With Friends Like These

by Sally Koslow

  Nope. Talia was an excellent mother and, until lately, my source for practical information. Who else had known exactly how to toilet-train? Get a child to stop sucking his thumb?

  “This friend becomes pregnant,” Jules added.

  I wasn’t connecting the dots. Three times I tried to stab a leaf of limp lettuce. I realized that Jules must be referring to Quincy. Had Quincy talked to her about being pregnant and not me? That hurt, especially because last I’d heard, the two of them were squabbling over Arthur trying to hijack an apartment with Jules’ help. I’d tried to avoid getting in the middle—if ever there was a woman not born to be an umpire, I’m it.

  “The friend doesn’t know if she wants the baby.”

  I was starting to feel alarmed. Could Quincy be so traumatized by her miscarriage she was afraid to be pregnant again? Was that why she’d sounded strange this morning? Were she and Jake having couple trouble?

  I stopped chewing and placed my silverware in the all-finished position. This conversation had put me on edge, and whether I passed or failed this test, I wanted it to be over. Yet Jules kept it up.

  “There is an added complication,” she announced. “The pregnant friend doesn’t know if she ever wants to be married, at least to the father of the baby.”

  I played back the sentence in my mind. Without warning, my skin felt clammy, though on Jules’ forehead I could see a drop of perspiration. She had fixated on my eyes as if they were beach balls in the ocean.

  “The pregnant friend is up shit’s creek.” She asked, paused, then asked too quietly, “What should she do?” Somewhere in the restaurant a cell phone rang. A door slammed. A waiter dropped a tray of dishes. “Chloe, your time is up,” she whispered. “The answer, please?” With that she crossed her arms on the table and closed her eyes.

  I looked at my friend as if I were seeing her for the first time. Julia Maria de Marco was drowning. She’d turned to me. She needed me.

  Synchronized with the voice inside my head—my own firm, confident, and, I hoped, kind voice—I said, “Oh, Jules. Why didn’t you tell me sooner? What can I do to help?”

  CHAPTER 24

  Quincy

  Every night, illuminated by heartburn, my anxiety did flip turns. Yet I couldn’t deny that my fear was being trumped by glee. I, Quincy Peterson Blue, was bringing three lives into the world. Jake and I had even, gingerly, started referring to the embryos by name—Peanut, Speck, and Jubilee. I’d read about a woman who against 1-in-200-million odds had given birth to identical triplets, and I pictured three mini Jakes, minus his chest hair, watching ESPN.

  I was feeling sufficiently elated so that at least once a day I considered forgiving Jules, and twice got as far as lifting the receiver to call. But I wasn’t that big a person, and since I couldn’t face down Jules, I felt forced to dodge Chloe and Talia as well. If Talia knew about my pregnancy, she’d be horrified that I’d hexed it by having already bought cribs, one by one, on eBay. But, practical midwesterner that I am, I had, and this was the day to start refinishing them.

  I removed the carefully chosen nontoxic materials from their wrappings, and in minutes our small living room floor was blanketed by a drop cloth on top of which lay an obstacle course of eco-friendly stripper, plastic scrapers, brushes, sandpaper, steel wool, soapy water in a bucket, and glossy white paint. I opened the window to let the air ventilate the room, closed off Fanny in the bedroom, turned to a jazz station, and slipped on a protective mask and my slick black neoprene gloves. Within minutes, I began to get lost in the civilized drudgery of furniture rehab.

  I imagined the cribs in a row, my babies snoozing in morning light that streamed from the sun hanging high above the East River. The image was a reminder, as regular as the buses that vvvvroomed below on Broadway, that Horton had delivered no news about whether the apartment was indeed ours. It had been three weeks since the inquisition.

  “Not yet,” he’d said when I’d called last week to ask if we’d passed muster. “Absolutely normal. Boards don’t give a flying fig that you want to get on with your life.”

  Jake added his harrumph to the conference call. “This is why people buy condos.”

  “And why condos tank first if the economy takes a dive,” Horton sniggered. “Co-op boards—especially this one—are hairsplittingly discriminating about financials. You’ll sleep better knowing you jointly own a building with other fine, upstanding citizens like yourselves.”

  “Spare us the lecture, Horton,” Jake said.

  “I hear you,” he said. “In that case, I wish you well in finding a condo.”

