by Tish Cohen
“Me too,” said Lila. “I’d know you too.” It was true. Elisabeth hadn’t aged a day. Same wild hair, same round green eyes, same delicate jawline and wide mouth. Same year-round caramel skin, faintly dusted with freckles, that suggested she’d spent a year somewhere exotic and beachy. The lines at the corners of her eyes might have deepened but only enough to make her smile hit you harder in the gut.
Mumbling awkward observations about the weather and the traffic, they lowered themselves into the slatted wooden chairs and Lila realized, for the first time, there was a small girl at the table with eyes so blue they could have been snipped from the sky. Long, white-blond hair whipped around her face like blanched snakes, clearly a source of irritation as she kept reaching up to try to tame it. Near-black eyebrows and lashes seemed to belong to another person entirely. She wore what appeared to be a private school uniform: carefully pressed white blouse, gray cardigan, and pleated navy skirt. In between selfconsciously rearranging her silverware, and attempts to force her hair behind her ears, the child stole awestruck glances across the table at Lila.
Lila waited in silence for an introduction that didn’t come.
“I just can’t believe I’m here with you again,” said Elisabeth, pulling a package of Tylenol from her purse. She took two tablets and washed them down with ice water. “I think my whole system’s in shock. Delilah, sweetie, you look a little pale. You want a painkiller?”
“That’s how I always look: washed out and in need of ibuprofen.”
Elisabeth threw back her head and laughed. “You’re so funny.” She looked at the girl. “Kiki, didn’t I tell you Delilah was funny?” The girl appeared to be suppressing a smile and nodded.
Lila started to ask who she was, but Elisabeth interrupted. “It’s a lot to take in, I know. Did you say anything to your father?”
“No. But I will today. Dad and I don’t keep secrets from each other.” Except, of course, those pertaining to standing naked in front of strangers. Jesus, she thought, what a hypocrite I’ve become.
“You can tell him after breakfast. I just wanted a little time with you first.”
Lila nodded.
“We have so much to catch up on. It’s going to feel strange for a while, and that’s okay.”
“Yeah.”
“I worried about the coyotes all night. Can’t somebody get rid of them? It doesn’t seem safe to have them right in your yard like that.”
“You get used to them, living in the hills. And anyway, they were there first, right?”
“Still. I’m your mother. It’s been my job to worry since the day you were born.”
Lila stared at the tablecloth and willed herself not to comment about Elisabeth’s lengthy hiatus from said job description.
There were many times, in recent years, especially, when she had sat in front of the computer, heart thumping, went to Google, and dared herself to type in Elisabeth Lovett. It wasn’t a terribly uncommon name, and, not surprisingly, a good many matches came up. There was the realtor in Florida—she held the coveted www.elisabeth lovett.com URL, where she showcased glorious estates on the waterways in Fort Lauderdale and Hallandale. There was a musician, a self-published parenting author with an Amazon listing and shabby-looking Web site, and some swim meet stats for some Elisabeth Lovett from Ireland. On the first page of Elisabeth Lovetts, these were the regulars, though sometimes the order of their placement differed.
In all honesty, Lila really didn’t want to know what it was that had proven more worthy of her mother’s time and energy. It might hurt too much to learn her mother was hawking her sculptures and paintings to investors from Dubai. Or that she’d given up art entirely to raise her brood of quintuplets and was blogging her way through the toddler years. It was like Victor always said: Never ask a question unless you’re prepared to hear the answer.
Every time, she signed off before clicking through to page two.
Lila looked up at her mother, determined to say something innocuous. “You know what they say about worry. Not healthy. Good thing you took a decade off.”
Elisabeth took a moment to adjust her blowing hair and smiled brightly. Too brightly. Her eyes filled with tears she blinked away.
