Momzillas (4 page)

“Oh, okay,” said Bee. “Maybe you should rest. I know we're throwing a lot at you.”

I quickly got up, head spinning, to venture home, but not to any comforting home I even knew. “Bye, guys. I'll see you tomorrow.”

“Hey, wait,” Bee said, getting up from the bench to walk alongside me. “I know this is all very overwhelming. And Parker and I are here for you. Really. And I'm sure your mother-in-law will help, too—she knows tons of people. She's lovely.”

“I'm sorry,” I said, hoping I wouldn't cry. I chose to ignore the kudos for The Cube. “I just feel a little lost with everything here. I want Violet to have the best of everything, and I feel like I got on this track a little late.”

“It's okay,” said Bee, consolingly. “Listen. I have a good tip for you. It's a broker. For your apartment?”

“Oh, really? That would be great…”

“His name is Troy Kincaid. His wife, Mrs. Kincaid, is actually the headmistress of Carnegie Nursery School. I am sure that if you buy a place through him, she will see to it that you will at least get an application.”

I paused, wiping the sweat from my brow. “Can't you, like, get arrested for that?”

“No! It's just how things are done. Take his card.” She unzipped a little metallic leather pouch from her bag and handed me a business card. “Call him. And we'll see you at the Pierre Hotel tomorrow for the Little Duke and Duchess trunk show!”

I nodded and waved, walking away as fast as my un-chic Chuck Taylors would carry me.

AND ON A NEARBY TITANIUM POWERBOOK…

Instant Message from: BeeElliott

BeeElliott: Whatdja think?

Maggs10021: She seems cool, actsh.

BeeElliott: REALLY? You thunk? Yawnsville.

Maggs10021: I feel bad for her—she def. needs our help w/ schools & stuff.

BeeElliott: I know, she's clueless! I heard her mom-in-law is kind of horrified that she's so out of it and like sloppy.

Maggs10021: I like her style—more downtowny but whatev, she dresses cool.

BeeElliott: If you're hanging out at a punk rock club. This is the UES, not CBGBs.

Maggs10021: So are you going to write for her for CNS?

BeeElliott: Dunno. I can put in a good word I guess but I don't want to blow chips on a non-friend.

Maggs10021: Wasn't her hub Park's best man? He was a hottie.

BeeElliott: He's not my fave. Express train to Loserville.

Maggs10021: Really? I remember him being totally DDG!

BeeElliott: Lameissimo.

Maggs10021: Hmm.

Five

If there's one thing I hate, it's the pop-by. On TV when I saw bedroom communities filled with gracious neighbors bearing muffins in a gingham-napkin-covered basket, I would cringe, vowing never to leave city-dwelling. So natch I was less than thrilled when I was bent over a box with sweat dripping from my brow when the buzzer from downstairs rang. The doorman announced my unexpected visitor as “Mrs. Dillingham”—God forbid she just say my mother-in-law was here. Shit! Thank goodness I spotted and stashed Josh's morning good-bye note in a drawer—it had a list of would-be porn titles that we liked to come up with on our walks by video stores or cineplexes, it was sort of our thing, a running joke (e.g.,
Forrest Hump
,
Booty and the Beast
,
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Poon
, etc.). With the list put away, in a human cyclone whirl, I put on some black buckled flats, tucked my gray vintage Blondie T-shirt into my black jeans, and shoved a brush through my hair so fast and furiously that I almost made myself bald. Just as I was applying a touch of Chapstick to my lips, the doorbell rang.

“Hiiii,” I said. “Welcome to our new temporary abode! Sorry I'm so gross—”

She didn't challenge my self-assessment. “Hello.” She walked right past me, surveying the plain, ordinary apartment. The skyscraping view was definitely mesmerizing, the rooms spacious and clean, but it was one of those apartments where all the good ingredients still made up a crappy stew vibe-wise. For example, there was one of those cut-out rectangle thingies in the living room wall and ceilings that seemed especially low given the piles of cardboard boxes. As I saw her take in what I'm sure she presumed to be a total mess, I realized I didn't feel well at all—my chunder was mid-esophagus and rising. Did I have some kind of social anxiety disorder like that drug commercial with all the warped, stretched-out faces? Why did I always get nervous around her?

