Aimee stopped when she saw Margot waving at her from a booth in the back of the restaurant. The table was set for three. There were no pastel streamers and no paper cutouts on the table. Not that Aimee wanted streamers and decorations; she just expected something more than a back booth set for three.
“Is this it?” she said to Brooke, trying to look happy about the minute attendance at her baby shower.
“Uh-huh,” Brooke grunted and sat down.
“We ordered for you already,” Margot said. “We’re all having pasta.”
Aimee stood there, wondering where her mother was. Her mother offered constant love and support. She once drove from north Jersey to lower Manhattan in the middle of the night because Aimee’s purse, along with her house keys and home address, had been stolen and Aimee was afraid to stay alone in the apartment. Certainly she would show up for Aimee’s baby shower. Had Brooke forgotten to invite her? Where was Brooke’s mother? Where were the friends from college whom she just assumed would be flying in from the Midwest? This was her baby shower? Where was the celebration?
“Come sit down,” Brooke said, and eventually, Aimee took a seat in the booth, opposite Margot.
“My mother said she was coming,” Aimee murmured as she looked about the restaurant, hoping to see a familiar face.
“She’s stuck in traffic,” Margot said as she slid a piece of paper across the table to Aimee.
“This is my gift,” Margot said.
Aimee unfolded the thin piece of glossy paper to reveal an advertisement for an electronic baby monitor torn from a magazine.
“Top of the line,” Margot assured her. “I had it delivered to your apartment. Less to carry.”
“Thanks,” Aimee said. She just assumed when Brooke said “baby shower” that she would spend the day as the center of attention, opening too many beautifully wrapped gifts. She would have liked to be awed by the generosity and care that her friends put into picking out things for her baby. She even wanted to wear a silly hat made of bows stuck on a paper plate.
“I was telling Margot about that photo you wanted to shoot,” Brooke said, interrupting Aimee’s well-deserved moment of internal self-pity.
“What photo was that?” Aimee asked.
“Yesterday on the phone. You started to tell me you wanted to shoot a pair of lovers, but we got interrupted and you didn’t tell me the rest of it.”
“Oh, right. Well. I mean, maybe after the baby, I guess, I had this idea to shoot a man and a woman, embraced, kissing, touching, but I want the camera to be placed somewhere almost between them, as it were,” Aimee said, happy to be distracted away from everything her baby shower lacked.
“Well, how would you do that?” Margot asked. “Would you put the camera between their bodies and then I don’t know, set a timer? That’s how Brooke thought you might do it.”
“No, no. I’d build a platform out of Lucite.”
“Oh! Wow, sure. That would work. How would you build it?” Brooke asked.
“Well, um, I suppose if I had a carpenter at my disposal I would build a proper platform, except the floor of the platform would be see-through. But if it was just me, it could be just a couple of cinderblocks with a piece of clear, heavy plastic lying across it. The models would lie on the plastic, and I’d be underneath them.”
“So, it would have to be at least three feet high, right Aimee?” Brooke asked. “So you could get that belly under it.”
“Well, yeah. I mean, if I were going to do it now. But it’s really just a fantasy,” Aimee admitted.
“It would have to be good quality. Very clear, clean plastic,” Margot said to Brooke.
“And what kind of camera?”
“Gee, I like my 35mm. It’s fast. But, I mean, if we’re talking about the fantasy shoot, I think I’d like to try out a digital camera. One of those huge mega-pixel cameras, so you could blow the image up really big.”
“Nikon?” Brooke asked.
“Well, I am a Nikon girl,” Aimee said, laughing, trying to make the most of her afternoon with girlfriends.
“Excuse me, I need to use the restroom,” Margot announced abruptly. Aimee watched Margot head over to the toilets. She saw her whip out her cell phone and start dialing long before she got to the bathroom door.
“What’s with her?” Aimee asked Brooke.
“She’s got a bladder the size of a peanut, I guess,” Brooke said, laughing. “Not me, I can hold it all day. I’m a camel-bladder.”
“I used to be a camel, now I’m a peanut. So I know how it is,” Aimee said, sympathetic to Margot’s toiletward flight.
