Laura & Emma

by Kate Greathead

  “Mom.” Emma groaned. “I told you, I want to walk.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Emma nodded and kicked a pinecone. “I’ll walk you to your car, though.”

  It was a small parking lot; they were there in thirty seconds. Laura stood on her tiptoes to give Emma a kiss on the cheek goodbye. “You’re so much taller than me!”

  “You always say that,” Emma said wearily.

  “Well, it always takes me by surprise.”

  Emma rolled her eyes.

  “You know, you’re lucky to be so tall,” Laura said. “It’s tough being a little shrimp like me—people don’t take you seriously.”

  Laura unlocked the door but paused before opening it. “Parents’ Weekend will be here before we know it!” she said with cheerful conviction.

  Emma made a face that was a cross between sarcasm and agreement.

  “I’m not kidding. Six weeks may seem like a long time, but it’ll go by lickety-split.” Laura snapped her fingers to convey how quickly it would go by.

  Emma waved a hand in the air to indicate she was about to be on her way. This was it, the last time she’d see her for a while—in a parking lot.

  “No!” Laura shouted. “You’re not walking! I’m the parent, and I make the rules, and you’re getting in the car and I’m driving you, and that’s that.”

  To Laura’s surprise, Emma surrendered and climbed in the passenger seat. Laura commented on the beauty of the surrounding trees for the two-minute drive, but Emma only grunted in response—until they pulled into the driveway of her school.

  “Was he Swe-dish?” Emma’s voice cracked. “That’s why you told people that story?”

  Laura’s heart sank, anticipating Emma’s disappointment.

  “It’s possible his ancestors were from Sweden,” she said.

  * * *

  LAURA DIDN’T HAVE MUCH OF an appetite and decided to have a bowl of bran for dinner. When she was done, she carried the bowl to the sink and gave it a quick rinse. She was about to put it in the dishwasher when she realized there would be fewer dishes from now on. Dishwashers used a lot of energy and she did not like to run theirs until it was completely full; with Emma gone, it would take a while for this to happen. She turned the faucet back on and gave the bowl a thorough scrub, dried it off with a dishtowel, and left it out on the counter. There was no point in returning it to the shelf with the others; she would use the same one for breakfast.

  * * *

  THAT FIRST MORNING, RIDING THE 6 train to work, Laura felt as though she’d tapped into a sadness that was larger than her own—the collective loneliness, disappointment, and despair of all the people who’d ever ridden through the bowels of the New York City subway system.

  If the other passengers noticed that she was crying, they pretended not to, which Laura appreciated. People who thought New Yorkers were cold and uncaring didn’t understand that in a city like this, one’s physical proximity to strangers necessitated a respect of their psychological privacy.

  By the time Laura reached her station she had recovered. The sadness had had to do with saying goodbye to Emma, and she was glad she’d gotten it out of her system. As she ascended the steps, a cathartic levity set in as she considered the possibilities that lay before her.

  “It will be a new chapter of your life,” people told her.

  * * *

  GRIEF IS LIKE A WATER balloon, someone had told Laura after Bibs had died. You have a certain amount of it in you, and it drips out, until one day all that’s left is a shriveled-up balloon with nothing inside it.

  Laura thought that balloon had emptied years ago, but in the wake of Emma’s departure it seemed to bubble back to life. Thoughts of Emma were interspersed with those of her mother. Long-forgotten scenes of Bibs, which, in contrast to the memories that had precipitated after her death, featured happy times that left her full of tender fondness. Some of them were so strange, so whimsical, she was sure she must have dreamed them or made them up. For instance, the time Bibs had taken a string and strung it around the leg of a dragonfly she’d found in the garden and they’d taken turns holding the end of the string as it circled above their heads like a kite—how was that even possible? And yet Nicholas claimed to remember it, too.

  It would take some getting used to, having Emma gone. In the meantime, Laura decided it would be good to switch up her routines a bit, to try new things.

