Lauren Takes Leave

by Gerstenblatt, Julie

“You see, we thought you were going to sue us! Blackmail us!” I say.

  “Blackmail us and then sue us!” Kat adds.

  “You left us no choice,” I say. “Please—don’t kill us. We are so very sorry.”

  We all freeze while Leslie ponders her next move. Her eyes are large and, at first, blank. Then they seem to fill with tears. In the intervening seconds, Kat moves closer to Leslie, which seems counter-intuitive to me. If you want to avoid being punched in the nose, I would think you would move your nose out of the way.

  But no, Kat’s right in there, kind of studying Leslie’s face, her head cocked sideways, her nose extremely close to Leslie’s jaw line, as if she knows exactly what she’s going to find. She even extends her pointer finger at the red-and-white CVS baggie-bonnet and kind of pokes around under Leslie’s chin, inadvertently loosening the bow.

  “Fascinating,” she says, stepping back toward us.

  “What’s that?” Leslie asks.

  “You almost can’t tell.”

  “Can’t tell what?” I ask.

  “That Leslie has a man beard. It requires constant attention so as not to ever appear stubbly.”

  “Hey!” Leslie shouts.

  Kat keeps talking over her.

  “Depilatories, razors, waxes, potions and lotions, you’ve got to be vigilant, right Leslie?”

  We all turn to Leslie, trying to figure out if Kat’s words are true.

  Leslie’s face is a car wreck of emotion, from first impact to crunch of metal to airbags deploying in order to keep her psyche safe from this barrage.

  Kat speaks on. “Monitoring all that facial hair requires you to peer at your reflection in that goose-necked vanity mirror—equipped with nanny cam—formerly at home on your bathroom counter—several times a day, to see if any whiskers need plucking…”

  Leslie lets out a deep, painful groan, much like the sound of a grizzly bear whose foot is caught in a steel trap, then lunges her full weight at Kat.

  Jodi gracefully dance-steps aside to let Leslie pass, and raises her right hand overhead like a bullfighter ready to take on a changing animal. That hand then comes down on Leslie’s head and snatches the plastic bag from it, whipping Leslie’s neck back a little as the bag gets free.

  That moment gives Kat enough time to move out of danger. Well, she’s now standing behind me and clutching my forearms protectively, using me as a human shield.

  “You’ll have to break through Lauren first!” Kat says.

  I hold my umbrella out over Kat; at the very least, I can protect her from the rain.

  “Yeah…I don’t think that’s gonna help you,” I say. “Plus, nice friend you are.”

  Kat whispers behind my back, “Shay’s the one who called during the funeral. She watched the videos.”

  “Yeah, got that.” This is great news, although potentially embarrassing. “Did she say how much she watched?”

  “What have you done?” Leslie whispers, turning back to Jodi. Then, louder, “Look at what you’ve done!”

  Kat and I face Jodi and Leslie, both forms now fully exposed to the weather. Jodi is wearing a triumphant grin, one sopping wet hand placed defiantly on one sopping wet hip. Leslie is crouched over, holding her head in her hands, trying to protect her hair from the rivulets of rainwater that are soaking into it.

  “I’m frizzing! I’m frizzing!” she cries, kneeling on the ground, the raw grief of the moment making it impossible for her to stay erect.

  Kat and I look on, confused.

  “Simple fashionista science, people,” Jodi explains, circling Leslie’s form. The clingy black gown trails behind her theatrically as Leslie weeps on the ground, engulfed by her black raincoat and the wetness of defeat. “The well-known Keratin hair treatment is an expensive—albeit highly effective—solution for those not blessed with naturally glossy hair like mine.” Jodi tries but fails to toss her hair over her shoulder, because it’s now drenched and plastered to her head. “This process turns unruly, kinky hair absolutely shiny and straight. But!” Here she stops and looks at Kat and me, her eyes shimmering with knowledge. “It only works if you keep your hair completely dry for the first four days after treatment. No sweating, no condensation from showers, and absolutely…no…rain.”

  “So, we, like, messed up her hair?” Kat asks. “That’s it?”

