by Rumaan Alam
“You look beautiful,” Meredith says.
“So glad you came,” Sarah says.
“I can’t wait to meet the little man!” She grins. “Should I take my shoes off?”
Sarah shakes her head, guides Meredith into the apartment. The baby is snoozing happily, noisily, in the seat. His snore is surprisingly loud.
Meredith considers the baby. He’s so small, but so much bigger than he’d been only weeks ago. She pantomimes her excitement, lest she wake him, clasped hands, open mouth, a gasp. Mouths: He’s gorgeous! The exclamation mark is implicit. She perches on the edge of the sofa, looks up at Sarah. “Tell me everything,” she says.
“Everything is good.” Sarah sits. The air-conditioning whirs to life. “I mean, you know.”
“I don’t, but I can imagine.” Still whispering. “Just look at that face!” Meredith seems almost overcome.
“Thank you.” It has occurred to Sarah since giving birth that it might be easier to accept compliments relating to her offspring had she adopted. Thanking someone who praises his beauty seems to be tacitly endorsing that she and Dan are themselves beautiful and somehow responsible for this. She just says thank you but doesn’t entirely mean it. Henry, young as he is, is an entity independent of her. “How are you?”
“Oh, you know.” Meredith waves this question away.
Sarah does know: She knows that her matchmaking has been successful, and since the wedding Meredith and Jamie have been seeing each other constantly. She’ll marry him, Sarah’s sure of it. Meredith will ask Sarah to be her matron of honor. The couple will probably be very happy.
“You look good,” Sarah says. She’s not sure what else to say. She’s not interested in talking about the baby: Almost every conversation ends up being about the baby, and they’re not interesting. She’s been hungry, starving, actually, for a real conversation, one about a book, about someone’s experience at work, a bitter complaint about a relationship, plans for a vacation—anything. But now, confronted with Meredith and the opportunity to have such a conversation, she can’t think what to say. She needs Lauren. Profane, honest Lauren. They will have a real conversation.
The buzzer rings once more, and she realizes that of course she won’t have to make conversation today, after all—when playing hostess, you never get to speak to anyone in any satisfying detail. They’re not there to talk to her anyway; they’re there to coo, to give presents, to pay respects.
It’s Fiona, who’s taken the elevator up with Lulu and Lulu’s friend Sharon, Auntie Sharon, a silver-haired, soft-spoken woman, a photographer of great renown, one of Lulu’s closer friends. Sharon is carrying a big tote bag—Lulu has no doubt prevailed upon her for some photographs of the new mother, or, more likely, one of herself and grandson. Sarah’s eye falls first though, on Fiona, the swollen tautness of her belly. As etiquette decrees, a warm hug for Sharon, whom she’s not seen since the wedding, then a quick hello to her mother, then an embrace, the first she means, with Fiona, so tall and expansive, pulling her nearer to her body, its leaking nipples.
“You didn’t tell me,” she says. “Congratulations.”
Fiona brushes this aside. “It’s your party,” she says. “But yes, now you see.”
“Playdates! We’ll have playdates.” Sarah finds this genuinely exciting. She closes the door.
The right gift eluded Lauren. Her initial thought had been a blanket. Then she had a drink, one night, with Jill, poor Jill, eager for some female companionship. Jill had e-mailed, Jill had called, Jill had kept the nanny on late one Wednesday evening and Jill had met her at an annoying Cuban-cum-French place that had always driven Lauren crazy but Jill chose, and Jill paid, so she went. She drank rosé, listened to stories about Jill’s nanny, who seemed to be the only connection to reality in Jill’s life. Jill’s nanny was a painter, and her boyfriend was a photographer whom Jill described, more than once, as sexy, which was an intriguing admission. Lauren used the opportunity to do some focus grouping.
“Whatever you do, don’t get her a blanket,” the first thing Jill said, upon being asked the best baby gift, without knowing that’s just what Lauren had planned on.
She didn’t protest, didn’t counter that it was Missoni. Jill knew, Jill must be heeded. So, no blanket. Lauren spent a few days in the stacks at various bookstores, putting together a list of the least-boring children’s board books, the ones with the best pictures, the ones with the least-sexist stories, but then she remembered that she worked in books, and such a gift would seem like something plucked from the free table at work. The big-ticket items were a possibility—a stroller, a crib, a high chair—but there was nothing special in those, the presents a wealthy aunt would send.
