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Play Dates

Chapter One

September

"Zoë, honey, please put those down. You're only six years old."

"I'm six and three-quarters."

"I'm sorry, sweetie. Six and three-quarters. Yes, you're a big girl, now. Still, you can't wear high heels to second grade."

"I want to look like MiMi."

"You'll have plenty of time to look like your aunt MiMi," I cajole. "Believe me, you don't want to rush growing up."

"Yes, I do."

We've been hunting for the perfect pair of school shoes for upwards of half an hour. My linen dress is clinging to my body like a limp dishrag. This has to be the hottest Labor Day on record.You could fry an egg in the middle of Broadway. It's so muggy outside that we could have waded up to Harry's Shoes, which must be the craziest place in the city to have to visit on the last shopping day before school starts. It's mayhem in here. The decibel level is even worse than a Saturday afternoon at PlaySpace. Honestly, I don't know how the salespeople cope.The management must give them a free hit of Prozac when they punch their time card.

I think the mothers and merchants of New York City will breathe a collective sigh of relief tomorrow. I sure know I could use a break. I've spent every day this summer with Zoë. It's the first time I've ever had to care for her 24/7. I lost both husband and housekeeper in the divorce. Hilda had been Scott's mother's housekeeper at one point, so her loyalty was to the Franklins. I've had no one to pick up the slack, so I could catch a catnap, find twenty minutes for a manicure, or—God forbid— go to lunch with a girlfriend.

Zoë, looking like a wilted daisy, comes over to me complaining of the heat and humidity. "I'm sticky," she gripes, pushing limp bangs off her forehead with a grubby hand. I open my bag, whip out a Wash'n Dri, mop her brow, wipe her hands, and pin up her hair with an elastic and a clip.

"Blow," Zoë says, and I purse my lips and generate a gentle Mommy breeze, cooling the nape of her neck and her face.

Brimming with purpose and bustle, a tall woman with one of those year-round tans, forty-something and looks it, practically tramples a knot of preschoolers to get to me. She's nearly out of breath. "Who do you work for?" she asks abruptly.

"I don't understand," I reply, caught completely by surprise.

"I've been watching you from across the room," she says. "I'm sorry. I thought you spoke English. I wanted to know who you work for."

"Who do I work for?" I'm still not getting it. Maybe the intense heat of the day has baked my brain.

The woman slips into the cadences one uses when they think they're speaking to someone either dreadfully hard of hearing or from a country whose gross national income wouldn't cover the cost of an August sublet in the Hamptons. "It's so hard to find someone who—you know—well, speaks English. And is well-groomed—and—you're so good with the little girl." She unsnaps her Fendi "baguette" and withdraws a slim leather card case. "If you're ever unhappy with your present situation, please do consider giving me a call. Xander isn't much of a handful." She points out a small boy about Zoë's age with an unruly mop of brown curls, banging together two Yao Ming-size Timberlands as if they're a pair of orchestra cymbals.

Oh, good Lord. I get it now. "You think I'm an au pair, don't you?" I ask the older woman. She looks so smug, I decide that the most delicious way to set her straight is through indirect communication. Besides, a smartass remark just isn't me.My sister Mia is the one who excels at the witty rejoinder. "Zoë, sweetie, please let's settle on something. Mommy's going to pass out in a few minutes if we don't get away from this crowd." The child has a way of totally zoning out for some reason whenever we go to a shoe store. I guess it's why I postponed the schoolshoe shopping expedition until the last possible moment.

I'm trying not to let her see how exasperated I am that what should have been a half-hour excursion is turning into a day trip. And in this heat it's not easy. Ever since her father left, I feel guilty when I get angry or lose patience with her. The divorce was rough on both of us and I'm unused to being the disciplinarian. More than that, I'm uncomfortable with it. My own parents are uncharacteristically non-neurotic. Actually, I suppose their loopy progressiveness is their own form of dysfunction, and not having grown up in a strict household, I haven't a clue how to run one, even when discipline is clearly called for.

My now-ex-husband Scott was able to handle his dot-com CFO responsibilities from home much of the time, so while I took a full course load at Columbia and got my bachelor's degree in art history during Zoë's first four years, it was Scott who heard our daughter say her first word ("Da") and whose hands she let go of when she took her first cautious, halting, baby steps. Zoë worships her father and has been blaming me for the divorce, even though it was Scott who decided to walk away from the marriage several months ago.

My cell phone vibrates. It's my friend Sue. "Where are you?" she demands accusingly.

Well, no reason for her to cop an attitude, just because we haven't been in touch for a while! What have I done to her? "I'm at Harry's trying to find Zoë some school shoes she can live with. What's the matter?"

Play Dates. Copyright © by Leslie Carroll. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.