Dana sighs. “Fine, but I’m not happy about it. And isn’t there some kind of law that says you have to use the product you endorse?”
I don’t care what the contract’s fine lines say, those Purity tampons hurt.
Well I think Steve and Dana can go screw themselves. I like Millie’s reaction better:
“Personality? You’re so famous. Do you know how many hits your name gets on the Internet? It’s insane. You are a celebrity. You’re by far the most famous person I know. Even more famous than Marla Tannenbaum.” Marla Tannenbaum wrote a book about the rave culture. It was nonfiction and was published three years ago and we hated her in high school, and had to see her name whenever we went to the bookstore and it was highly annoying.
Millie’s right. So what if I’m the tampon girl? I’m in Personality, which is very cool.
Take that, Marla.
By one that afternoon I feel confident enough to leave the house without a bag over my head. I head over to Gourmet Market with the list of ingredients required for the recipes I found online under “Romantic Dinner.” I’m making heart-shaped smoked salmon for my appetizer, spinach and almond salad for my salad, fennel fusilli with chicken and pine nuts for my entrée, and strawberry fondue for my dessert.
Words like fennel, diced, minced and grape tomato (can there be a more blatant marketing attempt to make tomatoes friendlier?) jump up at me and give me a heart attack. I feel like I’m taking a multiple-choice exam and I don’t recognize any of the options.
Why is it always so cold in here?
Two hours in the grocery store and twenty minutes at the wine store later (sudden brainstorm: for our next anniversary, our one year, I’m signing us up for a wine-tasting class—Steve is always saying he wished he were more of a wine connoisseur), I’m back home, remembering why I don’t do this more often. It’s scary. Really. I don’t want to poison him. And it takes forever. Why bother? So far, the only fun part was using my expense account at the cash register. I burn my hand on the boiling olive oil. I cut my finger while slicing the grape tomatoes.
After I’ve done all the prep I can, I tidy up. Maybe I can clean up the rest of the apartment before Steve gets home.
Dana would make fun of me for hours, for my housewife activities.
I start by attacking the caked grime in the bathtub with Comet. Has he ever cleaned in here? I bet his roommate never cleaned, either. Vile. I’m cleaning Greg’s grime. Surrounding the toothbrush holder is a stream of crusty white. Steve needs to learn proper toothbrush cleansing technique. He brushes, dabbles it under the water and then puts the brush away, allowing the remaining suds to drip grotesquely down the sides. Once, catching him in the act, I held him steady in the rinsing position for twenty seconds and then, still guiding his hand, shook the brush dry.
Of course, by the next morning, he was back to his regular routine, leaving a waterfall of toothpaste suds in his wake.
Is he never going to clean? I don’t want to ask him to clean. That’s so naggy. I’m not his mother. But otherwise, it’ll be my job for the rest of my life.
Is that what he expects?
His mother does the cleaning. Maybe he just thinks I’ll take over. Am I going to have to spend the rest of my life cleaning?
Next. Like a cat being petted, the floor seems to purr with the touch of my mop.
On to the bedroom. I remove the once black, now gray sheets. I’m not sure he even owns another set until I search in the back of his linen closet. And find another gray, probably once black set.
I collect the laundry and drag it across the street. The best part about New York is that other people do your laundry for you. While at first thought, paying someone to clean your clothes seems like a waste of money. But if your load is big enough you can actually save, since the mini washing machine in the basement costs two-seventy a load.
Of course most of Steve’s restaurant clothes need to be dry-cleaned. All of his stuff comes back covered in plastic. When I get my stuff back, the first thing I do is remove the piece of clothing from the crappy wire hanger and plastic covering, throwing them both in the garbage. Then I hang up the clothes properly on a real, purchased, plastic hanger. But Steve?
I open the closet door. Steve’s half of the closet is an overflowing wall of plastic and extra hangers. He shoves his dry cleaning inside, directly beside his unused proper hanger. And when he wants to wear the piece of clothing, the plastic somehow finds its way to the floor.
If we had a baby crawling around, it would definitely get tangled in the mess and suffocate itself.
I spend the next five minutes chucking out all superfluous hangers and plastic. Why does Steve have so much stuff? My things are coming tomorrow, so he’s going to have to wade through this all. Maybe I’ll use the extra room for storage.
Something in the kitchen smells. I clean out the fridge, in search of the offender. I throw out two yogurts dated July 21, three months ago, but neither seems to be the problem.
By the time Steve gets home, I’m cranky, exhausted, grubby and on all fours in the middle of the kitchen floor.
“I definitely like the look of that.”
“So not in the mood.” On the plus side he’s holding a bag of gifts. I sit on my butt. “Hi, sweetie. Are those for me?”
“For later, not now.” He lays the bag down on the kitchen table. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to stop the fridge from smelling. Why does it smell? Something smells and I can’t find it.”
Steve sits next to me on the floor. “Maybe it’s you?”
I punch him in the arm. “I’m going to shower. Then I’m going to try to figure out how to make fennel fusilli with chicken and pine nuts.” I can’t think of anything I want to do less than cook. The directions look scary. They involve cooking the pasta and the sauce simultaneously. How can you pay attention to both things at the same time? What are the chances I burn one or the other?
