Heart of the Matter (13 page)

Rachel nods and says, “Yeah. I was more stressed out filling out those applications for Julia and Sarah than I was when I applied to
law
school. It’s one thing to brag about your own qualifications and credentials, but bragging about your five-year-old—it just feels so crass . . . Dex had an easier time with it. For our Spence essay, he actually dubbed Julia a ‘bubbly, brown-eyed wonder.’”

I laugh. “He wrote that?”

“Sure did.”

“So cheesy,” I say, shaking my head, consistently amazed that my banker brother, who appears to be so cool and dignified, can be such a colossal dork behind closed doors. At the same time, I think this is part of why his marriage works so well. At heart, he
is
cheesy, the polar opposite of slick, and having observed many relationships over the years, I have discovered that slick does not a good husband make—my own father leading that charge.

“Yeah. No wonder they rejected us, huh?” Rachel says with a sardonic smile. For a high achiever, she seems to wear this rejection as a peculiar badge of honor, as if it is their loss entirely, and it occurs to me that although she is unassuming, sometimes even downright shy, she is actually one of the more confident people I know—as opposed to April and so many other mothers who seem to strive for perfection as a way of dealing with their underlying insecurities.

She continues, “I knew I should have edited Dex’s essays. . . But deep down, I knew Spence wasn’t the right fit for us anyway. So I didn’t bother . . .”

I ask her why, always intrigued to hear the details of their life in the city—so different from my own childless memories of Manhattan.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she says, pausing before moving on to a pink cashmere sweater with tiny pom-poms sewn along the neckline. All of Julia and Sarah’s things are exquisite and girly, which is incongruous with Rachel’s own wardrobe of denim; cozy earth-toned sweaters; and long, bohemian-chic scarves that she drapes twice around herneck even in the summer. “You just hear all the stereotypes of all the schools. . . Chapin is blond, precious, WASPy. . . Spence is full of wealthy, connected society girls. Or spoiled, materialistic sluts, according to the haters . . . and Dex when we got rejected.” She laughs and then imitates his low voice—“How dare they turn down our brown-eyed wonder!”

I laugh at my brother’s expense and then ask about Brearley’s reputation—which is the Upper East Side all-girls’ school that Sarah and Julia attend.

“Hmm . . . Let’s see ... I’d say bedraggled intellectuals,” Rachel says.

“You are a far cry from bedraggled,” I say, pointing to her perfect piles that she is now stowing in the girls’ monogrammed canvas L.L. Bean bags.

She laughs and says, “So is Longmere still your top choice for Ruby?” she asks.

I nod, impressed with her memory of Boston schools and even more so when she asks, “That’s where April’s daughter goes, right?”

“Yeah . . . Which at the moment isn’t a selling point for Nick,” I say, giving her the full story about Nick’s patient. “He wants to avoid the entire drama . . . Or at least avoid the types he perceives to be meddlesome, do-nothing drama queens.”

“Meddlesome, do-nothing drama queens are
everywhere,”
Rachel says. “Private schools, public schools. Manhattan, the Midwest. They’re unavoidable.”

“Yeah,” I say. “But tell that to Nick. He seems to have a chip on his shoulder these days.”

As soon as the words are out, I regret them, both because I feel disloyal uttering them to Rachel who never breathes a negative word about her husband—and because I feel as if I’ve solidified my brewing criticisms of my own husband.

She gives me a sympathetic look which only sharpens my guilt. “Chip on his shoulder about what?” she asks.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I say, trying to backtrack slightly. “I understand where he’s coming from. I totally see that April and Romy and everyone in their clique should back up and give this woman and her kid some space. And I told April as much—which wasn’t an easy thing to say to a friend.”

“I can imagine,” Rachel says, nodding.

“But Nick takes it to such an extreme. You know how he can be. Self-righteous isn’t really the word . . .”

“Blunt? No-nonsense?” she guesses.

“Well, yes, there is that. He’s always been on the serious side,” I say, realizing how difficult it is to describe the people closest to you, perhaps because you are aware of all their complexities. “But it’s more that he has zero tolerance for anything he deems frivolous, be it gossip, celebrity magazines, excessive drinking or consumption.”

She nods hesitantly, walking the fine line between supporting me and denigrating Nick.

“I know I’m making him out to be so humorless . . .”

