The Perfect Mother(11)

“Nell,” Colette says, glancing at the glass in front of Nell, wondering how many drinks she’s had. “Don’t be weird. She’s going to want her phone.”

“Just a sec.” Nell swipes the screen.

“What are you doing?” Francie asks.

“Having what I’m sure is a wholly terrible idea.”

“What?” Colette asks.

Nell is silent as she swipes, presses, and then turns off the screen. “Done.”

“What did you do?”

“I deleted the app. The Peek-a-Boo! thing. It’s gone.”

“Nell!” says Francie, covering her mouth.

“Oh, please. Let’s be real. We’re here tonight for her. So she can unwind, get a break. Staring at the baby doesn’t qualify as either of those things.” Nell reaches down to put Winnie’s phone in her purse. “It’s fine. It’s for her own good. It will take her two minutes to reinstall it if she wants to.”

Colette is aware of a growing ache behind her eyes—the music, the crowd building around them on the deck, what Nell just did. She’s ready to go home.

“At least give me her phone,” Francie says. “Her key’s in there. Let me hold it until she comes back to the table.”

“I got it. Relax.” Nell turns her back to Colette and leans toward the women on the other side of her. “What are you guys talking about?”

“My sister,” one says. “She’s thirty weeks and just found out she has a prolapsed uterus. It sucks. She has to get a labial hitch.”

“What on earth is a labial hitch?”

“I know,” Nell says, a little too loudly. “You stick it in your vagina. There’s a hook on the end, for pulling the stroller. Makes grocery shopping and trips to the Laundromat easier.” She rattles the ice cubes in her glass and swallows the last of her drink. “I’ll be right back.” She stands, singing under her breath, and walks toward the bar. “I want more, more, more. More more more.”


10:04 p.m.



“I think she needs less, less, less,” Francie says to Colette, waving away a cloud of smoke from people lighting cigarettes at the deck railing, in front of the No Smoking sign. She waits as long as she can bear before peeking at her phone inside her bag. It’s been twelve minutes, and Lowell still hasn’t responded to the text she sent him. The night is only growing more humid—a heavy humidity unlike anything she experienced in Tennessee—and her head is beginning to throb. Day three without caffeine, and she’s feeling it. She’s been dying for even a sip of coffee, but she can’t do it. Everything she’s been reading says the very best thing to do if your milk supply is decreasing is to give up caffeine. Will’s been so irritable and unhappy these past few days. He’s never been an easy baby—the nurse who answers the nonemergency line at the pediatrician’s office keeps telling Francie it’s a classic case of colic. That it will pass around the fifth week. But Will is seven weeks and two days, and it’s only getting worse. It’s not colic, she’s decided. He’s irritable because she’s run out of milk and is starving him. Certainly she can give up caffeine if it will help.

She decides to text Lowell one more time, knowing he’ll tell her to stop obsessing about the baby and have fun. But she hasn’t been able to stop thinking about Will since she left the apartment, sure he’s spent the last two hours screaming inconsolably, the way he sometimes does in the evenings, making himself sick.

Everything okay? Did you get my last few messages? She hits send and feels immediately relieved to see the three dots signaling that Lowell is responding. She waits, clutching her phone.

Do you want the good news or bad?

A blast of fear courses through her body. What happened? She sends the message and waits. Lowell, answer me. What’s the bad news?

Three dots. Nothing. Three dots. The Cardinals suck.

She exhales. Don’t do that please. How’s the baby?

That’s the good news. Sleeping. Took the bottle and passed out.

Francie feels a twinge of worry. She told Lowell to give Will the bottle of formula she’d prepared only if the baby was upset. It was Will’s first time ever having formula. She’s been setting her alarm the last few mornings, hoping to wake before him to pump extra milk, but she’s gotten hardly anything, not even half an ounce.

She types Does that mean he was very upset, but then someone sits on the chair next to her. She looks up, hoping it’s Winnie returning to the table. But it’s Colette.

“I just did a quick round of the bar,” Colette says. “I can’t find Winnie.”

Francie drops her phone into her purse. “It’s so strange. She can’t still be talking to that guy.”

“Why not?” Colette asks. “She is single. Maybe she went home with him.”

“Went home with him? She wouldn’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because she wouldn’t leave without her phone and key. And because she has to get home to Midas.”

“I don’t know. The others are beginning to leave. I kind of want to go too.”

“We can’t leave without her,” Francie says, looking increasingly concerned. “And now where on earth is Nell?”