Didn’t I Feed You Yesterday?

^{“Being on Project Runway was a lot like childbirth. When you are in the middle of it, it’s painful, but when it’s all over, you’re glad you did it.”}

ABOUT SIX YEARS AGO, BETWEEN KIDS NUMBER four and five, I stumbled upon a new obsession: reality television. And not just any reality television. On Project Runway, a mixed assortment of completely crazy fashion designers is given little time and less money to craft a runway-worthy garment good enough to get them past the even crazier judges and on to the next week’s challenge. It had me at Auf Wiedersehen. I loved the characters, the obstacles, and the creativity—and no one had to eat live worms.

I am no stranger to the impossible. Work two jobs, go to grad school, and single-handedly rear my daughter in a city where I know not one soul? Sure, no problem. Find a second husband and give him five boys in ten years, rearing them all in a two-bedroom apartment in the middle of Manhattan while continuing my career as an architect? Don’t make me shrug. Create a killer dress from a paper clip and a piece of lint? Freaking cakewalk.

I tried to share my love by telling everyone to watch the show with me, but reality television with its lowbrow reputation was too hard a sell in my house—not to mention the part about people sewing dresses. I did manage to convince my nine-year-old, Truman, to sit by my side as I yelled at the screen—disagreeing with the judges’ comments or questioning a contestant’s design decision—and that was because the show aired past his bedtime. One late night, as I was watching an episode I had already seen at least fourteen times, Truman looked up at me from where he lay.

“That dress should not have been cut on the bias,” he muttered. “Mom, you can do better than that.”

You’re right, I thought. That fabric is not bias friendly. I could do better with my eyes closed. I hadn’t been to fashion school, but I had learned to sew when I was tiny, and my architecture training had honed my sense of design to a razor-sharp edge. I’d been making fantastic, elegant black-tie-event dresses for years; I knew how to drape and make patterns without ever really thinking about it. As I sat on the couch, Truman gently snoring during the runway segment, it occurred to me that I could audition for the next season. What was there to lose? At least if I got cast all my friends and family would have to watch the show with me, even if I didn’t make it very far.

I found the New York City open call on the Bravo website—it was to be held in three days. I couldn’t believe my luck. The interviews would be at Macy’s, only three blocks away, so I wouldn’t have to travel or make any crazy arrangements for the kids. It really was a no-brainer.

I wasn’t sure what they would be looking for, so I decided to bring what I do best, grabbing three sparkling cocktail dresses from the clothing rack in my bedroom. I was flying blind, trying to remember what contestants had shown up with in the past and gleaning what I could from the Internet. I figured my chances were about as slim as those of an African American ever becoming president, but then again, why not me? I can out-gay the gayest young male designer out there, I told myself. The night before the auditions, I ignored the March forecast of “continued cold snap” and selected a shimmery sleeveless cocktail dress lush with hand beading and a neckline that plunges to the navel. When I pulled it on the next morning, I hoped I would stand out from the crowd.

And I do mean crowd. Peter walked with me, and when we showed up at the side entrance of Macy’s the line of people stretched all the way down Thirty-fourth Street and wrapped around the world’s most famous department store.

Peter, my hero, offered to hold my place in line so I could return home and wait in our warm apartment. God, I love that man. He called me hours later saying he was getting close to the front and it was time to make the switch.

Just as I arrived at Peter’s place in line, a guy with the requisite gear and a clipboard—clearly a producer— came outside for the next ten contestants.

“Seven, eight, nine,” he counted out, and when he said, “Ten,” I felt a hand on my shoulder guiding me through the door. My sense of the surreal started to kick into high gear.

Once inside the waiting room, I took off my coat and smoothed my hair, ignoring the nine people staring at me like I was crazy to wear a beaded dress before noon. Dress like you want it or stay home, I thought as I refreshed my red lipstick. They kept staring. I guess when you spend hours on a city street in the freezing cold a bit of camaraderie develops. I didn’t quite have that frozen-to-near-death-camped-on-the-sidewalk look about me. I had more like a spent-the-night-clubbing-at-the-Ritz-in-my-fancy-black-cocktail-dress look.

When it was my turn, the producers switched on my mic and told me to enter the room with my dresses and portfolio and stand on the X on the floor. I was specifically told not to try to shake anyone’s hand, which I found disappointing as by now I had a major crush on Tim Gunn and very much wanted a chance to touch him. It wasn’t a physical thing at all, really. I had just gained so much respect for his design aesthetic that I needed to make sure he was real. The more I thought about my infatuation, the more sense the no-handshaking rule made.

Once in the room, everything went by in a blur. I was operating on the adrenaline high of my life. Tim thumbed through my book and asked if I had made the dresses myself. I nodded meekly, or maybe I spoke a few words in the affirmative. I was so stunned to be standing there with the cameras rolling that I lost all sense of this being a competition—I really felt as though I had somehow already won just by getting in the door. I half expected to be thanked and sent on my way, and was already concocting the dinner-party small talk this episode of my life would soon be reduced to. It was then that I noticed people off to one side of the room—likely network executives or the big producers of the show—waving their arms at the judges and mouthing “Take the crazy lady in the cocktail dress.” Yes, I thought, you should take the crazy lady in the cocktail dress. Tim seemed less interested in my dramatic potential than in my garments—were they up to snuff? The next thing I knew, they told me I had made it to round two. I’d like to think it was my cleavage that got me the gig, but there’s not really enough of it. It’s much more likely that bedazzling oneself for an eight A.M. audition was exactly the kind of nutty behavior that reality television thrives on. At least for a couple of episodes.

I arrived home a mere hour after I had left, frozen and gleeful. I announced to the gathered sleepy faces that I had made it through to the next round. My next task was to make a three-minute bio video to send to Los Angeles. I had exactly one day to figure out how the hell I was going to make it on the show. Peter was thrilled by the whole prospect, and immediately took charge.

“If we shoot footage today,” he said, “we can edit it tomorrow and get it to FedEx by nine P.M. That should get it to L.A. in time.”

Since the odds were good that the producers wanted me because I stood out, we decided that the video should be about my personality and not about fashion. We began constructing our theme: older glamorous urban woman with a scary number of children. We did our best to set me apart from all the young gay designers fresh out of fashion school. Peter shot me in the center of a dizzying, death-defying, highs peed video of our loft, complete with four boys running around, a swinging skeleton chandelier above, my pet tortoise, a massive cage full of birds, and of course the dress forms and sewing machines behind me, a subtle homage to the requisite “interview shot” from the show itself. I meanwhile stood placidly in the center of this storm and confidently claimed that the breakneck speed of PR would be like a vacation for me.

It was a mad dash to FedEx but the video went off in time, and at that point. I waited eagerly to hear back from the producers whether or not I had been chosen. No word came. Weeks passed. Hamsters were born and died. The seasons changed. There was nothing to do, and no one to call. The wait was excruciating. Then one May evening my cell phone rang. The screen read “unlisted number.”

“Laura, this is Tim Gunn,” the unmistakable voice said.

“Tim Gunn?” I practically screamed. He gave me the good news and asked me to keep it a secret—apart from my neighbors, who must have heard my shout. Filming would start in two weeks. I began to prepare for what would be the most unreal reality of my life.

After I hung up and the initial shock wore off, I realized I had two problems: my daughter, Cleo, was due to graduate from high school during sequestered shooting, and I was about eight weeks pregnant. I might already have been knocked up at the audition, but it seemed so unlikely that I would get to the second round, much less be cast, that I conveniently ignored my compromised condition. I instantly made up my mind that I would put Cleo first if she wanted me to, and that nothing I did for the show could imperil the baby. I’d had five uncomplicated