The Best Laid Plans

by Lynn Schnurnberger

  Sienna and I settle back in our seats. Dr. B. pulls on a pair of gloves and traces what used to be the hollows under my eyes. “Looking good. This Perlane’s really holding up,” he says. The nurse lines up a row of clear bottles and hands Dr. B. a set of hypodermic needles on a silver tray. He stabs a syringe into the top of one of his magic potions and plunges it into my cheek. Again. And, ooh, here it comes, again. “Just another little squirt, to pump up the volume,” Dr. B. says, pursing his lips as the needle goes in, yes, again.

  I pick up the mirror and see, despite a few pricks, that I’m already looking so much more fresher and relaxed. My mood, along with my face, immediately lifts. “Can you imagine what Picasso would have done with Perlane?” I giggle.

  “You mean crossing women’s eyes, flattening their heads, and reassembling their body parts?” Dr. B. laughs. “That old goat did enough damage with a paintbrush. But imagine what Michelangelo could have done with collagen!”

  Over the next several minutes Dr. B. changes needles, choosing from an arsenal of modern beauty ammunition that includes Botox to freeze forehead muscles and hyaluronic and fillers like Juvederm to fill in lines around our mouths. As he loads another syringe to zap the folds between my nose and my mouth—unfunnily referred to as “laugh lines”—the good doctor lets out a whoop.

  “This is the Evolence, it’s made out of pig and a rabbi blessed it. Not exactly kosher.” Dr. B. laughs. “But it works.”

  Sienna always says that Botox is like face cocaine. You get a little, and you just want more and more. Today, I’d swear it’s a muscle relaxant. Dishing with Sienna and Dr. B., I can feel the tension absolutely drain from my whole body. The radio is tuned to the lite FM station, programmed for contemporary soft rock to appeal to the over-forty crowd who can’t stand rap, but who don’t want to spend the next decade listening to the greatest hits of the eighties, either. I’d always thought of music as a great equalizer, bringing people together—but I defy any parent to spend five earsplitting minutes with their teenager listening to Kanye West before they run screaming from the room. Sienna and Dr. B. are bantering about the latest Dancing with the Stars contestants when all of a sudden, a newscaster breaks in with an announcement.

  “Bankruptcy … emergency loan … housing market … shit!”

  I don’t catch every word, but I hear enough. Peter had warned me that his company was just the tip of the iceberg, but in my wildest dreams—or nightmares—I’d never imagined that the whole economy was going down.

  Three more nurses come rushing into Dr. B.’s office, followed by a line of patients in various stages of treatment—and distress.

  “The market’s crashing,” a woman whose hair is tied back in a high ponytail cries. She clutches the latex glove filled with frozen peas that you usually hold against a bruise, to her heart.

  “How much to do my eyes today and not the lips?” asks another woman, already in economy mode.

  Sienna’s reaction is pure newscaster. “Did the announcer really say ‘shit’?”

  “Everyone, ladies, take a deep breath,” says Dr. B. “Get your head out of your hands, Millie,” he says, going over to the frozen-pea-holding woman, who’s burst into tears. “You don’t want the CosmoDerm getting all lumpy, now do you?”

  Ready to jump on the story, Sienna grabs for her BlackBerry and punches in the news desk’s number. On the seventh unanswered ring, she punches the phone. “Goddamn it, they see my caller ID and won’t pick up. The biggest story of the decade and I’ve nobody to report it for!” She pauses as the reality of the situation hits closer to home. “This probably wasn’t the best time to quit my job.”

  There are wails and frantic phone calls to husbands, brokers, therapists, and who-knows-who-else. With people’s anxiety levels rising in direct proportion to the falling Dow, Dr. B. emerges as a King-of-Collagen-post 9/11-Rudy-Guliani, offering strong leadership and taking control of the situation.

  “Okay, everyone. Heads high, put away your phones. Gloria,” he commands, turning to a receptionist, “get everyone a bottle of antioxidant pomegranate water. And, ladies, stop fretting, it causes wrinkles. Today’s injections are on the house.”

  The house? I’d love to stay for more Evolence but I have to get back to the apartment to see Peter and the girls. I give Dr. B. a quick kiss, grab Sienna, and head toward the waiting room. It’s not until we’re out of the subway and the anesthetic wears off that I realize we never finished filling in my laugh lines. At the moment that doesn’t seem so terrible—they’re a reminder of happier times.

