Shorts - Sinister Shorts (31 page)

The baby faced a second woman wearing a leaf-patterned yellow sundress, thin cotton, just right for the tropics. He wondered how she had managed in that dress. Must have brought a fur coat along to get herself on the plane in Boston.

She had long blonde hair twisted into a short braid that fell over her left shoulder, but most of it escaped, floating beyond her skull in a permanently windblown state. He code-named her “Fan.” When the baby slept, minutes at a time, she leafed through a movie magazine, looking irritated. If she had looked bored, he might have found her attitude significant; but she didn't. When the baby fussed, she was right there, kissing its cheek, letting it attempt to stand on her knees, generously supported by her.

“What a sturdy little neck,” Laura observed. “Remember how Cori's neck flopped?”

The flight attendant, a thin, graying man, asked if they would prefer lasagna or meat loaf. They both preferred lasagna.

“Meat loaf?” Laura scoffed. “What do you suppose they put into it?”

Laura made terrific meat loaf. She folded in bits of whole wheat bread with the low-fat turkey grind, fresh tomatoes, garlic, mushrooms, apple-chicken sausages, zucchini, yogurt cheeses. Somehow, the mishmash tasted great. He didn't expect the same from the airline.

Their red blobs of goo arrived. Dan couldn't eat his. Laura tucked in.

The third mother, “Mole,” black-haired and blue-eyed, with a flesh-colored mole at the tip of her chin that extended her face into an exact triangle, bottle-fed her baby throughout the meal, eating nothing. She sipped from a bottle of water she had stowed in the back of the seat in front of her. Whenever her child began to move even a little erratically, she picked through a big bag and stuffed a pacifier into its mouth, or dangled a toy provocatively above it. The move seemed to work, as the baby interrupted its near meltdown, satisfying itself by sucking hard on the rubber nipple. The target wore a pair of lightweight jeans with a baggy pink shirt over a tight white T-shirt.

“These young moms are so attentive,” Laura said, observing his focus, “which is good. It's a blurry time. You're afraid and confident all at the same time.” She put a finger to his cheek. “They're just so darling, such tiny angels. Remember Cori? How she slept for the first three weeks and I had to wake her up to eat?”

It was a blur. Daniel couldn't believe they had two children. The only way he could cope was to immerse himself in work. He was not cut out to change diapers. The smell nauseated him. He couldn't understand how Laura could pick up a steaming, reeking soggy pile and casually rinse it in the toilet. The process, so primordial, made him glad to be civilized, and after the first time he was left alone to cope, gagging with revulsion, he sprang magnanimously for paper diapers.

He was proud of the kids, of course. Symbolizing his success as a man, they were his seed. You only had to look at Joey to know that. Daniel supported them and their stay-at-home mother. He would put them through college, by God.

Laura pulled her hand back and her eyes looked inward. “I thought she might die of hunger. I cried. I was worried. Funny, huh? I mean, now I worry when she eats fast food. She's not thin like you might expect. She's sturdy-looking, even though she exercises constantly.”

Daniel crushed his napkin and put it onto his plate so that the flight attendant would get that he was done. They were firing up the movie, a comedy featuring Ben Stiller. Every time he thought he had seen every Ben Stiller movie, another one gushed along, about as entertaining as a broken water pipe. He put his headphones on, pretending to adjust the channels, but instead turned the volume down to nothing.

“He's not handsome,” his wife announced. “Why is he a movie star?”

Daniel tidied his tray.

“Well,” Laura went on, “it's that false vulnerability. He believes he's clued-in to what's happening. Truth is, he isn't. He doesn't understand that women need, first and foremost, his attentive regard.” She messed with her controls. “These Hollywood guys, what they care about is big breasts. Hence the over-endowed lead actress. If she has anything else going for her, Ben'll never notice.”

He felt irritated but forgave her. From what he could see, movies reflected life: women flitted along the periphery. Even his target was not the main player in this incident. She belonged to someone. She did what she was told.

Read history, he had said to Laura so many times. Women played support staff. Their memorable accomplishments related to raising heroic soldier boys.

The flight attendant came around with a plastic bag to collect trash. Daniel handed his plastic plate and tray to her, heavily loaded. Laura's tray was as clean as if she had licked it.

