“I like to look at you when I kiss you. You always look like you’re having fun.”
“I always am having fun. Remember the day you rescued me and you wouldn’t let me close my eyes?”
“I couldn’t let you slip back under. There we were, outside a school, and you know how teachers are always talking about the three R’s. Well, to me, as a firefighter, The three R’s are Risk, Rescue, and Reward. That day, I got an extra reward. When Zoë said I could ask you out!”
“You’re such a softie!”
“I beg your pardon, young lady. I have abs of steel!”
I roll my eyes. “What a comedian.”
We pass the marina outside the World Financial Center and admire the yachts. Mia would love them. Through the enormous windows of the restored Winter Garden atrium we can see a band playing a free concert. We walk through the room, skirting its edges, pausing to sit on the sweeping staircase for a few minutes, listening to the music. It’s entertaining, but not great. “Enough” hits each of us at the same moment and we give one another the kind of mutually understood signal that it takes most couples years to develop.
Stepping out of the easternmost exit of the Financial Center, we find ourselves nearly at Ground Zero. Dennis releases his hand from mine, drawn closer to the site, as though a giant magnet is pulling him forward from the heart. Whatever he needs to do right now must be done alone.
“Have you…? Have you rescued people before? Before me, I mean?” I ask softly. I’m not sure what to say because I realize what he’s feeling at this moment is big stuff for him. It’s a subject that, for all our conversations, has never been raised. I’ve been afraid to—and I suppose he’s had his reasons for not to wanting to discuss it.
Dennis doesn’t reply.
“You were down here, weren’t you?”
Silence.
“Don’t get the wrong idea,” he says finally. He’s still facing the site, refusing to speak directly to me, to let me see his eyes. “If you’re thinking that I’ve never talked about that day because I ran away or something…did something cowardly, or something I should be ashamed of.”
“I’m not…Dennis, I’m not. Why would you think that would even occur to me?” I watch his back hunch, his shoulders shrug.
“No one becomes a firefighter to get rich. A lot of us do it because our fathers and grandfathers and uncles were firefighters. It’s like going into the family business or something.” He made a sound that was not quite a chuckle, not quite a snicker. “Of course, not every family business has such high risks. It’s true about it being a brotherhood. And those of us who made it out that day lost three hundred and forty-three of our brothers. You stand here years later and it’s like it was yesterday.”
Dennis turns around. He looks stricken, like he’s aged fifteen years in the past five minutes. He won’t let me come any closer.
“And the thing is…” he continues with difficulty. “The thing is…that…it’s what we do. You don’t think twice about it. Rescuing. If another plane hit a building tomorrow morning…I’d be there. No doubt in my mind.” His voice becomes choked up. “So…before we go any further with things…you and I…past that point of no return…that sleep-over—if you don’t want to continue to see me…now that you know what you’re getting yourself into—what I’m saying is—what I’m saying is…I’d understand.”
I don’t know whether he wants to be touched, to be held. I can’t tell. I want to give him what he needs but I don’t know what that is. I do know this: that I’m going to stick around to find out. And that I would be a fool to ever let this man go.
Chapter 21
If someone wanted to give me a gift, completely out of the blue—or if I could make a single wish within the bounds of reason—at this point, I don’t know whether I would ask for a weeklong nap, a serious full-body massage, or a housekeeper with the talent and speed of Mary Poppins.
Until Mrs. Hennepin gave her class the homework assignment from hell—to build their own city—I’d fantasized about using the Easter vacation time to crawl into bed for a week. I don’t mean seven days of lovemaking. I mean a put-your-head-under-the-covers, “Go away world!” kind of break. By the time Dennis and I were able to organize our “sleep-over,” sleep was about the only thing I felt like doing. Dennis, bless his patient heart, has been very understanding.
