Olivia

by Judith Rossner

  I had a feeling I would never see any money from a return ticket. So did he. He asked me a few questions about what things cost in New York. I explained about kids and clothes, and he said he would wire me a thousand dollars for everything she needed, aside from the monthly sum. I would give her what she needed from this. When it was used up, I would tell him and he’d send me more.

  “Oh, Angelo, that’s wonderful!” I breathed into the phone. “That will make everything—”

  “I suggest,” he said, “you do not tell her what you get from me. Whatever you tell her you have, she will want.”

  I was silent. It was so mean. Gratuitous. On the other hand, he hadn’t required pressure to be generous.

  I thanked him, told him I was glad he was so comfortable. I understood Annunciata was pregnant and hoped she was doing well.

  “She is a saint,” Angelo said.

  The suggestion being, I suppose, that saints always did well, rather than just doing good.

  “Well,” I said lamely, “that’s wonderful. I’m really glad you’re so . . .” Comfortable? Happy? “I’m really glad.”

  Livvy had come back out of her room and I felt vaguely guilty at being so friendly with her father. I told him I would let him know how we were doing, then motioned to ask if Livvy wished to speak to him again.

  She shook her head.

  I smiled as I hung up. “Well, your father’s going to send us money so you can get some of the clothes you want. He was very nice about it.”

  “How much will he send me?”

  “He’ll send it to me, love.” Why was I uneasy? “You know, I’ll deposit it in my account. And in the meantime, if you need to use my American Express card . . .”

  “How much?” she repeated.

  “Five hundred, for now.” The lie came as though I’d prepared it. “That’s in addition to, you know, your allowance.”

  Her lip curled in a way I’d not previously seen.

  I smiled. “That’s a lot of money, Liv. Remember, you won’t even need carfare to get to school. I think you’ll be able to buy everything you need.”

  No matter how good a school Humanities was, it wasn’t going to be full of kids with seven pair of Levi’s. I had to hope she would make some new friends who didn’t think the sun rose and set over Brooks Brothers. I’d never been particularly taken with Marsha, a large, lumpy sort of a girl, slow in body if fast in wit, neither pretty nor pleasant. I couldn’t tell how much of my reaction to her could be blamed on jealousy that she’d taken Liv away so thoroughly and so fast. But Livvy had been happier when she did have a good friend, and for all I knew, at her new school she’d have friends and be friendly to me as well. At least once the financial negotiations were finished. (They’re never finished.)

  School began. My queries about it were met with shrugs, “All rights,” and lists of what was still needed. But she did appear to be doing a lot of homework. I had a full load of classes that fall and she made no move to help with any household chores. Larry and Beatrice suggested I write down everything that needed to be done and discuss the division of labor with her. I told her that she could change her clothes as often as she wished, but I’d need help with the washing and ironing. This was before the time when the torn and bedraggled look had become de rigueur, and she’d begun to change her clothes every time she left the house. She reluctantly agreed that the chores should be divided between us. She would do the laundry, which had to be taken to a laundromat a couple of blocks away, once a week. She would be responsible for her own room. I would be responsible for the rest of the apartment as well as the kitchen chores, including, of course, the massive job of cleaning and straightening after each class.

  I gave her a schedule of my classes: one each evening at six, Monday to Thursday, two on weekday mornings at ten, which wouldn’t affect her, and three in the afternoon, between two and five. During those times, she’d have to be quiet in her comings and goings, couldn’t have friends around or use the kitchen or living room, and so on. She made no comment. I don’t know what she did with the schedule, but for a while we had no problems with it.

