Lauren Takes Leave (41 page)

I suddenly have a flash of Jodi in another place and time.
I imagine her at five, in her first tap recital, hair curled and piled on her
head. At ten, learning all of Paula Abdul’s and Janet Jackson’s choreography to
perfection. At fifteen, starring in her high school’s version of
Chicago
.

Picturing Jodi through the ages is a good distraction for
me at the moment.

Their music finally begins. It’s a pumped-up dance song
with a heavy bass at the onset. Jodi saunters across the floor in long, sexy
strides, and meets Rudy in the middle. Quickly, she throws her right leg onto
his shoulder.

“Yowza,” Great-Aunt Elaine says. I couldn’t agree more.

He catches her by the ankle and spins her around so she is
facing our table. Underwear be damned, the woman is wearing lace spandex bike
shorts under her dress! It is sheer genius, having the double effect of hiding
her privates while also providing extra tummy support.

One can only hope that Leslie has been as wise.

Jodi continues to silence the crowd with the technical
difficulty of her steps combined with some sort of freakish flexibility. At the
start of the routine, people cheer and clap whenever the couple shows off a
great new move. But with each passing minute, the room grows quieter and
quieter, lost in the beauty of their dance.

She catches my eye for a second, looking really upset. Is
she hurt? Has she twisted her ankle? I scan her legs for signs of fatigue or
injury, but her step still seem confident and finessed. Jodi’s years of
experience on the stage must be telling her something.

Her uncertainty brings me out of the moment and makes me
worry about Doug. I picture him sipping a grande skim latte, staring off into
space as teenagers and old couples file in and out of the coffee shop, the
minutes passing unnoticed.

I hope he will wait for me.

Suddenly, Jodi looks my way again. She is definitely
trying to tell me something. Does she want to give up? Has she torn a ligament?
But she’s come so far. I can’t let her stop now, not when the memory of Sonia
Goldberg, Ziegfeld Girl, hovers over the room.

“What’s up?” I ask Kat.

“Dunno. Looks like she’s upset about something.”

“Cheer louder!” I insist.

We stand up. As the music comes to its final moments, I
feel like Béla Károlyi at the ’96 Olympics, telling Kerri Strug to stick the
landing, despite her injury. Stick the landing! Stick the landing! I feel so
moved that I say it aloud, Russian accent and all: “
Stick the landing, Jodi!
”

The music bangs out a final note. Jodi slides into a full
split, arms raised above her in a V for victory.

Needless to say, the girl sticks her landing.

When it is all over and she’s finished smiling and bowing,
Jodi comes over to our table. She has her death-stare radar set on me and Kat,
completely pushing Lee and his bouquet of calla lilies out of the way so she
can reach my chair ASAP. I see the daggers in her eyes, and my first thought is
not that
she
had been injured, but that for some reason,
I
am
going to be. I steady myself for a coming assault, although for what I can’t
imagine.

“
I totally fucked up!
” she whisper-screams to me
and Kat. “
Did you see how I missed those first few steps? I can’t believe
it! How many people do you think noticed?
” She takes a deep, rattled breath
and looks at us intently.

I am relieved that nothing is, apparently, my fault.
Beyond that, I have no idea what she’s talking about. Her dance was flawless.
Also, last time I checked, this is not the real
Dancing with the Stars
.
It’s not the Olympics, or even the Olympic trials. Not even close. But Jodi is
too far gone for this type of logic; the truth doesn’t matter to her.

It’s time to muster up some serious attitude.

I give Kat a look, saying,
me first
.

Then I take Jodi firmly by the arms and make sure to give
my most penetrating gaze. “You were fucking awesome, are you kidding me? You
danced circles around Rudy!”

“You’re a star!” Kat adds. “Friggin’ gorgeous, too.”

“You’re definitely going to beat Leslie!” I say, on a roll
now.

“Beat her, or
win
?” Jodi snaps back.

“Hey. Isn’t this a fundraiser?” Kat asks.

“And isn’t my marriage sort of falling apart while I’m
trying to cheer you on?”
In this somewhat ridiculous event
? I think.

Jodi turns away from us, a tear in her eye. “I’m sorry,
guys. I don’t know why I’m being like this.”

