Switcheroo (16 page)

Marla bridled. “Firstly, I didn’t know he was married. Second, I’m not a thief. That thing that happened with the dress at Target was a mistake. I meant to pay for it. And fourth, when I met Bobby, I just didn’t know your daughter was such a giver.”

“She
is
a giver,” Mildred agreed. “Look how she gave all her wrinkles away.” Mildred stared at her daughter’s face. “It’s amazing,” she said. “You
do
look a decade younger. Did it hurt a lot?”

“Not at all,” Sylvie said and smiled.

“Did it cost a lot?”

“Oh, yeah.” Sylvie’s smile widened. “But I charged it. Bob won’t get the bill for a month.”

Mildred snorted, looked back at Marla, and returned her eyes to Sylvie’s face. “It is amazing,” she admitted. “Not just the surgery, but the resemblance. No wonder it unhinged you.” She took her daughter’s hand. “Thank god for your coping skills.”

Sylvie smiled at her mother. Marla smiled at Mildred too, though Mildred paid her no mind. It didn’t deter Marla. Kittenish, she sat down on the floor at the foot of what was now Mildred’s chair. “You are
so
lucky to have a mother like Mom,” she said to Sylvie.

Mildred snorted. “And your mother would be…?”

Marla’s pretty face registered that look of pain.

“Framed by the cops,” she said earnestly. “There’s, like, no way she could have embezzled that money. She wasn’t even good at math.”

Mildred’s eyes opened so wide Sylvie was afraid they’d need Dr. Hinkle for reconstruction if they opened any wider. “Mom, can we take a walk?” Sylvie asked, attempting to get out of bed. Mildred helped her daughter tenderly, despite shaking her head in disapproval. “I’m supposed to keep my blood circulating,” Sylvie told Mildred. “No embolisms for this girl.”

“No. Save them for Bob,” Mildred agreed.

Marla jumped up. “I’ll help you,” she offered.

“Why don’t you fetch some water for that plant instead?” Mildred suggested to Marla. “It looks as if it needs it.” She gestured toward the tired corn plant in the corner.

“Oh, I’m not very good with that kind of thing,” Marla admitted, missing Mildred’s point. “I guess I’m just a green dumb.”

“I think my mom wants time with me,” Sylvie said gently.

“Oh.
Oh
. Okay. Sure. I’ll just study my notes,” Marla told them, sounding more than a little crushed, and looking at the equally crushed note pad in the seat Mildred had just vacated. “Sure. I’ll review my notes alone so I know where everything of Bobby’s—”

“Bob’s,” Sylvie corrected.

“Oh. Right. So I know where everything of
Bob’s
is, except for those missing cuff links.” She winked at Mildred. “Mom, can I expect you for Thanksgiving? It’s my favorite holiday. And I can’t wait to cook for
Bob
.”

“You’re letting her do Thanksgiving?” Mildred asked Sylvie, obviously appalled. Sylvie nodded. “We’re
not
coming,” Mildred told Marla emphatically.

Sylvie led Mildred out of the room and into the hall. Women were walking back and forth slowly, some holding onto the grab rails. They
all
had cone heads. As they passed, Sylvie overheard two talking: “This one was free because he didn’t pull enough the first time,” a middle-aged woman was explaining to an older one. “Hinkle’s good that way. He corrects. Last time he didn’t take out enough skin to make a wallet.”

“I know what you mean,” the other said. “I told him ‘I don’t want to look rested, goddamnit, I want to look
young
.’”

Mildred, sighing heavily, shook her unencumbered head. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but I know it’s no good,” Mildred told Sylvie. “You’re scaring me. Why can’t you be like your sister, Ellen? She’s accepted the fact that she’s growing older and never going to have sex again. Just as I have.”

“
You’re
scaring
me
, Mom.”

“No. You’re scaring me. What is this, Sylvie? I admit, the girl’s a dead ringer for you. It’s shocking. It…it…obliterates you. But what are you trying for? A ménage à trois? Because I simply can’t condone—”

“Mom, please. I’ve got everything under control,” Sylvie said, and then explained the entire plan—how it could work, and if it did how she’d get everything she wanted: Bob making love to her
and
being made a fool of. “Then I’ll be able to dump him,” she said. “Or maybe I won’t; I’ll just dump Marla.”

“Sylvie, it was the inside, not the outside, of your head Dr. Hinkle should have operated on. Aren’t you scared about letting another woman into your home? Into your
bed
? How can you trust her? A shoplifter, the daughter of an embezzler? Have you made her take a blood test? You’ve lost your mind, and next you’ll lose your marriage.”

