Wishful Thinking (28 page)

“Don’t worry, Jay,” she said. “The work people and the moms aren’t going to talk to each other, much less compare notes on your schedule.”

Jennifer nodded weakly. Watching all the people from every part of her life mill about, however, politely waiting for her to settle in before coming over to say hello, Jennifer thought,
This could be very bad
. Glancing at Vinita, the one person there who would not assume, if her memory of Jennifer’s schedule on a given day didn’t match up with somebody else’s, that she was simply remembering things wrong, she thought,
Very, very bad.

In one corner stood Alicia with her husband, Steven, a scholarly, genial-looking man with thinning gray hair, who was chatting with Tim and, to Jennifer’s dismay, Bill Truitt, too. Admiring the food table were Caroline, Elizabeth, and Jane from the elementary-school benefit committee. Jennifer had opted out of the committee after the face-plant-on-the-conference-table episode, but she had lately taken to spending Monday afternoons with the three of them (who all had younger children at New Day, as it turned out, just as she and Caroline did) when she and Jack had their one-on-one afternoons together. Jennifer had even gotten to like, or at least
appreciate, Elizabeth, but of course Vinita didn’t know that.

“So, Owen did the guest list?” Jennifer asked Vinita under her breath, attempting to appear welcoming as Alicia, Tim, and Bill made their approach.

“Yes,” Vinita said. “And, honey, I know you hate surprises, but he worked so hard. He wanted to be sure not to miss anyone. Though I don’t know where he got Elizabeth Stick-up-her-ass over there.” Apparently Owen hadn’t turned up Dr. Sexton, which was the only thing about the evening that wasn’t surprising at all.

“I can’t believe he invited my
boss
,” Jennifer managed to whisper, just before breaking into a warm greeting as the work group joined them. “Team One Stop!” she said. “How sweet of you to come celebrate my getting old!”

“Oh, please,” Alicia said. “I’m ten years older than you!” As ever, it was hard to believe. Alicia, in the Saturday-night version of her trademark ivory suit, was sporting gold pumps and a waistline that any woman would envy, looking better at fifty than Jennifer had at twenty-nine. Jennifer gave her a kiss hello as Alicia’s husband looked on, smiling and eyeing her proudly over his spectacles. “That’s my girl,” he said. “Like the day I met her, but better with every day that’s gone by.”

“Well, it’s a party now!” Bill Truitt boomed, pushing his way forward to kiss Jennifer and interrupting Tim just as he was about to say hello. “How are you doing tonight, Ms. Sharpe? How does it feel to be a forty-year-old superwoman?”

“Superwoman? Please!” Jennifer laughed, a little forcedly.

Alicia met her eyes, and Jennifer detected a note of challenge in them. “We were just discussing your status at the top of the I-don’t-know-how-she-does-it list. My husband wanted to come tonight just to lay eyes on you and make sure you were real.”

“Alicia doesn’t often feel anybody can outwork her,”
Steven confirmed. “I’d say there are some days—only some days, of course—when it gets to her just a little bit when you do.” Alicia elbowed her husband in the ribs, then formally introduced him to Jennifer.

“Superwoman,” Alicia said, “meet my superman.” Alicia had often said that without Steven, she could never have made it through the last six months. He did not view picking the kids up from school as doing Alicia a favor, and he was an expert at laundry, though he drew the line at housekeeping, which apparently was Alicia’s job no matter how many hours she worked. For a moment, as Jennifer caught Owen’s eyes across the room, she wondered what her life would be like with a true partner in it. Owen wasn’t too handy at housekeeping either, but he was the kind of man who ironed his own shirts and, more important, always offered to iron Jennifer’s too. He was always asking, “How can I help?” But deepening their bond beyond dating, she reminded herself—as long as she was using Wishful Thinking—was wishful thinking indeed.

“I am not the superwoman here,” Jennifer said. “I mean, what about my friend Vinita? Can you believe what she did with this space?
And
she has three little girls,
and
she’s a doctor.” Vinita, still at Jennifer’s side, laughed gamely.

“Does
she
work till eight o’clock every night of the week?” Alicia asked, nodding toward Vinita. Vinita looked puzzled.

“Jennifer doesn’t work until eight o’clock every night,” Vinita said. “What about Fridays?” Now it was Alicia’s turn to look puzzled.

