Carpool Confidential (15 page)

“Um, the boys are fine.” I barely knew this woman even though she was a blood relation to my children. I did not want to be the one to tell her. It was bad enough I was going to have to tell them.

Letitia leaned forward and poked at my bag. My heart thudded. What if she looked further? “Cassie! Surely those 3X highlights aren't for you? God knows it's not that you couldn't get better results than you do from Jacques”—her gaze went to my hair now—“he was an overpriced fraud, even when he was at Elizabeth Arden, but there are other fish in the sea, you know. Why don't you try Brea at Minardi?”

“I, um, might. Thanks. Bye Letitia. Take care.” Then I beat a hasty and cowardly retreat in the direction of the subway without looking back.

I was beyond fried when I trudged through the door with the boys.

“Okay, guys, let's get you two started on homework and I'll make dinner.”

“I need a break before homework,” Noah said. “Half an hour.”

I scooped up the pile of mail on the floor inside the door. It could have been my state of mind, but the bill/non-bill ratio seemed more alarming than usual. “No, sweetie. If you wait, then you won't have any free time after dinner. It'll just be shower and bed and you hate that.” I put the mail on the table.

“C'mon, Mom, I haven't had any free time all day,” he whined.

I gritted my teeth. “You had pizza and then played tennis with three friends. It's your choice to do tennis, and you know on the days you do, you have less time at night. So come on, you need to get started on homework now.”

“Mom, pleeaasse? Just fifteen minutes.” I wavered. He sensed it and went in for the kill. “Come on, please?”

I hated saying no, but if I said yes, he'd start some activity, and then I'd have to fight with him to make him sit down and do his homework, and the rest of the night would be one argument after another and he wouldn't get to bed until ten. “No.”

“Seven minutes, OK? Just seven, what's wrong with that?”

“No.”

“Five.”

In addition to being completely overwhelmed by my afternoon, my own vested interest in getting them through the evening routine and into bed so I could have ten minutes alone to do the pregnancy test was making me uptight. “NO! Now. You know, Noah, if you just sat down and did the damn homework, you'd be done in the time you're wasting arguing with me.”

I felt like scum for yelling at him while he was going through a hard time over Rick, but then was torched with rage when he drawled, like some little mini sixteen-year-old, “God you're so stressy. Why don't you just chill for once?”

“Don't you EVER speak like that to me!” Jared started to cry. I turned to him and snarled, “Do your homework,” and then back to Noah. “Again. Ever. I mean it.”

While I was trying to Lamaze-breathe my way to calm, Noah turned on Jared. “You're such a baby. Stupid crybaby.”

“Don't speak to him like that, either.” The breathing was as useless for childrearing as it had been for labor.

“That is so not fair,” Noah yelled. “You always take his side. Stupid, little bratty baby.”

“I hate you,” Jared yelled back. “You're the worst brother. You're mean—” His shrill little voice went through my head like a jackhammer. It was like all the space in my brain that was usually devoted to the world of kid stuff was suddenly filled to overflowing by other, bigger things.

“WOULD YOU TWO JUST QUIT ARGUING AND SHUT UP!” As soon as it was out, I clapped a hand across my mouth.

Jared stopped just crying and burst into hysterical sobs as he crumpled onto the floor, still in his coat and backpack.

The guilt sluiced through me. How could I have let myself behave this way? They were children. I was just behaving like one. I bent down and lifted Jared into a sitting position and slid his backpack off. “Sweetie?”

“I hate it here,” he sobbed. “It's no fun anymore. And you're mean, too.”

Cadbury ambled out to see what was going on. Jared leaned out of my arms and buried his face in her fur. “Cadbury's all I have left to remind me of Daddy,” he sobbed piteously. “He loved her, too.”

Maybe.
But he never walked her
, I thought, and then,
Fuck you, Rick. You didn't love her or us or anyone but yourself
. “Oh, sweetie,” I said, scooping him up and more or less carrying him into the kitchen. He really was getting too big for that, all solid and sturdy, and he no longer melted against me.

