Mine Are Spectacular! (13 page)

No sex is one thing, but different country clubs? Maybe the marriage is shakier than I thought. People do move on, as I well know. But not without a lot of heartache.

“Listen, Kate, all I want is what's best for you. And seeing you as the third wheel doesn't make me happy.”

“Me either,” Kate admits. “But things can change.” She starts walking faster, and in another block or so, I'm practically running to keep up. By the time we get to her office, Kate's New York stride—maybe the high heels help—has me sweating. At her office door, Kate stops to throw me a kiss and give me a brave smile. “Don't worry, Sara. Tess Hardy may have won the painting. But I can still win the man.”

 

Late that night, I'm waiting for Bradford to get home and distracting myself watching the eleven o'clock news. If they show one more fire in Brooklyn, I'm going back to reruns of
Everybody Loves Raymond.
But at least I'm not eating Rocky Road. I've stepped down to chocolate sorbet. By the end of the week I should be at lemon.

I'm clicking around the remote when Dylan pads into the room, wearing his Harry Potter pajamas and clutching Bunny, the stuffed bear he's loved since he was a baby. Dylan's knowledge of the animal kingdom has improved since he was one, but the name stuck. I open my arms wide for Dylan to come over and he jumps onto the bed and cuddles close. I stroke his soft hair and take in that yummy little boy smell of bubble gum, rocks and No Tears shampoo. How long will my sweet boy stay this lovable? Forever, I hope. “What's the matter, honey, can't sleep?” I ask him. “Want a story?”

“Okay,” Dylan says.

I reach over to my night table where I keep a collection of Shel Silverstein books for occasions just like this. But when I pull out his favorite, Dylan doesn't seem interested.

“Is my real daddy really back from Patagonia?” he asks, folding his legs and sitting up next to me. “Is it true you saw him? And I'm going to see him soon?”

Daddy? Patagonia? Where did all this come from? I'm completely caught off guard. Did James call when I wasn't around? I'll kill him. But I can't let on to Dylan that I'm upset. I'm going to stay calm even if I have to go back on Rocky Road.

“Dylan, why are you asking?” I ask in as measured tones as I can muster.

“Skylar told me,” he says happily. “She talks to me now. She knows everything.”

And how does she find everything out? Standing outside the bedroom door when I'm talking to Bradford? Listening on the extension when James calls? Doesn't matter. Right now, that's not what's important.

I launch into part of the speech that I've been working on for days.

“Well yes, Dylan, guess what!” I say with forced enthusiasm. In fact, too much enthusiasm. I tone it down a notch. “Your birth father James happens to be in New York. I've always told you he loves you but couldn't be with us. Now he's here and we can all go to the zoo together. But only if you want.”

“I want, I want, I want!” Dylan says, jumping up and down on the bed. “My real dad. That's so cool. Are we going back to Patagonia with him?”

“Of course not, honey,” I say. “We live here now, with Bradford.”

“But Skylar says we're leaving soon and her mom is moving back in,” Dylan says. “And she knows it for absolute sure.”

Now there's a news flash I hadn't heard. And I'm hoping Skylar hasn't really heard it either—from Mimi or Bradford. She probably just made the whole thing up. On the other hand, her information about James being back was dead on. And she got that from someone.

I want to give Dylan a hug, but my heart is pounding so hard, I'm afraid he'll feel it. So I just rub my fingers over his hand. “We love Skylar, but she's not right about everything. From now on, only mommy gives you information, okay?”

“Okay. But I'm a little scared.” He snuggles closer to me and I hold him tight.

“I'll be with you. I'll always be with you. But if you're scared, you don't have to see James.”

“I want to see Daddy,” Dylan says, clutching Bunny bear. “But you said we're going to the zoo and I'm afraid of lions.”

Nice to have something specific to be afraid of instead of what I'm feeling—an overwhelming sense of dread, and no place to direct it. I could focus it on James, of course. But why do I also have a sense of foreboding about Bradford? Somehow the comment of a snotty almost-fourteen-year-old, repeated by an innocent seven-year-old, has me worried. But that's ridiculous. Bradford and I love each other.

