Skinnydipping

by Bethenny Frankel

  “Really?” What was wrong with my radar, that I hadn’t immediately picked up on him? “Well, now what I really want is a margarita.” I was buzzed enough that I’d stopped caring about my waistline. “I’m through being virtuous.”

  “Your mother would be proud,” he said.

  “Oh no she wouldn’t,” I said. “And don’t get me started on my mother.”

  “I won’t get you started on yours if you don’t get me started on mine,” he said.

  “Agreed,” I said. “So what do you do?”

  “I’m one of those despicable lawyers.”

  “I won’t hold it against you,” I said.

  “I appreciate it,” he said. “Hey, you want to go sit down?”

  We ducked into a dark booth with our drinks, and he put his arm around me, as if we’d been together for years. Our intimacy was instant. I told him all about my muffin business, and he told me about the firm where he worked. He was an only child, and so was I. Beyond that, we didn’t talk about our families—I didn’t want to go there, and apparently neither did he. “I’m so tired of this scene,” he told me. “I hardly ever go to clubs anymore. I just came tonight for a friend’s birthday.”

  “I know what you mean,” I said. “I don’t do it much anymore, either. It’s not like you ever meet anybody good at a club.”

  He leaned in and kissed me right then. A long, slow kiss that made my toes tingle.

  “Hey, you’re pretty good at that,” I whispered. “Practice much?”

  “It’s a matter of finding the right lips,” he whispered back.

  Suddenly I felt like I was being sucked down a black hole. I could fall for this guy. And it scared me.

  “Let’s dance some more,” I said, grabbing his hand and pulling him out of the booth, trying to break the spell.

  We dove back onto the dance floor just as the strobe light hit and the DJ began projecting images of body silhouettes onto the walls. The music throbbed.

  I hadn’t had this much fun in months. His arm felt good around my waist, strong but not muscle-bound. It felt like the arm of a basketball player or a swimmer—firm and sure. As we danced, we looked each other square in the eyes, and then he leaned in and kissed me again, the longest, slowest, sexiest kiss I ever remembered experiencing. I pulled away at last and looked at him in surprise. He looked surprised, too. What was going on? For a moment, I forgot where I was.

  He looked stunned, as if all his bravado had dissolved in the wake of that kiss.

  Just then, Victoria and Jennifer came up behind me. “Whoa there, girl,” Jennifer said.

  “Let’s get her out of here before she gets engaged again!” Victoria said, pulling at my arm.

  “Stop!” I said, irritated that they were grabbing at me. “Just one second. OK?”

  “Geez, whatever,” said Victoria, backing off. I turned back to Harris. He was gone.

  “Where did he go?”

  I pushed through the crowd, looking for him. Then I saw the bathroom. Pull yourself together, Faith. I went inside and took a few deep breaths. I stared at myself in the mirror. What the hell are you doing? This is no time to start obsessing over some guy in a club. Snap out of it! Are you going to be on the show or not? Don’t say no because you think you have some chance with another guy. You’ve been down this road before. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results. It’s time to do something different.

  I took a deep breath, splashed water on my face, then stepped back out onto the dance floor. I would find him, tell him he was great, but that I had more important things to do with my life right now. And then I saw him—with her. The blonde girl in the short skirt. She had both arms around his neck, and she was kissing his cheek, and he had an arm around her waist. They were talking to each other, leaning in toward each other, and then she stumbled and he caught her, tenderly, and then led her out the door. He was leaving? He was leaving with her?

  Just as they walked out of the bar, Victoria came up to me. I just stood there, staring after him. She followed my gaze.

  “What the hell?” she said.

  I just shook my head. What kind of man was he? I’m out of his sight for two minutes, and he goes home with another girl? I didn’t care that I was about to tell him I couldn’t see him. How dare he act like that with me, kiss me like that, talk to me like that, hold me in his arms like that, make me believe we had a real connection, and then leave with another girl?

  “Get me out of here,” I said.

