City Mouse

by Lender, Stacey;

  “Jessica! She did not ask you for gas money!” Carolann cried.

  “I gotta give it to her, that nanny has one hefty set of balls,” Tami said. “I like her even more now.”

  “I thought it was pretty cheesy of her to ask,” I said. “Even though we didn’t discuss the details in front of her, she had to know we had an expensive week. If Aaron ever found out, he would totally blow a gasket. No pun intended, now that I know what a gasket is.”

  “On the bright side, at least you didn’t have to get a rental car,” Ivy said.

  “Well, you didn’t give her the money, Jessica, did you?” Carolann asked.

  “Of course I gave it to her.” You are so maddeningly naive, I wanted to say. She’s taking care of my kids! Of course I want to keep her happy.

  “You could shave some off her Christmas bonus,” Carolann said.

  I’d really had enough of Carolann. Except for kids at the same preschool, we had little, if anything, in common. But she’d been friends with Alyson and Tami way before I came along. Except for my growing annoyance with Carolann, I loved going to the Friday-morning coffees; I couldn’t make most of the in-class story hours and birthday lunches and felt like I needed that hour of female friend time to connect with the home and school world I was away from most of the week. It was true that most of our conversations were of the lighter variety, but they were good people and I was entitled to a little mindless fun once in a while. I felt lucky for my Fridays at home and my Suffern mom friends—I just wished I didn’t have to spend my limited amount of free time hanging out with Carolann.

  “It still kills me Aaron was away and missed the whole thing,” I said, deciding to ignore her last comment. “Alyson, I can’t thank you enough again for meeting me at the hospital, for everything. I couldn’t have made it through that awful day without you.” Yesterday I had flowers and a jumbo gift basket from Bliss delivered, but it barely felt like enough.

  “I told you before, it’s not a big deal,” Alyson said, and I thought I saw her shoot a sideways look at Tami. Was she annoyed by my gift? She hadn’t mentioned whether it had arrived.

  “Well, um, anyway, thanks again,” I said, trying to shake off her chill. “And I know it’s silly but I’m still pissed at Aaron for not being there on the most stressful day of my life.”

  “Believe me, babe, I know how you feel,” Ivy said. “Drew misses like half of our lives being away for work. Two weeks ago he phoned in from Paris on Tanner’s birthday. I wanted us to go on a family vacation, maybe to Disney the week between Christmas and New Year’s, but he’s been working on some big deal and his schedule is so up in the air, it’s impossible to make any plans. He’s back in London right now and I’m alone with the kids until Sunday night. I’m fine during the week but the weekends really stink.”

  “You don’t have weekend help?” Alyson asked.

  “My mother-in-law is coming in tomorrow from the shore and staying over. She’s great with the kids but then I have to deal with entertaining her all weekend. I wish my mother lived closer than a five-hour plane ride.”

  “You’re on FaceTime with her like six times a day—for all intents and purposes, she’s here,” Alyson said.

  Six times a day? My parents barely kept their weekly scheduled Sunday-night call, always running from tennis to bridge night and even spur-of-the-moment cruises to nowhere when the price was right. I was glad they were so busy living it up in Florida but it hurt me more than I’d like to admit that they didn’t visit more often. They flew in once a year; we went to visit them every December for a few days before the flight and hotel prices went through the roof, and that was it. They seemed perfectly content with their distance and maybe that’s what bothered me: it was the same distance I’d often felt in our house growing up. As an only child, I’d had more than my share of stuff: a room filled with board games and records and a stockpile of stuffed animals on my canopy bed. But most weekends I found myself pawned off at one friend’s house or another while my parents played golf at their club, rounds of eighteen that rolled into cocktails and inevitably dinner as the phone would ring and I’d overhear, Yes, we have plenty, she’s welcome to stay, my place at the table already set. Somehow I’d always thought that once they saw the adorable little faces of their next generation they’d feel that inexplicable grandparent bond I’d read so much about, that they’d be jumping on a plane any chance they could to spend time with Phoebe and Madison and mean something more than the smiling photo on the grandparent page in the Who Loves You book. Not the case so far. On their infrequent visits, Phoebe and Madison usually stiffened and cried at the sight of them, strangers invading with strong perfume and loud voices bearing presents with hundreds of tiny chokable pieces.

