Always a Bridesmaid (for Hire) Page 9

  “And then what happened? Tell it all to us!”

  Here he goes again with the “us.” Why is he leaning in closer? I swear he just winked at me when the camera cut over to show a screenshot of the Craigslist ad. At least it took a break from zooming in and out on my airbrushed face.

  My eyes won’t stop blinking. Can everyone watching from their hi-def TV sets see that? I know my mom is tuning in right now, sitting up straight on the beige leather sectional, with one hand cranking the volume on the remote up, up, up and the other snapping photos of me with her iPad, probably thinking I’m sending her some kind of Morse code with my eyelashes.

  This reporter guy with bow-tie ears wants to know what happened next. Well, after I posted the ad, I fell asleep. Should I mention that? Then I woke up. It was Saturday, so I ate a couple of slices of pizza, took a stroll through the Kips Bay Public Library, went on a terrible date with a guy who described in unwarranted details the way his pee smells after he eats asparagus, and then I went to sleep. Alone. Again. The next day was a Groundhog Day kind of repeat of Saturday, sans the smelly pee guy. Then, before I knew it, it was Monday. That’s when things started to get interesting. That’s when, all of sudden, I learned the Internet is a very dangerous place, where your entire life can flip upside down with just one thing you post. I’ll start the story there, in the middle of work, at my three-walled cubicle.

  “A friend sent me a GChat message when I was at work with a link to some article on BuzzFeed about a girl offering her bridesmaid services to strangers through a Craigslist ad.”

  The reporter is looking at me now like this whole thing is completely bonkers, like it’s some kind of joke. It’s not. I was serious when I posted that ad. I really wanted to help strangers . . . and I wanted to get paid for my bridesmaid knowledge.

  What’s funny about this situation right now is that the reporter has something in his teeth. I see it. Oh boy, do I see it. I think it’s a poppy seed or a red pepper flake. If he has something in his teeth and I have something in my teeth, maybe everyone watching will just think there’s a stain on the LED glass of their Black Friday–purchased TV and spare us both some eternal embarrassment.

  What’s he going to ask next? I should come up with something to say before he asks me another question. Should I tell him how I clicked on the link my friend Terri sent me while biting into a chocolate chip muffin the size of my kneecap and gulping down a cup of iced chai tea the length of my forearm? How I screamed, “AGHHHH!” so loud from my cubicle that the entire office of forty-five people took their hands off their keyboards, pressed Mute on their conference calls, turned around from the copy machine, the watercooler, and the snack jar to make sure that I was all right? How my coworkers thought I was having a premature heart attack? How one guy rushed over, ready to perform CPR? I think he always had a crush on me. Maybe this was his way of getting some mouth-to-mouth action.

  I had to convince everyone that I was okay. I couldn’t tell them what was going on! I didn’t even know what was going on. I needed to sort this situation out without potentially getting the boot from my boss over some ad I posted that’s clouding up all of my focus and my search history on my company-issued computer. I put my hand over my mouth, signaled that all was well in cubicle D15 with a single hand wave, and sunk down in my desk chair as I watched my body break out in puffy hives.

  I read the article over again, once more, mouthing the headline to myself: Craigslist Ad Written by a Professional Bridesmaid Is Ripe for a Rom-Com.

  A rom-com? Is that what people were going to think of my subpar dating life and twenty-seven dresses-style bridesmaid experiences? It sounded exciting. It sounded like I needed to figure out what to do next. Whether to forever stay anonymous or let the world, and the 15,672 people who already shared this article on Facebook, know that the girl behind the ad is me.

  Should I tell the reporter the truth? I really had no idea how BuzzFeed found the ad. I didn’t tell anyone about this, not even my roommate, Kerri, who called me a professional bridesmaid in the first place, or my friend Jess, who I regularly text real-time updates of my life to. I certainly didn’t tell the guy I went on a Saturday night date with who told me his pee smelled like rotten asparagus.