The waiter came with salads and Margot returned from the restroom looking very pleased with herself.
“Shouldn’t we wait for my mom?” Aimee asked as her friends dug into their lunch.
“She’s gonna meet us back at the…” Brooke began.
“At your apartment,” Margot interrupted. “She called while I was in the washroom. Traffic’s so bad she’s going right to your apartment.”
“Oh,” said Aimee, “that’s too bad.”
Aimee picked at her salad, but polished off the pasta and a piece of cake. Margot took several more calls on her cell phone during their lunch. Although she was polite enough to rise up from the table and take the call privately, Aimee wished she would shut the damn thing off. Brooke tried to cover for Margot with charming conversations and gossip about old friends. It still stung though, that Toby and Ellen and Connie had not come out for her party. Even Brooke’s mother could have gotten into the car and made it into the city. All too quickly Aimee’s baby shower was over. Margot and Brooke split the check and then hurried her out of the restaurant.
“I’ll see you guys later,” Margot said as she jumped into a cab.
“Well then, see you later,” Aimee said to the disappearing red taillights of Margot’s taxi. It was then that Aimee realized Margot was wearing blue jeans and flat shoes. That’s odd, Aimee thought as she turned and headed for home. Margot never wore blue jeans. Brooke was already hanging an arm out for her own cab.
“I’ll see you, Brooke,” Aimee said. “Thanks for lunch.”
“No, no,” Brooke insisted, “your mom called. She’s in Soho. Wants us to meet her there.”
“My mother doesn’t know anyone in Soho.”
“Really? Well, she called from a place on Wooster Street. Says she wants us to meet her there, ok?” “My mother is on Wooster?” Aimee asked.
“Yeah.”
Aimee tried to imagine her suburban mother with her A-line skirt and tucked-under hairdo standing on Wooster Street in Soho, staring at the upscale freaky people as they walked by.
“Uh, could you ask her to meet me at my apartment? I’m kind of tired,” Aimee said. And then she didn’t say, and I’m really disappointed in your idea of a baby shower and I want to go home and get into bed.
“Well, you can rest your eyes in the cab,” Brooke told her. “We gotta get over to Wooster Street and meet your mother.”
“Fine,” Aimee said as she heaved her belly into the open door of the taxi. She sat there and did not move. Did not slide herself down the seat so Brooke could get in too. In the end, Brooke had to run around to the other side of the taxi to get in.
“Sixty-four Wooster,” Brooke told the driver as she slammed the door shut.
They arrived in Soho and found Aimee’s mother standing on the sidewalk in her denim A-line skirt and comfortable shoes. She had a big black camera bag on her shoulder and a cell phone stuck to her ear.
“This is Mama Bird, the Eagle has landed,” Aimee thought she heard her mother say into the little phone before snapping it shut.
“Hi Mom,” Aimee said as she threw her belly out of the cab. “Why weren’t you at my lunch?”
“I needed to pick up a few things—” Aimee’s mother began, and when a panicked Brooke frantically mimed turning a steering wheel behind Aimee’s back, added, “and the traffic was really bad across the bridge.”
&
nbsp; “Oh,” said Aimee, who had not seen Brooke’s bad acting, “well, what do you want to do?”
“I need a cup of coffee.”
“Ok,” Aimee said, “but a quick one. I’m a little tired.”
“Come this way,” Brooke said and ushered Aimee into a doorway on the street. While Aimee chatted with her mother, Brooke’s finger leaned towards the third floor buzzer. Before she could hit it though, a well-muscled man opened the door. He was carrying a carpenter’s toolbox and he nodded to Brooke as he let them into the building.
“It’s all set,” the carpenter said as he left the building.
Brooke looked away and Aimee assumed the carpenter was either schizophrenic or talking into a really, really small cell phone.
“Where are we going?” Aimee asked.
“Third floor,” her mother said.
“It’s a private café that just opened,” Brooke said as she swung open the door.
