The Ivy Chronicles

by Karen Quinn

  “Are you out of your mind?” I cried. “No one’s gonna pay that much. That’s ludicrous.”

  “Ludicrous? Do you see the four names I crossed off on the first page? Those are the only people who squawked about the price. The people on the second page don’t have the gold-plated addresses, so I only quoted them ten grand. The two people with stars by their names called from the hospital. Their wives had just given birth. They want to hire you now, but I think you should keep them in mind for the future. The woman whose name is underlined in red is pregnant with her first; she wants you on a monthly retainer for the next four years. You can decide about her. I think you should start by calling the twenty-thousand-dollar prospects and only go to the second page if you have to.”

  I was speechless. Stupefied. Incredulous. My mind was boggled.

  “Oh ye of little faith,” Faith sang. “I knew you could do it. I knew this was a brilliant idea. Thank you, thank you,” she said, taking bows to an imaginary audience.

  Over the next several hours, I returned calls. Faith would pick up the girls so I could strike while the iron was hot.

  I sat down at my kitchen table and began dialing. The parents were relieved to hear from me. By the third conversation, I had my patter down, describing what I’d do to improve their child’s chances, always stating that there were no guarantees with this process, but also assuring them that my past clients had done extremely well, wink wink. I thought a few of these people were going to reach through the telephone lines and kiss me. Others were standoffish, but I could hear them relax as soon as they concluded that help had arrived.

  From what I gathered, parents were freaked out about the Cubby incident and all those news stories on how tough it was to get into private school. The hostage-taking father turned out to be a popular Park Avenue gynecologist whose child was at the Secret Garden Nursery. “There but for the grace of God go I,” they must have been thinking.

  My close was particularly artful. After describing the service, I added that in the interest of quality I would only take ten clients a year. I said I had eight confirmed and would surely have ten by the end of the day. If they wanted to join my exclusive roster, they should messenger a check by 8:00 tomorrow morning. I gave them Faith’s swanky address. They might not be so enthusiastic if they knew where I really lived.

  By 7:00 that evening, Faith had received five checks for $20,000 each, one cigar box filled with old bills totaling twenty grand, plus a beautiful Prada bag containing $20,000 in crisp hundreds. These parents were taking no chances.

  It shocked me that people would pay so much. Not that I was complaining. I decided to limit my practice to seven families. If I could do an outstanding job with seven, they would tell their friends and I would be established. Plus, with so few clients, I could spend more time with my own daughters. If anyone else called, I’d suggest my September workshop. At $300 a head, that would be a profitable evening. I was thrilled. I just wished Mom were alive to enjoy my success. She would have reveled in it.

  Faith sent Kate and Skyler home that night in one of her town cars with a box containing juicy pot roast, salmon cakes, mashed potatoes, macaroni salad, and chocolate cake. Normally, her chefs cook low-fat, but I’d been through such a stressful experience that Faith insisted comfort food was required.

  I sent the girls to invite Michael, Archie, and Philip to join us. I was wired and in the mood to celebrate. Faith had packed enough food for a small wedding, so why not share?

  Archie wasn’t home, so Skyler taped a note to his door inviting him to stop by. Michael was leaving for a blind date, but he said he’d stop by if it ended early. Philip accepted our invitation.

  Shortly after, the doorbell rang and Philip appeared with a cold bottle of Chardonnay. My stomach did a double flip when I saw him standing there. Even though he was in jeans and a T-shirt, he’d taken the time to comb his hair and shave. Cleaned up, he looked like a young Ashton Kutcher. How could I have missed that before? Stop it, Ivy. You’re at least ten years older than he is. You have upperarm jiggle, stretch marks and a C-section scar. Still, dare I dream? Moi? Demi Moore.

  “What can I do to help?” he asked.

  “Not a thing,” I told him. “The girls are setting the table and dinner’ll be ready in a few minutes.”

  “I read that article in the Times today,” he said. “You were quoted quite a bit.”

