“I can do your makeup,” she suggested hopefully.
“I’m done with my face,” I answered and I could read in her expression what she thought of my work. “Don’t you need to get back with your own hair and makeup people?”
She gave herself one last look in the mirror. “You’re right. I know Ava is busy, if you want to come up to the house a little early to give her a hand.” She kissed me on the head, careful not to disturb her handiwork with my hair.
“Maybe.” No way in hell. But then I did find myself wandering up a little early for the party, not to help Ava but to check things out. My mom really did it up for her parties, even the minor ones like this, which was just to introduce an artist newly arrived from Russia to people in the art scene. It was close to Christmas, so everything had a vaguely holiday feel, but nothing too overt because she hated Christmas parties and thought they were tacky. She had a long list of things that she considered in poor taste and part of Ava’s job was to make sure none of them appeared in my mom’s eyeline.
Ava looked as frazzled as I’d ever seen her, which meant that there was a tiny line on her forehead between her eyebrows and that was all the sign of worry on her face. She looked beautiful in a red sheath dress (nod to Christmas) with a flower on the shoulder that no one, including my mom, would have called tacky. I hid behind some of the potted trees that had been brought in for décor and watched her supervise the servers, the florists, the valets, everyone. She didn’t need my help.
Finally she spotted me, despite my best efforts at camouflage. “Guests will start to arrive in about ten minutes,” she greeted me, while checking her phone. “You have just enough time to go change.”
I looked down at my dark green cocktail dress (nod to Christmas), which I had liked, until this moment. “I already changed.”
“Oh.” She looked me up and down and then shrugged. “I guess being comfortable is the most important thing.” Her eyes returned to her phone.
“It’s not like I’m wearing yoga pants…”
Ava held up her finger as she read something on the little screen. “I’m going to lose my mind,” she said, her voice perfectly even. “The caterer left two cases of champagne unrefrigerated. Nightmare scenario.” The tiny line reappeared: her worried face. “Talk to you later, Lanie.”
I went back behind the trees, then, as the guests came, emerged to talk to the people I knew. I managed to get out of attending most of my mom’s parties so I hadn’t seen most of them for a while. My mom’s new husband, Kristian, came downstairs finally, wearing a scarf in a way that made me want to vomit a little when I thought of how long it had taken him to achieve the specific drape of it. He caught me sneering and shot me a look of death. We did best when we ignored each other.
My mom was in her element so I watched her for a while. I had done that when I was younger, then gone up to my room and stood in front of my mirror to imitate her. I had held up a flute of orange juice and practiced her laugh, how she threw her head back and shook her hair, and the habit she had of putting her hand on the arm of the person she was talking to, widening her eyes and kind of pursing her lips so that she looked absolutely fascinated by what she was hearing. I had watched myself do it in the mirror, but I always looked like I was smelling something bad, rather than that I was interested.
I talked and talked to people, and listened a lot, and had a cocktail, and some of the canapés, and waited. The Wolfes were notoriously late to parties. I saw my mom’s husband, Kristian, lead the new artist around, introducing her, their arms interlocked. I studied Ava, standing with a man in a suit the same color as her dress. I watched as she leaned forward, putting her hand on his arm, then threw back her head and laughed, shaking her hair. She really did it well.
I waited.
They all entered the room together. Scarlett with her new fiancé, a San Francisco guy who was always on his phone, both of them already looking bored and Scarlett very sullen, too. The oldest Wolfe child, Zara, wearing heels that added four inches to her height, clinging to her husband as if she needed the support. And Mrs. Wolfe, Pamela. She was walking with her son and smiling at something he was saying to her.
Brooks. It was Brooks—I inhaled a bit of canapé and it lodged in my throat. I coughed but the hard piece of bread stuck there. I kept coughing until tears streamed down my face, blinding me. I held up a napkin and tried to return to my spot behind the trees, hacking away. The crowd parted like the Red Sea, as if I was spreading consumption or French pox or something and not being asphyxiated by a bread crumb.
“Lanie? Lanie, are you ok?” Brooks appeared in my face, concerned. “Here.” He grabbed a drink off a passing tray. “Take a sip of this.”
It was not how I had planned our reunion. There was no cooing like Mae West, no running one of my long, painted nails down his cheek. They were still all bitten, and anyway, who could talk like Mae West when she was bringing up a lung? I coughed again and took a gulp of liquid from the cold glass Brooks handed to me. It burned fire down my throat. In honor of the Russian artist, my mom was serving icy-cold vodka, straight, and I had taken in at least half the glass. I spat it out, right onto Brooks.
Oh. Holy. Shit.
He licked his lips. “Vodka. Tasty.”
“Brooks…”
He started to laugh.
I mopped at his face with the napkin I had been coughing into but then realized how disgusting that was. “I’m so sorry!”
He used his sleeve and wiped off the rest of the liquid. “It’s fine. I should have expected it. I remember wearing your ice cream cone at one point, a hot dog you shot out of a bun, and a chocolate doughnut with sprinkles that landed in my hair. I prefer the vodka, actually. You ok?”
I gave one last, halfhearted cough. “Yes. Part of the canape got…never mind. How are you, Brooks?” I used the napkin to wipe under my eyes.
“A little wet, and smelling like a distillery, but other than that, I’m great.”
“Oh, shit. I’m really sorry.”
Brooks laughed again. “No, I am great. I’m happy to be home. California in December is a much more friendly place than New York is.”
“I’m glad you’re back.” I sounded ridiculously fervent, like I was saying “amen” in church.
“Me too,” he said.
Read Lanie and Brooks’ story in THE ONE I’M WITH
Double Pop Page 26