Fashionably Late (67 page)

“You have to see me,” Jeffrey insisted. “And maybe you should bring Belle.”

Lisa felt the breath leave her body. She stood there, clutching the phone, and could almost picture her lungs as the shrunken balloons that remain two days after a party, deflated and drained of air. She couldn’t breathe.

What the hell did Jeffrey want to talk to Belle about? She knew Jeffrey usually avoided her mother. Was this some kind of last-gasp attempt to get Karen back? Was he going to spill his guts to Belle in front of her and then beg them both to talk to Karen on his behalf?

Yeah, like she would! There was no way Lisa was going to let Belle find out about her little indiscretion.

“Jeffrey, you gotta listen to me: it’s over. I’m not seeing you any more and there’s nothing you could do to change my mind.”

“Jesus Christ! That’s not why I want to see you. It’s about the money.

The deal. If you want a chance to cash in your stock, you and Belle have to meet with me right away.”

“Where?” was all she asked, and picking up a pencil that sat beside the phone she wrote down his directions in a heavy, childish scribble.

When the doorbell rang, Lisa almost dropped the mug she was drinking from. She was exhausted. The meeting with Jeffrey and Belle and Robertthe-lawyer had taken almost two hours, and then the traffic on the VanWyck had nearly killed her. She had to be home before one o’clock, when Leonard had begun making his little “checkin” calls.

So, who could be at the door? The girls were both in school, Leonard was at the office, and no one was expected. No one ever paid casual visits to her house. Who would just come by? Lisa ran up the stairs to the bedroom window that overlooked the front. There was a telephone beside the bed.

If it was a manţa salesman or a homeless personţshe wouldn’t answer the door. No. She’d call the police. She cautiously moved the vertical blinds away and peeked out the front.

Lisa didn’t have to call the police. They were already there, with their black-and-white and its circling blue light. What the hell was going on?

Lisa ran down the stairs and opened the front door. Two policemenţ well, one policeman and a policewoman who was built like a manţstood on the front steps. Between them, her head hunched down, stood Tiff.

“What’s going on?” Lisa asked her daughter, but it was the policewoman who spoke.

“Are you Mrs. Leonard Saperstein?” she asked. Lisa nodded. “Is this your daughter Tiffany?” the cop asked. Lisa nodded again. What the hell was going on?

“May we come in?” the woman cop asked. Lisa stepped to the side and the three of them walked into the house. It was only then that Lisa realized that Tiff had both hands cuffed behind her. Handcuffed like a criminal!

Lisa’s mouth dropped open for a moment until, by an act of will, she closed it. She followed the three stumpy figures into the living room.

“Can we sit down here?” the woman asked. Lisa nodded, but promised

herself that was the last question she was going to answer. Right now she needed some answers herself.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“It seems as if Tiffany here has been doing a little shoplifting,” the policewoman said.

Lisa thought of the closetful of clothes upstairs. Jesus Christ! Why did every single fucking thing in her life have to go so fucking wrong?

First the bat mitzvah, then Stephanie, the thing with Jeffrey, the stink, the problem with XKInc, and now this! She had meant to ventually talk to Tiffanyţshe really hadţbut what with the other problems, well, she simply hadn’t gotten to it. Oh, God. How much would this cost to fix? And what would Leonard say when he found out?

At that thought her stomach took a lurch. Since her recent medical problems it seemed as if Leonard was on the verge of leaving her. Lisa could hardly accept that she’d been reduced to worrying about Leonard, but she was. Because, after all, what did she have if she didn’t have her marriage? Without the JIKInc money, she’d wind up just another divorced doctor’s wife, living in some high-rise rental apartment in Great Neck and working as a personal shopper. She had to do what she’d done.

Lisa put her hand up to her forehead and brushed her hair off her face.

“I don’t understand,” she said, and she really didn’t. “Why would my daughter steal? She has plenty of money. She has everything she needs.”

“Apparently not,” the policewoman said. “It seems as if she needed two blazers and an eight-hundred-dollar chiffon dress.”

Lisa couldn’t believe this new nightmare. She couldn’t believe that it was happening to her. She looked over at her daughter. The girl was standing with her fat legs slightly apart and she had her head turned as far away from Lisa as she could get it. Her face was expressionless.

