by Jane Green
After a while, as Eliza grew up and Jack was born, Lila stopped minding all these other people. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer, Callie was always surrounded by these girlfriends and Lila stopped being jealous, because there was just no room for it; she saw how much they loved Callie, what wonderful friends they were.
Meals were dropped off at the house every day, children picked up and taken to school, gifts and flowers left on the doorstep.
Friends organized a schedule of who would pick Callie up, take her to chemo, who would visit, who would take her home.
More than once Lila would find herself sitting with Callie’s friends in the parking lot, after a session, sharing hugs and a bucketful of tears.
This is why Lila insists on taking the coffee up to Callie as she’s lying in bed wishing the damned headache would disappear.
As Lila opens the door quietly and edges into the room, Callie winces with pain.
“I cannot believe you are forty-three years old and drinking enough to give yourself this kind of a hangover,” Lila says with a laugh, taking one look at her. “What are you, like sixteen or something?”
“I swear I didn’t think I had that much to drink.” Callie slowly eases herself out of bed and Lila slides a mug of fresh coffee in front of her.
“That’s probably because you were too drunk to realize it.” Lila grins.
“Was I that drunk? Because I didn’t feel it.”
“Nah. You didn’t seem to be. I think it’s just the problem with getting older. We can’t handle our alcohol anymore.”
“You must be right.” Callie carefully lifts the mug to her lips, willfully not moving her head. “I can’t handle it at all anymore. One glass of wine at night and I’m waking up with a killer headache.”
“It could be menopause as well,” Lila offers, sitting on the bed.
“What? Are you kidding? I’m forty-three, not fifty.”
“I meant perimenopause. I’ve started having signs.”
“You’re kidding! What signs?”
“Total night sweats. It’s disgusting. I wake up in the middle of the night freezing cold and completely drenched. Most nights I have to change PJs, and then I have to scooch over to Ed’s side of the bed where it’s nice and dry.” Lila laughs. “He thinks I’ve suddenly become superaffectionate, but I am not climbing back into wet sheets.”
“I’ve had that a few times recently too. What else?”
“Itching like crazy. I had no idea that was even a symptom until I Googled to find out. I keep a hairbrush next to my bed and sometimes my skin itches and crawls so bad I literally scratch with a brush until it bleeds.”
“Ew. That’s attractive. I bet that’s a total turn-on for Ed.”
“Luckily he loves me, so he loves my bleeding legs too.”
“Nice. But no itching for me. What else?”
“Headaches are a total symptom, as is depression, irritability, mood swings. Oh, and loss of sexual desire, but I’m not there yet. Hey, are you okay?”
Callie, white as a sheet, shakes her head, then bolts for the bathroom. There is the unmistakable sound of vomiting, then she re-emerges, as Lila is pouring her a glass of water.
“You really are hungover. Did that help a bit?”
“Yes. It always helps a bit.”
“Really? Your headaches make you throw up a lot?”
“Not always. Sometimes. Go on then, Dr. Grossman. What’s your diagnosis?”
“I think it might be a migraine. It sounds exactly like one of my migraines. I always used to throw up. I have Imitrex on me; maybe you should try it, because if it is a migraine this should blow it out of the water. Why don’t you call Mark and ask him if it would be okay to take it?”
“Just hand it over. I’m not taking any other medication, and my body’s been through so much with drugs it can definitely handle it.” Lila runs downstairs to where her bag is, presses the pill out of the packet she always keeps with her and goes back up to Callie, who swallows it quickly, then waves Lila away in a bid to try to sleep the headache away.
An hour later Callie rejoins the group, now all sitting around the kitchen table tucking into scrambled eggs, bagels, smoked salmon and bacon.
“It’s the Waspy Jewish breakfast,” Lila explains. “I can’t live without my weekend-morning breakfast of bagels and salmon, and Ed can’t live without his scrambled eggs and bacon.”
“Actually,” Ed interrupts, “that’s not strictly true.” He looks at the others. “I told her that what I truly can’t live without on a weekend morning is a fry-up, but she can’t stand how it makes the house smell, so this is our compromise.”
