The Muffia (2 page)

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: Will bring whatever you need, Sarah, if I'm up to coming. Not feeling great myself, but want to come as I’ve read the book—a real literary nailing of the banal, dontcha think?

Victoria—Vick, or Vicki, as we call her—kind of fell into filmmaking when she was living in Spain with her now ex-husband, Ricardo, whom she married straight out of college to annoy her family who’d never thought him smart enough for her. (Being a bullfighter, he sort of wasn’t.) She’s been out of the business for years but wants to get back in now that her son, Enrique, is practically grown and—she’s sadly realizing—doesn’t need her anymore. That said, she hasn’t been able to get a new project going. She either hasn’t found the right story or hasn’t been able to raise the money she needs to commit the story to film—or, more realistically these days, digitized bits. I was hoping she’d rally and get to Sarah's because if we had one more “iffy” Muff, the night wouldn’t happen.

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: Hope you feel better, V (and happy birthday, BTW). Totally on board for night change since we may be down three; too many missing Muffies! But just in case, the following week I'm good M, Tu, Th but Sarah should weigh in first since she's the crucial ingredient. Let's do this quickly! Before the rains come!

Quinn has a demanding job with all those celebrities, but she rarely misses book club—which is only right as she is another of its founders. She also keeps abreast of all our birthdays (unless it's her assistant that's doing it). Though I haven’t known Quinn as long as I have most of the other Muffs, we get along great—probably because we’re both single and share a certain and sometimes un-repressed snarkiness. I often find her to be one of the most grounded and practical of the group—even if she is the most jaded. This point will be relevant as the story proceeds, in that I wasn’t completely correct in my assessment of her. Just because someone is grounded in one area doesn’t mean they are
totally
grounded.

Now where Quinn was
concerned
about Vicki, as well as the possibility of book club moving to another night, Paige finally went off, and she didn’t pull her punches. Though the message could have been a bit excessive, it wasn’t unusual. Paige usually takes our Tolstoy award for Most Words in an email thread:

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: Happy B-day V, but sheeesh, this is like the 10 little Indians! Hope the Donald’s worth it, L, and that you feel better, V, and that Troy feels better, or at least good enough for a sitter. I'll see the rest of you that haven't bailed on the 17th.  BTW, in the future? Let's go over some excuses that rate: Immediate family member's leg cut off—excused. Cancer treatments —excused. Child's explosive emissions from both ends—excused if single. From one end—not excused. DINNER AND HOMEWORK???—Not excused. Busy with work and kids—not excused. Giving birth—excused. Husband out of town— not excused. Gallery opening—excused. Mid-terms—not excused. Getting laid by Brad Pitt?— toss-up but I have to land on the side of not being so available that you ditch book club to accom-modate sex. Let it be shown that we are all busy with work, deadlines, some of us with kids, no husbands, only one with a nanny and
everyone
with plumbing. We changed this date to accommodate members that now aren't even coming!! Please try to at least buy the book and start it so you have some relationship to the discussion. We've been letting this slide but I think we need to re-group and re-commit. Ours is a book club that is exemplary and I have numerous friends who are dying to join. Let's just say that I hope a slot will not be opening up!

Love you all, P

Totally right, I thought. Good for Paige.

OK, that’s probably enough for now. You haven’t heard from all the Muffs, but it’s kind of like sitting in the sun—probably best to limit one’s exposure the first time out. Anyway, with this story, the most important thing is to know that these women are there, my friends, backing me up, even if you can’t keep straight who’s who.

Chapter 2

I dashed through the raindrops, across the wet flagstone walkway and up the steps to Sarah’s Craftsman-style house in Santa Monica, and took cover under the dark green awning hanging over the front stoop. I pressed the doorbell and took the few moments before the door opened to shake the rain from my jacket and gently push the drops off the Saran-Wrapped salad I’d brought as part of the night’s dinner. I was happy, despite the fact that I was wet and in desperate need of assistance for my terminally limp hair.

It rains so rarely in LA, but when it does, it provides a needed respite from the incessant sunshine, which, to some of us residents, can become an unrelenting bore. Being an east coaster by birth and upbringing, I never mind the rain. I’d enjoyed the beautiful and stormy drive to Sarah’s. Coming over the Santa Monica Mountains from the San Fernando Valley where I live, through Santa Monica canyon and up to Sarah’s house just south of Montana Avenue, I’d felt enclosed and safe in my Prius as the rain clouds enshrouded me.

“Hi,” chirped Sarah, her gamine face aglow atop her professional chef’s apron as she swung open the green lacquered door. “Come in, come in. It’s horrible out there. I hope everyone makes it,” she said with grave concern, looking past me into the darkened sky.

“It’s just a little water,” I said simply, shrugging off Sarah’s suggestion of impending cataclysm.

She pushed from her face several strands of richly colored brown hair that had escaped her butterfly clip. Actually more hair than not had shaken loose and the clip now seemed to be balancing on the top of her head. “It’s only rain, yes, but it’s horrible. You know how people get in LA when there’s ‘weather.’”

