We Could Be Beautiful

by Swan Huntley

  “This is a gorgeous space,” I said.

  “Thanks. I love it here.” Mae Simon, overweight and wearing a shirt as a dress, did not seem bothered that she was almost sixty and lived in a commune with people who were obviously much younger than she was. She seemed content, humming as she opened the shutters to let more light in. Too content, maybe. Was she stoned, too? The pink lenses of her glasses and her lack of pants were not helping my efforts to take her seriously.

  “That’s one of mine,” she said, gesturing to a small painting between the windows. A hyperrealistic spider in an intricate web. I didn’t buy this kind of stuff for myself but appreciated the painstaking work that went into it. It suggested an immense amount of patience. Or drug use.

  “Wow,” I said. “How long did that take you?”

  “Two months.”

  The painting was tiny. It was the size of my hand. Mae Simon was a person who spent two months on something for which she earned no money. Besides those pink glasses and her outfit, she did have the air of someone you would trust with a child—she was matronly, warm. I could see why my mother had hired her. She also fit the bill for what my mother called an “alternative assistant,” which basically meant that she was white. My mother prided herself on having white people work for her, especially the nannies. She actually once said that they were “easier to find in a playground full of Jamaicans.”

  Tacked on the wall near Mae’s closet were a bunch of curling pictures, all of cats. “Those I saved from the street and brought to the Humane Society. They’re strays.” She said this with an overcompensating bashfulness, which didn’t ring true. She was obviously very proud of her saved cats.

  “There are so many.” I quickly counted four across and ten down. “Where do you find them?”

  “Everywhere. Mostly Bushwick.”

  This was odd. Mae Simon did a lot of jobs for which she earned no money.

  “Please, sit.” She motioned to the greasy corduroy couch. It was a burnt-sienna color, and the thin canals between the corduroy lines were embedded with grime. On the upside-down wooden storage crate in front of me, which Mae had painted black and was now using as a coffee table, there was a check she had written to herself for $1 million (“It’s a law-of-attraction thing,” she explained) and a Polaroid, which peeled off the sticky wood with a sound.

  There I was in the photo, on Mae’s lap, my legs dangling. I wore saddle shoes and a pink dress and an expression of surprise, my mouth open. Mae had her arms around my stomach and her head on my shoulder and she looked very loving. We were at home on Eighty-Fourth. It looked like there was a party going on. There were some figures milling in the background, and the table in the foreground was scattered with half-finished drinks.

  “Aren’t we adorable?” Mae sat down, way too close to me, so that our asses were pressed up against each other. She had no problem entering my personal space. Looking at this photo, though, that made sense. Mae had been very close to me for a whole year of my life. Still, it made me nervous. I scooted away.

  “Oh, sorry, am I too close?” Her eyes looked worried through her pink lenses.

  “It’s fine.” I coughed.

  But she was too close. And why was she being so nice? What did she want? I didn’t trust it. Had she written back finally because I’d said I would pay her to?

  “You know, I’m happy to pay you for meeting with me today,” I said. “I know your time must be valuable.”

  “What?” She looked offended. “Kitty, I am so happy you wrote me, you have no idea. I have thought about you every day since I left.”

  “You have?”

  “Yes! You were so special to me. I was so fucking sad to lose that job.”

  “What happened?”

  She looked at me for a long moment. “Okay.” She closed her eyes and breathed like she was in a yoga class, finding her intention. Then she covered her mouth with both hands. Her hands looked young still. She wore cheap bulky silver rings on almost every finger. One was a skull. “Can I ask you first why you got in touch with me?”

  “I found this letter.”

  Mae deep-breathed again. “That’s what I thought.” Another long moment. She was just looking at me. It smelled like curry in here, too, and also like the incense Mae burned, maybe to get rid of the curry smell. “Did you ask your mother about it? What did she say?”

  “I didn’t ask her about it. She’s pretty out of it these days. She has Alzheimer’s.”

