Plan C

by Lois Cahall

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The spit balls fly through the tip of a plastic straw lodged into the back of my hair. I don’t realize what’s going on until the twins’ giggling tips me off to the fact that my up-do has become a nest of wet paper wrappings. I run my fingers gently across the back, so as not to disrupt the bobby pins. “Okay, gross!”

  From the passenger’s side of the car I turn to the back seat, just in time to spy Jean-Christophe lowering his straw into his lap and casting his eyes to the carpet muddied by his filthy sneakers. Jean-Baptiste bites his bottom lip, his chin trembling. “Okay, that’s about enough,” I say, and then turn around, succumbing to the comfort of my car door window which I lean against before staring over at Ben. He’s behind the wheel driving with some difficulty, since his left hand is bandaged from the accident. The sunlight slices through the trees and casts light onto his face – the one I study and love. It’s still bruised - his cheeks and nose the final shade of golden yellow, like late past-peak foliage just outside the window as we pass along the apartment buildings of Fifth Avenue.

  He reaches over to squeeze my knee, but my mind drifts off to the men in all my friend’s lives. Bebe’s guy - that despicable Bernie - is a moron, but she doesn’t notice. We do. Kitty’s guy, Clive, is fantastic but she thinks he’s a moron. He isn’t. And my guy Ben, is fabulous, but his situation just plain ole sucks. Maybe because he allows it to suck!

  And then, there’s Darth Vader – the dog whose drool is dribbling down the sides of his mouth as his stale breath hits my neck. Darth Vader is the twins’ new rescue mutt. Turning to meet his stare, I sense that his hooded brown eyes are trying to tell me something: I too want to escape this chaos for the safety of my crate. Why did they adopt me!

  “My eyes are watering,” I say to Ben, rubbing my lids.

  “Allergies?”

  “Yes, it’s the dog. The dander goes straight to my sinuses.”

  “I’ll drop you off at the corner while I go find a spot.”

  Moments later I’m left to standing in peace on the corner of Park and 72nd Street, juggling a large festive box with pink and orange curling ribbons. The gift screams “happy“ even though my heart is screaming “I hate my life, get me out of here.” If only I could break through the glass of my own personal snow globe.

  But my self-absorption quickly turns to curiosity as I squint to see if the approaching woman is Kitty…

  It is. And she’s empty-handed, except for her Blackberry. “How could you not bring a present?” I yell out.

  “Why do we have to have a baby shower for this kid?” Kitty shouts back. “She’s practically in college!” She crosses, engrossed in reading a text reply.

  “It’s not a baby shower,” I say, “It’s a congratulations party.” I raise my gift up in the air with genuine enthusiasm. “It’s a welcome to America. Welcome to Bebe’s world!”

  “Well, I ordered Tamara a gift online. Some lunchbox. Blow Job Queer Pants – something like that.”

  I shake my head and accept her cheek smooch. Then it hits me. Her face! I step back to examine her. I don’t actually detect much change since her surgery, but I’m not about to tell her that. “Wow, Kitty, your facelift looks amazing! You look like ten years younger,” I say, touching her cheek, and then adding what she most wants to hear: “And your jaw line. It’s so smooth. Like a baby’s bottom.”

  “Baby’s bottom my ass. Forget how I look. What about what it’s done for my state of mind! I’m emotionally restored to youth. My confidence is up! I’m finally capable of saying anything that crosses my mind!”

  “Gosh. What a change!”

  “Don’t give me a hard time. I’ve got a wicked hangover.”

  “How much wine?”

  “Let’s just say I should be going to AA, not a plastic surgeon.” Kitty cranes her neck behind me. “I thought Ben and the children of the corn were coming?”

  “They are. They’re just…” and then my eyes catch a glimpse of her calf from beneath her Gucci skirt, which is the only skin visible except for her hands, which are, like her calves, noticeably spotted brown and white. “Kitty! What the….”

  “No, I don’t have that Michael Jackson disease – rest his soul,” says Kitty. “It’s another disease…its called alcoholism!”

  “Huh?”

  “Let this be a lesson to you. Don’t ever bronze after three martinis.”

  “Oh my God, Kitty,” I say, as she twirls her leg to show me the inside of her knees. “Well, it’s not that bad. I mean Clive shouldn’t mind. Brits are used to pasty skin…”

  “It’s not for Clive,” she snaps. “It’s for Helmut.”

