Lauren Takes Leave (45 page)

This part of a Jewish funeral always gives me the creeps.
I shudder inwardly and watch as the spade is passed to Jodi’s mother and then
to Great-Aunt Elaine.

“She shaves her
what
?” Kat calls out from under the
tree. “No fucking way!”

I continue to cringe and shudder, but not because of the
sound of spilled earth on a plain pine box. Doug coughs and I take out some
tissues and sniff into them, as we try and cover the sounds of Kat’s wicked
cackle.

The service ends a minute later and people make their way
back to their cars. “Shivah will be held today at the Moncrieff home in
Elmwood, and then for the remainder of the week at the Goldbergs’ apartment in
Queens,” the rabbi says.

Kat meets us on the hill as the crowd disperses. She
shakes her damp curls out like a dog coming in from the rain and splatters me
with water as she ducks back under my umbrella. “Subtle,” I say. “Holy.”

“Holy shit.” Kat is grinning from ear to ear. “You have
no
idea.”

As much as I’d like to hear the details of Kat’s
telephone conversation, my priority right now is to get out of the rain, which
has crossed over from light drizzle to heavy downpour.

“Tell me later!” I shout over my shoulder as I break away
from Kat and the rest of the crowd and make my way behind Doug to our car.

“But…it’s important!” Kat calls back. “And really funny!”

“I can live with the suspense!” I say, shooing Kat back to
her own car.

Doug’s phone starts buzzing in his pocket. A shadow
crosses his face as he looks at the screen. “Gotta take this,” he says. “Work.”
He presses the phone to his ear and slides into the driver’s side, slamming the
door shut.

I’m about to go around to the other side of the car when I
realize that I haven’t said good-bye to Jodi. There is a black limousine a few
cars ahead of ours, so I decide to knock on the window and wave a quick
farewell from under my umbrella.

The black tinted glass slides down a few inches. A hand
emerges, holding a fedora.

That’s not Jodi’s
, I think.

“No way!” I laugh. I jump up and down in the puddles and
demand more. “Roll down the window, Tim! I need to see your whole beautiful
face to verify that it’s really you!”

The automatic glass window dips lower to reveal the
complete facial franchise, from twinkling blue eyes to the adorable dimples
surrounding the slightly cocky grin. He even has the requisite two-day blond
stubble. “Satisfied?”

He doesn’t
say
the word, exactly. He drawls it,
nice and slow like.

I believe Tim Cubix is using his southern charm on me.

And it works.

“Well, yes, actually, I am feeling quite…satisfied.” I
smile, flirting with him in a way I never could have earlier in the week. I’d
like to take him home with me so we can snuggle up under a blanket and watch
one of his movies while the rain pitter-patters on the roof, but I think that
might be taking things a bit too far. So instead, I just babble. “You see, any
old schmuck in a limousine can wave a fedora in your face and
pretend
to
be a Hollywood hotshot.”

The window lowers more, revealing a passenger in the seat
next to Tim. MC Lenny waves a fedora at me, his lips pressed tightly together
in an embarrassed smile.

I nod my head in his direction. “My point exactly.”

“We had a meeting in the city about the upcoming New
Orleans video, so we came by to pay our respects,” Tim says, but I’m so busy
watching those lovely lips move, I hardly hear what they say.

“Kat!” I call, looking out from under my big black
parasol. She needs to see this. Jodi, too. I can only glimpse people a few feet
ahead of me, and neither of them is in my sightline. Strange. Kat’s car is still
here, though. I’m not sure about the immediate family, but they probably
already left. I adjust the umbrella, holding it back so that I can get a wider
view of the surrounding area. “Jodi!”

Three figures in black are huddled under a tree, the same
tree that Kat used when answering her disruptive phone call. It’s hard to make
them out through the gloom of the rain. Although my vision is distorted, I can
tell that one of them is wearing a dress that reaches all the way to the
ground.

“Stay here!” I instruct the fellas. “I’m going to get
Jodi!” I yell the words, trying to be heard over the pounding precipitation. In
response, I get a double thumbs-up. I’m telling you, they are like two peas in
a pod, my Tim and my Lenny.

