The ninth month, p.28
The Ninth Month, page 28
So I do what I usually do lately when I have nothing to do. First, I pee. Then I panic.
Suddenly, I am not feeling Oscar inside of me.
No kicking. No squirming. Please, baby, push down against my bladder. Batter me with discomfort.
I make my way back to bed, and as soon as I slide under the sheet, I am certain that I hear a noise outside. It sounds like a car engine. Then the crackling sound of tires on the gravel driveway on the side of the house.
I struggle to do my most challenging gymnastic trick—getting out of bed. I walk to the bay window and look down on the driveway.
Empty. No car. Nothing.
I reach and flip on the safety lights. I take one step from my bedroom door into the hallway. Out here everything is alive with brightness—intense spotlights and dazzling chandeliers.
The panic continues. Suddenly, a well-lighted place seems even more frightening than a dark and gloomy house. I may not be able to see the invader outside, but the intruder, the killer, the stalker, the maniac, he can see me.
I should call 911.
But what if it’s nothing? What if I’m just another crazy person?
I think I hear my mother speaking. Leave me alone, Mother. I’m on my own.
But if I’m truly alone, why do I hear her talking? If you end up lying on the staircase, Emily, with a knife in your stomach, bleeding out, killing your baby, well… then you’ll wish you had called the police.
In my stomach. In my stomach. A knife in my Oscar.
As if on cue, I feel my baby move. I feel him move a lot. He twists. He turns. I am too frightened to be relieved.
What should I do about the too-well-lighted hallway? I could switch the house back into total darkness. I begin the return trip to my bedroom. No. I change my mind. I should leave the lights on. I’m wrong about light and dark. If he’s outside he won’t be able to see me. But if he’s inside…
I shuffle myself and my belly down the hallway. Afraid of falling or coughing or—impossible?—having a baby right here, right now.
A door closes. I hear it.
Yes, I definitely heard it. The sound of a door closing, the latch, the click, another latch, another click.
I am at the head of the staircase. From up here I can see part of the front entrance door. No one is there, but, damn it, the view from where I stand is limited. The stairs are curved and highly polished. Dangerous. The back stairs, the stairs for the help, are narrower. I think it will be safer, surer. Yes, I’ll go there.
I turn and begin the walk to the far staircase. A gable in the hallway looks out on the front of the house. I glance out that window. Nothing out there. Driveway still empty.
Made it. I’m standing at the back staircase. The stairs hardly look as inviting as I had imagined them. But I’ll concentrate. I’m strong. I think I can handle the journey down those stairs. Yes, they’re narrow steps, and they look steep. The risers. That’s what they’re called. The risers… are steep. I can’t even see the downstairs landing over my enormous belly.
Worse, now I can hear footsteps. Hard. Insistent.
These are real.
No, I am not a mistaken crazy lady.
The person I am hearing knows I am hearing him. He’s not even trying to hide the noise of his shoes. I must get back to my bedroom. Lock the bedroom door. Lock the bathroom door. Lock the bedroom-sitting room door. I turn around to go back to my bedroom.
I walk like a big mechanical toy robot—one leg, other leg, one leg, other—back down the hallway.
Then comes a voice.
“There you are!”
Then comes the person.
I look. I scream.
CHAPTER
85
BETSEY! HOW THE HELL did you find me?”
The screeching of “Oh, my God” and “What the hell?” pierces the air. We pause. We stare. We screech some more.
Then we purposely bump bellies. Yes, we hug. We stand back and look at each other, then we look at each other’s bellies, then we hug again. My Oscar and Betsey’s Amy bump into each other again and again and again. Tears? Of course.
A question is tucked somewhere inside my brain. Is this a good surprise?
I’m certainly relieved that Betsey is not a maniac with a hunting knife or a madman with a gun. But am I happy? I think I am. I think that I think I am.
“We’ve been looking for you for over a week!” Betsey says. “Joel and his partner, me, we’ve all been so worried. Why did you disappear from everyone?”
