Inside Out Girl

by Tish Cohen

  “Normally, I’d have been stressed about getting a lousy seat,” said Len, handing their tickets to an usher, then guiding Rachel into the darkened theater. The dim glow of the movie, which had already begun, allowed them to see three things. Random bits of popcorn were sailing through the air; the theater was undulating with fidgety young bodies; and the only empty seats that weren’t singles were in the very last row. “But this time I won’t mind sitting at the back.”

  She grinned. “Hoping to get lucky in the dark?”

  “If it will distract me from the movie, yes.”

  They picked their way along the row, littered with flip-flops, cast-off purses, and candy wrappers, and dropped into their seats. She leaned closer to him and whispered, “Sorry.”

  “That’s two apologies in as many minutes. Not that I’m keeping track.”

  “About the movie, I mean. I can personally guarantee it will be the worst thing you watch this year. I promise to refund your money.”

  He pulled a package of smuggled licorice from his jacket pocket, opened it, and offered her a piece. “Remind me why we’re here again…”

  “Dustin is dying to see this movie.” Rachel moved even closer, which Len didn’t mind at all, and cupped her hand over his ear, whispering, “I’ve heard that somebody goes crazy and murders a mother and her two daughters, leaving the teenage boy to raise himself. I want to be sure the murderer isn’t the mother’s new boyfriend.”

  Len laughed, the smell of her lemon shampoo making him giddy. He stretched his arm around the back of her seat and rested his hand on her bare shoulder. Her skin felt cool, firm. He waited for any sign of her shrinking from his touch. None came. “Well, just as long as he isn’t a lawyer.”

  She poked him in the ribs, taking his breath away.

  They watched in silence as the mother introduced her benign-looking poet boyfriend to her three kids over tuna casserole and green salad. He ruffled the bobbed hair of the younger daughter and announced the traffic had been terrible. Rachel yawned, letting her head lean back onto Len’s shoulder. She left it there.

  Her lips weren’t three inches from his.

  “Why exactly do we care how this particular family is murdered?” Len asked.

  “We’re only concerned with the ‘who.’ Dustin’s biggest fear in life is me dating. If Pentameter Boy here is the killer and Dustin watches this, I’ll be sitting home alone every Saturday night until my son heads to college. We’re talking six years, fifty-two Saturday nights in a year. That’s…” Rachel chewed her lower lip as she calculated. “Well, that’s a lot of Saturday nights.”

  Len studied her. “We can’t have that.”

  The poet excused himself from the table and slipped into the kitchen. He should have headed straight for the sink to top up his water glass, the one he claimed, not ten seconds prior, needed filling, but as he approached the enormous wooden chopping block, he paused and stared at the mother’s new carving knife.

  Rachel pulled her purse onto her lap. “Okay. That’s all I needed to know. Want to grab a beer?”

  “God, yes.” Len followed her through the row of teenagers, one of whom mumbled, “Make up your fucking mind,” and back out into the brightly lit lobby. “Poor Dustin,” said Len. “Undone by the knife used to chop the romaine.” He held open the outside door for Rachel. “Does he know you’re here?”

  She nodded. “He was worried one of his friends would see me. In addition to being terrified I was going out with you again.”

  “Mm. Might have been better not to admit to the film.”

  “It’s the one promise I made to my kids when they were young—I give them the truth. No matter how painful.”

  “Well, the truth about that movie is, I’ve never seen anything quite as painful.”

  “I won’t argue that.”

  Rachel stretched her arms over her head as they walked out into the warm night air. It seemed everyone had the same idea. The sidewalk was overflowing with couples sampling an early taste of summer, strolling hand in hand or sitting over drinks in awning-covered patios. Reluctant to take Rachel’s hand—rubbing her arm in the shadowy theater was one thing, reaching for her hand in front of martini-swilling strangers on the sidewalk was far too presumptuous at this stage—Len began walking in the general direction of his car.

