The Big Nap

by Ayelet Waldman

He smiled. “No, but this is.” He jumped across the room and wrestled me to the floor, pulling the sweatshirt off. Ruby, not one to be excluded from a wrestling match, leapt on top of us.

  We rolled around the floor for a minute or two, laughing and shouting. Suddenly I noticed that Isaac was squalling.

  “Party pooper,” I said, as I got to my feet and picked him up. “We were just having fun, little guy.”

  “Hey, give him here,” Peter said, getting up off the floor and brushing flour off his pants. “Come here, buddy. Say hi to Daddy.”

  Ruby began working herself into an apoplectic fit when she realized that her beloved father was actually paying attention to the usurper.

  “Everybody, quiet!” I shouted. “Okay, you”—I pointed to Peter—“clean up the kitchen. You”— I looked at Ruby—“come help Mama get dressed for a party.”

  “I don’t want to help you, I want to be with Daddy,” she howled.

  “Fine, whatever, Baby Electra. Help Daddy clean up. I’m going to take a nice hot bath.”

  AFTER my bath I slipped my new outfit out of the garment bags Macy’s had so thoughtfully provided. No tacky paper shopping bags when you shop couture. The pants felt cool and slippery against my skin. The shirt looked, if anything, better than it had in the dressing room. I felt downright attractive for the first time in months. I carefully applied some makeup and put on my most expensive earrings, a pair of diamond studs Peter had given me when Ruby was born. I was admiring myself in the mirror when Peter and the kids walked into the bedroom.

  “Wow,” Peter said.

  “You asked for fabulous.”

  “And that’s what I got. You look great.”

  “Thanks, honey.” I kissed him on the cheek and took the baby from him. He stripped off his shirt and put on a clean one. He brushed off his khakis and yanked a jacket out of his closet. I sighed. It’s so much easier to be a man.

  Angelika, the baby-sitter, showed up at the house with a bag full of colored paper, kid’s scissors, glue, markers, and glitter. “I thought we could make our own greeting cards,” she said. Ruby looked like she’d died and gone to heaven.

  Peter and I left them engrossed in their project, with Isaac happily bouncing in his Johnny-Jump-Up.

  “So what kind of party is this?” I asked as we drove down Beverly Boulevard toward Mysterious Mindy’s Benedict Canyon house.

  “What do you mean what kind of party?” Peter asked.

  “You know, is this a normal people’s party with, like, sour-cream-and-onion dip and a bunch of friends, or is this a Hollywood, catered kind of party with valet parking?”

  “I dunno. It’s dinner. It’s a dinner party.”

  “Okay, well is it a ‘come on over and I’ll hand you a big bowl of chili and my grandmother’s cornbread’ kind of dinner party or is it a ‘Suzette is serving our first course, Maryland crab cakes in a delicate saffron remoulade roux’ kind of dinner party?”

  “Look, Juliet.” Peter turned to me. “Mindy is a friend of mine. And a colleague. My relationship with her means a lot to me. I’d really appreciate it if you’d lose the attitude.”

  “Professional or personal?”

  “What?”

  “Which means a lot to you, your professional relationship or your personal relationship?”

  He looked at me for a minute and then back at the road. Neither of us said anything for a little while. Then I spoke. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I’m sorry, too.” But it didn’t really seem to be okay, and I didn’t believe that he actually knew what he was apologizing for. Nor did I, in all honesty.

  We pulled into the driveway of a 1940s bungalow that had obviously had a major face-lift sometime in the past few years. A line of young women in black vests emblazoned with the logo “Valet Girls” stood ready at the doorway. Peter handed the car keys to one and she leaped into the driver’s seat and zipped off. So, it was that kind of a party.

  The house was larger than it looked from the outside and decorated within an inch of its life. The style was a sort of eclectic Arts & Crafts with a few gorgeous old pieces that probably had the name Gustav Stickley carefully stamped under a drawer or behind a back panel. Each brightly colored kilim pillow and artful knickknack was in just the right spot. On the walls were a number of large black-and-white photographs in beautiful wooden frames. One, a photo of a pair of lovely young girls bathing in the ocean, looked to my untrained eye like a Sally Mann.

