by Karen Quinn
I economized. For $9.99 instead of $399, I colored my own hair. Fingers and toes were self-polished. I cleaned my house and taught the girls to pitch in. Doggie day care, nutritionists, and personal trainers were out of the question, so I walked Sir Elton regularly. Vacations were scrapped. My car was sold. Dry cleaning was history. I dismissed my analyst, dermatologist, plastic surgeon, and life-energy coach. All extracurricular activities for the girls were eliminated, including the dance lessons they loved so much at the Alvin Ailey studio. In perfect Myoki style, I reengineered my life and cut expenses by 85 percent.
As the weeks went by, I adapted to a life of genteel poverty. Mom and I had done it when we left Dad and Easy Street behind in Brooklyn. I could do it again. To my surprise, I didn’t miss Cadmon. What I missed was the fearlessness that came with being half of a couple. I wondered if I would ever again have the bravado I used to possess as Cadmon’s wife. For added confidence, I took to carrying around a tissue-wrapped sweater in a Barneys shopping bag. When one can’t be a winner, one can look like a winner. It wasn’t as powerful a moxie-builder as a husband, but it was something.
My best friend, Faith, suggested that I see her psychic to gain insight into the future. I went. What a mistake. The psychic, Madame Lala, an old Czech woman with gnarly fingers and one eye that looked like a scrambled egg, shuffled her well-worn deck of tarot cards and asked me to select one.
I meditated real hard, intent on choosing the perfect card. She turned it over. It was The Tower. I don’t know much about tarot, but this was one badass card. It was a horrifying image of lightning striking a stone prison. As the structure crashes and burns, a volcano erupts in the background, releasing a sea of lava. People are fleeing for their lives. I was unnerved when I saw the card, pretty sure that it didn’t foretell good times ahead.
Madame Lala looked agitated. “I see chaos, upheaval, and destruction in your life.”
“Yes, but can you tell me something I don’t already know?”
“Your life is in a state of unrest. Energies are out of balance. This card predicts disaster, catastrophe, a crisis in your future. I see your world collapsing around you. You must take action before it is too late.”
“Can you be a little more specific, Madame Lala?” I had the feeling her information was out of date. Hadn’t this already happened?
“Let me consult the spirits. Ahhh. Now it is clear. The spirits are telling me that you’re going to be hit by a bus.”
“What!” I said. “Oh, that’s just swell. My life keeps getting better and better.”
“Wait, maybe I spoke too soon. Let me look at your chart.” Frowning, she examined my personal computer-generated horoscope. “It may not be an actual bus. The bus may be a metaphor for a penis. Yes, that’s it. I see a male. Perhaps you are about to meet a man. Or, maybe I’m confused and you will be hit by a physical bus. I cannot enlighten you more. The spirits are not allowing me to look beyond the veil.”
Tears began to drip down my face. I couldn’t help it. I had so hoped that she would bring news of better times to come. Madam Lala offered me the soiled handkerchief that had been tucked into her bra. I politely declined. Then I thanked her for the reading and then willed myself to forget it had ever happened.
4. This Little Piggy Went to Private School
While Kate and Skyler were in school, I shopped for a smaller apartment. Our Classic Seven on Park Avenue had been bought in the headier times. It was everything I’d ever wanted in a home. There were distressed-maple plank floors, sunlight galore from twenty-four windows, an eat-in chef’s kitchen, and a simply furnished master bedroom that was my spiritual sanctuary. Each girl had her own room with custom-designed canopy bunk beds. Master Li, the top feng shui man on the East Coast, helped me place our furniture to create harmony and ensure happiness, prosperity, and luck. He’d planted red envelopes with Chinese coins in my orange tree, blessing the space and pronouncing it sacred.
After my world collapsed, I reported Master Li to the Better Business Bureau. He reluctantly returned $1,500 of his $10,000 fee, but not before accusing me of killing the orange tree where the envelopes were buried. I explained that it wasn’t me who killed it. He’d placed the damn tree in a corner that got no light.
