Chore Whore (25 page)

“Okay, Lucy, I'll do it.”

“Oh, honey, I knew you wouldn't let me down.” She starts crying. “Thank you so much. You don't know how much this means to me.”

“I do, Lucy. That's the reason I'll do it.”

Lucy spends a minute crying and mopping up tears.

“Babe, there's one more thing. Tommy has a request. He really wants his mama to be at the wedding.”

“His mom?” I ask, incredulous.

“Yeah, it's real important to him that Luella be there,” she says.

I jot down a note to call Lufthansa and Olympic Airways to check out their policy on transporting human remains. I have a sense Tommy Ray won't want his mama riding in cargo.

“We call them ‘cremains'
in the industry,” he says to me over the phone.

Cremated remains. Cremains. Every business has its “speak,” but this one strikes me as cold. Luella can come with us as far as Athens, according to the man on the phone at Lufthansa.

“It's fine for you to carry cremains on board. They're considered part of your carry-on luggage. However, you should call Olympic Airways and make sure you can carry them all the way through to Santorini,” he suggests.

I call Olympic and confirm that I can indeed carry Luella on board with them, too. I ask both airlines to send me a faxed statement of this policy. The last thing I want is to get stuck with Luella in Frankfurt, Germany, trying to change planes and unable to board.

I spend the better part of two weeks on the phone making reservations with airlines, private jetliners, hotels, caterers, florists, photographers and musicians. According to my phone company, I have racked up six hundred dollars' worth of long-distance charges to Greece, Germany, Mexico and Canada. I fax birth certificates, divorce decrees, passports, death certificates, copies of blood tests and marriage licenses back and forth between the four countries. In addition to all the paperwork involved, I make four trips to the Greek consulate to get documents translated into Greek and authenticated.

While doing research to line up the appropriate clergy member to perform the ceremony, I discover that for twenty-five bucks I could become a minister through the Church of All Peace and marry them anywhere in the world without all this red tape. I approach Lucy about this option, but she declines. I go ahead and submit an application, just in case.

I call Jock, Liam and Esther and let them know I'll be out of the country for a couple of weeks. I call Dr. Trabulus and ask for a prescription for sleeping pills so I can make it through the ten-and-a-half-hour flight. Blaise seems to do just fine flying, sleeping, changing time zones and maintaining good health. I'm the one with a more delicate constitution—I stay up all night and then fall apart as soon as I get to my destination.

It takes me a full
day to pack Lucy and Tommy's luggage into the Louis Vuitton trunks she takes on every trip, and half a day to pack our clothes and traveling items. I've rerented tapes that teach Greek from the Beverly Hills library and it is like getting back onto a bicycle. The language returns to me in waves. A few nights before we leave I even have dreams in Greek. I start to feel the warmth and familiarity I felt when I lived in the Greek Cyclades.

To treat Blaise, who has been a quiet angel as of late, I take him to my favorite Greek restaurant/store in Los Angeles. Papa Cristos on West Pico is an institution to all Angelenos looking for authentic Mediterranean goods. They specialize in Greek food, but have items from all the countries bordering the Med. Blaise happily munches through gyros, Greek salad, spanakopita (spinach pie) and tzatziki (yogurt sauce).

I schedule a van, minus the backseats in order to accommodate all of Lucy's trunks, to pick us up at her new house, where I've brought our suitcases. At the airport, I stuff as much into our carry-ons as humanly possible, including Luella, and we set forth on our trip to Santorini, Greece.

Our taxi and the one
behind us, which carries our baggage, pull into the Hotel Plaka in Athens's old town. The Hotel Plaka isn't the Four Seasons, but we are greeted more warmly here. The other guests look at us questioningly with our ten pieces of luggage, eight of which cost more per piece than a week's stay. I rent two connected rooms—one for the luggage, one for us. Thankfully, I don't remember enough Greek to even try to explain the reason a mother and child would need this many trunks.

We take hot showers, then we walk through the Plaka, where I buy Greek fisherman sweaters for Blaise and me and eat a dinner of choriatiki salata (Greek salad) and pastitsio (pasta casserole). After a small treat of baklava for dessert, we retire to the hotel and fall into a much-needed, much-deserved sleep.

At six-thirty in the morning, I wake up to feel the room shaking. I sit up straight. Blaise doesn't even twitch in his sleep. I get him up and we stand in the doorway awaiting an aftershock that happens a minute later. I thought I'd left earthquakes behind in Los Angeles, but Greece rocks even more than L.A.

The hallways are littered with tourists not quite sure what to do in a situation like this. Feeling like an old professional, I'm able to calm some of the travelers, but knowing that Greece's building standards are not the same as L.A.'s, I'm not truly comforted by my own words. We dress quickly and leave the hotel. After standing in line for five hours in an uninspired government building to ensure that Lucy and Tommy can indeed get married here, we gather our luggage and get on the first plane to Santorini.

Adonis, our taxi driver, meets us at the island's airport. He's a short, squat man with hands the size of T-bone steaks. Adonis is rather overwhelmed when duplicate trunks keep appearing out of the cargo hold. Finally, he calls his brother, appropriately named Hercules, to come help him out. Hercules easily loads the remaining trunks into his van and off we go to set up Lucy and Tommy Ray's nuptials.

