You Made Your Bed: A Novel

by Cornelia Goddin

  I fill my lungs with a slow breath and blow it out. We perform breathing exercises with the students at Shambhala—of course we do—and now I do them out of habit, whenever I’m feeling stressed. Thing is, there’s fun stress and not-so-fun stress, right? If I were worrying over a debt or maybe waiting on biopsy reports or something, then sure, those breathing exercises would be just the thing. But right now? What I’m feeling I have zero desire to calm.

  When I get like this, my sense of time gets all distorted—it crawls, then zooms past me like I’m drunk. I see I’ve missed the morning bell again but screw it, Anne-Marie keeps glancing my way and I can’t leave now.

  Finally, before any other customers come in, when I sense she’s ready for me, maybe even eager though she won’t show it, I get up and put my empty cup in the dishpan next to the trash. “Anne-Marie,” I say softly, filling my voice with all the feelings.

  “I know you’re married,” she says, standing with her back against the cappuccino machine, putting as much distance between us as possible.

  “Unbutton two buttons,” I tell her, looking at the swell of her chest under a black knit top. “Just two.”

  She shifts her weight from one leg to the other. We smile a slow complicit smile at each other. And then, slowly—very slowly, because she is good at this—she unbuttons one button. My breath comes fast though no more skin is revealed than before.

  “Bad boy,” she says, fingering the second button but not undoing it.

  “Beautiful girl,” I say, and she totally, totally is.

  The second button releases.

  “Lean toward me,” I tell her. My voice catches a little in my excitement. I haven’t moved any closer, I’m still safely on the other side of the counter, keeping my hands to myself.

  Anne-Marie’s eyes are shining as she puts her elbows on the counter and her perfectly-shaped tits move into view with a rolling motion like waves on the beach.

  I want her so much I can’t breathe.

  3

  Caroline

  Marecita has worked for my family since I was a little girl. I can’t remember a time when she wasn’t here. Because my parents are fussy about that sort of thing, she’s always worn a maid’s outfit that’s straight-up cliché: a black dress with many buttons—not snaps, insisted Mummy—and a starched white apron. Ever since I got old enough to think about such things, I’ve wondered what Marecita thinks about that uniform, but it is not the kind of conversation we are able to have.

  Well, we don’t really talk much, to be honest. I have never been able to find the words.

  In the mornings, if I am in New York, Marecita comes to my bedroom promptly at eight with a cup of coffee. She makes it some special way she learned as a kid back in Mexico; it involves sweetened condensed milk, I think, and probably things I wouldn’t otherwise allow to pass my lips. But usually, as I take the first sips of Marecita’s sweet, rich coffee while I lie in bed and look out at the rooftops stretching towards midtown, this is the one moment in the day when I feel a little bit of all right, safe and cared for. Before the jeerlings are fully awake and making my life a living hell.

  “Niña,” she says to me, like she does every time, as she puts the cup on my bedside table.

  “Thank you, Marecita.”

  “Is cold. I want to see the heavy coat.”

  I nod, sitting up and reaching for the cup. She worries non-stop about my catching pneumonia, and we have talked more about what coat I should be wearing outside than probably any other topic as long as we have known each other.

  I understand that when she says, “I want to see the heavy coat,” she is saying, “I love you, Caroline.” I hear the words behind the words she is saying. As I’m sure you know—a gesture, a fleeting facial expression—sometimes that is all one needs to see the truth, the real feeling behind the blah blah blah.

  And then there’s Mummy.

  Ahh. Just introducing her as a topic of conversation leads me to heave an enormous sigh. So, Mummy and I—Mummy and the world, actually—we don’t talk much either. She will ask me about my day and not listen to the answer. The words behind her words say something like “I can’t think about you right now.” Perhaps you think I’m being dramatic, or putting words in her mouth. But the point is: she is parsimonious with her sentences, and they say so little. Her words are like a bit of jingling change in your pocket instead of actual money. And so the temptation to fill in and add some meaning is difficult to resist.

