More Muffia (The Muffia Book 2) (7 page)

Clearly, working on eliminating my snarky attitude was getting the same amount of focused energy I would be devoting to those
Lumosity
exercises Jel told me about—which is to say,
none
. I was quickly transitioning to being a snark with no memory. Then I realized that maybe my memory was the
cause
of my snarkiness. If I had no memory, there’d be nothing to snark about! Suddenly, not having a memory seemed very appealing.

“We need to just choose a site and commit,” said Vicki. “Every person I know who’s dated online says that commitment is the most important part; which site you choose is beside the point. You have to get in there, read the profiles, have the conversations, go on the bad dates and kiss the frogs. But if you stick with it, you’ll ultimately be rewarded.”

“How long ’til
ultimately
?—I mean, best case—if you could hazard a guess.”

“
Quinn
.” She didn’t need to say another thing. The reprimand was built in.

“All right,” I acquiesced.

“This is going to be fun.”

Fun? Unlikely. The whole enterprise sounded like work. Being lazy and back in bed with my married boyfriend seemed like the much easier—albeit worse—choice.

“I better go,” I said abruptly, looking at the clock. “She-who-shall-not-be-questioned could walk out of her office with her new girlfriend at any second, and it’s almost time for me to call Moscow. Get this—they want Joseph Gordon Levitt to do a commercial for Kentucky Fried Chicken.”

“Will he do it?”

“No way. My job is to get them to consider other Joseph Gordon Levitts who sorta look like him.”

“Sounds like fraud.”

“You have no idea. It’s wrong on so many levels, but I don’t think the average Moscovite would know the difference. They still think of him as the little kid from ‘Third Rock from the Sun.’ ”

Before we hung up, we agreed to choose our site, sign up for a webinar about online dating, write our profiles, and talk again in a couple of days, once the profiles of our dream dates started pouring in. Though significant energy would likely be expended before I met someone I liked, I needed to distract myself with at least the idea of another man if I was going to resist Steven. And having Vicki doing it with me ensured I’d follow through. This time, I vowed to myself, just like the woman who goes on and off her diet, I would turn my life around.

Food and alcoholic beverages are a vital part of any gathering of The Muffia Book Club. Talking about what book we were supposed to have read is just value added. The real reason we created the book club is to give ourselves a pretext for seeing each other and doing the aforementioned eating and drinking.

I needed to see my Muffs. It had been six weeks since the last book club gathering, and a few of the women I hadn’t talked to since. That’s far too long, especially when I need them for moral support so as not to fall off the Steven abstinence wagon, as I was in danger of doing. In my mind, our next book club meeting couldn’t get here soon enough.

Pre-book club meal planning is the job—but mostly joy—of the hostess who selects the book to be discussed at the next meeting. With book club coming up in a few days at Rachel’s, there were bound to be a flurry of emails going back and forth to get the details straight about who was bringing what. Sometimes it could take half an hour or more to figure out what was happening, what with all the double-entendres and tangents the Muffs went off on in their emails. It was easy to miss some piece of critical information, or worse, assume one had an understanding of what was happening, only to have everything change a few emails later. So that evening after work, I sat down with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc to find out what was what.

From: [email protected]

To: The Muffs

Re: Next Meeting

Just a reminder ladies—Next Muff meet is Tuesday, 7:30, chez moi. Hike to the Hollywood sign beforehand if anyone’s interested? LMK We’ll have a white trash meal in honor of Jeannette and will make poulet frite (bear with me, I’m learning French). We need drink, bread, hors d’oeuvres, salad, and a veggie dish, so let me know, s’il vous plait. Quinn, are you back? BTW, every painting from “Nude Men without Faces” sold in under two hours. Isn’t that outrageous?! The next series could either be “More Nude Men Without Faces” or “Nude Men Missing...?” What do you think? Looking forward to seeing everyone, with faces on.

Rachel went through guys faster than seemed healthy, but is this the reason she reduced them to mere bodies—now possibly without body parts? Why did she take their faces away? This latest series of paintings had a few Muffs concerned.

