City Mouse

by Lender, Stacey;

  Noreen was going to have to step it up and help me not only manage the diaper and wipes inventory but also baby shampoo, another essential that always seemed to run out in the middle of bath time. The one instance when I’d tried to surreptitiously substitute our shampoo for their usual No More Tears formula resulted in both girls screaming, “My eyes, my eyes!” loud enough for Children’s Services to hear.

  I sighed as I turned into the CVS parking lot; there was always so much to keep track of. Most of the time, I felt like I had it under control, more or less. As long as I wrote it down, it usually got done, eventually—flu shot appointments, snow boots, a throw rug for our room, toddler underwear, toothpaste, finger paints, buying and mailing an anniversary card for Aaron’s parents, ordering the Hands Are Not for Hitting book. But in the midst of my recent work deluge, more often than not I found myself making my weekly list and then losing it, not for the life of me remembering even half of the important and not-so-important tasks I had written down. I was beginning to feel like the somewhat-organized working-mom life I was trying to lead was held together by a pen and a thread and a Post-it note.

  One thing that had fallen off the list lately was a date night. I had hoped Aaron and I might be able to meet up in the city to grab a bite after work sometimes before heading home together, but his company had recently acquired a competing software provider with a huge client base and his office moved to a bigger space, downtown on Franklin Street in Tribeca. Aaron was promoted to managing director, a big step for his career, but now he was working a zillion more hours and his commute was up to almost ninety minutes, and often more, with traffic. Even when he wasn’t traveling he got home very late—ten, even some nights after eleven. He was turning into a weekend dad. And a weekend husband. He promised it was temporary, that in a few months, once the dust had settled and operations were running smoothly, he wouldn’t have to be in the office as much or as late. And while I was thrilled his company was doing so well and the payouts he had been promised for so many years were finally starting to come in, I would have traded that money to see him more.

  At CVS I was in luck: one pack of Cruisers left on the shelf in Madison’s size. On my way to the checkout line I walked past the deodorant and shaving cream and contact lens solution and did a mental scan of our medicine cabinet to figure out if we needed anything else. The whole center aisle had been besieged by Valentine’s Day paraphernalia—red and pink and silver Mylar balloons next to stuffed bears and bunnies and puppy dogs, bins of Sweethearts begging HUG ME and BE MINE and bags upon bags of red and silver Hershey’s Kisses. Russell Stover chocolate hearts, from giant to jumbo sized, wrapped in shiny hopeful cellophane. Even ChapStick had a special love-potion cherry flavor.

  I wondered what, if anything, Aaron might have planned. I hadn’t made a reservation for dinner anywhere and doubted he had, either. We had always agreed that Valentine’s Day, like New Year’s Eve, was an overblown holiday—not worth paying extra for the crappy prix fixe menu. But you still wanted that kiss at midnight even if you were home watching Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve. And while I no longer needed a fancy dinner out on Valentine’s Day, I still longed for that token, or card, or bouquet. Even the Whitman Sampler wasn’t looking half bad. Next to the chocolate I spied a stack of boxes of those tiny cards I used to tuck into my classmates’ decorated Valentine’s mailboxes in elementary school, carefully choosing the night before which boy would get the kitty cat declaring he was the Purr-fect Valentine. Even though I knew Phoebe and Madison were too young to really appreciate it, I picked up two Winnie-the-Pooh Valentines and planned to stop at the Italian bakery for special Valentine cupcakes before the big day.

  At the end of the aisle was a gigantic display of a beautiful woman with an airbrushed clear complexion, smiling while cleaning her face with a tool that looked something like an electric toothbrush. Introducing the new Neutrogena Rejuvenator. As Effective As a Professional Facial in Your Very Own Home!

  There it was, Tami’s new sex toy, on sale for $29.99. I didn’t own a vibrator, I’d always been too shy to buy one. But like Tami had said, this was a facial cleanser. And Aaron was traveling . . .

  Just as I was about to casually take a box off the end of the display, I spotted Ivy’s husband Drew right in front of me putting one in his basket.