  “FaceTime’s not the same as seeing my mother in person,” Ivy said. “I really miss her.”

  I noticed Tami looking down, typing on her cell phone, and immediately remembered Tami’s mother wasn’t around to miss in Arizona or Florida or anywhere anymore. It had to be excruciating for her to sit there listening to Ivy, and I took Tami’s rare silence as a sign that she was hurting.

  I searched the faces around the table to see if I was the only one who sensed her discomfort. Ivy was certainly oblivious. “Well, if we don’t end up going away, maybe she’ll fly in for Christmas. And as far as this weekend goes, I’m hoping Drew’s mother can take the kids to the movies on Saturday afternoon so I can get a break. Maybe even a manicure.” She looked down at her fingers. “I know it’s crazy but Drew has been overseas so much lately, sometimes I swear he’s keeping another family there.”

  Tami looked up from her phone and said plainly, “I read an article in People the other day about a woman whose husband was traveling to Brazil on business a lot and it turned out he did actually have another family there—a wife and two sons.”

  “Oh, that is so not funny,” Ivy said, and her face started to fall as the real possibility sank in.

  Tami shrugged. “Shit happens when they’re on the road.” She glanced out the window, looking almost satisfied. And I started to see how with the skill of a surgeon, Tami took pleasure in slicing just deep enough to expose the pain and fears in others so she didn’t have to feel it herself. She’d dig and jab and then right before you cried out she’d somehow convince you her blood-letting was what you needed to heal. It must have been how she stayed strong, how she barreled through.

  Then Tami turned her focus to me. “I don’t know, Jess, Aaron seems like he travels a lot too . . .”

  For a second I felt defensive—could she seriously be insinuating that Aaron might be cheating on me? But I wasn’t going to let myself be her next patient. “Yeah, right—I doubt Aaron’s keeping a secret family out in San Francisco, the housing’s way too expensive there,” I said, and Tami laughed. “But that’s where all of the tech VCs are, so he does have to go there a lot. He mentioned the other day his company might be buying out another web-mail company based in New York, so if that happens, he’ll be in town more.”

  “Still, it must get lonely,” Tami said.

  “It does sometimes,” I admitted, surprised at how good it felt to say so out loud.

  “Although, honestly, don’t you think it’s almost easier when they’re away?” Ivy continued. She certainly was resilient. Either that or a little more clueless than I’d thought. “When Drew is in town, it’s so annoying how he always seems to find a way to walk in the door right as the kids are about to fall asleep. And then they’re up for another hour.”

  Aaron always did that. “I know, it’s like they’re negative help,” I said, but didn’t mention that on the nights when Aaron was able to come home early, he had a way of making bedtime a lot more fun.

  “Helping, not helping, home, away, whatever,” Tami said. “Get yourself out and busy and find things to make yourself happy instead of sitting around complaining.”

  Tami had to be directing that comment to Ivy, not me. I wasn’t a complainer, not usually, although wit
h Aaron and the accident I had been the one who kicked off that morning’s round of husband-bashing. But I certainly wasn’t idle, every morning out racing, lugging, driving, diving, and ducking out of the way of low-hanging branches. My moods waxed and waned with the on-time trains and the people around me, whose tummy hurt and the software glitch in the website rollout and the typo someone didn’t catch until after the flyers went to print. I tried to do what those mom-zine articles recommended, to fall asleep counting all the little things I should be grateful for, clean water and having enough to eat and two children who weren’t injured, thank god, in a crash that left my car a mangled mess.

  “What would really make me happy is more sleep,” I said to try to lighten the mood.

  Tami said, “What’s been making me really happy lately is the Neutrogena Rejuvenator.”

  “What, like Neutrogena soap?” Alyson asked.

  “No—it’s the battery-operated facial cleanser. But you don’t use it on your face. I swear, I can come with that thing in less than a minute, it’s so fast.”

