Momzillas (5 page)

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “
No way
would I call him.”

“Why? I told you, when I bumped into him last year he asked all about you. And now you're both living in New York! You guys were, like, really tight.”

“We were close. But…obviously I was obsessed with him and it's probably not a good idea. I mean, what would be the point, anyway?”

“You were inseparable back then,” Leigh whined, trying to entice me. “There's good stuff there—a real friendship that excited you.”

I took a deep breath and exhaled the thought, shaking my head. “I'm not seeking him out, it's too nerve-racking. It's so weird he's at Columbia now. He's the youngest tenured professor in the department…” I could hear my voice trail off as I caught Leigh staring at me with a mischievous face. She had heard me spill way too many guts out over him way back when. “He was like my idol for so long, I almost don't want to see him.”

“You guys look like a couple of gossiping teens in the cafeteria,” Josh interrupted, as he put his briefcase down by the door and came toward our booth.

“Josh!” Leigh ran to the door and hugged Joshie, who looked thoroughly wiped out but beyond adorable with his tie loosened and his suit slightly rumpled from a marathon workday. He came to kiss me. “Amber told me you two were here. Hi, love. You look hot. Is this a yummy mummy or what, LeighLeigh?”

“Delish!” she said, smiling, putting her free arm around me, pressing us into a triumvirate hug.

“Please. You could fry an egg on my face I am so greasy right now,” I complained. “Want to order something? Ugh, sweets, I am the worst wife. I haven't made one dinner for you since we got here.” Not that I'm any great shakes in the kitchen, though I do make a mean grilled cheese.

“Hey, we're in New York,” he said, smiling, wrapping his arms around Leigh and me. “The only thing most wives have to make for dinner is reservations.”

AND IN BEE-LAND…

Instant Message from: BeeElliott

BeeElliott: So you're coming to the trunk show tom?

Maggs10021: Totally! It's my fave one, gonna do some SERIOUS damage w/ my AmEx.

BeeElliott: Me too. Let's go shopping after, I want to hit Christian Louboutin and Michael Kors for my outfit for the MoMA party.

Maggs10021: I have pers trainer, can't…What abt day after tom?

BeeElliott: Can't, have Pilates.

Maggs10021: You're doing so much Pilates these days. Addicted?

BeeElliott: Gotta get down to 108 bef we start trying for baby #2. Park's dyyyying to get me preg right now but must lose last 3 pounds.

Maggs10021: You = stick, Bee! Crazy.

BeeElliott: Anyway, must go; Giorgio is here to do my highlights—see u tom. Oh—and don't forget, that Hannah Allen is coming too, but let's ditch her bef we hit Madison.

Maggs10021: Deal.

Seven

The next morning, newly empowered from my evening with Leigh, I put Violet in the stroller and headed to the nearby Pierre Hotel to meet Bee and Maggie. I had unearthed a few cool outfits from my dusty U-Haul boxes and felt way more stylish than I had the day before, when I had looked like such a recent San Franciscan import—i.e., sans edge.

I got to the grand hotel and walked in the gilded double doors. Maggie was inside fanning herself with her Fendi clutch.

“Uck, could it
be
any hotter out there?” she said with Chandler Bing sarcasm, delicately blotting her ever-so-slightly-misted brow. Her blond bob looked recently blown out and, like most moms I'd spied in the 'hood, she was using her huge Jackie O. sunglasses as a headband.

“I know, I hate summer,” I said.

“What?” said Bee, who walked in, snapping her cell phone shut. “Did you just say you
hate summer
?”

I know it sounds so weird and almost call-the-cops criminal, but y
es
. I hate summer. I always feel slow and lethargic and dirty. Everyone else always slims down and perks up, but I just go into ice cream and nap mode, and the smell is so horrendous in the city that it should have those cartoon vertical squiggle lines over everything to connote stink, like that smelly kid on Charlie Brown. I'm more of the dark-hair, nontanned ilk, so grody pastels make me look recently exhumed from a grave. I love crispy cold invigorating air and turtlenecks and dark afternoons. The San Francisco weather suited me, even in the rain.

“It's just so humid and sticky and I just feel gross and uggles,” I said, shrugging. They looked at me like I was certifiably insane. I sheepishly added, “I guess I'm a sort of fall-winter kinda gal.”

