The Manny

‘Not. Now. Gussie. OUT!!!’ The dog cocked his head in the other direction, but his body, rigid and firm, remained in place.

I leaned against our bedroom doorway biting my lip, with Gracie in my arms.

Third-generation Exeter, Harvard, Harvard Law attorneys do not possess tremendous psychological apparatus for dealing with life’s little disappointments. Especially the ones like Phillip who were born and bred on Park Avenue. Nannies have raised them, cooks have served their meals and doormen have silently opened their doors. These guys can win and lose three hundred million of their clients’ dollars in the blink of an eye and retain their cool, but God forbid their driver isn’t where he’s supposed to be after a dinner party. When a glitch discomforts my own husband, his reaction is not, in any scenario in the history of the world, commensurate with the problem at hand. As a rule, it’s the most insignificant events that unleash the most seismic explosions.

This morning was one of those times. This was also one of those times when Daddy’s strict rules about swear words didn’t apply.

‘Fucking Mr Ho, obsequious fucking midget, comes here from Hong Kong, charges me a goddamn fortune for ten fucking custom-made shirts, in two separate goddamn fittings and the guy can’t sew a goddamn buttonhole? Two hundred and fifty dollars can’t get me the right goddamn fucking buttonhole?’ He stormed back into his dressing room.

I placed Gracie under the covers of our bed, with tightened lips and big saucer eyes. Even at five, she knew Daddy was being a big fat baby. She also knew if she said anything right now, Daddy would not react favourably. Michael, our two-year-old, toddled in and reached his hands in the air next to the bed, signalling he wanted help getting up. I placed him next to Gracie and kissed his head.

I waited while I struggled with the zipper on the back of my blouse, knowing …

‘Jamieeeeeeeeee!’

When Phillip proposed to me, he told me he wanted a woman with a career, a woman who first and foremost had interests outside the home. He declared himself a modern man, one who didn’t care to have his mundane needs serviced by a wife. A decade later, I beg to differ. I put on the Pinky Dinky Doo tape for the kids and calmly walked towards the voice now in the study, wondering, at that exact moment, how many women across America were dealing with early-morning husband tantrums over absolute nonsense.

‘How many times do I have to tell Carolina NOT to touch the contents on my desk? Would you please remind her that she will lose her job if she once again takes the scissors off my desk?’

‘Honey. Let’s try to remember we’re just dealing with a cuff-link problem here. I’m sure she didn’t take them, you must have put them …’

‘I’m sorry, honey.’ He kissed my forehead and squeezed my hand. ‘But I always put them in this leather cup right here so I know where to go when I need them. Fucking little idiots. Fucking Mr Ho.’

‘Phillip, cool it. Do not call Chinese people little idiots. I know you don’t mean that. Stop that, please. It’s extremely offensive. I’ll get you another shirt.’

‘I do not want another shirt, Jamie. I want to find some small scissors, preferably some nail scissors so that I can cut a little bit out of the hole.’

‘Phillip, you will ruin your shirt if you do that.’ I retrieved a perfectly fine laundered shirt from his closet. At the sight of it, he closed his eyes and took some long deep breaths through his nose.

‘I’m sick and tired of my old shirts.’

He jerked open the drawers of his desk and rummaged through each one until he found a pair of small silver nail scissors. Then for the next two minutes I watched my husband – a man who was a partner in a prestigious law firm – try to operate on the expensive Egyptian cotton.

The cuff link went through the hole and fell to the floor. ‘Fuck, now the goddamn cuff-link hole’s too big.’

Dylan picked this unfortunate moment to enter the scene. He had no idea what was going on and didn’t care.

‘Dad, I heard that. You said the F-word so you owe me a dollar. Mom can’t do my math. She can’t even do percentages.’ He thrust a fourth-grade math book at his father. ‘I need you to help me do it.’

Dylan was dressed for school in a blue blazer, striped tie, khakis and rubber-soled loafers. Even though he’d tried to smooth the top of his head down with water, there was still a clump of messy hair sticking out the back of his head. I reached out to give my son a hug but he shrugged me off.

‘Not right now, Dylan.’ Phillip studied the enlarged holes and kept poking at them with the nail scissors. ‘I’ve got a major problem here.’

‘Phillip, I told you, you’re just going to ruin your new …’

‘Let … me … do … what … I … need … to … do … to … get … to … my … client … meeting … on … time … so … that … I … can … make … a … living … here.’

