Class

by Lucinda Rosenfeld

  “All right,” said Maeve, with a distinct lack of enthusiasm that Karen pretended she hadn’t detected.

  “Well, it was nice to see you,” said Evan. “But I’m actually running late. And so is Maeve. So we really should get a move on.”

  “Same here,” said Karen, childishly wishing she’d been the first to express the need to flee.

  As she walked back out into the brisk morning air, she made a mental note to e-mail Laura that night, before Laura started drawing her own conclusions.

  In the first years of Karen and Matt’s romance and then domestic partnership and even marriage, they’d spoken on the phone up to four times a day and e-mailed at least twice daily. But in recent years, entire weeks went by without either one of them trying to get in touch with the other one while they were at work. Familiarity was the most generous explanation. But on that day, anger and pride were clearly to blame for the silence.

  It seemed only fair that Karen pick Ruby up from her first day at her new school. As such, she worked through lunch and slipped out shortly after. Which is to say, she fretted all morning and got nothing done. She had lunch at her desk. Then it was time to go. At five minutes to three, Karen found herself on the Mather playground surrounded by a mixture of Ski Hat Dads, Embroidered Tunic Moms, and slow-moving, middle-aged women mainly of Caribbean descent sporting gold teeth and pushing expensive strollers containing the baby brothers and sisters of the Mather students. To Karen’s relief, she didn’t recognize any of the parents or even nannies. Finally, the students from Ms. Millburn’s class appeared. Ruby was last in line. “Ruby!” Karen cried and waved, an exaggerated smile plastered on her face.

  Her expression grim, the child said nothing as she followed her mother out of the schoolyard and through the gate. But once on the street, she said, “Can we go home now?”

  “Of course,” said Karen, fearing the worst.

  “In case you were wondering, I hated school,” Ruby went on.

  “Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry,” said Karen, her heart heavy. “But the first day is always rough. Can you at least give it a week before you decide you don’t want to go back?”

  “You said I only had to go one day.”

  “How about two?”

  Ruby didn’t answer.

  “Well, was the teacher nice at least?” asked Karen.

  “She was way too strict,” said Ruby, “and the kids were mean.”

  “Oh no.”

  “And I had no one to sit with at lunch.”

  “But that’s because you don’t know anyone yet. I’m sure you’ll make friends by the end of the week. You’re so good at that…Did you see Maeve?”

  “She’s not in my class.”

  “You didn’t even see her at lunch or at recess?”

  “She said hi. And then she ran away to play with her friends.”

  Karen took this last dispatch especially hard. “I promise it will get easier,” she told her.

  But how could she be sure?

  When they got home, rather than insist Ruby do her homework first, Karen let her play on the iPad for an hour. She knew she was setting a bad precedent, but at that moment she needed an ally most of all. She heard the key in the lock at seven fifteen and, fearing a reprise of the night before, went into the bedroom to hide from her husband. This is what our marriage has become, she thought as she pressed her ear to the door.

  Karen overheard Ruby addressing the same complaints to her father that she’d already addressed to Karen. But to her surprise, Matt didn’t immediately say yes when Ruby asked him if she could return to Betts the next day. It was the way he referred to Karen that wounded her. “That’s not a decision I can make alone,” he said. “Your mother and I both have to agree to it.” Karen appreciated the deference, but your mother rather than just Mommy, or even Mom? To Karen, it was reminiscent of the way divorced parents spoke about their former spouses to their children. Was that where this was headed? Was that where Matt wanted things to be headed?

  Angry and hurt, Karen lifted her cell phone off her bed and idly scrolled through her messages. She’d never replied to Clay’s dinner invitation from the week before. But maybe there was still time, she thought. And it was just dinner—it was just one night in a long life. And she could always back out at the last minute. She could tell Matt she had a work event. Though considering they were barely speaking, it might not even be necessary to come up with an excuse. Sorry for the delay. Problems on the home front…Sounds fun—time? Location? Karen typed, then stood staring at what she’d written, daring herself to catapult it across the length of the city and into Clay’s pocket in far less time than it took to blink. Both the immediacy and the intimacy of digital communications still astounded her when she stopped to think about it.

