Emma's Table (4 page)

“Oh, no,” he replied, a little bashful: compliment taken. “I work at the United Nations,” he said. “At the Japanese delegation.”

“Really?” she said, dragging it out, as if it were the most fascinating thing she'd heard all year. “Are you a collector then?” she asked, getting straight to the point. “We don't often see civilians here.”

“Not really,” he said. “I've come for a table, I hope.”

Emma's stomach fell like a riverbed stone, splashing into a pool of chilly water.

“My wife loves Nakashima,” he said.

Coming from him, the name sounded awfully Japanese—so fast and sharp. Emma felt her fear spreading like a virus, as if his native pronunciation gave him some sort of edge.

“I want to surprise her with it,” he said.

Things were getting worse by the second.

She held the man tightly in her gaze. She needed to steady herself, and size him up too.

“There's a Nakashima table in the auction today,” he said, as if she were staring out of confusion.

“That's right,” she said, returning to her senses. She corrected her wilting posture. Sat bolt upright and composed her slack face, clenching her jaw muscles tight.

“Have you seen it?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, trying to calculate her next move. “It's beautiful,” she told him. There was no point denying it. A blind man could see that much.

“What's the estimate on it?” she asked, as innocent as a child.

“Thirty to forty thousand,” he told her, turning quickly to its picture in the dog-eared catalog. He handed it to Emma.

“It's stunning,” she said. She meant it too. It really was, even in the hands of their mediocre photographer. She gazed at the picture for a moment longer, and not just for her neighbor's benefit either. “You've checked the dimensions?” she asked, looking back up at him, hoping for a flicker.

“Yes,” he said, sounding pleased with himself. “It fits perfectly.”

“Good,” she said, nodding. “It's a big table.”

Emma turned back to the auction for a moment. She felt tired, needed a little rest. She looked at the television screen at the front of the room. “Lot 1032,” it read, in thick black type, “Desk by Jacques Adnet.” Beneath it, a photograph of a pretty writing desk, very simple—every inch of it wrapped in saddle-stitched leather, even its thin, thin legs, with their elegant bamboo design.

All that leather, she marveled, and still it looks light as air. Emma had one just like it at her office. She watched happily as the price flew to nearly three times what she'd paid for hers.

“This auctioneer is good,” she said, turning back to the Japanese man.

She knew what to do.

“He's moving so quickly,” she added.

“What do you think of it?” he asked.

“The Adnet?” she replied—as if she were confused.

“No,” he said. “The Nakashima table.” He pointed to his catalog, sitting open in her lap.

“Well, it's beautiful,” she said, halting a little at the end, holding that last syllable in her mouth like a lozenge. Emma closed the catalog and handed it back to him, hoping that she'd planted a seed of doubt.

“Is there something wrong with it?” he asked.

Emma smiled. He'd heard.

“Well, the estimate's a little high,” she whispered, nearly mouthing the words instead of speaking them—as if she were reluctant to pronounce the truth out loud. “I wouldn't pay a penny more than forty for it,” she whispered.

“Thank you very much,” he said, looking back at her, as earnest as a Boy Scout. He nodded his head in quick little strokes. “You're very kind,” he said, looking down into his tiny lap, suddenly bashful. “My wife will be sorry to have missed you,” he continued. “She's a big fan of yours.”

“Don't be silly,” Emma told him. “It's my pleasure.”

She tried relaxing into the backrest of her little gilt chair. To her credit, she felt terrible about what she'd just done. In fact, she almost wished there were a second Nakashima table in the auction that morning—a perfect clone of the first—so she could let her neighbor have it. But there isn't, she thought, a little sadly, and so she'd done what she had to do.

Emma knew that wasn't the case. She didn't
have
to do anything.

Still she racked her brain for something more, something that might help this man, and something that might hurt him too. Like a consolation prize maybe, or some scrap of additional insurance she might lay on. Emma felt torn, and that was new. The ends still justified the means, but she felt bad about it, at least—feeling bad in lieu of doing good.

