The End of Men

by Karen Rinaldi

  This, Maggie understood, could be seen as a strike against women’s struggle for gender equality. How can I help them understand that this is the ultimate equalizer? What can be more powerful than to own the ability to procreate, to express it sexually and celebrate it if you want?

  The two sides were really not that different. They never were. Maggie felt close to some kind of plan when Lily began to scream.

  “What, Lil? Jules, what does she want?”

  “I think she pooped. I can smell it.”

  Even as Jules said it, Maggie’s olfactory senses kicked in. “Oh, yeah . . . C’mon baby girl, let’s get you out of that stinky mess.” As Maggie got out of the car to attend to Lily, it occurred to her that they’d been parked outside Justine’s school for half an hour. “Jules, can you manage with those crutches and go check on Justine? Ask the security guard where she might be.” Maggie pulled her phone out of her pocket to call John, hopeful that he might know something about Justine’s schedule.

  Nothing like sitting in a car seat to spread a diaper mess around. This was a five-wipe cleanup. As she wrestled her squirmy daughter in the backseat to change her diaper, Maggie tried to call John’s cell and dialed the apartment instead by mistake, so she was surprised that he picked up. “John, hi! What are you doing home?”

  “Hey, I’m on long distance with Georgette in Paris. Can you call me back in a few?”

  “Um, yeah, sure,” Maggie responded as she clicked off the phone. “‘Long distance’?” she exclaimed !out loud to no one. “Who says ‘long distance’ anymore?”

  By now it was past four o’clock, the time John supposedly had to be at the university. Instead, he was gabbing away with his ex-wife in Paris while Maggie changed diapers and picked up their children from school. Something in her life had gone terribly wrong.

  It took another half an hour for Justine to materialize. She’d been in the girls’ locker room changing from her soccer uniform for the past hour. Maggie wanted to be angry with her for being so inconsiderate, but then thought how she’d done the same thing when she was Justine’s age. Her mother called it “dillydallying.”

  Maggie remembered well the half-serious admonishments she’d receive when she’d left her mother waiting. Her tendency to dillydally had ended with her mother’s death, when Maggie was only eleven. A lunchtime-drunk businessman plowed into her car at a red light, killing her instantly. After that, Maggie became a person of precision.

  Justine, as a ten-year-old girl still safe in the realm of childhood, had every right in the world to dillydally. Maggie smiled at her as she walked through the doors.

  Something else occurred to Maggie at that same moment: Jules had jumped from the car, without his crutches, and effortlessly ran into the school when Maggie asked him to check on his sister. What about that sprained ankle? Glad to see that he was physically sound, Maggie wondered about the emotional health of the boy. Instead of walking it off when he’d twisted his ankle, he’d cried for his parents, but had gotten Maggie.

  The cell phone rang just as Maggie piled all the kids back into the car. It was John. “Hi, what’s up?” he asked.

  “What’s up?” she echoed, trying to hide the contempt in her voice.

  It was her fault. She always defaulted to pleasant mode even under the worst circumstances. But how could she explain to the kids that their father, while loving in ways that mattered most, was inefficient about the logistics of child rearing? It wasn’t any different from her own father’s neglect after the death of her mother.

  Everyone does the best they can, right? A refrain that plagued her. John said it all the time. “Maggie, I’m doing the best I can!” It reminded her of her dad’s advice, “Just do the best you can.” But what if the best you can do sucks? Maggie wondered. Where does that leave you?

  “What’s up? Oh, not much, we’re on our way back now. Hey, do you have any ideas for dinner? The kids are starved.” She wasn’t even going to begin to question him about the student he stood up.

  “Why don’t you pick something up on the way home?”

  “Righto.” Maggie clicked the phone off. She was getting close, very close, to action that didn’t bode well for her future as a married woman.

  When she got home, John was at his computer, working away on his thesis. She understood that he had the best of intentions but wondered when he would admit that it was futile and turn his attention to something he could do. Maggie heard that annoying ditty in her head again: He’s doing the best he can!

