Trophy Life

by Lea Geller

  At first, I bought some homeopathic teething remedy I’d heard about in baby group. My God, baby group felt like a lifetime ago. Grace easily took the small, sugary tablets, but they did nothing for her pain. I could have sworn they made the nights longer, and when I finally got around to reading the ingredients and saw caffeine listed among them, I threw out the rest of the package.

  The night before Thanksgiving was particularly bad. Something else had to be going on—there was no way this was the work of a tooth. We spent most of the night awake, both of us screaming in agony, and after I’d given her a morning bottle and sucked down my own pitcher of coffee, I called the pediatrician. Because of the holiday, the office was only open for a couple of hours in the morning. I made an appointment for 8:30 a.m. and bundled us both up before we headed out.

  Stacey stuck her head out of her door as Grace and I emerged.

  “You OK?” she asked. “I heard a lot of crying last night. I would’ve come over, but I didn’t want to intrude.” Jeez. At some point, I was going to have to have dinner with Stacey Figg and get her off my back, but now was not the time.

  “I don’t know. It may just be teething, but I can’t do another night like that. I made an appointment with the pediatrician, and I don’t wanna be late.” I left before Stacey had the chance to ask any more questions.

  On frigid November mornings like this, I was glad for the lack of space in New York City. Things were close enough that I could be at the pediatrician’s office in less than fifteen minutes. I was still too afraid to drive here, let alone park, so we moved quickly through the streets on foot. I felt powerful when we walked like this. It felt remarkable to be able to get your child somewhere just using your own two feet. We walked up and down the hills of Riverdale, past a smattering of old, stately homes, nondescript row houses, and block after block of storefronts.

  Dr. Reilly quickly diagnosed Grace with an ear infection—her very first. I quieted my inner voice, which told me that this would never have happened if she weren’t in day care, and gladly accepted the prescription for antibiotics. Another dubious milestone.

  The pharmacy was a block away. If I had thought the sad supermarket was grim, I was not at all prepared for the pharmacy. I walked through the front door, dragging the stroller backward over the threshold, and was greeted by a blast of hot air. I tore open my jacket and froze as a large black cat ran in behind me and took refuge in the deodorant aisle. The store was tiny—I could see the whole place from where I stood. I grabbed a bottle of baby painkiller (the last one), wiped off the layer of dust, and walked back to the pharmacy. I heard Jack tell me to check if the painkiller had any dye in it. I told Jack to quiet down.

  I stood in line behind six people, none of whom were filling prescriptions and all of whom were buying lottery tickets. Grace was crying again. I poured some purple painkiller down her throat, dripping half of it on her coat. The pharmacist motioned for me to come forward. I cut the line, annoying the string of future lottery winners.

  “Can I help you?” the pharmacist asked, while chewing what seemed like an entire pack of gum.

  “Can you please fill this?” I handed her Grace’s prescription. “Right now, while I wait?”

  The pharmacist looked down at the prescription and tapped her nails on it. Each nail was a different shade of turquoise, with a mermaid decal on each ring finger. She nodded and continued tapping on the counter. “Sheila,” she called, looking back.

  “Yeah?” came a voice from the pharmacy.

  “You free?” asked the hair and nails.

  “Shuwa,” replied the voice.

  “Huh?” I said, not meaning to say it aloud.

  “She said sure,” explained the hair and nails, smiling at me. “Give us five minutes, OK?”

  I nodded and took Grace to the front of the store. We sat on a dusty folding chair in front of the heating vent. Every time the door opened (it seemed lottery tickets were popular this morning), a gust of freezing wind hit us and provided a few seconds of relief from the blasting heat that was coming from behind the chair. I was about to take off my sweater when a voice from the pharmacy called my name.

  I grabbed the antibiotics and gave Grace the first dose in the store. Then we got out as soon as we could and made our way home. Once we were safely installed on the brown couch, I texted Beeks.

  Grace has an ear infection. Have to cancel. Sorry xxxx

  Seconds later she replied.

