Tales From A Broad

by Fran Lebowitz

‘We left the kids out there.’

  ‘We’ll make new ones in here.’

  ‘I’ll get nailed for exceeding my limit.’

  ‘You’ll get nailed either way.’

  ‘Frank, can we stop? We’re not really one-liner people.’

  ‘Yeah, but it was fun.’

  ‘Kinda. Anyway, listen, I have to tell you something.’

  He starts to unzip.

  ‘You’re the only man here.’

  ‘That’s right, baby.’ He yanks his pants down.

  ‘I mean at the whole party. Actually, it’s not so much a party as a tea. For women. I mean, you can stay. That’d be great … Frank, Frank, don’t be mad!’

  He’s hiked up his pants, buckled his belt, and left the room.

  ‘Your fly’s undone,’ I say softly to myself.

  I get out of the shower and change into my ‘of course all the handsome men will be here to look at me in this’ halter dress, take my cup of tea and sit on the floor with the kids and moms. I turn a tinkling ball over in my hand and absently roll it into a block castle. Strike. Frank’s gone. A kid is crying. Doesn’t sound like one of mine.

  Valerie’s cell phone rings. ‘Hi doll.’ It’s Sam. I’ve noticed he calls her several times a day. At first I thought he did it to check up on her. Now I think it’s ardour. Maybe both. Frank never calls me from work. He rarely calls me from his trips either. I hardly even know where he goes. If I call him, even if I’m at my desk doing more work than he ever does, he’ll say, ‘Yes, Fran?’ and I better come up with a darned good reason for the call. I hear Valerie, ‘Me and Andrew are at Jenny’s … Oh, before that? I guess I had the phone off. Sorry. What? Oh, that’s too bad … never mind … love you too. Bye doll.’ Her smile falls as soon as she flicks the phone closed. ‘Oh, poor Sam,’ she says. ‘We can’t go to Phuket now. He’s got a big client coming. I have to make them dinner at our house.’

  ‘When were you supposed to go?’ Tess asks.

  ‘Tomorrow morning. You have no idea how hard it was to get tickets anywhere this time of year. Never mind, we’ll have a New Year’s Eve party at our house instead. Can you guys make it? New Year’s Eve at mine!’ Valerie calls out.

  I’m still the newest kid on the block; I’m still unsure of myself; I’m just about the only American and I don’t know many recipes or have much to add to mommy-and-me activities so I have to forgive myself, though Frank never will, when I hear my own voice say, ‘And New Year’s Day at ours!’ I say it loud enough for the neighbours to think they were invited as well. I am already thinking bagels, lox, scrambled eggs, quiche, cheese and deli meats, pasta salads – oh, I wonder if I could find challah and make some killer French toast – and Bloody Marys and mimosas. Excellent idea. Except for the Frank factor.

  When I get home, I take the kids upstairs and put them down for a nap. There is a note from Frank. ‘Went to work’ it says. I sit on the sofa and look at the phone. I pick up a manuscript. I put it down. I wonder if I should call Frank and see if he’s really mad or really really mad. But if he’s just really mad, calling him might hike it up to really really and so forth and so on. I look at the phone. I start the manuscript. It’s short. It’s called Heartland. It’s a picture book about sad hearts and happy hearts all living together in harmony. I know I’ll pass on it. And the lucky author will be a bestseller. Everything I reject turns into a bestseller. It’s my gift to publishing. If I take it on, you’re destined to be mediocre. But if I hate it, it’s good. ‘What am I doing?’ I think, ‘I have to start getting the shopping done for New Year’s Day.’ I put the manuscript on my towering ‘to do’ pile.

  I go back to Posie’s part of the house to tell her I’m going out and that the kids are napping. I hear her radio. I hear a drawer open and shut. As I’m about to knock on her bedroom door, I hear the toilet flush.

  ‘Posie?’ I call. She peeps her head out.

  ‘Yes, Ma’am?’

  ‘Oh, you’re in here. I just heard the toilet flush.’

  ‘I didn’t hear you. I have the radio on. I just cleaned the shower.’

  ‘Why would that make the toilet flush, Posie?’

  She is staring over my shoulder.

  ‘Why would that make the toilet flush? I don’t get it,’ I say.

  ‘Then I did the shopping. No more baking soda. Gone already.’ She looks at my knees. I hear the tap running in her bathroom. I open the curtain-cum-door.

  ‘Posie! Who is this?’ A man wearing nothing but a towel stands before me.

  ‘Who, Ma’am?’

