Play Dates (40 page)

“These are nice,” Dennis remarks, nibbling my ear. Whenever he does this, I fear we’ll be arrested because I become sexually uncontrollable. I have warned him that I am not to be held responsible for my actions following this erotic gesture, no matter where we are, what time of day it is, or who might be watching.

We’re now walking in Battery Park, after a lovely meal at a restaurant overlooking the water. For a few moments, we pause to lean against the railing of the fence and gaze at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

306

Leslie Carroll

“Thanks. I made them today. At the birthday party I took Zoë to.”

“I meant your ears,” he whispers into the right one.

“Oh.” I’m embarrassed. Of
course
he’s not interested in the
jewelry
. He’s a
straight man
!

Dennis tickles me in the ribs. “I’m teasing you, Claire. I did mean your earrings. They’re nice. Your
ears
are more than ‘nice.’

They’re adorable.”

I turn to him and give him a kiss. “Thank you. And thanks for dinner. Good choice! So . . . you think anyone would want to buy something like this?” I ask, giving an earring a gentle push so it begins to swing a bit.

“Yeah, why not? I mean, not that I know anything about that sort of stuff, so my opinion is probably kind of worthless, but, yeah, I don’t see why not.” He slips his hand in mine. “Can we take a walk?”

“I thought that’s what we’re doing,” I giggle.

“You know what I mean. I mean
keep
walking. I want to walk
to
someplace.” His fingers lightly caress the top of my hand, and the gesture has a way of easing my mind. Despite my attempt to respond with a light heart, to my ears the words, “can we take a walk” have the same uh-oh effect as “we need to talk.”

We stroll along the promenade by the Hudson River. “You know this used to be called the
North
River,” I tell Dennis.

“Really?” The corners of his mouth have a way of curling up when he’s curious about something, so I know he’s actually in-trigued.

“Occupational hazard. Or, former occupational hazard, I should say. It’s a tour-guide thing. It was on the test they make you take. File under Useless Trivia—more or less. But I kind of like that sort of . . . minutiae. I think it’s cool.”

Dennis slides his arm around my waist and pulls me toward his body as we continue to walk. “You’re a history geek!”

“We history geeks prefer the word ‘buff,’ thank you very much.”

PLAY DATES

307

He pretends to think about it. “ ‘Buff’ is a good word. Very good word.”

“Speaking of which, Zoë asked me the other day if you and I were going to have a sleep-over.”

“And what did you tell her?”

“I reminded her that Easter break or spring break or whatever they’re calling it this year is right around the corner, and perhaps she might like to spend a couple of days with her grandparents out in Sag Harbor. Of course that means I have to get her all the way out there. Or they’ve got to come into New York to pick her up, only to drive right back.”

“Or they could come in and stay at your place for a couple of days while you stay at mine.” We pause to kiss. “Why are you smiling?” he asks.

“Why do you think? I like kissing you. And I like the way you kiss with your eyes open. You do that a lot. I just . . . it’s . . . nothing. It’s just nice. I like it.”

“I like to look at you when I kiss you. You always look like you’re having fun.”

“I always
am
having fun. Remember the day you rescued me and you wouldn’t let me close my eyes?”

“I couldn’t let you slip back under. There we were, outside a school, and you know how teachers are always talking about the three R’s. Well, to me, as a firefighter, The three R’s are Risk, Rescue, and Reward. That day, I got an extra reward. When Zoë said I could ask you out!”

“You’re such a softie!”

“I beg your pardon, young lady. I have abs of steel!”

I roll my eyes. “What a comedian.”

We pass the marina outside the World Financial Center and admire the yachts. Mia would love them. Through the enormous windows of the restored Winter Garden atrium we can see a band playing a free concert. We walk through the room, skirting its edges, pausing to sit on the sweeping staircase for a

308

Leslie Carroll

few minutes, listening to the music. It’s entertaining, but not great. “Enough” hits each of us at the same moment and we give one another the kind of mutually understood signal that it takes most couples years to develop.

