Spring Romance: NINE Happily Ever Afters

by Tessa Bailey

  “First thing in the morning, send Charlotte off to shop on Newbury Street,” she advises. “You won’t see her for the rest of the day. Especially now that she has Holly to shop for, too.”

  Charlotte calls from the kitchen.

  “Chloe? I need to lie down before you make dinner. Come take the baby.”

  “See?” I hiss at Jemma.

  “And I need to unpack,” Charlotte continues. “A few of my things are going to need to be ironed. Where shall I put them?”

  I hear Holly start to fuss, tentatively.

  Jemma waves her fingers and slips out the door.

  “Chloe?” my mother calls. “She’s crying.”

  Right.

  When I walk back into the kitchen, Holly is quietly sucking on my mother’s manicured pinky finger.

  Charlotte’s martini glass is in front of her on the counter, about two-thirds empty. She looks at me innocently. Way too innocently. I narrow my eyes.

  “Mom. You wouldn’t,” I start. “You wouldn’t give vodka to a tiny baby…?”

  My mother removes her finger from the baby’s mouth, stands, and hands Holly over to me. The baby looks surprised, then her little face wrinkles up in outrage. She turns bright red. She’s too little to make much noise, but she’s giving it her all. With my spare hand, I get a bottle of infant formula out of the fridge.

  Charlotte, meanwhile, has topped off her glass. She picks it up and heads out of the room, leaving behind a cloud of Chanel No. 5. Her signature scent.

  I cough. Quietly, I hope.

  She reappears in the door. “The sooner I can unpack, the less ironing there will be,” she says, and disappears again. My mother is nothing if not considerate.

  It’s going to be a very long two weeks.

  I reach for my phone and check for texts.

  Nothing.

  * * *

  Day Two with Charlotte.

  Holly was hungry at 1:00 a.m., 4:00 a.m., and 6:30. At 7:15 a.m., she finally falls peacefully to sleep. I stagger into the kitchen and start the coffee maker. Which I loaded last night in anticipation of this desperate moment. I drag a counter stool over to the machine and sit watching each life-giving drop fall as if it were an IV drip in intensive care.

  It is, actually. Except I’m giving the intensive care instead of getting it.

  There’s a distinct smell of Chanel No. 5. I jump.

  “Good morning,” Charlotte says. She is wearing a light cotton robe in a lavender animal print. In which jungle, exactly, are there lavender ocelots? Her slippers have tulle pompoms on the toes.

  They also have kitten heels. I guess that’s appropriate?

  She is wearing crystal drop earrings. And lipstick. Her ash-blonde hair is pulled up in a twist.

  I am wearing a grey hoodie from college. My hair has not been washed in three days. I could lubricate machinery with it.

  “Is the coffee ready?” she continues. “I didn’t hear the coffee grinder. You did grind the beans fresh, didn’t you, dear? Is there low-fat milk? Organic?”

  I don’t answer.

  “Chloe? Is there low-fat milk? You know I’m not a breakfast eater, but are there any of those hazelnut biscotti from that bakery in the North End? I need a little extra energy this morning. You woke me up three times last night, turning on lights and banging around in the kitchen. Broken sleep makes it very difficult for the human brain to function.”

  I take deep, cleansing breaths. They don’t help. She’s still there.

  “Really, Mom?” I start. “Lack of sleep causes problems?”

  At that moment, the coffee maker hisses and sends up a cloud of steam. I bite my tongue.

  Be nice, Chloe.

  She came all the way from Florida to help. She is missing the monthly dinner dance at the club. She is sacrificing her Wednesday golf game. She has left her boyfriend, Howard, in Palm Beach.

  Howard is 78. Or so he says. He adores my mother. She refuses to marry him, or even move in with him, so he bought the condo next door to hers. He likes to keep an eye on her.

  Maybe he’d like to keep a close eye and visit us.

  Now.

  “Coffee’s ready,” I announce. “There is milk. There are no biscotti, but there are cinnamon crackers.”

  “Oh,” she says. “Oh. Maybe you could get some today. It would be a nice outing for you and the baby.”

