Читать книгу Escape From Bridezillia - Jacqueline deMontravel - Страница 12

The kind of bliss you have when you get a check in the mail, having no idea where it came from but quickly cashing it anyway—this is how I felt while walking to Daphne’s. I needed this moment. And my time was due. I could also use a big check made out to me that I had no idea where it had come from. Aside from Henry asking me to marry him, J3 agreeing to move into the Reade Street loft had been the first bit of good news in some time.

A protester screamed her issues at the corner of Madison, her causes unknown with all of the counter-productive yelling. These protesters really should reassess their tactics if they wanted to utilize their time effectively. I tried to calculate how I could cut across the street without being accosted by scary protester person, but the traffic did not flow in my favor. As I approached her, she smiled, targeting me the way the man with the thankless job of giving out flyers to a gentleman’s club spots the pedestrian with the greased hair and gold chain.

“Hello!” I said, as friendly as possible to the activist who gets her haircut at a dog groomer’s.

The fact that I even acknowledged her so favorably appeared to have propelled her into a state of disbelief, as the corner of Seventieth and Madison just received the MUTE switch.

Taking the moment to scan her billboard and signage, the reason for her not getting a real job and spending her afternoons to take out some frustrations that may be better serviced in a therapist’s office, I saw she had been protesting about a woman’s right to choose.

And here she tried to target me, when back in one particularly promiscuous summer I bought pregnancy kits that came two to a pack—a staunch one-issue voter—a poor utilization of one’s time indeed. She needed to implement a Smythson business planner system. But, from the look of her, she may have been more of the Filofax type.

Once I moved away from the radius of her pitched space, it was as if my safety barrier had been broken. Her yelling resumed.

“You have a choice!” she called, to my back.

Punching in Daphne’s number on my cell, I spoke quietly, as I found it discourteous to chatter about in public. Then the world’s loudest bus approached. The world’s loudest bus then stopped, directly in front of me.

“Hello?” said a barely audible voice on the other end of the receiver.

“Hey. Emily?” I screeched, not to myself but my goddaughter. “Is your mom there?” I yelled over rude bus noise and waved about the air of exhaust that would need about a week’s worth of facials before clearing the grime to get back to my natural skin tone.

“Yeah, she’s here. Hold on. Hey, where are you? Mommy said you were coming over, and I wanted to show you my blue dress. I have shoes and gloves that match with a little bag because I am a real lady.”

The girl had become her godmother in training.

“Soon, love. I’m just approaching your building.”

“Yeah!” she wailed. I could picture her engulfing the receiver like a lion swallowing his trainer’s head.

Now that I was hearing-impaired, Daphne came on the phone.

“Emily? I thought you were coming by at two?”

“Sorry,” I whispered. “A little held up, but I’m outside your building right now.”

“Oh dear lord, speak up! No one is listening to your conversation. Speaking on cell phones is quite common these days, you know. See you soon,” she said, hanging up.

I walked into a small Frenchwoman, knocking her over actually. She scrambled to the ground somewhat melodramatically. I offered my cell phone hand, but she started swatting at me, yelling “Merde! Imbecile! Dans la lune!”

Using my high school level French to interpret, I knew this was bad. I tossed my phone in one of my bags to quickly rid myself of the evidence and dashed into Daphne’s building, because lawsuits didn’t fit into my budget right about now.

I loved Daphne’s house. I dubbed it my “Safe Place.” No harm could happen to you here, aside from a child swinging from the shower curtain after watching Tarzan (which is now banned from their household) or a tricycle slamming into a falling Christmas tree (caught on video but erased by a distraught Emily). Now that I think of it, it seemed quite surprising how few visits Daphne’s children had to Lenox Hill Hospital. But Daphne, dubbed the Madonna of Moms, had the kind of knowledge of whether Cheerios is better than Chex and can rattle on about glycemic and fiber indexes like traders following the yen.

The living room was painted in a shade of dove gray that sprouted from parquet herringbone floors and covered with art bid on from auction sales you read about in the next day’s papers. Recently coming into some money from a wealthy aunt with no children of her own—the best kind—Daphne used some of her inheritance to buy a few incredible works of art, complemented by a smattering of scooters, toys, and stuffed animals gobbled by the couch’s crease.

