Mine Are Spectacular!

by Janice Kaplan

  Priscilla comes over, her arm tucked around James, who’s somehow managing to balance three glasses in his one available hand.

  “So you’ve all heard the theme of tonight’s party, right? Everybody ready?” asks Priscilla.

  “I can’t believe you’re doing this, Priscilla,” says Berni, the only one in our group who knows what our hostess has planned.

  “Hard to keep topping myself, but I always do,” says Priscilla proudly. “And I expect everyone to join in. Remember, dears, it’s not every day you get invited to a key party.”

  “What’s a key party?” James asks.

  “My question exactly,” I echo.

  “You two are such innocents,” Priscilla says, putting her arm around each of us. “I used to read about key parties in the eighties. I think Warren Beatty started them.”

  “So what is it?” I ask impatiently.

  “A sexy little game,” Priscilla says with a laugh. “Every man tosses his key into a big container, and each woman closes her eyes and fishes one out.”

  She flits away and the three of us stare at one another.

  “What happens after you get your key?” I ask innocently.

  Berni looks at me, surprised that I don’t know. But she’s a lot more sophisticated than I am. She spent her time in L.A. hanging out at Le Dome and lunching with Sharon Stone. I haven’t learned as much as I thought I would at the Olive Garden.

  “It’s simple,” she explains. “You have a man’s key, and then you know who you’re going home with.”

  James tosses back his head and roars with laughter. But sure enough, Berni’s not making this up. Priscilla is now strolling around the terrace collecting keys in a heavy cut-glass bowl that’s probably been passed down in her family since the Mayflower. If her great-great-great-grandmother had known what kind of feast her precious bowl was going to be used for, she probably would have smashed it on Plymouth Rock.

  The less than GQ-quality Hadley Farms husbands are gamely tossing in their keys. Priscilla is heading in our direction and I’m wondering what to do. Talk about peer pressure. I’m new to this community and I want to make friends. But not such close friends. On the other hand, I’ve always been a good sport. I’m not a party-pooper. I even play charades if I have to.

  James reaches into his pocket and takes out his keys. “Now I see why you moved to the suburbs. This is a lot more interesting than anything that goes on at Lincoln Center.”

  “You’re not really planning on playing, are you?” I ask in horror.

  James makes a show of studying various women around the room. He shakes his head a couple of times as if considering and then rejecting the possibilities. “Nobody here I’d like to have come home with me,” he says thoughtfully. “Except one person.” He unhooks his house key from his lanyard chain and holds it out for me.

  He can’t be serious. And even if he is, I can’t take his key. I don’t even know where he lives. Besides, I’m engaged—or at least I think I am. Bradford says we’re on a “break,” but just how broken are we? I look at the silvery key and shake my head. This isn’t the way to find out.

  “I’m going to pretend you’re joking,” I say, pushing away his hand.

  James pockets the key and gives me a hug. “Of course I am,” he says lightly.

  But was he? I don’t even want to think about it. “I’m going home alone,” I say stalwartly. Though I’m hoping that won’t be the case for the rest of my life.

  I start to leave, but then I see that Priscilla has finished her rounds and the game is about to begin. I’m not going to play, but at least I can watch. More fun than reading a John Cheever novel.

  “Who’s first?” calls Priscilla brightly, holding out her bowl and waiting for the first woman to step forward. “Time to grab a key from one of these handsome men.”

  Either Priscilla’s good at compliments, or she collected the keys at a different party.

  A bubbly redhead bounces up to the bowl.

  “I’m ready!” she says. “I’ll pick while the picking’s good.”

  Priscilla pulls out a purple eye mask and places it over the redhead’s eyes. I wonder if the rules say she has to stay this way for the whole night. Might be a plus—at least she won’t have to look at the guy.

  “No cheating,” Priscilla says.

  No? Then what’s this whole game about?

  With a well-manicured hand, the woman digs around to select her party favor. So much more creative than the potpourri guests usually go home with.

  “Let me see what I got,” she says, pulling off her blindfold. She studies the key in her hand then squeals with delight. “Ooh, I hit the jackpot! Look, the key to the Maserati!”

