by Ariella Papa
“They didn’t like it?” I asked.
“No, I just never offered them one. They have plenty of places on their bodies to suck.”
She had to be lying, I was sure of it.
She also paused whenever I said anything or asked her a question. It was as if she was thinking about the least offensive thing she could say to a bad mother like me, but somehow I was still offended. Peter always said I was too defensive, but I didn’t buy it. I couldn’t stand these sanctimommies who co-slept and fed their kids only organic foods and didn’t immunize and floated above the rest of us with a magic glow that they believed came from natural childbirth and cloth diapers.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about her and how well she handled my kids. Maybe some people were meant to be moms and some people weren’t. Maybe I wasn’t. I didn’t even really enjoy it that much, but part of me wanted to. Part of me thought if I had more time with the twins they might like me more. And then someone like this photographer walks in and wowed them and I was reminded that it probably was me. Maybe these kids simply don’t like me.
I should have gone with the photographer Deanna used, but I worried that if I did that she would compare pictures, or packages or call the photographer and find out something embarrassing about me. Sometimes it was impossible for me to make a decision without seeing all the potential possibilities ten steps ahead. It made me a great chess player and an awesome budget planner, but there was little else it helped. I was paralyzed by what could be so much that I often couldn’t make a move.
The main reason I went with who I did is because the research I did on the Brooklyn moms website raved about her and her “eye” (whatever that meant). Plus, she was cheap.
It was mainly because she was cheap.
Now I had to know that there was someone out there that my kids loved. Someone who had some reason to judge me. Someone who felt she had the upper hand.
But this someone expected that I was going to go over and parent some new parent because times were tough. Going over there had been her idea in the first place. I should have refused. I was paying her to photograph my kids, not minister to my neighbors. Now I was being guilted into feeling as if I should make time for some other mom and her baby.
Meanwhile, she had not had the chance to do her job, which was to put up a web link to selects of the twins’ pictures. Her baby had been running a fever or some excuse. And then when I pressed her on when she potentially might have them, I felt as though I was being a hardass.
Why couldn’t anyone do what they said when they said it? Why was it cool to use motherhood as an excuse for the job you were paid to do? People always pulled this shit with me. I was always prepared and always professional and I often thought I was the only one. Why was that ok in this day and age?
Later that afternoon, I experienced the same lack of professionalism from the producer I was in the phone meeting with when I tried to nail him down about his bottom line. He was one of those men who thought he would seem like a nice guy and ingratiate himself to me by asking about my kids. He had been dodging requests from one of my coordinators, so I had to make the query myself.
“They’re doing well, thanks,” I said. “So as per our email conversation last week, I needed those numbers for my report tomorrow. Can you get them for me by the end of the afternoon?”
“No problem. You just had a baby, right?” he asked cheerfully. As if I hadn’t spoken to him numerous times since I returned from maternity leave a year and a half ago. “What do you have? Triplets?”
“No, twins,” I said, trying not to miss a beat. “If I don’t have those numbers, it will severely jeopardize the budget for next year. Your show’s budget.”
“No worries. I’ve got a four-year-old myself; she lives with her mother in Los Feliz How old are yours?”
“They are almost two. Now I need those numbers by my close of business. New York close of business,” I was trying to be as clear as possible before threatening to loop in his superior. “That’s 5:00 P.M. Eastern time.”
“You got it,” he said with a distinct chill. I was happy to have gotten him off the informal line of questioning. I didn’t know this guy at all. We had an email and phone relationship. Maybe we had met at a couple of company mixers. He shouldn’t assume a few uninspired questions about my kids were going to change the fact that I needed information from him.
“Thanks, I look forward to it,” I lied and looked up into my doorway to see Keith. I hadn’t seen him since the meeting where he somehow saved my ass. He made a motion to see if it was a bad time, but I held up my hand for him to stay.
“Yeah, you too,” the producer said, now fully annoyed. It bothered me a lot less than it usually did, mainly because I was distracted by Keith. But when the producer hung up the phone, I wished that I still had him to talk to. I thought I would blush if I had to devote my full attention to Keith, but he demanded my full attention. It felt as though the air in the room was being sucked out. I wasn’t sure why.
I hung up the phone. I had eaten lunch at my desk again, and now I feared there was salad in my teeth.
“Hello there,” Keith said, smiling. We didn’t know each other at all, but there was something flirtatious and familiar about his tone. Nobody ever talked to me this way. Not even Peter. Not even at night.
“How are you?” I asked. I had the urge to smile at him but was trying to keep my lips around my teeth in case I did have salad stuck in them.
“I’m great,” he said. “Is this a bad time?”
“Not at all,” I said. For once, I wasn’t aware of the clock and how much time I had until I needed to race out the door. Everything was slowing down. I was only thinking about how to get him closer, though not close enough to see the offensive arugula in my lateral incisor.
