by Kate Manning
I could see he was pleased at the idea, that his mother would like it.
We saw Milo’s parents in August that summer, when Bobbie had her baby, a beautiful tiny acorn of a son named Marcus, after his father. We flew east and I held him at the hospital, Brigham and Women’s in Boston. My nephew. He was not more than ten hours old, and I looked down at his elfin face and his long fingers crinkled like pigeons’ toes, feeling how light and small he was, while his father and Bobbie beamed dopily around the room at the whole Robicheaux assembly. Hallie was saying “A cousin! A cousin!” Milton was looking proud and uncomfortable in the doorway. Milo was next to me and Hattie was leaning over my shoulder, tears in runways down her cheeks. All during the afternoon visiting hours that day, tears were tracking down the women’s faces, Bobbie’s especially.
“I’m thirty-six years old,” she said, “and I never thought I could be so whipped by love as this.”
“What about me?” Marcus said, pouting and kissing her.
But Bobbie looked at me and we shook our heads and said, This is different, smiling at each other knowingly. We had been talking a lot, me and Bobbie, ever since she’d shown up in the driveway in my hour of need. Mostly we talked about babies and pregnancy and what to expect: the pain and the various swellings, the exhaustion and the euphoria. I sent her my books and all my maternity clothes. I gave her presents and advice.
“What’s with this bra with the windows?” she said, calling me. “What’s with the shelf on the top of this shirt?” She laughed when I said soon she would be a human restaurant.
Milo was disgusted with her for the longest time. “Can’t believe she’s going ahead with this,” he kept saying. “They should get married.”
“You should buy her a new house,” I said.
“He oughta buy her a new house,” he said. “Marcus should.”
“Maybe he counsels prisoners for practically no money.”
“What’s that got to do with it? They should get married,” he said.
“Why?” It made me happy that he put such a premium on matrimony.
“Because she’s having a baby,” he said. “Babies need fathers.”
“Marcus is the father.”
“Then he should marry her.”
“Maybe they’re working things out,” I said.
“Having a baby is worked out enough,” he said. “What about my parents?”
“They’re already married.”
He rolled his eyes. “They are none too pleased.”
“It’ll be fine. You’ll talk to them and reassure them. And you’ll buy Bobbie a big house somewhere nice,” I said.
“I will?” he asked, looking dubious.
“Also, you’ll set up a trust fund for that baby before it’s born, so it can have a yacht and a governess and a pony.”
“I will?” he asked.
“And then you will get your sister a private hospital room.”
So he did. Milo talked to his parents, calmed them down, spent a lot of money, stopped harping on weddings. And because of that, there we all were, gathered in the private room with a view of Boston Harbor where Bobbie had little Marcus; where she took my hand and pulled me down to whisper in my ear, Thank you, Charlotte, for bringing Milie around. I know you did. It means so much to us.
Then she asked me, Would I be the baby’s godmother?
I would be so honored, I said. And I was. I picked up my godson and, after a while, handed him to his Uncle Milo, who made faces at him, kissed him, said, “Hey, Mister Man.”
Bobbie said, “So when’s your boy coming?”
Milo dipped his head and smiled. He shrugged and looked embarrassed.
We were trying. All that fall we were working on it. We didn’t care, girl or boy. We just wanted another one. Hallie was asking, demanding a baby. We said, We’ll do our best. Not that we suffered, trying. I thought we were relaxed now and knew everything to expect, the drugs and the tests and the appointments. I waited and hoped. I tried not to think too much about it, tried not to drink too much or at all except in the evening, tried to be grateful for what I had. Just to be with Hallie and Milo. I couldn’t work anymore. That was clear. Not after Newark. I tried not to care, told myself it was not important. I did care, actually, and I was still offered plenty of jobs, despite what happened with Edge, but I couldn’t work. I was unable.
