Momzillas

by Jill Kargman

  “Hi, Mrs. Dillingham!” Funnily enough I never knew what to call her—she never really told me to call her Lila, just Violet. So I usually just said hi or hello; it was like that Mulva episode of Seinfeld.

  “You know, Hannah,” she said, looking perturbed. “I should give you a bill for five dollars. We rented that film last night that you had recommended about that Cuban poet. I found it horrendous. Just awful! I can’t think of a more depressing movie.”

  “Oh…sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say. “I mean, it was sad but brilliantly done, I thought.” Gulp. I kept going, “And not to be all film studenty, I mean I know it sounds pretentious, but it was shot so beautifully. I felt like every frame could be frozen and hung on my wall.”

  “Not a wall in my house,” she sneered. “Come on, let’s go up and get you settled,” she said, looking only at Josh, who looked at me and winked, knowing I wanted to clobber her bony bod.

  After unpacking, Lila asked if we wanted to accompany her to the “shopping center” to help with errands. Since I grew up in a city, I had this obsession with malls, which Mrs. Dillingham exclusively called “shopping centers.” I bet she’d spell it centres. God forbid she utter the lowly M-word. But I was thrilled to leave the grounds—even after only an hour that panic had set in like I was Diane Keaton trapped in the Corleone compound in Godfather II.

  When we got to the ma—sorry, shopping center—I trolled the stores, blissing out with all the fun people-watching and food court frenzy. Do I go for the gigantor cinnamon pretzel or the fries in a cone? I am also a fan of food on sticks, and there were many options. The whole cavernous space was a pulsing throng of tube socks and napkins and the kind of heavy grease that smells intoxicating when you’re starving and gag-o-rific when you’re full. You know when they distill vinegar to this really intense mega-potent paste? Well, malls are like a balsamic reduction of America itself, an encapsulated 3D slice of life, from old people who want to enjoy the air-conditioning, walking around in those swish-swish suits, to “rowdy yutes” making mischief and chasing skirts in their swish-swish suits. Violet was overjoyed when I gave her a piping-hot Mrs. Fields cookie, which she devoured in record pace, with evidence of said snack in the form of chocolate all over her face. I was just about to go get a napkin to wipe it off, when Lila turned the corner to behold the mess.

  “Oh my, Hannah, really, must she feast on sweets at this hour?”

  “Well, she was hungry and there’s so much stuff here I didn’t want to deprive her,” I said in my defense.

  “Eating between meals is a bad habit to start now—”

  “Mom, chill out,” Josh said as he approached us toting his mom’s new hair dryer and pharmacy bags. “It’s fine!” He looked at me sympathetically with a smile. But his being on my side didn’t make her comments less aggravating.

  We piled back in the car since we had to shower and get dressed for Lila’s birthday dinner. And I was actually psyched because in my duffel I had the blowtorch that would melt her frozen chest cavity, my secret daughter-in-law trump card that she’d never expect, a shiny elegant Tiffany sterling silver frame, hand engraved with her initials. And in it was the cutest picture of Josh holding Violet. No Hannah, just like she’d want. And the cherry on top was that Violet was in a Ralph Lauren pin-tuck blouse Lila had given her. It was, I must say, the perfect present. It was insanely expensive but I thought this was kind of an investment in, you know, not being treated like crap. Well worth the splurge. She would have to soften a little now!

  I went into my room to get myself put together in pretty Greenwich mode, i.e., transform my being entirely. Full metamorphosis, bigger than Jeff Goldblum’s in The Fly. It was funny being in the same room as Josh now—when we initially visited we had separate bedrooms and I was so scared of his mom that I literally wouldn’t let him sneak over since I didn’t want her to have any Hannah’s-a-Whore ammo against me. I packed perfectly preppy clothes, and even chucked in a new (gasp) headband. I felt like a traitor. Since most of my stuff is black, charcoal gray, or chocolate brown, my mom says I dress like a Sicilian widow. She’s kinda right but because I have boobs and butt, darkness is slimming, and so me. I put on my new burgundy dress (steppin’ out with that color!).

  “You look pweety, Mommy! I like your pawty dwess!” exclaimed Violet, who I’d preened to perfection. The poor thing was so used to seeing me in my black jeans and little tees, my casual dress probably seemed like Cinderella’s ball gown to her.

