Going For Broke (27 page)

             
“Victoria!” She was surprised to see Kathy open the door as if she had been waiting on the other side.  Too late for Victoria to run.  “So glad you were able to make it.  Come on in.”

             
Susan’s foyer was immense, complete with a grand round table that held a tall vase filled with a striking floral arrangement.  Victoria couldn’t help herself, and reached out to touch the flowers to see if they were real.  They were.  There was a graceful curved staircase with an intricate wrought-iron railing that led up to the upstairs hallway.  Victoria looked up and saw that on the domed ceiling of the foyer there was a replica of one of the panels on the Sistine Chapel.  The Creation of the Moon and the Stars, complete with bare bottoms and cherubs. 

             
Two Bernese Mountain dogs ran to the door to greet Victoria, promptly nuzzling their noses into her crotch.  Horrified, Victoria tried to push them away.  Kathy didn’t even notice, and walked Victoria past a series of anterooms, each decorated within an inch of its life.  There was so much velvet and brocade, Victoria was sure that Cher must have been her interior designer.  They entered the kitchen at the end of the hallway, and Victoria had to stop to take a breath.

             
The kitchen itself was basic - as far as over-the-top over-designed kitchens go.  Dark wood cabinets with reliefs featuring grapes and hummingbirds of all things, wide expanses of granite countertops and the now-expected gothic chandeliers hung side-by-side over the lengthy kitchen island.  No, it wasn’t the kitchen itself.  It was all the women in the kitchen.  Wall-to-wall women.  The deafening noise all those women created stunned Victoria.  It was like the hum of the cicadas that descended on Tenaqua every 17 years.  Kathy had to yell to be heard over the din. 

             
“Can I get you something to drink?” Jesus, yes, Victoria thought.  She spied a half dozen bottles of white wine on the counter, with names she did not recognize.  Toasted Head, Charles Shaw, Smoking Loon, Yellowtail.  Nothing she had in her cellar.  At this point, she didn’t care. 

             
“I’d love a glass of wine,” Victoria yelled back.  Make it a double.

             
Kathy grabbed a bottle off the counter, condensation running down the sides of the bottle.  Someone had pulled the cork through the capsule, resulting in a jagged edge popping up from the top of the bottle.  Victoria cringed.  She took the glass, which was indeed filled to the brim, and took a sip.  She immediately spit it out. 

             
“Oh, gosh, is something wrong?” Kathy asked. 

             
“No, no.  It just went down the wrong way.”  She took another sip, it was worse than the first.  “I guess I’m more of a martini girl,” she yelled back at Kathy.

             
“Martini?  What a good idea!” A short, voluptuous woman in her late 30s, approached them, an empty glass of wine in one hand.  “Vodka or gin?”

             
It was clear that Victoria looked a little overwhelmed, so Kathy jumped in.  “Vodka!  Susan, this is my friend Victoria Vernon.  Victoria, meet Susan DeMarco, one of the bet hostesses in town.”

             
“And bartenders,” Susan corrected.  Victoria watched as her hostess adeptly gathered the necessary items to shake her drink of choice.  “Olive or twist?”

             
Victoria liked this woman who got straight down to business.  She could even overlook her hideous decorating if the drink tasted half as good as promised.  “Olive.  Two if you have them.”
             

             
“That’s what I call dinner!” Susan laughed as she shook the martini shaker with a vigor that managed to silence half of the women around them.  She poured the drink into a ridiculous-looking martini glass that had a zig zag stem with a blue-green foot. 

             
Victoria took the drink and sipped.  Heaven.  Pure, ice-cold, tongue-numbing heaven.  So good, she wished she had only asked for one olive.  “Susan, you may be my new best friend in town,” Victoria said as she took another sip. 

             
“Hey, don’t ditch the date that brought you.  Or at least met you here!  Susan, shake one for me!” Kathy handed the designated bartender an empty glass, and Susan quickly got to business.  A group of women had joined them at the island.  Victoria took a moment to survey the assembled crowd. 

             
She had to admit, she was surprised.  She thought the women in Tenaqua would be clad in holiday sweaters, penny loafers and were hiding pageboy haircuts under those baseball caps.   These women looked good.  Damn good.  And hard to admit, they all looked a hell of a lot younger than her.  The woman who was helping Susan find another bottle of vodka was wearing an adorable Kevan Hall sundress.  She and Andrea had been ogling it during their shopping trip downtown.  Another woman expertly zipped lemon peels, not getting a drop on her shirt - one that Victoria could swear was Prada that so far she had only seen in a magazine. 

             
Holy shit, she thought, we’re not in Kansas anymore.  Not even close.  Perhaps she had been hasty in rejecting the denizens of Tenaqua.  By day they may look like they’re gym rats, but at night they do clean up nicely.  The group of women was having a blast shaking the martinis, and Victoria found herself having fun.  Kathy stood next to Victoria, raised her glass and toasted Victoria.

             
“Boo Hoo!” Kathy yelled.

             
“Yahoo!” Victoria shouted back. 