Every creature in the fashion kingdom knows that the Third Eye of self-consciousness is death to a model. If you have it, you can no longer create a fiction, an illusion. Your pictures come out goofy, ugly; they are all failure pictures—of you not passing muster, of you being embarrassed and shy. You must never, ever, mentally ask what the camera is thinking of you. You tell the camera what you are thinking; you create a look with your form, your face. But I could not do that anymore. It had started even before Newark, but after that it was worse. Terrible. As if I were a separate person judging myself. I had the Third Eye now, badly; not only modeling, which I quit, but all the time, every day. I watched myself from outside, as if my whole life were a bad shoot, as if all my smiles and gestures were poses. I couldn’t move without thinking: Is my face telling a story? Are my eyes the window of my soul? Is my skin my uniform?
Walking down Rodeo Drive one day that fall, I caught myself at it. In the sidewalk traffic of tanned white people in sunglasses and tucked dewlaps and rhinoplastied noses, I passed a black woman holding the hand of a small white boy. I passed a black man in a suit, another holding a broom, an older woman who looked like Milo’s mother. When I passed I smiled at them, very slightly, lifted my chin in a nod, looked them in the eye; the same subtle exchange I saw happen with Milo sometimes, that same skin understanding. Only I did not have the same skin. It was as if I wanted to tell them: I have gotten hate mail! My daughter has brown skin! I know all about Emmett Till! How stupid, really. The man with the broom ignored me, the woman with the little boy smiled absently, maybe she thought I was noticing the child. But the man in the suit and the older woman both looked back as if to say: What the fuck are you looking at, staring like that at me? If I could have answered, it would be to say: I just wanted to show somehow: This is not my uniform.
I needed a new leaf, a clean slate, a different drummer. Something. I did not need another picture of myself pouting on glossy newsprint. I did not need to spend three hours waxing my legs or being slathered with farfetched facial masques made of lamb placenta or pond algae. Bobbie had said, You can stay naïve or you can do something about it. I heard her words in my head now, the way I hear my mother’s. It’s up to you.
But do what? What would I do now? I stewed about it and tried to think up some kind of job for a new, improved Charlotte. I read the papers every day and looked at ads, wondering what would I be good at? What about a résumé? Mine wouldn’t say anything but that I could stand around like a human clothes hanger. But I wasn’t looking back. I was looking forward. To Christmas, to Milo wrapping up Cade Four in February, to Hallie’s fourth birthday party in March, to a spring vacation in Hawaii with Milo’s parents and Bobbie and the two Marcuses. I looked forward to the days stretching out ahead of us, a new baby, someday, I hoped so; Hallie reading, children growing up, me and Milo growing old, corny and bittersweet, finding a gray hair at his temple and pulling it out.
In January, Milo went to Canada to shoot scenes for Cade, Justice Warrior. This was going to be his best movie, he said. Cade Three, Truth to Power, had been too talky, too preachy, a disappointment. This one was more in the original heroic action style, about Cade single-handedly liberating hundreds of prisoners from a secret American gulag in Saskatchewan—where Cade’s own brother is held at forced labor, prospecting for Big Oil. Cade, “a restless seeker after justice,” as the script said, infiltrates the gulag, organizes a revolt, and leads the good guys across the frozen tundra to freedom.
Many of the scenes required skiing—mostly cross-country, which Milo hated. Too much work for not enough speed, he said when he called me, which he di
d every night. Sometimes twice. He didn’t mind the cold. What he minded was how small the location town was. How dark it got and how early. And being a thousand miles away from me and Hallie. He wanted to come home, he said.
But he could only get home here and there, weekends. He had to be away for weeks. Half of January and part of February. It was too cold for us to visit.
“What are you doing all these days without me?” he asked.
“Thinking up a Charlotte Sequel,” I said. “Charlotte Two.”
“Charlotte One was a good flick,” he said, laughing. “But the sequel has all the marks of a classic. A thriller, right?”
“No,” I said. “A classic family film.” I said how much I liked being home with Hallie, driving her to nursery school and dance class. I was taking a dance class myself, also tennis. “When you get home, I’ll ace you,” I said. “Six-love in straight sets.”
“Hmmm,” Milo said, “I like the sound of that.”
I didn’t tell Milo about who called me one morning. Why should I tell him? He was far away on the frozen tundra, and why bring it up?
I was out by the pool with Marcy and Hallie, who had a little friend over. The girls were playing mermaids, and Marcy and I were lifeguarding, dangling our legs in the pool, when the phone rang.