  “Looking for that just-had-a-facial feeling, Drew?” I teased, squeezing his arm from behind.

  “Hey, Jessica,” he said, looking as embarrassed as if he was fifteen and I had caught him buying condoms.

  I know what you’ll be doing tonight, I thought. Lucky Ivy. I hadn’t had a chance to grab one and unfortunately it was too late now.

  “Ivy has you out running errands?” I offered my most innocent smile.

  “Yeah, a long list,” he said, waving a handwritten note. “You’re all dressed up.” He eyed my skirt. “Going out on a date?”

  “Yeah, right, a date. Coming from the office. Aaron’s on the road, yet again. I’m surprised to see you’re in town.”

  “All week.”

  “We should make plans for dinner one night, the four of us. If we could ever get our schedules to align. Maybe this Friday even,” I thought out loud.

  “I’d love that. But I’ll see you tonight at Jeff and Alyson’s party, right? Save you a spot in the hot tub.”

  Alyson had e-mailed me a half hour ago to confirm I had this weekend’s ballet pickup covered and hadn’t mentioned anything about a party.

  I hesitated and then babbled, “No, uh, I can’t make it tonight. My sitter has to go to a class and Aaron’s away and I have a meeting tomorrow morning that I have to be up early for.”

  “That’s too bad. Their annual winter fiesta’s always a great time. Let me know about that Friday dinner, Joanna.” He grinned at our little wrong-name private joke, giving me shit from our first meeting, and then leaned in and gave me his usual double-cheek kiss goodbye.

  My mind raced as I stood in the line to pay. Maybe it was just a small group and that’s why we weren’t invited—it wasn’t as if we socialized with them every waking moment. But what had Drew called it, their winter fiesta? That sounded like a party to me. What if it was a bash, a huge catered affair, and for some reason we were left off the list?

  I walked outside with my bag and a raw wind hit my face. I zipped up my jacket and wished I could press a button and fast-forward to spring.

  * * *

  An hour later during bath time, I sighed to Phoebe and Madison, “I am going to ask you nicely one more time,” but they kept splashing each other with the remaining inch of water left in the tub. I said louder, “Why is it that no one hears me unless I raise my voice? One, two, TWO AND A HALF . . .” and they finally got the message and scrambled up and into their butterfly-hooded towels with terry antennae.

  “I wanna watch TV! Pleeaaasse, you promised,” Phoebe whined.

  “TV! TV!” Madison echoed. At eighteen months, TV was one of Madison’s favorite words. TV and a cookie, Mommy? I had to stop letting them watch so much.

  “No TV! It’s after eight thirty already, way past your bedtime.” Way too late to just be finishing their baths, but it was my fault for not getting started earlier. “Pajamas, book, teeth, bed. That’s IT.” How little fun I sounded as those words from the female generations before me now channeled through my own lips and passed on to remain dormant in my daughters until a tired bath time thirty years in their future. I wanted to be more fun, to imprint bubble beards and play dress-up and snuggle under the covers, but after three days in a row of putting the girls to bed by myself, I was completely wiped out and depleted of even my backup supply of patience.

  After they were finally asleep, I started to get ready for bed. Through the bathroom window I could see dollops of snow starting to stick to the grass; six to eight inches were due by morning. How was I going to manage to dig out in time to make the train? And would Noreen be able to make it over to watch the kids? I wished for once I was the one out
to dinner with investors at the Four Seasons in Chicago and Aaron was the one left home to deal.

  Contacts out and the remnants of the day’s mascara wiped clean with an Eye-Q pad with moisturizing formula promising to keep the delicate skin around my eyes young and smooth. I studied the small lines starting to form at the corners. Only in full smile did you actually see them, I tested, as well as an extra line or two around my mouth where my smile had been. Why wasn’t I invited to Alyson’s tonight? She couldn’t still be angry about that day at the diner. We hadn’t seen each other a lot lately, come to think of it, but when I did run into her, she didn’t seem mad. Maybe Drew had it wrong. Who has a party on a Wednesday night?

