Charmed Thirds (8 page)

“Go home, chickadees!” she said, her voice painfully amplified, even for me, and I wasn’t hungover. “I’m too tuckered out to work. I declare the day after my birthday an official holiday from now on.”

Cheers erupted from around the room.

“Do you want my ideas?” I asked Tyra.

“Save them for tomorrow,” she said as she skipped out the door.

That was good news. It gave me all night to come up with pitches worthy of the magazine I loved. I was almost kind of relieved that Marcus was gone, because I could just hole myself up in the bedroom and work. Imagine my shock when I returned to the brownstone to find him sitting on the Oriental rug in the living room building a
LEGO
castle with Marin.

“Marcus! What are you still doing here?”

Marin crawled into Marcus’s lap. “Bethany asked me to stay.”

“You hung out with my sister all day?” I don’t think
I’ve
ever hung out with my sister all day.

“Well, Marin was here, too.”

“PEE! POO!” Marin yelled with delight before burying her face in Marcus’s shoulder.

Bethany entered the room with the phone to her ear, finishing up what was probably her tenth phone call of the day to G-Money. “Okay . . . okay . . . sure . . . ,” she said. “Okay . . . Will do! Sure . . . Okay . . . I love you!”

All of her phone conversations with her husband sound like this, and there were a lot of them. Since he was the co-owner of the Papa D’s/Wally D’s franchise, I didn’t quite understand why he had to personally oversee the operations of each and every new location. Couldn’t he hire some underling to do it for him? I said as much to him in our first and only conversation we’ve had since I’ve been here.

“Jessie,” he responded with stoic condescension, “this isn’t about opening up another store. It’s about my commitment to brand penetration.”

Then his Town Car honked outside and he was out the door, a blur of earth-toned khaki and Egyptian cotton. No good-bye. Not for me, not for Marin or Bethany. Not for anyone. I rolled my eyes then, much like I rolled my eyes when Bethany hung up the phone. Marcus shrugged. Marin demolished the castle with a karate chop.

“Hi-YA!”

“Jessie! Your boyfriend here is a natural with kids!”

I glanced at Marin, who was reaffirming this statement by gleefully wrapping Pinky the Poodle’s feather boa around Marcus’s neck.

“He should be a manny! I’d hire him in a second!”

Marin danced in circles around him, screeching with approval. “Pretty!”

“Tell me,” Marcus said, sensing my need for attention. “How was your day?”

I omitted the part about waiting around by myself for an hour and just cut straight to how cool and nice everyone was and how my opinion is highly valued because the next issue is
True on New Jersey.

“So the whole time you’re in New York, you have to think about home,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “The irony does not escape me.”

“It never does,” he said.

“PEE! POO!” added Marin, still spinning around Marcus.

“Sooooo . . . Jessie,” Bethany cooed. “I told Marcus that he is welcome to stay as long as he wants.”

Marcus gave me an
Isn’t-that-great?
grin.

I should have grinned back. Not only should I have been happy that at least one person supports our relationship, I should have been thrilled to spend more time with him. But I’d been looking forward to brainstorming ideas for Tyra. Plus, it was kind of disturbing to see him and Bethany so chummy. I don’t get along with my sister, so Marcus certainly shouldn’t be expected to.

I didn’t notice that they were waiting for me to say something until I felt the weight of their eyes on me.

“Awesome,” I said, finally. “Awesome.”

the fourth

Tyra thanked me for my ideas, but didn’t say anything else about them, which, I assume, means that she wasn’t blown away by my insights as I had wished. I had particularly high hopes about a piece I’d pitched about the reclamation of the pejorative “guido.” I supplemented my story idea with a “poem” (quotations necessary because it has no discernible rhyme or meter) written by the webmaster of jerseyguido.com:

FRIDAY
NIGHT
RALLY

BY
JOEY
“
THE
SAINT” SANTERELLO

You sit at your desk


Where you feel like a loser five days a week


It’s 4:30


Living for Friday night


Living for the shore


Where you’re always young and crazy


Even if you’re old and lazy


Go out, go wild, just go!


Just a half hour of hell left


Until you can head for heaven


You wipe away a tear


Thinking about that first beer


PARTY
LIKE
A
ROCK
STAR!!!

Yesterday I was summoned to Tyra’s office.

