Making Up For Lost Time…

The new job is cramping my style. There is little time for partying, lunching with girlfriends and studying what other girls are wearing. Although it requires dressing up as much as I like for every occasion; there are just so many of them. And so many days in a week. The hours leave little time for snark, sipping and gossip. What’s a girl to do? Make up for lost time with two girl parties on a single Saturday and still be home for Saturday Night Live. I lie. I fall asleep before it starts.

First up is late breakfast with the sweetest collection of dolls. Having to attend an early morning event for work, I am late. No matter, it gives me the opportunity to sweep in all breathless. A round of eggs benedict for four gets girls positively chatty. We discuss Middle Chicken and The Sweetest Blond’s daughter tearing up Ohio State. And then there are the two Jens–neither to be messed with–each give updates on Neuroscience Daughter (yes, really), Language Daughter and Teaching Daughter. But what we are happiest about is not raising a bunch of bitches. Our girls can kick ass every which way from Sunday but never would they hound dog somebody and kick them to the curb just for fun. They’re just too damn busy. We beat our chests with pride. Well, they do. I just make myself cough.

Not a chick in the bunch has not faced hardship–and by hardship I mean down in the dirt, turn your life upside down shit that leaves you railing at the Big Guy. Still there isn’t a sour disposition at the table. Are we all in the cult called Zoloft or what? I look up Zoloft to make sure I’m referring to the right med. I don’t want to reference the outdoor bathtub erection sustaining sort when what I mean is the keep me alive without killing myself or someone else medication. What I find is, “treats depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, social anxiety disorder and panic disorder.” Find me a human being that does not fit in one of those categories. Okay then.

Instead of drugs, we turn to each other. Blessings abound. One moment you are one step away from drinking yourself into a stupor and along comes a girlfriend and eggs benedict and the world is a sunny place indeed.

From there, I venture to a luncheon. A widow girlfriend is the hostess. I’ve spied her carefully over the past year and a half. I did not know her husband and I always felt badly for her loss. I never understood when she said for a brief time she removed the liquor from her home just to be sure. I get it now sister. Anyway, she’s hosting her best girls for Saturday lunch and mimosas with orange juice fresh from the trees in her yard. I know, I know. She is a Martha and those of us that call her friend reap the benefits.

We settle in, mimosas in hand, for conversation concerning girlfriend’s new boyfriend. Of course, we are curious about the trajectory of this relationship. We tease her but couldn’t be happier at her finding happiness after such a long time alone. Although one girl does crack that the poor chap probably had to pull the cobwebs out in order to gain access. Another doll suggests a Swiffer and we decide we might have found a way to make millions.

The group includes the friend who set up Middle Chicken with a certain female Supreme Court Justice and we chat about that experience. She notes that Middle Chicken sent a perfectly sweet thank you and I say a silent prayer to all my Catholic saints. All the girls at the table, excepting three, are pals of the Justice so we three hang on every word. Just when we think were pretty smokin’ due to the hookup for my Chicken, I realize that one of the women, whose last name I somehow didn’t catch until now, is actually Arizona Political Royalty. Of course, I excuse myself to shoot a text to Middle Chicken whose lifelong aim is a life in Republican politics. Despite my urging not to bring our family laundry, ghastly as it is, to the forefront she ventures on, making Law Review and other shit that’s going to cement her place and my demise once they find her mother’s blog, propensity for the f bomb and talk of mad skills.

Always the professional, Middle Chicken texts back, “Get me a job.”

Turns out Political Royalty is more fun than one would imagine. Long Time Bestie and the Beauty Jewels are to my right. We are equally smitten although Long Time Bestie has traveled this rodeo before being married into a la-de-da family in the Arizona hood. I joke that if she forewarned me perhaps I may have dressed nicer. Who am I kidding? Of course I am appropriate. Pfft. Thank the Lord, I am wearing my pearls. It is Saturday afternoon after all and there is a mimosa in my hand. We move from mimosa haze to the luncheon table. Long Time Bestie knows of my abhorrence to seafood and tells me later she tried to figure a way to save me and benefit her by grabbing the shrimp from my plate as she was next to me, but she, too, was a bit intimidated by the company. She won’t admit it but I will. There’s something about picking from your neighbor’s plate when Political Royalty is in full view. Cotillion manners don’t fail me now.

And then we find out. This chick is just like us. She is with her girls. I’m on the periphery to be sure, but the other gals at the table, long time Phoenix movers and shakers, are her besties. They joke and gossip and drink making me feel like there may be hope for the rest of us. She regales us with stories of her famous family and the photos hanging on her walls and we make her promise that the next lunch is at her house just so we can walk the hall and see the photos. Especially the one of a certain newly dead Prime Minister. We’ve had enough mimosas that name dropping is beneath none of us.

It’s how I plan to be when my book is published and I am as famous as JK or that Stockett woman who wrote The Help. And I trump them both ‘cuz I’ve got a dead husband. Nobody loves a rise from the ashes (get it?) story better than the American public. When people have lunch with me, just like Political Royalty who I’d like to think of as a new pal but probably doesn’t remember my name, they will walk away and say, “Omg, she’s just like me!” And the truth is, yes, dear, except for the pearls, I am just like you. And you. And you. And you. We are all on the same journey. Some just have more interesting lunches.

Tomorrow I go back to work. For ten hours. I’ll write some ad copy and wonder what it must be like to have lunch with the girls on a Monday. Like my besties, Political Royalty and the Justice. Pfft.