  When we came downstairs, Lila had a very different reaction than her granddaughter. “Oh,” she said, her made-up face like an 8½-by-11-inch blank sheet of Kinko’s paper. “Is that what you’re wearing?”

  Pause as I checked my reflection. Was there a gaping hole? A torn seam? Wrinkles? Period stains? Exposed ass-crackage?

  “Um, yeah, I was going to…Why?”

  “I don’t know, I just…Forget it.”

  “No, what?”

  “To be honest, I think perhaps you should try…one of my suits? This is a bit…Well, it’s fine, it’s fine. Really.”

  Crestfallen. “Oh, okay, well…What should I do? I only have this one other dress but—”

  Josh came downstairs buttoning his cuff and asked what was going on.

  “I was just going to run up and change—” I said. I gulped down hurt and annoyed feelings and went upstairs. When I returned in my backup outfit, Lila, who was in her usual full floral-pastel-pashmina mode, looked me over slowly. “Hmmm. Black as usual,” she observed. I hope she dies a fiery death. I hope a crane falls off a construction site and kills her. I’m going to hell. Okay, Hannah, stop wishing death upon your MiL.

  I looked down as she tousled Josh’s hair and gently removed a thread from his lapel. She really hates other women, I thought. Just having another womb in the room after all these years freaks her out. She was one of those women who only can relate to men, seeing all other women as some kind of competition. I have always known women like this, and they have always scared me. Who the fuck is this beeyotch to judge my outfits anyway? She may have worn only designer duds, but I thought they were asexual and hideous. The color palette made me want to chunder. I may have dressed like a widow, but black was better than tertiary-color-wheel hues. Teal. Salmon. Coral. Magenta. Diarrhea.

  Mr. Dillingham honked outside and we all piled into the car. Despite my husband’s protestations, I offered to sit in the gimp seat in the station wagon’s ass while Josh sat next to Violet’s car seat in the back. But armed with my stellar gift, the frown would subside and I’d be let in; I’d be the Little Mermaid singing Paaaart of your woooorld…the second she opened the small trademark blue box. As we started driving, Lila did her usual spiel of which restaurants she had booked that evening. What never ceased to absolutely astound me was that she would regularly book three places and then select one at the last minute, depending on everyone’s mood. How psycho and selfish is that? Sometimes she wouldn’t even call the other two places to cancel! I’m talking new echelons of solipsism. No one matters but her and, of course, her aaaangel.

  “Do we want the Bank in New Canaan, or Mediterraneo in Greenwich? I also booked Sakura—”

  “Oh, I love that Sakura place,” said Josh.

  “Well, whatever you like, darling.”

  “What do you want, Han?” asked my hubby.

  “Oh, um…whatever your mom wants, I mean it is her birthday.”

  “No, no, you choose, Hannah,” she replied from the front of the car. “You’re by far the most passionate about food.”

  I hope the cable in her next elevator ride snaps and she plummets to her death. Did I just say that aloud? No, okay, I’m fine.

  “Well, I don’t know, they’re all great,” I offered. Silence. “Maybe, um, yeah, Sakura is fun, I love that cook-on-the-table stuff.”

  “It’s called hibachi,” Lila said, as if she’d been born and reared in Kyoto. “Fine, if that’s what you want.”

  “Well, I don’t care at all, I ju
st thought Josh—”

  “If it’s what Hannah’s up for, that’s great. But it is full of salt, you know. I’m not that hungry anyway,” said Lila, shrugging.

  The passive aggressiveness of this lady was enough to make me want to clobber her. The few times I actually expressed an opinion or desire—case in point, Sakura—her sickening passive-aggressive routine was enough to make me clam up for the next three decades.

  “No, no, Mom—Watts, let’s head to Greenwich, I know Mom loves Mediterraneo,” said Josh, looking at me in the rear with a smile and eye roll.

  “Okay, if that’s what you want, dear.” Lila always got what she wanted. She’d pretend she was accommodating others but would slowly manipulate it back to what she desired. Passive-aggressive.

