Momzillas Read online

  Next we spied a landscape by Hendrik Avercamp, a glacial expanse of frozen canal, with skating revelers flying through the chilled air on stilled water. “This gray, gauzy filter,” he said, gesturing to the smoky surface of the work, “doesn’t dazzle with roaring lions or arch-backed nudes; it’s a really muted, delicate reality, with all the classes melded—look at the rich man’s carriage, here.” He pointed. “Everyone is united by that harsh chill of winter, with the whole hierarchy frozen in that pond.”

  Tate Hayes was a true historian, guiding me through the tangled politics of the time. “The Dutch have written their history into the art,” he said, showing me painting after painting that echoed the flux of the seventeenth century. “Political and religious metamorphoses were brushed into permanence.” Just as when I was a student, I exhaled slowly, my skin tingling with an excitement that wasn’t a sexual turn-on but a brain make-out. Some music can evoke that feeling in me, but then I’m a passive listener. Now, I actively felt myself learning, lapping up his words like a hungry, hardened sponge thirsting for information—especially delivered in such a poetic way. After two years of goo-goo-ga-ga with my beloved daughter, I realized, in an emotional tidal wave of hearing his words, that I desperately thirsted for this outing. To remember who I was, and to reawaken that latent passion for art that had been dormant until now.

  When we were done looking at the newly installed collection, we sat in the sunlit tearoom. I actually secretly don’t like tea but drank it anyway, dissolving spoon after spoon of honey in the cup like a kid in a candy store, which I was. We talked about his wife and two boys (Leonardo and Marcello—his wife was Milanese and taught Italian at NYU) and how he sometimes missed San Francisco.

  “There’s more texture here, more grit, more energy,” he said of our new home. “And of course, more art, and not just giant museums but hidden jewel boxes, private collections. We were at a cocktail party last week on Fifth Avenue and the etchings just in the hallway to the kitchen were simply staggering. There was literally a Dürer in the powder room! All these people were hobnobbing and sampling the caviar, and I absconded to the ceaseless hallways to study their works; I barely ate a bite, but I felt replete.”

  Art was enough to sustain Tate, but I needed more. Thinking of sustenance, I looked at my watch and realized I had to leave to make Violet’s dinner—it was a Cinderella exit, full of flustered good-byes and gathering of things. But no glass slipper was left in my flurried wake—only the hope that maybe he would call and invite me to look at art with him again soon.

  Twenty-two

  Thanks to Maggie and Bee, the Milford Prescott Music School, also known as Juilliard for two-year-olds, found a place at the last minute for Violet and me in their Mommy and Me series. Lila was overjoyed when I happily reported our acceptance to her. For our class, there were two choices: Parent/Child or Caregiver/Child. Since I was already calling in a huge favor, I didn’t actually express my true desire to be in the nanny class; the mom scene kind of gave me the creeps and I would have probably felt much more comfortable with the nannies. I opened my letter from the director of admissions and found the school handbook with dress code, school rules, and instructions that should I change my mind, I must notify the office as there was always an “extensive waiting list,” which I guess I had cut, thanks to a hefty donation by Bee’s family foundation. Luckily, we got in the Caregiver class, which I was thrilled about. Apparently most moms preferred to be with other moms—choosing to avoid “aliens,” legal or nay.

  But I just wanted to relax; nannies didn’t ask about height and head circumference percentiles. I also signed up Violet for ballet class since Rudolf Nureyev was her babysitter when Amber couldn’t make it—as I unpacked boxes during the first three weeks, I plopped her in front of old, squeaky VHS tapes of Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty, which kept her rapt for two straight hours. I was told by the Manhattan Academy of Ballet Studies that her uniform would be a pink leotard, pink tights, and pink ballet slippers, and her hair must be pulled back into a bun. A bun? Violet had never even had a haircut—she sported a baby mullet, her blond wisps barely able to make a ponytail without the assistance of added clips, let alone a bun. But hey, I guess in the big leagues you gotta sport the real ballerina ’do.

  I had three weeks until Labor Day, which marked the reentry of New York’s elite into town: the gates opened and every Benz and Beemer cruised back into town from the Hamptons, loaded up with sandy summer gear as children shopped for back-to-school threads.

