I Heart Hawaii

by Lindsey Kelk

  ‘No, no, no,’ I chanted, dropping pads of used cotton wool in the bin. ‘Please go back to sleep. Mummy needs to get some.’

  Looking down at my shorts and knickers, a pool of pale pink fabric on the bathroom floor, I sighed. My sleeping clothes were a sad state of affairs. I picked up the greying granny pants with my toe and tossed them in the trash, right on top of the cotton wool. So brazen for six o’clock in the morning.

  As I washed my hands and combed my fingers through my bedhead, I realized Alice had stopped screaming.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said as I slicked on some lip balm. ‘Mummy appreciates it more than you’d know.’

  Except what Mummy didn’t know was that Alice had only stopped crying because Daddy had brought her into bed.

  ‘Alex,’ I said from the bedroom doorway.

  ‘She was crying. I couldn’t leave her,’ he said, bouncing her up and down on his knee. ‘I’ll make it up to you later.’

  With a frustrated sigh, I padded back to bed, sliding under the covers. It was true, Alex Reid was the greatest dad of all time. He had taken to fatherhood like a waitress to water, throwing himself head first into all things Alice from the very first day we’d brought her home. He was the one who said we didn’t need a full-time nanny when I went back to work, he was the one who cleared out Barnes & Noble’s parenting section, and I would be lying if I said he hadn’t done more than his fair share of dirty nappies and three a.m. feeds. He’d even built a chute that ran out of her bedroom window and down into the bin so I could chuck her dirty nappies away without having to go outside in the winter. But the fact of the matter was, for one person to be the best at something, someone else had to be the worst.

  Alex was a natural parent, I was not.

  And it didn’t feel good.

  ‘Here she is,’ he said, waving a sulky bundle of baby in my face. Softly shaking my head, I forgot my frustrations and snuggled into the family hug. Even though she was sleeping in the nursery, I loved how she almost always found her way into our bed in the mornings, all grumpy and fidgety and half-asleep.

  ‘She always reminds me of you when she first wakes up,’ Alex said, pulling the covers up over his long legs.

  ‘Thanks,’ I replied, running my fingertip along her tiny ear as her big green eyes watched me, cheeks flushed with crying. ‘She always reminds me of you when she cries, it sounds like you singing.’

  ‘Thank you for that vote of confidence two weeks out from my first show in forever. My baby’s gonna be a rockstar.’

  Stretching until my back cracked, I smiled and shook my head. ‘Auntie Jenny says she’s going to be a YouTube sensation.’

  ‘Over my dead body,’ he said instantly. ‘She’s going to be a rockstar. Or an astronaut. Only choices on the table.’

  ‘What if she wants to do something really important with her life?’ I countered. ‘Like write amazing novels that are never appreciated in her lifetime? Or start an underground feminist magazine? Or open a cat café?’

  ‘Also acceptable options,’ Alex replied as Alice poked the blanket with great concentration and babbled to herself. We were so close to her first words I could feel it and every single atom of my body wanted that word to be ‘Mummy’. I knew it wasn’t a competition as to who she loved the most, but I also knew it totally was.

  ‘Jenny wants to take me to Hawaii,’ I said, resting my head against his chest with my eyes closed, synching my breathing with the reassuring thud of his heartbeat.

  ‘And I was going to offer to take you to breakfast. Why does she always have to one-up me?’

  ‘Because she’s Jenny?’ I suggested.

  He nodded sleepily. ‘When does she wanna go?’

  ‘Next week,’ I replied. ‘For five nights.’

  Alex and Alice both looked at me with their matching big green eyes and laughed.

  ‘Sure. Classic Lopez.’

  ‘It’s a work thing, all expenses paid, fancy private resort on one of the little islands,’ I said, rolling onto my back and catching Alice’s tiny toes in my hand. Alex closed his eyes and smiled. ‘I told her I couldn’t go.’

  I looked over to check for a reaction but in the pale dawn light of our bedroom his face was perfectly still and his eyes were shut. He wove his fingers into my hair, running them from root to tip and then back again, sending happy shivers down my spine.

  ‘You don’t want to?’

  ‘I would love to but I have work,’ I reasoned. ‘And Louisa is coming to stay and, you know, I have to keep a human being alive.’

