AS IT TURNED OUT, KATE’S mother’s sister was a party planner with a catering crew.
“It’s a real job,” Clee said, “not like Ralphs. It’s a career.”
“So she’s Kate’s aunt?”
Jack erupted loudly in his diaper.
“It’s her mother’s sister. My dream is to learn everything and then start my own company.”
“A party-planning company?”
“Not necessarily, but maybe. That’s one idea. Rachel who’s on the crew is going to start a company that does popcorn in flavors. She already has all the popcorn. It’s in her room.”
“Do you want to do it?” I put Jack in her arms.
“What?”
“Change him.”
When it had been eight weeks and seven days I shaved again and put on the curtains. Because if you didn’t count the first week, which she probably didn’t, then this would be the last night of the eighth week.
After that night I didn’t shave again.
FOR THE CATERING EVENTS SHE had to wear a white tuxedo shirt and a caterer’s black bow tie. She looked incredible, of course; that’s why she’d been hired. The first night she got home at two A.M.
“They made such a mess—I’ve been cleaning for hours,” she moaned.
She noisily unloaded a paper bag full of half-drunk bottles of champagne and cupcakes and a stack of napkins with ZAC & KIM printed on them.
“Shhh.” I pointed furiously at the baby monitor. It had taken four laps around the block to get him to sleep.
She dropped the empty paper bag like a hot potato.
“Okay, I have to say something.”
Her face was strange and serious. My stomach dropped. She was breaking up with me.
“When I tell you things? You don’t always seem very interested. Like, you don’t ask questions and that makes me feel like you don’t care. Don’t smile. Why are you smiling?”
“I’m sorry. I am interested. What wasn’t I interested in?”
“Well, and this is just one example off the top of my head, when I was telling you about Rachel’s flavored popcorn company that she’s gonna have? You didn’t ask anything about that.”
“Right, I see what you’re saying. I think maybe in that one particular case you gave a very complete picture so there weren’t any questions left to ask.”
“I can think of a question.”
“What?”
“What flavors? That would be the first question that an actually interested person would ask.”
“Okay. You’re right.”
She shifted, waiting.
“What flavors?”
“See, that’s the whole thing: papaya, milk, chocolate milk, gum—all stuff like that. Have you ever had gum popcorn?”
“No. I’ve had gum and I’ve had popcorn, but not—”
“Not as one thing.”
“Never as one thing.”
Two A.M. was early. Sometimes the parties ended at three and she cleaned until five. Once she and Rachel had to drive a marble podium to Orange County at four in the morning so Kate’s mother’s sister wouldn’t have to pay the rental fee for another day. Sometimes she was drunk when she got home, which was just part of the job.
“Because there’s so many leftover beverages,” she slurred.
She unbuttoned her tuxedo shirt and pumped out the alcoholic milk. Hutz-pa, hutz-pa, hutz-pa. I poured it down the drain and she gave me a peck. Then another, longer kiss that tasted funny.
She watched my face. “Tastes like tequila?”
I nodded.
“You like it?”
“I’m not a big drinker.”
“Well, we gotta get you drunk sometime, lady.”
Lady wasn’t really one of her names for me; it made me feel old. She put her hand on my hip.
“Where’s that dress?”
“What dress?”
She made a sour face, one of her old mean faces.
“Never mind.”
The TV came on; I went into the bedroom and shut the door. Anytime I was alone now I dropped into a stunned stupor, holding my forearms and trying to locate the old me in this new life. Usually I didn’t get very far—Jack cried and I streamed into motion, forgetting myself again. If he didn’t cry my thoughts became increasingly curly and frantic, which was what was happening now. I realized the dress she meant.
She blushed when she saw me. Her eyes locked onto the pennies in my shoes and slowly crawled up the length of the corduroy dress, button by button. When she got to my face she stepped back and took in the whole picture. Her face was stricken, almost pained. She ran her hand through her bangs and wiped her palms on her sweatpants a couple of times. I had never been looked at this way before, like a fantasy come to life.
