The Breakup Club Part 4

And of course, per Murphy's Law, because my wife and child were gone and I had nothing to do but stare at an empty apartment and wonder where the h.e.l.l my life had gone, I put my energy into my job. I was still rumpled in my khakis and in need of a haircut, but I'd worked my a.s.s off for the past two months, acquiring "guy" books (as my female co-workers referred to them) at Bold Books, where I was a senior editor making a perfectly decent salary for anyone but Jodie. I'd be at work, editing a ma.n.u.script or working on an art form for a book that needed great packaging to sell it, and I'd glance at the clock on my computer and it would be nine-thirty at night. On weekends, if I wasn't visiting Ava, I was in the office. All I did was work.

Two weeks ago, Jodie and I finally worked out a custody arrangement. Before then, I'd been taking the train out to Chappaqua every Sat.u.r.day morning to visit Ava. I'd play with her in her new and gigantic nursery/playroom for three hours, put her down for her nap, then take the train back to Manhattan and stare at the walls of my tiny new apartment until I forced myself to do some work to fill the void until the following Sat.u.r.day. Jodie finally declared me fit for unsupervised weekend visitation (oh, thank you, Queen Jodie!), and our new arrangement was that I picked up Ava after work on Friday and returned her on Sunday morning.

So far, so good. Jodie had stopped by a few weeks ago to inspect my new apartment for babyproofing and to make sure I had everything Ava would need. I pa.s.sed inspectionthanks to a guy I used to work with who was married with two kids under two. He and his wife and the kids had come over, and my newly decorated bachelor pad was completely upended. The coffee table was sent to Goodwill. Every electrical outlet was plugged up. Potentially poisonous plants were given away. My cleaning supplies were removed from the cabinet under the sink and placed in one above the refrigerator.

Ava's makes.h.i.+ft nursery was stocked with diapers, wipes, thermometers, nail scissors, all kinds of ointments, baby medicines, and everything and anything an eleven-month-old baby could ever need. Except a father who had any idea what he was doing.

"h.e.l.lo? Christopher? You there?" Ginger was whispering through the door, unnecessary since Ava was clearly not sleeping.

"Waah! Waah-waah!"

"Uh, got my hands full changing Ava," I called out. I nuzzled Ava's head. "It's okay, sweetsies," I whispered to her scalp.

"Do you need help?" Ginger called back.

"No, I've got it. Thanks, though. See you later."

Silence. And then. "Okay. I'll check in on you two later."

Please don't. I waited until I heard her door close down the hall, and then I grabbed Ava's stroller, her diaper bag, one of her bottles from the fridge, and I tiptoed out, closing the door and locking it as quietly as possible. As I waited for the elevator, Ava thankfully silent, I heard a phone ring down by Ginger's door, then her loud h.e.l.lo.

Saved.

"Did you know your baby is wearing only one shoe?"

I was standing on the corner of York and Eighty-fourth, waiting for the light to change. My hands were on the push bar of Ava's stroller, which was on the sidewalk and not in the street (as dictated by Ava's Checklist).

I felt a tap on my arm. "Your baby's missing a shoe," the same voice said.

I glanced at the middle-aged woman standing next to me, then at Ava's feet. She was indeed missing one pink leather shoe. "Thanks," I said to the woman. "I'll go hunt it down."

"Clean it first," she said, wrinkling her nose at the piles of garbage bags awaiting pickup on the curb. "The streets are disgusting."

I nodded and turned Ava's stroller around, looking everywhere for her shoe, which she must have kicked off along the way. We'd only gone half a block, but I didn't see her shoe anywhere. Had a dog grabbed it?

"Looking for this?" asked a thirtyish woman wheeling a stroller toward me. "I found it up the block. When I noticed you turn around, I saw your baby had only one shoe on, and I picked it up for you."

"Thanks."

How had two strangers noticed Ava was shoeless, but her own father hadn't?

I knelt down next to Ava and tried to put her shoe back on. She wiggled her foot away. I tried again. More wiggling. I stuck the shoe into her diaper bag and wheeled her stroller back around toward the park.

"You're the parent," another female voice informed me. "Just remember that. If you need to put on her shoe and she's resisting, just shove it on her foot. End of story."

I glanced up. Oh no. Noooo! It was the Know-It-All-Mom Posse. s.h.i.+t! They'd surrounded me last weekend in the playground. Two blondes, and a brunette. All in their thirties, all in the same outfit: cropped down jackets in sherbety colors, one-hundred-fifty-dollar jeans, high-heeled black boots.

I realized I was blocking their path, and scooted Ava's stroller out the way.

"We'll wait for you," one of the blondes said. "You're heading to Carl Schurz playground, right?"

"Um, yeah," I said. "But I need to make a couple of stops, so go ahead."

"Just remember, you're the parent," the other blonde said in that tone, and I wanted to take the red scarf around her neck and pull both ends tight.

