by Heidi Pitlor
An uncomfortable question formed in my mind: did I regret having had Cass? The answer was immediate: no. He was nothing that I regretted even slightly. Not for a second, not even after today’s behavior. He could be an unbelievable pain. He could push me to limits I had been unaware that I had, but he was Cass, my Cass, my sweet kid, as close to me as my own breath.
I ran my tongue over my new filling, which needed some sanding, as I read Lana’s text message. She wanted me to discuss discipline in the chapter about toddlerhood.
Last night we went to dinner at Daniel, and a boy next to us had a huge temper tantrum. His mom just sat there texting the whole time. It took all the restraint I had not to walk over and ask why oh why she had brought her son to this not exactly kid-friendly restaurant.
Sounds rough, I wrote. Whenever possible, I made a point of offering praise or support to mothers in that situation. At least I had been doing so since I’d had Cass. Not that I frequented restaurants like Daniel, which I could not resist googling. Its website showed photos of artful morsels dotting plates and three-figure prix fixe options. Did Norton ever pull something like that?
Lana: He had his moments.
Me: What were some of the harder moments for you?
I waited several minutes for her reply. Had Norton really never had a tantrum? Perhaps he had only done so with Gloria or some other person who was tending him.
Finally, her response came:
Once he used a Sharpie to draw all over a framed Annie Leibovitz of Lester and me that she, Annie, had given us as a wedding present. We were livid. We had to get it reframed.
Me: Wow, that’s a good one! I cringed with sympathy. Did you punish him?
Lana: I’m sure we did, but we also tried positive reinforcement and whatnot. I can’t remember much more. Sorry.
Me: Any memories of disciplining him? Were you “time out” people, or did you take away privileges or screen time or something like that?
Lana: Let me think about it. Have to run. I’ll get back to you.
But she did not get back to me that day, or the next, and so I had little choice but to return to her book and again stretch what little she had given me.
A parent must determine their own style of discipline. Norton once found a Sharpie marker and drew all over an original Annie Leibovitz photograph, a gift from Annie herself. Another time, he ate a handful of a neighbor’s laxatives and we had to rush him to the hospital, where he endured the grueling stomach pump. At his first dentist appointment, he grabbed a replica jaw from the display counter and dropped it with a great PLUNK into the fish tank in the corner of the crowded waiting room.
I have never felt less like a powerful woman than I did in those moments. Parenthood can profoundly deepen and texturize a woman’s life, but also, if I am to be perfectly honest, can diminish it, at least temporarily.
I would change the laxative and replica jaw things later, maybe make up some other examples. But for now, I needed to research “positive reinforcement” and other methods of discipline that worked for parents. I had yet to find a method that consistently worked for us.
Chapter Ten
With every book, I had given small pieces of myself to my client: to Jenna, a knowledge of Adrienne Rich’s poetry; to Tanya, a fondness for the movie Brave; to Rick, a love of portulaca and snapdragon plants. But Lana’s was coming to require more of me—the whole foundation, so to speak, rather than just a roof shingle. I emailed Colin and Gin again to seek their advice. A day passed, and then Gin texted back.
Should I ask Colin about finding another writer for Lana?
No! I replied, stricken. I’ll figure it out. Sorry to bother you.
Gin: Will you send me what you’ve got so far? You do know that Lana just asked for an extension, right? That you have until April 15? Our production team is not thrilled, so if you could get me the final manuscript a few weeks before then, that would be ideal.
Me: I didn’t know. Wonder why she didn’t tell me.
I agreed to send the first three chapters in a few days, a week at most, and got right to work.
We give away what we have to in order to survive. It seemed counterintuitive at first, but when I thought in anthropological terms, I understood something essential: in prehistoric times, of course, when men ventured out to hunt and bring home their rewards, women remained home. They ceded their love and energy and time and gathering skills to their families. We cede our bodies during pregnancy, at least temporarily. But once we hand off too much of ourselves, women inevitably grow hollow. We shrivel.
