On Grace

by Susie Orman Schnall

  Darren noticed the shot-drinking at the bar and, with the perfect combination of confidence and shyness, approached us, asking if we were up for another. I caught my breath as I saw him up close. I was smitten. When the bartender presented a tray of tequila shots, I let out one of my deep, raspy laughs. Darren told me later, while we danced to a slow song and he stared at me with those gorgeous blue eyes, that he had never heard a woman with quite so sexy a laugh. And he was smitten, too. Neither of us had any interest in dating anyone else from that night forward, we got married a year and a half later, and we’ve had an excellent run of it ever since.

  We’ve spent our marriage contentedly bonding over things we both love—Judd Apatow movies, authentic Chinatown dim sum, Coldplay, modernist architecture—and things we both hate—films with subtitles, pretentious restaurants, electronic music, the circus. He respects the things that I love—Nora Ephron movies, Jane Austen and Nicholas Sparks, red velvet cupcakes, Indigo Girls—and, in return, I tolerate the things that he loves—Coen brothers’ movies, Stephen King and Michael Lewis, pork rinds (pork rinds!), Shania Twain. Now ten years, a suburban mortgage, two children, and countless deep, raspy laughs later, here we are. Disconnected. Over all the normal stuff.

  I open the door to Méli-Mélo and see Cameron waiting for me at our favorite corner table at this unassuming Greenwich Avenue cafe. The Avenue, as it’s referred to, is the long tree-lined thoroughfare in the heart of this chic town in lower Connecticut, right on the Westchester border, and home to a perfect combination of big stores (Saks and Apple), small boutiques, hip restaurants, and other town necessities such as banks, newsstands, and shoe repair shops. When Cameron sees me, she unfurls her long, athletic legs from under the table and stands to give me a huge hug.

  chapter three

  “You are glowing!” I say excitedly, admiring her rosy cheeks and bright golden eyes. Cameron has been glowing since the day I met her freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania. Our rooms were three doors apart in the Butcher-Speakman dorm in Penn’s legendary and architecturally stunning quad. Unfortunately, our hall was known mostly for its abundance of rowdy football players (which turned out to be good) and architecturally challenged unrenovated rooms (which turned out to be not so bad).

  Raised on a farm in Maine, Cameron arrived at our first hall meeting looking like a Seventeen magazine model. We became fast friends when we were the only two girls who voted for “cheese steaks and a movie” instead of “private tour of the university art museum” as the first hall activity. And as we got to know each other, I realized her looks were just an accessory to her brilliant mind and playful personality. She’s always been a guy’s girl, preferring sports bars over Sephora, Die Hard over Dirty Dancing, snowboarding over suntanning. But we connected that semester, and she’s been Debbie Boone-ing my life ever since (note obscure reference to 1977 saccharine hit “You Light Up My Life”).

  “Why, thank you,” she purrs, twisting her long, chestnut hair into a bun without using a ponytail holder.

  “So, do you feel any differently?” I ask.

  “My boobs kill. And that has never happened any of the other times I’ve been pregnant. And they’re enormous. Too bad for Jack, though; I’m denying access because they hurt so much,” she says with a smile.

  The waitress brings our menus and without even glancing at them, we tell her we’re ready to order: broccoli soup to start, chicken Caesar salad (no raw eggs in the dressing) for Cameron, and a prosciutto and mozzarella crepe for me. It is a Tuesday night, so Méli-Mélo isn’t as crowded as it usually is during weekday lunches and weekend dinners. It’s always been my and Cameron’s favorite local spot as much for its delicious food, good prices, and energetic buzz as for the eye candy of the French chef Cedric presiding over the open kitchen.

  “And how about emotionally?” I ask, putting my napkin on my lap and taking a sip of water.

  “I really hope I can carry to term this time, Grace. I’m really scared. I want this baby more than absolutely anything in the world,” she says with fierce desperation in her voice.

