My eyes darted around as I tried to think up an excuse for a quick escape. The furniture all matched, and even more impressive, it was in colors that easily stained—taupe, cream, beige. I saw no stains. I scanned his walls. No artwork, either. This was a disaster. Maybe I could fake some gastric emergency. But then I saw an intriguing-looking old map above that fake fireplace.
“It’s one of the most expensive items I’ve ever bought,” George commented as I stepped up close to the glass-encased marvel. “But I had to have it. I like owning beautiful things.”
His voice, mist-like, barely prickled my consciousness—I couldn’t stop looking at that map. I guess, if I was going to stick around, I should have been making some sultry, sexual moves by that point, but I kept staring. An inset in the frame dated the map from 1719. It was a map of North America as envisioned by the intrepid explorers and cartographers of the day, with painstaking renderings of indigenous peoples along the side. The continent’s shape was about right, but some key details were completely bollixed up. There were only three Great Lakes, and what was now Florida broke off abruptly at the Gulf of Mexico, with some invented North Sea underneath. The Western Ocean to the east became the Sea of the British Empire along the East coast. North America was divided into long-disbanded territories—Louisiana, New France, New Mexico. But the best part was California—it was an island! There it was, cut off from the rest of the country by a mythical Red Sea, off in a little alternate universe of its own.
Most of the western half of North America was labeled Parts Unknown. Just a big blank space on the map, a few mountain ranges and Indian tribes sketched in, with no borders at all on that side. Anything north of the Californian island was completely unexplored. What wonders a person could find there, sandwiched between those imaginary seas. A lost city of gold, perhaps. The sunken Atlantis.
Oh, to be on that island of California, wandering northward toward Parts Unknown, nothing but a knapsack on my back and all the possibilities in the world before me. George must know. He must understand—his precise diction masking his raw, wild heart. He and I were kindred spirits, after all, the map revealing our true selves in the way words couldn’t.
I turned, at last, and grasped him in my arms.
~ ~ ~
“G’night, George.” I kissed him lightly when I was done with the catalog.
“Love you, dear.”
“I love you, too.”
Undressing in the bedroom, I could hear him moving around in the hall, the shushing sound as he lifted the cordless phone from its cradle. The fuzz of his voice from the far end of the den—his nightly call home. “Hello, Mother. How was your day?” By the time I was tucked in bed, teeth brushed, pillows arranged around me, he was still talking. Soft murmurs, solicitous acknowledgements.
I sat down on George’s bed and brushed my hair. I always thought of it as George’s bed, because it was the sort of furniture I’d never choose to buy. It was made of big, heavy, dark pieces of wood, hand-carved with intricate patterns—tree trunks, leaves, small elvin things that looked like satyrs here and there, peeking out from behind baroquely curling flower stems. It was an antique and had been imported from Bavaria. I didn’t like to look too closely at the designs. I was never sure what I might find.
Nevertheless, I loved that bed. I could float in its crisp sheets endlessly, free of worry. In fact, I spent more time there than I should, but I had time to spare—all the time I used to fill with painting. I didn’t paint anymore, and I hadn’t for a long time. I missed it sometimes, like a lost but insignificant body part: tonsils; appendix. You don’t really need them, and it’s surprising how well you could live without them. It just seemed like too much effort, to exhume all the supplies from the boxes in the garage where they were stored. And what would I paint? I hadn’t a clue.
The truth was: I didn’t feel like I deserved to paint. I hadn’t done anything for years that would let me reward myself in that way. Better to stop. Better not to think about it.
I had continued painting for a while, after I’d met George. He liked to show me off at faculty get-togethers. “This is my girlfriend, the artist,” he’d say proudly, his arm possessively around my waist. And mustached colleagues would eye him with a new respect. I could almost hear them thinking, I didn’t know he had it in him. Sure, he’d pursued me when he’d found I was an artist, but once I became pregnant with Lucy, I turned into someone else—the vessel carrying his future heir, the one remnant of the Anglin line. And honestly, that fuzzy, sexual, intangible “artistic mystique” that so drew him to me—well, I didn’t have it anymore. When Lucy was born, everything had stopped. Several years of exhaustion, night wakings, tantrum after tantrum. I loved Lucy more than I’d ever imagined I could love someone, but she left me drained, empty.
