Why couldn’t I do the same? Well, nothing was stopping me. Stephanie was available to babysit and Laurel could fold laundry, and while I couldn’t paint while driving or taking a bath, I could free my mind and start the transition from daily life to painting. What exactly was stopping me from being who I wanted to be?
“Nothing,” I said out loud. Killer barked as if in agreement, and I threw her a doggy biscuit. Then I snuck into Laurel’s room (my room?) and grabbed her digital camera without waking her. I took photographs of my best Woman Running paintings, hurriedly typed up a prospectus (shamelessly borrowed from an Internet sample), added a résumé (again, shamelessly borrowed), printed out fifteen copies, and sealed one of each in manila envelopes. I drove to the Airport Post Office and mailed a packet to every third art gallery in the phone book. I felt strong doing this, and proud and vindicated.
Twelve hours later, however, I feel quite differently. Shame floods my mouth, thick and rust flavored, along with that old voice in my head: who do you think you are?
Which is a good question. Who do I think I am? An artist? Someone with the talent to net a show in an environment where artists outnumber gallery openings sixty to one?
Gramma always carried herself with such bravado, though much of it was false. “I ain’t as fat as I look,” she’d say whenever anyone told her she had guts. Then she’d tell the story about smuggling a pig across Poland dressed in baby clothes, its piggy head wrapped in a scarf, nothing showing but its greedy eyes. The train was filled with soldiers, and if Gramma had been caught she would have been shot.
“Or worse,” she whispered, and Laurel, Gene, and I huddled together, imagining hideous tortures where our grandmother was flayed with noodles and made to eat sweet cakes until her belly exploded. Before she boarded the train, Gramma drugged the pig with expensive medicine bought from the underground market.
“Ach, he sleep like a baby,” she said.
When two German officers sat down across from her, she opened her lunch basket and took out hunks of smelly cheese and green sauerkraut to cover the piggy smell. She offered these stinking gifts to the officers; of course, they turned her down.
She got off the train at Krakow, where her sister and mother were waiting.
“It a shame to kill that pig.” Gramma clasped her hand around her throat. “But people gotta eat. Still, it make my brzuch ache. Maybe I think it really is my child, maybe I do that somehow.”
Mother pooh-poohed this story. “She made it up,” she insisted. “She got it from some movie.”
Probably she did, but we didn’t care. We loved this story, loved to think of our fat, sweaty grandmother sitting on a train across from German officers, a pig dressed like a baby cradled in her arms. We loved the comfort it brought, the reassurance, the message embedded in this strange tale that we heard but wouldn’t understand until years later: that in a world where pigs can pass for babies, there is always room for possibilities.
Chapter 18
Phone call from Francisco at 1:17 a.m.
“I’m back,” he yawned. “My luggage didn’t make it, so I stole one of those airline pillows in my pack. I’ll give it back when they give me back my suitcase.”
I sat on the kitchen floor and picked dog hairs off the linoleum.
“You there?” he asked.
“Yes,” I finally said. “I got the bones.”
“Oh.” He paused. “Did you like?”
“I-I guess. I mean, I’m not sure what to do with them. But they’re nice.” I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. I knew how sensitive men could be. “Jay-Jay took one of the ribs to school and gave it to a girl.”
“No way!” Francisco’s voice immediately perked up. “Does he like her?”
“Maybe. He got in trouble, though. The principal called; it was kind of a mess.”
“Bones can be powerful. They hold the essence of life, even after death. It’s mind-boggling, when you think about it.” He yawned again. “Listen, I’d better hit the sack. I’ll call tomorrow. Let’s get together, okay?”
“Um, sure.”
“’Night.”
I placed the phone next to my pillow. Francisco was no longer on the line, but I liked knowing that I could call anytime, even in the middle of the night, and he’d pick up and let me listen to him breathe.
Monday, Jan. 16
I left work early today and drove home to pick up Laurel for her ultrasound appointment. She stumbled down the steps in a hideous red-and-green-plaid maternity blouse with a red bow tied around the neck.
