Skinnydipping (51 page)

“Faith, how do you think you and your team did during this challenge?”

Had he seen me looking at him? “I … well.”
Don’t get distracted, Faith. You’ll never get another opportunity like this.
I smiled at Sybil.
Remember, Faith, this is live. Think before you speak.
“I think we did a fantastic job pulling off an extremely complicated and difficult challenge,” I said carefully.

“Faith, you lost one of your team members before your event was over. Can you talk about why there was dissension on your team? What went wrong?”

I thought about that for a moment. I had to answer in just the right way, because I didn’t want to look like I was trashing my teammates, and yet I had to stand up for myself so Sybil could be reassured that I wasn’t weak, that I was strong and capable and could handle anything. Suddenly I felt very calm and rational.

“Doing a challenge on this show isn’t exactly like managing a team to produce an event,” I said. “I have a lot of event-planning experience, but I’ve never had to hire people who were already angry at me.”

“That was your fault, wasn’t it?” Sybil said, slyly.

“Oooh,” said the audience.

“I don’t think so,” I said, smiling. I wanted to add the word
bitch
, but edited myself. “Everyone in this contest who got eliminated is likely to be angry about it. We’re all very ‘type A,’ very sure of ourselves, sure we all should have won. So by choosing three people who had made it pretty far in the competition, I was giving them a chance to prove to the world that
they
should have won, and I knew they would jump at that. I was counting on that motivation, their competitive spirit, even their egos, so that even if they didn’t like me, they would do their best to pull off the challenge.”

“Interesting strategy,” Sybil said. “What about you, Shari? Did you feel your team was angry at you?”

“Not at
all
,” she said loudly. I could tell by her voice that she’d been back in Brooklyn for a while. “I appreciated every single member of my team for their unique skills, and they know exactly how much I appreciate them because I know how to show it.” She gave me a sidelong glance.

“I may be straightforward and not the best at small talk and false praise,” I said, “but I know how to get a job done right.”

“Let’s talk to our judges. Alice, what do you think?”

“I think”—Alice looked at both of us—“I think that Shari has a distinct personality that might not necessarily translate well to the network. While she might bring in a different segment, I’m not sure
it’s the most relevant segment. I think Faith is more tapped into the audience your network is seeking. She’s passionate and creative, even if she’s not always the most sensible person. I think she’d be a great host of her own show. I would vote for Faith.”

The audience applauded. I gave Alice a grateful look and she smiled at me. Shari looked offended.

“And Ian? What about you?” Sybil said. “We all know you knew Faith from before this show, but who do you think is best suited to win
Domestic Goddess
?”

Ian shifted in his chair, his white hair gleaming in the bright light. His red nose could lead a sleigh. “Well, well, let me see,” he said. “I do think Faith is a very nice woman. But a Domestic Goddess? Maybe not. I see Shari in that role, more than I see Faith. I think Shari has a lot of spunk and she seems more like a housewife to me. She’s clearly skilled in the domestic arts. Yes, I think I’d have to go with Shari. No offense, my dear,” he said, gesturing to me.

I nodded and smiled—none taken. The audience applauded again. Somebody yelled, “Team Shari!”

“Well,” Sybil said, clapping her hands together. “It’s time to make a decision, and here we go.” She looked around at Alice and Ian. Alice looked hopeful. Ian looked bored. I held my breath. Sybil cast her eyes out over the audience. She seemed to be looking at Harris. Then she looked at me.

“Faith,” she said, “you are ambitious, driven, and passionate about what you do. You are creative, but I also feel that your sense of humor is sometimes inappropriate, in ways that don’t really fit in with the Sybil Hunter brand. You seem compelled to call attention to yourself, to dress and act in ways that demand people notice you, but then, as soon as you get noticed, you can be offensive. That’s really not the Sybil Hunter way. Also, your team members aren’t loyal to you. I know you appreciate what my company represents, and you are, I must admit, a competent cook, but I’m not sure you’re Domestic Goddess material. I believe you may be too much of a show-off.”

