All the Time in the World (6 page)

“Your teacher told me you flushed the potty on your own! I'm so proud of you.”

“Pup!” (I am so happy that I made you so happy!)

“Want to watch Charlie Brown?”

“Pup!” (YES, immediately!)

“Mommy's home!”

“Mommy, my PUP!” (I've been dragging around this stuffed dog while you weren't home even though I know I'm not supposed to take him out of my bed and I kind of thought you'd never come back so now I'm confessing to you that I have this dog but it's all okay because you're here now so I don't need him except I still a little bit do and now I have BOTH OF YOU.)

George is calm, and after a fifteen-minute bout of transitional wrath when I dared to ask him to put on his own pajamas, Matt is relatively calm too.

“Me bring Pup out to the table. He watch me eat.” Sometimes George thinks if he inserts the proper authority into his tone, I'll forget who's in charge and go right along with whatever he suggests.

“I think your Pup needs to stay here, bug. You don't want him to get all messy at the dinner table.”

“We watch Diego while we eat?”

“George,” says Matt, walking in the door and draping himself onto my back with his arms over my shoulders. “Wouldn't you rather watch that movie Mommy taped?”

I stand up with Matt on my back and George on my front, and we make our way down the hall, laughing. Gretchen has somehow transformed into trendy-restaurant attire without anyone noticing and is spooning homemade sauce onto stuffed shells. I'm wary that she's done something to those stuffed shells to make them more nutritious.

I lift Georgie up into his booster chair. “Mommy, you tape a movie for us? We watch it?”

“I did,” Gretchen says. “And if you're good during dinner, you can watch it with Charlotte before bed.”

“You going to eat dinner?” George asks.

“Yes, Daddy and I are going to eat dinner at a restaurant,” she says. “But we'll come in and give you hugs and kisses when we get home.”

“I will give no kisses. There's no one in this house I want to kiss,” says Scotty, appearing in the doorway. He must have come straight from the airport; I think he's been in Abu Dhabi for most of the past week. I'm surprised that none of us heard his key in the latch, not even Georgie and his superhuman senses.

“You always want to kiss Mommy,” Matt says, as a point of fact.

“That's true,” he says. “Especially when she looks like this.”

Gretchen slides her hands under his suit jacket and helps him off with it. “Take a load off,” she tells him. “Our reservation is not until eight.”

“Oh, Charlotte, I'll take over with that,” Scotty says. I am cutting Georgie's shells into tiny pieces. “Do you think he'll fare better with a spoon or a fork?”

“A spoon, I think,” I say as I vacate the seat. “But Gretchen put both out.” I collect a few of the empty dishes sitting on the table and take them to the kitchen to rinse out.

“Did you eat yet?” Scotty calls to me as he sits down to monitor the spoon's continued back and forth progress in George's airspace.

“Not yet,” I say.

“Would you like some shells? Or do you want to order in?” Gretchen asks, and I wish that I was not the focus of this conversation. I haven't begun to think about what I might want for dinner. Plus, the low-fat ricotta spilling out of the whole-wheat shells is laced with something green, probably spinach, maybe kale, and I'm not sure I can stomach it.

“I think I'll probably eat after these guys are in bed,” I say.

“Well, I'll leave some cash on the counter. Please get whatever you want,” says Gretchen.

“Or you can order from our Seamless account on the computer, if you'd rather,” calls Scotty. They are determined to feed me.

“Thank you,” I say, loading the dishes into the dishwasher.

“Do you have any Valentine's plans?” Gretchen asks me. I take my time deciding which sponge will better scrape the remains of George's collard greens out of his Sonic the Hedgehog bowl. This bowl is old-school, I note. It must have belonged to Scotty or Gretchen as a child. Even if I could put aside the boss aspects of Gretchen for a while and talk to her like a regular person, there are three other sets of ears in the vicinity that wouldn't necessarily appreciate the gospel truth about my Valentine's agenda, which will most likely involve an argument with Everett about the Philharmonic, sex I'm not proud of, and using the rest of that expensive bottle of liquor that he brought to distract me from my troubles instead of celebrate his victory.

