Sisters

“So did I,” she said, looking pleased. “I loved the one yesterday too. But that idiot got blood all over it. All I had said backstage was that I thought his wife was gay. I didn't expect him to say it to her on air. Besides, she told me she was, she just didn't want him to know. So he tells her, and she breaks his nose on air. Go figure,” Désirée said, looking nonplussed. “I hope they can get the blood out of the dress.” She had just added a clause to her contract that allowed her to keep her on-air wardrobe. It was no wonder she wanted Oscar to do her clothes now. Tammy would have enjoyed a wardrobe too. Instead, she worked in sweatshirts, jeans, and Nikes most of the time. She needed to feel free to move around, and there was a lot of fancy footwork involved with the show.

“Yeah, go figure,” Tammy agreed, thinking to herself that the psychologist was insane. But in spite of that she added two more new sponsors in the next two weeks. The show was skyrocketing to stardom, which was embarrassing, and Variety was attributing it to her, which was worse. She had been hoping to keep a low profile on this one, but that wasn't happening. Her old friends from L.A. were starting to call her and tease the hell out of her for what she was doing in New York.

“I thought you went back there to take care of your sister,” one of them said.

“I did.”

“So what happened?”

“She's in school, and I got bored.”

“Well, you won't be bored on this show.”

“No, I'll probably wind up in jail.”

“I doubt it. You'll probably wind up running the network one day. I can hardly wait.”

Worse yet, Entertainment Tonight asked her for an interview shortly after the husband had pulled the gun on their host, and Irving wanted her to do it. She tried to keep it brief and dignified, which was no mean feat. And to top it off, the day after, their host asked her out. He was fifty-five years old, had been divorced four times, had caps on his teeth the size of Chiclets, and a terrible hair weave he had done in Mexico. He had been a minor actor on soaps in his youth, and was a bodybuilder. From a distance, he was decent looking, but from up close he was terrifying. And he was a born-again Christian, which was a little too intense for her. She preferred her spirituality in smaller doses, and he regularly handed her religious pamphlets about being saved. Maybe he needed that in order to face the daily risk of getting shot.

“I…uh… that's very sweet of you, Ed. …I make it a policy never to go out with men on the shows I work on. It's such a mess if things don't work out.”

“Why wouldn't they work out? I'm a great guy.” He beamed at her. He had seven children by all four wives, all of whom he supported, which was honorable of him, and as a result, he drove a twenty-year-old car, and lived in a fourth-floor walk-up on the West Side. Getting shot in the gut had improved his financial situation immeasurably. He had said he was moving to a better neighborhood next month. “I thought maybe we could have dinner after work. You know, something simple. I'm on a vegan diet right now.”

“Oh, really.” She tried to look interested, if only to be kind. “Do you do high colonics?” Every freak she'd met in L.A. did them. It was her first clue he wasn't the man for her. She didn't want to date a man whose prize possession was an enema bag. She'd rather have entered a convent, and at this rate, might one day. It was becoming more appealing by the hour.

“No, I don't. I think they're bigger out west than here. I have a friend on Match Point who does them all the time. Do you do them, Tammy?”

“Actually, no, I don't. I'm a junk-food addict. My idea of gourmet food is KFC, and I have an incredible Ho-Ho and Twinkie habit. I've been that way since I was a kid. High colonics would be wasted on me.”

“That's too bad.” He looked sorry for her and then lowered his voice. “Have you found Jesus yet, Tammy?” Where? Under her desk? In the attic? Was he kidding? Did she have to “find” Him? Wasn't He everywhere?

“I think you could say I have,” she said politely. “Religion has been important to me since I was a child.” She didn't know what else to say to him, and it was somewhat true. They had gone to Catholic schools as kids, but she was no longer devout, although she believed.

“But are you a Christian?” He was intense as he looked at her, and she tried not to stare at his hair, which was badly dyed too. She made a mental note to get a decent hairdresser for him too. She didn't know why she'd never noticed that his hair color was this bad. She had been too distracted by the bad weave.

“I'm Catholic,” she said easily.

“That's not the same thing. Being Christian is a lot more than that. It's a whole way of thinking, of being, of living. It's not just a religion.”