Such a Fun Age

by Kiley Reid

  Emira laughed. “I brought my cat ears and everything. It just pissed me off that she didn’t want to talk to her kid and made her miss a party because of it.”

  “Well, any mom who misses the chance to dress her kid up like a hot dog sounds like a psychopath to me.”

  “Exactly. Thank you. And now”—Emira took her voice down—“I’m at Shaunie’s and she just got this huge promotion. So now she’s all hyped and I know I should be happy for her . . . but I just wanna punch her in the face and go to bed.”

  “Easy, killer,” he said. “Just buy her a drink.”

  Emira held on to the railing. “Now you tell me yours.”

  That day, Kelley introduced himself to who he thought was a tech lead named Jesse. The real Jessie was a woman, but Kelley had introduced himself to her male assistant, in front of her and her team. He’d also gotten salad dressing in his eye and thought he was blind for approximately two minutes. And he just hated Cleveland.

  “I get back early tomorrow, though.”

  “Okay.” Inside, Emira heard Shaunie and Zara call for Josefa. Josefa replied with an annoyed “What?” Emira bent to glance inside the kitchen and saw that she was still alone. “I’ll let you go. Sorry,” she said. She sidestepped and winced. “Sorry, I know this was weird.”

  “Why would it be weird? Wait—are you going out right now?”

  “Yeah, I think I have to.”

  “Well, hey. Go sleep in my bed when you’re done.”

  Emira laughed and said, “What?”

  “I’ll call my doorman and tell him you’re coming. Sleep there and we’ll do breakfast tomorrow.”

  This, Emira thought, was the most adult thing that had ever happened to her.

  “Wait, no,” she said. “Kelley, I can’t do that.”

  “There’s absolutely no reason you can’t do that,” he said. “It’s a perfect opportunity for you to steal whatever you want. I’ll call the front desk right now. Does that sound good?”

  It sounded so good that Emira said, “Umm . . .”

  Kelley said, “What do you mean, ‘umm’?”

  Inside the window, Zara yelled, “Bish, you need to relax your shoulders!” Emira looked up into the dark clouds and said, “Lemme think for a second.”

  “Emira, come on.” Kelley laughed. She heard him take a breath before he said, “Are you gonna be with me or what, miss?”

  She placed her hand to her forehead and grinned.

  By the time she crawled back into the kitchen, she had a new text from Kelley. Frank knows you’re coming. Bring your ID. Emira helped herself to another glass of wine as she heard Zara say, “Sefa, you gotta get closer, sweetie.”

  Emira pushed Shaunie’s bedroom door open. Inside, Shaunie was topless and kneeling on top of her bed, cupping her breasts with one arm and hanging the other at her side. Josefa was holding a desk lamp above her head and saying, “I feel like you have to get even higher, Z.” Zara stood on a chair with Shaunie’s iPhone held out in front of her.

  “Wait, Emira’s better at this.” Zara tossed Emira the phone. “I’ll get down and hold your tits up, though.”

  Eleven

  Alix didn’t care that she was plateauing eight pounds above her pre-baby weight. She didn’t notice that she and Peter hadn’t had sex in almost three weeks. (To be fair, he didn’t seem to notice either. He was getting insane camera time while covering the current snowstorm.) And she was also fine to ignore her editor’s emails and calls, asking how the book was going, and if there were a few chapters she could read over the holiday. Everything could stop for just a second, because Rachel, Jodi, and Tamra were coming to Philadelphia for Thanksgiving. Even better, Alix would go back with them to New York City for five whole days. The Clinton campaign had finally reached out and asked her to attend a women’s event. It would be her first time back in eight months, and Catherine’s first visit to the city. And as Alix removed her gloves and hat in the front vestibule of her home, Emira’s phone glowed with a text banner across the top. We regret to inform you that flight WX1492 is no longer in service.

  Outside, snow raced so quickly that it seemed impossible that it would settle. But it did, burying cars and trees, slamming storefront doors shut, and then keeping them spread open like very used books. The top of the Chamberlain porch stairs had been the stomping ground for mud and ice for the past three days. Alix still made the trek to swim class in Ubers and cabs—she and the girls were often the only ones in the pool—because she was quickly running out of patience and indoor activities (games like Let’s look at pictures on Mama’s phone. Let’s play go underneath the blanket. Let’s pull all the books down from the bookshelf and put them all back again). But tomorrow was Thanksgiving, and this Thanksgiving was going to be different.

