Lauren Takes Leave

by Gerstenblatt, Julie

  Leslie’s smile cracks for a second, and I worry that her feelings have been hurt. She quickly blinks away any shame by batting her false eyelashes at us.

  I get the sense that Leslie dressed this way in order to boss everyone around mercilessly and get away with it. It’s like wish fulfillment, the way teenage girls dress like little Playboy Bunnies and act slutty for a night on Halloween without sustaining much damage to their real, pure reputations the next day in school.

  I also get the sense that she has double-dosed on the drugs that control her manic-depression. She sometimes likes to do this when feeling festive, usually to negative effect.

  Producing a wooden paddle from behind the bushes, Leslie leans in toward Kat. Her long, fake ponytail sways menacingly. “Bitch!”

  “Yikes.” Kat takes a step away from Leslie and leans into me. “Why are we friends with her again?”

  “Bend over and let me paddle you, Katrina O’Connell. You must not speak negatively about Lady Hoochie. I rule. My word is law tonight!”

  “Oh, no, it isn’t!” Kat says, swerving out of the way in the nick of time and grabbing me as she heads through the front door.

  She steals a cocktail from a passing waiter wearing a tight black T-shirt that says Tasty, and tries to regain her composure. “Leslie’s a goddamned dominatrix!”

  “Well, it is her fortieth,” I smirk. My eyes focus on the large brass pole lit up in the center of the room, and I reach for a cocktail, too. “In a contest for crazy, between the three of us, I think she might win.”

  “Cheers to that,” Kat says, swallowing the pink concoction in one gulp. “I’m cool taking silver or bronze.”

  We see some people we know and make our way over to them. Like us, they are dressed nicely and are not decked out in any sort of costume. I am about to touch my forehead self-consciously, but stop myself just in time.

  “I’m going to pretend this event isn’t weird,” a woman named Jen says, picking up a tube of K-Y jelly off the buffet.

  “Good luck with that,” Kat says.

  “Is the K-Y for dipping the sushi into, or for use as a salad dressing?” I wonder aloud to no one.

  “Maybe it’s a condiment,” Kristen says. She has a daughter in Becca’s kindergarten class. “Like ketchup.” She winks and pretends to use it on her mini-cheeseburger. She’s kind of funny, actually.

  I watch Kat as she drops some condoms into her clutch purse. She shrugs. “Nothing wrong with taking some party favors.”

  I manage to enjoy a few teriyaki salmon skewers and another drink or two while Kat and I mill around the living and dining rooms, chatting with people we know.

  I feel my phone vibrate and check to see if the message is from Laney. Instead, it’s Doug. I motion to Kat and dismiss myself from the group, trying to find a quiet spot in Leslie’s office.

  Not that she works. But still, it’s nice to have an office, isn’t it? For all that scrapbooking she does?

  “Hey, Lauren, it’s me,” Doug’s message begins. I haven’t heard his voice all day, and the sound of it warms me a bit. He sounds tired. He must have had a long day. “Listen. I’ve had a really long day.” See how well I know my husband? “There’s a couple of really important issues that I didn’t get to complete. I had to push a meeting back, with this guy who is only in town until Friday morning… So…I’m going to have to cancel our date night tomorrow night. I’m sorry. Just thought I’d give you the heads-up now, in case you want to make other plans. Maybe go out with some friends. Or spend some time with Ben and Bec.” He tries to laugh, but it comes out more like a cough. “I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you. Promise.”

  And then he’s gone.

  “Those waiters are gorgeous,” Kat mentions as I rejoin the group. “Did you notice?”

  “Mmm. They must be models or actors for hire or something,” Kristen adds. “Not that I noticed that one over there with the smoldering good looks or anything.” He turns our way with an hors d’oeuvres tray and we all smile. His tight black T-shirt reads Try Me.

  “I didn’t notice him from the neck up. Too much to look at below.”

  I want to get back into the spirit of mockery, but after Doug’s call, the party just doesn’t feel the same. Disappointment clouds my vision. Instead of seeing a group of people to either make fun of or have fun with, I just feel tired of all this playacting that has become my life. I want to tell someone the truth: I haven’t had sex with Doug in a long, long time.

  “Damn, Kat! You need to get laid,” Kristen challenges.

