Mine Are Spectacular!

by Janice Kaplan

  James gives me a shy smile. He’s not sure whether to kiss my cheek or shake my hand, and he settles on a little wave, avoiding all bodily contact.

  “Can we go to the children’s zoo?” asks Dylan, heady with excitement.

  “Sure,” says James, leading the way. We start down the road and Dylan reaches to take James’s hand. I’m walking awkwardly next to them and think of taking Dylan’s other hand. But will that make us look too much like a happy little family? Give Dylan the wrong idea of what he can expect? I don’t have to worry about it for too long, because after just a few minutes, Dylan groans and looks down the endless path in front of us.

  “How much more do we have to walk?” he asks, leaning heavily on James’s arm.

  “Not far, almost there,” says James, ever the encouraging hiker. “But do you want a ride?”

  Dylan, my city-raised son, looks around for a taxi.

  “On my shoulders,” James explains. And when a wide-eyed Dylan agrees, James crouches down and says, “Hop on!”

  Dylan grabs onto James’s sandy hair like he’s riding a pony and from his perch high above, looks down and gives me a big grin. “How cool is this, Mom!” he says, bouncing along.

  “Really cool,” I say, offering a weak smile. I haven’t been able to carry Dylan since he had that growth spurt at four, but I’m glad—should be glad—that he can get a treetop view of the world from James’s shoulders.

  At the petting zoo, James puts Dylan down and gives him a quarter to get a bag of animal feed. Dylan confidently holds out a handful of nuggets for a billy goat, but when the horned animal lowers his head to start munching, Dylan lurches back and drops the feed on the ground.

  “Let’s try it together,” James says, putting his palm under Dylan’s. “Secret is to keep your hand flat. He wants the feed, not your fingers, so just keep them out of the way.”

  With James at his side, Dylan successfully provides lunch for two billy goats and three baby sheep. James has endless fun facts to tell about the animals, and Dylan seems thrilled with his steady stream of stories. I have to admit that even I’m enjoying myself listening to James’s easy banter. After the children’s zoo, Dylan wants to see the penguins, and who could say no? We go to observe them and James makes the usual joke about their looking like maître d’s. Dylan giggles. He seems to have accepted James at face value—a nice man who knows his way around a zoo. I keep hoping Dylan will at least ask James an awkward question or two, but he never does.

  We’d agreed to an hour and a half visit for the first meeting, but we’re all having so much fun we let it slide into two. Finally, James walks us back to the parking lot.

  “Where are we going next time, Daddy?” Dylan asks, dragging his feet.

  James glances at me uncertainly. “Some place great,” he says. And then turning seriously to me he adds, “If it’s okay with Mom.”

  I’d like to take my time to answer. In fact I’d like to take about eight years. But I’ve done the right thing. This has been a good afternoon for Dylan and he deserves more.

  “Sure, we’ll have more great afternoons,” I say. But I keep the what and where vague. It took all my emotional reserves to deal with today and I’ll have to restock before the next meeting. I hustle Dylan into the backseat and when I buckle him in, he quickly reaches for his Game Boy. I wish Dylan had gone for a book instead of the electronic toy. Maybe that would be proof that I’m a good mother. But apparently his skill with the control button is impressive enough.

  “You’ve raised a terrific kid,” James says, after he’s high-fived Dylan and said good-bye. He walks around to the other side of the car with me and opens the door. Then he startles me by taking my hand. “In fact, you’re both terrific,” he says. “Thanks for letting me back into your life.”

  I step away from him and slide behind the wheel. Finally, I turn on the ignition. “Back into Dylan’s life, not mine,” I correct him.

  “Enough for now,” James says. He waves to both of us and stands watching for a long time as I drive away.

  “So it doesn’t sound like it was that bad,” Kate says as we push our way through the lobby of the Empire State Building the next day.

  “Not so bad. He was good with Dylan. And that’s all that matters,” I say, finally summing up my visit with James. Bradford got the abridged version of the story, but as usual I put Kate through the whole play-by-play. She even nodded encouragingly when I got to the part about which billy goat was cutest. That’s what best friends are for.

