The Best Laid Plans (25 page)

M
Y “NEW DAY”
doesn’t start until late in the afternoon—after I’ve napped, showered, and headed downtown to meet Sienna. Between my efforts to economize and how busy I’ve been lately it’s been ages since I’ve had any kind of special beauty treatment, but Sienna says that she’s heard this new one is a must. And, she adds, it’s tax-deductible.

“It’s called the ‘Geisha Facial,’ ” Sienna chirps, assuring me that given our line of work, the IRS will consider this a business expense.

I start to protest. “A geisha’s not a courtesan. They entertain men, they don’t actually sleep with them.” And more important, no one’s supposed to know what our line of work
is
. But as I sink into the comfortable white leather treatment chair I’m willing to suspend any discussions about our need for anonymity or our disagreement over her Madame XXX blog for a truce-filled hour of pampering.

The lights are low, Japanese flute music is humming in the
background, and two pretty young technicians, Suki and Yuna, come over to introduce themselves.

“You relax,” says Suki, as they position our chairs so that Sienna and I are lying with our heads comfortably tilted back. I close my eyes and Suki gently strokes my face with a warm washcloth. Then she taps my forehead and my cheekbones with her own fingertips so soothingly that I nearly fall asleep.

“Hmm,” I sigh luxuriously. “This was a good idea.”

“Now comes the best part,” says Yuna as I open my eyes long enough to see her pouring a stream of white powder into a bowl. She adds a few drops of water and vigorously mixes the concoction with a porcelain pestle. When she’s satisfied that the potion is perfect, she applies a thick mask of paste all over Sienna’s face and neck, and Suki does the same to me.

“It tingles,” says Sienna. “In a good way. What is this stuff anyway?”

“Very special.” Suki giggles. “Is called
Ugui su no fun.
”

“No fun? I’m having lots of fun,” I say, as Sienna, ever the reporter, presses the duo for details.

“You don’t know before you come?” Yuna says. “It is the special facial of the geisha, to exfol, exfoli …”

“Exfoliate?” Sienna says helpfully.

“Yes, thank you. It ex-fol-i-ates, takes away the dead layers. The geishas, they wore so much heavy thick makeup, they needed something extra-special to clean the skin. It is made from the nightingale.”

“From a nightingale?” Sienna, an active PETA member, asks, alarmed that an animal might have been hurt in the name of beauty.

“No, no, not to worry. It is external part of the nightingale. It is made from the nightingale’s poop.”

“Nightingale’s poop?” I repeat, sitting bolt upright in my
chair. “I’ve spent half of my life in New York trying to avoid bird droppings, and now I’m paying someone two hundred dollars to smear them on my face? Holy shit!”

“Yes, yes, shit,” says Yuna agreeably. “Some of my customers when I tell them too they say, ‘Oh crap!’ ”

I don’t care about Suki’s assurances that the poop’s been sterilized and mixed with rice bran. I sit back in my chair, trying not to move a muscle until I can get her to wash off the fecal facial. I adored my babies more than I can say, but all those mothers on urbanbaby.com who think their kids’ shit smells like roses should get themselves to the Mayo Clinic to check out their olfactory senses. Not to mention their sanity. Sienna looks over and cracks up over my twitchy discomfort.

“My mistake. The facial’s on me,” she says cheerily. Then Sienna pretends to lick her lips and smacks them for good measure. “Mmm, mmm, mmm, tastes just like chicken!”

“Thanks,” I say as we walk out to the street and I declare that under no circumstances will I ever eat chicken, turkey, or wood hen ever again—even though that last one’s a mushroom and has nothing at all to do with poultry except for its inexplicable name. “I think this is the push I needed to go vegan,” I say as the maître d’ of a cozy sandwich-and-salad place on Madison Avenue walks us through the narrow restaurant toward a booth where Naomi is already waiting. She doesn’t notice us at first because her head is buried in her computer.

“Not you, too! First the girls, then Sienna, now I can’t even pry my own mother away from the Internet.” I sigh, as Sienna glides in first and I slip down opposite Naomi.

