A New Lu (28 page)

42

“That's right. A spa vacation. I came in for a checkup yesterday and requested a physician's permission slip to fly! I needed it today. T-o-d-a-y. Can't you people get anything right?” I slam down the phone.

I'm cranky. Ask anyone who's had to deal with me this past week. Even Tai backed off lobbying for the “nude” photo shoot Curran had the audacity to mention to her. Since his artsy pictures of me started appearing in
Five-O
, he's had some overtures from other magazine and photography agencies. His boat has been launched. Now he wants more, of me, just when I'm feeling the need to hide away from the world.

When he arrived just now for our formal weekly photo session, I wouldn't let him in.

He did a really good job of making me feel his pain. It's one of those drizzly early-fall days with an icicle feel in the wind. Yet there he was, in a cotton shirt that flapped about his rangy body like a flag. “Come on, Lu! Let me in.”

I twitched the living room curtain aside and beckoned
him closer with a curled finger. When he was practically nose to glass, I said, “Curran, dearest? Go to hell!”

I hear knocking again. I'm sure he went to enlist aid from Cy.

Sure enough, when I stop practicing a drum-line rhythm with my pencil on the tabletop and concede I will have to answer the onslaught at my door, I see the silhouettes of two men in the glass.

I smile as I hear them fiddling with my lock. Ever-vigilant Cy doesn't know everything. His key no longer fits. I had the locks changed after they accosted William.

“You, old man!” I shout from ten feet away, “Go home! You, young man! Get lost!”

“It's the eighth month,” I hear Cy tell Curran. “Mothers-to-be start getting testy about this time.”

Testy
is scarcely the word. I'm furious! With myself, with my world, with—oh, joy, my hair! The reflection in the hall mirror is of a robed woman who slept hard, and didn't brush afterward.

“The pregnant woman's on strike!” I shout as I move nearer the door, my cow booties
mooing
with every step. Hey, when you go to seed, I say go all the way.

“Step away from the door. There are no more gal-pal, buddy-buddy, social-escort services available on these premises. I free you! Flee! Find women your own ages to harass!”

Curran puts both hands to the glass and tries to peer in. “Lu, don't be trippin'. You're messing with a brother's future.”

“This is my world, squirrel! You're just trying to get a nut.” I'm not certain I got that expression quite right, but I like the way it sounds.

“She's gone all diva on us. Think like she's sick or sumthin'?” Curran asks in a worried tone. “Maybe we should drop a dime on that doc.”

I press my nose to the glass opposite his. “Stop annoying
this demented diva, and drop that dime on a female who wears hip-huggers and a navel ring. Faint heart never won fairly weird maid. Get thee gone, forsooth, the soother the better!”

Cy raps on the glass, as if I'm not already paying attention. “Lu, this is Cy. Open the door. Otherwise, I'll have to take action, for your own good.”

He means he'll call Aunt Marvelle or Dallas, or worse, William.

“You leave the newlyweds alone. Have you no decency? And Aunt Marvelle has a cold. Call Dr. Templeton, and I will put the house on the market. I'm going away, far away, where there's sun and sand. And I swear, if you don't both scrambola this instant, I'm never coming back.”

“She must have got Tai to okay the spa deal,” Curran says to his co-irritant.

“So, maybe we should back off?” Cy answers.

“Yes. Be a mensch, Cy, and back off. Take—” I hear my phone.

I shuffle back to the kitchen to pick up, checking the caller ID. It's Tai. This call I want.

“It's a lock, Lu. Your reservation at the resort is set. Ten days of absolute decadence in the desert. A courier is running the plane tickets over. Enjoy!”

“Thank you. Oh, and don't bother to contact me. I won't respond!”

I sit back and prop my feet on a chair. My ankles aren't what they used to be. If I don't watch it they balloon by noon. But I'm too pleased by Tai's news to stay in Cruella DeVil mode. Tomorrow I'm going where no one knows me, and better still will expect nothing of me.

43

Resort means hope, to have a chance, where to turn for help, where to seek refuge, the ultimate means of relief. I've resorted to the desert, and it becomes me.

