Mercury in Retrograde Page 2

  LIBRA:

  Mercury, the cosmic trickster, is about to play havoc on your life. Shun making important decisions during this time as some crucial piece of information, or component, has gone astray or awry.

  Fifteen blocks and about twenty worlds away, in a duplex garden apartment in a brownstone on West Twelfth Street, Lena “Lipstick” Lippencrass’s alarm clock went off at exactly 7:25 a.m.

  Lena yawned, waking from her Ambien-induced slumber with the cool cucumber slices that she had gingerly put on her eyes the night before still in place. She stretched and, slapping off the alarm, dropped the cucumber slices into the Hermés ashtray wedged in between the clock and the crystal block lamp on her nightstand, which also concealed Lipstick’s personal items: pens, hair ties, her prescription stash of Ambien, Xanax in a pillbox shaped like a Fabergé egg (“so Kate Moss”), Klonopin—for dire occasions—and the new diet pills Dr. Sachs on East Eighty-fourth had started prescribing to the social set (“They’re amazing!” said Lena’s mother, Lana Lippencrass. “I lost twenty pounds in two weeks—at that rate you can be practically Somalian by the Met Gala, darling!”).

  Lipstick fumbled around to the right side of the bed to what looked like the other nightstand’s twin but was really a cleverly designed mini fridge that held small bottles of Poland Spring water and more cucumber slices in a bowl of water—freshly cut by Gloria, the maid, who came every Tuesday and Thursday. Opening the fridge, Lipstick grabbed a bottle of water and downed it. Dehydration was a killer.

  It was pitch black in her room, thanks to the double-weight drapes that concealed the entire glass wall to the left of the bed, which led to her Parisian-style garden, with the exception of the faint glow from her laptop lying on the pillow next to her head. It was in that exact spot where her ex, Thad Newton III, had laid his disheveled blond, genetically blessed head comfortably for two years until Lipstick saw a photo of him—posted on the socialite gossip website, Socialstatus.com—drunkenly tongue-wrestling with her nemesis, Bitsy Farmdale. She’d dismissed him instantly after seeing that distressing Web post eight months ago, and the right side of the bed had been empty of human content ever since.

  While she had dated Thad for two years, Lipstick had known him for almost a decade. And it was because of him that she’d been given her unusual moniker by her dearest friend, Neal, whose father Dennis had been close friends with Lipstick’s father, Martin, since their Harvard days.

  Lipstick had been on summer break between her freshman and sophomore years at Princeton and had just gotten her driver’s license at the ripe old age of twenty. She’d been driving Neal out to the Hamptons in her mother’s BMW, where they’d planned to spend the weekend dining at Sant Ambroeus, playing tennis and going to cocktail parties. Lipstick was, in particular, excited about Nelly Hooper’s beach barbecue later that evening where she was hoping to see Thad Newton III, whom she’d spent the previous weekend flirting with.

  “He’s already called twice to make sure I’m coming!” Lipstick said gleefully, not paying particular attention to the road. “But I think Bitsy may have gotten her claws into him first.”

  “Now, who is he again?” Neal asked, buckling his seat belt as Lipstick veered onto the shoulder of the Long Island Expressway for a moment before correcting the wheel. “Didn’t he come from Rhode Island?”

  “He’s perfect,” Lipstick said, taking Exit 70 to get to Montauk Highway. “He’s a banker at J.P. Morgan, lives on the Upper East Side—west of Park Avenue—went to Dartmouth, his family owns the biggest house in Newport and a cottage in Provence, and he’s texting me! Can you believe it?”

  “He almost sounds like your father. I’m sure your mother is excited,” Neal said, smirking.

  “Excited? Why do you think she let me drive her car out? I told her all about him and said the only way we’d make it to Nelly’s in time was to drive—otherwise we’d be on the Jitney with the rest of the serfs.” Lipstick licked her lips. They were dry. “Neal honey, will you pass me my lipstick? I need to refresh.”

  Neal reached back behind the driver’s seat and grabbed Lipstick’s Gucci tote. Rummaging through it he found her Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick and quipped, “Slumming it with Revlon, huh? What happened to the MAC Viva Glam I gave you?”

