by Jane Heller
A lie. Yes. That’s what my marriage was. But I was determined to make the best of the situation. Nobody would guess what was really going on, especially not dear sweet Amy, although when I ran into her on the street, totally out of the blue, I had to give a pretty convincing performance to keep her in the dark.
I was standing on the corner of Fiftieth and Fifth that warm April day, thinking about whether or not to stop at Saks before driving home, when I spotted her. She was a mess, as usual—her hair was unwashed, her outfit an embarrassment—and my heart lurched. I wanted to rush over to her and throw my arms around her, apologize for what had happened, make it all right between us. Our childhood friendship came flooding back in big loopy Technicolor scenes—the sleepover dates at my house, the pranks in Mr. Halbert’s history class, the marathon phone conversations, the postmortems after dates. But as the traffic light changed and she started to walk in my direction, I stiffened. Suddenly, all I could remember was how much she resented me.
“Amy,” I said, approaching her. “It’s been forever since I’ve seen you. How are you?” I did not reach out to touch her. Instead, I tossed my head back and flashed her a big phony smile.
“I’m great,” she said, looking like the “Before” picture in one of those ads for makeovers.
“I’m happy to hear that,” I said, and I was. “I thought about calling you, but I didn’t even know where you lived.”
She volunteered her address, described her apartment, and told me she had a job as publicity director at a publishing house.
“Oh,” I said. “Which one?”
“Lowry and Trammell,” she replied.
“Really?” I said. “That’s an amazing coincidence, because—” I stopped myself. I couldn’t bring myself to drop the bomb that her publisher was now my publisher and that, whether she liked it or not, she’d be forced to work with me. It felt too much like her wedding, when she’d been obligated to ask me to be her maid of honor. “So you’re doing okay?”
“I’m doing more than okay,” she said, her tone a mix of hostility and defensiveness. “What about you? I’ll bet everything in your life is just perfect, right?”
See what I mean? There was no way I could come clean to someone with that snotty attitude. Is it a crime to have great hair and skin and nails? Is it a sin to have a terrific wardrobe? Is it the worst thing in the world to wear shoes that actually match your handbag? No. She was dishing out her holier-than-thou crap, and it was pissing me off. She wanted perfect? I’d give her perfect.
“My life is fantastic,” I said. I told her about the house. I told her about my radio show. I told her about Stuart’s job at Lasher’s. And—this part was truly grotesque, because he and I hadn’t so much as shared a kiss recently, unless it was for public consumption—I told her we were trying to get pregnant.
“Well, I wish you two the best with that,” said Amy, even though her expression suggested just the opposite.
“Tell me about your love life,” I said. I figured she must be involved with someone, given that it had been four years since her breakup with Stuart. God, if only she knew how lucky she was that I’d taken him off her hands. I’d saved her from him, and yet she hated me. It was almost laughable. “Are you seeing anybody?” I asked.
She didn’t answer for a beat or two. “I, uh, I’m engaged,” she said finally, and then smiled broadly. I think she had cream cheese wedged between her teeth.
“That’s wonderful.” Again, my bravado nearly fell away, and my instinct was to hug her. But I resisted it. “When’s the wedding?”
“In six months. I’m very excited.”
“I’ll bet you are. Who’s this special man?”
“Oh,” she said, waving me off. “He’s no one you know.”
Why? Because I wasn’t literary enough to know someone from her artsy-fartsy crowd? “Well, maybe we can have lunch one of these days and you can tell me all about him.”
“We’ll have to do that.”
She gave me her number and I gave her mine, but she didn’t want to have lunch or any other meal with me. She didn’t need me anymore, just as she hadn’t needed me at her wedding. She had new friends and a new man, and I was a relic from her past.
“Gotta go,” she said. “Say hello to Stuart.”
“I will,” I said. “He’ll be thrilled about your news.” Yeah, like he’d ever be home long enough for me to tell him. He was probably out banging his latest secretary right that very minute.
I drove back to Mamaroneck in tears. I felt horribly guilty about lying to Amy, but if I’d confided how crummy things had ended up, she would have stuck her tongue out at me and said, “What goes around comes around” or something equally sour grapesy.
No, I had to lie to preserve my dignity. The only question was, How long could I keep the lie going?
22
“You’ll never guess who I ran into today,” I said as Stuart was making himself a vodka on the rocks. I had cornered him in the library, his inner sanctum in our house. He was always holed up in there, either making himself a drink or plotting some new get-rich-quick scheme with one of the endless string of hangers-on I declined to meet. I turned a deaf ear to his wheeling and dealing at Lasher’s—I had no desire to involve myself in his family business other than to make sure our personal bills were paid—and assumed he was simply trying in vain to get the attention, never mind respect, of his father and brother.
“Who?” he said after taking his first sip. He did not offer me a drink, by the way. If we’d had company, he would have been waiting on me, slobbering over me, fawning over me, but when we were alone, he dropped the act.
“Amy.”
He set the glass down. “Amy Sherman?”
“How many other Amys do we know?”
“Where’d you see her?”
