“I don’t, but I can imagine.” Still whispering. “Just look at that face!” Meredith seems almost overcome.
“Thank you.” It has occurred to Sarah since giving birth that it might be easier to accept compliments relating to her offspring had she adopted. Thanking someone who praises his beauty seems to be tacitly endorsing that she and Dan are themselves beautiful and somehow responsible for this. She just says thank you but doesn’t entirely mean it. Henry, young as he is, is an entity independent of her. “How are you?”
“Oh, you know.” Meredith waves this question away.
Sarah does know: She knows that her matchmaking has been successful, and since the wedding Meredith and Jamie have been seeing each other constantly. She’ll marry him, Sarah’s sure of it. Meredith will ask Sarah to be her matron of honor. The couple will probably be very happy.
“You look good,” Sarah says. She’s not sure what else to say. She’s not interested in talking about the baby: Almost every conversation ends up being about the baby, and they’re not interesting. She’s been hungry, starving, actually, for a real conversation, one about a book, about someone’s experience at work, a bitter complaint about a relationship, plans for a vacation—anything. But now, confronted with Meredith and the opportunity to have such a conversation, she can’t think what to say. She needs Lauren. Profane, honest Lauren. They will have a real conversation.
The buzzer rings once more, and she realizes that of course she won’t have to make conversation today, after all—when playing hostess, you never get to speak to anyone in any satisfying detail. They’re not there to talk to her anyway; they’re there to coo, to give presents, to pay respects.
It’s Fiona, who’s taken the elevator up with Lulu and Lulu’s friend Sharon, Auntie Sharon, a silver-haired, soft-spoken woman, a photographer of great renown, one of Lulu’s closer friends. Sharon is carrying a big tote bag—Lulu has no doubt prevailed upon her for some photographs of the new mother, or, more likely, one of herself and grandson. Sarah’s eye falls first though, on Fiona, the swollen tautness of her belly. As etiquette decrees, a warm hug for Sharon, whom she’s not seen since the wedding, then a quick hello to her mother, then an embrace, the first she means, with Fiona, so tall and expansive, pulling her nearer to her body, its leaking nipples.
“You didn’t tell me,” she says. “Congratulations.”
Fiona brushes this aside. “It’s your party,” she says. “But yes, now you see.”
“Playdates! We’ll have playdates.” Sarah finds this genuinely exciting. She closes the door.
The right gift eluded Lauren. Her initial thought had been a blanket. Then she had a drink, one night, with Jill, poor Jill, eager for some female companionship. Jill had e-mailed, Jill had called, Jill had kept the nanny on late one Wednesday evening and Jill had met her at an annoying Cuban-cum-French place that had always driven Lauren crazy but Jill chose, and Jill paid, so she went. She drank rosé, listened to stories about Jill’s nanny, who seemed to be the only connection to reality in Jill’s life. Jill’s nanny was a painter, and her boyfriend was a photographer whom Jill described, more than once, as sexy, which was an intriguing admission. Lauren used the opportunity to do some focus grouping.
“Whatever you do, don’t get her a blanket,” the first thing Jill said, upon being asked the best baby gift, without knowing that’s just what Lauren had planned on.
She didn’t protest, didn’t counter that it was Missoni. Jill knew, Jill must be heeded. So, no blanket. Lauren spent a few days in the stacks at various bookstores, putting together a list of the least-boring children’s board books, the ones with the best pictures, the ones with the least-sexist stories, but then she remembered that she worked in books, and such a gift would seem like something plucked from the free table at work. The big-ticket items were a possibility—a stroller, a crib, a high chair—but there was nothing special in those, the presents a wealthy aunt would send.
“A Tiffany rattle?” she tried.
“Very WASP,” Jill said. “Perfectly good taste, perfectly useless.”
Uselessness was the point, but it did have the feeling of anonymity; a silver rattle is what your husband’s employer’s human resources department would send by way of congratulations.