New Stories From the South 2010: The Year's Best

by Amy Hempel

  “You’re going away,” she said.

  “I’m not,” he said.

  “You told the lady you were.”

  “It was pretend,” he said, closing his eyes. “This is a make-believe place, it’s okay to pretend here. Just like I’m your pretend daddy.”

  He realized he had bought her silence on one lie by offering her another, but he couldn’t see any way out of it. So they wouldn’t tell Lanae. So the salesgirl would flirt with him a little and do a little something extra for Esther next time. He had made sacrifices. Esther deserved nice things. Her mother worked two jobs and her real father was somewhere in Texas with his second wife. So what if it was the wrong things they were being rewarded for?

  At the counter, he pulled out his wallet and paid for Esther’s manicure with the only card that wasn’t maxed out. Esther ignored the transaction entirely, wandering to the other end of the counter and reappearing with a purple flier. It had a holographic background, and under the fluorescent mall light seemed, appropriately, to glitter.

  Come see Mindy with Glitter Girl! exclaimed the flier. Mindy was a tiny brunette, nine, maybe, who popped a gum bubble and held one hand on her hip, and the other extended to show off her nails, purple with gold stars in the middle.

  “Everybody wants to see Mindy,” said the manicurist. She winked at them, then ducked down to file his receipt.

  “Maybe we could go,” he said, reaching for the flier Esther was holding, but the smile that started from her dimples faded just as quickly.

  “I don’t really wanna,” she said “It’s prolly dumb anyway.”

  He followed her eyes to the ticket price, and understood that she’d taken in the number of zeros. He was stung, for a minute, that even a barely five-year-old was that acutely aware of his limitations, then charmed by her willingness to protect him from them. It shouldn’t be like that, he thought, a kid shouldn’t understand that there’s anything her parents can’t do. Then again, he was not her father. He was a babysitter. He had less than a quarter the price of a ticket in his personal bank account—what was left of his disability check after he helped his mother out with the rent and utilities. He spent most of what Lanae paid him to watch Esther on Esther herself, because it made Lanae feel good to pay him, and him feel good not to take her money. He folded the Mindy flier into his pocket, and gently pulled the twenty-dollar glittering tiara Esther had perched on her head off to leave it on the counter. “Mommy will come back and get it later,” he lied, over and above her objections. Even the way he disappointed her came as a relief.

  Of course, the thought had crossed his mind. He never thought Kenny and Lanae were the real thing, didn’t even think they did, really. Things had changed between her and Kenny in the year Georgie had been gone, softened and become more comfortable than whatever casual on-again, off-again thing they had before she and Georgie had dated, but he wasn’t inclined to believe it was real. He pictured himself and Lanae as statues on a wedding cake—they were a pair. Kenny was a pastime. How could Georgie not hope that when she saw the way he was with Esther, she’d see he belonged with both of them?

  But it wasn’t like that was the reason he liked watching her. Not the only reason. Esther was a good kid. He thought it meant something, the way she didn’t act up with him, didn’t fuss and hide the way she’d used to at day care. But yeah, he got to talk to Lanae some. At night, when Lanae came home, and Esther was in bed, and Kenny was still at work for an hour, because being manager meant he was the last to leave the KFC, they talked a little. Usually he turned on a TV show right before she came in, so he could pretend he was watching it, but mostly he didn’t need the excuse to stay. It was Lanae who had sat with him that week after his father had died, Lanae, who when she found out she was pregnant with Esther, had called him, not her husband or her best girlfriend. There was an easy kind of comfort between them, and when she came home and sat beside him on the couch and kicked off her flats and began to rub her own tired feet with mint scented lotion, it was only his fear of upsetting something that kept him from reaching out to do it for her.

  When Lanae came home the day he’d taken Esther to the mall, he wanted to tell her about the girl, the way she’d smiled at him, and scan her face for a flicker of jealousy. Then he remembered he’d earned the smile by lying. So instead he unfolded the Mindy flier from his pocket and passed it to her.

