For the first time, I dream about Faye. It’s like I’m a fly on the wall as she and Mannie sit down to dinner with her parents. They’re eating something pink, maybe baked salmon, and I can tell Mannie hates it. They keep asking him polite questions like “Do you have brothers and sisters?” and “What part of town did you grow up in?”, but he’s mumbling and I can’t hear his answers. Faye smiles happily as he mumbles, like she finds the whole thing amusing.
“What the hell are you doing?” I say to him. “How do you even know them?”
But he can’t hear me, of course, and when the Little Alien wakes me up, I have to pee really bad. I kick Mannie as I struggle to get up, like it’s his fault he was in my dream.
I swear, it’s as if those days when I was a kid on Montrose barely existed after I left. Then I went back, to the big bare trees and snow-rutted back lanes, and I saw Faye and I started remembering all kinds of things about River Heights, when Ray was still pretending that the restaurants weren’t in the crapper and Lara still thought there was something she could do to make him want her again. Back when my Big Sis Jill still came to stay and made hilariously sad faces behind Lara’s back.
Maybe that’s all what Denise calls “baby brain”—most of your mind gets fuzzier than morning tongue, but some things get super clear.
I sit on the toilet for several minutes, but all I manage is a good burp. Denise and Dr. Kohut keep saying that if I’m getting constipated, I have to get lots of fiber in my diet, which makes me want to puke chewed-up bran all over their precious files. I know I need to eat broccoli or dried fruit or fricking wood chips, but the Little Alien wants starches. It likes to play with knives inside of me, and it likes to carb out on noodles, processed cheese and white bread. Lara would turn over in her tanning bed if she knew the way I was eating these days.
“I feel like I should be there,” she said last week over the phone. “I’m going to book a flight.”
“We’re fine,” I said. “Please don’t.”
“Why won’t you let me come?” she asked. “Why don’t you ever let me in? You’re my little girl. Are you eating good? Is he being good to you? What’s his name, Danny—is he being good to you?”
“He’s good,” I said. “We’re good.”
“What about Ray? Is he being a shit about this? You know he made me get an abortion once. Eighteen months after you were born. Did I ever tell you that? He said six was enough, like he was talking about pairs of shoes. Sometimes I lose track of what I’ve shared with you. I wanted to protect you, baby. I’ve always wanted to protect you.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “You told me. But he’s fine. I can take care of Ray.”
“That’s my strong Bev,” she said. “I love how strong you are. But don’t forget about your mama. I want to help. I want to be there for you.”
“I know,” I said. “I’ll keep you updated.”
She’d sighed then. “Oh, my baby Bev…”
“You okay in there?” Mannie shouts though the bathroom door.
The Little Alien shifts around and delivers a swift punch below my ribs. Dr. Kohut says the fetus can recognize voices already, and I wonder if the Little Alien is already as irritated by Mannie’s verbal diarrhea as I am.
There’s a knock on the door. “Bev, you okay?”
Yes, I should’ve said to Lara. He’s being so good to me I want to kill him.
The Little Alien delivers a double kick to the groin, and pain slashes down my right leg. “Yes. I’m okay, moron.”
After the first trimester, when I didn’t feel ready to hurl every minute and my gut busted open the zipper of my best jeans, I moved in with Mannie, and things were bearable for a while. He worked nights at the pizza place, and if the place was a sty, at least I had most of it to myself. Mannie’s roommate, Warren, a big fat gangbanger who fancied himself some kind of street warrior, slept all day and went out at night, dealing with shit way out of Mannie’s league. But Warren was actually a bit of a neat freak, always telling Mannie to get his shit out of the sink. And he never brought girls back unless it was for business. I figured maybe he was a closet case trying hard to cover up with a macho criminal act.
“What’s with him?” I asked once. “He doesn’t even look at me.”
Mannie stuck his tongue in my ear and purred. “He blames you for turning me into a pussy.”
I laughed and let his tongue twirl around. “You did that all yourself.”
