She didn't tell any of her sisters that she was going to talk to them about a job. She was sure they would be horrified, and she was herself. But she was bored out of her mind, sitting around the house with nothing to do until the others came home at night. And Annie was doing remarkably well at the Parker School after five weeks. Tammy was the only one now with no purpose in her life, although she was still glad that she had moved, to spend the year with them. She felt as though they all needed it, and were benefiting from it, she as much as the others, after losing their mother three and a half months before.
Tammy went to the appointment on a Thursday afternoon. She had already sent them her résumé, and they knew all about her creating the show in L.A. She was a major pro. And if she came to work with them, they wanted some fresh ideas to keep the show alive. It had started to slide a little, although much to Tammy's amazement, their ratings were still strong, and the concept mesmerized their viewers. The show seemed to represent or even mirror the problems people had in their relationships, from cheating to impotence, emotional abuse, or intrusive mothers-in-law. Substance abuse and delinquent children also seemed to be high on the list of what caused people problems and brought them to the show. It was a slice of life, and everything you didn't want to know about other people's relationships and lives. Except the audience apparently did. The Nielsen ratings said so.
Tammy went to the meeting with some trepidation, and met the executive producer in his office. Much to her surprise, he seemed like a normal human being. He had a psychology degree himself, from Columbia, and had preferred to keep the show based in New York when he set it up. He had been married for thirty years and had six kids of his own. He had been a marriage counselor for several years before getting into TV. He had entered TV in sports, and then finally got to put his concept on TV with the advent of reality shows. This was his dream come true, just as her show had been for her. It was just a very different breed of show. And like most reality TV, it catered to the lowest common denominator. But some of the couples they had filmed sounded reasonable, even to her. Although most of them were badly behaved, which the audience preferred.
They had an excellent conversation, and she had to admit she liked him, although the associate producer was a jerk and had an attitude about her. He was defending his turf, wanted the senior job himself, and was not being considered for it.
“So what do you think?” Irving Solomon, the executive producer, asked her, as their meeting drew to a close.
“I think it's an interesting show,” she said, somewhat honestly. She didn't say she loved it, which wouldn't have been true. And in a lot of ways, it wasn't highbrow enough for her. She had never been inclined to exploit people's problems, nor to sink to that kind of sleaze. But on the other hand, she wanted to work. And this seemed to be all that was around. The pickings in New York were slim. “Have you ever thought of making it a little more serious?” she asked thoughtfully. She wasn't quite sure how to do it, but she was willing to ponder the idea.
“Our audience doesn't want serious. They have enough pain in their own lives. They want to see people slugging it out, verbally of course, not physically, the way they wish they could do with their mate, if they dared. We are their alter ego, and we have the guts they don't.” It was one way to see it, although Tammy didn't quite see it that way. But they weren't hiring her to revamp the show, or improve it, just to keep it on the air, and drive their ratings up if she could. That was always the issue for any show on TV. How do we get the ratings higher? What they wanted was more of the same. “What brought you to New York, by the way? That's some terrific show you walked out on.” She thought she heard a reproach in the way he said it, and shook her head.
“I didn't walk out,” she corrected him. “I gave notice and left. There was a tragedy in my family this summer, and I wanted to be here,” she said with quiet dignity, and he nodded.
“I'm sorry to hear it. Is it resolved now?” he asked with some concern.
“It's getting better. But I want to stay here now, to keep an eye on things.”
“Do you have time to work on the show?”
“Yes, I do,” she said confidently, and he looked relieved. She was a professional to the core, and he knew she wouldn't be talking to him if she wasn't interested in the job. He was hoping she was. He already knew he wanted her. He wasn't interviewing anyone else, and he said as much to her. He gave her several tapes of the show, and asked her to think about it and get back to him. They didn't want to mess with something that worked. And he wanted her to respect that too.
“I'll get back to you in a couple of days,” she promised. She wanted to see the tapes of the show. She met the psychologist on the way out. She couldn't believe what she looked like. Flamboyant was far too tame a word. She was wearing rhinestone glasses and a skintight dress over an enormous bosom that poured out of her dress. She looked like a madam in a bad bordello, but he claimed the audiences and the couples loved her. Her name was Désirée Lafayette, which couldn't possibly have been her real name. She looked like a transsexual to Tammy, and she wondered if she was. Nothing would have surprised her on this show. Least of all a female psychologist who had once been a guy.
She went back to the house, and put the first tape on TV. She was watching it intently when Annie came back from school. She stood in the den for a minute and listened to what Tammy had on, and broke into a broad smile.
“What the hell is that?”
“A show I'm checking out,” she said, still concentrating on the couple on screen. They were beyond belief, and had just called each other every name in the book.
“You're not serious, I hope.”
“I think I am. For comic relief, if nothing else. How was school?”
“Good.” She never said “Great,” but at least she didn't say it was awful, and her sisters suspected that she liked it. Tammy glanced at her watch. She had to get her to her shrink, and reminded her of it, in case she wanted something to eat before she went.
“I'm twenty-six, not two. I can go by cab if you want to keep watching that crap.”
“I can watch it later,” Tammy said, as she turned it off. But she had already made her decision. It was awful, but what the hell, why not? Désirée Lafayette was too ridiculous for words. But the show had something, a kind of down-and-dirty misery to it, and yet behind all the window dressing was a thread of hope. Tammy liked that. They rarely seemed to tell people to give up on their relationships, and Désirée tried to give them ideas of how to improve them, even if they were slightly absurd, and the people on the show incredibly vulgar. There was nothing dignified about it.