A baby. The thought flashed through my mind, seductive and terrifying before I could reprimand myself. Chubby arms, silky hair, that soft, milky smell. Someone simple and uncomplicated in my life. No, actually, a complete and utter disaster. I was doing a crappy enough job taking care of the two I already had. And, besides, the last thing the world needed was more Rick Martin DNA floating around in it.

Noah and Cadbury followed us into the kitchen. I settled Jared in the rocking chair and handed him a tissue before bending to take his coat off, like I used to when he was too little to do it himself.

The phone rang. I didn't move, so Noah headed toward it. “Let the machine pick up,” I said.

“It could be Daddy.” My heart plummeted at the longing in his voice. “Hello?…Oh, hi. Yep…Right here…Just a sec.”

Not Daddy. He handed me the phone and turned away so I couldn't see his face. “Cassie, it's Sue. Did you see the news?”

She sounded so riled up my entire body went rigid. “No? What?”

“It was in
The Times
, the London
Times
, not the New York one.” My heart slowed. “Betsy Strauss's husband is there on business and he called her. Rick's not there, too, by any chance, is he? Because if he is you could have him bring one back.”

“No, he's not.” Or I didn't think so, anyway. I glanced over at the boys. Noah was listlessly doing something on the laptop on the counter, and Jared was just sitting, looking sad. “What was in the paper?”

“A
huge
report on man-made toxins being found in everyday foods.”

“Oh.”

“Bread. Eggs. Honey, milk, orange juice. Olive oil!!”

“Um, OK.”

“Organochlorines!”

“No!” (I had no idea what organochlorines were. They sounded good, right?)

“I couldn't believe it! Anyway, I think you need to get a copy so you and Ken can really get started. He told me it's been hard to pin you down for coffee.”

“Sorry, Sue, things have been a little crazy lately and I—”

“Look, Cassie, I really need you to get on the stick. I didn't want to tell you this, but my choosing you as cohead was kind of controversial. There are a few people out there who weren't sure you could handle it. You can find it online.”

I swallowed. What was wrong with me that I couldn't or wouldn't walk away? The long answer was, well, long. And the short was that it would be burning my bridges, and I just wasn't ready for that. So I heard my cowardly self promising that I'd google up the article later tonight.

My head felt like it couldn't hold even one more thing inside. I sat down with Jared and lifted him onto my lap, forcing my mind back to my kitchen and my hurting children. “I'm sorry I yelled,” I said to both of them.

Jared nodded, his face still streaked with tears. “I just miss Daddy.” He started to sniffle, and the tears welled up again. I gathered him against me, and he snuffled into my sweater. There went the cashmere. Oh, well. “He's not coming back, is he?”

I hesitated. Noah must have sensed that, because I felt him edge closer, behind me. I looked back over my shoulder at him. He looked at me sadly. Even Cad had stopped eating and was looking at me.

“If he's not, I think you should tell us,” Noah said. “We're not babies anymore.”

Annoyingly, my first instinct was to discuss it with Rick. It didn't seem right to just blurt things out, and, yet, it really didn't seem right to conceal the truth from them any longer. “It's complicated,” I said.

“That's what grown-ups always say before they tell you why they can't tell you the truth,” Noah told Jared.

I stopped, taken aback by the realization that I had been about to do precisely that. “Okay.” I held out my hand to Noah. He took it and allowed me to draw him down next to us. “The thing is,” I started, “that Daddy felt like he wanted to try a different job for a while—”

“What kind of different job?” Noah interrupted. “He doesn't want to be a banker any more?”

“He might want to be again some day, but right now he needed a break.”

Jared frowned up at me. “Then how come you said he was on a business trip?”

“It's a trip for him to think about a new business.” That was at least a version of the truth.

“I knew it.” Noah's eyes filled again. “He's in jail, isn't he? For that trading stuff that's illegal, like Izzy's dad, right?”

Although the thought of Rick in one of those Rikers Island—issue jumpsuits was one of the happiest images I'd had in a long time, I figured I should ease Noah's worries on that score. “He's not in jail, honey. I promise.” But I realized as I said it that I didn't even know. He could be. Would I be his one phone call?