  I could be wrong, of course. Interpretation, much less interpolation, is always a risk, as any comp lit major will tell you.

  I watch Mummy closely, tracking her like an enemy. I can tell in an instant, just from the sound her footsteps make on the parquet, exactly how hammered she is. I can tell from a quick glance at her face whether she is in the mood to pick fights or devolve into maudlin soliloquy, though lately she stays in her room most of the time. What she does in there—besides drink—I have no idea.

  I savor the last sip of my coffee and get out of bed, stretching my arms up and looking out at the cold streets. I can only see a few blocks’ worth of sidewalk. It is crowded with people in puffy coats and hats, scurrying like tiny dolls in their perpetual Manhattan hurry. I had a job once, I mean a day job, an office job, that required me to get up early, wear that particular sort of outfit which I always thought makes everyone look as though they’re playing on the same team, and appear at the appointed hour each day. Most of my Princeton classmates were out in the world doing ambitious things, and even though my job at a non-profit was nothing to brag about, it allowed me to feel that in a small way I belonged. I toiled away for nearly a year before Gordon convinced me it was a waste of time given that he could provide me with ten times the salary without any trouble whatsoever. He made me feel stupid for doing it, so I gave it up.

  I can’t say with any honesty that I miss it. The one thing I do miss is the feeling of solidarity I had with the world, especially early in the morning, that first moment after leaving 744 Park and mingling with everyone else hurrying to get to work on time. We were all in a rush, bustling off to get someplace most of us wouldn’t be going if we had a choice, and it felt cozy to me, sharing that burden and sense of purpose.

  Once that job was finished, I did some volunteer work, as befits a young woman of my station. However—and I imagine, though we’ve only just met, this will come as no great shock—volunteer work did not suit me. It was not the activities themselves I objected to so much as the smug busyness of those I had to work with. The incessant self-back-patting was impossible to bear. I much prefer to pat my own back in private, without onlookers.

  Now I have a much more apposite way to spend some of my extra hours: I do research for Stuart Ticknor, a comparative literature professor at Columbia, which occasionally requires me to go to the New York Public Library, always a treat, and sit at a long wooden table graced with those green-shaded lamps and pore over some old books that have not been opened in a very long time. The tasks themselves are tedious, to be sure—checking various references and quotations, searching through microfiche for newspaper reviews from the 1920s—but help to promote the idea that I am a contributing member of society after all, and not just some wealthy parasite leeching on a dying culture.

  Too many Marxism classes at Princeton, you see. I have it all—the wraparound terrace, freedom from work, the Cézanne—but thanks to my expensive education, I am required, at least in certain moods, to disapprove of my luck. Just a smidge.

  This morning, I await Professor Ticknor’s next assignment; until I hear from him, I have nothing to do. I have Christmas presents to buy, but Christmas is still ages away.

  The day is wide open, the possibilities endless.

  Well, that’s not precisely true. There are things that certain people want me to do. And to be. And of course, it’s all of our jobs to do what we must in order to stay sane, isn’t that right? For me, today—I think that’s going to mean a trip to the zoo in Central Pa
rk. I haven’t been in forever. If the weather were warmer I might take a long walk in the Park, admire the trees—something healthful, something a good citizen might do. But in this cold, I’d rather go to the monkey house where it’s warm, if fragrant.

  Besides, who am I kidding? I am many things, to be sure, but good citizen has never been among them.

  I dress carefully because it matters to Gordon. Perhaps left to my own devices—and by that I mean, if my entire family were wiped from the face of the earth and being a Crowe no longer had any meaning to anyone—perhaps in that case, I would want to just throw on some jeans and a reasonably clean sweater and head out. I think I would want that sometimes. But with a shrug I start with the first layer, choosing a champagne-colored matching bra and bikini from La Perla, the fabric so soft it feels as though it were made by elves. On top of that I yank on a pair of ridiculously expensive jeans that fit like extra skin, a silk shirt with three-quarter sleeves and some unusual detailing at the hem, and a whisper-thin caramel-colored cashmere sweater that goes well with my brown eyes and blonde hair. All of it is immaculate, as though wrinkles, stains, and missing buttons aren’t part of the universe here at 744.