Dylan falls asleep in my arms and I carry him back to his own bed. I stand gazing at him for a while and tuck Bunny into his arms, so he'll be there when Dylan wakes up. Back in my own room, I have nothing to hold on to. I crawl into bed and stare blankly at the TV. I'm hoping Bradford gets home before two a.m., because I don't want to spend another night with Jimmy Kimmel.

 

I'm so preoccupied worrying about Bradford, Mimi, James, Dylan, Owen, Kate, Skylar and—what the heck, whether Berni's twins are eating—that the first few days of school pass in a haze. At least by now I'm used to the routine. The binders outlining school regulations are thick enough to soundproof a room and my class list has so many asterisks on it that it looks like the Big Dipper. Two of my art students are on Prozac, three on Ritalin, and twelve can't eat peanuts. I know it's a real problem, but how can so many kids suddenly be allergic? Mothers have started to treat Skippy, once standard lunch box fare, as a national threat. It's gotten so out of hand that my students aren't allowed to smell peanuts. Or see peanuts. Or even read anything by Charles Schulz.

The third day of school, I get back to my house late in the afternoon, toss down my tote bag and take out the highly-prized student directory. Having the home phone number of every girl who goes to our exclusive Spence School means instant access to some of New York's most illustrious parents. (Although the Brearley directory is more prized since it contains Caroline Kennedy's private number.) Still, Spence regulations insist that the list be used for school business only. Which doesn't explain why someone spent nine hundred dollars last year buying a copy on eBay.

“How was your day, dear?” calls out a friendly voice.

I laugh and head into the next room where Berni is sitting on the Betsy Ross couch, knitting. The heat wave is over and so is her pregnancy, but my living room has become her Starbucks. Great hangout, and I even have wireless Internet access. Though she's been pressing me to serve mocha frappuccinos.

“Since when do you knit?” I ask, looking at the silvery-spun yarn that's zig-zagged across her lap and slowly becoming—well, I don't know what. Maybe booties. Or a baby blanket. Though they're not usually trapezoidal.

“Everyone in Hollywood knits,” Berni says, making a few more slightly crooked stitches. “I've got to keep a hand in the business.”

Berni leans over her handiwork and clicks her needles.

“How are the babies?” I ask, glancing over at the laptop Berni has propped next to her on the couch.

Berni pauses in her knitting to look at the screen and grin. The faces of her two little sleeping angels fill the frame. “I don't know how people lived without remote video,” she says. “The nanny is with them but I still like to watch every minute. And the babies can watch me, too.”

I look around my living room to see if Berni's installed a camera so the infants can enjoy a live feed of her knitting. Nope.

“Paste your picture onto the crib?” I ask, thinking I'm making a joke.

“Better. Infant Recognition Video. The babies have a DVD in their nursery that flashes my picture next to the word ‘Mommy.' ”

Gee, I didn't know the kids could read yet.

“I used a photo that's about ten years old and very glamorous,” Berni continues cheerfully. “I want my children to get to know me at my thinnest.”

The good headshot might be a bad idea. If the twins think that thin glamorous woman is “Mommy,” what will they call the nice lady who breast-feeds them every day?

I sit down next to Berni on the couch and take the knitting from her hands, quickly picking up the three stitches she carelessly dropped while her eyes were on the monitor. Berni looks at me in amazement, as if stunned that anyone who's never been invited to the Oscars knows how to knit.

“I've been doing this since I was a kid,” I say, quickly getting back into the rhythm and clacking away.

“You're good at it,” Berni says, sitting back, happy to watch me work. “You'll have this finished in no time.”

I'd love some clue about what it is I'm finishing, but it's a relief to be sitting here mindlessly putting one needle in front of the other. I almost forgot how relaxing this is. Instead of taking a honeymoon in Tahiti, maybe Bradford and I will stay home and knit.

“So are we going to the Hadley Farms' party this afternoon?” Berni asks. “Priscilla told me it's a very supportive group.”

“What could they possibly do at a suburban newcomer's party?” I ask. “Write letters to Martha Stewart? Discuss the pros and cons of Burpee seeds?” I finish a row of knitting, switch hands and begin again. Hmm. I'm not exactly spending the afternoon at the Metropolitan Museum myself.