  We both knew he was mentally adding, In your price range, since condos tend to be pricier than co-ops.

  I brushed on a generous swipe of stripper and stood back to watch purple paint begin to bubble off. For the last two weeks, Jake had been suggesting “as insurance” that we look at other apartments. I told him it felt disloyal to Horton, who’d worked hard on our behalf, but that was, I had to admit, minor. I always thought Talia was the superstitious one, but I had a thoroughly irrational premonition that the minute I considered another place—the very second I crossed its threshold—a cosmic cyclone would suck away the home I already thought of as ours.

  I needed to stay monogamous. If I was patient, glad tidings would arrive. Hadn’t the same voodoo worked with getting pregnant?

  I had finished stroking paint remover on the first crib and moved to the second when the doorman buzzed to announce a visitor. By the time I slipped off my gear and clambered through my land mines, the intercom’s ear-piercing screech had stopped. I called downstairs.

  “Delivery for you,” the doorman said, “but I thought you were out. I’ll send it up.”

  I wandered out the door and down the hall to wait for the elevator. When it arrived, a massive bouquet of pinkish orange helium balloons floated toward my face. I checked—no card. I walked the tribute to my apartment and tied it to one of the two chairs by the small glass table where we ate our meals. Then I dialed Jake.

  “Everything okay?” he said, sounding as if he expected to hear I was headed for the ER. We had an unspoken agreement never to discuss my earlier pregnancies, but I knew he thought about them as often as I did.

  “What’s with the balloons?” I asked. “Why are we celebrating?”

  “Q, I wouldn’t even know how to send balloons. Whatever you got isn’t from me. Should I be jealous?”

  “You should always be jealous. Sorry to bother you.”

  Sorry to be ridiculous. Pregnancy was pureeing my brain. Could the balloons be from Maizie? No, she received balloons—she didn’t send them. They were most likely a sales ploy from the dry cleaner opening across the street; every resident in the building must have received a bunch. To corroborate my theory, I pulled off my bandanna and rode down to the lobby, positive it would be festooned as if a parade were about to kick off from our building’s front door. But the lobby looked perfectly normal, if you considered polka-dot upholstery normal for anything other than a child’s room. I retrieved the mail and returned to my work, starting in once again on the second crib.

  Five minutes later I stopped midstroke. A peace offering—that’s what the balloons were. From Jules. Deeply bereft about her behavior. So embarrassed she couldn’t bring herself to speak to me directly. The only way she knew to make amends was with a showy gesture, her MO from the moment we’d met, right around the corner, when this neighborhood was filled with junkies and OTB patrons, not cafés and Pilates studios. Years ago she’d arrived with roses, a lavish lavender bouquet.

  My mind quickly wove a plot. Belatedly, Jules felt like a jackass for telling Arthur about the apartment. She recognized she was wrong and wanted to make amends for her grievous slip in judgment, brought on by a pathetic need to impress her boyfriend.

  Holy smokes: Jules missed me as much as I missed her. She wanted to say, Sorry, Quincy—please forgive me.

  As I worked on the cribs, I chewed through my analysis. Did Jules think
she could buy me so easily? Why couldn’t she apologize out loud, with grace and humility? I stared at the balloons and was tempted to open the window even wider to let the insipid gesture float to the heavens.

  Yet what did it say about me that I couldn’t accept an apology? Had I made high treason out of a midget misdemeanor, blown a clumsy faux pas into Apartmentgate? Jules had been disloyal, no argument there. She’d thought only of her own good fortune or at least Arthur Weiner’s, not mine. Then again, she hadn’t tried to seduce Jake after giving a raunchy toast written on a napkin, like my first cousin Mary Ann from Mankato had at our rehearsal dinner.

  I put down my brush. At the time I’d programmed my phone, Jules obviously ranked as Best Supporting Someone. I pressed 2 on my speed dial.

  “Jules de Marco,” she answered, all business.

  “It’s me,” I croaked, as if I hadn’t spoken in a year.

  “Shit, really?” she asked. “Mrs. Jacob Blue.” She whistled. “Word sure gets around.”

  “Excuse me?” She sounded derisive, defensive, not the least apologetic.

  “I know, I know. Chloe made you call.”

  What was she yammering about? “This has nothing to do with Chloe.”

