Tales From the Crib (16 page)

“Why would you say something like that?” I gasped.

“I’m sorry. I saw his obituary in the alumni news. I wanted to tell you before you heard it from someone else.” I deflated. My first real love was dead. I could see him plainly in front of us, approaching Zoe’s and my table in the dorm cafeteria. He had a scruffy, unpretentious cuteness about him that had me way before hello. “So what do you recommend here?” he had asked.

“The thinly sliced veal delicately bathed in a white wine and caper glaze is excellent,” I suggested.

He smiled. “I was trying to find a way to meet you all last semester, so my New Year’s resolution was to do it first thing when we got back to school.”

Zoe smirked. “It’s March.”

Rich said if I went out with him he’d make it worth the wait.

I did. And he did. For the next two years we were inseparable best friends with incredible chemistry. We always said we wished this could last, which might sound as though we were making plans for the future. But actually, it was a realization that while we had something special, it was a relationship on a meter that expired upon graduation. After college, I was going to stay in Ann Arbor for my MFA and Rich was going to teach English in Japan. We wrote for a while, but then I met Jack and I heard through mutual friends that Rich married a Japanese woman and lived in Kyoto with two children. Last I heard he was a software engineer and started a few dot-coms, some of which were actually viable. Now Zoe was telling me he was dead.

“How did he die?” I asked.

“Cancer.” And with that one word, a small part of me died too. That always sounds so dramatic when people say it, but it felt so true right now. A part of my youth, my love, my history was gone. Suddenly I felt a slap of guilt over making his death somehow about me. Frighteningly, I was becoming my mother. I forced myself to imagine a Japanese woman holding his hand through chemotherapy, then dressing two little boys for their father’s funeral. God, he was such a good guy. I knew my mother’s theory about cancer being unexpressed anger was a crock of shit. Rich had the most insane temper I’d ever seen. When he was pissed about something, he’d curse, throw things, and scream for hours.

As I drove up to my home, I saw an unfamiliar car parked in the driveway. A perky sports car with no infant seat or baby gear packed in it. I unlocked the door to a burst of voices on the television screen. Jack was watching a movie, but he wasn’t alone. “Oh hey, kiddo.” Jack sat up and reached for the remote control. He paused the film to introduce the woman sitting beside him on my chair. “Natalie, this is Lucy. Luce, Natalie,” he gestured with his hands at each of us. Natalie looked a bit like Alanis Morissette, with long, wavy brown hair and clear pale skin. She wore a loose-fitting, embroidered peasant top with well worn Levi’s and a silver skull ring on her middle finger. It nearly crushed my finger as we shook hands. Her shoes were strewn across the floor next to her tote bag. Everything about this setup screamed fifth date. They’d already had dinner at a restaurant, done their quirky off-beat date like chasing the grunions at midnight, and had sex. Now they were renting videos and dressing comfortably. “I thought you were at the spa this weekend,” he said.

“It’s a day spa,” I said.

With that, Natalie got up and started collecting her things. “Jack, why don’t I call you tomorrow and we can take Adam to the park like we planned?”

They were going to take my son to the park? Everyone would look at the three of them and think she was his mother. This woman was going to take my breast milk out of the freezer, pour it into a bottle, and feed my son?! I think she had an excellent idea when she suggested leaving.

“Don’t be silly, babe,” Jack said.
Babe?! Babe?! I’m kiddo and she’s babe?!
“Lucy doesn’t mind if you spend the night, right?” He looked at me for assurance.

“It might be confusing for Adam,” I offered.

“Lucy,” Jack laughed. “He’s five weeks old.”
You arrogant, condescending rat fuck.

I laughed along. “I guess you’re right. Natalie, that’s fine. I’m sure Jack has explained our living arrangement to you.”

“I think you are an exceptional woman,” Natalie said. “Not a lot of women would put their child first like this. You know, a lot of mothers are quite self-centered.”

“Fathers too,” I added.

“Absolutely,” she agreed. “Slap on the hand for me for that sexist exclusion.”

“Natalie’s a teacher,” Jack explained.

 I liked her. After being called a hairy gorilla and finding out that my sexy Richie Cantor was dead, I liked the sound of her voice telling me I was exceptional.

“Wanna watch the rest of the movie with us?” Natalie asked.

