Play Dates (34 page)

She continues to discuss Zoë’s behavior in her soft, good-karma voice, offering her suggestions for better-balanced chakras. I start to explain that what Zoë might be reacting to is that tonight I’m going out on my first real date since her dad and I divorced. However, I hasten to add, I thought she seemed to be taking it very well. Has been excited about it, in fact. Then I listen to myself for a moment. “Ummm, wait a minute,” I say to Sarita, feeling my heart quicken, my ire increase. “You see Zoë, what, once a week for forty-five minutes in a classroom context with twenty other children? And you presume to tell me how to parent?” She starts to reply, her mouth a big round
O
of surprise. “You know, I’ve think I’ve had enough of that already this morning, thank you very much.”

260

Leslie Carroll

I collect Zoë, who has been talking to Ben. His mother gives me an uncomfortable look as we scoot past them.

“Are you okay, Mommy?” she asks, as we descend the stairs.

“No, sweetie. No, I’m not.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. Never mind.” I know better than to ask her if I’m a good mommy. There’s only one answer I want to hear right now and I don’t want it either prefaced or followed by qualifi-cations and caveats. “I’m just a little scared about tonight.”

“Is that what you’re going to wear?” she asks me, eyeing the dry-cleaned dress.

“Yes. . . .” She doesn’t look too sold. “Why?”

She shrugs. “Nothing. It’s just boring. That’s all.”

In the past fifteen minutes or so, the temperature has dropped about twenty degrees. What began as a bright and sunny late winter Saturday is now damp, gloomy, and windy.

“I’m cold,” Zoë says, after walking a couple of blocks. I can see her shivering. After sweating up a storm in that yoga class, and refusing to change clothes in the locker room, her exercise things must now feel cool and wet against her little body. I yank my sweatshirt over my head and put it on over her windbreaker. She looks a bit ridiculous because it fits her like a nightgown, but it’s the best way of keeping her warm right now.

“Aren’t
you
cold, now?” my little girl asks solicitously.

“I’m okay. We don’t have far to go anymore.”

“Your nails are smushy.”

“I know. Let’s hope Dennis doesn’t notice.”

“It’s okay, Mommy. I don’t think he cares about nail polish.”

“So, little miss fashion coordinator, you have a problem with my dress?”

Zoë wrinkles her nose. “It’s plain.”

I defend my wardrobe selection to a seven-year-old. “It’s simple, not plain. And black is considered very chic.”

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She shakes her head emphatically. “But you look like a grown-up in it.”

“That’s the point. I
am
a grown-up, Zoë. What do you think I am?”

“I don’t like the black dress. You’ll look like Xander’s mommy. Old. You should wear a party dress. Something sparkly.”

I’m past explaining to a little girl with her head full of fairy princesses that something sparkly would be a bit over the top for a quiet dinner at a modestly priced local bistro, followed by a movie, if we can agree on one. Dennis doesn’t want to see a chick flick, despite my defending them as “date movies,” and I refuse to see anything where more footage is devoted to destroying property than to character development.

As soon as we walk in the door, I insist she get out of her damp, smelly yoga clothes and into a hot bath right away.

After lunch, she follows me into my bedroom brandishing her star-tipped wand. “I’m the Fairy Godmother and you’re Cinderella,” she announces, then insists on vetting every single thing I’m going to wear this evening. So, I agree to something more colorful than my original choice, and I also acquiesce to my daughter’s directive to wear a dress—“not pants!” But I found a rip in it, so I had to stitch it up. Then I had to hunt for more-or-less matching accessories, while Zoë, who seems to have tired of playing Carson Kressley, goes into her room to play.

It’s now after six. Dennis is supposed to be here in forty-five minutes. Our reservation is for 7 P.M.

I’m in the process of microwaving something for Zoë’s dinner so that Annabel doesn’t have to feed her, when she wanders into the kitchen. Her face is pale. She’s dripping with sweat.

“Mommy, I don’t feel so good.”

I kneel and hold her, touching my cheek to her forehead.

She’s burning up. I hope she didn’t catch a chill on the way home from yoga this morning. “Let’s go.”

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Leslie Carroll

“Where?”

“To take your temperature. Get into bed. I’ll be right in.” No need to panic—yet, I tell myself.

She’s running a 102-degree fever.

Now
panic.