  “That’s not just it!” Leslie says, picking her head up and sitting back on the grass, her hair a tangled mess, some of which is now sticking to the ointment on her totaled face.

  “My treatment went beyond Keratin, Jodi. It’s way botanical and toxic, and some of the most potent ingredients come from an island in the Pacific Ocean. This magical hair-straightening treatment is only currently available in two underground locations in the United States, because it hasn’t received FDA approval yet and probably never will. I can only undergo the process seven times ever before it will give me cancer!” She gathers her strength and stands, looking like she’s going to implode. “And you just wasted one of them!”

  “Wait,” Jodi says. “Did you have the infamous Galapagos Straightening?”

  Leslie nods.

  “I am so sorry I messed that up,” Jodi says. “I had no idea.”

  “That’s the problem with your little gang, isn’t it?” Leslie says, as if some deep understanding has just clicked into focus. “You always have no idea! You’re always so sorry after the fact, apologizing after you ruin my face, and after you steal from my house, and after you destroy my hair!”

  She’s kind of got a point there.

  “You people are so mean!”

  Two points, perhaps.

  “And…and…you are ruining my life!”

  Well, that might be exaggeration.

  “I thought that we were friends,” she sighs, her voice a tiny echo of sound.

  Jodi, Kat, and I are shamed into silence.

  “Excuse me?” A gentlemanly southern voice calls from a few feet below the hilly knoll where we are standing. “Ladies? If I may?”

  “Is that…?” Jodi asks.

  “Oh yeah!” I say, snapping back to attention. “That’s what I came to tell you. Tim’s here. He and Lenny came for the funeral.” I shrug, like, sorry, it slipped my mind, what with all the bitch slapping.

  I lower my umbrella to the ground because the rain, of course, has stopped for Tim Cubix. It’s as if his whole life exists on a back-lot Hollywood sound stage, with directors creating mood through weather and light.

  We squint into the sudden glare of sun on wet pavement and watch, starry-eyed, as Tim saunters toward us in a worn leather jacket over a gray T-shirt and jeans.

  “Is that…?” Leslie asks, echoing Jodi.

  Tim reaches our motley crew and looks around, nodding his head at Kat, Jodi, and me while trying unsuccessfully to hide a smile. Which means I get the benefit of full-on dimples.

  Sunday just got a whole lot better.

  And then he speaks. “What’s that saying? You can take the women out of the Miami heat, but you can’t take the Miami heat out of the women?”

  “Something like that,” Jodi smirks. She twists the water out of her hair and ties it into a slick, gorgeous bun. “Thanks for coming, Lex. And for your generous message and donation last night.” Tim waves her gratitude away, perhaps trying to make light of his embarrassment of riches. His eyes sweep over the rest of us.

  “Hi,” he says, extending his hand to a grotesque looking, completely humiliated Leslie. “I’m Tim.”

  Chapter 38

  “It was the craziest scene, Doug, and you missed it,” I say, sliding into the passenger seat of our car. Only, when I turn to look at Doug in the driver’s seat, he’s not there.

  “Doug?” I call out, like he could be somewhere in our car without me noticing him, or like maybe he just didn’t hear me the first time.

  I get back out of the car and look down the private drive that meanders through the cemetery grounds. There are only a few cars left from the funeral procession an
d no sign of Doug standing about. During the pounding of the rain and the chaos of the quarrel with Leslie, I sort of forgot where I was. But in the wake of that emotional and physical storm, a placid hush has descended on the property. I gaze across the cemetery and down the soft, green hill dotted with tombstones, and breathe deeply, sending one final farewell—and an apology or two—to Sonia Goldberg.

  On the third ring of my cell phone call to Doug, one of the back doors to Tim’s limousine opens, and Doug steps out. He holds his cell phone up. “You rang?”

  I click the “end call” button and walk toward him, my stomach roiling nervously. Has Doug been sitting in the backseat of a stretch limo with MC Lenny this whole time?

  And if so, why? What in fuck’s sake have they got to talk about besides…me?

  It doesn’t help my intestines to see that he’s smirking, like he’s got a secret. Or like he’s very pleased with himself. Or both, like he’s got a secret that pleases him very much.

