Queen Of Babble: In The Big City

Chapter 15

It’s an hour until the turkey will be ready, and I think I have things under control.

No, really.

For one thing, Mrs. Erickson turned me on to a little New York secret—precooked turkeys from the local meat market. All you have to do after it arrives is bang yours in the oven and baste it every once in a while… and it looks (and smells) like you slaved all day.

And it was completely easy to snow all the de Villiers—even Luke—that this is what I’d done. All I had to do was make sure I got up before any of them did—which was no problem, since they all sleep like the dead—and sneak down to Mrs. Erickson’s apartment. I’d had my turkey delivered to her place, where she’d promised to store it until I could pick it up.

Once I had it—and the little bag of giblets that came with it, for the gravy—I hightailed it back up to Mrs. de Villiers’s apartment, and threw out all the telltale packaging. Perfect.

Luke got up a little while later and started whipping up his contribution to the meal—garlic-roasted onions and Brussels sprouts- and Mrs. de Villiers insisted on contributing a sweet potato side dish (thankfully minus the marshmallow fluff. Which I love, but Chaz and Shari were already bringing three different kinds of pie, because I like pumpkin, Chaz likes strawberry-rhubarb, and Shari likes pecan, and that’s more than enough sweet stuff).

Monsieur de Villiers contributed by puttering around, assembling all his wines in the order in which he wants us to consume them.

So in all, everything is going pretty much according to plan. The guests are arriving. Tiffany—looking resplendent in the suede catsuit Roberta once sent her home for wearing to the office—has shown up with Raoul, who’s turned out to be a surprisingly pleasant, fairly normal thirty-year-old, with very good manners—he’s brought along a bottle of the Beaujolais that Monsieur de Villiers is so excited about. Apparently, he’s something of a wine connoisseur—albeit of the Argentinean variety—himself.

So the two of them immediately start talking grapes and soil, while Mrs. de Villiers sets the table, carefully folding each of her cloth napkins into an upright fan pattern, and using all three forks from her silver set, placing them with extra care beside one another… perhaps thanks to the Bloody Marys Luke insisted on preparing for his parents—and has kept filled—since they’ve woken up. (“How else,” he asked me, sotto voce, “are we all going to get along all day in such a small space?”)

Not that his parents seem to mind. Once I moved the sewing machine, Luke’s mother was all smiles. Although that might have something to do with the fact that Luke’s been careful not to leave us alone together again.

Which is fine. I actually have work tomorrow (partners may get the Friday after Thanksgiving as a holiday in busy law firms, but receptionists certainly don’t), so it will be up to Luke to keep his parents entertained. His mother, of course, has already made other plans (about which she’s informed no one). Luke and his father plan on going to the museums…

… where I’ll be joining them all day on Saturday, before we head off to the theater together for my first Broadway show—Mrs. de Villiers has four tickets to Spamalot. Thankfully they’ll be leaving on Sunday, by which time I think my tolerance for sharing a one-bedroom with my boyfriend’s parents will have been totally spent.

Tiffany, however, seems completely enthusiastic about the de Villiers… fascinated by them, actually. She keeps sidling up to me in the kitchen as I pretend to be sweating over my turkey and whispering, “So… that old guy? He’s really a prince?”

I rue the day I ever mentioned the whole royalty thing to Tiffany. Seriously, I don’t know what I was thinking. Telling something in confidence to Tiffany is like telling it to a parrot. Only a fool would expect it not to be repeated.

“Um, yeah,” I say, basting. “But remember, I told you. France doesn’t recognize its former monarchs—or whatever—anymore. And, you know. There are like a thousand princes. Or I guess counts is what they really are.”

Tiffany, as is her custom, completely ignores my reply.

“So Luke is a prince, too.” She is observing Luke across the pass-through, as he arranges a tray of appetizers—shrimp cocktail and crudités—on the coffee table in front of the sofa on which his father and Raoul are having their animated wine discussion. “Man. Did you score in the boyfriend department.”

I’m annoyed now. Not just because it’s nearly five o’clock and I asked Chaz and Shari to be here at four and there is no sign of them. Which isn’t that unusual, especially since it’s snowing out, and even the slightest snowfall seems to paralyze New York City… but even more so when everyone is off work on a holiday.

