Emma's Table

by Philip Galanes

  She kept moving her hands back and forth, soothing herself with the rocking motion. She watched the rug turn a lighter shade when she pushed her hands away from herself. Scarlet, she thought, a little proudly. Gracie was a real expert at naming colors—nearly every crayon from the sixty-four-pack at her immediate disposal. The rug turned dark again when she pulled her hands back to herself.

  Pink would be her first choice.

  She closed her eyes and dreamed up the palest shade, an accidental pink almost, as if a tiny red shirt had been laundered in a big load of whites. She’d seen it happen once, in the laundry room downstairs.

  She kept her eyes closed just a beat longer—giving the magic time to happen—then she opened them again: the wine-red rug just as dark as ever.

  Maybe even darker, she thought.

  She didn’t allow a trace of disappointment to register on her face.

  We’ll be going out soon, she thought, as light as a feather. Just as soon as her mother was ready—looking down at her hands again, and the dark red carpeting beneath her knees. She wanted to avoid the sight of any roadblocks that might be standing in her path.

  She flipped onto her tummy, just killing time, and pretended that the rug was like the bottom of a pool: all pale, pale blue beneath a million cups of crystal clear water. She wriggled her legs straight out behind her and lifted her stocking feet high. She began flutter-kicking, as if she were in the pool already—slowly at first, and then a little faster. She concentrated on all the things she loved about the water: the lightness in her limbs when she swam underneath, and the way her curly hair grew long and silky. Gracie felt safe underwater, as if her ugly body were invisible beneath its clear skin.

  Most of her fellow Beginners needed to be coaxed to wet their faces. The babyish ones wore water wings. She rolled her eyes at the prospect.

  But not me, she thought. I dive down deep.

  She brimmed with a bold stripe of confidence—lying facedown on a patch of red carpeting, her fat chin pressed into the scratchy nylon pile. She could touch the bottom of the pool whenever she wanted.

  Gracie closed her eyes then, trying to keep some burgeoning unpleasantness at bay. She pictured herself racing through the pool instead. “Best in Class,” and she knew it. She was lit up from the inside out—as if a three-way lightbulb had been turned to its highest setting, as if it were blazing from deep inside her.

  I wish I was jumping into that pool right now, she thought, letting herself get carried away.

  And then it was gone: all her easy flutter-kicking overtaken, in a flash, by the showstopper that had taken clear shape in her mind. My bathing suit, she thought—one click more was all it took to turn that lightbulb off—the worst one in the whole world. It had been so long since she’d been swimming that the awful suit had slipped her mind: plain and large and navy blue. An unvarnished picture of the thing—as big as a tent—blazed across her eyes, her confidence dissolving into the pool’s chlorinated water. The proud picture she’d had of herself, just a moment before, standing tall at the shallow end, turned out to be nothing but a watery illusion. The bottom of that pool was much deeper than it looked.

  Gracie could picture its tag, sewn sturdily in—“14H,” it read, Fourteen Husky, and everybody knew it—its white stitches holding fast as the little girl sank deeper and deeper down.

  Her bathing suit was nothing like the sweet little confections her fellow Beginners wore, with their pastel ribbons and strappy straps. Nothing like the suits the Advanced Beginners or Intermediates wore either, for that matter. Gracie went stock-still with shame, just picturing that suit—the kind old ladies wore.

  She felt a burning heat around her neck.

  She began raking her fingers through the carpeting again: back and forth, back and forth. She had no sense of changing shades this time though; she didn’t even bother looking down. Just moved her hands back and forth, like a machine, staring off into the middle distance.

  She found another image there, an even worse one: her swimming lesson over, she stood in the big square room with concrete floors and gray metal lockers all around the edges. She had to change out of her ugly swimsuit then—clinging tighter to her body, all soaking wet, showing every last roll.

  She had to change in front of the other girls.

  She was surrounded by girls on every side.

