Skinnydipping

by Bethenny Frankel

  I watched the city go by the window, the streets full of people. I knew my apartment would be empty until I went back out to pick up Muffin, but I was tempted to just crawl into bed and sleep for a week, not talk to anyone, just try to forget, try to pass the next six months in solitude. When the driver pulled up at my building, I wiped the tears from my face, thanked him, and went inside, up the elevator, and then I wheeled my suitcase down the hall toward my apartment door. And, there he was, holding a bouquet of roses.

  “Hi,” he said.

  My heart stopped. I smiled, in spite of myself. “Hi.”

  chapter thirty

  Harris was a hand holder, a hugger, and an amazing kisser, and he made me feel safe. Muffin actually liked him, which was definitely in his favor. We became inseparable.

  I saw Harris several times a week at first, and then almost every day, but our relationship was a secret. We couldn’t imagine what Sybil might do to me if she knew. I worried about the footage from Sybil’s home, but so far, I’d heard nothing, so I hoped for the best. We were careful. My friends weren’t allowed to meet him, or even know who he was, no matter how much they begged. I felt like he was my secret. We lived in our own private little world. It was beautiful.

  I was ecstatic to be free from the confines of that horrible reality show, and being out of that Loft made me realize exactly how awful it really had been. At the time, I’d handled it, because I had no choice. Now I appreciated my freedom like I never had before—the fact that I could go to the bathroom without a camera waiting outside, sleep without a microphone pack, was a miracle. I could go out for coffee with my friends, I could walk down the street alone, I could spend a quiet morning doing absolutely nothing. Sometimes I felt like I was still in shock, like I had post-traumatic stress disorder, or like my life wasn’t quite real.

  During my sixty-day absence, my bakery business hadn’t done so well. Alanna had fulfilled all the orders from the trade show, but the business had become too expensive to keep going, so after talking with my business partner, Stefan, I temporarily shuttered it, since neither of us knew whether I’d be free to continue with it. It all depended on whether I won the show. It wasn’t time to try to grow the business anymore. My whole life was in wait-and-see mode.

  But that was OK with me. It gave me more time, and my favorite way to spend the evening was with Muffin on my lap and Harris’s arm around my shoulders. I was rapidly falling for the son of the Domestic Goddess herself. Life was pretty good, even with all the uncertainty.

  I was still obsessing almost constantly about the finale, and who would win, and how it would go, and what Sybil had decided, and what Shari might be up to, but I was happy, too. I hadn’t been really happy in a long time. My life was finding its rhythm again.

  Harris and I spent the last week in August at the beach together, in a house his mother owned but rarely visited. “She’s not really a beach person,” he told me. “She’ll never even know we were here.” One night, after a bottle of wine, Harris took my hand and led me out to the ocean’s edge. The moon was out and the dark water shimmered. We dipped our toes in. The water was cold, but the August heat was oppressive. Then Harris gently lifted my dress over my head, peeled off his own clothes, and dove into the surf. I didn’t need an invitation to follow. That night, we made love for the first time, under the moon, covered in saltwater and sand.

  We shared everything, in long rambling conversations. The show, our strange relationship and how it had developed, and our parents—such as they were. He told me all about growing up with Sybil, and how hard he’d tried to stay out of the spotlight, and how she’d bribed him to help her with the show by promising she would never ask him to appear on television again.

  He told me how close he had been with his father, and how hard it had been when his father died. Harris had been just fourteen. “Someday, when I have children, I’m going to make up for what I missed,” he said.

  Life in his house was always about his mother, her fame, and her brand. After his father died, he felt sorry for his mother because she had no husband, but he said she used that against him, guilting him into things he didn’t want to do. And then there were her boyfriends. “I never knew if the next man to come into our lives wanted her because of her, or because of her fame and money,” he said. “After a while, I didn’t care. I had to get away from all that to figure out who I was, apart from ‘Sybil Hunter’s son.’”

