A Not So Model Home Page 8

  “Pretty much. Yup.”

  “You had too much champagne, didn’t you?”

  “Now, why would you jump to that conclusion, Alex?”

  “Amanda, we may have been married for only five years, but I know you very well. Your mouth runs free when you’ve had too much champagne.”

  “I blame it on the bubbles.”

  “So, are they going to put that segment on the show?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so, Alex,” I said, lying through my pearly whites again, but mostly lying to myself.

  “I’d check YouTube as soon as you can. I’ll bet they’ve uploaded that scene already.”

  “Alex, they just filmed us this afternoon. It’s eight o’clock right now. They wouldn’t have had enough time to get it on there already. You’re just getting way out ahead of yourself.”

  “Oh yeah, let’s see,” Alex said, clapping his hands in anticipation as he flipped the lid open on his MacBook Air and the computer screen leapt to life. He typed in some search topics, scrolled through a list of videos, then spun the laptop around for me to see. And there it was. The title? “Things Are a Bit Iffy: The Bitch Slap.” I had to admit it, the title wasn’t especially catchy, but it was optimized for search engine results. Meaning? It was probably going to go viral. Unfortunately.

  I looked at the still frame from the video, afraid to click on the movie and watch myself broadcast to the entire world. My hand trembled as I clicked on the mouse and the movie began to play. Alex pulled in closer to get a good look.

  After the intro that set up the premise of the show, what I saw was me saying that Gilles seemed “like gold-digging Eurotrash.” This was followed by several reaction shots that were clearly taken long after the slap but edited in as if they had occurred immediately after it to make everything seem like it had all taken place in real time. I watched in horror as the clip led up to Gilles confronting me. I realized what would happen next and, unfortunately, I was not disappointed. The video showed Gilles pulling down my swimsuit top to expose my breasts, which were pixilated, only to the point of passing the censors. It was clear to every man, woman, child, and pervert that I had nothing to be embarrassed about in the endowment department.

  It was the second loudest laughter I had ever heard out of Alex in all the years I had known him. The first, in case you’re interested, was when we were alpine hiking and we stopped for a rest and Alex went to pee. I took the occasion to let out a fart just as Alex returned and I turned around to see a party of eight hikers resting silently above me on an overhanging rock. So now you know.

  I was mortified. I would never be able to go out again, work again, even shop for groceries again. And it had all happened in less than five seconds. I couldn’t believe that it was me I was looking at. I had gone from a successful Realtor to a piece of white trash showing her tits. It was surreal . . . just surreal.

  I scrolled down a few more videos only to find that a dozen or so YouTube contributors had already downloaded the scene and re-edited it to create comical versions. One was entitled “Great Bitch Slaps of History,” where the editor had pieced together some of the most renowned slaps in film history. My fifteen seconds of fame was rated higher than Vivacious Lady, with seven, count ’em, seven slaps, Airplane, In the Heat of the Night, and The Godfather. But no matter how good my slap was, probably chocking up points because mine was not a scripted one, the viewer who posted the film felt I just couldn’t compete with Faye Dunaway’s famous camp slap in Mommie Dearest. I had to concede defeat: How could you compete with Joan?

  This video post was followed by another compilation of famous movie slaps—and mine—scored to the tune of Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me with Your Best Shot.” Clever. This was followed by a motley assortment of not-funny re-edits that usually had characters wearing bad wigs and trying pathetically to re-enact my glorious moment on the screen in basement rec rooms in New Jersey. I mean, we’re talking hours since I pulled my slap. Hours! Alex got a great laugh out of all of them, especially the really unfunny videos, but what really struck me was how quickly this stuff got spread all across the Internet. It was like Facebook and Twitter photos of Congressmen in skimpy, tight athletic shorts showing obvious cock lines; they spread faster than pictures of Paris Hilton’s beaver. The number of views said it all: In the short time my slap had been posted by the public relations people at Q Channel, some of the videos had had over 5,000 views. And climbing. What I forgot was how much time some people spend on the Internet, endlessly cruising for the funny, the weird, and the downright embarrassing.

