“Mine, too.”
We resumed race-walking west toward Ninth Avenue.
“Look at me. I’m not dressed for this freaking marathon,” she grumbled.
“Neither am I.”
“At least you’re wearing flats.”
I glanced down at black high-tops. “Yeah, but at least you have bare arms and legs.” I was wearing a belted microfiber tunic over spandex leggings.
“Nobody told you to dress like that,” Gaile reminded me, looking cool and crisp in her sleeveless jungle-print dress. “Your skin would probably breathe better if you mummified yourself in Saran Wrap, for God’s sake.”
“Well, I didn’t plan on spending the day hiking around in the blazing heat,” I pointed out. “The studio is, like, fifty degrees.”
“Layers, honey,” Gaile said in her infinite fashion wisdom. “It’s all about layers. So, getting back to your man…if he doesn’t get a worthy package in New York, then what?”
“Then I guess I’m supposed to move to the West Coast to be near him.”
“Maybe Janelle has connections to get you a job out there.”
Instant vision of becoming the next Marcy Carsey, sitcom producer extraordinaire.
Instant memory of Mike—the other Mike—the would-be future sitcom star.
For some reason, he had been popping in and out of my head ever since I’d met him last week. Probably because a face that good-looking was hard to forget. So was his enthusiasm for living in New York.
Too bad my Mike didn’t share it.
“I don’t want a job out there,” I told Gaile. “I don’t want to move. I want him to move. That makes more sense.”
“See, that’s the thing about you, Beau.”
“What’s the thing about me?”
“You’re spoiled.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m spoiled. You’ve told me a hundred times. So has everyone else in the world.”
She laughed. Then she said, “Someday, girlfriend, you’re going to have a rude awakening.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that things aren’t always going to go your way.”
“Things don’t always go my way.”
“When don’t they?”
“Now. With Mike.”
“Well, if you love him, you might have to consider moving.”
“Maybe I could consider it,” I admitted reluctantly. “But it’s so far away.”
“So? You’d visit.”
“I’d rather live here than there.”
“You’d adapt.”
“Yeah, sure. Next thing you know I’ll have fake platinum hair, a fake tan, fake big boobs…”
“So? You’d look good with fake big boobs,” said Gaile, who had authentically gigantic boobs herself.
“I can have fake big boobs right here in New York.”
“Nah. Nobody does fake big boobs better than L.A.”
“Then I’ll stick with a flat chest. Sooner or later, the super-skinny waif look might be back in fashion.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” she said, shaking her head. “We’re over that. Healthy curves are here to stay.”
We had arrived at the dollar store. Wouldn’t you know it? They were fresh out of wintergreen candy canes.
“Ms. Diva is just going to have to make do with these,” Gaile grumbled as we headed uptown on the number-one train ten minutes later, loaded down with plain old—and I mean that literally—peppermint candy canes and Wint-O-Green Lifesavers for good measure.
“What if she throws a fit? She’ll probably get us both fired,” I said, trying not to inhale the pungent body odor of the man whose armpit was adjacent to my nose as he clung to the next overhead strap.
The air-conditioning wasn’t working in this car and the lights flickered for the first minute or two before going out for good. I could think of few things more unpleasant than being crammed into a hot, dark subway car with hundreds of overheated, smelly strangers, hurtling through rat-infested tunnels at high speed.
I mean, was this what I’d always wanted?
I don’t think so.
Maybe I should consider L.A., I found myself thinking reluctantly when Gaile and I emerged on the street to find that the bright blue skies had given way to a torrential downpour.
Maybe there was something to be said for fresh air, sunshine and fake big boobs after all.
eleven
The present
“What we need,” I tell my next-door neighbor Laura as we lounge in my yard soaking our feet in the plastic kiddie pool and licking rapidly melting red, white and blue ice pops, “is a thunderstorm. That would cool things off.”
“Chelsea, put the hose down,” Laura bellows at her daughter, who is chasing Josh around the yard, soaking him in spurts thanks to the many kinks in the hose.
To me, Laura says, “Screw the thunderstorm. What I need is to have these babies. I feel like Jiffy Pop that’s about to burst open in this heat.”
I want to reassure her, but the thing is, she looks exactly like an overheated Jiffy Pop, too.
We both stare at her tremendously swollen belly. Unfortunately, it’s encased in a silvery metallic maternity bathing suit no self-respecting pregnant woman would be caught dead wearing out in public, though it comes in handy for sweltering days like this.
My mother-in-law gave it to me and I passed it along to Laura after Tyler was born, knowing I would never again—God willing—need maternity clothes. For good measure, I also gave her Ty’s entire layette and a bunch of newborn toys he hasn’t even outgrown yet. I feel a little guilty, but we have so much clutter lying around, he’ll never miss it. And with twins, Laura is going to need everything à deux.
“Look at me,” she wails. “I’m huge.”
Yes, she is. I reach across the Parsons table between our chairs to pat her arm, which is slathered in thick white sun-screen. Being a fair-skinned, freckled redhead, Laura pretty much wears SPF 15 year-round. On a day like this, she ups it to 45, and will still be red and blotchy in an hour.
