Spelling It Like It Is (2 page)

By the time I got to my prime-time slot, I was exhausted and a little bit nauseated. Story of my life. I’d come directly to HSN from working on
celebraTORI
. I created and threw four parties for the book, coming up with everything from invitations to favors. For the photo shoots, I was involved in everything: art direction, props, food styling, and fluffer to Coco, our white silkie bearded chicken. I had plenty of people to help me, but because I’m incapable of delegating anything beyond lawn care (although I do like the grass to be mowed to 2.5 inches), I styled and directed each image. I blinked my eyes—and now I was on the air.

What I said about our jewelry wasn’t scripted. With a perky smile glued on my face, I talked about how my pieces were “vintage-inspired with a modern twist” and added, “I call it ‘modage.’ ” The producer was in my earpiece, giving me merchandising updates: “We have a hundred more of this necklace. We’re almost sold out of the coral bracelet.”

Everything was going swimmingly until . . . I started to feel sick to my stomach, like I might throw up. There was no stopping the HSN train. I was on the air, live. At home, people were watching me, looking at the jewels Mehran and I had worked so hard to design, calling to talk with me, and waiting to decide if today they would make a purchase. The sales ticker was within sight, and the speed at which its numbers rolled higher was an immediate reflection of how good a job I was doing. So, sickness be damned, on I went.

“I used to make this particular piece for high-end boutiques in New York. It was worn by celebrities. Now you can look like a million bucks, but you don’t have to spend it!” Ooh. I could see that the TV viewers at home loved that one. All of a sudden they were picking up the phone. The sales numbers started to run up higher and higher. I glanced off to the side stage, where Mehran was standing. There was a big clock near him, showing me how many minutes I had left. Twenty minutes to go.
I’m going to throw up. What if I throw up on the air? I’ll never live it down.
The Soup
embarrassing clip of the week, here I come.

Every so often there was a sixty-second commercial break. Hidden from the camera, I had the Diet Dr Pepper with a straw (so I didn’t ruin my lips) that had become my HSN tradition and good-luck charm. I would sip from it while the host touched up her lipstick. Usually I glanced at Mehran to see how our sales were going. This time I mouthed to him, “I’m so sick. I’m not going to make it.” Unfortunately, this too fell into the category of normal. I’m always sick.

Mehran mouthed back, “Me too,” and rolled his eyes. Much as Mehran had in the past taken on my baby weight, he also has sympathetic headaches, stomach problems, and low energy. I know we’re BFFs, but even my ailments aren’t my own anymore. When he has a headache, I’m like, “Please, can you be a little more original? Maybe a kidney stone?”

And . . . we were back on the air. “The best thing my customers say to me is, ‘I bought this necklace for myself, but my daughter wanted to borrow it. Then my granddaughter.’ I make timeless pieces.” (
Check out this bracelet. I’m about to vomit all over it. Your granddaughter would love the very same one!
)

This wasn’t exactly Broadway, but the show had to go on. Story of my life. I sold my jewelry with a smile, counting down the minutes. As soon as we wrapped, I turned to the host.

“So great to be here,” I said. “Loved it. See you next time.” I gave the host a big hug good-bye. I walked off the stage as gracefully as I could in my high heels; ran through my dressing room, where HSN’s jewelry buyers were sitting on couches, waiting to go through next season’s collection with me; went into the adjoining bathroom; and promptly threw up. I had been closer than I even realized to tossing my cookies live on national TV. It would have made for some good reality TV, but the drama was wasted on real life.

Mehran went out to the HSN buyers and explained to them that I was too sick to meet. But I wiped my mouth, washed my hands, walked out, apologized, and did the meeting, sick as a dog. I spent the plane ride home in the bathroom of first class, kneeling on a paper towel, throwing up. It’s the only way to fly.

OKAY, SO I figured it was food poisoning from the plane, a stomach bug, or that I was simply extremely overworked and exhausted. I got back to L.A. late that night. When I got off the plane, texts from James, an art director I’d met during the first season of
Tori & Dean
who had become my good friend and was working with me on the parties for the book, started rolling in. This time they were photos of a do-it-yourself bar, set up with vodka, champagne, soda, cassis, elderflower syrup, pomegranate syrup, and other options in glass carafes, with homemade tags hung from twine. He’d captured what I wanted, but I wished I were there.

