So Close (27 page)

As Pax commuted back and forth to DC my days at Kiawah were spent tending Cheyenne’s gestational vision, cell-stalking our mother, and watching Billy stare off from between his headphones.  MBilly.  From a place where grade-school restlessness hardens into adolescent anger and finally middle-aged hopelessness.  It was the last thing I wanted for him.

              “I don’t understand,” I said as he marched stubbornly ahead of me on the beach.  “You’ve been asking me to rescue you for years now and I finally have and you barely say three words to me.”  With Cheyenne occupied at the spa, I’d found Billy playing cards and getting high with the caddies behind the golf club’s dumpsters.  The sun was now setting as I pursued him past the happy families picking up their monogrammed bags to head in for cocktails.  “Or why you won’t come into town and let me buy you some books.  We could go to the library like Grammy used to take me—” 

“Look.”  He spun around, stopping me short.  “I don’t like to fucking read.  That’s you, not me.  I don’t like school.  That’s you, not me.  And I
never
asked you to rescue me.”

              “I don’t mean literally,” I tried to soften my statement.  We stared at each other.  When did we become the same height?

The beach was screen-saver beautiful.  A boy and girl ran between us down to the surf to rinse off their sand toys. 

              “I’m just saying, don’t get it twisted, that’s all.”

              “Billy, I get that the last few months must have been awful.  I know it’s a lot to suddenly go from that to this. 
Believe me
, I get that.  I just want to talk to you so maybe we can—”

              “What?  What are we doing here, Mandy?”

              “Getting a break!  Isn’t this a break for you?  Three and a half weeks that you don’t have to deal with Grammy or school and I’m trying to take care of Ray Lynne so that’s not on you.  Tell me what can I do?”

“You went and got married, okay?  To Prince Fuckwad.  We were there for the whole show.  So just stop acting like you want me and Ray Lynne tagging along.”  He marched away, sand kicking up behind him. 

              “Billy!”  I went to chase him, but my phone rang—Jeanine.

              “I’m so glad you called.”  I hadn’t heard from her or Tom since we’d left Jacksonville.  I tried to keep my eye on Billy as he cut back between the yellow umbrellas.  “What exactly has Cheyenne been told because she’s—”

              “Here she is, Lindsay,” she cut me off.  I froze as Billy jogged up to the boardwalk and out of view.  “Amanda, you’re on speaker.”

              “Amanda?”  Hearing Lindsay’s voice was like seeing a flare go up from shore.  “Where are you?” she asked, her voice tight.

              Fuck.  Fuckfuckfuck.  My phone buzzed and I whipped it away from my cheek to see Tom’s schedule had just been texted to me—from Michael.  “With Tom . . . in Toledo.”

              “He hadn’t mentioned you so . . .”

              “Oh, because I’m not with him right now this second.  I’ve been out working with Donner on the—” I glanced down.  “Spaghetti social for tonight, so.”

My phone buzzed with a second text from Michael.  “
Tom fired Donner.”

              “On my own.  I mean, I wish Donner were helping me.  It’s so much work.  Even Donner would have been a help.”

              “Are your brother and sister with you?”

              “With me?  No.  No, they’re with Pax.  In DC.  For the week.  A few weeks, actually.  I’m going to see them when we break on—”  I yanked my phone away to check the schedule.  “Saturday.  So, yes.  What can I do for you?”

              She was silent for a moment.  “I just hadn’t heard from you since you brought them home.”

              “I’m so sorry.”  God, I missed her.  I wanted to tell her everything so badly, as if none of this pertained to her—as if this was just my fucked-up life I needed advice about.  “I had to get them up to Pax’s and them find them a sitter.” My mind raced through the logistics that would have been necessary without this ‘solution.’  “I haven’t had a moment to—”

              “You’ll tell me if there’s anything I should know,” she said pointedly.

              “Of course.”  There was a silence on the line.  Did she know? 

              She didn’t say anything.  Could she know?  “If I can help you, you know I want to.”

              “Yes.”  I felt terrible.  “No, of course.  Thank you.  You’ve been amazing.  Really.”

              “Have Tom call me.”

              “I will.”

              “Bye.”

              “Bye, Lindsay.” 

