Carpool Confidential (23 page)

Cad needed to be walked, and after my unexpected detour through Dorothy Hallowell's office I was going to be pushed for time to get home, do that, and get to school in time to pick up the boys. I tried calling to see if I could get Harmonye to do it, but there was no answer. No sign of her in the apartment. No groceries, no note, nothing.

If she had a cell phone, I didn't know about it. How stupid could I be? It had never occurred to me to ask. If she'd been, say, hit by a car, no one would know who to call. Panic sent pins and needles to the tips of my fingers. Did she even have ID on her? It was a safe neighborhood, but that's what people always thought before the fact, wasn't it? I threw Cad onto a leash and ran downstairs. The doorman hadn't seen Harmonye since she'd left to go to the grocery store.

I tore up to Henry Street, looped Cad's leash to a pole, and crossed the threshold of D'Agostino's like a marathon runner crossing the finish line. Since no one rushed up with Gatorade, I just stood there, panting. “Ms. Martin?” It was John, the manager, who had weathered Jared's kleptomaniac phase. “You all right?”

“It's my niece.” I'd regained enough lung power to articulate. “She came up for a few things this morning and never came back.” Deeper panic mode hit. What if she had never even made it to the store? My children weren't going out by themselves until they were thirty. “Her name's Harmonye. Or possibly, um, Mary Alice.”

He looked perplexed. He already thought I was weird enough what with the kleptomaniac kid. “Which name is it?”

“All. Either. Mary Alice, probably.”

“What does she look like?” I was pretty sure he was thinking she didn't exist at all, that I'd finally drifted all the way around that bend. “Can you describe her?”

“Oh.” I came back from my imaginings—morgues, ambulances, somber policemen knocking on Katya's door and finding no one at home. Me picking up the paper tomorrow to read about the body of a teenaged girl whose identity was being withheld until the family could be located, that kind of thing—and tried to remember what she'd been wearing. “About five foot five, long blondish-brown hair, brand-new tongue stud, olive green pants, and a Foo Fighters T-shirt. Black down jacket.”

“Oh, yeah. I remember her. Don't think she bought any groceries, though. She was talking to Dylan—you know, the guy who stocks the shelves and does deliveries? She left with him. He only works a half-day today.”

“Dylan? But she doesn't even know him,” I said—stupidly, I know.

“Seems like she does now.”

“But I don't understand. Where did they go?”

He shrugged. “I don't track employees on their own time.”

I was going to kill her. Here I was panicking, running all over, worrying myself sick about my poor, pregnant, fragile niece, and she was waltzing off without so much as a courtesy call to do God knows what with Dylan the cute-grocery-delivery-boy. “Do you have his phone number? Can you tell me where he lives?”

He crossed his arms. “Give out personal information about an employee? What do you think?”

“Thanks loads.” My sarcasm evaporated as I remembered. “Oh, no,” I yelped. “What time is it, John?”

“Two fifty-five.”

Argh. I was going to be late to pick up the boys, and I hadn't had time to make them snacks. Being late to pickup at Meeting-house was courting reputational disaster. Jared would be waiting with his teacher in the lobby, no doubt the last child sitting forlornly on the bench for all the other parents to see while his peers all around him were enveloped in warm arms,
Did you have a good day, honey
s, and homemade nutritious snacks. Noah would be waiting to be released from the purgatory of the seventh floor. And in case you think teachers (and other parents) don't know which moms are late and exactly how often, you'd be wrong.

Jen called as I was tearing across Cadman Plaza, pretty much dragging Cad. Wherever she was calling from, it was noisy. “Where are you?” I asked.

“At NYLMA Mommies and Me Swimming—Oh, no! Maximillian! You have to take your hand out of there. If you don't, Mommy will be very, very disappointed!”

“Jen,” I said, “you're telling a one-year-old boy not to grab his dick? I hate to break it to you, but that's a waste of time. What's the NYLMA?”

“New York Lesbian Moms' Association.”

“Kind of like a gay Junior League?”

“Think halfway between that and the Israeli Army.”

“Maybe Nora's right about the burbs,” I suggested.

“There are Scarsdale and Darien chapters in the works. Anyway—Max, no! Mommy can't let you do that here, sweetie. It's a private thing.”

While I ran down the steps to Adams Street I told her about my morning.

“I'm sure Mary Alice will turn up. And at least you have confirmation you're not pregnant.”

I stood on the traffic island in the middle of the street. Wind from the too-fast cars flying by whistled past my back, but it was clear in front. I debated trading safety for punctuality by crossing against the light. Always now I was aware of the fact I was the only parent my boys had. I waited. “True.” The light changed, and I ran across.

I could hear a lot of very butch-sounding yelling in the background.

“Just got busted for being on my cell phone,” Jen whispered. “The instructor's an ex-bounty hunter slash traffic cop who doesn't hold with moms on cells. Gotta go before it gets confiscated. She could snap one of these in half with one hand.”

“Which? The cell or one of…the other things.”

She giggled. “I'd hate to give her the choice. Maybe we should give her a picture of Rick and set her loose.” Then she hung up in a hurry.

As I rounded the corner to the school, my phone rang again. I clicked the button praying that it was Harmonye, which made a change from praying for Rick. So of course it was Rick. First time since his departure he'd called me on the cell.

“Cass, listen.” He sounded rushed. I was having violently conflicting emotions. I hated him and everything he'd done, wanted to kill him, but at the same time it was like some part of me had instantaneous regression at just the sound of his voice. I wanted desperately to sink back into the days when he was someone I could turn to, count on. The history of an abiding love and a marriage had to be worth something. “If—”

“Rick”—I started to cry, right outside the school—“please. My life is falling apart.”

