Play Dates Read online

  I sent my assistants home, and was the last to leave Luca’s studio after the shoot. Deliberately, I was taking forever to pack up my stuff, when he touched my arm and said one word to me—aspetto. Since his eyes had a pleading look in them, I figured he meant “stay.” Somehow he rigged his lights and filters so we could watch ourselves make love, like we were shadow puppets on the filmy white screens. It was wildly erotic, but now I know why some celebs hate seeing themselves on film. I could stand to lose a pound or two or I’ll be wearing Lucky’s duds before I know it.

  We smoked a joint and after some gentle but insistent persuasion (did he not know he was shooting fish in a barrel?) Luca cranked up the stereo—Italian pop superstar Michele Zarrillo—and convinced me to pose for some photos, using only a filmy scarf as a prop. I pranced, danced, and twirled like Salome nearing her finale as Luca kept up a stream of chatter. He used the word bellissima a lot. I felt like Marilyn Monroe.

  And I couldn’t wait to tell Claire about my new conquest.

  “You did what?” she said. She was all but clucking her tongue.

  “Don’t be so fucking judgmental.”

  “Do you have to curse?”

  Her reaction surprised and disappointed me. Since when is Claire Marsh a prude? “What happened to the kid sister who took as many risks as I do?”

  “She had a kid of her own almost seven years ago. Then her husband walked out on her. Risks are a luxury she can’t afford to take.”

  “Risks are a luxury she can’t afford not to take.”

  Claire didn’t respond to that. She returned to the subject of Luca and the photos. “How do you know what he’s planning to do with them? For all the Italian he was spouting away, he could have told you in chapter and verse exactly where he was going to post them on the Internet. Mia, you were doing soft-core.”

  “Oh, please! Art shots. Purely for our mutual amusement. It’s just me in the pictures. And about three feet of blue silk.”

  “For a woman on the verge of thirty, you can be appallingly naïve.”

  “Hey!”

  “Selectively naïve, then. You believe what you want to believe. Particularly when it comes to men.”

  “Ouch. Are you sure you’re not really talking about Claire, Claire?”

  “Double ouch, okay? It’s like you’re a perennial child.”

  “And you’re becoming a perennial mother. Claire, listen to yourself. I don’t need ‘stop, wait, don’ts’ from you. Save it for Zoë.” I’d snapped at her, without meaning to, but somehow I’d felt baited. There was a terrible silence from the other end of the line. I didn’t want to apologize. There was nothing to be sorry for. Not as far as my baby sister was concerned, anyway. “I think…” I said, weighing my words to make sure I sounded kinder about it, “that if you had stuff of your own to focus on, you wouldn’t feel compelled…wouldn’t have the time…to…to meddle.”

  “Meddle?” I could hear that Claire was pissed. “You think I’m meddling?”

  Okay, so maybe it didn’t come out as kind as I’d meant. “I phoned you to tell you about Luca. To share. Girl stuff. Because you’re my sister, so, silly me, I thought you’d be happy for me—or at least entertained by my latest guy exploit—as you like to put it.” My words began to pick up steam. “I didn’t ask for your knee-jerk view. Or request a seal of approval from Miss Perfect, former trophy wife. I think you spend so much of your life these days in conversations with a second grader that you’ve forgotten what it’s like to talk to an adult.”

  Cradle phones convey what a cordless never can. I heard a deliberate click and the line went dead.

  I made a list of what I think I’m good at. Retail. Design. History of art. Not much call for that one, unless you’ve got a masters or a Ph.D. And I’ve gone on a few job interviews that I arranged around Zoë’s schedule. So far, here are Claire Marsh’s stats: 0 for about 10.

  To break it down, Retail: Ralph Lauren and Abercrombie and Fitch liked my “look,” but a five-day week on the sales floor didn’t allow for leaving before 3 P.M. to collect a child from school and I’ve got no one to watch her on weekends. At one store, the personnel manager, like me a woman in her twenties, refused to believe that I actually had a child. It was just beyond her scope of comprehension. She laughed and said that was the first time she’d heard that one. What “one”? I asked her. “The kid excuse,” she said. “Look, I know everyone wants to quit work early so they can get out to the Hamptons before the traffic becomes murder.”

