Filthy Rich (9 page)

In fact, that’s exactly what Kingman told me when I accepted his invitation of a lift, and slid into the seat beside him in the Town Car’s roomy backseat.

“This is my time!” said Kingman, displaying the same genial bombast he uses to great effect on TV. “They’re paying me twenty-two million a year, and I’m single-handedly keeping alive an entire network. With a stupid game show, can you believe it? At my age?”

He then turned serious. “But something’s come up, Marcy. Believe me, I don’t usually skulk around Greenwich Village following attractive young women like yourself. I’m happily married. But I need your help.”

He handed me an official-looking twenty-odd-page report.

“The new ratings numbers,” he said. “They won’t be public until tomorrow morning, but they’re giving me a bad headache already. Driver, you have a couple of spare Advils up there?”

“Sorry, Mr. Fenimore,” said the driver. “You finished my last headache stuff about an hour ago.”

“I’d settle for a stiff drink, but I don’t want people to start talking if I happen to slur words one night on
Filthy Rich!
,” said Kingman, segueing into an imitation of an inebriated host delivering the familiar line, “Is that your absolute answer?” “I’m swimming with sharks, Marcy. Sharks, I tell you.”

“But everyone loves you, Kingman,” I said. “Even Letterman is nice to you.”

“Letterman. If he’s such a good friend, why did he send a taped segment for my last birthday instead of waking up early to wish me well on the morning show with Tracy Ellen? And this cockamamie search for Tracy Ellen’s replacement. Let’s not even go
there
.”

By then, we’d been kibitzing about half an hour, circling the restaurant six or seven times. Seeing the Life Cafe go by again, I shared my concern that Lois and Norma were waiting for me, and were apt to call the police if I didn’t arrive soon, which could be pretty embarrassing all around, especially after my minor dustup at Ferragamo.

“Look at this,” Kingman said, pointing to a bunch of figures buried in the middle of the report. “They’re going to have a field day with this.”

What the numbers showed, Kingman explained, was that
The Plank
, the pseudo pirates/executives survival show up against
Filthy Rich!
two days a week on a competing network, was now attracting millions more viewers. In other words,
Filthy Rich!
, that seemingly indomitable nighttime colossus, had slipped from number one in the ratings. The demographics were even more dire, with
The Plank
killing
Filthy Rich!
in the critical competition for the eighteen- to thirty-five-year-old viewers that advertisers most covet. Even the other truly awful “reality” show that follows
The Plank
—the one featuring the exciting doings on a luxury cruise ship pop
ulated by two dozen well-tanned seniors from Miami—scored better than Kingman’s show among younger viewers. If you haven’t seen it, think an elderly
Love Boat
without those finely crafted scripts, and featuring a thickened Gopher behind the bar serving up tall glasses of Ensure with those cute little paper umbrellas.

Why this sudden fall from grace?

Kingman didn’t get it. He was frustrated, and it caused him to launch into a little rant.

“What’s so great about
The Plank?
They say it’s more ‘real’ than
Filthy Rich!
Have you seen it? We’re talking network people dressed in costumes left over from an old DeMille epic yelling, ‘Shiver me timbers.’ It’s filmed in Burbank, for Chrissakes. Burbank! Ever been to Burbank? It makes Los Angeles look like bucolic, open countryside. And those rats they eat? They’re from Spago, I swear. Check out the credits. Can you believe it, the show simulates hardship on a remote tropical island by hiring Wolfgang Puck as the official food consultant. That’s not what I call
real
entertainment. It’s not even
real
cuisine.”

The polling data Kingman showed me didn’t mention Spago or Wolfgang Puck. It suggested instead that
Filthy Rich!
was lagging badly owing mainly to a shortage of contestants with a high likability quotient, or Q rating, and insufficient real-life drama. I understood why Kingman was agitated. For a comparatively high-quality effort like
Filthy Rich!
to lose out to boring drivel like
The Plank
wasn’t just insulting, it was damned unfair.

