by Laura Levine
I scarfed down a cinnamon raisin bagel and coffee, reveling in the peace and quiet.
So blissed out was I by the silence that I barely blinked when I read the latest news from my parents. For those of you who haven’t already met him, my dad is a FEMA-WORTHY disaster magnet, the eye of his own personal hurricane. Wherever he goes, chaos seems to follow. Now he was convinced that Lydia Pinkus, a woman known for her impeccable morals and orthopedic sandals, was having an affair with a married man. Daddy’s always had it in for Lydia, who, I must admit, can be a bit of a battle-axe. But The Other Woman? Never! Poor Mom. At least she had her book club to distract her.
Shoving all thoughts of my parents aside, I hopped in the shower and was soon at my computer, working on a flyer for one of my clients, Tip Top Dry Cleaners. (We clean for you. We press for you. We even dye for you!) I was singing the praises of their one-hour dry cleaning, urging customers to “stop by and drop your pants,” when my mail showed up.
Built some time in the 1940s, my apartment has a vintage mail slot for letters only. Catalogs and packages are left at my front door. I checked the mail and groaned to see several unwanted bills. But I perked up immeasurably after I’d opened my front door and saw my “Fudge of the Month” catalog on my doorstep.
I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of anything more fun than looking at pictures of fudge. (Except, of course, eating some.)
I was flipping through the glossy pages, stopping to gaze at a mouthwatering walnut brownie creation when a whirling dervish of fur came flying past me.
It was Prozac. The sneaky devil had just pretended to lose interest in the squirrel, when all along she’d been waiting for me to let down my guard and open the front door.
Bloodlust in her eyes, she lunged at the squirrel, who quickly abandoned burying his orange to sprint down the front path.
I was hot on Prozac’s heels as she chased the squirrel onto the neighbor’s front lawn, where the nimble critter began clambering up a magnolia tree. Prozac was about to clamber up after it, but then we were all distracted—me, the squirrel, and Prozac—by the sound of a woman wailing.
“Omigod! Trevor! Stop!”
I turned to see a towheaded toddler across the street, clutching something in his chubby fist and speed-waddling down a driveway—straight into the path of an oncoming car.
Even more frightening, the car showed no signs of slowing down.
The toddler’s mom, her eyes wide with terror, raced after her son.
But before she could get to him, Prozac—channeling her inner Wonder Woman—dashed across the street and jumped up on the toddler, knocking him out of harm’s way.
I ran across the street, my heart beating like a bongo, shuddering at the thought of Prozac and the toddler dashing in front of that car. They both could have been killed!
“Omigosh!” said the toddler’s mom. “Your cat saved my son’s life!”
I beamed with pride. That is, until I looked down and saw what the toddler had been clutching in his hand: a crispy Chicken McNugget—a tasty morsel that Prozac was now gobbling up at the speed of light.
Prozac didn’t shove the kid aside to save his life. My greedy furball was only after the McNugget!
“I let go of Trevor’s hand to tie my shoelace,” the distraught mom was saying, “and the next thing I knew, he was heading straight for that car. And then your heroic cat came to his rescue.”
“It’s nothing,” I assured her, bending over to scoop Prozac in my arms. “Really.”
By now, the driver of the car, a gangly teenager, had slammed on his brakes and came running over to join us, along with several neighbors who’d gathered around to see what the commotion was all about.
“I’m so sorry,” the teenager said. “I didn’t see your little boy.”
“That’s all right,” Trevor’s mom said. “This wonderful cat pushed him out of danger.”
And everyone began cooing their praises.
“What a brave kitty!”
“So adorable!”
“Look at those big green eyes.”
In my arms, Prozac preened.
I’m cuter than Trevor, right?
“I still can’t believe it,” Trevor’s mom was saying. “Your cat saved my son’s life. How can I ever thank you?”
Prozac looked up at her, chicken shards still in her whiskers.
Another McNugget would be nice.
Honestly, that cat’s nerve knows no bounds.