Every woman I know has done the occasional spa day at a mall store. This is altogether different. I'm nine days into a sustained body-and-soul experience meant to alter one's view of life. I've been strategically slathered, steeped and basted, and generally made to feel my flesh is my best friend.

This spa even offers a specialized regimen for safely pampering the expectant mother and child. In addition to being loofahed, waxed and buffed, I've lain supine on a massage table built for the body of a mother-to-be while an expert in such matters has massaged me into a spreadable-on-toast state of relaxation.

Sweet Tum loves it, too. I'm certain she will be born a total Epicurean. Yes, it's a girl. I had a dream the third night here. Sweet Tum is a she.

More than that, I know that she and I will be our own happy family unit.

It was simple. All I needed was a time in a place to think only my thoughts. Even a thing as miraculous as love can be an intruder at certain times in one's life.

In the middle of the night after I ran William off, it dawned on me that I've been thinking of myself as the consummate adult, coping and moving forward in my life. What I've really been doing is walking on eggs, trying to maintain a version of the status quo. You know you're in trouble when you need Latin to describe your life.

From the moment Jacob disconnected, I tried to address the feelings and concerns of everyone even remotely connected to me. “It's okay. It's all right. We're fine.” By now, I've probably said this to pieces of furniture and my car.

First there were Davin and Dallas to coddle through the divorce. Then Jacob's need “to be sure,” followed by his desire not to be a father again. Let's not forget Tai and her expectations. And then, of course, there's Curran, Cy and even William. Within the past fortnight, I've married off a daughter, and talked someone else's child through birth. Who haven't I tried to please in the name of good human being?

Me.

I hadn't a clue about what I wanted because I haven't been able to shut out the voices of those dear sweet others. Here, alone, it was so easy.

I do love William. Maybe he's the best XY-chromo-some combination to ever walk through my world. But at the moment he's not the one to whom I owe my full-time allegiance or all-out efforts. Neither are Dallas and Davin.

I cannot hope for better results than my first two kids. What I have this time around, in place of plenty of youth and a partner, is experience.

For now and the immediate future, my full-out interest will be showing this being I carry the “aha” elements
of this world. I've lots of plans for her. For instance, monthly trips to Manhattan when she is old enough…two sounds like a good beginner's age. We will visit aquariums, zoos and museums. Later on, perhaps age three, art galleries and stage shows. We will shop and trek and have lunch in trendy places, ignoring the stares or envy of others. We will learn Japanese and Spanish, and then travel to places where we can use it, like Kyoto and San Antonio. Life will be an adventure, because I have time now to do more.

I've begun making notes. And I often smile because what I write is gleaned from grandparents and aunts and uncles, and all the other wonderful ordinary life-size household human deities who have made my life a wonder. I even jotted down a few of Aunt Marvelle's Marvelous Matrons' witticisms. Some won't be appropriate for Sweet Tum for years. But they'll be there when she most needs them, even if I'm not. That's not being morbid, that's being real.

Now, about me. I will continue to dye my hair. Vanity is good when it's on a leash. To lift or not? Who knows? I say no, but in a decade or two I may want to open my eyes without needing props like toothpicks. I can't tell from here.

And it's a relief to acknowledge that. If I don't know, I've got options!

Meanwhile, at the spa I'm content to sit and watch the world of the shamelessly indulged pass by. I often go all day without speaking to a single soul who isn't directly connected to enhancing my pleasure zone. That suits me.

October

I know he's a good man.
You know he's a good man.
My bad days are when
he
knows he's a good man
—Katherine Hepburn,
State of the Union.

—“Katherine, The Oh-So Great”
CUE LU!

44

“Lu, I know you're angry. I don't know why you're angry. Just be angry at me in a way I can understand.”

I smile as I punch Delete and move on to the next message. There are fifty of them. Far and away, William's outnumber all others combined.

“So, I guess you're not back yet. I talked with Cy. I'm sorry. I don't know what—”

I punch Delete.

“This is ridiculous. We're both grown-ups. At least give me—”

“For God's sake, Lu! I—”

“Look. I'm sorry, I—”

I hang up.

