“Walk away from this set and you’re fired!” Jerry Gerard says gleefully, sounding not the least bit scared. In fact, he sounds like Sienna’s permanent departure would make his day.
“Talk to my agent,” Sienna says, speed-dialing the number and tossing her BlackBerry at Jerry Gerard, who pitches it back.
“Already did. Your contract’s up in six months anyway, there’s not a chance in hell we want to renew. It’s been a great run, sweetie, but this show could use some fresh blood. See you at the Emmys—I hear they reserve a special row of seats for old-timers.”
“You didn’t, you did not just call me old,” says Sienna, fuming.
“No, I did not. I said you were an old-timer, one of the greats, like Walter Cronkite or Edward R. Murrow.” Jerry Gerard snickers. “Take me to court and I’ll stick to my story.”
The crew scatters across the newsroom, too frightened to speak. Jerry Gerard’s threat, “Walk away and you’re fired!” hangs in the air like a scaffold on a frayed cable—it could break loose and crush all of them, too. Only Tom Sandler pipes up.
“Does this mean we’re keeping the coffee? I think the coffee’s a great idea,” he says. Tom might not be the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but his antennae for newsroom politics are picking up all the channels.
“If you play your cards right they might even throw in some donuts,” Murray the soundman says. “This could be your lucky day.”
“Yeah, lucky day,” Sienna repeats, her inflection giving the phrase a darker, more ominous meaning. She gathers up some papers from the anchor desk and stuffs them in her bag. Then she taps Jerry Gerard on the shoulder, flashes her most photogenic TV smile, and pours the milky iced coffee all over his bald head.
“HIT ME,” SIENNA says, sliding her beer glass across a weathered wood table for the waiter to refill. “And my friend here’s allergic, give her another mocktail.” She giggles.
“At least we don’t have to call them Shirley Temples, anymore,” I say.
“And we don’t have to be Shirley Temple anymore, either,” says Sienna, who’s had one too many of those beers. “Child star, ambassador, the first woman to say the words ‘breast’ and ‘cancer’ together on television. The woman is a paragon, a paragon.” Sienna takes another swill of beer. “Do you think those curls of hers were real?”
“Just another one of the great mysteries of life. What did Ben Affleck ever see in JLo? How can you call them the New Kids on the Block if it’s their twenty-year reunion? Did Shirley Temple use a curling iron?”
After Sienna dumped the coffee on her arrogant idiot producer she left an SOS for her agent and we headed across the street to the local watering hole. Sienna’s been staring at her BlackBerry as if she could will it to ring for over an hour, and finally, it does.
“You knew.… Uh-huh … You’ve called all the other channels.… Nothing, not a nibble, no one’s interested? Not to worry, of course not, no. A pet food commercial? National? Oh, tri-state … but not New York. Not definite, a few other candidates … You’ll call.” Sienna puts down the phone and blows at the foam around the top of her beer. “My agent says that in newscaster years I’m about a hundred and seven. But apparently in Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania I might still be young enough to shill Puppy Chow.”
“Old? What are you talking about? We’re the very same age.”
“Right, and over forty is over the hill in the entertainment business.”
“But what about Barbara, Diane, and Katie?” I ask, ticking off the names of three of the news industry’s biggest—and oldest—stars.
“Anomalies,” Sienna says, swirling a finger into her beer to play with the bubbles. “Sure, a few women squeak past the age thing, but the reason that everyone talks about them is that they’re the exceptions to the rule.”
“But that’s nuts. I want to see women my age on TV, and I have the money to spend big bucks on advertiser’s products.” Then I pause. “Well I did, until Peter lost his job.”
“And until I became a sinking anchor,” Sienna says glumly. “Jerry Gerard has been gunning for me ever since he came onto the show. He humiliates me every chance he gets, like making me do these dumb soft news spots. ‘Sienna Post Goes Skydiving!’ ‘Sienna Post, Live Today from the Bronx Zoo!’ An elephant’s first birthday and we gave him a party. A party, with balloons and a beach ball for a present and a coconut cake decorated with peanuts! Did you ever hear of a news show giving a beach ball or a coconut cake with peanuts to a forty-one-year-old elephant? No siree, you did not! Even the goddamned elephant birthday party is aimed at the youth market.” Sienna wipes tears away with a scratchy napkin.