  “I haven’t seen it,” I answered self-consciously. That wasn’t true. I had a dozen copies of the paper stashed in my closet. But I didn’t want Philip to think I cared about superficial things like reading about myself in the most highly regarded newspaper in the United States.

  As I put the reheated food on the table, I told him about the amazing events that had transpired in the last twenty-four hours (leaving out the part about Radical Reinvention). The way I’d lost faith in my business. How I’d become the beneficiary of Cubby’s tragic death. The way I’d blathered authoritatively to the press. The families who were crazy enough to pay $20,000 to get their kids into school. That was the only part of the story that got a rise out of Philip.

  “How do you feel after all that drama?” Philip asked.

  “Well, Dr. Phil, I feel confused, guilty, excited, and afraid, all wrapped together, I suppose.”

  He smiled. “Ivy, you didn’t cause Cubby’s death. You’re just capitalizing on the fallout. Under the circumstances, I think God will forgive you.”

  How does he know I’m worried about that?

  “Now that you’ve taken these clients, do your best to help them get what they want. For some reason, the universe gave you a gift just when you needed it. Accept it. Be grateful,” Philip said.

  What a wise and knowing young man he is, I thought. I couldn’t believe how I’d misjudged him when we first met. We joined the girls at the table and dug into Faith’s yummy meal. Philip opened the wine and poured us each a glass. Skyler talked about her first day at Central Park Zoo camp, and Kate sang a song about the Titanic sinking that she’d learned at the Jewish Community Center.

  Sir Elton wouldn’t stop begging for food, which was kind of embarrassing. Ever since we’d moved downtown, it was like he’d never been trained. His former pet psychologist would have had a field day with this.

  Philip listened to Kate and Skyler’s stories about their day, and talked to them like they were people, not little children. My daughters were starry-eyed.

  As I put the girls to bed, Philip did the dishes. He did dishes!

  We still had wine left over from dinner, so I poured myself another glass. Philip switched to beer. “Thanks for helping clean up,” I said.

  “My pleasure, I’m glad you invited me,” he answered as we settled in to talk.

  “Would you like to see my debut on national television?” Faith had left the tape of my appearances on the Today show and The View. I was dying to see how I looked.

  “Sure,” he said.

  I put the cassette into the machine, and we watched. Oh, my, I sound so authoritative. I’m good. But, ooooh, are those jowls? What are jowls exactly? I think I have them. And my voice, gaaah. So Minnie Mouse. I must consider doing cartoon voice-overs if this new business doesn’t work out. When the tape ended, I rewound it and hit the PLAY button. I was trying to act like it was no big deal and only worth watching twice.

  “Mommmm!” Kate yelled from her room. “Waaa-ter.”

  “I’ll be right back,” I told Philip.

  A few minutes later, I walked into the living room and froze. My appearance on The View had ended and the tape was still playing. Philip was watching.

  “. . . no I beg you to choose me for a radical makeover because I just got fired, my pet died, and I caught my husband taking a bath with another woman . . . and they were naked. Now, I’m gonna have to start dating again and look at me. Who would want . . . this? Plus, my mother died, I’m about to lose my home, I had to fire my nanny, my maid, and my kids’ tutors. I have to color my own hair and do my own nails. My p
sychic says I’m gonna get hit by a bus. And have you ever seen a frown line this deep? I need . . . no, I’m desperate for Botox.”

  14. Getting to Know You, Getting to Know All About You

  I snatched the remote and turned off the television. Philip looked at me and said, “Did you see that commercial?”

  “What commercial?”

  “That lady looked like you. Rewind the tape. I’ll show you.”

  “You think I look like that?” I asked, feigning hurt.

  “No, no, you’re much prettier. She just reminded me of you. Maybe it was her voice. It had the same, um, lilting quality as yours.”

  “Maybe,” I said. I brought Philip a cold beer and poured some more wine for me. My heart was hammering madly. My face was flushed. My ears were ringing. I felt dizzy. I’d broken out in a cold sweat. To center myself, I silently repeated my mantra: Barneys, Barneys, Barneys, Barneys . . .

