A New Lu (12 page)

15

“Hey, Lu. Waz up?”

“Not—Oh!” My hand rises to cover my mouth as I behold the sight in my office doorway. I almost don't recognize Curran with his sandy-red brows and lashes, minus black mascara. More than that, his head is covered with little inch-and-a-half bundles of matted hair, held together with red rubber bands at the scalp and tip. “Curran, you look just like Binky the Clown.”

Curran scratches his chin where a few scraggly reddish hairs have sprouted since last week. “Who?”

“A doll I once had.” Binky was a Raggedy Ann-type scarecrow with a clown face and hair made out of orange yarn knotted at the scalp. Curran looks just as silly to me as that clown but I won't contribute that thought. “You, ah, got—”

“Dreads.” He grins and nods. “I found a shop in Newark that does Caucasian hair. The stylist is K'Shonde. Gave me props for checking out her stuff. Told her I'm
too dope to try weak shizz like chemicals, or peanut butter and toothpaste. My stuff is tight.”

He's been working on his hip-hop language, too. So far, I'm barely keeping up with the syntax.

I remember my youthful suffering for beauty's sake—sleeping in hard curlers, wearing spiked heels and pointy toes. But as I touch one of Curran's tightly bundled dreads I have to say, “Those rubber bands look like they hurt.”

“No doubt. It takes eight or nine months to create dreads, but only four or five weeks for the hair to lock up. Then I can take off the scalp bands.”

I can't help it. Looking at them makes me scratch my scalp. “Don't they itch?”

His head nods forward as he casts me the doubtful look of a young conqueror who's begun to suspect he's laid his booty before an unappreciative audience. “You're misconceptualizing, Lu. Peoples are misled to think it's about dirty hair. Clean hair is the secret of phat dreads.”

At the moment KaZi stops at my open door, her hair today so vivid a pink a Mary Kay consultant would blush. “Hey, Lu. I brought you the mock-up for the revamped August issue.”

Curran leaps off the edge off my desk at the sound of her voice and spins around to face the doorway. “Whot's up, KaZi?”

“You got dreads. Cool.” KaZi deadpans these words, but I can tell she's impressed because she actually walks up to him and examines one little thumb of hair. “Don't do something stupid like put conditioner on them.”

“A brother's down.” Curran actually preens as he begins rolling a clump of hair between his thumb and fingers. “Using beeswax and tea-tree oil.”

KaZi shrugs. “Nice fragrance.” She turns and hands me the layout pages. “The art department thinks they need work. They also left room for your column. See what you
think. We've got until Monday morning to make adjustments.”

“That's what I came to tell you.” Curran pats the layout stack. “Your ‘before' photos are in here. Tai e-mailed her final choices from Lucerne yesterday. I'da made the same, but for one. The layout's dope!”

KaZi nods.

“Thanks. I think.” I have seen the negatives under the light using the magnifier, but not the cropped and touched-up final results.

My fingers nervously run the scales over the top page. Though they have both seen them, I don't want a lot of witnesses as I look at my magazine-size images for the first time. In fact, I want to share this moment only with Curran. After all, his reputation and my self-esteem are tied up in these photographs.

I look up at KaZi, who's paying an unusual amount of attention to her cuticles, and hope she gets the hint.

Finally she glances sideways at Curran. “You got panty hose yet?”

He dumbly shakes his head.

“You need them to wash dreads. I'll buy you a pair at lunch. But you got to pay. For lunch, too.”

“That's cool.” Curran bops his head. That must mean Tai ponied up the bonus she promised him if she was pleased with his work. My stomach clinches at the thought of what Tai would consider good shots of the “before” me.

As she turns to leave, Curran says to KaZi, “I'm hittin' the shore this weekend. Dip my dreads in the ocean. Drying in the sun will tighten 'em down quick. You down for that?”

KaZi comes close to smiling. “Probably.”

“Cool!” He leaps forward to follow her.

As they wander away from my door in the too-cool slouch of a matched set, I realize I've just witnessed a
twenty-first-century mating ritual. I feel somehow deserted.

It's not that I hadn't had in the back of my mind thoughts that KaZi would make a great East Coast girlfriend for Curran. I could just have used a few minutes more of his best-bud adoration to get me through the ordeal of the photos. In return I would have bought him panty hose.

Okay, I didn't understand the connection between washing dreads and panty hose, but I don't have to. This is not my generation.

Ah, love.

Ah-choo!

As I wipe my nose I tell myself this is not a real cold, but a reaction to the stress of the last weeks.

I've had a few days to compare my weekend dealings with the two men in my life. Well, the two men I dealt with over the weekend.

William handled things remarkably well, considering. More than the physical, he showed me the possibilities of my future. His methods might be unorthodox, but he punched a big crack in the wall of my life. For the first time in a long time I see the sunshine on the other side.

