Momzillas (24 page)

Fifty

Since I was feeling miserable and uggles, I decided to treat myself to a manicure before going to Maggie's tea party. I walked in to Trevi Nail and after the topcoat was applied to my coat of feminine Mademoiselle polish, I opted for a mini back massage. I figured I had extra time and my nails would dry as Kiki pummeled my hard-as-rock stressed back into submission as I sat facedown in the massage chair, my head in that toilet-bowl-shaped teal pillow ring. But if I thought I would get a dose of relaxation, I was sorely mistaken.

Two minutes into my massage, which felt good but had lent little relief to my situation, I heard a familiar voice enter and then get louder as it approached the manicure stations near me.

“She's just sooo nothing special. She and Josh are fine, but for your co-op I would want nicer families. More polished. You know, Josh's mom, Lila Allen Dillingham, is such a class act; I think she was hoping Josh would do better. She actually once told me she thought I would be perfect for Josh and that it was too bad I was taken! Isn't that funny?”

Fuck. The voice belonged to none other than Bee Elliott.

But what could I do? I was trapped with my head in the toilet bowl. My heart was racing through my chest. Sweat began to pour from each and every pore. So Lila
did
think I wasn't good enough. And not only that, she thought Bee would have been perfect for Josh. I thought I was going to have a coronary.

“Also, quite frankly,” she continued with the loudest whisper I'd ever heard, “I think their marriage is on the rocks.”

“Really?” asked the other woman, probably a board member's wife in our would-be building.

“I mean, he could do a lot better. You should see how she dresses her child. I mean, sweatpants! The little girls in Weston's class at Carnegie all have beautiful dresses and their hair is groomed with cute big bows. It's as if she doesn't care about her daughter's appearance! Well, she hardly cares about her own! She wears black jeans and gross T-shirts. I mean, hello? You're not in California anymore!”

I was in clinical shock. I mean, get the defibrillators pronto. If death does indeed greet one with a dizzied blur of white light, then I was certain the grim reaper was near.

“But why is the marriage on the rocks?” the woman inquired. I myself was dying to know.

“We finished,” Kiki whispered to me, patting me on the back.

Without taking my head up, I said, “Keep going. Just keep going, twenty more minutes, please.”

Kiki, psyched with her score of more time at a buck-a-minute, went back to her chop-chops and muscle grinding. Which were amplified within my body, as Bee's each word reverberated through my system and karate-chopped my heart.

“Well, I happened to see her with this guy,” said Bee. “On Fifth Avenue. It was this tall guy with longish brown hair and a tweed jacket. They looked very much in tryst mode. I told Parker and he didn't believe me, but he said since Josh was his best friend he might let him know. I mean, how humiliating?”

So that was the answer. That lying bitch had poisoned Josh against me, that fucking evil whore.

I was sweating so much you could wring my clothes out and fill a bathtub, but I fought my own desire to stand up and ambush her. I wanted to take the metal nail file and gouge her blue eyes out and throw polish remover in the sockets. But I took a deep breath and channeled Josh. What did he always say? Don't do anything rash when you're upset. Stay calm. And what did the Godfather say?
Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

Fifty-one

The doorman under the antique steel canopy of the Sinclairs' Fifth Avenue building buzzed Violet and me up to the tea party, which was packed with not only beautiful children and their Chanel-suited moms but also an explosion of presents. Tiffany blue and Cartier red packed the Colefax-and-Fowler-papered foyer. In the living room, there was a double stroller with a huge bow, shrink-wrapped baskets of pale blue onesies, and a huge teddy bear wearing a cashmere sweater that had “Talbott” embroidered on it.

Clearly the tiny Lacoste shirt I'd brought was very Little League in comparison. So many New York women (like the ones at this party) dressed their boys in kinda pansy-ass ruffles and bows. If I had a boy, I'd do long-sleeved T-shirts, cords, sneaks, not Little Lord Fauntleroy explosions of lace and velvet-covered buttons.

Violet was overjoyed at the scene and immediately went up to one of the little girls; luckily she was unable to read the bubbling lava pit of rage that was locked inside me. She took the girl's hand and they played on the mat as a balloon blower made them hats. I watched her play and interact with the children; she was so loving, always hugging the other kids, wanting to hold their hands. I noticed that none of the other moms seemed to even look at their kids at all; most had nannies in starched uniforms watching over them anyway so they could socialize—and sip 'n' see—but even the ones who just were (gasp!) solo with their kids barely glanced in their direction. I was scanning the room—it was mostly women I didn't know—when I saw Hallie.

“Hi, Hannah,” she said looking me over. “So, how're preschool interviews?”

Naturally it was her first question, before, say,
How are you?

“Oh, fine,” I said. “You know.”

“How many letters do you have for each school? Like Carnegie, how many letters?” I had gathered people generally got recommendations from current parents. Naturally, since I didn't have friends close enough to ask (plus I'd already asked Maggie for our co-op board) my file contained exactly zero.

“Um, not many…” I said, meaning none.

