Play Dates

by Leslie Carroll

  I catch my supervisor watching me. Can’t try any funny stuff, Claire. “Which one would I select?” I repeat. I smile sweetly and point to the one with the vermeil finish. “If I were you, of course, I would choose this one, no question. It’s much more mature-looking.” You bat.

  She pushes it away and taps the glass in front of the gold necklace, as though a fingerprint on the piece itself would mar it irrevocably. “Then I’ll take this one. I think it does more for my tan.” She turns to her friend, keeping half an eye on me. “I always think pallid skin, particularly at this time of year, tends to make people look so sickly. And after all, a bronzed complexion is a universal symbol of good health.” Nina’s friend must be mute, because I have not heard her utter so much as a syllable in my presence. And I don’t know whether she’s in concordance with any of Nina’s opinions because the Botox injections (a girl can tell, okay?) have rendered her face wrinkle-free, but alarmingly impassive.

  “Will that be cash or charge?” I ask.

  Nina takes out a platinum card and slaps it on the counter instead of handing it to me. I run her transaction while she tells her girlfriend how much fun it is just to treat yourself to a little something now and again. I carefully box up the “little something,” all $825-plus-sales-tax of it. I can’t wait for this woman to leave my counter, but I wonder if she’s wondering whether or not I work on commission and if I do, is thinking smugly that with her purchase she’s just performed an act of charity.

  As she leaves my counter, with the curtest words of thanks, she comments to her friend that she can’t wait to tell some of the other Thackeray mothers what Claire Marsh is doing with her time these days. My supervisor catches my eye. I’m glad I have no other customers at the moment because it gives me an excuse to Windex the countertop. I am, in fact, wiping away my tears.

  I get to kinder karate in time to watch the last ten minutes of the class. Zoë’s earnest little face, a mask of concentration, is adorable. My Powerpuff Girl is learning how to kick butt for real. As soon as the session ends, all the students bow to the sensei, and suddenly their game faces disappear and they become little kids again, running straight into the arms of the waiting parent or nanny.

  “Did you see me?” Zoë asks breathlessly.

  “I sure did! I’m so proud of you.” I hug her and she’s all girlygirly again.

  “Sensei Steve says I get to take the test for the orange belt in March!”

  “Wow! That’s terrific, Z!”

  She mops her brow. “I’m thirsty.”

  I hand her a juice box from a shopping bag, then remove the rest of them from the bag and offer them around to the other kids. At least with kinder karate the parents aren’t expected to bring solid food when it’s their turn to supply the snack. In fact, it’s discouraged. Some of the moms and dads show off by showing up with fancy drinks full of electrolytes. I don’t have the time or the money to hunt down that kind of stuff. I barely made it to a Duane Reade to see what they had in their refrigeration units.

  Zoë’s blowing bubbles through the straw. “It makes the box jiggle! Look!” she says, and demonstrates her new discovery. “It’s like science. See?”

  I’m amused that she’s having such a good time. She’s precious when she’s in such high spirits. She’s also a born leader. After a minute or so, she’s got half the kids in the class blowing bubbles into their juice boxes.

  One of the mothers pulls her kid aside and takes the box out of her hand, tossing it into the trash. I can see that she’s digging her nails into the little girl’s arms. I bet the child can feel it right through the heavy cotton sleeves of her ghi. The mother shoots me a dirty look and turns back to her pinioned daughter. “I don’t want you to do that, Emily. It’s not nice. Ladies don’t play with their food.”

  I glare back at Emily’s mother. If blowing bubbles in your juice is such a crime, God help Emily if she ever commits a genuinely major infraction. “Why don’t you go change?” I suggest to Zoë, who had stopped drinking her juice as soon as Emily’s mother began to scold her daughter.

