But she had been enchanted by the Jewish Montessori, helplessly enchanted, not even minding (truth be told) the ghastly tales of the Door. Instantly she had loved the vaulted ceiling and the skylights, the Frida Kahlo prints hanging on the walls, the dainty Shabbat candlesticks, and the feeling of coolness and order that was everywhere. On the day of her visit, she’d sat on a little canvas folding stool and watched in wonder as the children silently unfurled their small rugs around the room and then settled into their private, absorbing, intricate tasks. She’d felt her heart begin to slow, felt the relief of finally pressing the mute button on a chortling TV. How clearly she saw that she needn’t have been burdened for all these years with her own harried and inefficient self, that her thoughts could have been more elegant, her neural pathways less congested—if only her parents had chosen differently for her. If only they had given her this!
But the school had not made the least impression on Ondine. Every Saturday morning for ten weeks, the two of them had shuffled up the steps with eighteen other applicants and undergone a lengthy, rigorous audition process disguised as a Mommy & Me class. Kate would break out in a light sweat straightaway. Ondine would show only occasional interest in spooning lima beans from a small wooden bowl to a slightly larger one. “Remember, that’s his job,” Kate would whisper urgently as Ondine made a grab for another kid’s eyedropper. The parents were supposed to preserve the integrity of each child’s work space, and all these odd little projects—the beans, the soap shavings, the tongs and the muffin tin, even the puzzles—were supposed to be referred to as jobs.
Ten weeks of curious labor, and then the rejection letter arrived, on rainbow stationery. Kate was such an idiot—she sat right down and wrote a thank-you note to the school’s intimidating and faintly glamorous director in the hope of improving Ondine’s chances for the following year. Maybe a few more spots for brown girls would open up? She had never been so crushed. “You’re not even Jewish,” her mother said, not a little uncharitably. Her friend Hilary, a Montessori Mommy & Me dropout, confessed to feeling kind of relieved on her behalf. “Didn’t it seem, you know, a bit robotic? Or maybe Dickensian? Like children in a bootblacking factory.” She reminded Kate about the director’s car, which they had seen parked one Saturday morning in its specially reserved spot. “Aren’t you glad you won’t be paying for the plum-colored Porsche?”
Kate wasn’t glad. And she did take it personally, despite everybody’s advice not to. Week after week, she and her child had submitted themselves to the director’s appraising, professional eye, and, for all their earnest effort, they had still been found wanting. What flaw or lack did she see in them that they couldn’t yet see in themselves? Even though Kate spoke about the experience in a jokey, self-mocking way, she could tell that it made people uncomfortable to hear her ask this question, and she learned to do so silently, when she was driving around the city by herself or with Ondine asleep in the back of the car.
“Can I get the mommy giraffe for Christmas?” Ruthie asks at the end of what she estimates is five minutes. She stops at the bottom of the steps leading up to the big green house and waits for an answer. She wants an answer, but she also wants to practice ballet dancing, so she takes many quick tiny steps back and forth, back and forth, like a Nutcracker snowflake in toe shoes.
“People are trying to come down the stairs,” her mother says. “Do you have to go potty? Let’s go find the potty.”
“I’m just dancing!” Ruthie says. “You’re hurting my feelings.”
“You have to go potty,” her mother says. “I can tell. And Daddy told you: no more accidents.” But Ruthie sees that she is not really concentrating—she is looking at the big map of the Elves’ Faire and finding something interesting—and Ruthie will hold the jiggly snowflake feeling inside her body for as long as she wants. This will mean that she wins, because when she doesn’t go potty regular things like walking or standing are more exciting. She’s having an adventure.
“It says there’s a doll room. Does that sound fun? A special room filled with fairy dolls.” Her mother leans closer to the map and then looks around at the real place, trying to make them match. “I think it’s down there.” She points with the hand that is not holding Ruthie’s.
Ruthie wants to see what her mother is pointing at, but instead she sees a man. He is standing at the bottom of the hill and looking up at her. He is not the acorn man, and he does not have a golden crown like the kind a king wears, or the pointy hat of a wizard. She has seen Father Christmas by the raffle booth, and this is not
