Death of a Trophy Wife (5 page)

I
clambered down from the Comfort Cloud, eager to make my exit before Bunny ignited the mattress with her body heat.

“Guess I’d better be going,” I said, grabbing my sample book.

“Take this.” Marvin handed me one of those cutaway mattress samples, with the coils and padding exposed. “For added inspiration.”

“Good luck, Jaine!” Bunny waved at me, still in centerfold mode.

I thanked the Wild Thing for her good wishes and scooted out the door, the elderly couple right behind me.

“I still don’t see why we can’t buy our mattress here,” the man whined, casting a longing glance at Bunny.

“Forget it, Lester. We’re going to Macy’s.”

The perpetual morning fog that hovers over L.A. had burned off by now, and I squinted into the bright midday sun. I really needed to stop by Casa Extravaganza and pick up my sunglasses. If I hurried right over, I could get them from the maid before Bunny got home.

The more I saw of Mrs. Marvin Cooper, the more I wanted to avoid her.

I was still reeling over her tacky performance on the mattress. She knew the first Mrs. Cooper was standing there watching her. I’d seen her gaze up at her with a triumphant smirk.
Eat your heart out, honey
, were her unspoken subtitles.
I won and you lost.

What a piece of work, huh?

I made my way over to my Corolla and was just about to get in when my cell phone rang.

It was my best friend and constant dining companion, Kandi Tobolowski.

She did not waste any time on preliminaries.

“That damn cockroach is driving me crazy!”

No, Kandi did not have a pest problem. The cockroach to whom she referred was the lead character on the Saturday morning cartoon show,
Beanie & The Cockroach
, where Kandi is gainfully employed as a writer.

“That prima donna jerk keeps flubbing his lines,” she sighed. “Anyhow, I need to get out of here. Meet me for lunch at Paco’s Tacos. My treat.”

Kandi makes scads more money than I do and is always offering to pick up the tab. I hardly ever let her, of course. Along with our noble brows and inability to carry a tune, we Austens have our pride, you know.

“Honey, I can’t. I’ve got so much work to do, and the last things I need are the calories from a heavy Mexican meal.”

“Meet you there in twenty minutes.”

“Make it a half hour. Traffic looks heavy.”

What can I say? When it comes to Mexican food, I simply can’t say no. And Thai food. And Italian. And—well, it’s quite a long list, and I’ve got a story to tell. So let’s get on with it, shall we?

A half hour later I was sitting across from Kandi at Paco’s Tacos, ordering the chimichanga combo plate from a most accommodating waiter.

Kandi, a pert little thing with a headful of enviably straight chestnut hair, perused the menu, trying to decide between the mahi mahi salad and the vegetarian tostada.

Unlike yours truly, Kandi has inherited the willpower gene, which is why she is able to maintain her Pert Little Thing status.

“I’ll have the mahi mahi salad,” she told the waiter. “And margaritas for both of us.”

No way. No margaritas for me. I had to keep my head clear for thinking up brilliant mattress slogans.

“Kandi, I can’t have a margarita in the middle of the day. I’ve got work to do.”

“Salt or no salt?”

“Salt,” I sighed.

“I’ve got the most fabulous news!” Kandi grinned, when the waiter had gone.

Kandi’s idea of fabulous news is the opening of a new Pinkberry, so I remained somewhat skeptical.

“Oh, Jaine,” she whispered, a dreamy look in her eyes. “I’ve finally met Mr. Right.”

“Again?” I said, scooping up a hunk of salsa onto a chip.

“This time, it’s the real thing! I swear! His name,” she said, with the kind of reverence usually reserved for the pope, “is Denny. And you’ll never guess how we met. He was in line behind me at Starbucks! Won’t that be the cutest story to tell our grandkids?”

“Ranks right up there with Rick and Ilsa running into each other in
Casablanca.
”

“I’ll choose to ignore that,” she said, arching an indignant brow. “Anyhow, he ordered a Venti Latte and I ordered a chai tea and we wound up sharing a lo-carb blueberry muffin!”