  Bee and her clan had been shuttling back and forth but now were plopping for the final few weeks “out east” at the beach. Really “the beach” was all stilettos and oversized sunglasses and shopping in Southampton, not exactly flip-flops and sandy toes. It was club-chaises instead of towels by the waves, with dips in gleaming pools instead of the murky ocean.

  For Bee’s posse’s last gathering before scattering to the places where they summer (yes, they used summer as a verb), we all gathered at the annual ladies’ luncheon to support NACHO; Lara went to Millbrook then Martha’s Vineyard, Maggie to East Hampton, and Hallie to Ewan’s Peak, her family’s private island off the coast of Maine where, Bee said, they hosted white-tie parties. I was picturing powdered ladies with Edith Wharton–style outfits and men in tails holding lobster mallets. I’d take burgers and dogs and jeans and a T-shirt any day over that supposedly glam stuff. I mean, the day I host a white-tie bash in my home is the day Hallie says Julia Charlotte did something dumbass, i.e., never.

  For their August jaunt, Lila and Watts would be in England, and while all the women were itching to escape I was looking forward to quiet calm before the autumn storm, without Lila’s pop-bys and Bee’s sometimes stifling presence. I didn’t know why, and maybe I was being paranoid, but I was starting to get the feeling Bee didn’t like me. I hadn’t done a thing wrong, I couldn’t have been nicer. I just had this strange sense she was only semi-nice to me as an order from her mother by way of Lila.

  Before the NACHO benefit, I spent the morning with Violet walking to Times Square to buy Broadway show tickets from the tourist-glutted booth in the middle, stopping at Toys “R” Us for a ride on the indoor Ferris wheel. Violet’s face was as bright as the blazing LCD displays lighting up the store; she was simply in awe of all the activity. It was a nice feeling to really see her relish her new city, and it even gave me an excited buzz. I don’t know what prompted me to go on a ticket-buying odyssey, but Josh and I loved plays so much and I think they triggered romantic memories of our trips to New York. I wanted to relive it the old way and remind myself how excited I used to get about the idea of living here. We strolled back uptown along the park and I had two hours before the famous luncheon. I didn’t want to show up and displease Lila again with the wrong outfit, so to make every effort to make her proud, I walked with Violet to Bergdorf’s, which was having a huge summer sale. Three dresses into my mini fashion show for Violet, I tried a plain, chic black crepe dress with buttons down the side that was part Audrey Hepburn, part 1940s, and entirely adorable. I felt good. My hair was pulled into a tight bun and I wore my A-plus shoes Josh and I had bought in London at Emma Hope. I read Violet her stories before her afternoon snooze, when Amber arrived to read Us Weekly and hang ’til I was done with the benefit.

  The red tent covered part of Lexington Avenue as a bevy of paparazzi snapped various bold-faced names in New York society who were coming out pre–summer exodus to fight childhood obesity.

  I watched them each pause for the camera, doing the movie star hand-on-hip thing and then fake-converse with each other as the fotogs snapped “candids.” It was weird—fashion-wise I seemed very out of sync with the Upper East Side moms; I always thought New Yorkers wore black all the time, but no: salmon cashmere twin sets, turquoise dresses, and a butter yellow suit were all fluttering by in a pastel parade. I guess we’d hung out more downtown before moving; now, ensconced among the blond barrage of pastel-wearers, I felt like the Sicilian widow my mother had c
ompared me to.

  “You’re always in black!” Bee observed as she approached me, wearing a tight lime green dress. “I mean, isn’t it like eighty degrees? You must be broiling!” Great, was I like sweating buckets or something?

  “Oh, yeah, I’m Wednesday Addams, remember?”

  She didn’t smile. “Maggs!” said Bee, happy to see her chum.

  Maggie came up and kissed both of us on both cheeks. Whoa. I knew New York was closer to Europe than California but the two-kiss thing threw me off. Plus she had never kissed me before. Maybe it was the upscale enviro versus the playground. Plus, everyone was playing the fancy role of grande dame philanthropist.

  I saw Lila walk in and see me, then look away. I decided to go up to her and say hello.

  “Oh, Hannah, hi!” She pretended she was just seeing me. “Nice to see you, dear.” She then had a pert brunette approach her in a hat with a huge bird on it and they air-kissed hello while I made my way back to the “kids’” table, where I was sitting with Maggie and Bee.