  Maybe I’ll mention that I Googled the words “Professional Bridesmaid” and “Craigslist” and saw that there were already five other articles about this, published in the last hour. That my ad was spreading like chicken pox on a preschool playground.

  I remember typing back to my friend, OH MY GOD. THIS IS ME. But she didn’t understand what I was saying. She just wrote back, I KNOW, WHOEVER POSTED THIS IS YOUR SOUL MATE. YOU SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF THIS IDEA FIRST!

  I did. I did. I did! But nobody knew that yet, and I didn’t know if anybody should know that, ever.

  Should I tell him that people at work were starting to get suspicious? Someone told me I looked like I had just won the lottery. Another person told me I looked like I had just found out I was getting arrested for seventeen years’ worth of library fines. My face flushed fuchsia, my body broke out in unidentifiable rashes, and my blue long-sleeved shirt was soaked, of course, in sweat.

  I wonder if he wants to know how I ran into the bathroom and locked the door behind me. Hugging my cell phone and my chai tea in the corner, setting up a tiny fort out of paper towel rolls and Windex bottles, letting out the occasional oh no, oh no, oh no sigh as if I was in some kind of trouble? Was I? I had no clue.

  “So you told your friend that you’re the girl in the ad, right? You claimed it immediately?”

  “No. I didn’t say anything, actually. I just kept reading through the articles that were popping up everywhere thinking, Oh my God, my mom is going to be so mad at me.”

  I must have been in the bathroom for a while. My butt was getting chilly from the tile floor and people were starting to knock on the door. After a while, they were getting angry that I was hogging the only women’s stall, but I wasn’t finished with my business in there. I still needed to call my mom.

  It was probably around 3:00 p.m. by then, so the phone rang, rang, and rang before she picked up, startled and heavily confused. There are certain hours of the day when you can call the people you love and they won’t think anything of it. But there are also blocks of time—say, midafternoon or after midnight—when they can become overwhelmed with panic if they see your name pop up on their phone screen.

  I don’t think she said “Hi” or “How are you?” I think she just jumped right to the point.

  “Jennifer, what’s wrong. Are you okay?”

  “Yes, Mom, I’m fine, I just . . .”

  “Oh my god, what happened? Where are you?”

  “I’m at work; I just need to tell you something, okay? It’s not a big deal . . . yet.”

  “Not a big deal yet? What in the world is going on, Jennifer?”

  “I did something—something you told me never to do.”

  “You bought that winter coat for full price at Macy’s?”

  “No? No!”

  “You kept your dishwasher running when you left your house?”

  “No, mom. A little worse. I went on Craigslist.”

  “What? Why were you on there? For furniture? You can get whatever you’re looking for at HomeGoods.”

  “I actually put myself on Craigslist.”

  “You did what? I think I need an oxygen mask for this conversation.”

  “Let me explain, okay? Liz and Maria both asked me to be a bridesmaid last week and so Kerri said I was becoming a professional bridesmaid and I took her seriously. I thought I could advertise myself on Craigslist and offer my bridesmaid services to strangers getting married.”

  “. . .”

  “Mom, are you still there?”

  “Yes.”

  “And now the ad is going viral.”

  “You got a virus?”

  “No, no, viral. The ad I posted is now all over the Internet. The news sites are starting to report about it. Everyb
ody is about to know that I did this.”

  “Well, at least you won’t have to pay out of pocket for ugly bridesmaid dresses anymore.”

  “So after you told your mom, what did you do next?”

  He’s raising his eyebrow at me like I’m a small child who still needs approval from her parents. He clearly does not know the kind of Jewish guilt I’m walking around with after twenty-six years on this planet. By now, I know better than to not pick up the phone and call my mom when something unusual happens. Something that I know she’s better off hearing sooner rather than later. Later might involve the possibility of seeing the story on CNN, or getting it emailed to her by one of her mah-jongg gals, or having our community rabbi stop by the house and ask her if the daughter she bat-mitzvahed thirteen years ago has gone completely mad.

  “I emailed BuzzFeed and told them that I’m Jen Glantz and I wrote the bridesmaid Craigslist ad.”

