We agree to get together soon, and then she disconnectsmidsentence.
Inside the house, the kids are glued to the televisionset and Laney is nowhere to be found—again.
I actually panic for a moment: Did she leave early? Couldthe kids have arrived home from school without her waiting there to open thedoor? Child neglect! I think of the court case I’ve been assigned to.
I will have to prosecute Laney.
But then I will be prosecuted for hiring an illegal. Nogood.
I know she didn’t arrive until after the morning rush,because I had to put the kids on the bus. Then she gave me some attitude anddisappeared into the depths of the house. And after that? My mind flashes to aterrible scene: Laney lying dead somewhere, our immigrant babysitter, with noidentification except her Planet Fitness membership. How would I describe herto the police? As a beautiful, twenty-two-year-old Latina who chose to trampherself up with long blond Shakira hair and really tight stretch jeans? A manin blue would come to my door with just a diamond belly stud in his palm, and Iwould burst into tears.
“Laney!” I shout. “Donde esta?”
She emerges from the basement slowly, with her head down.I can tell instantly that she’s in one of her black moods, but I don’t care.She’s not dead! My children were not neglected, exactly. I practically hug her.
“Hola,” she mopes.
“Hola!”
Laney sighs. “There is so much laundry.”
“Yes!”
“I just couldn’t…” She gestures toward the kitchen. I turnand see that nothing—and I mean nothing—has changed in the kitchen sinceI left the house at 8:00 this morning. Some dishes are piled in the sink andsome are holding firm at the spots on the island where the kids ate half theirbreakfast. It’s like a ghost-town kitchen, or something dug up from Pompeii,abandoned yet completely intact. It’s an art installment at the Whitney: StillLife with Sour Milk.
“What the—?” I crush an enormous ant underfoot foremphasis.
“I just couldn’t…” She trails off. Because really, what isthere to say? We both know that she hasn’t cared about her job for a long time.
We stand in silence for a moment, evaluating the tangledmess of the kitchen and the inertia in our respective lives.
Then I remember Laney’s text from earlier in the day,which I never responded to. She perks up considerably when I tell her that,yes, she can leave a half hour early tonight to catch a train into the city fora concert at Madison Square Garden.
She consults her watch. “So, I go in…twenty-sevenminutes?”
“Sure, Laney. Knock yourself out.” She does mentalcalculations. That gives her roughly seven minutes to clean the kitchen andtwenty minutes to style her hair—no doubt with my ceramic straighteningiron.
“Okay!” she decides, clapping her hands together like, nowI’m really going to get down to work!
When Laney calls out her good-byes a few minutes later andthe screen door slams behind a trail of spicy perfume, I breathe a sigh ofrelief.
My house, my kids, my little world. “Ben and Becca! Timefor dinner!” I sing, imagining the nice family conversation we will havehuddled around the table.
“Ow!” Ben cries from the sunroom.
“Give it back!” Becca wails.
“No! It’s mine!”
There is a crashing sound. I reach the sunroom in time totear my kids apart, yelling something asinine like, “Stop it this instant! Oneof you could lose an eye!”
When that doesn’t get them to lay off each other, I reachdeep into my bag of mom tricks for more powerful weapons. “No television forthe rest of the night! No dessert! No stories before bed?”
Not working. Ben is now kicking Becca and she is pullinghis hair.
I throw a biggie at them. “If you don’t get off each otherright now, Jackie won’t come to babysit this week!”
Instantly, they jump apart. Becca smooths her hair backfrom her face, and Ben sucks his lips in tight. Both are straight-backed and atarmy-like attention, with their big eyes on me.
My kids love Jackie more than they’ll ever love me. She’san education major at a local college who is so popular with neighborhood kidsthat I have to book her sometimes months in advance. If she didn’t come tosleep over on Thursday night, they’d be devastated.
“Now, that’s more like it,” I sigh. “Come have dinner.”
“What is it?” Ben asks.
“Mac and cheese and chicken nuggets.”
“Again?” they complain in unison.
“Laney was supposed to make meatloaf, but she didn’t. Sorry.”
“You could make something else,” Becca suggests, “like acall for sushi.”
“Maybe tomorrow,” I muse.
The kids are tucked into their beds and I am nursing aheadache. I can hear Doug in the shower when I come up from the basement,having just folded the laundry that Laney left in the dryer.
I go into the bathroom and knock on the glass wall. “Hi!”I call out.
He wipes away some condensation so that I can sort of seehim in there. He waves.
“How was your day?” I ask.
“Whah?” he answers over the running water.
I try again, louder. “How was…nothing,” I say. “Forgetit.” I already know the answer.
I turn to the bedroom door handle where I have hung thedry cleaning, and begin removing it from its plastic wrap. I open the closetand push aside my cheerleading uniform from high school. Laney borrowed it fora costume party and actually returned it. Surprise.
Doug opens the shower door. “Hey, Lauren? Where’d you go?”
“I’m here,” I call from the bedroom.
“Is that a new pocketbook I saw downstairs?”
“Not new!” I yell. Technically, this is true. Sophie saidit had been used once for a Chloe ad.
After a moment’s pause, Doug says, “Really? Because Ihaven’t seen it before.”
“That doesn’t make it new.”
“The blue one?”
“Right.”
“Huh.”
“Also,” I say, “if I may point out, I am working hard. Iknow that my paycheck is needed for real stuff, like our electricity, forinstance. But sometimes it’s nice to…break out a little bit. Splurge onsomething. To make me feel…”
“Can you hand me a new razor?” Doug interrupts.
I go into the hall closet and come back, still talking.“Just to make me feel…special.” I pass the razor through the mist. He closesthe door behind him and we go back to raised voices.
“Lauren, those ‘special’
