The Best Laid Plans (2 page)

“Hey, lady, get your hand out of Cleopatra’s butt!” a security guard bellows from across the room. Sienna snatches the makeshift cleaning rag out of my hand and brandishes it like a white flag.

“Stop worrying, will you?” she says.

“I can’t, there are too many things that can go wrong. Will people notice that the linen is folded to look like pyramids? Will they like the music, the lighting, the food? Oh lord, you should have heard the fights the benefit committee members
had over the food! I had to deal with locavores, who won’t eat anything grown out of their zip code. Then there was the raw foodist who insisted that nothing we serve be heated above one hundred sixty degrees.”

Sienna walks over to the bar and asks for a gin and tonic. “Did you run into any of the calorie reduction people? My producer swears that eating as little as possible will help you get to be a hundred.” Sienna tosses the lime wedge out of her drink and takes a sip. “Frankly, I’m not sure that a life without alcohol is worth living.”

“Well, don’t get me started on the serving pieces. One woman insisted that we couldn’t use paper because it gets dumped in landfills. Another, that we’d waste a ton of energy running the dishwasher if we had glasses. We finally settled on disposable cups made from biodegradable cornstarch and sugarcane plates. I’m just praying that none of the guests is diabetic.”

Sienna laughs. “You know it’s just a party.”

“It’s not, it’s a party to do something about global warming,” I snap defensively. “Aren’t you worried that our country pumps more carbon dioxide into the air than any other country in the world? I know I am! I’ve switched all of our light-bulbs to LEDs. I make Peter and the girls turn off their computers at night. And I’m lobbying for our co-op to do something about clean energy, although I’m meeting strong resistance from the president of the board—he keeps insisting that ‘Putting solar panels on our beautiful Beaux Arts building would be like wrapping the
Pietà
in tinfoil.’ But I’m trying. This is not ‘just a party’!”

“Okay, okay, don’t get so excited. I did a thirty-second satellite interview with George Clooney about glob …” Sienna says, and then she pauses. “This isn’t about me having a job and your not, is it?”

“No, of course not. I never had a job worth liking and Molly and Paige are the best thing that ever happened to me. I love being a stay-at-home mom. I know it’s a luxury and I’m grateful for Peter’s generous paycheck. And if that makes me an M&M, I’m proud to wear the badge.”

“A what?”

“An M&M, a woman who’s into Mothering and Maintenance. Growing up, I never could have imagined that I’d know an Eames chair from an IKEA knockoff or an alpha-beta peel from the alphabet. Or that I’d care about myself enough to care. Besides,” I say lightly, “not all of us can be big deal TV anchors.”

“I’m a local TV anchor and there’s enough competition out there already. Do you know how many twentysomethings with Katie Couric haircuts are yapping at my heels, trying to push me out of that anchor chair?” Defiantly, Sienna tosses back her thick auburn mane of shoulder-length waves.

“I think Katie Couric’s hair is
dreadful
,” I tell her loyally.

“Thanks. And I’m glad that you’re married. Can you imagine me hosting Thanksgiving? Besides, as an old married lady you’re still enthralled by my dating stories.” She pulls out a gold compact to reapply her lip gloss.

“Well, who wouldn’t be? The Russian billionaire. The accidental real estate mogul—although explain that to me again. How do you ‘accidentally’ end up owning eighty buildings and a small Greek island?”

“Poker. A five-card flush.”

“Anyway, my favorite was Alonzo, the assistant nursery school teacher.”

“Mine too. We made wild, passionate love and then he’d read me a bedtime story until I fell asleep. No, marriage isn’t for me,” Sienna says decisively, snapping shut the compact. “But it seems to agree with you. You and Peter, the marriage,
it’s per—really good,” she says, remembering not to use the P word. “But I’m between boyfriends at the moment so don’t dare tell me how you two still have the hots for each other, okay?”

