I nod and sip. I hold the coffee cup carefully over the middle hump. There is no time for additional spillage.
“If they give you water, do not drink it unless your mouth is absolute sandpaper. If you do, you will have to go to the bathroom and you will look fidgety on camera. Maintain eye contact with the host, or with that magic spot right above the camera lens. Do not look at the ceiling and do not look at the floor. Pretend the camera is a new man who you are desperately trying to get to fall in love with you. Do not blink excessively. Keep your posture. Don’t slouch. Imagine a hanger holding up your shoulders. Do whatever it takes to make yourself look animated. Facial expressions, hand gestures. If you do not animate yourself, you are not going to look interesting on television. You want to look in control, though, so remember, no fidgeting. No scratching, no twirling your hair, no twisting your rings around your fingers or earrings—” She sits up abruptly and gawks at my ears. “Why aren’t you wearing earrings?”
“I don’t have any.”
“You don’t have pierced ears?”
“I do, I just don’t wear jewelry.”
“Why do you have pierced ears, then? You need to wear earrings. The holes are going to close up if you don’t.” Her hands fly to her earlobes and she removes dangling silver drops from her own ears. “Put these on.”
Nasty. I’m feeling way too close to my father’s liquids right now. I put them on. My fingers smell like ear.
“Voice. Modulate. Don’t sound like an Arthur character, don’t sound like the professor on Ferris Bueller. Mo-du-late,” she articulates, flashing her hands for emphasis. “And don’t sound like you’re full of shit. You can lie if you want but sound sincere. Don’t mumble. Don’t swallow the ends of your sentence. Don’t be too loud. Don’t speak too softly either. E-nunci-ate. Let me hear you enunciate.”
“E-nun-ci-ate.” I say. In camp, Carrie was a color war captain. She forced us to sing a song about the merits of the yellow team, which she had written to the tune of Chicago’s “You’re the Inspiration.”
“Don’t let your mind wander,” she concludes.
“Got it. Go team.”
Carrie madly flips through the pages on her clipboard. “Are you taking this seriously? You have to take this seriously. It’s going to be a serious interview.”
How serious can this be? It’s a TV show about bars. I doubt there’s an IQ prerequisite. “They’re not going to ask me my opinions on global warfare.”
Carrie looks me in the eye, apparently staggered at my naivety. “Do you have any idea how many women want to be in your shoes?”
Instinctively, I glance down at my newly squashed toes.
“Do you?” she presses on. “Thousands. I waded through hundreds of resumes myself. You are lucky, darling, lucky.” She casts her head downward and sighs loudly, obviously saddened by my lack of reverence. “If you don’t respect the genre, it’s not going to respect you.”
I’m not even sure that means anything. This whole job is a joke. If they like me, they like me, if they don’t, who cares?
“They’re going to ask you a lot of questions. They’ll ask about your relationships, tidbits about your childhood, tiffs with your sister and your roommates—”
“I’ve never had a roommate.”
“They’ll want to know what you do for fun, how crazy of a party girl you are, if you drink too much. They’ll try to ferret out, very subtly, if you have any prejudices.”
“So I shouldn’t tell them about all my bisexual experiences?”
She points a manicured finger at me. “No, definitely tell them those.”
Um…I was kidding?
By the time we pull up in front of the TRS building, I feel as if I’m perched on the top of a ski hill, ready to go. Equipment—check. Attitude—check. Skills—check. I can do this. I’ve always been a comfortable public speaker; I won the annual public speaking contest in high school with my magic formula:
Pick one serious issue (divorce, abortion, suicide, anorexia).
Begin with confessional-style story. (When Marsha was thirteen her father told her he wouldn’t be living at the house anymore.)
Throw in statistics. (One in every two couples gets divorced.)
Add lighthearted jokes. (Marsha gets twice as many Christmas presents.)
Boomerang the speech back to the confessional-like story. (Marsha realized that her parents would lead happier, more fulfilled lives apart.)
Add a reconciliatory ending. (Marsha’s family wasn’t broken. It was just different.)
Voila! First place.
Inside the steel elevator Carrie pinches my cheeks. “You need more color. But you look great.”
You know that ski hill I mentioned? When I was ten, my father brought us to Vale and I broke my leg when I met up with a tree.
With each ascending floor my breathing becomes faster and shallower. I can do this. They want me. They asked for me. I certainly didn’t ask for them.
The elevator door opens into a plush white room. White walls, white couch, white furry carpet. I feel as if I’m in a cream cheese commercial. Pictures of their Emmy-award-winning TV shows, including NYChase, and American Sunrise line the walls.
I follow Carrie to the reception desk. “Sunny Lang and I are here for her Party Girls interview.”
Lang?
The receptionist nods toward the couch. “Victoria’s interview is running a bit late. Do you have her application pack?”
Victoria? Who is Victoria? Why do I have to wait for Victoria? Someone else is interviewing for the role? Who is this “Victoria”? I imagine her with red-cropped hair and a collared shirt, realizing that she is after my part. My part. Does she think she can out-Miranda me?
This will not do. This is my job, and no whiny little suck-up is going to steal it. I try to catch Carrie’s gaze.
