I'm So Happy for You (3 page)

Adam would be right, of course. At the same time, he clearly believed himself entitled to hear every last Daphne Update. (Apparently,
he didn’t belong to the group herein identified as “other people.”) It also seemed to Wendy that Adam discounted the pleasure
to be found in having an archenemy. It gave you something specific to feel indignant about when the larger injustices (murder,
famine, disease, the fact that some people got pregnant without trying) were beyond your control. It made the landscape more
colorful, too, like the weeds that filled in abandoned city lots. For these reasons—and also due to a lifelong need to have
the last word—Wendy spent the next twenty-five minutes composing a reply that struck just the right neutral, even pleasant
tone that subtly reclaimed the mantle of authority for herself while shaming Paige. She finally settled on:

P —

Please do let me know if you reach D and learn anything more. In the meantime, I have to admit I don’t see the point of contacting
Richard and Claire right now (i.e., I don’t think it would accomplish anything more than antagonizing D). I’m afraid I feel
the same way about contacting Mitch. Plus, in his case, if D found out that you or I had gone behind her back, it might have
the unintended effect of bringing the two of them closer—at least in D’s mind.

At this point, my sense is that D mainly just needs her friends around her—and also, yes, Carol. True she’s been unable so
far to get D away from M. But she’s still a medical professional, which neither of us is.

Meanwhile, very sorry to miss your benefit last night. I only wish Adam and I had the funds to go to stuff like that! But
until
Barricade
goes “public”—and Vulcan Capital starts buying shares in it
—I’m afraid it’s unlikely.

As for baby making, I’ll keep you posted if and when it ever happens.

W

It was only after clicking “send” that Wendy realized her error in including the word
ever
in her final sentence. There was only one way to deal with Paige, Wendy had learned over the years, and it was to censor
all traces of vulnerability in one’s self. (And here she’d practically lit the way to the front door of her heart.)

Several minutes later, a new message arrived from Paige, along with a group email from the husband of Wendy’s friend Pamela.
Even without the subject heading, “New Addition,” Wendy could more or less guess the news the latter message contained. The
last time she’d seen Pamela—by coincidence, several Saturdays before, in Prospect Park—she’d been thirty-eight weeks pregnant
(and jogging). Even so, Wendy decided to open Pamela’s husband’s email first:

Please join us in welcoming into the world Lucas Henry Rose, born on October 2, at 8:32 PM—in a taxi stuck in traffic on the
FDR, en route to New York Presbyterian Hospital—weighing 10 pounds, 11 ounces. Baby and Mommy are well, and Daddy is thrilled.
(Todd.)

Wendy was thrilled, too. She also felt envious of Pamela’s reproductive success, if not of the manner in which she’d achieved
it (or the monstrosity of the child she’d been forced to deliver). But she’d already found a way to justify the news in her
head, so it wasn’t as threatening as it might have been. For one thing, Wendy reminded herself, Pamela had been married six
months longer. For another, she was eight months older. She was also Pamela Jane Rose. Which is to say, perfection personified:
not just beautiful and successful—she was a senior producer at a critically acclaimed television news program—but a phenomenal
cook, a former Rhodes Scholar, and the ex–backstroke champion of Southern California. She was also really nice and therefore
unhateable. Finally, she was one of the few women Wendy knew who didn’t spend 50 percent of her waking hours complaining about
her life. Not that she currently had much to complain about. But even when she had—even when she’d been single and diagnosed
with a rare form of lymphoma—she’d claimed to savor each living moment. Just as now that she was healthy again and married
to a bestselling novelist who was also drop-dead gorgeous, independently wealthy, always home, and committed to fifty-fifty
parenting, she claimed to be the luckiest woman in the world. Most of the time, Wendy found Pamela’s upbeat attitude refreshing
and even inspiring. At other times, she found it deeply threatening, insofar as it threw into doubt the legitimacy of her
own chronic discontent. She wrote back:

Dear Pamela and Todd, I’m so happy for you guys!!!!! That’s wonderful news. Can’t wait to meet the little—or, I really should
say, quite LARGE—fellow. Did he really come out in the cab? Insane. Only you. Congratulations and much love, Wendy

With a sense of foreboding, Wendy then opened Paige’s reply to her reply:

Wendy,

I am afraid you have more faith in Carol than I do. Despite her master’s degree in social work, calling the woman a “medical
professional”—it seems to me—is a bit of a stretch. But, then, I know how you people in the media business like to throw around
words!