“Not a word,” she hissed, as she slid into the passenger seat and fastened her safety harness. “Mother sent it last week. She’s under the mistaken impression that it’s Junior’s baby, not that I’m about to correct her.”
“I was just going to say that you forgot your coat,” I lied, as I peeled out of the driveway. Fifteen minutes later we arrived at the Dimond Medical Clinic, where we sat with Dr. Betsy (“That’s my last name, not my first. I’m not the Betsy type,” she informed us the minute we walked into the room). “Okay, Laurie, feet in the stirrups.”
Laurel’s eyes widened, but she didn’t say anything. It wasn’t like her to not give the doctor a piece of her mind for getting her name wrong, though it’s difficult to be dignified with your legs splayed open in front of a woman you’ve never met. The doctor did a quick pelvic exam as I hummed and stared at the ceiling; when I peeked over Laurel had her eyes squeezed tight, the way she used to when we played hide-and-seek.
“Now I want you to sit up and drink this.” Dr. Betsy handed her a huge bottle of colored water. “Don’t worry, there are no calories, just flavoring.” Laurel nodded and obediently began to drink. “You wouldn’t believe the gripes I get about the flavoring—women worried that they might accidently suck in fifty or sixty extra calories. As if that would matter. Pregnancy is the great equalizer.” Dr. Betsy nodded thoughtfully. “Skinny women bloat up like there’s no tomorrow, and next thing you know they’re in my office crying about how they treated the fat girl back in high school.
“Laurie, you can slip into this robe”—she pointed at a hideous green terry cloth robe with sunflowers climbing up the sides—“and go sit in the waiting room. We have another fifteen or so minutes before the liquid hits your bladder. Don’t pee, don’t fidget, and don’t laugh, got that?”
Laurel pulled the ugly robe over her paper smock and waddled out. I followed with her shoes, and we sat side by side trying to find the hidden objects in Highlights for Children magazines. She sipped the flavored water with a seriousness that brought tears to my eyes. Right as I circled a hair clip hidden in a pony’s leg, Dr. Betsy called us back into the office. Laurel lay down on the sheeted table and I stood beside her. When she wiggled her fingers, I instinctively grabbed her hand.
“Warning, this will be cold.” Dr. Betsy placed a white knob shaped like the leg of a couch over Laurel’s abdomen.
Up on the computer screen grayish shadows vibrated and expanded in a strange tunnel that looked like a light from a late-night-movie spaceship. Then the outline of Laurel’s baby swam into view, its froggy head bopping in amniotic fluid, one arm outstretched, the other pressed against its mouth as if ready to whisper secrets.
“It’s an active one.” Dr. Betsy pressed buttons on the computer and zeroed in on the focus until the baby’s head emerged, alien shaped, the eyes overly large, the body tossing back and forth.
“Do you want to know the sex?” Dr. Betsy asked.
“It’s a girl,” Laurel said. “But go ahead and check if you don’t believe me.”
As Dr. Betsy maneuvered the knob around Laurel’s belly, I remembered back to my own ultrasound. I was afraid at the time that Barry would say something dumb or tell off-the-wall jokes, but he stood beside me, bearded and serious as we waited to see our son for the first time. My eyes filled with tears at the memory of Jay-Jay’s face, along with the whump-whump-whumping of his heartbeat, so familiar it was like hearing my own breat
h.
Dr. Betsy punched more computer keys and the baby’s feet kicked toward us as if sending a message. “She’s going to be a handful, I can already tell,” Dr. Betsy said. “It’s the attitude. You might think that if you’ve seen one ultrasound, you’ve seen them all, but every so often distinct personalities emerge. One mother suggested that these were the old souls, returning to fulfill a prophecy.”
Dr. Betsy printed out photos to take home. Laurel clutched these in her hands and refused to let go, so I helped her pull on her pants and button her blouse. Her face was dreamy, flushed, and she stared out the window on the way home, not saying a word until I turned onto Spenard Road.
“Did you hear what she said, that my baby is an old soul, here to fulfill a prophecy?”
I nodded and zoomed through a yellow light at the Fireweed intersection.
