Three Good Things Page 8
But she knew Hannah was right. She wasn’t juggling motherhood and a sixty-hour workweek as gracefully as she’d hoped. “You’re right, of course,” she said now. “I’d like to think I’m the Jackie O. of my generation, hobnobbing with the rich and famous, raising a beautiful child, while my husband saves the world and I look glamorous.”
“Don’t forget Jackie had a nanny she hid from the press.”
“She did?”
“You bet. Not to mention a philandering husband.”
“Oh, right.”
“And if anyone should know that the façade isn’t always what it seems, it’s you,” Hannah said matter-of-factly.
When Lanie raised an eyebrow, she quickly added, “Because of the clients you work with, of course.”
Lanie admired Hannah’s directness; she found it worked to her advantage when it came to evaluating clients, getting things done. Hannah was probably fifty pounds overweight, but again, Lanie found that to be a plus. One look at her assistant and you knew she meant business. Not to mention she was a wizard of efficiency. But every so often, Lanie bristled at her young assistant’s matter-of-factness, the divining rod she seemed to wield for the personal lives of those around her. Lanie didn’t need advice from a twenty-eight-year-old on her personal life right now, thank you very much. She turned her back, setting the vase of flowers on her desk.
“Anyway, I hope you’re leaving early to share a nice dinner with your husband.”
“Not exactly,” Lanie started, “but before you criticize, it just so happens that Rob and I went out for a lovely dinner at La Lumière last week. A sort of pre-anniversary celebration.”
“Wow. I’m impressed. Very romantic.” Hannah clicked her tongue.
Lanie didn’t mention that Rob had lucked out with a last-minute reservation.
“So, can you take the Sullivan file home tonight and try to whip it into shape? I need it for tomorrow and it’s a total mess.”
“I told Marty that new intern isn’t worth a hill of beans,” Hannah confirmed.
“How old are you again?” Lanie laughed. “Honestly, sometimes I think you’re channeling my mother.”
“Glad to help out, and I’ll let that comment slide.” She picked up the folders and held them close to her chest as she turned in her flats. Sometimes Lanie wished she could sign Hannah up for one of those makeover shows, one that would steer her toward clothes with a waist, shoes with a hint of heel.
She shut the door and returned to her desk. When she tapped in Rob’s number on her cell, his voice mail picked up. “Thanks for the flowers, honey. They’re gorgeous. Happy anniversary! Love you.”
Then she called Ellen.
“What should I get Rob for our anniversary?”
There was a pause. “That’s right! May Day! Happy anniversary.”
“Rob got me a gift certificate to Spa Sensations. You interested in going?”
“Absolutely.” Another pause. “But wouldn’t you rather go with your husband? Get a couples’ massage or something?”
“Rob doesn’t do spas. All that peace and quiet, no sports channel to watch. I’m pretty sure it’s his idea of purgatory.”
“Then I’m in.”
“So, ideas for my husband. Please?” She could hear the whine in her voice. How was it that she could bill a sixty- to seventy-hour workweek and yet not handle her own anniversary?
“How about a kringle in the shape of a heart?”
Lanie laughed. Somehow Ellen always managed to make her feel less stressed. “Try again.” She walked over to the window. It was a beautiful spring day, the apple tree just beyond reach sparked with tiny pink buds. “Hey, I meant to ask: How did your dinner go with that Henry guy?”
“What?” Ellen asked, talking to a customer on the other end. “Oh that. I’ll fill you in later. Gotta go. Bye.”
Lanie hung up the phone and grabbed her wallet. At the very least, she could purchase a heartfelt card for her husband.
• • • •
After she’d run to the grocery store, she picked up Benjamin early from day care. Hannah was right: it was her anniversary. To hell with work today! When she arrived, Benjamin sat in an ExerSaucer, his attention rapt on another boy who was loudly banging blocks together. The room was littered with colorful toys, and a handful of young women smiled at her.