  “Oh God.” She rolled her eyes as if she knew all about what a pain in the ass Alzheimer’s was, and slapped her naked knee. “That is devastating. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s really hard. And my dad died—I don’t know if you knew.”

  “Oh, Kitty.” Mae put a gentle hand on my back.

  “So, what did you mean in the letter about not being there for me?”

  “Kitty.” She inhaled again. “I have to tell you. This might be upsetting to hear.”

  “Okay.” I still half thought she was going to tell me something totally benign, or something totally expected, like that my mother had fired her for leaving me alone for two minutes while she went to the bathroom. “Whatever it is, I want to know.”

  Mae took her hand off my back. Her gray-blue eyes were focused. She looked at the rock crystals on the mantel, maybe to gather their power. Then she got up, went to the crystals, and chose two, one pink and one white. “You probably think this is bogus, but do me a favor and just hold this.” She pressed the pink one into my hand in a way that felt like it was supposed to really mean something.

  “Okay.” I readjusted the rock between my palms like it was a thing that mattered and waited for her to begin.

  After another deep inhale, she did.

  “This is what happened. It happened the night this photo was taken. Your mom was throwing a party for an artist. It was a big one—there were a hundred people, at least. She was raising money—you know, she was always raising money. This picture of us was taken at the very beginning of the night, after I put that dress on you. Your dad wanted a picture of you. I was going to get up, but your dad wanted me in it. Your dad was a really wonderful man. I’m so sorry he died, baby.” She stopped, swallowed. “Sorry if it’s weird I’m calling you baby. When I look at you, it’s hard not to see this little girl.”

  I half smiled. I tried not to judge her. I tried to ignore her greasy couch. It was hard. I was so uncomfortable.

  “Okay. Later that night your mom was understaffed, and she asked me to help. She wanted me to bus tables, basically. I said it was almost your bedtime—your bedtime was eight o’clock—and she said that was fine, she would take care of you. So I rushed around busing everybody’s glasses and plates and taking them to the kitchen. I did a few laps of that and then I went to find you guys, but I couldn’t find you anywhere. I thought maybe she’d taken you to bed a little early and you must be in your bedroom. So I went to your bedroom. You weren’t in there. And then I heard this noise from the hall, like a shrieking sound, and I was pretty sure it was your mom shrieking. I freaked out. I thought maybe she’d fallen or something. I rushed to the guest room and opened the door and…your mom was in bed with a guy. And you were in the bathroom. The door was wide open.

  “Your mom said, ‘Get out.’ She didn’t yell—her voice was chilling. I didn’t move. I couldn’t just leave you there. I ran to you and grabbed you off the floor. You were crying. I remember looking at your mom before we left the room because I still thought maybe this was a mistake. Maybe she didn’t know you were in there. But how could she not have known? You were crying, and the door was wide open, and the light in the bathroom was on. But I thought maybe she was just too drunk to notice, so when I looked at her, I thought she might be horrified that I’d found you and apologize. But she didn’t look surprised at all. She just said, ‘Close the door, Mae.’ And the guy—he was just staring at me, kind of smiling. He was creepy.

  “I took you to your bedroom and asked you what had happe
ned. You said, ‘Mom told me to wait in the bathroom while she played a game with her friend.’ I remember thinking, When Mrs. West isn’t drinking, she’ll see how wrong this was and she’ll apologize.

  “I put you to bed. Your mom was waiting for me outside your door. She’d reapplied her makeup—I could tell. She handed me a check. It was for $5,000. I said I wouldn’t take it. I said I loved you so much and I really wanted to stay in this job and I couldn’t bear to think of leaving you. I begged her to wait until the next day to talk about this again. She kept saying, ‘Take it take it take it, Mae,’ and so I finally just took it out of her hands. I planned to rip it up when I left. I planned to tell your father. Once I had taken it, she said, ‘Give me your key.’ I pleaded again. It got nowhere. She had made up her mind. I had no choice. I gave her my key. She said, ‘Don’t ever come back to this house. I’ll have you arrested, I swear my life on it.’ I knew she meant it. Your mom—she was incredibly intimidating to work for. And I was only twenty at the time. I don’t mean to be negative about her—she was definitely charming, too. But she scared the shit out of me. On my way out, I saw this Polaroid of us on the counter, so I took it.