  “Helmut Fuck?”

  “Fascchhhh….”

  “Kitty, are you….”

  “Not yet,” says Kitty.

  “But his breath is so…”

  “Listerine. Kills germs.”

  “Then why is he still here!”

  “Oh, stop,” says Kitty. “He’s minty fresh. Good to go…”

  “Good to go where? Bed? Because I couldn’t even stand next to him, let alone sleep next to him.”

  “I give it two weeks and we’ll be together – just Helmut and me, rolling in the sheets.” Then she grabs my arm. “Assuming I can wait that long for Paris…”

  “Oh, Paris!” I say with some accent like a cheap imitation of Audrey Hepburn’s. “J’aime beaucoup Paris!” Next thing I know my body is robotically twirling into traffic as though I’m instantly possessed by the mere mention of that city. “I’m so delighted to just say the words!”

  Kitty pulls me back to save me from an oncoming bus. “Oh you and your Paris,” says Kitty. “I told you to just join me already. Stay at the George V. It’s a glorious hotel. Get a room on my floor.”

  “The George V? Are you kidding?”

  “I’m serious. In this day and age it’s not whom you sleep with, it’s where you sleep.”

  “No, I mean, you know I can’t afford it right now…”

  “You’ve got to be kidding…”

  “No, really,” I say. “I can’t afford it.”

  “Not you. That!” Kitty points.

  I turn to see what’s attracted Kitty’s attention and land on Ben dragged by Darth Vader nose first into the telephone pole. It’s like something out of a Looney Tunes cartoon as Ben tries to untangle the leash while Darth Vader stops to lift a leg and pee on a limo’s tires. The dog stops short and changes his mind, opting to territory-mark a classic Jaguar on the next corner. Jean-Baptiste slouches against the Hermes storefront window lifting his leg as though imitating the dog, and leaving multiple hand marks on the glass. The store manager comes out to reprimand him, and that’s when Jean-Christophe licks the hand marks off the window.

  “Oh, god,” says Kitty, “Can’t you put a muzzle on ‘em.”

  “Ben’s got one in the car, but it seems a little extreme. I know he’s a bit hyper, but otherwise he’s really a very sweet dog.”

  “Not the dog, the kids!”

  “Well, we tried a leash once….

  “And…”

  “We were worried what people might think. But the boys seemed to love it. When people stared the twins would just growl and bark.”

  “Why do they have so many presents?” she says, counting the boxes. “Isn’t your one gift enough?”

  “Oh, no,” I say. “They cant handle it well when another child gets to celebrate an event so we have to make sure they have presents, too. So they don’t feel left out.”

  “They’re such monsters,” says Kitty.

  “Yes,” I say, “And speaking of their Halloween costumes…”

  “Were we?”

  “Apparently the monsters did get punished.”

  “For what?” snaps Kitty.

  “Egging the neighbor’s house.”

  “Well, even I used to do that,” she snaps.

  “Yes, but not with…”

  “Cage-free Omega-3 eggs?”

  I nod.<
br />
  “Ha!” she says. “That’s somewhere between uproariously funny and completely disgusting.”

  “Like everything else in Greenwich fucking Connecticut.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Two women walk into a SpongeBob SquarePants bikini bottom theme party that their best friend is throwing. None of us is in bikinis but each of us is equipped with the perceptions about how one another’s lives should be. Life is all about perception… like when you enter a room thinking your hemline is kind of flattering to your calves, and somebody else is thinking the same hemline is too short. And then there’s Kitty’s hemline – her brown-spotted legs crying out for a full-length Amish dress.

  It’s a magnificent party. Bebe always throws magnificent parties. That’s everyone’s perception.

  Until you’ve lived in New York you haven’t experienced a real New York party – a party worthy of New York society pages. Bebe’s in the dining alcove, working out of a mahogany trunk, as four models off the pages of this month’s Vogue dress the little girl guests for a faux fashion show. A clown near the bookcase face-paints a little boy, while a SpongeBob roams the terrace that overlooks the city, juggling Bebe’s Mackenzie Childs cake plates.

  My cousin Godfrey – the famous chef – has sent over a winning contestant from the show “ Top Chef” to do the cooking. Ballerinas from Lincoln Center command the living room’s white woolen carpet on tippy-toe, their pink-slippered feet posed in second position. One ballerina does a pirouette, and the little girls clap with delight.

