Vanity Fare (19 page)

19

THE NEXT MORNING, REALITY HIT. HARD
.

I heard the phone as I was starting the first of the breakfast dishes. Thank goodness Aidan liked oatmeal, I couldn’t afford those gold-bricked kids’ cereals anymore.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Mol.”

“Hugh.”

“So how are you?”

Was this a social call? “Fine,” I answered slowly.

“Good, good. Look, there’s something I need to ask you.”

I carried the cordless into my bedroom and sat down on the bed, which was still unmade. “Okay. Ask.” I balled the top sheet up and threw it into the hamper. Don’t tell me I can’t multitask.

“I need to get my grandmother’s ring back.”

I fell back onto the bed and stared at the light fixture. “Ring back,” I repeated dully.

“Yes. Look, I know this is hard, but it was my grandmother’s ring, and since—”

—
since you left me and we’re going to get a divorce, I’m not family anymore
. “Of course.” I swallowed everything I wanted to scream at him. It’d be different if he’d actually bought it for me, but since it was his family’s heritage—I shut up.

He seemed almost too relieved at my easy capitulation. Why did I always have to make it so damn easy for him:
sure, Hugh, I’ll work so you can get your JD; of course, Hugh, I’d love to wait to get pregnant; oh, now?; okay, Hugh, I’ll quit my job. It is best for Aidan.

“I know it’s none of my business, but does this mean you and Sylvia—?”

He cleared his throat. “I just want the ring back, Molly.”

Oh, so Mr. Indiscreet was finally trying to change his oversharing ways. His discretion didn’t make the lump in my throat any smaller.

His voice cut through my memories of when he had given me the ring: Christmastime, about a block away from the Rockefeller Center tree. We hadn’t been able to get any closer, and it was freezing, and all I could think about was getting something hot to drink when he pulled it out of his pocket and stood there, grinning sheepishly at me.

I hadn’t been cold the rest of the night. I was making up for it now.

“You can just pack it with Aidan’s stuff next time he comes for the weekend.”

“And have him throw it out by accident because it’s not one of his toys? No, Hugh, you’d better get it from me in person. I don’t want you thinking I hocked it—”
to pay the rent or something frivolous like that.

“Oh, good point,” he said. “When should I come get it? Or are you going to be in the city anytime soon?”

“You can come get it later this week while Aidan’s in school, if you want. You’re not working, right, so you have the time?”

I heard him take in a breath. Zing! Molly scores a hit!

“Sure. Morning okay? I’ve got some work to do later in the day.”

Like fun you do. “After 11:30 is fine with me. Just call first, okay?”

“Sure. See you tomorrow.”

After I hung up, I just stood for a moment. It was really over. I mean, I knew it was over, but this meant it was really
over
over. I strode to the bureau where I kept my jewelry and found the small black velvet box I’d tucked the ring in right after Hugh left.

It was a beautiful ring. The diamond was square cut and rested on a plain gold band with a small diamond on either side. Hugh was lucky—if it hadn’t been a family heirloom, I’d have sold it long before this.

I put it back in the box and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. The dishes were still waiting, there was no time for me to indulge myself in a good cry. And actually, I didn’t even want to cry.

I wanted to rip Hugh’s throat out, I wanted to stomp so hard my downstairs neighbors thought I’d taken up clogging, I wanted to do a tequila shot, but I did
not
want to cry.

“Is this Molly?”

I wiped my hands on the dish towel so I could hold the phone better. I didn’t recall ever getting two phone calls so close together. If the first call hadn’t been Hugh, I might have almost said I was popular. “Yes?”

“Molly, this is Caroline. Jimmy’s mom? We met at the birthday party last week.”

“Oh, of course.” The fabulous blonde.

“Well, I know it’s last-minute and everything, but a group of moms are getting together on Saturday for a little get-together, and I was wondering if you’d like to come.”

Hey, someone was asking me out! “Uh, sure . . . I’m free, actually, ’cause Aidan will be with his dad anyway.”

“Oh, good. It’s just something we do every month—we call it Scrapbook Saturday, and we just hang out and work on our scrapbooks.”

Oh. God. The only thing I knew about scrapbooking was that I had no interest in doing it. Was it too late to plead illness? Death? Morbid fear of cute captions?

“Great. What time?”

