“I’m sorry I brought up that trip,” Andi says quietly.
“No—it’s fine. It’s a nice memory. Hanging out on the beach and collecting shells and rocks. Walking around the town and having ice cream. It was all very Norman Rockwell.” I wonder now if Nick was already having the affair with Sloane. Probably. I remember he left the room a few times each night. Said he just needed some fresh air or came up with some excuse to leave. One night he even said he was going down to the lobby to use the bathroom, because one of the kids was in the only one in our room. But we all came down about twenty minutes later to take a walk on the beach and look at the stars, and there he was on a couch in the lobby—the only place with cell service—on his phone.
Now I’m sure he was talking to Sloane. At the time I believed him when he said a client called because his oven suddenly stopped working and he had a dining room full of patrons waiting for their meals. He said he was walking him through starting it up again. I don’t think Nick even handled service for any of the equipment he sold. How could I be so blind?
“I’m pretty sure Nick was already having the affair with Sloane when we went away. It wasn’t that long after that I discovered it. Not even two months. I can’t believe I was so stupid. I didn’t even think twice about all the clandestine phone calls. I believed him that it was work.”
“How could you know? You really had no reason not to trust him, right?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I always had that slight underlying uneasiness that maybe he would find someone else, especially since he traveled so much—and he’s so gorgeous. I always felt like he could have anyone he wanted. I guess it was a self-esteem issue. But maybe all women with gorgeous husbands feel that way. What do you think?”
“I don’t know—I don’t have a gorgeous husband,” Andi answers with a bit of a snort.
“Come on, Matt’s adorable. That’s way better than gorgeous. Adorable men melt your heart and are usually more faithful.”
“Did you do research on this?” Andi chuckles.
“No, I just think there’s a sweetness to men who are more adorable than gorgeous. Maybe I’m stereotyping. I guess they probably cheat just as much—not Matt though.”
“Which is Ben, adorable or gorgeous?”
“He’s mostly adorable, with a touch of gorgeous. He was gorgeous when he was twenty-two, but he’s mellowed into sexy adorableness.”
“So, are you going to give him another chance?” Andi asks flat out.
“I’m going to see him for pizza tomorrow night. Did I tell you that?”
“No, you didn’t tell me. So exciting! I’m so happy that you’ve decided to give it a shot.”
“I’m not quite giving anything a shot yet. I told him that we need to meet at the little hole-in-the-wall pizza place by the train station, and then he can get back on the train and go back to the city. I’m not quite ready to take him home, because once I do—I don’t know if there will be any turning back. Although, I did have this fantasy running through my head…” I trail off.
“I’d love to hear about this fantasy, but first—why would you want to turn back? Are you still hanging onto the lie he told twenty-something years ago?”
“No, it’s not that, really. Intellectually, I know he was just a kid. It’s just that there’s a lot of change in my life right now, a lot of change in my kids’ lives. Did I tell you that Nick’s moving into Sloane’s house as early as next week? He’s moving out of the hotel because he said it makes more financial sense, and Sloane has a lot of room for the kids. I just can’t believe that she’ll have control over my kids whenever Nick has them. I wonder if the next step is marrying her once our divorce is finalized. It all seems so quick.”
“I’m sorry, Max. I really am. No wife deserves to have her husband move in with the other woman a month after she kicked him out. There should be some sort of law—maybe that a man has to wait at least six months before fully shacking up with his dirty mistress.”
“You like that term, don’t you?”
“I do—it just conveys what she is so perfectly.”
“She is dirty, isn’t she? Speaking of dirty, tell me more about these sex parties the moms at Loving Arms have.”
“Oh yeah, we were talking about that, weren’t we?”
“Yup, we were.” I love how mine and Andi’s conversations circle around to a million different things it seems, before they settle back where they started. Ben and I used to be like that—we could start talking about one thing and end up down a totally different road, and it would just swoop and dip and circle around. Nick would look at me impatiently whenever I veered off topic and say something like, “Spit it out.” Or, “You have two minutes or I’m walking away.”
