“You pulled my husband and me out of the sand!” Jennifer says now. “In our Land Rover, I mean. Up at Great Point.”
Danko snaps his fingers. “That’s right! I told Norah I’d met you, but I thought it was only at the wedding.”
Norah turns around and hands Jennifer her coffee. “I’m glad you guys are hitting it off. Shall we go sit on the bench outside so we can talk?”
Bench outside? Jennifer thinks. So we can talk? The “bench outside” that Norah means is a bench that faces Main Street. It’s the most public place on the entire island. Jennifer does not want to sit on the bench with Norah and Danko, but what choice does she have?
It’s a beautiful morning on Main Street, however, unseasonably mild for the first of November, and so Jennifer takes a seat and raises her face to the sunshine. Just a few Ativan, she thinks. A few meaning twenty. Or thirty. Danko and Norah must be in business together, which is weird, and awful, but who is Jennifer to judge? They are both well dressed; they exude success. They are dealing pharmaceuticals to the top 1 percent; they have an image to uphold now, Jennifer supposes.
“So,” Norah says. “We have a proposition for you. An exciting proposition.”
They want her to sell, Jennifer thinks. It only makes sense; she lives in an elite neighborhood populated by unhappy housewives. The pathetic thing—the truly pathetic thing—is that she will consider it. She has to consider it—she needs the money!
But the terms will have to be favorable. In fact, they will have to be her terms. She will keep a percentage of sales, and there needs to be safeguards in place. She can’t get caught. The kids managed to survive their father being imprisoned for financial shenanigans, but they won’t survive their mother being imprisoned for drug dealing.
“Oh really?” Jennifer says with cheerful naiveté. “What is it?”
“Danko is a TV producer,” Norah says. “With SinTV.”
“Really?” Jennifer says. She feels a bit starstruck. She would never in a million years know what SinTV is except that Leanne, Jennifer’s beloved client, is addicted to not one but two shows on SinTV. The first is called Swing Set, a reality show about six couples living in Fishers, Indiana, who start swinging, as in sleeping with one another’s spouses. It sounds awful to Jennifer, but Leanne can’t get enough of it; she’s greatly anticipating the spin-offs set in Traverse City, Michigan, and Sebastopol, California. Soon, Jennifer supposes, every small town in America will be swinging. Leanne also watches a cooking show called Fatso, where every recipe starts with two sticks of butter and ends with an extra side of mayonnaise. Again, it sounds repugnant to Jennifer, and yet this is where Leanne got the insanely delicious recipe for her fried chicken club sandwiches with lime pickle relish and bacon aioli, which Derek affectionately refers to as a Heart Attack on Brioche.
“I worked at Vice for three years and for TMZ before that,” Danko says. “SinTV was the natural next step.”
“They’ve put him in charge of developing a home-improvement show,” Norah says. “They want something that will be competitive with Rehab Addict,” Danko says. “And Flip or Flop.”
“I always thought Flip or Flop was a flop,” Jennifer says, though that’s likely her envy talking.
“The divorce was the best thing that ever happened to that show,” Danko says. “Their ratings are through the roof now.”
“Viewers love to know the real-life stories behind a show’s host,” Norah says. “Which brings us to our idea.”
“Your idea?” Jennifer says.
“We want you to host a show on SinTV,” Danko says.
“Me?” Jennifer says. She would be lying if she said the thought had never crossed her mind. She tries not to watch HGTV, just like she’s sure novelists try not to pore over the New York Times Book Review. Jennifer suffers from professional envy, for certain, but she also doesn’t want to inadvertently copy what other decorators are doing.
“You’re beautiful, you’re smart, you’re poised,” Norah says.
“The network wants a show set in Boston,” Danko says. “They feel the demographic up there is underexploited.”
“The show Danko has created is called Real-Life Rehab,” Norah says. “They have a couple of townhouses they’re looking at in Dorchester.”
“Dorchester?” Jennifer says.
“Part of the hook is that we’ll be renovating homes in transitioning neighborhoods,” Danko says. “Buying teardowns, essentially, and then affordably and sustainably remodeling them in an attempt to jump-start gentrification.”
“That’s what happened in the South End,” Norah says.
“Yes, well, Dorchester is hardly the South End,” Jennifer says. She thinks of her clients Peter and Ken and their divine home on Washington Street. But didn’t Ken tell Jennifer that they’d bought the property in 1992, when the neighborhood was a wasteland? There’s no reason why Dorchester can’t rise up. And Jennifer could be a part of it. “But I like the concept. It’s design as altruism, in a way.”
“Exactly,” Danko says. “SinTV has a reputation for being a little bit of a bad-boy network. This would be our way of showing we have a heart.”
“And there’s another hook,” Norah says. “You. You, Jennifer Quinn, as a recovering addict. You are your own real-life rehab story.”
“I pitched it to the network executives,” Danko says. “They went crazy. They are giving this show an enormous budget. So if you agree, you’ll be very well compensated.”
“Wait a minute,” Jennifer says. She hears the phrase very well compensated and a cheer goes up in the back of her mind, but she has gotten snagged on what Norah said. “So people will know I had…” She can’t even find words to express what she’s thinking. “A problem with pills? We’ll tell them?”
“We’ll tell them,” Norah says. “I think seeing you and learning what you’ve overcome will help a lot of people who are going through the same thing.”
“Okay, but…” The only word Jennifer can come up with is no. No, she is not going on television and admitting she was addicted to pills! Her family knows—her mother, Kelley and Mitzi, Margaret, even the boys know a little bit—but that’s a very small circle compared with… well, the entire country. Or the portion of the country who watch shelter programs on SinTV.
Leanne will find out. And Grayson Coker. And all the mothers from the kids’ school. And Mandy Pell. And the women who organize the Beacon Hill Holiday House Tour. And all the people Jennifer went to high school with and her classmates from Stanford. It’s not random strangers—Megan Hoffman from wherever—that concern Jennifer; it’s the people she knows, the people who thought they knew her.
“We know it seems scary,” Danko says. “It takes a really brave, really strong person to admit she has fallen prey like that. Believe me, I know. I’ve been in AA for fifteen years.”
Why don’t you do the show then? Jennifer nearly asks. When she looks at Danko, she sees kindness in his eyes. Empathy. He gets it—maybe.
“I can’t,” Jennifer says. “I just… can’t.”
“Why don’t you take some time and think about it?” Norah says. She puts a hand on Jennifer’s leg and leans in. “You would be so great. A role model, a real role model, someone who has been through a rough patch and then come out the other side.”
But I’m still in the rough patch! Jennifer thinks. She came here this morning hoping to score some Ativan!
“Just so you know, the show will pay you thirty-five thousand dollars an episode for the first twelve episodes, with the option to negotiate for the second season,” Danko says. “And I’ll point out that there are also endorsement opportunities, and that any host who broadcasts nationally sees a spike in her own personal design business.”
“Meaning you’ll be the most sought-after designer in Boston,” Norah says. “Tom and Gisele will be hunting you down to redo their kids’ playroom.”