by Alison Pace
Ivy’s fist is back on the baby monitor’s screen. She watches as it waves in the air, side to side like maybe Ivy thinks she’s at a rock concert, the rock concert of her mobile. She looks through the motion of her daughter’s fist at her peephole face, and thinks in a way that’s what happened; Ivy, the promise of Ivy, stopped by. Her promise rang the doorbell of their New York City apartment and they decided it was time to go.
The phone rings, and Stephanie looks at it. She thinks that if she doesn’t answer it, then whoever it is—most likely some New Mommy Group person calling to announce that her six-month-old can recite the alphabet—will go away. Or it’s Aubrey calling to monotonously personify disappointment and disillusionment, “Hey, Steph. I’m working late again tonight. I have a client meeting tonight. Uh, actually, it’s not really either of those things, it’s uh, actually, something else that neither of us will acknowledge and maybe if we keep refusing to acknowledge it, then by virtue of that, it’ll all go away. Okay?”
She wonders if it’s entirely possible that she simply no longer has the energy left in her reserves to participate in either of those conversations, regardless of how minimal her participation would actually have to be. She wonders when it was that she stopped applying her Approach Everything With a Positive Attitude philosophy to Aubrey. She thinks it might have been a while ago now. She wills the phone to stop ringing, wills the entire piece of plastic and battery and antenna to magically disappear, go away. Except that she never used to be the kind of person to not want to pick up the phone. And it could be Meredith calling to tell her about last night; she wants to talk to her.
“Hello?”
“Hey.” It’s Meredith, sounding annoyed, though it’s impossible to discern if that’s because of last night with Josh or, rather, because of Meredith’s irrational peevishness about everyone picking up the phone on the first ring.
“How’d it go?” Stephanie asks, because that’s the most important, that’s more important than pointing out, as she sometimes would like to do, that getting annoyed about listening to a ringing phone, about other people’s flip-flop straps being flipped (yes, Meredith had gotten annoyed over this once) is not going to make the world a better place, is not going to do anything actually, other than make her life a bit harder than it really needs to be.
“Okay, just tell me, have you ever once thought of me as not ambitious?” Meredith asks. Josh. It’s not ringing phones this time, or even flip-flops, it’s Josh. “I mean, you remember why he broke up with me, right? You remember what he said?” There’s a spark to the question, a flare, and by the light of the flare Stephanie can see clearly that it’s not really the Josh of last night, the one who came up from Philadelphia to take Meredith to dinner at Bouley, but the one who left her.
“Yes,” Stephanie says, of course she remembers why. And even though she says she remembers, Meredith repeats it anyway.
“He broke up with me because I wasn’t smart enough, or ambitious enough, or successful enough,” Meredith says a bit blankly, almost as if she’s reciting it. Stephanie doesn’t try to stop her; she imagines in some way it might help. Though it does strike Stephanie as a bit odd that these are the reasons she’s repeating, because of all the reasons that Josh gave Meredith, three years ago, before he went to Philadelphia, the last one, the only one she isn’t saying, was the only one that was true.
“I mean,” she continues, “I have to say I’m among the more ambitious people I know.”
“You are, Meres. You always have been,” Stephanie agrees. She smiles to herself, remembering a scene from their childhood; one that’s always there in her memory, easily accessible, continually replayed. “Remember how excited you used to get whenever anyone would ask you what you wanted to be when you grew up?”
“I do. Exactly,” Meredith says defiantly, and Stephanie can see it again, so clearly: a seven- or eight-year-old Meres. Whenever anyone would ask her what she wanted to be when she grew up, she would always jump up and clap her hands and announce loudly, “I want to be an astronaut! A writer! An actress! A chef! A famous chef! I want to be famous!” The job titles would occasionally change, astronaut was a staple, as was chef, but doctor made an appearance sometimes, too; the President of the United States popped up on occasion, as did scientist, rock star, and Olivia Newton-John. It was always something Meredith felt was very important. Meredith was always excited to be something very important; she always couldn’t wait.
“Remember,” Stephanie says, “you always said chef, and you always said writer, and look at you now.”
