Читать книгу Mommies Behaving Badly - Roz Bailey - Страница 10

The first twenty minutes of Jack’s company Christmas party reminded me of the receiving line of a wedding. As Jack called out names and shared warm shoulder claps with his colleagues, I was stuck as the outsider waiting to be introduced, smiling, nodding. How do you do? Nice to meet you. Heard so much about you. It’s a little worse for women because some men don’t think it appropriate to shake a woman’s hand—especially a woman like me, the accessory, the wife of a corporate cheese. I hate that.

As if it isn’t bad enough that I have to suck it all up and play Mrs. Jack. I don’t know why, but somehow Jack’s professional life sops up the bulk of our conversation, while mine is never discussed. Not that Jack doesn’t value what I do; often he’ll step up behind me while I’m whaling away on the keyboard and shake his head, saying: “I don’t know how you do that, pull a story out of the air.” I’ve given up explaining to him that it starts with an idea, then moves onto a three-page concept that gets banged out into a chapter-by-chapter outline that is the blueprint for each book. Each stage is reviewed by my editor, who guides me along the way, so I never experience that feeling of alienation or loss of direction, never that artistic panic of jumping off a cliff: “Here goes!” But writing is just that thing that I do. Jack’s job at Corstar, well, it’s like the path of our family’s starship, the great shaman that sustains and guides our spirits.

With Jack’s networking and the line for the coat check, we still hadn’t gotten past the lobby of the Gorham Hotel, an old iron building with turn-of-the-century charm, now festooned with tiny white lights, fat red ribbons and garland filled with glittering red balls. With flames flickering in a marble façade gas fireplace, I felt a tingle of recognition of the many holiday parties, heartrending meetings and secret liaisons that had transpired in this building. Okay, I’m a romance writer.

“Jack Salerno, you smooth-talking hustler! How the hell you doing?” one silver-haired man shouted, embracing my husband in a huge hug. Turning to me, he added, “The last time I saw this man, I was working in Chicago. Next thing I know, I’m transferred to a two-bit station in Arkansas, and loving it.”

“He’s a smooth talker, all right,” I said. “I’m his wife, Ruby.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ruby.” Silver Hair looked from me to Jack suspiciously. “Wait! Jack and Ruby? Jack and Ruby. Jack Ruby!”

I nodded. “Easy to remember, right? And we didn’t even plan it that way.”

Jack flashed me one of those grins that still melted my heart. “It seemed like a bad omen, but I married her anyway.”

Silver Hair insisted on buying Jack a drink, not getting that the booze was free tonight. I guess you don’t get a lot of freebies at his station in Arkansas. “I’ll meet you at the bar,” Jack told Silver Hair as we finally moved up in the coat-check line. The temperature had dipped into the twenties the night before and though everyone was complaining of cold it was beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.

Jack helped me slide off my coat, then yanked his hand away. “Ew. What’s that?”

Red goop on his fingertips.

“Something on my sleeve?” I checked the cuff of my new black dress, a waistless chiffon shift with rhinestones around the collar, simple yet elegant. At least, it would be elegant if it weren’t for the SpaghettiOs on the sleeve. From Scout’s last request as I left her with the sitter. “Dammit.”

Jack swiped napkins from a passing waiter and handed me a few. “What do you want to drink?” he asked, wiping his fingers.

“Whiskey sour,” I said as I backed toward the restrooms.

I spent a good twenty minutes in the ladies’ room, scrubbing away at the orangey-red dots on my sleeve as the old commercial jingle “Uh-oh! SpaghettiOs!” chorused through my mind. Jack and I had taught the old ditty to the girls when they were toddlers, and we’d loved the way they’d popped up like little jack-in-the-boxes when they cried: “Uh-oh!”

Cute, sweet, sentimental…But the memory paled in comparison to the party going on outside in the ballroom, and I felt frantic to get back out there and replace a SpaghettiOs revery with hot hors d’oeuvres from wandering servers and the mellifluous croon of Harry Connick Jr. doing Christmas carols. “Out, damned spot!” I cursed as someone came out of the stall.

“Hi.” The petite blonde, perfect from head to toe in a red suit trimmed with gold, spared me a friendly but demure smile. “You’re Jack Salerno’s wife, right?”

“Ruby. And you must be from the Dallas office.”

“Desiree Rose.” She chose the sink at the far end of the counter to wash her hands. “Did you spill something?”

“Sort of.” I didn’t want to share my mess.

