The Best Laid Plans (31 page)

“We can live in SoHo or eat peas out of a can,” Peter says, remembering our disastrous dinner at the Hudson Cafeteria when I accused him of not letting me make decisions. “I want us to make a fresh start.”

“I like our home just fine,” I say. “I’m just grateful that we’re going to be able to stay there.”

“Me too,” says Peter, relieved by my reassurances that I’m in this for the long run. Marriage, mortgage, mistakes, and—knock wood—many more happy years together. He playfully pats my backside. “Okay, you, let’s get that lunch. Unless,” he says, in the spirit of not forcing me to do anything I don’t want to, “you’d rather stay here.”

“No, I’m famished,” I say. “But if we’re going to make a fresh start, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“About your business, the one you started with Sienna, and that woman we ran into … what was her name?”

“Georgy.”

“Right,” says Peter, standing up to put on a pair of khaki shorts that I swear he’s had since college. Then he pulls on a blue oxford shirt that’s the same color as his eyes. “What an idiot I was to be so upset because you hadn’t told me about it. But don’t worry, sweetheart, Paige and Molly explained everything.”

“They did?” I ask, alarmed.

“They said you’d opened a temp agency but you didn’t want to tell me about it until you were sure it would be a success.
It was the morning I went into their room to kiss them goodbye before Tiffany and I left for Hawaii. Shit, Tiffany!” Peter cries, echoing the first word that comes to my mind when I think of his vixenish boss. He looks at his watch and scowls. “Tru, sweetheart, I’m sorry, Tiffany’s waiting, I was supposed to be at a meeting on the beach half an hour ago, it’s with the head cosmetics buyer for the largest department store chain in Hawaii. I’ll make it up to you, I’ll … come with me!” he says, pulling me toward the door.

I look down at my robe and tell Peter to go ahead. “I’ll be down in a minute. I just have to get dressed. And by the way,” I call after him as he’s hurrying off to his appointment, “it’s not exactly a temp agency. Sienna and Bill and I are running an escort service. For high-class courtesans. And they’re all over forty.”

Peter spins around and his jaw drops open. “What the hell? No wonder you didn’t want to tell me where you were sneaking off to, I … I have to
go
, is what I have to do,” Peter says, stabbing a finger at his Timex. “Besides, I wouldn’t have a clue what to say to you now, anyway.”

T
WENTY MINUTES LATER
I’ve summoned my courage to stuff myself into one of Naomi’s postage-sized outfits—and to face Peter. As if there aren’t enough crazy things going on at the moment, when Peter had said that their meeting was at the beach he neglected to add that we wouldn’t be sitting around a table, we’d each be sitting
on
one. Who else but Tiffany Glass would do business with a big-shot client while the group of us has massages?

“Why, Tru, how sweet to see you. Peter said you were here. The little wife coming down to check up on her husband?” Tiffany squawks as she rolls over on her massage table,
which is lined up in tandem with three others. The sky is a cloudless blue, yellow trumpet-shaped hibiscus dot the screened-off-for-privacy beach area, and the pink sand beneath my feet is as fine as powdered sugar. The only sour note is the tiki torches—a little touristy and frankly they remind me of
Survivor
. I only hope I’m not voted off the island.

Peter emerges from a thatched-roof hut with a sheet wrapped around him. He looks at me searchingly. I can’t tell if he’s just surprised and confused or really angry. Peter grips his hand firmly around mine and pulls me toward Tiffany. “Tru and I are going to go down the beach a little ways. Give us ten minutes,” he says.

We walk at a clipped pace, past languid sunbathers and a group of children building sandcastles with the intensity of future I.M. Pei’s. “They remind me of Paige and Molly,” I say, conjuring up memories of our family in calmer times.

Peter nods. Then he kicks the sand. “I’m trying to understand, Tru. Really. But if we’re talking about Paige and Molly … isn’t what you’re doing illegal? Couldn’t you get into a lot of trouble?”

“Bill’s set up the business so that no one will know what we’re up to. We’re incorporated as a temporary help agency and we even pay our taxes,” I say, repeating the line I always tell myself when I wonder if we’re doing anything wrong. I just pray that Bill is right and that that miserable S.O.B. of a D.A. Colin Marsh isn’t onto us. Still, right now I have more immediate worries.

“Do you hate me?” I ask haltingly.

“I could never hate you. It’s just that … an escort agency?” Peter pauses. “The night I ran into you at Lincoln Center, when you said you were on a date …”

“Oh no. No! I
run
the agency. That night? Bill’s friend just
needed someone to go with him to a party, to impress his boss. No sex, no touching, nada, zip, nothing, no physical contact at all. And it was only that one night, usually I never even meet the Johns.”

“The Johns?” Peter repeats.

“The men. The very nice men, who are all Bill’s friends, whom we set the women up with. And I got five thousand dollars for just being charming,” I say with a hint of pride. “Well, I would have, if I had stuck around.”

Peter stands there silently for what seems like an eternity.

“I should have told you,” I say, reaching out for his hand.

“I need to figure out how I feel about all this,” Peter says, squeezing my fingers, and then letting them go.

A well-built man who I recognize as one of the masseurs comes up behind us and puts his arms around our shoulders. “Feel,
schmeal
. No time for talk. Time for Lomi Lomi.”

Peter seems relieved for the interruption.

“We’ll talk later,” Peter says hastily, walking a few paces ahead of me. Then, wordlessly, the masseur ushers us back to the massage area and I duck into the thatched hut to change out of my clothes.

