The Chocolate Money (7 page)

Babs is disappointed with the pool. She says it looks more Wisconsin-backyard than
Love Boat,
but I’m still impressed. I climb up one of the ladders. Three female mannequins float facedown in the water, wearing only bras and underwear. The kind women wear in
Playboy.
See-through in the back; silk bows or intricate lace in the front. Babs doesn’t wear things like this. Says men who get off on this kind of lingerie have to work to maintain erections or tend to prematurely ejaculate. I wonder if she bought them herself or sent Stacey to Victoria’s Secret.

The mannequins’ synthetic hair and plastic limbs give them away. They aren’t real people. But the effect is still creepy. I get off the ladder. That night, I hear some people saying the pool is just in bad taste. Especially since Babs’s parents drowned. I feel embarrassed for Babs. But why did they come? Why not just check the Pooper option on the invitation? Stay home. Everyone knows Babs always does things like this.

Waiters and waitresses dressed up like the crew of a cruise ship are already hard at work. They walk around with brown plastic trays and order pads. Getting the mood right before anyone arrives. They balance piña coladas and daiquiris, concoctions with fruit and straws in them.

Babs absolutely hates straws. They are for lazy people who can’t be bothered to lift glasses to their lips. For fat people who need to get in as many calories as fast as possible. Perfect for the party. But whenever we go to a restaurant, Babs makes me take the straw out of my glass. Put it off to the side. I feel bad because the discarded straw always leaves a wet spot on the tablecloth that seems sloppier and more offensive than the straw itself. Reminds me of the wet stick oozing from a deflated condom I once found out on the back terrace of the aparthouse after a party.

I do it anyway. Babs says you can always tell how a person has been raised by what he or she does with a straw.

I appreciate what the waiters are doing. I am in what Babs refers to as my actress period. I make up elaborate routines to the albums of Broadway shows Babs has seen in New York City. She gave me a pink boom box for Christmas. One of the best gifts ever. I spend hours in my room, practicing. Babs likes the music I choose. Songs with swearwords in them. Ballads sung by men about love affairs gone wrong.

A week before the Hangover-Brunch Cruise Party, Babs rewards my efforts.

“Bettina,” she says, “why don’t you do one of your little numbers at the party for my friends? You work so hard on them. I just know they must be amusing.”

“I would love to, Babs.” Trying to sound professional, not excited.

My current repertoire is from
A Chorus Line.
I especially like a song I call “Tits and Ass.” It’s about a woman with a body that no one likes. She can’t get famous until she buys new parts for it. I’ve memorized all of the words. When I lip-synch, it really looks like me singing.

When I practice, I think about Mack watching me. Imagine that he will clap louder than anyone else. Get me a drink of water when I’m done. Let me sit on his lap while Babs talks to her other guests. I’ll impress him in a way I failed to when we were together on Babs’s bed.

The night of the party, Babs and I get ready with Tally and her daughter, Frances. Tally’s real name is Natalie. She started calling herself Tally after the divorce, thinking people would take her for a different person. She and Babs go on fun outings together. Take exotic trips. Their favorite thing to do is a game called speed shopping. They agree on an amount of money—say, ten thousand dollars—and go to stores like Gucci. See who can spend it faster. The only rules are that you cannot use a personal shopper and have to buy things that you will use. No returns allowed.

Tally has another vocation apart from these activities, which is a first for a Babs friend. Tally writes the Diary of an Heiress series: a Rolodex heiress who travels the world, works low-paying jobs just for fun, and sleeps with men she meets along the way. Tally’s written five of them so far. They piss Babs off. She claims Tally has no talent and does nothing but poach Babs’s experiences. But more than a small part of her likes to see herself in print, so she lets it go.

Babs’s bathroom is as much a room as her bedroom or the kitchen. It has plush peach wall-to-wall. A peach marble bathtub. Matching pedestal sink. There’s also a brown suede sofa covered with peach-tasseled silk pillows. You can’t sit on it when you’re wet, but it looks cool.

Tally is sitting on the sofa, smoking. She wears a white silk robe trimmed with fur. Matching mules. Babs is stationed at her vanity getting hair and makeup done by
the boys,
Geoff and Jasper. Her robe is not belted. We all have a good view of her sheer skin-colored lingerie. It does nothing to hide her nipples and pubic hair. She always gets ready like this, so it’s not shocking. Babs has no private parts.

