How to Party With an Infant (19 page)

After the knock Barrett waits a second, then opens the door with a spent yet friendly smile on her face so that she looks as though she’s been very busy, yet is happy to be interrupted.

“Hi! Come in!” she says to Christine and her daughter.

“Hi, I’m Christine,” Christine says, looking around her living room.

“I’m Barrett,” she says, though they’ve met before and see each other practically every day. “I think we may have met before.”

“This is my daughter. Luella say hello.”

“Hello,” she says, flashing a smile. Literally. It’s a flash, then it’s gone.

Luella? Barrett thinks. Why, of course. The girl has a handsome face, made prettier by the fact that Barrett has to stop and think if she’s pretty or not. The large nose is the hang-up, but in a way it ameliorates
the face because you think, Wow, even with the nose she’s pretty. She also has round, heavy breasts that would surely make any teen pre-ejaculate if he got ahold of ’em.

“Pretty name,” Barrett says.

“I just wanted to make sure there were parents here,” Christine says.

“I told you there would be,” Luella says.

“Well, you said that about the last party, and your friend ended up going to the hospital.”

“What?” Barrett says.

Luella rolls her eyes. “She would have had to go to the hospital with or without parents there. She couldn’t find her inhaler, and the contractor was there to drive her. It worked out fine.”

Barrett gives Luella a secret wink. “Everyone’s downstairs,” she says.

“I’ll text when it’s over,” Luella says, then sulks away.

“Would you like something to nibble on?” Barrett asks Christine, horrified at the words that just left her mouth, but Christine doesn’t appear to have heard. She’s watching her daughter with intensity. Barrett knows the look. There’s nothing more pleasing than watching your children when they don’t know you’re watching them.

“Would you like a glass of wine?” Barrett asks.

Christine’s face lights up. “Sure!” she says, spoken like a true mom.

Barrett brings out the wine, pouring it beforehand because it’s Bogle, her weekday wine. She brings the bruschetta, too, and can tell that Christine’s happy to see both. After they get settled on the couch, they sit in silence for a bit too long.

“I love your house,” Christine says, but Barrett’s sure she’s lying.

Another silence is saved by the bell.

“They just keep coming,” Barrett says, pretending to be weary. She walks to the door and opens it to a mother, Maggie, and her son, who doesn’t seem at all embarrassed to be accompanied by her.

“Hi,” Maggie says. “I
just wanted to thank you for having the party. I’m Matt’s mom, Maggie.”

“Maggie?” Christine says from the other room.

“Christine?”

Maggie peeks through the door, and both women issue that customary little greet-scream. Barrett can’t imagine men doing this.
Pat? Andy? Ahhhh!

Both Barrett and Matt watch them hug while giving one another awkward glances. She feels like she’s on a blind date and tries to think of things to say. “So, Matt, Maggie tells me you like math and Kings of Leon.”

“Okay, Mom,” he says. “See you later.”

“They’re downstairs,” Barrett says to Matt, noticing that a black comb is lodged into his dark curls. He walks away, and she almost calls after him: “Wait, there’s a comb stuck in your hair,” hoping to save him from embarrassment, but she assumes he knows this and that it must be a fashion statement, though she isn’t sure what’s being stated: “I have so much hair I can stick a comb in it.” Or: “I’m so busy, I’ll get to my hair when I’m good and ready.” Or, simply, “Look at me. There’s a comb in my hair. A comb!”

She’s left fake-smiling at these women who are facing one another and speaking in hushed, aghast tones. Barrett forms the tip of the triangle, not really sure what she’s doing here. She feels psychotic, clearly not part of the conversation, but it’s too late now. She has to commit. It’s like being in a store, two shoppers flipping through the rack toward one another. Who is going to move? Who is going to take her hand off the clothes and
go around
? Not Barrett. She never moves. It’s her thing.

“God, you look so good!” Maggie says. “Did you get divorced?” she asks in an exaggeratedly sardonic, drag queen sort of way.

“No, no. I’ve
been doing Pilates. It’s such a good workout—”

“I love Pilates,” Barrett says, committing.

“You know who
did
get a divorce though? Sheila Schatz. Isn’t that crazy? She looks fantastic though.”

