by Laura Levine
I was at her side like a shot, thrilled to see a small army of succulent baby lamb chops lined up on her tray.
To hell with manners. I grabbed two.
“There’s going to be a buffet dinner later,” Lupe whispered. “They’re setting it up in the dining room now.”
Indeed, the tantalizing aroma of what I hoped was roast beef wafted my way. Maybe I could grab a bite after my pitch.
Which, at the rate things were going, wasn’t about to take place any time soon. Marvin, alas, was still entrenched in conversation with Owen, who was busy making notes on a cocktail napkin. Lord knows how long they’d be at it.
With a sigh, I headed back to the bar and ordered a dirty martini. After all, I needed something to wash down my lamb chops. I promised myself I’d have only a few sips, just enough to deaden the awkwardness of this ghastly party.
Drink and lamb chops in hand, I wandered out the French doors onto the patio, where I heard one of the T-Shirt & Blazers saying, “God, I’d kill for a scotch.”
I took a seat on one of the patio chairs and scarfed down my three lamb chops. (Okay, so I took three.) My, they were good. By far, the highlight of the evening. After polishing them off, I sat there, staring out into the night, hoping to pass myself off as a soulful thinker rather than the social pariah I actually was.
The patio was bathed in moonlight, and in the distance the pool glistened, bright as a Home Shopping zirconia. Breathing deeply, I could smell the heady aroma of night-blooming jasmine.
The only jarring note in this picture postcard scenario was a rusty rake and a container of weed killer propped up against the patio’s stone balustrade. It looked like the gardener was still forgetting to put his supplies away. I only hoped Bunny wouldn’t notice it, or there’d be hell to pay.
After a while, tired of my soulful thinker act, I went back inside, only to find Owen still glued to Marvin’s side. Didn’t those two ever get enough of each other?
Once more, I sought solace from Lupe, who was now passing out melted Brie in pastry puffs. I plucked one and took a bite. Divine.
Happily munching on my Brie ball, I decided to take Sarah’s advice and pay a visit to the fortune-teller.
I found her ensconced behind a desk in the den, a striking brunette clad in a gypsy outfit straight out of a 1940s MGM musical: off-the-shoulder blouse, peasant skirt, and lace-up espadrilles—topped off with dangly hoop earrings and a colorful bandana headband.
“Come in,” she said with an accent meant to be Exotic European, but sounding more like Count Chocula. “I am the fabulous Fortuna. I see all. I tell all.”
I sat down across from her at what must have been Bunny’s desk, an ornate little number painted with tiny pink rosebuds.
Up close I could see a sprinkling of distinctly non-gypsy freckles underneath the fabulous Fortuna’s heavy make-up. If this woman was born in a Slavic nation, I was a full-blooded Cherokee.
“Let me see your palm,” she commanded in her hammy accent.
Surreptitiously wiping the last remnants of Brie from my hand, I showed her my palm.
“You have a very interesting lifeline,” Fortuna said, running her finger along a scar I’ve had since I was twelve.
“Actually, that’s a scar.”
“Really?” she said, flustered.
“I cut my hand trying to open a can of macadamia nuts.”
“Gee, it looks just like a lifeline. Oh, here. Now I found it.” She pointed to another spot on my palm. “It says you will live a long and healthy life.”
Not if I kept eating those Brie balls, I wouldn’t.
“Wait!” she suddenly cried, pressing her hands to her forehead. “I hear a noise coming from the spirit world.”
“I hear it, too. I think it’s just someone trying to get into the guest bathroom.”
“No, no. It’s a message for you. From someone dearly beloved who’s gone to the other side. Someone whose name begins with a B. Do you have a departed loved one whose name begins with B?”
I ran through my list of deceased relatives, which was fortunately quite short, but the initial B did not make an appearance.
“Nope, afraid not.”
“How about G?”
“No.”
“C?”
“Gee, all I can think of is my grandma’s dog Chester and we really weren’t that close.”
“How about Z?”
“Sorry,” I shrugged. “I guess whoever’s calling from the other side must have a wrong number.”
