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Authors: Julie Gerstenblatt
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army-like attention, with their big eyes on me.
My kids love Jackie more than they’ll ever love me. She’s
an education major at a local college who is so popular with neighborhood kids
that I have to book her sometimes months in advance. If she didn’t come to
sleep over on Thursday night, they’d be devastated.
“Now, that’s more like it,” I sigh. “Come have dinner.”
“What is it?” Ben asks.
“Mac and cheese and chicken nuggets.”
“Again?” they complain in unison.
“Laney was supposed to make meatloaf, but she didn’t. Sorry.”
“You could make something else,” Becca suggests, “like a
call for sushi.”
“Maybe tomorrow,” I muse.
The kids are tucked into their beds and I am nursing a
headache. I can hear Doug in the shower when I come up from the basement,
having just folded the laundry that Laney left in the dryer.
I go into the bathroom and knock on the glass wall. “Hi!”
I call out.
He wipes away some condensation so that I can sort of see
him in there. He waves.
“How was your day?” I ask.
“Whah?” he answers over the running water.
I try again, louder. “How was…nothing,” I say. “Forget
it.” I already know the answer.
I turn to the bedroom door handle where I have hung the
dry cleaning, and begin removing it from its plastic wrap. I open the closet
and push aside my cheerleading uniform from high school. Laney borrowed it for
a costume party and actually returned it. Surprise.
Doug opens the shower door. “Hey, Lauren? Where’d you go?”
“I’m here,” I call from the bedroom.
“Is that a new pocketbook I saw downstairs?”
“Not new!” I yell. Technically, this is true. Sophie said
it had been used once for a Chloe ad.
After a moment’s pause, Doug says, “Really? Because I
haven’t seen it before.”
“That doesn’t make it new.”
“The blue one?”
“Right.”
“Huh.”
“Also,” I say, “if I may point out, I am working hard. I
know that my paycheck is needed for real stuff, like our electricity, for
instance. But sometimes it’s nice to…break out a little bit. Splurge on
something. To make me feel…”
“Can you hand me a new razor?” Doug interrupts.
I go into the hall closet and come back, still talking.
“Just to make me feel…special.” I pass the razor through the mist. He closes
the door behind him and we go back to raised voices.
“Lauren, those ‘special’ items are things like college
funds and 401Ks! Not Gucci bags.”
“Chloe,” I correct.
“Who’s she?”
“Nobody new, that’s for sure.” I’ll have to bury the new
Chloe dustcover that the bag came with in the back of my underwear drawer. No
need to invite further suspicion.
I’ve tried to talk to Doug about my feelings, really I
have. It’s not like I want to lie. I’d love to be able to come home and say, Look
at my gorgeous new pocketbook! Don’t you just love it? And he’d sigh and
say, It’s just what you’ve always wanted. I’m so happy for you. But
anyone with a husband knows that that’s about as realistic as a Disney princess
movie. And so, the big purchases get hidden. They come into the house when he’s
not home, the shopping bags magically disappear, and then the items get
seamlessly added into the rotation as if they were there all along.
It doesn’t matter if the conversation is about shopping,
or about traveling, or, most recently, about feeling these urges to party like
it’s 1999. He always shuts me down. We don’t have money. We don’t have time.
Can we talk about this later? When I’m not exhausted from work?
I finish hanging the dry cleaning and raise my voice over the
shower. “I’m going downstairs to watch TV. You coming?”
“In a few. I have to return a call from my client at Bank
of America first.”
“Okay.”
“What’s for dinner?” Doug shouts, as an afterthought.
“Nothing!” I say. Since returning to work when Becca
turned two, I have sucked at making dinner, and
army-like attention, with their big eyes on me.
My kids love Jackie more than they’ll ever love me. She’s
an education major at a local college who is so popular with neighborhood kids
that I have to book her sometimes months in advance. If she didn’t come to
sleep over on Thursday night, they’d be devastated.
“Now, that’s more like it,” I sigh. “Come have dinner.”
“What is it?” Ben asks.
“Mac and cheese and chicken nuggets.”
“Again?” they complain in unison.
“Laney was supposed to make meatloaf, but she didn’t. Sorry.”
“You could make something else,” Becca suggests, “like a
call for sushi.”
“Maybe tomorrow,” I muse.
The kids are tucked into their beds and I am nursing a
headache. I can hear Doug in the shower when I come up from the basement,
having just folded the laundry that Laney left in the dryer.
I go into the bathroom and knock on the glass wall. “Hi!”
I call out.
He wipes away some condensation so that I can sort of see
him in there. He waves.
“How was your day?” I ask.
“Whah?” he answers over the running water.
I try again, louder. “How was…nothing,” I say. “Forget
it.” I already know the answer.
I turn to the bedroom door handle where I have hung the
dry cleaning, and begin removing it from its plastic wrap. I open the closet
and push aside my cheerleading uniform from high school. Laney borrowed it for
a costume party and actually returned it. Surprise.
Doug opens the shower door. “Hey, Lauren? Where’d you go?”
“I’m here,” I call from the bedroom.
“Is that a new pocketbook I saw downstairs?”
“Not new!” I yell. Technically, this is true. Sophie said
it had been used once for a Chloe ad.
After a moment’s pause, Doug says, “Really? Because I
haven’t seen it before.”
“That doesn’t make it new.”
“The blue one?”
“Right.”
“Huh.”
“Also,” I say, “if I may point out, I am working hard. I
know that my paycheck is needed for real stuff, like our electricity, for
instance. But sometimes it’s nice to…break out a little bit. Splurge on
something. To make me feel…”
“Can you hand me a new razor?” Doug interrupts.
I go into the hall closet and come back, still talking.
“Just to make me feel…special.” I pass the razor through the mist. He closes
the door behind him and we go back to raised voices.
“Lauren, those ‘special’ items are things like college
funds and 401Ks! Not Gucci bags.”
“Chloe,” I correct.
“Who’s she?”
“Nobody new, that’s for sure.” I’ll have to bury the new
Chloe dustcover that the bag came with in the back of my underwear drawer. No
need to invite further suspicion.
I’ve tried to talk to Doug about my feelings, really I
have. It’s not like I want to lie. I’d love to be able to come home and say, Look
at my gorgeous new pocketbook! Don’t you just love it? And he’d sigh and
say, It’s just what you’ve always wanted. I’m so happy for you. But
anyone with a husband knows that that’s about as realistic as a Disney princess
movie. And so, the big purchases get hidden. They come into the house when he’s
not home, the shopping bags magically disappear, and then the items get
seamlessly added into the rotation as if they were there all along.
It doesn’t matter if the conversation is about shopping,
or about traveling, or, most recently, about feeling these urges to party like
it’s 1999. He always shuts me down. We don’t have money. We don’t have time.
Can we talk about this later? When I’m not exhausted from work?
I finish hanging the dry cleaning and raise my voice over the
shower. “I’m going downstairs to watch TV. You coming?”
“In a few. I have to return a call from my client at Bank
of America first.”
“Okay.”
“What’s for dinner?” Doug shouts, as an afterthought.
“Nothing!” I say. Since returning to work when Becca
turned two, I have sucked at making dinner, and
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