  * * *

  FOUR NIGHTS PASSED BEFORE LAURA heard from Emma. The first few phone calls were brief and perfunctory. Hello? Hi. How was your day? Good. Good. Just calling to say good night. Okay.

  But then, one night, Emma confessed she was having trouble sleeping. She missed the sounds of the city; it was so quiet up there at night—too quiet to sleep. The urge to sleep wouldn’t hit till the day, when she’d walk around in a delirious stupor. Traveling through campus you were expected to smile and say hi to each person you passed. This was exhausting and made her feel phony. She wished she were a llama.

  “Why a llama?” Laura asked.

  After a prolonged silence came a muffled sob.

  “Because they never have to make friends with new llamas,” Emma said. “Or if they do, they don’t get upset about it.”

  “I know what you mean,” Laura said. “I remember I sometimes used to get jealous of our dog Mr. Baggins. He was always fed and taken care of. People loved him. He didn’t know he was going to die someday. And he never really got sad, or at least not sad the way people do.”

  “He didn’t know he was going to die someday?” Emma said. “I thought you were trying to cheer me up. Now I’m thinking about how we’re all going to die.”

  “Sorry, you’re right.” To distract Emma from dark thoughts, Laura started talking about her day. As she rambled on, the receiver grew moist and warm against her skin, which came to feel like Emma’s silent presence—the sticky heat of her sadness. When Laura ran out of things to talk about, she proposed she read a book out loud over the phone. She walked over to the bookshelf and pulled out one of Emma’s childhood favorites, Roald Dahl’s The BFG, which—and Laura hadn’t even remembered this—began with a description of a girl in a dormitory who couldn’t sleep.

  “Do you want me to stop?” Laura asked after the first chapter, not having heard any encouraging signals from Emma.

  “No,” Emma said. “Keep going.”

  * * *

  FOR THE PAST FEW YEARS, Margaret had been badgering Laura to get her hair colored. The grays were proliferating, there was no denying it.

  Laura arrived early to her hair appointment. She forgot to bring her book, and there was no newspaper in the reception area, just glossy magazines. The cover of one featured a topless woman, presumably promoting some movie, holding her hands over her breasts like a bra. Out of boredom Laura picked it up and flipped to the page promising to share this woman’s beauty secrets. According to the article, the woman was forty and she had spent her entire life avoiding the sun—hence her beautiful, unblemished complexion. Laura felt depressed thinking of her own skin. All her life, she had been under the impression the sun’s damage was limited to cancer and liver spots, but her dermatologist had recently told her it also wore down the skin’s elasticity, which is how wrinkles developed.

  Marco, the renowned colorist Margaret had sent her to, shook Laura’s hand and led her to his station. As she took a seat he complimented Laura’s gray; he said it was a particular variety, more like silver, and that he thought it was becoming.

  “Once you start coloring, you can’t go back,” he warned her.

  Coming from a professional, Laura took this to heart. She did not end up coloring her hair that day—but she did stop at a newsstand to purchase a copy of the Village Voice.

  That evening, as she combed the classifieds, her eyes drifted over the personals, where one of the ads called for someone who cares about the fate of the planet and believes there’s a special place in hell for Newt Gingrich.

  Laura chuckled
at this final criterion—and was surprised that the poster, a “46-year-old atheist public defender,” described his body as “petite.” Then she saw it was listed under the “F seeking F” category.

  * * *

  THE PARKVIEW WAS JUST ONE of many high-rises that had sprung up around them in recent years. While the buildings were still under construction, giant billboards would announce their name, followed by a list of their amenities. Across the street, occupying the lot where the tenements used to be, was the Monterey, which boasted a swimming pool, roof deck, and twenty-four-hour concierge.

  As the property values of the apartments in Laura’s building increased, some of the old-timers cashed out. The shifting demographic of the residents of the building—younger, more entitled—was reflected in the lobby, where the co-op board had voted to replace the super’s religious-themed paintings with floor-to-ceiling wall-to-wall mirrors.

  Laura passed by one of these mirrors on her way home one night, and her face looked particularly weathered. She peered closer before going upstairs to investigate—maybe the lighting was just unflattering.