I heard a few people in the audience gasp. My stomach flip-flopped
and I felt myself breaking out in a cold sweat. Inappropriate? Compelled to call attention to myself? Offensive? A
show-off
? I went from pale to flushed with embarrassment and anger. How could she say those things to me on live television?
Smile, Faith. Don’t make a scene. Smile.
I wanted to drop dead right there on the stage, just to escape the humiliation.

After all I’d given up, the months of torture and effort, the sacrifice of my business, putting my whole life on hold, not being able to speak to my friends, being away from my dog, and I don’t get so much as a thank-you, just a dig, just a humiliating insult?
Come on, Faith. Suck it up. You are inappropriate sometimes, and you know it. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It doesn’t mean she won’t hire you. Maybe she’ll be even worse to Shari.
I took a deep, shaky breath, gave the camera my best modest, appropriate, non-show-off smile, and waited.

Sybil looked at Shari. “Shari, you have consistently proven yourself competent and tasteful. Although I believe you could stretch yourself a little beyond your comfort zone, and you can be pushy, I believe your personal style and method are more in line with the Sybil Hunter brand. You are in touch with the women who embrace my lifestyle, and you are not just our target audience here at SHE, but you have a lot to offer us in terms of your perspective and your ideas.”

That’s it? All she gets is a “stretch yourself a bit more, dear”?
I began to get a sinking feeling, one I hadn’t let myself really indulge in until this moment, right there on live television. I began to suspect that maybe I wasn’t going to win this thing.

“Faith, Shari,” Sybil said, her eyes glittering with what looked to me like malice, “you’ve both done very well, but only one of you can be the next
Domestic Goddess.
” Silence. The long pause. The torturous pause. My eyes met Shari’s, and she smiled nervously at me. I tried to smile back, but I couldn’t. And then Sybil turned to Shari.

“Shari, congratulations. You are the next
Domestic Goddess.
”

Everything began to move in
slow motion. Sybil stood up, then Shari stood up, beaming for the cameras, and Sybil shook Shari’s hand, and then Alice stood up and walked right off the stage without acknowledging anyone, and then Ian stood up, gave me a sympathetic look, and went over to congratulate Shari.

I turned, the lights and crowd a moving blur, and walked over to Shari and shook her hand and hugged her and said “Congratulations,” and my voice sounded hollow and the crowd noises echoed around me and Shari beamed at me and said, in a voice that sounded strange and slow, “I’m sorry for everything, I hope we can still be friends.” I couldn’t answer, I just turned away, and then I saw Harris, right there in the front row, standing up, his face red with anger. He looked at his mother, and then he looked at me, and then his whole face changed, flooded with an emotion I couldn’t read, and then he turned and stormed out of the studio.

I stood there onstage, the cameras closing in to catch the emotions of the loser, trying to smile, as people patted my back and shook my hand and offered their condolences and whispered that I should have won. I tried to keep a smile on my face, but my whole body had gone cold. Chaz hugged me. “You’ll see someday soon how lucky you are,” he whispered, and then he was gone.

The only thing I knew how to do was go home, but as I turned toward the green room, I almost collided with the woman from Bacchus Global. “I’m so sorry!” she said. “I didn’t mean to run into you like that.”

“That’s all right,” I said, trying to pull myself together. “What are you doing here?”

“The board wanted me to come and see how you did. And to bring you some news… not good news, I’m afraid. You see, I haven’t been able to convince them to invest in your pink lemonade mojito. I tried, I really did, and if you had won the show, well, maybe it would have been different, but … well, I’m sorry,” she said. “But it was very nice to meet you.” She held out her hand. I looked down at it, then turned and walked away.

I found my coat and purse, and then I went outside, and without looking back, I began the long, long walk home.