They often lose their minds, I mused—particularly the people driving, though I’d been fortunate enough to avoid the lunatics that evening. I don’t know why but it often seems that when it rains in LA it’s as if God has appeared and signaled the end is near, so people drive like maniacs to get wherever they were going before the magnitude-eight shaker levels the city. Kind of like the way ants behave when someone steps on their anthill.

“Anyway, I’m glad you made it,” she said, ushering me into her charming flea market-appointed foyer. “You look wonderful, Maddie. Is that a new bag? Really pretty. Here, let me take this.” She whisked the raindrop-speckled mixed greens from my hands, completely ignoring the still-open door, which I decided to close, shutting out the
horrible
night.

Looking into the hall mirror, I saw that in addition to my mop of hair, which I tried to arrange, my make-up had been destroyed. Surely Sarah had noticed and I wondered what her criteria were for looking wonderful. Perhaps she thought the smudged make-up was intentional. And surely she’d seen the bag I’d owned for two years on at least ten previous occasions. Whatever. Sarah wasn’t known for her powers of observation and she was trying to be nice—kind words being the grease that keeps society running, making for pleasant company and all that.

I know I’ve told you my name but, to repeat, I’m Madelyn—Madelyn Scott-Crane, with the hyphenated ex-husband’s last name still attached—but my friends call me Maddie. I don’t particularly like that tag because it makes me think of the angry little girl I once was and would rather leave behind. But it’s what my friends have always called me, and it’s been difficult to get them to change. Basically I’ve given up.
Why?
Because they’re my friends and I love them, I guess.
There—more grease.

“Vicki and Jelicka are in the den monitoring
Stormwatch
,”
Sarah jabbered, leading me toward the kitchen and again brushing the hair from her face before lifting the lid off an orange Le Creuset pot. She wore no make-up, not that she needed any. Her complexion wasn’t as rosy as mine but, then again, her skin wasn’t prone to splotchiness, no matter how much slaving she did over the stove. “
They
think it’s dreadful out there, too.”

Well of course Jelicka would think it was dreadful. She becomes alarmed when her coffee gets cold
—
but
Vicki?

“Go—I’ll be in after I check the soup.”

Something fishy was in that pot but I didn’t say anything since, to me, fish never smells as good as it tastes.

As mentioned earlier, a Muff hostess always tries to have a meal that is in some way thematically connected to the book we’ve just read. In the case of Sarah’s gathering that night, we’d read a book that was set on the New Jersey shore. What else could you eat that was specifically New Jersey shore besides fish? Fish soup in anyone else’s hands might be a thing to avoid, but I was sure that whatever oceanic dish was cooking on Sarah’s stove that night would rate at least 27 in Zagat’s—not that any of us except Jelicka frequented the high-end restaurants enough to know.

“Did you read the book? I wasn’t sure from your email,” I said as she set my store-bought, thematically unsuitable dressing on the counter.

Sarah shook her head. “Ran out of time.”

“It was a New York Times bestseller, Sarah. We’re supposed to make a little more effort with those.”

“I don’t think the writer did,” came her retort. “How can he expect to enthrall his reader when he creates a central character with titanium beads in his balls? I gave him fifty pages. Life’s too short.”

“His, too, most likely.”

“What?”

“His life.”

Sarah stared at me. “His life was too short?”

“Never mind. Probably more of a man’s book anyway.” I sighed and turned away from the smell of the ocean toward the drama of
Stormwatch
.

Sarah gasped and I turned back, concerned that she’d burned herself or dropped something into the soup.

“Did you hear about Vicki?”

“What about her?”

“She has cancer!”

Now it was my turn to gasp. Then I looked at Sarah in disbelief. “What?”
Why was she telling me this? In
this
way?

“She has cancer,” Sarah repeated.

“I heard that part but why are you—and we sent all those emails back and forth about cancer. Now
this
is horrible.”

“Shhhh—she’s going to tell everyone, don’t worry.”

“I wasn’t worried until you—Sarah, how can you blurt out things like ‘Vicki has cancer,’ and expect me not to be at least marginally upset?”

“
Shhhhh
—”

“I should have heard it from her.”

“Well, I’m sorry I ruined the surprise. But it’s not life threatening.”

“I’m relieved it’s not life threatening, but still . . .”

Sarah shrugged. Despite being a kind person, she has a habit of making inappropriate—or
I
think they’re inappropriate—announcements. Most of the time it’s gossip, a pastime she indulges in with great frequency, and which also explains her not being able to find much time to read, what with a husband, a child, a house and an extensive gossip mill to care for.

I headed in the general direction of the den, toward the din of the TV. It was on so loud that while still in the kitchen, I’d heard commercials for Sit ‘n Sleep mattresses, Proactiv skincare and a new anti-erectile dysfunction product that warned a man he should become alarmed only if his erection lasts more than twelve hours.
Twelve—wasn’t four alarming enough?