“Hercules? Where's Xena?” Blaise cracks himself up.

“Enough,” I say with a warning tone in my voice.

“What's his real name?” Blaise asks, stifling a giggle.

Thankfully, Hercules pretends he doesn't speak English and therefore can ignore Blaise's rude comments. Following Adonis, he drives the minivan through the hilly streets of Messaria and the main town, Fira.

We are staying in a “cave,” a house sunk into volcanic rock in the town of Imerovigli overlooking the caldera, where legend has it that Atlantis sank into the water after a terrific volcanic explosion. The deep sea waters between Thira, Santorini's other name, and the island of Thirassia across the caldera look warm and inviting. It is from here that I will set up camp to organize the wedding and reception.

· · ·

We've been here over a week,
but with all the work of arranging the wedding, we have yet to step foot on the beach. Lucy's private jet arrives at four-thirty and finally we've got most of the day to ourselves. Blaise and I have breakfast on the stone patio, then gather our beach supplies, jump in the rental jeep and head out for a day of exploring. I show him where I lived, worked and played during my year here.

Lucy walks down the stairs
of her private jet in stiletto heels that make her six feet four inches tall. A yellow peasant blouse stops just below her breasts, and her very, very short skirt is Mediterranean blue. This must be her Hollywood version of fun-in-the-Greek-sun beachwear.

Behind Lucy is her mother, Beryl, dressed sedately in navy-and-white linen with smart, flat sandals and looking the part of the mother of the bride-to-be. David, Beryl's emasculated boyfriend, comes out next, but he's not looking terribly emasculated at the moment. Right now, he fits in perfectly with all the other dark-haired Greek-god types. Lucy's agent, Jay, and his lover, Michael, her manager, follow closely behind. They try surreptitiously to touch each other to express their awe at the beauty surrounding them.

I'm surprised to see Burt Reynolds come out, followed by George Hamilton and Jerry Lewis. This is going to be Beryl's shining moment and she wants all her friends to witness it. Following Jerry is Beryl's ex—Lucy's dad—Luke, and his latest flame, Tina, who was last seen all over the rags on the arm of a certain married multimillionaire.

Arriving in separate private jets are Daryl Hannah, Lucy's past castmate, as well as other past cast members Penelope Cruz and George Clooney, who has flown in from Lake Como. Angela Bassett descends, followed by Meg, Courteney, Halle, Lisa, Winona and Lucy's whole posse. I can already see that she gave me a very inaccurate head count as to how many people were going to attend. As I watch them descend the aircraft, I get on the horn trying to find extra rooms around Fira with the superior service to which these stars are accustomed.

What was I thinking to have accepted this mission? If this many people come off Tommy Ray's plane, the island won't have enough rooms to house them.

At the huge prewedding dinner on the cliffs of Fira, Lucy explains to me that the only person missing is Tommy Ray. He had to do an extra day's worth of shooting in Mexico. Blaise and Jack, Meg's son, can't wait for the meal to end so they can duel each other with Yu-Gi-Oh cards. After dinner, Beryl gives me another once-over and then announces to the people at her table that I was the one David ran over with the U-Haul. I look across the table at David, who peers down the side of the cliff, embarrassed. I don't know whether he wants to pitch himself down to splatter on the rocks, or pitch Beryl, but when he looks up, I mouth the words “I'm sorry.”

The wedding will be on
a stone balcony overlooking the caldera, the volcano and what is described in every travel publication as “the most breathtaking view on the planet.” Today is the big day. The actual nuptials will take place with the sun setting in the background—one of the most highly admired sunsets ever. Every night, tourists and locals alike dot the rim of the island's volcanic peak, cramming into restaurants, onto cave rooftops and on tops of cars, then for an hour the world stops. A hush falls over the island population in order to watch nature put on a scene-stealing show.

I make calls checking for the thirtieth time that all will go off without a hitch. If I succeed, I might consider a second career as a wedding coordinator, but only for the rich. Only the wealthy could pay me enough to repeatedly subject myself to this amount of prewedding torture.

I double-check the estimated time of arrival for Tommy Ray's jet and reconfirm with Hercules that he will have a sedan (not an easy find on this island), and he assures me he will be there to meet Tommy Ray. He already has the sedan gassed and washed. It will be there at 3:30
P.M
., or 15:30 as they say in Europe, as planned.

I'm a little upset that Tommy Ray is cutting it so close and pray that he's clean, shaven and ready to pour into his wedding suit the moment he steps off the plane. At least I don't have to meet him at the airport myself, after our last encounter.

Driving to the caterer's home kitchen myself, I see an entire lamb stuffed with herbs and smelling mighty good roasting on a spit in the backyard. The trays of appetizers I requested are ready and taste spectacular. Huge platters of moussaka, keftedes (meatballs) and vleeta (greens) are prepared and ready to go. Tiropitas (cheese pies) are cooking in the oven and the wines are chilling as we speak. An array of Boutari, retsina, Metaxa and ouzo will be available for imbibing.