  We got to the place, which is so average and, plus, she barely ate anyway, anti-food, anti-life, Night of the Living Dead zombie that she is. I always equate passion at a table with passion in the sack. No doubt Lila was a total frigid fish. Natch Lila barely nibbled a spear of her white asparagus with vinaigrette on the side. Violet ate her appetizer and then, as toddlers do, got a little shifty in her seat and Lila looked at me as if to say Take her for a little breather. Josh offered to get up, but I thought I’d let him be with his mom and Watts for a minute, and plus, I was psyched for a moment away from the table. Violet and I strolled down the block on Greenwich Avenue and then returned to the packed restaurant. The décor was pale peach and pink and I felt like I was dining in a giant tampon box. I twirled my un–al dente cappellini with a fork into a spoon, Italiano-style, which got a curious look from The Cube, and after our pasta course, she started cracking open the presents. Finally: my moment of redemption.

  She unwrapped gifts, I might add, with zero gusto (another link to action in the bedroom). With me, it was Freddy Krueger–style shredded wrapping paper, bursting ribbons, ginormous eyes, excited grins, and gushing thank-yous. Lila opened every package like it might have a syringe hiding in it, or a Jokey Smurf homemade bomb. Watts got her some Van Cleef diamond earrings and a weekend at Cliveden. Josh had bought her a Hermès scarf from all of us, and then I was so excited for her to get to mine, which already garnered a widened eye and a raised plucked brow upon viewage of the signature blue bag. As she untied the classic Tiffany bow and opened the box, my heart was beating so fast, I was like a pre–Jenny Craig Kirstie Alley after a flight of stairs. She looked at the frame; Watts and Josh, who hadn’t seen it before, both oohed and aahhed. Violet giggled.

  “Dat’s me and Daddy!” she smiled, pointing at the glass with her little finger.

  Lila simply looked at photo and said, “Oh, look at this great shot—I gave Violet that outfit, you know!” She put the frame back in its felt bag. “Now, shall we be very naughty and order some dessert?”

  No thank-you or anything! This time I was just plain enraged. Watts perused the dessert menu, ultimately settling on another Dewar’s on the rocks, the family Evian.

  The next morning I woke up feeling paralyzingly sad. I always had the plum-size lump in my throat when I visited the Dillinghams because their house was so oppressive and bizarre that I missed my family so much and was glum to the guts with homesickness. Maybe I really am a West Coast person and not cut out for this northeastern pomp.

  Josh woke up and kissed me sweetly. I loved him so much it hurt, and my would-be restorative weekend together was gone in a flash with him returning to work that next crack of dawn. He climbed on me and kissed me, going to take off my T-shirt, but I was too in creeps mode.

  “Sweets, no—”

  “Han, it’s a huge fucking house! They can’t hear us. Watts has a hearing aid anyway.”

  “It’s not that—I just can’t get into it here. It’s too weird. Your mom probably has the house wired to make sure I’m not doing bad things to her angel.”

  He laughed, defeated, and rolled off me. “Fine. Let’s go make pancakes.”

  We lifted Violet from her crib and went downstairs to find Lila and Watts in their wood-paneled den watching This Week, as the slate of Sunday news programs was their weekly fix. We had our usual table-pounding, political-discussion-packed brunch (they were die-hard right-wing Republicans, natch), and then we got in the car to come back to New York. Thank God. Pulling out of that driveway always made my heart leap, and the wheels on the pebbly gravel sounded like Mozart in Shawshank, a little bit of freedom that paved the way to refilled tanks of hope.

  Ten

  The next morning I kissed Josh good-bye at six A.M. and then finally roused my bones to get breakfast ready after eight. On the kitchen table was a cute note from Josh with a postscript of some new porn titles: Lord of the Cock Rings, You’ve Got Tail, Doing John Malkovich, and my fave, Crocodile Dun-Me. Smiling, I sat Violet down for our divine feast of Cheerios. I looked at the once-sunny box and thought of how Lila and her junior counterpart Bee and her friends had a no-carbs policy, and said that cereal was forbidden in their homes. In fact, at the lunch the week before, Hallie and Lara were discussing their organic cooking class for mothers about how to prepare healthy meals for their children. I had visions of them whipping me for cracking open the jars of Gerber I had fed Violet during babyhood. Or how about the salty pretzels and Goldfish she inhaled? Eternal sentence to the Shitty Mommy Layer of Hell. To them, a forbidden chicken finger might as well have been a vial of crack.

