Fatal Reaction

have my ear both professionally and privately will give you greater credibility than any negotiator I could ever bring in from the outside.”
    “That may be, but I still don’t have enough experience dealing with the Japanese. No matter what you say, I’ll be flying blind.”
    “You’re not just the toughest negotiator I know, Kate, but you’re also the most intuitive. You’ll figure out how to deal with Takisawa,” Stephen reassured me. “Now, tell me, have you had a chance to speak to your mother about using her house for dinner on the first night?”
    “I took her out to lunch today,” I reported. I could tell by the look on Stephen’s face that he was impressed. “Not only has she agreed to personally act as hostess for the dinner, but she has agreed to take charge of all the arrangements for the entire visit—hotel, meals, transportation, everything. It turns out that the husband of one of her good friends was ambassador to Japan under Reagan, so she’s got the inside track on everything we’re going to need to do. You’ve been to my mother’s parties. Everything will be perfect.”
    “I can’t believe you got her to agree to do all that. Are we going to have to pay her anything?”
    “Not exactly.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “She doesn’t want any money from you—indeed, she’d be insulted if you offered. But if it comes down to a choice between putting up cheap wallpaper and the one my mother likes, we’ll be putting up the one my mother likes.”
    “Fair enough,” replied Stephen, thereby demonstrating his complete ignorance of what hand-painted French wallpaper could cost. “But I still can’t believe she’d take on all of this. This is going to take a lot of time. No offense, but your mother has never struck me as someone who’s itching to roll up her sleeves and work at something.”
    “You don’t understand,” I replied. “To mother, this isn’t work. This is throwing an elaborate party for some people she doesn’t particularly like. She does that all the time. Besides, that’s not why she said yes.”
    “Then tell me. Why did she?”
    “Because she knows there is no way I am ever going to compete with her in her world.”
    “So?”
    “So this is Mother’s chance to show me that while I can’t play on her court, she can sure as hell beat me on mine.”
     
    Driving back into the city, I cursed the suburban hordes who were already clotting the expressway as they made their way into the city for Saturday night. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the MCA dinner were only a law firm function. After all, my partners were used to my pared-down—my mother would call it frumpy— style. The trouble was that my parents were going to be there, too, and even though I had been in my mother’s debt only since lunch, I already felt the pressure to pay her back.
    As a result I found myself, twenty minutes before Stephen was supposed to pick me up, standing in front of my bedroom mirror in my underwear fumbling with a set of electric rollers that I hadn’t used since college. The worst part was I kept getting their little spines tangled in my hair, and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how the weird metal clips were supposed to attach to my hair. Claudia wandered in in midepithet and took a seat on the corner of my bed, looking vastly amused.
    “If I ever fall off a ladder or bum myself or get electrocuted while we’re alone together in the apartment,” she said, “please do me a favor and don’t give me first aid.”
    “Why not?” I asked, wishing desperately that I either had longer arms or eyes in the back of my head.
    “Because I would be terrified to have you touch me,” replied my roommate, ever the surgeon. “It’s remarkable what a klutz you are.”
    “Thank you very much.”
    “Do you want some help with that?”
    “No thank you.”
    “Come on. I’m afraid you’re going to hurt yourself.”
    “What do you know about electric curlers?” I shot back. Claudia’s parents were sixties radicals who to this day lived from one protest march to the next. When I first met her she hadn’t even seen a tube of mascara before.
    “If I can sew two ends of a severed blood vessel together, I can put rollers in your hair. Now, come over here and sit down. What did they feed you growing up to get you this tall?”
    “I’m only five eleven. Just think of how much taller I’d be if I’d actually received maternal love as a child.”
    “I take it