We tap the lipsticks together as if we’re clinking glasses. I look at her profile. So like mine, maybe more like mine than Aubrey’s.
“The father who raised you is your father—that’s what my mother keeps repeating to me,” I say.
“He must be very upset about our lunch.” Alice is reading her list.
“No one knows that we are together. I said I was meeting a writer for work. Although I’m not sure they believed it. I’ve never had to lie about where I’m going before in my life. My sister defends our father. She doesn’t want him to feel diminished. I doubt she’ll track down any donor siblings on her side.”
Simon. His library and gardens, the secret he has carried for forty-one years. The force of failure versus the facade of success. “Yes, he’d be disturbed about our lunch, totally.”
“Still, you did it.”
“Alice, I did this for me,” I say. “Meeting today. For us.”
“About your question. I’m very connected to my mother. I’d like to tell her about you,” Alice says. “What about your mother, what would she say?”
Connected. What would Veronica say?
“My mother isn’t behind me, she’s defending. My sister Aubrey accepts what has happened. We don’t have the same sperm donor.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s only my half sister, too. Our bio fathers aren’t the same. I keep asking myself why is this different from adopting a child. It’s that adoption is explained. Not a secret that made us who we are.”
Alice waits, computing this. “What our parents went through—we have to honor that.”
“I know, except that we were lied to and it bothers me,” I say. “How my mother has acted, placating my father. Their marriage, their take on their children. Not only were we deceived but it was never safe because of their secret.”
Alice straightens up and looks at me calmly.
“Elodie, what will this do for you—being unforgiving, holding your parents accountable? You yourself have been through fertility hell. So there are cracks in your parents’ story, in their lives.” She sighs, looks out at the Gulf of Mexico. “Maybe because I have children, maybe it makes me look at it differently. We wouldn’t be born, any of us, had our parents not made the decision they did.”
* * *
It is almost two o’clock yet feels past midnight when we stand up at the same second in the same manner. Out into a spotless Florida day. I’m buoyant and too heavy to lift my own body. Alice takes her car keys out of her bag.
“I can drive you to the airport.”
James, on guard, already at the tarmac. “I wish, but probably it isn’t wise. Thank you.”
Searching for my Uber app, I plug in the airport address.
Alice comes closer. “You know what isn’t on our lists and should be is how our parents were coached. Shopping for a sperm bank or an egg donor is open today; our parents had to keep it quiet. The bio ethics were not in sync with the technology.”
“Aren’t you curious about our bio father? Why was he chosen—what were our parents’ requirements?” I ask.
“That part worked out. We’re smart and…”
“… look good,” I say.
We laugh together.
“Hey,” Alice says. “We found each other. And we can find more half sibs. I figure there are twenty or more. Probably scattered across the country, coming out of Florida, New York. Both coasts.”
“I know,” I say. Although I want to know and I don’t want to know; I want us to be exclusive somehow.
“Then there’s our bio father and the doctor who arranged it,” Alice says.
“What?” To me, the fertility doctor and sperm donor are invisible, ghosts, not accessible.
“I’ve found them both. I know how to track them down. Get this, they’re not hard to contact!” She squeezes my hand.
The bio father. Other siblings. What Veronica fears, what Aubrey is avoidng.
“The father, our father, I would love to know who he is, to find out about him,” I say. “That might be enough for me.”
“And not meet him? Don’t you want to meet him?” Alice asks.
James texts. Will you be here by 2:30? A black Hyundai Sonata snakes across my iPhone screen as it drives up to the hotel.
I reach out to her. “I have to go, Alice.”
“We’ll be in touch; we’ll get together soon.”
A polite Uber driver opens the door for me. I fold myself into the car and look back at her, standing where I’ve left her, waving.
CHAPTER 30
AUBREY
“Café Boulud is the best choice for a baby shower because of the terrace,” Mimi says. Together we stand at the entrance to the restaurant. She is spruced up today in a St. John dress and her low-heeled Manolos, carrying an initialed Goyard bag in bright blue. A part of the Goyard frenzy. In South Beach young women carry them to the beach.