“I have many plans,” I say, making my way back to the table and sitting down next to Matt. “All of them involve some form of chocolate. It's going to be carnage. You won't want to be anywhere near it.” Gretchen and Scotty laugh, and I tap the side of Matt's plate because he is staring off into space instead of eating.

“I don't want this,” he says, indicating his full-minus-two-bites plate of shells and sauce. “I want avocado.”

“I will give you half an avocado if you eat half of this plate,” I say. The nightly dinner-bargain has begun. Georgie, on the other hand, is squirreling his food into his cheeks and refusing to swallow, causing him to choke every so often and Scotty to run open-mouth checks, like a nurse in a mental hospital distributing pills. Matt only wants to eat what he likes at the moment; George would rather not eat at all. Teaching these kids to be independent eaters is the best ongoing lesson in patience that I've ever experienced, and on days like today, I have to squash my natural impulses, which run along the lines of taking away their plates when they start their pint-sized negotiations and letting them learn not to complain by going to bed with empty bellies.

“Can I have a pickle?” asks Matt. Other little boys can be sent into spasms of joy by the prospect of eating an ice cream cone. For these little boys, a pickle does the trick.

“Take three bites of dinner, and I'll give you a pickle,” I say, getting up again to see what else might be in the refrigerator.

“I didn't get a roll,” he says.

“Matthew, I told you the other day that we're not eating rolls until after dinner. Otherwise, you get too full, remember?” Gretchen calls from the kitchen, where I see she has counted out sixty dollars and laid it on the counter next to her laptop, which is open to the Seamless page. What does she imagine I'll be ordering for dinner, I wonder, that will cost me that much money? “Please let Charlotte see you take some bites, and then we'll see about a pickle or some avocado.”

“I don't feel like eating. I want someone to help me,” Matt says, and this is enough to push Scotty over the edge.

“Matthew, you will eat what is in front of you, and you will eat it now, son. Otherwise, I am taking your plate to the kitchen, and you can go right to bed and not eat again until breakfast.” I can see that Matt is regretting pushing his luck. Scotty is not to be bargained with. I sit back down next to the little sourpuss and try, without much success, to look sympathetic as we all finish dinner in relative silence.

“Do you want to watch the movie now and eat your special Valentine's cookies on the couch?” Gretchen asks.

“Valentine's Day is not until tomorrow,” says tired, droopy Matt as he allows himself to be shepherded to the couch.

“I know. But Daddy and I are going to celebrate tonight with each other, and then we'll celebrate with you boys tomorrow.”

“Valentine's Day is Daddy's favorite holiday,” adds Scotty, lifting Georgie off his booster seat and dumping him next to Matt on the couch, where he promptly flops over and closes his eyes. Georgie will not see one frame of this movie. “So I try to make it go on for as many days as possible.”

“Why is it your favorite holiday, Daddy?” asks Matt.

“Because Mommy always gives me a present that I really, really like,” Scotty says, and I laugh and then try to pretend I wasn't laughing, I didn't get it. It's okay though, because Gretchen laughs too and whacks Scotty on the arm.

“What is it?” Matt persists, but he is losing steam as Gretchen cues up
A Charlie Brown Valentine.

“It's a little different every year,” says Scotty, sounding like Matt when he's trying to see how much he can get away with.

“He says, like he only gets a present
once a year
,” says Gretchen. “Makes me want to keep the supercool skinny tie I got you at Banana Republic today and use it as a headband.”

“Maybe George could use it as a leash for Pup,” says Scotty.

“Are you ready to go?” she asks.

“Yes, immediately,” Scotty says, kissing both boys.

“It won't be too long before this one drops, and then you can change the channel to C-span, turn off the sound, and analyze your boyfriend Jay Carney's microexpressions,” Gretchen says to me, smoothing Matt's hair back.

“Exactly. That will keep me entertained for hours, so no need to hurry back, you two.” Gretchen and Scotty head out the door and press the button for the elevator.

“If this restaurant is everything
The New York Times
promises,” Gretchen calls back, “I'll make sure to bring you a foil swan.”

“You know me so well. Seriously. Get out of my head.” I shut the door behind them and head back to my couch of fallen comrades.

