Authors: Tish Cohen
S
omeone wonderful enough to know how much we needed you and generous enough to let you go.” That was the answer every time Eleanor asked about her birth mother’s identity.
Thomas and Marion Prue were in their mid-fifties before they seriously considered adoption. Marion herself, a school secretary, had been born to a mother of fifty-three. It hadn’t seemed impossible that it could still happen for them.
They’d been living a hushed life in Hyannis, tucked away in a weathered cedar cottage at the end of a cul-de-sac, walking distance to the water. The house was perfect, they’d thought when they first saw it—waves of the Cape’s blue mophead hydrangeas lapping at the split-rail fence that surrounded the property, massive trees providing a watery shade for children to play.
The original plan was this: Marion, a drugstore cashier, would retire early and take the kids to the beach every morning, teach them to swim. Unimpressed with the quality of teachers at the neighborhood elementary, she planned to home-school them. Snack and lessons after the beach, a healthy lunch, then naps all around. Three children they
wanted. Two girls and a boy. Or two boys and a girl. In the meantime, as month after month passed without so much as a missed period for Marion, they focused all their attention on prettying up the house. Carefully lifting back the rambling roses from the wooden fence and re-staining it each year. Tugging dandelions out of the lawn with a skewer so as to keep the yard pesticide free, should the children ever come. Building a garden shed that for now would hold their tools, but later could be converted into a playhouse, complete with window that opened onto a covered platform, all ready for someone to play store. No make-believe shop owner worth his salt would allow his imaginary customers to get wet while counting out their pennies.
Hope withered gradually as, month after month, pregnancy tests came back negative. It dropped dead May 3, 1973, on a verdant stretch of freeway with nothing but grass trimmed as short as velvet and oak trees being softly strangled by English ivy gone wild. Marion wanted to plant the dark waxy groundcover in the garden and Thomas slowed to point out just how high up the trees the ivy had climbed.
“It’s invasive,” he said. “Chokes out the roots of native plants. Grows so thick it topples trees. Takes out entire forests.”
“Entire forests?” said Marion. “One tiny vine?”
He made a sucking sound with his teeth. “Well documented. Look it up, if you like. Some states have made it illegal.”
“Illegal. Honestly, Thomas.” She nobly rearranged her purse on the floor beside her feet and sat back again. “On the house, then. Up the south wall—it’s so plain on that side.”
“Worse.” Thomas stopped playing with the radio and
shot her a look. “Those little tendrils crack the mortar and then you’ve got moisture and bugs coming in.”
They were driving back from visiting her sister in Sandwich, Massachusetts. Anna’s husband had just left her for her best friend and she had wanted support while he picked up his things. Marion sat with Anna in the kitchen, while Thomas sat on the sofa, aggrieved, and clicked from channel to channel in search of a football game that didn’t exist. It was mid-morning on a Tuesday. Football wouldn’t be out of bed until the weekend.
In the car, Marion folded her hands in her lap and stared out the window. After studying a barn so splintered it had sunken in on one side, she grunted. “They don’t make the cracks.”
“Ivy vines? They most certainly do!”
“They wiggle their way into cracks that are already there. I did do
some
research.”
“You should grow tomatoes if you want to keep busy. Can’t go wrong with tomatoes.”
This she didn’t answer.
Thomas slowed the wood-paneled Jeep Cherokee as they approached a dark red minivan at the side of the road. He muttered something about the van being too close to the passing traffic. “See? This is how terrible accidents happen. People don’t use common sense.”
Marion hadn’t noticed. She was busy watching a young mother slide out the side of the van, a boy in her arms, his grasshopper legs wound around her waist. The mother hurried toward the copse of brush to find privacy for her son to relieve himself, his hands bumping against her neck as they went. The Cherokee sped past and Marion turned around.
Mother and son were no longer visible. She settled back in her seat and stared down at the thinning skin on the back of her hands.
It was never going to happen for her. The window had closed.
F
DC Manufacturing Inc. She has no memory of an order from such a company. It’s happened before—that a manufacturer sends unordered product with an accompanying invoice in the hopes that the harried store owner will assume she’s ordered the pacifiers or diaper covers or pillowcases and simply pay the bill. Eleanor has made a point of avoiding such trickery, in no small part because the mystery product tends to be inferior.
As has become usual, Queen thumps through the wall from Noel’s place.
She punctures the packing tape with a pop and drags the knife along the length of the box. If the contents prove to be unasked for, she decides, she won’t waste the money to return them. Maybe—this might teach the sender a lesson—she’ll just place the merchandise on her shelves and sell it. Play stupid, as if she assumed it was a free sample.
