The cast of RHONY, approximately. (Bravo)

Despite the finger-biting anxiety of the last two weeks, when negotiations between Bravo and the members of The Real Housewives of New York City broke down, causing the network to threaten cancellation, it looks like all's well in the RHONY world after all.

Reports have seen the women out and about together with a camera crew at various NYC locales, including the studio of celebrity trainer Will Torres.

But the question remains: will all the Real Housewives be making it back for the next season?

According to E!, there are two women who are in danger of being replaced:

"At this point, the returning cast members include Ramona Singer, Sonja Morgan, Carole Radziwill and Heather Thomson," Bravo tells E! News. (E! and Bravo are both members of the NBCUniversal family.)

Meaning, LuAnn de Lesseps and Aviva Drescher—whom a source told us had been "demanding more money"—are not sure things for another seaon.

While Countess LuAnn may still be on the fence, sources have told The Observer that Ms. Drescher has indeed signed her Bravo contract, as several outlets have already noted. Whether or not Bravo would axe a cast member after they've already inked a deal for a new season, however, remains to be seen.

RHONY, Season 5 (Bravo)

Last week it looked like The Real Housewives of New York City could get shut down for good when all six of the cast members refused to sign their contracts. Shooting for the series was supposed to commence last Wednesday (according to several news outlets), but was delayed when negotiations stalled.

Thank goodness it might not be over. According to Deadline, RHONY ladies Carole Radziwill, Ramona Singer, LuAnn de Lesseps, Heather Thomson, Aviva Drescher and Sonja Morgan all received modest pay increases, though how "modest" that money is definitely on a case-by-case basis; Ramona Singer made $500,000 last season and was holding out for a million, while a source close to the negotiations told The New York Observer that The New York Post’s quoted "average" payout for a housewife--$65,000--was "in the ballpark" of what was being offered this time around.

According to an industry insider, however, none of the ladies have officially signed their contracts yet, so don't be jumping for joy just yet.

According to another source, Bravo waited until the last minute even to send around the contracts with the numbers, leaving only two weeks before filming began for the women to try to negotiate for higher wages.

But the industry insider scoffed at that idea, saying that there would never be a planned shooting schedule before the ladies signed the contracts. "Things need to be in place, Bravo needs to know their availability, and the reps need to sign the contracts," said the insider.

"You have to remember, there are no unions for housewives," another source told The Observer, explaining that shooting can last all day on some episodes, with only a short break for lunch. Then there are the costs of the job: hair, makeup, and clothes are not provided, and if someone has a scene inside a house, the cast member also has to pay for all the cleaning costs to make her home presentable.

"A lot of the ladies end up in the red after the money they put toward being on the show," our source told us.

But our insider disagreed, saying that RHONY was about showing women leading their everyday lives, hence it would be ridiculous to pay for the extra perks. (Though for some red carpet events and special occasions, the person noted, the ladies may be afforded their own hair and makeup.)

According to the Deadline article, the new (unsigned) contracts "threw in a few more contractual baubles like covering expenses for additional hair and make-up for the cast."

Several other sources who wished to remain anonymous told The Observer that the problem was that the money simply wasn't there. They complained that Bravo they didn't spend nearly as much on advertising as they had the previous seasons, and the show was put in a more competitive time slot, moving from Thursday nights to Monday. "Of course the show would see lower ratings if you pit it against American Idol or something," one individual close to the negotiations remarked.

But Monday night's lineup is shattering the network's internal ratings, according to Nielsen.

Aviva Drescher (Michael Rosenthal/Bravo)

Aviva Drescher’s first child was only 1 month old when the planes hit the Twin Towers on September 11. The Real Housewives of New York City star—a lifetime New Yorker—watched the events unfold with horror.

“I just wanted to protect my young,” she told The New York Observer, adding that her anxieties soon expanded. What about biological warfare? If terrorists could kill thousands of people with a couple of box cutters, what would happen if the Ebola virus was dropped in Central Park?

She began preparing for the worst.

“I bought body gear, really expensive body gear, like the kind used by the Army. I went online and researched gas masks. I bought a gas tent for my baby. I was so crazy that when I took my baby out, I would keep a gas mask in the stroller. I stocked up on Cipro,” she said. (Cipro is used to treat people exposed to anthrax.) “I bought a bunch of giant rafts to go down the East River. Though I know,” she sighed, “all the big shots will probably have private planes and helicopters.”

Arguably, Ms. Drescher and her husband Reid Drescher, president and CEO of the investment firm Spencer Clarke LLC, are big shots. So much so, in fact, that when Ms. Drescher revealed her “prepping” habits on camera, it created a pop culture paradox, a confluence of zeitgeists.