Still, it isn’t like Shari not to call. Or leave me stranded like this with my future (hopefully) in-laws and no comic relief in the form of my best friend.

Although Tiffany appears to be trying. Unconsciously (the comic part, I mean).

“That’s not why I like him,” I whisper to Tiffany. “You know that.”

“Right,” Tiffany says tiredly. “I know, I know. It’s because of the doctor thing, he’s going to be saving the lives of little children. Yada yada yada.”

“Well,” I say. “That’s not totally why. But yeah, that’s part of it. That and the whole part where he’s like the best boyfriend who ever lived.”

“Yeah,” Tiffany says, reaching for a cheese stick from the basket of them I have on the counter, ready to go out to the table as soon as Chaz and Shari get here—whenever that is. “But, you know, doctors, they don’t make, like, any money anymore. Because of the HMOs. I mean, unless they go into plastic surgery.”

“Yeah,” I say, slightly annoyed by this. “But Luke’s not doing it to make money. He used to be an investment banker. But he gave it up because he realized saving lives is more important than making money.”

Tiffany chews noisily on the cheese stick. “That depends on whose life it is,” she says. “I mean, like, some lives are worth more than others. I’m just saying.”

“Well.” I don’t know how to reply to this. “It doesn’t matter whether or not he makes money, anyway. Because I plan on making enough money for both of us,” I say.

Tiffany actually looks interested when I say this. “Rilly? Doing what?”

“Bridal-gown design,” I say. “You know.” It would help if she actually paid attention from time to time. “Or, I should say, refurbishment. And restoration.”

Tiffany stares at me. “You mean like Vera Wang?”

“Something like that,” I say. It doesn’t seem worth it to try to explain.

“I didn’t know you went to design school,” Tiffany says.

“I didn’t,” I say. “But I majored in fashion history at the University of Michigan.”

Tiffany snorts. “Oh, well. That explains a lot.”

I glare at her. I only invited her to be nice. I don’t need to be insulted in my own home. Or my boyfriend’s mother’s own home.

Before I can say anything, however, we’re interrupted… and sadly, not by the arrival of Chaz and Shari.

“We are moving on from Bloody Marys,” Monsieur de Villiers appears in the pass-through to announce. He is holding one of the bottles of red wine Raoul brought with him. “This is a bottle of the first Beaujolais of the season. You simply have to try a glass. I am sorry your friends are not here yet, but this is an emergency! A wine emergency! Everyone must have some!”

“Oh, that sounds great, Monsieur de Villiers,” I say, and accept the glass he’s just poured for me. “Thanks.”

Tiffany takes a glass as well, then says with a laugh, as Luke’s father moves away, “He’s sweet.”

“Yes,” I say, looking after the older man, in his navy-blue sportscoat and spotted ascot. “Isn’t he?” How can Bibi de Villiers be cheating on him? It just seems so… cold.

And completely unlike her in a way. Oh, she’s very stylish, and seems to enjoy making people think that the only thing she’s got on her mind is the latest Fendi bag and Marc Jacobs couture.

But I saw how her face melted a little when I mentioned the Renoir. She loves that painting—not just the person who gave it to her, but the painting itself. You have to be a little less than shallow to love a painting that much. At least in my opinion.

So what is a woman like that doing, agreeing to meet her lover (if that’s what Phone Guy is) behind the back of the husband with whom she’s been newly reunited?

Not that I’m about to say anything about it, though. When Luke got home the first night his parents arrived and his mother asked, after she’d kissed him hello, “Darling, did I get any messages here in the apartment? A friend said he’d left several… ”

Luke had just shrugged and said, “I never got any messages for you. Lizzie? Did you ever come home to find any messages for my mom?”

I’d nearly swallowed my tongue, I’d been so embarrassed.

“Messages? You mean on the answering machine?” I’d been stalling for time, but all I ended up doing was making myself look like a bigger idiot than Luke’s mother already thinks me.

“That is generally where people leave messages,” she’d said, not altogether unkindly.

Great. Now she thinks I’m an even bigger idiot.

“Um,” I’d said, still stalling for time. “Uh.” Great. Because stammering always helped.

Then, as always, my tendency to babble kicked in… for once to my advantage.