I pass my Doug, who is still on the phone in our car, now
gesticulating wildly. I hold up my pointer finger to him, in a gesture meant to
say,
One minute, I’m going to find Jodi and Kat and bring them back to that
limo over there, in which sits Tim Cubix and MC Lenny
, but I’m not sure he
gets all that. He merely nods through the windshield in my general direction
and goes back to his call.

Whatever. His loss.

It’s a slight uphill climb to my destination, and my feet
are soaked by the time I reach the giant elm, my boots caked with thick mud. I’ve
probably ruined the leather, but Tim’s worth it.

“Hi,” I pant, talking to the three pairs of feet meeting
my down turned gaze. “I just wanted to tell you that—”

“Lauren,” says a voice that at first I don’t recognize.
“Glad you could make it to your funeral.”

“Leslie?” I ask, moving my umbrella out of the way. “Are
you quoting
Dynasty
or something?” It’s Leslie, all right. The
sunglasses are gone and her face no longer has the bandages. Instead, a slick,
Vaseline-like cream is smeared over the scar. The ointment makes the jagged
line glisten and shine repulsively.

But there’s more. On her head is a plastic CVS pharmacy
bag, tied neatly under her chin like a bonnet.

“Hi,” Jodi says. What she means is,
we’re in deep
doo-doo
.

“Hey there,” Kat says. And what she means is,
make a
run for it
.

Neither one looks all that happy to see me.

“Lemme guess,” I say. “She found out about last night’s
intermission break-in?”

“And catnapping!” Leslie adds.

“We did not nap your cat,” Kat clarifies. “We merely moved
him to an isolated locale.”

“Because my husband thinks he’s allergic,” I say.

“But he’s not,” the three of us explain in unison.

“May I just say, I thought your dancing was fantastic last
night,” I interject, trying to kiss Leslie’s substantial behind and confuse her
simultaneously.

Leslie considers this, nodding as if she agrees.

Kat jumps in to continue. “More importantly, had we known
that you were on the verge of apologizing for your ridiculous and perverse
behavior, we never, ever would have stolen your nanny cams.”

“You see, we thought you were going to sue us! Blackmail
us!” I say.

“Blackmail us and then sue us!” Kat adds.

“You left us no choice,” I say. “Please—don’t kill us. We
are so very sorry.”

We all freeze while Leslie ponders her next move. Her eyes
are large and, at first, blank. Then they seem to fill with tears. In the
intervening seconds, Kat moves closer to Leslie, which seems counter-intuitive
to me. If you want to avoid being punched in the nose, I would think you would
move your nose out of the way.

But no, Kat’s right in there, kind of studying Leslie’s
face, her head cocked sideways, her nose extremely close to Leslie’s jaw line,
as if she knows exactly what she’s going to find. She even extends her pointer
finger at the red-and-white CVS baggie-bonnet and kind of pokes around under
Leslie’s chin, inadvertently loosening the bow.

“Fascinating,” she says, stepping back toward us.

“What’s that?” Leslie asks.

“You almost can’t tell.”

“Can’t tell what?” I ask.

“That Leslie has a man beard. It requires constant
attention so as not to ever appear stubbly.”

“Hey!” Leslie shouts.

Kat keeps talking over her.

“Depilatories, razors, waxes, potions and lotions, you’ve
got to be
vigilant
, right Leslie?”

We all turn to Leslie, trying to figure out if Kat’s words
are true.

Leslie’s face is a car wreck of emotion, from first impact
to crunch of metal to airbags deploying in order to keep her psyche safe from
this barrage.

Kat speaks on. “Monitoring all that facial hair requires
you to peer at your reflection in that goose-necked vanity mirror—equipped with
nanny cam—formerly at home on your bathroom counter—several times a day, to see
if any whiskers need plucking…”

Leslie lets out a deep, painful groan, much like the sound
of a grizzly bear whose foot is caught in a steel trap, then lunges her full
weight at Kat.

Jodi gracefully dance-steps aside to let Leslie pass, and
raises her right hand overhead like a bullfighter ready to take on a changing
animal. That hand then comes down on Leslie’s head and snatches the plastic bag
from it, whipping Leslie’s neck back a little as the bag gets free.

That moment gives Kat enough time to move out of danger.
Well, she’s now standing behind me and clutching my forearms protectively,
using me as a human shield.

“You’ll have to break through Lauren first!” Kat says.

