The Story of Beautiful Girl

by Rachel Simon

  Then Sam and the women went up the ramp.

  The spotlight shone down on the stage as Preacher Bouncing Hair placed his hands on Sam’s head. Homan spun around, searching the crowd, hoping someone was seeing what he saw on Sam’s face. But everyone was praying, and when he realized there was nothing he could do, he decided that even though he’d never prayed before, he was going to start now. He’d do it with his hands, just talk right out there in the open. So he did, making his signs hard and fast.

  Please, Big Artist, he prayed. If you even there, that is. Sam just a kid. Get him down from there and put me in his place. So what if I look like the biggest laughingstock in the world. I don’t even care if Bouncing Hair for real and I get something I ain’t sure I want.

  The preacher’s hands flew off.

  Sam sat there in his chair, staring at the preacher.

  One breath. Two breaths. Five.

  And then—

  The stouter of the two women marched across the stage and stopped right before Sam. He glared, and though she tugged his arms, he didn’t rise to his feet. With an anger in her eyes, she moved her mouth. He did, too, his expression defiant. She lunged, grabbing his shirt as he rolled back, and then he spun his chair so she’d lose her grip. Hands on her hips, she rounded the chair and stepped near—and he slid his arm to the floor, caught it in the cuff of the cast-off crutch, and held it before him like a battering ram. Shocked, she stepped away. The preacher looked confused. Sam turned and locked his eyes on Homan’s.

  And Homan suddenly knew what to do.

  Shoving Braidy out of the way, Homan hurtled up the ramp, seized the chair, and rolled Sam down. Scrawny tried to grab Homan as they hit bottom, but Homan pushed him off, snatched up the other crutch, wedged it by the armrest, swerved Sam around the family behind him, and then they were off, charging down the aisle, passing others waiting in line, hurtling beyond the gapes of the audience, using their double-barreled crutches to make anyone who wanted to stop them jump aside. It was a thrill, dodging the crowd, making their way to the lobby, flying outside, racing toward the van Sam pointed to.

  Homan didn’t know why Sam was leaving or where he wanted to go. He just knew he’d found his way out and Sam had, too, because when they reached the van, Sam pushed a purse on his side toward Homan, and Homan reached in, and there was a key ring—with the van key.

  You caught my prayer—and you did me even better! he thought, looking back at the church after he got Sam in the van and slid himself behind the wheel. He could see Scrawny and Braidy and Sam’s womenfolk bursting out of the church and pointing toward the van. But Sam was already motioning for them to go now, even as the boys and the ladies came running. Homan hit the gas, and Sam opened his mouth with joy, and they shot out onto the road.

  The History of Words

  MARTHA

  1969

  Look, Ju-Ju,” Martha said. “The ducklings have gotten so big!”

  She gazed into the stroller and stroked the tawny curls. Julia, seeing the pond ahead, kicked her ten-month-old feet in excitement. “Remember when we first found this park? The ducklings hadn’t even been born. Goodness. Can it possibly be September already?”

  Julia couldn’t reply, though it hardly mattered; Martha loved speaking to her. She was an unfussy child, smart and gorgeous; her face was heart-shaped and broad, eyes dark and lively, curls as merry as cursive writing. Julia wasn’t always merry: Her expression was often serious, and she was less prone to laughter than many children. But whenever Martha spoke to her, Julia broke into a smile so sweet and trusting, Martha felt light in her chest. This was not, however, the only reason she talked a lot to Julia. It was because talking, along with their daily routine of park walking, block stacking, bubble blowing, and hand clapping, made them appear like any happy grandmother and granddaughter. Despite their still-unusual living arrangements, house-sitting for her student Landon in Maplewood, New Jersey, Martha felt sure that as long as they continued living in an inconspicuous—and, as had already proven necessary, elusive—manner, no one would suspect the truth.