“Because,” Kat says. “It’s something that matters to you.
Something special, that sets you apart from all the other moms.”

Leslie’s name is announced, along with her dance
partner’s.

“Yeah, but,” Jodi says. “Who cares?” She tries to smile.
“I mean,
besides
from me, who cares about this stupid competition?”

“We do,” I say, surprising myself. “If it’s important to
you, it’s important to us.”

Jodi leans into me and Kat and hugs us, one bony arm
around each of us. “How fucked up am I?”

That question is too big to answer directly right now, so
I don’t. “You’re going to win,” I say. “I promise.”

I stare down at the two pink ballots I received at the
start of the night, and begin to hatch a plan.

It’s only once I’m standing in the lobby with cash in my
hand that I remember my promise to Doug. No bidding and no buying.

I stop, considering.

Perhaps there’s a way to fill out ballots in Jodi’s favor
without actually, you know,
purchasing
them, thereby keeping my promise
to Doug as well as the one to Jodi.

Stuffing my money back into my clutch, I quickly head into
the ballroom one more time, looking for my favorite partner in crime.

“Ballots!” I whisper to Kat, pulling her away from a tall,
dark and handsome waiter. She doesn’t look amused. “Grab all the ballots you
can find!”

“What are you doing?” Then, taking in my crazed look and
my hands full of pink slips of paper, she asks again, slowly, as if she knows
the answer perfectly well. “What. Are. You. Doing?”

I dig through my clutch for a pen, and, finding two, hand
one to her. “We’re filling ’em out.” I scribble
Jodi Moncrieff
on my two
and look around for more. “
All
of ’em.”

As Leslie starts her number—a surprisingly non-sexy,
non-bitchas dance to the Talking Heads’ “And She Was”—Kat and I move stealthily
out of the darkened room and into the hallway, collecting and filling out the
pile of extra, pink ballots that sit unguarded at the now-unmanned check-in
table. When both my fist and mouth are full of paper, I slink back into the
ballroom and stuff them into a waiting ballot collection box.

And then I go out and gather some more.

Of course, the voting is not supposed to be done until all
seven of the contestants have danced. But, do people always wait until the end
of a trial before deciding who is to be awarded compensation? Of course not.
So, let’s just think of
Dancing with the Stars of David
as a huge car
accident, and rightly find in favor of Jodi Moncrieff.

When I approach Leslie’s table, another idea forms, this
one perhaps even more brilliant that the last.

“Hey, Kat,” I whisper, standing in the corner behind table
seven. “Come here.”

She moves through the darkness and joins me, pushing her
mop of curls from her flushed face. “Yo. This is fun!”

“Leslie’s family is here.”

“Yup.”

“I mean, no one is at the Koches’ household right now.
It’s sleepy. It’s
empty
.”

“You sound moronic.”

“I’m trying to make a point!”

“So make it!”

“Shh!” someone chastises.

I point to the ballroom doors and Kat follows behind me.
Right before exiting, we get a glance at a not-too-flattering shimmy of
Leslie’s rear as she jitterbugs across the floor.

The light seems bright in the hallway after slinking
around the dim outer rim of the ballroom. I squint at Kat. “Thanks to us,
Jodi’s going to win this ‘dance competition,’ right? So she doesn’t need us
anymore this evening. I figure we have about forty-five minutes to get Doug,
drive down to Hadley, get the nanny cams, and come back to Beth El by dessert.”

Kat is blinking her green eyes at me, shaking her head
back and forth. She speaks very slowly. “So…you mean…we’re planning a
stealth
recovery operation
involving the
breaking and entering
of Leslie’s
home residence, while working under the
alibi
of having been at
Dancing
with the Stars of David
?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying!”

“Now, that’s what I’d call a Saturday night!” Kat tosses
me the keys to my car. “Let’s collect your husband and commit some petty
larceny!”

“I was thinking more like, let’s help save our own asses.”

“Yeah, that, too,” she says, the glow of her BlackBerry
lighting up her face as she starts tapping. “Totally.”

I leave Kat and the car idling while I run into Starbucks
to (hopefully) retrieve my husband. My heart lifts at the sight of Doug seated
at a round table in the corner, staring out a window.

