Rich and Pretty (26 page)

Sarah has kept Lauren abreast of things. She knows that Meredith and the blind date who was arranged to escort her to Sarah's wedding are now an item. Judging by the rapacity with which Meredith is studying the baby, the poor guy stands no chance.

Fiona joins them, porcelain teacup cradled in her hands like a bird settled into a nest. “Hi, Lauren,” she says. Some special note of friendliness there: She and Rob spent an hour at the wedding with Fiona and her husband, Sam. They sat on the stoop, the four of them, balancing plates on laps and eating dinner, then smoking Sam's cigarettes, talking. Lauren likes Fiona, though she's also a bit afraid of her, has always had a healthy fear of women who are too beautiful. Much as pregnancy has amplified the effect of her remarkable body, it's accentuated the impact of her beauty. She has it—the glow. And she's cut her hair short, like a boy's, so all you can do is take in the planes of her face, the evenness of her skin, the sweet peak of her nose, the luxurious green of her eyes.

“Congratulations,” Lauren says, which is what you must say in these situations, when it's impossible, indeed uncomfortable, to deny the fact of another person's pregnancy. “When are you due?”

“November,” Fiona says. “Not long now. How have you been? How's Rob?”

“He's good, thanks,” she says. “He's good. I'm good. We're good.”

Rob is good. That may be the easiest way to sum him up: good. Things between them have been much the same—dinner here, or a movie then a drink, a stroll around Chelsea to look at the second-rate summer group shows, an hour in the park, on a blanket, with the newspaper. The first weekend of August, their first time away together. She'd felt guilty, like they'd ditched the third wheel that had accompanied them wherever they went: the city itself.

Rob's idea: a vacation rental in the Hudson Valley, though they never caught sight of the river. They stopped at a big, clean grocery store, bought a rotisserie chicken and some dry pasta, the makings for hamburgers, a bottle of vodka and a twelve-pack of beer, a package of Oreos and every idiotic magazine in the checkout line. The house had a hot tub, and they sat in the quiet night, naked, until the heat had completely soaked into their bodies. They dried off and fell asleep, woke up and fucked. There was no computer, no television, even their phones didn't work all that well. She spread a sheet on the patchy lawn and lay there in the summer sun, reading tabloids. Rob fell asleep on the sofa and snored, then woke up and grilled hamburgers. They sat naked in the tub again, again fell asleep, and woke early the next morning, too early, because they hadn't done anything and therefore weren't tired. They packed their things, drove to a nearby town, looked at some terrible art galleries, ignored the antiques shops, ate bagels and drank iced coffee. Rob drove them back to her place, and then Rob went to return the rental
car on his own, and she was surprised to find that she was relieved to be alone again.

She has been impatient for September, and now here it is: three books launching, related parties and events scheduled, that back-to-school feeling in the air and even if you're the sort to sing “no more pencils, no more books,” there's something comforting in the sense that the world is getting back to business. Lauren's ready, ready to shake the hands and soothe the egos, to demonstrate efficiency, to reach for excellence. She's ready for more. Sarah has a baby, for Christ's sake. What the fuck does she have?

“Lauren, come sit and talk to me,” Lulu says, beckoning from the sofa. “Come, come.”

Lauren makes an apologetic face to the younger women—Lulu must be obeyed—accepting before she goes, from Meredith, a glass of white wine.

“How are you, then? So beautiful, look Sharon, this is Sarah's oldest friend, isn't she beautiful?” Lulu's friend nods in agreement, or benediction.

Lulu has this quality, sometimes, of seeming very drunk, when in fact she isn't. Lauren has never understood what brings this on in her. “How are you, Grandma?”

“Ah.” Lulu clasps her hands. “I've decided on Mamina—Henry's going to call me his mamina, isn't that lovely? I am, in my old age, you see, getting more interested in my roots. Mamina. That's how I called my mother's mother, so it's got a history to it. And of course, we'll have to raise him with Spanish.”

Lauren nods. “They say it's easy, when you start from birth.”

“It is, well, of course it is, we were raised in English, Spanish, French, we never knew any different, we just answered in whatever language we were spoken to, this is how it should be. This country, the way people insist on English, it's so small, don't you think?”

Lauren agrees. It's easier, with Lulu, to agree.

The thing Sarah wants least,
now, is to open the presents, in front of everyone, but it is clear that's what people expect, or at least Meredith and Lulu, the most vocal among them. So she does. Amina is holding the baby, who isn't doing anything because babies can't do anything, and Sarah perches on the leather pouf from that Moroccan shop in the West Village and unwraps. There is: a sterling silver rattle in telltale blue box, plus a stuffed monkey, very soft, from Meredith; a blanket, off-white cotton, hand-embroidered with a motif of small giraffes, and the very practical package of onesies, from Carol; a dozen little board books, from the black-and-white ones that are meant to be the only thing a small baby's eyes can discern, to actual storybooks, the sort she'll read aloud at some impossible-to-imagine point in the future, from Sharon.

“Mine next!” Amina, arms full of Henry, nods at a box wrapped in yellow.

Lauren hands it to Sarah, and she sits with it on her lap, for a second, looking at all of them, looking at her. She has a baby. This realization has come a couple of times now, each of them surprising. She knew she was going to have a baby, she was there when the baby emerged from her very body, but still, in moments, it's
possible to forget, or be so preoccupied with remembering things like which side of the diaper goes in back, quickly, before his little penis dribbles out yet more of his perfectly clear urine, that the very fact of it is lost, or buried. This is probably by design; the baby keeps you busy so you don't have time to reflect on the fact that you have a baby. She doesn't want to think too much, because she's terrified of postpartum depression and has come somehow to equate the two. Sometimes, thinking too deeply is a mistake, is a trap. Sometimes it's best just to do.

