Oh what a year it’s been. So much has happened. We’ve left and returned, had and lost, breathed and blinked. And now finally our long, arduous wait is over. The New York Housewife critters have skittered back into our lives. Oh they’re so much sharper than their Orange County sisters, aren’t they? They’ve just got a bit more going on, they’re hustling a lot harder. They’re not lazy and sun-struck and tired. They are moving and moving and moving as fast as they can, beady eyes fixed on the gray buildings towering above them, structures they’d like to scale and sit atop. They are, despite all of our hemming and hawing and mooing and moaning, representative enough of this city. In some strange way, in a Bravo Real Housewives sorta way, they are New York. As much as Vicki and Lynne and the gurgling rest are Orange County. Place is place, like it or not. What’s done is done. Except nothing ever is done! Not for these women. These women hold grudges like Kate Gosselin used to hold her kids, tight to their chests, clutching them with fervor, these precious moneymaking loaves. This anger and spitty upsetness about people being Mean or Rude or Disrespectful, years ago. They never forget. They are all elephants with elephant skin. So no, nothing is ever done. Last night felt like they were recapping themselves, rehashing things from the past. Things that happened in the strange slip between seasons, that mysterious unknown world. We began our tale, like so many great epics begin, on a boat. Naturally the season began in the Hamptons, all green grass and sandy smiles and the slow death rattle hum of these women eroding the cachet of this place. It’s gone from the moneyed tuft of The Hamptons to the pallid cheapness of Long Island, and it’s all their fault. They have the power to do that. That are unwittingly doing it. Everyone’s forgetting that word, Hamptons. “Are you going to the Ha…Ham… Long Island for the weekend?” people ask in the city on a Thursday afternoon. “No, I’m going to Albany to visit my great aunt. We’re staying at the Ha… the Hamp…. the Long Island Inn? Is that right?” Just the sheer presence of our breezy trashbags is stripping the already-mostly-stripped Hamptons of their leafy clout. That is mostly dead now. There is just Long Island. Just Egg and Quogue. Two strange feathery fingers, tickling the Atlantic. Anyway! Yes, a boat. Specifically, Ramona’s boat. A boat Ramona rented. Jill and the Countess Lulu Crackerjacks DeLesseps strolled down the dock and saw the bobbing yacht and then they heard a piercing screech and suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, up popped Ramona. She was giggling and crying and Fluff was pouring out of her ears and she started throwing full champagne flutes at them, she got a pistol and started shooting it up into the air. Ramona was excited. Ramona is different . First off, she has a new haircut. It’s a youthful little ‘do, sprightly and bright, bright blonde. Ramona is convinced that she looks like an older Cameron Diaz, which is true. New Ramona looks like what Cameron Diaz looks like in dreams, all fuzzy and irregular, a vague hint of Cameron Diaz, because in the dream you know it is her, but it really doesn’t look like her. That’s what Ramona looks like. And that’s not half bad. The reason for the haircut? Well, see, Ramona is redoing herself. She’s reevaluating, reviving, Renaissance’ing. Ramona is having a moment and it’s quite a thing to behold. She’s still as loopy as a children’s shoe-tying class, but she’s goals in mind, she’s driven and has purpose. Her rented yacht party was partly meant to be a big splashy Hello to a new season of the show, but it was mostly so she could show off her big fancy entrepreneurial endeavor. You see, Ramona is selling jewelry on QVC. Yes. The height of class. Beautiful jewelry. And she wanted to show off her wares to a captive audience. I mean, if they wanted to get away from the pitch, what were the ladies going to do, hurl themselves over the side of the boat? (Well, one tried. Just pretended to yawn and stretch and plopped over into the water. Sadly, she forgot that she was at the back of the boat and was quickly chopped to tartare by the propeller.) They were stuck. They had to look at all of her costume trinkets. “Beautiful baubles…” Ramona said as she opened the case to reveal the treasures. “Pretty shining things…” This made Crackerjacks and Jill moan. Oh how they moan. These bitches are never satisfied with anything. Everything is always annoying. Ohhhh how awwwwwful to be on a boat in the summer in the Atlantic Ocean drinking things and wearing breezy clothes. What a dreaaddddful annoyance! They had to look at rings for five minutes . The horror . It’s so exhausting! I mean, I would probably want to tear my hair out every time Ramona did something near me too, but c’mon ladies. Let’s try to have a little perspective here, shall we? You’re not exactly shoveling shit. After Jewelryfest ’09, the women spent the rest of their boat trip reciting their Histories. They drew maps with their words, showing where they have been, what Meannesses and Rudenesses they had suffered, explaining their scars, singing the old songs of the shtetl or homestead. These are a storytelling people, these New York Housewives. Such a strong oral tradition. Ramona sang a prayer to her three Bear Gods and offered them a sacrifice of a beeeautiful three-karat garnet topaz Forever Luxury ring. She tossed it into the ocean, with a Gloria Stuart-esque “Woop!”, and that was that. Jill told some story about Bethenny. She and Bethenny aren’t friends anymore. It’s true. Sad but true. Something happened with something else and then there was a third something and then someone did something to someone and now something’s just broken, irreparable, torn asunder. I think maybe the problem is that Bethenny got too big for her britches? Maybe she doesn’t even wear britches anymore. Maybe she’s changed her outfit entirely. Jill doesn’t recognize her. She doesn’t like this new look. (When JZ came to the office I chirpingly told her that I’d met Bethenny before and Jill’s eyes turned to slits and she smiled acidicly and she said “Oh yeah? And how was that? Was that an enjoyable experience?” At the time I had no idea they hated each other, so I thought it was very weird. But lest you think it’s all made up for the Television, it is not. It was very real then, on that particular afternoon, and there was hardly a camera in sight.) So that was Jill’s bitchery. Oh, ha, Alex was there? She was mostly there to stand in a corner with her arms out to scare away seagulls, but they let her talk a little too. She didn’t have much to say. Mostly she just sat there and blinked and, by sheer virtue of her plugged-up silence, became sympathetic. Yes, it’s true. Alex didn’t make an enormous mockery of herself last night. I mean, don’t worry, I’m sure she will. I’m sure when she gets back to New York it’ll be like watching an American Keeping Up Appearances all over again. But last night, just last night, she had a slight pleasant reprieve. Alex was our silent observer, frowning and making Frankenstein faces in the corner. Oh Ganglepuss. We were friends last night. Then the clouds darkened and the waves roiled and it was time for the big event. Ramona was sitting by herself down at the back of the boat. She was singing a little song to herself (“Hmmm hmmm gems and stones / Dug up my grandma just to see her bones / If you get there before I do / Please tell me if the sky is blue”) and tugging at her Play-Doh spaghetti hair. And then suddenly there was a clanking and creaking and a low, throaty chuckle and Crackerjacks plopped down next to her. She looked heavenly. She was wearing big ’70s sunglasses and a turban and a kind of silk muumuu or coverall. She was a ’70s coke queen, a fluffer for Magnum P.I. , a disco washup with forests in her eyes. Ramona look scared, she trembled like a tuning fork. “Yesss….?” she said slowly, her head turning 100
