A Handbook for Beautiful People

by Jennifer Spruit

  Don’t know.

  This time Cynthia is there with her smart heels and her shoulder bag. She’s wearing social worker incognito, which looks a lot like what Liam calls business casual: a solid colour power skirt that goes to the knee, blouse, and a scarf tied really pretty with tufts that Marla admires.

  Cynthia allows Liam to pull her chair out for her and push her in, and she smiles at Marla as she opens her napkin and lays it on her lap.

  Marla, who had been seated by Liam five minutes ago, promptly opens her own napkin, dumping the cutlery on the table with a loud clank before spreading the napkin carefully under her baby. She can’t get as close to the table as she would like, even by turning her chair slightly sideways.

  “They just texted that they’re parking the car,” Cynthia says. “Hannah didn’t want you to think she would be late.”

  Marla feels immediate sympathy for Hannah, who she pictures looking in the flip-down mirror to check her hair and makeup, smoothing her dress, anxiety rising in her throat, asking her husband if she looks okay, because this could be it, we really want to be on our best here and I can’t believe the traffic! She’s probably got a real hustle on, running carefully so as not to appear out of breath or windswept. Josh is probably holding her purse for her and clicking the car locks without looking back to see if he rolled up the windows.

  “These people are amazing on paper,” Liam is saying. “They were my first choice.”

  They have good jobs and lots of education, but Marla likes them because they seem really normal. They ride bikes along the river and try a new restaurant every month. “They love each other,” she says. Who wouldn’t want that?

  Marla knows it’s them in the doorway as soon as she sees them. Hannah is breathing with her hand on her chest, her lips pursed like the baby lady told Marla to do when she’s in labour. Blowing it out. She looks just like her picture, which Marla’s been holding in her head: Hannah with her head softly tilted, gazing up at the camera from the beach. This Hannah is just like that, Marla tells herself. Please be just like that.

  Josh is grinning and looking around, and when he sees Marla parked right up to the side of the table he loses all the tension in his shoulders and clasps his hands. Something is wrong with the way he is looking at her—she can’t read his eyes, and then she realizes it’s because they’re watering. All gratitude.

  Cynthia notices Hannah and Josh and waves them over, but Marla has already gotten up. She bumps between tables, sideways-ing it, her arms open until they meet in the middle of the restaurant. Hannah enfolds her in a hug. Josh has his arm around them both.

  “Hello, Marla,” Hannah whispers.

  Marla wants this moment to last forever, the way she’s crying and being held and holding someone else and the baby is between them, a person with so much love. She meets Liam’s eye across the restaurant. He’s on his way, nodding and biting his lip to keep from spilling over too.

  We found them.

  found who, honey?

  a mom and dad. so perfect.

  will they let us visit?

  Nephew measurements:

  Weeks

  Waist

  15

  29 inches

  18

  30.5 inches

  19

  30.75 inches

  22

  31.5 inches

  25

  33 inches

  26

  33.5 inches

  28

  35 inches

  30

  36 inches

  33

  38 inches

  36

  39 inches

  38

  39.5 inches

  Marla sleeps in Gavin’s room because he’s not answering her texts. Except she can’t sleep because the broken crib makes her cry. She picks through the pieces, looking for what is salvageable. She takes the sandpaper from the shelf and smooths the rough edges, thinking about what she should do.

  She texts Liam. need to see Gavin.

  The pages of his handbook are scattered around, and she sets down the wood to collect them. Every page is something different: poetry, drawings, origami in pockets. An eggplant recipe. Pieces of a patchwork quilt.

  Her phone buzzes. He’s working out some stuff and said no distractions.

  It’s killing her she doesn’t know what happened. What stuff?

  Not up to me to say. I think he’s actually an angry person.

  Angry? Marla uncoils the orange scarf she’s wearing and examines it. It’s just right: soft and vibrant. Marla shears it into long strips, then cuts the strips into angular shapes. Rectangle, square, rhombus, triangle. She glues them onto the thick cardboard of the diaper box, making bumps in the fabric on purpose. There’s an art word for this that Elise would know, but Marla doesn’t care. She’s going on gut.

