by Amanda Brown
Shaking with frustration, K. K. crossed the office, putting a visibly impatient Becca off with the “wait a minute” finger in the air. Becca nodded, checking her watch. She liked K. K.’s style, but not enough to wait more than ten minutes.
“How could you let her say that?” K. K. challenged the caller in her gruff voice. “I warned Kingsley not to mention Barbie. That was a loaded question.”
Becca stood to leave just as K. K. threw her mouthpiece over her head, disconnecting the call.
She stuck her hand into Becca’s. “K. K. Myers. But I’m sure you know that.”
At her joke, she gave a self-congratulatory laugh. “And you are?”
“Becca Reinhart,” Becca responded. “Call me Becca.” Edward approached, taking K. K.’s hand and introducing himself.
K. K. pulled her hand back from Edward impatiently. “Come on, people. Details. Details! Remind me,” she emphasized, “who you are.”
Becca took the cue. “Here’s the deal, K. K. We’re doing our best for a wonderful little girl who we love like crazy but we don’t have a clue. We kind of got dropped into this. We’re—”
K. K., interrupting, finished her thought. “The guardians. Heard about the French school. I’ve been expecting you. Sit down,” she directed, turning her frazzled attention to her desk.
“Of course,” Becca answered. She liked this process less and less, but she was here, as was Edward, because they felt they owed it to Arthur and Amy and they wanted to give Emily the best education they could manage. If the preschool bar had really been raised so high you couldn’t clear it without paying one of these quacks, they’d pay, and get Emily in the door.
“Anything to say for yourselves?” K. K. asked, looking at Edward.
“We’re willing to be active, wherever Emily goes to school,” Edward attempted.
“We’ll give money,” Becca added matter-of-factly. “Whatever it takes.”
K. K. narrowed her eyes at Becca. “Glad to hear you’re ready for the big leagues, Reinhart. It takes a softer sell, I’m afraid. You’ve got to quit your job.”
“What?”
She nodded firmly. “All the top preschools really frown upon working mothers. That’s what’s hiding under ‘parent participation.’”
“And you,” she said, pointing at Edward. “You’ve got to get some credible interests.” She paused. “I have to think about you.”
“I play squash,” he offered.
She turned fiercely towards him. “I’ll tell you your interests in a minute!” she shouted.
Wheeling towards Becca, she stopped and pointed at her.
“Most of the time,” she said, “it comes down to the mother.”
Becca sighed, slumping in her chair. “What do I have to do?”
K. K. nodded. “One,” she said, counting on her fingers. “Quit your job. Two: Read ten issues of Parents magazine. Cover to cover. Three: Ten issues of Good Housekeeping. Four: Repeat steps two and three. I want you to know how to make a Halloween costume from a pattern and the challenge of baking a soufflé. Got it?”
Becca was shocked. “What?”
“You don’t have to do it,” K. K. shouted at her. “Just talk like you can do it. You must be comfortable speaking preschool. It’s a language. Right?”
Becca looked sullen and unconvinced. She made no answer. She probably could make her hiatus appear to be “quitting her job.”
With a vehement motion, K. K. leaped to her office door and flung it open. “You want out?” she shouted. “You want out?”
Becca looked wide-eyed at Edward, and both of them laughed.
“Do it!” K. K. boomed.
The phone rang, and Becca cringed to see K. K. answer it. She stood, ready to leave, but remained in place when K. K. handed the phone to Edward.
As he listened, his face grew pale. “It’s about Emily,” he said to Becca.
He spoke quickly into the phone. “I’ll be right there.”
He handed the phone back to K. K. and turned to Becca, his face drawn with worry. “They played a symphony in the Mozart class that Amy used to play a lot at home. She’s crying her eyes out. She wants her mommy.”
Becca stood at once, feeling a whirlpool of emotions rise within her: tenderness, worry, love, and protectiveness. “I’m going with you,” she said.
Edward nodded, and the worry on his face lifted a bit. He smiled. “Can you get out of the office this afternoon?”
