The Botox Diaries (34 page)

“Same difference.”

“Then you’re right—don’t come with me.”

“All right, I won’t. But do you get my point? Maybe you should stop complaining and start appreciating.”

“I know. I’ve had everything anyone could want. I see that now.”

“About time,” I say.

Lucy turns pale and clutches her stomach. Could be I was too harsh.

“Are you okay?” I ask. “Didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

Lucy shakes her head and doubles over. “You didn’t,” she says rushing toward the exit. “Just another door closing. Can’t eat Dell’s pie the way I used to.”

When Jen gets into my car after school, her face is contorted into the kind of pout I haven’t seen since I served deviled eggs with little olive eyes instead of pizza at her sixth birthday party.

“What’s wrong?” I ask as she throws her knapsack into the backseat and slams the door.

“Nothing.”

“Have a bad day?”

“Nope.”

“Somebody do something mean to you?” I try again.

“No.”

“Well, at least I feel we’re communicating,” I tell her, pulling away from the curb and trying to ease into the row of shiny SUVs ferrying children from school to soccer games, tennis clinics, art workshops and orthodontist appointments. “I hear about mothers and daughters who can’t talk about their problems. Thank goodness that’s not us.”

She gives me a condescending look and turns her head to stare out the half-open window.

“Ethan’s an asshole,” she mumbles, barely loud enough for me to hear.

So here’s that famous parental conundrum. I want my daughter to talk to me, and when she finally does, I don’t like her choice of words. But complain, and I may never hear another word out of her again.

“Why is Ethan an asshole?” I ask. Not a word I’d normally use. But kind of rolls off the tongue. Might have a few people I could say it to.

“All boys are assholes,” she says definitively. “Men too.”

Now we’re getting somewhere. She hates half the human race.
Maybe I can narrow it down to a chosen few. “Did you and Ethan have a fight?” I ask gingerly.

“We broke up,” she admits.

I don’t want to make too little of this, but I don’t want to make too much of it either. “Isn’t that what has to happen? You’re only eleven.”

“Yup,” Jen agrees. “It wasn’t that much fun being his girlfriend since I’m not allowed to go out on dates. I kind of liked breaking up, though. All the girls came around me at recess. I cried and they gave me presents to make me feel better.” She pulls the bounty out of her jean pocket. Two fluorescent ponytail holders, one handmade string bracelet, a rock, a squished Nutri-Grain bar and two partially dead dandelions.

“Not bad,” I tell her. Nice kids—the kind who’ll grow up to make chicken soup and throw dance parties for the dumped.

“I’m never going out with a boy again,” Jen says, unwrapping the crumbly Nutri-Grain bar and taking a bite.

“Never’s a long time,” I say gently. “Sure, it hurts right now. But it goes away and you try again.”

“Yeah, Drew gave me the rock. He said if I’m not going out with Ethan anymore, I can go out with him.”

Oh, to be eleven again. I suddenly know what Lucy meant about all those open doors when you’re young. Always a new man lined up just waiting to replace the last. Still, I wouldn’t want to face final exams again. Or first love, for that matter.

“Mom, do you hate men, too?” Jen asks.

“Of course not. Some are nice and some aren’t. Just like all people.”

“But what about Jacques? Lily says you hate him. That’s what her mom says, but I thought you liked him again.”

I have to be careful about this one. Hate him? Well, yeah, that’s a pretty good description. So is pissed, angry, hurt, insulted, outraged, offended. Fill in the blank. But that’s not what Jen needs to hear.

“Sometimes people disappoint you,” I admit. “You expect one thing and you get something else. But that’s okay. The reason you date somebody is to find out what he’s like.”

“Ethan’s really popular. When I was with him I felt popular, too. Now no one will like me.”

“Whoa. Wrong. You know what, Jen? You’re smart and funny and pretty and you’re a good person. Never forget that. That’s who you are. It doesn’t matter who you’re with.”

“Yes it does,” says Jen, twisting her hair around her finger. “Like if I go out with Drew, everyone will think I’m a dork.”

“Or else everyone will think he’s really cool. As long as you believe in yourself other people will, too. Sometimes it takes a long time to understand that. I even know some grown-up women who get confused about who they are.”

“Do you, Mom?” Jen asks.

I pause, considering the question. Am I a different Jess depending on what man I’m with? Maybe once, but not anymore. “I kind of like myself now,” I tell Jen honestly. “And I hope one day there’ll be a man who likes me this way, too. Just like there’ll be a man who likes you. Lots of them.”