“One o’clock. It’s at my house this month, I’m on Third Street, the closest house to the park. Last name’s Kostov. Come hungry, I’m making lunch, too.”

At least I’d be fed. “Thanks. See you Saturday.”

And now I had something else besides the ring return and the investor presentation to dread: a group of Park Slope moms sitting around cutting out scraps of paper to pin into their own precious moments scrapbook.

Wednesday morning, I woke up
with a familiar ache in my lower abdomen. Cramps. Ugh. And me about to head into the city to work with John on my presentation.

I popped twice the suggested number of menstrual pain tablets and made a big pot of tea. I could feel the bloat in my stomach. The cramps were exacerbating my back pain—my lower back ached like a really pissed-off mule had kicked it. I got Aidan off to school, just barely, then came home and ran a bath. The hot water eased my discomfort, but the pain returned as soon as I toweled off.

Damn. Cramps, John, and the presentation.

As usual, my wardrobe matched my mood: black. I pulled out my loosest pair of black pants and a long black suit jacket. I grabbed a gray sweater to wear underneath so at least I wasn’t completely funereal. In my current state, I knew I could use the extra warmth. I wore my most comfortable nice shoes, not sneakers, but flat and wide to fit my puffy feet.

I made a face at Henry James as I grabbed another romance from my towering stack of luridity. I was not going to suffer for my brain today.

The subway ride wasn’t long enough. I felt in a little less pain, but now I felt a little loopy. I walked up to John’s office, noticing the trees on the sidewalk were daring to get a few buds on them. I could not wait for spring.

“There’s no need to be intimidated, Molly,” John pronounced as he led me into the conference room, the place where I’d originally pitched the concept to Nick and Simon. Perched to the left of where I sat was a wicker basket filled with what I presumed were Simon’s bakery samples. I grabbed one of the croissants and stuffed it in my mouth.

And remembered, again, what made him a genius. That croissant was absolutely light, and flaky, and even smelled like butter. It was the most fabulous thing I had eaten since the first time I’d eaten his food, and it was almost worth it, though the starch was heading straight for my thighs.

He opened my notebook and leafed through the pages until he found my outline. He paused, thrust his lower lip out, and nodded. I waited at least five minutes before I spoke.

“I’m sorry, does that lip thing mean you approve or disapprove?”

He looked up, a confused look in his eye. “Lip thing? No, this is fine, Molly, I’m just wondering how the network people will react. I mean, you’re pretty . . . esoteric here.”

“My mother will be so proud,” I said drily.

“Not that it’s bad, but the blurbs—I mean, I assume they refer to books?”

Yes, Mr. Communications Major. “Well, we could tone those down a bit.” I allowed a tone of superiority to creep into my voice. “They’re for the concept; we might not end up with these as the actual blurbs. If we have to dumb them down or something. Anyway,” I continued, “didn’t you once tell me you could sell ice to Eskimos?”

He preened a little. It was an obvious ruse, but it worked. “Of course I can. No problem. Let’s get Matt in here to take notes.”

John’s assistant trotted in, bearing two Starbucks coffee containers. He set one down in front of me, saying, “Milk and sugar, right?” then placed the other in front of John, who took a sip right away, then scowled. “It’s black. I wanted sugar.” Matt leaped to his feet and returned a few seconds later with a sugar packet. He watched as John dumped the packet into his coffee. John took a sip and nodded, and Matt eased into the chair closest to the door.

“Matt, Molly and I have a presentation next Monday—I told you the date, right, Molly?—and we need to have you take notes then input into a PowerPoint file.”

“Actually,” I said in a hesitant voice, realizing just how close Monday was, “Nick said he’d do that.”

John scowled again in a duplication of his “no sugar” face. “Nick?” His tone was accusatory.

“Yes, Nick.” I bet if I’d have said Simon, John would have started tap-dancing on top of the fancy Lucite conference table. Now his expression was that of someone who’d just stolen his puppy.

“Does Simon know about your working with Nick?” If I were younger and more beautiful, maybe with some dark secret, this would be a romance novel come to life. And if I could figure out who was the hero, I could work on that younger and more beautiful thing, too.

“I assume so. Not that we ever talked about it.”

“Well, I guess we don’t have to worry about the materials, then. Nick can certainly handle that.” John took a big swallow of his coffee.

