The Best Laid Plans (14 page)

“Bill said he liked older women. How about the Cougar Club?” she asks.

“No, we don’t want to give anyone even a hint of what we’re up to,” I say cautiously.

“SPTN?” she says, combining our initials into what sounds like a new sports franchise. “Tru, Truce, SeeTru, SeeThrough, Newman-Post?”

“Or ‘Post-Newman.’ ” I laugh, waving my hand through the air like a banner. “The next generation of great salad dressings.”

We bounce ideas back and forth for several minutes, until Sienna comes up with the solution.

“I’ve got it!” she says, “The Veronica Agency! And you and Bill and I will be the only ones who know that it’s named after our late great sixteenth-century sister, Veronica Franco, the inimitable poet and courtesan.”

“The Veronica Agency. That’s great!” I agree enthusiastically—throwing caution to the wind when it comes to tempting the fates. Not to mention the risky undertaking of going into the world’s oldest profession.

N
OW THAT WE’RE
really going into business I have a million things to do. My closet organization might be going to go to hell, I think merrily, as I walk up Madison Avenue with a buoyancy I haven’t felt in weeks. Although I’m still careful to
look down at the pavement. Can you imagine Naomi ending up with a broken back because
my
high heels slipped on a crack?

I stride past a bistro where a few jeans-and-suede-clad M&Ms are lingering after long lunches and the collegiate grouping of luxury shops that are each recognizable by a single name—Giorgio, Donna, Oscar, and Hermès—though these days, the stores are appreciably less crowded and I notice too that the line for the hotdog vendor on the corner of Sixty-fourth Street is unusually long. Once the business gets going, I’ll be back, I think, stopping to see what’s new at Missoni, and as I catch my reflection in the window, I reach for my cellphone. I’ve been telling myself that my dark roots are hip, like Sarah Jessica Parker’s in the third season of
Sex and the City
. But my stripey mane reminds me more of a raccoon with a bad dye job than the spunky star. I’m just speed-dialing Angela Cosmai to see if the city’s most fabulous colorist can possibly squeeze me in, when I spot Molly walking toward me. And she’s not alone.

My older, wiser, studious daughter, the daughter I count on to be reasonable, reliable, and uncomplicated, is walking down the street, holding hands with a young man—a young man with chiseled good looks framed by spiky blond hair, wearing khakis and a navy blue blazer and looking as if he just stepped out of an episode of
Gossip Girl
. Molly’s ditched her owlish black glasses and pulled out her elastic band to let her dark locks cascade over her shoulders. As Molly tilts her head toward the teenage Adonis, a goofy smile spreads over her face. What is it about the first, ethereal stages of romance that could turn even Condoleezza Rice into a grinning idiot? I call out a cheery “Hello!”

Molly looks furtively at me, shakes her head almost imperceptivity, and continues walking.

“Who was that?” I hear the young man ask as they brush past me and I recognize the emblem on the boy’s blazer, identifying him as a student at Molly’s school.

“Don’t know, just some woman,” says Molly, looking over her shoulder, raising her palm in a signal that tells me not to say another word. I watch as the boy takes Molly’s backpack and loops his muscular arm through hers. Molly laughs and buries her head in his shoulder. “Thanks for the cheeseburger,” I hear her say as they slip around the corner. “I’m having the most fun ever, Brandon.”

L
ATER THAT NIGHT
Paige is in her bedroom working on a history term paper when I hear Molly’s key turn in the door. I’ve been waiting for her to get home all evening, and she comes into the kitchen full of excitement and excuses.

“I’m sorry, Mom, I know it was dumb not to say hi, I was just so embarrassed to, you know, introduce my date to my mother,” she says, grinning as she slides her backpack off her shoulder—the very same backpack that just a few hours ago had been held by the golden-haired Brandon. The very same Brandon—I now know from checking the school directory the minute I got home—whom her sister has a crush on.

I don’t know if Molly knows that Paige likes this boy or if Paige knows that Molly had a date with him, and I have to figure out a way to make each of them aware of what’s going on without hurting their feelings or turning it into an Olympic-sized competition. Not so easy when you’re dealing with twins who’ve been scrutinized and sized-up against each other since the day they were born.

We’ve always told the girls, “Celebrate your uniqueness!” But how could you not make comparisons? When Paige started walking at ten months, it was nearly impossible not to
push Molly to try to follow in her footsteps. Molly was only a year old when she started speaking in full sentences, which made us worry about why Paige was still babbling. And while Molly has the budding-but-undeveloped poise and beauty of Anne Hathaway in the opening scenes of
The Princess Diaries
or
The Devil Wears Prada
, Paige was born as sleek and confident as a blond version of the actress in act two.

Molly’s always been shier and more hesitant in social situations, more likely to watch from the sidelines than her outgoing twin. So despite my resolve to be as neutral as Switzerland, I’m secretly rooting for her. As long as this Brandon Marsh isn’t playing my two girls against each other.

“A date, huh?” I ask as nonchalantly as possible, rinsing off some plates and stacking them in the dishwasher.

“Mom, you never do this right,” Molly says affectionately, coming over to make sure that the bowls and salad plates are on the top of the machine and that the larger plates are properly spaced and facing each other on the bottom.

