Great

by kindle@abovethetreeline. com

  “Well, hello to you, too,” I said.

  “I’m not screwing around, Naomi. I need you to bring my bag.” Her voice cracked on the word “bag.” Quickly, I walked into the first-floor bathroom and shut the door behind me.

  “What the hell is going on?” I asked. “You sound like you’re losing it.”

  “Dammit, Naomi! I just need you to bring my bag.”

  “Which bag?”

  “My bag with my two medicine kits,” she whispered.

  “Bring them where?”

  “To New York.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now! Call a cab. A helicopter will be waiting for you in thirty minutes.”

  I was bewildered. “Are you sick? Don’t you have anything up at the apartment you can take?”

  “Why would I call you out on the island if I had my pills with me in Manhattan?” she snapped. “I am in the midst of a severe frosting crisis, and I don’t need your stupid attitude. Don’t question me. Just do as I say.”

  “Well, you don’t need to be a bitch about it,” I said.

  Silence. I figured I’d get in trouble for that one.

  But then she surprised me.

  “Naomi,” she said quietly. “Please. I need you.”

  It got me, the way she said “I need you.” I’d never heard her speak to me that way before. I’d never heard her speak to anyone that way before.

  “Okay, Mom,” I said. “I’m coming. Don’t worry.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and I could tell that she really meant it.

  I paused before I got off the phone.

  “Hey,” I said. “I love you.” I felt completely weird saying it to her, but something told me she needed to hear it.

  “Oh,” she said, her voice catching. “Oh, me too. Me too.” Then she hung up.

  When I left the bathroom, Jacinta was clearing off the table.

  “He’s not coming back until tomorrow, love,” she said brightly. “Isn’t that lovely?”

  As soon as I opened my mouth to speak, I felt uneasy.

  “I need to go,” I said, my stomach beginning to turn over. “My mom needs me in the city.”

  “Oh,” Jacinta said, looking disappointed. “Well, I hope she’s all right.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be fine. She always is.” Something inside me, that same voice that said I ought to tell my mother I loved her—well, that something told me I shouldn’t leave Jacinta there all alone.

  “Maybe you should come with me,” I said, even though it didn’t make any sense, even though my mother would’ve absolutely freaked out if I’d brought anyone with me.

  “Oh, that’s sweet of you,” Jacinta said over her shoulder as she resumed cleaning up our breakfast. “But I’ve got to stay here and wait for Delilah to call. She’ll probably want to spend the day here.” She began washing the dishes in the sink.

  “Delilah’s not coming over,” I said, but the rush of water was too loud and she didn’t hear me.

  “Delilah’s not coming over,” I said louder. She turned off the water and looked at me quizzically.

  “What’s that?” she asked. “I didn’t catch that.”

  I hesitated.

  “Nothing,” I said. “It was nothing. I better go.”

  She dried her hands on a dishtowel and came over to hug me tight. She smelled like roses.

  “If you’re back tonight, let’s go for a swim,” she said.

  “All right,” I said. “See you later.” I left her there, in the kitchen, looking like a kid playing dress-up in a grown-up’s gym clothes. She fairly exuded hope, that most unreasonable thing.

  I changed before I went to the city, of course. If my mother’s “severe frosting crisis” had nearly put her in hysterics, then my raggedy outfit might actually cause her to go completely and utterly mad. I picked out the only one of the Marc Jacobs dresses she’d bought me that I had yet to wear. It was her favorite and, of course, it was the one I liked the least—it was pink, with lacy, girly frippery and frills around the neck, short sleeves, and hemline. It looked as if it were made out of candy. I even put on the kind of subtle makeup of which my mother approves—lip gloss, neutral shadow, mascara. I thought that if I looked pretty for her, her kind of pretty, I might make her feel better. As I ran a brush through my hair, I remembered the last time I’d tried to please her with my appearance. I was ten, and she was fighting with my father all the time. I found her crying in her room one day, and even though I was already a little too old for it, I asked her if she wanted to have a dress-up tea party. She wiped away her tears and said that she did. So we got dressed up in these matching Laura Ashley dresses she’d bought us, and we put on hats and had tea in the living room. It was the first time I realized I could change her mood if I tried.

