Brace Yourselves!
Alex talks about her unlikely friendship with Ramona, the speakerphone sneak attack, and Hamptons party drama.
This was the first episode in three years that Simon and I had to pause so that we could regroup and prepare ourselves for the next scene. Wow!!
We had a great dinner with Mario and Ramona, and we all nearly died when Simon and Mario showed up looking like twins – gotta love John Bartlett! I didn’t remember whether Ramona had invited us to lunch or not, as I had opened two stores for STA the week before Labor Day, but as I’d been having such a good time with her we were happy to say yes. We all hoped that Jill and LuAnn would join the party, and with a little encouragement Mario called LuAnn and left a voicemail.
When Jill called Ramona from LuAnn’s cell, I thought she should have announced that LuAnn was listening as well. One of my biggest pet peeves is lurking eavesdroppers, and anytime I have to put someone on speaker, I let them know who’s in earshot. Wow. Just….wow.
Cut to the next day at Ramona and Mario’s – you could have blown me over with a feather when Bethenny addressed the logo I’d done for her. I was really surprised for a number of reasons. First, if it had only been about the logo she didn’t owe me an explanation. Companies sometimes try out one idea and then go in another direction – sometimes they come back to you and say, “Can we try it this way instead,” and sometimes they don’t. What had angered me last year was not really about the logo at all. In the off season we’d disagreed about something behind-the-scenes, and rightly or wrongly she was really mad at me and also at Simon. I felt that because she was angry, she borrowed the fact that my logo wasn’t the one she went with, and used that as a weapon to attack me professionally and Simon personally. When B apologized for not using the logo, I tried to explain that I wasn’t really upset about the logo not being used but all the drama surrounding it. That didn’t really come across; however, I did appreciate her desire to clear or at least start clearing the air. After the discussion we proceeded to have a great afternoon.
There were a couple of reasons I decided that we would stay at Ramona’s house. First, we were having a really, really good time. After Bethenny and I (and then Bethenny and Simon, not shown,) had talked, we concentrated on just having fun. We played bocce, ate ourselves silly and relaxed. The few minutes that viewers saw of course were the gossip about LuAnn and Jill but overall we really didn’t spend too much time talking about them that day. It wasn’t about drama, it was about fun. Second, I had a bad taste in my mouth about something Jill said the previous day. On the phone the day before, Jill tried to get me to cancel on Ramona altogether and she said, “I know you would rather be with us.” Even if it were true, which I’m not sure it was, that was a really, really presumptuous comment. I did want to make sure Simon got a chance to see Jill and Bobby, but frankly I didn’t really want to leave a party where we were having a good time, to drive in the opposite direction in Labor Day traffic and be dragged into drama. I did feel conflicted in the moment because I’d promised we would stop by, although had I been privy to the call between Ramona and Jill the decision would have been a no brainer.
We couldn’t just no-show at Jill’s, so I called her. I apologized and suggested we get together back in the city. Funny what happens after you hang up the phone!
This season is going to be so juicy; I cannot wait for the next episode! In the meantime, you can find us on our family website, Facebook and Twitter below:
