“She knows.” “She tucked it in on purpose.” “It’s for a dare.” So explained the committee of concerned citizens upon returning to the locker cove.
“They all have to do something,” someone testified. “Everyone in the clique wrote a dare on a piece of paper, and whoever picked that slip has to do it.”
“Charlotte has to leave a condominium on Monsieur Durand’s desk,” another added in a whisper.
This elicited a chorus of laughter.
“A condom! A condom!” everyone corrected her.
That was the day Emma decided to disassociate herself from everyone in the whole grade. What did it matter if she didn’t have friends?
To do good things, to be a good person, this was what counted.
* * *
A NEW HIGH-RISE WAS GOING up one block north of them. A self-proclaimed “luxury” building, it was called the Parkview. The name was ironic as, once upon a time, Laura had been able to look out her bedroom window and see a band of green that was the tops of the trees in Central Park. Now this ugly tower blocked the view. It was so upsetting that she began thinking of it as a temporary thing; one morning she’d wake up and it would be gone, view restored. But no, not only was it here to stay, it was growing taller by the day.
But then something remarkable happened that affirmed Laura’s more optimistic feelings about the universe.
A local anti-high-rise activist had been keeping tabs on the building’s skyward trajectory and, according to his count, its height exceeded the legal zoning limit by twelve stories. The authorities were notified and justice was served; the building’s contractors were forced to take down the additional floors. The New York Times wrote an article about it, which Laura cut out and put on the fridge.
“After their cityscape has crept ever closer to the clouds over the decades,” it began, “Manhattanites are about to witness something decidedly uncommon: a shrinking skyscraper.”
* * *
A FEW WEEKS INTO EMMA’S new life, a condom was left with an anonymous note on the desk of a controversial middle-school French teacher, and Emma was among those Miss Gardner summoned to her office for an interrogation. To avoid speaking the word, Miss Gardner referred to it as “an object used for adult purposes,” and, seeing this wasn’t ringing any bells for Emma, had no choice but to show her the item, which she procured from a drawer in her desk and daintily held up in a Ziploc bag.
“The nature of the note left us very concerned,” Miss Gardner said, quickly slipping the contraband back into the drawer. “We are in the process of trying to determine who might have left it. Anything you know will remain confidential.”
It was then that Emma realized she’d been singled out not as a suspect, but as a tattletale.
“I would guess the sixth-graders,” Emma offered.
“It appeared the week they were away at Frost Valley,” Miss Gardner said. “If you hear anything, I would appreciate it if you passed it along to me.”
Miss Gardner held Emma’s gaze for a few seconds then nodded to indicate she was dismissed.
After Emma stepped out of the office, Leslie jumped out from around the corner.
“What did she want to talk to you about?” she demanded.
“Cunt.” The word slipped out like a fart. Emma glanced down the hall, terrified a teacher might’ve heard.
“What did you just say?” Leslie asked.
“I cunt talk about it,” Emma said, and walked briskly away.
* * *
“TRIP SNORES,” MARGARET SAID OUT of the blue. “Loudly.”
Laura nodded sympathetically. They were at Sarabeth’s. It was Margaret’s birthday and Laura was taking her out for lunch. This used to be a biannual tradition—treating each other to lunch on their birthdays. The ritual slowed down when the girls had arrived. Now neither of them could remember the last time they’d done it.
The waiter approached to take their orders.
“We’re going to need a few,” Margaret told him. Turning back to Laura, she said, “Anyhoo, it was really bad last night. Which is why I look eighty years old today.”
“I think you look great,” Laura said, though it was true she looked tired. “Have you tried earplugs?”
“I’ve tried it all,” Margaret said dismally. “Earplugs, Valium, pillow over his face. Doesn’t work.”
“I’ve been sleeping very poorly lately, too,” Laura told her.
“I was always a great sleeper.” Margaret shook her head wistfully. “Until Trip gained thirty pounds and started snoring.” Margaret lowered her voice to add: “My shrink says that’s the likely cause.”