She stood up and bowed her head, kissing me on the neck just above the high collar. The way she pushed me down was rough. Not like before, but a little bit like before. Which made me tearful—that was us too. She scooted down to my feet, down to the hem. They were difficult buttons, almost slightly too large for the holes. She grappled with each one as if it were the first, never accruing any tricks or unbuttoning techniques. I thought the chances were very slim that she would make it to my pubic area before Jack cried, if that’s where she was headed. When he didn’t cry I worried he was dead, but since I didn’t want to be the one who found him I stayed on the floor. Her fingers worked their way past my waist. I watched the serious oval of her face as she struggled across my bosom. Her alcoholic breath was quick with anticipation. It was an arousing sound; anyone of any persuasion would have become excited hearing it. When the button under my chin was free, she carefully spread the two sides of the dress apart, like a fish split open. I wasn’t wearing the curtains or anything else. She sat back on her heels, locked her eyes on my watery breasts and began mumbling something under her breath.
“Cheryl can do it alone . . . I am joining her even though I’m not much help . . .”
She quickly muttered through the end as if it was the Lord’s Prayer. It was hard to bow in acknowledgment while lying on the floor, but the moment I did she pulled off her sweatpants and thong in one swift motion and lowered herself, lining up her dark blond mound on top of my stubbly gray one. I lifted my head to kiss her; she shut her eyes and cleared her throat while shifting her hips a little to one side. With great concentration she began slowly kneading herself on my pubic bone. It was a lot of weight and I wasn’t sure where to put my hands. They hovered over the lobes of her bare bottom for a while before landing there. I squeezed. There was no denying that this felt good but it was hard to gather the sensation into any kind of momentum. I shut my eyes and Phillip encouraged me, “Think about your thing.” It had been a long time since I’d thought about my thing. I pointed my feet and tried to generate an echo, the fantasy inside the fantasy, but somewhere along the way my eyes had fallen open. Her swollen breasts were pressing against my hard, hairy chest and I felt her actual wet puss sliding against my stiff member. I squeezed her bottom as hard as I could and thrust upward; the sensation was incredible, I had her, I was having her. I thrust again and again until I ejaculated in clenched and thunderous surges, filling her. Clee watched my face contort and sped up, her rubbing becoming embarrassingly pointed. I tried to go with the movement but it was too fast for two people, so I held still like a good post for a dog to scratch against. The smell of her feet rose up in waves, alternating with clean air. I could feel the paunch where Jack used to be. She kept working at it; something was chafing. Finally she shuddered stiffly with a high-pitched moan that almost sounded fake. I knew I would get used to it. Maybe I would even make a sound next time.
She rolled off me and quickly pulled her thong back on and then her sweatpants. She stood up with a big jump and almost fell backward, laughing.
“Oh my god,” she said, not to me,
just into the air. “Oh my god!”
It looked like that was all, so I got started on buttoning the dress.
“I’m gonna order a pizza right now and eat the whole thing.” She was already dialing. “Do you want any? No, right?”
“No.”
I turned the baby monitor on and off to make sure the screen wasn’t frozen.
“He hasn’t moved in a long time.”
She looked at the screen. “What do you mean?”
“Just that he hasn’t moved.”
“Is that bad?”
“Not if he’s alive.”
“Should you go check?”
“And wake him up?”
I sat by myself with the monitor, putting the edge of my fingernail against his chest to measure any shift that might indicate breathing. The resolution just wasn’t high enough. I’ll go screaming into the street, that’s the first thing I’ll do. After that, no plans.
When the pizza delivery man rang the doorbell, the baby woke up. She’d eaten it all by the time I’d gotten him back down.
ON JULY 3RD JACK WAILED on and off all day long, as if he knew this was the last day for a smile and it made him terribly sad to miss the deadline.
It’s no problem at all, just put it out of your mind.