  Ignoring him, Lipstick grabbed the makeup and, disregarding traffic, artfully reapplied the color to her lips while looking in the rearview mirror. All would have been fine had that damn curve in Route 27—which Lipstick swore she knew by heart—not appeared out of nowhere. As she was putting on her final touches to her bottom lip, the BMW ran off the road into the guardrail, and Lipstick’s lipstick smeared across her face, a graphic war wound. It was truly a Lipstick Carcrash—a name Neal had lovingly called her ever since, but which Lipstick had forbade him to tell anyone else the provenance of.

  Neal, laughing hysterically, had pulled some facial cleansing cloths from her purse and cleaned Lipstick up enough that she looked almost normal. Meanwhile, the damage to the car was fairly superficial and Lipstick still made it to Nelly’s just in time to see Thad whisper sweet nothings in Bitsy’s ear.

  Lipstick hadn’t seen Thad for several years after that incident until she ran into him at the American Museum of Natural History’s winter gala. By then Bitsy was out of the picture and Lipstick was back in for the next two years.

  “I should have paid more attention,” Lipstick later grumbled to Neal. “The universe was trying to warn me off him the first time around.”

  Lipstick opened her laptop, and the screen immediately went from the hazy blue of sleep mode to Socialstatus.com, which she’d been reading prior to falling asleep. The main page was a scroll of photos and captions—the one she’d been obsessed with the night before was a picture of Bitsy with Thad at the Newton family’s New Year’s Eve gala in Rhode Island. Lipstick clicked on the photo (caption: “Cutest Power Couple Ever???”) to read the comments, from the supportive (“Bitsy is the new Aerin Lauder. All class and beauty”) to the snide (“If she wants a ring so badly, she should have taken note of Mrs. Newton’s dress code for the evening: Rhode Island preppy, not New York formal”) to the outright nasty (“Someone should tell Bitsy Thad likes bank accounts, not women. Rhode Island is scruffy old money—but it hasn’t appreciated well. He’s only with her because LL dumped him. And LL’s daddy is worth more—definitely the BBD: Bigger Better Deal between those two”).

  Lipstick always felt dirty after reading the website, which was run by two mean queens in San Francisco, but over the years it had come to rule young New York society. Everybody liked to see pictures of themselves, and unlike the society magazines, Avenue, Quest, or Town & Country, viewers could comment on the photos and spill gossip, however nasty or untrue it was. And best of all—the young up-and-coming socialites could rank themselves, creating a tangible popularity game, keeping them forever—no matter how old—in high school.

  Lipstick took a deep breath and clicked refresh on the website to see that week’s results: Bitsy Farmdale was first. Lipstick was sixth.

  Disappointed, Lipstick shut the laptop, sighed, and took one last cuddle underneath her thousand-count Frette sheets before hopping out of the king-sized bed she’d specially ordered from the Four Seasons Hotel. She ambled across the white Persian carpet covering the ebonized fishbone floors and, opening the drapes, momentarily blinded herself with the light. She stumbled backward into one of the two nailhead chairs that framed the fireplace, stubbing her toe.

  Beyond the nailhead chairs was the creamy limestone bathroom, complete with a “rain room” shower with two oversized ceiling nozzles, a limestone bench, and steam capability. There was also a large egg-shaped limestone tub and a double sink along a mirrored wall.

  Not bad, Lipstick, in red Juicy sweatpants and a tank top, thought, eyeing her image in the mirror. Despite eating shellfish last night, her eyes weren’t as puffy as she’d thought they’d be. Best of all, her ass didn’t seem to have been affected by the dinner with her Y magazine cowo
rkers during which she had succumbed to all five courses at Daniel and endured their uncomfortable stares and whispers for the entire meal. “You’re really going to chub out this time,” Muffie Dinklage, the senior fashion editor, whispered to Lipstick over her soufflé.

  But that hadn’t happened. Yet. She wasn’t exactly thin, per se, but Lipstick was an Amazonian blue blood. She wasn’t fat, just big boned, and being five feet, ten inches—over six feet in heels—didn’t help. But she did try to stay in shape by dabbling with Pilates or Cardio Funk—whatever was in that particular month—and made it to Sally Brindle’s yoga workshop on Broome Street in Soho at least once a week. Lipstick loved Sally, who was not just a yoga teacher, but had, over the years, become a friend and she showed Lipstick how to help maintain her body without starving herself. Had Lipstick devoted her life to the method study of anorexia like some of her Spence schoolmates, she could have modeled. Lipstick was classically beautiful with big brown eyes and full lips. Her prominent nose fit her face and hadn’t been chopped down by Dr. Dan Baker, as had the noses of most of the socialites she knew. Her sandy brown hair fell below her shoulder blades in a long, layered Gisele Bundchen way that was artfully streaked blond by Rita Starnella of the Warren Tricomi Salon every month.

