“Hannah, that may all be true, but we’ve been working with George Lane for two decades. You do realize that; don’t you?” Andrew asked me, his hands forming a temple in the air.

“Oh course, I know that,” I snapped back, uncertain whether he had a larger point. “I worked there for a year. I’ve read all of George’s books. I know the history very well.”

“Good,” Andrew declared as though we’d reached a truce. He stood up, while simultaneously putting on his suit jacket. “Then you understand the relationship. George is one of our most trusted advisors. While you may have some very valid instincts, for now I have to side with him on this. Let’s see how all of this goes first. And then we’ll reopen the discussion at another time; agreed?”

“Well kinda,” I answered sheepishly, unsuccessfully trying to hide my defiance. “But I’m not suggesting a mutiny. I just think we have to give the agency valuable feedback. Creative people deserve honest feedback.”

Andrew cocked his head to the left, giving me a looked that made it perfectly clear he’d had just about enough of my ideas. “Would you feel comfortable giving someone like Picasso or Renoir your ‘feedback?” he asked me, making quotation marks in the air.

“Andrew don’t misunderstand me,” I piped up. “I’m not attacking George or his work. Personally, I like George. But if I hired Picasso to create an ad and what he created made no sense, I would feel an obligation to say something, even if it made me feel uncomfortable to speak up.”

“I respect that Hannah,” Andrew said as he bowed in my direction and began to spontaneously bless me three times with the sign of the cross, like a priest who’d just administered a communion wafer to one of his parishioners.

“But please, let’s give this some time. Tell them to run the Thrilling Grill ad as soon as possible. Let’s marinate your ideas. Please. Everything will look different in a day or two. I have to go up for lunch now. Namaste,” he said, while bowing again and walking out of his office.

Stunned, I followed him and collapsed on my chair wondering why I’d even bothered to talk to Andrew. Not only didn’t it matter that I’d prepared decent talking points, more importantly it didn’t matter that I was scared about presenting them. I truly doubted he’d listened to a word I said. I truly believed that nothing I had to say would ever penetrate his thoughts.

What a jerk! I thought to myself. Why the hell did he hire me? Am I supposed to just sit here and agree to whatever is suggested? Am I supposed to keep my mouth shut and pretend I have no ideas of my own? And what the hell was all of that blessing bullshit about? Who does he think he is the Pope? Namaste? What the fuck does Namaste mean?

As I continued stewing in my own disappointment, I began to realize that Andrew wasn’t nearly as attractive as I thought he was. For the first time, he struck me as passive and patronizing. But I wasn’t sure. Maybe I didn’t do a good job presenting my ideas. Maybe I made my thoughts sound like an indictment on the work of someone who’d been winning Cleo awards long before I was born. Maybe my ideas just sucked.  Maybe Jack is right: maybe I’m just a fraud.

Lost in a pool of self-doubt, I didn’t hear the intercom, until it began buzz incessantly and so violently that it nearly shook the phone off my desk. I picked it up and answered with a thoroughly uninspired, monotone “yes?”

“Get up here right now,” Jack whispered in the phone. “Your friend is here and I want to introduce you someone. You’re dismissed! Achtung!”

Opening the compact mirror I kept tucked into my desk drawer, I examined my face. Not too bad, I thought to myself. Nothing a little lipstick and a wave of eyeliner can’t fix.

After lighting a match and briefly warming the tip of the black pencil, I quickly applied the pink lipstick and began to define my lash line when Constance popped her head into my cubicle.

“I used to wear a lot of make-up, too,” she explained. “But that was back when I was in Dallas. You wouldn’t believe what I looked like then. I wouldn’t even leave the dorm without three shadows: baby blue, powder pink and ivory. It was hysterical,” she laughed – about what I wasn’t sure.

“But social people don’t do that in Manhattan. Now I just wear gloss at work and I add a little mascara when I go to a benefit,” she explained with the grateful confidence of someone who knew she was finally on the right path after a life of crime.

“Oh my gosh,” she continued. “You wouldn’t believe what my hair looked like them. I used to crimp it and it was bright yellow, too,” she laughed again, this time creating a visual that I admit I did find somewhat funny.

“Now I’m a butter blond. It’s a subtler look, like an icy Grace Kelly blond or like Nina Griscom when she was younger. You know who Nina Griscom is; don’t you?” she challenged me, anticipating my response.

“Isn’t she the daughter or step daughter of that guy who was the US ambassador to France? Oh what’s his name? The investment banker? Oh yes, isn’t her father Felix Rohatyn?” I asked, fishing around my brain, free-associating, while wondering why her name sounded so familiar.

“Probably, I don’t know,” she continued. “What I do know is that over the years, she’s married very well and she looks spectacular. How old do you think she is?”

“I really don’t know,” I told her truthfully, while returning the compact to my desk drawer. “If I had to guess, I’d say 35,” I continued, knowing full well that she had to be considerably older.

“Ahhhh,” she gasped. “I think she has to be at least 40 or 50, but I’ll let you in on a little secret,” she whispered loudly. “Her last husband was a plastic surgeon. I betcha she had a little something done if you know what I mean,” she continued, raising her eyebrows suggestively as the buzzer of her intercom rang. “My mom just had a face lift. For right now, I just do Botox.  It’s all about prevention. Prevention is the key.”

“Hiya Jack,” she purred into phone, as I began to head for the door. “No, she’s still here…I don’t know why…I’ll tell her you want to speak to her immediately.”

Just as I was about to leave the office, she scolded me, in the breathiest voice this side of Marilyn Monroe. “Hannah, you know I like you. But word to the wise: Jack does not like to be kept waiting. I think he has an errand for you. Run along upstairs. He sounds furious. And blot your lips. The social people upstairs will get he wrong idea if you wear overly dramatic make-up.”

Unsure if I should thank her for caring enough to warn me or if I should be offended, I smiled and headed for the elevator bank. Hitting the up button, I examined what I could see of my face in the reflection from the brushed aluminum door. Not only couldn’t I see the garish make up of a clown, I could barely see myself as anything but a ghostly pale blob of pink flesh with two brown, undefined eyes starring back insecurely.

Ducking into the bathroom upstairs, I stuck my face under the harsh fluorescent lighting to see my face in the mirror above the sink. By no stretch of anyone’s imagination did I appear to be a painted lady with ‘overly dramatic’ make-up.  In fact I looked like a blank canvas that needed a team of cosmetologists to slather on pigment, an expression, lips, eyes – anything to distinguish one facial feature from another.

But I knew my fair skin couldn’t handle the burgundy lip liner and a shimmer of gold sparkles that worked for my Sicilian friend Lucile. Still I was positive I needed, at the very least, a stroke of pink across my cheeks to assure others that I had enough blood flowing through my body to create a pulse.

Just as I exited the bathroom, Jack screamed with delight, pointing at me, “Here she is: the diva!”

Filled with pride and grasping his suspenders on both sides, Jack puffed out his chest and smiled the toothiest grin I’d probably ever seen.

“Hannah, this is Efron. He runs Dom Pérignon with Kate Nicholson, a hot chihuahua if there ever was one.  Come over here. I want to introduce you to her,” he instructed me, appearing to gently place his hand over my shoulder, while actually pushing me into the dining room.

Half willingly, half involuntarily I moved in the direction I was being shoved. And there I found myself in the center of a room filled with people whose names read like products in a department store, heavy hitter politicians on Meet the Press, and CNBC types, including Ralph Lauren, James Carville, Calvin Klein, Barry Diller, Diane von Furstenberg, Maria Bartiromo, Anna Wintour, Vera Wang, Manolo Blahnik, Tory Burch and Rudy Giuliani.

Feeing extraordinarily shy – as only those who secretly think they are the center of the universe can – my eyes shifted from side to side, wondering where I was going and why I was being lead there. Putting my index finger to my lips, I tried to blot the pink color I’d just applied, which only made me feel more insecure. Ugh, I probably just smudged it, I thought to myself as Jack lead me back to Efron’s table where a smiling blond woman was seated.

“Hi, you must be Hannah,” she glistened as she welcomed me with enormous twinkling blue eyes and huge white teeth that looked like two rows of Chiclets. “I’m Kate. Have a seat. Efron and I want you to join us for a flute of bubbly,” she smiled with her eyes, raising her brow and pouring a bubbling glass of pink wine.

“Jack says you’re a genius. It’s great to finally meet you,” she continued, making me wonder who this woman was and what exactly inspired Jack to mention me to her.

“Cheers, Hannah. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Efron continued, clinking my glass and then Kate’s.

“Long story short,” Kate explained. “We want to throw a Halloween party with Jack. We know it’s a while away, but because we love the Equinox and any excuse to visit, we figured we should stop by to see how we can work together to throw a party New York will never forget.”

Smiling and taking another sip, with no idea whatsoever what I should say, all I could muster was a gushing question. “Wow, sounds like fun. What do you have in mind?”

“Well of course we defer to you and Jack,” Kate answered diplomatically. “But we have a decent budget and know that with our two brands, and the symbiotic relationship we share, there is no telling what kind of magic we can create. Think Truman Capote’s legendary Black & White Ball,” she explained with a raise of the eyebrow. “What do you think?”

“I can tell Hannah loves it,” Efron responded, shuffling closer to me in the banquette and putting his arm around my shoulders.

“Bup, bup, bup,” Jack called out nearly sprinting across the dining room floor. “What are we doing here? Excuse me, you big queer,” he scolded Efron. “You don’t want to get Andrew jealous do you?”

Without waiting for a reply, he nearly yanked me out of their booth and escorted me from the table into the hallway near the entrance. Confused by what was happening, I followed him.

“Escuse me, madame,” he whispered at me as though someone lurking in the shadows were listening. “You don’t seem to understand. We have to fix them. They have a lot of money. We have to stick it to them.  Really let them have it. Do you understand me?”

“Yeah, of course,” I lied, having no idea whatsoever what he wanted me to do. “It’s obvious. They have LVMH money, right,” I continued with very little idea what I was talking about.

“Exactly,” he confirmed. “Do me a favor. Go downstairs. Get that big bottle of Champagne from behind my desk and come back upstairs. We have to fix them; okay?”

“Sure,” I agreed, completely confused by what the word “fix” meant or where the Champagne was.

When I returned to the office, I saw what looked like a toddler-sized bottle of pink Champagne. I tried to pull it off the shelf behind Jack’s desk, but I could barely budge it. As I climbed on top of his desk and tried to shimmy it down, all I could hear was the heavily-accented voice of a man who was cautioning me, “Woah, woah, woah, what are you doing?”

With one foot on the desk and the other on Jack’s chair, I turned around and found the puzzled look of a black man, trying to keep a straight face.

“Oh I was just…” I began feeling like an idiot, or worse: a thief.

“Don’t even bother finishing that sentence,” he interrupted me, rolling his eyes. “Where does Jack want you to bring that bottle?”

“I guess to the dining room,” I explained, climbing down to the floor. “He wasn’t’ really that clear about it.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” the man asked rhetorically, while extending his hand in a greeting. “My name is David. I’ll have someone bring it upstairs. Just do me a favor: don’t risk your life whenever Jack has a crazy idea. If you do, you’ll be dead before sunset,” he smiled.

“Pleasure to meet you David,” I said, shaking his hand, wondering who he was. David said nothing. He just responded with a half smile and a squint of the left eye that made me believe he was judging me harshly, but with the slightest glimmer of amusement.

“Hi David. Here’s your check,” a man interrupted, handing him an envelope. “Are you Hannah? I do not believe we’ve met. Luke Moore, pleasure to meet you. Here’s your check,” he greeted me, handing me a similar envelope.

“Nice to meet you, too, Luke. Thank you,” I responded, opening the envelope and seeing a check inside. “Wow, a big thank you,” I smiled.

“Yep, everybody loves me on Wednesdays. Isn’t that right David?” Luke asked with a strong Southern accent, continuing through the office and tossing envelopes on every desk in the room.

Still looking amused, David stared me down briefly and repeated what he’d said earlier, “Seriously, don’t risk your life whenever Jack has a crazy idea. I’ll get someone with a cart to bring the Champagne upstairs.”

The second David left the office I saw the blinking lights on my phone. Ugh! Voice mail, I thought. I listened to the first message and heard the distinct Judge Judy voice of Helen, who was clearly annoyed that I had yet to send my first report.

“Madame, I expect to hear from you immediately,” she scolded me. “If you want to work for me, send me your report immediately. If I don’t hear from you in the next hour, I’ll assume you do not. Do you understand me?”

Knowing I didn’t have a second to spare, I dug into my purse and pulled out the copy of my Dallas BBQ report I’d printed that morning to read in the subway. Too rushed, I tried to look it over, but the words blurred together.  Hearing the intercom buzzer on my phone, I simply dialed the fax number I found on the bottom of Helen’s letterhead and raced for the elevator.

As the doors opened into the dining room, Helen answered the phone, “Washington Controls. How may I help you?”

“Hi Helen, it’s Hannah. I just faxed it to you,” I assured her.

“I can see that Hannah. It’s coming through now. I’ll read it by the end of the day, but let me tell you one thing: I expect to receive all reports via email, in Word documents. Do we understand each other?”

“Yes, of course,” I assured her. “I was just rushed. And I heard your message so I figured I’d send it right away so you knew it was done. I can email it later.”

“We’re all rushed, Hannah,” she barked. “Your problems are not my problems. Do we understand each other?

“Yes, I definitely understand,” I groveled, seeing Jack sprinting in my direction. “I definitely understand. Thank you very much. I’ll call you later.”

Thankfully I could hear Helen hang up on me just as Jack grabbed me around the waist. “Come on, the Champagne is here,” he told me. “We have to fix them.”

“Jack I’m really sorry. I really have to do something,” I apologized. “I have to cash my check. I have to pay someone back $100 before lunch ends,” I continued, filled with a world of shame.

“Who do you owe money to?” he asked me genuinely concerned. “Tony Soprano?”

“No, no, no,” I stammered. “A childhood friend. She’s visiting New York and she’s having lunch and I just have to pay her back immediately.”

“Huh! Simple,” he assured me. “Is she cute? If she’s cute, she can have lunch here. It’s very simple. It’s not very complicated at all.”

“No I think she’s downtown. She and her husband are in town to see a Ranger’s…” I tried to explain.

“Husband? Are you kidding me? Her husband expects me to pay for his lunch? Muh please!” he began to rage, disgusted. “You tell her husband to buy his own food. I’m busy. Now come over here. We have to fix these two,” he finished, still ushering me back to where Kate and Efron were seated.

“Just give me five minutes,” I nearly begged. “I just want to cash my check so I can pay her back the hundred dollars I borrowed yesterday.”

“Make it quick,” Jack ordered me, as I nearly tripped down the steps headed for bank across the street and called Lucille when I was sure I had her cash in hand.

“Hey boo-boo. What’s up?” she asked me as I nearly leapt into the receiver.

“I want to give your money back before you leave town. Where are you?” I asked, nearly obsessed with paying back my debt.

“Han-huh, don’t be hysterical,” she laughed. “Hayn-sum and I left town this morning. We decided to go to Providence for lobstuhs. Oh shit, I gotta go. Love yuh, babe. Gotta go. Nevah change.”

Feeling like I was about to break a sweat, I slowed my pace and peacefully returned to the dining room where I saw Jack waving me back to the table where he was now seated with Kate and Efron. I sat down and smiled, unsure what else to do.

“So do you think we can throw the party?” Jack asked me while delicately cutting and quickly scarfing down a stack of sliced tomatoes that was possibly larger than his head.

“Yes, I think it could be really fun. It could be a masquerade party with jack-o-lanterns and costumes and Venetian masks. We could even project on the walls scenes from classic black and white movies where people did dramatic dances with someone they knew but were trying to avoid,” I blurted out, nervously, regretting every word the second it escaped my mouth.

“Escuse me, whatsamaddah with you?” Jack scowled at me theatrically, overly emphasizing his Italian accent. “Costume? Jack Daniels? I don’t understand. People don’t want to drink whiskey,” he continued with complete confidence. “This is Champagne. Very, very sexy Champagne,” he softened, offering a suggestive raise of the eyebrow in Kate’s direction for emphasis.

