Cherries In The Snow (18 page)

Vicki nods vigorously.

‘Okay,' I say, digging in my pockets, ‘I never said I didn't.' I hand her a dollar in quarters.

‘I don't accept coins.'

I fix her with such a look. ‘Make do.' She thinks about crying but can't be bothered. So she makes herself busy with the ice cream collection, a sweet little kit I slipped passed Holly, eye shadows in the shape of scoops on cones. I turned them upside down and told Holly they were erect dicks. Montana dips a brush in the Pistachio (or Syphilis, I had to tell Holly).

‘A range for preteens is kind of a great idea.' I pause. ‘I just don't know how we can justify it morally.'

‘Justify makeup morally.' Ivy snickers. ‘It's all lies.' Her emphasis on the word
lies
tells me again that I must get her alone for a chat before the week is out.

‘If we can find a way to justify it,' I continue, ‘I know exactly what we should call it.'

‘What?' says Holly.

I take a deep breath. ‘Are You There, God? It's Me, Makeup.'

Everyone exhales. ‘Wow.'

‘Done deal.' Holly, who between the ages of ten and twelve jerked off exclusively to Judy Blume books, hugs me. Vicki looks very interested in her shoes.

We order in lunch, and Montana, in the same tone that she requested her plum, sliced, says: ‘Ah, yes, I would like a Coca-Cola and a tuna melt.' Seeing my raised eyebrows, she adds, ‘I am allowed soda twice a year.'

‘Only twice a year?' screeches Ivy. ‘That's so stink!'

‘I don't mind.' Montana shrugs. ‘I don't really like sugary things.'

After our day of makeup I take Montana out for an early-evening ice cream. I am surprised she wants one, but after her Coca-Cola, she has been talking about it nonstop. I think she got the idea from the eye shadows.

‘An ice cream on the way home might be nice?' She says it as a question. Then she says it three more times before we leave the office, as though the thought has just occurred to her. We take two stools at the counter of the corner diner and she orders vanilla with hot fudge sauce.

Passing a newsstand on Broadway, she asks if we can share a Tootsie Roll. Then, when I stop in the deli for water, she wants to try a Ding-Dong and I let her because she has never even heard of them before, which I find shocking. After that she wants a milk shake from McDonald's. Everywhere we pass seems to hold a new delight, and I am so delighted by her delight that I keep caving. Then we have bubblegum from the vending machine at the subway station. And on the train is when she starts throwing up.

‘Oh, Jesus Christ!' screams Marley as I carry her to his door. ‘What did you give her?'

‘Bad food, Daddy, bad food,' she murmurs.

‘I didn't give her anything I didn't eat too.'

‘The shit you eat could kill a horse.'

My face flushes and my internal edit hits a snag. ‘Take your wheatgrass and shove it up your ass.'

Montana, weak, her face covered in puke, says, ‘You owe me another dollar.'

‘You too, you little crybaby. You can't hold a chocolate shake, then don't come out with me.'

Her hair is sticky with puke. In my head I can't help thinking, Bet you don't love your long blond hair so much now.

Marley looks at me. ‘You should leave, Sadie, before you make this worse.'

By the time I get home my internal edit is back on track and I have apologized so many times in my head that it hardly stings at all when I call him up and beg for forgiveness.

‘I can't really talk right now. I have to hose down my daughter and get her to sleep before her mother comes for her tomorrow afternoon.'

‘Well, assuming you do get her to sleep,' I say meekly, ‘do you think I could bring you breakfast?'

So now he watches me eat my almond croissant at the kitchen table where we used to fuck before Montana rolled into town.

‘I can't look at food. So much puke last night. You better just pray her mother never finds out.'

‘Are you going to tell on me?'

‘I'm not, because I don't want to get myself in trouble. But I gotta tell you something about eight-year-olds: they're tattletales. Oh yes, “Jemma did this, Cynthia did that.”'

‘I'm screwed.'

‘No, but are you sure you want this?'

‘What?'

His shoulders slump. ‘I just feel like damaged goods. I have an eight-year-old daughter, who I love and have to protect and
who will tattle on you if you feed her food her mother doesn't approve of.'

