Authors: Susan Kandel
Christietown (24 page)
“No!” she said.
“Because you know
you
didn’t do it, and if you didn’t do it, then who did?”
“Time,” said the guard.
Wren leapt to her feet. “Good-bye, Cece. Thanks for the visit. I enjoyed working with you. Maybe we can do it again sometime.”
“Wait,” I said.
“She can’t,” the guard said, propelling her toward the door.
“Please, Wren, stop!”
She hesitated for a moment and I thought I had her, but then she bowed her troll-doll head low and shuffled through the metal door, the guard following silently behind her.
got back from the detention center before ten, which was
a good thing because Annie’s baby shower was scheduled for three in the afternoon and I was completely unprepared. I called out his name, but Gambino was already gone. As I was leaving earlier this morning, I’d told him he’d have to make himself scarce for the day, expecting at least a token protest.
Instead, he’d jumped at the chance to get away from me.
I’d fix it tonight.
Right now, I had to think about Annie. This was her day. I wanted it to be perfect.
Two hours later, even my toilet was aglow. The floors were beautiful. The kitchen counters, a triumph. I’d arranged flow
ers from the garden in vases. I’d vacuumed up the pet hairs. I could see myself in my dining room table, proving that the makers of Lemon Pledge don’t lie, number one; and number two, that I look a fright with my hair in a bandanna.
Lael and Bridget showed up just before noon—Lael lugging the cake, the finger sandwiches, and the tiny antique cradle
she was passing down to Annie; Bridget lugging nothing, as is her wont. The two of them accompanied me down to the basement, where we found my silver punch bowl and cups, a gift from my ex-mother-in-law when she still had hope that I could rise above my lowly origins. We polished the silver. We made punch. Bridget went to the market for ice. We moved the big velvet chairs against the wall to make room for the folding chairs Lael had dragged over in her van. We put on classical music. We ate tuna and crackers. Buster hoovered up the crumbs.
Dot bustled in at around two, her arms full. I could make out a metal tube and a wicker sewing basket. Jackie followed close on her heels, a baby doll under each arm: one boy, one girl, remarkably lifelike.
“Hello, everyone!” Dot said. “I’m really looking forward to today!” Richard’s accusation about my having put her in harm’s way had cut close to the bone. I felt guilty just looking at her. She put her things down on the dining room table, took the dolls from Jackie, pulled a sack of Hershey’s Kisses and several jars of baby food out of a brown paper bag from the market, and then marched into the kitchen.
We heard the sounds of cupboard doors opening, the lids of vacuum-packed jars popping, and spoons clinking against china. Then Dot reappeared and picked up the metal tube. She wrestled with the top until it came off, sliding out a large poster.
“Who’s going to help me take down the mirror?” she asked, pointing to the only French antique I’ve ever owned, which was hanging in the entryway, opposite the front door.
Before I could utter a word of protest, Bridget—always happy to thwart me—volunteered to help.
“What are we putting up?” she asked, lowering the mirror to the floor.
“Careful!” I said, trying not to wince.
Dot unrolled the poster, which dwarfed her. It must have measured eight by eight feet. “Pin the Binky on the Baby!”
“Cute kid,” said Lael. The baby was lying naked on a bear
skin rug. Its open mouth was larger than my head.
“It’s me,” exclaimed Jackie.
Perfect. The first thing the guests would see was a huge pic
ture of my ex-husband’s bride-to-be with no clothes on.
I excused myself to take a shower and emerged fifteen min
utes later in a sea green shirtdress from the fifties with a twirly skirt and narrow, three-quarter-length sleeves. After careful reflection, I’d accessorized with an armful of pink and gold bangles from Little India and a pair of sky-high, peep-toed fuchsia suede pumps. June Cleaver meets Bollywood was the general idea.
Annie and her best friend from work, Maureen, had arrived in the meantime. Annie was the set decorator on a long-running
Star Trek
clone called
Testament
. She was much ad
mired for her way with sheet metal and spray paint. Maureen was the actress who played Halo, the alien wife of Commander Gow, who saved the world every episode in spite of his meddle
some in-laws. The aliens had zebra-striped hair, which Maureen maintained in real life.
“How are you?” I got each of them a cup of punch and led them to prime spots on the sofa.
“Good,” said Maureen. “I’m trying to convince Annie to name the baby Halo. It works for either sex.”
“Don’t worry,” Annie said to me. “I’m naming the baby something very normal. John or Susan.”
I plumped up the pillows behind her. “Where are the boys today?”
“At the park shooting hoops,” she said. “They probably should’ve asked Gambino to go. What’s he up to?”
“Work,” I lied. “Oh, there’s the bell.” Grateful for the escape, I went to open the door.
Ladies in hats arrived for the next half hour. The house was filled with the sounds of tinkling glasses and high-pitched laughter. Buster, the sole representative of his gender, hid under the bed along with Mimi, who didn’t like a fuss unless she was making it. Bridget took the presents and put them on a fold
ing table we’d set up in the corner of the living room. Poor thing had trouble surrendering a Tiffany’s bag one of Annie’s art school friends had brought. I gave her a supportive pat as I pried it from her fingers. Dot handed out white napkins folded into triangles, instructing the guests to put them in their purses until later. People ate and drank and oohed and aahed over Annie.
“How’s Alexander doing?” Lael asked me as we restocked one of the trays with more watercress sandwiches and smoked salmon rounds from the refrigerator.