I laughed harder than I had in a long time, because it was true. When I first met Mannie, he seemed so unpredictable, skinny and muscular at the same time, always watching me with those green cat eyes. He carried stacks of dirty dishes like he was doing some kind of circus trick and appeared out of nowhere without a sound. One of the waiters told me he’d done time at the youth center for joyriding, and I couldn’t help it—I started to imagine him trolling the back lanes of the old neighborhood, silent and quick, sliding in the front seat of the car as the family ate its angel-hair pasta and focaccia bread, backing out beneath the glow of the motion-detector light.
But that was before I really got to know him. Three months after we hooked up, he started following me around like a puppy waiting to be kicked.
“What’s up with you?” I asked.
Then he started talking nonstop, a gushing vomit of words worthy of Lara herself. I knew his mother was from Argentina and he hadn’t visited her in the loony bin for years. I knew his father was Filipino and had left when Mannie was two. I knew his best friend’s mother, the saintly Betty, had taken him under her wing and kept him off the street. But that was it. I didn’t want to know more. Why do people feel the need to trade their family histories just because they’re trading bodily fluids?
Turns out his father had suddenly called Mannie after sixteen years and messed with his head. This guy, Eduardo or something, told him he’d met Mannie’s mother in ESL classes and it had been love at first sight. She was ten years older, a hot-to-trot former rich girl who still acted like she wasn’t poor, and Eduardo decided to hell with his disapproving Catholic family. They moved in together, had a kid, and then she started coming unglued. Sometimes she wouldn’t get out of bed for weeks, and other times she’d get caught walking out of grocery stores, cart loaded up and no receipt. It wasn’t long before Eduardo was out of there, marrying a nice Filipino girl who sang at weddings.
“You have to understand,” he told Mannie. “I have my own family now, and they wouldn’t understand. But I think about you, and I wanted to know you’re okay.”
“What a tremendous prick,” I said to Mannie when I found out.
But Mannie only shook his head. “No. You don’t know what it’s like to live with her.”
I would’ve understood if he was fricking furious, but he wasn’t. For a couple of weeks he just sulked, acting like he wanted something from me but had no idea what. And then, just like that, it was over. He didn’t bring up Eduardo again—didn’t even bring up poor, dead, saintly Betty for a while, which was nice.
Because no one had messed with Mannie’s head the way that woman had. The world’s problems will not be solved if we all go back to the bush and start picking our own berries, and you can’t keep blaming your own problems on stuff that happened a hundred years ago. And Mannie is not one of the Indian Brotherhood just because he can pass.
Still, things were bearable until a few days ago, when Mannie quit the pizza place and started sitting around in the pawnshop recliner all day, playing Grand Theft Auto. And the other night, Warren brought home a girl who looked like she’d be found dead in a ditch sometime soon, and it was enough to make me want to crawl back to Ray on my hands and knees and vow to drown the Little Alien in a toilet. But I know how stubborn Ray can be—stubborn enough to pick himself up and dust himself off every single time, to keep promising to love them through better and through worse, to keep luring new investors for restaurant after restaurant, nightclub after nightclub.
“What’s your plan?” I asked Mannie yesterday. “How are we going to eat?”
But he kept pouting and playing, ignoring me, just like his big, scary warrior buddy, Warren. Until last night when I got home from Olef and Helga’s.
“Warren’s gone,” he said. “He had to bugger off for a while.”
Mannie was still sitting in the recliner, but in the dark. The TV was nothing but a blank black screen. “From now on,” he said, “I’m a changed man. I’m going to have a kid. This is no place for a kid.”
I turned on the light. “No shit.”
Now, I open the bathroom door and he’s standing right there, waiting.
“What?” I say.
“Nothing. You were just in there a long time.”
The elastic in his underwear is saggy, and I can make out the top of his pubic hair. His stomach is perfectly flat, and before I can stop myself, I reach out and touch it. It’s hard and smooth and amazing.
“I’m going to have stretch marks,” I say. “It’s not fair.”
He cups both hands around the bump like he’s about to shoot a hoop. “You’re beautiful.”
