I HAVEN’T HAD A drop of alcohol since the sip of piña colada Naomi gave me when I was fifteen that sent me racing to the hospital with hives. Still it’s five A.M. and I feel the way I’ve read a hangover feels. My mouth is dry and my skull feels like it’s the size of Mr. Potato Head’s. My palms and my feet itch, too, which can only mean one of two things. Either I’m coming into some money—or I’m leaving my husband. Although neither seems like a real possibility.
Naomi and Dr. Barasch left after it was evident that Peter had holed up for the night in the den and wasn’t coming back for a rematch. Sienna and Bill stayed around to talk for a while, but at a certain point I just wanted to be alone—there’s only so much you can chew over a husband’s bad behavior before you feel like throwing up. Besides, I couldn’t help noticing there was a frisson between the sweet, slightly disheveled lawyer and my gorgeous, sophisticated best friend. Good for them, I hope they enjoyed a nice evening together, although never in a million years would I have thought to set them up—Sienna’s a woman of the world, while Bill looks and acts like the boy just out of college that he practically is. Still, there’s no accounting for chemistry. Or understanding it, either, apparently. I’m trying to talk myself into getting up and out of bed when Paige appears before me holding a textbook.
“What are you doing up at this hour of the morning?” I ask, heading toward the guest bathroom to brush my teeth.
“Test,” Paige says succinctly.
“Now?”
“You’re always saying I should come to you to study.”
You’d think after being a mother for fourteen years I’d have learned that kids are like vampires—they strike under the cover of darkness. When was the last time a baby got a raging fever during the doctor’s regular office hours? I don’t have to ask, I know by the look on Paige’s face that the test is today—and she probably doesn’t know a proton from a pretzel. “Paige Newman,” I begin, between gritted teeth.
“I know, Mom, I know. You think I like asking? Swear, just this once? I’ll never ask you again.”
“Oh yes you will.” I splash some water on my face, and slip into a pair of jeans and sneakers. “Let’s get some breakfast.”
Luckily for me Paige doesn’t have to understand Stephen Hawking—because honestly not even Stephen Hawking understands Stephen Hawking—she just has to memorize symbols, and she’s already got most of them down pat. “ ‘Ca’ for calcium, ‘Zn’ for zinc,” Paige recites. She even knows that “Na” is sodium.
“Our teacher said it’s not good to have too much salt,” Paige says proudly. “So the way I remember it is that sodium is ‘Na.’ ”
I look at her curiously.
“Na, Mom. As in ‘Nah, don’t have the salt.’ And I know that ‘Au’ is gold, because Ashley Unger—her initials are AU, get it?—is the richest girl in the class and she’s always wearing armloads of these awful gold David Yurman bracelets. Ugh, she thinks she’s so cool.”
It’s always been hard for Paige to compete for grades with her twin sister. Doing well in school comes so easily to Molly that I think in past semesters, Paige just gave up. But maybe things are changing. “Good job, honey,” I say, pouring some milk into a bowl of cornflakes and handing Paige a spoon. “Glad to see you taking a real interest in school.”
“I’ve become very interested in school, especially science,” Paige says, ignoring the cornflakes and searching around the bread box for something in the B, C, or D food groups—bagel, coffee cake, or Danish. Ever since Rosie left and Peter and the girls have been helping with the shopping, the cupboards are stocked with sugar. Paige settles on a Pop-Tart and stares dreamily off into space. “Brandon Marsh is my lab partner and he’s the cutest boy in the world, Mom. I can’t wait until we study black holes together.”
I don’t know who this Brandon Marsh boy is, but I suppose I should be grateful if he helps get Paige’s marks up. Love certainly seems to be in the air—Paige and Brandon, Sienna and Bill. And you could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw Dr. Barasch and Naomi in my living room, mooning over each other like a couple of teenagers. Maybe if I just took a deep enough breath I could fill my lungs with some of the same intoxicating elixir that they’re inhaling. Or maybe not. It might take more than a few whiffs of O2 mixed with L-O-V-E to get things back on track with Peter.
My husband shuffles into the kitchen with the New York Times. Without so much as an I’m sorry, or even an Are you okay?, he hands me the morning paper as a peace offering. “I thought you might want to read this. I know you hate how I grab it first every morning.”
“Thanks,” I say dispiritedly, separating the arts section from the rest of the news. Today of all days, I can’t face reading about anything more depressing than a review of Adam Sandler’s latest movie.
“Okay then,” Peter says, moving right along and pouring himself a glass of orange juice. “Maybe after breakfast I’ll do the wash.”
“Oh no, Dad, no. Mom, please don’t let Daddy do it. My Juicy Couture sweatpants will be absolutely ruined,” Paige cries.
“Will not,” says Peter. “Who do you think did my laundry when I was in college?”
“Mom,” Paige says.
“We did it together. Every Saturday afternoon we’d bring our books to the laundromat to study while we watched our clothes co-mingling in the dryer.”
