Read Online Momzillas by Jill Kargman - Free Book Online Page A

that he didn’t mind. The problem was…I minded. I missed him so much. So despite my visceral loathing of Greenwich and feeling stranded at Lila’s house, I was just happy to all be a family again.
    But Saturday morning when we woke up, while it was so nice to have Violet jump on our bed and watch Josh do “flying baby” with her (his feet on her tummy as she’s lifted up in the air, giggling), I couldn’t distract myself from the pit in my tummy. I felt like if I had a soundtrack at that very moment, it would be the noise you hear when Ms. Pac-Man dies: a slow withering followed by a putt-putt as the poor yellow circle-with-hairbow expires. We got into our rickety Volvo and hit the road for Connecticut, one of my least favorite states in the union. It’s so fucking
Ice Storm
. On our way, we pulled over to Pick a Bagel and scored some carbolas for the drive—I always stocked up because the Dillinghams were so überwaspy the fridge was empty save for some Miracle Whip and white wine bottles, swear. I patted Josh’s head; he looked so cute but I knew he was still so tired. We blared K-Rock and as we finally got on the FDR and shifted gears after interminable traffic on Ninety-sixth, I turned up the volume to eleven,
Spinal Tap
–style, and chair-danced to Nine Inch Nails. I got Joshie to smile as I got wilder, shaking my head and spaz air-drumming like Animal from
The Muppet Show
. I looked in the bag, deciding which bagel to devour first, and cracked open my apple juice. Ahhhh, elixir of the gods, this stuff. Like liquid honey.
    I fed Josh bites of bagel as he drove, and we cruised pretty quickly, my staticky beloved hard rock station flickering on the Merritt Parkway. I knew we were officially in Creepsville, Suburbia, when strains of Thom Yorke’s melted croon waned. That was always when the mental piranha set in, nibbling away at my freedom—I knew we were almost there when my music was gone. We wove through the swirling roads leading up to his family’s house. I actually preferred going in the winter—at least then the empty black trees had a wistful graphic punch off the white sky, like a film still from a Tim Burton movie, crisp and bold and proud, not even wanting back their clichéd and gauche green leaves that covered us in wilted verdant canopies now.
    We pulled in the grand driveway and parked as my heart raced. We unpacked the trunk and sprung Violet from her baby seat and knocked via the enormous lion’s-head knocker on the giant double portal. A cute Latin-looking woman opened the door, in full black-and-white maid’s outfit. Mrs. Dillingham fired the “help” (as she called them) so frequently that Josh and I could never remember their names—it was a revolving door of pressed, starched uniforms.
    â€œHello,” Lila said, descending the large white marble staircase. “Josh, my aaaangel, come here.” She approached him and hugged him, barely acknowledging me. “And Violet, love, you wore one of your new dresses! How divine you look!”
    â€œHi, Mrs. Dillingham!” Funnily enough I never knew what to call her—she never really told
me
to call her Lila, just Violet. So I usually just said hi or hello; it was like that Mulva episode of
Seinfeld
.
    â€œYou know, Hannah,” she said, looking perturbed. “I should give you a bill for five dollars. We rented that film last night that you had recommended about that Cuban poet. I found it horrendous. Just awful! I can’t think of a more depressing movie.”
    â€œOh…sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say. “I mean, it was sad but brilliantly done, I thought.” Gulp. I kept going, “And not to be all film studenty, I mean I know it sounds pretentious, but it was shot so beautifully. I felt like every frame could be frozen and hung on my wall.”
    â€œNot a wall in my house,” she sneered. “Come on,