I feel one coming on, though.
No rush.
Clee spent thirty minutes harassing him with noises and silly faces and then gave up and stomped outside. I watched her pace around, smoking and talking on the phone.
On the fourth we went to Ralphs and Clee got a free employee hot dog even though she didn’t work there anymore. The manager held Jack and a woman named Chris held him and the butcher held him and then Clee held him, really cradling him as if she did this all the time. He tried to latch on to one of the buttons of her tuxedo shirt. She wore it every day now, even when she wasn’t working. And green pants, army pants. Her personal style had quietly and completely changed over the last month. It suited her. When she started to look antsy the redheaded bagger boy plucked Jack from her arms and rocketed him into the air.
“Careful,” I said.
“He likes it,” said the bagger boy. “Look!”
Clee and I looked up at our baby and he grinned down at us. We laughed out loud and hugged each other and the bagger boy and Jack. The milestone had been met.
After smiling came laughing, then rolling over. The days and nights began to unwarp; three A.M. became an ordinary time. The first few months were hard for all new parents, a test, really—and we had passed! And it was summertime. I washed the linens. I opened all the windows and did my best to tidy the backyard, pruning and weeding while Jack rolled around on a blanket. Rick would have to empty the snail bucket if he ever returned; it was almost full. Clee wore jean shorts and used some of her catering money to buy her friend Rachel’s old moped because Rachel was getting a new one. They mopeded together on the weekends and were thinking of joining a team.
“Because we’re friggin’ fast!” she said loudly, taking off her helmet.
“Maybe Jack and I can watch you compete.” I saw myself sitting by a cooler, holding the baby and waving a pennant. Suntan lotion.
Her face twisted shut. “It’s not like that. There aren’t races.”
“Oh, okay. You said team, so I thought—”
She grabbed something from the kitchen and went back outside. I stared out the front window with Jack on my hip. She was spraying the wheels of her moped with the hose and scrubbing them with my vegetable scrubber. Most of her baby weight had disappeared. Her even larger new bosom looked almost unreal, but in a wonderful way. She turned the water off and stepped back, admiring the shiny moped. Many people would have had trouble keeping their hands off her. Did she expect that from me? Of course she did.
That night I put on the curtains. It was too embarrassing to strut out half-naked, so I wore my bathrobe and then slid it off once I was beside her on the couch. It took her a moment to pull her eyes away from the TV and then she did. Just for a second.
“I”—she was blinking rapidly—“need advance warning.”
I pulled up the robe.
“All right. How much advance warning?”
“What?”
“I just don’t know if you mean an hour, or a day, or . . .”
She stared at her knees like a teenager being grilled by a parent. After a while the question evaporated; it couldn’t be answered now. I got up and made some tea.
I still gave her a peck now and then but her lips seemed to stiffen, a tiny flinch. Sometimes I wished we could just wrestle it out like in the old days, but that was impossible and we’d have had to get a sitter. And I didn’t really want to fight her; she wasn’t even being mean. She did her dishes and dutifully mowed the backyard wearing dirty rubber boots that came up to her knees. When did she get those? Or were they Rick’s boots, the ones he used to garden in. Melancholy suddenly plumed in my chest, as if I missed the homeless gardener. Or missed the past—the hospital, the nurses, the call buttons, the way she looked in braids and the badly fitting cotton gown. The first purple mark was still high in the corner of the chalkboard but if a person didn’t know what it was they might think it was just a bit of something else that hadn’t gotten completely erased.
IT WAS AN IDEA I was working on. I’d think about it for just a few seconds, then put it away. A couple days later, when Jack was sleeping, I’d make myself take it out and work on it some more. It was like a big needlepoint; I didn’t want to see the finished picture until it was done. The reason being that the finished picture was so sad.
