Baby Proof Part 5

"So now they all think I'm a cold b.i.t.c.h?" I ask.

"n.o.body thinks anything bad about you, Claudia."

I look down at my menu, raise my eyebrows, and mutter that I doubt this very much.

He ignores my comment and says, "Did you tell your folks?"

"No," I say. "Not yet."

He doesn't look surprised. He knows I avoid my mother and that I don't want to upset my father. "What about your sisters?"

"Not yet. Just Jess," I say. "And Michael."

"Annie?" he asks.

I shake my head. "No Why? Have you talked to Ray?"

"A little bit," Ben says.

I want to ask him what he's said, but decide against it. I pretty much know anyway. I also know what a new father is going to be saying back to him. It confirms what I have always said people seek out selective advice. They ask it from people who will echo their own instincts. Tell them what they plan on doing anyway.

Our waitress comes by and takes our order. We have not discussed our orders in advance, yet we both opt for the salmon. We never used to duplicate, preferring to order two entrees and share. Clearly our sharing days are over.

"So, I say."

"So," Ben says. "What next?"

I can tell he is talking about logistics, not our relations.h.i.+p. We are over, and we both know it. I hand him Nina's draft papers and say, "It's all pretty standard when it comes to uncontested divorces in New York."

He takes the papers and glances down at them. He flips through them, page by page, until he gets to the part that discusses the division of a.s.sets.

"I just want the CDs," I summarize for him.

He looks up at me, surprised. "That's all you want? The CDs?"

"Yeah. I just want our music," I say, vowing that it will be my very last our . "Is that okay?"

"Sure, Claudia. The music is yours."

"Even all the James McMurtrys?" I say, hoping that he'll balk or at least look upset. Ben has his favorite bands, and I have mine, but as a couple, James McMurtry is our number one. Maybe it's because we discovered and fell in love with his music together. I see Ben's chest rise slightly as he inhales. He exhales and looks at me. I hope he's thinking of last summer when we flew to Austin to see James perform at the Continental Club. I hope he's thinking of how we drank too many beers, our arms around each other, as we soaked up James's wrenching lyrics.

"Sure. Even James," he says sadly, as I make a mental note to leave just one CD behind, as if it were only an oversight. I pulled a similar stunt when I broke up with my college boyfriend, Paul. There were a lot of reasons for our demise, but among them was that we weren't geographically compatible. I wanted to live in New York and he wanted to live anywhere but . I held out hope that he'd change his mind and strategized ways to increase those odds. So when I gathered up all of his stuff that had accrued in my apartment over the prior year, I stuck one random Uno card in the crate because Paul and I played Uno together all the time, and had kept a running score into the triple digits. The card was a red "reverse" which I thought was somehow symbolic. I hoped that he'd find it and have a moment of intense regret for letting me go, a desire to "reverse" his life, leave Denver and move with me to New York. Maybe he would even tape that card to his mirror, look at it every morning when he shaved, thinking of me and what could have been.

I try to imagine what Ben's expression will be when he comes across one of our McMurtry CDs. I picture him sliding the disc in the stereo, listening to one of our songs, and cursing himself for picking a baby over me.

"Claudia?" Ben says, interrupting my thoughts. "What are you thinking?" His voice is soft.

"You know," I say, shaking my head. I feel another enormous stab of sadness. I have to work hard to fight back tears.

"Yeah. I know," Ben says. "This sucks."

I nod and look away, over to a couple sitting near us, seemingly on a first date. They were seated just after we were and I noticed that he pulled her chair out for her. They are young and eager, all smiles and perfect table manners. They are off to a good start, happy and hopeful.

I nod toward their table and say, "Check out those two. First date?"

Ben turns slightly in his chair, studies them for a second, and says, "Yeah. Second tops. I bet they haven't even kissed yet."

"Maybe tonight," I say.

"Yeah. Maybe."

"I wish I could skip ahead and see their ending," I say sarcastically.

Ben gives me a look and says, "You always were a cynic."

