Page 21 of A Happy Catastrophe

Ah, yes, that. There will be so much to think about, but I particularly have to give some thought to this school business. Unlike where I grew up, enrolling in school isn’t an easy situation in Brooklyn. From what I’ve heard, you can’t just go down to your neighborhood school building and sign up. I’ve been a witness to enough passionate, ferocious discussions from Park Slope moms to know that there are about a million choices, and many of them are god-awful and some of them are bearable, while one or two might be absolutely perfect, but you don’t know which is which until you’ve researched and explored and talked to everyone involved.

I have not done any of this. I have a moment of being swamped with panic, but Lola puts aside her knitting and places her hand on my arm.

“Dear, call Emily Turner,” she says. “She’ll know who you should talk to.”

Emily Turner is known around here as Mom Extraordinaire. She sometimes shows up at Best Buds in the afternoons, often wearing magenta yoga pants and carrying a huge thermos of green tea and trailing a contingent of little girls. So I call her, and describe Fritzie as best I can, and she tells me that Brooklyn Kind School is the only place I should consider sending a child who is coming from elsewhere and who may have, um, tendencies toward shocking mic-drops and spontaneous series of cartwheels.

“Also, she needs friends, like immediately,” says Emily, and so the next Monday I arrange for her to come in with her girls—Sierra and Autumn and Blanche, who are six, eight, and eleven—to meet Fritzie. I get some cookies from Cupcake, and some lemonade from Paco, and Emily and I stand in the doorway and watch as the four of them play. I feel the same way I used to feel on first dates, all that nervous jumpiness in my stomach. But Fritzie seems blissfully nonchalant.

All I can think of is: What if this doesn’t work? What if they hate her?

But it does work. Fritzie is a little bit bossy, but in a charming way if there is such a thing. She demonstrates her cartwheel technique, of course, and then shows off how cool it is to dust their faces with purple glitter, and then she sits down with her Little Mermaid suitcase and starts unpacking her treasures for their enjoyment.

There’s a hair clasp that looks like one that Taylor Swift once wore, and an empty tube of Ridiculously Red lipstick that Tessa once let her try on when she dressed up like a witch two Halloweens ago. There’s a two-dollar bill that her friend Gaia gave her, and a penny that got flattened by a train, and a love letter a boy named George wrote to her in first grade that just says “I thik you R GRAT.” She has a fuzzy pink fur notebook with a lock on it, and a tarnished gold earring that her grandmum gave her. And then, at the bottom, a bottle of candy sprinkles.

The other girls pass everything around and seem to understand the value of each of these promising treasures. But when she pulls out the bottle of chocolate sprinkles, Blanche says, “What do you carry that around for?”

“Duh!” says Fritzie. “Because what happens if you run into some ice cream, and you don’t have any sprinkles?”

“Wow. This sums her up perfectly,” I say to Emily Turner.

“I love this kid. And poor thing, it looks like she’s really dealing with her abandonment issues so bravely,” Emily whispers—which is when I have to whisper back that I’m not really sure Fritzie is aware of any abandonment issues. If I had to characterize her, I’d say she is mostly relieved to be getting free of her mom. She’s mostly the kid carrying around candy sprinkles in case she happens upon an ice cream cone.

“Oh, she has them all right,” Emily says. “You don’t get to skip abandonment issues if your mom is going to Italy and leaving you with virtual strangers. You just don’t. I’m talking to Yolanda at the Kind School. We’ve got to make sure this girl gets in.”

CHAPTER TEN

MARNIE

My period does not come on time, and so I buy seven pregnancy tests. As any person might do. I am now entering a new phase of life, and I want to be prepared.

Well, to be clear, first I buy only the one, and I dash into the bathroom between customers at work and test it out. I am stunned—beyond stunned—when no line appears in the little window. This test is obviously defective because, although I have many irregular things about me, my menstrual cycle is not one of them. It is spot-on. On time. Every twenty-eighth day by nine a.m.

And now my period is a day late. Clearly, therefore, I am pregnant. But just the same, I would like some outside confirmation.

So, at lunchtime the next day, still with no period, I go out and buy another, much more reliable, truth-telling test. This is the kind of test that spells out the words, either PREGNANT or NOT PREGNANT, in case hieroglyphic line-reading isn’t doing it for you. In case you have the kind of hormonal system that wants everything spelled out.