He sighed. “You tell me this stuff like I'm supposed to fix it, Cassie. But I'm not codependent any more. I understand that I can only control my life, you have to take responsibility for yours. Happiness has to come from inside you.”

I moved the phone away from my ear and looked at it. It looked fine, was clearly in no way to blame for what was coming out of it. I had loved this man, had children with him. Sue was right—there was something more wrong with me than him. I moved from the emotional to the practical. “My credit cards were declined—”

“Sorry, I forgot to mention that I canceled them. They're in my name, and I didn't want to be tied to anything like that.”

A haze of red verging on purple was passing in front of my eyes. Good thing I'd crossed Adams Street before this conversation, since I couldn't see anything other than my own fury.

“Anyway, the reason I was calling was because Paulette said you'd left her a message about expenses and I wanted to save you some time. I turned those in a long time ago, so don't bother.”

“OK, thanks,” I said, on autopilot, as I mentally watched the tidy stack of cash I'd been envisioning disappear. I was hovering outside the school doors. Cad practically threw herself to the ground. I might have to send her home in a taxi. I was about to tell him I was going to rent out the Nantucket house when he shouted, “Sorry, Cass,” over a suspicious crackling noise, “I think I'm losing you.” My phone went dead.

Who did he think he was, using the lost-my-reception hang up on me? I was so fuming it took a few seconds for it to penetrate: Paulette, fat-assed, big-mouthed Paulette, knew how to reach him.

 

I burst into the lobby. Late, panting, and, as usual, psychologically reeling.

“Mommy!” Jared was sitting on the bench with Trina, his teacher, wearing the expression of someone stranded on a desert island. He threw his arms around me and burst into tears, as though I'd been four hours, instead of ten minutes, late.

I hugged him. “Sorry,” I said to Trina.

She took one look at me and said, “No problem, Cassie.”

“Where were you?” Jared sobbed into my side.

I'd known I was late, obviously, but his extreme reaction puzzled me. “It's OK, baby.”

He hiccupped and sobbed on. My gaze met Trina's. She smiled apologetically. “Maybe it would be a good idea if we could set up a time to talk?”

Shit. “Of course.” I stood up. “We have to go up and get Noah. How's Thursday morning?”

“Sounds great.” Trina smiled. “I'll see you then. Bye, Jared.”

Jared let go of me, leaving a smear of accumulated face dirt, snot, tempura paint, and tears across the leg of my jeans. “By the way, Mommy,” he said in that carrying voice all small children know how to adopt whenever you'd rather keep things between yourselves—the kind that makes you think they'd be ideal for the Royal Shakespeare—right as the elevator doors opened. Sue Moriarty and Betsy Strauss stood in the open doors with Isabella and Poppy. “You forgot my lunch today. Everyone had to share with me. I'm starving. Did you bring me a snack?”

“No, but—,” I whispered, about to add that I had packed him lunch (it was later found inexplicably moldering in the cubby of a child in his class who was not related to me in any way), but his face crumpled again. “NO SNACK??” he wailed.

“As soon as we pick up Noah we'll get pizza from Tony's, OK?”

Sue stepped out of the elevator so she was blocking the doors. Jared wailed, “But I'm starving NOW, Mommy!”

I was struggling not to have my own meltdown. “As soon as we get Noah.”

“Would you like an apple? Or an organic pita with hummus?” Sue asked.

“Thanks, Sue,” I started to say, “I'll get him—”

“Don't be silly, Cassie, it's my pleasure.” She beamed as though she'd just done a single-handed food drop in the Sudan, while simultaneously giving me a look that made me feel like I'd been caught squandering my food stamps on Slim Jims and Diet Rite cola.

Another elevator came and went. “Thanks,” I said. “Come on, Jared, we need to—” Sue was waiting for the return of her plastic baggie for recycling. Jared, who would rather have eaten his own sock, immediately lobbed the sandwich into my hands. Trust me, an organic hummus sandwich sans Ziploc is not something you want to catch.

The second elevator arrived, and when the doors opened Noah came bursting out. “Mom! Where were you? I was waiting forever. I was like the only one left on the seventh floor. You're totally late, and you forgot to give me lunch! I'm starving to death. And why are you holding a barf sandwich?”

“It looks more like cow brains than barf,” Jared said knowledgeably as I pitched it.

Noah yanked open the door to Tony's Pizza. We ordered, and I blotted the grease off the slices with a napkin. “Mo-om, that ruins it,” Noah said. I folded Jared's and handed it to him to eat on the way. He was so close to my side that he might as well have been attached. We were walking extremely slowly on Cad's account. “Did you forget to feed me today, Mom?” He looked worried.

“No, sweetie,” I said. “You had French toast for breakfast, remember? To the best of my knowledge, I've never yet forgotten to feed either of you.”

He chewed his pizza thoughtfully. “Breakfast seems like it was a long time ago. I thought maybe that was yesterday.”

And just for a second I had one of those flashes, long suppressed or forgotten, of how long a day of childhood could seem. The summer ones where the last minutes of daylight stretched, thrilling with their endlessness, or a bad school day that dragged by with exquisite slowness. When, exactly, did the days change from that to this, crammed so full of stuff that they seemed to fly by almost before they'd begun.

Noah said, “It wasn't that long ago, Butthead Barbie.”

Jared aimed his foot at his brother's ankle. “Don't call me that.”

I grabbed his arm. “Noah!” I warned, and then added, “Jared!” since it seemed like he, too, needed one. “I don't know what happened to your lunches. I remember packing them, because it was soy burger day. I could have sworn I put them in your backpacks.”

“My backpack?” said Noah, as though he'd never heard of such a thing before.

“Yes,” I said. “You know—that blue thing with all the key chains attached that your lunch is always in on soy burger or lentil loaf day? Was it in there?”

“Dunno.” He dropped his pizza crust into a garbage can.