From: [email protected]

To: The Muffs

Re: Next Meeting

Will bring vegetarian dish, as I am still “no meat” in solidarity with Troy. Can’t wait to talk about Jeannette, who spent so many years going to bed after eating only weeds! ~ K.

PS—Happy to report Saul and I are working it out, yay! And you cannot believe what’s going on next door to me. Will tell all at roundy-round.

Troy is Kiki and Saul’s son who just turned fourteen and is a serious animal lover— to the point he almost got killed getting out of the car in freeway traffic last year to save a dog. I was happy to learn her marriage was on the mend, but more explanation was needed on that as well as what was happening with her neighbors.

From:[email protected]

To: The Muffs

Re: Next Meeting

I’ll bring a pie! Kiki, great news about you and Saul! I think I can be there for the hike, but I’m probably not going to finish the book (what a surprise!) even though it’s really good. The author makes my house problems seem ridiculous.

Sarah rarely finishes any book we read, but she can always be counted on to bring a delicious dessert, despite her crisis-to-crisis lifestyle. Her biggest problem, in my opinion, is that wandering husband of hers. What irony—considering I’m an adulterer myself. Anyway, lately Sarah and Nate Sr. have been having money problems, which seem to have morphed into house problems. I hoped this didn’t mean they were getting foreclosed upon. What was tragic about the situation was that if Sarah hadn’t quit her high-paying job with Williams-Sonoma, money wouldn’t be an issue.

From: [email protected]

To: The Muffs

Re: Next Meeting

I want one of your faceless men, Rachel, so yes, paint more, but don’t take off anything else. BTW—hunky costume guy is finished. Am now officially single again and back on Cougarlife.com. Bringing white trash pigs in blankets (poubelle blanc porcine?) along with a few empty blankets for Kiki, ‘k? xJ

From: [email protected]

To: The Muffs

Re: Next Meeting

Loved the book. El cerdito en una manta in Espanol. Will bring camera to capture more of the Muffs in action.

This capturing of our book club meetings—for what, posterity?—was a relatively new thing. Vicki started shooting our gatherings, capturing the dramatic and the truly dull—mundane jabber about skin conditions, kid and husband problems, and gripes about reduced volume for the same price at grocery stores—when she was still recovering from breast cancer. Without question, the Muffs agreed to let her shoot us because she’d been feeling low, and we thought it would help her heal. But now that the last few tests had come back clean, a few of us felt we needed to get her another film gig—developing a script or shooting something that had nothing to do with us. For everyone’s sake. It was getting uncomfortable. I was even hoping the online dating might draw her away.

From: [email protected]

To: The Muffs

Re: Next Meeting

I’ll be there, speaking English, and will bring whatever’s needed. How ’bout chili fries in honor of white trash? Would love to hike, but I have a meeting for the non-profit so might need to buy, rather than make. Have exciting news to share re: the location for our gigantic fundraiser next month! ~L

Lauren is from the Midwest, and the kind of meal Rachel was envisioning was just her kind of feast. She didn’t work and would be hard pressed to take on a
real
job even if she needed to, which she most definitely did not after the big brewery sale. She has two young kids and is dedicated to being a hands-on mom. So what does a rich, philanthropically-minded woman do? Like I said, she forms a 501 C 3.

From: [email protected]

To: The Muffs

Re: Next Meeting

I’ll bring some delicious Grenache I just discovered. Quinn, what was that phone call from Japan about? For those of you who don’t know, Q called me from Tokyo to tell me Udi was at the airport. Do I need to remind everyone about the state he was in when he was removed from my house? What were you on?

xo Madelyn

Maddie always brings wine to book club, never a prepared food item unless she’s bought it. I’m not one of those who gets irritated by this because the wine she brings is always delicious, and when we go to her house, she never asks us to bring a thing; it’s a feast. Of course, she lives in freakin’ Agoura, miles and miles from anybody else, so she feels like she has to bribe us. As for the phone call and Udi, well, ’nough said.