It's a sound machine, Amina's gift, buried inside a plush sheep. Sarah's read good things about this. “Thank you!”

She's not making a list but feels like she'll be able to remember who gave her what; the gift reflects its giver's personality, somehow. She'll know that the hand-crocheted mobile in the shape of an antique bird's cage was from Fiona, because only Fiona would give a present nominally suitable for baby and yet so stylish. She's glad that Fiona is pregnant—is happy, of course, as you would be, for a friend, but selfishly, too. There are no mothers in Sarah's close circle, and even though she's only a couple of weeks into it, she feels alone, or like she'd benefit from some peer support. She supposes, now that she considers it, that maybe she's always imagined doing this with Lauren, getting married, vacationing together with their husbands, who would, of course, be friends, or friendly enough. Then having babies, passing hand-me-downs back and forth between them until they could no longer remember who had originally bought those Old Navy overalls. Foolish, she guesses; she thinks, or knows, that Lauren will probably never have a baby, and even if she did, Lauren wouldn't approach it the
way Sarah's going to approach it. She still remembers, though, the things she once thought, even if nothing has happened quite as she imagined it would.

There's only Lauren's gift now, a bounty of clothes, ridiculous every one—outfits for a man, scaled down for a baby, and a sailor's suit like a baby in a Shirley Temple movie might have worn. She laughs. She understands, immediately, that this is both a joke and not.

“These are ridiculous,” she says.

“I couldn't resist,” Lauren says, also laughing.

There's also a blank book, in a pretty jeweled color.

“For photos,” Lauren says. “Real pictures. Not just data on your cell phone. Old school. You'll be glad you have it later.”

“Wonderful!” Lulu snatches the book from her hands. “I've been saying the same thing. All the pictures, we have all those pictures in the house, and they're so wonderful to have. The way things are done nowadays . . .”

“You're sounding old, Mom,” Sarah says. “But you're right. There's something nice about real photos. Thanks for this. And that's enough gifts.”

The afternoon trickles away, and the women trickle away, kissing the baby, kissing her. Fiona is left, legs curled beneath her on the sofa; Lauren is left, picking up used napkins and little bits of ribbon and tossing them into the garbage can under the sink.

“You don't have to,” she says.

“I do,” Lauren says. “Just sit.”

Sarah does as she's told, sitting with Henry in her arms, his eyes wide, which will last for a few minutes, but then they'll grow smaller, and she'll feed him, and put him down on his back and let
him sleep, hopefully for a couple of hours. She's not tired, exactly, but she could sleep. So, too, could she get up and clean the living room. But she can tell it makes Lauren feel good to help, so she doesn't.

“What are you thinking for a name?” Sarah asks.

“We're torn,” Fiona says. “Sam is keeping a list, but I keep vetoing everything on it. Declan? Theo? Quinn? None of those seems exactly right to me.”

“I like Declan,” Sarah says.

“It's a big responsibility, a name,” Fiona says. “The first act of parenting, and your first chance to fuck up.”

Henry's name was a foregone conclusion, once they discovered he was a boy. She's not sure why her parents hadn't named her brother after their dad but is glad they didn't—naming the baby for his dead uncle would have been too fraught. Henry should be nothing but cause for joy. Sarah wonders, though, if there isn't, in Lulu and Huck, some muscle memory associated with cradling a brand-new little boy. She's always known it intellectually, but now she's a parent and knows it in a different way: There can't be a worse horror than losing a child. The baby has given her a new view into Lulu, a new empathy for her. A new bride in a foreign land when she wasn't much more than a girl; a mother at an age when she still could have used some mothering herself. And then: for him to die? It seems impossible. It's no wonder they've never discussed it.

Sarah feeds the baby, draping one of the big muslin blankets over his head because she doesn't feel like sharing her chapped and swollen nipple with Fiona and Lauren. Fiona fills a napkin with carrots, then when she's eaten them all, she leaves. Lauren
finishes tidying, brings Sarah a glass of iced water, and stays. The baby goes down, snoring steadily. She transfers him to the bedroom, switches on the monitor, leaves him there, and she and Lauren are alone.

“So how is it?” Lauren is on the floor, her back against the sofa, looking up at her. She's cradling a cup of coffee. “You're a mother.”

“I know,” she says. “It's . . . I don't know yet, is that a weird answer?”

“Not especially,” Lauren says.

“One day I was myself, then one day I had a baby, and now I'm still myself, but I'm also not. It's not like something magical happened. I mean, sure it was magical and chemical and blah blah, but mostly, I still feel like the same person with a whole new set of things I have to think about during the day. Every day. For the rest of my life.”

“That seems like a pretty succinct description of parenthood,” Lauren says. “Of course, it's all another country to me, so to speak.”

“Maybe not forever,” Sarah says.

“Maybe forever,” Lauren says. “What do I know?”

“What do you know? Tell me about Rob.”

“Nothing to tell,” she says.

“Nothing at all?”

“He's good, I don't know. Would you like his number?”

“Don't be an asshole.” Sarah sighs. “We're making conversation.”

“I'm not being an asshole, I'm just saying. Rob's Rob. It's good, it's fine, it's the same, it's not important. We're here to
gether for the first time since you had a baby, I don't want to talk about some guy.”

Some guy
—this is a telling turn of phrase. Sarah sees it immediately, that Rob will not last the year. Something has changed, Lauren's mind has changed. Sarah's disappointed, maybe not as disappointed as she'd have been a few months ago, before a baby monopolized her every emotion. She likes Lauren and Rob together but is somehow not surprised. “What should we discuss? South Sudan? The election? I can conference in Papa if you'd like.”