With Friends Like These

by Sally Koslow

  “The stress diet,” I said.

  She picked out the melody of her latest ballad as she asked, “What do you have to be stressed about?” It was, fortunately, a rhetorical question, followed by “Sure ya don’t want nothin’? There’s plenty left.” Spread across a table were the remains of the hotel’s Japanese breakfast menu—toasted seaweed, pickled vegetables, a pot of green tea, and a full glass of milk, most likely lukewarm, organic, and soy.

  “I’m good. Thanks.”

  “Then let’s rock,” she said as there was a knock at the door. Another security guard let in a uniformed woman carrying a large satchel. “Angel! You got here, honey. Set up over there.” Maizie pointed to the dining room, then turned to me. “Angel’s gonna do my mani-pedi while you and me talk. You ready?”

  I pulled out my tape recorder and tested it. “Maizie May, September sixteenth.”

  “Where were we?” Maizie asked as she plunged her feet into a tub of gardenia-scented water that had, like an offering, appeared before her. “Ah. I was talkin’ ’bout my adorable mother, that porker.” Our last session had been three weeks ago, yet she resumed practically midsentence. I pressed on and let Maizie and my tape recorder roll, interrupting only to ask the occasional question. Angel produced a fresh bottle of Paparazzi Pink and started buffing and pumicing. Precisely forty-five minutes later, one of the guards tapped his watch and Maizie began to wind down. “So I said to the bitch, ‘Fuck yourself, slut,’ cut her off, and moved to my own place in Laurel Canyon.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Seventeen,” Maizie said. She stood, turned her back to me, and walked—careful not to smudge her toes—to the balcony twenty feet away.

  “How old was your mother?”

  “Who cares?” She shrugged, looked out of the window, and shouted, “Come over here.” I did. “What’s that?” Maizie pointed to the hazy blob of blue due north in Central Park.

  “The reservoir.” Only yesterday I’d run there, admiring my future apartment from the Fifth Avenue side of the water. The time seemed right. “Maizie, I was wondering if you could please do me a favor. My husband and I are hoping to buy a co-op. You can see it.” I pointed to a castlelike building. She squinted her heavily mascaraed eyes. In the distance, it was one-eighth of the size of a Lego block. I felt my face getting warm. “We need reference letters. I was wondering if you’d have the time to write one.”

  Maizie looked at me as if I’d asked her to spot me fifty thousand dollars. “Even if I did have time, which I fuckin’ don’t, ya know I can’t write. That’s what you’re for.”

  “It can be short, to the point.” I was begging. I was shameless. I was sweaty.

  “Write it yourself,” she said. After a dramatic pause, her exquisite heart-shaped face broke into a smile. “Idiot. Of course I’ll help you. I love ya, girlfriend. You know that. E-mail your goddamn dream letter and we’ll fax it back.” She walked out of the room.

  For the last two years I have met regularly with Quincy Blue, I began composing in my head when I got into the taxi. During that time I have been consistently impressed by her intelligence, high professional standards, impeccable integrity, and, above all, inexhaustible ability to tolerate my midnight phone calls and endless, narcissistic rants.

  CHAPTER 17

  Talia

  When I arrived at work this morning, I found a note from Chloe. June Rittenhouse, it said. No number. No date. No details. Almost a scrawl. When Chloe and I had spoken the night before, she’d given me messages, but hadn’t mentioned a call from the headhunter.

  The bagel I’d eaten turned to acid. What did Chloe know and when did she know it? Nothing, I prayed, not that I deserved to have God listen. My guilt was fueled by a round-the-clock backup generator. It would serve me right if June Rittenhouse had called to say the Tribeca job was filled or that the elaborate spiral-bound pitch I’d turned in—thank you, spontaneously regenerated right-side brain cells—hadn’t made it to the final round.

  I dialed June’s number. I’d gotten in early and at this hour expected to simply leave a message. While hoping for its return, I’d have ample time to flagellate myself. But the next thing I heard was “June Rittenhouse.” No slacker, June was answering her own phone at eight twenty-five.

