Carpool Confidential

by Jessica Benson

  “Three. But here’s the catch. I look good. SUV, check. Financial security, check. Left a prestigious career to stay home, check. Upper East Side doctor spouse, check. Overscheduled kids, check. PTA committees out the ears, check. Lesbian feminist, great big black X.”

  Randy shook her head. “I think they give you extra credit for that, because otherwise they’re discriminating. Don’t forget, we’re all one big, happy community, celebrating our differences and individuality—diversity is our only similarity.”

  “And if you believe sexual orientation is genetically predetermined, you can’t get points for it. That’s no fair,” I objected.

  Jen gave me a look. “Do you know how many times I’ve had to stand and smile while someone I didn’t even know told me how Heather Has Two Mommies is little so-and-so’s absolute, most-favoritest, bestest book ever?”

  “Okay. Maybe one extra point,” I said.

  “But that’s just it,” Randy looked down as she rolled her empty paper cup between her hands on the sticky table. Then she looked back up at us. “The diversity is only celebrated if it looks good on paper: look at the beauty of our rainbow. If it’s diversity of thought, if you’re different, if you work, or you’re not wealthy—maybe you’re managing the tuition but you only have one house—”

  “If you’re dumped or divorced,” I added helpfully.

  She nodded. “—if your kid’s ADHD or dyslexic, if you disagree about anything, really, from foreign language to the ideal class size, if you won’t drink the Kool-Aid, you’re never quite there. You know?”

  I stared at her. “Do you care?” It had never occurred to me that she might.

  “Maybe a little. I’m human.” She leaned back in her chair. “Look, I’m not advocating doing what I’ve done, working like a lunatic, trying to juggle it all and probably doing a shit job of it—”

  “So what are you advocating?”

  “Balance.”

  “Are we talking about the school community at large here, you, or me?”

  “I’d advocate it for the school community at large, but it would just be a waste of time and breath. With you I might have a chance.” I knew she was going to say something I wasn’t going to like, because she stopped and took a nerving-up breath. “Sometimes I wonder why you’re so set on being a superwife and mom, because you don’t seem to like it all that much. I mean, if PTA committee meetings seemed to fulfill you, more power to you, but I don’t think they do.”

  “I don’t know that I’d say they fulfill me, exactly. It’s just…they’re what I do. You know?” That sounded unconvincing, so I added, “To be involved in my kids’ lives, I guess.”

  “You’re telling me if you were never in another committee meeting in the school conference room again, you’d have no involvement in your kids’ lives? Come on, you need to do better than that, because I’m not buying it.”

  “This,” Jen said, “is why I’m her friend. Imagine having her against you?”

  I took a breath. How to explain this? “You know, you have a couple of kids and you want to stay home with them, which I did, and then after a while you go along to a meeting and get involved in something. And because you’re reasonably competent, people start calling you up to do more and before long you’re doing a lot. And between the kids and the high-maintenance husband, you spend a lot of time…maintaining, and before long you’re so busy you don’t have time to breathe, let alone think about the larger meaning of any of it. And you might not be challenged beyond your wildest dreams, but you’re in love with your husband and children and the life you’re all making together so you’re not sitting around thinking about whether you’re at the pinnacle of personal fulfillment or not.” I looked at Jen. “You know how it goes.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, I do. But I also say no more than you, Cass. Despite what Randy said about me, I’m not all that nice. I have a pretty good sense of self-preservation.”

  “Face it, Cass,” Randy chimed in, “we’re surrounded by Ivy League—educated women channeling the energy they used to put into running departments and hedge funds into running their children’s lives and looking down on anyone who doesn’t do the same. It’s hard to resist. But being a superwife and mom is not the be-all and end-all. The end of a marriage doesn’t have to mean the end of you. I know all about that firsthand. Remember?”

  Randy had been married before. She and Glenn had gotten married right after college graduation. It had lasted until the day she’d come home from law school and told him that while lying on the couch smoking pot had been OK as an undergrad major, she didn’t consider it a viable career.

