Good Christian Bitches (19 page)

L
unchtime found Sharon Peavy and Darlene Cockburn huddled in Darlene’s favorite booth at Tizio’s, a neighborhood bistro-type restaurant in the middle of Hillside Park Village, a half block from the movie theater. In Hillside Park society, as in the Mafia, there are two types of restaurants—the ones to which you bring your wife, and the ones to which you bring your girlfriend. This was definitely a “wifey” type of restaurant, due in part to its location. You would never take your girlfriend to lunch in a restaurant favored by “ladies who lunch,” because the chances of word getting back to your wife from three different sources before you left the restaurant about whom you had squired to the restaurant approached 100 percent.

Tizio’s drew a solid lunchtime crowd from the businesses, law firms, and financial institutions that ringed Hillside Park Village, catering to its wealthy clientele. You could slip in for a burger and a beer, or a salad that met with the guidelines of the nearby Cooper Clinic (a rehab center for the overfed), but it was no place to take a girlfriend.

Sharon and Darlene ostensibly studied the menus, but since they knew them by heart, they spent more of their time absorbing the kind of sociological detail that was so close to their hearts—who was lunching with whom, who was wearing what, who got a good table and who got relegated to a second- or even third-tier table, and who had already knocked back a few too many even at this early hour. The restaurant had been featured a few months earlier in the
Wall Street Journal
as a “power lunch” spot, complete with a diagram showing which tables were considered most desirable. Until the diagram had run, most people really didn’t know better. But now that something as august as the
Wall Street Journal
had declared new levels of status depending on where one sat, the maître d’s job had become radically more difficult—and more lucrative—as the financially stable members of the community, which is to say, pretty much all of them, jockeyed for favor.

“Mmm-mmm-mmm,” Sharon was saying, indicating with her eyes a woman two tables away. “I mean, really . . . did she actually look in the mirror when she got dressed this morning? Bright orange short-short shorts with gold high-heeled wedges at her age? How did she stand there and think ‘I look really cute today’?”

Darlene suppressed a grin. “It isn’t a look I would favor,” she said, petting her shoulders in her St. John suit. “And she’s obviously not from around here.”

The only part of the menu that held any attraction at all for Sharon was the wine list. Her night in jail had given her the kind of headache that she normally associated with Saturday nights when she permitted herself to be overserved with red wine, vodka, or, if neither of those was readily available, tequila. Her temples were throbbing with pain from a headache that was a function of sleeplessness, frustration, and upset over the whole state of affairs with Amanda Vaughn.

“I feel like the world’s biggest idiot,” she admitted, looking at the names of the wines as if they were a menu of prescription drugs especially selected to ease her pain. “I should never have kicked up this whole hornets’ nest with Amanda.”

“For heaven’s sakes, why not?” Darlene glanced around the room, filing away mental notes about various clothing labels, or lack thereof, seating locations of various parties, and other vital information. “I thought your plan was working out marveliciously.”

“It was never even my plan.” Sharon jerked angrily on her chain necklace, a barely passable Ann Demeulemeester replica she’d bought for less than ten bucks at TJ Maxx. “It was Heather’s idea. I just went along with it.”

“If you didn’t think it was a good idea,” Darlene asked, sweeping her outstretched hand across the table and almost toppling Sharon’s ice water, “then . . . why did you get involved?”

“Are you kidding me? Think about Amanda for a minute. I had an old score to settle with her over Bill anyway. Even though I’d never told her about it, we were good enough friends, she should’ve known I had a crush on him when he started pursuing her and then she goes and
marries
him! She’s beautiful, she’s a genuinely nice person, she’s got plenty of money—her family’s and Bill’s—she’s single or she’s on the verge of being single, and she’s available. Doesn’t that make you just wanna throttle her? Adding insult to injury, I’ve had a thing for Tom my whole life and he’s after her.”

