I point to a woman in black pants and a turquoise T-shirt with the slogan THIS IS ORGANIC! emblazoned across her boobs.
“I ask you”—Sienna sighs dramatically—“when-oh-when will Carolina Herrera make sustainable cocktail dresses? Is Karl Lagerfeld never going to come out with a line of socially conscious ballroom gowns? It’s commendable that these gals are into saving the planet—but couldn’t they reduce the carbon footprint in a pair of Jimmy Choos?”
“I’m wearing Louboutins, isn’t that even better?” my friend Olivia says gaily. She’s one of the group of neighborhood M&Ms I meet every morning for lattes and I’m grateful to see she’s with the whole gang.
“I’m so glad you came!” I say, exuberantly embracing the four women.
Melissa, a class mother at Paige and Molly’s school, reaches out for my hand.
“We’re here for you, Tru,” she says meaningfully.
“That’s right,” says Pamela, the PTA president and unofficial group leader. “Whatever you need.” Then she grabs Melissa’s elbow and steers my neighborhood friends off in the opposite direction.
What was that all about? I think. I’m glad they’re all here, but what is with all the emotional sighing? I take out my cellphone to call Joan Rivers—a tornado wouldn’t keep her away from the opening of an envelope—when a woman leans in and fingers my wispy Escada gown.
“Pity,” she says, tugging at the fabric with the glint in her eye of a mama bear about to eat her young. “That dress you’re wearing is so very pretty. Too bad blue’s such a terrible color for you.”
The woman herself is wearing a too-tight gold lamé gown with a jeweled collar and a banged, bobbed black wig. Her eyes are rimmed in smoky black kohl, Cleopatra-style.
“Hi, Mom,” I say nervously, as Naomi reaches around my back and digs her nails into my vertebrae.
“Truman, shoulders up!” My mother, as usual, is standing ramrod straight and she turns toward the center of the room like a heat-seeking missile. “I’m so very, very glad to be here tonight,” she says, gazing past me to address a small group of startled onlookers. “Anything to support my daughter, the chairperson of this wonderful event. And of course, anything, anything at all I can do to help the global warming.”
Like turn on her air conditioner? Naomi thinks climate change is what happens when you fly from New York to Miami. I’m just scanning the room for a volunteer to take Naomi off my hands when I’m distracted by a low growl. I swivel around to see Avery Peyton Chandler, the pouffed-haired trophy wife of a Texas oil tycoon. She campaigned hard to be the chair of the global warming fund-raiser and when the committee picked me instead, Avery Peyton Chandler was fit to be tied.
Avery Peyton (who’s never referred to by less than at least two of her names), is decked out in a low-cut hot pink satin gown that’s almost as attention grabbing as my mother’s, although her dress comes from Donatella Versace, not the local Halloween store. Much to my horror Avery Peyton Chandler and Naomi exchange the instant recognition of kindred, if competitive, spirits and I smell axis-of-evil potential in their budding alliance. Then, damn, I hear that low, snarling hiss again. Even if she’s grinning like a Cheshire, the growl isn’t coming from Avery Peyton.
“For you, Tru,” Avery Peyton drawls, as she reaches into an oversized bag to give me a small token of appreciation. A cat—a very, very black cat—that she’s somehow smuggled into the museum.
The ancient Egyptians liked black cats, the ancient Egyptians liked black cats, the ancient Egyptians liked black cats, I chant silently—although I’m a modern American and I’m scared out of my wits. Plus my throat is starting to close up. Avery Peyton Chandler tries to foist the feline on me and I jump about fifty feet.
“What’s the matter, Tru?” asks Avery Peyton in a voice so treacly Rachael Ray could whip it into a meringue.
“Uh, uh, huh!” I gasp. “Can’t talk. Cat’s got my, u-huh, lung.”
“Nonsense, he’s nonallergenic. An Egyptian hairless, isn’t that just too priceless? I simply had to bring him!”
I’ve read about these cats. I don’t know if they live up to their no-wheeze, no-sneeze promise. Though if you ask me, their price—$4,000—is enough to take anyone’s breath away.