  “But it’s organic! The wave of the future, babe,” he’d said. He’d been packed and gone within a week.

  The joke was that Glenn had gone on to make a fortune as the drug dealer to pesticide-conscious Hollywood stars, ended up married to a supermodel and living in an estate in the Hills, proving Randy completely wrong about the career thing.

  “You were young,” I said, “already in law school, so you knew who you were and what you were going to be. And you had no kids to worry about.”

  She looked at the napkin she was tearing into neat little pieces. “Look, the no kids thing is true. But the rest isn’t. We’d been together since we were freshmen in college, I had no idea who I was. I knew we were fundamentally incompatible, had no common interests, and our sex life was a disaster because he was always jumping up to answer his pager and even so, I cried for six months after he left, ate nothing but M&Ms for three, and almost got kicked out of law school.”

  “Not to divert from your journey of self-discovery,” Jen said, “but BlackBerries have to be worse than pagers, they’re like the new post-sex cigarette.”

  I flashed back on my conversation with Charlotte. “Post-sex if you’re lucky. I used to tell Rick that investment bankers are not ER doctors—they don’t have middle-of-the-night emergencies.”

  Jen shook her head. “Nora has a belt clip—it’s like the thing is holstered.”

  “Nora is a doctor,” Randy pointed out.

  Jen raised a perfectly threaded brow. “Cosmetic surgeons don’t have emergencies either.”

  “Josh threatens to throw mine into the wash pretty much every day,” Randy admitted.

  “Would that actually kill the thing?” Jen looked interested.

  “Sadly, they’re replaceable,” I muttered. “I used to hate Rick’s with a passion, but I don’t seem to feel that about anything anymore. It’s like I’m paralyzed with grief and depression.” I was fighting the tears.

  “That’s understandable, but you need to start taking steps to make sure your and the boys’ interests are protected,” Randy said.

  “Do you think the whole stifled creativity thing’s bullshit? If he was going to lie, why not make one up that’s believable instead of just bizarre?”

  “I don’t know.” Randy tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. Her equivalent, I knew, of rolling up her sleeves. “It’s hard for me to envision him lying, for sure, but it’s equally hard to envision him doing what he did. And if there’s one thing you learn as a lawyer, it’s that just because a story sounds too unbelievable to be made up doesn’t mean it’s not made up.”

  “And it seems sort of pointless to try to figure him out,” Jen said. “You need to figure you out. Are you financially protected?”

  “I know I sound like an idiot, but Rick would never screw the boys financially.” And I meant that.

  “Face it, Cass. Whether temporarily or permanently, he isn’t the person you knew or believed him to be. He’s someone else. You don’t really know what’s going on with him except that he’s capable of doing one awful thing, and again professionally speaking, once people have done one awful thing they often find it easier to move on to the next.” Randy looked unnervingly serious.

  “Listen to yourselves,” I said. “It’s like you’re both assuming that because he put on the suit every morning, it’s his money to do with as he wants.
Me staying home was by mutual agreement. We always considered it our money. Not his, ours.”

  Randy shook her head. “I don’t consider it his money. I’m worried he does.”

  Randy made more money than Josh, but Jen was in the same position I was, so I looked at her. “Are you financially protected? If your relationship with Nora fell apart, would finances be the first thing on your mind?”

  “Of course not, but we have an agreement, like a pre-nup, and I have a separate account.”

  “I feel like a moron,” I said. “It never occurred to me. I trust—trusted Rick.”

  “Trust or not, don’t you at least want to know where he is and what he’s doing?” Jen asked. “Is he using credit cards to buy post-rehearsal sloe gin fizzes for the gang? Is he shacked up in a suite at the W?”

  “He doesn’t like the W,” I said. “No bidets. But I have to say that my fear of what I’m going to find out has so far outweighed my desire to find out.”

  Randy nodded. “Don’t ask a question if you don’t want the answer. I get that, Cass, honest, and I’ve understood it this far. The problem is that I think you need to start wanting the answer.”

  “As a journalist,” Jen persisted, “don’t you want to investigate?”

