The Hopefuls (4 page)

After they'd laughed enough about the speech therapist scandal, Nellie turned to me. “So, how's everything going?”

They'd asked me this same question about thirty times since I'd moved. I think they could tell that I was unsure about DC, that I missed New York. But they'd grown up there, and I didn't want to insult the city they were from, so each time I just said, “It's going really well!”

We chatted for a while and sipped our wine, watched as Lily and Grace wove the colored thread. The sky had just started to change color when Rebecca stepped outside, still holding Jonah on her hip. Unsmiling, she said, “It's time for dinner. Babs is requesting your presence inside.”

In the kitchen, Babs and Matt were still talking and Patrick was taking containers of food out of the diaper bag and getting ready to warm them up for Jonah's dinner. They always brought separate food for Jonah, because he had a dairy allergy, and Rebecca had just told me that they also thought he had a sensitivity to wheat. Babs dismissed these food restrictions as pure nonsense and was always trying to sneak ice cream and yogurt to Jonah. When Patrick would stop her, she'd throw up her hands. “How can his stomach get used to it if he never eats it?” she'd say.

Patrick spooned some vegetables into a bowl and held it up. “Mom, is this bowl okay to go in the microwave?”

“That should be fine,” Babs said.

There was a rumor that when Patrick didn't get into Harvard, Will overheard Babs talking about it to her bridge club. “Well, Michael will definitely get in, but we all knew Patrick wasn't going to make it. You know how it is—you always throw the first pancake out.”

Part of me hoped this story wasn't true, that it was a lie made up by one of the Kellys, just a joke that had lasted through the years. But another part of me thought there was a good chance Babs actually had ridiculed Patrick in front of all of her friends. When Patrick wasn't around, his siblings referred to him as Pancake, which seemed cruel. Patrick had the same features as his brothers—thin nose, strong cheekbones, blue eyes—but they didn't come together the same way on him, and he was much less handsome. His eyes were just a little large for his face, his nose just a little too sharp, and something about him reminded me of a deer—he was always so jumpy and unsure.

He tried hard to please Babs, but it didn't seem to matter. He could've moved somewhere far away, but he stayed close by and came to Sunday dinners. I always wondered why. If it were me, I would've moved to the other side of the country.

Matt's dad was standing at the end of the kitchen table, and all of the grandchildren were vying for his attention, interrupting each other with news about school and field trips. Charles was a quiet man who worked a lot—all the time, really. Even now that he was officially retired he spent most of his time in the office. But he also adored his grandchildren and tried to attend as many soccer games and gymnastics meets as he could. He never raised his voice and he didn't have to—as soon as he started talking, everyone got quiet. I could never figure out how he and Babs ended up together. Did she marry someone quiet to make up for all the noise she made? Did they balance each other out on a kindness spectrum?

The kitchen was full and noisy then, everyone talking at once. Babs looked at all of us and said, “Okay, now. Don't just stand there like lumps. Go sit down.” And because we always did what she said, we walked quickly into the dining room.

The bright side of Sunday dinners was that the food was always really good. I tried to concentrate on that when I was there. This Sunday was roast chicken with lemon and garlic, twice-baked potatoes, and a kale salad.

“Kale?” Meg asked, as it was passed to her. She sniffed. “How trendy of you, Babs.”

Meg was twenty-three and still living at home. She'd had two different jobs since graduating from Trinity, and probably could've moved out, but I think she enjoyed the benefits of having Rosie iron her clothes and make her bed each morning. Once, when I said something about how fun it was to live with my friends after graduating, and how I wouldn't have wanted to move back home, she looked up and said, “That's because your parents live in Wisconsin. Gross.”

When Matt and I first started dating, I thought I'd become friends with Meg. She was closer to my age than anyone else. But she didn't have much interest in me and, to be honest, was sort of a spoiled brat. Even Babs didn't seem to know what to do with her. Jenny and Nellie had known Meg since she was a baby, so they thought she was adorable, and when she rolled her eyes, or christened something disgusting or revolting, they thought it was a riot. They were always commenting on her clothes (Meg had a wardrobe that would make anyone jealous) and asking her for accessory advice or pressing her about her dating life. Meg found them amusing, and tolerated their questions, sometimes even smiling briefly at them.