I know he’s horny and full of shit. I know I’m constipated, I have morning breath, my fingers are swollen pork sausages. But I let him spill it. I let him tell me about the time Betty gave him his traditional name, how he is finally a changed man. I let him rub my feet in bed, let him coo at the bump, let him rest his head wherever he wants.
“I feel him, I feel him kicking,” he says. “Hello. Hello, little Little Bear.”
The next day, Denise wastes no time and sets up another interview. I take a nap in the afternoon, and I dream about Faye again, only Jill is there this time, and we’re still kids. Jill is maybe fourteen, back when Lara called her “horsey-looking” when she wasn’t around and her favorite lunch was sugar-and-banana sandwiches. She isn’t a big-time model yet, hasn’t sworn off all white foods. Hasn’t couriered me a supersize suitcase full of her best fashionista shit, with no note, not a word, so that I know something is very wrong.
In my dream, Jill is brushing Faye’s hair. “It’s so strong,” she says. “No split ends. You could do hair product, you know. You don’t have to be tall. It doesn’t matter.”
“Faye is a musician,” I say. “She’s going to play in the symphony.”
Faye rolls her eyes.
“Faye’s adopted,” I say. “She was born in China.”
“That’s so exotic,” Jill says. “Exotic is hot right now, you know.”
Faye’s mother appears in the room, like a mama lion ready to pounce. “What on earth are you doing?”
Then the dream is over. I hear Mannie in the other room, breathing hard. He is counting push-ups to himself, something that normally makes me horny. But the Little Alien is awake now too, getting out his knives, and I still feel like a kid, I’m still with Jill, back when we hung out all the time.
When the stepsibs came to visit, Ray was always keen to show off his only boy, Jill’s brother, Thomas, so Jill and I were on our own. She taught me how to put in a tampon before I even got my period. She showed me how to extend my lashes with Vaseline. She could tell Lara to chill out without upsetting her.
Mannie comes in and crawls slowly toward me on the bed.
“You stink,” I say.
He licks my earlobe. “You used to like it.”
I push him away even though the licking has sort of worked. Part of me wants nothing more than for him to slide his finger between my legs. “What are we going to do for money?” I ask.
He puts his hands behind his head and stares up at the ceiling like there’re fluffy clouds up there sailing through a blue sky. “Don’t you worry about nothing. I got it covered.”
“Anything,” I say. “Don’t worry about anything.”
He lights up a joint and keeps watching the clouds. “Yeah, exactly.”
“How?” I ask.
“How what?” he asks.
The Little Alien starts to hiccup, and suddenly I’m hungry, as if the secondhand smoke is giving me the munchies. “How do you have it covered?”
“Warren owed me,” he says. “I got almost a thousand.”
“What about when that’s gone?” I ask.
He reaches over and brushes his fingers against my cheek. “Don’t worry, babe. Your daddy’s not the only one who can provide.”
I roll out of bed instead of kneeing him in the balls for being such a dumbass. I eat some sugary O’s, leave Jill behind and climb into the van with Denise. We pick up Faye to meet Lisa and Chris, and just one look tells me their profiles make perfect sense.
Lisa wears her hair butch-short and likes hiking and mystery novels. Chris is neatly bald, wearing pleated pants and a pinky ring. He likes hiking and jazz.
“You guys have only been married for a year,” I say. “You haven’t known each other all that long. How can you assure me your marriage is going to last?”
They look almost offended, are obviously not as hungry as Olef and Helga. They offer tea and coffee and that’s it.
“We met late,” Chris finally says. “But being more mature, we knew exactly what we wanted.”
Lisa touches his hand for effect, but there is no way these two are getting it on. She has fag hag written all over her. “We’re ready to be parents now more than ever before in our lives.”
If they start off cool, though, they eventually warm up, as if it takes them awhile to remember I have their fate in my hands.
They laugh at their spotless house, tell me they’re more than ready for the drooling mess of a kid. They say they’ve researched daycares and found the best. They assure me they’re prepared for any kind of presence I’d like in the child’s life.
Back in the van, I ask Faye, “What’s your bet? Do you think they have no idea they’re both gay or are they just BFFs playing house for convenience?”