Carrie doesn’t look up. Instead, she reaches to the back of her clipboard and pulls out a stack of files. “Sunny will bring her application in with her,” she says, and motions her chin toward the couch. “Let’s wait over there.”
Did she know other women were after my role? I sit down beside her. “How many people are auditioning?” I ask through a clenched jaw.
“I sent one yesterday,” she whispers back. “And other associates in my firm sent two this morning.”
I go into cardiac arrest. I’m competing for this job. I have slashed all ties with Panda for a measly audition. I am a wannabe. Is Dana right? There could be dozens, hundreds even, of sexy, serious women lurking around this building, preparing to be asked about their siblings and non-homophobic tendencies, hoping for their big break in cheese-town, and I am just as pathetic as they are.
Carrie hands me a stack of papers and a pen. “Sign the last page.”
I’m certainly not signing something I haven’t even read. I flip through the pages. “What is this?”
“Your application, your references, your background check, proof that you were never arrested, names of family members, interesting things about you…”
A hundred pages, all about me. “Where did you get this stuff?”
“Some from your dad. And you’d be surprised what’s available on the Net,” she says. “Don’t worry,” she adds in a whisper. “No one cares about the background check. As your agent I’m the one responsible for making sure you’re clear. Once I approve you, you’re golden. I got your dad and Marcus to write two of your references.”
Marcus? The owner of Abina, my childhood sleep-away camp? “How did you get in touch with Marcus? And who are these other people?”
“I called him, and made up the others. No worries.” She pats my knee.
No worries. I need some Pepto-Bismol. “Anything I should know about myself before I go in?”
“Just be yourself. Your sexy, wild, single self. You’re articulate, you’re ambitious, you’re soulful, you don’t take shit from men, you practically raised yourself. I played up the dead mother thing. They loved that—every show needs
a sob story. You’ll be wonderful, trust me. They’ll want you. I know what they need. I endorsed you over the girls I sent yesterday.”
The girls? As in plural? What happened to “I sent one yesterday”?
Twenty minutes later Victoria prances from the closed doors in a tight Chanel suit, high heels and cropped blond hair. I give her the evil eye. The receptionist lifts her head. “Ms. Lang?”
Carrie pokes me. “That’s your pseudonym. Langstein was too ethnic.”
“Everyone in New York is ethnic.”
“Trust me.”
“I sound like a stripper.”
“Good luck,” she says. “Remember, show them soul. And no drinking.”
I’m ushered down a stark, low-ceilinged white hallway, into a square, white-walled room. A man is half hidden by a large studio camera. Two other men and a woman are sitting on one side of a boardroom table. I recognize Howard. The door slams shut behind me. I feel as if I’m in the final scene in Flashdance when Jennifer Beals arrives at the academy in leg warmers and comes face-to-face with judges in suits.
She got them clapping and singing, didn’t she?
“Hi!” I say. My heels click-clack as I walk across the room. These things could take out someone’s balls with one swift kick. I place my application on the table.
Silence.
“Hello,” the man who is not Howard finally says. He rubs what remains of his gray hair and scans my application.
A polar bear-shaped man steers a large camera in my direction. The red light is on. I blink at the blazing flash and look away.
The gray-haired man moves his chair, and the squeak echoes through the room. He points to a pitcher of water in the center of the table. “Would you like something to drink?”
No water, no water. “No thank you,” I say.
I assume I am supposed to sit in the one empty chair facing the judges. As I sit, the camera follows me downward. Am I supposed to look into the camera or at the men? What were Carrie’s instructions again?
The room is quieter than a funeral. Howard is directly across from me, wearing a funky silver shirt, too far unbuttoned, revealing ghastly white skin and coarse black chest hair. The older, gray gentleman is sitting to his right, in front of the cameraman. A woman who looks like an older version of Kelly Osborne, same body size, same first season red-orange hair, same Cindy Lauper clothing, is grimacing on Howard’s left. Why the long face? She doesn’t like what she’s doing? She should try switching places with me. I like her hair. I like her outfit. I look down at my own Marc Jacobs cleavage-enhancing shirt.
Does she think I like this outfit?
Howard smiles and starts rubbing his hands together. “Nice to see you again, Sunny.”
“Nice to see you, too.”
“I hear I missed quite a spectacle at Eden’s the other night.” He turns to the older Kelly. “A woman was choking and little Sunny here saved her life with the Heimlich.”
The Kelly’s scowl melts from her face and she appears almost interested. “Really? How’d you know what to do?”
“I was a lifeguard.”
The Kelly nods. “I’m Tania, the show’s story producer. I work with Howard to create character development and story arcs. That’s Pete,” she points to the cameraman. “You already met Howard, and beside him is Stan. He’s VP of programming at TRS. Story editors, sound editors, production assistants and interns will also be working on the show, but you don’t have to worry about them. Ready to start, sexy, wild, skinny thing? Let’s go.”
Sexy, wild, skinny thing? Are those the adjectives I want to be known as? Maybe I should tell them, sorry, pick Victoria, then bend into a four-legged crawling position and slither out the door and back out through the hallway.