“Sergeant,” she said to the woman, “can’t you just return the items to the store? No harm’s been done.”

“I’m afraid not. We’re talking grand larceny. And there’s a suspicion she’s hit the store before. At this point, the store feels that it would like to prosecute. And I wonder if we might take a look around.”

Lisa thought of her daughter’s closet, with all those tiny size twos, complete with their price tags, hanging up in neat rows on the rods.

“I think,” she said coldly, “that it’s time for me to call my lawyer.”

Karen got out of the airport and went straight to the L”Guardia Airport taxi stand. She was in no mood for jokes, and didn’t even notice that when she cut to the head of the line there were other people who called out to stop her. She handed the starter a hundreddollar bill. “I’m going to Rockville Centre,” she told him.

“Yes, ma’am,” he nodded, and opened the yellow cab door for her.

She told the driver where she was going. He was an Israeli, one of the few left who wasn’t driving a radio car. “You’ll have to pay round-trip,” he said, ready for a fight.

She threw another hundred at him. “Just drive,” she told him.

She felt shattered. And why shouldn’t she? How many times in a life could you bear to lose your mother? She had lost hers as an infant, when Belle had fostered her out. Then she had lost Marie when she was three.

Now she had lost both Marie and Belle all over again. Marie, whom Karen had searched for, had been stripped away, no longer the dream haven that Karen could seek, and Belleţwhom Karen had always done her best to loveţwas now revealed for what she was. Belle was a real mother all right, but in this case mother was only half a word.

Lies. Nothing but lies. Jeffrey, Lisa, Belle. Was there anyone in her family who hadn’t lied to her?

It was twilight when Karen pulled up to the house. In the dusk, it looked even smaller and more ordinary than usual. Was it getting shabby?

Arnold

had never been interested in keeping it up, but Belle’s relentless nagging had at least ensured that the paint didn’t peel, or the shrubs get too long without it being taken care of. Karen strode up the cement walk and couldn’t be bothered to press the stupid chimes.

Instead, she pounded on the door. She felt like pounding. Pounding was a very good idea right now. But despite her noises, there wasn’t any response.

There also wasn’t a light visible from the street. What would she do if no one was there? She couldn’t imagine cooling her heels at the Dunkin’ Donut, or sitting on the stoop to wait for Belle to come home the way she had when she was a little girl in Brooklyn. Belle had to be there.

Her mother had to be there.

And she was. It took another minute of pounding, but then Belle, wearing a lavender chenille robe, opened the door. “Karen,” she said.

“What are you doing here? Shh. You’ll wake your father. He’s sleeping in the den. Anyway, what are you doing here now?”

Karen pushed passed her. It was a good question. What was she doing here? Was she going to scream? Smack Belle? Pound her until she was limp on the floor? Karen didn’t want blood, but then she’d never really believed Belle had any blood in her. Probably she was stuffed, like an expensive sofa. Yes, Karen would like to pound the stuffmg out of Belle.

For once, Karen felt good that she was taller, broader, bigger, and stronger than her mother. She’d like to grab the little woman and shake her until her teeth rattled. She stood in the center of the stupid mirrored living room, the room where lies had been told and reflected, where false lives had been lived for almost thirty years.

Smashing all the mirrors might be a good place to start, Karen thought, and looked around the room wildly. Belle had followed her and crossed her arms, as she habitually did, across her chest. Sure. Typical.

Belle always had protected herself, closed herself off, and refused the breast to Karen.

For all Karen knew, Belle had spent her whole marriage refusing to let Arnold near her breasts.

“Karen, what is it?” Belle’s voice sounded more than curious. Did she actually sound concerned? Frightened?

“You lied to me,” Karen said. “You have lied to me for a very long time.”

Belle looked at her and for onceţmaybe for the first time in their whole life togetherţBelle was silent. No justifications, no defensiveness, no nothing. Except, maybe, a gleam of fear in her eyes.

“You heard about the stock already?” Belle asked.

“Stock? What stock?” Karen asked, confused. But she wouldn’t let Belle distract her. “Ism not talking about that.”