Zoë is reading Peter Pan and keeps asking me if we’re going to do Spring Cleaning. If. If there were world enough and time, I might actually be able to tackle the items that have been on my domestic to-do list since before the divorce. With each school vacation, I think, foolishly, that I might actually get to them. The rugs need a thorough shampooing; the drapes have to be taken down and dry-cleaned, the upholstered furniture could use a good steam cleaning, the hardwood floors should be buffed and polished, the contents of my kitchen cabinets can be much better organized, my closets need the Fab Five and a dump truck, and I can’t even think about the bathrooms. Zoë’s outgrown a lot of her clothes and there’s no point in holding on to them, but as long as this will necessitate a trip to the thrift shop, I might as well comb through my own things as well, so I only schlep once. Those are the big things. Then there are the weekly household chores—the laundry, grocery shopping, vacuuming, dusting, ironing.
I am so burned out, so on edge. And because I’ve never been good about expressing anger, I just seem to seethe internally. Zoë and I have been discussing camp for her this summer. My parents have offered to make it their treat and I’ve acquiesced, although I’m not comfortable accepting so much financial aid from them; and Zoë seems so young for a sleep-away venue. But camp, any camp, won’t begin until July, which right now seems like a lifetime away, a distant dream floating hazily in the future. I can fantasize about six weeks of quiet Claire-time, but it doesn’t solve my current problems or soothe my immediate woes. It’s more like the daydream equivalent of a bubble bath. In the meantime, I need to cast a villain.
Enter Regina Hennepin, stage left. She grins maniacally, unable to conceal her glee at having devised a unique method of torture designed to test her second graders’ accumulated knowledge and retention of virtually every subject they’ve studied thus far this year—history, math, science, civics, art—and to try the patience of every parent who thought spring break would be just that.
But of course Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Therefore, in her magnanimity, Mrs. Hennepin has allowed her students a full week to design and construct their cities, to invent a workable budget that is supposed to be as sturdy as the structures themselves (pretending, naturally, that the buildings are constructed of brick and stone, steel and glass, as opposed to egg cartons and cellophane).
I hear rumors that some parents—those who have had out-of-town excursions planned for this week have actually hired others to fulfill the assignment while their child enjoys a week of Kinder-Spa treatments in Palm Beach. I don’t suppose Mrs. Hennepin has taught the kids about the 1863 draft riots.
This, to the rest of us who, gosh-darnit, just aren’t going to be able to make it to our time-share in Martinique, is not only un-affordable, but immoral. Although at this point, I am ready to throw ethics to the winds. I wonder if Annabel could use a little extra cash, so I can use the city-planning time to take a nap.
In the meantime, whenever I can steal a moment for myself—which is usually around 2 A.M., when I am kept awake worrying about how little time I have to accomplish a never-ending string of tasks with ever-increasing levels of difficulty—I’ve been designing and making jewelry, making use of Melissa Arden’s extravagant gift. It relaxes me while enervating my spirit and sparking my imagination. I enjoy playing with color, delighting in its power to excite or soothe; and to achieve a different mood or look with every individual piece or suite—matching necklace, bracelet, and earrings—that I create.
I’ve gotten a number of phone calls about my designs. Nina Osborne and Jennifer Silver-Katz called me within hours of Lissa Arde
n’s birthday party. Melissa bought the garnets—she insisted on paying me, and I felt terrible about charging her after she’d been so generous and supportive, so I sold them to her for just a few dollars. Shoshana O’Brien snapped up the peridot earrings and placed an order for a matching necklace. I fulfill my handful of special orders in the middle of the night. With my tiny cottage industry, I feel like the mutant love child of Santa Claus and Mrs. Fields.
For mommy-daughter fun-time this week, Zoë and I dye and decorate Easter eggs. We select the ingredients for family Easter baskets during one of our many shopping excursions for arts and crafts supplies for Zoë-land, her city-queendom. By the end of a particularly long day we’re both so cranky and exhausted that I allow her to eat three fistfuls of jelly beans, two Peeps, and a mid-sized chocolate bunny for dinner. They’re the same colors as veggies, a starch, and a portion of meat; and one meal made of sugar won’t kill her. It might even keep her awake while we tackle her math and spelling homework and put the finishing touches on Zoë-land—which will need a team of construction workers to cart it over to Thackeray next Monday.
