Tales From the Crib

by Jennifer Coburn

  More frightening than the one-upsmomship going on in the line for the puppet show was the constant chime of hyper-soprano voices crying, “Good job!” Zoe’s look implored, Don’t let this happen to you! “Good job, Olivia!” was immediately followed by another voice exclaiming, “Good job, Pete!” Thirty seconds later, we heard a different voice claiming that her child had also done a “good job!” What the hell were these kids doing that was so damned magnificent anyway? I glanced over to see that a four-year old had picked up a toy that he’d dropped. Isn’t that what kids are supposed to do? Why the vocal parade every time a kid wiped his nose? There was no way I was going to be able to keep up with this. I like spells of silence so I can think and worry about things. There was no way I was going to remember to chirp “Good job, Adam!” every time he demonstrated the slightest sign of competence. I didn’t have the emotional energy to build a verbal fortress of self-esteem to protect my son from feeling that he wasn’t doing a “good job” at absolutely everything.

  A three-year-old started screaming that she wanted a cookie. Her mother calmly responded, “Wouldn’t it be great if we had sixty million cookies and could build a cookie castle to live in?!” Had this woman lost her mind? A cookie castle?!

  Zoe was a sport to come along to the puppet show with us, especially since she thought it was ludicrous to take a three-week-old to a puppet show. “He’ll never remember it,” Zoe told me. The truth was I thought Adam would hear a lot of words and I could honestly report to Jack’s mother that our baby was on the fast track to Harvard.

  “I know, but he’ll enjoy it while we’re watching,” I said. “Oh! I’m having a Zen parenting moment! I’m so excited. My new friend Candace lent me a book about being in the moment. She thinks I’m a little high-strung, I think.”

  “Candace isn’t Jewish, is she?” I shook my head that, no, Candace Anderson wasn’t even one sliver Jewish. “Well, that’s good, Lucy. It’s great that you’re trying to be more in the moment now that you have Adam. That’ll be good for you.” She smiled, “Good job!”

  The puppet show was not quite as dreadful as either of us feared. I’m sure I wasn’t the only mother who realized that Tim Johansen, the man behind the marionettes, was a certifiable babe. His dirty-blond hair was casually swept to the side, and his piercing blue eyes felt like they were looking right at me. Now, that’s a set of eyes I could take to Tantra class. I took some comfort in knowing that most of these women were here in part to gawk at the puppeteer. As kids cried out in delight about the aqua-blue sequined gown the roller-skating cat wore, mothers like me wondered what else Tim could do with his nimble fingers. I looked around the theatre and the moms were more mesmerized than the kids. All of the polite mothers who sang “good job!” now snapped “shhh!” when their children made a peep. I felt their pain. I too found it very difficult to maintain a sexual fantasy while kids kept yammering “pretty kitty” or some such nonsense.

  I treated Zoe to lunch since she was kind enough to come to the puppet show with us. “That puppet guy was hot,” she said as tall glasses of fruit-infused iced teas were placed on a white tablecloth. Thankfully, Adam decided this would be an ideal time for a nap. For the time being at least. “Did you see him after the show?”

  “No, what was he doing?”

  Zoe brushed part of her neat blond bob behind her ear and leaned in conspiratorially. Her skin was flawless in a way that only women with time seem to be able to pull off. Zoe was not the most naturally beautiful woman I’d ever seen, but she pulled herself off exquisitely. She’d cultivated a professional Manhattan look about her that screamed Don’t fuck with me. Her eye shadow was expertly applied to look daytime smoky, while a thirty-dollar lip liner framed her even more expensive lipstick. Her purposefully ragged-looking pale-green skirt and blazer bore slightly darker green leather straps at the side seams, giving her an artistic and whimsical look. Artistic and whimsical while still being able to kick your ass. I wondered what it would be like to look like that again, before I realized I never did. So then I wondered what it would be like to again have the option to look like that. I looked at her small purse in wonder. I was packed like a mule with a Loony Tunes bag stuffed with diapers, wipes, a first-aid kit, a small blanket, Elmo, and a change of clothes. No lip liner for me.