I am aware that I may be justifying the lengths to which I next went. But I grew increasingly angry that without going to the well of my own experiences, I would have been unable to write Lana’s book. Between the withholding of information and the subtle, sometimes passive pressure that came both from her and Colin to fill in the many gaps with my own thoughts and material—it had the feel of gaslighting. Lana never outright refused to answer a question; instead, she just had to rush off to a meeting or a rally. I had tried inventing anecdotes for her, but the leap from my mind to hers, from my life with Cass to hers with Norton was too great. What did I know about world travel and restaurants like Daniel, about interviewing people like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and being friends with Annie Leibovitz? What did I know about teaming up with a husband as well as one—or more?—nannies to raise your son? My patience was shot.
It was a Monday, and I knew that Lana would be in New York because she had told me as much. I reluctantly called Maggie. “Any chance you could take Cass today?”
“Oh, sure,” she said. “Liam’s got a friend here and we were going to head to the park, but maybe we can, I don’t know, find an art class or something else to do.”
“You’re the best, Maggie. How can I thank you?”
There was a beat during which I considered how little I could offer her, especially since our sons did not mesh. “No need to thank me,” she finally said.
I gathered a few things, drove to Great Barrington, and caught the early bus, nearly full this time. A piercing body odor came from the man seated behind me, an exceptionally hairy person who may well have been covertly masturbating against the back of my seat. When the bus got going, I reached in my bag for my copy of To the Lighthouse. “Yes, of course, if it’s fine tomorrow,’ said Mrs. Ramsay. ‘But you’ll have to be—” and I lurched forward as the man slammed against my seat, saying, “Jesus God.” I exchanged wary looks with a young woman next to me and another two across the aisle, as if we were all four united in battle. I closed my book. Oh, to just get up with the lark and go for a sail.
I stepped off the bus in Manhattan and walked to Central Park. The late morning was brisk but not as bitter as it had been at home. I set up camp behind a large, snow-covered boulder across the street from Lana’s building, and I pulled my ski cap low on my forehead. Maybe I should have brought a disguise—a wig even, or fake glasses just to be safe. Although the thought only reinforced the absurdity of my mission here. I wrapped my scarf around my mouth and nose and tried to ignore the glances of a jogger passing by. Soon I spotted Captain Kangaroo. A woman cleaned her taco truck nearby. Two men fed their horses and adjusted their harnesses. I waited.
Captain Kangaroo gazed up at the sky. No one exited the building. If nothing else, I would know that I had tried my best here.
Finally a good hour later, Gloria and a boy who I assumed was Norton stepped past Captain Kangaroo and headed north. My pulse thumping, I crossed the street and followed them at a distance onto West Ninety-Fourth. He was of course taller now than in those old pictures I had seen online, a bean of a boy, with shaggy dark hair and less-than-stellar posture. He wore athletic pants, a navy snow jacket, Nike Air Max shoes, and had a duffel bag slung over one shoulder. He and Gloria entered a deli and, a moment later, came out with a girl of about five, a girl with long black braids. She marched between them, grabbed both of their hands, and the three turned and headed a couple of blocks north. I
was twitchy and alert, trying to avoid oncoming pedestrians while keeping the three of them in view. They soon stopped outside a small market, and like an ambush predator, I darted behind a delivery truck, and then across the street. Gloria went inside the store, but Norton and the girl hung back by the flower display. I hovered in the entryway of an apartment building, trying to appear unremarkable, and waited for something, anything, to document. A keen sense of purpose and fear buzzed in my gut. Norton lifted the girl into the air and swung her around, and she screamed in Spanish at him. He set her down and she swatted up at his chest. I guessed that she was Gloria’s daughter, but I could not be sure.
Gloria emerged and the three continued onward to the next block. They approached big apple aikido, a small storefront beside a housewares boutique. I slipped behind a car and watched Norton give the girl a high five and talk for a minute or so with Gloria. It may have been an argument; I swear I heard him say something like, “You’re not my damn boss,” and she replied in Spanish. Norton pivoted and headed inside the dojo, leaving Gloria to curse something in the direction of the sky.
