The Real Liddy James

by Anne-Marie Casey

  In late September, Liddy and Peter flew to a resort in the Florida Keys, where they got married on a beach of white sand with two witnesses they lured from the bar of the hotel. Peter was tanned, and in his mirror aviator shades looked so like Robert Redford in The Way We Were that Liddy’s enthusiasm for making a baby quadrupled, and when the hotel manager announced that a hurricane was on its way and offered them a bus ride to the safety of Miami, they elected to stay on the island and helped the staff board up the windows and chop down the coconuts, which the storm could turn into deadly missiles. As darkness fell, they drank three rum punches each and snuggled into their cottage as the wind howled around them, bending the palm trees into horseshoe shapes.

  That night the hurricane blew away all Liddy’s lingering doubts and she decided that (a) no one would ever know her better than Peter James, and (b) all the evidence pointed to him being the love of her life. She would take his name, protect and provide for him (and the baby that was coming), and they would make their own little kingdom of three and live in it happily ever after.

  Liddy had expected that motherhood would change her, but she had no idea of the joy that Matty would bring. The moment she held him in her arms, red-faced and screaming his way into life, she was overwhelmed by the sense that this was the only human being she would willingly die for. She directed her youthful constitution and indefatigable commitment to the project of his nurturing, and refused to be separated from him as much as was humanly possible for an ambitious associate in a top New York legal firm.

  Unsurprisingly, Marisa Seldon proved an enlightened employer, giving generous maternity benefits and two-tier pay grades to allow flexible hours for the working parents. There was even a small nursery set up in an unused basement room and sometimes Liddy brought Matty into her office, where she sat her son on her lap. He would grab the curly phone cord in his chubby fists as she barked instructions at rival firms—to Peter’s horror, Matty’s first sentence was “I don’t think so!” When he started school, Liddy tailored her hours to suit.

  Their sleep and travel were the two casualties of their new life and Peter missed these things, and sometimes sighed meaningfully when he tripped over one of Matty’s toys, even though it was Liddy who did the night feeds and early-morning risings. Peter missed Liddy, too, and felt that the conversation between them had come to an abrupt full stop. But as Liddy never complained if he stayed late at work, or had dinner alone with his parents, or went to see a new play with his students or his colleague Rose Donato, whom Liddy liked, although she was clearly a bit of a sad case, he never told her. Which rather proved his point.

  Liddy had turned the destruction of her sleep pattern to her advantage (she bought a running machine to work out between 5:30 and 6:15 most mornings), and found that the constraints on her time actually increased her efficiency in the office. She accepted that she would never read Proust, and spent her Sunday hours lying on the beanbags in Amagansett watching “Bob the Builder,” Matty draped across her like a hot-water bottle, allowing her mind to drift. She would often surface from the theme music with an unexpected solution to a thorny problem (sometimes writing entire briefs on Monday mornings), and although Marisa worried about her workload, Liddy did not.

  Being a mother made Liddy a better, tougher professional and a better, softer person because she learned to distinguish between the two. There were moments, often by Matty’s crib as he slept, when she experienced an intense sense of gratitude to the universe, or even God, that she had managed the elusive balance of work and home life that her female colleagues aspired to. Even she had noticed that this was a frequent topic of conversation, particularly late at holiday parties, among slightly drunk women who bombarded her with questions. She knew better than to attempt any reply other than Peter helps all the time (false), and I only have one child (true), but, secretly, she rejoiced in the superiority of her marriage. The love between her and Peter was special, different, invincible—

  —until Matty turned five, and the desire for a second child overwhelmed her.

