“Ah, but maybe her mother didn’t actually dumpster dive,” said Lauren. “I mean if she made some of it up.”
“Did you see her mother?” Kiki asked. “I Googled her, and I’m pretty sure she did.”
“What I loved most about Jeannette’s mom was, even though they were poor,” Sarah said, “she always managed to save a little money for those special things that made life more bearable, you know? Like a tasseled silk throw or a cut crystal vase.”
“Yeah,” said Jelicka, sardonically. “Much smarter than buying food for her starving family.”
“My white trash mom had the same motto,” I said. “ ‘The surest way to feel rich is to invest in ‘quality nonessentials’—even though, in my mom’s case, it meant new plastic to go on the couch.”
I was about to reach for the last drumstick, when Vicki snagged it from the platter.
“Jeannette Walls is a testament to the human spirit,” said Maddie. “Maybe you wouldn’t want her upbringing, but she proves that the human will to survive is so strong, we can get through almost anything.” This was a sentiment we could all agree on.
When Sarah’s peach cobbler was served, we started in on the roundy-round. Sarah herself was in couples’ therapy, trying to repair her marriage with Nate Sr., while their house problems, which she’d intimated in her email, turned out to be enormous. Upside down in their mortgage, they thought it might be better to abandon the whole thing and risk foreclosure. Consequently, she might have to go back to work, which a few of us were in favor of, even if it required the working out of childcare details. Rachel was indeed painting a new series of nude men—body parts intact—and “all was grand,” even though she’d broken up with the newest boyfriend—a swarthy Greek—and claimed she was now taking a break from the boys. Then she read us a fairy tale she’d come across, saying it was her new motto:
“Once upon a time, a guy asked a girl 'Will you marry me?' The girl said: 'NO!' And she lived happily ever-after and went shopping, dancing, to the theatre, drank martinis, had high self-esteem, always had a clean house, never had to cook, did whatever she wanted, didn't get fat, had lots of lovers, and all the hot water to herself. She never watched sports unless she wanted to, never wore friggin' lacy lingerie that went up her ass, never yelled, looked fabulous in sweat pants, and was pleasant all the time. The End.”
When she finished, the rest of us sat silently for a few seconds. Wow. Was she serious? Should we be concerned? Or was everyone thinking—as I was—how good that sounded, wondering why any woman would live her life any other way. Perhaps I needed to rethink my rationale for online dating.
“I like it,” said Vicki, smiling. “Can you email that to me, Rachel?”
Kiki cleared her throat. “Okay, ready? The house next door to me is a porn set,” she announced.
Apparently, she began noticing some strange goings on a couple of months before and suspected, at the very least, that the neighbors were operating a business out of the house. There were deliveries of office furniture, sightings of the giant industrial truck the cable company only sends out when installing major bandwidth; things like that. She told Saul who, agreeing with her, called the city to come out and enforce the law. But when the inspectors came out, they claimed there was a “lack of viable evidence”—that the occupants of the house, in fact, invited them in and introduced them to their “friends.” Kiki was livid. All the cars lined up every day, owned by the “friends” (read: employees), was “evidence of nothing,” said the inspectors. The ongoing frustration, and the guttural paroxysms of the “actors” as they performed their erotic scenes, had brought Kiki and Saul closer together. She was happy to report the sideline benefit of the activity next door had contributed to some exciting fireworks going off upstairs in the master bedroom of their own house.
“The Muff posse will come over and shut ’em down.” Jelicka volunteered all of us to assist in busting the naughty neighbors. It seemed like Kiki had already consulted Maddie, who said she was looking into the legalities and warned us to wait before doing “anything too crazy,” which included Rachel’s wanting to dress up like a porn star in hopes of entrapping somebody. Kiki seemed calmer when she was finished, happy to feel like she wasn’t alone—which she wasn’t.
Maddie told us about the guy she met from Scotland who, she insisted, while glancing at Jelicka, was “too new to even discuss, so I don’t know why certain people feel compelled to talk about him.” She claimed to have no personal knowledge about what a Scotsman wears or does not wear under his kilt—much to Sarah’s disappointment and mine— but if Diana Gabaldon’s
Outlander
books were to be believed, it was nothing.