“Is it any good?” I asked.

“Crap,” she answered.

“Natalie, this is a great movie!” Jack said with mock outrage.

“I’ll leave the two of you. I’m going to have a threesome with two hot guys,” I held up my grocery bag. “Ben and Jerry.”

“Oh,” Natalie looked disappointed.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“No,” Natalie said unconvincingly. “Mind if I ask what flavor?”

“Chunky Monkey.”

“Oh,” she said.

“Something wrong with Chunky Monkey?” I asked.

“No, I love Chunky Monkey!” she paused. “And I hate this movie.”

“Did you want some ice cream?”  I asked incredulously.

Look bitch, if you’re not going to date my husband, I will!

“Would you mind?!”

“Urn, okay, I guess.”

“Are you jumping ship on me, babe?” Jack reached for the remote on the coffee table.

“I am,” she said with the giddy giggle of a schoolgirl. She was far too perky to be Alanis Morissette.

I scooped ice cream for my husband’s new girlfriend into a glass dish we got as a wedding gift fifteen years ago. I imagined the person who bought these for us never in their wildest dreams thought this would be the context in which their gift would be used one day. “Caramel sauce?” I asked Natalie.

“Oh yes, please!”

 I sat at the table with her and asked if anyone ever told her she looked like Alanis Morissette. “All the time,” Natalie said. “You know who you remind me of?” I shook my head to prompt her to tell. “Renee Zellweger,” she said. Before I had a moment to thank her, Natalie finished, “in
Bridget Jones’ Diary.”

“Oh,” I said, putting down my ice cream spoon. “I just had a baby five weeks ago, Natalie. I’m sure as a single woman you have time for dieting and exercise.”

Natalie clutched her hand to her chest. “I didn’t mean- ”

“Natalie, I’ve had a long day.”
At the spa.
“I’ve been name-called by some crazy salon bitch, then I found out my college boyfriend died of cancer two months ago. So I really don’t have the energy to deal with your little backhanded comments about my weight.”

She laughed. “You don’t pull punches, that’s for sure, but Lucy, you are completely misreading me. I think Renee Zellweger is beautiful at any weight. Okay, she’s a little heavier in
Bridget Jones
and you look more like that Renee than her skinnier incarnations, but I think she looked great in that movie.” Either she was sincere or the most adroit phony I’d ever met, but Natalie’s explanation rang true.

“Oh, sorry. It’s just been a long day,” I said. Then hoping she would let me off the hook by switching conversational gears, “So how did you and Jack meet?”

“At his gallery. I was actually on another date. Blind date from hell. Nice guy, but a complete bore. We finished a dreadfully dull lunch, then I suggested we stop in the gallery to pass some time. You know how it goes? You feel as if you’ve got to put two hours on the clock to convince everyone that you gave it a fair shake. Anyway, so we walk in and boom, there he was. We talked for like a half hour and it felt like five minutes. The exact opposite of the date I was on. So Jack asks if Cliff is my boyfriend and I shake my head no. And the rest is kind of history.” Natalie was sweet. It was hard making silent, snide comments because she seemed like such a genuinely decent person. But come on, three weeks together is hardly “history.”

Over the next hour, I got my primer on Natalie. She was originally from Ohio and went to Oberlin College before she moved to New York to teach junior high school. A quick mathematical estimation said Natalie was just under thirty. How was I supposed to compete out there in the world with these little pop-tarts who have time to waste on bad blind dates and consider a three-week relationship a historical, epic event? In grad school, Jack had worked on paintings for longer than three weeks, and ended up hating them. I don’t think Natalie realized that she and Jack had different perspectives on the investment of time.

I wanted to hate this woman sitting in my kitchen, and every time I was right on the brink of loathing, she’d say something that made me laugh, or at least smile. I hated her utter lack of detestability. “So do you think this whole setup is pretty weird?” I asked Natalie.

“At first I thought Jack was full of shit. I mean, who hasn’t heard the married guy telling her that he and his wife
have an arrangement,
right?” she said.

I haven’t. No married guys have ever hit on me, even when I was single.

“Oh my God, tell me about it,” I rolled my eyes in disgusted solidarity. “Men are such pigs.”

“Jack wasn’t, though. He kept asking if I wanted to talk to you, or get a note or whatnot.”