  As the cab rolled away from the house, I looked back to see if I could catch a glimpse of Jacinta. But she was somewhere inside the house, waiting for Delilah.

  My second helicopter ride was actually a lot more anxiety-filled than my first. It wasn’t the height or the loudness that bothered me. No, what I found was that I couldn’t focus on anything but Jacinta—not on the beauty of the changing landscape below me, not on the dumb magazine I’d brought with me, not even on texting back and forth with Skags, who was trying to tell me some story Jenny Carpenter had told her about how the other Beasts were all really into doing cocaine and how she’d never been comfortable with it and how they always made fun of her for it. I really wasn’t in the mood to think about the Beasts.

  When the helicopter landed, I walked away from the heliport for a few minutes to clear my head. I decided I just ought to call Skags, since the texting thing clearly wasn’t helping me out.

  “Wow, another phone call!” was how Skags answered the phone. “I must be really special.”

  “Look, Skags, I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch that much this summer,” I said all in a rush. “But I have to tell you what happened, and I need you to listen and to promise not to tell anybody, okay?”

  “Okay,” Skags said, immediately getting serious. “Go.”

  I wandered around the neighborhood, walking past fancy office buildings and fancier residential palaces, spilling my guts to my best friend. She listened for something like ten minutes, and when I paused to take a breath, she said, “Naomi.”

  “Yes?”

  “You know how serious this is. And you’re involved. If you don’t tell the police what you know, you could be an accessory to the crime somehow.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “You need to call the police and tell them exactly what you told me,” Skags said firmly. “This isn’t just some dumb drama. A girl died. She had a family. They need to know the truth.”

  I was quiet for a little while.

  “You’re not actually thinking about keeping this a secret, are you, Naomi?” Skags asked incredulously.

  “No, of course not,” I said slowly. “I’m just thinking. Maybe I should give the others a chance to tell before I tell.”

  “You really think Delilah is going to confess?” Skags said skeptically. “I mean, if Jacinta or Adriana or whoever was even telling the truth about who was driving.”

  “Maybe she will,” I said. “I don’t know what she’s thinking. I haven’t even heard from her since we were at dinner last night.”

  “And why do you think that is?” Skags asked pointedly. “She’s going to distance herself from you and Jacinta and anybody who might know the truth about what happened. Because even if she was just a passenger in that car—and I kind of think she wasn’t—it’s going to look bad for her family.”

  “What if I gave them a day?” I said. “Another twenty-four hours. And if no one has said anything by then, I promise I’ll go to the cops myself.”

  “I think you should do it right now, but I guess another day won’t hurt,” Skags said. “But you know, if this were last summer, you wouldn’t have even gotten in that car with Jeff and Teddy at the restaurant. You wou
ld’ve walked home if you had to.”

  “I know.” She was right. She’s usually right about everything.

  After we said our goodbyes, I took a cab from the Financial District to my mother’s apartment on the Upper East Side. We raced up the FDR and past the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg, and 59th Street bridges. It was a really gorgeous day, and Brooklyn looked like a postcard from across the river. Queens looked like, well, Queens.

  I rode the elevator up to my mother’s apartment and knocked on her door. Her assistant, Lilly, opened it. Lilly had an identical twin sister named Tilly, who was Paula Deen’s assistant. Their family had cornered the business on making coffee and dental appointments for cooking show stars.

  “Is it bad?” I asked Lilly in a low voice. Lilly and I have a kind of understanding. She stays in the city, so I don’t see her often during the summer. But when I visit at Thanksgiving or call the apartment because my father forces me to, Lilly gives me a heads-up on my mother’s mood.