“No, no. You’re not. Listen—I know Nick. I get him. He has a great sense of humor,” she says.

“Right,” I say. “He just seems more reclusive lately. He never wants to get together with friends . . . And as far as parenting goes, he’s either the laissez-faire dad or Mr. Devil’s Advocate . . . Or maybe I’m just noticing it more lately ...” I say pensively, thinking of the recent conversations with my mother and tentatively sharing some of the lowlights with Rachel.

“Well, Barbie’s a cynic. You have to take her with a grain of salt,” she says. “You know what she recently said to me? Right in front of the girls?”

“What?” I ask, shaking my head in anticipation.

“She said getting married is like going to a restaurant with friends. You order what you want, and when you see what the other person has, you wish you had ordered that instead.”

I drop my head to my hands and laugh. “Brutal,” I say.

“I know. She made me feel like a big pork chop that Dex might send back to the kitchen.”

“How about this one?” I say. “After she saw Nick open the car door for me recently she offered this nugget: ‘When a man opens the door of his car for his wife, you can be sure of one thing—either the car is new or the wife is.’”

Rachel laughs and then says, “Well? Was the car new?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” I say. “Brand spanking . . . So
anyway,
I would never admit this to her, but quitting my job hasn’t really been the panacea I was hoping for. I feel just as frazzled and exhausted—and there still doesn’t seem to be enough time for the kids . . . For
anything, really.”

“Yeah. It almost makes you feel more guilty, doesn’t it? For not being an arts-and-crafts kind of mom?”

“But you are,” I say, giving her an accusatory look.

“I am
not,”
she says. “I can’t tell you the last time I got out the art supplies with the girls. You theoretically have so much more time at home, but you fill it with the minutiae that you somehow managed to avoid when you were working.”

“Yes!” I exclaim again, feeling intense relief, as there’s nothing so despair-provoking as thinking you’re the only one who feels a certain way, especially when it comes to matters of motherhood—and correspondingly, nothing more comforting than knowing you’re not

alone. “That’s exactly it. I feel like I need a wife . . . Someone to handle the class projects and—”

“Run all the errands,” Rachel says.

“And buy the gifts.”

“And wrap them,” she says.

“And write the thank-you notes.”

“And put the photo albums together,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I’m two years behind—and only halfway finished with Julia’s baby book.”

“Hell, forget the albums. I’d settle for some help
taking
the photos,” I say, thinking of how I recently told Nick that if something were to happen to me, the kids would have no photos of their mother. He told me not to be so morbid, grabbing the camera from me and snapping a dark-circles-under-my-eyes, Clearasil-coating-a-big-zit-on-my-chin shot that I later deleted, shuddering to think that I might be remembered in such a grisly light. Or worse, viewed that way by another woman, Nick’s second wife, the only mother my children would ever know.

Then, just as I feel our playful gripes transforming into a no-holds-barred bitchfest, Rachel smiles and says, “Ahh. Yes. But lucky for them they are so darn cute. Inept though they are.”

I smile, puzzled at the idea of calling children “inept” and then realizing that she is not talking about the kids, but rather Dex and Nick.

“Right,” I say, my smile stretching wider. “Good thing.”

***

That night, long after everyone has departed and the kids have gone to sleep, Nick and I are in our room, getting ready for bed.

“That was a great weekend,” I say, rinsing my face. I pat it dry and apply a generous amount of moisturizer to my face and neck. “I love seeing the cousins together.”

“Yeah, it was fun,” Nick says as he rifles through his drawer and pulls out a pair of chambray pajama bottoms. “And your mother managed to behave herself reasonably well.”

I smile, going to my own dresser and selecting a black nightgown. It is made of a cotton-spandex blend and is not sexy in an obvious way, but the cut is flattering and I’m hoping it might spark something between Nick and me. It’s not so much that I’m in the mood for sex as I am for the intimate aftermath.

“Yeah,” I say. “But she gave me an earful yesterday morning.”

“About what?” he asks.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I say. “She continues to worry . . .”

“What’s she worried about
now?”

“The usual stuff. How hard marriage is with small children. How I shouldn’t have quit my job,” I say, suddenly realizing that her worries are crystallizing in my head, becoming my worries, too. Or maybe they were already brewing and were simply unearthed by a mother’s intuition.

