Lorna Mott Comes Home

by Diane Johnson

  Julie was conscious of her own ambivalence about the wealth and privilege the gala represented. Her own situation on the fringe, within spitting distance of fortune in her own family, via Grandpa Randall, qualified her views just a little, tainted them, some might say. She was made aware of the taint via her interface with the Circle of Faith, which represented moral values. But she also respected Silicon Valley, and regretted she was so lame with computers, an anomaly in her age group that held her back. Maybe that was why she was here in a waitress costume, doomed to waitress jobs or being a gym teacher. On the positive side, she was entitled to enjoy knowing both sides of her mother’s family—her rich grandfather and her worldly grandmother the lecturer—without inheriting any of the rancor that they reputedly felt for each other.

  She considered herself as not taking sides. She was positioned like a spy to report on this fancy party to her mother and her mother’s siblings who might be interested but were of course not invited, though she suspected that the suave and handsome Uncle Curt might have been, and maybe her own mom if she’d been in town, but Uncle Hams never or his wife, Misty—joke.

  Julie, while fascinated with her aunt Gilda, also couldn’t help but notice the most handsome young man she had ever seen, sitting at the children’s table there with Gilda and other young fashionables, maybe a bit drunk. This was Ian Aymes, son of the real-estate doyenne Ursula Aymes and her good-looking though transient second husband, Pud Aymes. Pud Aymes, now living in Argentina, had seen to it that Ian had been sent to a good eastern prep school and Brown, though he’d dropped out in his junior year and was at present doing some makeup courses at Mountain View with the hope, probably vain, of transferring to Stanford. He was twenty, too old for Gilda, who anyway thought of him as too stuck-up. In fact, he was a pleasant young man and, though he had no interest in fifteen-year-old girls, was good-naturedly decorating by his presence the kiddie table of Gilda and her friends at the request of his mother, who was friends with Gilda’s parents. He actually liked Gilda and, despite the difference in their ages, had been made to go to her lavish birthday parties every year for years, and she had always spoken to him, among the mob of other kids of assorted ages whose parents were friends of her parents; and she always remembered to ask after his Dinky car collection, dear to him when he was much younger, which he still had.

  Julie actually had to keep herself from looking at Ian Aymes, he induced such a strange feeling in her of self-consciousness, tongue-tiedness, awkwardness, even misery; this reaction was totally strange, even dangerous when you were carrying a tray.

  Gilda had the same feeling, or worse—being only fifteen—or different, since she’d known Ian her whole life and had only now begun to see him this funny way, as if he were hot, the quality she and her friends would discuss later.

  19

  Girl talk.

  At the opera gala, Julie had invited her young aunt Gilda to come up to San Francisco one day for a sort of girls’ day, to get acquainted, and this was the day, Saturday three weeks later. Ran gave the outing his blessing, was pleased to think of Gilda getting to know his granddaughter, liked that there could be a connection between these two halves of his life, even if Amy wasn’t interested or perhaps actually disliked the idea of his preexistence, his children with Lorna, their twenty years on Lake Street.

  Gilda, excited about it, explained to Julie that her mom had a personal assistant, Carla, who would drive her up from Woodside and back, a trip of forty-five minutes or more each way depending on traffic. Julie laid out the program: they’d have lunch and see an exhibit of some sacred Chinese rocks at the Asian Art Museum, and go to Macy’s if they had time. Gilda looked forward to it, but was apprehensive about not having anything to talk about to the older girl, of seeming too square and silent or, always at the back of her mind, having to deal with some diabetes thing that would make her late, or embarrassed, or a nuisance to others.

  The first awkwardness came over paying for lunch, in the Asian Art restaurant. Julie saw that, as she was the older girl, it was up to her to pay. It was Gilda who could afford it, but Gilda probably wasn’t used to paying—probably had never paid for anything. Feeling both resentful and self-consciously good, Julie reached for the check, $29.40, and hoped Gilda would mention this goodness to her parents. Gilda hadn’t eaten anything to speak of, had not had dessert or a soft drink. Probably she was a food-fussy, a strike against her, Julie thought.