“They want drama. I’m going to give them drama,” Kingman said. “Marcy, that’s where you come in.”

While Neil’s Q rating fell somewhere in the zero range, it turned out that my rating was astronomical. “The audience loved you, Marcy, the way you think Letterman loves me,” Kingman said. “Only in your case, it’s actually true.”

Kingman’s plan, which he wanted my permission to announce at a news conference already scheduled for the late morning, called for me to make a much-heralded return to
Filthy Rich!
in just twenty-one days—as a contestant this time, not a piddling Lifeline. The “bounce” from my appearance and all the preshow publicity it was bound to generate, he figured, would be enough to reclaim the number one spot for at least a few weeks, at which point he’d just have to come up with another desperate plan in the event public enthusiasm for
The Plank
didn’t cool down.

The scheme had some obvious pluses. It would be my chance to help out Kingman, avenge Neil’s mistreatment of me, and, potentially, take home buckets of ready cash. But Kingman made it clear I’d have to agree to a big publicity buildup in advance—the cover of
TV Guide, Newsweek, Entertainment Weekly
, and appearances on all the major talk shows. The works! “No more hiding, Marcy. And that babushka thing you have on your head,” he said in reference to the purple bandanna from Cliff, “it has to go.”

“I’ll do it,” I found myself saying as the car came to a stop in front of the restaurant. “I’ll do it.”

I know this is not the sort of life-transforming decision
you should make on impulse, or, in my case, without channeling Marcia Brady. But I really liked Kingman, and I wanted to help him prolong his stay at the top. Of course, I also wanted the money. And although personally clueless as to the likely ratings implications, I admit I also liked his plan to showcase me. Kingman’s idea for my triumphant return to
Filthy Rich!
struck me as a dignified act of redemption, in a wholly different league tastewise from Whoopi’s proffered Hollywood square. I was sure it would strike the public that way, too.

“But there’s one condition,” I added.

“Anything, Marcy,” Kingman said. “I liked you from the start. Your mother, too. The orthodontist, I don’t like that guy.” Funny, Kingman said exactly the same thing in my dream.

“The deal, Kingman, is I get to choose my own Lifeline,” I said, sounding alarmingly like Tom Cruise in the movie about the sports agent,
Jerry Maguire
, and providing a live example of Rule Number Six on Marcy’s Magnificent Seven: “Big elbows are always in fashion.”

“I mean it, Kingman. My Lifeline. Just like it was a regular show. You don’t choose for me.”

“Deal,” said Kingman as I started getting out of the car. “And, oh, one thing, Marcy. You may want to eat fast. Diane Sawyer will be at your apartment with a
Good Morning America
crew at about six
A.M.
to set up for a live interview. I took the liberty of arranging it to get things rolling this morning.”

How could Kingman be so presumptuous? I started to tell him he’d have to cancel Diane Sawyer. I couldn’t possibly get me and my place ready to welcome her and her cameras on so little notice. But I soon realized I was standing on the sidewalk talking to myself, Kingman and his navy blue Town Car having already disappeared into the night.

“
Oh shit. What
have I done?”

I was so amazed and appalled by the commitment I had just made to Kingman Fenimore that I said the words out loud. Emphasis on “loud.” It was entirely involuntary.

“Oh shit.”

“Marcy, we’re back here,” yelled Norma equally loudly across the darkly lit and largely deserted restaurant. “What took you so long? You look like a walking train wreck.”

That’s why I love Norma, I thought. She’s always bucking me up.