  She waves the key around triumphantly and Priscilla looks equally excited.

  “The Maserati!” Priscilla exclaims. “Who’s the lucky guy who threw in this key? Don’t be shy.”

  But the Maserati owner isn’t just shy—he looks downright worried when he hesitantly steps forward. Given that the redhead’s gorgeous and he’s as round and bald as Priscilla’s husband, I’m not sure why she’s jumping up and down and he’s shuffling his feet.

  “Do I really have to go through with this?” he asks.

  “Yes!” says Priscilla, who’s never taken no for an answer.

  “She really gets to drive my car?” he asks.

  It takes a moment for that to sink in, and then Berni bursts out laughing. So does James. And so do I. Maybe Hollywood is still kinkier than Hadley Farms. At this key party, you don’t go home and sleep with your neighbor. You just drive his car.

  The Maserati owner offers to come along with the redhead. Not in the hopes of having a wild night, but in the interest of avoiding scratches on his high gloss paint job. Poor Warren Beatty. How was he to know that his sexy key parties would turn into a game where you switch cars instead of partners? Though maybe he’d understand. After all, the guy’s married now and has four kids. He probably doesn’t even get to drive a convertible anymore.

  One by one, the women go up to the bowl to find out what motor—not whose—they’re going to rev for the night. James comes over and squeezes my hand. “See, in the end there was nothing to worry about. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow.”

  I look at James’s twinkling blue eyes and the confident set of his jaw. “Still want to give me your key?” I ask him.

  James’s mouth drops open.

  “Because I’m ready to play. It sounds like fun. You stay here and I’ll take the Prius for a spin.”

  A few nights later, Dylan and I are working on his incredibly tedious homework. I’m trying to be upbeat about my second grader copying the entire alphabet in Palmer method script twenty times. But I don’t understand why a school that has a computer keyboard for every kid still makes such a fuss about handwriting. It must be so the children can sign checks when they grow up. Although if the school doesn’t get around to teaching them some more practical skills, they’ll never have bank accounts.

  We’re finally up to the M’s when Skylar appears in the room and we both jump.

  “You scared me,” I say, my hand flying up and hitting my chest in surprise.

  “Why?” Skylar asks, popping the top on her bottle of Snapple and flopping down on an overstuffed chair behind us. “This is my house. And it’s my week to be here.”

  It never occurred to me that Skylar might show up when Bradford was gone. He had taken her out to dinner to tell her he was leaving, and I just assumed she’d stay with Mimi during his three-month business trip. Or however long he’s away.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” I say, recovering quickly. Though I’m wondering what’s up. I never got the feeling that Skylar craved my company.

  Skylar gets up from the chair and wanders over to us. “You have to do that dumb homework, huh?” she asks Dylan, standing over his shoulder and looking down at his white-lined paper. “Want me to show you how to get the computer to do it for you? I have a program that print
s script and I bet your teacher won’t be able to tell the difference.”

  “Cool!” says Dylan, jumping up, ready to follow Skylar into her room.

  Another day, another moral dilemma. Skylar’s plan sounds pretty reasonable to me, but I know I can’t agree to it. It’s my job to preach honesty and integrity über alles. No shortcuts, no flimflams, no deceptions. Unless of course Skylar’s absolutely sure that the teacher won’t be able to tell.

  I go to see what they’re doing on the computer. But instead of loading a script program, Sklyar is busy showing Dylan how she downloads music onto her iPod. From a legal site, of course.

  “Skylar’s really smart,” Dylan tells me with an innocent grin as I come in.

  “I know she is,” I say. “But you’re probably keeping her from her homework.”

  Instead of giving me a hard time, Skylar for once agrees.

  “Yeah, I got a bunch of English to do,” she says. And listening to her, I’m hoping the homework isn’t grammar. Or maybe I should be hoping that it is.

