City Mouse

by Lender, Stacey;

  “Vaginal Rejuvenation. Is it right for you? Take this quiz to find out. Oh, this is priceless. Has your partner’s penis ever fallen out during intercourse? Check here if your vagina is as wide as the Lincoln Tunnel.”

  “It does not say that, let me see,” Alyson said, grabbing the magazine. I searched the space between them for any remnants of their fight but the air seemed clear through the smoky haze. “If you leak when you cough, exercise, sneeze, or laugh, insurance may pay for your vaginal tightening. Is this an ad or an article?”

  I had experienced a couple of sneeze pee leaks since giving birth to Madison, especially while doing jumping jacks, and had been panicked my incontinence might mean an early trip to the Depends aisle. Kegels, Kegels, Kegels, my ob-gyn had said. She hadn’t mentioned anything about surgery.

  “Sometimes I laugh so hard the tears are running down my leg.” Tami began giggling and it spread like fire and soon I was laughing too.

  “That’s a good one,” Ivy said, wiping her eyes. “I can’t imagine someone doing surgery down there, though. It must be awfully painful.”

  “Well, Ivy, I would assume you would be under anesthesia,” Carolann replied, sauntering over to the cooler and taking out a beer.

  “I wish they gave you anesthesia when you get a bikini wax,” I said.

  “You still get waxed?” Tami asked. “I got mine lasered a few years ago and fucking love it. And you know, if you keep waxing as you get older, your lips get saggy.”

  “I can’t believe that’s true,” I said, hoping it wasn’t.

  “I don’t think waxing’s that painful—I mean, you get used to it,” Ivy said. “I’ve been thinking about lasering, but it’s so permanent. How do you decide what shape?”

  “Brazilian’s always a good choice,” Tami said.

  I couldn’t imagine how much it would hurt to get lasered, let alone lasered Brazilian. I had once been convinced during a waxing appointment to try a Brazilian. Aaron had never mentioned whether or not he liked my usual bikini wax, and I thought it couldn’t hurt to surprise him with something new. I lay on the table with visions of oral sex dancing in my head, and found out it could hurt—it killed. My technician spent a searingly long half hour ripping out hair I never knew was apparently carpeting my most private crevices. She had me holding my leg above my head like a contortionist, flipped me into X-rated poses, and proudly displayed strip after strip. See? I make it all clean now. I had managed to nod a polite smile, cursing under my breath. After the torture was finally over, she proudly presented the result in the mirror: a neat little runway. The more I looked, the more I actually liked it, and although I left the salon limping, I felt surprisingly empowered by my new secret do.

  That night I wore a dark purple negligee and unveiled myself sans panties to Aaron, awaiting my reward—the deep, hard kisses, the karma sutric sex . . . He did give me an emphatic “Nice!” when he saw it, but then he closed his eyes and we had our sex as usual. I should have pushed his head down, I should have demanded more—but I wanted the desire to come from him that night, not me. I wanted him to want me more with my new sexy trim, and maybe he did, but he didn’t show it. The pain didn’t equal the passion after all, and when it grew back super itchy a few weeks later, it sealed my decision never to do it again.

  “Is Brazilian still popular?” Ivy said. “I’d hate to get lasered and then find out after I got the wrong thing.”

  “It’s not that big a deal, you just ask the technician,” Tami said. “I was actually thinking about getting vajazzled.”

  “Va-what?” I asked.

  “Vajazzled. You haven’t heard of it? Remember bedazzled, on your jean jacket? You go all bare and then glue on rhinestones—in the shape of a rose or a word or even the American flag. There’s a whole vajazzle website you can order from and I heard there’s a place in Ridgewood that can do it for you.”

  Please tell me you’re kidding.

  Alyson suddenly stood up and pulled down the front of her bikini bottom, displaying her bare crotch, except for a red rhinestone bow under a faint C-section scar. I was shocked to see her bare vagina, but even more shocked to see it decorated like a present.

  “Oh my god, you didn’t tell me you did it already! You little fucking sex pot. I love it!” Tami said. “See, isn’t it cool? Ivy, you should definitely do it. We should all do it! What do you have down there now?”

  “It’s not very creative compared to that,” Ivy said, and proceeded to unzip her shorts and show us her pubic hair buzzed super short in a neat triangle.

  I’d wanted to get more intimate with these friends, but not like this.

  “You know, once you get lasered you can wax shapes in to change it up,” Tami explained. “Sometimes I go with an X, but I thought it would be fun for the weekend to try something new.”

