Parts Unknown

by Davidson, S. P.

  I tossed Lucy onto the sofa like a pile of laundry, turned the sound on the television high enough to muffle the sounds of her high-pitched sobs, and started dinner. Heating up a frozen lasagna from Costco seemed like a good plan.

  George came home at seven. Immediately when he came in, he smelled the air, as if sniffing out infidelity. “What’s that?” he asked. “It smells like wet plastic.”

  “I’ve been painting,” I said, almost defensively. “I started painting again. Today. I’ve got a lot of ideas kicking around. You’re smelling the acrylics, that’s all.”

  He didn’t make a move to go look; I’d moved the easel into our small office room at the end of my painting session that morning. “That’s great, really, that’s great,” he said. “Listen, I’ve been meaning to ask you: what’s with the doll heads everywhere? It’s just creepy. Can you put them away, please?” Then, barely taking a breath: “So, Lucy, did you have a nice day? Are you ready for a story?” She was smiling, sleepy and warm like a small kitten, bearing no resemblance to the spawn of Satan she’d been just a few hours earlier. George was so relaxed with Lucy, too. He showed a different side of himself to her than he did even to me—a free, easy spirit he never allowed himself to display otherwise. Lucy adored him.

  He was a truly caring husband, too. Sure, he could be short sometimes, and domineering. But he never failed to kiss me hello or ask about my day, as if he truly cared about the quotidian news my housewifely self could drum up. It shouldn’t matter that he’d never understood what I did, and why I had to do it, but it mattered, even so. My art had piqued his interest in me, but ultimately it became a conversation piece rather than a meeting of the minds.

  Perhaps we marry the father we wish we’d had. George was so meticulous and finite, so far from Dad’s sloppy good nature and casual, laissez-faire approach to almost everything. Like a father, I wanted George’s approval, his understanding, just as much as his love.

  George disappeared down the hall, his back perfectly straight, just like always.

  My hand shaking, I slopped some wine into a glass. The more I drank, the more I wouldn’t have to think.

  ~ ~ ~

  Thursday, the Los Angeles Times informed me that it was 64 degrees and partly cloudy in Santa Fe. After dropping Lucy at school, I set up another canvas. I sketched in the outlines quickly with a brush dipped in Hansa yellow thinned way down with water. This was a mate of yesterday’s painting, a representational take on the abstract of before. It was amazing, the way the fast swirls of paint coalesced in my hand from random squiggles into people, two people clenched together in the gobs of paint, embracing frantically, but unable to escape. They were locked in the painting, like Michelangelo’s The Dying Slave was forever struggling to escape from the marble in which it was encased. Their lips pressed together sealed them but also bound them, their hands glued to each other prevented them from pushing their way out of the thick, tornado-like swirls tightening around them.

  I had been listening to Celtic music all week, put in the mood by St. Patrick’s Day. Harp, fiddle, and flute sounds from a Chieftains CD flitted around me as I painted. At once mournful and joyful, tunes such as “The Parting of Friends” and “The Lament for Limerick” made my heart both lift and ache. I was moving forward, driven, possessed, but had no idea where I was going, so quickly and surely.

  And then the morning was gone, and I got in the Volvo and drove to pick up Lucy.

  Every Thursday at 12:30, straight after preschool, I dropped Lucy off at Madame’s for Madame’s self-imposed one hour a week of bonding time with her granddaughter. The timing was tricky, because Lucy always napped at this time, so it created a scary blip in her usual routine. And by the time we got to Madame’s, Lucy was usually in such a frenzy of nervousness and anticipation that she could barely function. Thursdays were the worst day of the week for me, not only because I had to deal with Madame on my own, without the buffer of George, I also had to deal with Lucy’s fallout after spending an hour at that house on Las Palmas.

  Today the contrast between Madame’s haphazardly kept home and the rest of the well-manicured houses on the block was even more apparent. The entire sidewalk in front of her house had been dug up, with knocked-over orange cones and markers bearing the legend “City of Los Angeles Department of Public Works Street Services” blocking any way up to Madame’s door except up the driveway and across the grass. A dark, slimy liquid oozed from the sidewalk toward the gutter.