“Charlotte?” It was a man. “Do you know who this is?”
“I know your voice,” I said, curious and smiling.
“You do know it,” the man said. “That’s for sure.”
“Jack? Jack Sutherland?”
“You got it,” he said. “Hi there.”
He sounded exactly the same. “Oh my God,” I said, just so surprised to hear from him. “How are you? I can’t believe it! After all this time.” I made a polite surprised fuss.
“I’m here in Los Angeles,” he said. “I’ve been in Japan mostly, all this time, as you know. But, guess what? I’m headed permanently back stateside now, so: I just had to call and tell you.”
“I’m so glad you did.” But not really.
“I ended up getting your number from your mother. You keep changing it!”
“That’s life in Hollywood,” I said. “Unfortunately.”
“At first I tried you in New York, but your mom said you’re spending more time in L.A. these days.”
“True.” I was wondering just what it was Mom had said.
“So I’d love to see you.”
“I’d love to see you, too!” I was friendly and warm enough to him. Why wouldn’t I be? We were grown up now and bygones were bygones.
“Great,” he said. “I’ll pick you up in what, half an hour?”
“Oh, Jack, today’s not great. I’m—not feeling well.” I wondered if Jack could hear the fibs in my voice. He offered to come over but I told him not today and he sounded concerned.
“Are you okay? Are you all right?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Unfortunately I’m headed back to Japan tomorrow. Won’t be back till April sometime.”
“But you’re coming back, moving back, right?”
“You bet,” Jack said. “I’d’ve called sooner but, hey: took me a while to get everything set up here.”
“So we’ll have plenty of time then.”
“Yes we will.”
“Sorry about today.”
“Shimpai nai. Don’t worry. I’ll call you probably in a coupla weeks. Depends on how long it takes me to wrap things up.”
“Well, good luck,” I said, and we hung up.
“So who was that on the phone?” Marcy asked idly.
I explained Jack was my college boyfriend and how we broke up. “Milo knew him, too,” I said. “We all knew each other.”
“Really?” Marcy was fascinated. She had confided to me that the reason she had moved out of our garage apartment a month before was because she was living with a boyfriend. “In my country we don’t talk with boyfriends anymore after marriage. Husbands not happy about that.”
“Oh, it was a long time ago. Jack just called for old times’ sake.” Marcy looked quite interested. “He was devastatingly handsome,” I told her.
“Maybe you still like him?” she asked. “Maybe your stars say what it means, the call.”
I wished suddenly I hadn’t told her anything about Jack. You can’t be too careful. I was trying to learn that lesson and yet here I was again. Indiscreet. I’m telling you I worried more about whether I had said too much than I ever worried about Jack tracking me down. I told myself that talking to Marcy didn’t matter. She would not say anything to Milo or anyone. And what if she did? What if she sold this old-boyfriend phone call as some tidbit for the tabloids? Who could find fault? Old friends called up and why not? The past resolved itself just by being past, didn’t it? Jack was an okay guy, I thought. We’d go have a drink next time he was in town.
Darryl called, too, the week after that. I hadn’t heard his voice for months. It was very businesslike now, very matter-of-fact. “Just tell him to call me,” Darryl said. “Say it’s about Mrs. Curtis.”
“Okay,” I said. I was polite. “Who’s Mrs. Curtis?”
“Why don’t you ask him?” Darryl said.
I waited for him to elaborate but he didn’t. “Okay, then, I will,” I said, and hung up.
When Milo called that night, I gave him the message. “Darryl says for you to call him, and to tell you it’s about Mrs. Curtis.”
“Oh,” Milo said. A long silence came from the phone.
“Milo?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll call him.” His voice was quiet.
“Something bad?”
“No, no,” he said quickly. “Some fan, I think. One of those charity requests. She has some charity she wants me for, or something.”
“Oh,” I said. I was sure it was Darryl that was making Milo uneasy. I thought he felt guilty about firing his friend but didn’t want to bring it up. I paid no attention to the name Mrs. Curtis. “How is Darryl, anyway?” I asked.
“Okay,” Milo said. “Not great.”
“Why?” I asked him. “What’s the matter?”
