One Year of Reality and How It Nearly Killed Me: My Life Behind the Scenes (6 page)

I was determined to take the time to find the right car; do the research, bone up on how to deal with salesmen, that sort of thing. I had already owned five cars, all used, most of which were clunkers. Two were my parents’ cars, which my dad was notorious for not maintaining. There was the car that was so busted I needed to tie its doors together so that they’d stay closed (I loved valet parking that one at Saks Fifth Avenue), the car that I sold for $500 bucks before the ad even came out in Auto Trader, the car that was totaled at a stop light by a driver who rammed his vehicle into mine and didn’t have any insurance, the one that was hit by a kid and wasn’t worth fixing because its value was nil, and finally the car that blew up. I didn’t think I could even get a car, but I really
wanted a decent car. I wanted a car that wasn’t going to give me any trouble, one that I could have for longer than three years without pouring money into it. And I was making more money than I had before, and that would hopefully be the case for a long time. So I was trying to convince myself that it was time for a new car. And I needed it pretty quickly.

Maybe it was the fact I was about to turn forty, or it could be because I had some money for a change, but I decided to buy a convertible. I went back and forth between new and used. New would be an extravagance and used would be more responsible. But I really wanted a brand new, never-been-owned, awesome vehicle. And then I figured I probably had bad credit and couldn’t afford the cost of a new car. I kept going back and forth until I made a deal with myself. I would try and get the car I wanted, and when it ended up being too much money, I’d go directly for plan B. I figured I would end up buying used, but there was no harm in trying to get a new car.

I did some research, found the car I wanted, and there were only three in town. None of them were used. Pressed by the need for a car, I decided to go ahead and take the plunge despite my lingering doubts. I had another girlfriend, Kelly, who was also looking for a car because she hadn’t owned one in a
long time. So we enlisted a mutual friend, Rhonda, to drive us to the Toyota dealership to see the car I wanted. The plan was for Kelly to check out the used cars. Kelly and Rhonda are my closest friends, and they’re always around in a pinch. I don’t know what I’d do without either of them, and I knew I needed their help in making this momentous decision.

But Rhonda had to bail on Kelly and me that day.

I no longer had the SUV, so I was riding my bike around. It was fortunate that the production office for the show was only a quarter of a mile away from my apartment, so I could ride my bike to work. In the back of my head I thought that there was a slim chance that I might have to move, given all the hubbub following Rick’s death, so getting a car was something that couldn’t wait any longer. I called Kelly and told her that I would meet her at the dealership (they were expecting me) and that I was riding my bike down. She said she’d ride her bike too and would meet me there.

It was a perfect California moment: I was riding my bike to the dealership with my helmet on when my cell phone rang. It was the dealer wondering when I would be there. I was a couple of hours late to meet with him. So I was riding my bike and on my
cell phone on a beautiful November day to buy a new Toyota Solara convertible. Life couldn’t be sweeter.

And what about the dealer? Can you think of a better scenario from his point of view? Two girls riding in to his dealership on bikes? This guy knew he had us at the get go. And of course, it wasn’t until after the fact that I realized that I was the perfect candidate for getting a crummy deal.

Another reason I had wanted Kelly with me was that she could be the bad cop. She was a good negotiator, smart, and I figured she could tell me if the deal was crazy or not. I never felt like I could negotiate these sorts of things on my own. I had no confidence, so I brought my more aggressive friend with me.

When we arrived on our bikes, we assumed our tough client attitude and looked at the cars. I took the car I wanted for a test drive, going really fast on the freeway, having a lot of fun. And then we get back to the dealership to talk price. My friend and I looked over some numbers, and I called my financial person.

And then my friend left me to go look at some used cars across the street.

