by Heidi Pitlor
I set my fingers on the keys.
“The time will come when your boy is, of course, no longer a boy.”
The cursor blinked at me, waiting. In that moment, I could not write any more. I did not want to. I closed my laptop and went outside to join them, to stop them, maybe, and maybe in some way to attempt to stop time.
I printed out the whole book, made a neat stack of pages on the kitchen table, and gave myself a moment to take in the sight. The sense of accomplishment that came at the end of a draft, even with this, my eleventh (not counting Nick’s), was more profound than any I had known. To finish a book is to reach land after a long and often grueling swim.
I sent Lana, Gin, and Colin the file. I said a prayer that they, especially Gin, would not ask for too many changes and that she would deem it sufficient to release payment.
My mother called. “Honey, I’m sorry about all that I said.”
“I’m sorry, too,” I said. “I probably shouldn’t have called you guys judgmental. Even if you are.”
“We are not.”
“Maybe just a little?” I said. “And also, I shouldn’t have told you about working with Lana.”
“It’s okay. We’ll let it go now,” she said. She took a sip of something. “This morning I had to hear about Patty’s granddaughter’s ability to speak Mandarin. She can also recite almost all of MLK’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.”
“Get out. How old is this girl?”
“That’s not the point,” my mother said. “But she’s five.”
“That is incredible. Cass can’t even write his own name yet.”
“So what? He’s a good artist. His grandmother doesn’t brag about him incessantly to her friends. He has this going for him.”
“Maybe I should start talking to Cass about people like MLK, and maybe Gandhi or Malala.”
“If he’s interested in them. Otherwise, just leave him be. He’s a sweet boy, a creative, quirky kid and he’s doing just fine the way he is. You’re both doing great. You’ve got a really interesting career. You’re doing far better than I was when you were a toddler.”
“Really? Thanks, Mom,” I said. “You know, I think you need a nice long break from Patty.”
“Could be.”
A moment of relative ease came. Cass finally made a friend, a shy, polite boy named Carlos whose family had recently moved to an apartment in one of Jimmy’s houses on the next street. The boy’s mother, Luana, was a translator for various tech firms and, like me, worked from home. She was funny and gregarious; we got along instantly. Carlos introduced Cass to PAW Patrol, and at our house, the two played imaginative games in which they pretended to be dogs performing rescue missions on each other or stuffed animals. One afternoon, Carlos found Cass’s old Barbie Bride under the bed and held it up, laughing. “Why do you have a girl’s toy?” Carlos said.
“Toys aren’t like that. They don’t have private parts,” Cass said as I walked by. “Look—”
After a pause during which I assumed they lifted Barbie’s layered satin and crinoline skirt (should I intervene? No, I would not intervene), Carlos said, “See?”
“There’s no vagina.”
“But she’s wearing girls’ panties,” Carlos said.
“Time for a snack!” I said.
That afternoon, Bertie called. It sounded as if things were going well in Wichita. She had her own good-sized bedroom, she told me, and the weather had been decent. She was getting to know her granddaughter Natalie better. “We play Pretty Pretty Princess a lot. I think Nat has every single Disney princess costume ever made.”
“Cool,” I said, and stopped myself from asking whether the girl had other less stereotypical interests. There was no need to become the vegetarian who lectured everyone on the evils of meat production. I wanted to ask about Bertie’s other grandchild, William, and whether she had yet visited him, and whether her relationship with Norm had improved. Had her memory gotten any worse? Was it difficult to live with other people after living alone for so long? But I just started with “We miss you.”
“Yes.”
“Kurt finally came home. And Cass made a friend, this boy named Carlos. He and his mom just moved into one of Jimmy’s places over on Birch.”
“Birch?”
“Birch Street.”
“Well, it was good to catch up,” she said abruptly, ending our short conversation.
Afterward, I thought about it a while. I wondered if it had become difficult for her to talk on the phone and to find the right words.