  “Carla gave me some money for this,” Gilda said, bringing out some tens fastened in a jumbo paper clip, and plunked it down with the bill.

  “If you don’t want to go to Macy’s, we could go to my meeting,” Julie said with relief. “I’m in a group that helps kids in Africa, and the meetings are sort of interesting, usually there’s a speaker who tells about certain places or experiences. Today there’s going to be a former slave.” Gilda had no philanthropic impulses to speak of, though they were encouraged at Saint Waltraud’s; but she liked the idea of meeting someone who was once a slave.

  “Can you call Carla to take us?” Julie wondered, thinking of how wonderful it must be to have someone at your beck and call—like a slave.

  “Actually, never mind, we have time to walk.” They ended by walking as far as Union and Van Ness, and then taking a bus for the uphill climb to Jones Street. Julie pointed out the building where her grandmother was staying. “But I guess she’s no relation of yours actually.” Gilda knew who she was talking about—had learned about Lorna when googling her father, a long time ago.

  “My dad’s first wife,” Gilda said with perfect aplomb. “She’s a well-known lecturer.” They paused a few moments in hopes Lorna might come out of her building, but she didn’t.

  Julie was gratified by the disinterested and sincere welcome the other members of Circle of Faith gave Gilda even if she was only fifteen and they had no idea about her money. Most of the Circle were in their forties, but some were Julie’s age. Julie had got on to them when still in high school, looking for an extracurricular activity that would look good on her college applications along with her high SATs, and she continued to attend meetings because, though she had yet to see an African child, how often would you meet a statesman or a former slave?

  The former slave, the speaker today, was from Eritrea, tall and black, thin as a spear, speaking a graceful English. He explained that like many of those sharing his lot he’d been sold by his family to an Arab when he was eight. By good fortune, he had escaped and gone to Harvard, and now went around telling his story. Julie, though riveted, couldn’t help but feel a stab of envy at his good luck in getting to go to Harvard.

  “By the grace of Allah, peace be with him,” said the slave, “I have been given this mission, to talk to blessed people like yourselves.” When the collection basket came around, Julie noticed that Gilda put in the rest of her whole wad of tens, paper clip and all.

  As they stood outside waiting for Carla, Gilda suddenly asked Julie, “Have you ever done it with anyone?” Julie supposed Gilda meant sexual intercourse. She had, in high school, but didn’t feel like discussing it with a spoiled fifteen-year-old heiress.

  “Why?” Julie asked.

  “I did it with Ian Aymes when he took me home from the gala. I mean, we got to fooling around, and you know…I was surprised, that’s all. It was sort of ‘oops,’ and over with pretty fast. I didn’t get the impression of the kind of thing you read about, the thrill. I know the circumstances weren’t ideal, in the car in our driveway. Well, back behind the garages, no one could see. So,” Gilda said, “I think I’m pregnant. Well, I am pregnant, I did the test kit.”

  Julie took a second or two to absorb this stunning confidence, and object: “But that’s impossible.”

  “No,” said Gilda. “It was my first time! What are the odds of that?”

  What are the odds of that? Julie wondered. She thought of Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Hester Prynne—in
novels it was 100 percent. “What are you going to do? Did you tell your parents?”

  “He was totally upset that he let it go so far. I told him it was as much my fault as his. I suppose it was more his fault, he’s older. But I did sort of persist.”

  “That’s the boy at your table at the gala?”

  “Yes, Ian. I’ve known him my whole life. He apologized, he was horrified, he didn’t mean to. It was mostly all over my thigh.”

  “Have you told your parents?”

  “No. I know they’ll be mad, but they’ll support me.”

