Last year when Big’s organizational situation became untenable, we had an afterschool meeting with his teacher to clean out his desk and introduce him to the concept of “coming to Jesus”. It’s remarkable how he has retained clarity on this concept as so much other information, most of it relayed by me, has filtered in one ear and out the other like sands through the hourglass. So are the days of So’s life, and tonight Beth thinks she’s going to bring her to The Lord. I’m pouring myself a tall glass and buckling in.
We start inauspiciously at 10:38 a.m. with Holla, Kristen, and Doritos locked out of So’s house while Lady Morgan finishes packing. She requires undisturbed abundance for this enterprise so she doesn’t accidentally pack her “France” or “Aspen” underpants when she means to go for the “New Jersey” drawers. As it is raining hamsters and gerbils out on 72nd Street, the ladies are reluctantly permitted shelter in So’s unheated foyer area and Holla is absolutely in a snit over it. Having hauled So’s dimpled, drunken ass up five flights of SoStone stairs when Lady Morgan has been so deeply into the bag that she couldn’t find her way out on a leash, Holla is irate that now she’s unworthy of a couch cushion and a spot of tea. Hell, a glass of water would be enough.
After an hour of waiting a truly sleazy prom limo shows up and the restless, wet trio get on board to bitch some more. At 11:25, Beth finally shows up, full of excuses for how it takes so unpredictably long to get downtown to Tribeca to drop off her daughter (she must not be permitted to speak Bryn’s name as part of the custody agreement, because she never does) and return for this ill-advised field trip to Atlantic City. Doesn’t she have a Skinnysisstant who can do that? Or can’t she Uber her up a ride? I mean, it’s not like she can possibly be conducting a personal hand-off to Jason. Holla seethes.
The birthday girl, Mo, explodes into the limo and begins shouting demands for a wine opener for her trusty and ever-present bottle of RAMONA Pinot Grigio and becomes unreasonably salty when The Help, occupied shoveling the overpacking into the trunk, doesn’t step and fetch it quite quick enough.
And then, at 11:42, at long last: Lady Morgan emerges, yells at the jackhammerer across the street, assumes the position, and receives the death stare from Holla, claiming she was experiencing a family crisis because her sister, who was supposed to babysit the Snuffleupagus child, can’t show due to a death in someone else’s family. I don’t really understand this, nor do I understand why So had to sit telephone shiva with the sister over it and leave everyone else out in the street, nor why one of the interns can’t tend to Snuffy as they no doubt routinely do when Lady Morgan is on her daily bender.
Whatever, that was the “problem”, and So yells at Holla for being mad about it, because the easiest thing to do when someone inconveniently calls you on your shit is to deflect and make it their fault it bothers them. You are locked out on the street? “Then go to Starbucks!” she shrieks. There’s a whole lotta unpleasant back-and-forth about the car being late due to the SoScheduler’s ineptitude, the tendency of So’s ill-behaved dogs to run out into the street and be mown down by cars, whether So or Beth is really at fault for the whole thing, and how all this is really aggravating the extreme stress SoMo are experiencing! And, you know, Beth too! So cannot believe how petty Holla is being about being left out in the street; she has real friends, So does, who send her tickets to fly her all around the world because they cannot stand a minute without her scintillating company. Tickets! The world! Smoky eye! Updo! Gstaad!
Beth advises So to say she was unaware there was a problem and REGARDLESS she’s sorry for it, because that’s what decent humans do (brothers under the age of 12 have a bit of a challenge with this but we work on it.), so So does, begrudgingly. Having succeeded in that, Beth attempts to tackle So’s “smoky eye! updo! Gstaad!” Tourettian tic and warns her that it’s all starting to sound like “all show, no go”, and, possibly, even namedropping. {GASP} So nods and agrees with Beth that this could be possible with these low rent fools, because they have never “lived the life”. Or, no, Beth responds; it could just be because it does. And is. Doritos is paying rapt attention to this interchange and declares Beth “going for blood”. It’s serious.
