Tart

by Jody Gehrman

  Conveniently, Merrit assumed I was overwhelmed by my attraction to him and started babbling nervously about “No pressure” and “Just enjoying every moment.”

  I had no desire to tell him the truth: that I was crying because I wasn’t twenty-two anymore, and because I’d finally fallen in love—me, who doesn’t even believe in love, most days—and because I was no longer thrilled to kiss someone just because his mouth tasted different from the last mouth I kissed.

  Medea looks up, blinks at me and inches closer to my face. She stretches her neck until her tongue is tracing tiny sandpaper trails along my cheek.

  Only then do I realize I’m crying. Again.

  CHAPTER 28

  May Day, Em gets impatient and decides to have Baby Rock Star nine days before it’s due. Well, to be fair, I guess Baby Rock Star does the deciding. My mother calls me in a panic and insists I meet them at the hospital in Mill Valley as soon as I can. It’s a Saturday, and all I had planned was an afternoon matinee at the Nickelodeon with Rose and Tim, so I readily agree. I’m excited both by the prospect of seeing Em in excruciating pain and by the novel idea that my mother, the great Mira Ravenwing, needs me.

  But when I get there and hurry into the birthing room, guided by a mousy nurse and the sound of Emily’s shrieking, my desire to see her in pain instantly evaporates. She looks so young and vulnerable in her little paper gown, with her sweaty hair plastered to her forehead and her feet clamped into those medieval stirrups. I feel a tremor of anxiety when I spot my mother hovering at her side, looking pale and sweaty herself, shouting, “You’re okay, just breathe.”

  The rest of the evening is a blur. At one point, the baby’s heart slows down on the monitor, and I have to pull my mother away, shove her into the corner with a Dixie cup of water and mumble trite, soothing things while the doctors and nurses rush around in a quiet, efficient panic. Pretty quickly, though, they get the heart rate back up and the C-section crew disappears.

  Amazingly, Emily goes completely au natural from beginning to end. I’d be screaming licentious threats at anyone with the power to knock me out then and there. But little Em is a lot tougher than I could have guessed.

  What can you say about watching one human being give birth to another? It lasts for hours—so much longer than I ever thought possible—and it’s the most barbaric, beautiful thing I’ve witnessed in my life. Nothing in movies or books or baby shower anecdotes prepares me for it. Emily is alternately a little, whimpering girl and a powerful, raging beast. She’s so caught up in the struggle, nobody else exists in the world, and we have to call out instructions as if she’s very far away. Outside the din of her own thundering pain, though, beyond the chaos of the nurses and the monitors and our feeble encouragements, I can see this strange, determined peace in her face, something that can’t be touched by anything around her.

  Molly May Snyder is born at 9:20 p.m.; she’s an ugly, primordial little shriveled-up thing and at the same time she’s exquisite. Her toes are like pink, barely unfurled fiddleheads, and her head smells so sweet I want to press my face against it for hours, hording that strange, intoxicating scent like a fiend sniffing glue. In a word, she’s mesmerizing.

  When an exhausted Emily holds the tiny, wailing Molly in her arms, both of them damp and still glistening, I find it hard to speak.

  “You,” Emily says, touching her baby’s nose with one finger, and just like that both Mira and I are crying uncontrollably. It’s moving in a way that transcends even art; standing so close to something so ancient and powerful humbles even cynical me and my jaded, maternally disinclined mother.

  The next day around noon, when Emily and Molly are both sleeping, my mother and I drive to a Mill Valley café and try coming back to the earth plane. Our ticket back: double lattes and huge, beautiful salads heaped high with avocado, roasted chicken and sunflower seeds. For a while we don’t say anything, we just dig into the mound of greens in busy silence, chewing with great zeal. Eventually, when my hunger’s not so fierce anymore, I sit back in my chair, nursing my latte and looking around at the Mill Valley fashion show; understated, impeccably tasteful women in linen and cashmere tote around men they obviously dressed themselves in manly earth tones and expensive sandals. Normally it would all seem nauseatingly bourgeois, but today I’m filled with an unexpected generosity toward the human race.

  I watch a pretty brunette in red pedal pushers and a white tank top wipe a crumb from her lover’s mouth; I think of Clay, and for the first time in a month, I don’t feel sick with jealousy. Instead, I just miss him, and wish violently that I could sit with him right now, study his eyes, reach across a table and touch his mouth.

