Chapter 26 ~ Pants On Fire
July 12, 2010
Years later, looking down at a child who, in turn, looked up at me, I was back in the camera’s dark eye, in the escape I’d felt in being no-one. I remembered Jamie’s eyes, the warmth of her comfort, the half-smile that didn’t provide the veneer she’d planned.
And in her eyes, the guarded emotion that I’d never truly put my finger on until that moment. Threat.
I looked down at the child, hearing Oliveria off somewhere, clanking and crashing her way through the apartment, and thought hard on what I should do.
Comfort.
Threat.
Escape.
Swirling, swirling, swirling.
That moment I’d stared into the camera, losing myself in it’s oblivion. Giving myself away. Becoming someone else.
Comfort.
Becoming someone else.
I could become someone else.
Jamie’s eyes.
I could become someone else.
I could be your father.
Your tears in the car. The way you’d leapt from the seat into my arms. The warmth and heaviness when we sat and listened to the hippy in Strawberry Fields. When I held you like Jamie had held me.
I could be your father.
I could be your father.
I will be your father.
* * *
Oliveria clanked and clunked away elsewhere in the apartment, a vacuum cleaner roaring, the television on, turned up to accompany the melee.
And I was staring at a tousle-haired, half-awake child, looking up at me, terrified yet somehow nonchalant.
“Damp,” it said to ram home the point.
I can act this out, my thoughts declared, I can be someone else.
I look down at the kid and knew that I could act the role of its father. Even if it was only to get it as far as the local precinct.
Running across the Upper West with that child in arms; sympathetic looks and apathy. Sitting in Strawberry Fields; nostalgia songs. No-one giving a second thought to father and child.
I could do that.
But first I had to prepare, get myself into role.
Get the kid some diapers.
* * *
“Do you want to take that off?”
A nod.
“Is it damp?”
Another. A look in its eyes.
Stupid fucking question, you idiot.
“Can you do it?”
A nod and the kid started to take its pants down. The diaper was huge, swollen, distended.
The kid – the girl – pulled the diaper down and stepped out of it. Looked up at me.
“Is that better?”
It seemed I had nothing but questions.
She nodded.
“Oh… OK…”
She stared at me.
“I’ll get another one, don’t worry,” I bumbled, “I just need to… to…”
What?
This is New York, you idiot, I chided myself.
No-one shopped on the Upper East, no-one sullied their feet by stepping into a supermarket. Not when there was a telephone and a host of illegal immigrants willing to earn a quarter for delivery.
“I’ll dial out for some.”
* * *
I stepped out of my bedroom, immersing myself in the cacophony that was our cleaning lady in full flight. I was wearing the bracelet she’d bought me around my wrist, so ingrained that I generally didn’t notice it’s there. But I did now.
I placed the heel of my palm against my right eyebrow, stooped a bit and walked through to the living room, where she was polishing ornaments, clinking them down on the glass-topped table.
Acting again.
Becoming someone else.
“Oliveria?” I said through clenched teeth, “Oliveria?”
She looked up at me.
“Si?”
And the way she looked at me – like Jamie, like Camille, like anyone but my own mother – I felt caught out, transformed into an insect that dared to walk among mammals. She knew. She knew.
I chose understatement over Broadway.
“I’ve got a bad migraine… Any chance you could come back another time?”
She looked at me. No emotion, no capitulation.
I fought the urge to squirm.
Closed my eyes, drew breath on a hissed inhalation.
“You have migraine?”
She asked.
No, I thought.
“Yes,” I said.
She stood, tossing her cloths into the cleaning bag she’d brought with her.
Without a word, she moved through the apartment, gathering her tools, making sure that the areas she’d already completed were squared away. Finally, satisfied, she regained her coat from where it was hanging in the hallway closet. She walked to the door. Opened it. All the time, so quiet, such a church mouse, just to save my imaginary headache.
Standing in the hallway, she looked at me where I leant against the door, ushering her out, shadowing her until she was off the property.
Her eyes spoke of distrust and calculation.
My heart sank. I hadn’t played the role well enough. Anyone with a migraine would have been in bed by now, even if they’d felt strong enough to speak to someone.
I hoped she hadn’t realised.
I hoped…
No. I would act like she hadn’t realised.
“I’m sorry, Oliveria,” I said, almost whispering. “Sorry that you came over for nothing. I wish I’d had chance to call you.”
She shrugged, de nada.
De nada.
I’d heard that before.
“I need to sleep,” I said and it wasn’t so far from the truth.
And suddenly, Oliveria was smiling. Broad. Ear to ear.
I fought down the unbidden image of the wino on the park bench, neck opened in a grin to end all grins.
“Kenneth,” she said, winking in conspiratorial camaraderie, “if you want to be alone with her, why you no say so?”
My brain did a back-flip. I’d been awake when she’d arrived. I had been. She couldn’t have seen the kid. Couldn’t have…
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, growling with imagined pain, “I’ve got to…”
She reached out, placed a hand on my arm, looked me straight in the eye.
“You are young man,” she said, smiling, “you should not be alone while your parents are away. You need someone with you.”
She smiled.
“I am happy to leave the two of you alone.”
She had no idea quite how happy that made me. And the fact that she was presuming I had a fuck-buddy in my room just made it better.
I put on my best mock-embarrassed face, dropping the migraine shtick.
“Goodbye, Oliveria,” I said, “thanks for everything.”
I shut the door in her face. Turned and ran to the living room, changing the channel to CNN, speed-dialling the store on the corner of our block.
“Diapers, diaper cream, baby milk… What? Baby milk… Huh? Yes, formula… Formula, yes. And some biscuits and baby food and… What? Well how would I know? What? Jars… Definitely jars… Oh I don’t care, you choose!”
I recited the address. They told me twenty minutes. I hung up.
Walked to the bedroom.
“We’ll have your diapers in twenty minutes,” I said. Then I turned back towards the living room without waiting for a response.
After all, I was sure that I’d just seen her mother giving a press conference on CNN.
Chapter 25 ~ Family Rules – Part VII