  Victoria took my arm. “You broke your own rule,” she said, as we walked back up the street to catch a cab. “See what happens? Stay away from them.”

  I thought about him all night, and the more I thought about him, the angrier I got, until he began to represent all men to me—every man who had ever disappointed me, betrayed me, or left me. Had I learned nothing from my time in L.A., and from the last five years in New York? It seemed like we connected, but I guess my sleaze meter was off. Screw him. The next morning, I picked up the phone and called the number on the card Roxanne Howard had given me.

  “I’m in.”

  Over the next week, I was so busy that I didn’t have too much time to dwell on what might have been. I shook it off. All the other contestants had been undergoing a complex evaluation process for several weeks, but because I’d been cast so late in the game, I had to squeeze into a few days what the rest of them had been doing for the past few weeks: interviews with the network producers, meetings with lawyers, and even meetings with psychologists and doctors, to be sure I was mentally and physically fit. I’d never been able to afford therapy. “I’m getting free therapy!” I’d proclaimed to Victoria on the phone.

  “And you’re excited about this?” she said. “You’re so bizarre.”

  “These people you’ll be living with will be competitive with one another, and with you,” the psychologist had advised me. “This can be very stressful, especially since you won’t be able to have a break or go back to your normal life until the show is over. You’ll feel alone, unsupported. Do you think you can handle this?”

  “Doc, I’ve handled much worse than that,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Do you really want to know?”

  I spent the next hour spilling out my guts: my father, my mother, the divorce, my failure in L.A., and the disaster that was Vince Beck. I’d just read in an entertainment magazine that Peter Jarrell’s last script was coming to the big screen, and the executive producer was Vince Beck. I felt betrayed. Then I told the psychologist about the string of men I’d dated in New York, even the guy I’d just met in the bar, Harris. And finally, did I want to get married, or have a career? I explained to him that I’d decided to choose the career, which is why I agreed to do the show. “I’m through with men,” I told him.

  The therapist nodded and listened and finally told me our time was up. He had to see all the other contestants. I don’t think he quite knew what to make of me. All I knew was that it felt great to talk to someone without an agenda about all of it. And for free!

  On Sunday night, I packed my bag for two months, as minimally as possible. I would be efficient, low maintenance, distraction-proof. No little reminders of my regular life. A clean break. As I packed, I realized how relieved I was that I had something to do for the summer. I didn’t have to try to figure out how to finagle my way to the Hamptons, which I could never afford, and it was always so depressing to be stranded in the city every weekend all summer, when everyone was hanging out at the beach or having pool parties. None of that mattered because I had a job to do.

  After I was packed, I put my old red suitcase by the front door and sat down on the couch. The apartment seemed cold and dark and lonely without Muffin, who was already at Bronwyn’s.

  What would it be like to have cameras filming me all the time? I hoped I’d get to do a lot of cooking, especially baking. I imagined Sybil trying one of my muffins, her face lighting up, the way sh
e would say, “Mmm, Faith, these are excellent. Could I get the recipe to use in my next cookbook?”

  And the money … oh, the money. Every contestant was being paid $750 per week to film the show, up until they were eliminated, and that was just one more reason to hold on as long as possible. But I needed to win that prize. I could last for years on $100,000. I couldn’t even imagine what a relief it would be, not to have to worry about money for a while.

  Then I imagined myself being crowned Sybil Hunter’s successor—Domestic Goddess, the next generation. I smiled, sitting there all alone in my dark apartment with the summer heat rising from the concrete, the moonlight casting its silver light over the buildings outside my window. This was happening, and tomorrow, my new life would begin. I wished Perry was here. I still missed my old roommate, and I knew she’d have such encouraging words for me. I thought about calling Victoria or Bronwyn, but decided I could handle it on my own. I didn’t want to have to explain this intense mix of fear and hope. I was going into a bubble, and I wanted to be ready. No more ties. Finally, exhausted, I folded myself into the covers of my own bed for the last time in what would be months. Just before I fell asleep, I saw Harris’s face. I hoped he would remember me. I hoped he’d see me on TV and be filled with regret for what he’d almost had.