  THE NEXT MORNING, Maggie awoke to what felt like a three-martini hangover. She hadn’t had one drop of alcohol the night before. She considered for a minute the likelihood that she was coming down with something. When the details of the previous day seeped into her consciousness, she realized the toxicity she felt was bred from conflict, not gin.

  The lure of hot coffee was the only thing that pulled her out from under the covers. That and the 9:00 A.M. meeting over at RHM. John snored next to her, and by some miracle, Lily was still asleep in her bed. Maggie checked on her before padding across the loft to grind the coffee beans and beginning her morning ritual of brewing espresso and heating milk. Maggie looked forward to that joyous first cup of coffee in the silence of a sleeping house, before everyone else began to stir.

  It would be up to her, no doubt, to wake Justine and Jules. Maggie had coordinated her meeting at RHM to allow enough time to drop them off at school beforehand. She couldn’t bear to hear one more of John’s excuses about why he wouldn’t be able to do it himself this morning.

  After two sips into her delicious coffee, she heard Lily running across the loft. She could tell from the direction of her baby steps that Lily had silently crept from her bed and into Maggie and John’s room. Not seeing her mother, she began to cry out, “Mommy! Where are you?”

  Maggie hopped down from her stool and ran to her daughter. She swung her up in the air and put her nose in her hair, which smelled of baby shampoo and chocolate fudge. She kissed her from head to toe. “Uh-oh, Lily my love, we’ve got to wash your hair this morning. Let’s have some breakfast together first, then we’ll fill the tub.”

  Maggie mixed up a big bowl of yogurt, bananas, and granola for both of them to share. Lily sat on Maggie’s lap and they read The Big Red Barn three times while they ate. This was Maggie’s favorite part of the day, just her and Lily alone at the breakfast table, no one else hovering about needing her attention. Maggie let Jules and Justine sleep past their wake-up call, not wanting to disturb this too-rare moment with her baby.

  It wouldn’t be so bad for them to be late, she told herself. It was the end of the school year anyway. Still, she knew her motives were completely selfish. After yesterday, she wanted a day off from John’s kids.

  Breakfast finished, Maggie started a bath for Lily and went to rouse Justine and Jules. Ten minutes later, all four of them were in the bathroom trying to get ready for the day. As he was reaching for a comb, Jules knocked a glass jar of cotton balls onto the floor, which shattered into a million pieces. The day had just begun and Maggie was already fed up.

  “Guys, there are two other bathrooms in the house. Why don’t you each use one of them so we’re not tripping over one another? Get out of here now, please!”

  No doubt triggered by her stern voice, Jules began to wail that he’d been cut by a piece of glass. After thoroughly searching his hands, Maggie could see no wounds. He’d told her two different fingers hurt, on separate hands, so she figured he was just in a state of panic.

  “Jules, honey, you’re fine. You didn’t get cut. Now go and let me clean this up,” she demanded, and pointed out the door. Maggie didn’t care if she sounded harsh at that moment—there was that evil stepmother rearing her ugly head again—all she wanted was a few more moments of peace with her daughter. Blinking away tears of frustration, she began to clean up the broken glass.

  Lily, enthralled by the bath, didn’t notice the commotion. By the time Maggie had cleared away the m
ess, she was ready for her after-bath snuggle. Wrapped in a towel, Maggie held Lily close. Maggie loved to track Lily’s growth by how she fit along her own body. When she was an infant, Lily’s whole body had flopped easily over Maggie’s shoulder and Maggie could hold her with one arm. Now Lily’s head fit where her whole body used to and her legs stretched down to Maggie’s hips. It was a measure of time passing more quickly than she could register it in the day to day.

  Even after her bath, Lily had a strong scent that Maggie found intoxicating. Maggie understood how animals could identify their young through smell alone. She felt close to her own animal instincts when it came to Lily. This greatest gift stripped away what civilized life brought, leaving something atavistic in its place, often and miraculously felt as love.

  The trials of the morning behind her, Maggie dropped Lily off at Rosie’s for the day and loaded the big kids up in the car to head into the city. If the rest of the morning went smoothly, she would be only fifteen or twenty minutes late for her meeting with Beth, who would understand the delay without need for explanation. Still, her heart was racing from the way the morning had unfolded.