  “After he finished chatting with the moms,” she paused to make a gagging gesture, “he slapped on the black helmet with flame painted on, and jumped onto a motorcycle.” Zoe had a thing for guys on bikes. I had a thing for this guy on a bike. I imagined wrapping my arms around Tim’s waist as his bike growled beneath me. “A sexy puppet guy, go figure.”

  The waiter brought us Chinese chicken salads, which looked entirely different from the ones I’d been picking up at Lo Fats near Caldwell. Despite its name, the restaurant couldn’t seem to get that putting mayonnaise in the chicken salad added quite a few fat grams. This one was a masterpiece, with green and purple leaves artfully fanned across a plate topped with humongous slices of mandarin orange, peanuts, and bean sprouts. I hated to disturb the presentation with my fork.

  “So what are you doing lusting after puppet guys when you’ve got Paul at home?” I said lightly, knowing full well that an attached woman was more than capable of a wandering eye. Even when Jack and I were married for real, I noticed good-looking men. Just not quite as often as I do now.

  “You haven’t seen Paul in quite some time, have you?” Zoe asked. I shook my head. She continued. “He’s gotten so fat that last time we had sex, I tried to get on top and I couldn’t keep my balance on that tub of his.” I burst with laughter. “It’s not funny. I kept rolling off his big, fat belly.”

  “Gross! You mean it stayed round?” I asked, oddly compelled by the story of Paul’s blubber. “Didn’t it get mushy when you put your weight on it?”

  Zoe slapped her hand onto the table and exclaimed, “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?!” Though I felt for Zoe, I was also comforted by the fact that I wasn’t the only one with a stalled love life. We couldn’t all be as fabulous as Anjoli and Kimmy.

  “When does your show launch?” I tried changing the topic. Hearing about Paul’s naked fat belly didn’t go well with my haute cuisine salad. Zoe told me that Real Confessions aired next month and FOX expected it to be a top-rated show within weeks. Real confession number one: Forgive me, Father, but I think my friend has lost her mind.

  Chapter 17

  Jack was getting on my nerves. I had been up most of the night with our crying, vomiting, snot-dripping son while he snored away, absolutely undisturbed. At seven on Friday morning, Jack woke up fresh as a bird and started whistling in the shower. I could’ve stabbed him. It wasn’t just that he was making noise during my first two hours of uninterrupted sleep since Thursday. But he sounded so damned happy it was annoying. I wondered why he was so chipper, but dared not ask for fear that he would tell me what I already suspected—he had a new girlfriend.

  Fatherhood looked good on Jack, whereas I wore motherhood like a dishrag. He was sleeping full nights, showering every morning, and going into the city every day. Meanwhile whenever I wanted to pee, I had to chart out a game plan like Knute Rockne at the chalkboard. I actually fantasized about being in a coma for just a few weeks. There would be no guilt about sleeping all day. People would play nice music for me. No one would expect a thing. And with no temptation to gorge snacks all day, a coma would be an ideal way to lose weight.

  I shared my ambivalence about motherhood with Candace, who told me that motherhood would make my life more rich, more beautiful, and far more interesting than it’d ever been before. She really could make a person feel like crap. I know her heart was in the right place, but the comment made me feel as though I was completely ungrateful for this wonderful experience. Why was it impossible for people to accept that humans had room for completely conflicting emotions, and one did not detract from the other in the slightest? Of course I loved my son. And of course I saw the beauty in motherhood. But I also felt depleted a
nd burdened by my onslaught of new responsibilities. And I resented the hell out of Jack for moving on with his life and making it better without me as a wife.

  Sometimes I wondered why I stayed in this sham of a marriage. Why not just run away from New Jersey and live with my mother until I got back on my feet again? Sure, our suburban community was lovely and had excellent schools, but Greenwich Village had a lot to offer a kid as well. Why was I so willing to subscribe to what Jack thought was a good place to raise kids? Years ago, it was because he was my husband, and I wanted to accommodate him. Plus, back then I didn’t know that suburban life was not for me. I was a city kid. For all I knew, I’d love life in Caldwell. Four years later, I realized that while this community offered a wonderful life to many people, the suburbs weren’t for me. When Jack returned home every night and held his son in his arms, I knew that Anjoli’s home could never offer what I had here. Here there was hope.

