Fashionably Late (45 page)

Karen felt the pressure mounting. The contract was moving toward her like a legal juggernaut and she would be crushed under it. Now she could identify with Indiana Jones, fleeing the rolling rocks. Yeah, here she was: Karen Kahn and the Temple of Doom. Actually, they had already left the temple. It was the Reception of Doom that she was at.

Could it be worse than the temple?

And then she had a thought. The contract might be rolling her way but she still didn’t have to sign it. What did she care about how much time Bill Wolper and his legal minions put into it? She didn’t have to sign until she was certain that she would get what she wanted: a baby.

Who was it who said, “It isn’t over till it’s over”? Well, whoever it was, they were right. She took a deep breath. She wasn’t trapped.

She had options. Now all she had to do was break up the fight between her husband and her father before it got violent.

“They’ve busted unions in all of their mills in the South,” Arnold was saying. “They threaten to take production offshore, they bust the union, and then they take it offshore anyway. The domestic plants have been left with crumbs. Crumbs!”

“Arnold, you can’t argue with their bottom line. They’ve been profitable for thirty-seven quarters. They must be doing something right.”

“Only if you consider creating unemployment here and sweatshops in the Third World a moral victory.”

“We’re not talking morality, Arnold.” Jeffrey’s voice had assumed the edge that Karen knew led to an outburst. “We’re not talking morality,” Jeffrey repeated, “we’re talking business.”

“Aren’t they related? Does morality stop where a P and L begins?”

Karen had heard this kind of argument between the two of them more than a dozen times, but it had never taken on such a personal tone. Well, of course, she’d never thought of selling out before. She took her father’s arm with one hand and her husband’s with the other. “This isn’t a time to talk business,” she said. “Let me buy you two handsome guys a drink.”

Propelling them by their elbows, she led them up the staircase to the reception. The place was still deserted, except for a single bartender who was standing with his back toward them, staring out the window. He turned as they approached the bar. “How about some champagne?” she asked.

“What kind are you pouring?” Jeffrey inquired.

The bartender picked up a bottle of some no-name California brand.

Jeffrey shook his head. “Domestic champagne? Leonard strikes again,” he said aloud. “Scotch rocks for me.”

“Make that two,” Arnold added.

“Arnold? You know what the doctor said,” Belle warned.

What did the doctor say, Karen wondered. She’d just asked Belle about him and Belle hadn’t mentioned a word about a doctor. Had Arnold been consulting a doctor? Why hadn’t Belle told her that in the ladies’ room?

“The doctor said I shouldn’t be aggravated, Belle. Are you cooperating?” Arnold asked. Belle shrugged. She and Karen opted for white wine. The four of them stood there in the empty room, their glasses poised. What could they possibly drink to? Certainly not Tiffany’s performance. They stood silent for a moment. Jeffrey looked at his watch.

“L’chiam,” Arnold finally murmured, and all four of them gratefully gulped down some of their drink.

Forty-five minutes later the buses still hadn’t arrived. After a brief argument, Jeffrey had left with the limo.

Now, at last, the two buses pulled up, followed by a line of other guests in cars. The caravan disgorged its wrinkled, irritated passengers. Lisa, at the head of the furious procession, marched up the stairs holding Tiff by Tiff’s meaty upper arm. She might as well be pulled by her ear, Karen thought. Lisa was almost visibly fuming and Tiff had, contrarily, become virtually comatose. “The fucking assholes got lost,” Lisa said by way of a greeting. “You hire the dickheads to get you from point A to point B and they can’t even manage it! It wasn’t like it was brain surgery. Or even dermatology,” she said contemptuously, and looked darkly over at Leonard, who, with Stephanie, was helping guests off the other bus.

“She told you not to have buses,” Belle reminded Lisa. To give her credit, Lisa didn’t strike her mother.

Karen looked out the huge windows at the cranky crowd down below.

Women were surveying their wrinleled gowns and angrily flapping them out, while men were running their index fingers around their wet collars. A line was already forming outside the ladies’ room. “The air conditioning was shot in one of the buses. I’ll sue the bastards, I swear to God!”

Karen looked over at Tiff. The child’s eyes had the glazed look of an accident victim.

“Let’s start the fucking party,” Lisa growled.

It took what seemed like hours for the ladies’ room to empty out.

