Hooked (25 page)

My hand was in a plastic bag, about to grab some lettuce, when Carmen called.

“They’re gone,” she said. “All three. Sold today.”

“No way,” I said, debagging my hand.

“Saturday is always my best day, but this is nuts. I think you’ve got something, Thea. People looove them.”

I spotted Dad standing by a refrigerator, pointing to a bottle of juice in a strangely shaped bottle, gauging my interest, the Saturday crowd jostling past him to get at the roast chickens. I shrugged at him, my heart racing.

“They’re just unique,” Carmen continued. “I don’t like that word, but that’s what they are. The cut … I admit I tried the teal one on. It just lay on the hips so nicely. Even on
my
hips. If I could buy one, I would.”

“I’ll make you one,” I said.

“The last one to sell was the fiery red and orange. The customer even asked if there were other colors, and when I said there weren’t, she bought it anyway. That says something to me.”

“What sold first?”

“The teal one, of course. Then the purple and green.”

“Wow, Carmen, I can’t believe it.”

“Nine hundred clams, baby, believe it! So what next? You need to make more. A lot more. I could put you in touch with these women I know in Brooklyn, they’re seamstresses who do everything—knit, crochet, whatever. Maybe you could work something out with them. Do you have any money you could … you know, start something with?”

“I might,” I answered.

“Well, I could hook you up with them,” she said. “They do great work. Let me know. In the meantime, congratulations! Come by and I’ll give you a check.”

My first thought was to call Will and say,
“See? I actually did something. You thought it was stupid and you were wrong. You’re wrong about everything.”

I found Dad on the line, pursing his lips at a woman in front of him who was digging into the bowels of her wallet for change.

“So guess what!” I asked, almost ramming the stroller into the checkout station.

“What’s that, Thea,” he asked, placing two artichokes on the belt.

“All three bikinis sold today. I dropped them off at Stash yesterday and they all sold today.”

“You don’t say.” Dad smiled, distracted. He pulled a credit card out of his wallet and gave it to the cashier, who nodded and motioned for him to swipe it.

“Carmen said she could hook me up with some women in Brooklyn who could help me make, you know, more of them than I could alone.”

“Who’s Carmen?” he asked, swiping his card in the black groove.

“The woman at the knitting store I told you about, remember?”

“Vaguely,” he said. The cashier motioned for him to do it again, which he did, but it was the wrong way. I grabbed it out of his hand and turned it around.

“She said these women could help me make more than I could just by myself.”

“What is it, like a sweatshop?” he asked. He looked at the cashier, annoyed. “Do I have to sign?”

“No, not a
sweatshop
,” I said quickly as the cashier shook her head at him, shooing us down the line. “Do sweatshops even exist anymore?” I hung one of the bags on the stroller and we pushed through the big green doors.

“Are you kidding?” He laughed, looking at me sideways.

“There are laws in this country, right?” I asked.

“Well, how many workers do they employ? How much do they make an hour?”

“I don’t know, Dad.”

“Well, that’s something you’d want to research.”

We headed west on Broome Street, past the soot-stained cast-iron buildings and I wondered how I could bring myself to ask him to help me again, when he was already helping me out so much. The truth was, I hated asking him for anything because it made me feel guilty. Especially since I’d gotten pregnant and was now living with him. What was more, the idea of asking him for things always reminded me of when I was little and he, bombed out of his mind in the middle of a Saturday, took me to the toy store on Charter Island. We’d wheeled a shopping cart around the store as we piled stuff in—a Barbie makeup head, Barbie outfits, games and more games, a red soccer ball. Bright orange, see-through plastic water guns with extra-long barrels. A badminton set and extra birdies.

“What about a skateboard?” he’d asked.

“I have one in the city.”

“Yes, but did you bring it?” He’d plopped a red plastic skateboard onto the heap. Its wheels were too small, but the thrill plodded on.

At the register I’d waited to hear “Thea, we’ve overdone it—put this one back, why don’t you.” But it never came. I watched as everything went into shopping bags, excited beyond containment at my luck. But after Mom and Dad split, the scene that replayed in my head was of me cashing in on all the crap that had been going on between them; I got a Barbie makeup head because Dad was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Then, when I got older, I’d just sneak or take what I wanted instead of asking, like when I snuck off to Europe.

