The Best Laid Plans

by Lynn Schnurnberger

  “Will not,” says Peter. “Who do you think did my laundry when I was in college?”

  “Mom,” Paige says.

  “We did it together. Every Saturday afternoon we’d bring our books to the laundromat to study while we watched our clothes co-mingling in the dryer.”

  “Geez, talk about a cheap date. You sure know how to romance a girl,” Paige teases.

  “You don’t know the half of it, right, Tru?” Peter asks.

  “Not the half,” I say softly.

  “I’m going to leave you two alone now,” Paige says, heading back toward her room to get dressed. She turns around in the doorway and waves her textbook. “Thanks for the help, Mom.”

  “You’re welcome, sweetie. Good luck with the test.”

  Peter reaches for a coffee mug. “Paige studying for a test?”

  “Well, she’s studying for a test to impress a boy, but at least it’s a start,” I say, falling into the familiar rhythms of marriage—ignoring the larger issue of our fight in favor of talking about school and children. Normally property values would be on the list, too, but these days that’s a sore subject.

  From the bedroom, I hear Molly turning on the shower. Above the morning crackle of coffee percolating, Paige singing out her chemistry symbols as if they were the ABC song, and Peter noisily opening and closing the kitchen cabinets in search of cups, spoons, and bowls that are right under his nose, somehow I hear the phone ring. “Drop whatever you’re doing, you have to get over to my apartment now!” Sienna cries.

  I hand Peter the carton of milk he’s been searching for everywhere but in the refrigerator door where we always keep it. “I’ll be back, well, I don’t know exactly,” I say, explaining that Sienna needs help.

  Peter leans forward to tuck a stray lock behind my ear. “How about we make a pact, no more secrets? I know it was pretty upsetting when you found out that I’d been out of work for so long. And that I hadn’t even told you. I won’t keep anything like that from you ever again. What do you say?”

  It’s hard to argue that honesty isn’t the best policy, and even if I wanted to, I have to get to Sienna’s. “No more secrets,” I promise. Peter smiles, appreciative that I haven’t made it hard to say he’s sorry, which just for the record, he’s never actually said. Then as I turn to leave, he taps my shoulder and hands me a Pop-Tart wrapped in a paper napkin. My husband’s never been a virtuoso at apologies or sweet talk—but he’s still a master of the sweet gesture.

  LESS THAN TWENTY minutes later I’m sitting in Sienna’s living room, looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows at her spectacular Central Park view. Sienna pushes a button to start the fake fireplace—so authentic that you’d swear those crackling flames really were coming from the cement logs—and we sink into her beige suede couch. The elegant, impossibly impractical beige suede couch that announces louder than Sienna’s lack of a wedding ring that no messy husband—let alone children—live here.

  “Look at this, will you just look at this!” Sienna says, waving a check in front of my face.

  “Calm down. What’s got you so upset?” I stare at the check that’s made out to “Cash.” “Whoa, five thousand large, that’s a tidy little sum. What did you do, rob a bank?”

  “Worse,” Sienna says ominously.

  “What do you mean ‘worse’? I was joking.”

  “Well, I’m not. Worse. Imagine the very worst thing you could possibly do.”

  “Invite Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie to the same dinner party?”

  “I slept with Bill Murphy,” Sienna says, biting her lower lip.

  I pause and try to suppress a giggle. Sienna’s a grown woman. A grown woman who enviably, I’ve always thought, knows how to seize the moment. Besides, after everything else that went on in the world yesterday, I’d almost have been more surprised if she hadn’t slept with the puppy-doggishly cute Bill. Why, for goodness’ sake, would she be having morning-after regrets?

  “Is that all? What’s the problem? Sure he’s a little young, but Bill’s a sweet guy. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Yesterday was brutal. The whole country’s feeling panicked and confused. It’s only natural that you two would end up in the sack together, it was Emergency Sex. I remember reading that after 9/11 there was a population explosion the following June.” Then I pause. “You did use birth control, didn’t you?”

  “Of course I did. That’s not the problem.”

  “You mean the sex wasn’t good?”