  “Et tu, Brute. Et tu.” Then Kat turns to me, looking for a reaction. “Why didn’t you laugh at that? It was witty banter.”

  “Because.” I explain the phone call, then pause and try to form a truth that won’t reveal too much. “Doug and I never do anything together anymore. He doesn’t see me. I’m like the secretary in the waiting room of his life. Purely administrative.” I am thinking about crying some tears of the angry variety. But I try to will myself to keep it together.

  “You should paddle him when you get home. Then he’ll notice you.”

  I cock my head to the side and consider this. “Seems to work for Leslie.”

  “Although, as you may notice, her husband’s gone a lot of the time.”

  “Wouldn’t you travel for business any chance you could get if Leslie was your wife?”

  And with that, we decide to down a few mudslide shooters and check out the rest of the eats.

  “Bitchaaaas!” Lady Hoochie calls, signaling everyone to the living room.

  “Never gets old,” Kat says sarcastically. I roll my eyes as we reluctantly make our way toward chairs in the back row of the room, as far away from the dreaded pole as is humanly possible.

  “Bitches and Hot Mamas!” Leslie begins again, now that the crowd around her has thickened like her waistline. “I am delighted to have you here with me this evening to help usher in my next decade of fabulousness!” She tosses her hair and jiggles her thighs.

  There is a beat of awkward, embarrassed silence. Suddenly, people make up their minds to agree with her. Hoots, cheers, and catcalls follow.

  “Am I a bitch or a hot mama?” I want to know.

  Kat gives me a sideways glance. “That’s your question?”

  “I’m pretty sure that we’re out of medal contention this evening,” I add, as Leslie brings forth a woman of unknown origin.

  “Ladies and bitches,” Leslie slurs, raising a glass of something alcoholic and sweet, “I’d like you to help me welcome the first of tonight’s entertainers.”

  “The first?” I whisper.

  “Shh…this is getting good.” Kat strains to see over the heads of people seated in front of us. I can make out orange-tanned flesh, red lipstick, and wrinkles on the entertainer.

  “This gorgeous babe—”

  “Not,” Kat coughs.

  “—comes straight from the Playboy mansion—”

  “After a twenty-year detour,” Kat adds.

  “—to teach us all a little bit about…sex!” Leslie cheers. “It’s the one and only…Candy Cox!”

  “Woo-hoo!” Kat calls out to the silent room, standing up. “This sure beats ninth-grade health class, am I right?” Thirty women stare at her, bemused looks on their faces. “I mean, bitches, am I right?” The room explodes in applause and whistling.

  After a good minute of whooping, Kat sits, delighted with herself. She winks at me.

  “Some people just don’t get your humor,” I explain.

  “Yeah. My kindergarteners, for one.”

  “Still, that’s what makes it so beautiful to be around.”

  “To be in the moment and yet to make fun of the moment. That’s where my true talent lies.”

  We turn back to the center of the room, where Candy Cox is holding the largest dildo I’ve ever seen.

  “Is it my imagination, or did everyone just lean in a little closer?” the woman seated to my right jokes.

  “That’s all kin
ds of inappropriate,” Kristen says, staring at the slightly floppy, undulating mass in Candy’s hands.

  “Now, hot mamas,” Candy begins, “This is my show-and-share time, like in school.”

  “Just like.” Kat nods. She cannot help herself. On a good day, she’s compelled to create a snappy retort. But at an event like this? With such good material just waiting to be manipulated for her delight? I stop trying to restrain her.

  Candy starts passing sex toys around the room. “Don’t worry, ladies. Every one of you is going to get a chance to examine and feel these toys. And then I’ll tell you where you can put them! Dildos, vibrators, anal toys, balls, lubricants, ticklers, and condoms are among the surprises in my bag.”

  “I’ve heard of condoms!” a woman named Lexie jokes, leaning against a wall on the other side of the room, waving her hand in the air like she’s just won a prize.

  “Good for you, sweetie. Your husband must frequent the clubs along the Jersey Turnpike,” Candy replies matter-of-factly.

  Ouch. Lexie slumps down onto the floor.

  “Hey,” someone calls out to Candy. “Didn’t I see you on The New Newlyweds? You look so familiar!”

