Woman No. 17

by Edan Lepucki

  I smiled, and didn’t say what I was thinking: that spending so much time with her patients had turned her delusional. She mistook difficulties for gifts.

  The thing is, I didn’t understand what my reading and writing lessons would mean. As soon as I realized that literacy would connect Seth not only to me, but to anyone who could read, it was too late. He could now communicate with Dr. Zaire Bowen-Shultz and Alma, also my boss and his wife, the pizza delivery guy, all adults. Eventually his peers. I let him have the universe, but now he was floating farther and farther out of my orbit.

  By the time Seth was ready for kindergarten and got a scholarship to Greenhouse, he had stopped vocalizing altogether, probably because of the unwanted attention it brought, and the frustration he felt when the sounds didn’t coalesce into language. I still hoped that someday he would open his mouth and talk. A sentence would fly out, as if by magic. I sometimes tried to imagine how his speech might sound, based on his laughter, and the array of possibilities shallowed my breath and made my eyes sting with tears. I pictured him whining like the kids I often overheard in the market—“Why won’t you buy me that cake?”—and suddenly all our troubles became a faint memory: our years shuffling from one doctor’s office to the next; the phone calls I had to make to confirm my deductible had been reached, that I’d be reimbursed for this or that visit; the endless hold music; the strangers who thought Seth was being rude when he didn’t answer them; the kids who pretended to be deaf or retarded when they saw him signing; the times I couldn’t understand what Seth wanted and yelled at him or left the room before I did something worse. It had all been challenging, but once we were safe on the other side, these years would be less painful, funny even, a moving montage in the dramedy of our astonishing lives. I was ready for the normal Seth, the real Seth, to step out of the silent visitor.

  And yet, there were other days. On other days, he would roll into a ball under the covers and press his spine against my stomach, the joey to my kangaroo, and then he’d clap three times very quickly, which meant something like I’m comfortable, but also, I love you, but also, The dark is scary but not under the covers, but also, I’m afraid of death but not right now, and I know that if he had talked at that moment I would have pretended not to hear him.

  32.

  I gave Milkshake a treat and he ate it with openmouthed glee as I searched the kitchen and living room for anything that looked amiss. S claimed she didn’t remember coming into my house, but she must have because she had replaced one white animal with another. Karl would flip if he knew. He’d tell me to check my jewelry and the Social Security cards; I’d learned from the Actress that rich people did this regularly and that “the help” was always the first suspect. I decided right then that I wouldn’t say anything to Karl. S was something, but she wasn’t dangerous, and she wasn’t a thief. After all, she’d given the dog back.

  “Mommy!”

  Devin’s call was loud and persistent, but it was too confident to sound desperate. He knew I’d retrieve him in two minutes flat.

  When I got to his room he was sitting up in bed with his stuffed stegosaurus on his lap.

  “Hey you,” I said. “You got your stegosaurus?”

  “It’s a dino!” he yelled and climbed out of bed, dragging the toy behind him. He tried to run past me but I grabbed him and gave his Pull-Up a squeeze. It was squishy.

  “Let’s change this and try the potty, okay?”

  “No!”

  “Dev.” I was already pulling down his pants.

  Once he was naked from the waist down, Devin said, “I go to potty in bathroom now.”

  “Good idea!” I replied.

  Devin stopped at the doorway. He stood there, pulling at his tiny penis (“It’s proportional!” Karl had said once). It was uncircumcised and looked like a medicine dropper.

  “Come on, Dev,” I said.

  He didn’t move. “Daddy here?”

  I leaned down to kiss his cheek. “No, baby. Let’s do potty now, okay?”

  “Why Daddy not here?”

  “Because he’s staying with Aunt Kit.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s his sister.”

  “Why Kit his sister?”

  “They have the same mommy. They’re twins, remember?”

  “Why they have the same mommy?”

  “Let’s go do potty now.”

  “Why Daddy not here?” he asked again.

  “Tell you what,” I said. “Today you get to have me all day, and then tonight, Daddy is coming to get you!”

