The Return of Jezebel James

Buddy is commenting on the German Jezebel James cover, which Sarah needs to approve. Apparently, the German Jezebel James is a body builder who doesn’t shave her legs or underarms. Meanwhile, Sarah has gotten jam on her blouse, and now she can’t get it off. While Buddy is nixing the Jezebel James cover, Sarah’s jam moves from her blouse to her hair to her knee and then back again.

Buddy did, however, clear Sarah’s schedule, all except for Marcus, who insists on talking to her personally. Sarah tries to get out of their date. While they’re talking, Buddy tries to get the jam out of her blouse with cold water. This prompts Sarah to exclaim, “Wooh! Cold!” And then she has to explain to Marcus that “Buddy’s got his hand up my shirt.” She eventually decides to explain to him that, yes, she will be able to make it after all. Because she doesn’t want to tell him about Coco.

Sarah wants to keep her thing with her sister on the down low. So of course, Coco barges into the office with huge luggage, which she lunges loudly out of the elevator.

Sarah shows Coco the apartment. But before that, she has a gift for them. It’s a Hello Kitty cellphone. And Sarah has a matching one. Unfortunately, they’re very pink. And they sing, “K! I! T-T Y! K! I! T-T Y!” Sarah got them for emergencies, so that Coco can reach Sarah when she’s pregnant. Yeah, Sarah knows the phones are silly and girly. (And pink.) But the girls are silly and girly. And Sarah made Coco a set of keys! On a keychain that’s also big and puffy and silly and girly. And pink.

Sarah opens the apartment door to reveal a spacious, expensive, two-story condo, sparsely furnished, in pink. “Wow,” Coco marvels. “Big.” And pink. It used to be an old slaughterhouse. Isn’t that dark? And pink. But it’s missing a couch, because of course, Matt took it. Sarah doesn’t know why he left. She wish she had something more concrete.

So Coco says, “Well, he hit on me five years ago.”

Sarah is nonplussed. “Are you serious?”

“No. Just trying to give you something concrete.” A pause. “You’re welcome.”

“Okay!” Sarah sings, and she marches into the kitchen, where…

She has made lists of all the neighborhood places on Post-it notes. Pink Post-it notes! Best coffee; best nails; best hair; best cafe, good food, bad people; best cafe, bad food, good people. And the top ten delivery places, all personally tested by you-know-who. Oh my God! It like Paris Geller, if she were nice.

Then straight upstairs, to see… Sarah’s bedroom! And Sarah’s bed, which is pink. And her bathroom, with the best bath ever—I wonder if it’s pink—which Coco should use anytime. Aw, ain’t that special?

And over to Coco’s bedroom, which is decidedly not pink. Or finished. But Sarah already has a great room concept: “Chinoiserie meets mid-century modern with a dash of Hunt Club… You don’t think you can have orange with your complexion, but you can!” Paris Geller on speed.

Coco has just about had her fill. “I’m here for a reason. Not here for a slumber party… I don’t need a BFF to paint my toenails. And I don’t know what the hell Chinoiserie is, but I’m pretty sure I can live without it.” She storms out and down the stairs.

Sarah chases after her, which just annoys Coco even more.

“I am here to pop out a kid for you. That’s it! I don’t take baths.”

Well, you don’t have to sound so proud about that.

“You don’t even think I can decorate my own room.” Coco continues. “Well, I can! I don’t need your help, or your lists, or our maid service. I don’t even need a room!”

Now Sarah is just as pissed as Coco. She was just trying to be nice, to make Coco feel at home. (And I believe her.)

“Why are you mad?!” Coco is still shouting.

“Why are you mad?!” Sarah shouts back.

“Because,” Coco screams, “I’m not a loser!”

Before Sarah can respond, a voice echoes through the hallway. “Shh!” Sarah holds her hand over Coco’s mouth. “You ready for a visit from Dad?”

And you thought it couldn’t get worse.

Coco thinks it’s another “intervention.” But Dad comes to visit all the time. Coco is in a panic. Sarah rushes to the closet and pulls out several grungy-looking items: a toaster, a duster, a lamp, a painting. They rush around sticking them around the apartment.