I drive back to the hotel worried, wondering if my choice in wedding drinks was wise. The side of a steep Santorini cliff is not the place to get stumbling drunk. With Tommy Ray's fondness for boozing it up and getting rowdy, Lucy may be a widow before the night is over. During the wedding, Blaise and I will be in the back row, as far away from the cliff's edge as possible.

Holidays in the Cyclades
have been known to bring out qualities in folks they never knew they had. Men who have never looked twice at their own gender wake up the following morning with a splitting Metaxa-inspired headache next to some dude named Costas who swears he herds sheep for a living. Women who are considered modest souls back home find themselves stripping down to almost nothing, skinny-dipping in the warm waters of the Med, then lying topless under the sun so as to not get a tan line. I did the latter the last time I was here, and no one was more surprised than I, except for the goat that unexpectedly walked onto the beach and began licking my face.

Back at the hotel, I iron clothes for the big night while Blaise studies the volcano and late-day nude sunbathers through the leftover binoculars Lucy gave him after the New Year's Eve party. I get Luella out of my luggage and undo the bubble wrap in which I have her safely packed. It is 3:30
P.M
. right now and Tommy Ray's plane should be landing any moment. Blaise and I get dressed and drive to Fira to oversee the last moments of decorating.

When we first walk onto the hotel balcony, I am stunned to see just how beautifully the place is turning out. Sweet scents of scattered flowers mix with the lusty deep herbal smells of sage and oregano. The indigo blue waters of the Mediterranean contrast nicely with the flapping umbrellas of pure white. The seascape is blue with white boats bobbing on the waters as far as the eye can see. The deep reds and oranges of bougainvillea blossoms complete the clean, crisp color palette. The chairs are covered in pure white linens against the whitewashed walls, and the dinner area is pure white with painted blue tables covered in starched white linens. Tropical fish swim up and down the length of the tables in long rectangular aquariums—an idea I borrowed from the walled aquarium in Jock's house.

Waiters and busboys move about, setting up the tables and readying the hotel for the guests who will begin arriving any moment. Pulling Blaise aside, I give him one of my lectures on proper behavior. I don't want Lucy's wedding ruined by the sudden outburst of a Juvenile Hall–prone child.

“Mom, we don't need to have this conversation. I wouldn't want to ruin Lucy's wedding any more than you would.”

Studying Blaise's face, I see his sullen expression and tension seem to have been left in Los Angeles. He actually seems happier. I certainly am. In fact, this just might be the happiest I've been in a long time—on a paid vacation of sorts, in Greece with my son. He hasn't been any trouble whatsoever; in fact, he's been a big help. I am ready for the festivities to begin.

The guests start to arrive and take their seats as I stand back by the bar eyeing the wine. Retsina, made with the essence of pine tar, is a wine either loved or considered best when used by painters to strip wallpaper. I think it's heavenly.

The musicians start exactly on time, playing bouzouki, fiddle and oud. When they start to play music from Zorba the Greek, I breathe in the surroundings deeply and pour myself a glass of retsina. The combination of the music with the sea in front of me, the warmth of good wine in the country where it is made, and the blue-and-white Greek flags whipping around in the constant breeze that cools the island makes me happy. When the bearded Orthodox priest walks up the road with Lucy in her unbelievably gorgeous white gown, followed by additional musicians blending their tunes with the ones playing here at the hotel, onlookers cheer. It's so beautiful that I can't help it—I take another sip of wine and cheer, too. People line the road, clapping and whistling as she follows the priest into the hotel.

The photographer and videographer are eating up her presence. They photograph her beauty from all angles and she knows how to bask in the moment. Finally, the musicians start the quiet, low music reserved for Tommy Ray's arrival.

The guests begin turning their heads and a low murmur emanates from the gathering. Lucy looks at me with a question on her face. I instruct Blaise to wait right where I put him and then run out the front of the hotel. As I make my way through the crowd, I see the sedan with Hercules behind the wheel pull up in front of the hotel.

Thank God! Better late than never.

Hercules spills out from behind the wheel and pulls me aside. He speaks so rapidly in Greek I catch only a few words: airplane, airport, wait, hot. I can't understand. I push past him and throw open the door to the back of the darkened sedan.

It's empty.

“Hercules, where is the man you were supposed to bring here?” I ask in broken Greek. “Speak to me slowly,” I command.

He raises his shoulders. “I don't know.”

“What the hell do you mean you don't know?”

“His plane never arrived,” he explains. “It's hot. I can't wait forever. I wait one hour, that's it. I want to be paid for my time.”

“Don't move!” I demand in my best Greek.

Rushing to the hotel lobby and grabbing the phone, I call the airport to speak with a supervisor, who says they're closing the airport for the night. No more planes are expected. I ask about Tommy Ray's plane and the supervisor says that it never showed up, never canceled its arrival and never responded to communication.

“Did it crash? Did it ever leave Mexico City? Did it refuel in Miami? Can you tell me anything?” I cry.

“Nothing, ma'am.” He hangs up.

I push my way through the guests and approach Lucy.