I think about all that carpooling, all that tennis. “You’re bored,” I guess.
She pinches her thumb and index finger together and makes a face. “Little bit.”
All I want in this life is to be a little bit bored and a little bit too skinny.
I dig in my pocketbook for my small notebook and quickly scribble down a thought before it vacates my mind completely: work v. stay-at-home dilemmas, with an exclamation point and a question mark following.
“What are you doing?” Jodi asks.
“Research,” I say. The beginnings of an idea are forming. It could be an interesting academic topic, if I could find some existing research, test some theories, build on the body of literature that already exists in the field, and write it up for a scholarly journal. Maybe I really should start thinking about advancing my career in education.
While I’m at it, I could become Miss America and start growing my own hemp, because that’s how likely it is that I’ll act on this notation. I close the notebook and push it to the bottom of my handbag.
“You can have my job,” I offer.
“Ha,” she spits, spraying popover pieces across the tablecloth. “Been there, done that. Teaching is way too hard. I want something part-time, where I can come and go as I choose.”
“Like Sophie the Bag Lady,” I say.
“Exactly!”
I throw out some ideas. “You could tutor. Or walk dogs.”
“Or tutor dogs!” she adds.
“Or become the local Lice Lady!”
“Lee always says I’m such a nitpicker.” We laugh as she reaches for a second popover. “Plus, I really miss dressing up.”
I stop chewing midchew. Suddenly, her desire to work makes perfect sense. That’s really why Jodi wants to go back to work, not because she’s bored. Jodi longs for a cool, new, employment-worthy wardrobe.
“You’re not serious.” I don’t ask this as if it’s a question. I declare it outright.
She shrugs like it’s no big deal. “If I worked, I could buy so many great outfits. Like those new wide-leg trousers on the mannequin on the second floor. I covert them, but I don’t need them.”
“Covet,” I correct.
“See? You like them, too. Only, I would look silly wearing them to a PTA meeting. For that setting, I’d look much better in my skinny jeans and a Vince asymmetrical tee. That says, like, ‘I’m chair of the book fair’ without overstating my own importance.”
“Spoken like someone who doesn’t have a job.” You know your life is unfulfilled when you spend inordinate amounts of time plotting outfits for meaningless occasions.
But as much as I joke about Jodi’s logic, the thought of stay-at-home motherhood makes me sigh. “I’d love to be a PTA mom in a Vince asymmetrical tee.”
“No, you wouldn’t.” Jodi shakes her knife at me. “You have no idea, Lauren. None. The PTA is like the mob. Once they get you in their grip, they won’t let you go. First it’s ‘Oh, won’t you please help out serving pizza lunch?’ and then it’s ‘Could you chaperone the band concert?’—all smiles and friendly camaraderie—and finally, it’s ‘We’ve signed you up to chair the multicultural lunch, the staff appreciation day and the charity auction, and if you cancel, we’ll blacklist your kids from getting the best teachers.’” She sighs. “I kind of want to go back to work just to avoid having to make any more excuses to the PTA. I mean, how many herniated discs can one have when the annual fundraiser rolls around? How many sinus surgeries coinciding with the school fair? I joined the PTA to see my kids more often around school, only I got so busy working for the PTA that I never see my kids anymore.”
Hands shaking, Jodi reaches across the table and snatches up my untouched popover. She rips off a chunk and chews it sensually, with eyes closed. I almost feel bad for her.
Almost.
“Lauren, you just want what you can’t have. Trust me, it’s all of the work—or more—without any of the pay, or any of the glory.”
“What glory is there in teaching?” I want to know.
She puts down her cutlery so that she can create grand hand gestures. “You know, being loved by your adoring fans.”
“They’re eleven-year-olds.”
“And they love you, and think you are so cool, and tell you all their problems, and want to be just like you when they grow up. Students are so much better than one’s own children that way.” Now it’s her turn to sigh.
We are both quiet for a minute, lost in our own reflections. When I started teaching, people used to tell me that I picked the perfect career to balance with eventual motherhood. “You’ll have your summers off, and you’ll vacation when your children do, and you’ll get out of work just as they end their day in school,” yentas at the nail salon would say. And I would cringe, because I thought, That’s so small-minded of them. I’m not going into teaching in order to pick a career that works for a life I don’t even have yet. I’m going into teaching to shape lives, to change the world.
And now, you know what I think? I think all those yentas had it totally backward. Because, yes, I have school-age children now. And when they go to school, I go to work. And when they are home from school, I am home from work. Their vacations are my vacations. Their free time is my free time.
Do you see the inherent problem, here?
I never get time off without them. I never have a vacation day that is not also their vacation day.
I can’t just take a holiday whenever I want to, because I already have something like fifteen weeks off a year built in to my schedule. And so, on my teacher’s salary, I travel during the most expensive black-out dates, with my children, natch, and wherever I go, other school-age children and families are there, because everyone in the free world is on school vacation concurrently, yelling out “Marco” and “Polo” and annoying me while I’m trying to read poolside.
Teaching has become a kind of vacationer’s prison.
I shudder at the truth of that and tell Jodi, “Yeah—teaching’s not the right move for you anymore.”