Reaching the corner table she and Lois had staked out, I detected tiny corn chip crumbs on the large, otherwise barren plate sitting in front of Lois, suggesting that while I was being wooed by Kingman Fenimore for a ratings-smashing return to
Filthy Rich!
, she was devouring a large order of nachos with extra soy cheese. Another empty plate near Norma held the crusty remains of my feminist pal’s usual veggie burger and fries. A third plate near my seat held a
half-eaten serving of the cafe’s tasty brown rice and tofu dish. Apparently, Norma and Lois had ordered it for me in the hope of getting me back on a healthy regimen following my three-day pig-out, only to pig out a wee bit themselves, jointly picking at my meal when I didn’t appear. Not that I could blame them. Their picking aside, I appreciated my friends’ gentle effort to remind me about Rule Number Two on Marcy’s Magnificent Seven: “Shun fattening foods.”

“You’re very late,” said Lois, still in her evening gown and three-inch Prada heels that make her walk like Bette Midler. “We couldn’t wait. I was starving.”

I was dying to tell my news, but I didn’t want to interrupt Lois, who was prattling on about a bright idea she had for improving the Democrats’ catering in the post-Clinton-Gore era. “Why is it that when my Jewish donors throw a party, there’s way too much food, yet at a Buddhist do like the one tonight, you’re lucky if you see a stale little pretzel stick with a tiny bowl of dip? Would it be politically incorrect if I sent a memo to the Democratic National Committee in Washington suggesting we combine our Jewish and Buddhist fund-raising divisions? People could mix, and we’d get the food just right.”

“Great idea, Lois,” said Norma rather dismissively. “You and your letters.” Norma proceeded to recall one Lois had written her sophomore year in college, chastising the Nobel committee for overlooking Maybelline’s introduction of new, waterproof, longer-lash mascara. “Let Marcy talk,” she said.

Personally, I thought Lois might be on to something this time. If the Dems are ever to regain the White House, big donors can’t be sent home hungry. Nonetheless, I was pleased to get the floor. I described my unexpected Town Car encounter with Kingman, and announced to my friends that I had agreed to return to
Filthy Rich!
in three weeks as a contestant. They both seemed pretty excited, although for different reasons. Norma saw it as my chance to show up Neil and advance the feminist cause. Lois thought it an opportunity to show up Neil and meet great guys.

“How about your Lifeline?” Norma asked. “If you want, I’ll be your Lifeline, even though you know I hate the show for having so few women contestants. It just reinforces stereotypes about women not being as smart or competitive as men, and helps perpetuate the discriminatory economic pecking order by creating all those new male millionaires.”

“Calm down, Norma. This is
us
you’re addressing, not some
Nightline
panel on the vital issue of sexism and TV game shows,” said Lois, adding, “If you ask me, I think the world could use a few
more
male millionaires.”

“And, Lois, that’s why the Democrats are lucky to have you,” said Norma.

“Go back to your corners, ladies,” I said.

“I didn’t start it,” said Norma. “I’m just thinking aloud that going on the show would make me look like a giant hypocrite, having just bashed the anti-feminist message of the so-called reality shows in
The New York Review of Books
. Come to think of it, Marcy, I can’t be your Lifeline, can I?”

“I’d be your Lifeline, if you want,” said Lois.

“Thanks,” I said. “The two of you would be great. But I wouldn’t take either of you as my Lifeline. Look what happened when I blew it for Neil.”

“
You
didn’t blow it.
Neil’s
the one who blew it,” said Lois.

“Thanks, but obviously Neil didn’t think so,” I said. “All I’m saying is that you’re my two best friends in the world and I don’t want to risk our friendship by relying on you as my Lifeline. Not to be sappy, but once burned, twice an idiot.”

“
Neil’s
the only idiot here,” said Lois.

“Right,” said Norma. “Marcy, I warned you about him from the start.”

I looked at my watch. It was just after 2
A.M.

“I’d love to continue this pleasant chitchat, ladies, but I have to go,” I said, rising from my chair.

“You practically just arrived,” said Norma. “Sit,” she ordered. “I have big news, too.”

Her news was that her publisher was so impressed by sales of her new feminist opus, the firm had decided to issue a new, updated audiotape edition of her controversial second best-seller, a feminist treatise on modern marriage called
Fourth-Finger Itch
. “They’ve hired Dame Judi Dench to be the reader. I can’t wait to meet her,” said Norma.

