As Seen On Tv. Sarah Mlynowski

“Tomorrow morning at nine.”

      Yikes.

      I shake my head. “Tomorrow morning at nine?”

      “It’ll be fab. TRS will pay for your flight out tonight. Let me e-mail the travel agent. There’s a seven-fifteen flight with American Airlines. Perfect. Pick up your ticket at Fort Lauderdale airport. Go to sleep as soon as you arrive tonight so you won’t have bags under your eyes in the morning. I’ll send a car to pick you up at 8:00 a.m. Wear something sexy and sophisticated. I’ll brief you in the car.”

      I scan the many multicolored files on my desk and around my office. It’s like a paper rainbow in here. I was supposed to sort through them before I left to make sure everything is in order. And what about my e-mails? And my personal documents? “All right,” I say, and begin sifting. I’ll do what I can. The poor, poor MBA. “Do you know where Steve’s place is?”

      “Who’s Steve?”

      “My boyfriend, remember? He runs the restaurant? The reason I’m moving to New York?”

      “Oh shit. Right. Steve. That’s where we dropped you off the other night after that woman choked, right? Listen, Sunny, I wouldn’t mention anything about Steve to the TRS people. You’re a wild, sexy, single girl, okay?”

      “But—”

      “There’s not much public interest in boring-pass-the-remote relationship types.”

      Boring? I can barely keep up. “But when will I pack up my apartment? I have to be out by the fourteenth.”

      “Don’t worry, everything will work out. All settled? See you tomorrow.” She hangs up.

      I definitely need to take my phone contacts with me. Will anyone notice if I plunk the entire Rolodex in my purse? I write my new number and e-mail address on my pad of paper along with a note for the MBA: “I’m so sorry I didn’t get to train you. If you have any questions or concerns, please call me anytime. Good luck! Sunny.”

      Liza throws open the door. “You know I don’t like when you keep your door closed for so long.”

      “I…I just got the most horrible phone call,” I say, and try to appear misty-eyed and bewildered. “My grandmother…is sick again, very, very sick this time and I have to go to New York to take care of her.” Good thing I don’t believe in hell.

      “That’s terrible,” she says, showing surprising compassion. “Is she going to die?”

      What kind of question is that? You don’t ask if someone’s going to die. “She might,” I say, casting my eyes downward.

      “But you’ll be back on Monday, right?”

      “I don’t know if I can, unfortunately. She’s very sick.”

      “Can’t someone else look after her?” Liza is beginning to look panicked. I hope she doesn’t go into labor. “I need you here next week.”

      I widen my eyes, all innocent-girl like. “Well, since my mother is dead, there isn’t really anyone else. And if she does die, how horrible would it be if she was all alone without anyone to comfort her?” Yikes.

      Liza still looks miffed. “When are you leaving?”

      “I have to go home and pack a bag and attempt to make the seven o’clock flight. It’s all terribly sudden,” I say. At least that part is true.

      “So that’s it? You’re leaving? This is your last day?”

      I need to be at the airport for 5:30, which means I need to leave for the airport at 4:45, which means I need to be home by 3:30, at the latest—no, make that 2:30—to get organized. I’ll need to leave here at 2:00.

      I look at my watch. “I’m going to have to say my goodbyes now, unfortunately.”

      Liza turns white. She better not go into labor. I don’t have the time to take her to the hospital.

      In the taxi on the way to the airport I call the Miami Herald to cancel my subscription (“Are you sure you don’t want to transfer it?”) and then quickly call my sister to tell her the news.

      “Do you really want to be associated with the pimple on the ass of the history of media?” she asks.

      “What?”

      “Don’t you think being on a reality TV show is horrendously cheesy?”

      “Don’t you think spending five hundred dollars on a new purse is horrendously cheesy?”

      She ignores the dig. “What if you end up villainized like Geri from Survivor or that Simon guy? You’re not going to pose for Playboy, are you? And look at the Real World people now. They’re always whining. I think they even had to start a twelve-step program or something.”

      “It’s so not a big deal, Dana, it’s just for a few weeks.”

      “How can you be part of something that encourages people to aspire to the lowest common denominator? That promotes 20-somethings as asinine, shallow and incompetent? That’s so not you.”

      Asinine? Shallow? Incompetent? “The shows aren’t that bad,” I say, apprehension fermenting in my stomach like bad yogurt.

      “Have you ever even watched one?”

      “Of course.” Once or twice. I haven’t watched a lot of TV since I moved out of my father’s house.

      “What about your privacy?”

      “I’m only taped on Saturday nights. I can make nice to the cameras for five hours a week. It’s a job. And there are so many of these shows, the characters are swapped faster than coffee filters. No one will remember my name two weeks after the show.”

      “You don’t know what you’re getting into.”

      “Dana, you’re making a big deal out of nothing. I’ll meet people. I’ll make a life for myself in New York and not have to rely on Steve for a social life. I’ll get a ton of free stuff. I’ll make contacts. I thought you’d see this as a good thing.”

      “Don’t complain to me when you become a public mockery and they’re doing skits about you on Saturday Night Live.”

      “Thanks for the support.” I turn my phone off.

      Is she right? Is this actually a big deal?

      Oh. Right. She’s jealous. Of course she’s jealous. She’s been trying to make her mark in television for the past five years. And I get this offered to me on a silver platter. She would kill for an opportunity like this, and I’m not even taking it seriously. Maybe I should call her back and apologize.

      Forget it. She didn’t have to be so rude.

      We get stuck in traffic, of course we do, and the driver attempts to engage me in a discussion about a new sales tax, but I’m too worried about missing my flight and therefore my new job, to partake in conversation. I grumble and close my eyes.

      Finally I’m fastened in my middle seat on the plane—you’d think they could have sprung for business class—and there’s no room overhead for my carry-on so I have to cram my suitcase under my feet.

      Not the best start to my new adventure.

      When I get to LaGuardia Airport, I wait thirty minutes for a taxi and then fall asleep on the drive to the apartment. Finally, finally, I’m here! Here I am! I’m going to see my Stevie, I think smiling. The doorman doesn’t remember me, of course not, so I have to remind him who I am, and once he nods, I drag my bags into the elevator, and then to Steve’s door.

      He doesn’t know I’m coming. In the past year I’ve never surprised him with a visit. What better opportunity than this to be spontaneous? At least he finally had the right key made for me last weekend, if he’s not home.

      As I unlock the door I have a