  I’m coming tomorrow morning. She unravels a pink baby toque and glues bits of yarn here and there like cotton candy drizzle. This is how she would make her binder if she wanted to adopt a kid.

  I’ll let him know. If he wants to visit he can be there.

  Liam and Gavin are kinda similar, now that she thinks of it. Rule-oriented. Careful about how they look. Don’t like surprises. Didn’t have fathers. While the front and back covers dry, Marla lays out the ripped-up pages and tapes them back together. She uses scotch tape and stickers and band-aids. She draws faces and trees. She traces the words Gavin wrote and cries.

  She cuts out an ultrasound picture and tapes it down. She writes “Gavin’s Nephew” below it. She binds all the pages together with clips she’s lifted from the medical clinic, and elastic bands them between the covers. On the outside, she writes with permanent marker, “A Handbook for a Beautiful Person.”

  Marla brings the handbook for Gavin, and for Liam, one of the nude drawings she sat for. It’s a picture she loves because of the geometry of her body: her triangle leg and her half circle arm, her watermelon baby and her dark round nipples. She’s going to ask Gavin to move back in with her.

  Gavin is watching it storm from a lounge chair on the deck, his crutches by his side. He’s shaved his head, which makes him look smaller. Younger. Lightning snakes against the sky, and he taps the chair, counting the seconds like she taught him to years ago, his other hand flat on the glass so he can feel the thunder. She puts her hand on his. “Come inside,” she tells him. “I miss you.”

  His smile seems hopeful, like he was afraid she wouldn’t come. “How are you feeling?” he asks. He signs at the same time, and Marla’s taken aback.

  “I’m good. How about you?”

  Gavin ladles something off the stove into a mug, something meaty with bones in it, which makes Marla think of hot dog water. “Working on getting better. I met with another deaf guy today, a mentorship kind of thing. It’s part of my list.” He unfurls it to show her.

  It’s a huge list, with bullet points and cross-references. She skims, getting the gist of things. Meet more deaf people, find his dad, a bunch of dietary and training stuff. Go back to school. “This is a lot to do.”

  “I know.” Gavin takes a sip of the steaming meat water and looks down. Marla doesn’t like to see him stooped over.

  “But you’re signing again. That’s good.”

  He nods at Liam. “He’s into it.”

  Marla feels instantly better. This is the Gavin she knew, the guy who just needed some encouragement. “Sure. I mean, we co
uld sign too.” She points for “we.”

  “Look, I have something to say to you, Marla.”

  Liam shakes his head almost imperceptibly. Just the way he looks at Gavin makes Marla think she doesn’t want to know.

  She dodges. “Sure, but first, I brought this.” Marla pulls the handbook out of her coat. “I thought it was such a shame it was all torn up—you should have it back now that you’re getting better.”

  Gavin leaves the book closed, as if admiring the front cover. Marla’s feeling all proud of herself for the excellent gluing she did and how the letters are all the same size when she notices Gavin’s crying on it. He hands it back without opening it. “This isn’t who I am.” His signs are angry, jerking and big.

  Liam holds Gavin by the shoulders. “This might be too much for you.”

  “No, I want to tell her.” Gavin looks afraid and yet defiant, like how Marla imagines he looked before he jumped. His voice is loud. “I raped Dani. That’s why I tried to kill myself. Because I’m a rapist.”

  For a moment Marla finds herself back at the Banff Springs Hotel. The pudgy, spectacled man had paid extra for her because Jim told him that Marla was only thirteen. It was a lie, but a lie she was used to. She played it up, acted the part of a little girl because that was what she was good at. Pretending. Something about the straightness of her hair, her long stomach with the hipbones pointing out, the smell of cigarettes. It’s hot, and for a second Marla forgets what summer she’s in. What afternoon. A fuzzy feeling, like the sound of shattered glass.