Thanks to shows like National Geographic’s Doomsday Preppers, a cultural archetype of the new survivalist has emerged: bearded men and their sons living in the backwoods, Deliverance-style. So to discover a “prepper” among the rich, white women of New York’s titular reality show was unsettlingly out of place. It was so ... uncouth.

But maybe not unreasonable. With 9/11 seared into the city’s emotional memory, the recent devastation of Superstorm Sandy and the alarming updates about North Korea’s nuclear capabilities, one would have to already be living in a soundproof cave to ignore the warning sirens.

And yet, during last fall’s Sandy madness, a shocking number of New York’s well-to-do insisted on staying put, not wanting to acknowledge even the briefest disruption of their luxurious lifestyles. Tinsley Mortimer embodied this attitude as she weathered the storm on the Upper East Side by going to her friend’s apartment ... in the same building. “We just hung out in her [apartment] with our dogs and made pasta and ate Halloween candy,” she said.

It’s hard to believe this is willful ignorance. After all, should society collapse, it’s the upper crust that has the most to lose (we all saw Bane playing Robespierre in the latest Batman film). Perhaps it’s more of a coping mechanism, because when it’s time to “get out of dodge,” money may not equal survival.

Whether money plus prepping equals survival, however, is an entirely different story.

Raised upstate, Milo (not his real name) is a 45-year-old boutique equities trader who believes the onus is on the individual to protect himself and his family. “What became clear to me is that being prepared for the unexpected is the best position you can be in,” said Milo, who received his first firearm when he was 13.

After witnessing the riots in L.A. in the 1990s and the blackout of 2003 in New York, Milo realized that even non-apocalyptic scenarios could turn a city upside down. “You saw it happen with Sandy downtown. The police weren’t able to get to people. People had to leave their doors unlocked so their neighbors could get in, and there would be ransacking of apartments in groups of five, six, seven,” he said. “Hell, I’d be pretty scared if I was down there.”

Of course he would never be down there. Like Ms. Drescher, Milo is ready for the worst—with his go bag, which is fully stocked.

“Water, water purification tablets, a pretty extensive First Aid kit, a lighter, lighter fluid, matches and a flint stone, just in case,” he said. “Condoms, a flashlight, a lantern, extra batteries, emergency blankets, a change of clothes, MREs [Meals Ready to Eat], $5,000 cash, mostly kept in 10s or 20s, a combat knife, a Taser and fishing equipment.

“Nothing too crazy,” he added.

He also has a foot locker at his uncle’s place in the Hamptons (which is also where Ms. Drescher intends to go in an emergency), filled with more money, supplies and guns.

As for transportation, Milo says he has a plan to buy his way off the island if the bridges and tunnels are blocked. “There’d be somebody [down by the docks] that I knew to take us away from the city,” he told The Observer.

“We have A and B plans; we have plans if something happens on the East Side or the Upper West Side,” said Milo, who has had the family perform dry runs of his escape plans and pays extra to keep his car on the ground floor of his garage. “The most important thing is to stay together as a family, that we aren’t just running around panicking.”

Vivos Underground Shelter Complex (TerraVivos.com)

While Ms. Drescher and Milo seem to be aiming for the Hamptons as an immediate destination if disaster should strike, the question for others—assuming they make it out of the city—is: where do you go next? Or as the sales pitch from Robert Vicino begins, “How do you prepare for the end of the world when you’re literally living at Ground Zero?”

Mr. Vicino is the founder of the Vivos Group, a network of luxury bunkers across the U.S. (Europe is pending), where, for $50,000, you can buy yourself co-ownership in what the former real estate salesman is calling “life assurance.” “We have 25,000 members around the world,” Mr. Vicino told The Observer, adding that the majority of his clients—whom he refers to as “middle class”—reside in densely populated cities.

“We understand that not everyone is very rich, or else they’d have their own bunker,” Mr. Vicino said. “Vivos is designed for the middle class—people who make six but maybe not seven figures. Mainly we see people that are highly intelligent and well-educated: doctors, lawyers and Wall Street types, sure.”

Mr. Vicino is in the process of building two Vivos facilities in upstate New York, which seems to attest to the fact that locals are investing in their end-of-the-world experience. Abandoned missile silos are being reimagined as luxury bunkers, like Larry Hall’s Survival Condo Project in Kansas. But the real hidden gem of Cold War opulence is the Atlas F missile silo luxury home, located in the Adirondacks and currently on the market for $3.03 million. The estate includes its own tarmac on which to land your superjet after a quick and convenient puddle-jump.

What Vivos and these other upscale survival housing outfits are really selling, though, is the idea of a comfortable postapocalyptic existence: this isn’t your mom and pop’s Cold War backyard bunker.

There are currently six Vivos facilities across the U.S. in one stage of development or another; the smallest facility is 10,000 square feet and holds 80 humans, while the largest is 120,000 square feet and holds 1,000.