“Jack, you’re so funny,” she purred back. “I think it’s a great idea. And Hannah, if you play with the DP logo for the invitation, I bet you could turn it into a bat.”

“Done!” Jack declared, removing his plate from the table and standing up. “I’ll be right back. I see our friends have finally arrived,” he explained with the single-minded focus of a German Sheppard who sensed his owner had returned from work.

“That was easy,” Kate assured me, refilling my flute with Champagne and clinking my glass. “To Halloween,” she toasted. As we continued to chit-chat about nothing in particular, Kate incessantly checked email on her Blackberry, while Efron mocked her for being “chained to that thing.”

Watching them playfully banter back and forth, I couldn’t tell if one was the other’s boss or if they were equals.  Both were approximately the same age. Both were dressed impeccably. Both were extraordinarily charming, completely unstuffy and obviously very intelligent. And I could tell they really liked each other, which made me wonder if they were secretly dating, though I admit Efron did seem to be, what my roommate Franklin called, “a little too fancy” to have much of an interest in women.

“Okay Hannah, this is how it works,” Kate instructed, directing her full attention to me. “We can pay for everything, but we have to do that very carefully.  Because you guys are such important partners for us, we do want you guys to make some money off of the party. So I was thinking we could charge $500 per person. How does that sound?”

“Truthfully? I asked her, not waiting for a response. “It sounds a little high to me. Our Bordeaux dinner is about $250 per person, but unless the vintages are spectacular with rave reviews from someone like Robert Parker, it isn’t an easy sell.”

“Don’t worry about the vintages at all. I’m going to crack open the vault, the entire library of rare, acclaimed vintages,” she winked at me.  “Plus to make it extravagant we could saber a jeroboam of the white gold prestige cuvée. People will go crazy when they see that bottle. These are not the kind of Champagnes people can get at home. They’re very, very rare.”

“Well, I guess. I just don’t know,” I told her truthfully. “I’ve just never tried to sell such an expensive dinner before. I’m not sure how it would work.”

“We don’t have to worry about that part now,” she assured me. “We have months to work on this before we send out the invitations. But the thing is, we have to add a charitable element to the dinner. Otherwise we’ll be limited in what we can do for you. You know how obsessive the attorney general is with the state liquor laws.”

I had no idea what she was talking about but nodded in agreement, hoping she wouldn’t recognize that she’d been misinformed about who I was and what I was capable of accomplishing. Thankfully, just then Jack came swaggering across the dining room toward us and announcing, “here are three people I think you should meet.”

Blinking to clear my vision, assuming I was hallucinating, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I noticed just behind him were Bill and Hillary Clinton.  “Mrs. Clinton, Mr. President, I’d like to introduce you to three of your greatest supporters: Kate Nicholson, Hannah McCall, and Efron Castro.”

We all nervously struggled to stand up. It was nearly impossible without tripping out of the booth, but we did manage to get on our feet and each of us shook the hand the President was extending in our direction, as he gently grasped our elbow with his opposite hand.

“Don’t let us interrupt your lunch. Hillary and I just wanted to stop by and say hello,” the President apologized, as Mrs. Clinton shook our hands with a vise-like grip that I am almost positive realigned the bones in my fingers.

“It’s an honor to meet you both,” I offered, trying to sound like I had any idea what to say.

“The pleasure is all ours,” the President replied, sounding like he really meant it. “We’ll leave you to your lunch. We have to go say hi to our old friend Jim now.  Thanks very much for your hospitality,” he finished, smiling and putting his arm around Mrs. Clinton’s back as he escorted her to the back of the back of the dining room.

“Pretty good, huh?” Jack beamed joyously as the Clintons stopped at another table. “That is a real man,” he gushed like a star struck teenaged girl.

“Jack!” Kate smiled flirtatiously. “How did you ever get them to come over here?” she batted her eyelashes, clearly impressed with him.

“I told them you’re all rich and that you were thinking about donating to the campaign!” he boasted with a mischievous laugh that made it hard for me to figure out if he enjoyed tricking the Clintons or if he just wanted to show off his fleeting influence over them.

“You know your roommate is a fucking asshole; right?” Lucille asked me with punishing disgust as we squeezed our way into Dallas BBQ en route to the crowded bar.

I said nothing. I was too focused on scanning those who were seated, hoping someone would miraculously stand up from one of the two-dozen stools to ask why she was so angry.

“Oh he’s a fucking asshole,” she confirmed, tensing her brow. “Yuh lucky I didn’t leave. If you showed up five minutes later, you’d a found I was outtey. Yuh lucky. That’s all I’m sayin’.”

Before I could respond, I saw two middle aged men swiveling around to take in Lucille and her signature look: a fluffy mane of blondish brown curls, full mouth, darky lined with a sparkle of gold highlighting her lower lip, and today’s addition: a skin tight pinkish dress that appeared to be made of rubber and suggestively approximated the color and texture of a human tongue.

“Sweetheart, I’m the lucky one,” one of the men interjected, staring directly at Lucille, carefully examining every inch of her body. “You should take my seat, gorgeous,” he continued with little or no recognition that I was with her.

As he stood up to offer her his barstool, he grabbed the shopping bag she was carrying and tried to take her purse, too.

“Hey hayn-sum, careful with that, my little Misty baby is in there,” she baby talked, batting her eyelashes and revealing a tiny white dog shaking in the shadows of her oversized purse.

“Oh sorry,” he apologized, as he helped her into a stool while his friend looked on amused.

Although I’d known Lucille since second grade when we met in the school library, I was still surprised by the effect she had on strangers. I was also simultaneously not surprised. I’d seen this movie many times before and when I was much younger I wondered what it was about her that equally captivated the interest of teenaged boys and lusty, dirty old creeps.

As I stood there half listening to the two men run through the usual Lucille interview – Are you a model? Are you an actress? Do you have a boyfriend? I love your hair! Is that dress leather? Where do you live? Can I buy you a drink? – I scanned the bar looking for details to share in the report I’d write for Helen.

Blindly fishing through my purse, I found a pen and tiny notebook and began scribbling notes without looking down:

• 2 bartenders: one balding man, middle 40s dark moustache, possibly Latino & blonde girl, 25 max, petite, Af/Am
• Barback refilling ice
• Lots of drinks need refilling, dirty dishes left on bar
• Loud, pulsing music
• Churning frozen drink machine
• All stools occupied
• Standing crowd 2-3 deep around perimeter
• No greeting from bartender first 5 mins

“Han-uh, get ovah here,” Lucille called out to me. “Don’t be so unsociable.”

I smiled and inched closer toward my friend and the two men who were positively transfixed by her.

“Aren’t one of your two hayn-sum gentlemen going to find my best friend a seat?” Lucille challenged them, while pouting her glistening lips.

“Oh I’m sorry,” the seated man replied, barely glancing at me. “I didn’t even see her,” he explained to Lucille. “Please take my chair,” he instructed me as he moved closer to Lucille.

As they continued to interview her, I hid my notebook up one sleeve and my pen inside the other. From where I was seated, I could clearly see all of the action around the bar, including the service well, where waiters were lined up ordering and garnishing drinks for their tables. As a maraschino cherry fell on top of the bar and the waiter picked it up with his bare hand and put it in one of the drinks, I made a note: unsanitary drink garnishing/redheaded male 30-35 yo, tall, thin, sideburns.

“Whatcha doing there, writing a novel?” the bartender asked me, as he absent-mindedly tossed a cocktail napkin in front of me and asked if I’d like something to drink.

“Oh no, absolutely not. I’m not writing a novel,” I nervously testified, as though I were being accused of having committed a felony. “I’m writing my to do list. You know errands, what to get in the market. That kind of stuff.”

“Wow, now that sounds very exciting,” he replied sarcastically, trying to be funny. “What can I getcha? Frozen margarita?”

“Ah yes, that sounds great. Hold on a second, Lucille what do you want?” I asked, weaving my hand past one of the men and tapping her on the shoulder.

“Don’t be silly, Han-nuh!” Lucille replied for her audience. “These two gorgeous gentlemen already got me a pomegranate margarita. It’s dee-licious. You should get one. Wanna taste?”

“Oh no that’s okay,” I told her and turned my attention to the bartender. “I think I’d rather have a plain one.”

“One classic margarita coming up,” he announced, turning to the churning machine, pushing the lever up and filling what looked like a 32 oz. mug with a neon chartreuse slushy mixture.

“Why you gotta be so plain, Han-nuh? Live a little,” she heckled me for no reason I could figure out, though I did notice that as she was directing the attention to me, she was slipping her wedding ring off of her finger.

As the bartender placed the mug in front of me, Lucille offered a toast and smiled from ear to ear: “To our new friends Pasquale and Tom!”

We all clinked glasses and the three of them returned to their private conversation, only half of which I could really hear, which was just fine with me. In fact, I was grateful. Being left out allowed me to survey the room and continue to take notes without any distractions.

• Packed dining room
• Three hostesses at front desk: all 20s, two blondes, one brunette, all approx. 5’4” tall
• Young Latino men sprinting around dining room, hauling filled bus tubs back into kitchen
• Three waitresses clustered near kitchen door gossiping, possibly arguing.
• Manager? Maitre d’? – white, 50s, paunch, talking on cell phone

Realizing I wouldn’t be missed, I slipped away and approached the front desk to make a reservation for dinner. “We don’t do that,” one of the two blonde hosts explained to me. “Whatcha name? I’ll put you on the list. How many?”

Truly believing I was on a spy mission, I fumbled for a name, “Rodriguez,” I told her.

“No! not your last name. Yah first name. Do you know how many Rodriguezes we got in here tonight?” she explained to me.

“Annie. My name is Annie,” I lied, immediately regretting my bland code name. You should have said Gia or Antonia or Antoinette or Marcella, I second-guessed myself silently, wishing I had come up with something exotic and mysterious.

“That’s good,” the hostess assured me. “Believe me there is no one else here named Annie. It’ll be ten, fifteen at the latest. Go to the bar, get a drink. We’ll cawl you when we’re ready for yah.”

“Okay thank you,” I told her, beginning to walk back to the bar and wondering when all of the Annie’s I’d ever known had gone extinct.

“Hey Annie!” the hostess shouted toward me. “Cash out that check. We can’t seat you until you settle up with the bar; okay?”

As I shimmied through the crowd, trying to reclaim my seat, I wondered if it’d look normal on my report if only one person in my group of two had a drink. Thinking it’d probably be better if my check reflected that two of us were there, I decided to order a seltzer and settle up our bar bill.

“Where’s the Vault?” I heard Lucille ask one of men. “I love the name,” she squealed and laughed simultaneously, almost sounding sinister.

“Hey Hannah, have you ever heard of the Vault?” she asked me without pausing to hear my answer. “She lives in the city. I’m so proud of her. But she doesn’t get out much.”

“It’s not that place in Chelsea; is it?” I asked with a vague memory of reading something about an S&M club on 10th Avenue.

“Han-nuh, these are gentlemen!” Lucille scolded me, retuning to the mocking way she and her brothers pronounced my name when we were kids. “Do you really think they’d invite us to an S&M club?” I didn’t answer. I ordered the seltzer and asked the bartender to cash out the check with the $20 I pulled from my wallet.

“It’s not really a sex club,” one of the men explained to me. “It’s more like a themed restaurant. Really mild stuff. They only call it The Vault because it’s in a renovated bank building. That’s all.”

Lucille clutched his chin with her clenched fingers, “C’mon Hah-nuh, with a face like this, would Tom lie to us?”

“Of course not,” I lied, “We just have to have dinner. The table will be ready any minute now. We’ll have to join them some other time.”

“Boys, she’s always been unsociable,” Lucille consoled them. “If yous want, we can go after we finish dinner,” she suggested almost like she was pleading with them to wait for her.

“Perfect,” Pasquale chimed in, suddenly. “We’ll all have dinner and then we’ll go out for cocktails.”

“Actually, we have stuff we have to talk about, just girl talk,” I protested. “Why don’t you give us your number, and we’ll call you after dinner?”

“No, you take my number,” Lucille suggested. “I don’t cawl boys; boys cawl me.”

As Tom jotted down her cell number, the hostess appeared to escort us to our table. We said goodbye to Lucille’s newest friends and began to follow the hostess when Lucille stopped briefly, tapped the redheaded man on his nose and announced, “I expect to hear from you later, hayn-sum.”

When we settled into our table and began to look over the menu, I couldn’t help myself. I had to find out what Lucille was thinking. “What is your deal?” I asked, searching for any clue that she was thinking at all. “First you take off your wedding ring and now you’re nearly insisting that those guys take you to a sex club?”

“What’s the big deal?” Lucille dismissed me, barely paying any attention to me as she ogled the menu. “You act like I’m a slut. I am not a tramp. I took off my ring because if they thought I was married, they wouldn’t give me the time of day. It’s all innocent. You know I like to get my flirt on.”

“Whatever Lucille. I don’t care. Do whatever you want to do,” I responded with more than a little disgust. “But you have to understand The Vault is one of those raunchy sex clubs. People are beating each other. People are peeing on each other. There is no way possible I am going there.”

“Look Bob knows I like to flirt. He knows who I am; okay?” she explained, completely ignoring anything I was saying about leather-masked people torturing each other while others relieved themselves on complete strangers.

“Yes Lucille,” I assured her condescendingly. “I know Bob knows you’re a flirt. But I am sure he’d freak out if he discovered you spent the night in a sex club with two random guys you met at a bar.”

“Don’t threaten me, Han-nuh,” she responded, taking me completely by surprise. “Are you trying to tell me you’re going to tell Bob what happened?”

“Of course I’m not going to tell him,” I whispered angrily. “I barely know your husband and I’ve never spoken to him even once without your being right there. What I am saying is that you’d be in-sane to go hang out with those guys. That’s all.”

“Well I guess that’s where we’re different,” she said in a six of one, half a dozen of another sort of way. “I think you’re in-sane for being so closed minded.”

For the remainder of the meal, we barely spoke. At different times, we each tried to make the other laugh with ridiculously immature observations, but we were both too stubborn to break our poker faces to meet the other even half way.

I was tempted to chuckle when Lucille mentioned the chicken wings were so large that they looked like the flexed biceps of a toddler’s arms, but I was too disgusted by the Dallas BBQ food to find anything funny at all.

When the bill came, Lucille tossed me a $100 bill and I paid the check, promising to return the cash in the morning. “Don’t worry about it,” Lucille sniffed. “You’re always broke. I get it. I’m not judging you Han-nuh. I’m just saying if you were more open minded, you might have more money.”

“Lucille, I am not closed minded,” I said, shaking my head with as much frustration as I have ever felt in my life. “I just don’t want to go to a sex club with freaky guys who drink in a barbecue place.”

“Ah hah,” she announced with her squealing laugh. “You are closed minded. And you’re a snob. You think you’re too good for people who eat in barbecue restaurants, just like you thought you were too good to live in Atlantic City with me.”

“Lucille, I can’t take it anymore. I swear to God,” I groaned. “I do not think I am too good for either thing. I just want to live in New York. I don’t want to be a cocktail waitress in an Atlantic City casino.”

“Well if you were, you wouldn’t need to borrow money from me,” she blurted out. “After our shift today, Corrine and I made another $350 playing poker in the Borgata. She’s saving up to get granite countertops in her condo. I think I’m going to take a cruise to Alaska, but I’m not sure I want to be with all those blue hairs. I want something sexier. Maybe Club Med.”

“I know, you’re right,” I conceded, hoping to stop what was already a very strange conversation about all the things that did not interest me: sex clubs, casinos, gambling, home renovations and contrived vacations.

Thankfully I was saved by the bell when her phone rang. “Hi hayn-sum. Yeah. Of course! I like fun. No we don’t have to deal with her. I’m solo,” she responded in spurts, giving me a very good idea what was being said on the other line. “Aight 14th and Tenth? I’ll meet you there at 10. Bye han-sum,” she promised with a kiss as she hung up the call.

“Hannah, I gotta go,” she apologized. “I’m going to meet those guys and then swing by to get Bob and his brother at the Garden when the game ends. I’ll text you in the morning, babe. Oh, I almost forgot,” she said handing me a shopping bag. “I got this for you, for your birthday. I hope you love it. But if it’s cheesy, just return it. I don’t give a shit either way. It just reminded me of you.”

