Seven
Indecent Proposal
DID ISAAC NEWTON SAY “Aha!” when the apple fell on his head? Did the ophthalmologist—whose patient reported that the Botox the doctor injected her with to treat a rare eye disorder had also smoothed out her wrinkles—do a little jig? By the morning my heart is beating wildly and I’m sure that my idea is sheer brilliance. True, it’s outrageous. But drastic times call for drastic measures. And it just might make enough money to keep us from getting kicked out of our apartment.
I was so jazzed up about doing some research that I arrived at the main branch of the New York Public Library a half hour early, which gave me ample time to appeal to the library’s stone lion mascots.
“Hi there, Patience, hello, Fortitude,” I said, using their nicknames. “I’m going to need your help to make things work.” I closed my eyes and rubbed their marble manes for luck.
“They ain’t Aladdin’s Lamp, miss,” the guard shouted as he opened the library’s towering bronze doors and caught sight of what I was up to.
“We’ll just see about that,” I said, giving Fortitude one last pat. Then I bounded up past the guard toward the Reading Room.
I found a seat at a long oak table, switched on a brass lamp, and marveled, as I always do, at the library’s shimmering crystal chandeliers, massive arched windows, and soaring gold-leafed fifty-two-foot-high ceiling—with its painted blue sky mural, it’s amazing that everyone doesn’t spend all of their time looking up, instead of burying their noses in books. Still, I’m on a mission. I called up about a dozen titles and I’ve been flipping through them furiously, taking notes. After about an hour, Sienna slips into the seat beside me. She takes a look around and blinks.
“No wonder Oprah’s Book Club is such a success. How else could anyone ever choose?”
I laugh and thank her for coming.
“No problem. I don’t have that much else to do these days. Even the pet commercial fell through. My agent says she’s got a list longer than her arm of clients looking for work—and my agent’s a tall woman, her arm is pretty long. Didn’t Peter’s cousin go out on a date with the niece of the sister of the CEO of Costco? Maybe if I pull in all my connections I can get a job as a food demonstrator.”
“I think we can do better than that,” I chirp. I thumb through a beautiful art book of works by the Venetian painter Tintoretto until I find the picture I’m looking for. Then I slide it over to Sienna.
Sienna looks at the portrait of a pretty, pink-cheeked young woman with full bee-stung lips and traces her finger along the neckline of the girl’s lavish lace gown. “Nice outfit,” she says.
“Like the pearl choker.”
“Say the word and it can be yours.”
Sienna looks up. “For heaven’s sake, what are we talking about? I know you love books the way the rest of us love Twitter, but why did you insist on meeting at the library?”
I take a deep breath. I know that Sienna’s going to be a hard sell, my idea is unconventional. But who ever made it big without taking a few risks? Can you imagine what Steve Jobs’s parents had to say about it when he wanted to drop out of college?
I point to the caption and Sienna reaches for her glasses, the ones she almost never wears in public. I watch her carefully as I wait for the words to sink in.
“ ‘Veronica Franco, 1546 to 1591, Venice. Courtesan and Poet,’ ” Sienna reads. “Well, that’s certainly an unusual job description.” Obliviously, she skips ahead a few pages to look at Tintoretto’s The Last Supper—a much more energetic version than the famous Leonardo da Vinci painting, where the diners are sitting in repose. Seconds later, Sienna furiously flips back to the lovely Veronica.
“Courtesan and poet? What’s going on in that brain of yours?” she asks suspiciously.
“I’m thinking that Veronica Franco had a good life. She was intellectual and artistic and elegant and witty. She published two books of poetry.”
“And she slept with men to get what she wanted. Isn’t that what a courtesan does?”
“Well, technically, yes. But for goodness’ sake, one of them was the king of France, a girl could do worse!” I pause. “Have you ever thought about all the men who could have helped us whom we didn’t sleep with because we were too high and mighty to trade sex for power? And then have you ever thought about the guys we did sleep with who didn’t give us anything—and ended up being jerks anyway?”
