Although, in Tulia’s favor, our holiday visits to Sag Harbor are more akin to a weekend in Wonderland. The most traditional thing about my parents is their Federal-era home, bearing a discreet plaque from the local society for historical preservation, the house itself a relic of a young and idealistic nation.
“I’ve already invited Mia. She asked if she could bring a date. Is that all right with you?”
“Mia usually brings a date to Thanksgiving,” I say. “Why should you need to vet it with me this year? Although, if it’s that Italian photographer who took the Marilyn pictures of her, he might not really get into the spirit of the holiday. We might have been better off inviting him to Columbus Day dinner or to Garibaldi Day, if there is one.”
“Garibaldi Day,” my mother muses. “It wouldn’t be such a bad idea to celebrate that some time. After all, we’ve embraced Bastille Day and Cinco de Mayo. We could all show our solidarity by wearing red shirts. Though the puffy sleeves would be a tough sell in menswear.”
That’s my mother the garment designer talking.
“Anyway, she’s not bringing Luca. The photos are lovely by the way. Have you seen them? Very soft focus.” Only Tulia Marsh could find a way to condone her daughter’s foray into photo-erotica. “Clairey, the reason I’m asking you in advance about Mia’s date for your birthday celebration is that he’s the father of one of Zoë’s classmates.” I try to absorb these words. Thackeray was never Mia’s bailiwick, even when she was a student. “Clairey, are you there?”
“Yeah, I’m still here,” I mumble.
“Oh. For a minute there, I thought I’d lost you. Well, provided whatever’s going on between them lasts for another three weeks, she’ll be bringing a man named Robert Osborne to Sag Harbor.”
Robert Osborne. Where have I heard that name? Oh, God. Oh, no. My brain is assaulted by an onslaught of what-ifs, none of them good. The last I heard of Robert Osborne, he’d deserted his prize of a wife, Nina, for something very young and very blonde with the exotic kind of name often attributed to Swedish porn stars. Maybe that’s why I saw Ula at the playground a week or so ago with a little boy. If Robert dumped her, too, of course she’d need to find another nanny job, although a good reference from her most recent employer might have been a tough ticket. I have immediate visions of Robert bringing his holy terror of a son along for the holiday, followed by nightmares of an enraged Nina showing up on my parents’ landmarked doorstep, then proceeding to hack us all to death with my father’s beloved Hoffritz carving knife. “Ummmm, Mommy?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“I’m not so sure it’s a good idea. I’ve met the former Mrs. Osborne. She’s a force of nature.”
My mother emits a musical little sigh. I can just picture her repeatedly running her hand through her still naturally dark hair, streaked with one equally natural slash of white. This is her customary reaction when faced with a dilemma. “Well, you know your father and I have always let you girls forge your own paths in this world. We’ve never told you when we thought something might be a wrong turn and have always trusted that you both will figure out when something isn’t working. You and Mia have a strong center. Sooner or later, if you decide the detour isn’t worth it, you’ll return to that center and head off in a different direction.” My mother should be writing map text for the American Automobile Association. “So, maybe Mia will break up with Robert in the next twenty-one days or so. And if she doesn’t, I’ll just make sure not to set out the good crystal and we’ll all have an adventure.”
No wonder I’m a confused parent.
“Is Daddy around?” I ask.
“He’s working on your birthday poem. You know how he can get when he’s deep inside his head.”
“Yeah. You need to send spelunkers after him. It’s okay. I’ll call him later to say hi.” I smile, maybe a bit smugly, thinking how lucky I am. How many people grow up with a poet laureate penning a special creation for each of their birthdays? Brendan has promised that by the time Mia and I hit forty-four and forty, respectively, he’ll have enough to publish an anthology. We girls aren’t too sure how we feel about that.
I say goodbye to my mother and dial Mia. “Before I head off to give my movies-made-in-Manhattan tour for Go Native! we need to talk,” I tell her.
“So talk.”
“What’s going on between you and Robert Osborne, and why didn’t you feel it was important enough to share with me?” I ask, miffed and still incredulous.
