Free Skinnydipping by Bethenny Frankel Page A

of one of the largest entertainment magazines in the country. After meeting him at the gym where I liked to work out, I’d hung out with him a few times. He was that uniquely L.A. personality: an over-fifty bachelor who drank excessively, was addicted to fitness, and was also completely unable to fathom the meaning of the word intimacy . But Ian was a sweet man and I enjoyed his company. He liked to buy me things, and he sometimes invited me to sleep over in his guest room and use his home gym in the morning. He loved to talk to me, but beyond a fatherly peck, nothing ever happened. He was nice, although I’d been relieved when he eventually stopped calling. He was much too old for me, and his proximity in age to my father made me uncomfortable.
    Sometimes I went out with casting directors I liked, telling myself that this would be a good way to find out about the really great acting jobs, but then I could never get myself to admit to them that I was an actress. It just sounded so cliché. The few times I did mention it wereto the wrong people—the lecherous ones whose eyes lit up the second they heard the word actress . One of them was even blatant enough to tell me he could get me a starring role in his new film if I would be his girlfriend. I admit, I gave it a few seconds of thought, but I just couldn’t get past the big fleshy mole wedged between his nose and upper lip.
    Men my own age weren’t completely blind to me. One afternoon, after Brooke and I had been roller skating in Venice Beach, we went into a bar because they had a sign outside that said “Nickel Beers.” This cute surfer guy came over to join us. He was tan with sun-streaked hair and he wore a muscle shirt that said Hang Ten. He said his name was Tim. He started drinking with us, and I started flirting. After about an hour, Brooke told me she was going home, and I waved her on. She gave me a look, but I ignored it. I was having fun. “I’ll meet you at home later,” I told her.
    “Your friend’s kind of uptight,” he said, finishing his beer and waving at the bartender for another one.
    “She’s my mother-in-law,” I told him, with a straight face. He didn’t even blink. I was so flattered that he had chosen me over Brooke that I liked him even more. The beer goggles helped, too.
    After about seven beers and a Long Island iced tea, I had to pee. I’d been putting it off for as long as possible. The room spun around me, but I stayed on my skates. I looked all the way across the bar to the bathroom, then I looked back at Tim.
    “Are you gonna make it?” he said, looking very serious.
    “I think you better give me a push.”
    He stood up and made a big deal out of giving me a shove toward the bathroom. I rolled about five feet past the bar, then had to roll and clomp and maneuver my way into the bathroom and the tiny stall.
    It was a long squat down to the toilet—the skates made me taller than I really was. When I bumped my way out of the tiny stall to the mirror, I was horrified at what I saw. I looked down at myself. I was sweaty, rumpled, and my ugly white sports bra was showing under my once-cute, once-fresh pink tank top. My eyebrows looked like twocaterpillars and I realized with even further horror that I hadn’t shaved my legs in a couple of days. When I’d left the house, I’d planned on getting a workout, never thinking I would meet someone. When will you learn? I scolded myself. Always dress like you might meet a hot guy. What did this guy see in me? Gross. I ran my fingers through my flattened sweaty hair, trying to at least give it a little lift at the roots. I splashed water on my face and pinched my cheeks, trying to bring back some color. There wasn’t anything I could do about the eyebrows. Or the sports bra. I don’t have the type of boobs that can fly free, unless I want to risk an indecency charge.
    “OK,” I said out loud, to the empty bathroom stall. “I’m going back out.”
    I rolled out of the bathroom