Promises to Keep (3 page)

1. Walk Elizabeth. Elizabeth is their devoted black lab, who is now the size of two black labs because, despite Jack’s pleading for a puppy and swearing that he would walk her every single day, no one walks Elizabeth anymore, and flinging a tennis ball from a plastic orange ball flinger in the garden twice a day doesn’t seem to be making much of a difference. The vet now says Elizabeth has reached critical size and must be walked at least twice a day in the dog park, where she can jump and play with other dogs.

2. Register Jack for baseball; and sign Eliza up for drama classes, in a bid to channel the drama into something constructive, rather than the weeping and wailing when, say, Callie cancels a sleepover as a consequence for Eliza’s backtalk.

3. Return the phone calls from all the sleepaway camps that have been leaving forced-cheerful messages on the answering machine for weeks. Oh how she wishes she’d never asked them for information in the first place. She had no idea quite how much they would want her . . .

4. Grocery shop. There is nothing in the fridge except drawers full of wilting vegetables, which is what happens when you try to be clever by buying tons of food in the desperate hope that you won’t have to hit the grocery store again for at least another week, and your husband doesn’t get back until nine p.m. every night and has usually grabbed a pizza on his way home.

5. Cook. Callie is hosting Book Club tonight, and has completely forgotten about it until this very second. She can’t just serve ready-bought food. No. She can’t. The girls would never let her hear the end of it. She’ll make Steffi’s tomato tarts with puff pastry—easy and impressive. That’ll keep the girls quiet.

6. Aaaargh. Run to the liquor store and get bottles of wine, and then to the gourmet food market for snacks. Having Book Club at her house tonight is also a problem because whoever hosts it has to introduce the book and give her opinion and some constructive thoughts as an opener, and Callie hasn’t had time even to open the book. She does like the cover though, although she’s not sure that’s enough.

7. Get to the gym. She’s been feeling extraordinarily tired lately, and she’s convinced it’s because she’s let her exercise routine slide. There’s no question that when she’s working out every day she is filled with an energy she doesn’t otherwise have.

8. Check for paper plates in the pantry. An email had gone out last week asking for volunteers to bring things in for Eliza’s class performance of their Colonial Williamsburg project, and by the time Callie had gotten around to responding, all the good stuff—cupcakes, biscuits, lemonade—was gone, and the only thing still left on the list was paper plates. She’s pretty sure they’ve run out because no one’s used them since the summer and she doesn’t recall seeing any, so she will have to remember to add them to the shopping list.

9. Organize Eliza’s birthday party. It may not be until next year, but Eliza’s planning it already, and Callie figures it’s better to get it organized this far in advance. She has decided she wants a karaoke party, having heard about someone’s big sister’s bat mitzvah extravaganza in New York City at an actual karaoke club, but given there are no karaoke bars in Bedford, Callie is having to use her imagination. Eliza has point-blank refused to have a party at home, and so Callie has found a Japanese restaurant with a private tatami room, available on the night of Eliza’s birthday, and she has the number of Kevin the Karaoke King, who will apparently turn up with the machine, the video and the books. At what point, Callie wonders, did her daughter discover sushi and karaoke? What happened to mac ’n’ cheese and disco dance parties in her bedroom?

10. Register Jack for football and basketball. She had meant to do this weeks ago, but couldn’t face all the additional driving. No one ever told her that motherhood meant you would spend three-quarters of your day as a chauffeur. She made a decision not to overschedule the children, and now feels guilty because every boy in Jack’s class is doing football, basketball, tae kwon do, baseball clinic and music. She draws the line at music because she just doesn’t have the energy.

11. Copyedit the ad that’s going in the local paper next week, and call back the journalist who’s writing an editorial feature on her—an amazing coup that is likely to bring in a lot of new business—plus call back the three people who have called this week to make an appointment for photography consultations.