“You need to get another referral to put this through your PPO,” Diane says. HMO, PPO, EPO, POS, ACA, COBRA. I am drowning in an alphabet soup of insurance.
“I gave birth in-network.”
“Looks like you have to recover out-of-network,” Diane says, flagging the next patient.
—
After my appointment, I walk to Pier 25, a waterfront playground on the West Side Highway with miniature golf, a dog park, and panoramic views of the Hudson and the Statue of Liberty. It’s a favorite haunt of the Tribeca moms. I find Daisy in the sandbox with Holden. She’s with a couple nannies and a babysitter I vaguely recognize from the Stuy Town playroom. Holden’s sitting up with no support now. Daisy backs a dump truck into a puddle of water, beeping sounds and everything. I take off my shoes and get into the sand with them.
“Have you ever had fruit in your vagina?” I ask.
Before she can answer, I grab Holden and snuggle him tight in my arms. Another one of his signature whiffs, a look like he’s Hegel contemplating the universe. “He’s dirty.”
“I can change him,” Daisy says, eager to prove her nanny bona fides.
But I am already digging for a diaper in my Itzy Ritzy Boss Backpack. I notice that Daisy is carrying the Row’s slouchy bag. I saw this purse on a Hadid sister on TikTok. It cost four thousand dollars, the it bag of the fall (and it’s not even Labor Day). I have no idea why I can’t put diapers in the leather tote that I bought at a market in Florence. Or the Chloe bag that Penelope gave me to donate but that I secretly kept. Why a separate bag for the diapers? But that is what they tell you, you need an ugly-ass backpack with a stupid name that you would never use in your normal life…for the Pampers.
“I got it,” I say. We walk to the public bathroom. Daisy holds the door. She leans on the edge of the sink, filling me in on everything I missed, as I wipe Holden. I see her gag a little. “C’mon, this is nothing. You should’ve seen it when I gave him pears.”
“No. It’s the baby wipes. Something about that smell…” She changes the topic. “He drank about a gallon of your boob juice, and some two-year-old tried to dump sand on his head, but I gave her nanny a look like I would cut a bitch. What is wrong with toddlers?”
“They’re little terrorists,” I say.
Without hesitating, Daisy takes the dirty diaper and helps me change Holden into a bathing suit. She is my extra set of hands. We lather him in SPF 50 and spend the rest of the afternoon waving him under the cool mist of the splash pad. He has a sun hat with whales on it and the biggest smile. Daisy is getting wet, too, rocking him in her arms. He shrieks with glee, and we all collapse, wet and happy and sun-kissed, on a poplin blanket on grass at the edge of the Hudson. We hear a pushcart selling paletas. Daisy gets up to go buy us each one.
A few minutes later, Daisy is dabbing Holden’s first taste of an ice pop onto his tongue. “There you go. Yummy.Très bien. Cherry.” He licks and licks, lapping it up, the first thing he loves more than my stubborn breast milk. I put him down on his belly and he wiggles, arms stretched overhead, soaking up the sun. We lie on our backs on either side of him, arms crossed behind our heads, lips stained red.
“I’d honestly take this over St. Tropez,” Daisy says. A sanitation truck passes us, the snarl and stink of New York in late August. After that, a siren.
“Why do I doubt that?”
Holden is doing the full-body giggle again, which makes us giggle. We are all smiles and giggles and cherry syrup. I look at Holden. We needed the company.
Chapter Nineteen
• • • • •
“I’ll keep you company!”Penelope sounds so offended when I tell her that I’ve found Daisy and that she agreed to help with childcare when I go back to work. That we are fast friends again.
“You’re never here.” Penelope is one of those aggressive FaceTimers. Did she need to see me collecting soiled onesies into a plastic basket? And did I really need to see Penelope lounging by a fireplace wearing a Princeton sweatshirt? Pine trees and river rapids in the background. Scaffolding and honking in mine. “Where are you?”
“Ugh, Aspen.”Ugh?“Beau’s family summoned all of us to this house they bought, since no one goes to the Hamptons in August anymore.”
“They don’t?”
“But there’s nothing to do except, like, hike and eat and read.”
“That sounds like my literal dream. When are you back?”
“Thursday. No, Friday. But then we go to the Bahamas for my dad’s birthday. I have to meet the new girlfriend. She’s a jewelry designer, ofcourse, younger than me. It’s a whole thing.”
“At least it will really piss your mom off.”
“Always finding the silver lining, Emily Joan. That’s why we’re friends.” She squints, then cringes, noticing the dirty laundry. It’s as if she caught me churning butter.
“Pen, I wanted to thank you. I might not have found Daisy without you. She said the PI’s what really convinced her to get back in touch.”
“Hey, anytime you need to track down an elusive porn star, I got you.”
