Heads or Tails (14 page)

“I got a new gig today,” Jesse reported.

“Oh?” I loved hearing about Jesse’s work. It was so wholly different from mine — creative and independent.

“Yeah, a referral from that preschool I named awhile back.”

I remembered. I’d thought the name Jesse had devised — Blooming Academy — was brilliant.

“One of the dads there is starting an artisanal coffee company,” he continued. “Importing grounds from Nicaragua. Organic, fair trade, blah blah blah,” he said, rolling his forearm in a you-get-the-idea gesture.

“You’re naming the company?” I asked, scooping up with my fork the last bites of ground turkey that had fallen out of my taco.

He shook his head. “Nope. He’s got the name: Animado Cafe.”

“It’s —,” I began.

“— backwards,” Jesse finished. “I know. It should be Cafe Animado.” We both understood enough basic Spanish to know that adjectives always came after the noun. We shrugged simultaneously. “Yeah, well, he’s developing three different brews. He needs names. They need, of course, to sound —”

“—‘lively,’” I said, referring to
animado
.

“Precisely.”

We munched in silence for a few moments.

“Spain is cool,” Jesse said. “Mari and I spent a few days there that summer.”

My heartbeat ceased, then quickened. “Mmm.” Whenever he brought up Marigold, I always spoke neutrally, not inviting or deflecting more information.

“Yeah,” he continued. “I’m no world traveler, but Spain felt kind of like a mash-up. It had the down-home soul of Italy and the, I don’t know, refinement of France. We should go sometime…”

I raised my eyebrows and nodded. Part of me was desperate for more details, to hear about every museum and tourist attraction they visited, their favorite spot for Spanish morning coffee. But as irrational as it was, considering how many years we’d been married, I also feared that would leave me with tiny, slow-to-heal cuts.

“Or I hear Buenos Aires is cool,” he added.

I exhaled. “I’m game. You’re not going to insist on tango lessons, right?”

He laughed. “Nah. Too cliché.”

As great as it was to finally enjoy a grown-up conversation, there was a downside to Gretchen taking a solid nap late into the evening. When I picked her up out of the seat, she regarded me wide-eyed and alert, as ready to play as she normally was at five-thirty in the morning.

“Uh oh,” I whispered, carrying plates one-handed next to the sink.

“What? Is she wet?” Jesse asked over his shoulder as he scraped taco remnants into the compost bin under the sink.

“Um, no. Just wondering how I’ll get her back to sleep tonight.”

It was nearly eight o’clock by then and I wondered how I could wear her out so she’d be sleepy again in a couple of hours. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I knew the best option was a walk outside. The stimulation would tire her out. I took her into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. She smelled musty in a bizarrely pleasing way. She gnawed on Gavin and kicked her legs. Mercedes had dressed her in one of Sarah’s hand-me-downs, a navy and white dress. Her bare toes looked edible. I squeezed my eyes shut, gathering as much energy as I could summon, and wondered what Margot was doing at that exact moment.
She
should be the one schlepping outside at night in the cold, I thought, not me. Immediately, I regretted my disgruntled feelings. The walk would be good for the baby, I told myself, and a penance of sorts for me.

Once outside, though, I found myself relishing it. The streets were quiet compared to the bustle of daytime. The scents of ethnic dinners being cooked all along Frederick Street greeted me as I trudged up our street. I turned right on Clayton and marveled at how the baby had gotten me outdoors enjoying the night when I probably would otherwise be holed up inside in my pajamas.

“Pretty nice, huh?”

I spun around and discovered Abe and Truly walking toward us. Abe was carrying a brown bag from Ashbury Market and when Truly spotted the baby, he pulled on the leash toward her. I smiled and Abe dropped the leash. Truly trotted right into the baby’s extended arms.

“Nice to see you again,” I said.

“Likewise.” Abe gazed up into the blue-black sky. He was wearing glasses this time. “I always thank Truly for getting me outdoors.” He lifted the bag slightly. “I could just as easily have picked up this stuff tomorrow, but he needed a walk, so here we are. Which way are you walking?”

“Nowhere, really. I’ll follow you.”

Together, we began walking up the hill, onto Belvedere towards his house. I grew warmer just being next to him. He seemed both thrilling and safe, like the kind of man who could convince you to skydive but insist that you put on sunscreen first.

