Play Dates by Leslie Carroll Page A

anything about Robert’s ex?”
    “It’s not exactly a subject we discuss.”
    “I told Mommy Nina Osborne is a force of nature.”
    “You discussed my new lover’s ex-wife with Mommy?” she asked, appalled. Suddenly, I was thrown backwards into a vortex, revisiting years of tattling on each other’s most egregious transgressions, usually involving members of the opposite sex.
    Wait a minute. Lover? It’s only November 6th. She just met him on Halloween. I guess there’s something to be said for their fling to have survived Election Day. Robert must vote Democratic.
    “Claire, how could you?”
    “I had to. Tulia called to invite me for Thanksgiving, which, as usual, she’s turning into a double celebration. Since it’s my birthday, she thought she’d be courteous about it. So she told me you were planning to bring Robert. Not Xander, too, I hope.”
    “He’ll be with his mother. They’re going to Thanksgiving dinner at Donna Karan’s.”
    I react like this is not a strange thing. For Nina Osborne, it’s probably an annual ritual. The image of soon-to-be-seven-year-old Xander tearing up the place and the designer presenting Nina with an itemized bill for damages at the end of the meal fills me with a bit of sadistic glee.
    Oh, God, we’ve got Xander’s birthday party coming up.
    Nina’s leased out some plum real estate at Chelsea Piers, host-ing an ice hockey party for more than three dozen second graders. Semi-supervised violence on razor-sharp blades. Perfect.
    At least she didn’t rent the Temple of Dendur. I can just picture Xander and friends running amok among the Metropolitan Museum’s Egyptian antiquities.
    “Well, this should be an interesting Thanksgiving holiday,” I

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    tell Mia. “Maybe Mommy can stitch up some lovely bulletproof vests for all of us.”
    “I think you’re overreacting,” she replies. “Nina doesn’t even know about me and Robert.”
    “Can you keep it that way? What about Xander? How many six-year-old boys, particularly troublemakers, grasp the concept of discretion?” I check my watch. If I don’t hightail it right this minute, I’ll be late for my tour. “Anyway, it’ll be my birthday, but it might be your funeral if Nina gets a whiff of this. She already detests me. All she needs to learn is that her ex is knocking it off with my older sister. And what happened to his au pair
    Aryan-looking
    ?”
    “Nina had her deported.”
    Wow. And why am I somehow not surprised. So, did I see a different Ula or the same one whose days were numbered?
    “Mia, I don’t mean this quite how it’s going to sound, so I apologize in advance, but I’m surprised he thought you were his
    ‘type.’ You’re not even blonde!”
    “Maybe that’s why he says I’m so ‘different,’ ” Mia muses. “I guess I’m off the menu.”
    “Dead meat, most probably. I’ve got to dash. We’ll pick this up later, if you want to.”
    “Good. Because I want to run something else by you.”
    “About Thanksgiving?”
    “Yes,” Mia says. “And Zoë. Catch you later.” She’s the one who ends the call, leaving me with another shoe dangling. And a busload of tourists waiting for their “Location, Location, Location!”
    sightseeing tour.
    Dear Diary:
    I am going to meet the Powerpuff Girls! MiMi got me on their float for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. She got a job PLAY DATES
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    doing the makeup for the star who is going to sing on it, and they said they needed little girls to ride on the float with her, so MiMi asked if I could do it and they said yes. The Powerpuff Girls are my favorite television show. I told everyone in school about it.
    Xander and the boys didn’t care. April and May are happy for me but Ashley is acting funny. Mommy said she might be jealous.
    I know a secret, too. MiMi has been going to dinner and movies with Xander’s daddy. Xander doesn’t know and Mommy and MiMi made me promise not to tell him. I asked why it was supposed