Momzillas

by Jill Kargman

  The next day Violet and I kissed Josh good-bye as he left for work and I tried to figure out what to do. It was 93 degrees and I thought I could barely handle walking one block, let alone roasting on a paved playground. I had read about a cool hangout space uptown called Kidsplosion where you could pay a cover and let your kid run amok and jump in pools of foam and blow bubbles and basically go insane in a padded room. I figured, hey, if it’s air conditioned, I don’t fucking care if the kids are juggling razor blades. Just kidding.

  I was expecting the joint to be butt empty because in August it seemed like a neutron bomb had been dropped on the Upper East Side—the usual traffic of double-stranders (pearls) and their sailor-suit-wearing kids was nil, and the only things walking up Park Avenue were water bugs, which I realized early on was a New York euphemism for a huge fucking cockroach.

  When Violet and I pulled up to Kidsplosion, I was stunned to see that it was pretty packed. There were a ton of nannies, so I assumed that some of the moms who worked couldn’t take that time off. There was also a mom clique on the side. No sooner did I check Violet in than she ran off and hugged a little girl who became her insta-pal. I watched from the side and plopped next to the clique of moms, each of whom was holding a Starbucks cup. The topic of their conversation was sex.

  “Jonny rubbed my back last night and so wanted to and I was like, ew, I can’t deal,” one of them lamented. “It’s been two months now and I just have zero desire. Zero.”

  “Just have a glass of wine, lie on your back, and it’ll be over in five minutes! Make yourself do it,” another responded, adding, “I’ve got news for you: if you don’t fuck your husband, someone else will.”

  I was amazed; their conversation sounded so sad. But I had encountered this breed before: the Husband Bashers. It was a favorite pastime for some women, who bonded over how much their husbands worked, played golf, tried to sleep with them, etc. Truth be told, if I’d had a proper place to vent about Josh’s hours since our move, I might be tempted to open up about how lonely I was. But even with my best friends it would feel like a betrayal of Josh; he was the main person in my life, my partner, my best friend. Clearly, most marriages were not the same. The only thing worse was kid bashing, which came next.

  “Ugh, the terrible twos are killing me. Sometimes I want to die, Amory is sooo behind!” one woman lamented. “I mean, she’s still using her bottle.”

  I wanted to chime in and say, as Dr. Smith did, that she wouldn’t go to college with it, when one of her friends said, “That’s ridiculous! You must take it away at once. Cold turkey! We took Harrison’s away at ten months! He didn’t even know how to hold the sippy cup, so he lost one third of his body weight from starvation. But sometimes you just have to show them some tough love.”

  I was almost dialing child welfare on my cell when Violet came up holding the hand of Mia, a little girl with black curly hair and a smocked dress.

  “Hi Mommy! New friend!” The girls held hands and suddenly one of the blond moms nearby came over.

  “Mia, sweetheart, who is this?”

  “This is Violet, I’m Hannah,” I said, smiling.

  “Mimi Quackenbush Skite,” she said, extending a manicured hand covered in rings. “And this is my daughter, Mia Skite.” She looked Violet over, then glanced back at me with squinted eyes. “Is she…yours?” she asked, looking Violet and me over five more times each. “I mean, she looks nothing like you! I’ve never seen a mother and daughter look less alike!”

  “Yeah, she’s mine. Genes can be funny.”

  “But she’s sooo blond! And you’re so incredibly dark!” She made it sound like I had just passed through Ellis Island with a beard. I felt branded as a black pubic fur ball with a halo-covered flaxen cherub as my mistakenly switched-at-birth spawn. I simply shrugged, not quite knowing what to say. It was always the blondes who commented—clearly she was pissed her recessives hadn’t passed on to her dark-haired kid, while my swarthy, grody pube head was forgiven in the formation of Violet’s soft light waves.

  “Where are you applying to nursery schools?” she asked out of left field while looking over my outfit: black jeans, a gray T-shirt, and black ballet flats.

  She, like all her friends who looked on from their perch, was wearing what I was realizing was the Momzillas’ summer uniform: metallic Jack Rogers sandals (J-Ro’s), white pants, and a Tory by TRB beaded tunic and blond ponytail.

