Angelina was in kindergarten when she “met” Isabel for the first time. Nobody ever directly referenced Isabel having given birth to her, much less hounded Isabel anymore to confess what perro she’d allowed to lie with her and spoil her so young. Angelina had always called Miguel’s mother “Mami,” and even Carlos “Papi,” unlike Miguel. It wasn’t a secret that Isabel was the biological mother, exactly: Angelina knew, had grown up with the knowledge, just . . . abstractly.
There had been a story—a sweeping, tragic story in a faraway land, involving starvation and addiction and violence and unwed pregnancy and death—and remarkably, Miguel had been a character in that drama, had owned his bit part like everything he was. But like Mami and Carlos’s church no longer seemed to represent the entire world, so it was easy for that other life to seem a closed door, where now this—dancing on a platform at the underage dance club, Medusa’s, and wondering if that guy meant to touch his ass or if it was only crowded up here, and did his friends see the hot guy brush his ass, and Emily was wasted tonight and he might have to let her kiss him if she tried, and Ministry blaring and Violent Femmes blaring and One, one, one cause you left me and two, two, two for my family, and three was for loneliness the world was lonely but here was a platform amidst other young thrashing bodies, and this . . .
This was where he lived now.
GRETCHEN
Gretchen is walking Carrot when the call comes from the Day School. “Hello, Mrs. Underwood!” chirps the voice of the school social worker. “I just wanted to give you the good news that we managed to schedule Gray’s evaluation for immediately after school today—I’m really sorry for the delay.”
Gretchen stops walking; Carrot jerks at her arm. “Evaluation,” she parrots, sounding like Gray. “Do you mean about that eyebrow thing?”
“Um . . . what eyebrow thing would you be referring to?”
“I’ve lost track of this evaluation,” Gretchen plows on, as though it is an email she has accidentally deleted. “I’m not showing anything for that.”
“I apologize,” the social worker says. Her name is Debbie or Amy or something like that. “Mr. Underwood called me a couple of weeks ago about Gray’s problems with soccer. He asked for a gross motor skills evaluation, and our physical education team and occupational therapist have had some trouble coordinating until today.”
“Problems with soccer?” Then: “Seriously?”
“Mr. Underwood was concerned about the fact that Gray isn’t able to kick the ball from a running start . . . that he seems to be behind his peers developmentally.”
“In soccer.”
“Yes, kicking the ball from a—”
“A running start,” Gretchen finishes. “Yeah, I heard you. I’m just confused. Gray isn’t in AYSO or anything. Is there some partnership the Day School has going on with the US Olympic soccer team that I was unaware of? I didn’t know that advanced ball-kicking skills were a requirement for the successful completion of kindergarten. Or, for that matter, life.”
Debbie/Amy doesn’t laugh. “Gross motor skills delays can be indicative of larger problems,” she says soberly.
Larger problems. Gretchen falls silent, chastened. She listens to Debbie/Amy tell her the time of the evaluation and obediently mutters, “I’ll be there.”
And so it is that Gretchen finds herself sitting in the bleachers behind glass while an entire ring of adults in turn kicks balls at Gray. Poor Gray, delicate in his robin’s-egg-blue school uniform, stands at one end of the gymnasium, attempting to volley their balls back with his goofy little feet. Under his Nikes and socks, Gretchen can imagine his toes: the way the second and third toes aren’t entirely separate but seem, under his nearly translucent toe skin, connected by one curving, U-shaped bone. Gretchen remembers one drowsy morning in the early days of Gray’s infancy, when she was still attempting the madness of breast-feeding and lived with a pump attached to her as though she were a cow with udders, lying in bed with Gray at her breast and bringing his tiny feet to her mouth and practically making out with them in her bliss—kissing that particular misshapen toe bone over and over again and cooing, My wishbone baby. Who’s my wishbone baby? In the humid, jock-strap-smelling bleachers, her eyes begin to smart and her armpits dampen under her coat so rapidly that she has to remove it and she can smell herself rising up in the air: some animal smell of remorse and trapped fear. That is the only time Gretchen can recall ever having kissed her son’s feet, and while—well—perhaps it is no more a requirement of life to go around kissing toes than it is to be a soccer all-star, suddenly it seems to her that she has done something horribly, irreparably wrong.
