Well, it would be perfect timing unless Martha messed it all up. In the last year or so, Martha had been making noises about wanting to go back to work after her baby was born. Carmen had already decided that she wasn’t going to let that happen—and this lunch was an intervention.
Carmen knew she had to be subtle. Best not to launch into the importance of being home straight away. Carmen suspected that Martha secretly sided with Heather, Elizabeth, and Sara, who thought that working was an essential part of staying whole and happy. To Carmen, staying at home was a job in and of itself. And it certainly wasn’t a mistake, as Heather had said to Martha at that disaster of a dinner in Chicago several years ago (what a pretentious bitch Heather had been that night). And then there was what happened to Martha after Jack was born and she was trying to work and juggle everything all alone. If Carmen had not intervened then, things would be very different indeed. Carmen hoped she would not have to bring that part up.
Carmen had found a cozy table in the corner and sat waiting for Martha, twirling her wild brown curls that framed a still unlined heart-shaped face. After a few minutes, she saw her old friend waddling in. Carmen couldn’t help but giggle. Martha’s five-foot-nine frame was skinny absolutely all over save for what looked like a pumpkin hiding under her tunic. That poor girl.
As she carefully lowered herself into the chair, Martha glared at Carmen and said, “Yeah, yeah, go ahead and laugh. Enjoy!”
“Hey, at least your perfect blond ponytail still looks great,” Carmen teased. “So how’s the rental?”
Exhaling loudly and twisting around looking for a comfortable position that didn’t exist, Martha said, “You know, it’s actually pretty nice. The houses here are so much bigger for the money than in Boston. Five bedrooms, Sub-Zero fridge, lake view, the works, all for under seven figures. Robert is excited about the school. It’s called the University School. I wanted to try public school. Some of the northern suburban school districts like Shorewood and Whitefish Bay are supposed to be really good. That’s what Elizabeth says anyway. But Robert thinks we’re better off in the bigger house farther north where there are lower taxes so we can afford a private school. I didn’t want to fight about it, since the boys are so young. Who knows how long we’ll be here anyway.”
“Martha, you wouldn’t know the first thing about a public education.” Carmen laughed. A little more seriously, she asked, “Are things going better for the boys at school?”
“They seem okay, I guess. I found out that Bobby’s first-grade class had three other new kids this year, so that’s not too bad. I think the school gets a lot of executive types who are coming and going. But he told me that some of the kids are mean. So, you know, it’s a process. The kids in Jack’s 4K still don’t seem to know where the bathroom is, so he’s good,” Martha joked, but then, her mood changing, she crossed her hands on the table and sighed. “I know it’s hard to move schools for Bobby, but I mean, what was I supposed to do? Have the baby by myself in Boston in March in one of those polar vortex snowstorms? I’m not sure Robert really thought about how hard it would be on us to move. You know, the snow here might actually be worse than Boston, which I didn’t think was possible. How do you even put a baby in a car seat in the snow nine months pregnant?”
Martha shifted again in search of the elusive comfortable position. “Robert tries to help, but he has this knack for being physically present but mentally disengaged when he’s with the family. I shouldn’t complain about him, but sometimes I get so tired, Carmen.”
Carmen reached across the table and squeezed Martha’s hand. “Hey, you’re allowed to complain. You are raising two little kids going on three, and with Robert’s schedule, you’re basically doing it as a single mom in a city where you know like two people. It’s impossible and you’re doing great. And think how lucky you are. I would have killed for another kid or three.”
Martha squeezed Carmen’s hand back, and a quiet moment passed between them.
Trying not to let the sadness creep up, Carmen said, “And how’s my good friend Evelyn?”
Smiling again, Martha said, “Oh, Carmen, you should hear my mom talk to her friends. Even with all their fancy educations, I don’t think any of them could locate Wisconsin on a map if they tried. Robert told her that the position at Children’s might only be for a year, so she’s calling it his ‘ex-pat’ assignment. I mean, really, like Wisconsin’s another country.”
Carmen grinned, remembering the first day she met Evelyn.
It was move-in day at Dartmouth. Her dorm was called the Choates. She had no idea how to pronounce it, and she wasn’t going to try until she heard it come out of someone else’s mouth. She was a long way from Texas, and she was determined not to make rookie mistakes.
As she and her parents walked into her new room, they had been greeted by three people who collectively looked well, pastel, for lack of a better word. The dad had been wearing pink pants, and the mom had been wearing a cotton shift dress with an unappealing floral motif that wasn’t doing her emaciated frame any favors. Carmen did like the mom’s canvas tote, though. It screamed, I belong here, Carmen had thought. Behind her parents, a pale, rail-thin girl with stick-straight long, blond hair (kind of the color of a wheat field, Carmen had thought) sat on one of the two twin beds in the room surrounded by her matching monogrammed luggage (the same canvas as the mom’s tote, of course). She looked kind of miserable, Carmen remembered thinking.
“Hello, dear,” the mom had said. “You must be Martha’s roommate! How exciting that she gets to learn about your culture!”