There’s hope, then.

I quietly exhale, letting out air that I’d probably been
holding in since he emerged from behind that fig tree at the temple.

Don’t fuck this up, Lauren.

He doesn’t notice me, so, before announcing my presence, I
take a moment to study him in profile.

His skin, usually a deep olive, looks washed out under
this lighting. His eyes have developed creases in the corners, matching the wrinkles
in his rolled-up shirtsleeves. He reaches up with one hand and rubs his stubble
absentmindedly.

Doug shaves twice a day with a four-blade razor, and
still, it’s not enough.

I love that I know that about him.

I approach his table and say the first thing that comes to
mind. “I’m an idiot.”

Doug shakes his head in agreement. “True as that may be,
it’s not an excuse.”

“No, it’s not an excuse.” I pull out a chair and sit
across from him. He lets me, which I take as a sign to continue. “I could say
that I was drunk. Which is true, but, again, it’s not an excuse.”

He continues to rub at the stubble on his jawline. “I hate
that you kissed him. It disgusts me, and I’m not sure how or when I’ll ever get
that image out of my head.”

I nod. My eyes well up with tears, but I say nothing.

“But I think…I hate
more
the fact that you deceived
me. That you came back from Miami and told me everything
but
that. I
have to wonder, if I hadn’t overheard you talking to Kat, would you
ever
had
told me the truth?”

I am not sure what to say to this.

“And then I have to wonder, what else are you keeping from
me?” His bloodshot eyes hold mine.

I think about the position as chair of the English Department,
that infamous job I did not get and now don’t even want.

I think about how tired I am, keeping track of everyone’s
schedules, of constantly buying ridiculous birthday presents for ridiculous
birthday parties, of washing dishes and folding laundry that my hired help
doesn’t.

I think about the ways in which I sometimes ignore my
children’s bad behavior, giving in to their whines and complaints just to shut
them up.

Just to make all the noise stop.

These are among the few details I overlooked in my
original confession to my husband.

“There are a few things,” I begin. “Nothing as bad as the
Lenny issue.” I can’t bring myself to say, “kiss” to Doug.

“Things like…?” He arches his eyebrows.

“I
may
have visited Georgie Parks.”

“
Professor
Georgina Parks? At Harvard?” he asks.
“When?”

“Wednesday.” I shrug, a smile forming on my lips. I try to
bite it back.

“Why did you do that?”

“Because of a sweater.” I’m sort of laughing now, hearing
how it sounds, remembering the week. I brush a tear away from my eye. “It’s a
long story.”

“I’ve got time,” Doug says, folding his arms across his
chest and leaning back in the chair.

“No, you don’t,” Kat says, materializing by our side.
“Should we want to successfully rob Leslie’s house with any amount of grace,
time is definitely one thing we haven’t got much of.”

Doug stares at her, incredulous. He looks to me for an
explanation.

“Plus, you can’t just sit here and mope,” Kat argues.
“Well, I mean, you can, but it will continue to suck.”

“She’s right,” I say. “Come on. I’ll explain everything in
the car.”

“Everything?” he asks.

“With Kat as my witness,” I say, holding my palm out flat,
like I’m taking an oath.

“You’re about to become one of us!” Kat grins.

Doug hesitates, still deciding what to do. “And what is
that, exactly?” he asks, following us out onto the street and getting into the
passenger side of the car. “Werewolves? Criminal masterminds? Complete freakazoids?”

“A little bit of all of the above,” Kat decides, buckling
herself into the back. “If you also add in the fun factor.”

“Legally, you should sit in Becca’s car seat,” Doug says.

“Original.” Kat extends one middle finger his way before
answering her phone, which has just begun to ring.

Am I wrong to love a series of diversions that momentarily
take the focus off of my recent infidelity and compulsive need to fabricate and
obfuscate?

Definitely not wrong, I conclude, turning on the radio. I
select an XM station with a heavy enough rap element to complicate Doug’s
ability to think clearly.

Kat listens intently to the voice on the other end of her
phone as I pull out of the parking spot and make my way through the quiet
streets of Elmwood. I decide to skip the traffic lights on the main road,
preferring instead to take the highway three exits south to Hadley.