by Amanda Brown
She pressed her head into her hands with regret as Emily chose, from her closet, a “fancy” dress with about thirty sparkling flower-shaped buttons. Round buttons were hard enough for Emily’s pudgy little fingers. Flower buttons were the black diamond slope. Why on earth Amy had let Emily pick out clothing with complicated fastenings was at first a mystery, but very soon Becca had learned that Emily was her own “personal shopper.”
Becca bit her lip and tapped her feet on the floor, vowing to be a positive, encouraging presence. These were the steps to self-reliance, she reminded herself. Becca checked her watch, then tried to forget what the time was, so as not to put pressure on Emily to hurry.
After a few minutes she stood up. She glanced at Emily, saw no progress, and began to hum a little tune in an attempt to act casual. She straightened some things on Emily’s art shelf. She glanced back—nothing. Becca turned to the curtains and fiddled with them for a minute. She looked out Emily’s window, becoming occupied in the motion of the street, which had a soothing quality for Becca, as some people feel who regard the passage of a river.
When she turned around she saw that Emily had drawn to the window behind her. She was silent, watching the city scene with a serious face. Becca smiled, for she knew that Emily was imitating her, and that the impulse was one of love. She kissed her round little head, retrieved her cup of coffee from Emily’s rosewood bureau, and sat down once again on the couch. She sat for what seemed like an eternity, then allowed herself to glance at Emily, intending to cheer her progress.
Emily had given up on buttoning in order to arrange her nail polishes into categories of “glitter” and “pearl.” Becca checked her watch. Thirty minutes had passed. She returned to the couch, and pretended she was at an ashram in the Adirondacks, breathing deeply, purifying her city soul. She glanced again to see Emily’s progress in getting dressed.
Emily stood entranced by her reflection in the oval standing mirror, making the blinky-eyed faces of a princess in love. Her dress hung in a wide-open triangle from the neck. Becca saw at once that the top button, which was about halfway in, was at that moment in great danger of sliding out of its buttonhole. She shivered with the effort it took not to leap up and fix it. Encourage, encourage, she told herself.
“I like that pretty dress you picked, Em. Can you put it on?”
Emily smiled in agreement, then twirled around the room humming the “Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy.” She fell into a dizzy lump, then picked herself up, and began to twirl again. Becca checked her watch. Forty minutes. Her coffee was cold.
“I’ll run and get dressed for work, Em,” she said, offering herself an escape. “Meet you back here in a few.” Despite her better self, she added: “Let’s see who can get dressed first!” Then she ran down the hall, cursing herself for impatience.
In her room, Becca washed her face, brushed and flossed her teeth, slid into a black Gucci pantsuit, and slowed herself down by applying a coat of moisturizer. She was proceeding in as slow a fashion as possible, which was difficult for Becca, who was in the habit of flying through life with a rocket in her pants. She brushed some color on her cheeks, once she determined which of her black Chanel makeup cases contained what. (Becca wore makeup by chance and as time allowed, and as a result she was unfamiliar with her own offerings.) She shrugged at the lipsticks, not knowing how she was supposed to choose. Indifferently, she rubbed a sheer color on her lips. She concentrated on her breathing while checking her watch. She didn’t know what else she could do to pass the time.
She walked, as casually as she could, into Emily’s room.
She caught the child midcurtsy, and by habit applauded, calling Encore! Encore! to Emily’s beaming face. Emily had spent the last half-hour perfecting an elaborate ballet dance that followed the patterns of her rug. Her dress hung entirely open. Even the top half-button had come loose.
With a claim that the weather had grown cool, Becca raced to the closet and grabbed a pullover. It was a new one from Baby Prada.
Emily held the Tiffany snow globe in front of her eyes, looking at Becca through the magical mystery flowers that swept through its miniature cityscape.
“What?”
“Here’s a pullover for you. A little hooded cashmere. They’re very fashionable.”