Milo said he had looked into buying a stake in Vivos, but his wife put her foot down. Still, he told The Observer, his philosophy remained the same: “I’m a big proponent of having stuff and not needing it, rather than not having it and needing it.”

One wouldn’t think such a maxim would be hard for New York City’s 1 percenters to get behind, and yet Milo said too many of his social classmates—like Ms. Drescher’s castmates—have their heads buried in the sand. “None of my friends do this. They think I was out of my mind,” he said. “Though I joke with them, ‘When this happens, you’ll be trying to get to my apartment.’”

Norman Reedus as Daryl Dixon on The Walking Dead.

While reporting this story, The Observer ran into actor Norman Reedus one night at the Spotted Pig. Mr. Reedus plays Daryl Dixon on AMC’s smash hit The Walking Dead; who better, we figured, to compare prepping plans with than a man who spends his days pretending it’s the zombie apocalypse?

But Mr. Reedus was dubious about the whole endeavor. “I think the prepping movement is kind of over,” he told The Observer. “I have friends in the city who do it, but like, if it happens I’m just going to grab my kid, my guns, my motorcycle and two grand from a hidden safe.”

“That’s it?” we wondered. “What about amoxicillin or Cipro?”

The actor looked confused. “Once you are bitten, antibiotics won’t help you.”

We clarified: we weren’t talking about just a zombie scenario. Still, the answer was no. “Anything you have will be stolen if you can’t protect yourself. The cash will last you two weeks, and then it’s a matter of guns,” he said.

We floated the idea of Vivos.

“No bunkers,” he said. “Fuck bunkers. They can always gas you out of bunkers.”

Ignoring the question of who “they” might be, Mr. Reedus raised a good point. High-end prepping may take you so far, but most doomsday scenarios act as a great equalizer: no matter how many go bags you pack, how much cash you carry or how many escape routes you plan, surviving the chaos will most likely come down to non-monetary factors, like who has the least to lose, who has the most guns and who has the constitution to make those tough decisions along the way—survival of the fittest being one of those things that money still can’t buy.

SoulCycle

As in, once you're on, you are not getting off.

When we arrived at 83rd and 3rd Avenue for our 9:30 class, Ms. Drescher greeted us with the warmth of someone who hadn’t played the villain all last season on Bravo’s hit series. We knew SoulCycle devotees were "cultish," (the word appears throughout the torrent of articles about the specialized spinning class since Julie Rice and Elizabeth Cutler opened their first location in 2006) but we were not prepared for all the happy-souled customers who rushed to tell us their stories of enlightenment.

Like Isabelle Cheren, a 73-years-old former nurse who's been riding doubles (2 back-to-back, 45 minutes classes) since the East side location in 2010. Or Deb, a 60-something psychiatrist whose knee surgery prevented her from walking for two years. When physical therapy didn't help, she turned to SoulCycle. Now she's gained 6 percent bone density and her legs are toned and sinewy. "Here," she said, flexing her arm. "Feel that." We were impressed: Deb had the kind of insane biceps you’d expect to see on an action star. Upper East Side social fixture Danielle Anderman told the Transom that she started SoulCycle after she had a premature baby. "I was going through such a dark place, and it was Stacey, it was really all Stacey and her positivity, that helped get me through it," she said, her eyes sparkling.

Ms. Anderman was referring to Stacey Griffith, the cropped blond, tattooed miracle-worker/SoulCycle teacher whose classes are booked weeks in advance. The former DJ has so many socialite clients that she's blurred the ranks. As the subject of profiles in both Page Six Magazine and Vanity Fair, she is usually the third or fourth most famous face in her classes. The boldface names one might find in the sign-in sheets, at the Upper East Side location alone, include Chelsea Clinton, Brooke Shields and Kelly Ripa, just to name a few.

There was a moment of trepidation as we walked into the darkened room and locked our shoes into place like contestants in some dystopian game show. "Don't worry, you'll love it!" chirped Hamptons fixture Cassandra Seidenfeld as we passed her exiting the class. "It's easy."

Well, no. That is not true. SoulCycle is not easy. It could be fun, potentially, with the blacklights and the Rihanna/Daft Punk/Hip-hop soundtrack. But it is hard. The only thing that pulled the Transom through the first ten minutes were Ms. Griffith's yogi-like affirmations. (Unsurprisingly, she's been a student of both Tony Robbins and the late Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, whom she studied with in India and who is widely considered the generation's master of ashtanga yoga.) "Don't drink too much water!" Ms. Griffith exclaimed at one point, despite the heat wafting through the unventilated room filled.

The Transom, however, was dying.

