The Mermaid of Brooklyn (22 page)

I didn’t forgive Laura until later in the day, when we were walking the long track that looped around the park, Emma snoozing in her stroller and Betty toddling alongside hers, wanting to push it and then veering it right into the woods, making us move at a monkish pace. Rose turned red, staring at me with an intensity that could only mean she was taking an enormous poop, and then she sighed, nestled down into what she’d made, and fell asleep. The sling felt heavy and damp but fine, I’d take it. If my girls ever napped at the same time, it would be an absolute, no-exaggeration, makes-you-believe-in-God miracle.

So we were walking, and Nell passed us by, effortlessly sprinting in a spandex number I wouldn’t wear lying down, pushing Sophie in a jogging stroller. She stopped to run in place at us. “Oh, hi, girls!”

“Hey, Nell,” we answered in flat unison.

“Beautiful day, isn’t it? Great news—Sophie got accepted into Poly Prep! I’m just ecstatic! After all the interviews and everything, you know, it’s just such a relief! What about your girls? I hope some of Soph’s buddies will be joining her at preschool!”

“Nell,” I said before I could stop myself—
Don’t think, just say it, she deserves it, oy, what a pill—
“it
is
a beautiful day. Don’t ruin it for us.”

She laughed, surprised. “Oh, Jenny, you are too funny!”

I ignored Laura’s warning look. “I’m not being funny. Why don’t
you just jog on, lady? Leave us masses to our plebian pleasures!” She laughed again, but there was a stricken look in her eyes, and she was still there, so I said, “Personally, I’m going to get some Baby Einstein DVDs and call it a day. Preschool’s for the weak!”

Nell was scarcely able to stifle her gasp. Laura contributed a strangled giggle. She was about to say something, probably by the way of apology, when Nell waved her hand. “You are too funny!” she said again, uncertainly. She waved an exaggerated baby-wave, wiggling her perfect manicure at us, and took off down the track. “See you girls at Wee Sing!”

Laura watched her shrink away and said, shaking her head, “Look at her butt. It doesn’t even move.” Then she turned to me. “You’re insane.”

I shrugged.
I’m not the crazy one,
I wanted to say.
It’s my mermaid spirit.
I went with: “She deserves it. What an asshole.”

I could see Laura’s mood undulating behind her face. She decided on amusement, thankfully, and after we had walked a few moments in silence—after Betty had climbed into her stroller and busied herself with a crinkly bag of fruit snacks, and we’d picked up our pace, listening to our breathing and the rattle of leaves and the distant music of the carousel—Laura said, “I want to tell you something.”

Ugh, here we go. Sometimes I’m so tired of women. Aren’t you? Here comes some confession, a cathartic cry. Give me a stoic man any day. Actually, do. Soon, preferably.

Oh, stop. We love Laura.

Hmm. If you say so.

Laura took a deep breath, not looking at me. “This is something I’ve never told anyone.”

I nodded. “About Will?” I prompted. I knew it. He had always seemed way too perfect. Maybe he wasn’t working late all those
nights, saving lives. Maybe there was a reason Laura constantly suspected Harry of an affair. Maybe—

“What? No. About me.”

Now I really was curious. “Oh. What is it?”

Laura looked embarrassed. “It’s not that exciting. I just— I’ve—It’s so silly.”

She looked at me. Her eyes were a deep olive green, flecked with gold. Had I ever truly seen them before? Her expression was so strange that my mind raced. She was having an affair. She was terminally ill. She was secretly in love with someone—Cute Dad! Nell! Me! “I’ve been sneaking out of the apartment at night when Emma and Will are asleep.”

“And?”

“And going to Donuts.”

“Donuts? The greasy spoon on Seventh? This is your big confession? And what, you get the corn-beef hash? Jeez, Laura, who cares?”