“That’s a long essay question that I’m too tired to answer.” Then I ask, “How did you find me?”
“Honestly, it turned out to be not so hard. I told the detectives your late parents were loaded. Joel said he ran their old property records. He called the local cops and asked them to swing by, just to make sure you weren’t here. I guess nothing looked suspicious. But then last night in bed, Frankie said to me, ‘Hey, has anyone actually looked inside Emily’s parents’ house? I could barely sleep thinking about it. So at around five, I got out of bed, did some googling, and found this address. Almost without even thinking I hopped in the car. I texted Joel where I was going. And then I added that I was better at his job than he was. And here I am.”
Betsey hugs me again. My arms instinctively rise to hug her back.
“Look what I brought you,” she says as she reaches into one of those Land’s End canvas bags. I glance down at the sack bursting with a mess of books and clothing and a laptop. Betsey pulls out a big, icy plastic container.
“I grabbed this from the freezer,” she says. “My boeuf bourguignon.”
“Yech,” I scream in horror. “I hate that.” Then I continue with mock disgust. “Call it whatever you want. It’s stew. It’s stew. It’s stew. And I hate any kind of stew. Flabby, stringy, chewy. I hate it. You know that. But I’m still so glad to see you.”
She looks thoughtful, her head tipped to one side. Her index finger on her lip.
“I guess I knew you either loved it or hated it,” she says. “Guess I got it wrong. I don’t know about you, but I’m famished.”
Moments later, with her usual mom-like efficiency, she zaps the stew in the microwave, and we move to the table that remains Architectural Digest–ready from the day when Deb Jacobi and Suzie Hancher set it for me, for our most unusual boeuf bourguignon breakfast. I add a place setting for Betsey.
I tell her the chicken soup story. She laughs and then looks around the room. The sun is just beginning to rise, filling the space with beautiful morning light.
“So this is the family dining room?” she asks. “That’s incredible. What’s the formal dining room like, the main altar at St. Patrick’s Cathedral?”
I smile. I don’t want to discuss the grandeur of the house.
“I figured your folks had a fabulous place. But this is amazing. Does your family own any other real estate?”
I look with embarrassment down at my bowl of boeuf bourguignon.
“A beach house in Southampton. And a three-bedroom apartment in Paris,” I say.
Betsey leans in and says, “Let me guess. It’s on the Avenue Foch with a view of the Eiffel Tower.”
“Wrong-o. Yes, it’s on Avenue Foch. But no Eiffel Tower view, only a view of the Arc de Triomphe.”
Betsey’s smile vanishes. She does not look angry. She just looks sad.
“You know, Emily. Sometimes I think I really don’t know you at all.”
I think I’m going to explode into tears. But I do manage to say what I really want my friend to know.
“Bets, you know me better than anyone in the world,” I say.
CHAPTER
86
OUR BREAKFAST IS NOT as lively as our shared meals usually are. And it’s not just because we’re eating beef stew at sunrise.
I’m beginning to feel something vaguely unhappy about Betsey and me. The rhythm of our friendship has changed. I can feel it. And I suspect that Betsey can feel it also.
“Are you pissed that I barged in on you up here?” she asks. “Even though you had all of us so scared as hell that something happened to you?”
“No, of course, not. I was getting lonely up here.” I answer her question alarmingly fast. So fast that she must know that it’s a lie.
“You’re lying,” she says. “You wanted to be alone up here.”
“No.”
“You just said that I know you better than anyone else in the world.”
“Oh, c’mon. I meant it,” I say. Then I ask, “You didn’t by any chance bring a slice of that fabulous cheesecake that you always make.”
“Cheesecake? Are you kidding? I have been ludicrously busy. I’ve been a crazy lady about you. I’ve been traipsing all over the city looking for you, looking for clues, talking to your old lovers, calling Joel and his partner every ten minutes, yelling at them to work harder. I even flew to Las Vegas to track down a copy of your marriage certificate! So no, Em, I wasn’t baking cheesecakes. I was a mess.”
