Hot Springs

by Geoffrey Becker

  She found her way back to the Linda Vista apartments, turning in just after the bouquet of colorful balloons tied to the sign that advertised First Month Free!, negotiated the speed bumps in the asphalt and circled around to the back, past the recycling station, to 13F. It was like being a bee and knowing which square of the honeycomb was yours. Each building was exactly the same light-colored fake adobe, with metal stairs outside that thunked as you climbed them. Sprinklers embedded in the ground came on and off unpredictably in a weak attempt at keeping the lawn areas between the sidewalks green.

  “You want to watch some TV, or go back out by the pool?” she asked Emily, once they were back inside. She had been surprised by how characterless Gillian’s apartment was, like a hotel room. If this was life as a professional person, Gillian could have it. She worked for some data company these days, and on weekends she golfed. There were clubs in the hall closet, along with a mostly deflated silvery heart-shaped balloon that said Be My Valentine! on it, with a blue ribbon tied to the end. Gillian’s boyfriend, Kirk, was a systems consultant, whatever that meant. Bernice suspected it meant he ironed his jeans.

  Emily stiffened slightly, as if considering a complicated question she’d been asked, then threw up on the white living-room carpet.

  “Damnit,” said Bernice. She hesitated between the urgency of getting to the child and that of getting to the paper-towel dispenser in the kitchen, then decided on the dispenser. She tore about fifteen sheets off and hurried over, handing a big hunk to Emily and pressing the rest onto the soft pile in front of her. It stunk and was hot under her hand, but there wasn’t much substance to it—Emily’s diet had consisted almost entirely of pasta with butter on it, peanut butter on Saltines, water, and an occasional slice of American cheese. “She likes the beige foods,” Landis had commented.

  Bernice turned her attention to Emily, whose face was hot and devoid of color. “Do you want to lie down, sweetie?” she asked. “What happened?”

  “I don’t feel good,” she said.

  “Well, I guess that’s pretty clear. Couldn’t you at least have tried for the toilet? This isn’t our house. We’re guests here, and we need to be the kind of guests that people are happy to have around, because we don’t know how long we might need to stay.”

  “I don’t want to stay here,” said Emily.

  “Not permanently. Permanently we’ll be someplace really nice, where you can have your own room just like you’re used to, and Mommy can have a nice work space to do art.” As she was saying it, it occurred to her that the vision she’d had all along for them was basically the Hardings’ house, only without the Hardings in it. A modern house with all the amenities and high ceilings and a mountain view, with a garage big enough for a workbench and fireplaces on both floors. It was pathetic. They’d never live even remotely that way. Instead, it was going to be more trailer parks, almost certainly. She hated Landis for letting her count on him and then running. She hated herself for being so incompetent that she couldn’t even manage to buy her own daughter a pint of ice cream without getting hauled out of the store.

  “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego,” said Emily.

  “What. What is it?”

  “Went into the fiery furnace. But they praised the Lord and they didn’t get burned up.”

  “You’re not in the fiery furnace, so you don’t have to praise anyone. Don’t make me have to hire one of those deprogrammers.”

  At this, Emily suddenly looked as if she might cry, and Bernice, seized by love for her, held out her arms. She hugged her tight against her, felt as if she might never be able to let go, as if she were holding on to herself as much as another person. Finally, she picked her up and carried her into the small extra bedroom they were sharing, with its futon and the desk with Gillian’s fax machine. She laid her down on the blue comforter and pulled a light blanket over her, gave her a couple of stuffed animals for company.

  “I’m going out to work more on that carpet,” she said. “You take a nap, all right?”

  Emily nodded. “I think I should have a new name,” she said.

  “You do?”

  “So they can’t find me.”

  “Who?”

  “Whoever it is who might come.”

  “But you’ll still look the same.”

  “But I won’t be. I’ll be Pearl.”

  “Your new name is going to be Pearl?”

  She nodded again.