Most of the time, Meg was on her phone, which made it difficult to have any sort of conversation with her. Babs, who was firm about her grandchildren not having any screen time at the house, seemed to have very little power over Meg and her iPhone—once I watched as Babs tried to take it away from her, and Meg whined like a sick pony or a panicked toddler.

As dinner started, I braced myself. When all of the Kellys were in one place, the noise was constant, like construction. I never got used to the way the grandchildren raced through rooms, running into people and tripping over carpets (which was probably how poor Jonah was mowed down earlier). And there was so much food—enormous platters of food, so many mouths gobbling things down, so many glasses of water and wine being poured. Each dinner felt like a small fund-raiser. More than once after I married Matt, someone said to me, “That's so nice you finally got yourself a big family,” like it was something that I always wanted, like it was something that everyone hoped for.

Really, most of the time I longed for my own house. Since I was an only child, raised by a librarian and a professor, our house was almost always peaceful. In the evenings, no one yelled up the stairs for everyone to come to dinner, or fought over the TV. Usually my parents watched
Wheel of Fortune,
and would sound out the puzzles together. When one of them got it right, the other would say nicely, “Good job” or “Well done.”

At the Kellys' Sunday dinners, I could mostly just stay quiet and zone out as I ate and listened to the conversation. But tonight, as soon as everyone was served, Babs turned to me. “So, Beth, have you heard any more about the job?”

I took a sip of water before I answered, “Oh, no. Not yet.” I'd interviewed at a website the week before, for a position that I wasn't even sure I wanted. But of all the résumés I'd sent out, it was the only place that had even bothered to call, which was slightly embarrassing and not something I wanted to share at the dinner table.

“Well, I'm sure you will,” Babs said. “You must be going crazy sitting in that apartment all day.”

“Oh, it's okay,” I said. I took a large bite of kale and willed the conversation to be over. Babs had the ability to make me feel worthless just by tilting her head, and she wasn't the person I wanted to discuss my job options with.

“You know, we could always use another person at the store,” Nellie said. She smiled at me across the table, and I tried to smile back. I knew she was just being nice, but the thought of selling monogrammed towels to women like Babs made my stomach hurt.

“It's true. The summer sale is coming up,” Jenny said. “Meg, we got a bunch of those makeup bags you liked. Supercute patterns.”

I knew Jenny was changing the subject for me, and I appreciated it. I concentrated on my dinner while she continued to talk about makeup bags. Matt turned to Michael and started telling him how everyone was already worrying about the 2012 election. “You wouldn't believe it,” he said. “This one's barely over and they're getting ready to do it again.” Babs perked up and turned her attention to him, and for the moment, I was free.

When we got in the car that night, I said, “I didn't know you told your mom about my interview.”

“Oh, I just mentioned it to her last week. I didn't think you'd mind.”

“No, I don't mind. I just didn't want to talk about it in case I don't get it,” I said, although that wasn't quite what it was. Babs had never been all that impressed with my career in magazines. I'd never been comfortable talking about it with her because she made it sound like it was a hobby I was trying out. When I'd gotten laid off, she'd just sighed and said, “Well, that's no surprise. Print is dying.”

“I'm sure you'll get it,” Matt said, giving my hand a quick squeeze. My optimistic husband, always so sure that things would work out.

Colleen had moved to DC a couple of years earlier to cover the Hill as an on-air reporter for Bloomberg. She'd gotten her big break reporting the transit strike for NY1, standing at the edge of the Brooklyn Bridge and doing man-on-the-street interviews with all the pissed-off New Yorkers who had to walk to work that day. When the offer came from Bloomberg, she didn't hesitate. I couldn't believe she'd leave New York and move to a random city. “You don't know anyone there,” I said. She just gave me a strange look and said, “This is my dream job.” I remember thinking that I wouldn't have taken it, wouldn't have left New York no matter what job was offered to me. But that was the difference between us, I guess.