  She undressed before the full-length mirror in her front hall closet to assess the damage. The lobby lighting had indeed been harsh, but there was no denying it: years of sunbathing had taken their toll, and not just on her face, but other parts of her body as well. Though she’d never gained any weight in her midsection, her stomach was soft. As she ran her hands across it, it reminded her of the shell of a tart after the berries have been plucked off and the cream licked away. What a waste: all those tans, with no one to admire the results.

  She took a step back, dimmed the hall light, and mimicked the pose of the woman on the cover of the magazine. The results were much more attractive than before. Her skin looked tight and smooth. You couldn’t tell that her breasts drooped and that Emma had destroyed her nipples. As she stood there, studying herself from different angles, she became aroused, which didn’t make any sense—she was looking at herself—but it felt good and she couldn’t help it and she didn’t stop. Imagining someone else was watching, she kept doing what she was doing, periodically dimming the light even more, until it was dark.

  * * *

  SHE WAS GETTING READY TO leave for work when the doorbell rang. It was a man Laura didn’t recognize. He looked to be in his mid-twenties, chubby, bearded.

  “Martin,” he said, offering her a sweaty palm. “I live downstairs, right below you, 16A.”

  Martin was having some friends over that night, he explained, and the last time they were over, they’d complained he didn’t have any chairs—did she have any he could borrow?

  “How many do you need?” Laura asked as he followed her into the kitchen.

  “I’ll take what you’ve got,” he said. “As many as you can spare.”

  “Is five okay?” She had six chairs.

  “Five works.” Martin nodded, stroking his beard. “Though if it doesn’t make a difference to you, six would actually be better.”

  Laura, who was already running behind, helped him carry the six chairs out to the hall. She was about to shut the door behind him when he said, “Wait, I don’t think I caught your name.”

  In her flustered rush to wrap up their encounter, Laura accidentally responded with the name she’d used in her brief correspondence with the public defender: “Liza.”

  * * *

  LAURA MADE PLANS TO MEET the public defender for dinner on the Upper West Side. While waiting outside the restaurant, she ran into a bride she’d worked with years ago. The groom, Andrew, had been a classmate of Nicholas’s, but Laura couldn’t recall this woman’s name. After an awkward exchange of hello, nice to see you, how are you, Laura, in an attempt to wrap things up, said to send her best to Andrew, and the woman laughed.

  “Actually, we got divorced, and no, he didn’t cheat,” she said. “Turns out I’m a lesbian!” With a nod and a quick farewell, the woman turned and entered the restaurant.

  Laura felt terrible, but she couldn’t carry through with it, not with this woman whom she knew, and so she left. Or “stood her up,” as the saying went.

  * * *

  LAURA DIDN’T MIND EATING BREAKFAST standing at the counter, but dinner was another thing. She wrote Martin a note and slipped it beneath his front door.

  Five minutes later her doorbell rang, and it was Martin, holding a chair. “Dude,” he said, handing it to her. “I’m so sorry. Things have been really busy—I got this new job repairing voting machines and I completely forgot.” He shook his head remorsefully. “That’s no excuse, though, I feel like a jerk.”

  “Don’t worry,” Laura told him. Martin asked if he could hold on to the other chairs until Wednesday.

  “I think that’s all right,” Laura said. “Yes, I don’t think I’ll be needing them before that.”

  “When, exactly, will you be needing them?” Martin inquired.

  When she hosted her next dinner party.

  Were there any on the calendar?

  No, there weren’t.

  In that case, could he just hold on to them?

  He hosted this meeting every Tuesday evening, Martin explained, anywhere from one to two dozen people showed up, it was hard to predict. Some of them were his age, they could sit on the floor, but there were also some older folks he wanted to be comfortable—last time they’d complained a little.