             
             
             
             
             
             
###

             
“Kathy Berner! How are you!”  The voice cut through the crowd as everyone stopped to see who had just walked in the door.  Victoria turned to see one of the most beautiful women she had ever seen, and she had seen quite a few in her day.  Victoria instantly realized that this was one beautiful woman Victoria had seen before. 

             
“Foxy!” Kathy enthusiastically embraced her friend then turned to introduce her to Victoria.  “Foxy Nolan, do you know Victoria Vernon?” 

             
Yes, Victoria thought.  I’d know Foxy Buchanan anywhere.  Anyone who went to New Trier High school in the past fifty years knew who Foxy Buchanan was.  Kissed by the gods at a young age, Foxy was the golden-haired girl that skated through life, with other people knocking themselves down to help her do it.  She obviously traveled in different circles than Foxy throughout high school (not that Victoria had a circle) and their only interaction had been in AP Biology senior year.  Never at a loss for study partners, Foxy was the star of the class.  Even Mr. Wiley did everything he could do coax a smile out of that perfect face, including doling out generous As.  

             
During high school, Victoria would watch Foxy cruise through town in her red Jeep Wrangler, top down, music blaring.  There were usually three or four girls in tow - once in a while there was a guy in the front seat.  Just never the same guy twice. 

             
Victoria had, on more than one occasion, daydreamed about Foxy’s jeep careening down a ravine, tragically cutting short her extraordinary life.  She instantly had felt guilty about it, and subsequently amended all future daydreams to only leave Foxy severely maimed.

             
She had heard that Foxy went on to Brown and dated John Kennedy, Jr., but couldn’t commit.  After that, Victoria was too busy forging her own path to be concerned about what happened to the Girl Most Likely.

             
“Hi Victoria!  How do you know Kathy?” 

             
“Her daughter Posey is in the same class with Claire,” Kathy explained.

             
“Posey!  I love that name!” Foxy said.  “Is she your only one?”

             
You have no idea who I am, Victoria thought.  “My son Parker, is in 4th grade.”  She answered with a chill.  She was going to make Ms. Perfect work for this.

             
“Parker Vernon!  Of course.  My son Trippy talks about him all the time.  They’re both trying out for baseball together.”

             
Seriously, you have a child named Trip? “Trip?”

             
“Oh, I know it’s a crazy name.  It’s bad enough that the poor boy has a mother named Foxy!  His father was Bert Oscar, Jr. and insisted on having a third.  Like there weren’t enough Bert Oscars in the world,” she laughed.  “I wanted a Billy, or a Johnny or at least a Mike.  Oh, the crazy things you do for love!”

             
“How on earth did you get the name Foxy?” Kathy asked.

             
Victoria didn’t need to hear the answer.  It was almost legend in Tenaqua.  When Foxy (her real name was Maureen) was a little girl she was just so darned adorable that her father called her his little fox.  This had to be in the late 60s, Victoria conceded, so the disco “Foxy Lady” hadn’t yet reared its ugly head.  Since then, Foxy, or Fox for short, is all she’d ever been called. 

             
“Someone in my family must have had a odd sense of humor,” she answered, avoiding the legendary story.  “Those martinis look like heaven in a glass.  Are you shaking?”

             
             
             
             
             
             
###

             
Sitting on the patio at the end of the night, the throng of women had been reduced to six.  Kathy and Victoria, Susan, Foxy and two other women that Victoria was sure she had met but was much too drunk to remember their names.  It ended up that not only was Foxy not the source of all evil, she was great.  Funny, self-deprecating, a great storyteller, she was the kind of woman Victoria would like to be friends with.  These Tenaqua ladies put her Manhattan friends to shame, both in personality and their impressive ability to drink copious amounts of vodka.  What’s not to like?

             
   The olives in her martini had, in fact, ended up to be her dinner, and she was out of practice drinking like this.  Even Andi would have a hard time keeping up.  She stood up, a little woozy on her feet.

             
“I think I better get going,” she said, without slurring a single word.

             
“How are you getting home?  You are in no position to drive,” Kathy observed, slurring more than a few of her own words.

             
“No, I’m okay.  I’ll walk.  It’s not far,” she said.  Her purse was caught under the foot of the chair, and she was having a difficult time getting it free. 
She didn’t want to call Bud for a ride home, and thought the fresh air would do her good.

             
“Wait, Rob can drive you home.  Thank goodness I have my driver waiting for me,” Kathy laughed and burped at the same time.  All the women burst out laughing. 

             
“Thank you Susan, for such a fun night.  I can’t wait to see what we do when they get into first grade!”  With that, she pulled her purse free and bolted for the door.

             
             
             
             
             
             
###

             
The heavy door slammed behind her, and she lost her footing, missing the last couple of stairs on the stoop.  Splayed on the walkway to Susan’s house, she couldn’t help but laugh.  Poor, drunk and on her ass - even she could appreciate the humor in how the mighty Victoria Vernon had fallen.  At least tonight she had a great time doing it.

             
“Need a hand?” Mike was standing over her, with that annoying little smirk on his face.   Victoria didn’t let it get to her.  She lifted her hand to his and let him pull her up.  He pulled too hard, and she flew right into him.  She burst out laughing.