Inside the box is one pair of gorgeous, hand-knitted booties. Pale yellow with a satin ribbon woven through at the ankle. Eleanor stares at them and smiles. It doesn’t matter that Sylvie is too old for booties. Eleanor will keep them. They’re the same yellow as her room.
It’s a sign.
Everything is in place. She called Back Bay the moment it opened this morning. Made an appointment with Nancy for two o’clock. Jonathan swore he wouldn’t be late.
Eleanor heads to the back of the store with her empty Mass General mug—a stocking stuffer from Jonathan a few years ago—and starts when she sees Ginny lying in a nursing chair, face blanketed with a French crib quilt.
“Don’t tell me,” Eleanor says. “The sentimentality of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ knocked you off your feet?”
“Grab me one of those nursing pillows, would you?” says Ginny, pointing to a pile of cushions and toys. “My head is going to explode.”
Eleanor hands her a faded denim croissant-shaped cushion.
“No. Hold it above me.”
Eleanor hooks her empty mug in one finger and holds up the pillow. “Like this?”
“Just press it over my face and hold it down until I stop writhing.”
“That’s it. I’ll threaten him this time.”
Ginny struggles to her feet. “Don’t say it’s because of me!”
Eleanor marches into the break room and sets about making a fresh pot of coffee. “Honestly, Ginny. What do you care what he thinks?”
“Did you see the guy? He’s gorgeous. Even his name is gorgeous. Noel. Who’s named Noel these days?” Ginny drops into a chair at the table.
“Well. Simmer down. You’re married. With children.”
“The headaches aren’t my usual. These don’t start out like typical migraines—no blurry vision or anything. This pain just slams me out of nowhere.”
“You don’t think …”
“What? It’s a tumor? That’s a nice suggestion.”
“No. I just wonder.” Eleanor waves toward Ginny’s midsection as she pours two cups of coffee. “You know. Whether you’re all … babied up again.”
“There is no way I’m pregnant.”
As Ginny reaches for the mug, Eleanor says, “Maybe you shouldn’t drink that until you know for sure.”
Ginny cradles the mug to her chest. Her eyes search the wallpaper for confirmation, but the suggestions of fertility and pastoral bliss do nothing to help. “It isn’t even possible. We never even had time to look at each other, let alone—” Ginny stops, closes her eyes. “Oh no.”
“What?”
“Shit.”
“What?”
“One night. There was one night, we had time. Mother of God, it cannot be happening again. It cannot. It cannot. It cannot.”
It would be the worst timing of all Ginny’s pregnancies. Eleanor’s assistant does not suffer pregnancies well. She grows as big as a delivery van and the nausea lasts clear into the third trimester. Sylvie is coming and Eleanor will be alone. She’ll need Ginny more than ever.
Without a word, Eleanor grabs a Oui ou Non pregnancy kit from the table Ginny recently labeled
Oops, I did it again
. Testing is a waste of time. Ginny is pregnant again, Eleanor can feel it in her left shoulder. In a few weeks, she’ll be complaining about the fizzy feeling in her abdomen; no woman seems to be able to feel her baby’s squirming as early as Ginny Hardwell. Feels like drinking too
much 7UP and having the bubbles trickle up through your core, she’ll say.
Eleanor drops the pregnancy stick into Ginny’s lap. “I’m going next door. What’d you bring in your lunch? Anything sweet? Dessert-like?”
“A pecan-raisin butter tart, that’s your threat?”
“I’m going to kill the guy with kindness.” Eleanor shrugs as she opens the door to go. “If that doesn’t work, I’ll use my teeth.”
“Tell him I say hi!” Ginny calls, ripping open the package and heading for the bathroom.
In the Death by Vinyl entryway, Eleanor stands face to face with a dusty brown ten-foot Sasquatch figure with a hockey mask for a face. A sign hangs crookedly from a chain around his hairy neck: go away. Nice. Good for business. In one of the creature’s lifeless hands, being held by a foot, is a baby doll in a nautical playsuit. Behind Bigfoot are panels of chain-link fencing that separate the cash area from any customer foolish enough to believe the owner is remotely interested in trading merchandise for something as banal as cold hard cash.
In her hand is Ginny’s dessert, wrapped in a pretty blue napkin. Not that she’ll come right out and say the tart is homemade, but she did go to the effort of removing the Auntie Jane’s Bakery packaging with its line drawing of a country cottage. Mass-produced baked goods—even those depicting curls of smoke coming from Auntie Jane’s stone chimney—don’t invoke a feeling of homey comfort. If Noel happens to think she went to the trouble of baking for him, well she’ll simply correct him. It isn’t as if she’s planning to lie.