“I don’t have it now. I know it’s a family tradition, Mother, but I’m not going to be celibate for the rest of my life.”

“And what if Bob falls in love with her?”

“Love? Don’t be ridiculous. He’s going to think she’s his wife.”

Mildred paused for a minute, blinked, shook her head and then laughed and hugged her daughter.

Sylvie was sitting at the piano in the spa lounge playing “If They Could See Me Now.” It was one of Lou’s favorites, but he played it like a dirge. Marla was supposed to be trying to act the teacher’s part. She had her hand under her chin, and kept nodding. She was also keeping time—off the beat—with her foot. Even Lou, depressed and talentless as he was, would notice
that
. Sylvie shook her head. Whatever other talents Marla Molensky had, she was not musical. She knew nothing about classical music, couldn’t play any instrument and, apparently, couldn’t even sing. Sylvie purposely made a couple of horrendous flats, but Marla kept moving her head as if the music was played perfectly. Finally Sylvie stopped, but not before she banged her fist on the keyboard. “Marla! Listen! I told you! You’re supposed to interrupt a student when you hear mistakes.”

“I will! As soon as I hear one,” Marla promised cheerfully. Then she dropped her voice. “I’m not really that good at confrontation, though.”

Sylvie sighed. Well, few of her students seemed to listen to her comments anyway, so she guessed Marla could fake it for a week or two before the holiday.

The two of them were having lunch, or something that passed for it. Sylvie was only being given a protein-rich diet drink while Marla would get a feast. Both had pads and pens next to their plates. They were at one end of a long communal table, simultaneously talking and writing, cross-instructing. Marla, not yet served, watched Sylvie sip her drink, trying to make it last. “Sylvie, stop! You don’t need all that,” Marla said.

Sylvie looked down at the pathetic diet glass, only half empty. “Marla, I—” but before she could finish, something else had caught Marla’s attention.

“Oh my god,” Marla said, pointing to the plate of the woman beside her. “What are you doing?”

The woman looked down, a guilty expression already on her face, though all Sylvie could see on the dinner tray was the prescribed diet meal: a butterless baked potato, a single small skinless chicken breast, and some shredded cabbage salad that passed for coleslaw. “I wasn’t going to eat the whole potato,” the woman said defensively.

“Oh, you can eat the potato,” Marla told her, “but you can’t eat it with that animal protein. Do you want to kill yourself? Starch and proteins just do
not
combine. Do you know how long they will lie in your stomach and rot?” The woman shook her head. “You know, in nature, animals eat only one kind of food at a time,” she continued, “You don’t see a cow eating grass and then fruit and then protein, do you?”

By now, the whole table was looking at Marla. “Are you calling me a cow?” the woman asked, her face flushing with anger. She was a bit bovine, Sylvie noted. “Who died and made you dietician?” the cow demanded. “I don’t even know why
you’re
here.” Several of the other women at the table nodded. “You’re thin enough. In fact, you’re perfect. What’s your goal? To be anorexic?”

Marla reached her hand down the table and gently took the heavy woman’s in hers. “I’m just trying to help,” she said. “There are simple rules about food combining that make
all
the difference. You can eat all you want—you just have to be careful not to combine it with the wrong things.”

“And don’t you eat at all?” asked a chunky middle-aged brunette. She looked Marla over. “I’m Brenda Cushman from New York City, and I know about diets.”

“Oh, I eat. I’m just waiting for my tray,” Marla told her.

Sylvie figured she better jump in before there was a revolution. “Marla, everyone eats protein with a starch. Chicken with rice. Meat and potatoes. Tuna noodle casserole.”

“Well, everyone is wrong. That’s why they all look so bad. If you eat protein, you can only combine it with green vegetables. Or you can have fruit with vegetables, but never fruit with protein.” She looked at the rest of the table. “And remember, ladies,” she reminded them all, “a tomato is a fruit, not a vegetable.”

The Brenda woman glared at Marla. “I’m only here because my daughter Angela’s getting married and I’m not going to be a fat mother-of-the-bride in front of my ex-husband Morty.” Then she turned to the heavy woman beside her. “She’s a fruit,” muttered the Brenda Something as she motioned toward Marla with her head.

“No, a nut,” added a woman Sylvie had noticed earlier. The poor thing was thin from the waist up but had a huge behind and deeply dimpled thighs.

