Filthy Rich (13 page)

“Well, that’s some progress,” said Norma, softening. “At least you didn’t try to blame it on Marcia Brady.”

For all this swirling confusion, I felt strangely calm. That cheery little voice inside was telling me to relax. It would all work out for the best.

“Let’s get jogging,” said Lois. “Our public is waiting.”

The crowd that last morning was at least double the size of the day before, ballooned in part by people who had flown in from around the country to send me off to
Filthy Rich!
in style. Lois, Norma, and I were so psyched by our following that we ended up jogging a lot farther up Fifth Avenue than we had planned, going all the way to Forty-second Street, and the main branch of the New York Public Library. As the crowd waited below, cheering, my two girlfriends and I ran up the library’s formidable steps, triumphantly pumping the air with our fists when we reached the top.

When Oprah played a videotape of the scene on her show later that morning, keying it to the theme music from the movie
Rocky
, the entire studio audience spontaneously rose to its feet and applauded hard for a full three minutes. In the wings, so did Dr. Phil.

I was ready.

“
Tonight. Live. Marcy
Lee Mallowitz returns to play for $1.75 million on a special edition of
So You Want to Be Filthy Rich!
” Even as the show’s announcer screamed those words, it was hard for me to believe this was really happening.

To think only a couple of weeks before I’d entered this same studio on Neil’s arm, a semi-successful Personal Life Coach with a bad haircut, virtually unknown outside my own little circle of family, friends, and rich, self-absorbed clients. I was returning a certified national celebrity—I’d sung Broadway with Rosie, for goodness sake, become pals with Larry King and Oprah, and thanks to my commercial endorsement, Fritzies were well on their way to becoming a staple of the American diet. When I arrived at the studio this second time—separately from Neil—Kingman Fenimore himself came out to greet me. As cameras flashed away, we confidently waved and flashed thumbs-up signs to the large, enthusiastic crowd that had begun gathering on
the sidewalk outside the studio hours before my arrival to catch a glimpse of yours truly.

I wore the same drop-dead black column gown from Armani I’d seen Ashley Judd wear to a glitzy movie premiere covered by
E!
My hair, for once, was cooperating with my attempt at a casually sexy Jennifer Aniston look, although that cooperation broke down somewhat when my
former
stylist, the great Giovanni, showed up uninvited backstage begging forgiveness in that suave Italian accent of his, and I let him make a few minor adjustments with a styling brush just for old times’ sake.

Still, in all, I thought I looked pretty terrific—a far, far cry from my brief but pathetic binge period.

“You look a lot better,” said Kingman, proud and relieved that his gamble on the bedraggled female he’d picked up on East Tenth Street three weeks ago had paid off. I took it as a compliment.

I only wished my father had agreed to come. But he said he’d be too nervous, and besides, he never wanted to be in the same room with Neil again. That’s my dad, I thought. I felt for the unique pendant he’d given me as a Hanukkah gift when I was four and adored nothing more than to accompany him on his weekend jobs—an Egyptian scarab he’d had a jeweler friend encase in a thin, round piece of clear Plexiglas and then string on a delicate silver chain as a token of those great times together. Holding it gently between my fingers, my mind latched on to a mental pic
ture of myself as a little girl, excitedly unwrapping the small box containing Dad’s special present.

“Do you like it?” he’d asked nervously as I picked it up for inspection.
Like it? Was he kidding?
“I love it, Daddy,” I screamed, running into his arms. I can still feel his hug. I feel it every time I put on Dad’s sweet if slightly scary lucky charm.

This pleasant flashback was abruptly dissolved by the voice of my mother, whose otherwise sentimental nature has never warmed to Dad’s kooky concept of dead-roach jewelry.

“I can’t believe you’re still wearing that grotesque thing,” she said upon spotting it hanging from my neck. “I love your father dearly, but his taste sometimes is from hunger. At least tuck it inside your dress so Kingman doesn’t get rattled during the game and call in a fumigator.”

I didn’t know it at the time, but the evening’s ratings battle was already won. The producers of
The Plank
, the competition whose sky-high ratings caused Kingman to desperately seek this return appearance, chickened out at the last minute from competing toe to toe with our extravaganza. They canceled the weekly hour with the Burbank castaways on the flimsy pretext that everyone connected with the cheesy endeavor was suffering severe intestinal pains due to a glitch involving the seasoning for the Spago rats.