Lila couldn’t have felt worse. Answers, caloric sustenance, emotional distance. A waiter, in his late twenties and so striking he could only be an aspiring actor, came by to take their orders. RYAN, said his name tag. Elisabeth composed herself quickly, ordered hot chocolate for the girl and mimosas for the two of them. Ryan looked up from his pad and smiled at Lila. “I hate to be a drag, but I need to ask you for ID.”
Lila wrinkled her nose. “Don’t have it with me. Sorry.”
“She’s twenty-one,” said Elisabeth, reaching out to squeeze his forearm. “I’ll vouch for her. I am her mother.”
Ryan blushed, laughing. “Yeah, that might not meet California code…”
Elisabeth’s tongue darted out to wet her lips and she tilted her head, allowing her curls to fall forward and blow against her cheek. It was as if she’d turned up the charm factor to full. “It’s a very special occasion.”
“It’s okay, Mum. I’ll have orange juice.”
“Not so fast. Ryan looks like he’s the kind of guy who breaks a few rules now and then.”
“Argh…you’re killing me,” he said.
She was rubbing his wrist now, her dimples peeking in and out from behind her hair. “Come on, honey. It’s a quiet morning. Your boss will never know.”
“All right. But I’ll bring her OJ and if anyone asks, both mimosas were for you.”
One thing was certain, the woman knew how to get what she wanted. A gene that skipped over her daughter completely.
“You’re a darling,” she called after him.
As Ryan walked off, grinning like a man smitten, the little girl turned her face to the sky to analyze a growing bright spot in the clouds, where the sun was attempting to push its way through. With a determined brow, she set about undoing the buttons of her cardigan, pulled it off, folded it carefully, and draped it over the back of her chair. She tested the sweater’s stability and, once confident it wouldn’t slip to the ground, she turned around. The wind had fortuitously switched direction, which offered her busy hands a reprieve from hair taming. They sat, clasped but ready, on the edge of the table.
Lila could wait no longer. She leaned down close to the child. “What’s your name?”
Scorching red splotches flared up on the girl’s cheeks. With careful annunciation, in a voice more suitable to a fifty-nine-year-old smoker, she replied, “Kieran Scarlett Lovett-Moore. Scarlett is spelled with two T’s and Moore is my father’s last name, but he never sees me because Mummy says he ‘has a hard time appreciating the magic that is a child.’” She dabbed her mouth with the corner of her napkin before setting it back on her lap, then resumed studying Lila as if the older girl were made of rutted dinosaur bones held together with a series of supports and wires and Kieran was determined to make it worth the price of admission.
“How old are you?” asked Lila.
“Seven and two-thirds. As of yesterday.”
“Seven and two-thirds. Well. I guess it doesn’t get much closer than that to eight.”
Kieran stared at her with a solemn face. Lila noticed dark circles beneath the child’s eyes. “Actually, it does.”
Lila didn’t have a casual comeback for this. She turned to Elisabeth. “Are you watching her for a friend?”
“I guess it’s as good a time as any to tell you. You have a baby sister. Half sister, I suppose.”
Lila tried not to appear shocked. How had she missed this possibility? Probability. It had been so many years; it made perfect sense for Elisabeth to have wanted another child. She’d always been a young mother. Only twenty-three when she’d had Lila. Forty-three now.
It didn’t mean Lila had been replaced.
It didn’t.
“Kieran was born close to your birthday, Lila. November twenty-ninth. I t
ell you, it makes me feel young again to have one so small.”
Some sort of answer was required. Fast. “Wow. That’s fantastic. A sister.” She stared at Kieran’s folded sweater and did her best to appear thrilled. “This is good. Really good news.”
“I sleep in your old bed,” said Kieran. “Only I have new sheets because yours made me sweat.” She pushed her hair out of her face again and offered up a partial apology. “The daisies were pretty, but I need to sleep in cotton because it breathes.”
It was ridiculous how much this irritated Lila. She couldn’t fathom which was worse—the child taking over her bed or insulting her sheets or having rules about breathability. Stupid to be upset. What was the girl to do—sleep on a straw mat? The bed was sitting there, empty. And if the fibers didn’t breathe, they didn’t freaking breathe. But somehow, having those daisies back took on enormous importance. Lila turned to her mother. “Did you keep my sheets? I’d love to have them again.”