“Are you out of your mind?” Sienna yelps. “You and Peter have been together since college—is there something you forgot to tell me? Who exactly were these men who could have helped you who you didn’t sleep with? And better yet, who were the jerks you did?”
“Okay, so I’m only speaking hypothetically about myself. But we had some pretty heated conversations about this in my women’s studies classes. Look at these,” I say, pushing an impressive stack of biographies in Sienna’s direction. “Coco Chanel, Madame de Pompadour, Sarah Bernhardt, all of them were paid by men for the pleasure of their company.”
“So you’re suggesting that I should have taken Bill’s money?” Sienna asks disbelievingly.
“Well, not just Bill. I mean, that’s what gave me the idea and if you do something about his cowlick, I have a feeling you two could be good together. But I was thinking of something a little more ambitious. I was thinking that we could form a company to arrange for lots of different men to meet wonderful women. Act as a kind of matchmaking service.”
Sienna arches an eyebrow—then she laughs. “Tru, honey, have you gone completely around the bend? A matchmaking service for men to sleep with women? There’s a name for that. Besides, it’s illegal.”
“Is not,” I say quickly, offering the results of my research. “There’s nothing illegal about introducing men to women. What they do after the introductions is totally up to them. It would be a service business, like any other service business.”
“A service business. You mean like being a personal shopper? Except instead of a new tie, we help you find a blow job?”
“Something like that. Although if the men want help picking out their ties I’m sure that could be arranged, too. There must be lots of men like Bill, good respectable guys who are a little shy with girls. We’d be doing them a favor, helping to turn social nerds into datable dudes.”
“I don’t know why you think Bill is shy. He’s been leaving messages on my machine every hour.”
“He adores you, he’s called me a dozen times to ask what he could do to get you back.”
“He’s sent so many flowers that my house looks like the Duggar family’s on Mother’s Day.”
“At least flowers are pretty. Remember the billionaire who gave you that awful six-carat diamond pendant in the shape of a gecko?”
“It was a turtle.”
“Whatever. Do you remember what you said? ‘I wish he’d just given me the money,’ those were your very words! So why not just get the money and pay off our bills? Frankly, I need to do something or we’re going to find ourselves living on the sidewalk. Besides, I think I’d be good at running a business. I’m well organized and detail oriented. And after years of dealing with impossibly demanding benefit committee members like Avery Peyton Chandler, I have pretty good people skills. This could be my calling.”
“Your calling, to be a madam?”
“No, not a madam, I’m not going to be running a brothel. More like Madame Chairman of whatever we call our corporation. And you’ll be the CEO. Or if you want you can be Madame Chairman and I’ll be the CEO.”
Sienna’s mouth drops open and she shakes her head. “Ooh, no, no, not ‘we,’ Lucy. I’d rather stomp on grapes or sell Vitameatavegamin. This Ethel is not taking part in your cockamamie scheme!” Sienna stands up to leave, but I tug at her skirt and pull her back into her seat.
“First of all, missy, you’ve always been Lucy. This would be the first time in practically our whole relationship when we did something that was my idea. You owe me. Remember the April Fool’s Day I helped you scratch out letters on the faculty parking sign so that it read ‘Cult Parking’ and we got suspended for three whole days? Wasn’t it you who suggested those glycolic peels that left us swollen and blistered right before the Women in Film Luncheon? A director at the party invited me to be in a documentary she was making about burn victims.”
“Jessica Alba goes to that same facialist, I still can’t imagine what went wrong. Besides, those peels were harder to get than tickets to the Inaugural,” Sienna says, applying the peculiarly New York logic that the longer you have to wait for something, the more precious it becomes.
