What a disheartening spectacle it’s been, a new month, a new condo higher than the last, each packed with blue-badged Amazon squids, every morning squirting by the thousands from their studio apartments onto my block, heads in devices, never looking up. (They work for Amazon, so you know they’re soulless. The only question, how soulless?) It makes me pine for the days when Third Ave. was just me, empty storefronts and the one tweaker yelling, “That’s how you spell America!”
Outside our building, Dennis stood by his wheelie trash can and refilled the poop-bag dispenser. “Good morning, you two.”
“Good morning, Dennis!” Instead of my usual breezing past, I stopped and looked him in the eye. “How’s your day so far?”
“Oh, can’t complain,” he said. “You?”
“Can complain, but won’t.”
Dennis chuckled.
Today, already a net gain.
I opened the front door of our apartment. At the end of the hallway: Joe face down at the table, his forehead flat on the newspaper, arms splayed with bent elbows as if under arrest.
It was a jarring image, one of pure defeat, the last thing I’d ever associate with Joe—
Thunk.
The door shut. I unclipped Yo-Yo’s harness. By the time I straightened, my stricken husband had gotten up and disappeared into his office. Whatever it was, he didn’t want to talk about it.
My attitude? Works for me!
Yo-Yo raced to his food, greyhound-style, back legs vaulting past his front. Realizing it was the same dry food that had been there before his walk, he became overwhelmed with confusion and betrayal. He took one step and stared at a spot on the floor.
Timby’s light clicked on. God bless him, up before the alarm. I went into his bathroom and found him on the step stool in his PJs.
“Morning, darling. Look at you, up and awake.”
He stopped what he was doing. “Can we have bacon?”
Timby, in the mirror, waited for me to leave. I lowered my eyes. The little Quick Draw McGraw beat my glance. He pushed something into the sink before I could see it. The unmistakable clang of lightweight plastic. The Sephora 200!
It was nobody’s fault but my own, Santa putting a makeup kit in Timby’s stocking. It’s how I’d buy myself extra time at Nordstrom, telling Timby to roam cosmetics. The girls there loved his gentle nature, his sugar-sack body, his squeaky voice. Soon enough, they were making him up. I don’t know if he liked the makeup as much as being doted on by a gaggle of blondes. On a lark, I picked up a kit the size of a paperback that unfolded and fanned out to reveal six different makeup trays (!) holding two hundred (!) shadows, glosses, blushes, and whatever-they-weres. The person who’d found a way to cram so much into so little should seriously be working for NASA. If they still have that.
“You do realize you’re not wearing makeup to school,” I told him.
“I know, Mom.” The sigh and shoulder heave right out of the Disney Channel. Again, my bad for letting it take root. After school, a jigsaw puzzle!
I emerged from Timby’s room. Yo-Yo, standing anxiously, shivered with relief upon seeing that I still existed. Knowing I’d be heading to the kitchen to make breakfast, he raced me to his food bowl. This time he deigned to eat some, one eye on me.
Joe was back and making himself tea.
“How’s things?” I asked.
“Don’t you look nice,” he said.
True to my grand scheme for the day, I’d showered and put on a dress and oxfords. If you beheld my closet, you’d see a woman of specific style. Dresses from France and Belgium, price tags ripped off before I got home because Joe would have an aneurysm, and every iteration of flat black shoe… again, no need to discuss price. Buy them? Yes. Put them on? On most days, too much energy.
“Olivia’s coming tonight,” I said with a wink, already tasting the wine flight and rigatoni at Tavolàta.
“How about she takes Timby out so we can have a little alone time?” Joe grabbed me by the waist and pulled me in as if we weren’t a couple of fifty-year-olds.
Here’s who I envy: lesbians. Why? Lesbian bed death. Apparently, after a lesbian couple’s initial flush of hot sex, they stop having it altogether. It makes perfect sense. Left to their own devices, women would stop having sex after they have children. There’s no evolutionary need for it. Our brains know it, our body knows it. Who feels sexy during the slog of motherhood, the middle-aged fat roll and the flattening butt? What woman wants anyone to see her naked, let alone fondle her breasts, squishy now like bags of cake batter, or touch her stomach, spongy like breadfruit? Who wants to pretend they’re all sexed up when the honeypot is dry?
Me, that’s who, if I don’t want to get switched out for a younger model.
“Alone time it is,” I said to Joe.
“Mom, this broke.” Timby came in with his ukulele and plonked it down on the counter. Suspiciously near the trash. “The sound’s all messed up.”
“What do you propose we do?” I asked, daring him to say, Buy a new one.
Joe picked up the ukulele and strummed. “It’s a little out of tune, that’s all.” He began to adjust the strings.
“Hey,” I said. “Since when can you tune a ukulele?”
“I’m a man of many mysteries,” Joe said and gave the instrument a final dulcet strum.