  Devin clapped his hands. “Yes!” he yelled. “And I can have cookie?”

  “Sure,” I said, leading him to the bathroom.

  As I lifted him onto the toilet to pee, he said, “Where S?”

  “Sleeping. It’s her day off.”

  Devin seemed to ponder this as he peed.

  “I want S,” he said calmly, and then slid off the toilet.

  “Not today. You have Mommy. All day!”

  “Where Seth?”

  “Also sleeping.”

  “Why everyone sleeping? It’s morning time!” His voice was a whimpering whine.

  “I’m not sleeping,” I said. “I’m awake with you!”

  He pushed his chin into my forehead. It hurt.

  “Ouch,” I said.

  “I put you on the rug and boom!” he said, giggling.

  I laughed. “Let’s go get some undies for you, crazy boy.”

  Devin didn’t move. “Where S?”

  His question shouldn’t have annoyed me, but it did. I wanted to say that S was hungover (What’s hungover, Mommy?), that she probably would have to be fired if she kept up this erratic behavior (What’s fired? What’s a-ratic?), that she didn’t really care about him (Why she not care about me?), that she only cared about her salary (What’s salary?), that she thought Seth hated me (Why Seth hate you? Are you a bad guy?). Instead I told him he could watch three television episodes.

  “Mommy has some writing to do,” I said.

  “You have email!” he yelled, and ran downstairs without his pants on.

  When Seth had been Devin’s age, there must have been so much he didn’t understand. He couldn’t ask me stuff, not like Devin, who posed questions every other minute and filed away the answers to bring up six months later. By the time Devin turned two he could chatter away about animals and trucks and traffic. It wasn’t until Seth was literate that he asked me to define words, to tell him more about dinosaurs, about skyscrapers, about colors. Until then, he had subsisted almost entirely on context, impoverished. And I, without a child to interrupt me, to demand clarification and remind me that the nuances of adult speech are full of mental cul-de-sacs and thorny forests, rambled on and on, referencing a whole world of things and ideas my son couldn’t possibly comprehend. We had used the sign for why, but, by itself, that word is only an existential cry. Why, why, why?

  Downstairs, with Devin staring dead-eyed at the TV, pulling on his penis like it was a rubber band, I was reminded of my tweet. You bet your ass I was a bad mother! It hadn’t occurred to me before, but of course it could be read as comic. Someone would think I meant it tongue-in-cheek, like so many other moms did these days: every week the Internet spat out a new article by one of these women, written as mock apologia: I let my kids drink juice! Sometimes I even let them eat fish sticks! Sue me! As if juice and fish sticks were signs of abuse and neglect. Their confessions were just pride dressed up as regret.

  I opened the Twitter app. I decided I would delete the tweet and then unplug for the day, give Devin all of my attention like I used to give Seth.

  But it was too late. Someone had already liked the tweet, and I had one more follower.

  My heart hiccupped like a stalled car. Marco Green. I let out a squeal and looked up at Devin. He hadn’t noticed.

  I set down the phone and wiped my hand with a nearby dish towel. I took a breath. Marco. I could communicate with him. I picked up the phone and se
nt him a direct message.

  Marco, it’s Lady. I’d like to meet up and talk.

  I retrieved clothes for Devin and dressed him before I let myself check my phone again.

  Wow. Lady. Hi. I cant believe it.

  He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t ask me for my number, or suggest a place to meet, or ask how his son was doing.

  Just then, Seth walked downstairs. I dropped my phone on the couch. He looked tired, but he was already showered and dressed.

  “Where you going?”

  He signed: C-L-A-S-S.

  “Which one?” Before he could answer, I said, “Are you depressed? Kit thinks you are.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “Do you hate me? S thinks you do.”

  I love you, Ninja Mama, he signed, but he wasn’t looking at me.

  “I love you too,” I said. And then: “Did you play video games all night or something? Why do you look so tired?”

  He started to sign something very slowly, so I could understand:

  You. Reading. Me. No, not Me, but My.

