“Do I have to tell Bob to call you?”
“If they want to come downtown, I’ll make dinner here.” In my own kitchen, cooking, I’d be in some sort of control.
“I don’t know if I can get them to schlep all the way down there,” he said, as though I were at the South Pole. But he called again a few minutes later to tell me they’d do it.
Normally I’d have started planning what I would make for this important dinner, but I couldn’t think about food now. Normally I’d have called Leon to tell him that Livvy had run away and gotten married instead of having an abortion, but I was afraid to do that. If he were to pull one of his lines that suggested I could have done something to prevent her if I’d only tried harder, I didn’t know what I might say to him, and I needed him too badly to risk antagonizing him right now.
If only we were married! He’d said we would talk about getting married when this business with Olivia was over, but it was when “business” with your kids or anyone was going on that you most needed to be contained in the way that the idea of marriage contained you, not to feel that you were floating loose, without custom to fall back on, a frame to hold you. Did the Torah have an index with items like Pregnancy-Daughter: Wanted; Unwanted; Married; Unmarried; Mother should do? Three candles for wanted, one candle for unwanted. Must not under any circumstances say or do the following.
I exchanged the skirt and stockings I’d put on—Could it possibly have been an hour or two ago that I’d thought I was accompanying my daughter to the hospital?—for jeans, found my parka and shoulder bag, and left the house without a destination. I would have liked to talk to my parents but I wasn’t supposed to do that. I’d told Leon about her pregnancy when I wasn’t supposed to, and I was sorry I’d even done that. It certainly hadn’t helped anyone. Normally I had a grocery list in my head. The list wasn’t there now. Not that it mattered. I’d shop after I decided what to make for the TV people. I headed south on Sixth Avenue, anyway. There was nothing to the north except the flower district, and I was in no mood for flowers.
At Waverly Place, I walked east, toward Washington Square Park. It was a beautiful day, very warm for February. Below Twelfth Street, the sidewalks were full of Village residents, shopping, strolling with dogs, pushing carriages. Some people wore sweaters instead of coats. Two fully grown males in rubberized tights whizzed by on roller skates. At the park I gravitated toward an area where mothers sat with their babies in carriages.
My daughter was going to be a mother. With a baby in a carriage. She was seventeen years old and wanted to go to college more than she wanted anything else I’d been able to discern.
I was going to be a grandmother. I was thirty-seven and had recently wished to be pregnant.
The park was full of mothers with prams and strollers and students with backpacks. Ahead of me, a tall, slender woman with a head of long, wavy gray hair wheeled a carriage, looked for a place to settle. She hesitated near a space at the end of a bench occupied by two young mothers. They glanced at her and turned back to the others as though she were of some other species. Gray panthers were one thing, gray mothers another. I’d had one or two gray hairs when they’d first bleached me blonde. For all I knew . . . Maybe I’d have to keep my hair blonde just to walk Livvy’s baby.
May I join you on the bench, ladies?
Certainly. What’s your baby’s name?
Actually, she’s not my baby, she’s my daughter’s.
If that scenario felt peculiar, I might try to picture what another one would have been like:
Actually, one is mine, the other is my daughter’s.
It sounded like something a Rick Landy might come up with. Maybe Rick Landy looked like Sheldon except his hair was bleached blond.
Wait a minute. The gray-haired woman was pausing at a bench that was occupied by women with carriages, and a couple of the women had gray hair! In fact, none of them looked like a child bride. I stopped short, settled in a space at the end of one bench, listened to the conversation for a while. These were no nannies I was hearing; these were middle-class women, academics, doubtless, some of them, and it was their own babies they were wheeling, playing with, talking to in between their conversations with one another.
What do you have to say to that, Leon? This is the age that women are having children at now. It’s not like when we were getting out of school.
