Eliza Starts a Rumor

by Jane L. Rosen

  Alison

  When Alison envisioned her life with a baby she didn’t take into account the amount of napping it would involve. All the activities she’d pictured herself enjoying while Zach was sleeping—reading for pleasure, binge-watching the water-cooler shows, completing the New York Times crossword puzzles—morphed into one thing: the jumping-off point for a nap. She woke up from her morning siesta itching to go out for a walk.

  Alison made sure to get out of the house every day, even though she loved her time in her new home. The smell—pine infused with new baby—calmed her as if a yogi had placed a drop of lavender oil on her forehead at the start of a meditation class. Not that she’d ever attended such a class. She laughed at the possibility—the Iron Lady turned yogini—and opened up her computer. It sounded like a perfect question for that ladies’ bulletin board. Although asking, “Can anyone recommend a meditation class?” made her feel like she was misrepresenting herself. Or was she? She didn’t even know who she was anymore.

  Once online, she got caught up in the tampon post. There were now eighty comments. Some were tolerant of the question, but most women were responding with such outrage you would have thought that the mom had inquired about female circumcision. At least that was Alison’s take. She would have hoped, especially as a single mother, that a woman asking a parenting question would have been treated with more empathy. She typed in a response saying just that, but as she read it over, reminding herself that she was a new person in an old town, she chickened out.

  Alison Le, wallflower?

  She decided to reach out to the mom privately. She clicked on her name, Jackie Campbell, and messaged her:

  Hi Jackie. I’m new in town. I’m just reaching out to you privately to say I’m sorry you were lambasted for your post on the Hudson Valley Ladies’ Bulletin Board. I would have hoped a woman asking a parenting question would have been treated with more respect and understanding. I wanted you to know you have my support.

  She pressed Send and went back to scrolling through old posts looking for one on yoga or meditation classes. The tampon uprising intimidated her from asking the question without searching first. She got stuck in the even juicier thread regarding a woman’s infidelity.

  Her computer dinged as a message from Jackie Campbell appeared.

  WTF! Can you believe these women? I mean, ask a simple question!?!

  Ha, Alison thought, a girl after my own heart. She responded with a similar vernacular:

  It was a real shitshow! They were acting like you were advocating overturning Roe v. Wade.

  I know, what a bloody mess, right?

  Ha! At least you have a sense of humor about it. What did you end up doing?

  I gave her the tampons. After that beating I almost threw in some condoms too.

  Was it after you read the comment, “My mother told me not to put anything up there until after I was married, so I rebelled and had a baby at 16”?

  You got it!

  So funny—to the single mother of an infant at least. I don’t envy you having a teenage daughter.

  Alison thought back to how hard the teenage years had been for her and her own mother. It was the only time they really butted heads. Bringing up a teenage girl in a totally different world from the one she had grown up in could not have been easy for her mom. Alison knew better than to even ask for tampons. She bought them on her own and kept them out of sight.

  Is your baby a boy or girl?

  A boy. Zachary Michael. Four months tomorrow. What about you?

  It’s just my daughter, Jana, and me.

  Well, nice to virtually meet you, Jackie.

  You too, Alison. Thanks for reaching out. And if there’s anything I can help you with, I’m a single parent too and I know it can be hard going it alone.

  It’s OK. I guess if offered the chance, I would gladly hand him over and go pee or something, but I don’t know any differently.

  Well, if you ever have any questions, feel free.

  Actually, I’m looking to try a yoga or meditation class if you know of any.

  I don’t, but there is a place in town, Café Karma Sutra. The people in there know all that hippy dippy stuff.

  I am so not hippy dippy, but I thought I’d give it a try. Now that I’m on maternity leave, I may be at a place where I can find some kind of inner peace. Before, forget about it. There’s no way I could calm my brain down enough.

  What do you do?

  I’m a criminal defense attorney.

  No wonder! Sounds intense.

  Do you work outside the home?

  Alison had trained herself to ask that question that way when speaking to other women. She was adept at reading people, but you didn’t have to be a litigator to see that when you asked most stay-at-home moms what they did, it threw them. Their reactions made Alison laugh now that she was in the position of taking care of a baby 24-7. Most days at the office seemed like a vacation by comparison.

  I’m in finance.

  In the city?

  Yes, but my mom lived with us for 12 years. I don’t know if I could have done both, and lived here, without her—not well at least. Do you have family nearby?

  She typed and quickly erased:

  I don’t have any family, anywhere.

  She never shared this with anyone; she wasn’t about to put it in writing to a stranger.

  It all fed right into the fear and doubt that had been brewing in Alison since she found out she was pregnant. She and Zach were very much alone in the world, family-wise, just as she and her own mother had been. Her mother had died two years earlier of leukemia, and Alison often thought about how different things would be if her mom was here right now. Her mother had met her father when he was stationed in Hanoi as a military attaché at the US embassy a few years after the Vietnam War had ended. She had worked there as a translator. Like she and Marc, they didn’t have a real relationship, even less of one, really, as they were only together a few times before he was transferred home. Upon discovering she was pregnant, and wanting to hide it from her family, she flew to the States to find him and feel out the situation. She waited outside his house only to see him leave with a wife and two small children that she had known nothing about. She walked away and braved it out on her own.

