More Muffia (The Muffia Book 2) (11 page)

Lauren gestured to the cute bartender. “Did you...?”

“Not that cub there, no; but I have indeed,” said Jelicka. “And they’re well worth the price of dinner.”

Clearly, being a cougar was not a sustainable pastime, but Jelicka’s previous career as a sometime screenwriter had arguably never been a
real
job, either. Selling scripts in Hollywood— no matter how good they are—has always been a crapshoot and has, for the most part, pretty much been a career relegated to young, aggressive males with a penchant for action and violence. This is not to say that women
can’t
succeed, only that the business is run by, and primarily caters to, men and boys. Now that Jelicka, a
female
, was going through a divorce and was past the age the entertainment industry considers viable to begin with, none of the Muffs liked her chances of going back to screenwriting. Even at the peak of her success, she never made more than enough to get by. And now her love for the finer things in life—leaving aside her addiction to Botox, Restylene, and her Audi A8—ensured she’d have trouble going back to her struggling “poor-me” writer lifestyle.

This point would have been driven home when Lena Dunham walked in, entourage in tow, but fortunately, I was the only one of our little group to see her. Dunham, known for creating the HBO series “Girls,” is one of those writers, arguably not even particularly talented nor doing anything to advance the stature of women, whose early efforts met with instant—and to me inexplicable—commercial success. This always irritates people who’ve been slaving away for years, not that that was Jelicka.

“Cougardom is also dangerous,” said Maddie. “But let’s get to
your
job prospects next, Jel. Right now, let’s focus on saving Quinn’s career.”

“No need,” said Jelicka. “I’ve decided to get my real estate license.”

“That’s a great idea,” said Lauren, generally a
glass-half-full
sort of person, but now she just appeared relieved to be off the subject of boy toys.

“I don’t know if getting a real estate license is ‘great,’ but what the hell, right? People need houses.” Jelicka once again lifted her cocktail. “L’chaim.”

She and Lauren clinked glasses while I repeated, “L’chaim,” after which I took a large gulp of my pomegranate margarita.
Mmm, l’chaim indeed
!

“L’chaim, already. Now let’s get back to actually
living
that life we’re drinking to—” Madelyn turned back to me. “Do you have a plan?”

I put my drink down. “Sort of. If Jamie fires me, I was thinking I might become a personal manager for a couple of my clients.”

“Which reminds me,” blurted Lauren. “I need to talk to you about Viggo Mortensen.”

“
Hello
...?!” reprimanded Madelyn. “Can we stay on topic?”

“Hold on, Maddie, just one more thing,” Lauren said. “I have this other idea, about a way to find out who sent the pictures, but I have to run it by George. That’s it; that’s all I wanted to say.” She picked up her drink and sat back.

Maddie glanced around the table. “Anyone else want to say something; comment on a hottie at the bar or the new line of Spanx?”

We sipped our drinks, not wanting to rile her further.

“Sorry,” she said. “But can we try to focus on Quinn first and her own ideas about what she might do if they fire her? You can ask questions, but just hold your suggestions until after. Everyone will get a chance to talk.”

Gotta love Maddie
. She’s tough when she’s on a mission, and right now the mission was me. She rarely had an evening off from the duties of raising her budding fourteen-year-old daughter, Lila, and I was grateful she’d made the effort to join us. This evening, Lila was under the care of her dad—Maddie’s ex, Brian—which could be the reason for Maddie’s shorter-than-usual fuse.

“Okay, so say you become a manager; what happens if your clients stop working? Then what?” Jelicka asked.

“Then I gotta get a
new
new job.”

Lauren hrumphed. She never
needed
to work, so she was not the most reliable opinionator on the subject of gainful employment. As far as most of us could tell, she’d married her prep-school sweetheart—who just happened to be heir to America’s foremost beer dynasty.

“Any other ideas?” asked Maddie, taking notes.

“I could start a sort of speechy-lecturey sort of booking agency.”

Maddie wrote that down.

“Sounds vaguey,” said Jelicka giddily, clearly getting tipsy. “Sorry.”

Madelyn threw her a look. “All options open. We’re brainstorming.”

“It would be the kind of thing where I’d arrange for people—you know, actors, athletes, ex-presidents—to appear at events. I’d book them to talk at annual meetings on the lecture circuit—that kind of thing. Think TED, but smaller, and no YouTube,” I clarified.

