I turned to face her and smiled, but not because I meant to. It was a reflex. She was beautiful, if not my type—a bit too generic, Barbie-like—but still, a stunner. She crossed one long leg over the other, slow and determined, making sure I was watching. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-six or twenty-seven. Rachel’s age.
“You mind if I have it?” she said, tilting her chin to my plate, and then she laughed, arching her long neck.
The music was blasting so loud I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right. It didn’t matter. What she’d said was beside the point. It was all in the smile, the tongue tracing her lips as she leaned closer to me. She was gorgeous and she knew it. Why couldn’t I have gotten that attention in high school? College? Girls never noticed me back then.
I stared at her. The full glossy lips, the silky skin, the perky breasts pushing against her lacy top.
“It’s all yours,” I said, and nudged the plate toward her, with a stupid grin on my face. I gulped down my bourbon. Let the heat settle in my stomach.
Two hours later, I stumbled out of her apartment on Second Avenue, drunk and disoriented. Rachel had sent another text: Please. Tomorrow. Same place same time.
40.
LANA
NOW
The clinic was busy this morning. Nearly every seat in the waiting room was taken, which meant the wait would be longer than usual. Of course it would be, on the day I was desperate for news of my baby and couldn’t afford to be late to work. I claimed an armchair in the back near the elevators and surveyed the crowd. There were professional women, dressed for the office, working their phones and impatiently glancing at the nurse’s desk. I suspected the women in designer jeans who were leafing through magazines or scrolling through their Facebook feeds were stay-at-home wives. A couple of them held on to purses that cost perhaps as much as an IVF cycle. The woman next to me—early thirties and extremely anxious—told me it was her first and last time. Her insurance paid for only one cycle. “You’re lucky,” I said. “That’s more than mine ever did.” She looked at me, her forehead furrowed, and I bit my lip. Lucky was not a meaningful word when dealing with infertility. I smiled and added, “All it takes is one successful cycle.”
I had just wished her good luck when I heard the ding of the elevator behind us, the doors opening and closing. A mother walked in with a stumbling toddler holding on to the empty stroller. The energy in the room changed instantly. The boy was beautiful and rowdy, his laughter echoing in the bare waiting room. I caught the eye of a few of the women sitting near me. The one I’d been talking to seemed on the verge of tears. It wasn’t fair to bring a child here. It was particularly hard on those of us whose cycles weren’t progressing normally or those who were about to hear bad news.
When the mother and child reached the reception desk, a woman across from me leaned in and said under her breath, “If you can pay for IVF, surely you can afford a babysitter for two hours while you run to the clinic.”
I shrugged. “Maybe the babysitter canceled last minute.” It was hard to know what any of us was dealing with in addition to the misfortune of infertility. Life didn’t grind to a halt just because of it. Katya’s death had had a sobering effect on me.
When my turn finally came, Dr. Williams reassured me that everything looked good. I’d never experienced anything more intoxicating than the sound of my baby’s heartbeat. It’s a treat for any mother-to-be, but especially for those of us who’ve experienced a miscarriage and worry all the time if the baby is okay. Because we know it isn’t a sure thing. That it can end at any point. The only time you could be sure was during those few minutes in the doctor’s office when you could hear the heart beating.
I could sit there listening to that golden sound for hours, days, weeks. My stress about getting to the office faded instantly. But I knew that the high would last me only an hour or so after the appointment, when the doubts and worries would start anew.
Dr. Williams couldn’t tell if the hematoma was getting smaller, but, “As long as it’s not getting any bigger,” he said, “I’m not worried.”
I walked out of the clinic feeling “cautiously optimistic”—a term I’d picked up on the infertility forums.
So far so good, I texted Angie.
One day at a time, she texted back, followed by hearts. One day at a time, I repeated in my mind as I headed to work.