Always undergoing a constant state of transformation (not counting Emily and Henry’s growth spurts), the kitchen usually had large tarpaulins draped around like backdrops in a photographer’s studio. Since Daphne ran her own catering company, she had to keep up with the latest kitchen accessories the way I keep up with boots.

Daphne even rivaled my mother in the number of renovations she gave her kitchen. Whenever they met, they shared this secret language of contractors, architects, and new stoves the way a W accessories editor sought to discover a burgeoning jewelry designer. Daphne always appreciated Mom’s recommendations for her experienced eye, while Mom loved Daphne’s young, modern approach.

She greeted me at the entrance with her expensive hair, dressed in white denim pants, a charcoal sweater, and fitted jean jacket. Either she just came from Vera Wang or this was the Upper East Side uniform. Her long blond hair was brushed back, delicately balancing on the tips of her ear lobes before it naturally cascaded past her shoulders. Not even a jog in the park would undo her natural style. I’ve asked her many times in the past how she could keep her hair so perfectly, but she’d respond rather evasively, guarding her secret as would a director of CIA military operatives.

I always felt disheveled, inadequate next to Daphne. Her clothes came from the tissue wrapping of roped shopping bags and slipped onto her tiny frame. Her delicate features were prim, her profile simple and perfect like the cutout from an old-fashioned silhouette.

In that Sixty-ninth and Park tone, she said, “So? Let’s see it.”

See what?

“Emily? The ring! I’m surprised you haven’t smacked me in the face with it.”

I raised my hand languorously. Daphne took a firm grasp; her eyes widened, but not from trying to spot the diamond.

“Lord of the rings!”

“Yes, I thought the movie was too hyped as well.”

“What the hell is this?” she said, dropping my hand. “It looks like Emily’s missing tooth covered in silver magic marker!”

“Emily’s missing a tooth?”

But from the anger in Daphne’s voice, I could tell we weren’t about to discuss her daughter’s missing tooth.

“Emily, this is completely unacceptable. You have to get rid of it.”

I regressed back to when I used to steal neighborhood pets, pawn them off as strays to my mom, and ask if we could keep them.

“I can’t just return it like some sweater that I got in the wrong size.”

“Why not? It clearly doesn’t fit, so you have the perfect out.”

As I was about to give my rebuttal, Daphne interrupted, “Don’t give me the sentimental value line, which went out with drafty old castles.”

I wanted to write an anonymous letter to Daphne’s editor at Gourmet, saying her recipes made my guests suffer from salmonella, do things that placed me in a school therapist’s deviant file.

“But it was Henry’s grandmother’s,” I said in a final effort.

“Did she make pies for a living?”

“Apparently a German woman, big boned.”

“Though who am I to talk,” she moaned, patting her stomach. “I can’t seem to fit into any of my pants. It looks like I have to pay Oz a visit.”

Daphne wasn’t making any trips over the rainbow—no easy feat—she referred to her nutrition expert.

“It’s not too bad,” I said, feigning admiration to my silver-baby-tooth diamond. “In fact, the ring is growing on me.”

“You’d need to gain another two hundred pounds before it grows on you!”

“Come on, Daphne,” I snapped, now fully riled. So my fiancé wasn’t chosen because he knew when to put his name on Louis Vuitton’s waiting list, giving his wife the right gift come Christmas. Henry and I weren’t that kind of couple. And I wasn’t materialistic.

I had to figure how to subtly key Henry into getting his name on Vuitton’s waiting list.

“This ring is much more appropriate for me, my lifestyle. With my painting,” a heated pause. “And you know how I can’t justify having a Cartier tank with all of the Wonder Woman Timexes I’ve lost.”

I really wanted a Cartier.

“Imagine losing a four-carat engagement ring and how bad a day that would be.”

Daphne, not looking satisfied, led me into the kitchen, where I became the target of two children with waving hands and barnyard screams until they settled in the vee of my arms.

“What a gorgeous dress, Emily.”

She pulled away to give a curtsey, aptly showing her French blue velvet pinafore Florence Eisemann with a satin bow.

“And how about showing me that missing tooth of yours?”

Emily proudly opened her mouth, poking her upper lip.