  “No, actually it was good. What Bill lacks in experience he makes up in enthusiasm,” Sienna says and I swear I see a faint blush rise in her cheeks.

  “That sounds promising. Isn’t it every woman’s fantasy to teach a younger guy the ropes? So what in heaven’s name is wrong?”

  “The money, this money,” Sienna wails, slamming her fist on the coffee table. “It wasn’t until after he left that I noticed the check on the nightstand. I don’t know whether to take it as a compliment or an insult.”

  “I’d say compliment. I would have thought that boat had sailed. I mean, it’s too late to be a ballerina or a basketball star—how many women our age get paid for sex?”

  Sienna shoots me a withering look. “Stop kidding around. It’s like he thinks I’m a common hooker,” she says, sounding angrier by the moment.

  “Well, not common,” I say, brandishing the check. “High-class courtesan, at least. Look, sweetie, I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it. Peter’s always said that Bill’s brilliant but a little socially inept. Maybe the guy doesn’t know the number for 1-800-FLOWERS. I’m sure he was just trying to be nice.”

  “Nice is dinner at Per Se or a sexy teddy from La Perla,” Sienna says. I decide not to point out that either of those more traditional gifts could be construed as a more subtle form of payment, but payment nonetheless. Instead, I try arguing that the money could be useful. It’s no time for any of us to be looking down our noses at five thousand dollars.

  “If you don’t want this, I’m sure Paige would be happy to fold it into a flamingo. Or we could pay our mortgage. Or you could use it to pay for another two weeks in your apartment.”

  Sienna’s been putting on a good face about getting fired, but at the mention of her rent, she bursts into tears. I scan the living room, which is entirely clutter-free. No knickknacks or photos from her world travels disrupt the space’s sophisticated, serene lines. Just possibly, there’s a tissue tucked away somewhere upstairs in a built-in closet, but instead of trying to hunt one down, I rummage around my purse and I hear a buzzing. I reach for my cellphone, only to discover that it’s not ringing.

  “Damn it, this has been happening all week. Maybe I do have ringxiety.”

  Sienna looks at me quizzically.

  “Ringxiety—Dr. Phil called it a genuine twenty-first-century malady, kind of like phantom leg syndrome. People are so connected to their cellphones that they hear them ringing even when they’re not.”

  “At least you’re not hearing voices, then you’d be schizophrenic,” Sienna says, smiling for the first time since I got here. “That buzzing’s the intercom; I’m expecting a package. Just tell the doorman to send it up.”

  Sienna swipes the tissue across her face and I go into the kitchen to get us a couple of bottles of water, which, it turns out, are the only thing in her refrigerator besides a container of French vanilla yogurt and two bottles of champagne. With its Miele appliances and satin-finished glass backsplashes, Sienna’s kitchen looks like something out of a design showroom, and it gets about as much use. Though today an uncharacteristic trail of toast crumbs leads me toward the coffeemaker, which is still half-full. This affair with Bill Murphy is more serious than I thought. Sienna doesn’t let guys sleep over until somewhere around the umpteenth date, and then it usually spells the death knell for her relationships. She likes the sex and romance parts of dating, not the daily grind.

  “You let Bill spend the night? And you let him leave a mess?”

  “I’m sorry, I us
ually clean up after myself,” says Bill Murphy, all six-foot-two-inches of him, stepping into the apartment. “Door was unlocked.” He takes the coffeepot from me and empties its contents into Sienna’s custom-designed sink. Then he taps one of Sienna’s handleless cupboards and pulls out a scrub brush and a can of Comet.

  Sienna tosses back her thick mahogany hair and marches over to turn off the spigot. “That won’t be necessary. And neither,” she says coolly, holding out the offending check, “is this.”

  Bill has at least a hundred pounds on Sienna (probably 107 at the end of her monthly juice fast)—and he’s a good six inches taller. But it’s no contest. Standing toe-to-toe you’d swear that Bill was the ninety-eight-pound-weakling to Sienna’s sumo wrestler. He wipes his hands on a linen dish-towel and meekly accepts the check. Sienna turns on her heel and stomps out of the room. Bill waves his arms helplessly and goes trailing after her.

