The first time I saw her, I was drying my hair in my parents’ bedroom. I sat down on the carpet, positioning my head toward the fan they’d purchased in the 1980s when they first immigrated to America, just like my grandmother taught me. As a devoted student of early-2000s tabloid culture, I usually entertained myself during this long routine with an episode of E! True Hollywood Story. That night’s episode was about Anna Nicole Smith, which I had already seen. Searching for something else, I landed on Bravo, expecting to see Tim Gunn encourage someone to “make it work.”
Instead, I was greeted by a blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman with a self-possession that said, I will break the glass ceiling, but I will also break your neck in the process. She was selling health insurance out of her home in Coto de Caza, Orange County, California, and introduced herself as Vicki Gunvalson. Focused, determined, and a little crazed, her eyes rapidly scanned the room. She scared me, but I was also transfixed.
Back then, I was desperate to disappear into any world other than my own. I was lonely at home. My dad traveled a lot for his job. Five days in Thailand, then turn around and spend the next seven in Germany. This meant my mother was often left to deal with me and my sister in Ohio, sometimes for weeks at a time. I have no doubt this was difficult, two preteen girls against one parent. Hormones raging, the snide comments and eye rolls were endless. Still, my mom was the one who drove us to school before she went to work, picked us up from tennis practice after, made us dinner, then woke up and did the same thing all over again. I am thankful for this. She kept us moving.
