A Handbook for Beautiful People

by Jennifer Spruit

  This is so, so bad. “I don’t have other secrets. There’s nothing else I’m ashamed about.”

  He empties the rest of the water, sets the bucket beside the toilet, and flushes it, then stands up stiffly, like an old man. “You’re not understanding me. I want a family, not just a baby. I want a wife who doesn’t lie to me, a mother for my child who’s not coming off life as a sex worker.”

  That’s not fair. Marla wants to throw down a foolproof comeback about all the hooker moms she knows, but the list is pretty dismal. Dani. Her mom.

  Liam edges past her with the bucket. She can hear him in the living room stuffing the fast food containers in a garbage bag, swearing at the carpet. The baby kicks, and Marla can’t even bring herself to pat it because she feels so futile about all the yelling she’s done tonight. The poor thing is probably clutching its umbilical cord in fear. The whole house seems to sag, like all the fancy books and weird wire sculptures are sliding to the floor in a horrible heap with Liam in the middle.

  She kneels to help him clean. When he puts his hands on her shoulders Marla feels hope rising inside. Her belly brushes against him, and she wills the baby to kick again.

  “Marla, I’ll say this in the gentlest way possible. This—” Liam indicates the garbage bag full of floor food and the dirty rag in the pail behind her “—is not for me.”

  Marla doesn’t believe he’s serious, except that he’s stopped cleaning. He’s standing totally still. “But I have the ultrasound tomorrow, and my stuff is here. Are you asking me to move out?”

  “I don’t mind if you stay for a few days. But after that, I don’t know.”

  No. This is not happening. Marla feels like a piece of hamburger picked off the floor and held between two fingers. Dropped in a garbage bag.

  Liam takes the bag and the pail to the back door. She doesn’t wait. Marla puts her shoes on without doing them up and grabs her jacket off the banister so she can be gone before he even gets back to the room.

  Dani’s body is warm and soft in the twilight. Her room smells like yesterday’s pizza and unwashed feet, and Gavin is crying. He shakes his head like he could throw the tears off. He should have kept it simple, stayed in Belleville where there was nothing to care about. He clenches his fists, hating himself.

  Dani holds his head on her lap and finger combs his hair. He thinks about how she’s done this before, soothed men, tamed them. Been used by them. How Marla has too. He feels ashamed that he is a man like that who uses women like this. He knows it’s all fake, that he’s not actually interesting or good-looking enough to warrant this kind of attention. She does it because it’s what she does. He shrugs away from her touch, rolling onto his side to stare at the smudges on the wall.

  Dani pulls him back so he can see her face. “Here.” She hands him the money back, each bill still crisp and new.

  He waves it away, turns on the light to write. He does not deserve that money. GIFT TO YOUR SON.

  “You really mean that?”

  He nods. BUY HIM SUMMER CAMP OR SWINGSET. Gavin stabs his stubby pencil into the page, feeling like an idiot. He can’t even talk in front of a woman he’s slept with.

  Dani tosses his notepad on the floor, and Zigzag tears away with it, shaking it to kill it. She leans over Gavin. “Stop hiding behind your deafness and just talk to me.”

  Gavin doesn’t know which is worse—that she was pretending to care about him, or that a woman so full of baggage wants him. He’s half hard and snotty from crying, lying wrapped in Dani’s down quilt that smells of sleep and flesh and being a man. “Do you have STDs?”

  “Nope.” She strokes his arm, staring at him like it’s any other day and they’re going to fuck before he falls asleep in the smell of her hair.

  STILL HAPPENING? He looks at her carefully, trying to see in her eyes if she feels bad, guilty.

  “Not often. Say it—you think I’m disgusting.”

  The easy way out would be to tell her she is a worthless person who he hates, which would make her rain ashtrays down on him, but he’s too afraid. She would hurt him because it’s easy, then she would laugh at him. Gavin would have to sit alone upstairs watching the door to see if she’s coming in, looking out the window for her light on. She’s not afraid of him.

  And there is no easy way out of love. “Was it bad for you and Marla?”

  “Yeah. But we looked after each other.”