“Exciting,” I said. Of course, what I was really thinking was that the very dignified Dame Judi obviously hadn’t read the book, or she would never have agreed to recite its racy section on unbiased ways to keep the fun in marital sex. I
was also thinking that Diane Sawyer and her crew would be arriving at my apartment in exactly four hours and the place was a wreck. I was even more of a wreck. My right hand reached up to my scalp and began tugging hard on a clump of hair, much as it always does just as panic begins to set in.

I quickly explained my predicament, and stood to leave.

“Wait, kid, we’re coming,” said Lois, tugging at Norma’s sleeve to get her up. “We’re a team. Like in
The Three Musketeers
.”

“Lois, get it straight,” said Norma, resurrecting an old tiff. “They didn’t allow female musketeers. Why is it your literary references include no women authors?”

“Because there were only
two
Brontë sisters, okay?” said Lois. “And because the alternate choice was
The Three Little Pigs
. Besides, I meant
Three Musketeers
only in a metaphorical sense. Right, Marcy?”

I decided it was best not to take sides.

“Look, I could use your help,” I said. “But don’t feel obligated, guys.”

“Are you kidding, Marcy? I wouldn’t miss it,” said Norma, reaching over to grab the check from the middle of the table and hand it to Lois. “I believe it’s your turn, my chivalrous musketeer. I’ll do the tip.”

As we exited the restaurant together, a
Daily News
truck pulled alongside the newsstand on the corner and dropped two big bundles of the morning paper on the sidewalk. I
walked over to check out the front page, and when I saw it, I almost plotzed.

There in glorious black and white was the picture of me posing with the owner of that Chinese restaurant in Astoria, the one Cliff Jentzen had taken me to. And to think I assumed the photo would just hang by the front entrance, with Tony Bennett. Boy, was I ever naive. Norma, who is normally pretty canny when it comes to such matters, observed that the money the
News
paid for the shot would buy a lot of Moo Goo Gai Pan.

In the picture, I was smiling. At least that was some consolation.

Underneath it was a big caption, “Marcy’s Day Out,” followed by this little tidbit of non-news: “Just three days after getting dumped by her orthodontist boyfriend on the top-rated
So You Want to Be Filthy Rich!
Marcy Lee Mallowitz finally left her apartment yesterday to make a secret lunch stop at a Chinese restaurant in Queens. The owner (shown here) says she was accompanied by an unidentified male friend, and the two of them huddled close and shared dishes. How long can Marcy hide the identity of this mystery man?”

Probably forever, I thought, since he’ll never call me now. He said he hates this celebrity stuff, and with my imminent return to
Filthy Rich!
about to be announced, it was going to get a lot worse.

“So who’s the guy?” Lois said. “Someone we know? Were you two-timing Neil? Good for you, girl. Go, Marcy.”

“No, I never cheated on Neil when we were together. It’s nothing that interesting. The guy is just someone I met. No big deal. If our lunch didn’t scare him off, I’m sure this will.”

We decided to hail a taxi, husbanding our strength to prepare for my imminent rendezvous with Diane Sawyer.

Once ensconced in the cab’s backseat, Lois and I fell into our old, loopy game of trying to decide the
Brady Bunch
episode most applicable to the current situation. Lois nominated the episode where Marcia wants to be in the school variety show, and her mom, dad, and brother Greg somehow wind up in it, too. Episode Eighty-one.

“I was thinking the same thing,” I said. “Just substitute me for Marcia, and
Good Morning America
for the school show, and you have a pretty similar plot. And I guess you two symbolize the other Bradys, only instead of actually being in the show, you’re just helping me straighten. Makes sense.”

“Can someone open a window, please?” said Norma, squeezed uncomfortably between the two of us. “This conversation is making me carsick.”