  “Indeed you did, hot thing. My husband and I dabble in reality TV, when we’re not making porn.”

  “Now, that’s a nice career. You don’t get stuck in a rut that way, like you do with tenure.” Kat stands and stretches. “I’m getting a refill. Anyone?” she asks, glancing around to the group of women seated closest to us.

  We shake our heads no and continue watching the entertainment.

  “I don’t usually start with the largest unit of the bunch, but I could tell that you wild ladies needed some stiff competition, if you know what I mean!”

  The ginormous faux penis is coming my way. “What is that made of?” I ask. “Does it have veins?”

  “I agree, it looks really authentic,” someone adds. “Except that it’s twenty times larger than my husband’s.”

  The dildo is being passed around the room like it’s a tray of turkey at Thanksgiving. It is that cumbersome. People have to put their whole upper torsos into maneuvering it around from person to person. My friend Susie holds it out to me, both palms extended upward. I mimic the gesture, and the thing sort of rolls onto my palms. It’s heavy and clammy to the touch, like a huge dead trout. Not that I’ve ever held a dead trout. Or one of these, come to think of it.

  “Huh,” is all I can muster before passing it on to Kristen.

  “Eyes up here, please!” Candy Cox sings, trying to tear us away from show-and-share time. A low hum of chatter fills the room as small groups of women giggle away their collective discomfort. “Ladies, if I could have your attention—”

  “Biiiiitchaaaaas!” Leslie—excuse me, Lady Hoochie—cracks her whip against a sofa table, sending pictures of her children flying. Immediate quiet descends over the room. “Listen and learn, hot mamas, and give your undivided attention to Candy Cox! I will not stand for misbehavior. Anyone who does not cooperate has to see me outside!”

  “Ooh…” arises from the crowd, on the verge of ridiculing Leslie. Who does she think she is? You can almost hear the partygoers ask it, souring the mood. But since no one wants to dare her to test her threat, we get mute pretty fast.

  “Raise your dildo if you think she’s taking this role-playing a tad seriously,” Kat whispers to whoever is in earshot. “Scoot over, I lost my seat,” she instructs. Susie moves down one and Kat settles in next to me again.

  Candy has the floor once more. “Like to pleasure yourself on the go? Looking for something compact, something great for travel?”

  Candy digs deep into her short-shorts and produces what looks like a lipstick.

  “I don’t see any pockets on those shorts,” Susie says.

  She has a point. Unfortunately.

  “It looks like a lipstick, doesn’t it, ladies?” Candy asks.

  Several women nod their heads, trying to be diligent pupils.

  “But not everything is what it seems…” She pulls off the top and flips some microscopic switch. A tiny buzz fills the room. Candy smiles and holds it out for all to see, rotating her palm this way and that. “Ingenious, am I right?”

  “What is it?” Susie whispers.

  As if on cue, Candy responds, “It’s a lipstick vibrator! Carry it in your purse, take it wherever you go!” She sends it around the room as her lecture continues. “How many times have you been having dinner, bored by the company, thinking about getting off—”

  “Every Sunday at Grandma’s,” Kat murmurs.

  “But, with the lipstick vibrator, all you have to do is grab your purse and excuse yourself to the powder room—”

  “Okay, it’s officially time for me to leave.” Kristen stands and gives a halfhearted wave in our direction. “Tell Hoochie I said good-bye, will you?”

  “But…you’ll miss the pole dancing!” I counter.

  “Thank God for small favors,” she says, and is off.

  Susie is now in possession of one of the tiny vibrators being sent around, and is playing with the hidden switch. “It’s kind of cute!” she says, watching it move in small circles.

  Kat raises her eyebrows, turns to me, and mouths, “I might need one of those.”

  I can only hope she’s kidding.

  After twenty more minutes of pure shock value, Candy starts packing up her toys. “Well, that was sooooo much fun! I’ll be here the rest of the night, in Lady Hoochie’s office, for one-on-one consultations and to take your orders. I take all major credit cards and am running a special right now through AmEx. Double points.”

  “I wonder if she accepts Saks or Neiman’s,” Kat jokes.

  “Oh, by the way,” Candy adds, “lingerie is on display in Lady Hoochie’s daughter’s room, just past the stairs.”