  Zoë heads off to get out of her ghi and into her street clothes, so I take the opportunity to get as far away from the other moms as possible. I review the flyers on the bulletin board. Out of curiosity, I pick up a trifolded brochure that contains the dojo’s schedule of classes. “You thinking of joining us?” asks Zoë’s teacher, Sensei Steve, a thirty-something Jewish guy with fuzzy red hair. Behind us, a number of adults, their ages easily spanning two or three generations, are just coming in for the next class.

  I blush and stick the brochure back into its holder. “I’d love to, but I don’t have the time. Not to take a class myself…unless you’ve got parent-child classes. Two birds…one stone…you know? That would be just about the only way it might work out.” I chuckle. “Or I might work out.” Actually, there’s a parent-child class offered by the bikram yoga studio Zoë goes to, but it’s too darn hot in that room for me.

  Steve laughs. “We don’t have mommy-and-me classes yet, but that’s a good idea! I’m always looking for ways to grow the business and serve the community.” He tells me that Zoë has taken to karate with remarkable acuity, which is why she is progressing so swiftly. Her ballet classes have also contributed to her ability, combining training in grace as well as strength and discipline. However, he says, uncharacteristically shuffling his feet and averting his gaze—which, up to this point has been direct—my daughter, he tells me, often has the tendency to wander.

  “Around the room?” I ask. “That sounds like a great way to end up getting kicked in the head by mistake.”

  “No, no, no. Mentally,” he says. “She…” He’s reaching for the right words, and I can sense that he’s tiptoeing around what he may really want to say because he’s afraid it might not land well and he could lose our patronage. Finally, the muscles in his face stop working so hard and he settles into a smile. “Zoë…has the tendency to stray from the ritual poses. From their order. She…choreographs.”

  Before I can say something, Sensei Steve hastens to add that he finds her attitude somewhat charming. But it can be distracting to the rest of the class. And of course, part of the study of martial arts is discipline. I explain that her ballet teacher, Miss Gloo, consigns the final ten minutes of class to improvisation, allowing her little charges the chance to dance around the room on their own, incorporating the steps they practiced that day. Not that Zoë should be making up her own moves instead of following the instructor, but I can see why she thinks it’s okay to improvise, since a precedent has been set in another program.

  I tell the sensei that I understand that his karate class is structured very differently from ballet and promise that before her next session, I will speak with Zoë about the importance of following directions.

  “Don’t be too hard on her, though,” he cautions. “In some ways, she may have the right idea.”

  I’m puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  Sensei Steve grins and shrugs. “Well, her improvisational skills may act to her detriment in a classroom situation. But if she ever got into a real-life fight, I wouldn’t want to be her opponent!”

  In the front hall I drop the mail on the table by the door, help Zoë off with her parka, scarf, mittens, and snow boots, and then follow her into her bedroom so I can put away her karate gear. How I envy Mia, whom I spoke to for all of two seconds last week, when she called to tell me, breathlessly, that she had just returned from a fabulous gig in California, doing the makeup for a calendar shoot on Catalina Island with a pod of Navy SEALs. What I wouldn’t give for a break. At this point, even an afternoon nap is a luxury.

  “What happened in here?” I gasp, surveying the wreck that is my child’s room. It had become increasingly messy over the past couple of days, and I’d urged Zoë to straighten it up; but now it looks like a thief demolished the joint in search of priceless treasure. “Zoë, what have I told you about keeping your room clean?”

  “It’s not my fa
ult.”

  “It’s not…what? Whose ‘fault’ do you think it is?” She looks around, eyeing the mess. Just a few days ago, the room was in pretty good shape. “Zoë, I’m talking to you.” She’s pulling off her socks and adding them to the pile, acting as though my words are nothing more than the vaguely annoying hum of a mosquito.

  “It’s Dobby’s fault.”

  “Dobby’s?”

  “Dobby’s supposed to clean up my room.”

  “Nice try, Z. Very clever. But the last time I checked, we didn’t have a house elf. And I seem to recall that Dobby causes more messes than he cleans up.”

  “That’s what I mean,” she says, pretending to look as annoyed as I truly feel. “Dobby made it look like this and he’s supposed to clean it up.”