  But she couldn’t do it, wouldn’t let herself. Karen knew that, far from making dinner plans with another man, this was the time to turn to her husband, apologize for having angered him, and promise to mend her ways in the future. Then she remembered the look on Matt’s face when he’d walked out of the room the night before. It seemed suddenly possible that he’d never loved her, never would…

  After Karen pressed Send, her heart broke into a gallop.

  Not even thirty seconds later, a response appeared on the screen of her phone: I thought you’d never write back. The text was followed by another one listing the name and address of an Italian restaurant that Karen had never heard of. There was a third message after that: How’s 7:30 tomorrow night sweet special k?

  She felt as if oxygen was suddenly in short supply, causing her heart to pump harder and faster, while her head threatened to float up to the ceiling. Did Clay really find her special? And if so, why did she care as much as she did? See u there sweet c, Karen found herself writing back and then pressing Send.

  xoxo, Clay wrote back, causing her whole body to tremble.

  For Karen, the exchange, as brief as it was, had all the mesmerizing power of a dark secret whispered in the ear of one schoolgirl by another.

  But immediately afterward, the practical and efficient side of her returned. Thinking ahead, she texted Ashley to see if she could stay late the next day. (She could.) So when Karen and Matt walked by each other in the hall a few minutes later, she told him only “Ashley is sitting tomorrow night—I have dinner plans.”

  “Fine,” he said, his voice ice-cold approaching cryogenic.

  “If you get home before me, please pay her.”

  “How much am I supposed to pay her?”

  “However long she stays times her hourly rate.”

  “What’s our hourly rate again?”

  “How can you not know that?”

  “Can you just tell me her hourly rate?”

  “Forget it, I’ll pay her myself.”

  “Fine.”

  Ever more convinced of Matt’s failure to do his fair share on the domestic front—even as she secretly preferred to do most of it herself—Karen returned to her computer and began typing a new e-mail.

  Hey, Laura, I don’t know if Evan told you that we ran into each other this morning, but Ruby just started at Mather! Yes, it’s true. (Long story, not unrelated to yours.) Anyway, I wanted to see if we could make a plan for the girls for one day after school next week? Sadly, I don’t think they’re in the same class. But I’m hoping/assuming they will get to see each other at recess, lunch, etc.…Anyway, let me know your and M’s schedule when you have a chance. Our old sitter, Ashley the Queen of Nail Art, is back to Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday pickups, and I know she’d be happy to bring Maeve home with Ruby any of those days for a playdate. I also know R would love to hang with M! Hope all is well on your end. Karen

  Laura’s response arrived only five minutes later:

  Wow, I had no idea Ruby had transferred. That’s so unexpected. I thought you guys were so committed to the whole diversity thing…Anyway, it would be nice to get the girls together. But to be honest, Maeve is totally overscheduled right now, with Mathnasium
on Mondays, Beyblades on Tuesdays, hip-hop on Wednesdays, rock climbing on Thursdays, and coding on Fridays. And weekends are kind of reserved for family time these days because Evan and I have been so slammed with work. But I’m sure the girls will get a chance to hang at school, and hopefully you and I will see each other one of these weeks too. Best, LC

  Karen knew she shouldn’t have been surprised that Laura’s response, its superficially congenial tone notwithstanding, amounted to a wholesale rejection. After all, Karen had done the same to her the month before. But she was surprised. She also felt unexpectedly wounded that Laura apparently no longer wished for Maeve and Ruby’s friendship to go on at their new school—at least that seemed to be the subtext of her e-mail. Since there were a hundred other third-graders at Mather who looked like Maeve, Karen told herself it was no great loss.

  If only she could have believed it.

  How Karen got Ruby to school the next morning—in a downpour, no less—was a long story. But it involved the promise of unlimited screen time for a set period of days, as well as certain chemically enhanced and teeth-rotting sweets that Karen normally disapproved of and Ruby naturally loved. Several times during the negotiations, the compromises seemed too steep, and Karen was prepared to walk away and return Ruby to Betts and the status quo that seemed to satisfy everyone but herself. But by some miracle, the two of them made it inside Mather before the second bell had rung.