Darlene shook her head. “Truth be told, her demographic and mine don’t exactly . . . overlap. I’m interested in a slightly older archetype of man than she is.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Sharon moaned. “A guy who’s interested in somebody your age—that’s one thing. There are tons of older guys. But if you look at the concentration of men from thirty-five to forty-nine who are independently wealthy, available, or soon to become available, you’re looking at a very small pool indeed. Throw someone like Amanda into the mix and she’s going to draw all the attention away from somebody like me just like she did all through high school. I knew what to expect the second I heard she was coming back. I mean, I’ve been around here so long, everybody knows me.”

“Not in the biblical sense, I hope,” Darlene said, giving her a coy smile.

“Close enough. Sometimes I feel like I could write a
Zagat’s Guide to the Private Parts of the Men of Hillside Park
.”

“I’d buy a copy of that.”

“What are you talking about? You never have any trouble getting a man to marry you. I wish I knew your secret.”

“I’ve gotten inquiries from the Learning Annex about doing a seminar on that very topic,” Darlene said with a laugh. “But tell me . . . why are you so upset about what’s transpired with Amanda?”

The waitress arrived at their table. Sharon glanced at her and sized her up, relatively accurately, as a fifth- or sixth-year college student who was tired of school and no longer fit in with the world of sororities and cheerleading, who didn’t come from a ton of money, and who just wanted to meet some guy who had a few bucks so she could forget about the whole college thing, live in a big house, have a bunch of babies, and then come eat in restaurants like this as a Mrs. in the Neighborhood. Sharon knew the type; she had been one herself. Unfortunately, that strategy seemed to have worked for just about everyone
but
Sharon and, of course, Heather.

“We’re not ready,” Sharon said in a tone that revealed a measure of her competitiveness with the waitress, who could easily have picked off any of the men in whom Sharon felt any interest with just a glimpse of her unlined, perfect skin.

She nodded at Sharon, glancing disapprovingly at the outward display of cleavage, and headed to another table.

“You don’t like our waitress, I can tell,” Darlene noted.

“Don’t even start. Everything I’ve done has been disastrous. We both know it was Heather’s idea to have Amanda take over the Ball. I just went along. I figured it would keep her off the streets, keep her from competing for what men there are before I even knew about Tom.”

“And?”

“And? What do you mean
and
?! The one thing she didn’t have in the community was power, and now she does. And the first person she used it against was me. She had me arrested, you know that.”

“You’re the one who swiped the card from her desk,” Darlene gently reminded her.

“It wasn’t her desk,” Sharon said defensively. “It was Susie’s. I figured it was Susie’s card and—”

Darlene waved her hand, speaking with unusual clarity. “We’ve been over this six ways to Sunday. Let’s try to deal in reality here. You swiped the card, you got in trouble, and then out of the goodness of her heart, Amanda bailed you out.”

“Mmm. I guess . . . But it gets worse. You saw Ellen Salter’s column this morning?”

“About how Amanda got both you and Susie arrested? Wasn’t that a little bit much? She hadn’t even unpacked her bags in Dallas when they took Susie in. She had nothing to do with that. You’d better hope Amanda doesn’t sue you for libel, or slander, or . . . whatever it’s called.”

“That’s the thing,” Sharon admitted. “I really screwed up. A bunch of times. When I took the card, when I called Ellen—I’m just so jealous of Amanda that I’m not thinking straight.”

“How about thinking of apologizing?” Darlene asked. She adjusted her noisy row of diamond bangles and glanced at the salad selections on the menu she knew so well.

“Uggh, I don’t know,” Sharon said, disgusted. “Because I just don’t want to, I guess. It seems like Amanda got all the breaks in life and I didn’t. She came from money. She grew up in a beautiful home in Hillside Park. She’s got everything a girl could ask for in life—”

“Including a philandering husband,” her older friend reminded her. Darlene was making a surprising amount of sense. “As a veteran of at least three and possibly five such husbands, I want to suggest that their value is completely overrated.”

“Maybe so. But it’s not fair! I’ve never been married, not even to a guy who can’t keep it in his pants. I’m never going to get to have children. At least she had the choice.”

“And that was Amanda’s fault how? So, what are you thinking of now? Since you’re not planning on apologizing to her.”