“So this boy …”

“Oh Mom, we had so much fun! We went for chocolate shakes and cheeseburgers at Jackson Hole and when the bill came I offered to split it but he said, ‘Here, let me get that,’ so I did, even though I said, ‘Okay, but next time I’ll pay,’ and then we walked through the park and he carried my backpack and I know I should have introduced you. I’m sorry, it was just so weird to run into you and I wanted to seem cool, though next time I promise I’ll say hello. And oh yeah—” she laughs as she interrupts sorting through the silverware look up and flash a radiant smile “—his name is Brandon Marsh.”

“That’s sounds great, honey, hmm, Brandon Marsh,” I repeat carefully, as if I’m trying to place a vaguely familiar name. “Isn’t that the boy who’s in Paige’s science class?”

A small shadow crosses Molly’s face and she turns her back
toward me to plunge a group of forks into the wire dishwasher basket, tines down. Some might argue that placed in that direction the forks could nest, running the risk of their not coming out clean, but in our family, we’re more concerned about nobody getting stabbed to death when they’re unloaded.

“So what if Brandon is in Paige’s science class?” Molly asks. “For once a boy likes me!”

“A boy likes you, what boy like you?” asks Paige, sauntering into the kitchen with one earplug dangling out of her iPod, obviously having heard only the last part of Molly’s declaration.

Molly and I lock eyes.

“Brandon Marsh likes me and we went on a date today and had cheeseburgers,” Molly says with a brazenness I haven’t heard in her voice before. Whether from inexperience or exuberance or a desperate attempt to mark dibs on this Marsh man, she puts Paige, who needs no provocation, on the offensive.

“Big deal,” Paige says, toying with the twist top on a package of English muffins. She opens the cellophane wrapping, fingers all of the muffins in the package so that no one else will want to eat them, and then reties the bag and puts it back in the bread basket. “So Brandon bought you a cheeseburger. Woo, woo, headline, let’s call the
New York Times
. Brandon buys sodas and French fries and salads and anything else they want for girls seven days a week. He’s a serial snack dater,” she says dismissively. “But Brandon and I have something deeper and more meaningful. He studies with me. We have an intellectual connection.”

At the thought of Brandon and Paige entering the Intel science contest—or even leaning on each other to get a C-plus—Molly lets out a whoop.

“I see,” she says, barely able to suppress a giggle. I would
have thought Molly would shrink from competing with her sister, not to mention the news—news to me anyway—that this Brandon is a player. But far from it, she’s holding her ground. “You’re just jealous that a boy likes me and not you,” she says, pitching the last knife into the dishwasher with just a little too much verve.

“Jealous? Of you? I don’t think so. By the way, if you’re interested I heard about a new dandruff shampoo,” Paige says, walking by her twin and brushing some imaginary flakes off Molly’s sweater.

Molly swats away her sister’s hand and makes a show of sniffing. “And I heard about a new deodorant.”

“Girls, stop it, I won’t have you two fighting over some ridiculous boy.”

“He’s not ridiculous,” Molly snaps.

“And we’re not fighting. Fighting would mean that there’s a match of wills, a worthy opponent. You two think I’m the family idiot, but I pay more attention in my classes than you give me credit for. No, Molly and I aren’t fighting,” Paige says airily, plugging her iPod back into her ears as she makes an exit. “When it comes to who’ll be Brandon’s girlfriend there’s no contest.”

A
LOT CAN HAPPEN
in a week, especially when you’re dealing with feuding daughters, a husband who’s working with a sexy neighbor, and two business partners who make the Energizer Bunny look like he’s on Quaaludes. Not to mention that in preparation for the Miss Subways reunion, my mother had sweet-talked Dr. Barasch into taking bodybuilding classes with her.

“I want to be ripped,” Naomi had explained at dinner the night before, describing the demanding weight-lifting regimen she’d signed up for, which would tax a person half her age. And then turning toward her seventy-two-year-old lover, my mother cooed, “Don’t you want to be ripped, Gordon?”

Molly broke into a spasm of giggles, spewing a mouthful of water onto the damask tablecloth. “Dr. Barasch in a Speedo?”

“With oil-slicked skin?” Paige laughed under her breath. Then she straightened her back and fixed her stare on Molly. “It’s not over,” she said darkly.

“Not by a long shot,” Molly answered, as the twins settled
back into the stony silence that had descended like a storm cloud ever since they declared war over Brandon.

Ever since that fight my usually Chatty Cathys (who would absolutely
kill
me if they heard me call them that) have barely grunted at each other, except to record their progress in their battle for Brandon, the teenage heartthrob. They seem to have nabbed him for an equal number of lunches—two each—but being his lab partner gives Paige a tactical advantage. The green chalkboard in the kitchen has been turned into a scoreboard, tallying FACE TIME WITH BM. So far Paige’s exuberant “15!”—which she decorated with a circle of hearts and arrows—trumps Molly’s “9.” Not only have the twins been silent, but my motherly advice is falling on deaf ears. Neither wants to hear that no boy is more important than your sister—especially a boy who is toying with at least two girls. Who knows how many others this Clearasil-using Casanova has on the hook?