Four: Stories of Marriage

by Nia Forrester

  “One goal down, huh?” Brendan said. “Thanks.”

  He smiled at the nanny and Tracy watched the girl shrink into herself a little and glance shyly down at the ground after nodding an acknowledgment.

  “So, do we have you all evening?” Tracy asked. “Or are you going back to the office after this?”

  “Nah, I’m done at the office for the day. And what a day …”

  She tuned out most of what came afterwards, focusing only on the fact that Brendan would be home. In the last few years, having him home on a predictable schedule happened less and less often as he continued to build the record label he chaired with his best friend, Shawn, and co-managed the string of upscale lounges they had around the country.

  The recording industry and ownership of nightclubs put the kinds of temptations that could be poison to a marriage front-and-center, so Tracy was vigilant about making sure her husband was well taken care of when he was home. After all, what else did she have to do besides look after him, their homes and raise their daughter? Whenever he was around, there were home-cooked meals, a clean and orderly house and when Layla was asleep, plenty of intimate, adult time. If she had anything to do with it, there would never be something that another woman could offer him that she didn’t already provide.

  Tonight, she would make garlic-rubbed pork shoulder and asparagus; and because Layla liked it, her special three-cheese macaroni. Brendan would complain, as he always did, about wanting potatoes or more starches, but Tracy made a point of never keeping that kind of stuff around. Those thirty-five pounds she’d gained during pregnancy had been way too hard to get off, and she wasn’t putting herself in the line of fire to become one of those frumpy, ‘I’m-way-past-caring-about-my-appearance’ housewives.

  “But, there’s one more thing,” Brendan said, breaking through her reverie.

  “What’s that?”

  “Even though I don’t have to go back to the office, there’s a …”

  Tracy’s shoulders sagged, as she waited for what she knew was coming.

  “… cocktail party at a colleague’s place.”

  “What time?” Tracy asked dully, seeing her visions of a quiet family dinner disappear like a puff of smoke.

  “Nine.”

  “So, you’ll be home when? Like midnight?” She tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice and was certain she failed.

  “We’ll be home around then, yeah. You’re coming with me.”

  Tracy looked up at him, suddenly feeling a little frisson of excitement. They didn’t go out together too often anymore. Most of what they did socially, involved their friends, almost all of whom also had kids. Lots of family-friendly activities and occasions these days, but far fewer where it was just them with other couples. Tracy missed that—the dressing up, the makeup and heels, the hairstyling and most of all, the feeling of Brendan’s hand on the small of her back as he ushered her into a room, the look of pride on his face when she commanded the attention of almost everyone there.

  “But …” Practicality very quickly replaced the excitement. “We don’t have a sitter. You know I need to book Elite at least 48 hours in advance.”

  Elite was the name of the extortion racket that masqueraded as a babysitting and nanny service, and the only one Tracy felt comfortable using on the rare occasions she and Brendan had a night out. All the over-anxious Moms on the listserv swore by Elite with its rigid reference policy, battery of background checks, and psychological tests; but their service had more demand than they could keep up with, so the chances of getting a last-minute sitter on a Friday were slim-to-none.

  “So, call Riley or Robyn,” Brendan suggested. “What’s one more kid to either of them?” He laughed at his own joke.

  “They’re both in Jersey this weekend. How would we get Layla out there before tonight?”

  On the soccer field, something exciting was happening. The entire herd of kids was running in a single direction, all of them squealing excitedly. Brendan and Tracy looked up and suddenly Brendan was running himself.

  “Baby, check it out! Layla’s got the ball!”

  Tracy followed him as he ran along the sidelines, watching their daughter manage a few jerky kicks, maneuvering around two equally uncoordinated defenders before taking her shot. The ball rolled, a little slowly Tracy thought, before making its way past the befuddled goalie and into the net. Parents and caregivers cheered and screamed, but none louder than Brendan who broke all rules of game day etiquette by running onto the field by grabbing Layla and tossing her in the air.

