by Tracy Quan
“Your…what?”
“If you go to Google and type in my name, well, first of all, it’s a very common name, but if you add NYCOT or sex work as a search term”—Allie was frowning unhappily—“there’s only a few listings. I Googled myself the other night and it was kind of sad.”
“Who are you comparing yourself to? A zealot like Roxana?”
“No. Not Roxana. Lucho has hundreds of Google listings. And so does his ex-wife.”
Christ. His & Hers Googling.
“You can’t imagine how it feels! Sometimes I wonder if she—” Allie slugged some more eggnog. “Anyway, I have to develop my Google presence. By doing more media. I figured that out. And speaking engagements. I want to be Lucho’s peer, his equal. I think that’s why they lasted so long, even though now, of course, they’re just friends. They teach in the same department.”
Allie waved at the waiter and indicated another rum eggnog.
“When is your period due?” I asked her. “This guy’s in love with you. He’s crazy about you! You’re feeling way more insecure than you should.”
Jasmine appeared, brandishing her cell phone, but Allie was too absorbed in New Boyfriend Angst to see her. Poor Allie. The excitement of his infatuation has worn off a little and, for the first time, she’s realizing that being loved by Lucho also means being able to have your heart broken. By Lucho. But he hasn’t broken her heart yet! She’s overreacting.
“He took me to a party last week and I met three of his exes!”
“Three exes at one party!” Jasmine said. “This guy’s a serial husband!”
“Only one ex was a wife. But his ex-ex-girlfriend lives in the same building!”
“As his ex-wife?”
“No. The same building as Lucho. Can you believe it? I just found out! The other night!”
“How does he behave when he’s with you?” I asked.
“He was all over me!” Allie looked like she was about to cry. “But the minute he turned his back, his ex-girlfriend said something mean to me. And when I tried to say hello to his ex-wife, she wouldn’t even look at me. It was awful!”
“You have got to get a grip,” Jasmine said. “A firm grip. What did this ex-girlfriend say to you? And more to the point, what did you say back?”
“Nothing! She said ‘I’ve heard that Lucho’s combining research with pleasure these days.’”
Jasmine was apoplectic.
“She said what? And you said nothing?”
“Like I’m just research! Or pleasure! Not that there’s anything wrong with pleasure,” she added, “but she was so mean! What could I say? And why didn’t he warn me! That—that bastard.”
“And you didn’t say anything? You let that bitch have the last word? What is wrong with you!”
“Stop yelling at me! You’re as bad as those women at that party.”
“Calm down,” Jasmine said, opening her tote bag. “Here.” She handed Allie a packet of tissues. “His ex-girlfriend was mean because she knows he’s in love with you. She’s just trying to fuck with your self-confidence. What does she look like? Come on, be honest.”
“She’s just okay,” Allie sniffled. “She’s not ugly and she’s not gorgeous. But she has a small waist and—and she has way more Google hits than I do. But not as many as his ex-wife. Or him. He has more than all of us put together. She was one of his students and now she’s an assistant professor.”
“Google hits.” Jasmine looked, for once, overwhelmed. “Google hits. Is that what it’s come to? Are you sitting up at all hours Googling this guy’s exes? All three of them? You’re suffering from romantic nausea. If you’re going to go out there and be a member of this—this Council of Trollops and tell people about it, you have to be prepared. If you let some snippy West Side professor insult you at a party, you’re letting down the side.”
“I feel—” Allie blew her nose. “They made me feel like a”—she was trying not to cry—“like a talking dog! But I’m going to have my revenge!”
“By going on TV and getting lots of Google hits?” I asked. “Don’t you think—”
“Yes!” Now she sat up, still teary eyed but emboldened. “I don’t want to let the side down and I don’t want to let Lucho down.”
“Does he have any idea what a witch his ex-girlfriend is?” Jasmine asked.
“I didn’t discuss it with him.”
“Good move,” Jasmine said. “I bet he helped her get a lot of those Google hits. Think about it. She has him to thank for her career and her—whatever-she-does-to-end-up-on-Google. But you can be Google material on your own. Which puts you in another league. Because you’re not one of his campus groupies. In fact, if you had any sense, you would realize that he’s your groupie.”
