Little Earthquakes Read online

  Sam had laughed when I’d said that . . . and, later, he’d handed me a vodka gimlet and hadn’t charged me. “Welcome to Sam,” he said. There was a hint of Texas in his voice, even after six years of struggling-actordom in Los Angeles. He was handsome, but so were most of the men in that town. Sam was better than handsome. He was kind.

  “Are you sure?” I’d asked him when he’d slipped a coiled paper-straw wrapper band around my ring finger, the day after the three take-home pregnancy tests had come back positive, positive, and, you guessed it, positive. I’d twisted the bit of paper around and around, feeling happy and excited and scared.

  “I’m sure,” he’d said. He’d reached into his pocket and pulled out a travel agent’s envelope with two tickets to Las Vegas. “I’m sure about you.”

  Las Vegas was perfect. It eliminated the potential unpleasantness of a big wedding, with his family present and my family absent—absent and dead, as far as Sam was concerned, in that long-ago car-crash tragedy. “Go get a massage,” Sam told me after we’d checked in. “They do prenatal ones. I checked.” When I got back to the room, there was a green garment bag lying on the bed. “I know you don’t have a family to do this for you,” he’d said. I’d shaken the gown out onto the bed. It was a creamy color somewhere between ivory and gold, full-skirted, made of silk that was as soft as petals. “Let me be your family now,” he’d said.

  There were birds in the hotel lobby, I remembered, parrots and macaws and lorakeets with brilliant yellow and emerald-green feathers. Their eyes seemed to follow me from their bamboo cages as I walked by with my husband, holding my frothy skirt, hearing my heels click on the marble floor. If I could rewrite the story in the manner of the Brothers Grimm, I would have the birds call out warnings: Turn back, turn back, thou pretty bride! Then I would erase what I’d written, going back and back and back to the night we’d met. If he hadn’t smiled at my joke; if he hadn’t given me the drink; if I hadn’t liked the look of his face and his hands when he passed his jacket across the bar, telling me that I looked cold in my hot pants.

  I pulled my mother’s coat around me and got to my feet. The diaper bag was at the foot of the stairs where I’d left it. I slung it over my shoulder, worked my engagement ring off my finger, and slipped it into my pocket. I’d locked the door behind me before I remembered that the letter for Sam was still on top of my old bed. I decided to leave it there. Let her try to figure it out. Let her try to make sense of who Sam was and what I’d done to be sorry for.

  Forty-five minutes later, I was back in the pawnshop I’d first visited eleven years ago, with a different diamond ring in my hand. The guy behind the counter spent what felt like an eternity peering through the loupe, from the diamonds to my face, back to the diamonds again.

  “It’s from Tiffany’s,” I’d said to fill the silence.

  “Seven thousand,” the guy had said—his first words. “And if it’s stolen, I don’t want to know.”

  I wanted to argue, to bargain, to tell him that the ring was worth more than that, and found I didn’t have the energy. I just held out my hand for the money, and he’d handed it over, a thick wad of hundred-dollar bills that I folded and refolded and finally crammed into one of the bag’s many pockets, a zippered plastic one intended for dirty clothes or wipes.

  Then I walked to a coffee shop on South Street, picked up a copy of one of the free weeklies, and began circling ads for apartments. I kept my head down and tried to ignore Sam’s voice in my head, the way he would have had me laughing by trying to pronounce stdio sblt and rd brck gdn and asking why the advertisers couldn’t just pay extra and spring for the vowels.

  “SUBLET, RITTENHOUSE SQUARE,” I circled. “ONE BEDROOM, HARDWOOD FLOORS, PARK VIEWS, AVAILABLE IMMEDIATELY.” It sounded perfect, and the rent wouldn’t put an unsustainable dent into my cash wad. I dialed the number and was surprised to find myself talking to an actual person instead of an answering machine. I made an appointment and headed west, first up Pine Street, then up Walnut, where my feet slowed down of their own volition in front of an Internet café.

  My fingers felt clumsy on the keyboard. My login was the one I’d given myself years ago—LALia. The password was our baby’s name. I had a hundred and ninety-three new messages, including one from Sam for every day I’d been gone. PLEASE, read the memo line of the most recent ones. Not PLEASE READ THIS. Just PLEASE. I held my breath and clicked one open.

