Emily and Einstein

by Linda Francis Lee

  On the subway I barely noticed the crush of bodies. On the street I was oblivious to how people pushed and jostled their way to work. When I arrived at Caldecote I felt disoriented, as if I hadn’t slept. The dreams had returned leaving me exhausted.

  When I got off the elevator, I found the office buzzing with excitement.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Birdie.

  “I don’t know. But I hear it’s good news.”

  I followed Birdie toward the conference room, arriving just as Tatiana walked up to the head of the long table. Victoria raced in and practically threw herself in the chair next to Nate just before someone else sat down.

  “Sorry,” she said with that fake smile.

  When Tatiana reached the front, the staff quieted. “I wanted to bring everyone together to announce a first for Caldecote Press.”

  The crowd’s interest was piqued.

  “I had dinner with a friend who works at People magazine. She mentioned a book to me that she received along with, of all things, a candy bar.”

  I went still.

  “She was so intrigued by the old-fashioned means of getting attention that she actually read the book herself. As it turns out, it’s one of our books. And she loved it.” Tatiana paused, her sharp gaze traveling across the room. “She loved it so much, in fact, that not only is the magazine going to review the book, but they want to do a front-page feature on the author and the young son she saved as well.”

  The crowd cheered, even the old hands who hated all things popular.

  “Which book?” someone asked.

  “The title is Ruth’s Intention.”

  A silent beat passed while I took in the news. I couldn’t believe it. This was amazing. But my brain staggered when Victoria leaped out of her seat and cried, “Oh my God! That’s my book!”

  Stunned, I swiveled to face her. “Victoria—”

  “Of course, Emily helped by doing some mailings and things for me. But I can’t tell you what a joy it was when I was able to call the author myself and offer to buy her manuscript. Ruth’s Intention is a book I knew we had to publish!”

  Words escaped me. Shock, denial, and bone-sucking grief were gone. But nothing useful filled the space as Victoria launched into a short synopsis of the story, then went on about how we really needed to get behind the book in a big way, about her commitment to put Ruth on the New York Times Best Sellers list. I barely heard, only saw her mouth moving, the others in the room caught between rapt attention and simmering resentment. Mercy Gray from sales looked confused. Nate had his eyes fixed on his notepad, as if too busy to take notice of what was going on. But I saw that he wasn’t writing anything at all.

  Then there was Tatiana. She sat back in her seat, as always watching me. I had recently read an article by a former big-name New York editor who claimed that publishing’s dirty little secret was that in this day and age of bottom lines and corporate conglomerates, there was no longer a collegial “team” of editors, only competition. Was Tatiana watching my reaction to someone else’s success? Or was there something else below the cloudy murk of her hard gaze?

  *

  In the ocean, when you open your eyes underwater at night, it’s impossible to see through the cloudy murk.

  From the Young Reader my mother bought me, I learned that the ocean covers approximately seventy percent of the earth’s surface, circling the globe in currents that travel for thousands of miles. Water that crashes onto the shores of Long Island could previously have been to Africa or South America, or possibly even Spain. Lying on the beach just beyond the cedar shingle house on Long Island, with the black sky above me, African water or maybe South American water rushed up the sand and touched my feet. Sitting, I tucked my knees inside my little girl’s nightgown.

  When I finally stood to go back inside, I could see the big house. Lights blazed, the crowd of men and women loud, drunk.

  Not ready to face the noise, I turned back to the ocean. The waves were small, gently running up the sand. Safe. Benign in a way that they weren’t during the day. I lifted my hem and tiptoed into the ocean. The water was cold, and I jumped when a wave rolled in. I laughed and danced, proud of myself for being brave.

  I was surprised when the next wave hit me, knocking me over. I tried to get up, but the wave that had rushed in rushed out, the current dragging me with it. I clawed at the water, fighting to grab hold of something, but I only got pulled out farther. I wasn’t as scared as I was amazed that this was happening to me.