“Oh don’t be so dramatic,” Naomi, the queen of drama, chirps. “How delightful of Avery Peyton Chandler to bring you such a thoughtful present.”
“You’re not afraid he’ll jinx your little sphinx party, are you?” Avery Peyton purrs.
“Of course not,” says Naomi, reaching for the cat and enfolding him in her arms with an affection she only reserves for occasional small animals—and herself. “What a cute little kitty!”
I move two steps back and take a gulp of air. Avery Peyton’s out to spook me but I’m not going to let her have the satisfaction.
“He’s ador-able,” I say, still standing as far away as possible and stretching out my hand in the petting equivalent of an air kiss. “I only wish more people had thought to bring their pets.”
Avery Peyton Chandler looks around and lets out a whoop. “Well, a few more cats and dogs would make the place more lively,” she says. “Where is everybody tonight, Tru? I thought the party would be absolutely packed with Peter’s high-profile clients. Wasn’t that P. Diddly-ish fellow supposed to be here? Isn’t that how you bamboozled the committee into putting you in charge? I guess things don’t always turn out as planned, do they now, dear?”
Sienna’s across the room, dealing with the petulant florist. (The one who’d tried to sell me the green orchids. When I’d left them, Monsieur René was clutching Sienna’s arm, teetering between outrage and tears. “Zee Mrs. Newman, she makes zee huge mistook.”) Seeing my distress she ditches the overwrought posy arranger to rush to my side. Since I’m allergic to alcohol, she brings me a stiff cup of ginger ale. Then a waitress proffering a large tray comes over, beseeching us all to try the house specialty. My stomach’s tied up in knots, I can’t eat a thing, but at least Avery Peyton Chandler’s sidetracked for the moment from torturing me.
“You really must try the chicken tarragon,” the waitress says.
“Is the chicken free range? Are the artichoke bottoms grown in Manhattan?” demands Avery Peyton, our committee’s obstreperous locavore, interrogating the waitress with the vigor of the carnivore I know her to be.
“Of course,” the waitress answers efficiently. “No foods have crossed state lines.”
Avery Peyton Chandler pops an artichoke canapé in her mouth and in a rush of enthusiasm declares them delicious. “I mean they’re adequate,” she says, and scarfs down two more. Naomi nabs three for herself and feeds one to the feline, who’s still cradled in her arms.
Up until now Naomi’s been preoccupied with stroking the cat. But suddenly, like a giant black bear stoked with energy after a long hibernation, she’s roused.
Her eyes are bright, her head twitches searchingly from side to side, and everything about my mother’s body is hyper-alert. I see the train wreck coming—I just don’t know how to get my party off the tracks.
“It is a little quiet in here,” Naomi says, eyeing the crowd. “Time to shake things up.” Quicker than you can say, Stop that crazy woman before she embarrasses the hell out of me, Naomi props the cat up on his hind legs and stretches out his front paws, positioning the unwitting feline to be her Fred Astaire. Then my sixty-eight-year-old, gold-lamé-clad, party-loving mother sashays onto the middle of the dance floor. “Okay,” she booms, motioning to the ambushed bandleader. “We’re in the friggin’ Temple of Dendur! Everybody ‘Walk Like an Egyptian’!”
I don’t know what’s most alarming: Naomi’s ten-inch-high dance partner or the sight of her wriggling her hips and dancing with her arms and head pointed—à la Egyptian wall paintings—in different directions. I don’t imagine Cleopatra would have gotten very far with Mark Antony if this had been her best shot, but Naomi’s attracted at least one admirer—Dr. Barasch, P-H-D., as he likes to call himself, the headmast
er of my children’s private school.
“Walk like, walk like an Egyptian,” Naomi croons as she pulls the usually uptight Dr. Barasch, P-H-D onto center stage. She closes her eyes and grinds her pelvis at the Harvard-educated headmaster who’s became putty—or should I say nutty?—in my mother’s diabolical hands. Dr. Barasch isn’t much of a dancer, but he is a wiggler. I watch aghast as the man to whom I’ve entrusted my children’s education, the man I’d hoped would write their recommendations to Princeton, bumps his hips suggestively against my mother’s. The cat—who’s been stuck like a monkey in the middle—makes a break for it and jumps to the ground, allowing Naomi to drape her arms around Dr. Barasch’s neck and shimmy closer.
