Snapped by Pamela Klaffke Page A

sounds like he’s memorized this from some parenting textbook. He probably has.
    “He’s one .”
    “You’d be amazed how much information is imprinted before a child is two.”
    I’m sure he’s right—I would be amazed. I would be amazed if upon hearing about this movement I didn’t want to turn my spare room into a workshop and take two copies of whatever book this present-opening behavior modification came from and use them to build a vise that I could wedge my head in and crank tighter and tighter until my skull cracked and the wormy soft spots of my brain matter oozed out onto the author’s photo and advance-praise blurbs.
    Ted raises his glass of lemonade and clinks the side with a fork. Everyone stops talking. Ted’s eyes are teary as he thanks all of us, the wonderful friends, for coming. He toasts his wonderful son, his wonderful wife who’s a wonderful mother and it’s going to be wonderful to watch her perform again. Ted raises his glass higher. “J’taime Gen-Gen,” he says. “J’taime Gen-Gen!” the Wonderful Friends say and salute Genevieve with lemonade. I’m out of lemonade, but I rattle around the ice in the bottom of my glass.
    “It’s exciting, isn’t it, about Gen’s new show?” Eva sits on the arm of my shady Adirondack chair and pours me another lemonade.
    “Oh, it’s exciting,” I say.
    “Do you think they’ll have cameras at the office?”
    “I’m still not clear on the details,” I say, not wanting to admit that I have no details at all.
    “I don’t suppose so, not unless Gen comes by,” Eva says.
    I tune Eva out and strain to cobble together pieces of Wonderful Friends chatter. Filming starts in three weeks. In the studio, at home. J’taime Gen-Gen: juggling motherhood, marriage and music. Working out every day. Still have a tinybit of tummy to lose. Gen’s tummy is perfectly flat, so that last thing she said to one of her fellow sherbet-shirt Wonderful Friends is a total lie.
    Ted twirls around lifting Olivier above his head, repeating J’taime Gen-Gen, J’taime Gen-Gen, until it’s so obnoxious I want to stick out my foot and trip him so the baby goes splat and nobody’s happy and twirly and making deals to star in tacky reality shows without consulting their so-called best friend anymore.
    “I couldn’t believe it when Ted told me. It seems like such a strange thing to do when you think about it—you’re so exposed, ” says Eva.
    Ted told Eva? I think about changing the subject but I can’t think of anything else to talk about. I try to sound casual. “When did Ted tell you?” My voice cracks. I sound like a pubescent frog.
    “He mentioned something about it last week.”
    “He mentioned something about it last week.” I mimic Eva precisely as if she were the voice on a learn-a-foreign-language cassette. I want to leave. I want to walk the freeway back to the city in my stinky black dress, laden with heavy camera gear and my punishing hangover. I try again for casual. “You know what they say—if you’re not on TV these days, you don’t really exist,” I say. No one actually says this but me and every time I do I fancy myself quite clever.
    “I like that,” Eva says. “It’s so true.”
    I wish there was a breeze and that I was wearing a white linen suit and a Panama hat and could smoke as I impart all my wisdom to my eager young student who spends afternoons sitting astride me pouring lemonade and hanging wide-eyed and rapt on my every word.
    “I think that’s your phone,” Eva says, interrupting my vision.
    I scramble through my camera bag and flip my phone open. “Hello?” There’s no one there. “Hello?”
    “Sara? Is that you?”
    “This is Sara.”
    “Hello, dear. This is Esther Lewis speaking. I hope I’m not catching you at an inconvenient time.”
    “No. Not at all.” Esther Lewis? Esther Lewis. Esther Lewis of Esther and Lila. Lila of the magazines.
    “Sara, dear, I hope you don’t mind me calling, but I found