I managed to plow my way though half a basket of chips as she rambled on about the Divine Denny, who was, to her great delight, both a doctor and a Scrabble nut.

“I thought maybe we’d go on a Scrabble cruise for our honeymoon.”

“Your honeymoon? Don’t you think you’re rushing things just a tad?”

“You’re right, of course,” she said, nibbling at a corner of a chip. “I haven’t even planned the wedding yet!”

And she was off and running, lost in the pages of her own
True Romance
story. I remained on automatic pilot, nodding my head at periodic intervals as I daydreamed about my chimichanga plate.

“So what’s new with you, cookie?” she asked, when she’d finally run out of steam. “Anybody interesting in your life?”

“Right now, just the waiter,” I said, as he at last approached with our food.

Gosh, my chimichangas looked good, nestled on a bed of refried beans and rice, and topped with a luscious dollop of sour cream.

“Oh, foo,” she pouted. “You’re so boring.”

“Boring, am I? Well, for your information, there
is
a man in my life.”

“The pizza guy doesn’t count.”

“And it’s not the pizza guy.”

“Really?” Her eyes lit up with excitement. “Tell all! I want every last detail, in living color.”

“Calm down. He’s not Mr. Right. In fact, he’s Mr. Couldn’t Possibly Be Any More Wrong.”

Wearily I told her about my visit from my would-be fiancé, Vladimir.

“I can’t believe I actually agreed to go out with the guy.”

Kandi looked up from a speck of mahi mahi on her fork and tsk tsked in disapproval. If it was sympathy I was after I was barking up the wrong girlfriend.

“That’s your trouble, Jaine. You’re way too fussy.”

“Fussy? For crying out loud, Kandi. The guy has a picture of his goat in his wallet!”

“How charmingly ethnic!” she said with a carefree wave. “Don’t be such a snob. It’s time you let go of your shallow Western values.”

“This from a woman who once waited three hours to get her shoes autographed by Manolo Blahnik!”

“That’s not the least bit shallow!” Kandi protested. “Manolo Blahnik shoes are considered works of art.”

“And to think, some people waste their money on Picassos.”

“Seriously, Jaine,” she sighed, “you’ve got to start opening yourself up to new experiences.”

“The only thing I want to open myself up to right now are these chimichangas.”

And without any further ado, I dug right in.

It was after one by the time we tore ourselves away from Paco’s.

“Give this Dimitri guy a chance,” Kandi said as she hugged me good-bye. “He might be The One.”

“His name is Vladimir, and the only thing he might be is certifiable.”

“Oh, honey,” she sighed. “No wonder you’re still single.”

I refrained from pointing out that I was not the only single person in our little duo.

Instead, I bid her a fond adieu and, several hours behind schedule, hurried over to Casa Extravaganza to get my sunglasses.

When I pulled up in the circular driveway, I groaned to see Bunny’s Maserati parked on the gravel.

Phooey. She was home. Oh, well. With any luck she’d be lolling by the pool, and I could get my glasses from Lupe.

I was heading for the front door when it suddenly opened and out came Owen Kendall, his Mattress King baseball cap askew on his head.

What was he doing here at this time of day? And why was his shirt only half-tucked in his pants?

Enquiring minds wanted to know.

“Hi, Owen,” I said, blocking his path. “What’s up?”

He took one look at me and practically jumped out of his skin.

“Er…Jaine,” he said, blushing furiously. “I was just picking up some papers for the office.”

Oh, yeah? Then where were they? I sure didn’t see any papers.

“Gotta run,” he muttered, brushing past me.

And as he hurried by I got a whiff of perfume. Not just any perfume. I’d recognize that scent anywhere. It was Bunny’s designer fragrance, the stuff she splashed between her cleavage with wild abandon. Owen positively reeked of it.

Now everybody let’s take out our calculators and add two and two.

I don’t know what you came up with, but I came up with dipsy doodle.

If I wasn’t mistaken, The Trophy Wife was having an affair with The Nerdy Son-in-Law.

