Carla had used her poker winnings to pay the bank and legal fees to set up the loan and purchase. And that, as Borden showed her, was how to turn $5,000 into $500,000.
“You’ve lost your mind,” said Claude, laughing incredulously. “You want me to sign away my house so you can put us half a million dollars in debt? Why not ask me to burn the house down instead?”
“The practice is highly profitable,” she said. “Borden and the Merrill accountants took a close look at Dr. Stevens’s books. We’ll repay the loan in five years, and still bring in as much income as the rover job would pay.”
Claude said, “And what if it doesn’t work out? What if all those Brooklyn Heights parents don’t want to take their kids to a black doctor? Forget it, Carla. It’s too risky.”
Carla sighed. She was afraid it would come to this. And yet, now that it had, she was glad.
Taking a deep breath, Carla said, “If you don’t sign the documents, I’m leaving you.”
Going by his wide eyes and O-shaped lips, Carla felt assured that Claude had not seen that one coming. Who you calling predictable now? she thought smugly.
She went on. “We haven’t been equal partners in this marriage, Claude. I’ve made more money, done more of the child care and house care. I make all the appointments, schedule all the activities, pay the bills, cook the food, clean the dishes, shop for clothes. When you have nothing else to do, you do repairs around the house. You deal with the cars, but that’s it. Until now, I didn’t mind. I was raised to expect nothing from a man, and just be grateful to have one. My father was useless. Your father, too. A whole generation of fathers. I was—am—grateful that you are a responsible dad. The boys love you.”
“I do a ton of work,” he said, finding his voice again.
“I believe that you believe that,” she repeated. “Our marriage isn’t a contest of who does more. I’m just saying that I’ve worked hard all these years doing what you wanted me to. I took the clinic job because you say a black woman couldn’t expect better. I grant you, a walk-in clinic might’ve been the best I could hope for back then. But I know I can expect more now. Putting in those fifteen years led me to this amazing opportunity to be a family doctor. To develop lasting relationships with patients, have an impact on people’s lives. It’s what I dreamed about in med school. I almost let the dream go because I thought it could never happen. Well, it’s happening. If you don’t sign this loan agreement and let me do this, the love I have for you will turn into hate.”
Claude said simply, “You’re bluffing.”
Carla laughed. “How the fuck would you know?”
She’d cursed in the house. He seemed to be more astonished by her language than her ultimatum.
As a matter of cold, hard fact, Carla wasn’t bluffing. She was playing a strong hand, aggressively.
If he refused to sign, she would divorce him. She would not live her life in fear of losing a man.
If he signed, Carla would make a concerted effort to put the resentments of the past behind them and strive for equality in their marriage. She’d be gracious, hardworking, and respectful, as was her natural way. She’d expect him to treat her the same. And maybe, in the not too distant future, their hard times would soften into renewed love.
Carla was absolutely certain—like her mother had faith in God—that she’d be fine. Either way, her life was going to change dramatically, for the better.
Ten minutes later, Carla stood on the sidewalk, chatting with her neighbors on a beautiful June evening in Brooklyn. On her paper plate was one of Mrs. Browne’s crab cakes and a wedge of lemon. The kids ran up and down the street, playing running bases. Her mind was spinning with plans, dizzying unknowns, unexplored countries.
In all honesty, Carla was nervous, terrified.
But it was all good.
Claude had signed the papers.
17
Robin
Smoke lingered in the apartment in the humid July air. Robin could throw open every window and run fans, and it wouldn’t help. If Robin smoked with her morning coffee, the smell would linger into evening.
Stephanie was at Brownstone. For eight weeks in the summer, the school ran a fairly decent day camp, eight in the morning until three in the afternoon. For Robin, the transition into summer break had been seamless. She and Stephanie kept the same hours during the school year.