  “Mommy doesn’t have very much patience for this right now, Zoë. Mommy’s had a long day.” And a particularly lousy one. After my encounter this afternoon with Nina Osborne and the nasty glances from the kinder karate mom, it won’t take much to really push me over the edge.

  “I’ve had a long day, too,” she insists. “And I still have to do homework. We’re supposed to draw a picture of our favorite sound.”

  “Well, get out your crayons because the only sound you’re about to hear is me getting very angry.”

  “You’re already very angry. And that’s not my favorite sound. My favorite sound is macaroni pouring into the pot of boiling water.”

  I grab her arm and turn her so that she is forced to witness the disaster area that is her bedroom.

  “We need to talk about discipline,” I tell her. “First of all, I’m the mommy around here and the mommy is the boss.”

  “Ouch. You’re hurting me.”

  I doubt it, but I relax my grip. “I’m sorry. Now, you may not like everything I have to say, but as long as you live here, Mommy makes the rules.”

  She wriggles out of my grasp and throws herself on a pile of clothes and toys that, I believe, are on top of where her bed used to be. I’m assuming it’s still under the avalanche. “Then I don’t want to live here anymore.” She begins to cry and I bite my tongue before I suggest that she might be happier with Scott and Serena. It’s a subject I wouldn’t touch right now with the proverbial ten-foot pole.

  I perch on the edge of the bed, shoving aside a bunch of stuff that suspiciously resembles the clothes I just laundered for her last night. Thank God I’ve got a small washer/dryer in the room off the kitchen that was originally designed as a maid’s room. Otherwise I would live at the laundromat. “Hilda doesn’t help us anymore, Z, so you’ve got to take care of your own things. We’ve talked about this before.” I’m beginning to wonder if the state of my daughter’s bedroom isn’t a metaphor for some form of maternal neglect. “I know it’s been very hard for you since Daddy left. But it’s been hard for me, too. And I don’t know what to tell you…other than I’m doing the best I can right now.” Zoë looks up from the pile, her face red and tearstained. “But I need you to do the best job you can do, too.”

  “I am,” she insists, snuffling. I look around the room for a box of tissues, can’t locate one at first glance, and run into the bathroom for some paper so she doesn’t snivel all over her recently washed and newly wrinkled clothes.

  “Zoë, look at this room. It wasn’t like this a couple of days ago. I know it wasn’t. Don’t tell me you’re doing the best you can.”

  “I told you, it’s not my fault!” she says stubbornly, raising her voice. “It’s Dobby’s!!”

  “Stop it, Zoë! It’s not funny anymore. I’m just about at my wit’s end today. Now clean up this mess and then get started on your homework.”

  “What’s your ‘witzend’?”

  “Wit’s end. It means I’ve run out of patience. Don’t push me, or we’re both going to be sorry.”

  “Why?”

  “All right! If you can’t appreciate your things, I’ll find a little girl who does.” I grab Baa by the neck and start to walk out of the room with him.

  “Okay. I’m going, I’m going.” She begins to sort through the mess with a minimal amount of diligence.

  “I’m counting to ten. One…two…three…”

  She begins to pick up speed. By “five,” she’s almost at a normal pace. “Six…seven…”

  “I told you, I’m doing it!” she yells.

  “Don’t yell at your mother!” I yell back. “I want this room completely cleaned up in twenty minutes. Do you hear me? I’m coming back in here in twenty minutes. Then we’ll start on your homework.” I turn to leave the room and trip over her yellow knapsack. Exasperated, I grab it from the floor and desperately look for a place to put it where it will cease to be a hazard in an obstacle course.

  “I need that,” Zoë says.

  “You wouldn’t have even found it until you cleaned up. We just got home and already it ended up buried.” I place Baa on her desk and hand her the bag.

  She rifles through its deep center compartment. “I have a note for you.”

  Oh, no. Now what?