  “I don’t know if I could have been as mature as you were,” says Kate supportively.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” I say, thinking proudly of how I handled the situation with Mimi and the hot tub. “I’m acting so grown up lately that by the end of the week I may be eighty.”

  “Don’t worry, I have a new DNA skin cream that can make you look seventy,” says Kate.

  “Thanks, but I’m pretty sure I can do that all on my own.” I laugh.

  We hit the button on the elevator and breeze up to the twenty-fourth floor and through a door marked metronaps. Most people come to the Empire State Building to stand on the observation deck and take in the city. Kate and I have come to escape from everything and catch a snooze. Some genius decided he could charge people to come here and sleep for twenty minutes in plastic padded cocoons. And I guess he is a genius, because here we are, plunking down our money.

  “Tell me again why you want to do this,” I ask Kate.

  “Because it’s Tuesday,” she says, looking at me meaningfully. “Used to be my regular day with Owen at The Waldorf-Astoria. Or the Four Seasons. Or the Plaza. We always had great sex and even better rooms. And then we’d take a nap. Have I ever told you about the naps?” She pauses. Yes, she has told me about the naps and I’m convinced that the best part of having an affair is getting to lie down in the afternoon.

  “I’m glad you’re not seeing Owen today,” I say. “You’re making the right decision.”

  Kate looks dubious. “I don’t know if I am. He’s still the most wonderful man I know. But after the Yankees game I decided we should take a break. He got me so mad that day. We both need time to think things over.”

  I worry that while Kate needs time to decide whether Owen’s still a fling or her future, Owen’s just working on how to get the mustard stains out of his shirt.

  I take in the strange room filled with rows of sleeping pods. Pods. The whole thing feels very sci-fi. Something out of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Though if somebody’s going to snatch my body, I hope they bring back a thinner one. I wouldn’t normally go to a place like this. Still, I’m here for Kate. If Owen can be replaced by a commercial sleeping station, I’m all for it.

  I climb into my personal sleep capsule and notice several businessmen dozing nearby. Only in Manhattan could people be convinced that instead of simply putting their heads down on the desk when they’re tired, they need to pay good money to take a nap. And maybe they do. After all, this is the sleep-deprivation capital of the world. Sleeping no more than five hours a night is a badge of honor, and four hours proves you deserve to be mayor. Although you shouldn’t necessarily operate a car.

  In the next pod, Kate is fiddling with the lighting controls, and her pod plunges into near darkness. I busy myself adjusting the speakers, which offer a dozen choices of relaxing sounds. I flick between lapping waves, which make me slightly seasick, and the gushing waterfall, which makes me want to go to the bathroom.

  “You sleeping?” I ask Kate, trying to keep my voice low.

  “No,” she says.

  “Me either. And guess what I just thought of?” I say brightly. “You and me. Here. We’re like two peas in a pod.”

  “That’s really what you were thinking about?” she asks, probably disturbed that when her best friend lets her mind roam free, this is where it ends up. “I was thinking about Owen. How much I love him. And that I should have been more understanding.”

  I practical
ly jump out of my capsule. “Understanding of what?” I ask.

  “Shhh,” says a man a few cocoons away. “People are trying to sleep in here.”

  What does he think this is, a library? Feels to me more like a pajama party. Where the whole idea is to talk. And talk about boys.

  But Kate’s closed her eyes, so I lie rigidly in my shell. How embarrassing to admit that I got eight hours of sleep last night and don’t need a nap. I switch the white-noise speakers past the sounds of wind rustling and rain pattering to the very realistic bees buzzing. What’s relaxing about a bee that’s about to sting you? Good thing I don’t need any sleep, because I’d never get any.

  Nobody else in the room can get much sleep either, because Kate’s cell phone starts ringing shrilly. She abruptly sits up and answers it, but with the white noise machine still on in her pod, she doesn’t realize how loudly she’s talking.

  “Oh darling, I love you, too!” she says, practically screaming. “No really, it was me. My fault. All my fault. Yes, I know it’s Tuesday. Of course I want to be with you.”