“I wanted to loop you in about this potential suit that may be brewing from one of the writers. I wanted to find out how much we paid him versus some of the other writers we hired on a story line basis,” Keith went on to explain how one of the writers from a few years back was potentially going to sue for sexual discrimination, which was always tougher to prove for a man. It was a case I should be informed about, but he sat down and started asking me specific questions about numbers for settlements the company had done in the past. It was more of an issue for Legal I thought, and it seemed to me to be something his assistant could have emailed someone on my team about. He didn’t need to come to me with this. He was wasting my time. I wanted to tell him that, but when I glanced up at him I couldn’t.
Was it possible he wanted to spend time with me? No. That was impossible. Men never wanted to spend time with me. It wasn’t a part of my DNA. Keith was just thorough. I could respect that. Maybe he was an ant like me. I tried to focus in on what he was saying, but I was having a real hard time looking him in the eyes. If I could look him in the eye I could determine if he really had winked or if it was a tic.
But I couldn’t look in his eyes, because when I did it made me think about how his eyes would flutter closed if I kissed him. So instead I looked at his nose. It wasn’t the greatest nose. His nostrils flared out at all times. Somehow what would have been weird on other men looked sexy on him. I looked down at his lips, full and smirking. This was so bizarre. I became aware that I was staring at his face, scrutinizing it so I stared at my computer and pretended to be fascinated by an old budget for the show we were discussing.
I started to quote from my spreadsheet and before I knew it he was on my side of the desk, standing behind me looking at the computer as I clicked on different writers’ salaries and looked up financial information from some of previous lawsuits. He was staying a respectable distance away from me. My personal space was definitely not invaded, but my neck felt as if it was on fire. And I knew that if I turned to look at him, to acknowledge what he was saying I would have no choice but to be staring at his crotch. Under the desk, I crossed my legs. I became self-conscious that he was studying my every move. I had never felt this
way before. I was aware of myself in a different way. I was aware of my body.
“This is exactly what I needed to see. It’s going to help a lot. Thank you.”
“Of course,” I said. I wished he would move around to the other side of my desk, so I could bring myself to look at him. I was starting to sweat. This was abnormal.
“I really appreciate it,” he said, finally, moving around to the other side. I glanced up at him, at last. And then I quickly looked away.
“It’s no big deal,” I said trying to make my voice sound normal. I stopped myself from telling him it was just part of my job. That would be a completely dorky thing to do. “Just keep me in the loop.”
“Say please,” he said, with a smile in his voice. I looked up at him. His eyes were twinkling. No one had ever looked at me that way. He looked at me like he wanted to fuck me. That wasn’t the word I ever used to describe the sex act, but that’s exactly the word that popped into my head when he looked at me. I thought my mouth was going to drop open, but it couldn’t because of the mesclun. I pressed my lips together.
“Please,” I said. My voice was barely a whisper, but I was meeting his gaze head on for the first time. I surprised myself. This time, Keith definitely winked at me. It wasn’t a tick. I locked my legs closed a little tighter, to be safe because I wasn’t quite sure what I was capable of. What for most women might have been de rigueur was brazen for me.
“I’ll see you around,” he said.
“Mmm-hmm, bye,” was all I could manage. At last I broke the stare and looked back at my boring computer.
And then he was gone.
I spent the rest of my workday not getting much done. I knew I had to get it together, but I kept looking over at my doorway expecting him to reappear. I couldn’t get him out of my head.
On the way home, in the crowded subway car, I stared out the window at the Brooklyn Bridge and imagined what he was doing, who he was with. None of this made any sense. I felt as if my mind was being invaded. I never lost focus, but now for some reason, I thought of what would happen if he shut the door to my office. I imagined us on my desk, his eyes twinkling, lips smirking. I had to physically shake the thought out of my head. This was ridiculous. I was married. Some might say happily. Actually, I wasn’t sure who would really say happily, but I was married. That I took seriously
Besides, I wasn’t attracted to men like this. I bet he dated a lot of women. Peter and I had been nerds in high school. I had one boyfriend in college, and Peter never discussed his pre-me love life, but I gathered it was a few awkward couplings with less than a handful of girls. When we got together in our MBA program, there had been no amazing fireworks, no primal attraction. Like everything else in my life, he really fit into my plan. And I fit into his. We wanted the same things. We worked together.
I never really got when you saw people being overcome by passion, though that is what my business was based on. Passion was silly. Really it seemed a little embarrassing. It was merely a fantasy. I didn’t have fantasies. I set goals. Except what was happening now, here on the crowded subway car sure felt like a fantasy. My knees felt weak. I wished there were a seat. That wasn’t going to happen. I got offered a seat all of two times when I was nine months pregnant with twins. During rush hour, people buried their heads in books or feigned sleep in order to keep their precious seat.
But the train ride flew because I was so caught up in thoughts of Keith. I got off at the stop before our apartment to get the kids at day care.
Day care pickups were one of my least favorite parts of the day. I felt awkward trying to make small talk with the women who worked there. They intimidated me, because they seemed to know so much more about kids than I did. They knew the secret to raising children that eluded me. How did they manage to deal with all my kids’ quirks without completely losing it?
I recognized that it was important that I was perceived as nice for the teachers, but I didn’t know how to necessarily relate. I worried about their perception of me more than anyone else I had ever worked with. I fretted about what kinds of gifts to get them for Christmas. I wondered if other parents had figured out a better way to communicate.