  After Dylan’s gone to bed, I check on Skylar a couple of times and she’s actually studying Romeo and Juliet. Which she tells me is almost as good as Shakespeare in Love. Given that I have a good excuse for calling, I dial Bradford in Hong Kong to let him know that his daughter is here—and turning into an Elizabethan scholar under my tutelage. But as usual, I only get the voice mail on Bradford’s cell phone and when I leave him a message I don’t mention Skylar. I just tell him how much I love him.

  The evening passes calmly and I realize that this is the first time Skylar’s been around when she hasn’t tried to push my buttons. Maybe we’re making some headway. At close to midnight I see the light still on in her room and I go in to tell her it’s time to get to sleep. She won’t be missing anything. Romeo and Juliet ends badly, anyway.

  But Skylar’s already abandoned Shakespeare for Teen People, and she doesn’t budge when I come in.

  “I’ll go to sleep when I want to,” she says snottily.

  “You have to get up early so I can drive you to school,” I tell her, trying to be reasonable. Though fourteen isn’t necessarily the age of reason.

  “I don’t want you to drive me to school. I don’t want you to do anything for me,” she says, not deigning to look up from the magazine.

  “You need to get to sleep anyway,” I say, getting irritated and wanting to go to bed myself.

  “You can’t tell me what to do. You’re not my mother.” Skylar glares at me, ready for a confrontation. Well, then, dammit, I’ll give her one.

  “When you’re in this house you follow the house rules,” I say.

  “I like my mother’s rules a lot better than yours.”

  “Then why didn’t you stay with her?” I ask, finally losing my cool.

  Skylar slams shut the magazine. “Because she’s never there,” she says defiantly.

  I start to answer, but then go over and sit at the edge of her bed. Skylar’s a teenager and I’m a grown-up. Hard as that may be to remember sometimes, she’s still a kid. And probably doesn’t know how to ask for help.

  “I know there’ve been a lot of changes,” I say quietly to Skylar. “It must be hard for you. Maybe even confusing.” Skylar doesn’t say anything, she just stares at the back of the magazine, with its ad for Cover Girl lipstick. So I go on. “I don’t know why your mom’s not home a lot, but I do know your dad’s in Hong Kong on business. That’s hard for me, too. Maybe we can make it all a little easier for each other.”

  Skylar sighs and uses her finger to trace the outline of a heart over and over again on her quilt. “Yeah, okay,” she says. She seems to be waiting. But what else can I tell her?

  “Anything you want to talk about?” I ask.

  Skylar looks at me for a long minute. “Maybe sometime,” she says finally. And then kicking back her covers, she climbs into bed and turns out the light.

  Chapter FOURTEEN

  I’M GLAD Kate’s got her guy, but on the scale of demanding lovers, Owen is turning out to be a ten. Now that they’re living together, it’s not just Tuesday afternoon trysts and the occasional quickie that Kate has to make time for. Her schedule is packed at work, but Owen still expects her to be available to shop for his Hermès ties, attend boring client dinners and fly off with him whenever he gets the whim.

  “I hate to whine about being dragged to the Bahamas again,” Kate wails, “but all we do there is walk around the luxury resort Owen’s trying to buy.”

  “A luxury resort,” I say, trying to work up my sympathy. “No fabulous dinners and amazing sex?”

  “That, too,” Kate admits. “But it’s getting old—and so am I. You should see the wrinkle I suddenly have from being so tired.”

  “The wrinkle? Most people get those in the plural. In fact, most shirts get those in the plural.”

  “All right. But I am feeling stressed. Being with him all the time isn’t quite what I expected.”

  “Why not?”

  She pauses. “How can I explain it? Owen’s used to owning things, and now that he’s moved in, he sometimes acts like he owns me. It’s like I’m one of his buildings. I’m supposed to be perfect or he demands immediate repairs.”

  “Repairs? On you?” Maybe that wrinkle’s deeper than she’s letting on.

  “Are you ready to hear this?” Kate asks. “The other night, Owen asked if I’d ever considered a butt implant. He said mine is lovely but he prefers slightly rounder.”

  A man who pays attention to details. Let him worry about the flying buttresses on his buildings and leave the butt on my perfect Kate alone.

  She sighs. “Anyway, he’s still a wonderful guy. I shouldn’t be complaining.”

