by Kate Jacobs
He stood awkwardly just in the foyer, taking in the streamlined look of the apartment’s decor, with its white-on-white color scheme, only a few colored throw cushions and some paintings around for punch. Even the furniture itself was sleek and modern, unlike the more elaborate rolled-arm sofas and warm wood pieces his parents had favored at the San Remo. It was like she’d become another person entirely, with different tastes. But still, apparently, the same old friends.
The phone began ringing, and his mother strode briskly across the room to retrieve the handset.
“Anita?” Nathan could hear the voice on the other end of the phone clearly.
“It’s Dakota,” his mother mouthed at him, covering the receiver with her hand even though she wasn’t making any sound.
“What is it, dear?” She waved at Nathan to move into the apartment, make himself at home. At home. Now there was a concept. He’d have to go over a few blocks to the San Remo to do that.
“I’ve been trying to reach you all day!” Dakota was sniffling and talking at light speed. “Lucie asked me to go to Italy with her to be Ginger’s babysitter, Peri got all mad about it but then we were okay, but Dad said no and now he’s mad at me. I don’t know what to do.”
She took a straggly breath, confirming Anita’s suspicions that tears had preceded the call. Over on the sofa, Nathan fiddled with the pieces on the chessboard. Sensing the pause in the conversation, he twisted around in his seat and smiled expectantly at his mother. He wanted to tell her that he’d decided to leave Rhea but he was hesitant. He wanted to tell her he’d had his best financial year ever. He wanted to tell her why he thought getting married was hasty, and why he worried. He wanted her to listen as she used to do when he came home from elementary school and a glass of milk solved all his problems.
“Anita,” said Dakota again, and Nathan watched his mother turn to the phone. “You’ve got to talk to me now. What do I do?”
sixteen
Morning, noon, and night: each moment was a question of how to handle the babies’ needs. What to do? And, miracle of miracles, her mother had a useful suggestion most of the time. Darwin was amazed at how her mom had suddenly gotten so smart.
Betty had been sleeping on the sofa for weeks now. After all, there was no point in her flying back to Seattle when she’d just have to come out for the one-month celebration. Not only that, but Betty took on all of the party planning, and when Dan looked more than somewhat alarmed at the mounting costs, she had graciously offered to help out.
“Not necessary, Mom,” said Darwin. “We can afford whatever our children should have.”
“Ha,” said her mother. “You’re still taking painkillers, apparently. If you had so much extra cash you’d probably live in a house with a guest bedroom for your mother.”
“Well, we can cover the party.”
“What? And raid my grandchildren’s college fund? I wouldn’t hear of it,” said Betty. “You wouldn’t even share your wedding with me but now, now I can do something.”
The party, held in a good Chinatown restaurant, was a nice blend of family—Darwin’s father and sister had flown out, as had Dan’s parents—and friends. Dan’s mother made it very clear she wanted a turn staying at the house to care for Cady and Stanton. All the members of the club were there, as well as Rosie and Dakota’s father and Anita’s son visiting from out of town, and several of Dan’s hospital colleagues. Not to mention the two guests of honor, who put in alternately sleepy and screamy appearances. Still, it was very good, realized Darwin, to get out of the apartment. She’d been cooped up for long enough. And even though she was still wearing her second trimester maternity clothes—her stomach’s poochiness had yet to recede—she’d made a special effort, putting up her long black hair and wearing a dark red lipstick she’d bought at the drugstore for just the occasion. (And while she would do anything for the twins, she paused at the idea of getting a “new mom” do, chopped off at her ears.)
Though after a long period greeting all of the guests, Darwin sneaked over to a corner to catch up with Lucie and snack on the goodies. Breastfeeding may have been a great way to lose weight, according to her multitude of books, but it made her damn hungry all the time.
“So everything’s all set, then?” she asked, biting into a dumpling and chewing thoughtfully. “It’s all ‘When in Rome’ from here on in?”