I sat down right where I was in the sand.  For the first time since the fundraising dinner I shakily called Tom’s phone, but got his voicemail.  “Tom, Lindsay just called—I told her I was with you and that my brother and sister are with Pax.  You need to call her.  I told her I would tell you to.  So . . .”  I squinted against the glare of the sun lowering behind the hotel.  It stung to look directly at it.  “Just please do.”

“Ah-man-duh.”  That night Cheyenne’s singsong intruded just as I drifted off.  I startled to see her leaning over me.

              “What’s wrong?”  I blinked awake.

              “I need your bed.”

              “What?”  I groped the nightstand for my phone.  “It’s three am.”

              Pax opened one eye.  “What’s happening?” 

Ray Lynne, who’d been having nightmares since we arrived, shifted in the surprising amount of space she commanded between us.

              “I dreamt Tom and I were making love and suddenly there was a python where his penis should be and I just—”  Cheyenne patted my leg to move over and sat on the edge of the duvet as if at a sleepover.  “When we’re together it’s pure.  We’ve found that adventure in each other.  There’s lightness to us.  It’s been that way from the beginning.  In cars, planes—”

              “Cheyenne?”  Pax interrupted, his eyes still closed, as Ray Lynne sleepily stretched a knee into his groin.

              “Yes, Pax.”

              “What do you need right now?”

              “Our bed,” I sighed, guessing it would be the last thing I wanted to give up.

              “I knew you’d understand.”  She hopped off. 

“Seriously?” Pax asked.

“Yes.  I just feel like the energy in my room is bad—I didn’t see it at first—but my dreams are dark.”

“Doesn’t that happen when you’re pregnant—crazy dreams?” Pax asked, trying to stay asleep.

At the word crazy Cheyenne whipped her face to him, her eyes cat-like in their unsettling focus.  “What did you say?”

“We’re going, Cheyenne,” I said as Pax begrudgingly stood and lifted Ray Lynne into his arms. 

“But I can’t sleep on your bedding.”

“Then call housekeeping,” Pax muttered as we shuffled to the door.

“I can’t wait for that!  I have to get back to sleep right now, Pax.”

              And so my husband and I walked back and forth like zombies past a muted CNN to switch out our sheets, settle Ray Lynne back in her own bed, and then fall onto Cheyenne’s.  “He can’t possibly have fucked her,” I said into the synthetic pillow she’d thrown out after us.  “Nobody could stand her long enough.”

              “You mean when they
made love
?” he said to the ceiling.

              “Did you see the look on her face when you said crazy—that was crazy.”

              “So crazy.”  He rolled on his side to look at me.  “This is a lot of trouble to go through for someone you fucked once.”

              “Pax.”

              “It just does not sound like a one time thing.”

              “According to Madwoman of Chaillot in there!  Because she’s delusional.  If she’d say all that to us, with a kid laying there, can you
imagine
what she’d say to the press?”

              He reached for my hand to shut me up, his grip loosening minutes later as his breathing deepened.  I was growing so envious of his ability to return to sleep in a finger snap.  Staring at the moon’s shadow on the shutters made me think of Lindsay’s sunroom.  And it occurred to me that aside from what Cheyenne could say to the press about Tom at this point—what could she say to Lindsay about me?

With Cheyenne’s due date in sight, the perpetually buzzing campaign coverage intently reminded me of what I was missing—
protecting
, I’d remind myself.  Of what I was
protecting
.

I couldn’t believe there’d been a time when my only desire was to be a hotel guest, a woman of leisure with nowhere to be and nothing to mark time between room service deliveries except the shifting sun and tide.  Because two weeks into the honeymoon-that-wasn’t my only desire was to check out. 

When not in DC, Pax worked from the resort’s business center while I tried to cheer Ray Lynne on through every sporting activity on offer so she didn’t spend her days watching CNN with Cheyenne.  Billy slept forever and then met up with the caddies.  To contextualize my feelings about Billy’s pot smoking let me just say that by eighth grade I was one of the few kids in my class who hadn’t tried meth.  From that lens at least the caddies were keeping an eye on him.  Then, eyes bloodshot, he’d return begrudgingly for dinner, where we each tried to move through the menu as if trying the almond tilapia might be the thing that would make this all fun.   Cheyenne initially dined at the resort’s restaurants, but after a week on her own she interjected herself into our meals and said she needed to talk.  God, did she. Her favorite topics veered between graphic reminiscences of Tom that even the kids lost interest in and a ludicrous vision of herself as First Lady that turned the warm rolls to paste in my mouth.  Then, every few days, she’d seem shattered by a new dream and insist that the “vibes” had shifted in our suite and we needed to move to a fresh one.  The next day she would try to ‘shake it off’ with numerous spa treatments and purchases at the boutique.  All the while Pax and I signed for everything all over the resort.

