Plan C (9 page)

“Don’t call me that! I’m Kitty Morgan. Always will be. I hate the Brit’s last name. Though come to think of it, Clive is the Walter Mitty of porn.”

“Kitty, calm down.”

“Calm down? Calm down!! Are you kidding? With Clive gone from his corporation, we just lost our health insurance. Do you know it will cost me $40,000 a year out of pocket?”

“$40,000?” I ask. “What do they do? Throw in a massage and liposuction with your mammogram?”

“It’s a family policy. Okay, maybe it’s not
that
much. More like $15,000 annually. But don’t forget, Clive’s son, Hugh, is at Oxford. He’s only twenty, so he’s still on the policy.”

“Somebody’s got to cover all those piercing infections.”

“It’s no joke,” says Kitty.

“Can’t you do what I do? I’m a writer so I belong to the Author’s guild. There must be some
Artist
Guild you can join to get cheaper rates. No?”

“Honey, I’m not an artist. I’m an art dealer. A big ole business woman capitalist pig!” she says leaning back. “I’ve decided. I’m getting a face lift.”

“A facelift? No amount of insurance will kick in for that.”

“No, but if I have to pay all that money for nothing, I may as well spend money on something I really want. It’s an investment in my future,” she says turning her jawline toward the sunlight that streams through our window. She tips her nose up in a John Singer Sargeant pose.

“Oh come on. You don’t need a facelift. Those are expression lines.”

“They’re old age lines. My roadmaps of life. And I don’t want to go that route.” “But forty-one is too young for a facelift.”

“No it’s not. I’ll do it for Helmut. He’s ten years younger, you know. Young, alive, and untapped talent. Art is everything! I want my face to be a work of art, dammit!”

“Oh yeah? What about Mona Lisa? She aged gracefully.”

“That’s because she looks like a man. Men at forty have it easier than women do. Not only are they financially more secure, they feel better about themselves. They look
better as they age even if they have a big pot belly and a badly receding hairline. Wrinkles and eye bags are considered sexy on a man. For women they’re the mildew growing up the side of death’s door.”

“In this economy how can you afford a facelift?”

“In this economy I have to look good.”

“In this economy you don’t want a permanent smile,” I say, taking my fingers and stretching my cheeks to my ears.

“In this economy you renovate your house before selling. So why not update your jaw line?” Kitty stabs at her salad and shrugs, but not before checking her Crackberry again, “I’m tired of being distracted by my aging reflection in the mirror. I want to focus on the things that matter.”

I can tell she really believes in her rant and if it makes her happy…“I understand,” I say, appeasing her, and return to the eggs in my Cobb salad.

“I can’t stop thinking of Helmut,” says Kitty. “He’s like buying a Picasso in 1910. He’s my big payday. He’s a mastermind, Libby. He’s a canine running around in heat and I’m the dog catcher, you know? He’s got the passion I long for.” Kitty reaches into her purse. “Here’s his card.”

I take it and then move it close to my line of vision and then farther away. Then close again. “Oh, Christ, I think I’m at the age that I need reading glasses.” I squint to read what I’m not sure I’m seeing before bursting out loud with laughter. “Does this say what I think it says?”

The card reads:
Helmut Fach
.

“You’re kidding,” I say. “He’s Helmut
Fuck
and he does
penis
art? You’ve really gone delusional.”

“It’s not Fuck, it’s
Faccchhh
,” she says, with a heavy furball German accent. “Helmut Faccchhhh, and he’s...”

“Gonna be ‘
huge
,’ I know.”

“Oh, Facchhh you.”

A turn of the key in the front lock, and as I push my door open, music floods into the hallway. There’s Ben, sitting at his piano, seemingly lost in one of his spontaneous compositions. He glances up to acknowledge me with a smile, and I nod, my hand on the wall to balance me as I slip off my shoes.

Moving quietly into the living room I gaze at this man who’s all mine, his long slender fingers moving across the ivories. He catches me staring and winks. The image of the twins running sticky fingers across the piano keys is quickly dismissed as Ben whispers, “Missed you.” He holds my eyes hostage. “And, I’m sorry.”

I melt instantly. “I missed you, too.” Despite all our ups and down, Ben always wants me. Even when I’m sweaty from the gym, or have a zit growing on my chin the size of Godzilla, he still loves me. Even when the cellulite on my fat thighs protrudes through my sarong in St. Croix and my big ole butt could cause an eclipse of the sun, he still loves me. Even when there’s one hundred percent humidity and my natural curls frizz, making me look like the love child of Bozo and Seinfeld’s Kramer, he loves me.
Ben always looks at me as if I’m the last woman on earth – his woman. Whenever I think he can’t possibly love me anymore, he does.