What Leon would have to say was that women could have their children whenever they felt like it, he just wasn’t becoming a father to one more. I felt a surge of anger at Leon for not wanting to marry me, and not wanting me to have his baby, but I quickly talked myself out of it, the second part, anyway. Actually it was a damned good thing I wasn’t pregnant. There was no way Livvy was going to grow up so much in six or seven months as not to need a lot of help with her baby. If I was a little bit old, by the old standards, to be a baby’s mother, and very young, for the new-career-woman-middle-class, to be a grandmother, I might, in a way, have the best of both worlds. I thought of the delight my parents had taken in Livvy, the intense pleasure they found now in Rebecca and Max. What was the old saw? Why do grandparents and grandchildren love each other? Answer: Because you always love an enemy’s enemy. Maybe Livvy and I could turn a difficult situation into something reasonable. Pleasurable. Her grades would easily get her into NYU or Columbia at some point. Why shouldn’t I stay with her baby when she was ready to go back? Leon might not like my new idea of full participation in Livvy’s motherhood much more than he liked the idea of my having a baby, but at the moment I couldn’t consider Leon’s feelings. In fact, I would have to make myself financially secure so I didn’t need to rely on Leon.
I’d have to try hard to think of ideas Bob Kupferman would like. I could easily imagine preparing a TV show once a week as I helped in a substantial way with Livvy’s baby. While when I tried to picture babysitting and giving classes, it felt too much like cooking in a restaurant and taking care of a young child.
Whether I had a network show or a cable show or no show at all, I wasn’t going to make the mistakes with Livvy’s baby that I’d made with her. Not only would I baby-sit as much as they needed me to, but I’d play with her (or him) as much as they wanted me to, bake cookies as I had with Leon’s kids but not with Livvy. The upstairs-downstairs arrangement, if it lasted, might be made in heaven, in terms of my being available when Livvy needed me to take care of my grandchild. Granddaughter, as I kept thinking of the baby, although I told myself I shouldn’t do that.
The idea of having a tiny baby around after all, the thought that I might redeem myself with my grandchild for the sins, real and imagined, visited upon my child, cast Livvy’s pregnancy in a light so different that I had to remind myself that whether or not there were pleasures attached to it for me, it wasn’t good for her. Help or no, she wasn’t ready to be a mother. There was still time for an easy abortion, and no matter what fantasies I might have about a marvelous little creature in the house, if there was a chance of discouraging her from carrying this baby to term, that was what I had to do.
As far as I could tell, Livvy hadn’t spoken to her girlfriends in recent weeks. Shevaun seemed to have disappeared from her life some time back. When I’d asked about Shevaun, Livvy had told me, lips set, that the other girl had gotten early admission to Yale, as though early admission to anything made her ineligible for friendship. Mayumi, Livvy’s closest friend, had disappeared since the New Year’s party. Mrs. Sakai had pretended not to see me on Open School Night. My suspicion was that Mayumi knew or suspected that Livvy was pregnant.
At home, I listened to my machine. No message from Livvy. I had a glass of red wine with lunch, almost unheard of (for me) in New York. I went through a few cookbooks, finally selecting a Cajun Seafood Gumbo with Andouille Smoked Sausage from the unreformed Paul Prudhomme, whose ingredients usually horrified me so that I didn’t even read his recipes. He never used a stick of butter when two sticks could do. You’d get to the end of some recipe with extremely rich components—cups of
heavy cream were standard—and find it called for an additional sauce with another whole set of extraordinary ingredients. (When I open the book at random now, looking for an example, I find Fish with Pecan Butter Sauce and Meunière Sauce.) I decided to go all the way with Prudhomme: Artichokes Prudhomme, if I could find artichokes in the market, Cajun Seafood Gumbo, Chocolate Pecan Pralines.
It was just past one o’clock and I felt as though I’d been up for a day and a half. Maybe I’d do the shopping, or at least buy everything but the seafood now, and get it over with. That way I’d be prepared for . . . for what? I had no idea, I just knew that I needed to feel prepared.
Leon called to ask if “the procedure” had gone all right.
I said, “They got married.”
He yelped as though he’d been cut.
I said, “In Florida.”
“Oh, shit,” he finally said. “I’m sorry. I never . . . You want to go out and get drunk?”
“Not really. Maybe we can have a quiet dinner and get drunk down here. The two of us.”