“I am sure it will be a lovely party.” She looks at me and past me as she speaks, in search of my sister, who ought to be here.
“It will be.” I smile at Mimi. Bizarre how I’ve come to appreciate my sister’s mother-in-law. She’s the one who wants what she wants without an agenda. Except today her words slur; I swear she’s been drinking.
“You know what will be sublime, Aubrey? When I finally have my grandchild. My son and your sister have been together for over a decade.”
I nod, wondering if Mimi and Elodie will be closer once the baby is born. Didn’t I just read a blog where the daughter-in-law confessed to loving her once-hateful mother-in-law ever since giving birth to a son?
We walk inside, where half the tables are set up. The other half are on the terrace, each with a bouquet of pansies. The summer light through the blinds is strong. The cake, a replica of a baby cradle in pink and white, designed by Anya, is surrounded by baby’s breath and white orchids. Baby Cutler-Evans, it reads in a bright pink icing. Chosen by my mother and Mimi, along with Ryana Delce, party planner for every occasion. I call it “the baby shower” because I can’t tell if it’s mine or Elodie’s, if we share it. When Mom, Elodie, Mimi, and I worded the invitation, it was more a debate than a family effort. The language was critical to the mothers. After much back-and-forth, Elodie decided. “It will read ‘A Baby Shower for Elodie Cutler, Mother, and Aubrey Cutler, Carrier.’”
While not riveting or global, the “Cutler-Evans baby” is an uncommon baby to be. My mother has been the press secretary about town, labeling it “a collective baby shower,” while Elodie calls it a “coming-out party for a sister who carries her sister’s baby.” At least she can make a joke, since she’s seemed downcast for weeks. Mom keeps pretending it’s fine. James is obsessed with the house, his fancy new creation. Then there is Dad, who has become icy as if he’s cut himself out of our family picture ever since it was divulged for what it is. “Dad goes through the motions but isn’t really there,” I told Elodie yesterday. “Do you think so?” she asked, sounding distant herself.
“I want the afternoon to be successful and to vanish.” Mom comes over to us, scans the dining room, hunting for Elodie. “Would you look at how many guests are down off-season? Along with year-rounders.”
“Mom, you wanted a shower, you told us it was important,” I say. “You said no one would come after May; you predicted a small party.”
“It’s irresistible, two mothers for one baby? There are guests who coordinated their schedules to be in Palm Beach this week—decorators to see, trunk shows at a few shops, and the baby shower!”
“Right,” Mom says. “What’s Tabatha’s broken engagement on the Turquoise, or two husbands caught for tax evasion, or Lara Mercer’s affair with her pilot, compared to this?”
The part where our mother takes it too seriously, longs to be beyond rebuke—of any sort.
“Mom, it’s not like we’re breaking the law,” I say. “And I assume Tabatha would believe being jilted at her engagement party a little more disturbing than today’s c
uriosity.”
Mom raises her eyebrow as far as she can. “Where is your sister?”
Although it is really annoying that Elodie is late, I say, “She’s en route.”
* * *
Hors d’oeuvres are being served on the terrace. Guests are prompt—Mrs. A., Faith Harrison, Cecelia Norric, Betina Gilles, Margot Damon. My friends Tiffany, Heather, and Jessica; Elodie’s friends from the Academy and Wellington, where they rode horses together, Beezy, Nina, Carly, and Linnie, have arrived. Women I’ve never seen smile at me as they should; their Aquatalia mules and Gucci slides tap against the stone floor. The false lashes, long skirts, short skirts, toe cleavage of the young, medium, old. My friends in pastel flowing dresses that sway and swing.
Then those cousins of Mimi’s, two sisters—chic, thin, snooty, second cousins once removed, whose names aren’t memorable. Their sons, who have tormented Elodie by existing. Kids’ birthday parties—for what, eight years—that she had to attend as Mimi’s dutiful daughter-in-law. Their sly looks because Elodie had no baby and now because of how Elodie is having a baby. Mimi has grown a bit short with them herself, while Elodie has always linked them to the time she miscarried at one child’s third-birthday party. She called me, crying because she couldn’t carry a baby to term. I didn’t even know the phrase “to term” at the time. The sisters sit at Mimi’s table in vintage Pucci dresses, talking only to each other.
