How to Be a Grown-up (11 page)

I took a breath. “In our shared iCal. It’s ranked from their fave to least fave.” Now I sounded like Taylor.

“When did you do that?”

“I don’t know, last spring. Can you just look?”

“Yes, I can look, Rory. I’m not retarded.”

“Blake!” My back ached, my eyes burned, and my restraint snapped like a released rubber band. “You
have
to stop using that word. The kids will copy you.”

He hung up.

When I got home in the early hours of the next morning, the sitter was asleep on the couch. Though she hadn’t wanted to say it, it was obvious that Blake had come back after the play and packed up. His underwear drawer was barren, his T-shirts gone. The flip travel clock that had been his grandfather’s was missing from his night table, as was his complete collection of Jerzy Kosinski. All that was left in the medicine cabinet were his old eyedrops.

To the sound of the running bath, I dug one of his tees out of the bag destined for the Salvation Army—the Beastie Boys one that said No Sleep Til, the one he wore almost daily when Wynn was a baby. I gingerly lowered myself into the steaming Epsom brew, my whole body hurting. I lay my head back on the cold porcelain rim, covered my face with the worn blue cotton, breathed him in. And sobbed.

“That’s it,” Claire said over the phone the next morning as I sat down at my desk, looking at the reply from Kathryn to my clandestine voice mail about the login incident:
“I’d never do anything to get you fired.”
Not sure if we had the same interpretation of what that could encompass, I went ahead and sent her the mechanical.“You’re coming out with me.”

This had been Claire’s standard line since freshman year at Purchase. F in statistics? “That’s it, you’re coming out with me.” Olaf Knufnagel told me he could be into me if I lost some weight? “That’s it, you’re coming out with me.”

Which implied that Claire was like one of those princesses who walked through a door in the back of her closet into an alternative college where the beer was always cold, the guys always showered, the floor loogie-free. But somehow in her presence, we did find the witty foreign exchange student, the twenty on the sidewalk, the dorm room with the good vodka.

Maybe that’s why she’d never gotten married. How could anyone want to trade all that for loose pants and takeout in front of the DVR because you have to, not because you want to?

“Claire, I am too old to go ‘out.’ ” And I was exhausted. And sad. And unsure of myself.

“Nonsense. Halloween. After the kids succumb to their sugar crashes, I’m picking you up for a huge costume party at the museum. Big design theme, totally you.”

“Actually, they’re both sleeping at friends’ places.”

“See, the universe wants you to misbehave.” Or that.

JeuneBug went into beta and, despite Taylor using my shoot as an excuse for every scrimp in spending (“Oh, the water cooler’s empty? Sorry, we used the money paying Rory’s location overtime.”), the Be vertical got the most traction that first week. Even I had to admit the pictures came out amazingly. Any parent with $20,000 and a love of the macabre could not find a better blueprint for a nursery. And apparently several had clicked through to buy the bed, only to be disappointed when they found out it didn’t come in black.

By Friday it did.

Over the next few weeks, Blake and I got into the uncomfortable rhythm of our strange estrangement. He picked the kids up from school; I texted when I was approaching home; he left. I sent him the information for one couples’ counselor after the next, but he kept finding fault with their bios. When we were finally recommended one he was enthusiastic about, there was a three-week wait for an appointment.

And suddenly October had flown by, and I was standing next to Maya at Ricky’s staring forlornly at the racks of prosti-tot costumes. What happened to just being a strawberry? Why was she supposed to be a sexy strawberry? Why was I? I was alarmed.

“Mommy?”

“Yes?”

“Who’s taking me twick-or-tweating?”

“Me.”

“I want Daddy.”

Me too.

“We’ll just have to see if he’s free with his show. I hope he is. I want him to be.” I knew our excuses to the kids were starting to sound flimsy.

“I want to be Batman.”

But Wynn was Batman. Would he see this as endearing? Or be enraged that she was diluting his brand?