Great, Carmen had thought. Here we go again. To her credit, the girl reddened a bit and opened her mouth to object, but before she could get a word out, Carmen’s father had lunged forward and boomed, “I guess you mean Texas culture! Hey, we’re all Americans, right?” Pink pants flinched at the volume and took a quick step back.
“Oh, of course,” the mom had stammered while she looked back and forth in confusion at Carmen’s very white father and very not-white mother. Not knowing what to do, she shook hands with Carmen’s father while taking in his cowboy boots.
Carmen had immediately known that quietly blending in would not be in the cards that day. She remembered thinking it was going to be a long four years as she watched her parents pull away.
But she had been wrong. It had turned out to be an amazing four years. She and Martha might have been from different worlds, but they were the same where it counted. After a few months they were as thick as thieves, and Martha was her official tour guide for all things East Coast. They also got friendly with the girls across the hall—Heather and Elizabeth—both girls from the Midwest. A fifth girl who lived on their floor, Sara, a third midwesterner, quickly joined their band, a victim of a bad roommate match.
After those four years, Carmen had forgotten what it felt like to be an outsider. She was just Carmen.
A waitress came over for their drink orders, and Martha asked for a triple espresso.
“Good God, you never change. That much caffeine all at once is really not good for you or the baby,” said Carmen, feeling a little alarm bell go off in her mind. “She’ll have a water too,” she instructed the waitress.
“So,” said Carmen carefully, “what have you decided about work? I know that you had planned to go back when Jack started 4K, but with the baby, don’t you think it makes sense to give it a few more years? I mean, what’s the rush?”
Be gentle, Carmen reminded herself. But she knew she had to remind Martha of how hard the mom job really was. Especially as the kids got older. Martha’s oldest, Bobby, was only in first grade, and the job didn’t get any easier. Of all of Martha’s friends, Carmen was the only one that had been a full-time stay-at-home mom all these years. Even if she hadn’t ever had an outside job, as her mom friends used to say, Carmen had worked her ass off since graduating from Dartmouth almost twenty years ago. Playground monitor. PTA president. Manager of her daughter’s sometimes grueling dance schedule.
Head of the local Gold Coast community association (and chair of the beautification and historical preservation subcommittee). It really irritated her over the years when Heather, Sara, or Elizabeth insinuated that she must have all the time in the world. They had no idea how much work volunteering and full-on mothering with no help really was. And even though Carmen sometimes longed for the exciting job she had missed out on, she would remind herself that the working moms she knew at Avery’s school always seemed exhausted, and though they might show up for the occasional field trip or concert, they were never fully part of things.
In any case, this was her chance to convince Martha to make the right decision, not just for the sake of her kids, but also for the sake of her health and sanity. And maybe if Martha didn’t go back to work, Carmen could see more of her, which would make life a little less lonely. But Martha had been programmed from birth by her uptight Boston clan to be a world-beater, and Carmen knew she was going to have to dig in if she wanted to win the argument.
Carmen continued, “So, I was thinking that we should make some summer plans, you and me. Lake Geneva is gorgeous in the summer, and I’d love to have you come down for a while. The house won’t be totally finished, but close enough. It would be like glamping.”
“Maybe,” said Martha slowly, avoiding Carmen’s gaze. “I’m actually planning to get a summer nanny so I can get back to work. If I can get something going, I could keep her in the fall or maybe just put the baby in day care. Anyway, I don’t know how things are going to go.”
Carmen couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Look, you know what I think. I know your parents, and certainly Heather, and probably Elizabeth and Sara, too, think continuing staying home is a mistake for you,” replied Carmen as calmly as she could. “Don’t forget that Heather and Elizabeth have huge amounts of help at home. We all know Phil is doing all the dirty work. Or at least he has to coordinate the army of people they have raising their kids and keeping their house in order. And don’t forget that Elizabeth has William. You and I don’t have a William. And Sara, well, I think that’s really good evidence for my argument right there. I’m worried one of these days she is going to drive her Odyssey right over a cliff because she’s so stressed and distracted.”
“That’s not fair, Carmen,” scolded Martha. “Sara is a really good mom. You can figure out both parents working. People do it all the time.”
“Maybe, but four kids and both parents working is actually just too much. You remember when Sara moved from New York to my neck of the woods and she blew off every invitation from me to do stuff, right? I mean, I get that she’s busy, but there’s busy and then there’s no-life busy. C’mon, Martha. I know you. Is the Sara life really the life you want? Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should, you know.”
Carmen was on a roll. “Please just enjoy that baby. It will be your last one. Seriously, what’s a few more years? It’s not like you need the money or anything. And we’ll have fun—I promise. It will be just like the good old days.”
“I’ve been home over three years now. It’s already been too long. And besides, when my boys are in school in the fall, we’ll have time to do stuff. Doctors get time off, you know,” countered Martha.
“Listen, you put your baby in day care, you’ll have hand, foot, and mouth disease within the month,” Carmen teased, taking a different tack and hoping Martha would relent.
