The Original 1982 (8 page)
T
here's a word for what happens when you stay indoors too long and start to feel you can't go out, the world is too intense:
agoraphobia.
I think I have it. I order food in, have groceries and diapers delivered, run to the corner and back, with you in my arms, my coat thrown over my pajamas.
But finally one day I decide it's time. I bundle you up in a sweater, warm socks, and a hat. I tuck layers of blankets around you in your carriage, put on my heavy coat and gloves. Out into the world we go, north on Broadway to Seventy-second Street and east to Columbus Avenue. The sun is out and it's not too cold. The light is bouncing off every shiny surface, glittering the way it does in winter.
As we make our way past all the restaurants and bars on Columbus Avenue, I point out the landmarks, the corners where your father and I kissed, or fought, the bars we closed at four in the morning. I hardly notice all the passersby, but sometimes they break into our bubble. They look into the carriage and smile. They make unsolicited comments:
“She's so beautiful!”
“How old?”
“Congratulations!”
“So precious.”
“Bless her heart.”
I mumble thank you and return their smiles with lowered eyes. I seem to have lost the ability to engage in casual conversation. I wish I had sunglasses to hide behind because my eyes are tearing in the bright sunlight, and I don't want anyone to think I'm crying.
Soon we're crossing Seventy-seventh Street, and I see the green awning of the Café Miriam ahead. I'm excited to introduce you to my friends.
When I wheel you inside, Sofia is the first one I see. She's standing there with her hands on her hips. She's got a new hairstyle, kind of an asymmetric shag. She screams when she sees us, and reaches down into the carriage to pick you up. “What a little angel!” she says. You're tiny in her arms. I'm almost embarrassed by how beautiful you are. It feels like it might be a sin to be as proud as I am.
We take a deuce, a table for two, by the window. All the other girls come over to hold you, too. “Have you heard from him?” Nina asks.
“Nope,” I say, and change the subject.
Sofia takes her order pad from her apron. She makes a face, says in a goofy voice, “What will it be?”
I've missed her, and the others, and even working at the restaurant. It feels strange to be there as a customer. When the man at the next table asks for a coffee refill, I want to jump up and get it for him. I'm aware of who needs a check and who hasn't gotten their entrée yet.
I watch as one waitress holds you and passes you to another. Will leans across the bar to touch your cheek. You're being so good, but finally you start to cry. I listen as they attempt to soothe you and force myself not to come to your rescue. When Vicky brings you back, I realize I've been holding my breath. As soon as you're in my arms, you stop crying.
Vicky sits down across from us. “You ready to come back to work?”
I tell her I think I'll be ready soon, though it's hard to imagine being ready.
“You can start off with a couple of shifts,” she says. “Have you looked into child care?”
I've been hoping I might be able to bring you to work with me, but can see now that it's probably not very realistic. “I still need to figure that out,” I say. I don't feel too worried yet. My parents are still helping with health insurance, and I've got some money left in the bank.
By the time my food gets to the table, I think you've had enough excitement. It's time to change your diaper and give you lunch. I ask to have the food wrapped up and say a quick good-bye to everyone.
“Hang on, Little One,” I tell you, pushing the carriage home.
We're exhausted by the time we get back. I change your diaper and take you into my bed to nurse. When you've had your fill, we both fall asleep.
I
n March, I go back to work three nights a week. I put you in your pajamas, the pink ones with the kittens, or the yellow ones with feet, and take you upstairs to Maria's apartment with your blanket and your rabbit. You're eating some pureed foods now, and I've prepared a bottle. Maria is our neighbor on four. We met her in the basement laundry room. She said she did some babysitting, if we ever needed help. Maria is a grandmother. She speaks to you in Spanish. She gives you your supper and lets you watch TV until you fall asleep.
When I pick you up just before midnight, after my shift, you're out cold. Maria hands you to me in the doorway, because her husband, Hector, is sleeping. He has to get up at four in the morning. I pay her in cash, eight dollars an hour. It's a little more than half of what I make.
We whisper so quietly it's like lipreading.
“Good night, Maria. Thank you so much.”
“No problem. Such a good baby.”
All night I've longed for this moment, to smell your baby sweetness and feel your astoundingly soft skin against mine. I carry you downstairs and into the nursery without turning on the light. The moon is shining in the window, and the only noise is the distant rush of traffic on Broadway. As I lay you down in your crib, my heart feels big, like it's pushing out against my rib cage. I watch you sleep for a long time. Your tiny chest rises and falls. Finally, I walk the few steps to my own bed and fall into it without even washing off my makeup or brushing my teeth.