I hold my umbrella out over Kat; at the very least, I can
protect her from the rain.

“Yeah…I don’t think that’s gonna help you,” I say. “Plus,
nice friend you are.”

Kat whispers behind my back, “Shay’s the one who called
during the funeral. She watched the videos.”

“Yeah, got that.” This is great news, although potentially
embarrassing. “Did she say how much she watched?”

“What have you done?” Leslie whispers, turning back to
Jodi. Then, louder, “Look at what you’ve done!”

Kat and I face Jodi and Leslie, both forms now fully
exposed to the weather. Jodi is wearing a triumphant grin, one sopping wet hand
placed defiantly on one sopping wet hip. Leslie is crouched over, holding her
head in her hands, trying to protect her hair from the rivulets of rainwater
that are soaking into it.

“I’m frizzing! I’m frizzing!” she cries, kneeling on the
ground, the raw grief of the moment making it impossible for her to stay erect.

Kat and I look on, confused.

“Simple fashionista science, people,” Jodi explains,
circling Leslie’s form. The clingy black gown trails behind her theatrically as
Leslie weeps on the ground, engulfed by her black raincoat and the wetness of
defeat. “The well-known Keratin hair treatment is an expensive—albeit highly
effective—solution for those not blessed with naturally glossy hair like mine.”
Jodi tries but fails to toss her hair over her shoulder, because it’s now
drenched and plastered to her head. “This process turns unruly, kinky hair absolutely
shiny and straight. But!” Here she stops and looks at Kat and me, her eyes
shimmering with knowledge. “It only works
if you keep your hair completely
dry for the first four days after treatment
. No sweating, no condensation
from showers, and absolutely…no…rain.”

“So, we, like, messed up her hair?” Kat asks. “That’s it?”

“That’s not just it!” Leslie says, picking her head up and
sitting back on the grass, her hair a tangled mess, some of which is now
sticking to the ointment on her totaled face.

“My treatment went
beyond
Keratin, Jodi. It’s way
botanical and toxic, and some of the most potent ingredients come from an
island in the Pacific Ocean. This magical hair-straightening treatment is only
currently available in two underground locations in the United States, because
it hasn’t received FDA approval yet and probably never will. I can only undergo
the process seven times
ever
before it will give me cancer!” She gathers
her strength and stands, looking like she’s going to implode. “And
you
just
wasted
one of them!”

“Wait,” Jodi says. “Did you have the infamous Galapagos
Straightening?”

Leslie nods.

“I am so sorry I messed that up,” Jodi says. “I had no
idea.”

“That’s the problem with your little gang, isn’t it?”
Leslie says, as if some deep understanding has just clicked into focus. “You
always have
no idea
! You’re always so sorry
after
the fact,
apologizing
after
you ruin my face, and
after
you steal from my
house, and
after
you destroy my hair!”

She’s kind of got a point there.

“You people are so mean!”

Two points, perhaps.

“And…and…you are ruining my life!”

Well, that might be exaggeration.

“I thought that we were friends,” she sighs, her voice a
tiny echo of sound.

Jodi, Kat, and I are shamed into silence.

“Excuse me?” A gentlemanly southern voice calls from a few
feet below the hilly knoll where we are standing. “Ladies? If I may?”

“Is that…?” Jodi asks.

“Oh yeah!” I say, snapping back to attention. “That’s what
I came to tell you. Tim’s here. He and Lenny came for the funeral.” I shrug,
like,
sorry, it slipped my mind, what with all the bitch slapping
.

I lower my umbrella to the ground because the rain, of
course, has stopped for Tim Cubix. It’s as if his whole life exists on a
back-lot Hollywood sound stage, with directors creating mood through weather
and light.

We squint into the sudden glare of sun on wet pavement and
watch, starry-eyed, as Tim saunters toward us in a worn leather jacket over a gray
T-shirt and jeans.

“Is that…?” Leslie asks, echoing Jodi.

Tim reaches our motley crew and looks around, nodding his
head at Kat, Jodi, and me while trying unsuccessfully to hide a smile. Which
means I get the benefit of full-on dimples.

Sunday just got a whole lot better.

And then he speaks. “What’s that saying? You can take the
women out of the Miami heat, but you can’t take the Miami heat out of the
women?”