Woman No. 17

by Edan Lepucki

  S swept her index fingers under her eyes, as if she were wiping away mascara that wasn’t there. “I know, Mom. I know.”

  “You think I’d do that?”

  “I don’t! I never should have taken him.”

  Steve was watching them. “Esther, your hair,” he said loudly. Either he was obsessed with how she looked, or he was trying to defuse the conflict between mother and daughter. “And those shorts,” he added. I wasn’t certain what he meant, but the shorts looked terrible on S; they wrinkled and rode up at her inner thighs as if the fat there were munching on the material.

  “I gather this is a costume of some kind,” Steve said finally.

  “Daddy,” S said. She was begging him to stop.

  “Is this a…performance?” he said.

  “Earlier today she was dressed like me,” I said. “Or me circa 1997. I hope whoever she’s pretending to be now looked better in those shorts.”

  “Hey,” Steve snapped at me.

  “I’ve never hurt anything in my life,” Kathy said now. When Steve snorted, she said. “You’re a man, Steve, not a bunny.”

  She had walked away from S, she wasn’t even looking at her, and I could tell she wanted to process this news sitting down: my couch maybe, a bed. “You think…hurting things…that’s part of being me?” she asked S, finally turning to her.

  “No,” S said; she was practically crying.

  “You’re dressed as Kathy,” Steve said.

  “You are?” I asked.

  “I see it now,” he said.

  “That’s how she always looks,” I said.

  “No, it isn’t,” Kathy said.

  “It isn’t?” I turned to S. “Who are you?” I asked.

  “She definitely isn’t me,” Kathy said, and I watched S’s face crumple for a moment, and then rally to regain its composure.

  “She’s an artist,” Steve said.

  “Stop making excuses for her,” Kathy said. She kneeled down and picked up the bag, trembling. “I need a fucking drink.”

  “Of course you do,” Steve said.

  “Go prance back to Maria and stay out of it,” Kathy said. She was headed to the front door. I recognized S in her once more: the entitlement and passion, and the swagger. All of that had been part of S’s act and she had nailed it. I had fallen for a fraud.

  “Come back with me to Berkeley, Waterbug,” Steve said gently. “We just changed the sheets in the guest room. We can just chill out for a few weeks.”

  “I want you out by tonight,” I said. “Whoever you are.”

  S just nodded—at me, or at her father, I didn’t know. A flicker of pain crossed her face as she glanced at her mother, who was standing at the door, her hand on the knob.

  “I’ll be outside,” Kathy said.

  The front door clicked behind her. Another mother, gone.

  “Can I just—” she began.

  “Can you just what?” I asked. “And to think you were the one to call Seth a manipulative asshole.”

  Steve was holding up his two fingers like a tourist in Paris asking for the check.

  “What?” I said.

  “I understand why you’re upset, Ms. Daniels, but I think we all need to take a deep breath and calm down. I can assure you Esther has never done anything like this before.”

  “You can ‘assure me’? How can you really know what your adult child is up to?”

  “Well, I—”

  “You can’t,” I said. “No parent can.”

  S stopped us. “Can I go up to Dev’s room, Lady? Just for a minute? I need to, like, say goodbye.”

  “He isn’t here, remember? Not that I’d let you see him if he were.”

  “Just please say I can. I need a minute. I was myself with him.”

  “Sure you were,” I said.

  66.

  Lady told us she was going up to her bedroom to take a shower, and that whatever stupid ujjayi breath I planned to do in Dev’s room better be completed by the time she was done. My father told her he’d help me move out as swiftly as possible.

  “Leave your address on the counter,” she said to him. “I’ll mail her last paycheck there.” Apparently, Lady was beyond talking to me directly.

  When we were alone, my dad sighed.

  “You think Mom already left?” I asked.

  “I’ll see if she’s out there.”

  “I hurt her.”

  “What happened here, Waterbug? You’re dressing up like Kathy, like your boss…?”

  “It’s over, Dad. Don’t worry. It was really, really stupid.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short. It didn’t turn out as you’d planned, but it probably wasn’t stupid.”