  “I don’t feel right,” she says, but her voice seems far away. Liam hardly turns towards her before she collapses.

  It’s Gavin who understands what’s happening, who drops his crutches and hops with his arms outstretched. She feels herself slipping down into his arms. Slow and soft and black.

  “We have to call your doctor, Marla.” Liam is leaning over her with wide eyes.

  The lights are brighter than before. The handbook is on the floor beside her, some of its pages loose. “Where’s Gavin?”

  Liam helps her sit up, and she has a sick, embarrassed feeling in her stomach like everything is wrong. Liam pulls at his earlobe. “He’s not here.”

  Her suicidal brother is out in a thunderstorm. Her brother who is deaf and imperfect and full of self-hatred because he raped Dani. “We have to find him.”

  “You’re not leaving, Marla. You’re nine months pregnant, and you just fainted.”

  Marla shakes him off. “It’s the humidity. I’m just hot.” She feels the baby, but there’s no kicking right now. “Did I fall on the baby?”

  “No. But I think you should get checked out.”

  “Okay. As soon as I find him.”

  Liam hands her a glass of water. “He has an umbrella and a bus pass. He said he’d be back after lunch.”

  Oh. Marla tries to shake it off. It’s just another thing that’s going to be in the back of her head every time Gavin is late or testy or looking at her funny. Yet another thing. “Did he really do that? I mean, with Dani?”

  “You should talk to her, Marla. Make sure she’s okay.”

  Marla swallows. She wants to think Gavin wouldn’t do that, couldn’t do that, but she’s forced to admit she doesn’t know. Marla feels fiercely protective of Dani and wants to get home and wrap her arms around her friend and spend the night punching pillows until they both feel better. There were other times like this.

  Marla grabs her coat. She leaves Gavin’s handbook on the floor. “Let’s go to the hospital, then.”

  “What about Gavin?”

  “What about him?”

  Marla doesn’t sit in emergency long before they bring her to the maternity ward and put her on a bed. She tells them about the fainting: no, it hasn’t happened before; no, she hasn’t had any contractions or bleeding. Thirty-eight weeks. She keeps her knees up, feet together. Liam stands beside her, holding her purse.

  “Have you had the fetal monitor before?” the nurse asks.

  Marla shakes her head.

  “We’re going to listen to Baby for ten minutes, make sure everything’s okay.” The nurse bustles around the room setting it up.

  Marla pretends she’s not there. “I think Gavin’s right. Dani should press charges.”

  The nurse smiles at Marla like she didn’t hear. “Your first baby?”

  Marla nods, barely glancing up at her.

  “That’s wonderful. Boy or girl?”

  Marla shakes her head. Something happened within the last month. Everyone who judged her when her bump was a cantaloupe is now bamboozled by the baby. Marla doesn’t factor in at all anymore. “We don’t know,” she says, tight. She slides her legs down on the bed, scraping her shoes against the paper sheet.

  Liam clears his throat, embarrassed. “It will be a surprise,” he says.

  The nurse lifts Marla’s shirt to wrap a belt thingy around her belly. “So long as Baby’s healthy, right? That’s what I always say.” She runs a finger along the scar that used to be under Marla’s breast and has now travelled onto her ballooning shape. The nurse’s eyes go hard. “What’s this about, dearie?”

  Dearie? “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  The nurse cocks her head like she knows everything. “Why not?” She leans down close. “You a cutter?”

  Marla looks her square in the eye. “It’s from a rape, okay? A guy cut me up while he was raping me.”

  The nurse’s face immediately falls apart, and Marla feels sorry. “Oh,” the nurse says, dropping something on the floor. “I’m sorry.” She glances at Liam as she retrieves it, a clicker-type thing attached to the monitor. “This button, press it every time Baby kicks,” she says, and scurries out.

  Liam puts both hands on the scar, his fingers on the crest of it as if he could push it back together. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Marla shrugs. Click. “I don’t talk about it.”

