The following morning, just after Nick has returned to the hospital, I am making breakfast while I endure the standard mealtime whine-a-palooza, compliments of my firstborn. To put it mildly, Ruby is not a morning person, another trait inherited from her father. In fifteen minutes, she has already complained that Frank is “looking” at her, that her banana is too mushy, and that she prefers Daddy’s French toast from the griddle to my toaster variety.
So when the phone rings, I happily retrieve it, feeling relieved for civilized adult companionship (the other day, I was excited when a pollster called) and even more so when I see Cate’s name light up my caller ID. Cate Hoffman and I met nearly sixteen years ago at an off-campus party the first week of our freshman year at Cornell, when we were formally introduced to the collegiate world of beer pong, quarters, and “I never.” Several drinks into the night, after being asked too many times if we were sisters and acknowledging a certain full-lipped, strong-nosed, blond-highlighted resemblance, we made a pact to look out for each other—a promise I made good on later, saving her from a leering frat boy, then walking her back to her dorm and holding her hair out of her face as she puked in a bed of ivy. The experience bonded us and we remained the best of friends for the next four years and beyond graduation. Since our mid-twenties, our lives have diverged—or, more accurately, mine has changed and hers has stayed very much the same. She still lives in the city (in the same apartment we once shared), is still serial dating, is still working in broadcasting. The only real difference is that she is now in front of the camera, hosting a cable network talk show called Cate’s Corner, and, as of very late, has achieved a modicum of fame in the New York area.
“Look, Ruby! It’s Auntie Cate!” I say with exaggerated cheer,hoping that my enthusiasm will rub off on my daughter, who is now in mourning because I will not add chocolate syrup to her milk. I answer the phone and ask Cate what she’s doing up so early.
“I’m headed to the gym . . . on a new fitness regime,” Cate says. “I really need to drop a few.”
“Oh, you do not,” I say, rolling my eyes. Cate has one of the best figures I’ve ever seen, even among the childless and airbrushed. Sadly, people no longer confuse us for sisters.
“Okay, maybe not in real life. But you know the camera adds at least ten pounds,” she says, and then changes the subject with her usual abruptness. “So. What’d you get? What’d you get?”
“What did I get?” I ask, as Ruby moans that she wants her French toast “whole,” which is a radical departure from her usual demand that her toast be unveiled to her in “tiny square pieces, all the same exact size, no crust.” I cover the phone with one hand and say, “Honey, I think someone may have forgotten the magic word?”
Ruby gives me a blank stare, indicating that she does not believe in magic. To this point, she is the only preschooler I know who has already questioned the veracity of Santa Claus, or at the very least, his travel logistics.
But magic or not, I hold my ground until she amends her request. “I want it whole. Please.”
I nod as Cate eagerly continues, “For your anniversary? What did Nick give you?”
Nick’s gifting is one of Cate’s favorite topics, perhaps because she never graduates beyond the “thanks for last night” floral arrangements. As such, she says she likes to live vicariously through me. In her words, I have the perfect life—words she delivers in what vacillates between a wistful and an accusatory tone, depending on her latest dating low.
It doesn’t matter how many times I tell her that the grass is alwaysgreener and that I’m envious of her whirlwind social schedule, her hot dates (including a recent dinner with a Yankee outfielder), and her utter, blissful freedom—the kind of freedom you take for granted until you become a parent. And it doesn’t matter how often I confide my standard complaints of stay-at-home motherhood—namely, the frustration of ending a day no further ahead than where you started, and the fact that I sometimes spend more time with Elmo, Dora, and Barney than with the man I married. None of this registers with her. She still would trade lives with me in a heartbeat.
As I start to reply to Cate, Ruby unleashes a bloodcurdling scream: “Nooooo! Mommy! I saaa-iiiid whole!”
I freeze with the knife in midair, realizing that I’ve just made the fatal mistake of four horizontal cuts. Shit, I think as Ruby demands that I glue the bread back together, even making a melodramatic run for the cabinet where our art supplies are housed. She retrieves a bottle of Elmer’s, defiantly shoving it my way as I consider calling her bluff and drizzling the glue over her toast—“in a cursive R like Daddy does.”
Instead, I say with all the calmness I can muster, “Now, Ruby. You know we can’t glue food.”