Second, from Eli again: Can’t get Daisy. Sorry.
So at least Eli’s alive. That’s good news. The bad news: He can’t pick up Daisy.
Now he decides to tell her.
Pick up. Charlotte thinks of a news clip she saw last night in which a pickup truck was being swept by water down a California street. Wall of water. This is not that! She’s just worried and feeling sorry for herself because there’s no one to help her. Everyone’s told her to hire a nanny. This is the price she pays for her ridiculous pride in being a hands-on mom. But why must the buck always stop with her? She could write a book entitled Mommy Buckstop. Who would read it? Lots of women. Mothers. They’d understand right away.
She texts Eli back: I CAN’T! HELP!
He doesn’t answer. Infuriating. It’s up to Mommy Buckstop to figure out what to do next.
More Makeup says, “We’ll send you a slide show of images of the hurricane. We just want you to see what we’re thinking. Just for inspiration.”
“Not just ‘thinking’ but ‘doing,’” the man corrects her, hanging air quotes around her mistake. “This is what we’re doing here. What gets us out of bed in the morning.”
“That’s what I mean,” says the woman. “What we are thinking and doing.”
The man presses a button, then a switch. The lights dim, a screen descends behind him, and Charlotte sees destroyed homes, floating vehicles, anguished children, people waiting on food lines, Red Cross workers distributing water. It’s obscene to use these people’s suffering for inspiration, but she’s not going to say that. And they’re raising money for them. Good cause, good cause, good cause. She thinks those two words, like a mantra, until she can look at them without fearing that her face has turned into a Medusa mask of don’t-speak-to-me, don’t-come-near-me, I’m-late-to-pick-up-my-daughter.
The slide show is taking a thousand years. She’s trapped here by good manners and by her desire to work for them. The minutes are flying by. What now? What now? What now?
They could stop at any point. She needs to pick up Daisy!
“Right,” she says. “I’ve got this.”
It takes all of Charlotte’s self-control not to look at her watch and look again ten seconds later.
“Yes, well,” says the man, “one more detail before we break up the party. It’s a bit of a delicate question, but . . . can we assume your business includes employees of color? It’s not a question I’d ask, but there are other voices in the mix, voices I have to listen to.”
“You can,” Charlotte says. “It does. I do.” Though she’ll be damned if she’ll pimp out—by name—the Mexican, black, and Asian kids at her Bushwick studio. Plus she needs to leave. Now.
“Then let’s go forward,” Boss Man says. All three shake Charlotte’s hand. By the time she leaves—thank you, got to run!—she has twenty minutes to get Daisy before the end of after-school.
It’s seems she’s got the job. But she’s too nervous to process that, too anxious to feel happy.
The assistant who shows Charlotte to the elevator is wobbling so perilously on painful-looking Louboutin heels that Charlotte lurches forward to catch her. The young woman shoots her a filthy look.
“Thanks.” What is she thanking her for?
“No problem. Have a good one.” The young woman says it like a curse. That’s probably just Charlotte’s own anxiety and paranoia.
Have a good what? A good what?
IT’S JUST MONEY. Charlotte will just have to pay extra—the late fine—and the fine is not all that much. But Daisy will be alarmed. That’s what Charlotte wants to avoid.
The minute she leaves the building, she gets a text from Rocco: Home.
Great. Too late now.
Another text from Rocco. Going to sleep. Don’t call.
Great again. Why would she call at this point? Charlotte’s probably being unreasonable . . . but she can’t shake the certainty that Ruth has sent the text. Rocco would never say, Don’t call, not even if he was exhausted.
Well, they’re safely home from Mexico. One less thing to worry about.
Then she begins to run.
At least she had the wherewithal to bring along her sneakers.
When you race down the street without being chased, it’s as if you’re surrounded by a cocoon of stress and pain. People move out of your way, like drivers moving over for an ambulance with its siren wailing. Beneath everything, humans are animals. They recognize animal fear.
Don’t worry until something actually happens. She tries to hear Ted’s sensible voice.
There’s nothing to be afraid of. Five dollars for every ten minutes you’re late. So that’s . . . she’s too freaked to do the math.
She runs down the block, crossing diagonally against the light, weaving between cars. How awful if she were killed on her way to pick up her daughter. Daisy would never get over it. No matter how much of a hurry Charlotte’s in, she has to wait for the light, look both ways.
She tries hailing a cab, but there are no cabs. There never are when you need them. Finally, a rogue limo slows down.
The driver leans out his window.
“Where you going?”
“First Avenue and Twelfth Street.”
“Thirty dollars.” He must see the panic on her face.
It’s an outrageous price, but she’ll pay. If he’d said a hundred dollars, a million dollars, she would have paid that too. Well, maybe not a million. She can hardly breathe.
“Can you hurry?” she says.
“My favorite words,” the driver says, and zooms off down the street.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Charlotte rushes into the cafeteria, hoping she looks as anxious and breathless as she feels so that the after-school teachers will know she’s made every effort—every painful, superhuman attempt—to get there on time.
There are at least ten kids still there, so Charlotte’s not the last, which is a relief. They’re all slurping something out of a paper cup, and when she passes, one of the kids says, “Microwave pizza!”
“Cool,” says Charlotte. “Delicious.”
She doesn’t see Daisy, but that happens. Sometimes her group stays behind in the classroom or goes to the library.
Charlotte’s anxious, but she always is. She never once comes to pick up Daisy—and she does it every day—without feeling that twinge of absurd, irrational fear that her daughter won’t be there. It only makes her happier to see her sweet little face.
Right away she can tell that something’s wrong. The supercompetent after-school teachers—Tanya, Edditha, and Michelle—are trying not to look confused. Clustered around the sign-out book, they scrutinize the final page.
“What’s going on?” Charlotte asks.
What she wants to hear is: Nothing. But she senses that’s not what she’s about to hear.
Tanya says, “I guess there’s been a little mix-up. She’s already been picked up.”
Maybe Eli changed his mind and left rehearsal—how grateful Charlotte will be! She feels guilty for having been annoyed with him. She’ll make it up to him somehow. She’ll be extra nice this evening, and then tonight, in bed . . .
“Her dad?” Charlotte says.