  Adam was a month old when Candace’s daughter Barbie had her spectacular Barney birthday party. By spectacular, I don’t mean good. I hate to say this because I know Candace worked very hard to throw a perfect party for her daughter, but it was sort of a relief to see that no matter what I did for Adam’s parties, they could never turn out more disastrous than this one. It showed me that no matter how good a plan was life could always throw you a curve ball.

  Candace’s home was a brick McMansion with a hilly lawn covered with snow. A curved stone walkway led to a red door with an enormous and elaborate winter wreath. Inside was decorated like a page from Country Living magazine. In her family room, Candace had a light oak entertainment center, which matched perfectly the trim on the blue-and-yellow-checkered couch, as well as the coffee and end tables. The tablecloth, valances, and wallpaper on the bottom half of the walls were the exact same pattern. Everything was obnoxiously well coordinated. There were at least a hundred ducks around the house, from the wooden carved ones sitting on the immaculate eggshell colored carpet to the crystal collection in a lit glass display case. Candace had a large oak toy chest where every board game was stacked neatly. Certainly there were no missing pieces. She served peanut butter (not Jif) and preserves on crust-free wheat bread for the kids, and subs and a salad that rivaled my Manhattan lunch for the adults. I noticed her glancing at the grandmother clock next to the “Home Is Where The Heart Is” sampler.

  “Everything okay?” I saw Candace’s husband ask. “Barney’s late,” she whispered.

  “If he’s late, we’ll do something else,” he offered.

  “What if he doesn’t show?”

  I was having an influence on my new friend already. I was already two steps ahead of her, imagining Barney dead at the side of the road. I imagined parents honking their horns and cheering at the sight of the purple roadkill. In retrospect, this may have been a better course of events.

  “He’ll show.”

  Candace continued to fret. “Manny, you have no idea how important it is to her that Barney’s here.”

  It seemed a little odd that this character could make or break a birthday girl’s day. There were fifteen little kids, tons of party games, and a huge cake of what I later learned was a creature called Baby Bop. Then again, I remember how upset I was when Cher had to bow out of my ninth birthday party last-minute. I had such high hopes of her appearance catapulting my social status. Instead Emily Weintraub and Gail Barker said I was lying and that Cher never was scheduled to sing “Half-Breed” at my sleepover. So, I guess I could understand a three-year-old’s attachment to this dinosaur character.

  Nearly a full hour late (that’s seven hours in kid time), Barney rapped on the door and shouted, “Open up, birthday boy, and let’s get this party started with a bang.” It sounded like more of a threat than an opening line for a children’s entertainer. There was something not quite right about Barney from the get-go, but it was tough to pinpoint because of the thick layer of purple fur shielding the actor from inspection. As his fat purple legs clunked into the family room, I could see that his fur was matted down on one side, as though he’d been sleeping in his costume. I swore I saw Adam lift an inquisitive eyebrow as he sat on my lap. “Who’s Barney?!” the dinosaur blasted in a raspy voice. All of the adults immediately stopped what they were doing, and turned to look at Barney. “I said who’s Barney?!” he shouted again. It had the feeling of a hijacking.

  Like the Grinch’s Cindy Lou Who, Barbie stepped forward and in her soft squeaky voice said, “You’re Barney.” Her father placed a protective hand on her shoulder and pulled her back.

  “Not me. I mean the birthday boy. Barney. Barney, the kid!” he shouted. We needed no Breathalyzer to tell that Barney had blood alcohol level 2.0. “Is anyone gonna answer me?” No one knew what to say. I clutched Adam close to me for fear that this dinosaur had evil intentions for the child Barney.

  “Not Barney, silly,” said Barbie. “I’m Barbie and I’m three,” she said holding out three fingers.

  “Well blow my fur back if it ain’t a little girl. The agency said I was doing a boy party.”

  “Okay, thank you very much for coming, Barney,” Manny put his arm around the dinosaur and started walking him toward the door. “It was nice of you to stop by on your way back to-”

  Barney swatted away Manny’s arm as if he was getting ready to fight. It was surreal body language to see from the character best known for his vapid song of mutual love and familial glad tidings.