  It is going to be 95 degrees today, with ninety-eight percent humidity. The word they are using on weather.com is oppressive.

  A trip on the T with a newborn baby to the North End of Boston to buy Italian cookies for my mother, who is supposed to be easing my exhaustion as I adjust to motherhood, is not a “nice outing.” It is a slow, suffocating cattle car to the first circle of hell. And back.

  “Well,” I answer, gritting my teeth, “maybe.” Tomorrow. I can stall until tomorrow. My mother is easily distracted. If I dangle a different shiny idea in front of her, she will give me a twenty-four-hour reprieve.

  “And now,” she says, in martyred tones, “why don’t you just rest? I’ll take the baby for you.”

  The baby has been asleep for half an hour. According to her daily pattern, she will be asleep for another two hours.

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  “Honey?” she adds, as I head to the shower, “In case you’re going to do any hand-washing, I left a few fine unmentionables by your sink.”

  I check my phone for texts. Nothing.

  Nothing from anyone.

  Nothing from Nick.

  * * *

  Nick

  “Dude, you got a package,” Charlie announced, tossing it lightly in his arms before handing it off to me. “From some place called Never Liked It Anyway?”

  I groan. “Damn.” Work involved fourteen hours of conference calls and team meetings to debate the intellectual property implications of using a logo with a mark that was just close enough to a major sportswear company’s signature logo. Fourteen hours of lawyers and designers and clients going head to head.

  I’m about to find out if I own enough beer to make this day go away.

  “Is that the strap-on?” Charlie asks.

  I huff. “Open it if you want.”

  “I don’t exactly want to open it.” Charlie contemplates the seemingly-innocent white box with a broken red heart and piles of money as the logo. “But I gotta admit I’m curious.”

  “Right. Like watching presidential primary debates.”

  “Exactly.” His face lights up.

  I undo my tie, shrug out of my suit jacket, and enjoy the blast of cold that hits me when I open the fridge.

  No beer.

  “Charlie,” I say in a low growl. “Where’s the beer?”

  He smacks his forehead. “I knew I forgot to do something today!”

  “What else were you supposed to do in your incredibly jam-packed schedule?” I’m sure he didn’t forget the all-important two o’clock nap.

  “I was helping Amelie.” One of the most endearing—and annoying as hell—qualities in Charlie is his Teflon-like ability to let other people’s anger roll off him. Most people absorb whatever people around them radiate.

  Charlie doesn’t.

  I envy him.

  Until I’m the person whose anger—justifiably pointed at him—rolls off his back.

  “Let’s go for a walk. I’ll be your pack mule.”

  “My what?”

  “My bad. I forgot. Let’s go to the store and get some beer. I’ll carry it. You look like you could use a walk, Nick. Your shoulders are around your ears.”

  “Wait. You were helping Amelie? With what?”

  “Her concert.”

  “Which concert?”

  “The one Simone’s coming home for.”

  Coming home and Simone don’t sit well in the same sentence.

  “That’s not for a while, Charlie.”

  “Right. But Amelie wants it to be perfect.”

  The last thing I need today is more confusion. I grab the
house keys and start for the door. “Fine, Pack Mule. Let’s go. I’m loading up on Sea Belt and red sour ales.”

  Charlie flexes his arms, showing off guns. His t-shirt’s torn and he’s wearing Celtics green basketball shorts. He looks like he hasn’t showered in days. “Great. Bring it on.”

  “And it’s your turn to buy.”

  “No prob.”

  We’re halfway down the block when I reluctantly ask. “What do you mean, ‘no prob’? You wouldn’t be couch surfing at my place if money were ‘no prob.’”

  “Bitcoin investment paid off. Some guy—”

  “Oh, god, Charlie.” If I let him, the next five blocks to the liquor store will be dominated by talks about cryptocurrency and undervalued Second Life Linden dollars, along with some other currency called Ether.

  “What? I made a few grand.”

  “Regained what you lost?”

  “Yep. Broke even.”

  “Congrats. When are you getting a job? A real one.”