  Like hell you do. Ear infection? Please. Text me when you have Ebola.

  I had been foolish to think that an ear infection would scare off Beeks, and it certainly wasn’t going to get me out of Thanksgiving dinner. I wanted to see Beeks and her kids. But I wasn’t quite ready for Brian, who possibly liked Jack even less than Beeks did. Plus, Brian’s sister Lindsey and her family would be there as well. If I wasn’t ready for Brian, I most definitely wasn’t ready for Lindsey, the recipient of all his family’s less fortunate genes.

  I also wasn’t ready to spend Thanksgiving without Jack. I had no idea how much he’d spent on the organic, grass-fed, free-roaming turkey he’d ordered each year for Sondra to prepare, but I was sure I wouldn’t be eating one at Beeks’s house. But it wasn’t Jack’s turkey that I was missing. I missed the feeling of sitting down to a meal with him and not needing anyone else at the table. I kept staring at my phone, waiting for a text or another call. A few hours later, after I’d given Grace another dose of medicine, the two of us boarded the subway for a long, slow ride down to Beeks’s Upper West Side apartment. We’d been on the subway a couple of times before, but this time it was emptier and Grace and I practically had a whole row to ourselves. I wiped down our seats with the sleeve of my coat before we sat. Grace sat up in her seat and leaned into me. She was sleepy—we both were. As the train rocked and swayed, so did Grace. Before I knew it, her head dropped to its side and rested on me. Asleep. Not just a catnap on my chest or in a sling, or even the stroller. But a real sleep, a sleep that lasted all the way to our stop—a full forty-five minutes.

  There were moments like this that caught me by surprise. Moments when it was just the two of us out in the world. Grace and I were on the subway, making our way down into Manhattan, the rhythm of the city rocking her, her soft little body pressed into mine. These were not moments I had expected, and when they came, when it hit me that we could do things like this—treat an ear infection, ride the subway—I was knocked backward. In those moments, I was reminded not only of how alone we were, but also of how all right we were, and how much I could actually do for Grace. I could take this cosseted, previously overnannied baby on the subway and she would be fine. These moments were not frequent, at least not yet. But they were mine, and I was happy for them.

  Needless to say, I was feeling pretty confident when I climbed the stairs to Beeks’s cramped prewar walk-up apartment, glad that I’d remembered to leave the stroller at home. Before we walked in, my phone buzzed with an incoming call. My hands were full, but I managed to pull it out of my coat pocket.

  “Jack?” I asked, without even looking to see where the call was from.

  “Happy Thanksgiving, darling.”

  “Happy Thanksgiving,” I whispered, leaning against Beeks’s door.

  “Why are you whispering?” he asked.

  “Oh, I’m outside Beeks’s apartment. She says the walls are paper-thin.”

  “Beeks?” he asked. “You’re there?”

  “I’m spending Thanksgiving with Beeks and Brian.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh?” I said, sounding more hostile than I wanted to. I corrected my tone. “Jack, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I’m just alone right now, and I thought you would be, too.”

  “Jack, I am always alone. All I am is alone.” I realized I had no idea where he was. I had so many questions for him, but the last thing I wanted to do was scare him off the phone. “Are you here? Do you want to spend Thanksgiving with me? Just say the word, and I’ll tell Beeks I
can’t come. It’s not too late.”

  “It’s too late. Besides, I can’t, Aggie, not yet,” he said.

  “OK, then let’s just talk,” I said. “I don’t have to go in now.” I heard the desperation in my voice. “I can stay out here for as long as you want.”

  “It’s fine,” he said. “Enjoy your meal.”

  “Jack, please don’t be upset.”

  “I told you, it’s fine,” he said, sounding not fine. “Go. Enjoy. Happy Thanksgiving.”

  Jack had screwed up, disappeared, sent me to New York, and for the first time since we’d met, he’d forced me to have Thanksgiving without him because he wasn’t yet ready to see me, whatever that meant. He had done all this. So why did I feel so guilty?