  Five minutes after that, Karen was outside again, alone on the street with her umbrella and bags, walking toward the train station and contemplating an entire day and night with neither angry daughter nor angry husband telling her what she’d done wrong. Karen knew she should have felt relieved. And she did. But she also found herself apprehensive and on edge, as if an earthquake had been recorded out at sea, and a tsunami was predicted to make landfall that evening, but the exact location was still unclear. In the meantime, all was still and serene. The rain had tapered off, and the streets seemed unusually empty of traffic. In search of reassurance that she wouldn’t be among those swept away by the deluge, Karen found herself dialing Troy. Not the type to judge, he was also the only one of her friends who’d met Clay.

  “Is everything okay?” he asked, sounding alarmed.

  “Why?” said Karen.

  “I can’t believe you called me. Who uses the telephone anymore?”

  Karen laughed. “Fair point. I guess everything isn’t okay.”

  “I charge two twenty-five an hour.”

  “I’ll pay you back in sugarless gum.”

  “Fine—go ahead.”

  “My husband wants to divorce me because I enrolled Ruby at a new school without telling him, and I’m having dinner with Clay Phipps tonight and it has nothing to do with fund-raising.”

  “Hmmmm,” said Troy. “Well, make sure you order the most expensive bottle of wine on the menu. I’m thinking a Château Lafite-Rothschild Bordeaux from the early nineties.”

  “You’re no help,” said Karen.

  “Kar—if you were raised by the Witnesses, you’d understand that Jehovah generously and willingly forgives even serious sins if you have a properly repentant attitude.”

  “But what if I’m not a Jehovah’s Witness?”

  “Then you’re screwed. Speaking of getting screwed.”

  “We’re just having dinner!” cried Karen.

  But were they? And what did Clay understand that Karen didn’t?

  At 7:28 that evening, she found herself in a funky, old-school Italian restaurant. There were red-and-white-gingham vinyl tablecloths on all the tables and vintage black-and-white photos of famous boxers on the walls. Clay was already seated at the bar, drinking what appeared to be an orange juice on ice and staring at his phone. Excited but nervous, Karen approached and said, “Hey.”

  Clay looked up and, at the sight of her, smiled and said, “Hey, what’s up?”

  But he didn’t immediately rise from his stool or tell her how happy he was to see her or how beautiful she looked. Which surprised and further unnerved Karen, who was left to lean over, kiss him hello on the cheek, and say, “Not a lot,” then stand there awkwardly, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, not sure if she should sit down or, if so, where. The whole exchange was so informal that, for a brief moment, Karen wondered if she’d invented their entire flirtation. But after she collected herself, Clay’s nonchalance, by taking the pressure off whatever would follow, came as a relief.

  “Sorry,” he said, glancing at his phone one more time before he grabbed a salted peanut from a complimentary bowl and popped it in his mouth. “This jackass who works for me lost us a lot of money today.”

  “How?” said Karen, taking a seat on the stool next to his.

  “The model he was using blew up.”

  “Should I flatter myself by thinking I would actually understand if you tried to explain?”

  Clay laughed. “I wouldn’t bother. But the guy should have known better.”

  “Can I ask you another question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Does anyone understand what you do for a living?”

  “Not really. Sometimes not even me. But let’s not talk about work. It’s too depressing.”

  “I can pretty much guarantee that how I spend my days is eleven times more depressing than how you spend yours,” said Karen.

  “Fair enough. What can I get you to drink?”

  “I don’t know—surprise me.”

  “One Bill Cosby Special coming right up. Waiter!” Clay motioned for the man behind the bar.

  “You’re a terrible person,” Karen said, chuckling and punching Clay’s arm.

  “Ow,” he said, grinning back.

  “Also, did I ever tell you that you basically lost me my biggest donor at the benefit that night? They e-mailed the next morning to say they were switching allegiances to our main rival. All that time you and I were dancing to those cheesy songs from the eighties, I could have been chatting them up.”