Stephanie carefully checked undereach stall to be certain she was the only one in the room. Then she entered the last one and was sure to lock the door behind her. She lifted the toilet seat. She had already eaten eleven cocktail franks and almost twenty shrimp. And that was just at the buffet, before the sit-down dinner. She had to get rid of it now, before any of those calories were absorbed. If I do this now, she promised herself, then I won’t eat anything at dinner and I won’t have to do it again. But the ceremony had made her so nervous and the party was going so badly that she couldn t control her eating . Well, at least she could control this . She stuck her middle finger as far down her throat as she could and began to gag. It took another moment but then the heaving started. She vomited once, and then, to be sure, she insened her finger and heaved again. She was dizzy now and had to steady herself by holding on to the walls of the stall, staring down into the toilet below her. All of that disgusting food made her ready to retch again. How had it tempted her before? She was a pig to want to stuffherself full of that garbage! She reached for some toilet paper, carefully wiped her mouth, and dumped the paper into the commode. Then, with another scrap, she wiped the sweat from her upper lip and forehead.

She flushed the toilet, turned around, and pulled open the stall door.

Her grandmother, hands on hips, stood there. “And what do you think you’re doing?” Belle asked.

The party proceeded by fits and starts but it never congealed into anything remotely resembling a celebration. Sylvia and the Kahn girls seemed amused by it, and Karen avoided them. She was shocked when, out of the crowd, Perry Silverman came to sit beside her. “What are you doing here?” she asked. Jeffrey had told her that June was invited, but Perry too? Lisa had lost her mind. “I didn’t see you at the synagogue.”

“I was invited,” he said. “But no booze there. So I figured I’d just do the reception. Free drinks. And I came to see you.”

She wondered if he’d seen June yet. Karen didn’t know what to say.

“Lisa invited you? I didn’t know you knew each other” “We don’t.

Except for the time we met at your brunch.” He took her hand. “Come on. Let’s dance,” he said.

He didn’t seem to be drunk yet and so Karen acquiesced. He was so much smaller than Jeffrey that it felt odd when he held her around the waist and began to move her across the almost empty dance floor. To their right, two little girls were attempting to cha-cha to Cole Porter.

Karen couldn’t help smiling but didn’t point them out. She knew one was about the age Lottie would be. Perry didn’t seem to notice. He moved surprisingly well. He led with authority but without any undue force.

Karen wondered if he remembered anything about the night he called her from the phone booth at her corner. He said nothing, simply directing her movements. After a few moments, she realized she danced better with him than she did with Jeffrey.

“My wife is here,” Perry murmured to her. For a moment she thought he as warning her, as if they were doing something improper and might be caught. But then he glided them into a turn and she saw June, sitting across the room. June looked good, but a little heavier than her usual anorexic ninety pounds. “How did she get here?”

“By bus,” Karen said, and snorted a laugh. “Do you mind?”

“Mind? If I knew she was coming I’d have made a wake. But then, I guess I don’t have to. This is a pretty good approximation of a wake, isn’t it?” Karen didn’t answer him but simply let him continue to smoothly move her through “Begin the Beguine.”

But what was going on? Lisa had invited Karen’s friends? How could she have invited both June and Perry? The bitterness between them was well known. And, oddest of all, why had June come? She must be interested in Perry. She didn’t know Lisa at all, and Karen had never warmed up to Jeffrey’s ex-fiancee. The whole thing was ridiculous.

Karen watched the crowd. Although the first course had only just been served, she could see people had already begun leaving. God, Lisa must be dying. And Tiff looked as if she were already dead.

Just then, Belle dragged Stephanie across the dance floor toward Karen.

Perry kept on dancing, his back to the two of them, but that didn’t stop Belle.

“Do you know what she was doing?” she demanded of the two of them.

“She was puking. She was puking in the bathroom.” Perry stopped. He turned around. The four of them were in the center of the floor.

“Puking up good food. I told her it was a sin. Children are starving, and she’s puking up good food.”

“I think I may do the same,” Perry said. “Perhaps we could discuss this at another venue.” He nodded to Belle formally. “So nice to see you again,” he mumbled and, taking Karen’s hand, he led her away.

“Beware of consanguinity,” he warned her.

Karen shook her head. “We’re related by craziness, not by blood,” she reminded him.

