A Perfect Wife and Mother

by Peter Israel

  “That means ten dollars an hour,” I said. “That’s what I suggest. Does that sound fair?”

  “I think it’s generous,” she answered, smiling. “Too generous, actually.”

  “Well, then that’s that. Unless you’ve something else, I think all that’s left is for you to meet the ‘valued possession’ in question.”

  “Yes,” she said, laughing with me. “I’d like that very much.”

  Justin knew what I was doing, whom I was talking to and why, but when I called him down and introduced him to Harriet, he ducked away, clutching some toy he wouldn’t reveal. And stayed there, wordless, listening without seeming to.

  We talked around him for a few moments. I told him Harriet was going to come play with him, starting Monday morning, would he like that?

  No answer.

  “A little R-E-G-R-E-S-S-I-O-N this morning,” I apologized. “He isn’t usually like this.”

  And a small Pinocchio nose for Georgia, I thought—you should hear his father on the subject—but Harriet smiled back at me, at Justin next to me.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “Sometimes boys are a little like puppies. They need to sniff you out first.”

  Normally an idea like that would have tickled Justin, but he didn’t react. Wouldn’t. I took this as a signal to end the conversation. Not that it mattered because I’d already made up my mind and he could scream his head off, but I stood, smiling, saying, “Well, it seems as though we’ve made a deal, Harriet. I’m awfully glad, and I hope you’ll be very happy here.”

  “I know I will be,” she said.

  I extended my hand, but then she did the most extraordinary thing.

  Instead of responding to me, she slipped forward onto her knees, on the carpet, and, her arms outstretched gently toward Justin, she said very calmly, “I think you heard my name before. I’m Harriet. Harriet Major. I think I’d like to be friends with you. What did you say your name was?”

  Surprised, I almost answered for him, but in the same breath I felt him straighten next to me and move hesitantly toward her. His right hand came forward too, taking hers, and then I heard his small voice:

  “’ustin. ’ustin Cawpey.”

  22 September

  It’s Saturday night. We’re at the Penzils’, their end-of-summer party. I almost didn’t come. When Larry came home from his sacred tennis this afternoon—he and Joe Penzil against Mark Spain and somebody else—he started working me over about how much I’m paying Harriet. At first I thought it was because they’d lost, but he wouldn’t let it go, even while we were dressing. How could I piss money away like that? If I really wanted to piss money away, there are homeless people lying all over the streets of New York; I’d do better handing out dollar bills on the corner.

  I took a little of it, defending myself. Then I said, “What are you really worried about? Are you afraid I’m going to tell people tonight? And that they’ll make you the laughingstock?”

  “Well,” he said, “what you’re doing certainly is inflationary.”

  “Inflationary? What’s not inflationary? Isn’t your salary inflationary?”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  I didn’t know exactly what I meant.

  “Never mind,” I said. “If you want to be perfectly safe, then I won’t go. I don’t feel like it anyway. I’ve got a splitting headache.”

  “Aw, Georgie, for Christ’s sake. You pull this every year. We’ve got to go. Jesus Christ, they’re our friends! And you look beautiful! Look, honey, I’m sorry. You’re right. It doesn’t matter. Pay her whatever you damn want to.”

  Maybe I do pull it every year, or threaten to. It’s at times like this that I most miss our friends in the city—my friends really, as the people at the Penzils’ are Larry’s. The net-worth set, Wall Street mostly, the women mostly housewives and mothers. And whatever he says, I look like shit—a tub no matter what I do, in the billowing black chiffon and my tear-drop, baroque-pearl earrings—and then there are the insufferable compliments of the women:

  “Why, Georgia, you look positively blooming!”

  But it isn’t that either—the people, or what I look like. And I do have a headache.

  It’s Harriet. Harriet and my paranoia.

  Earlier, I tried the first number on her references list: 612 area code. A snooty, upper-register voice answered: “You have reached the Colwell residence. Neither Dr. Colwell nor I is available to talk to you. If you wish, you may leave a message after the tone.”

  Instead, I hung up.

