October 19
The Present
10:00 P.M.
Thankfully, Todd didn’t make a scene in front of the guests. Instead, he’d looked almost relieved, like it wasn’t the worst news in the world, that she was being slapped with a lawsuit. She confessed, told him everything, how their neighbor was suing, of all things, for dog doo-doo. “It was just a misunderstanding,” she said. “Well, it began that way, and then they caught it on their camera.”
“What happened?”
What happened was that a few months ago, Miranda, their nanny, had called in sick, and Miranda, in addition to shepherding Eli and Otis to their various after-school activities (karate, art, flag football, fencing, and therapy), also took care of the family dog. She was responsible for walking and feeding their rather petulant and overweight Maltese, Cece. Since it was Lynn the LA housekeeper’s day off, there was no one else to walk Cece, so Ellie had hired one of those dog-walking services to take Cece around the block.
“You know, since I always have to do everything around here,” she said.
Todd frowned and Ellie quickly reversed course. “Sorry, I meant, the burden of day-to-day household management often falls to me, even though you are the one at home.” She was supposed to stop using the word always in their marriage; they had paid an expensive shrink thousands of dollars to tell them this.
Todd shrugged and didn’t seem up to the task of defending his right to play video games on his phone all day, so she went on.
“Anyway, I called the service to walk Cece, and this kid took her around the block, picked up the poop, and deposited it in the Andersons’ garbage cans because it was trash day and their cans were out and no one had taken ours out yet.”
“So?”
“So the Andersons caught it on their security cameras, and they’ve been harassing us ever since, about how we’d used their garbage cans for Cece’s poop, and I guess that’s a crime or something? They left notes under the door and voice mails on my phone, but I was so busy I forgot about it and now they’re suing us.”
Todd barked a laugh. “They’re suing us?”
“Well, one night late at work, I kind of called and told them their cameras were trained on our driveway and it was invasion of our privacy and I would sue them.”
“And?”
Ellie sighed. “I also told Miranda when she came back to work that when she takes Cece out for a walk to make sure Cece pees on their hedges. They caught that on camera too.”
Honestly, she explained to him, it wasn’t even the worst bad-neighbor lawsuit in the world; according to their lawyer, there was much, much worse. There was a case of two homeowners fighting over beachfront property in Cape Cod, and the bad blood was so bad that one of them never got to build their beach house on their land for twenty-five years. The poor schmuck bought the land to build a dream home for his family, but he and his neighbor sued each other for so many years that he was already divorced and his kids grown and still he didn’t have a beach house. Then there was the Saudi prince who’s trying to build his five-building mega compound in Benedict Canyon but has been hit with lawsuits from his appalled neighbors, who’ve been winning their case, forcing the prince to downsize from ninety thousand square feet to a mere sixty thousand.
But yes, this lawsuit was extremely petty, and it was a headache, and on top of everything else going wrong in her life, she was also feuding with their neighbors. She braced herself because now her husband was going to lose his temper because he always—no, often! Often!—blew his top, because that’s what Todd was like now that he was bitter and unemployed.
Instead, Todd just shrugged. “Oh,” he said. “That’s it?”
“Oh? That’s all you can say?”
He patted her shoulder. “David will take care of it. That’s why we have that umbrella policy.” David was their lawyer and business manager.
She couldn’t quite believe her ears. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Todd, they’re suing us for seven hundred thousand dollars! For dog poop!”
“We have insurance.” He shrugged. “They’ll probably settle.”
“You’re not mad?”
“Well, it’s too late now, isn’t it? To walk the dog ourselves? I mean, come on, we never do that. When was the last time either of us walked Cece?” He looked amused, which was uncharacteristic of him. Todd was usually the one who went ballistic over this sort of thing.
Ellie scratched her cheek. “I guess.”
“It’ll be fine. We’ll get through it. Let the lawyers sort it out. In the meantime, stop calling them and leaving threatening voice mails, and tell Miranda to stop letting Cece pee on their yard.”
“Okay,” she said, relieved, even if she couldn’t bring herself to tell him that she hadn’t paid the insurance premium last month, so most likely they didn’t have insurance to cover it. But that was a conversation for later. For now, she was just glad he wasn’t in the mood to quarrel.
“We’ll get through it.”
“We will?” Her mind was whirling with doubt.
“Yeah, we always do,” he said, looking a bit hurt. “But come on, the show’s about to start.”
Ellie had decided that, between courses, they would have entertainment. Maybe she’d gotten the idea for the pianist from her teenage memories of Nordstrom? She’d also hired an opera singer, maybe because she watched too many Woody Allen movies. Not that she could exactly name one where an opera singer performed, and to be honest, she was just trying to impress the New Yorkers. And also because Mean Celine’s childhood friend was a fancy soprano who sang at Mean Celine’s husband’s white-tie fortieth, and Ellie had been jealous of that moment, which felt so special. Thankfully, Ellie had given enough money to the LA Opera over the years, and the head of the board had persuaded the reigning diva of the company to perform at the party.
They’d installed a piano just for this moment. (No one in the family played; they’d spent thousands of dollars on piano lessons for the kids, and none of them could play a note.)