  chapter twenty

  Stay right here for a moment, miss,” the driver said. He got out, said a few words to the camera crew, then got back in. “Now, when you get out of the car, they’re going to be filming you, so do not look at the cameras.” It must have been the twentieth time someone had told me that, but I was glad he reminded me. I didn’t realize it would be happening before I even knew where I was or what I was doing. I guess that was the point. I felt a surge of panic. I took a deep breath. “Does my hair look OK?” I said, smoothing it down. I grabbed lip gloss out of my purse and slicked it on.

  The driver smiled. “You look beautiful, dear,” he said kindly. I stepped out of the car, and the first thing I did was look directly at the camera. Idiot! What are you doing? What’s wrong with you? I scolded myself. You can’t do that. They’re filming. They saw that. I quickly looked away.

  I tried to regain my composure as I stepped into the building. The cameras followed my every move, and it felt strange trying to pretend they weren’t there. Behind the camera, a girl in a production T-shirt directed me to an elevator. “Go to the twenty-third floor,” she said. “Someone there will tell you where to go next.” The camera lens stayed on me until the elevator door closed. When it opened again, more cameras hovered. I couldn’t imagine ever getting used to that.

  “Right this way,” called another production girl, directing me toward a cameraman.

  “Can I mike you?” he said. Without waiting for a reply, he had his hand up my shirt, attaching a wire with a microphone to my bra, right over the cleavage, with sticky tape. Then he was attaching a mike pack to the back of my bra strap. It was like a hot brick on my back. “Now, you are never to take off this microphone unless you are given express permission, do you understand? I don’t care if you’re getting up to get a glass of juice in the middle of the night. I don’t care if you’re in the bathroom. Just forget it’s even there,” he said.

  I remembered that from the contract. I imagined them breaking down the door in the middle of the night because my microphone came off in my sleep. I imagined them suing me if I looked at the camera. I thought I might have an anxiety attack. “Now, I need you to wait in here,” said the production girl. She gestured to a door leading into a glass-enclosed conference room. A third girl, this one in a simple green dress, smiled warmly. “Hi, Faith. I’m Polly, Sybil’s assistant.” She opened the door for me.

  I walked into a very brightly lit room. There were already three other contestants sitting around a conference table. They all looked at me: a woman with jet-black hair cut into severe bangs and a bob who had been talking loudly but stopped in midsentence when she saw me; a neat, impeccably dressed, somewhat balding man with wire glasses, a perfectly tailored hounds-tooth jacket, a bow tie, and a matching pocket square; and a tall, stunning blonde woman with long wavy hair and a vacant expression. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place her.

  Polly put her hand on my arm. “And please remember, you are not allowed to speak to anyone.”

  “But that woman in there was talking,” I said.

  “It’s been noted,” she said. What was she, the Domestic Goddess Gestapo? Were they taking off points? Docking her paycheck?

  The elevator dinged and she turned and walked away. I entered the room and sat down next to the black-haired woman. “You’ve already been written up for talking,” I said sarcastically, out of the side of my mouth.

  She looked delighted. “Really? Wonderful.” She had the classic Brooklyn accent. “I’ve already been noticed. Shari Jacobs,” she said.

  I took her hand and shook it firmly. “Faith Brightstone.”

  In an exaggerated whisper from across the conference table, the well-dressed, bespectacled man said, “If you’re caught breaking the rules, Sybil plucks out your toenails. She’s almost got enough to mosaic a café table.”

  I laughed, then remembered the camera, then looked through the glass door to see if I was being written up, too. Oh, what the hell. “What are you doing here?” I whispered back. “Isn’t this Domestic Goddess?”

  “Honey, I can outgoddess any woman,” he said. He held out his hand. “Chaz Murphy.”

  “I’m Faith. Has anyone seen her yet? Is she really a hard-ass?”