  “This place is amazing!” I whispered to Peter.

  “I know,” he whispered back. “You should see the kitchen. It’s gorgeous.”

  What the heck? How did he know what the kitchen looked like? I was getting ready to ask him, or punch him in the stomach, when the impeccably decorated owner of the impeccably decorated house glided up.

  Magical Mindy was wearing a sleek black pantsuit and a white blouse with French cuffs that protruded from her coat sleeves and dangled over her fingers. She had on black stiletto heels that, in case we missed it, had the name Prada embroidered on the side. Her toenails were painted electric blue and her carefully tousled and highlighted hair fell in luxurious curls down her back. I hated her.

  “Hello! Juliet! It’s so wonderful to see you again. You look fabulous!”

  I smiled, perhaps a bit grimly. “So do you, Mindy. Absolutely.”

  We stood there awkwardly for a moment, trying to think of something to say, and then Mindy turned to Peter. “Pete, listen, there’s a kid here that I want you to meet. He’s a hot new actor and I think we should consider him for one of the mid-season roles. He’s hip-pocketed at CAA and I think he’s about to shoot through the stratosphere.”

  “Terrific,” Peter said. He turned to me. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

  “Sure, no problem.” I answered, inwardly seething. Who, exactly, was “Pete” and who did he think I was going to talk to at this event?

  I grabbed a glass off the tray of a passing waiter, plopped myself down on an overstuffed sofa, and sipped at my wine, feeling sorry for myself. Nobody talked to me, although who could blame them? I looked about as much fun as a colicky baby. After what felt like an hour but was probably no more than ten minutes, Peter came back. He sat down next to me.

  “You’re having a terrible time, aren’t you?” he said.

  “No, I’m having a great time. Really.”

  “Baloney.”

  “Okay, it’s baloney. I’m sorry. It’s just that I don’t really know anyone. Everyone at this party is from TV or something. None of our friends are here.”

  “Why don’t you try to meet some people? Make some new friends.”

  Like that was so easy.

  I said, “You’re right. You’re totally right. Why don’t you introduce me to some of the people you work with?”

  Peter popped off the sofa and extended his hand to me. I took it and he hauled me to my feet. “Okay, let’s go meet some folks.”

  “Okay,” I said, not overly thrilled at the prospect.

  After about twenty minutes I inwardly vowed that I would kill the next person who ardently shook my hand and said, “I am such a big fan of your husband’s.” Fan? Please. Those jaded Hollywood types hadn’t been fans of anything since they had Shawn Cassidy’s picture taped inside the doors of their lockers in sixth grade.

  I was thinking up some snappy insult for the next “fan” when Peter leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Honey, you’re leaking.”

  “I’m what?” Then I looked at my shirt. A large circle of damp was slowly spreading over the incredibly expensive fabric. I’d forgotten to put a breast pad in my bra.

  “Oh, God,” I said, and rushed out of the room. I couldn’t find an unoccupied bathroom so I tore into the kitchen, dodging a caterer or two, and found a roll of paper towels. I tore off a handful and shoved them down my shirt.

  “Are you okay?” I heard a woman’s voice ask. I looked up into the dimpled face of the waitress who had served the kids and me at Nomi’s, the
Israeli restaurant. She was dressed in black slacks and a white caterer’s jacket.

  “I’m fine. Just leaking. You work at Nomi’s, don’t you?”

  She plucked a dishtowel out of a pile of neatly folded cloths sitting on the counter and dampened it with San Pelligrino mineral water. “Try this,” she said, handing it to me. “Seltzer gets out anything. Yes, I work at Nomi’s. I also do catering jobs sometimes. For extra money. You came into the restaurant last night, right?”

  I nodded and dabbed at the stain on my shirt. As far as I could tell I was just making a small wet spot into a larger one.

  “You talked to Yossi,” she continued.

  “Yes.”

  “About his girlfriend.”

  My head shot up. Girlfriend? “You know her?” I asked.

  The young woman shrugged her shoulders. “A little bit. One minute.” She turned to the stove, a huge Viking range with an eight-burner cook-top and an oven that looked like it could roast six or seven Thanksgiving turkeys at the same time. Donning a pair of oven mitts, she reached into the oven and took out a cookie sheet of miniature spanikopita that she began to carefully arrange on a cut-glass tray.