  Madame viewed me on Thursdays simply as a Lucy delivery system, and as usual, she took ages to get to the door (didn’t she know we always arrived at 12:45 pm, promptly, each Thursday?), and peered suspiciously through the keyhole. An acid glare that she shot toward the dismantled sidewalk kept me from asking questions. Lucy chirped desperately, “Bonjour, grand-mère!” I came inside to exchange uncomfortable pleasantries. “What lovely spring weather we’re having!” I trilled. “I’m so glad it’s such a beautiful day, aren’t you?”

  Madame snorted. “It’s too hot; it’s far too hot for March.”

  “I don’t remember what the weather’s usually like in March,” I said lamely. “I just thought it was nice out . . .”

  Madame curled her nostril ever so slightly and turned to Lucy. “Come, Lucy, let’s have a little lesson before snack time, shall we?”

  Lucy suddenly grabbed hold of my hand with her little fingers and wouldn’t let go. “Honey, it’s time to say goodbye,” I said, attempting to disengage myself. But she pulled me along with her, forcing me to follow Madame through the kitchen, where a few open cupboards flaunted the disarray within. Plastic ware that must have been circa some 1970s Tupperware party nearly spilled out of one—a large, cloudy Jell-O mold, a hamburger-making set, a bilious green colander. We emerged into the breakfast room—these old, grand houses had both breakfast rooms and dining rooms, living rooms and dens, maids’ quarters and bedrooms. She always kept a bowl of purplish berries on the dining room table; they were cranberry-sized, and grew on the high hedge at the far end of her backyard. I wasn’t sure whether they were poisonous; I had seen George pop a few in his mouth on occasion. An old photo album was open on the dining room table, one of dozens that she had organized by date in the built-in bookshelves in the den. She’d often pull out and leaf through albums featuring George’s youth in the same meditative way Catholics would finger rosary beads. Time in Madame’s house had stopped around 1979—the year George had gone away to college.

  Madame glared at Lucy, still clinging to my hand as to a life buoy. “That’s enough now, chérie. We have a lot to learn this afternoon.” I disengaged Lucy with difficulty and hugged her tight. “I’ll be back in just a little while, sweetie.” She bravely allowed Madame to grasp one hand and waved forlornly with the other as I escaped through the grand entrance hall with its soaring two-story cathedral ceiling and vintage glass-drop chandelier. My feet crinkled through the old, threadbare beige carpet. I felt like I was abandoning her to a total brainwashing, as I did each week. But what could I do? Madame was Lucy’s grandmother, after all.

  Another restriction of the Thursday schedule was that I was required to pick Lucy up in an hour, which left absolutely no time to do anything useful. Any errand, in Los Angeles, took longer than that—one had to drive, and park, and navigate long checkout lines. Once, I’d tried to go to Trader Joe’s, less than a mile’s drive away. But I returned ten minutes late, after battling crowds and the backed-up, miniscule parking lot, and for weeks after Madame had been colder than ever to me.

  So on Thursdays, I just spent the hour walking around Madame’s neighborhood. Only a mile from my own, the Hancock Park neighborhood was a different world, and strolling down the sycamore-lined streets, with rows of elegant houses set up high on hill-like lawns, was my sole exercise for the week. The farther east I walked, the bigger the houses got, the higher the security fencing was, and the quieter the streets became. By the time I got to June Street, I could hear the echo of my own footsteps. Cars ra
rely drove by, and I’d never seen any resident emerge from or enter the grand homes, just the occasional gardener or cleaning service. I spent the hour walking around and around the same few blocks, which roughly formed the shape of a pentagon: McCadden Place, to 1st Street, up Hudson Place, which ended at the Wilshire Country Club with an impassable fence. Then back down Hudson Avenue to 2nd Street, and back around again, my stomach aching the whole time, so tired I just wanted to lie down on one of those verdant lawns and go to sleep. All I could think about was the intractable problem of Josh’s appearance on Saturday, and how to force him into coexistence with the real life I led every day—my life as Lucy’s mom, and George’s wife, and the little boxes of responsibilities those positions entailed. My allegiances were unchangeable, absolutely necessary, and completely at odds with going to Josh’s book signing. By doing so, I would upset my family’s balance for good, my desperate avowals of “friendship” to the contrary. Being George’s wife, being Lucy’s mom: these were the only two things, in fact, I could say I’d ever succeeded at.