Her jaw dropped. She had forgotten to mention her meeting with Dick. He didn’t even know she was on leave.
“I’m free as a bird,” she said. “Got two months off.”
Edward, though surprised she had not told him, had an admirable lack of egotism, and took the news without any bitterness as to its mode of delivery. He was thrilled to hear she could devote more time to Emily.
“That’s great,” he congratulated Becca.
She smiled, nodding at him. She hadn’t told him anything about her sabbatical; Edward was tactful, unusually considerate. He had not intruded one step into her privacy since the night at the apartment.
Her eye drifted down to the starched collar of his oxford shirt, one of the well-tended but casual shirts he wore every day, always tucked in. He always tucked his shirts in and he always wore a belt. The sun glinted on his Patek Phillipe watch.
“I’m sorry, K. K.,” Edward said in a firm voice. “We have to cut this short. Emily’s not feeling well.” Becca noticed a more commanding tone than usual in Edward’s voice.
Becca took an additional minute or so gathering her things, but really she was gathering herself. She felt struck, suddenly. What was she doing here, in this office, paying through the nose for an obnoxious woman to sentence her to hours of magazine reading so she could talk crochet? She was Becca Reinhart. She could figure exchange rates in her head, assess a rough current account balance, and predict profits for a company (including subs) based on a few pages of revenues and ARs. And now she felt her head swimming, like she was drunk, with images she couldn’t fasten anything to. The song at MiniMozart, Emily’s pink mohair cardigan, Edward’s suntanned neck, the little French playhouse at Le Petit École, Emily’s beautiful smile…
Emily. That was her compass point. The thought of her sweet little face turning mottled and red, and streaming with tears, gripped Becca’s stomach until she thought it would tear. She hurried after Edward, eager to put her arms around Emily, anxious to escape this false world of interview coaches and application strategies. She wanted to hold her daughter.
CHAPTER 17
Ethical Kiddies
They took it easy for days after Emily’s trouble in Mozart class. It felt like they were playing hooky. The night of the Mozart disaster Becca was in bed, lights out, but not able to sleep. The door opened a crack.
“I have to sleep here,” Emily said. “If Mommy comes to visit, I think she’ll come here.”
Becca had more or less moved into the master bedroom. “I think your mommy will come wherever you are,” Becca had turned and was leaning on her left side, her face propped up on her chin. This made Emily pause. Becca could see the tiny wheels of her brain working. “But what if she doesn’t—what if she can only make one stop, like the express bus.”
“Well, if we are both in the same room, then she will definitely arrive there.”
With this, Becca opened her sheet to welcome Emily next to her. Becca could not remember the last time she shared a bed with anyone. Actually, she’d rather not think about that too long. Anyway, it was the first time she’d felt a warm little body in her pink flannel nightie curl against her. Becca pulled the little girl close, wrapped her arms around her. Nothing was going to hurt this child—nothing or no one, as long as Becca was alive. Becca finally understood what compelled a man or woman to go into harm’s way to defend something precious to them. She was trying to finish this thought, but had automatically followed Emily’s breathing and soon she was calm, and then she slept.
Without di
scussing it, Becca and Edward were both staying at the apartment—living there really. Emily needed balance. For a week she slept with Becca. In the morning there was no pouncing, singing, demands. In the night she did not ask silly questions. Emily was becalmed. Slowly the two of them brought her around. One morning Becca felt her slip out of bed with the birds. This marked the beginning of Emily’s next step in her healing. She brought the scrapbook she and Becca had started into Becca’s room.
“Let’s put more stuff in.”
“Okay, do you have any more photos?”
“Mommy kept everything. My daddy used to say she was a garbage can.” This made Emily giggle, though Becca wasn’t so sure that remark was funny.
“Well, where did she put that stuff?”
Emily started walking away, her legs threatening to break out into a run. “Come on, Aunt Becca! Don’t be so pokey.”
