by Sonia Taitz
So Arlie, poised and unencumbered, seemed to have many advantages. It was true that she dressed up too fancily for her interview, lots of jingling jewelry and a silk suit that bore a lingering, sultry (though not unpleasant) aroma. The abortion saga was more than she needed to know. But Gary had explained:
“When you’re dealing with this caliber of employee, Abigail, you’re getting someone who dresses well. She’s basically solid middle-class, like you and I, you know, not some lady from some slum. And as for that comment—you understand, the termination situation—I think, quite frankly, that she considers you a fellow woman, a woman of the world in fact, right? And she wants to be totally frank with you. You like honest, right? All the cards on the table? You get that, and more, with Arlie.”
“I do?”
“And more.”
24
As soon as Arlie began working in her home, Abigail could see how indispensable she was. Arlie had patiently explained that, so far, Abigail had done nothing right.
“It’s not your fault, you know. They don’t teach you anything in the schools, so what on earth should you know about?”
It was true. Abigail had had no idea, despite her years of schooling, despite her Phi Beta Kappa and French award and National Merit Scholarship and Honors JD, that babies’ bottoms needed to be creamed with the thick white cream and not the yellowy jellowy stuff. She did not know, despite graduating summa cum laude with a cumulative grade point average of 3.96, that talcum powder was dangerous and caused “lung clouds,” and she did not know, despite a clerkship with a federal judge, that they needed to sleep only on their sides or they could swallow “the milking vomit.” Arlie had explained all this, but if Arlie had not been there, who knows what might have happened?
“And see here, see she cries all the time with you.”
It was true. Many hours had been spent walking with Chloe, holding and rocking her, settling her down with infinite cooing and pats on the shoulder. At times, she still seemed all but inconsolable, and needed to be put in her special little swing to calm down. This was even after feeding, burping, bathing, diaper changing.
“But look here—see here, look at me. See how calm, how nice she lie down and go to sleep for me?”
Abigail looked, and she saw that it was so. She looked and saw a perfect stranger curled up in blissful peace with her own Chloe. A baby who, minutes earlier, had been howling with rage, now spooned with a paid employee. And seemed to like it. To prefer it, if the truth be told.
“How—how do you get her to do that?”
“If I could tell you snip-snap, you wouldn’t be paying me all the money, eh?”
She got up, laid the baby down in her bassinette, and went to the kitchen to prepare the next bottles.
Bottles were fine, Arlie said—how apt that she’d prefer them to Abigail’s breasts, which were technically irreplaceable. And formula was fine (she preferred the rarer brand that cost double.) But never powdered formula, even with the best water. Only the canned liquid would do, because powder was “too thin.” And when Abigail had gone along to the park with Arlie and Chloe, she’d learned that Chloe must sit in the sun for so many minutes (wearing a bonnet of course, but shoes optional), and in the shade for so many minutes. Abigail had not known that either. It was not in any of her books.
The things Arlie knew went far, far beyond book learning. This made her especially inimitable. One had to learn the lore at her very feet.
Arlie had been kind enough to let Abigail push the stroller when park time was finished. But she had been shocked to see how she did it. Abigail had stepped off a street corner with the front stroller wheels first.
“Always you must lead with the back wheels, please, miss, always the back! You want to tip the baby out?!”
Contempt, on one end, and abashed silence on the other. Thus the two of them stood at the corner, the stroller hauled up again on the safe curb. Arlie had yanked it back with a harsh, punishing force.
“Hmm, you want that? Baby falling quite dramatically on the street?”
“No,” said Abigail, dying to mutter, “obviously.”
“Well then, why you lead with the front wheels then, see her flying forward?”
“But she’s totally strapped in,” Abigail had protested. The stroller was top of the line. Its strap was beyond effective, too—it tucked between the little legs and over the little shoulders and around the little waist. It was no seat belt but a truss. A harness. A test pilot could not have had a better strap than young Chloe Thomas.
“You relying on a strap?” Arlie snorted with an expression that held deep disappointment, almost contempt. As though saying, I know you all, you rich idiot matrons. You want to kill your babies. How low can you sink?
