How to Be a Grown-up (29 page)

If there was a press opportunity to be had on the island of Manhattan that day, Sage had set it up: go-sees with the luxury magazine editors, a ribbon cutting of the new Gehry building’s playroom with Kelly Rutherford, and a guest spot touring the Guggenheim’s Children’s Museum with The Real Housewives. At every stop I clucked about “children’s lifestyle” until I could return to our town car, where I barked instructions at Ruth, who, in exchange for dropping her
Flight of the Concords
binge, I promised to introduce to a
Daily Show
contact.

Nine hours into the day, here’s what I discovered: those stilettos they sell at Bergdorf’s for $1,800? They’re for women
with drivers
(and probably steroid shots).

Also, doll-sized portions of food are served at these things because the ladies attending them make a day of it—like the traveling dinner parties our parents tried in the eighties, only without the fat. Strips of crudités are served at one event; a platter of chicken skewers circulated at another. Lemon squares the size of a stamp are offered at the next. By the fourth place you’d eaten sort of a meal.

On our way to the Time Warner Center for after-work cocktails with media moms, which Sage promised was the last stop, a text came through from my sitter:
“Maya coughing a ton—feels really hot.”

“Work on saying ‘I,’ ” Sage instructed from the seat beside me.

“Can you take her temp?”
I typed back.
“Thermometer on top shelf of medicine cabinet.”

“You keep saying ‘we’ or ‘JeuneBug,’ ” Sage critiqued. “Connote more ownership. ‘I.’ Let’s hear it.”

The sitter wrote back,
“100.2. Snuffling. What should I do?”

“Children’s Tylenol,”
I typed quickly, even though technically I knew fevers are a body’s best friend. But not when your mom’s out and your dad moved to Louisiana and your big brother ate your clown.
“On second shelf. She gets—”

“You’re losing focus.” Sage dug in her bag. “Here, take a sublingual vitamin B.”

“No, I’m— My daughter’s coming down with something. Just need a minute.”
“—1.5 milligrams. Put on movie. She can watch in my bed. Done soon. I’ll call when I’m on my way.”
This last event was thankfully spitting distance from my apartment.

“So, Rory, where did you get the idea?” Sage asked.

“Will do,”
the sitter responded.
“FYI after this you’re out of Tylenol.”

“The idea, Rory?”

“Maya’s eyes were glassy this morning, but I thought it was the circus excitement.” I dropped my head, felled by a Failure Wave. “I gave her chocolate for breakfast.”

“For JeuneBug,” Sage pressed.

“Oh. Um, we—”

“I,”
she corrected.

“I—sorry, do you have a pen?” I asked. She slid a gold stylus from her bag and I scrawled “t” on the inside of my palm.
Tylenol. Buy Tylenol. BuyTylenolbuyTylenolbuyTylenol.

My phone buzzed. Ruth.
“I couldn’t find the gray decals so I improvised.”

Good,
I thought, sitting back.
She was catching up, taking initiative, maturing— Wait, what??

“Gray decals?”
I typed back.

“For the words.”

“What words???”

“image copyr”

“One more minute,” I begged off from Sage, then hit Call. “Where do you see those words?”

“Seriously?” Ruth asked like I was an idiot. “They’re really big on the layout you gave me. I mean, they go across all the gold bunnies. I couldn’t find them so I got a gray paint pen and did it by hand.”

“The light gray letters? Is that what you mean?”

“I guess they’re kind of light,” she acknowledged.

“Ruth.” I bolted up, the seat belt restraining me. “That’s just the watermark from the photo I used! You wrote that across all the gold leaf?” Those bunnies cost $10,000 each.

“I mean it’s on the plan you gave me. Also, I IMDB’d your friend and he hasn’t had any credits in, like, five years. Are you sure he’s still at the
Daily Show
?”

“Rory,” Sage commanded as the car pulled up to the Time Warner Center and we got out.
“Rory,”
she repeated as she pushed through the revolving doors. “Remember, ‘I.’ ”

“Don’t touch anything, Ruth.” A hundred thousand dollars of borrowed bunnies. Ruined. “Not one thing. Just sit tight. Can you do that?”

“But—”

Sage waved impatiently from the elevator.

“Please,” I implored. “Can you? Please, just say yes.”

“Fine, yes.”