As I opened the bag, I braced myself, wondering what could possibly be inside. Lucille and I never gave each other gifts. And I knew Lucille had a very twisted sense of humor that meant that anything – including something truly repulsive – could be inside.

Much to my surprise I found a truly beautiful chocolate brown faux fur coat. As I walked outside and met a slap of February’s bone chilling wind, I ripped the coat out of the bag, put it on and jumped into the subway to head to my apartment to write up my first secret shopper report.

For hours and hours I went over every last word in my recap of what happened that night in Dallas BBQ, completely omitting any mention of Tom, Pasquale and all talk of our going to a sex club afterward. Combing through my notes, and trying to remember every detail, I wrote and rewrote everything, even adding Lucille’s observation that the chicken wings were disturbingly large.

Somewhere around 2 am my phone beeped with a text message from Lucille: “Get up! I gotta stay there tonight. I’m in a cab now. I’ll ring your buzzer.” No longer than five minutes later, Lucille arrived. She looked elated.

“Oh my God, you really missed out,” she announced. “You shoulda been there. It was incredible. That guy Tom is such a fucking liar!” she squealed. “That place is a total sex club. You would not believe what was happening there,” she continued, opening my refrigerator, grabbing and chugging a bottle of water, like an athlete who just finished a marathon. Gasping, she nearly choked on the water as she continued to tell her story.

“We were all standing there, minding our own business, watching this blond girl spank this old man. You would not believe how old he was. She was dressed up like a nurse. She thought she was so cute, but she was just aight,” she continued getting visibly excited with her eyes widening and her hands gesticulating in a spanking motion.

“Then this other old guy, I mean a total freak asked me if he could touch my feet,” she screamed. “Can you imagine? And you know how insecure I am about my antelope feet. But I was like ‘okay go to town, dude,’ and then he starts jerking off and tries to cum on my shoe. It was totally disgusting. What kind of a freak would go to that place?” she asked me, completely unaware that she was there, too.

“Anyway, I don’t mean to be rude,” Lucille apologized, but I gotta go to bed. I’m sleepin’ on your sofa. Keep your asshole roommate away from me. I’ll get up and leave when you go to work. I wanna get a run in before Bob and I go lunch. Night, night girl,” she smiled at me, kicking off her shoes and climbing onto my sofa without removing her make up or her skintight dress. “Don’t let the bed bugs bite.”

“Don’t you want a t-shirt or something? Pajamas?” I questioned her, knowing full well what the answer would be, though still marveling at the whirling eccentric who’d just arrived unexpectedly.

“Nah, I’m aight,” she assured me. “It’s cool. Just turn off the light. I wanna get in at least five miles so I can eat like a pig tomorrow.”

“Wasssup, Hah-Nuh?” I heard Lucille ask, when I returned to my desk and checked my office voice mail. Darting my eyes back and forth, praying no one was eavesdropping, I continued to listen to her signature mix of playful hip-hop lingo, wrapped up in a deliberately mocking New Jersey accent.

“Me and my hayn-sum are coming into the city tonight. He’s go-win to a Ranger game with his brother,” she explained as I cupped the phone over my ear, trying to prevent any sound from escaping into the office that I already knew had plenty of ears.

“He thinks he’s gonna get over on me,” she laughed. “So the way I figure it, you and me can hang out, get our cocktail on, while they see the game. Can you dig it? Cawl me. Nevah change,” she finished, using the same expressions that had been cracking us up since we were in high school. I smiled.

I called her back and was surprised when she picked up the call. “Yuh, lucky,” she explained without a greeting of any kind. “I was just calling my Bobby.”

“Oh good. I can’t talk for more than a second,” I warned her. “But yes, let’s get together tonight. Can you meet me at my apartment tonight around seven?” I asked her as she said “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

“Good,” I said. “I have this new job, sort of writing, sort of reviewing restaurants. It’s like a secret shopper kind of a thing. If you want, we can go to one of the places tonight with me. We can go check out Dallas BBQ.”

“You know I’m a vegetarian. I only eat chicken,” she explained in a way that somehow made perfect sense to her.

“I know,” I assured her, already prepared for her usual opposition. “I checked. They have chicken and frozen drinks and lots of side dishes that I’m sure you’d like.”

“Aight,” Lucille mumbled. “I’m bringing Misty with me. Don’t try to give me shit about it.”

“Lucille, I’m not really sure you can bring a dog into the restaurant,” I warned her. “I guess we can leave her at my place while we’re gone,” I added, trying to sound like I was open to having an incontinent, aging Maltese left to her own devices in the tiny apartment I shared with my obsessively neat germophobic roommate.

“Don’t be a dick, Han-uh,” Lucille dismissed me. “I’ll put my little Misty baby girl in a bag. That’s right baby girl,” I heard her coo, presumably to the lap dog she rescued from her mother. “They’ll nevah know she’s there.  Plus, this way, she can eat dinner, too. She loves ribs.Isn’t that right, you little bitch?”

“What are you going to do? Throw bones in your purse and let her eat them inside of it?” I asked, trying to picture a three-pound dog eating two-pound rib inside a tote bag.

“Don’t worry about it. I gotcha,” she said, again acting like she had sufficiently explained something that truthfully still mystified me.

“Hey, my hayn-sum wants to stay in the city tonight,” she continued. “So him and I are crashin’ at his brother’s. If you wanna cut out of work tomorrow, we can all go hang out in the Village.”

“I can’t miss work,” I said, trying to sound firm, but agreeable. “But we can have breakfast or lunch, if you want.”

“Nah, fuck it. Him and I’ll do our own thing, if you’re going to be unsociable. I gotta go. I’ll catch you later,” she said, leaving me wondering two things: why needing to go to work was a problem and if ‘unsociable’ was actually word used outside of New Jersey’s borders.

“Yes, I’m unsociable,” I conceded. “But let me ask you one question. Will you spot me $100 and I’ll pay you back tomorrow before you leave town? I get my first check from the Equinox in the morning. I’ll cash it at lunch and bring it wherever you and Bob are.”

“Yay, yay! I gotcha. You’re always fucking broke. But I gotcha. Me and Corrine are going to the casino until Bob gets off work. We’re on a roll with blackjack and we split all of our pots. Last night we won $400 each. Like later…much,” she agreed, again using the lingo of our childhood and hung up the phone.

Having no idea who Corrine was or how someone would have the guts to pull up a stool at an Atlantic City blackjack table, I began to sort through the stack of ads to prepare a list of talking points for my meeting with Andrew.

1.    Visually Unattractive – Nothing with enough WOW to halt the magazine readers in quickly flipping through the pages and visually force them to read the copy.

2.    Blue Background Conceptually Inappropriate – Cool colors are scientifically proven appetite suppressants. Hotel school 101.

3.    Too much focus on price – People need to want something before you can lure them in with bargain prices.

4.    Rehash of famous campaigns for other Lane USA clients: Vh1, cereal, men’s clothing company, first amendment center etc.

5.    Unrelatable – Too snobby. Nothing welcoming. Lacks people who reader can identify with.

6.    Corny Language – A Thrill from the Grill? Slenderize Your Thunder Thighs? Give me a break.

7.    Impersonal – Sounds like institutional advertisement rather than a message from two real people who have staked their reputations on customer satisfaction.

8.    Media buy too expensive – Need to negotiate rates or explore ways of increasing frequency while reducing per ad cost.

9.    Production costs abusive – It does not cost $2,000 to layout an ad, especially when no photographs/illustrations are purchased.

10.    Lacks focus on experience – Luxury today is about the experience, not exclusivity or cost. Anyone with a credit card can buy expensive things. People with real money want a unique, authentic experience – something more than their credit card  can buy.

Looking over my top ten list, I was almost impressed with myself. I actually sounded like I knew what I was talking about. I just couldn’t imagine saying any of them.  As my mind wandered, reading and rereading the list, I began to get nervous and became filled with self-doubting questions.

What would Andrew think? Who was I to question the great George Lane, as everyone called him? More importantly, what was I suggesting?  Did I have a big idea far superior to a man who was in the Art Directors Hall of Fame? Was I actually going to march into a meeting tomorrow morning with my notes in hand, reading off my brazen, dismissive reactions to the work of one of Manhattan’s legendary advertising agencies? Was I going to fumble through them like a bad public speaker who cannot talk to a crowd without a teleprompter?

As I imagined the worst, I remembered the time in college when I was in the middle of an oral presentation and, without any warning whatsoever, sprinted to the door, screamed out loud and pointed directly at the professor, “I knew I couldn’t do this. I may be able to write about German aesthetic theories but I cannot lecture anyone about them. That’s your job!”

I could feel a debilitating cloak of dread and shame begin to choke all of my confidence.  There is no way possible you can march into Andrew’s office and tell him what you really think of this stack of these ridiculous, tired, ineffective ads. You have to call out sick. You can hang out with Bob and Lucille and you can come back in a day or two and figure out what to do then, I lectured myself, like my inner parent was somehow imparting sage advice that was ultimately in my own best interest.

Just then I was startled back into reality by a word, wrapped up in a question mark that only someone like Jack could deliver in a confrontational way.

“So?” he glared at me, chewing a cigar and looming over the partition wall of my cubicle.

By now I was beginning to understand Jack’s peculiar use of language. I was beginning to recognize that while he technically spoke English fluently, he rarely used the kind of subject-verb-predicate sentence structures that clearly communicated ideas. I was beginning to get that, like a poet, performance artist or cartoon character, he expressed himself in word pictures, innuendoes, suggestive sounds, gestures, non-verbal insinuations and antagonistic non-sequiturs. As a result I didn’t even have to ask what he was talking about when he confronted me with an accusatory “so?”

“He said he cannot meet with me today,” I told Jack truthfully. “We have a plan to meet in the morning. I’m just getting my notes together. Do you want to hear them?”

“Oh you have a plan!” Jack bellowed so everyone – every hostess, every manager, every waiter – who happened to be walking through the office could hear him. “Ladies and gentleman, Hannah and Andrew have plans! Oh that’s so sweet! Plans! I’ve got a plan for Andrew right here,” he continued to shout, grabbing his crotch for emphasis.

Just behind him, I could see Rosario, the reservationist, stand up from her desk and silently mock Jack behind his back by twirling her finger near her right temple and lip syncing the word ‘loco,’ as she rolled her eyes and continued to answer the phone. “Good Afternoon. Thank you for calling the Equinox,” she purred into her headset without a betraying the circus that was quickly developing around her.

“I’m very happy to meet with him today and I’m all ready to do it,” I stammered. “He said he has a meeting, but I promise I will talk to him tomorrow.”

“No, don’t be silly. You do it tomorrow. You and Little Orphan Andy will always have tomorrow. It’s only a day away,” Jack assured me in a sing song, mocking voice as he returned to his office, singing “the sun will come out tomorrow, tomorrow. It’s only a day awayyyyyyyyy”

Seething with anger, hurt, frustration and fear, I quickly followed him, involuntarily. Before I realized what I was doing, I found myself confronting Jack at a decibel I didn’t realize I was capable of reaching.

“I don’t know who the fuck you think you are,” I began confidently and then became quickly frightened because I had no idea where I was going with this speech. “But you have some nerve trying to antagonize me. It must be very nice to kick the girl near the curb to see how she’ll react. I told you I would talk to him and that is exactly what I intend to do. But I cannot help but notice that when it comes time for you to say something to Andrew, you back down like a scared little girl who is afraid of her daddy,” I continued, realizing I was in completely uncharted territory with no idea where I was going with this one.

“In fact you remind me of my father,” I told him, fishing for any way to finish my overly dramatic character assassination of both my boss and my father, who I actually liked. “You both love to antagonize women,” I seethed. “At least my father was man enough to treat women with even the slightest bit of respect. At least he was man enough to let women do things their way before berating them for no reason whatsoever.”

Although I had no idea what I’d said, I was scared that I had pushed it all too far. I wished I hadn’t marched into Jack’s glass encased office to throw a few boulders in his direction, but I couldn’t even regret it because I knew I hadn’t entered his lair consciously. It was almost like an out-of-body experience or a dream where I woke up screaming at someone about something I didn’t even understand, let alone remember. The only thing I could do was bite my lower lip, out of nervousness and an unconscious desire to stop it from quivering uncontrollably.

“That’s not true,” Jack sneered with a mix of rage and disgust. “I am not like your father. I do NOT kick women.”

Barely remembering that I had made either accusation, I stared him down, hoping to appear confident that I had him under my microscope, just waiting to see how foolishly he’d react, when the truth was I was actually terrified he’d fire me on the spot.

I can get another job, I reassured myself silently, hoping not to cry right then and there. That’s the beauty of being underpaid. There is always someone else who will hire someone for peanuts. Are you kidding me? I could wait tables or bartend three nights a week and make way more money in one day than I get in this mental institution in 40 hours. And that’s the thing. If you get one asshole like this one on your table, he’s gone in a couple of hours. You don’t have to deal with the same bullshit day after day.

“Are you finished?” Jack asked me, smiling sweetly with only the slightest glimmer of mischief in his eyes.

“Oh you better believe I’m finished,” I assured him with rising confidence that what I had said didn’t sound like the raving madness of a hot headed woman who saw red and let it rip, without any idea of what she was saying to her boss.

“Good, I’m glad to hear it,” Jack nodded. “I don’t understand why you get so upset. Let’s go upstairs. Let’s go see the chef. He told me he had a dream about you last night.”

“I don’t want to go upstairs,” I protested. “I have to go meet somebody.”

“Come ohhhhhhhn,” he encouraged me, dragging the last word and standing up from his desk, looping his arm through my elbow that was defiantly symbolizing my protest against his irrational tyranny.

“You have to understand,” Jack whispered. “The chef is upset because he’s Swiss. They have very small penises. It’s tragic, really.”

Hoping to hang onto the belief that I was not the raging employee who had just verbally assaulted the boss, and was actually the legit victim of a monster employer, I feigned a resistance to being dragged out of the office toward the elevator bank.

As I looked back toward the stunned audience in our wake, hoping they weren’t making fun of me, I smiled as I saw Rosario winking, giving me the thumbs up and whispering “Go Girl.”

The first cousin of co-star Teresa Giudice and cousin-in-law to Melissa Gorga, Kathy regularly appears on camera with her husband Richie, daughter Victoria, son Joseph, and sister Rosie. She also has three brothers who have never been featured on the show, though her mother did make one heartwarming appearance earlier this season that revealed her own complicated upbringing when Kathy’s mother was “adopted” by a relative at five.

Since joining the cast in its third season, Kathy has brought three products – Goddess Eye Jewelry, Red Velvet Cosmo and Dolci della Dea – to market and has continued to promote awareness of the National Brain Tumor Society and The Children’s Brain Tumor Foundation, charities inspired by her daughter Victoria’s childhood ailment.

With cross-your-fingers hope that the overwhelming drama that surrounds the New Jersey Housewives can be lightened even slightly, Priscilla from Wasilla asked her 20 Questions to get to know the real Kathy better. Only slightly interested in hearing more about the insanity of this show and the women as they are today, we set out to discover who Kathy was back in high school when you passed in her in the hallways and going further back, who she was in Patterson with Teresa only a few blocks away. Here’s what we learned in 20 questions.

Priscilla from Wasilla: In high school who was your favorite musical artist?

Kathy Wakile: There were so many artists that I really liked, but the ones that stuck out the most and that I played over and over again were Pat Benatar, Journey, Styx, and The Cars.

PfW: On Sex & the City who was your favorite character? Who was your least favorite?

KW: I think that’s a really tough question, because I like them all for different reasons. But if I had to choose one, I think I’d have to choose Charlotte because she always looks on the bright side and stays positive, plus she’s a really sweet friend. I love all of the characters, I can’t choose who I like the least because they all brought something very special and unique to the show.

PfW: Do you watch any other Housewives locations, and if so, which ones and who are your favorite characters?