  “I know you do. I feel good about it this time though, Cam. I think this is the baby. This time it’s going to be different. And a year from now you’ll be telling me your boobs hurt for an entirely different reason. And chances are, Jack won’t want to go anywhere near those lactating beasts.”

  “Well, I’ll toast to that.” And with that, we clink water glasses and toast to placentas, nursing bras, and hemorrhoid pads, laughing hysterically and completely oblivious to the glaring eyes of nearby patrons.

  After we finish our broccoli soup, Cameron turns the conversation to my plan.

  “It just hit its first official snag,” I say dejectedly.

  “What happened?”

  I tell her about the phone call from Margaret White and my realization that maybe this is all for the best.

  “But,” I say flip-flopping, “to be completely honest, I’m not sure that now my kids are in school I’ll be happy being a stay-at-home mom anymore. I just feel buried. What is my identity? I’m a mom. I’m Darren’s wife. I’m the smiling volunteer at school. And there’s nothing wrong with those things. But I want to be more. I want to have a purpose that society respects and that comes with a paycheck.”

  “But you love being a mom. And it is respected by society. And why, for heaven’s sake, on the brink of forty, do you still care what other people think of you?” Cameron asks in an exasperated voice as the waitress brings our entrees.

  “I don’t know why I do. I just do. I can’t help it. And to answer your first question, of course I love being a mom. But that has nothing to do with it. I can’t just be a mom anymore. It’s time for more. I’ve been doing this mom thing for eight years. I miss the me I used to be.”

  “I wish you would just be more confident and not compare yourself to everyone else in the world. Just be who you want to be.”

  “I don’t even know who that is anymore,” I say. “As soon as I had kids, my entire identity as I’d known it disappeared.”

  “What do you mean?” Cameron asks.

  “Do you remember the old me? The overachieving, confident, fashionably dressed, fit, extremely organized career woman who could write a brilliant 3,000-word article, run five miles, and throw a dinner party all in one day? Without getting frazzled? All with the caffeine equivalent of one green tea?”

  “Yes, I remember her,” Cameron laughs.

  “Well, she’s long gone. She’s been replaced by someone who can barely write a shopping list, let alone an article. And I need at least three cups of coffee just to get through produce.”

  “You are way too hard on yourself, Grace. You do so much!” Cameron says.

  “Did you read the ‘Style’ section of the Times last week?” I ask and continue without waiting for an answer. “They profiled women who are ‘doing it all.’ They had these women with three and four kids who have full-time jobs as management consultants or bond traders, and they also run charities and wear Prada. Size two Prada. Why can these women do it all, and I get overwhelmed organizing a cheese board?”

  “First of all, the female editors profile these women to make themselves feel better, because they left their own kids home with a nanny. If they featured all the stay-at-home moms and how wonderful their children are turning out it would be cognitive dissonance for them. Plus, Grace, everything’s edited to make it sound better. They clearly have left out the parts where the women miss their kids’ birthdays because they are making ‘very important presentations to very important clients,’ where the women cry because it’s just all too much, where the women get divorced because their husbands never get laid.”

  “True, true,” I say, laughing. “I know the grass always seems greener. I have to realize it’s probably not as rosy as the article professes it to be. But it would be nice to see women like myself represented respectfully sometimes. The only models of stay-at-home moms are in magazines about how to make the most
ghoulish Halloween door wreath on the block.”

  “Fair enough. So let’s assume you do want to find another job, does your plan have a provision for that?”

  “Ha ha, no. But I’m just gonna keep my ears open. I’m planning on going on Craigslist, Mediabistro, and a couple other sites to see what kind of freelance writing jobs are out there,” I say as I practically moan over how delicious my cheesy, gooey crepe is. “By the way, if any of your patients’ parents let slip during an exam that they’re looking to hire a writer, be sure to give them my name.”

  Cameron is a pediatrician. After we graduated from Penn, she continued on to Harvard Med and then to Boston Children’s Hospital for her residency. Now in private practice on the Upper East Side of Manhattan—I’ve always liked the way that sounded—she is the most sought-out pediatrician of the Park Avenue mommy set. They love her bedside manner, they love that she has separate well- and sick-visit waiting rooms with BPA-free toys, and they love that despite her long hours she still manages to work in either Louboutins or Jimmy Choos. It makes them feel like she understands them better.