  “I don’t know that I really think of myself as a journalist any more. Do you still consider yourself a doctor?”

  “Sure.” She shrugged. “As far as I’m concerned it’s part of the fabric even though I’m not doing it right now. I’d have said the same for you.”

  “I don’t know, deep down I pretty much feel like a housewife, not even a trendy SAHM or domestic engineer, a housewife.”

  “What a horribly reductive way to think,” Jen said.

  I stared at her. “But what about you? You entertain like Carolyn Roehme. You make fois gras pate from scratch. You knit. You drive children around all day long. You bring Nora’s stuff to the dry cleaner. You may be in a nontraditional relationship, but that’s what you are, too. I mean, come on, let’s call a spade a spade.”

  “No.” The light bounced off her rings. “I’m a doctor. I’m five foot ten. I have blond hair, a crown on my first molar, and two children I’d die for. My biggest regret is not going for the Olympic trials in downhill skiing when I had the chance. I couldn’t finish Love in the Time of Cholera no matter how many times I tried. I’m a lesbian. I believe the Iraq war is morally wrong. I despise kiwis, love Nora, Laura Mercier tinted moisturizer, and coriander. Unjustness in any form makes me burn and I see plenty of it. I think green apple martinis are a ridiculous invention, I sometimes read People when I should be reading The New Yorker and I sometimes read The New Yorker when I should be listening to Nora tell me about her golf game. I know I’m a hypocrite because I feel guilty about the emissions from my SUV but I won’t get rid of it. I believe the lack of affordable medical care in this country is a disaster, and when I go back to work that’s where my energy will be focused. I get headaches from white wine, a cruise is my idea of hell on earth, and I lose at least three cell phones a year. I think Giorgio Armani is a seriously overrated designer. I’d like to someday buy a farm in Idaho like the one I grew up on and spend part of the year there, but I never want to live full-time out of a major city again. Nora and I don’t see eye to eye on that one, but I’m resigned to the fact we have our differences there. All those things are who I am. A housewife is where I am. It doesn’t define me, and deep down it doesn’t define you either.”

  We both stared at Jen. “Wow,” I said.

  “So that’s me, Cass. The challenge is, can you do the same for yourself?”

  I looked at Randy and then back to Jen. “Honestly, I don’t know. Can I just be you instead? No offense to you, Ran, but Jen’s apartment is nicer.”

  “So true. I’d be her, too, although you do know that I’m a natural blond, right? Note that she said blond, not natural blond. So,” Randy said as she finished her coffee and stood up, “next Monday at nine-thirty, Cass, we’ll hear all about you. Right?”

  “Why don’t you go next week? I’m feeling magnanimous.”

  She smiled. “Nah. I’ll take the week after. Next week is all yours.”

  I took a drink of my cold coffee. “No problem.” I looked up at her. “I can hardly wait.”

  “I’m confident,” Randy said, “that between starting your fabulous blog and tracking Rick down, the time between now and then will fly by.”

  12

  Somewhere Down the Road

  It should have been easy. It seemed like it was going to be easy. Until I actually tried it. Aside from the obvious, like the physical and the kids I’d die for, and the shaming fact that I kind of like green apple martinis, I just couldn’t get it to work for me. Everything I could think of to say about myself was actually defined by or revolved around someone else. Which I guessed made it not about myself at all. I couldn’t even come up with an idea of what I wanted to be when I grew up. Other than Jen, that is.

  “When are you supposed to have the blog in?” Randy asked me when she called. “Maybe starting that will give you a boost.”

  “By the end of the week. Hard to imagine that writing about losing my Brazilian waxing virginity is going to answer any cosmic questions about who I am.”

  “You have to start somewhere. Oh, by the way, my secretary called all the numbers, nothing. They were either nothing or just rang.”

  “Which one just rang?”

  “Hang on”—I heard her scrabble around—“the 307 one, which is Wyoming. Do you know anyone in Wyoming?”

  “Not off the top of my head. And I don’t know anyone period without an answering machine.”