“I’ve never had a dog. But I just thought the same thing about babysitting her.”

“You’ve never had a dog?” Abe pushed his glasses higher with one finger then tilted his head to the side.

“Nope.”

“I’ll always have a dog,” he said, standing up a little straighter. “It’s a deal I made with myself. Sometimes it prevents me from having other things. But it’s worth it.”

“What do you mean?”

He let out a sad kind of laugh.

“Funny you should ask. My girlfriend of two years just broke up with me a few weeks ago.”

“Sorry,” I said, wondering what that had to do with having a dog.

“Thanks. She was — is — kind of a shoe fanatic. Truly ate one of her favorite pumps. I don’t know what kind, but I’m sure you’d have heard of it. They used to mention the designer on Sex and the City.”

Manolo Blahniks, I thought to myself, but didn’t say anything. Jesse would have had no idea either.

“Anyway, let’s just say it wasn’t the first time. But she’d sort of hit her limit, I guess. She said it was her or Truly.”

I wrinkled my nose. “You picked Truly.”

“I did, indeed.” He rubbed his left forearm with his right hand.

What kind of idiot would prioritize shoes over this man?
I thought. We walked in silence for a few moments, the baby gently whacking the dog’s head as he traveled right next to her stroller.

“I just hope my devotion to Truly doesn’t prevent me from having one of these someday.” He reached down and patted the baby’s head as we walked. His voice was both wistful and determined. Strangely, I wanted to put my arm around his waist and keep it there as we traveled. Jesse and I used to walk arm-in-arm on dates in the Marina. But we hadn’t in awhile.

“So,” I said, leaning slightly sideways towards him. “What do you do, exactly? I mean, I saw you in the middle of the day. It’s now nighttime. Do you work at home?”

“Yeah, for the most part. I’ve been sort of in and out of tech.”

That could be code for many things, I knew. San Francisco was teaming with techies who traveled from one startup to another, cashing out on stock options and developing cool apps or companies along the way. Abe’s humility was noticeable but not forced. I wanted to ask him to elaborate, but decided not to.

“How ‘bout you? What do you do? When you’re not taking care of your friend’s baby, that is.”

We’d reached his house and Abe kneeled down to the baby’s level as he spoke. He poked gently into her belly and she blew a friendly raspberry in response.

“Construction. I’m a general contractor.”

“Awesome.”

Contrary to most people, he registered no surprise when I told him my unlikely-for-a-woman job. It was yet something else that drew me to him. I wanted to lean against him, to rest my head on his shoulder. I thought of my parents, of Marigold. I wondered absurdly if with Abe, I could finally be someone’s first choice, not a consolation prize.

“Wanna come in?” he asked. He reached into the brown bag and pulled out a carton of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. “I live alone, but I have more than one spoon.”

He flashed Chubby Hubby, my own favorite flavor, and I was tempted.

“Aw, thanks. I should probably get the baby back home,” I said. “We just needed a little stimulation before winding down for bed. The nighttime air — and Truly — have done their duty, thankfully.”

“Understood,” he said, replacing the ice cream back into the bag, looking —
could it be?
— disappointed. “Nice to run into you again, Hillary.”

He unzipped the pocket of his fleece and pulled out an understated but clearly expensive wallet in chocolate brown leather. He pulled out a card. “Here’s my card. It’s got my cell on it — if you ever want to meet up for a walk. You know, like on purpose.”

I took the card wordlessly, resisting the strong urge to read it. I slid it into the back pocket of my jeans, behind a lucky Chinese cookie fortune that had been there for ages. “Will do. See you.”

And with the same feeling of anticipation and possibility that I used to feel whenever I walked into a college auditorium at the beginning of a new semester eager to see who’d be in class with me, I hoped I would.

The trill of the phone startled me awake. Since Gretchen had come home with me, I’d become oddly accustomed to the lightest REM sleep. Even slight rustles by Jesse or muted voices from middle-of-the-night passers-by on the street now woke me. But the phone’s ring at five-forty-five in the morning was unsettling, waking Jesse and, of course, the baby.

This cannot be good
, I thought. Anyone calling at that hour most definitely did not have good news. Was it Jean? My parents?