  PETER’S STANDING SLACK-SHOULDERED in the entranceway of the apartment, bouncing a red rubber ball against our Venetian-plastered sky blue walls. Our twenty-nine-year-old boy-wonder lawyer, Bill Murphy, is trying to get him to turn on the lights, but as soon as Bill flicks them on, Peter stops bouncing the ball long enough to turn them off.

  “I got here an hour ago, as soon as I heard the news, but I can’t get Peter to focus on anything but that damned ball,” Bill says, patting his hair, which isn’t so much slicked back as plastered, Alfalfa-style, to his baby-faced head. His suit, as always, is slightly rumpled, and although he’s over six feet tall, Bill’s the kind of guy who doesn’t stand out in a crowd. Still, while Bill’s style isn’t sharp, his mind is—he got his degree less than five years ago and already he’s considered one of New York’s best tax attorneys. And he’s awfully sweet.

  “It was nice of you to come over. Why don’t we go inside and I’ll fix you both a drink,” I say, guiding Bill and Sienna past my shell-shocked husband and dropping my bag on the now-flowerless Georgian table. “I think Peter just needs some alone time.” And as I step into the living room, I can see why.

  The peripatetic financial analyst Jim Cramer is waving his arms manically, shouting out blow-by-blows of the economic meltdown from the sixty-five-inch plasma TV screen. Naomi, dressed head-to-toe in black, is rocking back and forth with her hands on either side of her head like a Sicilian widow at a funeral. “It’s a perfect storm, a perfect storm,” wails my mother, the Al Roker of tragedy. Sitting next to Naomi, patting her arm protectively, is Dr. Barasch, P-H-D, her dancing partner from the benefit.

  “Dr. Barasch, what are you doing here?” I ask, more than a little taken aback to see the headmaster of the girls’ private school sitting on a folding chair in my living room. I had no idea that he and Naomi had even seen each again after the global warming benefit, let alone that they were so intimate. I want Naomi to be happy, but if she messes this one up, her granddaughters may not even get into community college. Still, for the moment, Dr. Barasch is gently making little circles between Naomi’s shoulder blades, which actually seems to be quieting her howls.

  “When we heard the news about the markets Naomi and I were at her apartment, er, we were just getting out of the movies,” Dr. Barasch says, eyeing the twins and switching to the G-rated version of his story. “Your mother wanted to come right over to see what we could do to help.”

  Paige is sitting at a card table (Molly’s already auctioned off the dining room set). In front of her are a large stack of dollar bills.

  “What’s all this?” asks Sienna, going over and kissing the top of her goddaughter’s head.

  “Moneygami,” says Paige, holding up a one-dollar bill that she’s folded into a spindly legged crane. “If I’m not supposed to spend money anymore, at least I can play with it.”

  Sienna and I exchange amused glances. Even in the grimmest of times, Paige can always make me laugh. Bill Murphy goes over to look at Paige’s handiwork and picks up a bill that she’s folded into an angel. At least I think it’s an angel; with those ginormous wings it could just as easily be an oversized bug. “That’s the spirit, kiddo!” he says.

  Paige scrunches her eyes and I see the start of one of her famously contemptuous Paige Newman stares, the stare that says you do not deserve to be taking up oxygen on this—or any other—planet. But Bill’s good cheer is so obviously well-meaning that, des
pite herself, Paige smiles. Sienna smiles, too. “Nice guy,” she mouths, pointing in Bill’s direction. As for Bill, I catch him giving Sienna an admiring glance.

  I turn off the television. “Look at the bright side, Mom. Now you don’t have to worry about buying a whole new spring wardrobe. Sounds like we’re going to see a wave of ‘Recessionista Chic.’ ”

  “That’s ridiculous,” chides Naomi, straightening the seams of her stockings. “Isn’t that silly, Gordon? Recessionista Chic. That’s like jumbo shrimp. It’s an onxy, oxy … cotin …”

  “Oxymoron, dear.” Dr. Barasch chuckles. His eyes twinkle, and he leans in to give Naomi a small kiss.

