Mother of the Year
People magazine did a cover with Rochelle holding Parker and featured her in an article about working motherhood. Rochelle described her round-the-clock routine, juggling diapers and meals and phones and lectures and celebrity requests. “My plate is full,” she was quoted as saying, “but I like to gorge myself.”
She won the Mother of the Year award and displayed it on the mantle in the living room. Charlie hooked the network on the idea of Mother Love and was about to enter contract negotiations. She felt her life was perfect, balanced. She was the spectacular hub around which the spokes of her life — “my people” — whirled. It was not for her to worry; she could pay others to do that.
Nancy took care of everything, so that Rochelle could come and go and the family was cared for and the household ran smoothly. The lecture circuit loved Rocky Love, and her trips sometimes lasted three or four days. When Jason became uncomfortable with her absences, she reassured him that it was temporary and reminded him that it was all part of her master plan, that as soon as she was back on track with a morning show, she’d be home every evening with him. She swore that by the time Parker was in school, she would be home early enough to meet him and take him home.
Lying side by side in their bed, holding hands, she said, “Picture it. I’ll be happier when I’m working again, and we’ll have lots more money.”
“We have more than enough money now,” Jason said.
“You do very well, darling, yes. But Charlie says he can get me a very good contract, we could have ten times the income we have now.”
Jason’s hand relaxed in hers.
“Won’t that be great?”
“Sure, of course it will, Rocky, but we really don’t need it.”
“Need? No.” She knew he was right, yet she felt the desire to forge ahead as a need. She needed to move on, to flourish; she needed to resurrect recognition. She needed something, a wind on her embers, she needed to flare. Jason’s resistance to her ambition annoyed her. Their marriage had settled into routines, albeit complex routines, and much as she loved him she was bored. Even their sex had grown stale. If he had wanted a passive wife, he should have married someone else.
The next afternoon, Rochelle traveled to Boston to speak at the Cambridge Women’s Caucus, on the first evening of her stay, and at Radcliffe on the second. She would return home late the second night. She arrived at the hotel in the afternoon, and because there was to be a party for her after the first lecture, she rested before getting ready to go out again.
She was just drifting off into half-sleep, which was the most she could manage in the afternoon, when the phone rang. She cleared her throat and answered, assuming it must be the woman from the Cambridge group.
But it was a man’s voice, which said, “Rock!”
“Hello?”
“Rock ‘n roll!”
“Who is this?”
“I saw your face at the checkout. It really blew my mind. I didn’t buy it though, don’t know what it said.”
Yes, she knew this voice; she had always known it was just a matter of time before she heard it again.
“Nathan?”
“Yup, yup.”
“Where are you?”
“Don’t ask.” He laughed.
She heard a new gritty depth in his voice. He was older now. She wondered if he had a family.
He said, “I’m a public, one of those little ants that crawl around and make The Great American Public.”
“Do you have a job?”
“J-O-B,” he spelled.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m talking to you on the phone. I’m remembering the good times. But they weren’t so good for me.”
“You sound like a song.” She laughed but he didn’t; he used to laugh at her jokes. Silence. “Nath?”
“Yup.”
“I’m married now. I have a son.”
“Mrs. Dokta.”
“No, no, Jason is a lawyer. Bobby was a doctor, my first husband.”
“You marry quick.”
“It just didn’t work.”
“You married a black man.” He laughed again. “I saw you on TV a few times.”
“What did you think? Did you like the show? Because I’m planning to do another one —”
“Thanks,” he said abruptly. “Thanks for hammering the nail in my coffin. Thanks a whole helluva lot.”
He hung up quickly with a bulletclick that left Rochelle short of breath. Shot. Stung by the bee that gave her life and was dying for it. She loved Nathan way too much.
After that call, something crashed inside her, as if she had been gliding along a surface that had buckled and she was tumbling into a dark pit. Nathan was her awful truth, the person with the memories that motivated her. She wanted to see him as much as she hoped he would never contact her again. She wanted to forget everything, but it clung to her memory like dust. The little declarations that Mabel had shouted at Rochelle over the years stuck in her mind with uncomfortable accuracy. Sick. Bad. Crazy. Mabel was her worst critic and the one who got farthest with her, who goaded her into denial.
The idea of having to deliver a lecture tonight suddenly made her panic. Something about having spoken with Nathan, unexpectedly after so many years, and particularly since he sounded so strangely detached from reality, caused a rupture in her confidence that went deeper than she had realized was still possible. She had thought she had become more solid than this. But the lines inside were still fuzzy; and they crossed and sizzled and burned now, again. She feels like a murderer who has killed in transgression and attempted to return to normal life, but finds, by dint of some peculiar inclination, that he cannot.
She would never escape Nathan.
But then she realized that she didn’t feel guilty as much as tempted; that she had always been most excited and intrigued by the forbidden. It didn’t matter how he had found her today. What mattered was that she knew he would find her again, sooner or later.
She called room service and ordered a bottle of Scotch. Later, standing in front of the bathroom mirror, applying a trace of kohl around her eyes, her hand slipped and she realized she was drunk. She wiped away the rogue line and carefully redid it. She brushed her teeth and gargled, and felt confident there was no odor of alcohol on her breath; but the Caucus representative who met her in the hotel lobby quickly developed a look of concern.
She wanted to tell the woman my husband doesn’t want me to have a career and my brother-who-I-love called me today but of course she could never explain. Somehow, she made it through the lecture and the party afterwards. She had never been as relieved to be alone as she was when she returned to her hotel room at nearly midnight.