  As Kitty and I take it all in, somebody hugs me from behind. I spin to see my daughter, Madeline, all grown-up and sexy in six-inch come hither heels. I run my hand down the back of her waist-length wavy brown locks.

  “Hi, Mom!”

  “Madeline! You made it.”

  She kisses me. “I hate the subway, but this was so worth it. Hi, Aunt Kitty,” she says, giving her a peck. “You’re looking good.”

  “I love this kid of yours,” says Kitty. “So how’s college? Boyfriends?”

  “None in New York. All the boys here wear skinny jeans. I can’t go there.”

  “Don’t blame you,” says Kitty. “You should go for a wild European. Come with me to Paris. Maybe your mother will let you do a semester abroad.”

  “Maybe,” I say, my tone dubious.

  Madeline looks hopeful. “I wouldn’t go now anyway. Not until after I hook up with my English professor.”

  “Better not till he’s done grading you,” I say.

  “Fine, fine, Mother,” says Madeline, taking a glass of champagne from a waiter’s tray. “And in the meantime, there’s those construction workers down at Ground Zero near my dorm. Kidding. They’re so nasty. Always screaming out, ‘Come sit on daddy’s lap.’”

  “Pigs,” say Kitty and I simultaneously.

  “Gosh, can you imagine being Bebe’s daughter?” I say. “What a Cinderella story…”

  “Bebe can adopt me anytime,” says Madeline, grabbing a canape off a silver tray. “Most kids have tap water by their bedside table. Tamara has Pellegrino!” Madeline bites into the shrimp on her napkin and says, “Oh mom, I lugged my laundry up on the train. It’s in Bebe’s pantry. You don’t mind, right?”

  “What else am I here for?” I say. “Besides money. And love-life advice…”

  A handsome man makes his way over to my daughter. I whisper to Kitty, “Ah, youth. Wasted on the young.”

  “Hey, she might have the legs,” says Kitty eyeing my daughter’s micro mini-dress, “but you have the wisdom.”

  “Lucky for me,” I say sarcastically. “Just what every man wants in a woman. Firm, perky, wisdom.” I catch sight of Bernie sitting on the burgundy Lignet Roset couch, his big, bare, hairy foot up on the glass coffee table. He’s actually clipping his toenails. A few landed on the carpet below a ballerina now posed in third position. Bernie crawls across the floor. Not just to retrieve the toe nails but also to get a glimpse of what’s under her tutu.

  And then I hear “Hey Daddy!” and my focus moves to the most beautiful little girl, who comes bombing into the room, a little Kazakh blitzkrieg. It’s Tamara. And from the moment I met her, just last week, I knew for the first time what it was to be an aunt who truly love of somebody else’s child.

  *

  It was just this past Thursday when Bebe asked me to “come over and meet my daughter.” I had my shoes on within two minutes, was at curbside within ten. And faster than you can say “I need a taxi to Park Avenue,” I was at Bebe’s front door. Bebe’s eyes met mine and instantly the scene went on mute though this show was still playing. There, tucked into Bebe’s side, was Tamara, gazing up at me apprehensively, wondering whether it was safe to come out. Tamara’s eyes met mine, and it was love at first sight – just as it had been for Bebe. Tamara ran to my side, attaching to me as if she’d been super glued. “Oh, sweetheart,” I said, not sure what to do. Tamara looked up at me, still attached.

  “I - Tamara,” she said slowly. “Hello, please meet you.” She had practiced those words all day.

  “Oh, I’m so pleased to meet you,” I said.

  “We shared our first Ring Ding today,” said Bebe. “Isn’t that silly?”

  “Not silly at all,” I said. Tamara took her mother’s hand in one hand, and mine in the other. “All my life I wanted somebody to eat Ring Dings with…” said Bebe,

  “…my daughter,” I say with her, the words sounding wonderful. We both burst into laughter, and then subsided into hugs. Tamara joined in our huddle, and suddenly the three of us looked like football players strategizing a big play except this was bigger. If Kitty were here she might even say it was “huge!” “You’re a mommy now,” I said, dabbing at the corner of my eyes.

  “Yes,” said Bebe. Tamara looked on, quick to understand the bond her mother and I share.

  We made our way to an ivory damask loveseat where Bebe poured Earl Grey tea. Tamara dropped to my feet to pick up the doll – “My First Barbie” - that I bought her. It had seemed like the American thing to do.