Still, I'm too wise in the ways of the world—okay, too old—to attach romantic destiny to the magic. Men look a lot better if you don't tack
forever
over their snapshots. William had a great moment just when I needed someone in my life to be great. I'm too grateful to expect more. So, just as he suspected, I won't be calling him, but not because of the reason he feared.

Things with Jacob haven't gone so well. We've talked on the phone three times in the two days since my announcement.

He called Monday evening to apologize for not “being there” for me. Then he told me how he had had a chance to think things over, and while it would be nice to think about another child, it wasn't practical in any sense.

I made the mistake of agreeing about the practical part. Before I knew it, he was planning doctor visits and making a payment plan to cover his share of the not-having-the-baby expenses. I told him thanks, but those weren't the expenses I hoped he would bear. I said I thought he might want to be part of the baby's life. He said I was trying to control things. Not giving him options. It went downhill from there.

I shouldn't count call number two because I had hung up on him to end call number one. He was still shouting, and so I hung up again.

The phone didn't ring again until late afternoon yesterday. He was at the airport, heading for Bogotá.

“Lu, be reasonable. Think what this could do to your health. Now, don't take this the wrong way, but turning fifty means you're grandmother material. Many a twentysomething single mother can't cope. I don't want you to be a victim of Post Blue Baby syndrome.”

“I assume you mean postpartum depression.” He and Davin share this tic of wrong-word association.

“Yeah, that's it. Besides, you have a career to think about. I know you can't afford child care. Jeez, Lu. A baby stuck in day care at six weeks! Think of the harm you'd be exposing it to.”

“You're not winning me over, you know that.”

“I'm trying to consider what's best for all.”

“Including me? Because the best thing for me would be unconditional support for whatever comes.”

There's a long silence. “Don't do this, Lu. You will regret it.”

I think about this, and almost say that of all the things I really regret the one I regret the most is that closure weekend in February. But that's no longer true. I'm excited about the prospect of being a new mother again. Coping with family and friends is another issue altogether.

I reach for the portfolio. Somehow it is now easier to face my face in print than to entertain thoughts of future conversations with Jacob.

It comes as a shock when I spread out the layout pages and see my face. It is mine, surely. But I don't quite recognize myself. The images are black and white. But more, they are truly old-fashioned glamour photos like those Curran hoped to emulate. While the subject isn't quite an aging classic beauty—say Katharine Hepburn or Lena Horne—Curran saved me from the Bette Davis/Joan Crawford spooky painted look.

What I notice first is not the ravages of time—as Tai so kindly dubbed the concept of the “before” pictures before she even saw them—but the life within my face. I didn't realize I have a jaw that angular, or cheekbones that prominent. Yes, the shadows reveal fine-line wrinkles, but more, they show a depth of things I haven't noticed before. There seems to be wisdom in those heavy-lidded eyes, an acceptance of life in the softening of a generous mouth. I look content. Until the last photo.

I remember the moment, when I thought to myself,
I can't do this!
That is an image I recognize. That startled expression is the shape of my life these days. It could be titled “Home Alone—And Other Middle-Age Atrocities.”

I fold up the layout and push it away.

The good news is Tai is out of town for the week, at an Italian Alps run, slogging through air-deficient regions of Italy. What a waste of a great vacation. But I do not begrudge her one exhausting moment of the trip. For it's giving me the breather I need to take care of some personal business.

I look down at the want ads I just managed to tuck away when Curran entered. There are a remarkable number of low-paying journalism-type jobs available. Who's going to hire a pregnant woman? That's the real question.
Because my days at
Five-O
are numbered, given Tai's ultimatum and my decision.

She said we'd talk when she returned. It will no doubt go something like this.

“You're ready for lipo?”

“No.”

“Face-lift?”

“No.”

“Surely, Botox.”

“No, and never.”

“You're fired.”

“I figured.”

Realizing that I'm rubbing my tummy, I stop, hoping no one saw me. Had to tell the Radish it was indigestion when she caught me at it this morning. But that story won't fly much longer. At three months and counting, I'm outgrowing even my elastic waists. My bras are bulging to an embarrassing degree. So, before the word is on the street, I plan to hit both my fledglings with one big mother of a stone this weekend.

16

Dallas is letting her hair grow. Lucy, the wedding consultant, told her that all
New York Times
-hopeful brides wear their hair long or up for their portraits, giving them a timeless look. An up-to-the-moment fashion image quickly dates itself. This decision was made a week after the Oscars and three days after Dallas got a Halle Berry pixie cut. It's been over a year, yet Dallas is still a long way from flowing locks. Her hair has reached yet another unmanageable stage. As she enters, carrying a leather backpack for our Saturday-night sleepover, she looks like a Hobbit.