  And then he spelled out a word. T-W-I-T-T. He was asking if I’d read his Twitter.

  “I always do. You know that.”

  He signed, Stop.

  My phone rang before I could reply. I jumped. Could it be Marco—I imagined answering the call in front of Seth. How would I control my voice?

  But it was only Karl.

  “Karl,” I said.

  “You need to meet Kit for lunch.”

  “I got her email. She capitalizes shit randomly.”

  He chuckled. “She sure does fancy herself in an eighteenth-century epistolary novel, doesn’t she.”

  “I’m not going for yaki-soba with Kit.”

  “Shabu-shabu—it’s where you cook the meat yourself.”

  “Whatever, I’m not meeting her so she can tell me how to parent.”

  Seth was walking into the kitchen, ostensibly to grab a banana on his way out the door. He flinched when I tried to grab his arm.

  I didn’t hear what Karl had said and I wondered if there was a way to check my Twitter while I was talking on the phone without missing any of the conversation.

  “She wants to tell you about her show,” he was telling me now.

  “What about it?”

  The front door opened and slammed shut. Seth’s version of goodbye this morning.

  “I don’t know,” Karl said, “she’s being cagey. You know how she can get about her art.”

  “She can’t display Woman No. 17,” I said. “You made her sign that thing, right?”

  “Don’t worry. She said it was new work.”

  “Well, I don’t do nudes anymore.”

  “That’s a shame. Isn’t that a shame, Lady?”

  “Karl,” I said again, but I wanted him to keep going. My crotch was pawing at me like an insistent kitten.

  “You like it when I talk dirty,” he said. It was a reminder, not a revelation. I pictured him sitting behind his desk at work, pulling out his cock—or “kock” as I liked to think of it. Karl’s Kock. No one was allowed into his office without knocking.

  “I know you,” he said gruffly.

  “No you don’t,” I said.

  Neither of us spoke for a moment.

  “I think we should fire S,” I said.

  His voice changed immediately—peppy, avuncular. “Why? Because of the drinking?”

  “No, I just don’t think she’s that nice,” I said.

  “Nice? Did you catch her yelling at Dev or something?”

  “No, it’s with me. She’s…I don’t know.”

  “I didn’t realize she was your nanny.”

  I thought about telling him about the bunny, but he’d ask why the back door had been unlocked, and I thought the better of it.

  “Dev would have a fit if she left,” he said. “And you need to get your book done.”

  “Fine. But I’m still not writing Kit back.”

  When I hung up, Devin jumped on me. “Kit!”

  “Yep, Kit,” I said.

  “I want to see Kit!”

  “You will—tonight.”

  “Now!” he yelled.

  “Really?”

  “Now!”

  “For lunch?”

  “Yes!” He punched me in the breasts. “I want chicky nuggets.”

  I thought about the alternative: a listless day at the park, fighting traffic both ways, pretending to care about bad guys and trains for ten hours straight. How did S do it?

  “Let me text her.”

  I smiled to myself. When Kit had asked me to lunch, she suggested that the babysitter—Ess—watch Devin. She’d be miffed if I brought a child along, but she’d be powerless to admit it.

  Before I heard back from Kit, I messaged Marco. I was on a tear.

  Seriously, can we meet up? Just tell me when and where.

  33.

  I let Kit know there was no way I was driving all the way to Little Tokyo for a meal I had to cook myself. She said that was fine; her new studio was a few blocks from Crudo and she wanted to show me what she was working on. I remembered the old warehouse she used to rent, right at the edge of Chinatown. Instead of a dark room, as I’d expected, there’d been a huge computer and high-tech printer. (“They’re new,” she had confessed. “I’m finally ready to dabble in digital.”) That studio had been blessed with ten-foot windows overlooking the L.A. River with its attendant abandoned shopping carts and rivulets of brown water, a view Kit said she adored. Her studio-mate, who worked on the other side of the drywall, was famous for large canvases covered in small dashes. She sat on a skateboard to paint, rolling forward dash by dash.

  Devin was asleep when I pulled up to the valet at Crudo. I tried to wake him and he only squirmed and whimpered.

