Totlandia: Summer (6 page)

But if she heard Brady’s voice on the other end, she just knew she’d break down. She might even let him convince her that coming over was best for both of them.

But no, that would never happen. She’d already made up her mind that doing so would be of no good to either of them—least of all, him, if he wanted Oliver to stay in the club.

She had no doubt he wanted that above all else.

Yes, even more than he wanted her.

Zoe had a big enough head start that Ally was forced to look in every room. The little girl had flown past the living room, through the formal dining room and beyond the study, where Barry sat, reading a legal brief in an overstuffed armchair. Christian was sprawled on the couch, reading the latest issue of
Vanity Fair.

Seeing him, Ally did a double take. “It’s a Tuesday. Why aren’t you at the firm, Barry? And why the hell are you home, too, Christian?”

Both of them looked at her as if she was crazy. “Because my daughter’s mother is on suicide watch,” Barry answered.

She sighed. “Trust me, getting kicked out of that club is no reason to slit my wrists.”

“Then getting you to answer the door shouldn’t take an act of Congress,” Christian retorted. “If I hadn’t gotten home in time, that cute UPS man with the perfect calves wouldn’t have had a signature for this.” He pointed to a box on the table.

Ally picked it up. “What is it?”

“I don’t know. He delivered it to the wrong house. I think he’s got a crush on Barry.”

Barry put down his brief with a groan. “Are we going to start that again?”

“And you two wonder why I never want to see another man as long as I live,” Ally grumbled.

Barry lifted her face with two fingers. “Babe, enough with the stiff upper lip. It’s time you cried. You know, let it all out.”

Christian nodded. “If you like, you can hit someone. Hit me.”

That put a mere shadow of a smile on Ally’s lips. “No. You’d like it too much.”

He sighed. “Guilty as charged.”

“In all honesty, Ally, you need to hear the truth—from him. Maybe it’s time you answered your boyfriend’s calls.”

Ally could feel her cheeks warming. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“If that’s the case, you need to let him in on that little secret. He’s been calling my office, too—every hour on the hour, asking for me to intervene on his behalf.”

“I’m glad you haven’t done so.” She sank down into one of his two matching wingbacks.

“Frankly, I’m not. I think you’re a fool. Obviously the guy is gaga over you.”

“He’ll come to his senses, eventually.” She shrugged. “And when he does, I won’t blame him in the least. All he wants is what’s best for Oliver.”

“If you—and he—think that PHM&T is ‘the best,’ you need your heads examined.”

“I realize that, now. But I’ve got to look at it from Brady’s perspective. He’s a smart, self-made man. He sold his company so that he’d have both the time and the money to give Oliver every advantage. Brady wants to be the father he never had. I respect that.”

“If he’s so smart, he’d realize Oliver will think himself blessed, and make him proud. Kids have a way of rising to the occasion, on their own—if we let them.” He pointed toward the hallway. “Take our own little hellion. Even she thinks you should answer the phone.”

Ally couldn’t help but laugh. “Are you kidding? She stole the damn thing and ran away with it! Any idea which way she went?”

The answer she was looking for came with a loud flush.

Ally, Barry, and Christian leaped up and ran down the hall toward the bathroom.

They got there just in time for Ally to pull Zoe’s hand out of the toilet.

Ally’s iPhone, on the other hand, was angled in such a way that made it impossible to grab because the water in the toilet was quickly filling up.

“It’s during times like these that I’m glad I’m not a parent,” Christian shouted as he ducked out of the bathroom.

“Dibs on who grabs the kid, and who takes the plunger,” Barry and Ally said at the same time.

To heck with rock-paper-scissors. Both grabbed for Zoe.

As they bumped heads, the little girl squealed with delight over their curses.

“Look, I’ll plunge, but only if you’ll join Zoe and me on an outing,” Barry said. “She’s going stir-crazy. If we don’t get out of here soon, she’ll destroy both our houses! Admit it, you want to get out, too.”

She nodded as she struggled to keep Zoe from plunging headfirst into the toilet in an attempt to retrieve the jammed cell phone. “Yeah, okay, but not to the park. In fact, it can’t be anywhere I’d run into…well, you know who.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Barry rolled his eyes skyward. “The One Who We Dare Not Speak His Name.”