“He’s looking forward to being a big brother,” I said.
“That’s lovely,” she said, wiping her hands on her flowered sundress. She favored prints because they concealed stains. “I remember when I came home with Nina. Tommy told me to take her back to the store.”
Dot came into the kitchen and pulled some yarn and a pair of scissors out of her sewing bag. “We’re guesstimating the size of Mommy’s tummy!”
”If anybody had tried to measure my tummy when I was pregnant,” I muttered under my breath, “I’d have decked them.”
“You’re all bark and no bite,” said Lael, who prided herself on being no bark and all bite.
Bridget, who’d come into the kitchen looking for more forks, added, “Doesn’t take Hercule Puree to see that.”
“Poirot,” corrected Dot.
Bridget said, “Everybody’s asking when we’re opening pres
ents.”
“Now?” I asked.
“No, no,” said Dot, pushing us out of the kitchen. “We’re just about ready for Mommy Is a Juggler. Everybody!” she cried. “Gather round.” She turned to Lael. “You have four children, is that right, dear?”
“Yes,” said Lael, beaming.
“Four different fathers, too,” added Bridget helpfully.
Ignoring her, Dot said, “Then you should have no trouble demonstrating how we play.”
The game involved having the mommy in question per
form various tasks simultaneously without losing her temper. “First, she will talk into a phone while holding a baby on the same arm.”
“No problem,” said Lael, taking the doll that Jackie handed her and tucking it in the crook of her arm. Then she propped the cell phone under her ear. “What’s next?”
Dot instructed her to bend down and tie her shoe.
“I’m wearing Birkenstocks,” said Lael. It was true. Bridget, shod in a pair of Andrea Pfister white suede court pumps with a die-cut instep, which she kept in their original box with the original tissue paper, cringed.
“Pretend,” instructed Dot.
Lael bent down and pretended to tie her Birkenstock with
out dropping the phone or the baby. Good thing the doll didn’t need to breathe.
Now Dot set a pitcher of water and a glass on the coffee table. “Have a drink,” she said to Lael. By this time, all pre
tense of a demonstration was gone. The guests were on the edges of their seats. It was Lael versus Dot, winner take all.
Lael secured the doll against her rib cage, clamped the phone down between shoulder and ear, poured herself a glass of water with her left hand and drained it in a single gulp. She raised the glass overhead in triumph. Bridget, Annie, and I cheered.
“Jackie,” said Dot, unruffled. “The tray, please.”
Jackie hurried into the kitchen and came out with a bag of flour, two sticks of butter, some baking soda, brown sugar, white sugar, a measuring cup, a salt shaker, a bottle of vanilla, two eggs, three spoons, and a bag of chocolate chips arranged neatly on a green plastic tray.
“Everybody loves homemade baked goods,” said Dot, an evil glint in her eye. She had no idea who she was dealing with.
Thirty minutes later, Dot was forced to admit that Lael’s chocolate chip cookies—sweet, but not too sweet, crunchy but yielding—put all others to shame. Then it was present time.
Annie received little hats, little socks, little towels, a bouncy seat, a mobile, a silver spoon, and, from her friend Maureen, a zebra-striped blanket. Dot had knit the baby a sweater—in yellow, not pink, which surprised even Jackie. In addition to the antique crib, Lael had bought Annie a red negligee trimmed in black lace for a few months hence. Bridget gave Annie a gold locket that had belonged to her grandmother, which made Annie cry.
Then it was my turn. I handed my present to Annie. She ripped the paper off and when she saw what it was, looked at me in disbelief.
“Is this the one, Mom?”
“The same edition. I found it at a used bookstore. Here.” I handed her a tissue and she blew her nose.
It was Hans Christian Andersen’s
The Little Mermaid
. I used to read it to Annie every night. Her favorite page showed the little mermaid in the window of the sea king’s castle, gazing out at the blue-green water, wondering about life up above. It was my favorite page, too. When Annie and I came out to California after the divorce, the book got lost. I’d searched and searched for another copy with the same iridescent pages, the same haunting picture of the mermaid dressed in a golden gown made of fish scales, having given up a life on earth for love.
She doesn’t really die, Annie had always insisted. No, I’d reassured her. She becomes a daughter of the air. She lives for
ever in the sky.
I’d finally found a copy. On the flyleaf, the previous owner had written “Rose Baden, Age 8.” Rose was the same age Annie was when she and I started our new lives.
This book was for Annie, and the new life inside her.
“Too bad we didn’t have time to play Taste the Baby Food,” said Dot, folding up her blindfolds after everyone had gone a few hours later.
“Next baby,” I answered. “You were a great help, Dot. Thank you so much.”
“What were those little white napkins for?” Annie asked Dot.
We were all outside now, helping Annie pack up her car.
“Oh, fiddlesticks!” said Dot. “I forgot about them. It’s a game called Dirty Diaper. I put a chocolate kiss in one of the napkins. The person who finds it is the winner.”
“Gross,” said Jackie, slamming Annie’s trunk shut. “Thank god you forgot.”
I burst out laughing. “I couldn’t agree more, Jackie.”
“I’m so happy Jackie and I are part of your family now,” Dot said to me.
Annie started tearing up.
“Hormones,” she said. “Sorry.”
“Group hug,” said Jackie.
The strange thing was, I was happy they were part of our family, too.
Then Richard showed up and spoiled all the fun.