“You have a shrink?” Laura asked.
“I’ve joined the club,” Margaret said. “Sometimes I’ll roll over and look at him laying there all slack-jawed”—Margaret did an impression—“snoring, drooling, snoring, his side of the blanket rising and falling, and I’ll think to myself, it’s a good thing I’m not one of those people who sleeps with a gun in my bedside drawer.”
Laura laughed.
“Because if I had a gun,” Margaret continued, unsmiling, “I would shoot him.”
Laura tried to think of a more cheerful topic.
“I would shoot him,” Margaret repeated.
“You remember what my mother used to say about marriage,” Laura said.
“Yes.” Margaret’s scowl softened. “But tell me again.”
“She’d say, ‘It doesn’t matter who you marry, one day you’ll be sitting across a table from him thinking, Anything would be better than this.”
Margaret smiled. “I miss your mother,” she said.
“We should figure out what we’re ordering,” Laura said, putting on her newly acquired reading glasses so she could see the menu.
* * *
IN THE HARDBOILED LIGHT OF the day it never seemed urgent—where and when and how to dispose of them in a ceremonious manner. But in the middle of the night it struck Laura as unacceptable: it had been almost four years and her mother’s ashes were still sitting on top of the bedroom bookshelf where she’d put them after her trip to Central Park when she’d hallucinated Woody Allen.
They weren’t even in a proper urn, but in the tin container they’d been delivered in—like a box of cookies from some houseguest, relegated to the back of the kitchen cupboard, only discovered when it’s time to move, at which point they get discarded.
* * *
THE WINTHROP FACULTY ATTRIBUTED EMMA’S sudden status as a social pariah to her dramatic transformation as a student. Overnight, it seemed, Emma went from being easily distracted, disorganized, frequently unprepared, and clearly not the slightest bit concerned with her academic performance to being extremely focused, meticulously organized, punctual, thorough, and highly invested in her grades. In classes without assigned seating, she chose to sit in the middle of the front row, where she became a regular and enthusiastic participant in class discussions. There was no more silliness in music class, giggle fits during Prayers, or subversive behavior of any kind. In all her endeavors throughout the day, she conducted herself with unwavering poise, self-respect, and deference for authority. Even her handwriting was different. Once swollen and sloppy and frequently spilling beyond the margins of the lines in her loose-leaf notebooks, now it was small, neat, and contained—as though it had suddenly become aware of itself and was eager to make a good impression.
Miss Gardner called Laura in to relay all this and commend Emma for becoming a model of the Winthrop Way. Laura found herself distracted by the presence of Mrs. Jones, the school social worker. Miss Gardner began by conveying how impressed she was with Emma’s newfound maturity and priorities. Then she shifted her gaze to Mrs. Jones, who asked Laura if she had noticed any changes in Emma’s behavior at home.
Yes, she had. Each night before bed Emma laid out her outfit for the next day on the armchair in the corner of her bedroom: kilt, turtleneck, socks, and shoes. Then she wrote a little to-do list for the next morning: Make bed. Brush
teeth. Check forecast. Her once-messy bedroom was now immaculate, and she’d begun chiding Laura for her habit of allowing miscellaneous clutter to accumulate on the front hall table. She no longer had to be pestered to do her homework; she completed this first thing upon arriving home. Once finished, rather than turning on the TV, she took out a book. She’d gotten very into reading, in particular books about children with fatal illnesses. There was a section devoted to such books in the local Barnes & Noble. Right now she was reading Ryan White: My Own Story, the autobiography of a boy who contracted HIV through a blood transfusion. For Christmas she wanted to adopt a starving child from Ethiopia.
“Oh, my,” Miss Gardner said in response to this detail.
“Not literally,” Laura explained. “Just sponsor.”
“Adolescence is a difficult time for girls,” Mrs. Jones spoke up.
