Baby Owen is still asleep, which selfishly thrills me. By this hour, he’s usually clawing at my neck, panic rising from his pores. He knows his mother’s time of departure draws near and he hates it when I leave. I tell myself his behavior is age-related. My other two kids did the same until they eventually accepted that I leave each morning, regardless of their efforts, and that I always come back. The fact that Bruce hangs out with them is my comfort. I mean, they have one parent for most of their mornings, and that’s as good as it gets. But Baby Owen can sure emit projectile tears better than his siblings ever did, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t break my heart. Everything in his body language screams of mother-abandonment issues. I do hate those days when he’s asleep in the morning when I leave, and asleep when I come home at night. I imagine that he’ll simply think it’s been one long day when he finally sets his eyes on me tomorrow.
I pick out the three outfits the children will wear for the day. This used to be Bruce’s job until the teacher of our four-year-old called me to ask why Brigid never wears panties to school, and why on that particular February morning, she was wearing open-toed sandals with no socks. “It’s what she chooses,” was Bruce’s defense. “And I don’t wear socks with loafers in February either.”
“But she’s FOUR!”
“And I’m thirty-nine!” he had screamed back. From that day forward, I have always been the one to leave out their clothes.
When I finally get clothes on myself, Brigid plops her shoe choice for me on the bed. This is our deal: I choose for her and she chooses for me. Today it will be the three-inch stilettos complete with rhinestones across the toes. I put them on and stand back to take it all in.
“Match good,” she says, satisfied with her choice.
“Nice and flashy,” I reply.
“Snazzy,” she continues.
Brigid is having a good time trying out new words. I have no idea where snazzy has come from.
“Snazzy,” I agree, admiring her blue eyes that seem largest in the morning.
The lump in the bed groans. My newish auto-alert goes off, that one about trying to remain sexy despite my role as the mother ship. As much as I don’t want to, it’s time to reignite this morning’s inner babe. I head to the lump.
“Do you like Brigid’s choice?” I ask him, seductively putting one bent leg up on the bed.
I lift the duvet off his head so he can take in the view. My skirt has hiked up just enough for him to catch the top of my thigh-high hose. Brigid sees them too. “Big socks,” she says bluntly, pointing at my thighs. His sandy-blond hair is revealed. While it’s moplike, I refrain from suggesting a haircut today. In fact I find myself wondering how he still looks so good. There isn’t a line on his sleep-deprived face and even with the sun directly on his head, not one gray hair reveals itself. He opens one green eye and arches his eyebrow.
“The stripper shoes really make the outfit,” he says, reaching a bare arm out of the covers. He grabs my calf and purrs. Brigid thinks this is fantastic.
“Daddy’s a big cat,” she shrieks.
“Daddy’s a lion,” he answers. “He’s gonna eat Mommy up.”
Brigid runs screaming down the hall and I return my foot to the floor.
“Good day, Big Lion,” I say in a fake English accent. Because the thing we do when we’re uncomfortable with each other is break out in random foreign accents. I have no idea why.
“Au revoir, Mademoiselle Big Tease,” he returns in some Pepé Le Pew voice.
He’s right. Nothing can actually occur between us right now and even if we were alone at this exact second, my biggest desire would be to take the damn big socks off and go back to sleep. Bruce pulls the covers back over his head.
Before I leave I try and reach out to each kid, to make eye contact at least once in every twenty-four-hour period. I turn to my eldest, Kevin, who’s still standing on the bed.
“I saw a Blue-Eyes White Dragon on a kid’s backpack the other day,” I say.
Kevin’s latest obsession is Yu-Gi-Oh! cards.
“Cool,” he says, clearly not interested. He has found the remote and is trying to get our childproof television on.
I bend forward to peck his cheek but kiss mostly air because he’s started bouncing again. Brigid has returned but no longer jumps simultaneously with him; instead they go one up, one down, and are probably making Bruce nuts. I sweep my wet hair back into a slick bun; I kiss the jumpers, and the lump, and head to the door. I’m not even fully in the elevator when I hear the Cartoon Network come on the television. Bruce’s sudden alertness is not lost on me.
In the elevator, I swap the stilettos for the Ferragamos in my briefcase, and I hand the fancy shoes to the doorman in what is our daily routine. I’ve never explained it to him and he’s never asked why I hand him shoes each morning. I like it this way. Each day he gets a flashy pair of hooker shoes that he hands to the nanny when she shows up. The nanny puts them back in my closet, and the next day we do it all over again.
CHAPTER 6
Dais of the Dicks
I PREDICT THE most awkward time to address what went on with Barbie’s head last night will be in the afternoon.
And I am right.
If no major earning announcements break after lunch, no wars begin in an oil-laden nation, or no political scandal takes hold of our attention, there is a dull hum that blankets the trading floor in the midafternoon. This is the time of day people run for an extra coffee, a pack of M&M’s, a stimulant legal or not, anything to keep the enthusiasm going. It’s at this moment I hear King shout to me from his spot on the dais.