Cherry Money Baby (14 page)

“It’s supply and demand,” Ardelia pointed out. Cherry had come to pick up her first week’s pay in advance. A night shoot was scheduled, and though it was four in the afternoon, Ardelia’s workday hadn’t started yet. She poured herself a protein shake and took a thunking swallow. “Your candor and perceptiveness are of value
to me.
”

“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” said Spanner, cutting a check. “You start Saturday. The first candidate arrives at eleven, so get here at ten thirty. Don’t be late.”

Ardelia powered through the rest of her breakfast and daintily dabbed her lips. “So, how’s school?”

Cherry shrugged, marveling at all the zeros. “I don’t know. I haven’t been in two days.”

Cherry was suspended for a week after reaming Neil. Pop had gone ballistic. This, coupled with breaking curfew, would have normally earned her a life sentence. But he calmed down later when Cherry told him about working for Ardelia. And he forgot her grounding entirely when she mentioned the rate.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Pop said, holding Cherry’s check up to the kitchen halogen. “You don’t turn down a soft gig.”

“I feel like I’m scamming her.” Cherry was scrubbing the breakfast pans, sleeves rolled to the elbow, hair tied back in a bandanna — her standard ensemble for housework. Being home during the school day, she helped out more; the trailer had never been so spotless. She’d even de-mildewed the bathroom, and the heady taint of bleach floated through the trailer and out the open windows. Her home with Lucas, whatever it would look like,
would not
smell like a boys’ locker room, damn it.

“This Deen seems pretty smart. You should have asked for more.”

He handed her the check and returned to his Eggos and sausage links, dribbling syrup on the table she’d just wiped down.

“It’s not a career, Pop. Just a few interviews.”

“Better than rolling burritos.”

Cherry’s eyes stung (stupid bleach). She’d always assumed Pop was proud of her Burrito Barn job. He was always going on about
honest work
and
dependability
and
earning your keep.
Had he meant those things, or was that just something you told yourself when you couldn’t find a
soft gig
?

This soft gig would pay double her Burrito Barn salary, and though the prospect of extra fun money and free time was titillating, Cherry was still uncomfortable. She’d rather Ardelia had just asked her as a friend.

On the subject of friendship: Cherry wasn’t sure she and Ardelia
were
actually friends, now that Ardelia was, for a few hours a week at least, her employer. It surprised her to think this way at all, since from the beginning she’d told herself she didn’t care what Ardelia thought of her, that they were passing acquaintances at best, that Ardelia was maybe surprisingly cooler than her mega-glam lifestyle would suggest, and that Cherry was a little more comfortable in her presence than she’d expected to be. But spending more time with Ardelia — structured,
professional
time — Cherry wondered whether Ardelia actually
liked
her, or if Cherry was just a local curiosity, like a cheap Red Sox cap you wore around a few days as a joke, then threw away.

Then, just before lunch on Friday, the last official day of Cherry’s suspension, Ardelia called. Cherry was in the Spider, driving back from BJ’s Wholesale with a pallet of Chunky Chicken Noodle and a five-pound tub of peanut butter. Being suspended, Cherry was living in a weird dimension populated by housewives and old people. It was strange how the world just kept going during school hours, with cheaper movie tickets and early bird specials and all the super-shiny chatty daytime TV. Cherry felt like the youngest, newest member of a secret club: the Daytime Ladies.

Her cell jingled Ardelia’s special ring: “Rich” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. She hesitated, cradling the cell to her ear. The light turned green, and Cherry accelerated onto busy Sturbridge Street. Maybe with her new paycheck she could buy a headset.

“Hello?”

“Hello! Hi. So, you mentioned you run.” Ardelia sounded breathless, like she’d just been working out. “My usual running buddy’s twisted her ankle, and, good Lord, in every scene they’ve got me eating petits fours or tea sandwiches, or today it was wedding cake. Wedding cake! Six takes! I feel like an orca.”

Cherry changed lanes, switched the phone to her other ear. She didn’t ask the obvious question, which was,
Don’t you have anyone else?

“Uh, sure.”