  Grover came on the screen and Violet started yelping “Gwova! Gwova!” as I fed her the contraband oat-based wheels of sin. Today Grover was flying to Peru to a small village of brick-makers. The hot equatorial sun would bake the children’s concoctions of mud, which was slathered into perfect rectangle-shaped molds and baked dry in a rudimentary outdoor kiln. The purity of the bricks, and the houses they’d build in the village, gave me a calming feeling, which motivated me to get my bathrobed ass dressed to take Violet out. I had signed up, at the behest of Maggie and Bee, for a music class, but it wouldn’t start for a few weeks. To fill the day, I thought I’d hit the Metropolitan Museum with Violet. Perhaps the Met would be a nice cool playground for us, instead of the stressful playground with neighborhoods of benches and alpha-mom gossip.

  After being told today’s program was brought to us by the letter D and the number 7, I put Violet in the stroller and walked up to the stunning museum at 1000 Fifth Avenue. I remember hearing the address and thinking it was kind of cool and that probably no one knew it. As Violet stretched her arms to the fountain in front of the museum, saying “Mommy, wata, wata!” I wheeled her in the handicapped entrance and up to the grand main hall. You really realize with an unwieldy stroller and little ramp access how hard it must be to be in a wheelchair. And no one helps us open doors, not even men. So much for chivalry.

  “Wowie!” exclaimed Violet, visually swallowing the divine space.

  “Violet, sweets, this is the Metropolitan Museum, one of the most amazing places in the world. Do you want to go up and see some paintings?”

  “Yeah! Paintings!” Violet already loved scoping artwork and I’d ask what she saw. In a sea of colors, she’d spy the sun or a face, and her eye seemed to me advanced for a toddler’s. We went upstairs into a gallery of Old Masters. For the first time in New York, I felt mildly at home. The paintings were like old friends welcoming me to the new city and I shuddered with a wave of pure joy. We walked through gallery after gallery, drinking in the Van Eycks and Brueghels and Titians. I felt a soothing peace wash over me. A calm that was reversed the nanosecond I heard his voice.

  “Miss Hannah Greene. Or now it’s Mrs….”

  “Allen,” I said, almost choking. “Professor Hayes.”

  “I think you can call me Tate—now that you’re, what, ten years out of Berkeley?”

  “Yes.” I smiled, looking down at Violet. Don’t blush, don’t blush, don’t blush.

  “And who is this cherubic little love?”

  “This is Violet!” I started feeling like I was beamed back in time to my nervous freshman self. “Violet, this is Tate Hayes.
Dr. Hayes.”

  “Hi,” she said, reaching up to him for a hug, her new thing. He happily obliged.

  “I heard you’re remarried,” I said. “And you have two little nuggets?”

  “Yes, two boys, four and six.”

  “Herro, Ayes,” Violet said, smiling brightly, and definitely flirting. It was funny how Violet picked up on people I loved or loathed. Without fail, when we ran into someone I detested, she’d scowl and refuse to say hi. And now she was her mother’s daughter, practically cooing as the former crush of my life leaned down to softly pat her cheek.

  “Listen, Hannah,” he said, as my entire body froze at the sound of my name in his mouth. “I have to run, but I’d really love to catch up. Could I get your number?”

  I obliged, rattling off my cell number as he wrote in a small leather-covered pad with an elegant pen.

  “Four one five, hmm?”

  “Yes. I’ve been here almost a month and I guess I’m clinging on for dear life. Can’t let go of the old area code.”

  “Understood,” he smiled, retrieving an old-school brick of a cell phone from his pocket. “Four one five, always.”

  I smiled.

  “I’ll call you, then. Maybe we can see the new etchings show at the Morgan.”

  “That would be great.”

  At home, still unsettled, I called Josh. I was cooking Violet eggs because I was such a loser I hadn’t thought about dinner until the chowing hour was suddenly upon us.

  “Hi, sweets!” I said.

  “Hi,” he said in a hushed tone. “Han, I’m so sorry I’ve got some people in here, can I—”

  “Okay, sure.”

  Click.

  An hour and a half later, Violet was crying for Daddy and Joshie still hadn’t phoned. I called him again, feeling stalkerazzi, but I needed to get an ETA for sanity.

  “Hello?” His voice sounded stressed.