by Lois Cahall
“I don’t know what she’s saying, but I can only imagine,” says Bebe.
“She sounds like Hitler,” says Kitty, tilting her head to size Tamara up. “I kind of like her.”
“Are you softening about children, Aunt Kitty?” says Bebe.
“Okay, the kid is cute. I admit it,” says Kitty. “Maybe they’re not all that bad.”
“I’ve gained five pounds since I’ve had her,” says Bebe, patting her waistline. “Hot cocoa and Halloween chocolates.”
“And Ring Dings,” I say.
“But why do you suppose she’s so fixated on Libby?” says Kitty.
“I think you remind her of her house mother from the orphanage,” says Bebe. “You have the dark brown hair and the same look. And she’s hung your photos up. Want to go see? She’s taken a whole bunch of them from old photo albums – all of you, Libby – and made a collage above her headboard.”
I can see, all right, see where this is all going. Having raised teenagers in the age of the invaluable best seller Reviving Ophelia, I knew that Bebe’s situation would require a book that didn’t exist. Rescuing Tamara, maybe. A book that explains, that Tamara’s secretly telling Bebe, “Mommy I love you for taking me out of my homeland of Kazakhstan, but I hate you because I’m forced to be grateful to you, because I owe you something I can never repay. It also means I have to love America better and betray my real home.” The truth was, no matter what problems Tamara created, tantrums she produced, defiant boundaries she crossed, Bebe’s silent underlying response would always be, “I was right because I brought you to the land of the free.”
“She sees things so differently,” says Bebe, as though she can read my mind. “Last week I was paying a stack of bills and Tamara was putting the checks in the envelopes. I was about to lick one closed and she said, ‘Mommy get glue.’ You try explaining to a child who can’t speak English that there is glue already on the envelope. She thought I was lying until I made her lick it for herself. Her eyes bugged out in shock, and she was completely fascinated – opening and closing the flap and trying to re-lick it. And then she did a 180 on me, and got so furious because I was right.”
Just then Tamara returns in her blue, satin, party dress, the long sash dragging across the floor. She flits over to me as if she’d she’s stepped out of Disney’s Cinderella. Except this Princess has her arms wrapped around an eight-pack of Charmin toilet paper, certainly not the kind of wishes Fairy godmothers bestow. Tamara carefully moves the other presents on the gift table aside, placing the Charmin in the front. “Is big — mommy! Big!” She goes to Kitty’s side. “Thank you much, Auntie Kitty.”
“See that,” says Kitty. “She already knows how much shit life delivers.”
“Toilet paper is a fascination to her,” says Bebe. “They always had a shortage at the orphanage.”
Tamara tugs at me and then points behind herself at the big sash that needs to be tied. I spin her around and form a big square knot. My mind drifts back to when my daughters were little and a pang of sadness stabs at my chest. Without understanding why, I feel as though the pain has transferred from my chest to Tamara’s. She can sense I’m tearing up. She spins back around before I pull the strand of ribbon through and beams. “Tamara love you, Auntie Heylib.”
“Libby loves you too, Tamara.” But then vulnerability turns to caution. “And I love your mommy,” I say, patting Bebe’s long hair. “She’s one of my best friends in the world.” Just as I suspected, Tamara’s eyes turn to slitted daggers and they’re directed at me, as if to say, “Don’t you ever one-up me!”
For somebody who can’t speak more than a few lines of broken English, this sexual, manipulative and possessive little creature is dauntingly eloquent.
Tamara suddenly changes course, entering the center of the room, where all the children have started dancing to “Who Let The Dogs Out?” The children dance as children do – clapping, jumping, awkward. And then there’s Tamara. She gyrates her hips in a sexy circle. She raises her eyebrows suggestively. She struts to a nearby floor lamp, with Bernie right behind her holding the video camera. He sets the lens on close-up and encourages her. “Go Tamara, move it, girl! Shake that butt.” Tamara absorbs his every suggestion, and soon she’s slithering up and down the lamppost. I wonder if I’m the only one seeing what I’m seeing. But I’m not.
