“I’ve just named our group,” Amanda says. “The Glass Ceiling Club, the club for women who cannot see what in the hell is invisibly blocking them from moving up. We will work to change this entrenched culture and we’re going to do it with manners, without lawsuits or headlines in newspapers.”
“Fitting enough,” I say, feeling slightly energized, high school–ish, and even a little hopeful before I remember that I shouldn’t take part in any of this stuff. I can’t afford the financial punishments of hanging with the rebels. I tell myself I’ll stay on the sidelines.
The Glass Ceiling Club vows not to be catty or spiteful. They promise to be forward-looking and not gripe about the past. They promise to help nurture and maintain the young women who recycle through our ranks like yesterday’s newspaper, and swear to no longer ignore the locker room environment we work in. Without lawsuits or media, we aim to work like grown-ups in breaking up—as a former CEO described it—“the last culturally pure environment in America.”
CHAPTER 5
Where the Heart Is
THE NEXT MORNING I’m in a steamy outdoor shower on some tropical island. Not really. I’m home. My head is hurting as if that party were some off-the-hook night to remember, as if that meeting at the Ear Inn were some beer pong, Jell-O shot throwback, but the pain in my head is really just from sleep deprivation. My kids are hollering on the other side of the door, and it smells like fruit on steroids in here. Magic Marjorie’s Mango Shampoo, Dumbo’s Sweet Strawberry Soap, Slime Lime Body Wash, Power Rangers He-Man Grape-Scented Conditioner. These are the smells of a shower ruled by children. I’m not sure when my salon-worthy soaps, shampoos, and conditioners got taken over by the marketing division of Nick Jr., but the smell is so sweet I can bite it. I used to have face creams from Chanel, plumping gels from La Mer, but at some point, my supply of $90-per-ounce stuff got used as diaper rash cream, and was never replaced. Most days I smell like I will on this one: like a human Scratch ’n Sniff.
Outside the bathroom door, my seven-and four-year-old bounce on the bed. One jumps on either side of the lump in the middle that is their father. Sometimes Bruce does this fake-sleep thing to avoid our programmed conversations of late:
“Who was Kevin’s playdate with?” I ask.
“Ya know, that brat from Australia, what’s his name?” He lifts the bedcovers up just enough to let himself be heard.
“Digby?”
“Sounds right.”
I want to scream that Digby is forbidden here, that he’s out of control, a future drug dealer and leader of organized crime, but instead I swallow the screams and say in a chirpy voice, “Isn’t it great? The baby slept through the night.” When I finally came back home last night Bruce was back in our bed and Owen was in his crib.
“Hmph,” the lump replies. “He’s not really a baby. He’s almost three.” With that he lets the covers fall again and I swallow the urge to tear them off and shake him. Is this really the guy I married?
“Owen has had dry Pull-Ups for two weeks now,” I say, as if this really excites me. What I really want to say is I love you so please get up and get a regular job in the world. Please stop being the depressed house daddy because it makes me feel like I’m all alone in this and I’m cracking.
But even fake, pleasant bathroom talk isn’t getting a rise out of him this morning. It’d be so easy to turn into a whistle-blowing drill sergeant commanding the ship that I’m not aboard during the day, but I try hard not to. Still, there’s only a few minutes before I head out into the world, and I need to be sure we’ve both got the information to get us to the next day.
I do it all in my head: Who drops the kids at school? (Bruce.) Who needs what supplies? (Me/Internet.) Order groceries? (Me/online.) Who will wait for the never-on-time nanny until she enters squawking a myriad of excuses? (Bruce.) I’m trying hard not to succumb to the instinct to holler the orders that sit like exploding Pop Rocks in my mouth, waiting to be spat out.