“But the tooth fairy said she’d still give me a treat even though it’s missing.”

“How much do teeth go for now?” I asked Daphne.

“Twenty. But if we put that diamond from your ring under his pillow, she’d get considerably lower.”

“Twenty? Whatever happened to a silver dollar and one of those tooth fairy certificates you used to get from Penny Whistle Toys?”

Daphne placed some cookies and bite-sized brownies onto a square celadon plate, arranging and rearranging them in different patterns.

“Mommy,” said Emily, tugging on her sweater. “I’m dehydrated.”

“You’re not dehydrated. You’re seven.”

I asked Daphne if I could help, her wave saying if-I-had-a-second-I’d-need-it-for-my-used-up seconds.

“So I’m thinking of having my tubes tied.”

“Tubes tide?” I wasn’t versed on contractor terminology.

“A hysterectomy. I’ve been getting so fat, and the idea of being pregnant again…”

I looked to Daphne’s size 4 figure. She was not fat.

“Don’t go there, Daphne.”

She put the plate in front of me, arranged in a heart. I held a brownie and asked if it was fat-free. Daphne nodded longingly as she opened the fridge door, unsealed a salmon-colored Tupperware container with cut carrots and celery marinating in lemon slices and water, and arranged a few stalks in a shrunken flower vase. She bit into a piece of celery, which sounded like boots crashing on ice. I really enjoyed my brownie, but had my suspicions of its fat content. Two little hands slammed on the plate, followed by some giggles. Emily then darted to the fridge to take a bottled water.

“Andy and I had to attend this dinner the other night, and I couldn’t even zip my red Zac Posen dress. This is my safety dress.”

“Safety dress?”

“Dress that makes me feel thin even on fat days.”

I nodded, thinking of my beaded Celine.

“So you just add another fifteen minutes on the Versaclimber.”

“Fifteen minutes? Who has fifteen minutes?” she moaned.

“I believe half of Hollywood, now that reality television is such a success.”

“Emily. I just can’t be pregnant again. I just had Emily and Henry. Henry was born, like, a day ago.”

It did seem that Daphne was always pregnant. Pregnant and making low-fat pastries, but I wasn’t about to share that with her.

“Well, forget about me and my problems. You’re getting married!”

“Indeed I am, though I may not have the ring to prove it,” I said, looking down at my hand.

“That’s for sure.”

“But we are moving. In fact, Henry and I found the most fantastic loft on Reade Street. Without getting into the whole rigmarole of how out of our budget it is.”

“Let me guess. Your realtor named Bunny said she had just one more apartment to show you but it was a bit out of your range. That you just needed to take a look?”

“Barb. Her name is Barb. And that sounds pretty accurate.”

“They are cunning, those realtors. Good old bait and switch.”

Daphne then lifted up a canvas tarp dusted with plaster to reveal a coffeemaker. Opening the aluminum lid of a glass jar, she poured in the beans. The kitchen began to sound like Starbucks without the overly produced jazz tunes.

“But Henry and I rationalized that we could still get the place if we find a roommate.”

“Rent out a room? When you’re newlyweds? Why on God’s earth would you want to do that?”

Because it would be really fun and I’d dry off from my shower in a mist of eucalyptus.

“Emily, you couldn’t possibly consider this as a viable option—that’s so artist SoHo 1974.”

“But it really is great. Four bedrooms, walls of views—I’ve never seen anything like it. With all of the space and bedrooms, you’d have to make an appointment to see the person you are living with. And, the best news, I just bumped into J3 Hopper in the museum, and he said he’d take the room.”

“J3 Hopper?”

“You remember him—J3 Hopper of Moon Chip.”

“Right, the boy who plays video games for a living,” she said sarcastically.

“He really is amazing. You should check out his domain—very impressive.”

“You mean J3 is a prince?”

“No, dopey. The Web site for his company. And there are lots of zeros when Googling him.”

“I don’t know about this.”

“Well, better J3 than the Tasmanian Devil.”

Daphne looked confused.

“Trust me, Daphne, when you see this place. Just listen to Cold Play and buy expensive things online.”

“No, I’m sure it’s fantastic—very Emily free spirit, the early nineties. So,” she continued, sliding a mug smelling of hazelnut under my nose. I loved being under Daphne’s care. “How are we on the wedding planning?”