  “So, you know Fraydle?” I pressed.

  “The Hasidic girl? I’m not her friend, but I have seen her sometimes.”

  “In the restaurant?”

  “Oh, no. I don’t think she would ever eat at Nomi’s. No, in my building.” She finished arranging the hors d’oeuvres. “I’ll be right back,” she said, and headed out the kitchen door.

  I busied myself with my shirt, doing my best to dry the fabric. It occurred to me that the warm oven might help in that endeavor, so I opened the door and crouched down close to it.

  “What are you doing?” the waitress asked as she came back into the kitchen.

  “Just trying to get my shirt dry.”

  “Oh, good idea,” she said. She squeezed by me and busied herself at the kitchen counter, taking the plastic wrap off a tray of sushi.

  “You were telling me about Fraydle,” I reminded her.

  “Yes. The Hasidic girl. Yossi and I live in the same building, so I see her sometimes. Just passing in the courtyard, you know?”

  Well, that certainly gave the lie to Yossi’s claim about just seeing Fraydle “around the neighborhood.”

  “Are you friendly with Yossi?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Once. Maybe. I knew him from the army. You know, in Israel?”

  “You were in the army?” She didn’t look like a soldier. She looked like a typical Melrose Avenue babe.

  “It’s not such a big deal. We all go to the army in Israel. I was a secretary in his unit. So I knew him.” There was something about her tone that bothered me.

  “What kind of unit?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “What did you guys do in the army?”

  She paused, and looked up at me. “Why do you ask that question?”

  “No reason. I was just curious.” And I wanted to find out if Yossi had any Israeli military training that would, say, allow him to spirit an eighteen-year-old girl out of her home without a trace.

  “We were in the paratroopers.”

  “Wow. You jumped out of planes?”

  “I jumped only once. But that’s what the men did, yes.”

  Changing the subject, I said, “You know, we haven’t even introduced ourselves. I’m Juliet Applebaum.”

  “Anat. Anat Ben-David.”

  We were quiet for a moment. I leaned out of the way as one of the other waiters grabbed a tray of wineglasses from behind me. Then I employed my trademark interrogation technique. The one where I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. “So, Anat, I have to say, it doesn’t sound as if you like Yossi all that much.”

  She didn’t seem particularly taken aback by my comment. “Maybe I liked him once, but now I don’t care about him at all.”

  That certainly sounded familiar to me. I’d felt that way about plenty of guys. Like maybe twenty or so before I met Peter. “So, did you guys go out, or something?”

  She blushed a little and busily rearranged the already perfectly arranged sushi plate. “Something like that. A long time ago, I liked him very much. And he pretended to like me. For maybe a week. And then nothing. Until I saw him again here in Los Angeles.”

  “With Fraydle,” I said.

  “With the Hasidic girl,” Anat agreed.

  Giving up on my shirt altogether, I stopped my ineffectual blotting and leaned on the counter. “Were they seeing each other for a long time?”

  Anat handed the sushi plate to a waitress who was hovering nearby. “Months, I think. I used to see her in the building all the time. I don’t think she’s been there in the past week or two. At least, I haven’t seen her. We have a courtyard, you know? Like on Melrose Place?”

  I nodded.

  “So, if she’s been there when I’ve been there, I would see her. The last time I saw her she was very upset. “She was crying or something. She looked awful. Almost . . . not ugly, but just . . . I don’t know . . . bad. Like something really terrible had happened to her.”

  “Did you talk to her?”

  “Oh, no. I mean, I said hello sometimes, but she just maybe nodded her head or something like that. She never talked to me. That last time she just ran by me.”

  “Do you think she knew about you and Yossi?”

  “Maybe, but I don’t think so. With Yossi, if he starts to talk about girlfriends, it would take a long time to finish the talk, you know?”

  “Yeah, I’ve known guys like that. You know, you’re probably lucky you only wasted a week of your life with him. Think how much worse it would be if you’d been with him for a year before you figured that out.”

  She smiled somewhat ruefully. “You know, you’re right. I never thought of it that way.”