“You know, I think I’m okay with Nick moving in with Sloane—he was never good for me. I even realized yesterday that I don’t feel like I’m going to vomit anymore when I think of them together. I think that’s a huge step for any scorned woman, right?”
“Right! I’m so proud of you. So now that you’re ready to move on—or almost ready to move on—you want to come to the next sex toy party?”
“It might be fun,” I say and tell Andi about my little pizza parlor fantasy.
“You must come to the next party,” she insists.
I tell her I’ll do my best, and I can’t help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, I’ll be looking at stuff for me and Ben.
By the time Sam and I get home from the park, I only have a short time before Trevor gets home. We stayed longer than usual because there weren’t any paparazzi anywhere to be seen, and I figured we should take advantage of it. Emma’s stayed late at school for an art club meeting, so Trevor will be home before she is. He walks in and drops his backpack right in front of the door, even though I always tell him to hang it on a hook. I give him a big hug anyway. He looks a bit surprised, but reluctantly hugs me back. I have to get in these hugs—even reluctant ones—while I still can. I know he’ll twist completely out of my grip soon enough.
“Hey, Trev, wash your hands from school and I’ll give you a special snack. I baked one of my mom’s specialties—rugelach. You want to try one?”
Trevor doesn’t eat many things slowly, usually one bite and it’s done, but he’s eating this so slowly, little bites. I ask if he likes it. “It’s so good, I want to make it last,” he explains and I truly think my heart will burst with joy.
“Love you, Trev,” I say as I try to hug him again. He kind of slips out of my grip, but he does say, “Love you too, Mom,” so I’m okay with it.
“How much homework do you have?” I ask as I hand him another rugelach, knowing the answer will be, “Not much,” no matter how much he really has.
But instead, he tells me that he has a lot of math homework and a math test in it. “I don’t understand any of it,” he admits with a sigh.
“Okay, I’ll try to help you,” I say brightly. I glance over it, but I’m embarrassed to say that I have absolutely no idea how to do any of the problems. I can’t even do sixth grade math. Math help was always Nick’s domain. One more thing that’s difficult when you suddenly find yourself as a single parent. I think about writing his teacher a note, but then it looks like I’m just making excuses. “Hey, Trev, how about we let Emma check your math homework when she gets home? She should be home on the late bus soon, and she owes me one after scaring me yesterday. It’ll be good for her, too. She needs to remember sixth-grade math.”
Emma got Nick’s math genes, as did all of my kids. I failed Calculus for Poets in college, even though the professor gave me three hours to take every test and let me retake them. Of course the real name wasn’t Calculus for Poets. We just called it that, because supposedly even English majors could pass it. But I couldn’t. I remember Ben tried to help me study, but he was so bad at math it really didn’t help. It only confused me more. Maybe that’s the reason that I was meant to break up with Ben and marry Nick, so I could have children who could become actuaries if they desir
ed (or doctors, or scientists or—the list goes on).
“Emma won’t help me,” Trevor says sadly. “She’ll never help me with my homework, even though she’s taking tenth-grade geometry.” He stares down at his book dejectedly and adds, “She never wants to even talk to us. Do you think things will ever get back to normal? Do you think Emma will ever want to be with us again?”
“Oh, Sweetie, it’s not you that she doesn’t want to be with you—it isn’t about her brothers at all. She’s mad at me, and I feel terrible about it, but sometimes that happens when a mom and dad get divorced. Sometimes the kids get mad at one parent or the other. It’s not wrong—it’s just how she feels, and we just need to give her time to get over it. Things are already starting to get back to normal—I didn’t notice anybody taking my picture today at the park. That has to be good, right?”
“I hope they stopped taking your picture. It bothered me—I felt like we couldn’t go anywhere. Do you think they’ll start again?”