Dad comes in with two guys carrying Sarah’s new couch, which he had previously found lying by the side of the road. He did fix it up pretty good. It’s neat, sturdy, stain resistant, and very, very pink.

“This fabric,” he says, “your mother picked it out. Gives me a headache, but she says the girls really like it.”

Meanwhile, has hasn’t noticed Coco standing there, staring right at him, even getting in his face.

“Hello,” Coco says, astonished.

“Coco! How long you been standin’ there?”

“How long have you been talking?”

He notices the lamp Sarah had retrieved from the closet. “I see the lamps still goin’ strong.”

Now a thought dawns on Sarah. Mom sometimes waits in the car, but she won’t come up without being invited. “Like a vampire.”

The two rush out to the balcony, where Sarah has some green plants growing in flower boxes. A cow, divided into beef cuts, stares out from behind them.

Coco says she sees an arm in the car window and wonders if maybe Mom got a severed arm and hung it out like that just to mess with Sarah’s mind. Sarah thinks that’s crazy— Well, maybe… Oh, the arm moved. Okay, now who’s going to go invite her in? And who gets to stay up in the apartment with Dad? Who gets the devil and who, the deep blue sea?

Sarah brings her Mom up, who has been taking passive-agressive lessons from Bev Harris. (Probably has, too.) Upon seeing Coco, she immediately whispers to Sarah, “Is she high?”

No, she’s not high. Or deaf.

Sarah interrupts with “something wonderful to tell.” Now her parents can’t decide whether they should be sitting or standing. Dad says you always sit for big news. But Mom says you only sit for bad news. Coco thinks Sarah’s building it up too much and just wishes she’d get on with it.

“How’s this?” Sarah says. “Dad, sit. Mom, stand. Coco, shh!”

Then Sarah explains that Coco will be living there for a while, which immediately causes Mom to ask who she’s hiding from. (“They already found me.”) No, Coco is doing Sarah a wonderful favor.

It is wonderful! Dad decides to stand.

“I’ve decided it’s time for me to have a child,” Sarah says.

Dad sits back down.

Too bad, Sarah can’t have one. But Coco said she’s going to have one for her. “Coco is going to carry my baby for me.”

Dad stands, about to say something, while Mom sits, overwhelmed.

“I guess we’re sittin’,” Dad says.

Mom is very upset, because no one bothered to consult with her. And when she finds out that Sarah and Dad had chatted about it the other day! Yikes! She storms out. And one of her friends has cancer, and they didn’t even get to talk about that.

Dad just wants them to make it a boy.

Sarah is in bed with Marcus, wearing a hockey jersey and nothing else, mulling over the nature of hockey and getting hot, when from her purse her Hello Kitty cell phone goes off. “K! I! T-T Y! K! I! T-T Y!” followed by the “Hello Kitty” theme song.

“What is that?” Marcus asks. “You don’t hear that?”

The phone stops. “No, nothing,” Sarah says. She makes believe Marcus is going senile.

Then the phone goes off again.

“Smelling some toast, Grandma?”

Of course, having a cell phone is against the rules, Sarah’s rules. No phones, no BlackBerries, no sleeping over, no conversations about personal stuff. And Marcus is particularly amused at the way the phone looks, all Kitty and pink with eyes of glowing fuchsia. Then the cat goes off again.

Sarah makes an excuse to go into the bathroom and sneaks the phone in with her, calls Coco, bawls her out, only to find that Coco had accidentally sat on her phone.

And Kitty’s eyes are a video camera. How creepy is that?

Sarah arrives home early to discover Coco reading her personal letters from Matt. And her diary. Coco wants to know who Sarah is, how she can be so regimented and would still trust her free-spirited younger sister with her apartment and all her stuff.

Sarah says Coco is the mysterious one. “Tivo knows what I like before I do… I should be going through your stuff.” But she won’t, because “I only want to know what you want me to know. And when you want me to know about you… you’ll tell me. I hope.”

Coco reveals that she went to Spain the previous year, and that’s why she missed Dad’s 60’th birthday party.

Sarah is tender and supportive… but no less anal. “Are you serious about the sensible bra thing? Because sagging can be a real issue…”

Oh boy…