Dream Life Read online

  My stomach emptied out a little—lying to Kiki is just not in the cards. I knew Becca well enough to understand that when she started acting cagey about something, there was probably more to the story than she was letting on. And if she was going to be needing my help, I had to keep my grandmother up to speed. I’d barely had my cameo for four months, and Kiki was the closest thing to a user’s manual I had.

  Soon as Becca had headed into the station, I dug in my pocket for change and made a beeline for the Buddhist chapel across the street (of course, one of the three remaining pay phones in New York would be directly outside a silent meditation center).

  “I need your help,” I said when Kiki picked up.

  “Is that how girls are greeting their grandmothers by telephone these days?” she asked sarcastically.

  “Sorry,” I said, digging my feet into the ground. “How are you, my dear beautiful grandmother?”

  “So kind of you to ask. Very well. And how is life treating you these days?”

  “Tremendous,” I said, using one of Kiki’s favorite words. “I was wondering if you were free for dinner tonight.”

  “You’ve taken up cooking?” I could tell she was making fun of me.

  “Actually, I thought we could do it uptown.”

  Like she ever came south of Fourteenth Street. Why was she putting me through this?

  “And by ‘uptown’ you mean my place?” She chuckled. “Would that I could, love, but Jon-Jon was kind enough to invite me to a dinner party at his gallery owner’s house tonight.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And I was kind enough to accept. I tell you, I’m ready for him and his lover boy to kiss and make up. This slumber party is getting rather tiresome.”

  Either Kiki was lonelier than she’d been letting on, or her houseguest was deaf. If there is one thing Kiki can do, it’s drop a hint like a grenade.

  “Why don’t you tell him that thing you like to say about how visits should be—”

  “Like an angel’s stay. Short and bright,” she filled in for me. “Don’t think I haven’t.”

  “Then why don’t you tell him that I got in a huge fight with my parents and I need to crash on your couch?”

  “No, no, I have everything figured out. Speaking of plans, shall we do dinner tomorrow?”

  “Okay,” I said, “but just you and me, right?”

  It would be pointless if Jon-Jon elbowed his way into the mix.

  Kiki laughed and told me to meet her at the 21 Club the following night. “I’ll have them reserve a table for two.”

  I couldn’t have been more excited, and not just because I needed Kiki’s advice. The place she’d suggested, a toy box of a restaurant, has been one of my favorite New York spots as long as I can remember. When I showed up, the room was still decorated with bright red-and-white-checkered tablecloths and old-fashioned model planes dangling from the ceilings. Looked like Kiki was eager too—she was already seated at a corner table, working on a martini. She was wearing a cream-colored suit and a smear of coral lipstick, and her pale blue stilettos were peeking out from underneath the table.

  “There’s nothing like a houseguest to remind you of the joy of being alone,” she said when I joined her.

  I froze in place, not sure what she was saying.

  “You want me to come back later?” I asked her.

  “No, no, I’m enjoying some time away from Jon-Jon. You don’t count.” She motioned to a nearby waiter. “Being with you is like being with another version of myself. A pubescent version.” The waiter was one inch away, helping me out of my coat, and my cheeks flared. “I didn’t mean anything biological by that. Just that you’re very much a young lady.”

  She instructed me to sit down, and I obeyed. “Speaking of Jon-Jon, how was your dinner last night?” I asked.

  “Oh, can we save the chitchat for later? I’m guessing you want to talk about something that has to do with your you-know-what.” She eyed my cameo.

  “Sort of.” I shifted in my seat. “It actually has to do with—Becca’s in a secret society. And I was tapped to join.”

  “Is this the Blue Moons?”

  I was so surprised I nearly fell out of my chair.

  “Darling, that might be a lovely sight for your dentist, but some people here are trying to eat.”

  I willed my mouth closed and stared at her, shocked.

  “I wouldn’t look so startled,” she said dismissively and took a contented pull of her martini. “Some things are just in the air.”

  Would it really hurt her to drop the codespeak every now and again?