“That baby,” Laura said, pushing her tray table up, “see how he sticks his toes through the holes in that knit blanket? Just like Joey. His baby blankey? Still on his bed. Did you know that?”

Joe had always clung tightly to his mother, listening too intently to her, laughing at her jokes before she reached the punch lines. He went to her with problems. He avoided Daniel because, Daniel suspected, he found his father harsh and uncompromising.

Daniel found all forms of anodyne unpalatable. He didn't offer Band-Aids, he offered solutions which were painful and sometimes left you bleeding underneath. When would the boy get free of her soft umbilical pull? He was almost fourteen. Adulthood belonged to the hardy. Children and their mothers needed protection, loveys, comfort. Men required weapons. He needed to spend more time with the boy, let him know which side was up before he ended up as naive as Laura.

Four rows ahead of him, Fan sagged. The baby, toes tangled in a blanket as Laura had described, was pushing tight against Fan's right shoulder. It closed its eyes. Fan's mouth gaped. She snored.

Damn. No ideas occurred. What mom wouldn't take advantage of an unconscious baby to cop a snooze?

As the movie screen brightened and Curly's baby tired, the mother and baby stuck together like pages of a book, related, but individual. The baby's eyes closed so tightly its little face smoothed over like a marble sculpture. The mother rested her head against the hard curved portion of the seat that substituted for a travel pillow. She breathed fast when she slept. Was she pretending?

Mole watched the movie, even chuckling sometimes, headphones on her head while her baby slept peacefully. Nothing suspicious there. No reason not to embrace a serene moment.

He turned up the volume and listened to Ben Stiller, eyes still on his prizes.

“She's too pretty for him, and way too bright,” Laura said, interrupting a bad movie joke.

Daniel pulled out a notebook and took notes. Fan dozed while her baby sucked on a bottle, Curly wiggled the baby on her knee, Mole's baby adjusted itself and continued to sleep.

“Did you ever think, ‘Oh, I wish I had it all in hand'?” Laura asked him.

“I do have it all in hand.”

She was quiet for once.

Most of the passengers had pulled down the plastic screens over their windows so that the movie could be seen, which dipped them all in gloom. Hollywood droned on. A few people snickered. Very few laughed outright.

Daniel punched the buttons on the seat beside him, lowering the volume back to nil. He watched the women, annoyed with himself. He had remarkable instincts. Everybody said so. Why, then, so much trouble today?

All mothers looked alike. The thought sneaked in and he laughed. A few people looked at him. He examined the thought, found it unworthy, and laughed again. Well, he said to himself, once he was able to get himself under control, better locate some differences pronto.

Beside him Laura, who had been so critical earlier, laughed at bumbling Ben.

After the movie, the attendants came around with more drinks. Passengers were advised to use the facilities before landing began. Each of the three moms took a turn in the bathroom. He timed them. Each took about the same amount of time.

He strolled the aisles, taking a closer look. He couldn't tell one baby from the next, much less align its features with its purported mother.

The three moms all seemed equally nurturing, nervous, tired, concerned. They all, despite relative youth, had dark bags under their eyes. After the movie, the babies all began to fuss, one more than the others, but the mothers' anxious ministrations all seemed equally determined, loving, and calm.

The babies all cried during the landing. All the moms shoved bottles at them, and all the babies batted the bottles away, faces purple, ears apparently popping.

Laura, after exclaiming over the view of the islands on the way down, hadn't said anything in a long time. As they stood in the aisle waiting for the signal to disembark, he reached up into the bins for their winter coats. She said, “I've imagined this moment for so long. When we get off the plane, it's gonna feel like heaven should feel. Like velvet. Warm, silky, soft air.” She sighed.

“It'll be hot all right,” Daniel agreed, then he turned his attention back to the women. Fan, one hand holding a bottle, had her baby tucked up on her shoulder facing to the rear. Now quieted, it peered confusedly at the people standing behind her in the line. Curly, grappling with a massive carry-on, was still seated and trying to get organized. The woman beside her was holding the baby while Curly apologized and stuffed toys, diapers, rags inside the bag. Slightly ahead of her, Mole stood, baby neatly tucked into a fabric sling over her stomach, her bag on rollers behind her.