Mostly conversations skim across the room—rainstorms, valet parking, the temperature of the restaurant versus that of the lobby of the Brazilian Court, small dogs and their biscuits, Valentino, Gucci, Escada when in doubt. Vhernier bracelets, Seaman Schepps always, the school calendar. Bellinis are polished off and voices are louder.
* * *
It would be Elodie whose stilettos hit the ground differently—more a staccato tapping—than the others when she walks into Boulud. She is a nonpregnant goddess or I’m too pregnant to judge. Every woman is thin and glamorous to me these days, while strangers on Collins Avenue in South Beach and Worth Avenue in Palm Beach glance at me and look away, fearful I’ll go into labor where they stand. I’m hungry every hour; Baby Grace flips and skids across my womb. I have heartburn if I eat arugula with balsamic, angel hair pomodoro, or pizza, the only foods I want. Tyler and I haven’t had sex in three weeks. The last time we did it, the baby was practically a part of it. I look around at the women—pretenders, aren’t they? My sister’s hair is shimmering; she wears it down, which she’s done twice in the last six months. In her off-white column dress, she seems taller than she is and smiles in that rigid style our mother values, no matter what.
“Elodie, Elodie!… Lovely.… Hello, so chic.…”
Elodie pauses like a celebrity would. “Hello, hello.” She looks around, walks to the cake in the middle of the terrace. “Oh, it’s beautiful! Look at the artwork!”
She gives a radiant smile. On Hulu or Amazon Prime, she’d be a character to watch closely. There’s a strange mix of tranquillity and edginess about her. She has crow’s-feet that weren’t there before the pregnancy. Her chin is softer, while I’m the one who has gained twenty-four pounds. We are both very pale for Palm Beach, that kind of milky pale that works better in cities.
“Where were you?” I ask my sister.
“Ran late, work, you know,” she says.
“No, I don’t,” I reply. “This is the shower for our baby.”
“Really?” Elodie tosses her head.
We look at each other, the half sibs—hers, not mine—hang between us. She’s up to something, I know it.
“Hey, I’m present and accounted for.” She links her arm in mine.
Ryana snaps her fingers and Jill, the photographer, who is about my age and very quick with her camera, gets a few pictures with her Nikon.
As the guests hone in, no one missing that I look like I swallowed a beach ball, Elodie comes close and places her right hand on my womb. She winks. “We love our baby.”
“We do. Already she’s a cause célèbre.” I put my right hand on top of Elodie’s. Our baby flips, as if I’ve choreographed it. Both our hands are pushed into the air. We squeal; then I burp. I’ve been doing that a lot lately. Elodie opens her cross-body bag and hands me a Rolaid. Each of us pops one into her mouth. Mom is beside us in a matter of milliseconds. She grasps our wrists and breathes deeply.
“Let’s get more pictures, girls,” Mom says.
“Did you see her camera?” I ask. “It’s a twenty-four-millimeter…”
“That’s fine, Aubrey,” she says. Her grasp is tighter. Elodie wiggles her arm.
“Girls!”
We pose for consecutive shots. Our mother whisks us past the gift table, where boxes from Lori Jayne, Betty McCarter, Ralph Lauren, and Bonpoint pile up. The photographer motions for us to pause, pose more.
“We are not opening presents during the luncheon,” Mom whispers as she turns to the guests. Both Elodie and I nod. Except I do want to open them. I want to see what Baby Grace will have, how adorable each outfit will be. What books will be given, puzzles, smock dresses (this is Palm Beach), a Raggedy Ann and Andy, stuffed bears and bunnies. A locket—someone will give her that, too.
“Mom, are you sure about the gifts?” I ask. “I’d so like to open them.”
Elodie bites her lip. Mom steps in front of us. “Ladies, lunch is served.”