  Because what if she doesn’t show? Suppose she’s had other interviews? Suppose someone else has offered her twelve? Fifteen? It sounds crazy, but don’t people do crazy things when they’re desperate? And aren’t there a lot of desperate mommies in St. George?

  Suppose she’s decided: Georgia Levy Coffey is too spoiled, too whiny, too neurotic overall? (All true.)

  Suppose she’s been hit by a truck?

  What would I do?

  I’d slit my wrists, is what I’d do.

  I’ve thought of calling her at her stepfather’s, but to say what? (Are you still there? Is everything all right?)

  And no Nuprin during pregnancy. No aspirin. Not even a Tylenol.

  No Dr. Craig till next Thursday.

  Only Helen Penzil’s catered dinner, set up on round tables that overflow out of the dining room. Helen’s idea of sophisticated is to separate the couples, and I find myself, with her, at Mark Spain’s table, where the conversation has turned to Anxiety, The Age of, and, inevitably, Michael Milken. Dear old Michael Milken, for the umpteenth time. To this crowd, the king of junk bonds is still magic, like the Mahareeshi, or whatever his name was, and no matter that he pleaded guilty, “I mean, he made in the ten figures! Say what you will, that’s pretty fucking awesome!” A lot of speculation about his sentencing, what kind of secret deals he must have cut, what he’s done with all the money.

  I drift, worrying about Harriet.

  I almost miss the question. That is, I do miss it—something about sex. Then I realize abruptly that Mark Spain is eyeing me across the table, lidded hawk’s eyes over a hawkish nose, wide nostrils, sardonic smile, and that people are laughing …

  At me?

  I flash, feel myself flush.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, not understanding, “did I miss something?”

  “I think you did,” the lawyer answers. “I suppose you were lost in prenatal communion. The question put to you was: Would you like to have sex with Michael?”

  “What? With whom?”

  Generalized laughter.

  “Forget that your husband is in the room, Georgia,” Spain says, “or that in your current state sex with a man may be about the furthest thing from your mind. Imagine yourself in other circumstances, a free woman. You’ve just been introduced to Michael Milken. Does it cross your mind: A man who made that much money, I wonder what he’s like in bed?”

  “What Mark’s getting at, Georgia,” Helen Penzil cuts in, “is if money, enough money, gives a man irresistible sex appeal.”

  “That’s not my point at all,” Spain says, his eyes on me. (Poor Helen. In her defense, she is Joe’s wife, and Joe is Mark Spain’s protégé at their law firm.) “Go on, Georgia. Does it cross your mind?”

  I want to say the game’s dumb. Or that you, Mark Spain, make my skin crawl. Or that the Milkens, from what little I’ve read, are a pair of nobodies who got in way over their heads. But all of them are watching me expectantly.

  “No,” I manage to say, “not at all.”

  This arouses groans, comments—of disapproval? disbelief?—but Spain waves them off.

  “Why not?” he persists.

  “I’ve never so much as met the man.”

  “Yes, but you’d have to have been in Timbuktu not to be aware of him. What is it about him that turns you off?”

  “Nothing,” I answer. “I guess I just don’t see what’s so sexy about money.”

  Spain’s eyes crinkle
, his nostrils flare. I feel as though he’s about to make me the butt of some joke. Instead he says, “At last, the voice of common sense. And from an expectant mother, no less. But money can still buy things, can’t it, Georgia? Even people?”

  “Are you asking me if I’d sell myself to Michael Milken?”

  “At some price you would, wouldn’t you? Or to me? Or anyone?” A sardonic smile. “Doesn’t every one of us around this table, man or woman, have a price? At some figure?”

  “You’re not serious, are you?” I ask.

  “Very serious.”

  “I’m sorry,” I retort angrily, “but I find the question offensive.”

  “And well you should,” he replies. “But shocking as it may seem, my dear, we live in an age when men and women do buy and sell each other, all the time. Michael’s genius was that he understood that literally everyone is for sale. What he never understood, though, is that the only true leverage is power, not money. Power interested him only in passing, and he was always quick to pass it on. He lacked the true predator’s instinct. At the end, when he too was sold out, by his friends and business partners, all that was left was a poor little rich boy sitting at his computer with his pants down.

