by Jenny Mollen
When Sunday finally rolled around, I was ready to move on—partly because Ombré and I didn’t have enough history to hold on to and partly because I had a really important meeting on Monday that could potentially lead to me being pasted on a billboard outside Ombré’s apartment. Then, like all assholes, the minute I stopped caring she surfaced.
“Hi, Jenny. We still doing the park on Sullivan?” The number wasn’t saved in my phone, but I knew exactly who the text was from.
“Ricki?” I wrote, as if it could be any number of other potential mom friends.
“Yeah,” she replied. “Are we meeting or what?”
Sandwiched between two buildings was Sullivan Street Park. It was more urban than the other parks in the area. Used push toys and empty Mum-Mum wrappers littered the blacktop basketball court. Popsicle-stained children scrambled around the worn-down jungle gym.
The second we arrived Sid leaped out of his stroller and fought his way into the madness like a newly engaged girl at a David’s Bridal sale. His body tightened with excitement as he grunted his way up the spiral slide.
“Jenny!” Ombré said, appearing behind me looking happy and blissfully unaware of our breakup. “Work was crazy this week. How about you?”
“Yeah. Crazy,” I said, playing it cool.
After a few minutes of small talk, it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen Ombré’s son yet. “Where’s Dylan?” I finally asked.
“Oh, I didn’t want to wake him. He was still napping. But I brought my older son, Forrest.” Ombré turned and pointed to a lanky, dark-haired ten-year-old swinging on the monkey bars. We might have been making the same mistakes in ’99, but our paths clearly diverged in ’06.
“Oh, wow.”
“Different dads. Obviously…Forrest, get down here!” she seethed, then turned to me, instantly a different person. “God, I’ve been going all day. Do you mind if I go grab a slice next door? Can you keep an eye on him for a minute?”
“Umm.”
“You hungry? Want a Coke?” she asked. “Forrest, be good! I’m getting you a sausage and pepperoni!” And with that she exited the park.
As soon as Ombré was out of sight I called Jason. He answered and immediately started talking.
“Hey, baby! I’m at Whole Foods. Do we need more wipes? The wipes here suck. Anyway, I think I’m gonna make my organic raisin chicken tonight or, I don’t know, should I make the cacciatore? It’s organic, too. I’m only buying organic now.”
“Either one. But, baby? I’m at the park and my date just left me with her kid.”
“What do you mean left you?” Jason strained to hear me over two dueling conversations, one about ethical consumerism and the other about brushing your teeth with coconut oil.
“Ombré said she was hungry, so she walked across the street to get pizza. Is that normal?”
“Umm…” Jason paused, knowing it wasn’t normal. “Yeah, baby. It’s fine. She’ll be right back, I’m sure.”
I looked up and saw Forrest heave one of the broken push toys over his head and clock another child in the face.
“Forrest! No!” I screamed.
“Baby? Jen?”
I hung up the phone abruptly and ran to Forrest. Using all the tactics I’d seen Jason perfect on Sid, I took a deep breath and started in.
“Forrest, I see that you are upset that your mom left you at the park. I used to get upset when my mom left me with strangers, too. Let’s calm our bodies and figure this out together.”
Forrest glared at me for a good ten seconds before speaking.
“Suck my dick.”
I pulled back, speechless, as he took off running in the opposite direction.
“I’m supposed to be watching you!” I called after him. “You need to stay in this general area, please! Would you like to stay in this general area now or five seconds from now?” Forrest zigzagged around the park like a demented Roadrunner. Parents looked at me and shook their heads disapprovingly. Sid burst into spontaneous laughter, like a person pretending to get a joke he didn’t understand. I couldn’t help but soften for a moment, appreciating the absurdity of the situation. I walked toward the park’s entrance with Sid’s giggling body in my arms. Craning my neck out the gate, I saw pizza parlors in both directions. There was no way of knowing which way Ombré had gone. A steady stream of families rotated in and out of the gate as I stood with Sid, waiting for Ombré. I called her cell five times in a row, but it kept sending me straight to voicemail. I texted her a series of question marks, but nothing. I was growing weary and Sid was nodding off, ready for his afternoon nap. The sun beat down overhead, turning September back into the dead of August. Losing hope, I again called Jason.
