How to Party With an Infant (16 page)

This is the kind of mom whose kid will wave around a wand and the next thing you know she’s hired a maestro for conducting lessons. The kind of mom who will sit primly at her computer and ebicker with other moms about raw versus soy milk.

My first playgroup meeting with them was at Betts’s home. When I arrived I wondered if I had made a mistake with the address and was entering a decorator’s showcase.

Betts opened the door wearing a silk blouse and white flared pants. She looked like she was going to the Golden Globes, and she wasn’t holding a baby. She looked like she had never held a baby, just a Pomeranian in a Burberry raincoat, and I wondered if babies were discouraged at playdates. Should I have left Ellie at home?

I bounced Ellie in my arms and said, “Can you say ‘Hello’?” something I find to be stupid, but asking your speechless babies to say hello was the new hello. Plus, Ellie felt like a ticket, the only way I’d ever get into a joint like this. “Where’s your little one?” I asked.

“Oh, she’s
with the nanny getting changed,” Betts said. “Poopy diaper.” She made a face like a cat coughing up hair, which I automatically imitated because I have this habit of assuming the voices and facial expressions of those around me not so much to be liked but just to blend and get things over with (I was a kiss-promiscuous teenager for the very same reason).

To blend even further I almost lied and told Betts that my nanny, Svetlana, couldn’t make it because she was folding my laundry and massaging my Pomeranian, but I was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt with spit-up on the right pocket, and jeans that were cut at the ends versus properly hemmed. I had intentionally dressed down thinking I was about to meet a bunch of frumpy moms who scrapbooked and bargain-hunted. It was glaringly obvious that I didn’t have a Svetlana, but I took some comfort in the fact that it was a Lululemon sweatshirt and Paige jeans. They’d know I tried and that I was at least middle-classish.

Betts led me to the living room and introduced me to Lana, Amber, and Courtney. My playgroup. Four moms who, I quickly learned, all lived in Pacific Heights or Presidio mansions and enjoyed sitting and looking at their babies while talking about feuds, fund-raisers, and preschools. Week after week I’d sit and watch the babies play with wooden animals and wooden grocery items. Only wooden toys were allowed in Betts’s household, not because of safety concerns but because plastic figurines didn’t blend with the home’s décor, whose theme seemed to be “I am very wealthy and hell to the no will I allow cheap crap from China up in here.”

All of Bella’s baby furniture and toys looked like small versions of what Bella would own if she grew up to be a woman who summered in a vineyard and hung paintings in her kitchen with titles like
An Elegant Flower in a Modest Garden.

One of the moms, Lana, had a habit of speaking for her baby. For example, she would say, “I love that chair. Where did you get it?” then switch over to her cartoon voice, pretending her baby, Gabriella, was speaking and not her.

“I want one, too!” she’d say, leaning down from the sofa to move Gabriella’s hands around. I’d look at Gabriella, then at Lana. It was like watching a ventriloquist. I hate ventriloquists.

Amber was different from the others. She belonged to a fitness moms’ group called the Hot Moms Club and was always pushing us to call ourselves that, too. She brought it up jokingly and frequently, like when you’re trying to establish your own nickname. She’d sneak in sermons on hotness.

“Put yourself on the to-do list,” she’d say, or “Learn how to rock your best assets.”

I sometimes caught Betts looking at her in this patient, oh-dear-you-must-be-new-money way. I liked Amber and even considered asking her to join our current group, but I haven’t run into her since. We belong to different playgrounds, I guess.

I liked that she wore tight jeans with her muffin-top stomach pouring over the rim and how she’d sometimes grab the flesh and say, “Rock it. Own it. Love it.” I liked how sometimes she’d stare at her son, as if to say, “What’s your frickin’ deal?” whenever he was making his lit-up imp face while pointing at something and grunting.

Courtney was just plain mean. She had a raspy voice and sun-beaten skin, wasn’t that pretty, but had blond hair so was hot by default and knew it, but not the default part. She was always dressed in outfits that you’d see described in magazines as “festival ready.” She’d eye me like I was infiltrating some kind of top-secret poodle club. They’d be talking about someone’s divorce and she’d suddenly ask, “Have we seen your house yet? I mean, your apartment?” Her gaze would move from my Target shoes up my body to my face and hair, which
is usually in a messy bun. She’d give me these full-on catty scans. It was like being strip-searched. I would always answer, “You guys are welcome to come over anytime,” knowing the bee-atch was playing psychological chicken.