  “Just stop it!” I said. “You don’t have to think everything I do is great. I fucked up, and the only one I can blame is myself.”

  “Well, you’re taking responsibility,” he said, nodding. “That’s good. You’re growing up. You’re a good girl.”

  “I am?”

  “Of course you are.”

  He had meant it to be nice, but it hurt.

  “Give that boy’s room one last look,” he said. “You loved him, I see that. Say goodbye and let’s get out of here. Let’s go home and forget about all of this.”

  His words were a balm, as they always were, even when they were more fantasy than truth. I watched him head outside and then I mounted the staircase, already thinking about how little I had to pack to get out of here. My dad would insist we drive up Highway 1, stop at Nepenthe for a glass of wine and a dazzling view of the ocean. Ten-plus hours later, we’d get to the East Bay. Berkeley, with its fog and its coeds and scowling retirees, would be exactly as I’d left it. I’d sleep like the dead in the guest bedroom, its window overlooking the backyard’s wise, sad redwood tree, its trunk thick as a freeway pillar, the thing just lucky it hadn’t been chopped down to make toothbrushes during the Gold Rush. The next morning I would put on makeup, try to fix my hair right, and then I’d walk down to Philz for a coffee. Later I’d wait in some stupid breadline with Maria. I’d look for a job that very day, probably apply to grad school in psychology. Maybe I could work at a preschool, get an apartment in Oakland. If I visited my mom, it would be for a weekend here or there, but that would be it.

  At the top of the stairs I looked down at the first floor. My dad had already left the house; I was alone. To my left was Seth’s room, his door shut, to my right, Devin’s, the door wide open and welcoming to visitors, to intruders, the sweet smell of pink baby lotion and cloying Ikea particleboard furniture already drifting toward me, as if pulling me closer. I’d miss that guy.

  The thing Lady didn’t get, or the thing she’d forgotten, was that being a child was painful too. She was so wrapped up in losing Seth, in the treacheries of him growing up, that she couldn’t remember what it felt like to be the one on the other side. The burden of that. Sure, Seth had left her womb and never returned, but he was the one who had to do the leaving.

  I dragged my fingers across Seth’s door and gave Devin’s room a little hello and goodbye with a nod of my head. See you, old pal.

  Lady’s room was at the end of the hallway, her door shut like a mouth. I told myself I wanted to see if it was locked as I headed toward it.

  The door opened with the softest click. The light from the bedroom, her blinds drawn all the way up, poured into the darkened hallway. I stepped in.

  Lady was in the shower, as she’d claimed she would be. I heard the water running on the other side of the bathroom door, could imagine the room filled with steam, even the pounding of water on my own back. Even now I couldn’t be in my own body.

  I only had a few minutes. I walked to the closet and shut myself inside of it, my heart like a hand opening and closing into a fist. I turned on the light. There was the photograph, waiting for me. In it, the white of the tub’s porcelain was startling and stark, especially against the softness of Lady’s body, her dark pupils.

  I don’t know why I wanted it, bu
t I did. I’d take it. Either Lady would see it as revenge, the collateral I’d extracted from her. A threat that persisted. Or she’d know I was protecting her sons from finding out the truth. I was removing the evidence for her: as a favor, as a friend. Maybe now Karl could come back.

  I slipped the photo off the wall and hurried out of the closet, out of the room. I galloped down the stairs and outside to the Cottage. No one had witnessed my theft.

  I imagined, someday, Lady might try to get the photograph back. She’d have to come find me.

  8 Months Later

  When the glossy postcard showed up in my mailbox, I initially assumed it was an ad for a sample sale, or a reminder from the dentist. But when I saw that it was an invitation to an art show at Seth’s school, my hands shook. My legs went weak. I hadn’t seen or heard from him in months, not since the day he fled Marco’s house and moved in with Karl full-time. The show was called Seven Films for the End of Days and Seth’s name was listed alphabetically with six others. “Yes!” I said. My exuberance embarrassed me, even though no one was around to see it.