  ‘I don’t know, Angela.’ The corners of Alex’s mouth turned upwards in a smile even though his eyes stayed closed. ‘I think I can survive without you for five nights.’

  ‘Ha ha, I meant Alice,’ I said, propping my head up in my hand. Alex stayed exactly as he was, his chest rising and falling evenly with every breath. ‘Although you would also be a concern.’

  ‘I’m not the one who leaves their hair straightener on three times a week,’ he reminded me. It was a harsh but fair point. ‘If I had the opportunity to go to Hawaii on Lopez’s dime, I would go. You’ll be gone what, five days? Me and Al can cope on our own. You managed when I was gone for the weekend.’

  ‘Yes but that was different,’ I argued, reaching for a hair band from my nightstand and automatically pulling my hair up in a ponytail. Once the hair was up, that was it. I was officially awake.

  Alex opened one eye and raised an eyebrow. ‘How exactly?’

  Don’t say because I’m her mother, the voice whispered in my head, do not say because you’re her mother.

  ‘Because I’m her mother.’

  Alex closed his eye and grinned. Alice said nothing.

  ‘If you wanna to go, you should go,’ he said through a yawn. ‘When this record is finally finished, we’ll definitely have to tour, and I’m not a parenting expert but I hear babies are a lot less trouble than toddlers, so consider this my pre-emptive apology for all the times she throws a tantrum when I’m off playing some rando festival in Germany two years from now. You were fine on your own, I’ll be fine on my own.’

  I rubbed my thumb against the band of my engagement ring and scooped Alice out of his arms, resting her against my chest.

  ‘When you went away, I spent the entire weekend in my pyjamas,’ I muttered, gazing down at my baby. ‘I didn’t shower, I only slept for six hours the whole three days and I took her to the emergency room when her spit-up was blue.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘I was so tired, I forgot I’d given her blueberries,’ I said, stroking her delicate head. ‘She was fine.’

  ‘If she spits up blue, I’ll shoot you a text,’ Alex promised. Cradling Alice carefully, I reached for the edge of the curtain, pulling it back on what looked to be another extremely sticky day. Did Hawaii get as humid as New York? I imagined it was less of a concern if you were sitting on a beach in a bikini.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, letting the curtain fall back into place, a shaft of daylight fading in and out across Alex’s face. ‘I can always go when she’s older. Hawaii isn’t going anywhere, is it?’

  ‘Can’t promise that,’ he said with an uncertain shrug. ‘Climate change is a real thing. Which reminds me, you have to start separating the recycling, babe.’

  ‘I’m going to tell Jenny I can’t go,’ I said, thinking out loud and mentally listing all the reasons not to jump on a private jet to a five-star resort with my very best friends for five nights in paradise. ‘I can’t leave you two on your own. It’s not fair.’

  ‘Obviously, I would miss you, it’s like we never have any time together, but that shouldn’t stop you from going.’ He turned over and covered his eyes with his forearm.

  Well, that was considerably less encouraging.

  ‘And, if I have to, I can always get my mom to come and help out.’

  He could do what? I sat bolt upright, suddenly wide awake.

  His mother? Just when I was starting to think about going …<
br />
  ‘It’s not that I don’t like his mum,’ I ranted into my phone the second I left the house. ‘It’s more that my entire body rejects the very concept of her existence.’

  Louisa growled in agreement. ‘So what you’re saying is, you’re not that close?’

  ‘At our wedding, she asked me if I was marrying Alex for a green card. When I said I wasn’t, she asked if I was pregnant. And then, when I was pregnant, she bought Alex a home paternity test, “just to make sure”,’ I replied, peeling off my denim jacket as I walked. It was only the end of May and summer was coming on strong. It seemed as though we were skipping spring and going straight into a three-month-long heat wave again this year. ‘Every time they come over, she spends the entire visit telling me everything I’m doing wrong then goes, “I suppose that’s the British way”, before walking off in a huff.’

  ‘If she’s not careful, the British way will be me giving her a kick up the arse,’ Lou said. ‘And I thought Tim’s mum was bad.’

