her and puts his hand on my breast.

His hand feels scaly and awful. My body feels icy and burning and hollow and foreign, like dry skin that won’t peel off, and a lump is growing in the back of my throat.

How did I get here?

I swing my legs over the bed and stand up. “Yeah, um…this isn’t my thing.”

Matt and Sacha pull apart. “What’s wrong?” he asks.

“I didn’t know you had a…a…”

Sacha snorts. “A wife? Well, he does. Sorry, sister.”

I look into the eyes of a stranger and ask, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He runs his fingers through his hair and shrugs. “What difference does it make?”

What difference does it make?
What, is he crazy? They both stare at me blankly and suddenly I’m overwhelmed with a wave of sadness. Who is this guy? I don’t know him. Why do I care what he thinks about me? What do I care what people who don’t know anything about me think about me?

In my final judolike move, I shimmy backward and off the bed. I readjust my pants, retreat down the stairs, put on my boots and close the door behind me.

I don’t know where they come from, but the tears start rolling down my face. My head is pounding and my chest is tight and I can’t breathe.

The street is dark and the pavement is dull and what have I done what have I done what have I done?

I need to see Steve.

My purse rings. What is that? Oh right, Miche’s cell phone.

Maybe it’s Steve. He’s trying to find me. He misses me. He tracked me down.

“Hello?” I say.

A male voice says, “I’m here waiting for you to come over and suck my cock. Where are you?”

Obviously not Steve. “Wrong number,” I say. How vile. What kind of sicko would say that?

His voice did sound familiar.

Click, the guy hangs up. Two seconds later the phone rings again.

Is it Howard? It must be Howard.

“Hello?” I say.

“Michelle?” It didn’t sound like Howard. Howard’s voice is more nasal.

“No, it’s Sunny. Who is this?”

Click.

How rude. I look at the number.

Jesus.

My father.

I
t’s 5:00 a.m. and I’m sitting on the stairs outside my apartment building, watching the multicolored glow of Frank’s TV sputter over the lobby.

I’d call Michelle, but I’m pretty sure I hate her.

I don’t want to wake up Carrie in case she finally fell asleep. And I shouldn’t be relying on her anymore.

Is Steve asleep? Should I go up?

I want to go up. I can’t go up. How could I have said those things?

My face and hands feel numb. What’s happened to me?

The city is already alive and crowded, people going, people coming. At five-thirty I stand up and start walking. I’m not sure where to go, so I walk downtown, past the bustle of Wall Street. I walk until I hit water. Then I sit on the pier, legs stretched out in front of me, feeling the hard slimy wood against my thighs and calves.

I start laughing. This sucks.

My boyfriend, whom I’ve been in love with for the past year, proposed. My sweetheart boyfriend who can never remember where he puts his boots, who can make a gourmet meal out of nothing, who always has a smile on his face, who always makes me smile, who loves me—loved me—completely, proposed. My reaction? I’d rather be a television star so that thousands of people who don’t know me can dissect my personality, my body, the state of my teeth.

How the hell am I going to fix this one?

I miss him already.

I’m going to start by taking off these boots. My feet are blistering. I wish I’d chosen to wear my running shoes, not my pointy boots from hell, when I got dressed. ’Course I had no idea I was about to embark upon an emotional walking marathon.

Okay. First issue. Michelle. So she’s been nailing my father. I should have seen that coming (metaphorically speaking). I introduced them, for Chrissake.

She’s been sleeping with my father, and with Howard, and would have with Matt if she’d been given the chance. What’s wrong with her? Why does she need so much attention from men? From men with power? Is it because of her father?

Did she rig last week’s competition or not?

I take out her cell phone and dial the one person I can depend on. My sister. I do not feel even a twinge of guilt about the long-distance cost.

“Hello?” Dana mumbles.

“’Morning!” I try to sound cheerful. No one likes to wake up to someone miserable.

She grumbles, “It’s six-thirty.”

“So what? You always wake me up in the morning. It’s my turn.”

“What’s that noise? Where
are
you?”

“I’m on the dock.” Suddenly my throat is clogged and my eyes are stinging. I choke back a sob.

“What dock?” she asks, alarmed. “Sunny? What happened?”

The tears stream down my face. “Steve proposed.”

She laughs. “I knew it! I told you he would. Didn’t I tell you? Did he give you his grandmother’s ring?”

“I think I said no.” Silence. “Dana?”

“Why did you say no?”

Did I say no? I didn’t actually say no. I never really answered. “I don’t know. I didn’t mean to. I think we broke up.”

“But you’re in love with him!” She sounds panicked. “Go find him and tell him you changed your mind. Immediately.”

“I think it’s too late. He told me I had to choose between going to L.A. and being with him.”

“I don’t understand. You got the job in L.A.?”

“No, not yet. We were talking hypothetically.”

