I’ve read about what’s called folie à deux. Two people (here comes another sickening word) enable each other’s mental illness. I reread In Cold Blood, and this time I paid attention to the evil chemistry ignited when those two guys met, and to those killings that wouldn’t have happened if either had been on his own.
Could Sean and I be like that if we embraced this scheme and went for it? Could we enable each other to do things we would never do alone? And who were we harming, really? We weren’t blowing away a decent, hardworking farmer, his wife, and their two beautiful children. We were helping ourselves to funds from a company that had stolen the money from decent, hardworking people like that farmer and his family.
Maybe it wasn’t a good sign that we both found it sexy. Talking about it began to turn us on. Scheming was foreplay, and sex was almost as hot as it was when he’d put his mother’s ring on my finger on the plane from the UK. Almost.
I told myself that it was a good sign. A hot marriage was good for us, good for our bodies and souls, good for Nicky.
On the outside, we looked like normal people. Better than normal. A successful upper-middle-class couple who could hold down two important jobs and have a fabulous house and raise a wonderful kid. And oh, yes. Make a best friend.
I needed someone to believe me and tell the world my version of the story. Most of all, I needed someone who would take care of Nicky during what was going to be a hard time for him until our little family was reunited. I had Alison, Nicky’s terrific nanny. But she was determined to go back to school, and she’d never wanted to work more than part-time. I needed someone who would make Nicky her highest priority, maybe one place beneath her own son, but that was close enough.
It was a crazy plan. The kind of insane Hail Mary–pass scheme you read about in the papers and think: Who is going to fall for that? Who would imagine that anyone would buy it? But Sean and I couldn’t manage to sit down and find a reasonable step-by-step exit strategy. That would have been bad for our marriage. Sean still needed to see me as the rebel girl who’d invited him, on our third date, to watch Peeping Tom. And he still needed to see himself as that rogue girl’s husband.
I became a friendship predator, on the prowl for a new best friend. It wasn’t about sex or power but about closeness and trust. About raising our kids. About motherhood.
Every Friday afternoon, I got off early from work. That had been something of a struggle, though Dennis Nylon Inc. made a lot of noise about being flexible and family friendly. I was the one who wrote the press releases about our flexible family friendliness, so it would have looked bad if Blanche—Dennis’s second in command, his attack dog—told me I couldn’t leave early on Fridays to pick up my son at school.
I stood under a tree near Nicky’s school. I watched the other mothers. I was looking for Nicky and at the same time trolling for the right mother.
The best friend.
It was easy compared to what I had to do for work at fashion shows, promotional events, and meetings, scanning the rooms and arenas for the first flutter of disruption. A celebrity had gotten the wrong brand of vodka! Disaster!
Looking for a mother to befriend, I felt like a pervert trawling the mall for that insecure, overweight preteen girl chewing on her hair. I was looking for Captain Mom.
Captain Mom was what Sean and I called the ones with the backpacks and front packs and harnesses and strollers, the portable cribs and high chairs, the baby harnesses strapped to their bodies, the quilted jackets like space suits in which they could rocket to Mars, if they had to. With Baby all warm and safe.
I was looking for the Captain Mom who wanted to be best friends. The Captain Mom who was looking for me.
Stephanie was right about the other mothers being unfriendly. But Sean and Nicky and I had lived on the Upper East Side, so frostiness was nothing new to us. Months later, we were still thawing out from that Manhattan cold shoulder.
For the first few weeks of school, I saw Captain Mom looking in my direction. But it wasn’t until that rainy day, when she’d forgotten to bring her umbrella, that we made eye contact. Even from a distance I could see that flicker of panic. As if forgetting her umbrella was a catastrophe. It wasn’t even cold, nor was it raining hard. I was accustomed to celebrities acting that way, but not normal people. Then I saw her looking anxiously at the school door, and I realized she wasn’t worried about getting wet but about her child getting wet during the one-minute walk to her car.
I waved her over. I’d brought the company umbrella, which Dennis’s licensing people designed to be extra sturdy, wide—and light.
They made a dozen of them and then canceled. Too goofy for the price. After that Dennis went traditional. The next prototype was a masterpiece. Practically a tent. Modeled on a British umbrella, a traditional banker’s accessory. Sean was touched when I gave him one of those, as if I’d had it tailor-made for him. It wasn’t till after we’d moved in together that he figured out that I’d gotten a half-dozen for free; they were extras from some celebrity event at which Dennis Nylon Inc. gave out top-of-the-line swag. Those parties were so much work. There was always some diva trying to make my assistant get her special shoes we didn’t make. Dennis Nylon has sold a hundred thousand of those banker’s umbrellas, mostly in Japan.
Anyhow, I invited the super-anxious mom—“Hi,” she said, “I’m Miles’s mom, Stephanie”—to share my oversize designer umbrella decorated with swimming ducks. It was made for Stephanie; that’s who it was made for. As usual, Dennis was correct about it not being right for the brand’s demographic.
You would have thought that my cruise ship had picked up Stephanie’s life raft bobbing on a shark-infested sea. Letting Stephanie share my umbrella was like asking an overexcitable puppy to share your bowl of kibble.
I gave her the umbrella because I wanted her to feel special, chosen. I told her it was the only one Dennis had made. Later, when we got to my house, I saw her eyeing all the other umbrellas like it, and a warning bell went off. Girl, I told myself, get your story—your stories—straight. And I have, from then on.
Nicky and Miles were friends. She’d assumed I knew that. Otherwise, this being snooty Connecticut, I would never have waved her over.
I knew that Nicky had a friend named Miles. But at that point Nicky and I didn’t talk that much. We didn’t have time. He was often asleep before I got home, fed and put to bed by Alison. Sometimes Sean didn’t see Nicky all week.
That was the reason behind our plan. Or a part of it. Reason one: I wanted to see my son. Reason two: I needed to do something that was risky and not boring. Reason three: Who could pass up a chance to make two million dollars just for having a little fun?
I invited Stephanie and Miles back to our house. I knew Sean would be working late, even on Friday night. The two boys ran off to play, thrilled to be together.
I can’t remember much about that first conversation. I probably agreed with everything Stephanie said. Yes, motherhood was demanding. Yes, it was all-involving. Yes, the emotions and the responsibilities had come as a total surprise. A shock. Rewarding. A nightmare. A joy.
I nodded and nodded.
Stephanie was ecstatic. She’d found a kindred spirit. And I’d found the magician’s helper who runs the sword through the box from which the pretty assistant has mysteriously vanished.
Years ago Pam, the creative director at Dennis Nylon Inc., set up a fashion shoot. Professional poker players, guys who appeared on TV, were supposed to be photographed wearing the skinny suits Dennis was showing that year. Tropical, light, vaguely gangster, a slightly shiny charcoal.
Pam hadn’t thought it through. The poker champs wore weird sizes. Fat cowboys, stocky guys from Hong Kong. Geeky mathematicians who would have looked like crap no matter what they wore.