I didn’t want to tell even an apologetic Leon that I felt uncomfortable about leaving the house.
He said that’d be fine, if it was what I wanted.
“Any special requests?” I asked because I didn’t want him to get off the phone and had to shop now for both nights.
“Whatever you feel like doing.”
Love’s first flush having passed, Leon’s interest in food was once again confined to eating it.
I decided to do a simple broiled chicken with potatoes and green vegetables. I hardly ever cooked rice; Leon didn’t care for it, except with Chinese food.
I mustn’t let myself think about Angelo. Thank God Livvy hadn’t wanted him to know. I could hear him cursing me out with a vehemence suggesting that it was I, rather than Pablo, who had gotten his daughter pregnant.
Leon arrived late and dog-tired, fell asleep on the near sofa after briefly commiserating with me. I left the food in the oven on low and tried to concentrate on notes that might be useful for the meeting with Rick. After a while, half-awake and amorous, Leon held out a hand, signaling me to come to his sofa. I sat at its edge, but I wouldn’t let him pull me down.
He smiled, his eyes still closed.
“I thought you said she was in Florida.”
“She was when she called,” I said. “I don’t know where she is now.”
He was aroused, so he didn’t get irritable, just said something cute about how she couldn’t possibly walk that fast, but let’s go into the bedroom, just in case. I let him walk me in there and pull me down to the bed, where I did an imitation of a large fish being boned as he undressed me, pulled off his own clothes, and made love to me (I could feel him checking for my diaphragm). Then we both fell asleep, I so soundly that he had difficulty rousing me when he awakened, very hungry, at ten o’clock.
We dressed. I reheated the vegetables, left the chicken just warm, brought them to the table along with some bread and red wine.
“Even if they’re married,” he said, “she can still have an abortion.”
“It doesn’t matter that she can have one, if she doesn’t want it.”
“What is it, the same shit?”
“It’s not shit, Leon,” I said. “I mean, it might be shit when the Church is doing it, but in her mind it’s . . . It’s real. Frightening. She’s got a baby in there and she’s afraid to kill it.”
“If you talk to her that way, no wonder she’s—”
“Goddamn it!” I shouted. “I don’t talk to her that way, and will you please get it out of your head—”
“All right, all right,” he said, “I’m sorry.”
But we ate in an unfriendly silence until the phone rang. It was Livvy.
“Sweetheart! Where are you?”
There was a pause, as though she had to register that I was still affectionate. Then she said, “On Ninth Avenue. I couldn’t sleep in Florida.”
“Are you coming home?”
“Can we?”
“Of course you can. Have you eaten? Are you hungry?”
She said, “I don’t know.” And hung up.
“She sounded about three years old, and very frightened,” I told Leon.
He said, “She’s right to be frightened. She’s taking on something she can’t handle.”
There it was again, the anger that came on the subject of pregnancy more readily than on any other. I should suggest that he go upstairs before they arrived. Except I wanted his help. I wanted him to play the tough guy, as I could not with my daughter. I began to clear the dishes. He asked if I wanted him to stay and I said I did. Then I remembered.
“You’re not supposed to know she’s pregnant.”
He pointed out that the rules should have changed when she went to Florida.
The doorbell rang. I opened the door. Livvy, so exhausted that she could barely keep her eyes open, said, “I forgot my keys!” and burst into tears.
I hugged her, took her arm, led her in. Pablo hesitated. I told him to come in, too. She was shivering in a cotton dress under the jacket of his suit. He wore a white shirt, a tie, the suit pants. He carried two overnight bags, set them down just inside the door.
“It’s so good to have you back,” I said.
She searched my face for some expression, then held up her hand to show me her gold wedding band.
I said, “Congratulations.”
Nobody knew what to do next. Pablo saw Leon at the table, said hello. Leon nodded. He wasn’t going to do any of this congratulations shit. Livvy wouldn’t look at him; she understood that he knew.
“Come,” I said. “Sit down. There’s some chicken. Other stuff. Maybe you’d like some wine. Then you can go to sleep. You must be exhausted.”
