The Seven Year Bitch (31 page)

“Okay, lie here,” I said to the next kid. He was older than the other kids and I didn't recognize him. “You must be the brother of someone in Duncan's class,” I said.

“Actually, I'm nobody's brother,” he said philosophically, with a French accent, like a little René Descartes.

“Oh, you must be Mathieu,” I said shyly.

“I would like my shadow done too,” he said. “But please make it as accurate as possible.”

I moved my green grease pencil around his body, his new American jeans, and French shoes, and expensive button-down shirt. I traced his profile—his father's nose, his soft brown hair, the spikes on top. He was a beautiful boy.

“My father is in there,” he said, pointing to the theater, his rolled-up shadow tucked under his arm.

When the show was about to begin, I took a seat on a bench by the door to watch. Duncan sat in the row in front of me next to Mathieu, and they were chatting very seriously about something, the older boy looking down kindly at the younger one.

“Hello, m'dear,” Gabe whispered to me as soon as the house went dark. He had climbed over the bench behind me to sit next to me.

I looked around but no one seemed to notice anything. Everyone was already enthralled with the show. I sat stiffly on the bench with my legs spread like a man on the subway to make room for my enormous pregnant stomach and to keep from toppling over onto it.

“Nice party,” he said. He took off his sweater and the shirt under it rode up, exposing a flat, hard stomach.

I felt a gush between my legs and for a moment I was terrified that my water had broken. What if my water had broken and it was Gabe Weinrib who took me to the hospital and helped me give birth? I was afraid to stand up.

“Which one's Russell?” he asked.

“I don't know,” I whispered. He was probably walking to the park's entrance to get the hot dogs.

Everyone in the room sang “Happy Birthday” to Duncan, including the Pippi Longstocking marionette who the puppeteer quipped was now an out-of-work actress waitressing in SoHo.

“I'm so glad we finally got the boys together. Duncan's a great-looking kid,” Gabe said. “I've been saying they should meet for so long.”

“I don't know why. Mathieu is a good sport for being here. He's so much older than Duncan.”

“I just thought they'd like each other,” he said.

I leaned forward and whispered in Duncan's ear. “Do you like it? Do you like your party?”

“Mom, no talking,” he said.

I heard children laughing and the sound of applause, but all I could think about was the man sitting next to me and the wetness between my legs.

I wished I hadn't dressed thematically in a too-tight pirate shirt. They didn't make pirate maternity wear, so a glittering skull and crossbones stretched across my stomach, leaving a gap above my maternity pants. Except for my stomach, and my son, and twenty-two three-year-olds and their parents, this could be a date.

“I have some stocks I want you to take a look at,” he whispered.

“Maybe we could meet next week,” I said, confused again. Everything I was feeling between us was just in my own mind.

“You know, I'm going to India in January to look at buying some factories. I wish I could get your take on it. I was planning to turn it into a vacation in Mumbai. I wish you could come with me. Staying in the best hotels. My treat.”

“Gabe,” I said. “I'm having a baby in December.”

“I know you can't come. I said, ʽI wish.' There're a lot of great investments there.”

“I can't do that,” I said.

“I think the boys are getting along great,” he said, nudging me with his arm.

To my astonishment, Duncan had slipped his hand into Mathieu's and they sat like that until it was time to applaud again.

On the stage three mermaids danced on their strings like embryos. Then the lost boys sang to Wendy, “Be our mother, be our mother.”

“I have to go make sure everything's set up,” I said and slipped out of the theater and into the party room. A moment later he followed.

“Wow,” he said, looking at what I had done with the room. “You know, m'dear, if I were ever to finally settle down, I'd want it to be with someone exactly like you.”

“But you only date models,” I said mockingly.

“I do date a lot of models, but I like that you're not so tall. When I'm in bed with a woman who's taller than me I always feel like a baby gorilla in his mama's arms. You have so many of the qualities I am looking for in a woman.”

“So you've mentioned,” I said, sounding annoyed. Suddenly, I felt irritated. He knew there was nothing I could do about any of this. The jig should have been up, I thought.

I resisted the urge to hike up my pants and prayed they wouldn't drop lower. The baby kicked and, looking down, I saw the skull and crossbones change shape, like my stomach was a real Jolly Roger blowing on a high mast over a stormy sea.

“I wonder what qualities I don't possess,” I mused bitterly, hiking up my pants and coming this close to asking him if he thought I was fat.

“You possess them,” he said. “You're beautiful and smart and funny and sexy.” He started singing a Bee Gees song in a highpitched voice.

“Very nice,” Russell said, standing in the doorway. “Hi, I'm Russell, Izzy's husband, father of the birthday boy.” He put out his hand to Gabe and Gabe shook it.