If I were being honest with myself, I hadn’t
embraced
this month’s book selection either, though I’d slogged through it in sisterhood. Certainly
that
wasn’t worth having a tiff over with the chef. I knew this intellectually, but my happy mood had started to wane—probably due to peri-menopausal mood swings put in motion by the news that a good friend has cancer.

Lately I’d been feeling old, just like the guy in the book. As a single mom of a fourteen-year-old girl, with no real romantic prospects, I’d been wondering
again
, what life was really about. Was I seriously meant to be spending my days mediating other people’s disputes? What was I supposed to be doing with my nights, not to mention my vacation time? Reading about Frank Bascomb’s travels around New Jersey hadn’t given me any greater insight into humanity. In fact, I was probably even more lost. Books need to either entertain or to clarify life, one way or another. And if they don’t, well, they’ve failed.

Vicki got out of her chair and brushed my cheeks with her own as I entered the den. I wasn’t sure if I should keep her from standing, given her condition, but of course I was not supposed to know about her condition so I accepted her gesture without comment.

“You made it,” said Jelicka, surprised.

“Yeah, who would have thought?” I smiled.

“We were worried,” Vicki offered. She didn’t appear to be affected by the cancer, though I wasn’t sure what I should be looking for. In fact, she seemed fine. She seemed like Vicki; thinner maybe. Her spiky hair was bright red this month and she'd added some blonde streaks.

“Seriously, Maddie, for you to drive that far, in this torrent... What
are
you doing living in Agoura Hills, anyway?” Jelicka demanded. “It’s to hell and gone, there are no men and they’ve just closed the coast highway for its annual mudslide. You couldn’t get back now if you wanted to.”

Following Jelicka’s gaze, I took in
Stormwatch,
wondering if I could also be drawn into the hyped-up fear of an impending flood, but I was immediately caught up in the host’s appearance. I don’t watch much local TV, getting most of my news from NPR while driving. So seeing this weather guy with a “faux-hawk”—a fake Mohawk hairstyle on the widescreen TV—talking about precipitation levels in a robotic sing-song voice, was an out-of-body experience. Was he even real? Robot technology had come a long way but could Faux-hawk be an actual robot?
Whoever he was, it didn’t matter to Jelicka. The guy knew his Doppler radar.

“Global warming has yet to cut the valley off from the Westside,” I announced. “I’ll just take the freeway.”

Once again I was put in the position of having to defend my choice of living twenty-five miles from Muff central, the mid-point of the rest of the Cliterati. As anyone who’s chosen to live outside the center of any major city in the world can attest, it takes more effort to get to where the action is but one puts up with it for things like proximity to the country (or the appearance of country), reduced crime and cheaper housing—and plenty of convenient street parking.

In the case of the Muffs and Los Angeles, our bulls-eye is roughly at the intersection of Doheny Drive and Olympic Boulevard, on the south side of Beverly Hills and miles from where any one of us actually lives. Los Angeles is, after all, the definition of sprawl. This means that we are scattered in all directions and each of us has to drive (burning up precious fossil fuels in the process) to talk about whatever book is up for discussion that night. It seems to be lost on those with Westside zip codes that it takes the Muff in Venice longer to reach the Muff in Hollywood to the east than it does for the Clittie in Studio City to get to Agoura. Though book club meets at my house only once a year—like the mudslides, an annual event—the Muffs love to complain about my being geographically un-desirable. This is despite the fact that when they come to
my
house, I take care of everything—no pot lucking required. I suppose it’s always hard to change an entrenched mindset no matter what the issue—acceptable neighborhoods, universal health care, globalization. It all comes from the same place in the human brain that makes it hard for us to change. Sadly, my geographic unavailability is also the cause of my being left out of a lot of the girl talk I actually cherish, even if it also makes me crazy sometimes. It’s a flaw in my character that I both want to be included and, at the same time wish to retain the right not to be.

“And there
are
men in Agoura, Jel,” I said. “There are men everywhere. I just don’t meet any guys who make me want to—you know… ”

I’d been married. I have a child. And though I like the idea of having a man around, I know I don’t want another one like the one I had. Unfortunately, that knowledge can keep me from seeking out any new partner for fear of making the same unsuitable choice.

Jelicka shrugged. “Well, I’ve offered to set you up.”

“Yes, you have and I appreciate it,” I said. “I’ll let you know.”

Jelicka’s older husband Roscoe is a successful entertainment lawyer with lots of divorced partner attorneys and associates she wanted me to meet. But as a member of the legal profession myself, I believe one lawyer is plenty for any household. She is the Muff with the most clothes, busiest social life and the firmest grip on the ever-shortening news cycle and the timely information that people want, even if she does make things up just to get a rise out of people. Celebrity break-ups, cloned super-humans and three-eyed alien babies are among the many topics she keeps herself abreast of.

“You can stay with me tonight if you don’t have to rush back. Roscoe’s in Argentina fishing ‘til Sunday. I’d actually love the company,” Jelicka said, her eyes still on the
Stormwatch
host.  “In fact, after we’re done here, anyone who doesn’t want to drive home can stay at my house. It’ll be like summer camp, listening to the storm and telling ghost stories.”