Reality Check

by Leslie Carroll

  I slipped his card inside the coin purse of my wallet and decided to savor my coffee.

  6/

  The Envelope, Please

  I meandered home, stopping first to clear my head by trolling through a farmers’ market near the office. I unlocked our mailbox, as is my usual habit on returning to our apartment building, only to find the box empty. Nell must be home, I figured. Jem teaches late on Wednesdays, so unless we were experiencing a synchronistic meltdown, she was busy showing community college students how to communicate and Nell was . . . well, who knows what Nell does with her time? I’ve occasionally considered taking a mental health day so I could discreetly follow her around to see how she fills at least eight hours of daylight.

  I put the paper bag of green market goodies, provisions for the three of us, on the kitchen counter. Nell was in the living room, surrounded by clouds of pink tissue paper and a stack of Victoria’s Secret boxes. She was wearing a blue terry bathrobe that made her eyes seem even more cornflower colored than usual. “Ooh, a popsicle!” she exclaimed, noticing the Frozfruit I was nibbling on.

  I walked over and offered her a bite. She took a tiny nibble and looked enraptured. “Here, take the whole thing,” I told her.

  “Coconut. My favorite,” she cooed. “Thanks, Liz. That’s just what I needed. Hey, look what I got,” she exclaimed, lifting an identical robe in a shade of Navajo turquoise from one of the boxes.

  I looked at her in her lapis colored wrap. “But you have a robe already. Are you buying one for every day of the week?”

  “They were two-for-one at Vicky’s Secret,” Nell replied. She tossed me the turquoise bathrobe. “This one is for you. I thought it would be perfect with your skin tone. And I got one for Jem, too.” From another box she removed a third robe, identical to ours, but the color of an ice blue sky. “I thought we could all wear them when we open our envelopes.” She gestured to the dining table, where she had artistically arranged three fat envelopes from the Urban Lifestyles Channel, addressed to each of us. “Isn’t it like college?” she giggled.

  I went for my envelope. “I guess after three rounds of interviews and auditions, we made it in, since the fat ones usually mean you got accepted, while the skinny envelopes are ‘ding letters,’ so let’s just find out now.”

  Nell threw her arms protectively over the envelopes. “Nope. We wait until Jem gets home. But we can have a drink to pre-celebrate, if you want. That is, if you don’t think we’re jinxing it by assuming we got picked to be on Bad Date before we actually open our letters.”

  I followed Nell into the kitchen where she started whipping up a yogurt-and-mango smoothie, then opened a bottle of champagne and poured an ounce or two on top of her concoction to give it some sparkle. I rinsed some of the strawberries I’d purchased at the farmers’ market and handed a couple to Nell. She popped one in her mouth and dropped another in her glass. “Want one?” she asked me. “I call it a ‘Culture Cooler.’ ”

  “Sorry, but I always find yogurt gross. It tastes . . . already eaten to me somehow. How ’bout you hold the yogurt and the mango and just give me the champers?” I took the bottle of Moët from Nell and filled a flute for myself, adding a strawberry, watching it wobble through the fizz to the bottom of the glass. “Pre-cheers,” I said, clinking glasses with Nell.

  I suck at delayed gratification, and Jem didn’t return to our apartment until close to seven-thirty. As soon as she walked through the door, I jumped up and, taking hold of one of her wrists, dragged her to the dining room table. Nell started frantically waving her arms and presented Jem with her terry bathrobe, then insisted that we cut off the tags and wear the robes to open the mail. I made a drum roll sound on the table top and handed out the envelopes, which we ripped into with such excitement that we practically tore the contents. I hate to admit it, but once our hunches were positively confirmed, we started jumping around the apartment, whooping it up like a bunch of drunken sorority sisters.

  “Yee-hah! I felt this way when I got accepted to Mount Holyoke,” Jem said.

  “That’s just what I was saying to Liz before,” Nell remarked, bubbling with enthusiasm. “That it’s like opening your college admissions envelope.”

  “It’s better. These days you have to give the college a million bucks; this is the other way around,” I added somewhat dryly.