Then there was Betts, the queen. She seemed to live on sardines and hot water and would complain endlessly about her waistline, which was the size of a power cord, if that.

Her home was supposedly inspired by a castle in France. Three stories, marble floors, carpeting a baby could drown in, drapes so heavy they’d crush a monkey, chandeliers that could flatten Betts to such an extent you could probably fax her to St. Bart. She lived up so well to her stereotype, but I respected her because she never professed to be anything else. Once I met her at a playground and she was holding Bella and laughing. I started to take pictures of them, and Betts said, “Oh wait. I’m smiling too hard. The bottoms of my cheeks get all wrinkly,” and then she mumbled, “Fun can be ugly.”

I laughed, which made Betts smile confusedly. She eventually caught on that I was laughing at her comment. She lit up, thrilled that she had said something amusing, something she probably didn’t do very often.

“Well, it’s true!” she said, then continued to remark on her comment, as the unfunny often do, reducing something wild and unstructured into a cloying sauce.

Mainly my days were filled in that living room, smiling at the babies. I thought this was all that existed. I was two months in and lost all hope that I’d ever be myself again. I’d feign interest, make happy and surprised faces when someone picked up a block. Then I’d give up and stare at the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance—I was never into other people’s babies, especially those four. Bella was a tank. Gabriella looked like she was on Klonopin, and Lexi eerily resembled John Madden. I liked Oliver, even though he’d creep me out sometimes. He had a disconcerting expression like he’d just had sex and was telling
his friends about it. His laugh was also a bit diabolical. Like he’d just screwed over a drug dealer named Fang. I think he resented his botched circumcision. Ouch. Sometimes I’d pat him on the head. I don’t dislike you, I’d think.

I was resigned to this group, until one day I did something and couldn’t go back.

It was another day at Betts’s house, and this time we were brainstorming how to help single moms who had been laid off—me, basically! We were told to bring bags of clothes and things we didn’t want. Betts wanted to send something along with the clothes.

She had provided her usual political fund-raiser-like snacks—cheese and fruits, crackers, dull mini-sandwiches, and pastries from Tartine. I almost suggested forgoing the snacks. The spread could feed the laid-off mothers for a week, but I nibbled on a piece of cheese (of all things).

Oliver threw a block, and it whizzed past Courtney’s head. She covered her ears as though it was a passing F-16.

“Sorry,” Amber said. “He’s going through this block-hating phase. Hey, that’s an idea. Duh. We could send the mothers toys that our babies aren’t really into anymore. Oliver is so over the Harmony Ball rattle.”

“But I love my Ballino clutching toy!” Lana said, using her stupid cartoon voice that made me want to push her off a cliff every time I heard it. POW! SPLAT!

“Oh, God, Bella loves the Ballino,” Betts said. “Loves it. It’s a godsend.”

“Your nanny’s a godsend,” I wanted to remind her.

“And I love that it’s made from that good wood,” Courtney said.

“I know. I love that wood.” Lana bounced her palms on her thighs. I couldn’t imagine a baby topic propelling me to use hand gestures. I felt many notches below my peers on the vocal and fervor register, and it
made me wonder if there was something in me that was missing. Was I a bad mother for my lack of facial expressions and hand gesticulations? Should I start drinking before talking with other mothers? Because wine makes me a little more passionate.

“What toys is Ellie into?” Betts asked.

I looked at Ellie, who had crawled toward a pink rocker. Cords, I thought. Cords, my phone, and panty liners. Oh, and she loves plastic bags.

“The Ballino clutching toy,” I said and moved my hands. “Loves it. Can’t live without it. Screams when I take it away. She doesn’t scream, really. More like a high-pitched moan.” I talk too much when I’m nervous, and my lies get absurdly detailed. I had no idea what a Ballino clutching toy was, though I assumed it was wooden and expensive. I bet I could show them a two-hundred-dollar wooden dildo and call it a Baby Genius Wand and they’d buy it.

“But do the mothers really need more junk?” Betts asked. “What about going to Whole Foods and putting together a package of organic baby foods and those bear things? Bella loves those bears, and they don’t have sugar.”

