Best Friends, Occasional Enemies

by Lisa Scottoline; Francesca Serritella

  “It’s our twentieth, right?”.

  And Franca said, “No, it’s our twenty-fifth, isn’t it?”

  Obviously neither of us was good at math, which is why we went to law school, but Francesca and Jessica started smiling.

  Francesca said, “You graduated from law school in 1981, so it’s your thirtieth reunion.”

  Franca and I looked at each other, nonplussed. “Is that possible?” she asked.

  “Of course not,” I answered, and we both reached for our wine.

  The fastest time of all, of course, is how long it takes for your kid to grow up. Francesca is about to turn twenty-five, and this is obviously mathematically impossible.

  Because then we would be the same age.

  Also she was only ten years old yesterday, and the day before that, she was a toddler, and a split second before that, a baby.

  I mean, she should still be nursing.

  I let down just thinking about that, but don’t tell her.

  I don’t know how all this happened, with the time flying and the children growing, and the elliptical being so damn slow.

  That Einstein, he really was a genius.

  But I bet he had a trainer.

  Remembering Joy

  By Francesca

  My beloved horse, Joy, recently passed away. A beautiful gray Thoroughbred mare, she was the first horse I owned and the first one I lost. I was in the city when it happened, I felt far away from anyone who could really understand. It was hard for even me to understand. It felt so different from losing a dog or a cat, not better or worse, but different.

  Every pet has a unique personality, my cat is different from my dog, my dog Pip is different from my mom’s dog Tony. But my relationship to each of them is the same: just love. I ask nothing of Pip except to be vaguely cooperative and accept my near-constant affection.

  I asked my horse to carry me on her back. We were partners. Joy and I worked together, trained together, and learned from each other. You have to respect a horse—after all, they are large, powerful animals and they can be dangerous, intentionally or inadvertently. And yet, they mostly take care of us.

  Joy certainly did.

  Which is not to say she was a saint. Joy could be a difficult horse, but she was never a mean one. She was a challenge and a babysitter at the same time. Everything about riding her was outside of my comfort zone but not outside of my ability. It’s in that space between where growth happens, and grow I did.

  Joy raised me.

  When we met, we were almost the same age, she was eleven and I was twelve. I remember when the horse dealer, a weathered ex-jockey, Rumpelstiltskin in cowboy boots, delivered her. He unceremoniously yanked on her snowy white tail to pull her out of the trailer, and out she came, her swan neck held sky high, her big brown eyes rimmed in white.

  We both looked wide-eyed at each other, spooked. I was afraid because I had lived too little, Joy was afraid because she had lived too much. The mare had been bought and sold several times, loved and unloved by then; she came to us neglected and underweight. She was a nervous horse and I was a timid rider, not usually an ideal combination.

  But we were.

  Joy was the antidote to all my preteen insecurities, because she mirrored them. If I was afraid, she was afraid. If I second-guessed myself, she second-guessed me. If I became frustrated, she became ornery.

  Crossing water was one of our major challenges. The smallest creek on a trail ride was terrifying to Joy. As soon as the water touched her hoof, she’d fly back and upwards. If she sensed we were heading near the creek, or if she sensed my own anxious anticipation, she’d crow-hop, threatening to rear.

  When I felt Joy’s back tense, my instinct was to tighten up, curl into a ball, anything to steady her and my pounding heart. But that never got me over the stream. A few times, it almost landed me on the ground.

  Joy needed me to lead by example. I learned that I had to relax, or at least pretend to relax, and push forward. A horse can’t throw you if you keep moving forward.

  And it has worked for every obstacle in my life since. Through breakups, disappointments, down days, and down months, I think of the riding command: leg on.

  Nothing can throw you if you keep moving forward.

  But even as I move forward through this loss, I will never forget the wonderful friend and teacher I had in Joy. I didn’t get to be with her when she passed, but more than getting to say goodbye, I wish I had had the chance to thank her for all her many lessons:

  That a strong hand can still be a gentle one. That you must be patient, with others and with yourself. Self-doubt is natural but not insurmountable. You may step into water not knowing how deep it is. You may face a jump higher than before. And sometimes, as hard as it is, you need to point yourself at that obstacle and go forward. Courage is a choice.

  Angels come in many forms.

  If you live outside of your comfort zone, you might have the ride of your life.

  Leg on.

  911

  By Lisa

  Everybody reacts differently in emergencies. Some people panic and run around like crazy. Other people remain cool and spring immediately into action.

  And then there’s me.

  I do neither. I go into emergency denial.

  Here’s what happened, most recently.

  Daughter Francesca was home, and we were both in the family room, I was working on my laptop, and she was watching Castle on TV. All the dogs were with us, dozing on the couch, except for Little Tony.

  Odd.

  Because he spends every night standing at the window and barking at the dark.

  Little Tony does not go gently into that good night.

  I know how he thinks. He thinks there are dragons and sea monsters and constellations come to life in the nighttime, and he barks to keep them at bay. Never mind that he weighs ten pounds, so at his most menacing, he looks like a really angry black bean.