  “You okay?” Mira asks.

  This is highly unusual—my mother rarely inquires about how I am, and I’m so shocked I don’t take full advantage. I just shrug and mumble, “Fine. You?”

  “Sure.”

  “So, what’s the story with Molly’s father?” I ask. “Is he going to be involved?”

  Mira shakes her head. “No. Em says she didn’t want him in the picture.”

  “Really?” This surprises me. I never would have pegged Emily, with her platform shoes and her sexy little hip-huggers, as the do-it-yourself single-mom type. Then I remember that deeply calm look on her face between the contractions—maybe I’ve just got her all wrong.

  “She says he’s a crackhead, and she doesn’t want her baby growing up around that.”

  “What do you think?” I ask.

  “I support her decision. Who needs some high-rolling druggie for a dad? Molly will be better off without him. Besides, Em is so young and pretty—she’ll find someone when she’s ready. In the meantime, Gary’s lawyer has ensured she’ll get more than enough child support.”

  There’s something weird about Mira today. Her eyes are glassy and distant. I can understand, in a way; ever since yesterday, I’ve been feeling like I’m under the influence of a powerful hallucinogen. My theory is that contact with birth jolts you out of pedestrian mode for a while, into the realm of acid trips. But what I sense from Mira isn’t just a disconnection from gravity. I get the feeling there’s something she wants to tell me; it’s on the tip of her tongue every time there’s a lull in the conversation, only she keeps changing her mind and opting for banal small talk, or silence.

  “What was it like when you had me?” I ask, beating her to the punch this time with a silence-breaker of my own. I never ask her stuff like this; I guess I’m still altered. After you see someone grunting and sweating a new life into existence, discussing the merits of buying versus renting is just too jarring.

  I’m not prepared for the look she gives me. Her jaw is clenched as if she’s furious, but her brown eyes mist over instantly.

  “That bad, huh?” I say, trying to make my tone light.

  She stares at the ruins of her salad and says in a sorrowful, thick voice, “I can’t talk about this right now.”

  A tiny shoot of niggling anger springs up in the pit of my stomach, then grows and unfurls, until I’m sitting there in the silence she’s resumed, studying her pained face, thinking, “Why was it so terrible being my mom? What did I do to make you regret that day so bitterly?”

  I don’t even realize I’ve said anything aloud until I see the shock on her face and hear her stammer, “Claudia—it’s not like that.”

  But I’m off and running now, since the unspeakable has been said. I hear my own voice pressing on with a force and determination that can only be attributed to the latte hitting my system. “You just left when I was thirteen. Thirteen. Do you have any idea how hard it is to be swimming in hormones and have your mom decide she’s no longer Mom, she’s Mira Ravenwing? Do you know how it hurt when you said you’d never been happier? You were so busy unblocking your chakras, marrying every Tom, Dick and Harry, you barely even noticed that you left me.” Without any consent from me, my face crumples into tears—not silent, pretty tears, but full-on hyperventilating sobs. The coiffed Mill Valley crowd is
politely trying to absorb themselves in their meals, but a few of the less refined ones gawk. I hear a toddler say loudly, “Mommy, why is that lady crying?”

  “Listen, I do know,” Mira says. “I probably seemed oblivious, but I do realize that I hurt you. I just—I had to do some things for myself. It’s so complicated, Claudia.”

  “It’s not that complicated. You hated being a mom. I just wonder why you even had me.” I brush the sunflower seeds off my napkin and use it to mop up my tears, which are thankfully no longer making me gasp for breath.

  “I didn’t—” She stops herself.

  “You didn’t what?” I ask coldly.

  She hesitates. “I didn’t know what was involved. But I didn’t hate it. Just—as it turns out—I was never that good at it.”

  “Then why are you so devoted to Emily? If you’re so bad at being a mom, why take it up now?”

  “Em is…” She hesitates again.

  “Oh, I see. Em is different. You didn’t hate being a mom. You hated being my mom.”

  She looks so helpless there, opening and closing her mouth in mute, listless protest. A fresh round of sobs rises from within me and I dart toward the door in a panic. Just as I’m making my escape, I hear from somewhere behind me, “But why is she so mad, Mommy?”