  “Let me see,” Alyson said.

  “Next up in the Vagina Showdown,” Tami said in a deep announcer voice, and then pulled down the front of her bikini. Under her butterfly tattoo was a bulls-eye, shorn into her crotch like a Target logo. I could see the bare pink lips of her labia exposed underneath and quickly averted my stare, but not before noticing her lips didn’t look saggy at all; maybe it was true what she said about the waxing.

  “I love that!” Ivy said. “Who’s next? Jessica—what do you have?”

  I sat on the couch, silent.

  “Oh come on, don’t be a party pooper.”

  I looked around—we were up on a roof out in the open and close to the houses next to us. I could even see people walking on the beach. I now wished I was stoned like they were, or at least buzzed.

  “I’ll go,” Carolann said. Even Carolann had a designer vagina; a strip of hair as thin as my pinky. “Okay, Jessica, it’s your turn.”

  I felt my face get hot, but could tell I had no choice. I quickly lifted up my sundress and pulled down the front of my underwear. The stunned looks on their faces said it all.

  “Whoa—native!” Tami said.

  “You know, I read somewhere recently that full bush is coming back,” Ivy said.

  I felt like a total freak but somehow managed to joke, “Who knew I was so trendy?” and everyone laughed. I couldn’t help but start to laugh too, so hard I snorted, which made everyone laugh even harder. “I’ve got to be honest, I had no idea about any of this. It’s not like I stand around with the women in my office comparing bikini lines.”

  Carolann said, “When we get home, Jessica, I’ll set you up with my girl at Waxarama. She’ll do you right.”

  Pubic-grooming advice from Carolann—who would have thought.

  I couldn’t imagine the look on Aaron’s face if I came home with a rhinestone vagina. Or what my gynecologist might say. And what if Phoebe saw me getting out of the shower? What’s that, Mommy? Mommy decided to decorate her vajayjay. That would be some potent material for her future therapist.

  Carolann finished her beer and flung the bottle to the side with such carelessness it almost skittered off the porch, and then practically floated over to the cooler to fetch another drink. Stoned she seemed so different, so unlike her usual uptight self. She popped the top off the Corona and in a dreamy voice said, “Peter loves all the different designs I surprise him with on our Take Back Mondays, when we smoke a joint together and watch porn.”

  Carolann? Porn?

  “What kind?” Tami asked. “Peter strikes me as a barely legal kind of guy. Or maybe Japanese rope bondage?”

  With a completely straight face Carolann replied, “Well, Tami, Peter usually prefers girl-on-girl. I hardly watch, but after being married eleven years we needed something to spice things up.”

  I wondered what other racy tidbits stoned Carolann might feel compelled to share. “Why Mondays?” I asked.

  “Well, Jessica, once the week gets going we are both so tired, and then the weekends are usually too busy running around taking the kids to hockey and soccer and ballet. Sunday nights I have to get the kids ready for school, make the lunches
. Sex is the last thing I’m in the mood for on Sunday night. So we put it on the calendar for Mondays, before the week gets too crazy.”

  Her sex life seemed as planned and organized as her PTA volunteering schedule. Although better on the calendar than not at all, I thought. But the image of Carolann and her husband in front of their TV every Monday night, as regular as football, kind of grossed me out. Sometimes it was better not to know.

  “Well, good for you, Carolann. We could all use a little more porn,” Tami said.

  I felt all eyes on me—my turn to share. “Aaron knows if I’m in the mood based on what I’m wearing—I have red light, yellow light, and green light outfits.”

  “Like what?” Ivy asked.

  “Red light’s the old T-shirt, the one that screams, Don’t even think about touching me. Yellow is a maybe—like a little pair of cute boxers and a tank top. And green’s the full-out lingerie. He has to take them off me because they’re way too uncomfortable to actually sleep in.”

  My confession wasn’t as scintillating as Monday Night Porn and they sat there, waiting for the punch line that wasn’t coming. We hit a brief silence and I realized I still had their bracelets in my bag. “I almost forgot—I have something for you.”

  They all seemed genuinely touched by the gifts. I reached back into my bag to grab my phone to find out what exactly Japanese rope bondage was and then remembered I’d left it in my room.

  “Be right back,” I said, and ran downstairs, my mind flooded with sex. Aaron and I had never watched porn together; no sex toys, no anything that remotely resembled kinky during our marriage. Hell, we’d had none of it even before we were married. Were we boring, or unaware? Or both?