After I shower and dress, I find Steve in the kitchen cooking away. “What are you doing?”
“Making the pasta.”
As happy as I am to hear those magic words, I feel guilty. “You always make dinner. It’s my turn.”
“You did enough tonight. Your appetizer and salad look delicious.”
“But dinner was my present. Now I don’t have anything for you.”
He adds the pine nuts to the pan. “That’s not true. You got a fondue maker.”
Oh, yeah. There you go. I do have a present, after all. Hey. He wasn’t supposed to see that. “That was a surprise!”
“Then you should have wrapped it.”
I stand on tiptoe and take down two wineglasses. Then during my attempt to open the bottle, I manage to get half the cork stuck. Damn. After making a go to remove the remainder with a steak knife, I end up plopping it into the bottle.
Steve strains the pasta.
“Steve, can you pass me the strainer?”
“Did you break the cork again?”
“Yup.”
I pour the wine through the strainer, staining it red. We clink. “To eleven months,” I say.
“To eleven months.”
After a delicious dinner of perfectly cooked pasta, Steve tells me to wait in the living room while he prepares my gifts.
“Plural?” I ask, impressed.
When he opens the door, a black negligee and thong underwear are spread out on the bed.
“Ooh. Pretty,” I say, fingering the lingerie. Lacy and sexy.
“Now look at the panties,” he says, clapping his hands.
A tiny triangle of leather is attached to something barely more than a string. As soon as I pick it up, my hand falls to the bed under its weight. “Why is it so heavy?” I notice something odd. “Why do they have batteries in them?”
Abruptly, they begin to move. And hum.
“They’re vibrating panties!” Steve says, clapping his hands again. He’s holding a small white box. Apparently, the panties’ remote control.
My panties are alive.
Steve looks sheepish. “Don’t you like them?”
Do I need to feed them? “Sure,” I say quickly. “I bet they’ll be a lot of fun.” Are they for daily activities? Like next time I’m buying groceries? They’d certainly warm me up. Possibly electrocute me.
“Try them on.”
“Now?”
“Why not?”
“Because I have my period.” Okay, I’m wearing a tampon—not Purity—but there’s always the possibility of leakage, isn’t there? “I don’t want to get them dirty.” Who knows where he got this or what kind of salesgirls have handled it. This baby requires a serious disinfectant before going anywhere near my crotch.
Steve brightens and claps his hands. “I just thought of the funniest idea.”
Oh-oh. “What?”
“It’ll be hysterical. Our little secret.”
“What?”
“Ready? You’re going to love this—you can wear them while you’re filming!”
Is he on crack? He wants me to wear vibrating panties when I’m on national television? Maybe if I play dumb he’ll realize how moronic he sounds and come up with a new vibrating-panty worthy occasion. “Sorry?”
No such luck. “You can wear them while you’re filming!” he repeats, thrilled with his insane idea. “Won’t that be a riot? No one else will know but us. You’ll be wearing them and I’ll have the remote. Fun, huh?”
He’s not kidding.
“But what about the remote? You won’t be at the restaurant? These things can’t have that good a frequency.” Tell me this motorized insane idea can’t be activated across town.
He scratches his head in contemplation. “You’re right. That sucks.”
I exhale in relief.
His eyes light up. “I got it. You’ll wear them and I’ll leave work early. I’ll come to the bar and when I get there, I’ll turn it on. Turn you on. My secret message to you.”
No way, no way, no way.
“Don’t you think it’s a little sketchy that you want to turn me on in public? And you can’t come to the bar. Howard will figure out that we’re involved and I’ll get fired.”
“It’s not sketchy. It’s funny! No one will know. That’s what makes it cool—it’ll be just between us. For fun. Our secret. I won’t say a word to you. You’ll do your job and I’ll have a drink. I’ll bring Greg. I’m allowed to want to watch you work, aren’t I? It’ll be fantastic! Please? Please? Please?”
He sounds like Bart trying to get his way with Homer. I understand he’s feeling a little left out of my new life, but is this the best way for us to bond?
“Please? Please? Please? It’ll be fun.”
“What if someone hears the buzzing noise from my vaginal area?”
“The bar is loud! You can barely even hear yourself think. Anyway, I got the extra-silent pair. And even if someone heard a tiny hint of a buzz, they’d assume something was wrong with your watch. Who would think you were wearing robotic panties?”
“What if I’m distracted? I can’t have an orgasm on television.”
He waves away my concern. “I’ll watch you the whole time, and if you look like you’re having too much fun, eyes closed, head thrown back in abandon, little moans, nose scrunched up—”
“I don’t scrunch my nose when I come.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Why don’t I videotape you next time and I’ll show you?”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
He laughs. “If it happens—I’ll turn it off with the remote.”
“What if it causes interference with the camera or the mike? Isn’t that why you can’t use your laptop on airplanes when you take off? I bet you can’t wear vibrating panties when you’re flying, either. What if the mike ends up vibrating and the panties pick up the sound?”
He cracks up. “Who cares? What fun is this show if you can’t laugh about it?”