Frances and I are sitting Indian-style at our mothers’ feet. I love Frances. I don’t have to explain Babs to her. She doesn’t talk a lot and is always willing to try out my ideas.

Geoff has pulled Babs’s blond hair up in a messy twist. Strands are falling about her face. Bobby pins are jabbed in at odd angles. Now, she is moving on to makeup. Babs has her eyes closed, her face open to Jasper.

“Jas,” she says, “the idea is to make me look hung over but still up for a good fuck. Disheveled, but not dirty. Think about last night’s makeup, a short press in the pillows, and a gooey app of gloss as touchup. Also, we are on a cruise, so turn up the tacky.”

Jasper laughs and applies foundation. He picks up some rouge from Babs’s second drawer and smears it across one cheek like a gash.

Frances and I are also wearing robes. But they are part of our costumes, ordered especially for the party. Blue and white stripes, and short, falling just over our fannies. On the back, they say
SS
BABS,
CREW.
Underneath, we wear white bikinis that have blue sequin
B
s on the triangles where boobs are supposed to go. We get to wear blue high heels, and we have jobs to do.

Frances’s pocket is stuffed with Alka-Seltzer and aspirin packets. She’s supposed to give them out as people arrive. I have two Rx pads with the names of drinks on them, ones that Babs has invented: hula happiness; decadence on deck. I’m supposed to hand one to anyone who looks sober or not completely into it.

We also get to have our makeup done, but only after Tally and Babs are finished.

Just then Lily comes in carrying a silver tray. I can always tell when she’s coming. Her pantyhose rub together at her thighs when she walks and make a swishing sound.

“Here you are, Miss Tabitha,” Lily says.

On the tray is a large crystal pitcher of ice water. The ice is not in cubes, like regular ice, but in disks that have arched holes, like sand dollars. The water can pass right through them. Sliver-thin rounds of oranges, limes, and lemons float on top. A delicate wineglass flanks the pitcher. The glass is wide and deep like a pregnant tulip might be, frosted with cold. A bunch of frozen purple grapes huddle in a silver bread basket, and a pair of silver scissors is tucked inside to cut them off their stems. Three squares of dark chocolate the size of butter pats sit smack in the middle of a Bernardaud dinner plate. Babs’s pre-party dinner. Always the same.

“Thank you, Lily,” Babs says, her eyes still closed.

“Lily,” Tally says, eyeing the tray, “I would love a glass of white wine, please. Two ice cubes. Some potato chips. With Dijon mustard and a side of cayenne pepper. And a Mint Milano cookie.”

Tally’s just making this order up as she goes along. Wants to look like she’s as specific about food as Babs is. But even I know you don’t put ice cubes in wine.

Lily takes her seriously and says in a respectful voice, “Yes, Mrs. O’Mara.”

She looks at me and Frances sitting on the floor. I see her wondering about our shoes. I don’t feel as excited anymore. When Lily looks worried, I start to get worried too. It’s as if she can see something coming that I can’t.

“Miss Tabitha,” she says, “should I get the girls something to eat?”

“In the kitchen, Lily,” Babs says. “I will send them down when they are finished. Just make sure they don’t get in the way of the caterers.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Where is Stacey?”

“I believe she is getting ready.”

“Ready? For what?”

“For the party. She told me she would be just a minute.”

“Tell her to get her ass up here. I need her to rub the girls down with coconut oil. She is probably going at it with her home waxing kit again. She seems to think that we’re really going on a cruise and that she’ll be sitting by the pool tanning her armpits. I’m all for authenticity, but not on my dime.

“And I really don’t give a fuck what her bikini line looks like. Plus, the last time she took off almost half of an eyebrow, and I can’t have people working for me looking like that.”

“Yes, Miss Tabitha.” Lily looks down at me again. I know she loves me no matter what, but I’m afraid one day she’ll go and find people to work for who don’t use swearwords.

Lily picks up the pitcher and fills Babs’s glass. No matter how many times I have seen Lily do this, I’m still in awe of how precise it is. How beautiful.

