The Seven Year Bitch

by Jennifer Belle

  I should be comforting him, I thought, but his blubbering made that impossible.

  “You should be a man,” I said. “You’re hurting Duncan by showing him this. Do you want him to act like this when he has a wife?”

  “What you’re doing hurts him far more,” Russell said.

  “No it doesn’t,” I screamed, even though it did.

  “When I have a wife I’ll be brave, Mama,” Duncan said.

  “That’s good, sweetie,” I said. “I love your daddy but he acts silly when he gets a boo-boo.”

  Finally I reached our deck, and Russell and Duncan went inside.

  “I want a divorce,” I said out loud. “I want a divorce, I want a divorce, I want a divorce.” I looked down at my pregnant stomach. I thought the bitterest thought. I should have gotten an abortion. I did the math in my head. Four months pregnant. No one would give me an abortion now. I had missed my chance. I was too late. I imagined myself going to have the baby alone, checking into the hospital alone, filling out the birth certificate. I imagined the fetus doing Russell’s Rumplestiltskin dance inside of me. This was bad, really really bad, this mess I had gotten myself into.

  I knelt on the deck and I cried. And then I felt it, the wasp sting, like my leg was tied with the roughest rope and a slow and angry serum was being injected into me. Slowly, slowly, the pain grew. I stood up and watched the wasp that had stung me crawl down between two of the deck’s floorboards. I went into the house.

  “I was just stung by a wasp too,” I said. “It hurts, but I don’t have to dance around like a maniac. I just have to take some Advil.”

  The pain was climbing my leg like a boa constrictor.

  And yet, it didn’t warrant Russell’s hysteria. Almost nothing would warrant that. So that was that, I thought. His and hers wasp stings had ended our marriage. Our marriage had started with bees painted on delicate white china cups Joy had given us for our wedding, and now it had ended with wasps. Cupid had pulled out his arrows and set these wasps on us instead. I removed the stinger and wondered if I should keep it as a memento, the way I had Duncan’s tiny stump of dried umbilical cord like a bit of potpourri in the box that had held my engagement ring.

  I would never get over this, I was sure of it. We would never overcome what had happened in our woods.

  I was too angry to speak. The phone rang and I answered it while secretly giving Russell the finger so that he would see it but Duncan wouldn’t.

  It was a friend of mine from business school. He worked as a consultant for Sesame Street, and he said Cookie Monster was doing a segment on happy families and Duncan, Russell, and I were invited to appear on the show.

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Don’t you want to do it?” he asked.

  “What do we have to do?”

  “Just be a happy family,” he said.

  I was silent.

  “Is that going to be a problem?”

  I looked at Duncan and I asked myself how I could deprive him of this. I couldn’t stand in the way of his meeting Cookie Monster. I couldn’t stand in the way of his having a father. A father he lived with, whose bristly cheek touched his every single morning and every single night. We would go on Sesame Street if it was the last thing we did. We would be the happiest fucking family on the goddamned street.

  I took the information and got off the phone, and noticed my curse finger was still sticking straight up like it had a mind of its own.

  I was still angry a few days later when we drove to Kaufman Astoria Studios and arrived promptly at ten. Russell had insisted on wearing a suit and tie—although he never wore one when I begged him to wear one—because he thought he was going to be meeting an agent after, even though they had told us to expect to be there all day.

  As soon as we walked in, a wardrobe guy rushed over to us and said Russell would have to change.

  “I didn’t bring anything to change into.”

  “I told you,” I said.

  “Take off the tie and jacket,” the guy said. Russell took off his jacket. He was wearing a plain white button-down shirt. “You can’t wear white on the set. I’ll get you something.”

  He came back several minutes later with some kind of shiny plaid leisure suit.

  “What is this?” Russell said.

  “I got it from Gordon’s wardrobe. It’s probably from the seventies. Here, follow me. You can use Bob’s dressing room. He’s in the commissary.”

  Russell trailed unhappily after the guy and the suit and came back wearing it, looking like he thought he was supposed to be on The Love Boat.