  Silk socks and Belgians on my feet. The leather is soft as a baby’s bottom, or I assume it is, since I have to say I’m not at all sure I’ve ever actually touched a baby’s bottom. I do make one concession to imperfection, which is a beaded bracelet that anyone in my zip code would deem hideous, but which I feel sentimental about, and never take off.

  I’m standing in the hallway in front of the coat closet, trying to decide which coat to wear, when I hear Mummy’s bedroom door open. I know it’s her because Gordon is never home at this time of day, and I just saw Marecita in the kitchen.

  “Good morning, Mummy,” I sing out.

  She appears, grasps the doorjamb with both hands, and even so barely manages to stay upright. A hundred bitter, accusatory remarks flash through my head but I don’t say anything.

  “Caro,” she croaks, and turns her watery eyes on me.

  I wait impatiently to see if she’s going to say anything more. All I want to do is get out and on to the solace of the monkey house.

  “Yes, Mummy?”

  But she shakes her head, staring at me, saying nothing. Who can even begin to guess what terrain her thoughts travel, or if she even has thoughts.

  “I’m off, see you later!” I chirp, and push the button for the elevator. Once inside, I notice that my heart is beating faster than it should. My face is hot.

  I have done nothing wrong, I tell myself, feeling damp prickle my armpits. Yet.

  Oh, I see what you’re wondering—you think perhaps it’s Mummy I dream of murdering? Possibly, though as I said, it depends on the day.

  Something I carry around inside my head all the time is a sort of tableau: a row of men dressed in black gowns, wearing the kind of wigs that English magistrates wear. (Our subconscious does have a sense of humor occasionally, yes?) The men are judges. And they wait patiently for people to be brought before them so they can ply their astute perspicacity…sorry, I have a bad habit of using words as a way to push people away from me. You hated me just then, didn’t you? I mean, come on: “ply their astute perspicacity”? I’d hate myself too, if that helps at all.

  At any rate, yes. Sometimes the answer to your question about Mummy is yes. And I will tell you outright that the contemplation of the act, or rather its result—Mummy passed on, Mummy no more, Mummy dead—gives me a not-inconsiderable flush of pleasure.

  Ricardo, the doorman, greets me with his usual charm. He has a way about him, warm without being familiar, and protective. Sometimes, if GORDON CROWE is splashed across the headlines, which it often is, reporters hang around on the sidewalk, hoping to catch Gordon or me having a bad hair day. Which they gleefully record on their cameras. A while ago, my father was involved in a financial scandal that was in the papers and all over TV for months. And yes, the attention has died down, but it’s hardly disappeared.

  I suppose you could call him an international businessman, though the term seems rather limp considering the latitude of his businesses. He travels the world looking for talent, finds it often raw and undeveloped, and he brings these people back to the States and sets them up at various companies. You can bet he’s got connections—a massive web of CEOs, government officials, scientists, venture capitalists—so he’s able to drop these talented people into positions of maximum benefit.

  And by “benefit,” I mean profit.

  It’s not only people he’s looking for; he also searches for products, ranging from software to innovative surgical equipment to art to robots. Gordon is a man with scope. He likes being ahead of everyone, on the edge, the latest thing, the most money.

  He is all about superlatives.

  The scandal? It was little matter of insider trading, not even involving one of his own companies. Gordon had invested in a business started by a friend of his, more as a gesture of friendship than anything else. He sold his shares all at once; the company destabilized and went under. The feds tried to say that, through his friendship with the owner, he had access to negative data about the company that the public did not, and hence committed a felony.