  “Um…I guess the usual suspects, you know,” I said, uneasy.

  “How many schools?” she asked, suspect.

  “Four, the ones that are near us. I’m too lazy to schlep across town,” I said.

  “Only four?!” She was aghast. “Are you serious? Wow, you must be pretty confident. Most people apply to at least eight or nine. I’m applying to eleven, but that’s me. Mia is a nightmare and has a craaazy temper, so I’m guessing she’ll fully blow it at least three or four schools.”

  Evil. I mean, the kid was two, after all.

  “Hi guys!” I heard a familiar voice say. I turned to see Hallie in the same outfit, flipping her red hair. “Oh, Hannah! Hi—I’m just in the city for the afternoon, Thatcher had a work dinner with the wives so I just hopped the jitney. Come here, Julia Charlotte!” The famous, sunshine-coming-out-of-her-ass Julia Charlotte came over and saw Mia and Violet and promptly stuck her tongue out at them. So much for the brilliant, mannered, Mandarin-fluent mini Einstein.

  “Oh, you know each other?” Mimi marveled. “Hallie, please tell your friend—Hannah?—that she has to apply to more than four schools.”

  Hallie barely paid any attention to me and instead was extremely focused on one of her nails which—gasp!—had a chip in the pale pink polish. “It doesn’t really matter,” she sighed. Surprised, I felt relieved. Until she added: “If Violet doesn’t get in anywhere you can always reapply next year.”

  Bitch. What she gained by dropping that doozy I do not know, but I thought it might be time to exit Kidsplosion before there was a Hannahsplosion. I politely announced I had to go and barely exhaled ’til I got around the corner, where I found myself panting. And then the perfect way to drown my sorrows pulled around the corner: Mister Softee. Even that semi-creepy serial-killer clown music sounded like the Philharmonic at that point, and with one cup and two spoons, Violet and I had a tiny taste of summer on the scalding pavement.

  AND SO BEE COULD CHECK IN FROM THE CRAMPTONS…

  Instant Message from: BeeElliott

  BeeElliott: Hamptons are boooring. How’re you?

  Maggs10021: Fine, having a nice time pre-stork, trying to rest as much as possible!

  BeeElliott: Any goss?

  Maggs10021: No, just blah—it’s kind of all about ice cream and sunblock

  BeeElliott: Hallie IM’d me that she ran into Hannah at Kidsplosion and she was such a freak—she’s only applying to like two or three schools! Clueless. How does Josh deal?

  Maggs10021: Whatevs. Violet is so smart, she’ll get in.

  BeeElliott: Not so sure—Mom says Lila Dillingham is FREAKING and thinx Hannah sucks. Poor kid.

  Maggs10021: Hopefully she’ll get in somewhere…it all works out in the end.

  Twenty-five

  Grover is visiting a horse farm in Saskatchewan. The stallions have names like Thunder and TriggerHeel and Feathers. The little girl who is our guide rides the horses, washes them, and feeds them crisp apples. It is miles to another house, the fields are dewy and endless, with a sunset dappling the high breeze-blown grasses.

  I am trapped in an urban jungle of cement and stacks of people in towers that scrape the sky and gut my confidence. Violet, who is such a contented child she would have a blast at Alcatraz, is absorbed in Grover’s northern romp as I stare into space, summoned back to earth by the piercing birdlike ring of our corporate apartment’s incredibly annoying phone.

  “Hi, honey,” Josh said with a dark tone. Uh-oh. Just as I had feared the moment the nasal-voiced ticket saleswoman had said the words “final sale,” Jos
h told me apologetically that something had come up and our long-overdue date night was now canceled.

  “What do you mean you have a work dinner? I’ve got Broadway show tickets!”

  “Sweets, I can’t help it. Parker and I need to go over everything and it could take a while.”

  “But you just got home from a business trip! You’ve been working for ten days straight!”

  Great. My romantic date night foiled. I had been so looking forward to a sexy New York night on the town. And with everyone away in the Hamptons for the last two weeks of summer, it would be a quiet winding down of sorts. The calm before the shit storm.

  “Go without me, honey, ask Leigh.”