“Geez, talk about a cheap date. You sure know how to romance a girl,” Paige teases.
“You don’t know the half of it, right, Tru?” Peter asks.
“Not the half,” I say softly.
“I’m going to leave you two alone now,” Paige says, heading back toward her room to get dressed. She turns around in the doorway and waves her textbook. “Thanks for the help, Mom.”
“You’re welcome, sweetie. Good luck with the test.”
Peter reaches for a coffee mug. “Paige studying for a test?”
“Well, she’s studying for a test to impress a boy, but at least it’s a start,” I say, falling into the familiar rhythms of marriage—ignoring the larger issue of our fight in favor of talking about school and children. Normally property values would be on the list, too, but these days that’s a sore subject.
From the bedroom, I hear Molly turning on the shower. Above the morning crackle of coffee percolating, Paige singing out her chemistry symbols as if they were the ABC song, and Peter noisily opening and closing the kitchen cabinets in search of cups, spoons, and bowls that are right under his nose, somehow I hear the phone ring. “Drop whatever you’re doing, you have to get over to my apartment now!” Sienna cries.
I hand Peter the carton of milk he’s been searching for everywhere but in the refrigerator door where we always keep it. “I’ll be back, well, I don’t know exactly,” I say, explaining that Sienna needs help.
Peter leans forward to tuck a stray lock behind my ear. “How about we make a pact, no more secrets? I know it was pretty upsetting when you found out that I’d been out of work for so long. And that I hadn’t even told you. I won’t keep anything like that from you ever again. What do you say?”
It’s hard to argue that honesty isn’t the best policy, and even if I wanted to, I have to get to Sienna’s. “No more secrets,” I promise. Peter smiles, appreciative that I haven’t made it hard to say he’s sorry, which just for the record, he’s never actually said. Then as I turn to leave, he taps my shoulder and hands me a Pop-Tart wrapped in a paper napkin. My husband’s never been a virtuoso at apologies or sweet talk—but he’s still a master of the sweet gesture.
LESS THAN TWENTY minutes later I’m sitting in Sienna’s living room, looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows at her spectacular Central Park view. Sienna pushes a button to start the fake fireplace—so authentic that you’d swear those crackling flames really were coming from the cement logs—and we sink into her beige suede couch. The elegant, impossibly impractical beige suede couch that announces louder than Sienna’s lack of a wedding ring that no messy husband—let alone children—live here.
“Look at this, will you just look at this!” Sienna says, waving a check in front of my face.
“Calm down. What’s got you so upset?” I stare at the check that’s made out to “Cash.” “Whoa, five thousand large, that’s a tidy little sum. What did you do, rob a bank?”
“Worse,” Sienna says ominously.
“What do you mean ‘worse’? I was joking.”
“Well, I’m not. Worse. Imagine the very worst thing you could possibly do.”
“Invite Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie to the same dinner party?”
“I slept with Bill Murphy,” Sienna says, biting her lower lip.
I pause and try to suppress a giggle. Sienna’s a grown woman. A grown woman who enviably, I’ve always thought, knows how to seize the moment. Besides, after everything else that went on in the world yesterday, I’d almost have been more surprised if she hadn’t slept with the puppy-doggishly cute Bill. Why, for goodness’ sake, would she be having morning-after regrets?
“Is that all? What’s the problem? Sure he’s a little young, but Bill’s a sweet guy. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Yesterday was brutal. The whole country’s feeling panicked and confused. It’s only natural that you two would end up in the sack together, it was Emergency Sex. I remember reading that after 9/11 there was a population explosion the following June.” Then I pause. “You did use birth control, didn’t you?”
“Of course I did. That’s not the problem.”
“You mean the sex wasn’t good?”
“No, actually it was good. What Bill lacks in experience he makes up in enthusiasm,” Sienna says and I swear I see a faint blush rise in her cheeks.
“That sounds promising. Isn’t it every woman’s fantasy to teach a younger guy the ropes? So what in heaven’s name is wrong?”
“The money, this money,” Sienna wails, slamming her fist on the coffee table. “It wasn’t until after he left that I noticed the check on the nightstand. I don’t know whether to take it as a compliment or an insult.”
“I’d say compliment. I would have thought that boat had sailed. I mean, it’s too late to be a ballerina or a basketball star—how many women our age get paid for sex?”
Sienna shoots me a withering look. “Stop kidding around. It’s like he thinks I’m a common hooker,” she says, sounding angrier by the moment.
“Well, not common,” I say, brandishing the check. “High-class courtesan, at least. Look, sweetie, I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it. Peter’s always said that Bill’s brilliant but a little socially inept. Maybe the guy doesn’t know the number for 1-800-FLOWERS. I’m sure he was just trying to be nice.”
“Nice is dinner at Per Se or a sexy teddy from La Perla,” Sienna says. I decide not to point out that either of those more traditional gifts could be construed as a more subtle form of payment, but payment nonetheless. Instead, I try arguing that the money could be useful. It’s no time for any of us to be looking down our noses at five thousand dollars.