Meanwhile—f.y.i.—I just read a very interesting article about infertility among women in our age group. It turns out that
most of the issues (tube blockage, lack of cervical fluid, etc.) have their origin in STDs. Which is not to say you have one.
Still, it might be worth checking. Also, if it’s been six months, you really should seek help. Unfortunately, at our advanced
age, the chances of conceiving plummet with every passing month. Luckily, none of this affects me, not only because I’ve never
had an extended promiscuous period(!), but because I’m more committed to battling overpopulation than I am to any narcissistic
need to see my cheekbones replicated in another human being. But, then, that’s just me.

Paige

Newly confirmed in her suspicion that Paige Ryan was a close family relation of Satan’s, Wendy hit “delete.” She was about
to return to Leslie Fletcher’s overwrought Medicare editorial when she discovered that Pamela had already written back:

wen, thanks for the sweet note. can’t wait for you to meet the babe! meanwhile, can’t believe how hysterical everyone gets
about childbirth. yes, i would have preferred a hospital (vs. taxi) delivery. but, really, it was so *not* a big deal. like
a few bad menstrual cramps. (whatever.) i’m a little sore this morning. i mostly just feel bad for the cabbie! (kind of made
a mess of his backseat—whoops.) i only wish he’d accepted my check for new upholstery.…

anyway, should be heading home from the hospital in a few hours. any chance you and adam want to come by for dinner tonight?
i have this great recipe for lasagna i want to try. xxoopammy

Pamela’s superwoman act had the occasional, paradoxical effect of making Wendy feel the need to deride herself as scum personified.
She wrote back:

P, You are a champ for making it through labor unscathed! Having zero tolerance for pain, am hoping for a high-risk pregnancy,
so I can schedule a C section. Though equally possible I’ll never get pregnant and end up adopting a spina bifida baby from
China. In any event, would so love to come meet Baby Luke tonight. But, tragically, being an alcoholic depressive, I already
have drink plans. (Not sure what Adam’s doing. Not that he ever tells me anymore.) Maybe I/we could come by this weekend??
And, wait, I should be cooking YOU lasagna. Unfortunately, being a total failure of a woman, I don’t know how. (Amazing Adam
hasn’t left me already.) XXW

Again, Wendy clicked “send,” only to be sidetracked by yet another arriving email. This one was from her friend Sara, a strawberry-blond
intellectual property lawyer and Houston-reared heiress whose highly effeminate men’s magazine “style editor” fiancé of four
years, Dolph, was widely believed to be gay—hence his refusal to set a wedding date:

Wendy, I heard from Paige that Daphne is threatening suicide again?? Is it true??? Sounds like you two have the situation
under control, but please please please let me know if there’s anything I can do. Love, Sara

The gossip chain had apparently just begun: Sara’s email was closely followed by one from
her
best friend, Gretchen Daubner, a mite-sized workaholic UNICEF executive who rarely saw her two-month-old twins, Lola and
Liam, conceived on Gretchen’s third round of in vitro fertilization. (Wendy had yet to see them, either, though not for lack
of trying.) Gretchen’s email arrived with a “high priority” flag, though in truth almost all of her emails did:

wen, i heard from sara that daphne tried to kill herself? is she okay?????? please let me know what the situ is a.s.a.p. (leaving
for congo in an hour.) so worried, g

Wendy promptly replied to both women, assuring them that the situation was “under control.” Then, if only to be sure that
her assessment was correct, she called Daphne. But Daphne’s cell and home phones both rang straight to voice mail. Not wanting
to appear overbearing, Wendy left no messages. Instead, she called Adam to tell him about Pamela and Todd’s baby—“That’s nice
for them,” he said—and also to report that she hadn’t heard anything from Daphne,
and wasn’t that kind of strange?