She slept late the next morning and woke hungover, but somewhere in her dreams her mind had found a point of balance. Family, she thought; her built-in nemesis. An encounter with Nathan had always been enough to pull her out of reality, which was why she knew it was best that he usually kept away from her. She reminded herself that she had accomplished a good life, that she had made strides, gained a voice, found love. Nathan would vanish again, and Jason would grow comfortable with their dual-career life. Everything would be all right.
After a good hot shower, she decided to go out for breakfast. She had noticed a cafe around the corner, and decided to go there. It was a tiny place full of plants, and a brick wall festooned with paintings by local artists. A glass case displayed pastries, and on top of the case were baskets full of handmade bread. She ordered a croissant and a cappuccino, and waited at a small round table for the waitress to bring them over.
There was only one other customer: a young man, blond, clean cut, wearing jeans and a purple T-shirt. He was reading a copy of Fear of Flying. When he noticed her watching him, he winked at her. He was very handsome and clearly confident about himself. She wondered if he recognized her. She smiled.
“Have you read it?” he asked, indicating the book.
“Not yet, but I hear it’s a brilliant novel.”
“Do I know you?” he asked. “That sounds like a line, I know, but I really feel like I know you.”
“You may have seen me around.” The waitress brought her breakfast. Rochelle stirred a dusting of cinnamon into the frothy milk of the cappuccino. She looked over and the young man smiled. “Do you come here often in the mornings?” she asked.
“Sometimes. I just moved here.”
“From where?”
“Seattle. I wanted to be on the east coast. I’m not sure Boston’s the last stop, I’m thinking about New York.”
“I live in New York.”
“Ah, a scenic attraction.” Coming from another man, it would have sounded crude; but he was, somehow, charming.
“What do you do?” she asked him.
He crossed the small room, digging a hand into his back pocket, and handed her his business card. It was black with gold lettering that announced TIM CHRISTIANSON/ACTOR, MODEL, VOICE-OVERS. A phone number was printed below his name.
“Well, I should get going.” He flashed a white smile. “It was real nice to meet you...?”
“Rocky Love.” She smiled, and waited for a reaction. But he did not appear to recognize her name. “You really don’t know who I am?”
“Sorry.” He shrugged his shoulders and smiled. “Should I?”
“When exactly were you born?”
“1963.”
That put him in junior high about the time she had reigned on morning television. There he stood before her: a full-grown adult who, until this moment, had been unconscious of the existence of Rocky Love. Evidence of her invisibility. Well, that was about to change. Once Mother Love was officially picked up by a network, everyone would know who she was.
“Nice to meet you,” she said, slipping his card into her purse.
“Call me any time,” he said, by way of goodbye.
Back in her hotel room, she took him up on his suggestion — and the challenge of his innocence — and called.
Jason sat at the oval glass table as Rochelle prepared two plates with the dinner Nancy had cooked for them earlier: roast chicken, mashed potatoes and Brussels sprouts. She set down two cloth place mats, served the food and poured them both a glass of white wine. Jason had been describing something, a new twist in a case of which he’d kept her apprised since it had started months ago. But she couldn’t concentrate; her mind kept drifting to ocean eyes, sunlight hair, the thrilling arrogance of youthful confidence.
“What is it, Rocky? You aren’t listening at all,” Jason said.
Rochelle cut a sliver off her chicken breast and raised it to her mouth. “I think we need some time apart, maybe just a weekend.” She put the chicken into her mouth and didn’t chew, just held it there, with her eyes wide and waiting.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s just me, I’m feeling overwhelmed, I guess I need some time alone to get deeper into myself.”
Jason nodded thoughtfully. “I don’t want to hold you back. But maybe we should take a weekend together?”
“Oh, darling, I love you, but I think what I really need is one little weekend alone.”
“I guess I could take Parker to the country for the weekend.”
“Yes,” she said. “Or you can stay here. I was thinking of going to the islands.”
“Islands?”
“Jamaica, maybe.”
Jason stared at her for a minute, digesting the idea. “If that’s what you need, I guess it’s okay. This weekend?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Well, fine. I’ll take you to the airport.”
“Don’t worry, darling, I’ll get a car. What I need is just a few days of complete independence. You understand.”
On the way to the airport, Rochelle felt a whirl of excitement — and terror. Tim had come to New York earlier in the week to look for an agent for film work. He was to meet her on the plane, and had been instructed that if he saw her at the airport not to even smile. But would he? What if he turned out to be some kind of celebrity basher, marriage breaker, conman, liar, gigolo? What if he wasn’t what she imagined: an easy lover who would slink in and out of her life at her command?
She spotted him sitting alone in the business class lounge, reading a newspaper and drinking a beer. She sat at the other end of the lounge with a glass of wine, looking around casually, trying not to stare at him. He was gorgeous, lean and young and blond in crisp blue jeans and a white shirt in some nappy material that looked like raw silk. His legs were crossed and from time to time he swung one of his black cowboy boots. His golden hair was thick and wavy, his face a perfect smooth canvas. It struck her that he may not have known what he was doing, he may have been too young to understand. Maybe this was a big mistake. Or maybe it was what she needed right now to get her back on track, get her lifeblood flowing, rejuvenate her sense of self. Right or wrong, she decided, she had herself to please.
Rochelle boarded the plane first. Their seats were together and she took the window seat that was assigned to Tim. She looked out the window until she felt the swoosh of someone sitting down next to her.
“Hello.” He cracked his whitewashed smile. There was a little cleft at the tip of his nose.
“Hello,” she said coolly, as if meeting for the first time.
“I’m Tim.”
“Rochelle Libbon.”
“For a minute I thought you were Rocky Love,” he said, and they shared a laugh.