  “It’s awful,” she whispered, and led me into the living room. I recognized my mother’s lawyer and one of her business partners, but I hardly recognized my mother, who had been crying for what looked like hours. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, and I could see the fine lines and wrinkles she had yet to Botox away. I had never seen her looking this ragged.

  “Hello, Naomi,” said the lawyer, who looked gravely concerned.

  “Hi, Naomi,” said the business partner, who looked to be on the verge of exploding.

  “Oh, thank God you’re here,” said my mother.

  “Hi. . . everybody,” I said. My mother rushed to me, grabbed my hand, and led me into her immaculately appointed bedroom. I handed her the bag, and she quickly unzipped it and took out some lavender oil, rubbing it on her wrists. Then she threw down two Xanax without water.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “What happened?”

  She looked at me, tearstained and worn. “They just—the story just broke on CNN—there’s a problem with the manufacturing facility,” she said through gulps of air as she fought back sobs.

  “What manufacturing facility?”

  “The one”—gulp—“in Ch-Ch-China”—gulp—“with the fr-frosting.”

  “The Secret Special Whatever Frosting?”

  “Yes,” said my mother, and she began crying again in earnest.

  “Anne!” her lawyer called. “You’d better come look at this.”

  I put my arm around my mother, something I couldn’t ever remember doing, and walked her back into the living room. CNN was showing the footage I’d seen earlier that morning, but with a different narration.

  “. . . Bake Like Anne Rye!, Inc. is under federal investigation for knowingly allowing a banned carcinogenic chemical additive to be used in the production of its frosting at a plant outside Beijing. . . .”

  I looked at my mother, then at her lawyer, then at her business partner, then at Lilly, then at my mother again.

  Everyone avoided my gaze.

  “. . . CNN has obtained copies of phone recordings that clearly indicate Anne Rye knew the chemical would be included in the first shipment, which is already being removed from the shelves at Target stores across the country. Target issued a statement, saying. . .”

  “Why are they saying that?” I asked, looking around at everyone once again.

  No one said anything.

  “What’s going on?” I asked again.

  Nothing. Not a word, not a glance.

  “Mom?” I looked at her.

  “Anne,” her lawyer said in a warning tone, but it didn’t work.

  “Well, it’s not illegal in China!” she burst out. “They told me there was one study—one little study—that said it was dangerous. There are studies that say Tylenol is dangerous. Everyone said not to worry, so I didn’t worry!”

  I felt this freeze go through me, from my gut down to my toes and then up to the top of my head. Like all the liquid inside me suddenly solidified into one cold block of Naomi.

  “It’s not illegal in China,” she repeated, this time in a whisper.

  I took my arm off her back and let it hang limply by my side.

  “Those bastards sat on this ’til today,” the business partner muttered, slamming his fist into his hand. “They sat on this so they could ruin our big day. Goddammit!”

  My mother sank down into an overstuffed chair and buried her head in her hands. “This is going to destroy the magazine launch,” she moaned. “And forget my next cookbook. I’m surprised they haven’t called to cancel it already.” As if on cue, Lilly’s cell rang.

  “I’m sure it’s not them,” Lilly said reassuringly before picking up the call. “Hello? You’re with whom? Us Weekly? No, Ms. Rye is not interested in making a statement at this time.” She hung up the phone.

  “Oh, just say ‘no comment!’” my mother snapped, stamping her foot like a child.

  “Okay,” Lilly said quickly. “I’ll do that next time.” The phone rang again, and she headed into the kitchen to pick it up. But we could all still hear her say, “Hello? With the Times? No comment. Goodbye.”

  “It’ll be like this all day,” the lawyer said evenly.

  “I got a buddy, worked at BP during the spill,” said the business partner. “He knows the guys who did PR for them. They’re specialists at this kind of thing. We should look into it.”

  “All right,” my mother said faintly. “I don’t care how much they cost—let’s get them.”

  I was almost out the door before she noticed me leaving.

  “Naomi?” she called after me. “Naomi, where are you going? Naomi, I need you!”

  I didn’t say anything. I just let the door slam behind me. I got into the elevator and rode it down.

