Lauren Takes Leave (42 page)

“Excellent!” Kat says, disconnecting and dropping her
phone back into her handbag. “Don’t be mad,” she says to me.

“O
kay
,” I say, making eye contact with her in the
rearview mirror.

“Shay’s going to meet us there.”

“O
kay
,” I say, trying to remain calm.

“Shay Greene?” Doug asks. “Newly elected Hadley School
Board president?”

“That’d be the one,” I say.

“You guys know her?” Doug asks.

“Mmm-hmm,” Kat adds.

“Part of the week’s festivities,” I say.

I mean, how much truth does one
really
have to
divulge to one’s husband?

And then I decide: all of it.

I exit the highway and pull onto the streets of Hadley.
“Kat fooled around with Shay and it was caught on Leslie’s nanny cam, and also
I swung around a pole and gashed a hole in Leslie’s face, plus I sort of got to
third base with a toilet.” There. That should explain it.

“Which was also caught on nanny cam,” Kat adds. “The
face-gashing part, anyway. And Leslie’s threatening to blackmail us with it.
And maybe sue Lauren. So we’re going to get the evidence and destroy it!”

“Is that why Leslie had that bandage on and those huge
sunglasses? It looked like she had cataracts removed after falling down a
flight of stairs,” Doug says.

“Nope,” Kat says. “Us happened.”

“Though she’s totally lying about the black eye being my
fault,” I add.

“True, that,” Kat confirms. “Which is another reason why
we need the videos.”

“A regular Watergate,” Doug says, looking out the window. I
am pretty sure the corners of his mouth turn upward when he says this.

I cut the lights on my car as we pull onto Leslie’s
street. Passing by her house, I park at a bend in the road a little ways down,
which Kat refers to as the official rendezvous spot. Sure enough, there is a
gold Mercedes S class waiting for us in the darkness.

I flash my lights and Shay emerges, wearing skinny black
cargos, platform booties and a wrap cardigan.

Doug rolls down the window on his side. Shay leans in,
enveloping the car in her flowery perfume. “I’ve got the security code for the
alarm.” She grins. “Meet me by the basement entrance.” She drapes one fold of
her long sweater over her shoulder and hurries down the block.

“Who
are
you people?” Doug wants to know.

“We’re members of the elite Hadley Union Free School
District,” Kat explains, once we’re all assembled by the French doors leading
out onto Leslie’s terraced, overly landscaped backyard. “Merely welcoming our
new school board president into the fold. Now someone hand me a credit card.”

“This won’t work,” I say, digging through my wallet and
handing her a plastic card.

“Because you maxed it out this week?” Doug wants to know.

“Good one, Mr. Worthing!” Kat says. “You just might prove
to be better company that Lenny.”

“Who’s Lenny?” Shay wants to know. “Kat, you don’t need
that. Just pick up the mat. There’s a key underneath.”

“A YouTube rapping sensation,” Kat jokes, pretending to
swoon. She finds the key and hands me back my card. “This is going to be the
easiest breaking and entering I’ve ever done.”

“How many have you done?” I want to know.

“Not MC Lenny Katzenberg?” Shay asks.

“Yes, MC Lenny Katzenberg!” I say.

“Four or so,” Kat says. “If you don’t count college.”

“He’s so cute!” Shay gushes. “I
love
his videos.
Especially that one about Obama, did you see that one?”

“Great,” I concur. “One of his all-time best.”

“Can everyone just shut the fuck up about Lenny Katzenberg,
please?” Doug shouts. “And is that a cat I see, on the other side of the door?”

“Oh no,” I say. “Here we go with the cats.”

Kat opens the door, and Shay slides in to quickly turn off
the beeping alarm. We follow her to the front hall, where she opens a closet
and deftly punches in a series of numbers.

“I house-sit sometimes.” Shay shrugs, noticing our silence.
“It comes in handy.”

“I’ll bet,” Doug says. Turning to me, he adds, “Let’s move
out of district. On Monday.” A gray tabby mews from the corner archway leading
into the kitchen. “And someone lock that thing in a bathroom.”

Shay does.

“Yes, my husband is afraid of house pets,” I confirm to
Shay and Kat as we plan out a strategy for canvassing the house.

Doug, scratching his legs furiously even though the cat is
now securely out of the way, volunteers to be our watchman.