  I missed Seth. I wrote him letters. They were written by hand because we had both, wisely, vanished from the Internet. Dear Seth, one of them began, I hate the small plates restaurant trend. I’m hungry, dammit! He never answered and I didn’t blame him. I kept writing the letters. How come everyone thinks ladybugs are so cute when in fact they’re insects like all the others? They’ve got the best publicist in town.

  I inspected the postcard once more, turned it over in my hands like it might contain some deeper secret if I looked at it closely enough, and then tucked it into my purse. I couldn’t help but think of S. I wondered what she’d say about this show, about my son making art. I wanted to describe to her my dreams: Seth and me out to breakfast, Seth and me swimming in the pool. Once, we were at Office Depot, buying highlighters. Everything in them could have happened, but hadn’t. That’s what made them cruel. S would get it.

  I headed for the elevator. I was already thinking what I would wear. What I would say. What I would see. His film.

  My new living room overlooked the Beverly Center, the mall like a cruise ship sailing into San Vicente, and from my bedroom, Milkshake and I could watch the goings-on at Cedars: the dutiful cancer patients arriving for their chemotherapy, the hopeful family members with their wan bouquets, ambulances like blinking toy trucks. Devin’s room was as narrow as a supermarket aisle, and he had only one tiny window, but it was shaped like an egg and he liked that best. All you can see through it was sky, and that was a relief too.

  I had sold my mother’s house. The money sat in my checking account, waiting for me to decide what to do with it. Groceries, preschool tuition for Devin, rent: rinse and repeat until it was gone. Or that was what I told myself before I began working at the Wellness Center and started adding to the pile of cash. There I answered the phone, processed insurance claims, and poured spa water for clients. The acupuncture was free for employees and I got my treatments every Wednesday after work. To Seth I wrote: When Dr. Melinda places the needles into my ear and on the insides of my ankles and tells me I’ll sleep well tonight, I want to believe her. The Center’s slogan is “Practice Hope.” I’m trying!

  Karl wanted me to invest the money; he kept forwarding me emails about financial planning webinars, and he even offered to pay for an adviser to meet with me. I demurred. We hadn’t even drawn up divorce papers. Nothing needed to be decided. Nothing.

  —

  Karl saw Seth’s postcard when he was over for our ASL lesson. I had hired the private tutor not long after moving in. It was the three of us: me, Karl, and Devin, sitting in the living room as Liv patiently reviewed the vocab, the emphasis of each word or phrase. Dev quickly surpassed me in skill, his hands fluttering like Seth’s, so natural I wondered if his older brother had started teaching him a while ago. If he did, that would make me smile. This was a language we could all learn.

  The postcard was attached to the freezer door, next to a fringe of old Bed Bath & Beyond coupons I always forget to use even though the place is right across the street from here. Karl and I had just put Devin to bed, and he was on his way out when his eyes caught the postcard.

  “Are you going to be there?” he asked.

  “He was the one to send it, right? This wasn’t your doing?”

  “I honestly didn’t know he mailed you one until just now.”

  I smiled.

  “Can we go together?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said.

  This was different. For months, Karl and I had avoided being alone together. On the evenings we met with Liv, Karl left as soon as Devin was in bed. He dutifully told me about Seth’s classes, and what they made for dinner. Things a mother should know. We were careful to be chaste. And care was required, because there was a frisson between us, I could feel it growing.

  “I’ll ask Kit if she can watch Devin,” I said. I waited for Karl to say that his sister would want to go to the show too, but he didn’t.

  Instead he said, “It’s a date.”

  —

  The night of Seth’s show, I put on a black skirt and tights, and the pink top I knew Karl liked. I waited outside for him to pick me up. It was a little chilly for spring. The jacarandas were tacky with purple.

  “Jack…Aranda,” I said, when I was in the car. “I think he’s your lawyer, right?”

  Karl grinned and tapped the steering wheel. “My, how far you have fallen, Lady.”

  I nestled into the car’s leather seat like a ball in a glove. “You dragged me down to your level,” I said. “What was I to do?”

  Karl told me he liked my outfit. “You’re wearing stockings,” he said.