  Alix and Emira hadn’t been the same since Briar’s fish died three weeks ago. On a Monday, Emira turned down the offer to take extra cookies home so that Alix wouldn’t eat them. And on a Friday evening, when Alix offered her a glass of wine, Emira had said, “I’m actually okay, but thank you.” This shift in their relationship haunted Alix in everyday places where she never would have imagined she’d ruminate about her sitter. In a bookstore, Alix found herself pondering what time Emira went to bed. While breast-feeding Catherine, she wondered if Emira had seen the movie Pretty Woman, and if she found it contentious. On the escalator inside Anthropologie, Alix imagined what Emira had said to Zara about her, and if Zara was the type to blindly agree or push back.

  Alix also found herself reorganizing her lifestyle around Emira, despite the fact that she didn’t have an explicit reason to. If Alix went shopping, she took the tags off clothes and other items immediately so Emira couldn’t see how much she’d spent, even though Emira wasn’t the type to show interest or ask. Alix no longer felt comfortable leaving out certain books or magazines, because she feared Emira eyeing her Marie Kondo book and subsequently thinking, Wow, how privileged are you that you need to buy a hardcover book that tells you how to get rid of all your other expensive shit. Sometimes, Alix found herself pretending—in front of Emira—that she was about to eat leftovers for dinner. In reality, she’d be thinking to herself, Just order the sushi. Just text Peter and ask him what he wants. What point are you trying to prove by eating leftovers? But still, she’d wait till Emira closed the door behind her to go to her computer, ask Peter if he wanted the usual, and place her order via Seamless.

  In the beginning, Alix would search Emira’s name on the Internet and Instagram, to see if she’d finally gotten an account (she’d convinced herself that this was a safety precaution concerning her children), but now Alix had taken to looking at her own Instagram account while imagining she was Emira and viewing it with fresh eyes. She’d slowly scroll through her own feed, and guess which pictures Emira would click on. Emira never hinted that she felt this way, because why would she, but Alix often felt that Emira saw her as a textbook rich white person, much in the same way that Alix saw many of the annoying Upper East Side moms that she and her girlfriends had always tried to avoid. But if Emira would only take a deeper look, if she gave Alix a chance, Alix knew that she would begin to think otherwise.

  Alix fantasized about Emira discovering things about her that shaped what Alix saw as the truest version of herself. Like the fact that one of Alix’s closest friends was also black. That Alix’s new and favorite shoes were from Payless, and only cost eighteen dollars. That Alix had read everything that Toni Morrison had ever written. And that out of her group of friends, Alix and Peter actually had the smallest salaries, and that Tamra was the one who always flew first class. Alix often and unsuccessfully tried to drop these bits of information, but tomorrow, if things went Alix’s way, Emira could see all this in person.

  Rachel, Jodi, and Tamra would be taking the train to Philadelphia on Thanksgiving morning. Rachel was thankful to not spend the holiday alone (Hudson would be with his father
); Tamra would be coming with her daughters, Imani and Cleo (her husband was traveling for work in Tokyo), and Jodi’s entire family would be present (her husband, Walter; her four-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Prudence; and her one-year-old son, Payne). It was Thanksgiving that made Alix realize that her three best girlfriends hadn’t yet met Catherine, who was almost seven months old. Had it been that long? Catherine, who looked more like Alix every day, and was so easily toteable and darling and unconcerned with crawling that she made Briar seem borderline manic. Her girlfriends had joked about Alix showing them a traditional Murphy Thanksgiving complete with very suburban décor, fluffy turtlenecks in warm fall colors, DIY Pinterest projects and table toppers, and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade on repeat. But this joke had turned into an ironic theme that Alix couldn’t wait to execute.