“Oh, my God,” I say. “I can’t believe you did all that. Thanks for worrying. And really, thanks for finding me.”
“But dessert is not totally lost. Frankie and the kids made a sort of fruit salad and, I’m not sure, fresh, frozen, canned, anything. Whatever, I grabbed it and took it for a car ride up here,” she says.
Then we both become silent. Up until now our friendship was filled with talk and talk and talk—about pregnancy and people and men and friends and children and… and now there is silence.
I watch her move the boeuf bourguignon around in her bowl.
“It looks like you’re not a big fan of the ol’ beef stew either,” I say.
“Oh, I am. It’s just that I’ve lost my appetite.”
“And the reason for that?” I ask. I am slightly frightened for her answer. I believe she’s going to tell me something terrible—about the very things we are not talking about—pregnancy and people and… “
You know, Em. Being up here, seeing this incredible house and then hearing about the place in Paris and the apartment… well, it’s none of my business, and you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, and, well, I just thought, how you say that I know you better than anyone else. But there is one thing. One thing you haven’t told me.”
I speak immediately.
“I know exactly what that thing is. You want to know if I know who the father of my baby is.” I say the words calmly.
“No. That’s not what I was going to ask.” Then she continues. “No. I have a good guess or two about that. What you’ve never told me is… and maybe it seems overwhelming now because I’m in their house… it’s about your parents.”
I nod. She doesn’t even have to ask the question.
Now I do know what it is. I speak.
“They killed themselves.”
Betsey’s hand moves to her mouth. She squints her eyes hard.
“Oh, my God,” she says. “I never dreamed.”
I nod.
She continues. “I always assumed it was an accident—a car, a boat. Maybe an intruder, a burglar, a drug addict. You never said a word about it, and I was always way too afraid to ask. The obit in the Times wasn’t clear. The paper just said that the Atkinsons had died. No cause of death. I’m sorry, Em. I’m so sorry. I should stop. I should stop talking. Oh, shit. I’m so sorry, Em.”
I wonder if Betsey thinks it strange that I’m not crying. I’m calm actually. In fact, I’m vaguely happy that I am finally telling the story to someone other than my therapist.
“It happened up here. Liz and Lionel told absolutely no one about what they were planning—not their lawyers, not their doctors, and certainly they didn’t tell their only child.
“Turns out that my mother was very sick. She had cancer. Pancreatic cancer. It just showed up one day. Like an unwanted surprise visitor. She had been perfectly healthy. Tennis. Golf. Running around the galleries. Then one night she started throwing up. Two days later they tell her and my father that she has stage four pancreatic cancer.
“To be honest, I think from the moment they found out they decided to leave this world together. I bet they didn’t even discuss it very much. My father kept a pistol in his desk. It was a Ruger SR22. Dad called it ‘my second best friend, after your mother.’ And he used it. He died with his two best friends.”
Betsey looks frozen with sadness. Then she speaks.
“They simply could not live without each other.”
I answer, “And they assumed that I could live without them. And I could. And I did. And I have. And I will.”
I try to explain to Betsey what I’ve been unable to explain to a lifetime of psychiatrists, a handful of close women friends, even a small group of men friends. Yet with Betsey it all comes out with a surprising smoothness.
I’m not sure she’s buying my story. I’m not even sure she believes it. But I can’t stop telling her.
I say how I may have been either a foolish decision or a foolish mistake when I was born. It was clear to me, even as a small child, that I could not penetrate Liz and Lionel’s very special relationship. They weren’t bad parents, I assure Betsey. They just weren’t really parents.