Due to the humidity, Robin had to go to the stoop for her cigarette breaks. These time-outs cut into her workday, but she got some exercise going up and down the stairs, and some sun, which gave her vampire skin a rosy glow and fortified her body with vitamin D. That said, Robin didn’t like smoking outside, exposing her habit to everyone who entered and left the building, or walked by on the street. She was careful to carry her butts back upstairs and flush them down the toilet. The last thing she needed was to be accused by her neighbors of littering.
Today, Robin had placed one hundred and ten calls, and conducted seventy-eight interviews. The percentage of calls to interviews was strikingly high. People wanted to talk. Question of the day: “Do you feel hopeful about the future?”
Compared to similar temperature-taking polls she’d conducted in the fall, winter, and spring, the national mood had improved. Unlike the colder months, when the nation’s collective mentality was stuck in the snow and mud, the summer poll brought a warm breeze of optimism. Over the years, polls bore out the change in season with a shift in outlook. But this year, according to Robin’s sample, the shift had been paradigmatic.
Of the seventy-eight respondents, fifty-seven felt hopeful about the future, or, as many added, unprompted, “Can’t get much worse.” Only three months ago, that same percentage (roughly, two-thirds) fell into the hopeless category. They were frustrated, in limbo, collectively waiting, praying, for something to happen.
If Robin’s data was in sync with pollsters across the nation, TV news correspondents would be fumbling all over themselves tonight to explain what the hell had happened out there to cause such a huge emotional lift. Financial indicators—the Dow, retail sales, unemployment, foreclosures—were slowly, slightly, improving. Nothing seismic. The mood had brightened for no accountable reason.
And yet, Robin, a chronic pessimist, could feel the softening of her own outlook, her muscles unclenching and raw nerves relaxing. Why? That was easy: everyone she loved was doing well.
Stephanie had decided she didn’t need Robin to walk her to Brownstone anymore. Robin watched Stephanie ready her backpack (swimsuit, lunch, poncho) and go. Her child was growing up with giddy determination. It was a joy to behold.
Alicia and Tim’s split seemed to be progressing amicably. It helped that Tim loved his new job in Los Angeles. The boyfriend, Guppy (Robin could never remember his name), was backpedaling a bit now that reality had set in. But Alicia seemed okay with it. She told Robin she owed it to Tim and their marriage to sort out what went wrong before getting in over her head with Flipper. Alicia made some quick practical decisions about Joe. First, she put him in Brownstone day camp, where he and Stephanie had become BFFs. That had been a wonderful surprise for the moms. Alicia also hired a woman named Debbie to be Joe’s part-time babysitter. (More on Debbie in a moment.)
Bess and Amy couldn’t manage a civil word to each other when they were in the same room. But 3,000 miles apart? They couldn’t stop talking. Their bicoastal Skype relationship had made Bess a very happy mother. Amy, meanwhile, had blossomed in San Francisco. She was losing weight, and had a short haircut. She’d dyed it blue-black, but at least you could see her face. Amy had a new girlfriend. (Who hadn’t seen that one coming?) Apparently, the girlfriend had a problem with her mother, so the two teens spent a lot of time at Vivian’s, which helped draw the widow out of her depression. They set her up on Facebook, and Vivian was having a ball reconnecting with old friends.
Carla had successfully moved into Dr. Stevens’s practice on Remsen Street, a mere two blocks away. Robin, Bess, and Alicia made a vow to get as many Brow
nstone families to switch to Carla as possible, to pack that waiting room. Since Carla’s office was so close, she came over to Robin’s for lunch a couple of times a week.
Last, Robin had a new friend! Debbie, Joe’s nanny, often brought the kids home after camp. Robin and Debbie, a Trinidadian native, would chat over iced coffee, or take the kids for ice cream. Debbie was thirty, wise for her years, and deliciously caustic. Robin found it ironic that, this time last year, she had no black friends and reserved her social energies for white men only. Now she spent all of her free time with two black women, and she hadn’t been on a date in months.
It all added up to a brightening of the soul. Forward motion, yay. Her friends and family were pointed in the right direction and moving ahead. And yet, she still felt just outside of the paradigm shift. The hateful word Harvey had used was “detached.”