  “She’s in Brazil at surfing camp. No one’s in town!” Ugh. I hung up so bummed. Amber was already booked and the tickets were paid for. Maybe I could sell one in front of the theater to a Kansas person? An hour of stressing later, the horrifying, ear-splitting phone chirped again.

  “Hello?”

  “Oh—it’s me, Hannah, Tate Hayes. I’m certain you’re busy, but you mentioned your husband works quite a bit these days, and I just was wondering on the off chance you’re free tonight if you wanted to do something?”

  “Actually, this works out perfectly.”

  Twenty-six

  “The moon is so beautiful, it looks like a picture,” said the actress on the shadowy stage.

  “Why does it have to look like a picture?” said the man who came up behind her, caressing her body, her arms, her breasts.

  He slowly undid the tie of her bikini, letting the top drop to the floor. The highly erotically charged scene had me shifting in my seat, subsumed in a tide of awky blushing.

  When the curtain fell twenty minutes later after said couple perished tragically, the lights came on and I looked at Tate.

  “Uplifting!” I said, sarcastically.

  “I think we need to get a drink. Or how about a bite?”

  “Oh, um…I would, except I have to probably get back and pay my sitter.”

  “All right, I’ll drop you home on my way.”

  In the cab, he thanked me for the ticket and we confirmed plans to see another exhibit at the Guggenheim. It was nice to have someone to spend time with, immersed in an old interest. But somehow being near him made me a little nervous, given my former obsession. Somehow I thought maybe we should keep our hangouts art-based, like an echo of the classroom. But in the face of my anxiety, I reminded myself that he was married, too, so luckily I knew his intentions were chaste and I could exhale.

  We pulled up to my apartment building and Tate paid the driver, getting out of the taxi with me.

  “I feel like walking,” he said. “It’s a lovely night. And the chill will be upon us before we know it.”

  “I hope so,” I said. “This heat is killing me.”

  “Soon enough, Hannah.” He reached for my hand, brought it to his face, and kissed it.

  Whoa.

  I thought I would keel over, I was so surprised. I mean, granted, it’s a totally platonic thing, but…I couldn’t see Josh kissing anyone’s hand. It was as if his lips on my hand sent a bolt through that big vein that people commit suicide on and charged my chest with a happy nervous shock.

  “Good night,” I said, turning to go in the building. I couldn’t have turned away faster because I had to hide the fact that my cheeks, like an oiled stroke of a Degas tutu, were pink.

  THANK GOODNESS FOR TECHNOLOGY! THE BETTER TO SPREAD GOSSIP WITH…

  Instant Message from: BeeElliott

  BeeElliott: YOU ON? YOU ARE GONNA DIE!

  Maggs10021: Hi, am here, w’sup?

  BeeElliott: Am FREAKING! R u sitting down?

  Maggs10021: Of course. What, do you think I type standing up? Out with it!

  BeeElliott: Hannah Allen is FULLY cheating on Josh!

  Maggs10021: No way. I don’t believe it.

  BeeElliott: It’s TRUE! I saw w/ my own eyes! Park said Josh is working 24/7 also and we came into the city to see West’s allergist & I SAW HER w/ some hot guy and he kissed her and totally they are an item.

  Maggs10021: Am in shock.

  BeeElliott: I’m not. Nothing shocks me anymore. What a whore.

  Twenty-seven

  Tate had been right—August whizzed by and September was upon us. Labor Day weekend was here and not a soul was in the neighb. Josh adorably made me breakfast in bed and we had a late cuddle with Violet Saturday morning, then he announced he had to go to work because there was no Labor Day in Europe and that he had to crunch some serious numbers for Count von Hapsenfürer. I was so pissed and lashed out at poor Josh, but there was really nothing he could do.

  It was amazing how different the empty weekend was from insane Monday. Labor Day was streams upon streams of deluxe SUVs parading back in from Cape Cod and the Islands, the Hamptons, and Connecticut. The Park Avenue that had been dead silent just twenty-four hours ago was now jammed with cars unloading piles upon piles of monogrammed T. Anthony luggage and preppy totes from the Monogram Shop. Moms were in a panic unloading all the children and loot, and tanned dads helped cattle-prod the kids off the sidewalks into their grand buildings.