“I can see that,” said Bee, looking me over. “You have that Wednesday Addams thing going on.”

When we got off the elevator, a sign stood in front of us, reading Little Duke and Duchess Trunk Show, suite 2415. The clothing company was founded by an actual duchess. Well, a New York girl who had married the French Duke of Burgundy. Lucky for him, as Bee explained, the duchess was a multibillionaire whose grandfather had invented velvet ropes. Talk about being born an insider. As we walked into the grand room, I beheld hordes of immaculate mothers selecting stunning clothes for their tots, who were all at home, presumably with uniformed nannies while their moms bought clothes for the following winter. I hadn't realized I would be the only one with a kid on hand.

“Mommy,” said Violet.

“Yes, muffin?”

“Uppie, uppie!”

“Okay, sweets.”

I unharnessed Violet from her stroller to let her run amok in the lavish space, which was a huge six-room salon with a sprawling buffet of tea sandwiches, cookies, Perrier poured in crystal tumblers, and coffee in huge silver pots.

“Okay, honey, you can play here, but stay right in this area, okay?”

“'K. Mommy, Mommy?”

“Yes, Violet love?”

“Ruv youuuu.”

I almost melted. I knelt down to give her a massive hug. When I looked up, Bee and Maggie were looking on. I assumed they were touched by the tender moment, but when I came over, Bee said, “Hannah, what are you going to do about help?”

“Oh, you mean babysitting?”

“Yes, are you looking into a nanny?”

A tall bejeweled South American–looking woman with an alligator Hermès bag was listening. “Oh, do you need a governess?” she interrupted with a shady pan-Euro accent.

“A
governess
?” I asked, almost laughing. “Like the Family Von Trapp?”

“I know one who's in search of placement. Live-in,” she replied.

“Oh, no thanks, I'm not looking,” I said. “But thank you anyway.”

She drifted off and Bee turned back to me. “Ugh, Flora de Manteva, she's the worst. She added the ‘de' to her name. Anyway, forget governesses. You need to get a nanny, how are you doing this all alone? I would
die.
”

“Well, I would love to have some free time, for a few hours, maybe a couple times a week—”

“Well you'll never find
that
,” said Maggie. “The good people all want guaranteed schedules. You must call Mrs. Brown's Agency. They have the best people. They all have impeccable references and work for the best families in New York. Mine used to work with the Bronfmans.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, feigning enthrallment.

“I have the most wonderful Indian gal. But I'd get a Malaysian. They're quite fastidious,” said Bee. “I had just the best one as a baby nurse right after I had Weston.”

“I thought Noona was Thai,” said Maggie.

“Same noodle, different sauce,” shrugged Bee. “But go with someone from Asia.”

I was starting to feel very uncomfortable.

“And avoid the Islands,” added Bee. “I had this one woman from Trinidad. So much 'tude. And lazy! She moved like a glacier, and was the size of one, too. I'd have to point out everything. Like,
hello?
This silver picture frame could not be more tarnished! And the South American nannies, they're all busy gossiping and speaking Spanish and meanwhile the kids are dangling from the highest rung on the jungle gym.”

I sat silent, stunned.

“Everyone has issues. I mean, even with the Malaysians, be careful,” Bee continued. “A lot are very sneaky. There's always a sick relative or some reason they need a day off or more money suddenly.”

“Iceland is really big these days,” piped in Maggie. “Tons of nannies on the scene from Reykjavik. I've heard good things.”

“But be careful if you go that route,” said Bee with a glint of warning in her eye. “You don't want a sitter hotter than you. Everyone knows about Janie Ribicoff's husband banging the Swedish nanny. My advice is
stay away
from Scandinavia. Clichés exist for a reason, Hannah. Do not get someone that might turn Josh's head.”

What? Were they implying Josh's head would turn? Not that I was Miss America, but I was not worried in that department. To be totally honest, I probably wouldn't hire a supermodel doppelgänger anyway, but I barely knew Bee and Maggie, so the whole horrifyingly racist convo made me ill. How could they make proclamations about entire islands, let alone continents?

