Cosmo's Deli (15 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

The next morning, the commuting gods smile on Renny, allowing her to step out of her building and nab a cab in under a minute. Speeding down West End Avenue, her cell phone rings and she pulls it out of her bag. “Hello,” Renny stifles a yawn.

“It's me,” Lucy says. “Are you on your way? It's almost ten and Val's been down here looking for you twice. I told her you were hung up in the art department.”

“I'll be there in a few minutes. My cab just hit eight green lights in a row.”

“Did you know that the city record for green lights is 27, held by a UPS truck in 1997?” Lucy asks.

“How do you know that?”

“I had a friend who worked for UPS. It's common knowledge there.”

Renny rolls her eyes. “Did you pick up the stuff from the Art Department?”

“Yeah, but Heather said your opening board won't be done till noon. What happened to you this morning? Another late night with the song picker?”

“It started that way, but ended, well, it's a long story. But, he did ask me out for Saturday night.”

“Get out! To that thing at Meltdown? Damn, you are so lucky!”

“Skill baby, all skill,” Renny jokes, before turning sincere. “Lucy, thanks for taking care of that stuff for me this morning. I would have been screwed otherwise.”

“Oh, I almost forgot. Your friend Jeff called and said he'll swing by the office tonight at six.” Her voice turns melodic, “And, ‘someone else' is trying to reach you. Man, does he give good phone. I had to go have a smoke after I hung up.”

Renny giggles. “Georgie called me already?”

“I told him to call you on your cell. And I wasn't kidding about Val,” Lucy warns, “you better get in here. Ciao.”

“Bye.” Renny folds her cell and a moment later it rings. “Good morning,” she says tittering in anticipation of Georgie's husky voice.

“May I speak to Renny please?”

Only it's not Georgie. “This is Renny.”

“Hi, this is Marty Toezoff. Your mother gave my aunt your number. I tried you at your office, but your assistant said I should try you on your cell. I hope I'm not being a pest.”

Renny cringes, damn Lucy, why didn't she say it wasn't Georgie that called? “Listen, Marty, I'm going to get to the point here. I know my mother gave out my number but she shouldn't have. Blind dates are as close to hell as you can get without dying. So let's not even go there.”

Undaunted, he tells her, “I have a feeling we should meet. Don't ask me why, but I just think we should.”

Maybe I should hang up on him, Renny thinks.

“Lucy thinks so, too. We had a nice chat this morning.”

“You and Lucy?” Renny can imagine what that conversation was like.

“Did you get my message about Saturday night? My friends are having a party at Bear Grunt.”

“I read about that place in
It's New York
magazine, but I thought it wasn't opening until next month.”

“My friend is one of the partners, so a few of us are getting together to christen it. It should be a good time.”

Renny does a ‘let's make a deal' review of her choices. Behind curtain number one is the Holy Grail of dates, accompanying Georgie to Meltdown, capped with S-E-X into the wee hours. Behind curtain two is an evening with the foot doctor and his ‘good time' friends. “I already have plans Saturday night.”

“How about brunch on Sunday? Around eleven?”

“I don't think I'll be able too.” Because Georgie and I will be having even more sex, she thinks, feeling a stirring in her southern fjord.

Marty teases, “Come on, Mr. Saturday Night shouldn't get too bent out of shape over brunch. It's just two friends talking about our weekends while breaking bread.”

“Mr. Saturday night? You did have a nice chat with Lucy, didn't you?”

“Please don't hold that against me,” he laughs.

His warmth resonates through the phone. She expected his voice to be nasal and annoying, but instead it vibrates through her like a drum being rapped under her skin. “What exactly did Lucy tell you?”

“Let's just say she was very informative. But, most assistants are. Just tell Mr. Saturday night that you're meeting a friend for brunch. After all brunch is officially the most harmless of all get-togethers. If nothing else, I'm helping you play hard to get. Trust me. Most guys like that.”

Renny wonders if Lucy told him who Mr. Saturday night is? “Just brunch?”

He leaves her no time to back out. “Do you know Barney Greengrass?”