  “Can you believe this shit?” he asked. “Five hundred a pop for a kids’ show? When we were kids we were happy if we got five dollars for the movies and a dollar for some candy to sneak in.”

  “Hey,” Lanae grinned. “I wanted two dollars, for candy and a soda. You were cheap.” She held the flier at arm’s length, then turned it sideways, like Mindy would make more sense that way.

  “Esther wants to go to this?”

  “The lady at Glitter Girl said all the girls do. She said in most cities the tickets already sold out.”

  “That whole store is creepy anyway. And even if it was free, Esther don’t need to be at a show where some nine-year-old in a belly shirt is singing at people to come pop her bubble. Fucking perverts,” Lanae said.

  “Who’s a pervert?” asked Kenny. Georgie hadn’t heard him come in, but Lanae didn’t look surprised to see him standing in the doorway. He was carrying a steaming, grease-spotted bag that was meant to be dinner, which was usually Georgie’s cue to leave. As Kenny walked toward them, Georgie slid away from Lanae on the couch, not because they’d been especially close to begin with, but because he wanted to maintain the illusion that they might have been. But Lanae stood up anyway, to kiss Kenny on the cheek as she handed him the flier.

  “These people,” said Lanae, “are perverts.”

  Kenny shook his head at the flier. Georgie silently reminded himself of the sophomore Kenny had dated their senior year of high school, a girl not much bigger than Mindy, and how Kenny had used to joke about how easy it was to pick her up and throw her around the room during sex.

  “Esther ain’t going to this shit,” Kenny said. “This is nonsense.”

  “She can’t,” said Georgie. “You can’t afford it.”

  Kenny stepped toward him, then back again just as quickly.

  “Fuck you man,” said Kenny. “Fuck you and the two dollars an hour we pay you.”

  He pounded a fist at the wall beside him, and then walked toward the hallway. A second later Georgie heard the bedroom door slam.

  “Georgie,” said Lanae, already walking after Kenny. “You don’t have to be an asshole. He’s not the way you remember him. He’s trying. You need to try harder. And this Mindy shit? Esther will forget about it. Kids don’t know. Next week she’ll be just as worked up about wanting fifty cents for bubblegum.”

  But Esther couldn’t forget about it. Mindy was on the side of the bus they took to the zoo. Mindy was on the nightly news, and every other commercial between kids’ TV shows. Mindy was on the radio, lisping, Pop my bub-ble, pop pop my bub-ble. What he felt for Mindy was barely short of violence. He restrained himself from shouting back at the posters, and the radio, and the television: Mindy, what is your position on civilians in combat zones? Mindy, what’s your position on waterboarding? Mindy, do you think Iraq was a mistake? He got letters, occasionally, from people who were still there—one from Jones, one from Ramirez, three from guys he didn’t know that well and figured must have been lonely enough that they’d write to anyone. He hadn’t read them.

  He went back to the mall alone on the Saturday after he’d pissed Kenny off. He told himself he was there to talk to the manicure girl, pick up a little present for Esther and meanwhile maybe get something going on in his life besides wet dreams about Lanae, who’d been curt with him ever since the thing he said to Kenny. But when he got to the store, the redhead was leaning across the counter, giving a closed-mouth kiss on the lips to a kid in a UVA sweatshirt. He looked like an advertisement for fraternities. Georgie started to walk out, convinced he’d been wrong about the whole plan, but when the b
oyfriend turned around and walked away from the counter, the redhead saw him and waved.

  “Hey!” she called. “Where’s your little girl?”

  “I came to pick up something to surprise her,” he said. “She’s been asking for a princess dress to go with the crown her mom got her.”

  He was pleased with the lie, until the redhead, whose name tag read Annie, led him over to the dress section and he realized he’d worn suits to weddings that cost less.

  “Come to think of it,” he said, “I’m not sure of her size. Maybe I oughta come back with her mother. Meantime, maybe she would like a wand.”

  “That’s a good idea,” said Annie. “All the kids are into magic these days.”