KW: I watch all of the other Housewives locations! From New York, Sonja is my favorite. From Atlanta, I’d have to say Phaedra and Kandi. From Miami, Lea and Adriana are my favorites. From OC, Gretchen is my favorite. And from Beverly Hills, I like Camille. These are my favorite choices because I’ve had some personal interactions with each of them and have gotten to know them, but I also enjoy watching all of the other ladies and look forward to getting to know each of them as well.

PfW: Are you glad you joined the cast and why?

KW: Of course yes I’m glad I joined the cast, it’s been a great experience so far. As for the uncomfortable situations that haven’t been as great as my other experiences on the show, I’ve been able to learn from them. Also being on the show has been a great opportunity to share my life, and because of it I have been able to become involved in some great charities like the National Brain Tumor Society and The Children’s Brain Tumor Foundation. Appearing on the show has also given me the motivation to start my own dessert line.

PfW: What advice would you give another woman who was considering becoming one of the Housewives?

KW: Make sure you have a solid foundation of who you are, and always tell the truth. Most importantly, be yourself because you always have you to fall back on.

PfW: How long did it take before you were comfortable in front of the cameras?

KW: Surprisingly, it didn’t take very long because you don’t even realize the cameras are there believe it or not!

PfW: How has being on the show changed your life where you live?

KW: Well, I don’t go out without makeup as much! And I never leave the house with bleach stained sweatpants anymore, that’s about it! But I’d have to say, you’re definitely more aware of your surroundings.

PfW: If you were forced to join the cast of another Housewives show where do you think you’d feel most comfortable, and why?

KW: Miami! I follow the sun, so I’d feel most comfortable in that setting. The west coast locations would be nice too, but Miami would be my pick – I love the beach and the sun, you can’t beat that!

PfW: Did Joey Gorga accept your apology about what you said about his parents?

KW: Yes, he knew that I didn’t mean it and that I said it out of anger. It wasn’t meant to be directed at his parents, it was a gut reaction to being hurt.

PfW: I think you look fantastic, in some ways like Salma Hayak. Did you always want to get something done, or did appearing on camera make you feel a pressure you’d never felt before?

KW: Well first of all I’m flattered by the comparison – she’s just gorgeous! I’ve played around with the idea of having the bump in my nose removed for so many years. Like many women, as they get older their faces slim down. The bump in my nose became more prominent and after 4 doctors consultations and finally gathering up enough courage to do it, I decided to fix it.

PfW: Do you think there is a chance this group can ever patch things up?

KW: Being the optimist that I am, I continuously hope that we all will come to a comfortable place where we can be together and resolve our differences.

PfW: How did the offer to appear on QVC come about?

KW: I went after it! It didn’t come about as much as I went and pursued it. When I decided to start my own company, the feedback I received from all over the country gave me the initiative to think of a way to make my desserts available nationwide. With QVC’s high standards and quality control in mind, I actively pursued becoming a part of the QVC family. I wanted to represent my brand through QVC because of the excellence and customer satisfaction that comes with it. My cannoli kit will launch on QVC in the beginning of December. If you want to find out more about my dessert line Dolci della Dea line go to kathywakile.com

PfW: All of the Gorgas seem fixated on their sex lives, including their father, whose prowess Joey bragged about at one point.  Was there an emphasis on sex in your childhood family?

KW: Not my family! Our family was very different than that, we didn’t emphasize that at all!

PfW: What was it like growing up in Patterson?

KW: It was great, I lived close to both sides of my family. It was the only childhood I knew and it was great. My parents’ social life consisted of family and we socialized with our cousins so there was always someone to play with, it was a small town community. Everyone had such big eyes, we didn’t even have to say what family we were part of!

PfW: Your mother’s story about her childhood was very touching. How do you think her experience affected how you and Rosie were raised?

KW: My mother was always there for us, always. She did everything in her power to make us feel loved. Nothing ever, ever, came before family.

PfW: How close did you live to the Gorgas?

KW: We lived only a few blocks away.

PfW: When you were little, did you all celebrate holidays together?

KW: We would see one another and visit for the holidays, but we didn’t always celebrate all of the meals together.

PfW: What is your first memory of Teresa?

KW: I can’t remember my first memory, but as a child I remember she was always full of energy and she loved excitement and she loved to play dress up. She was kind of like how Melania is now.

PfW: At some point Teresa mentioned that her parents and Joe Giudice’s parents were friends. Are you surprised they married?

KW: No, it’s pretty common growing up in an old fashioned environment that something like that would happen.

PfW: If you could do one thing differently while being on the show, not the reunion, but on the actual episodes we saw, what would it be?

KW: That’s pretty hard to say because nothing is rehearsed, you sort of just roll with things as they come along. You’re just being yourself and going with how you feel at the moment so it’s hard to pick out instances where you would have done something differently.

All photos are courtesy of BravoTV.com

She said it doesn’t mean it is good for them, but that at that moment, they believed it was their best option. I am not sure if this is always true, but I truly believe the cast of the Real Housewives of New Jersey are great examples of what my wise old friend was explaining to me. And for whatever reason, I’ve been giving this lots of thought lately.

As much as I cannot stand Melissa Gorga, I can see that she joined this show because she believed it was her best option to get what she wanted: fame in the greater world and the princess role in her family of birth and in her family with her in-laws. She saw Teresa Giudice as the obstacle to getting both fame and family prestige, so she sold her out by secretly talking to Danielle Staub and later joining the cast. She didn’t think she had a better option because she does not know how to get on TV without following Teresa. And she does not know how to establish her primary role in her husband’s life without running the risk of annihilating her sister-in-law’s role.

As much as I cannot stand Caroline Manzo I can see she truly believes family is the most important thing in the world and that she is the final say in who is acting appropriately in protecting the Manzo and Laurita families. She saw Teresa as the threat to everything she believes in because she simply could not control Teresa, as she once did, as Teresa’s fame rose.

Caroline was ticked about Teresa’s relationship with her sister Dina, and not just because she was jealous to some degree, but also because she believed that it threatened Caroline’s belief that she rightly has the final say about everything, including how Teresa is perceived by Caroline’s family and in the eyes of viewers. Because she felt threatened by Teresa, she chose what she believed was her best option: to blame Teresa for all of the problems with Dina and to enlist the help of others, most notably her children and Jacqueline Laurita in vilifying Teresa for even the slightest infraction.

Of course she had other options. She could have reconciled with Dina. We know this because all of the Laurita we’ve ever met, Caroline, Dina, Jamie and Chris, have always told us and each other that if any one of them was in distress, they’d move mountains for each other. But Caroline chose not to make a strong, serious effort to reconcile with Dina. I am guessing that would make Caroline feel too uncomfortable, like she was weak, or fallible. To do that, to admit that maybe she was wrong at some point must have felt like defeat for Caroline. And I also believe it would have been difficult, if not nearly impossible, to do that while retaining her own belief that she is the final say about what is and what is not right. As we all know by now, Caroline prefers to think of herself as the uniting matriarch who guides a number of families with sage advice.

Uncomfortable facing any other option, she chose to target Teresa as the destroyer of families. Suddenly Caroline was no longer singing the tune, “Teresa is so Funny,” as she had in earlier seasons. In seasons three, and especially in season 4, Caroline began to position Teresa as a threat to the Giudice family because she insisted her husband buy her things they could not afford, eventually sending Juicy into bankruptcy and public ridicule. Caroline also chose to bolster her argument that Teresa is anti-family  by reframing Teresa’s tendencies to bully and ostracize women she doesn’t like, as she did with Danielle years ago. Instead of finding it all “so funny,” as she once did, Caroline chose to focus on how much Teresa mistreated Melissa and Kathy Wakile.Caroline went so far as to point blank tell Melissa that Teresa hated her so much and wanted her off the show so badly that she was willing to destroy Melissa’s family. What’s more, she told us that eventually Teresa will divorce Juicy and write a tell all book to make herself sound like the strong woman who rose above adverse circumstances to raise her family as a single woman.

Because she has a limited view of how a matriarch behaves, Caroline took on the personality traits of a mob boss and issued a hit on Teresa. She did not know how to protect her infallible, unimpeachable role as the head of her “thick as thieves” family, without identifying and targeting Teresa as a common enemy that could take the fall for Caroline’s inability to live up to her own self-image.

As much as I cannot stand Teresa Giudice I can understand why she refuses to back down from any argument or to accept responsibility for ever doing anything wrong. She’s from Patterson. Did you forget that? Hehehe. Oh that hideous laugh. I’ve never been to Patterson. I know nothing about it, but I hear a world of information in Teresa’s braggadocio about the ruthless philosophy that must have populated her old neighborhood.

I don’t mean to sound mean, but here she is an uneducated little twerp who regularly trips over her own words, and she’s smack talking like she’s a cage fighter. Call her a coward, tell her to run away and thereby suggesting she’s afraid of someone, and she comes rolling back over to prove she’s Badass Teresa, ready to rip someone limb from limb. She’s not lying either. She’s willing to say or do anything to prove she’s Big Bad Teresa, including throwing a table at her dinner guest during a party, chasing a colleague into the parking lot of a country club at a charity fashion show. Heck, she thinks nothing of tossing her boss into a chair, and on camera!

Teresa simply does not how to protect herself without behaving violently and cruelly. Telling the truth is not part of her worldview. Fighting back toward anyone who threatens her is the guiding principle of all of her actions. That could be something as minor as suggesting she’s not grasping a conversation and should “pay attention. If you dare say something like that, that will get a raging woman calling you a “prostitution whore.” If you try to barge into her world and usurp her role as the princess of the Gorga family, or the glittering star of a Reality TV show where she makes her living, and showcases her life as the “hot” wife of a sexually-insatiable husband and devoted mother of meticulously groomed children, she’s going to make sure the audience and hundreds of bloggers debate about whether or not you were a stripper.

Teresa will always see fighting as her best option. She will never admit she’s wrong. She will never admit she’s vulnerable or scared. To do that, in Patterson, is weak. Teresa will always hit below the belt to hide her own frailties. And the tact she will always take is to call into question your sexuality, whether you are loose or whether you cannot keep your husband from cheating on you, as she revealed about Jacqueline. She will never find another, better option because she is exactly what she doesn’t want us see: a scared, vulnerable little girl who is so terrified of being attacked, as she must have been way back in Patterson, that she will expose anyone who reminds her of the fear and pain she must have felt in the past.

As much as I used to like Jacqueline Laurita, I now see her as a character straight out of George Orwell’s 1984. While she was once the woman who knew the difference between right and wrong and stood up to her sisters-in-law, Caroline and Dina, when she told them they weren’t being truthful about the roles they played in exposing Danille’s past with that book, Cop Without a Badge, that is no longer the Jacqueline we see today.

I truly believe she was taken away by the thought police and reprogrammed. Now, this woman has no idea what is true and what isn’t. She no longer has any idea what is moral and just and what isn’t. She’s retained all of the explosive impulses to blurt out whatever thought is currently crossing her mind, but she no longer has the principles she used to display and she’s completely lost her ability to reason by examining evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, and drawing rational conclusions. Now she’s just a mindless soldier in step with the party’s cause.

Just like most of the characters in 1984, she no longer needs reasons to switch alliances. If Big Brother Caroline is now at war with Teresa, Jacqueline will easily fall in line and confront Teresa about not sharing the blow-by-blow details of her legal and financial problems. And when the shouting simmers down, Jacqueline will easily tell her best friend that she has decided to distance herself from Teresa and her family.

If Jacqueline still had the ability to reason rationally as she once did, before she was reprogrammed, she would not try to make the argument on her blog, that Teresa is obviously in kahoots with Kim D. because they are still friendly even after Kim D. orchestrated a plot to expose Melissa’s past as a dancer in a bikini bar. In the very same blog she mentions that she herself is also still friends with Kim D. By that logic, which I actually understand, it would suggest that Jacqueline was also in on the set up – which I think she was, by the way.

If Jacqueline were remotely rational she would recognize that she has no business in frantically stirring the boiling pot, when during the reunion Teresa and Joey G. were discussing their damaged relationship. The fact that Andy Cohen, the greatest pot stirrer in Reality TV history, had to tell her to zip it is a big clue that Jacqueline had gone way too far.

Still despite all of this, I also recognize Jacqueline saw no other option. Although I think she’s practically been lobotomized to say and do whatever is asked of her, thus helping Andy misrepresent the timeline of this season, Jacqueline has retained the go-to personality tendency she’s exhibited from day one. She loves drama. She loves getting close to the flame. She likes the adrenaline rush of being in the thick of things, whether that’s hearing about the randy sex life of her friend Danielle, witnessing as Teresa taunts her friend with “is bitch better?” or receiving and reporting about the text messages her “friend” sent her that implicated Teresa as the mastermind of the Posche Fashion Show’s season-ending big reveal.

There are plenty of people who would not befriend Danielle and gossip about “Gucci Model.” There are plenty of people who would steer clear of Teresa and her country club “What you don’t say hi?” ambush of their colleague. There are plenty of people who would feel foolish poisoning everyone’s interpretation of what happened when Angelo walked into the Posche Fashion Show by first saying Teresa “set up” Melissa, and later admitting “that’s just what I heard,” as though there is no harm in actively spreading rumors. But for Jac there is no other option. Behaving like a moth flying around a flame, fanning the fire by telling the world that Juicy cheats on Teresa, and by shrieking straight through Teresa and her brother’s conversation about their problems, that have precisely nothing to do with Jacqueline, is all Jacqueline’s life will ever be.

As much as I still like Kathy Wakile, despite how cruelly she spoke at the reunion, I also think all of her actions point to her choosing what she believed was her best option. While she does not strike me as fame-obsessed, I have to admit she must like being on television enough to willingly watch her family fall apart before her very eyes. She likes it enough to get her nose worked on and fillers pumped into her lips. Personally, I think she looks great, by the way. When I see her new look, at a quick glance, I see a version of Salma Hayak. But I also see that normally reserved Kathy, who has successfully bitten her tongue during many of the craziest scenes in Housewives history, also unleashed her muzzle during the reunion, going so far as to call her aunt “a liar” and her uncle “a coward.”

Sure she could have lost her temper. We’ve all done that, but few of us would berate our older relatives on national television in front of an audience in the neighborhood of 4 million people. Personally, I think she felt like she had to. I think that somewhere in the back of her mind, Kathy knew she had to bring some big drama or else she’d find herself without a role on this show next season.

I really have no idea why normally dignified Kathy would amp up the drama to stay on this show, if in fact that was her strategy. Does she want the Bravo paycheck? Does she want to use the Bravo platform to sell pastries? Is she just restless and looking for something to spice up her life as she begins to prepare for an empty nest, now that her children are getting older and going off to college? Is she just adventurous and took the plunge into the unknown? I really have no idea. But I hope all of this ends up being worth it for her because I truly believe she has other options, some of which I am sure are more pleasant. (For a look at the fun side of Kathy Wakile, please take a look at 20 Questions)

The one person who truly mystifies me is Kim D. I do not understand even slightly why she wanted to embarrass Melissa. I know she admitted during the reunion that she is vengeful and was angry that Melissa was supporting a rival clothing boutique with a similar name. I know she said she’s always been the lucky recipient of hurtful information that she can use to damage other people.

While I don’t like any of that, and do not see how this is in Kim D’s best interest, what I most of all don’t understand is why so many people in this cast remain friendly with her. Despite everything that has happened, Teresa and Jacqueline are still friends with her and we learned at the reunion that Caroline likes her. What does Kim D. have on these people? There must be something. Caroline prides herself on blasting anyone who crosses her path, and yet there she was on that reunion sofa, pledging her admiration for Kim D. Seriously what was all of that about?

Why and how does remaining friendly with Kim D. benefit any of these people?

All photos are courtesy of BravoTV.com except the first one which is from mommasaid.net

“I don’t know,” Andrew responded with more than a little annoyance. “I don’t have time to deal with this right now, Hannah.”

“Okay, fine. I’m only asking because the agency called and they were wondering if we’d made a decision yet,” I snapped.

“Hannah, I have a philosophy about things like this,” he explained, rolling the lint brush over his shoulders, meticulously removing nonexistent hairs and threads from his suit jacket.

“I put everything in one of two piles: things that make me money and things that cost me money. Do you get it?” he asked me as though he were sharing one of life’s great secrets.

