by Amanda Brown
Both Edward and Becca saw the enthusiasm that rose to Emily’s eyes when her mind turned to baking. There was no getting out of it, Becca thought, but a cake in a box couldn’t be too much trouble. While Emily flounced importantly down the hall to get her beaded city, purse, Becca asked Edward for the location of the closest grocery store.
He laughed, since necessity had driven him to take over ordering their sustenance for delivery from the grocery, the greengrocer, and occasionally, when the maid agreed to cook, from the butcher. Becca admired this survival skill. Like morning glories leaning toward twin suns, they had been drawn in the direction of their differing talents. Becca had expanded Emily’s world, taking her to the floor of the stock exchange the way some people take children to the zoo; in fact it was not unlike the zoo, and Emily had squealed with excitement at the frenzied scene. Edward had no innate talent or interest in cooking, but he had a great deal more need for eating, and so by default had been the one to pick up this essential chore.
Emily accepted with a pout that they had to wait until later to bake the cake, since she had another preschool interview in the afternoon, but Edward made her laugh with a ridiculous story of a daddy who ate cake before the interview and then burped at all the teachers. Becca regarded him with admiration as Emily giggled, forgetting what she might have insisted upon, her stubborness washed away in peals of laughter. With Eddie around, Becca thought, things were smooth as silk.
Edward’s manner was so naturally pleasant, so smooth and straightforward, he was the indoor equivalent of a lovely, calm day. He relaxed everyone in the room. So little invested was he in some prearranged course of his own conduct that he simply adapted to Emily’s preferences; but when he had a goal in mind, he saw quickly to the child’s avenues of persuasion, and moved her gently on what seemed to Emily to be the force of her own decisions. If she had wanted to pick a fight with Edward, the child wouldn’t have had a chance.
They arrived, that afternoon, at a familiar scene brewing on the sidewalk in front of Ethical Kiddies, a coveted preschool whose aspirational name did not change the essential reason for its large applicant pool. It was a surefire feeder into Chapin and Spence, two of the best elementary schools in the city. The toddler popularity contest came into view as they rounded the corner.
They counted their steps out loud, swinging Emily’s feet off the ground on “five.” Emily squealed with delight as they gave her a last energetic swing, with Edward pulling her higher and higher to hear the sound of her giggle, and Becca tugging with all her strength to be sure she pulled her own weight. They took their places in line, toward the back this time, as they had not arrived early.
Upper East Side parents congregated nervously before the cheerful red barn-shaped building that housed Ethical Kiddies. Spouses bickered, neighbors compared remodeling contractors, and everyone danced the tricky middle ground between commiserating with each other and exposing any weakness in their child’s preschool portfolio.
“Here goes,” said Edward, shifting Emily in his arms. She lay her flushed cheek on his shoulder, smiling as Becca obligingly handed Emily her mobile phone. She had decided on this short-term surrender, lest she make the same mistake that got her in hot water at the French toddler lot.
Edward glanced past the crowd at the school’s Alice-in-Wonderland-style door, which adults had to duck to enter. Neon orange placards, imitating road signs, surrounded the front entrance with cheery, esteem-enhancing slogans.
PRE-LEADERS AT WORK, read one beside the door, CAUTION: CONFIDENCE BUILDING, read another. Edward shook his head, smiling at the aggressive, opinion-forward cuteness of this preschool stage. He couldn’t remember preschool, of course, but something told him that this crash of lingo, psychology, and affirmation was a new way of reaching four-year-olds.
Becca glanced at Emily. She was reassured, at the sight of her pure little face, that Emily was oblivious of the pressure building around her among the jockeying parents. She was secure, Becca could see; she knew she was loved. It didn’t matter what happened at this school, she thought: They were doing all right with Emily. She felt a surprising sense of accomplishment, though they were only at the gates. Watching Emily point her tiny arms at shapes she imagined in the clouds, rejoicing at the sight of her plump, excited face as she described to Edward the dragons, castles, and monsters in the sky, Becca breathed deeply. She felt a tension had been released from her muscles, from her mind. She was grateful. They had gotten through a little bump in the road with Emily, and she was growing to trust them.