This record of pain bothers me. I've been rude, callous and selfish, deliberately refusing to ease the suffering of someone I love. Of that I'm now certain. But I'm not sure what I should do about that. I'm in flux. I've been home two days. It took me that long to decide to listen in on the world I left behind. Today I'm going into
work with a new outlook, and a new plan. I need time to adjust to this new sense of me.

The phone rings as I turn away. I hesitate and then push the speaker button but don't speak.

“Lu? It's William. I care. I'll wait.”

“Thank you.” I hang up. Good man, my William. I hope he'll be as understanding when he learns about what I'm planning to do next.

I scarcely have both feet off the elevator before I register the mortuary silence. There's not a soul anywhere to be seen in either direction except for Babs, who never deserts her post. “Did I miss the fire-drill announcement?”

“It's a three-alarm blaze!” Babs zooms up to me with a
shrrrr
and then a small squeak of her brakes. “Haven't you seen it?”

“Seen what?”

She motions me to follow her over to and behind her desk. She picks up and unfolds a daily tabloid, out of sight of anyone who might pass by. Slim chance of that. The hall echoes with absence. “This is about our fearless leader. You won't believe it.”

She looks both ways before whispering, “It seems our sweet young thing, isn't.”

“I never thought Tai was sweet.” Still, I take the paper and scan the page until Babs points out the column.

Ever wondered why
Bling,
the essential magazine for the style-consumed urban influential jettisoned its twentysomething guru,
Tai Leigh
? Here's a clue. That purveyor of forward-focus, youth-obsessed editorial style just celebrated her
(shush!)
fortieth
b'day! But who's counting? And that's not all…

“Whaddaya know?” I might have read this bit of nastiness four months ago and not blinked. But I've learned
a few things since about Tai. We will never be close, but she did give me a chance to save my career when not twelve other editors in a dozen would have done the same. She has class, and the kind of savvy this backstab is meant to undercut.

I look up at Babs. “How's she taking it?”

Babs's eyes roll. “She's in her office. Told me if her phone rings, I'm fired.”

“That doesn't sound like all-access all-the-time Tai.” I hand the newspaper back to Babs. “Who needs to be thirty again? Right?”

Babs shrugs. “What do I know? I wish I were sixty again.” Then she blinks. “But you. You look…so different!”

I wink. “Desert heat.”

“No, I mean you look ‘so different' good. You're younger, thinner, prettier.”

“All for the reasonable price of ten Gs at a first-class spa.”

“On you, it looks like a million!”

Who knows what makes a person think she can offer aid to someone she doesn't know well enough to ring at home? Tai's worse than a total stranger—she's my boss.

This debate with myself goes for a whole five seconds while I stand outside her office. Then I hear, “Get away from my friggin' door!” Sounds like an invite to me.

I knock lightly and turn the knob. Just in case she's waiting to heave a heavy object, I call out, “Incoming pregnant woman!”

Tai is, as usual, standing. She looks, as always, glorious in a slim miniskirt and a one-button, cut-away jacket that leaves her navel bare, and no doubt about the fact that she's not wearing a bra. The thick, wild bangs are more ruffled than usual. Otherwise, nothing is different. Even her superior smirk is in place.

“That isn't the reason I left
Bling!
Bastards!”

“I didn't think so.” Interesting. After a two-week absence, she assumes I'm here about her. She's right, of course. “Does the truth matter? You got column inches.”

“What?” I guess she was expecting sympathy.

I slide myself into the narrow wedge of one of her modern chairs. “I'm genuinely curious. What's wrong with being forty?”

She lunges forward, both hands flat on her pristine desktop. “It's as simple as this. No one looks at a woman of forty.”

I can't help it. I laugh. “I look at you. We all look at you. Every day. With great green envy. And that's just us hens. Men? Men get whiplash looking at you.”

“That's because they didn't fucking know how old I was.”

“So, you're eight, nine years older than everyone thought. So what?”

“I recently went out with a guy who's twenty-seven. He teased me about being an older woman. Can you imagine he'd even have spoken to me if he knew the truth?”