  I turned on my phone and five messages popped up—3:20 p.m., 3:40, 3:45, 3:47, 3:49. “Call me, I need you, it’s important,” Aaron said on voice mail, and all I could think of was who fell and hit her head, who god forbid wasn’t there when he turned around in the crowded food court at the mall? I couldn’t believe that in my one afternoon sans cell phone there had been an emergency. I looked at my watch—5:15, over an hour since his calls. I dialed quickly and the phone rang three times before he picked up. “Is everyone okay?” I asked, breathless.

  “Well, not exactly,” he said. “Dave came from Scarsdale with the twins to watch the Mets game, and his daughter Alexis, she shit all over Phoebe’s room.”

  “She what?”

  “She shit. She’s freaking five years old and still can’t make it to the bathroom. They were in Phoebe’s room playing Dora or whatever while Dave and I were in the den, and then all of sudden Phoebe came in screaming, She pooped, she pooped on my pillow!”

  There was nothing Aaron hated more than cleaning up poop, except for maybe vomit. I let out a relieved chuckle. “So what did you do?”

  “I ran into the room and Alexis was sitting on the bed with her pants off and poop smeared all over—all over her, all over the pillows, the blanket, the rug. It’s everywhere. I need help.”

  Ugh, her brand-new rug. “Isn’t Dave still there?”

  “He’s here, he’s got Alexis in the bath now.”

  I didn’t want to know why it might have taken a whole hour to get Alexis in the tub. “Did you put everything in the wash?”

  “I threw out the pillow, it was so gross. Can I throw out the blanket too?”

  “No, you cannot throw out her blanket. Put it in the wash on ‘super white disinfect’ and add one-third of a cup of bleach. And the carpet cleaner is under the sink.”

  I talked him through how to first turn on the washing machine—he’d never used it, not even once until that moment—and then how to wipe up the shit with a wet paper towel and spray the rug with the carpet cleaner and let it sit before scrubbing and vacuuming.

  “I seriously cannot do this,” he whined. “I am not cleaning any more shit that is not my own kid’s shit! Dave, get in here!”

  I had tried to keep a straight face to help him through the cleanup, but picturing him on his knees scrubbing with those yellow rubber gloves on, I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I burst out laughing. “You’re really in deep shit, Aaron!”

  He starting laughing too. “It’s like a Category 5 shitticane hit Phoebe’s room.” We laughed big hard belly laughs, like we hadn’t laughed together in a long time.

  After a minute he caught his breath and said, “I miss you, Jessy-bear.”

  “You’re just saying that because I’m not there to clean up the shit.”

  “No. I miss you because I really miss you.”

  I let his words hang for a second; they sounded desperate but sincere. “I miss you too,” I finally said. I did miss him. It felt good to miss and be missed, and for once, for Aaron to be the one at home appreciating me. And it felt especially good to miss cleaning up the worst mess in our parenting history. “But you have to admit you miss me a little because of the shit.”

  He paused. “Okay, maybe just a little.”

  I wished Aaron the best of luck with the rest of the cleanup and ran back upstairs to tell everyone. “You will never guess what happened!” I cried, and relayed every gruesome detail with an extra smear on the wall or two for effect.

  “A toast to being away!” said Ivy, handing me a cold bottle of Corona Light out of the cooler.

  “A toast to husbands cleaning up shit by themselves,” I said, happy in so many ways to be away from home.

  Chapter fourteen

  We never made it to charleston for dinner. By the time we showered and got ready it was almost nine, and even Tami had zero motivation to drive forty minutes there and back just for a wider choice of restaurants and a later last call. Instead, we went the easy route and ate at the resort, and by eleven we were back at Red’s. People were packed in so tight there was barely room to move, though Carolann found space at an outdoor bar we hadn’t even known existed the night before.

  “Hey, look, there’s Brad and company,” Tami said, and there was something in her voice that told me our return to Red’s might not have been on a whim. By the light of the tiki torches, I watched Tami and Alyson weave their way over and hug Brad and Sean and the others effusively as if they were long-lost friends. I craned my neck to see if Steven might be with them; it would be great to have one more chance to leave him with a slightly more professional impression. But I didn’t see him.

  With a hip swish and a hair toss Tami and Alyson walked back with a pitcher of margaritas a few minutes later, no doubt courtesy of their paramours.