I turn to him and sigh, reaching up to kiss him on the
forehead. “You’re not allergic. We had you tested, remember?”

He shrugs and goes out the front door, hiding behind one
of the huge columns. “I’ll alert you with a bird call if I see someone
approaching,” he says.

“I can really see MC Lenny’s appeal,” Shay says. “Now,
let’s get cracking, shall we?”

Eight minutes later, the entire house has been canvassed
for hidden cameras, with most of our search focusing on the living room and the
guest bedrooms.

“I found one in an air purifier,” Shay says, calling down
from upstairs. “From the room we were in, Kat.”

“Score,” Kat says, simultaneously finding and removing a
small camera from the back of an air freshener that was plugged into a socket
in the living room.

“That’s going to be mine!” I say.

“Good,” Kat says. “Then we located the most incriminating
two. Let’s get out of here.”

”Wait.” I say. “I need to check Leslie’s bathroom before
we go.”

I pass Shay on the curved staircase. “Try a mirror!” she
suggests. “Or, like, a clock radio? But hurry!”

I enter the oversized bathroom and begin to look around. I
notice a small Renuzit room freshener and grab it. For good measure, I also
take the goose-necked vanity mirror sitting on the counter next to the sink.
And one of those plug-in night-lights.

“We good?” Kat asks as I hurry down the plushly carpeted
stairs.

“I guess,” I say, surveying my armload of random items. I
don’t know whether to hope that I’ve got a recording of my actions or to hope
that Leslie doesn’t put hidden surveillance in her bathrooms.

“Then, off with the lights…” Shay says, hitting a switch
in the corner. “And I’m going to reset the alarm…and…go!”

We head en masse back through the dining room and out the
French doors. Kat locks them and slips the key back under the mat while I reshuffle
the items cradled in my arms.

My silk shirt sticks to my back and I realize that I’m
sweating.

“Well done, everyone,” Shay says, always the leader. “I’ll
upload the video at home and let you know what we’ve got.”

From the other side of the glass, I can just barely hear
Leslie’s cat meowing loudly in protest from his powder-room prison.

“Back to temple, people!” Kat says as we head through some
bushes and around to the front of Leslie’s property line. We signal to Doug,
who meets us at the curb.

Kat stops at our car and turns to say good-bye to Shay,
kissing her chastely on both cheeks. “You’re the balls, Shay. Thanks a
million.”

“Lotsa fun,” she says, closing the trunk of her luxury
automobile on all the stolen goods. “Hey, we should all hang some time. Go for
drinks?”

“Um…maybe!” I say, pushing Kat into the backseat and
slamming the door before she can respond.

“Well, that went off without a hitch,” Kat says, settling
into her seat. She checks her phone. “Jodi says not to worry and that she’s
praying for us.”

“
Might have
gone off without a hitch,” Doug says.
“Conditional tense.”

“What are you talking about?” I say. “We were brilliant in
there! Like the A-Team or something.” Doug’s always such a glass half-empty to
my glass half-full.

I accelerate as we get on the ramp to the highway,
slightly annoyed and buzzkilled by my husband’s underwhelming response to what
is clearly a coup for Team Lauren.

“I agree that you got some of what we came for, and that
that part of the mission was a complete success,” Doug starts. “But…” He trails
off.

“Out with it,” Kat says.

“First. Why did you steal all that stuff? When Leslie
notices that her mirror is missing, won’t she become suspicious? Won’t that
make her want to look at the footage that was recorded there earlier? Or,
perhaps, other footage?”

“But see, my dear Watson,” I explain, using my Sherlock
Holmes voice, “Leslie won’t
be able
to see the footage because we stole
the cameras and the recording devices that held it!”

“But while you were inside Leslie’s house, I started
thinking. Doesn’t all the information get backed up?” he asks.

“That’s why I took her iBook laptop!” Kat exclaims. I
reach my hand up from the steering wheel so that Kat can give me a high five
from the backseat.

“See, we’ve thought of everything.” I say.

“The Cloud,” Doug says, shaking his head. “The Cloud.”

“Oh. My. God. The Cloud.” Kat echoes. I have no idea what
they’re mumbling about. Then Kat starts moving her hands in sweeping, circular
motions, like she’s conjuring a phantom from the air. I watch for a second in
the rear view mirror and begin to understand.