I'd seen Colleen just once since I'd gotten to DC—she was always busy, had already canceled on me a few times, sending me short texts that she was “treading water” and “swamped with work.” But that Wednesday she called to say she was sneaking out of the office early. “Let's get our nails done,” she said. “Meet me at that place right by you, Qwest. Do you know it? It's on Eighteenth.” I was so happy to have something to break up my afternoon that I wasn't even a little bit annoyed at how bossy she sounded.

When I got to Qwest, Colleen already had her feet soaking in a tub and was tapping away on her BlackBerry. She held up her hand and called my name, then resumed typing, pausing again when I walked over to her to pucker her lips for a cheek kiss.

I slipped off my flip-flops and sat in the chair next to her, smiling at the woman who was filling my tub. “You pick color?” the woman asked, and I handed her a bottle of bright red polish called Jelly Apple. “Oooh, I like that,” Colleen said, fully putting her phone down for the first time. “I'll do that one too.”

“Who names these things?” I said. “I think I'd be good at that job.”

“I'd be great at it,” she said. She pressed a button on the arm of her chair and sighed happily as it started massaging her neck.

“Well, I'm the one who needs a job,” I said, a little sharper than I intended. She looked over at me and I just shrugged.

“Well, of course you need a job,” she said. “Have you heard back from DCLOVE yet?”

I shook my head and answered, “Not yet.” Colleen was friendly with one of the founders of DCLOVE and had helped me get the interview there. The website's mission statement said it was “committed to showcasing the unique personality of our nation's capital,” and the irony of applying to work at such a place wasn't lost on me.

“Well, I'm sure you will,” she said. “But in the meantime, let's figure out who else you should meet. I know someone at National Geographic. That would be a good one. Oh, and I just met someone who works for the Wildlife Fund magazine.”

“The Wildlife Fund magazine?”

“Don't be a snob. This isn't New York. You're not going to find a job like
Vanity Fair
here. But you'll find something interesting. What you really need to do at this point is meet as many people as possible to figure out what opportunities are out there. Here, I'm introducing you to this person over e-mail now, okay? You can get lunch and talk.”

Colleen was someone who actually enjoyed networking, was great at meeting random people and connecting them to one another. For all of her talk about New York being the best city, DC really was a better fit for her. She loved knowing the important players, loved knowing gossip about them even more. She was also drawn to anything exclusive—the harder it was to join, the more she wanted to be a part of it. When she first moved, she called to tell me she'd been recruited by a group called the Madison DC. She went on to explain the rules of the group, how the membership was capped at one hundred women, how you had to be between the ages of twenty-one and thirty, unmarried, successful, and pretty. The whole thing sounded like a club that was dreamt up by a group of thirteen-year-old girls, which is what I told her.

When P. J. Clarke's started a members-only dining room, Colleen had a key card in her possession before most people even knew it existed. At least once a year, she was named to some list, and she'd forward the link to us: DC's 30 Under 30; Rising Stars of DC; DC's Young Power Women. She always pretended like these things were random, that they didn't matter to her, but we all knew better.

I was lost in thought but could feel Colleen staring at me. “What's going on with you?” she finally asked. “You're all doom and gloom.”

“No, I'm fine,” I said. “I think I just miss New York.”

“It's not so bad here, you know. I mean, you have a washer and dryer for Christ's sake. And it's not like you were going to live in New York forever.”

“I guess not,” I said.

“And everything will work out,” she said. “You'll see.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”

It was easier to agree with Colleen than try to explain what I really thought. This move to DC had disrupted things. The truth was, I'd liked being married to a lawyer, liked that Matt's job made sense, that there was a steady future plotted out. It felt like we were ahead of everyone else in the race to become adults. We were married, we owned a home, we were a couple to be envied. I'd always felt so grown up in my life with Matt—at twenty-five, I used to offer to drop off his dry cleaning just so I could say, “Light starch on my husband's shirts, please.”