I say, "Go figure."

"Maybe they'll live happily ever after," Ben says.

"Yeah. With two point two children."

"Or at least one," Ben says.

I let him have the last word and the check when it mercifully comes.

seven.

There is more than a sliver of me that wonders if I'm making a mistake as I let Ben slip away from me for good. I tell myself that second-guessing just comes with the territory. Whenever you make a big decision in life, at least any decision where you have a viable alternative, there is an inevitable uneasy aftermath. Anxiety is merely a sign that you're taking something seriously.

In this sense, divorcing Ben conjures up a similar set of emotions that I had when I married Ben. I knew I was doing the right thing then, too, but couldn't escape the occasional worry that kept me up in the middle of the night even after I took a few swigs of NyQuil. In the days before our wedding, I knew that my love for Ben was the most real thing I had ever known, but I still fretted that I was setting myself up for disappointment. I remember looking at Ben while he slept one night and fearing that I would someday let him down. Or that he would let me down. That things, somehow, wouldn't turn out well for us, and that I would look back and say, "How could I have been so stupid? How could I have not seen this coming?" Which of course is exactly what is happening.

And now, as I watch Ben slip away from me, I have the nagging feeling that I will someday look back at this fork in the road and point to it as the biggest mistake of my life.

So given my fragile state, I am very nervous about being around my outspoken family. I tell them nothing and put off seeing them for several weeks, until the day of my niece Zoe's sixth-birthday party when I can put it off no longer.

That morning, I take the train to Maura's house in Bronxville, staring out the window at scenery I have come to know by heart. I only let myself listen to the upbeat songs on my iPod, skipping over any faintly melancholy ones on my playlist as a precautionary measure. The worst thing I could do is show up at Maura's with any trace of sadness on my face. I have to be tough, I think, as I ponder my strategy for breaking the bad news.

By the time I pull into the station, I have decided that I will tell my family of my pending divorce after the guests have departed, and Zoe has gone to play with her new toys. It would probably be less dramatic to give everyone the news individually over the phone, but this way, I'll only have to say it one time. I'll hold one press conference and field one set of questions. When I can stand it no more, I'll thank my family and make my exit. Just like an athlete after a painful loss. Yes, I'm disappointed. I feel bad for letting my team down and missing that easy lay-up in the second OT. But I did the best I could. And I gotta move on My dad, who still lives in Huntington in the house we grew up in, drove to my sister's earlier this morning and picks me up at the train station now. Before I close the car door, he starts in on my mother. "That woman is so impossible," he announces. My father is usually very positive, but my mother brings out the worst in him. And apparently, he never got the divorced-parent memo that explains that it's not healthy for a child (even an adult child) to hear one parent tear the other down.

"So what did Vera do this time?" I ask.

"She made one of her trademark snide remarks about my trousers," he says.

I smile at my dad's old-fas.h.i.+oned term. "What's wrong with your pants?"

"Ex- actly actly ! There's nothing wrong with them, is there?" ! There's nothing wrong with them, is there?"

"Not at all," I say, but upon closer inspection I can see that he has paired cuffed suit pants with a collared golf s.h.i.+rt. It is the sort of offense my mother can't tolerate. Still, I have to wonder why she still takes his fas.h.i.+on faux pas so personally. What's it to her ? I always think.

"Is Dwight with her?" I ask.

"No. He had an early golf game," my dad says, flicking on his turn signal. "I'm sure he'll make a grand entrance later, though."

"They have that in common," I say.

"Yeah. She's been prancing around all morning," he says. I picture my mother, head thrown back, perky nose in the air, just like a proud circus pony.

"Yeah. Everything is about her ," I say.

My mother aims to be conspicuous at all times. She is sure to be overdressed, will likely give Zoe the largest and most expensive present, and will have a crowd of admirers around her at all times. That is one thing that has not changed since my sisters and I were young, our friends adore our mother. They call her things like "zany" and "a hoot" and "one of the girls." But deep down, I think they are all glad that she's somebody else's mother.