  For three women who had started off thinking the idea of auditioning for a dopey reality television show was just a lark, we’d become pretty wired. I think I could hear our collective hearts pounding as we perused our contracts.

  “We should probably each see a lawyer,” Jem finally announced, scrutinizing the papers. “There’s a ton of fine print here. And especially as we all live together.”

  “You think we’re gonna screw each other over?” I asked her.

  “No. But if there’s a media feeding frenzy about Bad Date , the first thing they’ll do when they learn that three of the contestants just happen to be roommates is start poking around as to whether we all signed a pact before the first episode or something.”

  “Or formed an alliance,” Nell snickered. She looked through the contract with an increasingly puzzled expression. “It’s in here already. At least I think it is. There’s something about making no deals to share the money with other contestants, or ‘something, something, something’ in legalese, which I totally don’t understand.”

  “Wow,” I said, reading the fourth paragraph on the third page of the eight-page contract. “We have to agree not to turn anyone else’s dating experiences— including our own—as revealed on the show, into literary or dramatic fiction, screen or teleplays . . .”

  “Oh, screw it. You’re right. Who’s going to do that anyway? It’s probably like the online Citibank thing, where you used to have to click ‘I agree’ before you could access your own account. What would they do if you clicked on ‘disagree’ instead? By the way, this celebration calls for a Bloody Mary,” Jem said, heading for the kitchen.

  “I’ll take mine with V8,” Nell said.

  She drinks the most disgusting things.

  “So, guys, now we have to wrack our brains for all the bad dates we’ve ever been on and lived to share the tale.” I leaned against the butcher-block counter top and watched Jem work one of her mixological miracles.

  “I think all my dates have been bad,” she ruminated, as she chewed on a stalk of celery. “I just never know what to say once you’ve both gotten past the preliminaries.”

  Nell took a “churchkey” to her can of V8, squinched up her eyes, and regarded Jem. “I never heard of a communications professor who couldn’t communicate. But, speaking of college, it was definitely much easier back then. I mean, it was ‘Hi, my name is Nell; what’s your major? Hi, Nell, my name is Bob; what’s your major? Wanna fuck?’ You know, God has to be a man, because no woman would have invented guys as we know them.”

  “And now times have really changed, haven’t they? Now it’s ‘Hi, I’m Liz, I’m in advertising. Hi, Lizzie, I’m Bob, I’m a Wall Street dork. Wanna fuck?’ ”

  “Thanks,” Jem said, handing us our drinks. “To both of you.”

  “Were you toasting us or being facetious, Jem?” I stirred my Bloody Mary. “I think part of our problem isn’t simply a failure to communicate. We’re just meeting the wrong guys in the wrong places.”

  Nell nodded her head. “I had a sorority sister who used to steal all her best friends’ boyfriends. She said at least that way she knew where they’d been!” Nell reached for the pitcher and topped off my glass. “Mary Frances Connolly,” she said slowly, letting each syllable roll off her tongue. “M.F.C. The Tri-Delt girls used to say that her initials really stood for ‘Motherblanking-you-know-what.’ ”

  I began to ruminate on my own boyfriend history. I always seemed to find the pick of the litter. More like I picked litter. Two of the guys I went out with between the time I graduated college and the time I turned twenty-seven were advised to attend anger management classes by a
couples therapist we visited in an effort (my idea) to salvage the relationship. And to think I would have married either one of them. My mother could never fathom my penchant for the “bad boys” and “angry young men” of this world. No wonder I had such rotten luck with guys. I had rotten taste.

  I contributed my two cents to the M.F.C. discussion. “Well, if Nell’s friend had wanted to steal my old boyfriends, she who steals my man steals trash. By the way, Jem,” I said, changing the subject, “you make a mean Bloody Mary. If you wanted to, you could go into business with these if you ever decided to give up teaching. For some reason, your cocktails always make me horny.”

  “Don’t look at me,” Nell teased.

  The phone rang, almost intrusively. We looked at each other and before the answering machine could pick up, I reached for the receiver.

  “Hey,” the voice on the other end said.

  “Hey, yourself,” I replied.

  “Do you know who this is?”

