No, whatever her argument, this year’s planner had to be Carmen. Elizabeth and Sara were always buried at work, and Martha was days away from giving birth. So it had to be Carmen.
As she finished her salad, Elizabeth’s thoughts turned back to Heather’s e-mail. It was typical that just as Elizabeth was about to get ahead a step, Heather was “transforming” her career. That’s how it always had gone in their friendship. One small step for Elizabeth, one leap forward for Heather.
She would have to ask Heather what she was up to when they saw each other next. Or, more likely, when they e-mailed each other next, since Heather didn’t seem to have time for old friends anymore.
Elizabeth wished that she and Heather had stayed as close as Carmen and Martha over the years. But she and Heather both had grueling jobs. She told herself it was just different. And some days she believed that.
CARMEN
Carmen was finally meeting Martha for lunch. Martha had been in Milwaukee just a few months since Robert had moved them and their two boys from Boston so that he could spend the year at Children’s Hospital for his newest cancer study. Carmen was delighted that Martha was only an hour drive away now. It had taken all of her patience to wait a few months for this visit to give Martha a chance to settle in.
Carmen and Martha were more than just friends; they were each other’s person. In so many ways they were opposites, cold, uptight Martha and fiery Carmen, but the chemistry had worked from the start. For more than twenty years, they shared the puts and takes of their lives, sometimes in person, but more often in daily calls or texts. Strung together, they were a diary of the mundane, hilarious, disappointing, and occasionally even sublime business of marriage and motherhood. And now, after Martha’s big move, they could talk in person whenever they wanted to. It was a game changer for their friendship, and the timing felt perfect to Carmen, especially since she had just become an empty nester when her only daughter, Avery, went off to college last September.
Well, it would be perfect timing unless Martha messed it all up. In the last year or so, Martha had been making noises about wanting to go back to work after her baby was born. Carmen had already decided that she wasn’t going to let that happen—and this lunch was an intervention.
Carmen knew she had to be subtle. Best not to launch into the importance of being home straight away. Carmen suspected that Martha secretly sided with Heather, Elizabeth, and Sara, who thought that working was an essential part of staying whole and happy. To Carmen, staying at home was a job in and of itself. And it certainly wasn’t a mistake, as Heather had said to Martha at that disaster of a dinner in Chicago several years ago (what a pretentious bitch Heather had been that night). And then there was what happened to Martha after Jack was born and she was trying to work and juggle everything all alone. If Carmen had not intervened then, things would be very different indeed. Carmen hoped she would not have to bring that part up.
Carmen had found a cozy table in the corner and sat waiting for Martha, twirling her wild brown curls that framed a still unlined heart-shaped face. After a few minutes, she saw her old friend waddling in. Carmen couldn’t help but giggle. Martha’s five-foot-nine frame was skinny absolutely all over save for what looked like a pumpkin hiding under her tunic. That poor girl.
As she carefully lowered herself into the chair, Martha glared at Carmen and said, “Yeah, yeah, go ahead and laugh. Enjoy!”
“Hey, at least your perfect blond ponytail still looks great,” Carmen teased. “So how’s the rental?”
Exhaling loudly and twisting around looking for a comfortable position that didn’t exist, Martha said, “You know, it’s actually pretty nice. The houses here are so much bigger for the money than in Boston. Five bedrooms, Sub-Zero fridge, lake view, the works, all for under seven figures. Robert is excited about the school. It’s called the University School. I wanted to try public school. Some of the northern suburban school districts like Shorewood and Whitefish Bay are supposed to be really good. That’s what Elizabeth says anyway. But Robert thinks we’re better off in the bigger house farther north where there are lower taxes so we can afford a private school. I didn’t want to fight about it, since the boys are so young. Who knows how long we’ll be here anyway.”
“Martha, you wouldn’t know the first thing about a public education.” Carmen laughed. A little more seriously, she asked, “Are things going better for the boys at school?”
“They seem okay, I guess. I found out that Bobby’s first-grade class had three other new kids this year, so that’s not too bad. I think the school gets a lot of executive types who are coming and going. But he told me that some of the kids are mean. So, you know, it’s a process. The kids in Jack’s 4K still don’t seem to know where the bathroom is, so he’s good,” Martha joked, but then, her mood changing, she crossed her hands on the table and sighed. “I know it’s hard to move schools for Bobby, but I mean, what was I supposed to do? Have the baby by myself in Boston in March in one of those polar vortex snowstorms? I’m not sure Robert really thought about how hard it would be on us to move. You know, the snow here might actually be worse than Boston, which I didn’t think was possible. How do you even put a baby in a car seat in the snow nine months pregnant?”
Martha shifted again in search of the elusive comfortable position. “Robert tries to help, but he has this knack for being physically present but mentally disengaged when he’s with the family. I shouldn’t complain about him, but sometimes I get so tired, Carmen.”
Carmen reached across the table and squeezed Martha’s hand. “Hey, you’re allowed to complain. You are raising two little kids going on three, and with Robert’s schedule, you’re basically doing it as a single mom in a city where you know like two people. It’s impossible and you’re doing great. And think how lucky you are. I would have killed for another kid or three.”
Martha squeezed Carmen’s hand back, and a quiet moment passed between them.
Trying not to let the sadness creep up, Carmen said, “And how’s my good friend Evelyn?”
Smiling again, Martha said, “Oh, Carmen, you should hear my mom talk to her friends. Even with all their fancy educations, I don’t think any of them could locate Wisconsin on a map if they tried. Robert told her that the position at Children’s might only be for a year, so she’s calling it his ‘ex-pat’ assignment. I mean, really, like Wisconsin’s another country.”
Carmen grinned, remembering the first day she met Evelyn.
It was move-in day at Dartmouth. Her dorm was called the Choates. She had no idea how to pronounce it, and she wasn’t going to try until she heard it come out of someone else’s mouth. She was a long way from Texas, and she was determined not to make rookie mistakes.
As she and her parents walked into her new room, they had been greeted by three people who collectively looked well, pastel, for lack of a better word. The dad had been wearing pink pants, and the mom had been wearing a cotton shift dress with an unappealing floral motif that wasn’t doing her emaciated frame any favors. Carmen did like the mom’s canvas tote, though. It screamed, I belong here, Carmen had thought. Behind her parents, a pale, rail-thin girl with stick-straight long, blond hair (kind of the color of a wheat field, Carmen had thought) sat on one of the two twin beds in the room surrounded by her matching monogrammed luggage (the same canvas as the mom’s tote, of course). She looked kind of miserable, Carmen remembered thinking.