The Breakup Club Part 21

"Oh, what do you know!" my mother-in-law snapped at him.

A lot, probably. More than probably. I was ninety-nine-percent sure Larry's father was right.

So what was my status? Was I single? Or married? What were the stages of separated? Was I going through a divorce? Despite Larry's New Year's Eve announcement (I had received no divorce papers or telephone calls from divorce lawyers, and the relatives' consensus seemed to be that Larry was suffering from temporary insanity), I had no idea what the answer to that question was. I took many long walks on weekends and during my lunch hour to try to think, to figure out how I felt, what I wanted. Today's lunch-hour walk took me to Beau and Bri's neighborhood, Greenwich Village. They lived in a billion-dollar brownstone on Perry Street, which I was having trouble finding.

Roxy had gone on a field trip to the neighborhood last week and had taken some great shots of the brownstone, but I needed to see it firsthand to describe it vividly for the book. I also wouldn't mind a glimpse of Beau and Bri, something to help burst the bubble of perfection. I wanted to see Bri without makeup, looking haggardas if she could. I wanted to see Beau waiting to cross the busy street like a regular person.

But first I had to find Perry Street. Aha man was walking toward me. I'd catch his eye and ask. But I didn'tcouldn'tcatch his eye. Despite the fact that I was staring at him to make him look at me, he didn't even notice me. Neither did the next man. Or the next man.

I stopped and glanced at my reflection in a bakery store window.

No wonder she can't get a date. She looks like a frumpy old sow...

Look at you! If you looked like Samantha Perlmutter's mother...

"Excuse me," I said to the man waiting at the corner. "Can you tell me where Perry Street is?"

Notice me. Admire my lovely blue eyes. Stare at my t.i.ts. Do something to show me I'm an attractive woman. Objectively speaking.

"I dunno," he said, and walked away.

Frumpy old sow...no wonder she can't get a date....

"Lucy? Are you okay?"

I glanced up to find Wanda Belle staring at me. "I'm fine," I said, sniffling. Just fine. I'm a frumpy old sow, but I'm fine. Really.

"You left these in the kitchenette," she whispered, dropping off the edited first chapter of Beau and Bri: The Courts.h.i.+p of the Century onto my desk. "They're the originals."

"Thanks," I said, surprised. Just a couple of months ago, Wanda would have relished this kind of opportunity. She would have waited to return the pages to me when she was sure Futterman would hear so that he'd know how inept I was for the promotion to executive editor. She leaves original edited ma.n.u.scripts in the kitchenette! Where spilled coffee and globs of jelly from doughnuts could obliterate original pages!

Wanda and I had been compet.i.tors at Bold Books for years. I'd begrudged her ability to work late every day and all weekend since she was single and childless; she begrudged me my need to leave early because Amelia was sick or had a recital.

But there was no more campaigning to do. Christopher had gotten the promotion. Wanda and I were equals. And she was offering a handshake.

As she turned to go, I took in her hair, her clothes, her shoes, her makeup, her jewelry. How did she pull this off every day? Even when I was single, I didn't look like this. Granted, no one was too gussied up, but some women managed to look sophisticated even in a college sweats.h.i.+rt. "Wanda, do you have plans tonight?"

She eyed me. "Why?"

"I was just wondering if you dress up so beautifully every day because you have plans every night or if you just like to dress up."

She seemed surprised by the compliment. "I don't even think of myself as dressed up. This is just how I dress. My only plans tonight are to go grocery shopping."

I tried to imagine Wanda Belle pus.h.i.+ng a grocery cart in the Food Emporium, struggling to open those thin plastic bags in the produce aisle, spending too much time in the cleaning supply aisle, debating whether to buy a Swiffer.

"I need an overhaul," I said quite honestly. "Head to toe. And I don't know the first thing about achieving a look like yours."

"I do," she said. "It's called Bloomingdale's. We can accomplish everything thereclothes, shoes, hair, makeup, jewelry, and accessories."

"How much time do you think that would take," I asked. "A couple of hours?"

She laughed. "Try doubling that. It'll require an entire weekend day."

And just like that, Wanda Belle and I had weekend plans.

On Sat.u.r.day, Wanda and I met at the Lancome counter in Bloomingdale's. I wore my usual weekend ensemble of baggy jeans and "mom" sweater. Wanda looked as though she'd stepped out of Vogue.

In moments I was seated on a plush chair, my hair pulled back with a headband as a beauty consultant examined me from the neck up. She slathered my face with delicious-scented creams and potions and lotions, then applied tubes and pots of what seemed to be foundation but were, I was to learn, primers, concealers, base, powder. There was also eyeshadow, eyeliner, lip liner, lipstick, blush.

"Are you ready for the new you?" Wanda asked, twisting the counter mirror so that I could see.

