How to Party With an Infant (14 page)

She pours in more Baileys, though not too much since Jenny will be coming soon. She looks at the clock.

“Where is she?” She gets up to give the pot of chocolate a little stir. “And she could have called on Friday and at least let me know. I don’t see why Max just can’t go over there. It’s like I’m not mom enough or something. I get no respect.”

The kids come back into the kitchen, Ellie walking, Max straddle-hopping.

“Do something about it!” Mele says, bringing her fist down on the counter. “Do something!”

The women laugh for no reason at all. They laugh because it’s Tuesday afternoon and they’re drinking Baileys and making brownies. Annie decides to ease up a bit and enjoy her friend’s company. She
shows Mele some of her favorite dessert recipes, and they have their typical scattered banter fueled by

Observations:

“I hate it when my boobs sweat. You know, the underneath part?”

“I hate that!”

Questions:

“Were you horny when you were pregnant? I masturbated constantly.”

“I felt like an ape if I did that.”

“I almost humped my bedpost. Oh, do you still want to do that kids’ craft thing? They’ve got paints and shit.”

Criticisms:

“He should so be potty-trained by now.”

“It’s like she’s in a diaper coma.”

And Notes on the Past:

“Did you ever get the crab call?”

“The what?”

“The crab call. You know—‘I have crabs and I’m calling you and the other people I’ve slept with to tell you about it so you can shave your hair off and take crab pills.’ ”

“I can’t believe someone called to tell you. I wouldn’t call.”

“He was all business about it. Offered to make me an appointment.”

“Whoa. That’s the kind of guy who’ll take care of a baby. He’ll do night feedings.”

“I know.”

“So
did you have crabs? Are they actual crabs? Like with pincers?”

“Didn’t have them. That’s why I wouldn’t call. I mean he endured unnecessary embarrassment. He will forever be the guy with crabs.”

“Forever Crabby.”

“It was my fault. I was such a slut back then. I always slept with people right away. It was my thing.”

“I’ve only slept with three people other than Bobby.”

“Really? You seem slutty. Like you’d be recognized by the back of your head.”

“Oh, please.”

The exchanges usually end in a gale of laughter. One such gale is particularly explosive, so powerful in fact that they don’t hear the front door open and the pitter-patter of little feet. It takes Annie a moment to notice a little girl in her kitchen, wearing a brown onesie with a kangaroo on it and a pink tutu-like skirt with an embroidered pouch.

“Oh my God!” Annie yells. The little girl stops abruptly in front of Max and raises her fist, then sucks it with a smile. Jenny comes in after her, and the women are rendered silent.

“Jenny!” Annie says.

“Jenny!” Mele says.

Jenny has on her usual expression—that uncomfortable compulsory grin and nervous eyes. Annie feels like a predator. Jenny always looks afraid.

“Hi,” Jenny says. “Sorry. Tabor got stuck and I thought it would be okay if I brought Purse over here.” She guides Purse by the shoulders toward Annie. “I hope it’s all right.”

“Of course,” Annie says, unable to stop looking at the little girl. Max looks like a thug next to her. He ogles her, smiling and shaking his head as if he can’t quite believe she’s real. He looks from Jenny to Purse and bangs his fists on the shape keys of a toy. “I’m a triangle! I’m a circle!”
the shape keys sing, and now he looks like a thug with special needs. Where did that term come from in the first place? Everyone in the world has special needs. Purse gently wiggles her hips to the sounds of the toy, looking back at Jenny either for approval or just to acknowledge the entire audience.

“So cute,” Mele says.

“Cute,” Annie says.

Jenny has her hands on the little girl’s head.

“We didn’t hear you come in,” Annie says.

“I called out,” Jenny says. “But it was loud.” She looks down, and Annie thinks back to what they were talking about. It’s irritating, really. Why bother cleaning up your act if you’re going to be caught talking about venereal filth?

“So what’s Tabor so busy with?” Annie asks.

Jenny rolls her eyes, a gesture to establish her and Tabor’s intimacy and perhaps, their lack of. “She has this fund-raiser for her old sorority. And her son’s nanny is on vacation . . .”

Sorority, Annie thinks. Why, of course. In college those girls had backed away from her as if she were toxic, except for a girl named Heather, who was always looking for speed, and Annie would oblige, totally overcharging her for quarters.