* * *
It was ten a.m. by the time I made it to the museum. Caitlin informed me that Alistair wanted to see me. What a surprise. But I was prepared. I’d decided to tell him the truth. I didn’t have to go into detail. I could just say that I was a friend of the Columbia student whose body was found in the Hudson (hopefully he’d heard about it) and was called in by the police to help with the investigation. I’d even thought of a joke I could make: You can’t tell the cops, Sorry, I’m going to be late for a cocktail party.
His office door was open, so I gave it a courtesy knock to alert him and walked in. He was leaning over some sheets of paper, writing with a flourish, his bald spot shining in the light.
“I came as quickly as I could,” I said before he’d had a chance to berate me for being late.
He pointed to the chair for me to have a seat. There was a lime kerchief in his pocket, a matching expression on his face.
“I’m terribly sorry about the Visiting Committee meeting,” I said, launching straight into it. “Believe it or not, I was detained by the—”
“It’s irrelevant why you didn’t make it,” he interrupted with a dismissive wave of his hand. “The fact of the matter is you weren’t there. I know you’re going through a difficult time—and I’m very sorry about it—but it’s affecting your performance. Your work has been consistently sloppy in the past year, short on details and depth of descriptive research, sometimes missing research altogether.” I nodded, biting the inside of my mouth as he continued. “I agreed to give you a chance when we had our chat about it a few months ago. Clearly, I made a mistake. And I definitely made a mistake entrusting you with the presentation on Monday.”
“I understand, of course, and I was thinking that to make up for it I could organize—”
“Lana, what I’m saying is . . .” He cleared his throat. “I’m going to have to let you go.”
The hum of the air conditioning seemed to grow louder. I heard the door to the department opening and closing. A muffled conversation somewhere in the front. The scraping of Caitlin’s pumps as she walked by on her way to her desk. Had she known about it yesterday?
I swallowed. Stared at him. The sour expression on his face had given way to impatience mixed with annoyance. I wanted to defend myself, to explain how much this job meant to me. That I couldn’t leave before seeing the project I’d been working on for over a year come to fruition. But I knew none of it mattered. There were hundreds, maybe even thousands, of others out there who loved art just as much as I did and were just as qualified to do the work, if not more. I wasn’t special.
Tears stung my eyes but I wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction. I clenched my fists and looked at him. “Effective when?”
“Effective immediately. You can arrange for the transition with Caitlin, who’ll take over the Parmigianino.”
I gritted my teeth. “Sorry I let you down,” I said, and stood up.
He extended his hand. “Best of luck.”
* * *
I stood by the open window with an empty tub of ice cream in my hand, the spoon licked clean. The trees below had the fresh light-green color of early summer. Children’s voices drifted in from somewhere down the street. Then the grating melody of an ice cream truck. As if I needed any more of it. Plato was on top of the piano next to me, craning his neck, mesmerized by the world outside. As a kitten, he’d tried scratching out the screen. He’d learned to leave it alone.
I was at home at three in the afternoon on a Wednesday and I had no
idea what to do with myself. I’d tried reading a book, watching television, but had no desire for anything. It had taken me nearly twenty years to build my career. Alistair might be a pompous ass but he was right, I’d neglected my responsibilities. Forget about the presentation—that was the last straw. My head hadn’t been in it for more than a year. Maybe two. Since my first chemical pregnancy; or was it before that? Regardless. My dream job had been within reach and I had lost it. Everything I’d ever worked for, gone. I tried not to despair, but getting fired from one of the most prestigious museums in the world could be fatal. Alistair would give me a token reference, sure, but in the super competitive art world, anything short of a glowing reference was no reference at all.
I was to be a single mother without a job, barely any support network and no savings, scarred by the knowledge that my baby’s genetic parents had actually had an affair and one of them was a suspect in the death of the other.
And that was the best-case scenario, assuming I was lucky and the pregnancy stuck.
41.