She stares back at me with those oh-so-wise, oh-so-black eyes. “You seem to be enjoying this.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. “I’m just trying to lighten things up. Everyone’s so tense.”
Denise is already pulling away from the curb, but she slams on the brakes. She glares back at me like I’ve just blown a fart and added to the stink of her beater. “This is a serious thing, Bev.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I say. “It’s my kid we’re talking about.”
“Forget it,” Faye says. She sounds like her mother. “Let’s just go.”
We drive without a word until Faye breaks the silence. “When’s the next interrogation?”
The next day, Faye comes along again and we meet Charlie and Sid, who I also thought were gay when I first saw their file. But “Charlie” is actually short for Charlene, who turns out to be one very hot grade-five teacher. She looks like she is probably half black, with the kind of smooth latte skin and firm ass that little boys have their first wet dreams about. Sid isn’t half bad either. He teaches phys ed and probably whitens his teeth. They have a brand-new house just outside the city that doesn’t even have a lawn yet. Sid apologizes for the mucky slush on our way in, and I can tell he will do it again on our way out.
There are store-bought cookies and little wrapped candies on the coffee table. We go through the usual routine of questions.
“I guess my only concern,” I say, “is that there’s no reason you two might not have a baby of your own. Is that right?”
Charlie looks at Sid like she’s begging him to field this one.
“Well, that’s true,” Sid says. “So far, no one has told us there’s a significant medical reason why we’re not getting pregnant. But we have a lot of love to give.”
After she’s had some time to think, Charlie jumps in. “We work with kids who aren’t our own every day. We know how easy it is to find yourself loving a child if your heart is open. I’m sure we would love our adopted child just as easily and just as much as any possible natural offspring.”
She says this in a way that makes you want to believe it.
Back in the van, Denise mutters that her new suede boots are caked with muck. Faye does up her seat belt and closes her eyes.
“I liked them,” I say, “but they don’t feel exactly right.”
“Listen, honey,” Denise says, trying so hard to be motherly I can tell she’s ready to lose it. “Maybe we need to go through your options again. You need to feel sure.”
“I’m sure,” I say, “just not about them.”
Faye’s eyes remain closed. “Why?”
I remember a game she and I played as kids. We would answer a question with another question until we couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Do you ever wish you weren’t an only child?” I ask her.
Faye opens her eyes and appears to think, as if she’s never considered this before. “Why?”
“Can you just answer the question, please?”
“No,” she says, “not really,” and I have my answer.
That night, I dream that I wake up and Mannie and Faye are standing over me.
“Give us the baby,” Faye says.
“Forget it,” I say. The Little Alien kicks so hard that you can see his foot bulge through my skin.
“See?” Mannie says. “He wants to leave.” He’s hiding something behind his back, which could very well be a knife.
“Get out of here,” I say. “It’s mine.”
Mannie leans in close, looking at me the same way he looks when he’s at the wheel of one of his SUVs—like he might lose control any second. “Give it,” he says.
I lick my lips slowly, to show I’m not afraid. “You two wouldn’t even know each other without me.”
They both slink away, and I see Mannie is clutching a little hippo stuffie.
All weekend, I can’t seem to get that stupid little hippo, soft and adorable and the color of storm clouds, out of my mind.
In the van on Monday, I read out the highlights of Will and Helen’s file for Faye. Denise isn’t entirely sure where she’s going and keeps mumbling to herself.
“He’s the assistant deputy minister for Culture, Heritage and Citizenship,” I read. “She runs her own graphic design studio called Red Eye Inc. So she works from home, blah, blah, blah, more about their work. They met at a wedding and got married in their mid-thirties. He says she fills his day with energy and curiosity and fiercely loyal love. She says he makes her laugh and wears his heart on his sleeve. Reason for adoption? She had early menopause and so they have no chance of getting pregnant. They are ready to have an ongoing relationship with the child’s biological family but would like to be able to determine when and how communication or contact occurs, based on the evolving best interests of the child.”
