How to Party With an Infant (24 page)

“Sorry,” Henry says. “I didn’t let you know.”

“About what?”

“Camping,” he says.

She laughs and crosses her arms and sits down next to him. “Why would you need to let me know?”

She doesn’t trust herself to look at him or to move. She would be so devastated if she is reading him wrong. He’s like a hot drink. She has to go slow.

“We had dinner that night and I forgot to mention we’d be gone all week.”

“You don’t need to check in with me,” she says. Her voice breaks a little, like she’s gotten teary! How awful. She clears her throat. “Was it fun?” God, now her voice is husky. She pulls the zipper on her sweater up to her neck.

“I needed to get the kids out,” he says. “Outside, not thinking about things. She’s been with the guy for a year.” He gazes out at the playground. “How was your week?”

She doesn’t answer. Who knows what her voice would sound like? He turns his head. “What did you do?”

Okay then. She won’t address the yearlong affair. They can always circle back. “I did preschool tours. They’re horrible.”

“I wouldn’t know, to be honest,” he says. He puts his ankle on his opposite knee, grazing her leg. “Kate just enrolled the first kid and the rest followed.”

This is the opportunity. On the application she didn’t end up saying that Ellie was Native American. Barrett chickened out, too, after Gary asked if she was all right in the head.

“Could I ask a favor?”

“Shoot.” His face opens up and relaxes as though this is a relief to him.

“I visited Tommy’s preschool and I really loved it. You must get asked all the time, and I don’t know—”

“I’ll call Ms.
Eldridge tomorrow morning,” he says and takes out his phone, perhaps writing it in his calendar.

She restrains herself from saying anything but “thank you.” This is how the world works.

“Did you finish your book?” he asks.

“I got everyone’s stories,” she says.

“Yeah?” He looks over at her, genuinely enthusiastic.

“Yeah,” she says, his energy affecting her.

“You should come over sometime, cook some of the recipes. For all of us,” he adds. “Georgia, Annie, Barrett. The gang.”

“Sure,” she says. “Sounds good.”

They stay for a long time that day. Tommy and Ellie hang from the bars, cross the wooden bridge, slide, and sit on stumps. There’s an older boy near them, kicking sand and sucking a Popsicle. He wears shorts and has fresh wounds on his legs. He has long, dirty hair, and the skin around his mouth is stained red. He looks like Faye Dunaway in
Mommie Dearest
when she gets all crazy with the makeup. He puts his mouth around the Popsicle. In college, Mele knew some guys who were so afraid of seeming gay that they wouldn’t suck on Popsicles or eat bananas.

“Too many babies here,” he says to another boy who walks over. Henry and Mele exchange looks.

“You want to know a place that’s baby-free?” the other boy says. He has khaki pants, longish black hair, and sad eyes.

“Where?”

“Under there.” Mele looks under the wooden ramp that leads up to the hutch. “You know why?”

“Why?”

“Babies can’t dig.”

“That makes no sense,” she says to Henry.

“If
anything they can dig,” he says. “These boys seem old to be here. They should be playing basketball or smoking or something.”

“Is your mom here?” they hear the tough boy ask.

The boy in the khaki pants points to the bench. “She’s over there.”

Mele looks at a woman in the distance sitting on the green bench. She loves listening to kid conversations.

“But she’s not my mom. She’s my babysitter. I have two babysitters.”

“Why?”

“ ’Cause I was adopted.”

“Oh,” the tough boy says. “How do you know?”

“My second mom told me.”

“How come you were adopted?”

“I don’t know. Someone needed money.”

The boys walk off, leaving Henry and Mele a bit bewildered.

“That was something,” Henry says. “I love stuff like that.”

“Me, too,” Mele says. “How old do you think they are?”

“Around nine,” Henry says without hesitation. She guesses it’s because he’s known that age before. She can’t imagine Ellie as a nine-year-old. What will that look like? Maybe a parenting trick is to look at your child and think to yourself:
You will be five years older than you are right now.
This age will be over and you will rejoice and you will mourn.

Ellie comes over and smiles at Henry and pats his knees. Henry swoops her up, kisses her head, then hands her to her mother. It feels like the most intimate thing in the world.

“We better get going,” Mele says, standing up.

“No!” Ellie says and sprints toward Tommy by the ladder.