Realistically, however, this was just a temporary victory in a larger war.
The Plank
would be coming back the next week, and, according to the papers, casting was already under way for
The Plank II
, featuring a whole new set of castaways and the added twist of special guest stars every week. Yet more “reality” shows were on the horizon, including a provocative new hidden camera series from Fox called
Pardon Me
that is rumored to follow Bill Clinton as he hits on different young women each week at the Chappaqua train station. In the months ahead,
Filthy Rich!
would have to come up with more dazzling gimmicks than just Marcy Lee Mallowitz to stay on top. But for the moment, at least, Kingman Fenimore was still TV’s king of nighttime “reality,” and that wasn’t just gefilte fish, as Kingman would say.

Yes, after all the emotional ups and downs, the jogging and cramming with Norma and Lois, the Big Night had finally arrived.

What an amazing ride, I reflected, waiting backstage to be called out into the
Filthy Rich!
arena, and for the game-show part to actually begin. I wouldn’t trade any of it, not even our frenzied feng shui moment before Diane Sawyer’s arrival. Well, maybe I’d edit out the part where I meet a great new guy and he doesn’t bother to call, leaving me susceptible to Neil’s hangdog entreaty on
Larry King Live
.

Neil was allowed to visit briefly backstage to wish me/us
luck. “I love you, Marcy,” he said. “Winning tonight is going to bring us back together. You’ll see, it’s going to be just like it was before.”

“Great,” I said as pages led Neil back to his seat in the audience—the same seat, fittingly enough, where I’d proved such a flop as his Lifeline. As a precaution against my mother beating Neil bloody with her imitation Louis Vuitton handbag in the event he blew his Lifeline role, or made more rude comments about her pot roast, she was given a prime seat on the opposite side of the set.

Looking up at a monitor backstage, I watched as swirling spotlights and a dramatic drumroll heralded Kingman’s entrance, Kingman decked out in his customary dark, monochromatic shirt and tie. The audience thundered as if he was some kind of conquering hero. As he introduced a video of my last disastrous appearance on the show, and highlights of my busy life since, I thought hard about what Neil had said: If we won, it would bring us back together. Things would be just like they were before.

Just like before. Is that really what I wanted? I wasn’t sure.

It occurred to me that I sometimes paid more attention to figuring out what Marcia Brady would do in a given situation than what really made sense for Marcy Lee Mallowitz. If it hadn’t been for Episode Twenty-five, I wondered, the one where Marcia feigned an interest in insects to snag a bug-obsessed boy on whom she had a crush, would it even have occurred to me to pursue Neil so avidly, reading up on orthodontic issues in boring profes
sional journals so we’d have something to talk about? Beyond our strong physical attraction, and my even stronger desire to get married, what else did we have going?

I tried to refocus my thinking away from this personal muddle. I knew I needed my mind clear if I was going to successfully field Kingman’s questions. But I was a Personal Life Coach in turmoil.

If I won with Neil’s help, our re-coupling seemed almost inevitable. The public would demand it. For me to stand in the way would seem almost like poor sportsmanship. But a lot had changed since Neil went ballistic three weeks ago and made me the world’s most famous dumpee. For one thing, I’d earned enough money plugging products so that the
Filthy Rich!
prize no longer meant as much as it had. My once-strong allergy to the trappings of unearned celebrity could be considered cured. Moreover, I’d learned an important lesson: Just because a couple spritzes together doesn’t necessarily mean they fit together.

I’d never missed Ellewina more. My choices wouldn’t seem so difficult, I mused, if only my wise old friend were here to advise me.

This reverie ended when I realized my presence was being requested onstage.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Kingman said, “it’s time to play
So You Want to Be Filthy Rich!
So let’s bring out tonight’s special contestant, Marcy Lee Mallowitz!”

Simultaneously, Lois appeared out of nowhere wielding a big, round styling brush. She deftly undid Giovanni’s detri
mental contribution to my hair with a few quick, last-minute strokes.

“Good luck,” said a stagehand.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll need it.”

What I was really thinking, in case you’re curious, was, I just hope no one calls me a bitch this time.

“For $250,000, Marcy, which White House occupant could appropriately be called ‘the bachelor president’?”

I’d made it through the early questions without straining my brain bone. I’ve never asked Kingman about this, but my hunch is that he and his producers made a deliberate decision to go soft on me in the beginning to ensure that we reached this place of ultimate drama. I was now just three correct answers from the Big Prize.

“James Buchanan,” I answered without bothering to hear the other choices. “Absolute answer.”