“Yeah.”

“There's a place on the Upper East Side that's better, Milton's. It's on Second between 84th and 85th. I'll pick you up at eleven?”

“Not so fast, I'll meet you there at eleven. Two friends just meeting each other for brunch, don't forget that.” A nervous thrill sneaks through her, making her wonder if she's turning into a nympho. Soon even Mendelbaum's messages will turn her on.

“I'm just glad you agreed,” he says.

“Yeah, why's that?”

“Because if you didn't, Lucy told me she'd have to go out with me instead. She made it sound like a threat.”

Renny laughs. “It is!” After promising to see him Sunday, she tucks her phone in her backpack and is suddenly struck with a pinch of guilt. Is this cheating on Georgie?

How can it be cheating if we haven't had a real date, she asks herself? But Saturday night is a date, so technically brunch with Marty could be considered cheating. Renny taps on the cab's partition.

“Yeah?” the driver questions.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.” He turns off his radio.

“There are these two guys.”

“I figured from that phone call.”

“Okay, well, good. You see I'm hanging out with one guy, who I haven't had an actual date with yet and then a second guy asked me out.

“The guy on the phone is the second guy?”

“Yeah. But, you see, the date with him is set for after the first guy plans to take me out on our first date. Do you think that I'm cheating on the first guy with the second guy?”

“What night is the first guy taking you out?”

“Saturday night.”

“How long have you been seeing the first one?”

“A week.”

“Are you screwing either of them?” The driver asks.

“Why do you need to know that?” Renny counters.

“You want advice?”

“Just the first guy,” she reluctantly confesses.

“Where's the second guy taking you?”

“Brunch, Sunday morning.”

“Naaah! Brunch is harmless! Go for it.” The driver gives her a thumbs up as if her life were a movie he'd just reviewed.

“That's what he said!”

“Which one, the first or the second?”

“The second.”

“I like him already.”

“Brunch is harmless.” Renny smiles. “God, I sound just like him.”

***

Renny looks up skeptically at the nondescript brick office building on Sixth between 36th and 37th. “This is the hot place you're taking me for a dress?”

Gaby heads into the building. “Only those in the know come to Mu Mu.”

They walk single file down a narrow gray corridor where patches of peeling paint have fallen onto the black vinyl flooring like dandruff on a dark shirt. They wind their way to the back where a door is propped open by a brick, leading to a staircase. A sheet of paper with “Mu Mu” scribbled in red marker and an arrow pointing up is taped to the door.

Renny checks her watch. “I snuck out of the office, but I have to be back for a meeting in the art department by two-thirty. That gives us just over an hour.”

“You'll be out of here in thirty minutes with a dress. Trust me honey.”

Renny reluctantly trudges up three flights behind Gaby. Stepping out of the stairwell, they pass through a futuristic corridor with shiny steel pipes climbing the walls and ceiling like ivy on an old Tudor house. The reception area greets them with an assault of rich colors and a wall of fuchsia lights that flashes “MU MU” at its center. Gaby strides up to the enormous glass desk in the center of the room.

“Can I help you?” the Asian beauty behind the desk asks.

“Gaby Bowers is here for Francine.”

The receptionist quickly picks up the phone and relays the message. “Gaby Bowers for Francine.” She hangs up and flashes a high-wattage smile at Gaby. “Francine will be right out. I don't mean to gush, but I'm a huge fan of yours. I have twenty pairs of Unmentionables. They changed my life. You must hear that all the time.”

“Yeah, but I love hearing more,” she drawls.

“I wish I had a pair that was still in their packaging. My girlfriend told me she saw a pair listed on eBay. It was still sealed in its original packaging and sold for two hundred dollars.”

“Really?” Gaby says shocked.

“Swear.” She turns away to answer the phone. “Bonjour, Mu Mu.”

“Gaby Bowers, there you are!” Francine Gish, the queen bee of Mu Mu, rushes up with her arms fluttering.

After air kisses and greetings, Gaby introduces her guest. “This is my friend Renny. She needs something very special and very sexy for Saturday night.”