They went to wash as I reset the table, sliced what was left off the chicken carcass, put back the bread, brought out some cheese, made a salad. Everyone was uneasy. I brought out another bottle of wine and opened it.
Leon said he’d only been in Miami once, for a convention, asked what it was like now.
Pablo mumbled that they hadn’t really seen much of Miami.
I poured four glasses of wine.
“To the Cruzes,” I said, raising my glass. “I wish you all the best in the world.”
“I’m keeping my own name,” Livvy said. “I’m not telling anyone. I’ll take off my ring before I go to school tomorrow. I’m going to finish out the term.”
“How will you manage that?” Leon asked as she began to eat ravenously, Pablo in a more deliberate manner.
“Nine months is the end of August. I’ll wear black jeans. That’s what a lot of the girls wear all the time anyway.”
Doubtless it would be easier for her to get away with it at Humanities than it would have been in a school where all the teachers knew what a pregnant teenager looked like.
“And I’m going on a diet. From tonight on, I’m only eating diet food.”
Pablo’s eyes met mine; he looked away. A moment later, Livvy announced that she was going to bed, she was more exhausted than she’d ever been in her whole life. She grabbed a piece of chicken and a fresh napkin and fled to her room.
Pablo poured the rest of the red wine into his glass.
I looked at Leon helplessly.
“Do you think,” he asked Pablo, “that she’s ready to have a baby? I don’t see any sign that she wants it even a little.”
Pablo shrugged. “The sign is, we made it.”
“Being able to make it isn’t the same thing as being able to take care of it.”
“She’ll learn. I’ll help her. My mother’ll help her.”
“Doesn’t your mother work most of the day?” I asked.
He finished the wine in the glass, looked at me levelly. He didn’t look at Leon again at any point.
“In my family, we’re Catholic. We don’t believe in . . . you know . . .” He had to force himself to say the word. “Abortions.”
I smiled. “I don’t be
lieve in abortions. I mean, not the way you believe in God. Or democracy. It’s a medical procedure. It should be done if someone really needs it. If she’s pregnant and she’s too young to take care of a baby. If she feels she can’t carry a baby inside her for nine months and gives it away to some stranger, something that’s part of her. Whatever the reason.”
“Olivia’s a Catholic, too.”
“She never goes to church.”
He shrugged. “Me, neither. That don’t mean, doesn’t mean we’re not Catholic.”
“I can understand that.”
“You can?” He wasn’t sure I meant it.
I nodded.
“She didn’t want to do it,” he said earnestly. “It wasn’t just me. She was gonna do it because you wanted her to, and then she couldn’t.”
“All right,” I sighed. “We won’t talk about it anymore if—”
“Wait a minute,” Leon said, “I’m confused. This guy knocks up your teenager and he doesn’t want to talk about it, so you’re not going to talk about it?”
Pablo stood up angrily. “I didn’t knock her up. I love her!”
“That has nothing to do with it,” Leon said.
“It has plenty to do with it,” Pablo said. “I married her.”
“You think you were doing her a favor?” Leon asked, his voice raised. “She didn’t want to get married. She wanted to go to college.”
The door to Livvy’s room opened. She leaned against the archway, looking about twelve years old in a white flannel nightgown I’d lent her for times when there wasn’t enough heat, watching the two of them as though she could really enjoy this movie if only she had some popcorn.
Pablo struggled with himself to be polite, won only to the extent that he kept his voice down as he said, not without a certain smugness, “In our religion, you don’t kill a baby because you want to go to college.”
“You’re not killing a baby, dammit!” Leon shouted. “You’re killing an embryo. It’s not the same thing. And sometimes you’re saving the mother’s life when you do it!” He calmed down slightly, went from furious to hostile. “I guess that’s one of the things I like about being a Jew. In Jewish law, the mother’s life takes precedence over an unborn, an unformed, child’s. Most people nowadays say what they mean by ‘the mother’s life’ is what’s healthy for the mother. And it’s not healthy for this young girl to have a baby!”
Olivia Page 31