  “Why did you decide to do that? Didn’t you think it might be better to keep this crazy idea under the table? Stay anonymous?”

  “No. I wasn’t ashamed. I posted the ad for a reason, and I was proud.”

  Well, the truth is, I had to leave the bathroom at this point. It had been a good thirty-five minutes and people were starting to pound louder and louder on the door. Some were asking if everything was okay in there. Everything was certainly not okay. Some were asking if they should go get me a bottle of Pepto-Bismol. I think this is one bathroom issue that pink juice can’t address, even if it is extra strength. That last thing I wanted to do was create more commotion around myself or this undercover situation that nobody except for me, my mom, and the ten to fifteen Boca Raton residents she most likely told by now knows about, though they probably think Craigslist is some online dating website started by a guy named Craig Shulman. I wasn’t worried about them.

  I mushed up the homemade paper towel tepee and tossed it in the trash, opened the door with a smile, and walked calmly back to my cubicle, like nothing had happened. Like I didn’t just hold myself hostage inside the office bathroom during the three o’clock hour.

  I sent BuzzFeed an email right after that and told them the truth: I was the girl behind the ad. Within two minutes, the article was updated with my name and a link to my blog. That was officially the last two minutes of silence I can remember in days.

  “After they added my name to the article, every other news site did too. That’s when everything blew up and this ad went from cute idea to the real deal.”

  Should I tell him that Gmail shut down my email account soon after the ad went viral? I created a fake email, doigetaplusone@gmail.com, to post on Craigslist and it got so many emails that they thought it was a spam account and temporarily shut it down.

  I had over five hundred new emails. Inside that inbox were all kinds of gems just waiting to be read. I had brides wanting to hire me, guys proposing marriage, and women wanting to work for me, doing what I was doing as a professional bridesmaid. Work for me? I didn’t even have a company. I just had an idea. Maybe I could make this into an official business. I don’t know. What would I even call it? Professional Bridesmaid for Hire? Could I run a business? I majored in poetry and minored in stuffing my face at the all-you-can-eat buffet-style dining halls. I did take one business class in college, and all I can remember is that one day the vice president of marketing for Chick-Fil-A came in to chat with our class and hand out free chicken patty vouchers, and I raised my hand and asked about animal cruelty. I quickly became grilled like a piece of meat by the 450 students who wanted me to stop asking questions so they could start ordering their waffle fries. I wasn’t fit to run a business. Though maybe I could learn now.

  “So when did you decide to make this into a business?”

  “After I made just one more phone call.”

  By now it was 5:00 p.m. and I snuck out of the office into the service elevator. My work there was clearly done. Plus I had to call one more person, someone who knew me the longest and wouldn’t call me crazy unless I was truly crazy. Someone who was business savvy enough to either tell me this was a cute idea and a terrific way to catch the media’s eye but it was never going to work, or that this was a revolutionary way to keep the wedding industry, and the world, on their toes.

  I called my older brother, Jason.

  “That’s you? Oh my god, I saw the article on the Huffington Post.”

  “Yes, it’s me. But what do I do? Jay, my inbox is out of control. There are hundreds of people with questions, asking me to come to their wedding, reporters wanting to get an interview, these reality show producers wanting to call me. I don’t know what to say.”

  “Jen, this is a great idea. We have to make something out of all of this.”

  “But, Jay, I have no idea how to start or run a business.”

  “Well, congratulations on learning the secret to growing up. None of us ever knows what we’re doing. We just do it and figure it out.”

  “It was my brother’s idea to make a website, to turn this whole thing into an actual business and not just a one-time ad.”

  “So who came up with the name?”

  “Give me a few days. I’ll build the website; you write the copy for it. We’ll work together on packages and prices.”

  “Thanks for having my back, Jay. For being my professional . . . brother?”

  “Thanks for being my weird little sister.”

  “One more thing. What should we call this thing?”

  “I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

  “He came up with the name Bridesmaid for Hire. It just made sense and I loved it.”