She tried to catch Todd’s eye, but he was seated too far away and talking to Mean Celine’s husband, who was probably giving him pointers on how to have an affair. It was old news within their circle that Simon had a fling with one of the flight attendants who worked on their jet. He’d even installed the skank in her own apartment he paid for, and when Mean Celine found out, she’d gone ballistic. Simon threatened to cut them off—her and the kids both—if she told anyone. Mean Celine, whose father’s money was the basis of her husband’s success, laughed in his face and told everyone. She would not be humiliated in this manner. Still, she didn’t divorce him and they reconciled.
Why had Todd looked so relieved when the process server handed her the papers for the lawsuit? What did he know? And who was that girl he was talking to earlier?
She had to stop worrying about it, and tried to focus on Sterling, who was tapping a knife against his wineglass and trying to get everyone’s attention.
“Ellie and Todd asked me to introduce the lovely singer we’re about to hear. I’ve been a fan of Madame since I heard her sing in Montreal. I think Ellie should turn forty more often! It’s not every day we get a diva in the desert. (Wink.) Although if you stay for bingo at the Ace later, we’ll definitely meet some fabulous queens, not that there aren’t many here already, present company definitely included.”
The audience tittered. Sterling beamed. “Singing ‘Habanera’ from Carmen, this is quite a treat. Everyone please give a warm welcome to . . .”
The opera singer stepped up to the piano and began to sing. Ellie would tell people that it was from her favorite opera but in truth she had no such thing. It all sounded the same to her. She liked going to the opera only because of the champagne at intermission and to see her name as a donor on the program.
The crowd seemed to love it, though, so that was something; they clapped heartily at the end. Ellie looked around and noticed her stepdaughter had come out of her room finally and joined the party. Sam had showered and brushed her hair, and had changed into one of the newest Wild & West dresses from the collection, a crinkly polyester knockoff of the latest Gucci party dress. On Sam, it looked like the real thing.
“Sam!” she called.
Sam looked guilty as she slunk over to her stepmother.
“Honey, do you need to tell us something?” Ellie asked. “What’s going on?” She wanted to point out that Sam had already told Montserrat, so she might as well tell her too, but Ellie knew that was the wrong tactic. Sam would just get defensive and clam up, when she needed her to spill, to gush, to let it all out. “Is it school?”
“Um . . .” Sam said, shifting her weight on each heel and looking like the insecure eight-year-old she’d been when they first met. “Yeah.”
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry to hear that,” said Ellie. “You know I never went to college, so I have no idea what it’s like, but I’m sure whatever it is, it’s not as bad as you think.” She took a glug from her wineglass. She’d moved seamlessly from vodka martinis to the white Burgundy, which was just a fancy name for Chardonnay, and she was starting to feel a little light-headed, but there was no excuse not to perform her mothering duties.
Sam gnawed on a fingernail. “Okay, but you need to promise not to get mad. Coz it’s pretty bad.”
“Okay, I promise.”
“I’ve been on academic probation. If I don’t pull my grades up, I can’t come back in January.”
Ellie almost dropped her wineglass but was too worried about what it would do to the floors, so she held on to the stem. But she could feel the smoke pouring out of her ears. “WHAT!”
“Mom, you promised not to get mad!” Sam whined, sounding just like Otis when he wanted something from the toy store.
“I’m not. I’m not. I’m not mad,” Ellie lied. She wasn’t mad, she was furious. Academic probation? Possibly kicked out in January? How on earth could Sam have fucked up that badly that she was—horror of horrors—flunking out of Stanford? This is our eldest, she flunked out of Stanford. This is our child, who got kicked out of Stanford. We never go to Stanford anymore, because Sam got expelled for having terrible grades. As her gays would say, it was not a cute look.
“But how! What happened? Does Daddy know?” Ellie demanded.
Sam didn’t answer the question. Instead, she said, “Um, that’s not everything.”
“There’s more?” Ellie gripped the stem of her wineglass so hard it was in danger of shattering in her hand.
“Yeah, the thing is . . .”
But before Sam could finish her sentence, Ellie’s phone rang, and it was an international number. Korea. Mr. Harry Kim. Her investor. She swiped to answer it.
“ELLIE!” yelled Sam. “ARE YOU SERIOUSLY TAKING A CALL RIGHT NOW?”
Oh, so we were back to “Ellie” now, were we? Ellie held up a hand to shush her. “Sam, I’m so, so sorry but I have to take this.”
“You always do! You always have to work! This is why I don’t tell you ANYTHING!” she said, stomping off and running into a waiter, who had to swivel lest he drop his tray of Victor’s undrinkable cocktails on the terrazzo.
Ellie wanted to call after her, but this was too important. She turned up the volume so she could catch every word.
“Harry darling!” she said. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you all night!” She pressed the phone to her ear. “What text? What did it say? No, I can’t hear you! I’m losing you! Hold on, let me see if I can get a better signal in the other side of the house.”
She ran across the grass to the east wing.
But it was too late.
The phone went dead.
She’d alienated her sensitive stepdaughter, and she still didn’t know what Harry wanted to say to her. Ellie wanted to throw her phone into the pool, she was so frustrated. But she’d planned this party for a year and she HAD to enjoy it. Because it might just be her last chance to enjoy anything.