by Peter Israel
I guess we were too competitive in college to be friends, really—always after the same grades and, once or twice, the same young men. I always thought I was prettier, Selma smarter. Or maybe quicker, sharper. She went into advertising, I into magazines. She climbed the ladder; I dropped out. (She’s still single.) But we’ve stayed in touch, and I think of her as a friend, though of the second tier.
I haven’t talked to her since well before I went into the hospital for Zoe. Of course she knows my story. She says she’s been meaning to call, but she was too appalled, too upset for me. We commiserate, we chat. Then I outline for her what I have in mind, with the main proviso that, if it does happen and once the segment is aired locally, it be made available to any station, nationwide, that wants to use it.
Selma sounds doubtful. Yes, she knows some of the people over there, though mostly on the business side. Usually, she says, the producers pick their own subjects for interviews and go after them themselves. But maybe, she thinks—just maybe—she can pull in a favor or two.
“But I’m not asking for favors!” I remonstrate. “I’m the fish in the fishbowl, don’t you get it? You should hear the phone calls. I’m the Bad Mommy who’s been in seclusion and wants to talk!”
“Of course I get it!” Selma snaps back. “Let me see what I can do.”
“Selma, I’m sorry, but for God’s sake—”
“I know how important it is, Georgia. Let me get off now. I’ll talk to you later.”
We hang up. The waiting starts. I begin to think it’s crazy, counting on Selma Brodkey. How do I know she isn’t calling around, telling people about this idiot woman she knows who thinks she ought to be on TV just because her kid’s been kidnapped?
Shouldn’t I be trying other people? How come I don’t know anybody who works directly in television?
Or should I call the station? Cold, like that?
I can’t bring myself to do it.
I’m thinking of Andy Warhol and his fifteen minutes of celebrity.
It’s already afternoon. Probably Selma’s gone by now anyway. Try getting anyone in advertising or publishing on the phone Friday afternoons. That means I’ve blown it. I, Georgia Coffey, awoke from stupefaction long enough to make one lousy phone call on behalf of my son, and I even blew that. Timid little mouse. That’s what my first nanny called me, I guess because I was always small: “Miss Mouse.” It’s almost dusk. The early winter dark is somehow worse in your own house than in the city, more palpable, more claustrophobic. It closes in, shuts out the world. You’re stuck, prisoner in your own small environment, and you might as well be living on the moon.
What am I going to do? My God, he could be dead! I read somewhere that of the twenty percent, or ten percent, whatever it is, of cases of missing children that aren’t resolved within the first week, some huge percentage are never resolved. That is, the children are never found, alive or dead. Like the Patzes. They’re still waiting, after how many years? How can they go on living?
The phone’s ringing. Oh, my God. It’s already after six.
It’s Selma.
“Did you think I’d forgotten about you?” Her voice is cloying, sets me on edge.
“No, of course not.”
“Well, Helga has jumped at the idea. They accept your conditions. They want to shoot it Monday morning, in your house, for their Monday afternoon show.”
I’m so overwhelmed, I can’t speak, think. Monday? But Monday seems forever. By Monday, if there’s no news in between, Justin will have been gone nine days.
“Why not tomorrow?” I ask. “Or even Sunday?”
“Because she’s not on the air weekends.”
“But what difference does that make? They still do news, weekends. Couldn’t they put it on the ‘Sunday Night News’?”
“Because she wants you for her show, dear heart, not somebody else’s. That’s how it works.”
Selma tells me to stop being difficult. She’s right, of course, it doesn’t matter, I can wait. Helga Harris’s producer, she says, will be calling me to make the arrangements.
“Oh God, Selma,” I say. “Thank you so damn much. I’ll never be able to repay you.”
She says I owe her nothing. She wishes me luck.
Later.
I can’t sleep, too keyed up.
I know exactly what I’m going to say. I have it all here, locked inside.
I’m not going to tell anyone about it either until the last minute. I know they’ll try to talk me out of it.
Zoe’s the only one.
“We’re going to be on TV together, darling,” I tell her. “You and Momma. We’re going to talk to Harriet. We’re going to have our chance.”
31 December
“Have you found them?”
“What? Oh, hi, Mr. Smith. Happy New Year.”
“Well?”
“No, not yet, but we’re close.”
“You’ve been close before.”
“I know. She’s some smart kid. At least we know the car she’s driving now.”
“You knew that a week ago.”
“Yeah, but she’s changed again. Whenever we get close, she switches cars. Look, it’s a big country out there.”
“In other words, you’re nowhere.”
“I wouldn’t say that. It’s a matter of time. We’ll find them for you.”
“I’m giving you twenty-four more hours.”
“And then what?”
“Then I’m going to have to fire you.”
“Hey, wait a minute, Mister. You want to play hardball? Listen, I can …”
“You can what?”
“Never mind. Look, I’m sorry I said anything. We’ll give it our best shot. But you’ve got no idea how tough it is out here.”
“How tough what is?”
“Getting people to work New Year’s, for one thing. For most people, it’s supposed to be a holiday.”
“That’s your problem, isn’t it.”
“Yeah, I guess it’s my problem.”
