Balancing Acts (14 page)

Why had she decided to come in here? The last time she had set foot inside this place, her life had come crashing down all around her. She and Neil had been fighting all the time. He had suddenly become an aggressive super-guru of sorts—filling his days with meditation and yoga on her dime because he didn't have a job. She would come home after a full day of work to find him meditating in their tiny studio apartment. He would ask her to join him and she would refuse. She just wanted a bit of space and time to herself, and if that involved
Access Hollywood
, then so be it. They would hiss at each other and, inevitably, he would leave in a huff, and she would cry into her Lean Cuisine. Charlie sighed heavily, remembering.

Her Lean Cuisine nights had become more and more routine as Neil began to avoid her altogether by never being home. She began to miss him, and then her paranoia set in. If he wasn't with her, where the hell was he? How many meditation workshops could one man take? He certainly wasn't working anywhere. Her account balance told her that much.

She had set out one night on a walk through their neighborhood, peering into their haunts hoping to catch a glimpse of him and disgusted by her own desperation. Suddenly, she had found him. At this bar. Their bar. She had walked in, hoping to sidle up to him and tell him she missed him, when she had seen that he was not alone. Beside him sat a woman—the term
woman
loosely applied, as she didn't look a day over nineteen—batting her eyes at him coquettishly. Charlie's stomach had dropped into her shoes. Instinctually, she knew that this nymph was trouble. As she approached, Neil turned, his eyes conveying shock and then, quickly, fright. Trouble indeed.

“Charlie!” he had exclaimed overzealously. “Hey! This is Luna. She's in my yoga class.”

Luna!?
“Hello,” she murmured.

Luna looked Charlie up and down with contempt. “Hi,” she answered. No guilt, no nothing. Just two yoga friends out for a drink.
Yeah, right.
Charlie had wanted to rip Luna's blond braids out of her head. The conversation between the three of them had been stilted and awkward, with Neil attempting to cover his tracks and failing miserably. Luna had proved to be as annoying as she appeared, talking incessantly about her spiritual awakening in Starbucks months earlier.
Starbucks
. As she droned on, Charlie knew. She knew that either Neil was fucking her or wanted to fuck this dumb little girl. It was over. Neil had left with Charlie that night, but their walk home was a silent one. There was nothing to say. A few weeks later, when Neil announced that he was leaving Charlie for Luna because “they had more of a spiritual connection,” Charlie had not been surprised.

She finished her drink, wondering if they were still together. She hoped that Luna had left Neil's ass in the dust as karmic retribution. She took a deep “woe is me” breath for good measure, and shook her head back and forth, reeling a little from the combination of heavy food, drink, and her walk down memory lane. She paid up and walked outside into the wind, stumbling slightly. The subway entrance seemed miles away suddenly. She raised her hand to hail a cab. Tonight, she deserved door-to-door ser vice.

M
ommmm! Where's my backpack?” shrieked Noah.

Naomi, lying on her bed with a cold washcloth over her eyes, cringed at the decibel of his voice. She pulled her self-made compress from her face. Last night had marked her second monstrous headache that week. They had both appeared from out of nowhere and knocked her sideways. Thankfully, the first one had struck at night, when Noah was in bed, but last night, it had hit in the early evening just as she was making him dinner. Heavy and merciless, it had crept up from the top of her neck and lodged itself in the right side of her brain. Somehow she had been able to get Noah's fish sticks cooked and out on the table, but that was about all the energy she was able to muster. She had told Noah that she didn't feel well and taken refuge in her dark bedroom. Lying on her bed, the pain in her skull seemed to pulse into the mattress, making the entire room vibrate. Noah had come in to comfort her, his fright apparent. He had put his warm little paw on her forehead and snuggled in beside her for a few minutes. Virtually incapacitated, Naomi had asked him if he could put himself to bed. He had nodded solemnly that yes, he could. This morning, after half a bottle of Motrin, a heating pad, and maybe two hours of sleep tops, she could barely function.

Noah, however, had been operating at full speed since 6
AM
—barely able to contain his excitement about Mini-Noah going to Paris. Naomi was trying with all her might to just go with the flow and support her son's unbridled excitement, but part of her—with or without her headache hangover—dreaded the outcome. Try as she might, she just couldn't see Gene upholding his end of the bargain. Visions of his return without Mini-Noah danced through her brain—the mad scramble of redesigning the tiny paper cutout and dragging him all over the city would inevitably fall to her.

“Noah, we talked about screaming in the house,” she replied as calmly as possible, suppressing the urge to scream back at him and thereby setting exactly the wrong example.

She got up to find Noah lying on his bedroom floor, peering under his bed with a look of utter panic on his face. “Sorry, Mom. I just. . .I just can't find my backpack. Do you know where it is?” His voice wavered as tears pooled in his big blue eyes.

“When was the last time you had it, baby?” she asked, extending her hand to pull him up. “Let's retrace our steps. I'll bet you a hot chocolate from Fannie's that it's right where you left it.”

Noah rose to his red-sneakered feet. “I came home with it on Friday,” he ventured, walking hand in hand with Naomi out to the living room. “It was on my back.”