When they landed, they departed the plane separately. Rochelle got her luggage and wandered out to the front of the small island airport where freelance taxi drivers aggressively sought fares. She declined their offers, and waited. After a few minutes, a little white car pulled up and she got in.
Tim drove the rental car about an hour down the coast to Runaway Bay, before pulling into the gravel driveway of what he had called his “family’s old vacation place.” Tim had explained that his parents, who lived in Connecticut, had recently lost most of their money but had retained most their properties, a conundrum that had left Tim ill-prepared yet desperate for work.
He parked in front of a salmon pink villa surrounded by palm and acacia trees, and took their bags inside. The house had probably been beautiful once. But now the walls were cracked and peeling, the white wicker furniture was dirty, the floral chintz upholstery was ripped and everything was coated in dust. Nothing, though, neither time nor neglect, could ruin the view.
Rochelle opened all the doors and sunlight rushed in on a cool breeze.
“We used to have live-ins, three of them,” Tim told her. He tossed the bags at the foot of the stairs and took off his clothes. “A cook, a maid and a gardener.” Rochelle looked beyond the murky pool, at the overgrown lawn strewn with large coconuts. Four tall palms stood at the fence that separated the lawn from the beach. His jeans lay on the floor like an abandoned skin. He wore a tight red bikini. “I always wear my bathing suit under my cloths, so I can jump right in.” He dashed through an arched door and across the patio, and plunged into the filthy pool with a magnificent scream.
“I’ll join you in a few minutes,” she called. She lugged her bags up the stairs and down a long hallway. There were four bedrooms. She found the master bedroom and parked her suitcases there. This had probably been a nice room once, too, before the rattan floor coverings had developed holes, and the white walls had yellowed, and the furniture had lost its polish, and the porcelain in the bath room had cracked. She rubbed a clean circle on the bathroom mirror and inspected her makeup. It would come off in the water; she hadn’t thought of that.
She changed into her black strapless bathing suit. She had recently developed a tenacious fungus on her toenails which made them craggy and yellow, so applied another coat of dark red polish and waited for it to dry.
“Hey,” Tim called up. “What are you doing?”
She could hear him splashing around in the pool and went out onto the balcony to look. He was sprinting through the water like a silverfish, submerging himself completely so he became a ghost of flesh and red suit. She felt young all over again: like Rochelle Libbon spilling out her raw thoughts in drag, like a buxom girl in T-shirts whose hair was a mop of weeds and didn’t care, like a raw young girl oozing it. Loveme. Now.
“Coming!” She slid her feet into her white leather spangled thongs and went to the pool, holding in her stomach, which had flopped out all over the place ever since her pregnancy.
Tim treaded water and watched Rochelle carefully lower herself into the pool from the side ladder. The surface of the water was littered with bugs, but she didn’t care. It was cold, and she could feel the soft flesh on her thighs shivering. She plunged all the way in.
Tim’s virtues as a lover went beyond his youth. He was potent, able and practiced. His sexual energy was intense and she knew she had finally met her match in bed — or pool, or wherever. She hadn’t realized how dissatisfied she had been until now, until Tim. Later, they lay entangled in his parents’ bed, half covered in a white sheet, cool air blowing in through the open windows. A bluish light from the sea shimmered in the room. His body glowed taut and discreetly muscled in a knot with her own creamy voluptuous body.
“You’re outstanding,” she said, like an old man to his juvenile nymph. She loved the reversal of their roles: her power, his youth. “Tell me where you got your experience.”
Tim kissed her neck and then moved away. He folded his hands behind his head and began. “When I was thirteen, I slept with my babysitter, Sue. She was twenty. She seduced me. I was tall for my age, I looked like I was fifteen. I took to sex right away. By the time I got to high school, I knew what to do. I had any girl I wanted. Then I went to college for a couple years and I guess I had a kind of reputation, you know, as a stud.” His eyes flashed at Rochelle, and she smiled, though admittedly the word had thrown her off a bit. Stud. The mad wife would have said it and even liked it, but she herself had always considered herself beyond susceptibility to studs. But she wasn’t; she had just fallen prey, happily, and loved it. “Well, I dropped out of college, just never liked school, and now I’m a struggling actor.” He laughed at himself. So did she: at his beauty, his sex like strong perfume reeking from his pores, the clichés through which he defined his life. Stud. Struggling actor. Couldn’t resist. Not as innocent as she had assumed (or hoped) but even so — a treasure.
“Do you work much?” she asked.
“Mostly as a model. The acting work tends to be non-paid, modeling brings in some money.”
“You do voice-overs, too? Your card said —”
“Oh, yeah. Well, I figured I’d say so, just in case something came along.”
Rochelle decided she would have it all: marriage, baby, home, lover. She decided that since the beginning of time powerful men had kept women and she had every right to keep a man. So, back in New York, she met with her accountant to make arrangements.
Steve Nodler, president of Nodler & Co. (accountants to the stars) was a polished man in his middle years, with thick brown hair, a friendly face and a few extra layers of flab which in his case spoke of stability, prosperity and long hours at the office. He was paternal with Rochelle, and she felt comfortable with him. He sat behind his big paper-piled desk and she sat in front of it. She told him that she had some private business to transact that must remain between the two of them. He nodded, unfazed; this was not a new scenario. She said she was renting an apartment on East Tenth Street and taking a credit card in the name of a friend. Steve listened. She said she was opening a checking account for a friend and wanted to maintain a balance of five-hundred dollars. He nodded. She said she wanted to use the interest income from her personal investments but to avoid tapping principal. He nodded. She said she wanted no written reports of these transactions sent to her home. He nodded. When she was through, he tactfully shifted into normal business, reviewing her investment statements and explaining the quarterly financial reports.
