The Department of Lost & Found (24 page)

“Who do you think all of these people are, anyway?” We both swiveled our necks to check out the crowd.

They were just like every audience of every game show that I’d ever seen, which, by this point, was far too many for any self-respecting, Ivy League, thirty-year-old senior aide to a powerful politician. A crew of sorority sisters in their green Kappa Alpha Theta sweatshirts squealed behind us; a gaggle of senior citizens stood in front of us just below eye level. The rest of the line was filled out with midwestern housewives, a few uniformed sailors, and several men who appeared to be in a bowling league: Their matching shirts tipped me off. I was quite certain that Zach and I were the only two young professionals from New York. So when
The Price Is Right
staff started filtering through the crowd—this was how they assessed who would make their way to the podium down front (I’d read this online)—I debated wowing them into choosing sophisticated moi by playing up my hip New Yorker attitude. But I realized that dropping Senator Dupris’s name on national television (sometimes Bob asks you what you do! I gasped
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in excitement at the thought) was probably a major no-no for the New York voting contingent. I pictured the white-haired Park Avenue set cringing in horror,
utter horror,
at the classlessness of it all. Perhaps the only time that my elevated status in life would do me no good.
That and keep you from getting cancer,
I reminded myself.

So instead, I told the interviewer, “This show is the only thing that made me feel normal when I was first diagnosed with breast cancer.” I saw her face move from shock to horror to admiration all in a split second. “I’d sit on my couch and scream out the answers, and for an hour, my chemo and everything else that came along with it didn’t matter. As to what I can blame my continued addiction to, I guess I’d have to say that Bob Barker is a hottie.

Even if he’s 857 years old.” The interviewer chuckled and jotted down my name on her notepad.

“Nice work,” Zach said, as she moved on to the nearly hyper-ventilating college crew behind us. “Play that cancer card when you need it.”

“Why the hell not?” I shrugged and adopted the MC’s voice.

“Maybe
I’ ll win a new car
!”

It wasn’t until we were seated inside the studio that I started to get nervous. I looked around and noticed that the space seemed much smaller than on TV. The room couldn’t hold more than 150

people, which meant that my odds of getting called down were about one in fifteen. Despite the frigid air-conditioning, sweat began to pool in my armpits, so I tried to inconspicuously lift my elbows in the air to provide some ventilation.

I nudged Zach while the warm-up guy was telling painfully cringe-worthy jokes. “What if I blank out? What if I totally bomb?”

He laughed. “Well, this is assuming you get called. And if 220

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you bomb, I’m pretty certain that no one we know will be watching.”

All of a sudden, the lights went dark and spotlights started circling the audience.

“WELCOME TOOOOOOOO . . .
THE PRICE IS RIGHT
!”

The MC’s voice boomed into the overhead speakers. “AND NOW, HERE’S YOUR HOST—BOBBBBBBBBBBB BARKER!!!!”

Zach and I stood up and applauded with the rest of the crowd, and I threw my fists in the air and whooped. I grabbed his arm in the excitement and thought that I might faint. But there was no time for that.

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, LET’S GET THINGS

STARTED! JOANNE PORTER FROM PORTLAND, ORE-GON, COME ON DOWN! SEAN WASHINGTON FROM

TUSCON, ARIZONA, COME ON DOWN! ADAM CART-WRIGHT FROM SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, COME ON

DOWN! AND NATALIE MILLER FROM NEW YORK

CITY, COME ON DOWN! YOU’RE THE FIRST FOUR

CONTESTANTS ON
THE PRICE IS RIGHT
!!!”

The cameraman rushed over and caught me midscream with my hands waving in the air, like I was doing some wild African dance. I looked over and saw Zach clutching his sides and literally doubled over in laughter. I kicked his shin and kept screaming and shaking my arms as I ran down the aisle, flipping the long locks of my wig behind my shoulders as I went. I was nearly out of breath by the time I reached the podium and landed in my spot on the end. Looking up to the stage, I saw Bob, skinnier than I would have thought and wearing far too much foundation and blush, but still utterly dapper.
Yum,
I thought.
Still on my list.
Before I even had time to respond to his hellos, the first prize was on display:
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a patio set from some southern furniture supplier.
Shit. Patio set?