Have I done my job? Is her esteem properly raised? Can I prevent Jen from growing up to be one of those girls who defines herself strictly through a man?

“You’re special exactly the way you are,” I say, sounding dangerously like Mr. Rogers. “Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

“Sure,” Jen says, jumping out of the car as we pull into the driveway. “Girl power. We talk about it in school all the time. But I’m still not going out with Drew. He really is a dork.”

Dan needs someone to bring along to a big client’s party, and I’m drafted. Lucy gives me her okay. She had to zip off to L.A. for a meeting with some network bigwigs the minute Dan got back from Zelda’s birthday weekend. Whether Dan would have invited Lucy to the party if she’d been around goes undiscussed.

Dan’s my friend. This isn’t a date. I know that. Which doesn’t explain why I drink three glasses of champagne the minute I walk onto the rooftop garden of the Hudson Hotel. It’s a star-filled night, with a full moon, just like Jacques used to order.

“I didn’t realize this was going to be such a fancy party,” I say to
Dan, looking around at the women in their glittering jewels and couture dresses that are either very, very short or very, very long. As far as I can tell, I’m the only one who went for knee-length. And definitely the only one in Bloomingdale’s polished cotton.

“You look fine,” Dan tells me. “I love it that you don’t need an expensive dress to be the prettiest woman in the room.”

He thinks he’s being nice, but all I hear is that I don’t spend enough on my clothes. And I bet he’s wishing that he had his stunning Prada-clad Lucy on his arm.

We stroll around the rooftop, which has been transformed for the evening. The cozy pink-clothed tables for six are bedecked with tiny vases bursting with miniature roses and mirrored trays with rafts of Rigaud candles sending a glow over Manhattan.

“Remind me what we’re celebrating tonight,” I say to Dan.

“Two big multinational companies becoming one. I designed the new international tax structure for their big merger.”

“Looks like a merger,” I agree, “but not corporate. More like a wedding. Check out those entertainers wandering around.”

“Where?” asks Dan, who’s been too busy shaking hands with various business associates to take in the dozens of performers scattered about the room.

“Over there,” I say, pointing.

“The guy in the blue tie? He’s not an entertainer. That’s the vice president of marketing. Nothing entertaining about him,” Dan says.

“No,” I say, swiveling Dan’s head slightly. “The guy next to him. The one who’s naked except for a Speedo and spray-painted in gold. What’s he? The CFO?”

“Didn’t notice him,” says Dan, laughing. “Maybe he’s one of the summer interns.”

Whoever he is, he’s joined by three identically Speedoed and spray-painted comrades who begin juggling fire-lit torches, tossing them back and forth, each time higher and higher.

“Risky business,” I say. “Hope the deal wasn’t that dangerous.”

“Nope,” he says, but he doesn’t elaborate, because across the room,
another quartet of performers has caught his eye. Belly dancers. They’re spray-painted silver—I’m guessing the merger was in commodities—and wearing teeny, fringed bikini tops and wafty, navel-baring skirts. They sway back and forth in perfect unison, their jeweled belly buttons moving in hypnotizing rhythms. And Dan’s entranced.

“Didn’t know you were so interested in Middle Eastern dance,” I say.

“Yup,” he says, monosyllabically, never taking his eyes off the scantily clad quartet.

Dan, the nicest man I know. The least sexist. The nonchauvinist who sees women as friends and colleagues, not objects. Who supports a working wife, equal parenting, and a woman’s right to pick up half the check—even Dan can’t help ogling available female flesh. And in this case, there’s a lot of it. Two of the women have voluptuous bodies. Make that rolls of fat around the middle. But none of the men who are quickly gravitating around them seem to care.

“They’re a little chunky,” I say to Dan as we join the tide moving toward the dancers.

“You think so?” he asks, obviously not sharing my critical eye.

Apparently it doesn’t matter what I think. Most women I know spend way too much time dieting, exercising, slow-burning, fastwalking, purging, pruning, and doing whatever we can to fulfill some ideal image we hold in our heads. Men just want to see a flash of flesh. And they don’t care if it’s a little flabby. Sometimes I’ll notice a girl in a micro-mini walking down the street, and all I see is whether or not she has fat thighs. All the guy sees is that she’s wearing a short skirt.

I wander over to the reception table to get our placecard for dinner and notice that I’m going incognito tonight.
MR. AND MRS. DANIEL BALDOR, TABLE 4
. I’ve always wondered what it would feel like to be in Lucy’s shoes. Actually I have been in Lucy’s shoes. Tonight I’ll just be in her seat.