Vicki, who was no stranger to foreign guys, having been married to a Spaniard, wished Maddie luck with the Scot before segueing into her various film projects, including the Muffia project, and telling us about becoming a mentor for a teenage girl named Solange, who was getting out of foster care. We all thought she was incredibly generous and noble but worried it might be too much, as Vicki was still supposed to be avoiding stressful situations. Jelicka began her turn in the roundy-round talking about what kinds of jobs she might get now that her divorce was final and she had to go back to work. She gave us a full report on
Cougarlife.com
—the cubs were cute, but the cougar was getting bored—and she thought she might be getting stalked just like Paige. Unlike Paige, however, if Jelicka was being stalked, God help the stalker.
“Does anyone else think Paige might not be here for a different reason than the one she gave us?” Jelicka asked. Talk of stalking and Paige must have triggered that question.
We stopped, glancing around at each other for understanding.
“Like what?” asked Sarah.
“Like, do you think she might have, oh say, had her eyes done?”
Maddie frowned. “Where do you come up with this stuff?”
“I think it happened,” Lauren said. “At least the part about the stalker—Paige’s stalker. I don’t know about yours, Jel. But I’ve seen Paige’s a few times when I dropped Gavin off for his tennis lesson.”
“You’re starting ’em young,” said Kiki.
“You did too, Kiki,” said Lauren, probably referring to Troy’s sax playing. “These days, if you don’t have your kids doing something extra-curricular really well by the time they’re fourteen, you can forget about getting them into a decent college.”
“Agreed, but why would Paige lie about the reason she wasn’t coming?” said Maddie. “Especially considering she’s never missed a Muff meeting.”
“Right. She would have told us,” said Vicki.
“She’s actually kind of an oversharer, which makes it all the more odd,” I said. “Remember when she told us about peeing on her friend’s horse?”
Sarah’s jaw dropped. “Really? I must have missed that. What did the horse do?”
“She was riding this horse,” I said, “and suddenly she looks down and the saddle is completely wet. She looks around, can’t figure it out, and suddenly she realizes it’s her. And she’s not just leaking—the floodgates have opened, and she didn’t even feel it happening.”
“It’s a common problem after childbirth,” Lauren said. “She just needs a bladder sling.”
“A bladder
what
?” Jelicka raised her brows, though due to Botox, they did not raise very far.
“Bladder sling,” said Maddie. “It rhymes with bling, Jelicka.”
Vicki pointed the camera at Jelicka, who said, directly to the lens, “Who knew?”
“They go in and sort of lift up your bladder into a, well, into a sort of sling thing,” Lauren explained. “I’m going to need one, too, so we were discussing doctors. The good news is, once you get one, you stop peeing at inopportune times, like whenever you laugh, cough, or take too big a breath.”
Jelicka didn’t seem to follow. Plastic surgery, she understood. Any kind of surgery where you couldn’t see a visible improvement to your looks—that was a waste of time and money.
“I told you when I had my eyes done,” said Vicki. “But for me, it was a medical necessity—because of my Nordic folds, which are hereditary and can eventually interfere with vision.”
It’s always struck me as funny how some people who undergo cosmetic eye surgery claim it’s a
medical
necessity, blaming something called Nordic folds—extra large folds of eyelid skin—for their future failing vision, even when they have absolutely no Scandinavian blood.
“I tell you all about my Botox injections,” said Jelicka. “Is that oversharing? I’d just call it sharing.”
“I wanted to talk to you about that,” said Sarah. “The Botox. Do you like it? Not that I can afford it.”
“It’s so cheap now,” said Jelicka. “These days you can get it done at a foot spa.”
Madelyn leaned toward Sarah. “You don’t need it—especially not from the Vietnamese lady who does your pedicure—nothing against the Vietnamese.”
“Some dentists are offering it, too,” Jelicka said.
“Foot spa—dentist—you can probably get the guy behind the meat counter at Ralphs to work on your face,” said Maddie.
“Not that it’s a good idea.” Jelicka delivered this line to Maddie, with whom she was clearly having some sort of tiff. The rest of us carried on, pretending they weren’t. “You just have to go to an artistic type person who knows where to stick the needle.”