I looked dismally at my closet; the outfit that I had bought last fall at Ann Taylor would get me through one day in New York. I had yet to receive payment for Lana’s book—or even word that it had been deemed finished. Kurt encouraged me to “shop somewhere other than a big box store. I mean you’re going to New York to meet with the Lana Breban, right?”
At another store with clothes that I considered appropriate for my trip, if a bit dull, a woman roughly my age who wore navy slacks, a poncho, and heels followed me around at a distance. I noted her eyeballing my army jacket, my old Chuck Taylors. She watched me thumb through racks of identical gray slacks and white blouses, and I finally turned.
“I might need some help in trying to look professional,” I admitted.
“Of course. Let’s see.” She swept around the place, gathering black wool pants, a few blouses and sea-colored scarves. She faced me and squinted, as if trying to see me from afar. “I don’t know. Why don’t you try them on and we’ll take it from there?”
The fitting room was immaculate, a roomy square with a tan cushioned bench and a wood-framed mirror. It smelled of tea. The first blouse I tried on held and lifted my breasts, and the top button closed just low enough to reveal a hint of cleavage.
“The fabric feels so nice, but I think this is too small,” I told the woman when I stepped out of the changing room and in front of a three-way mirror.
“No! It sure isn’t. That blouse is just right for you. It’s okay to accentuate the girls a little. You look amazing.”
I loved this nickname, “the girls,” and I pictured my breasts as identical twins too long hidden beneath sweatshirts, finally given permission to peer out at the world. The saleswoman disappeared for a moment, and returned with a black leather belt, slid it around my waist, and fastened the buckle. She draped a wine-colored floral silk scarf around my neck and said, “Did you have any idea that you were this gorgeous?”
I assumed she said this to every customer, that she worked on commission. “Not, I mean, well, no,” I said, tugging at the scarf that felt tight around my neck. I had unwittingly jumped into a well-worn trope, the “before” in a “dazzling” makeover.
“That’s because you’re used to seeing yourself in old, ill-fitting men’s clothes.”
I felt the urge to justify something.
“Look at you!” She shook her head. “I would kill for those girls and those toned gams.”
Another clerk strode over to me and gathered my hair in her hands, holding it into a sort of bun. She cocked her head. “Jewelry,” the women said simultaneously. They dispersed and then brought me five different pairs of sterling silver earrings, a couple of necklaces, and three different bracelets.
It all became kind of embarrassing. I appreciated the attention, the feel and fit of the clothing, as well as the calming aroma of the fitting room, but I also missed the anonymity of Target, the young woman guarding the dozen cluttered changing rooms, her focus more on gabbing with another employee and refolding mountains of T-shirts than on me and my gams.
In the end, I bought one blouse, two pairs of pants, a pair of earrings, and a blazer. The total came to the equivalent of over three weeks at Little Rainbows. “A bargain for all these pieces,” the first woman said after she informed me of the total. Two other women stood next to her, along with a well-dressed twenty-something guy who had just showed up. They all beamed with pride as I handed them my credit card.
Two da
ys before I was scheduled to go to New York, I got a Google Alert: “Breban announces bid for US Senate.” I hurried to click on the link to The New York Times and saw that about an hour earlier Lana had filed for candidacy in the wake of the senior Democratic senator’s surprise announcement that he would not seek reelection next year, that he would instead retire.
I was at once stunned and unsurprised by Lana’s decision. I had detected something like this, but I had assumed that any campaign would be years off. She had never, as far as I knew, held a political office. Maybe the presidential election had been a catalyst.
“Great news, huh?” Colin said on the phone. “We desperately need more women in the Senate right now.”
“True,” I said. He had not sounded at all surprised. “How long have you known about this?”
“Oh, not so long.”
“A day? Six months?”
“At most a month or so. I wanted to tell you, but Lana’s people asked me to keep it quiet until now. Even with you. They only told me because they wanted to double-check something in her contract. They didn’t want you to write a book about a future senator. They wanted you to keep writing a book about a regular mom.”
“What? Why?”