“Like how?”

“I don’t know. She just looks thin and . . . she’s just got that divorced body.”

“So do you!”

“Really?”

“Yes! I haven’t seen you forever. What have you been doing?”

“Same old. What have you been up to?”

“Oh, the yushe. Superbusy. Really busy.”

Barrett takes a step back, then another, until her steps take her to the sofa. She goes around.

She takes her glass of wine from the table, gripping it ferociously, and takes a deep sip. More kids stream into the house and she waves them in like a parking attendant. “Downstairs,” she says. “Have a blast.” She feels duped that these two know each other. Now they’re talking about a friend who is moving to San Rafael.

“I told her to go see
Little Children,
” Maggie says. “Going to that community pool—it’s just like the one in the movie. Totally creepy.”

“Great movie,” Barrett says. “And book.”

Both women turn to face her, and Barrett feels like she’s in high school once again. She’d do anything to fit in, to have these girls like her, but in high school, unlike in motherhood, she never had to work so hard. Usually the blond hair worked as an E-Z Pass.

“I didn’t know it was a book,” Maggie says. “Oh, my God, we’re reading the worst book in my book club. I mean it’s not bad, but it’s so serious and I can’t get into it.”

“We’re reading
Baby on the Brain,
” Christine says. “It’s about this high-powered marketing director and she gets pregnant, but still tries to juggle everything?
And her friends are all single, so she still tries to go out and keep up with that lifestyle, but then her parents die and . . . Never mind.” Christine flutters her hands. “I don’t want to ruin anything.”

Barrett finishes the sentence in her head. Then her parents die and the protagonist discovers what really matters. Or: Then her parents die and she realizes she needs to think of others instead of just herself. Or: She realizes her single friends are all whores who’ll end up alone and children are the best. She loves little Arabellabellalulu after all. Mele would just puke.

“I should read that,” Barrett says, using her admonished voice because that’s how you speak if you want to appear engaged just as cool teenage girls speak with that nasal, closemouthed, bored-to-death drawl in order to properly merge with their kind.

“Would you like a glass?” She lifts her glass to Maggie.

“I’d love one. Are you kidding?”

Both women laugh—
ha, ha, ha, we drink, we gossip, we’re cool, hip moms!
—and Barrett goes to the kitchen like a servant. The kitchen is around the corner, so she can still hear the women. “Red or white?” Barrett asks.

“White, please,” Maggie says. “Jake just started at Sterne, right?”

“No, no. He’s been there since fifth.” He had to take a test and undergo an interview, and waiting for the results was like waiting for the lines to appear on a pregnancy test after your fifth in vitro. She doesn’t like that she can’t see their facial expressions.

“Oh,” Maggie says. “I’m not sure what he looks like.”

“He’s in that webisode thing,” Christine says.

“That’s right!” Maggie says. “He’s a star.”

“Well,” Barrett says, walking back with Maggie’s wine. “I wouldn’t say star—”

“Now, what do you do?” Christine asks. “You work, right?”

“I’m in real estate.”

“Aren’t we all?”
Maggie says, and the two women laugh, but Barrett doesn’t get it. They start to discuss properties they know of and who of their friends are “in a rut” because they want to move but can’t because it’s such a poor time to sell.

Barrett figures she could do a little networking. She has already scanned their fingers, ears, shoes, and hair, and is pretty sure of their friends’ price range.

“For most people it’s a bad time to sell,” Barrett says, “but it really depends. Homes in the three-, four-, five-million-dollar range and up—homes in that bracket are still going strong.”

“I should have Trey call you,” Maggie says.

“Tray?” Barrett asks. “As in, ‘Carry this on a’?”

“He’s dying to move.”

“Sure,” Barrett says, “I’d love to talk with him.”

She walks to the bookshelf and grabs a bunch of business cards out of the bowl that holds business cards, miniature plastic toys, dust, and change. “Give one to your friend, and here’s some extra.” She hopes to God this could generate some new business, yet the people they know must have their own agents, top agents, Previews agents, agents that make you feel bad for walking into an open house. But you never know. Sometimes those agents are too busy for them.

“Would you guys like something to eat?” Barrett asks.