“You go, girl,” someone in the crowd calls out, egging Naomi on—not that she needs any encouragement.
“Ay, oh, whey, oh,” Naomi warbles the song’s refrain, reminding me of the poetry of the lyrics.
“Ay, oh, whey, oh,” Dr. Barasch echoes Naomi’s mating call.
“Ay, oh, whey, oh—ooh!” Naomi says. “Ooh, ooh, ooh.”
“Ooh, ooh, ooh,” Dr. Barasch mimics, still lost in the moment and unaware that Naomi has dropped her arms to her sides and is clutching her stomach.
“Sick,” Naomi mumbles. The color drains from her face, her shoulders slump, and she cups her hand over her mouth. “Food poisoning,” she croaks, lurching toward the bathroom. Followed, in quick succession, by Muffy, Dr. Barasch, the cat, and at least thirty other guests, all the victims of tainted canapés. While everyone was worrying about the provenance of the chicken, no one bothered to think about how long the mayonnaise had been left unrefrigerated. The band, having watched Titanic too many times, keeps playing.
Naomi finally stumbles out of the restroom with black kohl streaking down her cheeks and her Cleopatra wig askew. She’s a mess but so is my party—and to her, both are all my fault. “You’ve sullied my good looks and our good name,” she says, tugging at her bangs. “This sure as hell was no Black and White Ball.”
Guests in various states of illness and disarray continue to enter and exit the bathroom. On their way in, they clutch their bellies and moan for a doctor. On the way out, they grab their coats and mutter about lawyers. Melissa, one of my four M&Ms, makes her way across the room to offer her condolences. But it isn’t the sympathy call I’m expecting.
“I’m so sorry about Peter,” Melissa says quietly. “I’m not exactly sure what to say.”
“Oh, Peter’s the least of my worries,” I reassure her. “He was probably tied up with a client. It’s just as well he wasn’t part of this fiasco.”
“That’s not what Melissa means, now is it, dear?” says Avery Peyton Chandler, who’s come over to gloat.
Melissa shifts uncomfortably from side to side on her spindly heels as Sienna and I exchange puzzled looks.
“His j-job,” Melissa finally stutters as she backs up, heading toward the door. “I mean I’m sorry that Peter lost his job.”
“Didn’t you know, Tru?” squeals Avery Peyton Chandler. “I ran into him at Starbucks at least three weeks ago in the middle of the afternoon playing some game on his computer and drinking a mochachino. A tall, not a grande—that was the tip-off. I guessed that you two had already started economizing.”
Peter lost his job? His job lost Peter? Lost, Peter, his job? I rearrange the words in my head, trying to make sense of them. I freeze in place, squinting into the blinding strobe lights, panicked and unable to move. Then my hand flails against a table and my body crashes in a dead faint to the floor, taking down one of the marzipan mummies. The melting gooey paste ends up stuck all over my dress and hair, and the bitter almond smell is overwhelming.
Somewhere in the distance I see Rosie O’Donnell and the florist, Monsieur René, standing over me. “We’re here for you,” says Rosie, bending down to swipe a dollop of marzipan off my forehead. She sucks the congealed confection off her fingertip and shrugs. “Not bad, not bad at all. But Tru, honey, you shoulda gone with the orchids.”
Two
The House of the Rising Sum
SIENNA TAKES ME HOME in a cab but I insist on going up to the apartment alone. Terrance, our doorman, walks a couple of steps ahead of me through the lobby to push open the heavy ornamental elevator gate. He reaches a white-gloved hand inside the cab to punch the “penthouse” button. “Tough night, Mrs. N?”
“You could say that, I guess.” Absentmindedly, I finger one of the elevator’s two alabaster sconces, imported from Spain and rumored to cost over five figures apiece.
“Everyone has their rough patches. This, too, will pass,” says Terrance—who’s been studying meditation with Madonna’s kabbalah teacher’s ex-assistant.