“On the street in the city. It was quite a surprise, obviously. It’s been—what?—four years?”
“Sounds about right. How is she?” he asked, his expression suggesting an interest in someone other than himself.
“Oh, you know. A walking ‘Fashion Don’t.’ But otherwise she seemed to be doing fine. Better than fine. She’s engaged.”
His eyes widened, as if he couldn’t believe that Amy had moved on.
I laughed. “Yes, Stuart. It looks like she’s over you, hard as that may be for your ego to absorb. She said the wedding’s in six months.”
“Well, good for her. I really mean that. I wish her only the best.”
“So do I, and I told her that.”
“Who’s the guy?”
“She didn’t say. Probably some nice unassuming man. Amy always liked nice unassuming men. I think you were her only bastard.”
“Let’s dispense with the name-calling. Just for tonight.”
“Oh, why not. Actually, there’s more to the story. She told me she’s publicity director at Lowry and Trammell, of all places. How’s that for a coincidence?”
“So you two will be working together?”
“Looks that way. I’m okay with it if she is, although it would have been easier to deal with a stranger on the publicity. Now I’ll have to keep up appearances.”
He smirked. “That shouldn’t be any trouble for you, hon. It’s who you are.”
I gave him my iciest stare and left the room.
The following week, my editor at L and T, Julie Farrell, called to tell me she’d announced her acquisition of Simply Beautiful at their editorial meeting and that the reception, particularly from the company’s marketing director, was very positive.
“You’ll be hearing from our head of publicity, Amy Sherman, to discuss the campaign for the book,” she said. “Or you might want to call her and introduce yourself.”
Introduce myself. To Amy Sherman. What an idea.
The truth was, I was nervous as I picked up the phone to call her. I wasn’t looking forward to the edge in her voice when I broached the subject of how we would collaborate on the promotion of the book, given th
e bad blood between us. And then there was the inevitable condescension about Simply Beautiful itself. I had no doubt that she’d sneered at it when she was told about it, because it wasn’t War and Peace. Well, tough shit if she didn’t like it. She was stuck with it. Stuck with me, too. Julie Farrell had plunked down serious money for the book, and Amy would just have to hold her nose and promote it. Still, I had flashbacks of that now-famous dinner with Stuart, when he’d blurted out how she’d only picked me as her maid of honor out of a sense of obligation. Now she’d feel obligated to publicize my book, and I wasn’t wild about that.
I dialed her number at the office, a knot in my stomach, but ended up with her assistant.
“Amy’s in a meeting,” he said. “May we return?”
We? I thought. How chummy. “Sure,” I said, and left my business number.
A few hours later, they returned.
“Amy. Hi,” I said, throwing myself into the part of the amazingly confident, fabulously charming, ever-the-epitome-of-wonderfulness Tara Messer. “I’m so glad you called me back. I wasn’t sure you would.”
“Of course I called you back,” she said, her words polite but her tone snippy. “You’re one of our authors now. I just wish you’d told me yourself when I ran into you. It was sort of odd having to hear it from someone at the company.”
Oh, so I was in the doghouse yet again. God, she was sanctimonious. “Look, Amy. The last thing I want to do is force you to work on my book. If you’re uncomfortable about it, maybe there’s someone else at L and T who’d take over the chore.”
“No, no. It’s not a problem for me. In fact, I’ve read the manuscript and I think it’s very commercial, Tara.”
Which was her way of saying it was trash. She went on and on about why she thought the book would sell, but I could tell she thought it was beneath her. As I said, tough shit.
“I think we should have lunch,” I said, forging ahead. “And I also think the best way for you to get a sense of the simply beautiful idiom is to come up to the house and see it for yourself, see how I apply it in my daily life.”
“There’s no need for me to go up there,” she said. “I’m sure you could explain it to me here at L and T. We could meet in my office or Julie’s office, or in our conference room. Whatever.”
Clearly, she didn’t want to lift a finger for Simply Beautiful or for me. “Let me ask you something. When you have a cookbook author, don’t you usually sample the author’s recipes before undertaking the publicity campaign, so you’ll have a better idea what you’re selling?”
“Yes.”
“And when you have an author who’s, say, a world-class athlete, don’t you usually go and see him or her excel in the sport?”
Sigh. “Yes.”
“Then I think it follows that you should come to my house and see my simply beautiful lifestyle, since that’s what you’ll be selling.”
She didn’t answer. She probably had her hand over the phone and was mouthing to her assistant about what a pain in the ass I was.
“I don’t know, Tara. I’d have to check my schedule before committing to going up there.”
“So check your schedule. I’ll hold on.”
No, I wasn’t being pushy. I just knew Amy, almost as well as I knew myself. When she wanted to do something, she jumped right in. When she didn’t, she dragged her feet.
