Good on Paper (15 page)

And if it hadn’t, there it was, in the wastebasket, where it would remain till I was done.

I left the house just three times: to get a mocha frappe from Joe, a dunedog from Cohn’s Cones (Cohn’s served all manner of beach food—wieners, pretzels, slush), and another frappe from Joe. After the latter, I snuck over to Benny’s side display, which now featured books about motherhood and Jimmy Hoffa. Labor? Going into Labor? Labor Day!

But thinking about Benny made me angry, so I returned to Joe’s for a cookie and ate it in Slice of Park. Benny and Marie were probably on an excursion, too, it being Saturday, when Benny always closed his store—everyone excursioning but me!

I’d just finished my cookie when Andi called.

I made a friend, she shouted. Her name is Lisa. She has a hamster,
but she thinks it’s dead. She doesn’t mind being my best friend if I don’t make her play Chutes and Ladders. She’s nicer than Pammy. Now that Pammy’s got chicken pox she thinks she’s so cool, but she’s not!

I couldn’t remember the last time my daughter had strung together so many sentences.

That’s nice, I said. Where did you meet her?

But Andi had passed the phone to Ahmad, who promised fried clams, then said, What? What? You’re breaking up!

•

I was setting the table for dinner. I thought fried clams was a joke, but was bringing out the Bounty just in case. And rehearsing what I
should
have said to Benny three days before, what I’d definitely say next time I saw him, which would be never.

Ahmad was first in the door.

Don’t be alarmed, he said as Andi burst in behind him, her arm in a cast up to her elbow, shouting, Look, Mommy! Look! Look!

Andi! I cried, dropping the Bounty. What happened?

Look what I got! she shouted, raising her cast in the air. Her name was already written in sixteen colors along the ulna, and along the other side, Ahmad had drawn her, making a comical face and falling out of an apple tree.

Which was when I saw the cardboard tub:
Mystic Clam Shack
.

Mystic?

You took Andi to Connecticut and she fell out of a tree?

Look, Mambo! Everyone can sign! Ahmad got me magic markers that smell like fruit!

How wonderful for you, I said, glaring at Ahmad, who shrugged. Do you want to tell me how you fell out of a tree?

Headfirst, she said, chasing a squirrel at our new house.

Into the kitchen! You, Ahmad! Into the kitchen!

•

Ahmad claimed not to understand. Kids hurt themselves all the time. It’s just a fracture, and besides, he wasn’t buying, just looking.

Just a fracture? I shouted. Just looking?

There were too many things for me to be angry about to know where to begin. He let Andi go up a tree? He’d taken her to Connecticut? To see a house? If he’d thought it was okay to take her to Connecticut, why hadn’t he told me?

It’s not like you asked, he said. You could have asked.

Why should I ask! You know how I feel about Connecticut!

You were happy to be rid of her, Ahmad said softly.

How dare you! I shouted, then lowered my voice. How dare you say I was happy to be rid of her! That’s a terrible thing to say!

That’s why you didn’t ask. Because you didn’t care. You wanted to work.

I didn’t ask, I said, my voice rising again, because I trusted you!

A small voice behind me said: Ahmad, would you draw my bath? Tink already burned himself.

Ahmad shot me a look that sent a cliché of shivers down my spine.

We ate our clams cold and in silence, in front of the TV.

25

STUNNING VICTORY

After the
Friends
rerun, Andi wanted Ahmad to tuck her in, but I insisted.

C’mon, kiddo, I said, and she led me, reluctantly, to her room. Her pajama tops were on backwards. How many days had she worn them? Another night wouldn’t hurt. Her room was more or less in order: on the floor, a Barbie at the Beach coloring book, Monica Lewinsky paper dolls (Monica was Andi’s idea of a superhero: on TV every night, everyone talking about her clothes. Monica’s job may have lasted a minute, but she was no temp!). On her child-size desk, a children’s dictionary, a half-empty box of crayons. In the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, dozens of Nancy Drews, also a four-poster bed for Tamika.

Where’s Tink? I asked.

In exile, she said.

Again? I asked.

He wouldn’t do as he was told so I put him in the bathtub.

You didn’t drown him, did you?

How could I drown him if he’s not real?

Okay. Into bed.

She hesitated.

I want to say my prayers, she said, and got into position.

You kneel beside your bed?

That’s the way Pammy does it.

I knew she’d started doing this, but I didn’t know she kneeled—like a cherub in some Jerry Falwell newsletter. I called on my father’s ancestors for assistance.

You know, Jewish girls don’t kneel when they pray.

Really? she asked, interested. What do they do?

I didn’t know. I tried to remember scenes of synagogue prayer from movies.

They sit, I said. Sometimes they stand.

Pammy kneels.

Well, she’s not Jewish, is she? I said, beginning to despair.

I want to do it like Pammy.

Okay. I’m just telling you. So you know.

Now I lay me down to sleep …, my daughter from another planet said, then scrambled into bed.

Do you say that because you’re afraid? I asked, aware too late that the question was leading.

Of what? she asked, and I was caught. I couldn’t say,
afraid of dying
.

I don’t know. School beginning?

She looked at me blankly. School was three days away, an eternity in child time.

Why would I be afraid of that?

What about nightmares? You know what my mother told me to do if I had nightmares?

You have a mother?

Of course I have a mother—what did you think?