“Of course,” I said, staring him down, waiting for him to continue the thought with anything substantive. A witty punch line? An opinion? A promise that we could talk about the new ad campaign after he finished lunch service? He said nothing.

“Then what do you want me to tell them?” I asked, with a bizarre combination of a timid delivery and forceful insistence.

“How ‘bout this. You tell the great George Lane that his priorities are not mine. Tell Mark or Allison or whoever is trying to push you around that we do not appreciate their trying to inflict their deadlines on us,” he scolded me with a whisper, obviously intended to bully me into silence.

“If they must have an answer right now,” he continued staring down at my desk. “Tell them we like this one best,” he said swirling his finger through the air and randomly landing on one of the six ads that were spread out beneath him.

“Thanks a lot,” I replied snidely, feeling bad both because he didn’t seem to care and that I had pressured him.

“It’s showtime,” he replied, as he opened the office door. “That is my priority.”

Oh sure, I’m going to call the agency and tell them we like one of these crappy ads that Andrew chose randomly, I thought to myself. That makes a lot of sense. Might as well let the Magic 8-Ball on my desk make the decision.

Frustrated, I shook the kitschy toy Terry gave me as a gag going away gift when I left the agency and silently asked a question that was far too complicated for a hokey novelty gadget. Should I tell Andrew all of these ads were crap or should I just shut up and keep my opinions to myself?

Just as I was waiting for the answer to float to the surface, I saw Jack emerging from his glass encased office. He glanced down at it and read the words on the dice inside.

“All signs point to yes?” he asked, gleefully. “What is this?”

“Oh it’s just some stupid toy someone gave me,” I answered, half scared he’d give me another lecture about what I fraud he thought I was. “I was about to throw it away,” I continued.

Jack ignored me entirely and continued to shake it violently and then waited impatiently for the words that appeared seconds later.

“Without a doubt…Don’t count on it…Better not tell you now,” he read out loud, squinting to decipher each message and laughing demonically after he read it.

“So what did that big queer have to say about the ads,” Jack asked me, tossing the toy in the air like a juggler.

“We didn’t really talk about them yet,” I told him. “He said he’s too busy.”

“Of course!” Jack erupted. “He’s always too busy.  But what is he doing?” he asked rhetorically, gesturing with his right hand, while putting the Magic 8-ball in his left pocket. “Es-cuse me, ladies and gentlemen,” he began his speech in a room where no other man was present. “What are we doing here? Are we asleep? That’s it. This fucking guy is asleep. Don’t you think?” he asked, thankfully not looking for an answer from me.

“Is he normul?” He asked rolling the r slightly and revealing a hint of an Italian accent.

“I don’t know who’s normal,” I told him truthfully. “The agency wants an answer, and I just want to give them some feedback, any feedback. It’s been a week. We owe them that.”

“Go upstairs,” Jack told me. “Have lunch. Later this afternoon, we’ll look through the ads. That guy is a fucking asshole. If you were a little boy he’d have all the time in the world for you.”

Unsure what to say, I nodded my head in agreement and said, “Okay.” As I did he began to theatrically dance out the door, doing a pirouette as he floated into the hallway, talking to himself.

“Ah I’m Andrew von Basel. I’m very important. I’m too busy to work,” I heard him murmur in a singsong voice. “I need a little boy to make me feel like a big man.”

I couldn’t help but giggle. I knew what Jack was insinuating, and I didn’t really appreciate it, but I admit he was entertaining, even if he had stolen my magic 8-ball like a bus station pick pocket.

When I knew he was long gone, I grabbed my jacket and made my way through the back hallways and into the kitchen to order lunch. There I heard a symphony of sounds, produced by the organized chaos of a restaurant kitchen at full tilt.

Through the din of pots clanking, trays slapping on counters, and ice swirling through glasses, the chef was screaming into a microphone. “Two filet, one medium, one medium rare; one Dover sole, sauce on the side, one monkey,” he called off the order on one ticket, horrifying me that someone would actually be lunching on monkey meat.

“That is absolutely disgusting,” I mumbled out loud, unaware anyone could hear me.

“What’s disgusting?” Frank asked as he saw me approach the line of cooks, who were franticly sautéing fish over flames that seem to jump into the air unexpectedly, as they flipped the filets over with a flick of their wrists.

“No nothing. I was just thinking about a movie I saw last night. I’d love lunch,” I said timidly “If you have time, that’d be great,” secretly hoping he wouldn’t give me yet another wild salmon steak.

“It’s not problem,” he replied almost robotically. “You’re lucky it’s not that busy. “We’re only doing 235 for lunch today.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it,” I told him and asked “is it okay if I eat here at the chef’s desk? I need to make a couple of phone calls.”

“Yeah sure,”’ he told me. “Just don’t get anything dirty. Okay? The chef will kill you.”

Oh great, I thought. Another combative hot head. This place is Bellevue.

Just then a short man rounded the corner toward the chef’s desk and bumped into my chair, without seeing I was sitting there.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized, not knowing who he was or who he was talking to when I heard him shout backward, “you wanna fuck with me, asshole? I’ll cut your hours back so far you’ll be crying like the bitch that you are. You got that?”

Alarmed, my eyes widened, as I stared back at him and began to stand up from the desk.

“Oh I’m sorry sweetie,” he said to me, patting my shoulder. “I just have to get my keys from this drawer,” he explained as he reached his arm around me and grabbed the largest ring of keys I’d ever seen.

“You can stay here,” he assured me. “It’s nice to see a woman in the kitchen for a change.”

“I’ll eat fast,” I promised. “I was just hoping to make a few phone calls here, rather than go back to my desk.”

“Take your time,” he smiled sweetly. “Like I said it’s nice to have a beautiful woman in here, instead of all these maricóns who smell gamely after a couple of hours.”

“Okay. Thank you,” I replied, wondering who this man was.

“I’m Hannah,” I introduced myself. “I work in the office with Andrew and Jack. I don’t think we’ve met.”

“It’s my pleasure to meet you,” he replied suddenly sounding more formal than the threatening monster who’d initially banged into the chair. “I’m the sous chef. But you can call me Ed.”

“Nice to meet you, too, Ed,” I smiled, as Frank placed a huge piece of grilled salmon in front of me.

“Kai ask you a question,” Ed asked me. “Why do you eat salmon every day? Don’t you get sick of it?”

“Oh I don’t know,” I replied, “That’s just what they give me. It’s absolutely fine” I continued truthfully, trying to sound grateful, but secretly hoping someone would intervene and add a little variety to my diet.

“Give me that,” he said, gesturing for me to hand him my plate.

“No, no, no, seriously it’s fine,” I protested, worried I sounded like a prima donna. He ignored me.

“Frank, pick up one monkey. She doesn’t want to eat salmon every day,” he called toward the line, much to my horror.

“I don’t mean to sound ungrateful,” I told Ed. “I just don’t think I can eat monkey. I know I should be more adventurous,” I confessed, completely embarrassed. “But I just can’t eat that. This salmon is absolutely fine. I swear.”

“Sweetie, nobody wants you to eat monkey. Oh my God. That’s funny. It’s monkfish. We just call it monkey as a joke,” he laughed. “The monkfish is really good. You’re going to love it. Let me take that dish. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Wow that’s a relief, I thought to myself. No monkey, no salmon. Things are looking up here in Bellevue.

I picked up the phone and dialed my mother. After a couple of rings, she answered. “Hi mom it’s me,” I announced.

“Me, who?” she replied, without waiting for an answer. “Can you hold on a minute, I’m wrestling with an alligator?” After a minute or two she returned to the phone.”

“I’m back. Who is this?” she asked abruptly.

“It’s me Hannah. I have to tell you some good news,” I told her, completely unaware that most people easily recognize the voices of their children without asking.

“Oh good, I love good news. Make it quick,” she instructed me efficiently. “I have to take the cat to the vet and she will not get into the carrier. I wish your sister didn’t force this cat on me. I do not like cats. I do not like dogs. I thought I was out of the pet business a long time ago. So what’s up Hannah, old girl?

“I got a job writing,” I squealed. “It’s for this lady Helen, who…”

“Oh dear God you got fired from that restaurant? I told you not to leave that advertising agency,” she scolded me. “What are you going to do? Can you beg them for your job back?”

“No I didn’t get fired. You’re such an hysteric. Stop it!” I fired back. “I’m being auditioned for a part time job, something I’d do in addition to my restaurant job.”

“Well that doesn’t sound so bad,” she said, sounding relieved. “Why are you complaining to me about it?”

“I’m not complaining; I’m excited. I’m going to be a secret shopper. I’m going to write reviews of restaurants,” I explained.

“They’re not going make you pay for those meals are they? You can’t afford that. I hope you don’t expect me to pay for them,” she warned me.

“No of course not. I wouldn’t dream of it,” I assured her. “They’re going to pay for the meals and they’re going to give me $25 to write up the reports of what happened while I was in the restaurant. It’s my first paying job as a writer,” I bragged, hoping to impress her.

“Hannah, I’m sorry. I just cannot listen to this. Real writers do not write about food in restaurants. Real writers create literature, poetry, plays, things people want to read,” she explained with the pompous air of Barnard English major she once was.

“Mom, I know it’s not literature. Why can’t you just be happy for me?” I asked genuinely hurt that couldn’t even lie and make herself sound encouraging.

“I cannot be happy when I am expected to take care of your sister’s cat,” she hissed into the phone. “I’ve got to go, Hannah. I’m late,” she explained and hung up, leaving me wishing I’d never called her.

I sat there, stunned, staring at the phone and wondering if it really was a sign of insanity to do the same thing repeatedly, always expecting a different result.

“Here you go, sweetie,” Ed said as he returned and placed a colorful dish of food in front of me. “Barbecued monkfish with mango-papaya salsa,” he smiled, handing me a linen napkin, a fish knife and fork. “And,” he said dramatically, revealing a glass of wine from behind his back. “A glass of Sancerre. Bon Appetit!”

“Gosh, thanks,” I gushed. “This looks delicious. Thank you so much.”

“No problem, but do me a favor, okay?” he asked. “If you need anything else, let me know. And don’t go to this asshole Manza when you’re hungry. You come to me; okay, sweetie?”

“Sure, thanks a lot. I really appreciate it,” I told him, genuinely thrilled that anyone took any interest in being nice to me or giving me what was probably the most delicious food I’d ever tasted in my life.

As I poked through the salsa, fascinated by the chunks of tomato, slivers of red onion and cilantro leaves in it, I dialed the phone again.  This time voice mail picked up.

“You’ve reached Lucille,” the voice on the other end purred. “But I’m more than just a number. You can leave a message and maybe I’ll call you back.”

“Nice message Lucille. Very cat woman. Listen, I’m calling from work, but from someone else’s desk. Call me back on my cell phone. I want to ask you a quick question. It’ll only take a second. So call me back today. Okay thanks.” I said, knowing there was, at best, a 50/50 chance that my childhood best friend would return the call.

As I went to bus my dishes, Jack strolled through the kitchen toward the service bar and instructed the bartender to pour him, “a half a glass of my wine.”

From behind the cage, the bartender looked genuinely confused and responded, “the Latour?”

“Of course!” Jack barked back. “What do you expect? Do you expect me to drink that pee-pee Andrew drinks?” he asked clicking his heels and giving me a wink.

“Thank you, sir,” Jack told the bartender before picking up the glass and swallowing all of its contents in one motion. “Delicious!” he proclaimed with a gasp and a kiss on the back of his right hand.

“So what do you expect?” he turned to me. “What am I supposed to do? If the customers are going to buy expensive wines and then leave them unfinished? Do you expect me to let them go to waste?” he continued, sizing me up for an answer.

“No you’d be crazy not to drink it or to sell it to someone else by the glass,” I assured him. “Personally I prefer Burgundies to Bordeaux, but I’d never let any of it to go to waste,” I responded, hoping he’d see that I did know a little about wine and restaurants.

“Oh really, you don’t like Bordeaux,” he challenged me, staring at me intently, like he was sizing me up and wasn’t impressed by what he was concluding.

“It’s not that I don’t like them,” I told him. “I once tried a Rothschild that was so delicious a baby would drink it. I just like Burgundies more.”

“Oh really,” he responded mockingly. “So? Are you ready to talk about the ads?”

“Yeah, sure. I’d love it,” I told him, as he gestured for me to follow him.

Through the kitchen door and into the dining room, I raced to keep up with him. He showed no sign of slowing down or any concern that I was nearly sprinting in 3-inch sling back pumps to remain within 20-feet of him. It wasn’t until we were outside the restaurant and in the middle of the sidewalk before he paused even slightly.

“Come on,” he told me, falling just short of sounding like he was talking to a dog.

“Where are we going?” I asked him, confused about what he had in mind.

“I need a new tie,” he explained matter of factly as though any of this made any sense. “Let’s go to Bergdorf’s. This is not gay enough for me,” he explained tugging on the pink one he’d been wearing all day.

Too puzzled to react, I stood motionless for longer than he could tolerate.

“Come on. What do you expect? Should I walk around miserable all day long, like Andrew wearing the same miserable tie? Are you coming or not?”

“Oh sure, here I come,” I replied as he turned on his heels, once again leaving me in his wake as I struggled to catch up with him before the light on Madison Avenue turned green.

“Morning,” Jacked nodded to the salesman who stood near entrance of the men’s department. “Good afternoon, sir,” he replied. “May I help you find something?”

“Yes,” he batted his eyelashes as he looked up toward the ceiling, grasping his lapels with both hands and clicking his heels. “I need something very gay, maybe a tie.”

The salesman showed no reaction and waved us toward half a dozen tables, colorfully displayed with every type of tie anyone could ever want or imagine.

“I don’t think these are gay enough,” Jack insisted. “Do you have anything with fruit on it? Maybe cherries or bananas?”

“I don’t think so, sir,” the man deadpanned.

“Come on, lighten up,” Jack smiled. “I need something fun. Don’t you have something fun? My girlfriend is a lesbian. She likes fun ties,” he laughed, determined to get a smile from the overly serious salesman, who gave me a look, quickly checking me out from the tips of my toes to the top of my head.

“I am not a lesbian and I am not his girlfriend,” I involuntarily protested, waving my hand in denial, as a thunderous voice bellowed from behind us.

“Jack Garfanini what are you doing here?” a tall, well-dressed older man asked.

He looked familiar but I couldn’t place his face. As they talked, I brushed my fingers across a table of ties, like I was playing a piano.  I was amazed to discover that not one cost less than $200.

“So did you find anything good,” Jack asked me. “Anything tutti frutti?”

Unsure how I should respond, I pointed at one and sheepishly offered my silliest answer. “Well this one is not exactly fruit and I’m not sure how gay it is, but it does have vegetables on it,” I told him.

“Escuse me,” Jack beckoned to the salesman. “What is this?”

“It’s an Hermes tie, sir,” he replied. “The pattern is leeks, you know, the vegetable?”

“Wikileaks!” Jack shouted enthusiastically, like he was a contestant on a game show who’d just solved the puzzle. “It’s perfect!  I’ll take it,” he said, handing the salesman his credit card as he removed his old tie, and began to stuff it into this overcoat pocket.

“Oh here,” he said to me, handing me the magic 8-ball he’d taken from me earlier in the day. “Mr. Waterman didn’t like it too much when I was teasing him with this today,” he explained as he adjusted his new tie.

“Oooooooo, he went bananas,” Jack continued, as he admired himself in the mirror. “He got so upset. Every time I asked it if his IPO would go well it kept coming back, ‘Don’t count on it,’ ‘Outlook not so good,’ and ‘Very doubtful.’ I mean what does this fucking guy want? It’s a toy. It’s not my fault the bankers keep taking him to the cleaners.”

“What bankers?” I asked him, having no idea who Mr. Waterman was or, more importantly, what Jack was talking about.

“All of them. It doesn’t really matter. Don’t you understand? “It’s an inside job. It’s very simple. It’s not very complicated at all. It’s a very serious situation,” he explained as though what he said shed any light whatsoever on anything he was trying to communicate.