I never heard of a news show giving a party for an elephant of any age, but right now that seems as irrelevant as Paula Abdul’s praise.
“It’s going to be all right,” I say. “There are all kinds of opportunities, we just have to think outside the box. Molly was reading me something the other day about how stores hire people to shop undercover so they can rate the salespeople.”
“But you have to give back the merch. Besides, it would be like sending an alcoholic to work in a liquor store.”
“Point taken. If you sign up to be a nurse in Czechoslovakia for three years they’ll give you a free face-lift or breast implants.”
“Talk about job perks. But I faint at the sight of blood.”
“And I suppose Molly’s other suggestion is totally out of the question,” I deadpan. “I don’t think my womb’s quite up to the task of being a surrogate mother.”
Sienna pauses. Then she laughs so hard that a spurt of beer trickles down her chin. “I’ve always wanted to try my hand at writing. And then there’s my secret passion—to take up botanical painting.”
“Wow, all these years, I never knew! You’d paint a mean geranium.”
“You bet your ass, I would!” Sienna says. She reaches for the mustard dispenser and starts doodling leafy plant designs on a paper place mat. “You know, work kills,” Sienna says, making swirly flowers now with the ketchup. “I did a story on it. More people die on the job than from drugs, alcohol, or war combined. ’Course most of them are lumberjacks, or fishermen. Did you know that the most dangerous job in the world is to be a crab fisherman in the Bering Strait? We’re lucky not to be crab fishermen. We’re lucky not to be working. We have to get more people not working!” She slams her fist against the table and splatters ketchup-paint on her Armani shirtsleeve. “And we have to get people to stop wearing sneakers, too. There were 71,409 sneaker accidents in the United States last year. Don’t you think sneakers look tacky when people wear them to work?”
“Not if they’re that Olympic runner from Jamaica, Usain Bolt.”
“Do you think that’s his real name? A runner named Bolt?”
“What I think is that it’s time to get you home now,” I say, reaching into my pocket to leave a five-dollar tip for the waiter.
Always generous, Sienna adds another twenty. “Maybe a local pet food commercial wouldn’t be the end of the world,” she says as I hold out her suit jacket so she can find the arm-holes.
“Of course not. It might even lead to something bigger. Teri Hatcher’s our age and she’s got a contract with Clairol.”
“Yeah, who cares that it’s for a hair color product to cover up her gray?”
As we step out onto the sidewalk Sienna bundles her collar around her neck against an early September chill. The early nip in the air is just a reminder that any day now, the girls will be asking for new Uggs. Ugh! Just one more thing we won’t be able to pay for. Sienna’s hugging me goodbye when our waiter comes rushing out after us.
“Thanks, but you’re going to need this more than I do,” he says, pressing Sienna’s twenty-dollar bill back in her hand. “It’s all over the Internet. Sorry about your getting canned.”
LATER THAT NIGHT, Peter and I are snuggling in bed. “Why do they call it getting canned?” I ask, stroking his arm. “Bumped, bounced, kicked, booted—sounds
more like a Lara Croft action sequence than a description of being fired.”
“Being fired is pretty brutal,” Peter says. He sits up and throws off the comforter, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “It’s not just my company, the markets are going crazy. I may never work again. You wouldn’t understand, Tru. I’ve been going through this hell for three months.”
From the tone in Peter’s voice I know that he’s just stating what for him is a simple fact. Still, every hair on my body stiffens.
Maybe I would have understood if you’d told me about your getting fired when it happened, buddy! I start to snap. But instead, I hold my tongue. Even if Peter had no right to keep this a secret from me, I will not, I will absolutely, positively not turn into Naomi, bitter and belittling my father for everything that went wrong. “I want to understand,” I say. “Next time, if something awful happens, talk to me about it. I’m supposed to be your partner, remember?”
“We are partners,” Peter says, turning around to face me. “You’re doing a great job with the girls. It’s just that I don’t feel like I’m holding up my end of the bargain.”
“Stop that. They’re our girls. It’s our life. We have to be able to support each other.”