It’s six fifteen. I give her a spoonful of ElixSure, tuck her in, and call Annabel. She lives only a couple of blocks away, so she wouldn’t have left her house yet. “Zoë’s just come down with something,” I tell her. “So, obviously, since I’m not going anywhere tonight, I’ll have to cancel.” Annabel is very sweet about it. She sounds neither relieved nor put out by this news, which makes me feel confident that I can call on her again to request her baby-sitting services.

Oh, God, Dennis will be here any minute. I try to reach him, realizing that by now he’s left his apartment. I leave a regretful message on his answering machine, explaining the situation. I don’t know why I did. He’s in transit anyway. I call his cell phone, and get the voice mail feature. He’s probably down in the subway.

I cancel the dinner reservation, then unzip my dress and toss on a pair of jeans and a shirt. No point in staying all gussied up, particularly since Zoë can’t “decide” whether or not she “needs”

to throw up.

Six thirty.

“Do you want me to fix you some soup, or do you want to go back to sleep?” I ask Zoë. “ You should be able to keep down the broth.” She hasn’t eaten anything since lunch.

“Orange sherbet.”

“I don’t think we have any, sweetie. Do you have a second choice?”

“Orange sherbet,” she repeats, her voice at once stubborn, tired, and forlorn.

At 6:44, the doorman buzzes my apartment to see if he should send up Mr. McIntyre. Zoë and I spend the next thirty PLAY DATES

263

seconds arguing on whether she should go back to bed (my idea), or (hers) cling to my waist and greet Fireman Dennis at the front door. She gives her best imitation of some suction-cupped sea creature and I am unable to extricate her limbs from my person before the doorbell rings.

I swear to God, my heart really is fluttering. I’m excited that there are only a couple of inches of painted steel between us, yet I can’t remember if I’ve ever felt so nervous. I unlock the door. Dennis is dressed very nicely in slacks, polo shirt, and sportcoat, accessorized with a pretty bouquet. He assesses my outfit and his face falls a bit.

“I’m sorry . . .” I begin. I look down at my daughter. “Zoë developed a high fever.”

“Hi, Fireman Dennis!”

“Zoë, go back to bed now. You said hello. Mommy will be in, in a few minutes.”

Reluctantly, she shuffles off toward her room.

“Feel better, Zoë,” Dennis calls after her.

It’s so awkward. He’s standing there, sort of one foot over the threshold. “Please, come inside,” I offer. “I . . . um . . . I was dressed better than this a few minutes ago. You’ll just have to believe me.” Nervously, I rake my hand through my hair and Dennis presents me with the bouquet. I thank him, admire them, then inhale. Where did he find blossoms in New York City that are so fragrant? “Listen . . . I’m so sorry. I was really looking forward to this. But when she’s running a fever . . . obviously, I can’t leave Zoë with a new sitter—with any sitter—just to go out and have fun. I don’t feel right about that kind of thing. I’m sure there are mothers who do it, but I’m afraid I’m not one of them.”

“Hey, there’s nothing to apologize for,” Dennis says. “I don’t know if . . . I don’t know how you feel about this, and it’s fine if you send me right home, and we’ll just do this another time . . . but, would you mind terribly if I stayed for a little while? Before I get back on the subway? I could go out and get

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a pizza or pick up some Chinese food, or we could order in . . . ?” He leaves the proposal hanging.

“Just a minute,” I say, I holding up my index finger. I go into Zoë’s bedroom and ask her how she feels about my reconfig-ured date. She thinks it’s a fine idea—on two conditions. I return to the foyer where Dennis stands expectantly waiting.

I greet him with a smile. “For the price of one bedtime story of modest length with no skipping pages, and a pint of orange sherbet—not to be confused with sorbet, ice cream, gelato, or frozen yogurt—you’ve got yourself a date.”

“I’ll be back within a half hour,” he says. “And as long as I’m taking a field trip, what’s your preference—Chinese or pizza?” I present him with the take-out menus from the best local places.

It takes us longer to agree on what to eat for dinner than it probably will take for the restaurant to cook it. I’m not too crazy about pepperoni; he doesn’t eat mushrooms. He loves Hunan and Szechuan—the hotter the better; I prefer the milder Can-tonese and Mandarin dishes. And we know that our taste in movies diverges radically. It’s our first date without a crowd around and already we’re a Cole Porter song. If Dennis weren’t so handsome, kind, and charming, I’d be singing “Let’s call the whole thing off.”