“It’s so fucking stupid, these Wall Street assholes taking advantage of people. It’s fixed. Don’t you get it? It’s all fixed. Forget about that. I don’t even want to talk about it. Don’t you read the papers?  Did you see that asshole at Barclay’s admitting he lost $4 billion? Escuse me, if that’s what he’s admitting to, what did he really lose $24 billion?  Ah ha! That’s the question. That’s the real question. But nobody wants to talk about that one. Hrmph!”

We walked silently for a few more blocks. Trying to change the subject, I asked him who the guy was that he was talking to store.

“Don’t you watch TV?” Jack asked. “He’s on CNN. What do you expect? When he should be out investigating all of these stories, he’s buying ties at Bergdorf Goodman. Must be nice. That Julian Assange is doing the job this fraud should be doing. And I’m doing the job Andrew should be doing, but instead he’s on retreat, almost every weekend, with his men’s group. Can you imagine?”

Without pausing for even a second, he continued. “So what’s the story with the ads? Are they good?”

Knowing he was on a roll, just waiting to pounce on something, anything, I told the truth, worried he’d call me a fraud if I didn’t. “They’re horrible. They’re stale. They’ve been done before. They’ll never bring in any business. And worst of all, some of them are obviously aimed at humor, but they’re not funny at all.”

“Excuse me!” he exploded, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to make his point. “What are we doing here? Are you going to say something? It’s all very nice to,” he began to explain, making kissing sounds in the air, “but we have a job to do. The people who eat in the Equinox are not our friends. We serve them. That’s it,” he thundered, with his complexion reddening. “Andrew can spend his time sucking up to them, trying to get invited on their boats and to their parties, but we have a job to do. I think you’re a total fraud if you don’t say something to him. You seem like a very nice woman, but that!” he shouted, “is the bottom line.”

We walked back to the office, silently. He started out a few paces ahead of me, but the distance grew wider as I stopped the struggle to keep up with him. When I reached the Equinox’s front door, I found Jack waiting for me, holding the door open. Just inside the lobby was Andrew, seated and reading a copy of the Observer that someone had left behind.

Jack raised his eyebrows and chin in Andrew’s direction, rolling his eyes and mumbling “a man of leisure” under his breath before announcing, “Jack, Hannah wants to talk to you about the ads Lane sent over. Do you think you could make the time?”

“Sure, I have all the time in the world,” Andrew replied. “I have to meet with one person first. When I’m done, why don’t we all sit down in the dining room and discuss them together?”

“I’m very sorry, but I can’t. I really apologize” Jack explained sounding almost deferential. “Please forgive me. As much as I would like to be there, I have an appointment with Mr. Weitzel’s wife about their son’s bar mitzvah. This little kid wants to bring Kanye West in to perform and he’s throwing a temper tantrum because his parents don’t want to pay a million dollars for a 20 minute concert. I barely had shoes when I was growing up and this little jerk expects the world to be handed to him on a silver platter.”

“No problem,” Andrew replied. “We’ll get your opinion later.”

“No that’s okay,” Jack said suspiciously. “I trust you. I know you’ll make the right decision,” he continued, swinging open the men’s room door.

“Listen Hannah,” Jack turned back to me. “Let’s talk first thing in the morning. I doubt you’ll still be here by the time I get back from my meeting.

“Okay,” I said, grateful to have the extra time to muster up the courage and diplomacy to tell the truth without annoying Andrew.

“Half a day?” Andrew asked with a raise of an eyebrow when he happened to stroll passed me on Park Avenue as I was trying to hail a taxi to meet with Helen.

Before I could answer, he assured me I’d never find an available cab so early in Midtown’s endless rush hour.

“We’re still in the change over,” he told me. “The night drivers aren’t back from Queens yet. That’s where their garages are. If you really want to catch one, your only hope is to go to 53rd or 59th Street where they reenter Manhattan.”

“Oh, okay. Thanks,” I told Andrew, hoping he didn’t think I was a clock-watcher who bolted from work at the stroke of five.

“But if you want,” he continued, “I could drop you off someplace. Where are you going?”

“Oh that’s okay.” I told him, nervously. Simultaneously intimidated to be in a car alone with him and scared he’d discover I was heading off for a job interview with someone he knew. I tried to hide it all by assuring him,“I’m not going far.”

“Well then get in,” he laughed, holding opening the door to the town car that was waiting for him.

Reluctantly I did, trying to shuffle across the back seat, assuming he’d follow in after right after me. He did not. Instead he walked around the other side of the car and entered from the traffic side.

“Hannah, you’ll find that true gentleman never expect a lady to slide across a back seat,” he explained, unaware that I took the comment as a suggestion I knew little about how chivalrous men behave.

“We’re going to be making two stops,” Andrew instructed the driver as we headed east across 57th Street. The first stop is,” he paused gesturing for me to finish the sentence. “Lex and 30th,” I chimed in.

“The second stop is 16th, between Fifth and Madison,” Andrew continued to the driver, who nodded a confirmation and a respectful, “Will do Mr. von Basel.”

“So is that where you live?” Andrew asked, turning his attention to me.

“Oh no, I live on the Lower Eastside. I’m going to visit friend,” I lied.

“Your boyfriend?” Andrew asked, delving into my personal life a little too deeply.

“Absolutely not,” I protested. “I don’t have a boyfriend; I’m going to see a friend,” I lied again, afraid he’d psychically know I was looking for another job or that he’d see me as unavailable.

“No boyfriend?” he asked, looking genuinely surprised. “Interesting. Very interesting. But you live on the Lower Eastside?” he asked with an expression that suggested he’d just smelled something awful.

“Is it safe?” he asked. “I thought that was all Chinatown and old world Hassidic Jews with the few streets of Little Italy that still remain there,” He continued, as the car slowly twisted its way down Lexington Avenue.

“Yes I think it’s safe,” I assured him, lying yet again. “My roommate and I are definitely outsiders and it did take a bit of getting used to. All of the shops on our street are closed on Saturdays. You know the Sabbath and all. And when you get a little further West, no one speaks English and you rarely see anyone who is not Chinese, but I like it,” I lied again. “It’s a great neighborhood. We live next to that famous pickle store from that movie, Crossing Delancey, and across the street they sell really delicious bialys. Tour buses are always stopping there.”

“Wow!” Andrew replied sarcastically. “Pickles and bialys. The glamour of it all!”

Annoyed that Andrew was obviously looking down on me, I called to the driver, “I can get out here, if that’s okay.”

“Well here you are,” Andrew said, as the car pulled over to the left side and I opened the door.

“Thanks, thanks for the ride,” I told him with a smile and jumped out inelegantly, nearly tripping over the curb, as I made my way up to the sidewalk. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Thanks again.”

As I walked to the corner, looking around to find the right building, I felt a flutter of butterflies in my gut. I looked up and saw the sign in the second story window: Washington Controls.

I walked into the building, and found a dusty lobby with a porter, mopping dirty sudsy water across the scratched linoleum tiles.

“I have an appointment at Washington Controls,” I told the man, who showed precisely no interest in who I was or why I was there. He merely smiled, pushed the up button and mumbled “Si” without breaking his rhythmic swishing of the mop back and forth across the tiny vestibule.

As I opened the Washington Controls door, I heard only a familiar bark. “Jessica, who is that?”

A meticulously groomed woman with short spiky hair looked up briefly from an old metal filing cabinet and said, “I don’t know” before returning to finger her way through an overstuffed drawer of manila folders.

“Is it that girl Rihanna?” the bark continued.

“It’s actually Hannah,” I replied. “My name is Hannah, not Rihanna. I’m here to see Helen. She and I spoke by phone today.

“Well then come in here,” Helen shouted back from a small office to the left. “What you don’t knock before you come into someone’s office?” she asked without raising her head from the computer screen.

Just as I was beginning to apologize, Helen took one look at me and stated the obvious, “you’re not black. I understood you were black.”

“Uh no, I’m not black,” I admitted reluctantly, unsure if that was a good thing or not.

“That’s too bad,” Helen scoffed. “I was hoping you were. We need more ethnic investigators. The way the laws are now, diversity is very important to me and to the restaurateurs and hoteliers who retain us. And we all want to know how every type of guest is treated by the staff.

She then told me to take a seat and asked to see my resume, which oddly enough I did have in my Bermuda Triangle of a bag, where the things that entered it, rarely escaped.

I handed it to her and she glanced over it briefly before barking once again. “What is this? A secretarial resume? I thought you said you’d worked in dozens of restaurants,” she confronted me.

“I have. I counted them up today, after we spoke. I’ve worked in 23 restaurants,” I answered relatively calmly considering that I was normally provoked to shout back when someone scolded me incessantly. “I just didn’t mention them on the resume because I wrote this one to get a job in advertising. The lady in the employment agency didn’t think they would interest anyone who was hiring a junior art director or copywriter.”

“Okay, tell me about yourself,” Helen challenged me with pursed lips, as I got distracted looking at her tight Judge Judy perm and crisp white starched collar that peaked out front under her navy blue wool cardigan. “I don’t have all day madam. Tell me.”

“I don’t know what to say,” I began slowly. “I’ve worked in almost two dozen restaurants. I started, during high school at a country club near my parents house. It was very formal service with waiters teamed up. One worked in the kitchen and the other on the floor. I was the front waiter. The entrees were about $30 each, full bar. The place was always busy because all the members had minimums. They had to spend a certain amount in the dining room every month, or they’d be charged anyway. The food was called ‘continental’ but it was really just classic New Jersey-Italian dishes with a couple of French choices. No busboys. But there was a hostess who acted like a maitre d’. You know, beachy look, bright blond hair, deep tan, cocktail dress, lots of glitter. When you sold a bottle of wine, the manager, John, would open and serve it. He had a handlebar moustache and reeked of either cigarettes.

“He would talk down to us and the guests, but we had to give him $5 each for every bottle. I think it was kind of a jerky move because he demanded it right in front of the customer. I’m sure they could hear him. And then he’d wait there at the table, to be tipped out, directly from the customers, but he had to take a couple of dollars from all of us. Sometimes there was a bartender, a really old guy, who always tried to make everyone drink stingers; other times we had to make our own drinks. Nothing complicated. Chardonnays, Dewars on the rocks. Craziest thing I ever made was a martini or a Manhattan. Oh and Sabuca after dinner with three coffee beans in each one. I hated it when the old guy would drop them into the glass with his bare hands.”

“Go on,” Helen said with no indication of whether what I saw saying was interesting or if I was in the process of looping a noose around my neck just in time for my eventual hanging at the hands of a woman whose clothing seemed extraordinarily pressed, with severe crease marks down the arms of her sweater.

“In college, I worked in a lot of different restaurants, as I told you. We were on a trimester system and during the middle term we had to leave campus and get a job in our fields,” I explained.

“Oh really,” she asked me, while making quote marks in the air with her fingers. “What exactly is your ‘field?’

“I majored in painting. Straight through college I waited tables and during the middle term, when the school was closed, I visited other cities and had two jobs. One, during the day, as an unpaid intern in an art gallery and the other, at night and on weekends, in a restaurant,” I continued with my oral resume.

“Painting? You majored in painting? Not Art? Not art history? But painting?” Helen asked me with a mix of disbelief and genuine curiosity. “What did you expect to do with that once you graduated?”

“Initially I wanted to be painter, but after working in a few galleries I began to doubt that would ever happen,” I explained, almost embarrassed. “Most painters are men. That’s just the way it is. My roommate is also a painter. And he’s gay guy. I don’t like it, but the art world is always going to be easier for him.”

“Oh you think it’s easy being gay, madam?” she shook her head at me, making it clear that a) she did not think it was easy being gay; b) that her hair was so heavily sprayed that not a strand of it was ever going to move; and that c) she did not suffer homophobes without unleashing a well-rehearsed tongue lashing.

“No, Helen,” I said shaking my head, accidentally mimicking her. “I went to art school. Practically every person I studied with is gay. I do not think their lives are easier, but I do know that there are advantages in being a gay man in a New York City art gallery. That’s all. Nothing more; noting less.”

“Go on,” she responded with a dismissive smirk that the witness on the stand could continue to give her very annoying testimony.

“Probably the busiest restaurant I ever worked in was in California, on the Malibu pier. It was packed seven days a week with, at times, a three hour wait for tables. Everyone went there: underdressed locals, pompous movie stars, suntanned surfers, nervous tourists, motorcycle club guys who were stopping in while cruising up Pacific Coast Highway. Those motorcycle guys are excellent tippers, by the way. The food was spectacular. The chef was half French, half Filipino. He was really smart. The entrees were about $25 each and the place had a booming bar business. Everyone was there: Ozzy Osbourne, Liz Taylor, even Martina Navratolova,” I tossed out a few names to see which would spark her interest the most.

“Oh really Martina? I love tennis,” Helen offered, making me giggle internally.

“I made a fortune there,” I paused, wondering if she was interested in the slightest in anything I had to say about anything unrelated to lesbian icons.

She said nothing. She just stared at me with her hands forming a temple that propped up her chin. Nervously, I continued to chatter, uncomfortable with any gaps in our conversation.

“I started out, seating people, at night and on weekends. One day, when it was an extraordinarily busy brunch, the owner let me take a couple of tables in the back, where no one who wasn’t starved out of his or her mind would want to sit because they offered no ocean views. I think I made $300 that afternoon.”

“That sounds very nice for you,” Helen said dismissively. “This job doesn’t pay that kind of money and we do not work with restaurants that surfers and motorcycle gangs enjoy. Have you ever worked in formal restaurants with wine stewards and tableside service?”

“Of course,” I responded, believing that something I was saying must be piquing her interest on some level. Otherwise she wouldn’t have mentioned how little she was paying or asked to hear more.

“I’ve worked in many serious, very formal jacket and tie restaurants, including the number one French restaurant in New Jersey, a couple of inns in Vermont, where we had to how to know tableside service like carving beef wellingtons, making Caesar salads, flaming cherries jubilee and sabering Champagne,” I bragged, knowing full well that I’d be terrified to open a bottle a Champagne with a sword.

“The number one restaurant in New Jersey?” Helen snorted with disgust. “We work with much higher level places than you’ll find in the suburbs, but I like you. I might be willing to give you a chance, a test if you will.”

“Wow! That’s great. Thank you so much,” I groveled. “When can I start?”

“Well, it’s a two step process,” she explained. “First I’m going to fingerprint you and get a full report about your criminal background. If you pass, I’ll have you bonded. Second I’ll send you out on a test surveillance to see if you can uncover the kind of details my clients find valuable. Do you understand me? Have you ever been arrested?” she asked me, studying my face like a detective.

“No, of course not,” I told her.

“You’d be surprised madam,” she assured me, raising one eyebrow to let me know I was still under her microscope.

After she took my mug shot, inked my fingers for prints and asked me to sign a release that gave her permission to access my credit report and other mysteriously described records, she walked me to the office door.

“You know what? I like you,” she announced with the same stern bark I was becoming increasingly used to. “I’m going to give you an assignment right now. This is a test, mind you. Just a test.  Are you willing to start right away?”

“Sure,” I smiled, wondering in which of the city’s great restaurants I’d find myself, living it up and secretly spying on everything that happened there.

“Dallas BBQ,” she answered. “I admit, it’s not five star dining. I just don’t trust you enough yet for anything bigger than that. I want you to go into the one on Third Avenue, on the Upper East Side, in the 70s. Bring a friend. Have a drink at the bar. Then go into the dining room. Lunch or dinner. It doesn’t matter. Then I want you to write up a report about everything that happened. Absolutely everything. Do you still have the report we wrote for the Equinox?”

“Yes, yes I do,” I stammered.

“Good. That’s our style. I want you to use that format. Not the exact words, the style. Do you understand me?” I nodded in agreement.

“Perfect,” she said. “I want you to have that back to me in the next three days. And send me an invoice for what you spent there, plus $25. Don’t’ forget the receipt! When you give me the report and the invoice, I’ll pay you on the spot. Do we understand each other? You can take notes while you’re there, but under no circumstances can anyone who works there know what you’re doing. Have a nice evening, madam.”

Too happy and too exhausted by Helen’s witness stand questioning, I bypassed the elevator entirely and sprinted down the steps to the ground floor. After a quick subway ride to my apartment, I burst through the door to find Franklin and his boyfriend, Sergio, making out in the kitchen, while stirring what looked like marinara sauce on the stove. As I dead bolted the door and ripped off my faux fur coat, I launched into a surprising burst of excitement.