“So. Hannah, daaarling, you must be itching to get out of here! It's positively claustrophobic! I detest these depressing postwar buildings, just horrible.”

Oh, yeah. That was why—there was rarely a nice thing from her lips.

“Violet is napping and I was just unpacking the kitchen boxes—do you want to come see her? She's so cute, passed out in her little—”

“Have you seen Bee Elliott yet? She promised me she'd help you with the school process. Lord knows it can be daunting.”

“Yes, yes. I met her yesterday with her friend and they were really nice—”

Lila sat down on our old Ikea couch but not before looking at it as if fearing it was stuffed with maggots. She tried to look comfortable but I knew she wasn't. Her massive Fifth Avenue penthouse was immaculately and stunningly decorated by Ellie Cullman, and I knew she was practically wincing at our definitely unposh digs. The only thing worse than the home I was making for her son was clearly my outfit.

“You always have such…eclectic style,” she said, staring at me nostrils aflare as if I were a stool sample.

I didn't know how to respond. I hate mean observations couched in faux compliments.

“And speaking of which,” she said, delicately opening a pink shopping bag, “I have a few dresses for Violet. I know you tend to favor more…casual clothing for her. But this isn't the West Coast, you know. People
dress
. And with your interviews for schools coming up this year, I figured I'd help you get some more…conservative looks for her.”

I thanked her meekly. While the beautiful Made In Portugal dresses were indeed exquisite and definitely so generous, I knew they were a 3D memo to spruce up my kid. I love how she said people “dress,” as if in the jungle of California, our children run amok buck, peeing themselves. I knew what she meant in general; yes, children's clothes back west weren't as old-fashioned, and I did like the dresses. But you'd think I had Violet in leopard leggings and rhinestone tees that read “Daddy's Girl.” I wasn't tacky, just…chill. She wore simple cords and cute tops from the Gap, so sue me.

“I simply want Violet to fit in here, you know, with the right families,” Lila added.

I got up to get hangers for the dresses, which I carefully hung as I nodded.

“Violet's adorable, obviously, I mean she is truly Joshie's clone!” she laughed. “But sometimes when you've visited she's been a touch…bedraggled. And that ragamuffin thing can be sweet, but not in public, dear. We certainly don't want her going to preschool interviews looking like
une fille des rues
.”

I took a deep breath and tried to slowly and calmly exhale the steam that was building inside. I thought I'd erupt like Mount Vesuvius momentarily.
Fille des rues?!
My French was not
parfait
but I knew that meant “girl of the streets”—a street urchin. As if I made my ill-cared-for daughter look like tattered Cosette from
Les Miz
.

“So we're excited for your birthday this weekend,” I lied, trying to muster kind words for the woman whose face I wanted to bludgeon with a borrowed polo mallet from her crusty husband's collection. “I'm excited to get out of the city.”

“Yes, it should be lovely. It will be just us, thank goodness. Watts's daughters were due to come from London and thank the Lord they decided to just see him next month in Bath.”

For some weird sick reason I was oddly psyched that there were people she seemed to dislike more than me.

“How are they doing?” I asked with fake interest; I'd met Watts's daughters once—they seemed very sweet but were clearly out of their father's life, as they had not only the Atlantic between them but also a chasm of intimacy thanks to a stepmom who would rather pretend they didn't exist at all.

“Nightmares. Just nightmares,” she said, shaking her head. “They came to New York in May, and Fiona sat us down and said, in very dramatic style, that she was convinced that Victoria was anorexic.”

“That's awful!” I said.

“Oh, please. It's all rubbish. Watts seemed quite worried and was practically about to call the plane when I said, ‘You know what I think, Fiona? I think for the first time in Victoria's life, she's thinner than you. And you can't stand it!' They're quite competitive, you know.”

“But…is she sick, or—”

“No, no, no, you know, girls gain and lose weight all the time. Victoria's twenty-four and pulling herself together, and Fiona is jealous, clearly.”

I decided not to touch this with a thirty-three-and-a-half-foot pole.

“And how is your husband's health?” I asked, changing the subject. Watts had had a mini stroke a year before and I recalled Lila phoning us not from his hospital bed but from Swifty's, where she stuck to her dinner plans with friends. Nice.

