Charles doesn’t answer, but a little smile plays at the corners of his mouth.
“I’m not afraid of a little screaming and yelling,” Emma says.
“No?”
“Not if that’s what it takes.”
He leans toward her, across his desk. “I’m very glad to hear that, Emma.”
“Scream away,” she says with a smile of her own.
He nods. Emma stands up to go.
“And, Emma?” She turns and looks at him, into his eyes. “You’re doing a very good job.”
She nods and closes the door quietly behind her. When she settles into her desk she tries to get back to work, but can’t. She’s overwhelmed by a physical sensation that moves over her body like liquid, a warm want that she has never felt before. There’s no way this job will be over in six weeks-she’ll make sure of that.
12
“This is it,” he bored, harried young man in the inexpensive gray suit says with undisguised distaste, before lighting a Salem to recover from the four-story climb.
Emma takes one look at the semifurnished studio and says, “I’ll take it.”
She takes out her checkbook-her first ever checkbook-and slowly writes out a check for the first and last month’s rent plus the $200 key deposit the managing agent insists on.
The agent-who Emma notices has a smudge of hair dye on one ear-examines the check and slips it into his pocket. He hands her the keys, mumbles a cynical “Enjoy,” and leaves without closing the door behind him. Emma watches him go down the stairs. There’s a ball of greasy paper on the second-to-last step. She hopes he slips and breaks his neck.
Emma loves the sound the old lock makes when she turns it and the bolt slides into the wall. Then she turns and surveys the first home that she can call her own.
The apartment is just one long room with three windows along one wall and a kitchen built into the far end. It smells faintly of soy sauce and fried dumplings, courtesy of the Chinese restaurant on the ground floor. The walls are the color of tobacco spit. There’s a double bed, a laminate desk, an ornate white dresser making a sad stab at French Regency, its top notched with cigarette burns, a frameless mirror above the dresser. Emma loves the cigarette burns; she runs her finger over the blackened hollows and imagines a poet, a bad girl, a good cop, a lost junkie from the Midwest who was once somebody’s son-all the Manhattan stories this room has hosted. Or maybe just one sad fat old woman lived here for twenty years eating junk food and smoking Winstons until her heart gave out.
The Chinese restaurant has a red neon sign that snakes up the building and suffuses the room with a rosy glow, even in the afternoon light. Emma looks down at the street and sees an old Italian woman in widow’s blacks walking a just-groomed white poodle. She loves this shabby patch of the city where Chinatown, Little Italy, and the Lower East Side converge.
Continuing her inspection, Emma pushes open the door to the bathroom. She stops-the bathtub that bathtub.
“Time for your bath, Emma.” They both knew what those words meant, the cheerful singsong a cruel mockery of their true intent. Emma would scuttle under her bed, stare up at the rusty springs, her head throbbing with dread and fear. “Didn’t you hear me, honeybunch? I said it’s time for your splish-splash.” And then the high-heeled mules would appear in the doorway and approach the bed and Emma would scoot farther under, as far away as she could get. “Where’s my little Mouseketeer? We have got to get you clean if we want Daddy to come home. You want Daddy to come home, don’t you?” And then her mother’s skinny arm with its gaggle of Bakelite bracelets would reach down under the bed, the hand grabbing at the air like a blind woman’s, grasping the first thing it touched-an arm, a leg, a hank of hair-and pull Emma out across the slippery linoleum floor. “Oh, Emma, if you don’t watch out, that expression will freeze on your face forever. I’ll have to put you in a zoo with the other monkeys. Daddy won’t want a dirty monkey around the house.” And then that laugh, that throaty staccato laugh. “Come on, monkey.” She lift her up-Emma going as rigid as a stick-and carry her into the bathroom, set her down. “Can’t take a bath in a dirty little dress, said the owl to the pussycat!” She’d stand there watching Emma under the light of that burning naked bulb that dangled from the ceiling like a hanged man. Then she’d bang down the toilet seat and sit down casual as day, crossing her long legs, humming brightly, checking out her painted nails. Emma would hug herself and look down-then suddenly the slap would smash across her cheek and she swear she would die before her mother saw her tears. “Silly fiddle-faddle! I got all night