Little Earthquakes Read online

  It had been this way since it happened. Nothing could make me feel safe. Not my husband, Sam, holding me, not the sad-eyed, sweet-voiced therapist he’d found, the one who’d told me, “Nothing but time will really help, and you just have to get through one day at a time.”

  That’s what we’d been doing. Getting through the days. Eating food without tasting it, throwing out the Styrofoam containers. Brushing our teeth and making the bed. On a Wednesday afternoon, three weeks after it happened, Sam had suggested a movie. He’d laid out clothes for me to wear—lime-green linen capris that I still couldn’t quite zip, an ivory silk blouse with pink-ribbon embroidery, a pair of pink slides. When I’d picked up the diaper bag by the door, Sam had looked at me strangely, but he hadn’t said anything. I’d been carrying it instead of a purse before, and I’d kept right on carrying it after, like a teddy bear or a well-loved blanket, like something I loved that I couldn’t bring myself to let go.

  I was fine getting into the car. Fine as we pulled into the parking garage and Sam held the door for me and walked me into the red-velvet lobby that smelled like popcorn and fake butter. And then I stood there, and I couldn’t move another inch.

  “Lia?” Sam asked me. I shook my head. I was remembering the last time we’d gone to the movies. Sam bought me malted milk balls and Gummi worms and the giant Coke I’d wanted, even though caffeine was verboten and every sip caused me to burp. When the movie ended, he had to use both hands to haul me out of my seat. I had everything then, I thought. My eyes started to burn, my lips started to tremble, and I could feel my knees and neck wobbling, as if they’d been packed full of grease and ball bearings. I set one hand against the wall to steady myself so I wouldn’t start to slide sideways. I remembered reading somewhere about how a news crew had interviewed someone caught in the ’94 Northridge earthquake. How long did it go on? the bland, tan newsman asked. The woman who’d lost her home and her husband had looked at him with haunted eyes and said, It’s still happening.

  “Lia?” Sam asked again. I looked at him—his blue eyes that were still bloodshot, his strong jaw, his smooth skin. Handsome is as handsome does, my mother used to say, but Sam had been so sweet to me, ever since I’d met him. Ever since it had happened, he’d been nothing but sweet. And I’d brought him tragedy. Every time he looked at me, he’d see what we had lost; every time I looked at him, I’d see the same thing. I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t stay and hurt him anymore.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said. “I’m just going to run to the bathroom.” I slung my Vera Bradley bag over my shoulder, bypassed the bathroom, and slipped out the front door.

  Our apartment was as we’d left it. The couch was in the living room, the bed was in the bedroom. The room at the end of the hall was empty. Completely empty. There wasn’t so much as a dust mote in the air. Who had done it? I wondered, as I walked into the bedroom, grabbed handfuls of underwear and T-shirts and put them into the bag. I hadn’t even noticed, I thought. How could I not have noticed? One day the room had been full of toys and furniture, a crib and a rocker, and the next day, nothing. Was there some service you could call, a number you could dial, a website you could access, men who would come with garbage bags and vacuum cleaners and take everything away?

  Sam, I’m so sorry, I wrote. I can’t stay here anymore. I can’t watch you be so sad and know that it’s my fault. Please don’t look for me. I’ll call when I’m ready. I’m sorry . . . I stopped writing. There weren’t even words for it. Nothing came close. I’m sorry for everything, I wrote, and then I ran out the door.

  The cab was waiting for me outside of our apartment building’s front door, and, for once, the 405 was moving. Half an hour later, I was at the airport with a stack of crisp, ATM-fresh bills in my hand. “Just one way?” the girl behind the counter had asked me.

  “One way,” I told her and paid for my ticket home. The place where they have to take you in. My mother hadn’t seemed too happy about it, but then, she hadn’t been happy about anything to do with me—or, really, anything at all—since I was a teenager and my father left. But there was a roof over my head, a bed to sleep in. She’d even given me a coat to wear on a cold day the week before.

