With Friends Like These: A Novel (21 page)

“Don’t you think Maizie is bewitching?” Charlene asked.

Bewitching
hadn’t been an adjective Quincy used in describing Maizie, though I’d heard
narcissistic
,
unreliable
, and
juvenile
. But Charlene’s question didn’t need an answer. By barely tilting her head, she prompted several
cabana boys to zoom in our direction and furnish us with extra towels; mojitos, easy on the ice; a second umbrella; and an enormous basket of crudités sculpted like flowers. Charlene signed the tab and, with that, reached down into her Chanel tote, pulled out
The Economist
, and turned away to read.

I wished I’d brought reading material other than the 833-page novel I’d started in Maine.
The Crimson Petal and the White
was stuffed with historical details, like how many bundles of holly an English family ordered for Christmas in 1875. Still, its cover, with its rumpled bed behind red draperies, looked like trash, and I guessed that little escaped the scrutiny of Charlene’s eyes, which matched the sapphire baguettes of her ring. I’m fairly certain that if she were quizzed, she could accurately report Xander’s last bonus and the number of square feet we own back in Brooklyn.

Thinking about Brooklyn made me want to call home. By now it was past four in New York, and Dash might be back from Henry Fisher-Wells’ birthday party. I’d dodged a bullet on that one, with the trip giving me an unquestionable excuse to send Dash to the party accompanied by Jamyang and a set of blocks that promised to develop sequential and organizational thinking, math concepts, and structural design skills. I was angry—furious!—at Talia, but I didn’t want to take it out on Henry. In the last three weeks I’d not seen Talia once. At work we were communicating strictly by phone, e-mail, and succinct notes. If Talia suspected anything was amiss, she’d kept it to herself. With both of our lives generally hectic, our behavior was, I told myself, within the boundaries of normal.

Feeling woozy, though, was not. Between the mojitos and the temperature, tiny, evil
charros
were stamping on my temples, their partners in my tummy shouting
Olé!
as they picked up the pace. I put down my book, willed myself not to be ill, and closed my eyes, pulling my canvas hat over my forehead and hoping the buzzing I heard was from insects.

The next thing I knew, Charlene was nudging my arm. “Chloe,” she said. “It’s almost two. Want to have lunch?”

I quickly opened my eyes. A slight trickle of drool had dripped down
the side of my face. I prayed that Charlene would think it was perspiration, although she herself looked fresh as dew.

“Of course. Let’s eat!” I said in that too-fast way people speak when they’re embarrassed at being caught snoozing. In truth, the idea of lunching with Maizie May and her girl group sounded like persecution:
the Beverly Hills Hotel—come for the glamour, stay for the humiliation
. But what I said—thank you, marvelous mojitos—was “It will be fun!”

Charlene precisely folded her copy of the Sunday
Times
, the one from London. She removed her hat without disturbing her brilliantly blond chignon, slipped into her caftan, and replaced her hat at exactly the most flattering angle. We walked back to the horseshoe-shaped banquette where Maizie was already sitting. The sycophant to her right got up and let Charlene slide into the seat of honor. This friend-of-Maizie then sat down to Charlene’s left, and several other young women followed her. That left either end seat for me, though if I’d gone across to the other side of the restaurant I doubt anyone would have noticed.

“Tell me how a girl from Ocala gets to the top of the pop charts,” Charlene asked, as if she were genuinely interested. For the next ten minutes, Maizie explained how she’d been discovered in a Piggly-Wiggly where she was a cashier known to sing about her customers’ purchases and how a record producer was in her line buying Okefenokee BBQ Sauce while he was home visiting his parents. Maizie told the tale with considerable animation, though she was repeating the story not, I guessed, for the first time. Every one of her dedicated followers hooted loudly or yelled “No shit, girl” at regular intervals.

As we nibbled shrimp cocktail and chopped salads, Charlene continued to steer the conversation. The two headliners discovered that both of them owned homes not far from Mazatlán and compared notes about a party given by a gentleman named El Gigante. The more they chatted, the more it became clear that Señor Gigante’s nickname was inspired by an appendage that Maizie seemed proud to know intimately. I wanted to break into the conversation but had as much social currency as a beggar at Bergdorf’s. My only card to play, I decided after twenty minutes, was to
once again bring up Quincy. “How’s the book going?” I asked during what I thought was either a lull or Charlene taking a deep, cleansing breath.

Maizie looked at me and laughed—at me, not with me, I guessed. Yet I added, “With my friend Quincy Blue. Your ghostwriter.”

“I know who you mean. I’m pissed at that skinny twat, if you want to know the truth.”

I could feel my face reddening, and it wasn’t because the café’s fans had lost their battle against the heat. “Really?” I said, with alcohol-fueled boldness. “What’s the problem, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“She got knocked up. Just when I’ve decided I’m really into the book and have some face time to finish, she goes off and disappears because”—Maizie switched to a flat midwestern accent to mimic Quincy’s—“her doctor won’t let her git on a plane. She was supposed to meet me last week after my show in Seattle.”

“Quincy’s p-p-pregnant?” I sputtered.

“Not just p-p-pregnant. She’s having a litter.”

“Quincy’s having twins?”

“If only. No, triplets.”

My mouth hung open. Hot tears began dribbling down my cheeks. Triplets!

“You seem surprised. I thought she was your best friend, woman,” Maizie roared.

Through my mojito haze, I reminded myself that I shouldn’t be angry at Quincy for not having told me. Given her medical history, she probably was afraid to say anything until she was further along, and she’d informed Maizie only because she was forced to. But I felt like a fraud all the same, especially when Charlene added, “Yes, that
is
odd that you don’t know. Curious indeed.”