LANA
NOW
Katya’s memorial service was held at 2:30 p.m. in St. Paul’s Chapel on campus. It was a miserable day, dark and spitting rain. Students rushed between buildings in jackets and hoodies pulled low over their foreheads. There was the occasional umbrella. I resisted the urge to think that Mother Nature was crying for Katya. Still, it was a welcome change from the bright, chirpy summer weather we’d had in the past couple of days. The redbrick and limestone façade of St. Paul’s blended in with the rest of the buildings on Morningside Campus. Ironically, it was right next to the Philosophy Department’s building. As I walked by it, I wondered if Tyler was in his office and whether he would come to the service.
The church was cool and surprisingly airy inside. I loved the pink tiles of the interior, the blue stained glass that let in muted light, the central dome ringed with windows. There was nothing fake, exaggerated, overdone. Anna Konstantinova was speaking to the priest in the back while Penka stood to the side, staring up at the dome. Standing there in the middle of the empty church, she looked even more frail than when I’d first seen her. As if the pain of the last week had shrunk her in all directions. Anna had called me yesterday, asking for my help. “It would be great if you could come early and just hang out with Penka,” she’d said. “You know, so that she has someone to lean on when I’m needed to take care of the logistics.”
I was torn. Since I was still reeling from Katya’s affair with Tyler, the last thing I wanted to do was go to her memorial. But I felt sorry for her poor mother, who was dealing with the death of her child in a foreign country with no family and friends to support her. As I headed toward Penka, I realized I was grateful for the opportunity to invest my energy into something. To get out of my apartment. To avoid facing the fact that I’d been fired.
My steps echoed as I walked across the marble floor. I nodded to Anna and the priest and went straight to Penka. I hugged her, said, “Mnogo sazhalijavam,” then shrugged helplessly. The occasion called for a more sophisticated exchange than “I’m so sorry,” but that was all I could manage with my rusty Bulgarian.
The place quickly filled with students and faculty. There were a few reporters, too—you could spot them approaching people, jotting notes on their phones or tiny notebooks—but thankfully no TV crews.
After the ceremony, I stood next to Penka, holding her arm as people stopped to express their condolences. Only a few turned out to have been friends with Katya and could say a word or two about her to Penka. Most seemed to have been drawn to the service by the tragedy that had made headlines rather than by their personal relationship to the deceased.
I was speaking to a guy from the medical school who knew Katya when, in my peripheral vision, I noticed Tyler making his way from the back row of seats. I stiffened. I couldn’t believe he had the balls to come over and talk to Katya’s mother. He nodded but I just stared through him as he moved toward Penka. I thought she would take his eyes out, but she shook his hand and said, “Thank you,” the only words she seemed to speak in English. Could she not know that he had slept with her daughter? Or, maybe in the larger scheme of things, that was beside the point.
Tyler was followed by a young athletic-looking guy in khakis and a blue striped shirt. He gave Penka a long hug and told her what a wonderful person Katya had been. How smart and beautiful and accomplished. It was clear it meant a lot to Penka. Her face didn’t exactly brighten, but there was a lightness to her expression that hadn’t been there before. Her nods were more vigorous, her thank-yous more passionate. I wondered if he, too, had been one of Katya’s beaus. I kept looking around for Nick but didn’t see him. Of all people, shouldn’t he have been here? If they were indeed planning to get married, shouldn’t he be at her memorial?
When it was all over, I offered to take Penka home. Anna was thrilled to have that responsibility off her full plate. The consulate, she told me, had put Penka up in one of their apartments that was not in use at the moment so that she didn’t have to spend money for a hotel. “It’s on the Upper East Side. A safe and easy neighborhood to navigate,” Anna said. “Penka can make a meal for herself there instead of having to eat out all the time.”
The rain had stopped by the time the three of us left the church. The clouds had cleared, leaving a stark blue sky. The grass patches seemed that much greener, glistening wet in the sun. The buildings that much more stately and majestic. We walked through campus slowly, allowing Penka more time to take in the place where her daughter had spent the last four years of her life. She lit a cigarette and I discreetly moved to her other side, making sure the smoke blew away from me. That was when I saw him. Standing at the corner, behind Low Library, watching us as we walked down the steps.
