Filthy Rich Read Online Free Page A

won’t have to call in Angela Lansbury to solve that caper.”
    “Okay, Norma, what are you saying,” I said, putting down my pricey mug of rejuvenating ginseng orange blossom tea for emphasis, “he’s boring or he’s having an affair? There seems to be a contradiction.”
    “I’m saying watch out, kid,” Norma said. “I don’t trust him.”
    But, of course, when Norma said “watch out” she hadn’t been anticipating Neil’s nasty au revoir on network TV, so her qualifications to say “I told you so” are still a matter of debate.
    Anyway, Norma’s distaste for Neil did not dampen my own enthusiasm. I kept coming up with excuses for his oddbehavior, rationalizing that you want the person attaching tortuous contraptions in your mouth to feel totally committed to his line of work. For the most part, I found Neil’s devotion to his profession to be endearing. It sounds absurd, I know, but I used to enjoy listening to Neil explain his special method of making sure his clients’ upper bicuspids aligned with their lower at the end of treatment. Or to hear him expound on any other orthodontic or dental topic, for that matter, in that soothing baritone of his. He sounded so caring, so knowledgeable and self-assured—and please refrain from laughing when I say this—so sexy. In Neil’s casual use of multisyllabic medical terms as he shared insights from the latest literature on overbites, I swear I sometimes heard Doug Ross, George Clooney’s dreamy pediatrician character on ER .
    That is, of course, until our televised dustup shattered my illusions and turned me into the nation’s quasi-celebrity of the moment—a “better-bred Buttafuoco” Jay Leno called me the next night in his monologue. “Without the big hair.”
    Thanks, Jay. And, most of all, thank you, Neil, you crud.

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    What sitcom’s unique Thanksgiving episode involved a scheme to toss live turkeys from a helicopter at 2,000 feet on the mistaken belief that turkeys could fly?

    a. The Beverly Hillbillies
    b. WKRP in Cincinnati
    c. Green Acres
    d. Silver Spoons

    See correct answer on back….
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    ANSWER
    b. WKRP in Cincinnati
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    The correct answer, which Neil supplied in a flash, is 1. Colgate; 2. Pepsodent; 3. Crest; 4. Tom’s of Maine; and 5. Mentadent.

Three
    By the time I dropped my mother off in Brooklyn and returned to Greenwich Village, where I live, the paparazzi were swarming on the sidewalk outside my stately old doorman building. Obviously, the bush telegraph that informs these guys there’s a new contender on the scene for the gossip throne previously occupied by Darva Conger, Monica Lewinsky, and their predecessors was already hard at work.
    Exiting the taxi, I was blinded by what seemed to be a fifty-megaton flash—the product of several dozen cameramen clicking away in near unison to get the perfect candid shot of yours truly arriving home from her worst nightmare courtesy of Filthy Rich!
    I was surrounded. From all sides, reporters were barking questions at me. Between the flashes going off, and the microphones being shoved in my face, walking the few feet to enter my building was sort of like scaling Mount Everest without the benefit of a Sherpa.
    “Look this way, Marcy.”
    “How are you feeling?”
    “Do you think you’ll get back together?”
    “What are your plans now?”
    “Did you plan to throw the ring, or was it spontaneous?”
    “Would you do it again—be your boyfriend’s Lifeline if he asked?”
    “Would you consider dating another orthodontist?”
    Hearing that last question, I was tempted to break my silence, but instead took the revolving door into the lobby, leaving the horde behind.
    “I’m so sorry, Miss Mallowitz,” the doorman said, as if someone had died and this was a condolence call. He then handed me my dry cleaning.
    But before I could make it into the elevator, I was stopped by elderly Mrs. Schwartz, the crabby four-foot-two owner of apartment 7-C. She was heading out to