“Did you tell her that we’re fine?” he says, but seems distracted as he checks his BlackBerry, then types a rapid response, his agile thumbs working in tandem. “Whenever I see his hands moving like this, I am reminded that he is a surgeon with the finest motor skills, and feel a wave of reassuring attraction. Still, I don’t like his use of the word
fine. I
want to be better than
fine.

“Yeah,” I say. “I told her.”

I watch Nick continue to type, his brow furrowed, and can tell it is a work-related exchange. He finishes abruptly, then pulls on his pajama bottoms, cinching the drawstring at the waist.
Do you always sleep topless?
I once asked when we first started to date. At which point he laughed and corrected me:
Girls wear tops; men shirts. Hence, topless and shirtless.
I watch him toss his clothes in the vague vicinity of the hamper, but missing so egregiously he couldn’t really have been trying. It is not like him to be so haphazard, and as I stare down at the pile on the floor, his maroon Harvard baseball cap upside down on the heap, I feel something in me become faintly unhinged. I silently count to ten, waiting for him to say something,
anything,
and when he doesn’t, I say, “So I printed out the application for Longmere.”

The statement is fully architected to push his buttons, or at the very least engage him in conversation. I feel a tinge of shame for being so manipulative, but feel somehow justified.

“Oh?” he asks, making his way to the bathroom sink. I sit on the edge of the tub and watch the muscles flex in his back as he brushes his teeth with what I’ve always believed to be excessive force. I used to remind him about his gums, how bad his technique is for them, but have given up over the years.

“I think we should get rolling on the process,” I say.

“Yeah?” he says, his tone bored, as if to tell me that this is on the long list of things that aren’t his concern, along with class snacks : and Halloween costumes.

Shit, I think. My mother is right.

“Yes. I’ll put it in your briefcase. Do you think you could take a first crack at the essays? Maybe this week? Rachel said Dex did theirs . . .”

Nick gives me a look in the mirror and then says through a mouthful of toothpaste, “Seriously?”

I give him a blank stare as he spits into the sink, rinses his mouth, iand says, “Okay. Fine. But I have a crazy week coming up. Charlie’s graft is tomorrow.”

“Right,” I say, my annoyance ratcheting up a notch at the mention of his patient’s first name.

A moment later, he is following me to bed.

“So that’s what we’re doing?” Nick asks with a sigh. “We’ve decided to apply to Longmere?”

“It’s a great school,” I say. “It’s where
Charlie
goes.”

As soon as the words are out, I know I’ve gone too far.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Nick says.

“Nothing,” I say with wide-eyed innocence as I adjust the covers around me.

“Okay. What gives, Tess? Are you angry about something?”

“No,” I say as unconvincingly as possible, wanting him to probe one step further, so I can tell him all the things I am feeling, the frustration that approaches anger. Anger that feels justified half the time, paranoid and selfish the rest.

Only he doesn’t probe, doesn’t give me the chance, doesn’t ask any questions at all. Instead, he simply says, “Good. Now, c’mon. Let’s get some rest.”

“Right. I know. You have surgery tomorrow,” I say.

Nick glances over at me, nods, and barely smiles. Then he absentmindedly checks his BlackBerry one last time before turning off his bedside light, clearly as oblivious to my sarcasm as he is to my little black nightgown.

12

Valerie

On
Monday morning, while Dr. Russo and a team of five doctors and nurses operate on Charlie, Valerie sits in the waiting room, doing just that—waiting—and nothing more. She waits alone, having insisted to her mother and brother that they come later, after everything is over. Valerie has never been one to want conversation or distraction during times of stress, and can’t understand the psychology of those who cast about for diversions, like her mother who knits when she’s upset or worried. As such, she does not once turn to watch the flat-screen television that is blaring CNN in the corner, or so much as glance at one of the dozens of women’s magazine scattered on tables throughout the room. She does not even listen to Charlie’s iPod, which she promised to keep for him while he was in the OR. She does not want an escape of any kind. Instead, she wants to remain alert, simply enduring the agonizing minutes, waiting for someone to emerge in the doorway and take her to her son. She hopes that someone will be Nick, for no other reason than she is certain that when she sees his face she will be able to tell right away that everything went smoothly. She knows by now that he is a straight shooter, and she spends her mental energy visualizing the moment she sees his reassuring smile, almost willing it to unfold accordingly.