“Don’t be silly. He’s my boyfriend. Not a groupie.”
“Look, in any couple where one person has a bit of a following or a leadership gig, this is always an issue. And you’re certainly not his groupie—you barely know anything about him!”
“That’s not true!”
“He knows a lot more about you than you do about him. All these exes came as a shock to you. If you were a groupie, you’d know all their names and where they work before you ever met him. So don’t kid yourself. I think I’ll have a Cobb salad.” She shoved a menu in front of Allie. “Why don’t you have something to eat? You look pale.”
When I left Caffe Bianco to meet Matt for dinner, they were still debating the finer points of fandom, groupiedom, and Google rankings. In the cab, on the way to the restaurant, I found my cell phone and remembered the missed call when I was rushing to clean up after Milt. I pressed Talk.
“Where are you?” Miranda asked.
“I’m in a cab.”
“Maybe you should call when you get home.”
“I’m going to Pastis. We have time to talk! Did you hear from Christopher?”
“Yeah, we had dinner at Barolo the other night. Are you alone?”
“Yes! What’s wrong?”
“Grandmummy died. They’re flying her home, they can’t do it right away because they have to order a zinc-lined coffin. But the funeral’s next week. If she arrives in time. Well, she was so out of it, you know. She wasn’t well, and she wasn’t all there. But…”
“Should I come over? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Go to Pastis. I’m a big girl, Nancy!”
“Maybe you should come have dinner with us.”
“Thanks but I want to be alone. And I have to start packing. I’m going to help my dad with the funeral. I don’t know where everybody’s going to stay. He needs my help. My mother hasn’t been feeling well.”
It feels strange to have no grandparents. Miranda has one left—on her mother’s side—but this is it for me.
“If you change your mind,” I said, “just come to the restaurant. You shouldn’t be alone.”
“I have to be alone,” she said. “I’m leaving for Trinidad tomorrow night. And I have no clean laundry!”
As the cab entered Central Park, I felt it: my bloodstream was crying out for a drink. I remember mourning the death of my father’s mother five years ago, on my living room couch, while tippling ice cold vodka shots. I was single, alone—and free to indulge my grief. Now I fear being tripped up by such emotions. If I drink too much, I might speak too freely about any number of things. I have to keep it together this time.
8
Death and the Laytons
TUESDAY, 4/17/01
A voice mail from Mother: “Your grandmother is being flown out of Manchester at the end of the week. We might have to change at Heathrow. Miranda tells me you plan to use air miles. Can you really do that? At such short notice?”
My American Airlines mileage has piled up over the years. When I married Matt, I had no savings, so I think of my AA miles as my dowry. All 147,000 of them! Having miles isn’t the same thing as having money in the bank, but it shows that I have the ability to save. Or the potential. And I like being able to tell b
oth Mother and Husband that I’m buying my own ticket to Grandmummy’s funeral.
In Trinidad, a Layton funeral is a newsworthy event. Laytons are often in the news, especially these days, and not just for weddings and funerals. Last year, Miranda’s father, Uncle Gregory, sued his youngest brother, Anthony, for embezzling money from the family business. Uncle Anthony created a scandal by going to the tabloid press, accusing another uncle of insurance fraud, then countersuing Uncle Gregory for slander. Grandmummy has been, as Miranda puts it, “so out of it” for almost two years, that she was never aware of her sons quarreling. In public. Over the business her late husband built for their benefit. And the vindictive headlines rage on, with various aunts, great-aunts, uncles, and cousins taking sides.
My three aunts have a tendency to fall into line with Uncle Gregory. My mother, the youngest of the nine Layton siblings, is torn between her childhood affection for Uncle Anthony—he’s a year older than she is—and her loyalty to the family cause. For her, Uncle Gregory, right or wrong, embodies the family position simply because he’s the eldest. Aunt Vivian, my mother’s eldest sister, gets along so well with Kasturi (Gregory’s wife) that it’s inconceivable for her to support Anthony. Besides, Kasturi lets Aunt Vivian spend three months of the year at their condo in Vancouver. But there are, here and there, dissenting Laytons who mutter about hidden agendas and Uncle Gregory’s drinking.