  “But Grandma.…” Molly starts to say. Then realizing that she’s not allowed to used the G word—“ ‘Grandma’ is so aging. Besides who’d believe it?”—Molly begins again. “There is Recessionista Chic, Naomi, they were talking about it today on Tyra.”

  I raise an eyebrow at my daughter’s viewing habits.

  “Light homework day.” Molly shrugs. “Anyway, take this scarf, for example.” Molly unties the silk Hermès draped over my mother’s shoulders. “You can wear it as a belt, or even a halter.”

  “A halter?” asks Paige, making a beeline for Naomi—because what could be more challenging to Paige’s newfound folding skills than figuring out how to hold her grandmother’s boobs in place with nothing more than a thirty-six-inch square of fabric?

  “Why don’t we just tie this around Naomi’s bag,” Molly says, wrestling the scarf back from her sister.

  “Girls, stop playing,” bleats Naomi. “Doesn’t anybody in this family take anything seriously? Tru, this is a catastrophe, why aren’t you hysterical like everyone else? You never did know how to behave appropriately!”

  Before I have a chance to answer that I feel as wobbly as the Dow but that I’m sucking it up for the girls, Peter comes into the living room dribbling that damned rubber ball.

  “I’m upset enough for the whole country!” Peter yowls, slamming the ball so hard against the wooden floor that it ricochets onto a table, barely missing a lamp.

  “Honey,” I say, patting the cushion on the sofa next to me and trying to get him to calm down, “it’s going to be all right. We’ll figure something out.”

  “Figure out something? Like if you try really hard enough, you’ll come up with an answer I haven’t thought of? Let’s get Tru to figure out something! Maybe she can call Ben Bernanke and give him a few tips on how to save the whole economy while she’s at it, too. I’m sure he’d be grateful. Here’s the phone,” Peter says, thrusting the receiver within an inch of my nose. “Why don’t you call right now?”

  “Stop it! Just stop it! Stop being so goddamned full of yourself for once in your life, will you, Peter? You’d think you were the only one who was suffering!” I blurt back angrily.

  There’s an audible gasp in the room. It isn’t like me to speak so sharply. And how could we ever, no matter how angry we are, have let the girls hear us attacking each other?

  “I’m so sorry,” I tell Paige and Molly, at a loss for anything else to say. Bill Murphy puts his hand on Peter’s shoulder and he turns toward the twins.

  “With everything that’s happened today, everybody’s emotions are running pretty high,” Bill says evenly. “Sometimes parents just need to let off some steam.” Then Bill guides Peter toward the den. Several moments later he comes back to say that Peter wants us all to know that he’s sorry to have made a scene and he just needs a little time to decompress.

  Sienna comes over to stand next to Bill. She squeezes his arm. “Thank you. That was very nice.”

  I tilt my head to the ceiling, trying in vain to fight back a round of tears. Dr. Barasch reaches out awkwardly to try to comfort me and even Naomi—tactless, thoughtless, unfiltered Naomi, who in the forty-four years I’ve known her has never had an unexpressed thought—knows not to say a word to me about Peter. Although that doesn’t stop her from stumbling like a bull in a china shop into other territory.

  She leans in toward me and traces her finger along my nasolabial laugh lines. The one that Dr. B. filled with Evolence—and the one that he didn’t. “Tru, why is the right side of your face so much smoother than the left? Look, Gordon.” She laughs merrily. “Tru’s a walking before and after!”

  “Yeah, Mom,” asks Paige, moving in for a closer look. “Naomi’s right, you look all lopsided. And what are those pinpricks on your cheek?”

  “War wounds,” I say, wrapping my arms around a pillow and giving it a little hug. Suddenly, life seems like a constant battle.

  Six

  Let’s Get Fiscal

  I HAVEN’T HAD A drop of alcohol since the sip of piña colada Naomi gave me when I was fifteen that sent me racing to the hospital with hives. Still it’s five A.M. and I feel the way I’ve read a hangover feels. My mouth is dry and my skull feels like it’s the size of Mr. Potato Head’s. My palms and my feet itch, too, which can only mean one of two things. Either I’m coming into some money—or I’m leaving my husband. Although neither seems like a real possibility.