Valentine's Day

I wake up disoriented the next morning. The light through my window is coming in at an angle I don't recognize, and it's a gray, filtering light. I look at my phone, and it is almost 9:30. The night before, Gretchen told me that she and Scotty would get the kids off to school this morning since I was at their house so late. I never get to sleep in like this, except on Sunday.

There is a text from Gretchen, and for a moment I panic, thinking she changed her mind and I was too dead asleep to answer my phone. It's not the case though (“Good morning! I have a client uptown at 11:30—should be home by 1 or so. See if G will eat some peas with his sweet potato and chicken?”). I put the covers back over my head for another twenty minutes until I can summon the willpower to get up and grind some coffee beans.

I turn on NPR and grab the newspaper from the mat outside my apartment door. Out the window I can see streaks of rain hitting the glass, and I wonder how many Valentine plans will be reimagined because of nasty weather.

I open my e-mail, and there's one from my mother entitled “Perfect for you??” I scroll through the job listing from my hometown, a local car dealership looking for someone to write and produce a jingle for their upcoming TV and radio spots.

Another text comes in, this time from Everett. “I'm sorry.”

I delete it and click over to WhiteHouse.gov on my laptop to watch the press briefing from yesterday while I drink my third cup of coffee. It's coming at me from all sides today.

When I'm done admiring Jay Carney's tenacious and charming ability to stay on message, I click back to my e-mail and drag my mom's most recent attempt into the folder with the rest of them. She knows better than to bombard me. The dozen or so job postings she's sent me in the past two years have been carefully selected, all from my hometown and the surrounding area, or Craigslist postings she found while searching under New York City. At the bottom of the folder is a grant application she sent me. I filled it out last year but stopped short of sending it when I realized that a professional recommendation was required to complete it. The deadline stands out to me, July 31, and I wonder if it's the same every year. I e-mail the website to myself, just as another text from Everett comes in.

“I shouldn't have hounded you like that.” Delete.

I check the weather report before I attempt to figure out what I'm wearing. It's in the forties, but it's expected to rain all day, and the wind is apparently coming in from two directions in periodic gusts. I can hear it knocking the scaffolding around my building against itself. It's a trick to figure out what to wear for an entire day out of my own house in weather like this, especially when there's stroller hauling involved.

A third text. “I'm the worst. Judgy wudgy was a bear.”

I text him back. “EW. STOP.”

“I thought if I put it in kid terms you might talk to me.”

“I'm not not-talking to you. Can't talk NOW. On my way to work.”

“Okay. I'm coming for you later.” I have no idea what that means.

I finally opt for yoga pants, several layers of thin sweaters, and a raincoat on the clothing front. An umbrella will be useless in the wind. Wellies are a given, so I pull on boot socks over my pants.

I grab the crosstown bus on Seventy-Ninth, but by the time I walk uptown from the bus stop and make it into the lobby at North-Mad, I may as well have jumped into the East River. As I am wringing myself out, I see through the large glass panels into the crazy obstacle course this school calls a gym, where they teach the kids karate, yoga, rock climbing, parkour, and general fearlessness. The kindergarteners are climbing up an unstable rope ladder onto a ten-foot pile of molded foam rocks then jumping into the soft-foam ravine below. Some kids are somersaulting into it. Matt is standing with Ainsley and another little girl named Samantha, waiting his turn to careen headlong through space. I wave to him and then point to George's classroom, where the kids are lined up and ready to go.

“Me wave to Matt,” says George, and I leave him next to the window while I venture over to exhume our stroller from the gridlocked parking situation. A nice, out-of-place-looking dad who is on the verge of mangling his Gucci suit by offering to lift out each stroller hands me ours. I see that Gretchen has left me the plastic stroller cover to keep Georgie dry. She also left an umbrella in the bottom for me. It's Burberry. I hope I don't lose it.

By the time George and I are properly encased in our foul weather gear, it's a quarter after twelve. I sprint to their apartment with the stroller, thankful that it's so close, and when we arrive, I see that George has fallen asleep under the protection and warmth of the plastic. Apparently, we will be rearranging the order of things today. If I wake him up by 1:30, we'll have time to eat and run out to get Matt at 3:00. Or he can stay home with Gretchen while I run out by myself, which would be easiest.