I hang out by the half-naked jugglers, wondering who’s going to scrub all that gold spray paint off them. Maybe they need volunteers. I don’t know who started the myth that women don’t enjoy looking at
men’s bodies. Probably the same guy who started the rumor that size doesn’t matter. Sure women are interested in relationships, emotion, blah blah blah, all that stuff. But that doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate a good pin-up boy when we see him. That flash of flesh works for women, too.

The music changes and the naked Adonises stop juggling. Damn, must be time for dinner. Dan comes over to collect me and casts a good long look at my Gold Gods who are now escorting guests to the dinner tables.

“Those guys are a little chunky, don’t you think?” Dan asks, teasing, as he leads me over to our seats.

“All muscle,” I explain.

“Hey, I’ve got some, too,” he says offering up his tuxedoed arm. “Feel mine.”

I laugh and obligingly rub his firm bicep. Something else the sexes have in common—the need for constant reassurance. Got to throw a man a compliment every so often, too.

“That’s one amazing body you’ve got there, pal,” I joke loudly as I turn to take my seat. The man to my left looks up startled, hearing the compliment and assuming it’s meant for him.

“Thanks, I didn’t think you cared,” says a familiar voice. A very familiar voice. He half stands to pull out my chair for me, but Dan’s already done it. If the chair goes out any farther, I’ll end up on the floor. Which would be par for the course, since the man to my left is Joshua Gordon.

“Josh, hello,” I say, extending a freshly manicured hand. I look down to see which nail is chipped. Must be something wrong. I only see Josh Gordon when I’m getting a facial, there’s orange paint on my cheeks, or my skirt is snagged on my panty hose.

“You two know each other?” Dan asks, surprised, as he leans across me to shake hands with Josh.

“You
two know each other?” I ask, equally surprised, as Josh and Dan’s handshake turns into congratulatory back-slapping over the merger that they apparently both helped forge.

“This is a helluva deal, and you’re a helluva dealmaker,” Dan says admiringly to Josh. “Honored to be sitting at your table.”

“Not at all. Your restructuring plan for Germany is going to save us millions,” Josh replies. “And that Holland idea was a brilliant stroke.”

I’m glad the boys are friends but this is about as entertaining as a Matthew Perry movie. Am I going to have to listen to this all night? I play with the placecard that I’m still holding and clamp it down next to the wineglass in front of me. For some reason that catches Josh’s eye, and he pauses midsentence.

He looks from the placecard, to me, to Dan, and then back to the placecard that’s announced us as Mr. and Mrs.

“Jess, I didn’t realize …” He pauses. For once he’s the one who’s flustered. He waves his finger back and forth between me and Dan. “You two … you’re …”

“We’re good friends,” I say, immediately jumping into the breach. “I’m the ringer. Placecard doesn’t know a thing.”

I wait for Dan to say that the real Mrs. Baldor is in L.A. on business, but he just lets it pass. Lucy’s name never crosses his lips.

“Oh, and let me introduce my friend, Marissa,” says Josh, suddenly remembering his manners and putting his arm around the chair of the long-haired, white-blond beauty to his left. She looks us over with a cool gaze and, apparently deciding we’re not worth the effort of “hello,” gives a barely perceptible nod. Her stick-straight hair hangs almost to her waist. I’m hoping it’s not natural and she had to spend at least nine hours at the hairdresser going through that torturous Japanese straightening process.

“Want to dance?” I ask Dan, as the ten-piece orchestra begins playing J. Lo’s “Let’s Get Loud.”

Anything to get away from the table. The way Marissa’s glaring at me could cause frost in Bora Bora.

“I don’t think I can dance to that kind of music,” says Dan.

“Come on, I’ll teach you,” I say, grabbing his hand. On the dance floor, Dan raises two fists like he’s facing Mike Tyson, and moves one foot back and forth.

I grab his hands and shake them. “Loosen up,” I laugh. “This isn’t a prize fight. You win no matter what you do.”

“I’ve already won. I’m with you, Jess,” he says, catching the rhythm now and moving more easily. In fact, he gets so into the music that by the end of the song, he takes off his tuxedo jacket, tosses it on the back of his chair, and rolls up his shirtsleeves. When he rejoins me on the dance floor, the orchestra has switched gears and is now playing that romantic Kelly Clarkson anthem, “A Moment Like This.”