Skinnydipping (49 page)

And then, there was the question that was beginning to bother me more and more: if I did win, would I really
want
to work for her? I tried to imagine what life would be like, hosting my own show on Sybil Hunter’s network. Would she actually let me do what I wanted to do? It was hard to imagine that I’d have much creative control. If I’d learned one thing from my experience on
Domestic Goddess
, it was that anybody who threatens Sybil’s control better watch her back.

Harris agreed. “I’m not sure you’d like working for my mother,” he said, cautiously. “She likes people who worship her, not people who could actually compete with her. I know you want to win. I know how competitive you are. But do you really want to have that kind of life? In my mother’s shadow?”

“I have a pretty big shadow myself,” I said. But I couldn’t help remembering what Polly had told me.
Sybil’s no picnic.

“I know,” he said. “That’s the problem. You’re too much alike. I think she would make life … difficult for you.”

The finale was two weeks
away when Harris and I went to a little bar near my apartment, and I started to explain to a bartender how to
make me a pink lemonade mojito. He surprised me when he said he already knew. “People order that all the time in here,” he said.

“What?” I said.

“Sure, they heard about it from some reality show. Everybody loves it. Here you go,” he said. “We make up the pink lemonade in batches now, to meet the demand.”

“Maybe you should market that drink,” Harris said.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” I said. “I wonder if any liquor companies would be interested.”

“Obviously, people want to drink it, so why wouldn’t they want to buy it in a bottle?”

“I would,” I said. “If I would, other women would.”

“And men,” Harris said. “I love this stuff.” He grinned at me. “Even though it’s pink.”

“I like a guy who’s not afraid to admit to his girly side,” I said. “Let’s design a logo!” I took a pen from my purse and began drawing on a cocktail napkin.

The next day, Harris and I looked up the numbers of some of the big liquor companies, and I made some quick calls to see if anyone would be interested in meeting with me. I told them who I was, what kind of publicity the drink was already getting, and my vision for it: a bottled mojito with the alcohol already in it. I got almost the same responses from everyone:

“We don’t market to women.”

“Ready-to-drink cocktails are a tiny market.”

“It’s not the kind of thing we do.”

But then, a few days later, the phone rang. “Faith Brightstone?”

“Yes?”

“This is Myra Eastman with Bacchus Global Liquors. I’d like to talk to you about your Have Faith pink lemonade mojito. Do you have time to meet with me this week?”

“I think I can find some time for that,” I said. I hung up the phone. “Harris!” I yelled. “We got a bite!”

I met with Myra Eastman the next day, and I brought along Harris.
I didn’t think there would be a risk of us being seen together because nobody else knew about the meeting, and I knew he was good with contracts. It’s one thing to say you’ll show something to your lawyer. It’s another thing to have your handsome young lawyer at your side.

“You would have to produce the drink according to my recipe,” I said.

“Of course,” Myra Eastman said, “as long as it works for mass production.”

“We need it in writing,” Harris said. “And you’ll be a partner, you won’t own the brand.”

“I can talk to our lawyers about that,” Myra said.

“You don’t have the power to negotiate?” Harris asked.

“Well … I do, but …”

“I need to be able to approve all marketing of the drink,” I said. “I don’t want you misrepresenting me.”

“And Faith will be the primary spokesperson,” Harris added.

“Now, is there any issue with Ovation TV or Sybil Hunter having any ownership over the drink, since it was first publicized on the show?”

Fortunately, the one thing I’d managed to wrangle out of my contract was an agreement that anything I thought of on my own, before or after the show, would belong exclusively to me. I’d been protecting my muffin business at the time, but I realized now this could apply to anything I invented or any business I decided to start. “No, I was making this drink before I was on the show,” I said.

Myra Eastman agreed to talk with her supervisors and draft a contract we could look over. She said she’d be back in touch with me after the finale. Harris and I walked out of the building hand in hand. “I think this calls for a drink!” I said.

And then, I met my first paparazzo. “Miss Brightstone! Faith! Hey, Faith is that Harry?”

chapter thirty-one

T
here we were, on the front page of the gossip section in the
New York Sentinel
, holding hands for the world to see. Harris looked startled (and superhot), and I looked, well … if not superhot, at least respectable in the business suit I’d worn to the meeting. The headline:
“Domesticating with Sybil Hunter’s Son?”

I grabbed the paper off the newsstand and read it frantically:

One week before the live finale of the popular reality show
Domestic Goddess,
finalist Faith Brightstone is seen exiting the Bacchus Global Liquors offices, hand in hand with host Sybil Hunter’s son, Harry Jansen, from Hunter’s first marriage to the late media tycoon Reginald Jansen. Friends and colleagues speculate that Brightstone and Jansen were involved throughout the filming of
Domestic Goddess,
and that Brightstone may also be in talks to sell her trendy pink lemonade mojito to Bacchus Global for an undisclosed sum. Will Brightstone’s off-camera antics seal her win, or destroy her chances for real stardom? Sybil Hunter did not immediately return our calls.

Shit. This was bad. The timing couldn’t be worse. Why couldn’t this have happened
after
the finale? And what “friends and colleagues”
had dared to comment? Had they questioned the other contestants? Had Shari Jacobs tipped them off? Had they interrogated Victoria? Bronwyn? Were they following me? Furious, I bought the paper and immediately called Harris, but he didn’t answer his phone. “Answer, Harris. Answer the phone!” I said to myself, dialing him again, and then again. I hoped he was in a meeting and that he’d call me back as soon as he saw I’d called. Then my phone beeped and I clicked over.

