The next morning, the tempest has passed. The water has receded. I can’t even remember what the storm was all about. I tighten the strap on my cotton robe and move into the girls’ room to start their day. I kick some dolls and crumpled tutus out of my way to reach the beds.
Two has climbed into Liv’s crib and is wrapped around the baby like a lover. Rory also abandoned his room in the middle of the night and is snug in Two’s bed. Our nights are filled with mattress movement.
“Two,” I rub the small of her back.
“Rory, good morning,” I call. He wiggles away from me so I sing, “Good morning, good morning, little chinchilla.”
I’m on the second verse when Two pops up.
“Monkey!” she shouts and Liv raises her messy head.
“Good morning, little monkey, good morning, kitty cat and colorful peacock. Good morning.”
With that we are on the steps, Liv on my hip, Two’s hand inside of mine, and Rory right beside me. At the bottom of the stairs, Rory scrambles into the kitchen. He dashes into the chair next to the window. Two is right behind him.
“That’s my seat, Rory.”
“I sat here first.”
“It’s my turn. Move.” She pushes.
“Twyla, sit here,” I point to one of the three other chairs at our table. For the life of me, I can’t figure out what makes that particular chair so special.
“That’s not fair.” She crosses her arms over her chest. Her ponytails have come loose and she looks rested and beautiful.
I kiss her cheek and then whisper, “Tomorrow will be your turn. Promise.” She’s mollified for a moment and gets distracted by the Cheerios I’ve left for them on the table.
I serve my normal diner-style breakfast: waffles and bacon for Rory, a bagel for Two, and oatmeal for Liv.
Preston comes into the kitchen wearing long sweats and a fitted T-shirt. His eyes look sleepy and his mouth twists into a shy grin.
“Morning, Fox.” He kisses my lips with his hands on my waist. “You felt good last night,” he says, only loud enough for me to hear.
I blush.
“Here.” He stuffs my thong in my hand and then closes it.
The basement door is open so I toss the panties down the steps. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Love me.” His eyes twinkle.
“Don’t forget you promised to drive the kids.”
“Awww, I want you to drive us,” the kids chime from the table, but I pretend not to hear them. I shoot Preston a you-got-this look, and then head upstairs to lay out their clothes.
Before I am finished, the smell of freshly brewed coffee wafts through the house. I love that Preston makes this his morning task.
“Kids, finish up,” I call down from the top of the stairs. While I wait, I make their beds and put the dolls and stuffed animals away. Rory dresses himself, but I help Two button her blouse.
“Brush your teeth and no fighting.” I give them a hard look and then head down to the kitchen.
“Smells good.” I pour two cups and hand one to Preston. He is standing at the counter bent over the newspaper.
“Are you checking the lottery again?”
“I forgot to play yesterday. I hope my number didn’t come out.” He flips the page.
“You sound like an old lady.”
“I’m serious.”
“You know, all you’d get back is the money you’ve put in.”
“This is my po’ black man’s stock market. You won’t complain when I hit big.” He rolls the paper and swats me on the butt.
I stick out my tongue. Preston has never hit for more than a few hundred bucks, but whatever makes him happy. We all need something to believe in.
* * *
I’m at the door waving good-bye when the telephone rings. I know its Gran before I answer it. She phones the same time every day, and starts in on her constant chutney of chatter before I croak a proper good morning.
“Oh, didn’t expect you to be home. Ain’t it your day to drive the kids?”
I wonder then why she has bothered to call, but I say, “Yeah. Preston took them. They left a minute ago.”
“Well, I’m glad I caught you. Wingdings on sale at ShopRite this week for seven ninety-nine. Should get two or three bags and put ’em in the freezer. I ain’t seen them lower than nine ninety-nine in months. They good to have.”
My Gran’s favorite topics are food and God. It just so happens that the supermarket chain that we both frequent is in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. From Philadelphia she tells me what to buy for my family.
“You’re right,” I oblige.
“How’s Preston?”
“Fine.” She drops quiet. I can sense her stiff, arthritic fingers struggle with turning the circular as her right eye squints hard. A chunky, black Magic Marker is pinched between her pointer and thumb. When Gran spies something for the church she’ll check it, my aunt Crystal’s food gets an X, but for me, there are loopy rings safely enclosing what she deems fit.
“Oh, Faye, five-pound bag of those red potatoes you like only two dollars. Cook that with some forty-nine-cent cabbage and you got a meal.”
Liv slithers her way into the kitchen. She’s small for ten months and instead of crawling, she slides, one arm commando-style across the room and grabs my ankle. I kiss her cheek and then put her in her high chair and tie on her bib. She gnaws on a Baby Mum-Mum rice biscuit and watches while I pull a bag of whiting from the freezer. I’ll fry that tonight with some potatoes and string beans.