“Fabulous! What are you doing right now?”

Red and blue lights throbbed in the rearview. A siren squawked. “Right now? Getting pulled over for talking on my cell.”

“Oh, no! Call me back!”

“Okay.”

“And I’ll see you in a few hours!”

“Wait —!” The line went dead. Cherry pulled over.

The cop took his sweet time. Finally he sidled up to her window, knocked on the glass.

“This your car?”

“Believe it or not.”

“Bet you get a lot of tickets in this baby.”

“First one,” said Cherry through clenched teeth. The cop handed her the cell-phone violation. Half a week’s pay. Gone.
Poof.

Two hours later, Cherry found herself running her usual loop with Ardelia. It was odd to see this route after sunrise. In the light of day, everything seemed cheap and colorized, saturated and filthy. It all seemed so . . .
impoverished
— a word she’d only ever heard in social studies, usually coupled with
nations.
At least it all seemed that way compared to Ardelia, who, in her running gear, was like a visitor from a cleaner, more advanced planet. While Cherry ran in sneakers, track shorts, and a tattered SpongeBob T-shirt, Ardelia sported a matching jet-black tank and shorts, sleek white running shoes, a baseball cap, wraparound sunglasses, a pulse monitor, and a hip clip for her BlackBerry. She even had a silver water bottle on a lanyard to “keep hydrated,” which was ridiculous, since they were just running a few miles and for God’s sake, they could just have a drink when they got back.

“How much does all that stuff cost?”

Ardelia shrugged. “You don’t know how good it feels to get away from the set,” she said, her chatter punctuated by their footfalls. “I. Just. Love. It.”

They jogged up Route 9, the least-attractive stretch, the trucks belching fumes and tossing dust. Workers from the bottling plant waited in line at the food cart and ate their lunches at plastic tables. They looked harried, wrapping themselves around their limp sandwiches and $2.99 empanadas.

“I love this time of year,” Ardelia went on. “I want my baby born in spring. They say spring babies are happier.”

They came to the bridge over Sweet Creek, just beyond the trailer park. Per tradition, Cherry paused to look over the water. She leaned against the cement barrier, stretching out her calves.

“Why do you want a baby?” Cherry asked. The question had been riding her for days. She hadn’t asked because she assumed the answer should be obvious. But it wasn’t.

Ardelia was quiet.

“I mean, you don’t have a boyfriend, which I guess means you don’t want one. But you
do
want a baby. Around here, being a single mom is something girls try to avoid, you know? Around here, being a mom is tied up with, I don’t know, husbands and houses and cars and groceries and a whole life. But that’s not what you’re looking for, I don’t think.”

Ardelia gazed over the water the way she had stared at the painting in Maxwell’s hotel room. She took a long breath, as if testing the flavor of her words before sharing them.

“I have a theory. Certain things are easy to like. Like candy.” She smiled, seizing an example they both could relate to. “It’s sweet. It’s available. Who doesn’t like candy? But you don’t meet many people who
love
candy. I mean, are
passionate
about candy. Would actually truly
die
for it.”

“No, I guess not,” said Cherry, not sure where this was going.

“The things that you
love
— well, they’re not always something you
like
at first. I mean, take this film I’m in. It’s based on this big, thick, heavy book that takes
forever
to get started, and the characters are cruel, and all the sentences are ten pages long. It’s not very
likable.
But”— her face softened —“I
love
it, Cherry. I think it’s
beautiful.
It took me a while, but the more time I spend with it, the more I
love
it.”

“Okay.” Cherry wasn’t sure she could think of an example in her own life of something unlikable that she loved. She loved Lucas, and Lucas was very likable.

“I guess what I’m saying is, I am like candy. I’m nice, I’m rich, I’m famous, and I’m not . . . bad-looking.” She shrugged. “It’s easy to like me. But I don’t think anybody loves me. I don’t think anybody could.”

“Jesus,” said Cherry. “That’s a terrible thing to feel.”

“I want to be important to someone,” Ardelia said, turning her eyes to the lake. “I want to be meaningful to someone. Not just sweet.”