It took me almost an
hour to walk back to my apartment from the studio, but I needed the cold night air to clear my head. I’d crashed and burned. I’d been so high for so long, going through it all, and then so anxious and obsessed waiting, waiting for that moment, and now I felt a crushing emptiness. I was going back to my old life of scraping by, being broke. I was so disappointed in myself. I needed to forget I’d ever heard of a woman named Sybil Hunter. I considered the best ways to burn those cookbooks. Finally, I saw my apartment building in the distance.

And then I saw him in front of it.

I stopped. He hadn’t seen me yet. He was pacing, his hands in his pockets, his cheeks red from the January cold. His breath came out in clouds of frost and his brow was furrowed. I couldn’t believe he was here. What did he want? Was he angry at me? Was he coming to say good-bye? Or …

I walked quickly toward him, trying not to run, and then he saw me. He looked so relieved, and I felt like I was coming home to something I’d desperately missed, that I’d been without for too long. I walked up to him and stopped.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi.” I paused. “I lost,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

“I know,” he said. He looked miserable. “I … need to explain.”

“Damn right you do,” I said. I crossed my arms, protecting myself, protecting my heart.

“I don’t know how to say this,” he said, looking at the ground. “So I guess I’ll just say it.”

“OK,” I said. “I’m waiting.” The air was cold but I was burning up inside, with anger and grief and despair and desire.

“After that picture of us appeared in the paper, my mother, as you can imagine, was angry. She ordered me never to see you again.”

“And you’re such a mama’s boy that you agreed? After everything? After …” I swallowed. I wanted to say,
after saying you loved me
, but I couldn’t get the words out. I was too afraid.

“Wait, hold on,” he said. “I didn’t agree. I told her it was none of her business. I told her to go screw herself.”

I couldn’t help laughing a little. “You told your mother to go screw herself?”

“Well… maybe not in those exact words,” he said. “But still, I absolutely refused to stop seeing you. And then …”

“And then what?” I said. “What could she possibly have said to keep you away?”

I thought he might start crying.
Oh God, Harris, don’t start crying
, I silently begged him. “She said … she told me that if I agreed to stop seeing you, then… then she would choose you to win.”

“What?” I said. “What?”

“I know. It was stupid. And probably illegal. But she was so angry about the footage of us on the show, and then after our picture was in the paper, she was absolutely determined to keep us apart. It was a bribe. But …”

“But what?”

“Look, Faith, I knew how much this meant to you. I knew how much you wanted it, how much you
needed it.
I thought it was the most important thing to you.”

I didn’t say anything for a moment. He was right, in a way. I’d spent the last six months obsessing to him about winning the show. It was all I ever said I really wanted.

“I did want it. I thought I wanted it,” I said. “But don’t you see that I never wanted it the way I wanted you? Even from that first night we met.” I tried to swallow the lump in my throat threatening to make me burst into tears. It was so hard for me to admit, but being without him had made me realize how much I never wanted to be without him again. “Don’t you know I’d rather have you than that stupid show?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t know that. When I said I loved you, you didn’t say anything back. And I know how important
your career is to you. It was never about doing what my mother wanted. I wanted to give you what you wanted the most—even if it meant giving you up.”

I started to cry.

“But when she chose Shari over you anyway, when she went back on our agreement, after swearing to me that she would pick you to win, I realized that there are no certainties in life. You can’t manipulate fate. When I look at myself, and my own life, I realize it doesn’t mean anything without you. When I couldn’t call you, I was so miserable that I realized I can’t be with anyone else. When she went back on her word and named Shari the winner, I was set free.”

Then he did something that blew me away. He knelt down on one knee in front of me, right there in front of my building. The doorman leaned out to watch. A woman walking her dog slowed down as she passed us. Then Harris reached into his pocket and pulled out a little velvet box. He opened it and held it up to me. It was a large sparkling diamond solitaire on a platinum band set with tiny diamonds. It was the most beautiful ring I’d ever seen. Was this really happening?