“Great,” says Kitty. “Now he’s turning a nine-year-old into a pole dancer!”
“Eight,” I say. “She’s only eight.”
The music stops and Tamara skips back to me all breathless and sweating, reaching into her little white, faux-furry, purse which rests on the coffee table. Unclasping it, she lifts out a hundred dollar bill and waves it in my face. “Mommy — give me,” says Tamara.
“You gave your child a hundred-dollar bill?” I ask Bebe.
“To clean her room,” says Bebe proudly.
“Sign me up,” I say. “I’ll do the entire house for seventy-five.”
And then there’s a big crash and a loud scream. I recognize the sound of the culprit, but decide to polish off my chardonnay with one steady gulp, before turning to see…
Sure enough, Jean-Christophe is kicking Darth Vader. “Stupid dog! Stupid, stupid dog!” The party goes silent and Jean-Baptiste calls out to Ben, “Daddy, the dog knocked over the cake. I swear I didn’t do it. I swear.”
“He swears, my ass,” says Madeline, who returns to my side with a bacon wrapped scallop sitting on a napkin. “You’re telling me that this old dog from the rescue jumped up onto the chair, ran his paw through a cake to taste the frosting, and then knocked it over.”
Ironic that the song “Who Let the Dogs Out” is still playing overhead.
“Dear Lord,” I say to Madeline. “I hope Ben tells his son to apologize to Bebe.”
The music stops, the clowns stop, and the entire party comes to a standstill to see what Ben will do next.
‘Well,” says Ben, surmising the situation. “We need to take responsibility for our actions, don’t we, boys?”
“Does that mean they’ll be going to reform school now?” whispers Kitty laughing at her own joke. I stifle a giggle.
“What do you think we should do?” says Ben to the boys.
“I think we should put the dog in the car,” says Jean-Christophe. The dog in the car? The dog in the car! Are they kidding? The dog moves to a corner where he buries his face in his paws, shaking like a leaf under the fica tree.
Madeline asks, “Did you ever hear of that show Super Nanny?
“I was just thinking the same thing,” says Kitty. “Call that show and have her whip their asses into shape!”
Bebe heads over to help Madeline and me, who have now dropped to our knees, dabbing seltzer on the frosting that’s about to stain the Boteh design on the antique Seraband runner. Ben squats down to assist, too.
“Good thing it was vanilla,” I say, suggesting how clueless can you be to think that the dog did this when it was clearly your kids?
“I’m so sorry, Bebe. I’ll put the dog out on the deck,” says Ben.
Bebe smiles as though nothing’s wrong. “Oh, its okay, Ben. They’re just children,” she says. “It’s just a rug. He’s just a dog.”
“Dog, my ass,” says Kitty.
“Does your dog have a name?” says Bebe, glancing up at the twins.
“Darth Vader,” they sing song. More of an insinuation than an answer.
“Oh, hello, Darth Vader,” says Bebe. “Is it okay to just call him Darth?” Now the nervous dog is standing up, and lifting his leg on the cabriole-chair leg, as though he’s about to pee.
“Darth, no!” says Ben. “Sorry Bebe, he does that whenever he’s nervous.”
“Honey,” I say to Ben, busy scrunching up dirty paper towels in my hands, “Why don’t you and the twins tie the dog on the outdoor patio over by the flower pots.”
“Good idea,” he says, kissing my cheek and then looking at the boys. “Boys, let’s take Darth out on the deck.”
Bebe, Kitty, Madeline and I watch them miss crashing into the patio door by a narrow margin.
“Did I tell you what happened when they were with the sitter last week in Connecticut?” I say.
“I can only imagine,” says Kitty.
“You don’t have to imagine. She’ll tell you,” says Madeline sarcastically. Kitty’s all ears.
“Ben walked into the country club to pick up the twins, who’d been left there all day with the sitter,” I explain. “Rosemary had dropped them off that morning and Ben was picking them up. The President of the country club was talking to the receptionist and said, ’Oh, I just heard what happened with the twins.’ Ben assumed he was talking about the fact that Jean-Christophe split his head open at soccer practice a few days earlier. That’s when the President said, ‘Well, ‘the Donald’ isn’t here often but he decided to take the golf cart down to the pool for a swim…’”
Kitty’s eyes widen. “The Donald? As in Trump?”