“It’s very interesting all the things you can find here. Molly showed me how to go on My Face.”

“Facebook,” I correct her.

“My Face, Facebook. They could call it Spacebook, for all I care. The point is, I’m getting myself ready to go to the
Miss Subways reunion. I’m getting the lowdown on all of the girls.”

Naomi has been talking and worrying and downright obsessing over the Miss Subways reunion for months. It even contributed to her heart attack—she never would have been pumping iron if she hadn’t been so overzealous about getting into shape.

“Mom, it’s just a party,” I protest.

“It’s not ‘just a party,’ ” Naomi sneers. “Is the shuttle launch just another road trip? This reunion is like a marathon, it requires preparation and endurance. I’m going in there armed to the teeth with all the information I can get, and a new haircut.” Naomi puts on her glasses and moves to within an inch of Sienna’s nose. “Your skin, it’s very clear. Maybe that facial you two had today is something I should do, too?”

“Well, it does give you
excremental
changes.…” Sienna says, giving me a wink.

“You always look wonderful after those facials at Elizabeth Arden, Mom. You don’t want to be trying anything radical with your skin just a week before a big event.”

“You’re right. How did my only daughter get so smart?” For a moment, Naomi seems to look at me with new admiration, and then she adds, “Well, why wouldn’t you be smart? You’re a chip off the old block.”

After last night’s heart-to-heart I’m almost relieved to know that some things will never change—Naomi can’t even issue me a compliment without congratulating herself. A week ago it might have gotten a rise out of me, but today it only makes me laugh.

The waiter comes over with menus. Naomi orders a three-ounce burger without the mayo, I ask for a Waldorf salad without the mayo, and as a joke, Sienna requests “a jar of mayo with a spoon.”

“A jar of mayo … Oh, I get it, very funny.” The waiter snickers, then recognizes Sienna and asks for her autograph. After years of attention Sienna’s missed being in the public eye, and as she scribbles on the waiter’s order pad she smiles as broadly as if she were signing her name in cement at Grauman’s Chinese Theater next to Brad Pitt’s.

“Thanks, I’ll get you that jar of mayo,” the waiter says, as he stuffs the paper into his pocket and heads for the kitchen. “Now that you’re not on TV anymore I guess the ol’ diet can go to hell.”

Sienna’s nostrils flare and she throws back her head. “The ‘ol’ diet’ is not going to hell, and for your information, you haven’t heard the last of me, buddy, not by a long shot,” she sneers, taking the waiter’s feeble attempt at a joke a little too seriously.

Naomi, ignoring the dustup, goes back to clicking on her computer. After a few moments she triumphantly points the screen toward me—and now it’s my turn to feel bad. “If you want to know where Peter’s staying, this is the hotel,” she says.

I look down at my left hand and nervously twist my wedding band. I’d awakened from my nap blessed with the numbing temporary amnesia of a post-traumatic stress sufferer. I vaguely remembered that something was wrong, but I pushed it to the back of my mind and hurried off to meet Sienna. Now the crushing feeling that my marriage is in trouble comes rushing back to me. I massage my temples with my fingertips, pressing the facts back into focus.

“What do you mean you know where Peter is?”

“Whoa, ladies, back up a minute. What do you mean, Peter’s gone?” Sienna asks. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I forgot. And he’s not gone. He’s just traveling. For business. I’m sure he’ll be stuck in a boring conference room the whole time.”

“This doesn’t look boring to me!” Naomi trills, pointing toward her computer.

I stare at the tropical setting Naomi’s pulled up on the screen. Palm trees and pink stucco cottages dot a sandy white beach that stretches toward a glistening blue-green ocean. WELCOME TO PARADISE reads a pretty banner written in girly purple script across the idyllic picture.
Meet Tiffany Glass and her team of BUBB cosmeticians for free consultations every day this week
. Google, I hate you! Did I have to be reminded that Peter and Tiffany are spending ten days together on a sexy, exotic island while I’m all alone in New York?

“A few lessons on the computer and I’m a regular Columbo,” Naomi crows.

