by Laura Levine
No wonder Prozac let me sleep in; she’d masterminded this whole fiasco.
She was lolling on the kitchen counter now, with what I could swear was a smirk on her face.
“You’re responsible for all this, aren’t you?” I hissed.
She shot me one of her Innocent Bystander looks, the same look she gives me when I come home to find my panty hose shredded to cole slaw.
Moi?
“Oh, don’t play innocent. I know you put her up to it.”
Whatever. So what’s for breakfast?
She jumped down from the counter and began her Feed Me dance around my ankles.
I can’t believe I actually fed the little monster, but I didn’t want to be tripping over her all morning.
“You don’t deserve this,” I said as I tossed her some Luscious Lamb Guts.
Then I gave Mamie the rest of her filet mignon. Needless to say, two seconds later, Prozac’s little pink nose was buried in Mamie’s dish, and poor Mamie had to settle for the lamb guts.
Meanwhile, I got down on my knees and began cleaning up the mess on the floor. I’d just wiped up the last glob of beet juice when the phone rang. Wearily I answered it.
“Hey, Jaine. It’s Patti.”
Oh, Lord. Not Patti. Not now.
“What’s Mamie up to?”
Her neck in garbage.
“Nothing much. She’s just hanging out.”
“Let me speak to her.”
“You want to speak with her?”
“Yes. Put her on the phone.”
Stifling a groan, I held the receiver to Mamie’s ear. She licked it eagerly as Patti cooed baby talk on the other end. After a few nauseating beats of this nonsense, I grabbed the phone back and said good-bye to Patti through a mist of lamb-scented dog spit.
Then I hung up and checked my watch. Only 9:45. No need to panic. I still had plenty of time to get Mamie groomed for the wedding.
After wiping down the receiver with Lysol, I got back on the phone and started calling dog groomers. But it was Saturday, a busy day in the pet grooming world. Every place I called was booked solid, except for one salon out in Tujunga that couldn’t squeeze us in until 4:30.
Okay, then. I was just going to have to groom her myself.
I hurried to the bathroom and ran the water in the tub, adding a generous heaping of bubble bath.
The trouble came when I tried adding Mamie.
They say many dogs like baths. I can assure you Mamie wasn’t one of them. From the way she carried on, you would’ve thought I was giving her electric shock treatments. In no time, I was drenched.
All the while Prozac gazed down at us, highly amused, from her perch atop the toilet tank.
This is more fun than watching you try on bathing suits.
Finally, the terrible ordeal was over, and I faced the even worse ordeal of drying Mamie’s hair. Ever try holding down a squirming dog with one hand and a hair dryer with the other, scrunching curly ringlets as you go?
My advice: Don’t.
Never again would I complain about straightening my own mop.
At last I was finished. Mamie didn’t look quite as fluffy as she’d looked yesterday, but it would have to do. As she dashed off to freedom, I checked the time. Still hours till the wedding. If I took a quick shower, I’d have plenty of time to wax my legs and do my nails and blow my hair straight.
And then I remembered: Mamie’s pink polka-dot hair bow!
I raced to the kitchen and fished it out from where I’d tossed it in the garbage. I groaned at the sight of it—reeking of tuna and stained purple with beet juice.
I tried scrubbing it with Wisk, but the stains—and the stink—were set for life.
Damn. I was going to have to buy another one.
Muttering a steady stream of curses, I changed out of my soggy pajamas into a pair of sweats, then headed out to my Corolla with Mamie in my arms. No way was I going to leave her alone with the she-devil Prozac.
After plopping her alongside me in the passenger seat, I strapped myself in and set off to go bow hunting.
Do you realize how tough it is to find a pink polka-dot hair bow? Trust me, Columbus had less trouble finding America.
I spent the next two hours fruitlessly driving from one beauty supply store to another. I saw more hair accessories that day than I’d seen in my entire life. It was in Nordstrom’s Children’s department that I finally found a reasonable facsimile of the bow. It was more dusty rose than pink, and the polka dots were a little too big, but it was better than nothing. I just prayed Patti wouldn’t look at Mamie too closely.