“Everything’s organized but child care,” said Lucie. “I’ve been given a generous allowance to cover that aspect.”
“Wow,” said Darwin, surprised. “I guess you really are hot.”
Lucie rolled her eyes. “Thanks for the shock,” she said. “So now I’m just holding my breath to see if Dakota can make it. I know there’s the shop and all that, but Catherine is confident things will work out. She’s psyched about the idea of Dakota being in Italy.”
“They’re pretty close, those two,” said Darwin, who had heard quite a lot about Lucie’s frustration with the fact that her summer adventure seemed to be getting more crowded all the time. “Catherine could be very useful overseas. I bet she can get all sorts of great tables at restaurants, and there’s no question she’s a great shopper.”
“This new happy you is very disturbing.”
“It’s all chemical,” said Darwin amiably. “At some point, I’ll stop breastfeeding and then I’ll revert to fixing the world and being grumpy in the process.” She nibbled on some fruit. “Besides, I need to save my energies for the big stuff. I’ve been informed that it would be in my best interests, academically speaking, to make sure my maternity leave is productive.”
“Meaning?”
“When male academics go on pat leave, you can be damn sure they’re working on projects. It’s equal-opportunity publish or perish, leaking breasts or not.” Darwin put down her plate. “Speaking of, I’ve got to go empty out and offer refreshments to the guests of honor.”
“Wait for just a second,” said Lucie, grabbing her arm. “I pressed ‘Return.’”
“You Googled Will?”
“So far I’ve found out his phone number, where he lives, his job, and that he has both a Facebook and a MySpace page,” Lucie told Darwin. “According to them, he’s married.”
“Okay, this is a little obsessive,” said Darwin. “Kids?”
“Yeah, and they’re cute,” said Lucie. “Not as cute as Ginger, but they have the same nose, I think. They’re all freckly.”
The two women walked over to a table of Dan’s relatives who’d been hogging the babies all night, and after tearing them away from her mother-in-law, they each picked up a child to take to the bathroom, where Darwin could breastfeed mostly in private.
She waved at Dan, who was animatedly telling a story to his colleagues, before she left the room. He smiled back and gave her a thumbs-up.
“So what are you going to do?” asked Darwin once they’d also dragged in a couple of chairs to the restroom. Babies, chairs, burp cloths, leak pads, water to drink, and water to wipe up the spit-up she was invariably going to get on her clothes. Every task took eighteen steps and half an hour: it was no wonder she never slept.
“It’s not like you can just call him.”
Lucie shrugged.
“Can you?” Darwin threw a blanket over her front and began unbuttoning her blouse. “That’s the kind of call every family loves to get. Luce, are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“No, I have no idea what I’m doing,” she admitted. “But doesn’t Ginger have a right to know her father?”
“I don’t know,” said Darwin. “Whose rights should triumph here? Whose needs are more important? It’s one thing if Will were a deadbeat dad, Lucie, but you and I both know you weren’t exactly looking to make things permanent.”
“What if I’ve changed my mind?”
“Now your hormones are going crazy,” said Darwin. “Look, I’m going to be blunt. You don’t even know anything about this man. All I’m saying is that you should think long and hard before you throw a nucle
ar bomb into his happy family life.”
“Darwin Chiu, you are never predictable, that’s for sure,” said Lucie.
“A while ago you would have told me to find this guy and sue him for paternity.”
“Well,” said Darwin, as she jostled her sleeping child awake so she could finish eating, “people change. Life is just a process to figure out who we are.”
“You’re a philosopher.”
“No,” said Darwin. “Still a feminist historian. But new perspectives can bring us all to greater insight, no?”