“A Tiffany rattle?” she tried.
“Very WASP,” Jill said. “Perfectly good taste, perfectly useless.”
Uselessness was the point, but it did have the feeling of anonymity; a silver rattle is what your husband’s employer’s human resources department would send by way of congratulations.
Lauren assumes the doorman at Sarah’s building knows her, but he doesn’t. He looks at her, looks at the box in her hands, understands, and says, “Burton?” The doorman rings the apartment without asking her name, waves her along.
The package is unwieldy, but not heavy. She’s settled on some ridiculous clothes, the sort no reasonable mother would buy for her own child: a tiny, cashmere cardigan; a gingham button-down shirt with faux mother-of-pearl buttons; a pair of velvety corduroy pants, bright green; a very small fedora; an honest-to-God sailor suit, with navy blue shorts, crisp white smock, and neckerchief printed with tiny anchors and cartoon whales, all meant to be worn when he’s a much bigger boy—she’s even accounted for season and his relative age, buying the sailor’s suit in size 12 months, so Henry can wear it at some point next summer. She’s also bought a photo album, or a blank book anyway, bound in green leather, and plans a lecture about how no one gets actual printed photographs anymore, but there’s something about flipping through the pages of an album that scrolling around on a telephone cannot replicate.
Sarah answers the door. She looks very different, at first, and it’s because Lauren’s mental image of Sarah is Sarah on her wedding day. Sarah looks, now, nothing like that. Her hair looks thinner, somehow, or flatter, which is odd, given the day’s humidity. Summertime Sarah’s hair is usually so voluminous. There’s a hardness, too, to her face—she’s lost weight, that’s what it is. There’s that residual glow, of pregnancy, which has mellowed into the satisfaction of the parent. Lauren wasn’t sure what she expected—dark circles under the eyes, maybe, a general harried air—but she knows that Henry’s a decent sleeper, actually, eats his fill like clockwork, then dozes and mews in his little sleeper, attached to their bed. It makes a certain kind of sense that Sarah would have a perfect baby; it’s of a piece with the general expectation, in her life, of perfection. She looks good. She looks like her younger self, and it’s a look that seems better, more beautiful, now than it did then.
“Hi!” As she kisses Sarah, Lauren spies the small crowd in the apartment. She wills herself into party mode.
“You’re here.” Sarah pulls her into the apartment, closes the door.
It is cold inside, almost like a refrigerator. The apartment smells, as it always does, of nothing at all. It’s like a hotel, she’s always thought, Sarah and Dan’s apartment, anonymous, incongruous, well ordered and maintained, like a model home.
“Is he awake?” She’s seen the baby already, of course, but only the once, at the hospital, Sarah sleepy and crazed-looking, Dan sweaty and pleased. Newborns are never all that cute unless you have a genetic stake; Henry looked like a red alien, or how she imagined a turtle might look, without its shell. Lauren oohed over him, left them with some flowers, then, the next day, had some groceries delivered to their apartment, including many ready-made dinners you needed only heat in the microwave. She’s wanted to give the new family their space; this has been her gift to them. S
he thinks she knows what new parenthood entails: sleepless stupor, casual nudity, marital bickering, forgetfulness, anxiety about inoculations and insurance. A new parent needs time to process this, doesn’t need to spend her days making chitchat with gawkers.
“He’s dozing, but he’ll be up soon.” Sarah leads her into the living room, where Meredith, Amina, and two older women she doesn’t recognize are stabbing baby carrots into a bowl and having a conversation in an exaggerated whisper speak that’s frankly every bit as loud as normal conversations. Lulu and Fiona, who is clearly pregnant herself, her long, elegant body somehow made longer and more elegant by the rise of her stomach, are just offstage, in the kitchen, where Lulu is doing nothing to keep her voice down.
The baby is in his seat, amid all this general hubbub, a blank expression on his face, lips set in a perfect little pucker, his cheeks moving, almost imperceptibly, as he snores. The hair on his skull looks almost drawn on, like the lines of a pencil. He’s sweet; babies are designed to seem sweet.