I lost my lifeline. I worked with the guy on the numbers. I knew I needed a car, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to buy or lease. Figuring that I didn’t have a good track record of having cars for more than three years, I decided to lease it. Of course, after I signed the papers, I immediately remember EVERY single financial television and radio program host saying that leasing is the worst possible deal. NEVER LEASE A CAR. And then, of course, I shouldn’t have closed right away either. I should’ve waited, let the dealer come to me with another price, acted aloof and disinterested. All of that advice started to come back to me only after I had made the agreement. I don’t know if it was buyer’s remorse or just plain fear that I had taken on something so expensive. Either way I felt a lead necklace around my neck for a few minutes. But I had taken care of a problem that needed solving. Any other problems that would crop up, I would take one step at a time.

As soon as I had the keys to my new Solara Convertible, the dealership returned our bikes to our apartments so Kelly and I could just drive around. It was a November evening and not very warm, but we still had the top all the way down. We drove up the coast to Malibu, all the time Kelly had the seat as flat as possible so she could look at the sky. We had dinner, but felt that since I had a new car, we needed
to drive around Beverly Hills and act cool. It was a great night and I had forgotten, for a few hours, what I had to deal with.

Now that I had a car, I had to focus on what was happening with my apartment and the show.

Since Rick didn’t have a will, his estate would go to his next of kin. I spoke to one of the relatives who represented the family. She told me that they would be selling the duplex. I was determined not to leave the apartment; after all, I had lived there fifteen years. I felt like it was a home I already owned. I asked for some time to see if I could come up with what was needed to buy the place. They were kind enough and agreed that I could have a couple of months to try and see what I could do. I had great credit, some debt, and no savings. I would need to raise fifty thousand dollars as a down payment. Any good mortgage deals went out the window since I was trying to buy a building, not just a home. I sent a letter to all of my relatives in California and told them that I was trying to buy the place as not only an investment but a place to live, asking if they would be interested in helping with the down payment. I had a cousin who was willing to cooperate, but I didn’t have any numbers to give him, and I felt that I needed more than one person to give me
money. So after a couple of months, the family decided to go ahead and put the duplex up for sale. It was a hard day when I saw that “For Sale” sign up on my lawn.

Ugh. Fifteen years in the apartment, and now what? Could I stay? Did I have to move? I did a little research, and there were only three ways that I could be thrown out of and apartment. One of them was if the new owner or one of his or her family members chose to move into the apartment. I felt doomed.

I was very busy on
Amazing Race
, so I wasn’t around much. I would see someone every once in a while looking around the building, though, and it took less than a couple of weeks for the building to be sold. I started getting distracted at work because I wasn’t sure about where I was going to live or when I would be evicted.

And then the rumors started.

My upstairs neighbor and I heard that a couple of guys had bought the place. They were planning to move into her apartment. My neighbor and I were ready to fight. We weren’t sure how, but we decided to make sure they stuck to the letter of the law and gave us as much money as possible for moving.

Feeling certain that we would get evicted, my roommates at the time decided to move out. At that point, I could afford the entire apartment by myself because the new owners could not arbitrarily raise rent. It was low enough that I could afford to live there until I figured something out or managed to buy it from the guys. I was doing everything I could to stay in my place.

Well, it didn’t work. The landlords, two brothers, decided to each take an apartment. So both my neighbor and I were evicted. We had thirty days. She found a place down the street right away. I was not as lucky. I didn’t take any time off to find a place, but I spent every free hour after work looking for a new place and packing up boxes.

I decided that since I needed to move, I was going to make a clean slate of things. I began to get rid of the stuff I hadn’t used or didn’t want to keep. I felt that any money I could raise from a yard sale would help defray the costs of moving. I hadn’t chosen to start my life over, but I was trying to own it by keeping a glass-half-full attitude. I looked forward to starting fresh, but I wasn’t looking forward to paying the current rental prices. My rent had been so low and about half as much as it really should’ve been. Oh well, moving on…

Kelly came with me on scouting missions all over west Los Angeles area in my new red convertible. I had always loved living on the west side of Los Angeles because it was the best place in terms of driving on those horrible freeways in the morning. So I was determined to stay on the west side. We drove all over Santa Monica and saw a lot of places, but nothing that was interesting or even in my price range. Then we happened upon a place that was being renovated. It was a group of bungalow-like apartments, and there were some workers there who were repairing them. We walked around, and I instantly fell in love. They were bright and airy. We didn’t get much information about the owner except that he would be back in a couple of days.