  Naomi and Dr. Barasch left after it was evident that Peter had holed up for the night in the den and wasn’t coming back for a rematch. Sienna and Bill stayed around to talk for a while, but at a certain point I just wanted to be alone—there’s only so much you can chew over a husband’s bad behavior before you feel like throwing up. Besides, I couldn’t help noticing there was a frisson between the sweet, slightly disheveled lawyer and my gorgeous, sophisticated best friend. Good for them, I hope they enjoyed a nice evening together, although never in a million years would I have thought to set them up—Sienna’s a woman of the world, while Bill looks and acts like the boy just out of college that he practically is. Still, there’s no accounting for chemistry. Or understanding it, either, apparently. I’m trying to talk myself into getting up and out of bed when Paige appears before me holding a textbook.

  “What are you doing up at this hour of the morning?” I ask, heading toward the guest bathroom to brush my teeth.

  “Test,” Paige says succinctly.

  “Now?”

  “You’re always saying I should come to you to study.”

  You’d think after being a mother for fourteen years I’d have learned that kids are like vampires—they strike under the cover of darkness. When was the last time a baby got a raging fever during the doctor’s regular office hours? I don’t have to ask, I know by the look on Paige’s face that the test is today—and she probably doesn’t know a proton from a pretzel. “Paige Newman,” I begin, between gritted teeth.

  “I know, Mom, I know. You think I like asking? Swear, just this once? I’ll never ask you again.”

  “Oh yes you will.” I splash some water on my face, and slip into a pair of jeans and sneakers. “Let’s get some breakfast.”

  Luckily for me Paige doesn’t have to understand Stephen Hawking—because honestly not even Stephen Hawking understands Stephen Hawking—she just has to memorize symbols, and she’s already got most of them down pat. “ ‘Ca’ for calcium, ‘Zn’ for zinc,” Paige recites. She even knows that “Na” is sodium.

  “Our teacher said it’s not good to have too much salt,” Paige says proudly. “So the way I remember it is that sodium is ‘Na.’ ”

  I look at her curiously.

  “Na, Mom. As in ‘Nah, don’t have the salt.’ And I know that ‘Au’ is gold, because Ashley Unger—her initials are AU, get it?—is the richest girl in the class and she’s always wearing armloads of these awful gold David Yurman bracelets. Ugh, she thinks she’s so cool.”

  It’s always been hard for Paige to compete for grades with her twin sister. Doing well in school comes so easily to Molly that I think in past semesters, Paige just gave up. But maybe things are changing. “Good job, honey,” I say, pouring some milk into a bowl of cornflakes and handing Paige a spoon. “Glad to see you taking a real interest in school.”

  “I’ve become very interested in school, especiall
y science,” Paige says, ignoring the cornflakes and searching around the bread box for something in the B, C, or D food groups—bagel, coffee cake, or Danish. Ever since Rosie left and Peter and the girls have been helping with the shopping, the cupboards are stocked with sugar. Paige settles on a Pop-Tart and stares dreamily off into space. “Brandon Marsh is my lab partner and he’s the cutest boy in the world, Mom. I can’t wait until we study black holes together.”

  I don’t know who this Brandon Marsh boy is, but I suppose I should be grateful if he helps get Paige’s marks up. Love certainly seems to be in the air—Paige and Brandon, Sienna and Bill. And you could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw Dr. Barasch and Naomi in my living room, mooning over each other like a couple of teenagers. Maybe if I just took a deep enough breath I could fill my lungs with some of the same intoxicating elixir that they’re inhaling. Or maybe not. It might take more than a few whiffs of O2 mixed with L-O-V-E to get things back on track with Peter.

  My husband shuffles into the kitchen with the New York Times. Without so much as an I’m sorry, or even an Are you okay?, he hands me the morning paper as a peace offering. “I thought you might want to read this. I know you hate how I grab it first every morning.”

  “Thanks,” I say dispiritedly, separating the arts section from the rest of the news. Today of all days, I can’t face reading about anything more depressing than a review of Adam Sandler’s latest movie.

  “Okay then,” Peter says, moving right along and pouring himself a glass of orange juice. “Maybe after breakfast I’ll do the wash.”

  “Oh no, Dad, no. Mom, please don’t let Daddy do it. My Juicy Couture sweatpants will be absolutely ruined,” Paige cries.