Momzillas (8 page)

“My God, I am so sorry,” he said, flustered, rubbing his forehead.

“No, don't be, I—”

“This is very bad. You are my student. This is…”

“It was me, too,” I stammered. “I mean, it's fine.”

“No, it's really not,” he said, straightening his jacket by a swift brush of the lapels.

“But—” I tried with futile effort to get him back into our heavenly zone.

“It's unethical and wrong. Plus, aren't you seeing someone? That man I've seen you with?”

“Clay is—”

“
Clay
, right. He gratifies the eyes, that's for sure, but he seems thin nourishment for your mind.”

Whoa. Was he, like, jealous of Clay? My wide-receiver McBoyfriend of five weeks?

“Listen, I have been…” I trailed, humiliated and childish. I gulped before completing my sentence: “…mad for you for so long.”

“I'm flattered. I can't deny there has been a connection, but that has to be all. I'm sorry.”

He picked up his briefcase, looked at me once more, and walked out.

I never saw him again.

Until he spied me with Violet that day, when we saw each other among the still lifes. Perched in a sea of oiled flowers, the fiery hues seemed more charged in his wake.

Twelve

The next morning Josh woke me up with a kiss and apologized for coming home at two
A.M.
His work was killing him, but at least the guys were great (he'd loathed his assholic, alky, unsmart boss in California) and hopefully he'd be able to make our dinner with Leigh on time. He was all dressed to go in his suit, but came under the comforter with me and we had an eggroll moment, which made me feel cozy and toasty.

We started kissing and the smooch got deeper until that moment when it suddenly turns—that subtle spark of knowing (not to be so teen) that you're going to go all the way. My attempted Marilyn-coy glance was our lingo that his suit would come off for a quickie. But then Violet's little chirp rang out from the nursery, which was practically on top of our bedroom, which made getting on top of each other rather difficult.

We co-sighed that all-too-familiar sigh of
bang ya later
and went to scoop up Violet for a group hug and vertical cuddle. Then we walked Daddy to the door for an elevator-side kiss and said good-bye for what I hoped would not be fourteen hours. When we came back to the kitchen, I saw the broker's business card Bee had given me affixed to the fridge with one of Violet's magnet letters. I picked up the phone and dialed the number as Violet attacked the megabox of colored markers to draw. I was a little nervous since I knew this man's wife was the director of Carnegie Nursery School, so I almost felt like I was auditioning for him in a weird way.

“Troy Kincaid.”

“Hi, um, Troy, hi, this is Hannah Allen calling, Bee's friend—”

“Yes! Hello, Hannah. Bee gave me the heads-up,” his deep, gravelly British-accented voice replied. “I already have made a file for you and I have a few listings I think you'll really like.”

“Wow, that was fast!”

“We have one exclusive one block from Bee on Fifth and Seventy-third. Prewar. White-glove. Top-notch.” His Queen's English posh London accent made it sound extra-fabulous.

“Cool,” I said, surprised. “How much?”

“Five three, but they'll come down.”

Pin drop.

“F-F-F-Five…million three hundred thousand?” I stuttered.

“But it's not firm.”

“Um, wow, Troy, listen, you are so sweet to have begun the search for us, and I hope I didn't waste your time, but…that's not really our budget. Like, at all,” I apologized. “Do you maybe have any listings that are less? Like…four million less?” I asked, semi-blushing.

“Four million or less? Sure!”

“No, no, no,” I said. “Not four million or less. Four million
less
than five point three million, i.e., something in the one-to-one-and-a-half range.”

“Oh.”

Crickets.

“In Manhattan?” he probed.

“Yes. I saw in the
New York Times
a three-bedroom—”

“No. There's nothing in that range with three bedrooms.”

“Really? 'Cause—”

“Nothing. But I'll keep an eye out and get back to you. Let me run some searches.”

His initially charming smoky voice turned very chilly when he understood our apparently chump-change range, which hardly seemed pauperesque to me. But alas, in our new burg what we could afford would buy a view of a brick wall and the square footage of a monk's cell. I hoped his wife wouldn't put our budget in Violet's file when we applied to the elite bastion of academia. For tots. Argh! Josh was doing very well and to me our budget seemed fine—it would have bought us a perfectly nice place in any other city in the union, save for New York, island of gazillionaires. But even though Parker Elliott and all Josh's friends have great jobs like Josh, they also have wealthy wives who chip in a mill or two, not to mention their own trust funds. I brought about $7,891 to the table—what was in my Wainwright Bank savings account when we left California. I was hardly pitching in for some ten-room layout as I suspected Bee and her pals were. No wonder Lila hoped for a more financially strategic marriage for Josh—in New York, even rich people find it hard to stay afloat in their gilded waters unless they align with other rich people. I definitely was bringing her family's stock down.