  “After two months of being pissed and avoiding me, you randomly decide to reach out. Why now?”

  “It was about the b—” I started to blubber, but cut myself off. Why, indeed?

  “Ah, about the baby?” she said.

  Make that babies. How did Jules know? Had Dr. Frumkes told her? Wasn’t that a breach of medical ethics? But those two were, as Mom would say, as thick as thieves.

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  “Pretty un-fucking-believable, right?” Jules asked, full with sarcasm.

  That’s one way to put it, a way so coarse I had no idea how to respond, and was grateful when my phone bleeped with a second call. “Got to take this,” I said as I clicked through to Horton.

  “Where are you?” he asked, all salesman bravado.

  “In my living room,” I said, dumbfounded, sweating, ready to literally kick a bucket. “You?”

  “I stopped by and left a little something to cheer you up. Did you get them? I wish they’d been diamonds,” he said, all in a whoosh. “For my favorite-favorite.”

  Now I understood. “The balloons are right here. Very cheery. Thanks a lot.”

  “Quincy, love, the balloons come with news. The board made its decision.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Chloe

  I’d gone from good to great to grande. In the last weeks, I’d had four job interviews, all of which went—fingers crossed—stupendously, and I owed my mojo to Autumn Rutherford, Mojo Maker, Ltd. When I dropped mojo into a conversation last night, Xander glanced at me as if he’d wandered into a stranger’s bed.

  While most people get referrals for mental health professions from friends, Quincy seemed to be dodging my calls, Jules was—understandably—taking a hiatus from pro bono work, and Talia was the last person I’d ask. I was too embarrassed to check with my doctor. Jules refers to her as the Pussy Queen—to see me squirm, I’m sure—but Dr. F. and I have never become pals, since I’m always stuck for small talk while spread-eagled. So I began to look for a therapist in cyberspace and surfed right into an ad. “Olympic athletes have coaches,” it pointed out, on the chance that this was news to anyone. “CEOs use executive coaches. Coaching is a prerequisite for success. How much more productive could you be if you had your own life coach? You owe it to yourself to find out!”

  I was sucked in like a Cheerio to a Dustbuster. For days, I pored over websites of life coaches. There was Harriet, with her “feel the energy” tattoo, as well as a pretzel-limbed brunette wearing a serene expression—Suki Moonbeam, née Suzy Metzenbaum. But it was Autumn who won my heart. She promised not only to locate the “secret key to success” but to teach clients to “clean out their mental closets.” Nothing satisfies me like getting rid of junk, be it in a handbag, an attic, or, to Xander’s horror, an old camp trunk. (In all fairness, that bug collection smelled a bit off.) I see cleaning as a shortcut to a better mood. Who needs drugs when there’s Fantastik?

  Within minutes, I’d signed up for the Jump-start Your Life introductory program, which would be conducted by phone, since Autumn’s HQ was in Arkansas. At only $500, these sessions would go a lot farther to help me “walk the walk to complete fulfillment” than my last visit to a shoe department.

  Autumn’s method was built on a foundation of quizzes, the first designed to throw a spotlight on “using color to light my life.” She lobbed out questions, and I felt as if I were back on the Miss Porter’s School tennis courts, where I’d rarely failed to return a ball. Favorite food: ripe strawberries dipped in dark chocolate. Movie: Love Actually. Wine: chardonnay. Music: Harry Connick Jr. Art: Renoir. Holiday: obviously, Valentine’s Day. Flowers: my mom’s slipper orchids, on which she’d lavished more attention than on me. Bird: male peacock. Fast food: Dunkin’ Donuts. Book: Jane Eyre.

  We zipped through a hundred questions. I hung up feeling enormously pleased that Autumn Rutherford, wholly accredited by the International Life Coach Institute, was getting to know me at a level that not even Xander could match. That evening I began to complete an online career test she’d e-mailed. Was I decisive? Was I? Probably not. Did I like working with animals? No! Charismatic? No again. Had I garnered the respect of my peers? I doubted it. Was I fair? Yes! I gave myself a pass on that one as Xander walked into my study. “What are you doing?” he asked. “You’ve barely pulled yourself away from that computer in days.”