And then she threw in the towel.
“Oh, what’s the use?” she sighed, all traces of her accent gone. “I stink at this.”
“You’re not so bad. Maybe Chester really is trying to talk to me.”
“No, he’s not. It’s all a big act. I’m not really a fortune-teller. I’m an actress.”
And apparently, not a very good one.
“Everything I know about palm reading I learned from this stupid book,” she said, taking a copy of Palmistry for Dummies out from where she’d stashed it in Bunny’s desk drawer.
“See?” She pointed to a dog-eared page. “The book says right here that practically everyone knows someone dead whose name starts with a B.
“Dammit.” She slammed the book shut in disgust. “I oughta get my money back.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it. Nobody takes these things seriously.”
“Look, don’t tell Mrs. Cooper how I’ve been screwing up, willya? If I know that bitch, she’ll have me fired.”
At last. An accurate prediction.
“I won’t say a thing to Mrs. Cooper,” I assured her, getting up to go.
“Thanks.” She shot me a grateful smile. “I may stink at this stuff, but I hope good things are headed your way.”
Not that night, they weren’t. That’s for darn sure.
Chapter 11
Back in the living room, I groaned to see Marvin and Owen still going at it hot and heavy. But by now I’d run out of patience. Enough was enough. I marched over to the fireplace, gathering my courage to interrupt them.
And I was just about to break up their little duo when Bunny beat me to it.
“What the hell is he doing here?” she hissed at Marvin.
She pointed to the doorway, where Lenny, the sad-eyed salesman, had just wandered in.
“It’s no big deal,” Marvin said, with a placating smile. “I asked him to stop by.”
“No big deal?” Bunny fumed. “First that Austen creature. And now Lenny. What do you think this is? My Life on the D List?”
“Lenny happens to be my best friend,” Marvin said, allowing a hint of irritation to creep into his voice.
“Not anymore, he’s not,” Bunny snapped. “Not if I have anything to do with it.”
And with that she sashayed back to Lance.
“C’mon, sweetie,” she said, grabbing her Marilyn Monroe glass and taking a healthy slug. “Let’s get some fresh air.”
Marvin watched unhappily as, martini in hand, Bunny steered Lance out onto the patio.
And I took advantage of the lull in the conversation to make my move.
“Excuse me, Mr. Cooper.”
“Oh, Jaine,” he said, turning to see me for the first time. “How long have you been standing here?”
Clearly he was worried I’d heard Bunny call me “that Austen creature.”
“Not long at all,” I lied. “I thought maybe I could pitch my slogans to you.”
“Of course, of course. I’ll be with you in a minute. Owen and I are just wrapping things up.”
Forcing a smile, I left them alone and resumed my role as the Party Pariah. I spent the next twenty minutes standing around, inhaling hors d’oeuvres, ignored by one and all.
Finally Fiona took pity on me and came over to talk.
“Jaine,” she cooed. “How lovely to see you!”
Quite the dramatic figure she was, just a scarf away from Isadora Duncan in wide palazzo pants and a flowy silk tunic.
>
“Don’t mind Bunny,” she said, with a sympathetic smile. “She’s an equal opportunity insulter. She says the most atrocious things about everyone.”
Great. How nice to know that the entire party heard her refer to me as “that Austen creature.”
“By the way,” she added, “adore your outfit. Old Navy puts out such clever fashions.”
If I wasn’t mistaken, that was a bit of a dig. But at this point, thanks to my dirty martini, I didn’t much care. Yes, somewhere along the line, I’d lost track of my sips and polished off the whole darn drink.
It was with dismay that I now looked down into my martini glass and discovered that, aside from an olive skewer, it was totally empty. How could I have been stupid enough to get tootled right before a presentation?
And there was no doubt about it. I was a bit tootled. I realized this when I found myself giggling at Fiona’s Old Navy crack.
I excused myself and hurried off to the guest bathroom to splash some cold water on my face. A charming little sanctuary straight out of a Beatrix Potter tale, the room was done up in a bunny theme, with faucets and guest soaps shaped like the furry critters.