She loved to sneak up on her little guy and surprise him so that when he turned his head and then looked back, she’d be crouching down beside him. She thought it must be confusing for a baby to have no sense of real time, no sense of when someone was going to meet you at the end of the day. After all, babies didn’t wear watches that told them when five o’clock was approaching.
“Hello, lovebug,” she whispered now. It always took him a moment to process that a familiar face was in the room, but once he did, he cracked a wide smile and started bouncing like a crazy person in his ExerSaucer. Her heart clapped in her chest. “Did you have a good day in school?”
She pulled him from the ExerSaucer, causing the cushion seat to stick up like a red umbrella, and hugged him hard. Benjamin kicked his feet. His T-shirt was splattered with remnants of his lunch of squash and sweet potato; his chin glistened with drool.
He held his head back and looked at her, as if to get a better view and be sure it was his momma. Then he opened his mouth wide and planted a big, sloppy kiss on her cheek, baby-style. It was her new favorite thing in life.
“You are such a lovebug.” She gave him another squeeze.
She gathered up his lunchbox and bottles and they said bye-bye to the staff. When they stepped outside, Benjamin squinted in the sun, as if he’d been holed up in a cave all day. Lanie broke into her usual routine of whispering in his ear, “We’re busting out. Ready, buddy? We’re busting out of school!” And he giggled with a great conspiratorial laugh, the best laugh of any baby, ever.
She had once joked with Rob that their child possessed a sixth sense, privy to their every thought. When Benjamin had been home only a few nights and woke up crying mad, she discovered he’d wet through his onesie. It was the middle of the night, she was half-asleep, Rob was still snoring in bed, and she struggled to get the soaking garment over the baby’s head in the nursery’s dim light. After she got the diaper off and a fresh one on, she looked into his big eyes, staring at her knowingly, as if to say, “The jig is up, lady. I know you don’t have a clue.”
She talked to him, saying, “We’re going to do this together, okay? You help mommy figure out how to get this fresh onesie over your head, and then she’ll sing you a pretty lullaby, okay?”
Benjamin stared at her, his bottom lip starting to quiver, gearing up for full-throttle hollering. She cupped his head, quickly stretching the shirt over. It got stuck halfway, the baby screaming, but eventually she got the thing on, the tiny snaps at the bottom fastened. Only after she’d picked him up and rubbed his back, cooing to him that all was right with the world, did she realize she’d forgotten to use the wipes or the diaper cream.
As she sang “Little hands and little feet, little nose and little toes” that night, she breathed his scent in deep and hugged him tight till he surprised her with a big football player’s belch that made her laugh. Then she watched in awe, his head cradled in her elbow, as he slowly let his lids close under long, dark lashes, soft little breaths emanating from his parted baby lips. Perfection.
• • • •
She let herself and Benjamin into the house. She needed to slow down, she could hear her mother’s voice inside her head: “You’re doing too much; take your time; breathe.” Harriet McClarety would scold her for not taking a moment to appreciate what was wonderful about the here and now. “Lanie, you live for the forest, not the trees,” she’d told her young daughter once, and Lanie, only six, hadn’t understood what she meant at the time. Of course, now she knew.
Tonight she would savor the trees. She would cook her husband a mouth-watering dinner, a rare treat.
After she’d unpacked t
he chicken, rice, carrots, ginger, and broccoli, she poured herself a glass of wine and carried Benjamin into the living room, a sea of toys. Lately he was fascinated by the way things came together, putting the lid on a jar, taking it off again. He could do this a hundred times and never tire of it. Eventually, though, he crawled across the living room to the bay window, where the late afternoon light fell in slats across the window seat. The baby pulled himself up, holding on to the seat’s edge with one hand. He grabbed at the streaks of sunlight in the air, as if they were something to catch and bottle up. Each time his hand came up empty he looked surprised, opening and closing his fingers, searching for where the beams could have disappeared.
“It’s magic,” she explained in her best surprised voice. “Catch the sun, baby. You can do it.”
He tried again, then shaped his lips into an O and made a noise that reminded her of Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman. It was a big “Oooh-ahh!” that sounded as if he’d joined the baby mafia, this its clarion call.