I watched Owen drive off in his car, a late model BMW with vanity plates that read
M KING II
. Not exactly a nerd-mobile. Actually, now that I thought about it, Owen wasn’t a bad looking guy. He was tall and thin and, beneath that Mattress King visor, his eyes were a most appealing blue.

Something told me he might look good without clothes on, and I suspected that’s just how Bunny liked him.

I stood there, admiring the wisdom of that old you-can’t-judge-a-book-by-its-cover gag, when I heard:

“Jaine, darling!”

I whirled around to see Bunny standing in the doorway, eyes narrowed into suspicious slits.

Now it was my turn to blush.

She knew that I’d seen Owen, and that I’d probably figured out what was going on.

“Hi, B-Bunny,” I stammered. “I just stopped by to pick up my sunglasses. I left them here yesterday.”

“Of course,” she said, with an icy smile. “Lupe found them by the pool. Come on in and I’ll get them.”

I headed inside, feeling very much like Little Red Riding Hood popping in to the big bad wolf’s place.

“Here they are,” she said, plucking my sunglasses from a table in the foyer.

I reached out to take them, but she was not about to hand them over.

“I suppose you ran into Owen just now.”

“Oh, right. Owen. Yes, I ran into him. Great guy, Owen. A real asset to the company. That’s what Lance says. Actually, I’m sure everybody says that. Owen has ‘asset’ written all over him.”

I tend to babble when I’m nervous, and the laser beam glint in her eyes definitely had me on edge.

“He was here dropping off some papers.”

Owen said he was picking them up. Now he was dropping them off. Those two had better get their stories straight if they were going to keep an affair going.

“Right,” I nodded. “Dropping off papers. Absolutely!”

Once more I held out my hand for my glasses, but she was not about to fork them over.

“I’m so happy you’re trying out for the Mattress King account,” she said, her smile dipping a few degrees below freezing. “It would be a shame if you said the wrong thing at your pitch meeting and didn’t get the job.”

Translation:
You breathe one word of what you just saw, and you’re toast.

“After all, you’re such good friends with Lance, and he’s such a dear. I’d hate for you to miss out on this opportunity. Almost as much,” she added, after a meaningful pause, “as I’d hate to see anything happen to Lance’s job.”

Yikes. Was she threatening to get Lance fired, too?

I was tempted to tell her to take her threats and shove them up her wingwang. But then I remembered my ghastly orange walls and my near-death bank account. Not to mention Lance’s job at Neiman’s. So I kept my big yap shut.

“Don’t worry, Bunny. I won’t say a word.”

“A word about what, dear?” she blinked, suddenly wide-eyed and innocent.

At which point, to my great relief, the doorbell chimed.

Bunny opened the door to Fiona.

“Sweetie!” Fiona said, breezing in with an armful of clothes. “Just wait till you see the amazing Versace I picked up for you—

“Oh, hello, Jaine,” she said, catching sight of me. “I didn’t realize you’d be here. Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“Of course not,” Bunny said. “Jaine was just leaving.”

At last she handed me my sunglasses.

“C’mon,” she said to Fiona, “let’s go up to my room and try on clothes.”

“So did that Dolce & Gabbana I brought the other day work out?” Fiona asked as the two of them tripped up the Tara-esque staircase.

I didn’t stick around to find out whether her majesty gave her approval to Signors Dolce and Gabbana.

Not missing a beat, I hustled my own sweet gabbana the heck out of there.

P
oor Marvin, I thought, as I drove home, stuck with that cheating bitch of a trophy wife. Yes, I know he was no prizewinner himself, dumping Ellen the way he did, but he sure was paying his dues.

I did not have time, however, to worry about the lifestyles of the rich and deceitful. If I expected to inject some badly needed funds into my checking account, I had to drum up mattress slogans.

Back in my apartment, I hunkered down at my office desk, otherwise known as my dining room table, and opened a new file on my computer.

Prozac, sensing I was about to begin a work session, jumped down from the bookcase where she’d been napping and plopped herself on my keyboard.

She likes being part of the creative process.

After depositing her on the floor where she belonged, I spent several productive minutes scratching her belly with my big toe.