  Dear Lia. I’m honoring your wishes and not trying to find you, but I’d give anything just to know that you’re all right.

  I think about you all the time. I wonder where you are. I wish I could be there with you. I wish there was some way to make you believe that none of this was your fault, it was just a terrible thing that happened. I wish I could tell you that in person. I wish I could help.

  Can I?

  He hadn’t signed his name.

  I hit Reply before I could lose my nerve. I’m home, I wrote to my husband. I’m safe. I’ll write more when I can.

  I paused, my fingers quivering over the keyboard. I think about you, too, I wrote. But I couldn’t. Not yet. I hit Delete, shoved a five-dollar bill in the tip cup at the counter and pushed through the heavy glass door.

  Forty-five minutes later I was knocking on a door on the sixteenth floor of the Dorchester.

  “It’s a six-month sublet,” said the super, a middle-aged man in khakis and a tie that he kept tugging. He opened the door on an empty one-bedroom unit with parquet floors, two big closets, a galley kitchen, and a view of the park. “Dishwasher, garbage disposal, coin-op laundry in the basement.”

  I walked through the apartment, hearing Sam’s voice in my head. Dshwshr! Gbg dspsl! Pk Vu! The super was watching me closely. I pulled my mother’s coat tightly around me and looked down, noticing that my little pink slides, so perfect for traversing the three feet of sidewalk between valet parking and any given Los Angeles destination, were looking a little worse for the wear after weeks in Philly.

  “And here’s your view,” he said, pulling open the blinds with a theatrical flick of his wrist.

  I touched the glass with my fingertips and looked down into the park where I’d spent the last weeks sitting, watching, and waiting. Sixteen floors below me, a man and a little boy were crossing the park hand in hand. The man had on jeans and a blue shirt, and the boy, who was maybe six years old, was pushing a silver scooter.

  “Oh, God,” I whispered, and placed both palms flat on the glass.

  “Are you okay?” asked the super.

  “Dizzy,” I managed.

  He hurried up behind me, close enough to grab me if I fell, and then paused like he was frozen, unsure of whether or not to touch me. “You need to sit down?” You needa siddown was what I heard. Philly accents. I’d forgotten about them.

  “I’m fine. Really. I was just a little dizzy. Too much coffee. Or maybe not enough.” I was trying to remember how people talked to each other. I’d gotten out of practice since I’d been back. “A goose walked over my grave,” I blurted, then bit my lip. That was one of my mother’s favorite sayings, and it had just popped out of my mouth like a dove flying out of a magician’s hat.

  “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Yes. I’m fine.” I tightened my grip on the diaper bag and tried to think of what I should say next; how normal-people conversations went. It felt like forever since I’d had one.

  “So what do you think?” the super asked, giving his tie another tug.

  Okay, Lia, you can do this, I thought. “It’s nice. Very nice.”

  “So what brings you to town?”

  A goose, I thought. It walked over my grave, and it flew me back home. Like the stork, only in reverse. “Homesick, I guess. I’m from here. Well, not here here, but Somerton. Near. Near here.” God, Lia, shut up, I told myself.

  “Are you going to be working in Center City?”

  I looked down at my dirty shoes and prayed for a response to deliver itself directly to my m
outh. “I will be,” I said. “Eventually. Soon. I mean, I’m okay for money,” I hastened to add, because I didn’t want him to think that I was a deadbeat waiting to happen. I wanted this apartment. It had good vibes, or feng shui, or whatever. It felt safe. “I’d like to take the apartment.”

  “Good,” he said, as if I was a first grader who’d completed some bit of addition. “Good for you.” I filled out an application, noticing the way the super’s thick eyebrows rose when he glimpsed the wad of cash in the bag when I handed over my deposit.

  “You don’t have a check? Well, lemme just write you a receipt for this,” he said, fingering the bills a little uneasily.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not a drug dealer or anything,” I said, and then mentally kicked myself, knowing how guilty that made me sound. “I’m not,” I said in a smaller voice. “The number I gave you is my mom’s number. You can call her if you need, you know, a character reference . . .” And I kicked myself again, wondering what my mother would actually say about me if he were to call. “I’m sorry,” I said helplessly.