“I like this place,” Emily declared suddenly, having noticed the tiny barn door surrounded by pretty orange signs. “Will I go to school here?”
“If it’s good enough,” answered Becca. “We’ll see today if it’s a good place for princesses.”
Emily’s eyes widened. “I hope so,” she said. It was a cool fall day, but a brilliantly sunny one, and Becca could almost feel Emily’s heart bursting with anticipation.
Edward, who had a sixth sense for impropriety, poked Becca to draw her attention to some people standing near them in line. She stifled a laugh when she caught view of the situation: a man and woman who were so far gone in their battle of wits that they stood on the verge of pawing the dirt and snorting each other.
“How could you wear that tie, Nelson?” the woman hissed. “I specifically laid an African Kente cloth out on your dressing table before I left for tennis.”
“I told you,” he snapped back, “I thought the decorator left it there. It looked like a pillow for the game room.”
“In our prep session, Hayley told us to go with an indigenous style,” the woman snapped at him. She planted her hands on her hips. “Do you consider that to be indigenous?” Her face was twisted with contempt.
“It’s indigenous to Wall Street,” he replied stubbornly. “So get off my ass!”
At the notice of eyes upon them, Nelson made a hasty surrender of the offending neckwear. His wife, Cassie, threw it behind a bush, concerned that a school official might see it poking out of her open safari bag. She glared at her husband’s clothes and felt herself overcome by panic. Their son, Bowen, had blown three interviews straight. If he didn’t get into Ethical, they’d be finished. Finished!
Any tense line that may have broken through the botox disappeared from Cassie’s face at the instant the little barn door swung open in welcome. White teeth appeared everywhere, glittering on every parent in the line.
A large woman, wearing an orange housedress that was silk-screened with totem-pole faces, beamed on the assembled crowd.
“Aloha, everybody!” she called out, her arms jiggling as she waved. “I’m Marsha Holt, the team leader of Ethical Kiddies. We’re ready to share our inclusive day with all of you, persons of the world!”
Edward’s eyes met Becca’s, and hiding their laughter, both of them tried to nod and smile with wide-open earnestness.
“First,” Marsha chirped, “we’ll get our person identifier tags. People are people, of course, but we rejoice in our diversity! After we project our identities, I’ll invite you all in for a simultaneous embrace! Get ready to love!”
Becca glanced at Edward. He looked like he might jump out of his skin.
Marsha turned to a smiling team supporter who stood by her side and took from her a tray of nametags. Each sticker, shaped like a shining sun, read HELLO, MY PERSON IDENTIFIER IS, and the child’s and each parent’s name was printed in.
“We like to start each day at Ethical Kiddies with a big hug,” Marsha announced, as the parents fastened identifiers to their person-children. “We have a hug-invigorator on staff, if anyone feels a little down and droopy this morning!”
Marsha was practically singing her joy as the nametags disappeared from her tray. Though Becca felt the onset of a posthippie hangover, she glanced at Emily and noticed the child’s beautiful smile was shining upon Marsha’s face. Emily was beaming: She was enthusiastic and excited. She caught Becca’s eye with a giggle
.
Edward also noticed Emily’s enthusiasm, but he was slower to find his sea legs.
“Stand next to me for the group hug, will you?” he asked Becca, pulling Emily close to him as additional family armor.
“Well, heck,” sang Marsha, overcome with self-satisfaction, “forget the identifiers! Let’s celebrate what unites us: the need to be loved! Everyone line up.”
Suddenly the song “Lean on Me” was playing from a Fisher-Price tape player and Becca watched Marsha’s toes swaying to the beat in her Birkenstocks. Her thick yellow toenails curved fully over the front of each of her toes, adding probably a full shoe size to her feet. Everyone swayed; everyone toe-tapped, everyone joined the circle and hugged on cue.
“Now, doesn’t that feel great!” Cassie exclaimed, hoping Marsha would hear her.
“Lovely,” replied Erin Starker. A Park Avenue princess, Erin was dressed down with a vengeance this morning. She had never been so affable, as she swung her daughter’s hands to and fro.
“We do the circle-hug every morning at home,” she declared in a loud voice. “And we always hug bye-bye.”
“So do we,” several of the other mothers echoed.
“As if they take their children to school themselves,” Cassie snipped into Nelson’s ear. “The sluts pretend they don’t speak nanny.”
He shushed her like a child. “Didn’t you take your Prozac?”
“Shut up!” She pinched him.
Hastily, they flashed Norman Rockwell smiles at the approaching school director.
Holding hands in a line led by Marsha, the parents were shepherded into a round yoga room for the first activity.
“Everybody grab a mat and make yourselves comfortable,” said Marsha, taking two for herself.
A mass experiment with contorting inflexible joints began, and in the midst of the agony, the Rolffs made their mark. A perceptive couple who had engaged the consulting services of Upper East Side yogi Hans Johan, Barbie and Hamish Rolff had precisely this moment in mind when they paid eight hundred dollars for two hourly sessions. They made a splendid display of outstretched limbs in reenactment of the earth, air, fire, and water poses, their hearts beating eagerly as they previewed the joy they would have in describing to Marsha their family yoga hour.
Their admissions consultant had cautioned them, though, to tread carefully when discussing how yoga had improved little Chad’s agility. They had to be careful to emphasize that sports, in the winning and losing sense, were not at all important to them. Barbie was no soccer mom. She’d be thrilled to see Chad take up an interest in orienteering, for example, or whittling. The family was simply interested in deep breathing, relaxation, and flexibility for its own sake, and for the unique joy of experiencing oneness in their togetherness.
“Do you do yoga?” Barbie asked Becca, but the disturbance in Barbie’s aura that occurred simply by watching Becca tap and fidget on her mat made her doubt it.
“I relax when I sleep,” Becca shot back, keeping one cagey eye on Marsha.
The parents’ jaws snapped shut as Marsha began to chirp about the school.
As if she has to sell it to this crowd! thought Becca. She was growing restless.
“Ethical’s a top-five preschool,” Marsha crowed, “but you know that.” The parents’ heads bobbed furiously to show their agreement.
“So what makes us different? Hmmmm?” She looked around the circular room, savoring the quiet, the hopeful, upturned faces, the power she had over these rich people.
“Open choice,” Marsha concluded, to a chorus of approval.
“That tells me very little,” Edward whispered to Becca.
“Shhh!” she said, laughing. “K. K. said we have to score this place!”
Emily had managed to stretch one leg completely behind her head, but lost her balance and rolled into Edward’s lap. He held her, brushing her curls, paying attention to anything he could, to keep a straight face as Jabba the Hut in a housedress numbed his brain with her jargon.
“Open choice is our term for free but ideologically directed play. We love big ideas! Can anybody guess what our biggest idea is here at Ethical Kiddies? Hmmmm?”
Nobody ventured.
“Fun! Fun is our biggest idea!” She raised her hands in a hurrah.
A little cheer went up. Edward poked Becca in the back.
“Cut it out!” She meant to scold him with her tone, but in the quick turn of Becca’s head, Edward saw that her eyes were bright with humor. He felt a playful impulse to cause some trouble, and restrained it, staying behind Emily and keeping his laughs shielded.
“Open choice means that your child will make decisions for herself. Does she want to play in our organic vegetable garden, or learn about another culture through dramatic play with one of her very diverse classmates? Perhaps he’ll build an indigenous necklace with our natural fibers, or break the gender barriers in our dress-up corner?”
Edward shrugged. “I’d go for the Play-Doh,” he whispered to Emily, who nodded.
Marsha had grown silent. “We’ve just been connectors,” she said suddenly. “Now let’s all be reflectors.” She folded her hands as if in prayer, and for thirty seconds all was silent, including the admirably well-coached three- and four-year-olds.
“We’re reflecting,” she announced, “on what we have just beheld. Let’s use all our senses, now, quiet…that’s right. That’s it. When we are reflectors, we learn to cope with what is new to us.”
Becca thought the world could hear her heart beating as she made an enormous effort not to laugh. Edward restrained his desire to poke Becca again. They were supposed to be reflectors. What could he do? He was a born connector.
Edward looked around the room, trying to be a reflector, and started with what was in front of him. His eyes scanned its plaster walls, its skylit circularity, and he was suddenly reminded of the Guggenheim, which always made him sick. Bunny had sailed around and through the museum as if she had been born there, he thought, growing dizzy with the memory of that absurd crown-and-glory event. He was glad to be connected with little Emily Stearns, who dressed herself up in the magical grace of her childish, flowery innocence. Little Emily was a tribute to what beauty should be. With Bunny, every jewel was a sharp-edged implement.
Weirdly, as if she had never turned into that meditative person of two minutes ago, Marsha jumped up and hurried to direct the tidying of yoga mats.
“Okay! Next we have a class meeting. We will split up into teams, and discuss our feelings about what we just did. Come on, persons of the world! Let’s head for the meeting room. Chop chop! And don’t forget our top priority. Let’s hear it on three. One, two, three!”
“Fun!” remembered a sharp-eyed parent. Marsha’s eyes shone with approval.
Edward and Becca shuffled with their fellow participants to the Ethical meeting room, where they followed instructions through the coping session and a musical Ritual of Forgetting. The children had been shown to another room, where, in a switch they enjoyed immensely, they were permitted to spy on their parents, while learning facilitators in a curtained area behind the plant life spied on them. A National Geographic video of tribal dancing drew the attention of some. Like the other scheduled activities, the television program was a hidden test. If the children swayed with the rhythm, they gained points, but if they watched passively, they drew strikes as TV types.
By the time Becca and Edward approached their personal parent interview, they had been completely rattled by the animal imitation session, in which each parent, in front of the group, imitated a wild beast to the rhythm of the partner-parent’s maracas. As they waited for the interviewer in their rough seats of unfinished wood, Becca had a second to prep with Edward.
“It’s the three Us, remember? We’re Unmarried, Uncommitted, and Unorthodox.”
“How about Unprepared?”
“I think we’re doing all right,” she said, tapping him affectionately on his strong, square shoulder. His muscles were tens
e.
“You’re nervous, Eddie,” she said. “Relax.”
“Did you read our copy of the application?”
“Yes.”
“It was like a cross between the census and an FBI background check.”
She smiled. “Don’t worry, Ed. They’ll love you. Everybody loves you.”
Becca’s complexion looked particularly radiant, Edward thought, as his eyes lingered on the shadow created by her sculpted cheekbones. He was encouraged by her confidence, and her humor calmed him. He reclined, to the extent he could, in his chair full of natural knotholes, folding his hands behind his head. With his thumbs he massaged the muscles of his neck, drawing a deep breath into his chest. He smiled as the door opened. Worry did not take hold of Edward for long.
He stood to greet the entering interviewer. Reading his glance, Becca, too, shot up from her chair. Into the room strode a member of the Nez Perce tribe, clad in buckskin that flapped as she walked. Her bodily use of animal skins had caused some offense among the vegan learning facilitators, but her tribal ethnicity created kind of an understood exemption from their usual ban on animal products. Declining to shake hands, she bowed before a plant that had withered in the back of the room, then turned her steely gaze on Edward.
He raised his hand like a Boy Scout, remembering the episode when the Brady Bunch went to the Grand Canyon.
She ignored the salutation. “I am Green Field,” she boomed.
“I’m Becca, he’s Edward,” Becca introduced them both. She paused, wondering why the great chief continued to point her eagle eyes at Edward. She nodded her head to give a little ceremonial bow.
“Have a seat,” Becca announced, sitting. Edward stood next to his seat, his eyes locked on the interviewer, who regarded him with a curiously hostile glare.