I
CLIMB ONTO
the massage table a few minutes later feeling vulnerable, and it’s not just because I’m naked under a flimsy sheet. When I reach out to touch Peter, he turns away. Peter’s table is sandwiched between mine and Tiffany’s. And I see, with a start, that while I was undressing, their big deal client took the spot on the other side of Tiffany. Their big deal client, who’s “the head of the largest chain of department stores in Hawaii”—who also just happens to be none other than the wily Jeff Whitman.

“Ah, the Newmans, such a lovely couple,” Jeff Whitman tells Tiffany. “I met them earlier and we spent the most delightful time together. I feel like they’re practically family.”

“Is this for real? Or is it another one of Naomi’s crazy schemes?” I whisper to Peter.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what to believe anymore,” he says.

The head masseur steps forward to swing a brass mallet against a flat metal gong, producing a roaring
boom
that sounds like waves crashing against the shore. “I am Kawikani, the Strong One. We start now,” he says.

“And I am Alana,” says my masseur, “Hawaiian for ‘awakening.’ Or Alan.”

Alana rests his hands on the small of my back. Kawikani stretches his arms toward the heavens to offer a prayer. “Renew, revive, revitalize,” he says, sounding like a spokesperson for Lancôme.

Tiffany starts giggling, but Alana shakes his head. “Take seriously. The Lomi Lomi is not just to heal physical pain. It is to heal the heart, to bring mental and spiritual resolution. Whatever is blocked, let it out, get rid of it, go with the flow.”

Alana motions for Kawikani to come over and the two of them spend a few moments whispering.

“Okay, for this group, we give them the tea, too,” agrees Kawikani, who returns with a tray and four steaming cups. Obediently, we each take a sip.

I settle back onto the cushioned table and close my eyes. Alana hums softly, telling me, “Take deep breaths and enjoy the rhythmic sensations.” Given the tension between me and Peter, it’s going to take more than some crazy Hawaiian massage to make me unwind, but as instructed I close my eyes. Alana’s hands move over me like gentle waves and I feel a small jolt of energy surge through my body. I feel deeply relaxed,
yet energized at the same time. My back muscles are about a thousand times looser. And, strangely, so is my tongue. I haven’t felt this uninhibitedly talkative since the dentist gave me a shot of Sodium Pentothal—and I’m not the only one.

“Alana, your hands are so strong and powerful!” I squeal in stream-of-consciousness admiration.

“I love a man with strong hands. Peter has strong hands,” Tiffany purrs.

“I do, don’t I?” says Peter. He spreads his fingers apart and flexes them into a fist.

“Um,” says Tiffany. “Your hands are big, but Kawikani’s are bigger. Jeff, what kind of hands do you have, are they huge?”

“Naomi used to say they were so large that I could hold the whole world right in my palm.”

“Naomi has long fingers, perfectly shaped. She posed for a magazine ad once,” I say, recalling a moment of my mother’s faded glory. “Her index finger was polished a deep shade of red. And she was pointing to a toilet seat in the
Ladies’ Home Journal.
”

“That’s why I love her,” says Jeff dreamily.

“Tru grew up with a mother who took more pleasure out of pointing to toilet seats than raising her daughter. But that didn’t stop my honey from becoming a great wife and mother,” Peter says. “That’s why I love
Tru.
”

“You do?”

“Uh-huh,” says Peter, who’s unflexed his fist and now is staring at his palm.

“He loves me.” I giggle. “Because I’m a wife and mother …”

“And a businesswoman. A businesswoman with a stable of forty-year-old hookers.” Peter laughs, pressing his outstretched
fingers against his face, as if he’s trying to locate his nose.

“Hookers.” Tiffany giggles. “I’ve always wanted to learn how to give good head. Do the hookers give good head? Do they use BUBB?”

“BUBB-de-BUBB-BUBB,” Peter sings. “I didn’t know from Adam but I’m married to a madam.”

“And you’re okay with that?” I ask.

“I’m okay, you’re okay, we’re okay,” Peter croons. “O-kaay!”

For a moment I have to wonder if Peter’s talking from the tea. Or the massage. Or his true feelings. Then he wraps his sheet around his torso—his torso that is brown as a berry from having already been several days in the sun—and comes over to sit down next to me on the edge of my massage table.

“I’m not as zonked out of my mind as I may seem. Well, maybe not
quite
as zonked out of my mind as I seem. I think your business choice is … unusual, honey. And I’m having a little trouble picturing you, you know,” he says sotto voce, “running
a call girl operation.
”

“I would have said the same thing. But it’s not much different from running a benefit committee. You have to be organized and diplomatic. And you have to be sure you make your nut.”

“Your nut?” Peter laughs.

“Your number, your net, the figure that’s going to put you in the black. Though, frankly, I prefer thinking of it as being in the pink. Pink is a much more cheerful victory color.”

“You’re the nut,” Peter says, bending over to kiss me. “I love you, Tru. I can’t say that I wouldn’t have liked it better if you’d opened a catering business.…”

“Not really an option. Remember me? I’m the wife who doesn’t know a carving knife from a broccoli spear.”

“Good point. And if running an escort agency makes you
happy, I want to be supportive. God knows you’ve put up with my crazy hours and everything else about my work for all these years,” Peter says, pointing toward Tiffany.

“You, sir, are very, very nice.” I say reaching up to wrap my arms around his neck to press my lips against my husband’s.

“Nice, who’s nice?” Tiffany says, propping herself up on her elbow. “Jeff is nice.”

“Yes,” I say with a laugh. “Jeff is nice.”

Jeff looks over at us and winks. “Tiffany, what do you say you and I go find ourselves a quiet place to talk? You can tell me all about your makeup and I’ll show you around the island. You two skedaddle.” Jeff waves his hand in our direction—his strong, large, he’s-got-the-whole-world-in-it hand, which he’s got Tiffany eating out of.