Momzillas

by Jill Kargman

  There I was the following day, happily stirring Violet’s Quaker Instant Maple n’ Brown Sugar over chants of “Oatmeal! Oatmeal! Oatmeal!” when the phone rang. I was smiling at Violet’s breakfast excitement, when I heard the sharp cut of an anger-infused voice through the receiver. Giggles turned to goose bumps.

  “Mrs. Allen, please.”

  “Oh, hi, um, this is Hannah Allen.”

  “Nelly Abercrombie. Registrar for the Fifth Avenue School.”

  “Yes, hello!” Heart racing.

  “You and your husband failed to show up for your interview this morning.”

  Huh? I never had heard from them! I assumed I didn’t win the drawing for a coveted application. The Web site said in huge bold letters that we would be notified in writing and not to call the school.

  “Oh my gosh, Mrs. Abercrombie, we never got anything about it. I am so sorry.”

  “Well, we never got anything returned to us at the school, so…”

  Beat. Was she accusing me of lying? “I swear, I am the most organized person. We would never, ever miss something like this—”

  “Then why didn’t you call?”

  “Well, both the Web site and the woman on the phone on dialing day said not to. I didn’t want to be pushy.”

  “Didn’t you suspect something was amiss when all your friends had already been notified of tour dates?” she huffed.

  I stuttered something humiliating about how we just moved here and I didn’t know anyone else applying. She snorted in reply, then added, “I don’t know what to tell you.”

  Now our school options were officially swirling down the toilet bowl. “So that’s it, we’ve missed the boat?”

  She took a pause so pregnant quadruplets could have been born. “Okay then, I’ll give you a second chance. We have one last tour tomorrow at nine A.M.,” she said, ordering, not asking. “Promptly.”

  “Done, we will be there. Thank you, and again, I’m—” Click. Beeyotch. My palms were sweating so much the phone almost slid from my hand. I speed-dialed Josh at the office, panting and hysterical.

  “He’s in a meeting.”

  “It’s very important—can he talk for one minute?”

  “Sorry, he’s with clients in the conference room.”

  I was in a panic. “Can you just tell him his wife called, please? We have to go to a school tour tomorrow at nine.”

  “Tomorrow? Let me check his schedule…”

  My forehead was shvitzing and I could feel my pits burning with sweat-on-deck.

  “Nope, he has a meeting at nine thirty downtown.”

  “Listen. Cancel it. This is very important. It’s an emergency. Just tell him to do it, please.” I had never heard myself sound so forceful, but I knew I had to throw down the gauntlet.

  I looked at Violet and exhaled, my eyes filling with tears. Did I somehow fuck up and mistakenly toss the letter? No, hell no, that is so not me. Maybe it just was plain old lost. Fuck! Nightmare.

  That night, Josh came home at eleven P.M. to find me passed out. I tried to revive quickly and give him kisses, but he was exhausted and said the school tour the next day had fully ruined his morning.

  “Sweetie, I am so sorry, I know it’s such a hassle—”

  “It’s okay, Han. I know it’s not your fault. That woman sounds like a nightmare.”

  Little did we know.

  We arrived to the Fifth Avenue School’s grand entrance, complete with a drive-in court for the chauffeurs and nine security guards because “lots of prominent families send their children here.” Just like Carnegie, there were lavish rooms with moldings, carpeted halls, and a state-of-the-art kitchen. Weirdly, there were not one or two but ten couples on the tour, so everyone was pushing one another to get into the rooms, craning their necks, and fighting to talk with Mrs. Abercrombie to get brownie points for seeming interested. The parents all were older and seemed very controlling and pushy. Once the tour was over, we filed into a marble drawing room with leather chairs lined up for a question-and-answer session, which began with attendance.

  “The Horowitzes?” she asked. A meek woman and her bespectacled husband raised their hands.

  “The Whitneys?” Two blondies raised their hands.

  “The Allens?” We raised our hands.

  “Well,” she sniffed, looking us over. “How nice of you to actually show up this time.”

  I felt like Thor had just chucked a lightning bolt at me. My whole body felt walloped by her acidic tone as I looked at my lap and then at Josh, who sat poised, giving me a tight smile. Fuck this fucking school! I hated her already. And if she’s the director—for three decades no less—the environment would be sculpted from the top down, i.e., a bitchfest run by this toad.