I’m a New Yorker. We don’t do patio sets.

I breathed deeply though my nose and out through my mouth—

Janice would have been proud—and tried to recollect the prices that I’d seen on the Internet when Jake and I played along. Joanne started the bidding with $1,050, and the audience tittered. Sean undercut her by $80 with $970, and Adam went even lower with $900.

“So, Natalie, what’s it going to be?” Bob said into his pencil-thin microphone and cocked an eyebrow in my direction.

I swiveled around to the audience, just like I’d seen people do a thousand times before. “One dollar! One dollar!!! One dollar!!!!!!”

Every last person in the crowd screamed as if by telling me the right bid, they’d actually be the ones to get the damn patio set. I caught Zach’s eye and watched as his face crumbled into hysteria once again, and he wiped tears off his face.

I turned back to my microphone. “Bob,” I said with the gravity of a funeral director, “I’m going to go with one dollar.” The crowd exploded with volcanic applause.

“One dollar it is, from Natalie Miller of New York City,” Bob said, as he winked at me. He swung his arm around and said, “Diana, just how much
is
that lovely patio set?”

With an all-too-white toothy smile, Diana pulled back the slab of cardboard to reveal that the actual retail price was $795. I heard surround-sound dinging, and the cameramen rushed over next to me.

“Natalie Miller of New York, New York, you get on up here,”

Bob said, just as I felt my breath leave my chest. But I made it to the top of the stage, where Bob put his arm around my shoulder and guided me to the right side of the set. “And now, Natalie,” he said in a grandfatherly tone, “we are so thrilled to have you here 222

a l l i s o n w i n n s c o t c h

today, all the way in from New York City! And we think you’re going to be pretty thrilled to be here with us, too. Because, Mark, can you show her what’s behind this curtain?”

“Gladly, Bob,” the MC responded. “Natalie, how would yooo-ouuuu like to win . . . a NEW CAR?!?!?!” The lights on the stage flashed, and the music blared, and the crowd raised the decibel level even higher. And even though I absolutely didn’t need a car, and in fact, a car would most likely be an incredible inconvenience to a New Yorker, I jumped up and down uncontrollably until my whole body was almost limp, and I’d nearly worked myself up into tears.

The game, it turned out, was one of my favorites. Out of a group of twenty numbers, I had to pick the two numbers that, when paired together, would give me the total price of the Ford Explorer. I’d played enough at home that I managed to win all six chances of picking numbers by correctly guessing the prices of various household cleaning products. When Bob walked me over to the numbers board, guiding me with his hand on my back just like Zach had done not two hours earlier, I felt my hands start to shake and worried that my armpits must have resembled Louisiana swamplands.

“I’ll take the $197, Bob,” I said, as I pointed to one of the numbers on the board. My stomach nearly rose through my throat, as the crowd clapped behind me.

“All right then. Diana, what’s behind that tile, please?”

In an instant, the lights flashed and a dinging noise went off, and Diane whipped up the tile like a bullfighter would a cape, and I saw the picture of the back of the car. “AHHHHHHHHHH-HHH,” I screamed, and jumped up and down in my Nikes. All that was left was to find the first two digits to the price of the car, Bob explained, and it would be mine.

This proved more difficult in real life than from the safety of
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my couch. With each guess, I was more sure that I was correct, and yet four tries later, I’d accumulated $256 in cash, but no front of the car. I turned back toward the audience.

“19482650179204,” they screamed.
Ha!
I thought as I turned back toward Bob and shrugged.
I think I got the world’s stupidest
audience!

“Okay, Bob,” I said, my voice shaking, as he put his arm around me. “I’m going to go with . . . yes, I’m going to go with $21.”

“Well, Natalie Miller from New York City, let’s see if you just won a new car!” But the lights didn’t go off and no dinging noises played, and within seconds, the audience started groaning. Diane had pulled off the tile to reveal more cash, and no front end. So Bob kissed me on the cheek—
he kissed me on the cheek!
—and con-gratulated me on my cash winnings of $277, and I was ushered backstage until I gained my chance at the Big Wheel. I felt my BlackBerry vibrate in my bag.