  At the edge of the duck pond, Martha sat on their regular bench. For the first time, she’d reached this park before Ivamae and Betty. She’d been so worried about what might happen later today, when Landon finally returned home from his summer house, that she’d driven here from Maplewood too quickly. She checked her watch. Only ten forty. Martha looked toward the edge of the park for her friends. Her friends. She smiled to herself. Her students had loved learning the history of words—how, if you traced the origin of “pajamas,” you’d walk back in time and across the sea to India and Persia. Or how “hello” was invented by Alexander Graham Bell so people had something to say when answering a phone. “The language you use,” she’d pointed out to them, “shows us history.” And when she cast her gaze back to the Martha of last September, there was no hint of the word “friends” in that land.

  “Matilda!” she heard.

  She spun around. Ivamae and Betty were coming toward her, pushing the strollers with the children they looked after. Martha waved.

  “I knew you’d be here early,” Ivamae said, her voice as deep as the gospel she sang on Sundays. The four-year-old she looked after, Audrey, jumped from the stroller and ran to Martha, calling, “Miss Matilda!” Betty followed, three-year-old Lawrence sucking his thumb.

  “Of course,” Betty said, her Irish youth still broguing her words. “She’s nervous.”

  Martha hugged Audrey. “Did you bring your bread today?” the preschooler asked.

  “I did.”

  “Can I have some for the ducks?”

  “Yes.” Martha reached into the bag hanging from Julia’s stroller and removed a loaf of fresh bread. She said to her friends, “Well, it’s a big day, but I’m hopeful it will work out.”

  “I’d be a mess,” Betty said. “When husbands come back after working overseas all summer, they can get strange ideas in their heads.”

  Ivamae said, “I once had a husband tell his wife to stop working, and after that she didn’t need me anymore and I had to find a new job.”

  Martha sucked in air so she wouldn’t reveal that Landon had no wife and would hardly make such a pronouncement. Yet she also knew that, as a successful artist accustomed to quiet, he might find the presence of an old woman and a baby to be intrusive. It was indeed possible they’d have to leave his house, and with it this park and these friends.

  Ducks were now waddling near. Martha handed Audrey some bread, which she tore into pieces and threw at the ducks. “They like your bread, Miss Matilda,” Audrey said. “Me too.”

  Betty, taking a seat on the bench, said, “My ex liked it when I baked.”

  “That’s a man for you,” Ivamae said, lowering herself as well. “He likes your baking, but that doesn’t stop him from running around.”

  “I didn’t want him home anymore anyway.”

  “It would have been a far better thing if you’d tossed his sorry behind out first. It’s always best when you do your own deciding.”

  Martha longed to join in with details about her marriage, her living situation, her entire autobiography. But, afraid of misjudging their capacity for secrecy, she’d resigned herself to a guarded friendship, which often amounted to listening and murmuring sympathetically. This appeared to satisfy them; after all, she was an elderly woman looking after a child, the same as they, and they enjoyed her company.

  Not that Ivamae and Betty thought Martha was a nanny. The first day they’d met, in the spring, she’d offered the same lie she’d used with Henry and Graciela, then Landon. That day, as she’d just started finding her way around Maplewood, she’d come upon this park in nearby South Orange. When she walked Julia toward a bench, she saw two women her age, one dark, one fair, both with white hair and strollers. She’d talked to Julia as the women sat laughing on a bench and the children with them fed the ducks. Then, as she was pushing a sleeping Julia back toward the Dodge, she heard a deep voice say, “Beauti
ful child you got there.” Martha looked over, and the Irish-looking woman said, “Good behavior run in the family?” Later Martha understood that was her cue for saying Julia was no relation and Martha was a nanny. But having been only recently initiated into the need for deceit, she reached for the same mistruth she’d already used. “She belongs to my grandniece”—and here she opted to embellish—“and, with her working in Manhattan, and her husband’s business taking him overseas, she needed someone around.” Betty said, “You feeling back in practice?” Martha brushed Julia’s fine curls with her hand. “I didn’t have any of my own. This is new to me.” Ivamae tilted a bag of candy her way. “Come back tomorrow,” Betty said as Martha reached in. “We’ll coach you.” She did, and their instructions picked up where Graciela’s had left off. It was as if there were a secret language of mothers that no woman knew until she moved to that distant land.

  Betty said, “We should be giving you more hope. Maybe nothing will change.”

