She was excited to show him her city in the morning. To take him to Central Park if it wasn’t too cold.
How can you not want another when you’re so great with him? Andrew had said.
She was stubborn; she knew that. Maybe she ought to consider what he wanted.
Elisabeth had always been ambitious, self-interested; you had to be to make it in the city. The first few months of Gil’s life were easier than she’d imagined. Friends said the shock of having to be everything for someone else had depressed them. But in her case, it was simple when she gave her whole self over to him. Things got trickier when part of the old Elisabeth returned.
A month ago, she spoke to a class at the college. She arrived for Narrative Nonfiction 201 feeling far more nervous than she had expected to. The professor, Gwen’s neighbor, read Elisabeth’s bio aloud as an introduction. Elisabeth could tell the students were impressed.
They had a million questions. Afterward, they all wanted her email address.
Walking home that day, she thought about her nineteen-year-old self. If she heard all this, she would be amazed.
“They made me feel like I’ve made it,” she said to Andrew later. “I never feel that way.”
Ever since, Elisabeth had felt fiercely ambitious again. She wanted to work on her new book. She had ideas for articles, op-eds she might write, if she ever found the time. Whereas once having a sitter three days a week had seemed like a lot, she already knew that, after Sam graduated, she would hire someone full-time. She needed more hours to spend immersed in her work.
A second child would make that impossible, put her right back where she was nine months ago.
For an instant, looking at Gil, Elisabeth imagined two—riding down the driveway in their double stroller, babbling away to each other. But the image didn’t stick.
She saw herself instead in her office, working again. It was a small space on the first floor of a building downtown. It had only one window. Her kitchen table might have been a preferable place to write, but at the office, she could be truly alone. She only rented the space from noon to four. Other people worked there at different hours of the day. They weren’t supposed to leave stuff, but she sometimes caught traces of them. A CVS receipt. A Chinese takeout container in the trash.
There were days when she went into that room and fell asleep with her head on the desk. Days when she went to the BK Mamas page and typed something into the search box—best infant booties or nine month sleep regression—and found herself leaping from one post to another, to someone’s personal page, to a link to People magazine, emerging hours later, disgusted, as if she’d gorged on the complete contents of her refrigerator.
But on the days when it went well, when she left with something to show for the time spent, Elisabeth felt proud, powerful. She was happy to be back in front of her laptop, wrestling with the best way to tell a story, listening to interviews she had recorded with female athletes and policy makers a year ago. Nothing else had ever consumed her the way writing did. When she was in the zone, she might look up thinking an hour had passed, when really she had been at it half the day.
Time now could be measured by the fullness of her breasts. She was still nursing, and often pumped at her desk while she worked. Once, a man burst right in, staring down at his phone and then up at her—Elisabeth had just finished pumping, and was about to transfer her milk into a baby bottle to bring home. She stood in the middle of the room, bra unhooked, breasts out. She held a rubber nipple in her mouth.
After the longest pause of all time, the guy said, “This is not the men’s room,” and fled.
Alone, Elisabeth laughed like she hadn’t in ages.
* * *
—
In the morning, Andrew kissed her.
The sex, it seemed, had eclipsed the unpleasant dinner.
She was relieved that there would be no need for apologies, rehashing.
They spent a glorious Sunday that made her wonder why they ever left this place—an early haircut, brunch and the park and drinks with old friends, followed by dinner, just the three of them, at a French restaurant by the hotel. The waiter gave Gil three crayons, and before they could protest that he was too young, Gil was drawing a red line on the white paper that covered the table.
“He’s brilliant, isn’t he?” Andrew said, as if confessing something.
“I think so,” she said, nodding.
She never could have predicted how moved they both would be by moments like this one. They had watched Gil grow from a blurry bean on a black-and-white screen into a human with arms and legs and ears; and then from someone who could not hold up his own head into the child who sat before them now, gnawing on a dinner roll.
“Oh!” she said. “I forgot to tell you. He got a new tooth.”
“Where? Where?” Andrew said, and she was struck by the sensation that all she needed in the world were these two. That she would do anything to keep them.
* * *
—
On Monday morning, Elisabeth headed out to meet Nomi, feeling excited to an extent that bordered on ridiculous.
The air was cold, but she decided to walk downtown.
Passing certain street corners, she saw former versions of herself. The spot where, at twenty-five, she kissed a handsome bartender on the doorstep of an abandoned building, which had since become a ramen shop and then a bank. A sign advertised luxury apartments coming soon.
In Herald Square, she breathed in the familiar sweet smell of warm chestnuts, a food she had never tasted.
She passed the jewelry store where, at twenty-one, she spent an entire afternoon in the waiting room while her boss’s watch got fixed. Elisabeth sat there, drinking a complimentary espresso, watching rich women in furs file in, this errand their only plan for the day. When the jeweler gave her the watch back, she tucked it into her coat pocket and wandered around SoHo for an hour before returning to work. A delicious feeling, like she was getting away with something.
