Divorce From Reality

1,000 words.

“Judy, are you sure you want to do this? If you sign a contract that means everyone will be able to watch every aspect of your life, the cameras catch everything.” Kevin, one of my best friends and my attorney, glanced my way as we entered the building. For being a gay, he certainly didn’t understand the need for constant attention. It was disappointing really, I already had sour puss friends who thought that I was too much, when the truth is I’m not nearly enough. “Really think about this before you sign on to do anything.”

“Honey, you’re nobody if you aren’t on TV. I mean look at Madonna, sure she’s an icon but she’s the butt of everyone’s jokes right now. But Britney joined The X Factor and she is beloved once again. I refuse to be a nobody any longer. Plus I have the perfect hook, I mean look at my boobs. They scream TV star don’t they?” He shook his head at me and exhaled a long sigh. New friends would be the first thing that I looked to when I signed up for my reality show, and maybe a drug habit. I mean every celebrity seemed to have a drug that they liked to do. “Don’t sigh at me. I’ve been through what 30 divorces so far, I just want this one to be seen by everyone. I can be an inspiration to all those poor women who decided to marry poor; I can show them that there is a way out from the gutter.”

“You do realize that they will want Mr. Man to sign on to the show as well, and that will be an uphill battle. He hates any kind of publicity, let alone having cameras follow his every move.” As if this argument was going to deter me from having my show. Sure, my soon to be ex-husband might try to thwart my plans to be famous but I had one thing that he didn’t, and I don’t mean a muffin instead of a hot dog.

“Get that look out of your eyes. This is serious, have you even talked to him about it? Wait don’t answer that, last time you answered a question like that my law firm had to add a criminal defense department.”

“Hey that wasn’t my fault! How I was supposed to know that the cop was…” I paused when he gave me a loom of dismay. He pressed the elevator button going up. His lips were in a thin line, which meant that he was unhappy with me. It didn’t matter, I knew all I had to do was buy him a cosmo or some other fruity drink and we would be fine again. “Anyways with the information I have on him, he’ll appear on the show or he’ll have to hand over his entire fortune to me and we both know that he won’t do that.”

“Dear God. Do you ever think these things through? You do know that blackmail is a crime, a federal crime right? Never mind, I’ll call the office and have them alerted to the fact that you are going to need them again.” His words were rapid fire, which meant that he was jealous that he hadn’t thought of my plan first.

“Blackmail is such an ugly word,” I had never understood that cliché until then. “Let’s call it re-negotiating my settlement. It’s not my fault he ran around with that young tramp.”

When I had been given pictures of my dear husband and a floozy by Private Investigator, I had filed for divorce in a high profile kind of way. The woman floated back into my mind, and my blood boiled some more. She couldn’t have been older than me and that was quite young. Kevin seemed to be reading my thoughts. “She was 40 years old, the same age as yo--” I cut him off with a glare.
The elevator ride up was silent as both of us contemplated what this meeting would hold. When the doors opened again, I was shocked to find a heavier woman waiting for us in the lobby. Her shirt was too tight and her skirt rode up too high. “Oh honey, I am so sorry that the network doesn’t pay you enough to buy clothes that fit you.”

“Lovely, another diva and a gay pitch! Let me save you the trouble, we don’t want that kind of show. That’s something that Logo would want.” The woman had a very bad attitude, I was tempted to walk away from the meeting right then but as a business woman, I knew how to get through to this fashion mistake.

“Dear God no! I have too much common sense for that. My pitch is for cameras to follow me during my divorce from Mr. Man, after the papers are signed it’ll chronicle my life as a divorcee.” I turned to Kevin and smiled as we both watched her face soften, her lips tugged into a smile. “Right now all these housewives are having their wedding days followed, so that the network has to pay for them but I’m asking for the opposite.”

“There is certain brilliance to this pitch and the audience would eat it up. Of course, you are an untested star, no one knows who you are and you are overly confident.”

“Which works in her favor. She has been married 8 times, engaged countless more. She is constantly written about on the gossip blogs and in the newspapers around the world. Judy Man is a force to be reckoned with.”

“Plus after this show is a success, we can launch a spinoff where I makeover people. You can be on my premiere episode, and the network will be forced to buy you clothes that fit. It’s win/win.”

“Can you keep her quiet?”

“What do you think?”

After that successful meeting, I knew that I was going to have my own show!