But Martha wasn’t having it. “Carmen, you know I love being home with the boys. But I miss medicine so much. I worked so hard for it, and I really thought that I could do both. I don’t think it’s fair that I have to bear the burden of making sure the children Robert and I created are getting everything they need. Really, we are both doctors and both parents. Why is this my burden alone?” Martha’s eyes welled up a little, and she looked away in embarrassment.
“I know,” said Carmen softly, “I really do get it. I never asked Mark to lift a finger, but my situation was always different. Look, if working is what you want, you should do it. I love you and will support you no matter what, you know that. But Robert is not going to be a different guy. So I would quit being disappointed on that score. You have to do what’s right for you and what’s right for the family. Don’t you think just focusing on the mom job will give you the most happiness in the long run? I see those exhausted working moms all the time, and they look miserable.”
“I guess,” said Martha slowly, “but there’s nothing like doing a job you were trained to do and doing it well.”
“Martha, don’t forget what happened the last time,” Carmen reminded her gently. Carmen remembered getting the text from Martha and rushing to Boston to take care of her boys while Martha locked herself away in her bedroom and slept. Robert had been in Europe on another one of his work trips. “Anxiety,” the doctor had said. “Your friend just needs some time to rest.” Martha had sworn Carmen to secrecy and decided not even to tell Robert. And it had stayed their secret since.
“Carmen, I’m better now, and I can handle it this time. And I don’t want to talk about it again. You promised we wouldn’t talk about it,” said Martha quietly as she stared down at her hands, which she was kneading in her lap.
After a pause, Martha continued, “Anyway, I have a call scheduled for Friday with an old med school classmate who might be able to get me a position at a local clinic he runs. I owe it to myself to look into it. Carmen, do you ever think about how weird it is that we started out so ambitious and driven in college, and now here we are not working? I don’t know, I feel like if women like us can’t get this figured out, then nobody can, you know what I mean? We started out with every advantage. Especially me.”
Carmen didn’t know what to say to that, so she decided to say nothing for the time being. She was clearly losing the battle. And Martha was going down that old, bad road again. This would not be the last conversation they would have, vowed Carmen.
After a prolonged silence, Martha made an attempt to change the subject. “So what’s the plan for our girls’ weekend?”
“Well, Heather has already bailed,” said Carmen dramatically, trying to put her concern to the side and rolling her eyes for good measure. “No surprise there. She’s working on some secret project.”
“You know, I’m not sure I care that she’s not coming,” said Martha matter-of-factly. “Ever since she was so judgy at that dinner after Jack was born, well, let’s just say I’ve had trouble enjoying her company.”
“This is what I’ve been saying for years,” agreed Carmen.
“But Elizabeth and Heather are kind of a package deal, aren’t they?” Martha sighed.
“And Heather does pony up the free stuff. Do you remember when she sent us all those e-readers preloaded with hundreds of books? Not bad,” Carmen conceded. “So we should consider that.”
The waitress returned with their drinks.
“Is Mark excited for the new house in Lake Geneva?” asked Martha.
“You know, he said he would get up from the city more, but he’s so busy,” said Carmen.
“Hmmm. Well, I hope he appreciates all the effort you are going to,” said Martha with suspicion.
“I’m sure he does,” responded Carmen brightly. “But, well, it’s hard sometimes—”
Suddenly, Martha interjected, “Oh God, I have to go to the bathroom, again! When will this be over?”
Carmen laughed and watched her friend negotiate her way to the bathroom at the back of the café. Carmen had been about to admit that things with Mark weren’t so great. It was the one area that she never wanted to discuss with Martha, though, because she just couldn’t face the truth herself, and talking to Martha about it would make it real.
And if she and Mark could just get pregnant it could be different. No, it would be different. He would stop making excuses for why he couldn’t get up to Lake Geneva from the city. And if there was something there, well, it couldn’t compete with what she could give him—loyalty, family, a shared history.
By the time Martha came back from the bathroom, talk of Mark was forgotten, and the girls filled the rest of their lunch talking about house stuff, both of them happy to avoid deeper conversation.
MARTHA
A few days had passed since Martha met Carmen for lunch, but the conversation had stuck with her. As she sat in the stiff, narrow, and unyielding chair outside the office of the head of the lower school where Bobby and Jack were enrolled, waiting for her appointment, she considered whether Carmen was right.
Martha really did enjoy being able to be there for so many things she would have otherwise missed. It was the small things at the strangest times. And mostly in the car, it seemed. Maybe on the way to school when they wanted just one more hug before starting their day. Or, even more likely, on the way back when they forgot she was there and spilled their secrets to each other with no apparent filter.
But being a doctor was more than just getting up and going to a job. It was being the person who solved the puzzle and helped set someone else’s life back on the right course. It was time for her to get back that part of who she was. And this time she would do things differently. She wouldn’t let it all fall apart again.
As she decided that she would move ahead with her call tomorrow with her old classmate, she heard the office assistant call her name.
“Mrs. West, the dean will see you now.”
Martha rose from the chair and walked into the dean’s office, quickly locating the widest available seat.
All the Right Mistakes Page 2