How to Be a Grown-up (7 page)

Washing down the chocolate with the last of the sauvignon blanc, I walked through the dining room, passing the narrow shelves where I’d made a project of family photographs. Slowing, I realized there was a blank spot between the shot of Blake and me feeding each other cake and one of my favorites, a production picture Jessica had found in the Purchase archives and given to us for our fifth anniversary. It had been taken backstage when Blake was starring in
Equus
. In it, he’s about to go on, and I happened to be standing just behind him in the wings, holding a wire horse head. I remembered the moment as soon as I unwrapped it because Blake had been about to strip naked in the play’s climax. My cells were lifting toward him through that sundress like metal shavings to a magnet.

But now the photo that lived beside it, of the two children we would go on to make together sharing their first bath, was missing. The one in which Wynn, wearing a suds beard, grinned next to a tiny Maya as she splashed in my forearms. Had Blake taken it with him?

The blinking light from the answering machine that predated my life in the apartment caught my eye. Oh, thank God, he must have left a message while I’d been getting Wynn a washcloth. I hit Play.

“Hi. This is Emily. Emily Strang. I just wanted to tell Wynn that I heard we’re doing wind sprints at practice tomorrow so he should bring an extra bottle of water. He can call me at 858-346-6430 if he has questions or to talk or whatever. Okay, so . . . thank you. Bye.” The young girl’s voice waivered among the hope, feigned purpose, and cards-on-the-table that is calling boys. I knew, because a woman does, that Emily Strang had rehearsed those sentences, most likely with friends, possibly before the bathroom mirror.

How was I old enough to have a son being called by a Girl and yet still be a Girl waiting for her call? It was like getting acne when I was pregnant. One of those trials should surely age-out the other. Fuck, what wisdom had aging earned me?

The answer came from the glow of the DVR clock, the worn Persian under my feet, the windowsill plants rustling in the breeze, from the same mundane, terribly hard-wrought world that was the farthest thing from a rock concert.

It told me: step away from the phones. Check the lock on the front door. Wipe down the counters, pick up the toys, turn on the dishwasher, turn off the lamps, plug in the chargers, and pull out the cleats. Check, collect, and distribute until the house had been shut down for the night.

I slipped on the Victoria’s Secret nightshirt I’d had since high school that was worn to a deeply comforting nub, and which Blake had declared a bummer, and crawled diagonally into our bed. Our bed.
Because I’m not some girl on the soccer team, for fuck’s sake. I’m his wife.

Chapter Five

“You cannot just
not
call me,” I hissed into Blake’s voice mail the next morning as I paced the vacant Capri.

“Every day he doesn’t apologize to his agent,” I said to Jessica a few seconds later, “is one more day that he’s not getting put up for shows. Even
with
this job, I can’t float the four of us alone.”

“Ror, you can’t eat his shit for him so you have to sit on your hands. Hang strong or stay tough, or whatever people say who’ve already had their coffee.”

“Are you okay?”

“Nosebleed,” she answered succinctly, mother shorthand for “while the rest of the world was asleep, I was changing sheets.”

“Oh, God, so sorry.” My phone beeped. “Shit, that’s Kathryn. Keep me posted.” I clicked over. “Hello?”

“Rory. I got your message. I’m glad they had the wisdom to hire you. It speaks well of them, frankly. It almost calms me down. So how’s it going?”

I looked back to my desk where my Halloween deck was taking shape.

“Actually, I really think they might be onto something. I mean no one ever went broke handing a lighter to people with money to burn.”

She let out three quick syllables of laughter. “I’m going to suggest fire as the theme of the next Design Fair.”

“Thank you again for this, Kathryn. I really appreciate the opportunity.”
Lifeline,
I wanted to say as we hung up,
thank you for the lifeline.

By five Blake still hadn’t called me back. He had sent Wynn a video cheering for the soccer practice he was missing, so I knew he wasn’t dead. Which was bringing up conflicted feelings.
“How is this happening
?
”
I texted Claire, mostly to check that my cell still worked.