“Quickly, will it pass quickly? Like a breeze on the Sahara? Or Amy Winehouse’s attempts at rehab?” I ask, willing to grab onto any shred of hope.
“Not quickly,” says Terrance, as the elevator door slams shut. “But by the end of the journey you will be in a different place from the one you started out in.”
I fumble for my keys and open the thick mahogany door to our spacious apartment. How many times have I carelessly tossed the mail onto the Georgian table in the front hall and not even noticed the sumptuous bouquet of calla lilies that are delivered fresh like clockwork each week? I tiptoe down the wide front hall lined with family photos: the girls on their first day of preschool clutching my hands and their matching Pocahontas lunchboxes, the four of us splashing around in the waves at Easthampton, and—the one that gives me pause—a photo from the year Paige and Molly wore big feathery white wings and halos to go trick-or-treating and Peter dressed as the devil.
I call out for my husband but there’s no answer. I’ve been trying to reach him on his cellphone for over an hour, but he hasn’t picked up. Not that I’d know what to say. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” “Are we going to be okay?” “I’m mad,” “Angry,” “Worried” are all possibilities, as are “It’s just a job. You’ll get another one” and “What possessed you to buy me those wildly expensive antique gold filigree earrings just last week?”
At the end of the hall I stop outside the girls’ bedroom and glance at my watch. I don’t want to wake them, but I have to see for myself that they’re all right. Gingerly I open the bedroom door and circle past the mound of half-written-in notebooks, art supplies, DVD holders, backpacks, sneakers, sweatshirts, outfits worn (and outfits discarded because they weren’t good enough to wear that never made it back into the closet), and a copy of Catcher in the Rye—untouched since its purchase—that Paige, my messy, more tempestuous daughter, has amassed on her side of the room. I bend down to kick off my sling-backs. My bare feet sink into the plush hot pink flokati rug but I lose my footing in the darkened bedroom and noisily bang my knee against a swivel chair that rolls into the girls’ double-sized desk.
“You okay, Mom?” Molly asks, turning toward me dreamily and propping herself up on an elbow.
“Yes, honey.” I crouch down to kiss her forehead. “Sorry to wake you, go back to sleep.”
“No problem,” she says, nestling her lithe body back under the covers.
Paige, in the bed just across from her, typically doesn’t stir—like her father, she could sleep through an earthquake. It still amazes me how two girls nurtured for nine months in the same uterus could be so different. Paige is blond, fun-loving, and game for anything, while Molly, two minutes older, is a studious curly-haired brunette. I exhale and kiss them each one more time on the top of their heads before picking up my shoes and closing the door behind me. Stopping in the kitchen for a glass of water, I let the cool clear liquid wash over my wrists and splash some onto my face. Then, unable to avoid the inevitable for any longer, I steel myself to walk into Peter’s study.
Maybe Peter forgot about the party. Maybe he’s engrossed in a Mets game or tied up on an overseas call. Or maybe he’s sitting in his leather armchair with a stack of papers on his lap, exhausted and happy from having figured out a plan to save
our financial future. But all of the possible explanations as to why he was a no-show at the party are dashed as I enter the teak-paneled room and snap on the light. Cellphones, text messages, a solid trusting marriage—none of the things I depend on to keep track of my husband are any help now. Peter normally keeps me abreast of his every move. I still tease him about the detailed message he left on my voicemail before our second date: “I’m having a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch, returning the Samuelson textbook to the library, and going to buy a typewriter ribbon. Pick you up at three.” For the first time since college, I realize with a start, Peter—my loving, considerate, never-makes-me-worry-about-him husband—is nowhere to be found.
Despite my commitment to saving energy, Peter just can’t get used to turning off the computer screen and its flickering light beckons me toward his wide cherrywood desk. Stacks of colored folders are fanned out like cards in a game of solitaire, waiting to be shuffled and reorganized into a winning hand. I’ve always left everything to do with money up to Peter—how much we have, what we can afford to spend. But now as I flip through the monthly bills I see that they’re staggering. Cable, Con Edison, cars, cellphones, Chapman (the girls’ private school), clothes, cello lessons, a particularly thick folder for credit cards—and that’s just the C’s.
The Best Laid Plans Page 2
