Update From the Yuppie Lives of Dirk, Bree

I was walking the dog the other day when a strange man came up to me on the street and said, “So, what’s happening with Dirk and Bree?”

Good question, I thought.

Some people think I made up Dirk and Bree, but as Bree once said to me, when she was in her Zen phase, “How do you know you’re not me doing you?”

That was also before she got her colors done.

I tried calling, but of course I got a machine. “Hi, you have reached the home of Dirk Miller, Bree Wellington and Rachel Whoopi Miller-Wellington, as well as the law offices of Bree Wellington, Esq., and the corporate headquarters of Miller Recovery Tapes and the business office of Rachel’s Old Timey Lemonade Stand. We can’t come to the phone right now, but if you leave a message, we will get back to you, schedules permitting. This phone comes equipped with Pervert Call Tracing, so please don’t leave any obscene messages.”

I considered which particular line of the poetry of 2 Live Crew to quote, but instead I got in the car and drove out to their house at Quail Glen. At least I knew they hadn’t moved, and even if they were out, I could always grill Natasha, the cook. She was usually willing to spill the beans on her bosses.

In fact, it was Natasha who first revealed to me that Bree had been spending a considerable amount of time with her personal fitness trainer without any noticeable increase in her muscle mass.

I arrived at Quail Glen and found Dirk and Bree’s rambling Spanish-style mini-hacienda set among the agapanthus, the bougainvillea and the Volvos.

As I walked up from the driveway, I wondered what major life changes Dirk and Bree had made since I last spoke to them, six months ago. There was no addition being added to the house, so I knew they weren’t having another baby. People in their 30s with spare change always build additions when they’re having a baby. Not a new child’s room; they build themselves an escape-from-the-child room.

I thought that marriage or a daughter would slow them down, but D & B just kept on getting “into” things--changing their house or their jobs or their passionate interests every few months. It’s as if they came equipped with a mental remote and just start clicking every time life got a little boring.

A frazzled-looking Bree answered the door. Her face appeared particularly tense, and then I realized: At 38, she had already had her eyes done. The fact that her hair was pulled back in a ponytail only increased the taut-to-kill look. She stood there barefoot in her “I Worked Out With Juan” T-shirt and her Lizwear walking shorts.

“Alice,” she said, planting a little kiss on my cheek. “You couldn’t have come at a worse time.”

Bree had a way of making you feel not entirely welcome.

“RW is starting kindergarten in the fall, so we’ve had to completely redo her bedroom,” she said as I followed her into a room full of packing crates and modular furniture. “We needed to get her work station ready, and I’m waiting for the consultant to come lower her VDT. It costs an arm and a leg to be ergonomically correct.”

While she was babbling on about Rachel Whoopi’s laser printer, I asked, “What are you into these days?”

“Offerings,” she said without offering any explanation.

“Are we talking lambs or virgins?” I asked.

“Real estate,” she responded.

“And Dirk?”

To my amazement the normally cool Bree melted like a wheel of cheese left on the deck furniture in the sun. She began weeping.

“He said he wanted to invest in a limited partnership with Beckwith Properties. After I read the offering, I called Amy Beckwith to inquire about the inflated return figures. When I told her I was Dirk’s wife, there was a long, awkward pause. That’s when I knew that we were involved in an STD.”

“An STD?” I asked.

“Don’t you follow trends?” she said, sobbing. “My husband is involved in a Sexually Transmitted Deal.”

I couldn’t have come at a worse time. She was nearly hysterical. If this were fiction, I would just split, I thought.

So I left her lying there in a pool of tears, waving the prospectus.