  Martha said, “I’m just trusting they’ll want me to stay.”

  The three friends brought out their lunches, and as they ate, Martha hoped Landon would indeed want her to stay. He’d hinted in his last call from Cape Cod that she needn’t rush to leave, adding that he had several commissions and would spend most of his time in his metal-working studio. Martha worried he might come to feel differently once he became aware of the disruptions of a child.

  The three friends finished their lunch and balled up their bags. Wouldn’t it be nice if Julia could grow up with Lawrence and Audrey and Ivamae and Betty? Martha lifted her out of the stroller, held her close, and looked out to the pond. What is the history of the word for “child”? What is the future of the word for “mine”?

  She felt so at home around here, Martha thought as she made the turn onto South Orange Avenue, Julia asleep in the back. And, this being a costly area, house-sitting was certainly ideal. Eventually they would have more money; Eva had written that she thought she’d find a buyer for the farm soon, and Martha could always teach again. Teaching, though, would have to wait until Julia was in kindergarten, and that was four years away. Four years. Martha tightened her grip on the steering wheel. She was seventy-one already, and every day, as Ivamae and Betty spoke of pains in their knees or their fear of broken hips, Martha had to acknowledge that she too would begin to slow down. It seemed as if she were in a race: Julia’s freedom versus Martha’s health. She remembered what Henry had said when he’d slammed the trunk of the Dodge and hurried to the driver’s window to say good-bye last spring: It’s all going to work out, Mrs. Zimmer. He’d been right, as the summer had shown, so she simply had to believe that the next few hours and next few months—and heaven help her, she did not wish to be greedy, but the next many years—would show her that, too.

  She was well aware, however, that Henry had offered his optimism in haste as she’d left his hotel. She remembered that terrible moment now, as she drove down Wyoming Avenue toward Landon’s. The first months of Julia’s life, when they’d remained in the hotel, had been equal parts peace, play, and child-rearing practice. Martha was writing letters regularly, sometimes to the older Julia, sometimes to the handful of students to whom Eva had written when everything first happened—asking them to send their correspondence to Eva, who then mailed them to the hotel in a manila envelope. Henry needed extra hands, too, so some afternoons, when Julia was asleep, Martha sat at the front desk. By late spring, Martha had produced enough letters to Julia that Graciela gave her a keepsake box—a two-foot-square wooden box lined with felt and carved with flowers, animals, and plants. The top had hinges, and whenever Martha set a letter inside and the hinges squeaked with the joy of a baby bird being fed, Martha would think, Even if they—whoever they might be—come to cart Julia away, she’ll have my words to hold on to.

  Then came a Sunday in May—Mother’s Day, of all ironies. She shouldn’t think about it, she told herself, driving past the reserve where she often took Julia to feed deer. Yet it happened once so it could happen again; she couldn’t let herself forget.

  Martha, having helped the children bake a cake for Graciela, had returned with Julia to room 119 to rest up for dinner. She’d lain down in one of the dresses she’d brought from the farm and was half-asleep when she heard footsteps run up to her door, followed by insistent knocking. “Mrs. Zimmer?” It was Graciela.

  The moment she opened up, Graciela flew into the room and shut the door. “There is a man in the lobby looking for you.”

  Martha took a step back. “Who?”

  “He would say only that he is here on official business.”

  “What?”

  “He would not tell me what he meant. He said he would only tell you.”

  “He didn’t give you a hint?”

  “He said… he said you had information on a missing person.”

  Martha forced her eyes to hold steady, so she would not turn and look at Julia.

  “Did he… was he a policeman?”

  “He was not in a uniform. But he said he was from a school.”

  “A school?”

  “It makes no sense. A missing person, a school. You are retired.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “That you were out, and we would call him when you returned. He said he had come a very long way, and he would get a room and wait. We could not say we were full. The parking lot is empty.”

  “Is he in a room?”

  “He is in the lobby. I wanted to make him leave, but Henry said we should tell you before we do anything.”

  Martha finally turned and looked. Julia, beautiful Ju-Ju, lay asleep in the bassinet. Martha sat on the corner of the bed and set her hand on Julia’s chest. “Oh dear.”