“Well, you know,” I’d said, “a few times I came home and the light was blinking, but when I pressed play there was never anything on the tape. Maybe the machine is broken or something.”

To my everlasting relief, Mrs. de Villiers had nodded and said, “Oh, yes, of course, it might be. It’s quite old. I suppose I should stop being such a technophobe and get voice mail, anyway. Well, another thing to put on the shopping list!”

Great. Now Luke’s mom was going to enroll in a voice mail plan, because I’d made her think there was something wrong with her perfectly functional answering machine.

But what was I supposed to have said?Oh yes, Mrs. de Villiers, this man with a sexy foreign accent left multiple messages, but I erased them because I assumed he was your lover and I want you and your husband to stay together?

Yeah. That’d make me more popular than ever with Luke’s parents.

“What do you think of the wine?” Raoul pops his head across the pass-through to ask Tiffany and me. He is darkly handsome—but not objectionably good-looking or what Shari would call a “pretty boy.” He has an easy smile and lots of chest hair peeping from the open collar of his shirt… and he only has just the one button undone.

“It’s great,” I say.

“I love it.” Tiffany leans across the pass-through to kiss him, practically putting her knee in my bowl of cranberry relish. “Just like I love you… ”

The two of them are exchanging baby-talk and I’m doing my best not to vomit when the buzzer rings.

“Ah,” I hear Luke say. “That must be them at last.” He picks up the intercom phone and tells Carlos to send Chaz and Shari up.

Finally. And about time, too. My turkey was in danger of drying out. Just how long can you keep poultry warming, anyway? Especially poultry that’s already been cooked once—or however they make precooked turkeys.

I pull it from the oven, relieved to see that the skin is dark golden in color, and not blackened as I’d started to fear it might have become, and let it rest in its own juices, as the little handbook that came with it—and Mrs. Erickson, who, at seventy, knows from good turkey—advised.

The doorbell rings, and Luke goes to answer it. “Hey!” I hear him say cheerfully. “What took you so—hey, where’s Shari?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Chaz is trying to keep his voice low, but I can still hear him. “Hey, Mr. and Mrs. de Villiers. Long time no see. You guys are lookin’ good.”

Tiffany has popped down from the kitchen counter and is now leaning her sinewy body (I’m positive she isn’t wearing Spanx beneath all that leather) through the doorway to peer at Chaz.

“Hey,” she says, sounding disappointed. “I thought he was bringing your girlfriend. That friend of yours you’re always talking about, Shari. Where is she?”

I pop my head out the kitchen doorway and see Chaz handing over two pie boxes to Luke. The door to the hallway is closed. And Shari is nowhere in sight.

“Hey,” I say, coming out of the kitchen with a smile. “Where’s—”

“Don’t ask,” Luke mouths, coming toward me with the pie boxes. In a louder voice, he says, “Look, Chaz spent all day baking not one but two pies for dessert. Strawberry-rhubarb and your favorite, Lizzie—pumpkin. Shari’s feeling under the weather, so she couldn’t make it. But that just means there’s more for the rest of us, right?”

Has he lost his mind? He tells me my best friend can’t make Thanksgiving dinner because she’s under the weather—and he expects me not to ask?

“What’s wrong with her?” I demand of Chaz, who has headed directly to the bar Monsieur de Villiers has set up on his wife’s antique rolling drink cart, and is helping himself to a whiskey—straight—that he quickly downs before pouring another. “Is it the flu? It’s going around. Is it stomach or head? Does she want me to call her?”

“If you’re gonna call her,” Chaz says, his voice rough from the whiskey—and something else maybe, “you better do it on her cell. Because she’s not home.”

“Not home? When she’s sick? She’s—” I widen my eyes… then lower my voice, so the de Villierses and Tiffany and Raoul can’t hear me. “Oh my God, she didn’t go into the office, did she? She went to the office when she’s not feeling well—and on a public holiday? Chaz, has she completely lost her mind?”

“It’s entirely possible,” Chaz replies. “But she’s not at the office.”

“Where is she, then? I don’t understand… ”

“Neither do I,” Chaz says, going for his third whiskey. “Believe me.”

“Charles!” Monsieur de Villiers has finally caught on that Chaz is helping himself at the bar—and not to the wine Raoul brought, either. “You must try the wine this young man brought with him. It’s the new Beaujolais! I think you will like it better than whiskey, even!”

