Life After Yes

by Aidan Donnelley Rowley

  She said Dad played the song over and over on his boom box on that bitter cold day in January while they waited for my arrival.

  Dear Prudence won’t you come out to play?

  Dear Prudence greet the brand new day

  The sun is up the sky is blue

  It’s beautiful and so are you

  Dear Prudence won’t you come out to play?

  Dear Prudence open up your eyes

  Dear Prudence see the sunny skies

  The wind is low the birds will sing

  That you are part of everything

  Dear Prudence won’t you open up your eyes?

  Look around round

  Look around round round

  Look around

  Dear Prudence let me see you smile

  Dear Prudence like a little child

  The clouds will be a daisy chain

  So let me see you smile again

  Dear Prudence won’t you let me see you smile

  Dear Prudence won’t you come out to play?

  Dear Prudence greet the brand new day

  The sun is up the sky is blue

  It’s beautiful and so are you

  Dear Prudence won’t you come out to play?

  “You loved the song,” Mom promised. “Each time Dad and I sang it to you, you opened your eyes and looked up at us. And every time we trailed off, you flashed that gummy smile even when you were almost asleep.”

  So it was not a surprise that my parents were deeply saddened when I decided to shed Prudence, the name they so carefully, so organically, chose for me their daughter. On that night after my basketball party, I overheard Mom crying and peeked through their bedroom door. Dad mumbled something to her in his deep crackly voice, rubbing her back in small circles. “She will always be Prudence,” he said, “if only to us.”

  To cope, my parents maintained a staunch loyalty to their decision and to my name, to their beloved lullaby, the theme song of my young life. They refused to call me by my middle name, Mom’s maiden name, the name she herself had forsaken fifteen years before, upon exchanging vows with Dad. I think they were confident it was all a passing phase, a fit of rebellion or adolescent fire that would flicker out.

  But it never did.

  Fast-forward six years. The Quinn-Phelps anti-Prudence movement continued. It was a balmy June night. Our parents picnicked a few miles away, oblivious to the romance that had been brewing for years now between their eighteen-year-old children.

  Phelps and I went fishing on Bird Lake.

  Dad taught me how to cast when I was very young. Out on the grass by the lake, he’d show me his watch, the leather band battered and brown. He’d point to the numbers, and though I was just learning to tell time, I got it. Ten o’clock, two o’clock, ten o’clock, two o’clock, he’d repeat rhythmically as I flung the fishing line back and forth. Dad said I was a natural. Only now do I wonder if he meant what he said, or whether this was a prepackaged parental lie uttered to encourage effort.

  Anyway, fishing with Phelps, I started out confident, ready to brandish my skills. But soon, my casts were robotic and awkward, more like nine o’clock, three o’clock, far from the fluid arcs I effortlessly accomplished with Dad. After ten minutes of fishing, I caught Phelps above the lip with my fly.

  Thankfully, he was a good sport about the mishap. “Right body part,” he said, pulling the hook out, wiping away the small trickle of blood with his sleeve. “But wrong creature. You sure you’re Daddy O’Malley’s little girl?”

  I smiled. “Maybe that was intentional,” I said, my flirtation skills in high bloom. “Maybe I’d rather snag you than a slimy old trout.”

  “Could be,” he said, blue eyes sparkling.

  We brought our own picnic—peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and lemonade, and Phelps swiped a couple of Bud Lights from his parents’ summer stash.

  “WASPs don’t notice missing booze,” he said.

  He pulled out his Swiss Army knife and popped the cap. He handed me the bottle and I protested. He couldn’t believe that I wasn’t a big beer drinker. I told him we did things a bit differently back in Manhattan. It was true. But he was a Midwesterner through and through, already a big fan of brewski, and eager to convert me.

  “I know it’s not prudent to drink at such an early age out in the open for all to see, but give it a try,” he said, taking a swig. He peppered as many sentences as he could with this word. Cabins surrounded the lake, lights on. “It’s good practice for college. Plus, rebellion can be delicious.”