Since the implantation—Emily’s implantation with her egg—it has been this way: getting misty-eyed at commercials with babies in them, finding herself smiling at babies in Whole Foods when normally she finds other people’s children annoying. At first, she believed it was the hormones; God knows they’d pumped her with enough of them to turn anyone psycho. But the hormones have got to be out of her system by now, and since Emily’s first sonogram . . . since the detection of the heartbeat formed from Gretchen’s middle-aged egg and Miguel’s syphilitic sperm, she has only been more of a wreck.
Down on the floor, Gray misses ball after ball. It’s uncanny. Gretchen works with statistical probability, and the only way a kid misses this many easy balls is if he’s cast to play the dweeby foreign exchange student in a John Hughes film. She hears the muffle of shouted commands through the glass as though Gray and the faculty are underwater. There are bleachers on the main floor of the gymnasium but they made her come up here because they said her presence “might make Gray nervous.” But Gray obviously is nervous: he has six adults barking orders at him in a semicircle, sending balls speeding his way. Wait—just a second ago, these balls looked “easy” to Gretchen. Make up your mind. But Gray is her baby, out there. He looks confused, and once or twice he falls. The gym teacher goes and helps him to his feet, and seems to be explaining something to him, but then there they go again with the balls. Zoom, bam, pop! like some demented Batman cartoon. Gray tries—Gretchen sees him trying—but he only manages to kick one kind of off to the side, and the others simply hit his left leg or get tangled under his feet and he falls again. Gretchen jumps to her feet. When he looks up, he is crying.
Rushing down the bleacher stairs, she is already bellowing, “That’s enough!” That is enough, Debbie/Amy; that is enough, All People Who Consider Physical Education a Real Teaching Field and work out their childhood bullying issues by going into it; that is enough, Troy, you manipulative, Munchausen-by-proxy sonofabitch—let’s see your ass come out here and kick these balls! Except of course Troy can probably kick a ball plenty. He was a tennis pro; his hand-eye coordination is exemplary—surely his graceful feet follow suit. Gretchen bursts into the main gymnasium, coat under her arm, huffing, “Enough!” and remarkably, they all turn to look at her, acknowledge her Bette Davis theatrics involving doors. Remarkably, she is invisible only inside the confines of her own house.
“Mrs. Underwood,” Amy/Debbie squeaks. Her real name, Gretchen learned upon arrival, is Shana—but fuck it. “Mrs. Underwood, I realize it can be hard to—”
But then Gray is on her. Hurtling across the gymnasium floor at a speed Gretchen would bet none of this posse has ever seen him move, he flings himself into his mother’s arms sobbing, and instantly Gretchen shields him from the team’s further gaze with her coat, wrapped around him so that her body and the coat form a protective barrier between Gray and the world.
“I told you on the phone that I thought this was ridiculous,” she says quietly now. “My husband and I are going through a divorce, and the only reason he even called this meeting with you was to spite me, because that’s the kind of person he is. The kind who tortures a shy, unathletic little boy—his own son—for sport just to inconvenience and embarrass me.”
Amy/Debbie: “Mrs. Underwood, when we’re embarrassed of our children’s delays, we don’t give the c
hild a chance to get the proper intervention that allows them to reach their full potential.”
“Oh, you misunderstand me,” Gretchen says. She is breathing heavily from heat and an unusual influx of emotion. “I’m only embarrassed for all of you. Not that Gray isn’t headed for the soccer championship! Not that he doesn’t act just like the other kids you teach. You all whisper about being ‘on the spectrum,’ but those kids are the same ones who have been making scientific discoveries and advancing civilization since time began. If you have something to say, just say it. Don’t stand around hurling balls at a five-year-old like you’re stoning someone to death in Afghanistan. I don’t know how you people can even keep straight faces—can you see yourselves, for God’s sake!”
She keeps Gray under her coat as she sweeps toward the door. His clutzy little feet that couldn’t kick the easiest balls in the world ten minutes before manage to keep up perfectly.
