Then Rachel whispered that she just saw Nina get out of her car, pregnant and glowing, and sure enough Ken and family greeted her as though royalty had arrived. I tried to pick up on Ken’s reaction to her, but there was such a swarm, I couldn’t see his face.
But that was nothing compared to the buzz when a black stretch limo pulled up to the curb and out popped, say it ain’t so, Mira Darryl. Who else could afford the new forty-eight-hundred-dollar Fendi spy bag?
“Oh my God.” Rachel grabbed my arm. “Check out the pocketbook. It cost more than my mortgage payment.”
“You poor thing.” Julia came up to me. “This must be a nightmare for you.”
“I’m fine.” I tried to remember David’s best poker face.
“The nerve of her!” Madeline came over. “How did she find out about this?”
“It was in the paper,” I said.
“Really?”
“No, of course not. He obviously asked her to come.”
But what really hurt was that El Schmucko didn’t even bother trying to introduce me, as if I was the event coordinator, too busy handling the logistics to have time for socializing.
Didn’t I get it? Every time I thought we were connecting, I got slammed by reality. I was no better than Josh, thinking I could join relationshipland with one of the perfect people. Especially when membership required five-thousand-dollar pocketbooks and chauffeur-driven limousines.
I felt like Little Sally Saucer. Cry Sally cry. Turn to the east, and turn to the west, and turn to the one who Ken loves best. Given that he seemed elated to have Mira hovering, it sure wasn’t me.
“Come, dear.” Judy grabbed my hand and pulled me in their direction. “This was your idea, and you are going to lead the way.”
“No wait. Stop. What are you doing?”
Before I knew it, she was introducing me to Mira. “This is Ken’s dear friend, Robyn Fortune, who has been taking such wonderful care of him.”
Ken coughed. “I think you two spoke on the phone when I was in the hospital.”
“We did?” Mira sniffed.
Uh oh. That was the time I said my name was Sierra and now the real one was here…God help me if they start chatting.
“I don’t recall the conversation.” She stroked Ken’s arm. “But Ken might have mentioned you in passing. Aren’t you his little friend from nursery school?”
“Yes, but she’s a big girl now.” Judy grabbed Ken’s wheelchair. “Robyn, you push.”
“I’ll do it.” Mira reached for the handles.
“Not necessary.” Judy practically stepped on her toe.
“Why don’t they each take a side?” Ken begged.
“Because it’s dangerous if too many people steer.” She cued me to take over. “Do you want to end up on the ground?”
Nothing like feeling like the nurse’s aide walking beside the patient’s beautiful lover. And though Mira seemed equally uncomfortable, it didn’t stop her from continually leaning over to pet Rookie and ask Ken if he was comfortable.
Hardly the warm, emotional outing I’d expected, but it did confirm one thing. God and the spirit of Howie were on my side, for just then, a cab sped by, splashing Mira’s new, creamy beige Emilio Ungaro trousers and Gucci flats, which was such a Carrie Bradshaw, in-the-tutu moment. Only this time, the actress freaked and raced back to her limo.
“Ding dong, the witch is dead.” I whispered to my parents. “Can you see if she melted?”
Ken probably thought about rescuing her, but Josh spotted the opening and tore through the pack like a Giants linebacker, grabbing hold of his wheelchair.
“What the hell?” My dad looked back to see if the quarterback was coming through next.
“I always liked that kid,” my mom added as we watched them take off.
“What is he doing?” Julia jogged up to join us. “What happened to Mira?”
“Nothing.” Sheil laughed. “She got a little shmutz on her pants and had to leave.”
“Did he ask her to come?”
“Looks that way.” I shrugged. “I sure didn’t call her.”
“Are you mad?” Julia put her arm around me.
“I’m hurt, but what can I do? He obviously wants to be with her…His whole face lit up when she got out of the limo…I don’t know. Maybe she did me a favor by showing up…Now I don’t have to stick around to see how the story ends. Because for me it just did.”
Chapter 27
AWK-WARD. That was the only possible word to describe the scene when family and friends returned to Ken’s apartment and stared at me, waiting for my reaction to the humiliation of being upstaged by Mira Darryl.
Everyone knew she was a famous actress who had perfected the art of scene stealing, but no one knew what came next in the script. Would I break down and cry, would I carry on as though I hadn’t noticed she was there, or would I confront him and ask, What the hell were you thinking?
In the interest of not causing myself further embarrassment, I chose b, the polite chitchat route. Wasn’t it such a nice day for a walk, and had anyone else thought it was hysterical that a cop thought we were protestors and tried to stop us because we were marching without a permit?
My parents and Judy followed my lead by marveling at how many people had come, while Seth and Madeline focused on the enormous fruit basket sent by the Crystals. Josh and Julia headed for the kitchen to make coffee and put out the leftover pastry trays, the remaining family and friends remained silent, sorry that there was no TV in the living room to distract them.
Ah, but the focus of group disdain ignored them all by collapsing on the couch with Rookie and yawning. He was wiped out, he said, but agreed that the walk had been a great idea because it did revitalize him knowing his father would have loved the effort.