As for Harvey, despite the five phone numbers and four email addresses between them, Robin and Harvey had not connected. They’d been trading “call me” messages for two weeks. Robin had placed the last one. It’d been her first call of the day.
It was now 2:00 p.m., and Robin finished logging her data into the Zogby server. She had an hour before Stephanie arrived home. Time for a cigarette break. Grabbing her pack of smokes and ring of keys, Robin took the elevator down to the lobby and out on the stoop.
A man was already sitting in her usual spot on the top step. Muttering, she decided to sit on the next stoop over for privacy. The man turned around when he heard her behind him.
Harvey Wilson.
“Robin!” he said, as if he were shocked to see her on the stoop of her own building.
“I said ‘call me,’ not ‘stalk me,’ ” she replied.
She sat down next to him and lit a cigarette. In silence, they watched the firemen across the street wash the big red engine inside the station.
He said, “You live across the street from a fire station.”
“And three blocks from a hospital. Safety first,” she said. “You really didn’t have to come out here. You could have called.”
“This is bigger than a phone call or an IM. Can we just … can we just have a reasonable conversation?”
Clearly, he had no idea who he was dealing with.
She took a drag. “Listening.”
He sat there, not talking.
“What exactly do you want?” Robin prompted.
“I don’t know,” he said, exasperated. “That’s why I didn’t contact you for a while. I’m still shocked by the fact that I have a daughter. I’ve been thinking about this constantly, and I still don’t have a plan or even a list of requests. I just want to get to know Stephanie. That’s the launch point. But beyond that, the details, I’m at a loss. If we set up a visitation schedule, it won’t feel natural. It’d ruin any chance of an organic relationship developing between us. It also removes you from the picture entirely.”
“Isn’t that what you want?” she asked. “Last time I saw you, you said you couldn’t stand to be in my presence.”
“I was furious when I said that! Give me a break. You dropped a bomb on my life, and I’m not allowed to be angry about it?”
“So Stephanie is a bomb,” said Robin. “Well, if that’s how you feel …”
He groaned. “Can you please stop being defensive for one minute? I don’t hate you for keeping her from me—not anymore. I understand why you did what you did. I’ve been thinking about what you said and putting myself in your place. I get it. I forgive you. Okay? Can we please move forward? I’ve already lost ten years with Stephanie. I don’t want to waste any more time.”
He forgives me? she thought. Not possible. Robin said, “I still don’t see the ‘how.’ It’s very complicated.”
“It’s simple,” he said. “We spend time together.” Watching Robin react, Harvey realized, “Stephanie still doesn’t know about me?”
Robin took a drag. “I haven’t found the right moment.”
“Doesn’t matter. We can tell her together,” said Harvey. “That’s what I want. To do things together. The three of us. Take a walk. Have lunch. You and I can spend time together, too.”
She laughed. Was he asking her on a date? After eleven years and a colossal betrayal? “You can’t be serious,” she said. “I’ve read your blog, Harvey. You have friends, adventures. Girlfriends. You’re not that desperate.”
He said, “Only a desperate man would want to spend time with you? I felt lucky when I first met you. In a crowd of half a million people, we found each other, liked each other, made love, made a baby. I admit, if you told me you were pregnant back then, maybe I would’ve felt trapped. But you didn’t, and here we are. I think it’s entirely possible we came back together at exactly the right moment in all of our lives.”
He believes in destiny, thought Robin. What a loon! “You haven’t blogged in a while,” she said.
“I haven’t been in the mood to write. I’ve been going to work. Going on long bike rides up the Palisades. Thinking about what you said, about Stephanie,” he said. “I only saw her for a few minutes before I, uh, lost consciousness. I wish I had a picture. We could get one taken of the three of us.”
Like a family portrait? “I’m sorry, Harvey,” she said, his tone and sincerity crumbling her defenses. “I want what you want. I really do. Some version of a normal family. But I can’t see it happening. We don’t know each other. We didn’t back then, and we don’t now. My lie might be impossible for you to forgive, no matter how much you want to or think you have. Stephanie is going to hate me for lying to her. She might not forgive me, ever.”