  Watching Layla’s surprise and glee at her father’s sudden appearance, Tracy felt her heart swell to almost bursting. Then Brendan was turning to face her, holding Layla up like a trophy while the ref tried to reestablish order—such as it was—on the field.

  “Excuse me?”

  Tracy forced herself to tear her gaze away from her husband and child, looking over her shoulder. It was the twins’ nanny.

  “I couldn’t help overhear you,” she said. “About needing a sitter tonight?”

  “Yes. Do you know someone?” Tracy looked her over. She had pale, pale skin and hair too black to be natural. Her fingernails were painted black as well, and she was festooned with silver jewelry—necklaces and bracelets with charms bearing mystical shapes. Tracy found all that counterculture nonsense tedious, but she had lived in their newly-hip neighborhood long enough to know that even girls who looked like this were likely to come from perfectly respectable upper-middle class homes, and black nails were more indicative of pointless rebellion than devil worship.

  “Well, I was thinking that I could do it if you’d like. I’m sitting for the Griersons this evening, but I know they don’t mind sharing the time with other families.”

  “The Griersons …”

  “Aidan and Ethan’s parents? I do overnights sometimes and …”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t need anyone to watch her overnight,” Tracy said, feeling just a tiny bit alarmed at the idea of leaving her daughter with this Goth character. She might not be a devil worshipper, but her appearance didn’t exactly scream ‘good judgment’ either. “Just until about midnight or so.”

  “I’m sure if you call Mrs. Grierson, we could work something out. Maybe we could even do it at your house, and then I’ll take the boys home once you get back.”

  “How does that work exactly?” Tracy asked. “Sharing a sitter. I mean, compensation-wise.”

  “Babe, did you see that?” Brendan came trotting back up to join them after his victory-dance, his eyes still wide and animated as though Layla had walked on water.

  “Yes, Brendan I saw. It was great. Listen …” Tracy looked at the young woman and realized she didn’t know her name.

  “Trish,” she supplied.

  “Trish says she sits for the Griersons and could probably watch Layla if it’s fine with them.”

  Brendan turned, took a closer look at the young woman, and offered her a brief smile, and then his hand which she shook. Tracy noticed that he didn’t react to her appearance one way or another. But, no surprise there. Brendan was so much more live-and-let-live than she could ever pretend to be.

  “Hey,” he said. “Brendan Cole. Trish …”

  “Carson.”

  “Trish Carson,” Brendan repeated. “You work for the Griersons? Which are their kids?”

  “The two redheads.”

  Brendan glanced at the field and smiled again. “Oh yeah. The twins. Cute.”

  “So,” Tracy interjected, to move things along. “If you give us the Griersons’ number, we’ll call and see whether we can get things settled for tonight.”

  “Of course.” Trish fumbled with the ratty messenger bag hanging at her side and fished out a cell phone. “If it’s okay, I’ll call Mrs. Grierson first, just to make sure.” She walked a few feet away from them and dialed a number, putting the phone up to her ear.

  Turning to look at Brendan, Tracy smiled. “So, the game’s turned out to be pretty
exciting, huh?” She nodded in the direction of the field.

  “Yeah. I need to make it to more of these,” Brendan said.

  “Yes,” she said, meeting his gaze. “You do.”

  Brendan’s expression sobered. “Baby …”

  “I know it’s not that easy, with work and everything, but if it’s this tough with one, how are you going to ...?”

  Gathering her face in his large hands, Brendan leaned in. “You worry too much. We’ll work it out. Like we always do. And when we have four, or five, or ten, we’ll work that out too. But for tonight, let’s just get dressed up and go enjoy this party. Okay?”

  Taking a deep breath Tracy nodded. “Okay.”

  Dressing up used to be fun. Tonight, it was a little more like a wake-up call. Tracy tried three cocktail dresses and five pair of pants, and they were all snug. Finally, when she was close to tears at how much her body had changed, she settled on a pair of black sateen cigarette pants—that used to be too roomy—and a cute, if overpriced Carolina Herrera lace top with feather details.

