The Idea of Him. Holly Peterson

sparkling back at him. He whispered something into her ear. At first, I assumed he might be having a little fling with her, but then I sensed that they were going over something. Out of his left blazer pocket, he took a casino chip and placed it discreetly in her purse. I saw a tiny piece of the chip, the top of a section with “Five” written on it, as in Five Thousand Dollars.

      Also, as in the same goddamn chip that fell out of my husband’s shirt pocket the evening before.

       4

       Party in the House

      The next night’s cocktail party had started like any other, with me determined to perform my wife and mother roles as best I could given the impending frenzy about to descend on my apartment. Wade liked to throw little get-togethers every month at our place to coddle Meter magazine advertisers and potential story subjects. Each party featured a brand-new cast of wannabes, has-beens, and already-ares. Our small apartment couldn’t accommodate a large crowd, so guests were on some lists, off others—every one of them anxiously trying to figure out the invite formula. Very smooth, very smart, very manipulative, very Wade Crawford.

      I wanted to spend the whole night in bed with my kids and find time to be alone with my Blake and decipher why his friends were still excluding him. I had no desire to face this party and people who cared nothing about me, a hostess who couldn’t facilitate their upward mobility. All heads would be turned toward the glow of Wade the Sun King who might put them in his magazine. I grew up with people who might have had less money and power, but they certainly had better manners and knew to say hello and thank you to the wife.

      Before the party even started, I thought about asking Wade if he knew the beauty at the Tudor Room who had helped me. He’d say he’d never seen her before, but when I would ask why she had the same casino chip he had tried to hide from me, he would refuse even to understand my question. I knew him so well this way. He’d walk down the hall and make it seem like nothing, when I sensed it was definitely something. He would then say his crowd often went to Atlantic City with Murray and various clients. First, I had to comprehend more on my own in order to be armed with a comeback for his denial.

      Wade rummaged through his color-coordinated closet to find just the proper outfit to telegraph that he was festive, but relaxed. He brought out a hip lavender tie with a sky-blue shirt and asked, “Does this look inviting?” He pulled me into him. “Will it get me laid with my beautiful bride?”

      “Yes, Wade. Exactly that,” I answered, noting that he seemed more desperate these days to get his look right. “Your purple tie is what does it for me.” Was he trying too hard to act solicitous or was I imagining things?

      “Purple’s my favorite,” Lucy said, as she entered the room and hugged his thigh.

      “Mine too, kiddo,” he said as he ruffled her hair, dragging her along with him to the mirror. For the finishing touch, Wade slipped on his black, “downtown” blazer with the little antique gold buttons. “Now come here and kiss me good night.”

      I saw my chance and raced back to the kids’ room, where I found Blake punching his thumbs into his Nintendo DS with extra hostility.

      “What’s with Jeremy today, honey? Did he respond or did you even explain to him you wanted to go this time? Did you use the money I gave you for your snack?”

      “Mom. They went to get Doritos in the machines without me. I’m not going to ask why. It’s obvious. They didn’t want me to come.”

      “Well, honey, I …”

      “Mom. They didn’t want me to come. You can’t say anything that is going to make me feel better. After social studies, when I ask them to wait before going to playstreet and when I’m packing my bag, they always run out.”

      “That is just so mean, honey.” I kissed my hurt little boy’s nine-year-old forehead and wished with all my heart I could take this blow for him.

      “And don’t call his mom and tell him to be nicer to me like you did last time.”

      “I won’t, I …” Of course that is exactly what I wanted to do.

      “It makes me look like a snitch. She told him to play nicer and he told everyone I told on him, so don’t do it again. For real, Mom. Don’t.”

      “I love you, honey. I’m here to talk if you want.”

      “I said I don’t want to.”

      I gently closed his door, mumbling to myself, “A mother’s only as happy as her unhappiest child.” Pained but resigned to let him stew, I ran into the kitchen to place thirty Trader Joe’s hors d’oeuvres on cookie sheets and into a warm oven. With the downturn having hit ad revenues hard, Wade’s magazine company had slashed his budget for home cocktail parties to almost nothing. They would only pay for a scant two college students, a mediocre bar, and the cheapest hors d’oeuvres from the frozen section. For every event, I had to fork out for flowers and a few extras with our own money. When I protested that these parties didn’t quite fit into our tight monthly budget in expensive New York City, Wade countered that he couldn’t make Meter successful if he couldn’t continue to network as he wished, and any and every time he wished.

      The cut-rate bartender and server from the Columbia University Bartending service were late, and the wine and club soda cases were stacked in the cramped kitchen hallway untouched. Six thirty. It was getting awfully close to the seven o’clock game time and I realized the guests might actually arrive before the two servers did. I struggled to push the cartons a few inches across the floor so that I could maneuver around them and open the oven door.

      In the oven, dozens of frozen miniquiches and spinach phyllo pies started to sweat off freezer burn as I pulled a chair up to the cupboard so I could reach above the fridge and get down two bottles of vodka. This being a New York apartment, table and shelf space in the living room were too valuable to use for cumbersome bar bottles when company wasn’t around.

      Why I was the one about to break my neck reaching for a vodka bottle and stressing that our tonic and limes were low for his work party while Wade was lying around oblivious in bed tickling Lucy at 6:49 was a question most wives know the answer to.

      My red silk blouse had started to show lovely little sweat stains around my armpits with all the aerobic activity I was performing in the kitchen. At 6:53, the server and bartender finally arrived from the Columbia campus, apologizing and blaming the poor subway service.

      Back in my closet to select another shirt, I heard Lucy screaming with laughter and jumping high on the bed. Wade was trying to swing a pillow into her legs midjump so she’d flip down on the bed sideways. This always ended in tears. No matter how many times I begged them not to play this game, Lucy always wanted more.

      “Wade, can you talk to Blake before the party? Jeremy and those mean kids are …”

      Wade wasn’t listening. He was counting the timing of Lucy’s jump so he could slam her with the huge pillow as she pulled her feet up in midair.

      “Wade. Are you listening?”

      “Got you!” he yelled.

      Lucy went flying ninety degrees sideways with the force of the pillow and was in full hysterics now. “Again, Daddy!”

      Wade turned to me. “I got her. I told her we’d do it until I got her. Now I’ll go talk to Blake, but he’s not going to want to discuss it, I promise.”

      “He could use some boosting from his father, so please go talk to him quick. I’m running around here like the Tasmanian Devil. I’m sweating, I look like hell …” I tore my shirt off and rummaged through my closet for another blouse that, by some miracle, wasn’t creased.

      As