As we crossed Sixth Avenue, I told myself that I’d bring it up again at dinner, hating the fact that after all he’d done, I still needed his help. But when we got home, he went into the kitchen and threw himself into making dinner, grunting at me when I asked him where the Diet Coke was as he whisked together a marinade for the steaks and cut up paper-thin slices of garlic to grill them with.

“Table twenty-four enjoying their jar course, I see.” Dad walked slowly out of the kitchen with our plates and utensils in one hand, steak sauce in the other. He’d nicknamed the high chair “table twenty-four” and he called Ian the Machiavelli party. It was after nine o’clock when we finally sat down, and by that time I was too undone from starvation and accumulated-over-the-day depression about Will to have a productive conversation about anything. And then, with Dad’s impeccable sense of timing, he threw me a curveball.

“So listen, Thea, I spoke to Tom Davidson this afternoon. His office needs someone while his assistant is on maternity leave.”

“What’s his office?” I asked, pulling my napkin out of its ring.

“What do they do, you mean?” He threw so much pepper on his steak that the top was almost black. “Pullman Capital. It’s a midsize private equity firm. They do some derivatives work for us. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I said, wiping Ian’s mouth.

“Thea, I think this could be a good thing,” he said, cutting his steak methodically into small bites. “You could do this until you’re ready to go to NYU. It would be a good thing to have on your resume.”

“Despite the fact that I have no intention of going into
finance,” I said. I’d been with him all afternoon. When had he spoken to Tom Davidson? Had he pulled this idea out of his hat because he thought I was getting too caught up in my little bikini dreams? Resentment rushed over me. He wanted me to do something and it didn’t matter whether I wanted to do it or not; if I loved him or, more importantly, if I wanted his love, I had to do it.

“What about Ian?” I asked.

Dad leaned forward on his elbows, in serious mode. “Bonnie Whelan gave me the name of an agency that places domestic help. She found her nanny through them and she’s been with them for years. Apparently there’s only one agency you want. That should be your plan this week. To find a nanny.”

“You mean an agency? Like St. Mary’s?” I asked.

“No,” Dad grunted, shaking his head. “These women are professionals. They do this for a living.”

“Remember Bridget?” I said, rubbing it in. My parents had funny luck with babysitters. They’d gotten them all through a Catholic agency next to the church down the street. There was Elishka, the nudist; Patty, the pyromaniac; and Bridget, who took me with her to O’Neal’s Pub to meet her boyfriend. She sat on his lap, letting him stick his tongue through her hoop earring, while I hid in the booth with them, seeing how many times I could tie her incredibly long gum-wrapper chain around my neck. The bartender gave me a ginger ale with about seventy maraschino cherries in it. When we got home, Dad was standing in the living room with two cops.

I thought for sure he’d at least smile at the memory. He sat there waiting, his shoulders slumped, for my enthusiastic response.

“Do I have to go there?” I asked.

“No. You call them up and they send over a few people to interview.”

“All at once?”

“One by one,” he said, rolling his tongue across his teeth. “Is this how you’re going to be?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re behaving helplessly.”

“I am not,” I said, prying Ian out of his high chair. “I’m trying to figure it out. It’s not that easy to just stick him with someone. He’s pretty attached. Or maybe it’s me who’s attached to him.” I squeezed Ian’s soft, springy foot and thought of Will again with a weird combination of fear and missing him. I stopped myself from imagining for the millionth time that someone was at the door, ready to lift Ian out of my arms. I wanted to kill Will for making me feel so vulnerable. But if I killed Will, they would definitely take Ian away.

“A little separation will be good for both of you,” Dad said in a way that hinted he thought Ian would be a wimp if he was attached to me. He crunched into a green bean, sat back and crossed his arms. It started dawning on me that he was going to force the job issue. “Your mom loved working, remember?”

I remembered and was suddenly homesick for her.

“What?” Dad asked. “What is it?”