“What about Fridays?” Alicia asked. “She stays till eight on Fridays, too.” At this, Vinita turned to Jennifer with a look that, at its most benign, would have been described as curious.

Jennifer was about to do something drastic, like launch into a polka, when Bill Truitt’s complete lack of tact saved the day.

“That’s our Jennifer Sharpe,” Bill said, thunking her on the back so hard her martini almost hit the floor, “putting the work ethic back into the sinkhole of city government, one twelve-hour day at a time!” At that, Jennifer threw back what was left of her drink and began hunting for the next one. One more word from Alicia, she thought, and Vinita would know that Jennifer used the app not just on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, too, if she hadn’t figured out the Friday part already. One word from Caroline, Elizabeth, or Jane, who were making their way over, and Alicia would know that Jennifer picked her boys up from school every day but Wednesday. One word from Owen, and her fellow moms would know she went out to bars to see bands play on school nights. One word from just about anybody in this room, in fact, regarding the last time and place they’d seen her, and all hell was going to break loose.

She had to think. She had to figure out what to do. She needed, just for a minute, to be alone.

It was time to go to the bathroom. Where else? She cleared her throat, preparing to make her excuse. Bill, of course, just kept on talking. “I’m sorry I can’t stay,” he was saying, “but the wife is waiting for me at a charity function. Not that I wouldn’t dress up for Superwoman’s soiree on any night of the week.” Leaning down and in, he gave her a cheek-to-cheek air kiss like the practiced member of the benefit circuit that he was. “Enjoy yourselves,” he said, departing. “And I’ll see you all bright and early on Monday!”

There was a pause. “Sorry, guys,” Jennifer said, jumping in to fill it, “but I really need to go to the bathroom.”

“I’ll come with you,” Vinita said. From her tone, Jennifer knew that Vinita knew something was rotten in Denmark.

“Oh no, Vee,” Jennifer said, “you stay here! That food looks so amazing! Doesn’t it need you?” Pushing Vinita away
firmly, she deposited quick kisses hello on Caroline, Elizabeth, and Jane as she passed them by. “Back in a sec!” she chirped merrily. “Bathroom break!”

Vinita, Jennifer knew, had let her go only for the moment. Glancing over her shoulder as she hurried off, Jennifer was relieved to see that everyone else, however, had gone back to admiring the decor, sipping their sugar-rimmed saffron martinis and chatting with their friends.

Just as she was about to open the bathroom door, Jennifer heard Vinita’s voice cut through the crowd. “Don’t be long!” she called. “Owen has a surprise for you!”

Another surprise?
Jennifer thought as she hauled open the heavy metal door of the loft’s bathroom, which Vinita had had the good sense to fill with cardamom-scented candles. “I’ll be right back!” she called, just as the door swung shut. She locked it behind her.

I’ll be right back,
she thought, finally safe inside yet another bathroom, the latest stop on the underground railroad of bathrooms she relied on as a time-traveling fugitive in New York,
just as long as I don’t decide to jump out a window first.

Jennifer looked at herself in the mirror. “Deep breaths,” she told herself. “Deep breaths.”

She reached into her clutch, took out her phone, and stared at it. She opened her calendar. Saturday, March 26. Surely her phone contained the answer to this problem. Didn’t it always? But how could Wishful Thinking help her now? The app couldn’t get her out of this predicament, not unless she really wanted to send everybody to the funny farm (including herself) by making three appointments to be at the party, so that each version of her—one in leather pants, one in Uggs and mom jeans, and one in a business suit—could attend, dressed for her part.
Superwoman
, she thought, with some irritation at Alicia’s having put her on the spot like that. They had no idea.

Forget the phone
, she thought, putting it back in her bag. She could get herself out of this without it, couldn’t she? She could just leave. Pretend she had just thrown up. Blame it on a bad oyster. Too bad she hadn’t had any oysters that day. She hadn’t eaten anything more menacing than a low-fat yogurt— not that anyone would know that. Maybe she could fake a nervous breakdown and blame it on a sudden hormonal change caused by the onset of her fifth decade.

And then she heard it: Johnny, counting in. “A one-two-three-four …” A simple melody on the piano—a tinny, old-timey upright, with just a little backroom-bar sound to it. A sweet melody, so Dimes-y, tripping up and down on the piano lightly, and then the chords on the guitar joining in.

Owen.