  At first, Liddy was annoyed with herself. No one had to tell her this would turn her life upside down, so, ever practical, she kept quiet and embarked on some aversion therapy. First she volunteered with Matty’s school and spent a day shepherding screaming children around a farm in Connecticut, where one student had a dramatic allergic reaction to a donkey and another threw up all over her. Then she packed up Matty’s baby clothes and brought them to her legal secretary, who was on maternity leave. But as she ran back up three flights of stairs to retrieve a pair of tiny blue knitted booties and afterward sat slumped in tears on a filthy trash can in Hell’s Kitchen, she knew it was not a temporary whim. So when that December she was in the little garden behind the house with Matty, dusting snow off the fig tree, and he said he wanted a puppy or a brother, she made her mind up. She told Peter that what she wanted for Christmas was for them to have another baby. She smiled as she said this, and cuddled her arms around his waist. He said nothing and withdrew from her embrace.

  That weekend, when Peter bought Matty an enormous stuffed dalmatian toy and Liddy an enormous bunch of white lilies, she brought up the subject again. Peter was unsettled; over the years he had come to expect that his needs always trumped hers. She had noticed that a small muscle in the right side of his face twitched in irritation whenever she became truthful and vulnerable, and it did so now. She continued to plead, because she believed that on the big issues he would support her even if he could not do it gladly.

  But again he said no, not twice but three times, adding, “I don’t want another child, Liddy. I love you and I love the beautiful, healthy boy I have. I’m nearly fifty years old. I’ve got a book to write. I’m done with the diapers and no sleep.”

  “It’s not just about what we want. It would be good for Matty to have a sibling.”

  Peter shook his head. “Really? This is totally about you. You think you would have been less lonely with a brother or sister, but you’re wrong, Liddy. I never talk to my brother because he’s deranged—”

  “I have a vision of a family, two kids, maybe a dog, walking in the park.”

  “We are a family! And how on earth could you look after a dog?”

  He tried a laugh here, but Liddy just stared at him.

  “It would make me happy,” she said, “and I’m prepared to provide for it all.”

  Peter did not appreciate this specificity; he liked his reality a little blurred. He had never seen her like this before, intense and energized with the desire for something only he had the power to give her.

  “It’s not about money,” he said sadly. “It’s about what we want from our lives. Why can’t you be happy with what you have? Why is nothing ever enough?”

  And then he walked away.

  So Liddy took a pause; she had learned from practicing the law never to argue unless she could win, and for several months she was distracted. She won a landmark victory at work against the formidable Curtis Oates of Oates and Associates, who was so impressed by her that he began to besiege her with offers of employment and informed her matter-of-factly that he would not take no for an answer. One day, Marisa Seldon commanded her into the conference room and, her face tight with annoyance, announced that Oates had contacted her to ask what it would take to get Liddy to leave.

  “Are you leaving us?” asked Marisa. Liddy did not answer this question but instead told Marisa her marital troubles.

  Marisa said two words, guile and lingerie, assuring Liddy that women had used these things from the dawn of time and the world was populated by second and third children who were so-called oops! babies. Liddy replied that she had considered this, but it turned out she was guileless (and had no lingerie); moreover, Peter was tenacious in his refusal and vigilant. When she’d caught a stomach bug, he had slept in the spare room, and now she rarely bothered to take her pills, as he was either pajama’d and snoring os
tentatiously by the time she went to bed or had invited Matty in with them “in case of a night terror.”

  “Sometimes I think he’s just gonna sit it out until after my menopause.”

  “I’m sorry, Liddy,” said Marisa kindly. “It sounds like Peter’s pretty determined.”

  “He says he’s too old,” said Liddy.

  “He’s not that old!”

  “And he’s worried it’ll affect his career.”

  Marisa looked bemused. “How? It’s not like he stopped work to look after Matty.”

  Liddy shrugged. She had no answers.

  Marisa looked at her. “Is he jealous of you?” she said.

  “No! Of course not,” said Liddy, shocked. “Look, he won’t even talk about it anymore. He’s in a bad mood all the time.”

  “Well, of course he’s having some sort of midlife crisis,” said Marisa knowingly, “but, unfortunately, that’s not much help to you. You can’t force this one, Liddy. If he won’t, he won’t. The question is, do you want to end your marriage over it?”