  “He must be mistaken. You know nothing about a missing person.”

  Martha dropped her hand to her lap.

  “Julia, she does belong to you. Yes?”

  Martha nodded. She ran her fingers down Julia’s little dress and held the tiny hands in hers. Finally she looked at Graciela. “We must leave,” she said. “Will you help?”

  That very hour, they left. Henry, asking no questions, just moved them out quickly through a back door while Graciela staffed the desk and the man in the lobby looked at his watch. Then, while Henry took over the desk, Graciela called Landon. Already in Cape Cod, he said Martha could have his house in Maplewood all summer.

  It won’t always be like this, she told herself as she slipped away down the service road. Yet having no idea how she’d been found, she committed herself to doing everything she could to stay hidden. She would adopt a false name with those who did not already know her. She would stop using return addresses when writing to Eva.

  Now, as Martha pulled up to the house in Maplewood, Landon’s Jaguar was already in front of the garage, which he’d converted into his metal-working studio. Please say we can stay. But they would leave if they had to.

  Martha carried Julia through the back door. The aroma of noodles and spicy sauce suffused the kitchen, and a jazz recording came from the living room. Julia made questioning sounds. They headed down the hall, past Landon’s suitcases still waiting to go upstairs, past the table where Martha kept his mail. Some envelopes had fallen to the floor, and there they remained. Martha looked at the disarray. Could she live with someone so untidy?

  They stepped into the living room. Landon, in black sweater and black jeans, was in a chair, one hand cradling a phone, one hand holding a letter. His eyes caught them as they stood in the archway, and he waved. “I need to go,” Landon said into the phone. Martha could smell Landon’s cologne across the room. She’d forgotten the cologne. She’d liked it the night he’d come back to this house to give her the key, but now it smelled out of place, in this home of warm milk and applesauce and grilled cheese sandwiches. Julia squirmed in Martha’s arms, and Martha hurriedly carried her to the playpen in the dining room.

  Martha was sitting on the floor, handing Julia’s favorite doll over the bars, when s
he heard Landon hang up, then call out, “Mrs. Zimmer!”

  She turned as he strode into the dining room. Then he caught a look at Julia. “She’s so much bigger!” he said, looking down. That’s how I used to be, Martha thought. Now she would bend to the child’s level. Landon was not about to do that, so Martha rose.

  “Mrs. Zimmer,” he repeated, “it’s been great having you house-sit this summer.”

  “It’s been our pleasure.”

  “But, oh, look, look.” He thrust a letter at her. “Did you notice this?”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s from the Rosati Foundation. I got their Master of American Arts grant! Fifty thousand dollars for my contributions to the fine arts!”

  “That’s marvelous!”

  “I am on cloud nine.” He did a little pirouette. “There is a catch, though it won’t mean anything to you. And that cute little baby.”

  “A catch?”

  “I have to do a few demonstrations for the public so they can see what a metal sculptor actually does. But they’ll just come right to my studio. You won’t even know they’re here.”

  “I’m sure we won’t.”

  “Oh, and I do have to take on a few apprentices. It’ll be short-term. It’s not like you’ll be tripping over strangers in the house.”

  She forced herself to smile.

  “I know you’ve been wondering if you could stay, so I’ll cut to the chase. Stay! Stay!”

  She bent down again to the playpen. “Did you hear Uncle Landon? He’s such a nice man.”

  “Oh,” Landon said, “the pasta!”

  She watched him run off to the kitchen, and only after he was out of sight did she return to Julia’s eyes. “What are we going to do now?” she said.

  That night, it took ages to get Julia to sleep, though Martha hardly minded. As fond as she was of Landon, this was not an acceptable situation, yet she could not imagine how to refuse his invitation. In the classroom, Martha had had no trouble finding words, but this facility had not persisted outside the schoolhouse doors. Even with Earl—especially with Earl—it was easier to sweep her assertions, opinions, and even preferences under his. It had never occurred to her to question whether she lacked the courage to state them or felt he mattered more than she; she’d simply become skilled in going along. Now she was in a new time of her life. Might the kinds of words come to her that had never come before?