Emily peered at the cashmere as if it would bite. “No, thanks,” she answered politely. She looked as if she had smelled a dead rat. “It doesn’t go with my dress,” she added, shaking the snow globe to watch the flowers glitter down and around the tiny buildings inside. “Sparkle!” she whispered, delighted.
Becca nodded. She knew she was at her limit. “Okay, honey,” she said, smiling. “I’ll be right back.”
On her way to refill her coffee, Becca almost bumped right into Edward, who had quietly entered the apartment.
“Hey Ed,” Becca greeted him cautiously. She was glad to see him, desperate for a break from getting Emily dressed. Edward had a talent for making games out of those sort of things, and anyway he was better adapted than she to the prospect of sitting still. Also he didn’t have to rush to a meeting. He gave her an unreadable smile.
“You look like the bottom of a shoe,” she called from the kitchen, where she groaned to see the Betty Crocker cake box still on the counter. She had promised Emily they would bake together, and Becca reproached herself for putting it off. She lifted the box, which contained the raw material of a basic yellow cake, and studied it carefully to be certain of every detail, as if it were her tax return. It was as the child had claimed: you added water (eggs were optional) and then you baked it. There was even a little round icon shaped like a pan. So that was it. The cake was not as formidable a task as she had imagined. When she got home, they would bake it.
Becca saw that Edward had shuffled into the morning room, but he had not sat down in the armchair that was his usual spot. He stood quietly, his back against the wall. When she joined him he turned to greet her and his eyes were tired.
“I can take Em to the office, Eddie, if you need a rest,” she said, staring curiously at him. “I’ve got a meeting at two—unavoidable—but Philippe will be there.”
He looked at Becca with affection. In the depth of his melancholy, she could always make him smile.
Becca stepped closer to him. “What do you think? Can you manage her today?”
“Sure,” he answered, and the smile that crossed his lips, when he thought about spending the day with Emily, was genuine. Her needs were simple. His eyes rested on Becca, searching her. Did she know? Could she be the only woman in Manhattan who didn’t know?
She paused, but he didn’t reply, just stood still, watching her. Their yearning to understand each other was evenly matched with their unwillingness to pry, and the silence hung thick.
“Okay, Eddie,” she said. She gave him a cautious glance.
He sighed, digging his hands into the pockets of his wool trousers. Their friendship would end like all the others. Every woman he knew had cut him off like a leper when the Sunday Times hit the streets with his wedding announcement. It had been just a day ago, but the cancellations had flooded in and Alice made light of it; sweet Alice. She was perfectly decorous, congratulating him simply and formally on the engagement, and not asking any more questions.
He felt wrong about going to the club last night. He had ducked away from Becca, not ready to confide in her, but unwilling to dishonor her with insincerity. The false tone was impossible for him to maintain and his plans for the tango party were erased from his short-term memory, and so he fled to the library at the Union Club. This served to prove how muddled Edward’s thinking was, that the club had occurred to him as some sort of haven for his privacy. If his engagement to Bunny was the storm, the Union Club was precisely the opposite of the port he was seeking.
Drinks had been rushed on trays to him with dash and generous wishes, which Edward bore, one by one, filling himself with alcohol as a substitute for warmth, trading cigars and winks and slaps on the back. It was worse than lonel
iness; it was a lie.
He glanced at the kitchen, into which Becca had trotted impulsively. A sudden flash of hope lit within Edward’s heart. Maybe it wouldn’t matter to her.
Their friendship was dug in different ground, with Emily’s needs at its source. He noticed that Becca was friendly with her boss, a married man. And with her analysts, and her secretary, and the stream of entrepreneurs she had dinner with when they were in town: They were all men, and she had no romantic interest in them. She didn’t play those angles. Maybe they could work some visitation agreement out, and get together over the years for Emily’s school plays or her ballet recitals.
Even as Edward fantasized, he knew this would be impossible. He had only cared for Emily in partnership with Becca, and only imagined their bringing her up together. But he had known Bunny all his life, and he had his obligations to her: She would want to applaud at Emily’s ballet too, and take pride in “ownership” if nothing else. Becca’s candid habits of speech worried him when he thought of her in the same room as Bunny.