  “I got your email, I know you’re upset but you have to let me explain. It’s just that you said you were worried about money and I have some, that’s all.”

  “And you decided to pay me for a job well rendered?”

  “Well, it was well rendered,” Bill says, a small smile crossing his face. “But no, I mean, I wasn’t paying you.…”

  “You mean, let’s be friends with benefits, and the benefits you’re offering are in cash.”

  There’s a pause in the conversation and Bill looks lost in thought. Professionally, he and Sienna are an interesting match—the newscaster and the lawyer. Each of their livelihoods depends on their way with words. Bill may be wimpy when it comes to women, but to his high-profile clients, he’s a winner. And as the lawyer in him emerges over the lover, Bill takes command of the argument.

  “It’s a simple case of economics,” he says, drumming his finger on his chin. “I have money and right now you don’t. I’m just redistributing the wealth.”

  “But you redistributed it after sex, as if you were paying for a service!” Sienna exclaims.

  “Well, that’s not how I was thinking of it. I just wanted to help out a friend. If you don’t want the money, you don’t have to take it.”

  “I certainly won’t be taking it.”

  “That’s your choice. But would it be so bad if I were?”

  “Were what?” Sienna asks impatiently.

  “Paying to spend time with you? Because you’re a beautiful, smart, funny, charming woman, an older woman who knows her way around the world, one of the most fascinating women I’ve ever met in my life.”

  “Then Sienna would be right,” I declare, jumping into the conversation. “It would make her a working girl.”

  “Well, she’s been a working girl all of her life. What’s the difference between being paid by the network and being paid by me?”

  Sienna’s face goes from ashen to beet red in about thirty seconds.

  “Because when I whore for the station I get to meet heads of state and—and interview elephants!” Sienna says indignantly. Then she grabs Bill’s check and tears it into a zillion pieces, which she scatters at his feet.

  “That’s what I think of you and your money and your, your economic theories,” she shrieks. “Don’t email, don’t call, I never want to see or hear from you, not ever again!” Sienna pushes the boy lawyer out the front door and slams it shut behind him. Sienna may be incensed. But suddenly, I’m inspired. Though I can’t decide if the plan that’s hatching in my brain is the best or the worst idea I’ve ever had.

  Seven

  Indecent Proposal

  DID ISAAC NEWTON SAY “Aha!” when the apple fell on his head? Did the ophthalmologist—whose patient reported that the Botox the doctor injected her with to treat a rare eye disorder had also smoothed out her wrinkles—do a little jig? By the morning my heart is beating wildly and I’m sure that my idea is sheer brilliance. True, it’s outrageous. But drastic times call for drastic measures. And it just might make enough money to keep us from getting kicked out of our apartment.

  I was so jazzed up about doing some research that I arrived at the main branch of the New York Public Library a half hour early, which gave me ample time to appeal to the library’s stone lion mascots.

  “Hi there, Patience, hello, Fortitude,” I said, using their nicknames. “I’m going to need your help to make things work.” I closed my eyes and rubbed their marble manes for luck.

  “They ain’t Aladdin’s Lamp, miss,” the guard shouted as he opened the library’s towering bronze doors and caught sight of what I was up to.

  “We’ll just see about that,” I said, giving Fortitude one last pat. Then I bounded up past the guard toward the Reading Room.

  I found a seat at a long oak table, switched on a brass lamp, and marveled, as I always do, at the library’s shimmering crystal chandeliers, massive arched windows, and soaring gold-leafed fifty-two-foot-high ceiling—with its painted blue sky mural, it’s amazing that everyone doesn’t spend all of their time looking up, instead of burying their noses in books. Still, I’m on a mission. I called up about a dozen titles and I’ve been flipping through them furiously, taking notes. After about an hour, Sienna slips into the seat beside me. She takes a look around and blinks.

  “No wonder Oprah’s Book Club is such a success. How else could anyone ever choose?”

  I laugh and thank her for coming.