  “Let us begin,” she said, after finishing the list of halo-covered parents who had actually shown up. She talked about the school’s philosophy (I loved how every school thought theirs was so original and unique. I mean, the kids are fucking tots), discussed parent involvement (from chaperoning field trips to chairing the annual black-tie gala fund-raiser), and then opened the floor for questions.

  One woman raised her hand.

  “Yes, you in the tweed,” Mrs. Abercrombie acknowledged.

  “Um, you said all your students leave here for kindergarten fully knowing how to read and write—”

  “Correct.” She beamed.

  “Well, um, what if there’s a child in the class who’s…lagging a little. Will the teachers stop to help him or her?”

  I kind of thought it a weird question, she might as well have worn a T-shirt that read “Hey, my kid’s kinda slow.”

  But Mrs. Abercrombie nodded, explaining that this happens all the time. “You see, we know what it is to have lagging students,” she began. “Because we have many, many in vitro families.”

  Huh? Josh looked at me. I was in shock. What was she getting at?

  “You see, in vitro just isn’t Darwinian, people!” she said as I spied at least two women looking at the floor. “The most tenacious sperm isn’t the one that’s getting there, so as a result we have all these kids who are way behind!”

  Ew! I was so offended by her uncouth, un-PC, and probably untruthful “research” that I almost stormed out, but was too surprised to move.

  “We have seven sets of techno twins here at the Fifth Avenue School. Seven sets! And in every single one of those pairs, one of the children is behind. That’s just the way it goes. As I said, not the fittest sperm gets there, the one chosen by the lab technician does! Not Darwinian, people, not Darwinian.”

  “We are withdrawing our application!” I seethed out on the street, walking a mile a minute.

  “Calm down, sweets. Don’t get so emotional.”

  “Emotional? That bitch is evil, Joshie, evil. I hate that school and I hate that place. We are yanking our application.”

  “Don’t be so upset,” he laughed, more amused than horrified. “She’s a freak, so what? The school seemed fine.”

  “I don’t know what we’re going to do, Josh. We only have one school left, Browne-Madison School, and if that blows, poor Violet is going to either be with snobby couture kids or Darwin’s finest pressure-cooked offspring under that bitch’s tutelage.”

  “Deep breaths, my love,” he said, laughing and patting my head.

  Forty

  With one co-op board letter under my belt from Tate Hayes, I had the courage to call Maggie. I asked her if she wanted to grab lunch and she said suggested we stroll with the kids in the park. When I got there, she was saying good-bye to Hallie—in full track suit with personal trainer—who barely greeted me while looking Violet over.

  “Well, hello there. Violet!” Hallie cooed with saccharine coursing through every word. “Aren’t you sweet! Oh, I wish Julia Charlotte were here, but she’s at school, darn!”

  Awash in Adidas by Stella McCartney workout togs, Hallie and trainer jogged off, leaving me with Maggie. I filled her in on my apartment quest thus far.


  “That’s great, Hannah! Bee had told me you guys couldn’t find anything in your budget, so that’s great news!” Nice, thanks, Bee. Wait, how the hell would she know that? Ugh.

  “Yeah, well, that’s the good news. That bad news is we need some, um, social letters or whatever? And I was wondering if you’d mind writing one for me. I know that it must be such a pain and I am so embarrassed to have to ask, I’m just…desperate. I’d be forever in your debt.”

  “Sure, of course!” she said, smiling brightly. She seemed almost touched I’d even ask her, seeing as how we both knew deep down that we weren’t close, but she was happy to oblige. “I’ll drop it off next week. I know these things have to happen quickly.”

  “Thanks, Maggie. I really appreciate it, I really do.”

  We then sat in silence for a beat as we watched the kids run around in the meadow.

  “You know, Maggie,” I started. “I…don’t have many friends here, and to be honest it’s been pretty hard for me. I don’t know, it’s…been an adjustment.” All of a sudden I felt this heinous, uncontrollable wave of tears burn its way to my eyes. I barely knew this woman, and what I did know, I wasn’t crazy about (mostly ’cause of Bee, Hallie, and Lara, her Momzilla friends), but something in her tone one-on-one suggested she was actually probably a good person. “It’s just, my husband has been working nonstop for two months and…I miss him,” full-on tears now streaming. “I miss my husband and I’m so lonely. I mean, I live for Violet, and she’s the most loving, amazing daughter, but I just…am always alone.”