“I just can’t apologize.” The waitress moved back into view. Sharon glanced at her, despised her, and had the awkward sensation that she was really despising herself.

The waitress, for her part, glanced at Sharon’s décolleté. Her look clearly said, “Is that all there is to you?”

“I’m still not ready,” Sharon told her. She turned her attention back to Darlene. “It’s just all her fault. If she hadn’t moved back to Dallas, none of this would have happened. Why couldn’t she have been the devoted mother she pretends to be and kept her children closer to their father in California?
That
would’ve been the right thing for Miss Perfect Amanda to do—not uproot those poor kids and drag them back to Dallas and away from Bill! Bill’s business is there—he has no choice but to be where his business is and how else is he supposed to provide that ridiculously large, I’m sure, alimony and child support check she’s gonna cash every month. But he’s supposed to send it knowing he has such limited access to his kids because she just had to come back to Dallas!”

Darlene just glared at her. It was times like this that even she had a hard time really understanding what kept her in a close friendship with this tragic, pathetic, bitter woman. Over the years, she’d had to defend her friendships with both Sharon and Heather to a multitude of her better groups of friends.

“Maybe, just maybe,” Darlene continued, “one of Bill’s indiscretions had produced an unplanned pregnancy that turned a meaningless one-night stand into the mother of his child, as she was in search of those very same said checks. This other woman had a child from a previous marriage at Will and Sarah’s school. It was just too awkward, too incestuous, too hard to explain to children their age, so she came home. She thought it was best for her children to remove them.”

Sharon sat there, finally speechless. “Oh my God! Why didn’t you tell me all that before?”

“I just found out this morning, myself. Amanda hasn’t even told her own mother yet. Elizabeth just found out through a mutual friend in LA who has mutual friends in Newport.”

Sharon was stunned and hated herself even more. “Well . . . what do you want me to do?”

Darlene made another broad gesture across the table, this time narrowly missing the ketchup bottle sitting precariously near the edge. “You know I’m in your corner.”

Sharon studied the wine list and wished she lived in one of the romantic-sounding places from which the award-winning wine collection had been assembled—Napa Valley, the south of France, or Zinfandel. Where was Zinfandel, anyway? Maybe an Italian isle?

“Mmm. I want to start another rumor about Amanda.” Sharon took a quick glance down her shirt for affirmation of her remaining assets. “Something juicy. Something people will hate her for.”

“Chicken salad,” Darlene told the waitress, who gave one last unimpressed look at Sharon. Sharon glumly shook her head to indicate that she didn’t want anything, and the waitress flounced off.

“I don’t have a dog in this fight,” Darlene noted. “You wanted me to make her head of the Ball. I did that. But you, my dear . . .” She took in a great gust of air. “You are the one who had to steal that noxiferous gift card and then call Ellen Salter. If you want to do anything further to Amanda, other than apologize, you can just count me out.”

“Some friend you turned out to be.” Sharon shot Darlene a dirty look. “Where is that waitress? I think I need a drink.”

“You might want to reconsider that drink.” Darlene cast an equally chilly look on her lunch partner, her voice oozing with disdain. “I think it’s more the root of a lot of your problems than you realize or are willing to admit right now.”

“If I want that kind of advice,” Sharon retorted sharply, “I’ll go to AA. Not to lunch with you. Okay?” She began tapping her fingers furiously on the table. “Now, where’s that waitress when you need her, anyway?”

“W
e’ve got to make some decisions here,” Amanda told her mother. “Are we going on with this Ball? Or aren’t we?”

Before Elizabeth could answer, there was a knock at the door. It was Tom, bearing lunch from Whole Foods. “That’s the biggest health food store I’ve ever seen,” he exclaimed, handing out salads and sushi. “I think I’d like to buy it.”

“You want the whole . . . Whole Foods?” Sarah joked, pleased with herself.

“I want the whole of anything I get into,” Tom told her, grinning. “I don’t do things halfway.”

“Well, if we’re not going to do this Ball halfway,” Amanda said, “we need a plan.”

They opened up the various boxes and set to their meals.

“What’s this book?” Sarah asked, holding up a thin volume titled
Longhorn Ball Rules and Regulations
.