  We were led out to the stage, and suddenly I was standing on Sesame Street. Cookie Monster was already there, sitting on the steps waiting for us. “Hello, me cookie!” he said.

  Duncan looked very surprised.

  “Hi folks,” a man said, coming over to us. He introduced himself as the director. “So you know your line?”

  “No,” I said.

  “This really smells bad,” Russell said, making a face and trying to smooth down the enormous pointy collar of his shirt.

  “This won’t take long, folks. We shoot it twice with both families and then you’re free to go.”

  “Both families?” I said.

  “Yeah, we always have an alternate family in case something goes wrong. But I’m sure you’ll be great.”

  “But we get paid,” Russell said. My friend had told me we’d get fifteen hundred bucks.

  “The family we use gets paid,” the man said, obviously starting to get annoyed. “Now you’re going to walk over to Cookie on those steps, and Cookie’s going to say to you, ‘What do families like to do together?’ and the dad is going to say, ʽFamily hug!’ and you’re all going to have a big hug with Cookie. Then Cookie’s going to say, ‘I know what families really like to do together,’ and the mother’s going to say, ʽWhat, Cookie?’ and he’s going to say, ʽEat cookies!’ Got it?”

  They told us to stand a few feet from Cookie Monster.

  “Pick up your son, what’s his name, Dustin?” the director said.

  “Duncan,” I said. “Who should pick him up?”

  “You. The father,” the director said, pointing at Russell.

  Russell heaved Duncan up into his arms. They both looked miserable and uncomfortable, Duncan’s cheek pressed against the smelly polyester leisure suit and Russell’s hands slipping a little so Duncan was sinking lower and lower.

  “Can you pick him up a little higher?” the director said, moving behind one of the three cameras, pointing toward the spot. I saw the alternate family being moved in, shining nervously and perfectly dressed in not a shred of white. They were already sort of hugging.

  “What do families like to do together?” Cookie Monster said to us.

  “Hug,” Russell said. He threw himself at me, practically knocking me over.

  “Ow,” Duncan said. “Daddy, you’re hurting me.”

  “Cut,” the director said. “It’s family hug. ʽFamily hug!’ Let’s try it again.”

  “Can you just try to do this one thing right,” I said to Russell. The alternate family moved even closer together. The parents had their arms around each other, each with a hand on a shoulder of their perfectly behaved little boy.

  “Okay let’s try again,” the director said.

  “Family hug,” I whispered to Russell.

  “What do families like to do together?” Cookie asked.

  “Family,” Russell grunted and hoisted Duncan up a little higher, “hug.” Then he threw himself at me again.

  “Cut!” the director said.

  “What?” Russell said. “Family hug! Family hug! I said family hug! I said it. Family hug!”

  I secretly gave him the finger so that Duncan and Cookie Monster and the director and the alternate family couldn’t see. All those years watching Sesame Street as a child I never imagined I would one day actually be standing on Sesame Street giving my husband the finger.

  After a few more tak
es of Russell saying “Family hug!” like a complete lunatic, the alternate family was brought onto the stage and we were rushed out the door. I sat in the car seething.

  “Well, that was fun,” Russell said.

  “I loved it,” Duncan said.

  A few weeks later, Gabe Weinrib called. “I’m going to a gala tonight for the Innocence Project. I bought a table and a few of my friends are coming out and I was wondering if you would join me. You might find it interesting. I’m excited for you to meet my friends.”

  Russell was in LA on business and our neighbor Sherry’s daughter was available to babysit.

  “I’d have to see if I could get a babysitter—”

  He cut me off. “I’m on an airplane, Izzy, and I can’t hear you too well. Come to Cipriani Downtown at six thirty for cocktails and the auction, and then dinner follows at eight. After, I’d love to take you home so I could say hi to Duncan.”

  “Okay,” I said, meaning okay to the cocktails and dinner part but it seemed we had already been disconnected.

