Lie Still

3

After two hours of a maverick card tournament that involved drinking, dice, musical partners, and trivia questions, my eyes blinked in slow motion. My mid-trimester bedtime clock had set itself at 9 p.m. and the alarm had buzzed about twenty minutes ago.

I was pretty sure I could fall asleep sitting up in this chair, in spite of the din of voices and laughter that rose with each bottle of Prosecco consumed. At Caroline’s wish, we’d “removed” ourselves to a game room set up with eight card tables of four chairs each. The buffet that ran along the wall was heaped with chocolate truffles, raspberries, and ice buckets chilling about a thousand dollars’ worth of fizz.

I’d played Bunko before, but this oddball Southern version required more than tossing the dice and luck. Good for me, since luck had never been my thing. But I was good at facts. Ever since winning the sixth-grade geography bee by knowing that the smallest country is Vatican City (what good Catholic girl doesn’t know that?), I’d realized the power of storing loose pieces of information.

To the delight of my multiple partners, including a frail old woman named Gert who called me Ruby all night, I was able to rack up bonus points by knowing that Audrey Hepburn won an Oscar for her debut role in Roman Holiday, that Van Gogh sold exactly one painting in his lifetime, and that the collective noun for a group of crows is a murder.

An hour and a half in, I gave up trying to remember too many names that ended in i or y or ie. I’d learned through rapid partner swapping that not everyone was a “regular” and that permanent admission into this club required Caroline’s approval, a “donor’s fee,” and maybe the selling of a teeny bit of one’s soul. Caroline didn’t play. Instead, she wandered from group to group, with her mouth drawn up like a coin purse. The purpose of a hostess is to make everyone relax, but her arrival had the opposite effect. Everyone swigged whatever she was drinking.

Caroline slipped past my table just as Marcy on my right began to yell into the most blinged-out, bejeweled phone I’d ever seen. “Really? Seriously? You’re bothering me with that right now? I have no idea where the frickin’ weed whacker is. We have a service, for Christ’s sake.”

She tossed the phone into a Louis Vuitton bag that could hold a horse’s head and scooped up her cards. “My husband just called to ask what I’ve done with the weed whacker because it isn’t hanging on the hook in the garage. He doesn’t want to use it. God forbid that he’d ever touch a tool. We pay someone $200 a week for that. He just wants to know where I put it. Jezus. Our son probably sold it on eBay. More power to him.”

Jenny’s boobs bounced stiffly as she tossed a round of sixes. “Last week, Rick called me at my best friend’s fortieth birthday lunch at Le Cinq to tell me the dog crapped a loose one all over the upstairs rug. I’m in Paris eating things I can’t pronounce and he wants to know what he should do. He runs a multimillion-dollar business.”

The owner of the Louis Vuitton purse smirked. “What did you tell him?”

“To be sure that when I walked in the door, it was like it never happened. Jesus, call the professionals.” Jenny nudged me. “What do you think, Emily? I thought New Yorkers had lots of opinions.”

The three of them waited expectantly, the dice still.

“Well,” I played it deadpan, “I think these things are never really about the dog shit and the weed whacker.”

Right answer. Everybody laughed. Lots of wine, lots of man bashing, lots of exclamations involving Jesus, and lots of me keeping my mouth shut whenever possible.

Misty and I finally landed at the same table on the two-hour mark. She’d abandoned her ruby heels somewhere in favor of bare feet. A French pedicure. Long pretty toes, which she tucked easily up under her on the chair. Dark, purposely mussed and moussed hair framed an expertly made-up face. Not beautiful but highly cute. The kind of girl that boys like to throw in the pool. I guessed her to be in her late twenties or early thirties. Her only other jewelry besides the dollar-sign necklace was a wide platinum wedding band. Her fingernails were bare and chewed to the quick.

“Hi, newbie,” she said.

“Hi back,” I replied.

Gert was hobbling her way over to round out the foursome at our table, tipping most of her glass onto the carpet on the way. Her gray hair peeked out under the Bunko crown, a Dallas Cowboys cap covered with rhinestones and assorted political and memorabilia pins, including one that read I MISS W. I had been trying very hard all night not to roll a Bunko and receive the honor of wearing it. Gert stopped abruptly in the middle of the room, as if she’d suddenly lost her place in time. I left Misty to grab Gert’s arm and guide her to the empty chair next to mine.

“Ruby!” she crowed enthusiastically, patting my hand. “There you are!”

“Alzheimer’s,” murmured Tiffany Green, who’d just rotated to the table. “My husband is her pharmacist.”

Tiffany shot Misty and me a cold stare and stopped her first roll in mid-air. “Have you two filled out your applications yet?” she demanded.

“What application?” I asked. Letty had mentioned an application, too. “I don’t understand the application thing.”

“I never got in,” Gert confessed forlornly. “I’ll be with my dear Frank and Jesus before I get in. Will one of you nice girls scatter my ashes at Lake Texoma?”

“Your husband’s name was Jasper, honey,” Tiffany said.