“I know,” Dallas says after she's hugged me at the door and I've swept back a thick chunk of hair from her brow before giving it a kiss. “My hair's a mess. Lucy says that if by my portrait date it isn't long enough to be slicked back with a chignon hair piece, I should consider extensions.”

“Why can't Lucy just admit that you have a face made for short hair.” I watch her finger-comb the same chunk of hair back from her quite pretty heart-shaped face. “All that hair overwhelms your delicate features.”

“Yeah, like a rat in a wig.” Davin lounges against the doorjamb to the entry hall.

“Stinker!” Dallas cries in delight at the sight of her brother.

They hug but pretty soon it's clear they are really trying to outmaneuver each other in some sort of karate match-up. I don't care what they say about the leveling effect of martial arts. At five four, Dallas is about two-thirds her brother's six-foot size. When all else fails, Davin simply grabs her about the waist and lifts her a foot off the floor, upside down.

“The male again dominates the female in the age-old struggle!” he pronounces from deep in his chest.

“Put me down!” Dallas says this with as much dignity as a person can manage while being suspended headfirst.

I help Dallas right herself. “And to think I thought I'd be glad when you were grown.”

“Yeah, Dallas. Act your age.” Davin is grinning, looking so much like his father did in his twenties that I do a double take.

“You started it,” Dallas says, swiping hair from her eyes.

“You started it!”
Davin mimics.

I'm not usually emotional, but this sniping and one-up-smanship nearly brings me to tears. I start blinking so fast I can feel the breeze of my lashes on my eyeballs. As the big empty house echoes with familiar voices, I feel deep-down warm in a way that I thought I might never feel again.

We're having this sleepover so that I can pretend for one night that they still belong only to me. The truth is, Dallas is about to pledge unending love to a man I like but can't say I really know. Davin is in full blown “I'm an independent being who sprung full-grown from a stone” mode. He loves us, but right now he doesn't want his parents to cast even so much as a shadow in his direction. I thought this was preteen stuff until I had an eighteen-year-old
college freshman who lived on his own—on our money. He threatened to leave campus if we showed up for parents weekend. To have him voluntarily come home for a week? Priceless.

I turn away quickly so neither glimpses the tears that come into my eyes. I guess I'm feeling extra maternal these days. “How about a glass of wine, for the grown-ups?”

“Now we're talking.” Davin rubs his hands together.

“You wouldn't know a pinot grigio from a watermelon spritzer.” Dallas is busy adjusting her capris and crop top.

“Wrong! I know all about the grape, and its varietals. I took a course.”

“In wine drinking?” Dallas and I ask in unison as we all head for the kitchen.

“It was a nonacademic elective. A mini course in wine appreciation.”

“How could you take it?” Dallas is clearly onto something. “You're not of legal drinking age yet.”

Davin ducks my
oho
expression. “They never checked.”

Dallas rolls her eyes in my direction. “You see, that's what's wrong with the law. It's enforced unequally. I have to pull my driver's license out every time I order, even when I'm entertaining business clients. Waiters do it just to embarrass me. While wild man here doesn't even have to prove he's eligible for a class!”

“If you'd get a grown-up haircut and stop looking like a Rugrat maybe they wouldn't do it.” Davin offers this sage advice while I busy myself reaching for the cheese board I readied to go with the wine.

“Dallas, chardonnay or pinot grigio?”

Dallas frowns. “The pinot should breathe after opening.”

“That's only true of pinot noirs. The grigio is fine served immediately.” Davin gives her a superior look, then sets about making a racket while looking for the corkscrew.

We talk right through wine and cheese. I have a club soda, saying that I'm trying to lose a few pounds. It doesn't seem right to bring up booze and baby in the preamble of the evening. Okay, I'm stalling. But timing is everything, as they say. First we reminisce and then we'll talk of our respective futures.

Dinner is moussaka, Davin's favorite, Greek salad and bread. Dallas is partial to my homemade fudge brownies. I bought ice cream to go with them. I notice that while Dallas said she can't eat much, with her wedding dress about to be fitted, she consumes nearly as much as Davin.

“This is wonderful. I had forgotten what real home cooking is like,” she says more than once.

I'm reassured. Tonight, she's happy. I watch her face, animated by her brother's dorm stories, and remember when she was happy all the time. Well, she was a teenage girl. Happy most of the time.

“Hey, what about your wedding dress?” Davin points out when he and Dallas reach for the final helping at the same time. “Sure you can handle thirds, orca?”

“Thirds?” Dallas pulls back, flushing a deep rose. “With all the talking, I wasn't paying attention.”

“So, how's the
boy
friend?” Trust Davin to broach the subject in a way most likely to change his sister's mood with one sideswipe remark.