“You know everyone,” Sarah says, her tone carrying a clue. “You remember my aunt Sharon? And my colleague Carol?”
“Of course! How are you?” Lauren offers a hand to both the women, unsure which is Sharon and which is Carol. It doesn’t matter. She hasn’t seen Amina or Meredith since the brunch, the Sunday after the wedding, an understated, hungover occasion. She and Rob sat with Sarah and Dan and the four of them ate quiche and pastries and mostly ignored the rest of the guests. The three of them exchange half hugs and half kisses, as is the custom. Their trip together—bathing suits and bangles, sunscreen and that pristine water—seems like something that happened to someone else.
“Can you believe this kid? I’m dying to wake him up,” Meredith says. “I can’t wait to get my hands on him.”
Sarah disappears into the kitchen.
“You better not,” Amina says. “My sister says the one rule is never wake a sleeping baby.”
“How are you supposed to resist, though?” Meredith stares longingly at the baby.
Sarah has kept Lauren abreast of things. She knows that Meredith and the blind date who was arranged to escort her to Sarah’s wedding are now an item. Judging by the rapacity with which Meredith is studying the baby, the poor guy stands no chance.
Fiona joins them, porcelain teacup cradled in her hands like a bird settled into a nest. “Hi, Lauren,” she says. Some special note of friendliness there: She and Rob spent an hour at the wedding with Fiona and her husband, Sam. They sat on the stoop, the four of them, balancing plates on laps and eating dinner, then smoking Sam’s cigarettes, talking. Lauren likes Fiona, though she’s also a bit afraid of her, has always had a healthy fear of women who are too beautiful. Much as pregnancy has amplified the effect of her remarkable body, it’s accentuated the impact of her beauty. She has it—the glow. And she’s cut her hair short, like a boy’s, so all you can do is take in the planes of her face, the evenness of her skin, the sweet peak of her nose, the luxurious green of her eyes.
“Congratulations,” Lauren says, which is what you must say in these situations, when it’s impossible, indeed uncomfortable, to deny the fact of another person’s pregnancy. “When are you due?”
“November,” Fiona says. “Not long now. How have you been? How’s Rob?”
“He’s good, thanks,” she says. “He’s good. I’m good. We’re good.”
Rob is good. That may be the easiest way to sum him up: good. Things between them have been much the same—dinner here, or a movie then a drink, a stroll around Chelsea to look at the second-rate summer group shows, an hour in the park, on a blanket, with the newspaper. The first weekend of August, their first time away together. She’d felt guilty, like they’d ditched the third wheel that had accompanied them wherever they went: the city itself.
Rob’s idea: a vacation rental in the Hudson Valley, though they never caught sight of the river. They stopped at a big, clean grocery store, bought a rotisserie chicken and some dry pasta, the makings for hamburgers, a bottle of vodka and a twelve-pack of beer, a package of Oreos and every idiotic magazine in the checkout line. The house had a hot tub, and they sat in the quiet night, naked, until the heat had completely soaked into their bodies. They dried off and fell asleep, woke up and fucked. There was no computer, no television, even their phones didn’t work all that well. She spread a sheet on the patchy lawn and lay there in the summer sun, reading tabloids. Rob fell asleep on the sofa and snored, then woke up and grilled hamburgers. They sat naked in the tub again, again fell asleep, and woke early the next morning, too early, because they hadn’t done anything and therefore weren’t tired. They packed their things, drove to a nearby town, looked at some terrible art galleries, ignored the antiques shops, ate bagels and drank iced coffee. Rob drove them back to her place, and then Rob went to return the rental car on his own, and she was surprised to find that she was relieved to be alone again.
She has been impatient for September, and now here it is: three books launching, related parties and events scheduled, that back-to-school feeling in the air and even if you’re the sort to sing “no more pencils, no more books,” there’s something comforting in the sense that the world is getting back to business. Lauren’s ready, ready to shake the hands and soothe the egos, to demonstrate efficiency, to reach for excellence. She’s ready for more. Sarah has a baby, for Christ’s sake. What the fuck does she have?
