Fourth Comings (14 page)

thirty-five

M
arin was so enraptured by the Non-Stop Party Patrol that she’d had nothing to do with me the whole time I was there. I wanted to wish her luck on her first day of school, so I popped my head into the playroom.

“Marin?”

Marin was wearing a purple ringer T-shirt and a sparkly yellow tutu over jeans. She positioned herself in front of a perky, ponytailed dancer with her legs apart, arms up, and hips gyrating round and round. Her tongue was out, and her chin was slick with spit, both signs that she was concentrating really hard on learning the choreography to “2-Getha 4-Eva,” the closing number from
Grease 3: The Return to Rydell.
My niece had forced me to watch this DVD more times than anyone with memories of the original should be reasonably required to endure.

This was our little secret, you see. If Bethany had any idea that we had spent so many weekday afternoons in front of that DVD, I doubt that I would have vaulted past all the others on the list of potential legal guardians. When Marin is in my care, I am supposed to follow The Fun Chart™, a calendar created by a team of leading child psychologists that structures each day around “activities that aid in the acquisition of specific developmental milestones.” The Fun Chart™ has met MILF approval, proving that the reviled Park Slope Mommies have not cornered the market on “multidisciplinary explorative colloquia.”

Watching
Grease 3
might be acceptable once, maybe twice a month, and only if it was a day officially designated by The Fun Chart™ toward the cultivation of Marin’s Auditory, Creative Expression, and Language skills. By allowing her to watch
Grease 3
once, maybe twice, or even three times a
week
if we’re both tired and cranky enough, I’m defying The Fun Chart™ mandate to engage in Fine Motor, Visual Perception, and Cortical play, which means she’ll never get into one of the “better Ivies” and her life is ruined.

Obviously, all that stuff is B.S. Back in the day, my mom’s idea of educational play was devising the rehearsal dinner menu for Barbie and Ken’s wedding. And I turned out okay, despite an utter lack of Proprio-ceptive stimuli. Likewise, I doubt that there was much emphasis on your Tactile/Kinesthetic skill set when you were in juvenile detention. And just look at you now, a Princeton Tiger.

As a babysitter, I can get away with breaking all the rules because, as any amateur Freudian knows, it’s Bethany and Grant who can do the most damage to Marin’s fragile psyche and future earning potential. I can’t imagine a more high-pressure job—especially in this city.

Case in point: Marin fell off the monkey bars a few weeks ago. She landed in a bloody tangle of arms and legs. She howled for a few minutes but calmed down with the promise of ice cream and
Grease 3.
No broken bones, but her knee took the hardest hit, making it difficult for her to walk. I did what any sane caregiver would: I scooped her up and carried her back to Bethany’s place. I was about halfway there, waiting patiently for the Walk light, when a smug thirtysomething wearing a heart-rate monitor and three-hundred-dollar running shoes looked right at Marin and said,
“You
should be walking.” He dashed to the other side before the comment registered.

It was a dick thing to say, because it was none of his goddamn business. What made it worse was his cowardliness. Oh, it takes a big man to admonish a four-year-old still sniveling over her bloody boo-boo instead of the adult who happens to be holding her. But I let it go because this guy was obviously a fitness Nazi who had made it his moral imperative to end childhood obesity by berating one injured, immobile preschooler at a time. By the time Bethany got home, I was ready to joke about it. But she didn’t think it was at all funny.

“ARRRRRRRGH!” Bethany growled, balling up her freshly manicured hands into fists. “Why can’t people mind their own business?”

“He was a jerk.”

“Everyone thinks they have a right to parent everyone else’s kid in this city! Everyone’s an expert!”

“Let it go….”

“You
try to let it go when you know that every time you walk out the door, people are passing judgment on how you raise your child.”

From that afternoon on, I could hardly blame Bethany for surrendering to the MILF groupthink. I know I’m an adequate babysitter. Sometimes I’m even an above-and-beyond babysitter. But am I ready to accept permanent responsibility for Marin’s care and well-being? I’ve never had a pet. Not a guppy, not even a sea monkey.

After the fourth or fifth attempt to draw her attention away from the Non-Stop Party Patrol, my niece finally half-turned her blond head in my general direction.

“Auntie J,” she said, with a whine beyond her years, “can’t you see I’m
busy
?”

Bethany assures me that such withering disdain is a sign of the deepest devotion.

“After all,” Bethany said, “you can only really,
reall
y hurt the ones you really,
really
love.”

(Oh, don’t I know it.)

thirty-six

W
hen I returned to Sammy, the apartment was empty. The ride on the subway and the ten-block walk back to the apartment had left me feeling sticky, so I decided to take a cold shower. As soon as I stepped inside, I caught a whiff of the mildewy plastic. Our shower curtain was slick with pinkish mildew, and the moistest bottom corners were flecked with specks of greenish mold, a sort of preppy nastiness. The tiles were dull with soap scum; the grout had turned gray. I stood ankle-deep in a dirty puddle because the drain was clogged with the foulest congealment of human hair and conditioner.