  I turn down my speakers so I can listen to every word.

  “Owen, of course, yes. Forever.” She turns up the lights over her head, and from the happy look on her face, I guess that three seconds of Owen is better than twenty minutes of dreamy sleep. If Kate was taking a break from Owen, it turned out to be shorter than Britney Spears’ first marriage.

  Kate gives me a thumbs-up sign and mouths, “Owen!” As if the whole room doesn’t already know. She points to the door and I gladly abandon my pod to follow her out.

  “Darling, wherever you want. I’ll be there in ten minutes.” There’s a brief pause and then she makes a face. “The Plaza again? Didn’t we have better sex at The Carlyle?” She giggles. “Well, yes, your empty warehouse was definitely the best. Or maybe the penthouse on the top of that office tower you’re buying. And I love it that you’re bidding on that former church in Brooklyn. That pew was the most fun!”

  The pew? Some details I could live without knowing. Guess when Owen is thinking about location, location, location, real estate’s not the only thing on his mind.

  I wake up in the middle of the night and realize I’m not being a good friend. Instead of standing by Kate no matter what, I should be dragging her away from Owen. Kate’s not seeing the handwriting on the wall, but I am. Every story ends the same way. Fly down to Tortola? Owen rushes back to his wife. Auction at Sotheby’s? He’s there with his wife. Yankees game where we’re sitting with Billy Crystal? He wants to get out of there, because he’s a married man. Is there a theme here?

  Maybe they had make up sex at the Plaza yesterday, but no amount of sex can make up for what Owen’s doing. And as it turns out there wasn’t that much sex anyway. Kate called me at five to say she was back in her office. Owen forgot he had to hightail it over to Cartier to pick up a little anniversary present. For guess who?

  I lie staring at the ceiling for half an hour trying to figure out how I can help Kate. Or when I can get the ceiling painted. Maybe I can ask Berni who did her little clouds. As long as I’m wide awake I get out of bed and pad down to the study where several sample wedding invitations are spread across the desk, exactly where they’ve been sitting for three weeks. The standard engraved one is too stuffy. The hand-printed calligraphy is impossible to decipher. I toss them all into the wastebasket. Maybe I can create my own. Even better, make it a project and declare next Wednesday Design a Wedding Invitation Day at Spence. Or maybe that sends the wrong message to eleven-year-old girls, who should be thinking about becoming world leaders, not wives.

  Better to focus on someone else’s problems than your own. I put my mind back to solving Kate’s married-man crisis, but I need help with this one. I slip out of the house, and walk through the quiet streets of Hadley Farms over to Berni’s. I know she and the babies will be awake at this hour because it’s feeding time. Then again, it’s always feeding time. I knock softly on the door, and Berni doesn’t seem at all surprised to see me. She’s up, so why wouldn’t the rest of the world be?

  “Kate needs our help,” I say, skipping past hello and getting right to the point. “She has an addiction.”

  Berni seems unfazed. “Who doesn’t have an addiction? With a client list like I used to have, I’ve seen ’em all. Let’s see, there’s alcohol, cocaine, heroin, Percoset, sex, shopping and chocolate.” She reels off the classics as casually as she would this week’s grocery list. “What’s Kate’s problem?”

  “Owen,” I say.

  “That’s all?” Berni asks. She sounds disappointed. It’s hard to impress a woman who’s visited so many clients at Betty Ford that the clinic named a bench after her.

  While we’ve been talking, Berni has been holding Baby B over her shoulder and patting his back. Now he lets out a contented burp and Berni breaks into a big smile.

  “My smart boy. My wonderful boy.” She rubs his back happily. “Wasn’t that the best burp you ever heard?” she asks me.

  “Good burp, but not the best burp,” I say critically, as if I’m judging an Olympic competition. High marks for length of emission, but points off for volume. Most new moms think their baby’s every burp qualifies for a gold medal. But aren’t we setting unrealistic expectations if a baby grows up thinking that whenever he burps or poops, the world is going to cheer? Let the kid try either of those things in public when he’s six and see what happens.

