• • •
It was a boy. Wendy heard the obstetrician say as much. Not that Daphne was aware of that fact. She was still unconscious. Maybe it was better that way. From what Wendy could gather, the baby wasn’t in good shape when he came out. Not that she could see much from where she stood, behind a white curtain next to Daphne’s head. But they gave him oxygen and who knew what else. Two minutes later, he uttered his first cry, and it was a piercing one. Two minutes after that, he was whisked out of the operating room for further examination.
Daphne came to in the recovery room forty-five minutes later. Wendy had followed her there, too. “Wendy,” Daphne said slowly, blinking into the fluorescent light and looking stunned on multiple levels. “What are you doing here?”
Daphne’s question immediately put Wendy on the defensive. (And here she’d just saved the woman’s life! It was so typical, Wendy thought. She wondered why she’d bothered.) “I found you in the bathroom,” she said, looking away. “I happened to stop by.”
Daphne let out a long sigh and grimaced. Was it possible she was annoyed at Wendy for having rescued her? That she’d actually wanted to die? “And the baby?” she asked, visibly swallowing.
“He’s in the nursery, being examined,” Wendy told her.
“It’s a he?” Her voice went up a few notes.
“Yes.”
Daphne closed her eyes and sighed again. After a few moments, she began to speak, in a slightly slurred voice. “Jonathan and I had a fight. I told him the baby was Mitch’s, and he said our marriage was over. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to be alone again.…” She trailed off, as if lost in the past. After ten seconds, she resumed her monologue. “It was right after Jonathan and I got engaged. I was so happy to have him in my life, but I was still in love with Mitch. Or maybe I wasn’t quite ready to let him go. Or give up being bad. Or maybe unconsciously I thought that if I got pregnant, he’d finally leave Cheryl. Or maybe I just wanted to be sure of what I was leaving behind. I can’t even remember now. It seems like so long ago. It was just one night. Not even that, really. I didn’t tell Jonathan, and I didn’t even think about it until the twenty-week sonogram dated the baby two weeks earlier than I thought.”
A few moments of silence passed between the two women, during which time it occurred to Wendy that (a) Daphne had attended not just her shower but her wedding with the knowledge that she was pregnant with another man’s child; (b) she was an even better actress than Wendy had ever given her credit for being; and (c) the inscription on the sleep sack that Wendy had given Daphne at her shower was, above all, beside the point. “I’m sorry again about the shower gift,” Wendy said. Then she paused, waiting for Daphne to apologize, too—at the very least for dumping a bag of flour on her head.
But it was still the same Daphne. (Apparently, a suicide attempt only went so far in changing a person’s character.) “Don’t worry about it, but thanks” was all she said, making eye contact for the first time, dim smile attached. “Anyway, I made this baby happen. I must have wanted it in some way. And I lived through tonight. And now I’m going to try and be a good mother, with or without Jonathan.” She bit her lip and looked away, toward the door. “By any chance do you know where he is?”
“He’s in the waiting room,” said Wendy. “We came to the hospital together.”
“He is?” Daphne turned back to Wendy, her eyes brighter than before.
At that same moment, a nurse wheeled in what looked like a clear plastic refrigerator produce bin and parked it next to Daphne. With a certain amount of difficulty, Daphne shifted her body to the side of the bed and peered over the edge. Wendy looked, too.
Lying in the bassinet, swaddled in a hospital-issue flannel blanket with mauve and turquoise stripes, was an astonishingly small, perfectly formed infant. His eyes blinked open and shut. His tiny tongue shot out of his tiny mouth with its rosebud lips before disappearing back inside. With his shiny black hair, dimpled chin, and vaguely entitled expression, he looked uncannily like Jonathan Sonnenberg. Daphne must have been thinking the same thing. She didn’t say anything for a few minutes. Then she touched her finger to his cheek and whispered, “He’s beautiful.” And the joy and relief on her face were so exquisite as to be contagious.
“He is beautiful,” said Wendy, choking up herself—and somehow relieved as well to think the baby was Jonathan’s. Things were the way they were supposed to be. The sun would rise tomorrow after all. Corn muffins were still cake under another name.