  “Sure you should. That’s what I’m here for.”

  “I do love Owen, you know,” Kate says, backtracking just in case I’m getting the wrong impression. Now that they’re together, she’s allowed to complain about him, but she wants to make sure I don’t.

  So I don’t. “I know you love him,” I say.

  “Anyway, Owen’s away this weekend looking at some property to buy near the Grand Canyon. Or maybe he’s buying the Grand Canyon. I wasn’t paying attention.” She chuckles. “Since I’m on my own, I have a few beauty treatments planned. Give him some nice surprises when he comes back.”

  “You’re not doing the implant,” I say worriedly.

  “No way. I have too much work to do on my face.”

  “Bravo,” I reply. I can’t imagine what Kate could possibly do to improve her face. But who knew that no butt implant would be the good news of the day.

  As soon as I hang up with Kate, I head into the city to meet Kirk. Our bus ad is supposed to be debuting today, and we’ve decided to catch the premiere. Since the bus isn’t rolling down the red carpet in front of the Ziegfeld Theater, we’re going to watch for the first ads from a bistro on Lexington Avenue. Kirk is waiting when I get there, and he’s already claimed a table by the window. He’s wearing dark sunglasses and he hands me a matching pair.

  “Now that your picture’s going to be everywhere, you have to travel incognito,” he says, kissing me on the cheek when I join him. “You don’t want to be mobbed by screaming fans.”

  Yes I do. That’s the whole point of my being here. Having just one person recognize me would be as exciting for me as not having blackout dates on my frequent flyer miles. And just about as likely to happen—because we see lots of buses go by, but not a single one with our picture. As we make our way through one cappuccino after another, I see buses promoting the downside of drug addiction, the upside of Viagra, and six Christmas movies about the end of the world. Promises to be a cheery holiday season at a theater near you.

  “All these buses and no ads for Afternoon Delights anywhere,” I say, playing disconsolately with my plastic stirrer. “Aren’t you disappointed?”

  “How could I be disappointed when I’m with my beautiful cohost and having a delightful afternoon,” Kirk says, leaning back in hi
s tipply metal chair.

  I shake my head. “You’re impossible,” I say affectionately. “You can’t turn off that charm spigot for a minute.”

  Kirk laughs. “Being charming is part of the job. But with you it’s not hard work.”

  I take aim and flip my stirrer at him. Kirk good-naturedly wipes the foam off his chin and leans over to dab it on the tip of my nose.

  “I’m impossible but you still love me,” he says.

  “I do, and you’d be my best friend if I didn’t already have two,” I say with a grin. “But they at least tell me about their love lives. What’s going on with yours?”

  “Not much,” he says, unwilling to make any commitments. He may use an unusual amount of hair product, but he’s a typical male.

  “What about your costar Vanessa Vixen?” I ask. “Soap Opera Digest has been reporting all about your steamy affair with her.” I’ve hit a new low admitting that I read that rag. On the other hand, I’m admitting it to Kirk, who’s always in it.

  Kirk laughs. “Our dating was all a publicity stunt. Got a lot of attention for the plotline where Dr. Lance Lovett fell in love with Vanessa’s character after he found her wandering through the streets naked.”

  So that’s what a woman has to do these days to get a man. No wonder everyone always says it’s tough being a single girl in New York City. Kirk stares out the window, maybe hoping to spot his next girlfriend.

  “You really don’t date your soap costars?” I ask him.

  “Never,” he says. He turns back to me, and catching my dubious look he adds, “Okay, sometimes. There’s always some pretty actress available for dinner and a movie. Finding sex has never been the problem. What’s tricky is finding a relationship with some meaning.”

  I keep forgetting that he’s a philosophy major.

  “So what gives a relationship meaning?” I ask.

  “Honesty. Sincerity. You’ve reminded me what it’s like to be with someone who’s down-to-earth. The genuine article. Unfaked, unfeigned and unfanciful.”

  “And what about that do you find attractive?” I ask, interrupting him before he gets to the part about my being twenty-four-carat dyed-in-the-wool boring.