The Muffia (23 page)

“Well, who asked you?”

Now it was my turn to smile. Rex seemed playful and sexy, even funny. In my experience this was surprising for a guy with his looks. He also had an air of legitimacy about him and was more age-appropriate than most of the men I found myself attracted to. We probably could have had a very good time together, though I wondered for a few seconds why Berggren wasn’t interested in him for herself. But I was distracted and not really into whatever game Rex and I could have been playing.

“Would you excuse me a moment?” I asked. “I’m sorry. I’d like to continue this conversation about rain and the dearth of arguments in your country—I’m not just saying that. But I have something I have to do.”

“Far be it from me to keep a lady from doing what needs to be done,” he said with a slight bow.
What play was he doing? One I was pretty sure I didn’t want to be in.

Before I’d gone very far, Berggren called, “Dinner everybody,” and I saw her, along with the diaphanous Daphne, depositing platters of food in the center of the table. There was still no sign of Nissim or ZsaZsi.

“I thought Nissim and ZsaZsi were coming,” I said to Berggren cheerily, catching up with her in the kitchen to carry more food to the table.

“He sent a text saying they couldn’t make it. ZsaZsi doesn’t feel well or something.” Then she leaned in and whispered, “Since when do assassins take care of their women like
that
? Hmmm?” She glanced over to the living room where Rex was holding court with a couple of the other guests. “He likes you.”

Regardless of Rex’s level of interest or what an assassin with a sick fiancée might or might not do, I had to stop Cullen from going to the house. Placing two bright orange bowls filled with fish relish on the table, I picked up my bag and headed back to the bathroom.

“Abort, abort,” I said into the phone.

But it was only voice mail. Why wasn’t he picking up? I hit
end
and redialed. Surely he wouldn’t have left the phone in his car. He probably just turned it off so as not to give himself away if it rang. Then again, maybe he was in one of those spotty cell service areas.

“A-b-o-r-t  m-i-s-s-i-o-n,” I typed a text. Surely this will get through, I thought, as I sent the text into the ether, then stared at the screen willing it to respond. “Acknowledge,” I texted as an afterthought.

Jelicka still hadn’t made contact. Perhaps she’d really gotten into a shopping frenzy at Hollywood Costume. In any event, I wasn’t going to call her.

Sounds of the dinner party filtered through the bathroom door. I heard plates and silverware doing their dinner dance. I’d better get back there, but I needed to keep my phone close by. My pants were too tight to stick the phone into, so in order not to miss a call, I’d just keep the phone on vibrate and hold it on my lap.

Returning to the table, I found that Rex was seated next to me and I was happy to resume our flirtatious conversation, despite being distracted by international espionage. We talked about how expensive London was, how globalization really hadn’t improved the lives of most people, Shakespeare, the decline of the English language and American versus British childrearing practices, among other things.

What I really wanted to do was get up and leave the dinner party—to drive to Lookout Lane and do… I had no idea what I’d do. Instead I made the effort to keep up with Rex and his sparkling wit, continuing to hope Cullen would call or text. I couldn’t take off yet anyway. Lila wasn’t back from the mall. Then I had a panic attack. Could Jelicka have talked to Cullen? Could she have found out the address some other way?

Rex must have thought I was a ditz. But then perhaps that made him feel comfortable. He’d probably met his share of ditzes, given his line of work and exposure to actresses —a section of the female population whom, in the course of our witty repartee, he said he’d sworn off.

He was polite, though, and never made me feel as dumb as toast. The sad thing was he could have been a good match for me. Our meeting suffered from bad timing—the opposite of how it had been for Udi and me. On any other evening, Rex was the kind of guy I would have made an effort to get to know better, even though I could tell he’d be no vacation in a relationship. This guy would require me to stay on my toes—confuse La Rochefoucauld with Verlaine? No mercy.