Becca pushed a cup of coffee into his hands. “Drink this, Eddie. You’ll need it.”
He smiled, accepting her gift. Together they went to Emily’s room, to change the guard from her authority to his. They found Emily singing merrily, painting the toenails of her Madame Alexander dolls. She had succeeded in covering most of their feet and not a little of her manicure table. Becca said good-bye to Emily with a little kiss.
“I’ll come home for lunch,” she promised. “And I’ll pick you guys up some fruit plates from the Healthy Bite.”
Edward gave a grateful nod as he took a seat on Emily’s four-poster bed. He felt hungry, but it was apathy, dissipation, and habit that turned him to food. In truth he was lonely, and his emptiness was not the kind that a meal would cure. He welcomed Emily onto his lap, paying no mind to the red nail polish on her fingers, which drew streaks on his sleeves. He sighed with pleasure, rubbing her warm, golden hair. Emily pecked his cheek with a quick little kiss. Edward felt his whole body relax. Becca, who was taking her leave with leisure, noticed the change.
“You look better, Eddie,” she said gently. “I think I see a daddy who missed his little girl.”
He nodded, smiling as Emily hopped off the bed to her manicure table. He felt as if he had held his fists clenched tight for forty-eight hours and now let them fall open. Edward turned to look at Becca, feeling a sudden urge to tell her everything, as a man getting a bad day off his chest might turn to his wife for comfort. But when he looked at her, she had her eye on her watch, and he knew her mind was already on her own life.
Blowing a kiss to the room at large, Becca hurried away. Her smile lingered in his memory as Edward listened to her footsteps in the hall. Contentedly, he reclined on Emily’s bed, leaning his head back against the mountain of fluffy lace pillows. He no longer felt as welcome at the Carlyle, where he had made his address for nearly five years, as he did in this apartment at this moment. He couldn’t believe he had hardly spent a month here.
With tenderness, as he watched his daughter play, he felt the return of a sense of meaning that escaped him whenever he was away. Emily needed him.
And Becca? He imagined her wide smile, her easy laugh, her energy. Then suddenly, his mind focused on the image of her checking her watch, turning to walk out of the room. People needed her. Maybe she had a place in her heart for Emily, but she didn’t have time to worry about him.
Still, his thoughts refused to release her. In a short time they had built up a huge bank deposit of memories. Edward realized that the three of them together had history. Between him and Becca, however, it was not so clear. He only knew any room expanded when she entered it. He couldn’t recall a single one of her jokes: he couldn’t remember any, exactly, as they were all the situational quips of her quick mind, also the serious thoughts they shared eluded him, but he knew when he was with her, he was his best self. Her whole presence was like energy itself. She made him think—and feel.
Edward had not reflected on his connection to Becca like this before. They had been catapulted into their responsibility to Emily. And in the shock of reacting to that, they had simply begun to live with each other. He had not stopped to think about her when he had assumed she would be there the next day. Now that he was losing her, he could think of nobody else.
He turned at the sound of Emily humming to herself as she began to paint McDuff’s toes with sparkling nail polish. What would he tell Emily? He had never had to think of other people so much in his life. For years he had been pulled inexorably along the path cut by his family. He had carried on merrily enough, without concern for what lay ahead. Edward had never realized he was surrendering to a scripted future until he met Becca. She didn’t ask him a thing about himself, but in the rapid good cheer of her own useful living, the excitement and sense of purpose she lived out had suddenly thrown all of Edward’s assumptions into question. She seemed so different from the women he knew, but Edward never felt so much himself as he did in her lively company. Becca put him totally at ease.
If he had any talent for introspection, Edward Kirkland would have been able to identify the feeling that had been clarified. Instead he sat on Emily’s bed, playing a game that involved naming fruits. He knew that he belonged here.
CHAPTER 22
The Last to Know
The place where Dick Davis belonged was in custody, thought Becca, gazing around his office with astonishment.