“We are a little concerned,” Miss Gardner said, “that Emma may feel alienated from her classmates.”
“The phone doesn’t ring for her anymore,” Laura reflected. “There are fewer playdates and invitations to birthday parties.”
Laura wished she hadn’t said this out loud. She resented the portrait Miss Gardner was painting. It spoke to Emma’s integrity and character that she had chosen to set herself apart from her spoiled, cliquish cohorts to the detriment of her popularity. To be socially successful at Winthrop was at odds with her and Emma’s values.
Laura couldn’t say this to Miss Gardner, of course, and the meeting concluded on an unresolved note.
* * *
LAURA WAS ENCOURAGED WHEN, A few weeks later, Emma announced she would be joining the middle school track team. Though she’d never been particularly athletic or drawn to physical activity, Emma’s interest in running quickly blossomed into a passion. Runner’s World magazine began arriving in the mail. In addition to attending afternoon practice, Emma started setting her alarm an hour early to run up and down the stairs in their building. Concerned with the nutritional value of their meals, she refused to eat certain things, including butter, to which she had developed a sudden aversion. “When you were a baby it was your favorite food,” Laura told her. “It was one of your first words. You called it cheese.”
“You let me eat pure butter?” Emma asked, horrified.
One issue of Runner’s World featured an advertisement for running camp. Laura found the concept of a four-week sleep-away camp whose sole activity was jogging utterly bizarre, but Emma really wanted to go, and perhaps it would be an opportunity to make new friends.
* * *
AS A LITTLE GIRL EMMA’S blond locks had received much attention, from relatives and acquaintances to strangers in elevators and supermarkets. Afterward she would often ask Laura to repeat the compliment. It reminded Laura of how Bibs, when praised for something, would frequently respond, “And what do you like about it?” Her mother’s ego had been like a hole that got bigger as you filled it.
Laura’s instinct had always been not to comment on Emma’s physical appearance unless her opinion was solicited, but when she arrived to pick Emma up from running camp, it was hard not to say something. She didn’t look good. Her eyes were too big, the contour of her jaw too sharp. When she turned to pick up her suitcase, the wings of her shoulder blades emerged from her back like a piece of mechanical machinery. Her legs, while slimmer, still lacked definition, but everything else was jarringly pronounced.
Laura thought of how she’d used to marvel at having given birth to this plump, excitable, self-possessed little girl, who subscribed to her own romantic notions of how the world worked. Whatever it was that had fueled her unruly ways, her tempestuous appetites for life, it was as if someone had inserted a straw into her veins and sucked it out.
In the past whenever Emma had been sick, Laura’s heart had percolated with a love so fierce it had hurt. It disturbed her that she was unable to access such maternal feelings now.
It was so noticeable, so upsetting, that Laura thought she should call Stephanie ahead of time and let her know that she would be shocked to see Emma.
And she was—but not in the way Laura had expected. When they arrived for dinner at Nicholas’s apartment, upon opening the front door, Stephanie gasped.
“It’s skinny-mini Emma!” she trilled, throwing her arms around her bony shoulders. “You look beautiful!”
* * *
LAURA HAD NEVER MANAGED TO develop a rapport with Dr. Marks—Emma’s new pediatrician—the way she had with Dr. Brown. This was fine. Laura had no interest in a friendship with this woman, whose reputation as one of the city’s top pediatricians was clearly not earned for her bedside manner. Dr. Marks’s lovely South African accent did little to mitigate her strictly business, clinically brusque demeanor.
It was known that Dr. Marks had no patience for neurotic parents—which her practice was full of—and so, eager to establish herself as an exception, Laura made a conscious effort not to bring Emma in too often or ask too many questions. Her restraint had earned her credibility, which meant that when she called the office asking if she could speak to the doctor before Emma’s annual back-to-school physical, Dr. Marks returned her call right away.