I was capable of nothing but letting the days go by, one after the other in an endless stream. Lately, when she was in preschool in the morning, I’d often go to our bedroom and lie down, feeling the sun slant through the window just so, warming my whole body. I’d lie there like a cat, soaking in the rays, feeling boneless and without thought. I could just be there. Just exist. Without thinking, without feeling, without having to do anything.
And George didn’t mind, soon enough, that I’d stopped painting. He never did get it figured out, no matter how much I tried to explain where I got my ideas, how I knew which paints to use; why the #4 bristle brush was my favorite, why I never used the sable one, even though I had bought it specially. “The bristle brush just feels right,” I’d tell him, and I’d see him make a mental note, then erase it, because you couldn’t quantify that. You couldn’t quantify a feeling.
I glopped some peppermint foot lotion into my hand and rubbed it on my tired feet. They were long, pale, veiny—not my best feature. With surprise, I noticed deeper blue veins coming up from the soles—they looked just like my mother’s. How could that have happened, when I wasn’t looking? My body betraying me like that. Turning me into someone else.
The days went on. They weren’t boring, because Lucy’s frequent tantrums provided variety. Trying to get through the preschool drop-off and pickup while avoiding all those other put-together parents was exhausting in itself. Thank god for my friend Astrid, my one beacon of messiness in the tidy world of playdates and volunteer opportunities.
But in the end, my days were unchangeable: as impossible to affect as the weather, but without nearly as much variety. And I could see them all stretching ahead of me, years and years of those same days. You could try to halt the rain by going outside without an umbrella, but that wouldn’t do a thing. You’d just get wet. I mean, forget that “change comes from within” crap. Where? From where? The universe was inviolate. Perhaps each day of my life had been preordained since my birth. Somehow that August in 1998 had slipped through the cracks, but you couldn’t expect such a cosmic error to happen again.
Lucy would grow older, and there would be different schools, and different challenges to deal with. But that didn’t really change anything. Because I could go on like this, indefinitely. Just like Madame, her week revolving around Sunday dinner. Just like Mom, spraying Endust on the hall table every day. Vacuuming the rug, over and over.
That could be me.
Chapter 6
I carried Lucy up the stairs after preschool the next afternoon. She was pretending both her legs were broken and was refusing to walk on her own. That morning, I’d had to carry her to the car, from the car to class, and now back from the car and up the stairs. It wasn’t easy, either—the kid was pushing forty pounds. “Are your legs still broken?” I asked her.
“Yeah, they’re still broke. The doctor says they’ll all be better tomorrow though!” Lucy reassured me.
“I sure hope so,” I muttered, depositing her unceremoniously into the entryway as I gathered up the mail. Our mail slot decanted straight onto the hallway floor, and I gathered the Vons and CVS circulars strewn everywhere.
Meanwhile, Lucy was lying on her bac
k, her arms and legs in the air, like some dead insect. She was fake-moaning, drool dribbling out of the side of her mouth. I burst out laughing and scooped her up. “You look ridiculous!” I teased her. “Aren’t your legs feeling a little better yet?”
“I told you, not till tomorrow!” Then Lucy got a crafty look in her eye. “Did you say you got Creamsicles?”
“Yep.”
“Well, if you got Creamsicles then maybe they might make my leg better.”
“What flavor is the best for broken legs?” I asked seriously. “Orange or raspberry?”
“Orange is best,” Lucy confirmed, and as she sucked on one, she made her legs jerk crazily, then started crawling around like a baby, Creamsicle hanging from her mouth and dripping on the floor, howling “Goo goo! Ga ga!” She turned to me conspiratorially. “Creamsicle worked, Mommy, but then it turned me into a baby!” I retorted, “When you wake up from your nap, you better be a kid again who can walk, or else there’s no TV later. Got it?”