“Well—I talk to people. I mean, I interview people. I’ve been recording them. I just pick people and ask them about their lives. I don’t know why. There are the weirdest people there in the middle of the night. Or sometimes the most boring people. Which is weird in itself. Immigrants with PhDs who work crappy night shifts. Homeless schizophrenics bubbling with conspiracy theories. Nurses from Methodist, still wearing their scrubs with Betty Boop or whatever on them. Chatty insomniacs. I just— I don’t know why I’m doing it. I just like it.”

For an instant I was disappointed that I hadn’t elicited some juicier confession. But in a way, it was sort of a shocking thing to hear. I guess I did think I knew everything about Laura. It was weird to think she had a secret life, even if it was a harmless project that took place for a few hours a night, even
though—especially though—it was nothing sordid. Laura! Who would have thought?

“Will doesn’t know. He’s a sound sleeper. And the thing is, I don’t want him to know. At this point, he would be upset to learn I’ve been doing something without telling him. Don’t you think? Even though it’s nothing . . . bad, you know? Also, I like having a secret project. I know it’s silly, but—it’s mine. You know?” I watched Laura as she spoke, and I realized two things, or rather, the rusalka narrated in my head:
One: You have been thinking about no one but yourself and your own problems for months now. Why is it some big-time shock to learn that your friend has something—anything—going on? Of course she does. Doesn’t everyone? Don’t we all have our own private things happening, bubbling to the surface only when the kids go to bed, when the men aren’t looking?
For Laura, it turned out, it was something solid, pleasantly concrete, which made sense, given her tidy personality. Of course Laura had a project, an organized and productive way to rebel, a secret inner world that injured no one.

And two, look at her.
I did. Laura, in the coins of light tinkling down through the trees, in the soft summer air, her hair in a loose ponytail, the collar of her white oxford shirt slightly damp from sweat, Laura, leaning over to check on Emma in the stroller, was beautiful. When had it happened? Had she always been this way, and I was looking at her only now?

But she was waiting for my response. There was a certain beseeching quality to her silence that I recognized from something, from someone, from myself, like when I would say something to Harry, present some idea (Let’s go out to brunch! Let’s move to France!) and breathlessly wait for him to shit on it or maybe, possibly, but probably not, approve. I looked my friend in the eyes for once. The rusalka breathed to me what to say. “Laura,” I said. “That’s amazing. I want to hear some of it.”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s not amazing. It’s stupid. And I feel so guilty—like if I can’t sleep, I should spend that time cleaning the apartment or doing laundry or making a quilt. I don’t know. Something.”

Tell her. Tell her this is nothing to feel guilty about. Be a friend. It’s not so hard.

“You have nothing to feel guilty about.”

“What if Emma wakes up and I’m not there? What if Will does?”

“So tell Will. He won’t be upset. Why should he be?”

“I should stop, anyway. I’ve been staying longer and longer, until I’m so tired I can hardly see straight. If Emma drops her nap, I’m done for!” She gestured dramatically, only half-joking.

The rusalka had perked up—a weird feeling, a jittery jolt of energy. She ordered me,
Tell her this. Repeat after me.
“Don’t downplay what you are doing. I’m serious. Don’t be self-deprecating. What you’re doing obviously means something to you. Why shouldn’t it mean something to others, too? You’re making a documentary about the nocturnal life of a neighborhood! That’s something a lot of people would be interested in.”

Laura shook her head. “It’s nothing. You haven’t heard the recordings. I haven’t even heard them all yet. I just meant—”

I interrupted. “It’s something. I’m sure it’s something. Hey, doesn’t Julie’s husband work for NPR?”

“No. I mean, he does, but Jenny, no. It’s nothing like that.”

“Why not? All I’m saying is—” What was I saying? It came from within, without me. “There’s no reason why you couldn’t be making something people would care about. You’re a creative person, and you have good taste, and there is no reason to believe that what you’re making isn’t worthwhile.”

Laura opened and closed her mouth a few times, like a fish. Then she turned to me and smiled helplessly. “Thanks for the vote
of confidence. I mean it. I don’t— Don’t tell anyone yet. Let me listen to everything and try to do some editing and see if there’s anything there. It may be nothing.”

“Fair enough. But you admit that it may be something?”

