More Muffia (The Muffia Book 2) Page 5
“I would have thought it might be sort of obvious,” I said, “with the trip and everything. We had an extra day in Tokyo and with the time difference… Plus, I rolled my ankle running through the airport.”
“Oh, Babe, you all right?”
“It’s a little swollen, but I’ll be fine.” Good, Quinn. Not a trace of encouragement.
“Do you want me to come over later and take care of you? I miss you, Babe, and I can think of a few activities that don’t require an ankle.”
“Sounds nice but… ” It did sound nice—the perfect antidote for all that was irksome, including the budding office love affair happening in front of my face at work. Irksome because when love was new, it was known to be infectious, and proximity to Steven would be very dangerous to my recovery. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
I imagined him sitting at his glass desk in the corner office of his glass castle—hey, The Glass Castle—his dark, close-cropped curls with the start of gray catching the setting sun. A handsome, successful, married man in the prime of life, and I liked him—very much. In truth, I loved him. But he wasn’t mine; he had a family, and continuing on would just pile on bad karma. And since coming to the conclusion he would never leave his wife, despite all his protestations to the contrary, I’d decided that anything that might happen between us in the future would have to be on my schedule. Ugh, what am I thinking? Thinking something might still happen between us in the future was disturbing and self-destructive.
“I can’t,” I said again, my Better Me winning this round. “There’s an international corporate issue that’s come up, and I have to do due diligence.” This was not altogether untrue.
He gave it a couple more tries, but my resolve held.
So far, so good; I’d put him off. But I knew if I didn’t take further action, I might still cave to his will and my own longing. So I hung up and immediately decided to call a Muff for moral support. Which one, though? Well, including me, there are nine of us Muffs. Six have kids, three are divorced, two never married, a couple haven’t worked in years; one’s a vegan, one used to be into women, two still sneak cigarettes, one’s Buddhist, one’s Catholic, one’s Protestant, two are Jewish, two are Atheists, and all of us enjoy a good cocktail. We Muffs consider ourselves women of today who are smart and/or talented and/or attractive and/or lucky and/or of some means, even if those means are meager. But which member of Muffia should I call to help me deal with my weakening flesh in the face of adversity?
“Match.com, Nowlove or PlentyofFish? Which one should we sign up for?” I asked Vicki, the Muff I’d chosen for the online dating adventure.
A motor whirred into use in the kitchen on the other end of the line, the creation of a fresh anti-oxidant juice in progress. “Vicki?”
“Hold on, I’m checking the blogosphere.”
“What are you putting in that juice?” I hoped to be heard over the din. “Sounds like tree trunks.”
“Carrots, kale with some probiotic and wheatgrass thrown in. But I’m reading the opinion blogs while I’m doing it.” Another probiotic freak.
Vicki was the best Muff to share the slings and arrows of online dating with because: (A) She had experienced adversity and would be able to withstand the probable vicissitudes of searching for love on the Internet; (B) Of the single Muffs with whom I might share this experience, her marriage had been over long enough to give her a healthy perspective; and (C) She was game.
None of the other Muffs was the right choice for one reason or another. Madelyn didn’t want to, Rachel was off men, and Jelicka was still wounded after her recent divorce—no matter what she said. Plus, she was pushing Cougarlife.com like she owned it. While I may be the right age for cougar status, I’m totally the wrong temperament. And I would never give money to a company that ran a jingle with the lyric, “Cougar life dot com, so many women to try.” So many women to try? What were we—a pu-pu platter? Clearly it was a site set up for cubs, not cougars.
The motor continued. If Vicki was talking, I couldn’t hear her.
“Should I call back?” I yelled.
The juicemaster went off.
“According to this blogger,” she said, “I think we’re good to go with any of those three. I know women who’ve met nice guys on each of ‘em, which proves… ” I heard her slurp her juice concoction. “Mmm, tastey. Sorry. I guess, you know, theoretically, there are good men to be found anywhere.”