“Maybe that’s why… Carly, can I tell you something if you promise not to breathe a word to anyone?”
I bypassed our road and kept driving down toward the lagoon.
“I did it on purpose. Don’t say anything, just let me finish.” She sucked in her breath and patted the photos against her chest. “I never planned on having kids. That’s one of the reasons I married Junior. He couldn’t have kids, I didn’t want them—it seemed the perfect match. But then about a year ago I started seeing babies everywhere. It didn’t matter where I went, to the gym or Kaladi Brothers or the supermarket, it was almost as if they were following me. I was annoyed at first; you know, I’ve never been a baby person. Then one day as I slid my credit card through the card reader at Fred Meyer, I saw a woman behind me holding a baby, and its legs were so chubby, the skin so perfect and smooth, that I leaned over and kissed its bare foot.
“Well, I was mortified. I apologized over and over but the mother just laughed, said she understood, that babies were the milk of the gods—isn’t that a beautiful saying, Carly? The milk of the gods.”
I pulled into the lagoon parking lot, put the car in park, and left the heater running on low.
“It was later that week, a Wednesday night,” Laurel continued, “which I took as a good sign. Remember how I always did better on tests midweek? We were at the Sheraton, the TV was on; Hank liked to catch himself doing the weather report, it perked him up, if you know what I mean. I got up and went in the bathroom, and I still remember the light, so gold and soft as I watched my reflection pull out my diaphragm and flush it down the toilet. It almost didn’t go down but I pushed it hard with a toilet brush I found beneath the sink. I washed my hands, patted lotion across my face, and went back to Hank. I felt the moment it happened, felt the clink of my egg reaching out and grabbing the sperm. I say ‘the’ sperm because even then I didn’t see it as Hank’s, only as something that belonged to me.
“The funny thing is that a week later, I no longer cared about babies. I felt no attachment, no desire to touch them, let alone kiss their feet. By that time, of course, it was too late to see a doctor about a morning-after pill. I knew before I took the first test that I was pregnant, though by that time I no longer wanted it. But that must not have been true or I would have gone ahead and had the abortion, wouldn’t I? It was almost as if the baby decided I would have it; it picked me as its mother, and that was that.”
“Like Jay-Jay,” I said. “There’s no way Barry and I could have produced such a kid by ourselves. He’s either a genetic mutation or a miracle.”
“A miracle,” Laurel mumbled. “The milk of the gods. My baby is going to be an old soul. I wonder what she will teach me?” She leaned back and closed her eyes. “This is going to be hard, isn’t it, Carly? This is going to be the most difficult thing I’ve ever done.”
What’s on my kitchen table
Dr. Spock baby book
DVD: Eating for Two without Looking Like Two
Bank of America MasterCard bill, paid and waiting to mail
Alaska Airlines credit card bill, paid and waiting to mail
A tibia bone
Tuesday, Jan. 17
“I’m getting fat,” Barry said over the phone this morning at 5:30 a.m. “Pants don’t fit and I got this lumpy thing going on around my belly.”
“You look fine,” I yawned, trying to remember if this was true. “You’re a chef. You’re supposed to be heavy.”
“I didn’t say heavy, I said a few pounds.”
I barely listened but Barry didn’t seem to mind. Now that we no longer slept together we had become friends, real friends, the way we weren’t able to be when we were married.
“…find me attractive?” he said, and I knew this was my cue.
“Women like a bit of a belly on a man,” I said. “It’s sexy. It says, here’s a guy who isn’t afraid of his appetites.”
“I ain’t gonna believe that,” he said, but his voice sounded stronger. “Jay-Jay told me about the camp. Says it costs five grand and you wasn’t gonna be able to come up with half. So I says, don’t worry, I’ll figure something out.”
“Huh?”
“All that money you think I owe on Jay-Jay’s support? I ain’t been holding out on him. Maybe I was pissed, okay, I was pissed, but damn it, Carly, a man’s got a right to hold a grudge and it’s not like you been starving. I would have stepped right in if things got critical, you know that about me.”