By the time I got home with my treasure, my hours of prep time were gone with the wind. I was supposed to be at Patti’s house in twenty minutes. Which left me exactly zero time to do any personal grooming.
I threw on my dress and lassoed my unruly curls in a scrunchy, all thoughts of looking spiffy flying out the window.
Oh, well, I reminded myself. All was not lost. So what if I looked less than wonderful? I still had Brad, my hunkalicious fiancé, didn’t I?
The answer to that rhetorical question, as turned out, was a resounding No.
Because just then the phone rang. I was going to let the machine get it, but when I heard Brad’s voice I snatched it up.
“Jaine, I’m so sorry, but I’m not going to be able to make it to the wedding today.”
“What???”
Was it possible this was all a bad dream and that any second I’d feel Prozac clawing my chest to wake me for her breakfast?
No such luck.
“My car broke down on the freeway,” Brad was saying. “I’m waiting for the tow truck now. I left a message with Rocky to send somebody else to the wedding, but at this late hour, I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”
No need to worry about that. My hopes had just plummeted to the cellar of my psyche where they belonged.
I should’ve known all along I’d never be able to put one over on Patti.
Chapter 9
Feeling a lot like Cinderella’s frumpy stepsister, I drove up to Patti’s Bel Air estate and handed my car keys to one of the red-coated valets out front.
“You going to the Devane–Potter wedding?” he asked, clearly taking me for someone whose true destination had been the Olive Garden All You Can Eat Spaghetti & Meatball Festival.
“Unfortunately,” I said, gathering up Mamie and my $90 corkscrew, “I am.”
I headed to the house, where the maid I’d met on my first visit answered the door, looking like she could use a valium or three.
“Patti’s upstairs in her bedroom,” she said wearily. Then she skittered away, muttering under her breath. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I heard the words “loco” and “nutcase.”
I tossed my corkscrew onto the mountain of wedding-white gift boxes, grateful that I’d sprung for The Cookerie’s outrageous gift wrap charge. Mine might have been the cheapest gift on the registry, but from the outside, at least, it fit right in with all the others.
Then I made my way upstairs, praying Patti wouldn’t notice anything amiss with Mamie.
The door to Patti’s bubblegum pink bedroom was open, and I stepped tentatively inside. Patti, looking very Shakespeare in Love-ish in her Renaissance-themed wedding gown, sat at her vanity, in the middle of a conversation with Veronica.
A slim male hairdresser hovered over her, separating artful tendrils from her elaborate upswept do. Denise and the Swedish bridesmaid, also dressed for a Renaissance Faire, sat nearby on Patti’s pink canopy bed, following Patti’s conversation with Veronica like spectators at a tennis match.
“Romaine lettuce?” Patti screeched, her nostrils flared. “I can’t have romaine lettuce at my wedding!”
Veronica, in her chef’s scrubs, forced a smile.
“Patti,” she said, enunciating her syllables as if talking to a five-year-old, “I already explained. It was unavoidable. The frisee lettuce never showed up. We have no choice but to go with romaine.”
“But I don’t want romaine,” Patti shrieked, swatting the hairdresser away. “I want frisee. And I want it today.”
And at that moment, something in Veronica snapped.
“Oh, grow up, Patti.” Anger blazed in her eyes.
“What?” Patti gasped, unused to back talk.
“Of all the impossible people I’ve ever worked for, and I’ve worked for plenty, you win, hands down. You’ll get romaine and like it.”
Everyone in the room—except Mamie, who was busy nibbling on my earlobe—reacted in stunned silence.
“I’m sorry I ever took this stupid job. No amount of money is worth having to put up with a prima donna like you.”
“Is that so?” Patti hissed. “Well, you’re going to be even sorrier when I get through with you. I happen to have a lot of influential friends in this town. And I intend to tell each and every one of them that you couldn’t deliver a simple frisee salad.”
