This Will Only Hurt a Little(72)

Eliza and I were sitting together, having just witnessed a young child actress being told she wasn’t getting a part and having a literal breakdown in the ABC lobby, when Bill approached us. “Hey, guys, how are you feeling? So listen, here’s what’s gonna happen. We still need to go through with this, because this is the bullshit of how things are done. But Busy, you’re getting this part, and Eliza, you have that network test in an hour for the superhero pilot, and you’re getting that part. I talked to those guys and you already have it so, yeah! You both have jobs! Yay! See you in there!”

And then he turned and walked off, leaving Eliza and me to sort through the craziness of being told before going in that I had gotten the part and she hadn’t but that she was getting another pilot.

She turned to me. “Ummm. That was weird, but congratulations?”

I laughed. “Yeah. You too? How fucking weird. So we still have to go do this, I guess?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s the show you got??”

“Oh. It’s fine. It’s some show that’s never getting picked up.”

We sat there in silence and then were called upstairs for our test, knowing it didn’t matter. It had already been decided.

I still had no nanny and didn’t know how to work out my breastfeeding schedule and pumping on the pilot. Birdie was only seven months old. The woman who had been cleaning my house once a week agreed to come with me and Birdie to set on the days I had to work. Marc couldn’t watch her because he and Abby were on a deadline for some movie.

Christa wasn’t very kind to me about not having a full-time nanny. “Well, that’s not going to work at all. No. You need to hire someone immediately.”

I was too embarrassed to tell her there was no way we could afford to hire a full-time nanny at the moment. I had lost all my money in my stupid house and had barely worked in over a year.

I hardly remember shooting the pilot, but I loved Courteney and Dan Byrd immediately. I liked working with Bill, and while I thought she was super funny, I was afraid of Christa, which seemed to be the consensus of most of the crew, who had worked with her on Scrubs. They liked her and were also terrified of her.

After we shot the pilot, I got an email from our old next-door neighbor Penelope/Stephanie telling me that her cousin was looking to share their longtime nanny with someone. She had worked for them for almost eight years and now the kids were in elementary school and it didn’t make much sense for the nanny to continue full-time. Would I want to meet her? I wrote Penelope’s cousin an email and she put me in touch with Iliana.

Iliana came over to meet me and the baby and as soon as she walked into my house and took Birdie from my arms, I knew things would be okay. She asked if she could wash and put away my clothes as well, and I told her that wasn’t necessary, but all of a sudden my laundry was done and put away. She helped me make all of Birdie’s baby food from scratch, something I had already started doing. She dressed Birdie in her cutest outfits, outfits I never had the time to look for or put together, and would walk her around the house, singing to her in Spanish and calling her “Municita” and “Mama.” Birdie adored her, as did I. She worked part-time, a few days a week, which I could afford now that my Cougar Town pilot check had cleared. But she would stay late if we needed and encouraged me to go out and have fun and would reassure me that I was, in fact, doing everything right.

“You’re such a good mother. You are, Busy, you are,” Iliana would say as she rubbed my back in circles, the same way she would rub Birdie’s back when she put her down for her naps. My kitchen was suddenly always clean. My baby was happy. I could breathe and go to the gym and meet friends for lunch without disrupting Birdie’s nap schedule. I started to feel a little like myself again.

The show was picked up and I was about to turn thirty. I decided to throw myself a big party in Palm Springs. I had fucking made it. It was all happening. I had almost lost all of my baby weight, no easy feat for me, especially considering I was still breastfeeding. And since Iliana had started working for us, I was feeling like maybe I didn’t have to divorce Marc after all.

We started shooting the series the week of Birdie’s first birthday. The show was fun and the crew was great. Aside from Christa whispering to Courteney on set, which always made me feel like she was talking about me in the first few months, I liked working. Iliana—who was with us full-time now—would bring Birdie to set to visit and stroll her around the lot. Once the show was officially picked up for a whole season, we were all given dressing rooms and not trailers, so I set up my room as a little playroom for Birdie. I went to Ross Dress for Less and bought a bunch of toys and things that she didn’t have at home so she would look forward to visiting me.

Birdie was incredibly bright and verbal. By the time she was one, she had over fifty words that she would use in little two-and three-word sentences. I remember talking to the pediatrician about it, who told me that I needed to know that if we had another child, he or she would probably not be the same as Birdie. I told her not to worry, we were ONE AND DONE. I was NOT HAVING ANOTHER BABY. Birdie’s verbal acuity was actually abnormal. But it made sense. In the first many months of Birdie’s life, I talked to her nonstop, partially out of daily loneliness on my part and partially because I had read a baby book that said the more you can talk to your child, the calmer they will be. That you should try to explain to them everything you’re doing and everything that’s happening around them. But just in your regular voice, not in a baby voice. Which is what I had done.