“Yes, the—safety strap,” Abigail stuttered. “Isn’t that—?” She looked at the traffic light. It had changed to “walk” many times now. And yet Arlie would not allow them to proceed. This was like a game Abigail used to play with her sisters: Mother, May I? Except that now, she was the mother, and her paid helper said only “You may not.”
Arlie was shaking her head and looking alternately up at the sky and at the passersby, as though to beseech heaven and earth with the words, See what I have to deal with?
What she actually said, to Abigail, was, “So someday you forget to close the strap, and the baby falls in the street, eh? I seen this more times than you can imagine, so don’t tell me about it.”
With that last testimony, Arlie took control of the carriage with a curt, “Take a rest now.” As Abigail walked alongside her nanny, she felt like a great burden had been briefly lifted. No more mistakes could be made for the time being. But she had made so many in her short term as mother. Deep down, all the time now, she felt empty and foolish in Arlie’s presence. How had this essentially illiterate lady gained such confidence? And why did she always look so cool and clean in her silky blouse and tight skirt? Stumbling alongside her, Abigail knew that her utilitarian sweat suit was covered in baby slime and smelled of spit up. My other outfit is a success suit, she wanted to scream. But no one would take notice of a woman who reeked of the stomach contents of newborns.
Later that evening, when the baby slept, Abigail stared into the bassinet and whispered, “Don’t you know me? Don’t you know your own mother?”
The softly sleeping baby gave no answer, but Abigail continued, “I carried you. I gave birth to you. Why don’t you give me a little sign that you care! Just a little one!”
As Abigail’s voice rose with the burden of her argument, Chloe awakened and shrieked.
“Aaaaaaaaaah! Aaaaaaaah! AAAAaaaaahhhhh!”
Abigail picked up the baby. She smelled of Arlie’s moody perfume. Rocking the wriggling, disconsolate child, Abigail wished Arlie were there. She felt ignorant, harmful, bad. The perfume gave off a midnighty, hopeless atmosphere.
“Aaaaaaaaaaah! AAAAAAAHHHHHAAAAAAAA!”
“Please, Chloe, don’t scream at me like that. I want to help you. I want us to be close.”
The baby kept on screaming.
“Are you hungry? I’ve got some formula.”
“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!”
“Like Arlie says, you know? Liquid?” The baby stopped crying and stared hopefully at the word “Arlie,” or so it seemed to Abigail. She was silent as Abigail put her back in the bassinet to run and fill a bottle with formula. But when Abigail picked her up again, the baby screamed and slapped at the bottle as though trying to push it away.
“Arlie isn’t here to give it to you. May I?”
The baby clawed at the air with curled, insistent fingers.
“Tear my bottle out of my hands if you could,” said Abigail, sadly. “Tear me to pieces, too.”
Chloe seemed to listen with interest to this synopsis. But then, retreating into some internal hell, her eyes darkened and she bawled like a succubus. Abigail exercised the next option.
“Maybe you’re wet. I haven’t changed you for a while.”
&nbs
p; She put the baby down to check. Chloe was dry, still covered with a thick layer of Arlie’s good, white, smeary cream. Abigail tried to reclose the tape tabs of the diaper, but could never get it as neat and snug as Arlie had. When she was done, in a fashion, she shifted Chloe in her arms. The baby seemed to root for her breast.
“Is it me? Do you want to have some of my milk?”
Abigail sat down with the baby on her lap, and quickly yanked off her nightdress. She offered her breast to Chloe. For a moment, the baby sucked and pulled at the nipple. Then, red, furious, disgusted, she tore her head away and bellowed, hiccupped, and blasted:
“AH-AH-AH-AH-AH-AH-AH- AH- HA-HA-HA-HA-AHA -AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH- HHH!”
Abigail nearly threw her child back into the basket. Chloe was screaming harder than ever, legs and arms out straight, digits splayed wide in agony. Her crossed eyes fixed on her own red nose.
What do you want from me? Abigail thought fiercely. She struggled to choke back her own scream of pain.
Hours later, the baby slept, sniffling reproachfully, but Abigail still didn’t know what she had wanted.
When Arlie returned the next morning, Abigail told her about the horrible tantrum, as she called it.