To block out the dread filling my midsection, I turned on
Sesame Street
. Today Grover had just returned from the Continent and was sporting a black beret,
très chic
.

“Hello, boys and girls!” the beloved furry blue monster said. “I have just crossed the Atlantic Ocean—and the Triborough Bridge—from Paris, France!” He showed a little girl hitting the
marché avec Papa
, where they scored fresh vegetables before visiting the local
boulangerie
, adding each delicious, fresh ingredient to a giant basket, or
panier
. As we watched the idyllic scene of gathering farm-fresh eats for the coming week, I contemplated the perfect setting and wondered if Josh would ever be into moving there. How great would it be to stroll the
fleur
-filled Tuilèries? I'd walk with Violet by buildings so richly ornate that if you just cut and pasted any old one, it would be the architectural toast of any city in the States. The rigorous
écoles
were free of charge and Violet would be bilingual! And I could have a killer
pain-au-chocolat
every morning. Bliss!

But who was I kidding, we weren't gonna bail and plop in France. It was fun to fantasize but I knew I couldn't do the expat thing. Despite the strip-mall-covered, freakish-right-wing land of junk food, I was a true American gal. I'd realized this when I was pregnant with Violet and Josh and I spent two weeks driving cross-country. We saw it all—the rocky red crags in the desert, a town called Zzyzzyx, population 4 (swear), those crop circles, the usual presidents-carved-in-mountains; we even stumbled upon a motorcycle rally in South Dakota with 600,000 Hog-ridin' badasses, including one whose T-shirt back read “If you can read this, the bitch fell off!” And yet the time in that car, with my husband rubbing my belly and feeding me delicious albeit greasy eats every few hours, had sealed my patriotic fate as a red, white, and blue–blooded citizen. (Although I must confess that when we were abroad, I was embarrassed to be associated with the loudmouthed, Larry Leisure–suit fatty crew that was constantly demanding ketchup.)

Later, after Elmo bid us farewell from his crayon-covered universe, I got Violet dressed to meet Bee and West for a walk in the park. I hoped that Troy would not update Bee as to our financial constraints. When she referred me, he probably thought he was landing some big fish ready to bite on splashy digs. Too bad we were minnows.

I pushed Violet up to the entrance to the Seventy-second Street playground and saw Bee talking to a handsome angular man. They waved good-bye and I watched him walk off in the distance. When I approached, Bee seemed surprised.

“Hannah, hi, you're early!”

“Yeah, I'm one of those promptness freaks.” I shrugged, thinking she made it sound like a bad thing, even though she had been early, too. “Josh always wants to kill me when I make us park it at the airport two hours in advance.”

She smiled but seemed distracted.

“So how are you?” I asked.

“Mommy, paci?” asked Violet.

“Sweetie, you don't need it right now,” I gently said of the dreaded binky she still was addicted to.

“Paaaaaaci!”
she wailed. Natch, I relented, unzipping the little compartment and handing her the sucky, which she promptly popped in her mouth, looking not unlike baby Maggie on
The Simpsons
.

“You know, Hannah,” Bee said, with a serious tone. “It's really time you take that away.”

“I know, I know, it's so bad,” I agreed, semi-miffed that she had called me out on this sensitive topic. “I hope her teeth aren't fully buck.”

“It's not just that,” Bee said looking down at Violet. “It causes huuuge speech delays. She'll be way behind the other children. Way behind.”

“Really?” I asked, now a tad defensive. “Because she's two and she speaks way more than a lot of three-year-olds I've seen…”

“They'll lap her soon enough if you keep that thing in her mouth,” she said. “Luckily West never needed it. But I'll give you the number of Maggie's pacifier consultant.”

No. Way.

“There's a pacifier consultant?” This town had kiddie consultants for everything. Walking, talking, peeing, pooing, now pacifiers.

“Oh yes. Dr. Poundschlosser referred her. It's four thousand dollars, but it's an investment in their independence. You can't have her with this on interviews. Especially Carnegie. Kiss of death.”

“I guess,” I said nervously. Maybe she was right, I wouldn't want to jeopardize Violet's chances. “Whenever I try and take it away, though, Josh says, ‘Don't worry, Hannah, she won't go to college with it!'”

“Well, she won't go to a good college at all if she doesn't start off on the right foot with preschools.”