  Not that her father, Martin Lippencrass, or her mother, Lana, who was the current president of the Daughters of the American Revolution, would have let her model. “Just look at those tacky Hearsts.” Lana had gasped upon picking up Harper’s Bazaar one day and seeing Lydia Hearst—the strawberryblond publicity-seeking granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst—on the cover. “Have they no shame? Her grandfather is rolling in his grave right now. She’s not even doing it for charity!” Besides, Lipstick wouldn’t have been able to do it anyway. An innate insecurity and inability to sit still would have stopped any modeling career in its tracks. In all of the Lippencrass family photos, Lipstick’s shoulders were slightly hunched to cover up her height, and she was always biting her lip or the inside of her cheek when she should have been smiling.

  Lipstick glanced at her watch. She needed to get going. Today was meeting day.

  After her shower Lipstick went into the walk-in closet, a former third bedroom that now housed her clothing collection. It was packed with the thousands of dresses, skirts, jeans, pants, blouses, purses, and shoes Lipstick had lovingly compiled over the years. Behind the door hung a Polaroid camera and a quilted bulletin board covered with photos of Lipstick in various outfits. Every Thursday at noon sharp, Jack Marshall, the imposing owner/editor/publisher of Y magazine, held an editorial meeting—insisting his staff forgo lunch, which he felt helped them lose extra weight (and, according to Jack, everyone could stand to get rid of a few pounds)—and God help you if you were dressed in something twice, or worse, something he despised. Last week, the Polaroid showed she’d worn a black Comme des Garcons dress with Manolo heels and a red Versace purse to the meeting. In the margin of the Polaroid was a note saying, “J hates red purse. Ditch.” The offending bag was now in the back of the closet with last season’s Prada.

  After racing through several clothing racks and shoe shelves, Lipstick finally chose a pair of black wool Gucci pants, a brown Gucci sweater, a cream Calvin Klein blouse, a pair of black patent leather Dolce & Gabbana heels, and a Marc Jacobs patent leather satchel.

  She snapped a quick Polaroid of her outfit in the bathroom mirror, ran out of the apartment, and caught a cab to the offices of Y magazine.

  SCORPIO:

  Mercury wreaks havoc with your senses…and sinuses. All business should be put on hold as nothing is bound to get done anyway.

  Round about that time, at approximately 8:30 a.m., Penelope popped out of the subway onto the Bronx streets like a large, layered, pink jack-in-the-box. Sweating from the heat of the subway and the effort of dragging her bag up three flights of stairs, the second she hit the fresh, subzero air above ground, she felt a chill as her perspiration began to freeze. For a quick, hot second, she wished she had taken her father’s advice to become a certified public accountant.

  Her morning soundtrack was still playing in her head, tunes now courtesy of Foreigner. “You’re as cold as ice, you’re willing to sacrifice our loooove…”

  By the time she reached the building—a particularly rundown high-rise in a sea of structures that had all seen better days—the weather improbably managed to get worse (“You want paradise, but someday you’ll pay the price, I knoooow…”). And no one seemed to be home in apartment 14B, much to her dismay.

  This is not a good sign. But I’ll be in courts soon. In a nice, dry courtroom, miles away from Martman and paragraphs away from the front page…I’ll wait out that cat woman if it takes me all day. I’ll even interview the dead cat if I have to…

  The wind whipped up the clouds and, as Penelope shivered under the minuscule concrete canopy of the high-rise waiting for the dead cat lady to emerge from her apartment or even answer her buzzer, sleet continued to blow sideways, straight into her face.