  The houses stood, still as sentinels, atop their little hills. The landscaping around them was uniformly professionally designed and well-tended. Bougainvillea and azaleas splashed color across front entries. A few tulip trees were still blooming. I could glimpse night-blooming jasmine behind high walls. I sniffed, trying to catch some of the delicious floral smells surely coming from all that vegetation. But all the gorgeous plantings were far away, up the little hills near the front doors of the homes. Too far for the scents to reach me. All I could smell, walking past the big houses, was the herbal, green aroma of freshly cut grass.

  Whatever happened to me, whatever small decisions I made, seemed immaterial. Those houses would still be standing there forever, kept safe from change and from harm by the force of the wealth, or the willpower, stockpiled behind their doors. My fingers lingered on Madame’s tarnished brass knocker. Knowing George’s closeness with his mother, I’d thought, until I met Madame, that maybe she could be my second chance at having a mother to love, and a mother who truly loved me. So silly.

  I could enter that house, but I could never belong there.

  ~ ~ ~

  That evening, while Lucy lounged slack-jawed in front of Word World and I should have been making dinner, instead I snuck into the office room and spent some time peering voyeuristically into Josh’s life. I browsed through his web site, drooling over his blog entries about the creative process, the fulfillment of writing, his love for comic books. I internalized his literary heroes—Michael Chabon, Lewis Carroll, Thomas Hardy. I remembered the forlorn English textbooks in his London bookcase. He had followed all the dreams he’d had back then, and made them real. Not like me. Nothing like how I’d ended up.

  I copied his email address, visible when clicking the Contact link on his web site, opened Skype, and pasted the address in. Presto—Josh was on Skype. A click away from a voice call. Still not satisfied, I moved on to Flickr and pasted the email address there too. No dice, but when I typed his wife’s name in, there they were—dozens of publicly viewable pictures of Josh and his family. Bonanza! Clearly they were not yet used to fame or the possibility of being Googled by strangers.

  It felt dirty and sneaky, looking at the private moments of Josh, Caroline, and Amanda, but I did it anyway. Caroline was model-beautiful, with long, straight, dark hair that draped around her so effortlessly, it must take an hour to style it each morning. A Jewish star on a gold chain glinted around her neck. Baby Amanda looked just like her dad, with swirls of black curly hair and penetrating eyes that stared right at the camera. There they were, the happy little family—although, as always happens when one person needs to hold the camera, they were rarely all in a photo together. The big blue New Mexico sky, like an enormous bowl, cradled them in scenes I’d tried to envision. Now I could vividly re-create them. Caroline and Amanda at the farmer’s market I’d imagined, Caroline holding up an enormous melon. Josh leaning against an earthen wall of their home, cradling Amanda tenderly. Caroline and Amanda. Josh and Amanda. And then, last of all, a photo, probably set with the camera timer, of Josh and Caroline, embracing each other, she smiling at the camera, he nuzzling her neck.

  I could almost feel Josh’s presence, seeing him—even embracing his wife—making him feel so close, it was as if I could connect to him with my mind. By this point I was almost convinced that making love with George on Friday would be tantamount to cheating on Josh. I dreaded it.

  Stop. I had to get a grip. Josh and I could be friends again. Not lovers—friends.

  I couldn’t punish George so horribly, just because he didn’t understand why I needed to paint. It was absolutely wrong.

  At a quarter to six, I x’ed off Internet Explorer and hurried to the kitchen to preheat the toaster oven. Lucy was exactly where I’d left her, practically drooling as she watched the Curious George PBS cartoon with ferocious concentration. I rummaged through the freezer, unearthing a box of chicken nuggets and a bag of freezer-burned Tater Tots. Tossing them onto the tiny toaster oven sheet, making a mess of the icy breading, I reflected that for the past forty-five minutes, as Lucy’d been congealing in front of two PBS shows, I hadn’t thought about her for a moment. She’d been completely out of my mind. The mom radar that kept me tethered to her, always watchful, had blinked off, replaced with slimy cyber-stalking by me, half-deranged ex-girlfriend, failure as a mother.