“You have friends?” Veronica sneered. “Oh, really? Do you rent them by the hour, like your bridesmaid?”
Patti’s face flushed with fury.
“You’ll never cater in this town again!” she shrieked.
“Oh, Patti. Go frisee yourself,” Veronica shot back, storming out of the room. Only “frisee” wasn’t the “F” word she used.
The strained silence that followed her exit was broken by the appearance of Patti’s mom in the doorway. Encased in a slinky tube of a dress, Daphna Devane looked more like an aging beauty pageant contestant than the mother of the bride.
“Better get a move on, Patti,” she said. “The guests are starting to show up. And put some Visine in your eyes,” she added before hustling off down the hallway. “They’re still bloodshot from your bachelorette party.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Patti said to the empty space where her mother had been standing. “You look lovely, too.”
It was then that she noticed me hovering by the door with Mamie in my arms.
“Mamie, precious! I didn’t see you. Bring her over here, Jaine. I want to say hello to my little darling.”
I crossed over to Patti with my heart in my throat, once again praying she wouldn’t notice Mamie’s new look.
“There you are, sweetheart!” Patti reached to get her and let out a bloodcurdling wail.
Oh, crud. She’d noticed.
So much for any letters of recommendation from Patti. I braced myself for a rousing You’ll Never Work in This Town Again speech, when I realized she wasn’t looking at Mamie. No, her eyes were riveted on one of her fingernails.
“Oh, God!” she wailed. “I chipped my nail! First the romaine. Now this. Why does everything always happen to me?”
Yeah, poor Job had nothing on Patti.
As the others rushed over to inspect the damage, I figured it was a good time to make myself scarce. I didn’t want to be around when and if Patti got a good look at her beloved Flower Dog.
I edged for the door and was just about to step over the threshold to freedom when Patti called out to me.
“Hold on, Jaine.”
“Yes?” I turned and faced her with a feeble smile.
“Where’s your fiancé?” she smirked. “The neurosurgeon?”
In spite of the chipped nail and romaine tragedies, it looked like Patti still had the energy to turn the knife and make me squirm.
“Um, actually, I don’t think he’s going to make it,” I stammered.
“I didn’t think he would,” Patti said, with a smug smile.
I stood there, feeling just like I felt all those years ago when Patti grilled me about my prom date. I was just about to tell her the truth, that the only doctor in my life was Dr Pepper, when I heard:
“Jaine! I’m so sorry I’m late.”
I turned to see Brad, my hunkalicious paid escort, standing in the hallway.
“Br—Francois!” I gasped.
“Is that your fiancé out there?” Patti asked.
I nodded numbly.
“Well, ask him in!”
And then, in a moment I’ll always treasure, Brad stepped in the room.
You should’ve seen the look on Patti’s face. It was almost worth all the nonsense I’d put up with from her. She and Denise gaped at Brad, slack jawed. Even the Swedish model was giving him the onceover. Not to mention the hairdresser.
“Hi, darling,” Brad said, brushing his lips lightly against mine.
Patti’s jaw was still hanging open. Any minute now, she’d be drooling.
“Hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Brad said to her.
“Not at all.” Patti cooed, regaining her powers of speech.
“I would’ve been here sooner, but I got held up at the hospital. Finally got another surgeon to cover for me.”
“How clever of you,” Patti said, batting her eyelash extensions at him.
Then she turned to me, smiling sweetly for Brad’s benefit.
“Jaine, darling. You sure snagged yourself a honey. Why, he’s handsome as a movie star.” Then, once more locking eyeballs with Brad: “Are you sure I haven’t seen you up on the big screen?”
“Nope,” Brad said. “The only place I perform is in the operating room.”
“Well, sign me up for surgery,” she said with a wink.
Hey, sweetheart. In case you forgot, you’re getting married in an hour.
“Yes, Francois,” Denise said, joining our little coffee klatch. “Your face looks awfully familiar. I feel like we’ve met before.”