  “Good morning. It’s Talia Fisher-Wells,” I said. My throat felt like a pipe gasping for Drano. I cleared it, twice. “Excuse me, but did you call?” Did you call finally? Mean Maxine hissed. For the past two weeks I’d phoned June every third day, with no response.

  “I did,” she said, crisply authoritative. “I’ve been waiting since yesterday morning to hear from you. You’re one of the finalists whom the clients want to meet.”

  “Excellent,” I said, relieved that the nights and weekends I’d put into my pitch had resulted in more than Tom’s grousing. “Thanks. What’s the next step?”

  “The creative director has a shoot in Punta Cana that’s going to take him away for two weeks, and he needs to see you tomorrow. The slots left are at ten or two.”

  Chloe would be manning the office. No problem there. But Tom’s parents were coming to town, an occurrence as rare as an eclipse and sometimes as dark. Henry and I were to meet them at the Central Park Zoo, followed by a birthday lunch for Abigail at the Metropolitan Museum, where Tom would be joining us. He’d arranged to leave school early. Still, I said, “Two, please.”

  The following morning I searched for clothes that could take me from the zoo to the Met to a downtown ad agency: I’d need to illustrate my finely tuned innate flair, if I had any, which would be a particular challenge, since while the calendar pretended it was autumn, the thermometer was stuck at ninety degrees.

  I decided the day called for the full Ava Gardner, whom Bubbe—admittedly in need of cataract surgery—insists is my stunt double. While hot rollers turned my frizz to waves, I slipped on a butt-hugging skirt and a boxy, short-sleeved jacket I cinched at the waist. Carefully I painted on two layers of red gloss, blotted, and found my notice-me sunglasses. I faced the mirror and saw a 1950s pinup.

  So did Tom, who’d walked out of the shower, wrapped in a towel. “Did I miss the invitation for the Rat Pack ball?” he asked. “There’s time for me to dress as Dino.”

  “The shades?” I asked. “Too much?”

  “Too much for what? Trying to give my mother a coronary?”

  To my instant regret, Mean Maxine offered Tom an accurate but unnecessary knee-jerk response: “No matter what I wear, your mother hates it.” Every year, my Christmas gift from Abigail is—hint—a Brooks Brothers gift certificate. Hence my drawer full of gently worn madras Bermudas.

  “My mother doesn’t hate the way you look—she can’t understand it, that’s all,” he said, staring at my open-toed black platform pumps. Taking his life in his hands, Tom added, “There are times when I see where she’s coming from.”

  I could feel my face turning the Valentine shimmer of my lips, but it was a dead end to explain that my ensemble pivoted around these shoes, which showed my legs to advantage. “I have an interview in the afternoon. For that job I tried out for.”

  “Really?” Tom said, oozing distrust. He furrowed his eyebrows so low I could barely see his eyes.

  “I’m not meeting my high school boyfriend. It’s an appointment with the creative director. At two.”

  He went to his closet and said nothing while he dressed in the full Connecticut—khakis, pink button-down shirt, navy sport coat, rep tie, and boat shoes.

  “In case you’re wondering, I didn’t forget about your mother’s birthday lunch,” I said to his back. “I’ll only have to leave a little early.” I would peel away from the Met at one-fifteen and splurge on a taxi all the way downtown. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.

  “I see. And when were you planning on telling me this?”

  “I’m telling you now.”

  He left the room, gave Henry and Pontoon their usual exuberant goodbye, and shouted its feeble echo to me
before the front door slammed.

  Since I’d reported my job opportunity, Tom had acted wigged out, my ambition putting his lack of it in bold relief. I should have handled the day’s change of plans with more finesse, and could hear my father say, Talia Rose, those who fail to plan, plan to fail. But this was no time to analyze whether Tom’s ire was reasonable or deserved. In ten minutes I’d packed Henry’s bag of books and snacks and helped him dress, and we started to walk to the subway stop for the ride to midtown Manhattan.

  Big Tom and Abigail were waiting for us by the monkey house, admiring a newly born offspring in the form of a wizened old man. My father-in-law, a more distinguished, even taller version of my Tom, spotted us, gave me a cheery wave, and picked up Henry in one long swoop—“Good to see you, buddy”—while Mother Monkey and Mother Wells offered matching approach-at-your-own-risk glares. I walked in their direction.