Not lately, I think, scratching my head trying to remember the last time my good-looking husband and I made love. I’ve been busy with the benefit and Peter has seemed a little distracted lately. Still, on the plus side, he has been around a lot more. Peter used to barely make it through the door in time to kiss the girls goodnight, but these days he’s home every night before six, sitting right next to us on the couch as we watch Sienna on the news. Good for him. Maybe my alpha-male hubby is finally learning to delegate some of those details that used to keep him chained to his desk 24/7 to the firm’s junior brokers. As for sex, right after I get this benefit out of the way I’ll have to make it my next priority. Maybe I’ll buy some luscious new nighties or pick up some of those erotic massage oils my manicurist is so wild about (as soon as I check whether jasmine and rose are the aphrodisiacs—or the diuretics). I’m sure I can turn up the heat in the bedroom. Besides, I muse, as a big smile crosses my face just picturing them, I love Peter and our fourteen-year-old twins, Paige and Molly. And then, before I have a chance to think about it, the words come tumbling out of me.

“I like my life. I’m happy.”

Talk about tempting fate! Someone says, “What a beautiful vase,” and next thing you know, it breaks. A compliment on your new outfit? Just means you’re going to be spilling coffee all over it. Say your life is going well and … “Pooh, pooh,” I cry, quickly adding the Yiddish “
kineahora
” to ward off the evil eye. “Garlic, we need some garlic,” I say to a passing waiter, “and maybe some raw chicken eggs …”

“Oh sweetie, relax, it’s okay, you’ve earned it. You deserve
to be happy,” Sienna says firmly. She pauses, and I hear an uncharacteristic catch in her mellifluous TV-newscaster voice. “We all do.”

“Something wrong?”

“No, nothing we need to talk about now,” Sienna recovers. Then she walks over to the coatroom and retrieves a small blue velvet pouch. Opening it, I pull out a beautiful turquoise necklace with a pendant in the shape of a scarab.

“How did you know?”

“That the Egyptians believe the beetle is a good omen? Please, do you think I don’t know the real reason why your first car was a Volkswagen?” she teases.

“It’s gorgeous.”

“For luck,” Sienna says, stepping behind me to fasten the chain around my neck.

“For luck.” I close my eyes and clasp the amulet’s cool inscribed stone in my hand. For the first time all day I feel almost calm. There’s a small commotion in the hallway as a handful of guests arrive. I take a deep breath, tilt my head back, and stride confidently toward the front of the museum. Then as I take my place on the receiving line I hear a light
ping
. I look down just in time to see the stone scarab fall off the delicate gold chain and hit the ground.

T
HE OVERHEAD LIGHTS
dim to a face-flattering level and a laser show bounces off the Egyptian statues. In the glow of the blue and yellow strobes the boy pharaoh Tut and the goddess Isis are the true king and queen of the gala. Although, in their party coverage,
The New York Times
(which is struggling for a younger demographic) is sure to anoint the honor to a couple in the room who are several thousand years younger. The eighteen-piece orchestra swings into a medley of Sondheim
tunes and our attractive waitstaff, dressed in crisp navy uniforms designed by season three’s
Project Runway
winner, spread out across the cavernous room carrying papyrus-lined trays—the chef has prepared avocado wasabi wraps, salmon carpaccio, and chicken tarragon over artichoke bottom canapés that, I’m assured, are to die for.

For a blessed seventeen minutes everything goes smoothly. But then, as if on cue, the sky turns an ominous black and blue and a bolt of thunder crashes against the skylights. Within seconds, buckets of rain are pounding against the temple’s fragile-looking glass wall and I envision leaks of biblical proportions. I try reminding myself that rain can be lucky, but that’s at a wedding and besides, what the hell else are you going to say to the bride?
You’ve just spent a hundred thousand dollars on “the most magical day of your life” and you’re going to look like you shared a hairstylist with Art Garfunkel
. And speaking of Art Garfunkel, where is Paul Simon’s less famous former partner, anyway? This benefit was a hot ticket, sold out months ago, but now there’s not even a B-list celebrity in sight. None of Peter’s fat cat clients who promised to stop by are here, and neither, except for a couple of secretaries he gave free tickets to, is anyone from Peter’s office. Or Peter, for that matter. Not to mention that, judging by the homespun look of the guests’ outfits, only the environmentalists were tough enough to brave the storm.