Paige had yet to weigh in on the upcoming meeting, which was odd because she was sort of the Muffia’s mother hen—the one who kept the rest of us on track with dates, rules, who the next hostess was, and remembering what books we read, which would become more and more relevant as time went on. Not even brain Pilates could help me remember all the books we’ve read. I figured she would get to it soon enough and decided it was my turn to “Reply all ”:

From: [email protected]

To: The Muffs

Re: Next Meeting

Hello, ladies. I’ve returned from the land of Toto. You can’t believe the shrines they build to toilets over there; they have a potty museum. Viggo M. tractor shoot went well, but the vigorous Viggo himself alas remains only a fantasy. Glad to be home, despite twisting my ankle (better now), lack of sleep, and other peri-menopausal symptoms. And guess what? I finished the book!!! Loved it. Helps to be trapped on a plane. Sorry for the call, M. I’ll bring a bottle of Bourbon, and we can pretend it’s moonshine.

After perusing several more emails—deals from Amazon Local, a group conducting dating webinars, signature requests from watchdog groups, solicitations from what seemed like every site I’d ever been on, no matter how many times I’ve unsubscribed, and requests to wire funds to save the royal family of Burkina Faso—my eyes were glazing over. It was all I could do to retrieve my Kobo reader from the Tumi bag and put it next to the front door so I’d remember to bring it to book club.

Exhaustion finally caught up with me and, after attempting to read through The Dating Company’s ten tips for successful online dating, all further thought was banished as the laptop slipped from my lap.

What I didn’t yet know, as I crashed into the first deep slumber since my return from Japan, is that unseen by me when I’d pulled out the Kobo, burning a hole in the Tumi roller, was something that could change the course of the Muffia.

The following morning, Jamie Harris strode through the mostly open floor plan of Talent Partners, Inc., per usual. Her hair appeared newly highlighted, and she was wearing a slimming navy suit that hung like nobody’s business, with a perfectly accessorized black Lauren bag swinging by her side. She gave me a nod in acknowledgement and made a beeline for the door of her corner office where, once inside, she deposited the bag on her desk and pivoted to return to the open door.

All of us who work on the fifth floor within shouting distance of Jamie’s office know to look down at such a moment, hoping not to be called upon, prone as she was to addressing us like schoolchildren. This time, though, I felt the full heat of her withering glare.

“Well, Quinn, were you going to tell me about this?”

My head snapped up to face the threat, for in her tone there was an audible note of impending danger. But what was she talking about? What was “this”?

I glanced over my shoulder to the few members of the Talent Partners team—my mostly self-serving colleagues—who were at their desks, heads bowed: Sameer, Carolyn, and Titania included.

“They can’t help you,” Jamie said, and started backing into her office. “Would you come in here, please?”

I rose slowly, putting the computer on sleep mode, and looked over to Sameer who gave me his signature head waggle, which simultaneously said, “Uh-oh,” and “Don’t worry.”

Once inside Jamie’s office, I closed the door.

“Ankle better?” she asked, getting the niceties out of the way.

“Yes, thanks. Much.” I’d graduated to my lowest heels.

“What exactly happened in Tokyo?” She sounded almost accusatory as she walked around to the far side of her desk and assumed an attack stance.

“Nothing. I mean beyond the shoot, which went really well, as I told you. Kitomo Matsuhashi was very happy with Viggo’s work on Kubota, and they might want him back for their new bulldozer campaign.”

“Never mind that,” she snapped. “We heard that one of our agents in Tokyo was misbehaving last week.”

“Really? Who?” Best to play dumb while I tried to figure out how she could possibly mean me, which it was clear she did.

“
Who?
Are you serious?
You
are who.”

I hadn’t misbehaved;
I don’t think
. As quickly as I could, on only one latte, I reviewed the four-day trip. Had I eaten too many
daifuku
? If I had, so what? Did I splurge on the expense account? Not at all. It’s possible that I went by Viggo’s hotel room a few too many times, hoping to catch his door open, and he thought I was stalking him. Even this didn’t really rise to the level of punishable offense.

“Who told you I was misbehaving?” I asked. That’s the way to do it; cast blame on the messenger.

“Doesn’t matter who told me.” She pulled out her chair and gestured to the one I found myself already gripping the arm of. “Sit.”