  “Yeah, but admit it, you had more fun than you’ve had in a year shaking your booty to ‘Footloose,’” said Clay.

  How did he know? “Maybe I did,” Karen said coyly, “and maybe I didn’t.”

  “Besides, you have me on board now, and—you never know—I might pony up a few more rubles at Christmastime.”

  “I can’t wait,” she said, reaching for a peanut herself. Under ordinary circumstances, the blatant mixing of business and pleasure that Clay was engaging in would have discomfited Karen. But somehow—maybe because the circumstances weren’t ordinary, or maybe because the pleasure was so immediate—it didn’t. Or maybe it was that his fortune was so large that it rendered money, even if he’d lost a little bit of it today, almost beside the point.

  Just then, Clay took Karen’s hand in his own, leaned forward slightly, gazed at her intently, and said, “Me neither—how about we get out of here?”

  “And go where?” said Karen, taken aback. Hadn’t they just arrived?

  “I have a room booked at the Mandarin Oriental and a car waiting out front. Sorry if that’s presumptuous.” He smiled sheepishly.

  “Excuse me?” cried Karen, laughing again and pulling her hand away, because it was all so sudden and suddenly so real. And what kind of fool reaches middle age and still thinks her fantasies will come true? “We haven’t even had dinner,” she told him.

  “We can eat later—or order room service,” said Clay. “Come on. Say yes. What do you have to lose?”

  “My marriage, for one thing!” answered Karen.

  “Mark will never find out.”

  “It’s Matt.”

  “Matt. Whatever. Don’t you ever just want to escape your life for a few hours—or is your life pure, unfettered joy?”

  “At the moment, it’s pure hell.”

  “Funny—so is mine. But we can pretend we’re happy. We can get in bed and watch sitcoms. You don’t even have to kiss me.”

  “I just have to sleep with you.”

  “W
ho said anything about sleeping?”

  “I did,” said Karen.

  “Well, that’s your problem, then,” said Clay, shrugging, but not unkindly.

  “And the fact that you’re married too isn’t an issue?”

  Clay sighed as he reached for his drink. “The way I see it, we’re both going to be dead soon anyway. What do we have left—thirty years, thirty-five, forty if we’re lucky? Except maybe it wouldn’t be that lucky. Have you ever met an eighty-five-year-old who’s honestly enjoying his life? I haven’t. And forget about ninety. Unless you think it’s fun being slumped in a chair reminiscing about the good old days while slowly losing your mind. After that, welcome to the junkyard of human existence. Sure, after we’re gone, our kids will cry for a few weeks and pretend to miss us. But they’ll get over it—they always do—while the rest of the world will soon forget we were ever born, unless by some fluke one of us discovers the cure for cancer in the next ten years. Then again, can you name the guy who eradicated smallpox? Me neither. So, I guess my feeling is, why not grab a little happiness where you find it? Maybe that makes me an asshole, but that’s kind of the position I’ve settled on at this point in my life. Have I had affairs? Yes. Have I had one recently? No. Do I find myself at this particular moment in time strangely besotted with you, Karen Kipple from College? Yes.” Clay stared lustily at Karen. Then he lifted his highball glass off the bar and had a final chug, which made his Adam’s apple bob up and down like a pinball in a machine. Setting the empty glass on the bar, he let out a contented “Ahhh” and added, “I love orange juice—one of the great inventions.”

  “Second only to the lightbulb,” offered Karen, swallowing hard.

  “Don’t forget the drum machine.”

  Karen found herself grinning at Clay, who grinned back. Maybe he’s right, she thought, and none of it matters—not the charity we believe ennobles us or the temptations we punish ourselves for succumbing to. We’re all going to be gone soon anyway.

  And Karen was flattered and aroused. And it seemed like her last chance to act like a drunken fool and be the object of someone’s desire before she shriveled up and ceased to be the object of anything but pity. And as bad as her body looked now, it was bound to look worse in five years.