“Oh, that’s something boring,” Elizabeth told her. “It’s just about how this whole Ball thing is organized. I don’t think you’ll find it very entertaining reading.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Sarah said, expertly tweezing a piece of sushi into her mouth with the chopsticks while opening up the rule book. Elizabeth watched her, amazed.

“Hey, Mom!” Sarah suddenly exclaimed. “Your picture’s in here!”

“Where?” She looked over to the page Sarah was holding open. Sure enough, there was a picture of Amanda at a Ball a dozen years earlier, toasting glasses with Bill and another couple.

“In brighter times,” she said, eyeing the picture.

Elizabeth peered over her shoulder. “You kids look happy as a gopher in soft dirt. Guess that was before you realized dirt gets you, well, dirty.”

Amanda cast her mother a playfully reproachful glance. Then she looked back at the picture and let out a soft whistle. “Can you believe how young we looked?”

“I think you look pretty young now,” Tom said gallantly.

“At your age,” Elizabeth cracked, “every woman looks young.”

“Thanks a lot,” he retorted good-naturedly. “Actually, we’ve got to decide a couple of things. First, what to do about the Ball, and second, what to do about all these women ganging up on Amanda over here. It’s just not ladylike.”

“It’s all too ladylike,” Elizabeth corrected him. “Unfortunately, it’s what ladies do.”

“Women, maybe,” Amanda countered. “But not ladies.”

“This is interesting,” Sarah said as she made her way through the bylaws of the Longhorn Ball. “I never knew there were so many rules.”

“That girl could find interesting reading in the telephone book,” Elizabeth said, with a mixture of pride and puzzlement over her granddaughter’s voracious interest in all printed matter. “If only her taste in food was as varied as her taste in information. Amanda, you gotta explain to her that a little beef won’t kill her.”

“I don’t really know what to do about these women,” Amanda said, ignoring the comment about her daughter’s eating habits. “Short of moving. Although I’ll say this—if they’re going after me, I can take it. But when it starts trickling down to my children, that’s when I start to get upset. It’s true what they say—you’re only as happy as your unhappiest child.”

“All right,” Tom said, rubbing his hands together. “First things first. Let’s figure out this Ball thing. Is it worth preserving?”

“Of course,” Amanda said flatly. “It’s hard to imagine Hillside Park in the fall without the Longhorn Ball. It’s been a fixture for as long as I can remember.”

“And it raises so much money for the Pediatric Foundation,” Elizabeth added. “If you took it away, the women here would have even more time to gossip instead of doing something constructive with their time.”

“So we’ve got to preserve the Ball,” Tom said. “But we’ve got almost no money.”

Amanda nodded. “I just got an e-mail from the bank—almost all of the checks failed to clear. I guess people canceled them after everything that went on with Susie. So not counting your check, we have about a hundred and ten thousand in the bank and—Mom, how much do we owe on unpaid bills?”

“Just call it an even two hundred thousand,” Elizabeth said. “If it weren’t for you, Tom, we’d be ninety thousand dollars short.”

“Okay,” Tom said. “We don’t have money. Volunteers?”

Amanda shook her head. “I told you,” she said. “Everyone I talked to who is active said no. Not a single woman on active status is willing to chair a committee this year. That’s why I think either Darlene or Ann Anderson or somebody got to them all.”

“How many active members do you have? How many inactive?”

“It always comes out to a hundred. I either spoke to or left messages for all the active members, and I haven’t gotten a single woman interested in stepping up and doing something significant.”

“What about the inactive members? Did you contact them?”

“By e-mail.”

“And?”

“Either my e-mails didn’t get through their spam filters,” Amanda said tartly, “or somebody got to them, too.”

“Sounds like somebody’s playing a little Texas freeze-out,” Tom said, shaking his head. “If this were happening in a business setting, somebody would be looking at a big fat lawsuit for restraint of trade or interference of contract or something along those lines. This is nutty.”