to party.” Slowly, slowly, Emma would lift the thin dress over her head-the thin blue flannel dress that smelled like her sheets, her nubby bed-wetted sheets. “Splish-splash, I was taking a bath, all on a Saturday night.” Emma would look over at that tub, that big old clawfoot tub with the chipped porcelain finish. It looked as big as a house. Filled with two inches of the coldest water that pipes could produce. “Daddy’s gonna come back, Emma baby, and we’re all gonna move to a fishing shack on the Gulf Coast, lie in the sun and smoke reefer and paint. Now you gonna get in that water or not, you little piece of shit?” And Emma would step into the tub. At least in the tub she could huddle over, hug herself, hide her body from her mother’s eyes. The water was so cold it hurt and she’d close her eyes and clench her teeth and wait for what she knew was coming. It’d start on her lower back-the loofah mitt, the frayed loofah mitt from Walgreen’s. At first her mother used a light touch and Emma always had a moment of sweet hope that it would be different this time. “How do you get so dirty, you cute little nasty thing? Your father knew you were a dirty girl, didn’t he? That’s why he ran away, to get away from you, you dirty thing.” And as she talked, she’d press harder with the mitt, scrubbing Emma’s back and then her shoulders and then pushing her back in the tub and scrubbing her chest and stomach and her thighs, pushing her legs open and scrubbing until little red pinpricks covered Emma’s body. “Filthy little girl, dirty dirty Emma. Daddy hates dirty girls. I’m going to make you clean. Clean clean clean. Scrubba-dub-dub, two freaks in a tub.” And that naked blinding bulb swung overhead. And finally, when her whole body burned and went numb, Emma would float up from the bathtub and look down at her mother scrubbing away, sometimes sprinkling Comet on the loofah mitt-she’d watch as the little girl’s skin got redder and redder, watch as the weird woman did mean things to the little girl. Mean mean things.
Emma stands in the bathroom doorway taking deep breaths. She makes herself look at the rest of the room. The floor is black-and-white linoleum tile. There’s a pedestal sink with a medicine chest above it. Emma resolutely pushes down her pants and sits on the toilet, leaving the door open. As she pees, she slowly forces her eyes over to the tub. It’s just a bathtub. Her bathtub. But she doesn’t deserve a bathtub-she’s a dirty girl. Emma feels the dread spreading like a stain, the familiar tightening in her throat, the queasiness in her stomach; her jaw goes slack and her eyes half close. Moving slowly, she stands up from the toilet, slips off her pants, takes the little tin box from her bag, and climbs into the tub. She crouches down with her legs spread. She runs her fingers over the tiny raised scars that line her inner thigh. The scars are her friends. But no more scars. She’s learned that. Don’t press too hard and you won’t leave a scar. So she opens the box, lifts the velvet, takes the razor and presses gently against her skin-just hard enough for the sweet obliterating pain to bring up a perfect line of blood.
13
Enthralled, Anne drags he sumptuous virtual sofa down from the corner of the computer screen and moves it around the tiny virtual room until she finds just the spot for it. She resumes browsing through Home On-line, dragging down one item after another until the room is, well, perfect. Then she orders the items she wants by moving around the room and clicking on them. That’s all it takes. The warehouse outside Poughkeepsie ships the products; credit card billing is instantaneous.
“Absolutely fabulous,” Anne says, turning to a beaming N
ikki Spinoza, the genius behind InterMagic, a woman in her early forties who wears her extra poundage sans apology, dresses in thrift-store rejects, lets her flyaway hair fly away, makes no secret of her lesbianism, and runs a very loose ship. InterMagic is housed in a converted stable in Tribeca. The staff, none of whom looks over twenty-five, are encouraged to bring in their latest toys, and the yeasty chaos-strewn with everything from a beach ball to a four-foot robot-resembles a kindergarten classroom.
“I’m glad you like it,” Nikki says.
“Nobody else in the industry has anything approaching this. It’s more like playing a game than shopping. How soon can we have the site up and running?” Anne asks.
“A week.”
Anne feels that exquisite surge of elation called success.
“You’ve done an amazing job.” Anne turns to the entire room and applauds. “You’ve all done a fantastic job. I can’t thank you enough. Call Dean and Deluca. Lunch is on me.”