Half the class was spent hovering above our seat, in a sort of half-run, half-crouch pose. It was hard enough, and then Ms. Griffith announced it was time to pick up our towels and perform a synchronized, Fosse-esque dance move. Three beats behind everyone, we were about to ask for help unlocking our “lock-in shoes,” until Ms. Griffith crowed: "Pretend like you are doing a show! And all your parents and family and teachers are there! The ones who said you'd never be a dancer, or a singer, or an actress. And now show them! Show them how good you are!"

Suddenly, we were (almost) keeping pace with the up-left-up-right-down-right-down-left coordination. Nothing motivates the Transom like revenge fantasies.

The session over, we freed ourselves from our bikes, with a little bit of help from Ms. Griffith, who encouraged us to come back and bask in the light that was SoulCycle. "I've never had a student that said she wasn't coming back," she said. Ms. Griffith recently her 800th class, and now teaches about 20 a week. "Not one."

We didn't want to break Ms. Griffith's pretty remarkable streak, so we just kept our mouths shut.

Housewife Aviva Drescher and social critic Camille Paglia. (Getty Images)

Two weeks ago, feminist Camille Paglia did an interview with Salon.com in which she came out as the world's biggest fan of The Real Housewives franchise, calling it "a revelation of the deep truth about female sexuality." She added:

It’s like the Discovery Channel—sending a camera to the African savannah to watch the cheetahs stalking the gazelles! What you’re seeing is the primal battles going on among women. Men are marginalized on these shows—they’re eye candy, to use Obama’s phrase, on the borderlines of the ferocity of female sexuality.

We decided to call up Aviva Drescher, RHONY’s newest villainess (though we still think she's very nice), to get her reaction to the compliment.

"So this woman ... she a feminist psychologist?" Ms. Drescher asked, not having heard the news about the endorsement. We said maybe more like a contrarian feminist theorist.

"I think even looking at the title of the show--it's a celebration of housewives," Ms. Drescher said. "And it's not the ’50s version of a housewife either. It's all about the differences in women to whom we apply this blanket term. And yet it is still of tremendous importance to the stereotypical 'housewife.'"

So even the name of the show might be Bravo's attempt at a subversive feminist critique? After all, Ms. Drescher is one of the three married "housewives" among them (besides Ramona Singer and Heather Thompson). Caroline Radziwill started the season in an open relationship, Sonja Morgan is divorced, and LuAnn de Lesseps might technically still be in a relationship with boyfriend Jacques Azoulay after she was accused of cheating on him during the reunion.

"Out of all the women, I'm the only actual 'housewife,'" Ms. Drescher said. "But just the fact that this a show where six women who are employed, who are being paid to be themselves on television, is empowering by it's nature."

"In terms of the ferocity of sexuality, you get the whole gamut," she continued, adding, "I'm the one who's more conservative, the mom with four kids who isn't really that interested in going on a girls' Vegas-type trip."

"Bravo's really celebrating women's differences," she said. "And when it's comes to differences, nobody wins."

"Well, except in the fact that everyone watching the show can find someone to relate to," she explained. "That's what we're celebrating."

And Bravo's ratings, of course.

Because it’s not a party without Bachmann’s Party Mix.

I made sure to grab a window seat because I was determined to keep an eye on the road. It was time for me to figure out where exactly the Hamptons were. The last time I ventured a guess, it was deemed so clueless that my publicist, R. Couri Hay, had to step in, spinning my ignorance as some kind of adorable party trick.

“Drew, guess where the Hamptons are!” he would exclaim, shoving me in front of a group of strangers.

“Um, upstate?”

“No, tell them what you said before! About New Jersey!”

You see, I was a Hamptons virgin. Everything I knew about the area came from my somewhat sketchy memory of reading The Great Gatsby in high school, which took place on the North Fork (yes, I know), but close enough. At one point I leaned over to my seatmate and asked her where the Dr. T.J. Eckleburg sign with the big eyes was going to be.

The young lady, bless her heart, didn’t miss a beat. “Those were in New York,” she whispered. “Also, you have orange crumbs on your shirt.”

After some sort of time distortion—a common occurrence on the LIE I’m told—I arrived in Bridgehampton, where I was to rendezvous with my guide for the weekend, Cassandra Seidenfeld, whom I had met through Mr. Hay. Here is what I knew about her: she was an actress, she would almost definitely be on Real Housewives this season, and she had offered to host me for the weekend.

“I’m not mad that you’re late,” Ms. Seidenfeld chirped, heaving my gigantic Yankees beach bag into the trunk of her Audi SSL (which had a Ferrari engine, I was reminded frequently). “The Jitney has been terrible,” she said. “I saw a pile-up of six cars. Someone probably died today.”

We got into the Audi. “Okay, we’re going to Pierre’s!” she suddenly announced.

With that, we were off.

Ms. Seidenfeld then hung a left and parked her car just 50 feet from where she had picked me up.