Conspicuously omitting a full response to either question, she says, “I met him at Zoë’s class Halloween party.”
“Thanks to which she is only eating orange food,” I mutter. This is true. Ever since the party, she has refused to eat anything that isn’t orange in color. Thank God it’s fall, because at least orange things are somewhat seasonal. We’re okay with carrots, yams, oranges, of course, and mac and cheese, as long as I add a bit of paprika to make the pasta an acceptable color. Otherwise, it’s “too yellow.” Most vegetables and all meats are an obstacle I haven’t been creative enough to overcome. Tomato sauce has been deemed “too red,” and convincing her to eat a chicken breast coated with an apricot glaze turned into negotiations worthy of the King David Accord.
“Don’t blame me for the orange food,” Mia says. “Robert? Okay, I do take responsibility for that. I don’t know how long it will last, though. Do you know he sends his dog out to the Hamptons on a special bus? It’s called the Petney. Swear to God, I am not making this up. Seventy-five bucks one way. The Jitney for humans costs half that. His terrier doesn’t like too much open air and Robert likes to drive out to East Hampton in his two-seater Jag convertible. When he’s not saying how ‘different’ he finds me, all he does is talk about himself. I have to come up with new ways to make him shut up.”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something. If you live that long. Mia, do you know anything about Robert’s ex?”
“It’s not exactly a subject we discuss.”
“I told Mommy Nina Osborne is a force of nature.”
“You discussed my new lover’s ex-wife with Mommy?” she asked, appalled. Suddenly, I was thrown backwards into a vortex, revisiting years of tattling on each other’s most egregious transgressions, usually involving members of the opposite sex. Wait a minute. Lover? It’s only November 6th. She just met him on Halloween. I guess there’s something to be said for their fling to have survived Election Day. Robert must vote Democratic. “Claire, how could you?”
“I had to. Tulia called to invite me for Thanksgiving, which, as usual, she’s turning into a double celebration. Since it’s my birthday, she thought she’d be courteous about it. So she told me you were planning to bring Robert. Not Xander, too, I hope.”
“He’ll be with his mother. They’re going to Thanksgiving dinner at Donna Karan’s.”
I react like this is not a strange thing. For Nina Osborne, it’s probably an annual ritual. The image of soon-to-be-seven-year-old Xander tearing up the place and the designer presenting Nina with an itemized bill for damages at the end of the meal fills me with a bit of sadistic glee.
Oh, God, we’ve got Xander’s birthday party coming up. Nina’s leased out some plum real estate at Chelsea Piers, hosting an ice hockey party for more than three dozen second graders. Semi-supervised violence on razor-sharp blades. Perfect. At least she didn’t rent the Temple of Dendur. I can just picture Xander and friends running amok among the Metropolitan Museum’s Egyptian antiquities.
“Well, this should be an interesting Thanksgiving holiday,” I tell Mia. “Maybe Mommy can stitch up some lovely bulletproof vests for all of us.”
“I think you’re overreacting,” she replies. “Nina doesn’t even know about me and Robert.”
“Can you keep it that way? What about Xander? How many six-year-old boys, particularly troublemakers, grasp the concept of discretion?” I check my watch. If I don’t hightail it right this minute, I’ll be late for my tour. “Anyway, it’ll be my birthday, but it
might be your funeral if Nina gets a whiff of this. She already detests me. All she needs to learn is that her ex is knocking it off with my older sister. And what happened to his Aryan-looking au pair?”
“Nina had her deported.”
Wow. And why am I somehow not surprised. So, did I see a different Ula or the same one whose days were numbered? “Mia, I don’t mean this quite how it’s going to sound, so I apologize in advance, but I’m surprised he thought you were his ‘type.’ You’re not even blonde!”
“Maybe that’s why he says I’m so ‘different,’” Mia muses. “I guess I’m off the menu.”
“Dead meat, most probably. I’ve got to dash. We’ll pick this up later, if you want to.”