  Never made any sense to me that a person should be accused of a crime simply for knowing more than the rabble—knowledge is power, and all that. It’s a bit like a lion tearing a zebra to shreds: it may put off the more squeamish among us, but it’s only nature doing its thing, after all. You can make it illegal if you like, but the lion is going to keep on being a lion anyway.

  About the paparazzi. I understand it is absurd for me to complain; the advantages of having a father like Gordon, famous for making deals, for having his fingers in every pie, for being Gordon—those advantages far outweigh the inconvenience of a certain curtailment of freedom. And in any case, Ricardo is a master at running interference with those vultures and their intrusive clicking and shouting. As with Marecita, I have known Ricardo for many years. We speak every day of the week except for his days off. But so far, we have limited those conversations almost entirely to the weather. Very occasionally a passing reference to politics, say on Election Day for president.

  “Might snow,” he says to me, as though there is something amusing about it.

  “I sure hope so,” I say, grinning because I am happy to look into his open, sober face. I have a quick flash of wanting to be his child, of waiting in a cramped apartment for him to come home and toss me into the air, produce a chocolate from the pocket of his coat, and ask me a hundred questions about my day at school.

  Tell me you don’t do the same, at least from time to time—imagine yourself in other circumstances, trying them on like you’re in a dressing room for other lives. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s not a rejection of my own life, don’t be silly. Mummy can be difficult, I’m not denying it, but no one has a completely unblemished existence. I have Gordon and Marecita and I live at 744 Park Avenue for heaven’s sake. I want for nothing.

  No photographers today, and I set off, enjoying the cold air which is bracing in the best kind of way. I can feel my cheeks redden as the wind hits them, and I pull the earflaps down on the sable hat some friends brought me from Russia years ago. I go along Sixty-Ninth Street on the way to the monkey house, but when I get to Madison, I turn the wrong way. The window-shopping is good there, and the streets are emptier than usual thanks to the biting wind. And thanks to Marecita, I am bundled up like an Arctic explorer, except that my calves are a little chilly.

  I need boots.

  I pass a bookstore, a coffee shop, a shoe repair place that’s surprisingly still in business given the modern propensity for throwing out anything worn or imperfect. And next door to that is a shoe store with an enfilade of boots in the window. Inside, the few customers speak in hushed tones as if we are in some sacred place. The carpet is plush, the salespeople young and beautiful.

  But when I approach the display of boots, my mood takes a steep plu
nge. I am going to have to decide on color, on buckles or no buckles, and if yes on buckles, how many and where. I’m going to have to decide on height, on heel, on shape of toe box. I see the decision tree branching out and out and out until my heart is surging up into my throat and I’m practically short of breath. With a quick nod to the closest young and beautiful salesperson, I hurry back outside and turn toward the monkey house, jeerlings cackling in my ears.

  For a brief, happy moment, I thought what I wanted was boots. When you think about it, I mean really think, what is better than knowing exactly what you want? It is everything. I want to want boots. But of course, that would be easy, and nothing about any of us is that.

  4

  Wilson

  “It feels like you’re always one foot out the door,” I say, taking my wife’s hand and pulling her closer.

  “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just such a busy time of life, you know? Work, my family, you…and the baby soon enough. It’s so much to juggle and there’s always something or somebody not getting what they need.”

  “Or deserve,” I say, leaning in to kiss the side of her neck which I happen to know turns her to jelly every time.

  “Wilson,” she says, pushing on me. “Don’t make me miss the flight.”

  I stop kissing and fold her into a hug. I love my wife.

  “Give them a big holiday greeting from their favorite son-in-law,” I say. “I know it will be good for you to be back. And give your dad a warm welcome home from rehab. But I will miss you dreadfully.”

  “I hope so,” says Rebecca. “I’ll miss you, too. Okay, time to go!”

  I’ve already put her luggage in the car. She’ll only be gone three days, so she’s going to leave the car in airport parking so I don’t have to do all that back and forth airport driving. She’s not one for long goodbyes, so after one more quick hug, she’s off.