  I really did love the name, but I didn’t love what came next. Jay and I spent hours on the phone together trying to figure this whole thing out. I was the one with the bridesmaid knowledge, and he was the one who knew how to start a business.

  “How much do I charge for this thing? How do I background-check the brides who want to hire me?”

  “We need to start with the basics before we jump into all of that. Let’s start with what you actually think a professional bridesmaid would do.”

  “Okay, okay. Well, personal things like lift up their dress to pee and be their human Xanax, calming them down before the wedding and on the day of.”

  “So you’re like the gal pal they never knew they needed?”

  “Yeah, but during the time they need one the most.”

  “You say you have had hundreds of requests from brides. What are some of the oddest?”

  The oddest ones weren’t even from the brides, but I don’t think he wants to know about those. One groom emailed saying he wanted to hire me because his fiancé lived in the Philippines and he was flying her in just for the wedding and she didn’t know anybody in North Carolina. Twenty-six were from reality show production companies who thought this would make a great series on TLC or Bravo. But the worst part were the requests that followed me in person. I went back to work the next day, on Tuesday, hoping nobody there knew about my day-old alter ego, and surprisingly they didn’t. But that didn’t last long.

  The receptionist swung by my cubicle wanting to know what I did to have the local news show up and ask for me. But she didn’t believe me when I said nothing, which was probably a mistake. “Maybe they were looking for a Len or a Ken Glantz?” I’d said. She Googled my name and there it was: thirty-four articles in forty-eight hours, the newest one with a big fat headline that read, Jen Glantz and Bridesmaid for Hire: Crazy or Genius?

  I guess you could say that in that moment, I was feeling like a little bit of both. But in that moment, I had two big problems I had to fix, both of which were under six feet tall and eyeing me for answers. I told the receptionist I’d buy her coffee for the next thirty days if she didn’t tell anyone, anything. I told the reporter to please leave my full-time place of business and call me at exactly 6:05 p.m.

  “The weirdest request I got so far was from a bride in India who asked if I could work a four-day wedding for her.”

  “Wow.
So what would you say something like this cost?”

  Oh, now he’s going to toss me the hard questions? Right at the end of the interview when my face is burning from holding a smile and my body is begging for a nap? Can I phone a friend? Would it be out of line to ask on live TV if I can call my brother and have him help me answer that? Should I say it’s TBD? I know I shouldn’t say it’s free. I know that’s a terrible idea. People can probably tell I have no idea how to answer this one. I have to look right in the camera and say something.

  “Right now, we’re open to working with every budget. Even those who don’t have any money at all.”

  We. Did anyone hear that? I just invented my own team. I hope he asks who we is, because I won’t be embarrassed to say that we, right now, is me and my brother.

  “Thanks for chatting with us Jen, and good luck to you and this Bridesmaid for Hire . . . thing!”

  Us . . . thing . . . I nod my head seventeen times. My first live TV gig is over. I want pizza. I want to go home. But I don’t know if I can get up from this seat yet, because it’s soaking wet from my overactive sweat glands. How does my phone have fifteen missed calls? I don’t even want to check my email. I just want to call my brother.

  • • •

  When I get home, I strip off my makeup, order a pizza, and call Jay.

  “You did great, but we have a lot of work to do. Especially when it comes to talking about how much your services cost.”

  “I know, I know. I was so scared, Jay. I think I might have peed my pants a little bit. At least I didn’t say that on live TV. Hold on, there’s someone calling on the other line.” I click over.

  “Is this Jen?”

  “It depends. Is this the New York Public Library?”

  “Huh? No, it’s Linda from Good Morning America.”

  “Oh, yes, this is Jen. Jen, this is!”

  “We saw what you did with the Craigslist ad. We’d love to have you on the show.”

  What I did? I spent Friday night in the way every single girl’s worst nightmare starts off: alone, with pizza, a bottle of wine, and Craigslist I have to play it cool. I don’t want to sound too desperate. Maybe I should tell her I’ll think about it?