Play Dates (6 page)

As we head across Mott Street, I catch a whiff of something

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Leslie Carroll

delicious that smells like frying dumplings, become immediately hungry, and ask when we’ll hit the first tasting stop, whereupon Charles leads us to a tiny shop on the one-block-only incline that is Mosco Street. The Fried Dumpling House, fittingly, sells only fried dumplings. The shop is smaller than my bathroom. Mia looks at the place and quips, “You’d have to leave the store to change your mind.”

As our tour progresses and we are treated to more of the native tastes, sights, and smells of one of the city’s oldest and most exotic neighborhoods, I become increasingly impressed with Happy Chef’s range of knowledge of the area, its history, and its culinary treats. As I say goodbye to everyone, needing to skip the end of the tour so I can get up to Thackeray on time, I tell Gayle that this is the polar opposite of yesterday’s tour with Mason-Dixon Barbie.

“You shoulda heard Claire,” Gayle crows to Charles, stretch-ing my name into a sizeable diphthong. “She kept correcting the tour guide. She really knows her stuff!”

Mia corroborates Gayle’s testimonial. “Add this to your ‘what I do well’ list, Claire. Why don’t you try to get a job as a tour guide?” she asks me. “You’d be a natural.”

“I’d be happy to coach you,” Charles offers. “So long as you stay out of Chinatown!”

A Happy Memory

by Zoë Marsh Franklin

When I was little, Mommy and Daddy took me to the circus
every year. I was scared of the clowns because they were noisy.

When I was five we got seats right in the front and a clown came
over and honked a horn at me. He made me cry and Daddy
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bought me cotton candy to make it better. Then we were all laughing, Mommy and Daddy and me, because there were other clowns
who weren’t noisy with little dogs dressed up like people and the
dogs were smarter than the clowns and it was silly. And it was so
fun.

And then the man with the elephants came over because, before, he saw I was crying. He had a baby elephant named Lizzie.

The man gave me some peanuts to feed the baby elephant. He
said that elephants have feelings just like people. Like when another elephant dies they get sad. I liked feeding Lizzie so Mommy
and Daddy bought me a whole bag of peanuts and Lizzie ate
them all before the circus started.

The man said if we came to see him after the show was over he
would give us Lizzie’s auto graph. So at the end of the circus
Daddy and Mommy took me back to see the man with the elephants and he gave me a piece of paper with an elephant footprint on it. And he said in case I forgot who the footprint belonged
to, he would write Lizzie on the piece of paper.

I still have the paper with Lizzie’s footprint and her name on
it. That day when we went to the circus was one of the funnest
times I ever had with Daddy and Mommy. Here is a picture that
I drew of all of us with the elephant man and Lizzie and my pink
cotton candy. We are all smiling, even Lizzie.

Chapter 3

OCT OBER

My kid sister has become an inspiration. Her search for a fun yet flexible job has been like a kick in the butt to get my own life in order. Time for me to enter the twenty-first century. They didn’t start up the computer science classes at Thackeray until the year after I graduated, so I never learned that stuff in school. I’m one of those techno-challenged people with a fear of heavy machinery (which is why I don’t drive a car), and a severe distrust of things that can think faster than I can. I do
own
a computer, at least. Typing I can do, e-mail I have mastered, as Claire would say, “to procrastinatory perfection.” And I now prefer it to just about every other means of communication, but for the most part, “software” remains a mystery. It sounds more like the kind of stuff you’d find at a Macy’s semi-annual white sale. Software. Fluffy towels, thirsty terry bathrobes, and sheets with a 400-plus thread count.

I’m a self-taught kind of gal. That’s how I became a professional makeup artist. I liked to play with eye shadow. I hung out at a lot of clubs in my not-so-misspent youth. Over time I formed a network of social connections that led to a lucky break that

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turned into a tidy living. No complaints there. But I’m thinking down the road of marketing my own line of cosmetics, although at this stage in the game, or maybe because I always tend to think visually, I mostly dream of the packaging. It’s a play on words of my name.
Mia
♥
more
makeup. Or maybe I should move the heart.
Mi
♥
amore
. Happy Chef would swear to the fact that I can spend days just trying to figure out which graphic looks better. I guess it depends on whether I want to look self-aggrandizing—or Italian.