  Hot tears of anger and injustice arose in Liddy’s eyes. She shook her head.

  But that night, as she imagined a new baby lying in her arms, Liddy remembered Miss Gwendolyn Harris and the fish and bicycle business and finally understood.

  The following summer, Peter and Liddy were once again in the back of a plane heading to the Florida Keys, but this time Matty was wedged between them. Liddy had promised Peter the trip for his birthday, but with her ever-increasing workload and the mood he had been in, it had been delayed for nearly six months, becoming another source of argument between them. Finally Liddy had snapped and insisted they go during the summer vacation, even though Peter churlishly suggested that the July weather would be too humid. He had ostentatiously packed several aerosol cans of industrial-strength mosquito repellent.

  She had not booked first-class seats, although she had wanted to, because Peter had moral objections to such extravagance and she was determined to do her part to resolve the tension between them and draw a line in the white sand.

  Four thousand miles above North Carolina, the stewardess came rattling down with the trolley, and Peter surprised Liddy by buying some wine. He handed her a glass and they clinked plastic over Matty’s oblivious, headphone-wearing head.

  Peter’s spirits seemed to lift. He talked to Liddy like a friend about his frustrations with the arts faculty, the increasing bureaucracy at the university, and how he feared he would never write his third career-defining book. And Liddy felt relief that these were things she could solve; if she billed even more hours he could hire an assistant to do research or take another unpaid sabbatical to write, and her experience at conflict resolution between warring couples could certainly help him navigate the toxic political maneuvers of his colleagues. (She was aware of the irony of this.)

  “I’m sorry I’ve been so awful lately,” he concluded, about to surprise her even more. “I think I’m having a midlife crisis.”

  She started because it was so unlike him. Marisa was right, she thought.

  “Couldn’t you just have bought a motorbike . . . or had an affair?” she said, and he laughed and reached across for her hand to kiss it.

  “I don’t want to have an affair,” he said.

  Then, in front of them, a six-month-old baby in pink started screaming, and the mother frantically lifted it over her shoulder and jiggled it around. Peter played peekaboo, saying, “Who’s a pretty girl,” and the baby smiled and giggled with delight. Afterward, he turned to Liddy.

  “I know things have been difficult, my love, but . . . I want to put everything behind us and move on.”

  Liddy grinned and felt euphoric; she raised her hand as if to take a luxurious swig of wine, but in fact took only the tiniest sip, for at that moment she felt an unexpected, desperate hope that she might come home pregnant again.

  She had booked herself and Matty a series of activities to do together. It annoyed her if he disappeared into a children’s club and played video games while the sun blazed down outside. Peter had a small suitcase marked HEAVY full of books to read, and so on the first day he settled himself down on a lounger on the beach with his bug spray and a biography of Simone Weil as she and Matty lined up on the shore with a few other parents and children. After a brief lecture on water safety and the tao of the surfer, Liddy prepared to face her true self in the waves. From a distance, the instructor, whose name she did not register, was unusually tall and carried himself as if unusually handsome; close up, with his shaggy blond hair and his mirrored aviator shades, he really was alarmingly attractive. He reminded her of a younger version of someone she knew, though at first she wasn’t sure who. As he wrapped one muscular arm around her legs and they paddled out over the baby waves, she remembered. It was Peter. The tingling sensation in her groin reminded her she had not had sex for over a year.

  Suddenly Liddy felt the pull of water beneath her as the ocean current moved.

  “Trust me. You’ll be fine,” the instructor said, putting a hand on her back, the imprint burning warm through the rubber wetsuit and into her skin. She felt the rush as the big wave gathered momentum and he pushed her hard onto it. She heard him shouting, “One . . . two . . . three!” and to her own amazement she popped up onto the board, knees bent, arms outstretched to steady herself, and she rode the wave to the shore, running onto the sand triumphantly. Peter and Matty ran over, Peter shaking his head and saying ruefully, “When your mother sets her mind to something, she always gets it.”