She paused. “It’s possible.”

Laura had become a less suggestive version of my high school boyfriend: People thought of us as a unit, and we assumed without confirming that every day would involve each other. We even spoke in the slack-jawed idiom of teenage paramours: “Wanna hang out?” “Yeah, that’d be cool.” “Whaddya wanna do?” “I dunno. Whatever.” There was an unspoken ambition toward more, a shared suspicion that we weren’t made for each other, but since we had found each other and were both available, we should continue the ceaseless hangouts. So the next morning, I camped out on a blanket in our usual spot in the park, by the curve in the path where the trash cans stood sentry, haloed with obese bees—ah, nature. I hadn’t told Laura where we would be or when, and she hadn’t told me when, if ever, they planned to leave the house, but we knew the drill by now, how to find each other when the need to see another adult became unignorable.

Today, however, my rusalka had had it.
Don’t you ever leave this neighborhood?

Rose sat, leaning on her hands like a tripod, staring off into the heat-hazy distances. Betty was force-feeding her stuffed bunny acorns and telling it softly, “Eat scones!” I was just happy no one was crying. It hadn’t occurred to me to want more from a day.
What do you mean? We walked to the other side of the park yesterday. And why would we live in this neighborhood if we wanted to be somewhere else?

Oh, please. I had no idea you people were so provincial. Isn’t there a whole city out there?

Ugh, the stroller on the train, and the diaper bag, and Betty needs to be home at noon to nap, and . . .

She had no patience for this, and soon we were packing everything up. How was it that we had been camped out for under an hour and had spread out so completely? Toys and books and diapers and Betty’s snack container and a Hansel and Gretel trail of Cheerios zigzagging across the blanket, which itself was tie-dyed with grass stains, spit-up, apple juice, probably pee, who knew what else.

In the last few weeks, Betty had mastered a very teenagerly withering glare, and she lasered it toward me now. “Where going?” She had the bunny in one hand and a palmful of acorn-scones in the other.

“The Met.”
The Met? Do you have any idea how long that train ride is? What about nap time? What about
— “It’s a big art museum in the city. It’s about time we get some of this fabled culture I hear so much about this city having to offer. And I don’t mean spending an hour at Barnes and Noble.” Jesus.

I have to admit that despite the dread churning up in my chest like a wave of pregnancy heartburn, and despite the extended hassle of prepping the stroller and strapping in the squirmy toddler and settling the baby into the carrier and begging reluctant passersby to help me lug the stroller up and down the dungeony subway steps and entertaining the kids throughout the bizarrely long ride, it was the best afternoon I’d had in a long time. Betty ran through the armor room, saying excitedly, uncomprehendingly, “Knighttime, Mommy! Knighttime!” Rose sobbed and then nursed in the Temple of Dendur, rallying to gaze intently at the Tiffany stained glass. I could have sworn I could feel my brain opening, twisting toward
paintings, like a rose slow-motion-blooming on a Nova program. I did have a moment when I saw myself in the reflection of a framed photograph and remembered what a mess I was and wished myself not in a cuter outfit but simply back home among other messy mothers—but it did feel good to be out in the city. Betty and I shared a stupidly expensive snack in the museum café, where the cute boy working behind the counter smiled at Rose and then at me and awakened some warmth in my limbs—so pathetic—out of mere simple politeness. It didn’t take much these days, did it?

Rose took exception to the modern-art galleries—everyone’s a critic—and we beat a hasty retreat out into the heat and blare of the street. Betty refused to get back in the stroller, galloping up and down the steps. “Watch me, Mommy!” It was one of those summer days when the city seems animated by a large benevolent force: The pillars at the museum’s entrance seemed to bend and wave; taxicabs swarmed down the street like huge, happy bumblebees. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the skyscrapers fringing Central Park had begun to sing and sway in time.
See, didn’t I tell you?
And there it was—an ebullient fetus of happiness, kicking me from within. Happiness! What a lightness it was, what a peculiar energy it gave you. How strange, the way you could live without it and hardly notice its absence.