The girl grew out of clothes faster than she could wear them. Robin bought Stephanie six new pairs of pants in September, and now none of them fit. She’s apparently blown right through size twelve and needed fourteens. Robin swallowed a gulp of shame. She’d been forcing her kid to walk around in confining size tens for months.
“Wait here,” said Robin. “I’ll get more stuff to try on.”
“Don’t leave me here alone,” said Stephanie.
Oh, God, the memory of Robin’s mother leaving her alone in the communal dressing room at Bloomingdale’s hit her like a train. Her worst Mom moment. For a split second, Robin sympathized with her mother. She understood the frustration, the harried annoyance of not being able to throw a wardrobe together for her daughter. At the time, Robin interpreted her mom’s behavior as hateful and cruel. But perhaps she’d just been frustrated, like Robin was now.
“I won’t leave you alone,” said Robin quickly. “I’m sorry I said that. I’m sorry I was impatient.”
“Mommy,” said Stephanie, starting to show signs of despair. “I feel bad. Nothing fits.”
Robin got on her daughter’s level. “That’s the clothes’ fault. Not yours. Okay? You are fine.”
“Am I fat?” whispered Stephanie, her eyes round and hungry.
Robin’s heart broke in half, right there, in the dressing room at Old Navy. How old had Robin been when her fears of being fat kicked in? Younger than ten-year-old Stephanie. Robin’s mom put her on a diet at eight. She was in second grade when her mother insisted on Robin’s first weigh-in, a weekly event that continued until Robin left for college at eighteen. Several times a day, lest Robin forget, her mother reminded her only daughter that she was “heavy,” that “the kitchen is closed,” that if Robin served her own portions, or fixed her own lunch, she’d “be big as a house.” (As it turned out, ironically, despite—because of?—her mom’s efforts, insults, criticisms, enforced diets, and weigh-ins, Robin got bigger than a house. She was a mansion when her mother died.)
Robin’s mom couldn’t watch her 24/7, of course. During her hours of freedom, Robin ate to her heart’s discontent, each bite a rebellious “Fuck you” to her mother for being heartless, and to her father who did nothing to protect her. And to her taunting classmates who called her “beast.” Robin had many “Fuck yous” to dispense, many spiteful Twinkies to consume.
To be a mother was to somehow screw up your kids. Robin was certain, as the day was long, that she’d make/had made terrible mistakes raising Stephanie that would damage her in some hideous way in the future. But Robin would not make the same mistake her mother had. She’d never—under threat of death—put Stephanie on a diet or make her feel bad about her weight.
“Let’s go back out there together and pick some new stuff,” suggested Robin.
Stephanie got dressed and they bravely ventured forth. They pulled size fourteen jeans off the shelf. Robin blamed herself for Stephanie’s thicker waist this year. She should cook more often. It was torture for Robin to eat vegetables (gastric bypass had ruined her for raw food). But she had to start making salads and veggies for Stephanie. Robin could use her juicer for more than fruity vodka mixers.
Any mother alive would rather her daughter be thin and beautiful, for the kid’s sake. Having been a fat pariah for most of her life, Robin knew that being slim was better than being heavy, times a million. Fat-acceptance people were just plain wrong. Fat and happy was a pipe dream.
Maybe I’m just too cynical for acceptance, thought Robin.
They grabbed some tops, jackets, and skirts. Their arms full of stuff to try on, the mother and daughter returned to the dressing room. Stephanie sat on the bench inside, and started nibbling on her fingernails. A terrible habit that struck Robin nauseatingly of self-cannibalism. Was it an inherited behavior? Was anyone in Robin’s family a nail-biter? She had no clue.
The worst thing that she had ever done to Stephanie, Robin decided while helping her daughter into roomier pants, was depriving her of a family. Robin was the only child of deceased parents. She’d long ago lost contact with her one bitch of an aunt. Her grandparents were long dead. She had no one to offer Stephanie besides herself. They truly were two against the world.
“Those look great,” said Robin, bending down to fold up the hem of a pair of black jeans.
“There’re too long,” said Stephanie.
“We’ll have them tailored for a perfect fit, okay?” The tailoring will cost as much as the jeans, thought Robin.