It’s always tough getting started on a new project.

But I put my nose to the proverbial grindstone, and in no time my fingers were flying across the keyboard, pounding out mattress slogans.

Oh, who am I kidding?

In no time, I was standing in front of the refrigerator wishing I had something more interesting to eat than moldy Swiss cheese and martini olives.

With a sigh, I returned to the computer, where I proceeded to do some more intense space-staring.

Then I remembered the mattress sample Marvin had given me for “inspiration.” I didn’t really see how a bunch of exposed coils would inspire me, but it was worth a shot. So I brought it in from my car.

The minute I did, I smelled trouble.

Prozac looked up from her perch on my keyboard and gazed at it much like a lion gazes at an innocent gazelle.

Just what I wanted! A new scratching post!

That thing would be confetti in five minutes.

“Forget it, kiddo. Ain’t gonna happen.”

With that, I grabbed a legal pad and pencil and relocated to my Corolla, where I sat with the pad propped up against the steering wheel, gazing at the mattress sample I’d tossed on my passenger seat.

After a while I began writing. Sad to say, it was only a grocery list.

Clearly, inspiration wasn’t striking.

Then I got a brainstorm. Why not lie down on my
own
mattress to get in mattress-selling mode? True, it was a tad lumpy, but I bet if I stretched out and felt a real mattress beneath me, the slogans would practically write themselves.

So I trotted back inside and stretched out on my bed, waiting for the mattress muse to show up.

Unfortunately, the only one who showed up was Mr. Sandman.

In no time, I was out like a light, only to be awakened several hours later by a loud pounding on my front door.

I hustled over to answer it and there on my doorstep was my would-be fiancé, Vladimir Ivan Trotsky, holding a bouquet of what looked suspiciously like my neighbor’s tulips.

Oh, lord. I’d forgotten all about my date with him. Tonight was the night I was supposed to have dinner at his Aunt Minna’s.

“Good evening, my beloved Jaine!” he said, handing me the tulips. “How beautiful you look!”

“Er, thanks,” I said, wiping the sleep from my eyes.

“Wonderful news!” He beamed.

The only wonderful news I wanted to hear was that our date was cancelled.

“I write you another poem.”

With that, he whipped a piece of paper from his pocket and began reading me his latest opus:

To Jaine, whose lips are red as beet
And also has such pretty feet
I cannot wait to tie the knot
Your Vladimir is hot to trot.

At this point, I could hear the faint sounds of Elizabeth Barrett Browning rolling over in her grave.

“I already told you, Vladimir. There will be absolutely no knot-tying. You do understand that, don’t you?”

“Of course, my beloved Jaine,” he said, gazing at me with a lovestruck grin. Why did I get the feeling my message hadn’t quite penetrated his skull?

“You ready to meet my family?” he asked.

“Can’t wait,” I lied. “Just let me change into something more presentable.”

After putting the tulips in a vase, I scooted to my bedroom to throw on some slacks and a sweater. Then off to the bathroom for a quick splash of water on my face, a gargle of Listerine, and a hasty application of lipstick. I didn’t bother with perfume. No sense getting the guy any more excited than he already was.

All the while, I could hear Vladimir crooning what sounded like an Uzbek lullaby to Prozac.

When I came out into the living room, I found the little hussy sprawled in his arms having her belly rubbed.

“Pretty kitty,” Vladimir cooed. “You will love it in Uzbekistan. You and my goat Svetlana will be best friends.”

She greeted that news with a cavernous yawn.

Whatever. Got any tuna?

“All set,” I said, breaking up their little lovefest.

Vladimir leaped up at the sight of me, clutching his heart.

“Jaine, my beloved! You even more beautiful than before! In all my life I never see such beauty.”

The guy obviously didn’t get out much.

“Come, my beautiful future bride; it’s time to meet my family.”

“Look, Vladimir. How many times do I have to tell you? This bride thing is not going to happen. I’m just going to dinner. That’s all. Get it?”

“Okey dokey! Vladimir understand. You still not in love with me. But don’t worry. You will be.”