  Alison only met her father once, when she was five years old, and quite by accident. They bumped into him on a line to see Santa at Macy’s Herald Square. She had only the faintest memory of a very tall man in a long wool coat, but for years later, when a random kid asked about her father, she would say he worked in a top-secret toy factory at the North Pole, and that she can’t say anything more about it. It worked every time.

  She sometimes thought about what Zachary would say if he asked about his father, and it made her sad. Alison was, of course, aware that she was traveling down the same path as her mother, but she had no idea how to switch directions—or if she even wanted to.

  Zachary cried from his bedroom as if giving his opinion, though she wasn’t sure what that opinion was. She was aware that she hadn’t answered Jackie’s question, but went with:

  Zach is up. I have to go. Nice chatting with you!

  You too. If you go to Karma Sutra, order a rain forest muffin—they’re wicked good!

  I will!

  I guess I’m joining the muffin cult, she thought, as she ran upstairs to her baby boy.

  CHAPTER 13

  Olivia

  Olivia got Lily to sleep for her afternoon nap with the intention of running a hot bath. She would leave Spencer the monitor so that she wouldn’t have to jump from the tub midway through as she had on previous attempts. She was even contemplating lighting a few candles and cracking open a new book. She began stripping piece by piece on the stairs and entered the bathroom to find Spencer oddly skulking in the corner looking at her phone.

  “What are y
ou doing with my phone again?” she asked, more confused than annoyed. Spencer answered by tossing it to her quite rudely. She barely caught it.

  “What the hell, Spencer?”

  “Well, you come in here spying on me!”

  “I’m not spying on you. I’m here to take a bath. Look, I’m naked,” she said, suddenly feeling it.

  Spencer stormed out before Olivia could get to the bottom of his anger. She had such a short bath window that she decided not to care, at least for now. She turned on the water and sat on the edge of the tub, dabbing her feet in and out to adjust to the temperature. She unlocked her phone. What is with him lately? she thought. And there it was, in black and white, right on her screen:

  Anonymous: He came back again early this morning on a run. He confronted me about my post; his wife must be on this site, too. If you are reading this, I’m sorry. He says you have not had sex in months, and you have an open marriage. I know men say that. I wish I knew if it were true.

  Olivia began to shake before she even understood why. Why was Spencer reading that bulletin board? Why was he so angry about this post?

  She tried to stay calm, but her thoughts were racing. Spencer went for an early run. Is that where he was at six o’clock this morning?

  Her stomach dropped and her mouth went dry. Is this woman talking to me?

  She turned off the bath, stepped out of the bathroom, and pulled on a pair of leggings and a T-shirt. She thought that maybe she should wait to calm down before confronting him, but she was too enraged. She didn’t know if calming down was even an option. She felt like an animal. There must be an explanation. She needed an explanation.

  “You’re imagining things, Olivia,” he’ll say. I will hear his voice, she thought, the one he uses to soothe me. I will hear his denial, and everything will be OK. But she’d never suspected such a betrayal before, and the possibility of it whipped her into a frenzy. She confronted him straight out.

  “What the hell is this, Spencer? Are you having an affair?”

  “What?” he asked, as if she hadn’t said it loud enough, which she definitely had. His non-answer raised her antennae even higher. She repeated the question again, slowly and clearly.

  “Are you having an affair?”

  “Olivia, are you serious?” He looked adequately shocked. “I would never do that. I love you—and Lily—so much. How could you think that?”

  She collapsed onto the couch.

  “I’m sorry. This post—it sounded so much like us. You’re gone every morning and we haven’t had sex in forever.”

  “I always run in the morning. And you just had a baby. I was being respectful.”

  He went to hug her and she held out her hand to stop him. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe him, she just couldn’t breathe and a hug felt like further suffocation. But before she could explain that, his expression changed and he turned on her, nearly shouting in her face, “Hey. I read that post, too. I could—no, I should—ask you the same thing!”

  The sudden shift and the strength of his animosity was jarring. This can’t be happening, she thought. Spencer had a tendency to turn things around in a fight, especially when his back was against a wall. But this was insane, even for him. Olivia mocked the absurdity of it.

  “Yes, Spencer, your beautiful wife with her leaky udders and stretched-out stomach with this ugly dark line that everyone says will go away, but clearly isn’t? Yes, we are all having an affair.”

  “I’m not joking, Olivia. I’m just a few months away from being named CEO of York Cosmetics. You know any impropriety like that could ruin me—could ruin us.”

  His logic brought Olivia some relief. Being CEO meant everything to Spencer, and when she really thought it through, she doubted he would do anything to risk it. An uncle of Spencer’s had had a very public affair about ten years earlier that had almost destroyed the female-focused cosmetic brand. It was a publicity nightmare and stood as a huge cautionary tale to all the members of the York family. Maybe she was inventing this whole thing in her head? Just as she settled on that, he started up again.