Over mussels, the restaurant’s owner Pierre Weber, a dashing, older Frenchman in a white open shirt and yellow slacks came over to greet us. Mr. Weber made it clear he did not want me writing a review of his restaurant. He told us an anecdote about how he’d once had to banish Gael Greene, lest she write about the food.

“Don’t worry, Drew’s writing is off the charts!” Ms. Seidenfeld vouched.

I promised not to write a review, although he didn’t have anything to worry about. The food was spectacular! And the service? Doting. Pierre kept coming over to flirt in that European way, you know, holding my hand, stroking my tattoos, and offering that old-fashioned remedy, “kissing it better,” after I literally bit my lip during a particularly racy joke.

“You seem nervous,” he told me. “We have to get you to loosen up.”
“You have to stop flirting with Pierre!” Cassandra scolded on our way out.

We then drove two and a half blocks to the Bridgehampton Inn, which had some connection to Matt Lauer and his wife, although I’m not exactly sure what it was.

Saturday morning I found Ms. Seidenfeld downstairs at the Inn, conferring with Seren, one of hotel’s employees. Seren was also a fortune teller, and Ms. Seidenfeld had some questions. Out of courtesy to the woman upon whose kindness I was completely reliant, I had promised not to write about her affairs d’amour, which were...complicated.

Seren was in the middle of telling Ms. Seidenfeld that she would meet a guy like [REDACTED], and his name would be a combination of [REDACTED] and [REDACTED].

You read it here first.

Lobster cum lobster

And then, finally, it was time for the beach! Actually, first it was time to buy big floppy hats at TJ Maxx, which Ms. Seidenfeld did while having me circle the lot. “The police here have no sense of humor, so watch it!” she told me before dashing off and leaving me in charge of a Ferrari engine.

Of course, my first thought was: Do any cops have a sense of humor?
The second being: I don’t have a driver’s license on me.

After the hat excursion, we drove to Montauk, stopping on the way for lobster rolls at The Clam Bar. This was the first of three lobsters I would eat in under 24 hours.

Once situated on the beach, we somehow downed two bottles of Domaines Ott, which was probably not the best idea since we were planning to attend a party for God’s Love We Deliver at the home of interior designers Randy Kemper and Tony Ingrao at 6.

Things got blurry, naps were taken, and before we knew it, we were late.

Cassandra Seidenfeld, Randy Kemper, and someone trying not to fall over. (Patrick McMullan)

The estate was an incredible labyrinth of topiaries. I soon learned that Mr. Kemper and Mr. Ingrao have done homes for Kim Cattrall, Howard and Beth Ostrosky Stern and Suzy and Jack Welch, in addition to designing this insane palace of shrubbery. My heels kept getting stuck in the mud—dead giveaway of a Hamptons newbie, I soon learned. (Real women wear wedges.) Since the party ended at 9, we scrambled around the maze looking for our hosts. We needed a picture with our hosts! Due to our tardiness, we’d already missed a bevy of celebrities: Donny Deutsch, Aviva Drescher, Ford Huniford, Marjorie Gubelmann, and every socialite in the entire world.

Cassandra was on a tear, desperate to have Patrick McMullan take my photo with Mr. Kemper. Finally, a beleaguered Mr. McMullan came over and I traded him a cigarette for a snap.

And then it was off to the Hamptons Players Club, where partner Frank Cilione sat us at a prime table and I ordered a lobster stuffed with lobster and topped with lobster bisque (sounds redundant but it wasn’t).

The next morning, after I devoured Ms. Seidenfeld’s leftover lobster for breakfast, she and I and our floppy hats braved the traffic back to Manhattan.

Dropping me at my apartment, Cassandra insisted I come to Jean Shafiroff’s party next week. With that, she hopped back in her Audi with a Ferrari engine and peeled away.

“You bet your [REDACTED],” I mumbled, sliding into my cool sheets, already counting the sheep that would graze on the lawn behind the high privet hedge in whichever Hampton I would one day have the good fortune to live in.

Housewives drama! (Bravo)

Last night at the Harboring Hearts Spring Gala at the Rubin Museum, Real Housewives of New York star Sonja Morgan sniped about her new co-star, Aviva Drescher, calling the latter out for only joining charities after she knew she would be on the show.

"We all went to one of her SoulCycle events, but she wasn't really involved with any charities," the ex-wife of JP Morgan told The New York Observer. "I ran into her ex-husband (Harry Dubin) and he was just as surprised; he said Aviva never did any philanthropy."

This was quite surprising, as we had interviewed Ms. Drescher prior to her Housewives announcement, and the three causes she was involved with played a major role in her story.

"She just told you that because she knew she was going to be on the show," Ms. Morgan sneered.

We called Ms. Drescher for a response. "That's about as silly as saying that I have two legs," said Ms. Drescher, who has worn a prosthetic leg since she was a child.