Ally nodded adamantly. “Certainly I don’t want to run into him, or Jade. Or Bettina. Or, for that matter, anyone from the play group.”

“It’s a deal. Now take Totzilla out of here before she gets the worst swimming lesson of her life.”

He didn’t have to ask her twice. The water in the toilet bowl was rising too fast and too high.

As she ran out the door, she covered Zoe’s ears so that their daughter couldn’t hear her father’s cursing as the water spilled over the bowl and onto his new suede Hush Puppies.

2:44 p.m.

“For the party’s theme, I’m thinking
salon de Paris
, circa 1879. You know, lots of easels and canvases scattered about. There will be an artist here, to school our little geniuses in the Impressionist form. And over there a miniature of Montmartre, perhaps.” Bettina pointed toward the Legion of Honor’s Rodin statue, smack-dab in the center of its walled entry courtyard. “The children are to come in costumes representing their favorite artists. As for the food, Stanlee has already lined up State Bird Provisions to do the catering. Usually this sort of thing is beneath them, but when they heard the party was for my little Lily—well, of course, they couldn’t say no! They’ll be serving her favorites: fried quail and sauerkraut pecorino pancakes. Divine,
mais oui?
”

“You’re brilliant,” Kimberley gushed. “Lily will be beside herself. It’s the perfect theme for a fifth birthday party!”

With a flick of a wrist, Bettina waved away her effusiveness as if it was some bothersome gnat. As much as she adored the groveling of her acolytes, lately Kimberley’s compliments were coming at her so fast and so furiously that she got a headache whenever the woman came into view.

So much for free will,
Bettina thought. She scanned the faces of the other women at her side: Mallory, Joanna, and Sally. Each was just as predictable in her own way. Whereas Joanna’s acquiescence was always leavened with a dollop of sarcasm, Mallory out-and-out nay-sayed everything.

And Sally was just plain clueless on every subject.

Gawd, I am
bored, bored, bored
with the whole lot of them,
Bettina fumed.
Why did I invite them here in the first place? Did I really think they’d give me an honest opinion?

And why the hell didn’t Jade pick up her cell? No doubt she understood that the privilege of being in Bettina’s inner circle came with the responsibility of being at her beck and call. When she saw Jade at tomorrow’s meet-up, she’d certainly give her an earful about the true meaning of friendship! Friends were at each other’s sides when important decisions had to be made.

Nothing was more important than Lily’s fifth birthday party.

Although it was still two months away, locking down the locale and the theme was imperative if San Francisco’s premiere party planner, Stanlee Gatti, was to have enough time to be fully prepared. Last year, the Connaught Crosses had celebrated the little girl’s birthday a month earlier because she’d spent the whole summer away, in St. Petersburg, Russia, at the Kirov Ballet Academy’s camp. But with Eleanor threatening to withhold the funding for this year’s excursion—depending on Bettina’s treatment of Lorna—this year, Bettina thought it wise to truncate Lily’s camp days to a single month, just in case the sisters-in-law went head-to-head on some issue.

Considering Lorna’s response to Ally’s exile, Bettina had no doubt her brother’s wife would be raising cane in some manner.

Good,
thought Bettina.
Bring it on.

Bettina’s competitive nature demanded new conquests. What with the total obedience of the club’s members—not to mention her husband, Art, who was now her sexual submissive—there weren’t many challenges left in life.

Case in point: Kimberley’s lack of any vertebrae.
Hell’s bells! The woman has got to have an opinion of her own on
something, Bettina thought.

She’d certainly have fun testing this theory. “Really, Kimberley? You don’t think a fine art theme might go over Lily’s head?”

At the sight of Bettina’s sly smile, Kimberley paused at first. Taking a deep breath, she then stumbled through her answer—something about “Lily’s creative genius” and the fact that the party would be “both fun and inspiring for all the children.”

It was all the proof Bettina needed that Kimberley was full of
merde.

She should have silenced her, but she was having too much fun watching her make a fool of herself. The only thing more enjoyable would be to bring the other women in on the joke as well.

She turned to Sally. “So tell me, who will your Linus come as?”

“Colin Firth, of course!” Pleased at her own cleverness, Sally batted her eyes.

Joanna poked her in the side. “Dumbass, he’s an actor.”

Sally poked her back. “I know that. I meant the painter he played in that movie—you know, the one with ScarJo! Remember? With the snow, and the canals?”