NOT PREGNANT, it says, like a slap in the face.

Okay then, I think. This is not going to be as easy as I thought, navigating the world of pregnancy testing.

I consult the internet, which thinks that sometimes in early pregnancy there’s not yet enough of something called hCG in a woman’s system to register as a pregnancy. So, fine. The internet thinks I could still be pregnant and suggests that I do the test in the early morning, when this hCG is in abundance.

So I buy another brand of pregnancy test for test number three, and I get up extra early the next morning and creep into the bathroom to check.

Negative.

So this is war. My body and the pregnancy test industry are at odds.

It’s stress, says the internet. Wait a few days and take the test again.

Sure enough, I do have some stress. Besides the stuff that’s obvious—Fritzie cartwheeling through my life, Patrick looking more and more like a shell-shocked accident victim, Tessa mooning around the house like a lovesick teenager who’s been grounded from seeing her true love—my mother has also called again and reported that she and my father went away on a trip together at her insistence, and he fell asleep in the hotel by seven o’clock every night. “It wasn’t even dark outside yet!” she yells. She wonders if this is grounds for divorce.

Pregnancy test four: negative.

I buy three more tests for good measure, and I space them out, trying one every day. New stressors show up: Tessa tells me that she may simply leave for Italy without waiting to see if Fritzie likes her new school. Patrick says that he’s lost the will to paint with so much turmoil in the house. Bedford throws up on the rug three mornings in a row, and each time I find mangled plastic doll shoes in there.

Ariana teaches me a new yoga pose that supposedly brings all the chi into a person’s body. Kat serves me raspberry tea, for no other reason than she heard raspberries are good for pregnant women. Lola tells me to put my feet up and stop worrying about whether or not Fritzie will be admitted to the Brooklyn Kind School.

Patrick says maybe the tests are correct, and I’m not pregnant and that I should count my blessings since our lives are crazy enough right now, aren’t they? Because I really do love him, I don’t hit him. By deep breathing, I’m able to control myself by not looking in his direction.

After he leaves, I go over to the toaster and consult with Blix. I tell her I want a baby so much. That I am insane over the need for a baby. She is silent for a long time, but then I hear her. Grudgingly.

es, that. There will be so much to think about, but I particularly have to give some thought to this school business. Unlike where I grew up, enrolling in school isn’t an easy situation in Brooklyn. From what I’ve heard, you can’t just go down to your neighborhood school building and sign up. I’ve been a witness to enough passionate, ferocious discussions from Park Slope moms to know that there are about a million choices, and many of them are god-awful and some of them are bearable, while one or two might be absolutely perfect, but you don’t know which is which until you’ve researched and explored and talked to everyone involved.

I have not done any of this. I have a moment of being swamped with panic, but Lola puts aside her knitting and places her hand on my arm.

“Dear, call Emily Turner,” she says. “She’ll know who you should talk to.”

Emily Turner is known around here as Mom Extraordinaire. She sometimes shows up at Best Buds in the afternoons, often wearing magenta yoga pants and carrying a huge thermos of green tea and trailing a contingent of little girls. So I call her, and describe Fritzie as best I can, and she tells me that Brooklyn Kind School is the only place I should consider sending a child who is coming from elsewhere and who may have, um, tendencies toward shocking mic-drops and spontaneous series of cartwheels.

“Also, she needs friends, like immediately,” says Emily, and so the next Monday I arrange for her to come in with her girls—Sierra and Autumn and Blanche, who are six, eight, and eleven—to meet Fritzie. I get some cookies from Cupcake, and some lemonade from Paco, and Emily and I stand in the doorway and watch as the four of them play. I feel the same way I used to feel on first dates, all that nervous jumpiness in my stomach. But Fritzie seems blissfully nonchalant.

All I can think of is: What if this doesn’t work? What if they hate her?

But it does work. Fritzie is a little bit bossy, but in a charming way if there is such a thing. She demonstrates her cartwheel technique, of course, and then shows off how cool it is to dust their faces with purple glitter, and then she sits down with her Little Mermaid suitcase and starts unpacking her treasures for their enjoyment.

