The man with the red mustache lingered for a while after he brought us home from the hospital. He lent a hand in carrying my suitcase and setting up the bassinet in our bedroom, and then he helped himself to some jam croissants and doughnuts Joe had bought at the bakery downstairs. All the while, I hovered around the corners of rooms, clutching the baby, who would finally take a bottle as long as I offered it while standing. I fed her and watched Joe and Bob eat casually, chatting about this and that.
I felt cold. I’d told myself Joe couldn’t have been involved in Harry’s death—he’d seemed so upset by it. His tears had been his alibi. Now I wondered if he’d been reacting out of guilt.
“Louise, come sit with us,” Joe urged me from the little kitchen table, white confectioner’s sugar dusting his chin. “I’ll make you a cup of tea.”
“No, thank you,” I said, making an attempt to laugh it off. “Baby dictates that I stand, and baby gets what baby wants.”
“That’s a dangerous habit to get into,” said the man with the red mustache. Bob. He and Joe were on a first-name basis. The guy had a jovial air about him, as though there were nothing strange about his being here at all. As though I had never seen him before.
“She’s less than two weeks old,” I replied as politely as I could. “I’d hardly call anything a habit yet.” Her tiny face lay drooling on my shoulder as I moved my body in awkward, jerky motions to keep her still. My brain sizzled, trying to remember everything I could about Bob and the first time I’d seen him. I had been coming home from somewhere, hadn’t I, when I bumped into him. He’d been standing directly in front of my apartment, I remembered that for sure—it had been my apartment, not Joe’s. Then he’d whistled, ear-splittingly, for a cab.
Joe held up an éclair, licking his thumb on the other hand. “Come on, Lou, honey, have a doughnut. You’re looking pale.”
“Just give me a second.” That day Bob had whistled in front of my apartment—was it the same day I’d come home to find that Joe had let himself in? Could Bob have been warning him I was coming? Joe and I had never discussed how he’d gotten inside. That was the day we found out Paul had died, and any thoughts about forced entry or snooping had been crushed by my grief.
But my suspicions came through clearly now.
Joe’s telephone rang right next to my ear, and I startled so profoundly that Francie began crying. Joe got up from the table, wiping his mouth, to reach for the phone. Something led me to hand him the baby instead.
“I’ll get it,” I insisted, as Francie burrowed her milk-drool lips against his collar. He gave me a bit of an odd look—I never answered the phone at his apartment—as Bob reached for another cruller at the table.
“Joe Martin’s place,” I said when I answered.
The voice on the other line came through loudly. “Miss Leithauser, I presume?”
A quivery feeling came into my knees. It was Papa. “It is,” I replied, my eyes fixed on Joe’s. In the daylight angling through the kitchen window, swirls of dust motes floated between us.
“Ah, good! Was hoping I’d catch you and not Eager Eddie, or his mother. He seems the type of boy whose mother comes to dust the baseboards and take out the bathroom trash, am I right?”
Unexpected laughter burst out of me, not a graceful laugh but a nervous, relieved gurgle. Joe was still watching me, swaying the baby. Bob looked up from the table.
“Yes, I believe that is right,” I replied. I almost added Papa, but stopped myself. Instinct, that quiet but clear voice, told me it would be better to keep the caller’s identity to myself.
“I’m calling from our hotel. Mary and I are back in the city. We fly to Miami in a few days to spend time in the Keys. Then home to the farm in Havana. They miss us, the cats, the dogs. And the pigeons.”
“Uh-huh.” I wasn’t sure where this was going. Part of me wanted to cut the guy off, but you couldn’t just cut off Hemingway.
“Time in Wyoming cut short by surprise visitors. Unwelcome guests. You think you’re covering all bases, keeping an eye on the man on first, then, out of nowhere, someone steals third.”
I didn’t follow. “Steals third?” I said aloud.
Joe’s eyebrows shot up. Who is it? he mouthed. I held up a finger.
Hemingway went on, “They found me. First I get a call from that sissy Mort Clifton, at my old chum’s ranch, even though my chum’s got an unlisted number. So does your pal Joe, did you know that? Only way I could track you down was to ask a few mutual friends. Your Joe’s off the books.”
“You don’t say,” I replied, glancing at Joe and Bob before turning my face toward the wall. Winter sunlight angled past me, bright polygons on the white paint.
“So—call comes from Mort. Then the finks arrive. Always give themselves away. They’re the ones wearing penny loafers in the snow, pretending to hunt. When, really, it’s all about checking on me, seeing what I’m up to.”