“Oh, I remember what I wanted. The nursing home called. Said your mother would be doing a lot better if she had some visitors. You know I can’t get all the way out to no Valley Forge. Not less Mr. Scooter takes me, and his hip is bad so I don’t wanna call on him too much.”
“Let Crystal take you.” I wipe at the syrup spot on the kitchen table.
“I ain’t getting in the car with Crystal. Is you crazy? ’Sides, that’s your mother laying up there. You need to go see her. How long has it been?”
I can’t even remember.
“That’s what I thought,” she snaps, as if I’ve said it out loud.
My other line clicks.
“Gran, I have to take this call. Let me talk to Preston and I’ll get back to you.”
“Don’t take too long.” She hangs up the telephone. Gran never says good-bye.
“Hello.”
Nothing.
“Hello?”
Breathing.
The line goes dead.
It’s just as well. I only have an hour to get out of the house. Liv has her Mommy and Me music class at eleven, which is the highlight of my week. The pile of laundry waiting for me to fold at the foot of my bed gets ignored. The baby’s ExerSaucer fits in the opening of the bathroom door. I’ve become accustomed to showering with a breeze.
* * *
The class is a fifteen-minute drive. Liv babbles while I listen to the local NPR station, absorbing my dose of current events and news. As I pull into the parking lot, I can see that it’s chaotic. The four-room building where the music classes are held also hosts a kids’ art studio and preschool movement and yoga. Children’s classes in the suburbs are big business. Every mother wants to make sure little Honey-bunch has every advantage and is ahead of the curve, so we bump ourselves until battered, piling on classes in music, Mandarin, art, swim, and Gymboree before our little people can even walk and talk.
As I unlatch Liv’s car seat, I ponder over how I, Felicia Lyons, with a BFA in Theater Arts, a Super Bowl commercial, and various plays notched into my sash, how that girl ended up a stay-at-home-mom-domestic-chauffeur-short-order-cook. Maybe it was decided for me when “The Incident” occurred, the one that took my mother away.
My Gran, bless her heart, did the best she could but there is nothing like your mother. The woman whose skin smells like home, whose touch is filled with familiarity, and whose heart has your face smack at the center. This is the woman I am for my children. Front, center, and available, with their needs motivating my every move. A full-time job would distract me from being the type of mother you see on television, the one with all the white-picket-fence trimming. Nothing like how I was raised, in a North Philly box with food stamps and that disgusting welfare cheese. Gran was downtown taking care of Mr. Orbach’s children, while I was latchkey with Crystal, my aunt who was only five years my senior and far more interested in fooling around with big Derell in the basement than watching me. I showed a brave face every day, but the lump of loneliness for my mother lingered in the crevices of my soul, and even though I was very young, I vowed that my children would never meet the pain of motherlessness. So here I am. Even during those burned-out times when I don’t want to be available. I’ll tap myself into oblivion and take a time-out at the movies with baby-size bottles of wine to bring myself back to center and focus. But I’m here.
Once inside we remove our shoes and take our spot on the colorful rug. The wide and open classroom is painted sunshine yellow. In orange letters, scripted on the wall is this: “Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the Universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything. Plato.”
In this circle, all of the mothers look the same. Washed-out skin, worn-out eyes, wearing wrinkled clothes that they found in a pile on the floor. Bone tired. Starved for conversations that don’t include cooing. I must admit to feeling a bit superior because I combed my hair and I’m wearing my cute capris, so I do a lot of smiling.
“Hi, morning,” I nod to Melanie. She’s a mom friend. Her kids go to the same preschool as Rory and Twyla, so I know her well. Melanie is pregnant with her fourth child.
“How are you feeling, honey?”
“It was hard this morning but I made it.” Melanie grins and rubs her baby bump. Her skin is a mousy olive and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her without a limp ponytail.
I lower myself next to her and pat her knee in agreement.
We all say we come to these types of classes for the kids, but we really come to find our tribe. A mom we can talk to while our real friends are off at work. Someone to share coffee with and chat about how little Junior wouldn’t go to bed, a person besides our spouse who understands the lingo and knows what the witching hour means. It’s for the socialization. The getting out of the house before it consumes us. The need to have an adult connection, even if it’s over “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”
Ally, the music teacher, walks in and places on the floor a plastic container with eggs that shake when the kids rattle them. Liv slithers to the center and grabs the blue one. Into her mouth it goes and I cringe.
“Don’t worry, I just wiped them down a second ago,” Ally reassures me. We know each other well. I’ve been taking this class since Rory was ten months old and I’m arguably the only mom in the room who has been through all six CDs more than once, and have committed every song, intonation, hum to memory.
