Sisters (31 page)

After two months Annie seemed to be doing well at the Parker School, and she and Baxter were fast friends. They got together on weekends sometimes, and talked about art, their opinions, the things they thought were important about it, the work they had seen and loved. She talked to him for hours about the Uffizi in Florence, and instead of being angry now, she said she was grateful to have seen it before she went blind. She never talked about Charlie, he had been a huge disappointment, and she felt betrayed by him still. But not nearly as much as she would have if she had known the truth. Her sisters never said a word about it. And Baxter met a man he liked at a Halloween party he went to in the city. He had gone as a blind person, which Annie told him was disgusting. But the man he was dating seemed nice. He had lunch with Annie and Baxter at the school once, and Annie said he sounded like a good person. It cut into their time together somewhat, but she didn't mind. He was twenty-nine years old, a young fashion designer at a major house, and had gone to Parsons School of Design. He didn't seem to care that Baxter was blind, which was encouraging for him and Annie, and bolstered their spirits. There was life after blindness. Annie still doubted it for herself, but said she didn't care, which no one believed. But she was learning useful things at school.

Sabrina had assigned her to feed the dogs. Mrs. Shibata was incapable of it. She always fed them things that made them sick. She had fed Beulah cat food once, and she'd been at the vet for a week, which cost them a fortune. And she still sneaked seaweed into their diet from time to time. Annie was home more than the others, and came home earlier from school than they did from work, so Sabrina assigned her the task. And Annie was outraged.

“I can't. Anyway, you know I hate dogs!”

“I don't care. Ours need to eat, and no one else has the time. You have nothing else to do after school, except your shrink twice a week. And Mrs. Shibata is going to make them really sick, which costs a fortune at the vet. And you don't hate our dogs. Besides, they love you, so feed them.” Annie had fumed and refused to do it for the first week. It had turned into a major battle with her oldest sister. But finally Annie learned how to use the electric can opener, measure the kibble and put it in the right bowls, which were of different sizes. She grudgingly put their food out when she got home, even with strips of cold cuts for Juanita, who was a picky eater and turned up her nose at the commercial dog food they bought. She made rice for them once when they were sick, after Mrs. Shibata gave them seaweed again, with one of her Japanese pickles as a special treat, which stank up the house. Tammy called them the thousand-year-old pickles. They smelled like they'd been rotten for years, and nearly killed the dogs.

“It is
not
my job to feed
your
dogs,” Annie had said huffily. “I don't have one, so why do I have to do it?”

“Because I said so,” Sabrina said finally, and Tammy told her she thought she was being a little tough.

“That's the whole point,” Sabrina confessed. “We can't treat her like an invalid. I think she should do other chores too.” Sabrina sent her to the mailbox with letters to mail as often as possible, and asked her to pick things up at the dry cleaner's down the street, because she was home before it closed, and the others weren't.

“What do I look like? An errand boy? What did your last slave die of?” Annie growled at her. It was a running battle between them, with Sabrina constantly asking her to do errands, pick things up at the hardware store, get a new hair dryer for her when hers broke. Her mission was to get Annie independent, and this was the best way to do it, even though it felt cruel to her sometimes too. She even bitched at her for spilling the dog food in the pantry and leaving a mess, and told her to clean it up before they got rats or mice in the house. Annie had been in tears over it, and didn't speak to Sabrina for two days, but she was becoming more and more independent and capable of taking care of herself.

Tammy had to admit the program was working, but it was definitely tough love. And more often than not, Candy sided with Annie, not understanding the motivation behind it, and called Sabrina a bitch. It was good cop, bad cop, with Tammy as the mediator a lot of the time. But Annie was becoming an independent woman again, sighted or not. And she was no longer frightened to go out into the world. The supermarket, drugstore, and hardware store no longer daunted her, blind or not.

