The Perfect Mother(4)

“I’m from Tennessee.”

“—but it’s not normal here.”

A hot wind blows the edge of the blanket, covering Francie’s son’s face. “Well, you shouldn’t say things like that,” Francie says, lifting the baby to her shoulder. “I’m superstitious.”

Nell puts down the newspaper and unzips her diaper bag. “It’s something Sebastian says. He grew up in Haiti. They’re more accustomed than us Americans to paying attention to the planet, you could say.”

Francie raises her eyebrows. “But you’re British.”

“Everything okay over there?” Colette calls to Scarlett, who is standing among the cluster of strollers in the shade, babies asleep inside. Scarlett ties the corners of a thin cotton blanket over the handles of her stroller and returns to the circle.

“I thought the baby was awake,” she says, reclaiming her spot next to Francie and taking a bottle of hand sanitizer from her bag. “It was a long night, so please, nobody go near him. What did I miss?”

“The world is ending, apparently,” Francie says, sucking the chocolate off a pretzel, the one indulgence she has come to allow herself.

“True,” Nell says. “But I have just the antidote.” She holds up the bottle of wine she’d taken from her diaper bag.

“You brought wine?” Colette smiles, twisting her hair into a bun as Nell unscrews the cap.

“Not just any wine. The best vinho verde twelve dollars can buy at nine thirty in the morning.” She pours two inches into a small plastic cup from the stack in her diaper bag, and extends it to Colette. “Drink fast. It’s kind of warm.”

“Not me,” Yuko says, circling the blanket, bouncing her daughter at her chest. “Yoga later.”

“Me neither,” says Francie. “I’m nursing.”

“Oh, horseshit,” says Nell. “We’re all nursing.” She raises her hand to clarify. “Unless you’re not. Unless you go home and draw the curtains and secretly administer formula. That’s fine too. Either way, a little wine isn’t going to hurt.”

“That’s not what the books say,” Francie says.

Nell rolls her eyes. “Francie, stop reading the propaganda. It’s fine. In England, most of my friends drank a little bit, right through their pregnancy.”

Colette offers Francie a reassuring nod. “Have a drink if you want. It’s not going to hurt Will.”

“Really?” Francie looks at Nell. “Okay, fine. But just a little.”

“Me too. To celebrate,” Scarlett says, reaching for the next cup. “Did I mention this? We’re about to close on a house. In Westchester.”

Francie groans. “You too? Why is everyone moving to the suburbs all of a sudden?”

“I’d rather move farther upstate, to be honest, but Professor Husband just got tenure at Columbia and needs to be close.” Scarlett glances around the group. “No offense, I know a lot of people love it, but I can’t imagine raising a kid in this city. Since the baby, all I see is how filthy it is here. I want him to know clean air and trees.”

“Not me,” says Nell. “I want my baby raised in squalor.”

Francie sips her wine. “I wish we could afford to move to Westchester.”

“Winnie?” Nell asks. “Wine?”

Winnie is staring off into the distance, watching a young couple throwing a Frisbee back and forth on the long meadow, a border collie running dizzily between them. She doesn’t seem to hear Nell. “Winnie, love. Come back to us.”

“Sorry,” Winnie says, smiling at Nell and then glancing down at Midas, who is beginning to stir awake in the crook of her legs, his hands tucked against his ears. “What did you say?”

Nell extends a cup across the circle. “Do you want a little wine?”

Winnie lifts Midas to her chest and peers at Nell, her mouth buried in his black hair. “No. I shouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Alcohol doesn’t always agree with me.”

“What’s wrong with you people?” Nell tips a stream of wine into her cup and rescrews the top. A large tattoo of a hummingbird—wispy and pastel—emerges from under the sleeve of her black T-shirt. She takes a sip. “God, that’s bloody awful. Oh, listen to this. I went out without the baby yesterday, to get a coffee. A woman looked at my stomach, congratulated me, and asked me when I was due.”

“That’s obnoxious,” Yuko says. “What did you tell her?”

Nell laughs. “November.”

Francie looks at Winnie, who is again staring out across the lawn, a stiffness to her face. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “This heat’s just getting to me.”

“Speaking of which, can we discuss another meeting place?” Yuko asks, laying her son on the blanket and hunting inside her bag for a clean diaper. “It’s only going to get hotter. The babies will melt out here.”

“We could go to the library,” Francie suggests. “They have an empty room in the back we could reserve.”

“Well, that sounds dreadful,” Nell says.

“Have any of you been to that new beer garden, near the big playground?” Colette asks. “Charlie and I went the other day, and there were a few mom groups there with their babies. Maybe we should do that once in a while. We could meet for lunch.”