"It's absurd. I've been helping people who were amputees, one-on-one, since I was 20. I've been the national spokesperson for One Step Ahead for approximately five years."

"Besides, Sonja Morgan is an alcoholic," Ms. Drescher added. "She has to be carried out of every party."

It's fair to say that we've marked down June 4th for the Bravo premiere of The Real Housewives of New York City for what is sure to be an amazingly back-stabby season.

The RHONY cast: Ramona Singer, LuAnn de Lesseps, Aviva Drescher, Caroline Radzwill, and Heather Thomson (Getty Images)

With the 5^th season of The Real Housewives of New York City airing June 4th, the first teaser trailer has given fans a lot to look forward to. Not only are there three new Housewives—Aviva Drescher, Heather Thomson, and Carole Radziwill—but the sneak peak shown earlier this week has everything from prosthetic, skinny-dipping, and an elderly gentleman suggesting that he could give one of the ladies her "first squirting orgasm." And a lot of booze, to be sure.

Ms. Drescher, an advocate for amputees (she herself only having one leg) appears to play a major part in the drama of the season. The trailer begins with Ramona Singer asking if the toes on her prosthetic are "real" and ends with Ms. Drescher calling the tenured Housewife "white trash."

"I regret having said those words," Ms. Drescher told The Observer by phone yesterday. "I have a much larger vocabulary than that."

Without giving away storylines, Ms. Drescher admitted that she did feel very betrayed by Ramona. "That scene illuminated to me that friendships can certainly take up and downs," said the mother of four. "And in that way the show—art, in quotation marks—imitated life. Ramona and I did not start out that way."

As for her father, the 80-year-old widower who talks like Hugh Hefner, Ms. Drescher has nothing but love. "He's living life to the fullest. He's a dashing, brilliant playboy. My father has a rich storyline in the show, and he also started out by getting along with Ramona."

Ms. Drescher pauses dramatically. "And…well…I can't say the same for the end of the season."

As for her other new cast mates, Ms. Drescher is quite fond of Carole Radziwill: "She was a journalist too!" The Housewife mentioned repeatedly during the conversation, and positive that The Observer would get along fabulously with the widow of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' nephew.

Despite her friendship with Ms. Radziwill and her tempestuous quarrels with Ms. Singer, Ms. Drescher denied that the ladies teamed up "Newsies versus Oldies." Ms. Drescher also managed to maintain some perspective on the "reality" of Real Housewives. "It was like an sociological study: we were essentially forced to make the kind of friends over the course of four months that would usually take you four years to become that close to."

As for the rumors that her cousin-by-marriage Fran Drescher, didn't approve of someone from the family being on a reality show? Ms. Drescher said that the footage would speak for itself. "Fran said she used to not like reality shows until I started doing them. She came on the show, and she said to me afterward, 'Do you think I would ever say things about the show and then come on it? I definitely think those quotes from her were misconstrued."

Even though she hasn't seen much of the season besides the sizzle reel that was played for the Housewives on Wednesday night during Andy Cohen's Watch What Happens Live, Ms. Drescher believed the whole experience was worth it, if only to get the word out about her philanthropic efforts and raise awareness for amputees.

"If children and teenagers at home with disabilities watch this show and see me running around and married with children…living this lifestyle…they can say to themselves, 'Wow, I can grow up and do that too.'"

Aviva Drescher on the new season of 'RHONY' (Bravo)

Well, what do you know? After months of speculation and waiting around, our prediction that philanthropist and "Wall Street Wife" Aviva Drescher (whom we profiled in December) would be joining The Real Housewives of New York City proved correct! Now let's see if the other rumored women for the show will also be joining Countess LuAnn de Lesseps, Sonja Morgan and Ramona Singer for the 5th season of the Bravo hit.

From Bravo's official press release:

The city that never sleeps is about to get a real wake up call, as Bravo unveils the new cast of “The Real Housewives of New York City” season five, which premieres with a 90-minute super-sized episode on Monday, June 4 at 9pm ET/PT.  Countess LuAnn de Lesseps, Sonja Morgan and Ramona Singer welcome Aviva Drescher, Carole Radziwill and Heather Thomson as they navigate their hectic lifestyles of jam-packed social calendars, careers, children and city living.

So the three newbies will be Ms. Drescher, Carole "Related to the Kennedys" Radziwill, and Heather "Yummie Tummie" Thomson. No surprises there...those have been the only three names bandied about to replace fired Housewives Cindy Barshop, Alex McCord, Jill Zarin and Kelly Bensimon.

A sneak peak of the new season shows the women adjusting to their new roles in the spotlight.

We hope Ms. Drescher's role won't totally be reduced to answering question about her prosthetic leg to a baffled Ms. Singer.