“Are you saying you need more money?”
“No, I’m not saying that. I just want to get the job done for you.”
“Good. Now what about the other matter?”
“What other matter? Oh, the calls? Yeah. When is it you want us to start?”
“You have the schedule, don’t you.”
“Yeah, I’ve got the schedule. It says—”
“Just follow it, please.”
Rebecca Anne Dalton
31 December
I awake in pools of sweat, heart pounding. The thin pillow is crushed in my arms. I’m on the edge of coming.
Disoriented by darkness, metallic smell, lights flickering somewhere above my head.
Oh God, will I never be able to get away from him?
Faint breathing near me. Danny. He’s asleep next to me, same bed. The television is still on.
I must have dozed off.
I was watching an old movie, actors I didn’t recognize. And feeling sorry for myself because it was New Year’s Eve, and on New Year’s Eve I was stuck in a motel room, somewhere in Ohio, with a three-and-a-half-year-old boy.
“It’s not your fault,” I remember telling Danny quietly, leaning over him in his sleep, touching his hair. “Nowadays I don’t know any boys older than you or younger than whatever he is.”
He told me forty-seven. I never believed him.
Then I must have dozed off. Dreamt of him.
“Put your drink down,” he used to say. “Put it down. Why don’t you come over here now?”
The signal in the words, his voice. Long fingers. Faint smile, intense eyes following me. The clutch in my stomach, no matter how many times I lived it.
I did what he said. Off came his reading glasses. He put them aside. Also the book he was reading. His eyes watching mine.
“Now take your position and calm down. Why don’t you tell me about your day?”
There was never much to tell, until I started working for the Coff
eys. Then there was Larry—had I met the father yet? and, later, had I touched his cock yet?—stuff that I knew turned him on. But I would stand in front of him as he’d instructed, my hands propped on the arms of his chair, legs apart, rolling forward onto the balls of my feet, onto his waiting palm, telling him about my day, telling him stories about Larry.
“You’re so eager tonight,” he might say, stroking me, “so compliant. What happened to your defiance?”
“Just eager,” I would reply, reading his mood.
“Really? Or is it that you want it over with?”
“No, no. But please, I’m very eager.”
“Well, what would you like? Do you want me just to stroke you while you talk? Or would you prefer something else?”
By then, his hand, dry and firm against my muff, would have begun to probe, and even though I’d long since learned what to expect, I still rose up in reaction against it, which he liked, my vagina squinching involuntarily as though to escape, and up onto tiptoes, leaning forward over him, the weight of my body making my arms start to tremble.
“You really don’t want it then?”
“Oh no, please.”
“Would you prefer something else?”
“No.”
“Would you like to spit in my face?”
“Oh please, no.”
“Why not?”
“Because … because …”
By then his fingers would be inside me, and I would be helpless against the wet of me, my own uncontrollable response which I had long since stopped trying to control, and my ass would have just started to rotate slowly, in compliance, defiance, whatever he wanted.
“Say it,” he’d say.
“Because … because I love you,” I’d manage.
“Yes?”
“And … adore you. Oh yes, I adore you.”
“Open your eyes then,” because my eyes would be jammed shut. “Open them.”
And I would be looking at him, just inches away, his gaze full on me, calculating my mood. And, often, feel his hand slip away from me, his fingers, leaving me at the brink.
“You’re always too quick,” he would say. “First lick my fingers clean.”
Invariably I would shrink back. But his free hand, by then, would have seized me by the nape, and I would take his sticky fingers into my mouth, taste the sour taste of me on his flesh, lick, “open your eyes, please,” because I would have squinched again, “just pretend it’s my cock. Imagine you have my cock in your mouth instead, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” and I would nod, unable to speak, suck vigorously, or shake my head, depending, “If you really want it, I may let you have it later,” and I would nod again, or shake my head, trying to say “Oh please let me,” or “No, I don’t want it,” depending, except the words wouldn’t come, only the expression in my eyes, imploring him to give it to me, imploring him not to.
Only then, if I was lucky—I would always know by the slight huskiness that came into his voice, the hardness of his eyes, whereas if I’d somehow failed to gauge his mood, there would be more first, sometimes he would have to punish me—but if I was lucky and had played my role “honestly,” then it would be time for me to open his trousers, pull it free, which was the only test of whether I had succeeded or failed, and seize it, please God, in its throbbing erection, fit it hastily with its condom, guide it into me, spreading the wet lips of my vagina, impale myself upon it, while my ass rotated to hold me off it and my breasts smothered his face, and my arms, now gripping the back of the chair behind his head, trembled to the point of yielding, and talking to him, shouting—he always made me—I felt his growth, felt his hands grab the cheeks of my ass and spread them violently, and, inside me, the shuddering, rolling, involuntary twitching of my own coming, I want, don’t want, oh please, can’t stand it, do me, don’t, please give me your come, please God don’t come in me.
The truth? The honest to God truth is that I wanted it. I always wanted it.
So help me, I still want it.
I get up, achy, go into the bathroom, brush my teeth. Study my weirdo face in the mirror.
Great hair, Becca!