For six weeks after Jamaica, Rochelle lived in a frantic daze: watching every expression on Jason’s face, trying to be home as much as possible, while spending time with Tim every day. She became well acquainted with the public phone on the corner of Spring and Lafayette Streets. Sometimes she popped in at the Tenth Street apartment for just twenty minutes. Tim accommodated her. She imagined he waited for her, until one day — the day before she was scheduled to leave town to do a lecture in San Diego — she visited the apartment at four in the afternoon and he wasn’t there.
So she waited. She didn’t particularly like how he had done the place up — in black leather and chrome furniture, with cheaply framed posters on the walls — but he had had the sense to select a big comfortable bed and outfit it with satin sheets. She waited in the main room: living area to the left, dining area to the right. And she waited: plunked into the leather couch, with her stiletto-heeled leather boots on the glass coffee table. Waiting: with the radio blaring rock ‘n roll to drown out the anxiety that was ricocheting around in her mind, pacing the apartment, opening drawers, searching for a hidden life, for a clue to his whereabouts. Hours passed, and she knew she should go home. At nearly seven she called: “I’m at Lisa Long’s,” she told Nancy, who promised to pass the message on to Jason when he got home.
Tim appeared just before nine o’clock and found Rochelle drunk on his couch. Scotch drunk, the bad kind, when you felt mean and acted crazy.
“Where have you been?”
“At an audition.” He dropped his red canvas shoulder bag on the floor and removed his brown felt hat. “What’s going on?”
She barked laughter. Her makeup had worn off by now and she wasn’t even trying to be pleasant. “I’ve been here all afternoon!”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were coming, I would have planned a parade.” He went to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of vodka and soda.
“Give me more.” She held out her glass.
He sat on the leather chair that matched the couch. “You know where it is.”
She threw her glass and it shattered against the wall. “Get it for me!”
Tim’s face showed glimmers of disgust and fear; he was not a good enough actor to hide his feelings, to protect his position.
“Don’t you understand that I love you?” She wilted into the corner of the couch.
Tim finally took the cue and wrapped his arms around her. “Shouldn’t you be home tonight?”
“I wanted to see you before I leave town. Why weren’t you here?”
“I didn’t know you were coming. I was at an audition for a commercial.”
“Come with me,” she said. “We’ll have a week together. Please.”
“Sure, okay baby, whatever you want.”
When she arrived home after ten o’clock, she found the table set for two, with candles and a vase spilling red roses. At one setting was a plate of salmon, new potatoes and sautéed green beans. The other plate was empty, smeared, eaten.
Jason was stretched out on the couch, watching TV. Rochelle went straight into the bedroom and shut the door, appalled with herself for not having recog nized the degree of her obsession. She had made a big mistake, a Nathan-sized error. She knew exactly what she had to do: dispossess Tim, now. He brought out the worst in her. She shouldn’t have drunk so much, shouldn’t have loved Tim for his beauty, youth, sex. Shouldn’t have lost control.
She lifted the receiver of the phone by the bed and dialed Tim. One red button on the row lining the bottom of the phone lit, and she stared at it as toward a beacon of hope, an act of control. She didn’t think; she had never called him from home before.
He answered on the second ring.
“Tim,” she said.
“Hey, Rocky, are you okay?”
“It’s over.”
He paused, then said, “I know.”
The button remained lit, burning red, for a few moments after she had hung up. She noticed, but in the sweep of her relief she didn’t quite understand that Jason had been listening on another extension.
He did not come to bed.
In the morning, when she woke up, he was already dressed. Nancy had taken Parker to school, so when Rocky wandered out in her robe, she and Jason were alone. A suitcase was sitting by the front door and Jason was biding his time with the newspaper, waiting for her.
“Am I traveling today?” Rochelle asked, confused.
“No, I am.” Jason stood up. “I already said goodbye to Parker and Nancy.”
“Goodbye?” And then she remembered the red light on the phone last night. Her conversation with Tim. Her drunken late-night return home to a cold dinner. “I can explain all that,” she said, before he asked her to.
“No need, Rocky. The writing’s been on the wall. I thought you were seeing someone else but now I know it.”
“So you’re storming out? Without even confronting me?”
“I’m not storming. I’m just enacting the inevitable and leaving. Rocky, I’m tired of hoping things will change, when they won’t, because we are who we are. I think we both know that we want different things out of a marriage. Let’s just face it and get this over with sooner rather than later.”
“Jason, please — stay.”
He walked past her and picked up his suitcase. “I’d like to work out a way to see Parker regularly. Once I have my own place, he’ll be able to spend weekends with me, which should free you up to do whatever you want to do... which is what you do anyway.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’ll figure it out.”
“The biggest mistake I made,” Rochelle told Leo, “was to marry a lawyer.”
Leo, nearly forty now, shared a large apartment on West End Avenue at 78th Street with Rich, who supported them both as an investment banker. Leo cooked, kept house, sculpted and arranged their social life. Rochelle sat at Leo’s antique table in her white leather pants suit and silver boots. In his domestic role, Leo had taken to old jeans and sweaters in bright colors. The mustache was gone and his hair had grayed at the edges. He held his slender hand over hers. Rosy evening light filtered through two large windows. They drank Beaujolais, and waited for Rich to get home from work.
“The rotten press I’m getting right now is bad enough, but Leo, this isn’t living. I can’t concentrate on anything. I can’t go on like this forever.”
“You won’t. It’ll be over sooner or later, and you’ll move on.”
“The network canceled our meeting last week.”
