The light’s on in the bathroom. Gavin shifts his weight from foot to foot, like a boxer psyching himself up, but finds that he’s limping, having run too long on the injury. He pushes the door open without knocking.
Dani lies in the tub with a wet towel over her eyes, her breasts floating in the soapy water. She doesn’t look up, so he bangs on the side of the tub with his fist.
Dani startles, splashing him as she rips the towel off.
Gavin holds his notepad up. YOU HURT ME.
He can see her stomach muscles relax. “Let’s see.” She doesn’t sit up, just rolls her head towards him.
Gavin pulls his pant leg up to show her the bruise on his knee. Seeing its purple colour, Dani grows a lazy smile.
“Looks painful,” she says.
Gavin refuses to be emotionally manipulated. He will not be afraid. DON’T LIKE THAT YOU.
“I’ve had a shitty time.” She looks at him, snide. “Marla moved out.”
That’s her fucking with him. He chooses to ignore it. She reaches down, fingers herself with a lost, big-eyed look. Gavin backs up but she keeps at it, her mouth open. She’s playing.
Gavin points to the spoon and the lighter on the floor. NOT HOW A MOM ACTS.
Dani stops abruptly and rises partway out of the water, her hands braced behind her against the base of the tub. “I told you, my son is none of your business.”
Gavin’s pant leg hangs awkwardly, his hairy calf showing below the bruise on his knee. DID YOU HIT HIM?
Dani sinks back into the water and lathers her leg. “You and Marla. Neither of you understand a thing about love.”
WHY HE NOT HERE? I DON’T TRUST YOU.”
“I don’t trust anyone, Gavin. That’s the way it is.” Dani runs her razor from ankle to knee, watching Gavin’s face.
TOO LATE, THEN?
“It’s been too late since I can remember.” Dani laughs, her face contorting like a funhouse mirror person. She goes on with it too long, mocking him or lost in herself, he can’t tell. She waves the razor in the air, her mouth wide open.
He writes, DON’T EVER ATTACK ME AGAIN, rips the sheet off and presses it to her stomach in the tub. She lurches up like she’s afraid and for a moment, he congratulates himself.
10. TRIPLE SCOOP ICE CREAM CONE
Moving in with Liam. picking you up tomorrow
what? why?
be ready
EARLY THE NEXT DAY Marla returns to pack. She grabs garbage bags, shopping bags, and the plastic bin they put the bottles in from under the sink. Everything is immaculate: dishes neatly done, her spice jars labelled. She looks for Gavin in his room, but he’s not there.
He’s cleaning out the hall closet, part of what she sees as his relentless makeover of her and her stuff. Pretty soon everything will be categorized and organized and sanitized and empty. Gavin’s looking through a suitcase of their mother’s clothes that Marla has been telling herself she would throw out for three years, ever since Candace forgot to come back for it. Like Marla really believed her mother could get her shit together.
“Why are you limping?”
Gavin holds a sequined top and shakes it at her. WHAT’S THIS?
She sees something wrong in her relationship with Gavin, something ominous, but can’t put a finger on it. She refuses to think about it. “Why are you going through my stuff?”
Gavin gives her a look, as if to say she was his mother too. Like it’s Marla’s fault. DIDN’T KNOW YOU HAD THESE.
“Take them.” She edges past Gavin into her bedroom with her bags and starts filling them with her own clothes.
Gavin folds in the hallway, watching her. Vest with a fringe. Acid washed jeans, size 2. He makes everything neat. As if it was symbolic of something, as if it really mattered. This is what I come from, Marla thinks. A lost woman with slutty clothes.
WHEN YOU LAST SEE HER?
“Years ago, when she was going to recovery again. She’ll never change.”
BUT YOU KEEP THIS.
“Didn’t you get my text? Why aren’t you packed?”
He waves her question away. YOU SHD FORGIVE.
Marla shoves her belts and purses into a garbage bag. “Aren’t you angry at her?” How can he not remember? Marla pushes down the thorny business in her child welfare file that threatens to overwhelm her, but it’s too much. Gavin holds her hands and gazes into her eyes with such calm that she feels release.