“What kind of tantrum?” said Arlie, taking the baby up swiftly and cradling her in one arm as she walked to the kitchen to boil bottles.
“You know, where they scream and kick their legs?”
“Oh, the gas colic,” said Arlie, stretching Chloe out face down on her forearm and rocking her gently. “You just go like this, and poof!”
Indeed, the baby, who had been gurgling happily at the sight of Arlie, passed a blip of gas and fell promptly asleep. There was a smile on her lips that Abigail would have died for. Chloe had never smiled before.
“Oh, a smile, eh?” Arlie, though pleased, was calm, as though to say, Oh, a smile, I’ve seen those before. Nice, aren’t they.
“Was it really a smile?” said Abigail, biting her lip to keep from crying. She was wearing a stained nightdress, and her hair was tangled and matted. Arlie discreetly averted her eyes and sang softly into Chloe’s tiny ear:
“A little smile for Arlie, Arlie, Arlie . . .”
Chloe cooed. A real “mm-gooo” of pleasure. Arlie responded, nuzzling the baby’s neck.
“She’s gonna laugh soon, too.”
“Uh-huh,” said the mother, listlessly.
Abigail, listening and watching like a spurned lover, wanted to let go of herself and do something. Grab the baby and run out of the house (her house)? Wail out in pain (like a big fat Chloe) and see what happened? Instead of taking these options, she used her brain to rationalize the situation.
Abigail knew that Arlie was just doing her job. She was being paid (by Abigail herself, in fact) to make that baby love and trust her, pass gas in her face, smile, and go “mm-gooo.” She also knew that if she, Abigail, the wrong person, showed her tears, Arlie would not soothe them, because that wasn’t part of her duties. And she knew that wanting Arlie to console her was neurotic and needy and in any case impossible. You could buy a fake mother for your child, but not for yourself.
Turning her back on the nanny-and-baby scene, Abigail retreated to the haven of her room. If everything were taken care of—if it were all hunky-dory, as it seemed to be when she wasn’t around—she might as well go back to work in earnest. Mr. Fudim would cite Abigail Thomas as a favorable precedent for the modern age: the first mother who had taken virtually no time off from the job! What a trouper! She would be setting a precedent for the books.
Abigail would be like O-Lan in the The Good Earth, who gave birth in the rice paddy and never stopped toiling. But she would be better than O-Lan, because she was a lawyer, not a coolie. Future generations of female associates would thank her for setting a positive example of what women, albeit mothers, could do with force and will. When she got her big corner office, she’d be able to shut the door and cry. But not just now.
As Abigail stood in her slip, deciding between the black suit with the black shoes or the gray suit with the gray shoes, she heard the doorbell chime. A double ring, Hello, hello: Tim. He visited so frequently that the doorman no longer announced him.
25
“Hi, Abigail, hi Arlie,” said Tim, breezing in.
“Good morning, Mr. Vail,” said Arlie, with respect for the man of the house (there was no other candidate, she’d noticed).
Abigail called out from her bedroom:
“Tim, is that you? I’ll be out in a sec. I’m getting dressed.”
Arlie stepped out of the kitchen, unpeeling her apron and fluffing her hair. It was shoulder-length, pitch-black, and blowdried into a chic pageboy. Leaning on a hip, she took a good look at Tim, which he returned.
“I like that skirt,” said Tim. It was long, and white and billowy, a strange contrast with Arlie’s body-flattering turquoise sweater.
“I try my best, sir,” she said, lowering her eyes.
“How’s Chloe?” he said, after a moment.
“Sleeping like a lamb,” she said, now looking up at him. “I gave her the bottle just now, and she went off after the two ounces. Just what she needed.”
“Was it? We so rarely get ‘just what we need.’”
Arlie hesitated before replying. “Want to see her now?” she finally inquired.
Tim thought she was referring to Abigail. “Of course I do. What’s taking her so long to come out?
“Hey Abby!” he shouted, taking off a tweed jacket with wellworn leather elbow patches and tossing it down on the beige bench in the foyer. “What are you up to in there?”
“I’m getting ready to go back to the office, Tim,” Abigail shouted, her tone deliberately carefree.