The hours that follow are not dissimilar from how Gretchen imagines people may act when they are preparing to go into the witness protection program. It’s only early December—they will easily be wearing winter coats for four months—but Gretchen packs some spring clothes in her own suitcase and Gray’s. She slams her laptop shut and shoves it, and all the secret folders with Russian escort receipts and clandestine credit card bills that she has been compiling for the hypothetical shark, underneath the spare tire in her trunk. When she thinks she has enough in her possession to board an ocean liner for a round-the-world tour, she and Gray drive to her parents’ house, one mile away.
What does she expect is going to happen now? Does she think Troy will murder Gray for screwing up his soccer assessment? Does she think he will kill her for intervening? She remembers the blue light. No—as usual with Troy, the punishment will not be meted out in the expected form.
The Day School is as incestuous and gossipy as a small-town church. The moment Shana sees Troy, he will realize that Gretchen referred to their until-today-fictitious divorce proceedings, about which he has heard nothing. And by the time he hears the news, in terms of the larger Day School population, he will be the last to know.
The Underwoods are getting a divorce.
He must have a younger woman—she’s really let herself go since the kid.
Gretchen parks in her parents’ wide, pristine driveway. She has a copy of their garage door opener but is too lazy to use it. She remembers her phone call convincing Miguel and Chad’s social worker of what a tight-knit family they all are, and yes: maybe all of this—her living a mile from the house she grew up in; her having her parents’ garage opener and front door key—maybe this would all be touching and tender if only she actually liked her parents. Instead, it seems glaringly dysfunctional.
Naomi gets the front door. Naomi is her mother’s cleaning woman. The Merrys insist that she comes three times a week, but whenever Gretchen goes there—whenever the fuck Gretchen goes to their house—Naomi is always there, so Gretchen assumes that in this context, three means five, with occasional weekend emergencies.
“Hey, little man!” Naomi says jubilantly, even though Gray has never said hello back to her in his life.
“Is my mother here?” Gretchen says.
“Oh sure,” Naomi says. “You missed lunch, but the hippie girl, she brought a cake, and they’re still going strong.”
Gretchen heads through the foyer, following the sound of voices. And yes, sure enough there they are by the fire in the great room, already having abandoned the dining room or wherever they may have taken lunch. Elaine Merry, Chad, and pregnant Emily, somehow already showing signs of ripeness, all sit with luscious little slices of what smells like a ginger cake balanced precariously on their knees, coffees on coasters on the side tables.
“Oh my God!” Chad croons. “I’m so glad you could make it!”
“You must be,” Gretchen says. “Especially since I wasn’t invited.”
“Invited?” Chad asks back, blank, as though she was simply supposed to divine that they were here and show up. Which, she supposes, she has.
“Look at your son!” Emily says. “He’s still a wee! Jay is getting so big—second grade now. I need a scrumptious little one like this guy!”
It seems an odd thing for a pregnant woman to say. Gretchen stands dumbly, unaware of what the protocol for response is in this Brave New World of community childbirth. It would be fair to say that nothing in her day is lining up with the rote series of responses she has been trained to give in all situations. It would be fair to say that nothing in her upbringing has quite prepared her for seeing her son surrounded by a team of adults attacking him with balls for his “own good,” or another woman sitting in her mother’s house, her belly full of cake and Gretchen’s progeny.
“I’m getting a divorce,” she says.
“Halleluiah!” Chad cries out, as Elaine begins to cry and Emily gasps awkwardly. Gray makes no indication he has even heard her. He is wandering around the periphery of the room, talking to himself, counting—his own steps? Decorative teaspoons hung on the wall? Slats of wood on the floor? It is impossible to tell.
“I was wondering if Gray and I could stay here. It wouldn’t interfere with getting him to school since it’s so close, but I just . . . I don’t want to stay in the same house as Troy once he finds out.”
“He’s supposed to leave,” Chad says. “He’s the man.”
“Nominally, yes,” Gretchen mutters, and Emily unexpectedly cackles.
“Possession is nine-tenths of the law,” Chad continues. “You can’t leave or he’ll get your house.”
“I don’t care about my house,” Gretchen says.