My heart feels crushed at the sight of his incredible, broad shoulders in a sad little hunch. I want to run away. Really. I try to will myself out of my seat and out of my love for him and out of the relationship. I try to run away, but I can't. So, wiping crumbs off my shirt, I resort to dark humor.

‘You call that vomit. I used to projectile-vomit like you wouldn't believe.'

‘I'd believe it,' he says. There's sweetness to his tone that makes me wonder if he'd be proud of my projectile puke, like, ‘You're so strong. Of course my baby pukes harder than the other kids.'

I put my hand on his, which is still a little shaky.

‘I'd like to apologize to Montana. Do you think she'll forgive me?'

‘Maybe. You never know.'

I go up to Marley's bedroom, where she is watching TV. She peeks up at me over the covers, a guilty look on her face.

‘You're not allowed to eat chocolate, but you can watch Jerry Springer? That doesn't sound right.'

‘Don't tell on me!'

‘Okay, then don't tell on me to your mum. Do we have a deal?'

‘I'm sorry you make me puke,' she whispers.

‘Thank you?'

Later that morning she comes downstairs and decides she's ready to eat again, so her father goes into the kitchen to rustle something up.

‘You were very brave yesterday, Montana.'

‘I'm sorry you got in trouble, Sadie.'

‘That's okay. I deserved it.'

By that point I hate Montana's mother, Jolene so much, she
exasperates me like a roommate. I see Jolene's stupid organic food in the fridge. Her organic scuzz in a ring around the bathtub.

Montana makes a point of saying ‘Hmmm yum yum' as she eats the spinach with soy protein her dad brings in.

Finally Montana leaves. The doorbell rings while I'm hiding in the bedroom. I look out the window and see a black limo pull away, two blond heads visible in the darkness like flashlights.

The big news at work on Monday is that Cameron Diaz has said in an interview that Grrrl is her favorite line of cosmetics. The gals want to give her a preview of next season's colors so that she will say it again, but louder.

‘Oh, please let me take it to her. Oh, please?' I hop up and down for emphasis.

‘You're a spaz,' says Holly.

‘I don't think that's the politically correct term. I think the word you're looking for is
starfucker
.'

‘Dude, you have a filthy mouth,' says Holly.

‘I do not,' I answer, genuinely shocked. ‘I don't. Do I?'

The gals put together a selection of glittery eyeliners, nail polishes, lip stains, and a spray for your hair with pink glitter in it. It's really like the stuff you buy for ninety-nine cents at the drugstore on Halloween. Except ours costs sixteen dollars.

‘Do you really think Cameron Diaz would spray glitter in her hair?' says Vicki doubtfully.

‘Oh, yeah, I think so for sure.' How little Vicki knows of Cameron Diaz. I am so good at convincing everyone that she would love it that they decide I can hand-deliver it to the photo shoot she is doing over at Chelsea Piers. I ride the rickety elevator up to the fifth floor and the doors open straight onto the studio. The receptionist is a skinny gay boy painting his nails.

I slip past him, the stylist, and the caterer and stand behind a rack of clothes watching her strike poses. When she takes a break to have her lipstick retouched, I approach her as noisily as I can because I don't want her to think I am creeping up on her. Still, she looks kind of startled when I thrust the package in her hands.

‘These are the Grrrl cosmetics you asked for. I like your broken nose. My mum does too.' And then I walk out.

My mother notices the most peculiar things about celebrities. ‘I really love the shape of Cher's head, don't you?'

‘It's all right.'

‘No, it's really fabulous. It comes to a point. It makes her hair always look like it's been back-combed.'

‘Maybe her hair always has been back-combed.'

‘Sadie, you're spoiling it.'

Like I was spoiling a cake she'd been baking or a legal case she'd spent months researching. ‘I think Cher wears wigs, anyway.'

‘That's Raquel Welch,' Mum corrected.

‘Raquel Welch was so beautiful.'

‘Yes,' agreed Mum.

‘And now she sells wigs. Like a used-car salesman.'

She sighed and was so disconsolate she had to hang up.

My dad called me back. ‘Why have you been upsetting your mother?'

‘Raquel Welch upset her.'