“It’s true,” Lila says. “You can’t even imagine what he makes for a fry-up. Fried eggs, fried sausages, fatty soft-fried bacon, fried tomatoes and, get this, fried bread! Can you stand it? Talk about a heart attack waiting to happen.”
“You forgot the baked beans.” Ed looks at her affectionately.
“Oh gross.” Steffi, spreading tofu cream cheese on a bagel, makes a face. “How can you eat that crap first thing in the morning?”
“I’m telling you, it’s the best cure for a hangover. Speaking of which, Callie, I heard you had a bit of a rough morning. You look fine now.”
Callie smiles as she pulls out a chair. “Lila, that pill was amazing. I feel great. I think you might be right about the migraines. As always, you have saved my life. I’m going to have to get some.”
“That’s my job,” Lila says. “Getting you out of trouble.”
Reece narrows his eyes. “I thought it was Callie’s job getting you out of trouble, not the other way round.”
“It’s Callie’s job getting everyone out of trouble.” Steffi laughs. “Isn’t that right, Mom?”
Honor smiles. “I have to say, of the two of you, Callie has always been the sensible one. And yes, I do seem to remember a time when you, Lila, held a party when your parents were away and Callie was the one who spent the night cleaning so you wouldn’t get into trouble.”
“Oh my God!” Lila’s eyes are wide. “How do you even remember that?”
“Wow, Mom!” Callie laughs. “That’s impressive. I bet you never knew that Lila and I once borrowed your fur coat when you were in Palm Beach. And it was her idea.”
“You big fat liar,” Lila splutters. “It was your idea.”
“Was not.”
“Was too.”
“Children, children!” Laughing, Reece puts up his hands to stop them. “Enough fighting or you’ll have to leave the table.”
“Anyway, I did know,” Honor says and winks. “I found some ghastly, cheap, roll-on chocolate-flavored lip gloss in the pocket. I just decided there was no harm done so no point in saying anything.”
“God. Fur,” Lila says. “Isn’t it weird how everyone’s mom back in those days wore fur?”
“Don’t even talk about it,” spits Steffi. “Mom would still have hers if I hadn’t forced her to get rid of it.”
“I loved that raccoon coat.” Honor sighs. “But I take your point. It is unfathomably cruel. What is that buzzing noise? I keep hearing this infernal buzzing that’s driving me nuts.”
“Oh God, sorry,” Ed, red-faced, apologizes as he draws his BlackBerry out of his pocket and hits a button. “I keep it on vibrate and I’m so used to it that it doesn’t bother me.”
“What’s the buzzing? The usual?” Lila, suddenly stern-faced, looks at him.
Callie peers at both of them. “The usual? What’s the usual?”
“It’s my ex.” Ed shrugs unhappily. “She’s trying to get hold of me.”
“Shouldn’t you answer?” Callie is confused. “It might be important.”
“Trust me,” Lila says with a sniff. “It’s never important. It drives her insane when Ed doesn’t pick up the phone, so she just keeps ringing, every two or three minutes. Honey, why don’t you just put the phone on silent?”
Ed nods, and presses more buttons.
“Oh go on,
” Lila bursts out. “I know it’s mean, but humor us. How many times has she phoned you this morning?”
Ed looks at his screen and scrolls down. “Twenty-seven.”
“What?” Callie bursts out. Even Reece looks shocked, and they start to laugh.
“Oh that’s nothing,” Lila says lightly. “The other day it was forty-something.”
“But . . .” Honor is concerned. “How do you know it’s not an emergency? It sounds like it could be something very serious.”
“It’s not.” Ed sighs resignedly. “She’s texting me too, and leaving messages. She’s shrieking about my picking up Clay to buy him new baseball cleats this afternoon. She wants me to keep him for the night.”
“Again?” Lila asks. “But this is her weekend.”
