The Botox Diaries (38 page)

Two minutes must have passed because the racers who are still on their steeds come around again and Dan grabs Lucy, pulling her onto the grass.

“Like standing in the eye of a hurricane,” she says, when the bikers have stormed past again.

Moving far from the road, Dan plucks the water bottle out of its holder and takes a long swig. “So what are you doing here?” he asks Lucy at last.

“I came to see you,” she says. “I miss you. You won’t answer my calls. We need to talk.”

“This isn’t the right place.”

“It’s never the right place,” Lucy says, moving closer to him. “So let me just say my piece right here because it’s important. I love you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I love you. We’ve had so many good years together and so many good times. We know each other. We love each other. We can’t throw that all away.”

Dan lifts up his broken bike and tosses it under a tree. “Love each other, yes. But you’re wrong about our knowing each other,” he says. “We don’t. I don’t know who you are anymore.”

“Still the same girl you married,” Lucy says.

“I wish.”

“Here, look. I brought something I think you should see.” Lucy opens her bag and pulls out an oversized envelope. It’s slighty ragged, has a hint of musty perfume and is fastened shut with a wax seal stamped “LC.”

“What’s this?” Dan asks, taking it from her and turning it over slowly in his hands.

“The last letter I wrote as Lucy Chapman,” she says. “The night before our wedding. Remember? Zelda told us each to write one and put it away. She said marriage isn’t always smooth and when the bad times come, we’ll need something to remind us that we made a promise for better or worse.”

Dan stares down at the envelope. “What does it say?” he asks.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” says Lucy, “I remember writing it, but not what I said. I couldn’t sleep last night and at about four a.m. I padded up to the attic and found these in your grandmother’s trunk. They were inside that heart-shaped cookie tin and fastened by a pink ribbon.”

Dan gives a little smile. “I remember that cookie tin. The one time you tried to bake for me. And I married you anyway.”

“The stomachache only lasted two days,” Lucy says.

“But the good times were going to last forever,” adds Dan ruefully.

Lucy nods. “If ever we needed this letter, it’s now.”

Dan slides his finger under the flap of the envelope, fumbles with the seal and breaks it open. He pulls out a thin, pale blue sheet of paper and settles down under a swooping oak tree.

“Why don’t you read it to me,” he says to Lucy, handing over the page.

She takes the paper and sits down next to him. Both of them have forgotten about me, and I shouldn’t be here anyway. I start to head
back to the car, but the event must be over because a throng of racers now off their bikes are packing up their gear and blocking my path. I slip to one side of the tree.

“My Dear Darling Dan,”
Lucy reads.
“If you’ve opened this letter it must be because you’re mad at me. I’ve done something wrong, even though right now I don’t know what it is. No surprise. You keep telling me that part of what you love about me is that I’m a challenge. I keep your life exciting. You say that I may be a handful, but you know you’ll never be bored around me.”

Dan’s mouth twitches in a smile. “No, never boring,” he says.

“And still a challenge,” Lucy adds.
“Right now, on the night before our wedding, I know I want us to spend our lives together. Our whole lives. And if I’ve done something that in any way jeopardizes that, I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me. I promise I’ll always find it in my heart to forgive you. Love
does
mean having to say you’re sorry. And I’m saying that to you now.”

There’s a long silence. Then Dan clears his throat. “Almost sounds like you knew what was going to happen.”

“Never,” Lucy says ferociously. “I can’t explain what I did and I’m not going to try. I can only promise that whatever demon took over my soul for those few months has been banished forever.”

“How do you know?” he asks.

“Because it’s true what they say. You don’t know how important something is until you almost lose it. I’ll never be that foolish again.”

Dan leans over to take her hand and they sit looking at each other for a long moment. “Where’s the letter I wrote?” he asks finally.

“Right here,” says Lucy. She holds out a manila envelope with the return address from the office where Dan had worked twenty years ago. “Your turn to read.”

With a loud tear, Dan rips open the missive.

“My Most Beautiful Lucy,”
he says, his voice shaking.
“There can’t be anything you’ve ever done to make me angry. So if you’re reading this, it must be my fault. From the moment I met you I’ve dreamed of our being together and I can hardly believe that’s about to happen. My love for you
is eternal. If I ever forget that, shake me hard and remind me that even forever is too short a time for us to be together. I hope there’s nothing that can ever move you so far away from me that we can’t find our way back to each other.”

