Fashionably Late

by Olivia Goldsmith

  Karen slept until Jeffrey came noisily back. She looked at the clock. It was four-ten. She lay in bed, trying to force herself to sleep. It didn’t work. Now she ought to go back to sleep. But she couldn’t give it up. You need your sleep. But telling herself that didn’t help. She lay there, as limp as the lox on the trays she had served at the stupid family brunch, only miserable, exhausted, and sleepless.

  Karen wasn’t a great thinker, and she knew it. It wasn’t that she was dumb; over the years she had come to understand that straight cognitive thinking just wasn’t her forte. She was more intuitive, more indirect and creative. She lived through her eyes – what she saw often told her what to think and even how to feel.

  So now she closed her eyes, not to try to sleep but to see what was bothering her. Jeffrey, of course, but not just this silly anger. That would go away. It was something else. Something darker.

  She closed her eyes, and the first image that came, unbidden, was the picture from the Westport brunch of Sylvia, beaming up at Jeffrey, her son. It was as clear as a photograph – clearer, because in her mind’s eye Karen could move around them and look at the scene from all angles. She could see Sylvia’s Sonia Rykiel from behind, and her hand lovingly placed on Jeffrey’s back, her silver hair contrasting yet complementing Jeffrey’s. She could see them in profile, Sylvia’s aristocratic nose arching in just the same way as her son’s.

  Was that it then, Karen wondered? What’s bugging me? Am I longing for the son I’ll never have? But she didn’t feel that kind of longing. Anyway, she’d always felt she’d prefer a daughter. She kept her eyes closed and stayed with the image. What she felt, she realized, was jealousy.

  Even there, in the dark, in bed, she felt herself flush with shame. Jealousy was such a dirty feeling, one Karen was lucky enough to rarely feel. But she knew it when she felt it, and now she was jealous. God, she couldn’t believe that she was that covetous! Or that petty. Or that territorial. She was jealous and possessive of her husband.

  Some time past five, she at last fell into a troubled sleep. But she woke up in less than an hour from a graphic dream. She’d been tiny, and in some kind of small boat, almost a basket, being rocked on the swells of a white sea. At first it felt good, but after a time she was hungry, and when she sat up to look about, all she could see was the heaving ocean all around her and darkness above it. The ocean was milky white and luminous but she could feel it turn from warm to cold and she became very chilled. She was cold, and hungry. She began to cry, with an infant’s mewling, until a wave broke over her, mixing its wet salt with the tears that were already on her cheeks.

  She woke up with real tears on her lashes, and immediately thought two things. I’ve never dreamed in black and white before, was her first thought.

  Her second realization was that she was not envious of Sylvia for having a son. She was envious of Jeffrey for having a mother.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Dressing Her Wounds

  Queasy as she was with a Merlot hangover, the next morning Karen decided to take action. The fight with Jeffrey, the disappointed feeling after Elle Halle’s show, the dream she’d had, all came together. She’d try to find her mother. But how?

  How do you go about hiring a competent private detective? For orthodontists, hairdressers, gynecologists – maybe even plastic surgeons – you could ask around. But for a detective? She couldn’t talk to Jeffrey about this – he’d made it clear how he felt. Karen wondered if she should call June Silverman and ask her if she’d had Perry tailed before their divorce? Maybe she should just call Bill Wolper and ask him if he used some kind of service to check into the background of employees and acquisitions. And could she queer his offer on her company if she were so bold as to ask him?

  Having no other recourse, Karen let her fingers do the walking and found that though there were dozens of services listed in the Manhattan yellow pages, most had their actual offices located in Brooklyn. She avoided the one called ‘AAAA Investigations’ but selected a few others randomly and dialed the numbers. The first four had answering machines or services. Yeah, like she would leave her name, a brief message, and her home phone number. They all sounded totally sleazy, then she dialed one more and the phone was picked up by an avuncular-sounding guy located on Jay Street in Brooklyn. Karen made an appointment with Mr Centrillo, who assured her he could ‘manage to squeeze her in.’