Aviva Drescher, who will not be a Real Housewife

Update 4/5/12: Aviva Drescher has been announced as one of the new additions to The Real Housewives on New York City, Season Five.

Tucked into a back table at the Upper East Side pastry and panini shop Via Quadronno for brunch last Monday, Aviva Drescher, the 5 foot 10 inch, flaxen blond, part-time socialite, full-time mom and rumored new addition to the cast of Bravo’s Real Housewives of New York City, told us the story of how she lost her leg in a horrifying farm accident upstate at age six.

“It was a genius idea to go ride a conveyor belt in a barn that was meant to remove cow manure,” Ms. Drescher said, rolling her eyes.

Along with a black pencil skirt from Dolce and Gabbana paired with a burgundy bow blouse and cashmere sweater vest by Gucci, Ms. Drescher was sporting a pair of thigh-high black boots. She always wears thigh-high boots.

The initial amputation was not the ideal surgery, she recalled. “The problem was, as a child, they only amputated several inches above ankle, so the amputation was very awkward. I’d get abrasions all the time. I constantly had infections.” At 26, Ms. Drescher underwent elective surgery to remove more of the leg, which gave her more skin and padding.

She told the story casually, with self-depreciating wit—eager to make us comfortable and to dispel any tiny violins that might launch into an overture.

“When I was growing, I’d have to get a new prosthesis every six months,” Mrs. Drescher noted as the waiter placed a ham and cheese panini in front of her. Ms. Drescher, who has a MILF-ish air (though she insisted she had never modeled, no matter what the papers have said), daintily bit her crust and swallowed.

Ms. Drescher at a Soul Cycle event for her One Step Ahead Foundation (Heidi Green)

That easy smile, the warm demeanor, the natural complexion (no “work” needed, or so it appeared), the ham and cheese sandwich...wait a minute. The gossip mill was clearly off-base: there was simply no way this congenial UES mom could ever be a Real Housewife. No crazy eyes? No berating the wait staff? Although Ms. Drescher’s name has been bandied about since September as a top candidate for the program’s “Wall Street Wife,” The New York Observer was, within minutes of meeting her, secure in the knowledge that there’d been a mistake.

The woman sitting across from us was clearly not going to be on the show. Which would explain why Andy Cohen, producer of The Real Housewives franchise, replied to our point-blank question about Ms. Drescher’s supposed casting last week by saying, “There have been no official confirmations.” And why one of Bravo’s producers, when asked about Ms. Drescher’s involvement with the show, emailed us, “We haven’t made any announcements regarding new ladies at this time.”

We thought they were just being coy. But this woman was just too nice, too sane, too normal to get the gig.

It seems there is some other very reasonable explanation for why the non-socialite—who as of October 1 had only had 22 pictures of herself on the website of New York event photographer Patrick McMullan—suddenly had 14 new images. They came from a single event, and also included Housewives Ramona Singer, Countess Luann de Lesseps, and Carole Radziwill, another much rumored addition. Same for the recent paparazzi pictures showing Ms. Drescher being trailed by a camera crew with Real Housewives co-stars Sonja Morgan and Ms. Singer while they tried on bikinis near Ms. Drescher’s father’s home in Miami. (Ms. Drescher looked on nonchalantly in a sarong.)

We mean, who doesn’t cross paths with the Housewives and their film crew now and then? That doesn’t prove anything.

The more compelling reason that Ms. Drescher will definitely, 100 percent not be on Housewives next season is that she’s way too even-keeled. She’s even has good things to say about her ex, Harry Dubin, despite reports in Page Six years ago of their acrimonious divorce.

“Harry and I get along really well in terms of parenting together,” said Ms. Drescher, who has a 10-year-old son, Harrison, with the former real estate mogul. Their marriage ended in 2005, only days after news of Mr. Dubin’s brother Louis separating from Tiffany Dubin, with whose step-father he had partnered to create Athena Group. Mr. Dubin had worked for his brother at Athena, and when Louis’ marriage began to implode, so did Mr. Dubin’s own household.

“He’s been more consistent recently,” Ms. Drescher said of her ex, “because he has this fabulous new girlfriend.” She was not being sarcastic! Sorry, but as a Real Housewives-style “confessional” moments go, that seemed a bit flat, a bit reasonable. Where is the backstabbing? The underminey snark or outright bitchery?

Ms. Drescher with family (Heidi Green)

Ms. Drescher makes allusions to The Brady Bunch when talking about her current husband, Reid Drescher, who is the CEO and president of investment firm Spencer Clarke LLC and a partner and portfolio manager of the private hedge fund Cape One Financial. (Their estimated net worth, by the family’s own account, is in the seven figures, though Internet speculation suggests much higher numbers.) They have four children together, including the two oldest step-children they “merged” over from former marriages.Ms. Drescher met her Prince Charming at Bed, Bath and Beyond when Mr. Drescher told his daughter Veronica to go play with her son Harrison, so he’d have a reason to approach the statuesque single mother.