“It may be nutty,” Elizabeth interjected, “but it’s definitely how things work in Hillside Park. It’s worse than junior high school. In fact, it’s like being trapped in junior high school for the rest of your life. And
this
situation has really been more like
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Mean Girls on Steroids
.”

“I’ll have to agree with that!” Amanda snickered.

“Is there any way to get rid of the membership and start over?” Tom asked. “That’s what I would do. Just clean house.”

“You can’t throw a hundred women off the Longhorn Ball Committee,” Amanda said incredulously, looking as if Tom had suggested the most ridiculous thing in the world. “Some of them are the biggest donors. You alienate them, and you have no Ball.”

“As it is, we have no Ball anyway,” he pointed out. “You mean there’s really no way to get rid of them?”

“No way on God’s green earth,” Amanda answered flatly. “Once you’re part of the Longhorn Ball membership, you’re in for life, as long as you pay your annual dues.”

“Unless you read bylaw sixty-seven,” Sarah said.

“Not now,” Elizabeth told her. “We’re discussing serious business.”

“But I’m being serious!” Sarah replied, indignant.

“Gigi’s right,” Amanda told her daughter. “Maybe you just want to go in the other room and read some more. I sure wish we had a computer going. Then you could play games or something.”

“I don’t play computer games, Mom,” Sarah said firmly, digging in her heels. “I’ve told you they’re a waste of time. Will you all please listen to bylaw sixty-seven?”

“I’m all ears,” Tom said. Amanda glared at him. Don’t interfere with what I tell my daughter, she thought.

“Bylaw sixty-seven,” Sarah said, pouncing on the invitation to join the adults’ conversation, “reads as follows, ‘Any active member who fails to participate, when asked, in preparation work for the upcoming Ball may be dismissed by the Chair at her discretion.’ Mom, what’s discretion?”

“It’s a loophole big enough to drive a tractor trailer through,” Tom said, grinning. “Amanda, why don’t you just fire your members? Your daughter just told you that you could.”

“I can really do that?”

“If that’s what the bylaw says.” Tom leaned over Sarah’s shoulder and read the relevant passage. “Your daughter’s right as rain! You’ve got the power!”

Amanda sat up a little straighter in her chair. “By the powers vested in me as chair of the Longhorn Ball,” she declared, “I hereby fire every active member of the Longhorn Ball Committee. All one hundred of those lazy heifers. They’re gone.”

“Seconded,” Elizabeth said.

“You don’t really need to second me, Mom,” Amanda said, embarrassed. “I’ve got all the power.”

“Well, it never hurts to be seconded,” Elizabeth said, miffed.

“But what about the inactive members?”

“ ‘Bylaw sixty-eight,’ ” Tom read aloud. “ ‘Any inactive member who fails to keep her dues current as of September thirtieth of any given year may be dismissed from the committee at the discretion of the Chair.’ ”

“I can get rid of the inactive ones, too?” Amanda grinned. “I’m starting to like this whole power thing!”

“If they didn’t pay their dues . . . Elizabeth, did they?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t see any checks marked dues. All the checks I saw were for tickets or donations.”

“Susie probably forgot to send out bills for dues for the inactive members and the active members,” Amanda remarked.

“In that case,” Tom said, “you can chop them, too!”

“Consider them chopped!” Amanda pointed a finger in the air. “Off with their heads!”

“What do you think of that?” her mother asked. “We started off with a hundred-plus members ten minutes ago who didn’t want to lift a finger. Now we’re down to just one. Amanda over here. And then we’ve got Tom, in the Men’s Auxiliary. That’s not bad work.”

“You just fired ninety-nine people,” Tom said to Amanda. “How does it feel to be ruthless?”

“It’s great, except for one thing. Now we don’t have anybody to do anything.”

“We just have to divide up the committees among ourselves,” he said. “But before we do, I think we should grant honorary membership status to Sarah, because she’s the one who found the bylaws that let us do all this trimming of unnecessary fat.”

“Done and done. Sarah, congratulations, sweetie. You’re an honorary member of the Longhorn Ball Committee.”

“Yippee!” Sarah exclaimed, delighted. “Do I get a Neiman’s gift card?”