I, on the other hand, doused myself in Hawaiian Tropic oil with minimal SPF in an effort to get a little color. I’ve actually been trying to get a little color since Memorial Day, but whenever I have a spare five minutes to spend outside, it seems to be overcast, or too hot, or dusk, or time for one of my boys to need me inside, pronto.
But right now, the sky is blue, the kids are relatively entertained, the baby is down for a nap in the house, and I’m thinking life is good.
In fact, lying here next to Laura, it’s easy for me to convince myself that I’m already somewhat tanned—and svelte to boot. That’s probably mostly because compared to poor Laura, I am.
But don’t let me fool you. In reality, I’m paler and puffier than a marshmallow. My legs and arms may be fairly toned, and I’ve managed to keep my butt and thighs to a minimum, but there’s an ugly little fold of tummy between my belly button and my tankini bottom, and no amount of crunches will make it go away.
Maybe that’s because the only crunches I’ve been doing these days are the Nestlé variety.
But I tried. Really, I did. In between my pregnancies for Josh and Tyler, I worked out religiously in a futile effort to get my pre-Mikey figure back. I was almost there, and oops! Along came Tyler.
But there’s no chance of another oops now. Mike had a vasectomy in April, at my request. I was shocked that he didn’t put up more of a fuss about it. I guess when he weighed a winceworthy snip-snip against the possibility of another round of endless sleepless nights, it was a no-brainer.
So, there are no remaining obstacles between me and my cellulite-free former bod. Unless you count another decade’s worth of polishing off half-eaten peanut butter sandwiches and “neatening up” my boys’ dripping chocolate ice-cream cones.
“How long do you think it’ll take me to lose this baby weight?” Laura asks.
“I don’t know…maybe a few months?” I lie.
“You really think so?”
“Yep.”
“I don’t know…” She sighs. “Sometimes I think I’ll never see a hundred and thirty-five again.”
I want to remind her that even if she sees her former weight again, she won’t be wearing it the same way she did the first time around. I mean, I’m back down to a hundred and twenty, but I could never wriggle back into the jeans I wore in high school. Everything about my body is permanently wider and lower and softer.
Laura shifts her weight, and her sunglasses topple off her head, landing on the grass beneath her seat.
“No!” she cries out in the utterly helpless tone I recognize all too well. I made that sound myself, whenever I was in my third trimester and dropped something.
“It’s okay, I’ll get them,” I soothe in the don’t panic tone of one who has walked a mile in her espadrilles (the only thing that will fit on her poor swollen feet these days).
“Thanks.” Laura sighs and plunks the sunglasses back above her forehead, where they serve to keep wayward frizz out of her eyes. They’re strictly for show; the one time she wore them, earlier in the summer for twenty minutes tops, she wound up looking like a raccoon for a week.
“You’re welcome. Poor you.”
“Yeah, poor me. Why do I always have to get pregnant in the fall?” Laura grumbles, ignoring—or perhaps not noticing—a sticky blue ice pop drip splashing onto her bare leg, where it blends in nicely with the varicose veins.
I try—and fail—to think of something encouraging to say.
She isn’t in the mood for a pep talk. She rants on, “You’d think I would have learned my lesson after not one, but two third trimesters that lasted all summer. But no. Here I am, the village idiot, doing it once again, with twins, no less.”
“I know. I’m sorry,” I murmur.
“How come your babies were all born in the winter and spring, Beau? Did you plan it that way?”
“Not on purpose. It just worked out.” I set my empty ice-pop stick on the table beside the cordless phone and the baby monitor.
“Yeah. Things always just work out for you, don’t they?”
“Not always.” Sometimes I get sick of people assuming I lead a charmed life. I mean, I have problems just like everybody else.
“Well,” Laura says with a grunt as she shifts her weight in her chair, “if you ever consider trying for a girl, make sure you time it right again.”
Okay, I’m really sick of people saying that. It’s bad enough when my friends do it, but sometimes complete strangers will come up to me when I’m out with my three boys and ask me if I’m going to try for a girl. Josh even asked me once if I wished he were a girl so that I could have a daughter. And I’d be rich if I had a dollar for everyone who asked me if I was hoping for a girl when I was pregnant with Tyler.
Maybe it’s the heat that makes me more irritated than usual with Laura’s innocent comment. Or maybe it’s PMS. In any case, I retort, “Are you kidding me? Who in their right mind would want four kids?”
“Trust me. I feel the same way,” Laura says, watching Chelsea and Mikey screeching and pouring plastic cups of water over each other’s heads. “Kirk had to talk me into three as it was, and that was where I drew the line. The thought of multiples never even crossed my mind, and now look.”
I immediately feel guilty. “Yeah, but at least you get two for the price of one pregnancy and labor.”
“Gee, what a bargain.”
“Anyway, we can’t have any more. Mike had a vasectomy, remember?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe Kirk can get one after the twins are born.”
“He’d never agree to that.”
“Why not?”
“Who knows? Maybe he thinks I’ll get hit by a bus and his new wife will be young and childless. I guess Mike figures that if you get hit by a bus, his new wife will be beyond the childbearing years.”