“Jubilee,” Faye pipes up. “I think you want to take Jubilee.”
Denise brakes too hard but manages to get into the turning lane. We get lost for a while, driving around another neighborhood full of old houses and even older trees, except it’s called Wildwood instead of River Heights. There are fewer shops and cafés around, as if you’re in the country in the city. By the time we pull up to Will and Helen’s, we’re a good twenty minutes late.
Their house is just across the street from the river, pale yellow stucco with a red door that’s rounded on the top. Along the sidewalk, little green tips are peeking up from the yellow grass. I try to remember which flowers bloom so early.
“Look,” Faye says. “Tulips.”
Both Will and Helen greet us at the door. She’s tall, with long frizzy hair and just a bit of lipstick. He’s taller, but his posture is terrible. The profile said he runs daily, but I bet he was always picked last in gym class.
Inside, there are paintings everywhere: on the walls, on the fireplace mantel, in the bookshelves. The coffee table is covered with books that look read and not just for show. There are bakery cinnamon buns and jam-filled cookies. Denise has coffee, Faye has bottled water, and I have cranberry juice. When it’s time to get down to business, I try to think of a question and come up blank.
I point at the guitar propped up by the couch. “Do you play?”
Helen opens her eyes wide in pretend horror. “Oh, he tries. He threatened to put on a performance for you to show we’re musical.”
He smiles and takes off his glasses, the kind with no frames. He squeezes Helen’s knee but looks at me. “She gently talked me out of it. You might say I’m a beginner.”
“Faye plays the cello,” I say.
They both turn to Faye at the same moment. “Yeah?” Helen says. “It’s such a beautiful instrument.”
Faye manages her heart-not-really-in-it smile. She is trying to sit with her feet tucked under her butt in a wooden rocking chair, and it’s not working very well. “I used to,” she says. “I mean, I’m taking a break.”
Will leans back and crosses his arms, like he approves of this news. “Well, that’s the great thing. Instruments are just like languages. You can always pick them up again later on.”
I sip my juice. Nothing in the room matches, but it all seems to go together. Shabby chic, Lara would call it. Above the love seat where they’re sitting, there is a huge oil painting that is nothing but blue-green swirls. If you look at it long enough, it starts to become the sea. The Little Alien delivers one good kick, then flutters a little near my belly button, like it’s playing a drum roll with its tiny hands.
“Bev?” Denise asks. She doesn’t seem impatient, just confused.
I push a book aside to make room for my juice glass.
“I’m done,” I say. “This feels right.”
Will and Helen look at each other, uncomfortable for the first time. They think I’m joking.
“Really,” I say. “You two. I pick you guys.”
Denise clears her throat and pulls at her sleeves. “Okay then. Okay. You’re ready to move forward, Bev?”
I tap the file on my lap. “I’ve read up. This is it. Let’s get things rolling.”
None of them are quite sure what to do. Suddenly it’s like I’m the only adult in the room. I have to ask Denise to schedule a time to sign papers, have to ask Will and Helen where they put our coats. Helen manages to recover just before we leave and wraps up cinnamon buns to go.
Back in the van, Denise starts folding up the map. Faye and I leave the front passenger seat empty and sit behind Denise like she’s driving us to kindergarten. Faye can’t seem to get her seat belt done up. “What do you think?” I ask her.
She keeps jamming away, but still no telltale click. “You’ve obviously made up your mind.”
“Okay,” I say, “but I want to know what you think.”
She throws her head back and talks to the roof of the car. “We barely talked to them. They seemed good. They seemed happy and successful. You don’t need me here to tell you that.”
Denise pulls away with the map still unfolded beside her and Faye still unclicked.
“Do you ever wish you could meet your birth mother?” I ask.
Faye is still staring at the ceiling. “It doesn’t matter. My parents flew halfway across the world to avoid the issue. There’s no point thinking about it.”
Denise turns at the first stop sign and slows down, like she might get lost again. “I’m sure that’s not the only reason they chose China,” she says.
“But would you want to meet her if you could?” I ask.