“Are you sure, honey?” The first time I found myself transforming a cardboard box into Plex well into the wee hours while Blake watched
Lost,
I almost moved
him
in time and space. Thereafter I vowed that, despite my love of a hot glue gun, it was worth my mental health to fork over twenty-five bucks for some cheap piece of Chinese shit that made them so
so
happy.

“Batman. I am, wike, tho thure.” Since starting pre-K, Maya had developed the habit of talking like a teenager from the 1980s. Via Elmer Fudd.

“Mom!” he said. “She
can’t
.”

I turned to Wynn, braced to intercede, before I realized the jumpsuit she was holding was red. For Robin. Oh, this was too perfect. I was actually going to be able to post pictures on Facebook that made me look like I had it together. A can of green hair spray for me and I’d be golden.

“Wynn, you’re
both
going to be Batman,” I said purposefully, using my eyebrows to guide his eye to her red jumpsuit.
“Okay?”

“But that’s not—”

“Okay?”
I interrupted him.

“Yay!” Maya shouted. Now I just had to hope no one else burst her bubble.

We made it through two whole hours of the bizarre ritual that is Halloween in New York. We urbanites give it our all, but tromping up and down fluorescent-lit back staircases doesn’t hold a Diptyque candle to shuffling through dry leaves.

As we waited in the vestibule for the host of Wynn’s sleepover, the sugar my kids had consumed was reaching its peak; Maya was doing something that looked like that running move from
Flashdance
and Wynn was pretending to be a broken robot. I couldn’t drop them off fast enough.

“Hi!” The Buzz Lightyear dad who greeted us seemed happy to see me.

“Oh—hi!” I did a double-take. “Josh, right?” Even in a white plastic jumpsuit, he was handsome. Ten years in, I had yet to tip over to a place where I did not care if the attractive dads found me attractive. I never flirted or engaged with them as anything other than Wynn’s mom, but even with Maya in a front-pack and chalk all over my butt, I was not ready to be invisible. So why was I wearing a large overcoat and a green wig? Would it have killed me to be Catwoman? “Or should I say, Buzz?”

“Yes, I, uh, I’ve been wearing this costume since the first one came out.” He winged his elbow at me to show a rip.

“That’s dedication.” Wynn had already wriggled past Josh and disappeared into the apartment. “Uh, good-bye!” I called after him. “Sorry, I’m confused. Is this your party?”

“Oh, no,” Josh said. “Just some of the parents from the soccer team volunteering to stand by in case anyone codes.”

“Give them the
Pulp Fiction
?”

“Exactly.”

“Twick or tweat,” Maya said to the wall, her eyes already rolling back in her head.

“Stay for some wine?” he asked.

“Oh, thank you,” I said, scooping her into my arms. “But I should get this one to her sleepover before she turns the corner into some kind of succubus.”

“It is a horrible holiday.” He smiled.

“And you’ve done it times three.”

“Enjoy this part. My oldest is heading to a club downtown dressed like a pimp.”

“See, that will never happen to me because we are moving to Amish country.”

“Josh,” a woman called from inside. “Matt’s claws aren’t retracting!”

“I’m needed. Well, see you on the field.”

“Now that it’s miserably cold? I wouldn’t miss it!”

And, trying to figure out if there was such a thing as a smile under a Joker mouth that looked at all appealing, I got us on the elevator.

Once home, I had only forty-five minutes to wash the green out of my hair and transform myself into celebrity decorator, Kelly Wearstler, which I hoped met Claire’s mandate: “It’s a big design scene so do
not
look like a mom, for fuck’s sake.” I gave myself Swiss Miss braids and pinned a vintage gold ashtray to them. I made earrings out of two midcentury chandelier tubes, worn with a metallic jacquard miniskirt and hot pink suede shoes. And to gild the lily, I had downloaded the
Playboy
spread she did in the 1980s and decoupaged it onto an old bustier.