“If I get hit by a bus, Mike had better not have a new wife. I want him at my graveside daily, crying and carrying on.”
“He probably would be. Unlike you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that if Mike got hit by a bus, you wouldn’t be alone for long.”
“What, you think I’d be gallivanting around like some merry widow?” I can’t help feeling a little insulted. And, okay, intrigued.
“I just can’t see you staying single, Beau. You’d be remarried right away. Men are always checking you out. If you didn’t have that wedding ring on, they’d be all over you like flies.”
I have to laugh at that. The only thing I can imagine being all over me like flies is my kids. And, well, flies, since chances are at least one of my kids tends to smell like poop at any given time.
“Mommy, I’m done with this,” Laura’s son, Adam, announces, thrusting a melting ice pop into her free hand. “I’m all sticky. Can you clean me?”
“Clean yourself in the pool.” Laura sticks his ice pop into her mouth to lick away the drips, then tends to her own. “You know, I’d much rather be double-fisted with frozen margaritas.”
I laugh. “I’ll smuggle you a pitcher of them in recovery.”
“With salt?”
“With salt. And little paper umbrellas.”
She laughs.
“I’m so not kidding.”
“I know you aren’t. Neither am I.” She smiles at me.
“What are friends for if not to dull the aftermath of childbirth with tequila?”
“I hope you’re not planning to pour it right on my episiotomy stitches, because the lime would probably sting.”
“Sting? Sweetie, after birthing two babies, you think a little sting is going to bother you?”
We both laugh, and for some reason, in that moment of female bonding, I find myself wanting to tell her about Mike. The other Mike. He’s been in the back of my mind the past few days, ever since I sent that e-mail.
He hasn’t written back. I was obsessive about checking my e-mail at first, but now I’m down to just a few times a day.
“What’s wrong?” Laura asks.
“What do you mean?”
“You look upset.”
“Upset? Me? Why would I be upset?”
“I don’t know. One minute you were laughing, the next you weren’t. Is something bothering you?”
Yes.
But where do I start?
I’ve never even mentioned Mike to Laura. Isn’t that strange? She’s somebody I see almost every day of my life, but I never realized until this moment that our interaction is all about the present: playdates, PTO meetings, soccer practice, leads on new babysitters.
The past just doesn’t seem to come up. She’s probably my closest friend in the world now, and yet I don’t even know her maiden name. How very odd that is. Odd, and disconcerting.
I shake my head, gazing around at the frolicking kids, the baby monitor, the house, the SUV parked in the driveway.
This is my life now, and it’s a life that has nothing to do with the person I once was. I’ve lost touch entirely with her. To Laura, and to my children, she never even existed.
“Mommy, Adam’s washing his hands in the pool!” Chelsea shrieks.
“I told him to.”
“Yuck! I’m getting out.”
“At least nobody pooped in the pool this time,” I comment, wriggling my toes in the shallow water, which now has a purplish ice-pop slick floating on the surface.
“Oh, ick. Remember that?”
We laugh about it, and I wonder why it is that any time I’m chatting with one of my fellow mommy friends, the conversation always gets steered around to bodily functions. Maybe I need to broaden my horizons, expand my circle of friends beyond the neighborhood and the PTO.
Not that I don’t have other friends.
I think about Valerie, who is still living in New York but caught up in her job and the search for Mr. Right.
I think about Gordy, who is also still living in New York, but is currently doing summer
stock in the Berkshires.
I think about Gaile, who’s living in Beverly Hills, producing reality television programs for cable, and married to a casting director who has three kids from two ex-wives.
Thinking about Gaile leads naturally to thinking about e-mail, because that’s how I found her again.
Thinking about e-mail leads naturally to thinking about Mike…
And no sooner does the thought of him cross my mind than the cordless-phone extension rings.
It’s him, I think as I scramble to pick it up, not wanting it to wake Tyler just yet.
But of course it can’t be him, because that would be far too coincidental. I mean, to think of him and have him call in that exact second?
What are the odds of that happening?
“Beau? Is that you?” a male voice asks. A voice so familiar that it’s hard to believe I haven’t heard it in fifteen years.
My heart stops.
Yes, it’s me.
And yes…it’s him.
twelve
The past
“Beau? Where the heck have you been?” Valerie called from our tiny kitchenette as I trudged into our apartment a few days after Mike returned to the West Coast.
“I went to see a movie with Gordy after work,” I told her, dumping my shoulder bag on the floor. “I swear, it was my favorite movie ever.”
Valerie said from the other room, “I thought Say Anything was your favorite movie ever.”
“This is my new favorite movie ever. You have to see it, Val. It was called When Harry Met Sally. Meg Ryan was in it, and Billy Crystal.”
“Mike’s been trying to reach you. He called twice.” Valerie emerged from the kitchen in an oversize T-shirt and black leggings that had a run in the knee. Her teased, product-lacquered hair towered vertically above her head as usual. She was carrying a can of Diet Coke and a bag of fat-free oat bran pretzels, which she offered to me.
I took a handful despite the fact that I wasn’t even hungry, having devoured a large popcorn and the rest of Gordy’s Sno-Caps at the movies.
“What did he say, Val?”
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