  “Don’t worry,” he said kindly, taking down my cell phone number. “I’ll be in touch by tomorrow morning. You can stay as long as you like. The door’ll lock behind you.”

  I wandered into the bedroom, then into the closet, where I breathed in the scent of Murphy’s oil soap and the ghosts of outfits past. There were a dozen empty hangers, a few dust bunnies, empty metal racks where shoes had once been.

  Tired. Oh, I was so tired. I hadn’t been asleep in hours. I checked the door to make sure it had locked. Then I spread the down coat on the floor of the bedroom, pulled down the blinds and curled up in the center of the room, holding perfectly still until the world stopped spinning and I was asleep.

  I dreamed the dream I’d been having since the night I arrived. It always started the same way—I’d find myself standing in the doorway of Caleb’s room. I saw the cream-colored carpet, the walls Sam and I had painted pale yellow, the bookshelf full of board books, the poster of Babar doing yoga on the wall.

  The crib was where it was supposed to be, waiting in the center of the room. I walked toward it, looking down at my stained pink shoes, the ones that had carried me from Los Angeles back home, holding my breath, knowing what I’d find even as I leaned over the crib, because the dream always ended the same way. I’d reach down and pull back the blanket, only to find a pile of leaves where the baby should have been. When I brushed my fingertips against them, they all blew away.

  AYINDE

  “I wish you wouldn’t go,” Ayinde said, staring at Richard’s shoulders silhouetted in the lights from the walk-in closet, as she cradled Julian in her arms. The baby was four weeks old and he’d finally topped eight pounds, but he still felt light as a bag full of feathers in her arms, and every bit as fragile.

  “I wish I didn’t have to,” he replied, selecting a suitcase from the row of suitcases just inside the closet door. “But I promised the sneaker company I’d do this more than a year ago, and I shouldn’t back out.” He opened the suitcase and took a look inside, knowing before he’d even finished with the zipper what he’d find—a suit, still in dry-cleaner’s plastic, a sports jacket and two pairs of pants, three button-down shirts, the appropriate complement of pajamas, socks, and underwear. He had half a dozen bags like this, each one packed for stays ranging from an overnight visit to a week out of town. Actually, Ayinde thought, there were two week-away bags—one stocked with bathing suits and beach shoes, the other containing a ski parka, cashmere scarves and sweaters, and a pair of size fifteen fur-lined boots. When Richard came home, he’d just leave the suitcase by the door, and someone—the maid, the butler, someone—would unpack it, wash the underwear, dry-clean the suits, probably even change the blade in his razor, repack the whole thing, and replace it in the closet, where it would be ready to go for the next trip.

  He walked out of the closet, looking cheerful. She knew that, in his head, he was already traveling, shaking hands and smiling his game-day smile. Maybe he was thinking about the airplane, that big seat in first class, with a drink on the armrest and headphones shutting out the noise. No babies crying, no exhausted, bedraggled-looking wife who flinched every time he touched her. He crossed the room with a spring in his step, retrieving a pair of cuff links from the dresser drawer, and a pair of loafers from one of the specially built cubbyholes that held everything from dress pumps to golf cleats. Then he looked at his wife and baby, both of them sitting in an upholstered armchair that the decorator had sent over that morning. “Do you really want me to stay?”

  Yes, she thought. “No,” she said. “No, you go on ahead. I know this is important to you.”

  “Important to both of us,” he said, adding the latest issues of Sports Illustrated and ESPN: The Magazine to his leather carry-on duffel bag.

  She nodded reluctantly. She understood that Richard’s willingness to do anything his corporate sponsors required—to show up at their events, dine and golf with their executives, autograph endless basketballs for their kids—was part of what made him so valuable. It was funny, she mused, shifting in the chair, still feeling tender between her legs, even though Dr. Mendlow had assured her that her stitches had healed beautifully. They thought they were giving Richard a vacation—a week on the golf course in Paradise Island; a long weekend on the slopes at Vail—but Richard treated the trips like work, and he took them seriously, researching the names and histories of the men he’d be meeting days ahead of time so that he could watch their eyes widen each time he’d work a name or place into a conversation. How are Nancy and the boys? They’ve got to be getting big now, right? Eight and ten? Or, I was sorry to hear about your mother passing. How are you holding up? The men’s delighted faces would say, Can you believe it? Richard Towne knows my wife’s name! He knows how old my boys are!