  Alix hired two caterers to pour drinks, hang coats, serve food, and remove plates. She filled the first floor of her home with pumpkins, gourds, wheat stalks, and acorns; a turkey piñata was waiting to be hung above the massive rented dining table set up in the stretch of the tiled foyer. With red twine, above a small table that held four different types of pies, Alix hung slips of brown craft paper where guests could write down what they were thankful for. She was delighted to consider the upcoming day, being around her three favorite women with a cheesy Thanksgiving scheme and tons of red wine, but just the idea of Emira being there too made her blush into her scarf.

  Holding her last grocery store lot (bread, pink salt, butter, cookie dough, club soda), Alix said, “Hey!” and set the reusable bags on top of the counter. Catherine was drooling on a blanket while sitting in a Bumbo at the center of the room. Emira held Briar’s hips as she stood at the window seat and pointed out onto the street.

  Briar said, “Mama? The window is biting my fingers.”

  Emira turned and said, “I can’t believe you went out in this mess.”

  Thank God for the weather, Alix thought. Most of her conversations with Emira in the last few days were fueled by weather management—if Briar should wear gloves, if an art class was snowed out, or if Emira needed to borrow an umbrella for her travels home. Alix rolled her eyes at her own actions. “It was insane, and kind of apocalyptic. I shouldn’t have made you come out today.”

  “Nah, it’s cool. It’s only two days,” Emira said. She turned back to Briar and said, “I’m not gonna see you for a little bit, B.”

  Briar’s top teeth popped out in response. “No,” she disagreed. “No, you see me.”

  “So I usually see you three times a week?” Emira explained. She held up three fingers and Briar grabbed onto them. “But this week is Thanksgiving so I’ll only see you two.”

  When Emira put her ring finger down, Briar looked offended. “Nuh-uh.” Briar shook her head. “No, you see me three.”

  “But then I’m gonna see you every day next week. Isn’t that cool?”

  “You’re really saving me next week,” Alix said. She opened the refrigerator door and the quickness of it made a loud suck of air. “Emira, I hate to say it”—she winced—“but you should really check on the status of your flight tonight.”

  “Really?”

  “Just to be safe.” Alix started moving containers and plates around in the refrigerator. “You can use the computer there.”

  Was this cruel? Trying to win a best supporting Oscar as she waited for Emira to learn her flight was canceled? Who cared, she’d make up for it anyway. The realization that Emira could have a seat at their Thanksgiving table made Alix practically high. Suddenly, the fourth Thursday in November wasn’t just a holiday. It was four (or hopefully five or six) hours to finally make Emira family. It was a night to say through Malbecs and yams and candlelight and pie that Alix hadn’t forgotten about that night at Market Depot. That she thought about it every day, multiple times. That she’d never go to that grocery store again, even if it was an emergency, even if it was snowing the way it was now, even if Emira wasn’t her sitter. Emira moved to the computer and clicked and clicked as Alix prayed that Zara didn’t have family in Philadelphia.

  Emira put her elbows on top of the desk, touched the sides of her face, and said, “Well, shoot.”

  “Oh noooo,” Alix said. She closed the refrigerator door. She couldn’t overdo it, but she had to appear like this was in fact a tragedy. “Emira, my heart is breaking for you, I’m so sorry. I feel like I jinxed it.”

  Emira kept staring at the screen. She bit her bottom lip and took a deep breath as Briar crawled into a nearby chair. “No, sorry. Is it okay if I call my mom real quick? They bought my ticket so they might know about a later flight.”

  “Absolutely. Briar, get down.”

  Briar said, “Mama, you can’t touch Mira’s water,” and as Alix set her on the ground, she said, “Okay, I won’t. Thank you for telling me.”

  By the time Emira came back upstairs, Alix had turned music on low. Paula Cole played softly as Briar explained that even a snowman needs a nap sometimes. Alix picked up Catherine, who snuggled tightly into her chest. Emira sat down at the windowsill.

  “Looks like I’m the last to know,” she said. “The earliest flight I can get is tomorrow night, which would make the trip pointless.”

  “I’m so sorry, Emira.” Alix turned Catherine around, the back of her head leaning into Alix’s chest. Briar walked to Emira and began tapping on her knees. “Maybe it’s better to find out now than at the airport?”