A lemon-haired confection, Desiree certainly wouldn’t understand the need to make SpaghettiOs on the fly while giving instructions to the sitter and grabbing clean Wonder Pets pj’s from the dryer. Desiree struck me as one of those women who actually tried those beauty tips listed in magazines. Her nails matched her lipstick, which matched her fire-engine red suit. Her hair shone with gold-on-gold highlights, and her shoes—open-toed sandals—were dry and without a scuff from the streets of New York.

Desiree dropped the linen towel in a bin and turned to me awkwardly. “When you finish with that, come on out and visit at our table. Your husband’s a hoot. We just love him down in Dallas, and I’m sure the rest of the folks from headquarters are dying to meet you, the woman behind the man.”

That was me, the woman behind the hoot. “Gee, thanks,” I said, wadding up the linen towel I’d used to lighten the orange stain. Although I usually avoided networking on my husband’s behalf, I felt curious about the Dallas people, the names Jack had mentioned. I’d drafted a mental image of Elsa and Hank, CJ and Tiger and Desiree. Wouldn’t it be fun to hang with them awhile, gather my own info and maybe insinuate myself with the group, all to Jack’s surprise and horror?

“You ’bout done there?” Desiree asked me.

I smoothed out my sleeve and buttoned the cuff. “I’ve done enough damage here. Take me to your people,” I said with an exotic accent.

Desiree gestured toward the door and led the way back into the ballroom like a real estate agent showing off a property. Granted, I envied her neatly sprayed, symmetrical hairstyle, the slightly feathered up-turned curls at her shoulders, but something about her walk was a bit stiff and formal. As in, “Ladies and gentlemen, let’s hear a round of applause for Ms. Texas!” Inside the dining room Desiree sideswiped Judith Rothstein, the office manager of the station here in New York. Desiree excused herself. Judith seemed to hiss back.

Judith softened when she noticed me. “Ruby, bubbelah, how are you? The children?”

“All fine, Judith.” I reached out and squeezed her bony hands. “You look fabulous, but I can’t talk now. I’m on a mission.” I nodded toward Desiree. “Meeting the Dallas in-laws.”

“And why would you want to do that?” she asked bluntly. To her credit, Judith shunned all other branch offices of Corstar equally. A staunch Brooklynite, she knew no other city could measure up to New York, and thus the affiliates in other cities did not interest her in the least.

I shot a look at Desiree, who was beginning to disappear in the sea of people. “Let’s talk later. I’ll find you,” I promised Judith.

The delay gave Desiree a minute to pounce on the table and warn the other people from headquarters that I would be joining them. By the time I squeezed behind two balding reps from other affiliates arguing market shares, all heads from Dallas were turned up toward me, eyes glazed, polite smiles in place. Elsa Wallace, a plus-sized gal apparently with stock in Revlon, dove into her role as office manager and introduced her crew. Besides Desiree there was CJ Williams, an African American woman with a bombshell shape and a handshake so strong I’d choose her first for my softball team.

The new head of sales, Terry Anne Muldavia, rose-dark and sleek, her long mane of shiny black hair cascading down her back as she sized me up with her dark, exotic eyes. She extended a hand, her talons the color of an eggplant. “Where’s Jack?” she asked, as if I couldn’t gain entry without him.

“He’s shmoozing around here somewhere,” I answered, wondering if that perfect tan on her legs was natural or sprayed on. Safe to say, Tiger and I weren’t going to be sharing lattes anytime soon.

“So nice to meet you.” Elsa placed her pudgy hand in mine. “It’s Lucy, isn’t it?”

“Ruby,” I said. “An easy way to remember is Jack Ruby. Get it? Jack and Ruby?”

“Of course.” Elsa withdrew her hand as Desiree let out a gasp.

“Is that supposed to be a joke?” Desiree asked.

I shrugged one shoulder. “Sort of black humor, I guess. I mean, it’s a bizarre coincidence, don’t you think? Not creepy enough to keep us from getting married.”

Desiree shook her head in disapproval. “I’ll have you know, that incident has marred our city’s history. Half the tourists who visit Dallas take the Grassy Knoll tour. It’s a tragedy I’d like to forget.”

“Oh, get a life,” Tiger snarled. “Were you even born when it happened? No. So back off.” She sat down at the table and tore into a dinner roll, clearly giving up on the rest of us.

“Ruby?” Hank tried to change the subject. He was not the rangy cowboy I expected but a short, boyish chap with a pencil-thin moustache that made him look like a junior-high student impersonating a grown-up. “Ruby, I’ve got a question for you. I’ll bet you meet lots of famous people, living here in New York. Have you ever met Liza Minnelli?”