  “Damn! I might have to buy something now,” Susie complains. She heads toward the lingerie and I follow her. “I’m close to earning two first-class airline tickets through American Express.”

  “Where are Leslie’s kids?” Suze asks.

  “At their grandma’s in Rye. And Steven is at a boys’ night in AC.”

  We enter baby Bethany’s room, which has now been taken over by racks of cheap lingerie.

  “Baby Bethany’s Bimbo Emporium,” Kat declares, surprising us from behind. “I really like what she’s done with the place.”

  We wander around and examine the merch. I’m kind of afraid to touch any of it, since drunk women are trying on all manner of crotchless panties in the bathroom across the hall and then placing them back on the racks when they’re done. Some, I notice, are just leaving the lace bras and nighties on. There seems to be a direct correlation between alcohol intake and clothing offtake.

  A waiter passes by with a tray of Jell-O shots, and Kat and I eat a few. “I think this party wouldn’t suck so bad if we were even drunker,” I tell her.

  “Okay.” She shrugs. “Let’s see how that works out.”

  “Hi, guys,” a voice calls. Kat and I turn away from the Jell-O to find Shay Greene walking toward us.

  “Funny, I just saw her the other day,” I tell Kat. “She was running for some kind of office or something. Hadley School Board.”

  “No shit?” Kat asks, sort of rhetorically. She’s too taken by Shay’s entrance to utter any more. I know this because, well, so am I.

  Shay seems to be moving toward us in slow motion, like a model in a diet soda commercial. Her long, golden locks sway like wheat in a field; her thin, perfectly muscular yogalates body is draped in shimmering, one-shouldered, pale-pink silk. Shay’s husband, the renowned Hadley dentist, has created for her a perfect set of teeth, which she now flashes at us in a friendly hello.

  They’re the kind of teeth that look real and yet look too good to be true at the same time, which, before I knew about her husband’s profession, always made me wonder if she’d just gotten the luckiest genes ever.

  Because Shay is perfect. She’s gorgeous and nice to
everyone. She’s even smart, with a law degree from Columbia. Shay and her husband have tow-headed ten-year-old twins—boy and girl, of course—and they live in a big (but not garishly huge) 1930s brick-front colonial with original crown molding throughout.

  Not that I’ve ever been there. But that’s the word on the street.

  Shay works as a consultant to women starting their own businesses—when she isn’t chairing some fundraiser for the schools, libraries, and local hospitals, that is, or running for the school board.

  Kat and I gawk for the merest split second, because how can we not? Shay’s our grown-up world’s version of the prettiest cheerleader, the alpha girl. I always feel a bit awestruck in her presence.

  So, Shay and Kat and I start talking about the district’s budget plans, which, ordinarily, would cause us to roll our eyes at and stifle some yawns, like we do at faculty meetings. But when Shay talks, her brows lift animatedly, showing off a wash of silver eye shadow that sparkles so appealingly that I find myself nodding in harmony with Kat and learning a thing or two about the newly piloted foreign language program at the high school.

  Then Shay says, “Hey, why don’t we all do some shots of tequila?” Kat and I are really pretty drunk already, but we say, “Okay, Shay,” because her charisma, intelligence, and flawless blend of custom-blended foundation compel us to.

  While Shay is hunting for the necessary supplies in Leslie’s pantry, Kat and I discuss. “Shay-sa-may-zing,” Kat slurs. “It’s so not fair.”

  “I can’t stop staring at her butt,” I admit. And I don’t just mean tonight. I mean always. Whenever I see it around town. Her tush is perfectly high and slightly bubble-shaped. It’s bouncy in her Lululemon spandex Wunder Under cropped pants, yet appropriately demure peeking out from under a Theory pantsuit. It’s like the ass of a teenager, only Shay’s got to be close to forty.

  Not to dwell, but tonight she’s wearing white jeans that hug the curve of her toned backside and look sexy without looking slutty. Not sure how she pulls that off.

  Her butt is my butt’s hero and, simultaneously, its archenemy.

  So the next thing we know, Shay’s back with some salt and limes and Cuervo, and we’re preparing the shot’s ritual. I put a line of salt on my right hand, ready to begin.