  There’s a bus that runs to the Hamptons. It’s called the Jitney, and you can catch it at a few places in Manhattan. I looked up the schedule on my phone and found the nearest pickup location, about twenty blocks away. It would depart in forty minutes. I started walking.

  My mind was kind of numb. It was full, I guess, with the equivalent of white noise. I systematically deleted each of my mother’s texts as they came in—they were plaintive, then angry, then cold, then angry again, and finally whiny. I didn’t pick up when she called. I deleted all four voicemails before listening to them.

  Maybe it was coldhearted of me to leave her in her time of distress, even if the distress was of her own making. But I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t stand there and be supportive when I knew, just as well as I knew my own name, that she absolutely didn’t give a damn about the people who might’ve eaten the frosting and gotten sick from it. What she cared about was her reputation, and her income, and whether this would affect her getting invited to Alec Baldwin’s wife’s charity auction.

  I went into a corner bodega and grabbed some napkins from the coffee counter. When I was back on the street, I wiped off the mascara and lip gloss and threw the napkins in the trash. I had to spit in the napkin to really get the mascara off, and I didn’t care how gross I must’ve looked to passersby. I just wanted that stuff off my face.

  I got to the Jitney stop early and sat down on a bench and called Skags.

  “You okay?” she asked as soon as she picked up.

  “So you heard.”

  “Of course I heard. It’s all anyone’s talking about on the cable news shows.” Skags loved cable news shows so much, especially Chris Matthews, whose animated freak-outs always cracked her up. Not until Skags told me she knew about my mother’s scandal did it hit me that everybody would soon know—my other friends at school, my teachers, and even people I didn’t know. As if hearing my thoughts, Skags said, “This’ll all die down soon. It’s the twenty-four-hour news cycle. They have to find stuff to talk about. Tomorrow it’ll be some hot blond chick who got kidnapped, or some celebrity in rehab, or something goofy the vice president said.”

  “I don’t know, Skags,” I said. “It’s a federal investigation. This could, like, affect everythin
g she does.”

  “Not to be a bitch,” Skags said, which is exactly what someone says before they’re about to be a bitch, “but your mom isn’t Madonna. She’s Anne Rye. You think anybody cares that Martha Stewart went to prison for a little while?”

  “Oh my God,” I said, so loudly that two little girls walking down the street turned and stared at me. “Do you think they’ll send her to prison?”

  “No idea,” Skags said. “I’ll ask Diana at dinner tonight.”

  “Who is Diana?”

  “Jenny’s mother. She’s a lawyer.”

  “You’re on a first-name basis with Jenny’s mother?”

  “She asked me to call her Diana,” Skags said. “I’m amazing with parents. It’s really quite impressive.”

  “I feel like nothing is normal anymore,” I said.

  “Normal is overrated,” Skags said.

  “Well, I could use more of it in my life,” I said. “I’m coming home.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow. The day after. I don’t know. As soon as I can get a flight.”

  “You need to go to the cops before you leave,” Skags said sternly. “Your mom will handle whatever she has to handle. You’ve got your own stuff to worry about. You have to tell the police.”

  “I know,” I said. “I will. Tomorrow. I just—I can’t handle it today. And Delilah might do the right thing.”

  “Yeah, right,” Skags said. “This one’s all on you, Naomi.”

  After we got off the phone, I tried to do some people watching from that bench on Fifth Avenue. Skags loves people watching. She can go to the park, sit down under a tree, and people-watch all day without getting bored. I’m not like that. I try to imagine what different strangers are like at work, at home, in the bedroom, but I just get distracted by my own thoughts. And my thoughts kept wandering back to Jacinta Trimalchio, or Adriana Whatever. It was like I didn’t have room to think about my mom. Maybe I actually respected Jacinta more than my mother.

  Just as I knew I “should” be on my mother’s side no matter what, I knew I “should” despise Jacinta, or at least look down on her. But I didn’t. I still liked her and I still respected her. Why?