  “Come on, baby,” I said. If he slept now he wouldn’t nap later when it was just the two of us, and I needed time alone to wait for Marco’s reply (so far there’d been nothing).

  “Dev?” He didn’t move; he was down for the count.

  I sighed and let the valet guy—red vest, pink ticket at the ready—hold the stroller steady as I lowered my sleeping son into it.

  Before Karl and I started seeing each other, I’d never been to a place like Crudo. “I like to think of it as California formal,” Karl had explained. “L.A. really started the casual fine dining trend.” This meant the restaurant didn’t require men to wear jackets, and they didn’t refold your napkin every time you got up to use the bathroom. But it was expensive and they snubbed brunch, not to mention substitutions. I knew Kit loved their mussels, and sure enough, she was already sitting at the bar with a bowl of them in front of her, along with a glass of white, probably Sancerre. Her thin white dress resembled an enormous napkin, except for the padded white belt, which looked like two maxi pads stitched end to end. She’d either purchased it in Berlin for a thousand dollars or made it in her bathroom. No lipstick, which was rare for her; without it, she looked more like Karl.

  She jumped off her stool as soon as she saw us. “I didn’t know Dev was coming!”

  “Surprise,” I whispered. “It’s the nanny’s day off.”

  She smiled at Devin, and then frowned. “A stroller? At his age?”

  “I could have just dragged him in by his hair.”

  “I guess I thought it was an infant thing,” she said. “My mistake.”

  “Well, the stroller has probably delayed him mentally. It’s the price to pay, right?”

  She laughed. “Lady, stop! Have a seat. Want wine?”

  In moments she had every Central American busboy in the place rushing around us: one removing a third barstool to make room for the stroller, one pouring me water, one wiping down the bar with a washcloth, one just standing by, smiling. It wasn’t yet noon and the place was almost empty. A woman as thin and blond as a giraffe sat in a corner booth with a man who was either her father, her husband, or her handler.

  “Don’t worry,” I said to the smiling b
usboy, “if my kid wakes up I won’t let him sit at the bar.”

  “They won’t mind if you do,” Kit said. “Isn’t that right, Nate?” She grinned at the bartender, whose sculpted arms and capped white teeth told me he was an actor. They never let Latinos pour drinks or be servers. Not here, and not at Paul Feldman’s either.

  Nate flashed me his Clooney teeth and asked if I wanted anything stiffer than water. “Water’s good,” I said. I liked to abstain in front of Kit, just in case it made her feel bad.

  Kit gestured for me to have some mussels and said, “Thanks for meeting me.”

  “Karl said it was important that I do.”

  “You told him about my email?”

  “He brought it up first. Not the email, the lunch.”

  “So it was you who brought up the email first.”

  “Calm down, I didn’t read it aloud to him or anything.”

  “Those plantain chips—the ones I offered Seth—were Karl’s,” Kit said.

  “That’s why you don’t want me to read him the email? Because you ate his chips? You really have an issue taking what isn’t yours, Kit.”

  A trio of men entered the restaurant and Kit turned to check them out. I signaled to Nate at the other end of the bar and asked for a burger.

  “You have to get a side of the Romanesco,” Kit said. “It’s divine.”

  “I like divine,” I said, and Nate nodded.

  “So…” Kit began. “Seth.”

  “I really don’t think you have anything to worry about. He’s eighteen, that’s a moody age. And with Karl gone, things are different—”

  “It’s hard for him.”

  “Look, he’s fine. His therapist said he can go back to her whenever he needs to.”

  “That woman works with children. Seth is an adult.”

  “Ha. Barely.”

  “He doesn’t know his father,” she said.

  “Why are you and Karl stuck on this?”

  “Because Seth is. And he can’t speak.”

  “Your pity doesn’t help.”

  “It’s a fact, Lady.” She leaned forward. “He struggles with it. I mean, the film he made.”

  I had no idea what Kit was talking about, but I couldn’t let her know it.

  “Yeah…” I said.