“Do you mean it?” asks Lucy, sniffling.

“I meant it twenty years ago,” says Dan.

“And now?”

Dan takes his time. He looks down at his left hand and twists his gold wedding band, which he’s never taken off. Then he reaches for his wife’s hand. “Nothing’s changed. Nobody could ever make me angrier than you do, but nobody could ever make me happier. I Love Lucy.”

“You swore to me you’d never tease me about my name and that TV show,” Lucy says, laughing and crying at the same time as she throws her arms around him.

“After twenty years I’m entitled,” he says happily, pulling her tight as they tumble over together on the grass.

Good thing he didn’t get to race more than three laps. He’d be too sweaty for what seems to be coming next. This could take a while. Guess I’ll get a hot dog and take the train home.

TAMIKA HAS THE MUMPS
.

“The mumps?” I ask, when her foster mother calls with the news, three days before the theater benefit. “Nobody gets the mumps anymore.”

“She did,” says her foster mother. “Looks like she swallowed a basketball. Or two. Can barely talk.”

“Has she been to a doctor?” I ask.

“I’m trying to get someone at the clinic to see her this afternoon.”

I should be sympathetic to this poor little girl with her 103 fever, but all I can think of is that her understudy can’t possibly sing “The Rain in Spain” the way she does.

A few minutes later, Josh Gordon’s assistant Peggy calls me to confirm that Josh needs eleven, rather than ten, seats at the table he’s buying for the pretheater benefit.

“If we even have a benefit,” I moan. “Our star is sick. The mumps. We’re waiting to hear what the clinic says. I’ll keep you posted.”

“Hang on a second,” says Peggy, putting me on hold. While I’m waiting for someone to come back on the line, I expect to hear Lite FM, but instead I’m immediately bombarded with stock updates from Bloomberg Business Reports. Oh, for the Lovin’ Spoonful.

A minute later, Josh picks up.

“Nobody gets the mumps anymore,” he announces.

Can I teach the man to say hello?

“Hi, Josh. That’s exactly what I said. But apparently Tamika has ’em. Two big swollen glands on either side of her face.”

“Is that the little girl I saw at the rehearsal, with pigtails and a big voice? She was amazing. A real talent.”

“And she’s been working so hard. It’s just not fair.”

“Gotta go,” says Josh, abruptly hanging up.

“Well nice talking to you, too,” I say into the dial tone. “Appreciate your support.”

I hang up the receiver and start strategizing. Maybe the costume designer could camouflage the offending lumps. Turtlenecks. Might be a little strange in the ballroom scene, but can’t worry about that now. If Tamika can’t sing, how about lip-synching to the cast album? Even Audrey Hepburn didn’t belt out the score on her own.

The morning dissolves into endless benefit details. A final proofread of the program notes. A discussion with Amanda about solid white versus red-and-white striped ribbons on the goody bags. A conference call with Pamela and Heather about the dreaded seating chart, which changes as quickly as George Clooney’s girlfriends.

I’m in the kitchen trying to decide whether lunch should be a bowl of dry Rice Krispies or Columbo Lite Boston Cream Pie yogurt—120 calories and worth every one—when the phone rings yet again. I pause a moment before answering. Will I fit into the borrowed Chanel if I eat the cereal
and
the yogurt?

“Tamika’s cured,” says Josh.

“A two-hour case of mumps? Maybe you should be the next Surgeon General.”

“Couldn’t make it through the confirmation hearings,” Josh laughs. “Besides, I didn’t cure Tamika. I just sent my pediatrician over to have a look.”

“A doctor in Manhattan who makes house calls? How’d you manage that?”

“Don’t ask. I may have to let him win our next round of golf. But
he’s good. Head of the new Children’s Hospital. Turns out Tamika didn’t have mumps. He thinks it was a bad allergic reaction and gave her a shot of Benadryl.”

Josh got the head of the hospital to go to 158th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue? Sounds like he had to offer more than golf, but I’m grateful for whatever he did.