  “Napoleon? Leonardo DiCaprio? I really hate it when people say that on the phone. Do I know who it is? If I did, would you have to ask me? It’s rude and arrogant.”

  “Well, there’s no mistaking that I’ve got Liz and not Jem or Nell on the phone. Any more acid in your voice and you could make etchings with your tongue. It’s Jack, by the way.”

  “Jack?” I asked. “Jack Frost? Jack Nicholson? Jack-O’-lantern?” I could feel my heart begin to pound and wondered if my roommates could tell.

  “Jack Rafferty. I called to see if you got accepted onto Bad Date.” His voice sounded nice. Pleasant and upbeat without seeming forced.

  “Yes, Jack Rafferty, I did. In fact we all did. Nell and Jem and I are just celebrating. By the way, how did you get our number?”

  “You’re one of a kind,” he responded. “At least in Manhattan, 4-1-1 only has one Liz Pemberley listed.”

  Was I blushing? I placed my hand over the receiver and turned to my roommates, mouthing “It’s Jack Rafferty” to them—as if they didn’t already know. I swear, the man made my brain fuzzy. Or maybe it was the alcohol.

  “Look,” Jack said, “this may sound really goofy to you, but I wanted to thank you for letting me touch your hair the other day in the waiting room. I’d considered just reaching out and touching it, but I was afraid you might freak out. So I’m glad you made the offer. Your hair is really beautiful, Liz . . . it’s like brown velvet.”

  “Thank you.” I smiled and felt my cheeks grow warm, but of course he couldn’t see them.

  “I’m a very tactile person,” Jack continued. “I love crisp cotton sheets, the rich softness of my cashmere blazer—and, well, your hair . . . I felt this chemical ‘thing’ happen when I first noticed you.”

  I looked over at my roommates who must have been wondering what the heck was going on, since I wasn’t doing all the talking. “Yes . . . I did, too,” I said. “The same thing, actually. Which is why I . . . reacted the way I did.”

  “You moaned,” Jack said. “I remember.”

  “Yes, I did do that.” Jack and I shared a laugh. “Since you’re so tactile,” I added, “did you . . . feel anything earlier today?”

  “Like what?” Jack asked.

  I was thinking about the business card I’d stuffed in my wallet. “Oh, I don’t know . . . like a”—I lowered my voice significantly—“tickle or something.”

  “What did you just say, Liz? Your voice came out muffled. I’m on my cell. Can you speak up a bit? I must have lost you for a second there.”

  I raised my voice a tad. “I said, like a—”

  “What does he want?” Jem hissed suspiciously.

  This was not the best time to continue this phone conversation. Jem and Nell were staring hawklike at me, so I thought I should alter my tone of voice, which I hoped would indicate to Jack that I couldn’t get any more personal at the moment. “Never mind. So, hey, Jack, thanks for the congratulations. Will you be joining us as a contestant, too?”

  “Yup,” he said. “I’d like to take you out to continue the celebration, if you’re up for it.”

  “Me specifically, or all three of us?” I queried.

  There was a brief pause on the other end of the line. “Well, you specifically, if that’s all right. Not that I don’t like your roommates. Because I do. I just want to get squared away on that issue. They both seem to be very nice women, but . . .”

  I furrowed my brow. “Where are you?”

  “Miami. At the airport. I should be arriving at JFK in about three hours. I’ll catch a cab into the city and pick you up, if you give me your address.”

  It was my turn to pause. I did a few mental calculations and indicated to my roommates that Jack was sort of asking me out, trying hard not to let on that I really wouldn’t mind accepting his offer. Jem started to mutter under her breath about Jack’s rudeness— busting up our party of three to take only one of us out. She said something about it being bad for the group dynamic. Nell agreed that it was bad karma for him to try to come between us.

  “Jack?” I said into the phone. “You’re not flying in to New York just to ask me out, are you?” God, how romantic would that be?

  “Oh, no. I’ve got a business meeting in the morning and I figured you might be up for getting together this evening.”