“What for? Did they call you or something?”
Abigail thought for a moment. She hated the feeling that any response she gave would be heard by Arlie as well. To Tim alone, she could have confided that no one in the office seemed to have any interest at all in her. Since her return from Grenada, they had seemed to wrest information from her, then leave her for dead. To Tim, she would have admitted that she was frightened not to be at the office, afraid of professional obliteration.
Her wonderful idea of a countersuit against Mrs. MacAdam seemed to have been swallowed with a gulp—perhaps absorbed by and currently nourishing the career of Dave Biddle-Kammerman, partner and father of twins. Dave hadn’t taken, and wasn’t about to take, any maternity leave, paternity leave, leave to love and languish. Dave was acting normal, that is to say, unstoppable. She could act that way, too. Apparently, she had to.
If Arlie were not there, Abigail would also have confided to Tim that she felt de trop in her own home. She knew Arlie looked down on new mothers, both working and not: the working ones, said Arlie, were “hard-hearts,” and the nonworking ones, as far as she was concerned, “dumb-headed and jumpy.” What did that make Abigail?
No wonder she felt unloved and unwanted. Chloe didn’t need her. She looked up with delight when Arlie arrived each morning, and with disappointment, it seemed, when she left. After all, who had the experience, and who had none? Who had the energy, and who was exhausted? Who did the job with professional aplomb, and who did it as an ambivalent amateur?
Despite everything, I’m the one who really loves you, Chloe, thought Abigail. This isn’t fair. This isn’t real, or true. If I didn’t pay Arlie, do you think she’d be here tomorrow? She’d be on to the next lovely baby, the next first smile, and the next. What was hardest for Abigail was knowing that she’d never be able to share these facts with Chloe. That would be cruel, a last laugh at her innocent child’s expense.
If Abigail thought about these domestic matters any more, she knew she would start crying and ruin her office mask. Good old snowball, never melts, her father had said. It wasn’t ever really more than a pose, her self-containment. It was a stunt, performed to impress. But if she melted now, who would support Chloe? Who would make sure Arlie kept coming back to lov
e that child, on cue? Abigail couldn’t let herself get lost in emotional webs. She had to get up and get out and get going.
Tim’s question about the firm calling rang in Abigail’s ears as she stepped out of her room, dressed in the armor of the legal world. The firm hadn’t called, perhaps, but she had called herself up to the task. She had on a good wool suit in a rich shade of bronze, creamy opaque hose, a silk blouse, and—of course—her heels, brown faux-crocs with a high vamp. She had also sprayed herself with a classic, Chanel No. 5, to challenge Arlie’s lighter drugstore scent.
“Hey, you’re wearing your best suit,” said Tim.
“And you’ve got some cologne on,” said Arlie. “I can smell it from here. Baby don’t need such strong smell around her little nose; she’ll start sneezing. You see, already she starting to get those allergy pimples, look.”
Abigail couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She felt like saying, pettily, “well, you wear perfume, Arlie, and it has penetrated my home like a flea bomb,” but she wasn’t going to sink to that level. Besides, what Arlie wore wasn’t real perfume but merely toilet water. Or was that Arlie’s point? Abigail felt stupid again.
“I can’t smell anything on either of you,” said Tim, helpfully.
“She’s wearing something heavy,” said Arlie. “Maybe White Shoulders.”
“Is there really a perfume called ‘White Shoulders’? That’s pretty poor marketing, geopolitically, I’d say,” said Tim, looking at Arlie’s tawny face. A small smile played on his lips. “I mean, what if they called some men’s cologne Arabian Thighs? That’d be pretty offensive,” he continued, beginning to openly chuckle. “Or maybe erotic, depending on your taste.”
“I’m saving up for Bal a Versailles,” continued Arlie. She sniffed the air with a thoughtful expression. “That one is elegant.”
Abigail sensed that Arlie delved into her medicine cabinet while cleaning the bathroom. She owned many good perfumes, as well as a dizzying assortment of lotions, creams, and potions, some of which came with their own spatula for application. Every few days it seemed as though the quantities diminished. Abigail of course noticed all of this—tiny dabs added up to almost empty jars—but could say nothing.