“Oh my God, you wouldn’t believe it,” I announced with the kind of joy people normally reserve for momentous occasions.

“You got the job?” Franklin asked. “Oh my God Sergio, Hannah was hired to be an editorial assistant at Art in America. Before you know it, she’ll be writing about me! It’s just a matter of time before I get my first solo show at the Whitney. Congratulations Hannah.”

“No not that. I still haven’t heard from them,” I sighed. “But, I did get a job as a secret shopper for restaurants and they’ve given me my first assignment. I think it’s going to be fun.”

“I guess,” Franklin sighed, with a fading voice and another stir of the tomato sauce on the stove.

“Do we get to eat for free” he asked, jumping back from the stove as the sauce began to splatter toward him, barely missing his skin tight Fruit of the Loom t-shirt.

“Yes!” I bragged. “We have to go in the next couple of days.”

“Did you hear that Sergio? Franklin said, trying to engage the interest of his fashion designer boyfriend, who truthfully barely understood a word of English. “We’re going out to dinner.”

“Well actually I can only bring one guest,” I confessed, worried that Sergio would feel left out.

“Well, I can’t go then,” Franklin jumped in. “Sergio is only in town for another couple of weeks and then he has to return to Milan. Fendi can only be without its chief accessories designer for so long.”

My roommate then kissed his new boyfriend on the cheek and comforted him. “Even if Hannah doesn’t want to feed you, I will,” Franklin assured him, rubbing his back. “Let’s have some pasta, take showers and get ready to go out with people who appreciate the company of artists.”

“Franklin!” I pleaded. “She only told me I could bring one guest to Dallas BBQ. I’m really sorry.”

“Oh it’s that disgusting barbecue place?” Franklin asked dismissively.

“I really don’t know what it is,” I told him honestly. “It’s a test assignment to see if I can do the job. She says she has much better restaurants and I know she’ll let me go to those if I do a good job on this one.”

“Thanks anyway,” Franklin scoffed. “Sergio and I don’t eat barbecue in dirty restaurants. “We’re going to a dinner party tonight at Enrico Cinzano’s. Perhaps you’ve heard of him. The Vermouth heir?”

“I guess,” I said, completely unaware there was a family behind the bottle I’d used to mix cocktails in countless restaurants.

“He’s a huge art collector,” Franklin explained. “Maybe you’d know that if you weren’t so wrapped up in your dumb new job. If you started mixing with the people downtown, maybe then you’d have gotten that call from Art in America by now.

“You’re probably right,” I conceded, wondering if getting too sucked into the world of restaurants was a dead end. I came to this city to be a painter, to work in a gallery, or to write for a magazine. Not to eat free barbecue in a restaurant.

Hearing Dallas BBQ was dirty turned my stomach. But I was still intrigued to go there. If I could just get through the slop, I’d be dining in some of the finest places in New York City, all on someone else’s dime.

To get there I knew I’d have to find someone, anyone, to loan me the $50 or $60 it’d take to pay for the drinks and meal in the dirty restaurant I could never afford. If I could find someone, I could possibly start getting paid to write.

– CHAPTER FIVE –

“Good morning, I mean good afternoon, Washington Controls,” a woman’s voice announced on the other line.

“Hi my name is Hannah. I was hoping to talk to someone about getting a job there,” I explained in a hushed voice, hoping no one would hear me.

“This is a small business. We don’t have employees,” the woman barked back. “Thank you for calling.”

“Oh, uh,” I stumbled. “I work at the Equinox and read one of your reports,” I countered

“I love the Equinox!” the voice changed to a far friendlier tone. “How’s Andrew?”

“Uh, he’s great. But I have to say he doesn’t really know I’m calling you. I just saw the report you faxed him and I’d love to write them for you.”

“We don’t have employee,” she explained, returning to her jarring bark. “We’re hospitality consultants. Our experts work for themselves. They do it because they like to eat in restaurants and report on what they experienced.”

“That sounds great,” I assured her.

“My name is Helen. What did you say yours was?” she asked pointedly.

“Hannah, Hannah McCoy,” I answered.

“What do you do at the Equinox?” She asked with the suspicion of a courtroom judge.

“I manage the advertising and promotions,” I told her.

“Why the Equinox needs someone to do that is beyond me. Every time I’ve been there, the place is packed,” she replied dismissively, completely unaware of what it took to keep hundreds and hundreds of people filing in and out of the place meal after meal, day after day.

“It’s a pretty big place,” I explained. “Anything more than a 40 seat café needs to constantly promote itself,” I continued defensively.

“Madame, Washington Controls is not a place for secretaries and office workers. We’re hospitality industry experts. We float in and out of the city’s most talked-about restaurants and hotels and we report on every detail of what happens inside. How hospitably the staff comported itself. What everyone said. What everyone offered. And, if asked to do it, we test the integrity of the employees. We’re not there to promote anything,” she lectured me, as though promoting something fell far beneath her lofty endeavors.

“We offer our expertise to owners and managers who want to know exactly what their employees are doing when no one is looking. Do you understand what I mean, Madame?” she asked without pausing for an answer, though she succeeded in making it clear that she was inches away from telling Andrew I was looking to bolt from the Equinox. “Our consultants have years of experience, working in some of the most well-run hotels and restaurants in the world.”

“I’ve worked in at least 20 restaurants,” I blurted out aggressively. “I put myself through one of the most expensive colleges in the country, waiting tables, bartending. You name it I’ve done it.”

“How old are you?” she asked, sounding amused, yet skeptical about what sounded like a compulsive liar on a witness stand.

“I started when I was 15. I forged my birth certificate to get the job. I’ve worked in restaurants all over the country, in New York, California and in New England. I worked my butt off to stay in that school,” I continued, sounding equally dramatic and pathetic.

“Well you can’t be very good at it,” she laughed, provoking me. “If you were, you wouldn’t be constantly finding new restaurant jobs.

“I wasn’t constantly finding restaurant jobs,” I protested. “A lot of the places, especially in Vermont, were seasonal. They had no business after the foliage changed and the leaf peepers returned to New York. Every last one of those places would rehire me. I was a great waiter!”

“A waiter, not a waitress…interesting. I like that,” she responded, sounding relatively supportive. “If you’d like to come see me after work tonight or tomorrow, I could make time to meet with you, to see if I’d consider working with you in the future.”

“Tonight would be great,” I gushed like I’d won Powerball Lottery. “ I see you’re on Lexington and 30th, I can be there by 6. Is that okay?”

“That would be just fine, Rihanna,” she agreed, mispronouncing my name. “Thank you for calling. I’ll see you then.” Click.

“Yay, I’ll see you tonight,” I almost shouted like the cheerleader I never was, without fully realizing that Helen had already disconnected the call.

Smiling ear to ear, I returned to the marketing plan on my computer’s screen for no longer than a second before I heard Constance whispering over our suburban backyard fence of a cubicle partition.

“So you have a date tonight?” she asked.

“Oh no,” I told her. I’m just meeting someone tonight to discuss a project.

“A project for Jack? Jack didn’t tell me you were doing a special project,” she fired off, visibly upset.

“No, no, not for Jack. For my college. For their alumni relations office,” I assured her, shocking myself with yet another lie. “When they’re not begging for donations, they’re always mining us for contacts to help place current students in internships.”

“Oh please SMU does the same thing to me,” she sighed. “If they had a halfway decent event in New York, I’d open their emails, but I have bigger plans. Guess what?” she asked, looking like she was bursting with the chance to share some news about something monumental.

“I’m going to Autism tonight. I can’t wait,” she bragged with zero awareness that at this point, she was leading me to wonder if she ever looked forward to anything that was unrelated to a medical problem.

“That’s what the party is called?” I asked incredulously. “Someone invited you to a party called Autism?”

“Don’t be silly, Hannah,” she dismissed me, just as oblivious as I was about how judgmental I sounded. “It’s Autism Speaks; it’s a happy event for social people.”

“Oh that’s great,” I gushed unsure what was the least offensive way to respond.

“I’m not dumb, Hannah,” she confided, leaning over the partition, en route to the printer. “I may have grown up in Iowa. And my parents may be very hard working people. But there is no way I’m going to marry a construction worker or open a NutriSystems franchise,” she continued with a roll of the eye.

“One way or another I’m getting married. I’m moving to Connecticut and I’m going to drive to Mommy and Me classes in my Range Rover. The chef may call me ‘Barbie,’ but I have big plans.”

I had no idea how to respond to that one. On the one hand I wanted to salute her clarity. Anyone who had a goal always impressed me. But on the other hand, I admit, I was something short of alarmed.

What was wrong with me? Where are my dates? Why aren’t I plotting out a strategy to meet Mr. Wonderful? Why am I acting like I am under consideration for a Pulitzer because a grumpy woman who runs a secret shopper business has agreed to talk to me about working for free meals?

“You’re going to have a blast tonight, Constance,” I said, smiling with no idea what an appropriate response was.

“Always thinking,” she said, tapping her index finger to her temple.  “But I think it’s really great you’re giving back to your school. Philanthropy is very important. I’ve made a huge push to learn more about it.

“Now I want to take a class, so I can learn more about antiques. My mother thinks I’m nuts. When I was growing up, her and I were so excited when we got a couch from Ethan Allen! Can you believe it? she asked me. “I keep telling her this is a whole different world here on the Upper East Side but my father doesn’t believe it,” she said, revealing more about herself than I think she intended. “Her and my Dad don’t get it, but my Grandma does.”

“Your grandmother sounds great,” I fumbled, as Constance rolled her eyes again and continued on to the printer, completely unaware how otherly every word of her mouth sounded to me.

Husband shopping at medical fundraisers? Talking about charity work and antiques, like they’re both in a catalog of continuing education classes at a community college? I couldn’t imagine my parents buying any furniture, let alone celebrating the arrival of a sofa from Ethan Allen.

My mother, the haughty grammanatarian, who cared about grammar and people in that order, would sooner scold me for saying “her and I” than spend the money she didn’t have, ringing up a credit card to buy a stitch of furniture she could never afford. That, she told me, was for the bourgeoisie.

When I was very little I wondered where they lived, the wonderful Bourgeoisie family. I was sure, back then, that was where I belonged, in the magical house with sit-com children, dressed in brightly-colored outfits with matching socks, happily eating fried chicken before soft serve banana splits from the local Dairy Queen.

“Hannah, that’s for the dumb neighbors,” I remember my mother telling me. “In New Jersey vernacular it’s called ‘keeping up with the Jonses’; That’s not for people like us. It wasn’t like this in Scranton.”

“Do you know anything at all about antiques?” Constance asked me as she returned from the printer, triggering me to wonder when my parents old furniture would technically qualify as antiques.

“No, not really,” I admitted very reluctantly out of sheer insecurity.  “I have a degree in art, but we never studied anything before 1950 – except DuChamp’s urinal from the 1917 Armory show.

“Oh I love the Armory!” she squealed with delight as though I had finally given her the password to gain entry into a secret sorority that I had no idea I was pledging.

“I went there a few weeks ago, a benefit for GMHC,” she reported in a tone that was suddenly hushed. “I really don’t think all of those guys were gay or sick, but my God they were gore-gee-us,” she gushed with an enthusiasm I could never properly recapture. “It’s just not fair. All the good ones are either gay or married. Come to think of it, in New York, all the really good guys are both. Hah!”

Before my former colleagues arrived to show us the ads for the Equinox’s newest campaign, Andrew and I met in the dining room. By now my crush on him was becoming ridiculous. It’d gotten so crazy that I started a diary to document every embarrassing thought I had about him and I worried that if I suddenly died, my family would find the lonely handwritten words of a 20-something teenager, bemoaning the symptoms of puppy love. I’d die if they did.

“I can’t believe it, I scribbled. The most unthinkable thing in the world has happened. I have the wildest crush on Andrew. Can you believe it? He’s just so handsome, so smart, so kind, so worldly. I wonder if he knows. I wonder if he can see the way I look at him? I wonder what he’d think if knew that when he hired me, and rescued me from horrible Lane USA, he sparked my curiosity about everything. I can’t wait to see him tomorrow.”

As much of a dork as I was, I still knew there was something hilarious about all of this. All of it. The fact that I’d die, for a second time I guess, if I died and my family found my diary. The fact that Andrew did not exactly fit my “sketchy bad boy” type and was instead a dignified, Swiss-born restaurateur.  The fact that I’d known him for almost a year, mostly through emails, and here I was standing in a dark restaurant with him, wondering if he could read my mind. As rational as I am, and always was, I was also convinced Andrew was a psychic, who was just waiting for the right time to profess his overwhelming love for me.

“Would you like something to drink?” he asked me as he switched on the lights. “Water? Coffee?”

“Uh sure,” I answered nervously, surprised he was not wearing the jacket of his Alan Flusser suit.

Wow, he’s in good shape, I thought to myself. Who knew? I like those suspenders. I wonder if he wears them every day.

“So what is it? Coffee? Water? Flat? Sparkling?” He continued, snapping me out of my first chance to look at the behind-the-scenes Andrew.

“Sparkling,” I answered trying to force myself to get over the shyness that I was convinced was ruining my life. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without a jacket,” I mentioned, wondering if this would actually qualify as flirting or witty banter. Probably neither, I concluded.

“Well this isn’t showtime,” he told me with a wink. “When the curtain goes up at noon, I’ll hit my mark, wearing my costume. Until then, we’ll just have fun,” he explained, as he literally jumped over the bar, grabbing the railing like a gymnast and swinging his legs over the top.

Too shocked, I said nothing. My mind just wandered with a million questions. Did he do that to impress me? Was he an athlete when he was younger? Is he trying to tell me he’s interested in me? Or does he do that every morning? Does he think I’m a jerk? Should I have said I wanted to flat water? Or would coffee have been more sophisticated? What’s going to happen when Mark and Allison get here? Are they going to treat me like a pee-on, as they always have? Should I speak up and voice my opinions? Or should I just nod in agreement with whatever they said?

“Wow, you’re in another world,” Andrew observed correctly, handing me a bottle of Pellegrino. “Take a seat at one of the banquettes. I’ll get some glasses.  It’s got to pretty weird to sit on the other side of the table, now that you’re the client.”

Wow he’s really athletic and fun, I thought. He’s not so wrapped up in himself that he doesn’t think about how strange all of this is for me. Lane was so different. There women were mostly work horses who were talked about like objects and used to crank out the presentations that the men showed the clients.

“No, not really,” I lied. “I had a lot of responsibility there. It was very collaborative. We worked in groups. I went to lots of meetings.”

Positively nothing could have been further from the truth. At Lane I was just one in a long line of assistants who worked for the General Manager, John, a hot head if there ever was one. I took the job knowing full well that I’d eventually be fired. The employment agency that placed me there warned that the last five girls had been canned – with zero warning. They simply reported for work and were told to clear out their desk. Then, they were all escorted out of the building by a security guard who watched as they tearfully walked to the elevator.

“Really?” Andrew asked, raising his eyebrow and putting on his suit jacket. “That’s not the George Lane I know. It’s not the George Lane anyone knows. He may be a legend, but he’s never been known as collaborative.”

Oh no, George is not a collaborator,” I agreed silently. When he brainstormed the direction of the control top hosiery ad, he didn’t even bother to ask a woman for her opinions. Instead he and Ted gave themselves high fives in the conference room for coming up the dubious tagline Slenderize Your Thunder Thighs. “Fat chicks will love it,” George announced. Perhaps not surprisingly the client rejected it.

“That’s just for show,” I lied again. “Behind the scenes, we all worked together all the time. I’m not worried about this meeting. Mark and Allison are great.”

Speak of the devils, just as I was continuing a long stream of lies to make myself sound far more respected at Lane than I ever was, and to suggest that I had attended even one business meeting in my life, Mark and Allison strolled through the lobby toward the dining room.

“Excuse me,” Allison called out in her signature private school lockjaw. “I see you’re both drinking on the job.”  Alex forced a smile through his poker face.

“Hey Hannah, I see you have it so much better now that you’re not chained to a desk, typing memos,” she condescended, giving me a kiss on each cheek, as Mark and Andrew shook each other’s hands, palming the others bicep, like a candidate running for election.