‘Mom says she forgets how to multiply fractions.’

‘Dylan, now is not the time to be asking for help with work you should have done yesterday.’ Phillip was trying to be gentle, but his voice came out high-pitched and strained. Then he softened a bit, remembering. He sat down in his desk chair so he could be eye level with his son. ‘Dylan. I know you had a really really bad experience on your basketball team yesterday and …’

‘Did not.’

Phillip looked at me for guidance; he hadn’t gotten home last night in time to even talk with Dylan. ‘You didn’t have a, uh, rough time at the game?’

‘Nope.’

‘OK, Dylan. Let’s forget the game for now and talk about the math …’

‘Just so you know, I don’t ever want to talk about that game. Because it’s not important. My homework is important and it’s too hard.’ Dylan crossed his arms, and with a wounded look on his face, stared at the floor.

‘I understand.’ Phillip was really trying to reason here. ‘That’s why I want to discuss the math situation as well. How come you didn’t finish it last night? Is it because you were upset after the game?’

‘I told you! I wasn’t upset! The game doesn’t matter! We’re supposed to be talking about why you can’t help with my math. Alexander’s dad always does his math homework with him and picks him up on his tandem bicycle after school.’

‘Alexander’s daddy is a violinist and Alexander lives in a hovel.’

‘Phillip, please! Grown-up time out. Come with me.’ I grabbed his hand and pulled him back into his dressing room and closed the door.

He winked at me. I crossed my arms. He clenched his hands like two big suction cups on my bottom and pulled me into him. Then he kissed me up and down my neck.

‘You smell so good. So clean. I love your shampoo,’ he whispered.

I wasn’t having any. ‘You have got to listen to yourself this morning.’

‘I’m sorry. It’s the client meeting. It’s gotten me nervous. And now you’ve gotten me hot.’

I slapped his hand. ‘You can’t say Chinese people are little idiots within earshot of the kids. It’s so offensive to me, first of all, and if they ever heard you …’

‘You’re right.’

‘And if Alexander lives in a small apartment, you don’t need to use that as a criticism against his father, who happens to be a world-class musician. What the hell kind of message do you think that sends?’

‘That was bad.’

‘So what are you thinking? You’re driving me crazy.’

He tried to unzip my shirt. ‘You’re driving me crazy.’ He tickled the back of my ribcage.

Gracie banged on the door.

‘Mommy!’

‘Stop.’ I laughed, despite myself. ‘I can’t take it. I’ve already got three children. I don’t need a fourth. It’s a cuff-link hole, OK? Can you try to get a grip?’

‘I love you. I’m sorry. You’re right. But those shirts cost me a lot of money and you would think …’

‘Please.’

‘Fine. Let’s start again.’ He opened the door for me, gallantly motioned for me to go through it and carried Gracie back into the study like a bundle of wood under his arm.

Dylan was staring out the window, still furious. Phillip sat down at his desk chair and concentrated once again on his son. ‘Dylan. I know the homework’s hard. I suppose if you can give me some time and not ask when I’m rushing to the office.’

‘You weren’t here yesterday, or I would have asked you to help then.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Phillip grabbed Dylan’s hands and tried to look him in the eye. But Dylan pulled away. ‘You’re a big boy now and you’re old enough to do your own homework without your mother or father. If you need a tutor, then we can discuss it, but it is almost seven thirty and I have my car waiting and you have to get to school on time.’

Dylan flew on to the sofa in abject frustration. ‘Oh, maaaaaan.’ He laid spread-eagle on his back, his eyes buried in the crook of his elbow. He was too old to cry easily, but I know he wanted to. I also knew that if I went to hug him, his fragile composure would crumble and he would lose it. I kept a safe distance.

‘All the moms can’t do the math homework, and all the dads in my class have to do it for everyone. It’s not fair that you won’t help me.’

‘Were you spending too much time on your Xbox?’ Phillip looked at me. ‘Jamie, we’ve got to start monitoring his time with those screens, it’s just too …’

‘Dad, you’re the one who bought me Madden 07!’

‘He doesn’t play video games until he’s finished with his homework. He knows the rules,’ I answered. ‘You know, today’d be a good day to ease up on the rules around …’

‘Dylan,’ he said tenderly, now sitting on the edge of the couch. ‘It’s just that Daddy has a hard time understanding sometimes. I love you very much and I am so proud of you and I will figure out some time tonight to get this done.’ He tapped him on the nose. ‘You got it?’