  And after spending so much time screwing around in her closet, there was almost no time for her to do anything creative with hair and makeup, so Tracy slicked her long hair back in a sleek, pin-straight ponytail and applied dark, smoky eyes and dramatic red lipstick.

  Staring at herself in the mirror, despite the fiasco with the ill-fitting outfits, she felt a spark of the old excitement returning, of when she and Brendan used to go out often, to all the hippest parties in New York, rubbing shoulders with the people everyone wanted to be seen with.

  The first year they lived together, there was scarcely a Friday night they stayed in, and barely a Saturday they wanted to go out. Brendan might get an early basketball game in with his friends, but except for food or to work out, they spent the day in bed, watching television crime dramas, playing around, or making love. That year, the first year was the happiest Tracy had ever been in her entire life.

  “Wow. Look at you.”

  Brendan had walked in on her while she was sitting at her vanity, and crouched next to her, smiling at her reflection, now that she was completely made up.

  Tracy blushed at his words, her chin dropping a little.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he said.

  She leaned her head to the side to make way for him as he kissed her neck.

  “How’d it go at the Griersons?”

  Brendan exhaled. “Really well. I think she’s doing better with the whole idea than either of us.”

  “Why? What ...?”

  “Don’t get all excited. It was fine. She settled right in. The nanny had games and stuff for them, got them to help putting out cots. Made it a like a slumber party. Layla was cool about it. Was half asleep before I even left.”

  “But, you did remind them that we’re coming to get her after the party, right?”

  “Yeah, but they said it was cool if we decided not to. They’re going out too, so it’ll be Trish and the kids.”

  “We’ll still go get her.”

  “Let’s see how we feel later.” Brendan stood. “Maybe we need to make ourselves get comfortable with this.”

  He turned and headed for the closet.

  “What were the Grierson’s like?” Tracy called after him.

  She had spoken to Amy Grierson on the phone earlier that afternoon. And without being too obvious about it tried to grill the woman a little to see what kind of person she was. This kind of arrangement apparently wasn’t that uncommon. All over Park Slope, their neighbors shared sitting services all the time. If there were more than two kids to a nanny, then the nanny got paid extra, which probably explained why Trish had approached Tracy at the soccer field. The parents who had two kids liked it because they wound up splitting the cost with another family and paying less than they normally would have; and the other parents with the “add-on kids” as Amy Grierson called them, liked it because their kid was not alone with a nanny, but had other children around.

  Around as witnesses. No one said it, but that was what they were probably all thinking. It was certainly what Tracy was thinking. Having Layla being watched by Trish—whom she just met—at someone else’s home was anxiety-producing enough as it was. But having her watched at someone else’s home while other kids were around to tattle if Layla were mistreated made the anxiety a little less intense. Of course, she didn’t know the Griersons at all, either. So, it was a messed-up bargain to strike, no matter how one looked at it, and just about explained why Tracy was so happy to be a stay-at-home Mom. Daily, all over America, people left their children with people they didn’t know well enough to loan their car. When you thought about it, it was insane.

  “They were cool. I had a drink with them before I left,” Brendan said of the Griersons. “They’re going to his law firm’s annual dinner. Nice couple.”

  “Which of them is the redhead?”

  “The wife. I bet her last name used to be Callahan or something like that. Looked like somebody’s Irish poster-child.”

  “She sounded nice on the phone. How else did she seem? Like someone who …”

  Brendan stuck his head out of the closet and looked at her. “She didn’t seem like anything, sweetheart. Just like a nice woman who’s going out to a nice dinner with her nice husband.”

  Tracy heaved a deep sigh. “Okay.”

  “I promise you, it’s fine.”

  “Okay. But we’re getting Layla tonight after the party. I’m not ready for her to be spending the night places.”