  I picked up a roll and pulled off a bite-sized piece—one of Kiki’s rules: don’t bite into a roll—before spreading any butter. “Well then, I must have been breathing something else all this time. How’d you even know about the Moons?”

  “Must you sound so woebegone?” Kiki’s gray eyes gleamed like mother-of-pearl and it hit me that she was proud. “They have some of the swellest parties—at least, they did in my day. Care to tell me how this all came about?” She almost sounded jealous, not a tone I was used to hearing in her voice.

  “Sure,” I said, and proceeded to tell her about the movie in the park and being kidnapped from my parents’ Proust party.

  “And you missed their singing? A shame that,” she said without a shred of conviction. “And instead you had to be handpicked by one of the most elegant and exclusive societies in New York.”

  “I don’t think its my elegance they’re after,” I said, and making sure to check that all the other diners were sufficiently engrossed in their conversations, I told her about the dream with the Cabbage Patch doll. “There has to be a—”

  “Hamburger?” A white-haired waiter had popped up out of nowhere and filled in my sentence.

  “Well, isn’t this perfect!” Kiki looked on brightly while he delivered the plates she must have ordered before I’d shown up—creamy chicken hash for her, a “21 burger” for me. For decades, the burgers had cost twenty-one dollars, and now the price had been jacked up even more. Mom would have been mortified.

  “A cameo connection?” Kiki finished off my previous statement as the waiter stepped away.

  Nodding, I twisted the cap off the Soul Sauce bottle. Kiki gets hysterical whenever I use a knife to dislodge ketchup, so I turned the bottle upside down and came to terms with the fact that nothing was going to dribble out of it for years. “Someone’s been stalking the Blue Moons and putting their pictures all over the Internet,” I said. “For now it just seems like another bitchy blog, but if all these Moon girls’ families are as big as everyone says and they all have their own enemies … something could go very wrong.” Now that I was saying it out loud, the idea of danger seemed to grow from a dim possibility into an absolute certainty. “They must need me for something serious. It could be like last time.”

  Kiki put her fork down. “That would be something. But I wouldn’t let your imagination run ahead of reality. It would be a shame to mistake an opportunity to have a very pleasant social life for Murder Mystery Hour.” She signaled to somebody behind me for another drink. “So how did Becca pull this off, anyway? Isn’t the group exclusively for the descendents of its founding members?”

  I felt a pinprick of offense.

  “There are three new people, and they told us they’re bringing us in for our supposed talents. They say mine is that I know about entertaining and etiquette.”

  “Do they?” She threw a disapproving look my way, and when I saw what she was trying to say I yanked my elbows off the tablecloth.

  Kiki smiled forgivingly. “They may not have taught you this at L’Ecole Voyante, but sometimes people use one thing to mean something else. If I’m simply not in the mood to go to Mrs. Rockefeller’s party, I might call her up and say I ate a disagreeable oyster. And if Becca wants her best friend to be in her club, she might have to come up with a reason that seems legitimate even if it’s a stretch.”

  I knew she could be helpful.

 
“What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just that I wouldn’t say etiquette is your strongest suit.”

  Or maybe “helpful” wasn’t the word. More like “hurtful.”

  “So they do want me for something else?” I asked, hope lining my voice.

  “Maybe she wants you on hand for the simple pleasure of having you around.” Her face fell. “Oh dear.” I looked down to see a small pool of ketchup was spreading across the tablecloth. Kiki motioned for a waiter to come over to the table. “I’m terribly sorry to trouble you,” she said, “but would you please take care of this little bloodbath?”

  She eyed me sharply and gave an impatient sigh.

  The next night, slipping out of my apartment proved even easier than I’d expected. Atypically, there was no salon after dinner. Dad was curled up on the couch reading and Mom and Saffron were supposedly working on a chapter of Saffron’s book.

  “By the way, I’m going to Becca’s country house for the weekend,” I said in the innocent voice I’d practiced earlier.