“No, but I was in a writing class with a woman who fitted her for a costume once.”

Hank gasped. “Oh, my stars. It must be something to live here in New York and be around famous people all the time.”

“I’m sure it’s not that different than living in Dallas,” I said, enjoying Hank’s giddy enthusiasm. “It’s not like I have breakfast with Jennifer Aniston and Oprah each morning.”

“Oprah’s based in Chicago,” Tiger said with such a tone of disgust, you’d think I’d plopped SpaghettiOs on her sleeve. I was beginning to see why people called her Tiger.

“Right. I was just flipping you an example.” I pushed my chair away from the table and crossed my legs off to the side. Although my waist and hips may have softened with three pregnancies, my legs remained my strongest physical asset, and at the moment I was tempted to use them for a karate kick right to Tiger’s prominent chin.

“Speaking of famous,” Elsa said, her eyes wide in her chubby cheeks, “I understand we’re sitting with a real, live author this very minute.”

When the others looked around, she nodded at me. “Ruby is a writer. Romance novels, right?”

I nodded, pasting on the publicity smile. “That’s right.”

Hank gaped, clapping his hands frantically in mock applause. “Author! Author!”

“I can’t imagine how you do that,” Desiree said with a strangled gasp. “I could never write so many words.”

You said it yourself. “I enjoy writing. I’ve been taking notes since my fingers were strong enough to hold a crayon.” I recrossed my legs, trying not to appear smug. Most of the people in my world could care less that I was a published author; those who did care seemed to glaze over and salivate like a baby pterodactyl waiting for a meal. At the moment, everyone at the table had that baby-dinosaur look, everyone except Tiger, who was staring down at the floor, as if searching for a place to spit out a mouthful of aspic.

Hank clasped his hands together delightedly and fired off a barrage of questions. “When did you start writing? How many books have you published? Where do you get your ideas? Am I asking too many questions? Do you write under your own name?”

I laughed. “I write under my maiden name, Ruby Dixon, and I’m happy to talk writing with you, Hank.”

“I’ve always been a writer, too,” CJ said. “I write in my journal every day.”

“That’s a great—”

“You’re running,” Tiger interrupted me.

I squinted at her. “Come again?”

“Your pantyhose.” She nodded down at my fair legs, where a hideous glare of pasty white shone through a run that shot up from my ankle along my shapely calf.

I groaned, quickly concealing the run behind my other leg. “Thanks.” Not.

“Just take them off,” Tiger ordered. “Pantyhose are passé, quickly becoming a fashion faux pas. Tights would have been okay, but it’s a little late for that. You want to go to the ladies’ room and get rid of them.”

“Maybe I will.” With as much dignity as I could muster I rose from the table, pretending that torn stockings and SpaghettiOs stains didn’t matter.

“Ooh, Ruby! Don’t leave us!” Hank begged. “We want to hear all about the life of a famous writer.”

“I’ll reconnect!” I promised, showering the love right back at him, over Tiger’s head, of course.

Darting to the restroom, I caught sight of Jack lingering at the edge of the bar with his boss. He nodded as Numero Uno Laguno gesticulated wildly, her flailing arms nearly spilling her martini. Phoebe Laguno was probably half-crocked, but under the best of circumstances that woman was one olive short of a martini, anyway. Poor Jack, a party going on all around him and he gets stuck sucking up to Numero Uno Laguno. It looked like his evening wasn’t going any better than mine was.

As I peeled off my pantyhose in a stall, I wondered why I was always feeling like my wardrobe and my life were held together by a broken safety pin. Here’s one of the many ways in which I differed from the heroines in the romances I wrote—they were barely flawed women. A mechanic with dimples showing through the axle grease on her creamy cheeks who struggles to prove herself to the guys in the pit. A gourmet chef without an ounce of flab on her slender frame who fights to keep her restaurant open with competition from franchises. A magazine model who tries to dumb down her beauty but cannot hide her amazing beauty under hats, scarves and sunglasses.

Ha! I should have such problems.

Stuffing the ball of stockings into the trash, I smoothed the skirt of my dress and thanked God that I’d worn closed-toe shoes to cover my chipped pedicure. Okay, my pasty-white legs did not have the same sex appeal as they’d had in sheer black stockings, but the party was far enough along that no one, save Tiger, would remember.