That has to count for something, she thought.

“Let me give you my card,” she said, reaching deep into the alligator bag between them. This was virgin territory for Emma. She wanted to make it up to the man, even as she assured her immediate success.

“You know,” she said, in a lively voice, “I can think of two or three lovely Nakashima tables around town.”

The man stared back at her.

She looked at his tiny shirt collar, pressed up against his little neck.

“At reasonable prices,” she added, lowering her voice again. She'd already decided to negotiate an excellent deal for him on one of the other tables—like a silent kind of apology maybe. “Just in case this one doesn't work out,” she said.

Emma wasn't lying either: she
could
think of a few perfectly nice Nakashima tables for him—just not this one.

This one, you see, was already spoken for.

 

A LITTLE LATER THAT MORNING, TINA SANTIAGO
stood at her kitchen sink, scrubbing a fat carrot beneath a stream of cool water. She'd pulled her hair away from her face, and looked down into the sink as she worked, the carrot popping bright against the white enamel, all glistening wet.

“Shit,” she hissed.

Just as she reached for the tap, ready to twist it shut, she spotted a familiar cluster of stains—a trio of them—right above the silver drain. She'd nearly missed them too: those three rusty marks, vaguely circular in shape, like drops of coffee on a white tablecloth, the biggest one smaller than a dime.

She hated them with all her heart.

They reminded her of work, of the little discs of chocolate they made down at the plant, each one wrapped in golden foil and dropped by the handful into cheap black netting. “Davy Jones' Locker,” they were called, for most of the year, shipped
out to candy stores by the carton—except for that one brief stretch in autumn, when they pasted a Star of David on and called them “Hanukkah Gelt”—Davy Jones' locker turned Jewish for Christmas.

Tina was the bookkeeper there. She'd started as a secretary several years before, and she was nearly proud of the way her quick wits and organizational skills had moved her up the ranks. She practically ran Accounts Payable these days.

Now that she'd seen those stains, it was too late to turn back. They were all she could see.

She gave the carrot a brisk little shake—sent droplets raining all around—then she laid it on the draining board and searched for the Comet beneath the sink. She had a go at those stains then, really put some muscle into it too. It was her four millionth attempt at rust removal since they'd moved into the place. She rarely used that sink, in fact, without taking a crack at them.

Is it me, she wondered when she was finished, gazing down at the stains like a lousy housewarming gift from some careless tenant who'd come before, or are they fading a little?

She dried her hands on the side of her jeans, sitting low on her slim, slim hips. Tina knew those bastard stains would outlast them here—just like the golden coins that Davy Jones had spilled across the ocean floor, lying there undiscovered a hundred years later, if you believed the candy packaging anyway.

She picked up the carrot and looked it over.

She knew carrots weren't as good as celery or cucumbers. According to the nurse at the Free Clinic, they had twice the calories.

Tina hunted for the good knife in the cutlery drawer.

But Gracie wouldn't eat celery or cucumbers. She'd tried them before, plenty of times, but the girl wouldn't budge. And carrots had to be better than cookies, she thought—or cupcakes. She spotted the paring knife and removed it carefully from the cutlery drawer, began carving away at the few remaining blemishes. The carrot looked even brighter, all nude like that.

Gracie skipped into the kitchen, a little heavy on her feet, while Tina chopped the carrot into thin little slivers, the way her daughter liked it. It was her morning snack.

The girl began singing as she skipped, just as softly as she could: “
From this valley they say you are going
.”

Tina thought she recognized the song.

Gracie sang the line again, a little louder that time: “
From this valley they say you are going
.”

Tina looked at her daughter's face when she skipped into view; she saw the strain there—her brow furrowed, eyes squinting—as if she might pluck the next line from the air around her head, a musical mosquito buzzing all around her face.