“It is within the realm of possibility that she will,” he said. “Just concede that some people might not be as determined to stay as angry and resentful as you are.”
Robin laughed. “Maybe you do know me a little already.”
“Off to a good start,” he said, smiling with genuine optimism.
“You look great, by the way,” said Robin. “All that bike riding. It shows.”
“Thanks,” he said. “You look good, too. Maybe gained a pound?”
Robin laughed. “Okay, Harvey. I concede.”
“Just like that?”
Why not? thought Robin. Why not go with the idea that, although Robin herself was cynical and pessimistic, other people—Bess, Carla, and Alicia, for examples—were genuinely capable of hoping for the best? Women she knew personally could see the good in others, and had the courage to imagine a happier future for themselves. It was within the realm of possibility that Harvey Wilson meant every single word he said. He might very well be a kind, forgiving man who longed for a family. On the other hand, he could turn out to be an asshole piece of shit. Well, Robin was going to find out. She decided—quite suddenly and painlessly—to go for it. No more early folds. Robin would stay in the game until she saw the river.
“Stephanie is coming home soon,” said Robin. “I’d rather tell her about you by myself. And then we’ll meet you.”
“Where?”
“On the Promenade,” said Robin. “It’s very pretty. You can see the East River, Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan Bridge. Verrazano Bridge. Statue of Liberty. South Street Seaport. It’s landscaped, too, flowers galore. You’ll love it.”
I sound like the Brooklyn Tourist Bureau, she thought.
“Where is it?”
“Straight that way for three blocks, then make a left. You’ll know you’re there when you see water.”
“And how long will I be waiting?” he asked.
Robin said, “Stephanie gets home at three, and we’ll come right to you. I’ll tell her while we walk.”
“That won’t give her much time to prepare,” he said.
“You think she’ll faint? Like father, like daughter? We’re covered. Our pediatrician’s office is along the way.”
“This is happening,” he said. “Today.”
Robin felt herself committing to the plan. “Yes.”
Harvey smiled and grabbed Robin for an improm
ptu hug. He squeezed her bones, repeating, “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.”
“Okay, okay!” she said, not really wanting the embrace to end. Maybe he’d do it again later. I want there to be a later, she realized.
“You mean that guy who fainted on my Barbies? The guy with the bike?” asked Stephanie as they walked toward the Promenade.
“Right,” said Robin.
“So every time I said my father was a sperm donor, I lied.”
“Well, I thought of him that way for a long time,” she said.
“I have to call everyone I lied to and tell them the truth,” said Stephanie, oddly fixating on inadvertently telling a lie instead of the fact that, in five minutes, she was going to meet her father. Maybe that was too big to handle.
“I’ll do it,” said Robin. “It’s my fault.”
“What else have you lied about?” asked Stephanie. “Smoking.”
Robin admitted, “Okay, yes, I lied about smoking, too.”
“If you don’t quit, I refuse to meet this man.”
The girl stopped in her tracks, folded her arms across her chest, and (yes) tapped her sneaker on the pavement.
“You will meet Harvey,” said Robin. “And I promise to stop buying cigarettes. But if, at a party, someone else is smoking, I might want to bum one every now and then. That’s my one-hundred-percent-honest answer. If I told you I was never going to smoke another cigarette again as long as I live, I’d be lying to you again.”
“None of your friends smoke,” said Stephanie.
“So odds are bad for bumming cigarettes at parties,” said Robin. “Like I ever go to parties.”
“Are you holding right now?” asked Stephanie.
Holding? Where had she heard that? “Maybe,” said Robin.
“Mom,” said the kid intently, tapping the Converse.
Robin fished her nearly empty pack of American Spirit Organics out of her tote, and handed it to Stephanie. The girl crumpled the cardboard, and then dropped the crushed box into a trash can.
Four of a Kind Page 32