  I come from a family of smoochers. My parents, Bubbe, and I exchange kisses all the livelong day. “You got an A, bubbele?” Kiss, kiss. “You’re having a bath, dahlink?” Kiss, kiss. “You’re having an appendectomy?” Kiss, kiss. With Tom’s “people”—their way of referring to the extended family, as if they were an indigenous tribe nearing extinction, which they might be—you might get a kiss if you were, say, going off to war. Thus, I never know how to greet Abigail, whom I generally stand in front of until she notices me and starts talking.

  Today she looked especially bony and stony. I was late, but only by five minutes, which in New York City practically qualifies as early. I’d stowed my belt in Henry’s bag along with the heels, temporarily traded for sneakers. I thought I could pass for a Colonial Dame; Abigail’s demeanor couldn’t be on account of my appearance, unless it was the ’do. Like Big Tom, she has a head of thick silver hair, though I’d only ever seen it girdled in a bun. I once asked Tom if behind closed doors he thought his mother let loose, because if Abigail wanted to be a vixen, she could. I’d seen her plenty of times in a bathing suit that, baggy as it might be, revealed a nothing-hanging body, and in one of her drawers I’d discovered a well-thumbed Kama Sutra when I was, swear to God, simply looking for warm socks. But on the subject of his parents’ private life, Tom has never cared to speculate. Around his people Tom turns back into one of them, and the husband I love has a hard time having a hard time: along with his sense of humor, he loses the ability to perform the most basic marital function besides taking out garbage.

  “Good morning, Talia,” Abigail said, giving my ensemble a thorough review. “If we hurry, we can make the penguin feeding.” With that she took a balloon from her hand and handed it to Henry. From his perch in his grandfather’s arms he gave a great squeal, and the corners of Abigail’s mouth began to approximate an expression much like a smile.

  “Say ‘Thank you, Grandma Abigail,’” I instructed. One juncture between our two families is, at least, good manners.

  “Thank you, Gammagail,” Henry repeated, his fingers poking the balloon.

  If, in gratitude, I’d been able to plant a tree in Israel then and there, I would have.

  “Thank you, young man,” Abigail said, and turned to Big Tom. “Doesn’t he look exactly like Third as a boy?”

  I hate that name, so bronze medal. But Abigail is correct, even though despite his big blue eyes and 95th-percentile height, my squat, brown-eyed mishpacha think Henry is all Fisher. “Got the punim of Uncle Solly, the boxer,” my father says. “In the old country they called him the Cossack of Kiev.” I have not shared this lore with my in-laws. Producing an heir who looks pressed out by a Christmas cookie cutter in the tradition of Wells menfolk has been my shining achievement, which I wouldn’t dream of tarnishing.

  The four of us proceeded to the penguins. While Tom and Abigail gave Henry a freshman-year grounding in penguin ethology, I tried to spot Roy and Silo, the real-life inspiration for the heroes of one of Henry’s books. They’d refused to socialize with the females and had done a swell job of incubating an extra fertilized egg and raising Tango, its eventual chick. But all the penguins—gay or straight—looked the same, beaked babies dressed as Whiffenpoofs.

  From penguins we migrated to the polar bears and from the polar bears to the fruit bats. Only then did we push off for lunch. By the time we’d walked twenty blocks to the Met, trekked through the European sculptures, and arrived at the Trustees Dining Room, Tom had been waiting for ten minutes.

  “Happy birthday,” he said, raising a glass after we’d gotten settled and ordered. “To Mother!”

  “To Mother!” Big Tom said.

  “To Mother,” I managed, although I’ve never called her that, not even when she requested that I did.

  “No one alive is truer than you!” Tom said. Whatever that means, his family says this to one another on every birthday. I’ve always wondered if it’s a line from an Episcopal hymn.

  Tom turned to me. “No one alive is truer than you!” I chimed in, though a court stenographer would have omitted the exclamation point. Tom was seated next to me and touched my foot with his. But my mind kept drifting to this afternoon’s interview and, dammit, to Chloe. Did she know?

  “Talia?” Tom said. “Are you with us?”

  I was puzzled. “Oh, l’chaim,” I offered. “To life!” This is how Fishers toast.