  Francesca, sitting opposite me, asks, “How can you stand that barking?”

  I’m on the laptop not five feet from Little Tony, but I’ve learned to tune him out. “What barking?” I ask her.

  In time the barking stops, but I don’t notice that either, until Francesca remarks, “Where’s Little Tony?”

  And I start to wonder. Little Tony is nowhere in sight. I set the laptop aside and go in search, and I find him in the kitchen, where he looks up at me and swallows hard.

  Gulp, he goes.

  Hmm. And next to him on the floor is one of my knee socks. You don’t have to be Castle to figure out what happened. I pick up the leftover sock and can’t tell by looking how much he ate, so I try it on. The entire foot is gone.

  “Call the emergency vet,” Francesca says, but I’m not so sure.

  “It’s not an emergency. Let’s see if he passes it tomorrow.”

  “I don’t think so, Mom. We should call.”

  “Nah.” I wave her off. “They’ll just say to bring him in. It can wait. He’ll be fine.”

  “Let’s play it safe, and call. Please?”

  So I call and they say bring him in, and we do, waiting in the reception area an hour until they come out with him and tell us that they saved his life.

  I feel terrible. “Really?”

  “Yes,” the vet nods. “The sock was thin and stretchy, so he wouldn’t have passed it. Good thing you called.”

  My face goes red.

  Francesca looks over.

  Little Tony burps.

  Then the very next day, I’m on my laptop, and it’s windy outside. I hear a weird noise outside, so I look out the window and notice that a huge evergreen in my yard has fallen over onto the roof of my garage.

  I blink and blink. It takes me moments to process.

  This could definitely be an emergency.

  The tree trunk is horizontal, which is distinctly out of order.

  Still, it doesn’t look as if the garage roof is damaged, and amazingly, there are no people, dogs, cats, or
cars in harm’s way. Everything’s normal except that the big tree is parallel to the driveway. But Francesca isn’t there to tell me I should call somebody, and I’m not sure whom to call. Now that I’ve learned from last night that I go into emergency denial, I won’t make that mistake again.

  Still, is it an emergency or not?

  So I get on the phone and call my insurance company, which tells me that my deductible is $2500.

  I eye the tree and figure it will cost a grand to clear it away.

  And then I learned how to define an emergency.

  Anything over your deductible.

  If a Tree Falls in a Driveway …

  By Lisa

  So a tree landed on my garage, but didn’t damage anything. That would be the good, and the bad, news.

  It got me looking at the trees around my house, and there are plenty of them. More good and bad news.

  I don’t know what type of trees they are, because it never mattered to me. I operate on the principle that there’s only so much information my tiny little brain can hold, and it’s already stuffed with things I need to know for work, plus essentials like the words to most Rolling Stones songs and the Empire Flooring jingle.

  So I never learned the names of the trees I own. I’d be happy to name them Mick and Keith, and let it go at that.

  But I do love the way they look, especially in fall, when they turn bright yellow and gorgeous orange, or in summer, when their rich green shades the lawn. Bottom line, we can all agree, trees are good.

  Usually.

  But then I started eyeing the trees, close up, and with the leaves fallen, I could see a lot of old branches, thick, dark, and ending in a point. I’m no expert, but some looked dead. I started to wonder when they might fall, like daggers from heaven.

  Call this an exaggeration, but recall that I was raised by Mother Mary, who taught me that even the most mundane items can kill you. For example, knives loaded into the dishwasher will stab you. Blowdryers will electrocute you. Toasters have murder on their minds.

  So I started to see the trees not as examples of natural beauty, but as lethal weapons.

  And they could fall at any second, on me, the dogs, or the cats. And some of my trees hang over my street, and I’d hate to think they could fall on a passing car or person. I couldn’t live with myself if that happened.

  I have enough guilt already.

  And made me worry about something worse.

  Namely, lawyers.

  So I called a tree service guy, who came over and started pointing. He knew the names of all the trees. Hemlock. Sugar maple. Red oak. Mulberry. Tulip poplar.

  What lovely words.

  Then he started in with the numbers—

  $450, $340, $540. Not so lovely.

  And then sent me a two-page estimate.

  What was it that Joyce Kilmer wrote? I think that I shall never see, a poem lovely as a tree … service estimate?

  It turns out that I have lots of trees that need servicing. Dead branches have to be trimmed, stumps ground down and hauled away. We’re talking days of work.

  For trees?

  I expect to pay for home improvement, but I never factored in tree improvement. It reminded me of the time I had to call an excavator to build a swale in my backyard, and if you don’t know what a swale is, it’s like a berm, only more expensive.

  It made a sound.

  No, I don’t know what a berm is either. That’s why it costs extra. Things add up when you start with dirt improvement.

  And some of the tree improvement sounded downright exotic. For example, the tree guy told me that it was a spruce tree that fell on the garage, and it would cost $380 to reduce the top leaders.

  I didn’t know what a top leader was, but it sounded redundant. Nobody follows a bottom leader.

