Almost giddy with relief and feeling newly energized, she lifted her face to the sun and let the rays warm her cheeks and lids. Then she headed up the block, past the Mather schoolyard, where recess was now in progress. On the other side of the fence, ahead of where she walked, a group of girls about the same age as Ruby were drawing with sticks in the dirt border around the blacktop and whispering conspiratorially. Instead of the jeans, sweatshirts, and sneakers that Karen had grown accustomed to seeing at Betts, they were wearing puffer vests, patterned tights, corduroy minis, suede boots, and sparkly headbands in their shiny blond and light brown bobs. As Karen got closer, she realized that the blonde with the longest stick was Maeve.
A whiff of hurt regarding the apparent ease with which her daughter’s onetime best friend had apparently found a new one (or two, or three) momentarily ate into the relief that Karen had experienced when she left the school building. But she pushed the feeling away, telling herself that, for once, Maeve had done nothing wrong. Besides, in due time, Ruby might be palling around with the same gaggle. As Karen passed her, she lowered her head so Maeve wouldn’t recognize her.
In her peripheral vision, she couldn’t help but note that Maeve’s nose looked just fine.
Karen had a busy day at work with meetings and conference calls. HK was launching a new healthy-eating initiative for young children, called What I Ate, which promised to simultaneously improve early writing skills and get kids to think about what they were eating by having them keep daily food logs. Which was exactly what Karen had done in her late teens, at the height of her neurotic-eating years, registering the calorie count in parentheses next to each food item she’d consumed. To her mind, it was a slippery slope from there to a full-fledged eating disorder. But no matter. What I Ate was the brainchild of HK’s nutritionist, Cary Ann, and everyone else at the organization, including Molly, was excited about it.
At six o’clock, Karen returned to Betts to pick up Ruby from what Karen envisioned would be Ruby’s final after-school session—and found her daughter in an unexpectedly and somewhat confusingly buoyant mood. “Mama Kajama!” cried Ruby, running into her mother’s arms. It was one of their jokey phrases.
“Hi there, sweetie!” said Karen, kissing her head and weighing the possibility that Ruby was simply happy to see her and be heading home. “What do you say we get out of here?” She took Ruby’s hand and led her away from the second-floor classroom in which she was supposedly learning the art of puppetry.
“What’s for dinner?” said Ruby. “I’m starving.”
“I’m not sure yet,” said Karen, who secretly wished her daughter didn’t enjoy eating as much as she seemed to.
In the stairwell that led down to the front entrance, Ruby and Karen encountered a young couple changing a newborn’s diaper on the windowsill of the second-floor landing. The man was holding up the baby’s dimpled legs while the mother wiped its rear. Karen felt vaguely repulsed. Couldn’t they have found a more secluded setting? she thought. Then again, where were these people, who quite possibly lived far from the school, supposed to change their baby? There were no adults allowed in the girls’ and boys’ bathrooms. And in truth Karen had seen a couple doing the same thing in the open back of their Passat station wagon directly in front of the Bistro with No Name the weekend before.
“Hey, Ruby,” came a voice.
“Hey,” Ruby, who was farther down the staircase, answered flatly.
“What after-school class are you in?”
“Puppetry.”
“I’m in karate.”
“Oh.”
Karen glanced down and saw Empriss leaning against the banister, one flight below, a lollipop in her mouth. It occurred to Karen suddenly that the baby-changers must have been Empriss’s mother and stepfather. Guilt washed over Karen—not just that her daughter was being so unfriendly, but that Karen herself had been silently passing judgment on the way these people lived when their lives were so much harder than hers.
At the same time, Karen couldn’t help but question why people in financial straits as dire as theirs were bringing more babies into the world. Or was Karen an awful person for even thinking that way? The desire to reproduce was biological, universal, and arguably irrational in all of us, and there was no reason to believe that the same fantasies and ambitions that inspired the rich to make tiny versions of themselves who promised to outlive them would fail to motivate the poor. And it was Matt who had pointed out one night that, far from poor children being a burden on any system, capitalism depended on them, insofar as it required an endless supply of future laborers. Besides, the only area of the labor market predicted to expand over the coming century was the service industry. Before he became a housing lawyer, Matt had been an assistant attorney for the hotel employees’ union. “She’s adorable,” said Karen, trying to compensate for her daughter’s standoffishness. “How old?”
“Three months,” the mother said, smiling back.
“What’s her name?” The baby had a giant pink bow on top of its bald head, so Karen assumed it was a girl.
“Kimora.”
“What a beautiful name!” said Karen, who probably would have answered the same way even if the child had been called Adolf.
“Thank you.”
“Well, have a good evening.”
“Same to you,” said the woman.
“You weren’t very friendly,” Karen groused to her daughter as they stepped outside.
“Mommy, Empriss is a bully!” said Ruby.
“Ruby, do you even know what bullying is?” said Karen, doubtful.
“Yes! We had an assembly and a workshop on it.”
“Well, she seemed perfectly nice just then.”
“That’s because her mom was standing right there. She’s always nice around grown-ups.”
“Does this have to do with her being best friends with Mia now?”
“No! I don’t care who she’s friends with!” Ruby insisted. “And I’m not even friends with Mia anymore.” This was not unwelcome news to Karen. “I just don’t like Empriss. Okay?” Ruby went on.
“You don’t have to be friends with her,” said Karen. “But can’t you be nice?”
“Why should I be nice? Yesterday she called me a tattletale just because I told Miss Tammy that she was hiding in the girls’ room when we had a fire drill. And she’s always saying I get in everyone’s business and try to boss people around.”
“Well, do you?” asked Karen.
“Mommmmm!” cried Ruby, clearly exasperated.
“Okay, okay.” As Karen pulled back, she pondered Ruby’s question: Why was it so important to Karen that her daughter make an effort with Empriss at the very moment when she was taking her daughter out of the girl’s school? In all likelihood, they would never see each other again. Was Karen trying to reassure herself that Ruby’s imminent departure from Betts had nothing to do with the school’s inclusion of students like Empriss? And why was it so difficult for Karen to accept the idea that a girl who lived in a homeless shelter might also occasionally be obnoxious? To have faced extreme adversity didn’t guarantee a winning personality or strong moral fiber—possibly just the opposite. “I believe you,” said Karen. “I just—well, we’ve talked about it before. Empriss has a way harder life than you. I’m not excusing the way she acts. I just want you to remember that. In any case, you probably won’t be seeing that much of Empriss in the future”—Karen figured she might as well tell her now—“because you’re changing schools.”