“Well, considering that today is a professional day.”

She looked to me, probing for more details.

“I alternate days, one day strictly for wedding planning, the other to work on my art and business.”

“And how far are we on the wedding side?”

“Well, I did finish the Real or Fake assignment,” I quickly said, not willing to go any further than that.

“How about the location? Date set?”

“Actually, that is a bit of a problem. Had to nix Bridgehampton. On the market.”

“Well, if that’s not completely unfortunate.”

“No kidding. And now Catherine wants to have it at the Plaza, which is a bit too Husband Number One and counting for me.”

Daphne then pulled a black leather-bound folder from a stack of cookbooks, re-covering the area with a sheet from the impending remodel. Taking a seat next to me, she took out photos of Henry and Emily with instructions on the portrait she’d like to have me paint of them.

Giving her direction some thoughtful consideration, I pulled out my sketchbook from one of my Searle shopping bags. Flipping through the preliminary drawings I had sketched of Henry and me for our wedding portrait, it dawned on me that I’d be making two pictures of Henrys and Emilys.

“Let me see that,” said Daphne, slipping my book from under my pen where it made a flatline.

“Emily, these are fantastic!” Her eyes lit up, mouth widened—the kind of reaction I would have preferred when she saw my engagement ring.

“I’m actually really excited about doing these portraits. At the museum, I became so inspired from seeing the Sargents. How his paintings were more than pictures of society people—really exposing the character—that’s what I want to do. Rather than trace an image seated before me, I want to learn about my subjects, spend some time with them, see them at their homes and learn how they exist.”

Daphne watched me as if she were under a spell. Shaking her head, she said, “Well, you can certainly spend as much time as you want with those two terrors.” And then Emily and Henry ran in on a Lenny and Squiggy cue.

Emily was naked, her dress flowing from the top of Henry’s head, and they howled like Indians. In fact, Henry and I had done something similar to that the night we came home from the Botanical Garden benefit, but under entirely different circumstances.

“I see that Emily still hasn’t passed her nude phase.”

“Yes,” moaned Daphne. “Though I’d prefer it if you steer away from any nudes of those two. I always found that photographer who took pictures of her kids naked to be a bit weird.”

“Will do,” I said, taking my sketchbook back from her to draw a few ideas. As I scribbled Henry in one of Emily’s protective locks, Daphne looked on.

“Momm-meee!” wailed Emily from the other room.

“What in God’s earth,” Daphne grumbled to herself.

Then Emily and Henry returned to the kitchen panting like dogs.

“Henry won’t give me back my sticker book,” said Emily. Henry’s face was tattooed with stickers.

“I want you both to stop it.”

“Mommy,” said Emily, more calm. “Why is it that you always take Henry’s side?”

Daphne looked to me distressed, and I lifted my hands in a surrender position, not about to touch that one. Considering that I was practically an only child, I would be of no help here.

“I’m the parent!” settled Daphne.

“But,” said Emily.

“No buts. You’re grounded. Time out. No Disney videos. Boarding school. Military school. Just behave! Pizza or Chinese?” she then asked more calmly of her children, receiving cheers for pizza and all the jumps and excitement of a Jack Russell after spotting a life-sized salami.

Even viewing parenting at its most challenging, I still had that occasional longing where my final word could soothe these tiny voices through a bribe or video-watching privileges of a singing sponge.

“But Mommy, what about my sticker book!” Emily wailed.

“Be an older sister and take care of your brother. We have guests.”

Then Emily did her toe stomping bit.

“Emily. I will not tolerate this—you know I’m getting paid whether you act this way or not. Why did teachers say this?” Daphne asked me, and I shrugged. “As if we cared whether they would be paid or not. Em, am I losing it?”

She then breathed out her last threat to her children.

“Go into the den and watch the wedding video.”

They both slipped into line. I found it strange how Daphne’s kids loved watching her wedding video.

“So behave,” ordering her last threat, “otherwise you’ll be locked in the broom closet.” Mumbling to me, she added, “The broom closet we don’t have. And I will give you a dose of castor oil!” Then Daphne, again, said to me as an aside, “What is castor oil anyway? Where does one buy castor oil?”