“Priscilla promised it would be fun,” Berni says. “And I need to get out of my house.”

I think about that one. “You are out of your house,” I say.

“Technicality,” Berni says. “I'm getting a little tired of your four walls, too.”

I guess we could move into the den. Or the library. Or the family room, the study or the media room. Not that I've really figured out the differences among them since each one has a couch, bookshelves and a plasma screen TV.

“Then let's go,” I sigh, putting down the knitting. “At least I'll get a cookie.”

 

But a cookie isn't the first thing that Priscilla, the perfect hostess, offers five minutes after I've stepped into the crowd of pink-and-green-clad women who are singlehandedly keeping Lilly Pulitzer in business. There are enough pearl earrings in the room to have depleted the oyster beds of Oyster Bay. And from the welcoming smiles the women generously offer, I'm pretty sure the local pharmacy must be sold out of Crest Whitestrips.

“What can I get you?” asks Priscilla, hurrying over to greet us warmly. “The vodka martinis are at the bar. And the vibrators are on the table.”

That's an interesting way to break the ice. And apparently it's working because across the room, the Lilly Pulitzer ladies are giggling and trying the vibrators against their wrists as if they were perfume samples.

“I'm fine with a Diet Coke,” I say nervously, trying to figure out what's going on.

“Me, too,” says Berni.

“Come on girls, loosen up,” Priscilla says genially. “I can't wait to show you what we've got. Neon vibrators. Underwater vibrators with twelve speeds. And a new one that works by remote control. All here courtesy of the PTA.”

“The PTA is providing vibrators? Progressive school system,” I say. The only thing the Spence PTA provides is brownies for the bake sale.

Priscilla laughs. “Gotcha. Great name, isn't it? Stands for Playtime Toys for Adults. When we have these parties, we don't even have to fib to our kids. We just tell them we're going to a PTA meeting.”

So much for my stereotype of uptight suburban women. I thought I was so cool when I lived in Manhattan, but I couldn't even get my book group to read William Burroughs's
Naked Lunch.
They didn't want anybody seeing them on the subway holding a book with that title. And forget Henry Miller's
Tropic of Capricorn.
They were even more embarrassed that people might think they were into astrology.

“Are we starting soon?” asks a pretty woman coming over to join us. “I'm dying to see the new edible panties. I'm hoping for dulce de leche. My husband's sick of raspberry.” She adjusts her pink velvet headband and tucks a strand of hair behind her gold earring.

“You'll love the new crème brûlée,” says Priscilla. “But you're right, we should start.” She taps a martini glass with a Tiffany butter knife. Amazingly, the genteel tinkle commands everyone's attention and the women quickly seat themselves around the room. Priscilla strolls over to take her place behind the vibrator table.

“I hope you all had a great summer,” says Priscilla brightly, using the same opening line as the principal at Spence the other morning. “And I hope every one of you has put the lickety-lube vibrating bath loofah from the last PTA meeting to good use.” Definitely a line the principal didn't use.

Priscilla rubs her hands, getting down to work. “Okay neighbors, let's start with sharing time,” she says, sounding frighteningly like Mr. Rogers.

One woman stands up from her seat on the chintz sofa. I almost didn't see her before because her summer sun dress is the same floral print as the upholstery. “Hi, for our new friends I'm Lizzie,” she says, smiling over at Berni and me. “And I'd like to share that the Magic Mood Cream was fabulous.”

That's nice. I guess we can all learn a thing or two from each other. Maybe when we're done with this, somebody will tell me the name of a good Hadley Farms dry cleaner.

“If you haven't tried it,” Lizzie says, looking straight at me, “Magic Mood Cream puts you in the mood for sex. Even if you're grumpy and you think you're too tired. Much more efficient than lighting a bunch of candles. For an amazing tingle, all you have to do is apply a quarter of a teaspoon directly to your clitoris.”

Funny, I remember going to parties where “clitoris” wasn't the first word someone said. Even parties where clitoris never came up at all. And come to think of it, I've been in bed with men who as far as I could tell never heard the word “clitoris.” And wouldn't have a clue about where to find one.