“Are you worried?”
she asked.

I was. But Blake was an actor, epic histrionics were not unheard of in our house, and time management had never been his strong suit. He could easily call in an hour thinking it was still this morning.
“When he gets over himself and moves on to the embarrassed part, there will be no dinner nice enough.”

“No oral sex tender enough,”
Claire texted back.

“No kitchen floor clean enough.”

Thankfully unaware that I was sitting on the sidelines plotting revenge, Wynn joined the other kids in the warm-up. I was glad not to be missing this, even if I had to imply I was meeting the production designer of
Saw
for a consult to walk out of the office early.

“Stella!” Maya shouted before abandoning her scooter to join the girl spinning like she was auditioning for
Hair
.

“Rory.” Stella’s mother, whose name I hadn’t committed to memory (and it was seasons too late to ask), greeted me. “I haven’t seen you in forever. Did the Turners have a good summer?”

“Yeah, back-to-school craziness. Thank God the heat broke, huh?” Would she notice that was not an answer? Because I did not want to start talking about how the Turners had been because what might come spewing out was how we were.

“Ugh, yes. Blake’s night off?” she asked, looking over my shoulder down the length of the field as I realized palpable disappointment was rippling over the moms. Everyone stopped standing up straight, what was left of our collective boobs retreating back into the caves between hunched shoulder blades.

I have never minded the mom crushes that followed Blake like steam from a locomotive. I imagined this was what it was like wherever the David Beckhams and Will Smiths of the world were doing pickups or helping at the school fairs. Blake wasn’t that famous, but he was that good looking.

“He’s working, actually. Are you guys going anywhere over the October break?” Years of watching Claire make small talk with MoMA patrons had taught me to (a) cover the weather and (b) follow up with vacation plans. People always have vacations planned, maybe not imminent ones but someday. If nothing else, they wish they did. Once the location is disclosed, there’re endless travel logistics to mine for follow-up, making it inopportune to grab your conversational partner by the elbows, say your husband fired his one professional advocate, and ask,
What is he going to do now? NO REALLY, WHAT?!

Tuning back in, I realized she was telling me about a business trip. I tried to piece together what it was that she did. Something about a site visit. Social work?

“. . . in the desert . . .”

Archaeology? Did people still do that? I mentally scanned my “Stella’s Mom” file: husband had a thing for boat shoes, needed someone to stay with her dog last spring, loved
Gone Girl
, got her oranges only at Fairway. That was it. I was ashamed that I didn’t know her and every other parent there the way I thought I would when we signed up. My sister-in-law’s neighbors met every Sunday at each other’s houses to talk while preparing family meals for the week. I didn’t even know where Stella lived. Apparently somewhere that allowed dogs.

“How about you guys? You and Blake have anything fun coming up?”

I caught sight of Maya’s face going Sweeney Todd. “Sorry, have to triage,” I excused myself.

“He thays we’re bad guys. I’m not bad guys,” Maya shouted, tears springing laterally out of her eyes. “I’m not!”

Unfazed, a boy Maya’s size wielded a bubble wand like an AK-47 at us both.

“Dylan, how about asking the ladies what game
they
want to play?” The boy’s father jogged over to grab the wand.

“I’m not a bad guy,” Maya restated emphatically.

“Oh, me neither,” the dad clarified. “I swear. So sorry. We’d agreed on bubbles,” he apologized to us.

Dylan looked like a can being stepped on. “I don’t want to do bubbles. I want her to be bad guys.” Bubbles were nowhere in Dylan’s vision.

“Even huge ones?” his dad enticed. “I mean, I was going to make megabubbles, but if you’re not into it . . .”

“I want megabubbles!” Maya declared, eyes brightening through the flood.