I supposed a dose of castor oil would be as unlikely a punishment as swallowing a bundle of dynamite or a head flattened by an anvil.

“And what’s an anvil?” I asked.

Daphne shook her head, returning to reprimanding her offspring.

“I will give you castor oil and lock you in the broom closet if you both don’t behave. Then you’ll have an overcoming-all-odds life story for the college essay. You know, I don’t really care anymore.” She then yelled to her children. “Go ahead, run around with scissors, give up the piano, take drugs.”

She then took a gulp of air. Her face was so distraught, then changed, like cutting a smooth papaya. I wiggled my finger to Henry and Emily, where they leaned on the side of my leg.

“Henry,” I said, “what I’m about to say may not apply to you the way it will your big sister, but just humor me and listen up. Now, Emily.” Emily nodded. “These are very crucial years for you, and there are different ways of handling them. You can act up as much as you want or be the kind of little girl that goes along with the program.”

Emily began to crouch, not taking her eyes off of me. She seemed drawn by my shoes, noted by her stroking my laces like a pet bunny.

“Now if you do go with the program, I have a pretty good suspicion that in your later years this will mean less bickering input from your mother. This is invaluable advice. Major. What first begins as her unnecessary involvement in selecting the girls you have play dates with to choosing your extracurricular activities, later becomes more involved. From the colleges you will apply to, even the boys you date, she will have an opinion. But if you show at this early age that you can assert some responsibility, she will give you some more latitude. You want that latitude.”

I looked to her sharply.

“Emily?” she asked me. I nodded. “I like your shoes.”

“Thank you. And I’m glad we had this little chat.”

And from this they both, remarkably, retreated from the kitchen quietly.

“You know, Em,” Daphne said to me, apparently using the mini-break from supervising her children to pull her hair into a chignon. “I worry about those college essays. I mean how will Emily and Henry be able to truly distinguish themselves from all the other Ivy applicants? At least I know Emily will have the grades—she’s already showing such progress in class—but Henry? Perhaps I should just stage a high-profile kidnapping, get him on that Amber Alert thing. Is that hard to do? Have his picture on the cover of the Post and then, come college application time, he will be that kid who outwitted his kidnapper. What an essay!”

Daphne searched my eyes for feedback. I became more focused on my drawing.

“So?” she prodded.

“I don’t know. Maybe you should just have him spend a summer on a kibbutz or something.”

She seemed to take this under consideration, then shuddered and waved her hand.

“Or maybe I can have him do one of those wilderness adventures in Alaska. You know, where he has to make his bed out of leaves and such.”

She then gave a ferocious look of worry.

“Or perhaps have him spend a summer on a ranch in Montana. Or an August in France!”

Her face now brightened.

“We have some time, not worth stressing over now.”

As I put my pen down to evaluate what I drew, Daphne peered over my shoulder to assess my progress—memorializing a stickered Henry with Emily pounding her foot to the ground, hands on waist.

“Your talent has always amazed me,” Daphne said, her tone considerably more calm than before.

I had a feeling she wasn’t just smoothing me over. The painting I made for her a few years back of a modern-day take on the Alice in Wonderland tea scene had placement next to the Brice Marden in the living room.

“Have you ever considered changing agents?”

“Sure. I suppose I need to give Joanna the boot now that I am moving away from my illustrating, though it’s a bit tricky. I mean, this is the woman that introduced Henry and me.”

“Oh, stop being so emotional. You know it’s all about management.”

I supposed this wasn’t a good time to share with Daphne my Smythson business planner. She expected a plan, something laser printed with graphs and pie charts.

“In fact, you should meet with Daniel West Galleries.”

“Daniel West Galleries!” I cried.

Daniel West Galleries was perhaps the most prestigious art gallery in the city. He repped all of the great expressionists and nurtured the up-and-coming talent that made cameos in Gwyneth Paltrow movies.

She took a card from a stack of writing paper, wrote a number and slid it in my direction.

“Daniel West. On Fifty-seventh Street,” she said, repeating what she wrote.

“Sure,” I nodded spastically. “Gigi Jones is showing there right now. One of my favorite artists.”

Daphne nodded.

