Momzillas (13 page)

Twenty-three

Later that night after putting Violet to bed, I spoke with Josh for the first time in thirty-six hours, which was unprecedented for us. I felt so off-kilter and was acutely feeling pangs of longing for him to be home; I'd even made a laundry list of porn titles since I missed him so much, including
Lawrence of Labia
,
Star Whores
, and
On Golden Blonde
. He said he wished he was back, too, and asked what I'd been up to, and I told him how the benefit droned on and on, and how one woman burst into tears while giving a testimonial about her fat son, August, and all I could do was think of poor Augustus Gloop drowning in a river of chocolate, covered like a piggy in mud.

“I think my bris sounds like more fun than that lunch,” laughed Josh. “Why'd you even go in the first place?”

“I thought you wanted me to hang with Bee and her hive,” I said. “Plus, your mom is on the board. I really didn't have a choice.”

“Sure you do! Sweet, I don't care if you go or not. Only deal if it's fun,” he said, laughing. “Han, you can hang with whoever you want. I just want you to be happy. Who cares if my mom wants to you to be friends with them, it's not her life!”

“They're fine, Bee's fine. They're not Leigh, that's for sure, but she's always traveling for work, and I have no mom friends, I am such a loner, and it's better than nothing. Plus, I need to learn all the insider things here, your mom's right, I guess. I realize it really is better for Violet if I play ball,” I sighed. “But I did all the school research, luckily, and I know exactly where we're speed dialing, so you better not forget to pen that shit in. I own you the day after Labor Day when the phone lines open.”

“Okay, sergeant!”

“Oh! Sweetie, also, I got us tickets for this new play next week,
Swimming at Night
. Supposedly it's this really hot love story.”

“Cool, I can't wait.”

I asked him how the maniacal billionaire and his monkey with diapers were doing. He said it didn't seem possible before the trip, but that the guy was even crazier than he'd heard. Still, they were enjoying the hunt. In fact, with each “kill,” Count von Hapsenfürer would ship the body to Asprey for it to be dipped in silver. Room after gargantuan room was filled with sterling animals with every bristle of fur preserved in an eerie King Midas freeze, but with silver instead of gold. Horrifying. James Bond villain times ten.

“How's the food? Sheep's brain with a sterling spoon?”

Josh laughed. “You're not far off. We literally ate, like, roast mutton or something. Total medieval meal.”

“Ew! I'd die.” Despite my longing to be with him, I knew the food sitch would not be remotely to my liking.

Finally Josh had to go to sleep, as it was three
A.M.
in Europe. We hung up and I crawled into bed with my new
Spin
magazine. Two seconds later, the phone rang again.

“Hi, sweetie,” I said.

“Oh, hello, Hannah,” a non-Josh voice said. Oh shit. “This is Tate calling.”

“Whoops! Sorry, I just hung up with my husband—”

“Traveling, is he?”

“Yes, 'til Monday.”

“Funny, my wife is away with the children in Como for two weeks. I have too much course work to prepare for, so I sent them off while I'm withering away in this heat.”

“Tell me about it,” I sighed. “The Upper East Side is clearing out as if an H-bomb dropped. I think tumbleweeds are rolling up Park Avenue.”

He laughed, knowing exactly what I meant. “You're too much, Hannah.”

He asked me if I was free to go to the Guggenheim the following Tuesday afternoon and I told him I'd love to, adding that I'd bring my roller skates—referencing Diane Wiest in my all-time-favorite movie,
Hannah and Her Sisters
.

“So what is on the agenda for you tonight?”

“Oh, I dunno. Some Jon Stewart, some magazines…” I said, feeling so weird to be lying in bed talking to Tate Hayes.

“You'll never believe what my bedtime reading was last night,” he said.

“Harlequin Romance?”

“Nooo…” he mocked. “Your thesis, actually.”

I was stunned. What?! I was shocked, elated, and wondered if he was on heroin. But played it cool. “Why, you needed to fall asleep? Was my essay Ambien in paper form?”