“Well, today’s your lucky day, no waiting at all for your next appointment.” I throw on my coat and take Sienna’s arm, assuming a take-no-prisoners managerial style that’s new but coming remarkably easily. “I can’t do this without you and I won’t take no for an answer. We’re swinging by Dr. B.’s office to get my face fixed and then we’re meeting Bill for lunch. He’s already working out the details.”
BILL’S SITTING IN the back booth of a dark Midtown spaghetti joint, looking and acting like a character out of The Godfather. He’s wearing mirrored sunglasses and instead of his usual lawyerly Brooks Brothers suit, white shirt, and red tie, he’s sporting a black shirt and an even blacker shiny tuxedo jacket. As Sienna and I approach the table he brings an oversized goblet of wine to his lips, takes a sip, and whirls his hand in the air, motioning for us to sit down. Sienna had balked about coming, but at the sight of Bill’s goofy transformation, in spite of herself, she can’t help smiling.
“Ladies, welcome,” he says, folding his hands on the table and speaking like a marble-mouthed Marlon Brando. “I’m here to make you an offer you can’t refuse.” Then he takes off his sunglasses and turns to Sienna. “I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. I’d do anything in the world if you’ll let me make it up to you.”
Bill takes Sienna’s hand and despite her warning to me that nothing would come of this meeting, she doesn’t pull it away.
“This is an awful lot of trouble to go through,” she says.
“I would climb the highest mountain, I would swim the deepest river, I would—”
“Okay,” Sienna laughs. “Now you’re getting me worried. Quit while you’re ahead. I forgive you.” Then her eyes narrow and she swivels her head between me and Bill. “But just to set the record straight for both of you nutcases, I’m not going into business with either of you.”
Bill puts his sunglasses back on and gestures for us to do the same. When Sienna protests, I fish out a pair of Ray-Bans from her pocketbook and plant them on the bridge of her nose. Then I put on my own Persols, the ones I bought last spring when we were still spending money on luxuries. I read once that if you’re depressed you can trick your body into feeling better by looking at yourself in a mirror and grinning. If Sienna’s in costume, maybe she’ll recite the lines Bill and I want to hear. Besides, Bill’s wacky presentation is a lot more fun than a PowerPoint—and it’s already helped him worm his way back into Sienna’s good graces.
Bill takes out a yellow legal pad scribbled with notes and places it squarely on the red-and-white checkered tablecloth. He picks up a book of matches, and reading by the light of a candle stuck in the top of a Chianti bottle, he proceeds to make his case. The three of us will draw up a partnership agreement to run a “temporary help agency.” Since Sienna and I are broke, Bill will put up the initial investment money and he’ll take out his share of the profits first. We’ll have a corporate bank account, a Federal ID number; we’ll even be taxpaying citizens. The women who work for us will be independent contractors. They’ll pay our agency a commission and be responsible for their own withholding taxes. We’ll recruit the ladies through perfectly legal magazine ads, and only accept clients by referral.
“I know dozens of guys, guys like me who are smart but a little backward when it comes to their social skills. Better yet, they’re the hotshots negotiating bailouts and bankruptcy filings. They may be the last people in the universe to still be making tons of money. And I can’t tell you how many of them would pay a fortune to meet a woman.”
“What’s a fortune?” Sienna asks, running a finger around the lip of her wineglass.
“Eliot Spitzer was ponying up fifty-five hundred dollars an hour to his escort service, but the Luv Gov was only interested in quickies. We’re offering a more refined service. Clients and escorts will enjoy parties and dates and hopefully develop longtime relationships. With that in mind I’m thinking fifteen hundred an hour. With a four-hour minimum.”
“Six thousand dollars?” Sienna asks incredulously.
“Right, for the basics. Blow jobs, deep French kissing, swallowing—those will all be extras. And we’ll offer discounts for more extended dates. Why don’t we say ten thousand for overnights?”
“Twelve thou,” I say.
Bill laughs. “Twelve thousand it is. And our commission is forty percent.”
“But why would these guys—or anybody—pay that much money to be with a woman?” Sienna quibbles.