  “So, girls, are we soooo excited for vacation?” Maggie asked, beaming. “We’re all packed, I can’t wait!”

  “Ugh, thrilled!” gushed Bee. “I’ve been dying to get out of this pit. Oh…” she said, catching herself. “Sorry, Hannah.”

  There was suddenly an embarrassed awkward silence. Their pity over my being trapped in Gotham had quieted their excitement and I felt like the scholarship kid everyone felt sorry for.

  “Well, we basically only just got here, so I don’t care!” I said breezily. Crickets.

  “Hiii, yummy mummies!” Hallie said, putting a jeweled hand through her red hair. “Sorry I’m late! Julia Charlotte was just reading all by herself and I couldn’t leave! I swear, that child’s memory is just unparalleled! She’s a certifiable genius.” Naturally, Hallie burst right into her interminable momologue about Julia Charlotte. It was a funny coincidence to me that Julia Charlotte’s initials were JC, because her mom clearly thought she was the second coming.

  “…And then, she said, ‘Mommy, more foie gras, please!’ I mean, can you believe it? Even her taste buds are mature. Julia Charlotte is such an adventurous eater.” Hallie was prattling on about JC reciting prime numbers in Mandarin when Lara arrived with an enormous flower-covered hat.

  “Hi gals, I had to pick up my hat, and they were jammed at Plaza Florists!” There was a full fresh-flower arrangement atop her platinum head. Between my dark brown hair and my black dress, I felt like I was adrift in a sea of corn silk and bright flowers.

  I heard a woman come on the microphone as we all settled at our tables, each place beautifully set with fine crystal, china, sterling silver, and calligraphed place cards. I’d thought, gee, if they’d just not hired the posh calligrapher and handwritten the names, they could have given even more money to fighting childhood obesity. Surveying the stick-thin crowd, I had a feeling this was a cause close to their hearts—God forbid one of these “yummy mummies” had a great big fat kid at home.

  “Ladies, thank you for coming today,” an older woman in a white suit said, welcoming the group of a hundred. “I’d like to begin by thanking our wonderful, devoted cochairs who have done sooo much for this gravely important cause: Mrs. Burke Tiverton the third, Mrs. Hyram Balsap the seventh, Mrs. Westminster Covington Junior, and our junior chair, Mrs. Parker Elliott.” Golf-claps to reward their “efforts,” which I suspected were just “meetings” that included tea sandwiches and photographers while the charity staffers labored in the background. Another woman got up to the podium as guests began to push their frisée salads around their gilded china plates. “Trans fats. Oils. Chemicals,” she said sternly. “Childhood obesity is a dark, terrible, tragic, horrifying curse that is eating away at our nation.”

  No pun intended, I thought.

  “And it’s an epidemic of drastic and dire proportions,” she continued, shaken to the core by this rampant, plaguing blight of fatness. “We don’t even know what’s in our children’s lunches! I mean, let’s face it, ladies, none of us here even makes our kids’ lunch in the first place, but still!” Giggles from the crowd. She continued, discussing the virulent rash of giant roly-poly blob-like kids and I just started to tune out, missing Josh desperately and wondering if Tate Hayes would phone again.

  Twenty-three

  Later that night after putting Violet to bed, I spoke with Josh for the first time in thirty-six hours, which was unprecedented for us. I felt so off-kilter and was acutely feeling pangs of longing for him to be home; I’d even made a laundry list of porn titles since I missed him so much, including Lawrence of Labia, Star Whores, and On Golden Blonde. He said he wished he was back, too, and asked what I’d been up to, and I told him how the benefit droned on and on, and how one woman burst into tears while giving a testimonial about her fat son, August, and all I could do was think of poor Augustus Gloop drowning in a river of chocolate, covered like a piggy in mud.

  “I think my bris sounds like more fun than that lunch,” laughed Josh. “Why’d you even go in the first place?”

  “I thought you wanted me to hang with Bee and her hive,” I said. “Plus, your mom is on the board. I really didn’t have a choice.”

  “Sure you do! Sweet, I don’t care if you go or not. Only deal if it’s fun,” he said, laughing. “Han, you can hang with whoever you want. I just want you to be happy. Who cares if my mom wants to you to be friends with them, it’s not her life!”