“You've come to the right place.” Francine crooks her finger at them. “This way.” Frosted glass walls part like the Red Sea as Francine approaches them. Behind the walls is a room of eye candy for the fashionista, where each garment displayed is more beautiful than the next one. “Do you like?”

“I, I…” Renny stutters, uncertain where to look first.

Francine pats her arm. “Let's start with these.” From the displays she pulls out a red mini dress with large diamond shaped cut-outs on the sides, a cream halter dress and an aqua pair of pants with a matching midriff baring top.

Gaby and Renny follow Francine through a mirrored room into an adjoining fitting room. A large circular ottoman dominates half the space and Gaby stretches out across it in viewing position.

“I'll be back in a few minutes to see how they look,” Francine announces, pulling purple velvet drapes across the door.

Renny waves her arms around. “This fitting room is bigger than my apartment.”

“I told you this place was somethin',” Gaby says.

Renny pulls her shirt halfway off and stops, leaving her looking as though she's coiled in a straightjacket. “I didn't tell her what size I am. They probably won't even fit my leg.”

“They will fit like a glove. Francine knows your size better than you do. She had eight dresses at the Oscars last month. Just try them on.”

Stripped to her bra and underwear, Renny is in and out of the cream dress in seconds, finding it hugging in all the wrong places. The blue outfit doesn't fair much better, the pants have a pouf in the back that make Renny look like she has a watermelon strapped to each butt cheek. “What's with these pants?” she asks.

“They're padded. Full butts are in,” Gaby says.

“Mine has enough of its own padding, thank you.” Lastly she slips on the red dress like an uneasy trainer handling a wild tiger. The zipper slides up in fits and starts. Holding her breath she faces the mirror.

“Now that's oomph,” Gaby comments.

Renny studies her reflection as if scrutinizing a stranger. The sides have diamond shaped cut-outs that bare her flesh. The hem falls just below her crouch making bending over and Olympic level event. “I think it's too…” She rolls her hands.

“Too nothing! It looks great.”

“It's too everything. Too tight, too short, too red. It's not me.”

“Give it time, it'll become you.”

“Gaby, I'm not comfortable in it.”

Gaby blows at a puff of air. “Fine. I'll tell Francine you need something else.”

“Make it black,” Renny orders. “And long.”

“For once add a lil' color to life.”

Renny's eyes beseech her.

“Okay, black it is,” Gaby says, walking out.

Alone in the fitting room, Renny stares at her reflection, trying to figure out why she isn't a red dress.

The velvet drapes whip open. “I didn't know this room was taken.”

Renny turns to speak but is immediately silenced by the beauty of the tall, thin woman in the doorway. With hair the color of butterscotch and blinding green eyes, she looks like she's stepped off the cover of
Cosmopolitan
. I know her from somewhere, Renny thinks.

There is no apology in her tone. “Francine usually saves this room for me. It's my favorite,” the woman says as she rakes Renny over from head to toe.

“I didn't know,” Renny answers, as a shiver of realization overcomes her. The snooty tower of beauty is Tawney.

Tawney squints as if sensing the connection Renny's made. “Have we met? You look really familiar.”

“I do?”

“Was it at the party for
Fashionista
? You're not talent are you?” Her face contorts like she's caught a pungent whiff in the air.

“No, I'm in marketing.”

“At
Fashionista
?”

“No.”

“Oh.” Tawney points at the red dress. “Great dress, but not you.” She leaves abruptly and the curtain falls together behind her.

Gaby sweeps in a moment later, her arms laden with clothes. “Okay, I brought in three. One is navy, one is charcoal and the other is black.” She looks at Renny's stunned expression. “You can't tell me you don't like any of them.”

“Did you see her?”

“Who?”

“That girl.”

“The tall one with the boobs. Those can't be real, she's too thin.” Gaby waves dismissively.

“Do you know who that is?”

Gaby shakes her head.

“That's Tawney!”

“Georgie's Tawney?”

“Sshhh!” Renny whispers. “She's probably still out there. She just came into my fitting room by mistake.”