Stepping out of the easternmost exit of the Financial Center, we find ourselves nearly at Ground Zero. Dennis releases his hand from mine, drawn closer to the site, as though a giant magnet is pulling him forward from the heart. Whatever he needs to do right now must be done alone.

“Have you . . . ? Have you rescued people before? Before me, I mean?” I ask softly. I’m not sure what to say because I realize what he’s feeling at this moment is big stuff for him. It’s a subject that, for all our conversations, has never been raised. I’ve been afraid to—and I suppose he’s had his reasons for not to wanting to discuss it.

Dennis doesn’t reply.

“You were down here, weren’t you?”

Silence.

“Don’t get the wrong idea,” he says finally. He’s still facing the site, refusing to speak directly to me, to let me see his eyes.

“If you’re thinking that I’ve never talked about that day because I ran away or something . . . did something cowardly, or something I should be ashamed of.”

“I’m not . . . Dennis, I’m not. Why would you think that would even occur to me?” I watch his back hunch, his shoulders shrug.

“No one becomes a firefighter to get rich. A lot of us do it because our fathers and grandfathers and uncles were firefighters.

It’s like going into the family business or something.” He made a sound that was not quite a chuckle, not quite a snicker. “Of course, not every family business has such high risks. It’s true about it being a brotherhood. And those of us who made it out that day lost three hundred and forty-three of our brothers. You stand here years later and it’s like it was yesterday.”

PLAY DATES

309

Dennis turns around. He looks stricken, like he’s aged fifteen years in the past five minutes. He won’t let me come any closer.

“And the thing is . . .” he continues with difficulty. “The thing is . . . that . . . it’s what we do. You don’t think twice about it.

Rescuing. If another plane hit a building tomorrow morning . . .

I’d be there. No doubt in my mind.” His voice becomes choked up. “So . . . before we go any further with things . . . you and I . . .

past that point of no return . . . that
sleep-over
—if you don’t want to continue to see me . . . now that you know what you’re getting yourself into—what I’m saying is—what I’m saying is . . .

I’d understand.”

I don’t know whether he wants to be touched, to be held. I can’t tell. I want to give him what he needs but I don’t know what that is. I do know this: that I’m going to stick around to find out. And that I would be a fool to ever let this man go.

Chapter 21

If someone wanted to give me a gift, completely out of the blue—or if I could make a single wish within the bounds of reason—at this point, I don’t know whether I would ask for a weeklong nap, a serious full-body massage, or a housekeeper with the talent and speed of Mary Poppins.

Until Mrs. Hennepin gave her class the homework assignment from hell—to build their own city—I’d fantasized about using the Easter vacation time to crawl into bed for a week. I don’t mean seven days of lovemaking. I mean a put-your-head-under-the-covers, “Go away world!” kind of break. By the time Dennis and I were able to organize our “sleep-over,
sleep

”

was

about the only thing I felt like doing. Dennis, bless his patient heart, has been very understanding.

Zoë is reading
Peter Pan
and keeps asking me if we’re going to do Spring Cleaning. If. If there were world enough and time, I might actually be able to tackle the items that have been on my domestic to-do list since before the divorce. With each school vacation, I think, foolishly, that I might actually get to them. The rugs need a thorough shampooing; the drapes have to be taken down and dry-cleaned, the upholstered furniture could use a good steam cleaning, the hardwood floors should be

312

Leslie Carroll

buffed and polished, the contents of my kitchen cabinets can be much better organized, my closets need the Fab Five and a dump truck, and I can’t even think about the bathrooms. Zoë’s outgrown a lot of her clothes and there’s no point in holding on to them, but as long as this will necessitate a trip to the thrift shop, I might as well comb through my own things as well, so I only schlep once. Those are the big things. Then there are the weekly household chores—the laundry, grocery shopping, vacuuming, dusting, ironing.

I am so burned out, so on edge. And because I’ve never been good about expressing anger, I just seem to seethe internally. Zoë and I have been discussing camp for her this summer. My parents have offered to make it their treat and I’ve acquiesced, although I’m not comfortable accepting so much financial aid from them; and Zoë seems so young for a sleep-away venue. But camp, any camp, won’t begin until July, which right now seems like a lifetime away, a distant dream floating hazily in the future. I can fantasize about six weeks of quiet Claire-time, but it doesn’t solve my current problems or soothe my immediate woes. It’s more like the daydream equivalent of a bubble bath. In the meantime, I need to cast a villain.