“Howya doin’ kiddo?” Mark asked me without pausing for an answer. “Let’s get down to business. I know Andrew is a very busy man.”

As they flipped through a series of print ad ideas, all of which were variations of ideas the agency hand been presenting to other clients for decades, I carefully studied Andrew’s face, wondering if he knew everything in the stack was recycled. I couldn’t tell. But I certainly recognized all of it.

There was the Vh1 “Critics Choice” ad that was rejiggered for the restaurant industry’s James Beard awards. There was the Cheerios ad that was reimagined to sell pricey truffles and rare Barolos.  There was the testimonial style ad featuring Derek Jeter, always one of George’s favorite pitchmen. There was even a variation on the Thunder Thighs ad, but this time the headline screamed “A Thrill from the Grill.”

“Andrew, before we hear your thoughts, I wanted to ask you quickly before I forget, where do buy your suits? You always look so elegant,” Mark said almost gushing, but with a deep leading man voice that hinted he was once a voice-over actor.

“Flusser,” Andrew answered, revealing with pride the label sewn into the jacket’s lining. “If you’d like, I can give him a call to introduce you.”

“Andrew, I would be honored,” Marked intoned with the theatrical sincerity he once offfered me in thanks for writing his son’s sixth grade essay about Pop Art. “To receive the sartorial guidance of a man like you would very much welcomed.”

From his jacket pocket, Andrew pulled a small leather-bound pad and scribbled a note to himself with his Montblanc pen and declared, “Done! Now let’s talk about the ads before I have to go make the donuts.” Allison and Marked laughed too loudly to be believable.

“I appreciate your coming here to show Hannah and me what you’ve been working on,” Andrew began. “I respect all the hard work you’ve put in and I want to take a couple of days to give it some thought. Either Hannah or I will be in touch soon. But for now, I must get to figuring out today’s seating. If I put the mayor next to his challenger’s biggest donor, it could get ugly.”

Mark and Allison laughed again, as we all stood up. Mark focused exclusively on Andrew, asking about his suspenders. Allison walked with me as we escorted them out of the restaurant.

“That’s a great color, Hannah,” Allison said, feeling my bright red blouse and undoubtedly wondering who’d made it. “Did you get it on sale?”

“I don’t know,” I claimed, trying to get the discussion off of my discount wardrobe. “I’ve had it for years. My mother bought it for me when I was in college.”

“Oh really sweetie?” Allison asked with a giggle. “Well you forgot to take the price tag off it,” she continued, showing me the Marshall’s tag that peeked out from one of the sleeves.

I was mortified. Not so much for wearing discount clothing, but for lying about how old the blouse was. I said nothing, but I am sure my face telegraphed how judged I felt.

“Thanks for visiting Ali. Please tell everyone I said hi,” I smiled, secretly pulling the tag off the blouse and hoping Andrew neither heard nor saw any of it.

“So what do you think kiddo?” he asked me with a smile that suggested he caught Mark’s tone when the meeting began. I rolled my eyes, trying to ignore it.

“The ads reminded me of something. I’m just not sure what,” I told him unsure whether it was okay to mention that every one of them was derivative of ads that had run many times before, for many other companies.
“Of course, they remind you of something. Those are the same ones he already sold to Vh1 and his cereal advertiser. George always does the same work again and again and again,” he stated matter of factly.

“So what are you going to do? Are you going to say something?” I asked, truly surprised that he was aware that Lane USA was coasting along plagiarizing itself.

“I’m going to do what I always do. I’m going to make them wait for a few days to stew in it. And then I’m going to pick the best one and run it,” he explained, confusing me.

“Really?” I asked, trying to understand his logic.

“Sure the guy’s a genius. He’s been promoting this restaurant for 20 years. I believe in loyalty,” he said. “You’re only as good as the people you work with.”

I was thoroughly confused. As Andrew walked to Maitre d’s podium and I returned to my desk, I wondered what to make of it all. It seemed crazy to me, but I didn’t believe my ears.

“So?” I heard from just beyond the office’s door that was halfway open. I didn’t recognize the voice and waited for someone to enter. No one did. “Hello?” the voice continued. I stared at the door.

Just then, in the crack between the hinges and frame, I saw an eye blinking and recognized the wiggling brow. It was Jack, flirtatiously spying on me from the hallway.

“So what happened? Did you see the very beautiful ads the legendary George Lane created?” he asked as he floated through the door with a prance and a kiss on the back of his right hand.

“Yes, we did. Mark and Allison came over and showed us a bunch of them,” I reported factually, with no hint of an opinion.

“Is it the same bullshit they always show us? The guy is a total fraud; don’t you think?” he asked staring at me without blinking, seemingly intent on getting an answer.

“I don’t know, I…” I began to say before he cut me off.

“Oh really,” he responded with a mocking lilt that emphasized his Italian accent. “You don’t have any opinion at all? None whatsoever? You and Andrew are going to be perfect together. He’ll approve anything and you’ll back him up. Just what we need here: another fraud. Welcome to the Equinox, where we’re all asleep at the wheel.”

I sat there stunned for at least a minute after he stormed out of the office. At first I could hear him laughing and joking with someone who was waiting for the elevator with me.

“Madam, you look delicious,” I heard him say, turning on a dime from rage to charm. “Why don’t you come see me at 1:30? We can have lunch together. Do you like oysters?” he asked as she giggled.  When I was sure they were both gone, I ran to the bathroom and sobbed, uncontrollably.

Why is he talking to me this way? Why is he treating me like shit? He doesn’t even know me. He didn’t even let me speak. I’m not a fraud! I just some girl people like to push around. Kiddo! Why did Mark call me kiddo? And Allison! What a bitch. I’m very sorry I didn’t grow up rich and marry a pig of a banker who lets me buy clothes, directly out of September’s Vogue. This Jack, asshole, has no idea who he’s dealing with. I’ll walk the fuck out of this hellhole in a second. I don’t get paid enough to put up with his abusive bullshit. If he thinks he’s going to get me sobbing over his mental health issues, he’s got the wrong girl.

Flushing the toilet to muffle the sound of my sobbing, I realized that yes, in fact Jack did just that. He got me to cry. My mascara was now undoubtedly dripping down my face. I was sure I looked puffy and pink and that everyone in the office would see I was just another wimpy girl who had no business working in the murky waters of a New York City office, where sharks were always circling.

I’m a loser, I thought. No wonder people treat me like shit. I can’t even manage to get the tags off of my dorky discount clothes.

I’ve said this here before, but at the risk of repeating myself again, I will mention a scene in the movie Adaptation that has always struck me as very true of me.

One of the two main characters, the Orchid Thief, is trying to explain to Meryl Streep’s character why he becomes obsessed with one subject, going to extremes to learn all about it, and then one day he wakes up and says “Fuck Fish!”

Nothing happened to him. Nothing could have possibly signaled that he would no longer be traveling to the depths of the ocean to find just the right representatives of a certain species to join the populations of any one of his 60 home aquariums. He just loses interest on a dime, and moves on to something else: mirrors, fossils, orchids, whatever – anything but fish.

I always figured that would happen to me with Bravo’s Real Housewives. But the truth is, it didn’t go down that way. There was just something about how New Jersey played out that grossed me out, profoundly. It triggered me to realize that I  just cannot listen to people getting into death match, family-destroying confrontations about meatball contests, cookbooks, patio furniture, LapBand surgeries and asinine, contrived fashion shows at meaningless boutiques.

I am simply not willing to do what it takes to figure out what is going on over there in Franklin Lakes, where it would take a team of detectives years to sort through all of their secrets. I am fine, and actually prefer, knowing none of them. All kidding aside, no exaggerating at all, I’d rather do sit ups all day long than try to figure out why they’re all so angry and why being on this low brow Reality TV show is so important that they’ll willing watch their own relatives have emotional breakdowns just for the chance to sit on Andy Cohen’s sofa.

Seriously, it makes no sense to me. And I don’t want it to. The day I understand any of this is the day I might as well check myself in as a in-patient in the local hospital’s psyche ward.

I’ll continue to watch New York through the end of the season, but I must admit I don’t care about their squabbles either. Ramona is Ramona. Sonja is insulted. LuAnn is trying to be a better person and does not want her best efforts to go ignored. Heather is sane and rational. I hope she can hang onto both of those admirable qualities. Aviva belongs on a different show. Survivor? Couples Therapy? Dr. Phil? Or more likely she doesn’t belong on television at all. Whatever she decides to do is fine with me.

Carole? I think Carole wants us to believe she’s playing one game, while using the rulebook of another. Full contact, no holds barred baseball is unappealing to me. She can say, as she did on Twitter last night, that saying bad things about others behind their backs is the “conceit” of the genre. I don’t want to have any part of spying in someone’s bedroom. And I especially don’t want to do it with a woman who shields her own life from everyone, including us, and most notably herself.

I don’t care if LuAnn wants to borrow an outfit from Carole’s friend. I know the question is not, as we saw last night, “Is it okay for LuAnn to ask to borrow a dress from a designer? Borrowing clothes from designers happens all day long, all over New York.

I know because I represent two designers. Yes it can be a pain in the ass, as Heather mentioned. If the designer doesn’t think the payoff makes sense, he or she can say no. Saying no is certainly easier and less offensive than making LuAnn look and sound like a freeloader on television later. I have another client who hasn’t bought a stitch of clothing in 20 years. Designers fight to outfit him. And he does not have nearly the audience LuAnn does.

I think Carole likes to influence the public’s judgments with her words. Actually that’s not even strong enough. I think she likes to believe she can control our opinions with her “inner voice” that she unleashes in her video diary and on her blog. She can say she does this to be funny. I don’t think it is funny to tell strangers that one woman had anal sex and that another man must have a “big ego or a big cock.”If this is how these people want to be portrayed, they can say it themselves. They do not need Cool Carole to reduce them to porn stars, or worse, to act like she’s above a low brow Reality TV show, while simultaneously asking on camera “Can you see my tits?”

I think Carole is an odd duck, but not in a good way. She doesn’t eat. She has no food. She doesn’t drink water. She finds other people’s partying “inelegant” in one breath and then proceeds to get hammered in a gay bar the next. No one appreciates the gays or a chance to let her hair down more than I do. My issue is that on one hand she’s judging other people with shame and with the other she’s giving herself a pass to let it rip.

She laughs herself sick when a friend’s husband calls beautiful women “overweight old ladies gone wild” after getting upset that her colleagues do not understand her struggles, coping with the death of friends 12 years earlier.

Don’t even get me started on the subject of Carole’s annoyance with how LuAnn interacted with the jewelry designer Ranjana. People meet friends, boyfriends, colleagues, husbands and wives through other friends. This is all perfectly normal. It’s been going on since cavemen sat around a fire in the earliest days of human socialization. To call LuAnn a “friend jumper” is manipulative. It’s an immature attempt to negatively characterize someone else’s actions in a third person’s eyes.

I don’t know where you grew up and the names ‘tweens called each other for each infraction, but there were lots of names to make someone sound awful for doing something that made you feel bad in my neck of the woods. “Flat Leaver” comes to mind. A “flat leaver,” where I grew up, was someone who went off to do something else, something fun, leaving you feeling angry that they got a better offer. I have zero doubt that I called someone a “flat leaver” when I was six, but decades later I cannot imagine using such asinine phrases to express my negative reaction to what someone else did that had nothing to do with me.

Suggesting that LuAnn was a “friend jumper” when she wanted to buy a pair of Carole’s friend’s earrings is ridiculous, regardless of whether LuAnn was merely paying the wholesale price. The jewelry designer set a price; LuAnn paid it. Had LuAnn purchased them in a retail store, the designer would not necessarily get more; in fact, she’d undoubtedy get less. Ranjana came to an agreement with LuAnn. None of this is Carole’s business. If Ranjana did not like it, I am positive she would not not have done the deal. To suggest LuAnn ripped off Ranjana is to suggest Ranjana is insane, incapable of protecting her own interests even when she is in the power position of having something that someone else wants.

Please indulge me one more instance of explaining what a fraud I know Carole is. I swear, after this, I’ll stop. Somewhere on Twitter or maybe Carole’s blog she wrote something about how down to earth she and Russ are. I think it was in the context of the Hamptons that she expressed her strong preference to stay in a roadside motel in Asbury Park, NJ. That does sound down to earth. Cheap motel. Low brow New Jersey. No celebrities. No glitz and glam. Just a free spirited woman and her rocker boyfriend enjoying the simple life in a bare bones motel near the beach.

I am sure her words, her inner voice, paints a compelling picture to those who have no idea what Asbury Park, New Jersey is. What I see, as someone who grew up around the block, as someone who spends every weekend inches from Asbury Park, is a stone cold, absurd lie. There are no motels in that town that anyone of us, let alone Cool Carole would EVER spend a minute, let alone a weekend.

There is a glitzy, glamorous hotel that was featured in Travel & Leisure. While I do not know this is true, I do not believe that any woman has ever stepped through its doors. It is gay as as get out with glamorous Chelsea boys streaming in and out of it all day long. And it is not a motel by anyone’s definition of the word. It’s a destination hotel and not a cheap one at that.

Yes, there are motels all over Asbury Park. In those, no kidding even slightly, you will find bruised and battered people, who cannot keep their lives together long enough to remain in Section 8 housing. I am not judging them. I am just stating the facts. With precisely zero exceptions, Asbury Park motels are filled with drugs, bed bugs, prostitution, incest, incessant screaming, arrests, domestic abuse incidents and fist fights.I am sure there are also Crips and Bloods, but I refuse to swear to that. I have no proof gangs would be fearless enough to ever walk through the doors of an Asbury Park, NJ motel.

Speaking of swearing, even if Carole swore to it in open court, I know she’s never been inside one of those motels. I know a psychologist who works in that town. No one in his or her own right mind, no matter how “cool” she was, would EVER walk into one of those places for a romantic weekend with her rocker boyfriend. That suggestion is literally absurd.

I’m tired of Carole’s lying and fronting. Andy can ask her “can you believe you’re on this sofa?” as he did last night, like she’s somehow above it all and it’s shocking that Princess Radziwill is slumming on his sofa. She can say she’s happy to be and act like it’s perfectly acceptable to make fun of LuAnn or Sonja or whomever else is that day’s target of her inner voice, because it is the “conceit” of the genre, but I’m no longer willing to listen it.

If her tongue were biting AND we got to see something real about her, as we did with Bethenny, who often used her wit to make fun of others, I could live with it. At least, with Bethenny, I could see the other side. I could see her struggling with dating and running around Manhattan delivering her baked goods, only to collect a bunch of stale muffins a few days later. I could see she was actually vulnerable and sensitive when she would sincerely cry, or try to keep it together, despite a trembling lip, when things weren’t going her way. At least with Bethenny there was an actual human being connected to her forked tongue. With Carole I see nothing but an illusion: an anachronistic amalgamation of 1970s clichés.

Okay enough ranting. I’ve said and seen enough. I’m taking a break from the Housewives. I readily admit, I am thinking about profiling one of the women in a Q&A format. I have no idea why, despite everything I’ve said above, that this appeals to me. But for at least a few weeks I am finished recapping anything or boring anyone with any additional opinions because I’ve shared everything I can possibly say about the casts of New Jersey and New York; and I’m not going to dive into Miami. I just can’t.

If, when Beverly Hills, Atlanta and Orange County return, there is something in any location beyond shouting, character assassinations and trying to embarrass someone else, I’d would LOVE to return to the mindless fun of watching these shows. Until them, I’m going to amuse myself by writing a fictionalized account of my bizarre career, which I know is far more interesting than anything I’ve seen on these shows in years.

I mention this in case you want to read about it here. Or in case you’re wondering why I keep publishing strange chapters in a book that was never written or published.

Before I go, I want to thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for caring, for reading, for listening, for writing, and most of all for making me feel so comfortable in gambling that it may be okay to tell complete strangers what I really think. Writing this blog has taught me more about myself than I learned in the first 40 years of my life. Most of all, thanks to all of the very nice commenters here, it has made me finally realize that I have nothing to fear but facing myself.

And that is why I now have the courage to tell the story of my “strange but true” life. xxoo :D