On that ominous note, I headed off to meet the Trotsky clan.

Vladimir had borrowed his cousin Boris’s car for the occasion, a rusty hunk of junk that looked like it had spent its formative years in a demolition derby. At one time it may have been red; now it had oxidized into a crusty orange.

The passenger door squealed in protest as he pried it open.

I was just about to climb in when I heard an angry “Hey!”

I looked up to see Mrs. Hurlbut, my neighbor from across the street, standing in front of her prized tulip bed.

“I saw you take those tulips!” she shrieked at Vladimir, marching over to us.

“So sorry, lady!” Vladimir graced her with his goofy grin. “I could not resist.

“Beautiful flowers, for my beautiful flower,” he said, gesturing to me.

“Beautiful flower, my fanny!” she humphed.

“For you,” he said, handing her a half-eaten roll of Lifesavers.

“I don’t want any crummy Lifesavers,” she said, taking them anyway.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Hurlbut,” I said. “I’ll be happy to pay for some more bulbs.”

“Okay,” she said, somewhat mollified. “I got ’em from a catalog in Holland. Cost me forty-nine bucks.”

For crying out loud, I could buy them at Home Depot for $4.99.

“I’ll write you a check in the morning.”

“Don’t forget the ten dollars I paid for shipping and handling,” were her cheery words of farewell.

With a sigh, I got into the rustmobile.

The less said about the drive over to Aunt Minna’s place, the better. I waited for Vladimir to offer to pay for the tulips, but I waited in vain. Instead I spent the entire ride listening to him yak about his goat, Svetlana, and enjoying the view through a gaping hole in the floorboards.

But at last we arrived at our destination.

Lucerne Terrace was a run-down apartment building in the Mid-Wilshire area, devoid of any interesting architectural features, including terraces. It had definitely seen better days, I thought, as we made our way up the cracked cement pathway to the front door.

Vladimir pressed a grimy button on the intercom and seconds later we were buzzed in.

We rode up to Minna’s apartment on a rickety elevator festooned with graffiti, one of which Vladimir pointed out as his own handiwork.

“Look!” he said. “I wrote that!”

There among the colorful compendium of four-letter words was:

Vladimir & Jaine & Svetlana
4 Ever!

Just what I always wanted. A ménage à trois with a goat.

Our creaky chariot screeched to a halt on the third floor. As we walked down the threadbare hallway, I smelled something delicious. Beef stew, maybe. Or London broil. Unfortunately, it was not coming from Aunt Minna’s apartment. No, when we reached Aunt Minna’s, a strange smell wafted out into the hallway. A heady aroma of cabbage and Clorox.

“Aunt Minna!” Vladimir called out, knocking on the door. “We’re here!”

Seconds later the door was answered by a short, squat woman with beady eyes and a most disconcerting mustache. She stood planted in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest, an old-fashioned bib apron covering her printed housedress. Her feet were clad in sneakers with holes cut out for her bunions, and her coarse gray hair, I was fascinated to see, had been hacked into a cut last seen on Moe of The Three Stooges.

Never again, I vowed, would I complain about my own bad hair days.

“Aunt Minna,” Vladimir gushed, “this is my beloved Jaine.”

I wished he’d stop calling me that.

“So nice to meet you,” I said, managing a smile.

Her beady eyes raked me over.

Clearly she did not share Vladimir’s enthusiasm for yours truly.

Then suddenly she grabbed me by the chin.

“Open wide,” she instructed.

Incredulous, I opened my mouth and stood there like a horse on an auction block as she inspected my teeth.

“They all yours?”

“Yes,” I managed to say.

“Good.” She grunted, satisfied.

Having passed tooth inspection, I followed her and Vladimir into the living room, where I couldn’t help but notice an enormous portrait of Stalin hanging over a fake fireplace.

A dark-haired, mustachioed fellow about Vladimir’s age sat on a rumpsprung tweed sofa, eyes glued to a soccer game on TV. Wedged into a nearby armchair was a refrigerator of a gal, somewhere in her thirties, hard at work cracking walnuts in her fists.