  At last I have a good reason to call Frank. ‘I knew I was hearing doors and elevators at all sorts of times,’ I say.

  ‘So what should we do?’ he asks.

  ‘Look, she’s a young girl. Why shouldn’t she have a boyfriend?’

  ‘What’d he look like?’ Frank asks.

  ‘Dark, curly hair, I don’t know. Anyway, she showed really bad judgement but I think …’

  ‘Big guy?’

  ‘Yeah, I think. Do you agree we should give her a second chance?’

  ‘Did he look like a foreign worker or a local?’

  ‘He was too put together to be a foreign worker, nice-looking clothes, but I don’t know. Why?’

  ‘Nothing. I might have seen him too. A pretty boy. Yeah, sounds like the way to handle it. See you later.’

  That’s it.

  I lecture Posie, frighten her a little about what would happen if I reported this, and fold my arms, waiting for something nonsensical to come out of her.

  ‘I yam ashamed. He is my boyfriend. I love Sadie and Huxley.’

  To be fair, she says all the right things – sorry, in love, would never harm your kids. I give her a hug. ‘Hey, I was young once, too. Go to his house next time, okay? And no more lies.’

  When I tell Frank about it all on our balcony that night with our Boxing Day cocktails (I have been forgiven for dragging him to the party and, in exchange, I promise not to work, yet again, that evening) he looks out in the distance and then to me. ‘Let’s go away over New Year’s. We can just get in the car and drive up the coast of Malaysia to …’

  I have a freezer full of bagels and smoked salmon, a cupboard full of caviar and a pantry full of champagne. I have spent close to a thousand dollars already. I look at him, about to spill the beans. But, flash! Bam! Damn, what do they say about the mother of invention? I don’t know, but she’s adopted me this minute.

  ‘Why wait? Let’s go to Phuket. Tomorrow!’

  ‘We could never get a flight,’ says Frank.

  ‘It’s all done, Frank.’

  I am going to enjoy being the one to finally bring home a happy surprise, some prime Rittman-family-bubble time at one of the best resorts in the world.

  ‘Fran, I don’t know how you pulled this off,’ Frank says as he hands me my customary pre-take-off Bloody Mary at the Raffles Class lounge. Sadie is piling up a plate of potato chips and Huxley is eating water crackers. It’s mid-morning and though I shouldn’t be fazed in the least, I’m still fascinated by the abundance of food. As if auditioning for an all-Asian Oliver, people line up silently waiting for bowls of steaming fish porridge. Trays of sushi vanish in the blink of an eye. Bread and cheese are lobbed off the cutting board. Prawn mee and fried rice fly haphazardly onto the floor. Clusters of cellophane balls, once snuggling crust-free dainty egg salad, tuna and pâté sandwiches, loiter round the trash bins. Handfuls of exotic nuts are scooped out of gigantic jars into palms and cocktail napkins. Cookies are balanced beside cups of tea and coffee on china saucers.

  This is my fifth experience of Singapore Airlines’ business-class lounge. I know the layout. I take my Bloody Mary and head for a spot in the smoking chamber. It’s well ventilated and kitted out just enough so that you don’t feel like a bad doggy with your nose thrust into your mess, though not so much that it conveys ‘Smoking’s cool with us’. The non-smokers or the not-partaking-at-the-moment-smokers can see us through four sides of glass,
like the nearly extinct species exhibit we are. I have stood in here before, holding my palm out to Sadie’s with the glass wall between us, convict style.

  I finish a quick cigarette and join Frank at a small table. The kids are sprinkling minced crackers on the floor.

  ‘It says here, “Forget about going between Christmas and Chinese New Year. You’ll never get in unless you book six months in advance.” How in the world did you swing this?’ Frank points at the travel book. I shrug and smile. He drains his glass and fishes around for a regular old peanut, flicking away the cashews and macadamias. KERRRUNCH, chomp, chomp, chomp. I don’t eat. I love plane food too much to compromise my appetite. I have never really outgrown TV dinners. They were like getting a present. They were like a mathematical equation. It took a beautiful mind to come up with ‘small tray = full meal’. TV dinners meant Mom and Dad were going out and we’d get to stay up late and watch shows that were way over our heads, like Manix and Carol Burnett. Mom moved on to Burger King when they claimed the corner of Liberty Avenue and Milford Mill Road, tempted by the lines on the meat that reflected their grilly-ness. That era was sadly replaced by the frozen pizza bagel and we might as well just have shot Saturday night to hell when we sat down to Lean Cuisines (the nascent stages of Mom defatting her kitchen).

