Four Blondes

HELP.

I used to write that on all my books when I was a kid. I used to wrap my books in brown paper bags and then write my name on the front in different colored Magic Markers. I used to dot my Is with circles.

D.W. knows too much.

Of course, he calls at the most inconvenient time. Right in the middle of The Karen Carpenter Story, which I’m watching for something like the fifty-seventh time. The phone rings just at the part when Karen finally moves into her own apartment and her mother finds the box of laxatives. D.W. has on that sugary voice I hate sooooo much. “Hello, my darling,” he says. “What are you doing?”

“Shhhhh,” I say. “Karen is just about to lie to her mother and tell her that she won’t take laxatives anymore, and her mother is actually going to believe her. Can you believe how dumb that

woman is?”

“And then . . .?”

“And then Karen is going to get down to seventy-eight pounds and have a heart attack after she eats Thanksgiving dinner. In other words, she is basically killed by turkey meat.”

“How fabulously . . . charming,” D.W. says.

“I’m really in the middle of something, so what do you want, D.W,” I say, which I know is horribly rude, but if I am rude, maybe he’ll get the message and go away for another three months.

“What are you doing later?”

“Oh, later?” I say carelessly. “I think I’ll snort a few lines of cocaine and take a few Xanaxes and make crank phone calls to my husband’s office. And then I’ll walk the dog for the tenth time and scream at a couple of photographers. What do you think I’m doing?”

“You know, you’re really a funny, charming girl. That’s what no one realizes about you, and it’s a shame. If only people could see the real you . . .”

There is no real me anymore, but who cares?

“Do you think my husband is having an affair?” I ask.

“Oh, come on, my dear. Why would he have an affair when he’s married to one of the most beautiful women in the world?” Pause. “Do you think he’s having an affair?”

“Not right now,” I say. “But I’m just checking to make sure I’m not crazy.”

“You see?” D.W. says gleefully. “This is what happens when you lose touch with your old friends.”

“We haven’t lost touch—”

“And that’s why I absolutely insist on seeing you for dinner tonight.”

“Don’t you have some fabulous gala to attend?”

“Only a small soiree in a store. For a very worthy cause. But I’m free after eight.”

“I have to see,” I say. I put the phone down and walk slowly through the living room, up the stairs to the master bath. I take off all my clothes and step on the scale: Weight, 117.5 pounds. Percentage fat, 13. GOOD. I’ve lost a quarter of a pound from the morning. I put my clothes back on and go downstairs. I pick up the phone.

“D.W.?”

“Thank God. I thought you’d died.”

“I’m saving that for next week. I’ll meet you at eight-thirty. At the R. But only you. And DON’T TELL ANYBODY.”

I wear Dolce & Gabbana workout pants and a Ralph Lauren Polo sweatshirt, no bra, and when I walk into the restaurant, I remember that I haven’t brushed my hair for three days.

D.W. is sitting at the wrong table.

“Oooooh. You look so . . . American. So . . . gorgeous. I always said you were the quintessential American girl. The American girl begins and ends with you,” he says.

“You’re at the wrong table, D.W. I never sit here.”