“Hardly,” he said, dead serious. “It's truly beautiful, Hannah. You have a real talent.”

“A talent for singing tunes by the Doodlebops these days,” I said, feeling my mommy status had trumped my intellectual one.

“No, it's never left you. All that work you've done, your gifts, it's all there waiting for you when you're ready.”

“Thanks.”

“I'll leave you to your magazines, then.”

“Okay,” I said softly.

“Good night, Hannah.”

Twenty-four

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Josh came home from Switzerland. I'm so pathetic, I mean, there were women with husbands at war for crying out loud and I was so lost without him, I pounced on him like one of those suction-cup Garfields in car windows. And while I did feel such a tight bond to Violet from our time together, being a single mom was exhausting, and my head was awash in a spin cycle of scattered toys, thrown peas, and the high-pitched voiceover lady from the Disney Channel (who sounded suspiciously like that secretary from
Moonlighting
). In other words, I missed the love of my life terribly, but I also missed the extra pair of hands. We snuggled in to a family dinner as I reported on Violet's latest words and caught up on his trip. New porn title conceived of on the plane that we both couldn't believe we'd never thought of:
The Rodfather
.

The next day Violet and I kissed Josh good-bye as he left for work and I tried to figure out what to do. It was 93 degrees and I thought I could barely handle walking one block, let alone roasting on a paved playground. I had read about a cool hangout space uptown called Kidsplosion where you could pay a cover and let your kid run amok and jump in pools of foam and blow bubbles and basically go insane in a padded room. I figured, hey, if it's air conditioned, I don't fucking care if the kids are juggling razor blades. Just kidding.

I was expecting the joint to be butt empty because in August it seemed like a neutron bomb had been dropped on the Upper East Side—the usual traffic of double-stranders (pearls) and their sailor-suit-wearing kids was nil, and the only things walking up Park Avenue were water bugs, which I realized early on was a New York euphemism for a huge fucking cockroach.

When Violet and I pulled up to Kidsplosion, I was stunned to see that it was pretty packed. There were a ton of nannies, so I assumed that some of the moms who worked couldn't take that time off. There was also a mom clique on the side. No sooner did I check Violet in than she ran off and hugged a little girl who became her insta-pal. I watched from the side and plopped next to the clique of moms, each of whom was holding a Starbucks cup. The topic of their conversation was sex.

“Jonny rubbed my back last night and so wanted to and I was like, ew, I can't deal,” one of them lamented. “It's been two months now and I just have zero desire. Zero.”

“Just have a glass of wine, lie on your back, and it'll be over in five minutes! Make yourself do it,” another responded, adding, “I've got news for you: if you don't fuck your husband, someone else will.”

I was amazed; their conversation sounded so sad. But I had encountered this breed before: the Husband Bashers. It was a favorite pastime for some women, who bonded over how much their husbands worked, played golf, tried to sleep with them, etc. Truth be told, if I'd had a proper place to vent about Josh's hours since our move, I might be tempted to open up about how lonely I was. But even with my best friends it would feel like a betrayal of Josh; he was the main person in my life, my partner, my best friend. Clearly, most marriages were not the same. The only thing worse was kid bashing, which came next.

“Ugh, the terrible twos are killing me. Sometimes I want to die, Amory is sooo behind!” one woman lamented. “I mean, she's still using her bottle.”

I wanted to chime in and say, as Dr. Smith did, that she wouldn't go to college with it, when one of her friends said, “That's ridiculous! You must take it away at once. Cold turkey! We took Harrison's away at ten months! He didn't even know how to hold the sippy cup, so he lost one third of his body weight from starvation. But sometimes you just have to show them some tough love.”

I was almost dialing child welfare on my cell when Violet came up holding the hand of Mia, a little girl with black curly hair and a smocked dress.

“Hi Mommy! New friend!” The girls held hands and suddenly one of the blond moms nearby came over.

“Mia, sweetheart, who is this?”