  I knew it was late notice, but better late than early, in which case they could ask me questions for days leading up to the departure. Besides, I knew they’d be fine with my going away. They loved that I had a friend from Hudson—it alleviated their guilt about pulling me out of my old school—and they double-loved that she had a cute older brother. Weird fact #54 about French parents: nothing, but nothing, thrills them more than the prospect of teenage romance.

  “Where is the house?” Dad asked.

  My throat clenched—I hadn’t prepared for an interrogation. “What house? Oh, the country house?”

  Dad looked at me like I was crazy and nodded.

  “Upstate?” I squeaked, and everyone seemed to approve.

  “Will Andy be there?” Mom asked, turning to give Saffron a suggestive smile.

  “I don’t know.” My cheeks burning, I had to remind myself it wasn’t a lie. Andy hadn’t exactly been updating me on his whereabouts.

  Dad waved his paperback copy of Getting Things Done in the air. “Our poupée is having une petite aventure!” he exclaimed.

  Maybe, but not the kind he thought.

  I bounded toward my room and put on the flirtiest outfit that came to hand—a blue crêpe de chine dress, cream-colored wedge boots, thick black tights, and an extra coat of lip gloss. I packed a suitcase with a weekend’s worth of clothes, and at the last minute I remembered Becca’s instructions and grabbed my trusty 1959 edition of Poise, Polish, and Pluck: Helpful Hints for the Teenage Girl.

  “And Claire,” Mom called on my way out. “Don’t forget to let Saffron know when you want to do that shoot of your room. She has to reserve the lighting guys in advance.”

  Ugh. Just my luck that Mom was scatterbrained about everything but that.

  The address Becca gave us turned out to be a run-down deli. Star Foods Emporium’s window displayed a faded Newport Lights poster and a handwritten sign for a mysterious-sounding “$1.99 San Francisco Chicken Patty.”

  The sky was pitch-black, and the only other people on the street were Sig and Hallie. Sig was wearing a dark, shapeless down coat that came to her knees and Hallie had on a heart-patterned ski parka. It would have made anybody else resemble an overgrown second grader, but Hallie still managed to look punk rock in it. It might have had to do with her multibuckled boots.

  “Do you think this is some sort of test?” I asked them, resting my suitcase on the ground.

  “What do you mean?” Sig asked.

  “You know,” I said. “We buy the chicken patty and there’s a key under the bun.”

  “Nasty,” Hallie said. “I don’t do processed meats.”

  Just then, a ghost appeared at the deli door. It took me a second to realize it was Reagan “Pale Moon.” She motioned for us to come inside and helped herself to a bag of Swedish Fish from the candy display. “This is Stinko,” she said, indicating the guy with the neck tattoos behind the counter. “He knows to let you through whenever you come.”

  “Let us through?” I repeated. “Is that a code for selling us beer or something?”

  Stinko laughed and Reagan slipped behind a curtain in the back of the deli.

  My confusion was increasing.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “Are you putting us to work here?”

  “Just come and see for yourself” was Reagan’s response. “Right this way, ladies.”

  The other newbies and I exchanged curious glances as we followed her up a musty staircase that spat us out into what must have been the coolest room I’d ever had the pleasure of being spat out into. If their stunned expressions were anything to go by, the other newbies were equally impressed. All the Full Moons were seated on a couple of couches, wearing houseproud grins.

  “The clubhouse is hidden inside that grungy deli?” I exclaimed. The last time, I’d been blindfolded when I’d come and gone.

  “Behind it, but yes, same idea,” Reagan answered.

  “This is the main room,” Poppy added. “You guys were in the basement before.”

  Covering three of the deep violet walls were hundreds of framed photographs and oil paintings of what I assumed were former Blue Moons. The fourth was devoted to bookshelves crammed with all manner of junk—wigged mannequin heads, vases of cabbage roses, a stuffed owl. And if that wasn’t awesome enough, there was a black-and-white photo booth where the bookshelf ended. The rest of the room was sparse by comparison, with a few shabby-chic couches and dark green reading chairs on a bare wooden planked floor, all safely tucked away under a vaulted ceiling.