Oh, rats. Was my cover about to be blown? Had straight-laced Denise actually cheated on Mr. Rolex and used the services of Miss Emily?
“I know!” she beamed. “It was at the Chamber of Commerce dinner last Thursday.”
“I don’t think so,” Brad said, putting his arm around me. “Last Thursday Jaine and I spent a quiet evening at my place. Didn’t we, hon?”
He smiled at me, one of those adoring smiles men give to women in Estée Lauder ads.
“Uh-huh,” I nodded, too bowled over by his magnificent performance to speak actual English.
“Well, honey,” he said, “we’d better go downstairs and let Patti finish dressing.”
And as he guided me out of the room, his hand draped possessively around my waist, I exulted in my moment of triumph.
This guy was worth every penny I was paying him. And then some.
“How on earth did you get here?” I asked, as Brad and I made our way downstairs.
“You won’t believe what happened. Right after I got off the phone with you, a woman in a Mercedes pulled up and said she’d give me a lift.”
“But what about your car? Did you just leave it on the freeway?”
“Mona—that’s the woman’s name—is having it towed to her mechanic, and then she’s going to come back here to pick me up. I can’t believe how sweet she was.”
I, on the other hand, had no trouble believing it.
Brad was the kind of guy women bent over backward for. Literally and figuratively.
By now we’d made our way out back where the festivities were getting under way. A trio of musicians in Renaissance tights and puffy blouses were belting out sixteenth-century golden oldies to the assembled guests, most of whom were milling around a bar set up on the lawn.
I was surprised to see they were serving drinks before the wedding “show.” Probably to numb the audience.
Breaking with wedding tradition, members of the wedding party were out among the guests. Dickie and the Devanes were making the rounds, meeting and greeting. Dickie’s parents stood off to the side, his mother’s face a grim mask, his father smiling nervously.
Cheryl—who, like yours truly, hadn’t bothered to fix her hair or apply makeup—hovered near the bartender, guzzling from a flute of champagne. She looked up briefly when she saw Brad and me together, but she was far more interested in what the bartender had to offer, and handed him her glass for a refill.
Brad and I joined the others out on the lawn, and Dickie, catching s
ight of us, came over to greet us.
“So glad you could make it, Jaine.”
He stood there, beaming—clean and fresh scrubbed, a tiny cowlick at the back of his head—and suddenly I wanted to warn him to make a break for it while there was still time.
But of course, I didn’t. All I did was introduce him to my phony fiancé.
“You two are engaged?” he asked, unable to mask his surprise. I was beginning to feel like the Elephant Man on a date with Nicole Kidman.
“Well, that’s wonderful!” he said, quickly recovering. “I hope you’ll be as happy as Patti and me.”
Poor innocent fool. He actually thought he had a shot at happiness.
He left us to circulate, and Brad started telling me about his life as a Miss Emily’s escort (just doing it to pay the rent) and his career as an aspiring actor (someday he wants to direct, in case you’re interested). We were standing there chatting when I looked up and saw Walter Barnhardt heading in our direction.
“Quick,” I whispered. “Act like you’re madly in love.”
Instantly Brad shifted into lovebird gear, gazing into my eyes and running his finger along my cheek.
“Hello, Jaine.” Walter stood in front of us, his god-awful toupee perched on his head like a dynel bird’s nest.
“Oh. Hi, Walter.” I pretended to notice him for the first time. “I’d like you to meet my fiancé, Francois.”
“Francois?” Walter shot me a dubious look.
“Yes, Dr. Francois Cliquot,” I countered, taking inspiration from a waiter toting a bottle of Veuve Cliquot.
Walter grunted a curt hello.
“You two are engaged?” he asked, a little too suspiciously for my tastes.
“For keeps,” Brad said, wrapping his arm around me in a possessive hug.
“Really?” Walter said, oozing disbelief. “Somehow I can’t picture the two of you together.”
“Well, we are,” I said defiantly.
“Nice meeting you, Walter,” Brad said, dismissing him with a cool smile.
“Yeah, right.”
