As Seen on TV (10 page)

“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 clear, 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.”

Okay, so I’m no poet, but they laugh anyway. I have them in the palm of my hand.

“What was your worst life experience?” Howard asks and then sighs. “Your mom dying?”

No, slimeball, it was when
My So-Called Life
got canceled.

“Of course,” I say, and drop my voice a few notches for effect. “I was young, only six. I didn’t understand what was going on.”

My audience leans closer.

“Can you tell us about it?” Tania asks.

I don’t even need leg warmers to pull this off. “My mother spent so much time at the hospital that my grandparents had
to come stay with us. My parents were already divorced at this point.”

Tania puts her hand to her lips. It’s all about the Double D.

“My sister and I used to crawl under the covers with my mom at the hospital, and we’d tickle her back. She loved having her back tickled. We used to spell out words and see if she could guess them.”

“Was it cancer?” Stan asks, clenching his coffee mug in his hand, but not taking a drink.

I nod. “Ovarian.”

“My wife’s girlfriend had that,” Howard says, and shakes his head. “It was terribly sad.”

“Did you know she was going to die?” Tania asks.

At first I think that Tania is addressing Howard, but then I remember that I’m the one being interviewed. I’m the one whose life is being laid out like a documentary. Opening up to strangers like this is a bit weird. It’s like kissing someone you just met.

“No,” I say slowly. “My father took me house shopping and kept asking me if I liked this, if I liked that, for my new room. I told him I already had a room at my mother’s house, so why do I need another one?”

Tania’s sob sounds like an elongated hiccup.

I’m a hit, all right. Lose my virginity or lose my mother—it doesn’t matter, does it? It’s all the same to them. They don’t want
me,
they want a soap opera star. Fine. I can do sob story.

“My mom’s condition was worsening,” I continue. “And my father decided it wasn’t appropriate for my sister and me to watch her die. So in June he shipped us off to the sleep-away camp in the Adirondacks he’d gone to as a kid, Camp Abina. I was six. The youngest kid in the Junior section, the youngest kid in the whole camp. I got a ton of attention, and I was asked to be the newcomball team’s mascot.”

Tania and Stan look perplexed, and in less than two seconds I come to my second grand realization: only Jewish girls at North American summer camps play newcomball.

“Newcomball is like volleyball, except you catch the ball and then throw it over the net. Anyway, the fourteen-and-over team, The Abina Bears, asked me to be their mascot when they played against Camp Walden. Obviously I was the envy of all the other Junior girls. The girls on the team had made me a little bear costume with furry ears and a tail. All I had to do was a little dance whenever the team scored a point.”

Their eyes are glossing over, I’m losing them, I can’t lose them. Time for the kill. “The morning of the game—I hadn’t slept the entire night, I was so excited—the camp owner came over to our bunk’s table in the dining hall and whispered something to my counselor and then she asked me if I could come outside. My sister was waiting for me on the balcony. She told me that my mom was really sick and that she wanted to say goodbye. And that our father was coming to get us. We went back to our cabins to pack up some of our stuff. Dana was crying and then I started crying, a little bit because Dana was crying—I hate when she cries—but mostly because I’d been waiting for the big game, the day when I got to be the star, and who would wear my costume?”

Suddenly I can’t stop myself. I want to tell them everything. These people care. These people love me and I love them.

“My father drove into camp, right up to our bunks in a rental truck. This was vaguely exciting since only the head staff was allowed cars in camp, and all the kids ran to their porches to see what was going on. We drove to the airport in complete silence and then the three of us flew home, and when the stewardess asked my dad if he wanted pretzels or raisin cookies, tears started streaming down his cheeks and he tried to cover them because he didn’t want us to see. We got to the hospital and my mom’s parents and her older brother were all there. She looked horrifically frightening, white and bloated. We held her hands and then she said goodbye. My dad took us out of the room and then she died. My sister and I sat shiva. That’s Jewish mourning. You have to sit on these horribly uncomfortable
chairs for a week. We sat at my father’s new house. Over the summer all my things had been moved into my new room, at my father’s new house. After the seven days were up, my father decided to send my sister and I back to camp. My sister didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to do anything but lie facedown on her relocated bed. My father put me in charge of convincing her that I needed her to come with me.

“Everyone was really nice to us when we went back. I had a few sleeping problems. In the middle of the night, I would put my sneakers back on and sneak across the baseball field to Dana’s cabin and climb up to her top bunk, into her sleeping bag. At first my counselor told me I wasn’t allowed, but I kept doing it, anyway. Then she told me she didn’t want me wandering across the camp at night by myself, so she promised that every night, if I wasn’t asleep by the time she got back to the cabin—counselors’ curfew was at one-thirty—she would walk me over. Every night I was still awake. She would walk me over, and even if my sister was already asleep, I would climb into bed beside her.”

I stopped talking. How’s that for soul?

No one moves. Tania’s cheeks are stained with tears.

Now can I have a glass of water?