  When they pulled up in front of the narrow doorway sandwiched between a cop-supply-and-uniform store and a third-tier jeweler, Karen smiled at the black man behind the wheel of the limousine. His name was Corman, and he’d driven her before. ‘I’m just going up for fifteen minutes,’ she told him. ‘A half-hour at the most. If I’m gone longer than that, please come up to room 201 and knock on the door. I don’t want to be late for my next appointment.’

  Corman nodded his head but knit his brow. ‘Might be hard to find a parking spot, and I don’t like to leave the limo in a neighborhood like this. But I guess it will be all right.’

  ‘Thank you, Corman,’ she said, and she felt real gratitude.

  The stairs to Centrillo’s office were old, wooden, and trimmed on the risers with metal strips. They sagged in the middle as if they were very tired. Karen felt very tired herself, but she knew it wasn’t physical. She wondered how many people’s accumulated misery had worn down those steps, and she also wondered what that misery weighed. If you were afraid your partner was embezzling, was that a fifty-pound weight? If you suspected your wife was cheating on you, was that a heavier burden? If you were looking for a husband who had deserted you and the children, was that two tons? How much misery was she, herself, carrying up the steps to the kind-sounding Mr Centrillo?

  His office was one of only two on the second floor and, she noted with some relief, the hallway, just like the stairs, was very clean. She turned the knob of the thick oak door and entered a waiting room the size of a small vestibule. A pimply young girl with big hair looked up and smiled pleasantly. ‘Miz Cohen?’ she asked. Karen remembered to nod. She certainly hadn’t wanted to use her real name. But what happened if this young woman had seen ‘The Elle Halle Show’? She wasn’t sure if any designer was big enough yet to be on the front page of the National Enquirer but she didn’t want this to be a test case, SEEKING THE MOM WHO ABANDONED HER. OAKLEY AWARD-WINNING DESIGNER FEELS THE PAIN OF BEING UNWANTED: KAREN KAHN’S PERSONAL STORY. She shuddered. Mr Centrillo’s ad was the only one that had not mentioned ‘discretion.’ That was what had led her to call him. It was as if he assumed that went without saying. And she hoped, maybe people in Brooklyn hadn’t heard of her. The bridge-and-tunnel crowd wasn’t so ready or able to drop three grand on a layered cashmere sweater outfit. And it wasn’t like she appeared on TV every night. Did anyone on Jay Street read Suzy’s column or subscribe to W?

  She looked at the girl sitting behind the narrow counter. The blue and purple blouse was polyester, and fit like a feed bag. The darts were cut too high and unevenly as well. Could they have charged the girl more than $19.99 for it? It looked like one of the blouses NormCo had produced for Bette Mayer. Karen could imagine the feel of the cheap cloth against skin on a humid day like this one: it wasn’t a pretty feeling. Wouldn’t a simple cotton camp shirt look so much better and cost the same? And those colors! They fought with each other and neither one dominated. They were deadly with the kid’s hair and pale skin.

  Karen sighed. She had to stop these mental makeovers before she drove herself crazy. Was Jeffrey right? Was it a control thing? Or was her college shrink right? Was it all simply a distraction, taking her away from the thoughts that were too painful for her to bear? Or both, as Defina almost always added.

  ‘Have a seat. Mistah Centrillah will be right with yah.’ The girl’s accent was pure Nostrand Avenue. God, Karen wondered, do I sound like that? If I hadn’t been talented, would I have wound up behind a desk like this one, wearing a blouse like that one? She felt enormous compassion for the poor kid. Where did my talent come from? sh
e wondered. She stared at the receptionist, full of pity. Then she told herself to calm down. It was probably arrogant of her to feel superior – after all, her life was so screwed up she was here as a potential client, not just an employee. Despite the bad skin and the rotten clothes, the girl behind the counter probably had working ovaries. What difference did a lousy blouse make in the bigger scheme of things?

  The glass-paneled door behind the girl opened and a small gray-haired man scurried out. Yech! If that was Centrillo, Karen instantly decided she was outta here. But the little man pushed passed the counter and through the exit door without even looking up. In his place a short, broad, balding man stood, his feet planted as firmly on the ground as the smile was on his face. ‘Mrs Cohen?’ he asked. And it was the voice from over the phone, the voice that had drawn her to him. The voice she thought of as ‘the good daddy’ voice.