I put Zoë’s temporary, sugar-rush-induced burst of energy to good use with the spelling. I call out the words and she does jumping jacks or some sort of interpretive dance while she spells them aloud. Each word takes on a rhythm and mood in her imagination. She’s good at it, which pleases me, and it’s terrific for her self-esteem, since the math continues to freak her out.
And she’s bored with her city-queendom by now. We’ve been doing a little bit every day this week, but she’s long been ready to move on to something else. City planning takes time, I try to explain, with thinning patience. Where’s Robert Moses when you need him?
Perhaps these insanely time-consuming homework assignments are designed to stimulate a child’s imagination. Up to a point, I believe that to be true. My daughter has a wellspring of fancies and fantasies. But a limited attention span.
It seems to help if she plays dress-up while we work, although I’ve warned her that if she gets paint or glue on one of her Disney princess outfits, chances are we won’t be able to wash it out properly.
“Okay, Tinker Bell,” I say, “let’s pretend I’m a visitor to Zoë-land. Why don’t you give me a tour of your city, okay?” Zoë doesn’t realize it, but this is a dress rehearsal—minus the fairy costume—for the oral presentation Mrs. Hennepin expects of her.
“Okay!” she says, then runs out of the room.
“Hey! Where’d you go?” No response. “Zoë? I thought you’re going to give me a tour of your city!” I’m tired, and I want to be sure this project from hell is finally done. Besides, I can’t wait to get my dining room back. My parents’ mahogany table has more or less been transformed into Crafts Central.
Zoë skips back into the dining area with one of her dolls. “Barbie is going to give the tour. Oh, it costs a dollar.”
Zoë takes me by surprise with this one. “Well…I’m not so sure the person who financed the construction of the entire city should also have to pay for the tour.”
“Nuh-uh,” she insists, “because…because…because it’s like if you build a museum, even if you builded it, you still have to pay to go see the pictures because the soldiers who guard the pictures so nobody steals them have to be paid so they can feed their families and you have to pay people to keep it clean and take the tickets and work in the gift shop like you do.”
As far as I’m concerned, she’s just aced the assignment with this little speech. I hope Mrs. Heinie-face is as dazzled as I am that Zoë Marsh Franklin has developed such a mature grasp of economics. Maybe she should forget the astronaut thing for a while and run for Congress. I locate my purse and pony up the dollar.
With a little help from her owner, the mini-skirted Barbie steps onto the giant slab of foam core and begins her tour. “Welcome to Zoë-land. Zoë-land is a city that’s ruled by a queen. The queen’s name is Zoë. There is a king and his name is Xander—” Zoë drops the higher-pitched Barbie voice and looks me earnestly in the eye. “But that part’s a secret,” she warns me. “King Xander isn’t here right now. He’s fighting a war with the wicked witch who lives in the next city.”
“What’s the witch’s name, Z? I mean—Barbie?”
“Evil Witch Heinie-face. But that part’s a secret, too. But you get to learn the secrets because you paid to build the city. But only you get to know them!”
She points to the double-decker central area with one large, fancy building, surrounded by smaller, modestly designed structures. The buildings on the upper level rest on another piece of foam core supported by dowels and former toilet-tissue cardboard cylinders. “This is where the main things happen in the city. This is the palace where the queen lives and these are the buildings where her favorite subjects live and all the people live who work for the queen and the city like the policemen and the firemen. Because they have to live right in the middle of the city so they can get someplace fast in case there’s an emergency. But there are hardly ever emergencies because everybody likes each other and there isn’t any fighting or stealing. But just in case.”
