honey, I …”
“Mom. They didn’t want me to come. You can’t say anything that is going to make me feel better. After social studies, when I ask them to wait before going to playstreet and when I’m packing my bag, they always run out.”
“That is just so mean, honey.” I kissed my hurt little boy’s nine-year-old forehead and wished with all my heart I could take this blow for him.
“And don’t call his mom and tell him to be nicer to me like you did last time.”
“I won’t, I …” Of course that is exactly what I wanted to do.
“It makes me look like a snitch. She told him to play nicer and he told everyone I told on him, so don’t do it again. For real, Mom. Don’t.”
“I love you, honey. I’m here to talk if you want.”
“I said I don’t want to.”
I gently closed his door, mumbling to myself, “A mother’s only as happy as her unhappiest child.” Pained but resigned to let him stew, I ran into the kitchen to place thirty Trader Joe’s hors d’oeuvres on cookie sheets and into a warm oven. With the downturn having hit ad revenues hard, Wade’s magazine company had slashed his budget for home cocktail parties to almost nothing. They would only pay for a scant two college students, a mediocre bar, and the cheapest hors d’oeuvres from the frozen section. For every event, I had to fork out for flowers and a few extras with our own money. When I protested that these parties didn’t quite fit into our tight monthly budget in expensive New York City, Wade countered that he couldn’t make Meter successful if he couldn’t continue to network as he wished, and any and every time he wished.
The cut-rate bartender and server from the Columbia University Bartending service were late, and the wine and club soda cases were stacked in the cramped kitchen hallway untouched. Six thirty. It was getting awfully close to the seven o’clock game time and I realized the guests might actually arrive before the two servers did. I struggled to push the cartons a few inches across the floor so that I could maneuver around them and open the oven door.
In the oven, dozens of frozen miniquiches and spinach phyllo pies started to sweat off freezer burn as I pulled a chair up to the cupboard so I could reach above the fridge and get down two bottles of vodka. This being a New York apartment, table and shelf space in the living room were too valuable to use for cumbersome bar bottles when company wasn’t around.
Why I was the one about to break my neck reaching for a vodka bottle and stressing that our tonic and limes were low for his work party while Wade was lying around oblivious in bed tickling Lucy at 6:49 was a question most wives know the answer to.
My red silk blouse had started to show lovely little sweat stains around my armpits with all the aerobic activity I was performing in the kitchen. At 6:53, the server and bartender finally arrived from the Columbia campus, apologizing and blaming the poor subway service.
Back in my closet to select another shirt, I heard Lucy screaming with laughter and jumping high on the bed. Wade was trying to swing a pillow into her legs midjump so she’d flip down on the bed sideways. This always ended in tears. No matter how many times I begged them not to play this game, Lucy always wanted more.
“Wade, can you talk to Blake before the party? Jeremy and those mean kids are …”
Wade wasn’t listening. He was counting the timing of Lucy’s jump so he could slam her with the huge pillow as she pulled her feet up in midair.
“Wade. Are you listening?”
“Got you!” he yelled.
Lucy went flying ninety degrees sideways with the force of the pillow and was in full hysterics now. “Again, Daddy!”
Wade turned to me. “I got her. I told her we’d do it until I got her. Now I’ll go talk to Blake, but he’s not going to want to discuss it, I promise.”
“He could use some boosting from his father, so please go talk to him quick. I’m running around here like the Tasmanian Devil. I’m sweating, I look like hell …” I tore my shirt off and rummaged through my closet for another blouse that, by some miracle, wasn’t creased.
As I threw on a tight black sweater, Wade the design guru peeked back in and made this unwelcome suggestion: “That traditional red blouse was good with those spiky shoes. If you change to that more contemporary black look, you’re going to need a clunkier heel.”
When I shook my head at him, he walked over to me and kissed my forehead gingerly. “Sorry, honey, I know you try, but the outfit’s just not working. But I love you and if I wanted to marry a clothes designer, I guess I could have. Tonight, though, I need you to cope on the outfit because there’s a ton of fashion advertisers coming.”
Where I grew up, everyone wore shoes that sensibly confronted the environment, not the Fashion Nazis of Manhattan. What the hell did my crappy little hometown of Squanto on the Atlantic teach anyone about decor and style? My family resided in a small colonial home about five blocks from the docks where salt water and sand pervaded every room. We lived in winter boots or sneakers or flip-flops. I didn’t have a pair of heels until I went to Middlebury College, and I think I wore them five times total before I hit the judgmental shores of Manhattan.
“Which heel did you mean?” I yelled back at him. “And do you mean a sling-back sandal or a real shoe? Could you just come back here and show me? I’ve got to get Lucy settled now that you wound her up. If Blake won’t talk, make sure he’s doing his homework.” I was sure Blake was still on his Nintendo, and not ready to study at all, but I couldn’t really blame him, what with the students from Columbia now furiously clanging in the kitchen outside of the kids’ room.
“Which shoe exactly?”
But Wade was long gone.
“I wish Daddy would stay,” Lucy whimpered, with a whiplash mood swing to the dark side. This was the downside of their lovefest: she always craved more. I flashed momentarily on an image of my father walking out the door to his two prized fishing boats to cater to some wealthy summer tourists, past my outstretched five-year-old arms, off and gone, leaving me for days. When he came home and flashed that smile framed by his salty beard, it was as if he’d never left me with a mother who spent much of her day passed out from drinking in front of the blue glow of her television game shows.
My father’s charm, much like my husband’s, was so irresistible that I couldn’t help but forgive him the instant he reappeared at my bedroom door. No wonder Wade got whatever he wanted from me: I had had no practice staying angry with the man I adored most in the world.
“Blake’s just fine,” he announced. “Like I said, he doesn’t want us micromanaging all his friendships. Fourth grade is time to handle some stuff on his own.”
As always just before the parties started, Wade stood in front of the mirror once last time to admire his sporty frame. He flipped his tie over his shoulder while he smoothed down the front of his shirt. Working intently on his cool media master aura, he delicately brushed a piece of hair up over his brow.
Wade came from a small eastern town too, but, as an upper-middle-class accountant’s son, and an arrogant one at that, Wade’s lofty career aspirations seemed to be met anytime he damn well felt like it. His self-assuredness was another one of those interlocking parts of our relationship. Watching him in action helped inspire the part