Andi shrugged. When she shrugged, her whole torso got involved, one shoulder higher than the other, head cocked, the very picture of puzzlement. I had to laugh.

If you have a mother why don’t we see her?

I stopped laughing.

Because she’s not a nice person, Andi.

Then I don’t want to know what she said about nightmares, she replied reasonably.

I don’t know why I persisted, acting the part of Cora, a character from one of my short stories, who invents tales about a grandmother her daughter never knew.

My mother said you had to tell yourself you were in a nightmare. Then you could either make the dream better or you could wake yourself up.

I tried that, Andi said. It doesn’t work.

I stared at my daughter, that miraculous mix of spirit and flesh.

Maybe you need practice, I said, still wanting to give her something, something she could use. Were you afraid when you fell from the tree?

If I fell again I wouldn’t be afraid!

Oh?

I’d pretend I was flying, she said, and spread out her arms.

I sat down on her bed, trying to take that in.

You’re supposed to tuck me in now.

I pulled the guilt quilt up to her chin, making sure her cast was outside the blankets.

Ahmad tucks me in tighter.

I want to talk to you about Connecticut, I said.

She looked at me solemnly.

I know you had a good time there.

She didn’t reply, expecting to have to wait out a lecture.

You did, didn’t you?

She nodded.

Just because you have fun there doesn’t mean it’s a good place to live. Think of the things you’d miss in New York. Your playgroup, friends at school, musicals …

Ahmad says we can go to matinees on weekends.

What about Pammy and Martina? You’d miss them, wouldn’t you?

Pammy’s stuck up, and Martina doesn’t like me anymore.

Really? Why?

I don’t know, Andi said, shrugging.

You had a fight with your friends? I asked, stunned. They’d been inseparable since Chinese-Spanish-French quadrilingual preschool.

Andi nodded.

Ahmad says these things happen.

Why didn’t you tell me?

I don’t know, Andi said, shrugging again. You were busy.

I always have time for you.

You said I mustn’t disturb you when you’re working.

I couldn’t argue with that—I had.

There’s always time. I always have time for you.

Oh, Andi said.

Really!

Okay, I heard you.

There are lots of things about New York you’d miss if you left. You don’t realize it now because Connecticut is so new.

I’d miss Ahmad more.

What makes you think Ahmad would be there without us?

It’s obvious. Besides, he told me.

That’s not certain, I said, as if that made a difference.

Plus, Andi said, the house is near a mall. There are no malls in New York City. Just stupid stores one after the other. No malls, no indoor waterfalls.

We’ll talk about this more later, I said, leaning over to kiss her cheek, having no arguments to offer now except that of my own need.

I’d have a bike, she added, and a pool. Does your mother live in Connecticut, is that why you don’t want to live there?

My mother has nothing to do with this.

It’s two against one, Andi said.

Moms have veto power, even in a democracy. Ask anyone.

You never want me to have any fun!

That’s silly. Of course I want you to have fun!

I’m staying up all night.

Fine. As long as you turn out the light.

You don’t think I can do it.

Good night, Andi.

You don’t think I can do it! she shouted as I shut her door. You don’t think I can do it!

She continued shouting these absurd words, challenging me
to—what? agree with her? believe in her? I bumped into, and ignored, Ahmad in the hall. He stopped in front of Andi’s room. I heard him open her door, then I heard the shouting stop.

Not the stunning victory I’d hoped for.

26

RITALIN FOR THE HEART

Andi had a nightmare. Angry men with baseball bats came through the window; they wanted to hurt the children. She tried to make them stop, really she did. Or rather, she hid while Ovidio shot them with his gun. I ran to her room when I heard her cry and grabbed her to me. She crumpled against my chest, a reluctant, shuddering ball; she would not be consoled. Ahmad, wearing only his pajama bottoms, came to the door. I told him about the dream.

Damn your daughter’s Oedipal fantasies, he muttered. Andi pulled away from me, reached for him with both arms, her face smeared with tears. He took her from me and swayed with her, his arms strong against her back, his face nuzzling her neck, murmuring things till she fell asleep, still in his arms. Behind them, floating in the corners of the wall, lit by glow-in-the-dark stars, portraits of Ahmad and me, looking younger, more optimistic. I left Ahmad to put her back to bed and felt cold inside. When had I become superfluous?

From my bed I stared at the Corot poster on my wall, made strange by flashing avenue light. I’d made a vow when Andi was born: she’d be the center
and
the circumference of my life, its organizing principle and its limit. I would never abandon her, not in thought, word, or deed. I’d be everything my mother wasn’t. Nothing would ever ground my girl: I’d make sure she flew to her big heart’s content. Was I a bad role model? Was Connecticut better for my baby?

I’ve never been good at second-guessing myself. When that still small voice tells me to look at my life, I turn up the stereo, find anything to do but. The psychologists haven’t come up with a cure for what ails me: there is no Ritalin for the heart.

I kicked my blankets to the floor. Time to
do
something. Organize under the kitchen sink, flush the coffeemaker with baking soda. As I left my room, something crunched underfoot: a Popsicle-stick throne Ahmad had made for Tink—a throne, flattened now by my big foot.

What do you think, Tink? I asked, the hall nightlight illuminating the shape of things. Should I move to Connecticut? Will I lose my daughter if I don’t?