“This is Violet, I'm Hannah,” I said, smiling.

“Mimi Quackenbush Skite,” she said, extending a manicured hand covered in rings. “And this is my daughter, Mia Skite.” She looked Violet over, then glanced back at me with squinted eyes. “Is she…
yours
?” she asked, looking Violet and me over five more times each. “I mean, she looks
nothing
like you! I've never seen a mother and daughter look less alike!”

“Yeah, she's mine. Genes can be funny.”

“But she's sooo blond! And you're
so incredibly dark
!” She made it sound like I had just passed through Ellis Island with a beard. I felt branded as a black pubic fur ball with a halo-covered flaxen cherub as my mistakenly switched-at-birth spawn. I simply shrugged, not quite knowing what to say. It was always the blondes who commented—clearly she was pissed her recessives hadn't passed on to her dark-haired kid, while my swarthy, grody pube head was forgiven in the formation of Violet's soft light waves.

“Where are you applying to nursery schools?” she asked out of left field while looking over my outfit: black jeans, a gray T-shirt, and black ballet flats.

She, like all her friends who looked on from their perch, was wearing what I was realizing was the Momzillas' summer uniform: metallic Jack Rogers sandals (J-Ro's), white pants, and a Tory by TRB beaded tunic and blond ponytail.

“Um…I guess the usual suspects, you know,” I said, uneasy.

“How many schools?” she asked, suspect.

“Four, the ones that are near us. I'm too lazy to schlep across town,” I said.

“Only
four
?!” She was aghast. “Are you serious? Wow, you must be pretty confident. Most people apply to at least eight or nine. I'm applying to eleven, but that's me. Mia is a nightmare and has a craaazy temper, so I'm guessing she'll fully blow it at least three or four schools.”

Evil. I mean, the kid was two, after all.

“Hi guys!” I heard a familiar voice say. I turned to see Hallie in the same outfit, flipping her red hair. “Oh, Hannah! Hi—I'm just in the city for the afternoon, Thatcher had a work dinner with the wives so I just hopped the jitney. Come here, Julia Charlotte!” The famous, sunshine-coming-out-of-her-ass Julia Charlotte came over and saw Mia and Violet and promptly stuck her tongue out at them. So much for the brilliant, mannered, Mandarin-fluent mini Einstein.

“Oh, you know each other?” Mimi marveled. “Hallie, please tell your friend—Hannah?—that she has to apply to more than four schools.”

Hallie barely paid any attention to me and instead was extremely focused on one of her nails which—
gasp!
—had a chip in the pale pink polish. “It doesn't really matter,” she sighed. Surprised, I felt relieved. Until she added: “If Violet doesn't get in anywhere you can always reapply next year.”

Bitch.
What she gained by dropping that doozy I do not know, but I thought it might be time to exit Kidsplosion before there was a Hannahsplosion. I politely announced I had to go and barely exhaled 'til I got around the corner, where I found myself panting. And then the perfect way to drown my sorrows pulled around the corner: Mister Softee. Even that semi-creepy serial-killer clown music sounded like the Philharmonic at that point, and with one cup and two spoons, Violet and I had a tiny taste of summer on the scalding pavement.

AND SO BEE COULD CHECK IN FROM THE CRAMPTONS…

Instant Message from: BeeElliott

BeeElliott: Hamptons are boooring. How're you?

Maggs10021: Fine, having a nice time pre-stork, trying to rest as much as possible!

BeeElliott: Any goss?

Maggs10021: No, just blah—it's kind of all about ice cream and sunblock         

BeeElliott: Hallie IM'd me that she ran into Hannah at Kidsplosion and she was such a freak—she's only applying to like two or three schools! Clueless. How does Josh deal?

Maggs10021: Whatevs. Violet is so smart, she'll get in.

BeeElliott: Not so sure—Mom says Lila Dillingham is FREAKING and thinx Hannah sucks. Poor kid.

Maggs10021: Hopefully she'll get in somewhere…it all works out in the end.