  “So a substance abuse problem. Kate. Owen. It’s simple,” says Berni, sounding professional as she puts down Baby B. “We need to do an intervention.”

  It doesn’t take her more than a couple of minutes to clue me in on what she has in mind. Asking Berni what to do about an addiction is as efficient as asking Anna Wintour where to buy sunglasses. She’s done it a million times and knows exactly how to proceed.

  “Let’s head over to Kate right now,” she says. “No time like the pres-ent.”

  “What about the babies?” I ask.

  “The baby nurse is here. And Aidan. And my mother.” Berni snaps her fingers. “My mother. Erica should come with us. As many people as possible should confront Kate. The whole idea of an intervention is to make the addict realize that everyone in the world sees her problem.”

  I’m starting to feel a little bad about turning Kate into the poster girl for addiction. Just because she won’t leave Owen doesn’t mean she’s the new River Phoenix. Still, Berni seems to know what she’s doing. And it’s starting to sound like a party. Maybe I should call ahead to make sure Kate has enough food.

  Berni grabs her half-asleep mother, who thought she was here for a visit with her grandchildren but has now been enlisted into the Leave Owen Now army. We get into the car to race over to Kate’s new upstate house and storm the barricades. Or in this case, the white picket fence.

  “Surprise is everything,” says Berni, as we get to Kate’s front door and she expertly picks the lock. Something else she learned from one of her clients? But even Berni’s no match for Kate’s alarm system. Loud wails and flashing lights scream into the dawn, along with a deep, masculine recorded voice. “The perimeter has been breached. Police have been called. Leave the premises immediately.” You’d think we were breaking into the National Gallery.

  With the alarms and warnings ringing, Kate dashes down the staircase in a panic, and when she sees us, she looks relieved. Why she came down if she thought she was interrupting a crime in progress is beyond me. A bell goes off, and everyone’s first impulse is to run right into the arms of the robber.

  “What are you doing here?” Kate asks, turning off the alarm system. And then looking alarmed herself as the three of us circle around her.

  “It’s an intervention, dear,” says Erica kindly. “I’m not sure what that means. But you do have a lovely place here. Thank you for having us.”

  Kate, who hadn’t intended to have us at all, looks baffled and turns to Berni for help.

  “We’re here to make you see the truth,” says Berni.


  “I can’t handle the truth,” says Kate flippantly. “I still refuse to believe that butter is bad for you.”

  “You have to handle this,” I say adamantly. “We’re here to get you to break up with Owen. He’s bad for you. It’s never going to work. You have to leave him.”

  Kate ducks away from our circle and stamps into the living room. “Is that what this is about?” she asks incredulously.

  Before we have a chance to answer, three policemen walk through the still open door, hands poised on their pistols.

  “Dr. Steele, are you okay? We got a call from the security company.” He eyes us suspiciously. “These people bothering you?”

  Kate spins around, looks at us, and then putting her hands on her hips turns histrionically to the policeman. “Yes, yes!” she says. “Definitely bothering me. They’re up to no good.”

  “Are you filing a complaint?” asks one of the other cops, pulling out a pad.

  “I certainly am,” says Kate, flouncing over to lean against her grand piano. Which in her case, is best used for posing, not playing. I once heard her pound out the “Minute Waltz” when we were kids and it felt like it took an hour.

  Berni goes over and puts her arm around the shortest policeman’s shoulder. “Honey, it’s just a domestic dispute,” she says. “We’ll take care of it.” She artfully steers him toward the door and the other two follow without even a backward glance. These guys are less effective than Patrolman Pete. And not nearly as cute. I kind of wish we’d set off the smoke detector. Firemen are always adorable.

  “I need a drink,” says Erica, once they’re gone.

  “Coffee? Tea? Milk?” asks Kate, happier to play hostess than hostage.

  “A nice Chardonnay would be good,” says Erica.

  At seven-fifteen in the morning? We could be focusing on the wrong addict here.

  Kate comes back with an open bottle of white wine, and in deference to the hour, four juice glasses. She fills each glass to the brim and hands them out. When Kate sits down, we each grab a chair to gather around her.