  ~ ~ ~

  On Friday, it was 62 degrees in Santa Fe. In Los Angeles, the weather continued summer-like. It was in the eighties, and I was wearing sandals, capri pants, and dragging the standing fans out of our garage, brushing the dust off, and trying to blow the hot air out of our apartment. We lived on an upper floor without air conditioning, and in the summer, the apartment could get up to a hundred degrees. Our futile arsenal of standing fans and a portable air conditioner, which cooled about six square inches of Lucy’s room, was never enough.

  I was dreading Friday night, but I’d never yet said no, and refusing tonight would ring all sorts of alarms for George. Fortunately, George knew nothing about Josh. Why dredge up old memories, I’d figured long ago. Let the past stay buried. I was good at that.

  So long as everything was in its place, George was content. The only exception to his requirements for order was Lucy. She defined chaos, and George accepted that. “She’ll be just fine by the time she’s five,” he assured me often, though I wasn’t convinced of any such thing. But changing our Friday night routine—that would be unthinkable.

  Fortunately, I had an entire day ahead of me. I had another canvas ready to go. I wasn’t sure what I would paint, but I knew it would flow out of me, from deep in my unconscious, my hands knowing just which colors to choose from the tackle box I used as an art bin. My hands would know what to do.

  No such luck. My PEEPS hand reminder had long since washed off, but hurrying out the door with Lucy for preschool, she reminded me herself. She’d been looking forward to the party all week. “Mommy,” she tugged at my sleeve. “Did you get the chickie Peeps or the bunny Peeps?”

  “Oh, sh . . . oot,” I smacked my forehead with my hand. “Honey, I totally forgot. Let’s see if 7-11 has them, it’s on the way.” Thank heavens, one package was left—blue bunnies, rather dented, but good enough. “Thanks hon,” I hugged Lucy, “for reminding me.”

  We entered the classroom, ten minutes late, bearing Peeps. My one parental contribution to the class this year. The room parents had already set everything up—festive plastic Easter tablecloths, and paper cups and plates that matched. Nick had stockpiled his balloons in the corner. Jessica was poised behind a face-painting station. 8:30 in the morning seemed a tad early for all this. I smiled at Christine and thrust the Peeps at her. “Here—where should I put these?” She eyed the crumpled package. “Where’s the other one? We need 22; there’s only 12 here.”

  “Uh—I’ll be right back.”

  Ran to the car, gunned the engine, sped to the nearby Vons supermarket, and p
urchased several extra packages of Peeps just in case. I was no good at this involved-parent stuff. It was hard enough, just dealing with Lucy. I didn’t have an ounce of altruism left over for volunteering, or being cheerful, or making freakin’ balloon animals for a classroom full of half-tamed three-year-olds. But the way Lucy’s eyes lit up when I hurried back into the classroom made it all worthwhile. She looked at me like I was everything. Like I was the biggest hero of the day. “Mommy!” she squealed. “You got more Peeps!” She ran over to me and gave me a big, possessive hug, making sure every kid in the room knew that I was her mother. She eyed Jack, her paramour in the three-year-old class. “I told you she would,” she said. I raised the Peeps over my head in triumph.

  ~ ~ ~

  I’d accomplished only one thing that morning—purchasing Peeps. I stayed for the class party, and once it was over, it was almost time to bring Lucy home. But the canvas was waiting. For next week. I wondered what I would paint, what I could possibly paint, once I’d seen Josh.

  While Lucy napped, I lay down on George’s bed for a while. My head ached with so much thinking, my thoughts whirling around all week to no good purpose or conclusion. I did feel sorry for George. He had so few close friends; he rarely confided in me, either. He saved his secrets, his openness, for his mother. But still, there was something comforting about his lengthy dissections of fellow faculty members’ motivations, and his enthused explanations of arcane statistical information. I barely understood half of what he tried to explain to me, but I always nodded enthusiastically to make him think I was really interested. Truly, he gave me so much—he didn’t need to give me all his secrets, too.

  Unlike George, I had spread my confidences around. No two friends knew the same secrets about me. The only person who had ever known everything was Josh—all of me, both my passionate and my prosaic self, and loved all those pieces.