“You’re wonderful. I don’t know what to say other than thank you. This means so much. The show’s a big deal for all the kids. But especially for a kid like Tamika.”

“No problem,” Josh says, clearly embarrassed by my effusive thanks. “Everything else going okay?”

“Yup. By the way, I made that change to your dinner table,” I say.

“Peggy tells me we’re up to eleven,” Josh says. And then after a beat, he adds, “I never asked where you’re sitting. If you’re not taken, I’d like you to join me and make it an even twelve.”

“I never sit,” I say stupidly, flummoxed by his offer. “I mean it’s not that I stand, it’s just that I’ll be busy before the show. Helping the kids get into costume, braiding their hair, adjusting the pink gels …” I manage to stop blathering before I start reciting dialogue from the show. Though if he asks, I can do it. Since I’ve heard the kids practicing their lines a thousand and three times, I remember them. Even without my gingko.

“You’ll need to have dinner,” Josh says.

“Right.” I take a deep breath and count to three. Five. “I’d love to join your table. Thanks,” I say simply.

We hang up and I notice that I’ve dribbled Columbo Lite Boston Cream Pie yogurt all over my jeans. Damn. The benefit’s Friday. I have three days to learn how to eat.

The next person who has a problem with the seating is Dan, who shows up at dinnertime with a check and an apology.

“I didn’t have time to mail this in,” he says, handing me an envelope. “Lucy tells me she only bought one ticket. Now we need two.”

“That’s a change in the seating plan I’m happy to make,” I say, taking the check from him. “But you could have just called. I know you’re good for the money.”

“But you probably think I’m not good for much else,” Dan says, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. He throws out his arms to the sides, as if being crucified. “I stand before you as the biggest jerk in Pine Hills. I’m so sorry. I never should have said what I did the other night at the party.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I say, not wanting to go there. “Everything ended up the way it was supposed to. I’m so glad about you and Lucy.”

“Me too. You were right about where I belong. It’s nice to be home. Together again.”

“I bet,” I say. Boy, he looks happy. And why not? Back with the woman he loves. Who loves him. And make-up sex is always hotter than August in Dubai. Not that I’ll ever get there.

“Sorry you got caught in the middle,” Dan says. “Staying such a good friend to each of us couldn’t have been easy. But we both needed you.”

“My bill’s in the mail,” I joke. “But you guys really figured it out yourselves.”

Dan fidgets and shifts his weight from side to side. “Jess, about the other night again …”

“Look, why don’t we just pretend it never happened?” I say, walking toward the kitchen and hoping to end the conversation.

“We can’t do that. It did happen,” Dan says, following me. “And I’m not trying to take it back.”

“It’s okay, you can take it back,” I offer. “Wasn’t really you speaking.”

“No? Who do you think it was? Sure, I was slightly out of my mind, I’ll admit. Angry at Lucy. Hurt. And really confused. But I meant what I said. You’re terrific. I like being with you. And I don’t want to lose our friendship because I made one stupid mistake.”

“You won’t. I’m not going anywhere.” I look at Dan carefully. Why not. Go for it. “By the way, what was the stupid mistake? Kissing me?”

Dan looks startled for moment, and then he smiles. “Nope. Kissing you was kind of nice. It was kissing my wife’s best friend that was stupid.”

I grin. “Very smooth.”

Dan laughs. “It was a good thing you turned me down anyway. I never would have survived. Too much competition.”

“Right. Huge competition for me at the moment. A gay man. An eleven-year-old girl. And my ex-husband, when he’s not with his current lover.”

“How about a rich Park Avenue businessman who’s one of New York’s more generous philanthropists.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You must know.”

“I have no idea. Donald Trump is fighting for me? I wouldn’t be interested. Barry Diller? Not that he’d be interested. A Rockefeller? But which one? And how diluted is the money by now?”

Dan laughs again. “I’m not talking quite that rich. But the guy’s very nice.”

“That lets out George Steinbrenner.”

“Come on, Jess, you’ve gotta know this,” Dan says. “It’s Josh Gordon.”

I burst out laughing, but Dan persists.

“I saw Josh at a business meeting the other day and he kept bringing up your name,” Dan says. “Asked about you and me and I told him we were just pals. He was obviously checking because he’d seen us at the party. Very gentlemanly of him.”