Theoretically was a little speculative, but I was determined to remain upbeat about the prospects. “So you’re saying, ‘just pick.’ ”
“Whoa… ” Vicki was obviously reading something on her screen but offering nothing more.
“Bad review?”
She took another slurp. “The little bot fishes, or whatever they’re called, know I’m looking at dating sites, and suddenly I’m getting pop-up ads for other sites. I just got one asking me to try Dateafarmer.com.”
“If the idea of dating a farmer wasn’t just plain odd, that would be really creepy.”
“Don’t worry. When we hang up, I’ll search for gluten-free restaurants, missile launch systems and adult diapers. That will keep the data miners busy wondering about my ulterior motive.”
“You sound like Jelicka,” I said, slightly concerned. “You know, dating shouldn’t be this hard. I hope we don’t turn into a bunch of whiny, crotchety old women who start every sentence with, ‘Back in the good ol’ days… ’ ”
“Here’s one,” Vicki plowed on. “Singlechristianteapartiers.com. I’ll take Dateafarmer over Singlechristianteapartiers, I’ll tell you that much. What do you think about farmers?”
“Farmers are great and totally necessary, but to date?” I just didn’t see it.
“Aren’t they the new venture capitalists?”
“I don’t think so, Vick. In L.A., the definition of a farmer is a guy growing hemp on reclaimed land in Compton.”
Sameer appeared at the edge of my cubiffice, looking slightly put out. “My parents are farmers in Tamil Nadu, and my grandparents before them. Farming is a noble profession where I am from.”
“It’s noble everywhere.” I covered the phone. “When we were in Japan and I saw Viggo on that tractor, I thought, where would we be without farmers?”
Sameer waggled his head, turned and walked away. I watched him, wondering how much he’d heard.
“What if you could meet an organic egg producer?” Vicki was saying. “Or somebody growing sustainable aquaculture? That would be sort of cool.”
“If I had to choose, I’d take the entrepreneur cultivating superior quality weed in Mendocino. Weed might just save America. That’s not my line, by the way. I read it on The Daily Beast.”
“The product is appealing, but Mendocino is geographically undesirable,” replied Vicki.
“Let me look.” I typed Dateafarmer into the search bar. I still couldn’t envision myself with a farmer, but maybe if I saw some pictures.
“See the hottie in the overalls with no shirt? He raises organic chickens.”
Mmmmm, I sure did see him—Calvin—handsome, ruddy face, windswept sun-bleached hair, adorable crow’s feet at the corners of his blue eyes. “Good looking,” I agreed. “But why do I suddenly feel like a character in The Grapes of Wrath?”
“One wouldn’t think you’d be such a snob, growing up in Fresno.”
“Guess you can take the farm out of the girl, huh? Besides, my dad was an accountant.”
“I could see myself with a salt-o’-the-earth type like Calvin,” she said. “A strong man with big hands able to help us survive the coming apocalypse.”
“If there’s an apocalypse, no one is going to survive,” I pointed out, “big hands or not—that’s why it’s called an apocalypse.”
“Don’t tell Kiki. She’s working on the Brownie points so as to be saved.”
I continued clicking around Dateafarmer, and the presentation was pretty slick—the definition of “farmer,” rather generous— kind of like callin
g Kim Kardashian an “artist.”
“I think they’re using the word farmer as a metaphor of some kind,” I suggested. “Beaver mining, for example. Or digging for orgasms.”
“Such a skeptic.” Vicki laughed, not taking the bait as Jelicka would have, which is another reason I’d chosen her to talk this through with in the first place. She was a far more serious sort—not one to encourage my cynicism, which only seems to be getting worse despite my commitment to becoming a better person.
Sure, my ankle hurt, and I was suffering from jet lag, but why was it so hard to be less cynical? The brief reprieve I experienced after reading The Glass Castle was now Gone Girl—which happened to be another Muff read, only slightly less enjoyable.