“I highly doubt that,” Chaz says. But the liquor seems already to have improved his mood. “How you doing there, Guillaume? You’re lookin’ good in that cravat there. Is that what you call it? A cravat? Or is it an ascot?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Monsieur de Villiers confesses. “But it doesn’t matter. You must come and try a glass of this—”

He leads Chaz away before I can ask him any more questions.

“So your friend’s sick, huh?” Tiffany slinks over to thrust her concave stomach at me. “That’s too bad. I was looking forward to meeting her. Hey, so what’s the deal with all these paintings on the walls? Are they real or what?”

“Could you excuse me for a moment please?” I ask Tiffany. “I just have to, um, check the turkey.”

She shrugs. “Whatever. Hey, Raoul. You should tell them about that racehorse you owned that one time—”

I hurry into the kitchen, where Luke is trying to find a place to put down the pies—no easy task, considering all the food the granite counters are practically sagging under.

“So what did he say to you?” I stand on tiptoe to hiss in his ear. “Chaz, I mean. About Shari. When he came in?”

Luke just shakes his head. “Not to ask. I think that means—not to ask.”

“I have to ask,” I sputter. “He can’t just come in here without my best friend and say not to ask where she is. Of course I’m going to ask. I mean, what does he think?”

“Well, you asked,” Luke says. “What did he say?”

“That she was sick. But that she wasn’t at home or at the office. But that doesn’t make any sense. Where else could she be? I’m calling her.”

“Lizzie.” Luke looks helplessly at all the food, some of which is still sizzling on the stove. Then he looks back at me. Something in my expression must have told him not to pursue it, though, since he just says with a shrug, “Go on. I’ll start bringing stuff out to the table.”

I give him a quick kiss, then hurry over to where my cell phone is charging (my Happy Thanksgiving call to my parents had worn out my battery, since they’d forced me to speak to each of my sisters, their various children, and Grandma, too—who hadn’t even wanted to talk to me, as doing so required taking her attention away from the episode of Nip/Tuck —“I just adore that Dr. Troy”—she was watching,Dr. Quinn apparently not being on yet).

“Uh, I’ll be right back,” I say to my guests. “I just have to run to the store to get some more, um, cream.”

Mrs. de Villiers—the only one, besides Luke, who knows how very, very far it is from her apartment to any store that might be open and selling cream on Thanksgiving Day—looks at me in horror. “Can’t we do without?” she wants to know.

“Uh, not if we want whipped cream with our pumpkin pie!” I cry.

And slip out the door. Fortunately, no one even seemed to notice I’m not wearing a coat. Or carrying my purse, for that matter.

As soon as I get to the door to the emergency exit, I start dialing. Inside the stairwell, it’s cold… but private. And for once I get excellent reception. Shari picks up on the second ring.

“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” she says. She knew it was me from the caller ID. “Just enjoy your meal. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

“Uh, no, we won’t ,” I say. “We’ll talk about it right now. Where are you?”

“I’m fine,” Shari says. “I’m at Pat’s.”

“Pat’s? Your boss? What are you doing there? You’re supposed to be here. Look, Shari, I know you and Chaz had a fight, but you can’t leave me alone with all of them like this. Tiffany is wearing a suede BODYSUIT. With a zipper that goes from her throat to her crotch. You can’t do this to me.”

Shari is laughing. “I’m sorry, Lizzie,” she says. “But you’re just going to have to fend for yourself. I’m not leaving here.”

“Come on!” I’m begging, but I don’t care. “You guys fight all the time. And you always make up.”

“It’s not a fight,” Shari says. “Listen, Lizzie, we’re right in the middle of dinner over here. I’m really sorry. I’ll call you tomorrow and explain, okay?”

“Shari, don’t be this way. What did he even do this time? I can tell he feels terrible about it. He’s already had three scotches, and he only just got here. Just—”

“Lizzie.” Shari’s voice sounds different. Not sad. Not happy. Just different. “Listen. I’m not coming over. I didn’t want to tell you, because I didn’t want you to freak out—I want you to enjoy your holiday. But Chaz and I didn’t just have a fight, okay? We’ve broken up. And I moved out.”