“I sure as hell know what my husband’s name was.” I had the feeling she certainly did. Gert held the piece of paper in her hand closer to the thick lenses of her glasses. “I also know that the phrase rule of thumb comes from an old English law that said a man couldn’t beat his wife with anything bigger around than his thumb. Give me three points for getting that. Who makes up these questions?”

“Look, I’m just wanting to know who my competition is,” Tiffany persisted. “There’s one spot open for fall. I’ve been waiting since last year, so I’m hoping y’all can see that it’s only right that it would go to me.”

“Will someone play a ghost hand for me?” I asked. “I need to find a bathroom.”

“Down the hall, three doors on the left,” Tiffany instructed briskly. “Or two doors. Or maybe it’s to the right. Whatever. You’ll find one. There’s at least ten potty rooms in this place.”

She threw the dice harder than necessary, one of them bouncing into Misty’s lap. “Y’all be thinking about what I said,” she muttered.

I shut the heavy game room door behind me and sagged against the flocked wallpaper of the hallway, the chatter from the room instantly muted. Mike owed me big for this night. A series of closed doors trailed away on both sides of me. Low-lit sconces. Ivy creeping up the walls. The whole effect reminded me of an old luxury hotel.

Pick a door, any door. Your grandmother and hot tea behind Door One. An illicit lover behind Door Two. A maniacal Jack Nicholson with a bloody knife behind Door Three. All better options than returning to Tiffany’s inquisition.

A dark maple staircase swirled up from the ground floor, breaking briefly for the second landing, and then disappearing above my head. How many floors, I wondered, for one rich lady?

The baby gave my bladder a swift kick. I counted three doors to the left and knocked.

Mary Ann’s voice filtered out. “It’s going to be a while. I’m puking.”

I tried a few more doors, all locked, finally finding a knob that turned at the very end near a back servants’ staircase. It opened up into a bedroom. I practically flew inside to the guest bath visible from the door. I barely made it to the toilet, shoving the door closed with my foot. Four glasses of water plus one roly-poly fetus was basic pregnant math, sort of like how a Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked ice-cream bar plus a small bag of salt and vinegar chips equaled a nice afternoon snack.

I washed up at a porcelain sink with a large purple orchid hand-painted inside the bowl. Embroidered towels. I dried my hands on my dress and ventured back into the bedroom. I could see my footprints stamped in the thick cream carpet like a fossilized dinosaur’s. Sheer lavender curtains were tied back on all corners of an old oak four-poster. I imagined pulling at the silk ties and lying there in a private purple cocoon.

I wondered whether I should fluff out my footprints. Leave no trace behind.

Mew.

Startled, I swung around, knocking my knee painfully against the trunk at the foot of the bed. What was that? A kitty? Maybe trapped in the closet? There were two doors in the room besides the one to the bathroom, one with a key in the lock. I picked the door without the key and found myself staring at a red Miele vacuum cleaner, a tight row of empty wooden hangers, and built-in shelves holding extra linens and towels. No cat.

I stared at the door with the key. There were way too many doors in this place.

Mew.

Tiny, soft, polite. The universal cat distress call.

What the hell. I turned the key, pushed the door open, and found myself on the threshold of another bedroom.

Two thoughts, almost simultaneously.

That was one mean-looking cat on the bed.

Hadn’t Mike told me that Caroline had lost a son?

This room belonged to a girl. A girl in transition. Pale pink walls and a cream-colored quilted bedspread with a battered teddy bear perched on top. Old-fashioned French Provincial furniture. A porcelain music box shaped like pink toe shoes rested on the dresser below a mirror. Postcards and random pictures were stuck inside the edges of the mirror’s frame, arranged a little too perfectly.

A movie poster of Rear Window was tacked to one wall and a smiling Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet to another. The room felt unused but regularly dusted, like a set piece in a museum. The whole effect was disturbing.

The cat, an enormous, whorled yellow and white tabby with wide gold eyes, bared his teeth from a predatory position on the bed. He looked like he benched his weight at the cat gym and needed no rescuing from me.

“Shhh, sweet-sweet-kitty-kitty.” It came out the way I worried I was going to talk to my baby.

The cat settled back on his haunches, glaring. His eyes followed me as I drifted toward the bookcase and several rows of neatly lined-up volumes. At least twenty diaries, the kind with the cheap lock that any kid brother could pop with a pin.

My Diary, in worn silver lettering, was printed on each of the spines. No imagery of Hello Kitty, peace signs, or those Twilight guys. I shivered. I felt like I was standing in a pink funeral parlor. The little girl of this room didn’t exist anymore, I felt sure. I doubted she’d ever stood in this spot. The bed, the bear, the pictures, the diaries-all of it transported from another time and place.

My eyes landed on a cat box in the corner, spread smooth with clean gray litter.

No kitty footprints.

The cat had dropped a small, curly brown turd on the floor right beside the box.

His little message.

He wanted out.

The party was breaking up by the time I slipped back, women milling around, chattering, saying goodbye. I threaded my way to Misty, who was bent over, strapping on her shoes. I guessed the heels at six inches. Knockoffs.

“What took you so long?” she asked.