  The woman I’ve been watching walked across the park, reddish-gold curls piled on her head, a canvas tote bag in her hand, and I leaned forward, holding tight to the edges of the bench, trying to make the spinning stop. She set her bag down on the lip of the fountain and bent down to pet a little black-and-white-spotted dog. Now, I thought, and I reached into my sleepover-size sack and pulled out the silver rattle. Should we get it monogrammed? Sam had asked. I’d just rolled my eyes and told him that there were two kinds of people in the world, the ones who got things monogrammed at Tiffany’s and the ones who didn’t, and we were definitely Type Twos. One silver rattle from Tiffany’s, unmonogrammed, never used. I walked carefully over to the fountain before I remembered that I’d become invisible and that nobody would look at me no matter what I did. I slid the rattle into her bag and then I slipped away.

  BECKY

  Her cell phone trilled as she straightened her back. The dog gave one sharp bark and trotted away, and the woman with the long blond hair in the long blue coat walked past her, stepping so close that their shoulders brushed. Becky Rothstein-Rabinowitz brushed her curls out of her eyes, pulled the phone out of her pocket, winced when she saw the number displayed on the screen, and replaced the phone without answering. “Shit,” she muttered to no one in particular. That marked her mother-in-law Mimi’s fifth call in the last two hours. She and Mimi had had a reasonably peaceful détente when Mimi had lived in Texas with the latest in her five-husband series, but the marriage hadn’t lasted. Now Mimi was moving to Philadelphia, and she couldn’t seem to grasp the simple fact that her daughter-in-law had both a job and a baby on the way and, hence, better things to do than “just drop by” the shop that Mimi’s decorator had recommended and “take a l’il look” at Mimi’s custom-ordered drapes. Nor did Becky have “just a quick sec” to drive half an hour to Merion and “sneak a peek” at how construction was proceeding (her mother-in-law was in the process of building a pillared, gabled, verandaed minimansion that looked, to Becky’s eyes, like Scarlett O’Hara’s abode, if Tara had gotten shrunk in the wash). Becky picked up her bag and walked briskly across the park to her restaurant, Mas.

  It was three o’clock in the afternoon, and the little kitchen was already steamy and warm with the scent of braised pork shoulder in a cinnamon-spiked sauce, cilantro and garlic salsa, and roasting peppers for the savory flan. Becky took a deep, happy breath and stretched her arms over her head.

  “Thought you were off today,” said Sarah Trujillo, her partner and best friend.

  “I’m just stopping by,” Becky said, as her cell phone trilled again.

  “Let me guess,” Sarah said.

  Becky sighed, looked at the number, then smiled, and flipped the phone open. “Hi, honey,” she said. They’d been married for two years, and they’d dated for three years before that, but the sound of Andrew’s voice still gave her butterflies.

  “Hi. Are you all right?”

  She looked down at herself. Bag, boobs, belly, feet, all present and accounted for. “Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”

  “Well, my mother just paged me and said she’s been trying to reach you, but you weren’t picking up your phone.”

  Shit, Becky thought again.

  “Look, I know she can be demanding. I had to live with her, remember?”

  “Yes,” Becky said. And how you turned out normal is one of the mysteries of the ages, she refrained from adding.

  “Just humor her a little bit. Ask her how things are going with the move.”

  “I can humor her,” Becky replied, “but I don’t have time to run her errands.”

  “I know,” her husband answered. Becky could hear hospital sounds in the background, some doctor being paged. “You don’t have to. I don’t expect you to. Mimi doesn’t, either.”

&nbs
p; Then why does she keep asking? Becky wondered.

  “Just talk to her,” Andrew said. “She’s lonely.”

  She’s crazy, Becky thought. “Okay,” she said. “Next time she calls, I’ll talk to her. But I have to turn my phone off soon. Yoga.”

  Sarah raised her eyebrows. Yoga? she mouthed.

  “Yoga,” Becky repeated and hung up the phone. “Don’t laugh.”

  “Why would I laugh?” Sarah said, smiling sweetly. Sarah had eyes the color of bittersweet chocolate, glossy black hair, and a dancer’s body, although she hadn’t laced up her pointe shoes since she’d blown out both knees at seventeen. She was the reason that Mas’s six-seat bar was packed three deep every week night and four deep on Fridays; the reason that of all the restaurants on Rittenhouse Square, Mas could keep each one of its thirty-six seats full all night long, in spite of the two-hour wait. When Sarah would put on red lipstick and snake-hip through the throng, a plate of complimentary empanadas in her hands and high-heeled sandals on her feet, the grumbles would evaporate and the watch-glancing would cease. “What’s the soup again?” Sarah asked.