The next day, I woke up still feeling sick. I was supposed to go straight to a photo studio, where we were working on shots for
celebraTORI
. (Even though we shot four full parties, afterward we spent full days in the studio shooting detail shots of the invitations, flowers, extra food, and other party elements in order to get the perfect lighting.) I headed to the studio, with Coco in the passenger seat—she would appear in lots of the photos as the mascot of the book. I wanted to fiddle with every detail, but after I’d driven halfway to the studio, I pulled over on the side of the road. I texted James: “
i’m dizzy. i’m going to throw up. turning around. SO sorry.
”

I felt terrible about missing the photo shoot. We were on a tight shooting schedule. We couldn’t miss a day. They’d already had to do a full day of shooting while I was at HSN. There was so much to be done, and I’m a control freak. If I wasn’t there, how would I get the shots I wanted? The next day was Saturday. We were headed to Joshua Tree for the weekend. I was hosting a Cowboys and Lace party for
celebraTORI
. Of course I couldn’t have it in my house. It
had
to be in the desert. Because the pictures would be that much more fabulous. I needed vintage duds for the shoot, and I didn’t want my outing to be wasted, so on the way home I stopped at Jet Rag, a used-clothing store on La Brea. Coco and I ran in and grabbed a few frocks—Gunne Sax–style floral and lace prairie dresses—for the shoot in fifteen minutes flat. By the time I hurled my bag into the back of the car, I was sweating and about to puke, but it had been an amazingly productive detour. I headed home.

What happened next really should have clued me in. On the way to my house, as if on autopilot, I pulled over at a Taco Bell. I still felt sick, but I also felt a sudden and very strong desire for a number one combo: a Burrito Supreme and a Taco Supreme. And a cherry limeade. With my delicious meal in my lap, I started to drive away from the restaurant—I was fully planning to eat at home—but, oddly, I found myself parallel-parking on Ventura Boulevard. I opened the bag and wolfed the burrito and taco down. I tossed a few pieces of shredded lettuce to Coco, saying, “Sorry, that’s all you get. Mama’s starving.” Yeah, I should have known something was up.

THE NEXT DAY I went to Joshua Tree. Dean and I had just finished shooting the last episode of
sTORIbook Weddings
. I’d begun work on the party-planning book before we finished the weddings. And Dean was staying home from Joshua Tree to get our new store, InvenTORI, ready for opening on Monday, Valentine’s Day. There was a lot going on. No wonder I was sick.

We got beautiful photos of the party in the desert, but it wasn’t much of a party. We’d had Game Night and Spa Day parties, both at my house, both real parties with my friends. But Cowboys and Lace was not a party at all. The Guncles, Bill and Scout, and their infant daughter, Simone, drove all the way to the desert. The show put them up at a hotel. A producer brought them to the set. There was no chitchat or festivity. It was all, “Places, everybody. We’re losing the sun.” At some point I said, “Oh my God, all my party guests are always gays and girls.” So Vidas, the straight producer who had once buried my underwear at the demand of my psychic, Mama Lola, stepped forward, put a cowboy hat on, and joined the photo.

On the way home from the desert I shopped for InvenTORI at a fantastic antique store. There were so many great pieces that I ended up renting a U-Haul to bring it all back to L.A. We got home around eight
P.M
. Twelve hours later Dean and I were at InvenTORI, scrambling to make sure everything was ready to go when the doors opened at nine
A.M
.

The store was a madhouse. The line to enter stretched around the corner. The paparazzi were having a field day. I chatted with every single person who came in, pointing out the antique French country farm table that I’d had in every apartment and house I’d lived in since I was twenty, or a bar cart I’d found at a flea market and had enjoyed in our dining room. Coco, who was a fan fave, had to be at the store opening. We had faux-Coco fuzzy stuffed chickens made by Jellycat for sale, displayed in a chicken-wire armoire. We were shooting the sixth season of
Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood
, so our two cameramen and all our producers were there, catching the day on film.

At four in the afternoon, as I sat in our back office, everything spinning and my makeup artist Brandy giving me sips of ginger ale, I admitted defeat. Dean would have to cover for me until closing time. We didn’t want to say I was sick on
Tori & Dean
—it wasn’t worth dwelling on a stomach bug because nobody thought it was leading to a real story line. Instead, we said that I was going home to take care of Stella, who was sick. It was true, Stella was also actually sick, but the real reason I left was that I couldn’t stand up for another minute.