“Good. Because I want to run something else by you.”
“About Thanksgiving?”
“Yes,” Mia says. “And Zoë. Catch you later.” She’s the one who ends the call, leaving me with another shoe dangling. And a busload of tourists waiting for their “Location, Location, Location!” sightseeing tour.
Dear Diary:
I am going to meet the Powerpuff Girls! MiMi got me on their float for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. She got a job doing the makeup for the star who is going to sing on it, and they said they needed little girls to ride on the float with her, so MiMi asked if I could do it and they said yes. The Powerpuff Girls are my favorite television show. I told everyone in school about it. Xander and the boys didn’t care. April and May are happy for me but Ashley is acting funny. Mommy said she might be jealous.
I know a secret, too. MiMi has been going to dinner and movies with Xander’s daddy. Xander doesn’t know and Mommy and MiMi made me promise not to tell him. I asked why it was supposed to be a secret and they said it was because Xander’s mom Nina can be a real meanie. I know this is true because Mommy said she wasn’t nice to her the day Mommy had to see Mrs. Hennepin. I wish I could sic the Powerpuff Girls on Nina.
MiMi said we’ll have to wake up really early on Thanksgiving morning, like when it’s still dark out. I can’t wait. It’s going to be one of the funnest best days of my life. Even better than my birthday, maybe. Then, after the parade we get to go to Granny Tulia’s and Grandpa Brendan’s house in Sag Harbor for dinner. I talked to Granny Tulia on the telephone and asked her if she was going to have orange food and she said yes. We are going to have Marsh-mallow sweet potatoes, which she always makes special for Thanksgiving. And carrot pennies. And pumpkin pie.
Xander Osborne’s birthday party is next week and it’s a hockey skating party. I wish he would have a birthday party like April and May had over the summer for all the girls from our first-grade class. We went to see Beauty and the Beast, which is a Broadway play. We even got to bring our moms. Then after the play ended, we got to go back to say hi to the actors and each of us got a poster that was signed by them. I thought the girl who played Belle looked prettier on the stage than she did in her regular clothes. She looked older in her blue jeans. And her hair wasn’t even reddish brown in real life. It was dirty blonde like April and May’s mom June. If I had dresses like Belle I would wear them all the time. Her yellow one is my favorite because yellow is my favorite color.
I’m really, really, really bad at ice skating. I went a couple of times with Mommy and Daddy to the place with the gold statue and the big Christmas tree and to the skating rink in Central Park because it isn’t far from our house and my feet wobble too much no matter how tight I make my skates. I fall down and I don’t like it. And it’s too cold. Hockey is too fast and it’s scary and I don’t want to do it. And I can’t even wear a pretty dress to the party if I have to play ice hockey. Mommy said I didn’t have to go to the party but I want to invite Xander when I have a party for my birthday in December and if I don’t go to his party he won’t come to mine. And Xander is one of the people I want most to be at my birthday party.
I have to admit I enjoy being a sightseeing guide. Especially since my Go Native! boss seems to welcome my input on tour ideas. In fact, the movie-themed excursion was my idea; and, so far, “Location, Location, Location!” has been one of their best sellers. Even in the middle of November, my buses are packed with people scrambling to grab the upstairs seats first. To catch a better glimpse of the Dakota and the Empire State Building, they’re willing to sit outdoors for two hours braving some pretty chilly, damp weather.
This morning I had seventeen people from the High Point, North Carolina Jaycees, eager to see where Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks finally hooked up in Sleepless in Seattle. Last week, a bunch of librarians from Vermont wanted to see where the little bookstore around the corner in You’ve Got Mail was located. This afternoon, I’ve got a gaggle of grandmothers who specifically requested that I show them where the famous “orgasm” scene from When Harry Met Sally took place. Maybe I should rename my tour “Meg Ryan in Manhattan.”