“Would you mind getting Jonathan?” asked Daphne.
“Of course,” said Wendy, who practically ran into the waiting room to retrieve him. (For the first time in memory, her pride at having helped facilitate a happy ending trumped her envy of another’s good fortune.) “Daphne needs to see you,” she announced breathlessly.
Clearly prepared for the worst, Jonathan grimaced before he stood up. He retucked his shirt into his pants. Then he followed Wendy back to Daphne’s room.
Daphne had the baby in her arms now. Jonathan must have known what she and Wendy already knew from the moment he saw the child’s face. Without any questions, he walked over to the bed and transferred the infant into his own arms. After a minute or two of cradling him—and presumably inspecting his genitalia—he announced, “Alexander Sonnenberg, welcome to the free world.” And his voice cracked at the end of the sentence. Then he carefully laid the baby back in his bassinet, reached for Daphne, fell against her breast, and, once again, began to sob—this time audibly.
It was at that moment that Wendy realized she was no longer needed. (She’d already delivered her lines; it was time to walk off stage.) Without saying good-bye, she slipped out of Daphne’s room, then out of the hospital and onto the street.
It was after midnight. The air had turned clear and breezy. Tomorrow would probably be a nice day, Wendy thought as she set off down Amity in search of a cab. Probably cooler and less humid. She barely glanced at Jonathan and Daphne’s brownstone as she passed the front gate. She knew she wouldn’t be back there any time soon. She’d seen too much now; knew too much, too; was destined to remind Daphne of a past she’d have to learn to forget if she wanted her marriage to survive.
Which was actually fine by Wendy. She was tired of being the person she’d always been around Daphne, anyway—the person who couldn’t stop comparing herself to others when she wasn’t busy trying to please them. It seemed clear to her now that trying to keep up meant never getting anywhere, missing everything. What’s more, Daphne would forever be in her debt. Not that Wendy was keeping score, anymore. Still, it was a good feeling to have, the kind of feeling she could live with without ever having to lay eyes on Daphne’s pretty face again.
Wendy eventually found a taxi on Clinton. On the way home, she checked her cell phone. There was one message—from Adam. She must have been in the operating room when he called. He sounded furious. “Thank you for fucking up my trip,” he said. “It was Dad’s birthday today. I was going to surprise him. I told you that. But no, you had to call my mother and get her all freaked out that I’d gone missing. She practically had the FBI out looking for me when I got there. It’s like you can only think about yourself these days.” He paused. “To be honest, I think we need to talk when I get home.” He paused again. “To be even more honest, I’ve been thinking about getting my own place. Maybe we need some time apart. Anyway, we can talk about it when I get home.”
Wendy realized suddenly that, far from cheating on her with Daphne, Adam had merely been confessing to her his desire to leave his marriage. Just as Daphne must have been sharing her own personal drama with Adam. That was all their relationship had been: an impromptu (if occasionally flirtatious) support group for troubled spouses.
The strange thing was: absorbing this potentially devastating piece of news, Wendy’s first emotion was fascination. To think she’d become the kind of paranoid hysteric who had driven away her husband for no reason! She was like Anna Karenina, she thought,
only Adam didn’t make much of a Vronsky. He wasn’t that handsome or charming. He was definitely not a count. Also, Anna wasn’t always nagging Vronsky to get a job. (Wendy wasn’t planning on throwing herself in front of a train, either.)
Her second emotion was terror. What would become of her? Wendy wondered. Would she grow old alone? But fear mingled with a sense of relief. Somewhere along the way, Wendy had stopped finding Adam’s T-shirt collection ironic, never mind amusing. The same went for both his unemployment and his failure to tell her he loved or missed her without prompting. And even though he hadn’t cheated after all, he’d still acted like a jerk, she decided. Somewhere deep inside, Wendy still felt love for her husband. But she suspected that she mostly loved the memory of their being young together—though, if she was being honest with herself, she hadn’t been all that happy in her twenties.