Everybody laughed. “Not just yet. But if you keep finding bylaws like that, I’m sure somebody’s going to buy you something.”

“Okay,” Tom said, turning back to business. “What are the committees that these women were supposed to be heading up? Because we’ve got to divide them among ourselves.”

“Underwriting’s first,” Amanda began. “Raising money is what this whole thing is all about, anyway.”

“I’ll take that. I can make a few phone calls. What’s next?”

“Food and beverage,” Amanda said, reading from the list on her desk.

“I’ll take that,” Elizabeth said. “With help from Sarah, of course.”

“It’s going to be vegetarian and organic,” Sarah promised.

“Better not tell the donors,” Amanda told her.

“Or the Texas Cattlemen’s Association,” Tom chimed in. “I guess I can’t hit them up for a donation.”

“Guess not. Okay, next one is security. I’ll take that myself. According to the
Hillside Park People
, I’ve got so much clout with the police that I’m the perfect one for that job.”

“That’s fine. What’s next?”

“Entertainment.” Tom thought for a moment. “I’ve got some pretty good ties to the entertainment community. If you could have anybody, who would you bring in?”

Amanda thought for a moment. “George Strait. I used to love his music back in the day. I’ve been away from Texas so long I don’t even know who’s big in country anymore.”

“George Strait would cost a fortune,” Elizabeth said. “We could never afford him.”

“I could make a phone call,” Tom said. “I’ll take entertainment.”

“Well, that’s pretty much it,” Amanda said. “There are some other jobs, but there’s nothing Mom and I can’t handle. Our finances are pretty simple—’cause we’re broke.”

“Not for long,” Tom said. “Not after I make a few phone calls. By the way, what’s the date for the event? If I’m going to ask George, I need to know that.”

Amanda gave him an “okay, sure” look.

“It’s always in September. By then, everybody’s back from wherever they went, and it’s a chance for everybody to catch up on what they did over the summer. That’s eleven months away.”

“ ‘Bylaw seventy-nine,’ ” Sarah read aloud. “ ‘The date of the Ball, typically the first or second Saturday in September—’ ”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Amanda told Tom.

“ ‘—may be set at the discretion of the Ball Chair if there is a compelling reason to pick a different date.’ ”

Amanda ran a hand through her hair. “I never knew that.”

“So,” Elizabeth mused, “you could have the Longhorn Ball pretty much anytime.”

Tom wasn’t listening. “Hang on a minute,” he said, dialing a number on his cell phone and going into another room.

“Damnedest thing I’ve ever seen,” Elizabeth said. “A Ball with no committee, no money, two women, one billionaire, and a nine-year-old. That’s something new.”

“I wonder who Tom’s calling?” Amanda mused.

Tom rolled back in to the room and closed his cell phone.

“I’d like to propose a date for the next Longhorn Ball.”

“Shoot,” Amanda said, her pen poised above her date book.

“Four weeks from tonight.” Tom’s suggestion was greeted with consternation by both Amanda and Elizabeth.

“You can’t have a Longhorn Ball so soon after the last one!” Amanda exclaimed.

“I really think that’s a good night for the Longhorn Ball,” Tom said firmly. Something about his tone made both women wonder why he was so fixed on that date.

“You know what we should have?” Amanda hit on an idea. “We should have a thank-you party, for all the donors and vendors and all the other people Susie wronged. Let all of them come and celebrate. If you really want to have this party so soon after the Ball.”

“That sounds like a plan,” Tom said, nodding. “Maybe we can get back in a few people’s good graces.”

“Who did you just call?” Elizabeth suddenly asked.

“Let that be my surprise.”

“But this whole thing is impossible,” Amanda said, shaking her head. “We’re supposed to have a luncheon in November to announce the entertainment—this isn’t the way it’s done.”

“It’s a new approach,” Tom admitted. “I’ll grant you that. But as head of the Men’s Auxiliary, I promise you that there are compelling reasons why you want to have the event four weeks from now. And besides, if we can pull off a decent thank-you party then, maybe we can get people interested in doing it the right way for next year. With somebody else stuck with the job of Ball Chair.”