  My heart was racing all day Labor Day because I knew what the next morning held: the infamous nursery school speed dial. I had made my list of schools—Carnegie Nursery School was obviously my first choice since everyone said it was the “best” (one guy literally gave a million-dollar donation from his company to get his kid in) but I was instructed I needed backups so I also was ready to get my fingers to dial the Fifth Avenue School (which was in a church basement), the London School (a British school with adorable uniforms so I wouldn’t have to stress about how to dress Violet every day), and the Temple School, where Josh had gone. Bee had pronounced the Temple School “very B” and said it was a miracle Josh had gotten into Collegiate from there. Lila had left three messages on her way back from England to remind me to dial the next morning. As if I could forget—it was all anyone wanted to talk about.

  Josh thought the whole thing was insane and ridiculous.

  “Sweetie, she’s two. I mean, who cares?”

  “I do! Plus it’s your friends that say you need a backup.”

  “But I’m a legacy at the Temple School!”

  “I can’t believe you moved me to a place where fucking two-year-olds need backup schools to play with blocks and it’s a huge leg up to have a legacy!”

  I started to get tears in my eyes.

  “Okay, Hannah, you’re being nuts. Why are you crying?”

  “Because you worked all day! Because I’m always alone! Because I hate these bitchy women who make me feel like loving Violet isn’t enough! Because they all compete over everything and because I am sick of doing nothing but obsess about where my life should be.”

  Josh came over to hug me but I knew he thought I was going off the deep end. Then, as I was wiping my eyes, he dropped the doozy.

  “Well, sweetie, I have to go to the office very early tomorrow, so we should go to bed.”

  Silence.

  “What? I told you, tomorrow is the day we call the schools!”

  “That’s tomorrow? God, this process is so nuts. Back when I was applying, my mom just dropped by and they handed you the application.”

  “But that’s not how they do it now!” I screamed. “I told you this!”

  “Sweetie, I am so sorry, I don’t know what to tell you. I have a new job and I can’t cut corners. Obviously I want to help you, but my hands are tied. I have a huge conference call with von Hapsenfürer and our Japanese office, and there’re like eight guys on the call.”

  “Great. So I get to do this alone. She’ll just end up in that day care where they beat up that little girl last year.”

  “Don’t be such a drama queen.”

  “I don’t think you understand that I am alone all the time! With your mother! With Bee and her friends and I’m miserable like this! I don’t care about money.”

  “C’m
on, Han, I’m sorry, I’m—”

  “Doing it for us, yeah yeah. Quite frankly I’d rather have you be a public school teacher and at least have you home at five o’clock! I’m alone all the time! I’m the one doing everything with Violet while you’re MIA at work! You didn’t even know that Snuffleupagus wasn’t invisible anymore until last week! You’re never fucking here!”

  “And who do you think would pay for these schools we’re applying to if I was sitting at home with you?”

  “What, are you implying that because I don’t make any money I have to do everything else?”

  “No—I’m just saying—”

  “Forget it. I’m exhausted.” Nice. I turned off my light and rolled over. This is so not where I pictured myself. Let’s face it, Josh’s work is his life and I had to just think of myself as a single mother and then, when he was actually with us, it would be a bonus. Josh tried to rub my back, but I didn’t respond, I just closed my eyes and slowly fell asleep.

  Twenty-eight

  I woke up as Josh stepped out of the shower with my heart immediately pounding from the moment I was conscious. I couldn’t believe I actually had to win a radio call-in contest to just get an application for Violet’s schools. Josh kissed me good-bye at seven thirty, and apologized profusely for our spat the night before and for having to leave me for the phone-fest. I had thirty minutes of trying to suppress a heart attack while feeding Violet her Cheerios and banana. I am the worst mother—I remembered as I was pouring from the big yellow box that Bee said West has farm-fresh eggs and organic bacon every morning. As did Lara’s kid. “Brain food,” they called it. Ugh. But they had help to clean the frying pan, utensils, and bowl covered in eggy film afterward. If that was brain food, what was cereal every day, thigh food?