  “Downstairs I said bye to the doorman like I always did, and when I got outside, there was the guy, smoking a cigarette. I didn’t realize how tall he was until I saw him standing up. Tall and blond, with crazy blue eyes. He was a really good-looking guy, but I could tell there was something wrong with him. He was missing a chip. I don’t know. I’ll never forget what he said to me. ‘Eventful night, isn’t it?’ I didn’t say anything. I left. And that was the last time I saw you. That night was the last time we saw each other.”

  Mae looked up. Her eyes were glassy. She said, “I was so sad to leave you, Kitty.”

  I was like ice. I was paralyzed. Maybe I was a rock, like my mother. “Did you cash the check or did you tell my father?”

  Mae winced. “Please forgive me,” she said. “I was going to rip it up, I was going to rip it up—that was my plan. I swear to God, Kitty, I swear.”

  “But.”

  “But I kept it for some reason. I kept it. I did call your father’s office the next day, but he’d gone out of town. And later in the week I found out I was pregnant, and I used some of the money for an abortion. I was too young to have a kid.”

  “So you never told my father.”

  “No. It was the wrong thing to do. So that’s why I wrote the letter. To do the right thing. So that one day I could tell you.”

  “Well, I hope you feel better.” I set her rock crystal on the coffee table.

  Mae looked confused. “Do you not believe me?”

  There was the memory of myself, age four, cheek against the smoky marble tiles of the bathroom, and yes, it had been the guest bathroom Mae was talking about. But I didn’t remember anything traumatic about that moment. I just remembered feeling sad. If what Mae had recounted was true, how could I possibly have forgotten it? I couldn’t have.

  And then I looked at the cats on the wall. Mae Simon liked to save things. Mae Simon was excited about saving things that did not belong to her. Maybe Mae Simon should have been focusing on her own life instead of nominating herself to be the Cat Savior of Bushwick. Mae Simon was addicted to other people’s problems. I thought of the sign in the kitchen. Free Education for Everyone! Mae Simon probably called 1-800 numbers all day, hoping her complaints would get her something for free. She probably wrote notes to her neighbors about their cars being parked incorrectly. Mae Simon had an opinion about everything. And in the meantime she couldn’t figure out how to put on a pair of pants.

  If I saw a glint of good in Mae Simon’s fogged-over eyes in that moment, I dismissed it as a play of light.

  “Do you believe me, Kitty?” she asked again. “Please answer.” She reached for my hands and I moved them away. The curry air began to feel even heavier. It had seeped into everything I was wearing. It had seeped into my hair and my skin and it was all over my bag.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  The look on her face: you would have thought a volcano was erupting. You would have thought she was seeing the ocean for the first time in her life.

  “Do you remember that night?”

  “I don’t remember anything like what you’re describing.”

  We looked at the picture of us. She took it off the table. “The real reason I took this picture? Is because this is the guy.”

  She pointed to one of the figures in the background. There was the guy—most of him anyway. The top of his head was out of the frame. His face wasn’t visible. He was turned away from the camera. There was only a thick head of blond hair; it looked like sheep’s wool. And it looked like youthful hair. Was he young? How young? He wore a blue blazer, dark khaki pants, brown dress shoes: typical Upper East Side. It could have been anyone.

  It wasn’t that I thought Mae Simon was lying. I thought some version of her story must be true. It pained me to think how much, and in that moment I wouldn’t let myself go there. I told myself she was exaggerating. Because my mother didn’t have affairs; she was very opposed to them. She would have done anything to stay in her marriage. And even if I was wrong about that, there was one thing I knew for sure: my mother never would have left me in the bathroom like that. She never would have done that to me. That I knew. Without question. Without a doubt. I was 100 percent sure about that.