  Annie grabbed the wand that matched the crown and led him back to the register. The Mindy fliers had been replaced by a counter-length overhead banner. Mindy’s head sat suspended on a background of pink bubbles.

  “What’s this Mindy kid do, anyway?” he asked.

  “She sings.”

  “She sing well?”

  “It’s just cute, mostly. She has her own TV show, and her older sister sings too, but sexier. You get tickets for your daughter?”

  “Nah,” he said. “Bit pricey, for a five-year-old. Maybe next year.”

  “They ought to pay you people more. It’s a shame. It’s important, what you do.”

  She said this like someone who had read it somewhere. It would have seemed stupid to disagree and pathetic to nod, so he stood there, waiting for his change.

  “Hey,” said Annie. “We’re having this contest to win tickets to the show. Limo ride, dinner, backstage passes, the whole shebang. All you have to do is make a video of your daughter saying why she wants to go. I bet if your daughter talks about how good she was while you were gone, she’d have a shot. It’s right here, the contest info,” she said, picking up a flier and circling the website. “Doesn’t have to be anything fancy—you could do it on a camera phone.”

  “Thanks,” he said, reaching to take the bag from her.

  “Really,” she said. “I mean it. Who’s got a better story than you? Deadline’s Tuesday. It’d be nice, if they gave it to someone who deserved it.”

  He liked to think that Annie’s encouragement was tacit consent. He liked to think that if he’d had longer to think about it, he would have realized it was a bad idea. But as it was, by Sunday he’d convinced himself that it was a good idea, and by Monday he’d convinced Esther, who, after hearing the word limousine, needed only the slightest convincing that this was not the bad kind of lie. And when she started the first time, it wasn’t even a lie, really. “Hi Glitter Girl,” she began, all on her own, “for a whole year while he was in Iraq, I missed my daddy.” Okay so he wasn’t her father, but he liked to think she had missed him that much. When she said how much she wanted for him to take her to the show now that he was back, he thought it was honest: she wanted not just to see the show but to see it with him. He had downloaded the video from his phone and played it back for her, and was ready to send it like that, when Esther decided it wasn’t good enough.

  “Let’s tell how you saved people,” she said. “We have more time left.”

  He hesitated, but before he could say no, she asked him to tell her who he’d saved, and looking at her, the hopeful glimmer in her eyes, her pigtails tied with elastics with red beads on the end, matching her jumpsuit and the ruffles on her socks, he realized her intentions had been more sincere than his. How could they not be? Esther didn’t doubt for a second that he had a heroic story to tell. He closed his eyes.

  “Two girls,” he said, finally. “A girl about Mindy’s age. She was missing her two front teeth. And her little sister, who she loved a lot. Some bad men wanted to hurt them, and I scared off the bad men and helped them get away.”

  “Where’d they go then?”

  “Back to their families,” he said. He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

  “Start the movie over,” Esther said. “I’m going to say that too.”

  Somehow, he was not expecting the cameras. It was such a small thing, he’d thought. But there was Esther’s video, labeled, Contest Winner!: Esther, age 5, Alexandria, VA, right on the Glitter Girl website. It was only a small relief that this was the last place Lanae would ever go herself, but who knew who else might stumble upon it? He’d named himself as her parent, given his name and phone and authorized the use of the images, and now he had messages, not just from Glitter Girl, who’d called to get their particulars, but from The Washington Post, and Channels 4 and 7 News. Even after the first few, he thought he could get this back in the bottle, that Lanae would never need to know. In his bathroom mirror, in the morning, he practiced what to say to the journalists to make them go away. He tried to think of ways to answer questions without making them think to ask more.

  Listen, he told the Channel 4 reporter, I’d love to do a story, but Esther’s mother has this crazy ex-boyfriend who’s been threatening her for years, and if Esther’s last name or picture were in the paper, we could be in a lot of trouble. Look, he told the Channel 7 reporter, the kid’s been through hell this year, with me gone and her mom barely holding it together. It was hard enough for her to say it once. Please contact Glitter Girl for official publicity.