  During dinner, Alex told me to forget the whole thing, but I kept running over and over the same thought in my head: I will never get over this, never. Even after I went home that night to my perennially unfinished house in a state of perpetual remodeling and was greeted by Knucklehead, my rescued Labradoodle who erupted in a chorus of gleeful barking, the same words kept repeating in my head: You’re a Kardashian now.

  CHAPTER 11

  Being World Famous For Fifteen Minutes Is Far Too Long

  I got up early the next morning, and like a criminal returning to the scene of the crime, I started up my iMac and poured some coffee. I came back to my computer as it loaded my home page on Yahoo. I sped through the day’s headlines, and at the bottom, what I saw almost made me fall off my chair. The last headline: SLAPPING VIDEO GOES VIRAL. I clicked on the link to see that “Great Bitch Slaps of History” had climbed from about 7,000 views last night to over 420,000. The other videos had jumped as well, but “Great Bitch Slaps” was chewing up the bandwidth. I knew that Jeremy and his cadre of computer nerds had dropped the video on YouTube, and they knew what they were doing. And what they were planning: They were trying to drive viewers to the show through the Internet. As I did some searching around the Internet, there were stories plastered all over the gossip Web sites, Hollywood Web sites, and celebrity scandal sites. All in one freaking night! The episode wasn’t even on the air and already hundreds of thousands of people had already seen it. I was used to the days of Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin, when people like Zsa Zsa Gabor became sensations seemingly overnight, but the reality was that in those days, it actually took a long time. Even better, once you became famous, you stayed there a long time, whether you deserved it or not. Now, everything happened overnight. You went from a mild-mannered real-estate agent to a tit-flashing whore by the time you got up. Then you faded into obscurity just as quickly. One could hope.

  I was getting ready to go into the office to list a few more homes that wouldn’t sell for a long, long time when I heard a knock on the door, sending Knucklehead into a fit of barking. That was Knucklehead; he barked at planes, helicopters, geckos, roadrunners, birds, clouds—everything except strange men. I took a peek through the door sidelight and saw a mass of flowers sporting a woman behind it. Or was it a woman sporting a mass of flowers? I opened the door.

  “Jesus Christ, Amanda. What did Ken do?” Regina barked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You only get flowers like this when he’s been cheating. What strumpet did you catch him with?”

  “Nobody. Here . . .” I said, grabbing at the base of the flowers, trying to find something resembling stems. “Let me get those for you. Jesus, these are a lot of flowers. You mean you didn’t bring them?”

  “Just picked them up. What’s the occasion? Someone shoot a member of The Beatles on your doorstep?”

  I took the mass of flowers and laid them down on my mid-century Saarinen dining table. “They’re from different people,” I said, thumbing through the attached cards. “And I don’t know any of them.”

  “Let me repeat my question: What’s the occasion?”

  “My Internet debut.”

  “Oh, the slapping thing,” Regina commented.

  “How do you know about that?”

  “Amanda, wake up and smell the espresso. It’s all over the Internet.”

  “Regina, since when are you all over the Internet? You hardl
y touched that computer I got you a month ago. I had to teach you how to use it, and when I showed you how to cruise the Net, you responded—and I quote—that you’ll ‘just stick to meeting men the old-fashioned way: pleasantly tight and in a dark bar.’ ”

  “Yeah, and I stuck to that statement. You just didn’t tell me there was so much porn on the Internet. And hot dating sites for older, er, mature men. I belong to so many sites with the word silver in the name, you’d think I was looking at a Web site for Jewish surnames.”

  “So even you saw me on the Internet? Holy shit.”

  “That’s what I said when I saw your slapfest.”

  “Regina, it was one slap. One.”

  “Yeah, but what a slap it was.”

  “So what site did you see it on? YouTube?”

  “No, on Perez Hilton’s Web site. Wait a minute. I think it was on crazedbitches.com. Or bitchslap.com. Something like that.”