I didn’t recognize the number on caller ID. I picked up the receiver and felt my way in the blackness to the Pack ’n Play. I tried to soothe Gretchen back to sleep by gently rubbing her back, something I’d seen Jean do with her.

“Hello?” I whispered.

“Miss Hillary?” she pronounced my name with an Hispanic accent, the way Jorge did. “This is Sarah’s cleaner. Mercedes’s mother?”

My ears prickled with the news that Mercedes had to stay home with her own daughter, who was sick. After Gretchen’s epic teething session yesterday, I wondered if Mercedes’s kid really was sick or whether she just needed a break. Either way, I was screwed. Frank and I had an important potential new client meeting at an historic beach house out on the Great Highway and the owners of the Painted Lady were expecting a detailed lunchtime tour.

I thanked Mercedes’s mother for giving me plenty of notice (even though, truth be told, the bad news might have been better received even just one hour later).

“What is it?” Jesse asked. He was lying on his back with an arm draped over his face, his words garbled by an elbow pit.

“Mercedes can’t come today.”

He turned over dramatically, heaving his whole body up and over and smacking the pillow down with a flat palm. “What are you going to do?”

I wanted to roll my eyes, to sigh, to snap, “How about asking, ‘How can I help you?’” But this crisis was not of his making. It wasn’t his fault.

I lay down on the bed and fought back tears. “I don’t know,” I whispered.

Luckily, the baby had settled despite the phone’s loud ring. She clutched Gavin Newsom as she snoozed on her stomach.

“I don’t know,” I said again, mostly to myself. Despite my efforts otherwise, the tears came. They were silent but as my nose started to run, I sniffed.

“Are you crying?” Jesse asked in surprise. I wasn’t a crier. It was something I prided myself on and he knew it.

“I just don’t know how I’m going to make this work today. I’ve got two really important meetings.”

He propped himself up on his elbows to peer down at me. “Can Sarah watch her?”

I’d already thought of that but quickly remembered that she was driving on a field trip for Lily’s class. She hated field trips — and had bitched about it by text the night before — but she also knew that before long her kids would be teenagers and wouldn’t want their mother along for anything. “Gotta get while the gettin’s good,” she’d written. I shook my head and brought my hands to my face. Jesse rose and tiptoed into the bathroom, a technique he’d perfected in the last couple of weeks so as not to wake our infant roommate.

Could I bring the baby with me to the meetings? I wondered. But I quickly dismissed the idea, remembering how fussy she’d been with her teething. And I couldn’t exactly brandy up her gums and bring a drunk baby to a meeting. Though slow to boil, Frank was clearly growing irritated by my absence. The night before, he’d e-mailed me the where/when details of our morning meeting as well as a reminder of the talking points, something he’d never done before in all the years we’d worked together. “This is a big potential project — just making sure you’re at the top of your game,” he wrote.

“I’ll do it,” Jesse said, handing me a tissue he’d retrieved from the bathroom.

“What?” I looked over at him with widened eyes.

“I’ll do it,” he repeated, his low-key tone not matching the profound generosity that his message conveyed. I’ve always found Jesse’s voice attractive, but never before as attractive as when he uttered those words. An offering.

“Oh my God, really?” I sat up. “What about your work?”

“You’re in luck — or the baby or Margot or Jean is in luck. I have a meeting but I’ll postpone it.” He turned on the low light of the small fish tank we kept in the bedroom, slid open the top and sprinkled in some fish food. I used to hate the sharp smell of fish food. But I was so used to it now, I hardly noticed it.

“A new client meeting?”

He nodded. I felt at once profoundly relieved and emotionally depleted. Having observed Sarah and other friends over the years, I’d determined that the single most important quality that parents needed was endurance. And I was convinced that, just like my own parents, I simply didn’t have it.

“No,” I objected. “I can’t ask you to put off a potential new client. It doesn’t set a professional tone.”

“It’s not ideal,” he acknowledged, closing the tank and joining me on the bed. “But I’ll just postpone ’til the late afternoon. It’s ridiculous anyway, a Hollywood exec wants to hire me to name his new Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy.”

A snort of laughter, along with snot, escaped me. The baby shifted and squawked and I could tell that she wouldn’t fall back asleep again. I rolled out of bed and silently hugged Jesse. He smelled of garlic and soap.