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credentials (which is a ludicrous notion to anyone who’s ever seen the countess hashing it out with her ghostwriter!). To soothe her image, the countess, in a black dress and a pair of knee-high suede boots, takes a town car to the Madison Square Boys & Girls Club to inspire a group of underprivileged, underfunded, underloved, and misunderstood black girls. After a proper introduction, she begins her talk with “My husband’s family—get this, ’cause it’s fun—built the Suez Canal.” After what surely felt like hours, the countess asks the girls what they want to be when they grow up. One girl says she wants to be a model. On top of being underprivileged, underfunded, underloved, and misunderstood, I’m sorry to say this girl looked to be grossly overfed (although, judging by the quality of food most easily afforded by the poor in America, she could have just been bloated like I was).

“Stand up,” ordered the countess. “How old are you?”

“Ten.”

“Oh,” said the countess, “you have plenty of time to grow.” The girl stood very still. “You have a beautiful face,” said the countess, before taking a sip of the bijou coffee drink she had brought along. The girl remained heartbreakingly still. We all did.

“And you know what?” No, Countess. What?

“Losing weight is easy!”

There it was and there it stays, on national television, for all to see, rerun after blessed rerun.

“I think they got a kick out of seeing me in my high heels on the basketball court,” the countess later said. “And they really appreciated me taking time out of my day.”

It occurs to me now that I haven’t mentioned, for all those who want to buy it, the name of the countess’s book. It’s called Class with the Countess and comes to us courtesy of Gotham Books. (Thank you, Gotham Books.)

Another major attackive that runs through most of season two started at the meeting for an arthritis charity fund-raiser that Jill Zarin was helping organize. Well, really it started long before that. It really started each time Bethenny was, she felt, systematically ignored by the towering Bensimon at various stops along the Manhattan party circuit. The countess asked Kelly to come along to meet the other housewives and get involved with the Creaky Joints event. She showed up classically late and was introduced to the group, which included Jill’s teenage daughter, Allyson.

“Cute!” said Kelly Bensimon, upon hearing that Allyson is herself afflicted with arthritis. The other women seemed a little taken aback, but proceeded with business. They were told that, as honorary co-chairs, each woman’s name would appear on the invitation. At this, Kelly perked up. (You’ll recall that Kelly is very protective of the Bensimon brand.) She flat-out refused to have her name associated with the charity. Kelly Bensimon, according to Kelly Bensimon, doesn’t lend her name to just anything. Why? Well, for one thing, she’s super-busy. “Like, I have, literally, fifteen more minutes,” she told them, “and then I gotta go.” That’s how busy she is. Everyone there looked rightfully wounded, and Bethenny made a light crack about Kelly thinking herself Madonna. I felt the remark was justified; I think we all did. Kelly, for unknowable reasons, took issue with the comparison.

That is what prompted the legendary “I’m up here, you’re down here” exchange, during which Kelly used hand gestures to demonstrate how much higher she is than Bethenny on the social ladder. It happened at a cocktail date called by Kelly to discuss the hurting—a cocktail date to which Kelly was half an hour late.

Throughout the season, numerous attackives are flung about: Jill calls Simon a drunk in the press, Ramona calls the count “old,” and everyone calls Simon gay. Eventually, Kelly, who we indeed see lending her name to just about anything throughout the season, recants and helps out with the Creaky Joints auction, and despite a gigantic screaming match over what Jill felt was an abundance of Bethenny’s Skinnygirl signage, the climactic event goes well and Ramona offers everyone “kudooz.” The van Kempens, with the help of the show’s sponsor,