  Frank dismisses the meals served on planes. He doesn’t like being held against his will by the little shelf, doesn’t like being dictated to about what and when to eat. He’s a card-carrying frequent flier, too jaded to put his chair in the upright position, can’t be bothered to look over the movie selections, never even glances to the side as they roll out the linen tablecloths, lay out the fine china and crystal and place the bushel of stainless steel cutlery on the plate with a stimulating clatter. I’m quite sure Frank never gets all Pavlovian at the faintest squeak of the trolley wheels, salivating on cue like the rest of us mortals. ‘Nyet. Nyet. Nyet.’ To the hors d’oeuvres, the salad with marinated mushrooms and walnuts, the foil-wrapped Australian butterfish with apricot-brandy sauce, the coconut custard pie and the dessert-redux of cheese, fruit and chocolates. Of course, I’ve convinced him to order it and just put it on my side. I’ll eat two.

  ‘Fran, this place you have us in sounds fantastic, Relax Bay. It’s a little far from the action but we’ll rent a car.’ He mixes us up a fresh batch of Bloody Marys then engages his pointer finger in the task of uncovering more peanuts.

  ‘I’m so glad you’re happy, Frank.’

  Just 15 hours ago, I stole away to our upstairs phone and dialled Valerie. ‘Oh, good, you’re home,’ I whispered.

  ‘Hey, mate, what’s up?’ she asked.

  ‘Do you think I can buy your Phuket tickets and take on your hotel room?’

  ‘That’d be lovely. We paid the deposit already. I think it’s still there. Let me check.’ She held her palm over the receiver but I could hear the muffled conversation. Sam said, ‘That’s fine but she needs to transfer the tickets to her name.’ Valerie got back on the phone and told me her travel agent’s contact numbers. I called Mala from Sime Travel on her cell phone and reached her at a restaurant.

  ‘Look, I am sooo sorry to intrude on your dinner.’

  ‘Oh, that is not a problem,’ came the distinct Indian accent.

  ‘I want to surprise my husband with a trip and …’ I gave my spiel and asked her if I could assume Sam and Valerie’s tickets.

  ‘I’ll get the three tickets transferred into your name.’

  Suddenly, I remembered. ‘Oh, shit, Mala, we’re four. The Markses are only three.’

  ‘Ah, not to worry, it doesn’t make a difference at the hotel and I’m sure there’s still room in business class. I’ll get back to you in about 15 minutes.’ She did. It was done. Not a problem.

  And then I had to call her again.

  ‘Oh, I’m soooo sorry, Mala, please forgive me. I know you’re probably sleeping and all … yeah, it’s Fran. Wham, in the middle of the night, I remembered I forgot to tell you we need to come home on the 31st … Would you? Oh, that is sooo sweet. Take a cab and I’ll pay for it. Is that your husband? Sheesh, not in the service industry, I’ll bet. Thanks. I’ll never use anyone but you!’ I went back to bed, snug and secure.

  Pretty rare in Singapore to find a ‘hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, special orders don’t upset us’ kind of person. Even if they wanted to help, they just wouldn’t know how to move beyond the standard, ‘cannot cannot lah’ … ‘tickets paid for already’ … ‘in wrong name already’. Like the other day, as I passed the Fortune Gardens booking office, I decided, on a whim, to reserve a tennis court for later that night. Silly me, I had forgotten my card. I said, ‘Well, I’ll bring it down later. You know me, I play every Wednesday night.’ Can you guess what they said? Say it with me: ‘Cannot cannot (and don’t forget the) lah.’ I was rarin’ for a fight, it was that time of day.

  ‘Hey, you let us phone in for a court the day of,’ I argued.

  ‘Yes, you can book a court over the phone for that same day,’ he returned.

  ‘Well, you don’t see the card when I call, right?’

  ‘You don’t need to present your card over the phone.’

  ‘Right.’ I took out my cell phone and dialled. I watched him answer the phone.

  ‘Hello,’ he said.

  ‘Hi! It’s me.’ I waved to him, fluttering my fingers just inches in front of his nose.

  He looked uneasy. Was he supposed to wave back? He wasn’t accustomed to feeling silly like this. I continued.

  ‘I’d like to book a tennis court for six tonight. Can you guess who I am?’

  ‘Mrs Flank.’ He stayed on the phone. He couldn’t be accused of not following the rules. ‘Do you want court number one or four?’

  ‘Four.’

  ‘Okay, court four at 6 pm.’