  ‘I don’t know, what’s the worst present you’ve ever had from Tim’s mum?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ She clucked her tongue as she considered. ‘Probably the time she accidentally bought me a vibrator. The man in the shop convinced her it was a back massager. That was a bit awkward.’

  ‘Alex’s mum bought me a lifetime subscription to Weight Watchers for Christmas. While I was pregnant.’

  Louisa gasped.

  ‘And his dad’s no better. They never gave a shit about Alex until we had Al and now they can’t keep away, even though all they do is go on about how amazing his brother is and he’s not, he’s the worst human alive.’

  ‘I already believe they’re awful,’ she laughed. ‘No need for hyperbole.’

  ‘He’s an estate agent,’ I said, pausing to check traffic before running across 8th Avenue. ‘And an amateur magician.’

  ‘He must be kept away from Alice at all costs,’ Louisa replied gravely. ‘Have you considered a moonlight flit? Change your names and move back to England?’

  ‘Yes,’ I admitted ruefully. ‘I actually have.’

  ‘Well, far be it from me to tell you what to do but I do have to say, the idea of a weekend in Hawaii isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever heard,’ she said carefully. ‘Not that I wouldn’t be extremely happy to spend the weekend in New York with you and Alex but this trip does sound like a bit of a dream come true, doesn’t it?’

  I knew I shouldn’t have told her.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ I said, checking the address in the mysterious email I’d received a week ago. ‘I’ve got a meeting before work and I’m already late. They bloody love a breakfast meeting around here.’

  ‘It’s hard to stay on schedule when you’ve got a baby,’ she said. ‘I’m sure they’ll understand.’

  ‘Keep your fingers crossed,’ I said as I climbed the steps of 585 11th Street. ‘It’s some super exclusive mummy and baby club. They emailed me and Alex said I should meet them. He seems to think I need more mummy friends.’

  ‘And so do I,’ Lou replied. ‘You can’t keep refusing to socialize with other mums just because they sing different words to the “Wheels on the Bus”. It’s not good for Alice.’

  ‘I’m not refusing to, it’s just weird.’ I shuddered at the memory of my one morning with the Park Slope New Parents group. Dairy-free, gluten-free, caffeine-free and fun-free. ‘The groups here aren’t like they are at home. I feel like I’m about to join a cult.’

  ‘Then don’t drink the Kool-Aid,’ she instructed. ‘And if you see any pictures of Tom Cruise on the walls, run for the hills.’

  ‘Noted,’ I said, pressing the doorbell and hearing a gentle chime echo on the other side of the door. ‘Speak to you later.’

  I slipped my phone into my satchel, gave my underarms a surreptitious sniff and straightened my shoulders. Even though I was a grown woman with her own child and a husband and a job and a mortgage, whenever I was confronted with a group of women, especially mothers, I always felt like I was back in Year Seven, delivering a message to the sixth-form common room.

  According to their website, The Mothers of Brooklyn, or M.O.B., was a non-profit parenting group, ‘dedicated to supporting mothers and children through emotional support and growth’, and according to their Twitter feed, they would be doing this by getting half-priced manicures at Gloss nail salon every Thursday morning from ten until two. The manicures I could definitely get behind, but the rest of it sounded a bit much.

  After what felt like forever, a tall slim brunette opened the front door. She was impeccably dressed for eight thirty in the morning, wearing sky-blue Jesse Kamm sailor pants, a white silk T-shirt and a colourful statement necklace made of oversized crystals that Alice would have destroyed in seconds.

  ‘Yes?’ she said, giving me the same look I gave to the people who knocked at my door with a clipboard in their hand.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ I said, overcome with the utter certainty that I’d knocked on the wrong door. ‘I’m supposed to be meeting Perry Dickson, I’m Angela. Angela Clark?’

  The woman forced a smile onto her face and opened up the door fully, a cool blast of air conditioning making a break for the sweaty street.

  ‘You’re Angela Clark.’ It sounded more like a threat than a question or a statement. ‘I’m Perry. Please do come in. We’ve been expecting you.’

  We? Gulp.

  I followed her through the foyer into a huge, airy living room, full of tasteful, elegant furniture that was perfectly lit by crystal-clear floor-to-ceiling windows that let in the blinding sunshine. It looked just like my apartment. If you knocked out every wall of every single room, painted the entire thing a bright, clean white and never allowed a human being to touch a single thing.