  “Garlic and white-bean puree with truffle oil,” Becky said, as she picked up her bag and surveyed the still-empty dining room, each of the twelve tables set with fresh linen and wineglasses and a little blue glass dish of spiced almonds in the center.

  “And why do you think I’d be laughing about yoga?”

  “Well,” said Becky, picking up her canvas bag. “Just because I haven’t exercised in . . .” Becky paused, counting the months. The years. “. . . in a while.” Her last experience with organized fitness had been in college, where she had to pass a semester of phys. ed. before she graduated. She’d let Sarah talk her into Interpretive Dance, where she spent four months waving a scarf around, pretending to be, alternately, a tree in the wind, a child of alcoholics, and resignation. She’d been half hoping that her obstetrician would put the kibosh on exercise and tell her to just stay home with her feet up for the last twelve weeks of her pregnancy, but Dr. Mendlow had been almost indecently enthusiastic when Becky had called for permission to enroll.

  “You probably think yoga’s for wimps.”

  “No, no!” said Sarah. “Yoga’s very demanding. I’m impressed that you’re doing this for yourself and, of course, for your darling little wee one.”

  Becky stared at her friend and narrowed her eyes. “You want something, right?”

  “Can you switch Saturdays with me?”

  “Fine, fine,” Becky grumbled. She didn’t really mind working Saturday night. Andrew was going to be on call, which, more than likely, meant she’d be abandoned in front of the television set at least once so that her husband could go tend to someone’s inflamed appendix or obstructed bowel. Or, most likely, she would have to field more phone calls from Mimi.

  Sarah scraped the jicama she’d been julienning into a bowl, wiped her cutting board, and tossed the towel into a basket in the corner. Becky retrieved it and threw it back to her. “Two towels a night, remember? The laundry bill last month was killer.”

  “A thousand pardons,” Sarah said, as she started scraping kernels of corn off the cob for the roasted-corn salad.

  Becky headed up the back staircase to a tiny room at the top—a converted closet in the old row house that was Mas. She closed the blinds and took another appreciative sniff of dinner coming together—the mole simmering, the spice-rubbed brisket slow-roasting, the undertone of garlic, and the bright notes of cilantro and lime. She could hear the sounds of the dinner crew arriving—waitresses laughing in the kitchen, the dishwashers turning the radio from WXPN to the salsa station. She set her bag onto the desk, on top of the stacks of invoices and ordering forms, and reached into the locker where she’d put her yoga outfit. “Loose-fitting, comfortable clothing,” the yoga flyer had said. Which, luckily, was pretty much all she ever wore.

  Becky pulled off her elastic-waisted black pants, exchanging them for a pair of elastic-waisted blue ones and added an exercise bra that had taken her forty-five minutes on the Internet to find at a site called, God help her, Bigmamas.com. She pulled on a long T-shirt, slipped her feet into her sneakers, and pulled her curls into a bun that she skewered into place with one of the chopsticks Sarah had left on the desk. “Gentle, rhythmic stretching,” the flyer had said. “Creative visualization and meditation for the mother-to-be.” She figured she could handle that. And if not, she’d just say something about heartburn and head for the door.

  As she stuffed her clothes into the bag, her fingertips brushed against something cold and unfamiliar. She dug around and pulled out a silver baby rattle. She felt around in her bag some more, but she couldn’t find a card or wrapping paper or a ribbon. Just one little rattle.

  She turned it over, gave it a shake, then headed down the stairs to the kitchen, where Sarah had been joined by the dishwasher, the sous chef, and the pastry chef. “Is this from you?” she asked Sarah.

  “No, but it’s nice,” she said.

  “I don’t know where it came from.”

  “The stork?” Sarah offered.

  Becky rolled her eyes, then stood sideways in front of the mirror beside the dining-room door for another round of what was becoming her favorite game: Pregnant or Just Fat?