I could ask Claire for help, but she’s so swamped with Zoë and stuff that she doesn’t have a minute. So, I’ve started to teach myself Excel, to learn how to make spreadsheets and other things that left-brain types are good at.

Speaking of Italian, I just met a guy on a shoot for a repeat client. I do the makeup for the runway, trunk shows, and print ads for a hot designer named Lucky Sixpence. He—or she—is English, maybe Scottish, I’m never quite sure. Nor am I sure about Lucky Sixpence’s gender. For those who remember the eighties, fondly or otherwise, Boy George is the closest I can come to explaining Lucky Sixpence. Lucky struck it rich creating affordable versions of the latest trends for the calorically challenged, which is about ninety-seven percent of the female population. You have a poochy tummy but want to wear a rhinestone-studded belly tee; your ass—as my Gran used to say—is “six axe handles across”

but you crave a pair of low-rise boot-leg distressed snakeskin jeans; you want to dress like Courtney or Britney, Lucky’s your man—or woman. Lucky prefers to be referred to as “she.”

When I first met Luca and he pointed to his chest to introduce himself, I thought he was saying “Lucky” in his sexy Italian accent. But he calls the designer
Cara Fortuna
—“Lucky Dear”—so the confusion about the name thing was quickly cleared up. I liked his deep-set, sad eyes and three day stubble, the way his hips swayed in opposition to the movement of the spare camera dangling from his neck and the fact that I didn’t understand a PLAY DATES

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damn thing he said (except “boo-dee-fool, bebe, boo-dee-fool”), but it sounded great. Like he was making love nonstop.

He called me
Cara Mia
and I couldn’t resist him, though I admit it didn’t occur to me to try. Luca was the opposite of Hal: Euro-trashy and verbal (though unintelligible). An injection of Italian culture was just what the doctor prescribed. And I’m a big fan of self-medicating.

I sent my assistants home, and was the last to leave Luca’s studio after the shoot. Deliberately, I was taking forever to pack up my stuff, when he touched my arm and said one word to me—

aspetto
. Since his eyes had a pleading look in them, I figured he meant “stay.” Somehow he rigged his lights and filters so we could watch ourselves make love, like we were shadow puppets on the filmy white screens. It was wildly erotic, but now I know why some celebs hate seeing themselves on film. I could stand to lose a pound or two or I’ll be wearing Lucky’s duds before I know it.

We smoked a joint and after some gentle but insistent persuasion (did he not know he was shooting fish in a barrel?) Luca cranked up the stereo—Italian pop superstar Michele Zarrillo—

and convinced me to pose for some photos, using only a filmy scarf as a prop. I pranced, danced, and twirled like Salome near-ing her finale as Luca kept up a stream of chatter. He used the word
bellissima
a lot. I felt like Marilyn Monroe.

And I couldn’t wait to tell Claire about my new conquest.

“You did
what
?” she said. She was all but clucking her tongue.

“Don’t be so fucking judgmental.”

“Do you have to curse?”

Her reaction surprised and disappointed me. Since when is Claire Marsh a prude? “What happened to the kid sister who took as many risks as I do?”

“She had a kid of her own almost seven years ago. Then her husband walked out on her. Risks are a luxury she can’t afford to take.”

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Leslie Carroll

“Risks are a luxury she can’t afford
not
to take.”

Claire didn’t respond to that. She returned to the subject of Luca and the photos. “How do you know what he’s planning to do with them? For all the Italian he was spouting away, he could have told you in chapter and verse exactly where he was going to post them on the Internet. Mia, you were doing soft-core.”

“Oh, please! Art shots. Purely for our mutual amusement. It’s just me in the pictures. And about three feet of blue silk.”

“For a woman on the verge of thirty, you can be appallingly naïve.”

“Hey!”

“
Selectively
naïve, then. You believe what you want to believe.

Particularly when it comes to men.”

“Ouch. Are you sure you’re not really talking about
Claire
, Claire?”

“Double ouch, okay? It’s like you’re a perennial child.”