  As they approached Roosters, a chic little bistro with a rustic yet modern edge—clean-lined benches made of barn beams, stainless steel walls—Rachel stopped. “What about this place? I’ve been dying to try it…”

  “I was thinking we could hop in the car, drive down to Merryston. There’s a great little restaurant overlooking the river—”

  “Merryston’s forty minutes away.”

  “It’s a nice night. We can put the top down. You’ll get chilled. I’ll warm you up. I have it all worked out, as you can see.”

  “Yes, you do…”

  “Or we could bribe our babysitters and check into a little motel.” He looked at her quickly and winked. “Just for a quick contest over the side of the balcony. Loser buys mimosas the next morning.”

  “Mm. This is all very tempting. It’s not every day a girl gets invited to take a part in a pee contest…”

  “Don’t say ‘pee,’” he said. “It’ll mark you as an amateur.”

  “We can’t have that.”

  He motioned toward his car. “So…Merryston?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t be out too late tonight. I have to get the kids to the pediatrician for their checkups in the morning, and if I’m out late, Dusty won’t sleep. Then he won’t get out of bed and we’ll miss the Saturday morning appointments we’ve had booked for two months, and Dr. Grenier’s secretary will think I’m an uncaring mother.”

  He laughed. “Oh, I don’t think there’s any danger of that.”

  Pausing to glance at the menu affixed to the restaurant’s hostess podium, Len sensed Rachel was no longer with him. He spun around to see her standing a few paces back, knitting her eyebrows together and biting her lip. Brown curls danced around her face in the evening breeze as couples passed her by. Had he offended her? Had she been expecting him to more ardently defend her caring-mother status?

  “Three hundred and twelve,” Rachel said.

  “What?”

  “It would have been three hundred and twelve Saturday nights on my own if Dustin had seen the movie. Give or take.”

  Len smiled to himself. To hell with hand-holding. Right there in front of the patrons of Roosters, he took Rachel by the shoulders and kissed her.

  When Dr. Tanzer mentioned he’d ordered a few extra tests, he’d neglected to prepare Len for just what to expect. Len had never experienced claustrophobia before, but being inside the MRI unit the next week was like suffering his own burial.

  The tunnel was too cramped. Too close. Who thought to make this machine all white? It was like being in a colorless coffin. The machine hummed and clicked a bit louder, sending a fresh surge of sweat down the back of his neck.

  He closed his eyes and tried to imagine a sandy beach. Children jumping over undulating waves. Women in flowered bathing suits—no, Rachel in a flowered bathing suit, her freckled arms making the floral pattern overly busy, overly delectable.

  The MRI’s softer clicking sounds switched to loud banging, ripping his thoughts away from the beach and thrusting them back inside the pipe. He regretted having pulled out the earplugs they’d offered him. Not being able to hear, at first, had worsened the claustrophobia, but now he was left with the sounds of shovels slamming against his casket.

  The banging stopped. The technologist’s voice boomed, “That’s all, Mr. Bean.” The table clicked, then began to move, pulling him out feet-first. Breathing normally once again, Len sat up, thrilled to have survived. “My God, that’s some piece of technology. You’d think someone would have dreamed up a way to get a small TV in there. Even some graffiti would have been nice.”

  The technician helped Len off the table without so much as a
smile. “Graffiti would interfere with our images.” The technician blinked. “I’ll have to ask you not to leave just yet, Mr. Bean. There’s something I’d like the radiologist to have a quick look at before you go.”

  CHAPTER 12

  A Girl Like That

  After a divorce, there will come a time when you are ready to reenter the dating world. Alleviate the fears of your children by listening to their concerns and assuring them that their lives will not be negatively affected in any way.

  —RACHEL BERMAN, Perfect Parent magazine

  Pulling the Saab onto her gravel driveway, Rachel cut the corner too close again, wincing as a thorny hedge scraped along her car door. Piper looked up from the flower bed at the base of the wraparound porch and pulled back her pink glove to check her watch. As if Rachel should have known her mother would be trolling through her tulips at ten o’clock on a Saturday morning.