“So is Carnegie your first choice? The second I saw it, I knew Julia Charlotte had to go there. Are you going to write a first-choice letter?”

“I'm not sure.”

Lara approached, hearing the convo. “Ooooh, Hannah,” she interjected, holding a glass of chardonnay. “You must must must write a first-choice letter to Carnegie, it will totally up your chances.”

“But…I don't know if it is my first choice. I loved the other schools, too—especially Browne-Madison. It seemed very Violet—warm, nurturing, even more than Carnegie. I mean, the building's not as grand but it's still cute.”

“
Browne-Madison?
” Hallie said with disbelief. “Hannah, they may be all artsy and loosey-goosey and whatever, but their kindergarten placement is really B.”

“Well, you simply cannot send your child to Browne-Madison over Carnegie,” Lara said. “It's, like, against the law, that's like turning down Harvard for Hamilton.”

I was quiet.

“Seriously, Hannah,” Hallie said. “First-choice letters are
key
. You have to let Mrs. Kincaid know without a doubt that you will matriculate should she offer you a place.”

“Okay, thanks,” I said, not listening and just looking for Maggie, who I seriously needed to sit down with.

“Browne-Madison is a total level down,” said Lara. “Don't you want Violet at a top-notch school so she can sail into the continuing school of your choice?”

“I guess.”

“So Hal,” Lara said abruptly, looking at Hallie. “Are you so excited for Christmas vacation? Where are you guys going again, Cap Juluca?”

“You know, we did that last year, so we decided on Mill Reef this year,” Hallie said, squeezing her lemon wedge into her Perrier. “Ugh, I have been so stressed out over this trip! I was late because I've been FedExing color samples and fabric swatches to JetSet Baby all morning.”

“Oh, aren't they the best?” Lara exclaimed. “We live for JetSet Baby—that company is truly a godsend. Hannah, you must use them when you travel next.”

“What do they do?” I wondered.

“It's brilliant,” Hallie pronounced. “It's a service that helps you with child adjustment when you travel. Dr. Poundschlosser recommended them. It's a truly gifted team of designers who come to your house and take a hundred photographs of your child's nusery. Then they repaint your hotel room the color of your child's room at home and make slipcovers for all the furniture in your fabrics, so your child feels at home and isn't alarmed.”

In a word:
Ew
.

I was stunned. They would die if they saw Violet's unpainted makeshift “nursery,” which was basically a crib in a room. “How much does that cost?” I thought, immediately feeling tacky for asking—reminded of that expression that if you have to even ask, you can't afford it. But hey, I simply had to know what these women shelled out for “child adjustment” on a ten-day vaycay.

“It's not bad,” shrugged Lara. “Ten thousand, give or take, depending on your fabrics.”

My face belied my disgust. I didn't even have to say
yikes
, but I did.

“Well, I'm sorry—but they do sleep better because of it,” Hallie said defensively, possibly understanding how insane this was. Or not. “One simply cannot put a price tag on sleep.”

“Oh, I know it!” added Lara. “When my son was little, we paid the baby nurse extra to walk with him in the Baby Björn on the treadmill in our gym so that he'd fall asleep! Money well spent, I say.”

As I pictured some poor exhausted Malaysian woman hoofing it in her white uniform on their treadmill, I spied Maggie coming over. Thank goodness.

“There you are!” said Maggie, walking over in a Diane Von Furstenberg wrap dress. Save for a little bump, she looked so thin it was hardly as if she'd just borne fruit forty-eight hours before.

“You looking amazing, Maggie. Wow,” I said. “I hope I look like that when I've had two kids.”

“Doesn't she look stickish? You'll definitely be KMBC, Kate Moss by Christmas,” said Lara, waving to a new party entrant. She and Hallie ran off to hug the woman who entered and Maggie smiled at me, seeming to sense I was relieved to see her. “Congratulations,” I said, hugging her.

“How're you doing?” she asked me.

“Um, okay, I guess,” I shrugged. “Aside from the fact that Hallie and Lara just ambushed me about preschools. We are so getting shut out. We have no letters! They made it sound as if I needed recommendations from the entire Verizon white pages!”

“Please, they are freaks,” Maggie whispered, shaking her head. “Tune them out. Plus, maybe these preschools care about social connections now. But the kindergartens won't. And if they try their mob strategy, it will fail; I always think the thicker the file, the thicker the kid.”

I smiled, but then the chill that had been plaguing me set in once again. “Where's Bee?” I asked, looking around the room.

“Hannah,” she said, looking both ways spylike. “Let's camp out in my room for a sec.”

“Yes! I really need to talk to you—”

I got the nervous energy bolt through my body as I followed her past the crowd, which included pearl-stud-wearing blondes and a Malaysian baby nurse holding tiny Talbott, into her bedroom, which was a lavish pale-blue-and-beige confection of toile fabrics, soft carpets, and a dreamyland princess canopy bed.

“I've been dying to call you but I know you just had a baby and are swamped,” I said, heart racing. “But I have to talk to you. Something happened.”

“What?”