Over by the buffet, KC was filling up her plate. Peri and Anita were holding a seat for her at their table, as they chatted with Darwin’s mother. She’d been late, of course. KC was late to everything nowadays, caught in a line to catch a slow elevator on her way up from a smoke break, or getting to her intended destination—a dinner with Peri, the party tonight—and having to spend the first ten minutes standing outside, puffing away. The thing was, she couldn’t even explain it. Like a lot of women, she’d smoked socially years ago. Back when it still had the vestiges of glamour and sophistication. And then she’d dutifully made a massive effort to give it up and take up Jane Fonda aerobics instead. So what on earth made her try it again? A little stress, a little boredom. The looming specter of menopause.
“Keeping my hands busy,” is what she said whenever a colleague from the legal department saw her doing the chimney act out on the sidewalk. Thing was, her little joke smoke had gotten way out of control. She thought it would make her feel young. It didn’t. The little suckers were exceedingly more expensive than in the olden days, too. No one had forced her. There was no peer-pressure smoking gang among the legal beagles at Churchill Publishing. Just an empty pack and a nagging desire to taste a cigarette again. Would it be as good as she’d remembered? And then there was that old saying that smoking can help you lose weight. (Yeah! By killing you!) Still, KC was curious, especially as she’d felt her clothes beginning to get a bit tighter as she went into menopause. That had always been her downfall—her mother always said so: she just had to know when she might have been better off to just leave well enough alone. No doubt that’s what led her into marriage number two. And yet it was that same drive that got her to law school and to her new career. Well, that and Peri’s LSAT tutoring.
She returned to the table with a plate full of noodles and prawns.
“How can you eat all of that?” asked Peri.
“Easy,” said KC. “Just watch me.”
“You must be one of those women who can eat anything they want and it never shows,” said a tall, distinguished-looking man in a dark suit. He reached out his hand. “Nathan Lowenstein. I brought my mother, Anita.”
“KC Silverman. Not easily impressed by fake compliments.” She turned back to her food, though she nodded as Catherine joined them at the table. “And can’t Anita bring herself? And what about Marty?”
“Hi, Catherine,” said Peri, nudging KC under the table so she’d stop being so rude. KC ignored her.
Nathan half rose from the table, no longer paying any attention to KC as he watched the lithe blond woman approach the table. Catherine was wearing a black sleeveless mock turtle in a light stretch fabric over a pencil skirt; her open-toed shoes revealed nails painted a deep orange.
“Nathan,” he said. “And if you are Catherine, then you must be our house sitter at the San Remo.”
Catherine inclined her head. “Yes, indeed.”
“Well, thank you,” he said. “You’ve been a big help, looking after things.”
“It’s a beautiful apartment,” said Catherine. “The views over Central Park are stunning.”
“I’d love to come by and see the place,” he said.
“Sure thing,” said Catherine. “Just call. I can make sure to do some errands and let you have some privacy.” The phone in her tiny handbag began beeping: It had to be Dakota. “Excuse me,” she said, gliding across the room to her young friend.
“You don’t have to text me when we’re in the same room,” said Catherine.
“Uh, whatever,” said Dakota. “I thought you were going to talk to my dad.”
“Well, I did want to visit with a few people,” insisted Catherine. But, seeing Dakota’s earnest expression, she relented. “Why don’t I peel him away from chatting with Marty?”
“Hey, don’t James and Catherine seem to be pretty intense over there?” said KC, wiping her chin as she continued to tuck in vigorously to her food. “It may not be any of my business, but there sure seems to be something between those two.”
Lucie had come over to sit down at the table, having helped Darwin return to the party and hand off the babies to Dan so he could show them off for a while. She and Peri swiveled their heads at KC’s words, seeing immediately how close Catherine was sitting to James, the way she leaned in as though she needed to be closer in order to hear.
“She’s kind of a pro,” commented Peri dryly. “Men just lap her up.”
“Cat and James?” said Lucie. “It seems farfetched. It’s not as though he can only date women who hang out at Walker and Daughter.”
Just then Dakota ambled on over to the table.