Back inside the ballroom I tried to save Jack from Numero Uno. “Excuse me, Phoebe,” I said. No one dared call her Numero Uno to her face. “But Jack and I haven’t had a chance to dance tonight.”

“Aw, that’s so sweet. It is!” she gushed in her whiney Jersey accent.

“Great idea, Rubes.” Jack set his drink on the bar and touched my arm.

“But we’re talking business, right now,” Numero Uno added. “So you need to disappear. Be gone! Off with you.”

The desperate look on Jack’s face made me pause, but I knew it didn’t pay to argue with Numero Uno Laguno.

“Vamoose! Split!” Numero Uno went on, waving her arms to cast me off to distant places. “Scotty, beam her up!”

I tinkled my fingers at Jack and turned toward the cluster of familiar faces from the New York office. I was feeling alienated and needed a hometown fix. I took a seat beside Judith, hoping to absorb some of the intrepid mettle that oozed from her advice. In Judith’s view, there was nothing she couldn’t fix with a strong dose of chicken soup and a stern talking to. Decisive, wise and, okay, bossy as hell, this woman had kept the New York office grounded for nearly twenty years.

“You’ve got no stockings on,” she croaked as I sat down.

“Tell me about it. Big run.”

“You should think about self-tanning,” she said. “I do it every Sunday.”

Somehow, the image of Judith stripped down to her underwear and rubbing in tanning lotion was not going to help my lack of connection at tonight’s party. “I’ll have to add that to my list of things to do,” I said. Right between “shop for Christmas gifts” and “scrub toilet.”

“Really, dear. Just because you have little ones doesn’t mean you can let it all go to hell. I know, believe me, I’ve been there. My two are grown, of course, but when they were little I refused to let myself go, and my Irving, God rest his soul, was never turned away.”

I nodded, feeling more bedraggled and out of control than ever.

“But your skin is so lovely. Isn’t it lovely?” she asked the rest of the table, where the sales team Jack worked with sat nursing scotches and leaning forward conspiratorially. I smiled at the crew, the high-energy, the highly agitated. Spokesmodels for anxiety medication. Jack said you needed to keep your edge to stay ahead in this business. “If you’re not swimming, you’re shark bait,” he always told me. I tried to remind them that they were selling air. Air time. Commercials. If that isn’t the Emperor’s new clothes…

“Ruby is happenin’.” Byron Smith held up a hand for me to give him a high-five. With his gravelly voice and Jelly Belly persona, Byron was definitely the coolest brother at the station.

I smacked his palm and leaned into the group. “What trouble are you guys stirring up now?”

“We’re just taking bets on who’s going to become Numero Uno’s next scapegoat,” said Britta Swensen, one of the two women who was doing a job share at the station. Blonde, and big-boned with crystal-blue eyes, Britta shared her job with a mother of two who commuted in from upstate two days a week.

“You’re probably safe, Britta,” I said. “Lucky you.”

“Hey, I paid my dues,” Britta said, glancing toward the bar where Numero Uno was still monopolizing Jack.

Two years ago, when Phoebe falsely accused Britta of being a cocaine addict, Britta rose to the challenge and emerged from the coffee room with her nostrils caked in white. Vaseline coated with Sweet ’N Low. Numero Uno went ballistic, calling in HR and security. When the dust settled, Britta lodged an HR complaint against Phoebe Laguno, and Numero Uno Laguno was sent off for job retraining at a spa upstate. Since then, Phoebe Laguno didn’t mess with Britta Swensen.

“Oh, tell me it’s not Jack,” I said.

“He seems to be the flavor of the month,” said Lyle, the office slut who would probably be voted most likely to step on his own dick. With spiky hair, buff body and puppy-dog eyes, Lyle was a real hottie. Too bad about the sex-compulsion thing.

The conversation shifted to a critique of the best restaurants in Manhattan, and names such as Le Bernardin, Per Se and Gramercy Tavern were tossed about. Britta said she refused to eat anyplace that wasn’t five stars, and her job-share partner, Imani, complained that she didn’t like having to make a reservation so far in advance. Lyle was a fan of steakhouses like Smith & Wollensky and Ruth’s Chris and Peter Luger in Brooklyn. “I’m a red-meat man,” Lyle said. Somehow, I was not surprised. And Byron and Nick argued that their clients liked places with excellent service, where the wait staff called them by name.