Liv is the only child of color in the room. I am the only African American mother. The rest of the browns are nannies. I’m polite to the working women because we come from the same place and I don’t want them to think I’m uppity. But I’m never overly talkative. It’s a delicate balance but I’ve become used to that part, too.
Ally picks up her guitar and we all chime in on the Hello song.
“Now remember moms and caregivers, it’s important to sing out and dance to the fullest because your children learn from watching you,” Ally encourages.
We go through a few warm-up songs and then Ally walks over to the closet and comes back with a box.
“Scarves.” She dumps all sorts with varying textures, colors, and patterns, and the kids crawl and run over to pick one. I hang back eyeing the purple, and to my delight I get it. We dance to a Greek wedding song and Liv gazes at how much fun I’m having and wants up. So we dance, we fly through the air, twirl around the room, float through the sky caught up in our lavender world and I am ecstatically breathless and happy. So is Liv. I am a good mother.
* * *
“You ready for our walk?” I ask Melanie outside, in the parking lot. She and I walk after music class for a little exercise. It gives the children some fresh air and us a chance to talk before we are confined in the house for nap time.
“Mind if we skip it today? I didn’t sleep at all last night.” She puts Jeremy, her thirteen-month-old, up on her hip. “Between my sciatica and Bob’s snoring, I tossed and turned all night.”
“You should make him sleep in the den,” I joked.
“I wish.”
“How many weeks left?” I rub her belly.
“Five, but who knows? I was two weeks early with him.” She ruffles her son’s hair. He has the same dirty brown hair as her, and when he realizes we are watching him he sticks his thumb in his mouth.
“Take a nap with Jeremy today. That’s what I used to do with Twyla when I was pregnant with her,” I say, squeezing Liv against my breasts.
“I do have some fall fling business to catch you up on. Are you picking up today?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, we’ll chat then.”
The walk would have been good for Liv but I could use the extra time to fold the laundry. I play the class CD for Liv on the drive home to keep her awake. I need to feed her before she naps or she won’t sleep long. I sing and make faces at her through the rearview mirror and it works. As soon as we walk in the house she wants her food and I bounce her around on my hip while I warm her organic sweet potatoes and chicken. The telephone rings.
“Shh, shh,” I say, placing Liv in the high chair with two crackers.
“Hello.”
“Felicia Lyons?”
“Yes.”
“This is Ashley from SEM&M.”
My pulse quickens. My agent. I make my voice cheery while gliding Liv’s chair with my foot to keep her from crying out.
“Yes. Hello, Ashley. How have you been?”
“Oh, fine. Summer has been slow so I’ve managed to do a few fun things.”
“Are you still taking surfing lessons?”
“Yeah, just got back from Hawaii last week. It was incredible.”
“Wow, Hawaii is on my list.”
“It’s beautiful. I had a great time.”
“Wonderful.” I pause.
“I have a go-see for you tomorrow at eleven A.M. for Samsung Galaxy. Is your e-mail still the same?”
“Yes, nothing has changed.”
“Great, let me give you the address.”
“Hang on while I grab a pen.”
Liv has lost interest in the now-soggy crackers and I see in her face that she is about to let me have it. I mute the phone, snatch her out of the seat, and sway her in my arms while I open the kitchen drawer and search for a pen. I can’t ever find a pen in this damn house. Desperate, I take the information down with a green crayon.
“So I’ll e-mail the copy right over. Good luck.”
“Thanks so much for calling, Ashley. Please give everyone my best.”
When I hang up the phone, I scream. Liv starts crying.
“I’m sorry.” I soothe. But I’m light on my toes. First Monroe with the Dames’ fund-raiser and now an audition. Things are looking up.
Liv looks at me with those eyes that say Mommy, pay attention, so I sit and feed her. Once she’s taken care of and down for her nap, I send Preston a text.
Audition tomorrow at 11:00. Can you work from home with Liv?
Asking Preston is a long shot. So much to do. I have to get ready for my audition tomorrow and start writing my monologue for the Dames. Preston’s text comes through.
Sorry, Foxy, but I can’t. Back-to-back meetings tomorrow.
For some reason I’m not overly concerned. I’ll ask one of the mom friends on the playground today at pickup. We interchange children and fill in where necessary for each other. I have at least two possibilities; I’m sure one will say yes. I twirl and head down to my little office in the basement to print the e-mail. I have an hour and a half to look over the audition copy before it’s time to pick up the kids.
The commercial is about a woman who’s late for work. When she pulls out her cell phone to call her boss, it falls into a puddle. She picks it up and wipes it down with her fancy scarf, and when she puts it to her ear, it works. She gets through to her boss and explains with a sigh of relief.
I can do this. I go over the copy, marking my spots, and as I move through my living room, my inner actress pours through. Damn, I’ve missed her.