Not So Model Home

CHAPTER 10


The Slap Heard ’Round the World

That night, I went over to Alex’s place. As he was pouring a cucumber martini for the both of us, Alex asked me how the filming went. I told him that there had been a kerfuffle.

“A kerfuffle? Did you just become a Tudor?”

“Well, I kinda slapped Gilles.”

“Kinda slapped?”

“Okay, I bitch-slapped him.”

“Whyyyyy?”

“Because he pulled down the top of my swimsuit and exposed my breasts.”

“I thought this was a gay show, not an episode of Girls Gone Wild.”

“It is a gay show. I’m the token fag hag.”

Alex was trying to figure out things. “So why would an obnoxious, gay French male model pull down the top of your swimsuit?”

“Ah, well, that’s just the way he is,” I said, lying through my newly whitened teeth. (So what if I wanted my teeth to look good for TV. I recently had them bleached . . . so sue me.)

“Amanda . . .” Alex started. “I can tell when you’re lying.”

“How so?”

“You don’t look me in the eye and you start fiddling with something with your hands . . . like you’re fiddling with my salt shaker. So spill it.”

“I called him money-grubbing Eurotrash or something like that.”

“No argument there from what you’ve told me about him, but I suppose you did this in front of a camera?”

“Pretty much. Yup.”

“You had too much champagne, didn’t you?”

“Now, why would you jump to that conclusion, Alex?”

“Amanda, we may have been married for only five years, but I know you very well. Your mouth runs free when you’ve had too much champagne.”

“I blame it on the bubbles.”

“So, are they going to put that segment on the show?”

“Oh, I don’t think so, Alex,” I said, lying through my pearly whites again, but mostly lying to myself.

“I’d check YouTube as soon as you can. I’ll bet they’ve uploaded that scene already.”

“Alex, they just filmed us this afternoon. It’s eight o’clock right now. They wouldn’t have had enough time to get it on there already. You’re just getting way out ahead of yourself.”

“Oh yeah, let’s see,” Alex said, clapping his hands in anticipation as he flipped the lid open on his MacBook Air and the computer screen leapt to life. He typed in some search topics, scrolled through a list of videos, then spun the laptop around for me to see. And there it was. The title? “Things Are a Bit Iffy: The Bitch Slap.” I had to admit it, the title wasn’t especially catchy, but it was optimized for search engine results. Meaning? It was probably going to go viral. Unfortunately.

I looked at the still frame from the video, afraid to click on the movie and watch myself broadcast to the entire world. My hand trembled as I clicked on the mouse and the movie began to play. Alex pulled in closer to get a good look.

After the intro that set up the premise of the show, what I saw was me saying that Gilles seemed “like gold-digging Eurotrash.” This was followed by several reaction shots that were clearly taken long after the slap but edited in as if they had occurred immediately after it to make everything seem like it had all taken place in real time. I watched in horror as the clip led up to Gilles confronting me. I realized what would happen next and, unfortunately, I was not disappointed. The video showed Gilles pulling down my swimsuit top to expose my breasts, which were pixilated, only to the point of passing the censors. It was clear to every man, woman, child, and pervert that I had nothing to be embarrassed about in the endowment department.

It was the second loudest laughter I had ever heard out of Alex in all the years I had known him. The first, in case you’re interested, was when we were alpine hiking and we stopped for a rest and Alex went to pee. I took the occasion to let out a fart just as Alex returned and I turned around to see a party of eight hikers resting silently above me on an overhanging rock. So now you know.

I was mortified. I would never be able to go out again, work again, even shop for groceries again. And it had all happened in less than five seconds. I couldn’t believe that it was me I was looking at. I had gone from a successful Realtor to a piece of white trash showing her tits. It was surreal . . . just surreal.

I scrolled down a few more videos only to find that a dozen or so YouTube contributors had already downloaded the scene and re-edited it to create comical versions. One was entitled “Great Bitch Slaps of History,” where the editor had pieced together some of the most renowned slaps in film history. My fifteen seconds of fame was rated higher than Vivacious Lady, with seven, count ’em, seven slaps, Airplane, In the Heat of the Night, and The Godfather. But no matter how good my slap was, probably chocking up points because mine was not a scripted one, the viewer who posted the film felt I just couldn’t compete with Faye Dunaway’s famous camp slap in Mommie Dearest. I had to concede defeat: How could you compete with Joan?

This video post was followed by another compilation of famous movie slaps—and mine—scored to the tune of Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me with Your Best Shot.” Clever. This was followed by a motley assortment of not-funny re-edits that usually had characters wearing bad wigs and trying pathetically to re-enact my glorious moment on the screen in basement rec rooms in New Jersey. I mean, we’re talking hours since I pulled my slap. Hours! Alex got a great laugh out of all of them, especially the really unfunny videos, but what really struck me was how quickly this stuff got spread all across the Internet. It was like Facebook and Twitter photos of Congressmen in skimpy, tight athletic shorts showing obvious cock lines; they spread faster than pictures of Paris Hilton’s beaver. The number of views said it all: In the short time my slap had been posted by the public relations people at Q Channel, some of the videos had had over 5,000 views. And climbing. What I forgot was how much time some people spend on the Internet, endlessly cruising for the funny, the weird, and the downright embarrassing.

During dinner, Alex told me to forget the whole thing, but I kept running over and over the same thought in my head: I will never get over this, never. Even after I went home that night to my perennially unfinished house in a state of perpetual remodeling and was greeted by Knucklehead, my rescued Labradoodle who erupted in a chorus of gleeful barking, the same words kept repeating in my head: You’re a Kardashian now.