I point to a woman in black pants and a turquoise T-shirt with the slogan THIS IS ORGANIC! emblazoned across her boobs.

“I ask you”—Sienna sighs dramatically—“when-oh-when will Carolina Herrera make sustainable cocktail dresses? Is Karl Lagerfeld never going to come out with a line of socially conscious ballroom gowns? It’s commendable that these gals
are into saving the planet—but couldn’t they reduce the carbon footprint in a pair of Jimmy Choos?”

“I’m wearing Louboutins, isn’t that even better?” my friend Olivia says gaily. She’s one of the group of neighborhood M&Ms I meet every morning for lattes and I’m grateful to see she’s with the whole gang.

“I’m so glad you came!” I say, exuberantly embracing the four women.

Melissa, a class mother at Paige and Molly’s school, reaches out for my hand.

“We’re here for you, Tru,” she says meaningfully.

“That’s right,” says Pamela, the PTA president and unofficial group leader. “Whatever you need.” Then she grabs Melissa’s elbow and steers my neighborhood friends off in the opposite direction.

What was that all about? I think. I’m glad they’re all here, but what is with all the emotional sighing? I take out my cellphone to call Joan Rivers—a tornado wouldn’t keep
her
away from the opening of an envelope—when a woman leans in and fingers my wispy Escada gown.

“Pity,” she says, tugging at the fabric with the glint in her eye of a mama bear about to eat her young. “That dress you’re wearing is so very pretty. Too bad blue’s such a terrible color for you.”

The woman herself is wearing a too-tight gold lamé gown with a jeweled collar and a banged, bobbed black wig. Her eyes are rimmed in smoky black kohl, Cleopatra-style.

“Hi, Mom,” I say nervously, as Naomi reaches around my back and digs her nails into my vertebrae.

“Truman, shoulders up!” My mother, as usual, is standing ramrod straight and she turns toward the center of the room like a heat-seeking missile. “I’m so very, very glad to be here
tonight,” she says, gazing past me to address a small group of startled onlookers. “Anything to support my daughter, the chairperson of this wonderful event. And of course, anything, anything at all I can do to help the global warming.”

Like turn on her air conditioner? Naomi thinks climate change is what happens when you fly from New York to Miami. I’m just scanning the room for a volunteer to take Naomi off my hands when I’m distracted by a low growl. I swivel around to see Avery Peyton Chandler, the pouffed-haired trophy wife of a Texas oil tycoon. She campaigned hard to be the chair of the global warming fund-raiser and when the committee picked me instead, Avery Peyton Chandler was fit to be tied.

Avery Peyton (who’s never referred to by less than at least two of her names), is decked out in a low-cut hot pink satin gown that’s almost as attention grabbing as my mother’s, although her dress comes from Donatella Versace, not the local Halloween store. Much to my horror Avery Peyton Chandler and Naomi exchange the instant recognition of kindred, if competitive, spirits and I smell axis-of-evil potential in their budding alliance. Then, damn, I hear that low, snarling hiss again. Even if she’s grinning like a Cheshire, the growl isn’t coming from Avery Peyton.

“For you, Tru,” Avery Peyton drawls, as she reaches into an oversized bag to give me a small token of appreciation. A cat—a very, very black cat—that she’s somehow smuggled into the museum.

The ancient Egyptians liked black cats, the ancient Egyptians liked black cats, the ancient Egyptians liked black cats
, I chant silently—although I’m a modern American and I’m scared out of my wits. Plus my throat is starting to close up. Avery Peyton Chandler tries to foist the feline on me and I jump about fifty feet.

“What’s the matter, Tru?” asks Avery Peyton in a voice so treacly Rachael Ray could whip it into a meringue.

“
Uh, uh, huh
!” I gasp. “Can’t talk. Cat’s got my,
u-huh
, lung.”

“Nonsense, he’s nonallergenic. An Egyptian hairless, isn’t that just too priceless? I simply had to bring him!”

I’ve read about these cats. I don’t know if they live up to their no-wheeze, no-sneeze promise. Though if you ask me, their price—$4,000—is enough to take anyone’s breath away.