I had no idea how I would pull myself up and reclaim the gracious life I’d worked so hard to attain, but I vowed to try. With Cadmon and me both unemployed and divorce the next logical step, the apartment had to go. Meris, my real-estate agent, showed me some places in Brooklyn, Chinatown, and the Lower East Side, where rents were only half as exorbitant as they were uptown.
The most terrifying change was caring for the girls myself. Cash-flow constraints (as in no cash flowing in) had forced me to let our nannies go. Like most of my friends, I had never been a mother without professional help. My daily interaction with the girls had been during our rushed morning marathon. In the evenings, they were delivered to me fed, clean, and dressed for bed. Before, I was Mommy once removed. Now I bathed them, cooked for them, arranged playdates, calmed fears, kissed boo-boos, helped with homework, volunteered at school. To my surprise and delight, caring for the children was a joy. I’d been missing out on so much by delegating my mommy responsibilities. Too bad I had to lose my job and husband to figure that out.
I learned how to be a real mother the hard way. I should have known to say no when Kate begged me to let her take care of Romeo, the class guinea pig, over the holidays. “I’ll feed him and play with him. You won’t even know he’s here.” Reluctantly, I agreed, knowing what an honor it was to be asked to care for the class pet during school break.
“It’s unusual for us to board our animals with families who’ll be home over Christmas,” Mrs. Leyde explained. “We like to see our snakes and guinea pigs travel to Europe or Africa with top-tier families during vacation. It’s important for class pets to experience life beyond the cage, don’t you think?”
“Absolutely,” I said.
“But since Kate’s father left, she’s become so attached to Romeo. We’ll make an exception in this case.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Leyde. You won’t regret this.”
When Romeo came home, Kate was ecstatic, giving him a tour around our apartment, with introductions to Kate’s other pets (“This is Sir Elton, our pug; this is my fish, Beverly . . . the reason she looks so good is because I have her on a strict exercise program”). Next, they visited the girls’ bathroom, where Romeo had a strawberry bubble bath and a blow-dry. Later, Kate tried to dress him in Barbie clothes, but nothing fit. Instead, she strapped him into a doll stroller for a walk around the apartment, with a quick stop in the kitchen for tea and cookies. Both child and guinea pig were exhausted when they sat down to watch Arthur. Kate passed out in front of the TV, as did Romeo.
Are guinea pigs supposed to be so quiet? I wondered. He’s just sleeping, I told myself. To be sure, I felt for a pulse. There was none. Within two hours of his arrival, Romeo was dead as a stone.
5. One Sick Fish
Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. We killed the guinea pig. Mrs. Leyde went out on a limb for us and look what we’ve gone and done. I massaged Romeo’s little heart and attempted mouth-to-mouth to no avail.
I called Mrs. Leyde and told her exactly what had happened. Well, sort of. “Mrs. Leyde, you aren’t going to believe this. Romeo just died. He was eating pellets in his cage when he clutched his chest and keeled over. We didn’t do anything out of the ordinary with him,” I lied. Mrs. Leyde took it way better than I expected, surmising that the walk from school to our apartment must have been too much for him. “He was old,” she said, “in guinea-pig years.”
“What should I do with the body?” I said. Mrs. Leyde asked that we keep it in the freezer until after the holidays. Some of the children might want to see his remains before burial.
When Kate woke up, she was inconsolable. “How could this have happened?” I couldn’t bring myself to tell her she’d killed the damn rodent. “Apparently, Romeo had a heart m
urmur and it . . . exploded,” I improvised. Being new to hands-on motherhood, I wasn’t sure if lying was the right strategy, but I went with it.
The freezer became a temporary morgue, where Romeo was interred in a Ziploc bag and lay in state next to the Perdue chicken nuggets and Ore-Ida french fries. The next day, I heard a horrific scream from my kitchen. Skyler, my older daughter, had come face-to-face with the lifeless open eyes of a frozen Romeo while looking for an Eskimo Pie. I had hoped to keep his passing a secret from her—why traumatize both children? Oh, well.
