The Baby Chronicles. Judy Baer

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СКАЧАТЬ drifted open silently to reveal a tall, gray-haired butler looking down his nose at us as we huddled together like Tin Man, Dorothy, Lion and Scarecrow on their first visit to the Wizard of Oz.

      “I didn’t know Mitzi had a butler!” Kim hissed into my ear.

      “She doesn’t. She hired him for the occasion.”

      “Rent-a-Jeeves? Really? Cool!”

      Chase and Kurt, blissfully unaware of anything other than the fact that there was bound to be great food inside, hurried us past the intimidating butler and into the house. Mitzi drifted across the foyer in a vision of teal chiffon that made her skin look like porcelain and her eyes like jewels.

      Sometimes it’s difficult to remember this elegant side of Mitzi when she’s setting up a security camera in the break room to see who has been stealing her imported designer water out of the refrigerator or calling every office supply store in town to find a pen fat enough so that her fake nails don’t click together when she writes.

      “You came!” For a moment, Mitzi looked truly delighted. Then she burst that bubble. “I thought you’d never get here. They’re replaying a face-lift and tummy tuck in the living room and a gall bladder horror story in the den. Worse yet, Arch and his friends are debating bunion treatments in the living room.” She pushed at Chase and Kurt. “Go ask them about the Super Bowl or something. Find out if they think the Yankees or the Red Sox will win.”

      I patted Chase’s arm. “Go on, dear, ask that. I’m sure the answers will be interesting.”

      He rolled his eyes as he and Kurt walked off, first to the buffet table and then to the big-screen television in the entertainment room, where, no doubt, Mitzi thought someone from the National Hockey League was facing off with the Gophers basketball team. Such is sports in Mitzi’s world.

      “Nice party.”

      Mitzi gazed around absently. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

      Kim took her by the arm. “Now, if you’ll just show me where the chocolate is, nobody will get hurt.”

      “You can’t say I’ve never done anything for you,” Mitzi said obliquely, and pointed toward the dining room.

      There, Kim and I found the sort of treasure we might have expected at the end of the rainbow. A chocolate fountain, running with the thickest, sweetest chocolate this side of Hershey, Pennsylvania. Around it were piles of fresh fruits, tiny cakes, pretzels, handmade marshmallows, cookies and anything else that could be dipped in chocolate.

      Kim rushed right in to spear a bit of pound cake and thrust it into the dark, sweet waves.

      “Just pick me up when the party’s over,” she instructed. “I’ll be right here. I don’t plan to move for hours.”

      “I still don’t understand what you people see in that stuff.” Mitzi spoke as if chocoholics everywhere were a species to be pitied. “Oh, by the way, there’s Black Forest Cake, German Chocolate cake and a double Dutch fudge cake on the buffet table.”

      Kim’s eyes glazed over with bliss.

      “What’s this about, Mitzi?” I hissed. “Chocolate everywhere?”

      “What else could I do? I don’t want to be tempted to eat the leftovers.”

      By midparty, Harry and Betty and their spouses had also arrived, making us a little island of software geeks in a world of medicine. We were in Mitzi’s vast dining room, packing food into our mouths like chipmunks and debating the merits of key lime pie over chocolate pecan turtle cheesecake, when Mitzi’s husband, Arch, strolled in.

      Now, Arch, although the kind of man you know is just itching to wash his hands every fifteen minutes, the kind who alphabetizes his socks—Angora, Black, Cashmere, etc.—is a really nice guy. He’d have to be—or else stone deaf—to put up with Mitzi. In fact, he adores her and finds her as entertaining as late-night television. What’s more, he has cultivated a blind spot for her foibles and eccentricities, much as we at Innova have had to do. Mitzi is just, well, Mitzi. She employs stealth technology, much like the cloaking device used to hide starships on Star Trek reruns, to charm people. Then she blows them out of the sky.

      “Sorry I didn’t get to you sooner. When those guys start talking ingrown toenails, it can go on for hours.” He grinned his toothpasty smile. “Chase, there’s a group in the other room talking treatments for football injuries. And one of the docs used to be a physician for World Wrestling Entertainment. Thought you and Kurt might be interested.”

      For a moment, I’d actually forgotten that my husband, too, was a doctor. I am so grateful he doesn’t bring his work home with him. An appendectomy retrospective over dinner is not my idea of a relaxing meal. Of course, Kurt, a WWE fan, led the way out of the room. Then Arch turned to Betty and Harry. “Maybe you’d like to see the new twenty-seven-inch computer screen I purchased for my office.” Arch looked—dare I say it?—archly at Betty. “It’s great for shopping on eBay.”

      Before they left the room, he turned to Kim and me. “By the way, Mitzi told me to tell you to meet her by the front stairs. She wants to show you something.”

      As we made our way past the scowling Jeeves, the string quartet and the cluster of women who were going to need chiropractic treatments after they took the multicarat diamond-crusted jewelry off their necks, Kim whispered. “How did Mitzi get a gem like him?”

      “She’s pretty and funny and he doesn’t have to work in the same office with her?”

      “Well, there is that…”

      Mitzi swooped down upon us, grabbed my arm and towed me up the curved staircase without explanation. Her flight of stairs hinted not only at antebellum Southern plantations, but also, oddly, at Andy Warhol. The wall along the sweeping white steps is decorated with somebody’s ancestors, strangers Mitzi picked up in an antique store, and large bright acrylic paintings of Mitzi and Arch. I don’t know how, but the look actually works, even though I keep expecting to see Marilyn Monroe or a large Campbell’s soup can in the mix.

      The hallways are carpeted a soft yellow, perfect with the white-painted woodwork and florals and landscapes in many shades of green. In each piece is a hint of the same maize color as the walls, like the soft yellow light of the sun. Discreetly placed speakers enveloped us with rain forest music.

      “This is beautiful, Mitzi.” Kim stared up at the architectural details on the ceiling. “Did you decorate it yourself?”

      “With help. That’s why I wanted you to come upstairs. I need some decorating advice.”

      As Mitzi tripped on ahead, Kim and I stared at each other. Mitzi asking us for advice? Had the world tilted on its axis when we weren’t looking? Were we being thrown into an alternate universe where everything was upside down and backward?

      Mitzi is the giver of advice, not the taker—advice about clothing, diets, behavior, grooming, nail art, body polishing and any other subject matter she deems worthwhile. No matter how many times we’d tried to stop her, Mitzi is the gift that keeps on giving.

      She halted in front of a door so quickly that Kim and I nearly fell on top of her.

      “This is it.” Drawing a breath as if to steel herself, she opened it and stepped inside.

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