Leo’s face was still, concealing expression. Then he said, “They’re probably just busy.” His voice was soft, and not too convincing. “You’re a strong lady, you have everything in your favor.”
She lifted a newspaper from a stack on the table, then slapped it back down. FEMINISM’S DOUBLE STANDARD. HAVING IT ALL MEANS MORE THAN YOU THOUGHT. CAN ROCKY LOVE BEAT THE ODDS? “Trash, subhuman garbage. The press is turning this into a witch’s trial.”
“Honey, all you need to worry about right now is keeping Parker.”
Rochelle had loved Jason Barthoff and she couldn’t understand why he was being so vengeful. He wanted everything: the loft, the beach house, Parker. Her affair with Tim had been a transgression, but people wouldn’t see it that way and Jason realized that. Steve Nodler had informed her that he was obliged by the court to release her financial records, and so it would all become public knowledge: the secret apartment, credit cards, bank account, Tim, everything.
But it was nothing compared to a marriage.
Now it was being left to a court to decide. Well, you didn’t have to look far to see that Jason had been a good husband, a good father and a good provider, even without her money. He had been loyal, and faithful, and there up until the very end. And he had loved her, she was sure of it. She had never dreamed he would use the mad wife against her. But now it all came out: where truth met persona, where what she had done in her life and said on the air collided into fact. She had become Rocky Love, more media creation than real woman.
The days were long now, an endless route into loneliness. She resented her dependency on Nancy, who fed her, kept the loft clean and prettied with flowers, and on some days was the only adult with whom she spoke. Parker tooled around, a three-year-old dynamo, with Rochelle’s round soft face and a head of wiry black hair. Nancy dressed him in denim overalls, colorful cotton shirts and tiny sneakers. He had a silver Space Invader water-squirting laser gun and if he shot you it was a sign of affection. Even with Rochelle home all day, he zipped around after Nancy, shooting at her with his little gun, talking shyly to his mother if she happened to pass through his secret world.
Rochelle saw the ways in which her celebrated life had divested her — “Don’t let this sudden fame hurt you,” Norman had said — leaving her null and empty and alone. No one could get through to her. Told she would bounce back, she didn’t quite believe it. Told Parker was only going through a phase and that one of these days he would reconnect with her, she knew deep down that they had never made the original connection to begin with.
Drinking helped: white wine in the middle of the day and with dinner, brandy after. The crazy thing was that it wasn’t Jason she missed, but her obsession for Tim. He had been an adventure, a dare, a purpose, a charge more electric than drink. But he was gone. She yearned for him, especially at night, and wished they had never met.
Finally, she called her old therapist Dr. Carr for help, and after a few private sessions in which she rambled and spewed confusion, he recommended that she attend his weekly group. Though annoyed at the suggestion, she was desperate enough to try anything.
The group was held on Thursday evenings in Dr. Carr’s office. Rochelle didn’t like listening to the problems of other people, except for one woman — Connie Wagner — whom she had known superficially, years ago, as a producer at the network where Rochelle had had her first solo television show. It turned out they had more than the network in common: Connie was a veteran recovering alcoholic, and offered to shepherd Rochelle to her own sobriety. She also offered to fix her new friend up with the former husband of a woman she had met at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
“I’m not ready to date,” Rochelle said, though unconvincingly.
“I think the question you should ask yourself is if dating is ready for you?” Connie’s girlish face, framed by a blond pageboy, tilted back in humor. For the first time, Rochelle laughed at herself. What the hell, she thought, I could use a little fun.
Mort Gold was a good old fashioned New York dreamer, a man of forty-nine who blew a brass trumpet and made his living as a piano salesman. He was short and balding, with a large hooked nose and soulful brown eyes. He wore fringed silk scarves around his neck and carried a rectangular Italian shoulderbag which he usually forgot at restaurants. He said, “Rochelle, you’re a mensch,” and pinched her cheek. He took her out for bites-to-eat, and asked her if she thought he was going bald.
“Not at all,” she would say.
He grazed his grizzly brown hair with a clean squarish hand that reminded her of a doctor’s. “Are you sure? It seems thin on top.”
It was thinning, but Rochelle wouldn’t want anyone to tell her she was going bald, even if she was. “I’ve never seen such a full head of hair,” she said.
Rochelle drove the Mercedes along the Long Island Expressway, through a brilliant whirl of red, orange and yellow leaves spinning down as lightly as feathers. Mort hummed away in the passenger seat. Nancy and Parker sat in back. Parker sang along with Mort’s deep voice, in his high squeaky one, and all of a sudden, out of the blue, Rochelle emitted a huge laugh.
Mort said, “I told you it was in there!”
Parker clapped. Nancy smiled.
Mort felt like an old friend, a piece of her past, a good artsy crazy brother with a familiarity she felt was straight out of her childhood; a father-brother-friend with whom she did not have to be famous.
His own divorce had just gone through. “When it’s over,” he told her, “kaput, it’s over. You just have to get through this hard part with your head screwed on right.” From his description, his marriage sounded like it had been miserable: twenty-two years of a drunken wife who drove him to other women. “But I was blessed with two wonderful children, Eddie and Cat. Eddie’s in law school now.”
“And Cat?”
“She just finished college. She studied art. I tell her she’s going to have a hard time as an artist but why should she listen to her old man?”
“How old is she?”
“Twenty-one.”
“When I was twenty-one I was pretty wild,” Rochelle said. “Drove my parents nuts.”
“That’s how it’s supposed to be, isn’t it? Unfortunately my kids didn’t have the luxury — their parents were too busy being irresponsible children themselves.”