‘Yeah.’ Dylan stifled a smile.

Gracie appeared at the doorway of Phillip’s office with a small pink pair of plastic Barbie scissors and raised them in silent offering.

Phillip looked at her. Then at me. Then he laughed out loud. ‘Thank you, honey.’ He pulled Gracie over and ruffled her hair. Then he picked up Dylan and gave him a huge bear hug. Just when I was convinced Phillip was a real monster, he would do something that would make me think that maybe I could still love him. In my moments of deep honesty, I tell my friend Kathryn I might leave Phillip at some point down the road. We drift, he’s impossible, and then he acts responsible and fatherly and I think I’m going to try to make this work after all.

‘Dylan, we’re going to get through this together. As a family.’ Then he turned to me. ‘Give me the old shirt. I’m late. Call Mr Ho for me and tell him he’s got twenty-four hours to fix all ten shirts. If I have to deal with him, I’ll call in a hit squad.’

We rode down in the elevator together with backpacks and cell phones and jackets flying everywhere: my husband, Dylan, Gracie and baby Michael, Carolina the housekeeper with our Wheaten Terrier Gussie, and our nanny Yvette. The fact that Phillip had moved beyond his buttonhole tantrum didn’t mean he was actually going to engage with the rest of us. Dressed in his lawyer suit and shiny black shoes, he was readying himself for a client meeting and successfully ignoring the chaos around him. Jamming his cell-phone earpiece into his ear, he started dialling his voicemail with his thumb while he pressed a thick bunch of folded newspapers into his hip with his upper arm.

I picked up Gracie with one hand and put a clip in my hair with the other. Yvette, filled with pride over her well-kept charges, dressed my two little kids like every day was a Sunday church day in Jamaica. And since she’d been with us since Dylan was born, I didn’t interfere. Gracie was wearing a red gingham dress with matching red Mary Janes and a huge white bow the size of a 767 on the side of her head.

‘Mommy, are you going to pick me up or is Yvette?’ Gracie started whimpering. ‘You never pick me up.’

‘Not today because, you know, Tuesday is a work day, sweetheart. I have to go to work all day. But remember I try to pick you up on Mondays and Fridays.’ ‘Try’ being the operative word there: though I worked at the network part-time, my hours were erratic and increased to full-time when a story broke. This lack of consistency wasn’t easy on the kids. Gracie’s delicate face began to curl up in that look I knew so well. I brushed her hair down with the palm of my hand and kissed her forehead. I whispered, ‘I love you.’

Dylan’s backpack was bigger than he was. He pulled it around to find the Tamagotchi on his keychain and began poking at it like a mad scientist. Just like Daddy with his BlackBerry.

‘I can’t do a conference call at 3 p.m.’ Even if we’re in an elevator, Phillip insists on returning voicemail messages the second he hears them. ‘Call my secretary, Hank, she’ll work it out. Now let me give you a full report on the Tysis Logics litigation …’

‘Phillip, please, can’t that wait? It’s just so rude.’

Phillip closed his eyes and patted me on the head and then put his finger up to my lips. I wanted to bite it off. ‘… It’s just going to be a hell of a crapshoot for the following three reasons – let’s start with the stock split; we don’t even have enough shares authorized …’

Michael grabbed at my skirt from his stroller and dug his nails into the inside seam, tearing a few stitches out.

Carolina pulled tighter on Gussie’s leash as the elevator stopped on the fourth floor. Phillip shot her a scary look; apparently he hadn’t recovered from the missing nail scissors.

The elevator door slid open for a white-haired, seventy-eight-year-old man wearing a striped bow tie and a beige suit. Mr Greeley, a stuffy Nantucket old-timer from apartment 4B, had recently retired, but still wore his suit every morning to get his coffee and papers. Somehow he mustered the courage to step into the packed elevator only to have Gussie begin feverishly scratching and sniffing at his groin as if he’d found a rabbit hole. Carolina yanked at the leash and now the dog was standing on his hind legs with his front paws on the door. Phillip was still barking into his cell phone about battle plans. I nodded at Mr Greeley with an apologetic smile and a pleading look in my eyes. He, meanwhile, focused on the elevator’s descending numbers, pointedly ignoring us all. In the two years we had lived in this building, he had never once smiled back at me – all I ever got was a discreet nod.