  “Those tryouts were fixed,” Janie grumbled in the backseat, tugging at her hockey jersey, borrowed from her brother. “You should complain.”

  “Your grandmother’s here. Try to put on a smile for her.”

  “How can I smile when my life’s just been ruined?” Janie jumped out of the car and stomped past her grandmother, leaving Piper to eye Rachel, bewildered.

  “What have you done to Janie?” Piper asked, holding an unplanted orange petunia.

  Rachel slammed her car door. “I haven’t done anything. My daughter apparently doesn’t agree that hockey players need to know how to skate.”

  “That doesn’t sound like my granddaughter,” Piper said, lowering herself onto a green vinyl cushion and tucking the flower into the ground.

  For the first time, Rachel noticed her tulips had been hacked down and were lying, cast off, on the flagstone path. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m fixing your garden. Whoever planted your tulip bulbs didn’t plant them deep enough.”

  “I planted them. Plenty deep.”

  “Three inches. You must dig your hole seven inches deep or they won’t make it. Why the white tulips, anyway? When this was my house, I planted orange petunias every year.”

  “But my front door is red.”

  Piper looked up at the door, shielding her eyes from the sun. “I’ve been thinking about that. What do you think about black?”

  Rachel sighed.

  “Arthur and I went into the city last night. We went to the Frick, then out for pasta. He thinks you should sell the house.”

  “What?”

  “He volunteers with the conservation authority on erosion control. He says underground water runoff and vibrations from local construction are only going to exacerbate the problem. And it won’t be long before it becomes a huge issue.” She snipped another tulip and tossed it into a heap. “Your land will become impossible to sell. If you have any left, that is.”

  “Tell Arthur thanks, but I’ve done my research. It’ll be two hundred years before I lose my backyard.”

  A loud bang came from the back of the house. Janie and Dustin thundered across the porch in stocking feet, both clutching the phone. “It’s Dad,” Dustin said, sweeping his hair to one side. “He wants to take us glow-in-the-dark bowling tonight!”

  Janie whispered, “Babe-chick is out of town.”

  “Please, Mom. Please!” Dustin jumped up and down. “I’ve never been glow-in-the-dark bowling. Or glow-in-the-dark anything!”

  David had the kids last weekend. He always did this. Called with a casual but irresistible invitation on Rachel’s Saturday nights. And, despite what her lawyer advised, Rachel could never say no to Janie and Dustin’s pleading faces. “Sorry guys. Not tonight. Tell your father you have very big plans with your mother tonight.”

  The kids looked shocked. “We do?” asked Janie.

  “We’re having company. My friend Len is bringing his daughter over to meet you.”

  “Which friend is this?” asked Piper.

  Janie’s face fell. “I better not be getting a sister.”

  “Len’s just a good friend of mine and we thought it might be fun if they came over for dinner and a game of Monopoly. Or maybe Twister.” It had seemed like a good idea last week as she and Len shared a narrow booth and a few liqueurs over candle-lit white chocolate cake at Roosters. And when Len’s hand accidentally brushed against Rachel’s thigh, the idea seemed even better. And later, leaning against Rachel’s front door, when they said good-night and Len leaned down to kiss her and she forgot how to breathe, the idea sounded best of all.

  Janie and Dustin groaned. “How old is his kid?” Janie asked.

  “Where did you meet this man?” asked Piper. “And when?”

  “I think she’s ten. She’s, she’s…” She’s scaring me to death, Rachel didn’t say. “She’s a lovely girl, I’ve met her. She’s sweet and very smart. Her name is Olivia. Olivia Bean.”

  The collective shriek startled Piper into snapping one of her tiny flower heads with her thumb. Disgusted, she threw the plant onto the tulip pile.

  “Olivia Bean?” screeched Janie. “Inside Out Girl is coming? Are you kidding me?”

  “What?” asked Rachel. “You know her?”

  Dustin scoffed. “She’s only, like, the biggest dork in school! The kid goes to rodent camp! And her clothes are always on wrong.”