I assured Trevor’s mom that no thanks were necessary and headed back to my apartment, Prozac belching McNugget fumes all the way home.
Chapter 5
“Ugh! You look like a tugboat in that dress.” I was standing on a pedestal in Bebe’s studio, trapped in a cloud of her Pine-Sol perfume, bombarded by a barrage of insults.
So far, in what appeared to be a nautically themed onslaught, I’d been compared to a tugboat, a barge, and a battleship. Also, Elsie the Cow and Bigfoot.
Even worse than her insults was the torturous spandex body shaper she made me squeeze myself into. For the purposes of this narrative and to avoid a pesky lawsuit, let’s call them Spunx.
The “tugboat” dress Bebe hated was one I personally liked. A cute A-line number that, had I not been bound by those godawful Spunx, would have given me plenty of room to breathe.
But Bebe didn’t give a hoot about my respiratory system. She’d gone gaga over a fitted ruched dress that she insisted took inches off my hips. (And years off my life, no doubt, if my organs continued to be scrunched together like sumo wrestlers in a Volkswagen.)
Kneeling at my feet throughout the whole ordeal was Bebe’s seamstress, Anna, a mouse of a woman with pins in her mouth and a whipped dog look in her eyes.
“Pinch the waistband tighter!” Bebe had barked at her earlier when I’d tried on a pair of itchy wool slacks.
“But I can’t breathe,” I’d protested.
“Good. You’ve got to suffer for beauty.”
Anna shot me an apologetic look as she tightened the waistband with some straight pins.
Oh, well. At least Bebe had decided to keep the blue cashmere tunic I’d lusted after on my last visit.
“It actually doesn’t look horrible on you,” Bebe said, her idea of a compliment.
A few more outfits were tried on and insults hurled before Bebe was satisfied with her selections and gave me permission to change back into my own clothes.
I scooted to a curtained-off changing room in the corner of the studio and eagerly wiggled out of those damned Spunx. As I changed back into my beloved elastic-waist jeans, I heard Bebe barking at Anna:
“Get those alterations done ASAP. And no screwups. One more uneven hem and you’re history!”
In another life, I bet she goose-stepped with the Gestapo.
When I emerged from the dressing room, Anna had gone, and Bebe was eyeing one of the dress racks, jaw clenched and temples throbbing.
Uh-oh. Looked like Mount Bebe was about to erupt.
“Another wire hanger!” she cried, grabbing the offending piece of metal and waving it in the air.
“Miles!” she screeched into her intercom. “Get in here right away!”
Seconds later, the studio doors opened, but it wasn’t Miles.
Instead, an older woman—with badly dyed jet-black hair, way too much makeup, and a designer suit that had seen better days—came storming into the studio on scuffed stilettos.
“You bitch!” she hissed at Bebe, as Miles raced in after her.
“I tried to stop her,” Miles said, “but she pushed right past me.”
“You couldn’t stop her? A former linebacker? How useless can one man be?” She shook her head in disgust. “And by the way, I found another wire hanger on the rack.” She hurled it at him, almost nicking him in the forehead. “Get rid of it!”
Then she turned to the older woman.
“What’s your problem, Tatiana?”
“I’ll tell you what my problem is. You
stole Lacey Hunt right out from under me.”
“So what if I did?” Bebe shot back, showing zero signs of remorse.
“In case you’ve forgotten,” Tatiana cried, quivering with indignation, “I gave you your start in this business. When you and I first met, you were nothing but a personal shopper at Macy’s, buying athleisure suits for soccer grandmas. I gave you a job! I gave you a career—”
Her eyes were now riveted on a crimson leather handbag on one of Bebe’s shelves. I figured it was nosebleed expensive, embellished as it was by what looked like genuine gold hardware.
“—I gave you that Birken purse! And this is how you repay me? By stealing my client? Heaven only knows what dirty trick you used to lure Lacey away from me.”
“Oh, please,” Bebe scoffed. “Lacey couldn’t wait to make the switch and dump you. Newsflash, Tatiana: Your career’s over. Finished. Kaput. Has been for ages. Rumor has it the last celebrity you dressed was Betsy Ross.”
