The Woman Who Cut Off Her Leg at the Maidstone Club

by Julia Slavin

  We shoot the Happy Baby Segment, the baby whose mommy wears Eau d’Oeuvre cologne. I skip around the set swinging my hips so that the skirt will flounce. April nearly gets whiplash but doesn’t mind a bit, which is why he gets so much work. Between takes he burrows into me, squeezes the material of my shirt, and rubs his leg against my belly. Milk spills out of my breasts, soaking my polo shirt. The crew is prepared. I strip to the waist right there on the set, dry off with a hand towel, and dress in an identical shirt and bra. Then a trampoline is dragged out; April and I climb on. I do a series of jumps against the orange backdrop, a c-jump, an a-jump, a stag. My breasts are killing me; I wish I’d worn a sports bra. But April loves it. His head jerks back and he laughs and screams for more. The director good-nights me, April’s mother is sent off the set, and the crew sets up for the Sad Baby Segment, the baby whose mommy doesn’t wear Eau d’Oeuvre cologne. The stage manager seats April on the trampoline and makeup brushes on powder to take the blush out of his cheeks. A child psychologist is brought out and situated to the right of the cameraman. The camera moves in tight on April.

  “Rolling,” the director says. “Action.”

  “No.” The psychologist shakes a finger at the baby. “No, no, no, no.” April sobs. It’s a wrap.

  Averille’s mother has been waiting for me in the parking lot. She puts her hand on my arm.

  “Jeanette, you’ve been through a lot of babies. Does Averille have a chance? Of going to the next level? Do you think he could be like Nevada Rhodes?” Nevada Rhodes was the baby I posed with on the Phlufff … box fifteen years ago. He went on to do features.

  I hate this. “I’m going to tell you what I tell all the mothers. Save. Invest. There’s only one Nevada Rhodes.” I leave her biting her nails by the open door of the black BMW 700-series sedan that she bought with Averille’s money.

  I have a meeting in an hour at a school we’re looking at for William, but Gus still isn’t answering the phone so I race over to the flat.

  “Why didn’t you answer? I’ve been calling.”

  He’s under a blanket on the chair-and-a-half in the living room, rocking himself from side to side.

  “I’m afraid to move.”

  He pulls the cover back to show me he’s had a leg off.

  “My God. Did you call the doctor?”

  “Hell no. Never call a doctor for anything serious. Besides, this has nothing to do with medicine. This is God casting his net.”

  “I think God has bigger problems, Gus, you know, like that avalanche in Switzerland and that flood in Texas.” I drop a foot-filled Reebok in a lawn-and-leaf bag.

  “I see you’re as capable of deep feeling as ever.”

  “Let’s not fight.” I scan the room for the leg. “Come on, I’ll help you.” He puts his arm around my shoulder and hops next to me to the bedroom. I help him into bed and pull up the quilt.

  “Lie down next to me?” His teeth are chattering. I feel his forehead for fever.

  “I have a meeting. A new school for William.” I tuck the quilt around him.

  “Please? I’m terrified.”

  I pull back the quilt and slide in next to him. He holds me in his arm and puts his leg over my legs. He kisses me. I love the way he smells. I once tried to re-create it in the kitchen: cayenne and rosemary, sweat and leaves. He moves my blouse aside with his face. “I don’t have time,” I whisper. He gently bites a nipple through my shirt. I raise my chest. “Mmmm.”

  “Can I still come with you when you get them done?” Recently he’d teased me about getting my little breasts augmented.

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll pay.” He nibbles the other one.

  “Ohhhhhh. But I can afford them. I can afford to put breasts on the entire U.S. Olympics gymnastics team.”

  “Then I want to pay half.”

  “What about the debt?” I whisper in his ear.

  “What debt?” He starts moving his hips against mine.

  “What I’ll owe you. Ten years from now, when we positively repulse each other, when you’ve dumped me for something younger. Do you still have rights?”

  “Just to the left one.” He unbuttons my blouse and pulls down my bra.