  ‘This place is gorgeous,’ I said, head on a swivel as we carried on walking, striding across the stripped wooden floors and through a doorway at the end of the room. ‘You have a beautiful home.’

  ‘This isn’t my home,’ Perry replied with a solid bark of a laugh. ‘This is our office, our clubhouse, shall we say.’

  The only club I’d ever been a member of was the Take That fan club and I had a sneaking suspicion Perry was neither a Mark nor a Robbie girl. I squeezed my denim jacket, wishing I’d worn something more formal. I loved my little leather flip-flops and pink cotton Zara sundress but, compared to Perry’s sophisticated ensemble, I felt as though I’d just trotted in from the morning milking. Which, I thought, absently squeezing my deflated boobs with my forearms, I sort of had.

  ‘Here we are.’

  I walked through to another high-ceilinged room, this one opening out into a stunning conservatory, full of lush green plants I hardly dared look at. I could kill a cactus by simply looking at it and I counted at least three orchids in Perry’s collection. Best to keep my distance.

  ‘Morning, everyone,’ I said, raising a hand in a hello. Four other women dotted around the room smiled and nodded in response. Each and every one of them was just as perfectly put together as Perry. These were not women who were worried about sweat stains or subway mess or baby puke. If the townhouse hadn’t been enough of a giveaway, their immaculate presentation did it. I was out of my depth and trapped in a room full of Cicis that had spawned and I couldn’t work out for the life of me why on earth I was there.

  ‘This is Nia, Danielle, Avery and Joan,’ Perry said, each woman raising a diamond-bedecked hand as her name was called. ‘We’re so happy you could join us.’

  ‘That’s always nice to hear,’ I replied as I sat down, keeping one eye on the other women. They hovered at the edges of the room, poised and graceful, as though posing for an unseen photographer. It was all very unsettling, not least because there was literally no sign of a single baby in this supposed mother and baby group. I couldn’t see one piece of plastic or wipe-down surface anywhere. I no longer owned anything that couldn’t be cleaned with a baby wipe. ‘I’m sure it’s my baby brain acting up but I can’t remember how you said y
ou got my details originally.’

  ‘No, that’s because we didn’t say,’ she replied as one of the other women presented us with glasses of sparkling water before resuming her original position.

  Gulp.

  ‘You didn’t?’

  ‘We didn’t,’ Perry confirmed. ‘We’re very discreet. And as the head of the membership committee, I personally select women for the group who are a good fit for our community.’

  And I had been selected? Me? Teenage Angela who never got picked for dodgeball was very excited but adult Angela was more than a little wary.

  ‘Let’s get to know each other a little better,’ she suggested. ‘You work at Besson Media?’

  ‘I do,’ I confirmed, sitting on my shaking hands. ‘Well, I just started but I was at Spencer Media before that.’

  ‘And you’re a writer.’

  Perry’s smooth face barely moved as she spoke.

  I nodded, crossing my legs at the ankles to hide the chipped nail polish on my big toe. This was not a chipped pedicure kind of a gang, I could tell.

  ‘We have a lot of contacts in the media,’ she said. ‘And a few of our members are in publishing.’

  ‘Oh, I’d love to write a book one day, it’s always been my dream,’ I told her, a happy smile on my face as I rambled on. ‘I used to write children’s books, ghost-write actually. I would write the books that went with kids’ films and TV shows. You might have read some of them actually, they were dreadful obviously, but don’t hold that against me.’

  This is not the time for verbal diarrhoea, I whispered to myself. Cut it out, Angela.

  ‘What is it you do?’ I asked, very aware of the sweat patches under my arms.

  ‘Hedge fund manager at YellowCrest,’ Perry said as though telling me she ran the corner shop. No wonder The M.O.B. had a five-million-dollar brownstone as their clubhouse. Erin’s husband worked at YellowCrest and Erin’s husband made literally millions of dollars a year.

  ‘Or at least, I used to. I gave it up after Mortimer came along.’

  ‘Mortimer?’ I squeaked. Please let it be the name of her dog, please let it be the name of her dog, please let it be the name of her dog.