I decide that I’ll concoct a special drink just for Frances and me. It’ll have a lot of alcohol. We don’t want to look sober or detached. At least I don’t. I’m not entirely sure about Frances. She still orders chocolate milk when we go out to eat with our mothers. When it arrives, Babs always looks at me. Does an eye roll that says
Can you believe we are with these stupid fucking people?

Jasper finishes Babs’s cheeks and reaches into his makeup case for a pot of blue eye shadow. The blue is the color of cotton candy, gaudy but sweet and edible. Not a Babs color at all. Looks like something Stacey would wear.

Jasper smudges a heavy layer of the Stacey blue on Babs’s eyelids and then dusts each one with silver sparkles. When he’s done, Babs looks like she has been iced with cupcake frosting. I wonder if, later on in the evening, Mack will suck on these delicious-looking eyelids until his lips and teeth turn blue.

I want to casually ask Babs if Mack is coming to the party; she hasn’t mentioned him once and I am worried this means something. But I don’t dare. Babs knows I am rarely if ever casual about anything. She has emphatically told me that I’m to have nothing to do with him. If she senses I’m too interested in him, she might take away my dance number. Send me to my room so I will miss the whole party.

Babs opens her eyes. Leans into the mirror and checks out Jasper’s work.

“Jesus Christ, Jasper! You nailed it. If I weren’t the fucking hostess of this itty-bitty boat bash, I might just head over to Randy’s and see if they would hire me for the twelve-to-eight shift.

“Think of the possibilities. I could pour coffee and take down orders on those little pads. Who eats in the middle of the night anyway? I just adore those gold-tin ashtrays they have. I’ve always wondered if they throw them away or wash them for reuse.”

Randy’s is the all-night diner on North Avenue, right across the street from Chicago Day. A lot of moms have breakfast there after dropping their kids off. I’m not quite sure how Babs knows so much about it.

Tally laughs.

“It would be
so
interesting, Babsy. I know a lot of hookers go there after work.”

Tally calls Babs Babsy because she thinks it is a good nickname. But Babs isn’t the kind of person you make up names for.

“Hookers are not interesting, Tally. Drag queens, yes. That’s art. Hookers are just women who fuck men for cash. Where’s the story in that?”

Diminished, Tally pinches the neck of her cigarette with her thumb and forefinger, lifts it up to her mouth. She can’t even get smoking right.

“Well, Babsy,” Tally begins tentatively, trying to regain her footing. Babs would probably be more inclined to take Tally seriously if Tally leaned forward and kicked the back of Frances’s neck.

“I wasn’t necessarily thinking about what they
did,
but they would surely be interesting people to
talk
to.”

Babs just says,

“
You
go to Randy’s dressed like a hooker and see what happens.”

Forty-five minutes later, Frances and I are as heavily made up as the grownups. Sparkly eyes and gooey lips. Just off-kilter. Just like Babs. Our hair is teased high on top of our heads, and Babs has Jasper smudge gray eye shadow under our eyes so we look tired.

Stacey finally arrives with two bottles of Coppertone and rubs the lotion into Frances’s and my skin. She gets all the spots. On the soles of our feet and between our fingers. As if we are really just children going to the beach.

Frances and I are in the kitchen, surrounded by the catering crew. We each have a plate of brunch cruise food: pineapple, watermelon, strawberries, and mango. Slices of bacon. We eat carefully so we do not smear our lipstick. When we are through, I’m going to get our party drinks made. It is almost seven o’clock. People will be arriving soon.

I go to the living room. Frances follows closely behind. In addition to the waiters, there are now several photographers wearing Polaroid cameras and leis with real hibiscus around their necks. There are tan women wearing grass skirts and bikini tops. Undulating their hips. Peter Duchin plays “Escape
(the Piña Colada Song),” with the din of ukuleles in the background. There are at least six ukulele players wandering through the aparthouse strumming “Tiny Bubbles.” I wonder where Babs found all these people.

I walk over to a young male waiter. Hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts, and flip-flops. I know he won’t question whatever I order. At his age he has no paternal instincts. Does not know that twelve-year-olds are not supposed to drink booze. I take a few moments to come up with something unique. I remember that Mack always drinks scotch. A good place to start.

“Excuse me,” I say. “I would like two scotches, no ice, with a splash of lime juice and ringed with sugar.”

Frances isn’t expecting this. For once, she challenges me.