Clearly, working on eliminating my snarky attitude was getting the same amount of focused energy I would be devoting to those Lumosity exercises Jel told me about—which is to say, none. I was quickly transitioning to being a snark with no memory. Then I realized that maybe my memory was the cause of my snarkiness. If I had no memory, there’d be nothing to snark about! Suddenly, not having a memory seemed very appealing.
“We need to just choose a site and commit,” said Vicki. “Every person I know who’s dated online says that commitment is the most important part; which site you choose is beside the point. You have to get in there, read the profiles, have the conversations, go on the bad dates and kiss the frogs. But if you stick with it, you’ll ultimately be rewarded.”
“How long ’til ultimately?—I mean, best case—if you could hazard a guess.”
“Quinn.” She didn’t need to say another thing. The reprimand was built in.
“All right,” I acquiesced.
“This is going to be fun.”
Fun? Unlikely. The whole enterprise sounded like work. Being lazy and back in bed with my married boyfriend seemed like the much easier—albeit worse—choice.
“I better go,” I said abruptly, looking at the clock. “She-who-shall-not-be-questioned could walk out of her office with her new girlfriend at any second, and it’s almost time for me to call Moscow. Get this—they want Joseph Gordon Levitt to do a commercial for Kentucky Fried Chicken.”
“Will he do it?”
“No way. My job is to get them to consider other Joseph Gordon Levitts who sorta look like him.”
“Sounds like fraud.”
“You have no idea. It’s wrong on so many levels, but I don’t think the average Moscovite would know the difference. They still think of him as the little kid from ‘Third Rock from the Sun.’ ”
Before we hung up, we agreed to choose our site, sign up for a webinar about online dating, write our profiles, and talk again in a couple of days, once the profiles of our dream dates started pouring in. Though significant energy would likely be expended before I met someone I liked, I needed to distract myself with at least the idea of another man if I was going to resist Steven. And having Vicki doing it with me ensured I’d follow through. This time, I vowed to myself, just like the woman who goes on and off her diet, I would turn my life around.
CHAPTER 4
Food and alcoholic beverages are a vital part of any gathering of The Muffia Book Club. Talking about what book we were supposed to have read is just value added. The real reason we created the book club is to give ourselves a pretext for seeing each other and doing the aforementioned eating and drinking.
I needed to see my Muffs. It had been six weeks since the last book club gathering, and a few of the women I hadn’t talked to since. That’s far too long, especially when I need them for moral support so as not to fall off the Steven abstinence wagon, as I was in danger of doing. In my mind, our next book club meeting couldn’t get here soon enough.
Pre-book club meal planning is the job—but mostly joy—of the hostess who selects the book to be discussed at the next meeting. With book club coming up in a few days at Rachel’s, there were bound to be a flurry of emails going back and forth to get the details straight about who was bringing what. Sometimes it could take half an hour or more to figure out what was happening, what with all the double-entendres and tangents the Muffs went off on in their emails. It was easy to miss some piece of critical information, or worse, assume one had an understanding of what was happening, only to have everything change a few emails later. So that evening after work, I sat down with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc to find out what was what.
From: rachelbakerart@mac.com
To: The Muffs
Re: Next Meeting
Just a reminder ladies—Next Muff meet is Tuesday, 7:30, chez moi. Hike to the Hollywood sign beforehand if anyone’s interested? LMK We’ll have a white trash meal in honor of Jeannette and will make poulet frite (bear with me, I’m learning French). We need drink, bread, hors d’oeuvres, salad, and a veggie dish, so let me know, s’il vous plait. Quinn, are you back? BTW, every painting from “Nude Men without Faces” sold in under two hours. Isn’t that outrageous?! The next series could either be “More Nude Men Without Faces” or “Nude Men Missing...?” What do you think? Looking forward to seeing everyone, with faces on.
Rachel went through guys faster than seemed healthy, but is this the reason she reduced them to mere bodies—now possibly without body parts? Why did she take their faces away? This latest series of paintings had a few Muffs concerned.