“Fine, fine, you know. He's pushing eighty, so…”

“Mommy?” I head Violet's groggy cry from the other room. I leaped up and went to the makeshift nursery to scoop her into my arms. “Guess who's here?” (Lila insisted Violet call her Lila.) “Lila! Lila's here! Say hello to Lila, sweetheart!”

But Violet burst into tears.

“Oh dear,” said Lila. “A lot of crying—”

Which was normal since she'd just woken from a nap and was, ya know,
two.

“Sorry,” I apologized. “She's still a little out of it.”

Violet screamed and shook her little body in thrash mode.

“Shhhh, sweets, Lila is here! Look! Lila's here to see you!”

“AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!”

I began to sweat as if Violet's cries were somehow a reflection on me.

“I probably should go, then,” Lila said, rising to grab her quilted handbag.

“Sorry—she just…she just woke and up and gets a little—”

“WAHHHHHHHH!!!!”

“Well, all right then, I'll see you this weekend. Hopefully she'll be in a better mood!” she said, opening the door. And with that she was gone, leaving us in her Ferragamo-wearing Roadrunner wake.

Six

“Happy Hour”—what a myth. Five to eight
P.M.,
the time many yuppies are happily clinking glasses in bars dotting the map of Manhattan, is what I call “Suicide Hour,” when I am so utterly exhausted I want to collapse, and it's still at least four hours until my husband comes home. I watch horrible soul-slurping shows like
Access Hollywood
and then being curious about Angelina Jolie's wild lovemaking in the Congo makes me want to kill myself even more.

Violet, my little scrumptious love, who can do no wrong in my eyes, crumbles into a fussy munchkin and I try to keep her busy with books, but after five or six I feel so tired I ultimately cop out guiltily and pop in a kiddie DVD, i.e., baby crack.

But that night, after an interminable day of unpacking boxes and nearly hanging myself with the very “ropes” Bee and Maggie had shown me as I Googled every nursery school in the neighb, I tucked Violet into her makeshift folding bed, sang her to sleep with soft rounds of “Twinkle, Twinkle,” and was so excited I could hardly wait. My best girlfriend in the whole wide world, the spoonful of honey that made the medicine of my move go down, was coming over, and for the first time in about a month I got a sitter so I could go out to a civilized dinner and catch up with the only sister I'd ever known.

I met Leigh Briggs my first day of college. She was carrying a huge ficus tree, soil spilling out onto the flat stone path under a Gothic arch of our dorm. Leigh is my total übershrink/sage/partner in crime. She instantly struck me as a 1940s starlet. We bonded over boys, movies, and chowing, becoming pretty much add-water-and-stir insta-pals. She always offered wise (and sometimes old-fashioned) kernels of wisdom and was a true “lady,” like a stylish dame from yesteryear, but with a gutter mouth. To outsiders, she was mannered and proper but sharply brilliant underneath all the immaculate beauty of classic clothes and old-world grace. We had been, despite the three-thousand-mile distance over the last five years, joined at the hip, and aside from Josh, she was definitely the person I downloaded the most stuff to. She always made me feel strong and ready to take on anything. And she didn't quite recognize me in my current state.

“What is the fucking matter with you?” she said forcefully, not half an hour into our visit. She was holding her wine in one hand and flipping through my
Us Weekly
with the other. “This is not you. Why are you such a stress case? Yes, you're living in this dump, but that's temporary! And so what if your mother-in-law is a beeyotch, take a number! You have husband and a baby, shut up.”

“I know, I know. It's just that with a kid here, there is a whole new set of stresses—”

“
Puh-lease
. How about wondering if my shithead boss is ever going to tell anyone we're together after doing me for nine months? How about wondering if I'm going to die alone with my cat eating my face off 'cause there's no one to pour the Purina? I love you to death, but
get a fucking grip
.”

Like I said, there's no one like Leigh. We greeted the sitter, Amber, a student from Barnard (I had discovered the college agency in the book
CityBaby
, which had become my overnight bible). We kissed Violet good-bye and walked down the street to Primola, a cozy restaurant nearby. As we strolled in the warm summer air, I felt bad for having bitched about my worries. After all, Leigh was right; yes, I had my own issues being new here in a sea of perfect, preened übermoms, but at least I wasn't
out there
; the recollection of that gut-churning time wasn't pretty.