  She nodded, rose, and followed him. Good God, she thought. What am I going to say? Please find my mommy? she suddenly felt childish and unprepared. Centrillo’s office was sunny, clean, and spare, with the old boxy oak furniture she hadn’t seen since her days in South Side High School. Karen took one of the two unpadded wooden arm chairs before his desk and he slipped into the matching swivel chair behind it. All she needed was a paddle arm and she’d start to take down US history notes.

  ‘So?’ He waited, his big, flat hands lying still on the big, flat desktop.

  She found it hard to speak. The silence continued until it became equally hard not to speak. She realized that she had not really prepared for this. She could see dust motes floating in the shaft of sunlight that slanted through the clean window. ‘I want to find my mother,’ she finally managed to whisper.

  ‘Has she disappeared? Run away? Is she senile?’ he asked, his voice lowered but still comforting.

  ‘No. I don’t know. I mean it isn’t what you think.’ She paused. ‘Not my mother. My real mother.’

  ‘Oh. You mean “birth mother.” You’re an adult adoptee?’

  He had given her a name now, a category, probably a whole file drawer in which her case, like all the others, would comfortably fit.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How long you been looking?’ he asked.

  Forever. Never before. She sighed. ‘I haven’t. I don’t know how. That’s why I came to you.’

  ‘Sealed record?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Private or state?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Birth mother’s name?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘It was here in New York?’

  She could hardly believe how incompetent she was about this. She, Karen Kahn, who put together four collections a year, gave interviews to journalists, who knew how things worked and could make things happen, who could present herself to Bill Wolper and impress the son of a bitch, here she was, trying to solve her central puzzle without planning or research. What the hell was wrong with her? Not only could she not produce children, she couldn’t produce answers. She knew she must look like a fool, a nitwit who expected some big man would help her. What had he just asked? Where had the adoption taken place? She was about to tell him that she didn’t know that either when she remembered, out of the blue. Once, her father had mentioned Chicago and how he hated going there for business, except it was the town she, Karen, had come from. ‘I think Chicago,’ she said.

  She took a deep breath. She knew the basics about adoptive children’s rights, but it was only the stuff she’d read in newspapers and magazines. She’d followed Baby Jessica, just the way everyone else had. And the teenager in Florida who’d been given as an infant to the wrong family. She also knew that children almost always wanted to remain with their adoptive parents, but was that simply because those parents were familiar?

  There was a movement among adult adopted children to get to unseal court adoption records as their birthright. But the movement was not popular among others. Only a few weeks ago, Karen had read an Ann Landers column where a letter had begged adoptive children not to upset the lives of their natural parents by seeking them out. And Ann had agreed, saying that ‘Adopted children have the right to the medical history of their parents, but beyond that, a sealed adoption should remain sealed. Period.’ The court didn’t want to help, adoptive parents didn’t want to help, ANN Landers didn’t want to help, and now it looked as if Mr Centrillo didn’t want to help. Somehow, it didn’t seem fair. Didn’t she have a simple human right to know?

  She opened her purse, and began to search through it for the two photographs, her talismans. But they weren’t there. She felt the blood drain from her face. Had she lost them? She could swear she’d put them in here. She’d been carrying them with her everywhere, but lately she’d been so busy and so disorganized. Where had she last seen them? A fine sweat broke out on her forehead.

  She looked up at the big man, stricken. ‘I might have some pictures. And I’m almost sure that I was from Chicago.’

  Mr Centrillo nodded. ‘I’ll have to look up the Illinois laws. You know, this all goes state by state. Mrs Cohen, I think you can see there’s a difficulty here. Assuming it was Chicago and that it was a state adoption, and assuming that the records are not sealed, without names and dates this is not something that can easily be unearthed. What is your maiden name?’

  At last, she could give him an answer. ‘Lipsky,’ she said, and gave Arnold and Belle’s names and dates of birth and the old address in Brooklyn. ‘Will that do it? Will their name help?’

  But Centrillo just shook his head. ‘Even with names and dates it is often very difficult. May I ask you another question?’