It’s serious until Beth suddenly goes all hysterical that she has to pee HAS TO PEE RIGHT NOW STOP THE CAR! and starts climbing over bodies to reach the driver’s glass and pound for his attention. He obliges and pulls the stretch Infiniti QVC to the side of the road where she dramatically relieves herself, flashbacks to when she peed in an ice bucket backstage at her wedding and all. Back when she was cute, and funny, and we were all rooting for her, and willing to overlook how Beth, like the rest of us, could have gone into the stall and done it facing the wall without the camera; but of course, we do not share her need to go over the top at all times. Attention whore that she too might be, Mo can’t pee in the street, because she’s “like the poodle”. She needs a SheWee and her empty bottle of RAMONA. I’m tired of Beth’s relentless color commentary already and we’re not even to New Jersey.
And then: we arrive! “Welcome to Atlantic Titty!” Doritos crows. Beautiful, scenic, worth-visiting Atlantic Titty. Ricardo Montalban welcomes them to the Borgata and shows them to their suites, upholstered in rich Corinthian leather. Doritos is trapped in the “High Roller” suite with SoMo where a Skinny Smorgasbord has been conveniently arranged on the credenza. Holla, Radzi, and Lu, the fun broads, are installed in the “penthouse”, which Holla immediately floods attempting to fill the Jacuzzi while waiting for the girls who were too smart to ride in the prom limo. Kristen, like Beth, is getting her own suite. I’m thinking those two just don’t like each other enough to be roomies.
After So gets herself pumped full of prosecco and farts, it’s time for dinner, for which they are all an hour late and this time it’s Holla’s fault, just sayin’. Kristen is wearing two different color Manolos which she claims was an accident but you know her Jamberry representative told her it was the new thing. Beth is wearing cropped culottes and hooker boots, and Radzi has decided to show up in lace bunny ears and a trompe l’oeil bazoom shirt. She looks like hell which is surprising for our Radzi. SoMo are in the predictable Vanna White Kollection getups and So has evidently forgotten her Spanx. I think Doritos is in the same outfit as last week.
And off they go to the sushi place, because raw fish is a great place to feed a drunk, that drunk being of course So, who Mo immediately pumps up with a Don Julio shot. And it’s all downhill from there. Radzi audaciously suggests that the Kountess would look good with long hair, and Beth jumps down her throat for making “a dig” at her look. The Kountess sighs. For no reason, So pipes up from under the table “I am in PR my whole life” which Beth immediately calls out as BS. I am waiting for someone – ANYONE – to call out SoMo for their disinterest in using the proper tense in self-referential conversation (which means all conversation). If I ever declared “I am an attorney my whole life” would anyone hire me? No, they would not. I would not be hired even for a job that requires no talking with such an announcement, which in and of itself proves that So is not, has not been, and has no future in PR for any part of her life.
So, however, continues to babble “I am in PR my whole life” like it’s a mantra, or a spell to make campfire smoke blow the other direction. Beth cannot take it, nor can she whip up a superhero “The Repeater” costume for So out of the tablecloth, so she snaps at So instead: “Do you think I care? I need a break! Or Xanax!”. Which makes So cry that everyone is being mean to her because she has an Empire of Nothing.
Beth tries and fails to fix it by cooing at So that she’s an “amazing person”, even if she has an Empire of Nothing, and that she’s the only person being nice to her so don’t bite the hand. So continues to insist that she “promotes people” because she’s so radiating love and goodwill and interest in anything other than her bellybutton. The Kountess finally intervenes and tells Beth she can’t reason with So, which gives Mo the opportunity to change the subject to herself – it is her birthday after all, plus she’s on the FOH Bubble at this point and needs to prove she’s willing to air that dirty laundry, you guys! And she misses her rings! Because, you know, The Mario Trouble. Kountess Lu assures her she likes her much better now than she used to, and gets so Mo side-eye in response. Doritos confides that she thinks Mo should still be wearing her band, which suggests things aren’t quite as resolved as Editing might have us think.