Laura explained that her concern about Emma’s weight loss was exacerbated by the positive reception it received from others. In addition to Stephanie, several acquaintances they’d bumped into on the street also commented on Emma’s appearance in the affirmative.
“I’ve been holding my tongue—these days anything I say is the wrong thing,” Laura said. “But if you could say something to her . . .”
The days of accompanying Emma into the exam room were over. After her examination, Laura was called in to speak with the doctor privately.
“Her BMI is in the thirty-seventh percentile,” Dr. Marks said. “It’s on the leaner side, but still within the normal range.”
“But she used to be on the rounder side,” Laura pointed out. “It just feels like out of the blue she stopped being interested in dessert and starting jogging. When we go to Jackson Hole, she never orders her favorite things—onion rings, milkshakes, grilled cheese. She gets the French onion soup, minus the cheese on top.”
“It’s normal for adolescents to slim down as they get older and make healthier decisions,” Dr. Marks said. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“Why did she want to talk to you?” Emma asked as they walked home.
“She just wanted to go over your booster shots,” Laura said.
“But I didn’t get any shots.”
“Right,” said Laura. “She was explaining why you didn’t need any.”
On their way back, Laura bought a box of Entenmann’s chocolate donuts, which Emma used to beg her to buy.
Emma ate a few bites of one for dessert and threw the rest away.
* * *
YESTERDAY’S SCIENCE LAB HAD INVOLVED looking at plant cells (onion) under a microscope; today’s sample would be animal (human). The cells would come from their mouths. That’s what the toothpicks were for. Emma opened her mouth and scraped the toothpick along the inside of her cheek, but when she pulled it out, nothing was on it. Applying more pressure, she tried a second time, and again no luck. She began poking and prodding and eventually punctured the surface of the skin. A little nodule came loose. Since it was too small to spear and tear, she bit and spat. Voila! There it was in the cradle of her palm, raw and pink and glistening, the size of a frozen pea.
A moment ago it had been a part of her body; now it was a separate thing. Emma’s tongue probed the spot where it had been. There must have been a little bit of blood because her mouth tasted like a dime.
“What’s that?” Mrs. Mullen asked, frowning at Emma’s sample.
Mrs. Mullen’s ingratiating floral perfume did not match her disgusted and irritated countenance. It took Emma a moment to realize her error: what she held in her hand was much too big. Cells were so small they were invisible—that’s what the microscope was for. Duh.
Mrs. Mullen continued to hove
r, waiting for an answer, her eyelids coming halfway down so that all you saw were the whites of her eyes—something that happened when she lost patience or had to explain something twice.
“That’s my cells,” Emma told her.
“Those are your what?”
“My cells,” Emma repeated, a drop of bloody drool landing on her lab report. “From my cheek.”
“That’s a lot more cells than necessary,” Mrs. Mullen said with a look of repugnance. Emma’s anxiety was laced with shame. She would be more careful moving forward. As Laura often said, less is more.
When Emma woke up the next morning, her tongue explored the perforation, and it was just as prominent as it had been the night before.
The cells would not grow back. The landscape of Emma’s mouth was permanently altered. For the rest of her life it would be there, this little crater, and when she was at a loss for words it was where her tongue would go. People who knew her well would come to notice it.
You’re making that face, they’d say. You’re hiding something.
* * *
ALL HOMEWORK, NO PLAYDATES, EMMA’S funk continued in seventh grade. Beneath the melancholy was an anger, but apparently it only came out at home—according to her teachers, she was “a pleasure to have in class.” Her language arts teacher, an uppity young thing who was a new addition to the faculty, was particularly impressed.
During their parent–teacher meeting she showed Laura a copy of a story Emma had written. Precociously titled “A Tree Grows on the Upper East Side,” it depicted the life of an emotionally neglected only child whose high-powered, aggressive businesswoman mother didn’t have a maternal bone in her body. In one scene the daughter tried to hug her mother, who coldly rejected her: “Oh, please! I’m your mother, not your lover!”
Laura & Emma Page 20