“She means Vermeer.” Mallory rolled her eyes skyward. “Not too original. Every third boy at the party will be Vermeer. Wish I had stock in a wig company.”

Sally’s eyes moved from side to side, as if pulled by the weight in a metronome. It was a nervous tick that annoyed Bettina to no end. “Sure, okay. Then he’ll be Norman Rockwell.”

“A
commercial
artist who did illustrations for magazine covers?” Bettina sneered. “I think not!”

Sally lifted her hand to her mouth and gnawed on her well-manicured cuticles. She reminded Bettina of a ferret, caught in a trap. “Oh! I have it! He’ll be Toulouse-Lautrec.”

Mallory shrugged. “That’ll work—seeing how the kid’s a midget.”

Sally’s lower lip quivered in anger. “He is not a midget! The only reason he’s short is because he’s only going on three!”

“At that age, Angus was almost twice his height,” Mallory countered. “And for the record, I was agreeing with you that it could work, so don’t get your panties in a twist. Seriously, though, if you want him to pull it off, put him with a leg brace, too. That way he’ll have the club foot limp down pat.”

Bettina beamed at Mallory. “Brilliant!”

“But—but I don’t think Linus will like it,” Sally stammered.

“Here’s a thought. Pretend you’re a parent. Be firm, and he’ll fall into line.” Joanna shoved her out of the way. “By the way, Bettina, for the record, my little man, Louis, will be coming as van Gogh.”

Mallory snorted. “That’s perfect, since Vincent was certifiably nuts.”

Joanna frowned. “Are you implying that my son is a
psycho?
”

“As for little Angus,” Mallory interjected, “he’ll be Frederic Remington because he loves cowboys, too.”

“Very
Brokeback.
But I guess it’ll do.” Bettina stifled a yawn. She turned to Kimberley. “I can’t wait to see who your little Jonathan comes as.”

Kimberley nodded her head vigorously. “I’m thinking Andy Warhol. Jonathan looks adorable in black turtlenecks. And being a towhead, it’s a perfect costume.”

Mallory smirked. “Wasn’t Warhol gay?”

“My God, you’re right, Mallory.” Bettina clicked her tongue in mock shame. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Still, our children are at such impressionable ages. Forcing Jonathan to inhabit the character of someone who pursued an alternative lifestyle is asking for trouble… Well, only time will tell.” She patted Kimberley’s arm. “I’m sure you’ll have nothing to worry about.”

Kimberley furrowed her brow. “I…I see your point. Okay, I’ve got it! John Singer Sargent! He was the greatest portraitist of his generation—”

“True, that.” Bettina gave her the faintest of smiles. “And sadly, gay as well. Broad hint: all those charcoals of naked men.”

Kimberley’s eyes widened in desperation. “Michelangelo, then.”

“Sorry, dear, but he, too, was a little light in his sandals, as they say.” Bettina feigned a pout. “There’s a reason he sculpted such fabulous male nudes.” She gestured with her hand toward the courtyard’s Rodin garden.

Then she saw her—Ally Thornton—with some man. Ah yes, Bettina remembered him now: her supposed
husband.

Ally gets a second chance at a walk of shame,
she thought.
Well, this ought to be fun.

Twenty Minutes Earlier

“I’ve quit sniffling, and now you’re the one who’s crying. What the hell, Barry?” Ally asked.

Her friend blinked away a tear. “Sorry. This one does it to me every time. It’s called
The Russian Bride’s Attire.
” He nodded toward the large oil painting which covered practically a whole wall of the museum. “The artist, Konstantin Makovsky, used his wife, Maria, and son as the work’s focal points.” He pointed to the bride, a very young, dark-haired woman at the center of the picture, who was having her hair combed by an older woman while a wedding party of bridesmaids hovered about. A golden-haired boy, maybe six years of age, sat on a window seat. Dressed in belted tunic, billowing breeches and boots, he chewed on a pastry while staring pensively at the bride.

“See how unhappy she looks?” Barry continued. “She’s marrying a richer, older man—that guy with the box of jewels, standing over there.” He pointed to the only man in the painting, who was peeking at the bride from the doorway, but was blocked from coming into the grand room by an older woman, possibly the bride’s mother. “In truth, the bride is in love with another man. The little boy knows it, too. But the dowry from this man will keep her family set for life.”