“Yeah, but I’m not an astronaut. Or Olivia Newton-John,” Meredith says, but she sounds happier, and Stephanie’s pleased to hear that. “And what would you always say?” Meredith asks, joining in, “you wanted to be an ice-skater, right?”
“Hmm, yeah, I think it was that,” Stephanie says nonchalantly. She thinks of herself as a child of eight or nine, when the grown-ups would look at her and ask her that same question. “And, Stephanie, what do you want to be when you grow up?” And with Stephanie, there wouldn’t ever be the great flurry of jumping and clapping that always accompanied Meredith’s answer. Stephanie would generally stay seated and smile a bit shyly, and her answer would always be one of two things. More frequently, Stephanie would say, “I want to be an ice-skater,” and she really did believe that to be true. But every now and then, if she thought someone was really paying attention, if she thought someone really wanted to know the truth, she would look up and tell them, quite seriously, “I want to be happy.”
“But, Steph?” Meredith asks her.
“Yeah?”
“You remember he also broke up with me because I was fat?”
“I remember,” she says. As unkind and off-base as the other things he said had been, they just didn’t make sense. But the other thing, that Meres was fat, she wondered for a long time how Josh could have said that. It wasn’t really fair, she’d thought, because it wasn’t as if Meredith were any fatter when they broke up than when they had met. Which she thinks in a way made it so much worse.
“Okay, see, what I’ve been mostly thinking about,” Meredith begins “is that if I’m going to be thirty-five and single, then that’s fine. I can handle that. It can be because I haven’t met the right person, it can be because I’m not ever going to meet the right person—”
“Meres, you’re going to meet—”
“No wait, listen. It can be for all sorts of reasons, it can be for no reasons, it can just be. But it can’t be because I’m fat.”
“Okay, okay,” Stephanie says, agreeing, reassuring.
Meredith says, “Okay,” too.
“And, Meres?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re not thirty-five and single, you’re thirty-three.”
“You know I like to plan ahead,” Meredith says, and Stephanie laughs, she knows that all too well.
“So I guess you’re not taking him back?” Stephanie says, even though the answer is obvious, and she thinks the obvious answer is the good one. She wants Meres to be happy and she’d like it if Meres could be happy with someone, but Josh is not the guy. And being with the wrong guy isn’t good. Nor, she thinks, is being with the right guy who later turns out to be wrong. She tries not to linger on that.
“No,” Meredith says, “I’m not.”
“Good,” Stephanie says, “And, you know, if you think of all the great breakups, I don’t think they ever end with anyone getting taken back. I just don’t. I mean would Jennifer have taken Brad back? What with Angelina and Maddox and Zahara and Shiloh Nouvel and now Pax Thien? And beautiful Brad carrying their baby bottles around in his jeans for all the world, or at least all the world that reads US Weekly, to see?”
“No,” Meredith says.
“Right,” Stephanie continues, “think of a post-Brad Jen in Chicago. All those pictures of her running, all those clips about her staying at the Peninsula Hotel on Michigan Avenue,” and as she says that, an article she read abo
ut Jennifer Aniston pops into her mind, and a lightbulb goes on above it. “She wouldn’t have taken him back. Not ever. Or at least we need to believe that. She would have held her head high and she would have eaten grilled lamb and vegetables and goat cheese!” she says excitedly. “I read that exact menu in People magazine!”
“You know, I think I read that, too. I thought I read it somewhere else, but maybe it was in People?” Meredith answers, and Stephanie’s pretty sure she sounds a bit enthusiastic, even if she is taking the opportunity to subtly announce her preference for magazines other than People.
Stephanie pauses and pictures Jennifer Aniston, in the early days right after Brangelina was unleashed onto the world, and she’s sure Meredith must be picturing it, too. “You know,” she adds on temptingly, “Jennifer would have balanced out her good fats and good carbs and lean proteins.”
And they pause, and they don’t say anything, and then Meredith says softly, “She would have gone on the Zone.”
“I think so,” Stephanie agrees, smiling.
“Steph?” Meredith says, “I want to go on the Zone with you. And it’s not just because of Josh. Well, maybe it’s a little because of Josh, but it’s also my reflection, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I don’t know if this makes sense, but I don’t see myself when I look at my reflection, and I think when you look at your reflection you should be able to see yourself.”