  “I don’t know if I like it. It’s a little unusual.” But she had to admit, changing names wasn’t a bad idea. She might even want to change her own. “Can we think about it?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “We’ll let it sit for a while, and then if it still seems like a good idea, we’ll go with it.” There was a boom box on the desk, and she turned it on to a station that had quiet jazz. “Is that OK?” she asked.

  “I like Christian music,” Emily said. She’d said this in the car, too. Bernice remembered the mismatch of the Hardings’ tastes: David blasted loud rock in his SUV, sometimes sitting in the driveway when he returned from work until whatever inane praise song was on finished; Tessa practiced Mozart on the piano in the dining room every evening.

  “I’ll bet you do.” She played with the dial until she found a country station, which she figured was a reasonable compromise. She turned the volume way down until it was just a twangy murmur, kissed Emily, then went back out to the living room to see how the carpet was looking.

  “I bought more spaghetti. It was all I could think of.” Gillian put the bags she was carrying down in the kitchen. Her eyes were puffy and dark, her shoulder-length hair limp and streaky-blonde. She wore a pale pink suit with a low-cut, white blouse underneath it, which contrasted with her tan skin. Gillian was Bernice’s one remaining friend from her time in Atlanta. The two had met on karaoke night at Apex, a Virginia Highland neighborhood bar where Bernice had made herself a regular and where they never carded. Gillian had just been laid off by Delta. Thinking she looked sad, Bernice had persuaded the bartender to buy her a free drink, then delivered it to Gillian herself saying brightly, “Who died?” They’d gotten drunk on gin and tonics and sung the Styx song “Sail Away” together, bringing an audience of thirty to its feet cheering when it was over. Despite the fact that Gillian was seven years older, they had become tight as sisters, but then Gillian had left for the Southwest. Bernice understood it was not about her, but she’d still felt abandoned.

  Bernice stood and turned off the TV. “Great. Our fave. Something wrong?”

  “I’m dumped. By e-mail, no less.” She started putting things away. The bracelets on her wrists jangled as she worked.

  “That’s cowardly.”

  “Ungrateful bastard.” She examined a can of salmon. “Why did I buy this? I’ll never eat it. Here”—she held it out—“you take it.”

  “Take it where?” said Bernice.

  “I don’t even like salmon. He likes salmon. I just pretended I did. And I pretended so long that I apparently forgot. I forgot.”

  “Throw it out. Donate it to charity. It’s just a can of salmon.”

  “No, no, don’t you see? It’s a symbol of how pathetic I am.”

  “You’re not pathetic. You have a wonderful life here. I’m impressed.” Bernice looked at the can, which was green with pink writing. “I’m sure he’s not good enough for you. And he’s obviously stupid.”

  “He isn’t—he isn’t stupid. He makes seventy thousand dollars a year, and he plays guitar in a band. He’s really talented.” She took the empty grocery bags and balled them up, then deposited them in the trash.

  “Why do boys all think they have to be in bands? Does the world need all these bands? It’s like, just in case you thought they were only Peter Parker, they want you to know they’re really Spiderman.” Bernice sat on the floor. “I nearly got hauled off to the pokey today.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I made a scene at Albertsons. A lady started giving me shit about Em
ily, and I lost it.”

  Gillian laughed. She took off her jacket and went around the kitchen divider and into the small living room, where she sank down onto the sofa and kicked off her shoes. “God, she is such a cute kid, Bernie. There’s so much of you in her.” Bernice hadn’t told her anything beyond the fact that she and Landis were relocating. “Are you guys going to get married, or what?”

  “Maybe. Probably.” Bernice wondered if she would ever even see Landis again. “The marriage issue hasn’t really come up.”

  Gillian massaged her feet. Her toenails were neatly painted magenta, even the smallest one, which was barely there. “I’ll never get married. I go through one doomed relationship after another. Before this, there was Paco, except it turned out he was cheating on me with two other women. Before that, there was Michael, who wore panties and liked to hang out in gay bars. He said he found it empowering to get hit on.”