Now it’s the turn of the dozen motley designers and computer nerds to applaud. Just at that moment the front door opens and a three-year-old boy wearing denim overalls rushes up to Nikki.
“Mommy! Mommy!”
Nikki sweeps him up and tosses him in the air. “Hey there, Tiger Balm. Justin, this is Anne.”
Justin says “Hi” and sticks out his arm. Anne shakes his tiny hand.
“We went on the Staten Island Ferry,” Justin says.
“No kidding, sailor.” Nikki looks about to burst with maternal pride.
“It was rough out there,” Justin announces.
“Well, it’s a windy day.”
“Choppy,” Justin corrects.
A woman in her mid-thirties, athletic, wearing black jeans and a T-shirt, walks into the office and gives Nikki a spousal kiss.
“Lisa, this is Anne Turner. Lisa Lewis.”
Lisa and Anne share a firm handshake.
“If Home gave frequent buyer miles, we could trek to Timbuktu. And that was before you hired Nikki. What a pleasure,” Lisa says.
“Well, Nikki has done a fantastic job with the website,” Anne says, feeling an immediate rapport with this loving and enthusiastic family. With it comes a twinge of longing.
“Let’s go to lunch. I want focaccia!” Justin says.
“Only a downtown kid, huh?” Nikki says.
“Hey Justin, get a load of this!” a voice calls from the other end of the office. Anne turns to see a giant plastic firefly sailing through the air.
“Wow!” Justin screams, charging off.
“I didn’t know,” Anne says, nodding in Justin’s direction.
“The crazy part is we didn’t want a kid, a couple of hip downtown career dykes like us. But Lisa had this cousin in Oregon she’d never met,” Nikki explains.
“Heroin addict, prostitute. Who’da thunk it? Oregon. She was Justin’s mom,” Lisa says.
“She died of an overdose. Justin was in the bed with her.”
Anne tries to imagine the horrific scene. “How old was he?”
“Eight months. We got him three months later.”
“Nobody knows who his father is,” Lisa adds.
“Has he asked?”
Lisa nods. “And we told him the truth.”
Anne turns and looks at the boy, who is gleefully launching another firefly. “He’s a very lucky child,” she says.
“No. We’re the lucky ones,” Lisa says.
Their marriage seems so guileless, so free of hidden agendas. Suddenly Anne feels dizzy and slightly faint. This is followed by a wave of nausea-they’ve been coming with some regularity for the past week.
“May I use your office for a moment?” she asks.
“Of course.”
Anne retreats to the sanctuary of Nikki’s large cluttered office. She sits down and stretches her legs out and waits for the nausea to pass. How would a child affect her marriage? Would the rivalries and resentments fade in the face of a new life? Or would the kid just become one more thing to struggle over?
And what would the baby look like, with its chubby little limbs? Would it have Charles’s smile? His eyes? Her coloring? If so, they’d have to buy sunblock by the gallon. Then it floods back-that afternoon on John Farnsworth’s leather couch, his flabby white body, his fat stubby penis poking into her, his tongue on her neck and cheek. She presses her fingertips into the knot of self-hatred at the back of her neck. She takes out her cell phone and gets Directory Assistance, then punches another number.
“Planned Parenthood.” The voice sounds so reassuring.
“Yes, I wonder if you could answer a question for me.”
“I’d be more than happy to try.”
“Is it possible to determine a fetus’s father?”
“It is.”
“How is it done?” she asks, reaching for pen and paper.
“Through DNA testing of either the amniotic fluid or the chorion, which is the outer lining of the sac surrounding the embryo.”
“And then that DNA is compared to the DNA of the possible father?” Anne asks.
“Exactly. How far along is the pregnancy?”
“About ten weeks.”
“In that case, the chorionic villus sampling would be indicated. It’s too early for amniocentesis. Of course, you’ll need a blood sample from the possible father.”
How is she going to get a blood sample from Charles?
“How long does it take to get the results?”
“About two weeks. The cost is around a thousand dollars. The company that performs the testing will coordinate the arrangements with your doctor.”
She can’t possibly go to her own gynecologist. Judith Arnold’s husband is a publishing executive; they travel in overlapping social circles with Anne and Charles.