Wasting no time, I started splashing. The cold water was bracing, and after a while, I felt the fuzz in my brain begin to dissipate.
Then I patted my face dry with one of Bunny’s fine Irish linen guest towels, embroidered with yet more bunnies.
(Where was Elmer Fudd when you needed him?)
While I was there I figured I might as well do a final prep for my presentation, so I whipped out my slogans from my purse and went over them one last time.
With confidence fully restored, I checked out my reflection in the mirror and slapped on some lipstick.
And then I did something I would sorely live to regret. I snooped in the medicine cabinet. Yes, I confess. I am a confirmed medicine cabinet snooper. I’ve tried to quit many times, but the lure is always too great to resist.
Not that I expected to find anything juicy in the guest bathroom. I mean, all the serious stuff, like the Grecian Formula and Preparation H, would be upstairs in the master bath. But a snoop can dream, can’t she?
All I found was a bottle of aspirin, a box of Q-tips, and a jar of hand cream. Nothing you’d read about in the Enquirer. The hand cream, however, wasn’t your everyday Jergens. It was the zillion-dollar-an-ounce kind of stuff you see in the glossy pages of Vogue.
I opened it and took a sniff. Mmmm. Heavenly.
Now, if Bunny had wanted guests to use it, she would have put it out on her travertine marble counter along with her bunny guest soaps. This was obviously primo, Grade A hand cream, reserved for Her Royal Bitchiness.
Which meant, of course, that I had to try it. Still smarting over her earlier insults, I slathered it on with abandon.
And that was my second big mistake.
Lord knows what mysterious stuff that hand cream was made of. Probably the embryo of some hapless endangered species. Whatever it was, it was darn slippery. When I started to put it back in the medicine cabinet, my hands were so slick, the bottle slipped from my grasp and crashed onto the tile floor.
Oh, hell. I stared in dismay at the goo at my feet.
I searched under the sink for something to clean it up with. But there was nothing. The only thing at my disposal were the bunny guest towels. I couldn’t possibly use those. So minutes later I was on my hands and knees scraping the stuff up with toilet paper.
Unwilling to leave behind any incriminating evidence, I dumped it all into my purse. Somehow I managed to cram the whole mess in. At last I finished, and, wiping the sweat from my brow, I unlocked the door and headed out into the hallway.
I hadn’t gone very far when I realized I’d forgotten my slogans. I hurried back to the bathroom, and sure enough, they were right where I left them on the counter. So I dashed over to get them.
And that’s when my luck went from bad to unthinkably bad.
As much as I’d tried to clean up the goo, I had apparently not gotten it all. The floor still had a few slick spots. One of which I proceeded to step in. Oh, no! Suddenly I felt myself about to take a tumble.
Frantically I grabbed the towel rack for support and gasped in horror as it came flying out of the wall.
Then, like a scene from my own personal disaster movie, I watched as the towel rack slammed into the medicine cabinet mirror with a godawful crash, and then—my seven years of bad luck off to a booming start—whacked one of the bunny faucets loose.
Glass scattered everywhere. And worse, infinitely worse, water gushed wildly from the space where the faucet used to be.
Quel nightmare!
I grabbed one of the bunny guest towels and desperately tried to staunch the flow of gushing water.
So busy was I that I did not hear the sound of approaching footsteps thundering down the hallway.
Suddenly the door burst open.
“What the hell is going on here?”
I looked up to see Bunny standing in the doorway, the other guests huddled behind her, taking in the show.
“Hey!” one of them shouted. “That’s the woman who stole my mattress sample!”
Oh, crud. It was Carlton!
“Look, I can explain about that—”
“Who cares about a goddamn mattress sample,” Bunny shrieked, “when my bathroom is flooded?”
“You!” She snapped her fingers at the actor/bartender, who’d abandoned his post to catch the action. “Shut off the water valve under the sink.”
The water valve under the sink! Why hadn’t I thought of that?
“And when you’re finished, get a mop from the kitchen and clean up the mess.”
“I’ll help,” I offered, hating to see the poor guy saddled with something I was responsible for.