  -23-

  When Grace and I walked into her apartment, Beeks was already hiding in her tiny kitchen with a large glass of deep-red wine. She pulled us in before any of the other guests could see us.

  “Please,” she begged. “Let me have you to myself for a moment before she descends on us.”

  “Lindsey?” I asked.

  “Ugh. Who else?” moaned Beeks.

  “How bad is it?” I asked, peeling off the baby carrier and carrying Grace on my hip while I took off our coats. At some point Beeks took notice of my acrobatics and swept Grace up into her arms while I disrobed. She buried her face in the folds of Grace’s neck.

  “This is just what I need,” she said in a muffled voice.

  “Not so fast,” said Brian, who walked into the kitchen and put his hand on my shoulder. “If you let her hold a baby for too long, she’ll ask for more.”

  “Too late,” said a muffled Beeks from underneath Grace’s neck.

  “You forget,” said Brian, taking our coats with one hand and pouring me some wine with the other, “that our babies grow into messy, disobedient toddlers of the male variety.”

  “So true,” said Beeks, emerging. “Still, it’s hard to hold a baby and not want one.”

  “Speak for yourself,” said another voice. I turned to see Lindsey walking into the kitchen. “What? I can’t have wine? You guys are hiding it all in here?”

  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is Lindsey in a nutshell. Lindsey is healthy. Lindsey has three children and a husband and a nice apartment in the city. From what Beeks tells me, that apartment is full of nice things. I think Lindsey may even have a trainer. But Lindsey never has what she really wants, and what Lindsey really wants is whatever someone else has. At that moment it was wine, and if she didn’t have a glass when other people did, it was because we had intentionally kept it from her.

  “Seriously?” she asked. “What does a girl have to do to get some wine around here?” She shoved an empty glass under Brian’s chin. Oh, another thing Lindsey does not have—social graces. “Hey, Agnes,” she said. “Guess Jack is a no-show, then?” She chugged the newly poured wine and handed Brian her glass. “Refill,” she ordered, stifling a burp.

  I looked at Lindsey. She was thinner than I remembered, and she looked more tired. Her hair was a light brown, streaked with highlights, and she wore it long—too long. She continually ran her fingers through it, maybe a nervous habit. As for her other features, I could never really describe them because Lindsey’s predominant physical feature was anger—she wore it permanently and with gusto. I was about to answer her question when Beeks, still holding Grace, chimed in.

  “Yup, no Jack tonight. We get Aggie and Grace all to ourselves,” she said and then pushed us all out of the kitchen, turning to give me a grimace. “Let’s move to the table and get this started.”

  Beeks’s five-year-old twins, Kyle and Alec, and her three-year-old, Jimmy, sat under the table and were holding down Pesto, the family cat. Lindsey’s three children—a boy and two girls—and her very quiet husband were all huddled around various handheld devices in the den, which lay off to the side of the dining room.

  “It would be easy for me to judge,” whispered Beeks. “But if I had to live with Lindsey, I think I’d be permanently glued to my phone, too.” We sat next to each other at the table, and I put Grace down on the floor so she could have a front-row seat to whatever was happening to the poor cat. Stevie, Beeks’s thirteen-year-old stepson, walked in, grunted, and took a seat at the table.

  We managed to avoid talking about Jack for most of the meal. This was mostly because Lindsey, draining glass after glass of wine, dominated the conversation. I heard about her son, who had made it to the finals of a chess tournament (“very tough, lots of competition”), her youngest daughter, who was a semifinalist in the citywide geography bee (“She was robbed. The parochial schools cheat like hell”), and her middle daughter, who didn’t seem to have any accolades of which to brag and whose main talent appeared to be rolling her eyes and picking at her food.

  After she had finished ritually bragging about her own children, she moved on to grilling Beeks. Beeks maintained that between all four of her kids, the accomplishments were too few to name, but I knew better. Downplaying things was Beeks’s thing, and it was how she managed to be in the same room with Lindsey without strangling her.