“Half pepperoni and sausage, half mushroom,” he says, thrusting the hot, flat pizza box into my hands. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to keep the sherbet from melting while I carried this?”

“You poor baby,” I tsk-tsk.

“Not to mention how difficult it is to find
sherbet
in this neighborhood!” He hands me a bag containing the sherbet and some Coke.

“I didn’t send you off to capture the Golden Fleece, you know!”

“Okay, okay, you can stop giving me grief,” he says good-PLAY DATES

265

naturedly. He points to the pizza. “You might want to keep that in the oven—but take it out of the box—”

“Duh!”

“—while we take care of the sherbet and bedtime story issue,” he adds, cheerfully ignoring my editorial comment.

I follow his suggestion and spoon out some sherbet while he watches me, leaning against the kitchen counter like he’s as familiar with my apartment as any of my old friends—who I haven’t exactly had time to see in months, so maybe that’s a bad analogy. “Did I tell you about the time Zoë spent nearly a month refusing to eat any food that wasn’t orange?” I say, freez-ing the sherbet container.

He nods. “I would venture a guess . . . that in all the time we’ve spent on the phone with one another, I’ve probably received a play-by-play account of her life ever since your obste-trician smacked her on the butt.” I can tell he’s teasing.

Although it’s true that over the course of all our phone calls and e-mails, we’ve pretty much gotten full biographical histories of each other and every close relative. I’ve stopped him, though, whenever he invokes the name of an old girlfriend. I don’t understand why guys don’t think it’s a big deal to mention old girlfriend stuff to the woman they’re currently with.

Are there really women out there who aren’t bothered by this?

Because I sure as heck am, and I don’t know any of my female friends who aren’t.

And the guys are always, like, “Well, I’m with
you
now.” They don’t get it. They claim not to be bothered when an old boyfriend or ex-husband thing comes up. I don’t get
that
. I try to keep the ghosts out of the room, unless there’s a real reason for summoning them. Like telling Dennis why Scott and I got divorced.

“You’re like my sister that way,” he said, the first time I
unh-unh-ed
him from discussing the time he was on vacation with one of his exes.

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Leslie Carroll

“Which sister? The beauty queen or the paralegal?”

“Megan. The beauty queen. And she was Miss Teen New York State, so I don’t know how much that counts.”

“Of course it counts! What, she has to be Miss Universe and appear in a pageant in Singapore or something, and not Sche-nectady, for it to count with you?”

We do tease each other a lot, Dennis and I. When we fall back into our familiar banter in my kitchen, I feel less nervous somehow about the fact that he’s actually here, in the really appealing flesh. That this evening we’re able, for the first time, to do a whole lot more than listen to each other’s voice or tap away on a keyboard.

“Let’s go, Mr. Lifesaver,” I say, leading the way to Zoë’s bedroom.

“Here you are,” I say, placing the tray on her lap. She’s sitting up in bed, reading one of her kid-craft type magazines. “Can we do this for St. Patrick’s Day?” she asks, pointing to a page.

“Do what, sweetheart?”

“Make those cupcakes. And I could bring them to school like I did with the heart cookies on Valentine’s Day. We’re supposed to bring something Irish to school on March seventeenth.”

I look at the page she’s referring to. It’s a recipe and decorat-ing directions for leprechaun cupcakes, a complicated design.

They’re actually ice-cream-cone cupcakes, with the flat-bottomed cones tinted green, forming the leprechauns’ hats.

“I’ll think about it, okay? We’ve still got a few days to go.

Let’s tackle one thing at a time. How are you feeling?”

“Yucky.” She pulls a book from the folds of her bedclothes.

“Can you read me two chapters from this, please?” she says sweetly, thrusting the book at Dennis.

“
Charlotte’s Web
. That’s pretty grown-up stuff, isn’t it?” he asks her.

My reaction is somewhere between a snicker and a chuckle.

“You’d be surprised what kids her age are reading these days.

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Believe me. Welcome to the world of fast-track grammar schoolers.”

“Hey! I
am
an uncle, you know! I don’t think my nieces and nephews read such advanced stuff at Zoë’s age, though.” Dennis leans in to whisper to me. “However . . . if I recall correctly, this book has a really sad
e—n—d—i—n—g
.”