After college I fell madly in love with Luke, a coworker at a dot-bomb, just before the millennial Internet implosion. Once the company melted down, I went back to grad school while he took a job in a tiny shitbox office at a little start-up called eBay. After three years together, living together, traveling all over, he wanted to get married. And something in me was…scared. It wasn't a fear of commitment, it was simply a pit of not being sure. Everyone thought we were the perfect couple, but deep down I was feeling like the
rest of my life
was a long time. So I confessed my doubts, and Luke and I split up. But not before he looked me in the eye and said, “Hannah, just so you know, you will never, ever get anyone as good as me to love you.”

Ouch. He meant it to sting and it worked. But not nearly as much as it did when I heard, six months later, that he was engaged to a blond chick he'd met on a hike. A hike! Like me, he hated the outdoors. Their betrothal was a whirlwind that culminated in a majestic San Francisco wedding four months later, and there I was, single, lonely, and wondering what crack pipe I'd been smoking to let a great guy like him go. The next two years were a crushing, miserable montage of heinous dates and ill-fated relationships. The guy whose mom had him lick chocolate sauce off her finger at a fondue restaurant (ew, check, please!), the dude who tried to push my head down to blow him on the first date (you must be kidding), and even the guy who told me—deadpan—that he didn't have a sense of humor. Huh? Doesn't everyone, even un-funny people, think he or she has a sense of humor? Apparently not. Taxi!

And then there was Paul. The guy I thought I would marry. He was a blond stockbroker who played lacrosse in college (quote unquote lax) and we basically moved in together after a month of zero-to-sixty intense dating. He was almost the biggest crush I'd had in my life, second only to Tate Hayes, my college thesis adviser. Paul and I were like those creepy conjoined twins on that A&E documentary, attached at the heart. Despite his slight penchant for drinking, I woooorshipped him and was beyond smitten. Then one day, I came home to find him throwing a lacrosse ball at the wall and catching it and “cradling.”

“Hi, cutie!” I said, going to kiss him. “Happy six-month anniversary!”

“Listen, Hannah…we have to talk.” Nota bene: anything that begins with “listen” or “look” equals chiming death knell of your relationship.

Lump in throat. “About what…Is everything okay?”

Interminably long exhale. Second worst forecast of doom after “look” or “listen.”

“No, actually. I came into work this morning and Nathan said, ‘How's your wife?' and it just…” (lax ball thrown at wall, cradle, cradle), “I don't know, it just really wigged me out. I'm just so not ready to get married and it just made me realize, ya know, like…” (ball thrown at wall, catch, cradle). “I just want to take it easy and I think we should…” (cradle, cradle in the fucking macramé basket on that long stick in that dumbest sport
ever
), “maybe see other people and maybe cool down a little.”

Cool fucking down?

Yes. I was dumped whilst lax ball was hurled at tapestry-covered Sheetrock wall by a Patagonia-fleece-wearing white-baseball-hat preppy motherfucker. To say my shocked sobs flooded the Bay would not be far from the truth. Hysteria.

Over the next few days (during which I had to write a massive term paper, lucky me) I shut down and literally had a full-on Princess Buttercup
I shall never love again
melodramatic emotional seal-off. Could I ever really know anyone again? I was stunned. Shocked.
Gutted
. I knew it was “character building” to be dumped, and after a couple sob-filled weeks, I almost found solace in the fact that this was a rite of passage for me; suddenly I was in on the Top 40 lyrics about heartbreak. Now I knew what all those dumb happy people didn't—there's a whole subworld of the miserable out there—and it's so much hipper! I blared the Smiths. I pored over my childhood Edward Gorey collection. I brooded. The darkness was making me grow, and hey, everyone probably has one big heartbreak, right? Now mine was out of the way. I could play loud music and hate his guts and the world would be on my side 'cause, hey, everyone favors the dumpee. But that didn't make it much easier. Thank God, though I didn't know it at the time, Josh Allen had just moved around the corner and we would meet two months later.