He what?! He offered to have me sign an infidelity permission slip?

To Whom It May Concern:

I, Lucy Klein, being of questionable mind and body, give my blessing to any woman of consenting age to engage in romantic and/or sexual relations with my estranged husband who just so happens to live with our infant son and me.

“That’s Jack. He’s forthright through and through,” I said.

“Do you mind if I ask what went wrong between you two?” Natalie asked. I actually did. Not just because it was an intensely personal question to ask of someone you just met, but because I didn’t really know the answer. What did go wrong between Jack and me? Other couples survived multiple miscarriages. They made it through relocations that weren’t ideal. At what point did our marriage go from troubled to fated? And if we were both asked that same question, would our answers be the same, or was Jack harboring secret resentments of his own?

“I’m not really sure, Natalie.”

“Oh,” she seemed disappointed.

“Sorry I don’t have any great insights for you.”

“Oh, it’s nor that,” Natalie said. “It’s just that when I asked him, he said the same thing.”

“Dumb and dumber, I guess,” I shrugged. “At least we don’t hate each other, right? That’s got to be of some comfort to you.”

“Oh, no,” said Natalie. “Quite the opposite.”

Chapter 20

“What in good God’s name is that dreadful smell, darling?”

“Mother, surely you knew there would be flowers at the wedding,” I scolded. “Didn’t you take your allergy herbs?”

“Look at this place! There are six thousand flowers. I’ll never survive the evening. Never! How am I supposed to walk Kimmy down this gauntlet of pollen?”

“Anjoli, let’s try to make this Kimmy’s special day. You can have the remaining three hundred sixty-four.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Anjoli turned the wide brim of her hat so quickly, she nearly took out one of the floral assistants who was still hanging orchids from every pew in St. Patrick’s Cathedral. She wore a form-fitting cream silk gown with pearls sewn into the bodice, and had a hat specially made to match. What made the dress so dramatic was the way it clung to Anjoli’s shape until it hit her calves. Then it blossomed into layers of open, overlapping cream silk in varying textures. Were Anjoli outside, her hat brim would’ve cast a shadow over her entire body. I’d seen umbrellas less cumbersome than Anjoli’s fab chapeau. She was the perfect mother of the bride except for one small detail—she wasn’t. Kimmy’s mother had been institutionalized with Alzheimer’s disease for the past twenty-some years, and her father was killed in a car accident a year later.

“How cute does Adam look?” I asked, holding my tuxedoed baby out for everyone to see.

“Can you believe I found a tux in a baby size?” Anjoli asked. “When will Jack arrive? Oh look, Rita and Bern are here. An hour early, how unlike them. Is Jack going to wear the matching cummerbunds I bought for him and Adam? How incredibly precious will that look? Who’s your favorite Grammy?” she leaned in to Adam.

“Mother!”

“What now, darling?”

“Don’t pit yourself against Susan.”

“You’re so right. There really is no competition, is there, my little Indigo child?!”
Her what?
“Your other grandmother hasn’t even been out to see you yet, much less bought you your very own tuxedo. Maybe Grammy will take you to the Tonys this year.” We watched Rita struggle as she walked. Anjoli continued. “Jesus, poor Rita is going to need an hour to get to her seat at the rate she’s going, poor dear. Oh that reminds me, I want to take Adam to
Avenue Q
next week. Sam will get us tickets.”

“Avenue Q?
Isn’t that a little adult?”

“It’s a puppet show, darling!”

“Mother, don’t the puppets have sex and talk about Internet porn?”

“He’s two weeks old,” she protested.

“Six,” I corrected.

“The point is that he’ll never understand what they’re talking about. He’ll just see the adorable muppets, darling. Trust me, I took you to Tracedero when you were five.”

“Tracedero?”

“The drag ballet,” Anjoli reminded me.
Oh yes, how could I forget?

Rita stumbled, and Bernice struggled to assist her. “Mother, I think Rita needs help. Bernice can’t manage on her own.”

“She’ll be fine.”

“Hold Adam, I’m going to see if they need help.”

I handed Adam to Anjoli, who was waving her hands as though the baby were shooting paint. “Not today, darling. What if he vomits on this dress? I have to look perfect walking down the aisle.”

Snapping Adam back into my grasp, I walked away. “Susan would hold him,” I shot.