I went home and climbed into bed. I was texting with Mehran, who, when he found out I wasn’t feeling well, wrote
“is there anything I can bring you?”

I wrote
“a pregnancy test?”
I knew I could trust Mehran to be discreet. I took pregnancy tests all the time. Since Dean and I always knew we wanted a third, we’d left it up to fate and hadn’t used birth control in the three years since Stella was born. Whenever I felt the least bit off, I self-diagnosed myself as pregnant. I was single-handedly keeping EPT in business.

“are you serious?”
he texted back.

“maybs”

In a short while, Mehran arrived with a couple pee-on-a-stick pregnancy tests. Before I pulled them out, I said, “Did you get the jenky ones with the pluses and minuses where you can’t tell if you’re pregnant?”

“I’m not sure. I got the most expensive ones . . .”

I pulled out the tests. Sure enough, it was the kind where if one pink line shows up in the little window, you’re not pregnant, and if two lines appear, you are.

I said, “Oh no. I can’t trust these. I need the ones that say ‘pregnant’ or ‘not pregnant’!” Mehran looked embarrassed. Poor Mehi, oblivious to the subtleties and whims of a possibly pregnant woman in desperate need of a test that complies with her OCD requirements and speaks to her in the English language.

I took the test. There was one pink line. Definitely. And next to it was something else. A pink shadow? A pink cloud? The ghost of a pink line? I showed the test to Mehran.

“So?” I said, showing him the stick.

He peered at it. “Oh yeah,” he said. “I can’t tell.”

“It’s inconclusive,” I said.

I drank a glass of water and took the second test into the bathroom with me. At least the tests were consistent—the results were equally vague.

Mehran concurred. “It’s very inconclusive.”

Now what? I was inconclusively pregnant. Or inconclusively not pregnant. Should I mention any of this to my husband, who was still at InvenTORI, selling the last of the white chicken Jellycats? (They were an unexpectedly hot item. We sold forty stuffed chickens that day.) It seemed like I’d been sick for two years, always with my migraines and weak stomach. I was the girl who cried wolf. Heck, I’d been nauseated for two weeks, and it had never even crossed Dean’s mind that I might be pregnant. Never even suspected. This was a great opportunity. If I was in fact pregnant, I could surprise Dean with the news. I decided not to mention the pregnancy tests to Dean. They were inconclusive, after all.

THE NEXT DAY my assistant Dana was dropping me off at Universal to meet up with James. We were picking out rental furniture for Cocktails and Caftans, the next party I was throwing for my party-planning book. At this point only Mehran knew about my inconclusive pregnancy, and I wanted to keep it that way. I just needed to take another test—the one that spoke to me in English—and en route to Universal was my best opportunity. I just had to know. I said to Dana, “Can you do me a favor? Don’t ask questions, just pull over at Walgreens.”

Dana complied. I went into Walgreens, thinking I’d buy a pregnancy test and take it in their bathroom. But the minute I went in, a Walgreens staffer ran up to me.

“Tori!” she exclaimed. “I love your show.” I thanked her and posed for a picture with her. I’d been seen. If I bought a pregnancy test now, it could easily be in the tabloids by morning. I walked back to the car empty-handed.

I said, “Can I ask you to do something for me that’s really personal?”

Dana replied, “I’ve had to spoon your shit into a container to take to a doctor. Nothing’s too personal.” It was true. When I had stomach problems, I’d had to leave a specimen for my doctor. It had to sit in one liquid for a certain number of hours, and then it had to be transferred to another container. When Dana called the doctor about delivery, they asked if this had been done. I’d forgotten to do the transfer and I was already on set for the day. It had to be done, and for that Dana should win the Hollywood Assistant Lifetime Achievement Award for Most Disgusting Act in the Line of Duty.

“I think I’m pregnant,” I said. Now there were two people who knew my suspicions before the (inconclusive) embryo’s father.

“Oh my God,” Dana said.

Dana agreed to go in and buy me another pregnancy test. This time I was explicit in my instructions. “Get the pregnant/not pregnant one,” I told her. “The others are inconclusive.”