At work, I miss you and worry that you're missing me. I tell the girls about all the funny things you do. You have a great sense of humor and laugh at any silly game I come up with. You're smart, too. I can see your brain working, trying to figure things out. You want to touch everything in your reach.
You look like Gabriel and like me. You have his perfectly shaped lips and intelligent eyes, my coloring and stubborn chin, our broad cheekbones and heavy eyelids. You had Gabriel's balding pate, too, which worried me a little, but finally your hair has started coming in soft, light brown waves. It curls around your slightly pointy ears and at the back of your delicate neck. You have blond highlights, too, like the ones women pay hundreds of dollars for on Madison Avenue.
I realize, looking at you, that Gabriel and I could be brother and sister, our resemblance is so strong. Before you were born, it never occurred to me. Now you remind me of it every day.
I hear rumors about Gabriel. He's going to make a movie. He's collaborating with famous rock artists. I listen to the stories with one ear but try not to dwell on them.
The only one that really gets my attention is when I hear his wife has had a miscarriage. They say she can't have any more children. I have no idea if it's true, but I feel deeply sorry when I hear it. I suppose that might seem strange to you, Minnow, but I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
In the original 1983, when I hear about their lost baby, my eyes fill instantly. An ache spreads through me, heavy as a bag of sand. I know what it is to lose someone never touched, or kissed, or held.
W
e visit Jules at her new apartment in the West Village. It has a whole wall of exposed brick and windows that overlook a little park. The floor tiles in the kitchen are stylishly black and white. We watch as she grinds whole beans and makes strong black coffee in a French press.
Jules is flush with movie money and speaks of her luxuries and privileges as if they are commonplace. But she's generous with you, so I try not to feel like a poor relation. You're the best-dressed daughter of a struggling waitress, ever. She's taken us to FAO Schwarz and bought you enormous bears and blue-eyed baby dolls. Your nursery overflows with a jungle of stuffed animals and other toys.
She holds you, rocks her leg, wags her foot. She's dying for a cigarette. The constant motion puts you to sleep.
Conspiracy,
Jules's big movie, is scheduled to open soon, and she is overwhelmed with publicity commitments. She has offers for other movies but has rejected one for the nudity the role requires, and another because she'd be little more than arm candy. She's going to hold out for the good parts, although her manager and agent tell her those are few and far between. They're encouraging her to work as much as she can, to strike while the iron is hot, but Jules dismisses their advice. She believes things will always be as they are.
This is how it is when you're young, Minnow. You have no sense of the temporary nature of opportunity, the temporary nature of everything, in fact. You think it's all going to last forever.
Jules talks about her time in London, her dinners with movie stars, her interviews and auditions. Hearing about it all makes me feel that I am missing my chance, that life is passing me by. I want to be out there in the world, too. I want to prove something to my family, to show my father he's wrong about me. I want to have a big life like Jules and Gabriel.
But then you begin to cry and she hands you back to me. Your sweet baby scent is like a balm. The rush of love I feel reminds me of what's important.
The premiere for
Conspiracy
is on a Tuesday night. I'm on the schedule to work Tuesdays, but swap with Sofia. Jules is going early to do interviews. She says she'll leave my name on a guest list at the door and that I should meet her inside.
I'd love to buy something new to wear, but even if I had the money I wouldn't know what to buy. On the day of the premiere, I put you in your carriage and we take the subway downtown to a thrift store on East Fifth Street. I've gotten the hang of it now, carrying you in the stroller down the steep stairs. Sometimes someone offers to help, but they hold their end at the wrong angle or move too quickly. It's easier just to do it myself.
At the thrift store, the clothing is piled up so high you can see it mashed up against the front window from the street. I've been coming here for years. You have to plow through the piles. It's a treasure hunt. In the fifteen-dollar pile, I find a black velvet dress with spaghetti straps and little velvet balls that hang from the top of the bodice. I think it's from the sixties. It's lined in satin, not like the cheap stretchy velvet you get now. I hold it up against me. It looks about right.
“That's a cool dress,” the punk girl behind the counter says.