I held the phone tight to my ear, my fingers cramping.
“I got it all.” He let out a long breath and was quiet for a moment. “For college, see, I started this CD, one of them jump-uppers where they let you add quarterly. He got, let me see.” I heard the shuffle of paper and the bang of something knocked over. “Six thousand two hundred and fifty-six dollars. That’s the last statement, so of course it’s up by now.”
I didn’t know what to say. On one hand I was furious: he had had the money all along! While we ate generic spaghetti and wiped our butts with cheap, scratchy toilet paper! On the other hand, he was right: I always made do and things have been tough, but we never went hungry or cold, and there was always enough for everything we needed.
“You got every right to be mad,” Barry continued, “but I always done good by Jay-Jay. He can go to camp if he gets one of them partial scholarships, and later a big-league college.”
I didn’t have the heart to mention that those “big-league” schools cost over forty-five thousand a year. Instead I said something that surprised us both. “Thank you.”
Five hours later I crouched in the lounge on the first cig dig of the shift and told this to Sandee. It was too cold to go outside, and a table of off-the-base soldiers was getting seriously sloshed across from us.
“We finally did it last night,” Sandee interrupted. “It wasn’t very good. Shouldn’t that make me happy, for it to be bad so that I could say, ‘Okay, this isn’t the man for me,’ and then walk away, no obligation, no refund?”
“It isn’t always good the first time, you know that. Expectation alone can ruin the experience.”
“I don’t understand.” She sank down into a sitting position, her clumpy hiking boots splayed out in the aisle. “Everything was perfect. He touched me so tenderly, as if I might break, little touches like whispers across my skin.” I sat down beside her, the carpet spongy and dirty. “It wasn’t bad, don’t get me wrong. He knew what he was doing; he tried his best but I just couldn’t get there.”
“So you didn’t come, big deal. Sometimes it takes time to learn each other.” I was jealous: I wanted to sleep with Francisco, yet I was relieved that I hadn’t.
“I suppose.” She was clearly depressed. “He left right after. I found his socks beneath the bed, that’s how fast he took off; he didn’t even bother grabbing them.”
“I thought he didn’t wear socks.” She looked at me blankly. “You know, the sandals without socks? The first date?”
“Oh, that. He was just trying to impress me. Now that he knows he has my interest, he wears socks again.”
“He’s in love with you.” I pulled her up and wiped the dust off the bac
k of her skirt as Mr. Tims veered toward us.
“Now that you girls have finished with your fake cigarette break, can you please get your asses back on the floor? I’m out of Valiums.” He ran his fingers through his dark hair. “You do not want to get on my bad side today.”
An hour later, in the thick of the lunch rush, with all my tables full and a two-page waiting list up front, I turned around and there was Francisco sitting in my section again. His hair was windblown, his face chapped from being outside, his beautiful hands folded over his place mat. He looked so damned good that I couldn’t stand it. My mouth opened but no words came out. He didn’t say anything, either. We looked at each other.
“I think I’m going to have to put my glasses on for this.” He rummaged through his pockets until he pulled out a worn black case, which he opened, and quickly set a pair of silver-rimmed glasses on his nose. “That’s better, I can see you now.” He gazed at me in a friendly, unabashed fashion, the way a child stares, unself-consciously.
“I just got back from Moose Pass. Someone thought the bone in their root cellar was from a dinosaur—a raptor, to be specific. So I drive all the way down there. The road’s a mess, over ten cars in the ditch, and when I get there everyone’s sitting around the kitchen table, stoned, the bone painted blue with red polka dots. Artists.” He shook his head and then, as if remembering that I was one, smiled and said, “No offense.”
“So what was it?”
“It was a pig skull. Don’t you love it?” He slapped his thigh and laughed. “Talk about karma.” He took a long drink of water, his head thrown back, the underside of his throat exposed and vulnerable. “I got your present, three pieces of painting for three bones.” His voice was serious, almost soft. “I’ve missed your face. Your angles are so odd, as if your skin is new but your bones are ancient.”
I felt hot and shaky; I was afraid I was going to throw up.
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