Peter shrugs. “I know you support me, Tru, it’s nice that you’re in my corner. But I didn’t want to worry you. It’s not like there’s anything you could have done.”
“Maybe yes, maybe no, but at least we could have tried to do something together. And I want to do something now. I’m going to get a job,” I say with false bravado. Because really, what exactly is it that I think I’m going to do at this stage of my life? Start a rock band? Stock grocery shelves at the A&P? Volunteer to test hemorrhoid medications?
“I don’t want you to have to go to work. Besides, you could never earn the kind of money we need.” Peter shakes his head. “I’m sorry, honey, I didn’t mean for this to happen. I was happy with things the way they were.”
“It’s nobody’s fault. It’s the economy, stupid,” I say, trying to lighten the mood. And then, hoping that as on the night after the benefit I can make us both feel a little better, I push Peter back toward the pillows and run my finger across the front of his white cotton Jockey briefs. Tugging at the waistband, I slip off Peter’s underwear and brush my fingers across his hip bone. Peter sighs contentedly. And then, I hear a familiar snore. I nudge my husband’s shoulder, trying to get him to revive, but it’s not happening. Although Peter thinks something already has.
“Hm, thanks, honey, that was nice,” Peter says drowsily. He stretches out, rubs his feet against mine, and falls back into a deep sleep.
I try to sleep, too, but it’s just no use. I start thinking about the time, a couple of months ago, when I unexpectedly ran into Paige after school and I barely recognized my own daughter. She’d ditched her prim blazer and knee socks, rolled up her plaid school uniform skirt into a kittenish costume no wider than a belt, and the pretty, unadorned face that she’d left for school with that morning was positively gothic—transformed by smudgy black eye makeup, purple lipstick and a cheek piercing that (thank heavens!) was attached to her face by a magnet. I didn’t embarrass her in front of her friends, but when she got home that night I’d started to read her the riot act. “Geesh, Mom, don’t have a nervous breakdown. I’m a teenager, I’m trying to figure out who I am,” Paige had protested. “Some days I dress like Hannah Montana. Other days I dress like Miley Cyrus.”
Ever since I found out that Peter’s unemployed I’ve been struggling to figure out who I am, too. I try to picture myself as something other than a bag lady, searching for an image, any image, of what my life could look like if I’m not a shopping, charity-fund-raising, stay-at-home-mom. But as I spend the rest of the night tossing and turning, absolutely nothing comes into focus.
Five
The Shot Heard ’Round the World
TEN DAYS LATER I step out into the street in front of our building and pull out my cellphone to call Sienna to say I’m running late. As I distractedly jaywalk through traffic, a monster eighteen-wheeler truck comes to a screeching halt within inches of my body and a conga line of cars going up Park Avenue narrowly avoid crashing into one another. I’m so badly shaken that the only parts of my body capable of moving are my hands, which fly up in front of my face. Terrance sprints from the lobby to safely shepherd me back to the curb, and the driver jumps down from the cab of the truck.
“Lady, you gotta look where you’re going, this rig weighs forty tons. Do you think it’s a piece of cake to try to stop it on a dime like that?” the driver barks.
“Sorry, you’re right, I should have been paying attention,” I say, as I reach into my purse to finger one of the half dozen St. Christopher medals that I carry in each of my pocketbooks. Even if you’re not Catholic, it can’t hurt to have the patron saint of travel keeping an eye out for you. Especially if you’re an attention-deficit New Yorker who’s never doing fewer than three things at the same time.
Terrance pats my hand. “Mrs. N, you’re still trembling. Want to do a meditation?”
“Or medication?” a female voice sings out. “I have a whole bottle of Ativan, it’s a lovely anti-anxiety drug.” I look up and spot the driver extending a helping hand to a blond bombshell as she daintily steps out of the truck’s cab. Even from twenty feet away I can see that her legs are longer than Heidi Klum’s and her eyelashes are thicker than Bambi’s. She’s dressed in five-inch heels and a sexy bandage dress wrapped so tightly that I momentarily wonder whether she’s wearing Herve Leger, or if she’s been in an accident herself and left the hospital in traction.