“Stacy wears size ten,” said Stephanie, speaking of one of her friends from school.
“She’s tiny,” said Robin. Indeed, Robin feared Stacy was undernourished, that her gymbunny mommy had taken insectlike Stacy off carbs. That mother had food issues.
“You’re skinny,” said Stephanie. “Why am I … not?”
“Honey,” said Robin, sitting on the bench, pulling Stephanie into her lap. “I’m this way now because of that operation I had on my stomach. You know the scar. I was once a size twenty-four—adult size twenty-four. I was … I was as big as this whole neighborhood.”
“Will I be as big as the neighborhood, too?” asked Stephanie, her eyes tearing.
Oh, God, went down the wrong path again, thought Robin. “No, honey. Look at me. No. You will never be like that. You’re a beautiful girl, with a strong healthy body,” said Robin.
“But look,” said Stephanie, touching a roll of white flesh that puffed over the pants when she sat down.
“I can make that invisible,” said Robin, positioning Stephanie in front of the dressing room mirror, and taking a trapeze top with an empire waist from the “try on” pile. She slipped it over Stephanie’s head. The bright blue top made the girl’s eyes shine, and the swing of the fabric obscured her daughter’s midsection. The top fell to her hips, making her legs look long and lean.
Robin watched Stephanie appraise herself. The girl turned to the left and right, did a few model poses, arms akimbo, head tilted just so.
“What do you think?” asked Robin.
“Me likey,” said Stephanie, smiling at her own reflection. “Can I wear it out?”
“You bet your sweet ass, you can,” said Robin.
They giggled and proceeded to try on a few more pairs of pants, a few skirts, some empire-waist dresses and tops. They had more “no’s” than “yeses.” But Stephanie’s spirits stayed high, thank God. This was a secret of happy shopping, thought Robin. One flattering dress could make you forget the five unflattering ones. Stephanie decided to buy over a dozen articles. They’d come for a new pair of jeans, and were leaving with a trench coat, tops, bottoms, dresses, socks, panties, and belts. It’d be over a couple hundred bucks, figured Robin. She’d pay ten times that much to keep Stephanie’s body image in the comfort zone.
The line to pay snaked halfway through the women’s department. The recession hadn’t kept people from buying shoddy clothes made in China. She glanced at her cell phone to check the time.
“Shit fuck,” she said.
“What?” asked Stephanie.
“Fresh Direct in one hour,” said Robin, referring to the service that delivered fresh locally grown food, ordered online, in a refrigerated truck. Two guys in gray uniform jumpsuits and leather hernia belts would be arriving at their apartment with their week’s groceries in, oops, less than an hour.
“We’ll make it,” assured Stephanie. “Relax.”
They took turns like that, Robin tending to Stephanie’s anxieties, and vice versa. Robin didn’t want to be Stephanie’s friend. Although she was, if she said so herself, very cool, Robin hated the idea of being the Cool Mom, the one who allowed boys to stay over and let her kids smoke and drink in the house. Robin wanted to be Stephanie’s uncool mother, issuing demands about grades, steering her away from booze, cigarettes, and drugs. She was a bad example, but Robin was good at keeping her secrets, little lies and huge whoppers alike.
Stephanie would suss out the truth one day. Ideally, she’l
l be in college and too self-absorbed to care what her mother was up to.
“I just hate feeling anxious about it,” said Robin.
“What’s the worst that could happen?” asked Stephanie, as the line inched forward. “Fresh Direct will leave a note and come back an hour later.”
“They should open another register,” said Robin, seeing only two in operation.
“Chill, Mom,” said the kid.
She might well have asked Robin to do a back handspring. Not physically possible. Robin watched one salesperson after the other amble by, pause to fold some shirts, and then disappear. Why didn’t they get behind a register and start checking people out? It was like they wanted to inconvenience customers. Robin felt her blood pressure rise, as it always did on a long line. She seethed, couldn’t talk to Stephanie because she had to concentrate on how furious she was about the wait. The cashier at register five was moving in slow motion. Continental drift was faster. Evolution was faster …
“Mom?”
“What?”
“Why do Amy and Mrs. Steeple hate each other?”