  The word “support” to Julie invoked finances and loans, but Gilda was probably talking about emotional support. “This is terrible,” she said. “They will be upset. You’re only fifteen. You can’t have a baby.”

  “No, I know,” Gilda said. “But I would sort of like to. I could still finish school. It’s not like my parents wouldn’t help me.”

  “What a terrible idea,” said Julie firmly. The practicalities came to her with great clarity.

  “I know. I was only thinking about it. I don’t think I’ll tell my parents, they’ll freak out. I was hoping you’d help me.”

  Julie had admired Gilda’s marble skin and statuelike pallor, which suggested unmoving composure. She divined, suddenly, that part of Gilda’s preternatural poise was a function of this pallor, which gave her the aspect of being cast in alabaster. Beneath the child’s poise she could now detect earnest emotion, though maybe not panic. Money spared you panic. Money gave you serenity—the confidence that nothing was going to let you down, even in a spot like this.

  Julie thought about the fact that Gilda’s parents were her own grandfather and his wife and found herself wondering, when it came to a grandfather and his wife, where her duty lay, with another girl or with the parents? She could take Gilda to the doctor or a clinic, and her parents wouldn’t have to know. But some states had laws that clinics had to tell the parents. Julie thought that was terrible, outrageous. What was the law in California? What was the moral course here?

  “Let me think,” she said. Her loyalty lay with a fellow female, she quickly decided, even if the girl was her aunt. “We’ll go to a clinic. I’ll take you,” she said. Just then Carla pulled up for Gilda in a Chevy Tahoe. “Don’t worry,” Julie said. “I’ll call you tonight. We’ll think what to do.”

  When Gilda had been driven away, Julie kept going over the options, the possibilities, feeling it was up to her, since Gilda was plainly too young to understand her own plight. She thought of those programs where high-school girls—even in junior high, maybe—were made to carry around a sack full of sand for a month in order to experience the realities of pregnancy. If you went through with it, the realities were: (1) You had a baby and forever after had to take care of it, giving up all options for your future. (2) You gave it away but always wondered about it; eventually it got in touch and you didn’t like each other, or you did. (3) You kept it, and your rich parents got a nanny for it so you could finish your education—clearly the best option.

  Julie was glad she herself didn’t have to decide. If it had happened to her, what would she have done? What would her parents have made her do? The solemn, universal, eternal nature of the grave choices women had to make weighed on her the whole afternoon and gave her bad dreams that night, though she couldn’t remember them.

  As far as Julie could see, over the following week whenever she talked to Gilda, Gilda hadn’t come close to thinking about what she should do. She had a term paper on Chaucer, she had a soccer match—she was the striker.

  “Are you going to tell your parents?” Julie asked several times.

  “I guess I’ll have to,” Gilda said.

  “Are you going to tell—ah—the boy?”

  “Ian? I suppose so. It’s his child.” Gilda sounded taken with the drama of that dignified formulation: “his child.” Gilda was also taken with other imaginings along the lines of stories she’d read—pro-life elements storming Planned Parenthood to keep her from going in the door there, a congresswoman involved; herself being sent on some excuse to a clinic in the South of France until it was over; death while cringing on a slab at Stonehenge; Ian’s mother kidnapping the baby—the possibilities were nearly endless, though she knew she couldn’t begin to imagine them clearly until she did tell her parents and Ian himself, or maybe she didn’t really need to tell him.

  That decision was foreclosed, though, when she did tell him, almost inadvertently, when he called to ask about that specific issue. “Is everything all right? You know.”

  She did know what he must be talking about, since he had never had occasion to call her in her whole life, and she couldn’t very well tell him everything was all right.

  “Not really,” she said, in a low voice, feeling herself being overheard even if she was safely in her room. “I went to the drugstore.”