When her gaze drifted to mine, I took off, walking hastily down Ninety-Fourth Street, veering left and right at people and cabs. Get it together, I told myself. Gloria would never recognize me after having met me only once.
I stopped at a crosswalk outside a Starbucks and unraveled my scarf. The café was crowded, but I found a seat in the corner and caught my breath. A Bonnie Raitt song played. The smell of dark, earthy coffee beans hung in the air. I ran my hands through my hair, took a few deep breaths, and focused on an empty paper cup someone had left on the table. The logo of the two-tailed mermaid siren grinned back at me. She was both seductive and motherly with her ample chest, her arms and posture open. Vulnerable, but hidden at the same time, she posed with her hair covering her chest, the logo cutting off just above the place where her navel would be.
I reminded myself of the reason that I was in New York.
Gloria and the girl had left by the time I returned to the dojo. I leaned against a Duane Reade and waited for Norton to emerge across the street.
Just after two, he came out with some friends, all of them talking at once, and I trailed them to a nearby Turkish café, a charming place where I would not expect to find a group of boisterous tween boys. Inside the café, I glanced around at the narrow space, its uneven wood floors painted gold and its walls covered in ornate tiles. I asked the host, a kindly small man, for a table of one and he led me to the far corner of the place, five tables away from the booth where Norton and his friends were now seated. “Enjoy yourself,” the host told me as he handed me a menu.
A few people came through the front door, one an attractive older man with a shaved head and a gray goatee—Rick McClatchy, for whom I had written The Contemplative Gardener: The Joys of Urban Planting and Cultivating Quiet. He was a daytime talk show host. We had met a couple of times, and at the moment, I wished this were not true, as I hardly wanted to explain why I was in New York. But now as he passed my booth, he looked down at me. “Allie?”
“Oh, Rick, hi!”
“What’re you doing here?” he asked.
“Seeing a friend,” I managed. How natural lying had become.
He half-nodded and ducked his head, and I understood that he, too, was at a loss as to how to handle this situation. Introduce me to his friends, who may well have known nothing about me? “You look good. Everything all right with you?” he said. We exchanged awkward pleasantries and he said, “Well, I’ve got to use the restroom and get back to them.”
“Of course. Nice to see you, Rick,” I said, and reached for a menu. If they did not know he had worked with a ghostwriter, how might he identify me to his friends—a neighbor, perhaps? A cousin?
I ordered tea, and watched Norton and his friends. The fact of their choosing a rather cosmopolitan café told me plenty about his level of taste, although nothing that I could not have guessed. The acoustics here were poor, and all the voices joined in one murky din. Norton socked a friend on the arm, but mostly the boys just laughed and ate and made gestures with their fingers. I could only imagine Lana’s reaction to Norton flickering his tongue between his fore and middle fingers. Maybe I would drop that into our book.
I had to improve my attitude, to shed my bitterness.
I followed Norton and his friends out and trailed them as they headed to a brick apartment building two blocks away. They disappeared inside, and I bought a hotdog from a nearby food truck, then paced the block. I wandered around a stationery store and ogled the letterpress cards, the wood-scented candles. I cradled a heavy paperweight in my hands, melted obsidian that looked like a small human brain within a glass globe. The woman at the register watched me as if I might steal the thing, and a little defeated, I decided to call it a day.
On the bus ride home, I assessed what I had seen: Gloria, Norton, and a girl who may have been Gloria’s daughter behaving like an average family. A sibling tussle followed by a mother-son tiff. It was not unimaginable that Gloria was more of a mother to Norton than Lana. I guess I did not blame Lana for training her gaze on loftier goals than motherhood, but a part of me resented all that I was expected to provide in her reaching said goals. Would she have become the Lana Breban without people like me? And what about Gloria? Would Lana even have been able to raise a son or work half as much without her?