I relayed my manicure story, and, while horrified, Maggie didn't seem surprised. That was because she'd heard it all already.

“Listen, Hannah,” she said, putting a hand on my knee as I wiped errant tears I'd vowed not to cry. “I know. I know everything. Bee is a mean, mean girl. I guess I've known it all along and secretly hated her, but I was always too scared of her to do anything about it.”

“Can you imagine being so psycho and evil?” I said, still in shock.

“It's not you. It's her. She's a miserable person,” said Maggie. “She's always been perfect and wants to be the only one with the good life, but it's all a lie. Hannah,
she's
the one who's cheating.”

What?

“She's been sleeping with Troy Kincaid for over nine months.”

“She has?” I was stunned; a JetSet Baby fabric swatch could have knocked me to the floor. Incredulous. In shock. So, the flawless Ralph Lauren family wasn't so picture perfect. “Poor Park! Oh my God! Maggie, I walked in on Troy quote ‘showing her my apartment': God how dumb am I?” I was reeling. They fucking did it on my floor, those jerks.

I was literally about to keel over.

“Wait, it gets worse,” she said quietly.

“What could be worse than being a compulsive liar who screwed someone else's husband?” I asked.

“She tried to screw yours as well.”

Beat. Times ten. She
what
? Josh?

“It was before you were technically married, though,” Maggie said. “When he was home once for some meeting and you were out west, she was hammered and totally made a pass at Josh. I actually thought she had harbored a crush on him from grade school or something,” she continued. “But he fully shut her down. I think that's why she kind of had it out for you from the moment you got here.”

“Bee had it out for me from day one?” My heart was pounding through my chest as I began to crumble to pieces. “She deserves an Oscar for that performance. Showing me the ropes, what bullshit.” The toile-covered room swirled as I felt faint.

“Hannah, there's something I have to show you,” said Maggie, who got up and opened a beautiful regency desk, taking a key from one drawer to unlock another stealthily. It was very
Dangerous Liaisons
, though I had no idea how much so until what followed. She handed me a stack of papers, which I immediately recognized as a computer chat between Maggie and Bee.

“I think it comes from my having been a lawyer,” she said, watching me leaf through the pages. “I save everything.”

There it was, the slow-cooking blossoming of the rumor that I was banging Tate Hayes. That bitch Bee planted the seeds of my so-called infidelity, watered it over time on her instant messages, and harvested it just when her own cheating had reached a fever pitch. I was a patsy. I didn't know whether to bawl or be pissed, but it was a little of both. I looked at Maggie and hugged her as I started to tear up.

“Thank you for showing me this,” I said soberly. “Maggie, I need you to know, I never ever would cheat on my husband. He is my life,” I said. Maggie hugged me and said she knew that, and the more she got to know me, the less she believed Bee's lies.

“I know,” she said, handing me a tissue and patting my shoulder. “It's just she is bored, so bored, and so she dreams up this gossip—I can't tell you how many rumors she's started, to deflect from her own marriage or maybe even just because she felt like it, for no reason. I don't know, to fill the silences at the playground. She's the worst friend. And wife! This is the proverbial captain of the cheerleaders who always got so much attention, but she still craves more. Just having poor Parker's love got boring so she courted others. Pathetic. And poor Weston, she pretends to be this SuperMom constantly pontificating about what's the right sleep method or eating regimen or playgroup, but she never even sees him! He's raised by his team of nannies, and yet she goes around criticizing other mothers and making statements about child rearing. God only knows what she's said about me all these years,” Maggie wondered. But it didn't matter now; Bee's reign over her frenemies was at an end. Maggie hadn't even called her to tell her about the birth.

“What about Hallie and Lara, do they know?”

“Not yet. I've realized, though, that they are Bee-worshippers. I hate being around them, too. They always compete and talk about the same damn shit.”

I paused, smiling. “You mean Julia Charlotte's Mensa exam?”

Maggie burst out laughing. “Yes! I mean, gag!”

“You always seemed so much nicer than those girls,” I said to Maggie, loving that the floodgates were open and that I now had a mom-ally. “I never understood why you were so tight with them.”

“Inertia,” she replied, shrugging. “I was too busy to go and make new friends, and I'm usually nonconfrontational and just didn't want to pull the plug. Then they'd really talk about me and have a field day. But now I don't care.” She shrugged again. “Because you did your own thing, I knew I could too. I have my husband and my family, and now I have a new friend…” She gave me a hug and I was so happy she'd seen the light about her posse. But also about herself—that she was stronger than she thought and could move on without the clique.

AND THE FINAL EXCHANGE…

Instant Message from: BeeElliott

BeeElliott: Maggie, you there? I left two messages! Helloooo? My Buddy List says you're online. HELLO???

Maggs10021: Stay away from me, Bee. You lied about Hannah and so many others. You terrorize every mother to make them feel bad about themselves but really you're the sad one who doesn't even know her kid. And now you're out of my life. GOOD-BYE.

BeeElliott: WHAT?! WTF??

*Maggs10021 is no longer signed on*