She knew this song. It was one of her favorites: “Abigail, Don’t Be Long.” (These guys had actually written a song about Abigail Adams for their Boston album. There was a Susan B. Anthony song and a Clara Barton song too.) For a minute, she let the music transport her, as it always did. For a minute, she let herself just listen and breathe. Then she smiled. They were repeating the opening hook over and over. Owen was waiting for her to come out before they started to sing.

Her heart filled with a surge of love and tenderness, and her throat tightened even as her foot began to tap. Meeting her own shining eyes in the mirror, she gave her head a little shake.
Stop with your fretting, you lucky girl
, she thought. Owen was out there with all the people she had not yet allowed him to meet, trying to be a part of her life, asking her to let him in. She had met a man who had given her hope for a future bigger than herself and her boys, who had given her hope in love again, and he was singing to her on her birthday.

She had to go out and kiss him. She had to stay.

* * *

B
EING SERENADED WAS WONDERFUL
. After finishing “Abigail,” Owen and Johnny played “Save Me, Clara,” with Sarah joining in to harmonize and keep time on the tambourine. Looking over at Sean, who never listened to anything but Radiohead, Jennifer could see that he was getting through it by paying more attention to Sarah’s cleavage than to her vocals. This was not lost on Vinita, either, with whom she exchanged a
what are you gonna do?
smile that reassured Jennifer, though only a little bit. After a third song, the show was over. It was time to eat.

Which meant it was also time for people to start talking to one another again. Which meant that after a few heavenly moments of being that girl in the audience the band really
is
playing for, Jennifer was beset anew by panic. Watching nervously as the guests began to choose their seats at the round tables throughout the room, however, Jennifer was relieved to see that a common human social phenomenon was working beautifully in her favor. The guests were self-sorting, gravitating to tables populated by people they already knew. Her work friends sat with her work friends; her college friends sat with her college friends; her mommy friends sat with her mommy friends. Even Owen, who she knew was eager to meet all the people in her life he’d never met, was too much of a gentleman to go around shaking hands with everybody and had settled down at a table with Johnny and the Dimes.

Jennifer joined him there. For at least half an hour, as everyone concentrated on the delicious food, sighing with pleasure as they ate, everything was fine. Then Vinita appeared next to Jennifer’s chair and placed a hand lightly on the back of it.

“I hate to steal her, Owen,” Vinita said, “but she can’t stay here all night. She’s got to mingle!” Owen nodded and stood,
pushing his chair back. “Want me to come with you?” he asked Jennifer. His face was so sweet, so open. She wanted him to meet everyone in her life, she really did. Someday.

“Maybe later, sweetie?” Jennifer said, standing on her tiptoes to kiss him. Owen pulled away, looking, she couldn’t deny it, a little hurt.

“Okay,” he said, “but don’t be long.” Jennifer nodded, smiling as warmly as she could even as Vinita began to steer her firmly across the room.

“Where are you taking me?” Jennifer asked her.

“To the table where
I’ve
been sitting,” Vinita said, approaching the mommy table, where Caroline, Elizabeth, Jane, and a few other mothers from school sat.

“It wasn’t easy, ladies,” Vinita announced, smiling, “but I managed to pry the birthday girl away from that gorgeous guitar player!”

Everyone laughed. Vinita pulled up an extra chair, and, uneasy, Jennifer sat in it. She was clutching her clutch, which contained her phone. As soon as she set it down on the table, Vinita eyed it meaningfully.

“So!” Jennifer said, determined to match Vinita’s bright tone. “What are you hot mamas talking about?”

“Oh, you know,” Vinita said. “The usual. Scheduling. After-school activities.
Pickup.
”

“I was telling Vinita she needs to join us for one of our mommy Mondays!” Elizabeth said enthusiastically. “We could do an Indian night. Vinita could teach us to cook Indian food, and we could have Indian martinis! These are so delish.” Elizabeth took another swig. Jennifer would have enjoyed watching Elizabeth swerve outside her carefully scripted self outline with the help of the vodka if Vinita hadn’t been looking at Jennifer like she was a mean girl Vinita was gearing up to destroy in the final scene of a movie.

“Mondays,” Vinita said. “
Every
Monday. Pickup, playdate, early dinner for the kids, cocktails. Sounds heavenly.” Jennifer smiled weakly. “But I told these guys,” Vinita said, “that I can’t make it on Mondays. Because on Mondays, I work.”