Why she feels the need to defend Stephen each and every time his name is brought up is beyond me. But she does. She looks like someone stuck a coat hanger up her back. “My
fiancé
is fine. Great. Wonderful.”

“You guys still living apart?” Davin forks moussaka into his mouth as if it's his first serving.

“Of course. We have found celibacy to be quite instructive.” Dallas turns to me. “My productivity has actually increased. Stephen says he's able to concentrate better, too.”

Davin snorts like a racehorse. I try to signal him not to,
but he pounces. “Oh, so Stephen thinks a sexless relationship with you is a good idea?”

“What a stupid question!” Dallas glares at him.

“So it's you.” Davin crosses his arms on the table and leans in with a cheesy grin. “Is your hero a big zero in bed?”

I thump Davin on the elbow. “Leave Dallas alone.”

“What did I do?” He manages to lounge in a straight-backed chair. “She's the one going all sour. I think it's unnatural to be happy about not having sex.”

“Is that so?” Dallas says in an oily voice. “Then why don't you tell us about your newest girlfriend? Or haven't you known her long enough to get her name?”

“Yeah, that's it. I don't know her name.”

“What happened to Angie?” I have wanted to ask, but couldn't until now.

“Angie.” Davin looks like he's trying to remember losing his first tooth. “Oh, she was into, like, marathon relationships. I had to tell her I'm more of a sprinter.”

“Maybe if you slowed down long enough to take notes, you'd know your girlfriend's name
and
get decent grades.”

Davin sits up. “What do you mean?”

“Dad says you're letting your grades slide. Again. And what's with taking just twelve hours a semester? Don't you plan to graduate before you're thirty? Or do you expect to live off our parents until social security kicks in for you?”

“Stop.” I put up a hand. “No character assassinations in my house. I just had the rugs cleaned.” I turn to Dallas. “Will you clear the table?”

“Yeah, woman's work!” Davin jeers.

“Davin, you can dish up the leftovers.” I'm so sure Dallas sticks out her tongue at her brother that I don't bother to look.

For no particular reason I can think of, Davin adds,
“And just for the record, I can't collect social security unless I've had a job!”

A child growing up as a singleton will be spared these heart-warming moments, I remind myself as I'm forced to recall the main reason for this family gathering. Maybe after dessert.

It's impossible not to notice that Dallas's carefree mood has deserted her. The clang of flatware and bang of pots is alarming as she sets about clearing the table. The one time I dare sidle up to her at the sink and ask what's wrong, she reacts with predictable defense.

“Nothing's wrong.” I see hurt and something else in her quick glance. “What could be wrong?”

Good question. “Just so you know, if you want to talk…” I let it trail, for she doesn't even nod.

I try to think how to segue into the subject of the evening. “Did I tell you your mother's about to become a crusader? Breaking new ground, in a way.”

“In what way?” Dallas asks.

“For one, I'm about to put my job on the line as being against any radical measures to regain a youthful appearance. All this preoccupation with lines and wrinkles seems another way of making women feel they need to deny the lives we have lived. My job dilemma might serve as an instructive lesson for women of your generation, Dallas.”

“You're not serious, Mom?” I wish Dallas sounded more amused than annoyed.

“I guess that did sound a bit pompous. My thoughts were more along the lines of adding to the general body of passed-on experience.”

“I took a history course about your generation last fall. It was called ‘The Sixties,'” Davin offers helpfully. “I didn't learn much except I can ‘really groove—'” he does finger quotation marks “—on your motto, Make Love, Not War. Right on.”

Dallas shakes her head. “The point is, your generation tried to have it all. Now that it's fallen apart, you're whining. Don't worry, Mom. We don't want to be like you.
Five-O
is practically a manual of how-not-to become like you.”

Davin, who's started dishing out ice cream to go with the brownies, whistles softly and shoots his sister a “boy, you stepped in it” glance.

“I didn't mean you, personally, Mom.” Dallas looks apologetic as she rinses the wineglasses. “I mean, for instance, those women profiled in last month's issue. They were so busy being professionally fulfilled that they waited until forty to try to have children. Now they expect the rest of the world to mourn their lack of reproductive opportunities.”

“Yeah,” Davin chimes in. “What if you'd waited until now to have a child? It just wouldn't happen.”

My moment. “Funny you should bring that up. What if I were pregnant now? What would be your reaction?”

“Pregnant? At your age?” Davin snickers. “Sorry, Mom.”

“No, seriously. What do you two think about me having another child?”

Dallas shakes her head. “You can't expect me to react to an impossibility.”

“It's not impossible. It is a fact.”

I wait for them to both turn startled glances my way and then nod. “I'm going to have a baby. In November.”