  “Come on, Cass, let me get you a PI. I know some good ones from work. You said yourself the boys are hurting. Time for the gloves to come off.”

  “I know.” I sat down. “I really just wanted to give him a chance to do it himself. Give me a day or two to figure out if I can even afford it, OK?”

  I sat down and looked at all our bank statements. Things weren’t dire. There was money for day-to-day. The problems were that nothing was coming in except, as happens in life, major bills. And when I went online to move money from the Merrill Lynch account to checking, there was nothing in it to transfer. This had always been an account with a nice cushiony number of zeros. I called the accountant.

  “Goldsmith, Schmidt & Kelly.” The receptionist managed to convey in those three words the fact that she had never been in the position of having been dumped for Barry Manilow and having to scrabble around town looking for her own money.

  “Cassie!” Murray-the-Accountant sounded very hearty. “I haven’t seen you since my annual cookies-and-punch It’s a Fiscal New Year party.” (A thrilling event every time.) “How are you?”

  “Not great. So…” I wished I’d thought this conversation out better. How much money do I have? seemed like sort of a pathetic question. And, yet, when you got down to it, it was what I really needed to know. “How much money do I have?”

  Infinitesimal pause. “Why don’t you come on in this afternoon, Cassie?”

  This did not sound comforting. I more or less forced Maria to agree to bring Noah to his tennis lesson, arranged a playdate for Jared, got myself dressed in decent clothes, and headed across the Brooklyn Bridge and up to Midtown.

  “I was wondering when I’d hear from you.” Murray leaned forward across his desk, clicking the top onto his pen.

  “Oh.” I sat, clutching a cappuccino on a saucer and feeling awkward. “Do you know where he is?”

  “What do you mean?” He looked so sincerely baffled that I felt a little better. It hadn’t seemed right for my accountant to know I was getting dumped before I did.

  “He just left me. No warning, nothing. I have no idea where he’s gone.”

  I saw him go from baffled to shocked. “You’re kidding me! Rick?”

  “I wish I was.”

  He was still shaking his head. “I knew he was getting ready to leave his job, but no,
I had no idea about the rest.”

  “So where do things stand?”

  He looked at me over his half-glasses. It’s odd the things you notice in the space between waiting for bad news and getting it. For example: Murray’s eyebrows needed to spend some serious time with a tweezers. If I were Mrs. Irma Goldsmith of Scars-dale, I definitely would have been insisting on that. “To put it bluntly, you’re not destitute, but there’s not an awful lot of extra. I think you’re looking at some serious lifestyle…adjustments.”

  Lifestyle adjustments. Those had been Rick’s words exactly. “Meaning?”

  Murray put his pen down, tilted back in his Aeron chair, and placed his glasses on top of his head so it looked like he had a pair of frog eyes on top of his bald patch. “Rick has liquidated substantial assets over the past two years.”

  My hands suddenly felt so weak that I was afraid I was going to drop my cup and saucer. I put them down on his desk. “What’s going on?”

  He looked at one of the charts on his desk. “And he stopped putting money into the joint accounts about a year and a half ago.”

  I felt that now-familiar flair of heat and light-headedness that shock seemed to bring on. A year and a half ago? “How can that be?” I looked at Murray. “You work for both of us. Your responsibility is to both of us.”

  He looked serious. “Yes. With the funds entrusted to me in joint accounts. For accounts solely in Rick’s name, my responsibility is to him. For accounts solely in yours, to you.”

  “But I don’t have any solely in my name, and he—” I looked at Murray’s expression. The foundation was being eroded, stone by stone. “—does. I see. How long has he had those?”

  He loosened his collar. “As long as I’ve been doing your accounts.”

  Since we were married. Another stone, gone. “So where does this leave me?”

  “I wish I had better news.” He handed me some sheets covered in numbers. Numbers aren’t my strength. This wasn’t that different from handing me a scroll in Ancient Urdu. I stared at it, trying to make some sense of the various brackets and columns. It didn’t appear we were about to starve or lose the apartment.