Opening the door to their apartment—and finding Adam’s dirty socks balled up under the coffee table and resembling two dead mice—Wendy was reminded that she hadn’t been particularly happy living on No Prospect Avenue, either. Now, at least, she’d have an excuse to move.
It was another two days—blurry ones; Barricade had found a new home in an old sweatshop in Chinatown, and everyone was busy unpacking—before Wendy realized she’d missed her period. Was it possible? There had been that one time while half asleep before work.… She took a pregnancy test, and two pink lines appeared side by side like two old friends. Or maybe two new friends. Tears quickly filled her eyes, because what she’d wanted for so long had finally happened, and also because her dream of creating the perfect family—the family she herself had never known—was apparently not to be.
On the other hand, she’d have a beautiful baby of her own. And she couldn’t imagine not giving him or her all the nurturing and selflessness she had to offer, however little of them there was. (She couldn’t imagine not bringing her baby to the circus to see the lady who hung from her hair.)
After Wendy dried her eyes, she started to laugh. And laugh and cry some more. Then she called her mother.
“It’s about time,” said Judy, sounding simultaneously irritable and elated. “Please congratulate Adam for me.”
Wendy took a deep breath. “Adam doesn’t know yet, and, to be honest, it might be a while before I tell him. We split up.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone. Finally, Judy spoke: “Well, I know how you feel. I’ve always said that men were overrated.”
“Thanks, Mom,” said Wendy, tearing up yet again.
Wendy also called her friends. Everyone was thrilled for her. Or so they claimed. Though Wendy suspected that Maura, recently returned from Mexico, had taken this latest dispatch from “Wendy-ville” harder than she let on. “I’m so happy for you,” she said, but her voice was thin and wan and not entirely convincing.
postscript
AFTER FINALLY ADMITTING to herself that she was never going to finish her dissertation, Maura quit academia and moved full-time to Tulum, where she became a receptionist at a yoga retreat and fell in love with a mariachi singer.
Paige and Jeremy married and moved to London, where Paige launched her own highly successful hedge fund, and, even though they didn’t need a second income, never stopped berating Jeremy for being a lazy drunk who lived off her largesse. (Either he didn’t notice or didn’t mind.)
Pamela became executive producer of 24 Hours. She left Todd for a lesbian documentary filmmaker named Lori. Being a perfect husband, Todd took the whole thing well. He and Pamela shared custody of Lucas, who had to be enrolled in a special preschool for geniuses, having stopped crying at two and mastered algebra at three.
Four months after the birth of baby Jude, Dolph finally agreed to marry Sara, though not before admitting he had a crush on her older brother.
To all her friends’ astonishment, Gretchen got pregnant again. She and Rob moved to a four-bedroom colonial in Summit, New Jersey, whereupon she threw out her headset and became a full-time mom (and got really depressed).
Alyson rose through the ranks at Barricade, becoming the youngest senior editor in the magazine’s history. To enhance her income, she modeled part-time.
Ron Schwartz eventually made a full recovery. He officially retired from the tax law business and, along with Phyllis, moved to Sarasota, Florida.
After a paternity test confirmed that Daphne’s baby was indeed Jonathan’s, the two entered couples counseling with a certain Morgan Weintraub, PhD, who’d been recommended by Carol. Their marriage grew stronger. Two years after the birth of Alexander, they had a daughter named Daisy. Daphne and Jonathan also acquired more real estate—namely, a “cottage” in Sag Harbor, which happened to have six bedrooms and an in-ground gunite pool. To Wendy’s relief, Daphne’s screenplay got stuck in turnaround. By all appearances, it was unlikely ever to be made into a movie.
Meanwhile, Adam and Wendy embarked on a trial separation. Adam stayed in Brooklyn, while Wendy (with, later, her infant daughter, Lila) moved back into her mother’s rent-controlled apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Conceived as temporary, the arrangement proved so copacetic that it went on and on. Three was a much better number for a family, Wendy found. It made everything less claustrophobic. You didn’t have to pretend you didn’t need each other at all because you needed each other so much. It also meant that Wendy had free babysitting. To Wendy’s surprise and delight, Judy proved a loving and patient grandmother. It was also Judy who, drawing on her experience with Jack the candle maker, had come to Wendy’s emotional aid during her breakup with Adam.