“Oh, nuts are something you have to be
very
careful with,” Marla said to Dimples.

“Don’t I know it,” agreed Sylvie. She could see that revolution was about to erupt. Marla was too young, too slim, too pretty, and too annoying to be popular here. Then, for her to have the nerve to give advice—and such wacky advice at that—was…“Marla, I’m not sure if everyone is interested,” Sylvie warned.

Marla shrugged. “Well,” she said cheerfully, “it’s their funeral.” She turned to the table at large. “You’re just digging your graves with your teeth.”

The New York woman looked up from her cantaloupe and cottage cheese plate. “That’s an attractive image at lunch,” she snapped.

Marla looked in her direction. “Oh, no!” she exclaimed. “You’re eating
cheese
with that cantaloupe? Don’t you know what we say? Melon: eat it alone or leave it alone.”

“Leave
me
alone,” the woman from New York snapped and very deliberately took a big scoop of her cottage cheese, mixed it with a chunk of melon, and chewed it with her mouth open.

At that moment one of the staff arrived, at last, with Marla’s own tray. There, steaming, in front of everyone, were three thick slices of meat loaf, a big portion of macaroni and cheese, and a salad swimming in oil. To top it off, there was also a slice of banana cream pie. Sylvie looked up longingly from her protein-and-wheat-grass-juice. All of the other women stared. Marla looked down at the plate. She shrugged apologetically. “Well,” she said, “I’m here to try and look like her,” and she gestured to Sylvie with her fork before she took her first bite. Then, her mouth full, her face became blissful. “I never knew you could eat like this,” Marla crooned. “Being a wife is a wonderful thing.”

Sylvie was having long, fake talons applied to her fingers by someone called a “nail technician” while Marla, sitting beside her, was getting her own nails clipped, which proved to be a traumatic event for her.

“My hands look awful now,” she moaned. “Even if I get an engagement ring, I couldn’t show it off with these little M&M’s at the ends of my fingers.” She stretched out her hands mournfully.

But Sylvie felt as bad, or maybe worse. “No wonder you can’t play the piano,” she exclaimed. “How could you massage feet or do
anything
with nails like these?” she asked, extending her own hand and staring at her new Anne Rice vampire look.

“It’s something you just know from birth,” Marla said smugly. “And when I hit those acupressure points, believe me, people stand up and take notice.”

“How can they stand up if you’re massaging their feet?” Sylvie asked.

“I was speaking metabolically,” Marla told her. Then she stood up herself, with as much dignity as a woman whose name ended with an “a” could muster. “And now,” she said, “I have to go and tinkle.”

They were eating again, if you could call it that. Their meals with the other spa guests were, in Sylvia’s opinion, getting dangerous. All the other women, cranky from food deprivation, envied and despised Marla. Some snubbed her openly. And all of them wanted her food, which Marla ate with gusto and speed, though she complained that since she’d been declawed she was having trouble using her fork. Sylvie had finally been taken off the protein drinks and was now being served a tiny salad, a bit of fish, and three small cooked carrots. The group of women at the table invariably talked about food; what they’d like to be serving for Thanksgiving—or wanted to have on their plates right at that moment. Sylvie tried not to listen—their talk made her stomach rumble.

“I’m going to lose four more pounds,” said the chunky woman from New York. “Then, when I get out of here, I’m going to eat an entire pumpkin pie from the bakery on the way home.”

At the other end of the table a newcomer was giving advice. “If you put sugar in the stuffing, they’ll come back for more,” she counseled the woman next to her.

“They’re not fooling me or anyone with that spaghetti squash. If that’s pasta, I’m Kate Moss,” the brassy blonde next to Marla was saying to anyone who was listening. Sylvie was amazed at how obsessed they all were with food. Was she? The woman next to Sylvie looked over at her, trying to involve her in the conversation. “You know what’s good for Thanksgiving? Candied yams, but topped off with a pound of whipped cream instead of marshmallows.”

“Really?” Sylvie tried to act surprised. She’d eat a foam cushion if it was topped with whipped cream.

As all of the women were chatting, each of them continued to look at Marla’s plate. A few newcomers elbowed one another. Marla was the only one who had tempting food mounded high. And she was eating maniacally while everyone else pushed their carrots around on their plates. She might have food theories but she was eating like a trucker at the last good diner before the turnpike. Marla finally looked up from her feeding frenzy and motioned for the server to come over. “Can I have more butter?” Marla asked.