“A cat that needs an antidepressant.”

She stared at me a moment, then grinned, displaying small, pretty, very straight teeth. “I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to talk more. How about lunch this week? My place? My husband’s out of town.”

“Sure.” I leapt at the friendly, casual invitation.

“Emily?”

I turned to acknowledge a fiftyish, plain, very tall woman, one of the few in the room to let her gray hair sprout however it wanted to. “I just wanted to introduce myself. I’m Gretchen Liesel. These girls are at full gossip tilt since your husband rode into town on his metaphorical horse.”

I’d gotten a good vibe off of Gretchen even though I had only observed her tonight from a distance. A nice, low laugh that carried. The night’s high scorer on trivia, besting me by a point. A gray dove in a room of peacocks. I turned to include Misty, but she had drifted away.

“Everyone tells me you’re the person to see about the baby,” I told Gretchen, smiling. “My OB in New York recommended someone, but she’s in Dallas. I’ve seen her once. At the Margot Perot Center. It’s a little farther to drive than I thought.”

“Her name?”

“Herrera.”

“I know her. She’s very good. High-risk pregnancies.” She paused as if thinking about that. “It’s not that far really. And the Perot center is state-of-the-art, embracing, even. Whatever you think of Ross Perot, you can’t argue with his ingenuity. Or generosity.”

“I voted for him,” I said.

Gretchen laughed. “Don’t say that too loudly. Here’s my card. I don’t steal patients, but I’m available to you locally in a crisis.”

We exchanged a few more words, mostly her admonitions about how pregnant women needed to be extremely careful not to get dehydrated in the brutal Texas summer. Eight tall glasses of water a day, at least. She urged me to stick a bunch of plastic water bottles in the freezer and grab one for the cup holder of my car every time I walked out of the house. Screw the environment for a few months. The water would melt just right, and I would be thirty percent less likely to faint.

Gretchen Liesel punctuated my evening with the most normal conversation of the night. I glanced around for Misty but couldn’t find her. We hadn’t set a day or a time. While waiting in line for Caroline to clasp my hand regally at the door, I wondered if I could make it home without dozing at the wheel.

Back in the Volvo, seatbelt buckled over Baby, I switched on the motor, only to be jolted by another rap, rap, rap. Letty.

Now what does she want?

Instead, when I rolled down the window, the face surprised me.

“Dr. Liesel?”

She leaned in through the window, her voice lowered, her breath smelling pleasantly like peppermints and champagne, appropriately antiseptic.

“Gretchen, please,” she told me. “This might sound strange since you don’t know me at all. But be careful around these women, Emily. They like to pry and tell. A tip from one ex-East Coaster to another.”

Before I could respond, she’d straightened and tossed a little wave to Caroline, a spidery shape in the doorway, like something etched in a Tim Burton movie. Surely, this wasn’t Caroline’s message Gretchen was delivering?

My head pounded, the effects of the wine, my two-week withdrawal from caffeine, and one of the most bizarre social evenings of my life.

I watched Dr. Liesel trot around the corner. No car. Gretchen lived in the kingdom, too.

I cranked the Volvo into gear and let Hugh take me home, away from that little girl’s pink room, frozen in time.

I smelled honeysuckle and damp wood when I stepped outside the next morning onto the turn-of-the-century wraparound porch, my porch, the one I’d dreamed of while stuck in our hot box of an apartment on 57th Street.

I reached for the envelopes stuffed into the old metal box hanging by the front door and wondered if I would always feel fear when I retrieved the mail, even though there are lapses of time between her letters. A full three years before the one recently delivered to our old apartment. Maybe she had needed a vacation. Maybe she’d been sick.

Maybe she wouldn’t track me down here, in our new home, thousands of miles from New York.

Sometimes she slams me with pages of obscenities and wishes for my early death in strong, angry cursive. Sometimes she details how she’d like it to happen.

Sometimes she just types a single word.

Murderer.

I’m not who she thinks I am. Until the most recent communication, I wasn’t absolutely sure she was even a she. My letter stalker never signed a name.

Now I knew. The last envelope that arrived in New York, the last one dropped into the shoebox, signaled an ominous change. It held a picture printed off the Internet, a painting I recognized instantly even though she had ripped three-fourths of it away, leaving nothing but the grieving mother, howling, distorted, cradling her dead child, all sharp edges and pain. Picasso’s cubist masterpiece Guernica. This latest message was directed at me, the artist with a bloody brush. Worse, there were no more pretenses about who she was.

I never told anyone about the letters. It was another of my secrets, one that would require too much explaining, lead to places I don’t want to go again.

My eyes grazed across the picturesque street, taking in the tidy patches of lawn and renovated cottages, starter homes for the iPad generation.

Nothing out of place.

I watched two young men hop out of a white van across the street, both wearing clear hard plastic backpacks sloshing with gasoline. One held the long black leaf blower in front of him with two hands, gripped like a rifle, as if he was prepared to fire, to spatter bullets across this quiet street. It wasn’t that hard to imagine that he was.

I wanted to stop thinking like this.