I was nearly back at the train station when my phone buzzed. When I saw it was Kelsey, I considered letting it go to voice mail. There were only two trains an hour in the middle of the day from this station, and if I picked up the phone, I was going to miss the next one. On the other hand, if I didn’t pick up, I wouldn’t have a chance to talk to Kelsey again for at least the two-hour trip home and maybe longer if Caitlin was back from the hospital. I turned away from the station and answered.
I’d texted Hugo and talked on the phone to him, of course, the day after the baby was born. Kelsey had taken a little longer. It was three or four days after I returned to New York before I could bring myself to respond to her torrent of texts. It’s your show now, I wrote. I’m sure it will be a hit. My place is in New York with Caitlin and the baby.
I’d been avoiding actually talking to Kelsey, though. She, along with my whole California sojourn, felt very far away. It was Before. Before Eloise. Before I became real.
“Hey,” I said into the phone, bracing myself for a confrontation.
“Tell me about the baby,” Kelsey said without preamble. “Is she beautiful?”
My knees practically buckled in relief. All I wanted at this stage was to reconnect with Kelsey as a friend and let what happened in LA stay in LA.
“Most beautiful baby ever,” I said.
Eloise was starting to look more like an infant now, even sprouting a tuft of dark hair that, when the light hit it just right, had a coppery cast.
“Everything is okay?” Kelsey said. “The baby’s going to be okay, Caitlin and her husband are managing?”
“They’re getting there,” I said. “It’s been rough.”
“It sounds terrifying,” said Kelsey.
“How are you? How’s my boy Theo?”
“Oh, you mean my fur baby? He’s fine. Still not human, though.”
I laughed. “Don’t tell him.”
By this point, I had walked nearly all the way back to the house I’d looked at. It was a hot, swampy day. I’d worn a dress, thinking that would be cooler, but my thighs were chafing and the straps of my sandals were biting into my toes.
“Will you forgive me for what happened in Fernando’s office?” Kelsey said. “Seriously, Liza. I’m sorry for everything. You’ve got to come back to the show. I cannot do this without you.”
“Oh, come on. Of course you can.”
I turned the corner, aiming to circle back to the train station.
“I literally can’t,” Kelsey said. “Hugo said he’d do the show only if you were working on it, and Stella said she’d do it only if Hugo was working on it, and if this deal falls apart, your seriously wonderful book—I mean that, Liza—will never be a TV show.”
It warmed my heart hearing that Hugo had made a public stand for only doing the show if I was involved. But as I’d already told him, that wasn’t enough to lure me back.
“The show you’re doing is not based on my book,” I told her.
“I know. You’re right about all that,” Kelsey said. “I told Stella and the network it’s nonnegotiable: the character is in her forties, her daughter is grown-up, and she’s got a younger boyfriend as well as whoever James is.”
“Wow, Josh is back in it?” I said.
“Yes, I pushed for that,” Kelsey said.
I had never told her that Josh was relieved not to be a character in the show. I hadn’t wanted to give her the satisfaction of knowing that change worked out for the best all around.
“You might have to talk the real Josh into that,” I said. “That was why he wanted the character to have his name, so he’d have some power over what they did with it. I mean, what you do with it.”
“Smarter than he looks,” Kelsey said. “I’ll get in touch with him. He’ll need to sign a life rights contract.”
“Life rights? What’s that?”
“When you base a character on a real person, you need to get them to sign over the right for you to use any details of their life. Life rights.”
“Josh isn’t going to like that, and I don’t either,” I said.
“Okay, whatever you want,” Kelsey said. “We can have a character named Josh or we can have a younger guy with a different name. You’re the author; it can be anything you say.”
“Let’s separate my life and the people in it from the book and the show,” I said. “I wrote it as fiction, and I want it to remain fictional.”
“That’s fine,” Kelsey said. “Your book is the show I want to do. And if we change something, I want us to change it together. I lived this with you, remember? And I want to turn it into a television show with you too.”
I was a few blocks from the station. Soon, the train after the train I’d missed would be pulling in.
“I don’t know, Kelsey.”
“If you work with me on it, I can’t guarantee that everything will go exactly the way you want, but at least you’ll have a voice. You’ll get your creator credit. And maybe you’ll even make some money.”
Money sounded good. Enough money not to live in a neighborhood that was part of New York only on a technicality.
“I can’t go back to LA,” I said.
“Stella said she’d shoot in New York,” Kelsey said.
“What?” I stopped walking and stepped to the side so everyone heading to the station could go around me. “Why would she do that?”
“I’ve got this theory: I think the reason Stella suddenly wants to go to New York is because something’s going on between her and Hugo.”
I felt my face flush hot. “Something’s going on as in something’s going on?”
“Most definitely. I’ve heard rumors. And you can feel the heat when you’re with them. I mean, can’t you?”
Apparently, I wasn’t able to assess the situation rationally because I was flooded with a tide of adolescent thoughts and feelings. He likes somebody else. Everybody knows it. He was lying to me. I am such a fucking idiot.