  “So, are you from New York?” Philip asked, oblivious to the state of my nerves.

  I took a deep, cleansing breath. “I’m from Brooklyn originally. We moved to Manhattan when I was eleven.”

  “Was your family moving up in the world?”

  “Not exactly.” I told Philip how we’d left Brooklyn after Dad had one too many affairs.

  “That must have been hard. Did you see your father much after you moved?”

  “No, I never talked to him again. My mother was so angry about his infidelity that I would have felt like a traitor if I’d tried to find him. A few years after we came to Manhattan, we heard he’d moved to California and married again. Then, about five years ago, Mom told me he’d died. I don’t know how she knew.”

  “Sounds like you had a tough time.”

  “When I was young, yes, but a lot of good things happened later. I earned a scholarship to Yale,” I began.

  “I went to Yale, too.”

  “No kidding. When were you there?” I asked.

  “Late nineties. You?”

  “A few years before that.”

  “Anyway, sorry to interrupt,” Philip said.

  “You’re not interrupting. I was just saying that things were difficult when I was young, but they got much better. I went to an Ivy League school. I had a good marriage for a long time to a man who gave me my daughters. I had a lucrative career. And because of the struggles my mother and I went through, we were close. We talked constantly. She was interested in every boring detail of my life. She died last August.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, me, too. Do you want another beer?” I asked.

  “I’ll get it.”

  Nice butt, I thought as he walked to the kitchen. Ivy, stop it! Admiring a man’s ass at your age, that’s just wrong. Pull yourself together. As I watched Philip pop the bottle cap off his beer, Sir Elton jumped into his seat. I pushed him down. He knew he wasn’t allowed on the furniture. “How’d you end up here, Philip? On the Lower East Side.”

  “I moved a few years ago after my mother died. I’d been living with her on the Upper West Side. She had an apartment at the Dakota and I didn’t want to stay there alone. I’d already taken this place as my writing studio, so I moved in. I was working all the time anyway. It was therapeutic. I slept here, on the floor. Finally, I called one-eight-hundred-M-A-T-T-R-E-S and they sent a bed. It was supposed to be temporary, but I got comfortable. I sold the Dakota apartment last year. It made sense financially.”

  “Can I ask you how your mother died?”

  “Sure. It’s still hard to believe. My mother was a writer, like me. She’d just finished a book about plastic surgery and her publisher was sending her on tour. A doctor she’d interviewed offered to do work on her at a discount. She was having a facelift and she died during the procedure.”

  “Oh, my God,” I said. “Such a tragedy. I’ve always heard that could happen, but I never really believed it.”

  “Believe it,” Philip said, shaking his head. “The irony was, she had a beautiful face for a woman her age. But she wanted to look younger. Like so many people, she bought into society’s shallow pursuit of beauty. I think plastic surgery is obscene.”

  “Yeah, me too,” I said.

  “Anyway, let’s not talk about that. How’d you end up on top of Kratt’s Knishery?” Philip asked.

  “It’s a boring story. My husband and I broke up. After we sold our apartment on Park, this was all I could afford on my own.”

  “How are your kids handling the breakup?”

  “Okay, I guess. They see Cadmon twice a month. With that, they get more of his attention than they did when we were together.” I was about to tell him more when the doorbell rang. Probably Archie or Michael, I thought.

  I opened the door, and there was Cadmon, speak of the devil. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  15. Scrambled Eggs to Go

  “What are you doing here?” I whispered.

  “Hey, I saw you on national TV telling the world I cheated on you. How could you do that to me?”

  “Shhhh. Not so loud. Anyway, you did cheat on me.” I hadn’t focused on the fact that my little promo would embarrass Cadmon. At least there was a silver lining.

  “And you looked like a migrant farmworker on St. Patrick’s Day. How could you let yourself be seen like that?”

  “It’s called acting. They paid me to look like a hag for dramatic effect.” Hmmm. Good excuse. Remember to use it again. “Cadmon, I’m busy right now and I’m tired. Would you leave?”