The inability to bring our bathroom up to reasonably clean hygienic standards is one of the grossest examples of our collective immaturity and incompetence here in Sammy. Of course, we all wanted a clean bathroom, but only Shea—yes, Shea—had the wherewithal to actually pick up a sponge. She had the lowest tolerance for scum, and would be the first to hit the bleach when she couldn’t take it anymore. Of course, while doing so, she’d unleash an expletive-laden tirade about how we were the most worthless pack of spermburping jizzmops she’d ever met, but even that was a small price to pay for a clean shower stall.

So I was in the shower, lathering up with Hope’s ginger-scented shampoo, debating whether she would also notice if I used her razor to shave my legs, when I heard the unmistakable sound of the bathroom door bursting open. I poked my frothy head through the curtain just to confirm that it was the pervert I knew, and not a pervert off the street.

“Christ, Manda! Privacy!”

Her thong was already at her ankles. “That’s an amusing request coming from someone who is
watching me pee
!”

I grumbled and yanked my head back inside the stall. “Don’t flush!” I yelled out, but it was already too late. The hot water surged from the showerhead and singed my skin. “OUCH! FUCK!”

“Oops!”

I waited for the sound of the door opening and closing behind her. When I didn’t hear it right away, I stuck my head outside the curtain yet again. Manda was still in the same spot, panties up, toilet lid down. She was bent in half, lazily inspecting her pedicure.

“Hope called,” she said breezily. “She’s at the studio. Can’t do dinner. The usual.”

“Okay!” I said. “Thanks for the message! You can leave now!”

“I assume you didn’t get laid,” Manda said. This is her standard greeting whenever I’ve returned from just about anywhere.

“I have a boyfriend, remember?” I asked, quickly rinsing my hair.

“Fiancé,”
Manda corrected. “Remember?”

I could feel my blushing embarrassment, even under the hot water. With the ring off my finger I had, in fact, forgotten. I changed the subject. And quickly.

“Well, I was hit on by a married man who resembles an uncircumcised penis.”

I expected her to heave a bored sigh and say something like, “Haven’t we all?” But instead she said, “Sara called. She had the baby.”

“Welcome, Destiny Estrella.”

“You mean Alessandro Destino.”

“What?”

“Turned out that their little girl was hiding something between her legs.”

Well. So much for the D’Abruzzi Pussy Legacy. Is nothing sacred?

“I bet Scotty is happy about it,” I said.

“They both sound really happy,” Manda said. “Like really, ridiculously happy. So happy that we both kind of forgot that we hate each other.”

“That’s nice,” I said. “Okay, you can leave now!”

Manda paid me no mind. “So happy”—she paused to draw a deep, dramatic breath—“that I had an epiphany.”

I turned off the water and poked my head out again. Manda was still picking at her toenails, waiting for me to ask about her epiphany.

“Can I hear about your epiphany after I get dressed?”

“Prude,” she muttered as she walked out without bothering to shut the door behind her.

I slowly dried off and then wrapped the towel turban-style around my wet hair. I got dressed in a pair of weeks-unwashed cutoffs that could walk on their own and one of Hope’s white Hanes T-shirts, straight from the package, still stiff. I really need to do my laundry. I emerged from the steamy bathroom to see Manda waiting for me on the Olga couch, a plastic cup in her hand and a box of white zin on the floor. She had tapped a second cup for me, so I felt obliged to sit down next to her.

“Your epiphany?”

“I broke up with Shea!” She gripped my shoulders with her hands, as if I might reel from the shock. “Are you shocked?”

Manda wanted me to be shocked.

“I’m not shocked,” I said, and Manda limply removed her hands.

“Go on, then,” she said.

“Go on how?” I asked.

“Go on with how I’m a bad lesbian….”

“I don’t think you’re a bad lesbian….”

“How my open omnisexuality makes me a traitor to the cause…”

“What? Breaking up with Shea makes you a traitor?”

She nodded somberly.

“Well, I think you’ll be doing the lesbian community a favor by not settling for a relationship with Shea. I mean, I was kind of surprised that you two were together at all.”

Her eyes narrowed. “The girl-girl thing freaked you out? Oh, puh-leeze. And I thought you were open-minded….”

“I am open-minded,” I said. “I was fine with ‘the girl-girl thing.’ But I didn’t understand why you were with Shea, of all girls. A girl who acted like an idiot teenage boy.”

“My aunt would say it’s treason,” Manda said, dramatically covering her eyes in mock shame. “Not just against lesbians, but my whole gender.”

“How so?”

“Because I’m admitting that her idiot teenage boyness is what I found so attractive. That when I’m reincarnated, I want to come back as a teenage boy. I mean, what creature on this planet is freer, and more liberated, more about id and impulses than a teenage boy?”

I still didn’t get it.

“But you would have never dated a guy who acted like Shea,” I said. “You only dated Shea because she was a
girl
who acted like a guy. That’s the only reason you put up with her obnoxious behavior. It made no sense.”

“I
know
it didn’t make any sense,” she said. “If we only fell in love when it made sense, the human race would have died out long ago. Because who makes sense? Do Scotty and Sara make sense? Do Percy and Bridget make sense? Do you and Marcus?” She thrust an accusing finger right at my heart.

(We already know we don’t make sense. And never have.)