  “So my husband gets the right one?” He stops moving and turns away from me, stares up at the recessed lighting we had put in the ceiling. “What’s wrong?”

  “That’s the part I can’t stand. I know he’s your husband, but does he have to have one of your breasts?”

  “How can I reassure you?”

  “With constancy.” He kisses me and puts his remaining hand on my left breast. It’s still there when he rolls away.

  What a beautiful school, an old mansion converted. The kids on the playground look happy and clean. As I walk up the wooden steps I say a little prayer: “Please, accept us. Accept us, please.”

  I’m told to make myself at home in the director’s office while we wait for her to come back from a tour. Frank arrived before me and has taken over her phone and desk. His briefcase is open on a couch and his mechanical pencils are strewn about the floor. He’s carrying on two arguments, one with an investment banker on a cell phone and the other with the S.E.C. on the director’s phone.

  “I hope I’m not late,” I whisper. He gestures for me to sit. “You look great,” I say. I look at his hair, which is silver and thick and long. The veins on his hands and forearms are pulsating with strength.

  “Sonzafuckingbitches.” He hangs up both phones. We stare at each other for a few moments.

  “God, I miss you, Frank. I miss you so much I could die from it.” Like a kid on Christmas trying to catch a glimpse of Santa, I stay awake as long as I can each night in hopes of seeing my husband, or at least try to wake as he’s leaving. But he slips out with the other shadows of the morning before I’m conscious. A tear spills out of my eye and rolls down my face.

  “This stuff is so damn complicated, Jeannie. I’m barely hanging on.”

  “You’re at the top of your game, Frank. By millions.”

  “Nah. I’m just on a streak.”

  “You’ve been on a streak for five years.”

  “These things can just disappear, Jeannie. I can be on the street in five minutes.”

  “What’s so bad about the street?” The school director says good luck to another couple, then comes through the door, shakes our hands, tells me I’m prettier than the Phlufff … box, and proceeds to show us around the school.

  “Trigonometry?” I ask, looking in a room of kindergartners who are deep in study.

  “They can handle it, Jeanette. And, believe it or not, we make it fun!” She leads us up a creaky staircase to the higher classes, Frank’s jacket sleeve brushing against the cool skin of my arm. “Don’t you adore Proust?” A third-grade class is reading aloud from Remembrance of Things Past, but I’m conscious only of Frank’s hand on the back of my waist, the citrus smell of his hair gel.

  “Do you think we’ll get in?” I ask Frank as we walk to our cars.

  “Bill Krist’s sister-in-law is the former director of admissions. That’ll help. You’ve cultivated that relationship, right?”

  I scan my mental date book. “Yes. We had lunch in January and I called when her father was ill.”

  “See you at home.” He opens the back door of his car.

  “Will you?”

  “Jeannie …”

  “I’m so lonely, Frank.”

  “Get a sitter. Go out. Have fun. Kiss kiss.” His driver whisks him away as he presses the auto-dial on his cell phone.

  Gus. I call our nanny Patrice from the car phone to ask her to pick up Will, then race over to the flat. As I pull into the gravel driveway I remember it was Esperanza’s day to clean and I’m immediately relieved that Gus had company. The house is immaculate; Esperanza is an excellent cleaner. I don’t hear a sound. I feel a pit in my stomach as I race through the house.

  “Hello?” he calls finally from the bedroom.

  “I was so worried. A
re you all right?”

  “Nothing new to report,” he says. “Everything’s intact.” I breathe a sigh as I enter the bedroom. He’s propped up on pillows. A drink with a straw sits on the bedside table. As I bend to kiss him I notice he smells like my honeysuckle soap. He’s dressed in an orange-and-blue rugby shirt, orange shorts, and an orange sock. I like each of the elements alone—in fact, I bought them—but not all together.

  “You look like a flag.”

  “Esperanza dressed me.”