REMEMBER HER DOG, POO-POO?
Marla does, and watching movies together, leaning against her mom’s chest, and the birthday cake her mom got her from Dairy Queen when that was the only thing she wanted. But it hurts Marla to think about her mom loving her and Gavin because it seems like every other emotion she feels must balance on that.
SHE BROKEN TOO.
Marla gets up. That doesn’t excuse anything. “Yeah. And I can’t fix her.”
Gavin helps her fold her clothes into bags. DANI SAME. TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED WITH HER SON.
“Why?”
WHERE IS HE?
“Away from her.” Marla ties up a garbage bag and throws it towards the door. She starts packing her poetry binders into a shopping bag. She hefts it, then double bags it.
HOW OLD?
“Five. Why don’t you ask Dani these questions?” She takes clothes from the closet and packs them in the bin, hangers on.
I DID.
“If she doesn’t want to tell you, I’m not going to.”
SHE DEPRESSED. THINK USING HEROIN.
Marla raises her eyebrows. “You can’t save her, Gavin. Can you get your stuff? I want to get this done before she wakes up.”
I STAY, HELP HER.
Marla turns away so Gavin won’t see her mouth hanging open. Staying? It’s an ugly kind of relief, knowing someone more fresh and giving than her is going to be dutiful. Someone with less at stake. She pushes the lid on the plastic tub and clicks it closed. “Whatever you want,” she mutters.
OKAY, RIGHT? He chews his pencil.
“Yeah. Great.” It’s not like he doesn’t know what kind of person Dani is. Gavin will be safe. Just in case, Marla gives him what she considers the need to know: “The baby was taken away when he was two and a half because she was using crystal meth.” Marla doesn’t tell Gavin about Kamon waiting in the car while Dani turned tricks.
Gavin does a deaf-guy whistle that makes him sound like he’s blowing up a balloon. WHY NOT QUIT?
“She did, but she had no place to live—she and Kamon were staying in shelters or with friends, people who weren’t baby material. She only had a certain amount of time to get everything together, and it just didn’t happen. Her mom stepped in.” Marla remembers them living in Dani’s car, Dani tucking Kamon into bed on the backseat. Then she didn’t even have a car. Poor Dani. “It wasn’t all her fault.”
WHERE THE FATHER?
Marla hesitates. “She doesn’t know who the father is.”
Gavin gets her to repeat that sentence. He sits, thinking. CAN HELP. SHDN’T BE ALONE.
He’s so earnest, her brother. She hugs him. “Maybe you’re right. Just be careful. She’s pissed at me.” Marla pulls at the tote bin with her good arm but can’t lift it.
Gavin takes it from her with one hand. I’M NOT AFRAID OF HER. Gavin’s biceps flex as he heaves her stuff out the door, out of this place forever, which makes Marla forget how strange it was for him to say that.
Gavin leaves Dani alone all the next day, thinking about her son and how he must be the child of a rape and that’s why she’s dug herself into such a hole. At night, he creeps downstairs with the untouched money from under Marla’s pillow, following the blue glow of the TV. He feels bigger this time, ready to help.
As he rounds the corner at the bottom of the stairs, some guy strides past him, not saying anything, brushing Gavin’s
shoulder. Gavin is so startled he flattens himself against the wall. A robber? He’s not sure whether to chase the guy or make sure Dani’s okay. He looks: she’s folded into a pink blanket on her chair, flicking through channels like nothing’s wrong, Zigzag sleeping at her feet. He runs over.
She jumps up, startling the puppy. “Fuck, Gavin. I could have killed you!”
He’s panting, adrenaline roaring through him as he scrambles to write. YOU OKAY? WHO THAT?
She laughs like he’s ridiculous, but doesn’t answer his question.
HE TAKE ANYTHING?
Dani’s leaning over the edge of the recliner without getting up, so he’s not sure if she’s read what he wrote. She slides a wooden baseball bat from under her chair, raising her eyebrows.
Gavin backs up instinctively, having lost his swagger in an instant.
“No, come here. It’s for just in case. You know.”
