Rumaan Alam - Rich and Pretty

Sarah answers the door. She looks very different, at first, and it’s because Lauren’s mental image of Sarah is Sarah on her wedding day. Sarah looks, now, nothing like that. Her hair looks thinner, somehow, or flatter, which is odd, given the day’s humidity. Summertime Sarah’s hair is usually so voluminous. There’s a hardness, too, to her face — she’s lost weight, that’s what it is. There’s that residual glow, of pregnancy, which has mellowed into the satisfaction of the parent. Lauren wasn’t sure what she expected — dark circles under the eyes, maybe, a general harried air — but she knows that Henry’s a decent sleeper, actually, eats his fill like clockwork, then dozes and mews in his little sleeper, attached to their bed. It makes a certain kind of sense that Sarah would have a perfect baby; it’s of a piece with the general expectation, in her life, of perfection. She looks good. She looks like her younger self, and it’s a look that seems better, more beautiful, now than it did then.

“Hi!” As she kisses Sarah, Lauren spies the small crowd in the apartment. She wills herself into party mode.

“You’re here.” Sarah pulls her into the apartment, closes the door.

It is cold inside, almost like a refrigerator. The apartment smells, as it always does, of nothing at all. It’s like a hotel, she’s always thought, Sarah and Dan’s apartment, anonymous, incongruous, well ordered and maintained, like a model home.

“Is he awake?” She’s seen the baby already, of course, but only the once, at the hospital, Sarah sleepy and crazed-looking, Dan sweaty and pleased. Newborns are never all that cute unless you have a genetic stake; Henry looked like a red alien, or how she imagined a turtle might look, without its shell. Lauren oohed over him, left them with some flowers, then, the next day, had some groceries delivered to their apartment, including many ready-made dinners you needed only heat in the microwave. She’s wanted to give the new family their space; this has been her gift to them. She thinks she knows what new parenthood entails: sleepless stupor, casual nudity, marital bickering, forgetfulness, anxiety about inoculations and insurance. A new parent needs time to process this, doesn’t need to spend her days making chitchat with gawkers.

“He’s dozing, but he’ll be up soon.” Sarah leads her into the living room, where Meredith, Amina, and two older women she doesn’t recognize are stabbing baby carrots into a bowl and having a conversation in an exaggerated whisper speak that’s frankly every bit as loud as normal conversations. Lulu and Fiona, who is clearly pregnant herself, her long, elegant body somehow made longer and more elegant by the rise of her stomach, are just offstage, in the kitchen, where Lulu is doing nothing to keep her voice down.

The baby is in his seat, amid all this general hubbub, a blank expression on his face, lips set in a perfect little pucker, his cheeks moving, almost imperceptibly, as he snores. The hair on his skull looks almost drawn on, like the lines of a pencil. He’s sweet; babies are designed to seem sweet.

“You know everyone,” Sarah says, her tone carrying a clue. “You remember my aunt Sharon? And my colleague Carol?”

“Of course! How are you?” Lauren offers a hand to both the women, unsure which is Sharon and which is Carol. It doesn’t matter. She hasn’t seen Amina or Meredith since the brunch, the Sunday after the wedding, an understated, hungover occasion. She and Rob sat with Sarah and Dan and the four of them ate quiche and pastries and mostly ignored the rest of the guests. The three of them exchange half hugs and half kisses, as is the custom. Their trip together — bathing suits and bangles, sunscreen and that pristine water — seems like something that happened to someone else.

“Can you believe this kid? I’m dying to wake him up,” Meredith says. “I can’t wait to get my hands on him.”

Sarah disappears into the kitchen.

“You better not,” Amina says. “My sister says the one rule is never wake a sleeping baby.”

“How are you supposed to resist, though?” Meredith stares longingly at the baby.

Sarah has kept Lauren abreast of things. She knows that Meredith and the blind date who was arranged to escort her to Sarah’s wedding are now an item. Judging by the rapacity with which Meredith is studying the baby, the poor guy stands no chance.

Fiona joins them, porcelain teacup cradled in her hands like a bird settled into a nest. “Hi, Lauren,” she says. Some special note of friendliness there: She and Rob spent an hour at the wedding with Fiona and her husband, Sam. They sat on the stoop, the four of them, balancing plates on laps and eating dinner, then smoking Sam’s cigarettes, talking. Lauren likes Fiona, though she’s also a bit afraid of her, has always had a healthy fear of women who are too beautiful. Much as pregnancy has amplified the effect of her remarkable body, it’s accentuated the impact of her beauty. She has it — the glow. And she’s cut her hair short, like a boy’s, so all you can do is take in the planes of her face, the evenness of her skin, the sweet peak of her nose, the luxurious green of her eyes.

“Congratulations,” Lauren says, which is what you must say in these situations, when it’s impossible, indeed uncomfortable, to deny the fact of another person’s pregnancy. “When are you due?”

“November,” Fiona says. “Not long now. How have you been? How’s Rob?”

“He’s good, thanks,” she says. “He’s good. I’m good. We’re good.”

Rob is good. That may be the easiest way to sum him up: good. Things between them have been much the same — dinner here, or a movie then a drink, a stroll around Chelsea to look at the second-rate summer group shows, an hour in the park, on a blanket, with the newspaper. The first weekend of August, their first time away together. She’d felt guilty, like they’d ditched the third wheel that had accompanied them wherever they went: the city itself.

Rob’s idea: a vacation rental in the Hudson Valley, though they never caught sight of the river. They stopped at a big, clean grocery store, bought a rotisserie chicken and some dry pasta, the makings for hamburgers, a bottle of vodka and a twelve-pack of beer, a package of Oreos and every idiotic magazine in the checkout line. The house had a hot tub, and they sat in the quiet night, naked, until the heat had completely soaked into their bodies. They dried off and fell asleep, woke up and fucked. There was no computer, no television, even their phones didn’t work all that well. She spread a sheet on the patchy lawn and lay there in the summer sun, reading tabloids. Rob fell asleep on the sofa and snored, then woke up and grilled hamburgers. They sat naked in the tub again, again fell asleep, and woke early the next morning, too early, because they hadn’t done anything and therefore weren’t tired. They packed their things, drove to a nearby town, looked at some terrible art galleries, ignored the antiques shops, ate bagels and drank iced coffee. Rob drove them back to her place, and then Rob went to return the rental car on his own, and she was surprised to find that she was relieved to be alone again.

She has been impatient for September, and now here it is: three books launching, related parties and events scheduled, that back-to-school feeling in the air and even if you’re the sort to sing “no more pencils, no more books,” there’s something comforting in the sense that the world is getting back to business. Lauren’s ready, ready to shake the hands and soothe the egos, to demonstrate efficiency, to reach for excellence. She’s ready for more. Sarah has a baby, for Christ’s sake. What the fuck does she have?

“Lauren, come sit and talk to me,” Lulu says, beckoning from the sofa. “Come, come.”