Play Dates
Authors: Leslie Carroll
Tags: #Divorced women, #Contemporary Women, #Humorous, #New York (N.Y.), #Fiction, #Humorous fiction, #Mothers and Daughters, #General
PlayDates
Leslie Carroll
For Irene
My deepest thanks to Carrie Feron and Lucia Macro at Avon Books for their creative and incisive editorial vision, and to my wonderful agent Irene Goodman for her constant inspiration; to my dear friend Gail Matos for being my daily correspondent, cheerleader, and constant lifeline to the rest of the world during the writing of this book; to Rebecca Scarpati, Joan Sloser, Jan Leslie Harding, and most especially to my sister Nicole Gruen-stein for sharing their maternal wisdom and humor; to Bruce Belland for his generosity, despite the fact that his lyric ended up on the cutting room floor; to den farrier for putting me in touch with Bruce as well as for his myriad wonderful insights; to Brian Vinero, NYC tour guide extraordinaire; a wink to Sakamoto-san; and a nod to my late grandfather Carroll Carroll.
He knows why.
Contents
Zoë, honey, please put those down. You’re only six years… 1
Well, Zoë’s been in school for a full week and…
21
My kid sister has become an inspiration. Her search for…
39
To save some money, I take the subway up to…
53
“You are coming here for Thanksgiving, sweetheart?”
my mother asks,…
73
“Don’t kill me, Claire. I can’t do it.” This afternoon…
91
My mother doesn’t have a malicious fiber in her body.
111
There was a “police emergency” in the subway—which usually means…
127
I feel like I’ve done nothing but shop. And I…
141
It’s been a great few days. I love having a…
157
There’s snow on the sidewalk and checkered tablecloths on the…
169
“It’s always something with you Marsh girls, isn’t it?” This…
185
My feet are killing me. I’m walking in the door…
195
I’m not a joiner—that’s not my thing—but like the right-handed…
213
I can’t believe Claire met a guy! That didn’t come…
227
“Oh. My. God.”
245
Bleh. The temperature in the room is over a hundred…
259
For the first time in my life, I’m scared to…
273
“Claire, are you sitting down? I’m getting married!”
283
It’s like pirate treasure! I can’t speak for Zoë, but…
295
If someone wanted to give me a gift, completely out…
311
Who would have thought my job would be relaxing? By… 321
Why the hell did I say I’d do this?! Backstage…
331
June is a lot like Christmastime. Everything winds down and…
347
Once we get to the Thackeray auditorium, I ask my…
361
SEPTEMBER
“Zoë, honey, please put those down. You’re only six years old.”
“I’m six and three-quarters.”
“I’m sorry, sweetie. Six and three-quarters. Yes, you’re a big girl, now. Still, you can’t wear high heels to second grade.”
“I want to look like MiMi.”
“You’ll have plenty of time to look like your aunt MiMi,” I cajole. “
Believe me
, you don’t want to rush growing up.”
“Yes, I do.”
We’ve been hunting for the perfect pair of school shoes for up-wards of half an hour. My linen dress is clinging to my body like a limp dishrag. This has to be the hottest Labor Day on record. You could fry an egg in the middle of Broadway. It’s so muggy outside that we could ha
waded
ve
up to Harry’s Shoes, which must be the craziest place in the city to have to visit on the last shopping day before school starts. It’s mayhem in here. The decibel level is even worse than a Saturday afternoon at PlaySpace. Honestly, I don’t know how the salespeople cope. The management must give them a free hit of Prozac when they punch their time card.
2
Leslie Carroll
I think the mothers and merchants of New York City will breathe a collective sigh of relief tomorrow. I sure know I could use a break. I’ve spent every day this summer with Zoë. It’s the first time I’ve ever had to care for her 24/7. I lost both husband
and
housekeeper in the divorce. Hilda had been Scott’s mother’s housekeeper at one point, so her loyalty was to the Franklins. I’ve had no one to pick up the slack, so I could catch a catnap, find twenty minutes for a manicure, or—God forbid—
go to lunch with a girlfriend.
Zoë, looking like a wilted daisy, comes over to me complain-ing of the heat and humidity. “I’m sticky,” she gripes, pushing limp bangs off her forehead with a grubby hand. I open my bag, whip out a Wash’n Dri, mop her brow, wipe her hands, and pin up her hair with an elastic and a clip.
“Blow,” Zoë says, and I purse my lips and generate a gentle Mommy breeze, cooling the nape of her neck and her face.
Brimming with purpose and bustle, a tall woman with one of those year-round tans, forty-something and looks it, practically tramples a knot of preschoolers to get to me. She’s nearly out of breath. “Who do you work for?” she asks abruptly.
“I don’t understand,” I reply, caught completely by surprise.
“I’ve been watching you from across the room,” she says. “I’m sorry. I thought you spoke English. I wanted to know who you work for.”
“Who do I
work
for?” I’m still not getting it. Maybe the intense heat of the day has baked my brain.