She took the imaginary beam from his open hand, his fat fingers splayed wide.
“Thank you, baby. I’ve been looking for that sunlight all day.”
Benjamin beamed with pride. She wanted so much for this child; she would give him the sun if she could.
“Come here now. Be careful.” She grabbed him under the arms and carried him, his legs kicking all the way, to the pile of blocks on the living room floor. Instead of playing, though, he pulled himself up on a nearby walker with an electronic voice that spewed forth jingles like, “Keep going! Nice job! Don’t stop now!” It reminded her of a bad aerobics instructor. Benjamin, on the other hand, seemed charmed by the woman’s singsong voice. He pushed the yellow contraption forward as he lifted up each foot, pointing his toes like a little ballerina, before placing the foot gently down before him.
“You’ve got to start somewhere, don’t you?” she asked as she followed behind him, crossing the living room rug.
“Ba,” said Benjamin.
Here was her anniversary present, taking baby steps before her. Picking up Benjamin early from day care. A husband who sends flowers on our anniversary. Catching the sun. Three good things. Her mother had always told them to count three goods things at the end of every day. “You can always find three,” she would say, “and if you can’t, you’re not looking.” Lanie had plenty of time, she reminded herself. Plenty of time to enjoy with her little man before she had to get dinner going, get case files read.
She smiled as she wondered how many baby miles they’d walk before the sun slipped away and her husband walked through the door, the scent of homemade cooking greeting him for the first time in weeks.
“The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.”
—Frank Lloyd Wright
As many times as he replayed it in his mind, he didn’t see how he was guilty. Of anything. With anyone. Rob was in love with his wife, totally whipped, as his friends liked to say. He’d sent Lanie an avalanche of tulips on their anniversary, taken her to La Lumière. Things were good. Sure, she told him she loved his son more than him, but so what? That was natural. And if he had a stray eye every now and then, that was just the way the male species was wired. It was no crime to look, he told himself. No crime if an attractive woman happened to walk into the room in a slightly revealing blouse, a hint of lace showing underneath, and he looked twice. And, if that woman happened to be someone he was working with, he couldn’t be blamed, could he?
Rob was working late again, and it was all he could do to keep his eyes open. His desk was littered with coffee cups and soda cans. He had consumed enough caffeine to fuel an entire little league team for at least one week. He hoped Lanie would forgive him. He’d been late for the dinner she’d cooked on their anniversary night. And now, here he was again, two weeks later, pulling the same crap. Or rather, Eli was pulling the same crap. Rob had lost track of how many times he’d redrawn the west wing for the art institute, trying to devise a layout that would suit both Eli’s and his own sensibility. He refused to be a sell-out; at the same time, he didn’t want to be a martyr.
He stared at the plans that lay spread over his desk. Everything was beginning to look the same—uninspired, each new draft bereft of any sense of style that would set it apart. Going into it, he’d known this would be the toughest part to design; the guy who’d ponied up the money for it had stipulated that this wing be for and by children. That meant plenty of room for interactive displays, for art that wouldn’t necessarily be framed or behind glass like that in the rest of the museum. Rob had originally imagined the rooms unfolding like a train with connecting cars, each car with its own theme. But Eli wasn’t buying it, thought the whole idea was hokey. If he took a few steps back, Rob supposed Eli was right; he was planning a wing with his son in mind, something that would appeal to toddlers. Did five-year-olds care about choo-choo trains? Perhaps. But eleven- and twelve-year-olds? Probably not. Still, it irked Rob to have to take pointers from Eli, who didn’t even have kids.
“I’ve got eight nieces and nephews,” Eli began, when he’d weighed in on yet another conference call last week. “I think I know what would appeal to them.”
Rob hated his snippy, know-it-all tone. But it became clear that Walter Greenough didn’t want to step into their foursquare.
“You fellas figure it out. I’m sure it will be spectacular.”