“Sorry.” I shake my head. “I'm channeling Demi and what's-his-face.”

“Demi has had everything lifted, tucked, vacuumed and buffed. And she's got leverage in Hollywood. But you're the lifestyle editor for accepting the inevitable.” She folds her long, lean arms. “You tell me. How do you remain smug when all you have to look forward to is wrinkles, sagging boobs and old men—if you can find them.”

“Did you know that if an Australian widow is young and sexy, her accidental-death compensation can be reduced because she's supposedly more likely to remarry? That's a scary precedent, and a reason for married women to let themselves go. And, contrary to rumor, many men like older women, even the un-engineered kind.”

“Yes, you would say that. You have no choice. I do—did.” She makes a sound like a sob. “They even printed my real name! Bertha Leighton.”

Bertha?
I suppose I should have finished the column. And to think I have issues with Tallulah.

Tai resumes pacing, and it's like watching a kettle coming to a boil. I swear I see a whiff of steam before she boils over. “That bastard Marc told them!”

There's no point in asking why Marc would be so vicious. People who do these things don't need reasons, just opportunities. More to the point, “How did he find out?”

Tai runs her fingers through her bangs. “It had to be that he read the birthday card my mother sent me. It's one of those awful cards that says ‘Happy 40th' right on the front!”

“That's unfortunate.”

“Exactly, which is why I left it at my apartment.” She reaches out to smooth the top of her teakwood desk, as if it had a wrinkle. “In a bedroom drawer, between the layers of my underwear.”

“But that's awful!” I'm referring to Marc digging through her undies, not her need to hide a birthday card.

“Bastard!” Tai begins again. “He waited a couple of months to try to throw me off, but I know it was him. I fired him. So sue
Five-O.
Sue me. Why kill my career?”

“Jealousy?”

“Of course that. If you want to reach the top you need to have more secrets than the competition.” She comes around in front of her desk. “I knew Marc bloodied the waters wherever he went, but in doing so he brought attention. Unfortunately, his ability to generate a buzz is overrated. Completely. He wasn't even good in bed.”

“He's a first-class bastard!” I say in support of womanhood scorned. “But there is truth in that old saying, Tai. ‘You knew he was a snake when you brung him in.'”

Tai blinks. “I've never heard that.”

“You've heard similar. Play with fire… Dance with the devil… If you lie down with dogs…?”

She folds her arms across her bosom and leans back in that impossibly swayback stance that only the long and lean can achieve. “Your cozy comments aren't helpful.”

“You have a point. The milk's been spilt.” She nods. “So how are you going to handle this?”

“I'm not. I can't respond without confirming that the story is true.”

I stand up. That chair is so uncomfortable that being on my feet is preferable. “Of course, it's your life. But I would just hate it if everyone's last thought about me was that I'm a coward.”

Tai tosses her head at that word. “I suppose you're now about to bore me with some other shit piece of disgustingly uplifting and wise advice.”

I smile. “Did you ever hear the one about taking your skeletons out of the closet and setting them in the front window as advertisement?”

She just stares at me.

“Then let me confess this. I know how sorry everyone has felt for poor old screwed and abandoned Lu. There hasn't been so much head-shaking over a lost cause since little Ollie North thought he should run for president. The truth is, none of you know a thing about the real me.” I smile big. “Since I became pregnant, I've taken a lover, been proposed to by another man, and had a guy in his twenties following me about like a puppy.”

Tai smirks. “You've obviously been fantasizing while reading your e-mail.”

I smile. “If it's spun right, not even the truth will be believed. So tell your truth and see where it gets you.”

Tai actually takes a moment to think. “You're saying a great offense is better than a great defense. Therefore I should—”

“Actually, I was thinking more of—”

“I could leak it that poor Marc hoped to sandbag his drooping rep by screwing me, but—news flash!—he's a lousy lay. I bet I can get backup for that. I know a woman he dated—”

“That's not—”

“Oh, but that's good!” Tai has a really nasty laugh.

I think my work is done here.

As I'm leaving she calls out, “Lu! You look fabulous! But I don't believe that crap about your boyfriends. Still, if you put it in your column, I'll print it.”