  “You hurt her tonight.”

  “She’s pretending, and that never works. I didn’t think you’d shove her. You can’t do that.”

  Gavin looks at his hands. He’s got to get out of this town. “I hate this about you and her.”

  Dani lifts his chin. “I don’t love it either.”

  “I feel like an asshole, like I’ll never be able to hold everything in.”

  She lays propped on an elbow. “You’re my asshole.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “Yeah, I do. And you know me.” She smiles at him, her face open and unconcerned. Loyal.

  Gavin is overcome with regret and hatred. Somehow even a prostitute is a better person than he is. One last time. Then he’ll go home, hitchhike if he must.

  She kisses him, gentle at first. Tentative, and it’s nice. Neither of them hear Marla come home. Then Dani straddles him, and he leans into her in wretched defeat.

  you suck, Dani

  je regrette, ma chérie

  everything’s out in the open

  as it should be

  The next morning Marla wakes up in her stale old bed with her clothes still on. Dirty light spills in around two tacked-up towels. One of her diner shirts is balled up behind the door, un-ironed. That’s where it was. Her cell phone alarm is ringing. Reminder: ultrasound.

  She rolls herself out of bed, her hands on her belly. She tries being happy, thinking about a chubby baby from a diaper commercial giving her gooey grins from the floor, but it’s totally disgusting. Her room is cluttered and gross, full of half-finished diet pop bottles and shoes. One of Dani’s ashtrays overflows on the dresser. Marla tells herself that the baby could have its own bedroom if she kicked Dani out. Or she could clean up and put a crib in here and a rocking chair, but how do you nurse in one of those? Will she nurse?

  Marla hangs her bathrobe on the repaired bathroom door and brushes her teeth, pinching her face in the mirror. She’s gained weight for sure. She looks rounder. Bags under her eyes from crying. Thick, long black hair that seems really shiny. She drinks three glasses of water. She takes her T-shirt and panties off and doesn’t turn the shower on, just stands there looking in the mirror.

  There are six scars, all faded white except the thickest, on her thigh, which is ropey and red. Dani put her back together that night with medical tape and cheap pink wine. Now with her broken arm curled into her body, her belly looks heavy and safe. An anchor right in her centre. Something that belongs.

  The bathroom door bangs open, and Gavin stares at her, his face white. He slams the door before she can say anything.

  She wraps herself in a towel and opens the door. He’s sitting against the opposite wall with his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. He holds up SORRY without looking at her.

  She kneels, wiggling her fingers in his face. “I’m sorry too. And I should have locked the door.”

  He gives her a quizzical look: palms up, expectant.

  “I live here again, of course.”

  LEFT LIAM?

  “No, he kicked me out.” While Gavin takes forever and a day to think out what he wants to write, Marla interrupts him to think out loud. “I have to get to my ultrasound appointment.”

  YOU SAD?

  Marla was mad at Dani and afraid Gavin wouldn’t speak to her, which would be the worst. She feels a sense of relief at not having to lie or worry what people think. These people like her anyway. Well, except Li
am. “Yeah, but I can get over a man. You?”

  SORRY ABOUT LAST NIGHT, FOR SHOVING YOU.

  “You were upset.”

  STILL. THINK I LOVE DANI.

  Dani, who Marla now thinks may have orchestrated last night to break her and Liam up, not out of hatred, but concern. She’d better be done hustling if she’s got Gavin in love with her. She wonders what Dani’s told him. “It’s okay. She could use it.” Marla hugs him, towel-clad, hard enough that she feels him catch his breath. The towel is scratchy on her skin, and the baby bumps into Gavin’s upper thigh. After a second, he wraps his arms around her too.

  Gavin thinks Marla’s body looks small on the table. The examination room is dark, with just the glow from the screen flickering against the white-tiled floor and the off-white walls. This is definitely the wrong place to tell her he’s going to hitchhike back to Belleville. Gavin shivers and wraps his arms tighter around himself.

  The bearded technician says something to make Marla scooch closer. He tugs at her pants, and she slides them down a couple inches to expose her pubic hair. Gavin tastes something sour in the back of his throat.