  “No!” I yelled when my head broke the surface.

  Each time my head came up, I cried out again. I fought as long as I could, the nightgown sucking at my legs. When I couldn’t fight anymore, I started sinking in the pull of water. I hung suspended, sinking and drifting. Then just as suddenly as the waves pulled me in, they scooped me up and tossed me back out. Sputtering and dazed, I landed on the hard wet sand, cold but barely noticing. Instead I looked up at that big black sky and wondered if it was Spanish water that had swept me up and thrown me back? African water? Or had God seen me, looked deep inside, and decided I was worth saving?

  *

  After Victoria took credit for Ruth’s Intention, everyone in the room started talking at once. When I finally got my head around the need to say something—though what exactly I had no idea—Tatiana had moved on to other business.

  My heart pounded hard. My cheeks felt hot when thirty minutes later I walked into Victoria’s office.

  “I can’t believe you took credit for Ruth when you wanted nothing to do with the book.”

  My upset was disproportionate to what had happened. I should discuss, gain a better understanding of the situation, look for a solution. But I felt unhinged.

  “Ruth is my book,” I bit out.

  At the very least Victoria should have looked uncomfortable. She didn’t. All of her pseudo-concern and pretend smiles were gone. “You are sadly mistaken, Emily. You might have found Ruth, but you did it while working for me. I was the one who got the offer approved, not you. I was the one who called the author and bought the book, not you. Whether you like it or not, Ruth’s Intention is my book. If you’d like credit for editing a book that came in nearly perfect, go right ahead. At the next meeting feel free to tell everyone that.”

  Standing there, the old me seemed far away and the new me didn’t know how to proceed.

  I had learned that God could open His palm and produce a miracle. He could put Sandy in a meeting he was never supposed to attend; He could save Einstein at the very moment I ran out of money. It was even possible He had pulled me out of the waves. But I was fast learning He could just as easily take His gifts away.

  I nearly laughed at the thought that I had been tossed back into the ocean, and this time He was letting me drown.

  einstein

  chapter nineteen

  Emily crashed into the apartment from work like a hurricane hitting shore, banging pots and pans in a way that I suspected had nothing to do with food preparation. Jordan had been out all afternoon, no doubt getting friendly with yet another male like the assortment I’d had the misfortune to smell on her every day since she arrived.

  Not that I cared one whit about either of them. For twenty-four hours I had been waiting on pins and needles, not knowing if Emily had used the money to pay the maintenance fees or not. But when the doorbell rang and I caught the scent of my mother from under the door, I leaped up and barked excitedly. Finally, I was going to get something done.

  The pot banging stopped abruptly, but Emily didn’t appear. I sensed that my wife had frozen in the kitchen and was trying not to panic. And why wouldn’t she? No one just showed up at the door unannounced in the Dakota unless they lived in the building, were on the list, or were my mother.

  The bell rang again, and after a second I heard keys jangle in the lock. My mother was nothing if not ballsy.

  Emily must have heard the keys, too, because she flew into the gallery just as my mother strode into the ap
artment like a fishwife at a street market, spitting mad and fit to be tied.

  “Mrs. Portman,” my wife gasped. “What are you doing here?”

  There weren’t many in New York who dared cross or even question Althea Portman. She had too many connections in the worlds of art and high society—many of those connections overlapping—and a ruthless willingness to use the combination to her benefit. But she hadn’t always had that power … or even wanted it.

  When Althea O’Brien married my father, Walter Vandermeer Regal Portman, she was the proverbial poor girl from the wrong side of the tracks, a starving artist who had risen above her station. In the years after I was born and before I started school she took me with her across the park to this apartment at the Dakota which she used as an art studio. Back then she wore her reddish-brown hair long, twisting it up only when she pulled out her paints and put on an oversized shirt to protect her clothes.

  In the Dakota she and I painted and played. If I got paint on the floors, No problem! If I drew on the walls, How lovely!