“That’s okay,” I say, as my breathing gets back to normal. I send a quick text message to Sienna to let her know that I’m all right and I’ll be there as soon as I can. “I guess if my thumbs are working well enough to use my cellphone there’s no permanent damage.”
Terrance and the driver laugh, but the vixenish blonde just stares at me blankly.
“You must be Ms. Glass,” Terrance says, stepping in to introduce us. “Welcome to the building. Most people don’t make such a dramatic entrance.”
“I’m known for my entrances.” She giggles flirtatiously.
“Mrs. Newman, meet our newest tenant, Ms. Glass. Ms. Glass bought the three MBA, EIK, CVAC, FISBO with BLT BC on the third floor,” Terrance says. Which, to those who don’t speak the one language common to all New Yorkers—real estate—is a three-bedroom, master suite with bath, eat-in kitchen, central-vacuum equipped, for-sale-by-owner apartment with built-in bookcases.
“Yes, yes I did. But call me Tiffany,” she says, still locking eyes on my muscular doorman.
“Tiffany, Tiffany Glass?” I chuckle congenially. “I bet a lot of people ask you about your name. I know a little bit about that myself. I’m Truman Newman.”
“Well, how about that?” Tiffany blinks.
Terrance tells the driver to take the truck around to the side entrance. “And Mrs. N, I want you to pay attention to where you’re going,” he scolds me affectionately.
“Will do.” I glance at my watch and hurry off in the direction of the train. “Welcome to the building,” I shout over my shoulder toward Tiffany. “If there’s anything you need, just let me know.”
“Okay, um, thanks,” she says, winding up our clever conversation and turning her attention (which, let’s face it, never really left) back to Terrance and the truck driver. “Now which of you boys is going to help me find my ThighMaster?”
I’M STILL RATTLED as I sit down next to Sienna—and it’s not just about my near accident. Sienna’s and my legs are dangling side by side over the edge of a medical examining table in our beloved Dr. B.’s office. When Sienna pooh-poohs my opposition, I give her a little kick.
“You’re out of work and I’m broke,” I say guiltily. “This is wrong.”
“Nonsense,” says Sienna as a nurse wipes our faces clean with astringent-soaked cotton balls and then frosts them with a thin coat of n
umbing cream.
“No really,” I try to insist. “I’m supposed to be putting food on my family’s table, not poison in my forehead. Getting Botox is shallow and frivolous.”
“In times like these it’s shallow and practical,” Sienna argues. “Just today a job counselor told me that older people can’t find work. Besides, I’m paying for it out of my severance package. That fucking Jerry Gerard is responsible for at least half of these wrinkles; it’s only fair that he should foot the bill for smoothing them out.”
I dab at the numbing cream to make sure that it’s working and squirm around in my chair. Maybe it’s too much to expect a mountain climber to scale Everest on her first try. Or to ask me to give up trying to look my best after having spent a lifetime in Naomi’s shadow. Besides, now that Tiffany Glass is living in our building, it’s going to take a lot more than a Sub-Zero refrigerator to keep up with the neighbors.
“Thank you,” I say emotionally. “This is very generous.”
“Don’t mention it. I mean really, don’t,” Sienna says, patting my hand. “But if you happen to know a cute guy you’d like to introduce me to …”
“Cute guys, was somebody talking about cute guys?” Dr. B. asks cheerily, bouncing into the room on the balls of his gray ombre alligator loafers.
“Never mind that, love the outfit,” Sienna says, running her hand admiringly down the skinny lapel of Dr. B.’s black Prada suit with a nipped-in waist.
“I know, and look!” Dr. B. says pulling the flaps on his shirt pocket opened and closed. “Velcro!”
I hate going for a physical, you have to drag me to my yearly mammogram, but despite the fact that he sticks dozens of syringes in my face, I look forward to seeing Dr. Brandt—his needles are like magic wands, not to mention that he’s endlessly entertaining. I’d never trust my worry lines to anyone else, and neither would half the world’s most fabulous faces. Gwyneth flies him to London, Madonna has him on speed dial and New York magazine anointed him the architect of the New New Face—which looks like what your old face used to look like, only better.
The Best Laid Plans Page 5