I listened in patiently, unable to add much since I so rarely had the chance to eat out anymore, and when I did step out with Gracie or Harrison we weren’t dining at five-star restaurants. I would have put in a good word about Dish of Salt or the Russian Tea Room…or the margaritas at Arizona 206 and the view from Top of the Sixes, but these old stomping grounds of mine had closed down, making me feel slightly prehistoric. (Of course, if someone popped the question about where to find the best suckling pig, I was on it!) This was Jack’s world, part of the job to wine and dine clients, while I was at home pushing Cheerios and downing a yogurt. It hardly seemed fair, but then again, while Jack was outside scraping ice and snow off the car, I was often home in my slippers sipping coffee at the computer.

The sales team then covered bars—everything from singles bars to historic bars and taverns to gay bars in the Village and the current hot bars to see and be seen. Again, my lips were sealed.

Fast-forward to Broadway shows they’d seen recently. Did it count that Harrison and I almost saw The Producers with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick except that Jack’s out-of-town stay was extended and I couldn’t get a sitter?

When the Broadway tableau was depleted, talk moved to the network’s lineup this season: the sitcoms, sports events, reality shows and dramas designed to bring in high ratings shares and thus increase the price of commercial air time and boost station revenues. Familiarity with the network lineup was mandatory here. The sales staff needed to push the network shows and entice advertisers to buy into the dream. Which made it that much more embarrassing for me. I couldn’t recall a single show I’d seen on the Corstar network this year. Actually, I couldn’t recall any shows at all beyond the crime shows Jack and I watched after ten. I spent prime time giving baths, reading stories, and picking up LEGOs and dolls’ heads. Jack and I had been talking about getting satellite TV with a DVR, but the prospect of learning a new system was overwhelming. What if we couldn’t find Sesame Street for Dylan each morning, or SpongeBob for the girls?

I felt as if I should apologize to someone here, explain why I’d lost touch with Corstar’s lineup, beg forgiveness for my ignorance of top-rated shows and rising sitcom stars and crushes from teen dramas.

Just then the music stopped and the sound of a spoon clinking against a glass cut through the ballroom. Everyone turned toward the stage, where lights now shone on a bald man at the podium. “What about Bob?” someone called, eliciting a ripple of laughter. No Corstar event was complete without a few words from CEO Bob Filbert.

If network programming was a religion, Bob Filbert would be the pope. This was the man who could offer me dispensation for my lack of devotion to the station. The corporate Big Daddy smiled down upon us all, proclaiming it a delightful celebration and a successful year for Corstar. “I know you’ve heard murmurings of the changes in the offing, and I’m hear to say that the rumors are probably true. We’re going to be realigning our power here at Corstar. Moving the cheese, so to speak.”

I squirmed in my seat, recrossing my bare legs under the table. Corporate-speak and I were not compatible. During the short time after college that I’d worked for that insurance consulting firm, I had quickly burned out on the insider’s jargon, the anagrams and nicknames for procedures and contracts. When my boss had explained for the zillionth time that the pink copy of a requisition form was a pinky and the green copy a greeny, I had looked him in the eye and flatly told him: “I quitty.” I have never been good with foreign languages and I just couldn’t suffer corporate-speak gladly.

“Now, it’s human nature to resist change. We all know that. But I challenge you to keep yourself open to revision and progress, and you’ll be delighted with the new face of Corstar. No one says it’ll be easy. We’re raising the bar, expecting more.”

I stifled a groan, knowing how Jack hated the “raising the bar” speech. “Fuck the bar,” he always said. “If I were a trained dog, maybe I’d jump higher, but I’m not. Filbert can take his freaking bar and stick it where the sun doesn’t shine.” Without being too obvious I shot a look over to the bar where Jack stood tall, hands at his sides. While many of the men here tonight had rolls to hide under their suit jackets, Jack looked lean in his navy suit, and I longed to slide a hand under his crisp white shirt and run my palms down his firm abdomen, down, down, down. Maybe I would, as soon as we got home. I felt a secret thrill that he was going home with me—that handsome guy was my husband.

When Bob summed up his speech and announced: “Enjoy your dinner!” there was a mad scramble of the guests to tables. No one wanted to be stuck at a table with strangers or sitting beside the office black sheep. I walked to the bar, where my husband was ordering yet another scotch.

“I saved you a seat,” I said, moving closer to whisper, “between me and Judith, far, far from Numero Uno.”

He knocked back some scotch and let out a low rumble of pleasure. “Ah, Rubes, you sure know how to work a crowd.”

I touched the smooth sleeve of his navy suit and gave him a squeeze. “Can do.”