Her biggest problem was that she had no social life. She had few friends in New York, and was shy about going out. She had always been the least social of her sisters and the most introverted, spending hours alone, sketching, drawing, and painting. Losing her sight had isolated her more. The only time she went anywhere was with her sisters, and they made every effort to get her out. But it was hard. Candy led a crazy life with photographers, models, editors, and people in the fashion world, most of whom Sabrina and Tammy thought were unsuitable for her, but they were who worked in her business and it was inevitable that she hung out with them. Sabrina worked long hours and wanted to spend time with Chris, and both of them were too tired to go out much during the week. And Tammy was living crazy hours in her new job, which had as many crises as her old job in Los Angeles. So most of the time, Annie had no one to go out with, and stayed home. It was a big deal for her to go out to dinner once a week with them, which they all agreed wasn't enough for her, but they didn't know how to solve the problem. And Annie insisted she liked staying home. She was starting to read in braille, and spent hours with her headphones on, listening to music and dreaming. It wasn't a full life for a twenty-six-year-old woman. She needed people and parties, and places to go to, girlfriends and a man in her life, but it wasn't happening, and her sisters feared it never would. She didn't say it to them, but so did she. Her life was as over as her father's, who sat in his house in Connecticut, crying for his late wife most of the time. Sabrina and Tammy worried about both of them, and wanted to do something about it, but neither of them had time.

Tammy's life was insane. As it turned out, Irving Solomon had basically wanted to turn the show over to her, and let her deal with it. He was in Florida half the week, and played golf whenever he could. He was tired, and wanted to retire early, but the show was a cash cow for him. When Tammy tried to discuss its problems with him, he waved her out of his office, and told her she had dealt with bigger problems in her last show, just deal with it. He trusted her completely.

“Shit, what am I supposed to do here?” she said to the associate producer one day. “I'm running a show where people beat each other up on TV, and they changed the time slot against a number-one show. All they know is what the ratings look like, and as long as they're good, no one wants to hear it.”

She came up with the idea that their “couples” should at least look decent, and had her assistant call Barney's to see if they could get clothes for them, for credit on the show. They leaped at the idea.

“At least we won't have to look at their tattoos,” Tammy said with relief. She was trying to upgrade the show, and give it a little class, which was risky business, she knew.

“Don't fix what ain't broke,” the associate producer warned her, but Tammy was following her instincts, and thought people might relate to it better and care more, if the people looked less trailer park and more middle class. Jerry Springer was already the best of the business in that world. She wanted to carve out a niche of their own.

She hired two excellent hairdressers from a well-known soap to do the women's hair, and to try and get Désirée's look a little more under control. Désirée was furious that Tammy didn't like her look, but the audience loved the results. Tammy actually got their staff psychologist into some attractive beige suits by major designers, some more modest silk dresses where her gigantic tits weren't spilling onto her knees, and she suddenly looked like an authority in her field, and not a guy in drag. Her look had been very
Cage aux Folles
before that. And within three weeks of the changes Tammy had instigated, they got two new sponsors, one for dishwashing soap and the other for diapers. It was all squeaky-clean stuff. And the ratings soared.

That didn't rule out the problems they had with the couples, which were legion. One husband had pulled a gun on the host when he had goaded him Geraldo style, and called him a “rotten cheater.” The guy was steaming for the rest of the show, and slammed the host up against a wall with a gun in his belly the minute they came off the air. No one had any idea how he had gotten the gun past security, but there it was, as Tammy happened to be walking by and saw it.

“I agree with you, Jeff,” she said calmly. “The guy's an asshole. I don't like him either, but he's not worth going to prison for. And I thought it was pretty clear on the show that your wife's still in love with you. Why throw all that away? Désirée thought you two had a good shot at patching things up.” Tammy tried to sound convincing and unflustered, and even sympathetic, as she tried to calm the potential shooter, while waiting for someone from security to show up before he shot her too.

“Really?” the man said, and then he got wound up again. “You're just saying that. You guys made assholes of us.”