  I looked at him: blond hair, blue eyes, golden skin, blue-and-white plaid flannel over lemon-colored polo, khaki shorts hung low on his waist, untied Nikes; hardly the revolutionary. He would attend Williams that fall.

  I copied his movements, holding the amber bottle up at the same forty-five-degree angle and taking a big swallow.

  “Delicious,” I said, smiling, lying a bit.

  He held his beer in one hand, but with his other, he began carving something with his knife on the side of the boat. Our initials.

  “The precocious vandal,” I said, swallowing. The beer really wasn’t so bad.

  “The snag-worthy precocious vandal,” he clarified, “who can outfish you any day.”

  He rowed us through the still water to one edge of the lake, a small spot hidden under a canopy of overhanging trees. He handed me his empty and pulled the line through his rod and began casting. The fly arced over us and landed softly in the water. Before long, he caught a rainbow trout and a brown trout, pulled the hooks from their mouths and released them into the water.

  “They’re too young to die,” he said, wiping blood and water and fish slime onto that flannel shirt.

  The bugs started biting and he pulled a tiny bottle of repellent from his khaki vest—his father’s old vest—and handed it to me. And when I got cold, he handed me that flannel. It smelled like fish guts, but it kept me warm.

  That night as the sky grew dark, Phelps stopped fishing and looked at me.

  “What?” I said, uncomfortable, but unable to look away. Anchored by his glance.

  He didn’t answer me, but grabbed my hand and pulled me close. He peeled off that flannel and started unbuttoning my shirt.

  He stopped for a moment and kissed me. His tongue tasted like beer and peanut butter.

  I kissed him back.

  He slipped his thumb in the waistband of my jeans and I said: “I can’t.”

  “You don’t want this?” he asked, kissing my neck.

  “I didn’t say that,” I said.

  “You’re right,” he said, still kissing me. “It probably wouldn’t be prudent.”

  A girl named Prudence wouldn’t do this.

  But a girl named Quinn just might.

  I kissed him hard and unbuckled his pants. The boat swayed beneath us, the oars slapped the water. Phelps reached for the anchor and dropped it into the water.

  He had a condom in his back pocket. Apparently, the boy wasn’t completely allergic to prudence.

  There was only a little blood, but we flushed it out with water from the lake.

  A week later, my body was still covered in the bug bites from that night. It was the night before we left Wisconsin to come back to New York. Phelps and I went out on the same rowboat, this time without rods. He brought his guitar and a cooler full of beer.

  Many beers later, back at that same hidden spot, he took his guitar out and played “Dear Prudence.”

  Before we fell asleep on the boat, me in that same smelly flannel resting against his skinny golden chest, he pulled a daisy chain from his fishing bag and put it around my neck. Then he said those three words we hear and say so often, too often maybe, once we grow up. He said: I love you. And I said it back.

  I woke up the next morning and felt different. I couldn’t decide whether it was because I had my first hangover or my first love. I decided it was probably both.

  Four years later, college under those proverbial belts of ours, Phelps l
eft the Midwest and came to New York for medical school. I began law school. Beds replaced rowboats. Dirty martinis replaced Bud Lights. Roses replaced daisies. He worked long hours. I worked long hours. His guitar gathered dust. That flannel sat folded in the back of my bottom drawer.

  I turn off the water, re-create my terry bikini, and make my way back to my locker. A woman in a black suit rushes toward me, clicking the tiles with her heels. She looks down at her BlackBerry as she hurries by me. Her elbow catches my towel and it drops to the ground. A faint “Sorry” echoes as she rushes out.

  For a brief moment, I’m topless like the others. A woman peers through a mess of frizzy black hair and stares at me, at them. I catch her eyes, but they don’t retreat.

  “Nice ones. Whose are they?” she asks, stepping into a pair of chocolate brown trousers.

  “Mine,” I say defensively, just registering what she is asking. She thinks they are fake. Is this a compliment or no? I’m not sure.

  Now Kenny G drifts from the ceiling. I put my sweaty clothes back on and slip out the back of the locker room. I slither along the back wall of the gym, ducking behind the machines. I can see Victor across the room laughing with the fat man whose belly dips below the bottom of his JPMorgan T-shirt.