First of all, as a couple they were inseparable. Always, always, always together, at art shows, gallery openings, museum galas. But even more so when they were in simpler settings. The three of us at dinner, and they would reach out and touch each other. The three of us on an airplane; the two of them next to each other, me across the aisle. They read the same books. (“Here, you’ll love reading this one, Liz.”) They disliked the same people. (“Did you hear that Mary and Carl boasting and bragging all night, Lionel?”) You hear the cliché about people finishing each other’s sentences, but Liz and Lionel actually always did do that. (“I think we should move that table” she’d say, and he’d finish, “to the front hallway.”)
They didn’t abuse me or hurt me consciously. I just wasn’t… well, I just wasn’t them.
Yes, I was probably a disappointment in other ways—too chubby, too dull, not popular enough, not fashionable enough. But frankly I don’t think they even cared enough to care about that. An occasional “You should lose some weight,” or “You should study harder.” But nothing more passionate than a casual suggestion.
“How did you put up with it?” Betsey asks.
“It was hard, but, you know, it wasn’t that hard. Like I say, they were never bad parents. They just didn’t want to be parents. So I did what I had to do. I escaped. Into my head.”
“That’s quite the trick. How’d you do that?” Betsey asks.
“I created my own world in my mind. I was so good at creating it that it practically became real.”
“Like daydreaming?” asks Betsey.
“Oh, it was more than that, a lot better than daydreaming. It was self-deception. And I made it real by sharing my world with other people.”
I see a touch of fright in Betsey’s eyes.
I continue.
“I was so good at it that my stories were always believed. Job offers I never received. Awards I’d never been given. I talked about men and women who propositioned me, tried to force themselves on me. I said that I saw celebrities and spoke to them. I stole Jimmy Choo shoes and Tom Ford dresses. I went to Madrid for weekends. I had fun and sex and friendships and escapades that I never had. Everything so much more exciting or frightening than the stupid little lonely life my parents made me live. Almost none of it ever happened. I never stole shoes or dresses. No son of a Greek tycoon ever asked me out. Google never offered me a job. It was all in my head.”
“I guess I get it,” says Betsey.
“For me these things weren’t lies,” I say. “You see, it can’t be a lie if I really believe it.”
I’m suddenly enormously tired. It must be from the release of telling Betsey my secrets. What’s more, we both announce that we need to use the bathroom.
Betsey leaves the table first. This gives me the chance to clear the plates. When she returns (“God, what a relief!”) I go off.
When we are together again, we are both very quiet, just simple exchanges of “Is everything okay?” and “You’re feeling all right, aren’t you?”
“Betsey, just to be clear. This isn’t a secret. You can tell anyone you want about my parents’ suicide,” I tell her.
“Oh, it’s nobody’s business,” she says. “I won’t.”
“You can even tell people about my other craziness—the secret little life that I keep in my head,” I add.
“Who would I tell about that?” she asks as she hands me a small bowl of Frankie’s soggy fruit salad—chunks of canned pineapple, defrosted strawberries, green grapes with seeds.
“Frankie,” I say.
“Frankie?” Betsey says loudly.
“Yes. You could tell Frankie.”
“If I did tell him, you know what the first thing is that he’d ask?”
“No, what would he ask?”
She looks at me with a smile that cannot hide the basic seriousness of what she now says.
“He’d say, ‘I bet you’re right. I mean, I think she’s imagining the story about some crazy guy following her.’”
I don’t speak.
“That’s what he’d say,” Betsey says. “Not that I don’t believe you, of course.”
Still I don’t speak. I’m not sure I know what I believe anymore.
After a few more seconds I say, “How about I make us some herbal tea? I’m too wired to go back to sleep, but we can go into my father’s library and relax.”
CHAPTER
87
I HAVE NOW TOLD Betsey one of my biggest secrets—the tale of my parents’ suicide. From there I told her about emptiness of my childhood and how I created an entire world of half-truths and careful fantasies.
I thought that letting the truth escape from its hiding place would calm me down, bring me peace. But it has not. In fact, I am feeling more and more that something is clawing away at the very core of our friendship.
Here we are. With so much in common—the biggest coincidence, of course, that two people who once felt like sisters are each about to have a baby—we should be closer than ever.