  At some point Lindsey turned her drunken sights on me. “Your hair,” she said. “I don’t remember it being so dark.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Trying something new.”

  “What’s the estranged husband gonna say when he sees you’ve let yourself go like this?”

  “Who?” I asked, instinctively putting my hands to my hair. I’d heard Lindsey, but I couldn’t believe I’d heard her.

  “Your sugar daddy? The guy who has disappeared with all your money? The reason you had to move east to teach frickin’ middle school to rich kids in the Bronx?”

  I moved my mouth but could say nothing at all. I just stared. I didn’t know what Beeks was doing, because I couldn’t look at Beeks. I didn’t know if she’d told Lindsey everything, but she had laid me bare at that table with the one person who could not resist shaming me. If Lindsey could read the panic on my face, she didn’t let on. She kept going.

  “What’s he gonna say when he sees that his hot Santa Monica trophy wife looks like a librarian from Queens?” She drank some more wine and said, “I mean, to think there was a time when you were the hottest one in the room. To think you were thinner and blonder than me.”

  “Lindsey!” Beeks finally snapped from across the table.

  “What?” Lindsey said, looking around for support.

  “Frank,” Beeks said to Lindsey’s silent husband, who sat at the head of the table with his head down, wincing like a terminally shy student, begging not to be called on. “Do something about your wife. Please.”

  Frank did not raise his head. He would not be called on. Lindsey was on her own, and so, then, were we.

  “Brian!” yelled Beeks. “Do something about your sister.”

  “Lindsey,” he began, but she cut him off.

  “Oh, please, Brian.” Lindsey snorted. “The only person who ever liked that husband of hers is Agnes. Don’t pretend you didn’t think he was a complete tool. You too, Beeks,” she said, looking at a horrified Beeks. “You guys hated him. Right from the beginning. Don’t pretend you’re sad he’s not here. Hell, she wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t left her. From what you told me, Agnes didn’t jump until he told her to. No way in hell she’d be slumming here if Jack hadn’t gone AWOL with all their money.”

  I knew Beeks didn’t like Jack. I knew Brian didn’t like Jack. I knew nobody really liked Jack. But I always thought Beeks loved me enough not to talk about Jack, least of all to Lindsey, the least discreet, most uncouth person we knew, and I never imagined, not for a minute, that Beeks would betray me to her like this.

  Just then, Kyle, who had given up on the cat and joined us at the table, grabbed a spoon of mashed potatoes and flung them right at Lindsey. Before she knew what was coming, her face was covered in creamy white mash. The other boys hooted and hollered their approval. Alec stood up and spat his water out at Kyle, who knocked over a glas
s of wine. Jimmy banged on the table in support. Lindsey jumped up, screaming, wiping the potatoes out of her eyes.

  “Jesus, Brian! Get ahold of your kids, will you?” she barked, running into the bathroom. The cat followed. More potatoes followed the cat.

  I was not there when Lindsey emerged all cleaned up, because as soon as I could, I got myself and Grace out of that apartment. I couldn’t look at Beeks. She tried to stand between me and the door, but I pushed past her.

  “Aggie, please,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  I wanted so much for her to stand up at that meal and tell everyone that Lindsey was making it all up, that she’d never discussed me or Jack with her. But she couldn’t, and I couldn’t be in that apartment a moment longer.

  -24-

  Beeks’s betrayal left me with no choice: I broke down and had dinner with the Figg.

  In the days that followed Thanksgiving, I moved in a fog. I was avoiding Beeks and calling and texting Jack’s blocked number with reckless abandon. One night, when Grace was already asleep and I’d spent half an hour crying and yelling at Jack’s unresponsive voice mail lady, Stacey Figg knocked on the door. I thought back to my first days here, when a knock on the door would send me into a full panic. I was so miserable now, I might not have noticed or minded if a serial killer had shown up at the door. I was so focused on my own misery that I might even invite the killer for a glass of dusty wine.