‘Oh,' said my dad darkly, ‘I see.'

When I get back to the office, Holly is curling her eyelashes with the back of a spoon. She sighs and pulls off her Clash City Rockers T-shirt, flopping onto the sofa in her shorts and blue bra.

‘So,' she says, ‘how's it going with you and Marley?'

‘Oh, God, Holly, I really like Marley. But what is a
twenty-eight-year-old doing with a kid?'

‘Here's the thing: you're used to older men, you're used to celebrities. They
are
kids. Isn't this a better deal?'

‘I don't fucking know. I don't know anything.'

‘Nothing?'

I sigh. Then I sigh again.

‘How're the names coming along?'

‘Oh, they're coming, they're coming. I think you're going to be really happy. By the way, what's going on with Ivy?'

‘Oh, she's such a misery guts.'

‘Don't you love her anymore?'

‘She's a pain in the ass.'

‘But a good pain in the ass, right?'

‘I don't know anymore.'

‘She seems kind of sad lately, don't you think?'

‘She does? I haven't noticed.'

You haven't noticed anything, you selfish bitch.

Marley and I have breakfast at Gorky's. As I read the papers, my eyes well with tears. ‘A child lost an arm in a shark accident and then got up and surfed again.'

Gorky's is playing a mix tape that sounds suspiciously like one I made Marley when I first met him. It's embarrassing. I'm worried he might think I'd ripped it off from a coffeeshop tape or, worse, made the same tape for the owner. I look at Marley. He is singing along loudly and poorly to Sly Stone. Thanks to Gorky's and my continued attempts to write there, I have been having a croissant for every breakfast, a cupcake every evening, and not writing at all. I have gained five pounds in the process.

‘I've gained five pounds, Marley,' I tell him as I polish off my croissant.

‘I noticed. I love it. But you haven't gained weight, you've gained curves.'

I tell my mother this in our next conversation and she practically shrieks, ‘But you had enough curves already!'

‘I love the curves,' coos Marley later that night, ‘I want to draw you.'

One time in a London park, when I was still young enough to think I was the most beautiful girl in the world, a caricaturist drew my picture. He charcoaled me with a huge nose and tombstone teeth. I didn't understand what caricature was. I
thought it was his name. When we got home, I cried and cried and my father burned the picture. I stood holding his leg and watched it burn. I still shiver when I pass caricaturists and artists.

‘No thanks, Marley.' The mural was quite enough. ‘Are we gonna shag, then, or what?'

‘Not shagging. Making love.'

‘Oh, Jesus,' I groan. It sounds like arts and crafts. We are making a papier-mache bunny and then we are making love. But deep down I know just what he means. We have been making something that doesn't disappear with orgasm.

‘I used to ejaculate,' he said. ‘With you I have an orgasm. I've never had such great sex.'

Marley and I are lost in a quicksand of sex that weekend. I get up to make breakfast then come back in and he'll be ready to go again – I forget, he's a young man, that's what they do. It always pinched a little with the others, like there was something up there hibernating that didn't want to be disturbed. With Marley all I want is ‘disturb me,' shake me up. It is like nothing I had ever felt before. It is love. It is lust, longing not when he is with me as I felt with others, losing Christmas before it's over, but contentment. It is a secret language. I never thought I'd have one. One I know the alphabet of instinctively. No learning required.

Before we fall asleep on Sunday night I give him a blow job that is a transcendent experience. I am crying while I'm doing it, because I'm not doing it to prove anything. I'm doing it because I want him in me as much as possible. I love the taste of him, the feel and shape. My heart is full, or is it my … I can't say the word he says, but there. They seem interchangeable, both are beating so slow but so loud. I could fake death. I put my hand on his chest and feel for his heart. The same thing. Our heartbeats are fucking too.

With my permission he reaches across to the dresser table and picks up his camera phone. Barred from drawing me, he takes pictures – snap, snap, snap – and my face starts to burn.

‘I've never done this before,' he says.

‘How ugly are they?'

‘I don't know.'

He shows them to me. They are beautiful. I look religious, the colors and shapes not quite clear; the lighting and radiance take away the obscenity, although they are as obscene as they could be. And then he erases them.