  It was so unfair, she thought, as she twisted and turned and sucked in her cheekbones. She’d dreamed of pregnancy as the great equalizer, the thing she’d been waiting for her entire life, the moment when all the women got big so nobody talked or worried about their weight for nine blissful months. Well, fat chance. Pun intended. The skinny girls stayed skinny, except they developed adorable little tight-as-a-drum basketball bellies, whereas women Becky’s size just looked as though they’d had too much for lunch.

  And plus-size maternity clothes? Forget about it. Normal-size women get to wear little Lycra-blend sporty numbers that proclaim to the viewing public Hey! I’m pregnant! Meanwhile, any pregnant woman bigger than a breadbox gets to choose from the offerings from exactly one—yes, one—maternity-wear manufacturer, whose stirrup pants and oversized tunics scream Hey! I’m a time traveler from 1987! And I’m even fatter than normal!

  She looked at herself in profile, straightening her shoulders, willing her belly to stick out farther than her breasts did. Then she turned to Sarah. “Do I look . . .”

  Sarah shook her head as she sailed toward the deep fryer with a tray of corn fritters that Becky had prepared that morning. “Can’t hear you, can’t hear you,” she sang, as the fritters started to sizzle. Becky sighed, did a quarter turn, and looked over at Juan the dishwasher, who’d suddenly become very involved in the plates he was stacking. She shot a glance toward the grill and found two waitresses with their eyes averted, busily mixing, chopping, and even, in Suzie’s case, reading over the week’s schedule as if there’d be a quiz on it later.

  Becky sighed again, picked up her bag along with a copy of the schedule for the week and the specials for the weekend, and headed out the door to cross the park, walk eighteen blocks east toward the river, and keep her date with New Age destiny.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  “Ladies, welcome.” The instructor, Theresa, wore loose black pants that rode just below her hip bones and a strappy brown tank top that showed off exquisitely defined deltoids and biceps. Her voice was low and lulling. Hypnotic, really. Becky stifled a yawn and looked around the studio on the fourth floor of Theresa’s Society Hill town house. The room felt warm and cozy without being stuffy. The lights were dim, but votive candles burned on the sills of high windows that looked west over the city’s twinkling skyline. A fountain burbled in one corner, a boom box in another played the sound of wind chimes, and the air smelled good, too, like oranges and cloves. In her pocket, her cell phone vibrated. Becky hit Reject without looking, felt instantly guilty, and promised herself that she’d call Mimi back as soon as class let out.

  She replaced the phone and looked around at the seven other students, who all looked to be somewhere in their third
trimesters. On Becky’s right was a tiny girl with a ponytail of cornsilk-fine blond hair and a perky little belly. She wore one of those maternity workout ensembles that came in sizes Small and Smaller—white-striped track pants, black tank top with contrasting trim hugging her bump. She’d given Becky a friendly “Hello” before spritzing her mat with a bottle of Purell. “Germs,” she’d whispered.

  On Becky’s left was the most beautiful woman Becky had ever seen outside of a movie. She was tall and caramel-skinned, with cheekbones that could have cut butter, eyes that looked topaz in the candlelight, and a drum-taut tummy pushing at a light-brown cashmere hoodie. She had perfectly manicured fingernails and, Becky could see once she’d pulled off her socks, perfectly pedicured toenails and a diamond on her left hand the size of a sugar cube. I know her, Becky thought. She couldn’t come up with a name immediately, but she knew her occupation. This woman—her name was something exotic, Becky thought—was married to the man who the Sixers had just traded a center and a point guard to get, a superstar from Texas with some ridiculously high points-per-game average who also, Andrew had explained during the one game Becky had watched with him, led the league in rebounds.

  Theresa sank to the floor without using her hands. As if, Becky thought. “Let’s begin,” Theresa said in a slow, lulling voice that made Becky feel like curling up and taking a good, long nap. “Why don’t we go around the circle. Everyone can share their names, how far along they are, how the pregnancy’s been, and a little bit about themselves.”

  Yoga Barbie’s name turned out to be Kelly! An event planner! This was her first pregnancy! She was twenty-six years old, and she was twenty-seven weeks along! And she felt great, even though things had been hard in the beginning because she’d been spotting! And on bed rest! Yay, team, thought Becky, stifling another yawn. Then it was her turn.