They’re the ones pretending to read a newspaper in Italian, I thought. They’re the ones taking you home from the hospital. They were everywhere.
“Oh, I am sorry,” I said with a sinking feeling. Papa hadn’t gotten my letter before he’d fled. He didn’t know I was the one who’d told Mort Clifton where he’d gone. Otherwise, he never would have called me. In a few days, though, his chum in Wyoming would receive it and forward it to him. It would be waiting when he arrived back in Cuba.
I didn’t have much time left to be Ernest Hemingway’s friend.
“Nothing new,” he grunted. I could hear jazz playing faintly in the background, two women’s voices chatting. “Nothing surprising. Well! I’m at the Plaza, daughter, not too far from you, could come by this afternoon to pick up my hat. Will have to be in a couple hours. We’ve just gotten room service—snails and an ice bucket, waiting on champagne.”
I closed my eyes, my cheek against the wall. I felt as if all of my limbs were chained to the floor, each by a different fetter: the mewling baby, Joe, Bob, my still-healing, achy womb. Joe’s apartment, though sunny and warm, might well have been a cold prison. After I hung up, I’d be interrogated. I’d be handed back the baby. I felt like lingering on the line forever.
In my mind I pictured writing on the moon, in the dust: Send help! S.O.S.!
My spine straightened. I had an idea. I whirled around and swallowed the lump in my throat. “Oh, no,” I said brightly. “I couldn’t possibly, Mother.”
“Mother?” Hemingway repeated.
“Mm-hmm,” I said. Joe kept watching me, and I smiled at him with my lips shut. Bob had gone back to his doughnut, though he looked to have his ears perked.
There was a pause on the line. “Turn that down, will you?” Hemingway shouted to someone, and a second later, the music disappeared. “Listen, Leithauser, are you in trouble? Say yes if you are.”
“Yes,” I said.
“I knew it. I knew there was something off about that son of a bitch.” Hemingway actually sounded excited. “We can come get you now, Mary and I can. Say yes if that’s the game plan.”
“Oh, no,” I replied. “Thursday.”
“Thursday. That works beautifully if you can wait until then, daughter. Tomorrow Mary is picking up a car. Wants to drive out to Montauk to see her sister. Thursday at ten sharp, that’s ten in the morning, Mary and I will be there.”
“Thursday, yes,” I said as breezily as I could. “That’ll be a great time for you to meet the baby.”
“The baby? Oh, Louise eh-Light-hau-sah, trouble has found you.”
I forced a casual laugh. “Yes, yes. And you remember Joe’s address, right, Mother? Oh, silly, I’ll tell you again.”
I gave Papa Joe’s street and building number before I hung up. I wiped my palms on my dress, then reached for Francie. Joe held on to her for a second. “Who was that?”
“Who do you think it was? My mother. She’s coming at, um…” I calculated quickly. I hoped Joe would go to the office as usual on Thursday morning, so that I could jump into the Hemingways’ car and have them take me somewhere, anywhere, without his knowing. “At three in the afternoon on Thursday, to meet Francie.” I peeled her gently off his shoulder, at which she started to fuss.
“I thought we agreed on ‘Aurora.’ ”
“We did. It’s just a nickname.” We stared at each other a moment, until I broke the silence with a loud kiss on Francie’s forehead. “I’ll just lie down with her in the other room. Will you hand me that bottle, and the burp cloth? Thank you.”
I took Francie into the bedroom and shut the door behind me. My rib cage went up and down with each breath, and I forced myself to take a big inhale, all the way down into my aching gut. The men murmured to each other in the kitchen for a while as I fed Francie her bottle. Her tiny rosebud lips wrapped perfectly around the nipple; her translucent eyelids closed as she drank. She went right back to sleep, and I laid her on our pillows so that I could go to the vanity Joe had set up for me and brush my hair.
My eyes, in the mirror, looked hollow and dark. Freckles stood bold against my bluish-pale skin. I looked haunted. I heard one of the men go into the bathroom. Then the bedroom door creaked open. My eyes shot up, watching the door in the mirror. It was Bob.
“What on—” I whispered. He put his finger to his lips.
“Shh. You’ll wake the baby.” He came over to kneel beside where I sat at the vanity, a tender gesture, it would seem, until his face took on a twisted smile. “Who was that on the phone?” he said, almost inaudibly.
My stomach squeezed in fear. “My mother. I told you already.”
Bob cocked his head to the side. “What was that about stealing third base?”
“Just something my father said in the background. Please, will you leave me be? I’m trying to have a moment to myself.”