  Maggie was too late to drive around looking for a legal spot on the street near the office, so she decided to pay the exorbitant parking fees—Dammit!—and put the car in a lot instead. She grabbed her bag and hoofed it the few blocks to RHM, pulling out her phone to call John as she walked. Before she could dial his number, she was stopped dead in her tracks in front of a bus stop shelter. Her jaw dropped—along with her phone (screen side down, dammit again!)—at the sight of the image affronting her. The side panel held one of the RHM ads featuring a stunning Milly Ling, now defaced with big, angry black Xs covering her eyes and breasts. A crudely drawn target with an arrow in the bull’s-eye covered the actress’s abdomen. Maggie shuddered at the violated picture. Feeling shaken, she picked up her phone, now with a cracked screen, and pressed John’s number.

  “John, hi, it’s me.” She didn’t even wait for John to respond. “Listen, I can’t do this anymore. You slept through the entire nightmare this morning. From now on, you have to help. You don’t help, your children don’t get to school.” It was a gutless threat—the kids had only five more days left until summer break—and Maggie felt churlish making it.

  “Sure, Maggie. If you’d said something, you know I would have helped.” John’s voice was steady and earnest, which drove Maggie crazy.

  “That’s the problem, don’t you get it? Why do I have to ask you to help me with your children?”

  “I was sleeping, Maggie. I didn’t know.”

  “John, just don’t talk. It makes me angrier . . . I’m about to get to work and I’m already late. I gotta go.” Maggie clicked off the phone.

  As soon as she hung up, she regretted making the call at all. She knew John wasn’t so much negligent as he was distracted. Lost in her silent debate, Maggie walked right into the police barricades still strewn about the sidewalk in front of RHM, bruising her left thigh. As she rubbed the pain out, she looked up. There was a violent gash in the green-tinted translucent storefront window that caused Maggie to shudder and reminded her of the job she had to do.

  Just as Maggie turned to open the doors leading to the office, she was startled by a man standing next to the doorway. He had blue eyes, neat close-cropped hair, full lips, and a gloriously strong nose. One glance and he was a striking fright, another and he was strikingly beautiful. Maggie stopped cold in her tracks and her belly caught an unexpected butterfly before she regained her senses. She shook him off and brushed just past him to enter the building. When the door closed behind her she exclaimed to no one, “What the hell was that?”

  Up on the third floor, Maggie greeted the staff at RHM, emboldened to see them full steam ahead after the drama of the previous day. She headed straight for Beth’s office.

  “I just got hit by the thunderbolt. Either that or I just looked into the eyes of a serial killer,” Maggie said breathlessly.

  “Ha! Very good—G-1, Michael in Sicily when he first sees Apollonia.” Beth and Maggie shared an obsession with The Godfather movies. Maggie especially appreciated the films since John didn’t get them, stuck as he was in the rigid curriculum of what he considered “real” Italian films.

  “But what’s this about a serial killer?” Beth asked as an afterthought.

  “Oh, nothing really. There was this guy standing outside the door downstairs who caught my eye. It was the strangest thing . . .”

  Sacha poked her head into Beth’s office, announcing that everyone was waiting for them in the conference room.

  “Things with John not so great?” Beth asked affectionately as they headed to their meeting.

  “Fuggedaboutit,” Maggie said, and laughed.

  THE STAFF OF RHM was assembled and ready for business. Seated around the large bamboo conference table, the principle executives of RHM gave brief updates of the fallout from yesterday’s protest. It had been covered in all the local newspapers except the Wall Street Journal, though a journalist from the paper had called, interested in doing a story on Beth and the company.

  “Looks like we have our work cut out, but this is a good thing for us.” Beth exuded confidence, which trickled down to every employee of RHM. “Anna, can you give us an update on sales?”

  “Well, the overall sales were up for the month, and even though we had to close the store early yesterday, we’ve already beat last June’s numbers by fifty percent and we still have eight days to go. Catalog call-in and online sales made a noticeable jump in activity last night and this morning, no doubt from the news coverage. The store is jammed already, though it’s too early to tell if customers are buying or just curious window-shoppers. All in all, things look more than promising.” Anna’s voice was strong and authoritative, but Maggie thought she looked wiped out.