“Don’t you dare touch a thing!” Bunny screeched. “I want to save what little of my bathroom I have left.”
With that, she stormed out to the living room, trailed by her wide-eyed guests, all eager to catch the next act of this exciting drama.
“Jaine, honey, are you okay?”
I turned to see Lance by my side.
“Oh, Lance,” I wailed, as he put a comforting arm around my shoulder. “It was so awful. All I did was rub on a little hand cream and the next thing I knew the bathroom was in shambles.”
A pathetic little tear, I’m ashamed to admit, made its way down my cheek.
Now Lance may give me a rough time when it comes to my fashion choices, but when it comes to being a friend, he’s always there for me. Well, almost always. Okay, a lot of times, anyway. And this was one of those times.
“C’mon,” he said. “Let’s go home. I’ve had enough of Bunny and her stupid party. The more I see of that woman, the less I like her.”
“Okay, but I’d better apologize first. After all, I did just destroy her bathroom.”
I found Bunny in the living room, surrounded by a bevy of Barbies, tsk-tsking in sympathy.
“I know just what you’re going through,” one of them was commiserating. “Why, just the other day the speakers in our media room blew out. It was devastating, simply devastating.”
Not surprisingly, this touching anecdote failed to comfort Bunny in her time of need.
“I need a drink,” she announced. “Lupe! Get me my martini from the patio!”
Lupe, who’d been hovering at the edge of the crowd, jumped to attention and skittered out to the patio.
My cue to face the dragon lady. I took a deep breath and walked up to her.
“Are you still here?” she snapped.
I swear, if she’d had a flyswatter, she would’ve used it on me.
“I just want to tell you how very sorry I am, Bunny, and let you know I’ll be happy to reimburse you for whatever damage I caused.”
“Hah!” she snorted. “You couldn’t afford to reimburse me for a guest towel.”
She was right about that.
“There’s no need to reimburse us, Jaine,” Marvin
piped up. “It was an accident; it could’ve happened to anyone.”
“An accident?” Bunny shrieked. “Are you kidding? The woman is a walking catastrophe!”
“No,” a bitter voice called from over by the fireplace. “You’re the catastrophe, Bunny.”
All eyes riveted to Sarah, who now came weaving over to Bunny, drink in hand.
Ellen looked over at her daughter in alarm.
“Sweetheart,” she said, taking Sarah gently by the elbow, “I think maybe you’ve had a bit too much to drink.”
“Of course I have, Mom. How else do you think I can stand to be in the same room with her?”
Then, brushing her mother aside, she resumed her critique of Bunny.
“You’re a vain, venal, vicious bitch,” she hissed. “And those are your good qualities. My god, Bunny, you make Lucrezia Borgia look like Mother Teresa.”
Next to me, I heard one of the Barbies whisper, “Who’s Lucrezia Borgia?”
“I’m not sure,” her pal replied. “I think she’s on Desperate Housewives.”
Bunny, meanwhile, unused to having her character traits so accurately summed up, was fuming.
“Go to hell, Sarah!”
“After one of your parties, that can only be an improvement.”
“Lupe!” Bunny screeched, now flushed with rage. “Where’s my goddamn martini?”
At last Lupe came racing in from the patio with Bunny’s prized Marilyn Monroe glass.
“It’s about time,” Bunny said, polishing off the drink in a single gulp. “What took you so long?”
But Lupe never got a chance to reply, because it was around about then that Bunny began keeling over in pain.
“Omigod!” Ellen cried. “She’s having a heart attack! Somebody call 911!”
“It’s not a heart attack,” one of the Barbies called out. “It’s food poisoning. Those Brie balls tasted funny to me.”
“Me, too,” seconded another. “It’s a good thing I threw mine up.”
“This can’t be happening,” Fiona gasped. “Not to Bunny.”
I, too, blinked in disbelief as the seemingly indestructible Bunny crumpled to her knees.
“It’s not my fault!” Lupe wailed.
“Bunny, darling,” Marvin cried, kneeling at her side. “What’s wrong?”