“Why did we come, Daniel?” Laura stood in front of him in the aisle, where the passengers were lined up like airplanes on the runway awaiting a signal to go.

Trapped.

“You don't give a damn about the weather. You don't care where you are. You haven't looked out the window once.”

“Laura,” he said urgently, keeping his voice down. “Not now.”

“You don't care about me.” She was bristling like a terrier.

“Oh, geez. Not true.”

He saw hurt and anger in her eyes and he didn't have time for this shit right now.

With relief, he saw the line ahead of them stirring. He could still pull this off. He considered shoving past his suddenly difficult wife, but with all the luggage jamming the aisle, he didn't think he could do it without raising some kind of general alarm, the last thing he wanted to do. “Please. Let's just get out of here. I hate being crowded.”

Laura set her carry-on down on his foot. Hard.

“Ow.” He kicked it off.

“I'm not moving until you tell me what's going on.”

Fan was making her way toward the front of the plane.

“Shit, Laura! Go, will you? You're holding all these people up.”

“I was so excited about this trip, the two of us. Only I expected everything to be different. I bought a new bathing suit. I thought we'd snorkel. Play. Love each other.”

Curly shuffled ahead, apologizing, knocking into people with her bulky bag, disappearing into the business class section.

He nudged Laura with his hip. “Honey, move it!” When she didn't move, he tried going around her. She turned to face him, stretching her arms out to block him.

Up ahead, Mole exited, her pink shirt flapping behind her. “Christ!” he said. “Please, Laura!”

Behind them, other passengers began stealing across the middle aisle to the other side of the plane.

He considered bolting, but only for a second. The look in her eye riveted him.

“It's one of those women, isn't it?”

“What?” He wanted to laugh but he didn't have time. “No.”

“It's her,” she said. “The pretty one.”

In spite of his consternation, he had to ask, “What are you talking about?”

“The one with the bogus baby. Did you think I wouldn't notice?”

“Notice what?” He felt his heartbeat all the way down to his fingertips.

“What's she, an au pair? A babysitter?”

“Who?” he asked urgently. “Which one?”

But Laura was on her own jag. “You had me so thrown off, the way you eyeballed those other two mothers. But you're devious, I guess I know that because of your work. Maybe you imagined you could throw me off that way? And for a few minutes there, I tried to think they just reminded you of… of me, when I first had our children. I thought you were remembering what I was remembering. I imagined tenderness.” A tear hung in the corner of her eye.

Registering it, he felt forced to ignore it for the moment. “You said bogus baby. What are you talking about, Laura? It's important.”

“At first I thought she was just another mother. She had me fooled for at least five seconds.”

“My God, honey, help me here. Which one had you fooled? Who?”

“Don't lie to me. You bribed your mother. I wanted to think it was for us. Now I know it wasn't.”

The three moms would be in the terminal now, buying tickets to places where the palm trees could hide them forever, waving down taxis, catching rides, out of his reach unless he could find a way out of this mess right now.

“Which one?” he yelled, grabbing her arm.

She pulled it away, reached down, and unzipped her bag. She pulled out a big straw hat. “I'm going down that gangplank onto the tarmac. I'm going to feel that sun-soaked air, and I'm going to love it. And I'm going without you.”

“For God's sake, Laura! Which one? Which one is bogus?”

The line behind them emptied as their fellow travelers continued to skulk furtively over to the next aisle and out the front.

She gave him a hard look and saw something new. Her expression changed. “Oh, Daniel,” she said, worriedly. “I got it wrong, didn't I.”

“You sure did!”

“It's work, isn't it? My old familiar rival. Same old, same old.”

“Yes, yes. It's work! Now who the hell is she?”

“Tell me why you need to know.”

But he was not supposed to tell. He couldn't share such things with her. She stood in one place, he stood in another. They stood frustrated in the airplane aisle, immobilized by her recalcitrance and his stubborn maleness.

“Tell me.”

She knew little about his work, except that mostly he did things he couldn't talk about.

He had no choice, and for once, he had no doubt he was doing exactly the right thing. “It's a kidnapping, Laura. She stole the kid.”