The door slid open again and we poured into the marble lobby. Clutching his overflowing, Dunhill briefcase, Phillip waved goodbye and rushed ahead, jamming his earpiece further into his ear. In his distracted mind, his meeting had started five minutes ago. ‘Love you!’ he yelled without looking back. The doorman, Eddie, offered to carry something, but Phillip paid no attention and bolted into his waiting car. As his Lexus peeled away, I could see the Wall Street Journal snap open in front of him.

Yasser Arafat’s motorcade had nothing on ours. With Phillip’s car out of the way, my driver, Luis, pulled up in front of the awning in our monstrous navy-blue Suburban. Luis is a sweet, forty-year-old Ecuadorian man who works at our garage and speaks about four words of English. All I really know about him is that he has two kids and a wife at home in Queens. For fifty dollars a day – all cash – he helps me drop off Dylan at eight and Gracie at eight thirty. Three days a week he also waits while I come home, change and play with Michael, then he takes me to work at the television network by ten. It doesn’t escape me that for two hundred and fifty dollars a week in Minneapolis, my mother could feed us, pay all the utility bills and still have some left over.

Eddie helped me place Gracie into the car seat as Dylan climbed clumsily over her, brushing her face with his backpack. ‘Dylan! Stop it!’ she yelled. I kissed Michael in his stroller who reached out for me and tried desperately to yank off the shoulder straps binding him to his seat. In an instant, Yvette put a tiny Elmo doll in front of his face and he smiled.

In the rear-view mirror I watched Gussie’s Doggy Daycare van take our place. On the side of the van it read ‘The Pampered Pooch’. The doors slid open magically for Gussie, and Carolina managed to get in a big kiss on his head before he disappeared inside to greet his slobbering pals.

I closed my eyes as we drove the twenty blocks up Park Avenue to Dylan’s school, grateful to be out of eye-contact range with everyone. Luis never spoke at all, just smiled his warm Latin grin and concentrated on dodging the taxis and delivery trucks around us.

Gracie was young enough that the motion of the car made her sleepy, so she stuck her thumb in her mouth, her eyes fluttering like butterflies as she resisted slumber. Dylan grabbed some electronics from the back of the seat. His thumbs sped over the keys of his Game Boy as he knew I’d let him continue if he put the sound button on mute.

‘Gracie, stop! Mooooooooom!’

My head ached. ‘What is going on?!’

‘Gracie kicked my hand on purpose so I missed the last few seconds and now I’m back at level three!’

‘Did not!’ Gracie screamed, suddenly very alert.

‘Dylan. Please,’ I pleaded.

‘Why are you taking her side?’ he screamed.

‘I’m not taking sides, it’s just that she’s five and I think you can move on. We’ve talked about this.’

‘But it’s so wrong what she did, Mooooom. She made me lose my game.’ He threw the Game Boy on the floor and stared out his window, his eyes welling with tears. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea for him to take a break from Dr Bernstein. He hated going to the psychiatrist and said that all they did was play Monopoly and build model airplanes. I felt forcing him to go was stigmatizing him, as he didn’t even have a formal diagnosis such as the ubiquitous Attention Deficit Disorder. And, I didn’t want to pathologize a situation which seemed primarily to be about sadness and loss of self-esteem, more than likely due to an absent dad, and, yes, maybe a harried, distracted mom too – though it pains me to say that.

I looked back at my son and his Game Boy on the car floor. Dr Bernstein said it was important to show empathy with Dylan, to acknowledge his feelings. ‘I’m sorry, Dylan. That must be really frustrating. Especially when you were about to win.’

He didn’t answer.

CHAPTER THREE The Waffle

‘Hurry, we gotta talk.’ My Korean colleague, Abby Chong, had spotted me across the crowded newsroom as our colleagues completed a live newsbreak of a space shuttle landing. I passed the rows of cubicles and said hello to some of the twenty-something PAs inside, most of them looking like they hadn’t slept in days. I navigated round the portable screening machines lined up outside the cubicles with tapes piled precariously on top. In my ears was the familiar cacophony of ringing phones, the tapping of computer keyboards, and the audio of dozens of televisions and radios going at once. As Abby grabbed my elbow and pulled me towards my door, I managed to pick up three newspapers from the pile.

‘You almost knocked my coffee on the floor!’ I looked down at a few drops on my new blouse.

‘Sorry,’ Abby answered. ‘I’m tired. I’m frazzled. But you’ve got bigger problems now.’