Dinner is done and they go gambling. SoMo assume the position next to an unsuspecting pair of lumps and start shrieking and carrying on, So’s tummy safely nestled in her lap. Beth loses all her cash to Kristen, who had an Elvis fan as her good luck charm. With 15 minutes to go till midnight, SoMo race upstairs to let it all hang out on the dance floor while Production rounds up the stragglers and sends them up to act like they care. Kristen sizes up Mo’s dancing as “a little Elaine from Seinfeld” while So tries to have her way with Lu, who has previously attended this rodeo. Radzi tells us that had she known in her yoot that she was “going to have this amazing body at 50″, she would have become a pole dancer rather than a news correspondent. (I am sort of of the opinion that Radzi’s body, which does look terrif for any age, is more the sort that looks good wearing clothes rather than not, so I am glad she went for the news, personally), while the Kountess finds herself once again serving as human shield for the world against So’s refusal to wear underpants. “How did I get the job as Snatch Guard?” she bemoans. Stop her before she volunteers again!
When everyone but So has had enough fun, Doritos is tasked with carting her down to the High Roller Suite, because she’s the new girl and everyone has to take a turn. “Do you want to book me for a party?” So preens. “I’m very expensive.” Surely she means she is still attempting to cater. “I was a model in the UAE, where my perfume is very popular!” She tries to round up Radzi for an afterparty, but Radzi dismisses her, causing So to turn on her like a wet cat – a wet cat whose bloated tum is sticking out past her boobs as she stumbles through the door. “I am an artist!” she booms – Radzi, published author, is no “artist”, she’s merely a “correspondent”! So raises millions! for artists! and the LGBT! and parties with “John-John Kennedy!” and Madonna! ALL THE TIME! John-John being, of course, (a) deceased nearly 18 years, and (b) Radzi’s cousin-in-law. Doritos is over it; “money talks, wealth whispers,” she purrs. That pffffft you hear isn’t just the trapped air leaving the prosecco. You know who I think would be perfect for So? David Hasselhoff.
Morning comes, as it does, and everyone has gathered for brunch and to rehash the night. They are all exhausted and wrung out, and whether its hangovers or An Excess of So I can’t tell, but they have sure ordered a lot of food to combat it. Doritos tells Mo her birthday present was to take care of So all night, hope she liked it. Speak of the devil, here she is, fresh as a daisy and acting like nothing ever happened. She trots off down the hall to apologize to Beth for all that silly silliness of getting mad at her and crying and the like. No apology to the Kountess for flashing her vag in her face, or to Doritos for peeing in her closet.
Beth welcomes her fur-berobed visitor and invites her to sit before trying, as previously mentioned, to again Bring So to Jesus Christo El Hombre. There’s something incredibly tragic about this situation: Beth, who is a failure at all aspects of life except branding, at which she is really good, advising So – the effect in search of a cause, the (questionable) solution in search of a problem, the dog without a blog – a failure at all things including and especially branding, about Life.
This time Beth takes the approach proven successful time and again: flattery, an appeal to So’s colossally inflated ego. So is sexy, gorgeous, sweet, full of positive energy, has “that thing”, and yes, is smart. YOU IS SMART, So. She’s also experiencing serious financial issues that she pretends don’t exist (“oh, that“), and is still way to hung up on her ex who she was divorced by TEN YEARS AGO. So insists it’s none of that, just the barometric pressure, and also she mixed too many “vitamins”.
Holla would have given up by now, but Beth won’t relent just yet. So’s trying to be too fun, needs help, and needs to let go of that relationship which left the barn so long ago, she suggests. She needs to move on, needs not to “be with a guy” (Oh, I’m just fucking strangers, So insists! No need to worry about that!), be with herself (“What, masturbate?” populates So’s thought bubble), take care of herself first, and get professional help. Because what she’s doing is not working. And while she’s at it, drink less – which is when So fixes Beth with the Bea Arthur Stare and dismisses her with a wave as a little person who cares, but doesn’t get it, because Beth hasn’t lived the life and has no family, or at least none that care about her. Unlike So.
Next time: So’s gonna fix it all with more abundance candles. There’s art, there’s boxing, and there are clowns, and Beth, who has no family, or at least none that care about her, goes to visit her best stepdad. It’s going to be an emotional one-hour season event! Aren’t they all?