Mort sighed. “Twenty-twenty hindsight, as they say. If I could do it over again —” “You’d be the same screw-up of a parent you were before!” Rochelle laughed. “Right?” Mort blushed — in embarrassment or frustration, Rochelle couldn’t tell. “My kids have turned out okay, luckily.” “I’d love to meet them some time,” Rochelle said, surprising herself by actually meaning it.
In the morning, Rochelle woke to a sweet familiar smell. She put on her robe and hurried barefoot down the stairs to the kitchen. Nancy was supervising Parker, who was scribbling crayon masterworks at the table. And Mort was at the stove in Nancy’s canvas apron with a big black-and-white cat on the front, holding a spatula poised above a sizzling griddle. Blintzes. Rochelle breathed the heavenly smell. She would have to thank Connie again for this man.
The makeshift family shared a peaceful weekend they all hated to see end. And if Rochelle had known what was waiting for her in the city, she might have extended their stay at the beach.
First thing Monday morning, Mabel called. There was a mystery in her voice as she issued an invitation to meet for lunch. Rochelle reluctantly accepted.
Standing in her closet, trying to decided what to wear and torn between pleasing and offending her mother, Rochelle chose a new white suit with pleats in the skirt and a double-breasted jacket with brass buttons embossed with some kind of fashion crest. She wore the suit without a blouse, and because her better sense told her not to, she put on black lace tights embroidered with cabbage roses and black patent leather pumps with two-and-a-half inch heels. Mabel would think the shoes were sleazy but they were the lowest Rochelle had other than flats, and heels did justice to her legs.
She applied her makeup conservatively, and looking at herself in the mirror she saw Rochelle Libbon trying too hard to win Mommy’s approval. So she stroked on a little more blusher and touched up her eyes with kohl, giving them an Asian curve at the outer edges. She bent over, whacked away at her thick hennaed hair with her brush, and flipped up. There, that was the woman she was, the one in the mirror with wild wiry hair atop a colorful face, the one with the burning it. She tugged her suit jacket to bring up her cleavage.
Rochelle took a taxi a few blocks to Aix, where they had agreed to meet at one. She figured her mother wanted to talk to her about the mess she had made of her life, and all of a sudden didn’t want to go in. She paid the driver, got out and stood in front of the restaurant thinking it over.
She stood there, torn, curious about what Mabel had to say and dreading it. At first, the taptaptap on glass blended into her thoughts; then she heard it externally, and turned around. There was Mabel, inside Aix, tapping on the glass with her knuckles. She mouthed something that Rochelle couldn’t make out; but it didn’t matter exactly what the words were, because obviously her mother was telling her to come inside.
The maitre d’ greeted her effusively and she smiled her thankyousomuch of course you know me I’m famous smile. “I’m lunching with my mother today,” she said, and he laughed with her as if mothers were some kind of joke. She told herself to remember to tip this man well.
“Look at you,” Mabel said, as soon as Rochelle was close enough to hear. “That could be a very handsome suit.”
“It’s new.”
“So are you going to sit or do you eat standing now?”
Rochelle sat. She tried to smile and could feel the muscles in her face contort into something different, a change in expression, but she wasn’t sure what. Mabel looked at her like she was a page full of scribble.
“So, Mom, how are you?”
“It’s not me we’re here to discuss,” she said. “But just for the record, I have arthritis in three joints and I am in pain.”
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.”
“Of course you didn’t know, I never told you. Why should I worry you now, with all your troubles?”
Rochelle was taken aback by this; her mother had rarely acknowledged that her life wasn’t easy despite all the luck she’d had.
“I know what it’s like to be a woman almost forty, with children and responsibility,” Mabel said. “Though I had to do everything myself.”
“Mom —”
“Never mind that. The point is that even though, Rochelle, I do not think you are the best of mothers, you gave birth to that child and you have every right to raise him. He is my grandson.”
Rochelle felt something almost like warmth from her mother, a diffuse pride loosely aimed at her.
“I’m doing everything I can to get custody. My lawyers are talking to his lawyers and —”
“Listen to me Rochelle. That man who by the way I was just starting to like, that ex-husband of yours, is trying even harder.” Her tired brown eyes widened for emphasis.
“What do you mean?”
She snapped open her purse and pulled out an envelope from which she extracted a letter. She unfolded it ceremoniously, her eyes darting to Rochelle so as to gather up her daughter’s reaction as she cleared her throat and read: “Dear Mabel, You know how deeply grieved I am over the demise of my marriage to Rochelle, and as you know the details I won’t upset you by bringing them up again. My concern now is for my son and his well being. As you yourself have been blessed with an enduring and stable marriage” — Mabel’s eyes flitted from the letter to Rochelle — “you may not know the procedure of a divorce filing of one party against the other. In essence, the party suing for divorce has the burden of proof against the other party, and in the case of child custody suits, the burden of proof in the claim against the second party is fully on the shoulders of the first party and everything presented is taken into account by the presiding judge. This is to say, that I must, unfortunately, prove Rochelle’s incompetence as a mother. It is an onerous pursuit, but for Parker’s sake, and as his loving grandmother I’m sure you will agree, a necessary one. As Rochelle’s mother, you perhaps know her better than anyone; and I know you have serious doubts as to her capacity to responsibly raise a child. The issue here is not her ability to hire someone else to raise the child, but her own capacity to be his primary nurturer in, let’s say, the case she should lose her ability to hire childcare. In our life together, she showed almost no interest in Parker. Your testimony as to her character — your honest appraisal, Mabel — would serve your grandson’s present and future well being. Please consider this, and if you choose to, contact my lawyers.”