I still hadn’t heard from Cullen or Jelicka by the time we’d cleared away the dinner plates and the front door opened to reveal Lila, Sadie, Mavis, Hailey and Georgia, who had changed into a different outfit than she’d had on when they left. Instead of preppy, she now looked like a demure version of Lady Gaga, if such a thing were possible. So much for keeping a low profile.

“You’re back,” exclaimed Berggren. “How was it?”

“Well, it was, you know, the
mall
,” said Georgia, elongating the word for a full three seconds. “But it was OK.”

Behind Georgia’s back, Sadie, Mavis and Lila gave us thumbs-up signs indicating that for them the mall was still pretty cool.

Glancing at Rex, I found him to be visibly salivating over the young beauties.
I knew there had to be something wrong with him
. I didn’t need a guy with a Lolita complex—that was for sure — even if I suffered from the female strain of the condition. I consoled myself with the thought that I was at least aware of my hypocrisy.

Just then my thighs vibrated—not that wascally-wabbit kind of vibration, or even the Aphroditty, but the kind that happens when the mobile-wedged-between-your-legs-so-you-won’t-miss-it goes off.

I practically jumped out of my seat, excusing myself as graciously as possible while peering down at the screen to see that it was Jelicka. “Where are you?” I demanded in my loudest whisper when I’d stepped a sufficient distance from the table.

“I’m at the costume shop.”

“What?”

“You didn’t call and the sales guy here was so good-looking and nice, not to mention knowledgeable. So we got to talking—don’t worry, he doesn’t know anything about the operation. Basically, I’ve been here the whole time.”

“I’ve been so worried.”
Nice of her to let me know.
“Hey, did I give you Cullen’s number by any chance?”

“You said you didn’t want us talking because you thought it would be weird that I knew all this stuff about him, which seemed stupid since we’re supposed to break into a house together.”

“Right.” In retrospect that did seem stupid. So, if Jelicka and Cullen hadn’t talked and he hadn’t responded to my text, he could still be up there—dead even.
Oh, God!
Not to mention that I now had indigestion because all through dinner I had visions of my friends getting strangled by an assassin—ex or not.

“Why?” Jelicka asked, disrupting my fear mongering.

“It’s just I haven’t heard from him and I was worried he might have gone ahead with the plan without you.”

“Don’t worry—he’s probably just not answering his phone.”

I truly hoped that’s all it was but, still, his not calling was really unsettling.

“Anyway, we’re going out for dinner to that tapas place you went with Cullen, since you liked it.”

“Who—? I was there
once
and I didn’t eat anything”

“OK, whatever,” Jelicka said. “Dan says it’s pretty good, too.”

“Dan—?”

“The
sales guy
. And guess what? He can’t be older than thirty.” She squealed with delight and more than a little anticipation.

“Just remember, Jel, you’re a little fragile right now. Take your time.”

“Righty-o there, sister. But I won’t break. And I doubt he’ll die
in flagrante
, if we get that far. That just can’t happen to two Muffs in the same year.”

“Certainly unlikely.” I sighed with a trace of self-pity that the Muff that it did happen to was me.

A beat or two went by and then she continued, in a more serious tone, “So something must have happened, right? I mean with Nissim and the fiancée? That’s why you didn’t call.”

“They never showed up at the party.”

“Then it all worked out for the best. Ta-da! Dan and I were meant to be.”

“That’s a bit of a leap, don’t you think?” Not to mention selfish.

“It’s just dinner, Maddie. Anyway, let’s talk tomorrow about our next
opportunity
. Dan’s letting me keep both outfits on an extended basis, so I can be ready at any time.”

“Good to know,” I said, with a trace of resignation.

“Soooo—” Jelicka floated the word ever so seductively, giving no doubt of her meaning, “Do you think it’s too soon to sleep with him?”

“Too soon after meeting him, or too soon after Roscoe?” After all, these were entirely different questions.

“Either—or both, I guess. The real question is ‘why
not
now?’”