“Who’s pokey?” Edward met them in the hallway. He caught up to Becca and placed a warning hand on he shoulder “She shouldn’t go in there.” Becca stopped. Emily was at the entrance to a small study tucked into an alcove, the furthest from the stairs.
“Why not?”
“The room is nothing but boxes.”
“What’s in them?”
“Stuff—memorabilia, maps, photos, pressed leaves and what looks like herbs—you know—stuff.”
“Then it’s not packed,” Becca said.
“What are you talking about?” Sometimes Becca seemed to know an entirely different language—one had to do with inner guidance.
“Arlene—”
By now Emily had used the doorway to twirl into the study. Edward screwed up his eyes and mouth, like he was waiting for a scream.
“Relax, buddy.” Becca walked in to join Emily, who by now was digging into open boxes, all marked and organized. The little girl was pulling out anything that could possibly fit into a scrapbook—and other things besides.
“Aunt Becca—look at all there is!” She dragged out a set of castanets—black, hand-painted. When Becca got closer she could see the painting was a scene—a town with women, probably African, carrying things on their heads. Emily recalled that Amy and Arthur had traveled through East Africa not too long ago.
“It was probably a present Mommy forgot to give me.” Emily already had tiny fingers caught in the silk ribbons that kept the wood pieces together.
“Probably,” Becca said, sitting on the floor beside her. “We can hang them in your bedroom.”
“No—kitchen—so I can see them every day and so can you.” She spotted Edward leaning against the door, “and you!” She pointed, giggled, put her hands to her head.
Edward met Becca’s eyes. “What did you mean? How could you possibly ascertain…”
“‘Possibly ascertain?’” Becca teased him. “I can possibly always for certain know that my mother has a sixth, seventh, and eighth sense about, well, mothering. She would know Emily would be ready soon to go through it.” Becca paused. “Actually, now that I think of it, I would also know.” She looked at Edward and said, “And so would you.”
All day the three went through boxes that allowed Emily to teach them how to give her what Amy and Arthur did to parent her. There was one whole box filled with bird feathers, odd stones, things that looked like acorns, but were not—animal photos, a bag of reddish dirt. Emily told them that her mommy loved to be outside, walking and hiking and finding animal homes in the trees, where they imagined they could see whole fairylands and friendly chipmunks escaping from nasty old badgers. They hiked all around, sometimes with a place to go and sometimes just for the thing called “exercise” that her mom had to get every day. Her mom had funny names for plants and trees that were really long and fancy-sounding. She also grew little plants called herbs; they used to be lined up on the balcony, and when she needed them for cooking she let Emily cut them into little pieces with her safety scissors.
Her mommy had gone on airplanes too and spoke in lots of languages. She spoke to the nanny in French but it was too fast for Emily to hear it right. She liked faraway places, same as Becca, Emily pointed out, except that Becca went to inside places and her mommy went to outside places. Becca blushed, but remained silent, astonished by this new Emily, until now a lovely but closed little bud. She was opening, and the combination of her vulnerability and her candor was striking to see.
Emily’s mommy loved the art that she made, and she took her to art shows so Emily knew already that she was just as good as the famous people. Amy set up her play table in the kitchen sometimes with the watercolor easel. Amy played music all the time in the apartment, music like they played in her music classes—with big sounds and no words—and when the nanny finished taking her to lessons, and Emily could speak English again, she liked to play “kitchen” while Amy did some baking. She was not allowed to wear her dress-ups out of the house, she mentioned, looking at the floor.
Emily’s heart seemed to pause until Becca reminded her that her fairy godparents loved her dress-ups, since she was really a princess to them. Emily’s courage returned with a flush of her cheeks, and she took a happy little step toward Becca. She had naps she was supposed to take a long time ago when she was really little but mostly she painted her fingernails under the covers. When she got in trouble it was no sweets and sometimes it was no dresses but that was just for really bad things like when she bit the nanny on her hand.
Becca and Edward both cringed at that image. Emily’s independence had been shocked into remission when she lost her parents. She had clung to them from the beginning, with an open heart, as if some defensive sense told her she would be badly served to struggle against her protection in this dangerous world.