“They have organic cane,” I said. “That’s just a fancy way of saying sugar. It’s sugar in disguise.”

The room was silent. A baby coughed. It was like I had offered a bunch of anorexics a hoagie. To soften my remark I looked at the babies and sang in a Barneyish voice, “Sugar in disguise! Sugar in disguise!”

Lexi screamed and pulled her own hair. Courtney rolled her eyes.

“Really, Lexi Jones. Get ahold of yourself. Does Dr. Jones need to have a talk with you?”

Courtney’s husband was a doctor, Dr. Jones. She liked reminding everyone of this, and I kind of admired the way she worked his profession into every conversation I ever had with her. She was an expert weaver.

“It’s
hard to figure out the best way to help besides just throwing cash at people,” Betts said. “Zack and I already do a lot of that. I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone’s pride.”

“Same with us,” Lana said. “A lot. We give a lot.”

I would love people to throw cash at me. I wouldn’t feel degraded at all.

“Maybe,” Lana said, “we could give them jobs! We could always use help around the house. Maria didn’t have any experience when we hired her, but it just came to her naturally.”

“Or what about nannying?” Courtney said. “With Doug in the ER round the clock I’ve been looking for someone to fill the four-to-eight slot, but I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable hiring someone without references, and who knows how to contact their references? Or maybe they’ve never even nannied in the first place.”

“Maybe it will come naturally,” I said, and because I was feeling sassy and pissed off I gave the women that scandalized hypersmile they were always using and said, “Maybe we should send them certificates for spa treatments! You know, like what Gavin Newsom did for the city’s public school teachers a while back? They could use some pampering.”

They all exclaimed, thinking this a brilliant idea, like I was really onto something. Mele Bart had found the perfect thing that would save the unemployed: seaweed wraps and foot rubs. My sarcasm, when not understood, makes me feel incredibly isolated.

“I could ask my facialist for a donation,” Lana said. “She’s so amazing and brilliant. Like she uses all this science so it’s like actual—”

“Medicine,” Courtney said.

“Exactly,” Lana said. “She says that excess sugars bind to the skin’s collagen. That’s what makes wrinkles, so she gives me this serum that stops the sugar molecules before they can reach my skin.” She touched her face.

I wanted to touch her face, too, then squeeze it as though it were one of those stress balls, but I reminded myself that I was older now. A mother now. All grown up. I did Pilates. I sometimes bought educational toys. I had four strollers, one for walking, one for running, one for walking short distances, and one for a fake baby. I was more like these women than like the ones they were trying to help, and women like Betts did much more for people than I ever could or, quite possibly, would.

Still. Having first world problems doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to feel desolate and bitter. It can’t keep you from wanting.

“As for your things,” Betts said. “My foundation will organize the items. We’re trying to do a big delivery next week.”

Foundation. Courtney, Amber, and Lana fluttered at the word. I had heard them all talk about their charity work—the Modern Ball, Denim & Diamonds, Paint the Town Red, the Junior League Fashion Show, and I knew their husbands played in polo, golf, and tennis matches to help kidneys, hearts, and livers. But their names weren’t synonymous with charity. There weren’t events with their last names in the title like Betts’s; she ran the Galley’s Guide Me Gala, an annual auction that secured guidance and sponsors for inner-city kids.

Lana, Amber, and Courtney didn’t have foundations, and this was their ultimate goal: creating a kick-ass charity, or finding one and working their way to the top, making it into the event of the year, brainstorming how to top the others: celebrities, famous chefs, DJs, themed lounges, fab decorations, pole dancers, and auction items that would really stick it to poverty. End homelessness by sailing in New Zealand or by relaxing for a week in Zanzibar, where you’re woken by the smell of coconut bread baked in a woodstove by your personal chef. This is for you, you poor and sick people. We will go to Zanzibar for you.

“Should
I take the bags somewhere?” I asked, needing to give myself a time-out.

“That would be great,” Betts said, staring at the spot on the carpet where Gabriella had spit up. “You can take them to the kitchen. It’s through that hallway. Go past the foyer, then take a left down the corridor through the atrium, then on your right you’ll see a sitting room, take another right and you’ll see the dining room, and just go straight from there. You can’t miss it.”