  Once I even took a black marker to one of the tall, spacious walls. My mother had been absorbed with a still life she was working on. I half wrote, half drew I Mommy on the bottom corner of the gallery wall.

  When she saw my declaration she only laughed, sweeping me up in her arms and dancing me around the room. “Look at all that big love.”

  And it was big love. I had loved her with the intensity that only a young boy can feel for his mother.

  At dinner each night, back in our east side town house just off Fifth, my very formal father asked how her painting had gone.

  “Perfectly, love.”

  When she was with my father, my mother dressed in designer gowns and family jewels, joking that he was putting a superficial shine on his unpolished wife. She would get up from that big formal dining table, walk over to her husband and despite the cadre of servants, sit on his lap. Even as a child I could tell my father both hated and loved how my mother acted in those moments. But his fascination always won out and all too often they excused themselves from the table and I finished my meal alone. Not that I minded. My parents were happiest then; my life seemed perfect, as if nothing could hurt us.

  But life has a way of turning upside down.

  I was five when my mother managed to secure the show for herself at one of Manhattan’s premiere art galleries. No one knew how she did it, though many assumed it was through her connection to my father. The event became the talk of the town, a huge affair since there weren’t many men or women in my parents’ crowd who painted, much less showed their work. Everyone who was anyone RSVPed yes and the show proved a massive success, the most important art critic in town claiming a new talent had arrived.

  The day after the show, my mother and I returned to the Dakota, but this time she wore a Chanel suit instead of her gossamer dresses and fly-about hair. I was stunned when we arrived to find workmen waiting. It took hours as the place I loved was cleaned up, the furniture covered with white sheets. Just as we were leaving, I watched a man run thick glue and new wallpaper over my marker declaration, covering all my big love in fine beige stripes.

  My mother never painted again. She translated her show’s success into becoming a powerhouse—not as a painter, but as a woman who knew a great deal about art.

  I hated the memory, hadn’t thought of it in years. But sitting in the gallery as a dog, I knew that was when my life changed, my innocent past disappearing like someone had covered it with thick glue and expensive wallpaper. I never saw my mother sit in my father’s lap again. In only a matter of months, the free and easy mother I loved disappeared, the important woman who everyone came to for art discussions firmly rooted in her place. It was this woman, perfectly dressed in a Chanel suit from the latest collection, who entered my apartment now, heels resounding against the hardwood, Kelly bag swinging on her wrist.

  “Emily,” my mother said with icy coldness. “I believe you know why I’m here.”

  But she wasn’t looking at my wife. She glanced around the apartment, her brow furrowed, and I realized at some level that she expected to see me, or I should say, expected to see Sandy. Then she blinked, and the tightness gave way, her body sagging.

  “Mrs. Portman,” Emily said, her voice soft.

  At the sound, my mother pulled her shoulders back. “It’s time we talked.”

  My heart hammered in my chest and I felt like I was five years old again, desperate to feel her arms around me. If I could just get her to see me, let her know that she was right to sense I was here, then I was certain everything would be okay.

  I shook my tags.

  Her head came back and she turned. When she saw me her eyes went wide. She tilted her head in confusion as she looked at me, as if something deep and knowing had begun to stir. If Einstein had had the capability I would have wept.

  Racing across the gallery, I jumped up on my hind legs. “Mother!” I barked. “Yes, it’s me!”

  The woman who had given birth to me stood very still, staring at me, one moment stretching into two, before her green eyes narrowed. “Good Lord, Emily, get that mangy dog away from me.”

  chapter twenty

  Admit it, you’re smug.

  You saw my mother’s reaction coming a mile off and are smirking at the thought that I could be so naïve. But I ask: If my wife at some subconscious level recognized me without even realizing it, shouldn’t the woman who gave birth to me have had at least a flicker of connection with me as a dog?