“So . . . what should we work on?” I asked, a lot more brightly than I felt.

“The presentation itself, of course,” John bit out. “First thing will be to work on your speech. The intro of the inspiration for the idea, why you think it will work in New York City, how the concept is unique among foodstuffs shops.”

I didn’t think they wanted to hear all about my and Keisha’s brainstorming. I’d have to come up with something else.

“Okay, no problem. What else?”

John drummed his fingers on the table. “Molly, I’d like to actually hear what you’re going to say.”

“Oh. Well. Let me see . . .” I launched into a story involving Midtown Manhattan, Dorothy Parker,
Sex and the City,
Woody Allen, and a dozen chocolate egg creams. After a while, Matt just laid his pen down and stared at me. John didn’t even give me the courtesy of waiting to hear what happened to the plucky little pigeon whose leg had been smooshed by a copy of Proust. I reminded myself to only take two Pamprin at a time from now on.

“Molly. This is not going to work. Try this—”

After rehearsing his version a few times, I felt more comfortable with it, although I still didn’t think it was as interesting as my story. Although it was just about as true.

John visibly relaxed as I grew more comfortable with the material, and he clasped my arm as I got up to go. “You’ll be great, Molly. You
are
great. Remember that.” I was starting to. That felt good.

“What the hell is scrapbooking, anyway?”
Keisha sounded as incredulous as I felt. I was wearing my favorite flannel pajamas, the ones with the fancy shoes all over them, drinking a cup of hot chocolate. Aidan was sleeping, and Mom was off somewhere trying to stay out of my hair. I hoped.

“Um, I looked on the Internet, and it seems to be a fancy way to preserve your pictures. Sorry,
photo memories
.”

“Besides sticking them into a photo album?”

I sighed, leafing through the piles of pictures I’d stuck in a shoe box underneath my bed. “Yes. Way more than just sticking them into a photo album, not that I’ve even dragged my lazy ass to do that.”

“And people like to do this?”

“Apparently so. I don’t understand it, either. I mean, it’s hard enough to get the photos organized and into albums”—I dropped a pile of pictures on the bed listlessly—“but to add a whole other dimension of difficulty just boggles the mind.”

“So why did you say yes?”

“I didn’t realize what it was until it was too late. And what was I going to say: ‘Oh, thanks for the invitation, but I think I would rather go hang myself than sit around and cut up lace doilies to decorate pictures of my son? And my lame, soon-to-be ex-husband?’ Oh, did I mention these people write cute captions underneath?”

“What, like, ‘my husband was a loser’?”

I bit my tongue before I told her about the engagement ring. “As if you needed a cute caption to know that.”

“No, really, though. What do they say?”

“From what I saw—and by the way, there are like a million sites devoted to people who scrapbook—it’s stuff like ‘First grade rocks!’ and ‘Lola does a pirouette.’ ”

“Wouldn’t it be funny if people had captions for their everyday lives? Like ‘Jan endures her mother-in-law’s cooking’ and ‘Francis picks his nose in his car.’ ”

“Or ‘woman tries to fit in with people with clearly different priorities.’ ”

“Well,” Keisha said slowly, “it would be something you would never do in a million years, right? So think of it as an exercise.”

“In futility?”

“Ha-ha. No, really. Try to be open-minded about it. Try to have fun with it.”

“Okay. I’ll try.”

“Love you, hon, gotta go. Bye.”

I hung up the phone, then regarded the photos strewn on the bed. There were pictures from much happier times: vacations, school barbecues, Thanksgiving, Christmas. Times when Hugh, Aidan, and I were a family, and my mother hadn’t yet morphed into Mrs. Schwab.

A million years was coming a lot faster than I would’ve thought.

By Thursday, my cramps had abated,
but now my stomach was experiencing soon-to-be-ex-husband cramps. I dropped Aidan off at school and returned home to wait. I’d sent Mom off to an early matinee—I figured it was worth the five bucks not to have her there when her darling Hugh arrived.

I had just finished scrubbing dried-up grape jelly off the floor when the door buzzed. I heaved myself up, brushed off my knees, and hit the buzzer. I’d tried not to worry about what I was going to wear, but I did put an almost inconspicuous amount of makeup on so I wouldn’t look too haggard. You know, from worrying about the little things like the gas and electric bills.