And I love him and his two flaws. The first being that he’s color-blind to hues of green, red and brown. No matter how many political discussions we have on what his version of red is, I can’t quite be sure he knows the difference between crimson and cherry, or even ruby. He just sees his version. The second flaw isn’t a flaw at all except in his book. The thing that bothers men more than it bothers women….the bald spot. The one he thinks has suddenly disappeared because he can’t see that it’s moved to the left side of his head, though the elevator’s mirror often shows me otherwise.

After twenty years of losers, boys, punks, steadies, one-night stands, marriages, and divorces, I’ve earned my Ben. And up until now, I’ve been sure that he’d be my last first kiss. Forever. What’s going on in my head, translates to my face as I smile ear to ear, so Ben taps the seat and asks me to join him between chords. I do.

We’re like Adam and Eve, only better. And when we’re tempted by somebody else we play our own little game of having-an-affair. He rings the doorbell and pretends to be, say, the delivery boy, and I’m the woman of the house saying, “My husband isn’t at home right now, so I
really
shouldn’t let you in,” as I unbutton my oxford shirt. And then I
really
let him in.

“Hello. Are you in there?” he says, placing his forehead on mine, our eyes one inch apart.

“I was just thinking….”

“I know that look.”

“Do you?” I ask.

“I wrote this for you,” he says, fingers moving on the keys, his mouth moving slowly toward mine. We kiss. And I’m ignited like a sparkler at a July 4
^th
barbecue. The thrill of his kiss moves through my throat, down my breasts and through my belly, and landing straight in between my thighs. I pull back and hold the moment, looking at him looking at me. Then we both burst into giggles. He feels it, too. As we exhale, he says, “Why is it like this?”

He starts up a new song – strictly by ear, the theme from the TV show “Mad Men,” and I clap with girlish delight. Then he gazes deep into my eyes, and soon we’re kissing hard, harder, and hardest...

Now he’s devouring the nape of my neck and moving his hands from key board to my breasts.

I pull back. “The house is so quiet,” I say. “It’s nice.” And then I realize why. No sound of the twins breaking, kicking, or walking across furniture.

“How was lunch with Kitty?”

“She’s taking on a new artist - Helmut somebody. I can’t pronounce his last name but it sounds like fuck.”

“And he’s going to be
huge
!” says Ben, imitating her.

“Show is Friday night. We’re going, right?”

“I think I can bring the kids back to their mother.”

I shrug and smile, and he changes his keyboard tune. “The Best is Yet to Come.”

I laugh. “And I have bigger news…” I say, not wanting to ruin our fun.

“Oh?”

“Ready?”

He nods.

“Bebe’s finally getting a baby!” I tear up again. “From Kazakhstan!”

“That’s wonderful!” he says. “A girl?”

I nod.

“How old?” he asks.

“Three…”

Suddenly Jean-Christophe bolts around the corner, his feet deliberately heavy, the better to rattle the books on the glass coffee table. He startles Brad cat from resting quietly underneath, forcing him to seek shelter under the sofa. Jean-Christophe stands at attention in front of us, narrows his eyes, puts his hands on his hips and announces, “I’m hungry.” His tone more angry than needy.

“I’m starting dinner now, honey,” I say to him, jumping immediately from the piano bench, mussing Jean-Christophe’s hair as I by pass him. He shoots me a look, rearranges his hair, and moves to his father’s neck, clinging to Ben like Saran Wrap to a Jello mold.

Ben follows me with child in tow toward the counter. The sound of
Star
Wars
blares from my office. Ben hits the power button on the remote in order to resurrect his other son, Jean-Baptiste, from being hypnotized by R2D2. The three of them make their way to the kitchen counter to watch me prepare dinner, like an audience gawking at a tight-rope walker’s performance in the circus to witness something they’ve never seen, “And now a round of applause for a woman who actually
cooks!”

“What’s for dinner?” asks Ben.

What does it matter, I think to myself, they won’t eat it anyway. “Meatloaf, and mashed potatoes,” I say. “And broccoli.”

“Oh, honey,” says Ben to me with an apologetic tone. “Just remember they don’t like butter or salt on broccoli. And you have to cook it just three minutes. Kind of raw or they won’t eat it. And on the meatloaf…” He looks at the casserole dish as though investigating for possible roaches. You didn’t add red peppers did you?”