“Gretchen!” Elaine’s voice is hush-hush like the way people used to say “cancer” in the seventies. “That is your son’s home. What do you think you’re going to do, live at Cabrini-Green?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Mom. Cabrini-Green doesn’t even exist anymore.”
“Sure it does,” Chad says. “They’ve been tearing it down for years, but it’s still there—I pass it all the time.”
“Nobody lives there anymore, Chad.”
“I see people all over the place,” Chad insists.
“Naomi!” Elaine calls loudly. “Does Cabrini-Green still exist?”
“Mom!” Gretchen and Chad screech together.
“What?” Elaine asks. “You two seem very opinionated on the matter, so we should ask someone who would know.”
“Jesus Christ!” Chad shouts, flapping his hands. “Mom! The woman lives in Rogers Park! She’s from Barbados! She’s probably never even heard of Cabrini-Green!”
“Then why are you so worried I’ll offend her?” Elaine asks.
Naomi appears at the doorway. “Capital Grille,” she says mildly. “You like I should call them up and make sure they still exist? What time you like the reservation?”
Elaine, Gretchen, Chad, and Emily all exchange glances. Apparently they are going to downtown Chicago for dinner. “Maybe seven,” Gretchen says weakly. “We don’t want to keep Gray out too late.”
Naomi shuffles away. Chad stage-whispers, “Time for Old Naomi there to get a hearing aid!” and Gretchen and Elaine dissolve into goofy, tension-breaking laughter. Only Emily mutters, unsmiling, under her breath, “Not with you people around.”
Here they are, then, upstairs at the Capital Grille, overlooking the rainy visage of Rush Street below: shoppers and diners in expensive black coats that just barely stand out among the gray early evening. Charles Merry and Miguel have both come to meet them on this madcap impulse to dine downtown on a Tuesday night, and so—rather, it seems, than admit to her husband that they had been in the process of interrogating Naomi about life in the projects—the occasion has been dubbed a “divorce party” for Gretchen. Miguel, who is an unsettlingly good artist and used to, apparently, study at the Art Institute before settling into progressively more lucrative and mind-numbingly dull options like actuarial mathematics and finance, has brought Gretchen a homemade card for
the occasion. The top reads “Gretchen Unbound” and it features a cartoon strip of Gretchen in various dominatrix-like situations, clad in a bustier and bossing around musclemen. It is adorable and funny and infinitely depressing. And a little bizarre.
Of course, not as bizarre as the fact that Emily is still here. No one ever mentioned her leaving, and so she was simply piled into the car and ferried along, Chad even insisting she invite her husband, although the man thankfully had the decency to decline, saying Miles and Jay had “a lot of homework.” So here is Emily, who Gretchen is starting to believe has a talent for insinuating herself, sitting between Charles and Elaine Merry, as though they have taken stock of their gay son, their soon-to-be-divorced daughter, and silent, sullen Gray, and traded up.
“What can we use against him?” Charles Merry says into his second Grey Goose martini. Steaks have not yet arrived. “Listen, this one here”—he points at Gray—“is young as hell, custody gets dirty these days, father’s rights, all that shit, pardon my French, Emily sweetheart.” Gretchen looks at Gray to see how Granddad’s “French” is sitting on his ears, but Gray is playing Tiny Towers on Gretchen’s iPhone and doesn’t seem to know he isn’t home alone in his bedroom. “Illinois is a no-fault divorce state so it won’t matter if he’s banging the secretary, he could still end up with the kid.”
“Troy doesn’t have a secretary, Dad. He’d need a job for that, remember?”
“Are you sure you really need to leave him, Gret? Because we could end up paying him off for the rest of our lives in alimony, you know? Then he has a kid with some other bimbo and next thing you know, that kid’s living on Gray’s money. I’m just being practical. You can’t move Old McEnroe into the bedroom down the hall and just not talk much? Don’t ask, don’t tell, that’s how we did it in my time.”
It is shaping up to be this kind of day: the kind where everything you were ever taught not to do seems moot. Gretchen says, “He’s been paying for escorts and I have evidence. I’m guessing we could probably use that against him. Even in a state with no-fault divorce, hookers are still illegal last I checked.”
Every Kind of Wanting Page 10