As for my grandmother’s side of the family, they’ve been more skeptical. Grandmummy’s brother, my great-uncle Edwin, sees the scandal as a typical example of Layton hubris spinning dangerously out of control on all sides, and likes to position himself as my grandmother’s emissary.
The Chans, my father’s family, are not high profile. Their funerals and financial disputes don’t make the news. During childhood visits to Port of Spain, I went to the house in Woodbrook for lunch with my father’s family, or I spent an afternoon looking at old pictures with a great-aunt and a second cousin. But I always returned to the Layton fold at the end of the day. I stayed with one of my mother’s three sisters or with Uncle Gregory and Aunt Kasturi. I can remember when Miranda was “the baby” in a household filled with six older boys. Her eldest brother was preparing to leave Trinidad for college when she, the only daughter, was learning how to walk.
In Uncle Gregory’s household the days were bustling, eventful, emotional. People seemed to be constantly going somewhere, making plans. There were visitors, car trips, errands, deliveries. The house where my father had grown up had a very different feeling. Life was in a holding pattern. What’s the hurry? The women, my father’s aunts and cousins, owned the house and outnumbered the men. It was quiet. Very quiet.
I was always, somehow, a Layton, even if I carried my father’s name. The Chans never had a well-known patriarch that I can recall. Chans are individuals. Like my father, Egbert Chan. Laytons, however, are always Laytons. One is either a child of Arthur M. Layton (my mother’s stern, ambitious dad who got his start brokering condensed milk) or a grandchild. I can only remember talking to him once. He had fifty-one grandchildren. As the first child of his youngest daughter, I didn’t loom large. When we met, I was six and he was ancient, trying to sleep in after a long flight to Ottawa. Our conversation was brief.
“Child, hand me the pastilles, I left them on the dresser.” Amid the clutter, I found a small tin of black currant pastilles and delivered it to his bedside. “I think your mother is calling you.”
It seemed strange to me for a grown-up to be lying in bed consuming sweets. My mother had impressed upon me that a sweet tooth is both childish and regrettable. But I knew I was the granddaughter of an important man and was often reminded of it.
To this day, my father finds it amusing to call himself “a remote satellite of the Laytons”—though never in front of my step-mother. Had he grown up somewhere else, he would have forgotten the Laytons after my mother left him. But he grew up on the same island, in the same town, as my mother and her siblings, so denying his satellite status would be like denying the existence of home. He still visits Uncle Gregory once a year and knows more Laytonian history than my mother.
The strangest burden of Laytonhood is the emotional investment my mother has in being pure Chinese, even though her Chinese family has an English surname. My father’s the usual Trinidad mixture but he somehow ended up with a Chinese name. Due to my mother’s genetic pedigree and my father’s name, I can pass for Chinese. Unless you look closely. And know what to look for.
My telltale pubic hair is curly and thick when permitted to flourish, a non-Chinese feature that sets me apart.
FRIDAY, 4/20/01. FLIGHT 1386 EN ROUTE TO PORT OF SPAIN
The safest place to be is the cabin of a plane during a nonstop six-hour flight. Well, hairdressers will tell you that, as did Lorenzo when I popped in for my prefuneral highlights. “You will have six hours of dry windless paradise,” he predicted. “And then it’s a battle.” He tucked a can of spray into my handbag. “Use it just before you deplane. I know about Trinidad,” he said. “Like a steam bath.”
Lorenzo has traveled to every region of the globe and possesses encyclopedic knowledge of each climate’s effect on shoulderlength hair.
“But I can’t get a nonstop flight. I connect at Miami.”
“Oh, Miami’s just right for your kind of hair. The airport, I mean.” While wrapping a sheet of foil around a small piece of my hair, he glanced down at the newspaper in my lap. “The mayor’s love life is getting on my nerves. I knew he was mixed up in his psyche when he announced a so-called Northern Italian chef at Gracie Mansion.” Lorenzo grew up in Milan. “Personally,” he added, “I prefer the food of the south. How about you?”