  “I have one!”

  “One that involves actual income. Not a business that lives in your MacAir.”

  “Hey—this is how I want to live. I don’t have kids tying me down. Don’t care about stuff. Why does it bother you so much, Nick?”

  Good question.

  “You choose to be the corporate slave,” he adds.

  Here we go. Same old conversation. Charlie the free spirit vs. Nick the drone.

  “My kids’ college tuition is my form of indentured servitude.”

  “But that ends soon. You won’t need all the board meetings and the endless talk about logos and the secretary who dominates the coffee machine and the asshole above you who specializes in Six Sigma like it’s a cult. You can sell everything and live a tetherless life.”

  “My kids are my tether, Charlie.”

  “But things don’t have to be.”

  “Is this the point in the conversation where I start sounding like Dad? I can never remember my lines. Got a script?” We’re at the liquor store now, the pneumatic door opening before I can bash it with my tense arms, and as we walk down the warehouse-like aisles, Charlie is on my heels.

  “Look, Nick, I’ve watched you sacrifice everything for the kids. And you’re a good father. The best damn dad I’ve ever seen. Even better than ours.”

  I stop short. That’s high praise.

  “And he’d have been proud of you.”

  Damn it. The bridge of my nose tingles. I pinch it, blinking. Haven’t changed my contacts since I got up at 5 a.m. Eyes are dry and scratchy. My throat starts to close. Dusk settles in outside. My day has been filled with nothing but tension and conflict, indecision and complaints.

  And that’s just work.

  And then I sigh.

  “Where’s the Red Poppy Ale?” I am not having an emotional landmine-filled conversation with my shiftless little brother in the lager aisle at the local liquor store.

  “Why do you want that crap? Get Jack’s Abbey instead.”

  Now we’re on even more familiar territory.

  “I like Flemish red sour ales, Charlie.”

  “You have the taste buds of an eighty-year-old nun, Nick.”

  “Glad you’re buying and that you’re the pack mule.” I hand him four four-packs. He grins.

  And then I pick out two six-packs of Jack’s Abbey.

  The grin falters.

  “Nick, you’re not—”

  “Pack mules don’t argue, Charlie, they just figure out how to carry the burden.”

  “That’s you, man.”

  That’s been me. True. For fifteen years, I’ve adjusted to whatever life’s thrown my way, as long as it didn’t involve emotional involvement.

  Chloe’s now about as emotionally involved as anyone can be.

  Do I want to reset the clock? They’re a package deal. Chloe and the baby. I know that.

  Oh, how I know that.

  Charlie buys my beer without comment and struggles under the weight of the huge cardboard box filled with beer. I enjoy my freedom, stretching as we walk.

  “You’re right, Charlie.” I take mercy and grab two six-packs from the box. He squares his shoulders with relief.

  “How’m I right?”

  “Freedom. It has a different feel.”

  “Different good, or different bad?”

  That’s the question.

  Which is it?

  Five minutes later, we’re back home, beers open, Charlie cutting the tape on the Never Liked It Anyway box.

  He pulls out a blue strap-on.

  “Aw, man. Nick, you have a First Aid kit somewhere, right? I need latex gloves to touch this.”

  I take the box out of his hands and reach in.

  “Jesus!” I shout. “That dildo has to be twelve inches long!”

  “Chloe always was uninhibited in bed.”

  I throw it at his face. Years of pitching baseball in high school pay off as the end of the wiggly rubber dildo slaps Charlie flat against his nose, like a musketeer’s loose glove being used to challenge a man to a duel.

  “Nick!” he screams.

  “Don’t you talk about sex with Chloe.”

  He looks at the strap on resting at a crooked angle on the ground, then at me, mouth gaping. Charlie points down. “You just threw the strap on she used on her ex-lover at my face. That’s the epitome of talking about sex with Chloe. Plus you almost broke my nose!”

  “Charlie.” I’m being irrational. I know it.

  I don’t care.

  A vision of her using it on—

  No.

  Nope.

  Not going there.

  “Technically,” I declare, “the auction never said she used it on him.”