  “Just as Beth suspected,” Anna summarized, “the protests haven’t seemed to hurt us at all, at least from a sales point of view.”

  Maggie spoke up out of turn with a burst of inspiration. “Why don’t we organize a roundtable discussion on motherhood to be televised on one of the news programs? If people are yelling about what pregnant women should and shouldn’t be wearing, and what we should and shouldn’t be selling them, maybe we should start a dialogue around the issues. We can have call-ins and really make things lively. If we can’t do it for television, I can always try to place the story in a women’s magazine.” Maggie was so accustomed to jumping from one thing to another that ideas often got blurted out the moment they materialized. Suddenly self-conscious at the outburst, she began to apologize. “Sorry to interrupt, Anna . . .”

  “I love the idea,” Beth decided, already thinking ahead, “but who would put it on the air?”

  “I’ll find someone.”

  Maggie spent the day at RHM, where she began making a round of phone calls to take the temperature on her roundtable idea. By the time she was wrapping things up, she looked at her watch to see that she was running late. The day had slipped by so quickly and Maggie had to leave right away to be on time to pick up Lily. Usually Rosie either came to spend the day at Maggie’s apartment or she picked up and dropped off Lily herself, but her car was in the shop all week. John’s Harley—even with the sidecar—didn’t accommodate a toddler.

  Maggie said a quick good-bye to Beth and Anna and left the offices. As she walked toward the parking garage, she realized she had gotten so carried away with pitching the roundtable that she’d forgotten to tell Beth about the defaced ad while she was at the office. She picked up the phone to call her but then thought better of it. The past few days had given them all enough to process. Another angry critic wasn’t going to change anything. Maggie pocketed her phone.

  As she neared the end of the street, she got a prickly feeling. When she turned to investigate, she was astonished to see the blue-eyed man from the morning. What are the odds? she thought.

  Blue Eyes unnerved her, though she couldn’t immediately pinpo
int whether it was in an attracted sort of way or in a threatening one. She dismissed the coincidence of seeing him twice in one day as an it’s-a-small-world moment. Over the years, the false intimacy of coincidences with strangers on the streets of New York gave Maggie a sense of security. She had always felt that the city was her first and most constant lover—and a generous one, presenting plenty of opportunity for philandering of one kind or another.

  PART TWO

  LATE SUMMER

  CHAPTER SIX

  Anna

  ANNA LAY IN bed, exhausted by the day’s activities. The family had decided to spend the last two weeks of summer in Montauk at Anna’s parents’ bungalow, an optimistic attempt to have some quiet family time, as if there were such a thing with two toddlers. The boys were, at least for the moment, asleep after an active day at the beach. She could hear the hum from the television turned low in the living room, where Jason watched the History Channel.

  Anna welcomed the time alone and tried to expel the caustic thoughts fogging her mind. She couldn’t shake the fear that she wouldn’t be able to hold on to the fragile life forming in her womb. She wanted only to rest, but instead she was spending her vacation running around the South Fork of Long Island, shepherding Oscar and Henry to the beach and back. Anna feared that her favorite place on earth with her favorite people on earth was turning into more burden than joy.

  That Jason had the time and energy to watch TV enraged her. No matter how much he shared with Anna the daily demands of parenting young children, now that she was pregnant again, she needed Jason to do more now so she could give this new baby the sustaining body it needed to thrive. Her frustration was taking its toll.

  Earlier in the day while they were all at the beach, she had lost it with him for a misperceived infraction. Jason had returned to the car for the toy trucks they forgot to pack in the wagon. Henry and Oscar wanted to splash in the shore break, but Anna feared that the undertow current might pull them away from her. She grew impatient waiting for Jason, who seemed to be taking his sweet time returning to the beach. I bet he bumped into a friend and is yakking away while I’m left to mind the boys, she thought bitterly while she tried to distract the kids. By the time Jason finally appeared, she had worked herself into a state of fury.