  He gets up to leave, but Marla grabs his hand. “Stay,” she says, her eyes big and soft. Afraid. Sad. He doesn’t know. Gavin sits down, and Marla resumes staring at the ceiling.

  If he cranes his neck, Gavin can see his nephew on the screen. He’s amazed at how much it really looks like a baby. It must be magnified. The view changes, and the baby looks like a skull, then a pulsing flutter that can only be his heart.

  The technician doesn’t speak to Marla. Gavin worries that Marla can’t see the screen and motions for the technician to turn it. “Sorry … can’t… position … pictures … end.”

  He writes for Marla. YOU SEE?

  “Not really.”

  Gavin takes a deep breath. “Your baby—” The technician is staring at him. Not frowning, just staring. This guy probably thinks Gavin is the father, some drunken puncher who caused Marla’s broken arm. Gavin sits up straighter. This is his sister who talked for him when he could not. Marla, who has always defended him. He tries again. “The baby’s eyes are wide-set. He’s sucking his thumb, no it just came out. He’s kicking.”

  Marla touches her abdomen, but the silent technician’s wand is there with its conductive goo. She holds Gavin’s hand instead, turning to face him. “Thank you,” she says, her eyes welling up.

  The technician interrupts to say something with a frowny face, and Marla heaves herself around to more properly face the wand.

  Gavin knows she would want him to keep going, so he tells her about how perfect the baby’s feet are, taps the heartbeat on Marla’s arm, says that the baby is strong and big.

  After the ultrasound, a young, smiley doctor with gelled hair comes in. He scans through the ultrasound results on screen with the technician. His face goes serious as he says two or three sentences to Marla, who looks stunned. But the heart was beating—Gavin saw it. The doctor turns to him. “… the father?”

  Gavin glances at Marla, miserable Marla. She doesn’t say anything, and Gavin nods to save her further pain. Sure. He’ll say he’s the father, because he’s not going anywhere. Gavin Parker doesn’t do abandonment, at least.

  “… soft … syndrome …”

  Gavin is lost. He hands the doctor a card. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

  The doctor is honest. “We don’t know yet.”

  12. COCONUT

  AT THE BUS STOP, Marla thinks, sorting the words. Soft markers for chromosomal abnormalities. Recommended genetic counselling and amniocentesis. Only two blood vessels in the umbilical cord. Echogenic intracardiac focus: bright spots on the baby’s heart.

  Marla hadn’t considered there could be anything but a healthy baby growing inside her. Even Dani had a normal kid. “They want me to have an abortion,” she tells Gavin. “They just can’t say so.”

  Gavin looks broken. He’s licking his lips. DEFORMITY?

  “Not an obvious one, but he said I’m more likely to miscarry or have a special needs baby.”

  They get on the bus, and Gavin reaches into his backpack to pull out his handbook. He draws a round smiling face with tufts of black hair and wide-set eyes. A smile with no teeth. BABY IS A BABY, he writes.

  Marla shakes her head. “What if he needs special appointments? What if he can never go to the bathroom by himself or can’t walk and doesn’t talk?”

  “I don’t talk, Marla.”

  People on the bus stare, and Marla sucks in a terrible breath. “That’s not what I meant. You know that.”

  “Your body is making a baby who needs faith and love. I know, okay, because I didn’t have that.”

  “I can be scared, Gavin.”

  “Don’t quit.”

  Marla shakes her head, more at herself than Gavin. “I won’t do that. I never have.”

  She’s not sure if that’s true once she factors in the lying and the prostitution and the drug use, but she doesn’t want to think about how often she’s chosen something that made sense on the surface only to realize she couldn’t stop what went wrong.

  Gavin pulls the cord to get off. “Where are you going?” she asks.

  He takes off his shoes and socks, arranging them in his backpack. “Running. See you at home.”

  baby might be messed up

  What do you mean?

  chromosome stuff

  What did they say exactly?

  get an amnio. big needle thingy.

  We’re so sorry, Marla. Have you called Liam?

  When Marla hears Liam pull up, she is waiting for Gavin on the tiny back deck. She decides that she can pull this off without getting emotional. She could co-parent with an ex. Lots of kids live like that.