Like the episode in sixth grade. I’d urged her to run for class president, since she was a straight-A student and very up on current affairs. I’d thought it would be good for her to show herself off more, to step into the limelight and out of my shadow, to let everyone see what I saw, which was a girl who was smart and capable, and fun, too, once you got past the serious side. Well, she couldn’t make a decision about whether to run, not for weeks. She kept stalling, said she felt awkward about going around bragging about herself and her accomplishments, said she wasn’t 100 percent sold on the idea. Eventually, the deadline for declaring candidacy arrived, and she still hadn’t made up her mind. Such a neurotic! I had to do something to keep the know-it-all kid with the buckteeth from winning, so I decided to run myself, figuring Amy could be my campaign manager. What was so horrible about that? You’d think I’d committed a crime, the way she treated me. No, she didn’t yell and scream—she never just came right out and told you how she felt; she was much too passive-aggressive for that—but she did act chilly around me. And all because I’d been trying to help her, for Christ’s sake. So now here she was, hedging about whether to drive to my house in Mamaroneck. It was a measly half hour away from her office, so what was the big deal? Once again, I was only trying to help her—in this case, to help her promote my book—but, as usual, she turned it around and made me out to be the villain.
“Let’s settle this,” I said. “Are you corning up or not?”
“Yes, yes. All right. We’ll meet at your house so I can get a closer look at your simply beautiful idiom.”
She didn’t even bother to disguise her contempt. “Good. I’ll have Michelle make us lunch.”
“Who’s Michelle?”
“My cook.” Michelle was actually my housekeeper, who happened to have a way with food. Thanks to Lasher’s, I always had a refrigerator full of gourmet treats, and she was much more clever about throwing them together than I was. One of the tenets of Simply Beautiful was to let others perform tasks for you, especially if they were better at them than you were.
“Your cook, huh? Well, I don’t eat peppers. Or anything with curry in it.”
“I remember. You don’t eat hearts of palm, either. You’re also allergic to penicillin, afraid of spiders, and fluent in French. And you’ve seen the movie Rebecca a hundred times. Oh, and we used to be best friends. I remember that, too.”
Silence. Like she couldn’t even acknowledge that we’d been as close as sisters. Stuart or no Stuart, had she forgotten all the nights she slept over at my house? Had it slipped her mind how my family took her on trips with us? Was she in denial about the fact that back when I was the blond prom queen, with everybody vying for a spot in my social circle, she was the one I let in, trusted, and, yes, loved?
Obviously, the answer was that she didn’t give a damn about me or what we had meant to each other. And so, as a result, I tried not to give a damn about her, either.
We finally agreed to have lunch the following week. I would have Michelle prepare us a lovely meal. I would make sure the house was a walking advertisement for the book. And I would see to it that Stuart wasn’t around for the festivities. There was no way I would allow Amy even to suspect that he and I were a disaster, or that my life, as it turned out, wasn’t simple or beautiful.
23
“Why can’t I stick around and say hello?” asked Stuart as I shoved him out the door the morning of the lunch with Amy.
“Because it’s a business meeting,” I said. “My business. Do I sit in on your meetings with the people who sell you Belgian endive?”
“You’re afraid I’ll embarrass you, is that it?”
“You already do embarrass me, Stuart, but let’s not get into that.”
He stroked my cheek. “Someday, after I’ve taken over Lasher’s and made more money than even you can spend, I won’t embarrass you anymore.”
I batted his hand away. “You could make more money than Bill Gates and you’d still embarrass me. You and your girlfriends. Or are you between women these days?”
“You’re the only woman for me, hon, and you always will be.” He laughed. “There. Wasn’t that a good-enough performance for Amy? I think it sounded pretty damn heartfelt.”
“You’d have to have an actual heart for it to sound heartfelt, Stuart. Now go.”
He gave me a little wave and left, thank God. The minute he was out the door, I ran around the house like a crazy person, getting everything ready. Yes, I wanted to impress Amy, to show her that, unlike prom queens who plateau once they move into adulthood, I had flourished over the years and was improving with age. But mostly, I
wanted to excite her about the book, to display all my ideas in such an appealing way that she would get right on the phone to her media contacts and rave about them. I needed her—her professional expertise, that is—and I was determined to win her over. No more hanging back. No more playing cat and mouse. I was going to wage a full-out assault on her, dazzle the hell out of her, make sure she promoted the book, regardless of our tangled history.
When I heard her car pull into the driveway, I rushed outside and launched my charm offensive.
“Amy,” I said, drawing her into a hug. The poor thing didn’t know what hit her. Yes, that was the ticket—strike before she could put up her defenses. “Thanks so much for coming, especially considering your busy, busy schedule.”
“No problem, Tara. L and T is really high on your book, so we want to do whatever it takes to get it on the best-seller list.”
“That’s terrific.” I flashed her a big smile even as I was thinking how badly she still dressed. Granted, the black suit was more than appropriate—very neat and businesslike—but the shoes! My God, did she buy them from the Salvation Army? I wondered. They were these clunky black pumps that were so scuffed, they looked as if she’d worn them mountain climbing. And the handbag? Well, suffice it to say that it was brown.
I escorted her inside the house and felt a twinge of pleasure as her eyes took it all in. And yet there was a moment—when she glanced wistfully at my wedding photo—when I wanted to slit my wrists from the guilt of it all.
