If You Only Knew

“I’m coming over to help you unpack. Do you have pepper spray? The neighborhood is seedy.”

When I went to college, Mom moved across the state border to a posh little town in Connecticut and began viewing COH as akin to the slums of Calcutta. It’s irritating, but at least she doesn’t live too close by.

“Mom, the neighborhood is gorgeous,” I tell her, using my “calm the bride” voice.

“Well, it’s not what it was when your father was alive. If he hadn’t died, it still might be a nice place to live.”

This is one of those illogical and unarguable statements so common from Mother Dear. Westchester County is hardly a hotbed of crime and urban decay. Even if COH was hit by urban blight—which it hasn’t been—it’s not as if Dad, who was a dentist, would’ve single-handedly stepped in and saved the day.

“You should’ve moved to Connecticut, Jenny. Hedgefield would’ve been perfect for your little dress shop. I still don’t understand why you didn’t want to come here.”

Because you live there. “I have to go, Mom. Don’t come over. I’ll have you up over dinner later this week, okay?”

“I can’t eat dairy anymore. It gives me terrible diarrhea. Ana-Sofia made empanadas that were delicious. Maybe you could call her for the recipe, since you’re not the best cook.”

Cleansing breath, cleansing breath. “Anything else?”

“Well, don’t make duck. I’m morally opposed to duck. Do you know what they do to ducks at a duck farm? The cruelty! It’s barbaric. But I do love veal. Can you make veal? Or is that too hard for you?”

“I’ll make something delicious, Mom.” I won’t. I’ll buy something delicious.

“See you in a few hours, then.”

“No, no. Please don’t come. I won’t even be here. I have a bride coming in.” A lie, but it’s de rigueur when dodging a maternal visit.

“Fine. Maybe I’ll call Ana-Sofia. She asked for some advice on getting the baby to burp, so…”

“Okay, bye.” I stab the end button hard. My twitch has grown into a throb.

I’d like to say that Mom means well, but that wouldn’t really be true. When things are good, she looks not for the silver lining, but for the mercury toxicity. When things are bad, her eyes light up, she stands straighter and her life is filled with purpose. She views my move to COH as both my inevitable failure at marriage—she always hinted Owen was too good for me—and also a gauntlet I’ve thrown at her feet. If I do better after my divorce—personally and professionally—it might imply that she should, too.

Well, no point in crying over spilled milk. Spilled wine, yes. But I have a long day of unpacking in front of me, and I want to get started. Unfortunately, the moving truck is nowhere in sight. Luis said he knew the street, but they’re late just the same, even if they left just a second after I did.

Hopefully, this will be the last time I move—which is exactly what I said when I moved in with Owen. He was the fourth boyfriend I lived with, but I thought he had staying power. But seriously, this could be the last time, because my new place is flippin’ beautiful. The real estate lady said it’s possible that it’ll go up for sale next year; it was an impulse buy on the part of the owner, and my lease is only for one year—a hint, she said, that the owner might want to sell it.

So I could live here forever, and why not? It’s elegant and cozy at the same time, a four-story brick town house painted dark gray with black trim and a cherry-red front door. Iron window box holders curl up in front of all the windows, and I immediately picture planting trailing ivy and pink and purple flowers in a few weeks. The trees along the street are dressed in green fuzz, and the magnolia across the street is in full, cream-and-pink glory.

My apartment consists of the middle two floors of the building—living room, dining room, tiny galley kitchen and powder room on the first level, then three small bedrooms and a full-size bath up the wide wooden staircase. The Victorian claw-foot tub was impossible to resist. There’s a tiny backyard with a slate patio, which I get to use, and a tiny front yard that belongs to the super, who has the first floor—the pied-à-terre, the Realtor called it, which made it sound very fabulous and European. The fourth floor is being used by the owner for storage. With the three dormered windows up there, the light would be fantastic. If I owned the place, I could use the entire floor as a home studio. Or a nursery for my attractive and cheerful babies.

A man comes down the street, walking a beautiful golden retriever.

He looks my way, and our eyes meet. He lives right next door in that gorgeous brownstone, and he’s single, go figure, a chef who’s just signed a contract to let his name be used on a line of high-end French cookware. His sister is engaged, and guess who’s making her dress? Jenny Tate, that’s who! What a small world! The Christmas wedding is at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and I wear a wine-red velvet dress to the reception and he’s in a tux, and as we dance together, he slides an engagement ring onto my finger and drops to one knee, and his sister—in her gorgeous satin modified A-line dress with green velvet trailing sash—is all for this. In fact, she’s in on the proposal and is already crying happy tears. We get married and buy a charming old farmhouse with views of the Hudson so our twin sons and little daughter can run and play while we harvest vegetables from our organic garden and we’ll breed Jeter, our faithful Goldie, and the kids will all be valedictorians and go to Yale.