  Not always, thought Liddy, as the waves had indeed made her confront her true self.

  “You are awesome, Mom,” said Matty, and she held him tightly, and in that moment made two decisions. Enough love had leaked from her marriage already. She was sick of thrashing around underwater; she was going to ride the wave.

  That evening Peter and Liddy and Matty had more fun than they’d had in months: they played pool together and ate grilled fish and fries and laughed and enjoyed the resentful stares of other couples who had traveled to the hotel alone, as they could not bear to be trapped on an island with their whining children. And later, as Matty snored heavily on the inflatable mattress in the bathroom, Liddy brought two rum punches back from the bar and told Peter how much she loved him. She had more to say, but before she could continue, he kissed her forehead and said yes, they should get on the same page now, pardon the expression, as he had a book to write, and he needed an end to discord and door slamming. And he said all this in a measured, kindly way, as if he was repeating back to her something she had said rather than finishing a discussion that had not even been properly begun.

  She looked at him.

  “I’m going to take the job with Curtis Oates,” she said.

  Peter lifted up his book and opened it. He pretended to read. In the past this would have made her smile, but recently the things she used to find adorable about him had become annoying. She suspected he felt the same way about her.

  “That’s not a decision you can make on your own,” he said at last. “We don’t see enough of you as it is.” Now he closed the book with a firm clip. “What about Matty?”

  “He’s a well-adjusted six-year-old with loads of friends who’s happy in school. I’ll pay for him to do hobbies and you can pick him up at five thirty every night.”

  Peter sighed. Liddy continued.

  “I want it. It’s the next step for me. Senior partner in a boutique firm dedicated to my area of expertise.”

  “And that’s what really matters, isn’t it? The relentless Liddy Express pulls away. . . . All aboard.”

  Liddy was unsure whether he was making a joke, but his next comment clarified his tone. It was belligerent. “How on earth could we have another child?”

  “The reason we’re not having another child is not my career but because you don’t want one.”

  �
��Of course.”

  Liddy gulped in disbelief. “I am good at my job. I enjoy it. This is my time.”

  She knew such directness made him feel uncomfortable, but she did not stop. She was not afraid of upsetting him anymore.

  “I have never hidden what I am from you,” she said, for although he had not known her when she was a child, he’d said he understood when she had shown him City of Ambition.

  “Maybe you should have.”

  “The salary’s a lot bigger,” she said.

  He nodded meaningfully, like this was the only thing that mattered to her. “What’s a lot?”

  “A second home. A place for weekends, summers, somewhere for you to write.”

  “Stop negotiating, Liddy. You’ve told me many times Oates is a scumbag.”

  “He is. That’s why I’ll insist the firm commit to five percent of billable hours on pro bono work. And I’ve told him I’ll do my cases my way. No leaking to the tabloids, no Page Six shenanigans.”

  “Yeah, yeah. . . . You’re selling your soul to the devil and you know it.”

  Liddy flinched as his disdain hit her hard, like a shot in the chest. She turned away. He picked up his book again, pausing only to deliver his second rhetorical aside.

  “You’ve come a long way, baby. . . .”

  This time he was trying to make a joke.

  He yawned ostentatiously and asked her to get into bed with him, but Liddy, wide awake, quivering with the injustice of it all, shook her head. “I’m going to read here,” she said, grabbing a women’s magazine from the side table. Peter snorted dismissively, and when she turned to him, he gave her an exasperated look and said, “That’s not reading.”

  She was suddenly aware that the reason he often made her feel unloved and unwanted was because he felt superior to her, and maybe even thought that she was lucky to have him. On a bad day, he viewed the material comforts she provided—no mortgage, private school, five-star vacations—as a sort of compensation for his philistine wife, a woman who had turned her back on the higher verities, to swim in the filthy but lucrative cesspool of commerce. She knew, of course, that only those born into wealth can afford such thoughts. He had never hidden from her what he was. This knowledge did not temper her rage.