“Thank you.” The doors slid closed, and I scrolled for the number of a decorative painter who owed me a favor, my one shot at fixing this. All those
bunnies
had to sell now.

“Heads up,” Sage called, pointedly dropping her phone in her bag and leading me into the bar. Women milled about in expensive suits, gulping their wine and nibbling their bites. Sage began crisscrossing the room, striding past me as if spotting a friend, only to pause at my back and whisper someone’s pertinent stats like I was running for office. “Marcy Price, she’s this evening’s chairwoman.” Sage leaned behind my ear. “Hedge fund partner. Breast cancer survivor.”

Stymied for a cancer sequitur, I thanked Marcy for being included and then tried to pinpoint where the servers were entering so I could actually eat.

Sage pivoted me toward a tired-looking woman holding court nearby. “Dana Kensington. Exec producer, GMA. Three kids. And Rory,
nothing
about Israel.” As if I hadn’t shut up about it.

But before I could introduce myself, someone broke into the song “Tomorrow” from
Annie
. I stood up on the tips of my evil shoes to see a young woman dressed as Dora the Explorer clutching a sign that read
Dora Explores Your Broadway Birthday!
“I just stick up my chin! And grin!” No one stopped chatting. “And sayyyyyy—” As if a gong was hit, a lady in a sheath dress and headset abruptly ushered Dora away.

“
What
is this?” I asked Sage.

“Marcy’s brainchild,” she filled me in. “Vendors get sixty seconds to display their service to elite industry moms. It’s a different theme every month. Holiday toys, bar mitzvah tutors, summer camps. Genius.”

A man with a thin mustache darted into Dora’s place. He had a banjo strapped to his back and a puppet on each hand. “Monsier Renard!” he screeched in a Monty Python voice, waving the duck at the fox. “
C’est votre anniversaire aujourd’hui, n’est ce pas
?”

“Ouais, mais mon gateau au chocolate a disparu!”
the fox bemoaned ten registers deeper.
“Nous devons le trouver!”
The animals were flung off, the guitar was swung around, and
We’re Going on Une Gateau Hunt
was sung—until the lady in the shift reappeared and he raised his “Celebrate with Pierre the Puppet Man!” sign with molecular desperation before being seen out.

Two people jogged in wearing clown suits, juggling toy cars, whooping and hollering like the whole room was in on the fun. It was not.

“Oh, the tiny car guys,” a woman nearby observed in a nasal drawl. “I’ve heard good things.”

“Justine got them for the twins’ second,” the woman told her friend. “Eight hundred for a half-hour. Not bad.”

My phone buzzed with a text.
“Maya says her stomach’s feeling funny.”

“Sage.” I turned to her. “Goodnight, I need to get home.”

“And you will just as soon as— What’s
she
doing here?” I followed Sage’s gaze to where Taylor stood at the door, livid, eyes locked on mine. She strode over, grabbed my arm, and tugged me.

“Taylor.” I pulled back.

Sage puffed up her hundred pounds to obscure us from the room. “Taylor, Rory will be finished in five,” she said through clenched teeth. “You can speak then.”

“Right now,” Taylor growled. “Or I swear to God I’m going to fucking hit you both.”

“Go.”
Sage handed me off and I followed Taylor out a side door—inexplicably. Except that I came up in a time and place where you did what your boss asked of you, even if it meant staying all night with no overtime, and following her, even if you knew you were about to get reamed.

The small room was lined with people waiting to go on, the air dense with sweat and the specter of student loans. My phone rang.

“I fucking hate you,” Taylor started in as I silenced it.

“Excuse me?”

“
Hate
you.
Every fucking thing about you
. How you move, speak, think—so fucking slowly! I hate that I have to explain every fucking thing to you with time I don’t even have! And that pen you put through your hair! How you label your shit in the fridge! Your clothes! Your hat! How you send an e-mail for
every fucking thing
like it’s four hundred fucking years ago! Working with you is like, like having a babysitter—no—it’s like having my
mother
in my office. And now, after dealing with you every day, after letting you get all the press for
my
working my ass off, I find out you’re a fucking
plant
?”

The last veil of my absinthe hangover cleared, leaving me staring into Asher’s eyes as I tumbled ass over tits.

“It’s not that dramatic,” I said as my phone rang again.