“Yes, that's usually where backpacks live.”

Noah looked up at her, annoyed by her casual attitude. “Mom, this is serious!” he reprimanded. Naomi fought back a laugh at Noah's sudden sternness.

“I'm sorry, of course it is, Noah. Okay, so it was on your back. And then you took it off and dropped it where?”

“I took it off and dropped it right here, next to the coats,” he replied, motioning to the floor beneath the coat rack.

“And that was the last time you saw it?”

Noah's brow furrowed as he tried to remember. “No. Yesterday I had it. While you were at yoga, Cee Cee and I read about the plate tectonic theory.”

“The plate tectonic theory?” she asked, experiencing a burst of nostalgia. How long had it been since she had heard that phrase? She paused for a moment, trying to remember when she had learned about it herself. Fifth grade, maybe? Noah was in second.
Well, at least the education system is advancing,
she thought to herself, looking for the silver lining on a cloud that made her feel really old.

“Yes, Mom,” Noah whined, clearly attuned to her lack of investment in the task at hand.

“Okay, so where did you guys talk about that? In the kitchen?”

Noah ran ahead of her to investigate. “We did talk about it in the kitchen. Cee Cee made me pancakes for breakfast while we talked about it.” He got down on all fours to investigate. “Here it is!” he exclaimed triumphantly, holding the small, black bag up with the flourish of a winning prizefighter. “Mom, we found it!” His eyes lit up like little Christmas trees.

“See, baby, I told you it was here,” Naomi replied, happy to have caused her son such unmitigated joy. Gene might be taking Mini-Noah to Paris, but she was still the mama. Small victories like this one were her specialty.

“Thanks!” he cried, running at her like a ram and hugging her waist. “That was a close one. Mini-Noah is in here!”

“Oh, I'm so glad he's safe!”

“Me, too. Dad's picking him up for Paris today,” he explained, even though Naomi was all too aware of his plan.

Naomi looked at the clock over the stove. “Speaking of, you better get your jacket on. Your dad is going to be here any second.” She dreaded the pickup. There was always an awkward hello as she battled years of repressed resentment and passed Noah over to Gene. It took everything she had not to make some snide remark about Gene's hipster jacket or the new tattoo that peeked out of its cuff. The man was spending hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in an attempt to stay young and current while Naomi was buying peanut butter and Flintstone vitamins. The disparities in their lives made her want to scream. And scream she would have if Gene was not paying child support. Thankfully, he was. Not always on time, of course, but he was.

Just then, the buzzer rang. Naomi froze. “Okay, get your jacket on,” she told Noah, “and your scarf and hat and gloves.” Noah frowned at her. He hated wearing a hat, saying his “head couldn't breathe” every time she crammed it on top of his curls. “No arguments! It's freezing out. Even Mini-Noah needs a hat today.”

The buzzer rang again. Noah wasn't moving. He gave Naomi a look of discomfort. “What's the problem?” she asked him, exasperated.

“Mom, I have to go to the bathroom,” he whispered.

“Okay, fine, go pee, honey.”

Noah shook his head. “No, number two,” he said, with a pained look on his face.

Naomi took a deep breath. It was like clockwork with Noah. Inevitably, whenever they had to be somewhere, he had to stop everything and go to the bathroom. He was cursed with Jewish bowels.

“Okay, go ahead. I'll have your dad come up and wait.” Noah took off for the bathroom and she surveyed the apartment. It was a mess.

Oh well, I guess Gene should see how the other half lives.
She buzzed him in just in time to realize that she was in her pajamas.
Great,
she thought, as she made an attempt to smooth down the cowlick that she knew was roostering off her head.

She could hear Gene's big man boots (designer, no doubt) bounding up the stairs.
Clomp, clomp, clomp
and then the knock. It was a hesitant knock.
Good. Some registered discomfort being on my turf.
She took a deep breath, noticed that she had not brushed her teeth, and opened the door.

“Hey, Naomi,” Gene said. As much as Naomi disliked him, there was no denying the power of his looks. If the term
rugged, hipster handsomeness
were embraced by
Webster's
, there would be a picture of Gene immediately following it.

Tall and sinuous, he reached about six foot three in his boots. His brown hair flopped lazily around his ears and curled against the back of his neck. Olive skin, blue eyes, and dazzling white choppers finished off the picture. For someone who had lived a life that was decidedly unhealthy in all the predictable ways, Gene was distressingly perfect.

Naomi wondered if he still spent late nights snorting various substances with models young enough, at this point, to be his daughters. She had no idea, actually. Today, as he stood in front of her preparing to take their son on a Sunday adventure, she certainly hoped not.

“Hi, Gene. Sorry you had to come up, Noah's in the bathroom. Come on in.” She extended her arm stiffly into the apartment, inviting him to cross the threshold. Gene's eyes darted around the interior as he gingerly stepped in.

“He's in the bathroom, huh?” asked Gene, with a knowing smirk. “That kid has the bowels of a fifty-year-old man. At least we know he'll always be regular, huh?” He smiled then, at Naomi, who was fighting back the urge to scream, “What do you know about my son's bowels!? You know nothing! He's MINE! Those bowels are MINE!” but thought better of it. To end up in a wrestling match about an eight-year-old's digestive tract was a bad way to start her Sunday.