Nobody cared. They just wanted to know why he invited the loathsome Mira to this private, family event. Didn’t he think that the friend who put it all together, the friend who had been caring for him for weeks and who obviously had feelings for him, would be hurt by the insensitive gesture?
Didn’t he know that Mira’s presence would turn this from a solemn, spiritual time into a circus? But when no explanation or apology was forthcoming, Mother Hen did what only she could.
“So tell me, dear.” She sat next to him on the couch and patted his leg. “What’s up with you and Mira? Are you an item again?”
“Discreet as always, Mom,” Ken replied. “Now I really miss Dad…Who else will tell you to butt out of my affairs?”
“I’m sorry. Am I prying?”
“Could we do this later?” he whispered. “When we don’t have a live studio audience?”
“Of course. I was just trying to figure out whether it was safe to go back home yet or if I should stick around in case she leaves you again and you have another nervous breakdown.”
“What are you doing?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing. Why did you invite her today of all days?”
“I didn’t. She called me this morning to say she was heading back to the coast tonight, and happened to ask what I was doing today, so I told her, and next thing I know she shows up…”
“Well, you can only imagine how embarrassing it was for Robyn.”
“Why? We’re just friends. I mean, yes, I owe her my life. She’s been amazing. But she knows how I feel about Mira, and that I still think we have a chance, so please stop harassing me.”
My parents looked around to see if I’d heard, which I had, and since I couldn’t possibly feel any more mortified, what did I have to lose by packing? “Tell them I have to get back to the studio,” I said. “And wrap up some of the rugeleh.”
Now if this was a novel, this would be the part where Ken chased after Robyn and begged forgiveness for being such an inconsiderate oaf who didn’t deserve her friendship let alone the hopes of anything more.
But this was my life, and that sort of gooey-in-the-middle stuff never happened. Guys in my dreams never loved me enough to
crawl back to my heart. Not that it stopped their families.
Judy and Madeline ran into Ken’s bedroom to beg me to stop packing, hitting me with what sounded like prepared albeit lame remarks, as if they’d made this speech before.
He was just under a lot of stress right now and he didn’t mean the things he’d said and it wouldn’t take him long at all to finally realize how perfect we were together and to just give him some time because once he saw the light, this would never happen again.
“I appreciate your support,” I said. “But he’s right. We’re just friends. He doesn’t owe me an apology…I saw the look on his face when her limo pulled up and he was ecstatic…you can’t fake that stuff. He loves her, he wants to be with her…he doesn’t feel the same way about me and it doesn’t matter how awful she is to him, he’s going to take it.”
“But I know he has feelings for you too.” Madeline took my hand. “He just doesn’t, you know, totally understand them yet.”
“He’ll eventually come to his senses.” Judy took my other hand so I’d stop packing. “He always does. He’s just stubborn like his dad.”
“Look, I get what you’re doing but I am not going to push myself on a guy who clearly knows what he wants, and I sure as hell don’t want his family trying to strongarm either.”
“But you love him, Robyn.” Madeline started to cry. “I can tell.”
“It turns out I’ve always loved him. Unfortunately for me, fate and fortune don’t mix.”
Aw-ful. That was the only possible way to describe the days that followed.
My mother, having returned to Fair Lawn for the weekend under the guise of being ready to talk to my father about their future, but really to clean the house because it was making her ill to think that it was ready to be condemned, was now back at my place.
Her issue now was that since my father clearly didn’t need her, as evidenced by the fact that he had purchased so many televisions, what was the point of talking to the old fart? “He seems plenty happy on his own. A hundred-fifty channels is all the company he wants.”
But she couldn’t fool me. The real reason she came back was to be able to keep coaxing me not to give up on Ken. And who was she in cahoots with? Her new best friend, Judy.
Oh yes. Now that they had resumed talking, they were making up for lost time. But not in person, not even by phone. She and my mom were suddenly online warriors, burning up the minutes as if AOL was awarding prizes for most e-mails sent in a day.
Yep. Not only had my mom gone and hooked up her computer in my living room for high-speed Internet access, she had joined the legions for whom online communication was an all-day, everyday affair, setting up a buddy list, icons, instant messaging, and forwarding dirty jokes.
Trust me, nothing gives a daughter pause more than receiving an e-mail from her mom that was forwarded from her never-gonna-be-your lover’s mom stating how sure she was that this little falling out between Ken and me was surely temporary. To which I replied to my mother, who I suspected would forward it to Judy, “Trust me. It’s the end of the line. If it wasn’t, I would have heard from him by now.”
Just like old times, Kenny boy was doing his famed magic trick, the disappearing act.
Well, not totally. At least this time I knew where he was. At his mother’s urging, he had gone back to Florida with her so she didn’t have to walk back into her house alone for the first time. Which had merit, but I suspected it was a ruse. She just wanted time alone with her son to talk some sense into him, and if she had to do it while sorting through her deceased husband’s personal effects, so be it.
Except that as testimony to how stubborn he was, or how much he was in love with Mira, he didn’t call me, write me, send flowers, or make good on his promise to buy me a spa package.