Gavin does not know. Is it for the guy who was just here, or are there other people peering in windows or sneaking in? Gavin wonders if she’s hiding here, like the rapist father was a stalker who knew her every move and now she can’t live in her old place. But that would have been a long time ago.
BROUGHT YOU THIS. He hands her the cash he withdrew for Marla. HELP YOU.
Dani hands it back to him. “No.”
OR YOUR SON.
“You want to pity me?”
WHAT?
“We can do that. I see him once a month. His birthday is February 17. He had a soft blue car that he drove around. I got him potty-trained the week they took him away. It was right before Hallowe’en.”
Gavin strokes her hair. I’M SORRY.
She pats the arm of her chair, and he sits. She exhales, and he can feel her breath on his arm. “No, I’m sorry I’m such a cunt about it. Kamon lives with my mom, and I’m trying to get him back.”
Kamon. SO YOU MUST BE GOOD.
“I should be better.” She fishes in her chair for some pills in a small Ziploc bag and holds them in her hand, fingering them. She hands him the bag.
I DON’T—
“No, I know. Flush these for me.”
He does, excited that she’s going to get well. She won’t be angry and fucked up anymore. He makes a mental list for her: open the curtains, cook together, spend time outside walking, learn more about her son. He walks back down the dark hallway to Dani.
She reaches for him with her eyes. “How come you’re not all moved out with look-at-me Marla?”
He keeps his eyes on hers, his jaw loose. An almost imperceptible shrug.
She caresses her breasts. “A guy like you can’t leave all this behind, can he?”
He shakes his head, holds her hand in his, putting it on his chest, then pointing to her: I love you. Dani doesn’t care that he’s deaf, doesn’t treat him like he’s delicate. He would never leave her behind. He sets the money on the table and takes her in his arms, softly at first, as if Dani was not quite real. She opens her mouth to meet his and lets him hold the back of her neck, arching into him this time like she’s small and desperate and needs him more than he needs her.
Don’t forget our appointment this afternoon.
yep. got it.
Not even twenty minutes after making love, Marla and Liam get up. It’s not like her house, with leisurely coffees and Dani’s music blasting. They dress and get right to work unpacking her scented oils, binders of loose leaf poetry, and rock concert T-shirts. She stuffs things into the hall closet and the cupboard on top of the fridge. She puts away her garbage bag full of shoes and Liam does her clothes. This is the kind of house where anyone could feel purposeful and together—just look at how they’re working as a team!
“Elise wants to take me to the adoption agency today.”
Liam is hanging skirts by colour. “I wish I could come, but I have to work.”
Marla knows she’s not dumb enough to be tricked into adoption, especially now that she has a fiancé who actually wants a baby. Sort of. “But we don’t need that. I mean, we’re not going to, you know.”
He shrugs. “Just go see, that’s all. Make her happy.”
So, later Marla is waiting for Elise on Liam’s couch in her fancy clothes when a different older woman wearing expensive jogging gear enters with twin boys. She’s surprised to see Marla and puts a hand out to stop the boys from taking their shoes off. “Sorry, I didn’t realize Liam was with another student.” She eyes Marla’s broken arm. “I guess we’re a bit early.”
Marla can hear Liam tuning his strings down the hall. She puts on her grown-up voice, which is like the one she uses to waitress, except less slutty. “I’m not a student, I’m his fiancée.”
The woman does a double take. “Oh my.” She stares at Marla’s pregnant girl-body. “Are you expecting?”
“Yes, in July.” Marla aims her belly out, smoothing her shirt over it. The woman looks kind of impressed.
Liam emerges from the bedroom, wiping his hands on his pants. “Mrs. Jackson,” he says, surprised. He glances at his watch. “I must have lost track of time.”
“Don’t worry about it. I think we’re early.” Mrs. Jackson gestures to Marla. “I was just chatting with—I’m sorry, I don’t know your name—”
“Marla,” Liam and Marla say together, their eyes on each other. She knows it’s his way of telling her to be normal for a woman who pays him every week. She sits up straighter and gives a fake smile to prove herself.
When the little boys have dropped their backpacks on the mat and followed Liam down the hall with their mini cellos, Mrs. Jackson sits on the couch and takes wool from her bag.
