Supposedly, they can relax. They’ll have a rare afternoon without lessons. They’ll still be filmed, but words won’t be counted, and the dolls’ internal cameras will be switched off.
“Our gift to you,” Ms. Khoury said this morning, noting that some mothers have responded to pressure in incredibly selfish ways. Today is only an icebreaker. Tomorrow, they’ll be bused to the fathers’ school to begin Unit 6: Socialization.
Everyone watches eagerly as buses pull into the parking lot on College Avenue. Frida is reminded of those MGM musicals from the 1950s. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. But there are only two buses. They outnumber the fathers three to one. Like them, the fathers wear navy blue uniforms and work boots. Most fathers are Black and brown. Most look to be in their twenties and thirties. One is a teenager holding an infant.
They’re younger than Frida expected. If she saw most of them on the street, she’d never guess that they had children. In New York, she once went on a blind date with a twenty-five-year-old grad student whose invitation she’d accepted on a whim. She’d been only six years older at the time, but men liked to tell her things, and as the boy told her about his dead twin and running away from home at fourteen, she wanted to put a blanket around the boy’s shoulders and give him cookies. She feels the same protective impulse now.
“Who they?” Emmanuelle asks. Frida reminds her that they’ve seen fathers in books. Father raccoons and father bears and father bunnies. These are human fathers. She tells Emmanuelle about two-parent households.
Ms. Knight mills through the crowd in a stars-and-stripes dress. Her counterpart, Ms. Holmes, is also in attendance. The two executive directors hug and exchange air-kisses. From a distance, Ms. Holmes, also white, also statuesque, seems to have allowed herself to age naturally. She has a Susan Sontag–like white streak in her dark hair, wears no makeup, no jewelry, has her pink lab coat draped loosely over her shoulders. The fathers’ minders are all female, all in pink lab coats. Some fathers and instructors look suspiciously close.
The younger mothers and fathers gravitate to one another. Parents line up at the doll food tent and cautiously begin mingling, everyone looking over their shoulders and whispering. Some parents introduce themselves by name and offense before realizing they don’t have to.
No one mentions Margaret. Frida has been thinking about Margaret’s son, wondering whether he’s been told yet, who will bring him to the funeral, if he’ll be allowed to attend, if the casket will be closed. She hasn’t spoken to Harriet in four months. Someone needs to tell Harriet that Mommy will be calling soon—this weekend, if the counselor allows it. She finished second in yesterday’s evaluation for Intermediate and Advanced Play, but she knows it’s too soon to get excited.
She carries Emmanuelle to the doll food tent.
“Mommy, I feel nervous.” Emmanuelle hides her face.
Frida tells her not to worry. To distract her, Frida waves to the boy doll in front of them in line, who’s sitting on his father’s shoulders.
They crane their necks.
“Up high,” Emmanuelle says.
The father must be six-three or six-four. Emmanuelle asks if he’s a giraffe. The father overhears them and laughs. He turns around, introduces himself. Tucker. Frida shakes his hand. Her voice cracks as she says hello. The man’s palm is soft, much softer than hers. She hasn’t met a man who isn’t a guard since last November.
Tucker’s doll son, Jeremy, is a pale, chubby brunette, a three-year-old with a bowl haircut and the stare of a serial killer. Tucker sets him down. Emmanuelle waves. Jeremy pokes her arm. Emmanuelle touches his hand. Jeremy hugs her roughly, then tries to stick his entire fist in her mouth.
“Whoa, too rough,” Frida says. Tucker asks Jeremy to be gentle. They make eye contact with each other instead of their dolls.
Frida looks and looks. Tucker is her age, maybe older, a fortysomething white man with the slouching body of a reader. His straight hair is mostly gray and flops over his forehead. It’s been cut haphazardly. When he smiles, his eyes almost disappear. He smiles easily. He’s thinner and less attractive than Will, more wrinkled than Gust, has enormous straight teeth that give his face an equine quality.
She checks for a wedding ring, remembers the jewelry rule, must find a way to ask. Emmanuelle notices her blushing.
“Why you hot, Mommy? You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Tucker is blushing too. A suitable response, she thinks, to meeting in uniform in a tent with blue food.