“Exclusivity,” I tell her. “Why do you pay four hundred dollars for designer jeans that are made from the same denim as the thirty-eight-dollar ones you could get at the Gap?”
“It’s the same reason that people are willing to pay a premium for good sushi. Clients want to know that what they’re paying for comes from a reliable source,” Bill says. “Our women will be attractive, smart, the kind of woman you could take to a dinner party with your boss or home to meet your parents. Then in bed, she’ll be a man’s total fantasy.”
I can see from the look on her face that Sienna’s starting to toy with the idea. Until, that is, Bill adds one last detail.
“And by the way. Everyone who works for us will be at least forty.”
“Forty? Forty-year-old hookers?” Sienna shrieks, pounding her fist on the table. “Now I know the two of you have both lost your minds!”
“Not hookers, courtesans,” Bill says patiently. “And I’m quite serious. To be successful in today’s business world you have to have a niche, and my gut tells me that this could be ours. Inkjet printers, bamboo flooring, one of my clients is a psychiatrist who specializes in CrackBerry addicts—each of them filled a need in the marketplace that wasn’t being met.”
“Older women and younger men. It’s a trend, just look at Hollywood,” I say. “Courteney Cox Arquette is seven years older than her husband, David; Demi is sixteen years older than Ashton; and Katie Couric is seventeen years older than her boyfriend.”
Bill pulls off his sunglasses and reaches over to take off Sienna’s, meeting her gaze as if they were the only two people in the room. “What I love about you, Sienna, is that you’re smart and sexy and worldly. It’s not like being with a girl—I feel like we could be together forever and I’d never be bored. And I think other men would feel that way, too. I mean they’d feel that way about other women,” he adds quickly, lest Sienna get the impression that he would be willing to share her. “The guys I know are successful and smart, but they’ve spent too much time focusing on their careers. They need an experienced, sophisticated woman to teach them about life in the outside world.”
What I love about Bill—oh, let me count the things I love about Bill at this moment. That he thinks this is a viable idea and he seems to have figured out how to make it work. That after knowing my best friend for all of forty-eight hours he guilelessly used the L word that it sometimes takes months—and a crowbar—to wrench out of a guy. And that for a seemingly meat-and-potatoes American dude, his tastes are delightfully European—he appreciates an older woman and all she has to offer. As luck would have it, Sienna’s phone beeps and she reaches expectantly for her BlackBerry—the same BlackBerry that used to chirp with news scoops and dinner invitations and that since her firing seems to have gone silent. Except to deliver bad news.
“My broker, he leaves a message every time the market goes down another hundred points. Which is about once an hour. I’m worried that he won’t be able to afford his phone bill,” Sienna says wryly. “Not to mention how I’m going to pay mine.”
“The company will pay for your phone, your Con Ed bill, your cab rides, and those silly little luxuries you’ve gotten used to, like food,” Bill says, seizing the opening to reassure Sienna that our plan offers financial security. “I think we could be highly successful. If everything goes according to my estimates, you should be able to rebuild your nest egg and buy that apartment of yours within the next couple of years.”
“And it would be fun. You’ve said yourself how now that you’re out of work you don’t know what to do with yourself,” I add, knowing that more than anything, Sienna likes to be going one hundred miles a minute.
Sienna looks at me, and then Bill, and then back at me. Optimistically, Bill crosses his arms in front of him and reaches for each of our hands in a Three Musketeers–like handshake, a move that no one but our Bill, as I now think of my new business partner, could get away with.
“Oh hell. It’s not like I have anything better on the horizon. My TV career’s in the toilet, the rent’s due, the whole world’s on the brink of financial disaster, and the way the two of you make it sound, this is practically my feminist duty. Count me in,” Sienna says gamely. “What do we have to lose?”