  So much for romance. I was strongly considering saying, “Yes, what the hell,” but I figured Nell and Jem probably had a point. Regardless of our powerful mutual attraction, Jack Rafferty was practically a stranger. Why should I run out of the apartment in the middle of a “school night” to meet him? There were any number of valid reasons to decline. “By the time you get here, it’ll be nearly eleven P.M.,” I told him. “I really don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “Are you sure? What about a raincheck?” he asked.

  I found myself agreeing to one, and ended the phone call. “You’re right, guys. I shouldn’t rush out on you. This is our night to celebrate. Blowing off best friends just because a cute guy calls is definitely uncool.”

  Jem nodded. “Liz, don’t you think there’s something suspicious about this guy’s ringing up right away to ask if we got chosen for the show? Sounds to me like he’s fishing for something.”

  Nell laughed. “Jem, you never trust a man’s motives. And Liz . . . I know I was the first one to try to dissuade you from getting together with Jack, but it’s true that I did talk you up to him that day we all auditioned for the show. He was into meeting you just from the stuff I told him, and then you guys really did seem to hit it off right away. Maybe Jem is right that it’s kind of weird that he called you up tonight; but on the other hand, he could just be trying to be friendly. I hate attributing sinister ulterior motives to a guy right off the bat.” Nell poured some more V8 into her glass and held it out to Jem for Tabasco and vodka.

  Jem refreshed Nell’s drink and put the vodka bottle back in the freezer. “Well, maybe he just thinks Liz is hot and his motives are pure. But if he’s just another skank of the species, then he probably figures Liz is the weakest link of the three of us and he wants to infiltrate to see if we have a game plan.”

  “How could we have a game plan if it’s up to a different studio audience each week to decide who stays and who goes?” Nell asked.

  “Who knows?” I said, feeling protective of Jack’s feelings as well as my own, and consequently not ready to share with them the more personal aspects of the phone call. “Maybe he does think we’re all huddled together making lists of all our dreadful dating experiences and trying to rank them in a certain order and figure out which story we’re going to tell each week based on that. On the other hand, maybe he does actually think I’m cute. He seems to have a thing for my hair. And my brain. I’d say that definitely makes him a head case.”

  “By the way, Liz, I forgot to ask you why you got home so early today,” Nell remarked.

  “Yeah, well . . . I wondered what it would be like to be a lady of permanent leisure. I have a fantasy about being able to have a jo
b I actually like going to in the morning, and where I can come and go as I please, dividing my free time equally between being creative and going shopping.” I told them about bailing in the middle of the Snatch pitch. “Much as I bitch about the assignments these days, I really hope I have a job to go back to when I walk back into SSA tomorrow. I’ve started to daydream about getting that million bucks on Bad Date, though, and telling them all what they can do with their Snatch.”

  “We’ve all got our dreams, girlfriend,” Jem said, and raised her glass.

  “To dreams,” Nell said, saluting us with her drink.

  “To girlfriends,” I said, putting an arm around each of them and pulling us into a group hug.

  7/

  Crunch Time

  There was a yellow Post-it note stuck smack-bang on the center of my computer monitor when I went in to work the next morning. I anxiously read it, crumpled it, tossed it in the wicker trash basket by the edge of my desk, and walked down the hall to Jason’s office. He and F.X. were waiting for me. They motioned for me to pull up a chair and F.X. poured me a cup of Gwen’s freshly brewed chicory coffee. That stuff is so strong you could stand a spoon in it. I knew something was coming—I would have had to have been totally clueless not to surmise that there would be no fallout from my little performance yesterday afternoon. I just prayed that I still had a job.

  “Let’s start at the very beginning,” Jason said, folding his arms on the desk and resting his torso against them as he leaned toward me.

  “A very good place to start,” I sang, to the tune of “Do-Re-Mi” from The Sound of Music, a nervous attempt at levity that I immediately regretted.

  “We may see the humor, but Lord Kitchener was not amused,” F.X. said. “He told us he considered it the height of unprofessionalism to walk out in the middle of a presentation.”

  “Do you have anything to say for yourself, young lady?” Jason asked prissily.

  “Yeah, actually”—I took a sip of coffee—“not that I gave it too much thought at the time, but it occurred to me that bailing after the second ad campaign idea was somehow preferable to my admitting that I had nothing to offer for an encore.”