“Wouldn’t there be a lot of competition?” Lauren asked. “I just know that from researching for the Alzheimer’s benefit.”

“I am SO looking forward to the benefit,” Jelicka said. “Will there be some eligible bachelors—?” She caught herself. “Er, excuse me—my mistake. We’ll table that for now.”

Maddie rolled her eyes indulgently and turned back to me.

“Yes,” I said, apropos the glutted field of booking speakers. “There will be competition. But think about how many speeches are given every day at corporate retreats, meetings, society luncheons, schools, old folks homes. I think there’s room for a new specialized agency.”

“I like the idea,” said Jelicka. “These days, people can’t seem to get enough speeches. No matter what they’re about—saving the world, bug anatomy—doesn’t matter. I watched a TED Talk about procrastination.
Boom,
a million views! What do they call it? Oh yeah,
viral
. And guess what? There’s no cure.” Jelicka laughed, slapping the table. “Cheers!” Then she picked up her Orange Bomb and knocked it back.

I glanced at Maddie, concerned if this was Jelicka’s first or second drink. She instantly got what I was thinking and leaned toward me. “I’m driving.”

“Why
are
speeches so popular all of a sudden?” Lauren asked. “Every single day, somebody sends me a link to somebody yammering on about something. Do you think it’s because when other people are speaking, we don’t have to?”

“That would never work for the Muffs,” Jelicka said. “We all want to talk—well, Sarah not so much.” Her words were beginning to sound garbled.

“All right, we agree speeches are currency.” Maddie turned back to me. “But let’s get back to the task at hand. Any other ideas?”

“I have a little money saved, so I thought maybe I’d do something totally different. Go back to school; study landscape architecture maybe, or cooking. Also, sort of related to all this—I signed up on
NowLove.com
. Maybe all my problems will be solved by meeting a rich guy.”

“That doesn’t sound like you,” Maddie said, only half-joking. “You’d really take the coward’s way out? Where’s the challenge in that?”

“The feminists would not be pleased,” echoed Jelicka.

“I’m not a coward; I’m forty-two,” I said. “And I’m still a feminist. But I’m tired and no longer want or need the challenge. I’d like for things to be a little easier, and if I met a nice guy with money, it wouldn’t necessarily be bad, would it? I’m barely able to save any money, and if I lose my job, then what? Unemployment? I mean, I’m about ten paychecks away from becoming a bag lady like Jeannette Walls’s mother.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Maddie said.

“On NPR today,” I said, “they reported this study on Women, Money, and Power, and they said that half of American women over forty fear becoming bag ladies.
Bag ladies
—that’s the term they used. At least I’m not alone.”

There was collective agreement amongst the three of us singletons and a look of—what was it, guilt?—on Lauren’s face.

Despite wanting to make it on our own, have successful careers, build that nest egg, and be totally self-sufficient while at the same time finding worthy mates—at our age, the reality of just how hard that was to achieve had struck us all.

At that moment, a strapping young actor type got a little too close to the table, bumping it and causing it to shake. “Sorry,” he said, turning up the wattage on his smile. “Ladies… ” He nodded, made a slight bow, and departed—all of us gazing longingly after him.

“On the other hand,” I said, feeling wistful. “I wouldn’t mind dying next to that.”

“Don’t misunderstand; it can work—that older rich guy thing,” Maddie said. “I mean, it doesn’t really seem like you, but it worked for Jelicka; for awhile.”

“Until I was undone by a conniving, husband-stealing secretary nine years older than me!” Jelicka snapped.

“I didn’t set out to marry a rich guy,” Lauren said with no prompting. “I just got lucky. And I really
love
George, you know? He’s just...big and loveable and—I feel so blessed.” She shook her head and started to tear up. She suddenly stood—the expression on her face suggesting she’d forgotten something. “I’m sorry, but I’m gonna have to get going.”

Jelicka winked at Maddie and me. “Any idea what’s on her mind?”

“Oh, it’s not like that,” she said, her face visibly flushed despite the low light. “I just remembered that Lourdes—she’s the kids’ nanny—she asked for the night off and, well, I should have been there already.”

