The Mermaid of Brooklyn (27 page)

“I saw,” I lied. “Good job.” I’d read somewhere that you weren’t supposed to say “good job” to your kids, but I couldn’t remember why. Oh, well. It wasn’t like unmitigated praise was the only thing between me and the Mother of the Year award. I pulled her sweaty body into my lap and stroked her hair, which she tolerated for two seconds before scootching over to see what Emma was doing. Laura produced from somewhere a farm-animal puzzle the girls were exceedingly fond of. I put on my thin sweater, more because my shoulders were tired of the air than because of any actual chill, and peeked in at Rose, who really did look like an angel sometimes. I was feeling defensive and distant from my friend. My brain roiled with unnecessarily bitchy comebacks:
I’m sorry that everyone’s life isn’t picture-perfect, you self-satisfied doctor’s wife, maybe someday things will go awry for you and you’ll understand . . .
But then Laura volunteered to walk the restless girls over to the ice cream stand, which I knew was a peace offering, and it calmed me somewhat. She wasn’t trying to be mean or judgmental. She was just trying to be real, to tell me something I needed to know.

Plus, she had given me a few rare moments alone, a few moments to watch the sky darken and my neighbors arrange themselves in the meadow, to take a deep breath, to stretch out for a second, to watch, oh God, Sam and his family troop over the grass. His wife and kids didn’t acknowledge me, but Sam waved in the dimming light, and I could have been imagining it, but he seemed happy to see me. Predictably, I blushed—good thing it was almost dark—and waved, and thought,
Stop that.

Then my crew was back and the girls settled into our laps and the fireworks began. Miraculously, the first twinkly spray of
lights woke Rose but didn’t startle her, so I scooped her out of the sling and nestled her in my lap beside Betty, who reached out and held her baby sister’s tiny hand (instead of pinching her side, for once), and I held my girls close to me and closed my eyes and smelled their sweet smells of baby shampoo and scalp and fresh air, and listened to the twitchy crackle of lights in the sky, and felt so close to whole that I almost expected to see Harry sitting beside me when I opened my eyes. “Just kidding!” he would say, or “Surprise!” or “Here I am! I won a million dollars! I’m so sorry, I can explain everything!” No, but there was Laura, and she smiled at me, and the whole park was pink, then purple, then bright white.

We waited afterward to let the crowd thin before packing up the scattered picnic and the sleepy girls into strollers and walking slowly home. “Sometimes I wish I were a nun,” Laura said suddenly.

I laughed. “Because you love Jesus so much?”

“Right. I just mean—I have days when I think I would like to take a vow of silence and walk around in some beautiful stone building on a mountaintop and be alone.”

“I think you’re thinking of monks.”

She tilted her head. “Oh. Hmm. Maybe.”

“And/or,” I said, navigating the stroller over a cavernous sidewalk crack, “a trip to the Cloisters. We could do that, you know. You just have to get on the A train and keep going up forever.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do know.” Even though Laura had sort of been on my nerves all day, now that we were near my building, I slowed my pace, not wanting to say goodbye, or maybe dreading bumping the stroller up all the front steps to the stoop. “I think the weirdest things, too, sometimes.”

“Weirder than wanting to be a nun?”

“Hmm, maybe. Like”—I didn’t mean to say it, but somehow the message didn’t get to my brain fast enough, and my stupid mouth said, quietly, in case Betty was awake and listening (
Just say it, just get it out
)—“sometimes I wish Harry had died.” It sounded even worse than I expected, and I hastily added, “I mean, not
really,
of course not. But at least then I would have some closure. I would know what happened, I wouldn’t have to be mad at him. But I don’t mean what I just said. You know that, right?”