Groan. “Can we talk about it later? I have to focus on making that cashier’s head burst into flames.”
“Did you ever talk that way to your mother?”
Stephanie had to be referring to the night a week ago, the poker game when Amy picked a fight with Bess and stormed out of their apartment. “Yes,” said Robin. “My mom and I had screaming fights.”
“Did you hate her?”
Oh, yes, with an epic passion. “Of course not,” said Robin.
“Do you think we’ll ever have screaming fights?”
Robin sighed loudly. “Amy and Bess don’t understand each other, and they lack the tools to get there,” she said. Seeing Stephanie’s confusion, she added, “It’s like they’re speaking different languages. Neither one knows how to put herself in the other’s shoes. From what I gather, Amy and Bess haven’t shared their emotional lives for a long, long time. Bess was just … busy, maybe. And Amy kept it all inside on purpose. She was waiting for Bess to open her up. But the wait was so long, Amy sealed shut like a metal can.”
“So they need a can opener,” said Stephanie. “That’s what you mean by tools.”
The woman behind them on line laughed. Robin turned and made eye contact. A friendly smile exchange. Robin felt validation from a stranger that (1) Stephanie was a clever, insightful child, and (2) Robin was a good communicator.
“A can opener would be great,” said Robin. “So would a few more open registers.”
“You’re saying if we always talk about our emotional lives, we’ll never have screaming fights?” asked Stephanie.
“Sure,” said Robin, checking her cell phone again. Forty-five minutes to Fresh Direct.
“Tell me,” said Stephanie.
“Tell you what?”
“About your emotional life,” said Stephanie, sounding like a ten-year-old shrink.
The woman behind laughed again.
“Do you even know what an emotional life is?”
The girl nodded seriously. “Thoughts and feelings. Secrets. About boys.”
Titter from the woman on line, whose eavesdropping had worn out its welcome.
“I’ll tell you when you’re older,” said Robin.
They got back to their apartment with five minutes to spare. Fresh Direct gave a two-hour window, so Robin might’ve been hurrying up to wait (again).
Weekends were Robin’s busiest days. Most people with normal lives and jobs were crazed during the work week, and then relaxed on Saturdays and Sundays. For Robin, it was the opposite. Her workdays were never frantic. She made her calls. Smoked out the window. Ran a few errands. When Stephanie got home from school, they hung out, did homework, watched movies. Weekends, though, were full with tap class, shopping, sleepovers, playdates. Stephanie was a happenin’ kid. Tonight, she was off to her friend Stacy’s for a sleepover, and Robin was looking forward to having dinner and drinks at the bar at Pete’s, her regular place. It was like Cheers (everyone knew her name), without the requirement of conversation. She wasn’t sure tonight if she felt like talking and drinking, or just drinking.
Just the thought of having a cocktail later made Robin crave a smoke badly. She went to her bedroom, locked the door, and climbed out on the fire escape for a quickie.
Naturally, as soon as she lit her cigarette, she heard the apartment door buzzer.
“Dammit,” she muttered. Robin yelled, “Stephanie! Fresh Direct is here! Buzz them in! I’ll be right out!”
She heard Stephanie run down the hall and let in the delivery guys. It’d be a minute before they lugged the boxes into the elevator. Robin inhaled the smoke, exhaled, trying to enjoy the sensation, knowing she’d get more of it later after she dropped off Stephanie at her friend’s house.
A knock on their apartment door. That was fast. Robin stubbed out her butt and crawled back into the bedroom. She spritzed on her green tea perfume to disguise the smoke smell and proceeded into the hallway to sign for the groceries and tip the delivery guys.
She saw Stephanie holding the apartment door open and talking to someone. Why weren’t the guys bringing in the boxes? wondered Robin.
“Hello?” she asked, walking up to the open door.
Framed in the threshold stood Harvey Wilson in a puffy vest and jeans, a helmet under his arm, a dirt bike in front of him. The sight was so disorienting, Robin’s brain couldn’t put it together.
“You work for Fresh Direct?” she asked.
“Pardon?”
“He says he’s an old friend of yours,” said Stephanie, looking at Robin with curiosity and suspicion. “Do you know him or should I call 911?”