She sighs. “You broke up because of a hypothetical situation?”

“I didn’t like him telling me what to do. I was afraid of being like Mom, you know? Having nothing of my own. I liked being on TV. Being in the paper. Being recognized.”

“Sunny, Steve is nothing like our father. You’d better go apologize. Immediately. He loves you. I know you like having fans and all that, but come on. What you have with Steve was real. Go fix it. Tell him he’s more important than your superficial television show.”

“But—”

“Immediately, Sunny.” She hangs up.

I do have to get him back.

I don’t think I can. How can I? What’s the best way to fix this? He’s not going to want to talk to me. How can I prove to him that he’s more important to me than the TV show?

Wait, I have an idea. It’s dramatic, it’s public, it’s exactly how a make-up scene would happen on a TV show. I flip back open the phone.

I need someone who won’t mind screwing over
Party Girls.

Does Michelle have Erin’s number in her cell’s phone book?

Yup.

“Hello?”

“Erin? Hi, it’s Sunny.”

No comment.

“Erin? I know you probably hate me right now, and I should tell you that I feel terrible for last Saturday. But that’s not why I’m calling.”

This is going to be explosive.

“Get your makeup on, Sunny. Now.”

My hands are crossed, and I’m leaning against a wall in the hallway of the Bolton Hotel. “Howard, I’ve decided not to wear any makeup today.”

He scrutinizes my face. “You look like shit. I’m not filming you looking like that. Where’s your stuff?”

I look down at the crumpled black pants and black V-neck I’ve been wearing since last night. “What you see is what you get,” I say. I walk away, leaving him gaping.

I open my hotel room door. I’m tired. So tired. I haven’t slept in forever, but I’m too tired to sleep. Must pull this off.

I feel like I’m underwater, watching as boats float above me.

Carrie puts her arm around me as I’m about to go inside. “Are you okay?” she asks. “You look—well, you’ve looked better.”

“I…Steve…” My throat closes up as if I have a nut allergy and I just swallowed a hunk of peanut butter. The back of my eyes sting.

She runs circles on my back. “Oh, honey. Did you guys have a fight?”

I nod. “I’ve been acting like a bitch and we broke up,” I manage to say. “But I have a plan.”

She pulls me to her and hugs me.

How unfair. Here’s the one person in this city who still cares about me, and after tonight I’ll probably never see her again.

I squeeze her tightly, pull away and then decide to hit the shower. Clean, I put my grimy outfit back on and try to nap as two women do my hair and makeup. “Do some extra work on her, she looks like crap,” I hear Howard say through the fog.

When they’re finished, I look in the mirror and wonder, How is it I look ten times more attractive than I did two months ago but feel a hundred times uglier?

Pete’s camera is trained on me, and Tania keeps prodding me with questions. “How do you feel today? Excited? Nervous?”

I shrug. “Crappy.”

“Is it hard to compete against a close friend?”

“No.”

Tania mutters to Howard, “She’s giving us nothing to work with. Nothing.”

Michelle comes inside the room, the camera following her. “Hi, baby.” She winks. “What happened to you last night?”

I look up at her tight curls and big smile and can’t put my finger on what I ever liked about her. She’s not even worth telling off. “Nothing. Did you know Matt Rowler was married? I met his wife, Sacha. She was sweet.”

I hope that bit of info makes the cut.

Michelle shakes her head. “No way. Hilarious. What a sketch-ball.”

He’s
a sketch-ball? If you shift F7 on sketch-ball, Microsoft Word’s thesaurus will say
Michelle.

We’re sitting on two stools on a mini portable stage under hot lights, in the center of the bar. My back hurts. As of tomorrow I am never again sitting on a seat without a back. Tonight’s bar is called Zoo, and men and women in animal costumes are dancing in cages hanging from the ceiling.

Howard is fondling his microphone. If I hadn’t found out about him and Michelle, I’d be wondering about his sexual orientation. “As I mentioned last week,” he says, “tonight, we will be playing the ultimate
Party Girls
game, Truth or Dare. We’re taking questions and dares from the people in the bar, so let’s get this party started! After the show, it’s up to you, the audience—” he points a fat finger at the camera “—to choose the Ultimate Party Girl. You can call 1-800-555-GIRL or e-mail [email protected] to cast your vote until midnight
Tuesday. Votes will be tallied and then announced on next week’s episode, along with the location of the next ultimate party city! And now, let the game begin!”

Howard hands the microphone to a guy in a tight black shirt and slicked-back hair who’s been eagerly prancing around the bar for the past thirty minutes. He reads a blurb off a white index card in his hand and says, “I have a dare for Michelle.”

Michelle smiles and squeezes my hand. I shrug her off.

“Michelle, I dare you to get into one of those cat outfits and dance in a cage for five minutes.”

“OH, YEAH! DANCE, MICHELLE!”