Kate felt rotten that Romeo had died on her watch. She tried to avoid her friends after vacation. “Mommy, I feel sick tomorrow. I can’t go to school,” she whimpered. “You must go,” I said. At circle-time, the children were told of Romeo’s passing. There were tears and hugs and wacky guinea-pig stories exchanged. A memorial service was held in the school yard. Mrs. Leyde delivered the eulogy. The children kissed Romeo’s stiff, cold body before he was gently consigned to the earth under the slide in the backyard next to Slick, the garter snake who choked to death on a Lego. The children sang their “goodbye” song, and many cried. Mrs. Leyde asked for a moment of silence in Romeo’s honor, but none of the kids could hold still. “I’m so sorry,” Kate said over and over. “You should be, you guinea-pig murderer,” her friend Gaby said, while the other kids insisted it wasn’t her fault. But even at the tender age of six, and despite my attempts to shield her, Kate knew it was.
Following Romeo’s death, Kate became obsessed with her goldfish, Beverly. She was determined to become a brilliant pet-master and see her charge into old age. I urged her to refrain from playing with the fish directly.
We added some new marbles and a mermaid to the bottom of the bowl. Every day, after school, she gently spoke to her pet. I wondered what inspired her attachment—Romeo’s death or Cadmon’s departure. Whichever it was, the fish seemed to provide a comforting kind of therapy.
A few weeks after Kate became so bewitched by Beverly’s charm, we returned from school to find the fish swimming erratically in her bowl. What could have happened? Yesterday she was fine—gliding perfectly back and forth, making regular bowel movements. Today, she appeared drunk. Maybe it was something she ate. Maybe it was a fish virus. Kate screamed so loud and for so long upon discovering Beverly’s malady that the neighbors complained and the head of the co-op board marched over, threatening me with a fine if I couldn’t control my child.
“Look,” I said desperately, “there’s probably not a lot to be done, but let me call the vet. Maybe she can be fixed.” I knew there was no hope, but what could I say? The kid was heartbroken.
“Yes, yes, call the vet, please,” Kate begged.
I phoned Sir Elton’s pet hospital for advice. They referred us to Dr. Heller, the top fish surgeon on the Upper East Side. Who knew there was such a specialty? Kate listened on the bedroom extension while Dr. Heller explained that Beverly probably developed an obstruction that limited her ability to regulate air, leaving her improperly buoyant.
“Is there anything to be done?” Please say no. Please say no. Please say no, I chanted silently. If I had to guess, a Park Avenue fish surgeon would not come cheap.
“We can operate,” Dr. Heller said.
Oh, dear God, say it’s not so! “Really?”
“There’s a delicate procedure where we surgically insert a tiny stone in her abdomen to weigh it down. It’s her only hope.”
“We’re on our way, Doctor,” Kate said.
“WAIT!” I interrupted. “How much will this cost?”
“Fifteen hundred dollars.”
“Fifteen hundred! The fish was only ten dollars!”
“I can understand your not wanting to make the investment. Most people would just flush her down the toilet and get a new one,” the doctor explained.
“NOOOOOO!” Kate screamed. Her wailing began again, this time with a vengeance.
“Kate, stop, hush. Nobody’s getting flushed down the toilet. Doctor, give us your address. We’re on our way.”
The next day, Beverly was tired from the anesthesia, but swimming right-side-up and in mostly straight lines. I was $1,500 poorer. Luckily, the refund check from Master Li had arrived. I endorsed it over to Dr. Heller. There were a hundred more sensible ways to spend that money, but Beverly meant a lot to Kate and Kate meant everything to me. So there you have it.
I will say this once and then forever hold my peace. Being a senior executive at a multinational corporation is a piece of cake next to being a full-time mom. I’d like to see Konrad Kavaler handle a dead guinea pig and a goldfish with a buoyancy disorder.
6. Desperate Times, Desperate Measures
My plight was becoming more untenable by the day. I could approach it like The Little Engine That Could, or like Aladdin. I preferred Aladdin because I’m from America and we are not a patient people. With a camera set up on Skyler’s dresser, wearing no makeup and a three-piece kelly-green pants suit by Jaclyn Smith for Kmart, I filmed my video application for Radical Reinvention. Aaand . . . action.