“Oh, that’s interesting,” Aimee said. At another time she might have been more curious, more suspicious as to what her friend was planning, but the pregnancy and the disappointing baby shower and her general fatigue combined to allow her to focus on only one thing at a time. At the moment, Aimee was looking at Brooke’s shoes.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear sneakers before, Brooke.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“I wear them. Sometimes.”
Aimee allowed herself to be ushered into the doorway of 64 Wooster Street. She didn’t ask “What the heck are we doing?” or “Are private café’s legal?” as they rode the elevator up to the third floor.
“What are those?” Aimee asked still fixating on Brooke’s shoes. “Are those Tretorns?”
“Keds,” Brooke said with a smile.
“Wow, Keds,” Aimee said suddenly filled with misplaced emotion for Brooke’s sneakers. “That’s so sweet.”
“You ok, baby?” her mother asked as they got off the elevator.
“Just tired,” Aimee said. She planned to spill the whole story to her mother later, when they were alone in her apartment. She would tell her about his blasé attitude at the amniocentesis, about the second-rate baby shower, about how joy, like a bad boyfriend who didn’t know how to return a phone call, seemed to be avoiding her lately.
“This way,” Brooke instructed as she lead them to a door marked 3F. She opened the door and entered. Aimee and her mother followed.
Shuffle, whisper, shuffle and then the lights jumped on.
“Surprise,” shouted a chorus of friends. Margot was there, and Ellen from college, and Toby from high school. Surrounded by a band of smiling girlfriends and her mother, Aimee, for a moment, felt the love she had been longing for.
“Oh! Oh!” Aimee gasped. “Here you are! Toby! Oh my gosh, you lost so much weight! Ellen! How are you?”
Aimee hugged and kissed all of them, except the two people she didn’t know, a man and a woman, sitting on stools, dressed in bathrobes. They chatted with each other near the window.
“Why didn’t you all just come to the restaurant?” Aimee asked. “We could have had lunch there.”
“This isn’t lunch, Aimee,” Brooke said.
“This is work,” Margot said as she handed her a digital camera.
“These are a little dusty,” Aimee’s mother scolded as she swung Aimee’s camera bag off her shoulder.
“I got the Nikon D70,” Margot said. “I don’t know if it’s good, or what you want, but when you added that thing about wanting to try out a digital, we were a little unprepared so I had to take whatever they had at the rental place.”
Aimee turned the beautiful camera over in her hands.
“When did I say I wanted to try out a digital camera?” Aimee said, almost whispering.
“Today at lunch. Two lovers, entwined, shot from somewhere within their tangle of bodies,” Brooke rattled off as if it were a menu item and not an aesthetic description. It was then that Aimee looked around and realized she was not in just any loft on Wooster Street. It was a photo studio. One of the white walls on the far side of the room folded gently into the white floor giving the illusion of endless space. There were scrims and lighting trees all around waiting for her to call them to action. And her friends were there, all standing around in jeans and Tshirts and comfortable shoes, happy to assist her in making some pictures.
“We figured this would be more fun for you than lunch and a bunch of pastel-wrapped presents,” Brooke said when Aimee stood there, staring at them. And then the tears started.
“Oh my god! Oh my god! You guys are so great. Oh! This is wonderful! Oh wow!” Aimee gushed and cried the skin cream right off her face. Everybody had to be hugged and kissed and told how wonderful they were all over again before Aimee was ready to get to work. The sight of the Lucite platform, built to Aimee’s specifications, elicited more tears and sniffles.
“There’s another shoot coming in at seven,” Margot warned, “so you better not start crying again.”
The models at the window stopped chatting and shed their bathrobes, revealing two beautiful naked bodies.
“Ok, ok, let’s go then,” Aimee began and her mind began to click in that oh so pleasant way. “I want the soft box over here, and Toby, if you could get me a card to bounce some light. Margot, stand by with the digital. I’m going to start with my own camera. Ellen, will you load for me?”
“What do you want us to do?” the naked model asked Aimee.
“Onto the platform and we’ll start with some kissing,” Aimee instructed.