Granted, Jelicka needed some male attention. After the whole thing with Roscoe’s leaving her for the older woman, her self-esteem really took a hit. No matter how much she talked about seducing the pool guy, she’d never actually done it. Not long after the Muffs had talked about
Deliciously Disturbed and Distracted,
I’d realized that Jelicka lived in her head. And that was part of the reason she wanted to prove Udi’d met an untimely end. She just needed her life to become more exciting and visceral.

“No. It’s not too soon,” I said, thinking about all my own missed opportunities. “Particularly at our age. You never know how many chances we’re going to get.”

Chapter 32

The following morning, I still couldn’t get Cullen on his mobile and he hadn’t called in. What the fuck had happened to him? Before I could figure out who to call or whether I might assemble my own posse to find him—or, God forbid, recover the body—my computer dinged to life with Muff news and the beginning of the next pre-meeting email assault.

[email protected]
: Woo-hoo! Jelicka scored with an adorable costume designer named Dan! And Vick’s cancer-free. Even more to celebrate since I finally nixed the tennis stalker (by restraining order)!! Hope you’re into talking about
Kevin
. Am planning an Italian feast—lasagne—veggie and non—and an appetizer. Looking for you talented ladies to fill the gaps. Salad? Bread? Wine? And it’s coming up on Lauren’s bday (she’s not on this list) Sarah, can you do a cake? Love, Paige

BTW in case you forgot— Thursday at 7pm

I was glad to find out that Jelicka had seized the day, or night, as it were.  And it was nice for a change that for our next gathering, Paige felt secure enough in her cooking to delegate the cake. I offered a variation on what I usually do:

[email protected]
: I’m bringing champagne so we can toast everyone’s successes.

Not that I had any thing of my own to celebrate. And though there were clearly things to be happy about, Jelicka, undaunted by the fact Cullen had gone missing, still wanted to get into Nissim’s house. So any full-on celebration might have been premature. But there was no reason to burst everyone else’s bubble just because a couple of Muff lives might be in danger.

[email protected]
: Lemon cake?... or white chocolate coconut? And here’s a shocker--I read the book. For some reason I identified. Yikes. BTW—Nate and I are getting along better than ever and he’s stopped drinking.

Sarah had reason to rejoice, except for the fact she identified with the narrator of
Kevin
whose son turns out to be a school shooter.

[email protected]
: I’ll make a salad. Sorry, can’t get into book. Troy would never do anything like that little creep. ~K

It was a foregone conclusion that at least one of us wouldn’t like the book. It’s just the Muff way. This time it was Kiki who, as it happened, also had trouble with
Deliciously Disturbed
. Her lack of interest in our most recent reads was probably due to whatever was going on in her life that she had not, as yet, shared with us. At this point, however, I felt we had waited long enough to find out, so I vowed that at our upcoming gathering I
would
get it out of her. I felt she owed us that.

One afternoon, several days after Kiki and I went to see Vicki through her second lumpectomy, I had attempted to broach the topic and may have even scratched the surface. Kiki’s never been one to expose those corners and crevices of her life she considers private, but she did confide in me that day, probably because I was the one who’d gotten her involved with the Muffia to begin with and she knew I could keep a secret.

Tears began to form in the corners of her lovely honey-brown eyes as she told me she’d recently miscarried for the second time in two years. She said she couldn’t believe how deeply sad it had made her—that she really wanted another child and now she didn’t know if it was possible. And because she’d been having such a hard time increasing her family’s size, it had hit her particularly hard when Sarah seemed to treat the whole idea of childrearing and fidelity as cavalierly as people flip through television channels.

“It’s so callous,” she said, drying her eyes.

“She probably wouldn’t have acted like that if she’d known what you were going through,” I offered. “You can be certain she didn’t mean it as a personal affront.”