  So she waited and waited, for as long as she could—wrapped up in her big white towel, stalling in front of the open locker, just staring in. She didn’t let her eyes wander, not even once; only pretended to be very, very busy with some time-consuming business on the gray inside. Gracie stood like that until the other girls had gone, or a critical number of them anyway; until the roar of chattering and giggling and whispering had died down into something that felt almost manageable to her; or until the swimming teacher came back in and told her she’d better hurry; or worst of all, until one of the other little girls—slim as a reed, of course—turned to face her, with a tight little smile, letting her know, in advance, that she was only asking to be mean: “What are you waiting for, Gracie?”

  They all laughed at her then.

  Those girls would never give her Valentine cards.

  I’m so stupid, she thought—having almost convinced herself that they might. Of course they wouldn’t, and still she’d made a card for every last one of them—cutting paper hearts and pasting pictures onto every single one.

  Gracie caught fire then, in the middle of her bedroom, in the dead of winter. She felt the whoosh straight through her; and she thought she’d die of shame. She thrust her hand beneath her bed, reaching it back as far as she could—her fat arm waving like a searchlight on black water, her chubby fingers wriggling.

  “Yes!” she hissed when she seized on her prize—as close to the wall as she could possibly manage, her fleshy shoulder pressed up hard against the wooden frame of the bed. She pulled the thing from underneath, the perfect cure for what ailed her: a package of chocolaty cupcakes, a pretty pair, in fact, with thick chocolate icing, and swirling giggles of white decoration on top of that—even the icing had icing!

  She’d found them in the lunchroom at school, left there by some careless boy who’d been too busy rushing off to recess to understand the value of what he was leaving behind. Gracie knew to stash them for a rainy day, and here it was, just a few days later.

  She tore into the plastic and pulled a cupcake out—hurry! She had to be quick about it; her mother would be coming any second. Now!—taking an enormous bite. The moist chocolate cake filled her mouth, its sweet, dark icing up toward the roof, and the airy white cream from the cupcake’s deepest center sitting lightly on her tongue. Her mouth exploded with the pleasure of it all. She gobbled it up as fast as she could, and swallowed it down even faster. Then she took another bite. More!—not a moment to lose, that second bite just as big and beautiful as the first. Then she licked every trace of chocolate from her fingers—so hungry.

  And just like that, her horrible bathing suit was gone. It had disappeared without a trace, along with the wine-red rug that would never be pink, and the staircase of tummy she could never really hide, the Valentine cards that would never be delivered to her. All her aches and pains were buried away, for the moment anyway, in that moist brown cake—as far off then as the pool’s damp changing room, its sharp smell of chlorine: the chemical source of so much pride, and even greater shame.

  THE SUTTON PARTY WAS WINDING DOWN—THE ebonized chairs pulled back slightly, the snow-white cloth dotted with errant droplets of Emma’s spicy chutney. The table was mostly denuded by then of all the bone china and sterling silver that their hostess had laid out. Just one small plate left before each of them—like a game of musical chairs that was grinding to a halt.

  Only this last one to go, Benjamin thought.

  He felt as tired as if he’d been jitterbugging all night in one of those old-time dance contests from the Depression era, sweaty from exertion and nearly spent; still, he kept his feet shuff
ling. He felt a little euphoric too, the adrenaline of all that fancy footwork racing through his body still. He’d managed to keep Emma entertained, and Melora had been such a hit. He was foolish to have underestimated her appeal, especially where Bobby Sutton was concerned—like a big bad wolf at the head of the table, ready to gobble her up.

  He watched Emma push back in through the swinging service door, the large tray of coffee things in her hands.

  We’ll be out of here in no time, he thought.

  Emma walked directly to Cassy’s seat, just as she always did with that red lacquered tray. It was her daughter’s job to help Emma serve the coffees. No words exchanged between them, none needed. He’d watched it happen a hundred times: Cassy taking the tray from Emma’s hands and following her mother around the dining table, like a little kitten on the heels of an imperious cat; Emma lifting china cups and saucers from the tray and placing them down, without a sound, before each of her guests.

  She made it her business to know who took decaf and who preferred tea.

