Lauren Takes Leave (10 page)

Jodi’s doe eyes, always framed in mascara, bat once or
twice as she thinks, taking me in. “No,” she concludes. “Other than your hair,
you look the same.”

“It’s not my looks, dork. Try again. I’ll give you a hint.
What time is it? What day of the week?”

Then it clicks. “You’re not at work!”

“Shh…I could be spotted by a mom of one of my students
right now! We’re in dangerous territory here. That’s why I’m facing the wall.”

“You could just lie, you know, if anyone saw you. Say
you’re at a conference, on your lunch break.”

“A conference for what? Cashmere?”

“Shakespeare, cashmere, same thing,” she dismisses. “Ugh,
I’m so hot.” She peels off her sweater to reveal perfectly skinny arms and bony
clavicles that make her fashionably gaunt.

“You get those arms from Pilates?” I motion.

“No way! You know I’m too lazy to work out.” She takes a
sip of her water through a straw, leaving a ring of sparkly pink lip gloss on
the plastic. “It’s just the way I’m built. It’s hereditary.”

“Jodi, we’ve been over this. Just because your
grandparents were Holocaust survivors does not mean you are meant to be thin.”

“Say what you will. My grandmother always had weight
issues before the war. After?
Never.
”

“But…” I trail off. Typical Jodi. Her logic is so flawed.
And yet it’s delivered with such confidence that I don’t even know where to
begin to untangle it and set her straight.

Jodi motions to the waitress, who nods her head and comes
our way. “I’m
starving
.”

“The mandarin orange soufflé is great,” I suggest as Jodi
opens the menu and looks it over.

“Jell-O mold? Gross.” She shivers theatrically, then looks
up at the waitress. “I’ll just have a bacon cheeseburger with fries. And a
Coke.”

“Diet?” The waitress asks.

“Ugh, no. Regular. And two pickles, please.”

I order the so-called gross lo-cal Jell-O mold and pass
the waitress our menus.

Jodi continues our conversation. “Anyway, it’s spring and
I’m bathing-suit ready. Even got waxed by my bikiniologist. Now,
there’s
someone with true talent. You should see what she can do down there.”

“I’ll just take your word for it, thanks.”

“True artistry. But that’s not why I called you for
lunch.” She butters a popover, bites off a piece, and rolls her eyes skyward as
she chews. “Ah. Strawberry butter. So good.” She finishes that piece and tears
off another. “Here’s the thing. I need your help with something.”

“Yeah, with what to wear Saturday night. You already
mentioned that in your text.” I stare at the basket filled with warm, crusty
popovers and consider what my thighs would have to say about them. Instead, I
unwrap the world’s thinnest breadstick and try to savor its crunchiness.

Jodi waves her hand in the air. “The outfit is a
diversion. I need to talk to you about something
serious
.” She leans in
close, across the table. I lean in, too.

Jodi whispers, “I want to go back to work.”

“What!”

“Quiet! Lee can’t know that I’m thinking about this.”

“Why do we have to whisper? Is he here?”

“You know what I mean,” she says, relaxing a bit and
moving back to her popover. “He’d kill me if he knew.”

I have to process this for a second. Why would a husband
not
want his wife to work? “Because he likes you at home.”

She echoes it back, nodding solemnly. “Because he likes me
at home.”

Oh, the irony of my life and hers. “Unbelievable!” I
state.

“Isn’t it, though,” she adds, thinking only about herself.
“I mean, I like making dinners and everything, don’t get me wrong. I’ve become
quite the little homemaker in the eight years since I stopped teaching. And
it’s been great to watch the kids grow up, finish preschool, go off to
kindergarten…but before I know it Jossie will be in middle school…” She trails
off.

I think about all that carpooling, all that tennis.
“You’re bored,” I guess.

She pinches her thumb and index finger together and makes
a face. “Little bit.”

All I want in this life is to be a little bit bored and a
little bit too skinny.

I dig in my pocketbook for my small notebook and quickly
scribble down a thought before it vacates my mind completely:
work v.
stay-at-home dilemmas
, with an exclamation point and a question mark
following.

“What are you doing?” Jodi asks.

