Something She's Not Telling Us

by Darcey Bell

  “Are you hungry?” Charlotte asks.

  “I am now,” says Eli. “Starving.”

  They park a block from the restaurant. Daisy skips between them, holding their hands, asking them to fly her. Anyone passing would think: Happy, happy family. Charlotte feels a rush of gratitude, and then a jolt of dread. She knocks on a tree they pass.

  “What was that for?” asks Daisy.

  “Mom believes in the spirits in the trees. She thinks they’re waiting to harm us. So every time she has a positive thought, she knocks on a tree.”

  “Why does knocking help?” Daisy asks.

  “I don’t know,” Charlotte says.

  “So why do you do it?” asks Daisy.

  Charlotte says, “To let the spirits know I know they’re there.”

  “Mom’s crazy,” Daisy tells Eli.

  “Just careful,” Eli says.

  Charlotte says, “I have a good feeling about the food.”

  Eli says, “I’m not looking forward to this.”

  Charlotte says, “Try. Let’s make it fun.”

  Outside the restaurant, Rocco and Ruth sit on a bench, tapping their phones. A small crowd mills around, waiting to be seated, scanning the walkway for someone they’re meeting. Most of them are also looking at their phones.

  “They won’t seat us till our whole party’s here,” Rocco says.

  “Kiss your Uncle Rocco hello,” Charlotte says. Daisy creeps over to Rocco, who scoops her up and lifts her in the air and then onto his lap.

  “Hi there, Daisy,” says Ruth.

  Daisy dislodges her head from the crook of Rocco’s neck. “Hi.”

  “Remember me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have a present for you!” Ruth says.

  “What is it?”

  “Let’s wait till later. It’ll be a surprise.”

  “We’re all here,” Charlotte says. “They can seat us now.”

  “Finally,” Rocco says.

  “I’m on it.” Ruth jumps to her feet. Through the window they watch her talking to a Chinese couple. Everyone’s smiling.

  Ruth’s still smiling when she comes back. “They’re friends of a friend of a chef I know. That’s how I heard about this place. Follow me.”

  As they trail Ruth into the restaurant like a family of ducklings, people step aside.

  Special, Charlotte thinks. Ruth makes Rocco feel special. That must be so nice for him.

  The brightly lit room is crowded with bare Formica-covered tables. Still more enticing smells are coming from the kitchen.

  “No frills,” Rocco says. “I like that.”

  Ruth beams.

  They sit at the round table: Eli on Charlotte’s right, then Rocco, Daisy, Ruth, then Charlotte, who longs to ask Ruth to move so she can sit next to her daughter. Charlotte wants Ruth to offer to move. It irks her that she doesn’t.

  Ruth introduces the owners, Mr. and Mrs. Moy. The woman puts her hand on Ruth’s shoulder and murmurs something that Ruth leans in to hear.

  “Can I let Mrs. Moy order for us? She’ll bring us the best dishes on the menu.”

  “Dream come true,” says Rocco.

  Eli and Charlotte order beers, Rocco and Ruth drink tea, and Daisy begs for—and gets—a Coke only after Uncle Rocco intercedes on her behalf.

  A waiter announces each dish as he sets it on the revolving platter. Thick white rice noodles with peanuts and scallions, a crab-meat-and-cucumber salad. The waiter points at Daisy and shakes his head—hot!—when he brings out the chicken with chilies.

  The grown-ups are fine with chopsticks; Daisy uses a fork. Mrs. Moy produces a pair of chopsticks tied together with a rubber band and explains that this is how Chinese children learn. She hands the child-friendly chopsticks to Daisy, but Daisy recoils, as if the wooden sticks are knives. No one knows what to do, and they sit there until Ruth says thank you and puts the chopsticks in her tote.

  “We’ll work on it,” she says, which pleases the owners. Daisy gives her a grateful look.

  Rocco’s lips glisten; he looks happy. After their mother retreated to the attic, Charlotte sometimes called out for Chinese food—a special treat. China Clipper was ten miles away, and the food was soggy and cold by the time it arrived. But those dinners provided some of Rocco and Charlotte’s warmest moments, living together in the big house without adult supervision.

  Charlotte raises her glass. “To great food.”

  “To pleasure,” says Ruth.