Tatiana buzzed me into the center. It was Tatiana who Jacob clung to on one of his first days at the center. I thought of my mother’s story. As much as I had felt guilty for putting my three month old in day care, I felt even more devastated that he liked it so much.
“Hi, Tatiana,” I said. “How did it go today?”
“Very good, very good. No biting from Emily.” I wished that Tatiana would forget about this episode of terrorism in Emily’s life. I knew it was going to get back to Brookese, somehow.
At that moment, Lillian D’Agostino walked in. She was the mother of Giovanni one of the biggest kids at the facility. Giovanni seemed to leap over all of the milestones. He was walking at ten months, speaking over twenty words at a year and putting together full sentences at a year and half. I often wondered what his daily day care forms said. While my Jacob “mastered” gross motor skills like crawling through tunnels and Emily was proficient in bead stringing fine motor skills, I feared that if I ever saw Gio’s report it would reveal his expertise in complex origami creations and obstacle courses designed for military boot camp. This was the competition. It was another thing to obsess about.
Lillian was a high-powered lobbyist. She was so put together all the time. One time I saw a coat that Giovanni had at a children’s boutique in Carroll Gardens, and it cost $195. I don’t think I ever bought myself a coat that cost that much. Why send your kid to day care if you can afford to buy them a $200 coat?
“How are you, Claudia?” Lillian asked brightly.
“I’m ok,” I said, trying to smile.
“How is Giovanni doing?” I asked. “What’s he up to?”
“Oh, he’s wonderful and he’s going to be a big brother.”
“Wow,” I said. Giovanni was only twenty months, two months younger than the twins. “Congratulations, when are you due?”
“In October.” That was four months away. She had wasted no time starting again. She barely looked pregnant. When I was pregnant I looked like a Mac truck. I tried to blame it on carrying two, but my whole body was a mess, from my oily skin to my large behind.
“Wow,” I said. “I can’t imagine having another baby. It seems so crazy.”
She didn’t say anything but blinked a few times.
“I mean, I guess because I have the twins and all, I might want to have another one eventually.” I don’t know why I was still talking. Sometimes things came out of my mouth that were completely misunderstood.
“How was Giovanni today?” Lillian asked Tatiana, turning away from me.
“He was such a good boy,” Tatiana said. She was really glowing. I don’t think she ever did that about either of my kids.
“Isn’t he?” Lillian asked. She was definitely gloating.
“Here he comes,” Tatiana said as Giovanni came running into the lobby with Marie, one of the other teachers.
“Mommy, Mama,” he said.
“Hey, buddy,” Lillian said. She crouched down and Giovanni threw his arms around her. “What did you draw for me?”
He handed her a rather crude mixed media on construction paper and she cooed. She had to rehearse this with him. It was ridiculous.
“You got your jacket on, great,” Lillian said.
“He did it all by himself,” Tatiana said. She was in on the ruse too. She looked at me. “I’ll go get Jacob and Emily.”
“That would be great,” I said, trying to be bright but wanting to remind her that they should have already been out. I had arrived first.
Lillian was cooing at Giovanni and smiled up at me. I didn’t know what to say to her. It couldn’t hurt to ask her about preschool. Maybe she had some connection. The thing to do now was network.
“So have you all started to think about preschool? I know it’s a long way out, but they say you are supposed to start aroun
d now for the following year.” Why was I telling her this when she already knew? Everyone in New York City knew the drill.
“Oh, he’s going to the 92nd Street Y.” I felt my eyes widen. Were Lillian and my mother somehow in cahoots?
“I know it’s impossible to get into, but we did it.” She was totally bragging. She smiled at Giovanni proudly. “I mean obviously it’s not official and it won’t be, but my mother’s best friend works there. And she’s basically a third grandmother to Gio. So we are pretty certain.”
“That’s great,” I said. Tatiana brought Jacob out to me.
“Aye,” Jacob said.
“Hi, Jacob,” I said. I bent to give him a hug. I felt conscious of the way Lillian had hugged Giovanni. Was I loving enough with Jacob? Was he getting enough attention? He didn’t have a third grandmother, he barely saw either of the ones he had.
“Emily is still playing princesses,” Tatiana said.
“Ok, I’ll go back and get her,” I said. I walked behind the desk, holding Jacob’s hand and when we got to the stairs, I picked him up and carried him. He flung his arm around me and for a minute, I put my nose against his neck and breathed in.
Then I saw Emily in one of the rooms playing with a doll with long red hair that looked like straw. She loved this doll and called her “Princess Rosa.” My daughter had an extremely complex fantasy world. I had no idea where it came from. Maybe someday she could be a writer for soaps.
“Hey, Emily,” I said. Emily was not going to come running and unlike Jacob; she didn’t seem sweet or innocent. I didn’t ever delude myself that Emily needed me. At not even two, she could fend for herself just fine.
“Mommy,” she said. “Princess Rosa going to a party.”
“Well, we should let her go to the party, because we have to go home.”
“Nooooooo,” Emily howled. It could never be easy. After a long day at work, I didn’t know how patient I could be. Why couldn’t she for once make it easy?