“Ga ga,” said Lucy.
The phone rang as I carried Lucy to her room; it turned out to be Mom, who called several times a week these days. Ever since Lucy’d been born, my parents, shockingly, were phoning me.
“Hi Mom, what’s going on over there?”
“Oh, the usual. I’m on the board for a benefit for History Park. It’s just so much work, I’m not sure I’ll be able to get everything done in time.”
“Of course you will,” I reassured her. “You always do.” I imagined her with a huge list, in seventh heaven—so many things to check off.
“How’s Dad doing?” I asked.
“It’s funny, since he retired I’d have thought I’d see more of him, not less. But the man has become obsessed with golf.” She laughed. “Even more than he was, if you can believe it. Today he had an early tee time, so you won’t be able talk with him, I’m afraid. But that’s okay. I’ve got so much to do, it’s a blessing in disguise, not having him under my feet all the time.”
“Sounds like you’re keeping busy,” I said, smiling.
“Don’t I know it. I was wondering, have you heard from Alex lately?”
“No, not for a while. You know how he is, always in the middle of something. Just like you. He’s working at Morgan Stanley these days.”
“I wish he would call sometimes,” Mom said softly.
I knew he wouldn’t.
“Anyhow—” her voice brightened. “How’s my little Lucy?”
“She’s fine. She’s been pretending to be farm animals this week. I think today she’s a pig.”
I handed the phone to Lucy, who made oinking noises. I heard Mom’s voice distantly with a cooing sound in it that she only used with Lucy. It was like she’d been saving all her love—years’ worth of love—just for her grandchild. I was a little jealous of Lucy sometimes; my parents never spoke like that to me. But grateful, too: Lucy brought us all together. She was the one thing we finally had in common. And the one way Mom had found to make amends. Phone calls, twice weekly. Christmas and birthday presents. Never an apology, but she was showing, by what she did, that she was sorry. Not making amends for me or Alex, but for Lucy. It was, in fact, more than I would have expected.
“Bye, Gamma,” Lucy finished, and I got back on the line. “Is Marty around?”
“He’s holed up in his room, I’m sure. I haven’t seen him all day. How is George doing?” Mom’s voice faded in and out as she carried the cordless phone up the stairs.
“Same as usual. He’s got a lot going on this semester. He comes home so late—I’m just counting the days till summer vacation.”
“Say hi to him for me,” Mom said coolly. “Well! You’ll be visiting this summer, won’t you?”
“Uh—sure. Not sure when.”
We visited my family grudgingly, twice a year, once in the summer, once during Christmas, and only for Lucy’s benefit. George had pegged my parents right off the first time they’d met for dinner years ago. I saw his eyes glaze over about two minutes into my mom’s detailed description of the massive kitchen renovation she was planning, which I knew would never occur because the cost would be too high. But she loved to talk about it, and had been describing her dream kitchen, in fact, for years. Seeing his slightly curled nostril as he looked down at his soup bowl, I felt relieved. We could stay away, then. I could finally stop coming home.
“Here he is,” she was saying, and then, “Goodbye, Vivian. I’ll call Lucy again on Sunday.” Not me. Lucy.
The crazed child Marty had been had turned into an morose teenager. He fit right into the family now, that was for sure. He spoke in monosyllables, if at all, but we had a weird kind of rapport these days.
“Hey, bro,” I offered. “What’s the news?”
“Painted my room,” he replied.
“Oooh, that’s nice. What color?”
“Black.”
“Good for you,” I said. “How’re the drums?”
“Good. Been practicing a lot. Mom hates it.”
“I bet. That’s why you do it, right?”
He snickered softly. “Is everything okay over there?” I asked seriously.
“You know. It’s always the same.”
“Don’t I know it,” I agreed. “It’s always the same here too. Well, we’ll see if we can visit soon.”
“Like that’s going to happen.”
I laughed uncomfortably. “Well, come on down and visit us. I know how much you love harassing Lucy. Just don’t dangle her upside-down over the outside banister like you did last time.”