‘Really big? Like your Pope problems?’

‘No. Crazy Anchorman’s off that. Now Goodman wants a Madonna interview.’

‘How do you get from an exclusive with the Pope to an exclusive with Madonna?’

‘The cross thing. The crucifixion stunt at her concert from a while ago. He went to a dinner party last night. Sat next to someone who convinced him she would appeal to the eighteen to forty-nine demo. He decided she was edgier than the Pope. But only after we were here till 4 a.m. doing research. He used the fresh word. Everything had to be fresh. He wanted Pope references in the Bible so he could write a letter to the Pope and quote them. I told him there weren’t any. He said, “He’s the Pope for Christ’s sake, find them!”’

‘Well, I won’t be working on Madonna either. I don’t produce celebrity profiles. It’s in my contract.’

‘Well, you’re not going to get another contract when you hear what shit you’re in.’

I figured she was overreacting. Abby was always calm when we were live and rolling, and a nervous wreck the rest of the time – like now. Her black hair was clipped on the top of her head like a witch doctor and she was wearing a bright violet suit that looked simply awful on her. She pushed me into my office and closed the door behind her.

‘Sit down,’ she said, while she paced around the room.

‘You mind if I take my coat off?’

‘Fine. But hurry up.’

‘Just give me two minutes please?’ I hung my coat on the hanger behind my door, sat down and took my cranberry scone and coffee out of the bag. ‘OK, Abby. What’s got you so wound up this time?’

She leaned over the top of my desk with her arms straight out. She didn’t hesitate, no niceties, just delivered the fatal news.

‘Theresa Boudreaux granted the interview to Kathy Seebright. They taped it on Monday in an undisclosed location. It’s airing this Thursday on the News Hour. Drudge already has it on his website.’ She sat down and her left knee bounced uncontrollably.

I laid my head face down on the desk with a thunk.

‘You’re screwed. No other word for it. I’m sorry. Goodman’s not in yet, but apparently our fearless leader called him fifteen minutes ago to give him the news. So the two big cheeses already know.’

I struggled to look up. ‘Is Goodman trying to reach me?’

‘I don’t know. I tried your cell, but it went straight to voicemail.’

I fished my cell phone out of my purse by pulling the cord for my earpiece. The ringer had been in the ‘off’ position since last night and I had forgotten to switch it back. Six messages. I plugged the phone into the charger on my desk. Nausea roiled up inside me. It didn’t help that I’d swallowed a bunch of vitamins on an empty stomach. I ripped apart the cranberry scone, picked out a few berries and lined them up while I thought about my next move. ‘Give me a sec to figure out how to handle this disaster.’

‘I’m here waiting.’ She leaned back in her chair with her arms across her chest. Abby was a very pretty woman who, at forty-two, looked young for her age with her straight hair and creamy Asian skin. She was head researcher on the show, and during live broadcasts always sat off-camera five feet from our anchor Joe Goodman. On the console in front of her were thousands of index cards with any fact and figure a pompous newsman could want in an instant: type of armoured tank most commonly used in the Iraq War, number of passengers killed on Pan Am flight 103 and biographies of important historical figures like Kato Kaelin and Robert Kardashian.

I rattled off some options. ‘I could just apologize to Goodman right now before he comes charging in here. Preemptive action is always good.’ Deep breath. ‘I could listen to my messages to see if that Boudreaux lawyer bothered to give me a head’s up that his client was talking to another network. He only promised me the interview on Friday. No wonder he didn’t return my calls over the weekend.’ I moved the piles of broadcast tapes to create some space on my desk and they slid on the floor like a mudslide.

‘I thought the interview was yours.’ Abby was trying to help. ‘Really I did, especially after your charm offensive trip last week – I thought you’d nailed it down. Goodman’ll be here in fifteen minutes. Check your messages first so you sound on the ball, even though …’

‘Even though what?’ Even though I had lost the biggest ‘get’ of the year to a perky blonde: Kathy Seebright, America’s official cutie-pie. As insiders, we knew her as the woman with the sugary smile who would chomp a man’s testicles off and spit them in his face. ‘Why did I tell Goodman on Friday that we had a done deal? I should have known it doesn’t count till the tape is rolling.’ Even Abby didn’t know I’d left work early on Friday to take my daughter to her ballet class. They’d probably assumed I was out greasing the wheels for the interview.