“I wanted to crawl under the table and die. Instead we drank Diet Cherry Pepsi. So embarrassing! Let’s be serious, girl. We need to buy fake ID’s for going out to bars and stuff. Yesterday in spin class, Blake told me where he got the driver’s license he uses to get into those gay clubs in Chelsea. I told him to get you and Kelle an ID too. Be warned, if Blake Morgan’s sex life is better than ours I will totally wig the Fendi out on all of you. Whatcha doin’?”
Whoa!
Taddy inhaled deeply and waited for me to yap right back.
I chewed my gum. Salads, shopping, underage drinking, and the idea of sex had put Taddy Brill into serious overdrive. “Mmm.”
There was something comforting about Taddy’s shopping silliness. She’d thought about me.
“Lex love, you want an angora Ricci sweater and a fake ID or not?”
“No. Taddy….” I paused. Errr. A few minutes ago I was doing so good trying to make light of what happened. Never did I imagine I’d get this upset. Or be shaking. Dropping to the floor, I curled up in a ball. The tears fell.
Does anyone ever get used to this crap? There was no shield of protection between me and my parent’s cruddy actions. I wanted to call Carrie Fisher, you know Princess Leia from Star Wars and tell her that I’d relived her semi-autobiographical Postcards from the Edge novel about her childhood with her mother, Debbie Reynolds, but I didn’t have her number.
“Darling, we can skip over to Barney’s and see if they have it in your favorite color, bloody, black, burgundy, whatever the hellaballo you call it. We’ll get ya one. It’s nothing to get upset over.”
I felt my frown invert. Then I laughed, and knew neither Bergdorf’s nor Barney’s has ever carried my size. That was the funniest thing I’d heard all day. “Try Saks or Bloomies women’s department. And my favorite color is called vamp.”
“Get your gorgeous self on your two-wheeler and come uptown. Let’s hang at Bloomies. Oooh, and order that Forty Carrots yogurt you luuuv so much.” Taddy suggested.
See, again, she thought about me. That was love, right there.
“Not today. I gotta—move.” The idea came out so naturally. I knew moving out was the right thing to do.
“Eh?”
Before Taddy could rapid-fire questions, I inquired calmly, “Do you think Vive would let me stay with you girls for a bit. Till school starts?”
Taddy had roomed with Vive at the Sherry Netherland, for free btw. Her parents weren’t helping her with college. They hadn’t paid for her Avon Porter education either. Birdie had covered her tuition for the last few years without Taddy knowing who paid what. Sober Mom wasn’t all bad. Money to her was like vodka, in one hole and out the other. The only thing Mom wanted credit for was her beauty and songs.
“Ummm. Dah! Of course. Want me to talk to Miss Vive? She’s standin’ right here.”
“No. I merely wanted your thoughts, is all.” I wasn’t comfortable asking for help.
“Ah, huh. You don’t sound too good.”
Yuk. I flung a wad of saliva off on my sleeve, swallowed, and replied, “I’ll live.”
“Is Birdie being her usual self?” Taddy’s voice became serious, “Lex, are you okay? Did something happen?”
“Daddy is in Tokyo. Jack Daniels has been Mom’s only source of nutrition since I’ve moved in. And Kelle came over today and celebrated with her.”
“Nooo.” Taddy screamed so loud that I thought she’d blown-up my phone.
“Yup. They’re on her bed going at it.”
“Holy Mommy Dearest on a wire hanger! That is fugged up.” She muffled the phone for a few seconds and shouted some more.
In the background, I heard Bergdorf’s security team asking her to leave their store if she didn’t calm herself down. Taddy was always getting herself kicked out of there.
The phone sounded as if it had changed hands.
“Lex! Hey girlie, it’s Vive.”
“Hi.”
“Taddy went to go pay for her fuzzy sweater.” Vive giggled. “Honey, I’m sorry to hear about your Mom and Kelle.”
“Me too.” I closed my eyes wishing I’d blend into the carpeting.
“Let me call my driver to haul your wardrobe. We’ll be in Soho within an hour.”
“Really?” I sat up from the floor. “You’re serious?”
“Honey, you wear Chanel. I don’t kid about couture.” Vive cackled.
Farnworth Firewater liquor heiress Viveca Farnworth was the only Avon Porter student who’d talked to me and Taddy when we’d started going there. Labeled “tabloid girls” from the start, everyone had avoided us, except for Vive.
A few years later, the school had gone co-ed, admitting Blake on a scholarship. No one had talked to him either. That’s pretty much how the Fab Four had started.
“Pack up your life. We’ll load it into the limo. There’s a street-bike parking space on Fifth Avenue and Fifty-Ninth Street for Vamp. The doorman stands in it all day long, scratching himself. No one uses it.”
“Why not?”
“Honey, who on the Upper East Side rides a friggin’ motorbike?” Vive snorted louder and longer than before. “The spot is all yours. Stay the entire semester. Hedda Hopper will be so happy to have you with us.”
Hedda was a Lhasa Apso that Taddy and I had bought for Vive after our stint in juvie. It was the week her parents had forced her to give up the baby. The pooch didn’t fill the hole in Vive’s heart for the love of her child, but it gave her something to care for. We were like fifteen.
I wiped my eyes. “Thanks, Vive. You and Taddy are the best.”
“Oh and Lex, before I forget—”
“Yes.” I sniveled.
“You’re gonna get through this. Birdie cares for you. She’s just sick. Kelle, on the other hand will be gettin’ a piece of my mind when I see him in my journalism class in a few weeks. I love you.”
“Love you too.”
I hung up and started packing. From YSL to Gucci, I shoved and stuffed anything and everything that would fit. All the while, I chomped on my gum and highlighted in my head the top ten fears and worst moments of my life. In chronological order, they were:
Puberty advice to pad my bra, or not wear one at all. I was nine then.