“Surfing based on insecurity?” I asked skeptically. At least Ari was entertaining.
“It’s because they never had to work and when they realized that life is more fulfilling if you do work they felt too old to start at the bottom and too proud to take a regular, schlumpy job, so they make up their own job that nobody competes against. They get to be really good at something and not as boring to hang out with as they would be if they had no job at all. Ask your friend Elizabeth. The start-up world is full of these people.”
Months later, I talked to Elizabeth about Bruce’s habit of flitting from one big purchase to another. He bought Pinarello Dogma bikes (plural) that cost as much as a small car ($25K for two) and parabolic skis that nobody uses anymore. He takes car services in nice weather when the bus or one of his bikes would have worked just as well. Bruce really likes having money but doesn’t want to do what has to be done to earn any. But because he is a loving father and husband, and because I can afford to keep him deep in racing bikes, I bite my cheek and keep silent.
Elizabeth had said to me, “I grew up with these guys. It’s textbook and doesn’t get truly depressing until they turn forty. That’s when they finally get the message that they’re never going to be the success their daddy was.”
“So what happens then?” I had asked nervously.
“That’s when they go for their yoga teaching certification. Some obscure type of yoga, Forrest or Harmonica yoga.”
She was joking and I was laughing, but at the same time my heart was sinking. This conversation happened two years ago, and so far it appeared to be a bull’s-eye assessment of my husband on his bad days.
“Still, he’s cute,” I had said as I thought about his good days. He loved nature, and our kids could identify different trees in Central Park. They were adept scooter riders and acted well loved. I wasn’t sure what was okay to demand of a lower-earning partner and I didn’t want to turn into a chart-lady, one of those women who made chore lists for her husband, which felt as mature to me as the homeroom helper list in preschool.
“Bruce has always been the cute one,” Aripcy had said. “He broke a lot of hearts at Choate. You’re the only thing he didn’t lose interest in once the wrapping paper was torn off.”
The walking lovers stop, as one of them has presumably said something brilliant. Their eyes fix on each other’s and they do that lingering thing before diving in for some hard-core face mashing. As I pass them, I hit my Peek-a-Blocks hard and they explode into song, “Open, shut them, open, shut them, give a little clap, clap, clap. Open, shut them, open, shut them, put them in your lap, lap, lap.”
I hail a cab.
CHAPTER 3
Slipping Out
WE LIVE on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in a co-op building where the residents think of themselves as socialist, lefty, and caring, but are as Park Avenue stuck-up as they come. Accidental celebrities who once waited tables but became the 0.02 percent financially successful in the arts live here, as do big-name shrinks, the odd attorney, and us. One resident offered to resell the high-end luxury goods that residents were casting aside and give the money to a homeless shelter. Our hearts are in the right place but we can be tone-deaf.
Back when we bought this Central Park West place, as a newly married, childless, and cash-flush couple, Bruce drew elaborate, architecturally interesting plans for how we would renovate. Our eldest, Kevin, came along so soon, followed by Brigid, Owen, and a seventy-five-pound mixed breed but mostly Labrador dog named Woof Woof, so we took our four thousand square feet of space in the sky and made it into a three-bedroom apartment with lots of space for tricycles and without the media room and his-and-her bath solarium that we once imagined. There’s a mini-trampoline in what should be our living room, a Little Tikes slide where an ottoman should be, and countless objects with wheels: Rollerblades, fire trucks, dump trucks, strollers, scooters, Bruce’s racing bikes, and longboard skateboards. We never carpeted and we never entertain anyone over four feet tall. We have a mortgage that takes my breath away—dollar for dollar the same amount my parents paid for their house in the Bronx, but I pay it every month.
To my neighbors I’m sure I appear to be a stuck-up, negligent mother. I don’t take the time to hang out in the lobby with the other moms. The doormen dote on me this holiday time of year, fully aware of who writes their tip check. They are no different from me in a job with a bonus season that could swing either way.