The man fails to make eye contact. Instead, he’s yelling something into a phone about “your bitch of a sister,” so I regretfully cross him off my list of potential second husbands.

Owen never yelled. One of his many qualities. I never, ever heard him raise his lovely, reassuring voice.

I wait till the guy is safely past—just in case he’s a serial killer, as my mother would no doubt assert—and get out of the car, swing my cheerful polka-dot purse onto my shoulder and check myself out in the window. Eesh. Andreas and I killed the last two bottles of Owen’s wine last night while watching Thors 1 and 2 for the eye candy. Part of my divorce was that I got half of Owen’s small but wonderful wine collection, and I didn’t object.

An image from our marriage flashes like lightning—Owen and me, on a picnic in Nova Scotia a few summers ago, holding hands. He picked a daisy and tickled my ear with it, and the sun reflected off his shock of black hair so brightly it almost hurt my eyes. His hair was—is—adorable, standing up in a way that defied gravity, perpetual bedhead that made him instantly appealing and almost childlike. No wonder his patients love him instantly.

The bewilderment is the worst part. That’s what they don’t tell you in divorce articles. They talk about anger and loneliness and growing apart and starting over and being kind to yourself, but they don’t tell you about the untold hours in the black hole of why. Why? What changed? When? Why was I the one you chose to marry, but all of a sudden, I’m not enough anymore?

But I’m not about to start off this phase of my life bewildered. Fuck you, Owen, I think, and it’s oddly cheering.

The super is supposed to meet me here and give me my keys. I tighten my ponytail, summon a smile and go through the iron gate to the super’s door. This courtyard could be adorable with some plants and a little café table, but right now, it only holds a ratty lawn chair that’s seen better days… It’s the aluminum-frame kind, the seat woven from scratchy nylon fiber. The image of a fat, unshaven man wearing an ill-fitting bowling shirt, scratching his stomach with one hand and nursing a Genesee with another, a mangy dog by his side, leaps to mind with unfortunate clarity.

But no. No negativity! In ten minutes, I’ll be unpacking in my beautiful new place. I can put the kettle on, even though I don’t like tea, but the image of tea is very cozy on this cool, damp day. Red wine is even cozier.

Maybe I’ll invite the super to have a drink with me. Or not, if he looks like the guy I just envisioned. Did the Realtor say if it was a man or a woman? I can’t remember. Better yet, a neighbor will come over—not the angry golden retriever man, but a different neighbor. An older man, maybe, someone who has a good bottle of wine in one hand. I saw the moving truck, he’ll say, and wanted to welcome you to the street. I teach Italian literature at Barnard. Are you free for dinner? I happen to be cooking a roast. Then again, what kind of single man cooks a roast? Scratch that. I’ll come up with something better.

I knock cheerfully on the super’s door—shave-and-a-haircut, two-bits!

There’s no answer. I knock again, less cheerfully and more loudly. Still nothing. Pressing my ear to the door, all I hear is quiet. One more knock.

Nothing.

I go back to my car and call the Realtor, getting her voice mail. “Hi! It’s Jenny Tate. Um, the super doesn’t seem to be here, and the moving truck will be here any sec, so…maybe you could call him? Thanks so much! Bye!”

On cue, the phone rings, but it’s not the Realtor.

It’s Owen.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hey, Jenny.” His voice is low and holds that intimate timbre that makes the parents of his patients name their next baby Owen, boy or girl. It also works well with women. Between that and his omnipresent faint smile, it always seems as if he’s about to tell you a secret, and you’re the only one he can tell, because you’re just that special. We women get a little feeble-minded around Owen Takahashi, MD. He could say, “Hey, I’ve been thinking about strangling a few kittens. You in?” and you’d find yourself answering, “You bet I’m in! When can we get started?”

“You made it okay?” he asks now.

“Yeah! Just fine,” I say, eyeing my house. “I can’t wait for you and Ana-Sofia to see it. And the baby! How is she? I love her name! Natalia! It’s so gorgeous!”

We’ve been divorced for fifteen and a half months. Soon, I hope, my need to be überchipper will fade.

“She’s beautiful. Jenny, I can never thank you enough.”

“No!” I sing, rolling my eyes at myself. If Andreas were here, he’d give me a nice brisk slap. “It was an honor.” Make that a punch.

“So listen, Jenny. We’d like to use Genevieve as a middle name. After you.”

Oh, God. “Uh, well, that’s not my name,” I say. For some reason, Mom just wanted Jenny. Not even Jennifer.

“Yes, I remember,” he says in that “I’ve got a secret” voice, evoking late Sunday mornings in bed. “But still.”

You know what, Owen? Don’t. Okay? I don’t want your baby to be named after me. Come on!

“That’s very…nice. Thank you.”

There’s a silence. A drop of rain slaps the windshield, but just one, lonely and useless.