“Who knows? We’re not the political experts. At any rate, a press release just went out. Major first print run. You should be psyched.”
“Nice,” I said, thinking I would be even more psyched if I were to earn any royalties on this book. “Did you read the draft yet?”
“I’ve got about fifty more pages. So far, so good. I like it! I mean, maybe a teensy bit heavy on the advice, and a little light on the mom-moir, but I’ve got some ideas to soften up the voice. We’ll talk more when I’m done.”
I blanched. Trying to balance feminism with traditional femininity had not been easy. Especially with a dearth of material. Even now I did not have a firm grip on Lana’s sense of humor, her marriage, her friendships, or really even her parenting style. The only time she had let her guard down, I thought, had been with Terri Gross when discussing childhood.
I emailed Lana to congratulate her, wondering for how long she had known of her campaign plans. Everything that had transpired in the past six months looked different now.
A few hours later, she replied: “Thank you. This book is more important than ever. Lana Breban as gentle mother, kind woman, human . . . LOL. My campaign manager says it could ‘win us the women’s vote’ (as if I didn’t already have that, I told her). Let’s make it happen, Allie!”
How strange, to refer to oneself in this way, to intimate even if jokingly that one was not in fact gentle, kind, or even human.
PART THREE
April – November, 2017
Chapter Fifteen
Cass and I rode the elevator to Lana’s floor. In the quiet, I recalled the thrill of being here about seven months ago, and the sensation that I was helping to right some cosmic wrong after the fallout from Nick Felles. Finally, so many of us had thought, we would have our woman president. In the months since then, some innocence, some necessary hope or optimism for the future, had begun to drain away. If nothing else, I was ready to move on to a new, more straightforward book and a client who was open and forthcoming, who asked for only my listening and writing skills.
Gloria took our coats at the door and led us into the dining room. I still knew nothing about her, not even whether that little girl had been her daughter. Gloria said Lana was at a meeting that was running late, but would be back in five or ten minutes. “I will come to get Cass when Lana arrives.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Really. This is such a help.”
She smiled and left, and he and I took seats next to each other at the table. Central Park looked different in April. The cherry trees and dogwoods had begun to bloom pinks and whites, and fewer people wandered the paths than in the summer. Cass swung his feet in his chair. He looked up at the wire and feather chandelier. “That looks like archery.”
Lana’s small dog nosed open the door and trotted over to me. “Hi there,” I said, and patted its head. It reared up on its hind legs, his hind legs, I now saw, and lapped his gritty little tongue against my hand as if it were something to drink. I tugged away from him and gave him a gentle shove.
“Hello, you two.” Lana stood in the doorway in a coat and leather gloves. “Let me go put my things away, and I’ll be back soon.”
“Great!” I said. It occurred me that I should tell Gloria a few things about Cass, and I went off to find her standing by a speckled black stone island beneath a sea of clear cylindrical pendant lights in the kitchen. “Just so you know, Cass can be a bit clingy with me,” I said, and she asked about his preferred activities. I thanked her again, and on my way back to him, I passed by the living room, a square, lofty space, a crowd of paintings and drawings on every wall. I peered over at one that I recognized, a Yayoi Kusama print, Waves on the Hudson River. All those white worm shapes with orange dots, their green carapaces, the vivid blue background. This was one of my mother’s favorites. I moved closer and realized with a start that it was the original. “Jesus,” I said to no one. I looked around to make sure that I was alone before I reached forward and touched the canvas.
In the dining room, Lana was now sitting beside Cass, and the dog had gone. “My friend here was telling me all about Dora and Diego. Cass says he’s seen every episode twice!”
“Oh!” I was mortified, and hoped he had not also mentioned his passion for Doritos and Ex-Lax. “Sometimes when it’s too cold to play outside, I let him watch—”
“Allie, it’s fine to watch a little TV!” she said. “I’ve heard that Dora is a good show. Kids learn problem-solving and Spanish, and there’s a strong girl lead.”