"Don't let her get to you, Dad," I say.

My dad smiles as if mentally s.h.i.+fting gears. Then he says, "So where's Ben?"

I knew the question was coming, but I still feel a sharp pain in my side hearing his name. I take a deep breath and muster a breezy tone. "He had to work."

"Not like Ben to miss a family party."

"Yeah. He's quite the family man," I say. I am being sarcastic, but it occurs to me that this much is actually true, he is quite the family man.

A minute later we pull into my sister's horseshoe-shaped driveway as I survey her four-million-dollar mansion (Maura insists that her house is not a mansion, but I consider any home with more than six bedrooms a mansion, and her house has seven) with my usual mix of admiration and disdain. I'm disapproving not because of the sheer magnitude of their riches because that is all relative. Rather, I dislike how Scott earned his money, not from hard work or brains, but by being at the right place at the right time. He was working as the CFO of a small software start-up that was purchased for a ridiculous amount of money during the technology bubble. He has so much money, in fact, that I've heard him refer to guys with smaller fortunes as "nickel millionaires."

If he were good to my sister, all of this would be great, and I would applaud his good luck. But Scott is a cad (to use one of my father's expressions) and their home is a constant reminder to me of the daily trade-off Maura makes: nice things, philandering husband. I often wonder whether my sister would leave if she didn't have children with Scott. She says she would. I'm not so sure she shouldn't anyway.

My dad parks behind a large white van marked endive catering. Maura spares no expense for her parties; even the ones for her children are extravagant affairs, so I'm not surprised as I walk through the front door and witness the sort of bustling last-minute preparations that would suggest a wedding reception, rather than a child's birthday party.

"h.e.l.lo! h.e.l.lo!" Maura says, giving me a quick, distracted hug before returning her attention to a gigantic vase of exotic flowers surrounded by elaborate party-favor bags. I can tell she is nervous, the way she always gets before any social function. A typical firstborn, Maura is a perfectionist in all that she does, and I always find myself thinking how exhausting it must be to be her. I can be a.n.a.l, too when it comes to my work but Maura is that way about everything . Her house, her yard, her kids, her appearance. It is actually a good thing she quit her high-powered HR job when she had kids, because I can't imagine how burdened she'd be if she had to include a career in her quest for perfection.

She frowns, tilts her head to the side, and says, "Do these flowers look okay here? Is the scale off?"

I tell her they are beautiful. Maura's home is beautiful, although there is nothing relaxed or comfortable about it. Instead it is a bit contrived in its eclectic perfection, bearing the heavy mark of an upscale designer who has painstakingly achieved a predictably sophisticated blend of old and new, modern and traditional. Maura's predominant color scheme is warm yellow walls, cherry upholstery, tangerine abstract art and yet something about her house still reminds me of a showroom. You would never guess that three children, six and under, reside there, despite the oil paintings in their likeness and photographs covering her baby grand piano. My sister is proud of her home's sophisticated, sleek feel. In fact, she points it out often, as if to say to me, You don't have to be swallowed up by clutter and crumbs just because you have children .

She has a valid point, but as Ben used to say, one can accomplish pretty much anything with her fleet of employees, including a nanny, a gardener, a pool guy, a personal a.s.sistant, and a live-in housekeeper. I've watched her delegating tasks to her staff, in her designer sarongs and Juicy Couture sweats, Venti Starbucks in hand, and thought to myself that although she quit her job, she is still running a small corporation of sorts and she does a seamless job of it.

But despite the fact that Maura's life might seem shallow and indulgent upon first blush, she has a lot of underlying substance. She is an excellent mother. She subscribes to the Jackie O school of mothering, often quoting her idol: "If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do matters very much." As a result, Maura's children are sweet, well mannered, and against all odds, relatively unspoiled.