Enter Regina Hennepin, stage left. She grins maniacally, unable to conceal her glee at having devised a unique method of torture designed to test her second graders’ accumulated knowledge and retention of virtually every subject they’ve studied thus far this year—history, math, science, civics, art—and to try the patience of every parent who thought spring
break
would be just that.

But of course Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Therefore, in her magnanimity, Mrs. Hennepin has allowed her students a full week to design and construct their cities, to invent a workable budget that is supposed to be as sturdy as the structures themselves (pretending, naturally, that the buildings PLAY DATES

313

are constructed of brick and stone, steel and glass, as opposed to egg cartons and cellophane).

I hear rumors that some parents—those who have had out-of-town excursions planned for this week have actually hired others to fulfill the assignment while their child enjoys a week of Kinder-Spa treatments in Palm Beach. I don’t suppose Mrs.

Hennepin has taught the kids about the 1863 draft riots.

This, to the rest of us who, gosh-darnit, just aren’t going to be able to make it to our time-share in Martinique, is not only un-affordable, but immoral. Although at this point, I am ready to throw ethics to the winds. I wonder if Annabel could use a little extra cash, so I can use the city-planning time to take a nap.

In the meantime, whenever I can steal a moment for myself—

which is usually around 2 A.M., when I am kept awake worrying about how little time I have to accomplish a never-ending string of tasks with ever-increasing levels of difficulty—I’ve been designing and making jewelry, making use of Melissa Arden’s ex-travagant gift. It relaxes me while enervating my spirit and sparking my imagination. I enjoy playing with color, delighting in its power to excite or soothe; and to achieve a different mood or look with every individual piece or suite—matching necklace, bracelet, and earrings—that I create.

I’ve gotten a number of phone calls about my designs. Nina Osborne and Jennifer Silver-Katz called me within hours of Lissa Arden’s birthday party. Melissa bought the garnets—she insisted on paying me, and I felt terrible about charging her after she’d been so generous and supportive, so I sold them to her for just a few dollars. Shoshana O’Brien snapped up the peridot earrings and placed an order for a matching necklace. I fulfill my handful of special orders in the middle of the night. With my tiny cottage industry, I feel like the mutant love child of Santa Claus and Mrs. Fields.

For mommy-daughter fun-time this week, Zoë and I dye and decorate Easter eggs. We select the ingredients for family Easter

314

Leslie Carroll

baskets during one of our many shopping excursions for arts and crafts supplies for Zoë-land, her city-queendom. By the end of a particularly long day we’re both so cranky and exhausted that I allow her to eat three fistfuls of jelly beans, two Peeps, and a mid-sized chocolate bunny for dinner. They’re the same
colors
as veggies, a starch, and a portion of meat; and one meal made of sugar won’t kill her. It might even keep her awake while we tackle her math and spelling homework and put the finishing touches on Zoë-land—which will need a team of construction workers to cart it over to Thackeray next Monday.

I put Zoë’s temporary, sugar-rush-induced burst of energy to good use with the spelling. I call out the words and she does jumping jacks or some sort of interpretive dance while she spells them aloud. Each word takes on a rhythm and mood in her imagination. She’s good at it, which pleases me, and it’s terrific for her self-esteem, since the math continues to freak her out.

And she’s bored with her city-queendom by now. We’ve been doing a little bit every day this week, but she’s long been ready to move on to something else. City planning takes time, I try to explain, with thinning patience. Where’s Robert Moses when you need him?

Perhaps these insanely time-consuming homework assignments are designed to stimulate a child’s imagination. Up to a point, I believe that to be true. My daughter has a wellspring of fancies and fantasies. But a limited attention span.

It seems to help if she plays dress-up while we work, although I’ve warned her that if she gets paint or glue on one of her Disney princess outfits, chances are we won’t be able to wash it out properly.