“Lauren, come sit and talk to me,” Lulu says, beckoning from the sofa. “Come, come.”
Lauren makes an apologetic face to the younger women—Lulu must be obeyed—accepting before she goes, from Meredith, a glass of white wine.
“How are you, then? So beautiful, look Sharon, this is Sarah’s oldest friend, isn’t she beautiful?” Lulu’s friend nods in agreement, or benediction.
Lulu has this quality, sometimes, of seeming very drunk, when in fact she isn’t. Lauren has never understood what brings this on in her. “How are you, Grandma?”
“Ah.” Lulu clasps her hands. “I’ve decided on Mamina—Henry’s going to call me his mamina, isn’t that lovely? I am, in my old age, you see, getting more interested in my roots. Mamina. That’s how I called my mother’s mother, so it’s got a history to it. And of course, we’ll have to raise him with Spanish.”
Lauren nods. “They say it’s easy, when you start from birth.”
“It is, well, of course it is, we were raised in English, Spanish, French, we never knew any different, we just answered in whatever language we were spoken to, this is how it should be. This country, the way people insist on English, it’s so small, don’t you think?”
Lauren agrees. It’s easier, with Lulu, to agree.
The thing Sarah wants least, now, is to open the presents, in front of everyone, but it is clear that’s what people expect, or at least Meredith and Lulu, the most vocal among them. So she does. Amina is holding the baby, who isn’t doing anything because babies can’t do anything, and Sarah perches on the leather pouf from that Moroccan shop in the West Village and unwraps. There is: a sterling silver rattle in telltale blue box, plus a stuffed monkey, very soft, from Meredith; a blanket, off-white cotton, hand-embroidered with a motif of small giraffes, and the very practical package of onesies, from Carol; a dozen little board books, from the black-and-white ones that are meant to be the only thing a small baby’s eyes can discern, to actual storybooks, the sort she’ll read aloud at some impossible-to-imagine point in the future, from Sharon.
“Mine next!” Amina, arms full of Henry, nods at a box wrapped in yellow.
Lauren hands it to Sarah, and she sits with it on her lap, for a second, looking at all of them, looking at her. She has a baby. This realization has come a couple of times now, each of them surprising. She knew she was going to have a baby, she was there when the baby emerged from her very body, but still, in moments, it’s possible to forget, or be so preoccupied with remembering things like which side of the diaper goes in back, quickly, before his little penis dribbles out
yet more of his perfectly clear urine, that the very fact of it is lost, or buried. This is probably by design; the baby keeps you busy so you don’t have time to reflect on the fact that you have a baby. She doesn’t want to think too much, because she’s terrified of postpartum depression and has come somehow to equate the two. Sometimes, thinking too deeply is a mistake, is a trap. Sometimes it’s best just to do.
It’s a sound machine, Amina’s gift, buried inside a plush sheep. Sarah’s read good things about this. “Thank you!”
She’s not making a list but feels like she’ll be able to remember who gave her what; the gift reflects its giver’s personality, somehow. She’ll know that the hand-crocheted mobile in the shape of an antique bird’s cage was from Fiona, because only Fiona would give a present nominally suitable for baby and yet so stylish. She’s glad that Fiona is pregnant—is happy, of course, as you would be, for a friend, but selfishly, too. There are no mothers in Sarah’s close circle, and even though she’s only a couple of weeks into it, she feels alone, or like she’d benefit from some peer support. She supposes, now that she considers it, that maybe she’s always imagined doing this with Lauren, getting married, vacationing together with their husbands, who would, of course, be friends, or friendly enough. Then having babies, passing hand-me-downs back and forth between them until they could no longer remember who had originally bought those Old Navy overalls. Foolish, she guesses; she thinks, or knows, that Lauren will probably never have a baby, and even if she did, Lauren wouldn’t approach it the way Sarah’s going to approach it. She still remembers, though, the things she once thought, even if nothing has happened quite as she imagined it would.
There’s only Lauren’s gift now, a bounty of clothes, ridiculous every one—outfits for a man, scaled down for a baby, and a sailor’s suit like a baby in a Shirley Temple movie might have worn. She laughs. She understands, immediately, that this is both a joke and not.