There’s a hair clasp that looks like one that Taylor Swift once wore, and an empty tube of Ridiculously Red lipstick that Tessa once let her try on when she dressed up like a witch two Halloweens ago. There’s a two-dollar bill that her friend Gaia gave her, and a penny that got flattened by a train, and a love letter a boy named George wrote to her in first grade that just says “I thik you R GRAT.” She has a fuzzy pink fur notebook with a lock on it, and a tarnished gold earring that her grandmum gave her. And then, at the bottom, a bottle of candy sprinkles.

The other girls pass everything around and seem to understand the value of each of these promising treasures. But when she pulls out the bottle of chocolate sprinkles, Blanche says, “What do you carry that around for?”

“Duh!” says Fritzie. “Because what happens if you run into some ice cream, and you don’t have any sprinkles?”

“Wow. This sums her up perfectly,” I say to Emily Turner.

“I love this kid. And poor thing, it looks like she’s really dealing with her abandonment issues so bravely,” Emily whispers—which is when I have to whisper back that I’m not really sure Fritzie is aware of any abandonment issues. If I had to characterize her, I’d say she is mostly relieved to be getting free of her mom. She’s mostly the kid carrying around candy sprinkles in case she happens upon an ice cream cone.

“Oh, she has them all right,” Emily says. “You don’t get to skip abandonment issues if your mom is going to Italy and leaving you with virtual strangers. You just don’t. I’m talking to Yolanda at the Kind School. We’ve got to make sure this girl gets in.”

CHAPTER TEN

MARNIE

My period does not come on time, and so I buy seven pregnancy tests. As any person might do. I am now entering a new phase of life, and I want to be prepared.

Well, to be clear, first I buy only the one, and I dash into the bathroom between customers at work and test it out. I am stunned—beyond stunned—when no line appears in the little window. This test is obviously defective because, although I have many irregular things about me, my menstrual cycle is not one of them. It is spot-on. On time. Every twenty-eighth day by nine a.m.

And now my period is a day late. Clearly, therefore, I am pregnant. But just the same, I would like some outside confirmation.

So, at lunchtime the next day, still with no period, I go out and buy another, much more reliable, truth-telling test. This is the kind of test that spells out the words, either PREGNANT or NOT PREGNANT, in case hieroglyphic line-reading isn’t doing it for you. In case you have the kind of hormonal system that wants everything spelled out.

NOT PREGNANT, it says, like a slap in the face.

Okay then, I think. This is not going to be as easy as I thought, navigating the world of pregnancy testing.

I consult the internet, which thinks that sometimes in early pregnancy there’s not yet enough of something called hCG in a woman’s system to register as a pregnancy. So, fine. The internet thinks I could still be pregnant and suggests that I do the test in the early morning, when this hCG is in abundance.

So I buy another brand of pregnancy test for test number three, and I get up extra early the next morning and creep into the bathroom to check.

Negative.

So this is war. My body and the pregnancy test industry are at odds.

It’s stress, says the internet. Wait a few days and take the test again.

Sure enough, I do have some stress. Besides the stuff that’s obvious—Fritzie cartwheeling through my life, Patrick looking more and more like a shell-shocked accident victim, Tessa mooning around the house like a lovesick teenager who’s been grounded from seeing her true love—my mother has also called again and reported that she and my father went away on a trip together at her insistence, and he fell asleep in the hotel by seven o’clock every night. “It wasn’t even dark outside yet!” she yells. She wonders if this is grounds for divorce.

Pregnancy test four: negative.

I buy three more tests for good measure, and I space them out, trying one every day. New stressors show up: Tessa tells me that she may simply leave for Italy without waiting to see if Fritzie likes her new school. Patrick says that he’s lost the will to paint with so much turmoil in the house. Bedford throws up on the rug three mornings in a row, and each time I find mangled plastic doll shoes in there.

Ariana teaches me a new yoga pose that supposedly brings all the chi into a person’s body. Kat serves me raspberry tea, for no other reason than she heard raspberries are good for pregnant women. Lola tells me to put my feet up and stop worrying about whether or not Fritzie will be admitted to the Brooklyn Kind School.

Patrick says maybe the tests are correct, and I’m not pregnant and that I should count my blessings since our lives are crazy enough right now, aren’t they? Because I really do love him, I don’t hit him. By deep breathing, I’m able to control myself by not looking in his direction.

After he leaves, I go over to the toaster and consult with Blix. I tell her I want a baby so much. That I am insane over the need for a baby. She is silent for a long time, but then I hear her. Grudgingly.

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