  Was he asking to keep her chairs? Laura didn’t know what to say; she wanted to laugh. People like this infuriated and fascinated her. The takers of the world, they felt no anxiety making all sorts of requests. In her experience of dealing with them, they also appeared unembarrassed by being told no, because it meant just that and nothing more to them. That is asking too much, you are inconveniencing me, I’m not comfortable giving you my chairs because I don’t even know you—these weren’t projected fears that would keep them up at night. How am I going to get chairs for free, in an easy manner that doesn’t require hauling them through the streets of Manhattan—this was their concern.

  “If you could return the chairs this weekend,” Laura told him, “I would appreciate it.”

  “Candooskey,” Martin said with a confident nod.

  “Excuse me?” Laura said.

  “No problem,” Martin told her, ringing for the elevator. “Happy to bring the chairs back Sunday.”

  * * *

  AFTER A FEW WEEKS, EMMA’S homesickness began to subside, but she continued to call every night. During the day Laura would make a mental inventory of amusing or interesting tidbits to tell her. At first they weren’t terribly amusing or interesting to Emma.

  “Hmm,” Emma said after Laura relayed a client’s demand to have her cake decorated with edible gold foil. “That’s gross.”

  But when Laura told her later about an exchange she’d overheard between a young boy and his mother on the subway (he’d whispered in her ear and she’d loudly replied, “What? Your balls hurt?”), Emma laughed—her first real laugh since she’d left home, it seemed. Laura began tailoring her anecdotes to her sensibility.

  And so they became two people who talked on the phone, like friends.

  * * *

  LAURA’S FRIENDSHIP WITH MARGARET WAS one of the constants in her life. There had been times when she’d taken it for granted, or thought less than generously of her, but now more than ever she took comfort in knowing that for better or worse, Margaret would always be there.

  For Laura’s forty-fifth birthday, Margaret wanted to throw her a dinner party, but upon seeing the guest list and thinking of all the enthusiasm she would have to manufacture for the evening, Laura demurred. “I think it would be more fun just the two of us,” she said.

  “Okay, but I insist you let me take you somewhere fancy for once.”

  They made a reservation for two at Tavern on the Green. The morning of Laura’s birthday, Margaret called to ask if they could switch it to lunch.

  Laura hesitated. The food at Tavern on the Green wasn’t anything special; the whole poin
t of going was for all the lights on the trees, which could be seen only at night.

  “I’m sorry,” Margaret said. “I know it’s not the same in the daylight.”

  “No, no,” Laura said. “It’s fine. Lunch is actually better for me.”

  It was a beautiful Indian summer day. Short-sleeves weather—maybe the last of the season. An hour before they were supposed to meet Laura called to propose they scrap their plan and pick up sandwiches and eat on the lawn in the back of the Met.

  “How’s Emma liking her school?” Margaret asked, flapping out the blanket she had brought on the grass and taking a seat.

  “She’s actually doing really well,” Laura said.

  “I’m so glad,” Margaret responded. “Charlotte, as I’m sure you’ve heard, has been suspended.”

  Laura shook her head. “I’m pretty much out of the Winthrop loop,” she said, realizing it as she spoke it.

  “For two weeks,” Margaret added.

  Winthrop rarely suspended students. Laura tried not to look shocked.

  They sat facing the road that ran through the park. Behind them was a wall of glass—the windowed façade of the Egyptian Wing. Across the lawn, a woman in her twenties stripped down to a bikini and lay on the grass with a book.

  “Well,” Margaret said, “aren’t you curious to know what she did?”

  “What did she do?”

  “My wonderful daughter, in her infinite wisdom, coerced a classmate into flashing the hot dog man. It was part of an initiation ritual.” She made air quotes with her fingers.

  “Initiation to what?” Laura asked.

  “The Funny Pink Bunnies.”

  “The Funny Pink Bunnies?”

  “The Funny Pink Bunnies,” Margaret said authoritatively. “It’s the name of their group.”

  “So she’s at home right now?”

  “Oh, no,” Margaret said with a smirk. “She’s on her hands and knees planting daffodil bulbs in Morningside Park.”

  “Of her own accord?” Laura was impressed.

  “You kidding?” Margaret made a face. “I made some calls, signed her up with a program that works with juvenile delinquents from Harlem.”