We had fallen in love; that was still true. But given the right psychological conditions, a person could fall in love with anyone or anything. A wooden desk—always on all fours, always prone, always there for you. What was the lifespan of these improbable loves? An hour. A week. A few months at best. The end was a natural thing, like the seasons, like getting older, fruit turning. That was the saddest part—there was no one to blame and no way to reverse it.
So now I was just waiting for her to leave me, taking the boy who was not legally my son. One day soon they would be gone. She would do it abruptly to avoid a scene. She’d go home; Carl and Suzanne would help raise him. They weren’t talking to her now, but that would change when she arrived on their doorstep with a baby and a purple duffel bag over her shoulder. With this new understanding of my position came shakiness and a loss of appetite; I held Jack in cold hands, always on the verge of tears. For the first time in my life I understood TV, why everyone watched it. It helped. Not in the long run, of course, but minute by minute. The only food I craved was unreal, unorganic chips and cookies and one especially addictive thing that was both—a fried, salty cookie. When those ran out I left Jack with her while I went to Ralphs.
“If he wakes up and cries, wait five minutes before going in. He’ll probably go back to sleep after two minutes.”
She nodded like Yeah yeah yeah I know. She was pumping. “Can you get me those grapefruit sodas?”
Driving home I realized I had forgotten the sodas. Then I thought: It doesn’t matter. Because she won’t be there when I get home. Neither of them will. Sure enough, her car wasn’t in the driveway.
It would be perverse to enter the house only moments after she’d left. I had to let it close up a little, settle. Also I couldn’t move because I was crying so hard. Wide ragged howls. It had happened. Oh, my baby. Kubelko Bondy.
Suddenly her silver Audi pulled up beside mine, two two-liters of Diet Pepsi in the passenger seat, Jack asleep in his car seat. We both stepped out of our cars.
“I let him cry for five minutes but he wouldn’t stop,” she whispered over the hood. “So I took him for a ride.”
After that I kept Jack with me, always, and I tried to do things that he might remember, on a cellular level, after she took him away. I organized a tr
ip to the boardwalk on the Santa Monica Pier, full of stimulating, indelible sights and sounds.
“Can I bring a friend?” Clee asked.
“What friend?” I said.
“Never mind, it’s not a big deal.”
The pier was packed with hundreds of obese people eating giant fried dough shapes and neon cotton candy. Clee bought a deep-fried Oreo cookie.
“That’ll make some sweet milk,” I said, thinking about the inflammatory properties of sugar.
“What?” she yelled over the screaming clatter of a roller coaster. Each time it roared by, a Latina woman lifted her baby high into the air and he wiggled his arms and legs; he thought he was on the ride. The next time it came around I lifted Jack in unison; this he would remember. The woman smiled at me and I made a deferential gesture, letting her know I wasn’t trying to take over, she was the leader. We thrust our babies into the air again and again, showing them what it felt like to be a mother, to be terrifyingly in love without the option of getting off. My arms became tired, but it wasn’t my place to decide when to end it. How I longed to be any one of these people milling about with such easy freedom. Suddenly the roller coaster stopped with a bang; the doors clanged open and a cluster of men and children stumbled toward my Latina comrade, laughing and weak-kneed from the ride. I barely had the strength to tuck Jack into his sling; my arms hung like noodles.
And Clee was gone.
I held my breath and stood perfectly still as the crowd swirled around us.
She’d waited until I was distracted.
Her friend had picked her up.
They were halfway to San Francisco.
She’d left Jack.
I held his face in my hands and tried to keep my breath even. He didn’t know yet. It was awful, a crime. Or maybe this was her plan all along, a generous and mature choice. My eyes welled up. She believed in me, that I could do it. And I could. Relief spun with the shock of being left. I reeled in circles, stumbling toward the exit, then the bathroom, then numbly watching a skinny father as he failed to shoot a rubber duck with a gun, bang, bang . . . bang. She was watching him too. She was standing right there in her tuxedo shirt, eating a giant pretzel. The skinny father gave up and Clee glanced around mildly, looking for the next thing to watch. She saw us and waved.