“Okay then. Daniel is the right place to begin, and I have a good feeling about this, especially considering that my acquisitions from his gallery have essentially been subsidizing his Montauk manse. I will give him a call this afternoon and make sure he takes you on.”

I shook my head in vehement protest.

“Daph! You know how I feel about handouts.”

“Oh, please. Don’t pull the self-righteous Emily bit on me. I’m not some furry-chested, gap-toothed, smarmy guy patroning you à la Flashdance—one of the best films ever even though I will never understand the casting of Michael Nouri—so I will get you the meeting, then it’s up to you.”

“But what if I’m not good enough? If he doesn’t like me?”

“You really are getting all Jennifer Beals on me. Emily, sometimes it amazes me how you have no clue as to how fabulous you are. Now, you still have the Polaroids from your first collection?”

I nodded. Daphne had been referring to my first body of work, which included her Alice in Wonderland painting and a series of pictures based on fairy tales in modern settings, which showed at a local gallery in the Hamptons. It had been a success. Every work in the show sold for its asking price, where I had been grateful to just have the show and a really fun party afterward.

“Okay then, you’re right. And hopefully you can mention to Daniel that I’m available on consecutive days after the day after tomorrow.”

A thought wandered into my head from my post-graduate year. Days playing Ultimate Frisbee in the park, coming home to a machine blinking madly from a tape filled with messages, where I would choose the best option and make it home sometime in the dawning hours of the next day, maybe later if I didn’t have brunch plans.

“Oh, just forget it. I’m available whenever.”

The buzzer rang, delivering a pizza for Emily and Henry and signaling Daphne’s need to get ready before the sitter came.

I organized my things while Daphne slid the dish of cookies into the mouth of a Glad plastic bag. Sealing its rim, she handed it to me as a goody bag from my visit, saying there was a hidden surprise.

We walked by the nursery where Emily quietly read to Henry, his head resting on her shoulder. Momentarily suspended from our intended mission, we saw this pair that had transformed from total chaos to tranquility like the motions of a crackling fire to the disintegrated log fuming slithers of smoke.

Daphne attended to the delivery while I made myself useful, collecting Emily and Henry and giving them tasks in the kitchen. They seated themselves when Daphne made her entrance holding the box of pizza at her stomach like a skirt filled with apples. Emily opened the carton, maneuvering the slices onto their plates, giving the piece with the cheese that clung to the rest of the pie to Henry.

Emily asked if they could have ice cream for dessert. Daphne saying they’d have Jell-O, avoiding their imploring eyes. She took out two plastic cups of red Jell-O, adding a third after I made an Emily look, and shot squirts of whipped cream onto the rubbery surface while filling me in on the pertinent details of her evening engagement with “my husband.”

They were invited to a dinner party held by friends they knew from Vail. Our topics veered into a dramatic direction when they centered on her obligatory social life, which I found difficult not to be too judgmental about, especially after hearing an excessive amount of information on the pressure to be a stay-at-home mom by choice. Now that her notoriety as a caterer and entertainer veered into the potential of seeing her name on a stock ticker, Daphne had lost the ambition.

She then asked me if I felt cold. I felt fine.

Daphne punched in more codes on a device that sounded like a drunken canary than it took for me to type out my senior thesis.

“We just got this air temperature control system,” she said proudly. “I can actually coordinate temperature with the movements of different people.”

Ever consider adjusting the vents?

“Mommy’s always cold,” said Emily, adeptly scooping up Henry’s Jell-O while he used his spoon to make airplanes.

I gave my kiss good-bye, and Daphne expressed her disappointment that I’d be missing Andy’s puppet show. Over Henry and Emily’s squeals of excitement over this show that had more fanfare than Yul Brynner’s last King and I performance, I asked if he could be persuaded to do an encore the next time I visited.

During my ride home, my mind spun quicker than my thoughts could effectively register. Overwhelmed by the abundance of good tidings I had received, what I was most excited about at that moment was my bag of treats. I ate another brownie and opened my sketchbook to a clean page with images of Henry and Emily still fresh in my head.

I drew them side by side, Emily in her French blue pinafore dress and Henry in a striped button-down. Their blue eyes were large and magnificent, too big for their bodies the way a newborn’s eyes look in an ultrasound. Henry’s head tilted on Emily’s shoulder while hers locked onto his cheek.