  I told him about my parents, too—my painful relationship with my father, how he’d been absent through most of my childhood and how I was never able to connect with him, and my dysfunctional relationship with my mother, her drinking, her wild tantrums, her constant money issues, her condescending attitude. I told him how they had both disappointed and hurt me over and over again until I’d finally decided to break off communication, for my own sanity. I was so relieved that he didn’t encourage me to reconnect with them, as so many others had. “If they hurt you, you don’t need them in your life,” he said. “Family is about love, not blood.” I smiled to myself, and let myself daydream, for just a moment: What if Harris was my family? Could that ever happen?

  As we were lying in bed on the morning right before we had to leave the beach house, he said, “I think I fell in love with you when you told Christine you could see her muffin.” He laughed. “That still cracks me up. I’ve never heard anybody talk to her like that.”

  I snuggled up against him and he held me tighter.

  “I love you, you know,” he said, kissing the top of my head.

  I closed my eyes. For the first time in my life, I felt like the person saying those words to me was actually telling the truth. I wasn’t quite ready to say it back … but I thought I might actually love him. If I said it out loud, would I jinx it? Could I really trust him with my heart? Would he hurt me, the way Vince Beck had? Would I hurt him? Would I leave him, like I left the others? I decided to wait. Better to be completely sure, without a doubt. And until the Domestic Goddess finale, I couldn’t really trust myself to be sure about anything.

  Crisp fall air outside, and the leaves in Central Park just starting to turn. It was the middle of October, and I felt more deeply content than I had in years, as Harris and Muffin and I sat together in my warm apartment to watch the premiere of Domestic Goddess with baked ziti in the oven and a bottle of wine on the coffee table.

  None of my friends could believe I hadn’t been allowed to see the show yet, but I hadn’t even had a sneak preview, and I was dying to see it! The week before it aired, it was all I thought about. Harris and I discussed it endlessly: Did I want to invite people over? Was it premature for them to meet him? Should I invite the girls over and not watch it with him? But no, we had to watch it together! Finally, I decided I would be so incredibly nervous and wound up, I was better off just watching it with Harris and Muffin and a bottle of wine.

  I couldn’t wait to see what the producers had made out of the thousands of hours of footage they must have had from our sixty-day imprisonment—and I hoped they didn’t make me look bad! The network had bombarded the television with ads promoting the show for the last few weeks, with tantalizing clips, but not enough to really tell anything. There was one clip of Shari and me whispering, another of Andy and me acting silly in the Loft, and one of me leaning out the hot dog truck window yelling, “What up, dog?” but everything was so brief, it was hard to discern what the show would be like.

  And Harris and I couldn’t help asking each other, again and again: Had Sybil seen it yet? Did she know about us? She hadn’t said a word to him, but that didn’t mean she didn’t know. It was all a waiting game, but finally, the evening arrived.

  Harris sat down next to me, wine glass in hand. “Are you ready?” he said.

  “I hope so!” I said, feeling both eager and terrified.

  My phone vibrated. It was a text from Perry, watching the show in L.A.: It’s really happening! I can’t wait to see you on TV!

  The music started. “Look!” I
said to Harris. “There’s your house!”

  As dramatic music swelled, the camera panned over Sybil’s property: inside shots of the magnificent kitchen, the charming sitting rooms, the butler’s pantry, the orchard, the gardens, and tree-lined drive. And then there was Sybil, standing in her kitchen.

  “They say home is where the heart is, but running a home with skill and proficiency isn’t something you do in your spare time. It’s a full-time job,” she said, in her curt and sensible way. “That is, if you want to be …”—quick pulsing shots of Sybil stirring something in a soup pot, arranging flowers, picking a tomato, brushing her dog, and standing at the head of a conference room table in a suit—“a Domestic Goddess.” A pulsing beat kicked in then … shots of New York, of Sybil’s building, of her offices.

  My phone vibrated again, this time from Victoria: Sybil’s so full of it!

  “There you are!” said Harris, as they showed me getting out of the car.

  “They didn’t use the part where I stared directly at the camera like a moron,” I said.