  That wasn’t exactly the making-yourself-happy I thought Tami had been referring to.

  “It’s got that perfect purr and whirr and before you know it—bam, you’re right there,” she explained. “Plus you can keep it in your drawer and if your cleaning person finds it they think it’s just something from the bathroom. I’m surprised you all don’t have one yet: Chris has been spreading the word like gonorrhea to all the husbands around Suffern. I think he loves it so much because he’s a lazy shit. But for once I’m glad he’s lazy, I barely need him anymore now that I’ve got my new friend in hand.”

  “You are too much, Tami, honestly,” Ivy said, blushing.

  “Get yourself one, Ivy, and you’ll be good to go even if Drew’s traipsing around Europe.”

  “I wish Jeff would travel more,” Alyson said.

  “I would think the more Jeff’s home the better your chances are to . . .” I almost slipped and said make a baby. Alyson’s eyes widened. “. . . win the election,” I said quickly. “It sounds like there’s so much to do, so much on your plate with organizing everything for all of those fundraisers. You must be swamped.”

  Alyson kept a stiff angry lip and didn’t say anything.

  “We could send Jeff and Chris on a trip somewhere,” Tami suggested. “Like Antarctica.”

  It would be hard to have sex every forty-eight hours from Antarctica, I thought. But knowing Tami and the wonders of Skype and with her new facial cleanser vibrator, she’d probably figure out a way.

  “That’s one way to get out of party planning,” Alyson mumbled.

  I noticed Carolann was caught in a stare out the diner window with the disgusted puss on her face that appeared every time Tami launched into one of her sex discussions. I didn’t know Carolann’s husband Peter well—she barely ever mentioned him, good, bad, or otherwise. The one time I sat next to him at a couples’ dinner he talked about an ATV he was thinking about trading in for a new one and it took me more than a minute to figure out it wasn’t “a TV” as in “a television,” it was one of those four-wheel vehicles people drive on dirt roads. After my second glass of wine I was tempted to ask him if he was making room to park it in his nuclear-meltdown room, but then the main course came and I lost my nerve.

  Carolann asked, “Is anyone interested in hosting the next Maliblu party?”

  No one responded.

  “You guys know Maliblu, that new peer-to-peer clothing line out of California? Jessica, you missed the party at my house last week but I’m looking for a few more hosts for the spring line.”

  “Sorry, but I’m way too swamped right now,” I said, and then added tentatively, “You have to be careful with those home businesses. I had a friend who got roped into one back in college, selling a water filtration system. It all sounded good when she started but she had to put all this cash up front for the equipment and the sales materials and ended up losing a ton. When you look into it, a lot of these companies are set up like pyramid schemes.”

  Carolann pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Well, that is not how Maliblu works, Jessica.”

  Maybe I didn’t like Carolann that much, but it infuriated me how these companies preyed on stay-at-home moms looking to make a quick buck. “Most of the time you can tell if something’s fishy if they’re holding onto your profits. Like the money from your last party—are they keeping it to cover your costs for the next season’s clothes? If so, something might be up. Another sign is if they’re not paying you out any cash until you find hosts for the next parties. That’s the pyramid part.”

  Carolann stood up abruptly, threw two singles on the table, and announced, “I have to go.”

  “I just don’t want to see you get hurt,” I called after her, and I thought I meant it.

  As the door swung shut Alyson said, “You didn’t have to be so harsh, Jessica. Carolann’s excited about working with Maliblu—they’re expanding to the East Coast and she might be one of their team leaders.”

  “On commission, I’m guessing,” I said under my breath.

  “I’m not sure how it works exactly but Peter still hasn’t found a job and, well, Carolann is very sensitive about money.”

  I had forgotten about Peter’s work troubles and suddenly felt terrible. “I was just trying to be helpful.”

  “Maybe next time, try not to be so helpful,” Alyson said brusquely, and gave me the same dismissive look I’d seen her give Emmy after she misbehaved.