Unless I want this. Do I want this? Am I no better than the Girls Gone Wild girls who flash their breasts so they can get a free T-shirt?
I need a job in New York. This is a job in New York.
I am so full of it.
I stop and breathe and smile. Why don’t I get the job first and analyze it to death afterward?
Stan pours himself a glass of water. My mouth feels like the Sahara Desert.
They’ll start with easy questions, right? Name? Sunny Langstein. I mean, Lang. Birthplace? Florida. Siblings? One. Parents? Dead mother. No problem.
“Tell us, Sunny,” Tania says, reading a question off a paper in front of her. “About the most unusual way you’ve ever met a guy?”
Sunny Lang, I’m about to answer. No. That is not the right question.
I have a flashback to a business school case. The professor was prepping us for interviews with consulting firms. “How many gallons of ice cream are sold in the U.S. each year?” he asked.
At first the entire class panicked and screamed out politer versions of “How the Fuck Are We Supposed to Know?” The professor’s answer was that we weren’t expected to come up with the right answer—firms were more interested in seeing how we think.
You can assume that eighty percent of Americans eat ice cream. And there are about three hundred million people in the United States. That makes three hundred million consumers. But then are ice cream sales seasonal? Gender specific? Do southern states sell more ice cream than northern ones? Do—
“Sunny? Interesting way of meeting a guy?” Howard twirls a pen like a baton between his fingers.
I realize with horror that I have been twirling my hair. Automatically my hands drop into my lap. How come he gets to twirl and I don’t?
They don’t care about my answer, I remind myself. They care about my personality.
“I was rappelling in a South American rain forest. Suddenly, the rope that attached me to safety became unhitched from the treetop and I plummeted to the ground. Thank God, the man rappelling just beneath me held open his arms and caught me. When I looked into his wide green eyes, I knew that this man and I would have an exciting future. We dated for two years.”
Tania looks up, amazed. “That really happened?”
I snort. “I wish. No, of course not.” I am the sexy, obnoxious cynic. “No one meets someone like that in real life, unless your name is Jane and you’re stranded in a jungle. I met my previous boyfriend at a café. I’ve met all my boyfriends at cafés. If I wasn’t a caffeine addict I’d never get laid.”
Tania spits out the water in her mouth and laughs. I am the wild, sexy, witty, obnoxious cynic.
“How old were you when you lost your virginity?” Howard asks.
“Which time?” This emits another chuckle and I say, “I was seventeen. I got drunk and seduced my best friend’s younger brother. No morning-after regrets. Until I saw the pictures on the Internet, of course.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Stan says. More laughs.
“No.” I keep a straight face. “Yes. I don’t think anyone knew how to use the Internet for humiliation purposes back then.”
“What was the worst thing you ever did that you hid from your parents?” Tania asks.
“My mom died when I was six. When I was sixteen my dad moved back to NewYork and I lived in the house by myself. His only rules were no drugs or alcohol. There were stories all over the paper about parents suing other parents when their children died of alcohol poisoning at a guardianless house party. My father was terrified of getting sued. I had wild parties at my house every weekend. Lots of booze—”
All four of them lean toward me, wanting to know what I’m going to say next. They like me. They like me!
“—and everyone slept over. One Sunday morning I counted twelve crashers all over the house. Four on the living room couch, three in my sister Dana’s room, one in the bathroom—he passed out after drinking too much beer—and four in my room, including me, crammed in my single bed, two on each side, our legs and sheets tangled. No massive orgy or anything, we just stayed up, laughing. A week later, about ten minutes before my dad arrived for his monthly visit, I had an urge to check the DustBuster that was in his bedroom. It was one of those cle
ar, see-all-the-dirt-inside ones, and when I picked it up, I realized that there was a hunk of hash in it. I don’t remember vacuuming it up, I don’t know why I suddenly had the urge to check it, I don’t even smoke hash, but there it was. I never got caught.”
Stan shakes his head, worried. “You lived on your own since you were sixteen?”
“Yes.” I wave away his concern. “It wasn’t as lonely as it sounds. I like my space.”
Howard scans over my application. “I see you have a business degree. Why was school so important to you?”
“Because I want to be successful. I’ve always had a job.”
“What kind of jobs did you do?”
“I lifeguarded in the summer. During high school I waitressed on weekends and after school. At college I worked at the student services center. I worked behind the counter the first year and then managed it for the next three.”
“But why did you need to work? Your father couldn’t support you?”
“I like my independence.”
“Why are you moving to New York?” Tania asks.
I hesitate and then answer, “Fresh start. I ended a relationship and I need a change. Rumor has it this is the city where anything is possible.” This is the truth. I ended a relationship. I ended many relationships before Steve. And it’s true I need a change, or I wouldn’t be here, right?
Tania looks down at her notes. “What was your best life experience?”
I guess saying that it was Steve asking me to move in with him would be counterproductive. I need something that spells excitement, spells adventurous, spells single…“Backpacking through Europe. I went with my best friend and we had the time of our lives.”
“What did you do?”
“What didn’t we do? We lived in London, swam naked in Nice, flirted in Florence.” I am the goddess of alliteration. “Drank ouzo in Corfuzo.”
As Seen on TV Page 9