  Why didn’t I ask Mae who he was? This was the only question a person in my position could have possibly asked. In my recollection of this moment now, the peanut butter bunny rose up through me with a violent acid burn before, and not after, she answered the question I had not asked.

  “His name was William Stockton.”

  32

  Denial, I have learned, is not the act of lying to yourself. Denial is not an act, it’s a state. It’s the state of not knowing you are a liar.

  I was fixated on a certain picture of my life, and that picture was reflected on the surface of everything I saw.

  We do not choose to be blind, and when we are blind, we don’t know that. We see as much as we can bear to see, and we assume that’s all there is.

  •

  What I saw was that my parents had been happy. If my mother had had a drunk kiss with some guy at a party one night, that was a forgivable mistake. I knew the guy wasn’t William. It couldn’t be. William was too moral, too Catholic. He was too kind. He was too polite. Also, smaller, he’d never smoked a cigarette in his life; you could tell that was true just by looking at the perfectly smooth skin on his face.

  What I saw was that I loved William.

  What I saw was that I needed him.

  I needed his sturdy presence, I needed the way he adored me. A small, loathsome voice inside my head also knew there were logistics involved. When I had the baby, I would have what I always wanted. I would also have $10 million. There was nothing to do but wait.

  •

  I called Dan. We met at the park in Fort Greene and sat on a bench and he held me as I cried and cried, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him. The great thing about Dan, and the reason I had called him, was that I knew he wouldn’t ask.

  I told him as much as I could bear to give away at the time. An old nanny. With information that was fucking insane and very upsetting, and she might be insane, too—she saved cats and lived in a hippie commune that was maybe a cult, led by a man named Philip. And why did I come here, why did I come here, Brooklyn was horrible, I was never leaving Manhattan again. And my shop was gone and I hated church, and my mother, my fucking mother, had ruined everything.

  “Also,” I said, snotty and bleary-eyed, “I’m pregnant.”

  “You are? That’s great.”

  “I knooooow,” I cried.

  We talked for a long time about my mother. This was a convenient place to put everything. I was angry, scared, hurt. I felt abandoned, alone. And I felt betrayed. I felt really fucking betrayed.

  Dan listened. When I think back to this day now, I can�
�t remember much of what he said, and I think that’s because he barely said anything. He just let me talk.

  I do remember that at some point, when I was all cried out, he said, “Why don’t we take a walk?”

  We walked to the center of the park, which was on a hill, and sat at the top of a big staircase overlooking Manhattan. We were quiet for a while. Of course I was thinking about what Mae Simon had told me and what I would do, but I thought about that less than I imagined someone in my situation would. Because I already knew what I was going to do. I wasn’t going to do anything, not yet. There was not enough information. Mae Simon was not a reliable source. A misunderstanding—this had to be a series of misunderstandings.

  I remember thinking, as I sat there with Dan in Brooklyn and looked at my city, that there were so many ways to live a life. I could be a masseuse, for example, or live in a commune, or buy property somewhere around this park. The life I lived seemed small, one-tracked. But when I thought about what I would change, there was nothing. I had the life that everyone wanted. My life was good. I didn’t need to change my life because my life was really, really good.

  I remember the orange sun on Dan’s face when he said, “Dusk is my favorite time of day.”

  This seemed so simple. It seemed too simple. I remember how quickly my next thought flashed and burned: I was missing something. There was something I was missing. And that’s when I said, “I should get back.”

  “Okay,” Dan said. “Can I walk you to the train?”

  “How about a cab.”

  “Sure,” he said.

  We walked down the stairs. He would take me to Atlantic Terminal, where there would be cabs. But then a cab drove by. Dan said, “Wow, this never happens here,” and flagged it down. He opened the door. “I’ll see you on Sunday.” He hugged me. Meaningfully, tenderly. My response was to stand there like I was dead. I didn’t hug him back. I didn’t say thank you. In the cold voice my mother reserved for her assistants, I heard myself say, “See you on Sunday.”