  “You guys,” hissed the blonde woman. “We aren’t supposed to talk.” She looked both terrified and irritated. “We’re being … recorded.” I looked at her closely. She looked familiar. I knew I had met her before, somewhere long ago. Maybe in L.A., but I still couldn’t place her. She didn’t seem to recognize me at all.

  “You better get used to being recorded, honey,” Chaz said. Just then, the door opened and a tall, regal-looking woman with neat dark hair and a stunning antique bib necklace walked in and sat down. She had perfect posture and looked down her nose at us. Something about her kept us all from talking anymore.

  Over the next hour, six more people came in, each looking scared or nervous or excited or some combination. Nine women and three men. I recognized the chef from my audition. The other one—the one with the knockoff Chanel bag—wasn’t there. Maybe she’d already been axed, or they’d replaced her with me.

  Twelve contestants. Nobody spoke but we were all eyeing one another carefully, competitively. I wished they would bring us some coffee or even water. So much for the famous Sybil hospitality.

  Finally, Polly came back. “Sybil will see you now,” she said. “Follow me.”

  We all looked at one another nervously. This was it. We were all about to see the woman we’d come to see. I realized Sybil Hunter wasn’t just my idol. She was the idol of every person in this room—and of millions of others all around the country, which is why Ovation Network had given the show the big thumbs-up. Come on, Faith. You can do this. Use your instincts. Separate from the pack.

  We all filed out of the room behind another production person. We were told we weren’t allowed to go anywhere without them. Down a long hallway, around a corner, and into another conference room. Within minutes, the door opened … and there she was.

  Sybil Hunter, flanked by a huge fluffy black Newfoundland, who stuck to her side like a bodyguard. My eyes widened. She was larger than life. She must have been over six feet tall, with broad shoulders and a hard jawline, wavy auburn hair cut into a chin-length bob, and steely eyes. She wore an expensive-looking cashmere sweater the color of buttercream, ivory-colored slacks, and camel-colored heels—the clothes of a tasteful and very rich woman. The expression on her face dared anyone to question anything she wore, or said, or did. She radiated power. She turned her intimidating gaze toward us. I was mesmerized.

  “Welcome, everyone,” she said. Her voice was deep, no-nonsense, almost masculine�
�the voice of a matriarch. She looked each one of us in the eyes in turn. When her eyes fell on me, it felt electric. I stared right back at her, trying to match her confidence. Her eyes narrowed slightly, and then she looked at the woman next to me.

  “I’m so glad to welcome you here to my show,” she said. “Sybil Hunter Enterprises has grown over the past fifteen years from a local corporate event-planning business to a billion-dollar empire. As you may know if you’ve followed my career, after my first cookbook, Domestic Goddess, I developed a product line, and then a magazine, and then a television show, along with four more cookbooks, all best sellers. Today, I have over one thousand employees who work in all the different divisions of Sybil Hunter Enterprises, including over five hundred employees already working on my new network, which will launch next year: Sybil Hunter Enterprises Television, or SHE TV.” All the cameras were locked on her.

  She continued. “My brand is known worldwide for its quality, beauty, and supreme functionality. Everything we do here at SHE must meet my very high standards, and I personally oversee everything this company produces—products, recipes, all media. If it comes from SHE, you can count on it.”

  That was her slogan. She was known for it. She’d tell you how to make Halloween cookies or install a shelf or refinish a wood floor or arrange flowers, and then she’d say, “You can count on it.”

  “Now, let me explain what’s at stake for all of you.” She gave us another sweeping, withering stare. “The winner of this contest will receive a prize we haven’t yet revealed. You may know about the $100,000 cash prize. However, that’s just a small part of what the last remaining contestant will receive.” She paused dramatically, and the cameras moved to catch all of our reactions—what could it be? I realized it was all part of the game. Finally, she told us: “With the launch of SHE TV, the winner of Domestic Goddess will get his or her own television show, to be broadcast on my new network. Our network executives will work with you to develop a show around your personal talents.”