Bob licked his bottom lip, then the top one. His bristly mustache moved in and out of his mouth. I tried to imagine him selling bad dope to Harry and Beverly. I wanted to ask him if he’d done it. If he’d sold it, if he knew it was bad.
“Baseball season hasn’t begun yet,” he whispered. “It starts April 13.” He smiled and pointed to himself. “Giants fan.”
“What’s going on here?” Joe shouted from the doorway, and immediately Francie began to cry.
Bob stood. “I was only talking to your wife,” he said. Neither of us bothered to correct him. I went, trembling all over, to get Francie. Joe opened the door all the way, pointing toward the hallway.
“I think it’s time for you to leave,” he said, and Bob did, with a slight tip of the hat toward me as he went. I tried to catch Joe’s eye, but he avoided me, frowning as he showed the man out.
At ten in the morning on Thursday, the front door to Joe’s apartment burst open. I hadn’t heard the buzzer, hadn’t even realized I’d left the door unlocked, but here Papa loomed on the threshold, this time in a fishing cap and a big turtleneck sweater the color of mustard. His cheeks, above his beard, were sunburned, and he had a darkly scabbed cut below his lip.
I felt like crying in relief at the sight of him. I’d been standing in the middle of the living room before he arrived, wringing my gloves in my hands. Francie was taking her morning nap.
“My hat?” he demanded, skipping hello. “Very important hat, you see, Christmas gift from Mrs. Hemingway.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” I said, and went to fetch it from the back of the top shelf in the closet. He grunted his thanks.
“Where are your bags?” he asked.
“My suitcase is right there—behind the door.” For the last couple of days, I’d been quietly piling our necessities in a corner of the office: Francie’s glass bottles and nipples, cleaned and dried; her tiny baby outfits; two nightgowns for me, and enough clothes, if I kept them clean, to last me a few five-day cycles. After Joe left for the office that morning, I’d shoved them all into the suitcase.
Hemingway appraised me. “You’re dressed for the part, Leithauser, which I appreciate. A bit like Bonnie Parker on the run from the authorities, but nice.”
I felt myself blush. I had on a powder-blue dress with a wide sailor’s collar and a red rose appliqué on the shoulder. Some part of me had known that if I stayed in a housedress I’d never find the strength to go. “Oh, Papa, thank you for coming for me. If you only knew—”
He held up a hand, shutting me up. “Listen, Mary’s double-parked down there, and it’s a rental with out-of-state plates, so we’d better move.” He reached for my bag. “Where’s the little one—is it a boy or a girl?”
“A girl.” I could hear his wife in the car, down in the street, laying on the horn. Blap blap blaaaaap. “She’s asleep, but I’ll fetch her.”
“Good. I’ll take this suitcase; you grab the baby and meet us down there.”
I went to the bassinet, where Francie was sleeping soundly, one tiny hand curled over the top of her pink blanket. I hated to wake her, but of course she did wake up as soon as I lifted her limp, tiny body into my hands. I bounce-stepped her into the kitchen to find Hemingway helping himself to a few taralli cookies.
“May I?” he asked, eyes twinkling, crumbs in his beard.
“Of course,” I said. “Take heaps of them.” Joe’s mother, a stout, well-dressed woman, had come by earlier in the week, to meet Francie and to drop off loads of food: a tray of chicken francese, baked pasta shells, sweets by the bundle. She’d held Francie but hadn’t been able to look me in the eye. “You’re still going to be married, right?” she’d asked in a panic, confirming my suspicion that she both loathed me for having a baby with her son out of wedlock and also wanted me to marry him as quickly as possible. The paradox, I supposed, of propriety.
Francie was wailing by the time I click-clacked down to the curb in my heels and ran toward the big maroon Packard. The skies over midtown looked low, pillowy, a gray duvet. Hemingway leaned with one hand on the rental car’s frame, talking with his wife inside. I caught a glimpse of her gripping the wheel, a wiry blond woman with a sharp gray gaze. Her mink coat took up the entire front seat. She appraised the baby and me, then gave us a welcoming nod.
I couldn’t believe we were doing this. Leaving Joe, getting into the car with Hemingway and his wife.
“All set?” Hemingway asked me. “You brought something for that one to suckle while we drive, I hope?”
“Yes.” I felt dizzy. I had a bottle of formula in my pocket, sloshing around.
“Where are we taking you?”
“Ossining,” I said breathlessly. There was nowhere else to go but my parents’ home. I’d called my mother the day before, and she’d been surprisingly thrilled, if a bit overwhelmed, at the idea of having Francie and me come to stay.