  “Well, you did call this a date, didn’t you?”

  I was flirting and so was he. I wondered if we would talk about the photo tonight. Or ever. If he noticed that Woman No. 17 was missing, he hadn’t yet mentioned it. I knew S had stolen it, probably the night we got drunk. It might be hanging in her father’s dining room, for everyone to ooh and aah over, or it might be buried under a stack of stolen Us Weeklys at her mother’s. The truth was, I was relieved it was gone. It was someone else’s problem now, one less secret I had to keep.

  Now Karl asked if I was nervous.

  “I haven’t eaten all day, if that gives you any idea. What will I say to him?”

  “Don’t worry about that. Just being there, that’s what matters.”

  We were on the 10. The traffic going the other direction was bad, and I felt relief, followed by guilt as Karl accelerated past them, toward the ocean.

  I didn’t tell him about the book until we’d passed the 405.

  “But what did your editor say?” Karl asked. He’d rolled the window down an inch or two, as he always did on the freeway. His white hair fluttered in the breeze.

  “She said no one’s ever done that to her. She thinks it must be really bad for me to pull it. Erin”—that was my agent—“is pissed.”

  “Well, that’s because you went ahead and offered to return the money.”

  “What else could I do? I can’t write it. It’s not my story to tell.”

  Karl nodded. “Say that,” he said. “Say that when you see Seth.”

  —

  The screening was held in a lecture-style classroom, with tiered seating. The periodic table of elements hung on the wall to my right and I pretended to study it intently before the event began. In the hallway outside someone had set up a table with sparkling water and a plastic liter of Pepsi, a tray of sweating cheese cubes. That’s where most people were milling around until the screening began, but I told Karl I felt light-headed and needed to sit. I kept wondering when I’d see Seth, and what I would do, what he would do.

  Karl placed a napkin loaded with cheese in front of me and sat down. Then he nudged me and said, “There’s the man of the hour.”

  There he was. Seth. He stood at the podium behind a laptop—presumably it would play the movies that projected
on the screen behind him. He was in deep concentration, probably troubleshooting some annoying computer error that no one else in this group of artsy kids could figure out. He leaned closer to the screen, and then away.

  He had on a new T-shirt: plain and black like a stagehand’s, no pockets, clearly expensive. So this event mattered to him. A lot. I imagined Karl lending him his credit card, and Seth at the mall, trying on the shirt, wondering if it looked okay. He’d never gone shopping for clothes without me.

  Karl had told me that Seth had recently begun using a program on his iPad that spoke his written text in a robotic voice. I wondered if I’d hear it tonight. I didn’t want to.

  Seth looked older. Had he gotten taller? He had grown out his hair to his cheekbones, and it looked good this way—like a skateboarder might wear it. That made me think of S’s mom and the stupid guy she’d left her husband for. I didn’t want to think about that.

  I’m trying to think more about my mom these days, I had written Seth, a week or so ago. What movies she liked, what kind of stuff she cooked. I didn’t mention S and her project, but maybe that was implicit. I’d love to tell you more about her, when we see each other next.

  Seth looked up at the crowd, expectant. I waited for him to see me, frozen in my seat, my pink top already wrinkling at the waist. The glistening pile of cheese Karl had placed in front of me.

  “Seth!” I heard Karl call out, and I winced.

  When Seth saw us, all I could think to do was smile and wave.

  He waved back.

  Hello. Hello.

  A moment later the lights in the room dimmed.

  “Well, that went well,” Karl whispered and I laughed because he was right. I stuffed a cube of cheese into my mouth as the first movie started.

  I’d been so nervous that I’d forgotten we’d come here to see Seth’s film.

  I’m looking forward to watching it, I’d written him. But the truth was that I hadn’t given it much thought. I was too afraid to.

  The first two movies were amateurish but amusing, occasionally pretty. There was one where a ballet dancer leapt across a parking lot as a zombie lurked behind a pickup truck. In another, two guys plotted to lose their virginity before the world ended, and then got too stoned to remember their plan. Between each one, the audience clapped and hooted.