  “Regina, I don’t know any of the people who sent these flowers.”

  “Secret admirers!” Regina gushed. “I used to have several when I worked for Paramount Studios back in ’55. Montgomery Clift, Rock Hudson, James Dean.”

  “They were all gay. Or at least two of them were, Regina.” I didn’t ask her how she knew who her flowers were from if they were secret admirers. I let it ride. After all, most of Regina’s stories didn’t quite check out factually. I just accepted it all as the color Regina added to my life.

  “They weren’t always gay, Amanda. I think it was all due to those early television sets. X-rays, I tell you. Fried their balls off watching I Love Lucy.”

  “Regina, what I don’t get is how all these people knew where I live. I guess I should be grateful for the adulation and attention, but at the same time, there’s a creepy side to it that I’m not sure I like.”

  “You’re not used to fame, honey,” Regina said, laying her liver-spotted and bejeweled hand on mine for comfort and to assert her broad Hollywood experience. “You haven’t hit the big time until someone’s stalking you.”

  “Maybe someone is. Regina, would you check behind that yucca over there near the wall?”

  Regina turned her head for a second to look, then caught herself. Great big smile. I invited her in for coffee, but she declined.

  “I just came over to congratulate you.”

  “For the slap?”

  “Yep, you’re on your way, honey. You’re gonna be a star.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of, Regina.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Would Someone Please Shoot Me?

  I had a tiny breakfast that wouldn’t make my stomach stick out since we were filming again today. And the next day, and the next. With only weekends off. Today would be another pool episode, with those scenes that matched the previous day’s shooting edited to make it look like they happened yesterday, and those that moved the story noticeably forward would either be super-titled as another day or be saved for the following episode. Jeremy had told us we would take between three and five days of shooting for each episode—light speed for a reality show. We would follow the same schedule each week, pumping out material for the “post” people to craft into a half-hour program. The first episode would be ready in four weeks. Again, unbelievable speed for TV show production.

  It was pretty much the same as yesterday, except that no one got slapped. There were a lot of posturing, tiny bathing suits, catty retorts, rumor spreading, and Aurora and Ian sitting there watching it all like spectators in a Roman coliseum. The question was, who was going to emerge the victor? A few more days and by Thursday, we would be done shooting for this week. This would go on and on for thirteen weeks, starting Mondays and finishing each Thursday—unless we were canceled.

  Some of the rumors I overheard during the filmings were somewhat surprising, but not shocking. Aleksei had penile implants, Drake owned several pairs of leather chaps, and Ian routinely had boyfriends followed by private investigators. Other revelations later sent me to urbandictionary.com to look them up since I had no idea what snowballing, an Alaskan fire dragon, or a rusty trombone were. Trust me, you don’t want to know.

  A month went by, filled with a little more drama each time. There was a drunken brawl between Aleksei and Gilles, Ian stormed off the set several times, and Drake destroyed a fair amount of household items those four weeks. Manufactured drama for the most part . . . just what I had predicted.

  And before you knew it, the first episode was ready to air on Sunday night. In a really good time slot. The program schedulers at the network obviously had a lot of faith riding on their decision. They felt our little show was going to be a big hit. Alex and Regina came over to my house to celebrate episode one with a nice bottle of champagne and my new fifty-five–inch flat-screen TV.

  “I’m so glad you got rid of that last goddamn TV, Amanda,” Regina said as I poured her another glass of bubbly. “This one is so much nicer.” Today’s T-shirt she wore read: FUCK ME, I’M FAMOUS.

  “I wouldn’t talk, Regina. Yours is still housed in a Mediterranean cabinet. How old is it?”

  “Twenty, twenty-five years old.”

  “I didn’t think TVs lasted that long,” Alex remarked.

  “Well, it’s not like this fancy one you got, but you can still make out colors and shapes on it.”

  “Shhh,” Alex warned as the show came on.