Over the years, I had turned Betsy McGrath, a pro-business, regressive congresswoman, into an environmental historian. For a good six months, I had impersonated Nick Felles. If nothing else, it was better to impersonate Lana Breban than these others.
Maybe she was secretly ashamed of being a hands-off mother. When I considered the possibility, I thought it unlikely. Shame—certainly shame about motherhood—seemed distinctly un-feminist to me, and anyway, Lana had dozens of reasons to be proud.
Since she could not give me any real time, I would have to spend some virtual time with Lana the woman, the human being behind the public force. The first video I found on youtube showed her three years earlier, speaking before a congressional committee. Her hair still close-cropped and a rich blue, she sat rod-straight in a silver blazer, her hands planted on each side of the microphone, a row of zoned-out white-haired men behind her. She had no notes. Here was the magnetic presence that I remembered. She thanked the committee and, leaning forward, began: “We live in a time of bifurcation. Racial bifurcation; the haves and the have-nots. Our government has become strictly bifurcated along party lines. But I’m not here today as a Democrat or a Republican, or a rich or poor person.” She shook her head for emphasis.
Oh, really, I said aloud.
“I am here today as a woman. I am speaking to you today as a feminist, a person who wants better things for all women. Now, some people don’t like the word ‘feminist.’ They hear only negative connotations: ‘aggressive, bitter, short-sighted, elitist, man-hater.’ Some women would like to rename feminism ‘womanism’ or ‘humanism.’ I am here to tell you that labels do not matter. Because lives are at stake. Families are at stake. The lives of our women and children. The lives of our mothers and babies, and poor people in our country—poor women and poor children.” She addressed a new income-assistance program that had just been passed, and her voice rose with certain verbs: “oppress” and “provide” and “nurture.” She exuded an easy and consistent assurance and, with it, rock-solid authority. “And your program that supposedly sets out to enhance the ‘welfare’ of poor people? Your program that saddles women with rules about every minute of their time and work? I tell you—you’ve gotten welfare rolls down, but poverty is up. Way up. Because of the limits and some other short-sighted choices, there are women who cannot even afford enough food or doctors for their children, or medicine or childcare that would, in fact, let them work more and earn more money. And so women are forced to juggle an infeasible amount.”
Focusing solely on her style and mannerisms was impossible. This was her talent; her message was
her style. Strength and authority and power were, of course, the goals she set for other women.
“And we get caught in a punishing cycle that cannot be broken. Some women have turned to crime, to drugs. Some women, because they are unable to be in two places at once, have lost their children to the states, to foster care.”
She broke to take a sip from the glass of water before her. After she set it down, she drew a deep breath in and looked all around the room. She was in charge right now, and she was in no rush. Never Apologize.
I gazed down at my hands, a little chapped and pale, now resting by the keyboard. A long, white scar cut across between my left thumb and forefinger from the time I grabbed a hoe by the wrong end on a job planting azaleas.
Lana went on to speak about entitlement reform for the wealthy, and ended with the story of a woman who worked as a dental hygienist during the day and at McDonald’s at night, a woman whose four-year-old son was taken from her by the state after she’d had to leave him home alone for ten minutes to run down the street and give her landlord a rent check.
I sank. “By the grace of God . . . ,” I began, never a religious person, and closed my laptop.
Here was Lana Breban, a woman who was all but directing the national discourse on gender equality, the person regularly featured as a foremost expert in law and discrimination—and I was being asked to portray her singing lullabies to her son? Maybe she had been convinced to alter her image in service of some future electability—or maybe not-so-future electability, in the wake of November 8. The country, the electoral college at least, had opted for Hollywood celebrity and disruption over relevant job experience, nationalist values over globalism. We had chosen a man with a longtime history of “locker-room talk” over a woman he had accused of playing “the woman card.” I hated to think that reductive insults like the latter may have swayed voters. Some mornings I still woke having forgotten about the election, newly stunned by the results.