ON THE WAY home I stop at Chelsea Market to buy lobsters, double-baked potatoes, haricot verts, and a bottle of sparkling cider to celebrate. It’s the same meal that Peter and I ate when he got his first big promotion and when I found out—after years of waiting—that I was pregnant with the girls. Fueled by the flush of yet unachieved but as far as I’m concerned inevitable success, I spring for chocolate truffles and two pounds of ripe red cherries.
I hop in a cab and despite the fact that it’s rush hour, I enjoy a charmed trip uptown—if there are potholes, we fly over them, and miraculously we make every light. My timing today is impeccable. The driver is hooked up to a friend at the other end of his telephone headset—a driving hazard to be sure, but less deadly than the old days, when, starved for conversation, they insisted on sharing everything from rants about the mayor to raves for Dr. Laura.
Terrance offers to carry my packages upstairs, but I tell him it’s not necessary.
“It’s good exercise,” I say, hoisting the heavy bags effortlessly in the air as if they’re filled with sunshine.
I put my groceries down beside the antique umbrella stand outside the apartment and dig around my pocket for my key. Unnecessarily, because Molly hears me and yanks my arm inside.
“Mom, you have to see this, Dad’s making dinner,” she says, pulling me into the kitchen where Peter—who doesn’t know a blender from a box of macaroni—is dumping a bag of precut lettuce into a big wooden salad bowl. There’s a collection of pots on the stove and from the corner of my eye, I spy a pouch of ninety-second Minute Rice. It takes thirty seconds longer to make, but you can put it in the microwave.
“Hm, honey, smells good in here,” I say reflexively, though after a moment I realize that there aren’t actually any food aromas—good or bad—wafting around the room.
Peter winks and points to a package of frozen lasagna. “Nothing like a home-cooked meal.”
“It’s the thought that counts.” I reach into the refrigerator, open a jar, and playfully swipe a fingerful of mustard onto his pristine chef’s apron. “A touch of authenticity.”
Peter grins and whirls me around, pulling me closer for a kiss.
“What’s all this about?” I say, feeling a flush of relief and excitement to see Peter happy after weeks of moping around. “Don’t tell me you saw Halle Berry today on The View?”
“Better,” he says, running his hand caressingly down my hip.
Paige comes into the kitchen and rolls her eyes. “Oh, please, would you two just cut it out? Don’t you know that PDAs can scar your children for life?” Then she filches a carrot from the salad and twirls it in the air. “Daddy got a job,” she says as matter-of-factly as if she were announcing the train schedule.
“Yes, Daddy got a job!” sings Molly, wrapping her arms around Peter and giving him a congratulatory hug.
“Tell Mom who he’s working for, why don’t you?” says Paige slyly.
“Yes, tell me everything, I want to know all the details.”
“It all happened so quickly,” Peter says, searching for the right words. “I hardly know where to begin.”
“Oh I’d start with the gorgeous single woman,” Paige says. “You know, Mom, that woman Tiffany who moved into 3A?”
“Tiffany, Tiffany Glass? The woman in the skintight minidress whose moving truck almost flattened me like a pancake?” I ask with a start. “She just moved in! How did you two get to know each other well enough for her to even borrow a cup of sugar?”
“Actually it was detergent, she needed a cup of detergent.” Peter laughs nervously. “I met her in the basement and she asked me to show her how to use the washing machine. We got to talking and she invited me up to her apartment for a cup of coffee. She said we seemed simpatico.”
“I told you not to let Daddy do the laundry,” Paige mutters.
“What will you be doing for this Tiffany Glass?” I ask as equably as I can.
“Tiffany has a line of makeup that’s been selling well in Seattle and she wants to expand the business. I’d be head of New York operations. The job doesn’t come with the kind of paycheck I’m used to, but there’s huge growth potential.”
“Her makeup’s called BUBB,” says Molly, encouragingly. “ ‘Be U But Better,’ cute, right? I read about it in Teen Vogue.”
“And she hired you because?”