Outside what used to be Mexican Radio, Elisabeth had a memory of a night in May, or early June, one of the first perfect summer evenings, warm, a sparkle in the air. She and her friend Rachel sat at an outdoor table, drinking margaritas at five in the afternoon. At the next table were two guys, one much cuter than the other. They flirted across the aisle, and then at some point, tables got pulled together. They went to a bar and another bar and another bar, until it was 3:00 a.m. at Pianos, and the cute one said, “Let’s go back to my place. It’s right around the corner.”
He meant all four of them. He and Rachel disappeared into the bedroom for an hour while Elisabeth talked to the funny one out on the couch. They were both coming off heartbreaks. They commiserated, exchanged numbers, though neither of them ever called.
That previous spring, she had lost twelve pounds from grief. Nomi tried to force her to eat, but Elisabeth kept saying she couldn’t taste anything since Jacob left.
Jacob. Memories of him were hidden around this city like Easter eggs. The night they met, at someone’s birthday party, out in the backyard at Sweet and Vicious; their first kiss, standing in line for a movie at the Angelika. All the basement clubs and bars where she went to see his band play; the Strand bookstore, where he worked by day. He told her he loved her for the first time in his apartment on Saint Mark’s. Not long after, he moved into her place. Two years later, he told her his father was leaving his mother, that Elisabeth’s father was to blame, that he never wanted to see her again. There was nothing she could do to persuade him otherwise.
The memory of this brought on thoughts of Charlotte. Elisabeth couldn’t say she missed her, exactly. She missed what she thought they had. That solidarity, that shared sense of purpose that began when her relationship with Jacob ended. Though now she wondered if Charlotte had ever stopped taking their father’s money. Had he held the cards all along?
Her father’s way of getting Jacob out of her life had sickened Elisabeth for so long. The way it happened sickened her still. But what would have become of the two of them otherwise?
Jacob, she realized, had been her Clive.
Over the years, Elisabeth had looked him up on Facebook from time to time. He still looked good. The band never took off. He worked in a bookstore in Seattle now. He had a rocker-chick girlfriend who seemed to own nothing but black bandage dresses. He held a beer in every photograph. As far as she could tell, Jacob had never grown up.
* * *
—
Nomi was waiting for her outside the spa.
They ran to each other, squealing, hugging tight.
In the lounge, they sat on a velvet sofa in fluffy white robes, gossiping and sipping cucumber water. They had arrived forty-five minutes early to do this. Nomi had instructed her assistant to tell anyone who asked that she was in her office, behind closed doors, on an important call that should not be interrupted for any reason.
Elisabeth’s masseuse was a woman in her sixties with tight gray curls. She felt a bit jealous at first that Nomi had gotten the one in her twenties, with a pixie cut and yoga-toned arms. But the older woman proved to be stronger than she looked. Elisabeth felt herself relax under her touch.
When she was pregnant, and for a long time after, she felt like her body was no longer hers. She was in service to another life, a tiny stranger. Women complained that no one ever told you the specifics of birth. But by the time Elisabeth had Gil, she had heard it all. Friends told her how you bled for weeks after. How Pitocin might make you shake uncontrollably on the table, and that if they gave it to you, chances were you were headed for a C-section. One friend had the epidural needle stuck straight into a nerve and could never feel the urge to pee again. Another had a piece of her placenta left inside her and, months later, was forced to deliver it.
When it came time for Elisabeth’s turn, the whole thing had been demystified to the point where she envied some young thing coming in with no idea of what was about to happen to her.
Gil’s birth was easy, unremarkable, as births went.
Two days after getting home from the hospital, Elisabeth held a hand mirror between her legs, even though the nurses had warned her not to. She looked, and the words that came to mind were Portal to Hell. She didn’t look again for six months.
Back then, the thought of another human being’s hands on her body could not have appealed less. But here she was, whole again already.
The massage room was lit by tea candles. Soft music played.
Elisabeth lay facedown on the table, her forehead resting on a U-shaped pillow that smelled of eucalyptus.
She was just beginning to relax when Nomi said, “How’s Andrew doing with the Denver news? What’s going to happen with his invention?”
Elisabeth groaned. It was the last thing she wanted to think about.
“Who knows. I don’t see it catching fire, if I’m honest.”
“Was that a grill pun?” Nomi said.
“Ha. We’ve been arguing about it. Without actually arguing, for the most part.”
“As you do.”
Nomi was up to date on everything. Via text, she had distilled her opinion on the situation down to two sentences. You shouldn’t have lied to him, but shit happens. You can’t have a second kid to make up for what you did.
“Anyway,” Elisabeth said now. “Let me tell you something far more interesting than that. I was up late on Saturday googling Sam’s boyfriend and it turns out he was married before. I don’t think she has any idea.”
“Yikes,” Nomi said.
“And the marriage only lasted six months. I’m dying to know what happened. Did she leave him because he cheated? Is he looking for a do-over with a younger, more naïve woman? I can’t stop thinking about it. Do you think I should warn her?”