“I kept everything. Don’t you worry.”
Lila shot Kieran a look that meant, but hopefully didn’t convey, that she’d won. She cleared her throat. “So Kieran, do you go to school?”
“We call it grade three back home, but if I say that here, no one plays with me at recess. Now I call it third grade.”
“And now they play with you?”
“When the teacher makes them.” The girl turned her attention to her blouse and smoothed away nonexistent wrinkles. She added under her breath, “Which doesn’t even count.”
“It’s your own doing, Kieran,” said Elisabeth. “The teacher shouldn’t have to get involved. There are twenty-one kids in your class. If one child doesn’t want to play, you go play with someone else.”
“That’s what I tried to do on Friday, but they were playing on the big rock and that’s out of bounds.”
“For God’s sake, Kiki, be a child. Children need to imagine and dream. They need to wonder. Try things and fail. Even if it means stepping over the property line now and then.”
Kieran didn’t reply, as busy as she was with controlling her hair in the wind, which had circled back again. She reached into a small purse, pulled out a plastic headband and slid it onto her head. “I don’t want to get a detention.”
Lila chuckled. “I had so many detentions that any day I went home at three-fifteen felt like a half day.”
Kieran tried to hide her disapproval. She stared at her big sister a moment before croaking to her mother, “She doesn’t look anything like her pictures.”
Elisabeth explained. “Kieran was expecting blond hair.”
“I’ve been dying it for years.”
“I like it. Makes us look more like mother and daughter.”
Lila nodded.
“Your little sister has grown up surrounded by photos of you. The mystery of Delilah Blue. Always wanted to know your favorite foods. Your favorite color. Your favorite television shows.”
Lila looked at the child. “I definitely watched Barney— that big purple dinosaur. Is that still on?”
“I’m too old for Barney.”
“There were always people dropping by to chat about you,” Elisabeth continued. “At night we said prayers for you. I think you’re rather like a celebrity to her.” Elisabeth reached out and pulled Kieran’s short bangs out from beneath the plastic band. “Fix your bangs, sweetie.” Elisabeth smiled apologetically. “She has her father’s forehead.”
“Don’t.” Scowling, Kieran reached up and fingered her bangs.
“That’s it,” said Elisabeth. “Much prettier that way.”
Lila looked away.
A girl without a mother spends a lifetime watching other girls being mothered. On TV and at school, in the neighborhood and at the mall. She sees them being kissed. She sees them being grounded. Criticized. She sees the girls complain about curfews, become embarrassed when mothers trail into the school with forgotten lunch bags or homework binders. The girl without a mother of her own will always look away. That way the lie she will tell herself—that hers is a life that is freer—is easier to believe. That she is the lucky one.
Lila grinned. “Do you remember that time you got me safety scissors for school?”
“How could I forget? I woke up the next morning to find you’d cut off the top of my hair. I looked like a balding actuary.”
Laughing, Lila sipped from her water. “I felt so terrible, I cut off my own.”
“Yes, but yours wound up being cute with that teensy short fringe. It was edgy and Queen Street cool. Once I evened it off.”
Ryan returned with the drinks order, rested the tray on the table. “Here we go,” he said, setting the hot chocolate a safe distance from Kieran’s fingers, and the orange juice in front of Lila. As he set both mimosas down in front of Elisabeth, he added, “And two glasses of champagne for you. The juice is freshly squeezed.” He smiled at Kieran. “And don’t you go sneaking a sip, Missy. Then I really will get fired.”
The warning was totally unnecessary, Lila thought. Kieran getting into champagne would never happen before it was legal—if it happened at all. As Lila willed the waiter to leave, Elisabeth held out a camera and asked Ryan, “Would you mind taking our picture? I’d like to remember this day.”