I couldn’t wrap my head around what this was going to cost Tom once that test could be taken.

Early Monday morning of our last week before Cheyenne’s due date I walked Ray Lynne to the pool, where she looked hopefully around for another kid to play with.  She was becoming skilled at sizing up new guests for their toys.  And, as crazy as this all had been, I was savoring the chance to get to know her.  I didn’t want that to end.  But I needed to get back to the campaign, to Lindsay, and she needed her mother, even if that mother was Delilah.  I sat on a deck chair to make my first call to her of the day.

              “Hey,” our mother’s voice was suddenly in my ear.

              “Mom?”  I stood up.  Ray Lynne’s face flew to mine.

              “Leave a message.  Bye now.”  It was her voicemail.

              “Is it mommy?  Is it?”  Ray Lynne ran over to tug at my elbow.  “Mommy?”  she called, her lower lip starting to quiver. 

              “One second.  I’m just leaving a message.  Mom, you’ve
got
to call me.  I don’t know what in the hell—”  Suddenly the phone was taken from my hand and I spun to see Cheyenne.

              “Please,” she said, her voice barely audible.  She’d lost all color.  “He’s not moving.  Please help me.”

Pax was away that day, so I texted Billy, grabbed Ray Lynne, and rushed a weeping Cheyenne toward the address of the doctor the Concierge emailed to me as we raced off the island into Charleston.  Even though I hadn’t heard a word from Lindsay again, Michael was texting me Tom’s schedule daily as a precaution.  I knew Tom was in New Orleans and still asleep, but I left him a voicemail anyway.

“I’m calling his hotel,” Cheyenne said when I told her I hadn’t heard back from him.

              “How do you know where he’s staying?”

              “Because, I’m carrying his child,” she said so simply that the road became a momentary blur.  Yes,” her voice became forceful.  “I’d like to leave a message for Tom Davis . . .Yes, I’m sure he is . . . Because I know he is so you tell him Coco Saunders called and it’s an emergency.”

Cheyenne used the same name when the nurse called her in for the check up. Which made Ray Lynne want to know what game she was playing. 

When the doctor told Coco that her baby was perfectly healthy and doing exactly how he should be
with two more months to go
—so did I.

Chapter Twelve

“Two months?”  I grabbed the OB’s arm as he went to drop his gloves in the trash.  “You mean two days.” 

“It’s because her frame’s so tiny, makes her look like she’s ready pop—she isn’t.”  He winked, indicating that he was picking up what I was laying down.  He wasn’t.  “Small meals throughout the day, okay, Coco?” 

Ray Lynne opened her mouth and I shook my head to shut it. 

“You should probably look again, though.  Just to make sure.”  I knew I sounded ridiculous.  Tallyville wasn’t exactly a mecca for birth control—most women in the park were trailed by a stream of dirty kids.  But none of them were vegan.  So it hadn’t even occurred to me that Cheyenne could be grossly overestimating her gestation. 

“I don’t like that he just stopped moving,” Cheyenne complained as she pulled her attention from her dark phone.  No one had called. “We’ve been totally in synch until today.”

“Your baby boy was just taking a cat nap.”  The doctor picked up her paperwork.

“But I was doing my meditation walk and he always kicks when we meditate.  I say my mantra to his kick.”  She laid her free palm on her belly.  “We do it together.”

“He’s bigger now.  Your motion rocks him to sleep, same as it will when you carry him after he’s born.”

“In two months,” I repeated like an idiot.

“Give or take a few days.  Now where y’all travelling back to?”   He scribbled on his report.

“Minnesota—”

“New York—” Cheyenne and I answered at the same time.   Her eyes flashed to mine. 

“Well, we’re happy to have you down for a girls’ weekend.”  He signed the chart with a flourish before patting Ray Lynne’s head.  “A little fun before your cousin arrives, huh.”