“What are you doing this weekend?” she asked.

“I’m spending it with my boyfriend,” I said vaguely.

The ambiguity was twofold. First, the only real plans I had for the Fourth involved having lots of loud, uninhibited sex with my boyfriend. My period had ended, but I couldn’t get freaky-deaky with Marin sleeping all goo-goo and innocent in the nursery next door. I didn’t want to be responsible for scarring her subconscious. I planned on taking full advantage of the fact that BG&M were headed for the Hamptons for the holiday.

And second, I hoped that this answer was sufficiently specific that I didn’t sound like a loser, yet noncommittal enough that maybe Tyra would give me an assignment for the magazine.

“You have a boyfriend?” She slapped her hands to her cheeks
Home Alone
style. “You don’t strike me as the type to have a boyfriend.”

“Uh.” Did I strike her as the type more likely to have a
girlfriend?
DAMN
THIS
HAIR
.

“You seem too independent to have a boyfriend,” she said.

Oh.

“Well, Marcus isn’t your typical boyfriend,” I said.

“Well, have fun with him,” she said.

Good advice. Since we’ve been in the city we haven’t had much fun. Together, that is. While I’ve been answering phones, opening mail, and fetching lattes, Marcus has been having a blast as Marin’s unofficial manny. Every day I come home to hear about how they’ve had a grand old time with Bethany, skipping along the promenade, sharing sticky-sweet Popsicles and hours and hours of laughs. I shouldn’t be surprised that Marcus has had such an effect on my sister and niece. He’s charmed Bethany and Marin just like he won over my grandmother Gladdie. His charisma spans the generations.

But I was tired of vying for his attention. I wanted to be alone with him. So you can imagine how crushed I was last night by the familiar sight of Marin and Marcus on the living room rug and Bethany pacing the hardwood floors with the phone pressed to her ear.

“Okay . . . love you!” she chirped before hanging up.

“Bethany,” I said. “Shouldn’t you be on the road already? What about all that Hamptons traffic?”

“Grant has to launch a new store this weekend,” Bethany said, “so we decided to stay here instead.”

Right, I thought. More brand penetration, less Jessica penetration.

I know this is her house and she can come and go as she pleases. I know that I am the visitor here and that I should be grateful for her hospitality. But
my
turf was being violated. Or rather,
not
violated. And so, I asked Marcus to join me for a private tête-à-tête in the guest room.

“We’ll have a barbecue on the roof,” Marcus said. “It’ll be cool. We can see the fireworks from there.”

I made a face like I’d just taken a swig from a cesspool-flavored soda.

Marcus touched the space between my eyes. “You’re getting a furrow right here from all your face-making.”

“King Kong Kitchee Kitchee Ki Me Oh!” Marin shouted from the living room.

Marcus saw my bewildered look. “It’s a song.” He hummed a few bars of the simple ditty.

“How do you do it?”

“Do what?” he asked.

“How do you get down on her level?” I asked.

“Marin’s a cool little kid . . .”

“I meant Bethany,” I replied.

“Oh.”

“But Marin, too. How is it that you got along so well with my grandmother, and now Marin and Bethany?”

“It’s not hard, Jessica.” He shrugged.

It reminded me of when people used to ask me how I rocked the
SAT
. “It’s not hard,” I’d say. And they’d stare at me the way I was staring at Marcus at that moment, with slack-jawed incredulity.

“We’re all people,” he said simply. “It doesn’t matter if you’re two, thirty-two, or ninety-two. Everyone wants to be treated with respect. Everyone wants to feel like they matter in this world.”

I sank onto the bed. His sincerity made me feel so soulless and mean.

“Your sister is not the banshee you make her out to be,” he continued. “I think motherhood has mellowed her out.”

There was evidence that this was true. For the first time in recent memory, my sister was talking like a normal person, no put-on faux-Euro accents or clipped, upper-class affectations.

“But is it so wrong for me to want to spend some time alone with you? I don’t get how you and my sister are suddenly bestest buds.”

“To tell you the truth, Jessica,” he said, “I feel sorry for her.”

“You feel sorry for her,” I said in a mechanized, emotionless monotone. “You feel sorry for my gorgeous, rich sister with the adorable baby and a multimillion-dollar brownstone.”