  You look so powerful! And nervous! said a text from Bronwyn.

  They showed other contestants arriving, and all of us sitting in the conference room, as Sybil’s voiceover explained how the competition would work. Shari and I were whispering together and giggling. It made me sad. Harris took my hand and squeezed.

  That bitch, said a text from Perry. I’d told her all about Shari during a long catch-up phone conversation.

  They showed the moment when Ian McGinnis revealed that he knew me, and Sybil’s angry glare. “She did not like that,” Harris said.

  Oh my God, I remember him! A text from Jeannie, also watching from L.A. Thank God you didn’t sleep with him!

  “She didn’t like that I knew him, or that she didn’t know about it first?” I said.

  “That you knew him at all,” Harris said. “She was ready to cut you right from the start. I remember her talking about it, before I knew it was you. You’re supposed to be below her, not hanging with her peeps.”

  “Or sleeping with her son.”

  “Yeah… let’s hope she doesn’t find out about that one for a while,” he said.

  “Because you’re ashamed of me?” I said, half serious.

  “Because we want you to win,” he said.

  “There’s Chaz!” I said. “I miss him. But he hated it there.”

  They showed a long segment of Chaz and me making the pink lemonade mojito, then shamelessly swilling it.

  I remember that drink!!! A text from Brooke. I wondered if she was watching the show with my father.

  “They’re using a lot of clips of you,” he said. “Probably because you’re so cute and funny.”

  “You just notice my clips because you love me,” I said.

  “That must be it,” he agreed.

  And there I was again, in one of the interview clips: “So, everybody’s still working on their tasks, and Chaz and I are boozing it up,” I said to the camera. It was strange to watch myself on television. “I’m sure Sybil would be so impressed with our behavior. Hey, Shybil,” I slurred from the TV screen, pretending to be drunk, “Why don’t you come have a little drinky with us!”

  Harris laughed. “That’s my girl,” he said.

  They showed a clip of Shari ordering around Jodi Sue, demanding she place the flowers on the cupcakes in a certain way.

  We hate Shari! said a text from Victoria.

  “They’re making Shari look horrible,” I said. “Was she that obnoxious?”

  “I thought she was pretty obnoxious,” said Harris. “But not as insufferable as that crazy Katie woman with her astrology fetish.”

  “She was just certifiably insane,” I said.

  “Or Nadine.”

  “You mean, Your Excellency, Queen Nadine?”

  Finally, the closing credits rolled. “It’s weird to see how they put it together and how it looks compared to how it really was,” I said. “It was so much more stressful and grueling. They make it look almost fun.”

  “I wonder how my mother thinks it went,” Harris mused. “She comes across as pretty cold.”

  “In person, too,” I said. “No offense to your mother.”

  “None taken,” Harris said. “She’s not exactly the warm-and-fuzzy type.”

  The next day, my world turned upside down. First, the phone rang at eight a.m.

  “Faith Brightstone? This is Cathy Tower from Ovation Network. How are you this morning?”

  “Fine,” I said, suspiciously. What did they want from me now? I was in the kitchen making coffee, holding the phone against my ear with my shoulder.

  “Great,” she said. “Hey, I’m just giving you a call because our website has been flooded with requests for the pink lemonade mojito recipe. We would like to offer you the chance to write a note to your fans along with the recipe, which we will post on our website.”

  It took a minute for this to sink in. “Fans?” I said.

  “Yes, fans. You’ve got a lot of them, and they want your recipe.”

  “I could do that,” I said.

  “Do you think you could have it to me by this afternoon? We want to take advantage of the momentum.”

  “Of course,” I said. It was another challenge.

  I sat down at my computer and thought for a minute. Then I checked my e-mail.

  I had more than three hundred messages.

  Dear Faith: You don’t know me, but I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed you on the show last night.

  Dear Faith Brightstone: You are hilarious! My fave on the show. Is this really your e-mail?

  Dear Ms. Brightstone: You were wonderful on Domestic Goddess. I hope you win!