  “Hear, hear,” Big Tom said. “La high am.”

  “High am, Mommy,” Henry repeated, raising his cup as if he was going to recite the kiddush.

  Abigail managed to join in a group laugh. I began to relax, until Tom touched my foot again. This time I got it, the cue to bring out Abigail’s present. Weeks ago, I’d ordered a broad-brimmed straw garden hat with a long gray ribbon to match Abigail’s wintry eyes. I could picture the hat now, forgotten next to our front door, good intentions gone to hell.

  “Abigail, we have something for you that I—” I started to say, but Tom interrupted.

  “That we want to give you when you come back to the apartment later this afternoon. We’ve planned a special dinner.”

  We had now.

  “You are the most thoughtful young man,” Abigail said. I spotted mist in her eyes as our oysters arrived.

  “How’s the dissertation coming, son?” Big Tom asked.

  “It’s coming.” Tom proceeded to detail his progress to Henry Thomas Wells Jr., Ph.D., Dartmouth’s most noted John Milton scholar. The discussion lasted well past the arrival of our main course. I was four bites into my Gruyère soufflé, discreetly checking my watch, when Tom surprised me again. “Talia has good news, too—she’s being considered for a new job. I’m so proud of her.”

  He was? All eyes turned in my direction. “Proud of you, Mommy,” Henry said.

  Two glasses of sherry had made Abigail curious. “Tell us about it,” she requested.

  I couldn’t. To discuss the job out loud was farboten. Who was I to thumb my nose at fate in the most obvious, arrogant way?

  “It’s the same as what I do now,” I said, picking my words with caution, “but at a different agency.” Even that explanation, dull and evasive, seemed too elaborate for my ears. Abigail and Big Tom turned away in disappointment. I wished I could shout, But it pays twice as much—one of us has to make some real money.

  “Talia’s too modest. It’s a great job,” Tom said. I thought I detected an edge of contempt that no one else would notice. “In fact, I’m worried she might be late for the interview. Don’t you think you should leave? Sweetheart?” Passive-aggressive, all right.

  Skip the birthday cake I’d ordered? Have Abigail furious until I could make it up to her five years from now, when she turned seventy? But she said, “Tom’s right. Chop-chop. You know what Dickens said: ‘I never could have done what I have done without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence.’”

  Did she think I wasn’t diligent? I separated from my soufflé, hugged Henry and Tom, blew kisses at his parents, grabbed my interview-worthy accessories, and wound my way out of the museum.

  Finding a taxi took twic
e as long as I’d planned. The president was in town, causing gridlock grande. I arrived at the agency five minutes late.

  CHAPTER 18

  Jules

  “Jules!”

  “Sheila!”

  Sheila Frumkes, M.D., is my gynecologist, and thanks to me, Talia, Chloe, and Quincy use her as well. Only I, however, get a free ride. I help Sheila put together her wardrobe whenever she’s on TV; she waives the fees for my yearly appointment. Tat for tit, since spot-checking my boobs for suspicious lumps is part of the deal.

  “What brings you here, love?” she said, looking at my chart. “We usually see you in January.” I couldn’t tell if Sheila was worried. Her husband is one of the city’s cosmetic dermatology czars, and her face hasn’t expressed concern, sadness, or shock in years.

  “What brings me here is my fervent hope you’ll tell me my pee-on-a-stick tests have been bullshit,” I said, feeling as ridiculous as the next woman wearing a blue paper gown, dangling her bare legs off the edge of an examining table. If the definition of insane is repeating the same activity, expecting a different outcome, I was certifiable; I’d done four more pregnancy tests.

  “Let’s have a look.” Sheila bent her head low for a pussy peek, wiggled a speculum, and thumped my belly from the outside. “Your uterus is slightly enlarged.”

  What part of me wasn’t?

  “But we can’t rely on those drugstore tests—we’ll need to do your blood,” she announced. “I’ll send in my nurse. After she’s finished, you and I will talk.”

  One prick later, we were in Sheila’s office, chatting about another. “Are you still dating Ted?” she asked, leaning forward in her chair, girlfriend style. Ted and I had once had a double-date with the Drs. Frumkes.