  Rocco’s gaze is fixed on Ruth, and Charlotte thinks, unkindly, that he’s doing a good impersonation of a man in love.

  “I know a lot of chefs,” Ruth says, “from my time in cooking school. Having those guys in my database was helpful when I worked for the Baroness Frieda.”

  Charlotte knows who she means, but Eli and Daisy look puzzled.

  “The baroness with the TV cooking show. Skinny Baroness Frieda? You’ve probably never watched it, right, Daisy?”

  “My parents only let me watch TV an hour a day,” Daisy says primly.

  “Good for them,” says Ruth at the same moment Rocco says, “Poor thing.”

  Ruth says, “I don’t think you’d like this show. It’s not for kids. The Baroness Frieda is Norwegian. She was married to a cousin of the king of Norway. Before that she was a supermodel. And when her career tanked because of some bad . . . habits and then that huge scandal, she had to rebrand herself. She got herself together—with my help, not that she admits it—and now she’s become the spokesperson for a lifestyle mega-brand.”

  “What’s a scandal?” asks Daisy.

  “It’s a problem,” Eli says. “A problem that becomes a bigger problem when everybody knows about it.”

  Ruth pulls out her phone and flips through some pictures until she turns the screen around to show them a photo of herself and a tall blond woman on a red carpet in front of a sign that reads, “Healthy Women Eat. Gala Benefit, 2015.” Both wear little black dresses and the deer-in-the-headlights look of a borderline-famous person swarmed by shouting paparazzi.

  Ruth says, “My best friend from high school worked for her. She left to get married. She warned me not to take the job. I thought, How bad can it be? Well, I found out. A serious coke addiction does not make for the greatest boss.”

  Daisy looks at her father quizzically, then at her glass.

  “Not that kind of Coke,” he says.

  The snapshot of the Baroness Frieda has jogged a distant memory. Charlotte read about her, several haircuts ago. For a while the baroness was in the news, but why? A scandal.

  The phone comes around to Daisy, who says, “Is that your sister?”

  “God no,” says Ruth.

  Ruth and the Baroness Frieda do look alike, and it’s more than their blond hair, blown out and streaked by the same stylist. They have the same dazed expressions.

  “Everyone asked us that,” says Ruth. “I think that’s why she hired me. I could be her body double when they were shooting the show and she refused to get out of bed. You can’t imagine how much kale I ate for Skinny Baroness Frieda, which makes it so ironic, since kale was how I met Rocco. A few times she made me pretend to be her at some event she was too messed up to attend. Want to hear my Norwegian accent?”

  “I’ve heard Ruth’s Norwegian accent,” says Rocco. “It’s pretty persuasive.”

  “Also I understood her. She wanted to be free. To be loved. She always has to smash down her true self so no one will judge her.”

  Charlotte wonders if Ruth is describing herself, or the person she believes she is. Maybe Ruth began to feel like the baroness’s fun house mirror.

  Ruth says, “All she wanted was to escape the Norwegian royal family. There were so many things they expected her to do. Though that didn’t explain why she was always losing her shit—excuse me, Daisy—going off on waiters and salespeople and leaving me to sneak back into restaurants and overtip or pick up the clothes she’d flung around dressing rooms. At the end of the day, I’m gratef
ul for the wild ride. I got to experience this totally decadent lifestyle that I don’t personally want.”

  Rocco is looking approvingly at Ruth again, as if she’s expressing a political view, when in fact it’s pure memoir. In any case, he seems contented. Ruth has introduced him and his family to this super cool, cheap, excellent spot in Flushing. He could do worse. He’s done worse.

  “Most people think they’d be good rich people,” says Eli.

  “It’s worked out for you, Eli,” says Rocco.

  Ruth says, “Luck is luck, am I right?”

  “You’re right,” Charlotte hears herself say.

  “How’s the play?” Rocco asks Eli. “Lady Macbeth still trying to wash the blood from her hands?”

  “Not great,” says Eli. “It’s taking everyone’s energy trying to talk the director out of doing the crazy shit in his head.”

  “Language,” Daisy says.

  Eli says, “Sorry. Now he’s decided that Lady Macbeth should wear a blue Marge Simpson wig.”

