Let Me Tell You Something (2 page)

It's been a long strange journey. I was hesitant to do the show. I wasn't interested. I had kids to raise and I had a job. Participating in a reality show was nowhere on my agenda. I auditioned for a laugh and never thought for a minute I'd get cast.

So, as you know, I did get cast and the show was a hit. There's nothing that can prepare you for something like an overnight success, and for how quickly you become public property and your privacy is left in tatters. That first year of the show was a whirlwind.

The best thing about that first season is that I resonated with viewers. People seemed to like me, and they wanted to talk to me. The Facebook page that I'd kept to stay in touch with friends and family suddenly had more friends than Facebook permitted. I didn't even know that there was a limit on Facebook friends, but I hit that limit in no time.

What touched me most was that people would send me these incredible messages from all over the world. People wrote me that they loved my honesty, they loved my loyalty. They wanted to know how I kept my marriage so strong and how I'd raised such wonderful kids. It blew me away to have complete strangers respond to my qualities, and forgive the flaws, that I put on TV for everyone to see.

For a long time, I answered every message I received until the sheer volume became overwhelming. It went from ten messages a day to several thousand within a couple of weeks. In the beginning, I would talk to women around the world about their marital problems. I talked to gay kids in the Midwest who didn't know how to come out to their parents. I chatted to people about all kinds of life and family problems. I would try to help them as best I could, but in the back of my mind, I would always think, “What the hell am I doing here? I'm no expert, I'm just a no-bullshit woman from New Jersey who got mixed up in a TV show. What the hell do I know?”

In the five years that have passed since those crazy, early days, there's been a lot of water under the bridge. There's been a lot of drama and a lot of laughter. I've been dragged into some of the most heated catfights in reality TV history, and somehow I've been branded as a bitch or a hard-ass, which isn't fun when I consider myself to be a complete softie.

That was one of my main incentives in writing this book. I was frankly tired of being perceived as something I'm not, and I was frustrated that some people misinterpret my low tolerance for bullshit as some sort of vindictive meanness. I realized that people who watch the show don't know the real me. We shoot thousands of hours of footage just to make a sixteen-hour season. The real me—the quiet jokester who loves to read and laugh—often ends up on the cutting-room floor.

The final clincher that inspired me to write this book was the realization that I just might be able to help people. Whenever I leave the house, strangers will often come up to me and tell me that I inspired them to make a big life decision, to really reach for their own personal brass ring. I've been told that I've inspired people to leave bad relationships, to stand up for themselves, to come out to their parents, or to mend a toxic situation, among other things.

This always blows my mind. As a mother, you try to guide your children and shape them and help them grow into the best people they can be so that you can give them wings and set them free. To have complete strangers tell me that I had given them wings, that I had given them courage to fly, leaves me speechless. When I realized that for some reason, I was able to help people in this way, I felt that it was a good time for me to write this book. To know that I can be a positive influence to people, oh my God, it's amazing.

I still spend a lot of time agonizing over my “fame.” I don't feel like I have accomplished anything so interesting to warrant the attention. I'm not a president, I haven't cured any diseases, and the only thing I've done is be myself on a TV show. But I agreed to start writing and see where I went.

As I wrote, I learned that we all have something to offer, regardless of our station in life, our education, or what people presume to know about us. I may not have gone to college, but I have sure lived my life. A degree in child psychology doesn't make you a mother. Holding your crying baby in your arms, or helping your teenager through a painful breakup, these are things that make you a mother.

I realized that I wanted to show people that the most important thing in life is to always be true to yourself. Always follow your heart, always act with integrity, but always be ready to take a risk, to follow an opportunity through to the end. It's OK to take a leap of faith.

Of course not everything will fall into place perfectly in your life, but there will be something in that journey that you're grateful for afterward. Sometimes the simplest decision that you make can have the most dramatic effect on your life—or someone else's.

I've lived my life by a strong but very simple moral compass. I believe in black-and-white. Even though it's a very broad-strokes way of looking at the big picture, it often helps you figure out the right—or wrong—thing to do in any situation. These were the kinds of lessons I realized that I wanted to share with others.

In this book, I'll tell you about my past and my present and the life lessons and mottos I live by—some I learned when I was young, others I picked up along the way. I'll explain as much as I can and share the life that made me the woman I am today. What I won't do is attack anybody. If you're looking for that kind of dirt, you can stop reading right now. If you look closely at the TV show, you'll see that I've never attacked anyone. I've reacted to being provoked, but even then, my goals are always honesty and aimed at reconciliation. You watch the show, so you know that I haven't always been able to arrive at peaceful resolutions with my costars, but I've always tried.

I have tried to live within my own moral code of integrity, but I'm not Mary Poppins, and I hope this book reflects that. I've never been afraid to admit that shit happens, because it does. But it's what you do when things go wrong that matters. Don't run away from your problems. Take responsibility for a mistake and learn from it. I view my life experiences, both the public ones you see on Sunday nights and the private ones I keep for my family and me, as opportunities for growth. I hope you can learn from them as well, which is why I decided to share them in the following pages.