This was one insult too many for Tatiana.
“You miserable ingrate!” she cried, charging at Bebe, her face a frightening beet red.
Lucky for Bebe, Miles managed to intercept her and pull her away.
“Get her out of here right now,” Bebe said, “before I call the police.”
“C’mon, Tatiana.” Miles took the older woman by the elbow. “It’s best you go.”
As Miles led her out of the studio, Tatiana turned to Bebe and hurled her parting shot.
“I’ll get you for this, Bebe. I swear I will.”
“Yeah, right,” Bebe shot back. “I’m shaking in my shoes.”
But I couldn’t help noticing a look of fear in her eyes.
Tatiana sure seemed out for revenge, and I, for one, wouldn’t have wanted to be on the receiving end of her rage.
* * *
“Okay, show’s over,” Bebe said, turning to me when Tatiana had gone. “I’ll call you when the alterations are ready. And leave the Spunx here. I don’t want you stretching them out.”
Tossing the Spunx on Bebe’s desk, I scurried out of the studio, thrilled to be rid of Bebe and her spandex torture chamber. I was just about to head down the side of the house to the front gate when Miles called out to me from the kitchen.
“Hey, Jaine. Don’t leave yet. Heidi wants to see you.”
He beckoned me into the kitchen, where I was surprised to see Tatiana sitting at a ginormous kitchen island, sipping from a steaming mug of tea.
All traces of the rage she’d spewed in the studio had vanished, replaced by an air of defeat. Drawn and haggard, she sat hunched over her mug, makeup caked in her wrinkles, her jet-black hair wilting under its helmet of hair spray.
“Come join us, Jaine,” Miles said. “Have a brownie.”
He pointed to a plate of ooey-gooey goodies in the center of the island.
“They’re fresh from the oven.”
As I could tell, by the mouthwatering aroma of chocolate wafting through the air. But I couldn’t possibly have one. Not if I expected to squeeze myself into my skintight makeover outfits.
“No, thanks. I’m fine.”
“Have some tea then,” he said, pouring some into a mug from a teapot on the stove.
I took the tea and hoisted myself up onto a stool next to Tatiana.
An unfinished brownie sat in front of her, studded with nuts and slathered with a thick layer of frosting.
It was all I could do not to snatch it up and scarf it down.
“Hit me again, honey,” she said to Miles, holding out her cup.
Miles did not reach for the teapot but for a bottle of bourbon and poured some into her mug.
“Want some, Jaine?” Miles asked, holding out the bottle.
After what I’d just been through, I could’ve used a jolt of Jim Beam, but I opted for sobriety.
Miles joined us at the island and helped himself to a brownie.
“I don’t get it,” Tatiana was saying. “After all I’ve done for Bebe, how can she be so cruel?”
“Years of practice,” Miles replied with a grim smile.
“How do you live with her?”
“It isn’t easy. I try to remember the good times in high school—back when I was a football player and Bebe was the cutest girl on the cheerleading squad.
“She was different then,” he said, a faraway look in his eyes. “So much nicer.”
“Or maybe she was always a bitch,” Tatiana said, “but you were too blinded by hormones to see it.”
“Maybe,” Miles sighed.
“I’d better get moving before Bebe catches me here and goes ballistic.” Tatiana got down from the stool, smoothing the jacket of her tattered suit. “Thanks for the tea, Miles. You make it just the way I like it.”
“Wait!” He jumped up and reached into his pocket for his wallet, then handed her a generous wad of cash.
She hesitated a beat. But only a beat.
“I shouldn’t,” she said, taking the cash, “but I won’t lie. I need the money.”
Then she threw her arms around Miles and gave him a hug.
“You’re too good for her, Miles. Way too good.”
I had to agree with her on that one.
With a feeble wave good-bye, she turned and headed down the hallway.
“I should be going, too,” I said, getting up from my stool.
Okay, so I didn’t get up from my stool. I stayed to finish my brownie. (Okay, two brownies.)