"Where are the kids?" I ask Maura now, just as Zoe, William, and Patrick come tearing around the corner, hyper and wide-eyed, as if they've already consumed too much sugar. With light hair and fair skin, Zoe looks more like me than her own olive-skinned, brown-eyed parents, which I find to be a fascinating case study in genetics. Maura phoned one day recently to tell me that Zoe took a snapshot of me to the hair salon and told the stylist that she wanted her hair in a wavy bob so that she'd look like her aunt Claudia. I can't help feeling gratified by the fact that my niece resembles me, and recognize it as the narcissistic urge that compels many to have children in the first place.

"Happy birthday, Zoe!" I say, bending down to give her a big hug. She is dressed in full ballet regalia as "blus.h.i.+ng ballerinas" is the theme of her party. Her pale pink leotard and lime-green tutu and ballet slippers coordinate, hue for hue, with the pink and green balloons tied to the banister and the three-tiered cake surrounded by yards of tulle. "I can't believe you're six!"

I think about the fact that Ben and I went on our first date the week after Zoe turned two. I wonder how long I will measure time in terms of Ben.

"Thank you, Aunt Claudia!" Zoe says in her low, throaty voice that seems so funny on a little girl. She slides her feet from second position into third. "The gift table is in the family room! In case you remembered to bring one?"

"I just might have," I say, opening my tote bag and giving her a glimpse of her wrapped present.

William and Patrick, ages three and two, both thrust matching gadgets into the air. "Look what we got!"

"Cool!" I say, although I haven't a clue what they've just shown me.

Zoe informs me that her dad bought them the new robots so they wouldn't be jealous of all her presents. Scott is a good father, although he's a little too much about bribery and threats. My favorite of his threats was "No Christmas if you don't stop the whining." When Ben heard that one, he laughed and asked how exactly Scott planned on going from December twenty-fourth to the twenty-sixth.

Zoe grins and leads me by the hand into the family room where Daphne and my mother sit knee to knee on the couch, sipping Kir Royales.

"Where's Benny?" my mother demands before even saying h.e.l.lo to me. It has always set my teeth on edge when she calls him Benny. I hate it even more now that we're not together.

I can feel myself stiffen as I sit on an armchair across from them and say, "He can't make it today."

"Why not?" my mother asks.

"He had to work." I smile brightly. "Business is booming."

This statement should be a dead giveaway. I don't use expressions like business is booming .

"But Benny never works on Sat.u.r.days," my mother says, as if she knows him better than I do. "Is there trouble in paradise?"

I marvel at my mother's ability to sniff out any controversy. Her favorite expression is "Where there's smoke there's fire."

(which, incidentally, is her stated rationale for believing the tabloid press, no matter how outrageous the story).

"We're fine," I say, feeling relieved that I made the decision to wear my wedding ring one final time.

She looks around fervently, then leans in and whispers, "Don't even tell me he's pulled a Scott on you."

I shake my head, wondering how she, of all people, would dare cast stones at Scott. Then again, my mother is one the finest revisionist historians in the world, giving O.J. Simpson a run for his money. O.J. seems to have convinced himself that he didn't kill anyone, and in my mother's mind, she never did a thing wrong. At the very least, she has rationalized that my father drove her to cheat, which is absolute nonsense. My father was a better husband than she ever deserved.

"No, Mother," I say, thinking how much easier and clear-cut an affair would be. I could never stay with a man who cheated on me. No matter what the circ.u.mstances. I am more like most men in this regard. No second chances. It's not so much about morality, but about my inability to forgive. I'm a champion grudge holder, and I don't think I could change this about myself even if I wanted to.

"Don't you lie to me, Claudia," she says, enunciating each word for maximum impact. Then she nudges Daphne and asks in a loud voice if she knows something. Daphne shakes her head and takes a sip from her champagne gla.s.s.

"Mother. It's Zoe's day," I say. "Please stop."

"Oh, dear G.o.d ! There is trouble!" she practically shouts. "I know when there's trouble."

My dad mutters something about how fitting that is, on account of her being the cause of most of it.

My mother narrows her eyes, spins in her chair to face him. "What did you just say, Larry?"