Wow. I looked...pretty! Very pretty. Sophisticated. I looked like I was going to a wedding or on a romantic date. I looked the way Wanda Belle looked every day.

"Now we're going to take this off," the consultant said. "And you're going to do it yourself."

A half hour later, I'd come close. I'd learned how to sweep sand-colored shadow across my eyes to bring out their blue color. How to line the lower rim of my lashes to make my eyes pop. I knew where the apples of my cheeks were. How to use gloss to make my lips look bigger. I learned how to be a girlie-girl. And all for the price of two shopping bags of every cosmetic, cream and brush I'd used. Almost three hundred dollars!

"You're worth it," Wanda said. "Just remember that. And you've worked d.a.m.ned hard for the money."

I glanced at myself in the mirror. I looked like a different woman. No frumpy old sow in that mirror.

"Now for the clothes," Wanda said, her hazel eyes sparkling.

After watching me gravitate to and grab the drab, tried-and-true baggy, boring clothes I always wore, Wanda took everything off my arm, dumped it on a salesclerk, and then deposited me in front of a full-length mirror. She held up colors, styles, jackets, skirts, pants, dressesand either shook her head or nodded, making yes or no piles. In the fitting room, I tried on so many articles of clothing from her yes pile that I couldn't lift my arms or legs after a while. She stood outside my room, had me twirl in front of the three-way mirror, and studied me from head to toe.

"No. Wrong color!"

"Boat necks are for sailors!"

"No pleats!"

"A-line only!"

Five times she disappeared and reappeared, her arms draped with more clothes.

Finally she announced we were done. I was the proud owner of two of everything. Two new suitscreative corporate, Wanda had called themtwo fun skirts, two pairs of pants, two sweaters, two blouses, and three dressestwo for work and one for evening. Wanda thought I should hold off on buying a more complete wardrobe until I lost the fifteen pounds I wanted to shed and until I developed my own personal style, which seemed to be tailored clothes with pretty, feminine touches.

We then hit the footwear department, where I tried on gorgeous shoes that actually were comfortable. I bought a pair of black pumps with crocodile toes and buckles and some high-heeled Italian leather boots. Then we headed to the belt-and-hosiery department, where I bought my first pair of fishnets. I spent way too much money and we weren't even finished yet. There was still the matter of my hair.

When I left the salon and looked at myself in the mirror, I didn't recognize the woman looking back at me. Sophisticated, glamorous, pulled together. My hair was just an inch shorterand chin lengthbut swingy and bouncy, and the new chestnut-brown color s.h.i.+mmered with its new highlights and lowlights. I had youthful bangs that suited me.

"If you want him back, this will do it," she whispered.

I looked at her. "Office gossip?"

She nodded. "I'll tell you something, though, Lucy. I look like this twenty-four/seven and it's never kept any of my boyfriends from leaving. You don't see me going home to my gorgeous husband, do you?"

"Then what's the point?" I asked. "Why not be comfortable like I was before? Why go through all this trouble and expense?"

"Because looking great really does help perk you up. And when you're confident about how you look, you feel more powerful." She freshened her lipstick. "Then again, I didn't get the promotion to executive editor, did I? I'm not living with my true love, am I? So who the h.e.l.l knows?"

"I guess all we can do is try," I said. "We try until we figure out what works for us. This look works for you. I have no idea if it'll work for me. I love itI love how I look. But I can't imagine keeping up with it. A half hour for makeup? Another half hour for my hair? Another half hour trying to figure out what tops go with what skirts and pants?"

She smiled. "You'll do fine. Even if it's just a happy medium."

"A happy medium," I repeated. "That's actually it. That's the answer. A happy medium is what we're supposed to want, but for some reason it's never enough. I love my job as is, but I wanted that promotion for the recognition."

"Me too," Wanda said. "It just figures that Christopher's the only one who wasn't actively campaigning for it."

"You know what, let's forget the subject of work. How about dinner? My treat. As a huge thank-you."

She beamed and off we went. But when we sat down in the little French restaurant, I realized that if my new look didn't wow Larry, then this wasn't just a midlife crisis. He wasn't just bored. He didn't just need some me-time. He didn't love me anymore, and a hot-s.h.i.+t Lucy wasn't going to make a bit of difference.

Appreciative glances galore. Life was different when you looked like Wanda Belle.

When an attractive man in his thirties smiled at me while we were waiting to cross the street, I wanted to yell, It's makeup! Three hundred dollars' worth of makeup. You get the same person underneath!

When I arrived home, Amelia was sitting on one of the couches in the lobby of our apartment building, her nose buried in the new Harry Potter novel. She must have forgotten her keys.

"Hi," I said.

She glanced up and smiled then continued reading.

"No comment?" I asked. The book must have been really, really good.