  Alyson had been so nice this week, helping me after the accident. What button I had just pushed to switch her into mean-mode, I still didn’t know—I felt like I was right back at the middle school lunch table with the cool girls from study hall. I thought they had invited me; I gave up my free period and switched around my schedule so I could eat with them, but when I sat down I saw one give the other that look—What’s she doing here? I knew I had made a mistake, a bad mistake, but I didn’t know how to fix it so I sat there gnawing on my cream cheese and jelly sandwich while everyone else ate tater tots and giggled about the bulge in the Spanish teacher’s pants.

  “I think Carolann might have actually made some money from Maliblu,” Ivy said, breaking the awkward silence. “But it’s always smart to look into these things to make sure they’re legit.”

  I took a sip of my cold coffee to keep down the lump in my throat and tried to thank Ivy with a blink of my eyes.

  Alyson ignored Ivy’s comment and glanced at her watch. “I have to get to my core fusion class. Are you coming, Tam?” Sometimes she asked me if I wanted to join, but not today.

  “You might have to drag my ass off the floor when I’m done, but yeah, I could use a good sweat,” Tami said. “See you around, Jess.”

  Chapter eight

  I didn’t see much of the moms over the next few weeks. With the holiday break and our annual trip to Florida to visit my parents, we were all busy with our families and out of our regular school routines.

  I still felt lousy about what I’d said to Carolann and started several apology e-mails that sat languishing in my drafts: Dear Carolann, Hi Carolann, Remember what I said about Maliblu in the diner? I didn’t mean I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. They all sounded so trite. And so after-the-fact. If I was going to say I was sorry, I should have done it that day, or at least later that week—especially if I had known that once the New Year hit I’d be completely slammed at work and wouldn’t have a moment free to worry about apologizing to Carolann or much of anything else outside the breakneck pace of deadlines coming from my office.

  Two of the three new Broadway shows our agency took on ended up on my plate, including a new musical by an emerging producer-director, Marco Vera Cruz. Marco was known to be a raging egomaniac who thought the only good advertising ideas were the ones that came out of his own mouth—typical for most producers, but Marco was among the breed’s most demanding. My boss Sybil told me in no uncertain terms that keeping Marco happy—no, not happ
y, ecstatic, she had said—was my new top priority. If all went well with this first show, he could turn into a very big client. And it was up to me to make sure that happened.

  With that directive, I found myself working more hours than I had in years. And to add to my misery, the only time Marco had open for our weekly status conference call was Friday mornings at the exact same time as my moms’ coffee. I didn’t have to be at the meetings in person, thank god, but as those cold January weeks ticked by, I became more and more bummed to be missing my once-a-week girlfriend gathering. I even started to miss being annoyed with Carolann.

  Michelle had reached out to me a few times after we met at Carolann’s party in the fall, but with her wellness center taking off like a rocket and my crazy schedule, it was our nannies who ended up getting together with the kids, not us. I had missed the Unami opening and felt bad that I still hadn’t stopped by, but I subscribed to their e-newsletter and enjoyed scrolling through the pictures of women balancing on tightropes in their mittens and hats, cheeks flushed and ruddy with winter sweat. One of these days, I promised myself.

  One night on my way home late from the train station Noreen texted me: we r out of diapers. Again. No matter how many stock-up trips we took to Costco, we always seemed to run out of diapers. In the city it had been no big deal, even late at night—we’d just walk down the block to the twenty-four-hour Duane Reade and grab another pack along with a decaf cappuccino from the corner café. Not so now. Once, in the middle of the night, in a truly desperate moment, I found myself out of Madison’s diapers when she had the runs and like MacGyver, I made my own diaper with a plastic bag, some duct tape, and a maxi pad.

  Noreen had been on her best behavior in the months since the accident but remained at the top of Aaron’s shit list. He was still mad, not only about the money but the fact that she was still driving our kids around every day. I tried to explain how much we needed Noreen, how critical she was to keeping our two-parents-working-in-the-city lives even remotely doable. Not to mention how much Phoebe and Madison liked her. But that didn’t sway him—once he made up his mind about something or someone it was near impossible to change it back.