  ‘See ya.’ I hung up.

  We gather up our stuff, drain our glasses and hike to the gate; it is time to board the plane. Every seat is taken in the departure lounge. Bored children are sprawled on the floor; gnarly-headed, shoestring, Lonely Planet types are sitting on their backpacks talking about how Phi Phi beats Phuket (Phi Phi is pronounced Pee Pee not Fee Fee, just like Phuket is Pooket not Fuckit) but Krabi’s the best. And poised to take over the entire room and eat us if they must is a tour group of lovingly large, comfortably cushioned, wide-in-the-waistband ladies. But we get to board first.

  We settle the kids in their plane seats and tuck toys around them. I say, ‘Now, think lovely thoughts … Think lovely thoughts …’ Sadie joins me, ‘Think lovely thoughts …’

  ‘Vacation!’ I call out.

  ‘Nana!’ Sadie says.

  ‘Nana!’ Huxley says.

  Frank doesn’t play. There are certain things he’ll never do in public, like juggling or crossing his eyes or shouting out a lovely thought.

  ‘Sandy beaches!’ I continue.

  ‘Aunt Bonnie!’ Sadie says.

  ‘Aunt Bonnie!’ Huxley says.

  Frank straightens out The Wall Street Journal.

  ‘Family games!’

  ‘Grandma’s cats!’

  ‘Grandma’s cats!’

  Frank makes sure his cell phone is turned off.

  The plane ascends. I give Sadie and Huxley a squeeze. As soon as the seatbelt light goes off, I begin my nervous traveller routine. If they think I’m about to go mental, they’ll give me a drink faster. I become acutely fidgety, aerobically squirmy. I rock a bit but figure I don’t need to be convincingly autistic. I look at the ceiling and then at Frank. ‘It’s going to be all right isn’t it, Frank? I mean, it’s going to be all right, right? Tell me the odds again … Just tell me one more time …’

  ‘Beverage for you?’ the hostess asks.

  ‘Oh, that might do the trick. Yeah, can you keep my glass full?’ I wring my hands.

  Frank manages to frighten everyone away on a plane. He looks busy and important. He says no more than one syllable at a time, usually finding it unnecessary to go beyond
‘yes’, ‘no’ and the meagerly dispensed ‘thank you’.

  After four hours, the plane begins its descent. The captain announces that we’re over the islands of Phang Nga Bay. These are among the wonders of Asia. The sheer-sided limestone monoliths rise almost a thousand feet out of the water. It was on one of these islands that a James Bond movie, The Man with the Golden Gun, was filmed. Phuket comes into view and I can see deep green islands, farms and forests, and long stretches of white beach sporadically interrupted by boulders, outcroppings and dramatic cliffs. The Andaman Sea is a pallet of greens and blues. Its surge rolls in gently, benignly. Its waves are sleepy, quite unlike the turgid, challenging breakers of the Atlantic. Phuket’s history, like much of South East Asia’s, is full of spice seekers and fortune hunters. The first inhabitants are believed to have been Semang pygmies and Moken sea gypsies who lived in caves. They were later joined by Tamils and Malays. By the late 18th century, European sailors had discovered valuable commodities: ivory, gems and pearls. They were often relieved of these treasures by thorny pirates lurking near the shores.

  Phuket has ignored the industrial world, retaining villages where the people live off the sea, living a simple life of fishing and farming, weaving and pearl diving, oblivious to the tides of change crashing through the rest of Asia.

  Ears are clogging and I tell the kids to yawn, hold their noses and blow.

  ‘Think lovely thoughts … Think lovely thoughts …’ I chant. ‘Elephant rides!’ I begin the game for us.

  ‘Bmmrlt,’ Sadie says.

  ‘Oh, you can stop holding it now.’

  ‘Baltimore, America!’ Sadie sings.

  ‘Baltimore, America!’ Huxley sings.

  ‘Okay, bang me over the head, Sadie, I get it. But just think of all the things you’ve seen that your cousins haven’t. You’ll have so much to tell them.’

  ‘So now can we go home?’ she implores.

  Huxley’s no better – worse even, with that additional character flaw of being unable to think for himself. ‘Blah blah blah’ to a real plane but ‘whoo whee’ to the chipped fibreglass one outside the grocery store that vibrates for 50 cents. That they could sit in all day long. Anything but yet another hot island full of sand and monkeys and elephants. A swing set and a squirrel would do nicely for them. Hey, kids, wanna see the Great Wall of China or stay home and order in? Frank’s kids.