“If you don’t want this, I’m sure Paige would be happy to fold it into a flamingo. Or we could pay our mortgage. Or you could use it to pay for another two weeks in your apartment.”
Sienna’s been putting on a good face about getting fired, but at the mention of her rent, she bursts into tears. I scan the living room, which is entirely clutter-free. No knickknacks or photos from her world travels disrupt the space’s sophisticated, serene lines. Just possibly, there’s a tissue tucked away somewhere upstairs in a built-in closet, but instead of trying to hunt one down, I rummage around my purse and I hear a buzzing. I reach for my cellphone, only to discover that it’s not ringing.
“Damn it, this has been happening all week. Maybe I do have ringxiety.”
Sienna looks at me quizzically.
“Ringxiety—Dr. Phil called it a genuine twenty-first-century malady, kind of like phantom leg syndrome. People are so connected to their cellphones that they hear them ringing even when they’re not.”
“At least you’re not hearing voices, then you’d be schizophrenic,” Sienna says, smiling for the first time since I got here. “That buzzing’s the intercom; I’m expecting a package. Just tell the doorman to send it up.”
Sienna swipes the tissue across her face and I go into the kitchen to get us a couple of bottles of water, which, it turns out, are the only thing in her refrigerator besides a container of French vanilla yogurt and two bottles of champagne. With its Miele appliances and satin-finished glass backsplashes, Sienna’s kitchen looks like something out of a design showroom, and it gets about as much use. Though today an uncharacteristic trail of toast crumbs leads me toward the coffeemaker, which is still half-full. This affair with Bill Murphy is more serious than I thought. Sienna doesn’t let guys sleep over until somewhere around the umpteenth date, and then it usually spells the death knell for her relationships. She likes the sex and romance parts of dating, not the daily grind.
“You let Bill spend the night? And you let him leave a mess?”
“I’m sorry, I usually clean up after myself,” says Bill Murphy, all six-foot-two-inches of him, stepping into the apartment. “Door was unlocked.” He takes the coffeepot from me and empties its contents into Sienna’s custom-designed sink. Then he taps one of Sienna’s handleless cupboards and pulls out a scrub brush and a can of Comet.
Sienna tosses back her thick mahogany hair and marches over to turn off the spigot. “That won’t be necessary. And neither,” she says coolly, holding out the offending check, “is this.”
Bill has at least a hundred pounds on Sienna (probably 107 at the end of her monthly juice fast)—and he’s a good six inches taller. But it’s no contest. Standing toe-to-toe you’d swear that Bill was the ninety-eight-pound-weakling to Sienna’s sumo wrestler. He wipes his hands on a linen dish-towel and meekly accepts the check. Sienna turns on her heel and stomps out of the room. Bill waves his arms helplessly and goes trailing after her.
“I got your email, I know you’re upset but you have to let me explain. It’s just that you said you were worried about money and I have some, that’s all.”
“And you decided to pay me for a job well rendered?”
“Well, it was well rendered,” Bill says, a small smile crossing his face. “But no, I mean, I wasn’t paying you.…”
“You mean, let’s be friends with benefits, and the benefits you’re offering are in cash.”
There’s a pause in the conversation and Bill looks lost in thought. Professionally, he and Sienna are an interesting match—the newscaster and the lawyer. Each of their livelihoods depends on their way with words. Bill may be wimpy when it comes to women, but to his high-profile clients, he’s a winner. And as the lawyer in him emerges over the lover, Bill takes command of the argument.
“It’s a simple case of economics,” he says, drumming his finger on his chin. “I have money and right now you don’t. I’m just redistributing the wealth.”
“But you redistributed it after sex, as if you were paying for a service!” Sienna exclaims.
“Well, that’s not how I was thinking of it. I just wanted to help out a friend. If you don’t want the money, you don’t have to take it.”
“I certainly won’t be taking it.”
“That’s your choice. But would it be so bad if I were?”
“Were what?” Sienna asks impatiently.
“Paying to spend time with you? Because you’re a beautiful, smart, funny, charming woman, an older woman who knows her way around the world, one of the most fascinating women I’ve ever met in my life.”
“Then Sienna would be right,” I declare, jumping into the conversation. “It would make her a working girl.”
“Well, she’s been a working girl all of her life. What’s the difference between being paid by the network and being paid by me?”
Sienna’s face goes from ashen to beet red in about thirty seconds.
“Because when I whore for the station I get to meet heads of state and—and interview elephants!” Sienna says indignantly. Then she grabs Bill’s check and tears it into a zillion pieces, which she scatters at his feet.
“That’s what I think of you and your money and your, your economic theories,” she shrieks. “Don’t email, don’t call, I never want to see or hear from you, not ever again!” Sienna pushes the boy lawyer out the front door and slams it shut behind him. Sienna may be incensed. But suddenly, I’m inspired. Though I can’t decide if the plan that’s hatching in my brain is the best or the worst idea I’ve ever had.