“She doesn’t do animal testing and she needs your two beautiful teenage daughters and your middle-aged wife to be her guinea pigs!” Paige says sarcastically, since it’s obvious to all of us that Peter knows as much about makeup as he does about heating up dinner. Which is apparently nothing, since I smell the lasagna burning. I fling open the oven door and Peter steps in front of me to seize the remains of the ruined frozen casserole. As he slaps the pan on the top of the Viking range he yells “Oh shit!” and sucks on the tip of his now-burned finger.
“I need this job,” Peter says tightly. “It doesn’t matter if I’m selling stocks or makeup or widgets, whatever the hell widgets are. I’m a successful businessman with—up until a few months ago—a stellar track record.”
I open the kitchen cabinet stocked with Advil, Band-Aids, and other emergency medical supplies (including four cans of chicken soup) and take out a tube of aloe vera to rub across Peter’s hand. Being unemployed has been quite a blow to Peter’s ego. Getting this job could be just what we all need to restore some equanimity around here.
“The last few months weren’t your fault. This is great news; I’m sure you’ll do a terrific job,” I say, putting aside my suspicions about Tiffany. Just because she’s a beautiful woman is no reason to think this isn’t a bona fide offer. Or that she zeroed in on Peter because he’s the most attractive man in the building.
“I think it’s a terrific opportunity,” says Peter, with an excitement in his voice I haven’t heard in a long time. “I’ve already started mapping out strategies and working on financial projections. Tiffany’s taking care of the back-due mortgage and maintenance on the co-op as an advance against my salary. My earnings will be barely enough to live on for the next year or so, but I think this cosmetic thing could really be big and at least you won’t have to go to work. I know you’d rather be home with the girls. And from the looks of it,” he says, laughing, tossing the lasagna remains into the garbage, “we need you back.”
“It’s nice to be back,” I say hesitantly. Just a few hours ago I knew the thrill of being charged up with plans of my own. Still, Peter doesn’t know that, and I don’t want to eclipse his news. Besides, he’s right, it will be good to get back to some semblance of normalcy. Peter kisses my cheek and goes into the den to TiVo the Mets game while the girls set the table. I open up the refrigerator, defrost four small steaks in the microwave, and dither between making green beans and broccoli. I take out the chopping board and, going for broke, mindlessly dice all of the vegetables, every last carrot, cauliflower, and celery stick in the crisper. “It would never have worked,” I say to myself as I’m hacking away at a particularly tenacious Brussels sprout. Sienna was right, my plan was crazy. She’ll be so relieved when I call in the morning to put the brakes on this thing. Still it was fun to be back in the library; I’ll have to go there more often. And maybe I’ll call Pamela and Melissa to see what charity events are on the docket. It’s always good to be busy. I put the steaks under the broiler and pile the vegetables into the wok—and I do mean pile; they’re spilling out all over the place. I tamp them down with a big splash of teriyaki sauce and set the flame on high. Then I sit down at the kitchen table and slip off my shoes. Suddenly I’m very, very tired. It’s been a long day and it’s still not over, though all I can think about is putting my head down for a few minutes, just a little rest.
Moments later Paige and Molly come running into the kitchen and shake me awake. “Mom, are you okay?” asks Molly, putting on a pair of oven mitts to pull the burning wok off the stove and retrieve the charred steaks.
“You’re no better at this than Daddy,” says Paige, nabbing a folder of take-out menus from the kitchen drawer. She reaches into her pocket for her cellphone. “I guess I’m the only one in this family who’s capable of getting us fed.”
We end up eating pizza and it’s not until the middle of the night that I remember the celebratory lobsters, which are still sitting bagged in an ice-filled Styrofoam container outside the front door. I put on a robe, take the elevator downstairs, and hand over all the grocery bags to Terrance. “Enjoy,” I say, without even waiting around for a thank-you. It’s too late for me to cook the lobsters and, suddenly, anything sparkling, even a bottle of cider, sounds positively exhausting.