From: Goodman, Maureen

To: Miller,

Natalie

Re:

Reporter and stem cell story

Hey Natalie—

I tried you at the office, but they said you were out for the day. Lucky girl! I just got off the phone with a friend of yours—

Sal y Fisher. She’s doing a big piece for the NYT Mag on the politics behind the stem cell bil , and she was referred to our offices. When I mentioned that we were working on this together with Dupris, she was surprised . . . she mentioned you were best friends but that she didn’t realize you were helming the bil . Wil this be a problem? I got the sense that the story would be positive, but you know journalists . . . one day they’ve 224

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put us up on a pedestal, the next, they’re happy to chop us down. Thoughts?

—Maureen

I finished reading and Sean from Tucson wandered in. I could tell by the glum look on his face that he hadn’t lived up to his armchair quarterback expectations, either.
Crap,
I thought.
Holy fucking crap.
So this is Sally’s big story. We’d been so focused on my cancer, and on Zach, and on Jake, that really, we never discussed work anymore, both figuring it was the same old, same old. But this definitely was
not
the same old, same old. Not at all.

Before I had time to type a response, production aides swooped down and whisked us back onstage, marching us like penguins over to the Big Wheel. Bob didn’t join us until just before the cameras started to shoot.

It was indeed a big wheel. Bigger—and it turned out heavier—

than it looked on TV. Sean went first: His sorry winnings held the lowest value, and he managed to eke out a semidecent 70 cents.

“I’ll stick with that, Bob,” he said, and moved over to the winner’s perch.

I was next. I took a deep breath and pushed down on the wheel.

Damn,
I thought.
This is more of a workout than I’ve had in five
months. Tick, tick, tick, tick.
The numbers slowly spun past me.

OH SHIT.
My eyes widened, as the wheel slowed down.
It’s not
even making it around one time!
Bob put his arm around me and told me to spin again, but all I wanted to do was crawl into the comfort of his arms and have him hold me. Instead, I pushed every last ounce of my weight into the wheel, and threw my arms down.

Tick, tick, tick, tick.
A little faster this time. Until . . . wait . . . hold your breath . . . it was perfect. Smack on the $1.00. I just won a thousand bucks!!!! I hurled my body in the air and started screaming,
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while Bob kindly bumped Sean from the winner’s circle and es-corted me into it.

Joanne from Portland, the only contestant who actually won her prize—new kitchen appliances—didn’t stand a chance. She spun twice, and ha!, too bad for her, came out far over the $1.00 goal. I looked out to the audience and gave Zach the thumbs-up. I was going to the showcase showdown. The production assistants plopped us in the green room, and I frantically grabbed my BlackBerry.

From: Goodman, Maureen

To: Miller,

Natalie

Re: Problems

already

Hey Natalie—

I just got off the phone with aides from the Mississippi contingents’ offices. We’re already in deep shit. Evidently Sally called them, too—I mean, of course she would if she’s a half-decent reporter—and they want to know what we’re saying about them. Obviously, I told them nothing, but they said that if we even murmured a derogatory word about their senators, they’d unleash their “folder of secrets” (whatever that is) and happily feed it all—I assume background dirt on Dupris and McIntyre—to Sally. Well, this should be fun. Only not.

—Maureen

Holy Mary mother of God
. I inhaled and exhaled and thought of Janice’s soothing voice. Rationally, I knew that Sally was only doing her job. Irrationally, and this was the emotion that was winning out, I wanted to kill her. Well, not literally, but almost.

I pulled up her e-mail address on my screen and started to type.

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I wasn’t sure why my hands were shaking, whether it was nerves from the imminent showcase showdown (my dream!) or whether it was because for the first time in our decadelong friendship, I was about to test its strength.

From: Miller, Natalie

To: Fisher,

Sally

Re: Your

story

Sally—

I know this sounds weird, but I’m writing from California.