And then fifty-year-old Liza slapped me across the face. You’re upset because your movie star crush who wasn’t even really in your life might maybe have a crush on somebody else? He said he’d only do the job if you were involved, didn’t he? That might mean he’s looking for an opportunity to be close again. Leverage this job into an opportunity to assess the veracity of the allegations of the affair, and rationally gauge the potential for the two of you to have a future relationship.
Are you fucking kidding me? teenage Liza broke in. You think there is any way on earth that this handsome, wonderful, rich-and-famous man would prefer you to a gorgeous movie star who is at least a surgical approximation of thirty-three? She’s got the wisdom of a crone and the body of a babe, and you’re just a boring old grandmother.
“No, no, NO,” I said, loudly enough that the other station-goers edged away. I turned my back to them.
Dusk was falling. Or maybe it always looked like that here.
“I can’t work on the show again,” I told Kelsey. Mature as I wanted to be, I was not going to have an easy time being around Hugo if he was indeed having an affair with Stella. Stella had been a nightmare before, and I had every reason to think that, cut loose from her husband and household, she might be an even bigger one in New York. Promises aside, every creative decision was effectively out of my control.
And then there was Caitlin. And Eloise. And what I’d learned was most important for me in my life.
“Okay,” Kelsey said soberly. “Then there’s no more show. Fernando already told me that if we don’t move forward, Whipple’s going to kill the whole project.”
That hurt, hearing it for real. But it was the price I as a mature adult person decided I would pay. “That’s too bad,” I said. “But I understand.”
“I guess that’s it then,” she said. “Are you going to break the news to Mrs. Whitney, or should I?”
Fuuuuuuuuuuuck. I had forgotten all about Mrs. Whitney’s pivotal role—emotional, financial, and legal—in this whole enterprise. Of cour
se she would not want the show cancelled. It might mean that Empirical would go out of business. And I’d have to tell her—or Kelsey would do it for me—that the show wasn’t happening and she was never going to earn any money on her half of the film rights because I didn’t feel like spending a couple of afternoons on a television shoot.
Yeah, I wasn’t going to appear before my professional goddess and do that.
Plus, I really did want to see Hugo again. Even if it was going to make me cry.
“I don’t know if I can bear to tell Mrs. Whitney this isn’t going to happen.”
“I know,” Kelsey said, her voice rich with sympathy. “I’m sure she’s going to be really disappointed.”
“I’m disappointed too,” I said.
Oddly, this was the first time I had really let myself feel this. I’d been so busy compromising and rationalizing and defending and distancing that I hadn’t spent a minute sitting with the profound disappointment of believing my book was going to be made into a television show and that maybe, just maybe, I might have a glamorous new career and make the kind of money that could change my life, and then having it all vanish.
It didn’t vanish, I reminded myself: I walked away from it. Which meant I could walk back in.
“So you’re making a commitment to me that you and I will set the creative course of the show, and not Stella or Fernando or anyone else?” I said.
“I swear to you, Liza. It’s you and me.”
I wanted to believe her. And maybe the only way to find out whether it would really go the way we wanted was to jump back in and see what happened.
“When would we start?” I asked her.
“Whenever you say. As soon as I can move everybody to New York.”
“My first priority is Caitlin and the baby,” I said. “My time working on the show needs to be flexible enough to take care of whatever they need from me.”
I wasn’t going to shunt them aside again. On the other hand, if I was working in New York and had a flexible schedule and control over my time, there was no reason I couldn’t do both. Millions of women handled both a job and a family, and I wasn’t the hands-on parent here. I should be able to manage it too.
“Of course,” Kelsey said. “Whatever you need. Just tell me and we’ll make it work.”
I took a deep breath. “I want to do this,” I told her. “But mostly I want my friend back.”
“Oh God,” Kelsey said in a rush. “I want that too. We’ve always done such great work together, and you’re one of my closest friends. Can we please have both?”
“I would love that,” I said. “For me, that doesn’t mean you need to compromise to make me happy or never disagree with me. But if there’s a problem, we need to be able to talk about it with each other first.”
“Agreed,” said Kelsey. “Our allegiances got screwed up in LA, I think. I was caring too much about what Stella and the network wanted, and I thought you were getting too involved with Hugo.”
“Right,” I said.
“But now Stella and Hugo can take care of each other, and you and I will do this the way we want,” Kelsey went on happily. I was happy too. Except about the Stella and Hugo part. But whatever: Kelsey was right. The important thing in the end was that she and I reclaim our working relationship and make the show we both felt good about.
“There is one other thing I need to bring up,” Kelsey said. “Shooting in New York instead of LA or even someplace like Toronto is going to eat up more of our production budget. We’ve got to house people and we’re not going to have the studio. Which means we’re going to have to find ways to cut costs.”
“What if we used some real locations?” I said. “Maybe Maggie would let us shoot at her loft, and we can use the Empirical Press offices.”
“Ooooh, I love that,” Kelsey said. “Would you ask Mrs. Whitney if she’ll let us do that?”