Thankfully, Gloria appeared. “You ready to go play?” she said to Cass.
He looked at me.
“I’ll be here the whole time,” I said. “I promise, Sweetie.”
“Okay,” he said and nodded, and I filled with pride as he stood and walked to the doorway.
“I apologize in advance if he breaks anything or tortures you,” I joked with Gloria.
“He’s in good hands. Stop worrying so much!” Lana pulled her chair closer to the table with an expression of distaste. In front of her now were her laptop, two phones, an iPad, and a small cup of coffee. “The others should be here any minute.”
Who were “the others”? I knew that Gin would come. But I had expected this meeting to be what Lana had proposed on our walk a couple months ago: Lana, Gin, and I combing through the pages together, while trying to wrap things up efficiently and quickly.
Lana checked one of her phones and asked me, her eyes still on the screen, “So, you’re divorced?”
“I’m single. By choice.”
“Good for you!”
“Well, not always,” I admitted, and tried to think of a way to change the subject. “Oh, hey, I loved you on Ellen.”
“That was a hoot. Did you know she is the sixth most followed person on Twitter? And she’s the fiftieth most powerful woman in the world? This is according to Forbes magazine. I got to see her Presidential Medal of Freedom,” Lana said, and set her hand on her heart.
“Wow!” I was not hugely surprised by these things, although I was surprised at Lana’s adulation. It seemed out of character.
“I still cannot believe she got me to sing on national TV. And get this—I was just asked to do Jimmy Kimmel. I hope he’s okay with my talking about women’s healthcare. I’ve got a campaign to run now.” Her other phone rang, and she excused herself to take the call.
Was the campaign the reason for additional people coming today? More people now wanted to chime in about the book? I hoped not.
When she returned a minute later, two other people followed her.
“Shirley Alexander, Allie Lang,” Lana said. “Shirley is managing my campaign.”
“The famous Shirley,” I said, recalling Colin’s mentions of her. I stood to shake the hand of this wiry wom
an in her thirties with a long blonde ponytail and disproportionally large brown eyes who had provided much of the early direction for the book.
A squat man with a sparse goatee and transition glasses, now oddly dark, stood beside Shirley, tapping at his phone. No one introduced us. We all took seats around the table, Lana and the other two on one side and I alone across from them.
“Colin is on his way with Gin,” Shirley told us. She and Lana began to chat about some staffing trouble up in Rochester.
Colin, too? I was surprised he hadn’t told me he was coming.
The man continued with his phone, and I tried in vain to make out his eyes behind his lenses. Why hadn’t the glasses adjusted to the light inside? How could he even see the screen of his phone right now?
Colin blew into the room alongside Gin, who touched my shoulder with either warmth or preemptive pity, I feared, as she passed.
Shirley laced all her fingers together. “So let’s talk about our book! Really good work so far, you two.” Her eyes moved between me and Lana. “The writing is smooth and smart, and a lot of ground gets covered. Lana, as always, your intelligence literally took my breath away. When I was on the subway yesterday, I was reading the part when you imagine your ideal kids’ clothing store and I accidentally yelled out ‘YES!’ Everyone looked at me like I was insane.”
The room fizzed with chuckles.
She turned to face Lana. “How are you so well versed about so many topics? You covered everything from gender-embedded language to, I mean, child neurology, the economics of bottle feeding? You had me wanting to go out and have a son just so I can teach him to respect women and girls.” She shook her head. “Can I just say that you never stop impressing me? Obviously this country needs a book like this—and a candidate like you—right this very minute.”
Colin nodded emphatically.
Shirley turned to me. “This is going to be a really wonderful book. There’s a lot here. But overall, I wondered if you might warm up the writing. You went pretty heavy on the academic, which I can understand, since this woman here”—she gestured to Lana—“is so deeply learned. But I’m talking more about the writing than anything else. Lana, you are just too intelligent for the rest of the world! And, well, this book is now in the position of being a campaign tool for us. I want everyone in New York State who reads this to fall in love with Lana.”