Ed now looks perturbed. “Lila, you know how I feel. He’s my son. If he wants to be with me I’m not going to say no to him. Let me call them. Sorry, chaps. I’ll be back in a minute.”
They all sit and quietly watch as Ed takes the phone out to the backyard, then Callie turns to Lila.
“I guess that’s his fatal flaw?”
“What?”
“Having a crazy ex.”
Lila sighs and buries her head in her hands. “I know. I can’t stand it. Finally I meet the man I’ve waited to meet my whole life, and not only is he not Jewish, he has a crazy ex-wife.”
“Has she always been crazy?” Reece asks.
“I think so, but it’s been markedly worse since I came on the scene. I guess she knows it’s serious and she’s not handling it well. Ed has basically been her lapdog since they split up, because he’s terrified of her rages.”
“She rages?” Steffi looks up.
“Totally. She can be perfectly fine one minute and then all of a sudden she’s like a screaming, crazy nut job and, seriously, she will literally just scream. It’s like watching a five-year-old have a tantrum.”
“Sounds terrifying.”
“It is pretty shocking.”
“So you’re the Wicked Witch of the West?” Callie asks.
“And how. I’m like the controlling, demonic, selfish bitch from hell as far as she’s concerned—which, frankly, is all total transference as far as I’m concerned.”
Callie looks around the table with a grin. “Let me tell you, if Dr. Grossman says it’s transference, transference it is.”
“But don’t you have a great relationship with her son?” Steffi asks. “Surely she’d be grateful to you for being so nice to her kid, no?”
“That’s what a sensible person would think. I don’t know. There I was thinking he was perfect and had no baggage, and then I discover this.”
“There’s no such thing as no baggage in your forties,” Reece says.
“Yes, there is,” Lila says. “Me. I have no baggage. Well, not much.”
“That’s what I love about you,” Callie says. “You’re practically perfect in every way.”
“Have you met the ex-wife?” Honor asks. “Perhaps you could sit down, woman to woman, and chat about what’s best for all of you? Maybe you could help her see reason?”
“She hates me,” Lila says. “She’s always making little digs about me, and some of them are so mean. A couple of weeks ago she told Ed that I was really too overweight to wear the skirt I was wearing, and a client had some leftover Nutrisystem meals that she thought I might like.”
“Oh I get it.” Reece nods with a smile. “Passive-aggressive.”
“Completely. Then . . .” she pauses for dramatic effect, “she emailed me a coupon for some new treatment for eye bags.”
“Seriously?” Callie gasps.
“I know! Can you believe that? They’re not that bad, are they?” She turns to Callie, head down, and Callie laughs.
“What eye bags?”
“Exactly. Nasty, right?”
“Breathtaking.” Callie shakes her head. “I wish you’d told me.”
“I find it somehow makes it worse when I talk about it. I’m trying to just take the high road, and always be kind and gracious, no matter what, and I guess it could be so much worse.”
“But what about Ed?” Callie asks. “Can’t he say something? Stand up to her?”
Lila says, “It’s precisely what I love about him that makes it so hard. He’s the most gentle man I have ever known, and kind beyond belief. He’s trying so hard to keep everyone happy, he just feels caught in the middle.”
“Wow,” Steffi says. “I was just thinking exactly that. He needs to -”
“Shh,” Lila interrupts. “He’s coming back.” She turns brightly to Ed and her voice changes. “Hi, sweetie. Everything okay?”
“Fine.” He sits back down and picks up a piece of bacon. “We have to collect Clay at four.”
“She can’t drop him off ?”
“There’s a problem with her car.”
Lila looks at Callie and suppresses a sigh, while Callie shrugs.
“I knew he was too good to be true.”
Walking through the streets of New York, hand resting on Fingal’s large head, Steffi is enjoying the attention she’s getting.
“Whoa? Is that a horse?” and similar comments are happening every few feet, it seems, and Steffi is more than happy to stop and chat with the people who are genuinely interested in Fingal.