  Design: No openings for artists, but I can’t afford to be too selective, so I interviewed to be the receptionist at a computer graphics company, but the same issue raised its six-year-old tousled blonde head. Besides, spending hours on the phone was never my thing, even when I was a teenager. And the computer folks, though they were also my contemporaries in age, were like, from another planet. I thought I’d relate to them, having aced computer science class, but I couldn’t have been more mistaken. They seemed to regard me as the alien, for being a mom, for living in Manhattan north of 14th Street, and for having clean hair.

  I’m more than a bit desperate. I’ve got maybe three months of savings left. Scott’s always on time with his child support payments, but they don’t cover much. The last thing I want to do is go to the First Bank of Daddy and Mommy. They already help a great deal with Zoë’s Thackeray tuition. And if they hadn’t bought this apartment at the ridiculously low insider price when the building went co-op, and then passed it to Scott and me after we married, Zoë and I would probably be living in a cardboard refrigerator carton on the edge of Central Park. My parents have always been supportive, but it’s more than a matter of my pride to consider them as my court of last resort. I’m supposed to be a grownup with a family of my own. I’m supposed to be able to handle this. But I’m scared. I’ve never had to be on my own. And with a young child to raise alone.

  I take a deep breath. I’m okay, I try to assure myself. I can do this. Except that right now, I’m finding it easier to believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny.

  I need a job. The sightseeing-guide idea appeals to me. It could be flexible, and creative—to a point, as long as one sticks to the facts. Plus, I’m proud of my city, and I love meeting new people, which I rarely get the chance to do, anymore.

  I engage Charles a.k.a. Happy Chef to coach me on the test, which is supposed to be a real toughie. No Mickey Mouse questions like “Who is the George Washington Bridge named for?” He hands me a bunch of books on local geography and history, and tells me to start reading Time Out to get a finger on the current pulse of the city. With my main focus being Zoë, I’ve been so out of touch that, except for knowing where to schlep a grade schooler with a short attention span—and the locations of the major landmarks that every native New Yorker has encoded into his or her DNA—I haven’t a clue about what’s out there all around me. Bands, galleries, hot spots, anything cultural that’s going on beyond the confines of my neighborhood might as well be happening in Cleveland. Charles would be far better off asking Zoë.

  He tells me that the road to guide-dom isn’t the cream puff it used to be. After too many complaints about the dissemination of fraudulent information, New York tour guides must now be licensed by the Department of Consumer Affairs. They administer the 150-question exam, which is a carefully guarded secret. But Charles still remembers a lot of the questions from the test he took, which he promises won’t be too dissimilar from the one I’ll be taking.

  “‘The House that Ruth Built,’” he says, firing a sample question at me.

  “Easy. Yankee Stadium.”

  “What train line takes you from Inwood in upper Manhattan all the way out to the Far Rockaways in Queens?”

  “The A.”

  “Good girl,” Happy Chef applauds.

  For extra credit I hum a few bars of “Take the A Train,” but then he asks me a question about Brooklyn and I am completely stumped. I haven’t a clue what avenue, once known as Swedis
h Broadway, is now one of the main arteries of the Arab community. How arcane can these people get? I give Charles a blank look. “Atlantic Avenue,” he says. “Don’t forget that you need to know about all five boroughs of the city, not just Manhattan.”

  I blanch, becoming anxious. Maybe I didn’t have such a great idea after all. I think I know my hometown pretty well, but this isn’t the old “meatball down the plate.” “Are they going to ask me that one?”

  “They might. They asked me. It was one of the ones I blew, which is why I remember it.”

  “I can’t do this,” I sigh. “I thought I could, but I can’t.”

  “Sure you can,” he urges energetically. “I’ll give you an easy one. ‘How much does Shakespeare in the Park cost per ticket?’” He rattles off three prices and a fourth option: none of the above.

  I give him a funny look. “D. Nothing. That’s a trick question. It’s free.”

  Happy Chef grins and makes ding-ding-ding sounds. “Bonus round. Who drank himself to death at the White Horse Tavern and where is it located?”