“Research,” I say. The beginnings of an idea are forming.
It could be an interesting academic topic, if I could find some existing
research, test some theories, build on the body of literature that already
exists in the field, and write it up for a scholarly journal. Maybe I really
should start thinking about advancing my career in education.

While I’m at it, I could become Miss America and start
growing my own hemp, because that’s how likely it is that I’ll act on this
notation. I close the notebook and push it to the bottom of my handbag.

“You can have my job,” I offer.

“Ha,” she spits, spraying popover pieces across the
tablecloth. “Been there, done that. Teaching is
way
too hard. I want
something part-time, where I can come and go as I choose.”

“Like Sophie the Bag Lady,” I say.

“Exactly!”

I throw out some ideas. “You could tutor. Or walk dogs.”

“Or tutor dogs!” she adds.

“Or become the local Lice Lady!”

“Lee always says I’m such a nitpicker.” We laugh as she
reaches for a second popover. “Plus, I really miss dressing up.”

I stop chewing midchew. Suddenly, her desire to work makes
perfect sense.
That’s
really why Jodi wants to go back to work, not
because she’s bored. Jodi longs for a cool, new, employment-worthy wardrobe.

“You’re not serious.” I don’t ask this as if it’s a
question. I declare it outright.

She shrugs like it’s no big deal. “If I worked, I could
buy
so
many great outfits. Like those new wide-leg trousers on the
mannequin on the second floor. I covert them, but I don’t need them.”

“Covet,” I correct.

“See? You like them, too. Only, I would look silly wearing
them to a PTA meeting. For that setting, I’d look much better in my skinny
jeans and a Vince asymmetrical tee. That says, like, ‘I’m chair of the book
fair’ without overstating my own importance.”

“Spoken like someone who doesn’t have a job.” You know
your life is unfulfilled when you spend inordinate amounts of time plotting
outfits for meaningless occasions.

But as much as I joke about Jodi’s logic, the thought of
stay-at-home motherhood makes me sigh. “I’d love to be a PTA mom in a Vince
asymmetrical tee.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” Jodi shakes her knife at me. “You have
no
idea, Lauren. None. The PTA is like the mob. Once they get you in
their grip, they won’t let you go. First it’s ‘Oh, won’t you please help out
serving pizza lunch?’ and then it’s ‘Could you chaperone the band concert?’—all
smiles and friendly camaraderie—and finally, it’s ‘We’ve signed you up to chair
the multicultural lunch, the staff appreciation day and the charity auction,
and if you cancel, we’ll blacklist your kids from getting the best teachers.’”
She sighs. “I kind of want to go back to work just to avoid having to make any
more excuses to the PTA. I mean, how many herniated discs can one have when the
annual fundraiser rolls around? How many sinus surgeries coinciding with the
school fair? I joined the PTA to see my kids more often around school, only I
got so busy working for the PTA that I never see my kids anymore.”

Hands shaking, Jodi reaches across the table and snatches
up my untouched popover. She rips off a chunk and chews it sensually, with eyes
closed. I almost feel bad for her.

Almost.

“Lauren, you just want what you can’t have. Trust me, it’s
all of the work—or more—without any of the pay, or any of the glory.”

“What glory is there in teaching?” I want to know.

She puts down her cutlery so that she can create grand
hand gestures. “You know, being loved by your adoring fans.”

“They’re eleven-year-olds.”

“And they love you, and think you are so cool, and tell
you all their problems, and want to be just like you when they grow up.
Students are so much better than one’s own children that way.” Now it’s her
turn to sigh.

We are both quiet for a minute, lost in our own
reflections. When I started teaching, people used to tell me that I picked the
perfect career to balance with eventual motherhood. “You’ll have your summers
off, and you’ll vacation when your children do, and you’ll get out of work just
as they end their day in school,” yentas at the nail salon would say. And I
would cringe, because I thought,
That’s so small-minded of them. I’m not
going into teaching in order to pick a career that works for a life I don’t
even have yet. I’m going into teaching to shape lives, to change the world.

And now, you know what I think? I think all those yentas
had it totally backward. Because, yes, I have school-age children now. And when
they go to school, I go to work. And when they are home from school, I am home
from work. Their vacations are my vacations. Their free time is my free time.