“No,” Faye says, almost a whisper. “I don’t know. There’s no point thinking about it.”
Good ol’ rational Faye. Deep down, she knows she has no reason to be pissed off—she came with me of her own free will. Because when it comes down to it, even when we were kids I never had to do much more than twist her rubber arm.
Mannie is waiting when I get home. “So?”
“It’s done,” I say. “They live in Wildwood.”
“What do you mean, it’s done?”
I close my eyes and realize I’m dizzy with hunger. “Come on, Mannie, don’t play dumb. I’m getting the papers. I like the vibe I get from them.”
Mannie rests his hand on the bump, and for once the Little Alien cooperates. It doesn’t move—in fact, it hasn’t moved in a few hours.
“What about me?” he asks. “Don’t I get a say?”
This is it. There’s no more skirting around things, no more letting little Mannie think for one more minute that he is going to make me an honest woman with a homestead in the bush. It’s time to break through that thick skull and let the bony bits fall where they may.
“This isn’t about you, Mannie,” I say. “It’s about what’s best for our kid.”
He shakes his head like a three-year-old who’s refusing to go to bed. “I should have a say.”
I take his hand and put it against my cheek the way he likes. “Don’t you trust me? You say you love me, but don’t you trust me?”
He keeps shaking his head. “I don’t care who they are. My kid belongs with me.”
“Mannie, that’s not going to happen,” I say. “I’m not going through all this so my kid can grow up in this dump.”
It’s hard to tell if I’m getting through, but I keep on.
“I have final say because I haven’t slept for more than three hours straight in months. I think I’m getting hemorrhoids. You want to be there in the delivery room? Fifty bucks you’ll faint.”
He pulls his hand away. “Why didn’t you just get rid of him then?”
“You don’t know it’s a he.”
“Whatever,” he says. “You know what I mean. He. She. It. That’s what you said. You said you were going to get an abortion.”
My stomach growls and Mannie’s hand returns to the bump. I have nothing left to say. I’m out of answers. I’m suddenly so tired I can hardly sit up.
“Bev,” he says. “I’ve never known anyone like you before. You’re not afraid of anything, and you don’t take any shit. Betty didn’t take any shit either. And she wasn’t afraid, even when she was dying.”
Please, Mannie, I think. Please stop talking.
“She would’ve liked you,” he says.
Please, Mannie, oh please.
“If you love me,” I say, “you’ll help me.”
“You are such a bitch,” he says and walks out the door as if he has somewhere to go.
After Mannie leaves, my stomach rumbles like a semitrailer full of marbles. I lie down and drift in and out of sleep, and I can’t tell if I’m dreaming or remembering.
I’m back in the house we lived in before Montrose, the little rental by the overpass. I’m not in school yet, and in the morning Lara takes me to the public pool up the street and teaches me to float. At lunchtime we take a cab to the restaurant, and Ray introduces us as “his girls.” I eat garlic toast and the bartender makes me a drink with a cherry. I feel so tired, I lie down in a booth and fall asleep. The next thing I know, Ray is carrying me in from his car, cradling my cheek in his hand.
“What the hell is the matter with her?” he asks.
Lara is there whenever I wake up. She looks terrible—unwashed hair, lips that disappear into her face. She makes me drink water. Sometimes Ray comes in, and they sit together in the half-light, one person with two heads.
Then I’m sitting propped up by pillows, and Ray is carrying a TV into my room. Lara watches movies with me, anything I want, the one about the mermaid who gives up her voice to get the prince, over and over. She teaches me how to play Go Fish and lets me win. Ray doesn’t let me win. He brings me popcorn that Lara won’t let me eat.
He brings a unicorn the size of a big dog. I name him Horny, and they laugh and laugh and I don’t know why.
My phone rings, and now I know it isn’t a dream, but a memory. It really happened, before Mannie ever loved me, before Faye ever came over, when Ray still thought he was going to franchise the restaurant, go national, maybe even the States, and Lara still believed in till death do you part.
“Christ,” Ray said afterward. “Hepatitis. It was that pool. It’s a goddamn germ factory. ”