“Maybe,” I answer, because I really don’t know. “But I think they’re getting bored with me, you know? I’m really not all that interesting.”
Sam comes into the kitchen and says, “I’m happy too that no one took our pictures today. I didn’t like it. I don’t like the light.”
I’m feeling pretty good that my kids are opening up to me and even better that it seems like there haven’t been any photographers around at all. They must have found someone more interesting than I am. In my opinion, that’s not that hard to do.
I shouldn’t have celebrated so soon, though. I’m sitting on the front porch waiting for Emma to get off the late bus down the street—I don’t really know why I still watch for Emma’s bus when she’s fourteen, old habits die hard—when I notice someone crouching behind a bush. His lens is pointed at me and I realize how completely disgusting I look. When I got back from the park I put on my oldest, biggest sweatpants and a hooded sweatshirt because I just couldn’t warm up. It’s not freezing, but I just felt chilled right through after sitting on the park bench for so long. My hair is up in a clip—messy, but not artfully messy—and I don’t have on a stitch of makeup. The bit of eyeliner I had on has long come off, and I never reapplied the lip gloss I had on earlier either. I don’t want Ben seeing pictures of me like this, as shallow as that might seem, so I do something I haven’t done since this whole debacle started—I address the paparazzo.
“Can I ask you something?” I say to the camera lens. I hear the shutter go off four, five times and I realize that I’ve just provided him with close up unflattering shots. Even the close ups of gorgeous actresses sans makeup look awful; I can just imagine what mine will look like. There’s no answer and then I ask again, “Can I just ask you something? Come on, I don’t bite. I’m not going to rip the camera out of your hand and throw it on the ground. I just have a question.”
With this the lens moves up and slowly the person behind it unfolds. He is a young kid, tall and rangy with a mop of brown hair. He can’t be out of his early twenties, and I wonder how he got into this, how his parents feel about his career. Did he start out wanting to be a serious photojournalist, but the money in selling shots of celebs’ cellulite was quadruple that for photos of war-torn nations or politicians kissing babies? I try to think of him as just a person, so I won’t freak out about the invasion of my privacy. “Go ahead,” he says warily.
“Okay. Why do you all find me so interesting? I’m really not. There’s nothing interesting about my life. I’m a stay-at-home mom who used to be a fairly successful pastry chef. Google me by my maiden name, which you probably know because it was in a magazine last week, and you’ll see some of my reviews. My kids are my life now and my days consist of PTA meetings, laundry, and driving my kids around to their various commitments. So, how is that interesting?”
He just stares at me blankly, so I continue, “Yes, I know about the video, but that was an anomaly. I’ve never done anything like that before, and I can tell you with much certainty I never will again.” Though, at that moment a tiny little voice in my head says, Well, unless Ben asks you to, but I ignore it.
“So, tell me,” I continue. “How am I interesting, and why do you all keep taking pictures of me? Though, being that you’re the first photographer I’ve seen in two days and you’re the only one today, I’m guessing interest is waning. True?’
He looks down at the ground, his camera dangling from his neck and doesn’t answer. I glance down the street to see if Emma’s bus has come. I don’t want her to see him, and I certainly don’t want her to see me talking to him. No sign of it, so I encourage him to answer. “What’s your name?” I ask him.
“Um, Tim,” he answers quietly.
“Come on, Tim” I say. “It’s a pretty simple question—why do you all find me so interesting? Because really, I’m not.”
He clears his throat then says, “Um, Ma’am, no one has ever asked me that. No one that I’ve taken a picture of has ever even talked to me. I don’t really know what to say.”
For some reason I find it endearing that he calls me “Ma’am,” even though I usually hate it. I feel bad for him all of the sudden. He’s just a kid, and here I’ve put him on the spot and probably made him feel really uncomfortable. For the first time, I see the paparazzi as people. “Fair enough,” I say. “I guess it doesn’t matter why people find me interesting; it only matters that as long as they do, I won’t have any privacy and I’m living my life under a microscope. So, can you please tell people that you met me and I’m not interesting at all? Tell them that I’m not even worthy of your film.”