  I looked at my apartment and even though I had no intention of inviting him upstairs to see Duncan, who would be asleep at that hour anyway, so there would be no point, I started to clean. The first thing I did was throw out all the piles of Russell’s newspapers and old, old manuscripts he had already rejected, filling the garbage room so the door couldn’t even close. Then I started with the toys. I had been so intent on worrying about Shasthi’s inability to get pregnant, I hadn’t noticed her inability to bend down and pick up a toy. But now that she was pregnant it didn’t seem like the right time to ask her to start doing a better job with the cleaning. Not a single toy had all of its parts in one room. There were balls and puzzle pieces and dolls’ limbs everywhere I looked. Lego and Lincoln Logs and Mr. Fucking Potato Head. A nanny’s job was to pick up after the child! Tend to the nursery! I felt strangled by a dozen mangled Slinkies.

  When Shasthi came home with Duncan, I was crouched down gathering toys. I was sure she would rush to my side to help me but she didn’t seem to notice anything unusual.

  “Shasthi,” I said. “Do you think there’s any way we could keep these toys organized a little better? I mean, the whole family has to do a better job with it,” I said, huffing and puffing a little.

  “Yes, Izzy, everybody does,” she said. I hadn’t meant everybody, so much as her.

  “Do you think you could put away some of these things?” I tried again. “I have a friend coming over later.”

  Her lids got heavy with anger. “You have to do your part you know,” she said.

  “Well I buy all these toys,” I said. “And Duncan can’t get any use out of them if the pieces are scattered through the whole apartment.”

  I continued to work silently. I crouched at the cabinet beneath the kitchen sink, which filled me with dread, searching for the Lysol toilet bowl cleaner, and then scrubbed the toilet. When I was finished, the apartment looked better. It looked—I searched for the word to describe the phenomenon—cleaner. It looked cared for.

  I went into my room and put on a black Liz Lang maternity halter dress, which hid the fact that I was definitely showing. I accidentally lined my eyes with blue glittery powder, thinking it was black, and stuck an oversized Rafe clutch under my arm, like a pregnant star in a sitcom carrying a plant from room to room. Or a bloated Marilyn Monroe wearing black instead of white. If Gabe put his hand on my waist at any point, he would feel how round I had become. This wasn’t a date, I tried to remind myself, so it was okay to be pregnant.

  Shasthi left with barely a word and Sherry’s daughter came from next door. And out I rushed to Cipriani.

  My name mercifully was on the list, although the woman with the clipboard hadn’t understood that my last name was Brilliant and thought I was somehow insulting her. Even when I said my own name, I had a way of sounding sarcastic.

  I couldn’t see Gabe anywhere. I wandered around with my Coke trying to look like it was perfectly normal to be pregnant and all alone at a gala. I made my way to the silent auction tables and looked at the offerings with casual indifference.

  I paused at a pair of $40,000 Renee Lewis earrings with an opening bid of $5,000. Then I saw what I wanted to bid on. Something for Russell.

  When I was pregnant with Duncan and still working at the firm, in a moment of insanity I bought Russell a gold Cartier watch and had “For Timing Contractions” and our initials “RET & IPB” engraved on the back. I gave it to Russell for his birthday in front of his parents, who gave him a faux leather Dopp kit that reeked of a vile chemical smell.

  Russell put it on, but it had a black alligator bracelet band that was loose on his wrist. It looked big on him. He wasn’t used to wearing a watch and he seemed uncomfortable in it. The sentiment on the back seemed to make him nervous and ended up ironic, as I’d had an emergency C-section with no contractions whatsoever to time. He wore it two or three times before abandoning it on his bedside table for several months. Then, one day, I tried it on, and I loved it. I loved that it was a man’s watch because it made me feel like a man. It was huge and round and gold. I felt like Apollo in it. Everyone I met said they didn’t know what was different about me. But as soon as I started to wear the watch, Russell suddenly wanted to wear it. I told him he had never wanted to wear it before but he just said, “It’s my watch,” and took it from me. He wore it out that night and lost it. He hadn’t even noticed he had lost it until I asked him where it was. It had slipped off his wrist and somewhere someone in New York had seen it glinting on the sidewalk and was the proud new owner of my ten-thousand-dollar 18k-gold Cartier watch.