I look over at you, bundled up in your carriage, stationary as a sack of flour. I pay for the dress, and the girl hands it back to me in a plain plastic bag. I hope it fits. Most of my baby weight has gone, but I'm not the skinny girl I used to be. At the last minute I decide to dye my hair, too, and pick up a box of Clairol Medium Summer Blonde at the drugstore.
The dress is a total score. It's tight up and down. I just hope the zipper holds because I'm bursting out of it, and it's an old zipper.
The hair dyeing is less successful. I don't spend much time reading the directions, because you're getting fussy and need to eat and have a nap before I leave you with Maria. My hair looks sort of blond in the darkish light of my living room, but in the bathroom, I can clearly see it's green, and not a good green. I'm not sure what I've done wrong, but it's too late to do anything about it now. I put on my makeup with one hand, holding on to you with the other. You keep reaching for my mascara wand and then my lipstick. Minnow, you really make me laugh.
At about seven-thirty, I grab your diaper bag and your rabbit, your bottle, and a jar of carrots, and rush up the stairs to leave you with Maria.
I hand her the bag and the bottle and the rabbit. But I'm slow to let you go. “She ate twenty minutes ago, and I just changed her diaper.”
“Dame la niña,”
she says to me, her fingers wagging, and then to you, “Come here,
mi gordita
.”
There's a part of me that regrets handing you over every time. Maria sees it in my face. “Go have fun, Lisa. We'll be just fine. Wave bye-bye to your mama.” She takes your little hand and waves it around. You look up into her face. “Good night, Mommy,” she says, and takes you inside.
I make my way carefully down the three flights of stairs, in my high heels, to the street. I'm wearing a shabby coat over the velvet dress, but a man goes by and gives me a long whistle, and I almost forget my hair is green.
On the corner I hail a taxi. “Sixtieth and Second,” I tell the driver. He's got cool jazz playing on the radio. I look out the window as we fly across town. New York City has the best people watching in the world. You see couples in love, men in hats, women hurrying with shopping bags, all the different coats, boots, hairstyles, people of every color, age, and shape.
It's almost spring again. Only a year ago, I walked the streets of the Upper West Side, excited and nervous, wondering what you'd be like. I can almost see myself walk by. I was another person a year ago. I think of your father and feel deeply sad. I still miss him. It never becomes less. When I catch my reflection in the glass, I note again that I've become someone whose resting face falls into a mournful expression.
As if the cabdriver can read my thoughts, he says, “Smile! It can't be that bad.”
This is one you hear a lot as a young woman, Minnow. Why do men think we enjoy being commanded to smile? I meet his eyes in the rearview mirror, but don't give him what he wants.
As we pull up to the theater, I see Jules standing on the red carpet in a long black dress. She's lifting her chin and posing for the cameras. She's as lovely as Grace Kelly. Walking past her, I feel a combination of two things: unbearable pride and uncomfortable envy. She sneaks a look at me over her shoulder and gives me her real smile, the one that says,
Can you believe this craziness?
I give her one back. The photographers jump to see who I am. I hope I don't have lipstick on my teeth.
But they lose interest quickly. “She isn't anybody,” I hear one say.
The movie is a complicated thriller involving the Israeli secret police, Russian spies, and the CIA. The plot is so confusing, I lose track of who is who. Jules plays two characters. She is a freedom fighter and a woman in a young lieutenant's dream. As a soldier, her hair is shorn, her brow furrowed. She appears suddenly in a doorway. Then she's running down the hall. As the dream girl, she wears a sheer white gown. Her platinum-blond wig falls over her face. When she tilts her head, the long wig parts like a curtain to reveal red painted lips.
After the screening, I pile into a car with Jules and her publicist to go to the after-party at a nearby hotel. She is whisked away as soon as we arrive. I stand in line to get something to eat at the buffet and sit at a table by myself. Everyone at the party seems ambitious and fake to me. I watch them walk around the room, trying to gauge whether conversation with one person or another is worth their time. I don't talk to anyone, and no one talks to me. What a shallow world, I think, feeling self-conscious about my green hair. Even the velvet dress suddenly feels like a shabby rag. I think of you waiting for me at Maria's and just want to go home.
When I find Jules to tell her I'm leaving, she holds her hand up to her ear like a phone and mouths, “I'll call you.” But she's so busy that she forgets to call. Or maybe she's waiting for me to call her, but I don't call either.
It happens pretty much the same way in the original 1983.
Conspiracy
makes Jules a movie star. She rents a house on the West Coast and has all her belongings shipped out there. We don't get to see her again for a very long time.