“And I’m nauseated,” I say, burying my head in my hands and cursing my geographical fate. “He really is in
Hawaii
? Couldn’t it have been Kalamazoo? I hear they’re in desperate need of eyeliner in the Arctic Wasteland.”

“It’s good that it’s Hawaii,
bubbala,
” Naomi says confidently. My mother only resorts to Yiddish when she wants to seem sage, and while it doesn’t have the haughty authority of Latin, I find the familiar cadences lulling. “Hawaii’s romantic, the weather is sultry. It’ll totally regurgitate your marriage.”

“Mom, I think you mean ‘resuscitate’ it.”

“Regurgitate, resuscitate, it will make things better.” Naomi’s painting a pretty picture and I’m with her, imagining myself on that endless white beach walking hand-in-hand with Peter into the sunset. Until, that is, my mother adds one more visual image to the mix. “Of course, you’ll have to get a new bikini. Maybe a one-piece bathing suit and a nice sarong. Or a caftan. That Tiffany woman …” Naomi’s voice trails off as having brought up the competition, she finds herself at a loss to explain exactly how it is that she thinks I can trump the beauteous, buxom Tiffany Glass.

“Maybe I should just get a burquini, one of those Iranian swimsuits that covers everything but your face,” I say glumly. “I need a plan.”

“No, what you need is an airline ticket,” Sienna scoffs. “Peter loves you; you just have to fly over there and drag him back home.”

Fly, drag, buy a bathing suit—the amount of physical and emotional energy required to save this relationship seems daunting.

The waiter arrives bearing my salad, Naomi’s sandwich, and an extra-large jar of Hellmann’s with thee spoons. “A plan wouldn’t hurt,
bubbala,
” Naomi says, scooping out a large dollop of mayo and smearing it expansively over her burger. “Let’s see what we can cook up.”

I
STOP AT
the supermarket on the way home to get all the ingredients for chicken cutlets, the girls’ favorite dinner. When Molly and Paige were little I’d let them dip the strips of chicken in eggs and roll them around on a plate of bread crumbs; while the chicken was baking, they’d squirt honey and mustard together to make a spicy sauce, getting as much on themselves as they did in the cup. Maybe the twins will even be around this afternoon to help. If I have to explain that their father’s off on an unexpected business trip—and that I’m leaving them with Naomi so I can go off to join him for a few days—I want everything to seem as normal as possible. Although it’s been so long since I’ve made a meal that doesn’t involve an aluminum freezer tray or a waxy white takeout box, that that could be a red flag in itself.

The lights are off in the apartment, and as I step inside I nearly stumble over a backpack carelessly thrown by the front door.

“Paige Newman! How many times have I told you not to leave things around the house for people to trip over?”

I set down my shopping bag, turn on the lights, and march toward the girls’ room, which is empty. I open and close the door to the den and as I head to the library, I hear the faintest flurry of activity. Without warning I throw open the door and spy the silhouetted heads of a boy and girl. Barely an outline, in the darkness they look like one of those black construction-paper Colonial cutouts. Except these are twenty-first-century kids—their hair is wildly mussed and their lips are locked. I flip on the light and the two flushed, startled teenagers turn around to face me.

The top two buttons of my daughter’s blouse are unbuttoned, and she bunches the material together to hold it closed. Then she buries her face in the shoulder of the boy who’s got his arm wrapped around her. Brandon, the little pissass lothario, who has a shit-eating grin on his face.

“Brandon, you get out of this house immediately!” I scream, barely able to control my temper.

“Sure thing, Mrs. N,” Brandon says with a smirk. He grabs his tie and navy blue blazer off the floor and—goddamn him—blows an air kiss in our direction.

Shaking, I put my arm around my daughter and pull her toward my chest. I sit there for what feels like an eternity, trying to figure out how I can reach her, not wanting to make everything worse by saying the wrong thing. Finally, I put my hands on her shoulders and look searchingly into her tearful blue eyes.

“Molly Newman, what in hell were you thinking?”

Molly sits on the couch quietly for a few moments. Then she buttons her blouse and gets up to leave the room.