“Hi guys,” she said, accustomed to joining in on whatever was the topic du jour. “What are you talking about?” The women always spoke freely in front of her and she found their candor amusing (as when Peri detailed the really, really bad first dates she’d had) and occasionally gross (such as when KC described her night sweats and hot flashes in great detail).
KC looked up in the middle of a beef rib. She was quiet for just a second too long. “Nothing,” she croaked. Damn, she thought, listening to her voice. She was even sounding like a smoker, throaty and hard-livin’. “We can’t even remember what we were just saying.”
Across the room, Catherine and James were having an intense discussion, oblivious of the other partygoers around them.
James had filled Catherine in on the background of his disagreement with Dakota, and Catherine—wisely, she thought—pretended that she hadn’t heard the entire story already.
Thing was, James seemed to have definitely made up his mind, and he wasn’t about to let Dakota go with Lucie.
“Oh, my goodness, James,” said Catherine, after hearing his list of reasons. “Surely you don’t believe for even half a second that Lucie Brennan needed child care and thought, ‘Oh yes, Dakota’s black, she’ll do.’”
“You’re not getting it. It’s not about Lucie specifically,” James explained. “It’s about assumption, perception, sense of self. How I want Dakota to see herself.”
“She sees herself as an eighteen-year-old with a difficult father.”
“It’s about a lot more than that,” he said.
“Look, you have a cleaning service, don’t you?” asked Catherine.
“There’s nothing wrong with honest work, whatever it is, and you’re not going to twist me into something I don’t mean. It’s not about being better than somebody who cleans or babysits for a living,” said James. “I wouldn’t disrespect someone in that manner. But the truth is, Dakota is a young black woman, and I don’t think she understands how people can judge.”
“So call her something else, then,” said Catherine. “Lucie’s personal assistant. Maybe she can do a little bit more, answer e-mails or something. Make it more intern-y.”
“That might be a start,” said James. “But then there’d still be the issue of her being in Italy and me not being around if something went wrong. I’ve never left her side, not once in all these years.”
“You’re a good dad,” agreed Catherine. “Bossy and opinionated. But well-meaning.”
“This whole thing has just created problems all around. Anita even came down to have lunch with me near my office.”
“That’s serious.”
“Look, I respect and care about Anita Lowenstein as much as anyone,” said James, pushing away the air in front of him in a gesture of conviction. “She is devoted to my daugh
ter. But at the end of the day, I am Dakota’s father. I’m not co-parenting her with the members of the Friday Night Knitting Club.”
“Yeah, but Anita was there for a long time when you were not, my friend,” said Catherine. Their secret, shared dinners had provided them with a framework to speak to each other plainly and honestly, which served them well.
“No need to remind me what I regret every day,” said James. “But that doesn’t change my point.”
“For the record, James, and I hope you’re not going to be angry with me, but I suggested Lucie think of Dakota,” said Catherine, who noticed her friend’s frown. “Let me finish. I know how much she loves to travel. And besides, there’s something else. I wanted to get Dakota out of town before she did anything . . . rash. You see, there’s a boy.”
“You want Dakota to nanny for Lucie because you’re afraid she’s going to date?” Even as James asked the question, he was secretly pleased to see he wasn’t the only one alarmed by the idea of Dakota’s fumbling steps into adulthood.
“I know, I know,” said Catherine. “What sort of craziness is this coming from me? Well, there’s a big difference between a forty-something divorcée enjoying the body God and his surgeons gave her and a college freshman getting in over her head.”
“Are you saying that Dakota is having sex?” James’s eyes were huge and he swallowed several times in a row.
“No,” said Catherine, reaching over to pat his hand. “What I’m saying is that she believes she’s in love. And rather than let her live her life, I’m advocating interference. In the least obvious way possible: a trip to Italy.”
“I still don’t want her to be a nanny,” said James.
“Well, it’s just a summer job,” said Catherine. “Last I heard she was still plotting how to become a baker.”
“Don’t get me started on those damn muffins,” said James. “But this boy information is good to know. Why have you been holding out on me?”