Where did that come from?
I wanted to throw my drink in Charlene’s sweat-free face. Cha-Cha Denton was … disloyal. She cared only about impressing Maizie May. No, that wasn’t all. Charlene Denton could pretend all she wanted that she was refined, but the real Cha-Cha was a
nasty, overly ambitious, despicable she-devil. This insight occurred with another: the mere thought of calling upon Charlene to help Dash get into school seemed, in a flash, ugly, wrong, and dirty. I didn’t care what Xander would say. I couldn’t let our innocent child’s future be tainted by such a nasty conniver.

I decided she really did look like a crane, not a piece of construction equipment as much as some sort of ghastly bird with a nose that was too long, a neck too scrawny, and knees too knobby. And her hair looked like a polygamist’s wife’s!

I hated hearing Quincy’s news in this way, but my friend was pregnant! Quincy and Jake were going to have an instant, enormous family. I wanted to run back to my room and call her with congratulations. I wanted to ship off dozens of tea roses and the Silver Rain perfumed body lotion I’d seen in the hotel’s spa. But, obviously, I could do none of those things. If Quincy had wanted me to know, she’d have told me.

If I couldn’t speak to Quincy, though, I had to speak to someone. Certainly not Jules, who barely tolerated children, Dash included.

I rolled the linen napkin between my fingers and realized that left … Talia. Yes, I wanted to speak to Talia, who up until a few weeks ago I’d considered to be my dearest friend.
Dammit, Talia
, I thought, only slightly aware that the conversation around me was continuing.
Why did you have to ruin everything by snatching a job meant for me and for being sneaky-strange about the whole school business?

Talia and Charlene: connivers. How different were they? I grabbed an untouched mojito and, without excusing myself, left.

  
Quincy

Three babies: one for each we’re mourning, plus another chickpea-sized miracle. I wandered through my days with a beatific smile.

Dr. Frumkes assured me I had no restrictions. Perhaps I shouldn’t hike the Appalachian Trail, but neither did I have to retire to a hammock. My mind was a Slinky, coiled tightly, unable to land on any topic that wasn’t related to the magic in my still-flat belly. I felt like a cocktail shaker, buoyant with excitement, nausea, and disbelief.

Though in theory I could proceed with Maizie’s book research—Dr. F. said I could fly to Seattle for meetings—I couldn’t concentrate on writing, other than to deconstruct each quiver in my journal. I begged our editor for an extension, to which she and Maizie sullenly agreed.

With the exception of those isolated, uncomfortable conversations, Jake and I hadn’t spoken of the pregnancy to anyone without a medical degree. I would have liked to tell Talia, but I knew she’d feel it would be a jinx to discuss my complicated gestation at this vulnerable stage, and if I confided in Chloe, she’d be calling and texting to track every belch; I’d suffocate under the chokehold of her well-intentioned advice. And the
gifts—hours after I’d told her, three layettes would be delivered, perhaps accompanied by a trio of wet nurses.

That left Jules. In other words, no one, although I’d considered Horton, whom I’d been calling daily to see if the co-op board had scheduled our interview, since top of mind was our now urgent need for larger living quarters. Today he answered, as he always does, halfway through the first ring. “Nope, zero news on the date,” he said.

“What happened to hello?” I asked.

“What happened to patience?”

“Do boards drag their feet simply to psych out prospective owners? It’s cruel, the way they’re behaving.” I was still madly in love with the apartment, but if our hopes for it crashed, I’d scrape myself off the floor and find an alternative, fast. There was no way five Blues could survive amicably for long in a seven-hundred-square-foot one-bedroom.

“Are we that worried about the big, bad, bald boyfriend?” Horton added.

“Should I be?”

Before he answered my question, he put me on hold to take another call. This gave me a chance to consider how sensible it was for a family to make a home anywhere in Manhattan. A saner couple would be putting all their energy into trying to retrieve their down payment while they frantically searched for a house in the suburbs—the most affordable outpost of, say, Anchorage. But I could barely grasp that I was pregnant. That was sufficient change for the moment.

Three minutes passed. I was ready to give up on Horton when he returned. “Stupendous news, Mrs. Blue,” he said. “The board can see you and Jake—next Wednesday.”

Thank you, God
. “Finally,” I said, with an audible exhale. “Where should we meet you?”

“Me? I, Horton, your lowly broker, am persona non grata. Not even Fran gets invited. You and Jake handle this meeting solo, not that I don’t wish I could be a fly on the wall.” At that, he cackled. “When you arrive at
the building, the doorman will direct you. The interrogations are usually held in a board member’s apartment.”

“That’s it?”

“Feel free to ask me anything. Go ahead, start.”

“What should I wear?”

“Dress as if you’re going to a funeral.”

“
Will
it be a funeral?”

“You and Jake are attractive and likable. Your financials are solid. You don’t have any pets—”

“Excuse me—remember Fanny?” The kitten was sleeping on my keyboard, and I was already worrying that when the babies came along, she’d grow into a velociraptor that would claw out their eyes.

“Right, you have a kitty. No problem there. Nor do you have kleptomania, a tic, or halitosis. The board will like you, trust me. The most crucial thing to remember is that you want to come off as having not a doubt in the world. This means you ask no questions. Zip. You should also absolutely not volunteer that you are going to renovate. Tell them you don’t even plan to paint. Co-op boards fear renovations like a pizza fears a fat man.”