Leigh and I walked into the restaurant and plopped into a corner banquette. I remembered the worries of my days alone and I felt horrible for even thinking of complaining to her about my dumb issues, especially because we were older now and that stress of being single compounds with age. I made a pact to myself to zip it about stupid motherhood stresses—I could vent to my best friend in California, Jenny, though the time diff was getting to be a challenge. And my parents, well, they were great and so understanding, but now that my dad had retired they were on this whole adventure travel kick, trotting the globe (currently on a four-month backpacking trip in New Zealand) and I felt like the rest of our posse was scattered, busy, and so when we talked I wasn't about to unload my problems. Leigh was the one I told everything to—aside from Josh (all three of us were only-children)—but Leigh was right, I was blessed to even have a kid, to have sweet Josh, and even though things people go through are all relative, I kind of had no right to complain. Here Leigh was, the coolest, most amazing, drop-dead-gorgeous woman, and it seemed that all the great guys were taken. I felt so lucky to have found Josh, but in my head, I always identified more with single gals than married ones—the whole couples-dinner thing and “There's this great couple you should meet” seemed forced to me. That's why I would never be a Bridget Jones “smug married”: being lonely and miserable was not too distant a memory for me, and I'd never shove marriage in the face of someone single, since I myself could have easily missed Josh by minutes the night we met, and been freaking just like Leigh. She dated a ton but never met the right guy, and she was starting to get depressed. So she did the big no-no and started effing her boss.

“So,” I started cautiously, as she knew damn well where I stood on her relationship, “how's Craig?”

Exhale. “Ugh. Totally in denial,” she replied, shaking her head. “At first I thought the secret work fling was hot and it was totally sexy to have this clandestine affair, banging in the staircase, et cetera. Now I think it's just creepy,” Leigh said, sipping her cocktail. “I feel like time's a-ticking, I mean what the fuck am I doing? I'm thirty-one. Cobwebs will start forming in my uterus in exactly five years.”

“No they won't. It's 2005, and that woman had twins at fifty-three. I don't think you should worry about that. But I do think you've got to get out of this Craig thing, Leigh. This is bad. You deserve someone who will worship you and want to shout it from the rooftops, not this sneaky shit.”

“I know, I know.” She looked out the window at the twinkling lights.

“Hannah?”

“Yeah?”

“You're in New York!”

I laughed as she leaned in to give me a huge hug and we cackled like giddy winners on the
Price Is Right
showcase showdown.

“I mean, have we not been dreaming of this for years?” she said, glowing. “I am so happy you're here I can't even tell you. And little Violet. I have missed her so much, precious lamb.”

“She missed you, too.”

Leigh looked at me, fully scanning my insides, Robocop-style.

“Hannah, I know it's hard to move. And I'm sorry to wig about your problems with everything. Of course you're entitled to have issues. I know it's all relative.”

“No, you're right. I can't complain.”

“So? Are you okay?”

I exhaled, not wanted to go into everything that was haunting me. But Leigh was already a New York expert and I still felt overwhelmed. “I just feel like there's such a scene here—”

“Here's what you have to learn, right now,” said Leigh sternly. “There is no ‘scene.' The scene is in your head. I mean, it is there, of course, but it is one of a trillion scenes. It's not like Seattle, where your mom knows everyone. You can do anything here—learn trapeze, take Finnish, start a sewing circle, anything! There are infinite ways to find new pockets of eccentrics and meet new people.”

“I can't meet new people,” I said lazily. “The friendship vault is closed.”

“What?” she laughed, almost spitting out the olive she'd popped in her mouth. “What
friendship vault
?”

“There's no room. I'm closed for business, shut down,” I said, shrugging. “I have no time! I'm exhausted and mushy-brained and also so not…myself. I'm such a zombie. How could I ever make new friends?”

“Well I know at least one person who will want to see you…” she taunted with a raised eyebrow.

“Who?”

“You know who,” she said, giving me a sly look. “Professor Hayes.”

Just hearing the name gave me chills.

“Leigh. I am a married woman. I'm in love with Josh, remember?”

“You're married, you're not dead! It's not like anything really ever happened with him! Plus he's married with two kids now, so it's like…safe to call him.”