I quickly spin off down 9th Street, heading for the back entrance to my home, but one asshole has clocked me and shouts, — LUCY! ONE MOMENT, PLEASE!
A stampede of paparazzi; a pack of red-faced, morbidly obese wheezers and skinny vampire alcoholics, blinking in the sun, suddenly give an unlikely pursuit. I’m not letting up, though; ripping my keys out and opening the caged metal door to the back stairs, I slip in and slam it shut, just as the snapping pack crush each other up against its mesh. I’m climbing the staircase, ignoring their cacophony.
Inside the apartment, the open back window streams in cool morning air as sweet as creek water, as I try to regulate my breathing. The buzzer is going intermittently, and I eventually break down and answer it, raising the phone to my ear. — Lucy, Live! magazine, we really want to talk to you about an exclusive!
— Not acceptable! Get the fuck away! Stop ringing my buzzer or I’ll call the police! I slam the phone down into its wall mounting. A dark instinct makes me go to the cupboard where I keep my.22 air pistol. I bought it last summer when a prowler was hanging around the building. He somehow gained entry and molested a girl who lives downstairs. I didn’t know her, although I’d obviously her seen around. I’m not sure exactly what happened, it wasn’t reported in the press, but you heard stories from other people in the apartment building. Some say the asshole raped her, others that he just bound her with duct tape and ejaculated on her. Whatever went down, he was one sick fuck.
My “pistol” isn’t a proper gun; it just blasts out lead pellets through air pressure. I’m not down with guns. Jails and morgues are full of feeble clowns who thought that carrying a firearm would compel folks to take them seriously. The incident spooked me, though, and I responded positively and started up a well-attended self-defense class for women.
I check my phone; it must have hit the TV news already as there are missed calls and voice and text messages of support from Mom, Dad, my sister Jos (a “wow, well done. .” in her low, passionless voice), Grace Carillo from the MDPD (who ran the self-defense classes with me), Jon Pallota, the absentee owner of Bodysculpt (the fake gym I work out of), Emilio from Miami Mixed Martial Arts (the real gym I work out of), friends like Masterchef Dominic, and a host of old college buddies, and clients past and present.
This cheers me, and I take a long shower, the cold tap on full blast but never better than tepid against my burning skin. When I get out I peek through the slats of my blinds. The crowd seems to have dispersed, but stragglers could be lurking. The buzzer goes again. I answer it, right in the fucking zone to tear some cocksucker’s head off! — YES!!?
But this time it’s a woman’s voice, the honeyed tones smooth and reassuring. — I’m Thelma Templeton, VH1 programming. I’m not paparazzi and I’m not from a news channel. I don’t want a picture or a press interview. I give you my word if you let me in, I’ll be the only one who comes up. I want to speak to you about a fitness-slash-lifestyle show.
Fuck, yeah! I immediately buzz her in. Then it hits me that it was possibly all bullshit and I’ve been played. So I open my door and peer down the the hallway, ready to step back inside and slam it shut, should some asshole appear. After a few moments I hear reassuring heels on the stairs and see a woman emerge onto my floor. There’s no sign of her carrying anything, like a camera. She’s around forty, dressed in a business suit, with smooth blond highlighted hair and a Botoxed face, unnervingly immobile as she strides forward, a slightly bowlegged gait. I stand my ground, and when she gets close she’s suddenly gushing, — Lucy, shaking my hand and stepping into my cramped apartment. — This is cozy, she smiles, sitting, at my invitation, on my loveseat, and accepting my offer of green tea.
This ol’ girl’s pins are gym-toned; no cellulite or dimpled fat visible, and Thelma begins to outline her proposition. It’s a makeover show. I take some overweight, low-self-esteem bloat-bag who hasn’t dated this century or whose husband hasn’t boned her in years, and get her to lose weight and boost her confidence. Once I’ve licked her into shape, I hand her over to some fag designer, who will oversee phase two, the makeup and clothes component. — We have a few concepts, but this is the strongest and simplest model. We’d work with you developing the idea, shoot the pilot, and if the numbers stack up, go straight to series, she explains, then going through the spiel in some detail. When she’s done she stands up and asks, — Who reps you?
— I’m, uh, still deciding on representation, I lie.
— Don’t wait too long. Strike while the iron’s hot, she half warns. — There are some good people we work with regularly, I could pass on your contact details to them if you like. There’s no pressure, you have to find the person best for you, but I know one woman you really should meet, she’s called Valerie Mercando. I think you two would get along like a house on fire!
— Great!
She hands me her card, and I give her one of my totally rad embossed ones that Jon Pallota made for me:
LUCY BRENNAN
HARDASS TRAINING
No Excuses, Just Results — Be The Best You Can Be!
lucypattybrennan@hardass.com
She takes it in a well-manicured hand. — Wow! That is so impressive, you really do have that no-nonsense, hard-edged persona we’ve been dreaming of. Somebody to shake America right out of its complacency. Somebody even more out there than Jillian Michaels!
— I’d go head-to-head with her anytime, on the treadmill, the pull-up bar, or in the ring, I tell her, feeling my jaw jut out.
— I doubt that will be necessary, Thelma laughs, — but you never know!
I escort her out the door and down the hall to the front stairs. — Wow, I’m just so stoked that I could have a series!
— Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Thelma pats her hair in place against a nonexistent breeze, as she steps toward the front door. I jump ahead, checking the coast is clear. It seems to be. Thelma’s hand grips the edge of the door, as her eyes blink in the sunlight. — A pilot first, then see how the numbers play out, she says cheerfully. — It’s all about numbers, and she pulls a pair of sunglasses from her bag and sticks them on, — Bye, Lucy!
— Bye. I hear my voice, low-key, cheerless, as I let the door swing shut, feeling strange layers of both anxiety and excitement. Through the glass door I wave Thelma off, then bound up the stairs, going back to my pot of green tea.
I grew up in a family obsessed with numbers and measurements. Dad, a former PE teacher, punctuated only by some undistinguished service with the Boston Police Department, would take me to Fenway and bombard me with every player’s stats. When a poor or decent performance confirmed a hypothesis he’d made based on those figures, he’d lean in to me and say knowingly, “The numbers never lie” or “Don’t ever trust man’s subjectivity, math comes from God. Watch the stats, pickle, always watch the stats.”