“She’s not coming back.” My arms were hot and sticky against Sid’s flaccid body.
“How long has it been?”
“I don’t know, it feels like two years, but it’s probably been closer to forty-five minutes.” I tried to wipe the sweat off Sid’s porcelain forehead with my sleeve. “Are we concerned at all about global warming or do we just care that Sid is eating organic?”
Jason ignored my question and cut to the chase.
“Where’s the kid, Jenny?”
“I don’t even care anymore,” I said, defeated.
“Jenny! Don’t say that. Can you see him?”
“Yes, yes, he’s loading the slide up with dirt so nobody can use it, it’s fine.” I was over caring about Forrest. “I gotta get Sid out of here. The sun exposure alone feels like child abuse.” I looked up at the brick buildings boxing me in. There was nowhere to hide. “I’m walking Forrest over to the pizza place across the street to see if his mom is there.”
“What? Jenny, hold on. You can’t take someone’s kid out of the park!”
“I’m taking him to his mother.”
“That’s what all kidnappers say!”
“Well, I’m sorry, baby, but I can’t stay here. Forrest!” I called out, hanging up on Jason for the second time.
Then, out of nowhere, I heard my name. Whipping around, I saw Crystal heckling me and sticking her tongue through the chain-link fence. She shifted an industrial-size Victoria’s Secret shopping bag to her other hand and pointed toward a bench near the drinking fountain.
“That’s where we did it!” She moved her eyebrows up and down excitedly.
I motioned for her to get her ass inside the playground so we could talk.
“What’s going on? It’s fucking hot in here.” Crystal put on her sunglasses and surveyed the scene.
“I know, right? It’s sweltering.”
“No. I mean hot as in hot dads.” Crystal turned her body toward a heroin junkie by the basketball court. “I’d totally take his morning-after pill.”
“I don’t think he’s someone’s dad…”
The junkie looked at us, then pulled out his iPhone 6 and made a call. I explained the situation to Crystal, who was too distracted to listen.
“That’s Forrest.” I pointed over to the boy, who was now charging other children a toll to use the slide. “Can you just watch him while I go hunt down his mom?”
“What? That’s Sid’s playdate? He’s an adult. How old is the mom?”
“OUR age!” I said, reminding Crystal that contrary to her Raya profile, she was no longer twenty-one.
Before I could get away, Jason appeared, drenched in sweat and out of breath. Giving up on Crystal, I handed Sid to Jason. “Oh, thank God!”
“Is she back yet?” Jason looked around for Ombré.
“I should have asked for that guy’s number,” Crystal huffed under her breath, still fixating on iPhone 6.
I proceeded to strip off my purse and leave it with Jason when Forrest came running toward us, screaming,
“MOM!”
Standing behind me was Ombré, looking cool and collected, like she’d spent the last hour taking a nap in a massage chair. She licked pizza sauce off her hands and sipped on an almost empty soda.
“Hey, sorry. Lon
gest line and then they didn’t have peppers and so then I went down the block and that place was just as packed…Was Forrest okay for you?” Ombré rubbed Forrest’s head innocently. “Were you good?”
Forrest batted his eyes and nodded, knowing I didn’t have the balls to bust him.
“You guys hungry? I got extra.” Ombré waved the piping-hot box of pizza in front of us like it wasn’t a hundred degrees out and a slice of pizza didn’t contain thirty-five grams of carbs.
“I think we better get going,” I said, not even bothering to introduce Crystal.
“Yeah, Sid is done.” Jason strapped Sid back in his stroller.
“Oy, stroller naps. Sorry about that.” Ombré sighed, surreptitiously sizing up Crystal.
“Actually, it’s tricky, but I can usually do a transfer to his crib once we get home,” Jason said.
“Really?” Ombré was impressed.
Jason extended the canopy over Sid’s stroller, shielding him from the sunlight, then turned to me and explained their conversation as if they’d been having it in Latin. “If I leave him in his stroller to sleep, he’ll only do a thirty-minute nap and be a disaster the rest of the day. Gotta get him in the crib to log at least an hour.”