Before we move on to the main course, I want to thank you for buying this book. I cannot believe the dreams I've been able to realize during my life, and now a huge publishing house has published this book that you're about to read. To think about it really makes me want to cry; it's so wonderful and humbling. I just want to thank you, and promise you that I will always give you the best of me, and try to make you proud of me, the way I try to make my husband and children proud. I honestly hope you like this book, that it makes you laugh, cry, and realize that you have just as much potential as I do. In five years, you could be writing the introduction to your own book, and wondering how the hell you got there! Nothing would make me happier.

Carolinisms

Here's a dictionary of all things Manzo that will definitely help you understand what I'm saying if we ever meet in person!

Chunkamonk—
a term of endearment that Al started calling me years ago and now we call the kids chunkamonk. It means “I love you.”

Bubbies—
a woman's breasts

Chuckie—
vagina

Peepee—
penis

Cavone—
a stereotypical male Italian. When you say someone is a cavone, it's not a compliment—it means they're obnoxious and loud.

Schkeeve—
dirty or disgusting

Azzo—
(pronounced “ah-tso”) means “oh my God, are you kidding me?”

Monkey—
another term of endearment

Guido—
typical chain-around-the-neck musclehead kind of guy

The City—
New York City

GWB—
the George Washington Bridge between Jersey and New York City

Route 80—
The highway that runs east/west across northern New Jersey

The Tunnel—
The Lincoln Tunnel, from Hoboken to New York City

The Mall—
Garden State Plaza, a mall on Route 17

The Shore—
the seaside of New Jersey—Point Pleasant, Seaside Heights, Cape May, Lavallette

Route—
the highway. It's a Jersey thing. We say “route” and then the highway number. Route 80. Route 46. And so on.

The diner—
If you say “the diner,” depending on where you are, people know exactly which diner you're talking about—if you're in Wayne, you mean Wayne Hills Diner. If you're in Clifton, you mean the Tick Tock Diner on Route 46. They're famous and everybody goes to them.

The Brownstone—
my husband's function center in Paterson, New Jersey

Cafface—
my daughter's makeup and tanning business in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey

BLK—
my sons' line of mineral-infused water

The kids—
someone's children. My mother still calls us all “the kids” when she talks about us, and I'm fifty-one.

Sunday dinner—
pasta, sauce, antipas—every Sunday, we all sit down. If someone asks you to Sunday dinner,
you
know exactly what you're going to eat.

Fuhgeddaboudit—
I'm over it.

These are real, and I
love my husband! I don't
belong on this show!

I've said it a million times: I was perfectly happy in my life before the show came along. My life probably wasn't too different from yours; I had a routine and I was content. I woke up every day, I did the laundry, I went to the market and took care of my family. I made sure my husband's sock drawer was full and there was iced tea in the fridge. Along with my job selling real estate, that was it. I was your typical housewife.

I first heard about the show from my sister-in-law Jacqueline, who had already auditioned for it and told the producers about me. While Jacq was shooting her sizzle reel, she suggested that the producers come and film at my house. They met me and asked me to try out for the show. I thought it might be something fun to keep me occupied over the summer. Perhaps it would raise my profile as a Realtor in Franklin Lakes and help me sell a few more houses. But I was sure there was no way in hell they'd give me the job. As I listened to them describe the show, with its focus on glamour and glitz, I knew I didn't belong. The only
Housewives
show at that time was
Orange County
, and the first season of that show was relatively tame, with all these women bickering and throwing money around and getting lots of plastic surgery. I felt so boring in comparison to the women they told me they were searching for. I looked at my life, the life I love, and was certain that there was nothing special enough about it to make people want to watch it on TV.

I remember at one point during my audition, I suddenly looked at the producers, then pointed at my chest and said, “These are real, and I love my husband! I don't belong on this show!”

That's why I was shocked when they called me and said they wanted me to join the cast. They said that they saw me as a potential balance for all the other craziness they needed to make the show work. When Al got home that day, I told him the news. He and the kids were very supportive. “Do it, it's just for one summer,” Al said. “Just have some fun with it.”

Talk about famous last words. None of us realized the monster it would become. We never could have predicted the degree to which this “little show” would turn our lives upside down and inside out. However, it didn't take long for me to realize that I'd signed on to something that was going to explode big-time.

I watched the premiere episode of
The Real Housewives of New Jersey
in Florida—not even the full first episode, just that tiny half-hour teaser that they showed before the first season. The very next morning, I knew I'd underestimated the effect the show was going to have on my life.

The premiere was at 9:00
PM
on a Monday night. We were flying home to New Jersey the next morning on a 7:00
AM
flight. On the return flight, I took my seat on the plane and the flight attendant immediately came over to me and said, “I saw you on TV, I think you're sweet.” Then the guy behind me chimed in, “Oh, you're that lady from TV last night, I liked your show.”

This was not even twelve hours after the show hit the air.
Holy shit.
It snowballed from there. All of a sudden people wanted us to go on talk shows, to do magazine shoots, and everywhere I went, I was stopped. It just bewildered me. Overnight, people started thinking that I was a celebrity. They acted differently around me. I did not like it.