You didn’t really think I was going to resist the lure of ooey-gooey chocolate, did you?
Chapter 6
The door to Heidi’s office was shut when I got there, an odd thunking noise coming from inside.
“Heidi,” I called out. “It’s me, Jaine.”
“Come on in!”
I opened the door to find Heidi hurling a suction-cup dart at the framed poster of Bebe hanging over her desk. So that explained the thunking noise.
“Bingo!” Heidi cried as her dart made contact with the poster. “Straight to her heart. She’s a goner for sure.”
Then she hurled another.
“Boom! Right on her nose job! Wanna try?” she asked, holding out a dart.
“No, I’m good.”
“Well, I’m not. I got another call from the studio this morning, offering me even more money to leave Bebe and go work for them. I begged Bebe to let me out of my contract, but she still refuses to let me go.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
“Not as sorry as I am.”
She lobbed another missile at the poster, this one landing on Bebe’s chest.
“Yippee! There go her implants!”
“You wanted to see me?” I reminded her as she went to retrieve the darts.
“Right. Let me show you some tweaks I made to your hair style.”
She opened her laptop and showed me the tweaks—more beachy waves and longer bangs—all of which I loved.
“It looks fabulous!”
“And one more thing. Before I cut your hair, I’d like you to start giving yourself deep-conditioning olive oil treatments. Just massage some olive oil in your hair, cover it with a shower cap for about twenty minutes, then shampoo. It’ll make your hair amazingly soft and shiny.”
“Sounds good.”
If it made my hair even half as shiny as Heidi’s sleek bob, I’d be in heaven.
“Well,” I said, wrenching my eyes from the image of the new, improved me on Heidi’s laptop, “time for me to get going.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to give the darts a try?”
She held them out to me, a mischievous glint in her eyes.
“Okay, maybe I will.”
I took one of the darts and threw it, feeling a groundswell of joy when it made contact with the poster.
“Yes!” Heidi high-fived me. “Right in her crotch! That has to hurt! Isn’t this the best game ever?”
“You betcha!” I said, reaching for another dart and hurling it with gusto.
* * *
After a few more gratifying rounds of mutilating Bebe, I bid Heidi a fond farewell.
On my way to the front door, I peeked in Justin’s office and swallowed a pang of disappointment to find he wasn’t there. But I perked up immeasurably when I walked outside and saw him heading up the path with some garment bags.
“Hey, you!” he said, flashing me his dimple.
Aack. My knees went a tad wobbly.
“I thought maybe we could hang out tomorrow night.”
Yesyesyesyesyes! were the words I managed not to screech.
“How about it?” he said.
“I’m not sure,” I lied shamelessly, trying to seem like someone whose social sked was packed with fun events. “Let me check my calendar.” I opened my cell phone where the only listing for the next night was pizza and Downton Abbey.
“Why, yes, I think I can make it.”
“Great!” he beamed, treating me to another glimpse of his dimple. “Text me your address, and I’ll pick you up at ten.”
“Ten?” I gulped. “At night?”
“Sure, that’s when all the clubs get hopping.”
Holy moly. Welcome to the world of Gen Z dating.
I only hoped I’d stay awake long enough for a good-night kiss.
Chapter 7
I’m happy to report that the gang at Tip Top Dry Cleaners liked my “Drop Your Pants” flyer so much, they hired me to write a bunch of radio spots.
Yay, me!
I spent the next morning at my desk (otherwise known as my dining room table) banging away on the commercials, the air filled with the sweet sounds of Prozac snoring on the sofa.
There’d been no sign of the Evil Alien from Planet Acorn, and Prozac was quite pleased with herself, no doubt convinced she’d scared off the critter for good.
I must confess my mind was wandering just a tad as I wrote the Tip Top spots. I kept thinking about Justin and our date that night. I still couldn’t believe he was picking me up at ten. That’s usually when I’m curled up in bed with an episode of House Hunters. I’d have to take a nap if I expected to stay awake until the wee hours.
Leaving Tip Top temporarily in limbo, I drew up the following schedule: