by Melissa Ford
“I didn’t know when you’d get here,” Ethan comments.
“I told you I’d be here by seven.”
“Yeah, you said seven, but lately, seven has a way of becoming eight or later.”
I’m so stunned that Ethan orders for us when we step up to the window, rattling off our usual request of hamburgers and French fries and a black and white shake to share even though intimately sharing a straw is the last thing I want to do in this moment. We slide over to wait for our food after I pay.
“It’s not as if I’m going out and partying. I’m at work. I have a demanding job. People like Francesca work many more hours than I do.”
“I’m not dating Francesca,” Ethan points out.
“I’m just saying that if I’m going to be a designer, I’m going to have to work a lot of hours.”
Ethan shrugs as if he can’t quite believe that I’ll have to work insane hours once I’m my own boss. He passes me Beckett so he can take our tray, and we make our way to a green table that miraculously opens up right as we pass. This conversation is quickly going nowhere good, and I try to rope in my frustration that he knows so little about my work. He’s a photographer; surely he knows how difficult it is to break into the fine arts.
Except he’s not trying to break into the fine arts, I realize. Ethan is content to take his own photographs for his own pleasure. He hangs them in our living room, not in galleries. He teaches photography classes to retirees with fancy cameras or high-school students. But he’s never tried to compete with Mario Testino or Annie Leibovitz; he’s never even tried to sell a photograph at a local art fair. I can’t tell if it’s a lack of interest or a fear that stops him from competing, for lack of a better term. I’d ask him, but I’m desperate to steer the conversation somewhere happier. It’s the end of a very long, very exhausting, very successful day, and I’d like to celebrate. And that means swallowing down any snarky comments before they leave my mouth.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I know I’m working an insane amount of hours. But I have to be honest with you: this is what I need to do in order to establish myself so I can start my own design house. I need to prove myself with the Emmy outfits, and I need to keep up with the normal Fashion Week work. Now until the middle of September is going to be hell. I’ve already secured Martina for more hours, and my mother said she’d come for those last two weeks. So there won’t be a ton of pressure to watch Beckett.”
“Ari, I’m not cranky about being asked to watch Beckett. I mean, he’s great and he’s totally easy. So we don’t need your mother here. I’m only saying all of this because I miss you.”
I take a bite of my burger to keep myself from shouting, did you not just hear me? This is the way it’s going to have to be for the next six weeks. It’s going to be late dinners in the park and quick kisses before I have to run out of the apartment again. I chew, controlling my temper. It’s better to be honest than to make a promise I can’t keep; I owe Ethan at least that. And I remind myself that no matter how infuriating this conversation is becoming, it comes from a good place. Ethan misses me. He loves me. He just wants to see me.
“Ethan, I’m sorry. You mean a lot to me, but my career means a lot to me, too. And the next six weeks are going to suck. But after that, life will go back to normal. Normal hours.”
“Can we at least agree that your mother won’t come? I don’t mind staying with Beckett, but your mother staying in the apartment for two weeks is going to be really tight. If I’m only going to get you for a short period of time every day, I don’t want to share you with your mother, too.”
My mother is going to be devastated to not be here for an extended trip, but I nod my head, knowing she’ll also be more understanding than Ethan. He’s right that it will be a tight fit to have my mother in the apartment; it was a tight fit when she stayed with me last spring. I gave her my bed while I took the sofa since I was barely in the apartment anyway. But I can’t do that now: displace Ethan from his own bed in order to give my mother the most comfortable spot in our apartment. She’ll have to understand that things are different now that Ethan has moved in and we’re sharing a space. I’ll just tell her that I’ll bring Beckett out to Minnesota when Fashion Week is done so she can do all of her grandmotherly things, even though I know that may be impossible if my design career really takes off. I squelch down those thoughts, promising I’ll figure something out.
“Okay, no mother. I’ll let her know that you’re okay taking care of Beckett. Right? You’re totally fine taking care of Beckett? Because there will be a bunch of nights right before Fashion Week where I may not make it home at all.”
“No problem,” he says evenly while I push away the carton of French fries from Beckett’s lunging hands and I hand him one instead. “We’ll watch baseball, drink some warm milk, go cruising for hot toddler chicks.”
I laugh and lean across the table to give Ethan a kiss, smearing a bit of ketchup on his lips in the process. “Thank you. This will make a very stressful time a little bit easier.”
Ethan is quiet for a moment, taking a long sip of the shake. “Another thing that could make things a little easier is if we got married.”
Beckett pounds on the table with his fists and shouts out a happy, “ta-da!” as if they practiced this moment in the apartment while I was making the toiles.
Part of me uncoils now that the words are on the table. I’ve been waiting for him to trot out that velvet-covered box again. I’ve been having one-sided conversations with him in my head while he sleeps beside me at night, the tension filling my chest with all the unsaid words. But now the conversation has been reopened. Now we can talk about it and put it to rest once and for all.
I set down my hamburger and pick at the top. “How would it make things easier if we had a wedding to plan?”
“Not the wedding part,” Ethan says. “The happily-ever-after part. It would be straightforward to know where things stand.”
I know where things stand. We’re dating. We’re cohabitating, maybe forever. Or maybe in a few years, we’ll look at each other and realize that we don’t fit together anymore; that Ethan no longer has a comfortable Arianna-shaped space, or I need someone who isn’t resentful of my career. All I know is that I’m happy with the status quo and feel no need to change it.
“Ari, we’re a team. At least, I think we’re a team. But it’s sort of like asking a bunch of guys to show up at the ball field and promising that there will be a game, or telling the guys they’re the Yankees and they better report to Yankee Stadium because they’ll be playing the Red Sox. Sometimes you need to define things in order for people to know where they belong.”
“I get that,” I say softly. All the great arguments I’ve been stockpiling in my head these past few weeks feel flimsy now as I consider using them. Beckett grunts, straining for the French fry container, and I absentmindedly hand him another one. One of us is going to have to compromise; you can’t be just a little bit married. But what if this is the proof that we’re not meant for each other? Why can’t he be like Noah, content to live with a little unpredictability in exchange for a lot of freedom?
“Ari, I just want to mix up our lives a little bit. Right now, it feels a little too neat. A little too much divided into yours and mine. Aren’t you thinking about weddings with Rachel getting married again?”
“Sort of,” I lie. “But more her wedding than my own.”
I can tell by the look on his face that this isn’t going to work. I’m not going to be able to convince him tonight that he could be just as happy with our lives as is. But when I consider a life without Ethan, if he went back to the apartment and packed up his things and moved back to Brooklyn, my heart hurts. Trips to the Shake Shack without him. Walks to Central Park without him. My bed half-empty.
Even though I said to myself a few minutes ago that I wouldn’t make any promise
s to Ethan that I know I can’t keep, my heart contracts as I look back and forth between his hopeful face and Beckett’s greasy-smeared smile. It’s not really a lie. If one of us has to compromise, it could be me.
“Let me think about it after Fashion Week. I just can’t . . . think about anything right now.”
So much for putting this topic to bed tonight. Ethan looks pacified by this thought, and he passes me the cup to give me the last bit of shake.
Chapter Seven
AS IF A SWITCH has been flipped, by the next day, work has picked up for Fashion Week. Francesca runs through the office, snatching up scraps of paper where she’s been jotting down ideas and shuffling around bolts of fabric for the drape she plans to do after the design team meeting. Every samplehand is moving briskly, baste stitching patterns, sewing together toiles, pleating fabric. Someone pops in a new dance mix, and we sing along to Madonna.
I attach pressed glass beads to a hem while I inwardly fret about the seven toiles that are hanging over my head like the sword of Damocles dangling by its single horse hair. I am trying to alternate between working through Francesca’s needs for Fashion Week while giving my two samplehands enough to do to keep pace with finishing the Emmy dresses on time.
I’m not doing a fantastic job keeping up with either task when my telephone buzzes and then launches into Vivaldi’s Spring. Francesca catches my eye across the room. “Arianna, it’s difficult to concentrate with your phone going off every two seconds.”
It’s the first time my phone has gone off all day, but I apologize because it’s easier than explaining that when Francesca is in one of her frantic moods. It’s the nanny, so I duck into the closet to answer. “Hey, Martina,” I say lightly. “How is Beckett?”
I can hear him whimpering in the background. “He’s vomited and he definitely feels as if he has a fever, too.”
My day grinds to a halt, and I rub my forehead, wondering whether I should call the pediatrician while I simultaneously rack my brain to figure out how I’m now going to miss the rest of Tuesday. Deserting Francesca and throwing off the first crunch week for the spring line is only one step above taking a pair of scissors to all the waiting patterns. Missing work just isn’t done, not this close to Fashion Week.
“He also has a rash. Diaper rash.”
I sigh, knowing what I have to do but inwardly cursing nonetheless. “I’ll be home soon, Martina. Can you let Philip’s mother know that the nanny share needs to move over to her apartment today? I’m really sorry about this.” I’m embarrassed that Martina had to clean up my child’s vomit, that she was in that position at all, and I’m even more embarrassed that someone else was home with my kid when he got sick and scared. The sound of his whimpering echoes in my head as I go back into the sample room.
I wend my way around the tables and pause next to Francesca, waiting until she finishes inserting a pin to tell her that I need to go home. She purses her lips, keeping her focus on the mannequin. “I thought you had a nanny now.”
“I do,” I tell her. “But Beckett is sick. He threw up. I can’t ask her to take care of my son when he’s sick. I’m taking the toiles with me.”
Francesca stares at me, as if she can’t quite stomach the thought of a Davis & Howe design that close to human fluids. But she dismisses me, and I grab my things, carefully folding my supplies into an enormous canvas bag that Tabitha lends me.
A terrible thought hits me as a walk home; I’ll now have the time to concentrate on the toiles without being distracted by all the finishing work on the clipboard. I feel guilty that I’m seeing a silver lining in Beckett’s illness. But what else can I do as I alternate between being frustrated beyond belief that my schedule is ruined yet again and wanting to be nowhere else but with my child in his moment of need, soothing him in a way that only I can do.
When I open the door to the apartment, Beckett lifts his head from Martina’s chest, and he reaches out his arms to me miserably as if picking him up is going to clear away the fever and rash.
His forehead is warm, but not overly hot. I keep my lips on his skin while Martina packs up the other boy, Philip, and gets ready to leave. She keeps apologizing for calling me home, and I keep apologizing for the vomit clearly crusting over on her shirt sleeve. We are so busy apologizing back and forth that we’re still calling out versions of “I’m so sorry” as she walks down the hall and ducks into the elevator.
I close the door to the apartment and take Beckett into his bedroom so we can rock in the chair. “It’s just you and me, Becks,” I say softly. “And maybe Ethan if I can get him to come home and take you for a few hours so I can work.”
I dial Ethan’s cell phone one-handed, my other hand rhythmically patting Beckett’s back after he flops down onto my chest like a bunched-up burp cloth. The phone rings and rings, and I leave him a message telling him what’s happening, plus send a text for good measure. A few moments later, my phone buzzes with a message back.
Poor little man. I’ll be home soon.
I close my eyes and rock in the chair. See, I’m not an island. I’m perfectly willing to admit that I need help sometimes. I’m just independent; there’s a difference.
I’m so exhausted from staying up late last night working on one of the toiles that I end up falling asleep in the glider, too. When Beckett stirs, it’s only to start crying again, a pathetic washed-out cry. I bring him into the kitchen to make him a bottle of milk, but he pushes the bottle away after a few sips and spits up on me, drenching both our clothes. And then he starts crying in earnest; a long drawn-out wail over the unfairness of having his digestive system work in reverse.
I look up at the clock, wondering when Ethan is going to swoop in and save me. It’s been at least two hours since his last text message. I take a deep breath and peel off Beckett’s truck t-shirt as well as my own and dump both in the bathroom sink so they can soak until I’m ready to deal with them. Beckett sits on the floor like a lump, leaning forward so he can drool onto his legs while he cries. He stops crying when he notices some sock lint on the floor, and he pinches at it, using all of his concentration to pick it up. He’s like a goldfish with his mourning.
I grab a washcloth and rub down Beckett’s warm arms and belly with the cool water while he rolls the lint between his fingers. I clean his chin, the valley of his neck. I kiss the insides of his elbow. I take the lint out of his pinched fingers and replace it with his rubber duck so he can gnaw on its beak. I give him a dose of Tylenol, a fresh diaper, a new layer of paste over his rash. I do the few things I can do, stroking his forehead, talking to him about how terrible it is to feel sick. The entire time I’m thinking about the toiles.
He’s happy enough after his bath for me to plop him in front of the television for his favorite train-themed cartoon. I sing along with his steam train crooning “She’ll Be Coming Around the Mountain,” despite the fact that the train is currently shuttling over the mountains like a never-ending W. I set up my supplies on top of the kitchen table and start to pin the paper pattern I made to the bright red fabric.
I manage to eke out a half hour of work before Beckett decides that he’s had enough of trains. I bring out each of his toys, a snack of animal crackers, the binky from his crib. He’s fine as long as I’m sitting with him on the floor, but the moment I move back toward the table, he starts sobbing again as if I’ve deserted him despite only being a few feet away. I look back at my work on top of the table and can practically hear Francesca’s shriek in my head about the countdown to Fashion Week. This is one of those times when I wish my mother lived close by; someone I could depend on to be there at a moment’s notice. I wish I knew how other mothers balanced work deadlines and sick kids; everyone else must know something that I don’t know.
It’s almost four o’clock when Ethan finally enters the apartment, five hours later. Beckett is finally down for a nap, and I am bent over the kitc
hen table, baste stitching the toile together. I don’t pause to kiss him. I want to snarl that I don’t have time to kiss him, but I know that this isn’t Ethan’s fault. Beckett is my child, my responsibility. Still, he didn’t need to tell me he was coming home soon if he had no intention of doing so.
“Hey, Beckett still not feeling well?”
“No, he threw up again.”
My words sound curter than I intended. I drag the needle through the fabric, pricking myself in the process. I can feel Ethan watching me for another moment or so, and then he goes into the bathroom to wash up.
“Did you know that there’s a bunch of clothes in the sink?” he asks me, coming into the kitchen to wash his hands instead.
“Obviously. I’ll deal with them when I get a moment.”
“I can take care of them if you just tell me what to do,” Ethan offers.
“Wash them. Wring them out. Throw them over the bar in the bathtub to dry. I’ll deal with them when I do the laundry later in the week.”
“Are you mad at me?” Ethan asks.
I set down the needle so I can look up at him. He genuinely looks confused.
“I’m not mad,” I tell him. “I’m just . . . I got nothing done today. And you said you’d be home soon, but that was five hours ago.”
Ethan leans on the counter. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that you needed me home. I taught my class, and then I swung by the high school to talk to the principal for a bit, and he ended up showing me a shipment of photo editing software they were loading onto the school computers.”
In other words, he went to work. How can I be angry at him for doing exactly what I wanted to do: get work done. My voice softens, and I hope that I can keep the whine out of my words. “Didn’t you listen to my message?”
“Was it different from the text? I’m sorry; I got the text message but I assumed that the voice mail was the same thing.”