I don’t claim any great knowledge about the American presidency. But when man-crazy Lois is your presidential trivia coach, you come away knowing
everyone’s
exact marital status, including any cute Secret Service agents’.

The next question, for $500,000, nearly tripped me up.

“For half a million dollars, name the state capital of Alaska,” said Kingman. These were the choices:

I’m no great student of the Yukon. Heck, I don’t even like the cold. As far as I was concerned, all four cities sounded like they could be the capital. At least I’d heard of them.

Fortunately, I still had all of my help devices left. I asked Kingman to poll the audience. But with no disrespect to audience members, they were as ignorant as I was, splitting their vote evenly among the four choices. Thanks a lot.

Temperatures on the
Filthy Rich!
hot seat can rise mighty quickly, I was learning firsthand, when you don’t have the first clue as to which is the right answer. I didn’t sweat as much as Neil or Richard Nixon, but, candidly, I think that’s only because women tend to have smaller sweat glands. Now why didn’t they ask me about
that?
My designer gown would have ended up a lot less soggy.

But back to my Alaska dilemma. When the audience failed me, I decided to try the fifty-fifty option, where they take two incorrect answers away. They left just these two choices remaining:

At first, this winnowing down wasn’t much help. Fairbanks and Juneau both sounded capital-worthy to my gullible ears. Then I remembered a little trick Norma had
taught me when we reviewed state capitals. At the time, I was pedaling on an exercise bike my doorman Frank had borrowed from the vacationing family in apartment 11-S, and I wasn’t paying much attention. But somehow in this moment of desperation, I recalled Norma telling me how to remember Alaska’s capital.

“It makes perfect sense,” said Norma. “June is warm; Alaska is cold. That’s why June no.”

“June no,” I said. “Absolute answer.”

“Juneau it is,” said Kingman, “for half a million dollars.”

There was then a long commercial break to maximize profits and drama before I got hit with the $1.75 million question. With the blinding TV lights turned down, I had a chance to look around. I spotted Neil and my mother in the audience, and exchanged smiles and waves with both of them. I was trying to make out where Norma and Lois were sitting, but my view of much of the audience was blocked by the giant cameras they had ringing the set with the idea of performing an illusion as impressive as anything David Copperfield has managed—providing quickly shifting angle shots to make what would otherwise be a rather prosaic game show appear ultra-fast-paced. I was admiring the video behemoth straight ahead of me when its operator came out from behind and some missing puzzle pieces started coming together.

The cameraman was my promising Mr. eBay, Cliff Jentzen, who’d been missing in action since he’d taken me out that
day for Chinese. So that’s how he got my ring, I thought. I’d just assumed when he told me he was in production, he meant deodorants, laundry detergents, and the like. In fairness, he didn’t lie. But he wasn’t very forthcoming, either.

When he saw he’d gotten my attention, Cliff waved shyly, and mouthed, “Good luck.” Much less shyly, I immediately mouthed back, “Where the hell have you been?” But I don’t think he saw that. By then, we were back from commercial, the klieg lights were turned back on, and I could no longer see Cliff or his giant camera.

“Well, Marcy, now it’s crunch time. Are you ready to go for $1.75 million? Leave now, and you go home with a cool half million. A wrong answer, and your take goes down to $75,000—still not bad for a night’s work, but far shy of the $1.75 million prize everyone’s rooting for you to win. Your decision?”

“What? Could you please repeat that?” I was totally distracted now, which is not an ideal condition when you’re on live TV and have $1.75 million hanging in the balance. Cliff’s sudden reappearance had thrown me. Maybe good old Ellewina was trying to give me a sign, I thought. But what did it mean? And what was I supposed to do?

“Well, kid, what will it be? Everyone in the studio audience and at home is waiting on the edges of their chairs. You and Neil got burned once going for the big prize. Are you going to play it safe tonight or try again for the $1.75 million?”

Marcy, concentrate, I told myself. Hold off the identity
crisis just another few minutes. Wait until
after
you’ve won the $1.75 mil.

“It’s a go, Kingman,” I said, struggling to get my mind back into the game. “Fire away.”

“It’s a gusty decision, Marcy. But you’re in pretty good shape. You haven’t used up all your help options. You still have Neil standing by to be your Lifeline if you need it. Now get ready to play
So You Want to Be Filthy Rich!
”

There was the familiar convulsion of overhead spotlights, and all at once the only sound you could hear was the recording of a pounding heartbeat. I felt my tension level rise accordingly. And there was my hand again, tugging painfully at my hair.