  And then something amazing happened: Maggie hugged me. Her friends were all total Momsicles who barely hugged their own children let alone their friends—an air-kiss, maybe, at an event—but somehow it was just what I needed.

  “Listen,” she said. “I know it can be hard. Everyone’s worrying about their own lives, and it’s easy to get caught up in the stress, but you just got here! Don’t worry. Josh just probably has to prove himself since he’s new on the job.”

  “It’s just hard. I feel so clueless so much of the time. I feel like a Martian. Maybe it would be different if I were native born.”

  “You know, nearly everyone you’ve met isn’t from here, either,” Maggie said comfortingly. “Hallie’s from Ohio. And Lara literally came from a Portuguese fishing town, population five hundred seventy-six.”

  No. Way. “What? You’re joking,” I said, stunned, wiping my face.

  “No! That’s the funniest part! Bee’s from Manhattan and she’s sort of the ringleader. But Lara, Hallie, no way! They’re so hung up about the scene here that they overcompensate by stressing out ten times more about getting their kids in everywhere and competing nonstop.”

  “Gosh, I thought I was this hick—”

  “Not at all, Hannah. You’re hip! And edgy and…yourself. Those women are so worried about fitting in and keeping up they lose that.”

  “Wow…” I said, wiping a last tear.

  “Don’t worry,” Maggie said, with a pat on my back. “And please: don’t change.”

  “My mother-in-law would probably not like to hear you say that. She’s dying for me to have a Tess McGill–style makeover,” I confessed. “I think she’d much prefer it if Josh had married someone like Bee.”

  Maggie sat quietly and didn’t really respond.

  “Don’t worry,” she finally said. “It’s all about your family and what you guys have. Don’t let the outside world get you down.”

  I knew she was right and it actually felt good to open up. Leigh was like my sister, but it was hard to complain to her when all she really wanted—a husband and a child—I already had. Maggie seemed to understand the pressures I was facing, and I realized that even though she was in the thick of the supposed golden circle, she probably felt pressure to keep up, too.

  After we said good-bye I realized I felt a bit better. And luckily the next day would bring some structure—Broadway Babies—since all my days were like a vast open field that needed to be filled. I had been at a point where I was almost psyched when the toilet paper ran out because it meant I had to go get some more; it was a purposeful errand, a task, and I could be useful and try to fill a void. Not just in the empty toilet paper holder but in myself. Now I felt a turn. I was officially convinced that I had to throw myself into my life here, and little by little, hopefully, it would feel like home.

  Forty-one

  I am in the Metropolitan Museum of Art with Tate Hayes walking in the Temple of Dendur, looking through the windowed wall. We watch the breeze whip the last of the crispy leaves from the naked treetops through the massive vitrine.

  “It looks so beautiful out there. Those leaves are all gone. I can’t believe fall’s almost over,” I say.

  He stares out the glass and says, “I have an idea.”

  “What?”

  “Do you want to see the archives? You know they only display under ten percent of their inventory holdings? We can go down and I’ll show you some real treasures.”

  “Oh my God, that would be incredible.”

  I follow him past hallway after hallway of sarcofagi, through carpeted atriums and down more marble stairs to one of those camouflaged doors you never really notice in a museum. Security cameras and checkpoints are everywhere, but he has the special electronic pass that has kept clicking us deeper and deeper into the inner sanctums of the museum’s maze.

  Tate gives a glance up at a camera and we walk by as if I was supposed to be there. He punches a code on a keypad by a massive reinforced door. The light turns green. We walk into a fireproof vault room, which holds the vast collection of works on paper. There are rows after rows of drawings and prints in long, shallow flat drawers. In a private print study, he sits me down, puts on some gloves, unlocks a flat drawer, and carefully places a piece of paper in front of me.

  It is Dürer’s Adam and Eve. The lines are so intimate, I feel unbelievably close to the wrist that had flicked back and forth to create it. Every notch of the needle is there; it is as if you could see every flash of thought in each micromillimeter of black.

  Next comes Rembrandt’s Hundred Guilder print. Next a Lucas van Leyden. The crosshatches of a windmill. The light made from the whiteness of the paper peering from scores of gray pin-sized lines. I can’t believe what I am looking at.

  “This is…the most miraculous experience. These are too much to see so close up. I’m not worthy!”