“Have you ever been to Nopa?” Henry asks. “Right down the street. We could walk with the kids.”

“They’d love that,” she says and thinks of Courtney talking for her
baby. Parents use their kids all the time. “Ellie needs a nap” often means “I’m dying to get out of here.”

“They’re so cute together,” she says, watching Tommy push Ellie’s butt so she can reach the next rung.

“They can have their second date,” he says.

*  *  *

Wine, dinner, company. No bath, dinner, repeat. She’s warmed by what life can do sometimes, and by the second glass of cabernet.

The children share the pappardelle, recalling
Lady and the Tramp
. She and Henry share the asparagus with duck egg and fried leeks, the avocado toast with pickled jalapeño and smoked cheddar, and when the kids are still content, still civilized and users of inside voices, they continue on to the porchetta and halibut.

Mele tells him the story about momentarily stealing the belt.

“I know every one of them,” he says. “My wife’s friends.”

She looks down, avoiding commentary. She imagines Kate is like Betts, an expensive though minuscule appetizer. When it arrives you know it’s valuable, but you’re still like, “What am I supposed to do with that?”

Henry circles back to Kate, though he uses code names and code words, so Mele feels like a spy. Kate is “Karl.” Divorce is “Diabetes.”

“Karl said that God brought them together,” Henry says. “Karl and this other man. He has a bumper sticker on his car that says
KITE SURFING IS REALITY
.”

“Well,” she says. “Maybe it’s better than
JOGGING
or
BIRD WATCHING IS REALITY
.” God, was that lame? She puts her hair up in a ponytail. If only guys knew girls fidget with their hair when they find them attractive.

“So she said she couldn’t ignore this gift of love from God.”

“What did you say to that?” She bites into a trumpet mushroom and tastes basil, pine nuts, and hope.

Henry grins and blinks, recollecting some private moment. “I said, ‘Jesus Christ,’ then made the sign of the cross with my middle finger.”

His teeth are tinted with red wine. It conjures the image of Bobby, coming home late at night, purple teeth, a smoky T-shirt. She sees Henry doing the same, stumbling home with secrets. What is Kate’s side of the story? Henry places his hand on his son’s head, his grin falling away, and Mele feels suddenly self-conscious sitting across from him. She must look so small and unkempt compared to his wife. She wipes her mouth with her napkin.

“I can’t believe she’s friends with those ladies from my old playgroup. We could have been in the same group.” She laughs and looks down. “I didn’t quite fit there.”

Ellie and Tommy are going through their fourth bread basket.

Henry leans forward. “They’re older, that’s all,” he says but looks away, knowing that wasn’t all. He seems to be giving up on something. “You’ll find your way.”

She thinks of him in his kitchen, advising his son and his friends, and she feels a bit like a student. She wonders then if that’s how he sees her, as a friend he is looking out for, himself as a mentor—someone who can help her along. She likes the idea of that, but it takes her down to a lower groove.

“Thank goodness you didn’t fit in,” Henry says. “We wouldn’t have met.”

“Yeah!” she says. “And what would these guys do without each other?” Ellie and Tommy are poking holes in the bread and putting them up to their faces to see out of.

Her heart races. She takes her hair out of the ponytail, then puts it into a low bun. Her leg touches his under the table.

“Sorry,” she says.

“I don’t mind,” he says.

This just isn’t a good idea. They are friends. It is healthy. Right now
nothing has happened. She can ignore the innocent flirtation and they can split the check and call it a night. He’s married. He’s rebounding. Who’s to say he isn’t just like Bobby?

He’s not like Bobby, though. Deep down, she knew who Bobby was and what he was capable of when they first met. Bobby was a trend. Henry is a staple. Henry is an evolved ham and cheese sandwich, what you long to come home to when you slip out of your dress and into a big T-shirt.

Mele takes a deep breath, feeling a tightening, a sweet heat, and moves her leg back next to his.

What are your goals for this book?

I’m not dead down there! I want to have sex! I masturbated for the first time in maybe a year! Seriously, this is huge!

That isn’t the goal for this book, but I have to say that maybe writing this has led to something, which is why I embarked upon this hogwash in the first place—to lead to something, to simultaneously take me away and bring me back. I’m such a better parent when I’m happy. I have a sense of humor! But not a sarcastic humor. A Barney-ish one. I’m a Barney!