  “This is exactly the sort of thing I would expect from you, Emily,” my mother went on. “A complete lack of understanding for everything my son really was. He never would have allowed a dog in here. Just as he never would have promised you this apartment.”

  Emily stood silently, her jaw tight.

  “But that’s beside the point. I am here because I learned that you paid the overdue apartment maintenance. Tell me, Emily, where did you get the money?”

  My wife debated, and if I could have I would have shouted, Tell her the truth!

  “Sandy had a joint account in both our names. Legally, that money is now mine, and I used it to pay the fees.”

  My mother’s mouth set in a hard line. “If Sandy left you a joint account, why didn’t you use it earlier?”

  Emily shifted uncomfortably. “I just found out about it.”

  “You just found it?”

  Yes, good, tell her how!

  Emily seemed to debate, then plunged ahead like a rickety canoe going over the falls. “Actually, Einstein, the dog, found it.”

  Good girl!

  My mother squinted at Emily. “You expect me to believe an animal found a bankbook?”

  For half a second my mother softened, nearly reaching out as if to comfort a clearly unstable daughter.

  “I’m telling you, Althea, it’s uncanny. Einstein knew right where it was. And before that, when I put a Mozart sonata on to play, the dog curled up in the library chair just like Sandy used to do.”

  These two women who remained as bookends to my life stared at each other in silence. I couldn’t have planned this any better. My mother’s sudden softness. Emily surprisingly making my point for me.

  But when I looked closer I realized my mistake.

  “Good Lord, Emily. What has happened to you?” My mother shook herself, then waved the words away. “How you paid the fees hardly matters. The fact remains, the apartment is not yours. I don’t know how many ways I need to tell you this before you finally accept the truth.”

  “This is my home,” Emily said. “I have spent the last two years, not to mention my own money, replacing broken appliances and damaged wallpaper, painting, scraping, fixing. I’ve done whatever needed doing.”

  As if that gave her a claim.

  Emily, Emily, Emily.

  “Enough.” Mother sighed wearily. “Emily, let’s deal with the facts. You don’t have any proof that my son promised you anything. If you did, you would have produced it by now. As
to the money you’ve put into the place, you would have been better served if you’d put it in a savings account. It does you no good here. And let’s be truthful. We both know the maintenance fee alone has to be more than you make in a month. Plain and simple: You can’t afford this apartment.”

  My wife flinched.

  “Emily, it’s time you move out and get on with your life. You’re still young. You’ll find someone else.”

  I swung my head back to my mother, Einstein’s ratty old heart twisting. How was it possible that she could be so detached?

  “I am not giving up on this,” Emily said, her tone resolute. “I will get proof.”

  My mother’s shoulders set, her lips pressed together. “Let me get this straight. You’re going up against me?”

  At another time this would have been fascinating—why in the world had my wife chosen this moment to stand up to my mother?—but right then it was not fascinating because, hello, this was not about them and any petty grievance they might have harbored against one another. My mother’s visit was supposed to be about me, and it was high time they knew it.

  “Mother,” I barked, sitting prettily in front of her.

  I pulled my biggest smile, barely able to contain my need for her to recognize me.

  “It’s me,” I barked, demanding her attention.

  She ignored me, so I re-sat myself, scooting closer. The scent of her perfume nearly overwhelmed me. I felt dizzy at the smell, dizzy for the mother I had loved and lost decades ago.

  “Mother, please! It’s me!” I barked, shivering with pent-up emotion as I scooted even closer. Before I could think better of it I licked her on the leg.

  Mother made a low noise through gritted teeth and for half a second I thought the unflaggingly proper Althea Portman would kick me in the chest.

  “I’m your son!” I barked in a jumble of yelps and growls.

  And unlike naïve Emily, I could prove my claim.

  I raced over to the wall, skidding into the mahogany door trim with a bang. Using my sharp little teeth, I grabbed the loose corner of the wallpaper Emily had yet to replace.