Do you see the inherent problem, here?

I never get time off without them. I never have a vacation
day that is not also their vacation day.

I can’t just take a holiday whenever I want to, because I
already have something like fifteen weeks off a year built in to my schedule.
And so, on my teacher’s salary, I travel during the most expensive black-out
dates, with my children, natch, and wherever I go, other school-age children
and families are there, because everyone in the free world is on school
vacation concurrently, yelling out “Marco” and “Polo” and annoying me while I’m
trying to read poolside.

Teaching has become a kind of vacationer’s prison.

I shudder at the truth of that and tell Jodi, “Yeah—teaching’s
not the right move for you anymore.”

“Actually, I do have
one
idea,” she hints
theatrically.

“Okay,” I say.

“I’m thinking this.” She pushes herself back from the
table and sort of makes a frame with her palms. “I’m thinking…that I should
become
famous
.”

She stops. I wait.

Famous for what, I wonder?

Then I realize I’m supposed to respond.

“Famous! That’s an…interesting idea.” Is there such a
thing as being just famous?

“I
know
!” She pours some ketchup and digs into the
burger that has been gently placed in front of her. Between bites—and during
them—she continues.

“It’s just that when I go to the city, I feel like I’m
somebody
,
you know? People
notice
me. They think I’m in fashion, working for a
magazine or for a mega-designer like Balenciaga. They ask me if I’m
in the
art world
.”

“And…are you?” I ask, wondering if Jodi has some secret
talent in design. Maybe she’s set up an artist’s loft above her garage and is
going to become this new, self-taught, amazing painter. The mother of postmaterialism.
Maybe she’s been scribbling poems day and night like Emily Dickinson, and has
drawers filled with tiny scraps of brilliance.

I take a bite of some melon on my plate and wish I had red
meat instead.

“No! I’m not there
yet
. So, to help me along, I’m
going to hire paparazzi. To follow me around and bother me and take my picture!
Only, I’m not going to know
when
and
where
they’re going to
strike, just like a
real
famous person. I figure I’ll hire photographers
to surprise me one day—I think I need a bunch, right? Because one is kinda
lame—like, when I’m walking out of lunch at the Modern or on the steps of the
Met or something, and then I’ll be, like, caught off guard and have to duck
into a cab while the cameras are flashing, and then people will notice the
commotion and wonder who I am! Next thing you know: boom. I’m famous.”

“And to think, I’m wasting all my time teaching
sixth-grade English, when I could just become famous!” I joke.

“I know!”

I shake my head to clear the confusion from at least one
of us. “Wait. This is your
real
idea? You don’t think this is sort
of…ridiculous?”

“Why?” she asks, all doe-eyed innocence. I look at my longtime
friend and debate: Do I burst her fault-filled bubble? Do I squash her dream
right here and now by saying,
Look, you are beautiful and ballsy, but that’s
not quite enough to catapult you to fame, paparazzi or no
? I try a softer
tactic.

“Maybe…you need to come up with a business plan or hone
some skill or talent
first.
Then you could hire press to help you
advertise and market all your brilliance.”

There. I think that’s a fair compromise. Plus, it’s not
quite as pathological.

She’s shaking her head. “But I don’t
have
a
marketable skill or talent. I just want to be
known for something.
”

“Something other than being a wife and mother,” I say.

“Yes! See? You get it.” She nods, satisfied. “Because
you
want the same thing.”

Underneath all the bullshit, and minus the paparazzi, the
girl has got a point.

“These fries are a
maz
ing. They have, like, this
garlic-y coating. You should try some.”

“Okay, Seriously? How do you not put on weight?” I ask.

She stops chewing and looks at me like I’m as dense as her
burger. “Lauren, we’ve been over this. Warsaw, World War II.”

“Seems too good to be true, is all. It makes me kind of
hate you.”

“Oh please.” She gulps down some soda. “Hate Hitler.”

We debate a few more non-work work options with a high
fame quotient for Jodi, and settle for the moment on television personality,
wardrobe consultant, or publicist. Then we switch to discussing Saturday night,
and she tells me what kind of outfit she’s looking for. “It has to be somewhat
conservative,” she acknowledges. “Since the dance party is at my temple.”