We were in front of my building. Laura stopped walking and hugged me. We had been friends for almost four years, since we’d met in our ob-gyn’s waiting room, and there had been plenty of days when I’d seen her (and liked her) more than my own husband, but I didn’t think we’d ever hugged. Laura had such sweetness in her. She was good in a way that I was not. There was no denying it. She never had those moments, I was sure, when it all seemed like too much, when she felt unequal to the task of living, of caring for the people she was meant to care for. She squeezed my arms and said, “Oh, honey, I know,” and something about the way she called me “honey,” about the warmth in her voice and the sadness in her eyes just got me. A tear rolled down my face. “He’ll be back,” Laura said, as if she knew anything about it. “Don’t worry. How could he not? He’ll be back.”
Okay. She doesn’t have any idea what she’s talking about, but okay, I get that she’s trying to be nice. Want to go try to find Sam now?

I shook my head. “Sorry. I’m just—really tired.”

“I know. Do you want some help with the stroller?”

I refused automatically, waved goodbye, then kicked Betty out of her seat so she could sullenly stamp up the stairs while I heaved the thing up each step, counting the able-bodied men who passed by on the sidewalk without offering to help. The lack of chivalry bothered me less now that the rusalka had made me stronger, but
it irked me on principle: There were seven steps up to the front door and one, two, three, four and a half men if you included a teenager. Once inside, I jammed the stroller beside the neighbors’ mob of clammed-up Maclarens loitering beneath the stairs, scooped Rose out, waking her despite my attempts at gentleness, and willed myself up the steps to our apartment, praying for an easy bedtime and a couple minutes alone to sew. I usually didn’t think there was a God, but I figured if there were, he/she could probably relate to needing some time to oneself.

We were, where else, on the playground when Nell materialized by my elbow. I jumped. “What are you, a ninja?” Laura shot me a warning look that I pretended not to see.

Nell shrieked with laughter so exaggerated, I started again. “Oh, you are too funny!” I was not. She wanted something.

Sophie cautiously approached the sandbox crew: Betty, Emma, and a pair of twins we knew from the Y. Nell called out, “Careful of your dress, honey!” Sophie looked down miserably at her starchy petal-colored pinafore.

I sat down on the bench, lifting my shirt for Rose. “Sorry, can’t talk, Nell, nursing. The baby gets too distracted.” Rose peered up at me as if to prove my point before latching on, her eyes fluttering back in milky bliss. Happiness buzzed through me. It was part hormones, okay, probably mostly hormones, but also the unique satisfaction of being able to fulfill her needs so easily, so completely. The baby part was hard in its own ways, but there was something so pure about my relationship with Rose, untainted by the small-scale power struggles I had every day with Betty. So far I was the solution to all of Rose’s problems. It was exhausting, but it was beautiful.

“So. I saw the dress you made for Evelyn.” Nell sat beside me, suddenly solicitous. Rose popped off to stare at her. Years of breast-feeding had inured me to the weirdness of boob flashing in public.
Hello, Nell, here is my nipple.
Nell waved her perfect pale manicure and shushed herself. Rose went back to nursing. Nell whispered, “Breathtaking.”

“My boob?”

“Oh, you! No, the dress! I can’t even believe it! How can I get you to make me one?”

I shot a quick look at Laura, who was raising her eyebrows and nodding toward the playground entrance. I followed her gaze. Cute Dad was on the move. “Okay, Rosie, you done? You’re done.” I reassembled my shirt. The baby looked perturbed but not overly so, distracting herself with a length of my hair. “What kind of dress do you want?”

“Well, there is this Alice + Olivia dress I’ve had my eye on—”

“Okay. Bring it to me. I’ll take your measurements when you come. Keep the receipt and you can return it afterward. When do you need it by?”

“Oh! Whenever. I just want it.”

“Can do, Nelly.” I patted her arm. “My pleasure. I’ll get back to you on my fee.”

Cute Dad was standing near Laura, smiling at something she was saying. I felt inappropriately ruffled, flaring with unearned jealousy. I could hardly stand to look at him.
It’s supposed to be fun to have a crush. Don’t take everything so seriously.

I found myself hoisting Rose onto my hip and abandoning my new best friend Nell, sidling up to the chatting pair. When I reached them, though, I could think of nothing more clever to say than “Hi.”

“Hi,” said Laura, leaving off the “you idiot.”

Sam smiled. “Hi, Jenny. How are you?”