  Why am I so mad? The entire drive home, I grip the steering wheel so tightly, my knuckles look ready to burst through the skin. When I hit traffic just before the Golden Gate Bridge, I lay on my horn and yell obscenities at my fellow Sunday drivers; their puzzled, California-mellow expressions only enrage me more. When I learn it’s an accident holding us up, I curse the inconsiderate motorist who had the poor taste to flirt with death right in the middle of my route home. Tonight of all nights.

  I get to Santa Cruz and drive straight to Clay’s house. It’s like moving in a dream. My rage has made me untouchable, incandescent. I slam my car door and kick at a piece of newspaper that wraps itself around my ankle in the wild May wind. Goddamn stupid fucking newspaper. I stomp down the garden path and up the stairs to the garage apartment he’s rented. Then I bang on the door with furious, balled-up fists. Clay answers in a pair of board shorts and a ragged hoodie. I want to scream at him for being so juvenile and beautiful.

  “Just what do you think you’re doing?” I spit at him, my fists clenched.

  “Claudia—”

  “Why would you fuck with me like that?”

  “What are you talking about? You’re the one who broke up with me.”

  “Ha!” I force the syllable out, but it’s more like a karate chop than a laugh. “You never gave a shit about me. Why bother to keep up the pretense? You think I’d just fall for it, like your stupid little teenybopper girlfriend?”

  At this, Clay looks utterly mystified; he literally scratches his head. “Teenybopper? What are you…?”

  “Ohh,” I growl. “Lies, lies, more lies. When is anyone ever going to be honest with me? Huh? Is that so much to ask? First my mother, who doesn’t even like me, let alone love me, and now you.” For the third time in the last twenty-four hours, my words dissolve into a series of hiccupping sobs. Even in my fury, it’s mortifying for Clay to see me like this, gasping for breath and wiggie-haired, splotchy face convulsing. Jesus, why did I come here?

  But now he’s folding me into his arms—love those arms—and he’s lifting my face to his and kissing my tears. A part of me still wants to spit and hiss like an indignant cat, but now that his lips are branding hot little scars on my cheeks, I find I’m immobile. When his mouth finds mine I moan a little under my breath at the taste of him. His hands pull gently, then harder at my hair, tilting my head until my neck is exposed. I can feel the edge of his teeth as he kisses my neck. My whole body throbs in response, and when he pushes me against the wall of the entryway, pressing himself forcefully against me, I can feel the outline of his cock against the fly of my jeans.

  “I missed you,” he sighs. “I’ve been missing you so much.”

  “I miss you, too.”

  “Come inside,” he says, looking into my eyes and smoothing my hair from my face. “We need to talk.”

  Though he says it in a tone of tenderness and, under that, innuendo, those words make my mouth dry with fear. I see Jonathan sucking at one of his hand-rolled cigarettes, pale and wan with nerves. I’m standing on the balcony; behind me, two stories down, is Rain waiting in a taxi. Even her shadow is luminous. “Come inside,” he’d said, his voice cold and resigned. “We need to talk.”

  I pry myself out of Clay’s arms, the light of my fury burning white-hot again, more searing and explosive than ever now that the gasoline of lust has been added. “You…” I say, my eyes narrowing into slits.

  “Claudia, get a grip. What’s going on?”

  “You,” I repeat, this time forty decibels louder. “Fucking child molester!”

  “Is this what happens with you?” He’s yelling now, too, rearing up to meet my tantrum halfway. “Everything’s great—everything’s fantastic—then one day you wake up, decide your man’s a perv, steal his rig and drive cross-country?”

  “You were never my man, okay? And you are a perv, and I’m nobody’s little Lolita substitute. You got that? Not now, not ever.”

  He folds his arms. “Fine.” He spins away from me and kicks the wall so hard I suspect his toe is not recovering well. “You’ve got a royally fucked-up way of letting a guy off the hook.”

  “Yeah? Well, you’re off. No obligations here.”

  “Fine,” he says, tears glistening in his eyes. He turns, stalks into his apartment and slams the door.

  “Fine!” I yell, just as it bangs shut, and start to stomp back down the steps.

