Mine Are Spectacular! by Janice Kaplan Page A

load off, huh? How much do you weigh now?”
    â€œYou’re supposed to ask how much the babies weigh,” Berni says.
    â€œWhy, are they fat, too?” Olivia asks.
    â€œThey’re perfect,” Berni coos, so infatuated with A and B that even Olivia can’t get a rise out of her.
    â€œEnough about them,” Olivia says briskly. “You can finally do something for me. I’m having an important dinner party Friday night. My caterer ate his own gazpacho and has food poisoning, so he’s bailed.
Basta. Finito.
Gone. I need someone fast. You have to get me the chef who catered your baby shower. Your food was actually decent for once.”
    Berni smiles and gives me a thumbs up. “Decent” in Olivia’s lingo probably ranks three stars in the Michelin guide.
    â€œMy chef is pretty in demand,” Berni says, “but I think I can get her. She’d only do it as a favor to me, though.”
    I start shaking my head wildly and mouthing “No,” but Berni pays no attention.
    â€œHere are the terms. No negotiation,” Berni says, pleased to be cutting a deal fourteen hours after giving birth. “Whatever you were paying the gazpacho guy, she gets double. She charges a full day for shopping and another full day for menu preparation. You pay for hair and makeup. And she doesn’t do cleanup.”
    Olivia knows when she’s over a barrel and hesitates only briefly before muttering, “Fine.” Still, she needs to make at least one demand of her own. “No tofu,” she decrees. “In anything.”
    Figuring this will have no effect on soybean futures, Berni concedes on the tofu and they make final arrangements.
    â€œHey, Sara, not bad, right?” Berni hoots triumphantly when they’ve signed off. “Who’s the better agent, huh? Even breast-feeding I can one-up Olivia any day of the week.”
    I’m so stunned by the whole transaction that I barely know where to begin.
    â€œHair and makeup?” I ask in a weak voice.
    â€œYou’re right. I should have demanded Frederic Fekkai,” Berni says. “Want me to call back?”
    â€œYes, I want you to call back. And tell her I won’t do it,” I say. “I’m not a caterer.”
    â€œYou are now,” Berni says, as if my protests are just an annoying detail. “Besides, I never go back on my word.”
    â€œYou have to listen to Berni,” Kirk says. “She’s the best agent in the world. She’s always right.”
    â€œI can’t do all this alone by Friday night,” I gripe, thinking about the shopping, the chopping, and the whopping mess I’ll probably make out of the whole production.
    â€œI’ll help,” Kirk volunteers. “I’m a pretty decent chef. The first role Berni ever got me was in a Red Lobster commercial.”
    â€œThen I guess we’ll serve seafood,” I say. “And we’ll put up little ‘All You Can Eat’ signs.”
    â€œThat settles it,” Berni says. She leans back against the pillows and closes her eyes, still holding the twins who are now peacefully asleep in her arms. “One more thing,” she adds before drifting off to sleep herself. “Just don’t make those awful cheese puffs.”

Chapter FIVE
    â€œ AM I CRAZY to be getting a house?” Kate asks exuberantly when I stop by her office late Monday afternoon. She swoops down in her white lab coat to give me a kiss on the cheek. “You’re wonderful to come look at it with me on such short notice. I’m not quite ready yet. Can you wait a couple of minutes?”
    â€œSure,” I say. I look dubiously around the busy waiting room, where I spot five patients, and I instantly recognize three of them from television shows. The new route to stardom—first you get an agent, then you see Kate, then you date Colin Farrell.
    I figure that for Kate to finish with all her