  Across the street, in the cozy confines of his once silvery blue but now fully rusted 1989 Honda Civic, was Bert Salvino, the staff photographer who’d been sent to meet her and get pictures of the former cat owner or any neighbors who would talk about how wonderful the dead cat was or how horrible the now ex-boyfriend was. Bert, a forty-two-year-old with a greasily sparse comb-over who smelled like he hadn’t bathed since 1996, was sitting in his aesthetically crappy but warm and dry hatchback. The car only had one seat—the driver’s seat. Bert hated everyone—especially “dickhead reporters”—so much that he’d ripped out all of the other seats so that he, legally, wouldn’t be able to chauffeur anyone else, anywhere, ever.

  Bert was always sent as a last resort. His refusal to get out of his car meant that he almost always missed the shot—and when he did get it, it was inevitably blurry. He should have been fired, but he was on disability. After 9/11, which Bert and every other photographer and reporter at the paper had been sent to cover, Bert had claimed that he’d tripped over a part of the fallen towers, busting his knee. Six years later he was still complaining and filing for disability every few months, despite perfect X-rays and several newsroom eyewitness accounts that he had never actually gotten closer to Ground Zero than Canal Street, about fifteen blocks north of where the twin towers had once stood.

  When she saw Bert’s car parked in front of the high-rise, Penelope called Martman to question the paper’s choice of photographer for the day, enraging him even further. “Listen, I can’t stand the guy either, but you try and fire a disabled guy—I’d have a lawsuit on my ass in a second,” Martman screamed. “And besides, he’s all we got—there was a triple homicide in Midtown, so stop bitching and get me that fucking cat lady!”

  Two hours and three inches of snow later, there was still no sign of life from the building and no one in 14B was answering the buzzer, which Penelope had been dutifully pressing with one frozen finger every five minutes, conserving body heat and warmth by only moving her arm from the elbow, like a garden gnome with one working finger.

  At 10:35 a.m., just as a thin layer of ice was forming on the outside of Penelope’s coat and she was morphing from small Michelin man to large strawberry Sno-Cone, Martman called again.

  Penelope couldn’t feel her frostbitten fingers but somehow fished her phone out of her coat pocket and pushed talk.

  “Mercury!” said Martman. “Cat lady is in Queens! Get there now!”

  “B-b-but,” Penelope protested, “I h-h-have b-b-been here f-f-for two hours already—”

  “Mercury, stop complaining! It was a cock-up on our end. Just get me the cat lady! Now!” And after rattling off the new address in rapid-fire, Martman hung up on her.

  A near-frozen Penelope waddled over to Bert’s Honda and knocked on the windshield.

  Bert, reclining in the Civic in a summery outfit of T-shirt and jeans, topped only by a thin, zip-up fleece jacket, leaned over and grudgingly rolled the street-side window down an inch. He w
as on the phone and ignored her. Penelope was mesmerized by the heat emanating from the inch of open window. It was smelly heat, but it was still heat. She stuck her fingers on the rim of the pane to try and get any part of her body warm as she leaned in to shout through the open slot.

  “B-b-bert,” Penelope stammered, “w-w-e have t-t-to go to Queens—”

  “Yeah, I know,” Bert said as he hung up his phone, “just got the call. See you there.” And with that, he rolled up the window, put the Honda in drive, and peeled off.

  “I hope you b-b-break down on the T-t-triboro Bridge!” Penelope screamed after the disappearing car, before picking up her bag and trudging back to the subway.

  Penelope’s cough had worsened, and she began to wonder if she might have pneumonia. I should have just taken a sick day, Penelope thought. I’m going to end up on a stretcher in Saint Vincent’s. She popped her last two Advil in the train station, got on the A train going downtown, and at Forty-second Street switched to the 7, the local to Queens.

  SAGITTARIUS:

  As Mercury swings around, get ready to deal with things you have put off in the past. It will not be pleasant, but necessary.

  As Penelope made her way to Queens, Dana Gluck, who, up until that very moment, was well on her way to making her monthly quota in billable hours as a junior partner at Struck, Struck & Kornberg, was forced to unbutton the skirt of her favorite Armani suit, thanks to the twenty pounds she’d put on virtually overnight. To make matters worse, an hour into her fifteen-hour workday, Merck & Co., Inc., her biggest client—worth more than ten million dollars in annual revenues to her firm—informed her that it had been poached by the wily rival law firm, Krath & McGowan. And then, just as Dana was contemplating what diet plan she would utilize for lunch, the phone rang.