And so I did. Interestingly, my mood changed the second I entered the casting room, from uncertainty to complete certainty that this was the most surreal experience I had had in forever. This was all happening so fast. Could this be the change I was looking for? Did anyone really think I was right for this job? Did I think I was right for this job?
About seven people sat in a line behind two rectangular tables that had been pushed together. Executives from the network (TLC), the production company (BBC), a camera operator, and Stacy London, whom I didn’t even recognize from the video I had been watching in the waiting area because she was so casually dressed and wearing little, if any, makeup.
“Oh, hi,” I said, when I realized it was her. “It’s you.” I waved and she waved back and smiled a big smile.
Someone asked me to take a seat, in a chair facing them all like a firing squad. They asked me a bunch of questions, most of which I can’t remember now. I do recall being asked which celebrity’s style I admired, and I responded with the truth, that I really didn’t care about celebrity style, because celebrities had stylists. It doesn’t count when someone else is picking out your clothes.
I also remember that my mouth was really dry. Could it have been nerves? I don’t recall being nervous.
“Can I have some water?” I asked, and started laughing.
“You want water?” a British woman named Abigail responded, as if nobody had ever asked her for water before.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m all dry.” My tongue seemed two sizes too big for my own mouth, which struck me as hysterical.
Everyone in the room laughed awkwardly and looked at me as though I were some sort of dry-mouthed lizard. Then someone had the idea of seating Stacy next to me and pointing a camera at the two of us as we flipped through entertainment magazines, ragging on some people and complimenting others. I really liked her. I had never met her before this day, and yet we chatted like two old friends for about half an hour, while everyone else in the room watched and laughed.
At one point I realized my hand was resting on Stacy’s thigh. You might not know me as well as you think you do, Fanny. At the time, touching a relative stranger was very uncharacteristic of me.
I said, “I’m so sorry.” And Stacy looked at me, puzzled.
“For what?” she asked.
“My hand is on your leg.”
“Oh, God,” she said. “I don’t care.” Then I felt kind of silly for bringing it up. But in some ways, I’m glad I did. I had forgotten about “me” for a moment and become “us.”
I left that audition and by the next morning received a call to come back two days later, which was a Sunday, Father’s Day, actually. I had been planning to go out to Long Island to visit my dad, so I called him and asked if it would be okay if he took a rain check. When I told him my reason for cancelling, he said, “Do what you gotta do, son. And knock ’em dead.”
That audition would prove to be my final one. It was a miniversion of the show. They had whittled the field of what I was told were thousands of men down to two: me and someone else I never had the chance to meet. When I didn’t hear from anyone for two weeks, I assumed they had chosen the other guy. And I was a little disappointed, but not devastated. Maybe because I never really wanted the job. The disappointment was more about having to figure out what the hell to do with my life. But TLC called me and offered me a five-year contract—their option to renew every year, not mine. I accepted, and that was that.
So, Fanny, does it sound like Fate muscled her way into a reality show casting? Or was it Destiny? Or perhaps it was Faith herself! My own Faith in the Universe, or some other higher power. I asked for a change, and it landed smack-dab in the middle of my flat-front-trousered lap. Fate, Faith, Destiny, Coincidence—who cares. The past is past, as they say. And I’m just plugging along in the present, the only way I know how, in a sense of amused wonderment at it all. Ever since I made a concerted effort to give up trying to determine why things happen, I’ve been a bit freer to experience things when they happen. Oh, here I go with that armchair philosophy again. Pay no attention to the musings of an old man like me.
Something tells me you want to know a little about my relationship with Stacy. What can I tell you about Ms. London, my cohost of ten years? She and I got along like . . . what’s the expression? . . . a house on fire, from my first day on the job. And as the years wore on, I often wished that house would have burned down to the ground.
We had an interesting relationship. Interesting to me, anyway, in the extremes I felt. For the first five years we worked together, I either adored her or despised her, and never anything in between, probably because we spent nearly sixty hours a week in captivity, rarely more than an arm’s length away from each other. Trust me when I tell you that is just too much time to spend with any other human being you didn’t choose of your own free will. And even then, it might be too much. We would occasionally joke that we were like a brother and sister trapped in the backseat during an excruciatingly long car trip. One minute wanting to play a game, the next wanting to kill the other for breathing. The last five years of the show, we settled into being “friends at work,” which was considerably more peaceful.
Why did I love and loathe Stacy? I loved her, I think, because she’s charming as hell. I’ve met few people so good as she at making others feel decidedly special. Also, she’s got an amazing sense of humor. She cracked me up daily, even when I could barely stand the sight of her. Plus, she knows all the words to A Chorus Line. I mean, how could I not adore someone who wants to sing “Dance Ten, Looks Three” with me upward of thirty times a day? We were two well-intentioned warriors, traveling the country attempting to convince women, one at a time, that perhaps, despite everything they had been told by abusive ex-boyfriends, bullying classmates, even well-intentioned mothers, they did deserve to feel pretty. Some believed us. Some were damaged enough to know that a good bra and platform pumps would not come close to repairing their souls.
I loathed Stacy because . . . well . . . maybe there was some jealousy on my part. She really seemed to enjoy, nay, need the attention of others, and I felt that she was almost constantly jockeying for it. For that reason, and perhaps others, she received more attention than I did. Even though I rarely wanted attention—that’s the truth if you care to believe it—I found myself continually annoyed that she did. I was perfectly content with our own little system of two. Us against them! But she needed more, and then I grew to want more too.