“I plan on telling you all when I get a facelift,” Lauren said. “But if it looks horrible, you must, must promise to be totally honest with me. I don’t want to turn into one of those women who keep on having procedures and have no idea how other people see them.”
“For the record,” said Rachel, “I’m never having plastic surgery.”
A few of the older Muffs groaned at this proclamation. At almost thirty-three, Rachel was the youngest and, as such, the least in need of any facial “maintenance.” Most of us thought she’d change her mind in another ten years.
“Your statement has been duly recorded,” Vicki said. “And when you have something done, we promise we won’t say ‘told you so.’ ”
“Speak for yourself,” said Jelicka, giving Rachel a gentle push. “Kidding. I have no horse in this race either way. It’s not like I own stock in Allergan.”
She knew too much about this stuff.
With that digression over, it was my turn and, as wowed as everyone had been about Kiki’s porn-making, next-door neighbors, when I told everyone about Picturegate, they were astounded. Nobody they knew so intimately had ever been…well, in essence, blackmailed. Hearing that I had three weeks to fix it or get canned, made everyone furious and adamant that I must fight the injustice done me with everything I had, and they vowed to assist in any way they could.
By this point in the evening, however, we all needed to get going, so a Muff sub-committee agreed to meet me the following night to help hammer out a game plan.
“Who’s next?” Lauren asked, as we began packing up to go. “I feel a little lost without Paige here to guide us. I’ll go see her this week and see how she is.”
“Hold on.” Rachel reached for her laptop. “I think I have her list.”
“It’s gotta be my turn,” said Vicki.
“I haven’t hosted in
years
,” Jelicka chimed in.
“Me neither,” Lauren said. “I haven’t hosted since
Max Tivoli
.”
“Well, you’re all wrong.” Rachel slapped the laptop closed. “It’s Quinn. Any ideas for a book?”
At that moment, I didn’t have a clue what to choose. Of all the Muffs, I think I stress out the most about choosing what we read because I’m the most fearful of picking something people won’t like. There’s just not enough time in a life to spend it reading bad books—which, in the Muffs’ case hardly matters since, even with great books, they rarely read them.
“Is it too much for you right now?” Sarah said, sensitive to my situation. “Somebody else could go, and we can come back to you.”
I looked at their expectant faces. With everything I had going on, it was understandable they’d be concerned there might be one too many things on my plate. But I felt happy to have positive distractions. “I’m good. Just give me a couple days.”
Early the next evening, Madelyn, Jelicka, and Lauren met me for an emergency strategy session at Firefly, the popular Studio City bar/restaurant with the close-cropped-vine-covered exterior, which gives the place the appearance of a giant chia pet.
The three of them sat opposite me, each holding one of Chef Jason Travi’s themed cocktails, speechless after listening to my woeful tale, which I’d fleshed out from the “highlight reel” version of the night before.
“I’ve been thinking about changing careers anyway,” I said, hoping to wipe the shock off their faces. Leaning back in the plush, velvet-upholstered banquette, I picked up my drink. “This just forces my hand.”
The alcohol soothed away the stress as it went down—granted, not the healthiest way to unwind, but it’s all I had at that moment since swearing off sex with married Steven. It was true—I had been thinking about changing jobs; for years, if I was honest with myself. But until I said it out loud, my idle musings hadn’t gained any traction. Now that my departure from Talent Partners might be imminent, I needed feedback about what I could do to fight the threat, but also to prepare for what might happen if I lost the battle.
“What would you do?” Jelicka said, aghast. “It’s not as if jobs like yours are easy to come by. Then again,
I’ve
been out of the labor force so long, I’m not qualified to do anything.” She took a long pull from her bourbon-infused Orange Bomb with egg white foam while gazing longingly at the attractive twenty-something bartender. “Except Cougardom.”
Lauren’s gaze drifted over to the bartender. “Oh,
my
; he is hot!”
“Being a cougar doesn’t pay,” said Maddie, who was behaving like she had additional information. “I know because I mediated a case, that’s all. Disappointed cats all ’round.”
“But sometimes those little cubs are
sooooo
much fun.” Jelicka smiled wickedly.
“So you told us,” Maddie said. “In great detail. You also said you were tired of it.”
“Just a little.” Jelicka smiled.