“Yeah, can't take him anywhere.” She paused. “Sorry for the mess. I was going to clean up today, while you guys were hanging out. . .you know, the apartment and well, me.” Her headache returned, subtly pulsing behind her temples.

“Oh please, this place is clean as a whistle,” said Gene. “If Maribel didn't come once a week to my crib, it would look like Armageddon.”

Naomi reeled at both the fact that Gene referred to his apartment as his “crib” and the fact that he could afford a maid. She made a mental note to be more of a bitch when he was late on his Noah payments.

Gene took a seat on the couch and sat awkwardly. “You're looking good, Naomi,” he said, his head cocked in appraisal.

Naomi blushed involuntarily. “Gene, give me a break. I look like hell. I haven't even had a chance to brush my teeth yet.”

“No, you look cute. You always looked best in the morning. No makeup suits you.”

What do you know about me in the morning!?
Naomi screamed at him in her head. Aloud she said, “Thanks, I guess,” as graciously as she could. She sat in the chair diagonal from the couch. “So, I hear you're going to Paris.”

Gene's eyes lit up. “Yeah, I'm going to shoot a campaign for Catherine Malandrino. Do you know her clothes?”

Naomi thought of her store in SoHo. She had gone in once and stroked the fabrics like a lovelorn teenager. The price tags had almost made her weep. “Oh yeah! She does some beautiful work.”

“Yeah, it's really nice, right?” agreed Gene. “She's a cool lady, too.”

Just then, Noah burst out of the bathroom like a rocket. “Dad!” he cried, running to the couch. He stopped short, noticing Naomi sitting opposite his father. “Hi, Mom, hi, Dad!” he said, sizing up the visual. It dawned on Naomi that her son had never seen his parents inhabit the same space so casually. She hoped he wasn't getting any ideas. She had been very careful not to bad-mouth Gene in front of him, but if Noah started in on her about more three-way “family” hangouts, her carefully crafted facade would crumble.

“Hey, champ!” replied Gene, leaning over to envelop Noah in a gigantic hug.

“Well, I think we're gonna take off,” offered Gene, standing up from the couch. “Put your coat on, Noah,” he added. “It's like Siberia out there.”

Noah ran to the coat rack and pulled his jacket from one of its hooks, his excitement causing an avalanche of various coats and sweaters. He looked at Naomi, alarmed.

“Noah, don't worry, I'll pick those up,” she replied to his guilty gaze. “Have fun today,” she added.

She looked to Gene. “Please make sure he keeps his hat on,” she said. “He hates it, but he needs it.”

“You got it. You know what, I'll wear mine, too.” He reached into his jacket pocket to produce a knit cap. Noah's eyes lit up. Hats were officially cool again.

“Bye, Mom!”

“Bye, Noah!”

“Dad, have you really been to Siberia?” she heard Noah ask as the door shut behind them.

Naomi sank down on the couch and exhaled deeply. Seeing Gene was always hard, although not for any lovelorn reasons. His mere presence took her back to those last, awful days they had spent together before he took off, on his lame Vespa, of course, to leave her behind with their very tiny baby growing inside her. After days of trying to break through the drug-addled fog of denial that Gene had been living in, it was glaringly apparent that she was going to have that baby on her own. There was no room in Gene's life for any sort of responsibility, much less a human life.

Thinking back, Naomi was still surprised at her decision to keep their baby, despite all the odds stacked against her. For her, Noah had been a gift—a wake-up call in the form of a baby. Naomi had never been very religious, but it was the closest thing to divine intervention she had ever experienced. She had been lost, and now she was found.

Gene didn't want to be found, so he had left her in their giant, unpaid-for apartment in Dumbo, to pick up the pieces. Naomi's parents had swooped in, reserving judgment until she was safe, and cleaned up the mess. They had somehow managed to sell her apartment, get her home to the apartment she had grown up in on the Upper West Side, and prepare her for two new lives—hers and Noah's. She smiled, thinking about their selflessness. To rescue their hot mess of a pregnant, alone, and adult daughter like that. . .Wow. She teared up at the thought.

Naomi picked up her cell phone to call them, realizing suddenly that she and Noah hadn't seen them in more than a month. It was amazing how Brooklyn and the Upper West Side could feel like two separate continents, mass transit be damned. She dialed the number and looked at the clock. It was 11:00. They would no doubt be reading the paper—her dad waxing poetic about Maureen Dowd and her mother concentrating intently on the crossword, a scooped-out bagel on a plate in front of her.

“Hello,” answered her mom.

“Hi, Mama. It's me.”

“Hi, baby,” she answered, her voice dancing with delight. “How are you? We miss you.”

“I'm well,” Naomi answered, her eyes suddenly tearing up again. What was it about hearing your mother's voice when you were down? Tears were a Pavlovian response, even now, at thirty-two. She wondered if Noah would have the same, eternal reaction to her concern.

“You don't sound well, Naomi. Are you okay? Is Noah okay? Do you want to come up here for some turkey chili tonight?”