“Oh, one last question.”
“Shoot.”
“How much of the father’s blood is needed?”
“Usually they take a syringe full, but all the lab really needs is a few drops.”
After she hangs up, Anne realizes her nausea is gone. There’s a knock on the door.
“Anne, lunch is here.”
Anne joins the crew as they eagerly unload the shopping bags full of scrumptious goodies from Dean and Deluca. Suddenly she’s famished. She finds a smoked turkey and roasted red pepper hero. There’s a tug on her pant leg.
“Where’s my focaccia?” Justin asks.
Anne digs into one of the bags and finds a thick slice of focaccia baked with mozzarella and sun-dried tomatoes.
Anne kneels down beside the boy. “Here you go, buckeroo.”
“That’s a silly name. Are you a silly lady?”
Anne looks up at Nikki.
“I guess I am a silly lady sometimes.” Anne laughs.
“Silly like a fox,” Nikki says.
14
After waking from a deep nap, Emma walks to the corner bodega. She loves the smells in the cramped store: something fried and spicy, the dirt on root vegetables she never seen before, city cats. She gathers up two apples, two oranges, a can of spaghetti, tea bags, milk, a box of Fig Newtons.
On her way home she passes a botanica. She stops and looks at the plaster figures in the window: Jesus, the Virgin Mary, an array of heroic saints in heroic poses. Gaudily painted, they remind her of what you can win at the county fair ball-toss on a dusty August night if you have a boyfriend. At the fair, the plaster figures aren’t religious; they’re dogs and cats and Elvis Presley and all around the lights of love swirl and there are pink puffs of cotton candy and whirligig music and farm folks strolling and show animals lazy in the night air. Emma hates the county fair.
As she walks into the botanica the fat proprietress-in a thin red dress stretched so tight across her front that her bosom is mashed down and indistinguishable from the other rolls of flesh narrows her eyes.
“You have trouble,” the woman states, certain as a judge. She lights an unfiltered cigarette.
“What kind of trouble?” Emma asks.
/> “Bad trouble,” the woman says. She taps her temple and exhales by opening her mouth and letting the smoke billow out.
The store is heavy with smells, a thousand perfumes and incense sticks, the fresh layered over the stale in a dense mix that suddenly makes Emma dizzy. More plaster figures, their deadpan faces betraying no religious ecstasy, fill the shelves. And candles, hundreds of candles in glasses covered with saints and Jesus again. Jesus is everywhere in the botanica.
“I have magic for trouble,” the woman says, holding out a small glass vial.
Emma takes the vial and stares at the light brown liquid it holds. “What will it do?”
“Make you safe.”
“How much?”
“Twenty dollars.”
Emma starts to unscrew the cap.
“No!” the woman warns. “On your door make a cross with it and sprinkle it all around your bed.”
Emma hands the woman twenty dollars. Suddenly she wants to get out of the suffocating store. The plaster figures look evil-passive spectators to the world’s unspeakable acts. What do they care? They’re saints; they’ve cashed in their chips. As she closes the door on her way out of the store, Emma hears the woman mutter something unintelligible, in Spanish, something that sounds to her like a curse.
Before she unlocks her door Emma opens the vial-the liquid has a sharp fusty odor-wets her fingertip and makes a cross on the door. Inside, she unloads the food. She loves the bare cabinets, their corners home to crumbly spots of rust, and the noisy refrigerator with the cracked handle. She wants her apartment to be a refuge replete with books and teas and at least two different kinds of cookies. A safe place.
She moves the chair close to the window and eats the apple and then four Fig Newtons, savoring every grainy bite, as she watches the street life below. Across the street an old man sits in a lawn chair in front of his building; couples out for dinner stroll by; clutches of hip young people in black, long-limbed and laughing, ramble down the block. Emma finds the passing parade hypnotic, and a sweet fatigue comes over her. She sprinkles the rest of the magic water around her bed, crawls in, and reads Heart of Darkness until her eyes begin to hurt. She turns off the bedside lamp. Red light filters in from the neon sign and plays against the far wall. She can hear the distant muttering of a thousand voices, a thousand beautiful anonymous voices. Emma lies still for a long time, looking at the light and listening to the voices. She has always imagined her father living in a room like this.
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