“I’m super busy, too,” Annie says, thinking of her graphics, her moms, her momtourage. “Just like Tabor!” Annie says. “I’ve been so busy, too. Hey, we’re doing the share already! Purse is here today. Max, you can play at Purse’s on Friday! She has a huge playroom! She has everything!”

Jenny laughs uncomfortably, looking at Mele for solace. “Watch out,” Mele says and looks down at Jenny’s pink boots, which look like they’re made out of yak.

Ellie twirls some pink yak fur around her pinkie.

“Sorry, sweetie, I almost stepped on you!” Jenny says.

Ellie holds up a toy, but brings it to her chest when Jenny tries to take her up on her offer. “What do you have?” Jenny asks.

Ellie holds it up again, handing it to Jenny, who still hasn’t even said hello to Max, really. Purse giggles at Ellie moving the toy around. The girl is so cute it’s freakish, disgusting even. She looks up at Annie, her eyes deep, dark, and beautifully coy. This girl will sail through life like a schooner.

“So that would be fine, right?” Annie asks. “If Max could go to Purse’s on Friday?”

“Um,” Jenny says, pretending to be distracted by Ellie. “Sure, I’ll check to see if I’m even going to be there.”

“If you’re not then you can just come here. Either way—we get to see Jenny on Friday!”

Annie’s face is hot with determination and Baileys. She can tell that she’s even making Mele uncomfortable. Jenny doesn’t respond. Are Ellie and her little toy really all that fascinating? That’s when Annie sees what it is.

“Max, your favorite toy!”

Jenny, welcoming the redirection, holds up the top-like figurine. Max baas in delight and straddle-hops over to Jenny.

“It’s the butt-plug toy,” Annie says, diligently keeping watch over Jenny’s expression. She doesn’t flinch.

“Oh my God,” Mele says. “That’s what it looks like.”

“Doesn’t it?”

A smile seems plastered onto Jenny’s face. She’s ignoring the butt plug and pretending to be fascinated with a Glad lid that Purse is using as a tambourine.

“I buy all these toys and this thing is what he loves,” Annie says. “I don’t even know where it came from.”

Jenny is walking Purse out of the kitchen. “Come on, Max,” she says. “Let’s let your mom get back to her things . . .”

Purse follows Jenny while glancing back over her shoulder. Max hops after her.

“That was chaotic,” Annie says when they’ve left.

“You seem irritated,” Mele says.

“I don’t understand how she feels so free to bring that child here, but she has to check to see if Max can go there. It’s totally classist.”

“Um, it’s not like you’re living in the Tenderloin or something.”

“Yes, but clearly, I’m not
Tabor Boyard
. I don’t go to the
Bar Method
. I wasn’t in a
sorority
.”

“Yes, you only went to
Barnard
. You just bake desserts on the
Wolf range
. And drink coffee from a
machine built into your wall
.”

Annie remembers the brownies and takes them out of the oven to cool. The smell of them tamps her hostility and turns it into hunger. She could eat the entire pan, but remembers that some are for Jenny.

“Do you think she heard us?” Annie asks.

“Yes,” Mele says, “but you shouldn’t really care.”

*  *  *

On Thursday, Annie waits for a call that never comes. On Friday she waits for a call that never comes, and on Tuesday she waits for a babysitter who never comes.

Annie calls Jenny; she texts, she emails, and when there’s still no response she sends an email to Tabor, inquiring about the state of Jenny, the health of Jenny—perhaps something happened to her! But Tabor doesn’t respond either.

Finally, the next Thursday, Jenny emails that she can no longer sit for Max because of her busy schedule. Annie is brought back to seventh grade, being told via note that she’s being dumped, and just as she did in seventh grade she questions herself: What did she do wrong? Was she not generous enough, pretty enough? Did she not have cool things? Did she not provide enough benefits?

She calls Mele. “Jenny quit. I shouldn’t have pushed Haight Street on her. I told her to go there one day to shop. I shouldn’t have asked if Thursday was still the party night.”

She remembers that Jenny had just ignored her and grinned at Max so closely you’d have thought she was using his eyes to check for lipstick on her teeth.

“I swore, too,” Annie says. “Once or twice, I think.”

“I think you had her at
butt plug,
” Mele says. “Or
crab call
.”