* * *
Each guest reviews the menu in pink ink on parchment paper. Gaspacho, a choice of lobster roll, yellowtail snapper, or grilled chicken and kale salad. Afterward, the cake that, once cut, will destroy the cradle, figuratively. Has no one picked up on that? The only item I want at Boulud is their key lime pie. I might ask a server to slip me a piece while orders are taken. Instead, I listen to the whispering guests. Right out of People magazine.… Who is the father? Whose egg was used? Artificial insemination … both the aunt and the biological mother … For years, Elodie grappled … talented at work … an unmarried sister … too-small a town … that family, always apart in their thinking … an idea that …
Does my sister hear the talk about us? I can’t tell, because she is doing an A-list acting job, standing with her childhood friends, trading iPhones for photos of children, houses, maybe husbands, too. Isn’t this what is done? The sharing and envying of one another’s glittering prizes as Elodie is, at last, about to have the final prize.
“Come,” Mom says to me as I wait beside her. “I’ll walk you to your friends, darling.”
Together we move to the table to the left of my mother’s. Elodie sits down at hers and does a zoomy wave—we’re her fans.
On her way back from the ladies’ room, Mrs. A. puts her mouth close to my ear. The scent of lavender soap and Caleche is dense. “Aubrey, dear, who is the shower for?”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. A.,” I say, “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“The deserving one, the woman of the hour.”
* * *
At the end of it, my father, James, and Tyler work their way into Café Boulud in that exact order. Tyler lags behind, while my father, like an old actor, and James, like someone who dabbles in acting, are in step. James’s part, that of the father who expects a child, is important. Tyler looks like he loves me, not like an actor. Like he’s the hero in a Disney film who balances out the story.
“Here they are!” Mom seems pleased.
Forks tap gently against the china; guests polish off the baby cradle cake. My mother wants this wrapped up.
“Can we get a picture of the mother- and father-to-be?” Jill, the photographer, practically shouts. She places her hand on my back and circles around to find Elodie. James walks toward Elodie, slides his arm around her waist. She bends into him. Jill starts snapping more pictures. Everyone stops talking; the women gawk as the lens opens, then shuts faster and faster. Tyler slips his hand into mine. In an alternate universe, we are body doubles for the couple expecting a baby.
* * *
We are the next to last to leave the baby sh
ower, while Mom, Mimi, and Dad are still inside. The heat hits our shoulders and the humidity makes the air dirty when Elodie walks me to my car.
“Did you see that Dad is settling the bill?” I ask.
“No, I didn’t see that. But Tyler and James are packing up the gifts in Veronica’s car.”
“Yeah, well, he is, which makes me sad. I mean, it has to be déjà vu. Another level of posturing. His grandchild-to-be.” I’m wistful.
Elodie pats my arm. “I know, it’s surreal for him, isn’t it?”
I could be overheated; the sun is too glaring. I’m always tired. The third trimester is like that, according to Dr. Noel’s team and every book that I’ve bought.
“I waddle, don’t I?” I say.
“No, you don’t,” she lies.
We stop, as if we need to think about it.
“Well, a little,” Elodie admits. “Soon it will be over.”
I hold on to her elbow, like the old ladies in the Publix parking lot who count on others for balance.
“I’m afraid, you know.” Elodie speaks to me as if it’s a secret; her voice is low and somber.
“Me, too. I am afraid of the delivery. I have to pee every five minutes, I sleep with four pillows—for my back, between my legs. I get heartburn, serious heartburn! Tyler and I can barely hold each other, let alone have sex.”
Elodie starts laughing. “Oh my God!”
“The thing is, every time the baby, our baby, kicks, I want to comfort her. Tyler and I talk about the songs we can play for her. ‘Golden Slumbers’ from the Abbey Road album; ‘Tura Lura Lural’—there’s a recording of The Band with Van Morrison singing that lullaby.” I stop; I’ve said too much.
Elodie pauses. She seems surprised by my zeal.
“I meant…” I say.
“It has to be most of the time. She must be kicking constantly at this point.” My sister stares back at Café Boulud almost with nostalgia.
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