Not Ready for Mom Jeans (25 page)

Reese had everything she ever wanted in a family but the missing piece of a husband.

I had everything I ever wanted in a career but the missing piece of feeling truly happy.

I put my arm around her and we silently sat together as I tried to will all of the mismatched puzzle pieces of our lives to transform into one beautiful picture.

I stayed for another hour until she started going into her typical Reese hostess mode of setting food out, offering me drinks, and fretting about the cleanliness of the house. I didn’t want to stress her out anymore, so I hugged her for as long as she would let me and drove home with Sara.

I spent the rest of the day looking at my college photo albums, of old pictures of Jake and me and Matt and Reese. I showed Sara the pictures of her dad doing beer bongs and me after I gained all that weight freshman year. I laughed as I paged through the album.

Until a photo fluttered out of a page and down to the floor like an autumn leaf. It fell picture side down, the backing staring up at me. I gingerly picked it up and turned it over.

I squinted and looked at the girl in the picture. A girl who, by seemingly a different twist of the wind, would be a completely different person right now. Childless and focused on her career.

But would I be happier?
jumped into my mind.

No, I certainly wouldn’t be. I wouldn’t have Sara.

Are you sure? Wouldn’t it be easier?
the devil on my shoulder whispered again.

No. I’m sure.

You wouldn’t be miserable, right? At least admit to that. You never wanted this life. You never wanted your mother’s life—trying to balance the impossible of work and home.

I looked at it for a long time before the spell broke. I crumpled it up in my hand and let it drop to the floor.

Yet as I stared at the folded picture on the ground, I wondered if I was supposed to pretend that my past goals and aspirations didn’t exist. Like they weren’t important or didn’t mean anything.

You can’t keep this up for much longer.

I picked the photo up off the ground, folded it in half, and stuck it in the back of the album. I kissed the top of Sara’s blond head and rubbed my cheek against her soft hair. I held her tightly to me and rocked her gently until my arms felt weak. She remained silent and still and let me hold her, almost as if she was aware of my uncontrollable need to hold her close.

When I did let her go, she looked into my eyes, scrunched her brow, and blew a huge wet raspberry in my face, covering it with spit.

I laughed and my heart lightened about fifty degrees.

Saturday, August 2

I didn’t sleep much last night. I tossed and turned and yanked the covers away from Jake approximately every ten minutes. Possessed by the crazy-wife demon, I became irrationally angry when he had the
nerve
to breathe heavily, so I huffed and puffed as loudly as possible, hoping he would wake up. But thankfully, he stayed asleep.

I just about drifted off sometime after four o’clock when a high-pitched yelp jolted me awake.

“Jake!” I said, and poked him in the leg.

“Hsmissss,” he mumbled, and turned over.

“Jake! Get up!”

Nothing.

“JAKE!” I gave him another ninja poke.

“WHAT?” he said, and sat straight up in bed.

“I heard something in the hallway outside. Go check it out,” I said.

“It’s fine,” he said, and lay back down.

“Fine. I’ll go check it out. It’s probably an axe murderer awaiting his next victim and I’m going to get hacked into little pieces, but that’s OK because you don’t—”

“Jesus, I’m going, I’m going,” he said as he swung his legs out of bed. He stumbled around in the darkness for a few seconds and tried to put a pair of jeans on. He threw a T-shirt over his head and shuffled out of the bedroom.

I didn’t hear anything for a few minutes and I wondered if I should go and check on him, but I was scared the escaped mental patient outside had killed him and I didn’t want Sara to be an orphan.

He walked into the bedroom chuckling.

“Did the serial killer tell you a joke or something before he decapitated someone?” I said.

“Not exactly.” He laughed as he unbuttoned his jeans.

I stared at him as he lay back down in bed and closed his eyes.

“So what’s so funny?”

“It was Champagne Wayne.”

“Oh God. What was he doing?”

“More like
who
was he doing?”

“What?”

“Yep.”

“Are you seriously telling me our neighbor is having sex right now outside in the hallway?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s what it was, unless he bent that girl over to do a body cavity search. With his body parts.”

“EW! We are so moving. I’m calling the Realtor tomorrow.”

“Fine,” he mumbled.

“Jake?” I said after five minutes.

“What?” he said, half-asleep.

“Do you think STDs can become airborne?”

Sunday, August 3

After I heard our skanky neighbor bone some hooker in the hallway last night, the search for suitable housing has become priority number one. I mean, I enjoy the low, low cost of rent, but I don’t think Sara should have to live next to Mr. Walking Venereal Disease so Mommy and Daddy can save a few bucks.