“Don’t you dare—you’re—you work for
me
! Me! I
own
you. I can take your name and stick it on dog shit if I want to. Do you
get
that?”

“You’re upset,” I tried.

“Don’t you tell me how I feel! How can you even look in the mirror?” she sneered. “How can you look your own kids in the face—”

I answered my phone so I wouldn’t beat her with it. “Yes?” I twisted away.

“Rory, it’s Josh.”

“Josh?”

“Ex-
cuse
me?!” Taylor thrust her face into mine.

“The boys got a little overzealous after watching the black belts,” he said urgently, “and we’ve had an accident. We’re at Westchester General with Wynn—”

“What?!”

“He’s okay,” he said quickly. “Everything’s all right, but it’s a compound fracture of his left tibia.”

“Mort picked my dad,” Taylor continued over my shoulder, trying to pull my attention back. “Kathryn doesn’t even know yet, but she’ll be out by the end of the month.”

“He was pretty freaked out by the blood,” Josh admitted, “but he’s asleep now.”

“Oh my God.” I felt hot. And light.

“Hang up, Rory,” Taylor seethed.

“Can I talk to him?” I asked.

“They’re prepping him for surgery.”

“Surgery?”

“Just get yourself here. I’ll stay with him.”

“Thank you. Thank you, Josh. I’m on my way.” I hung up to spin in search of an exit sign.

“Are you seriously leaving right now?!” Taylor exploded.

“Taylor, my son is hurt. I can call you later or we can continue this in the morning, but I have to go.”

“Absolutely not!” She was at my heels. “We’re having a discussion. You don’t just walk away from me!”

“Taylor, you don’t know this yet, but sometimes in life you have to pause things you
desperately
want to resolve.”

I found the door, took off the shoes, and ran.

Chapter Seventeen

This is the downside of a steroid shot: something very bad happened to my ankle between the back door of the bar and the front door of my building. I called Blake’s cell and, miraculously, after dodging me all day about the karate trip, he answered. “Can I call you back? I’m getting ready for a—”

“Wynn has a compound fracture.” I started to cry. “He’s at Westchester General with his karate class, and I don’t know how to get to him.”

“Where are you?” he asked.

“In our lobby, but I’ve fucked up my ankle and I have to get to the train and I don’t know how I’m going to—”

“I’ll get Jack’s car. Give me thirty.”

Pounding the elevator button, I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me, and as I got on, texted Claire to see if she could spend the night.

The sitter swung open the door and Maya raced to me, clutching her worn bunny. I dropped my things to take her into my arms where she slumped like a wool blanket pulled from boiling water.

In her bed, I curled around her and whispered stories about stuffed animals until, wrung out, she finally fell asleep.

I hobbled to get the sitter cash and then opened the door—to James—with an Agent Provacateur shopping bag in hand, the luxury lingerie designer that specializes in $600 takes on the naughty nurse and sexy secretary.

“What’s happened here?” he asked, taking me in.

“Maya has the stomach flu.” I leaned my weight into the knob. “And Wynn’s got a compound fracture in Westchester.”

“So it’s a perfect time.” He lifted an eyebrow.

“Blake’s on his way to pick me up so we can get to Wynn.” I tried to pull my brain from the four tracks of logistics it was mapping. “And I still need to change and get things together.” We both looked down at my lame foot.

“Here.” He hoisted me into his arms Scarlett O’Hara–style as our sitter tried to tiptoe unobtrusively past. Through her eyes, this was ridiculous. Or it was just ridiculous. I didn’t have the bandwidth to judge.

Shutting my bedroom door with his loafer, he set me on the bed, his debonair dropping as the smell hit us.

“Maya was in here,” I explained as I pushed up to stand. “I’ll open a window.”

“Let me.” He lifted one as far as it would go and cool air gusted in.

“I really need to be ready when Blake gets here.” I limped to the closet.

But, instead of taking my cue, James cleared a stack of laundry from the bench, and sat down. “I saw the preorders today. Looking good. Soon you’ll have your own driver.”

Keeping my ass facing the closet I pulled off my dress. “You know, James, I’m not actually getting a cut from this line you’re investing in.” I zipped up a sweatshirt over my bra. “And if I leave, which I have to, I’ll need you to advise me on how to take something with me or start my own—”