  “Did someone come here when I went for my run this morning? Is this why we don’t have sex anymore?”

  Olivia could not believe what she was hearing. Was he seriously gaslighting her? She caught a look at herself in the mirror. Strange red hives had popped up on her face. She felt the air being squeezed from her lungs again. She gasped for more, but it was as if there wasn’t enough in the room to replace it. This whole thing was spinning out of control. She was confused and needed to think it all through clearly, away from him and Lily. She wanted so badly to believe him.

  “I have to get out of here,” she said. “I need to take a walk. I can’t breathe.”

  She headed to the front door. Spencer chased after her and grabbed her arm.

  “Where are you going? To see your boyfriend?”

  “Do you hear how ridiculous you sound?” she snapped. “Stop turning this around!”

  “Walk out and you’ll regret it,” he yelled, as if choosing a staple threat from a canned domestic dispute.

  At that moment, suffocating was the only credible threat that concerned her, plus if none of this were true then she knew from experience that they both needed to calm down, separately. She slipped on her Uggs by the door and left. No coat, no money, no bra; no bra was the biggest problem. Still, she kept walking. When her breath settled, she sat down on the side of the road and read the post again, calmly. Then she read the first post. Her chest tightened back up. Could this really be Spencer? Am I being paranoid? She didn’t think she was. Olivia did know one thing for sure: she had never felt this kind of betrayal before. Whether it was real or imagined, she didn’t like it.

  Her tears flowed, not hysterically, but consistently. Quite out of nowhere she spotted a high-spirited dog trotting down the road. He stopped and looked at Olivia, as if sensing her desperation. She smiled through her tears and reached out to pet him. “Hey, boy, are you lost?”

  He perked his ears up, but then bolted away from her until he was invisible among the trees.

  A voice called out from the distance, “Here, Truffles, I have a treat. Come on, boy!”

  She hoped the dog with the funny name was heading back home. She thought maybe she should do the same, but she needed more time.

  She started walking, purposefully breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth. Soon she found herself in town, her mouth dry from gulping down air; she needed a drink. She entered the Café Karma Sutra and went right up to the counter. Her breasts were so full under her T-shirt that she felt as if she were naked. She remembered she didn’t have any money. She approached the multipierced barista a bit timidly.

  “May I please have a cup of water?”

  “Did you bring a receptacle?” he countered.

  She was confused by the question. She hadn’t brought a receptacle. She wasn’t even sure what that meant. Why did she ever leave Manhattan? There she would have a million places to run away to, where everyone spoke the same language. Now she was alone and thirsty in a foreign land. She felt the red blotches returning to her face. They were radiating heat. She read the words painted across the wall behind him: “I Am Perfect Because I Exist.”

  False advertising, she thought. She hated when people pretended to be so Zen but were in fact quite the opposite. It should read, “I’m Perfect If I Exist with a Receptacle.” Her eyes teared up and her breathing accelerated. The pierced guy seemed to notice. He took pity on her and filled a glass with water.

  “Here,” he said in a tone more capitalistic than karmic.

  “Oh, a receptacle.” She smiled, trying to appear sane.

  She turned around and bumped smack into Alison Le and her baby. She recognized her from somewhere, but was too out of her mind to remember where. And she didn’t care to find out. She ducked her head, her eye
on the door. Fake left; go right, she thought. She had no idea that Alison was desperate for adult interaction and that she had no chance of getting away.

  “Olivia, right?” Alison smiled. “We met at the real estate office. Alison.”

  Olivia nodded and shook her hand with one eye still on the door to purposefully signal brevity.

  “How are you?” Alison asked naturally. There was nothing natural about her response. Olivia tried to hold back her emotions, which caused them to escape from her mouth in a gust of pain so guttural that she even startled herself. People stared. The “fixer” in Alison took over and she leaped into action.

  “I live right down the street. Do you want to get out of here?”

  Olivia shook her head yes.

  “OK. Wait one second.” Alison directed her to a chair and headed to the counter. She thought comfort food might be in order.

  “Two rain forest muffins to go, please.”

  “Did you bring a receptacle?” the pierced barista asked.

  “I have no clue what you are asking me,” Alison replied.

  Olivia laughed, which made her smile. Thank God that she was OK enough to do that.

  They walked back to Alison’s house, just a few doors away, in silence, each holding a bagless muffin in their hands. Zach had fallen asleep in the stroller, so Alison left him in the foyer of her house and set them up in the living room. Olivia was quiet, somber really. Alison wondered if she should change the subject and talk about the kids or ask her what she was upset about. She unwittingly did both.

  “Did you see the post about Circle Time at the library on that local bulletin board?”

  Tears exploded from Olivia’s eyes. They didn’t well up or pour down her face but arrived so fast and furiously that they ricocheted off the side of her nose. Alison had never witnessed anything like it, and she had witnessed a lot.