  Reagan motioned to the unoccupied diamond-print couch, and the three of us obeyed her gesture. As I settled into my spot, Becca smiled and wiggled her pinky at me. I grinned back, happy to see her too.

  “Welcome, ladies.” Poppy, the club’s resident Amazon, squared her shoulders and drew a line through a piece of paper on her clipboard. “So I see you guys made it through the door policy.”

  “Our secret entrance is pretty hot, right?” Sills raised her eyebrow. “So far nobody’s figured it out.”

  “The club moved in here about ten years ago,” Becca explained. “Though the Moons never got around to sending out change-of-address cards.”

  “This building used to be a private club for actors,” Diana said, pointing to a stained-glass panel propped against the bottom of the wall. It had the ancient comedy and tragedy masks and some Latin words. “We replaced that window with one that means more to us.”

  So that explained the stained window with the ship I’d admired in the basement the last time.

  Poppy consulted her clipboard and, in the spirit of a psycho summer camp counselor, rambled off the house rules. “Number one you already know: Moons must enter and exit the clubhouse through Star Foods Emporium. Number two, publicity is to be shunned.” She raised her head and gave us an appraising look and seemed satisfied. No doubt she was determining that unwanted publicity wasn’t going to be our problem—Teen Vogue wasn’t about to come knocking down any of our doors.

  Thanks.

  “Number three, there is to be no canoodling with celebrities.” She paused to glance at Sills, who looked down and pushed a couple of well-defined waves over her left eye.

  “Number four,” continued Poppy, “Moons must refrain from wearing clothing with visible designer labels.”

  Not a problem in my books. Kiki says brand names aren’t to be worn like tattoos. Poppy went on, “Five, no males in the clubhouse.”

  “Except Linus here,” Diana said, pointing to a window seat, where a slender black cat was licking one of his hind legs clean.

  Poppy didn’t dignify Diana with a response. “Six, Half Moons are to keep their distance from the Moonery on Sunday nights. Any violations of any kind will result in de-Mooning.”

  Okay, I got it. All Moons are not created equal.

  “Any questions?” Poppy looked up at us with the dour expression of an old woman peering over her reading glasses.

>   Only a million questions. But I stayed quiet.

  “Um,” Sig said, “this building we’re in, it’s the Moonery?”

  “Oh yeah, that’s what we call it. Anything else?”

  When there were no more questions, Poppy passed out our initiation contracts—thick black envelopes sealed with black wax. Silence settled over the room as we opened them and signed the enclosed black cards in silvery ink. Who knew stationery could get so goth?

  “Good,” Poppy said, interrupting the somber mood with a bright smile. “Now Sills is going to take you on the grand tour.”

  Though I’m not sure “grand” was the right word. Quaint as it was, the clubhouse turned out to be smaller than most single-family town houses—which might explain why there were only five members. It was fine for the Moons’ spare-time hangout purposes, but only a family of elves could have lived in it comfortably. I wondered how its previous tenant, the theater club, had operated within it. In addition to the room with the bookshelf and couches, the first floor had a small game room and kitchen. The second floor contained a tidy office and a bathroom that was literally just that—a space devoted to a magnificent claw-foot bathtub. A deep lemony smell hung in the air, and the floor was scattered with half-used candles and an impressive stash of bath salts, gels, and scrubs. Sills bent over to pluck a towel off the floor. “It used to be the drama library, but Gummy insisted on putting this in.”

  “Gumby?” Hallie asked incredulously.

  “Gummy Salzman,” Becca piped up, entering the bathroom. “She was a Moon during the big brouhaha, and when she died she left us a pile of money and a plan for the new clubhouse. And a few stipulations that we’ll get to.” She smiled mysteriously.

  Things were getting more interesting by the minute.

  We clopped downstairs and waited by a back doorway while Sills put on a blue wig and a Richard Nixon mask and cased the courtyard. “Just to be safe.”

  I glanced at the others to make sure I wasn’t the only one who thought this was taking a turn for the mildly crazy. Hallie caught my eye and we started giggling nervously.