  She nodded her head. She felt as if she couldn’t speak at all. Even one word and she would burst into tears. God, when was the last time she had cried? She couldn’t remember. But she felt her lip tremble.

  ‘I know this is sometimes an awkward thing, but could you possibly get this information from your adoptive mother? Could you talk to her?’

  As if by magic, Karen’s tears disappeared, and the trembly feeling dropped away. ‘Impossible,’ she said. The man nodded as if he was not surprised by that answer. He sighed. ‘Have you got a birth certificate?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, with so much enthusiasm she immediately felt stupid.

  ‘May I see it?’

  ‘I don’t have it with me,’ she admitted.

  The man sighed again. ‘Mrs Cohen, I feel as if I have to ask you this: Have you really thought this out? Perhaps this is not a case for a private investigator. Maybe you need to talk to someone else. A rabbi or a counselor or a family therapist …’

  She felt the blood rush to her face. He was telling her to get a shrink! As if she hadn’t already been through three of them! Jesus Christ, she didn’t need to talk any more about how she felt! She just wanted to find her goddamned mother, and if she was conflicted, or disorganized, or unprepared, well, fuck it! For once in her life she was feeling a little vulnerable and irrational. Yeah, this is what happens when a woman acts vulnerable and irrational: she’s told to get a shrink, she’s told to go have her head examined. Now Karen’s eyes did fill with tears, but she was angry as well as in pain.

  ‘Look, Mr Centrillo, I know I didn’t prepare myself properly for this meeting and I apologize for that, but I’ve been very busy. If you can give me a list of what you need I’ll try and get it. If I do, can you find my real mother?’

  ‘Please, Mrs Cohen. Don’t be upset. I know this is a difficult thing for you to undertake. And who knows? Sometimes I go to the court house or the Bureau of Vital Records and hit, one, two, three. Sometimes I search for years and only turn up dead ends. Most women who gave up their babies aren’t proud of it. They started new lives, they moved on, they died. Whatever happened to them, they do not necessarily want to be located. I take it that your birth mother never came looking for you?’

  Karen sat back against the hard wood of the chair in surprise. It had simply never occurred to her that
her mother might search for her.

  ‘Is that possible?’ she whispered.

  ‘Well, it depends. In some cases, where the birth mother has much of the information from the time of the delivery, she can have an easier time of it. But she also can run into sealed records. In sixteen states, if the records are sealed, there is absolutely nothing that either you or your birth mother could do to contact one another. Even if you both want to.’

  Tears began to overflow Karen’s eyes and run down her face. It seemed so very, very sad. She thought of all the separated mothers and daughters, searching in vain. Smoothly and simply, Mr Centrillo opened a drawer of his desk and handed her a box of tissues. Just like a shrink. The tears kept on sliding out from under Karen’s eyes. She cried for a long time. She’d been saving these tears up. Finally, she mopped her cheeks and managed a gasp. ‘That’s so sad,’ she said. ‘That’s just so sad.’ She blew her nose.

  Mr Centrillo reached across the desk, took a Kleenex out of the box, and blew his own nose. Then he sighed gustily. ‘It is,’ he agreed.

  They both sat there quietly for a moment, bathed in the sun. After a time, Karen took a deep breath, reached into her bag, pulled out her Fil-o-Fax and Mont Blanc pen. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘tell me what I need to help you do this.’

  After they discussed that and fees, Karen had fished around to find the envelope that contained the cash for his retainer. Carefully he wrote her out a receipt. Then Mr Centrillo stood up and walked her to the door where he paused and, looking down at the clean wood floor, said gently, ‘Mrs Cohen,’ he took her elbow, ‘there is one more thing I am going to ask you. Do you know what you are looking for? Because even if we find your birth mother, you may not get it.’

  She took his hand. How could she begin to explain all that was going on in her life right now? ‘A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do,’ was all she said.

  Corman, her driver, stood waiting in the tiny reception area. ‘It was just half an hour,’ he said ‘Should I have come in?’ She shook her head and let him help her down the stairs and into the car. Defina, as usual, was right. Karen needed all the help she could get.