Red River Valley, Tina thought, with a spark of pleasure at naming the tune.

“
From this valley they say you are going
,” Gracie sang for the third time, a little faster now, as if she were rushing to arrive at the elusive second line—which appeared, as if by magic, on her mother's lips. Tina sang it softly, so that Gracie could hear it if she wanted to, but not so loudly as to intrude on the little girl's skipping and singing.

“
I will miss your bright eyes and sweet smile
,” Tina sang.

She remembered “Red River Valley” from her own grade school days, singing in unison with the pretty young music
teacher. She remembered taking her turn, strumming the tense metal strings of an autoharp, the music teacher taking her hand so gently in her own and turning it over—as if she were going to read Tina's future—but showing her how to brush the metal strings instead, with just the nail of her index finger.

Gracie sang the first line again, and then the second.

“You have such a pretty singing voice,” Tina said, smiling at her. Neither of them remembered the third line, but it hardly mattered: her daughter beamed back when she skipped into view.

Tina couldn't help but see that Gracie barely navigated the narrow passage between the countertop and the small linoleum table at the center of the room. She couldn't help wincing as she heard her daughter's feet come thudding down. Gracie was only in third grade—just nine years old—but already she weighed one hundred and ten pounds, twenty pounds more than any other kid in class.

Of course, she's taller too, Tina thought—a little desperately. But only by an inch or two, she was forced to admit. There was no way around it really: her daughter was obese—to borrow from Blackman's harsh vocabulary.

Gracie's weight was a constant worry to her.

It had been for years—since the little girl turned four or five. She'd been normal weight before that, toward the high end of those percentiles the doctors always gave her at the end of her annual physicals, but normal-looking anyway. Then for no reason, or none that Tina could work out, Gracie began puffing up like a helium balloon, right before her very eyes. She'd watched her daughter's face change utterly—her sweet little features stretched out wide, a neck as thick as her own.

It started a few years after Tommy left, so that wasn't it. And Gracie's medical tests were normal, according to the nurse at the Free Clinic anyway. She had a “slow metabolism,” they told her, which would make it hard for her to lose weight, but it didn't explain the magnitude of Gracie's problem.

The little girl just didn't eat that much, it seemed to her.

Tina was sure there must be more tests they could run.

And so she circled around and around, driving in endless loops on this mysterious cul de sac—fat, she thought, very fat—without the slightest idea why, only growing more frustrated as she drove. That circle never opened onto any kind of road, and Tina never came closer to anything like a sensible explanation. Meanwhile, her little girl's arms and legs grew fatter and fatter—there was no denying that—like a knight in fleshy armor, as if her true limbs were hidden away, someplace deep inside.

Tina felt her head begin to pound.

Sometimes she thought she should pack it all in, and take her father up on his offer to come live with him. She knew it would be easier, but Tina was too independent for that. She wasn't ready to give up on herself just yet—or Gracie either, for that matter.

She fixed on the horrible pants her daughter was wearing, denim nearly as wide as it was long—small pink kittens embroidered on the back pockets, mocking them both. She couldn't see anything else. Tina hated herself for starting down this road—the dominoes of unvarnished truth clicking lightly, one into the next, the first tile knocking its neighbor down, which toppled the next, in turn.

She felt her cheeks heat up with guilt.
What kind of mother?

She felt her stomach roiling, and the cruel observations flowering as fast as popcorn popping in a bath of boiling oil. She felt powerless to stop them.

I've done what I could, she thought, haven't I?

She'd been to the school nurse half a dozen times, and brought Gracie to the Free Clinic every year. She'd shared her worries with the chilly nurses there, while Gracie played in the waiting room—towering over the other children like a full-grown dog with a litter of puppies.

Stop it, she thought.

Diet and exercise, diet and exercise—that was all they ever told her. But what about the twenty pounds of extra blubber, she wanted to scream? What about that?

Tina was sure they blamed her for it.