Lying underneath two naked strangers in a plastic box made Aimee feel sweaty, young, and strong. The old groove came back and she clicked and shouted instructions and encouragement. She was looking for an image that described what it was like to be inside passion. The models, who did not know each other before entering the studio, straddled and squatted and licked each other. The man had a nipple ring and the woman was pierced in an even wider variety of places. They started off being rough, and even a little cold with each other. Aimee went with it for a while, but that wasn’t where she wanted to end up.
“What’s your name?” Aimee asked the naked, pierced woman.
“Enid,” she said.
“Ok, Enid, this is Brock. Is that your real name, Brock?”
“Uh, no. It’s my professional name,” he said.
“What’s your real name?”
“Tom.”
“Ok. Tom, this is Enid. Be kind to her.”
Aimee’s simple instruction relaxed the models. With an eye on the clock, Aimee found the moments she was looking for as the hands swept from 4:30 to 7 p.m.
“I gotta call it,” Brooke said. “The next booking is coming up the elevator.”
Aimee smiled. She wrapped her arms around Brooke and hugged her.
“Thanks,” she said. “This was great.”
“Ok, guys,” Brooke called to their friends. “That’s a wrap. Come on back to Aimee’s and we’ll look at what we shot today.”
Back at Aimee’s, Margot, with some help from Aimee’ mother, plugged the digital Nikon directly into Aimee’s big TV. The images of Aimee’s creation flicked by, showing a hard woman growing soft.
“That one,” Aimee shouted, pointing to the image on the screen. “That’s the one I want. What number is it? Could someone mark it down for me, please?”
“I like the way she’s kind of stretching her body to find where he’s touching her,” Toby said.
“And the shadow of him falling across her is terrific,” Brooke commented.
Only Aimee’s mother seemed disturbed about the day. She had separated herself from the black-clad mass of Aimee’s friends, fixed herself a plate of food and wandered over to inspect the pile of pastel-colored baby presents.
“You alright, Mrs. C.?” Brooke asked.
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“You seem upset.”
“Well, it’s just that. Well. I just can’t understand w
hy a woman would want that,” Aimee’s mother said.
“You mean a photo shoot instead of a baby shower?” Brooke asked.
“No, I mean a pierced earring on her woo-woo,” Aimee’s mother said with a nod to Enid, who was sitting in a quiet corner of Aimee’s apartment chatting intimately with Tom.
“Well,” Brooke began and then paused as if she were actually considering the full spectrum of psychological impulses that would cause a woman to pierce the lips of her vagina, “I think a clip-on would just hurt too much.”
Aimee’s mother laughed.
“And besides, you know, clip-ons can be so gaudy,” Brooke added, causing Aimee’s mother to guffaw again.
“Do you think Aimee’s happy with the baby shower?” Aimee’s mother asked.
“Let’s go find out,” Brooke said as she walked Aimee’s mother across the apartment and joined the chattering on the couch.
“Are you happy with what you shot?” Brooke asked Aimee.
“Oh yes. There’s one in particular that I’m going to blow up huge,” Aimee said. “Thank you for the day. It was perfect.”
“Come get something to eat,” Brooke said.
“Oh, like I haven’t been shoving it in all day long,” Aimee said.
Aimee sat on the couch with her friends and ate and opened presents. They oohed and ahhed over the little clothes and toys, and one by one they left the apartment. Toby had a train to catch and Ellen was only passing through the city on her way to Europe. In the end, after kissing her mother and hugging Brooke and Margot, Aimee was left alone in her big apartment with her belly and her gifts and the fantastic photographs she created that day. It was, Aimee would tell her mother on the phone later that night, the best day ever.
16. Bugs and Mice
LUX’S PENCIL STOPPED DEAD on her notebook. If I wasn’t so afraid of bugs and mice, I would run through the woods with the dog in the night. I could break bones breaking chains that bind my arms to my side and… And? The pencil tap-tapped on the word “and.” She didn’t know what else to write after “and.” The word seemed to hang there. Sometimes she wrote “but” instead of “and.” Still the next phrase would not materialize in brain or on paper. The images had been chasing her for weeks and she had come to believe that when she found the rest of the words she would know what to do about her life, at least for a little while.
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