Lauren had what appeared to be a charmed life. She loved her family and was a happy, vital woman. And, now that she’d started her foundation aimed at curing one of society’s biggest medical problems, she’d become one of those people—like Vicki mentoring a foster kid—who was doing something that mattered. She was completely filled with love and purpose. I could hate her if I didn’t love her so much.

I stood up and gave her a hug. “I’m sorry Paige couldn’t join us.”

“She’s still swollen and doesn’t want to be seen in public.” She turned to Jelicka. “She did
not
have her eyes done, Jel. I’m going over to see her tomorrow.”

Jelicka put her hands up, palms facing out. “It was only speculation.”

“Thanks for coming and hearing my saga,” I said, and we all asked Lauren to give Paige our love.

“Of course,” she said. “I hope I said something useful.”

Just having her there helped, and everything she, Maddie, and Jelicka said would get worked over in my brain until I came up with a plan.

“Go home to your adorable husband and children,” I said. “Thanks for coming.”

“It’s going to work out. You’re going to figure out who’s trying to screw you, and one day you’ll find somebody to love.
Believe
it. I’m just so glad you broke it off with that married guy, once and for all, and that you’re moving on.”

My focus drifted away, mostly out of fear of being exposed as a liar, and I caught a glimpse of a man in a trendy fedora on the other side of the bar. He seemed to be in his thirties or forties; it was hard to tell. But he looked familiar—like I’d seen him somewhere recently—but maybe he was just a guy in a hat.

Lauren brought me back. “And when you
do
start dating, make sure that every time you go out with somebody, you tell one of us where you’re going to be!”

“Right,” Jelicka said. “In case you go missing.”

“That’s thinking positively,” said Maddie.

Jelicka sat back in the banquette, considering. “She could have a chip put in. You know, like Udi. Then we’d be able to track her.”

Maddie took a long, deep breath. It seemed to me that ever since she had let Jelicka persuade her to break into Udi’s friend’s house in pursuit of information about her missing lover, there had been a noticeable chilling in their friendship. The Muffs didn’t really “fight,” but from time to time we switched confidantes—like me talking to Vicki about dating. But we always found our way back to the group, eventually.

“I’ll tell someone,” I said. “Promise.”

“Okay.” Lauren pulled out her wallet, depositing too much money on the table, per usual. “I’ll be checking that you do. Hope all this helped, Quinny. By the way, what’s the book we’re supposed to be reading?”

“I’m still deciding.” Truthfully, I hadn’t started.

“Thank God. I’m so worried about getting Alzheimer’s myself, I thought you might have told us last night and I forgot. The disease is hereditary, you know, and with my mom and everything, you can imagine I’m on constant guard.”

“
Nnn
… ” Jelicka shook her head. “They don’t know. They also think it could be something in the water, or maybe fluoride in the toothpaste.” Leave it to Jelicka to know the conspiracy theories on the causes of Alzheimer’s disease.

“Really?” said Lauren.

“No, they don’t,” Maddie said firmly, effectively shutting down the topic.

“I’m telling you, they don’t really know.”

“Anyway,” Lauren continued, “you know how long it takes me to read. I need maximum time, especially now with the benefit coming up. ”

“We all need maximum time,” Jelicka said, as both she and Maddie rose to say their goodbyes. “You know how we get distracted.”

Did I ever.
“Next week, latest,” I promised.

“I’ll call you,” said Lauren, backing away. “About Viggo and my idea for catching the person who sent the pictures. I just have to run it by George.”

After she’d gone, we sat down and Jelicka clunked down her drink. “I know we’re supposed to be focusing on Quinn’s job prospects, but can we, just for a second, talk about
why
she might be fired? I mean, I know most of the Muffs think I’m always looking for hidden meanings and motives, but the thing is, they’re usually there. And don’t you think it’s odd that somebody would send an email to Quinn’s boss with pictures that made her look like a crazed psychopathic shoe-wielder? Think about it. Something’s not right about that.”

“I have to agree with you there,” said Maddie. “And by the way, Jel, apropos another of your many conspiracy theories—namely Udi not being dead. Agreeing with you in
no
way suggests I agree with any of your
other
conspiracy theories, or that I will act upon anything you might say. Do you understand?”

Maddie seemed worked up, all of a sudden, like she’d rehearsed this in her head. I gave Jelicka a nudge under the table in an attempt to keep her from talking.