“Well, that’s a relief.” They were back at her table. “Hey. Where’s Jeffrey?” Perry asked. “Not that I wouldn’t be delighted to take his place.” He sat down in Jeffrey’s vacant seat.

Karen sighed. Perry had reminded her. Now she would have to tell Lisa that Jeffrey left. In the melee following the bus arrival, Lisa hadn’t seemed to notice his absence, but Karen couldn’t put it off any longer.

It would probably offend Lisa, but now there was no alternative.

Before Karen could make a move, the handleader spoke into the microphone. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, a moment I know you’ve been waiting for. Tiffany Saperstein’s candle-lighting ceremony.” The band played a tired fanfare, the lights flickered and then dimmed, and a cadre of waiters rushed across the floor with a wheeled table displaying an enormous pancake. There was some scattered applause from the guests who remained and then a spotlight came on, illuminating the cake and a woebegone Tiffany standing behind it. She held a candle in one hand and a small deck of index cards in the other.

“For my first … ” She was speaking right next to the microphone, and her voice came out in a breathy gabble impossible to hear or comprehend.

“Louder,” someone yelled. She looked up for a moment, squinting against the light.

“For-my-first-candle-I-would-like-to-ask-my-grandmother-and-grandfather Saperstein-to-come-andjoin-me,” she said in a monotone.

“I-have-spentso-many-summer-vacations-at-their-house-and-have-enjoyed-a l-my-visits.”

There wasn’t a bit of emotion or even inflection to her reading of the card. There was more scattered clapping, the band began to play, and Leonard’s parents rose, walked to the center of the room, kissed Tiffany, and lit a candle.

Then it dawned on Karen. Tiffany was surely going to call out her name and Jeffrey’s. What would she do? A photographer was busily snapping pictures of the Saperstein grandparents beside Tiffany, immortalizing the moment, at least for as long as Kodak paper lasted. Oh my God, Karen thought, she had forgotten about this bit. She’d really screwed up royally.

Tiffany was equally impervious to the light bulbs and the cheek kissing. Before her grandparents were even finished lighting the candle, she moved on to the next card.

“Now-I’d-like-to-ask-my-grandma-Belle-and-grandpa-Arnold-to-come-up I-want-to-thank-them-for-all-the-love-and-support-they-have-given-me-over -the-years.” The child’s lack of affect was frightening.

The entire room was silent, listening to her recite with a lot less liveliness than a Disney audio-animatronic.

Belle and Arnold made their way up to the enormous cake and kissed Tiffany. In the glare of the spotlight, Arnold looked worse than ever.

He’s getting old, Karen thought. Belle took the candle from Tiffany’s hands and lit the second one on the cake. More pictures were taken and people clapped. Tiffany, emotionless, looked down at her cards.

“Now-I’d-like-to-ask-my-sister-Stephanie-to-come-up-here.

Sometimes-we-fight-like-cats-and-dogs-but-underneath-it-we-really-love each-other.” Stephanie moved easily into the spotlight. The girl was truly beautiful, tall and lithe and thin. Thinner than ever. Karen stared at her. Had she been throwing up on purpose? Was that what Belle had been trying to say? When the photographer started flashing, Stephanie came alive for him, throwing an arm around Tiffany and pouting for the camera. Tiffany ignored her and simply looked down at the next card.

“And-now-I d-like-to-ask-my-Aunt-Karen-and-Uncle-Jeffrey-up-tolight-a-candle.

They-are-always-very-good-to-me-and-even-if-I-don’t-seethem-as-often-as I-would-like-to-I-love-them-very-much.”

Karen rose, sick at heart, and walked across the empty dance floor to the girl. She would have to explain about all this later. She took Tiffany’s ice-cold hand in both of her own. “Are you all right?” she asked uselessly. Tiffany didn’t even nod in response, but merely pushed the candle into Karen’s hands. If Tiff noticed that her uncle wasn’t there, she wasn’t mentioning it. Karen could think of nothing to do but take the candle and move toward the cake.

“Where’s Jeffrey?” Belle hissed in a stage whisper. “I told you about the cake.”

Karen never got to light the candle. At that moment, Arnold crumpled, his left leg seeming to collapse under him. He fell, like an axed tree in an open field. And as he fell he clutched at the air desperately for a moment with his extended right hand. There was nothing for it to catch to stop his fall. But in the seconds before he hit the floor, he jerked his arm with enough strength to send the table, the cake, and all the candles flying.