  If only I hadn’t run into Drew. If Noreen had remembered to buy the diapers herself that afternoon, I’d be blissfully unaware of any party that might or might not be happening that I may or may not have been invited to.

  I stared at my pale winter face in the mirror. I wish I’d bought that Rejuvenator—for its intended use, if nothing else. In high school I used to whip up elaborate masques from Seventeen magazine. Ingredients Found Right in Your Kitchen! My favorite was raw egg whites, frothed on my oily “t-zone” forehead, nose, and chin; then, lightly beaten yolks rubbed in circles on my cheeks and dabbed lightly under my eyes with my fourth finger only, as instructed. After fifteen minutes the crusty egg layer would crack and reveal lines on my cheeks, a prescient map, quickly washed away with a cool water rinse, leaving my skin taut and smooth and, I hoped, on my way to beautiful. My skin, my face—it was still the same as my teenage me, the same but older and getting older by the day. The snow will be accumulating an inch an hour.

  I grabbed my tweezers and plucked an errant gray hair peeking out from my side part and hunted for any other strands of brown starting to turn. I hated finding the long, witchy ones lurking in the back where I couldn’t see. I didn’t want to start coloring my hair; I wanted to look natural. But I also didn’t want to look old and gray. Or with stripes in my hair, like Carolann. I’m sure she was invited; why not me?

  I put on my robe and slippers and went downstairs. The light cast night shadows on the still-bare walls, waiting for me to fill them with carefully selected art and mirrors and professional family portraits I’d had no time to book. I stepped into the kitchen and thought I heard something, a bang from the basement and a brush or a rustle from underneath the floor. It’s just the heat turning on, I told myself. That or another field mouse—that’s what they call them out here, field mice, aren’t they cute? But I didn’t think so; country mice and chipmunks scampering across the stones of the patio scared the evening bejeezus out of me, along with the rest of the nighttime creatures surrounding us in the woods. But what if the groans from the floorboard were something else, someone lurking, waiting for that perfect unsuspecting moment to jump out and strangle me? All the way out here, who would hear me scream?

  I flipped on all the lights and told myself to stop watching cop shows, to get my mind busy and go through the pile of papers and junk mail accumulating on the kitchen counter. Orange & Rockland Utilities: $986. For one month! Our heating bills this winter had been positively shocking. Gymboree sign-up for Madison, coupons for an oil change. I just didn’t have the energy to decide what to sort and what to toss.

  And then I heard the unmistakable sound of dance music coming from outside. I opened the patio door and sure enough, through the falling flakes a loud bass beat blared from Alyson and Jeff’s backyard, sharp and clear in the frozen night with only the bare trees between our houses. A spike of laughter and a splash and a chorus of playful female screams. It was definitely a party, a Wednesday-night hump-day hot tub special. “Turn it up!” I heard Tami’s voice shout. Everybody dance now. Everybody but me.

  After months of playdates and nights out and countless hours of pretty intimate momversations, I had thought we were friends. Okay, so maybe none of them were my perfect match. But we were more than proximity friends, weren’t we? More than just there for the kids and the carpools after school. I’m out of the loop for a few short weeks and now I’m Jessica on the list with a big fat L for Loser next to my name? Or even worse, just forgotten?

  I didn’t want to care. I didn’t want to be in my thirties and still mired in petty friend shit paranoia. But they were my only friends in Suffern and I needed them, not only with pickups and drop-offs and to be there in the ER with me, but also to hang out with, to talk to and share with, and to let loose on occasion when the daily grind wore me thin. To help me feel included in the social scene of a town I still felt like I hadn’t fully settled into after all these months, one foot always running for the train. Give it time, Liza had told me when we first moved, it takes time to find your place. I thought I had found it in an easy walk next door but I couldn’t help wondering if I didn’t know these women as well as I thought; maybe I was the tagalong they rolled their eyes at when I left the table, and now that I wasn’t around as much it was a convenient time to dump me.

  Tiny pellets of ice hit my cheeks and I let them sting; I wanted it to hurt for being so stupid to think all this time they might have actually liked me.