“I hear that,” Stephanie says, and she does. She listens as Meredith takes a breath.
“And, Stephanie? Also, it’s because of you. I want to do it with you. I want us to do something together again.”
“Oh, Meres, that’s so great!” she exclaims, instantly excited at the prospect, at the camaraderie, at something that they can share together and talk about other than Josh coming back, or restaurants that she can’t go to anymore, or Aubrey, who they can’t really talk about. And just like an eight-year-old Meredith destined for certain fame, Stephanie can’t wait to do this together. “We’ll succeed at this,” she adds on. “I just know we will if we do it together.”
“Go team!” Meredith says, and Stephanie thinks that’s a good sign that she says that, even though she was never the sporty one. Stephanie was always the sporty one, even her initials were sporty: SI, for Stephanie Isley, the same as Sports Illustrated.
“Go team!” Stephanie says back to her, and thinks how her last name isn’t Isley anymore anyway, how it’s Cunningham now. “Okay, how much do you want to lose?” she asks next, her tone unmistakably upbeat.
“Um, I’d say around what you said you wanted to lose. Maybe a little bit more?” Meredith answers.
“You can totally do it, Meres,” Stephanie tells her, and hopes that she isn’t already thinking of the next time she’s going out to dinner. She grabs the book, The Zone Diet by Dr. Barry Sears, PhD, which has been sitting right next to her laptop, and opens it up. “Okay, listen,” she says, and begins to read out loud. “According to Dr. Barry Sears, the Zone is ‘that mysterious but very real state in which your body and mind work together at their ultimate best.’ ”
“That mysterious but very real state,” Meredith repeats, almost dutifully.
“Sounds possible, right?”
“Yes, it does,” Meredith says, pausing before she adds, “along with not possible.” Stephanie pretends not to hear that last part.
“Yes, and look,” she says, holding out the book, and pointing to the very next line, even though Meredith isn’t right there to read along with her. “It says the premise is simple. Calorie counting doesn’t work. Maintaining the correct ratio of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates is what works. Simple.” Stephanie concludes and then for a few minutes, Meredith doesn’t say anything, and there is only silence on the phone. But she’d have to say that the silence, maybe, it’s hopeful. Ivy pipes up again through her monitor, no longer on the verge of waking up, but now very much awake, and it’s time to go.
As they hang up the phone, as Stephanie heads out of their office to go get Ivy, she really does feel hopeful. At the doorway, she turns around and glances at the Zone book, where she’s left it on Aubrey’s side of the desk, a red, yellow, and white striped beacon of hope.
six
a rose by any other name
“Aubrey?”
Silence. She says his name again, “Aubrey.”
She used to like the sound of his name so much. They used to play back the messages he left on their answering machine. She and Meredith did, when Meredith first got back from Paris, and they lived together, in a railroad apartment on Eighty-fourth Street, right by the river, when she’d just met Aubrey. “Hi, uh, Stephanie? It’s Aubrey calling,” he’d say, and they’d hit Stop, and Rewind, and Play, and he’d say it again. And they’d laugh as if they were a lot younger than they were, and Stephanie would swear she got butterflies in her stomach just from the sound of his voice.
“Hi, uh, it’s Aubrey,” they’d repeat. And when they read the cards that always came with the roses he always sent to Stephanie, Meredith would say, “They’re from Aubrey,” and they’d both smile, widely, completely, and say, “Aubrey, Aubrey, Aubrey. He of the excellent name.”
Meredith had once confided that she felt it was both unfortunate, and perhaps indicative of something worse, that she’d only ever been with men who had boring names. Rob, Matt, Dave, Jim. Josh. Stephanie, on the other hand, in addition to her greater capacity for love, had what Meredith believed to be a far greater capacity for attracting men with much more interesting names. Men with Celtic names, last names as first names, names that sounded like somewhere foreign or ancestral, like Aubrey. Aubrey Cunningham. A name you might comment on as cool if you were the type of person to put some stake in names. Before Aubrey, there had been Hillary. So British, so remarkable, even if the man had been neither. There was a Parker once, too. Sporty. And Tiernan, Mackenzie, Addison, Carson, Tucker, Rand, Logan. Preppy, boarding school names, with a little bit of an edge. Crispin, Tyler, Presley. Men who might have a trust fund, or a shotgun. Reid, Asher, Pierce.