  Dear Faith: I love you! I can totally relate to you. You remind me of me.

  Dear Faith Brightstone: Your pink lemonade mojito looked so delicious. Can you please send me the recipe?

  Dear Faith: Watch out, I think Sybil’s got it in for you! You totally should have won that challenge.

  And it went on and on like this. Some were long, people sending me their whole life stories. Others were more bursts of encouragement, but they all said some version of the same thing: We liked you!

  “Harris, quick, come look at this!” He came out of the bedroom in his pajama bottoms and peered at the computer over my shoulder, rubbing his eyes. “How did all these people find my e-mail address?”

  “Wow!” he said. “It looks like you have fans.”

  “Ovation wants my Have Faith Pink Lemonade Mojito recipe.”

  “Do you own the rights to it?” he said.

  “I think so,” I said.

  “Let’s be sure,” he said, always the lawyer. “Before you hand it over.”

  It was a strange feeling. People all over the country knew who I was, and not only that, they were motivated to reach out to me. I decided to check Facebook. I had hundreds of posts!

  Faith, you’re the best!

  Love u on Domestic Goddess!

  Rooting for u!

  You crack me up—LMFAO during all your scenes!

  Your drink was the best! Wish I had the recipe on my ePhone right now!

  Who needs cupcakes? We want cocktails!

  Having a mojito in your honor, wish it was pink!

  You and that geezer Ian? Seriously? Girl, you can do better.

  If we could vote I would vote for u!

  Holy shit balls, this was crazy! And just the beginning. The e-mails and Facebook messages doubled with each passing episode, and the network began to send me huge packets of fan mail. The reports were that the ratings were high, and polls about each character showed me running as extremely popular. The fan mail confirmed it. “America loves you!” as Harris put it.

  It was all too strange to comprehend. I began to get calls to appear on morning shows, news programs, afternoon talk shows, radio interviews.

  After the second episode, where Harris and I had our exchange in the craft room, the letters and e-mails and phone
calls exploded, and I had to unlist my phone number. Victoria, who called me the minute every episode was over, was practically screaming at me over the phone. “Is it Harry Jansen? Tell me the guy you’ve been seeing is Harry Jansen. You guys have chemistry!”

  “You’ll know soon enough,” I said.

  “Damn it, Faith! I’m not a patient woman!” she said.

  The entertainment shows kept bringing up the amazing reappearance of Harry Jansen, and speculating on his relationship with Domestic Goddess fan favorite Faith Brightstone: “Are they or aren’t they?” they all asked.

  “We are now,” Harris said, with a laugh. I laughed, too, but I was worried. Surely, Sybil was aware of all this. I felt I’d finally earned her respect during the show, but what did she think of me, now that the whole world was speculating about my relationship with her son, whom she was so sure belonged to someone else?

  And sure enough, the network was savvy enough to run everything they had taped at Sybil Hunter’s house. It was a ratings bonanza. The viewers thought I was hilarious, and they were rapt by the now not-so-private heart-to-heart I’d had with Harris there.

  “Shit, Harris, what are we going to do?”

  “She doesn’t know we’re involved now,” he said. “She asked me about it …”

  “What? She asked you? What did she say?”

  “She asked me if I was still in touch with you.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I kind of implied we weren’t.”

  I wasn’t sure whether to be offended or relieved.

  “Am I off the show?”

  “Are you kidding?” Harris said. “The network isn’t going to allow that, no matter how powerful my mother thinks she is. You’re making them millions.”

  Watching the episodes, I saw things I never knew about during the filming, like what other people said about me when I wasn’t in the room. And I began to see that I’d been duped by Shari all along. In her OTFs and interviews, or when interacting with the other contestants, she said things like “I don’t think Faith is going to make it much further,” or “If someone has to go, it should probably be Faith,” or “If they ask you, I would advise you to say what you really think about Faith,” or “I only wish I could tell you what Faith Brightstone just told me!” How could I have been so blind?