  What I had a problem with was never seeing her for more than ten or twenty minutes at a time and feeling, then, an unbreachable distance between us. If we shared dinner (that is to say, if we sat at the same table; she seldom ate anything but chops or cheeseburgers with Coke), she usually brought a book to the table. If I tried to talk, she said she was studying. I told myself she was really terribly busy learning the city, starting a new school, making friends, and so on, but I still felt deprived. Beatrice and Larry said that very few fourteen-year-olds were even civil to their parents, and probably the less I saw of her the better, but surely I should have a grace period to make up for the four years when I hadn’t seen her at all. A longing remark to this effect one day—I think I said I didn’t see her much more now than I had when she was in Rome—brought forth such an extraordinary response, “Are you saying you wish I’d never come?” that I was afraid to complain anymore.

  Fortunately, I became absorbed in my classes, in getting to know the new people, reacquainting myself with the old. The class with Lance and Perry had reconstituted itself. Lance had informed me that I should be flattered; they’d all applied elsewhere last year and only come to me when the other classes were full. This year, they’d decided to stay with me. We were going to work on some fairly elaborate sauces. The Westport group had asked for a course in bread-baking. I’d consented with the understanding that I would be learning much of it along with them. They’d loved the idea.

  The weather was still warm, but when I asked Livvy about going to Westport for the last weekend of September, she said there was no way. She was picking up American lingo as though it were sold at Brooks Brothers. “Dweebs” remained a favorite, although when I mentioned a couple of kids who occasionally spent a fall or winter weekend in Connecticut, the response was, “They suck.”

  “It’s going to be gorgeous weather,” I said cautiously.

  “I have a lot of homework,” she replied.

  “Can’t you do it up there?” I asked.

  “Not with the kids screaming.”

  I didn’t respond. There was only Max. Beatrice’s baby was due in a month. Occasionally Max’s friend came from down the street to play in the backyard.

  “Anyway, I have to do some shopping. Nothing fits me.”

  I remained silent.

  “Can I please just have the rest of the money?”

  I was startled. “All of it?”

  She shrugged. “Why not? It’s mine, isn’t it?”

  “Well, yes,” I said, “but your father gave it to me because, well, he wanted it to last for—”

  “He doesn’t trust me and you don’t, either.”

  “Of course I trust you,” I said. “But it’s a lot of money, and I’m not sure you should carry it around all at once. I mean . . .” I smiled. “What if Brooks Brothers goes out of style next week and you’ve spent it all?”

  She’d begun to grumble about her weight, but the one suggestion I’d made, that she switch from Coke to Diet Coke, had been met with the irritated response that Diet Coke tasted disgusting. When I said maybe she could get used to it, she walked out of the room. Now it took her a moment to understand that I’d made a sort of joke, then she was angry. Anything resembling a joke had begun to irritate her, while humor was the only way I could cope with many situations that were arising.

  She’d made at least one friend at school, a girl who asked if she wanted to go on a tour of the Times Square pinball machines. Pinball machines were this girl’s passion and she intended to write her first essay for English class about them.

  I said I didn’t think it was such a good idea, Times Square was pretty awful.

  “I’m talking about the daytime!” she’d argued. “Nobody wants to go at night.”

  “It’s pretty ugly, even in the daytime,” I said. And as she mustered her forces for all-out war, I added, with a
smile, “I’m afraid you’d rape somebody.”

  It took her a moment to get my feeble joke and then she exclaimed, “You’re always making fun of me!” and headed out of the apartment. “You’re always—” She couldn’t think of anything else I was always doing, but she decided she didn’t have to, she was already at the door and was able to open it and run without finishing her sentence. I made a mental note: No more jokes. Funny or un.

  When I finally met a new friend of Livvy’s, Mayumi Sakai, it was because Mayumi called one day when I was in the middle of a class and I apologized for being abrupt, said the class was just taking something off the stove, I’d have Livvy call when she came in. I don’t know what Livvy had told her, but Mayumi thought it was exciting to have a mother who did something besides shopping. Furthermore, Mayumi adored Italian food. Not only did she adore Italian food, but when she finally persuaded Livvy to let her come home and have me cook a meal for the two of them, Mayumi walked into the apartment, looked around, and said, “This is awesome! It’s like an artist’s loft in Soho!”