  “She’s a lifesaver.” He seems cheerful, which is good because I have no time to spend. I have a screening tonight. I have to finish William’s cow costume for Farm Day at his nursery school, write a recommendation for a neighbor’s kid to get into Will’s pre-school, and ask another neighbor to write a recommendation for Will to get into the Mardel school. And I still haven’t done my twenty minutes of special time that the psychologist recommended I spend with William every day.

  “I can’t stay. What can I get you before I flee?”

  He takes a long breath. “I need to tell you something. It’s going to upset you, but I have to tell you because I have to be honest with you, because I’ve always been honest with you, because our relationship is based on honesty.” I feel my insides drop to the base of my torso. It always begins with honesty.

  “Who? Your old girlfriend?” He won’t answer. “Tell me. It’s Leslie, right?”

  “No, it’s not Leslie.”

  I look around the room, at how spotless everything is. “No, not Esperanza.”

  “I’m sorry, Jeanette.”

  I break down in tears.

  “Oh, Jeanette. It would be a farce for us to say we’ll be faithful to each other. That’s a marriage. We’re not married. You’re married. To someone else. I have a problem in this direction, I told you when I met you. I love you. You’re beautiful. Why would you be jealous?”

  “I don’t know, just an emotion that’s dogged me my whole life.”

  I look down at him on the bed. He’s all I have. My only oasis. A respite from all the madness. “I have to go.”

  “I love you.”

  “Try not to move.” I blow my nose. “You stay intact when you don’t move.”

  “When will I see you?”

  “I’ll come back tonight.”

  There’s a message on my voice mail from my agent saying I’ve been nominated for Pretty Mom of the Year. She’s also got a commercial for Your Silver Year Nutrient Shake. “I know you’re nowhere near fifty,” she says apologetically. I dress for the screening and as I’m heading out the door I remember I haven’t done my special twenty minutes with William. “I’ll make it up to you,” I whisper in his ear as he’s watching Gladiator Space Phenetians on public TV. “I owe you two hours and forty minutes. Imagine what we can do with all that.” He raises his shoulder to rub his ear as though a bug had crawled in. I ask Patrice to finish painting the spots on the cow costume.

  The screening is a made-for-TV movie starring the baby I posed with on a hundred spots and magazine covers, the baby who smiles up at me on the Phlufff … box, who is now fifteen years old. As with so many events, I go alone. I stand by the ashtrays in the lobby and consider calling Gus from the pay phone but I’m still upset about Esperanza. Then I think about leaving a voice mail for Frank. People from the industry say hello and indiscreetly ask where Gus is. No one asks where my husband is anymore.

  “I know you.” It’s the actor Austin Kairys. I feel myself blush. I’ve had a crush on him ever since he played Cyrus Vance in Rescue ’80. I can’t believe he’s talking to me.

  “You look so much younger in person.” What a stupid thing to say.

  “And you are more beautiful than the Phlufff … box.”

  “Oh, stop.”

  He takes a bag of popcorn from a tray carried by a pretty girl in a French maid costume. Never taking his eyes from me, he shakes a few kernels in his hand and tosses them back in his mouth. There’s a hush in the crowd and flashbulbs pop as Nevada Rhodes walks in with his albino girlfriend. A gang of howling twelve-year-old girls are held back by security. The paparazzi have always loved our reunions. Mother and son. A spotlight on top of a TV camera makes me squint as Nevada kisses me on both cheeks. It never fails. The smell of Nevada makes my milk flow. Tonight I came prepared, wearing cotton pads in my dress. He whispers in my ear, “Jeanette, I’m getting married.” The photographers are on top of us. I’m smiling for the cameras but what I really want to do is slap this spoiled boy.

  “But you’re so young. Don’t do this.” I want the baby Nevada back. When he was dressed like a girl. When he smelled like powder. When his hair was as wispy as cashmere.

  “I’m in love.” He kisses me on the mouth for the cameras. It’s more than I can handle. My milk spills over, seeps right through the pads. Two huge circles appear on my silk dress. Nevada moves away, spotting the star of the Fast Cats series.

  “Nevada, come back. Listen to me.” I reach out for him but he sinks into the crowd, and photographers fill in the space behind him. Austin Kairys wraps his jacket around my shoulders.