Nomi was silent for so long that Elisabeth thought she must have fallen asleep.
Then Nomi said, “Are you okay?” in such a concerned way that Elisabeth felt embarrassed that two other people were listening.
“Is it Andrew? Or your dad? Or all of it?”
“What do you mean?”
“You focus on someone else’s problems when you want to avoid whatever’s upsetting you in your own life. That’s your thing.”
The comment stung, but Elisabeth thought it over.
“Do not,” she said, when she couldn’t think of a more convincing response.
“Remember you had the cleaning lady who thought her husband was cheating, and you went full Nancy Drew on the guy? It was right after the Washington Post gave your book that bad review.”
“Well, he was cheating.”
“And when you were trying to get pregnant, that old man in your office died and you got kind of obsessed with taking care of his wife.”
“Not obsessed,” Elisabeth said. “I visited her a few times, and we talked on the phone a lot. She was lonely.”
“You made her all those cakes and roast chickens.”
“Andrew made them!”
“Because you forced him to,” Nomi said. “You’re an empath, you worry about people. It’s good.”
“Thank you.”
“But sometimes, it’s not that good.”
“I see what you’re saying, but honestly—I care about Sam because I like her so much. She’s the closest thing I have to a real friend there. Maybe that’s my problem. I have no friends.”
“I don’t have any either,” Nomi said. “It’s our age.”
“Yes, you do, you have tons. What about that blonde in your building? And that funny one who’s married to Brian’s coworker?”
“But I never see them. Anyway. Most Brooklyn moms would drive you insane, believe me.”
“We used to have so much free time,” Elisabeth said. “Don’t you miss having absolutely nothing to do on a Sunday? Or the excitement of going on a first date?”
“It wasn’t exciting, it was sickening,” Nomi said. “You’re forgetting all the things a woman worries about on a first date—Is my outfit cute? Will we have anything to talk about? Is this guy gonna murder me?”
Elisabeth laughed.
“If I lived here, I would see you all the time,” she said.
“You probably wouldn’t,” Nomi said. “We’d both be too busy.”
“We’d find a way. We always did before.”
“Maybe. But the same limited resources that make the city annoying for adults apply even more so to kids,” Nomi said. “The competition trying to get your toddler into school. Christ, trying to get a swing at the playground is a struggle. Sometimes it feels like sixth grade, when everyone bought the same sweater because the most popular girl wore it to school the day before. They all have identical strollers. What’s up with that? They truly think if you did not pay a grand for it, the wheels are going to fall off or something.”
“But you love it here.”
“I do. It’s all worth it to me. It never seemed like it was worth it to you.”
“I didn’t think it was,” Elisabeth said.
She wondered if it was in her blood, her cells, her DNA, this inability to be satisfied with what she had.
In sync, the masseuses whispered that they could slowly flip over for the second half.
The faceup part always made Elisabeth feel so much more vulnerable. Even more so since Nomi had decided to broadcast her troubles.
They lay in silence for a while.
Then Elisabeth said, “Andrew made us an appointment with Dr. Chen for later today. Without telling me.”
“Ahh,” Nomi said.
Elisabeth could hear her lifting her head.
“Now we’re getting somewhere.”
* * *
—
Everyone in
the waiting room had funeral face. Closed-lipped expressions, resigned, gloomy.
In the past, when she had to be here every day, it made Elisabeth want to shout something inappropriate, or shower the crowd in armloads of confetti. Anything to change the mood. When, one morning, a man’s phone erupted with “You down with O.P.P.” and he could not seem to turn it off, it was the greatest thing that had ever happened, or would ever happen.
She sat now, looking around at the others with an air of superiority. This was a place for the desperate. But she wasn’t desperate anymore. She didn’t even want the thing they coveted. Andrew walked in a few minutes after she did, pushing Gil in the stroller. She used to think it was insensitive to bring a child here, like walking into a diabetes clinic eating chocolate cake.
A few women looked up from their phones or magazines to examine her, and Gil. If she was feeling more charitable, Elisabeth might have said, He came from here! Don’t give up! But they didn’t smile, and so she said nothing.
Nomi was right. The city had displeased her in a hundred different ways. It was good to remember that.
Andrew kissed her on the cheek and sat down.
“How was the massage?” he said.
“Good.”
“And Nomi?”
“She’s good. What have you guys been up to?”
“Went to that diner on Seventy-second for breakfast. Gil had pancakes.”
“You did?” she said, looking at him, her voice full of cheer.
Elisabeth felt the eyes of the joyless upon her, but she didn’t care.
“You didn’t tell your parents about this, did you?” she asked.
“No,” Andrew said. “Why?”
“Just curious.”
The first time around, Faye and George let it be known that they thought IVF was a rich person thing, an urban affectation. Faye mentioned the names of celebrities she’d heard had done it. When Andrew calmly explained that the clinic would remove a single cell from each embryo for testing, Faye said, “What if the cell they take is the baby’s arm?”
Friends and Strangers Page 33