The brunette gave me a condescending smile. "You're doing fine."

Duh. I know. I don't need you to validate me, okay, honey? Not that I was defensive. Or anything.

Off they toddled with their strollers.

Once Ava's shoe was back on (now that I didn't care if she wore it or not, she let me put it on with zero resistance), she took her hat off her head and began chewing it. I headed for the deli on the corner and grabbed a banana for Ava's afternoon snack, mostly because it was the one food that didn't require cutting. I could just hold it up to her mouth and she'd take a bite.

Careful of bananas. They're constipating. No more than one banana per weekend...

That was on page two of Ava's Checklist, under the heading of meals and snacks.

"Ooh, what a darling baby! But I wouldn't let her teethe on that hat. There's all sorts of dangerous dyes."

Please don't be talking to me. I peered over at the woman waiting in line behind me. Yup, she was talking to me.

I tried to take away the hat, but Ava held firm with a "Waah! Waah-waah!"

"Well, she wants it," I said.

"If she wanted to chew on gla.s.s, would you let her?" the woman asked.

Why, yes, of course!

"You're the parent," she continued. "It's up to you. She can't have everything she wants and she needs to start learning that now."

Was You're the parent in some guidebook I hadn't read? I'd been told that fifty times in the past eleven months, forty of those times in the past two months by Jodie, and at least ten times during the past two weekends, when my life as a single father had really begun.

I handed the clerk a ten-dollar bill and waited for him to ring me up.

"I really wouldn't let her chew that," the woman reiterated, shaking her head slightly.

"I thought I was the parent," I retorted.

Her cheeks turned red. "Fine, let her get sick."

"Have a nice day," I said, and got the h.e.l.l out of there.

Could I put a sign on my forehead that said, Don't Talk To Me, Please?

I made it to the light without another word from a stranger, mostly because no one pa.s.sed me. As I entered Carl Schurz Park, I bought a hot dog from the vendor and scarfed it down. Ava eyed it, and I was about to offer her a bite when I remembered the No-No Foods list on page two. No: grapes, peanuts, popcorn, hot dogs, candy, or any hard, round food that can't be cut into tiny pieces.

I bent down and offered her some bun. She flung her hat on the ground and grabbed the bun, which she gobbled up. A kid on a skateboard promptly ran over her hat.

I stuffed the hat in my pocket, wondering how long it would take someone to say, "Did you know your baby isn't wearing a hat?"

I wondered if I would do this kind of thing too one day. Would I go around stopping mothers and fathers with baby strollers and pointing out what they could clearly (or not) see for themselves? Did you know your baby looks like an elf? You didn't? Oh, well she does!

When I entered the playgrounda huge fence-enclosed s.p.a.ce surrounded by trees that blocked the playground from view on all sidesI immediately spotted the Know-It-All-Mom Posse on the benches between the sandbox and the toddler apparatus. I headed for the benches in front of the baby swings and sent them telepathic messages: Stay where you are. Don't come near me. Do not, I repeat, do not, speak to me.

One thing I liked about playgrounds, particularly this playground, aside from the fact that it was a two-minute walk from my new apartment, was that you rarely saw families. On weekends, dads were out in full force, especially in the morning when moms were having their alone-time. Today (a Friday, but a holiday Friday), the playground was full of dads, full of singles with strollers. Not single-singles, just not duos with strollers. As in no families. I saw moms with strollers. I saw dads with strollers. But rarely did you see a mom and dad together at the playground. That solo quality made me comfortable. Mothers liked to travel in packs, I noticed, twos and threes, and sometimes an entire playgroup taking over the sandbox, but they weren't families. And not families meant I didn't have to be reminded of what I had just two months and one day ago.

Oh Lord, whip out the violins, right? I reached into the diaper bag for the insulated pack and pulled out Ava's bottle of formula, which she eagerly accepted.

"Breast is best."

No. No. No. Nooooo! Please go away. I will pay you a thousand dollars to just GO AWAY. Not that I had an extra thousand. I paid a fortune in child support, despite Jodie's insistence that she didn't need my money, that Eye-in was "quite wealthy."

"Well, Eye-in isn't Ava's father, is he?" I'd snapped back at Jodie. "And since I am and always will be, whether you like it or not, I'm paying child support. And a lot of it!"

"That's great, Chris," she'd hurled back. "Spite yourself. That's your favorite thing to do."

We had a great relations.h.i.+p. Really. Just great.

"Sweetie, don't you know that breast is best?"

I didn't even have to look up to know it was the long-haired blonde from the Know-It-All-Mom Posse.

I had a better question for her. No, I had two: Will you ever mind your own business? And will you ever stop calling a stranger, a grown man who was neither your husband nor son, sweetie?

"OmiG.o.d, do you see how fast that nanny is pus.h.i.+ng that baby on the swing?" said the brunette to the blonde Posse leader. "He can't be older than six months!"