“And you’re becoming a perennial mother. Claire, listen to yourself. I don’t need ‘stop, wait, don’ts’ from you. Save it for Zoë.” I’d snapped at her, without meaning to, but somehow I’d felt baited. There was a terrible silence from the other end of the line. I didn’t want to apologize. There was nothing to be sorry for.

Not as far as my baby sister was concerned, anyway. “I think . . .”

I said, weighing my words to make sure I sounded kinder about it, “that if you had stuff of your own to focus on, you wouldn’t feel compelled . . . wouldn’t have the time . . . to . . . to meddle.”

“Meddle?” I could hear that Claire was pissed. “You think I’m meddling?”

Okay, so maybe it didn’t come out as kind as I’d meant. “I phoned you to tell you about Luca. To share. Girl stuff. Because you’re my sister, so, silly me, I thought you’d be happy for me—

or at least entertained by my latest guy exploit—as you like to put it.” My words began to pick up steam. “I didn’t ask for your knee-jerk view. Or request a seal of approval from Miss Perfect, former trophy wife. I think you spend so much of your life these days in PLAY DATES

43

conversations with a second grader that you’ve forgotten what it’s like to talk to an adult.”

Cradle phones convey what a cordless never can. I heard a deliberate click and the line went dead.

I made a list of what I think I’m good at. Retail. Design. History of art. Not much call for that one, unless you’ve got a masters or a Ph.D. And I’ve gone on a few job interviews that I arranged around Zoë’s schedule. So far, here are Claire Marsh’s stats: 0 for about 10.

To break it down, Retail: Ralph Lauren and Abercrombie and Fitch liked my “look,” but a five-day week on the sales floor didn’t allow for lea

P

ving before 3 .M. to collect a child from school and I’ve got no one to watch her on weekends. At one store, the personnel manager, like me a woman in her twenties, refused to believe that I actually had a child. It was just beyond her scope of comprehension. She laughed and said that was the first time she’d heard that one. What “one”? I asked her. “The kid excuse,” she said. “Look, I know everyone wants to quit work early so they can get out to the Hamptons before the traffic becomes murder.”

Design: No openings for artists, but I can’t afford to be too selective, so I interviewed to be the receptionist at a computer graphics company, but the same issue raised its six-year-old tousled blonde head. Besides, spending hours on the phone was never my thing, even when I was a teenager. And the computer folks, though they were also my contemporaries in age, were like, from another planet. I thought I’d relate to them, having aced computer science class, but I couldn’t have been more mistaken.

me

They seemed to regard

as the alien, for being a mom,

for living in Manhattan north of 14th Street, and for having clean hair.

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I’m more than a bit desperate. I’ve got maybe three months of savings left. Scott’s always on time with his child support payments, but they don’t cover much. The last thing I want to do is go to the First Bank of Daddy and Mommy. They already help a great deal with Zoë’s Thackeray tuition. And if they hadn’t bought this apartment at the ridiculously low insider price when the building went co-op, and then passed it to Scott and me after we married, Zoë and I would probably be living in a cardboard refrigerator carton on the edge of Central Park. My parents have always been supportive, but it’s more than a matter of my pride to consider them as my court of last resort. I’m supposed to be a grownup with a family of my own. I’m supposed to be able to handle this. But I’m scared.

I’ve never had to be on my own. And with a young child to raise alone.

I take a deep breath. I’m okay, I try to assure myself. I can do this. Except that right now, I’m finding it easier to believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny.

I need a job. The sightseeing-guide idea appeals to me. It could be flexible, and creative—to a point, as long as one sticks to the facts. Plus, I’m proud of my city, and I love meeting new people, which I rarely get the chance to do, anymore.

I engage Charles a.k.a. Happy Chef to coach me on the test, which is supposed to be a real toughie. No Mickey Mouse questions like “Who is the George Washington Bridge named for?”

He hands me a bunch of books on local geography and history, and tells me to start reading
Time Out
to get a finger on the current pulse of the city. With my main focus being Zoë, I’ve been so out of touch that, except for knowing where to schlep a grade schooler with a short attention span—and the locations of the major landmarks that every native New Yorker has encoded into his or her DNA—I haven’t a clue about what’s out there all around me. Bands, galleries, hot spots, anything cultural that’s going on beyond the confines of my neighborhood might PLAY DATES