  The opening started with ominous music that slowly built over footage of Ian Forbes and his hair empire while a narrator laid down the premise of the show. This was followed, like any reality show, with blaring rock music to get people excited. After the titles, each of the show’s cast members got their five seconds of fame as they were highlighted. Some cast members turned slowly toward the camera like they were on a human-sized turntable. Some leered naughtily at the camera. Aleksei was shot toasting the audience with a glass of champagne.

  Alex and Regina watched the entire show with rapt attention, amazed at how much of the “artwork” in Ian’s home had to be pixilated because it was too obscene for television. But the time you watched a few minutes of the show, you would’ve sworn you had cataracts. When it came to the end of the episode and my peep show, the two of them sat with mouths wide open even though they had seen it dozens of times on the Internet.

  “Your bazongas are huge on a wide-screen TV!” Regina said, downing the contents of her champagne flute. “Good thing you don’t have a 3-D TV. Those things could’ve poked my eyes out!”

  Up came the reaction shots, followed by Aurora, who wrapped up the show by giving a brutally honest assessment of the guys:

  They’re rude, crass, untrustworthy, and self-centered. When they’re not trying to outslime each other, then they’re texting and not connecting with another human being in a meaningful way. I don’t see how some of them are going to make it with their toxic personalities. Now, I know that Ian is not easy to get along with. He’s tough, egotistical, ruthless, paranoid, and could stand to lose a few pounds, so I need to find someone who could put up with his antics and his paunchy abdomen. But this is going to be a struggle to find a guy with some sort of integrity. I refuse to lower the bar here, and it’s pretty low as it is. Drake and David are the standouts so far. David can be a little sarcastic and high-and-mighty, but he has honesty. And Drake, he’s loyal, hardworking, doesn’t get involved in the petty interactions of the others, and like David, he seems to be honest. He’s a bit dark, but I think that characteristic appeals to Ian as well.

  The show cut to scenes of upcoming episodes (even though they weren’t even filmed), most of which were assumptions of where Jeremy and the editors were sure the show would head in the future. The editors cleverly used dramatic reaction shots with verbiage that could have been used no matter what ensued. It was like a fortune-teller or astrologer, giving predictions so vague and adaptable, the listener would read more into them than they actually deserved. The next-episode scenes were followed by credits that surprised me. The number of people who put on the show was far
greater than I had seen at the filmings, so I wondered what cost savings Jeremy gained by using an unscripted format. The credits revealed, like with any TV program or movie made in Hollywood, that everyone within a 100-mile radius got a credit on the show, whether they styled our hair or walked Jeremy’s dog.

  I waited a moment to ask what Alex and Regina thought.

  “Fuckin’ great, Amanda. That bitch slap is going to make you famous. Fuckin’ great,” Regina said, finishing her champagne.

  “And you?” I asked, looking at Alex and realizing that his reply was the only one that mattered.

  “You did great, kid. I’m proud of you,” he replied.

  I studied the tone and inflection of his comment, and searched his face again. Alex had a terrific poker face, but I could see behind the mask. He thought I did a great job. Mostly. I could see the ten percent that wasn’t on board. I felt like a failure. Then, like me reading Alex, he read my thoughts.

  “Hey, hey, what’s that face for?”

  “What?” I said, lying to him.

  “I can see what’s going through that head of yours. Amanda, you’re on a reality show. It’s not Masterpiece Theatre. That’s okay.” He grabbed my chin delicately and turned my face to look directly into his eyes. “Y-o-u a-r-e o-n t-e-l-e-v-i-s-i-o-n, Amanda. That’s a billion-to-one shot. And you stole the first show. Stole it! And you kept your dignity. So stop feeling sorry for yourself. You aced it.”

  I believed him. Mostly.

  Alex continued, sensing that he was on a roll with his ego boosting. “On the first show, you’ve established your character and it’s a hit. It resonates with viewers. You’re the voice of reason on this morally topsy-turvy program of conniving gold diggers. There’s almost no one on the show who’s likable, but you are. You stand up to the bullshit. You fight back. People like you.”

  “That’s right, Amanda. I really liked you . . . rooted for you,” Regina slipped in.