  Not only was I pleased, but it earned me a respite. If Livvy hadn’t been able to find anything good about me except that I was in America, Mayumi’s appreciation of my cooking skills, not to speak of my “artistic” home decoration, gave my daughter pause. There was no question in Mayumi’s mind that, given the choice, she would prefer our loft to her parents’ apartment in London Terrace, on Twenty-third Street. I did not ask myself why a Japanese girl who lived in London Terrace and went back to Japan every summer with her family was attending a fair-to-good public high school rather than one of the special public schools or a good private school, along with every other Japanese kid in Manhattan. I couldn’t afford to consider such matters. Mayumi told Livvy she’d swap her apartment for ours any day, and was delighted to be invited for dinner and even to sleep over. This had an excellent effect on my daughter, who consented to my having a phone conversation with Mrs. Sakai during which it became clear to each of us that it would be acceptable for her daughter to stay over at the other’s. Livvy began to show me tests on which she’d gotten v4’s, occasionally to consult me when she was writing a paper.

  I had been bought a respite in the soap opera called “The Gathering Storm,” and it was a while before I would have to notice further warnings.

  Our first crisis in this new period came because Livvy had gained weight and the jeans she’d bought at the beginning of the term didn’t fit her anymore. Three pair was the absolute minimum she needed unless I wanted her “to spend the rest of my life in the laundromat.” She settled for two, having spent every penny of the initial big lump, as Angelo had predicted she would. (By now I’d become expert in carrying out his advice to conceal what he was sending me.) I gave her the money for the two pair, but then she began obsessing about her weight, American style. With Italian-operatic variations. If she’d gained weight in New York, this was because she couldn’t stand the food I had in the house and “had to” eat the junk food that she’d gone for as though it were water in the desert. If I offered to stock whatever dietetic food she requested, she said it wouldn’t do any good because all the other stuff would still be around. That other stuff being the food I ate, served, and used in my classes and that she claimed to despise. Except that frequently one or another of the despised foods, the chunk of Reggiano I was never without, or leftovers from various dishes she’d professed not to care for, or ingredients like the Italian sausages and hams I used bits of in various dishes, disappeared from the refrigerator, so that I’d go to get one of them for a class and find that it wasn’t there. I took to hiding things among the greens in the vegetable bin so I’d have them when I needed them.

  Mayumi was about a size one-and-a-half. This was because her parents served mostly fish and rice and other healthy things. But if I broiled some fish for dinner and served it with rice, Livvy would barely touch it, then later she’d go out and return with a grocery store’s paper bag full of Fritos and other junk she’d ordered me not to stock. If our eyes met, she’d say she couldn’t help it if dinner was inedible. At all times when my kitchen wasn’t responsible for her difficulties, my refusing her enough money to buy clothes that fit was. She was so convinced and so convincing with each new argument that I’m sure if Angelo hadn’t warned me, his checks would have been gone within minutes of coming in each month. Once or twice I almost called him to talk about her, see if he could say something as helpful as that had been, but then, I would hear her saying, “He beats me,” and decide against it. As it was, I just noted what he sent and what I gave her, so the record would be there when she was certain she hadn’t spent that much money.

  In December we had the first of these battles that was more than a skirmish. In January she informed me that she had gotten a baby-sitting job through the school’s employment office. The children’s father was a doctor at Beth Israel Hospital. She would baby-sit one evening during the week, and then most Saturday nights, with an occasional switch to Friday or Sunday. The family lived nearby and she would be walked home or put in a cab. There was a housekeeper who remained with the children until six each night but was no longer willing to stay later. Livvy had had to promise to be available those nights when they wanted her.

  I was startled and asked the wrong question.

  “Do you like children enough to do that sort of thing?”

  She flushed, but held her ground.

  “They’re older, they’re eight and nine. And they’re not brats!”