He gives me a quizzical look and I say, “Oh whatever; I’m not worthy of your digital images,” which really doesn’t have the same impact as film. How worthy do you have to be to be worthy of digital images? They aren’t tangible and yet, once they’re out there, they live forever. You can delete them off of the camera, you can delete them off of your laptop, but if they’ve found their way online, forget it—they’ll never disappear. This is why I ask Tim nicely to please delete the close-ups he just took of me—before they wind up anywhere. “I just don’t think they’re the most flattering shots. I’ll let you take one more from a distance with my head turned, just so you get something. Where are these pictures going to end up, anyway?” I ask.
“Wherever I can sell them,” Tim answers.
“So, you’re a freelancer then?”
“Yes, Ma’am. I’m trying to pay for my night classes. I was on Long Island—heading back from the Hamptons where I was shooting Kelly Ripa—and I thought I would try to get a few shots of you. You might think you’re not interesting, but there’re a lot of people who think you are, you know?”
“Well, I’m not as interesting as Kelly Ripa, that’s for sure.” I look down the street to see Emma’s bus turning the corner. She’ll be getting off at any second, and even though she’s about ten houses down, she would definitely notice me talking to Tim and notice his camera. “Look, my daughter is home. Please just delete those pictures. I don’t want anyone seeing them.”
“No offence,” Tim begins. “But there have been tons of pictures of you without makeup on and in sweats floating around out there—I know; I took a lot of them. Why do you care all of a sudden? Is it about that guy you met at the train station? Is he your new boyfriend?”
“No, no—he’s just an old friend. Okay, you’re the only one here—I think people are really starting to lose interest in me. Please just delete the stupid pictures.” There is no way that I’ll admit that I don’t want those pictures out there because I don’t want Ben to see them, but that’s really the only reason that I care. Tim’s right; there have been tons of unflattering photos of me and it really didn’t matter—I didn’t love it, especially the comments people have made like saying that I look “like a blond Q-tip.” But I got over it. Having Ben see me like this and perhaps decide that he doesn’t want to pursue me—well, that I won’t get over. That doesn’t mean that I’m ready to be with hi
m—it just means that I really don’t want him to give up on me, because he sees me looking hideous. Even though I’m absolutely positive it would take a lot more than that to drive him away—he’s not that shallow—I just can’t help but worry.
I glance down the street again and see Emma getting off the bus. I’m desperate for Tim to leave. “My daughter’s going to be here any minute. Can you please just go? And please, delete the pictures.”
In response, he points the camera at Emma and as I hear the whir of the zoom, I lose it. I grab the camera out his hands or at least try to—the strap stops me and Tim stumbles forward. “Are you fucking crazy?” he yells.
“I’m crazy?” I screech. “You’re about to take a picture of a fourteen-year-old girl who did nothing to have her privacy invaded. She’s just a child. If you don’t leave right now, without so much as pointing the camera at her, I will call the police and have your ass thrown in jail for trespassing. I want to see you drive away—now!”
“Jesus, you know you actually seemed nice. By the way, I’m not deleting the photos. Sorry, you’ll just have to be out there looking like shit.” With that he gives me the finger, gets into his car and speeds away. For a horrible second, I worry that he’ll run over Emma as she crosses the street and somehow it will be all my fault, but she jumps back up on the curb. When she walks up to the house, she says, “What an asshole—he nearly killed me.”
Generally I would chastise her for that language, but I have to agree. He was an asshole, and I’m just so happy that she’s not calling me an asshole, I hug her. She stumbles back a bit and then looks me up and down. “Okay,” she says slowly, drawing it out. “You’re acting so strange.”
Goddess of Suburbia Page 18