Rich and Pretty(69)

The buzzer rings once more, and she realizes that of course she won’t have to make conversation today, after all—when playing hostess, you never get to speak to anyone in any satisfying detail. They’re not there to talk to her anyway; they’re there to coo, to give presents, to pay respects.

It’s Fiona, who’s taken the elevator up with Lulu and Lulu’s friend Sharon, Auntie Sharon, a silver-haired, soft-spoken woman, a photographer of great renown, one of Lulu’s closer friends. Sharon is carrying a big tote bag—Lulu has no doubt prevailed upon her for some photographs of the new mother, or, more likely, one of herself and grandson. Sarah’s eye falls first though, on Fiona, the swollen tautness of her belly. As etiquette decrees, a warm hug for Sharon, whom she’s not seen since the wedding, then a quick hello to her mother, then an embrace, the first she means, with Fiona, so tall and expansive, pulling her nearer to her body, its leaking nipples.

“You didn’t tell me,” she says. “Congratulations.”

Fiona brushes this aside. “It’s your party,” she says. “But yes, now you see.”

“Playdates! We’ll have playdates.” Sarah finds this genuinely exciting. She closes the door.



The right gift eluded Lauren. Her initial thought had been a blanket. Then she had a drink, one night, with Jill, poor Jill, eager for some female companionship. Jill had e-mailed, Jill had called, Jill had kept the nanny on late one Wednesday evening and Jill had met her at an annoying Cuban-cum-French place that had always driven Lauren crazy but Jill chose, and Jill paid, so she went. She drank rosé, listened to stories about Jill’s nanny, who seemed to be the only connection to reality in Jill’s life. Jill’s nanny was a painter, and her boyfriend was a photographer whom Jill described, more than once, as sexy, which was an intriguing admission. Lauren used the opportunity to do some focus grouping.

“Whatever you do, don’t get her a blanket,” the first thing Jill said, upon being asked the best baby gift, without knowing that’s just what Lauren had planned on.

She didn’t protest, didn’t counter that it was Missoni. Jill knew, Jill must be heeded. So, no blanket. Lauren spent a few days in the stacks at various bookstores, putting together a list of the least-boring children’s board books, the ones with the best pictures, the ones with the least-sexist stories, but then she remembered that she worked in books, and such a gift would seem like something plucked from the free table at work. The big-ticket items were a possibility—a stroller, a crib, a high chair—but there was nothing special in those, the presents a wealthy aunt would send.

“A Tiffany rattle?” she tried.

“Very WASP,” Jill said. “Perfectly good taste, perfectly useless.”

Uselessness was the point, but it did have the feeling of anonymity; a silver rattle is what your husband’s employer’s human resources department would send by way of congratulations.

Lauren assumes the doorman at Sarah’s building knows her, but he doesn’t. He looks at her, looks at the box in her hands, understands, and says, “Burton?” The doorman rings the apartment without asking her name, waves her along.

The package is unwieldy, but not heavy. She’s settled on some ridiculous clothes, the sort no reasonable mother would buy for her own child: a tiny, cashmere cardigan; a gingham button-down shirt with faux mother-of-pearl buttons; a pair of velvety corduroy pants, bright green; a very small fedora; an honest-to-God sailor suit, with navy blue shorts, crisp white smock, and neckerchief printed with tiny anchors and cartoon whales, all meant to be worn when he’s a much bigger boy—she’s even accounted for season and his relative age, buying the sailor’s suit in size 12 months, so Henry can wear it at some point next summer. She’s also bought a photo album, or a blank book anyway, bound in green leather, and plans a lecture about how no one gets actual printed photographs anymore, but there’s something about flipping through the pages of an album that scrolling around on a telephone cannot replicate.

Sarah answers the door. She looks very different, at first, and it’s because Lauren’s mental image of Sarah is Sarah on her wedding day. Sarah looks, now, nothing like that. Her hair looks thinner, somehow, or flatter, which is odd, given the day’s humidity. Summertime Sarah’s hair is usually so voluminous. There’s a hardness, too, to her face—she’s lost weight, that’s what it is. There’s that residual glow, of pregnancy, which has mellowed into the satisfaction of the parent. Lauren wasn’t sure what she expected—dark circles under the eyes, maybe, a general harried air—but she knows that Henry’s a decent sleeper, actually, eats his fill like clockwork, then dozes and mews in his little sleeper, attached to their bed. It makes a certain kind of sense that Sarah would have a perfect baby; it’s of a piece with the general expectation, in her life, of perfection. She looks good. She looks like her younger self, and it’s a look that seems better, more beautiful, now than it did then.

“Hi!” As she kisses Sarah, Lauren spies the small crowd in the apartment. She wills herself into party mode.

“You’re here.” Sarah pulls her into the apartment, closes the door.

It is cold inside, almost like a refrigerator. The apartment smells, as it always does, of nothing at all. It’s like a hotel, she’s always thought, Sarah and Dan’s apartment, anonymous, incongruous, well ordered and maintained, like a model home.