I really wanted to live there. I didn’t know when they would be ready, but I certainly hoped it was in the time frame I needed. I decided to write a note to the landlord in case I didn’t get to see him when he was on site. I wrote him a long letter outlining my dilemma of needing a new place after fifteen years of living somewhere great, and I asked him to give me a call about renting one of the bungalow units. He did. We met, and I picked an apartment that seemed to have a manageable rent. So now I had a new car and a new, very pretty apartment. I was starting to feel pretty okay about life. But there was another snag.

I had no furniture.

After spending fifteen years in the same place, you would think I would have something to show for it. But all of my roommates always had furniture for the living room, dining room and kitchen, as I let them decorate the shared living spaces and their bedrooms any way they wanted. I never cared what my roommates had and was very happy to accommodate them. Now, though, I was in great need of living room furniture for my new apartment. What little furniture I had was what I called “Early American Yard Sale.” It was stuff that had been left behind by roommates or neighbors who had moved. All I really owned was a table, a cheap orange dresser, another dresser that was missing a couple of drawers, and a desk that was starting to fall apart. My bedroom looked like it belonged to a college student. It was as if I had never grown up.

I was forty, and I had the apartment of a sloppy teenage boy.

I knew that my mother had furniture she didn’t want, furniture that I had loved over the years. We talked about it, and my mom decided that she would ship out a few pieces, and I would incorporate them into my apartment. I was excited. The furniture my
mom was sending me was my grandfather’s office furniture from the 1950s. My grandfather had been in the film business; he’d directed documentaries and industrial films, and had at one point helmed his own little studio in Hollywood. So it was part of my history and legacy, which was exciting. My mom just welcomed the opportunity to unload the old furniture and buy new stuff.

While I was dealing with the twin debacles of my car and my apartment, I was still working on
Amazing Race
. I would work during the day and at night I would pack and price the items I was selling, look for movers, and organize everything to make the whole transition as smooth as possible, ensuring that it did not interfere with my work. No one at the office knew that I was moving or how much stress I was under.

While I was at the hotel with the semi-finalists, and as my move approached, it was getting harder and harder to part with things. I went into my living room of my soon to be old apartment which had boxes and books and belongings half-organized on the floor. I didn’t have furniture, so I had space to spread out. I stared at all of the stuff and started to tear up. I wasn’t sad, but I was frustrated. I felt that my life amounted to what was on the floor in the
living room, which wasn’t much. And some of the stuff had emotional significance or was attached to some fond memory. But it was just stuff. I did not like the fact that I gave everything such significance. After all, my friends, my family, and my work were the things that had true meaning. Not the pile of junk in the room. I was reminded of a time when a couple I knew lost their house to a fire. The years and years worth of stuff they’d collected were destroyed in an instant. And their church threw them a party to begin recouping all they had lost. My job was to buy an iron and ironing board. But there were others who replaced books and clothes that meant something to the couple. As hard as it was for them to lose everything, they chose to look forward, not back. So I rejuvenated myself with the thought that it wasn’t over, that the stuff was just that—
stuff
. But no matter what I kept telling myself, it still got to me.

I talked to a couple of friends about how to move into an apartment with as little fuss as possible, but I didn’t know how I could pull it off without taking time off from work. They said that I should get some help with the move or tell the show to pay for it, since I didn’t have a choice in the matter. I needed to get everything organized without sacrificing my job. I did speak to Terry, and he agreed to help pay for the move, which helped a lot.