  I could tell by the look on her face that Tamara was fascinated by the doll’s perfection. Could I be creating an expectation by buying it for her? Would she, too, think the way American girls do, that this is what she should look like – a 2 inch waistline, a tiny tight ass, and legs that never end? The truth was that Tamara was prettier than anything a Mattel designer could dream up.

  Watching Tamara undress her doll, I watched Barbie’s plastic and catatonic stare. I studied her slab of painted blue eyeliner and the black made-to-seem-real eyelashes and the perfectly brushed blonde hair. I considered how many times Barbie had reinvented herself. I thought about the day that some Mattel executive had been forced to come up with a Plan B, when sales might have plummeted between the 1960s and the millennium, little girls looked elsewhere for new playmates.

  Barbie was at least fifty years old now. At this point she could be “Cougar Barbie,” equipped with leopard leggings, golf clubs, a Jag, and fake breasts - which of course she already had, so she was off to a good start.

  Tamara caught me staring at the doll and gave me a big crooked-toothed smile. She couldn’t speak English very well, but her expression said it all, so I articulated for her: “It’s so great that you’re here, Tamara.” I ran my hand under her chin. “Thank you for coming into our world. You’ve made your mommy so very happy.”

  “Tamara happy,” she said.

  Bebe’s blue eyes watered to red, making them all patriotic, and Tamara tossed Barbie aside to jump up into her new mother’s arms.

  *

  Tamara tugs at my dress hem, snapping me out of it. “Hey, Lib,” she says. “Are you listen – me?” Forget listening. Tamara is exquisite to look at. I can’t stop staring at her chiseled Eastern European features - her sexuality already blooming, a Victoria’s Secret model in the making.

  “Hey, Lib,” Bebe sing-songs, approaching from the kitchen with a silver tray of sushi in her hand.

&
nbsp; “Hey Bebe,” I sing-song back. “Need any help?”

  “No, it’s under control now. I had to spend the first hour going up the stairs.”

  “And that dumb waiter doesn’t help,” says Kitty.

  “Is the button broken?” I ask.

  “NO, not that dumbwaiter,” says Kitty. “I meant that one,” she says, pointing to some guy over near the watermelon boat.

  “Oh, that’s not my waiter,” says Bebe. “That’s my high school sweetheart. Can you imagine? We found each other on Facebook.” Kitty and I share a look as Bebe sets down the silver tray and give me cheek a peck on both sides. Tamara has now plowed straight into my side, burying her head and squeezing tightly. She’s like a Lego that’s just clicked into place - a perfect fit.

  “Heylib; Auntie Heylib…” says Tamara, doing the hokey pokey while imitating her mother.

  “Tamara, it’s time to get dressed,” says Bebe. “This is your party, sweetheart. Time to look pretty.”

  Tamara swings from my waistline like a chimp, refusing to go.

  “I love my Auntie Heylib,” she says, standing there in her white monogrammed robe with the tiny RS on the lapel and the matching terry headband over her bangs. It’s as if she’s come from a day the spa.

  “Tamara, please,” says Bebe again, her tone slightly more aggressive. “Mommy said you must go and get dressed.”

  It’s interesting to watch Bebe handle this new thing called motherhood. Tamara sticks her tongue out. But Bebe uses sign language; pointing to herself to mean the word “I” then drawing a “heart” in the air for “love” and then pointing to Tamara for “you.” Kitty and I look at Tamara to see her response. Again, she sticks her tongue out. Now I’m sure Bebe is about to cry.

  “And you wonder why I don’t like kids,” says Kitty under her breath. She steps in front of Tamara, who has since let go of me. Kitty plants her hands on her hips and stares Tamara down. Tamara crinkles her eyebrows, pouts, and finally stands up straight.

  “Okay, kid. Auntie Kitty says get dressed. Pronto!”

  “Fine,” says Tamara, stomping. “Tamara - dressed,” she says, imitating Kitty. “But Tamara …” and then at a loss for English words, Tamara points at Kitty and shakes her head violently as if to say, “I don’t like this Aunt Kitty friend of yours.” We watch Tamara march backwards toward the white frilly room with pink wallpaper, all the while staring Kitty down, and cursing her under her breath. She sounds like some Russian spy looking daggers at James Bond.