  I walk out the front door into the cold January air. People wait on corners, arms outstretched, gloved hands waving lethargically at taxis that don’t stop. A fire truck speeds by, a blur of American flags. Two small Korean women shiver as they unlock the rolling gates to the dry cleaner’s. A Heineken truck is parked in front of the corner deli. A cigarette dangles from a man’s lips as he unloads cases down a rolling ramp. Dying Christmas trees recline on sidewalks, browning needles littering the damp frozen pavement, waiting to be taken away.

  I run home so my leggings and hair won’t freeze. I run past the playground on my corner. A father in a bright blue parka pushes his little girl in a pink pom-pom hat on the swing. They both giggle as she flies high in the sky and loses a purple mitten midair, their breath forming clouds that fade into frigid air.

  Chapter 3

  Manhattan’s Upper West Side is the land of chubby babies and skinny mommies. Thanks to waves of panic and fertility drugs, double strollers have taken over, narrowing sidewalks and blocking grocery aisles for the rest of us single units who just want to go about our day.

  Well-fed Labs and Goldens run the show, sporting collars with embroidered Nantucket whales and Scottish plaids, trotting proudly on grassless streets, lifting muscled legs to spray electric yellow, claiming patches of concrete as their own. Little dogs in sweaters and booties and bows are yanked by impatient owners with legs unfairly longer, or, more thoughtfully, toted in small bags designed just for their travel. Deliverymen snake through this mayhem, bicycling without helmets and with alarming speed, through and against the video game traffic, causing a symphony of illegal car horns, just to deliver morning bagels and late night pizzas to folks too lazy to walk a block.

  I’ve lived in this world my whole life, and Sage and I have lived here in our apartment for almost a year. Our place is charming and cozy—NYC code for “small”—with rugged walls of exposed brick and black-and-white photographs on the walls; “very New York,” as Sage’s mother remarked, and “very Pottery Barn,” as my mother did. Neither, I’m sure you’ve gathered, was a compliment.

  We love it, though. We even have a working fireplace. Well, I am pretty sure it works anyway. The previous owner left a Duraflame in it, so I’m assuming it works.

  Back from the gym, I climb our cracked brownstone stairs, stairs littered today with a medley of soggy delivery menus and abandoned bottle caps. This is what a million gets you in this neck of the woods. I fidget for my keys. Once inside, I hear our neighbor’s Labradoodle complaining about something (perhaps about the fact that he is a combination of two breeds that shouldn’t mix?). I hike the internal set of stairs that invariably turns furniture deliverymen into madmen who expect outrageous tips. I kick open the door to our apartment and slide through.

  Sage prefers the blond and polish of Diane Sawyer, but I guess he figures it wasn’t worth the battle. So, Katie Couric sits on the small flat-screen in our kitchen, hyperactively crossing and uncrossing her suspiciously bronzed trademark legs, batting her mascara-caked lashes, and chirping about early menopause, or something equally dreadful. For a few minutes each day, she and the others take a break from covering terrorism, a phenomenon no one really talked about before September.

  I trip over Hula Popper, our small gray tabby cat. Sage is a dog man. But I argued that a kitty would be the perfect companion for two overworked young professionals. Sage stayed strong, holding out for the dog he was convinced we’d one day welcome. After a while, I gave up on the cat thing. But after Dad died, Sage brought home a kitten, a stray he adopted from our local holistic vet. Perhaps he hoped this ball of fur could numb the pain I would someday let myself feel. I told him he could choose the name. For me Prudence/ Quinn, this was no small concession. So he named our little critter Hula Popper after the fishing lure perfect for catching pike and largemouth bass.

  Dad would’ve liked the name.

  Sage is here, in the kitchen, only half awake, strikingly, effortlessly, handsome even at this early hour. He putters around, picking up coins and a Popsicle wrapper from the floor by the fridge.

  “Hey,” I say, standing in the doorway, shivering.