Noel’s floors are much like her own: a beautiful worn stretch of planks mottled to black in spots. The ceiling, however, is painted charcoal, and strung from it are faded album covers that spin in the airflow, old metal fans, and a disco ball. Long plywood troughs hold thousands upon thousands of records, and, beneath the troughs, plastic milk crates hold even more—with handwritten signs prompting customers to
Check out these records too!
with an arrow pointing down. Also beneath the troughs are dusty old record players that seem to range wildly in price from $25 for one assured to not be in working order to $160 for one in “good condition with sweet-ass needle.”
The music, no surprise, is “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
She catches sight of a framed photo on the cash desk and stops, leans closer. The grinning woman is classically beautiful with deep-set eyes, curly black hair, and an unself-conscious smile. She sits in front of a birthday cake ablaze with candles.
“I’m not open yet.” Noel doesn’t look down from the top of a ladder. Over his head, a stoplight changes from yellow to red. “Try again next week. Or the week after.”
“It’s me. Eleanor.” She holds up the tart. “I just came by to offer you a pastry. And to insist you turn down the music.”
He glances now. “I’m kind of in the middle of something here.” He motions with his screwdriver toward the closest speaker. “If you don’t mind.”
“It’s customary, among the humans, to be appreciative when someone brings you a treat.”
“I’m not into sweets.”
“But I baked it myself. From
scratch
.”
No reaction from him.
Her exit is blocked by a stooped man who has wandered in, his hat in his hands as he slows to examine the Sasquatch.
“Do you carry John Coltrane?” he asks Noel. “I’m looking for the album
Black Pearls
.”
Eleanor is standing beside the Jazz section and allows her eyes to travel the names. She walks her fingers through the Cs to
Coltrane
and pulls out the album. “Here it is. It’s marked twenty-nine dollars.”
“That seems a bit high,” the man says.
“I agree. I mean, the jacket is all dinged up.” Eleanor pulls out the disk. “The record itself looks pretty good …”
“I’m not open for business yet!” says Noel.
“Would you pay nine ninety-nine?” Eleanor asks the man with the hat.
He digs through his pockets and hands her a ten.
“I don’t have a penny,” she says, putting the album in his hands. “Noel will owe you a penny.”
“Is nobody listening? I’m not open yet!”
“It’s fine,” Eleanor says, shooing the customer out.
The man nods, unsure of what just transpired. With an accusatory glance at Noel and the album pressed tight to his chest, he scurries out of the store.
“Come again!” she calls after him. Once the door is shut, she says, “Well, there’s a customer who’ll never be back.”
“Hey. Sign on the door says ‘Closed.’ Technically, the guy’s trespassing.” Noel leans into the screwdriver and gives it a few mighty twists. In a low voice he adds, “As is anyone who walks in here uninvited.”
“Excuse me?”
“Thank you for the cupcake—”
“It’s a butter tart!”
“Thank you for the butter tart, but I don’t eat dessert.” He nods toward the door. “So if you don’t mind …”
Her chest heaves with as much indignation as if she’d been up all night rolling dough. She takes the tart between two fingers, holds it up so he can see it, drops it to the floor, and mashes it with her heel. On her way out, she calls, “Turn down your music!”
“Sound is what I sell. I can’t not display it!”
The relative calm of Pretty Baby is a relief after the surreal interior of Death by Vinyl. At least here, things make sense. The items on the shelves are for sale. Customers walking in are encouraged to buy them. The entire place is Sasquatch-free. Eleanor grabs a stack of baby books and arranges them on a shelf, fuming. “What kind of person refuses a tart? Even if you don’t want it, you accept it! You don’t stare down from your stupid ladder—which was not even positioned very well, I might add—and pretend the person who just walked in with a tart she may have spent an entire evening baking for all you know … you don’t just pretend she walked in empty-handed. I mean tarts—they’re not like cookies. You have to roll the crust, cut it, bake it, and then, once you add the filling, cook it again. I swear to God, I’m not talking to that guy again. From now on you’ll do the communicating.” When Ginny doesn’t respond, Eleanor looks around. “Gin?”
The door to the restroom is still open. The test! Eleanor rushes to the back of the store to find Ginny hunched on the toilet, pants around her ankles, staring at the pregnancy stick. She lifts her tear-stained face and shakes her head.
“Don’t tell me.”
“I swear, all it takes is the sound of his belt buckle and
there I am. Pregnant again.” Ginny looks up, unbrushed hair curtaining a face already puffy with maternity bloat.
A fourth baby for a woman who’d been determined to have none.
The pain is spreading to Eleanor’s neck. She reaches up to rub her shoulder.