  He doesn’t get my Wayne’s World reference and I suddenly feel like a massive dope.

  “This is how prints were meant to be seen. They were disseminated to achieve fame, to be held up just as you’re holding them.”

  “These lines,” I marvel, reeling. “You feel so close to the artist.”

  “He etched like he breathed.”

  I look up at him. His eyes seem genuinely moved by my appreciation of what he has revealed to me in this secret trove. He glances down at me in my chair, at the former pupil saying nothing, and lightly brushes his fingers on my hair.

  “Come.” He turns and walks out, and chills engulf me as I follow him obediently.

  We walk farther down the hallway and enter a huge, cavernous cement room with high ceilings and metal slats next to next, like in a poster shop, but with steel casing and locks on each. He takes out his keys and unlocks them, walking his fingers across the racks, settling on one, then smiles at me and pulls it out. It is a Pieter de Hooch, a quiet interior with checkered floor and mother and child. I gasp; I can’t believe my proximity to the work, I can see the paint sitting on the panel.

  “Oh,” I sigh—almost sexually, I realize, after it comes out.

  “Look at this.” He pulls out another grate, a slat with two Caravaggios. Across the room, another has a soft Whistler, and then a Robert Henri. I am overwhelmed by the moment, the art surrounding us, the pricelessness of a dream come to life, a dream actually transcended by reality.

  “He painted children in this way that sort of reminds me of you.”

 
“Thanks. I’m, like, a toddler?”

  He looks right into me, probably through me. The room is ice-cold cement, metal grates, and locks. But the emotions and colors in the sealed slats are boiling, bursting beneath the chilled metallic coverings. So are we; the room is now, in this instant, an echo of our past—a dry interaction of teacher and student, on a campus, in an office. Cement. Patterned, like the orders and formulae for storing the works around us. But under it, for me at least, beneath the college-girl jeans and turtleneck, through the textbook-filled backpack, are heat and color: portraits of intimacy, still lifes of bounty, restless oceans of longing.

  “No,” he responds, as if I am, indeed, a toddler. “You are not a child. But you have the same liquid eyes.”

  He reaches toward me, runs a hand through my hair, and pulls me to him in one full motion. He puts his hands on my face, holding my head as if it were a precious object, and leans in for a lightning-charged, all-enveloping, electric kiss, like the one in his office years ago. He presses his mouth against me, and it is sweet and hot, like cider. His hands move down from my face to my shoulder and back, squeezing me harder for a deeper part of the kiss. My hands are around him, then in his hair, on his neck. I gasp for breath as if underwater. It’s now way further and longer than that kiss in his office, we are surpassing the past into uncharted, scary territory. I am submerged with him, sucking in my lust for him like air I need to breathe, treading with every muscle in a submarine blur, and now, through his warm mouth, my lungs can finally open. I put my hand down the back of his collar to feel the first inches of skin down his back. He lifts me off the cold gray floor in his arms, as the kiss grows more fevered and desperate.

  He takes his glasses off and tries to put them on the desk but they clatter to the floor. He comes back to me, smiling, and kisses me so hard my whole body is swept up in him. I have to have him. His hands move over my clothed breasts, then under my shirt to the flesh. He pants for the first time, then brings me to the side of the last grate in the row, which has been pulled out. We are blocked from view, hidden in a corner, and his hands move across my chest, then down my thighs. He pushes up my skirt and lifts me onto the cement ledge at the end of the cabinet. It is cold, but a meat locker could not bring down my body temperature by a tenth of a degree. Face to face now on my perch, I kiss him with my hands on his back, almost grabbing him to make sure he is real. His hand slides up my thigh and rips down my panties. I almost scream with surprise and pleasure, and he covers my mouth with his hand as he pushes inside in a way that made my eyes close each time. My head rolls back and he kisses my neck and I stifle a growing whimper of abandon as he covers my mouth with more violence and protection. Around us are the paintings, skyward bursts of Italianate cherubs, trumpets heralding us, the lute strings in every Spanish still life vibrate with me, and every Rococo picnic-scene concerto resonates in our movement. The genre pictures of Falstaffian merrymaking toast us, the glistening leaves of every landscape flutter a bit in our honor with the gasps from our mouths. The coy smiles of painted maids are for me right now, through the very wall he presses me against, through the cinder blockade he pushed me into, until he holds his breath for a few desperate, charged moments. “Oh, Hannah!”