“The American tootsie is here,” Aunt Minna announced before shuffling off to the kitchen.

“Jaine, my beloved,” Vladimir said, ushering me into the room. “Say hello to my cousins Boris and Sofi.”

Boris barely glanced up from the game to grace me with a curt nod.

Sofi, on the other hand, eyed me with great intensity. She had her aunt’s coarse hair, but unlike Minna’s “Moe” do, Sofi’s was caught up in a tight prison matron bun.

Lucky for Sofi, she had not inherited the family mustache. Unlucky for her, she
had
inherited a most forbidding unibrow. Which was now furrowed at the sight of me.

Following in the proud Trotsky family tradition, she greeted me with a grunt, simultaneously crushing a walnut in her beefy paw.

“I go help Aunt Minna in the kitchen,” Vladimir said. “You stay here, Jaine, and make friends with the cousins.”

With that, he dashed off, leaving me stranded with Boris and Sofi.

I sat down gingerly on an armchair littered with walnut shells and plastered on a stiff smile.

Making friends with these two wasn’t going to be easy.

My break-the-ice gambit (“So how do you like living in America?”) was met with a deafening silence, which continued for the next ten agonizing minutes, broken only by the occasional crunch of a walnut in Sofi’s fist. Not one of which she offered to share, by the way.

At last Vladimir came bouncing back into the room.

For once, I was actually thrilled to see the guy.

“Food is ready!” he announced.

Sofi pried herself from her armchair, sending a small shower of walnut shells onto the floor. Boris reluctantly abandoned his soccer game but turned up the volume so he could keep track of the score.

We trooped through an archway into a dining area, where a white lace tablecloth was set with dented silverware and a colorful collection of paper napkins filched from various local eating establishments. Mine was from Polly’s House of Pies.

Dinner Chez Trotsky turned out to be an eclectic affair.

First course was a watery cabbage soup featuring an Uzbek version of tortellini called
chuchvara
. Now I’m sure nine out of ten Uzbek housewives make a dynamite chuchvara. Sad to say, Aunt Minna was Housewife Number Ten. Hers were white doughy blobs the consistency of ping-pong balls.

“So,” Aunt Minna asked as I tried to hack off a piece of my ping-pong ball, “how much money you got?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Money! If you going to marry Vladimir, you got to pay dowry.”

Sofi looked up from her soup, scowling.

“Who says she’s going to marry Vladimir?”

“She will,” Vladimir assured her, “just as soon as she falls in love with me. Any day now.”

“Vladimir,” I protested, “I already told you. There’s not going to be any wedding—”

“Not for at least a week,” Vladimir said, ever the optimist. “Maybe two. So enough questions, everybody. Let my beloved Jaine eat her delicious cabbage soup in peace.”

“You got any cattles?” Aunt Minna asked, not willing to let this dowry thing go. “Cattles okay if you don’t got money.”

“Please,” Vladimir begged. “Not now, Aunt Minna. We’re eating.”

Well, not all of us. By now, I had given up on my ping-pong balls, and Boris had temporarily abandoned the table for his soccer game.

Eventually, the soup dishes were cleared away, and Aunt Minna waddled in with the main course—Domino’s pizza topped off with big white blobs of what turned out to be an Uzbek yogurt called
katyk
.

A note to the culinary adventurous: I don’t care how adventurous you are, do not under any circumstances try pepperoni pizza and katyk. You will, I guarantee, live to regret it.

Somehow I managed to swallow a few mouthfuls, washed down by Aunt Minna’s homemade pomegranate wine, a piquant little vintage with the distinctive kick of nail polish remover.

This trip to culinary hell seemed to go on forever, with Vladimir blathering sweet nothings in my ear, Sofi and Minna shooting me dirty looks, and Boris periodically jumping up to check the soccer score.

On the plus side, in between shooting me dirty looks, Aunt Minna and Sofi kept muttering about how “skinny” I was.

The last time I’d been called skinny was, well, never. So frankly it felt rather nice. And indeed, compared to Minna and Sofi, I was a bit of a waif.