The woman slips into the cadences one uses when they think they’re speaking to someone either dreadfully hard of hearing or from a country whose gross national income wouldn’t cover the cost of an August sublet in the Hamptons. “It’s so hard to find someone who—you know—well, speaks
English
. And is well-groomed—and—you’re so good with the little girl.” She unsnaps her Fendi “baguette” and withdraws a slim leather card case. “If you’re ever unhappy with your present situation, please PLAY DATES
3
do consider giving me a call. Xander isn’t much of a handful.”
She points out a small boy about Zoë’s age with an unruly mop of brown curls, banging together two Yao Ming-size Timber-lands as if they’re a pair of orchestra cymbals.
Oh, good Lord. I get it now
. “You think I’m an
au pair
, don’t you?” I ask the older woman. She looks so smug, I decide that the most delicious way to set her straight is through indirect communication. Besides, a smartass remark just isn’t me. My sister Mia is the one who excels at the witty rejoinder. “Zoë, sweetie, please let’s settle on something.
Mommy’s
going to pass out in a few minutes if we don’t get away from this crowd.” The child has a way of totally zoning out for some reason whenever we go to a shoe store. I guess it’s why I postponed the school-shoe shopping expedition until the last possible moment.
I’m trying not to let her see how exasperated I am that what should have been a half-hour excursion is turning into a day trip. And in this heat it’s not easy. Ever since her father left, I feel guilty when I get angry or lose patience with her. The divorce was rough on both of us and I’m unused to being the dis-ciplinarian. More than that, I’m uncomfortable with it. My own parents are uncharacteristically non-neurotic. Actually, I suppose their loopy progressiveness is their own form of dys-function, and not having grown up in a strict household, I haven’t a clue how to run one, even when discipline is clearly called for.
My now-ex-husband Scott was able to handle his dot-com CFO responsibilities from home much of the time, so while I took a full course load at Columbia and got my bachelor’s degree in art history during Zoë’s first four years, it was Scott who heard our daughter say her first word (“Da”) and whose hands she let go of when she took her first cautious, halting, baby steps. Zoë worships her father and has been blaming me for the divorce, even though it was Scott who decided to walk away from the marriage several months ago.
4
Leslie Carroll
My cell phone vibrates. It’s my friend Sue. “Where are you?”
she demands accusingly.
Well, no reason for her to cop an attitude, just because we haven’t been in touch for a while! What have I done to her?
“I’m at Harry’s trying to find Zoë some school shoes she can live with. What’s the matter?”
“Oh . . . nothing. Just that I’ve been sitting here at Farfalle since one thirty. I’m on my third glass of Pinot Grigio and the waitstaff is making me feel particularly pathetic for having been stood up. At first I thought you must have been held up in transit, but—”
“Hold on, Sue.” I cover the phone and turn to Zoë. “You can have the lace-up or the ones with the buckle.” Shit. I was supposed to meet Sue for lunch today. We’ve had this planned for ages, but the dry-erase board got Bolognese sauce on it, so we had to wipe it clean and I guess I didn’t remember the date with Sue when I went to write down all our activities again. The col-lateral damage was that the appointment also got wiped clean out of my mind, so of course I didn’t arrange for baby-sitting.
“I am so sorry,” I apologize. “I completely forgot. Please don’t hate me. It’s been a bit insane lately.” It’s hard to continue the conversation while keeping an eye on Zoë, and the cell phone connection is dreadful. I’m becoming one of those people who yells inanities into her phone. Tales that can wait to be told at another time. One of those people for whom boiling oil and melted lead is an insufficient torture. “Sue, let me call you when we get home, and maybe we can set something up for . . .”
Sssssssshhhhhhh.
The connection goes dead.
Next year. Maybe.
Aargh!
So, here I am, trying to keep things light to disguise my frustration. “How can you hate shoe-shopping and be my daughter?” I tease.
“
Daddy
hates shoe-shopping and I’m
his
daughter, too.
PLAY DATES
5
They’re divorced,” Zoë volunteers, for the benefit of anyone within earshot of the girls’ shoe department. “Daddy left her for an older woman.”
Where did hell did she get that phrase? Oh, right, she hears me use it all the time on the phone when I’m venting to Mia or to my female friends—like Sue—whom I hardly find the time to see anymore, even though they live across town.
“Well, dear, it’s usually the other way around,” Xander’s mother mutters, loud enough for me to hear. She has an edge to her that I find instantaneously unpleasant. Maybe it’s just me and I’m having a bad day. I’m sure this woman with the cancer cabana tan and the meticulously highlighted blown-straight-to-within-an-inch-of-its-overprocessed-life hair is a very lovely human being, despite the fact that she is quick to assume that a young woman in charge of a child must be its grad-student nanny. Evidently, she must have read too many celebrity tell-alls.
By this time, Xander has wandered over to his mother. She covers his ears with her jeweled hands. “Men are pigs,” she hisses sororally. She sizes me up some more and then extends her hand. “I’m Nina Osborne. So, you’re her
mother
. Fascinating. You don’t see too many your age these days. It’s . . . so retro.”
I shake Nina’s hand. “Claire Marsh.” My own name tastes un-familiar on my tongue. “Sorry, it takes a little bit of adjustment.
I was Claire Marsh and then I became Claire Franklin, and it’s so recently back to Marsh again that I”—I’m babbling here—