Michelle keeps smiling but whispers to me, “Isn’t that funny? How did they know I love to dance?”

Um…maybe because you told Howard you wanted them to dare you to dance and that’s what he told you to do? I ignore her instead of responding. She’s not worth the energy.

Michelle has never been worried about this competition for one second. Why wouldn’t she be worried…ding, ding…unless she always knew she was going to win? She’s had the whole thing rigged from the beginning.

“Hi, everyone,” she says, sashaying over to a woman holding a cat costume. She dresses quickly, tucking in her short skirt behind her tail, and then climbs into a cage. The cage shoots up a few feet, and she clings on to the bars as if she’s deathly afraid.

Yeah, right.

The strobe light flashes and she dances to the tune of the latest J.Lo dance song. I’ve got to hand it to her, she’s a natural cat. A cat that will scratch your eyes out.

I spot Erin in leather pants and a tube top. She taps Howard on the shoulder. At first he seems surprised to see her, but then he smiles and I can see her wiggling a little and sticking her breasts up at him. I can barely see her mouth moving, but I know what she’s saying: “Howard, why don’t you let me dare Sunny and Michelle to make out? It’ll be sexy coming from me.”

He pats her on the shoulder and turns around to whisper to
Pete. She sees me watching her and flashes me a thumbs-up. After the five minutes are over, the song ends and Michelle’s cage is lowered back to the floor.

“YEAH, MICHELLE!”

She takes off the furry-ear headpiece.

“LEAVE IT ON!” one voice from the back yells.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait your turn,” Michelle answers, winking. She rolls her eyes at me and sits back down on the stool.

Bitch.

Howard reclaims the microphone. “Our next question comes from a very special guest…Erin Soline.”

“YEAH, ERIN!”

“What’s that slut doing here?” Michelle asks, obviously annoyed.

Erin takes the microphone. “Thanks, Howard. I have a question for Sunny. It’s a truth.”

“OOOOOOOOH.”

Howard looks confused. Ignoring him, I stand up and take the microphone. “Hi, Erin. Good to see you.”

She looks me in the eye. “Sunny, are you single?”

Here I go. I can do this.

A rush of adrenaline shoots through my veins. “Not exactly,” I answer, keeping my voice steady. “I’ve been dating a fantastic man since last year and I’m completely in love with him. I agreed to be on this show because it allowed me to live here in Manhattan, where he is. Unfortunately, being on this show almost destroyed my relationship.” I stare deep into the lens of the camera. “All I can hope is that Steve is watching and realizes how much I love him and how sorry I am.”

The screech of the amplifier echoes in the silent room. I pop off the chair and unclip the mike from my collar.

Michelle is staring at me, jaw dropped.

I can’t believe I just pulled that off. Talk about melodrama. Are there reality TV Emmys? I totally deserve one. I walk offstage, past the shocked crowd, out the door. The familiar cold
washes over me, but I relish it with a deep breath. Well done! I’d like to pat myself on the back, but I know the camera is following me.

What the hell. I pat away.

Someone grabs my shoulder and spins me around. “What the hell was that?” Howard yells in my ear.

I remove his clenched hand from my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Howard. It was something I had to do.”

“Something you
had
to do?” His eyes are bulging from his head. “Are you insane? You’ve just destroyed any chance you have in television. Any chance. With
Party Girls,
with TRS, with everyone.”

My chest feels heavy but I stay strong. “Hollywood ain’t all glitz and glamour.”

He shakes his head and returns inside.

Hmm. Problem. Where am I supposed to go now?

Who’s left? Not Carrie and not Michelle.

My dad.

If you can’t turn to family when you’re homeless, scared and alone, then who can you turn to?

As I walk up the street, I block Michelle’s number and call him at home. No need for a repeat performance of last night. Wouldn’t want to excite him for nothing.

I suppose I’ll have to give back the cell to Michelle eventually. Maybe I’ll mail it.

No answer. I try his office. No answer. I try his cell. No answer. I decide to leave a message. “Hi, Dad, it’s Sunny. I hope you don’t mind, but I need to stay with you for a night or two. Steve and I had an argument. I’m going to hang out in your lobby until you come home. Hope that’s okay. See you soon.”

Of course it’s okay. He’s my father.

A cab ride and ten minutes later I’m sitting on a black chair in my father’s lobby, attempting to keep my eyes open.

I’m exhausted. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. My neck is tense, my head is pounding and the chair makes my back
curve at an uncomfortable angle. I wish the doorman would let me in, but he says it’s against policy.

Three hours later, at 1:30 a.m., I see my father’s profile through the glass door.

“Have you been waiting long?” he asks, strolling toward me.

I shrug and follow my father silently into the elevator. We enter his massive, stark apartment, my heels click-clacking against the polished floor as if I’m in an office, or at a subway stop.