“Uh huh,” says Madeline, her voice loving the mischief of the entire saga.
“Oh myyyyy…” says Bebe.
“That’s when Ben’s heart sank. He knew the words golf cart and twins do not belong in the same sentence with ‘The Donald.’ Sure enough, Jean-Christophe stole the cart, sat on the floor, and pushed the gas pedal with his hands. Jean-Baptiste sat on the seat doing all the steering. They went up on the curb, knocked over the handicap signs, smashed into the bike racks, and finally bottomed out inches from the steps of the pool. All the guests ran out screaming.”
“Oh, Libby, thank God nobody was hurt,” says Bebe.
“Hurt! Forget about hurt!” says Kitty. “Killed is more like it!”
“Poor Ben,” I say.
“Was his membership revoked?” screams Kitty.
“No,” I say, shaking my head and looking out at Ben out on the deck with the dog and the kids wrapping the leash around his legs. The whole situation smells like a carton of sour milk whose expiration date is long past.
My friends and I can only stare, though Kitty is first to break the silence. “You know, Ben is like the Impressionist Courbet – adored yet despised.”
“Ben has more luggage than an African safari!” says Bebe. “But at least it all matches.”
“The sad part about it,” says Madeline, “Ben is such a cool step-dad but it’s clear that when my mom isn’t around he lets those boys get away with way too much. And then when mom’s around and she tries to train them, she’s left to look like the bad guy. Truth is my mom is the coolest mom on the planet.”
“Coolest mom and stupidest woman,” says Kitty, polishing off her drink. “I better see what Clive’s up to.”
“I think I saw him,” says Madeline. “He’s over with the Ballerinas.”
“Of course he is,” says Kitty, shaking her head. She grabs a half-full glass of wine left by somebody else on the bookshelf, sniffs its contents, and lifts the glass in the air saying, “Mature yet adolescent.”
“Slow down, Princess,” I yell. “It ain’t prom night!” Kitty flips me the bird and heads inside.
Tamara comes over and takes Madeline’s hand. “Want — see – Tamara room?” she says.
“Sure do,” says Madeline, putting her juice glass on the coffee table and following Tamara.
I’m left alone. Before another person, dog or twin can invade my personal space, I grab a glass of sauvignon blanc, dab a celery stick into the hummus dip and push through the glass doors, heading to the south side of the deck. Ben and entourage are on the north side. Thank God it’s a big deck.
Sipping my wine I gaze out at the Manet palette of leaves spreading across Central Park, with the grey and white high-rise buildings providing backdrop. I love New York, but I long for Paris. And while I’m loving the crisp autumn breeze crossing my cheekbone, I can’t help but open my eyes wide to the balcony’s edge, my hands grasped tightly on the rail.
Glancing over the thirty foot drop to Park Avenue I think of one question, “What color should my parachute be when I jump?” I’m emotionally much closer to the edge than I realize. Though given my stuck situation I can only teeter on the edge rather than jump. And that wouldn’t provide the benefit of the rush I’d get from actually jumping. At least that’s a powerful and kinetic motion as opposed to just being stuck.
My feeling-sorry-for-myself moment is broken by a tap on my shoulder. I turn to see a woman, though my fingernails remain dug into the railing.
“Hello,” says the woman next to me, glancing down to where her pedicured toes stick out of $1,000 Gucci sandals. “What kind of a sadistic nut invented these things?” she says.
“Blisters?” I ask.
“Oh, the price of beauty,” she says, extending her hand and slipping out of both shoes. “I’m Simone. I think we’ve met.”
I try to place her, but I can’t. Her twinkling brown eyes draw me in. “Oh, wait!” It clicks. “Maybe Nantucket a few summers ago. You own several inns…”
“That’s me,” she says. We shake hands vigorously.