Robin hesitated.
Harvey said, “If you want me to leave, I’ll go.”
“Okay,” said Robin.
But he didn’t make a move.
“I’ll get the phone,” said Stephanie, clearly excited by the idea.
“No, it’s all right. I know him. Come in,” said Robin, holding the door open for him. “I wasn’t expecting to see you. Ever again.”
Stephanie glared at him. “Is he from your emotional life?” she asked Robin.
“A past life,” answered Harvey.
Robin stepped back, and looked from Harvey to Stephanie and back again. The resemblance was obvious, she realized with a jolt. They had the same eyes, chin, and cheeks. Thank God the nose was all Robin. Harvey’s was on the large side. Stephanie had Robin’s hair color (the auburn of her youth), but Harvey’s luster. Seeing them together like this, how could she be the only one to see the truth written, literally, all over their faces?
“Are you Robin’s daughter?” asked Harvey amicably, as she led him to the living room. He’d wheeled his bike inside and leaned it against the wall.
“Obviously,” said the little girl.
“How old are you?” he asked.
Stephanie rolled her eyes at the predictable question. “Ten. I’ll be eleven in September.”
Harvey said slowly, “So you were born in September 2000?”
“September seventh,” said Stephanie. “Our school does a September first cut off so I’m one of the oldest kids in my class. Only Milo Abrams is older. His birthday is September fourth.”
Harvey appeared lost in thought. Robin’s heart skipped a few beats. Horrors, was he doing the math? He studied Stephanie. He looked up at Robin, then down at Stephanie, back at Robin. She started to shake her head. But it was too late.
“Is your daddy home?” asked Harvey to Stephanie, his voice scratchy.
“My daddy was a sperm donor,” she announced matter-of-factly.
Harvey stared into the girl’s face, and couldn’t help but see his own reflected there. “I need to sit,” he said suddenly.
He didn’t make it to the couch. He fainted, dead away, in the middle of the living room, a klatch of Barbies arranged in a circle breaking his fall.
“Oh, shit!” said Robin. One of th
e Barbie’s was jabbing him in the eye. No blood. Whew!
Stephanie, hopping up and down, thrilled by the novelty of a prostrate man on the carpet, said, “Can I call 911, Mommy? Please? Or I could run across the street and get the firemen?”
“Calm down,” said Robin. She bent over, and slapped Harvey’s cheek, repeating his name. Nothing. He was out. “Get me the phone.”
The girl pounded into the kitchen and grabbed the handheld. Robin dialed quickly. When she got an answer, she said, “You’ve got to drive over here, now. Emergency! Code red!”
“An emergency is code blue,” Carla answered calmly.
“Just hurry. I’ve got a man down.”
Carla was a rock, thought Robin, hanging up. She’d be here in fifteen minutes. Not soon enough. She dialed Bess. “Code red! I mean blue! Man down!”
“I’m sorry?” said Bess.
“Stop apologizing and get over here! It’s an emergency.”
“Did you kill someone?” asked Bess, hushed.
Robin pulled the phone away to look at it. Is that what Bess thought her capable of? Murder on a Saturday afternoon?
“Come over to find out,” said Robin, hanging up.
Stephanie peered into Harvey’s face, squished as it was on plastic limbs. “Who is he, Mom? He looks familiar.”
“No one! Go to your room,” said Robin.
“Like that’s gonna happen,” said Stephanie with a snort.
Robin took a moment to admire her flinty child, and then flew right back to panic.
The buzzer made Robin’s heart jump into her throat. Bess must have sprinted the two blocks. She buzzed her friend in.
A minute later, two huge men with cardboard boxes arrived in the hallway.
Stephanie said, “Fresh Direct.”
Robin looked up. The delivery guys took in the scene. A mother and daughter poking an unconscious man on the floor.
As if they happened upon men in dubious stages of consciousness every day, one delivery guy said, “Where do you want the boxes?”
Stephanie directed them toward the kitchen, signed the receipt, and had the good sense to go into Robin’s purse (thank God the pack of cigarettes was in her bedroom) and find a fiver for a tip.
Four of a Kind Page 21