“She’s probably been kidnapped by aliens,” he offered.

“I hope you get kidnapped by aliens,” she told him.

“Maybe I already have,” said Adam.

“Good—more room to stretch out in bed,” said Wendy, who both cherished her husband’s sense of humor and also wished that,
if only once in a while, he’d give a straight answer, however stupid the question was.

The majority of Wendy’s friends had stopped eating muffins years earlier, after
New York
magazine ran a damning exposé revealing that they were nothing more than glorified cake and possibly even more caloric. Preferring
denial, Wendy devoured a corn muffin and lentil soup with the conviction that she was eating a healthy lunch. Then she headed
over to Zara to check out the sale racks.

She returned to the office an hour and twenty minutes later with a top she realized retroactively was made of cheap fabric,
was a shade of green best described as “broccoli,” and was already missing a button. On the other hand, it had been marked
70 percent off. And the only thing Wendy hated more than missing a sale was getting ripped off. (To her lingering resentment,
Barricade’
s copy chief, Hal Mooney, had surprised her on her thirty-fourth birthday the year before with a pizza party in the conference
room, then asked her for a twenty to help cover costs.)

After stuffing her shopping bag in the bottom drawer of her desk—there was always the chance that Lincoln would come calling
again—Wendy checked her in-box. To her surprise, there was still no word from Daphne. Surely by now the Klonopin had worn
off, Wendy thought. And though Daphne had no job, she owned a BlackBerry and was therefore never far from email (and rarely
missed an opportunity to write back, especially when the subject was herself ). Maybe she was simply feeling too numb to express
the humility and renewed vigor that were expected in scenarios such as these, Wendy reasoned. Or maybe she’d gone in for a
special “double session” with Carol. Armed with these two possibilities, Wendy reopened Leslie Fletcher’s Medicare editorial
and attempted to apply herself to her job.

But her mind kept straying from the villainy of health maintenance organizations to the mystery of Daphne’s whereabouts. At
four o’clock, an email arrived from Wendy’s insanely thin perpetual grad student friend Maura. It came as a welcome distraction
from both topics:

W, Will you forgive me if I cancel drinks tonight? Just totally wiped out from the weekend. (Have been working like a dog.
Or is it a mule?) Anyway, am
finally
seeing the end of the diss. Am thinking now that I might be able to finish by next summer, or, if not next summer, definitely
next fall/winter/spring. (We’ll see.) But can we reschedule for next week? Promise to get to some kind of stopping point by
then. Sorry again, M

Wendy was disappointed if not surprised. Whenever she made plans with Maura, she assumed there was a fifty-fifty chance of
Maura’s canceling. This was because although Maura had the least taxing schedule of any woman Wendy knew (with the possible
exception of Daphne), she apparently found her days to be stressful and action packed in a way that only an unstructured life
of relative idleness could seem. Maura had been about to finish her dissertation—on the role of jugglers in the Scottish Enlightenment—for
at least ten years. However it was that Maura actually spent her days—dotting and undotting i’s?—it didn’t apparently involve
eating. Wendy had never seen her consume anything more than a handful of nuts off the bar. The few times she’d invited Maura
out to dinner, Maura always claimed to have dined at home. So Wendy had learned to ask her out only for drinks, though she
sometimes refused those, too. How was it possible that the most unstable person Wendy knew (again, with the exception of Daphne)
was also the only one ever to have been released by her therapist in less than a decade, Maura’s therapist reputedly having
told Maura that they had “nothing more to discuss” and that their “work [was] complete”? Wendy’s hypothesis was that Maura’s
therapist had simply lost patience and/or decided that Maura was too far gone to be helped.