“Sure.” He waited as they squatted beside Kieran’s chair and fumbled to put their arms around one another. Steadying the camera, Ryan asked, “So what’s the special occasion?”
A flash of light.
Elisabeth nodded toward Lila. “This is my eldest. I haven’t seen her since she was eight years old.”
“Well,” said Ryan. “This is a special day.”
“Most special day in my life,” said Elisabeth. When Ryan left, Elisabeth reached forward to pat Lila’s hand. “Did you see the way he looked at you just then? I think he has a crush on you.”
“On me? Try you.”
Elisabeth smiled to herself, sat back in her chair, and held this information close to her chest. “Don’t be ridiculous. He was definitely interested in you. He’s a real sweetheart, don’t you think?”
“No. Yeah, but I don’t really date much.”
“Seriously? Delilah, love is one of life’s great pleasures. It isn’t something you want to miss out on. Especially at your age.”
“I’m not good with guys.”
“What about girls? Surely you have some friends.”
“I was friendly with the girls at school. But that was kind of it. I don’t know. I guess I’m a bit of a loner.”
Elisabeth frowned. “So how do you spend your time?”
“I paint, draw, that kind of thing.”
“What sort of subjects?”
“People mostly.”
“So you study them rather than mix with them.”
Lila laughed. “I guess.”
“Well, I am relieved to hear you’re doing something with all that talent.”
A woman walked by with a Vanity Fair magazine in her arms and Lila smiled to herself. It hadn’t taken a double-page spread to bring back Elisabeth after all. “I am. It’s been kind of tight, moneywise, so I’m working as a model at L.A. Arts, where you found me, and absorbing, rather than earning, a fine arts degree. I have nothing better to do while standing in front of the class, so I take mental notes of everything the prof says while I’m there, then come home and get to work.”
“Brilliant. What a smart daughter I have. All you really want is the instruction. In all these years, no one has ever asked to see my degree. I graduated with honors too. I suppose all that work was a bit of a waste.”
“It’s not a waste. I remember your work being wonderful,” said Lila.
Elisabeth broke into a wide smile and ran her hand down her neck. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think my style is too…infantile. It isn’t expressive enough.”
“It is,” said Kieran. “You always say that but it’s not true.”
Elisabeth pressed thin lips together and studied the child. “See now, I can’t tell if you’re bein
g sincere.”
“I am.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Then I thank you.”
“So why come all the way out here now?” asked Lila.
“I just knew art would lead us to you. We came here about five months ago and rented a little apartment. The psychic said to head west, and I thought to myself you’d be college age now and it might be worth combing all the student galleries for your work. That’s how I came across the nude on Melrose.”
“Melrose? The L.A. Arts student gallery is on Beverly.”
“I know. I’d actually just been there a few days before. It was divine justice, I guess. I’d been checking out so many galleries and it was such a hot day. I almost didn’t go in because the place was so upscale; I figured your work couldn’t possibly be in there. Not yet. Not with you being only twenty.” She stopped. “I’m sorry, dear, if that sounds like an insult. It’s just reality. You’re still so young is what I mean.”
“No, I get it.”
“Good. Anyway, there was the nude. The gallery assistant said it was done by the owner’s niece in her first class at L.A. Arts and they were showing it just to please her. Wasn’t worth displaying if you ask me—the girl has a long way to go in terms of understanding light—but I’m thankful it was there. I saw that birthmark on your hip and knew it had to be you. Took a bit of hunting but eventually I found out the sketch was from that class.”
“But why were you looking for my work in galleries in the first place? Why didn’t you just call?”
Elisabeth didn’t seem to have heard. “Bethany Richards was the student’s name. It’s hanging in my living room back at the apartment. Wildly overpriced, but of course I had to have it. I’ll show it to you when you come over.” She laughed. “I have to say, even with the shock and excitement, part of me was disappointed. I’d imagined my daughter as the artist rather than the model. Because of what they say—those who can, do.”