Wendy did her best to keep Phyllis in her life, as well. Although the two never regained the closeness they once shared, Wendy made a point of sending her ex-mother-in-law regular email updates on Lila’s progress.
Adam took care of Lila two afternoons and one overnight per week. He also got a job copyediting at a new online business magazine.
Tired of “preaching to the converted” and newly inspired to help others, Wendy left her job at Barricade and went back to grad school to become a social worker. To help pay the bills, she worked part-time in a Legal Aid office. There, she met and began dating a workaholic lawyer named Charlie, who was also divorced with a child. The two—and sometimes four—had a good time together. But Wendy’s heart was never in it.
After a couple of years apart, she realized she missed Adam. Or maybe it was that she loved the sight of him and Lila together—the way he carted her around on his shoulders and snuggled her to sleep and made silly faces that made her laugh. It dawned on Wendy that she longed to reunite their family. The two started dating again—or, really, for the first time. They went out to dinner and the movies. They met for lunch in the park with Lila. Wherever possible, they avoided mention of Daphne. On Wendy’s thirty-eighth birthday, Adam surprised her with an antique garnet ring. Garnet was a semi-precious—not a precious—stone, Wendy couldn’t help but note. But she appreciated the gesture.
As for Wendy and Daphne, each December, they traded holiday cards featuring photographs of their respective children. Every so often, one or the other emailed to suggest they get together for a playdate. “I’m dying to see you,” Daphne would write.
“I know, it’s been too long,” Wendy would write back.
But when it came time to pin down a date, both would feign prior commitments.
One Saturday, several years after the night of Alex’s birth, they ran into each other at the Children’s Museum in Soho. They swapped small talk, and Alexander—now a handsome, hyperactive preschooler—immediately made off with Lila’s security blanket, sending Lila into hysterics. To Wendy’s shock, Daphne appeared to have gained a considerable amount of weight. Was it possible? Yes, Wendy thought: she was definitely heavier around the hips and thighs.
As Wendy pushed her stroller up Greene Street, she looked down at Lila and smiled. It wasn’t just that Daphne had gotten fat. Wendy could never have imagined how much pleasure and confidence she’d reap from motherhood. She wo
ndered if Daphne had reaped those things, too. It occurred to Wendy that Daphne’s birthday was coming up the following week. Maybe she’d send her a card. She might even invite her out to lunch.…
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to Maria Massie and Judy Clain, and also to Sally Singer, Cressida Leyshon, Jessica Palmieri, and Lucy D. Rosenfeld.
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I’m So Happy for You
a novel
Lucinda Rosenfeld
How to dump a friend
Lucinda Rosenfeld discusses how she came
to write I’m So Happy for You
In 2001, I wrote a humorous essay for the New York Times Magazine called “How to Dump a Friend.” I had a lot of fun with the assignment. Plus, my first novel, What She Saw…—an exhaustive account of all the boys and men in one young woman’s life—had recently been published. It occurred to me that friendship in general, and more specifically female friendship and the competitive feelings it often engenders, was a fascinating, complex, and underexplored topic. This was true in literature but also in film and TV. I was as big a fan of the HBO series Sex and the City as anyone in my peer group. Yet the way in which the four leads interacted never rang entirely true to me. Talk of men and relationships dominated their conversation, whereas in my own friendship circle—I couldn’t help noticing—we spoke as much about one another as we did about our boyfriends or (now mostly) husbands. Some of that talk was catty; some was concerned.
It took me several more years to figure out how to build a novel around the topic of friendship. The “problem” with constructing a narrative around friends (versus, say, lovers) is that, without sex and the promise of marriage, reproduction, etc., the stakes aren’t intrinsically high. In romance, breaking up is understood to be a shattering event that throws the future into question. In friendship, it’s a small setback, a minor irritation. If you don’t like hanging out with someone, don’t hang out with him/her anymore is the accepted wisdom. And yet, when I looked at my own life, I saw that friendship had been the source of both tremendous joy and profound hurt as friends had abandoned me, or I them.
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