“You want to be a mom.”

“Exactly.”

“And you really can’t have a baby yourself?”

Ardelia smiled sadly.

A duck settled on the pond. It ruffled its feathers, poked its beak into the dead, sweet water, saw there was nothing to eat, and took off again.

No, Cherry didn’t believe that it was hard to love what you liked, or like what you loved. She loved and liked this pond, her family, her friends, her Lucas. And suddenly it hit her — there were things Cherry had in abundance that Ardelia didn’t even know she was missing. And all at once, Cherry felt that maybe she actually did know a thing or two that Ardelia Deen didn’t.

She put her hand on Ardelia’s tummy. “What’s the deal, womb? Huh? Stop being so lame.”

Ardelia laughed, sounding relieved. “So, you’ll help me?”

“I said I would.”

“Yes, but you were still thinking about it.”

She
had
been thinking about it. Because she hated charity and hadn’t known what she had to offer in exchange for Ardelia’s wages. But now she did.

Anyone can roll a burrito.

“Dude,” Cherry said, opening her arms for a hug, “we’re gonna find you a baby mama, no problem.”

Saturday morning, Cherry drove downtown to the “historic” Four Hills Theater, where the crew had been filming all night. Spanner was waiting outside Ardelia’s trailer dressed in a smart jacket and skirt. One ankle was sheathed in a black brace that somehow managed to look stylish. She was texting.

“So . . .” Cherry tried. Spanner put up a finger, finished her text, and pocketed her phone. She gave Cherry a once-over.

“Now that you’re on the payroll, dress a little more professionally.”

Cherry had meant to look professional. She’d worn jeans, not cutoffs, and a black tank top — her only shirt without writing on it.

“Didn’t know there was a dress code.”

“You look like a stagehand.”

“You look like a super-villain.”

Spanner’s lips twitched, a possible smirk. “Come on.”

Ardelia’s filming schedule necessitated conducting interviews between scenes. Today she was in full costume — or, rather, half costume, having exchanged her hoop skirt and bustle for jeans. Above the waist she wore a high-necked corseted top with poofy shoulders, hair in the same wavy ’do as last time, cheeks powdered and rouged. She seemed frazzled.

“Don’t say it. I look ridiculous. I’ve been up all night. Scene thirty-five, ‘The Grand Theater.’ Some of this dialogue is absolutely awful. All about moons and trifles and treetops.”

At least Ardelia worked hard for her money.

Spanner and Cherry flanked their boss on the couch, facing the raspberry love seat where Cherry and Lucas had sat earlier that week. The whole situation was rigid and bizarre. Spanner checked a binder, clicked a pen. What did binders and pens have to do with making babies? Why did they all have to be sitting on the same couch? Would the candidates dress
professionally
or like mommies in high-waisted jeans and baggy kitty-cat sweatshirts? For a horrible instant, Cherry worried there might be a physical-examination component. Would the candidates have to undress? No, that was stupid. Wasn’t it?

“They’re not going to, like, get naked, are they?”

Spanner and Ardelia looked around at her slowly.

“Why would they be
nude
?” Spanner said.

“I don’t know, for, like, a physical examination?”

“A doctor does that, luv,” said Ardelia. “We’ve got their medical histories right here.” She gestured to Spanner’s binder. Each of the twenty-two candidates had her own file, complete with height, weight, and age. Also every skinned knee, booster shot, wart removal, and root canal. There were photographs, too. Smiling girls between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six, oozing sunshine, dependability, and availability. It was a Mommy Catalog.

This model also available in taupe!

“So what’s left to interview them about?”

Spanner seemed to be waiting for this question and pounced. “I’ve devised a twenty-seven-point personality test, the results of which, when tabulated, will give us an excellent picture of the subject’s fitness. One,” she said, ticking the numbers off with her fingers, “is the candidate a flight risk, i.e., is she likely to run away with the baby? Two, is the candidate psychologically fit to be a carrier, i.e., does she have a history of violence, criminal activity, or drug use, which may not appear in her medical record? And three, is she a liar, i.e., is she lying about being healthy and mentally fit?”