“Yaas,” I agreed with too much enthusiasm. Crystal looked at me, confused, like I’d just said I loved football.
“I don’t have kids.” Crystal flipped her hair, smug.
Jason wrapped his arm around me as he opened the gate to leave. Crystal took one more look around, then followed.
I waved goodbye to Ombré and lied that I’d call her again soon.
We walked Crystal to the subway stop, two feet away. She didn’t notice because she was already on her phone, contemplating a flirty text to a Dad Bod she met at work. I didn’t bother throwing a fit because there was no point. Crystal was who she’d always been. And just because I’d changed, it was unfair of me to expect her to. I didn’t need Crystal to be my mom friend, nor did I need Ombré, or No Boobs, or even Dad Bod’s wife. I just needed a confidante, someone to talk to, someone I could relate to, and someone who knew more about children than I did. My ideal mom friend didn’t need to own Chloé boots I could borrow or know how to give me the perfect cat eye. It took me a minute to see it, but the greatest mom friend I’d ever have had been with me all along.
Jason kissed me tenderly on the cheek as I looked down at Sid, brushing the hair from his eyes.
“Be honest,” I said. “Is this the hottest threesome you’ve ever had?”
8
SOME BODIES THAT I USED
TO KNOW
I. DEATH IN VENICE BEACH
I was asleep in my bed, my body still throbbing from being cut in half like a magician’s assistant days prior, when suddenly the entire room started shaking. The framed painting above my head swung back and forth on the wall; the unread baby books on my nightstand came crashing down beside me.
“Oh my God! We’re having an earthquake! Save the dogs!” I screamed.
I dug through my sheets and scooped up Gina and Teets, hoping Harry was already dead under a fallen dresser.
“Jenny! We have a fucking baby!” Jason sprang from the bed and charged downstairs to check on Sid. By the time I flipped on the lights and stumbled after him, the series of mild tremors had passed. As had my days of giving a shit about my dogs.
Having a dog and then having a baby is like falling in love with someone new while still living with your ex. No matter how hard you try to convince the people around you that it isn’t weird, it is. People told me that things would change when I had my son, that my dogs wouldn’t hold the same place in my life. I considered those people animal haters who didn’t cry at the movie Blackfish. To think that I could ever prioritize somebody over Teets was fucking preposterous. I was twenty-one years old when I got Teets—barely old enough to take care of myself—and yet somehow, together, the two of us survived. He flew with me all over the country, only taking breaks to refuel on Starbucks breakfast sandwiches and cappuccino foam. He walked me down the aisle at my wedding. He was there when I broke up with my long-term boyfriend, Lance (whose wife isn’t secure enough to let me control his life still). He was there when I stopped being anorexic and when I started again and when I finally stopped for good. I sobbed into his fur when I didn’t get the One Tree Hill pilot, when I didn’t get the Mad Men pilot, when I didn’t get the Suits pilot, and when I didn’t get the waitressing gig at Maggiano’s. (They said that my three weeks of experience as a barista at the Coffee Bean made me more hostess material.) Teets and I were partners in crime. I’d been spooning his matted beige dreadlocks my entire adult life. He wasn’t a dog to me. He was a classy fucking gentleman in a fur suit. He raised me as much as I raised him. He taught me how to love, or at least taught me how to love someone who never criticizes and offers only unconditional adoration.
After having Sid, as I was being wheeled into postop, I’d weepily confessed to the attending nurses that Teets was on his way to visit me. Jason had insisted that if we were going to smuggle Teets into the hospital to meet Sid, it had to be covert, but in my doped-up state, under the influence of adrenaline, estrogen, and Dilaudid, it slipped my mind. I was sure they would understand where I was coming from. Teets was my other half. He had to be there to take pictures with Sid and sleep in his Isolette. My pupils were more dilated than my uterus ever had been as I rambled on and on about the bond between a woman and her dog. The nurses seemed to think I was delirious and, luckily, didn’t take my ramblings seriously.