  “It was his watch and so it was his to lose,” my mother’s shrink had said, but I couldn’t forgive him for it. Not so much for losing it and for not even noticing that he had lost it but for taking it from me when he knew how much I loved it.

  I hadn’t really given him a gift since, unless you counted Duncan, but this was just what he wanted. And his birthday was coming. I wrote my name on the bid sheet and the minimum opening bid, two hundred dollars.

  “Bidding on something?” Gabe asked, coming up behind me. “These earrings?” He pointed to the beautiful earrings.

  “No,” I said. “This one.”

  Vasectomy: Dr. Stuart Little (Sutton Place Physicians, NYU Hospital) will perform an outpatient procedure and all follow-up care.

  “I think my husband will love it.”

  “I wouldn’t put my ween in the hands of a doctor named Stuart Little,” Gabe said. “Unless your husband has a very, very small ween. Small enough for a mouse to operate on.”

  “If it means not having any more children, I don’t think he’ll mind.” I wasn’t sure why I was talking about my husband or his ween.

  “No? You’re not going to have another one?”

  “Well actually,” I said. “I am.”

  “Oh! Well congratulations, m’dear,” he said. His face had gotten serious. “I couldn’t tell.” I suddenly felt foolish for being there.

  I followed him to a round table filled with couples and stood by as he introduced me, but the speeches were starting, so we took our seats next to each other and our salads were served.

  “How long have you two been an item?” the girl sitting on my other side asked.

  “Oh, no, I’m his investment consultant,” I said ridiculously.

  Alan Dershowitz took the microphone and explained that the Innocence Project used new DNA technology to free prisoners who had been wrongfully incarcerated.

  Behind him were what looked like a police lineup of disgruntled-looking men, who then took the stage one by one to explain what they had been convicted of and how hard it had been to get a job once they were exonerated. One man had been in jail for forty years.

  Gabe seemed to be ignoring me.

  I was so hot, the room was spinning.

  I excused myself and went to the bathroom. I wished I hadn’t worn panty hose. I couldn’t bear to wear them for another minute. That’
s when I had the idea that I could take off my panty hose and no one would know because my skirt was so long. I took off my black high-heeled boots and peeled off the panty hose that had already torn to spiderwebs between my thighs, and threw them in the garbage can. But when I went to put on my boots, I couldn’t do it. They wouldn’t go on my bare feet. Someone was banging on the bathroom door.

  “Just a second,” I called.

  I sat on the toilet and I pulled and pulled, but my feet would not slide into the boots. I was the opposite of Cinderella. I pulled and pulled and pulled and pulled but the boots would not budge. My feet had swelled in the heat of Cipriani. Finally I left the bathroom barefoot and sat on some marble steps and continued to try. I had no idea what to do. If it weren’t for my clutch, which I’d left at my seat, I would have just run out barefoot and gotten a cab home. Every girl in New York had at least one coming-homefrom-the-party-barefoot story.

  I was practically in tears. It was bad enough I had shown up on my date pregnant, but now I was barefoot.

  “Is something wrong?” a gray-haired man asked, appearing in front of me. I pulled the skirt of my dress down fast to cover my legs as best I could. To my horror, I saw that it was the convict who had just spoken who had been in prison for forty years and lost his wife, his house, and any way of making a living. The Innocence Project might have used DNA evidence to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was completely innocent, but I was not convinced.

  “I can’t put my boots back on,” I said.

  “Do you have any lotion or powder or something?” he asked.

  “That’s a great idea!” I said. “I have some hand lotion in my purse but it’s at my table.”

  “I’ll go get it for you,” he said.

  “Wait,” I said. It might seem strange for this ex-con to go up to my seat and walk off with my purse.