Noah gave me a long look. “But will he come back here with us?” And his words echoed so uncannily my own to Rick that my heart lurched yet again.

Was it better to let them live in denial for a while or to give them the reality of the situation? Did I even know the reality? “I'm sorry, I don't know.”

“OK.” Noah nodded. “I don't want to talk about it any more right now. All right?” He stomped out to find his English book.

I looked at Jared. He was wiping his tears on his sleeve. “What about you, honey?”

“Not really. What's for dinner?”

In light of the fact I felt like a used sock, I revised my plan to cook something balanced and nourishing and waved away the guilty realization that Noah had already had this once today. “Pizza.”

“Again? We always have pizza. I hate it now.”

“Spaghetti?”

The barely retreated tears were welling again. “That's what we have when we don't have pizza. I hate spaghetti, too. Can't we have something else?” he persisted. “Like roast chicken with mashed potatoes?”

“First of all, I'd need ingredients we don't have. Like, um, chicken and potatoes. Oh, and you don't eat either of those things.”

“I want real food all of us together at the table with candles and folded napkins like we used to have when Daddy was here. Even if I didn't eat it, I liked knowing about it.” When he looked at me, he was frowning, a little worried line across his perfectly smooth forehead. As a baby, he used to furrow his brow just like that when he was trying to puzzle something out. If only this was as simple as learning how to put two Duplos together. I stroked his hair. It still had that silky baby hair feel to it.

My heart thumped again. A baby. Oh, God. I made my voice cheerful(ish). “How about burgers and milkshakes from Clark's?”

“Fries, too?” Noah, the master negotiator, returned with his English book.

“Deal,” I said.

“Strawberry milkshakes?” Jared asked.

“Sure, honey.” OK. Nothing resolved, but immediate problems shelved. And then, wouldn't you know it, Rick called.

“Hey, Sport.” He must have been practically bellowing in Noah's ear, because I could hear him from five feet away.

I glanced down at the caller ID and ended up jotting down a California number. He certainly seemed to be covering a lot of territory. Hopefully all our money wasn't going on business-class upgrades for the cast and crew. The effort it was taking not to grab the phone and scream like a lunatic at him was making my jaw ache.

Noah was chattering away. I noticed he wasn't asking Rick any of the questions he'd been asking me. I suspected he was afraid of the answers. Jared took his turn, and then it was mine. I wasn't sure why he always asked to speak to me—probably to keep up appearances.

“Hi.” I glanced over at the boys. They were both staring at me, radars quivering. I knew it would set off an avalanche if I went into my bedroom and closed the door so I could talk in privacy. I forced myself to sound whatever passed for normal these days. “How are you?”

“Great. Good.” He sounded sociopathically cheerful. “And you?”

“Oh, you know, OK. I—” I groped for a code phrase denoting
Found out today that you've screwed me financially you piece of crap and, oh, by the way, I think I'm pregnant
. “—um, went to see Murray this afternoon.”

“Good for you, Cassie! See? This is exactly what I meant by it's partially for you. It's about time you stood on your own two feet. Do you feel empowered?”

Was there a language where the translation of
empowered
meant duped and screwed? This could not be the man I'd been married to. The protective, loving husband I'd known all these years. “Maybe you should give me a call back?”

“Oh, sorry, Cass. Can't tonight.”

“I see. When do you think you might next be able to?”

“Sometime in the next few days—”

“How about sooner?” For the benefit of the audience, I was still trying to sound cheerfully neutral.

“I'll try. Look, I've got to run. Give the boys extra kisses from me, OK? Bye.”

 

I was still grinding my teeth when I crept in to check on the boys at nine o'clock. I wanted to make sure they were both out cold before I did the pregnancy test so I could count on a few minutes to process the results in peace. Noah was sprawled, spread-eagled across his bed, one foot sticking out of the blankets. Next door, Jared was sound asleep, Cad stretched across his bed (strictly against house rules), his thumb jammed in his mouth. Very gently, I pulled it out. He mumbled a protest but didn't wake up, jammed it back in, and rolled over.