Sarah Mlynowski - Monkey Business

My entertainment is trying to guess why these people are here. Two nerd boys in navy suits and freshly shaved faces keep asking questions about how to get accepted. Losers.

Then there’s the man who’s already been accepted. He’s about forty and he’s here with his wife. I know he’s been accepted, because she keeps saying it, rubbing it in to everyone else on the tour. “If we decide to go here instead of Harvard…” Blah, blah, blah.

Then there’s the guy who’s on the waiting list and has an interview today. He keeps checking his watch, as though he’s afraid he might be late.

There’s a woman here who’s on the wait list, too. She’s with a nerdy-looking boyfriend who has horrendous skin. Hmm. That could have been Russ and Sharon.

I’m here to give Layla moral support. Instead of coming up with a fake persona, I’ve elected to keep my mouth shut.

I wonder if Sharon came to check out the campus with Russ, when he came for a tour. I can’t believe I’m finally going to meet her. At last, I’ll be able to check out the competition. Will she be gorgeous? Skinny? Brilliant? How will she compare to me when no longer in separate countries, but on the same floor? We’ll be sharing the same bathroom. I will so not be able to brush my teeth next to her.

“Honey, what do you think of the library? Not as nice as the Harvard library,” the annoying wife says.

We end up in the cafeteria, where Layla wishes the group goodbye and good luck, then bolts toward me. “What did you think?”

Today is her first tour, a practice tour for when Brad arrives. When she came back to her room with the news that he hadn’t signed up for a tour, I decided to call him to encourage him.

He answered on the first ring. “Hello, may I please speak to Bradley Green?”

“Speaking.”

“Hello Bradley, this is Grenadine from LWBS student services.”

Layla looked like she was going to pass out. “Grenadine?” she mouthed. “You’re a drink syrup?”

I hushed her away.

“Hi, Grenadine,” he said. “What can I do for you?” He had a sexy voice. If it wasn’t for Russ…and Layla, of course.

“I want to personally congratulate you on your LWBS acceptance,” I said. “We’re thrilled to have you as a prospective student. We’d like to schedule a tour of the school for you at your earliest convenience.”

“Hmm. I wouldn’t mind seeing the school. Do the tours run daily?”

“I…I believe the tours run daily,” I repeated loudly, looking at Layla expectantly. She nodded. Then I mouthed, “What time?”

She held up three fingers.

“Every day at three,” I added.

“Three is convenient,” he said. “I have a meeting in Greenwich on Wednesday morning. I could be at the LWBS campus by three for a tour.”

Oh. My. God. I gave Layla a thumbs-up. “Fantastic. So I’ll pencil you in. Directions are on the Web site. Meet the group in the Katz building at two-fifty. Your leader will be the gorgeous blonde with the clipboard.”

Layla covered her face with her hands and I hung up the phone.

Her hands started waving around the room. “How am I possibly going to be prepared to be an LWBS tour guide by Wednesday? I only know a fraction of the school’s history, not nearly enough of the architecture-”

“Stop freaking out. We have to start planning the final P. Packaging.”

Then she started jumping up and down on her bed, screaming that she was about to meet her husband. She froze in mid-leap, then sprinted off to the library for books on the history and architecture of LWBS, and then back to Dorothy to sign up for Wednesday’s tour. Dorothy agreed, but only after Layla agreed to do the early-bird weekend tour as well (nobody likes to volunteer on the weekend). But that was fine, as it would give her a chance to practice, and that’s how I came to be in the cafeteria so early on a Sunday morning, congratulating her on a job well done.

I pat her arm. “You were the best guide ever. Award winning. If I were Brad, I would certainly want to sleep with you.”

She shushes me. “Fall in love with me you mean.”

“Sleep with you, love you, what’s the difference?”

“You are kidding, right?”

Kind of.

Wednesday, February 11, 6:12 a.m.

R ing.

I jump into the upright position. Who the hell is that? It’s six in the morning. Oy.

“Jamie?” The voice sounds hoarse, scratchy.

It takes me a few seconds to place it. “Mom?”

“Honey. Bubbe…”

I’m now wide-awake. “Bubbe, what?”

“She had a stroke. A few hours ago.”

My head pounds. Shit. “Is she…?”

“No, she’s in the hospital. Miami General. In the ICU.”

“I’m getting on the next flight.”

“What about school?”

“Don’t worry about school. Are you okay?”

She starts to cry. “No.”

“Where’s Dad?”

“He’s talking to one of the nurses.”

“Is she cute?” It’s my feeble attempt at a joke. What’s wrong with me? Why do I feel compelled to make people laugh, even now?

“What, dear?” She didn’t hear, thank God.

I pull out my suitcase and start packing. “Okay, Mom, don’t worry. Everything will be fine.” I know I’m lying as I say it, but I say it anyway.

2:00 p.m.

“Layla, how do you not poke yourself in the eye?” Kimmy asks me. She’s sitting cross-legged on my bed, watching me apply my makeup. My vanity mirror is set up on my dresser, and I’ve rolled my computer chair so that I’m facing it. “And how do you not blink? My eyes have a natural tendency to protect themselves when a pointy object heads in their direction.”

I finish outlining half of my lower eye rim with charcoal-colored liner and move on to my Lash-a-Lot mascara. “Practice makes perfect.”

Done. I roll my chair back to the desk and pivot. “How do I look?”

“The red shirt is a million times better,” she says. I’d been wearing a collared white shirt under my black pantsuit, but Kimmy persuaded me to change. “Very pretty meets intellectual,” she says approvingly. “Miranda meets Charlotte.”

“Hey, you watched my Sex and the City DVDs.”

“Yup,” she says. “I’m halfway through season one. Not bad. A little girly, but not bad. I even got Russ to watch with me.”

“Did he get any tips?” I’ve certainly gotten many tips. Like those fake nipples Samantha used. I wore them out once and they were hot.

“Not really,” she says.

The sad tone of her voice makes me worry about her. “Are you okay? Playing the mistress getting to you?”

She waves her hand. “I’m fine.”

She doesn’t seem fine. More to the point, what she doesn’t seem is satisfied. “You know, you’ve never told me how Russ is in bed.”

“How does one measure if a guy is good in bed?”

Uh-oh. “I measure it by how often he makes me orgasm. How many times a night does Russ make you orgasm?”

She examines her split ends. “Not often.”

So what is it exactly she sees in this cheating bastard? “How often?”

“Never.”

I must not have heard that correctly. “Did you say seven?”

“No, never.”

“Kimmy, my dear, that’s awful. He won’t commit or satisfy? Can you please dump him and date Jamie?”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m not attracted to Jamie.”

“Fine. Then you have to show Russ what you like. You know, what gets you off.”

Her face turns a deep shade of red. “Um…what if nothing does?”

What? “Nothing? What does that mean?”

She plays with her hair again. “It means I’ve never had an orgasm.”