  Ruth says, “Eek! In high school, we played it in street clothes. It made it even more scary—”

  “And they’ve cut the budget,” Eli says.

  Ruth says, “That play is the most frightening thing ever. This murderous psycho couple egging each other on. She’s up to her elbows in blood. It was hard to imagine someone ordering the murders of those two princes in the tower.”

  There’s a silence. Rocco and Charlotte look at Eli, the nicest of them, to break the bad news about Ruth’s mistake.

  “I think that’s Richard III,” he says. “The princes in the tower.”

  Ruth’s face turns red. “Oops,” she says. “My bad.”

  Eli signals the waiter: more beer for Eli and Charlotte, then a platter of orange slices, and when nothing’s left but peels, dinner’s over. Even Ruth has run out of steam. She has just enough energy left to make eye contact with the owners and check-sign the air.

  “We can’t let her pay,” Charlotte mouths at Eli, who reaches for his wallet.

  You would have thought he’d reached for a gun, that’s how fast Ruth jumps up.

  She nearly bumps into a crowded table as she goes back to the owners. As they run her credit card through the machine, they stand there in the half-relaxed, half-attentive poses of people waiting for something to appear on a screen.

  The owner swipes the card again. He calls Ruth around to look, and Ruth shakes her head. She brings the owners over to the table. Ruth’s face is working strangely.

  Ruth says, “I have no idea . . . except . . . wait. I’ve been using my grandparents’ address for my credit card statements because some creep keeps breaking into my mailbox in Greenpoint. I’ve been identity-thefted twice. My grandparents are pretty organized, but sometimes they file something in the wrong cubbyhole. Maybe they forgot to pay the bill. It’s happened, but not often . . .”

  Charlotte has seen so many cards denied, by now she thinks she can figure out who’s surprised and who expected it to happen. But she can’t tell about Ruth.

  “Identity theft is awful,” she says.

  “Awful but fixable,” Ruth says. “In return for a big chunk of your time and your life.”

  The owners thank Eli for his card.

  “I feel terrible,” Ruth says. “Mortified. This was my idea and my treat and my—”

  “Don’t worry,” says Eli. “We wanted to pay. The credit card god has ruled in our favor.”

  “How charming,” Rocco says darkly.

  “Next time’s on me,” says Ruth. “I’ll straighten this out.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Charlotte says.

  “I’ll pay you back. I promise. I am so embarrassed.”

  They’re getting up to leave when Daisy says, “Where’s my present? Ruth?”

  “Daisy, honey, don’t whine,” Charlotte says.

  “My God,” Ruth says. “I almost forgot. The most important thing.” She reaches into her tote and pulls out a small package covered with cellophane: a glittering metallic bunny on a chain. She finds a piece of paper, the size of a playing card. She gives Daisy the bunny and card with a ceremonial flourish.

  “The bunny is cool,” Daisy says.

  “Cool indeed,” says Ruth. “You chain this bunny to your inhaler. And you give this card to your mom. It will tell her how to open a special app on her phone that will find your inhaler no matter where you left it. It’s a GPS tracker. Everybody has it. I gave one to my grandpa so he could find his car keys.”

  Daisy stares at the bunny, then at the card, then at Charlotte.

  “Give it to Mom,” says Ruth.

  Daisy hands Charlotte the card.

  “Good girl,” says Ruth.

  Daisy’s face shines. “Thank you.”

  Charlotte has no choice but to find Daisy’s inhaler in the special zippered pocket where she puts it when they leave the house. The inhaler is supposed to look like a pink snail, like a toy instead of a life preserver. Question: What child would want to suck on a snail? Answer: A child who can’t breathe. She attaches it on another link on the chain with the bunny. A bunny, a snail. How brilliant.

  “This works,” Charlotte says.

  “It does work,” Ruth says. “Now you always know where it is.”

  Charlotte should be grateful. A problem has been solved. Instead it annoys her that Ruth (not Charlotte or Eli) found the solution. One of them should have thought of it, not her brother’s goofy girlfriend. It’s just because she’s younger, more savvy about the tech that can put them in constant touch with the thing that might save Daisy’s life.

  “Say thank you, Daisy,” Charlotte says.

  “She already did,” says Ruth.