Zoë raises Barbie’s arm and has her point to the lower level. “And where the buildings are, in the middle of the city, if it gets really, really, really, cold outside, and like if it’s snowing or it’s raining, the people can walk underneath the city so they don’t have to get cold.” She pauses for a moment. “See, I was going to make the weather warm the whole time but I like it when the leaves change colors a lot and I like it when it snows, too, except not when it snows too much unless it means we get a snow day. So I had to make my city so you didn’t have to go outside when the weather was yucky, but you could still go places that were important and that you had to go to, like school or to your job.”
I’m so impressed. Really overwhelmed by all the thought she’s put into this. True, I’ve helped her build a lot of it, but she hasn’t really shared the ideas behind the construction concept with me until now. Just a few short months ago, this child was in hysterics because I had to get a job and go off to work. And now look at her! How aware she is of mommies and daddies who need to work to feed their families. Her urban planning even takes them into account in the event of inclement weather.
Barbie finishes the tour of Zoë-land, and I congratulate both of them on such a terrific achievement. Certainly worthy of a celebration that calls for a glass of pink lemonade. If Mrs. Hennepin doesn’t give my little girl an E, I am personally going to strangle the woman with her stretchy white headband.
Unfortunately, I can’t let Zoë rest on her laurels, because there are still forty math problems to solve before classes begin again tomorrow. And it’s 8 P.M. We’re both totally spent. This is nuts. She should be taking her bath and getting into bed, so she can get a good night’s sleep before the grind begins anew—like it ever stopped—in the morning. Neither one of us have had much of anything that can be called a vacation during the past week. I don’t remember getting assignments during the breaks when I was Zoë’s age. I know my parents would have been furious over it, if I had. Whatever happened to vacations as extended blocks of time so kids can, well, be kids? And so the parents could get some much-needed relief from all the homework, too!
Zoë and Barbie have danced off. I follow my daughter into her room and remind her that we’ve got to do her math. She’s getting out of her Tinker Bell costume and into the blue Cinderella gown.
“I can’t do it. I’m going to the ball now.”
“Zoë, don’t make me into a meanie over this. You know you have to do your math homework.”
“But I’ve been working so hard,” she moans.
“I know you have, sweetheart. And you’ve done such a good job. With your city and your spelling words. But I hate to say it…we still have the math to do.”
“I hate math!”
“I’m not so crazy about it either. But math is a necessary evil.”
“What’s that mean?”
; “A ‘necessary evil’ is something that you have to do because it’s important for your development, even if it’s unpleasant. Like having to eat vegetables or drink a glass of milk with every meal when you’re a little girl, or doing math homework so you can learn arithmetic, which you’ll need to know when you want to buy things. So, please don’t make me yell at you. C’mon, let’s go.”
“Cinderella will do five problems.”
Well, it’s a start. I lead her by the hand to the table in the breakfast nook, where the math worksheet has been sitting for the entire week of vacation. No sooner does her tush hit the chair than she bounces up like she’s just sat on a tack.
“Zoë, where are you going?” I call after her.
“I forgot my crown,” she yells from the other end of the apartment.
She returns to the table four times as slowly as she left it. We start to tackle the first problem. “Okay, Z, we’ve got one hundred and sixty-five plus three hundred and forty-seven. So, we start with the column all the way on the right. Five plus seven is…what?”
Bang! She’s off again. “What is it now?!”
“I need my wand!”
She dances back into the room a few moments later.
“Sit. Please.”
“Okayyyyyy,” she whines.
“Let’s pick up where we left off.”
“I can’t do it without my wand.”
“Fine. But there’s no need to whine about it. So, let’s make the answer appear like magic. The right hand column. Five plus seven. Wave the wand over it. What’s five plus seven?” She counts it out on her fingers. I don’t think this is how they’re supposed to be learning to add three-digit numbers.
“Twelve.”
“Good! Good girl! So, how do you indicate that?” She regards me like I’m speaking in tongues. Finally she writes a twelve below the sum line. “Well…sort of. A twelve is a one and a two, right? Right?”
Play Dates Page 30