  “Dylan Thomas. Hudson Street in Greenwich Village. See, that’s the stuff that appeals to me. The human interest stories. The tortured souls.” I’m now beginning to get back into it. “Hey, maybe I can get my license and then give a tour of Macabre Manhattan, with Halloween coming up.” This sounds more Mia’s speed than mine, but she did urge me to take risks. Even though I was really pissed off at her for saying so and hung up on her.

  I embellish my tour idea, running the concept past Charles for his approval. “You know, I could hit all the places where people were murdered or killed themselves. Dylan Thomas. Sid Vicious at the Chelsea Hotel.” I feel my voice rising, my delivery becoming dramatic. “Madison Square Park, where the original Garden used to stand and where Stanford White was gunned down in his own rooftop restaurant by the insanely jealous Harry K. Thaw—because the lecherous White had been passionately knocking it off with Thaw’s wife, the famously sexy chorus girl Evelyn Nesbit—and it became like the O.J. trial of 1906 or whenever it was. Thaw got acquitted, too,” I said, shaking my head. “Oh, and of course, the murder every visitor to the Upper West Side wants to know about: Mark David Chapman’s assassination of John Lennon right in front of the Dakota.”

  I’m getting into this idea more and more. At least I know I’d get it right. Not like Kathie from Trina’s Tours, who, in referring to the tip of Manhattan in an electrifyingly wrongheaded remark, claimed that “it’s called the Battery because it’s where the center of power used to be in the early days of the colonies, and where the power brokers still are today, over at the New York Stock Exchange.” Obviously she got her job before they toughened up the test, or as Gayle had surmised, forgotten everything she’d ever learned for it.

  “I think you’d do really well at this,” Charles says. “You’ll be a very popular tour guide, too, particularly for European crowds. You’ve got a real understated glamour. It’s very Grace Kelly. Just wear all your old Prada and Calvin and Ralph Lauren things and you’ll be perfect.” I begin to relax until he casually adds, “There’s more to qualifying than looking beautiful and passing the test, though. You need three character references, witnessed by a notary, and none of your references can be from relatives. One can be from a friend—I’ll be happy to do it—and one should be from a former employer.”

  Uh-oh. I’ve never had an employer.

  “And one should be from some who’s known you forever.”

  Eek. Someone who’s known me “forever” who’s not a family member. I’ll have to think of something. Scott has known me sort of forever, at least since I was in high school. I can’t do it, though. Asking my ex-husband for a character reference is asking for pain.

  Dear Diary:

  I’m writing this in school because Mrs. Hennepin thinks I’m writing something else but I finished it already. All of the other kids in my class are having snack. But not me. Mrs. Hennepin said I couldn’t have juice and cookies because I was bad during recess. I was only playing in the park with Xander and then he got mean and threw sand at me. It’s HIS fault and he gets to have snack and he even gets DOUBLE cookies and I don’t. Mrs. Heinie-face never does anything mean to the boys. She is like the bad witch from The Wizard of Oz except that her face isn’t green. I wish I had some water to throw on her so she would melt and then maybe we could get the nice second-grade teacher instead.

  The other kids were laughing at me and they made fun of me when Mrs. Heinie-face made me sit in the back of the class and write I’m sorry over and over again until snack is over. Even Ashley made fun of me. And April and May don’t want to talk to me because they think it will get them in trouble, too. They’re not my best friends anymore. I don’t have any more friends. I don’t have a tissue. I don’t want Mrs. Heinie-face to see me crying. That will make her more mean. I know it. I wish Xander would be my friend. I thought he was beginning to like me, especially since he said he would play “house” with me at recess. We had a really good time, too. And then he got so mad at me.

  Why is every person in the whole world mad at me? Xander and Ashley and April and May and Mrs. Heinie-face and even Mommy.

  I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry…

  It’s been a long time since I’ve had to take a test. I feel like I’m back in school again, facing the SATs. Time may march on, but some things never change. I threw up before the test then, and I did the same thing this morning. Couldn’t even keep down coffee and orange juice. Zoë was so adorable. She got up from the breakfast table—after first asking to be excused—and then lugged the two-liter bottle of ginger ale from the refrigerator, plunking it down at my place with a gushy thud.