It was as if Bee truly saw herself as a superior being to her staff. I never grew up with “help.” My parents were hands-on, and when they wanted to go out, we had a cool college girl come and hang with us—never a starched white uniform in sight. So the whole concept of my being someone's boss was too strange to me. I watched Violet giggling as she ran under the racks of clothes.

“'Scuse me one sec,” I said, pulling my ejector seat on the convo and bolting to go play with Violet.

I sat down cross-legged next to her on the floor, and when I looked up and saw a few blond-bob types looking down at me in more ways than one, I realized perhaps I shouldn't be plopped on the carpet of the suite. So I picked up Violet, put her on my hip, and began to peruse the clothes.

The handmade lace was more intricate and well tailored than anything in my closet. The little
dentelle
collars so delicate, the tiny cashmere sweaters softer than anything I'd touched aside from Violet's skin. The prices? Two hundred seventy-five smacks for the sweater, which I don't even spend on myself, unless it's a whole outfit. But a top? That she'll wear thrice? Sheesh. A little velvet holiday dress was $375, a wool pinafore, $250. A wool coat with a gray velvet collar and covered buttons was $450. I wondered if it would be tacky to bolt and not buy anything. I'd already snarfed five of those little tea sandwiches so I felt pressured to cough it up for something. Plus the loot was beyond adorable. Too bad Josh would cut my credit card into pieces if I even dared order anything that exorbitant.

“Hiiiii!” a somewhat familiar nasal voice said. “Tessa Finch-Saunders. Didn't we meet at the Seventy-second Street playground?”

“Oh, yes, hi—Hannah Allen.”

“I just did some major damage!” she confessed with faux dread. “But this stuff is
to die for
, the cutest.”

The logo-covered pixie gave me a wide smile as her sales consultant tallied her total on a Lucite clipboard. “Okay, that'll be three thousand six hundred seventy-two with tax,” she said, smoothly swiping Tessa's AmEx black card. Tessa simply nodded casually and took out the pen to sign.

“I'm gonna go find Bee,” I said. “Have a great day.” I bolted, stunned by her purchase and psyched to report the “major damage,” until I saw that Bee and Maggie were buying easily as much, if not more.

I peered into the boys' apparel section of the suite, replete with navy blue blazers, mini preppy striped ties, and crisp shirts like mini versions of those worn by their Wall Street daddies, who brought home the bacon so the wives could go on these crazy sprees. Bee and Maggie were chatting breezily while piling stacks and stacks of samples to order on their arms.

I walked in to say au revoir. “The stuff is gorgeous. Thanks for inviting me.”

“Byeeee!” Violet said.

“Oh, good-bye, Violet. Are you leaving, Hannah?” asked Bee. “Did you even get anything?”

“Yes, I'm getting this little blouse,” I said, holding up a cute Peter Pan chemise, which was the one thing I could actually stomach plonking down multiple dead presidents for. Maybe Violet was not a “little duchess” to their little dukes, but monarchies are getting crusty anyway.

“Okay, well, let's do lunch tomorrow. Why don't you drop Violet and my nanny will watch her with West? Sh'we say noon? I'll make a reservation at La Goulue.”

“Um, okay, sounds good.”

“See you tomorrow!” said Maggie, barely turning from her rack of miniature cable-knit sweaters.

AND AFTER THEIR SHOP FEST…

Instant Message from: BeeElliott

BeeElliott: Boys are sooo much better, girls are so difficult and bratty. Aren't you so glad we had boys?

Maggs10021: Oh, totally. Boys are delish, they love their mommies.

BeeElliott: Thank God you're having another! I'm so excited to meet little Talbott Xavier. I hope when we get preg I have another boy.

Maggs10021: No, just as long as it's healthy…

BeeElliott: No, I reeeally want another boy. I love being the woman of the house, you know? Just me and my boys. I just couldn't deal with having a girl running around. They become the apple of the husband's eye.

Maggs10021: I think girls are sweet though…Violet Allen is a total cutie.

BeeElliott: You think so? I don't know. Hannah kinda bugs.

Maggs10021: Why?

BeeElliott: Did you see she barely bought one thing?

Maggs10021: Whatev. Psyched for lunch tom.

BeeElliott: Yeah, I promised Park I'd intro her to the gang. I just don't want her to Krazy Glue herself to us. She could turn out to be a serious barnacle.