  Oh no, he’s murdered Lenny.

  He’s murdered Lenny in the back of Tim Cubix’s fancy ride, and now we’ll all be going to jail together to live forever in one large pen like at the end of Seinfeld.

  “…and so, while I was talking to my bookkeeper on the phone about this problem we’re having making payroll this month, I looked out the window and saw…” Doug stops to look at me. “Lauren, are you even listening?”

  “Nah…not really,” I admit. “I’m a little freaked out right now, creating Armageddon scenarios.”

  “Lauren,” he says, extending his hands toward mine. He clasps our hands together as we stand face-to-face, as if we are saying our wedding vows. “I have a few things to tell you. I haven’t been…well, it’s complicated really, but…what it comes down to is that”—and here he inhales and exhales deeply before continuing—“I have not been completely honest with you.”

  My first thought, bizarre as it seems, is one of satisfaction, in an I knew it kind of way. It’s like all of my worst fears and darkest daydreams of where Doug has been these past few months have been confirmed. So, as much as I want to get angry at him for lying to me, my primary emotion is actually self-congratulatory for sensing that something was way off with us.

  Then I mimic his deep inhale-exhale and ask. “Who is she?”

  “My bookkeeper.”

  Doug’s bookkeeper is a seventy-eight-year-old, white-haired librarian type who wears orthopedic shoes and smells of talcum powder and clove cigarettes. She’s like Betty White’s younger, less funny sister.

  “You’re sleeping with Dorothy?”

  “Sleeping with…?” Then his face explodes into laughter as he grabs onto a mental image probably similar to the one I’ve just created. “My God! No! Lauren, what kind of person do you think I am?”

  “A gerophiliac?”

  “You just made that term up.”

  “Yes, I did. Right here on the spot.”

  “Lauren, your imagination needs a vacation. The rest of you does not. Now listen,” he says, placing his hands firmly on my shoulders as if to keep me from running away again. “I’ve been having some…financial trouble with the company, and the bank refused to give me another loan until I’d paid back the first.”

  “I thought you paid back the first one in September,” I say.

  “I tried to.” He pauses, and I watch his face as he searches for the next words. “But it turned out that I needed the money to pay the rent on the office space, and then payroll was due, and then quarterly taxes were due and, still, my clients were paying me in bits and pieces, with no one project coming in at a big enough profit margin to ever get ahead and…things just snowballed. So, no, I haven’t been able to pay the bank back yet.”

  “Oh, Doug.” I mentally begin adding up the money I spent frivolously in the past few days and estimating it at about $5,000. My stomach drops into my bowels.

  “Since Dorothy is in charge of the company’s books, she saw where things were headed, which was basically into bankruptcy, and she came to me one night after work with a proposition.” He pauses and raises an eyebrow at me mockingly. “Not of the sexual nature.”

  “Ha,” I say, meaning, get on with your story and let’s not pause for comic relief.

  “So, long story short, Dorothy has been a private investor for me since September, loaning me a good deal of her own inheritance and retirement money to help me get out from under, thus avoiding having creditors come after us and take away our house as collateral for unpaid bills.”

  Our house?

  “Can you really be that bad at business?” I ask, rather unkindly. “And that careless? To put our home at risk?”

  Doug looks contrite, but speaks defensively. “That’s what you have to do when you start your own business, Lauren! Put up something of value as collateral.”

  “Don’t snap at me!” I snap at Doug. I take a moment to compose myself, then continue at a lower volume. “You never even discussed that part with me. I had no idea.”

  “I know, I know.” He scratches his head with his right hand. “I had it in my head that I wasn’t lying to you if you hadn’t asked me about something directly. I thought it was okay to gloss over the everyday accounting problems because…well, I guess I thought I could handle it myself, and that it would straighten itself out, and that I didn’t want you to worry. As you well know, there’s a fine line between withholding information and lying.”

  “Don’t twist this around and make it about me!” I say. “That’s not a fair comparison.”

  He raises his eyebrows at me questioningly.