Even their engagement story is too adorable: “When Reid proposed, he gave Harrison a ring to give his daughter Veronica, and Harrison asked her to be his sister,” Ms. Drescher recalled. “So we ended up merging his daughter from another wife and my son into a single family.”

Then came the two children with Reid: Hudson and Sienna, four children altogether, ranging from 10 to one and a half. Her life, by Ms. Drescher’s own account, is pretty home-oriented.

“The biggest difference between Reid and Harry is that Harry was more a going-out type of guy...he was into socializing. Reid is all about family and work. I’m not a golfing widow. He’s hands-on.”

Aha! There’s the proof that Ms. Drescher cannot, will not be a Housewife: Of the eight women who have starred in the New York version of the show, just three were married at the time of filming. (Bethenny Frankel’s spin-off shows Bethenny Getting Married and Bethenny Ever After documented her marriage to Jason Hoppy after she left Housewives.)

Traditionally, a married Housewife is also a busy Housewife (think of Jill Zarin, who spent so much time running her own business and hosting charity events that her family is portrayed as an afterthought). Or she’s a co-dependent Housewife (like Alex McCord, who was never onscreen without her flamboyantly accented hubby, Simon Van Kempen, who usually had more drama with the rest of the ladies than his wife did).

Housewives almost always have jobs—which makes “housewife” sort of a misnomer—while Ms. Drescher doesn’t.

A stay-at-home mom who doesn’t party (“I can honestly say I’ve never inhaled...I’ve never even been drunk!” she said) joining up with Bravo’s cast of egoists? Um, no.

She was born in Manhattan, where she grew up as Aviva Teichner on the Upper West Side. Her parents, George and Ingrid, were beautiful and wealthy; her mother a strict German former model, and her father, an investment banker. Ms. Drescher went to private schools like Fieldston (where she dated a “really hot” football player), then Vassar and then NYU for a Master’s in French Literature—which led to some time in France where she dated a club owner and hung out with Claudia Schiffer and Naomi Campbell. Then she grabbed a J.D. from Cardozo.

Reid, Fran, and Aviva Drescher (Heidi Green)

If Ms. Drescher were ever to do something as unlikely as appear on Real Housewives, it would be to raise awareness for her charities. Ms. Drescher is the co-founder of a philanthropic group called One Step Ahead, which raises money to buy prosthesis for children who can’t afford them. Shen is also involved with Trash Cancer and Cancer Shmancer, subsidiaries of the organization started by Mr. Drescher’s famous first-cousin, Fran. Yes, The Nanny, who told a reporter last week, “I’m scared to admit, but one of my cousins is one of the new ‘Housewives’ of New York.”

Where do people get this stuff?

The only time Ms. Drescher recalls feeling singled out for her disability was when she was between marriages, and seeing a well-known real estate agent.

“We had three or four dates, and he was smitten,” she recalled, while declining to name names. “He was begging me to go away with him, and I told him—I wouldn’t tell someone on a first date, that’s too intimate, but we had already made out—I told him, ‘I’m not everything you see. I’m missing part of my leg.’ After which he promptly asked for the check, dropped me at home, and he never called me again. He told other people, ‘I couldn’t deal with the leg.’”

“Maybe he had a foot fetish,” we said, before we could stop ourselves. Mrs. Drescher laughed: “That’s really funny. That’s really funny.”

As for her friendships with other Real Housewives, Ms. Drescher refused to talk about them until we reminded her gently about those photos that had leaked on the web. “I sat next to Sonja Morgan at a birthday luncheon in 2000,” she remarked tentatively, seemingly reluctant to say too much before any official announcement is made from Bravo that there is absolutely no way that she will be on the show. “But she was always more of Harry’s friend, and we were never close.”

As to the back-stabbing that fuels the program she is definitely not on, it doesn’t compute for her. “I don’t get jealous of other women,” she said. “When another woman does well, I’m like ‘Girl Power!’” Then she launched into an anecdote about a recent encounter with a clothing designer friend. “I told her I finally knew what it was like to work like her,” Ms. Drescher said (though as far as we know, Ms. Drescher doesn’t have a job). “And this woman just goes, ‘What you’re doing isn’t work.”

Not that she’s doing anything. Ha ha! Her?

Then again, after we went home that night and re-watched a couple of old RHONY episodes, it occurred to us that Ms. Drescher’s more-normal-than-thou attitude could actually be a boon to the series.

The other Housewives—with their petty grievances and bourgeois problems—would hate being compared to the angelic Aviva Drescher, and their struggle to deal with that could make for some undoubtedly great television.

Maybe next season.