Head shaking. Tsk-tsking.

Go Away. Leave. Skat!

The blonde had me wedged in by her Bugaboo, a status stroller that cost seven hundred fifty dollars.

"Doesn't your wife know breast is best?" the Posse leader asked. She sat down on the bench, opened her puffy down jacket, fiddled with her s.h.i.+rt and gave her baby lunch.

I looked away. I always felt funny watching a womaneven Jodiebreastfeed. Yeah, yeah, it was PC to say it was earthy and beautiful to watch your wife breastfeeding your baby, but it was actually kind of s.e.xy and the opposite of s.e.xy at the same time. I supposed it was the momentary exposure of the breastthe very idea of the breastthat was s.e.xy, the glimpse, the flash, the wonder. Wonder. Ha. I didn't need to wonder what a controlling Know-It-All would be like in bed. I already knew.

Not that Jodie was as bad as Blondie. Jodie was a strong woman, with strong opinions, and I'd always found her intelligence, her confidence, incredibly s.e.xy. It was later that she became a know-it-all and I became a know-nothing. G.o.d, Christopher, not like that. You have to support her neck! Christopher, noher diaper is on too low! Christopher, no, stop ityou really think I'm in the mood for s.e.x after the day I've had?

She was never in the mood for s.e.x, which was understandable, given her all-consuming job as a lawyerwhich she wanted to quit from the minute she found out she was pregnantand her exhausting job as a mother.

"Breast milk really is best," blond Posse leader went on. "Exclusive breastfeeding will make your baby smarter, less p.r.o.ne to illnessespecially those pesky ear infectionsand give her important antioxidants that you won't find in formula. Skylar hasn't had a single ear infection. How many has your daughter had? I'll bet at least three, and she's what? a year, right?"

Buzz! Wrong! You don't know it all!

"She's such a dumpling!" the brunette put in. "Let me guess. Thirteen months!"

Buzz! Wrong.

"No, I'd say more like ten months. She's tiny!" the other blonde said.

Buzz! Buzz-buzz-buzz!

"She's eleven months," I finally said.

"It's the antibodies in breastmilk that substantially re"

"Look," I said, "the commute on Metro North is almost an hour, so"

She interrupted me with an I-know-it-all pat on my arm. "Breast milk will keep for up to two hours if you have a good insulated pack. Do you?"

SAVE ME.

"Leave the poor guy alone. From the looks of that adorable little girl, he's doing just fine."

Was I hearing things?

I glanced up and almost dropped Ava's diaper bag. I'd not only been saved but by her. By the woman who'd caught my eye last weekend. She was pet.i.te and curvy, with short, wispy light blond hair and light brown eyes, and she carried her baby in a Bjorn. She reminded me of an actress whose name I can't recall. The one who used to be involved with Ellen DeGeneres.

Yes, please be a lesbian so that nothing will ever come of my attraction to you.

I wasn't here to pick up women. This was a playground, not a bar. Or a club, or wherever the h.e.l.l people met people. After only two years of a serious relations.h.i.+p and nine months of marriage, I had no idea how to be single.

Not that I was single. I was married. And until a judge signed otherwise, there was a chance that Jodie and I could work things out. She could move out of Eye-in's four-bedroom colonialthe one she'd always dreamed of. She could stop being a stay-at-home-motherthe job she'd wanted since she found out she was pregnant. And we could go back to what we had...which wasn't working.

Jodie had broken up our family, endured the wrath of her in-laws, the shock of her own parents and siblings, the behind-her-back whispers of her friends. She'd gone through all that to leave me. She wasn't coming back.

That my wife had an affair without my suspecting it for a second p.i.s.sed her off to no end. "You didn't even know," she'd screamed. "I've been f.u.c.king another man for months, and you didn't even know! That's how detached you are, Christopher. That's how not-there you are!"

I hadn't known. Hadn't suspected. I found out because she told me. She sat me down and told me.

I've been having an affair. It's not just s.e.x. It's love, Christopher. I'm sorry, but I've fallen in love with this man, and he's asked me to move in with him. I want this, Christopher...

Just like that, my marriage was over. My family was gone. Sometimes I found myself touching the spot on my ring finger where the silver band had been; it now sat at the bottom of my pencil cup on my desk in my new apartment.

The Posse leader eyed my savior and was about to say something when some of the baby swings freed up. "Ooh, look, those nannies are finally leaving the swings. Let's grab those three!" Off they flew.

I smiled at the woman. "Thanks for saving me," I said, gesturing at the busybodies. "I'm pretty new at all this. And I'm trying. I really am."

She smiled back. "Don't let the sanctimommies get to you."

Sanctimommies! I was in love. Not only did she have a good vocabulary, but she was funny!

"I'm Christopher and this is Ava," I said.

"Kaye," she said. "And this is Jake."

We admired each other's babies for a few seconds.