“Maybe not.” Kiki sighed and a pensive look came over her face. “Maybe I’ve been blaming Sarah and Saul and everybody else for my misery when it’s me,” she whimpered. “I just didn’t or couldn’t accept that my body was not doing what I wanted it to. I think deciding to become a nurse has something to do with my wanting another child. I want to take care of something else.”

“That part is great.”

She looked at me, confused.

“I mean that after you take care of Saul and Troy, you still have something to give. Most people aren't so generous.”

She nodded then smiled, and we hugged our goodbyes. Later that day, though I didn’t say anything to the Muffs, it was as if Vicki and the others sensed Kiki needed our support, not our ire.

[email protected]
: I’ve missed a great many meetings over the last four years, for which I’m sorry (living thousands of miles away is not on Paige’s excused list). But I have read every book and I am much more interested in being introduced to the books that moved you all than I am in the hyped tedium of the safe choice. Funnily enough, the thing I most value about our book group is being collectively coerced to read books I otherwise never would have read. I've gotten almost as much out of the ones I didn't like as the ones I did. I would never, EVER find the time to read anything like
Kevin
otherwise. I think it'll be fascinating talking about it. At the very least, it’s made me love writers all the more who are bold, shameless, playful, and energetic. And a woman wrote it. Yes, it's a bleak worldview but there are kids like Kevin out there and we should read it on that basis alone. Anyway – this is the stuff that’s interesting. The irritation is interesting. And the odd love found at the end. Plus, this was a book that was already read and liked by one of us – and that's a good enough reason for the rest of us to give it a shot.

I loved Vicki for saying what I hadn’t. But I worried there might be something more she
hadn’t
said. It’s just that when a friend or relative has had the big “C,” part of you never stops worrying. If anything happened to her I…

Meanwhile, the email assault continued.

[email protected]
: I’ve got the bread covered and I’ll bring a couple bottles of Chelsea Handler Vodka (amazingly she gave us six cases). Also invented a yummy herbalized vodka sauce. Hard to describe but great on everything!

[email protected]
: Hi all. Still in Japan at the slowest Internet café in Kyoto. I could write you all individual letters, get on a boat and deliver them by hand and it would be faster. It took about 13 hours to wade through the e-muff mail of the past few days and it’s like “10 Days That Shook the World". Congrats all. My news is: Kubota tractors replaced Vince V with Viggo Mortensen who looks more natural on a tractor (and in every other position). Will think of you all on BC night. Wish I could be there. I predict disturbing discussion. Way more disturbing than
Deliciously Disturbed
which was really only just delicious. What’s going on with the spy stuff, M? Get the goods? And what happened at Berggren’s latest dinner party?

While I was wading through all these exchanges and more, Rex called to ask me out. He said he was in LA for another five days before returning to London and wanted to see me. But after Berggren’s stressful dinner party, during which I’d behaved in a scatterbrained, unappealing fashion—no matter how good I’d looked in those uncomfortably tight jeans—and during which I had occasion to observe his lust for young flesh, including my daughter’s, I found myself with only excuses for every rendezvous opportunity he proposed. I suppose I could have moved some planned event, like reading the manual for my new food processor, but I guess I just plain didn’t want to. I’m one of those who believe people do what they want to do, not what they
say
they want to do.

Perhaps if he’d proposed meeting in Hollywood, I’d have been more open to seeing him, but he wanted to make sure he came to Agoura and got to see Lila as part of the deal. Seeing him ogle my daughter at Berggren’s hadn’t turned me on and it wasn’t likely to get me going the second time.

In other words, in thinking about Rex, I didn’t think sex. I didn’t think anything. B.U. (Before Udi) I might have been able to put aside the reservations I had about Rex and just follow where it led. But A.U., having all the feelings I’d had with Udi, I realized putting up with Rex just wasn’t worth it. Plus, at the end of the day, he was a creep.