When Teets arrived as planned, he popped out of my mom’s purse the way Sid was supposed to pop out of my vagina. Confused and decked out in the doggy scrubs I’d purchased online weeks earlier, Teets was lifted up onto the bed to meet Sid. Jason rushed to lock the door, as if we’d just pulled out a gram of celebratory heroin. Sid was busy trying to siphon the first drops of creamy, yellowish colostrum out of my nipples when a cold nose touched his squishy head. Startled, he threw his hands up in the air, decking Teets in the face. I pushed Teets away, trying to soothe Sid.
Teets looked up at me, shocked. He cocked his head to the side, taking in my topless body and the tiny naked man sucking my tits. It was the ultimate betrayal. Sure, he’d seen other tiny naked men sucking my tits before, but I’d never let it stop me from scratching his head or braiding his hair while it happened. And Sid wasn’t trying to prove anything to Teets or anyone else. His only game plan was to suck my nipple until it literally detached from my body. Then maybe poop.
It had been a long day. My mom was going to take Teets home that night, leaving Sid, Jason, and me at the hospital to recover. I kissed him goodbye, satisfied that we’d been able to share such a special moment, but Teets still felt snubbed. He refused to make eye contact, jumping into my mom’s purse and disappearing.
Three months later, in what he claims is a total coincidence, he was diagnosed with nasal cancer.
Jason and I were in New York, about to go live on Sirius with Jenny McCarthy, when the oncologist called me back with the results. Teets had been having trouble breathing out of one nostril for a few weeks, but I assumed it was just seasonal allergies. Apart from his hay fever and a bee sting when he was two, Teets had always been the epitome of health. Just before Sid arrived, we threw a Bark Mitzvah to ring in his thirteenth birthday. The idea of him not living long enough to see his quinceañera devastated me. Jason and Jenny held me in the studio as I sobbed. Teets was my best friend. I didn’t know myself without him. I wasn’t @jennyandteets without him.
Gathering myself, I appraised Jenny McCarthy as she sat back down in her swivel chair, adjusting her microphone. Could she be my new Teets? Touching the back of her long platinum hair with my hand, I whispered the handle @jennyandjenny just to hear how it sounded and instantly burst back into tears. The fact was, there was no replacing Teets. He had been my life when I had no other life.
Teets’s death would mark the end of an era—an era when I was reckless and could wear cutof
fs that barely covered my ass. I had other obligations now, an ass to cover, a child to raise, but still, it didn’t seem right that Teets had to die, or that I should ever have to own a pair of Bermuda shorts. I’d always figured one day, when the time came, Teets and I would fall asleep gracefully on a bed of Egyptian cotton and never wake up. We’d probably be buried in the same tomb, pharaoh-style, eternally resting side by side in matching mummification Spanx. Or maybe we’d be like Sean Connery in First Knight, sent to sea on a giant funeral pyre, then torched by a series of flaming arrows. Either way, we would be together. We were never supposed to not be together.
I returned to L.A. and turned my focus to my dying sidekick.
“Unless he is a complete outlier, my guess is you have six months,” the vet said, brutally honest.
I couldn’t swallow, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t even remember what I was craving for lunch. Teets looked at me with a look that said, “Remember the movie Terms of Endearment? Well, this is going to be ten times worse.” The vet suggested radiation with the caveat that it would just be palliative, but I shook my head, refusing to draw out his death sentence.
“No, I don’t want to have him suffer. I won’t do that to him. I wouldn’t want him to do it to me.” My voice shook.
“Well, it’s not painful. It’s just a laser we zap him with. We put him under light anesthesia and he wakes up having no idea what happened. Just think about it. We aren’t in a rush.” With that, she took Teets’s chart and left the room.
“She said we aren’t in any rush except for the fact that we are in a big fucking rush because he’s DYING!” I screamed into my Bluetooth as I drove back from Venice Beach to the house to meet up with Jason.
“Baby? Are you driving? You don’t sound like you should be driving.”
“I probably shouldn’t because I CAN’T EVEN SEE OUT OF MY EYES,” I cried.