“Anyway,” she said, dropping her hand to examine a hangnail, “it was an easy break. Shea didn’t even care. She just said, ‘I’ll move out my shit, yo,’ and that was it. She was out in under two hours.”

“So she’s gone? For good?”

“I hope so,” she said. “I hate clingers. Clingers are
the worst.”

“So that was your epiphany, to break up with Shea.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “That was just one small part of my greater epiphany. My epiphany was much bigger than Shea.”

Manda has a tendency to take frequent breaks in the middle of her stories, so the listener is forced to goad her on. It gives the illusion that the listener is more interested than she really is. I hate giving in to this gambit, but it’s the only way to speed things along.

“And?”

“Well, after I talked to Sara and Scotty, I realized that for all my redefining sex on my own terms, I’m not having all that much fun. I’m not all that happy. I need to be in a relationship that makes me happy.”

“Have any of your relationships made you happy?’

And she sighed into the couch cushions. “Only one.”

And I braced myself for what I knew she would say next.

“Len,” she said. “Oh, yes. I’m going to win back Len.” She gleefully rubbed her hands together, like a scheming cartoon villain. I was stunned by how quickly Manda could shift allegiances from straight to gay to straight again. That must be some sort of Ann Heche-ian hetero-lesbo-hetero record.

“I’m not sure if that’s a good idea, Manda. I mean, he’s got a girlfriend now.”

“The time-traveler bitch? Puh-leeze. I saw her picture on Len’s blog. No competition.”

I’d also seen it on “Mouth of the Wormhole.” Len met Camilla at a Time Traveler party, an MIT nerdfest in which an open invitation is extended to any future-dweller who might be interested in using his or her time machine to go back in history just so he or she could attend their shindig. Yes, the general idea is that the guest of honor would have to manipulate the whole space-time continuum for the pleasure of tapping (a) the keg and (b) some ass. (Which is pretty hardcore, when you think about it. We have problems persuading people to come out to party in
Brooklyn.
) The only person less likely to show up at a Time Traveler party than a dimension-bending honoree is a brainy female hottie like Camilla. I mean, the odds of that happening are infinitesimal, which is why I’m so happy for both of them, and Len in particular. I do not want Manda to wreck this for him.

“Len seems really happy now and…”

“And what?”

“He was devastated when you left him for Shea,” I said. “It took him a long time to get over you….”

Manda slurped the rest of the pink wine from her cup before calmly asking, “Was he over me when he fucked you?”

I winced. She smiled wickedly. “So it
is
true,” Manda said. “You fucked Len.”

(I did. But you know this already.)

It doesn’t matter how Manda found out, though the smart money would be on Sara.

“It was a mistake,” I said.

“Oh, puh-leeze,” she said dismissively. “His virginity pledge was such a pain in the ass when we were together. I’m relieved you got to him first. Now he’ll appreciate my many gifts when we get back together.”

I ignored the insult. She waited until I took a sip of zin before proceeding.

“I called him.”

“What?!” Pink spit shot out all over the hardwood floor. “You spoke to him?”

“Left a message.” She grinned triumphantly, and her wide mouth took up too much of her face. She was well aware of the dramatic implications of such a bold gesture. No one reconnects with an ex by phone. It’s just not done. You’re supposed to work your way though safer, more impersonal channels of communication first. There are countless combinations, of course, but one such sequence would be: witty blog comment, IM, e-mail, voice mail, face-to-face meeting over coffee, face-to-face meeting over alcohol, reunion fuck. But bypassing the first three and going straight to voice mail? That’s kamikaze communication.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“Oh, not much…”

Manda then made a big deal out of yawning, casually stretching her arms above her head, and arching her back until her watermelon tits almost exploded out of her bra. My guess is that this gesture was supposed to be sexy. But it reminded me of that has-been comedian (Gallagher?) who has made an entire career out of smashing fruit with sledgehammers.

“The usual—you know,” she finally continued. “Hey, I was just thinking about you, we haven’t talked in a while, I broke up with Shea, and oh yeah, I’m still in love with you….”

“Manda!”

“What?” she asked, coyly fluttering her eyelashes.

“You are
not
still in love with him!”

“How do you know? Who are you to tell me who I’m in love with? I could easily be in love with Len.”

“But you’re
not
!”

She pouted. “I could be.” Then her petulant pucker spread into a knowing smile. “And more to the point, he could still be in love with me.”

He could. And if he wasn’t, he would be. It was his fate. Consider this Manda’s version of the Pussy Legacy. With a legendary combination of headstrong self-determination and mythic cleavage, Manda has never failed to snare anyone, of any gender, she has ever wanted. It was impossible for me not to feel sorry for Len’s future ex-girlfriend. I wanted to light a candle. Say a novena. Write a condolence note. Send a foilwrapped pan of ziti that she could eat now or freeze for later. I wanted to do something to help Camilla through the mourning period for what would be the certain death of her relationship with Len.

As I got up and headed to the Cupcake, Manda waved her cup in the air.

“Shea’s out,” she said through a yawn. “You owe another hundred sixty-six thirty-three in rent.”

As if I needed another reason to nail this interview tomorrow.