  “No problem. I don’t have that much else to do these days. Even the pet commercial fell through. My agent says she’s got a list longer than her arm of clients looking for work—and my agent’s a tall woman, her arm is pretty long. Didn’t Peter’s cousin go out on a date with the niece of the sister of the CEO of Costco? Maybe if I pull in all my connections I can get a job as a food demonstrator.”

  “I think we can do better than that,” I chirp. I thumb through a beautiful art book of works by the Venetian painter Tintoretto until I find the picture I’m looking for. Then I slide it over to Sienna.

  Sienna looks at the portrait of a pretty, pink-cheeked young woman with full bee-stung lips and traces her finger along the neckline of the girl’s lavish lace gown. “Nice outfit,” she says.

  “Yes it is.”

  “Like the pearl choker.”

  “Say the word and it can be yours.”

  Sienna looks up. “For heaven’s sake, what are we talking about? I know you love books the way the rest of us love Twitter, but why did you insist on meeting at the library?”

  I take a deep breath. I know that Sienna’s going to be a hard sell, my idea is unconventional. But who ever made it big without taking a few risks? Can you imagine what Steve Jobs’s parents had to say about it when he wanted to drop out of college?

  I point to the caption and Sienna reaches for her glasses, the ones she almost never wears in public. I watch her carefully as I wait for the words to sink in.

  “ ‘Veronica Franco, 1546 to 1591, Venice. Courtesan and Poet,’ ” Sienna reads. “Well, that’s certainly an unusual job description.” Obliviously, she skips ahead a few pages to look at Tintoretto’s The Last Supper—a much more energetic version than the famous Leonardo da Vinci painting, where the diners are sitting in repose. Seconds later, Sienna furiously flips back to the lovely Veronica.

  “Courtesan and poet? What’s going on in that brain of yours?” she asks suspiciously.

  “I’m thinking that Veronica Franco had a good life. She was intellectual and artistic and elegant and witty. She published two books of poetry.”

  “And she slept with men to get what she wanted. Isn’t that what a courtesan does?”

  “Well, technically, yes. But for goodness’ sake, one of them was the king of France, a girl could do worse!” I pause. “Have you ever thought about all the men who could have helped us whom we didn’t sleep with because we were too high and mighty to trade sex for power? And then have you ever thought about the guys we did sleep with who didn’t give us anything—and ended up being jerks anyway?”

  “Are you out of your mind?” Sienna yelps. “You
and Peter have been together since college—is there something you forgot to tell me? Who exactly were these men who could have helped you who you didn’t sleep with? And better yet, who were the jerks you did?”

  “Okay, so I’m only speaking hypothetically about myself. But we had some pretty heated conversations about this in my women’s studies classes. Look at these,” I say, pushing an impressive stack of biographies in Sienna’s direction. “Coco Chanel, Madame de Pompadour, Sarah Bernhardt, all of them were paid by men for the pleasure of their company.”

  “So you’re suggesting that I should have taken Bill’s money?” Sienna asks disbelievingly.

  “Well, not just Bill. I mean, that’s what gave me the idea and if you do something about his cowlick, I have a feeling you two could be good together. But I was thinking of something a little more ambitious. I was thinking that we could form a company to arrange for lots of different men to meet wonderful women. Act as a kind of matchmaking service.”

  Sienna arches an eyebrow—then she laughs. “Tru, honey, have you gone completely around the bend? A matchmaking service for men to sleep with women? There’s a name for that. Besides, it’s illegal.”

  “Is not,” I say quickly, offering the results of my research. “There’s nothing illegal about introducing men to women. What they do after the introductions is totally up to them. It would be a service business, like any other service business.”

  “A service business. You mean like being a personal shopper? Except instead of a new tie, we help you find a blow job?”

  “Something like that. Although if the men want help picking out their ties I’m sure that could be arranged, too. There must be lots of men like Bill, good respectable guys who are a little shy with girls. We’d be doing them a favor, helping to turn social nerds into datable dudes.”

  “I don’t know why you think Bill is shy. He’s been leaving messages on my machine every hour.”

  “He adores you, he’s called me a dozen times to ask what he could do to get you back.”