“You better not,” Amina says. “My sister says the one rule is never wake a sleeping baby.”
“How are you supposed to resist, though?” Meredith stares longingly at the baby.
Sarah has kept Lauren abreast of things. She knows that Meredith and the blind date who was arranged to escort her to Sarah’s wedding are now an item. Judging by the rapacity with which Meredith is studying the baby, the poor guy stands no chance.
Fiona joins them, porcelain teacup cradled in her hands like a bird settled into a nest. “Hi, Lauren,” she says. Some special note of friendliness there: She and Rob spent an hour at the wedding with Fiona and her husband, Sam. They sat on the stoop, the four of them, balancing plates on laps and eating dinner, then smoking Sam’s cigarettes, talking. Lauren likes Fiona, though she’s also a bit afraid of her, has always had a healthy fear of women who are too beautiful. Much as pregnancy has amplified the effect of her remarkable body, it’s accentuated the impact of her beauty. She has it—the glow. And she’s cut her hair short, like a boy’s, so all you can do is take in the planes of her face, the evenness of her skin, the sweet peak of her nose, the luxurious green of her eyes.
“Congratulations,” Lauren says, which is what you must say in these situations, when it’s impossible, indeed uncomfortable, to deny the fact of another person’s pregnancy. “When are you due?”
“November,” Fiona says. “Not long now. How have you been? How’s Rob?”
“He’s good, thanks,” she says. “He’s good. I’m good. We’re good.”
Rob is good. That may be the easiest way to sum him up: good. Things between them have been much the same—dinner here, or a movie then a drink, a stroll around Chelsea to look at the second-rate summer group shows, an hour in the park, on a blanket, with the newspaper. The first weekend of August, their first time away together. She’d felt guilty, like they’d ditched the third wheel that had accompanied them wherever they went: the city itself.
Rob’s idea: a vacation rental in the Hudson Valley, though they never caught sight of the river. They stopped at a big, clean grocery store, bought a rotisserie chicken and some dry pasta, the makings for hamburgers, a bottle of vodka and a twelve-pack of beer, a package of Oreos and every idiotic magazine in the checkout line. The house had a hot tub, and they sat in the quiet night, naked, until the heat had completely soaked into their bodies. They dried off and fell asleep, woke up and fucked. There was no computer, no television, even their phones didn’t work all that well. She spread a sheet on the patchy lawn and lay there in the summer sun, reading tabloids. Rob fell asleep on the sofa and snored, then woke up and grilled hamburgers. They sat naked in the tub again, again fell asleep, and woke early the next morning, too early, because they hadn’t done anything and therefore weren’t tired. They packed their things, drove to a nearby town, looked at some terrible art galleries, ignored the antiques shops, ate bagels and drank iced coffee. Rob drove them back to her place, and then Rob went to return the rental car on his own, and she was surprised to find that she was relieved to be alone again.
She has been impatient for September, and now here it is: three books launching, related parties and events scheduled, that back-to-school feeling in the air and even if you’re the sort to sing “no more pencils, no more books,” there’s something comforting in the sense that the world is getting back to business. Lauren’s ready, ready to shake the hands and soothe the egos, to demonstrate efficiency, to reach for excellence. She’s ready for more. Sarah has a baby, for Christ’s sake. What the fuck does she have?
“Lauren, come sit and talk to me,” Lulu says, beckoning from the sofa. “Come, come.”
Lauren makes an apologetic face to the younger women—Lulu must be obeyed—accepting before she goes, from Meredith, a glass of white wine.
“How are you, then? So beautiful, look Sharon, this is Sarah’s oldest friend, isn’t she beautiful?” Lulu’s friend nods in agreement, or benediction.
Lulu has this quality, sometimes, of seeming very drunk, when in fact she isn’t. Lauren has never understood what brings this on in her. “How are you, Grandma?”
“Ah.” Lulu clasps her hands. “I’ve decided on Mamina—Henry’s going to call me his mamina, isn’t that lovely? I am, in my old age, you see, getting more interested in my roots. Mamina. That’s how I called my mother’s mother, so it’s got a history to it. And of course, we’ll have to raise him with Spanish.”
Lauren nods. “They say it’s easy, when you start from birth.”
“It is, well, of course it is, we were raised in English, Spanish, French, we never knew any different, we just answered in whatever language we were spoken to, this is how it should be. This country, the way people insist on English, it’s so small, don’t you think?”
Lauren agrees. It’s easier, with Lulu, to agree.