When Rob reminded Eli that Madison already had a children’s museum and they couldn’t possibly compete with it, Eli replied with a quick “Pfft.” As if he’d thought of it months ago.
“What we want is something classy that will stand on its own, a place that will be a wonderful home for children’s artwork for years to come—paintings, drawings, sculpture—but that will be hip enough to appeal to today’s Internet-savvy kid. We need more electronic-driven exhibits, more interactive displays, that kind of thing.”
As if he were the wizard of hip. Rob heard Walter nodding on the other end. “Mmm hmm.”
“Geez, my understanding, Eli, was that the museum’s board of directors will figure out those details. We’re just supposed to provide the space. Are you telling me we need to do more?” Rob felt his face turning red. If Eli was going to play the prick here, he could play the bigger prick.
“Of course not. No one’s implying we do the museum’s work. But we have to give them a space that will make a good home for those kinds of things.”
“All right, all right. Let me go back to the drawing board,” Rob offered, wanting the conversation to be over, unable to disguise his annoyance. “I’ll see what I can get you. But it will be at least a week.”
“Rob, why don’t you bring Samantha in on the job,” Walter offered at the end of the call, his one piece of constructive advice, as far as Rob was concerned. Samantha was an associate architect in her late twenties; she’d no doubt have something to offer on the project. She was, after all, closer in age to their potential viewers than any of them were.
And, in fact, Samantha had proved a huge help in the last week—tweaking Rob’s ideas, diplomatically incorporating Eli’s without Rob having to deal with the man directly. It was nice, he had to admit, to have a go-between. It was their first project together, and Rob had been impressed. The girl had a sense of humor, thank God, something Eli sorely lacked. She was the one who had suggested going with a more traditional layout but sticking with Rob’s ideas to give each room its own thematic architectural style.
More brainstorming had led to one area that would feature a mosaic of children’s artwork from the city’s schools, glazed into the wall’s ceramic tiles. Another would feature a wall with stenciled quotes from famous artists and leaders meant to inspire kids’ creativity. And, in a nod to Eli, there would be a room dedicated to “interactive art,” whatever the museum’s board deemed that to be, electronic or otherwise. Two more rooms would remain open for rotating displays of current artwork from children in the city’s schools.
The deadline to show the final draft plans to the board and donor was looming, and he and Samantha had been working their tails off to make sure it was a shoe-in. Eli, on the other hand, had left the building promptly at five tonight to catch a premier of a new Bruce Willis movie. Just as well, Rob thought, as the guy had a knack for getting in the way.
“Eli and Bruce Willis?” Kate asked on her way out the door at seven. “Who knew?”
“Don’t ask me. I’m just glad he’s left the building.”
“He doesn’t seem like the Bruce Willis type, does he? Maybe he’s really Superman on his night shift.” Kate giggled at the preposterous image. “I better get out of here before I get myself in trouble.”
“Agreed,” Rob said with a grin. “Have a good night, and thanks for all your help.” He turned back to his sketch board, pencil in hand.
About a half hour later, Samantha poked her head into his office, holding out two wrapped sandwiches. “Turkey and cheese on white or tuna and tomato on rye?”
“Oh man, how did you know my stomach was growling? Turkey and cheese sounds great, thanks.”
She handed over one of the bundles wrapped in waxy paper. “I trust you’ve got your drink there?” She eyed the mess of cups scattered across his desk.
“Yeah, no shortage of caffeine here. Can I get you anything?” He gestured to the soda cans from the vending machine that Kate had set on his desk before heading out.
“No thanks. Brought my own medicine.” She held up a can of Red Bull.
“That stuff really work? I’ve never tried it.”
“Like a charm. It keeps me up for hours. Only drawback is that I probably won’t sleep a wink tonight.” She pulled up a chair and sat down at the table, unfolding the wrapper, and took a bite of her sandwich. A bit of tuna spilled out the back. She wiped at her mouth as she cast an eye over the plans. “Mind if I take a look?” Rob smelled a scent he couldn’t quite recognize. It reminded him of a shampoo he’d loved in high school. Was it Agree?