Lorenzo was right about my layover. No trace of humidity. Yet. And what an extravaganza of service Miami Airport is! Manicures and hair care at Angelo’s, Caribbean cooking on Concourse D, a sushi bar that serves proper cocktails, and a hotel restaurant you can visit without ever leaving the airport. As I headed for the gate, I felt like a kid who doesn’t want to leave the amusement park. Why is JFK such a drab ordeal by comparison?
At Miami, I had to flee from La Caretta (Concourse D’s main attraction) because I was tempted to purchase a whole bag of fragrant empanadas for the plane ride. There’s no point arriving in a bloated state, reeking of gluttony. Especially since Miranda has arranged for her brother to pick me up. I wonder if Dennis remembers kissing me—my first French kiss—that summer when I was twelve and he was fifteen. Just in case he does, I want to be crisp, fresh, completely pulled together when I arrive. No pigging out on the plane!
So I headed for the bar instead and found myself sitting next to a silver-haired man wearing an elegant pin-striped suit. We exchanged destinations.
“Trinidad. Have you been?”
“Buenos Aires,” he said with a courtly smile. “Not yet,” he added.
He looked like the sort of guy who might sometimes pass through New York. Should I give him my number? But when he discovered that I was married, he looked so wistful, disappointed, and rich that I wanted to kick myself. Perhaps…but I don’t do that anymore. Bar hustling is not an option at my age! My first trick, at fourteen, was a salesman I picked up in a hotel bar but my customers today think I was “always” a private call girl. I keep that a secret from most of the girls, too.
There is a time and a place for everything. Now is certainly not the time to reactivate a phase of my career I’ve spent years denying. But I can’t help feeling that this might have been the place!
SUNDAY, 4/22/01. THE UPSIDE-DOWN HILTON
From my balcony on “three”—floor numbers are reversed here—I can see the top of an oil rig in the Gulf of Paria. A group of strapping males, clad in bright pink and lime green, running around on the Savannah kicking a ball. Yesterday, I watched them doing their warm-ups—but the midmorning heat sent me right back to my air-conditioned room. It’s hard to believe, but the place where I was born is totally incompatible with my body. Not to mention my hair
. The temperature is only bearable at night, and the moisture is punishing.
There’s no chain on my door (which makes me nervous) but security guards are everywhere. In New York, I dodge the hotel security. For a hooker, they’re potentially hazardous. But here? I find them totally reassuring. Crucial.
Driving into town on Friday night, my cousin Dennis told me about his misadventure in a shopping mall.
“I was picking up some groceries and they came in waving cutlasses. They told everyone to get on the floor. Lie still.”
“Oh my god. What do you do when somebody’s waving a cutlass at you?”
“You get on the floor and wait for them to leave. It’s happening every day. Schoolchildren carrying cutlasses. Kidnapping and murder. But you’ll be safe at the Hilton.”
Despite all the crime, I do feel safe. Eight hours away from my double life, I find there’s a lot less to keep track of. In New York, I’m juggling all those names and places, not to mention people. When I come here, I’m just another Layton among Laytons. I don’t have to invent, reinvent, or explain myself. There are two kinds of Laytons: those, like Dennis, who are content to be just that, to remain in Trinidad where they can be too easily defined; and the rest of us who are content to become just that, but only when we return for a visit.
Not until I had emptied my suitcase and undressed for bed did I remember to ask myself whether Dennis remembers our kiss.
Perhaps the memory of his tongue entering my mouth belongs exclusively to me. Perhaps he doesn’t run a museum of sexual experience. Doesn’t see himself as chief curator of his own sex life. He’s part of my collection, an early acquisition. Do museum items get to have their own museums? Should they?
I still remember the new sensation: a tongue in my mouth, a boy’s hand on my breast, for the first time. A kiss I had been longing for since I was nine, when I spent the entire summer adoring my cousin Dennis and waiting for him to notice me. At twelve, I had the full breasts and budding pubic hair I had been lacking. The approach, as we rolled around on the narrow couch, tipsy from drinking rum punch, was more pleasurable than the kiss itself. Though we never repeated the experiment, and never stayed in touch over the years, I think of it whenever I see him at a wedding or funeral.