“You hear that, Mary? Ossining.”
You’d have thought the fourth Mrs. Hemingway would balk at the idea of driving me, a complete stranger and much younger woman, all the way to Ossining, but all Mary did was crack her knuckles in their leather driving gloves and comment, “Oh, Papa, the oysters. Remember that time, with the oysters?”
Hemingway nodded. “Penelope’s is the restaurant. Last there in ’47, with Jim Porter and wife.”
“Papa, let’s go have baked oysters for lunch, what do you say?”
Something about it soothed me, listening to them casually talk about oysters as though this were merely a tourist’s outing, and I weren’t running away from the father of my child. Mentally, I checked my packing list. I had the diapers and bottles. I had my engagement ring, still broken, zipped into the secret compartment in my purse. Mrs. Hemingway pulled the car away from the curb as soon as Papa had settled next to her in the front.
I sat up quickly. “Stop!”
Mrs. Hemingway braked hard. My hand shot out to stop Francie and myself from crashing into the back of her seat. “What is it?” She peered at me through the rearview mirror, as if to say, This had better be good.
“I don’t have my manuscript,” I explained.
Hemingway wheeled around. “You’d better go and get it!” He elbowed Mrs. Hemingway, then said in his pet accent, “Louise eh-Light-hau-sah want to be big-time writer. Working on manuscript, top secret. Go get that work of yours, daughter. Here, hand baby to Mary. Mary loves babies.”
Mrs. Hemingway didn’t look sure she loved babies as much as her husband claimed, but she took Francie into the furry driver’s seat and allowed me to run back into the building. With a stitch in my side, breathing hard, I flew into the apartment and went straight to Joe’s office. I dragged the desk chair over to the bookshelf and stood on it so that I could reach the filing box with my manuscript inside.
The box felt three times lighter than I’d been expecting, which almost caused me to lose my balance. I was shaking, my teeth chattering, when I knelt on the carpet and opened the lid. I had to take my manuscript with me, or I might never see it again.
Only I was too late.
My manuscript was gone.
I heard the sound of a key being entered into the front door of the apartment. “Lou?” Joe called.
I cleared my throat and stepped out into the living room. Joe had been leafing through the mail, but he stopped when he saw my outfit. “Where…” He let out a nervous, unbelieving chuckle. “Where are you going? Where’s Francie?”
I tightened my lips. “I’m leaving.”
“What?” Joe took a step closer to me. “Lou, you can’t be serious. With the baby? Why on Earth would you leave? Where could you go?”
I couldn’t look at him. I spoke to the window over the sofa. “I’m going to my mother’s.”
Again, that incredulous laugh. It was beginning to feel like ridicule—how could I possibly think I’d survive without him? “Your mystery mother. The one you’re so embarrassed by, you won’t let anyone meet her. And now you want to live with her?”
“I love my mother,” I said, tears spilling down my cheeks. “And she wants what’s best for me. That’s more than I can say for you.”
The horn started again. Blap blap blaaaaap. Blap blaaaaaaap.
At the sight of me crying, Joe seemed to realize this was really happening. I was actually planning to go. “Louise. Jesus Christ. You aren’t serious. You can’t leave.”
“I no longer feel safe here, Joe.”
“You no longer feel safe? Are you serious?”
“Harry is dead. He’s dead. And you knew it was coming.”
Joe blew a puff of air out of his lips and looked away. “That’s not—”
“Don’t lie to me. You lie, and you lie, and I won’t stand for it anymore.”
For a while, Joe considered this, his eyes trained on the fabric rose pinned to my shoulder. He looked at my gloves and the matching blue hat. I’d brought my purse in with me, and it was sitting beside my feet. It was full of diapers. Something about the bag of diapers hit him like a strong wave. His face collapsed.
“Louise, please. You are safe. You, Francie. Of course you’re safe with me—I love you.”
“I’m not so sure that I am. Safe, that is.” I took a step toward my purse. “My physical person may not be in any peril, but there are other ways to do damage to someone’s life. You’ve taken something very dear to me. Something I can never recover.”
He cast his eyes to the side. There was my confirmation: he’d destroyed The Lunar Housewife. He’d taken it straight to an incinerator, or a paper shredder, and the worst of it was, he’d have told himself it was for my own good.
I took another step, bent down slowly, and grasped the handle of my pocketbook. I could still hear Mrs. Hemingway, or maybe it was Papa, laying on the horn. I was tempted to tell Joe whom I’d be leaving with, but I restrained myself. “Goodbye, darling,” I said in a strangled voice, and then I walked out the door.