  “Okay, Grace, but I can’t really see that happening. ‘Oh, Dr. Stevens,’” Cameron says in her best posh New York City lady voice, “‘Tommy was up all night crying and complaining that his ears hurt. By the way, do you happen to know any talented writers? My law firm sure could use one.’”

  “Point taken, Dr. Stevens,” I laugh.

  Then Cameron asks me what’s going on with Darren. It’s almost as upsetting to her as it is to me that there could be tension brewing in my marriage. Considering Jack and Darren have been friends since they were little and Cameron and I have been friends since college, the four of us are incredibly compatible and formed a tight bond soon after Darren and I began dating. We’ve spent holidays, vacations, and weekends together for years, and we all have strong relationships with each other. Cameron and Jack even moved up to Westchester shortly after we did, an unusual move for a couple with no kids and jobs in the city. I like to think they just missed us too much, but in reality, they had just had enough of city life and were ready to become homeowners. And parents.

  “The good news is how bad can my marriage be if I still want to sleep in the same bed as him?” I ask, trying to add a little humor into a topic that has been making me anxious for weeks.

  “I guess it depends on what you mean by sleep,” she replies. “The kind punctuated by snores or by moans?”

  “Snores,” I say guiltily.

  “Well, I guess there’s some hope left if the thought of him in your bed doesn’t repulse you. But it sure would help things along if you actually had sex once in a while, Grace.”

  “I do. We do. So I can’t blame our state of blahness only on sex, because it’s not like we never have it. Although we should have it more. But that’s all part of the plan.”

  “Your plan stipulates sex?”

  “Yes, but let me explain more before I get to that. So, I don’t blame it on sex, or lack thereof, and I don’t blame it on communication. If there’s something we’re good at, it’s communicating. We don’t have huge knockout fights. We still talk. It just seems like there’s this foggy cloud between us, and the sun just can’t break through. I know it’s nothing we can’t get over, but it’s still upsetting,” I explain as the waitress clears our plates and hands us dessert menus.

  “We’ll share a Nutella and banana crepe,” we say at the same time, laughing.

  “The first part of the marriage portion of the plan is all based on my sex-for-intimacy theory.”

  “Go on,” Cameron says, tilting her head suspiciously.

  “Men feel connected to women through sex. Women feel connected to men through talking. Cuddling and sex, too, yes. But for most women, the emotional connection is more important. Now, if I want Darren to give me the connection I want, it’s only fair that I give him the connection he wants, right? Hence, my plan is to give it up more.”

  “Sounds simple, to the point, and, Grace, you might actually like it.”

  “I just might.”

  As we eat our dessert, Cameron and I discuss her job and the baby and how tragically ironic it is that she’s been caring for so many children for so many years, yet has been unable to have a child of her own.

  “The pangs I feel every time a new mother brings her baby in for his or her first visit are different now. I used to feel wistful and maybe a bit resentful, however horrible that sounds, but now I just feel excited,” Cameron says as she snags the last bite of crepe.

  “Speaking of pangs,” I say in a seductive voice, jutting my left shoulder forward, “I have to go home and put the plan into action, if you know what I mean.”

  “Check, please!” we both say, erupting into laughter once again.

  When I get home from Méli-Mélo, Darren is in bed watching a Yankees game. I give him a kiss hello, and he asks me how dinner was.

  “Great,” I tell him as I go into the bathroom to wash up and change into a little something-something that has been collecting dust in my underwear drawer. When I saunter back into the bedroom, with my best hitherto look and sexy strut, I find Darren sitting up, crying.

  chapter four

  “What is it?” I ask, alarmed. I get into bed and take hold of his hands. “Are the boys okay?”

  “Yes, sorry, the boys are fine. I didn’t mean to scare you. I just need to talk to you about something.”