Mabel waved a business card. “This was with the letter. And so what do you think I your mother would do upon receiving a letter like this?”
Rochelle was speechless; she had no idea.
“What did you do, Mom?”
“I phoned you and made this date, that’s what.”
“Have you responded to that?”
“Why should I? If nothing else, I gave birth to you. That’s the easy part. Raising a child is the hard part. But what would you know about that? Never mind. I have not even shown this to your father. I will not bear witness against my own child —”
“Mom, thank you —”
“—even if I have plenty to say.”
After lunch, Rochelle hailed a taxi in front of Aix and left Mabel alone on the curb. She leaned out the window and said, “I’ll call you soon, Mom.” As the cab pulled into traffic she could hear Mabel’s disembodied voice answering, “Don’t bother.”
At home, Betsy handed her a small pile of pink message slips: two journalists, her lecture agent, her psychic healer, and Mort. Betsy stood there in her tight skirt and knit top, waiting for an order, but Rochelle was too preoccupied. She went to her desk and jotted down a list of all the people she could think of whom Jason might have contacted. Then she marched across the loft to Betsy’s workspace and handed her the list.
“Get these people on the phone, then put them through to me. When you see I’m off, call the next person.”
Betsy said, “Okay,” and flipped through the Rolodex.
Bobby Love was first on the list; his testimony of her nonmaternal nature would have found a perfect listener in Jason. Bobby said that yes, he had received such a letter, but no, he had decided not to answer it. “I’m happy now,” he said. “I have a wife and two baby girls and I only wish the same happiness for you, Rocky. I have nothing against you. I don’t want to get involved in your divorce. I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”
Next she called her brothers. Even though she doubted they would defame her, she had to be sure. To her surprise, neither Robby nor Leo had received a letter.
Then she spoke with Suzanne, her assistant at the network during her Bobby Love years. It had been a long time and Rochelle tried to be warm, but Suzanne’s tone was chilly. She said, “Yes, I did get a letter like that.”
“And?”
“I think the lawyer I talked to was named Tannenbaum, Irwin or something Tannenbaum. He asked me some questions and I answered. We talked for about ten, fifteen minutes. Obviously I didn’t tell him anything he wanted to hear because he didn’t ask for a written statement.”
Rochelle thought Suzanne sounded disappointed. “Well,” she said, “I’m relieved to hear that. I should have had you sign a nondisclosure form, it’s something a celebrity should always require.”
“Had me sign one?”
“Yes.”
“Rocky, you can’t just have people do whatever you want, even if you’re paying them.”
Rochelle could see Suzanne in a memory-bubble floating around her mind: a young woman, olive-toned, long black hair, leaning earnestly over her desk for three years, working. She should have known by Suzanne’s passivity that she would betray her one day, rise up and scream her angry jealousy at whoever would listen. Rochelle said, “You have a real problem with authority, Suzanne. I treated you well, I tailored the job to your personality. You had a little too much leeway with me and now —”
“Stop it, Rocky.”
“Don’t you dare talk to my ex-husband’s lawyers, or either of my ex-husbands!”
“A person can do whatever they want. You taught me that.”
Rochelle hung up and wanted to scream.
Immediately, the intercom buzzed and Betsy announced that Scott McNeil was on the line.
He was coy, circumspect, happy (she thought) to finally have one over her. Yes, he had gotten a letter from the lawyers. She asked him if he had responded to it, and he said, “As a matter of fact, I did. I’m glad you called, Rochelle. One of my classes has been discussing the evolution of your persona and there was general agreement that since the early Mad Women your style has radically changed, gone from, shall we say, intellectually sharp and edgy to, well, soft, riddled with surprising clichés. Do you think your fame has had a deleterious effect on your ability to seriously confront topical issues? Or perhaps motherhood? Or possibly even both?”
“Scott, I’m in a custody battle here. What did you say about me to my husband’s lawyers?”
“Well, sorry, Rochelle, but I really consider that confidential.”
She slammed down the phone. A minute later, the intercom buzzed, and without consulting Betsy, Rochelle lifted the receiver and said: “Who is this?”
“Hey, Rocky!”
“Reebah?”
“Honey, you had your assistant call me. How’re you doing?”
“Oh, Reebah, it’s so good to hear your voice. I’m having such a hard time. You’ve probably heard about what’s going on.”
“Actually, no. I’m working or chasing Lil around. She’s two and a half now, can you believe it? Did you get the pictures I sent you?”
Rochelle couldn’t remember. Betsy may have put some photos on her desk a while back, along with all the other mail she rarely inspected. Betsy always marked the important things and left the rest in a pile that kept growing until she was instructed to throw it away.
“She’s a doll,” Rochelle said.
“Okay, talk to me. You sound burned out, Rocky. You don’t sound good.”
Rochelle was struck by this. She was so accustomed to people telling her she looked great, sounded great, was doing great — even in times of trouble, as now — that she was surprised by Reebah’s remark. Then she felt relief. Reebah knew what was good in her. Reebah knew the real Rochelle Libbon.
“My husband is suing me for custody of Parker.”
“Oh, Jesus. Why?”
Rochelle sighed. She hated telling this story. “He thinks I had an affair.”
“Did you?”
“Well, yes.”
“Even so, honey, that’s not grounds for you to lose custody.”
“And I was always busy with my career, so I had a little help around the house, which he interprets as my being disengaged. It’s a conspiracy against working women, is what it is.”
“I’m so sorry, Rocky. Tell me, what can I do to help?”
“He sent letters to people who know me, asking them to be character witnesses. But it sounds like you didn’t get one.”
“Nah, honey, I didn’t get one. And if I did I never would have answered.”