  Charlie just laughs.

  I stand abruptly, knocking over the rest of the items in the box, which include a Coldplay t-shirt, some Cashmere sweaters in a size too small for me, the Dave Brubaker vinyl album (which I might keep), the Rush album (which Charlie claims dibs on), a nice Rolex my son could enjoy, and Montblanc pens that are better suited for James McCormick than anyone else in the world.

  Joe has also added a tube of warming gel, a non-fiction historical monograph on sodomy and pirates (signed by the author), a mood ring made for a man’s ring size, a small polished Zen rock with the word Patience etched into it, some t-shirts, and a set of Buckyballs.

  He’s random, if nothing else.

  “You paid over a grand for this shit,” Charlie says with a low whistle, palming the Rush album as I leave the room, marching down the hall into my bedroom, furiously changing into a t-shirt and running shorts.

  I ignore him and come out into the living room, finding my running shoes by the door, throwing them on.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Going for a run.”

  “Nick, you haven’t gone for a run since the kids were toddlers.”

  “Maybe that’s what freedom’s all about. Discovering new things.”

  “The only new thing you want to discover is Chloe, man.”

  I nearly hit him. I do. I come so close when our eyes meet and he leans away. I walk past him, slam the door, and go for my first run in years.

  The only problem is that I’m not sure what I’m running away from.

  Or to.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chloe

  Day Three with Charlotte.

  “You girls have fun!” Charlotte chirped, as we struggled out the door this morning. “Get some of the almond biscotti, and some of the chocolate dipped. And some anise flavored.”

  “While we’re gone, Mom, do you think you could maybe unload the dishwasher?”

  “Well, I would, of course,” she said, “but I don’t know where you keep things. It would just make more work for you. I’m going to call Howard. I forgot my email password. He’ll know what it is.”

  Everyone should have a Howard. I need a Howard.

  “Then this afternoon, you can take me to O. I need one of those stress-reduction
treatments—the two-hour full-body massage with herb-infused lotions and ambient sound from a dolphin’s womb. And the rosemary mint martini in the sippy cup.” Her eyes glazed over. “I need a break from all this stress.”

  “Right. Maybe,” I answered.

  That was half an hour ago.

  And here I am, in the middle of Boston Summer Soup, wearing a baby who is not much more than a tiny octopus tucked into a diaper.

  “Don’t talk to strangers,” I instruct Holly, who is tucked into a Baby Bjorn on my chest, tuft of straight jet-black hair tickling my chin. “Be aware of what’s going on around you. Mind the gap.”

  The T train is pulling up. Please god let the air conditioning be working.

  The doors slide open, and yes! The temperature inside is at least five degrees below unbearable.

  I hoist the folded stroller and hitch the diaper bag up on my shoulder. I stagger onto the train.

  On the T now, I spot two empty seats and sink down gratefully, the stroller propped up on the railing next to me. Holly is quiet. I pull out my phone.

  Hi Howard, I type. Hope all is well. I know you must be missing Charlotte.

  Three dots, wiggling.

  Hi honey, Howard responds. Is she getting to you already?

  Oh no, I type back. It’s great. I just think we’re stressing her out. Not good for her.

  I’m on it.

  That’s all he says. I love Howard.

  My phone pings. It’s Charlotte this time: Chloe, just so you know, the cat box needs changing.

  I look at Holly, who catches my eye, eyebrows raising as if she’s taken aback as well.

  Solidarity. My daughter and I are one.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I whisper, grabbing the stroller.

  Holly replies with a fist punch into thin air, followed by a spectacular belch that I feel.

  I feel it because that’s not just a burp. The space between the Baby Bjorn and my only clean T-shirt is now a war zone.

  We are home by noon, sweaty and exhausted, with two white paper bags containing three dozen Italian biscotti. Tucked into the diaper bag is a can of ground espresso, a pound of fresh handmade linguine, and a small plastic Madonna that the shopkeeper pressed on me when he saw Holly.

  When you work in an office, you have no idea how long a weekday really is. It should be dinner time by now.