From: kookykiki@hotmail.com
To: The Muffs
Re: Next Meeting
Will bring vegetarian dish, as I am still “no meat” in solidarity with Troy. Can’t wait to talk about Jeannette, who spent so many years going to bed after eating only weeds! ~ K.
PS—Happy to report Saul and I are working it out, yay! And you cannot believe what’s going on next door to me. Will tell all at roundy-round.
Troy is Kiki and Saul’s son who just turned fourteen and is a serious animal lover— to the point he almost got killed getting out of the car in freeway traffic last year to save a dog. I was happy to learn her marriage was on the mend, but more explanation was needed on that as well as what was happening with her neighbors.
From:Sapizz11@connect.net
To: The Muffs
Re: Next Meeting
I’ll bring a pie! Kiki, great news about you and Saul! I think I can be there for the hike, but I’m probably not going to finish the book (what a surprise!) even though it’s really good. The author makes my house problems seem ridiculous.
Sarah rarely finishes any book we read, but she can always be counted on to bring a delicious dessert, despite her crisis-to-crisis lifestyle. Her biggest problem, in my opinion, is that wandering husband of hers. What irony—considering I’m an adulterer myself. Anyway, lately Sarah and Nate Sr. have been having money problems, which seem to have morphed into house problems. I hoped this didn’t mean they were getting foreclosed upon. What was tragic about the situation was that if Sarah hadn’t quit her high-paying job with Williams-Sonoma, money wouldn’t be an issue.
From: MissjelickaG@aol.com
To: The Muffs
Re: Next Meeting
I want one of your faceless men, Rachel, so yes, paint more, but don’t take off anything else. BTW—hunky costume guy is finished. Am now officially single again and back on Cougarlife.com. Bringing white trash pigs in blankets (poubelle blanc porcine?) along with a few empty blankets for Kiki, ‘k? xJ
From: victoriamendoza@mac.com
To: The Muffs
Re: Next Meeting
Loved the book. El cerdito en una manta in Espanol. Will bring camera to capture more of the Muffs in action.
This capturing of our book club meetings—for what, posterity?—was a relatively new thing. Vicki started shooting our gatherings, capturing the dramatic and the truly dull—mundane jabber about skin conditions, kid and husband problems, and gripes about reduced volume for the same price at grocery stores—when she was still recovering from breast cancer. Without question, the Muffs agreed to let her shoot us because she’d been feeling low, and we thought it would help her heal. But no
w that the last few tests had come back clean, a few of us felt we needed to get her another film gig—developing a script or shooting something that had nothing to do with us. For everyone’s sake. It was getting uncomfortable. I was even hoping the online dating might draw her away.
From: LBSweet@aol.com
To: The Muffs
Re: Next Meeting
I’ll be there, speaking English, and will bring whatever’s needed. How ’bout chili fries in honor of white trash? Would love to hike, but I have a meeting for the non-profit so might need to buy, rather than make. Have exciting news to share re: the location for our gigantic fundraiser next month! ~L
Lauren is from the Midwest, and the kind of meal Rachel was envisioning was just her kind of feast. She didn’t work and would be hard pressed to take on a real job even if she needed to, which she most definitely did not after the big brewery sale. She has two young kids and is dedicated to being a hands-on mom. So what does a rich, philanthropically-minded woman do? Like I said, she forms a 501 C 3.
From: MSC@MSCMediate.com
To: The Muffs
Re: Next Meeting
I’ll bring some delicious Grenache I just discovered. Quinn, what was that phone call from Japan about? For those of you who don’t know, Q called me from Tokyo to tell me Udi was at the airport. Do I need to remind everyone about the state he was in when he was removed from my house? What were you on?
xo Madelyn
Maddie always brings wine to book club, never a prepared food item unless she’s bought it. I’m not one of those who gets irritated by this because the wine she brings is always delicious, and when we go to her house, she never asks us to bring a thing; it’s a feast. Of course, she lives in freakin’ Agoura, miles and miles from anybody else, so she feels like she has to bribe us. As for the phone call and Udi, well, ’nough said.