  “They’re fine, Bee’s fine. They’re not Leigh, that’s for sure, but she’s always traveling for work, and I have no mom friends, I am such a loner, and it’s better than nothing. Plus, I need to learn all the insider things here, your mom’s right, I guess. I realize it really is better for Violet if I play ball,” I sighed. “But I did all the school research, luckily, and I know exactly where we’re speed dialing, so you better not forget to pen that shit in. I own you the day after Labor Day when the phone lines open.”

  “Okay, sergeant!”

  “Oh! Sweetie, also, I got us tickets for this new play next week, Swimming at Night. Supposedly it’s this really hot love story.”

  “Cool, I can’t wait.”

  I asked him how the maniacal billionaire and his monkey with diapers were doing. He said it didn’t seem possible before the trip, but that the guy was even crazier than he’d heard. Still, they were enjoying the hunt. In fact, with each “kill,” Count von Hapsenfürer would ship the body to Asprey for it to be dipped in silver. Room after gargantuan room was filled with sterling animals with every bristle of fur preserved in an eerie King Midas freeze, but with silver instead of gold. Horrifying. James Bond villain times ten.

  “How’s the food? Sheep’s brain with a sterling spoon?”

  Josh laughed. “You’re not far off. We literally ate, like, roast mutton or something. Total medieval meal.”

  “Ew! I’d die.” Despite my longing to be with him, I knew the food sitch would not be remotely to my liking.

  Finally Josh had to go to sleep, as it was three A.M. in Europe. We hung up and I crawled into bed with my new Spin magazine. Two seconds later, the phone rang again.

  “Hi, sweetie,” I said.

  “Oh, hello, Hannah,” a non-Josh voice said. Oh shit. “This is Tate calling.”

  “Whoops! Sorry, I just hung up with my husband—”

  “Traveling, is he?”

  “Yes, ’til Monday.”

  “Funny, my wife is away with the children in Como for two weeks. I have too much course work to prepare for, so I sent them off while I’m withering away in this heat.”

  “Tell me about it,” I sighed. “The Upper East Side is clearing out as if an H-bomb dropped. I think tumbleweeds are rolling up Park Avenue.”

  He laughed, knowing exactly what I meant. “You’re too much, Hannah.”

  He asked me if I was free to go to the Guggenheim the following Tuesday afternoon and I told him I’d love to, adding that I’d bring my roller skates—referencing Diane Wiest in my all-time-fav
orite movie, Hannah and Her Sisters.

  “So what is on the agenda for you tonight?”

  “Oh, I dunno. Some Jon Stewart, some magazines…” I said, feeling so weird to be lying in bed talking to Tate Hayes.

  “You’ll never believe what my bedtime reading was last night,” he said.

  “Harlequin Romance?”

  “Nooo…” he mocked. “Your thesis, actually.”

  I was stunned. What?! I was shocked, elated, and wondered if he was on heroin. But played it cool. “Why, you needed to fall asleep? Was my essay Ambien in paper form?”

  “Hardly,” he said, dead serious. “It’s truly beautiful, Hannah. You have a real talent.”

  “A talent for singing tunes by the Doodlebops these days,” I said, feeling my mommy status had trumped my intellectual one.

  “No, it’s never left you. All that work you’ve done, your gifts, it’s all there waiting for you when you’re ready.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’ll leave you to your magazines, then.”

  “Okay,” I said softly.

  “Good night, Hannah.”

  Twenty-four

  Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Josh came home from Switzerland. I’m so pathetic, I mean, there were women with husbands at war for crying out loud and I was so lost without him, I pounced on him like one of those suction-cup Garfields in car windows. And while I did feel such a tight bond to Violet from our time together, being a single mom was exhausting, and my head was awash in a spin cycle of scattered toys, thrown peas, and the high-pitched voiceover lady from the Disney Channel (who sounded suspiciously like that secretary from Moonlighting). In other words, I missed the love of my life terribly, but I also missed the extra pair of hands. We snuggled in to a family dinner as I reported on Violet’s latest words and caught up on his trip. New porn title conceived of on the plane that we both couldn’t believe we’d never thought of: The Rodfather.