  No need to go into who was a brat.

  She would be earning five dollars an hour, she proudly informed me, and would be able to buy what she needed for herself.

  Indeed. I whistled. “That’s wonderful, Livvy. I’m proud of you.”

  She watched my face as though there might be some hedge to what I was saying, but could identify nothing.

  And the arrangement seemed to work. Not just because she was earning money for what she wanted, but because when she was home, she wasn’t always straining to get something from me she couldn’t have. The children were well-behaved, not at all the kind of kid who was raised in my family. The doctor was swell. (She never talked about Mrs. Klein unless I asked. Mrs. Klein had some kind of big job uptown; Livvy wasn’t sure what it was but thought she made a lot of money. She didn’t seem to pay much attention to the kids.)

  I had their number on the bulletin board, along with unpaid bills and recipes I hadn’t filed yet, but it was understood I would call Livvy only in an emergency. I didn’t have emergencies, but I still missed her, at least I missed the daughter I’d left in Italy. Or someone.

  There were tenants on the five other floors in my building, some with children. I’d never exchanged more than a hello with any of them, the exception being a little boy I’d helped when he couldn’t fasten the air pump to his bicycle tire. The mother was a pretty blonde, the father a slightly shaggy New York Jew. There also were two girls. The one time the younger and friendlier girl had volunteered shyly that my apartment smelled wonderful, and I’d asked if she and her sister would like some of the cookies I’d just baked, they’d chorused, “No, thank you,” in a way that reminded me: In the New York I’d returned to, children were trained to reject all offers from strangers.

  Like it or not, I was a stranger.

  Shortly after the time I’d helped the little boy with his tire pump, his father came down the steps as I was opening the top lock to my apartment. We exchanged nods. I turned back to the second lock.

  He said, “I appreciate your helping my kid. I’m Leon Klein.”

  I said, “Caroline Ferrante. It was a pleasure. Ciao.”

  I was late preparing for a class and I went in and closed the door behind me, a move which turned out to be fortuitous in terms of Leon’s loosening up even enough to allow his children to talk to me.

  The next time we spoke it was because my apartment smelled especially wonderful. Most particularly, it smelled of chicken soup. I’d had a request from
Evelyn Fox, whom I’d been seeing occasionally, to make a soup from Escoffier I’d done for her once before, Consommé Favori, which began with chicken soup and went on to artichoke bottoms and hazelnuts, among other things. It was Saturday morning at about eleven, the broth was finished, and I was going out to do what remained of my shopping. As I closed the door behind me, Leon and the two younger kids had unchained their bikes from the well under the staircase and were heading for the front door. He held the door for them, then I held it for him. He apologized for holding me up. I said it was no problem. He thanked me, then asked why my apartment smelled wonderful.

  I smiled. “Chicken soup.”

  “You mean you’re always cooking chicken soup?” he asked, apparently serious.

  “No,” I said. “I mean, I teach cooking, and I’m usually cooking when I’m home.”

  He moved out his bike and I came out after him.

  “I don’t suppose you make matzo balls,” he said.

  “Well,” I said, smiling, “if matzo balls by any other name . . .”

  He looked puzzled.

  “I mean,” I said, “the closest thing was gnocchi where I did most of my cooking, but I . . .” The children were getting impatient and he still looked as though I were speaking Chinese. “I’ll tell you what. Sometime I’ll make real matzo balls and I’ll invite you all down.”

  “You will?” He sounded as though I’d offered him conclusive proof of Santa Claus. A Santa Claus with matzo balls. Well, almost conclusive. He’d believe it when he tasted them.

  “Sure,” I said. Then, when he didn’t move, probably because he was going through one of his frequent Fear of Giving Hope to Single Woman moments, I added, “How about lunch next Saturday?”

  “What time?” he finally asked.

  “As late as the kids can handle it.”

  “One o’clock?”

  “Fine. See you then.”