This was all I wanted. Someone to say “Hi, how are you?” Someone to smile at me. A male someone.

“Rose seems cheerier. How’s she been?” He watched my eyes as if searching for something misplaced in my pupils.

“Good! Thank you! Much better. Yeah, it’s weird.” I shrugged, flushing. Could I possibly be stupider and more boring?
Anyway, we’re both married. We’re just friends. Who am I trying to impress, right?

Oh, please. He’s adorable. Meanwhile, Harry is missing these leaps and bounds in the baby’s life. It all happens so fast, he should know by now, and yet he takes off, and Sam is the main man in your life. Certainly in terms of—

Okay, fine. Just flirt, then. I don’t want to hear the analysis.

Sam nodded. “Ah, babies. They have mysterious ways, don’t they? I remember Maude was like that, too—just so fussy all the time, no matter what we tried, and then not at all.” Laura excused herself without either of us fully noticing. “Man, so, isn’t it awful?”

“Yeah. Wait, what? Isn’t what awful?”

“The thing in London? The terrorist attacks?”

I rubbed my face. You’d think I’d get used to being such a douchebag, but no, it still took me by surprise, my own ability to miss everything. “What? I’m terrible. Your saying this makes me realize I haven’t seen or heard the news at all in . . . I don’t know. Since, like, 2002, maybe?”

But Sam, sweet Cute Dad, he laughed. “I’ll tell you enough so you don’t embarrass yourself.”

While he told me what was happening (“across the pond,” as he put it, a phrase that had always made me cringe but now sounded adorable), I realized he was telling me about a terrible thing in a very gentle, almost apologetic way. That he was trying not to upset me,
as if upsetting me would be the worst part of a subway bombing. I kept trying not to feel in love with him, and it kept not working.

Don’t fight this. Live this.

Shut up.

You know I won’t.

So now the subway’s scary again.

Everything’s scary. Life is scary. Next!

“How is your screenplay going?” I took advantage of a lull in conversation to change the subject. What was this, junior high? What would I say next, “Gee, I made you a mix tape”? “Could you fill out this note and check off if you a) like me or b) like me-like me”? It was as if I were on a mission to sound idiotic.

But Sam lit up. “Oh! The screenplay’s terrible.” He laughed. “Thank you for asking. That’s—it’s very sweet of you to ask. Bad. It’s so bad. I reread it all the other night and—yeah. Bad. New heights of banality.”

I don’t think I was imagining it. His eyes twinkled, they really actually twinkled. And that smile. He was so easy to talk to. Easy for me to talk to. And something about the way he looked at me. Maybe it wasn’t him at all. Maybe it was being paid attention to, flirted with a little. (“Love the scarf,” he said, laughing at the burp cloth bunched like a vomity corsage at my shoulder. “I was feeling fancy today,” I answered, blushing.) The rusalka took notice, seeped into the conversation like water in parched dirt.
I’m considering this time spent getting friendly as an investment, I’ll have you know
. She could be so calculating, worse than a man.

“I won’t ask you that awful question, ‘What’s it about?’ ” I said.

“Oh, good,” he said, smiling. “I hate that question. For one thing, I don’t have an answer, and for another, whenever I try, it sounds so incredibly stupid that I’m tempted to trash the whole thing and start taking night classes in air-conditioning repair.”

I laughed. “You might be on to something there. Then you could come talk to my air conditioner about why it sounds like it has emphysema.” And
he
laughed. Was it possible that I was being funny? Emboldened, flushing, I said, “I admit, I do want to know something about it. The screenplay, I mean. So maybe I will ask . . . what are your influences? God, I sound like Terry Gross. You know what I mean, though, like, what movies do you love?”

Sam looked away, rubbing at his stubbly cheek. “Aw, jeez. That question’s bad, too.”

“It
is
? Oh, dear. I’m sorry.”

“No, not like that, I just mean—my answer to that question is also slightly humiliating.”

“Oooh, now I really am intrigued. Do tell. I hope it’s something scandalous. Wait till all the neighborhood yentas find out you’re into hard-core goat porn. Or wait, worse—musicals.”