  “Hey, Bug,” he says. I too have the fortune of a fly-fishing nickname. Apparently something in me reminds Sage of the Jitterbug, the Hula Popper’s rival among classic topwater plugs. He gave me the lowdown on this breed of bait, telling me that this lure wobbles across the water’s surface. Its gurglings, he explained, send out waves. Per my man, the Jitterbug’s for fishing at night, in stained water, and on gray days because the steady gurgle helps bass hone in on the bait. Most anglers fish the Jitterbug slow and steady, he told me, neither pausing the bait nor adding any action with twitches or jerks. Sage said this was also a good name for me because I can’t dance.

  “How was the workout? Why is your hair wet?” he says, and scrubs orange Popsicle juice from his hands.

  “Oh, I decided to shower at the gym.”

  “Ah, I see. Someone wanted to flash her new ring around overtime,” he says.

  “Something like that,” I say, and smile. This morning his ego must be five carats. “Workout was good, just a bit harsh after Paris. I think champagne is still pumping through my veins.”

  I plant a soft kiss on Sage’s cheek like I always do and shimmy past him. “What have you been up to?” I ask. Admittedly, it’s a stupid question. I’ve been gone just more than an hour, and judging from the creases on his cheeks he’s been in bed until five minutes ago. But I ask it anyway, filling the morning quiet with small talk, a phenomenon I once foolishly thought reserved for acquaintances and uncomfortable strangers.

  “Oh, just got up. Just trying to mitigate the damage of this week’s tornado,” he says, wiping a small mountain of white powder off the counter with a paper towel decked with faded Christmas bells. In our early days, he never used words like “mitigate”, and I feel a momentary surge of pride. He strokes the counter with great care, as if the white mounds might be some unknown and devastating cousin of anthrax and not artificial sweetener that escaped my coffee cup some morning last week.

  “I hate that you use this stuff,” he says.

  “I know you do. What breed of cancer am I getting from it this week? Uterine? Or brain?” I say, and smile. Sage regularly shows me articles from magazines and medical journals and I love that he wants to protect me, but still, I shrug and sprinkle away, shunning calories, courting the unknown.

  “Beatrice is coming tomorrow. Don’t worry about it,” I say, but he keeps cleaning. Beatrice, an aspiring opera singer, deems herself a housekeeper while under our roof.

  “Honey, isn’t it a bit telling that I feel I have to clean before she comes?” He knows just how much I hate being called honey, so he saves
it for special occasions.

  Here we are: back to reality. Yes, he whisked me to another continent and slipped that ring on my finger, but that didn’t change much. A diamond, however sizable and with fanfare presented, can do only so much.

  There is one major problem with our place. It has nothing to do with a scarcity of square footage, or with a lack of sunlight, or with an acidic New York Times–stealing neighbor. No, the problem is not among those that plague so many of my friends and colleagues who are growing homesick for the space and serenity and sanity of suburban childhoods.

  The problem: me. I am a consummate, steadfast, committed slob. My dishes crust over and pile up, forming precarious towers that threaten to tumble and crash. By Friday, my suit jackets and bras blanket our hardwood bedroom floor, creating an obstacle course for the two of us and poor Hula.

  Hence, our “need” for “help.” It did take a while, many months and some delicately woven arguments and bouts of self-deprecation, but finally I convinced him, or wore him down, as Sage would have it. The “consensus” (as I like to call all decisions I make that involve both of us): We needed a housekeeper once a week. My man hit me with the obvious: If I cleaned up after myself, a housekeeper would be unnecessary. This argument, however bland and bulletproof, did not stop me. Predictably, I went lawyer on him as I’ve been known to do, wielding arguments that weren’t necessarily as sound as they were dramatic. While shyness overtakes me at the office, I fancy myself a gifted negotiator at home, and in these situations, I argue articulately and adamantly. I told him I led a stressful life at the firm and I refused to spend my “downtime” cleaning house. Certainly, it helped when I fattened my already ample lower lip. And yes, it didn’t hurt when I gave him my best sad eyes and delivered some variation of my trademark apology about not being domestic enough.