  But Cassy didn’t stand up.

  She just sat there, pouting like a sullen child, her mother standing right behind her. Benjamin watched Emma’s face move from confusion to displeasure. He saw her eyes squinting and her lips begin to purse.

  Bobby and Melora kept chatting at the other end of the table.

  What’s wrong with her? Benjamin wondered.

  He kept staring at the girl as he jumped to his feet, scurrying to take the tray from Emma’s hands. He liked to skirt trouble, where he could. Emma let him take it, but he could see she wasn’t pleased. She didn’t like unauthorized changes to her scripts; still, she tolerated this one—for the moment anyway.

  Benjamin followed her around the table, holding the tray as steady as he could, while Emma served the coffees.

  “Tired, dear?” she asked—pointedly, he thought—when she placed the cup and saucer in front of her daughter, pouring out the coffee from the silver carafe.

  “Exhausted,” Cassy replied, smirking a little. “It’s lucky you’ve got paid help tonight,” she said cheerfully. “Isn’t it?” she added, smiling up at Benjamin.

  Cassy had always reminded him of his older sister, Marie, and the epic battles she used to wage against him: the two of them grappling over his ball on the lawn or dunking heads in the swimming pool. “Truce,” she’d yell, but Benjamin knew not to believe her. “I swear,” she’d add, and he’d go along with her then—against his better judgment.

  They were truces of a sort, he supposed—as soon as his sister got one last slug in, or kick, or pinch of tender skin between her sharp fingernails.

  Cassy was a lot like Marie, he thought—his mere existence an affront to them both—unaccountably jealous of the three seconds of attention he might claim from their chilly mothers.

  He knew to avoid them.

  Benjamin walked quickly toward Bobby at the head of the table, the china clattering on the lacquered tray. He wanted to hurry Emma past the turbulence of her daughter’s airspace.

  They finished serving without incident, and Emma took the tray from his hands, nodding with a slightly exaggerated courtesy. She went back to the kitchen for a large plate of biscotti, all dappled with icing and drizzled with jam.

  She took her seat again.

  It looked to Benjamin as if she’d recovered.

  “I read a fascinating article in the Times this morning,” Emma said, addressing the table, rallying her troops.

  Benjamin smiled in her direction and bit into a delicate cookie. It was soft and delicious, tasting of sweet almond paste and the crunchy pine nuts that dotted the top. He suspected that she’d made them herself.

  “It was about this group called Doctors without Borders,” she said.

  Benjamin nodded briskly, wanting to help her along.

  “Did you see it?” she asked.

  “I must have missed it,” he said, shaking his head.

  No one else at the table had seen it either.

  Benjamin rarely got much further with the Sunday paper than the crossword puzzle. He’d begun trying his hand at it—with Melora’s help—several months before, after hearing the Sutton women comparing triumphant notes one night. They carried the puzzle around with them for most of the day, printed on an onionskinned page of the New York Times Magazine. Even so, they rarely got very far.

  Benjamin squeezed Melora’s hand beneath the table. They were nearly finished here, he meant to tell her; she smiled right back.

  They could always find a few easy clues: the five-letter “Tatum” from Paper Moon, the obligatory African plains, beginning with a v; but there were always boxes and boxes that he couldn’t begin to fill in, pristine and empty on that slightly crinkled page. He never had so much as an inkling of the special theme that tied those impossibly long answers together, stretching from one end of the tidy grid clear across to the other: that clever homophone whose discovery would unlock the whole thing, that cunning use of the letter x.

  Benjamin knew that Emma finished those puzzles in a single go, her clever daughter just thirty-five seconds behind her.

  Yes, he thought, they’re quite a twosome.

  “Doctors without Borders?” Cassy said, a little contemptuously. “You mean those goody-two-shoes volunteers?”

  Emma nodded, but Benjamin could see that she didn’t like her daughter’s tone.

  “The ones who go to third-world countries?” Melora asked.