“You mean…all the data in Leslie’s house is automatically
backed up to some server in cyberspace?” I ask slowly.

“Instantly, probably,” Doug says. “And what about the rest
of the nanny cams?” he asks into the silence. “The ones we
didn’t
take?
The ones that probably recorded you running around Leslie’s house just now?”

His words hang in the air as Kat and I consider this. It’s
lucky that I know where I’m going, because I need to do it on autopilot; my
mind is completely transfixed with an image of several nanny cams recording my
removal of several
other
nanny cams. I’m sure we didn’t get them all; we
weren’t even trying to.

As I pull into the parking lot of Temple Beth El for the
second time tonight, I have to wonder: Just how brainless are we?

Kat pulls out her BlackBerry and begins tapping away.

“I hope you have a direct line to God,” I joke, handing my
car keys to Moses.

“Trust me,” she says. “Shay’s Godlike.”

“At this point, do we have any other choice but to trust
Kat?” Doug says, taking my hand and leading me back up the temple steps. “And
Shay?”

I squeeze his hand tightly, smiling at his use of the
plural pronoun. “Not really,” I admit. “But it doesn’t bode well that our fate
rests in the power of their texting.”

Big-band music echoes through the temple hallways as we
enter the building. “Perfect timing! It must be the dinner and dancing portion
of the evening,” Doug says.

“Act nonchalant,” Kat says, air-kissing us good-bye as she
pushes through one of the sets of double doors. Doug and I wait a beat before
doing the same. We try to get to our table, but are immediately engulfed by
partygoers boogying across the parquet floor.

“Wanna dance?” Doug asks shyly.

Our phone conversation in Miami comes rushing back to me.
He remembers.

I nod eagerly. We embrace and sway together slowly, not
caring that the upbeat tune calls for something more like a Lindy than a waltz.

When the song ends, we take our seats for dessert.

“So?” Jodi asks, sliding her petite tush onto my chair
with me. I scoot over to make room. She looks from me to Doug. “How’d it go?”

“Great! Good,” Doug says, clearly trying to make up for
his sobering, rational point of view in the car. “No problems. It went off
without a hitch, to use Kat’s words.”

“
Ex
cellent!” Jodi purrs. “And,” she asks, looking
from me to Doug and back again, “are you two co-pathetic?”

“Copasetic?” Doug asks aloud.

“Great!” Jodi concludes. “Now if only my night could run
as smoothly.” She scans the room, appraising the competition one final time.
“That trustee over there with the toupee and the cane is surprisingly light on
his feet.”

“I have a feeling you’ll be happy with the outcome, Jo,” I
say, smiling inwardly.

Chocolate mousse in a Star of David chocolate-molded cup
is set in front of each place setting. Jodi eagerly moves back to her chair to
devour her dessert, speaking to her daughters and me between bites.

“You know, girls, you should be very proud of mommy and
learn from my example. I worked really
hard
! I was so
nervous
.
But now it’s all behind me and I’ll always have the
memories
.” There’s
nothing quite like watching Jodi wax philosophical. She stares off to the
middle distance above Great-Aunt Elaine and sighs. “It was a
once
-in-a-lifetime
event, and I’m just
glad
I got to participate in it.”

“So, you don’t care anymore who the winner is?” I have to
ask.

“No! Of course I still
care
,” she scoffs, pouring
herself an extra large glass of Mt. Eden pinot noir from a half-empty bottle on
the table. “You do think it’ll be
me
, don’t you?”

Lee comes over to the table and takes a seat to my right.

“You look relieved,” Doug says. I nod my head in
agreement.

“Nah, Worthing, just proud of myself.” He digs into the
mousse. Mouth full of foamy dessert, he explains, “I decided to buy a few extra
ballots, to, you know, secure the outcome.” His voice drops a level and he nods
in Jodi’s direction. “The competition this year was
fierce
. All the men
from morning minyan are voting for Morris.”

Luckily, Jodi’s too busy retying her daughters’ hair bows
to notice our whispering.

I think of all the ballots Kat and I already filled out in
Jodi’s favor, and wince inwardly at the unnecessary expense Lee just doled out.

“How many did you buy?” Doug asks.

Lee holds out his palm. Five isn’t bad, I think. Unless he
means fifty?