But she was walking steady steps on her own now. This child was so much more than a little princess in pretty clothes, or a gem waiting for the light to come alive.
Emily was dividing all the objects that had filled four large boxes into piles only she could understand. But each pile was designated to a particular room. And there was no question that these objects would find their way to Emily’s dictates.
By noon, Becca was exhausted. Since it was technically “her day,” though the schedule was no longer adhered to, she stayed on the floor and Edward went off. Emily didn’t even glance up when Edward patted her good-bye on the hand.
Watching her triggered something for Becca. It was painful, whatever it was. Emily would stop every so often to show something to Becca, or to fasten a feather to her clothes, or stand to show off a cloth—one scarf Becca recognized as a particular blue that was the Montengards’ mark. Amy and Arthur must have traveled in the north country of Vietnam. How they wandered! Becca got snagged on a memory: a man who had to be her father—a piece of cloth—she went to the room’s telephone and dialed.
“Hello,” her mother had a way of pronouncing the “o” that made it sound like she was pretending to be a proper lady. It always got a smile out of Becca.
“Mother—what’s new with you?”
“What is new is that I can nag you now that I never get to see my granddaughter.”
They both laughed with great affection. The preliminaries over, Becca explained what they were doing and then said, “Did my father give me a scarf? Or a piece of cloth that I might remember?”
Her mother got real quiet—not like the quiet when she was listening, but a quiet that was more profound.
Emily had worked her way over to where Becca stood and was tugging on the hem of her pants.
“Aunt Becca!”
Becca was listening into her mother’s silence. “Mom?”
“Aunt Becca,” the little girl repeated.
“Mom, what?”
Emily screamed one long sound and Becca understood the phrase “screamed bloody murder.”
“What’s going on, Becca? What’s happened?”
“I’ll call you back.”
“You’ll put the phone down and keep me on hold.”
Without replying, Becca stooped to E
mily’s level and saw that she was running little streams of tears—more like creeks.
“What happened, sweetie?”
Emily threw herself into Becca’s arms.
“Mommy—I want my mommy. You have her.” The sobs came from Emily’s soul. She was fractured by her loss and at this moment Becca was powerless. She could only hold Emily and hope the moment passed.
She picked up the phone. Maybe Mom had some advice. Then it hit her that Emily must have heard her address her own mother and stumbled emotionally.
“Did you hear everything?”
“I did.”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Probably—does it have to do with you talking to me?”
“Exactly. Now what?”
“Let her cry. Crying is good. When she’s done, take her anywhere in the house she wants, give her a treat. Not sweets.” Becca laughed—the honey-cake queen was warning against sweets. “Milk—then stay with her—she’ll fall asleep—but stay with her.”
“Roger.”
“Becca, it’s important that you stay there.”
“Got it, Arlene. Love you.”
It wasn’t until she hung up that Becca remembered the memory of the cloth.
As the days went on, there was more talk about Emily’s parents. They asked about Arthur, but Emily revealed very little in her recollection of her father. Her daddy, she said, loved to lift her up and kiss her on the tummy at the end of the day, and sometimes watch the puppet shows she did in the playroom, but mostly he was at the club until late. She thought that he didn’t hear so well, since he missed a lot of what she said to him. Lots of the time he looked somewhere else and said “What?” In that way he reminded her of the nanny who wouldn’t listen at all to her questions in English.
It was a sketch, only a hint of her childhood, but Emily had stepped towards them in trust. Edward and Becca’s shared gratitude and warmth were mingled.
Becca’s gratitude faded, however—and Edward’s broadened—when Emily suggested that she and Becca should bake a cake.
Becca cringed at the thought of baking, but was put on the spot, and declared without hesitation that she would love to bake a cake. Emily said that the kind she baked with her mommy was called a box cake and you only poured water into the mix. She knew just where it was in the grocery shelf because it was on the same place as all the sweets and icings.