  “What happened with him?”

  “Amazingly, it turned out he was gay.”

  “My last boyfriend before Landis was a Roosky,” Bernice said.

  “Oh,” said Gillian.

  Bernice realized that if Gillian had assumed Landis was Emily’s father, she probably no longer did. “In Miami Beach. Vaseline. Well, Vasily, technically. But he was a greasy guy. In the hospitality furniture business.” She hadn’t said his name aloud in months. His intense, light blue eyes had made him seem almost ethereally beautiful—a space alien. She’d drawn a number of portraits of him when she was taking classes up at Broward, and she knew every inch of his face. “Things were going just fine until his business partner showed up from Moscow. I guess Communists figure the whole sharing idea is supposed to extend to women, too.” She shuddered. That particular night was one she tried never to think about. They were drunk at his apartment, where she’d been spending almost all her time. She’d hit him; he’d hit her. She left with a black eye. Her boss, Pete, from the Mango Lounge, had let her stay on his sofa for a few nights because she was scared to be alone at her own place. “That was kind of my wake-up call. Life is short. No point in wasting it. Decide what you want and then go after it. That’s the one thing I learned from old Vaseline. Lie, cheat, steal—it doesn’t matter.”

  “So, you and Emily moved to Colorado to get away from him?”

  “Yeah. Sort of.”

  “Anyway, I don’t know what I want,” said Gillian. “That’s my whole problem.”

  “I know what I want,” said Bernice. “A margarita.”

  She made them each one, and they stepped out on the apartment’s tiny balcony which overlooked the parking lot. The sky was deepening in color, a pretty vermilion that reminded Bernice of the way the ocean sometimes looked at twilight. They sat on plastic furniture.

  “Tequila is the best,” said Gillian. “We should go down to Nogales this weekend and get some really good stuff, cheap, bring it back. Have you ever been to Mexico?” She brightened at the prospect. “We’ll bring Emily, and we’ll go down there and do some shopping! “

  “I should tell you what’s really happening,” Bernice said. “It’s not fair if I don’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I lied to you just now. We didn’t move to Colorado—I did. Emily wasn’t with me in Florida. She wasn’t with me until just a little while ago, in fact. I mean, she’s my daughter and all. It’s just that I gave her up for adoption.”

  “OK,” said Gillian.

  “I don’t think they know it’s me who’s got her. We didn’t leave a note.”

  “We?”

  “Right.”

  “Landis is in on this?”

  “Was. He may have had second thoughts.”

  “Bernice! Do these people have money?”

  “Oh, sure. Big house, two SUVs.”

  “Then they’ll hire a private investigator, at least. And they’ll find you. Did you sign papers? I mean, it’s all legal?”

  “I signed all kinds of stuff. But I’m allowed to change my mind. I don’t give a shit about some legal document—she’s my daughter.”

  “I don’t think you can change your mind.”

  “Well, I probably wasn’t supposed to wait five years.”

  “What were you thinking?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. She looked at her nails, which were bitten to the nubs. “A lot of stuff. I did nothing but think.”

  Gillian clasped her hands nervously, putting things together. “I can’t believe you did this. And I can’t believe you came here and got me involved.”

  “You’re hardly involved.”

  “Then why does it feel that way?”

  “I think of you as my friend—maybe my only real one. You get me. Hey. ‘I’m sailing away,’” Bernice sang. “Remember?”

  Three staccato coughs sounded in the guest room. “Is she OK?” said Gillian.

  “I should take her to a doctor, I guess. She’s got a temperature.”

  “How bad?”

  Bernice didn’t answer. She didn’t particularly want to know, and she had on purpose not yet bought a thermometer. She remembered temperature taking from her own childhood, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to go there yet with Emily. She could just hear the policewoman they’d have testifying against her in court: The child stated she was subjected to sexual abuse by the defendant, specifically in the form of anal penetration.