“We shouldn’t have done that! What kind of people are we!”

“Um, normal?”

“But you’re not normal,” she wants to tell Mele. “You’re single and obsessed with a man who doesn’t love you.” Annie wipes the skin below her eyes, confused by her tears. She looks at Max in his high chair eating a banana. He liked to take huge bites of his food, then hoard it for hours. Music plays on her computer in the office, and his head bobs so that he looks like a fifteen-year-old boy, headphones on, walking down Market while sucking on a billiard ball. She left you, she thinks. How can she leave you? How could she not cherish you? Her son loves Method Man and Clifford the Big Red Dog. He loves wearing her underwear around his neck like necklaces. Panty leis!

“I’m not a good mother,” she cries. Mele remains silent. “I need to be one of the moms on my aprons. I need to love mani-pedi parties, pop champagne, and yell, ‘Whoo-hoo. Girls’ night out!’ or whatever.”

“Forget all that,” Mele says. “Put yourself on the apron.”

Annie is about to say that she’s just lonely and she’s been drinking too much of the alcohol meant for her cooking. She went to Barnard. She has an MFA in graphic design from California Institute of the Arts, and yet what does she do with all of that now? She bakes brownies. She makes designs that everyone seems to be doing on Etsy. She knows everything adds up, but the sum is so vague right now and unsatisfactory.

“I don’t know why I’m so upset,” she says. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”

I want to fit in with people that weren’t nice to me when I was young, she thinks. I’m lonely, she thinks. I miss Brian. She had wanted to hire someone with whom to raise her child.

*  *  *

When they hang up she goes to look in on Max—there’s nothing better than watching your child sleep. Here we are at the end of the day, she thinks. Here you are safe. And Daddy is out in the trenches working for us. Sometimes, life is simple and amazing and the sum of it all is right. But then the moment passes and you’re left wanting. Annie kisses her son on the forehead and then she goes to the kitchen to satisfy something she cannot name.

*  *  *

The next day Annie parks in front of Tabor Boyard’s home, turning her tires in to the curb. It’s Friday. Jenny will be here soon.

“Jenny forgot some things at our house,” she says to Max. “We have to return them. Maybe we’ll see Purse. Did you like Purse?”

She can’t wait until he’s at an age where he can answer her questions without knowing her motivations. Jenny is walking up the hill from the bus stop. When she sees Annie she does a kind of full-bodied hiccup, but manages to keep moving with a happily surprised expression on her face. She comes to the passenger side of the car and Annie puts the window down.

“Hi,” Jenny says. “Hi, Max! What are you guys doing here?”

Annie knows that if she doesn’t mention it, Jenny will pretend that she never quit, that she never worked for Annie in the first place. She can’t stand shy people. This is what they always do in the face of tension and conflict—pretend nothing has occurred.

“I wanted to touch base,” Annie says. “Since it took you a while to email and you don’t return calls.”

“Oh,”
Jenny says and nods, an infuriating grin on her face.

“So you’ve been really busy?”

“Yeah. Really busy, so . . .” She looks to both sides of her, then back at the house.

“It must be hard to juggle everything,” Annie says. “School. Work. Max. Purse.”

“Yeah,” she says. “I couldn’t juggle everything.”

Teachers must feel good when students ape their sentiments, but Annie knows Jenny’s just saying what she thinks will make Annie leave her alone.

“You didn’t like me,” Annie says. “Am I right?”

“I like you.” Her face pales. She looks like she’s going to barf.

“My language,” Annie says. “You don’t like the way I speak or act, right?” Annie’s voice is calm, not at all angry or defensive. She really does want to understand. “Do you think I’m a bad mother?” she asks.

“No!” Jenny says. “No.”

“Why couldn’t Max come here on Fridays? Why could you bring the girl to our house, but Max can’t go to hers?”

Jenny uses a smile to deflect everything Annie just said.

“Well?” Annie asks.

“It just isn’t a good fit,” Jenny says. “Purse is walking and interacting and she’s starting elimination communication and Max isn’t doing that so—”

“Are you serious?” Annie asks. Why can’t people just say ‘potty training’?” She can’t imagine teaching Max to say, “Elimination.” He will say, “Poop.” He will say, “Mommy, I crapped my pants.”