“I kind of want to pursue this bikini thing,” I said meekly. “I think I could really make something happen with it.”

“Thea, it sounds like a little more than you can chew at the moment,” Dad said impatiently, throwing more pepper on his steak.

“Well, I’d rather do that than private equity,” I said, laying Ian on a blanket on the couch.

There was a long silence, then Dad said evenly, in a way I knew there was absolutely no room for argument: “I think we should give this opportunity at Pullman a chance.”

“When does it start, this opportunity?” I asked.

“As soon as possible,” he said, sauntering victoriously into the kitchen. “But I bought you a week because I knew the nanny would need taking care of.”

“You bought me a week? Is that like buying me a vowel?” I followed him, dumping my half-full plate in the garbage.

“It’s an exciting place,” he said. “See where it goes. That’s all I’m thinking. You can’t sit home with Ian. I won’t have it. Eventually you’ll start college, and this is a perfect way to bide your time until you do. It will help give you options in the workforce after you graduate.”

“Workforce. It sounds like a branch of the military.” I took his plate and yanked open the dishwasher as he made a beeline for his room.

Joy was from the Philippines. It struck me about halfway through my conversation with her, when she told me that she loved “working” with babies, that I was in the middle of a job interview. That she was there to get hired.

“So you’re currently working for another family?” I asked.

“Yes.” Joy smiled. “Two girls. One is ten, the other, seven.” She folded her hands primly on her knees, anticipating questions. “They’re in school now. Mom Melissa doesn’t need a
full-time nanny anymore. Just part-time.” The tone of her voice seemed sad, and I felt bad for her. She had so little control over it, kids getting older.

Adelle came, followed by Yvonne an hour later. Adelle had three grown kids. Yvonne from the Farrell Agency said she was “seasoned.” I thought she seemed seasoned too, by the way she reached for Ian right away and made a big deal about him, his long eyelashes, his dimpled chin, but his eyes kept darting toward me.

Monica was from Barbados. When I opened the door, she glided in with a beautiful scarf tied tightly around her head, which made me wonder about her hair. She was getting a degree in criminology at night and wanted to be a detective. She looked me in the eye more consistently than I could look anyone in the eye, and she walked with a fun swing to her butt. She had long legs and a formidable presence. She looked like she’d be alert and on-the-ball enough to prevent Will from running with Ian out of a park.

I barely remembered how she was with Ian, just that her smile seemed real, and that she had the air of someone who was doing worthwhile things with her time. I told Dad when he came home that night, and he was overly proud of me for making the decision so quickly. “Your mother was always amazed at what good child care was available in the city,” he said, which forced me to consider whether Monica might actually be an ax murderer.

He smiled at me from the foyer, slipping his shoes off and lining them up under the red silk chair. Ian was lying on a mat by the dining room window, reaching for a drape near his hand by the floor.

“Ian, don’t,” we both said at the same time, and Ian turned
toward me with a sweetly defiant look on his face that was so Will it made my whole body ache.

“I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Dad, I really do,” I said, grabbing my coat from the red chair and hanging it in the closet. “But this bikini thing could be interesting. Don’t you think?”

Bikini thing. I realized how silly it sounded, especially to someone like him. He paused and looked at me, then walked purposefully to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of Pellegrino, giving me the impression that he was mulling it over. He struggled to twist the bottle, sticking it between his knees, but it wouldn’t budge. He grabbed a dish towel and after more struggling he opened it, then downed it straight from the bottle. “Aaaaah,” he said. At that point it was clear he’d forgotten what I’d asked, and I was once again too tired and disheartened to bring it up again.

Monica arrived on my first morning at work and pulled a beaten-up
Goodnight Moon
out of her purse after I handed Ian to her. I wondered if she thought we didn’t have enough books in the house, and if she was going to read him
Goodnight Moon
because she wanted him to nap all day. I headed to the subway, thinking about Will colluding with Monica to steal Ian, traveling with him for miles, across borders. How would I get him back? I imagined my legs moving through water, or running in slow motion in the air like in a dream. I wondered if I’d ever hear from Will again.