  “I already did,” says Daisy.

  “See you soon,” says Rocco, with quick hugs for Eli and Charlotte and a big hug for Daisy.

  “Can I hug you too?” Ruth asks.

  “Not yet,” Daisy says.

  You go, girl, Charlotte thinks.

  “Gotcha,” says Ruth. “Later.”

  Charlotte’s relieved to say good night and walk back to the car.

  “Can you drive?” she asks Eli.

  “I’ll be the soberest guy on the BQE.”

  “That was fun,” Charlotte says. “The food was great, wasn’t it, Daisy?”

  Still holding their hands, Daisy nods her head so hard that Charlotte feels it up her arm.

  AS SOON AS they get back to the loft, Daisy says, “Let’s try out the magic bunny.”

  Charlotte wasn’t sure that she’d understood, but obviously she has. Five-year-olds know more about technology than grown-ups. And though it’s late, and they’re tired, and Daisy has school tomorrow, they say okay—how long can it take? It takes less than a minute to download the app onto Charlotte’s phone. They wait. And there it is, the tracking icon is a bunny, bouncing on her phone.

  Eli tries to download it, but error messages keep coming up, even when Daisy helps him. Eli says he’ll figure it out, but he won’t. It’s yet another responsibility he’s going to leave to Charlotte. Eli does that a lot. There’s just so much to do even with only one child. No wonder her mother went crazy taking care of two.

  “Okay,” Daisy tells her. “Turn off your phone, I’m going to hide my inhaler.”

  Charlotte turns off her phone, and Daisy tells her parents to close their eyes. They hear her running around the loft. She stops, turns, laughs. Tricking Mom and Dad is fun.

  “Okay,” she says. “Now turn your phone back on and find it.”

  It’s not the same as when she’s struggling for breath. It’s a fun game. They’ve got all the time in the world.

  Charlotte opens the app, and a series of little blue runway lights and a beeping sound guide her to the bottom of Daisy’s laundry basket.

  “Mom!” cries Daisy. “Mom found it.”

  The chip found it. Ruth found the chip. But Charlotte will take credit. And now she will always know where Daisy is.

  THE NEXT MORNI
NG, Rocco calls to say that he’s moving in with Ruth. He’ll stay with her in Greenpoint, then drive up to the country Thursday nights to load up the van Friday mornings and bring the vegetables back to the city.

  “That’s quite a commute,” Charlotte says.

  “I’ve been doing it anyway. You and Eli and Daisy can have your Friday and Saturday nights back. Family time.”

  “We liked seeing you,” Charlotte says.

  “You still will,” he says.

  Charlotte says, “I have to ask. What was that credit card thing?”

  “What credit card thing?”

  “With Ruth. Come on,” Charlotte says. “Please.”

  Rocco says, “You’ve never had a card denied? Bullshit. You never had a customer whose credit card was denied? Double bullshit.”

  “No and yes,” Charlotte says.

  Rocco says, “Ruth called her grandparents this morning, then the credit card company. She’s got it straightened out. It was nothing. I’m sorry, Charlotte. I’m sorry if you don’t like her. I’m interested in her. I’m not bored. I want to see how this turns out.”

  “We do like her.” It’s mostly true. Charlotte even—sort of—likes being around her.

  But she doesn’t trust her.

  CHARLOTTE GAZES OVER her therapist’s head at the African masks on his wall. By now, she’s looked at them so often, it’s as if they’re people—faces—she knows.

  “Something’s off about her,” says Charlotte.

  Ted says, “Do you realize this is the third session you’ve started off by talking about your brother’s girlfriend?”

  Charlotte knows and she doesn’t know. She thinks: I don’t have time for Ted to tell me what I already know. She doesn’t have time for therapy.

  But she needs this as much as she needs anything. More. Ted helps her make sense of the world. He helps her deal with her anxieties about Daisy’s health, with her worries about not being a good-enough mother. He helps her deal with her guilt about what happened in the past—and what she can’t change. He helps her cope with her feeling that Eli isn’t doing as much as she is, with her suspicion that just because he pays most of the bills, he can leave the heavy lifting to her. Or maybe it’s a man thing, a half-Latino-man thing. The woman is the one who has to take on the burden of caring for their home and their child.