  I have seen Darren cry just two times. The first was at our wedding. We wrote our own vows, and after he read his, beautiful words from a man who creates spreadsheets for a living, he started to cry, the emotion and love hitting him, he would tell me later, like a tidal wave. The second time was a week after our oldest son Henry was born when we found ourselves back in the hospital for three days while Henry received phototherapy treatment for jaundice. He was so tiny, and we were so scared. The enormity of that situation reduced Darren into a state I had never seen before. It moved me tremendously.

  As Darren turns to me, holding my hands tightly, and my stomach begins to tighten, thoughts stream through my head. Oh my God, this must be serious. Why is he being so serious? Is someone sick? Is it one of our parents? Did my dad have another heart attack? Are we moving to London? That’s been a possibility. Maybe Darren found out today that we are.

  “Gracie,” Darren whispers, snapping me out of my thoughts by calling me a name he saves only for really, really good things or really, really bad things. Using the tears as a clue, I deduce it’s the latter. “I don’t know how to tell you this.”

  “What?” I mouth, the word getting caught in my throat.

  He takes a deep breath and looks down at my hands, which are still holding his. “In July, when I was in Chicago for that telecom conference—”

  And then I know. He cheated on me.

  “I—”

  “No,” I say. “You did not.” I drop his hands and forget to breathe.

  “Gracie, I’m so sorry.” He grabs my hands and looks at me pleadingly, his blue eyes glowing as the light from the television screen reflects off his tears. “I don’t even know what to say. It’s such a cliché. It didn’t mean anything. I had too much to drink. I’m so sorry.”

  I loosen my hands from his grip and sit back on my pillows. I suddenly remember that I’m wearing lingerie, and I get under the covers self-consciously. I feel every emotion at once: anger, sadness, fear, humiliation, and shock. But instead of feeling them all distinctly, I just feel calm, like the colors of the rainbow mixing together to make white.

  “Is she someone you work with?” I ask without emotion, ever the information-gatherer.

  “No. She—” he turns his face and exhales loudly, and I know this is killing him. But I ask him to go on, because I don’t really care how he feels. “She was a waitress at the hotel bar.”

  “A cocktail waitress?” I say, disgust in my voice. “And?”

  “It meant nothing. I’m so sorry I did this to you. I wish more than anything I could
take it back. I fucked up. I can’t believe that I’m actually sitting here telling you I had an affair because it’s not something I ever, ever thought I would be capable of doing.”

  Neither did I. “Go on. I need to know what happened.”

  He takes a deep breath and stares blankly at the television. He speaks quickly, as if the words are painful as they exit his mouth. “I was with John and Craig, and we had been at presentations all day, and we were drinking, and John kept ordering tequila shots and flirting with the waitress, so she was spending a lot of time talking with us.” He stops and looks at me with an expression that means he’s trying to figure out if I’m going to make him tell the whole story.

  “And?”

  “I kept doing the shots because it was the last day of the conference, and I just wanted to let off steam with my friends. Next thing I knew, she was coming up in the elevator with John and me. John had invited her to his room.”

  “What happened to Craig?”

  “He’d gone upstairs already.”

  “I’m sure Elisabeth will be happy to hear that story one day,” I say, thinking of Craig’s pregnant wife. Darren has worked with John and Craig for years. They were all in each other’s weddings. John and Amy got divorced last year. “And?” I say, allowing the torture to continue for both of us.

  “John started to get all sweaty and said he was going to be sick and ran to his room. The woman—”

  “What was her name?”

  “Gracie.” He looks at me, his eyes begging.

  “What was her name?” I repeat, staring at him and trying to remember to breathe.

  “Tina.”

  “Continue.”

  “We were laughing at John, and I put my key card in the slot and told her it was nice to meet her and good night. She pulled me toward her and kissed me, and then one thing led to another, and we were in my room.” His voice is laced with shame. As it should be. He stares out the window in the blackness. The same blackness I feel in my heart, pounding. Pounding.