“Well, except for Marin, you should know that none of that stuff matters,” he said. “Have you also noticed that she doesn’t really have any friends? Or that her husband is on the phone more often than he is on the premises?”

“Well, sure . . .”

“Did you know that the reason Bethany doesn’t have any help with Marin is because her husband refuses to pay for a nanny?”

“G-Money won’t let her have a nanny?” I asked. “Bethany said she couldn’t find reliable child care.”

“She’s saving face,” he said, lowering his voice. “Grant says that being a mom should be Bethany’s full-time job.”

“Why doesn’t she just ignore him and hire a part-time babysitter to help her out?”

“Because he doesn’t want her to,” he whispered. “And Bethany doesn’t do what Grant doesn’t want her to do.”

I always suspected that what brought Bethany and G-Money together were their symmetrical facial features, low body fat, and mutual appreciation of money. They were a perfectly shallow, simple pair. It was kind of a shock to discover that even their marriage had complications.

“That’s so moronic,” I said. “I would never tolerate that.”

“I know you wouldn’t,” he said. “Which is why I love you. But not everyone is able to stand up for themselves. Not everyone is as independent as you are.”

That was the second time that someone had referred to me as independent. Which was incredibly ironic, since I was feeling more clingy and dependent on Marcus than I had since we had gotten together.

“Why do you even put up with me?”

“I’m not putting up with you,” he said, softly. “I’m loving you.”

This, of course, was supposed to make me feel better. Isn’t this what we all want, someone who accepts us as we are? But it had the opposite effect. As Marcus enters the Enlightenment, I seem to recess further and further into the Dark Ages. And I don’t know why.

“MMMMMMMMMAHCUSSSSSSSSS!”

Marin was pounding the door with her tiny fist.

“Jessica . . . ,” Marcus began.

“MMMMMMMMMAHCUSSSSSSSSS!”

“Well,” I said. “Don’t leave her waiting.”

He opened the door and Marin rushed into his arms.

“MMMMMMMMMAHCUSSSSSSSSS!”

So today it was the four of us for the Fourth. One big happy family. Marcus was right; we could see the fireworks from the roof.

Whoop-de-freaking-do. I would have preferred them in the bedroom.

the sixth

Marcus drove back to Pineville tonight because his dad is still hobbling around and needs his help at the repair shop. Of our good-byes, it was probably the least traumatic because I know I’m heading to Pineville next weekend.

It was worse for Marin, and Bethany by association. Marin literally clung to his leg and held on for dear life. She screamed, “MMMMMMMMMAHCUSSSSSSSSS!” for what seemed like hours. She wailed for Marcus until her little body wore out and she could only continue with a plaintive whimper that, while a relief to the eardrums, was devastating in its sadness.

Clearly, my niece needs a father figure. The only reason I’m not totally freaking out about the impropriety of her current pick is the knowledge that Marcus won’t be returning to the city any time soon. Marin will simply have to redirect her affections toward the mailman.

And if what Marcus says is true, I personally, privately, encourage Bethany to do the same.

the ninth

I’m pretty much a glorified secretary at
True.
The staff hasn’t really gone out of its way for me. They’re all perfectly pleasant when they ask me to fix the copy machine or send a fax, but no one has asked me to hang out after work or anything. They’re all busy in their cubes, and I’m busy in mine. They probably don’t see the point in getting to know another intern when I’ll be gone at the end of the month. It’s more practical than personal, and my complete lack of paranoia in this regard is proof of how much I’ve matured since my days at Pineville High.

Today I overheard Tyra and Smitty talking about a fashion show/ party where all the clothes are inspired by
Cops,
as in the TV show. Despite my new and mature attitude, I hope that maybe after some recent successes they’ll have more of a reason to want to invite me along.

See, one of my more editorial, less administrative duties is to read through a bunch of New Jersey newspapers and clip any local news stories that the editors might be able to exploit for the issue. I’m also supposed to be on the lookout for any cultural events that
True
might want to cover. The other day, I cut out an item about Shanny Silverberg, a New Jersey native whose most notable achievements are in her bra. Okay. I’m not being fair. She’s also known for being Bruce Willis’s barely legal girlfriend for a blink. Now all of twenty years old, she’s trying to reinvent herself as—natch—a lingerie designer. It was the first item I’d clipped that caught Tyra’s attention.