  “Do you have company?” he asked, pushing the door open and peering inside.

  By then Philip was standing up and saying goodbye. I introduced him to Cadmon. “Philip, you don’t have to go. Cadmon’s not staying.”

  “No, that’s okay. I have an early morning tomorrow. Nice to meet you,” he said to Cad as he left.

  “So who’s the jailbait? I hope I didn’t interrupt anything between you,” Cadmon said insincerely.

  “Cad, please, why are you here?”

  “Can I interest you in a nightcap?” he asked, picking up the wine I’d been drinking and flashing his Ultra-Brite smile, the one that melted my heart in Sag Harbor.

  I stared at him with my arms folded.

  He got down on his knees and began begging, not for real, just for effect. “Ivy, why are you being so stubborn? I’m sorry, for the hundredth time. I made the biggest mistake of my life. I was down on myself for being unemployed. You were always working. I reached out to Sassy. That was stupid. I know. Please, can’t you forgive me?”

  “Cadmon, I forgive you. I’m past it now, really.”

  “And I forgive you for broadcasting my failure as a husband on national TV. So, let’s try again. I miss you.” Unexpectedly, he pulled me toward him and started to kiss me. His breath smelled like stale beer and his face felt like sandpaper.

  “Cad, no,” I said, pushing him away. “Look, stop. Listen to me. I was so . . . hurt when you cheated on me. I just . . . I can’t go through that again.”

  “I told you that was the last time it would ever happen, and I meant it. Please, I miss you. I’m helpless without you. I don’t know how to do laundry. I can’t make my bed. I can’t even scramble an egg.”

  I smiled. What Cad needed was a maid. “Cad, since you left, I’ve had time to think. And I don’t want the marriage we had anymore. I want to be with a man who prefers me to golf. Someone who helps with the kids without my having to ask. A guy who counts his blessings every single day because I’m in his life. If I can’t have that, I’d rather be alone.”

  Cadmon stood silent for a few moments. I could see his thoughts flowing as he processed the conversation. “I can change. Just give me a chance. Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it.” He looked so earnest standing there.

  I laughed. “No, Cad, you’ll never change.”

  He seemed offended. Then he smiled. “You’re right. I won’t, will I? I’m a selfish pig and that’s what I’ll always be.”

  I didn’t argue. “Tell you what, I’ll teach you
how to make scrambled eggs. But after that, you’re on your own.”

  Cad let out a sigh and walked into my tiny kitchen. He pulled a saucepan out of the cabinet. “Okay, what now?”

  “First, you need the right tools,” I explained. I got the frying pan, added some butter, broke two eggs and scrambled them while they cooked, just the way Cad liked them. “This isn’t so hard, is it?”

  We sat silently at the table while Cad ate. He stood up to leave. “Are you sure about this?” he asked.

  “Positive.”

  Cad said goodbye and left. As always, I washed his dirty dishes.

  16. Cubby’s Legacy

  I called Tipper the next morning to offer my condolences over her boss’s death. Of course I didn’t say anything about how big her butt looked on television.

  “Tipper, are you okay? Is there anything I can do?” I asked.

  “I’m okay, I guess,” she answered. “Actually I’m numb. Cubby was such a role model for me. I can’t believe she’s gone.”

  “I know. The whole thing’s such a shock.” After losing my mother, I understood that nothing I’d say would help.

  “They’re burying her this afternoon,” she said, her voice breaking up. “I don’t know how I’m gonna get through this.”

  “Make sure you don’t wear mascara,” I advised.

  “The thing is, Mr. Van Dyke, the headmaster, appointed me admissions director in Cubby’s place. He said I was her protégée and the only one who would know how to carry on in her tradition. I feel so guilty that it took her death to make my dream come true.”

  Join the club, I thought.

  “Tipper, you didn’t cause Cubby’s death. You’re just accepting the unexpected benefits that came out of it. I’m sure God will forgive you. The universe is giving you a gift, and it’s your responsibility to accept it gratefully,” I said, repeating Philip’s advice. Hey, it worked for me.