  Can you imagine, a bottom leader running for president? No, we can’t! Give up and go home!

  Hmm.

  And it would cost $90 for a fir tree that needed cable. I didn’t know trees had cable. Do they have DVRs, too?

  And some of it was scary. The estimate read that my sugar maple had to be pruned “to prevent main trunk failure.”

  That can’t be good, can it?

  Plus I think it already happened.

  To my waist.

  As Seen On TV

  By Lisa

  I have some good news that may interest our regular readers.

  And by the way, God bless you, every one.

  As you may know, these stories have been collected into two previous books, entitled Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog and My Nest Isn’t Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space.

  The big news is that the books have been optioned to produce a half-hour comedy series, for TV.

  Yes, that’s right. Mother Mary could be coming to a TV near you.

  Run screaming.

  Let me explain what this means, if you’re unfamiliar with legal terms like “option” and “run screaming.”

  An option means that somebody has the right to make a TV show from the books. It doesn’t mean that they necessarily will. So we can still expect that nothing will happen, which is the way it usually goes, at least for me. Not to brag, but my books have been optioned before.

  I’m no Option Virgin.

  But they’ve never made it to any screen.

  So I’m a Success Virgin.

  Still, this time, if it does happen, you know whom I’d suggest to play me.

  Angelina Jolie.

  Done deal, right? I’m sure she’d say yes. And while she’s out filming the show, I could take care of Brad Pitt.

  Uh, I mean, the kids.

  And whom should we cast as Daughter Francesca? I say nobody is sweet or smart enough, but she thinks I’m biased. Guilty as charged.

  And who should play Mother Mary?

  I’d say the Tasmanian Devil, but his hands are too little to hold a backscratcher.

  My second choice would be Yosemite Sam, but he’s usually in too good a mood. Though he has two guns, which makes him almost as lethal as Mother Mary.

  Send in your casting suggestions. Think out of the box. Be not afraid. I won’t tell her where you live.

  I haven’t even gotten to the point where I visualize which stories they would use for which episode. All of them show me in such a flattering light. There’s the Story of My Gray Chin Hair. The Tale of My Braless ER Visit. The Saga of My Crusty Feet and Amazing Disappearing Little Toe.

  Stay tuned for more celibacy.

  And if you’re wondering, I won’t be writing the TV series. I don’t want to leave the house, much less go to LA. I know my fleece-pants-and-clogs ensemble wouldn’t go over on Rodeo Drive.

  It ain’t my first rodeo.

  Heh heh.

  I broke the news about the TV series on book tour, and seriously folks, that’s when I realized how it cool it would be if it did become a TV series. Because I felt honored to meet everyone who read the books over the past few years. They started as the stories of my life and grew organically to encompass stories from the lives of Francesca, Mother Mary, Best Friend Franca, and assistant Laura. And by some amazing alchemy conjured by reader and writer, it became stories of the lives of ordinary women.

  In other words, all of us.

  I know this is true because of all the people I met at the signings, more and more of them mothers, daughters, and grandmothers, who see themselves in our relationship, because they feel the same way about each other. It turns out there are many other Mother Marys in the world.

  And more than enough gray chin hairs.

  And I’m not the only Spanx-hater.

  And joking aside, I’m so happy to have some positive images of the mother-daughter relationship out there, and if it makes it onto TV, all the better.

  For this reason, the TV series won’t use my real name for the main character, or for Mother Mary or Francesca.

  It really isn’t about us, it’s about you.

  So thanks for reading, and for your
loyalty.

  And stay tuned.

  In Which We Get A Woman President

  By Lisa

  I’m having a change of life, but I’m not sure it’s the one you’re thinking of:

  I’m incorporating.

  Yes, I’m becoming a corporation, and I’m not even on flaxseed.

  Long story short, after writing almost twenty books in about twenty years, it’s time for me to become a company. It was a lawyer who told me this, and the reason was to protect me from other lawyers.

  Which sounds like Ted Bundy warning you to stay away from Jeffrey Dahmer.

  The lawyer convinced me that incorporating was a good idea by saying the words lawsuit and exposure, which scared me. I never want to be exposed. If you had my cellulite, you’d understand.

  And I have to admit, the idea of incorporating appealed to my ego. After all, if I became a corporation, you know who would be the president.

  Ruby The Crazy Corgi.

  No, me.

  Call me President Me.

  But don’t tell Ruby. She scares me more than exposure. She’s the dog that ate the top of my finger, biting the hand that feeds her, literally.

  Anyway, to stay on point, it also seemed like I’d be taking a step up, going from being self-employed to becoming my own company. I felt suddenly more legitimate, like a couple who had been living together but decided to get married. Except I was marrying myself.

  This time, I’m sure it’ll work!

  My third husband won’t be a dog or a big TV, it’ll be me. After all, we never fight, we always agree, and we have the same religion, which is worshipping chocolate cake.

  So during the big meeting to discuss the particulars, the first question the lawyers asked me was, “What do you want to call your corporation?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered. During any big meeting, I’m always the one not knowing. “What should I call my corporation?”