Great. Now she was saying Violet would be in some commune for idiots, getting all doped up and sucking pacifiers all day while Weston and the others proceeded to PhDs all because their moms pulled the plug on the plug. With help of a consultant for four grand.

“Oh my God, guess what?” Bee started, changing the topic. “Maggie's friend Katie Slaughter of the Slaughter Oil Company just had a baby, like three weeks ago,” she said, her eyes twinkling with breaking news of the billionaire family. I always thought Slaughter was such a weird name, like
Hi! I'm Susie Death!

Bee continued, ablaze with hot goss. “She had a girl. Called Amelia Celeste. Anyway, they hired this baby nurse from Mrs. Brown's agency, and they send this very nice but clinically obese woman from Germany who ate them out of house and home. Total pig. But they liked her, whatever. So every morning Sabina, the huge baby nurse, would bring the baby in at seven so she could go to sleep and the parents could take over. So yesterday, they wake up and realize it's eight twenty! So they go in her room—the baby's still asleep in the bassinet and Sabina is lying facedown dead on the floor.
Dead
. Dead dead dead.” Bee could hardly control her laughter. “Heart attack! From being so fat!”

Mortified, I found myself smiling, too, but it was more nervous than amused. This poor woman keeled in the service of their coddled tot, her expiration apparently now sending rippling gales of laughter through the Upper East Side. Suddenly my phone rang. I pulled it out and looked at the incoming number: 415 area code.

My pulse quickened as I flipped it open. “Hello?” I said, my voice lilting up in a question, though I knew damn well who was calling.

“Hannah, Tate Hayes.”

“Hi! How are you?”

“Fine, I'm heading to a class, but I wanted to see if you wanted to meet a week from Wednesday at the Morgan. To see the prints—maybe around four?”

“Sure, sounds great—can't wait.”

As we agreed to meet, Weston and Violet were holding hands, and even though Bee was cooing to them, I saw her brow crinkle in curiosity.

“Who was that?” she asked as I closed my flip-phone.

“Just this old friend,” I said casually. “We're going to the museum next week.”

“I'm dying to catch up on all the exhibits,” she said, seeming frazzled by all the stuff on her plate. “Oh! I totally forgot to give you this!” she said, alarmed, fumbling through her Hermès bag to retrieve a huge, square envelope. As Bee handed it to me, my eyes widened in surprise. On the thick paper, in the most over-the-top flamboyant but beautiful calligraphy, was “Violet Allen” swirled in with curly letters and delicate inky flares. “Lara from lunch the other day? It's her son Maxwell's birthday and she wanted me to invite you.”

That was sweet. I was touched, considering that I thought Bee's friends found me a
Shrek
-loving Hicksville moron. “It's for the whole family, so Josh can come,” Bee added.

I opened the lavish enclosure, which was fancier than most wedding invitations.

“Whoa!” I said, reading the details of the bash. “The St. Regis Hotel?”

“The ballroom,” she added. “His first birthday was there, too, amazing,” she gushed. “The theme was Old McDonald and they had a tractor drive in plus all these live animals with handlers and pony rides—”

“This is in the hotel?” I said, incredulous.

“Oh yeah, with a sit-down lunch for two hundred. And every child got a barn from F.A.O. with their name handpainted on the red doors to take home.”

Clearly Bee was impressed. I knew the dumbass pizza party I'd had for Violet in our old apartment with some toys chucked in the center of the carpet would simply not cut it in the Big Apple. “Wow. That's intense.”

“I'll tell Lara that you and Josh will come. No need to RSVP.”

I looked the response number, which was to a Mrs. Caldwell, clearly the daddy's executive assistant. “Great, thanks!” I said, my head bursting with cluttered visions of the scene I was to behold that weekend, of how excited I was to meet Leigh for dinner out tonight, and—the most unreal thing, beyond even hotel-ballroom-hosted toddler birthdays—was that the following week I would actually be meeting with Tate Hayes.

AND A FEW MINUTES LATER…

Instant Message from: BeeElliott

BeeElliott: Just got back from park w/ Hannah.

Maggs10021: How was?

BeeElliott: Fine. She's coming to Maxwell's b-day party. She seems so intimidated by us.

Maggs10021: It is kind of overwhelming tho—felt bad for her at lunch the other day.

BeeElliott: Why?

Maggs10021: Dunno, just she seems not psyched to be here.

BeeElliott: Well, she married a NYer, I mean hellooo, eventually Josh would move back. Meanwhile get this: her kid is TWO and still uses a pacifier. I need to get the # of your consultant. I didn't tell her you hired him at 12 months—can you BELIEVE her kid's a junkie at 26 mos?