  “Okay, fine. It’s a perfect comparison,” I say. I look up the hill to where Kat, Jodi and Leslie are still talking with Tim.

  That particular group assembled on the hill is like a study in the art of withholding information. Tim pulled a disappearing act from the set of Croc of Lies and didn’t tell Ruby where he was. Jodi consistently skims off the fat of Lee’s profitable business and uses it as her own “salary,” and Leslie does everything within her power to make sure that her husband never discovers that she has more facial hair than he does. And Kat? She lied to herself, which is maybe the worst of all, by pretending that teaching kindergarten and being married to Peter would lead her to the life she thought she wanted.

  Every one of us has found ways to skew the truth to fit our purposes. It’s not always the moral choice, or the most mature, but perhaps, in the moment of decision-making, it seems completely necessary.

  I look at Doug and try to see this mess from his point of view. “I think you didn’t want me to know the truth and to judge you. You didn’t want me to be mad at you.”

  Doug shakes his head in disagreement. “It’s not anger I worried about…more like…I didn’t want you to be disappointed in me. And I couldn’t admit that I was failing. That my company was failing. That I am a failure.”

  “Oh, Doug,” I say again, this time with compassion. “Your company might fail, but that does not mean that you are a failure.” I put my head against his chest and hear the thrump-thrump of his heart.

  “What’s that you just said, Worthing? Repeat after me: nobody’s a failure,” MC Lenny says, emerging from the stretch limo and stretching. “Certainly not a client of mine like your husband here.”

  “A what?” I ask, looking from Doug to Lenny and back again.

  “He’s right. A client,” Doug reiterates. “I saw Lenny get out of the limo with Tim Cubix, and, once my initial shock at that passed, and once my initial interest in busting Lenny’s ball sack passed, too, I remembered: rapping aside, Lenny is a pretty well-known accountant in the city.”

  “CPA by day, RAP by night, though not for much longer, I hope,” Lenny says.

  “Just long enough to get me out of this jam,” Doug adds.

  “And…did I mention how I’m going to do that?” A sly smile creases the corners of Lenny’s mouth.

  “With some…magical accounting skills, I’m guessing?” I say.

  “Inc
luding some creative restructuring of my company and another loan from a different bank?” Doug adds.

  “Nah, guys. Think out of the box. Think…Hollywood,” Lenny says cryptically.

  And just like that, almost as if on cue from an unseen director, Tim walks over and joins us.

  “Interesting threesome,” Tim whispers to me, sending chills down my spine. I laugh and try to make light of his comment, because the last thing I need Doug to know is that Tim knows that I kissed Lenny in Miami. That’s like TMI times a million, when a megastar’s got inside info on where your wife’s tongue has been before you do. Instead, I make introductions. Tim to Doug, Doug to Tim.

  “Hey,” Doug coughs out, extending his hand for a manly shake.

  “Hey, dude. It’s great to finally put the face to the name,” Tim says warmly. “Your wife is a great person.”

  “Yup,” Doug says. “Although I prefer when she doesn’t flat out lie to me and then bolt, abandoning me and my kids and risking her livelihood in the process.”

  “True, that,” Tim says. “Ruby’s always on the run. Namibia one day, Cannes the next. It’s annoying.” He shrugs. “You know, women.”

  That shuts Doug up pretty quick.

  “Hey, Tim,” Lenny says, “did I mention that Doug here is a talented graphic designer with his own boutique shop in the city?”

  “Really?” Tim says, studying Doug.

  Doug merely nods. I want to kick him into high gear, bring out the salesman smooth talker that Doug can be when he gets excited about his work. Instead, his cheeks are flushed and he’s scratching his neck nervously.

  Okay, maybe that’s just how I was when I first met Tim, too.

  “Totally cutting-edge facility,” Lenny adds, seeing that Doug might not jump in here. “He used to work with some guys out in LA at Imaginary Forces. Doug’s shop can handle lots of specialized motion graphics for movie titles and trailers, plus amazing collateral materials in print, like posters and bus-wrap signage.”

  Lenny knows all this stuff because I complained to him for hours on end via Facebook about Doug’s new solo venture and his subsequent workaholic schedule.