  “Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad,” she says reassuringly, having noticed my panicked expression. “It’s a permission slip.” She forks over a crinkled sheet of paper. “We’re going on a class trip to the firehouse next Friday and you have to give your permission. You have to sign it and I have to bring it back before the end of the week.” I read it over while she continues to hunt through the bag for something.

  The permission slip is a pro forma thing. I find a green magic marker—on the floor—sign the paper and hand it back to her. “Here. Put this where you’ll remember to give it to Mrs. Hennepin tomorrow. Do we need to make a reminder?” We have a calendar posted on the inside of Zoë’s bedroom door, another dry-erase board where she can write down important things.

  “I’ll do it,” she says, presenting me with an envelope retrieved from the knapsack and going to the board. “You have to be class parent in February. That’s what the other paper is about. They sent it in the mail, too, just in case.”

  I’m sure it’s sitting out on the hall table. I noticed a Thackeray envelope in today’s stack of letters and bills. I peruse the note, which assigns me parental duty on Valentine’s Week. Essentially, class parents provide a much-needed extra pair of hands to the teacher and the special subjects instructors. The Thackeray moms and dads like to know how their tuition dollars are being spent, so a week of unpaid servitude was the academy’s solution. If I’m unable to discharge my duties—I think of Miss America finalists—I can arrange to swap weeks with another parent. At this point, one week is as rotten as any other. I’ve just started the job at the Met gift shop and now I’ll need to ask for time off. It won’t be easy on the wallet, either. The Thackeray Academy assumes that parents have both the time and the income to devote to participating firsthand in their children’s education. And, in my case, once upon a time they were right.

  I watch Zoë, who knows I’ve got my eye on her, her face in a determined pout, putting away her clothes and books and games and toys, doggedly cleaning up the chaos.

  And suddenly I recognize—too well—that, though it may be an unpleasant task, it’s time for Claire Marsh to get her own house in order.

  My Trip To the Firehouse

  by Zoë Marsh Franklin

  Yesterday our whole class went on a trip to the firehouse because we are learning in school all about how our city works. The first fireman we saw was a man named Jim. He is the chief at that firehouse and he is like the boss of all the firemen. He has a big tummy and a big mustache. Fireman Jim said hello to all of us and then he said he was having a very busy day so he introduced us to another fireman, Fireman Dennis, who was going to give us our tour.

  Fireman Dennis isn’t roly-poly like Fireman Jim. And he doesn’t have gray hair like Fireman Jim. Fireman Dennis has brown hair and he was more friendly than Fireman Jim. He liked talking to our class a lot, I think. I don’t think Fireman Jim really wanted to talk to us. But Fireman Dennis was havin
g fun with us. He said there are a few firewomen too, but they didn’t have any at their firehouse.

  When Fireman Dennis showed us how they slide down the pole when they have to race to a fire I didn’t know how Fireman Jim could get through the hole in the ceiling to slide down the pole because his tummy is big. Fireman Dennis even made a funny joke about Fireman Jim’s big belly. Fireman Dennis told us that the firemen work some days in a row and then they have days off in a row. When they have days off they go home to their own houses. And when they are working they sleep in the firehouse upstairs, which is why they have to slide down the pole to the fire truck, which is in the garage. The pole is faster than taking the stairs. Fireman Dennis showed us the upstairs part of the firehouse where the firemen sleep. It looked like the Annie movie where all of the orphans’ beds were in one big room.

  And then Fireman Dennis asked who wanted to slide down the pole and we all raised our hands. But he said we couldn’t all do it, so there could be one boy and one girl from each second-grade class. He picked me as the girl from Mrs. Hennepin’s class and Bram got picked as the boy. Xander got angry because he didn’t get picked and he started to throw a temper tantrum and Fireman Dennis made a funny joke because he said Xander was acting like a mean old dog and did he know what happens to mean old dogs? And Xander said no and Fireman Dennis said that they turn a fire hose on mean old dogs and get them all wet and splash them and that makes them quiet really fast. Xander didn’t think it was funny, but I did.