So. Today I got my hair done—up there and down there, too, just because. I’m feeling like a woman again, and I really wanted to get all girly and smooth, and I even danced a little naked in front of the mirror, making sexy faces, my hair blown out, my privates all porno, and I have to say, when Ellie went down for a nap, I gave a little somethin’ somethin’ back to myself—again! I haven’t thought about sex in so long. I felt like a twenty-two-year-old! Kinda sad, but besides Bobby I never really had adult relationships, just youthful encounters that filled me with dread.

I remember enduring conversations like this:

Guy:
Take off that skirt, girl. They call me the plumber ’cause I can fix it.

Me:
I’m not wearing a skirt.

Or this:

Dude:
Look at that. My mojo is rising.

Me:
Wow.

Or this:

Boy:
Have you ever done it wheelbarrow style?

Me:
No.

Boy:
What about tractor?

I tried to envision this, but couldn’t. “No. But I’ve done it big-rig style,” I lied, having no idea what I was talking about.

Last:

Drunk Man:
Do you want to sit in the cockpit?

Me:
That’s so lame. (Bottle of wine later) Ready for takeoff, Captain.

I could fill a book with romance. I never thought I wanted to add to this book; I thought I was okay being done with the chapters on sex and wannabe love, but something is bubbling all right, and yes, Henry is the catalyst, but it’s the concept of him, the belief that I can move forward that brightens my day and my vagina. It’s not like I’m expecting something to happen with him, but the flirtation is enlivening, like a cool night and the sight of stars.

Tonight, I made Pad Ma Coeur just like the last time when I got my wax, but now it has such better connotations. A Brazilian no longer equals Bobby, loneliness, and humiliation. It no longer harkens to Ellie and our insulation. A Brazilian wax equals hope, happiness, and possibilities, and just maybe it equals Henry Hale.

So, the goals for the cookbook. Of course I hope that the dishes turn out well. I hope they make you happy. My goal is that you like the food, and that you like us, I guess. My playgroup. Here we are—family-style.

My goal is to reduce our lives into something tangible, edible. How can we bake our joys and complications into something someone will want to pick up and put in their mouth? Eat me. That’s what I’m saying with this book. Bite and savor me.

There’s something else, too. This happened months ago and I hate thinking about it. I was so angry with my Ellie. I don’t remember why. She ran away when I was trying to leave Annie’s house. She made it impossible to leave. Something small that seemed big at the time. Yelling always makes it worse, but sometimes I just give in to the anger because it’s exhilarating to feel. She cried in the car, rattling me into a tizzy, and this awful adrenaline was electrifying me. I reached back and slapped her hand. Then I told her I was going away and wouldn’t come back. She started to cry, and a part of me was so satisfied, so happy that the thought of my leaving was making her sad. It’s the worst thing I have ever done to her. But hours later, blank slate. She ran to me after her nap, hugging my legs. “Mommy.”

Whenever I have a hard time with her, whenever I feel sorry for myself that I’m going at it alone, I think, This time right now will be over. Gone. She used to wrap her legs around me and do a little humping motion on my hip. Gone. She used to sit in her high chair and screech, then look around as if she didn’t know where the sound was coming from. Gone. She used to sleep with her arms up like a football goal. Gone.

Maybe my objective is to have this book as a keepsake, knowing that this time will disappear like today and yesterday. Like handprints on a cold glass window. Here’s some proof that she was my little baby, my little girl. Here’s evidence that I had these friends that kept me company and let me get to know them. Here are these friends, and one night I fed them at Henry’s house.

What is your proudest moment?

The day I gave birth. No, not really. I’m sure everyone is going to say that, but when I gave birth I didn’t feel proud. I was scared shitless. I wasn’t sure how to hold her, and she made my boobs hurt so bad. The pain was worse than the actual birth. Why doesn’t anyone tell you that you need a goddamn epidural to breast-feed? Each tug that gives your baby sustenance makes you cry in agony. No husband holding my hand and feeding me ice chips. Bobby was at work for most of the labor. No parents holding my hand or a mirror so I could see the birth. I held the mirror myself and was not proud of what I saw in the reflection. And then when she was out and placed on my deflated belly I still wasn’t proud, necessarily. I’m sorry, Ellie. You are beautiful, but when I first held you, you were slimy, red, and wet and you mewed like a kitten.