Momfriends (27 page)

“Yeah. Are you going to make it home for bedtime tonight?” He hadn’t the past two nights.

“I can’t, baby. My dad’s getting slammed with roll orders. You know, it’s barbeque season.”

“I guess.”

“You know I miss you, right?” It was the nicest thing he had said to me in weeks. But I kept thinking of the checklist and the beard and the no sex.

“So what time do you think you will be home?”

“I’m not sure. Probably not for another few hours.”

Never before had he worked this late.

“Great,” I said. I wanted to hang up, but I muttered a good-bye and then hung up without waiting to hear what he said. I threw the phone down on the table, startling Naomi. She squirmed and protested.

“It’s ok, sweetheart,” I said, though I felt like yelling too. I switched breasts.

My phone vibrated again. He’s calling back to apologize and confront my fears and dismiss them. I looked at the number. It was Ruth.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hey,” she said. She sounded upset. I heard Abe crying in the background.

“What’s up? Are you ok?”

“Nothing. Yes. No. We were making progress, I thought. But he has been inconsolable for the past four hours. I’m serious. He’s just been screaming. He doesn’t want the boob; he doesn’t need to be changed; rocking isn’t working. And of course Steve is out at a game. I don’t want to bother him. But when does it stop?” she asked. She sounded on the verge of tears. “I thought we were getting over this. God, he slept seven hours last night. But today it’s all a mess again. The last time this happened I drove him around for an hour and it worked. So now, I’m driving. I don’t know where.”

“Well, it’s a nice night,” I said trying to be positive even though I wasn’t really feeling sunny. “Maybe you should roll the windows down and get some fresh air.”

“No, then everyone will hear Abe screaming and they’ll know what a shit job I am doing.” She was distraught. “Just when I thought it was getting easier.”

“It is getting easier,” I said. “Sometimes it feels like one step forward, two steps back. But you honestly won’t even remember this. I promise.”

I really was glad she called. If she hadn’t, I was going to get caught up in my own head. And even though I really wanted to pick someone’s brain about this thing with David and not play the part of the wise mom, merely talking to some other adult once again made me feel worlds better?

“Do you want to come over?” I asked. “No better yet, I actually have a babysitter. I’ll see if she can stay and if she can, I’ll put the baby to bed and come for a drive with you. We’ll roll the windows down and howl at the moon right along with Abe.”

I wanted to howl.

It wasn’t until after Ruth had called to say she was downstairs and I was putting my shoes that the idea of spying on David occurred to me. And as I was heading out the door, I grabbed one of my digital cameras.

A half hour later when Abe was finally asleep, we pulled up across the street from the bakery. Ruth was calmer too. My one good ear was ringing from Abe’s wails, but it made me grateful that this tough period was over with my own kids.

I was so relieved when I spotted David’s car in the lot. He really was working late. I told Ruth that I wanted to pop out and go say hello, even though part of me dreaded explaining to him what I was doing. But Ruth had said it was a romantic idea and maybe David would feel the same way. Maybe it would be a necessary surprise. Perhaps I had let my imagination get the better of me. That was the problem with living too much in my head. Maybe tonight we could at last be together and a little intimacy would make everything better.

“It doesn’t look like a bakery,” Ruth said, as I was about to get out of the car. “It looks like a warehouse.”

“It’s both,” I said. “It’s a commercial bakery, so they churn out a lot of stuff. It’s pretty cool inside. When Abe is a little older you can take him. The kids are fascinated by it.”

I glanced across the street and saw David coming out of the bakery. I was about to call out to him when I noticed he was on the phone. Maybe he had called home. He was walking really fast and got into the truck before I had a chance to shout to him. He drove away.

“That’s David,” I said to Ruth.

“Oh, really cute,” she said, genuinely impressed.

“What did you expect?” I giggled. “I might as well catch him at home. I should check in too and see if Amanda could wrangle those kids to bed.”

“You got it, Miss Daisy,” Ruth said. She looked at me, expectantly. I knew she was quoting something, but I wasn’t sure what. She had declared herself a pop culture junkie, and I often had no idea what she was talking about. I smiled, like I got it.