“I don't think so. The audience loved you, and our ratings were the best they've been all week.” His wife was crying offstage somewhere, because it had come out that he had slept not only with her best friend but also with her sister, which she hadn't known. Could this relationship be saved? Hopefully not. The wife had also slept with his brother, and the entire neighborhood except their dog, to get even with him. As far as Tammy was concerned, they all belonged in jail, where “Jeff” had already been twice, for assault. What were they doing on the show anyway? And why was she producing it? That was the real question. It took them twenty minutes to talk him down. The cops had been called by then, and he was led away in handcuffs, which made the
New York Post
the next day. And that of course only helped their ratings. There was no question in Tammy's mind. It was a very sick show, catering to the absolute worst instincts of the public. They were Peeping Toms into other people's relationships and bedrooms, and what they saw there fascinated them. Most of the time, it made her sick.

“Well, that was fun,” she said to her assistant, as she got back to her office and sat down at her desk, still looking pale. “Who the hell is screening these people, and where are we getting them? The parole board at Attica prison? Do you think we could do a slightly better job screening these lunatics before we put them on the show and piss them off?” She raised hell at their next production meeting about it, and the associate producer apologized profusely. Their host had actually been shot once before. He had gotten a huge salary increase because of it, and the position was now considered high risk.

“What am I doing here?” she asked herself as she left the meeting and Désirée waylaid her. She said she loved her new wardrobe, but did Tammy think she could talk to Oscar de la Renta about doing an exclusive wardrobe for her? She loved his clothes. A month before they'd been dressing her off the sale rack at Payless, and now she wanted Oscar de la Renta to design her clothes. They were all nuts.

“I'll try, Desi. But this may not be his kind of show.” Particularly if their participants were going to be led away in handcuffs after every show. They had had a less traumatic incident the day before, when a wife had slugged her husband on the air and broken his nose. There had been blood everywhere. The audience had roared in sheer delight. “I loved your dress today.”

“So did I,” she said, looking pleased. “I loved the one yesterday too. But that idiot got blood all over it. All I had said backstage was that I thought his wife was gay. I didn't expect him to say it to her on air. Besides, she told me she was, she just didn't want him to know. So he tells her, and she breaks his nose on air. Go figure,” Désirée said, looking nonplussed. “I hope they can get the blood out of the dress.” She had just added a clause to her contract that allowed her to keep her on-air wardrobe. It was no wonder she wanted Oscar to do her clothes now. Tammy would have enjoyed a wardrobe too. Instead, she worked in sweatshirts, jeans, and Nikes most of the time. She needed to feel free to move around, and there was a lot of fancy footwork involved with the show.

“Yeah, go figure,” Tammy agreed, thinking to herself that the psychologist was insane. But in spite of that she added two more new sponsors in the next two weeks. The show was skyrocketing to stardom, which was embarrassing, and
Variety
was attributing it to her, which was worse. She had been hoping to keep a low profile on this one, but that wasn't happening. Her old friends from L.A. were starting to call her and tease the hell out of her for what she was doing in New York.

“I thought you went back there to take care of your sister,” one of them said.

“I did.”

“So what happened?”

“She's in school, and I got bored.”

“Well, you won't be bored on this show.”

“No, I'll probably wind up in jail.”

“I doubt it. You'll probably wind up running the network one day. I can hardly wait.”

Worse yet,
Entertainment Tonight
asked her for an interview shortly after the husband had pulled the gun on their host, and Irving wanted her to do it. She tried to keep it brief and dignified, which was no mean feat. And to top it off, the day after, their host asked her out. He was fifty-five years old, had been divorced four times, had caps on his teeth the size of Chiclets, and a terrible hair weave he had done in Mexico. He had been a minor actor on soaps in his youth, and was a bodybuilder. From a distance, he was decent looking, but from up close he was terrifying. And he was a born-again Christian, which was a little too intense for her. She preferred her spirituality in smaller doses, and he regularly handed her religious pamphlets about being saved. Maybe he needed that in order to face the daily risk of getting shot.