  “And that, dear Georgia,” the hawk’s eyes lidded again, “is why you wouldn’t think about going to bed with him.”

  So much, I think, for Michael Milken.

  And Georgia Coffey? I’m still flushed by the exchange, his supercilious tone. I feel somehow like a piece of goods picked up in a store, fingered, put down again. How dare he? Somebody asks Spain if he’s jealous or just bragging—guffaws all around—and the conversation now revolves around him.

  I excuse myself, slip away unnoticed. Upstairs, in the master bedroom, I call home. Clotie says they’re fine, just fine. She’s my cleaning woman. As a special dispensation, she agreed to sit with Justin. (Ten dollars an hour.) They’ve been watching TV. I want Justin to go to bed, ask her to put him on. When am I coming home, he wants to know. Soon, I say, very soon. And when is Harriet—“’arrit”—coming to play with him? I take a deep breath. Monday, I say. Monday morning. But not unless he gets plenty of sleep first. He’s going to need high energy for Harriet, I tell him.

  I dread going back downstairs. Is it Spain? I only know the man through the Penzils, and before tonight he’s never paid me the slightest attention. Thank God for small favors. According to Larry, he put together some of the biggest deals of the eighties. A competitor, Larry says, “one hell of a.” He’s also, by reputation, something of a philanderer, in his fifties, mind you, late forties anyway, and—I know this from Helen—he and Gloria fight like cats and dogs.

  Finally I descend, holding on to the banister. Dinner is over; the guests have moved into the living room. My headache is gone, replaced not by nausea exactly but intimations of nausea. Heavy, achy feeling in my legs, and I have to stop every few steps to catch my breath. Up until now, I’ve had a trouble-free pregnancy, but it’s as though some warm and sickly wind, the last wind of summer, has gusted through me, leaving a residual coating. I hardly ate, yet I’m sticky from sweat, and now there’s the renewed throbbing at my temples.

  I want to go home.

  The party has divided into male and female, except that, instead of “retiring,” the men have simply gathered around their self-appointed guru, Mr. Spain. Joe Penzil’s in their midst. I rather like Joe. More than Helen, really. He’s Larry’s closest friend, an ex-Marine turned Wall Street lawyer in his thirties, and it invariably amuses me to see Larry and Joe together: Penzil with his sawed-off crew cut, small but dark and intense, and the laid-back Coffey—Big Bear, as he’s known to his friends—still handsome, still boyish despite the bald spot.

  And smart too, my husband.

  You don’t get to be magna cum at Dartmouth, or do the Shaw Cross training program, which people say is tougher than any MBA, or become a managing director, or earn in the high six figures (over a million, the year he turned thirty) on a moron’s IQ.

  And there’s the rub.

  Because Larry is standing closest to Spain, and Spain apparently has been working him over. I can see Spain’s eyes flash, long index finger skewering, and Larry has his head ducked forward, down, and he’s listening. Then, abruptly, a great burst and roar of laughter from the entourage. Spain apparently has struck home. For a second, Larry simply stares, mouth agape in his moon face. But then, head back, he too starts to guffaw, and even though I can’t hear the words, I can see his great paw on Spain’s lapel and shoulder, and now he’s nodding, talking earnestly—schmoozing, he’d say, even though he’s not Jewish—“Hell, honey,” he’d say, “what do you think I do for a living?”—and I think, he can’t like Spain, he …

  Or have I got it all wrong? Is this really male bonding I’m witnessing?

  While Spain’s eyes, now circling the room, have just lit on mine?

  The Penzils understand my apology. It’s the fatigue, the headache, I don’t even have to explain. I have to take care of myself, my baby.

  But Larry doesn’t get it.

  “Great party,” he says in the car.

  Okay, so he’s pissed.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m just not feeling too well.”

  “Not to worry.”

  “What did Spain say to you?” I ask a moment later.

  “When?”

  “Just now. What was it, some kind of joke?”

  “Look, you may not like him,” tightly, “but he’s one of the savviest guys on the Street. Maybe the.”