I’d noticed him earlier lurking in the back of the church. Around my age, handsome, wearing an expensive sports jacket over a black T-shirt and jeans. But only now, in the light, did I see how much he resembled Tom Cruise. The blue stare, Katya had said. Or was it blue steel? I was at once relieved and apprehensive. So Tyler wasn’t the guy Katya had told me about after all. But if this man was her boyfriend, then why hadn’t he come to speak to Penka after the service? Why was he standing there, watching us? He saw me looking at him but didn’t avert his gaze. “I forgot something,” I said to Anna. “I’ll catch up with you at the gates.” I turned and walked toward him. He waited for me to get closer before giving a nod of acknowledgment. He was startling from up close, his eyes pulling you in, demanding attention.
“Hi, I’m Lana,” I said tentatively. “Katya’s friend. I believe I know who you are.”
“Damian.” His voice was low, measured. “I need to talk to you.”
Good, I thought, because I want to talk to you.
“It’s about Katya,” he added.
“I figured.” I glanced back but Penka and Anna had already disappeared behind the building. “I don’t really have time now. Can we meet later today?”
He thought for a moment. “How about six at the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument? You know it? At 89th Street and Riverside Drive?” I nodded and he continued. “There are a bunch of benches there. It should be quiet at that hour.”
* * *
Penka and I said good-bye to Anna and hailed one of the green taxis that dominated Upper Manhattan. We rode down Broadway and across the park in silence. I stared out the window, wondering why Damian wanted to talk to me. If he knew something, he should be going to the police. Should have gone a long time ago. Was it smart of me to get involved? But I had to figure out what had happened to Katya. I owed it, if not to her, then to the baby growing inside me. Besides, I owed it to myself. I’d lost my job over it, for Chrissake.
When we reached Penka’s building at the corner of York and 83rd, she turned to me and said, “Kafe?”
I nodded. “Chai?” I said, and she smiled.
“Govorish li Bu
lgarski?”
“Razbiram no ne govoria mnogo,” I said, explaining that I used to speak it as a child but was out of practice. I didn’t mention that I’d stopped because I’d grown tired of my mother correcting me all the time. By the time I was twelve, we’d established a routine where she spoke to me in Bulgarian and I answered her in English. So I understood everything but found it hard to string together the words into sentences.
Penka squeezed my hand reassuringly, saying that my Bulgarian was pretty good if she could understand me.
The five-story building was a renovated redbrick with an elaborate green cornice and a fire escape zigzagging down the façade. Next to it on York Avenue was a shiny new high-rise; across the street was a construction site, surely another residential tower. The apartment was a small but light one-bedroom with high ceilings and beautiful moldings. There was a faint smell of Bulgarian spices—paprika, summer savory, and spearmint—that I remembered from my childhood when my mother cooked Bulgarian dishes exclusively: stuffed peppers, grape leaves, or cabbage; moussaka; grilled lamb, pork, and chicken; or my favorite kofte, made of ground pork and lamb. At any other time, I would have enjoyed the familiarity of it, but today my stomach was so unsettled that the slightest aroma could unleash a bout of nausea.
Penka led me to the kitchen. She set the kettle for tea and, to my great relief, cracked the window open, letting in some air. While we waited for the water to boil, she made herself Turkish coffee. I was surprised there was one of those old copper jesve pots in the apartment. My mother used to have one, too, back when I was a kid. Penka must have read my mind because she pointed to a coffeemaker in the corner and said, shaking her head with a displeased expression on her face: “Ne go haresvam.”
I smiled. “I az,” I said. “Me too.” I’d always preferred espresso to drip coffee. But I liked it with milk, ideally a latte, though I could settle for a cappuccino, especially a wet one. Penka’s coffee would have been too strong for me even with milk. As it began boiling, it created a dense creamlike bubbling layer that threatened to overflow, but she pulled it off the stove just in time. The thick aroma alone was enough to give me a caffeine boost.
Her Daughter's Mother Page 19