Tessa
Going out with Cate is better than therapy, I decide, as we saunter down Bank Street right past the paparazzi gathered on the sidewalk outside the Waverly Inn, where she guarantees we can get in without a reservation, jokingly referring to her D-list fame.
“Did they know you were coming?” I ask, motioning toward the cameramen, who are standing around and smoking in their puffy North Face jackets and black skullcaps.
She tells me not to be ridiculous, that there must be a legitimate celebrity inside as a pair of twenty-something girls with artfully tousled, long-layered hair nod their confirmation.
“Yup. Jude Law,” the brunette says, raising her hand to flag a cab, while the blonde expertly touches up her lip gloss, without a mirror, and dreamily murmurs, “He’s so freakin’ hot. . . His friend wasn’t too bad, either.”
The brunette adds, “I wouldn’t kick either of them outta bed, that’s for sure,” right before the two slip into their taxi, on to their next venue.
I smile, thinking that this is exactly what I need tonight—to be at a trendy West Village restaurant in the company of paparazzi-worthy stars and a beautiful crowd, an absolute contrast to my real life. On some nights since I became a mother, such a scene might intimidate me, make me feel matronly and clueless, but tonight I have the feeling that I have nothing to lose. At least nothing I could lose at the banquette beside Jude Law, where Cate and I wind up sitting.
Just after we order two glasses of syrah, I consult my watch, thinking of the kids and Carolyn’s scheduled hours, all the details I orchestrated to make sure that the weekend runs smoothly without me. Nick should be returning home from work just about now, and I take secret satisfaction in the fact that I am out and he is at home with bedtime duties.
“So,” I say, glancing around the shabby but somehow still debonair dining room. “This is the new Manhattan hot spot?”
“Not new. God, Tess. You have been gone for a long time . . . But it’s still hot. I mean, we’re here, aren’t we?” she says over the cozy din, gesturing between us, tossing back her richly highlighted hair, lately drifting toward the reddish-blond hues and quickly becoming her signature look. Aware that she is the recipient of a few double takes, she plays it cool, casually glancing in Jude Law’s direction. She flashes a smile, her dimples emerging, then leans across the table and says, “Don’t look now but guess who just checked us out?”
“I don’t know who just checked you out,” I say. “But I guarantee you, they’re not checking me out.”
“Yes they are,” she says. “And that girl outside was right... his friend is cute. Maybe even cuter than Jude. Think of a cross between Orlando Bloom and . . . Richard Gere.”
I turn and glance over my shoulder, more because I can’t conjure such a combination than because I want the eye candy, as Cate hisses, “I said, ‘Don’t look now.’”
“Whatever, Cate,” I say, shaking my head. “It doesn’t matter . . .”
“It could matter.”
“For you maybe.”
“For you, too. Never hurts to flirt.”
“I’m the mother of two,” I say. “I have no game.”
“So? Did you somehow miss the expression ‘MILF’?” she says.
I give her a puzzled look as she tosses her hair over the other shoulder and says, “Mother I’d Like to Fuck?”
“Cate!” I say, shaking my head. “Don’t be so crass.”
“Since when did you turn into such a prude?”
“Since I gave birth. Twice,” I say, conscious of the fact that I become more uptight when I’m around Cate—while she diverges in a shallow, party-girl direction, neither of which reflects the real truth. It’s almost as if we hope our extremes will bring the other back to a place somewhere in the middle—where we both began, years ago. Then again, maybe we have become exaggerated versions of ourselves. Maybe it will only get worse over time, I think—a depressing thought, at least for me.
She shrugs and says, “So? You’re a mother of two? Does that mean you can’t have a little fun? That you have to sit around in the suburbs in pastel scrunchies and pleated mom jeans?”
“As opposed to plain-front mom jeans?” I deadpan—although, in truth, I have not fallen this far, not yet lapsing into mom-jean terrain. “You think that’s why Nick is cheating on me?”
She ignores this, just as she’s ignored my last five references to Nick and infidelity, and says, “Back to Jude. Please.”
“Didn’t he sleep with his nanny?”