  I leave before the credits and head over to see Gus. He’s had a bad night. In the foyer there’s a large joint I assume is his knee. Some teeth are strewn around the phone. Did he try to call? There’s an ear on an end table, and under the love seat, a skin bag that resembles a tobacco pouch. “I told you not to move,” I cry. He’s on the floor in the kitchen.

  “I was hungry.”

  “I left a sandwich by the bed. And magazines. Everything you could need.”

  “The sandwich was so good, I wanted more.”

  I carry what’s left of him to the bedroom and lay him down. As I’m fixing the pillows I glance over at the clock. It’s midnight. Occasionally Frank surprises me and comes home this early. “I’m not going to be able to stay. But you’ve got to promise you won’t move.”

  “How was the screening?” Gus rolls on his side and clicks the remote control with his chin. A Sky King crashed on the interstate. Six businessmen are killed. I need to get home. I close the blinds and pick his clothes up off the floor, shaking them first to make sure they’re empty. “Nevada Rhodes, that little baby. That fifteen-year-old. He says he’s getting married.”

  “To the albino? What the hell’s wrong with everybody that they want to get married?”

  “It will be terrible for him.” I move Gus back onto the pillows. He purses his lips for me to kiss him; I pretend not to notice.

  “All relationships are doomed,” he says.

  “What a thing to say.” I pull the blanket over his chest.

  “Imagine having the life sucked out of you at fifteen.”

  “Is that what I do to you?” I straighten up and put my hands on my hips. “Am I sucking the life out of you?” He doesn’t answer. The news has footage of the screening: Nevada Rhodes walking into the theater, kissing me, shaking hands with the star of Fast Cats, and in the upper right side of the screen, Austin Kairys wrapping his jacket around my shoulders. I look at Gus to see if he’s noticed. He has.

  “Uhhh huh. Austin Kairys. Mr. Secretary.”

  “I had an accident through my dress. He came to the rescue.”

  “Give you his pants too?”

  “Don’t be preposterous. I have to go. Kiss kiss. Don’t move.” It’s after one when I get home. I put on perfume and a French lace slip and try to stay awake long enough to see Frank. I fail.

  I put a quarter in the slot of the mechanical rocking horse. It gets jammed. The arcade manager tells me I must have put something other than a quarter in there because he’s been running this place since the seventies and never had any trouble with the horse. I tell him no, it was definitely a quarter. He says fine, whatever you say, and offers to refund the quarter. I say that I don’t care about the money, I just want my son to be happy. When, does he imagine, will the horse be fixed?

  “Tuesday.”

  “Then we shall return on Tuesday.”

&nb
sp; “I’ll leave the lights on.” He wanders off into the hell of blinking ray guns and bells as I take William down from the lame horse.

  The zoo got new polar bears. “Look how cute,” I say. Last year some kids climbed over the bars and were eaten. The police opened up the bears to look for them. William asks me where the old bears went, though I know he knows. “To the North Pole to live with Santa.” Over on the grass there’s a family unpacking a picnic lunch on a blanket.

  “I’m hungry,” William says.

  “You’re hungry? Didn’t Patrice give you lunch?” He doesn’t answer; he looks over at the picnic. We line up at a cart for a hot dog. The woman on the grass is opening plastic containers. There’s a rice salad, a carrot salad, a pasta salad, a green bean salad, and some fruit salad. And there’s fresh bread wrapped in foil and a thermos of juice and something for dessert, which the woman says is a surprise. She gives the man and the boy on the blanket forks and cloth napkins. The man’s having trouble getting the baby’s socks on because the baby keeps moving. The lady says it’s okay for the baby to go barefoot, they’re on a blanket after all. The boy flips his fork and tries to catch it by the handle. The man holds the baby up in the air.

  “I want salad,” William says.

  “I thought you liked hot dogs.”

  “I want salad.” He starts to cry. We wander around the zoo for half an hour looking for salad. Then he says he wants to go home and have lunch again with Patrice.