He used to grab me by the hair when he was teaching me, hard handfuls. He bent my head, and the tears gushed from their ducts, and I begged him, “Please! I’ll try again! Please let me try again!”
Back to the room. It’s only a little after ten. Crack one of Danny’s juice boxes. Cellophane-packed Oreos. TV, on a high platform up in the corner.
Thank God for TV.
I flip channels with the remote control, find a news show. I only watch news while Danny sleeps. It is some kind of special about Times Square. Mounted cops with blue helmets. I can’t concentrate. Nerdy as it is, I always secretly wanted to go to Times Square on New Year’s Eve, in nothing but a fur coat, and watch the ball drop.
Exactly a year ago, I thought these same thoughts at Looney Tunes. Me and Johnny One-Note and the fur coat on Times Square.
The Witch was into fur, and fuck endangered species. I could have stolen one from the Witch.
I thought that thought too, a year ago.
I never even got to spend New Year’s Eve with him. He dumped me first.
A reporter is interviewing people behind the barricades. They’ve been there for hours, and the reporter, shaking his head, says there’s still over an hour and a half to go.
Commercials. My mind wanders off.
Twelve buried roses.
Regular news.
The motel air, musty, metallic, reminds me of Looney Tunes too. I ought to get up, open a window, even if it’s freezing outside.
A year ago, the windows didn’t open.
Something about the Christmas Kidnapping.
Something: “… recorded earlier today, in her own home …”
But—suddenly—I focus—it’s Georgia, on TV! That’s the living room, that’s the pretty couch with the curlicued back.
They must have brought television cameras right into the house.
God, what if Danny saw?
He’s still breathing evenly, eyes closed. Next to me.
I get up, click down the volume, stand in front of the bed to block his view. I’m glued, my fist tight on the remote control.
It’s Georgia all right. Her face looks so small. Very tired too, pinched. God, she’s holding the baby in her arms. Zoe? Must be Zoe. All wrapped up in a bundle.
It’s not an interview. I recognize the other woman from TV, can’t think of her name, but all she’s done is introduce Georgia and now the camera’s on Georgia, straight on her, and she’s talking.
“Harriet,” she says, “Harriet Major.” My hand goes to my mouth. “I have asked to be on television in order to talk to you, woman to woman. I have no idea where you are. I have no idea either why you ran away, unless someone took the two of you, or why you took Justin with you. I just know that if you are all right, so is Justin. You have already taken such good care of him.”
Her voice sounds funny. Maybe it’s the TV, her nervousness. It sounds cracky, unsteady. Normally she has a very clear voice.
“I want Justin to come home now, Harriet. He is too young to be away from home so long, and my life is a wreck without him. I need him. He needs his mother. Surely you can understand that. You are too sensitive a person not to.”
I realize that she must be holding notes in her lap because she stops talking, glances down. Then up again, and her eyes find … me.
It’s as though she’s talking only to me, right in the same room.
“If you’re listening, Harriet—please listen. Give me back my child. If you can’t bring him back yourself, call me from wherever you are and I will come immediately.
“And know this, Harriet. If you give me Justin, I promise you—I swear it—nothing bad will happen to you. We will bring no charges against you. I swear I will see to it that you’ll be free to go about your own life.
“What is it you want, Harriet? You have to tell me. Is it money? If it’s mon
ey, then you have to tell me.
“Harriet, I thought we were friends. I have always looked on you as my friend. I haven’t stopped. The only thing I hold against you is that you never told me what was wrong, but it doesn’t matter. Whatever happened, whatever made you do what you did, you are still my friend. I appeal to you now: Give me back my child. You are too young a woman. You have your whole life in front of you. Please don’t ruin it, I beg you. It isn’t too late. I am trying to help you. Whatever you’re afraid of, we can deal with it together. Please call me.”
She looks away again, not at her notes. Bites her lower lip. When she looks back at the camera, I see that her eyes have filled with tears.
“Please call me,” she says quietly. “Please. I miss Justin. I’m very frightened. But the truth … real truth … I miss you too.”
Is she finished? She’s stopped talking. Now it’s the TV woman talking again, but I can’t watch it anymore. I’m sitting down on the edge of the bed. I’m shaking all over, like crying except the tears aren’t coming, the ducts are all dry and burny. I must have clicked off the TV. The screen is uniformly dark. I realize I’m still clutching the clicker in my sweaty hand.
You never told me what was wrong. I keep hearing that, over and over. It’s a horrible accusation.
You never told me what was wrong.
It’s true.
But how could I have told her? Would she have believed me? Suppose I’d said: I’ve been living with a man I’ve only known six months, but he saved me from a mental institution where I was stuck ever since my mother decided I was an evil promiscuous bitch and that sticking me there would keep me from doing her any more harm?
And if she’d believed me, would she have hired me? I had to have the job.
The thing about Georgia Coffey, I used to think, is that she’s never been miserable. The first time I met her, she struck me as one of those people who always make you feel as though nothing’s ever really gone wrong in their lives.
Georgia Coffey would have said: “You mean you actually went off with a man you’d never seen before? How on earth could you do a thing like that?”
The idea makes me laugh. But now I’ve brought her misery too. I could see it in her small, tight face.