was,
Order the Peking duck for two
. We did, and switched to our usual dinner talk, Barry’s tales from the operating room, which kept us going through a calorie blitz called a Zen Parfait. I passed on the giant fortune cookie. What fortune had in store for me I would gladly wait to discover.
“How about a Chai Kiss?” Barry said, looking at the menu of after-dinner drinks.
“How about home to Jane Street?” I said. In the taxi, I closed my eyes and leaned against Barry’s well-muscled body. With the help of a good romp in bed, perhaps I could talk my husband into postponingbaby making for a few years—maybe a decade—and during that time grow up and figure out what I wanted.
At our apartment, still blurry from all I’d had to drink, I slipped into a blue silk teddy. Barry pulled me toward him tightly. He was in the locked and loaded position. “Happy anniversary, sweetheart,” he whispered hotly into my ear. “Molly Divine Marx, you will be a wonderful mother.”
I looked at him, sleepily and skeptically.
“I don’t know very much,” he said, “but I know that.”
There was something about the way he said those words that felt utterly tender and authentic. I deeply wanted to believe him, to live up to them, to feel sure about this step that for most women isn’t even a choice. “Really?” I asked, a prayer as much as a question. In that moment, I felt that marrying Barry Marx was the smartest and best move I had ever made.
As he blew out the candle I kept by the bed, and the scent of lily of the valley filled our small room, he said, “Let’s make a baby, baby.”
Months later, we did.
Fifteen
PIECE OF WORK
etective Hicks stretches his long legs and scans the room. Sitting on a black leather Eames chair, he might be taken for another sleek minimalist object in Brie and Isadora’s loft. “Ms. Lawson, was that reading of yours at Mrs. Marx’s funeral by Elizabeth Barrett Browning?” he asks, as if he honestly cares about Victorian poetry.
“Emily Dickinson,” Brie says. She’s wearing her Jessica Rabbit-goes-to-court suit, bought to scare the nuts off opposing counsel. It has a tight jacket, strategically unbuttoned to show a peek of cleavage. The pencil skirt, which hugs her butt, ends just below her knees. Her hair is pulled back into a severe chignon. Isadora sits beside her on the couch, a wrinkle that I’ve never noticed etching a delicate valley between her slightly hooded hazel eyes.
“I knew it was one of those depressed women,” the detective says, helping himself to chocolate biscotti that Isadora has set out on a square white china plate. “Now, I gather from Mrs. Marx’s funeral that you two were close,” he says. “Can you tell me a little about the … relationship?” The question is directed to Brie, but he glances toward Isadora as he drops a crumb, which disappears into the thick charcoalrug. Isadora’s wrinkle deepens as she sees the biscotti bit vanish, but Brie looks straight at Hicks.
“Molly and I were randomly assigned as freshman roommates,” she says. “It was one of those fortunate matches. We hit it off and became inseparable. The next year we got an apartment together and kept it until we graduated.”
“Can you elaborate?” Hicks’ eyes wear an amused expression, in which Brie is reading a taunting, sub rosa suggestion. Which is his intention, to tick her off.
Don’t fall for it
. I beam this message with the futile hope that Brie can hear it.
“We did what college friends do,” she says. “Study, shop, party.”
In reverse order, as I recall.
“Anything else?” he asks.
“Sure,” Brie says, “eat pizza, gain ten pounds, diet, meet guys, root for the home team, take vacations in skimpy bikinis, and try not to think about what we’d do when we grew up. Should I go on?” As she reels off this list, the speed of her speech picks up, as does the pitch of her voice. I am surprised that Brie is allowing frustration to show. Don’t
Order the Peking duck for two
. We did, and switched to our usual dinner talk, Barry’s tales from the operating room, which kept us going through a calorie blitz called a Zen Parfait. I passed on the giant fortune cookie. What fortune had in store for me I would gladly wait to discover.
“How about a Chai Kiss?” Barry said, looking at the menu of after-dinner drinks.
“How about home to Jane Street?” I said. In the taxi, I closed my eyes and leaned against Barry’s well-muscled body. With the help of a good romp in bed, perhaps I could talk my husband into postponingbaby making for a few years—maybe a decade—and during that time grow up and figure out what I wanted.
At our apartment, still blurry from all I’d had to drink, I slipped into a blue silk teddy. Barry pulled me toward him tightly. He was in the locked and loaded position. “Happy anniversary, sweetheart,” he whispered hotly into my ear. “Molly Divine Marx, you will be a wonderful mother.”
I looked at him, sleepily and skeptically.
“I don’t know very much,” he said, “but I know that.”
There was something about the way he said those words that felt utterly tender and authentic. I deeply wanted to believe him, to live up to them, to feel sure about this step that for most women isn’t even a choice. “Really?” I asked, a prayer as much as a question. In that moment, I felt that marrying Barry Marx was the smartest and best move I had ever made.
As he blew out the candle I kept by the bed, and the scent of lily of the valley filled our small room, he said, “Let’s make a baby, baby.”
Months later, we did.
Fifteen
PIECE OF WORK
etective Hicks stretches his long legs and scans the room. Sitting on a black leather Eames chair, he might be taken for another sleek minimalist object in Brie and Isadora’s loft. “Ms. Lawson, was that reading of yours at Mrs. Marx’s funeral by Elizabeth Barrett Browning?” he asks, as if he honestly cares about Victorian poetry.
“Emily Dickinson,” Brie says. She’s wearing her Jessica Rabbit-goes-to-court suit, bought to scare the nuts off opposing counsel. It has a tight jacket, strategically unbuttoned to show a peek of cleavage. The pencil skirt, which hugs her butt, ends just below her knees. Her hair is pulled back into a severe chignon. Isadora sits beside her on the couch, a wrinkle that I’ve never noticed etching a delicate valley between her slightly hooded hazel eyes.
“I knew it was one of those depressed women,” the detective says, helping himself to chocolate biscotti that Isadora has set out on a square white china plate. “Now, I gather from Mrs. Marx’s funeral that you two were close,” he says. “Can you tell me a little about the … relationship?” The question is directed to Brie, but he glances toward Isadora as he drops a crumb, which disappears into the thick charcoalrug. Isadora’s wrinkle deepens as she sees the biscotti bit vanish, but Brie looks straight at Hicks.
“Molly and I were randomly assigned as freshman roommates,” she says. “It was one of those fortunate matches. We hit it off and became inseparable. The next year we got an apartment together and kept it until we graduated.”
“Can you elaborate?” Hicks’ eyes wear an amused expression, in which Brie is reading a taunting, sub rosa suggestion. Which is his intention, to tick her off.
Don’t fall for it
. I beam this message with the futile hope that Brie can hear it.
“We did what college friends do,” she says. “Study, shop, party.”
In reverse order, as I recall.
“Anything else?” he asks.
“Sure,” Brie says, “eat pizza, gain ten pounds, diet, meet guys, root for the home team, take vacations in skimpy bikinis, and try not to think about what we’d do when we grew up. Should I go on?” As she reels off this list, the speed of her speech picks up, as does the pitch of her voice. I am surprised that Brie is allowing frustration to show. Don’t
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