  It was the Post reporter that did them in, the Post reporter and the free makeover Esther was supposed to get on her official prize pickup day. He figured it was back page news, and anyway, Esther was so excited about it. They would paint her nails and take some pictures and give them the tickets, and that would be the end of it. When they walked into the store a week later, there was a giant pink welcome banner that proclaimed CONGRATULATIONS ESTHER! and clouds of pale pink and white balloons. All of the employees and invited local media clapped their hands. Annie was there, beaming at them when they walked in, like she’d just won a prize for her science fair project. The CEO of Glitter Girl, a severe-looking woman with incongruous big blond hair, hugged Esther and shook his hand. Mindy’s music played on repeat over the loudspeakers.

  There was cake, and sparkling cider. The CEO gave a heartfelt toast. Annie gave him a hug, and slipped her phone number into his pocket. One of the other employees led Esther off. She came back in a sequined pink dress, a long brown wig, fluttery fake eyelashes, pink lipstick, and shiny purple nails. People took pictures. He was alarmed at first but she turned to him and smiled like he’d never seen a kid smile before, and he thought it couldn’t be so bad, to give someone exactly what she wanted. Finally, the CEO of Glitter Girl handed them the tickets. She said Esther had already received some fan mail, and handed him a pile of letters. He looked at the return addresses: California, Florida, New York, Canada.

  “Is there anything you’d like to say to all your fans, Esther?” shouted one of the reporters.

  “I want to say,” said Esther, “I am so happy to win this, but mostly I am so happy to have my daddy.”

  She turned and winked at him. She smiled a movie star grin. There was lipstick on her teeth. For the first time, he realized how badly he’d messed up.

  It was two days later the first story ran. Esther had told the Post reporter her mommy worked at the Ruby Tuesday on Route 7, but when the reporter called her there to get a quote, Lanae had no idea what she was talking about, said she did have a daughter named Esther, but her daughter’s father was in Texas and had never been in the army, and her daughter wasn’t allowed in Glitter Girl or at any Mindy concert.

  She called him on her break to ask him about it, but he said it must have been a mix-up, he didn’t know anything about it.

  “You’d damn well better not be lying to me, Georgie,” she said, which meant she already knew he was.

  That night he called the number Annie had given to him, wondered if she could meet him somewhere, pictured her long legs wrapped around his.

  “Look,” she said softly, “I’m sorry. I was being impulsive the other day. You’re married, and I’m engaged, and I’m really
proud of you, but it’s just better if everything stays aboveboard. Let’s not hurt anyone we don’t have to.”

  Georgie hung up. He went downstairs and watched television with his mother, until she turned it off and looked at him.

  “You know I watch the news during my break at the hospital,” she said.

  “Uh-huh,” said Georgie. “They’re not still shortchanging you your break time, are they?”

  “Don’t change the subject. Other day I coulda swore I saw Esther on TV. Channel 9. All dressed up like some hoochie princess, and talking about her daddy, who was in the army.”

  “Small world,” said Georgie, “A lot of coincidences.”

  But it was a lie, about the world being small. It was big enough. By the time he drove to Lanae’s house the next morning, there was a small crowd of reporters outside. They didn’t even notice him pull up. Kenny kept opening the door, telling them they had the wrong house. Finally, he had to go to work, walked out in his uniform. Flashbulbs snapped.

  “Are you the one who encouraged the child to lie, or does the mother have another boyfriend?” yelled one reporter.

  Georgie couldn’t hear what Kenny said back, but for the first time in his life, Georgie thought Kenny looked brave.

  “Did you do this for the money?” yelled another. “Was this the child’s idea?”

  All day, it was like that. Long after Kenny had left, the reporters hung out on the front steps, broadcasting to each other. Lanae had already given back the tickets; beyond that, she had given no comment. He could imagine the face she made when she refused to comment, the steely eyes, the way everything about her could freeze.

  “How,” the reporters wanted to know, “did this happen?”

  Their smugness made him angry. There were so many things they could never understand about how, so many explanations they’d never bother to demand. How could it not have happened?