I nod. Dinner in this house is more difficult to navigate than the Paris Metro.

“Onions?” he asks.

I nod again. “Well, shallots.”

“Cheese? Ketchup? Worcestshire?”

The questions fly at me like darts. I’m the board.

“Breadcrumbs?”

“Of course there are breadcrumbs,” I say. And then changing my tone, “I’ve been told that I make the best meatloaf in town.” I grab his ass from behind. “Just ask my friends from the Barnacle back home. I won the blue ribbon for my meatloaf in 2002, thank you very much.”

He grabs my ass back, “I love your meatloaf” he says, leaning in to hug me. As we hold each other he whispers in my ear, “Honey, have patience. I’m trying.” And then he swings away from my waist to pop a raw broccoli flowerette in his mouth as the doorbell rings. “Answer the door,” I say. The twins make a mad dash to the hallway to see who can get to the door first. They fight to reach the handle, but Ben reaches in above their heads and turns it open to reveal my daughter.

“Madeline!” I hear Ben greet her. He hugs her awkwardly, a college load of dirty laundry between them.

“Hey Ben, how are ya?” she says, and then to the twins, “Hi, little guys!” Madeline struggles by them with a large canvas bag which Ben takes from her arms. “Let me just throw this load in the wash,” she says, “Hi, Mom!”

“Hello!” I holler back before appearing before them. We kiss before beginning to separate her darks from her whites on the laundry room floor.

“Oh mom, stop. I can do that,” she insists. Of course, now I want to do it for her. It’s kind of nice doing her laundry again. Maybe because I don’t have to.

Ben and the twins lean on the doorjamb watching us girls pulling items from the laundry bag. Muddy sneakers, sweats, bra, panties, more sweats, politically correct tee shirt, not politically correct tee shirt, sweatshirts – about ten, jeans, and more sweatpants. I loved the fact that Madeline, my less glamorous daughter, is comfortable living in sweats and sports shirts. Until I pull out…

“A French Maid costume?” says Ben surprised. “Ooh la la!”

“It’s a long story,” says Madeline, giggling.

“Oh God,” I say to Ben with an expression like that of an Aristocrat who has just discovered her butler screwing the chambermaid.

“So glad I have boys,” he says.

“Right about now. I
completely
agree,” I say, twirling the small piece of black satin material.

“Guys, be real. It’s not what you think,” says Madeline. “It was for a costume party.”

“I knew that.” I wink at her, slamming the washer lid on the first load of sweatshirts. The upside of having grown children is you can be freer with conversation. Nevertheless, she follows me just like a toddler to the kitchen, asking, “Hey mom, what’s for dinner? I’m starving.”

I miss the daily mechanics of motherhood more than I thought I might, but I have Madeline who pops in from college on any given night for a home-cooked meal, to have mom do a load of laundry, sew a button, fill a prescription, listen to the latest love life crisis, edit a research paper “that was due to my professor yesterday.” Madeline was always my little homebody, while her sister, Scarlett would have gladly left home by age eight with the moving van all packed and ready to go in the driveway. Now Scarlett is living in Boston with two roommates, but calling home every week for money, not because she isn’t working, but because the cost of living has increased 40% since her college graduation. I know. I did an article for a money magazine on the staggering statistics.

And my little Madeline, bless her soul, might not get straight A’s, as Scarlett always did, but she’s very organized. Closet color-coordinated and DVDs alphabetized. She gets that sickness from me. Ben and I often joke that Madeline might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but, wow, what a neat drawer!

When Ben and I got engaged, I decided to reset my grandmother’s wedding diamond from 1904, to keep her memory and love alive. Scarlett tugged at my hand and said, “Nice bling, ma!” I attempted to soften her abrasiveness by saying, “Oh honey, isn’t
it sweet, we reset Grandma’s ring…” and she just cut me off by saying, “Yeah, whatever, just make sure I get it when you’re dead.”

Madeline had a far smarter and smoother approach. She took my hand and examined it as though digging the inclusion-free stones in a DeBeers mines. Patiently she listened to my entire story of Grandma’s fixed marriage to her husband from Armenia, the one who went on to hang himself during the Genocide. Grandma remained a widow until her death at age ninety. Then I watched Madeline tear up, which made me tear up, and she hugged me. “Oh mom, that’s so romantic. Grandma is certainly watching from heaven. Someday when you’re gone I’ll wear it forever.”