She glanced up again and then her eyes popped open. "Mom?"

I nodded. My own daughter hadn't recognized me!

She stood up and stared at me. "Mom?" she asked again, her mouth open.

I laughed. "Pretty hot, huh?"

"You look amazing!" she said. "Wait till Daddy sees you! He'll definitely come home."

"Amelia, we can't count on that." But I was counting on that. Right or wrong, I wanted Larry Masterson to take one look at me and tell me he was a fool, a bad-carb-withdrawal-suffering fool.

I wanted him to love me again.

I found out the next morning that Amelia had called her father the minute we'd gotten upstairs and invited him over for dinner for a "big surprise." He'd declined. She'd invited him for breakfast the next morning. He'd declined. He was supposedly otherwise engaged for the next month. Finally Amelia realized that all she'd had to do to get her father and mother together in the same room was to ask her father to pick her up at the apartment for their weekly visit on Sat.u.r.day. He'd declined. Amelia had hung up on him.

While Amelia sulked in her room, I sat on the couch and stared at my reflection in the big-screen TV. All I could see was my silhouette. Tears p.r.i.c.ked the backs of my eyes and rolled down my cheeks. I'd been trying to teach Amelia that what we looked like on the outside didn't change who we were on the inside, and yet here I was, hoping and praying that my husband, who had up and left me, would take one look at his hotsy new wife and come home. As if lipstick would make him love me again.

Maybe it will. Maybe how I look on the outside will change how I feel on the inside. And since I feel like c.r.a.p, it's entirely possible!

But if that were the case, wouldn't I feel like a million bucks?

The phone rang and I took a deep breath. Perhaps it was Larry with an apology for Amelia.

Actually, it was Larry with a bombsh.e.l.l.

"I'd really like Amelia to meet and get to know the new woman in my life," he said as though he were telling me what the weather was like. "I think it would help if you were there to facilitate."

I closed my eyes and let myself cry, let the expensive mascara I'd painstakingly applied this morning run down my cheeks.

"I think it's best if we meet in a restaurant," he said, oblivious, as usual, "just in case Amelia gets upset. At twelve, adolescents hate making scenes, they hate people staring at them, so she'll be less likely to start a big ruckus. She may even like Sally."

Sally. My husband had a girlfriend and her name was Sally.

What was I supposed to do now? I was an intelligent woman with a brain and twelve years of experience at motherhood. And yet I had no idea what to do. Did I agree to the dinner? Did I go?

I called Miranda.

"What a dips.h.i.+t Larry is!" she yelled in my ear. "I mean that with all due respect," she added.

"It's okay," I said. "So what do I do?"

"Well, on one hand, it may be important for Amelia to begin to accept that her dad left. And that he's dating another woman. So, maybe the dinner is a good idea. And it probably would make her feel better if you're there. Emotional support."

"A lot of emotional support I'll be," I said. "I'm meeting the woman my husband left me for."

"But maybe it'll be good for you too, Lucy," she said. "You haven't seen Larry since whatJanuary second? Maybe seeing him will help you figure out how you feel."

"And if I realize that I really do want him to come home?" I said. "What then? It'll be just peachy to come to that realization when I'm sitting across from the woman he's sleeping with."

"Lucy, I think that whatever happens, finding out how you really feel is never the wrong way to go."

"How did you get to be so smart?" I asked.

"Someone else's problems are always easier to manage," she said. "Call me if you need me."

I was sure I'd be calling back in five minutes, after I told Amelia about the dinner. I'd gauge her reaction, then decide what to do.

"Finally!" Amelia said, all smiles, when I told her about our potential Friday evening plans. "You'll finally be in the same room together at the same time. He'll take one look at you and the girlfriend will be history! He'll come home."

My daughter had blinders on. "Amelia, he has a girlfriend. That's the key word here."

My husband has a girlfriend. A girlfriend named Sally.

She rolled her eyes. "Have a little faith, Mom."

On Friday night, Amelia dressed up in her father's favorite outfit, a dress she'd always dismissed as "dorky." She pulled her hair back from her face with a headband, something else her father liked. As we walked out the door of our apartment, our Larry-less apartment, I felt like an imposter. Who was this stranger in the high-heeled boots with three different shades of eyeshadow on her lids? Who was this sweet kid next to me looking like Chelsea Clinton in the late nineties with her headband and bows?

"You look so great, Mom," Amelia said as we entered the restaurant, a low-lit new American on the Upper West Side. "Everything's going to be okay. I know it!"

I squeezed her hand. "Amelia, he may be in love with Sally. You need to be prepared for that. You and I might look different, but that doesn't mean we're not the same people we were a week ago. Okay?"

"I know, I know," she said dismissively, her eyes gleaming with excitement. "Ready?"