  He runs his thumb down its length, looking into Marla’s eyes. “Maybe you should. I mean, with Dani too.”

  Marla sucks in a breath through her teeth. This feels like a conversation she had with Dave and Elise once, hundreds of years ago when she was the only person that mattered. “I feel so shitty for her.” Click.

  “She needs you.”

  Click. “It’s my fault. I mean, it’s my own brother.” Marla knows that men undressed can be different than men in their clothes. Some are scary—sweat dripping from their faces. Some are cold and hold their jaws firm, and some just laugh.

  “It’s okay to be angry.”

  “No, it’s more like total shock. Gavin? I looked after him, cared for him.” Click. Clickity-click.

  “Let me worry about him.”

  Liam and Gavin. Marla and Dani. Marla hesitates. “We make a good team, you know? Getting through crazy stuff.”

  Liam gives Marla the kind of smile a person gives to the homeless. An afraid, sad smile. Click.

  The nurse returns and reads the printout from the fetal monitor. She’s put on a chipper face. “Baby’s busy, hey?” She pauses for Marla to respond, but when she doesn’t, the nurse just smiles a big empty smile. “Five more minutes.”

  Marla waits until she leaves, then sits up, shifting the belt thingy so it doesn’t scratch against her skin like a giant belly bra. “I want it to be just you and me.” Click. “Not like a daytime talk show where the baby’s born and we never see each other again.”

  “Is that what you think? Oh, Marla.” Liam holds her hand. The fetal monitor beeps and blips.

  “Look, I’m sorry I never told you everything. It’s not pretty.”

  “Marla, I can handle not pretty. I just wish we could have started the hard stuff sooner.” Liam turns away.

  Marla stares at the ceiling to stop herself from crying as the nurse returns to unstrap her and take the printout
. She glances at the wiggly lines and nods. “The doctor will have to look at this, but I think everything’s fine. Baby is active, your vitals are normal. I don’t think you need to worry.” She wipes the ultrasound gel off Marla’s abdomen and sees Marla’s red eyes. She leans close. “I’m sorry about before. I didn’t realize.”

  Marla reaches up and hugs her, pulling the nurse against her body. The nurse is surprised, but folds her arms around Marla like she’s seen loads of people cry today and she made them all feel better. She smells like bar soap and laundry detergent. Flowers and spring.

  “Everything’s going to be okay, right?” Marla asks.

  “Of course it is.” The nurse rubs Marla’s back and smiles at Liam. “Come over here, Dad.” She takes Liam’s hand and puts it on Marla where her own was. His hand feels cold and stiff. The nurse moves it around for him. “Just hormones, hey?” She squeezes Marla’s knee. “I’m going to ask the doctor about that cast, too. It’s probably time you had that off.”

  When she leaves, Liam mumbles something about the parking meter or the vending machine and Marla curls up and stares out the window. Cars are driving by on 16th Avenue, headlights racing down to Bowness.

  Marla rubs her belly. Of course her rock star baby is fine. He’s strong and right and totally undamaged. Something sticking out of her pocket scratches her arm, and Marla pulls it out—the nude drawing. Her faraway eyes are the second thing she sees. The baby takes up her whole middle, frozen inside her forever in the sketch.

  This baby is all she has, and now he’s almost gone too.

  Once Marla gets her cast off, Liam tells her all the right things in the car: you’re going to be okay. We can do this. I care about you. He just forgets the one she really wants to hear: I love you. He applies the brake gently so Marla and her bump can ride comfortably. He takes corners like an old person just for her. He listens to jazz. She bends her arm this way and that as if it’s a totally new limb. She refuses to cry.

  After Liam drops her off, Marla pretends to go in the front door, watching to be sure he is gone before reaching for the cigarettes hidden in the mailbox. She lights one and sits on the step, wishing it was dark so she could see the flickering lights of Dani’s TV on the lawn and know everything is okay. Dani should have heard Marla come home—should be waiting for the car door slamming and Marla’s footsteps on the stairs—but Marla can’t face her yet.