  Benjamin had heard of them too—leaving their cushy private practices at home, and ministering to the poor in far-off places. They’d always seemed so noble to him; he couldn’t imagine what Cassy could have against them.

  “The article was about this young woman,” Emma told them, “a plastic surgeon who spends half her time in Malawi. She’s set up a clinic there to operate on kids with birth defects.”

  “Where the hell is Malawi?” Bobby asked, a little drunkenly.

  “In Africa,” Emma replied, waving him off. That wasn’t her point.

  “People come from hundreds of miles away to see her,” she continued, “some of them on foot. The clinic’s gotten incredibly busy, but she’s only got a few pieces of makeshift furniture. People are sitting on boxes.”

  Melora passed Benjamin the cookie plate again. She didn’t take any herself, of course; those cookies were loaded with white sugar. Benjamin felt grateful to her for leaving it at that, simply going without.

  “Maybe we should donate some furniture?” Benjamin said. He was always calculating his boss’s angle.

  “That’s just what I was thinking,” Emma replied. “What do you think, Cassy?” She turned to her daughter, the titular head of her charitable foundation.

  Cassy didn’t look impressed.

  “In my experience,” she said—as hard-boiled as any pundit on a Sunday-morning news show—“those volunteers are much better at making themselves feel good than they are at actually helping people on the ground.”

  Benjamin knew that Cassy was only resisting the idea because he’d suggested it. It had to be better than all those stupid “show houses” where they were always donating furniture—designers gussying up an apartment to hell and back, allegedly raising money for charity by charging admission at the door.

  “I think you should check it out,” Emma told her.

  “Go to Malawi?” Cassy asked.

  “Or call the woman up, at least,” Benjamin suggested.

  “Exactly,” Emma said.

  Everyone at the table turned to Cassy then—her mother and father, Melora even. Benjamin watched their reflections, staring at the girl in the ancient mirrors. He wondered if they could see, as clearly as he did, that the topic was rubbing Cassy terribly wrong. Benjamin watched her hardening in her seat. She didn’t have the softest face to begin with—all whippet-sharp features and steely gray eyes—but it was pure rock salt now, suitable for the iciest of winter roads.

  “Sounds like you should give Benjamin my job,” Cassy said, glaring ba
ck at her mother.

  “What are you talking about?” Emma replied.

  He could hear that she was losing her patience with the girl.

  Why hadn’t she just stood up and helped her mother with that stupid coffee tray? he wondered.

  “I wasn’t complaining,” Emma said.

  “And I’ve already got a job,” Benjamin added, smiling at Cassy, as if to defuse the situation. He saw right away that he hadn’t.

  “That’s right,” Cassy said, the contempt dripping off her like a leaky faucet. “In an elementary school.”

  “Come on,” Bobby said, as if to nip her offensive in the bud. “Be nice, Cassy.”

  Benjamin appreciated the gesture, but he knew it was about as useful as asking an apple not to ripen on its leafy branch. It reminded him of those long-ago car trips he used to take with his family, sitting in the backseat, taunted by his older sister to the brink of tears. He refused to give in to them though; he was stoic to the end, but his sister was just as relentless, clamped on like a pit bull on the vinyl seat beside him.

  “Be nice,” their father always told her.

  Benjamin knew that “nice” was out of the question.

  He decided to look straight past Cassy’s insult. “Just training the furniture buyers of tomorrow,” he said, smiling still, as if to show he didn’t hold a grudge. He thought it was rather charming of him, under the circumstances.

  Benjamin finished his coffee and looked around the table.

  He wanted to get the hell out of there. He knew from experience that it would be a fragile cease-fire. He began to calculate how long it would be before he could collect their coats from the front closet and leave this place.

  “Maybe you should just write a check to Doctors without Borders,” Cassy said, turning back to Emma.

  Benjamin felt safely off the hook.

  “I could do that,” Emma replied. “If I wanted to.” She wasn’t the type to run scared from her daughter, or anyone else, for that matter.

  “I know you could,” Cassy said. “Although you’re not exactly known for charity.”