  “Yeah, I went home last summer so it’s okay. And there’s nothing I can do, I guess.”

  “Emira.” While she rocked her second daughter in front of her stomach, Alix walked over to her sitter at the windowsill. “I know it’s not your first choice,” she said, “but we would absolutely love if you spent Thanksgiving with us.”

  “Ohhh, wow, no no.” Emira shook her head.

  “Okay, ’cause Mira?” Briar interrupted. “I . . . I’m your first choice.” Alix thought, Yes, Bri, good girl.

  Emira laughed. “Well, I can’t really argue with that,” she said. She reached forward to pick up Briar from underneath her armpits and turned her around to sit her on her thighs. “That’s extremely nice, but I’ll be okay.”

  “Emira.” Alix kept on bouncing, hoping it gave some coolness to her words, which she knew she had to deliver like a decent option rather than a desperate plea. “I’m telling you that the grocery stores are nuts. And I’ve been in my twenties and I’ve done Chinese takeout for Thanksgiving before, and it never made me happy. It made me really depressed and I swear it also made my face break out.” It was still a thousand times better than spending the day with her own parents in a smelly nursing home, but that wasn’t the point. “My three best girlfriends from New York are coming in. We are going to have way too much food, and we’d love to have you.”

  Briar reached up with six fingers and said, “How many is dis?”

  Emira touched her hand and said, “That’s six. Mrs. Chamberlain, I really appreciate it. But it actually looks like my boyfriend will be stuck here with me.” She glanced at her cell phone. “He was supposed to meet his family in Florida but his flight got canceled too.”

  This was even better.

  “We’d love to have him,” Alix said. “Bring your boyfriend. Four o’clock on Thursday, and you won’t be here as a sitter. No diaper changing or anything. You guys will just be here as guests.”

  Emira exhaled in thought.

  “If you eat all your toes?” Briar looked back at Emira, and whispered, “Then, then guess what, Mira? No more toes.”

  Emira pressed the main button on her cell phone, smiled, and said, “Lemme ask him.” As Alix prayed for the second time that evening, Emira wrapped her other arm around Briar’s waist. “B, should I eat turkey here with you? I don’t really like eating toes.” Emira wore earrings with square copper plates, and instead of answering, Briar reached up for them and said, “I want to open
dis.”

  “It doesn’t open, mama,” Emira told her as she texted. Hearing this pet name made Alix fidget and think, Please o please o please come tomorrow.

  Emira looked at Briar and asked, “Should I come eat pie with you this week?”

  “Yes,” Briar decided. “But you can only have ten pieces.”

  “Only ten? That seems fair, I guess.” Emira looked at her phone. She looked back up at Alix. “He said he’d love to come.”

  It took everything in Alix not to drop her daughter and hold her chilled cheekbones in her hands.

  “Did you hear that?” Alix said into Catherine’s ear. “Mira’s gonna come eat turkey too!”

  “Is that okay?” Emira reached over and squeezed Catherine’s foot. “Can I come hang out with you on Thanksgiving?”

  And then, Catherine May Chamberlain looked at Emira and said, “Hi.”

  Emira and Alix gasped. Alix felt her face flush and tears run to the corners of her eyes. She turned her daughter around and brought her face up high. “Did you just say hi?” she asked. “Did you say hi to Mira? Briar, did you hear your sister?”

  “Mama?” Briar called. “Can you . . . you take a picture of Mira’s earring? Let’s take a picture.”

  Emira bounced her. “Your sister just said hi, big girl.”

  “Can you say hi again? No?” Alix swallowed. Catherine smiled sweetly and Alix held her little body close. She shook her head happily and said, “Emira, go home.”

  Emira laughed and said, “What?”

  “It’s insane out there, go home. And we’ll see you on Thanksgiving.”

  “Oh, I can give Briar a bath real quick.”

  “No, no. Mira, go.” The warmth Alix felt for her daughter’s first word, and for the day she was about to have—it was almost too much to keep in one room. If Emira stayed much longer, Alix would risk accidentally saying I love you, or ask if Emira liked babysitting for them, or how old Emira thought she was. “Actually,” she said. “Wait one second.”