  “So, is there anything else you can tell me about Fraydle and Yossi?”

  She pushed her hair out of her eyes with the back of her wrist. “I don’t think so.” At that moment, it seemed to dawn on her that she had no idea why I was asking her all these questions. “Are you a friend of hers?” she asked.

  “No, not a friend,” I replied. “Fraydle used to work for me. She’s been missing for the past couple of days and I’m trying to help find her.”

  “Missing! Like she ran away or something?”

  “Or something. Are you sure she hasn’t been around Yossi’s apartment?”

  “I haven’t seen her. But if we didn’t come in at the same time, or if she just stayed in his apartment, I wouldn’t necessarily know if she was there or not. I can give you our address. You can come over yourself and look.” Anat picked up a pen and tore off a corner of a pastry box that was sitting on the table. She wrote out the address and handed it to me. “His apartment is on the bottom level, number four.”

  “Great, thanks, Anat. Here, take my phone number and call me if you think of anything or if you see her, okay?” I scrawled my name and number on another piece of the pastry box. She put it in her shirt pocket, said goodbye, and headed out of the kitchen holding the platter of raw fish.

  As she walked out the kitchen door, Peter walked in. He looked relieved to see me.

  “Hey! I’ve been looking all over for you. Are you okay? Did you get the stain out of your shirt?”

  “I’m fine. My shirt is not so fine, however.” I pulled at the fabric. It appeared that the milk had more or less rinsed out, but the fabric was bunched and crinkled where it had gotten wet. “Fabulous,” I said forlornly.

  “Oh, honey”—Peter crossed the room and took me in his arms—“you look beautiful. It doesn’t matter if your shirt’s a little wrinkled. Who cares? You’re gorgeous.”

  I leaned into his chest and inhaled his familiar odor. Embracing him, I did my best not to cry. It had been a long time since Peter and I had just hugged each other. The combination of my postpartum moodiness and Peter’s schedule had brought our relationship down to an unfamiliar low. It was
hard to remember when we’d last had a conversation that didn’t devolve into an argument.

  Peter kissed the top of my head. “I love you, Juliet. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I know. I love you, too. I just seem to be soaking in some kind of perpetual hormonal bath. Ugh. The not sleeping isn’t helping much, either.”

  “I’m so sorry, sweetie,” he murmured. “I haven’t been pulling my weight on that end, have I?”

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to. I just buried my face a little deeper in his shirt.

  “How about if I take baby duty two nights a week? I’ll try to work it out on days when I don’t have to be on the set, but I’ll do it even if I have to work the next day. Okay?”

  I leaned back and looked up at him. “That would be amazing, Peter. I think if I could get an uninterrupted six hours of sleep just two days in a row I would be in much better shape.”

  We smiled at each other.

  “Look at the lovebirds hiding in the kitchen!” Maximum Mindy’s voice rang out with a shrill falseness that was so obvious even Peter got it. He winced.

  “Just a little breast-feeding accident,” I said, glancing pointedly at her gravity-defying chest. “Let’s go mingle, honey.” I took Peter’s hand and led him back out to the living room. Within a few minutes, I actually found someone with whom I enjoyed talking, another wife, this one married to an agent. She confided in me that she was ten weeks pregnant after three years of infertility treatments. By the end of the evening I knew all about her husband’s low sperm motility and her endometriosis. We also talked for a while about her grandmother’s recent Alzheimer’s diagnosis and my two cesarean sections. Peter and the woman’s husband discussed the Dodgers and their chances of winning the pennant.

  It really is remarkable. Standing in line at a movie theater, I can learn more about a woman—her family, her academic background, and even her gynecological history—than my husband can learn about a man in five years of friendship. Women truly do share their lives with one another more easily than men. We confide and discuss, gossip and debate. I, for one, think that this willingness to let others in on our secrets is a source of our greatest strength. It is infinitely easier to survive a crisis, from a miscarriage to a husband’s serious illness to a visit from your mother-in-law if you can turn to your friends, cry on their shoulders and gather energy, resources, and fortitude from their support. And, hey, if your friends aren’t around, some woman you meet at a party can be almost as good.