  “You give me ginger ale when my tummy is upset,” she said simply, then climbed up to fetch a glass from the cupboard.

  She’s delicious. This is what it’s all for. We’ve got some rough sledding ahead, but I couldn’t imagine a Zoë-less life.

  The New York City Department of Consumer Affairs is down near the tip of lower Manhattan—the Battery. I start giggling to myself thinking about Kathie at Trina’s Tours and the Battery as the power center of the city. I conjure visions of the Energizer Bunny rolling down Wall Street thumping away on his little drum. Kathie’s catalog of errors gives me a boost of confidence. Happy Chef has prepared me well. Most of these questions aren’t too hard. At least many of them look familiar. They’re all multiple choice, so I keep telling myself that the right answer is in front of me. All I have to do is select it. The Swedish Broadway question is, in fact, on today’s test, so I know I have that one right.

  Good Lord, someone’s cell phone is ringing. “Nadia’s Theme,” no less. Don’t people know enough to turn off their phones when they enter the testing room? Do they have to be in touch with the rest of the world every millisecond of the day? How can I concentrate? How are people expected to…?

  Oops.

  Braving forty dirty looks, I reach down and plunge my hand into my purse, which is vibrating noisily, if melodically, at the base of my chair.

  I flip open the phone and answer it. “Hello…?”

  It’s Mrs. Hennepin. I feel my stomach clench. “Is something wrong?” Of course something’s wrong, Claire, or she wouldn’t be calling you in the middle of the school day. “Is Zoë all right?”

  “Yes, she is, Ms. Marsh. Physically, anyway. I’d like you to come over to the school for a conference. Right away, in fact. I know you’re not working now, so—”

  I try to keep my voice down. “Can’t we speak at the end of the day when I come to pick her up?” I look down at my test. There are a hundred and fifty questions and I’m on number sixty-three. “I’m kind of in the middle of something right now.”

  The test monitor approaches my chair. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to take that outside,” the civil servant says.

  “Oh, right. I’m so sorry.” I get up from my chair, while I’m still listenin
g to Mrs. Hennepin explain why she needs to speak to me sooner rather than later. The kids just went into Ms. Bland’s art class and then they’ve got science with Mrs. Peabo, so she’s got a couple of hours free while her charges are in the hands of the specialty teachers.

  I’ve got the phone nestled in the crook of my neck, my purse on my shoulder and I grab the test with my left hand and start to leave the room.

  “You can’t take the test with you,” the monitor says. “You gotta leave that in the room.”

  “But I’m not finished.”

  “Don’t matter to me. You can’t take the test outside the room. That’s the rules.”

  “But how am I supposed to…?” The monitor shushes me and cautions me to keep my voice down. I’m disturbing the other test takers. “See, my daughter’s teacher is on the phone. I’m not trying to cheat, if that’s what you mean, and this is not a social call, it’s—”

  “I don’t care what it is,” the monitor interrupts. “But you can’t be bringing the paper outside this room.” This formidable young woman definitely takes her job very seriously. She means business and I get the feeling that if I cross her, she’ll put me in a headlock, if necessary. Or sit on me.

  My stomach is tying itself in bigger knots and Mrs. Hennepin is still on the phone calling into her end, “Ms. Marsh? Are you there?”

  “So, what am I supposed to do?”

  “Are you talking to me?” I hear Mrs. Hennepin ask.

  “It’s up to you,” the monitor says. “You can finish the test. Or you can talk to your friend—”

  “I told you, this isn’t my friend!” I say, shaking the cell phone at her. “It’s my daughter’s second-grade teacher.”

  “I don’t care if it’s the President of the U-nited States. You wanna take the call, you take it outside this room. And you can come back and take the test again on another day.”

  “Then I have to pay the fee again, don’t I?”

  The monitor nods. “Every time you take the test, you gotta pay.” I frown. What a rip-off. “Hey, girl, don’t you look at me like that. I don’t make the rules. And you gotta leave the room or everyone here’s gonna file a complaint against me. I got four mouths to feed. I can’t afford to be losing my job.”