Milo paused. “His business is off, he says. He says he’s got no A-list clients right now and that the big studios won’t go near his projects without somebody big.”
“Don’t worry, Milo, don’t,” I said. He sounded worried.
“Maybe he blames me,” Milo said.
Something in his voice. I don’t know. It did something chemical to my nerves, made a weakness in the muscles. “Milo? Are you okay?” I said.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, just tired. Be glad to be done with this, come home.”
“Hallie is pining for you.”
He asked me to tell about her. I turned my light off and lay there, telling him how Hallie found my lipstick and painted her face with it, and all her dolls. How she took all my shoes out of the closet and walked around in them, teetering precariously and posing. Really, Milo, like she’s on the catwalk, it’s scary. How she liked to sing a song I taught her called “Dance to Your Daddy My Little Baby”… because it had the words You shall have a fishy in a little dishy, you shall have a fishy when your daddy comes home… how she thought he was really going to bring her a fish. When I ran out of stories I just held the phone, half asleep, murmured, “There’s a good smell of you on the pillow here, Milo.”
He said nothing. I heard him swallow. “Aww, God,” he said, and let his breath out.
“What?”
“Nothing. Never mind,” he said softly. “I’ll see you Wednesday.”
We had a tender reunion when he came home, more than usual. He was so glad to see us, see Hallie. He did bring her a fish, a live goldfish in a glass bowl, and she was so delighted. She named the fish Dishy and sang the song for Milo in her clear little voice. We all danced around the living room singing it, Milo holding Hallie, his arms around us. I felt safe. I was blessed and lucky.
You shall have an apple, you shall have a plum, you shall have a rattle when your daddy comes ho
me.
“I missed you,” Milo said, up late into the night.
“Nahh,” I teased him. “You don’t care. You didn’t miss me. You’d be fine without me.”
“Stop,” he said. “Don’t say that.” And I thought then how sweet he was, with a film of tears in his eyes, smiling. Now, though, I think those tears were there because he knew a secret, like he had a terminal illness or three months to live, or I did.
Hallie turned four in the middle of March. We had a party outdoors with festoons of paper streaming from the trees, little lanterns along the drive, with a strolling clown and a magician who kept pulling things out of the children’s pockets, out of their ears and their sleeves. The cake was in the shape of a rainbow, but very muddy-looking, because Hallie had frosted it herself. After the cake, a pony named Pie went up and down with kids on her broad back, suffering their petting, their little hands gripping her mane. Milo gave rides, too. He invented crab rides and towel rides and elevator rides and upside-down pineapple rides. The kids liked him more than the pony. The party lasted until well into the evening, when all the half-drunk parents carried their limp, exhausted children to their waiting cars and went home. Milo’s friend Diego, from the Cade crew, filmed it all on good-quality stock and promised to edit it into a movie with a soundtrack, as a present to Hallie. Diego is selling it now, that footage, for a lot of money. Some shots have already aired: me and Milo lighting the cake, singing, the birthday candles casting an unholy light on the underbellies of our smiling faces.
We went to Hawaii in the beginning of April. On my dresser now is a picture of all of us taken on the beach there. Hallie, Milo and me, Milton and Hattie, Bobbie and Marcus and their little son. Our eyes are so clear, like gems, from the sun and the reflected water. We look fake. Like we were hired for an advertisement. We are all smiling, especially me. I like that picture of me. I like the way I’m smiling in it. My face looks, I don’t know, nice. As if I am a nice person with little smile lines at the corners of my eyes. I was feeling happy.
Just before that picture was taken, Hattie had surprised me. She was sitting in a beach chair, wearing a flowered bathing suit with a flared skirt, watching me and Milo play shark with Hallie and little Marcus. He was in the waves splashing, his diaper so swollen with seawater he could hardly move. Bobbie was taking pictures. Milo and I scooted along low in the water humming Jaws music, scooping Hallie and Marcus up in our arms and pretending to gobble them up. Hallie screamed and the baby laughed. After a while I came and sat next to Hattie, drying off, and was surprised to suddenly find her hand on my shoulder. “I’m so glad I was wrong about you, Charlotte,” she said.