  “Oh my God,” Ian groaned. There was a long silence, while what she was probably saying sank in. “That’s awful. I’m so sorry.” His good instincts and good upbringing told him it was important to respond with sensitivity here. Other implications would occur to him momentarily: Would she need money? Would his mother pay? It was an awkward conversation, to say the least, and he felt afterward, as Julie had, that Gilda wasn’t really tracking this development. Of course she was only fifteen. A cold chill shuddered his frame: Was he now a sex offender? He’d heard of people who were unjustly assigned to this category because their partner—their victim—was under sixteen. You had to register; people were warned if you came to live near them. He saw his life shredded before him. Meantime, what should he do, in the simple social sense: What to say to Gilda this minute?

  “I can’t talk here,” he said. “Should I meet you somewhere?”

  Gilda didn’t really want to meet, it would be so embarrassing, and she had homework. “I can’t today,” she said. “I’ll call you tomorrow, or you call me. This is a good time, after school.”

  “Okay,” Ian said, slightly bewildered at her attitude. “Gilda, you have to tell your parents. Can’t you tell your dad at least? At least he’s a doctor, he’ll know what you should do.”

  “I guess.”

  “Really! You can’t drag this out too long.” Even he knew that. An afterthought occurred to him. “Do you feel okay?”

  “I just feel normal,” she said.

  * * *

  —

  Who is more temperamentally optimistic than a realtor? Ursula Aymes was almost certain she had a buyer for the Curt Mott house, an eager Asian client who, in enumerating his wishes, needs, and bottom lines, exactly described the French Provincial recently bought by Curt Mott and his wife Donna, before Mott’s accident and now strange absence from the scene. What was more, and despite the recent drop in housing prices, Ursula was pretty certain she could get practically double the price the Motts had paid, there was now such price confusion, and, thanks to her, they’d got such a good deal on it only last year. They had paid three million six; now she knew she could get six—if she could get the listing.

  There were some hitches. For one thing, there’d been some acrimony at the closing; there always was. The termites had come in higher than expected; the furnace vents proved to be wrapped with asbestos; the seller husband had tried to stiff her on a portion of the commission. Curt Mott, citing the loan costs, had also tried to chisel a lower finder’s fee and make her pay for removing the asbestos because she hadn’t made the seller disclose it. These normal disagreements were survivable, usually. Usually the clients’ happiness with their new homes effaced the stress of buying, and all that went with it, softened the recollections, warmed the new homeowners with gratitude. How often had she been invited to glowing dinners at the new digs of people who had been barely speaking to her at the end of escrow.

  She could approach Donna Mott about this clever move, but it would be better to talk to the
husband, Curt, who didn’t seem to be around. If a certain rumor were true, that Curt Mott had skipped to Shanghai with some business funds—naturally she would not be bringing that up—Donna Mott might be in embarrassing circumstances, bankwise, and might grab at the chance to sell. She thought of speaking to Curt’s mother, Lorna, whom she knew, though her failure to find Lorna an apartment might make it awkward. She might even speak to Ran Mott, who probably advised his son. Ursula had access to Ran because she’d had a date or two with him, between his marriages, and they had stayed friends these past more than twenty years. Ran would see the wisdom of Curt grabbing this chance to make a brilliant profit. The young Motts could easily find somewhere just as nice to live, she’d help them with that, and—two commissions!

  Well, Ursula would just give Donna a ring to find out how they were liking the house. And in fact Ursula was of three minds about the Curt Mott house: sell it; buy it herself and flip it, since she had a buyer; or live in it herself for a while, as it was an excellent house, the best in that few blocks of Pacific Heights. She could then sell her present house, and also help Donna Mott to a sizable profit, everyone happy.

  As it happened, Donna had also been thinking that she could sell. She knew she’d been good throughout the trying days of Curt’s illness: uncomplaining, compliant, faithful, in the face of her instincts to leave California. But the iron had entered her soul. She would happily leave these people—her ostensible relatives the Motts—and get back to familiar territory in the eastern part of the U.S., God’s territory and a better place to raise kids. She missed her own raffish, jolly Italian family.