She followed David and I called home. As the phone rang, I noticed that David was taking a different way. He didn’t make the turn I expected him to, but Ruth was following him. So I didn’t say anything.

“Hey Amanda,” I said when she picked up. “How’s it going?”

“Ok, not a peep from Naomi. Sage is down. Jules is still rocking with no signs of submission.”

“Nice work. You might as well let Julissa do as she pleases or she’ll wind up waking everyone.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

“I think we’re heading back. Did you talk to David? Is that what he said?”

“No, Uncle David hasn’t called.”

“Maybe he tried your cell,” I said. David never used his cell as far as I knew, so if he wasn’t calling me at the house, I had no idea who he could be calling. The only other person he might call was his dad, but I had seen him on the phone with his dad plenty of times in all the years we had been together. I knew the slightly tense body language that went with any conversation with his dad. That wasn’t his dad.

“Is this the way back to your place?” Ruth asked me. I glanced at her and shook my head.

“Ok, Amanda,” I said, trying to keep my voice light. “We should be—I should be home soon.”

“Take your time,” she said.

“Maybe this is a shortcut,” Ruth said when I hung up the phone.

“I don’t think so,” I said, too loud, not really bothering to compensate for my ear.

We drove into Dumbo over cobblestone streets. David pulled into a parking lot that was attached to one of the big loft buildings that a developer was turning into condos. Ruth drove past the lot.

“I’m sorry, should I have turned in there? I wasn’t sure. I never tailed anybody before.”

I knew she was trying to keep it light. I shook my head.

“Can you make a U-turn and park across the street? I want to see what he does.”

“Sure,” Ruth said and quickly swerved into a turn. She almost crashed into a guy pulling out and an oncoming car beeped at her. She stopped short. The driver shook his fist. Ruth shrugged her shoulders and sped away.

“Wow,” I said. “You sure you never tailed anyone?”

Ruth laughed too loud. She was trying to pretend all of this was normal.

We parked across from the loft. In Ruth’s rearview mirror, I saw David coming out of the parking lot and heading toward the loft. I looked to the entrance and noticed a slim blond woman in a business suit waiting outside. The sight of her gave me a bad feeling, and instinctively I lifted up my camera and took a picture.

“Who is that?” Ruth asked, following my aim. She had been looking at David in her side mirror.

“I don’t know,” I said. I no longer had any emotion in my body or my voice.

“Kirsten, I think we should go.”

“No,” I said in a way that I hoped would indicate I didn’t want her to ask me again.

David approached the woman and once again, without thinking, I held my camera up. So I saw them embrace through the lens instead of with my naked eye. My camera was serving a new purpose. No longer a tool of art or industry, now it was my filter, my protector.

After the hug, David and this woman turned and went into the building. David held the door open and put his hand on her back as she entered. I snapped pictures of all it. I could see them through the glass doors of the lobby. The doorman waved at both of them and they waved back. It was not the first time David had been to this building. They turned left and I could no longer see them. I lowered my camera.

Ruth turned away from the building and looked back at me, but I couldn’t look at her yet. I couldn’t look away from this building. I couldn’t stop myself from imagining what was going on inside.

I knew this was making Ruth uneasy. At last, I looked away from the building and back down at my camera. I reviewed the photographic evidence. In pictures you can study all the tiny details you miss the first time around. I reviewed the way the woman smiled when she saw him approach. How he tipped his head toward her as he got near. The embrace where I couldn’t see their faces, because he was blocking her and he had his face turned in. I saw them separate and turn together into the building in such a familiar way.

I studied the pictures again and again, glancing back up at the building but knowing that he wasn’t coming out.

“So what now, Kirsten?” Ruth asked, finally, quietly. “Do we go in?”

“No,” I said. “I can’t.”

“We should go then, no?” I didn’t really want to leave, but how could I stay if I wasn’t going to confront him?

“I don’t want to go back to my apartment yet. “

“Ok, you can come back to mine,” Ruth said too quickly. She started the car and quickly drove off. She was shaken, though, and she made a wrong turn. Staking someone out wasn’t a common occurrence for her.