Boy, can those ladies move in their orthopedic shoes. I stand back while they jockey for position on the upper level of the tour bus, swatting at each other with purses and umbrellas like the Ruth Buzzi character on Comedy Central’s Laugh-In reruns. We chug downtown, and when we get to the Empire State Building stop, knowing that they’re Meg Ryan buffs, I begin my description of the landmark with the Sleepless in Seattle reference. However, I make the cardinal mistake of underestimating my audience. These ladies know their movies. One of them waves her umbrella to get my attention. “Don’t you ever watch the old pictures? What about the classics? What about An Affair to Remember? All three versions.”
One of her cohorts begins to argue with her. “There weren’t three versions of An Affair to Remember, Myrna.”
“Yes, there were, Helen. You don’t know what you’re talking about. The other two were called Love Affair, but only the one with Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne was any good. The one that looker, Warren Beatty, made with his wife—that was pure dreck.”
“Affair to Remember? What about King Kong?” one of them calls out. “The original and the remake with Jessica Lange.”
“That remake was dreadful,” another pipes up. “Now, that was dreck. That girl couldn’t act her way out of a gorilla’s palm. Now, Fay Wray…there was a real actress!”
“Well, I like Lange,” the King Kong fan insists, holding her ground. “She was very good in Frances. She got robbed at Oscar time.”
“What, robbed? She got one for Tootsie,” interrupts her friend.
“Tootsie, schmootzie,” Lange’s champion retorts. “That was a consolation prize. Now Frances—there was a part to die for. That girl acted her little heart out in that picture.”
Can we see where they filmed the soap opera in Tootsie, they ask me.
“Well, it’s in the wrong direction from where we’re headed,” I tell them, wondering if it’s even okay to spontaneously deviate from the itinerary. “It’s way over on the West Side. One of our local television stations used it as a studio for several years, but there’s nothing to look at. Not very interesting.” They ponder this and put it to a democratic vote. When Harry Met Sally wins, hands down, so off we go to Katz’s Deli on Houston Street.
Snacks at Katz’s are part of my tour. Midway through their complimentary tongue—which the staff thinks is a hoot to give to the “orgasm tourists”—I hear my cell ringing. It’s Nurse Val up at Thackeray. Zoë’s been throwing up ever since lunch and the nurse isn’t sure whether it’s just a tummy bug, or if it’s food poisoning.
“She’s running a fever, too,” Nurse Val says, “and I don’t think it’s a good idea for her to stay here in my office until the school day ends, in case she’s contagious. I gave her some children’s Tylenol, which should begin to reduce her temperature, but she really should go home as soon as possible.”
That’s that. I have to head uptown ASAP. These ladies—my tourists—are all grandmothers. That means they were once mothers. They’ll understand. “I’m so sorry, but I’ve got an emergency. My daughter got sick at school and I need to fetch her right away,” I tell them, genuinely apo
logetic. I know I’ve only been working a few weeks, but I’ve never had to abandon a tour and I’m not at all comfortable with the idea. Still, my poor little girl is retching her guts out. This isn’t a task a mom delegates.
“You mean you’re going to leave us?” one of my charges asks, her voice quivering with disbelief.
“Right after the orgasm?” another asks very loudly, her face a study in betrayal.
I stammer another apology and explain that there are only a few more stops on the “Location” tour anyway, and that Frank, our trusty bus driver will take good care of them and bring them safely back to the Go Native! depot. Given no alternative, they say goodbye. “Your boss will hear about this, young lady,” the Lange fan threatens.
“And don’t expect any tips!” adds the Tootsie lady.
How soon they forget. I look at my group of blue hairs and shake my head, wondering where their children are now and whether they even bother to send Christmas cards.
It would have taken me a month to get from the Lower East Side to the Upper West on mass transit, and time being of the essence, I hail a taxi. I ask the cab driver to wait with the meter running while I run inside Thackeray to get Zoë. “I’ve heard that one before,” he grumbles. “Fugeddaboutit, girlie.” I let out a sigh of frustration and a couple of choice curse words, pay the un-sympathetic bastard, lowballing him on his tip, and he lurches away from the curb, practically before I’ve set both feet on the pavement.
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