I shake my head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
His face clouds over. “Why not?”
“It just isn’t. I don’t want to screw up anything on the show.”
His face has set into something resembling stubbornness. “Well, I think it is. When did you start caring so much about this show, anyway? Didn’t you do it only because you thought it would be a trip?”
Oh-oh. What, has this stupid gag become a test? Is this Choice A my relationship, Choice B the show?
“Fine, I’ll wear them okay?” So I’ll wear the damn panties to the show. Big deal. If anyone can tell, I’ll take them off. At least I’ll have more fun than I did last week. “If it means that much to you.” Am I insane? What am I agreeing to?
He kisses me hard on the lips and slowly lowers me, hands on my back, onto the bed.
“What are you doing?”
“Seducing you?”
“We can’t have sex. I have my period.” Does he not remember anything?
Why am I even worrying about the power panties? No way he remembers that he even bought me them by next weekend.
“So?” he says.
“What do you mean, so?”
“Are you sixteen? You can still have sex with your period. You have serious menstruation issues.”
“It’s so dirty.” Wait a second. “You’ve done that?”
“Um…no?” He lies on top of me.
“You’re full of crap.” I swat him. “Knowing you had sex with someone else when she had her period is revolting.”
“What’s so revolting about it?”
It’s like an unwanted blood transfusion. “I don’t want blood all over the sheets. I just changed them.”
“You did?” He takes a closer look at them. Does he not notice anything? “So we’ll put a towel down under us.”
“Only if you wear a condom,” I concede reluctantly.
“Why? Because of the pill thing? You can’t get pregnant when you have your period, can you? Condoms never work on me anymore.”
“With a condom,” I repeat. “We’ll try it again, okay? And don’t touch me down there, got it?”
I’m not sure what’s in all this for me. Sounds about as much fun as cooking fennel.
“Cool.” He sprints toward the linen closet. “I’m getting a towel. Go take out your tampon.”
Good thing my extra towels arrive tomorrow.
Happy anniversary.
14
Who’s The Boss?
On Tuesday morning, the Party Girls have our first interview. And it’s live.
A car service picks me up at six. I couldn’t sleep and now I have bags under my eyes. Not only that, my stomach hurts. I’ve never done an interview before. What if I can’t think of anything intelligent to say?
“Hey,” Erin says when I open the car’s back door. It’s only the driver and us. Erin is lying on the seat, the back of her head against the window.
“Scoot over,” I say. I’m pissed off at her about telling the camera about me getting my period, but after all the horrible things I said about her, I’ve lost my right to complain.
Her eyes are closed. “I’m in no mood for Mia.”
“Who’s Mia?”
“Our publicist. You haven’t yet had the pleasure of meeting her?”
We have a publicist? Shouldn’t I know these things? “No. When did you meet her?”
“Before you came on. They sent press kits about the show to all the major magazines and TV shows. With Sheena the shoplifter.”
“Cool.” They were in magazines without me? What magazines? I am being eaten alive by jealousy.
“Not really. We got a ton of publicity in all the wrong places.”
“I thought there’s no such thing as bad publicity.”
“There is when it makes fun of the show. TRS got laughed at in Variety, USA TODAY, Wall Street Journal, Forbes and The Hollywood Reporter for being frivolous. TRS was also criticized for jumping on the bandwagon.”
“What bandwa
gon?”
“Both bandwagons. Reality TV and Sex and the City. No offense,” she adds, shrugging, “but they should have kept Sheena on the show and milked the shoplifting for PR. They could have made it an issue on air.”
“Excuse me for not being a criminal.”
“The real problem,” she says, ignoring me, “is that no other network wants to put us on their talk shows because they have their own stupid reality shows to promote. So instead, we’re on American Sunrise. Totally useless. Anyone who’s home at nine and awake isn’t exactly our target market. They should get us on Letterman. Putting us on American Sunrise is like posting a condom advertisement in a convent’s bathroom.”
“It’s still live national television.”
Live. Live. What if something crazy happens? Once it happens, it happened. No retakes. No editing. My pulse races. “What if something awful happens?”
“Like what? You get your period?”
Ha, ha.
At the door to the studio, we’re given fancy square badges to clip to our coats, and then we’re escorted to a private room.
Carrie, Miche and Brittany are sitting at a long table, drinking coffee.
“Is that Sunny? That must be Sunny!” a nasal voice says. The voice belongs to a short, toothpick-skinny woman wearing an aqua-blue fitted pantsuit. She’s also wearing at least four-inch platform boots, the kind you see in music videos that make you wonder how on earth anyone stands on them. They’re hideous, but I guess when you’re vertically challenged, you have no choice. I slouch down to see how awful the world is from five feet. It’s lower, sure, but no way is it worth those shoes.
“It’s terrific to meet you, finally. I’m Mia, your publicist.” She throws her arms around me, then pulls back and attacks Erin. “Erin! It’s wonderful to see you again.”
Her short brown hair, thick brown eyebrows and plump red lips make her look like a stylish Muppet.
“Sunny, Carrie told me she’s already reviewed the basics with you.”
As Seen on TV Page 20