“Oh,” Christine says. She looks at her watch. “Then we wouldn’t have to drive all the way to Nob Hill and come all the way back,” she says. The two women eye-conference, and Barrett looks away.

“Sure!” Maggie says.

“Great. I’ll just put some plates out in the kitchen and come help yourself. There’s salad and fish. Hope you eat fish. And I’ll get another bottle of wine downstairs. I’ll peek in on the kids!”

She thought this would make them want to sneak down the steps with her, but they’re already immersed in another conversation.

“You’re kidding me.”

“No!”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes!”

It’s because they’re
used to seeing their children with other children. They’re used to seeing them at parties, or admired by their peers. Barrett has been dying all night to see this, to creep downstairs and behold her son finally getting the attention he deserves. He’s like Cinderella. There the whole time, but denied the opportunity to mingle.

At the top of the stairwell she hears the deep bass of the music. It’s so loud that by the time she reaches the bottom of the stairs she covers her ears. How can they have conversations like this? Before she walks by the family room to the garage, she prepares herself. She will walk quickly and glance casually toward the party. Then she’ll get four bottles of wine so that on the way back she can pretend to have trouble carrying them all, and will have to move slowly by the scene while appearing to be completely occupied.

She makes her move, taking a quick glance up, and then she stops and steps back toward the stairs to hide.

What was that?

She peeks back out, then pats herself down for her phone, a typical reaction when faced with danger. She reaches for her husband, for communication with him. Everything has to be shared with Gary or else she is alone. Her need is similar to wishing you had your camera when you see something incredible. Her husband is the camera, an instrument that helps her capture things she appreciates, fears, or doesn’t understand.

They are dancing. The kids are dancing. And yet they aren’t really dancing. She thinks of
It’s a Wonderful Life,
the scene where the kids are dancing on the platform over the pool, all quick and hoppy, like they’re high on malt powder. The music is lively—you can actually identify instruments—piano, saxophone. That’s
dancing. She listens to this music from the last step on the stairwell—
Booty, booty, booty, booty knocking everywhere
—and sees her son gyrating his buttocks so rapidly it’s like watching a hummingbird hovering over a honeysuckle. Then he slides to the right with his arms spread apart as if presenting a magic trick. After this arrangement he lifts his leg, a move she’d call the Pissing Dog if she had to give it a name, and gyrates with jackhammer speed.

She is so stunned to see Jake in this fashion that it takes her a moment to register the other kids. Girls are backed up against the boys, their asses gesturing wildly and their faces making
fucking
expressions. She finds herself envying this for a second—
I haven’t made that face forever!
But this doesn’t last long as she remembers that these girls are twelve and thirteen and just imitating someone making faces that a director in Hollywood says are fucking faces. Actual fucking faces aren’t nearly as appealing, she thinks, thinking of her own and of Gary’s face when he’s mid-o, a kind of stroke-like cry for help.

She’s sure the boys are all bonafied, or whatever the expression is—bonered up? Fully boned? Their expressions are very serious and focused, as if this were some kind of final exam. It’s then she grasps what everyone’s wearing. Basketball jerseys and baggy jeans, gold chains and baseball caps cocked over their eyes. The girls are in tight jeans, some in little shorts and tube tops; Christine’s daughter wears a purple basketball jersey that’s knotted below her breasts. She has on low-riding jeans, and a purple thong coasts over her hips. Barrett thinks of the show Jake watches about rappers’ houses, how some will end in the “family room” with a shot of “how we do,” which involves playing video games on a monstrous TV while scantily clad women dance around them, and by dancing she means humping nothing but dust motes, much like the scene before her. She doesn’t want to embarrass her son, so she just gapes. She’s gripped by fear that those women, those mothers, will come down and see what’s going on. Or maybe
they already know? Maybe this is “how they do,” too? No. Not possible.

She peeks out and raises her arm, hoping the gold glint of her jewelry will catch Jake’s eye. She feels like she’s stranded and trying to get the attention of a rescue plane. He finally notices her.

“Come here,” she mouths, using her pissed and publicly humiliated nonvoice.

He wades through the stream of teenage waste. She composes herself, then takes a step back so they’ll be out of ear- and eyeshot.