  “You want a piece of me?!” Barney held up his fists at Manny. At this point, the mothers started scurrying the children into the kitchen by promising them birthday cake, while several of the dads went to aid Manny. How many fathers would it take to bring down a drunken dinosaur? Barney laughed that hoarse, drunken chortle that drunks let out when nothing funny has happened. “You want a piece of me?!” Barney laughed hysterically. The odds that Barney was packing heat were exceptionally low, so I stayed put for the show.

  “Barney, I’m going to call the police if you don’t leave right now,” Manny said in a voice that would one day be used to let his children know he was not messing around.

  “You rich fucking bastards always think you know the deal,” he slurred.

  What?

  “You don’t know shit!” Barney shouted. By now a few mothers and a toddler were peeking out from the kitchen.

  “That’s enough,” said one of the other dads, who marched over to Barney and grabbed his thick, purple arm. Barney misjudged how hard the father was holding him and jerked back with the strength of an actual dinosaur. He lost his footing and stumbled back a few steps before crashing through the screen that separated the family room from the indoor swimming pool. He didn’t fall into the pool right away. First Barney fell back, lost his purple head, and hit his human noggin against the pool edge. Then like mud sliding off a hill, Barney fell into the pool, where his floating purple dinosaur head was under the diving board. Seconds later, blood colored the water around Barney’s human skull.

  “Cut the cake!” a dad shouted into the kitchen. “Barney’s fine! Crazy dinosaur decided to take a swim.” Wrong thing to say to a group of kids. They all rushed to see their favorite character goofing around in the swimming pool, and quickly started screaming that Barney was bleeding. “Is Barney going to die?” Barbie sobbed. This was so much worse than my Cher no-show.

  “Why is his head in the deep end?!” shouted a five-year-old.

  “Manny, go in and get him before he drowns!” shouted Candace.

  Freeze for a moment and imagine the perfect mother in her perfect home wearing an apron with ducks. Now imagine she’s shouting to her husband that he should jump in the pool to save a decapitated, bleeding, and inebriated purple dinosaur. Who said the suburbs were dull?

  Manny dove into the pool and pulled out a muttering, bleached-blond guy with horrible teeth wearing a dinosaur body completely disproportionate to his own.

  At that point, Candace starred crying, which was when the party stopped being fun for me. She was quickly
rushed into the kitchen by two Paxilized women who remained smiling through this whole encounter. I lifted Adam, who seemed genuinely irritated to be removed from the scene.

  It was like a reality show for kids—Real Fucked-Up Birthday Parties.

  “Candace, are you okay?” I said. Okay, stupid question.

  “What can I do for you, honey?” Patty Paxil asked. Show-off.

  Candace sniffed and handed her friend a business card. “Tell him we need an emergency session. Now!” Her friend turned on her charcoal leather boot heel and sauntered to the kitchen phone as if she were on the catwalk.

  Mothers corralled children into the formal living room and led stilted rounds of songs, including, “If You’re Happy and You Know It Clap Your Hands.” We heard Barney punctuate a round with “Ah, fuck!” This is how the mothers learned that Barney was still alive, but also gave the kids an entirely different version of the song they’d learned in preschool.

  Ten minutes later an ambulance had taken Barney off on a gurney. As the kids waved and wished him a speedy recovery, Barney shouted, “What are you little fuckers staring at?!” Candace buried her head in her hands. “Enjoy your stupid cake ‘cause from here on out, life’s a piece of shit. Got it, Little Barney?”

  “Okay!” Barbie shouted back happily.

  Adam held out his hand and pointed at Barney, smiled, and gurgled.

  Moments later, there was another knock on the door. Who next, crack-addicted Muppets? It was even worse. I stood motionless as I saw him at the door. I wondered if he’d remember me, and if he did, what he would say. Why was he here anyway?

  “Excuse me, but is that who I think it is?” I whispered to another mother.

  She confirmed with a nod. “It’s so Candy to make sure everyone has the chance to process this ordeal. I really give her credit for thinking on her feet.”