The idea of going to her with that request rather than the news that the show was over filled me with relief and excitement.
“Absolutely,” I said.
“I’ll email you a location contract for her,” Kelsey said. “Which reminds me: Would you also see if she has any other paperwork for us? Betty said she sent it to Whipple, but Fernando says it’s not in their files.”
“Of course,” I said. “When do you think we’ll start shooting?”
“It’s going to take a while to move everyone and hire a New York crew,” said Kelsey. “But we should be able to start shooting in a couple of weeks.”
“I’m excited,” I told her.
“I love you,” Kelsey said.
I couldn’t remember when I’d been so unambivalently happy to hear those words.
seventeen
Caitlin asked me to go to the hospital to sit with the baby so she and Ravi could go apartment-hunting together. She’d heard about this place in a neighborhood they hadn’t considered before, so she wanted him to look at it with her.
“Is it in Brooklyn?” I asked. I felt like I’d explored nearly every neighborhood in Brooklyn.
She shook her head no.
“Queens?”
Again, no.
“Don’t tell me the Bronx.”
I liked hearing her laugh.
“If you could spend the afternoon in the hospital with the peanut, that would be great,” my daughter said.
Eloise was still in the neonatal intensive care unit, but she was growing quickly. Caitlin and Ravi were allowed to hold her now, but I still wasn’t permitted to do anything more than gaze at her through the plexiglass of her incubator.
I had gotten used to the routine at the hospital. I knew the people at the front desk, as well as the nurses in the NICU. Washing hands was compulsory, of course. Then you had to don a hospital gown and a cap, along with covers for your shoes. Only then were you ushered in to sit beside the incubator of the miniature human you loved.
Eloise looked bigger than when I had last seen her three days before, her skin pinker, her milky eyes half-open but unfocused. Her tuft of dark hair gave off a reddish shine and she had an adorable cleft chin, like her dad.
I put my face near the glass, even though I knew she couldn’t really see me. There were tubes and monitors attached to every part of her little body. Her bare chest was no wider than my hand. I watched it rise and fall with her breath—no more scary ventilator, thank goodness—and breathed along with her, as if I were a conductor keeping her on rhythm.
There was a port in the side of the incubator you could reach through to touch her. I had seen Caitlin and Ravi do this, but since I’d only been allowed to visit for brief periods before, and always as the second or third person in the room, I hadn’t been permitted to touch her.
Now, though, it was all up to me. I rubbed my hands together to make sure they were warm, then reached tentatively into the case. I touched her little hand and instantly, she wrapped her minuscule fingers around mine and hung on as if I were keeping her alive.
“Hello,” I whispered. “Hello, Eloise.”
“Would you like to hold her?”
It was Judy, one of the older nurses, who handled the babies as confidently as if they were loaves of bread.
“Can I?” I asked, surprised.
“The little miss is ready,” Judy said. “And I bet Grandma is too.”
Judy came to New York from Trinidad thirty years ago, but still spoke with a heavy, melodic accent.
When I was properly positioned on the armchair, Judy unhooked my granddaughter from her monitors, covered her hair with a tiny striped hipster beanie, and placed her against my chest with her little head right beneath my nose. I held Eloise against me, my two hands cupping her from shoulder to tucked-up toes.
“Now you are her whole world,” Judy said, moving off to tend to her other charges.
Sitting there holding my newborn granddaughter against me, her heart fluttering so close to her skin that it might almost be exposed, feeling her grow warmer as I held her, while I grew warmer myself,
I felt a powerful sense of oneness with the universe. It took me back to the moment I first held Caitlin on my chest, shaking with exhaustion and weeping with joy on the delivery table.
I was only too aware how rare these moments were, how life mostly moved too quickly and insistently with children to entertain many cosmic reflections. But I remembered that first time I held my child and perceived the gravity of our eternal connection, the way that sometimes in an airplane you suddenly understand that you are thousands of feet above the ground, or when someone you love dies and you realize you will never speak to them again. That feeling is too big and too terrifying to hold on to for long, and with children everything is constantly changing, every single day.
I never thought I would feel that profound first connection with a newborn again. After my miscarriages, I came to accept that there would be no more babies in my future. It almost felt as if I’d made that choice.
But I’d been wrong. There was a new baby in my future, a child who would be in my life forever, and she was sleeping warm in my arms right now.
* * *
Caitlin was feeling stronger, and so I decided everyone would be more comfortable if I moved to Maggie’s. Asking Maggie if I could stay there was a formality; she always said yes immediately and told me that I didn’t need to ask. But this time she hesitated for long enough that it was weird.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
I hadn’t seen or even talked to Maggie since that first night at the hospital. We’d exchanged a few texts and emails, quick cursory updates on Caitlin and the baby. Maggie had, I knew, been to the hospital a handful of times, but never when I was there. I hadn’t thought anything of it. When I wasn’t helping Caitlin and looking at apartments on the far edges of New York, I was comatose on Caitlin and Ravi’s couch.
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