“Let me try just one, okay, Dylan?” His dad gently took the wand from him and, after a pump, arced it toward the clouds. The oily rainbows floated tauntingly, bringing Stella running over. Even Dylan couldn’t resist. His dad gave the wand back and the girls chased Dylan’s creations with delight. “Like it never happened,” he observed. “Dylan is bad guy obsessed. He turned half a grapefruit into a gun this morning. It was kind of impressive, honestly.”

“Maya would trade me in to be a Princess Twilight Sparkle Pony in a heartbeat. I read it’s something about needing archetypes who have more power than us.”

He grinned. “Well, it’s good to know that if you want to upstage me, you have to be able to fly.”

“Lucky you. All that’s required to take me down is a tiara and some cheap heels.”

“He’s actually our third little guy so I’ve been to this ego-crushing rodeo. My second, Matt, is on the field there.”

I followed where he pointed to a smaller version of himself gathering around the coach with Wynn. Then my gaze went to a wiry girl in shin guards furtively watching my son. Strapped into a bra supporting nothing. She was
ten.

“Josh Rosen.” He extended a hand. “Dylan and Matt’s dad.”

“Rory Turner.” I shook it. “Wynn’s mom.”

“Days like this make the city feel . . .” He shrugged, peering up through his Ray Bans at the sky, “deceptively gentle.”

I was relieved to be back to discussing the weather with a certified stranger. “I remember trying to keep my daughter entertained at the playground during one of Wynn’s practices two years ago, and it was that first day of fall where the air turns abruptly bitter. All she wanted was to leave the padded rubber play area and climb around those rocks with the rat poison and broken beer bottles. Time slowed to a crawl.”

“That makes me feel better. I thought it was just my boys who want to be wherever they’re not supposed to.” From the heft of his watch, I placed him from one of the limestone buildings nearby.

“Is Matt new to the league?” I asked, as I didn’t recall having met Josh.

“He didn’t want to do soccer. But there was no way I was schlepping him down to the rink at Chelsea Piers just to stand in a parka and watch him get his teeth knocked out.”

“You can totally do that right here,” I assured him. “I’m sure someone on the opposing team would oblige.”

“I say this like it’s all me,” he demurred.“But the truth is, I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t just gotten in from Geneva an hour ago.”

“Long hours?” I asked.

“I’m a banking cliché. How about you?”

“I work for a site. It’s—” I still couldn’t say “kids’ lifestyle” without cringing.

“A secret?” he asked.

“Only to me. A new media company. Can I ask you, actually, I’ve been in search of a translator for some of the . . .”

“Jargon?”

“Yes.”

“Bring it.”

“Okay.” I tugged my phone from my jeans and read the notes I’d made from the meeting. “What does ‘force-ranked’ mean?”

“Hmm, depends on the noun it’s modifying. Use it in a sentence?”

“I’m presenting a deck tomorrow and I’ve been asked to force-rank it based on ‘potential for revenue.’ Wikipedia said it’s a ‘leadership construct.’ ”

He laughed. “It’s just fancy speak for highest to lowest.”

“So plain old-fashioned ranking?” I confirmed.

“Every new generation needs our language to submit wholly to their awesomeness,” he said as his phone rang.

“That they do,” I murmured in agreement. “That they do.”

He pushed his sunglasses up into his thinning hair as he answered the call. He had one of those faces that was probably not knee-weakening in college but was getting handsome with age. “Hey, babe, yeah, we’re on the field . . . Yup, he has his cleats . . . I know, I found them in the hamper . . . I took a guess . . . Because if I was looking to torment my little brother, that’s where I would have hidden them . . . Don’t bother with defrosting at this hour. Let’s just order in. Whatever you want. Sushi?”

I just stood there, listening to a guy who knew that defrosting was a pain in the ass, ready to walk over to the nearest tree and knock my forehead against it. Because in my twenties, Josh was not the kind of guy I ever would have gone for.
Finance? Law student? Where’s the mystery? Where’s the magic? Where’s the passion?
I’d wanted David Beckham without any of the endorsement deals. And I got it.