“I wasn’t going to drop her!”
“I know. George was about to kill you, though.”
“Alright, alright. Would’ve been a good fight though: two skinny nerds battle to the death.”
“Oh, shut up. I’ve gotta go put Lucy to sleep. Good-bye, Marty.” Then, tentatively: “I love you.”
He grunted and handed the phone back to Mom. But it was a start.
I had never told George about Uncle Paulie, but this had been his gift to me: with him, as I had been in my childhood bedroom, I felt absolutely safe. He would take care of me, and nothing could hurt me. I was Rapunzel, happy in my tower, a dizzying height away from the monsters and dragons lurking beneath. And I wanted to be there, my days planned, everything fallen into place, and I didn’t have to do a thing. George took care of it all. All I had to do was be there.
I missed Alex terribly, though. He had never come home. He never called them, he never e-mailed, and he had vowed to me that he never would. And he and I could still not speak except in inconsequential pleasantries, locked in memories we each could not escape.
~ ~ ~
It was Sunday night, and we were dining at Madame’s, as we did every week. George’s Volvo had ferried us to many a miserable meal in Madame’s large, unkempt house. George’s mother had never warmed to me. She’d once been a high-school French teacher in the LA city schools, and even though she’d been born and bred in Los Angeles, she affected a French accent and called herself Madame Anglin. I did, too, out of politeness at first, and then—because she never stopped me and said, “Oh, please, call me Mom!”—Madame it still was.
George’s Volvo was so safe—perfect to drive Lucy around in, when she was born. In fact, as soon as Lucy was home from the hospital, George presented me with a surprise gift: a used Volvo, twin of his silver one, just as boxy, just as practical, nearly as old. I was thrilled—no one had ever given me a car before! And dismayed—what was I supposed to do with my ancient, beloved, Kharmann Ghia? She was completely unreliable, and about as large as a postage stamp—but she was bright orange, the color of California poppies in springtime. And she was mine, all mine. She had been my first car, and I’d named her Angelina. This boxy Volvo was the kind of car that you just didn’t name. I tried, but the only name that I could imagine for it was “Isosceles.”
It was less than two miles to Madame’s house, but as each block passed, Lucy’s boisterous chatter lessened until, by
the time we arrived at Madame’s, she was silent, still, and wide-eyed, as if by magic. I didn’t need to instruct her anymore, as I used to on the way there. She knew exactly what to do, by heart:
Do not play Grand-mère’s piano.
Do not touch the pretty glass people on the shelves.
Do not run.
Sit quietly in your seat and only speak when Grand-mère speaks to you.
Never forget to give Grand-mère a hug and kiss when you leave.
For a three-year-old who existed on the tenuous verge of reason, one might think that these rules would be impossible to follow. But Lucy lived in mortal terror of her Grand-mère’s wrath, which had occurred only once in her presence, upon the breaking of a particularly treasured Lladro figurine. At Grand-mère’s, she was silent as a thick beige carpet, and just as still and characterless.
We pulled in front of Madame’s house on Las Palmas. The large, vaguely Mediterranean-style home was, incongruously, painted pink, with light-blue trim and matching blue bars on the windows. It had, apparently, already been this color when Madame had moved into the house nearly forty years before, and would remain so until the paint chipped off completely. She had passed her frugal nature on to her son, and avoided any unneeded expense aside from maintaining her extensive Lladro collection.
They didn’t build houses like this anymore. This was a grand old home, built in the 1920s and purchased when real estate was still affordable enough that George’s father, an orthopedic surgeon at the old Cedars of Lebanon Medical Center, could buy it for less than $100,000 in the late 1960s. Now the former Cedars of Lebanon had been transformed into a church of Scientology, and houses in this neighborhood sold for millions of dollars. But you could always tell the homes of the elderly, with their fading, bizarre paint colors, and their landscape of blighted lawn and imperfectly sheared foundation shrubs. In these homes, old women bided their time, and waited, and planned.
Parts Unknown Page 9