So, I called a Realtor this morning, Rory Moonschmidt, my parents’ friend. I was standing in the kitchen, holding Sara, whom I entertained by pointing to pictures in my new
US Weekly
. Just as Rory described how many bathrooms and bedrooms Jake and I could afford as I gestured toward a picture of Britney Spears eating a cheeseburger, Sara farted. She didn’t just make a cute little baby fart. It was a reverberating, frat boy after eating White Castle and drinking beer fart. It was more like a boat’s foghorn or a locomotive chugging to a stop.

Rory stopped talking in mid-sentence.

“Oh, that was, no, that wasn’t, um, that. Uh, my baby. That was my baby,” I sputtered as I felt my face turn crimson.

“Oh. OK,” Rory said.

I looked at Sara and quickly tried to tickle her while making funny faces, trying to will her to make another noise, any noise so Rory would know she was there. I even tried to push on her stomach a little so she would fart again. But nothing. Abso-freaking-lutely nothing. That kid was silent for the first time in her life.

In fact, she remained silent the entire time I was on the phone, not even making one gurgle.

I’m sure Rory thinks I have some kind of intestinal problem. Great. She’s probably going to start showing Jake and me houses with five bathrooms and soundproof walls.

Saturday, August 9

There’s nothing like coming home and seeing a drunk husband with his loser friend, equally drunk and somewhat stoned, sitting on the couch with two cans of Miller High Life to burst one’s faux imaginary real estate bubble.

Today, I came home with an armful of groceries and spotted Bill-Until-Two-Months-Ago-I-Still-Lived-with-My-Parents. He came over to watch some college football game with Jake and the two of them wound up completely tanked by the end of it. Sara, thankfully, was asleep the whole time. I interrupted a debate over whether Tiffani-Amber Thiessen was hotter during her
Saved by the Bell
or
90210
days. It was a Valerie versus Kelly argument. I’m so glad they found something academic to discuss. (Although I can’t really give Jake shit about it. Three years ago, Julie and I got into a “heated debate” over who was the hotter Corey: Haim or Feldman? A couple thousand drinks may or may not have been involved also.)

I wrestled the Boppy away from Jake, who had it around his waist as a place to rest his tall boy, and gave him an evil look.

“You know what you need, Clare?” Bill asked me.

“What?” I said.

“More cowbell!” He dissolved into hysterical, high-pitched laughter.

“Is he stoned again?” I asked Jake.

Jake shrugged but quickly kicked Bill out.

“Clare, I’m sor—,” Jake started to say as he closed the front door after Bill left.

“Don’t.” I held up my hand. “I just—,” I started to say as I felt the well of frustration beginning to surge inside. But I knew laying into Jake wouldn’t help anything. So I dropped my hand back down to my side and exhaled. “I know.” I sat down on the couch and kicked my shoes off. “I’m just tired.”

Jake sat down next to me. “I’m sorry. I know my idiot friends are the last thing you want to deal with right now,” he said quietly.

I shook my head. “It’s OK. Like I said, I’m just tired. Work’s been crazy lately.” I silently wished that I were the slightly inebriated one on the couch, not stressing about the golf outing, worrying about my mom, or wondering if I missed Sara doing anything new at day care this week.

“Anything I can do?” Jake asked as he leaned back against the couch.

I shook my head again slightly. “No. I’ll be fine. I just need a good night’s sleep.”

“I’m on it,” he said as he leaned forward, grabbed my arm, and pulled me against his chest. “Tomorrow morning, I’ve got Sara. Before we go to any open houses. You sleep in.”

“Deal,” I said as I buried my face into his T-shirt. I closed my eyes for a moment and whispered, “Oh, and Jake?”

“Yeah?” he said.

“I’m still telling the Internet about this.”

Sunday, August 10

10:00 A.M.

I just got off the phone with Rory. She e-mailed over a list of three houses for Jake and me to check out today. According to her, they’re “nice,” “roomy,” and, most important, aren’t so far from the city that they might as well be in Iowa.

Judging from the pictures and the description, I just
know
one of these houses is the One.

4:00 P.M.

The One? Not exactly.

We pulled up to the first house, which looked even cuter than the picture online. It had white wood siding and navy blue shutters with beautiful pink impatiens in flower boxes resting on the windowsills.

I grabbed Jake’s arm. “Oh my God! I
love
it. Let’s get it!”

“Are you sure?” he said, and pointed to the house next door. The lawn looked like a rummage sale for plastic lawn ornaments and lawn jockeys. Pink flamingos, a family of deer, and a Santa statue encircled a giant wood cutout of a sleigh.