  When it had been just the two of them in Texas, Ayinde hadn’t minded the travel. Sometimes she’d stay in their big, modern mansion, picking up weekend shifts at the station to make up for the game weekends she’d be gone. Or if Richard was heading east, she’d fly with him and visit her parents in New York. She’d go to the theater with her father, and her mother would drag her to Bergdorf Goodman or Barneys after dumping Ayinde’s suitcase on the bed, pinching a skirt or a jacket between her fingertips, and saying, “Is this what passes for high fashion out in the sticks?”

  She watched her husband pack, wondering when all the trips, the weekends away, the ceaseless courting of businessmen who sold soft drinks and sneakers and cereal would end, when Richard could finally let himself relax into a well-deserved retirement. Chasing after endorsements was a full-time job in itself, and one that Richard didn’t really need. But it was more than the money, she thought. It was about the security that Richard had never had growing up, the rock-solid certainty that there would always be enough money for food, for clothes, even for college.

  “You know I don’t like leaving you two all by yourselves,” he said. Ayinde nodded, thinking how strange it was, because in her life, all by yourselves meant all by yourself except for the maid, the cook, the driver, the gardener, the Pilates instructor who came Friday mornings, and the decorator, who had her own key and wasn’t afraid to use it—Ayinde had already bumped into Cora Schuyler, of Main Line Interiors, twice before eight o’clock in the morning, once when she’d let herself in to deliver a plate she wanted hung in the kitchen and again when she’d been dropping off handcrafted soaps for the powder room.

  There was a business manager, who toiled in the twelve hundred feet of office space above the six-car garage; the part-time publicist, who worked in the office next to his; and the bodyguard, who earned what Ayinde felt was an exorbitant sum for the job of driving up and down their street in a menacing-looking Hummer, taking down the license plates of anyone who turned into their cul-de-sac. There’d also been a baby nurse Richard had hired to stay for three weeks. Ayinde had sent her away after five days. The nurse, who was a perfectly nice lady in her fiftie
s named Mrs. Ziff, had let it slip that her next client was a working woman with a two-and-a-half-year-old who only had twelve weeks of maternity leave. Ayinde felt guilty since Julian was her only baby, her only responsibility, and she had no business hogging this woman’s time, even though she—well, Richard—had paid for it already.

  “Call your yoga friends,” he said, zipping up his bags and setting them outside the door. During the night, the driver would fetch them and place them in the trunk of the town car that would take Richard to the airport first thing in the morning. “Have a hen party.”

  “Friends,” she repeated. Richard looked at her.

  “They are your friends, right?”

  She nodded, still feeling a little surprised by it.

  “So go to a spa or something,” Richard said. “Relax.”

  “Please stay,” she said, surprising them both, struggling out of the armchair with Julian in her arms, hurrying across the perfect room, their bed with the pillows that Clara plumped at least twice a day, the marble fireplace and mahogany mantelpiece with newly framed photographs of the baby on top.

  “Aw, baby,” Richard said. Ayinde burrowed her face against his upper arm, feeling the warmth of his skin through his cashmere sweater.

  “Stay,” she repeated in a small voice. “Please stay.”

  Richard reached down to hold her, and Ayinde caught the look of confusion in his eyes. She wasn’t like this. She wasn’t needy, or clingy, or whiny, or any of the things that most of the women in Richard Towne’s orbit—the ones who didn’t work for him, at least—usually were. I’m not a damsel in distress, she’d told him . . . and it had been true at the time.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, making an effort to look normal—Chin up, shoulders back, have some pride, girl! she heard Lolo whisper. She smoothed her hair with her free hand and wished that she wasn’t still wearing the bathrobe and pajamas she’d spent the whole day—actually, the better part of the week—in. “I’ll be fine.” And it was true. She’d always done just fine on her own. She remembered Christmas when she was eight years old. Her parents had left the night before for one Greek island or another, but Ayinde hadn’t wanted to miss her school play, in which she had two lines as one of the Three Wise Men. She made arrangements to sleep at a friend’s house, and her parents had hired a car to pick her up there and take her to the airport. Unfortunately, they’d accidentally taken her passport with them.