  “I got your text.” Liam looks concerned, not in a boyfriend way, but an afraid way, like she might talk too long and make him late. He’s probably on his lunch break.

  She goes business-like. “I want you to know I’ll do whatever it takes: special classes, doctor’s appointments, leg braces—anything.”

  He nods, distracted. “We need to make a decision. As I see it, you have two options.” He says it like he’s been rehearsing in the car.

  “Me?”

  “Yes.” Liam lists options on his fingers. “Adoption or parenthood. I talked to Elise. She said you can get funding from some program?”

  Great. Now Liam is her mom. There’s a scraping sound from the basement as the window slides open wider. “Who told you to talk to Elise?” Dani hangs her head out like a garden gnome with a cigarette.

  Liam ignores her. “Let’s go somewhere else.”

  “I’ll be ready in a jiff,” Dani says, and Marla can hear her bounding up the stairs.

  Dani slams the screen door and then sits on the bench beside Liam, no shoes on, blowing smoke rings. “Where were we? And what are you doing here, girlfriend?”

  Marla rolls her eyes at Dani. “We broke up, dumbass.”

  Dani nods like a sage. Ash from her cigarette drops on Liam’s shoes. “Mmm hmm. And?”

  Gavin bangs through the back gate, his feet muddy and his jeans rolled up. He looks like a man who wrestled an alligator and then ate it. Dani grabs him around the waist and sits him down beside her. “Hey. We’re just helping Marla decide about her baby.”

  Liam turns his body away from Dani and speaks quietly. “Marla, don’t you think in light of last night, and your test results, we should consider what’s best for everyone? This might not be an ordinary child.”

  “What’s the matter?” Dani asks Gavin.

  “Baby’s not perfect.” Gavin twirls his finger around his ear, then makes it into a gun. Bang.

  “What the hell was that for?” Marla asks him. Gavin shrugs.

  Dani waves it off. “They say that to everyone. Everything’s going to be fine.”

&
nbsp; “Dani, I’m not fine,” Marla says, wilting. In her centre she feels the enormity of her baby, the heaviness of him, and she thinks about all the things she’s been doing wrong. The cigarettes she had before she knew, the hair dye she used, the car accident. The kale she bought and let get slimy in a bag in Liam’s fridge because she didn’t feel like eating it. All she’s really done is doodle baby names.

  Liam sidesteps Dani to put his arm around Marla. “Please, let’s go together to the agency this time.” Gavin puts his hands up, confused.

  “Whoa, what agency?” Dani bobs behind Liam. “Why would she give her baby away?”

  Liam exhales in frustration. “Stop it, Dani! Don’t talk for her.”

  She stands in front of him, arms crossed. “I look out for her, asshole. We look out for each other.” For a second Marla sees the Dani that Liam must see: bags under her eyes, dry skin, out here on this deck eavesdropping because she has nowhere better to be. A woman who’s irresponsible.

  Marla thinks about what Dani said, that Marla needs looking after, and what it says that her caregiver is Dani. “Babe, leave it. You’ve done enough.”

  She pulls Liam to the side, but she can still hear Dani and Gavin cooking up plans. “Please,” Liam says, and in the way he lowers his eyes then forces them back up to her she can see he needs looking after too. He’s nervous, and he wouldn’t be if he didn’t care about this child.

  “Yeah,” she says, ignoring Gavin shouting about abandonment. “I’ll go.”

  There’s a guy smoking pot in Dani’s basement. He has eyeliner on and red jeans he’s walked the bottoms off of. The same guy who was here before.

  He nods at Gavin. “I’m E.” He gestures to the pizza box. “Have at ‘er.”

  Gavin doesn’t sit. WHO THIS he asks Dani.

  “E.” Dani says. The man is laughing, his mouth open and his head thrown back. “My old dealer.”

  A dealer. Of course. Dani doesn’t go out, so the pills were coming to her. Gavin is so busy congratulating himself for figuring this out that he’s handed a piece of pizza before he can refuse. It smells amazing. MARLA WTF, RIGHT?