  When I’m halfway to my car, he opens the door again and yells at my back, “I just want you to know, Claudia, I have no idea what any of this is supposed to be about.”

  “Yeah, right,” I scream over my shoulder.

  “And you need help. Serious psychological help.”

  I want to douse his smug little motorcycle with gasoline and light a match as it mocks me from the driveway. Instead, I fold myself into my car, clinging to the paltry vestiges of dignity I’m left with, and start the motor with a shaking hand. I can’t resist the wild-animal instinct to make noise, though—the last noise in this last exchange with Clay Parker. I pull away from the curb in a mad rev and try to peel out, but the effect is more like a lurching teen with a learner’s permit trying desperately not to stall.

  CHAPTER 29

  I prefer “affirmation” to “lie.” If there’s one thing I learned growing up in the New Age eighties, it’s that what other people call Full of Shit, we in California call Creative Visualization. Therefore I maintain that when I told Merrit Russell I adore cooking, that I live to peel garden-fresh basil from its stalk and pry garlic from its skin to chop and sauté, I was merely taking the first step in becoming. Ask any guru in Santa Cruz: you must believe before you can be.

  Unfortunately, this particular affirmation forced me to beg Rose one Wednesday night in May to please, please, please not go to San Francisco tonight with Tim as planned but to stay home and cook with me. We’ll make it a double date, I enthused. It’ll be a blast. She wasn’t exactly pleased, but seeing as I’d promised Merrit I’d cook him my specialty, homemade gazpacho and stuffed portobello mushrooms, even though I’d never advanced beyond Pop-Tarts, she pretty much had to bail me out, or find a new place to live come morning.

  The night turned out okay. We pulled off a sort of Cyrano de Bergerac of the kitchen, me pretending to give orders and her playing at the clueless prep cook, all the while secretly subverting disaster each time I actually dared to touch the food. At one point—about four glasses of wine in—I got carried away with my role and, slipping into a Julia Child accent, nearly scorched the mushrooms, but Tim saved me by inviting Merrit to join him outside for a predinner cigarette. Later, I got a little paranoid when Merrit didn’t take a toke off Tim’s medical-grade grass—suddenly I feared we wer
e coming off as hedonistic losers, as opposed to fashionably indulgent sophisticates. By the time dessert plates were cleared, though, I was far too wasted to make the distinction myself.

  Even in this inebriated state, I couldn’t work up much sexual enthusiasm for Merrit. Every time he kissed me, Clay’s face flashed strobelike through my brain and I ended up pulling away. Merrit is still under the impression, invented on his own but not discouraged by me, that I suffer from chronic shyness and need time to ease into my awe-inspiring attraction to him. For all I know, he thinks I’m a thirty-year-old virgin.

  “We have such a connection,” he keeps cooing. “I know that, given time, we’ll just flower.”

  Merrit is fond of plant metaphors. In fact, his play is so packed with them—pulsing stamens and flesh-eating orchids, love that wilts and passions that go to seed—I’m tempted to suggest he weed some of them out. Except, of course, he’s a Tony nominee, and I’m just a temporary, last-ditch replacement with barely a shot at tenure track, let alone fame or fortune. I decided long ago to keep my suggestions to myself when it comes to Merrit.

  Not that he’s unreceptive, precisely. It’s just that, when I suggested that the ingenue’s fixation on finding the ideal zucchini might be a touch heavy-handed unless he’s going for laughs, he merely flashed me a patronizing smile and said, “You forget just how thick the audience can be, Claudia.” Sure, if he says so. I mean let’s face it: who really cares if Organically Grown is a hit? He’s the one everyone’s coming to see. The reading is a thin excuse for people to check him out, and tell their snooty waiter friends in Manhattan they went to the world premiere of Merrit Russell’s newest effort.

  In the end, our somewhat disastrous double date only confirmed what I had long suspected: getting over Clay Parker is essential, but Merrit Russell isn’t the man to aid me in that heroic effort. I’m just not that attracted to the guy. Sometimes, to be honest, he makes me feel a little queasy. He’s so different from Clay. He smells like expensive cologne sprinkled into an ashtray. Kissing him only makes me long for Clay’s smell, which is impossible to describe, but somehow contains sea salt, sun-baked hills, and the icy air that fills your lungs when you’re staring up at the stars.