“Of course not, I don’t know why I thought you would.”
“It sounds like you’re forgetting who you can trust. It’s funny, I thought you sold out, you kinda turned into the enemy —”
“What?”
“What I’m trying to say, Rocky, is that now I can see that the road you chose is more of a mudslide than a road. But it may have been inevitable for you to go that route. It’s not your fault. You never even wanted to do that radio show to begin with, I pulled you into it.”
“Reebah, what are you saying? Can’t you see I’m having some real prob —”
“Yes, I can see that. Honey, we all make mistakes. Listen to me, you keep strong, and don’t worry about me hurting you because I won’t.” She paused. “Okay, Lil just ran into the kitchen by herself, I have to go.” She hung up the phone.
Rochelle felt helpless, muddled at the core. How could Reebah question her integrity? She hadn’t done anything worse than the average CEO did on a regular basis — she had served herself, thank you very much — and now she would be punished for it. Punished, and held responsible. Was it her fault that the women’s movement had suffered a backward slide? How was she to blame for that? She could feel the fabric around the brass buttons on her white suit pulling, almost popping.
Betsy’s voice on the intercom announced, “Tad Crawford.”
Rochelle didn’t want to talk to him, but knew she had to. It had been nearly four years since they exchanged negatives and sex.
She asked him about the letter.
“Yeah, I got one.” She could hear the clink of a glass on a hard surface and there was a pause as he swallowed something. He sounded intoxicated. “Blew my mind, I mean, me a character witness for you. Like I really know you that well.”
“So you didn’t respond?”
“Well, I don’t know what the hell I could have to do with your divorce, but yeah, I called.”
“Please tell me what you said.”
Another pause, another clink, another swallow. “They wanted to know about Greece, you know, so I told them. It’s not like it was some big mystery; everybody knows.”
“What else?”
“About last time.”
“You told them?”
“They said it was all confidential, no one would find out. Hell, my girlfriend would fucking kill me if she knew.”
“What about me, Tad? Did you think?”
“What? You weren’t married. There’s no law against two consenting unmarried adults —”
She slammed down the phone. How could she have predicted that a chance meeting on a plane when she was twenty could create so much fallout later in her life? She pictured Jason’s lawyers separating her mistakes, braiding them into one big noose with which to hang her. Court was the big threat they knew she’d try to avoid. If only they thought there was any possibility, any chance that Tad Crawford had fathered Parker....
Then it struck her: Could Tad have fathered Parker? If a blood test proved it, would Jason have any right to custody?
She buzzed Betsy. “Get me Tad Crawford’s address, and tell anyone who calls that I’ve gone out.”
Rochelle taxied to a derelict warehouse building on Laight Street, just yards from a busy intersection where traffic came together in a knot of honking madness. The intercom buttons were so small and close together that she had to use the tip of her long fingernail to press the one next to the names Crawford/Shoenfeld. When there was no answer, she pressed it again, holding it longer.
A window three floors up opened and a male voice shouted, “Who’s there?”
“Tad? Is that you?”
“Who is it?”
Rochelle stepped back onto the curb and saw Tad leaning out the window. “I need to talk to you.”
He grinned. “Miss me or something?”
“Just one minute, please.”
He disappeared briefly then returned with a bunched-up athletic sock. “Here, catch.” He threw the sock out the window. “The key’s inside. I’m on the third floor.” He shut the window.
Rochelle unballed the sock and used the key to let herself in. The hallway was fit to be condemned, there were holes in the walls and flakes of paint hung from the ceiling like bats. She quickly climbed the two filthy flights until she reached the third floor, where within a gaping doorway stood Tad Crawford. His eyes were glazed and the minute he saw her, he laughed. He was drunk.
“Well, well, well,” he said.
She pushed her way past him. “Are we alone?”
“Sandra’s not here at the moment.”
The loft was large and raw, with some old furniture arranged in the corner between two large windows. Far to the left of that was a double bed draped with a nubby white bedspread. Against the opposite wall was a makeshift kitchen. Photographic equipment cluttered the large open spaces.
“Do you actually live here?” Rochelle asked.
He ignored the slight and walked past her, across the loft — and it was then that she saw the swirling cowlick in the back of his dense black hair. It traveled to the right and ended in a clump that was as irrepressible as Parker’s. When Tad sat down in a tattered armchair by a dying fichus tree, leaned back, crossed his legs and looked at her, all she could see was a time-warped mirror reflection her son.
“I need you to do something for me,” she said. “It’s very important and I need it as soon as possible, today if you can.”
“I’m working all day today.”
“I’ll pay you.”
“What’s the job?”
“I want you to take a blood test. I need to know your blood type.”
“It’s B positive.”
“I need documentation.”
Tad leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees. “Does he look like me?”
She could not bring herself to answer. All she wanted were facts and proof and Parker.
“I’m not sure I’m ready to be a father.”
“I only want your blood sample, nothing else. You don’t have to meet him. You don’t have to do anything. This may be a long shot, but if it pans out, it’s worth anything to me.”
Tad nodded slowly and continued to look at her. “How much?”
“A hundred dollars.”
He laughed.
“A thousand. Two thousand. How much do you want?”
“How about five thousand for the test, ten thousand if it’s positive?”
“You’re lucky I won’t sue you for paternity.”
“I’m not so sure I want to do this test.”
“Let’s say five hundred to take the test, and five thousand if it pans out.”
He reached up and picked a sickly yellow leaf off the fichus tree. “Sure, what the hell? But there’s more one thing I’ll want, besides the money.”
“What?”
“If he’s mine, I’ll want to meet the kid.”