“Did you see the
Sentinel?
” Victoria screamed in my ear.

“I’m looking at it right now! What am I going to do?” I said.

“You’re just going to have to play it cool,” she said. “Just pretend you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“But I didn’t do anything wrong!” I protested.

“Right! That’s good!” she said.

The phone beeped again.

“Victoria, I have to go,” I said. I clicked over again.

“Faith, this is Cathy Tower from Ovation Network. We need to talk. Today.”

I felt like I was being called into the principal’s office. “OK,” I said.

“Can you be here at two?” she said, sternly.

“OK,” I said again, guiltily. I hung up and tried to call Harris again. Nothing. This was a disaster. Had I thrown it all away? Why now? And where the hell was Harris? I had visions of Sybil and Christine, nefariously plotting to imprison him in Sybil’s Larchmont wine cellar, bound and gagged.
You will never see that woman again as long as I have breath in my body! And she will never work in this town again!
“Come on, Harris, pick up, pick up,” I said, calling him again. I ran home as fast as I could, clutching the paper, watching out for paparazzi, suddenly paranoid that everyone was watching me.

I took a cab to
Rockefeller Center to meet with the Ovation Network people. I was feeling queasy, and I hoped it was from nerves, not the flu. This was no time to get sick. I was mostly terrified that I would
be fired… but for what, I wasn’t sure. For fraternizing with the host’s offspring? For considering a business opportunity?

When I walked into the conference room, everyone was smiling.

“Faith, I’m Cathy Tower,” said one of the women, standing up. “We spoke on the phone a few months ago about your mojito recipe?” She had long red hair and a lot of freckles. She shook my hand. “Please have a seat, and I’ll explain why you’re here.” I sat down.

“Faith, as you may be aware, your picture was in the
New York Sentinel
with Sybil’s son, Harry.”

“Yes …” I said. “Was that … not allowed?”

“On the contrary,” she said. “It’s great publicity so close to the finale, but we just want to make clear some ground rules.”

“Like what? Like no more sleeping with Sybil’s family members? Because Alice and I have a date tonight …”

Cathy Tower blushed. “Well …”

Several people around the table chuckled. “I love her,” said one of the women.

Cathy Tower pushed a paper across the table to me. I didn’t look at it. “What is it?” I said.

“This simply states that you have not had any contact with Sybil herself during the period between the last challenge and the finale, and that you have in no way attempted to influence her decision, nor will you at any time. We would also like you to agree not to see Harris again until after the finale.”
That shouldn’t be a problem, seeing as I can’t even find him
, I thought, morosely. “This is for our protection and yours, in case of any controversy about who wins and who does not win
Domestic Goddess.
”

“Did Harris sign one of these?” I said.

Cathy Tower paused. “Yes,” she said. “He did.”

So they’d gotten to him, too. He wasn’t imprisoned. Or dead. Or any of the other horrible things I’d imagined. He’d just promised not to see me.

“Also, there is the matter of the Have Faith mojito,” said a darkhaired,
bushy-eyebrowed man at the end of the table. “We would like to be involved in any negotiations to sell that formula.”

“No,” I said firmly. “It’s in my contract that you don’t have rights to that. I have proof that I invented it before the show.”

The room was silent. Finally, Cathy Tower spoke up. “Well, we’ll have our lawyers iron out all the details with your lawyers,” she said. She must not realize that I was about to sign away the right to
see
my lawyer. “In the meantime, I assume you haven’t actually had dealings with Sybil herself, nor tried to influence her, and that you’ll sign this form.”

I read it over to be sure they hadn’t snuck in some cocktail-recipe-stealing clause. It looked straightforward, but I wished Harris was there to read it. I noticed that Sybil had already signed it. But she wasn’t in the room, thank God. I signed.

“Is Sybil … angry about this?” I asked.

“She was unhappy with your efforts to sell the mojito,” said Cathy Tower. “I’m not aware of her feelings about … the rest of it,” she said.

“But I’m not disqualified?” I asked.

“No,” said Cathy Tower. Some of the group exchanged glances. I wondered if that meant some had wanted to disqualify me. Maybe Sybil had wanted to disqualify me. “Now, during the finale, there will be a question-and-answer session. If this whole business with Harry comes up, or questions about your liquor deal, can you tell us what you plan to say?”

“Look, you people controlled every aspect of my existence for two months. From now on, I’m going to live my life the way I want to live it.”
Unless you start working for Sybil Hunter
, I thought. “I haven’t had any contact with Sybil, and I will not be trying to influence anybody about anything. But all’s fair in love and reality TV.” I stood up. “Is that all?”

“For now,” Cathy Tower said. “Thank you. And we’ll see you at the finale next week. Good luck!”

No. No no no no
no. This can’t be happening.

The finale was just days away, and I sat on the bathroom floor, the pregnancy test in my hand, its little pink plus sign innocently mocking me. So I thought I was going to get my own TV show, did I? So I thought I was going to be the next big liquor mogul, did I? So I thought I could live happily ever after with the man of my dreams, did I? That pink plus sign was like a giant
X
over my career, my plans, my partnerless life.