“Actually, I do have one idea,” she hints theatrically.
“Okay,” I say.
“I’m thinking this.” She pushes herself back from the table and sort of makes a frame with her palms. “I’m thinking…that I should become famous.”
She stops. I wait.
Famous for what, I wonder?
Then I realize I’m supposed to respond.
“Famous! That’s an…interesting idea.” Is there such a thing as being just famous?
“I know!” She pours some ketchup and digs into the burger that has been gently placed in front of her. Between bites—and during them—she continues.
“It’s just that when I go to the city, I feel like I’m somebody, you know? People notice me. They think I’m in fashion, working for a magazine or for a mega-designer like Balenciaga. They ask me if I’m in the art world.”
“And…are you?” I ask, wondering if Jodi has some secret talent in design. Maybe she’s set up an artist’s loft above her garage and is going to become this new, self-taught, amazing painter. The mother of postmaterialism. Maybe she’s been scribbling poems day and night like Emily Dickinson, and has drawers filled with tiny scraps of brilliance.
I take a bite of some melon on my plate and wish I had red meat instead.
“No! I’m not there yet. So, to help me along, I’m going to hire paparazzi. To follow me around and bother me and take my picture! Only, I’m not going to know when and where they’re going to strike, just like a real famous person. I figure I’ll hire photographers to surprise me one day—I think I need a bunch, right? Because one is kinda lame—like, when I’m walking out of lunch at the Modern or on the steps of the Met or something, and then I’ll be, like, caught off guard and have to duck into a cab while the cameras are flashing, and then people will notice the commotion and wonder who I am! Next thing you know: boom. I’m famous.”
“And to think, I’m wasting all my time teaching s
ixth-grade English, when I could just become famous!” I joke.
“I know!”
I shake my head to clear the confusion from at least one of us. “Wait. This is your real idea? You don’t think this is sort of…ridiculous?”
“Why?” she asks, all doe-eyed innocence. I look at my longtime friend and debate: Do I burst her fault-filled bubble? Do I squash her dream right here and now by saying, Look, you are beautiful and ballsy, but that’s not quite enough to catapult you to fame, paparazzi or no? I try a softer tactic.
“Maybe…you need to come up with a business plan or hone some skill or talent first. Then you could hire press to help you advertise and market all your brilliance.”
There. I think that’s a fair compromise. Plus, it’s not quite as pathological.
She’s shaking her head. “But I don’t have a marketable skill or talent. I just want to be known for something.”
“Something other than being a wife and mother,” I say.
“Yes! See? You get it.” She nods, satisfied. “Because you want the same thing.”
Underneath all the bullshit, and minus the paparazzi, the girl has got a point.
“These fries are amazing. They have, like, this garlic-y coating. You should try some.”
“Okay, Seriously? How do you not put on weight?” I ask.
She stops chewing and looks at me like I’m as dense as her burger. “Lauren, we’ve been over this. Warsaw, World War II.”
“Seems too good to be true, is all. It makes me kind of hate you.”
“Oh please.” She gulps down some soda. “Hate Hitler.”
We debate a few more non-work work options with a high fame quotient for Jodi, and settle for the moment on television personality, wardrobe consultant, or publicist. Then we switch to discussing Saturday night, and she tells me what kind of outfit she’s looking for. “It has to be somewhat conservative,” she acknowledges. “Since the dance party is at my temple.”
“I can’t imagine you wearing anything conservative,” I say.
“Well, the rabbi pulled me aside at Friday night services last week and told me that my outfit can be strapless, backless, or short, but not all three,” she explains. “I saw something great online that almost meets the criteria.”
I describe the dress I’m planning on wearing, a black sheath with silk trim at the neck, and side pockets below the slightly dropped waist.
She nods. “Yeah, that sounds like you.” I know it’s not meant to be an insult, but for some reason it stings.
After lunch, we prowl the different departments for a while, but Jodi can’t seem to find what she’s looking for. Instead, she ends up buying some new skinny jeans and a few sexy tops.
She digs around her bag as the saleswoman rings her up and announces the total. “That will be six hundred fifty-two dollars and seventy-five cents. Would you like to use your Neiman’s charge?”
Jodi looks around slyly as she proffers a wad of bills in a crumpled envelope as her form of payment.
“What is that?” I ask.
“Cash back,” she says, counting twenties. As if I know what that means.
Jodi produces more and more random wads of bills from the depths of her purse. Some twenties are crumpled little balls, while others are folded together into neat stacks bound by rubber bands. One or two bunches of cash come organized in Ziploc baggies.
“What the hell, Jo?” I ask, by way of clarification.
The sales clerk seems less surprised, merely shrugging as she takes the bills. Then, with expert precision, she turns them so they are all facing the same way, tugs on the pile so that it’s nice and crisp again, licks her thumb, and begins counting.
“Come into your trust fund?” I add.
“No!” Jodi says, rolling her eyes at me. “It’s like I just told you: cash back.”
“You mean, you earn dollars back from Visa, or get points on your AmEx that mysteriously turn themselves into random twenties at the bottom of your pocketbook?”
She laughs at me and shakes her head. “I can’t believe I never told you about my cash-back program.”
