Filthy Rich by Dorothy Samuels Page A

most famous piece of evidence from the televised trial that launched her as a celebrity. Except for the absence of blood, of course. “I’ll be subbing for Geraldo next week,” she wrote on the card. “Would love you as a guest.”
    The fresh supply of expensive loot confirmed that memories of my Filthy Rich! appearance had yet to fade.
    Through no fault of my own, I’d become the starring player in a made-for-television melodrama whose ending was not yet in sight. Americans were still standing around office watercoolers and in supermarket checkout lines debating whether it’s ever okay to serve as your boyfriend’s Lifeline, and whether I acted hastily in tossing the ring at Neil instead of trying to patch things up by docilely apologizing for my costly confusion over Teri Garr’s curriculum vitae. In other words, celebrity, if I really wanted it, was still out there waiting for me.
    When I tried to put everything in perspective—and apart from snacking and thinking about the Gap, it was mostly what I did—I just got more confused. Whoopi Goldberg was offering me my own box on Hollywood Squares . I was perfectly aware I’d done nothing to earn the honor other than to make a dangerous projectile of Neil’s crummy ring. But like I’ve said, I was getting less humble by the minute. I was feeling entitled. Hell, I figured, why shouldn’t Whoopi invite me? I can be more entertaining than Jim Nabors.
    Yet that swagger notwithstanding, the odds that I would actually say yes to assuming one of the august squares remained slim, and not just because I wanted to avoid having to list “square” as my profession on the next Barnard alumnae questionnaire. Unlike Lucy Ricardo and most everyone else I know, I never really had show-biz aspirations. If you check out the high school play program my mother has squirreled away in her extensive Marcy Memorabilia Collection, you’ll see that my only real entertainment credit prior to Neil Night on Filthy Rich! was a small footnote thanking me and about ten other students listed in alphabetical order for our help painting sets for the junior-class production of Storybook Theater . Avidly following the travails of my favorite celebrities in the gossip pages, as I have for years, has provided me with a daily dose of vicarious excitement and glamour, but without instilling any real ambition to become one myself.
    Moreover, there was the not-so-little matter of taste. I cringed at the thought that I—Marcy Lee Mallowitz—risked becoming forever identified as a prime example of the habitual elevation of unaccomplished nobodies a recent cover story in Newsweek dubbed “America’s Growing Pseudo-Celebrity Crisis.” I don’t disagree that there is such a crisis or that so-called reality shows like Filthy Rich! and The Plank are its epicenter. Only please do me a favor and keep my good name out of it.
    Thus my decision to stay holed up in my apartment, dressed in yesterday’s sweats and popping fancy chocolates, was not part of some carefully calculated strategy to heighten the media’s interest in yours truly. But it seemed to have that effect, turning me into some sort of game show Greta Garbo.
    Speaking of the ring, it wasn’t long after Frank brought up the gifts that he made a return trip, this time bearing a note hand-delivered by a man Frank described under my interrogation as a “tall, decent-looking sort, probably fortyish.”
    “Dear Ms. Mallowitz,” said the note, which was typed on plain white paper, “You don’t know me, but I was at the show, and think your ex-boyfriend is a real jerk. I saw that junky ring he gave you sitting on the floor of the set as everyone was leaving, and I took the liberty of grabbing it and selling it for you on eBay. It went yesterday for $5,200. I have the check, and if you have a moment, I’d like to deliver it in person.” The letter was signed, “Your fan, Cliff Jentzen.”
    I was touched that someone—a perfect stranger—would