But get this. You know the fifteen hundred Madeline offered if I would just call Ken? She made good on her promise and mailed me a check. Which I promptly deposited and then used to pay Seth, who I asked to represent me at my bankruptcy hearing.
He couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t use my brother, but I said that was only because he didn’t remember my brother. Besides, it turned out Phillip was preoccupied with his own problems, as his eighteen-year marriage to Patti the Whip was mysteriously unraveling.
There were two sides to the story, as there always is, but according to Phillip, Patti claimed that he had made golf his entire life and didn’t seem to care whether she and the kids were around, and frankly at this stage in their life, she had assumed they would be much more financially comfortable than they were, and maybe if he’d focused more on the partnership track instead of the country club track, they wouldn’t always be fighting about money and they could have done a bathroom renovation at the same time as the kitchen.
Different story according to Patti. Phillip wasn’t playing golf. He was playing around, and for that he would pay dearly.
Naturally this freaked the hell out of me because not only had Annette predicted this, and it was one of the more preposterous things she’d said, now I was afraid Phillip would pressure my mom to get the hell back to Fair Lawn so he could move into my spare room.
There were some bright spots, however. Guess who the bankruptcy judge was? The widower of Sharon Horowitz, Ken’s boss who died of cancer. Remember? Her funeral was our first “date,” but we left early so I never heard her husband speak, not that it would have mattered. Sharon had retained her maiden name for business so I never would have made the connection.
But once Seth did, he introduced himself as Ken’s brother, and mentioned that I was Ken’s fiancée (“Do you still have a diamond ring you can wear to the hearing?”) and the entire tone of the proceedings changed. I would only be responsible for ten cents on the dollar and have practically a lifetime to pay them off.
Best fifteen hundred dollars that wasn’t mine to begin with that I ever spent.
And now for the grandfather of all ironies. The same day I got my “get out of jail almost free” card from bankruptcy court, I heard from Mitch Kaplan, the program chief at Showtime who I’d sprayed with cookie crumbs at the shivah.
He was over that now, and over the top in love with the script I’d sent him. In fact, he told me it was one of the most original comedy concepts he’d read in long time, a combination of Tracy Ullman über-smart and Carol Burnett hilarious, and when could I come in for a meeting and had I submitted this anywhere else?
Not bad for Robyn, Queen of Misfortune. My luck, however, it was all part of some cruel hoax to lull me into thinking the tide was finally turning in my favor, only to discover it was a tsunami in disguise, ready to drown me with totally insurmountable problems.
“Why do you have so little faith?” Annette the Magnificent asked me as I sat on her lumpy couch in her basement for the second time in a month.
“Sorry. That’s right. You walked in late. You missed the first thirty-three years of my life.”
“I told you things were going to work out great.” She laughed. “Just be patient.”
“Look, don’t get me wrong. I’m thrilled that now I don’t have to sell my co-op to pay down my debts like last time. And it’s a dream come true to have written a comedy pilot that might make it to television. And my gut tells me that even though my parents are still fighting, they’ll somehow figure out a way to work out their problems because, frankly, no one else would want them.”
“Okay I know there’s a but coming.” Annette laughed. “Because otherwise you wouldn’t have taken two trains and a cab to get here.”
“I don’t know if it’s a but…I guess it is. When I was here last time, you kept talking about this great guy I would marry who was such a sweetheart, and there is this man I really care about but the feelings aren’t mutual. He’s still hung up on this actress, and thinks of me as a good friend, although he’s not been very nice to me. So that can’t be him, right?”
“Sounds like you answered your own question.”
“But what should I do? I
can’t stop thinking about him. And it’s not like he’s some guy I met at a bar…We were born on the same day in the same hospital, our families were friends, we went to nursery school together, camp, college…”
“Are you going out west? I see a trip out west.”
“Huh? No. I’m lucky I can afford to cross the bridges and tunnels in New York.”
“Because I see something with…It looks like they’re showing me a map of California.”
Is this a reading or a geography lesson? “But what does that have to do with this guy?”
“Are his initials LMC?”
“No.”
“Okay, but I do see you making a trip and it’s more for business than pleasure.”
“Well wait. Maybe it has to do with Showtime. They loved my script and I have a meeting in New York next week…Do you think maybe they’ll send me out to the coast to meet with someone and maybe that person is this LMC guy and we really hit it off…”
“Hold on.” Annette laughed. “I need help interpreting. Not the pilot for a TV show…Does it make any sense that you’d be with this LMC person at the airport?”
“You mean like he’d fly out to LA with me?”
“Maybe…I see you two laughing like you’re watching the Three Stooges or W. C. Fields.”
“What did you say?”
“Old movies? The Three Stooges?”
“Oh my God! That’s it. The initials LMC…I know who that is now. Larry, Mo, and Curly.”
“No, I doubt I’m predicting you’ll marry one of them. They’re all dead.”
“Only two…” I could barely speak. “Curly is still alive.”
“But wouldn’t he be like ninety-five by now?”
“No, no. Not the real Three Stooges. I’m talking about nicknames for these three boys who were best friends since they were babies…and two of them have already died.”
“Now you’re giving me the chills,” Annette said. “What a sad story.”
Fate and Ms. Fortune Page 26