“This is Gabe Weinrib,” I said.

“Don't worry, Izzy, you can't accuse me of ruining Duncan's birthday this time. My new friend Abdul the hot dog guy is going to wheel his cart right in here. I worked out a great deal.”

“I think I'm the one ruining it with my singing,” Gabe said. “Thank you, m'dear.” He walked back into the theater, leaving me alone with Russell.

“M'dear?” Russell said. “What a putz.”

“That in there is a lot of bullshit!” Marlon said at the top of his lungs, staggering into the room. “You sure you want to feed those kids that Peter Pan fairy crap? Take them to the opera, something of quality, not that Peter Pan suck-my-cock, be-mymommy bullshit. This could be my last day on earth and I had to listen to that.”

“Marlon, could you keep it down, this is a kids' party,” Russell said, fluttering around Marlon as he always did.

“Those kids know it's a bunch of b.s. I'll tell you, some of those girls in there are lookers. The little blond one in the front with the fairy wings . . .”

“Marlon, they're three,” I said.

“Let me help you get a cab,” Russell said, steering Marlon to the door. “Maybe I did ruin the party,” he said, looking at me apologetically.

 

 

At the end of
the day, when all the kids had gone and we were packing up Duncan's mountain of presents, I saw that one of the kids had left his shadow, rolled up on the floor of the theater. It was Mathieu's. I rolled it back up and tucked it into my bag, and a few days later, I put it carefully in my locker, taking my sneakers home to make room for it.

A
nother contest arrived, and I slit open a cardboard box and took out the instruction sheet and the first rubber-banded group of essays.

I had plenty of cravings and aversions myself, and I stopped reading for a while, wishing I hadn't agreed to judge this one. In a way it was the most intense. The women would have written in, even if there wasn't a prize—a new kitchen makeover to get ready for baby. Their yearnings rose from the pages like steam. They wanted to tell—anyone really—what they craved.

I turned to the next essay and looked at the name on top as I always did.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was the woman who Dr. Heiffowitz had thought was me. We had sat in the same chair, lain on the same table, been touched by the same man. I felt as if I knew her.

I read the essay five more times. I wasn't sure if the Mashees executives would agree with me, but as far as I was concerned, we had our winner.

Each contest asked for one winner and a different number of runner-ups, usually with my ranking written in a circle in the top right corner. When I was done reading the essays, after I'd divided them into my piles of “yes,” “no,” and “maybe,” I took the yesses and carefully applying the formula of percentages listed in the contest rules—originality and creativity, appropriateness to theme, sincerity—I arbitrarily picked the winner and ranked the runner-ups.

This time, with thousands of essays left to read, I took my Sharpie and wrote the number one in the top right corner and circled it. My heart was pounding. I had nothing to worry about—it wasn't like I was committing insider trading—but I had broken the contest rules. And it was stupid because our last names were the same and we lived in the same city, which might send up a red flag to the final judges if they noticed it. I could throw her essay away, simply remove it from the pile, and it would never be missed from the boxes they picked up from me at the end of every contest to store in their warehouse in New Jersey. But she was my winner. Just please, I thought, don't let anything stop them from sending me essays. I had to have them, like my own secret lifeline.

 

 

The next day I
stood outside Duncan's preschool with the other mothers, waiting to pick up Duncan. I was due any day, and I was exhausted.

“Would Duncan like to come over for a playdate?” Gerde asked.

Lately I'd tried to keep Duncan as far away from Minerva as possible because she was always putting him in princess dresses as soon as we walked through their door.

“We have to do an errand, I'm sorry,” I said.

“What is your errand?” Gerde asked.

I tried to think of something. “We have to go to ABC Carpet.” I hoped we wouldn't have to go to ABC Carpet now that I'd said it, because it was the last place on earth I wanted to go.

“We will come along,” Gerde said.

We collected the children and trudged unhappily to ABC.

“You carry this,” Minerva demanded, handing Duncan a doll and a pocketbook.

“Duncan's a boy,” I explained to Minerva.

“
Ja
,” Gerde interjected, “that's why we got him blue nail polish to put on. Blue is for boys.” She pulled out the bottle of nail polish at a stoplight.

“Duncan's not allowed to wear nail polish,” I said.

“You don't think you are being ridiculous?” Gerde asked me. “You have to let him be who he is.”

“I am letting him be who he is. He's a boy.” Lately, Gerde had been calling me ridiculous quite a lot, I noticed.

Duncan started crying and then Minerva started crying.

“Duncan, I wouldn't let you wear nail polish even if you were a girl,” I lied. “Makeup is for grown-up women, not children.”