  “Job hunting,” I said, as matter-of-factly as if I’d said I was checking the weather. I’d scheduled my Autumn appointments during hours when Xander would be away. Who needs a buzzkill? I had just started using that word, too: buzzkill, buzzkill.

  “Good for you—it’s about time,” Xander said. “Remember Joe Thrombosis? His wife wants to start some sort of diet website for women. I told her to call you.”

  “Why?” I was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt and lifted my arms to check for flab.

  “Back down, fighter,” he said. “It sounded interesting, that’s all, and how hard could it be?”

  After he left the room, I’d make a note to bring up his tone with Autumn. But Xander seemed in no hurry to depart. He sat in my reading chair and put his feet up on the ottoman. “When’s Dash’s appointment at Jackson Collegiate?”

  “Wednesday.” I’d reminded him of this every night at dinner.

  “Do you think he’s up to it? Have you been working with him?”

  Couldn’t Xander see I was busy? “Yes and yes.” I returned to my screen. “If he doesn’t go on strike.” That afternoon, when I took Dash’s vegetable puzzle off the shelf, he’d whined, “No peas, Mommy, please!” as if I were going to force him to eat a bowlful the size of his head.

  I continued on with my career test well after the time Xander finally took the hint and left the room.

  • • •

  When my session with Autumn started the next day, she kicked it off by revealing, at a quick clip, that “pink is your missing link.” She advised me to “embrace your traditional femininity and use it to advance goals, equally balanced between home and the workplace.” A blink of pink would be a private sign to remind myself “to be bold without sacrificing your essential self.” The pinker I could make my life, the more uplifted and motivated she said I’d become. I loved this approach, like a fashion magazine reminding lawyers to wear push-up bras in case they forgot they were women.

  The next morning, I put aside the green tweed pants suit that I’d selected for Dash’s school meeting in favor of a pale pink skirt and matching sweater I hadn’t taken out of my closet in two years. For good luck, I ate half a pink grapefruit for breakfast, which I finished as Jamyang walked Dash down the stairs.

  “Aren’t you the little gentleman?” I said.

  “Like Daddy,” Dash said, adjusting his bow tie and grinning. In the gest
ure, I saw Xander’s face and pulled Dash into my arms.

  “Excited?” I asked. His freshly shampooed hair smelled like tangerines. “It’s going to be an adventure,” I said as we clasped hands.

  Dash and I walked to the car, long as a hearse, waiting for us. Having a driver was easier than driving myself. We arrived with time to spare. A young man dutifully lettered our name tags and we strolled down the hall, stopping to admire bulletin boards covered with finger paintings and haiku. Night passes my eyes / Jogged by a staccato beat. / Can light make me see? This young poet had read my mind.

  The regular students were getting settled into their homerooms, the girls in navy pleated skirts, anklets, and white blouses, the Peter Pan collars edged with lace, and the boys in a uniform much like what I’d selected for Dash—white shirt, khaki pants, and neat oxfords, though their ties were long with rep stripes. The school felt orderly yet warm. I liked it even more than at our first visit.

  In the classroom, Dash immediately started zooming a fire truck across the floor. I chose a prime seat on the other side of the room. Around me were an agreeable cluster of well-scrubbed strangers and their offspring, the adults trying to hide under fake camaraderie, pretending they didn’t feel their child’s entire academic success hinged on the next hour. Every person looked recently barbered or blow-dried, dry cleaner’s fumes all but wafting off their freshly pressed clothing.

  Dash was starting to dig through the costume bin when I heard a fuss. A loud child had backed into the room. The boy was a good bit taller than Dash and wore an old, oversized jacket. Dash took one look and ran to his side, shrieking, “Henry, Henry. Henry,” and proceeded to tug at his sleeve, dragging him toward the blocks. The Messiah had arrived. Dash worshipped Henry Fisher-Wells.

  I looked for Tom Wells, who always could keep his son in line, and started to scoot over to make room for him. I like Tom—he’s as solid as a guy comes—and the regrettable by-product of the cold war between Talia and me was that it meant I’d stopped having conversations with him if he answered the phone when I called their apartment. But it was Talia who walked through the door, wearing one of her more regrettable ensembles. I recognized the tiger scarf because I’d given it to her, though I’d never pictured it accessorizing a droopy gray skirt and a shirt that any self-respecting Goodwill shopper would pass by. She came toward me immediately.