  “She runs around school trying to hug everyone,” said Janie. “She’s freaky.”

  “Janie!” snapped Rachel. “I didn’t raise you to speak that way about people. Olivia just processes things differently, that’s all.”

  “How long have you known this man?” asked Dustin.

  “Come on, you guys,” said Rachel. “It’s just a simple dinner.”

  Janie spun around and marched toward the back of the house. “You better not marry him. Because I’m not going to be Janie Bean!”

  For a few moments after the kids disappeared, Piper said nothing. Finally, she looked at Rachel. “It’s the first I’ve heard of this man.”

  “We’ve only been out twice.”

  “And you’re introducing him to Janie and Dustin? Isn’t that a bit impulsive? A bit out of character for you?”

  Rachel fidgeted with her purse. Of course it was impulsive. Irresponsible. Risky. It went completely against her usual paranoia-driven instincts. Then again, so had stopping to change a stranger’s flat tire. “Not at all. It’s two families eating steak. Besides, I’ve already met his daughter.”

  “And what if it doesn’t work out? Won’t it be awfully confusing for a girl like that?”

  Rachel narrowed her eyes. “A girl like what?”

  Piper scowled, shaking her head and gathering her tools. “Don’t play games with me, Rachel.” She lowered her voice to a whisper: “A girl who is obviously far from normal.”

  Rachel said nothing.

  With a small broom, Piper began sweeping the walkway with short, brisk strokes, much like the excruciating way she once brushed Rachel’s thick hair. “It’s your life, darling,” she said eventually. “I’m not going to start interfering now.”

  Rachel was never supposed to have seen her baby’s face. The delivery nurse, Margaret, who held Rachel’s hand, had scooped up her baby and skated quickly through the swinging door to where the adoptive parents were waiting. Piper had given specific instructions that no family member, including Rachel, was to look into the baby’s eyes, believing it would hurt less that way.

  Rachel and her baby remained in the hospital for a few days, separately, until a battery of tests were completed. No one at the hospital would answer her questions, other than to assure her that the infant was doing well. But on the third night, Margaret came back on duty.

  She tiptoed into Rachel’s shared room and placed a box of chocolates on the table beside Rachel’s bed. “I stole this from the staff room. Thought it might cheer you up.”

  Rachel—who’d woken up that morning with aching breasts, swollen and firm—nodded and sat up. Managing the first smile since the birth, Rachel reached for a choc
olate and said, “I’ve been thinking about her.” What else would she possibly have done over the last few days but think about her daughter? “I’d like to name her Hannah. From my favorite Woody Allen movie.”

  Margaret’s eyes were moist. “Ah, sweetheart. You can’t name her. That’s the job of her new parents.”

  “But they haven’t taken her yet. What do you call her?”

  “Baby Girl Dearborn.”

  Dearborn. Rachel had never considered the irony until that moment. She stuffed a chocolate cherry into her mouth and chewed it without tasting.

  As Margaret started to leave the room, she paused and turned around. She whispered, “Would you like to see her? Just once?”

  Rachel swallowed. “Really?”

  Margaret nodded, patting Rachel’s hand.

  “Oh, please.”

  Margaret was back a few minutes later, pushing a glass bassinet. She reached inside and pulled out the baby, turning around and nodding to Rachel to sit up. With her free hand, Margaret pushed a pillow beneath Rachel’s left elbow.

  The baby was bundled in pink, swaddled so snugly only her face and two tiny fists showed. Thin black curls framed her beautiful face. Her eyes slanted upward slightly at the corners. Her rosebud mouth was perfect, with what looked like a small blister in the center of the top lip. From sucking, Rachel thought.

  Hannah’s head lay in the crook of Rachel’s arm, her tiny face close to Rachel’s breast. “Something just happened,” Rachel said, feeling a rush in her breasts and liquid flowing down her torso. She glanced down at her nightgown to see wet stains spreading across her chest.

  “Letdown,” Margaret said. “Your body knows who’s in your arms, it knows what it’s meant to do now.”