I shift my weight to one hip and lean against the counter. “I don’t think I would have forgotten this. Sounds even more intriguing than your I’m-tired-of-my-Manolos exchange program.”
“It’s the funniest story, actually,” she begins. Then she turns to the saleswoman and says, “I bet you know all about it.”
“Indeed I do,” the woman responds, a little smile playing on her lips. “I see a lot of customers just like you.”
“See?” Jodi says triumphantly. “I thought I had invented it, but then I started noticing other women doing the same thing.”
We wait for the saleswoman to get the right size shopping bag from the back. I am no clearer about this than I was a few minutes ago. The only thing I know for sure is that if Jodi thinks she invented it, it can’t be good.
“I had this idea last year to throw a surprise party for Lee, for his fortieth birthday,” she begins. “I didn’t want him to know about it, but that was a problem because I didn’t actually have any money to pay for the party. So, I thought: Jodi, how are you going to get money without Lee noticing?”
This part of the story has me more than slightly worried, but since she is smiling, I smile right back at her.
She digs through her bag for some lip gloss and starts applying, leaving me hanging.
“Anyway.” She moves over to look at her reflection in a nearby mirror. “I was standing in the checkout line at Target when the solution came to me: cash back! You know how the bill at places like Target is always huge? Like two hundred dollars?” She doesn’t wait for my response. “Well, I figured I could easily tack on a little cash back and Lee would never know! So whenever I shopped at places like that—the supermarket, Costco, Trader Joe’s, whatever—I asked for cash back at checkout. I got forty bucks here, and sixty bucks there, and that money, combined with what I get from Claudine, added up pretty fast!”
She smacks her shiny lips together in satisfaction.
“Wait a minute,” I begin, trying to get my mind to catch up with her story. “You just gave me so much to think about!”
“I know!” she agrees.
“I don’t think you do, since I’m being sarcastic. But, first off, what money do you get from Claudine?”
“Oh, I tell Lee that I pay her four hundred dollars a week for babysitting and housework, but I actually only pay her three hundred.” She takes out her phone and scrolls through e-mails while talking.
“And the rest?”
“Is for me. My salary, for making sure that Claudine does what she’s supposed to do, for driving carpool, for, you know, being a mommy.”
“That is so twisted.” I laugh at the absurdity of it.
“No, it isn’t.”
“It’s wrong, Jo,” I try to emphasize. “You’re stealing from Lee. From yourself!”
“Nu-huh!” she responds, sounding like one of my students. “Plus, remember, I was doing this for Lee. To throw him a party!”
“Only, I don’t recall a fortieth birthday party for Lee,” I counter.
“Well.” Here she pauses and puts her phone down on the countertop. “Turns out, he didn’t want one.” We let that sit between us for a moment. “So, suddenly I found myself with, like, a thousand dollars in cash that Lee didn’t know about. And I couldn’t tell him, because he’d be furious.”
“Why would he be mad?” I ask pseudo-innocently. “You weren’t stealing, after all. You were doing it for him.”
“It’s hard to explain,” she says, trying to look serious. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“That you’re full of shit? Oh, I understand, Jo. I love you dearly, but I know you’re completely full of shit.”
Just then, the saleswoman emerges with some shopping bags and tissue paper in hand. As the items are wrapped, Jodi explains the rest of her sordid tale. You see, she decided, the best thing to do with the money was to g
et rid of it. By spending it. On herself. And then, she got used to having that money and spending it on herself. So, now, almost a full year later, she routinely asks for cash back pretty much everywhere she goes. And then she takes that money and shops. Like right this minute, at Neiman Marcus.
“That’s stealing!” I call to her from a pile of jeans that I’m flipping through. “Why don’t they ever have my size?”
“I prefer to think of it as embezzlement,” Jodi says matter-of-factly. “Which I learned from an expert named Lee Moncrieff.”
See? So hard to argue with her logic.
“Not to mention, you’re involved now, too,” Jodi adds.
“Me?” I ask, looking through a pile of short-sleeved T-shirts for a white scoop-necked Splendid in medium.
“How did we pay for lunch?” she asks, coming closer.
I stop what I’m doing to give her craziness my full attention. “Um. You paid with a credit card and I gave you my half in cash.” As the words leave my mouth, I realize what I’ve done. “Ohmigod! I’ve just contributed to your cash-back program!”
Her full smile flashes its perfect white teeth at me. “See how easy? I’m always the one to collect for someone’s birthday. I can make a cool two hundred at least, every time one of my good friends passes another milestone!”
“And what, you charge the gift on Lee’s credit card instead of using all the collected cash?”
She nods. “I’m like my very own rewards program.”
“That’s intense.”
Jodi merely shrugs like it’s no big deal and saunters back toward the register.
You think you know someone, and meanwhile, they are lying, cheating and stealing right under your nose. The thought makes me shudder slightly, like I did yesterday at the bus stop, as if a cool breeze just blew through the climate-controlled mall.
While Jodi is finishing her transaction, I meander around and try to process the amorality and simultaneous brilliance of Jodi’s cash-back program.
Lauren Takes Leave Page 8