Gray Nikes and Adidases and soft navy athletic shorts with the Champion logo stitched on them were piled dozens high on the boomerang couch. A rainbow of running gear waved from hangers like a decorative row of windsocks. Running shoes, walking shoes, cross-trainers, and hiking boots were arranged in a little march across his George Jetson chrome-topped desk. The only item of clothing that looked remotely like it might belong to Dick was the soft, fluffy terrycloth robe that hung from the back of his desk chair. The office was buzzing with image consultants.
“So we’re taking the NFL public?” she guessed, pointing at a row of tube socks.
He couldn’t answer her, as the stylist Kenneth Dapper was holding his mouth closed like a beak, peering through a jeweler’s glass to evaluate Dick’s upper lip for mustache potential.
“No way,” Ken concluded, stepping down from his bench. “But your neck hair looks great. Nothing ingrown; will wax perfectly.”
Becca cringed. This was more detail than she wanted to hear.
“I’ll come back, Dick, if you’re busy,” she said.
“No!” Dick clapped his hands to draw the attention of a busy little hive of consultants, several of whom emerged from his closet as if startled.
“People, I need some private time now,” he said to the crowd. “Take a break, take a break! There’s a Starbucks in the lobby.”
The image army grumbled and muttered out the door, leaving Becca and Dick alone in his office.
“Tell me,” she guessed, still baffled by the clothes. “Henry Kravis is running a marathon, and you’ve decided to best him with the triathlon.”
Dick shook his head. “Leslie,” he said, with a sigh that said his wife’s name was enough to explain any intrusion on his dignity. “She’s decided I should take on an image that is similar to our president in his leisure.”
“So you’re exercising now?” she asked him, lifting a gray “Property Of” gym shirt from his desk. This, unlike the other clothing, actually looked worn.
He shook his head no, patting his Buddha-style tummy. “No, Becca—that’s just for Fridays. Haven’t you gotten the e-mail?”
She laughed out loud. “Even if I had, I’d ignore it. What in God’s name is Piloga?”
“A merger of Pilates and yoga.”
“I think you mean merging, not merger.”
“You need a Berlitz course in real-life English instead of business-ese.”
“Your standards are too high,” she retorted. The thrust and parry of their banter was such that her strikes to
his vanity were usually met with his jabs at her lovelife. But today Dick trod lightly.
He walked to his desk to get his copy of the “Vows” section of the Sunday Times, which Leslie had her social secretary fax to him with her explicit instructions to get them an invitation. Did she know? He looked at Becca, who stood smiling casually at him, looking bright, vigorous—perfectly normal, for her. Changing his mind, he dropped on his desk the item about the engagement between the chemical heir and the equestrienne. He wasn’t sure how to approach this with Becca. She always had her eyes so wide open; he had never really seen her disappointed. He dreaded what he had to say.
“Tell me how it’s going with your coguardian,” he asked her, as innocently as he could manage. “Kirkland, right? Real Society Joe, from what Leslie tells me. I’ll bet he spends days in front of the mirror.”
“Eddie?” Becca gave a full laugh as she pictured Edward in a mirror of self-absorption. It was hilarious: so unfitting an image for him. Edward was the most natural, unassuming, easygoing person she knew. Come to think of it, the apartment was full of mirrors, and she had never seen him pause at one.
Dick peered at her for her answer. The light of fondness was in her eyes when she talked about Edward. His shoulders grew heavy. He wished he could spare her from what was coming. He hated to be the one who would put that light out of her eyes.
“No way,” she said, “not Eddie. I mean, he’s in a tux half the time, but he doesn’t give a thought to how he looks in it. He couldn’t care less. He lets Emily pick out his bow tie.”
“Smart man,” Dick mused. “I didn’t know that women were supposed to pick my clothes until after I got married. I guess he’ll be good and ready. He’d better be.” He paused, breathed deeply, and said it. “It’s going to happen soon.”
Becca’s smile died on her lips.
“He’s engaged to be married, Becca,” Dick told her gently.
Becca’s loose black hair tossed defiantly behind her as she shook her head no.