“Am I about to get on the Brooklyn Bridge?” she asked, sounding slightly desperate.

“No, you’re fine. Turn left here and we can take this down. I can tell you how to go from here.”

“Two years in New York and I’m still finding my way around,” she said with a fake laugh. I was staring straight ahead, but she kept looking at me. “Kirsten, do you want to talk about it?”

I shook my head.

“Maybe there is some explanation.”

I nodded.

“Is there someone you want me to call?”

I shrugged. But then I said, “No, Ruth. There is no one to call. All our friends have moved away. And I never bothered to find new ones. I made David my everything. My only friend. I can’t believe I am this person.”

“Well, I’m your friend,” Ruth said. “Cheesy as it sounds.”

“Actually, it doesn’t sound cheesy at all,” I said. I wanted to cry because it was so kind. But Ruth had dealt with enough crying and trauma for one day.

We got back to her apartment. Abe made a smooth transfer from car to apartment in his car seat. She took a call from her husband where she encouraged him to go out and have a drink with his friends. While she was on the phone, I checked in to see if Amanda really didn’t mind staying later and she didn’t. I was paying her, and I think she needed the money. She still hadn’t heard from her asshole uncle.

Then Ruth broke out a bottle of wine. I didn’t want to drink. I wanted to sit in a corner with my camera and study the evidence about what a lie my life was. Instead, I sat on the floor, leaning against the couch. Ruth poured me a glass of wine and then poured herself half a glass. She was thinking she was going to have to drive me home. I appreciated the thought but the woman had been through enough.

“No worries, I think I’m going to take a car home.”

“No, you don’t have to. I’ll be ok to drive,” she protested halfheartedly. I shook my head. She filled up her glass generously. She smiled and then she changed her mind about being cheery. She plopped beside me on the floor.

“It’s ok,” I said. “Really.”

“Really?”

I took a sip of my wine. “It’s one of those times when I wish I was all blind instead of half-deaf.”

She laughed. Hard.

“I know you’re joking, but how are you feeling? You are awfully quiet. I think if it were me, I would have gotten out of the car and punched her.”

”Well, I’m not convinced it’s her fault.”

“I think no matter what the guy says, women should know to stay away from someone else’s husband.”

“He’s not my husband, remember? No ring, no commitment, no nothing.”

She raised her eyebrows and shook her head.

“He’s your man, Kirsten. There’s more than nothing and you know it. I don’t know, maybe we should be giving him the benefit of the doubt. Do you think there is something we don’t know? Do you think she is maybe an engagement ring designer or something? I know you think that’s really yuppy. But that’s all I can think of. What would be your equivalent?”

“Nothing.”

“Maybe he is gonna rent some art studio for you there. Maybe she’s a Realtor and he wants to give you your space. Could that be?”

She wanted it to be true. And I wanted it to be true for her. And I wished it were true for me. But that was wishful thinking.

“I appreciate all that you are saying. I think I need to think of something else for a minute.”

“Ok, yeah, I get it,” she said. She opened her mouth as though she was going to say something and then closed it, but then changed her mind again. “If you want to talk though, you know, if you need a friend—”

“I know. And believe me, I appreciate it,” I said. “Truly.”

Her phone rang and it woke up Abe. I scooped him up while she answered it. I walked Abe around the apartment and into the kitchen. I sang him “You Are My Sunshine.” I heard Ruth telling her husband that I was still over and that he should definitely get another drink with his guy friends. It was sweet that he kept checking in with her. I heard her whispering something into the phone, and I wondered how I was being described, the foolish girlfriend, the jilted lover, or the woman who should have gotten more of a commitment. It could have been anything. It didn’t matter how she described me. I was still going to have to deal.

I looked down at Abe and asked him what he thought. He looked at me solemnly like he wasn’t sure who I was or what my intentions were. Ruth came into the kitchen. She was already reaching up to the latch on her nursing bra to let it down. She sat down at the kitchen table. I handed Abe over and she put him to her breast. She had a tiny bit of alarm on her face that dissipated as he began to suck.

“You know I’ll get our wine,” I said.