  And one hell of a competitor, I add for him in my mind. But the conversation is over. We’re home, in silence, inside of five minutes. Clotie leaves, Larry heads toward the den—something about a nightcap—and upstairs I check Justin. He’s breathing lightly in his bed with an arm flung over his head and Meowie, his cat, curled between his legs.

  I feign sleep later, but when Larry gets into bed behind me, his bulk behind mine, and I feel his insistent pressure beneath my buttocks, I relent. Gingerly, I bring him inside me. (An act of atonement?) The position hurts, though. I can’t even think of coming.

  But later still, drowsy yet tense, listening to his rhythmic snore in the darkness and shifting clumsily back and forth in search of a position I can relax in, I feel the queasiness all over again. The twist in my stomach. It’s Harriet, I think again, not the party or even Mark Spain. I’ve been thinking about Harriet. Clearly Harriet’s too good to be true. She’s not going to show. She’s …

  And then what? Then, assuming I don’t slit my wrists after all, I guess I’ll run my ad again. And again …

  Bad vibrations. Something malevolent.

  Malvolio. Who was Malvolio?

  Shakespeare.

  Wanted: one bright, young, sane woman, English-speaking, to save Barnard alum from terminal atrophy of the brain.

  God.

  My father intervenes. Why do you always anticipate the worst, Georgie? Why bring everything down on your head? Or try to?

  Or Craig, my shrink of the moment: Does the fate of humanity truly hang on whether she comes to work for you or doesn’t?

  Actually, I realize, that’s not Craig. That’s me asking the question.

  I’m wide awake now. I get up, prowl. Check Justin again. Downstairs, turn on all the lights. Drink water. Malvolio. Can’t find the Shakespeare. Eat.

  There’s always eating.

  28 September

  The magic holds all week.

  The luxury of it! Sheer, unadulterated, positively sinful!

  Monday morning, eight-thirty, the bell rings and there she is, smiling at Justin and me, in Minnesota sweats with the letters running down one pants leg, so fresh and young and scrubbed I can’t help thinking: a good thing Larry catches the 7:12. Justin takes her away immediately, to show her the ropes, and that afternoon we tour St. George. Seeing it through Harriet’s eyes, I realize, yes, how impressive it really is, from the stately mansions with their views of the New York skyline to the quir
kier Victorians (including mine) dating from the end of the century, and the great spreading trees, oak and beech and hemlock, and even the ersatz “Elizabethan village” from which the town center grew. Tuesday, I take them both to Group, which is held in the basement of the Unitarian Church. Since it’s a co-op, I’m relinquishing my Class Mommy duties to Harriet.

  Wednesday, I turn off the intercom that’s plugged into Justin’s room. I know they’ve been building castles out of MegaBlocks and the Lincoln Logs I thought he was too young to manipulate. I’ve heard them working on his consonant sounds—his S’s and F’s, V’s too, have been so slow in coming that I’ve thought about taking him to a therapist. I’ve also overheard laughter—peals of it. Then Thursday—yesterday—while Justin napped (unprecedented event), Harriet gave me my first back rub.

  Talk about sinful pleasures!

  When I ask him how he likes her, he says, “Grreat!”

  Today is Friday. Right after lunch, I send them off to the park in the Volvo. Harriet drives well, I’ve discovered (what doesn’t she do well?), and the Volvo has the car seat. I take the keys to her old Civic just in case, but then, finding myself with (deliciously) nothing to do, I lie down on my bed. I’m lulled by the canopy lace stirring gently overhead in an afternoon breeze and the distant whirr of Clotie’s vacuum cleaner.

  I awake—afternoon—with a jolt of anxiety. Did the baby just kick me?

  The digital clock says 4:18 in red numerals.

  It’s too quiet. Where’s Justin?

  I sit upright, holding my breath. And then let it go. Why, with Harriet. Of course!

  Still, shouldn’t they be back by now? 4:18?

  But why? It’s another gorgeous day, seasonably warm, and if something’s gone wrong, wouldn’t they have called?

  But are there phones in the St. George parks? Suddenly I can’t remember. I don’t think I ever noticed. Suppose they couldn’t find a phone? Or the phones are broken?