  I needed a dose of old-friend comfort, that deep-down connection only possible with someone who’s known you for a long time. It had literally been months since Liza and I had seen each other and I missed her terribly. She had been away on a vacation in Utah skiing with Richard and the boys and then jetted off to Asia for work, always traveling to exotic locales to source trends and check on production for her latest designs. I remembered our last e-mail exchange, trying to pick a date to meet up for lunch. She might be back now. I went inside and dialed her number and was thankful to hear her voice.

  “Hey, Jess, how’s it going?”

  “Shitty,” I said. “Aaron’s been away for three days and I’m totally burnt. And my hair is turning gray. How are you?”

  “Jess, I am so sorry but I can’t really talk right now.” Voices bubbled up in the background and I heard someone giggle. “I’m running out the door meeting some friends down at The Standard and I’m late. Can I give you a call tomorrow, or maybe Friday?”

  “Yeah, sure, call me tomorrow,” I said and hung up, feeling worse than before, like I was stuck in a remote penitentiary deep in the Yukon. When it snowed in Manhattan, life went on, people went out, even more awakened by the novelty of the cold white blanket. I wished I was out with Liza and her friends downtown, out in life, infused with energy in the place I used to be, with people who wanted to be with me.

  I opened the dishwasher to unload but it was too soon and the hot steam hit my face. Burning my fingers, I took the dishes out anyway and then crawled upstairs to bed.

  Chapter nine

  WE NEED YOUR HELP!!! the mass guilt e-mail from the Laurel Meadow PTA shouted in my inbox a couple of days later, and for once I didn’t automatically press delete.

  Parent volunteers were desperately needed to help solicit items for the upcoming school auction less than two months away. If we didn’t hit our donations goal, the e-mail warned, the school was in danger of not raising the $25,000 it needed to cover essentials for our kids like playground equipment and assistant teachers in each class.

  I hadn’t volunteered even one minute for the school all year. My working-mom alibi was more than legitimate, but all the parents had been told we were expected to do our share, and so far my only share had been the required once-a-month gluten-free pretzels for snack time, and when our turn had come around I’d even forgotten to buy those.

  Tami may have talked a big game about trying to be involved as little as possible but there she was, VP of Party Planning, with Alyson right underneath Carolann, Auction Chairperson. Was my lack of school involvement one of the reasons for my missing hot tub party invite? That would be insane. But not completely out of the realm of mom-pressure possibility.

  Twenty-five grand did seem like a boatload of money for our little preschool to raise. A moment later I found myself e-mailing Carolann
with an offer to help, at least with a donation of a few pairs of theater tickets.

  Great! she immediately wrote back. Come to the auction meeting next Thursday night.

  Somehow, by the end of that meeting and half a carafe of white sangria (Bar options taste test! Tami had insisted), I had signed up to be cohead of donations with Ivy. Carolann handed us a list of the past donors and items, restaurant gift certificates and high-end vacation stays and spa treatments and kids’ mini-golf birthday parties packaged with pizza and balloons and three hundred other donations we were responsible for soliciting. As I flipped through the single-spaced, ten-page list, I knew no matter how lonely or guilty I might have been feeling, adding this huge job to my already overloaded schedule was one of the worst remedies I could come up with.

  For two weeks straight, I stayed up well past midnight doing my penance, typing donation-request e-mails and writing up package descriptions for the catalog. Aaron couldn’t believe the number of hours I was putting in (For the preschool? Really?), but I found myself starting to enjoy the challenge of hunting down the decision-makers and turning their maybes into yeses. Twenty dollars’ worth of lunches at Subway? No problem. Liza said she’d donate one of her limited-edition Kate Spade totes. I called in a huge favor with Marco’s company manager for a private backstage tour to go along with a pair of opening-night tickets and felt like I was on a roll. But my donation-garnering skills were nothing compared to Ivy’s—she’d walk into a store holding her daughter Ruby’s hand and flash a smile, asking if they would please consider donating a gift certificate to help support the education of tomorrow’s future? No one could say no to her.