“You really are a conversation starter,” she murmurs to him as they stand on a street corner, waiting for the lights to change. She bends down to rub his side, then he leans into her and looks up into her eyes, and she smiles.
“I think I might be falling in love with you,” she says, and Fingal, in return, gives her hand a big lick.
The doorman sends her up to Mason’s apartment, and this time there is no one there to greet her. The elevator opens directly into the apartment, into a large round hallway that has a walnut table with a huge arrangement of peonies, and vast canvases on every wall.
“Hello?” she says tentatively, dropping the leash as Fingal lopes off around a corner. Steffi has never been into an apartment like this one, to a building in which only a select few, the crème de la crème, can afford to live. Steffi is curious, fascinated, as to how these people live, for it is a world that is so different from hers.
Steffi comes from true old money. Money so old, she likes to joke, it has now disappeared. She comes from a world where it was considered déclassé to display your wealth, where rules dictated that you live quietly, and graciously.
It was a world that died when her grandparents died. Even toward the end of their life the money had mostly gone. They no longer lived on the family estate, but in a tiny house on the other side of the village.
Walter’s inheritance was negligible—corruption on the part of the financial advisers and lawyers combined with a lack of willingness on his father’s part to admit he didn’t understand finances or to let other people take control. Callie and Steffi were brought up with the name, but without money.
Nothing like this.
Her Vans make no sound on the marble floor, and she peers through vast arches into glossy mushroom-colored rooms, the walls and ceilings lacquered to a high-gloss finish, reflecting antique lamps, acres of windows, sculptures and artwork everywhere she looks.
And, in a corner, she suddenly spies a dog bed with a small curled-up dachshund, fast asleep.
Fingal has disappeared, and she is still waiting, uncomfortably now, for someone to appear, so she walks over and crouches down by the dog.
“I had no idea Fingal has a brother,” she says softly, reaching out a hand to pet the dog. Wow, she thinks. This must be a really old dog, because the fur is slightly matted and coarse to the touch.
“Are you sleeping, baby?” she croons, scratching the ears, waiting for the dog to open its eyes and look at her, and then she freezes.
“Fuck,” she whispers, swiftly standing up just as Mason appears in the doorway.
“It’s stuffed,” he says with a grin. “Actually I’m not supposed to say that. I’m suppose
d to say it’s an Installation.”
“You mean, it’s art?” Steffi is praying that her cheeks stop burning very shortly.
“Yup. If I told you how much it cost you might have a heart attack and die on the spot. But please don’t do that, because it would be very inconvenient.”
“Okay, can I just say that I am so mortified right now I would be very happy if your marble floor would, in fact, open up and let me fall through.”
“Don’t worry about it. Everyone does it. Unless of course they read the art papers and know the artist and that Olivia paid a record price for it, and so on and so on. Then they’re all impressed and ooh and aah over it.”
“So how much was it?”
“Too much.”
“Do you actually . . . this might be a rude question . . . but . . .” Steffi frowns.
“Do I like it? A dirty stuffed dachshund that looks as if it’s about a hundred and fifty years old?” He snorts with laughter. “What do you think?”
“Okay. Good. For a while I was questioning your taste. Don’t you and Olivia talk about stuff like this?”
“Not art. I’m not the slightest bit interested. I let her do what she wants when it comes to art, and she keeps saying it’s a great investment.”
“Really? Even though the world is collapsing all around us?”
“Give it ten years and hopefully we’ll see some return.” He shrugs. “Who knows?”
Steffi looks around her happily. “Wow. This is some place. This is, like, seriously impressive.”
“I know. Who would have thought it, looking at me in my wrinkled suits?”
“Actually, you look better in jeans.” Steffi looks him up and down appraisingly. “Much better, in fact. You should go to work like this. You look like you’re way more comfortable.”
“Thanks.” There is delight in Mason’s face. “Not often I get compliments these days. It was a compliment, right?”
“Definitely.”
“Come on into the kitchen. Do you want some lemonade? And . . . you won’t believe this . . . but we made the Neiman Marcus chocolate chip cookies.”