“Please . . . I uh hope . . . no, I beg you to choose me for a radical makeover because I . . .”—sad sigh—“just got fired, my pet died, and I caught my husband taking a bath with another woman . . . and they were naked. Now, I’m gonna have to start dating again and look at me. Who would want . . . this?” I gestured dramatically at my lumpy, puffy body and the lifeless hair I’d sprayed with vegetable oil for a stringier presentation. “Plus, my mother died, I’m about to lose my home, I had to fire my nanny, my maid, and my kids’ tutors. I have to color my own hair and do my own nails. My psychic says I’m gonna get hit by a bus. And have you ever seen a frown line this deep?” I pointed to the canyon that subdivided my forehead. “I need . . . no, I’m desperate for Botox.”
I stopped the camera and watched the footage. When did I start looking so . . . old? And my voice, did it sound like I was abusing helium to everyone else? I needed to sell myself as a world-class loser if I was to have any chance of getting picked. So far, I know I was convinced. On to the next question. Aaand . . . action.
“If I’m selected for Radical Reinvention, here’s what I’d want done. A complete facelift, breast implants, an upper and lower eye job, Botox or some permanent solution to my frown line, and lip implants. A tummy tuck, liposuction on my hips, ankles, back, and upper arms, buttock augmentation, LASIK surgery for my eyes, braces, bleaching, and those da Vinci porcelain veneers for my teeth. Also, I’d like to have that toe-shortening operation so my feet look better in heels. Oh, and laser hair-removal everywhere except my head and eyes. That’s everything. Well, of course, it goes without saying that a top Beverly Hills salon would do my hair and makeup, and obviously you’d send me to Versace for a new wardrobe. And a trainer, naturally. But everyone gets that. Oh, and I’d love it if my ‘reveal’ could be at the Water Club. They have the perfect great stairway for a dramatic entrance. That’s it. Thank you.” I made a defeated world-weary face for the parting shot.
After reviewing the tape, I was initially pleased with how badly I’d come off. Then I realized I wouldn’t have a speck of dignity left if I let anyone see me like that. It was a wrenching decision. The upside was enormous. Submitting the tape was the only way to get a team of deep-pocketed professionals to come to my rescue. But what about that thing called self-respect? Did I hate myself so much that I’d risk death, allow doctors to slice me open, endure excruciating pain and public ridicule to become a different person? Yes, I think maybe I did. I reminded myself that if they didn’t pick me, no one would ever have to know. And if they did pick me, I’d be radically reinvented. Men would find me attractive. I’d be confident again. Someone might marry me. Dignity, schmignity, I thought as I mailed the application.
7. Snubbed
Skyler came home from school in tears.
“What’s the matter?” I asked her. “Why are you crying?”
“Bea’s having a dance party with Clay Aiken and all the girls are
going but I’m not invited.”
“Of course you’re invited. I used to work with her daddy and he told me you’d be invited. Besides, you’re not allowed to have a birthday party at your school if you don’t include the whole class. I’m sure you’re mistaken,” I said to my baby.
“No, Bea was talking about the party today and she told everyone I wasn’t invited. Her mommy says we’re not in the same class as Bea’s family and she can’t play with me anymore. I don’t get it, Mommy. I am in Bea’s class.”
“Of course you are, sweetheart. Bea’s mother is confused. Don’t worry, I’ll straighten her out.” Okay, Sassy, you wanna fight? Fight with me, you trollop. Don’t go messing with my little girl.
Skyler continued to weep, and I held her and stroked her hair. It was soft and curly as only a child’s locks can be. “It’s not fair, it’s not fair,” she kept repeating. Welcome to the real world, I thought.
Later that evening, I arranged for my neighbor to watch the girls. Walking by Park Avenue Synagogue, I spotted six abandoned flower arrangements on the sidewalk, there for the taking. Removing the YOU’LL ALWAYS LIVE IN OUR HEARTS, MANNY banner, I made off with the sparsest one.
“Flowers for Mrs. Bird,” I told the doorman. He announced the delivery and I was buzzed up.
The uniformed housekeeper answered and I handed her the flowers. “Is Mrs. Bird in?” I inquired, peering inside the door.
“They’re having dinner right now,” she said, blocking my view.