  3

  If she had to guess, Tracy would put Simone Wolfe’s age at about thirty-one. Maybe even younger. Possibly as young as twenty-seven? But she had an aura like someone older, worldlier, and experienced. Brendan said she’d been educated in a boarding school in Lausanne, where her father was in the diplomatic corps. And when they were introduced, Simone did indeed have a vague French inflection in her speech. She was thin and had the erect and enviable posture of a dancer.

  Her husband’s name was Thierry. He was Swiss and looked like one of the Von Trapp children from ‘The Sound of Music’ as an adult—cornsilk hair, steel-grey eyes, and almost as tall as Brendan.

  Upon meeting her, Thierry and Simone had kissed Tracy on both cheeks, and moments later pressed a glass of astoundingly good white wine into her hand. And for the first few minutes, Tracy had been taken on the rounds to touch base with everyone—a mixture of folks from So Def Records, most of whom she already knew, and Simone and Thierry’s friends whom she did not.

  Separated from Brendan almost immediately, Tracy spent the first hour or so chatting idly with one of the wives of one of Brendan’s staff. But her eyes followed Simone around the room. Wearing a pale green mini tent-dress, which showed off her long, long legs, she spent time with every group milling about in her living room. As Tracy watched her, she saw that Simone was careful to give what looked like equal attention to them all.

  Occasionally, she raked her fingers through her short, strawberry-blonde hair that had been cut in a very sharp, very chic bob. Her arms were bare, and her skin was golden, with a tan that was clearly naturally-achieved. Simone Wolfe was the kind of woman one could easily picture in the Seychelles on a yacht, or on a white-sand beach, private of course.

  Tracy’s eyes followed Simone because Brendan had been mentioning her for months. In passing, and never in a way that caused alarm or suspicion, but somehow, he’d never mentioned how attractive she was, how interesting and how … sparkly.

  All evening she had been searching her memory for some recollection of whether Simone was part of those trips he took out West or had gone with him and his team to Paris where they were doing some deal with Scaife’s operation over there. It would make sense that Simone would go. With her continental manners, and obvious command of the language, she could only be an asset.

  “Now why in the world a white girl from Switzerland or wherever would cultivate a sudden interest in hip hop is beyond me.”

  Jamila Hoyt w
as married to one of the department heads at So Def, and Tracy had known her for years. As beautiful as she was blunt, Mila often appeared in the Style section of The New York Times, posing like a pro. Like many wives of recording industry executives, the label ‘former model’ was almost always appended to Mila’s name whenever it appeared in print. But, as she was often fond of saying: I made three times what Justin’s sorry ass made when we got married. Despite what folks like to say.

  ‘Folks’ of course referred to the people who whispered about her—as they did about every pretty woman with a fluffy former career who married into the recording industry: that she was a gold-digger.

  While Mila was certainly smart, and crafty enough to be a gold-digger, she was also, Tracy happened to believe, very much in love with her husband. Despite her habit for referring to him as “Justin, with his sorry ass” or “Sorry-ass Justin.” It was like she was following that Chinese superstition of not tempting the gods, by being too boastful. If they didn’t see how happy or proud you were with what you had, they might not punish you by taking it away.

  Tonight, Mila was wearing a white cocktail dress that looked as light as gauze, and her makeup was thematically consistent—light and iridescent, making her appear angelic. Tracy could see why she had been such a highly-paid model. Depending on what she wore, one’s impression of her changed. She almost looked like a different person each time—seductress, angel, little sister.

  “Why do you think she works with So Def?” Tracy asked Mila now, as they watched Simone from across the room.

  “Why do child molesters hang out at the playground?” Mila said twisting her lips.

  “Jamila!” Tracy said, laughing.

  “Girl, I’m serious. Chicks like that … you can’t put anything past them. Met dozens just like her when I was modeling in Europe. No matter what city—Berlin, Paris, Madrid—they liked to hang out at the clubs where the world music was … and where all the West African men were, too.”