“About what then?” Belle asked, but Karen could tell she knew.

“You told me I was adopted. How could you? How could you deny me?”

Karen felt tears welling up into her eyes, but she wasn’t going to weep now.

She had drenched two pillows on the flight back from Chicago and she doubted there was any moisture left in her. She felt as if she’d been turned from flesh to something much drier and harder. Not steel, but wood perhaps. Except does wood shake the way she was shaking? She knew that her trembling wasn’t from weakness, it was pure anger. She almost laughed bitterly at that thought. Anger was far too puny a word to describe this overwhelming rage.

“Not here,” Belle said. “Come into the bedroom.”

Like a child, Karen followed her mother down the hall. Why was it always this way? Secrets. Don’t tell Lisa but… I’m doing this for you but don’t let your father know … If I tell you, promise you won’t tell your mother … Karen was sick of it all.

They walked into the bedroom. The bed was covered with various articles of clothing, bits and pieces of Belle’s wardrobe that she was sorting and nursing with that obsessive care that she reserved for her garmentsţchecking buttons, removing lint, pressing out creases. Karen ignored it all and turned to her mother. She wasn’t going to let Belle control her or sap her anger. “You lied to me,” she repeated. “You told me I was adopted.”

“Well, you were adopted,” Belle said. And Karen could hardly believe it. The trip down the hallway, or the comfort of being surrounded by her things, had given Belle enough time to regroup. The defensiveness had already crept back into her voice. But with her it sounded like authority, not defense. She’d already moved her hands from her elbows to her hips. Was she going to try to deny the whole thing, Karen’s whole reality? This time, no cigar. Even Belle didn’t have the stamina to pull that off. Belle looked away from Karen for a moment, into one of the three-way mirrors that reflected the two of them.

“Arnold adopted you.

I have the papers to prove it.”

Karen’s jaw actually dropped. In the most important conversation between them, Belle was going to pull this kind of sophistry? What length would she go to to avoid the truth and avoid admitting how wrong she’d been? “We’re not talking about my father. You know that,” Karen said.

“Well, when I said you were adopted, it wasn’t a lie.”

“So it was a sin of omission, not a sin of commission? That makes it okay?”

“What is she talking about?” Belle asked her closet. “Has she become some kind of Catholic?”

“Cut the shit, Belle. You know what I’m talking about. Why didn’t you tell me you were my real mother? Why did you let me believe that you weren’t?”

Belle snapped her head in an impatient jerk. “I always said you were my daughter. And I always treated you like my daughter. When did I ever say otherwise? Never. I never said otherwise. There was no difference between

the way I treated you and your sister. If anything, you got more attention. You got everything you wanted. And from the beginning you were difficult. From the beginning you wanted your own way. And you got it. We moved out here for you, we sent you to good schools, you went to camp. When did you go hungry? When did

.

. . ” “Stop it!” Karen screamed. “If you keep this up I swear to God I’ll kill you. We are talking about a lie. You robbed me all this time. I thought that you had adopted me. I thought you loved me, and I thought there was some other woman who may or may not have loved me, but gave birth to me. Now I find out that there was no other woman.

There was only you. And you didn’t love me or you never would have farmed me out in the first place, or denied your own child all this time.”

“How dare you! How dare you judge me or raise your voice to me?”

Karen rolled her eyes. “Belle, I am asking you to stop thinking about you for just ten minutes. Just for ten minutes, Belle, I want you to try to think about me. I want you to try and think about what it was like to grow up in this house and blame anything that wasn’t right on the adoption. I wasn’t pretty like Lisa because I was adopted. We didn’t get along because I was adopted. You weren’t affectionate because I was adopted. And if 1, sometimes, felt that I didn’t love you, I had to be very careful, because I was adopted. I kept a space, a hole in me, that was reserved for my real mother’s love. I had to do it to survive. And there was another space, a hole in me, because my real mother had given me up. I didn’t need to waste all that space, Belle! I didn’t need to be so empty. You didn’t give me a bad life.

You didn’t beat me. You didn’t starve me. A lot of kids had it a lot worse. But you gave me those spaces and you gave yourself this big burden, this wall between us. Why would you want to do that? Why would you want to lie?”