Marla puts down the magazine she was reading and props her chin in her hands. This is a primo research opportunity. “So. Twins. Do you ever just wish for one?”
Mrs. Jackson looks up, a bit startled. “Not anymore. I felt pretty overwhelmed at the beginning, though.”
This gal is in the real woman club. She has her stretch marks and knows how to put on a diaper and when to call the doctor. “What’s it like?”
Mrs. Jackson crosses her legs and laughs nervously. “Parenting? It’s good. It’s hard.”
“Did you always want kids?”
“It was a whole thing, going through IVF and being on adoption wait lists. Really stressful.”
“IVF?” Imagine having a price tag on your kid. “How long were you on an adoption wait list?” Mrs. Jackson looks up from her knitting. “I mean, I don’t know much about it.”
“The approval process alone takes months, and then it can take years to be chosen.”
Chosen. Marla didn’t know that. She thought the agency assigned every unwanted baby a mom and dad. “But those are your actual kids, right?”
“Yes, our biological sons. We’re very fortunate to have Lincoln and Grady.”
Marla runs her hands under the coffee table, feeling for gum she can squeeze, but of course there isn’t any. Mrs. Jackson sets her knitting needles down and leans forward. “Can I say something?”
“Sure.”
“I don’t want this to sound rude, but there are lots of really good families waiting for a baby. I mean, if you’re not sure.”
Marla jumps up and puts on false cheer. “Oh, no. We’re very happy. Liam’s always wanted kids.” Mrs. Jackson smiles politely, and Marla sees Dave and Elise pulling up outside. She grabs a jacket and takes off out the front door without a word like a twelve-year-old. Marla wishes Dani were here to tell her Mrs. Johnson’s clothes are obviously so tight as to have cut off the circulation to her brain. Dani wouldn’t listen to a know-it-all music mom for five seconds.
The office door reads “Choices” in splashy letters, as if the font alone might make a woman whimsical and carefree. Through the glass Marla can see another pregnant woman in the waiting room. As Dave opens the door, Marla hears her talking on her phon
e, tapping her nails on the glass coffee table. “Yeah, I said I’ll do it. Don’t give me that shit.”
There are posters of babies on the walls of the adoption agency, which makes loads of sense to Marla: the real customers come here to get a child. The babies are round like babies should be, smiling mostly, sitting in pudgy piles with each other, wearing only diapers. The message is clear: this is a baby store. Marla thinks about all the babies in the world and hopes they will all be as happy as her and Liam’s baby is going to be. She smiles at the other mom on the phone, feeling glad that a place like this exists for women like her.
Elise leads her to the counter. The receptionist is warm and squishy like cooked spaghetti. “So glad to have you here, Marla,” she says, as if adoption is the only logical decision and this gal decided so while Marla was on her way. “Please have a seat.”
Marla sits between her foster parents, noting with some satisfaction that this baby-grabbing facility at least has the decency not to fill the racks with magazines about parenting.
“Marla and family: follow me, please.”
The adoption counsellor’s accent is pure poise—New Zealand maybe. She shakes Marla’s hand while holding a big blue teacup. In her office, the counsellor gestures for everyone to sit on the couch, a long smooth number that feels too red. Her office has a view of the mountains and joggers on the river pathway. There are paintings of opening flowers, making this place as soft and cozy as someone’s living room, not where you would go to give away your own child. “I’m Cynthia. Pleased to meet you.”
Marla nods a greeting as the door clicks closed. There is no street noise, no music, no sound, just the slippery noise of clothes on leather as she and her foster parents sit.
“Hi. I’m Marla, and this is Dave and Elise.”
Cynthia nods to them, and Marla can tell she and Elise have met before, or at least talked on the phone. “Tell me, how can I help?”
Marla knows this is where she’s supposed to start gushing about wanting the best for her baby and the many totally competent couples who can’t make kids of their own, but that’s not her. “I don’t want to give my baby up. That’s my mother’s idea.” Marla was going to say foster mom, but it sounded too trashy.
A Handbook for Beautiful People Page 14