  “You guys are too much,” I said, and as Ivy started pouring the drinks into plastic cups, I felt someone standing next to me a little too close.

  “Well hello, Jessica,” Steven said.

  “Hi.” I felt startled though I should have expected to see him. “Need something to wet your whistle?” Wet your whistle? Where did that come from?

  “Uh, no thanks, I’m good.” He held up a bottle already in his hand and gave me a funny look. That was all I needed—Steven Masterson going back to Boston remembering me as a lush with fake eyelashes and now also a bumbling idiot. “Have you guys been here all night?” he asked. “I hope we didn’t miss your encore performance.”

  “Yeah, well, we only perform here on Friday nights,” Tami teased. “But we’re available for weddings and bachelor parties. Or maybe our own show, off-Broadway?”

  “Consider it done,” he replied, looking amused as he took a sip of his beer.

  I wasn’t sure if I liked Tami cozying up to Steven to plan the details of her Broadway debut. Before she could take her reckless flirting too far, I quickly maneuvered the conversation back into shoptalk in which she couldn’t possibly participate. Which producers still hadn’t recouped their investment, even with sellouts on the national tour circuit. The rumored hot-and-heavy affair between the married star of Phantom and one of the stagehands.

  “Are you 100 percent sure he’s not gay?” I asked.

  “Completely positive. He’s definitely straight.”

&nb
sp; “I don’t know,” I said, finishing the last of my drink, “I would put money down he’s at least bi. One of my creatives said he’s seen him more than once after the show at the Ninth Avenue Saloon.” My creatives. I loved hearing myself say it, as if I owned the place.

  “Straight as an arrow. Twenty bucks,” Steven insisted.

  We shook on it and I thought our touch lasted a nanosecond too long. Maybe Tami was right; maybe he was interested in more than just work. I’d been there many times before, a little too late at the bar after a show, right up against the edge of shouldn’t. Back when I was an intern I’d let myself push it—Share a cab home?—eager to experience what more would feel like. But that was a million lifetimes ago, long before Aaron. I had to admit, it did still feel pretty good—it still felt pretty great, actually—to know that as a mom with two kids, I still had the power and allure. Yet I didn’t want to sleep with Steven; I wanted to work for him, and I needed to play this one right.

  * * *

  It was twenty minutes past last call and they finally ushered the pack of about thirty of us still partying out the door. The warm Southern air held us all together in front of the bar waiting for someone to take the lead to the next venue.

  “Anyone up for a smoke?” Tami asked a small group of us within earshot.

  Steven immediately said, “I’m in,” and started to follow Tami as she walked toward the water, then turned to me. “Are you coming?”

  I paused before answering, “Right behind you.”

  Tami led us on a path along with Alyson and Brad and a couple of other random people I didn’t recognize, and we huddled in a wooden stairwell sheltered by the dunes, out of sight but still within the din of the after-bar crowd. Tami pulled out a small Ziploc baggie containing several prerolled joints—my Ziploc baggie’s usual contents were pretzel nuggets and the occasional goldfish crackers, and I smiled at her duplicitous Ziploc life.

  The last time I’d seen a plastic bag with pot in it was sophomore year of college, the day the band UB40 came to campus. On a lark I had signed up to work wardrobe instead of ticket-taking like the rest of my friends, and while they got stuck tending front of house I got to watch the sold-out show from the side of the stage with the roadies, an all-access pass around my neck. After the second encore, I headed back to the dressing room for my job of packing up the wardrobe cases and tried to look busy working and not notice as a couple of band members milled about in what I supposed was their usual postshow hang. The drummer pulled out a plastic bag filled with weed and quickly rolled and lit a fat joint. He sucked in the smoke and nodded to me to take it from his hand. Pretending as if of course I regularly hung out backstage and smoked pot with rock stars, I held the joint to my lips and took a deep breath in. The smoke singed the back of my throat and I immediately coughed it out. “Strong stuff,” I managed to say, feeling my face flush; the drummer laughed good-naturedly and said, “Don’t ya know it,” and took another long, smooth toke. After a few more tries I kept the smoke in for longer, although I’m not sure if I ever really inhaled. But after some time, boy did I feel it—the room pulled in and time moved in circles as my lips and teeth and toes went nicely numb; in between laughs and handfuls of leftover cheese crackers my thoughts drifted in and out and through my brain: Oh my god, I am getting stoned, really stoned! I am hanging out backstage and getting high with UB40 and today I folded their underwear.