In assessing my feelings about Rex, my mind drifted—more like back-flipped—to Cullen.  He and I had certainly avoided the traditional, possibly even staid, beginnings most relationships suffer from and the typical march to the missionary position. Instead we’d met at Babeland, the über-adult toy store, and moved directly into vibrator-assisted phone sex, which had been amazing. But then he’d failed to notify me that he was just fine that night of Berggren’s party. He had not been captured, tortured and trapped in an airless tomb, as I’d imagined. And his lack of awareness that I might be worried made me quite sure I didn’t want to date him either.

It was Udi I was still dreaming about, which my rational mind knew was completely ridiculous, but which my irrational mind was helpless to stop. In hindsight, I must have loved him.

What Udi and I had had, if we’d had anything at all in the short time we knew each other, was
crazy love
—wild, passionate, animal attraction. It was romantic, it was exciting, but it wasn’t a mature relationship the way my friends both in and out of the Muffia defined one. Nevertheless, that’s what I wanted. Does this situation beg the question: Why does it seem to be impossible to live a truly romantic life and, at the same time, a fully conscious one?

The idea of therapy crossed my mind, but I’d read my share of self-help books and had come to the conclusion that everyone has issues—everyone. By the time one hits forty, most people have baggage—previous relationships, children, health issues; no one escapes unscathed. The question then becomes: Whose set of issues do you want to deal with and who do you feel you can trust with your own issues who won’t pretend he doesn’t have any, too?

So, what was the reason Cullen gave for not calling? Not texting? Not letting me know the night of Berggren’s dinner party that he was fine and thereby sparing me the worry and torment over what had happened to him? Well, it’s pretty anti-climactic, really. And maybe I should have guessed. There’d certainly been plenty of hints about what might have occurred but, no, he let me imagine him getting his fingernails torn off and worse the entire night. I mean, how many keystrokes would it have taken? When he finally called, it did put an end to my imagining him being water-boarded and instead made me want to torture him myself.

“Sorry I didn’t call but something came up,” he said.

“Yeah?”
Could he be any more cryptic? Something came up?
“It better be good,” I said. “I visualized you getting your toes nailed to the floor.” The truth was, I was too angry with him to bother figuring out a less direct approach.

He made a weak attempt to laugh. “I’m really embarrassed,” he continued. “See, my mom called and they’re twelve hours ahead or something.”

I wasn’t sure what the time difference and his mom calling had to do with anything, but I went along. “Is she all right?”

“Oh, yeah. Fine… but it was the only time we could talk, you know, before I leave.”

I didn’t remember him telling me he was going anywhere. My silence apparently spoke volumes.

“I thought I told you. I’m going to the Middle East.”

“I didn’t know you were going to the Middle East.”

“
Well
, you know
wwww
. . . ” he said, drawing it out and trying his best to sound reluctant about an exciting trip to Egypt and Turkey. “That’s my mom—a real character.” Cullen and his mom were becoming a pattern.

His mom apparently couldn’t let him go—that’s in the metaphorical cutting-the-umbilical kind of letting go. Or he couldn’t let
her
go. In any event, I was suddenly feeling very uncomfortable about the phone sex we’d had.

“I’ll be meeting her in Istanbul. She said it might be her last trip and she wanted me to be there.”

Her last trip. What a drama mama.

“Well, have fun.” It did sound like fun—East meets West, Topkapi Palace, Kayseri carpets… I wasn’t going to lie, even though I suspected Mom pulled this kind of thing frequently. Probably any time another woman pulled focus from her.

“She said Egypt was so incredible, she insisted I come over and see it for myself. The ticket came FedEx this morning and I leave tomorrow.”

“Wow. Sudden.”

“But when I get back, I’d like to see you again.”

He had absolutely no awareness that a potential love interest—me—might think his relationship with his mother was more like that of a middle-schooler than a fully grown man and that his recent behavior had been obtuse at best.

“I don’t know, Cullen. I think we should let it go.”

“What’s the matter, Madelyn?”

“I guess the only way to say it is I feel odd.”