  “You don’t know the first thing about this, do you?” said Gillian.

  “Please, not you, too. I’ve only had a few days on the job. But I love her and she loves me, and we’re going to be fine, no matter what. We’ll figure it out as we go along.”

  “How? How will you figure it out?”

  “I’ve read books. What to Expect. Parenting for Dummies. I know plenty.”

  Gillian stood, then downed the remainder of her drink. “I’ll make us dinner,” she said, but Bernice knew she was saying something else. She didn’t want them there, and that was fine. Bernice didn’t want to be anyplace she wasn’t wanted.

  “Look, I’m sorry to unload all that on you when you’re having such a bad day.”

  “No, no, it’s fine,” said Gillian. “So, who is he?”

  “Who’s who?”

  “The father.”

  “Just some guy. It doesn’t matter. Ancient history.”

  “Vaseline?”

  “Jesus Christ, no. That’s recent. She’s five. I don’t know who he was, exactly. I have ideas.”

  “Wow.”

  “Wow, what? Wow, you slut? Wow, I’m sympathetic?”

  Gillian looked away. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “All right. Here’s what I think: You ask for this stuff. You like drama. You thrive on it.”

  There were people in your life who just knew you. You could pretend all you wanted, it didn’t make a difference. “You know what I’d like?” Bernice said. “For her to turn out to be an artist. It ought to run in the family, at least a little.”

  “I guess that depends on which family. Maybe you slept with a car salesman or something. Or a lawyer.”

  “I’m going to work on that. It’s one of the things I promised her.”

  “Bernice, you weren’t pregnant when I left Atlanta. Let’s see. You went out with that English piano player a couple of times, right? Him?”

  “You wouldn’t know the person. I just got careless, OK? And if I was hooking up a little too randomly, well, all right. I was. Did someone tell you that I had high self-esteem?”

  Gillian shook her head and straightened the tiny green table. “Promised her when?”

  “Back when it was just the two of us, when I was pregnant. We talked a lot. I did, anyway—she mostly kicked, floated around, and hiccuped. She was the only person I had to talk to.” Bernice stared out at the parking lot, imagined she saw flames rising from beyond the pale cars. What would make a child think she’d swallowed a demon? “I called her Chili Bean.”

  “I don’t get it. If you knew you were giving he
r up, what were you doing promising her things? Or naming her. You pick up a stray dog, you don’t name it. Name it and you’re keeping it.”

  “Chili Bean isn’t much of a name. But, yeah, that was one of the things. I promised her I’d come and get her when the time was right.”

  “Why didn’t you just keep her then? Bernice, you aren’t making sense.”

  “I couldn’t. That’s all.” How to tell her? How to explain the absolute certainty she’d had about herself? She’d known she would fail. She wasn’t like other people. Sure, she looked like them, she walked around in the world, bought things at stores, ate, made love. But there was something wrong with Bernice, something broken. She knew it. Vaseline had known it. You don’t cook! he’d shouted. You don’t clean. And now you won’t fuck?

  “What is it that you do for a living?” Bernice asked.

  “You know that. I work for DataSoft,” Gillian said.

  “But what do you do?”

  “It’s really not that interesting. We process information for various clients. A lot of it is health-industry stuff. It all depends on the particular contract.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Bernice. “I don’t. All these people in the world, all of them going to their jobs, sitting at desks—I don’t get what they do. I’ve had jobs, but they all involved delivering food to tables or mixing drinks. Seriously, I feel like there’s something I missed, something no one ever explained to me.”

  Gillian put her hands on the stucco wall of the balcony and looked out and away toward the next group of buildings. “Do you understand how all this makes me feel?”

  Bernice bit at her thumbnail. “You? No. Why should it make you feel any way at all?”

  “Some of us want nothing more than to have children. Even if it’s probably never going to happen, realistically. We still hope. But that’s not the point. It’s just—”