“ Of course!” I say. “It was a fundraiser - Parkinson’s disease. In memory of your uncle…”
“The National Geographic…”
“Man.Yes. You were the one who put a Lucite floor over the pool so we could walk across it. I loved how you strolled around in your sarong — let it all hang out.”
“Must be the French in me,” she says.
“You’re French?” I smile.
She nods. “Part. Mostly Italian. But Europeans are different, you know. We’re not so….airbrushed.”
“You mean like us Americans who worry about every bump and bulge.” Oh, I love this woman already.
She jiggles her glass. “But I haven’t lived in Paris since I was young. Love New York though.” She raises her glass to toast the skyline. “Come here every chance I get - which isn’t often. Work has me everywhere…”
“Oh,” I say, “I always thought innkeepers were stranded in one spot. Although if you’re going to be stranded, it may as well be on Nantucket…”
“No,” she chuckles. “My husband runs the inns on ACK.”
“You call the island ACK like me. Love the sound of the prop planes.”
“Except when you’re fogged in,” I say, and then knowing where this is going, we both sputter: “Fog happens!”
We both chuckle and then sip our wines. “So you get around…” I add.
“My grandson says ‘Grandma, why do you have so many houses?’ And I say, ‘It’s complicated honey. Besides, Grandma’s bored.’”
“That’s funny.” She has my interest now. For an innkeeper she leads a pretty big life.
“I’m an attorney - corporate law. Some divorce law. Practice is in D.C.”
“Part of that old boys’ network…”
She nods.
“And your husband doesn’t mind when you’re gone?”
“Oh no. He closed the inns over Labor Day. He’s down in Palm Beach now where all those young girls in string bikinis asking older men what ails them just in case they’re about to keel over. But he’s not. He keeps up with all the social events there. Then in two weeks, I have a wine tasting. I have to go to Spain. He’ll fly to meet me in LA after. A friend is having a big restaurant opening before a wedding on a yacht in St. Tropez.”
“You’re racking up the frequent flier miles.”
“You have to live life, not just survive it,” she says, glancing inside at the twins.
“You’re so right! That’s how life should be!”
“Yes, but I stopped contemplating how life should be sometime back in my forties. Life is too short for regrets.”
She’s too good to be true. “So you took your original plan A and ran with it.”
“Something like that…wrote a letter to myself once – what my life might have been if I took a different route.”
“And?”
“I wasn’t crazy about that other person. I like this one. The one who took this
path. I have a lot of miles left to walk. So far it’s worked.”
I’m speechless.
“No court tomorrow, so I can drink,” she says, raising her glass.” Her warm smile has sucked me into some sisterly vortex. And those twinkling brown eyes are saying “Jump inside and be my friend.” She runs a hand through her frosted blonde hair. “Got the travel bug from that uncle of mine - Italian explorer. Uncle Luigi used to say to my mother when I was five years old, ‘Forget the milk. Start her on wine!’” She jiggles her empty glass. “Refill?” she asks. “I’m drinking a fabulous rose. Whispering Angel.”
“Never heard of it.”
“It’s from a vineyard in Provence. Brought Bebe a case for the party.”
“Shall I come with you?” I say, eager to please.
“You enjoy the view. Relax,” she says. And before I can object, I watch her move to the inside of the apartment.
This woman is what I want to be at sixty. Vibrant, sexy –someone who reached her goal and then leaped beyond it. But Palm Beach? She didn’t seem the type. And her name wasn’t Mitzi, Bambi or Tiffany… Maybe she just liked the warm weather. Palm Beach is the land of so many events, so much money, and such boring people. Not bored, but boring. Though I can say if you have to spend a night sleeping in an airport, Palm Beach is that airport. And with all the sugar daddies shuffling around with their LV luggage, it’s certainly a place you could hold up a sign that reads, “Will marry for money.”
I watch Simone shaking hands with a group of people at the bar. She’s so well put together in her big red hat and pant suit with the Hermes scarf. Life is full of surprises – I’ve just met a woman who is down-to-earth, genuine, funny, whip-smart, and capable of keeping her head above water while the rest of us sink. Maybe she can throw me a life raft.