“Aubrey?!” she yells, louder this time.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Stephanie! What?” He yells, quite loudly, from down in his workroom. In an instant, Ivy is awake and begins to scream herself. As Stephanie slams out of the kitchen chair she’d been sitting in (she painted all the kitchen chairs white herself, and has thoughts of replacing the caning by hand), and heads to the stairs and up them, she thinks that surely it was Aubrey’s yelling, and not hers, that has woken Ivy; Aubrey’s yelling that must be, to Ivy’s sensitive and receptive young ears, so indicative of the marital state to which she has been born into, Aubrey’s fault that Ivy is now awake, again, at eight, after she’s already been asleep. As she thinks of how high the possibility is that Ivy will now be up for the rest of the night, it is only the fact that she is sure he wouldn’t comfort her, is sure he wouldn’t even notice, that keeps her from crying. She decides instead as she storms upstairs that she’s not even going to talk to him right now, not even going to tell him why she was calling him. Maybe that’ll show him.
She goes to Ivy and picks her up. She holds her, and rubs her back, and says in the most soothing voice she can manage, “Daddy didn’t mean to yell.” Though there’s something about talking about Aubrey to Ivy that feels, if not exactly wrong, then headed in that direction. She can almost glimpse a version of her future, a future in which she might be old and sour and bitter and wear a housecoat. And in this future she never did lose the weight, so, really, the constant wearing of the housecoat is most practical. She’ll refer to Aubrey when she speaks about him to Ivy not as Aubrey, or even as Daddy, but only as “your father.” Your father is going to have to be more considerate about rearranging his visitation days. She can see it, somewhere on the horizon, less the part about the housecoat than the part about Aubrey’s name not being Aubrey, but still, it’s there.
“Mommy didn’t mean to yell,” she adds, maybe just to be fair. Mommy, she thinks, was just tr
ying to ask Daddy if he would like to have some of the somewhat lackluster but Zone-friendly broiled lemon salmon, with one broiled tomato cut in half and sprinkled with Parmesan cheese (one cup of steamed green beans, one large spinach salad and a half cup of red grapes as dessert.) When she and Meredith had embarked on the Zone, a full four days ago, she’d thought it best, recipe-wise, to start with something from the section of the book called “Less Than Gourmet Cooking in The Zone.” She came to this decision after the Mexican Holiday Salad from the “Gourmet Cooking in the Zone” section that she had so painstakingly prepared on the first day had turned out not to be such a holiday, in fact not very festive at all. This happens, she’s realizing; things turn out quite differently from how you’d assumed they’d be.
“Da Da!” Ivy says, no longer crying, quite recovered now and also looking very bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. A move back in the direction of the crib sets off instant distress, so instead of taking the scenario any further, Stephanie asks, rhetorically, “Do you want to try coming downstairs for a while, and you can have dinner with Mommy?” and thinks as she does that there can’t be any reason why a person can’t mash up grapes.
As they head down the stairs, Ivy’s entire being, all the energy around her, brightens as she says, “Da Da,” again. Stephanie doesn’t say, Yes, Da Da, nor does she say, Ma Ma, as she has on recent occasions taken to saying. She doesn’t say anything. She wonders, as Ivy repeats “Da Da Da Da Da” again, right as they walk by the door to his workroom, if Aubrey can hear her. She imagines he can, and then she has to remind herself that she had already decided that she wasn’t going to cry.
Balancing Ivy on her hip, she reaches into the refrigerator and takes out her six-ounce piece of salmon, her tomato, and leaves Aubrey’s in there. She steamed the green beans earlier, so those just need to be reheated in the microwave. She wonders if it will mess up the ratios if she simply eats all the green beans, hers and Aubrey’s, and just saves the spinach. But when is she saving it for? And for whom? For Popeye, perhaps? And if so, she wonders, when will he be here?