A Nearly Perfect Copy (2 page)

“Maybe, Elm, you want to take some time off.” Greer’s voice rose at the end of the sentence. He was trying to sound nonchalant, off the cuff.

“To heal?” she asked. She was attempting sarcasm, but she suspected he hadn’t heard.

“If you like.” Greer looked at his desk, desperate, Elm thought, for something to distract him. Finding nothing, he examined his fingernails. “You’ve barely taken any time since …” He let the sentence trail off.

“And prints and drawings?”

“We’ll get someone else to pitch in for a while.”

Elm stood. “If you want me to leave, then fire me. But stop this passive-aggressive looking-out-for-my-best-interests crap.”

“Keep your voice down,” Greer said sternly. “Get ahold of yourself.”

“Right,” Elm said. “The family creed. Do not show emotion. Do not embarrass the family. Grieve your dead son in silence.”

Now Greer was standing too, shocked by the mention of Ronan, her son. “What do you want from me?” he hiss-whispered; he didn’t want his secretary to overhear them.

“Nothing,” Elm said. Suddenly, the anger was gone, as though she’d been seized by a cramp and released. These bursts came and went, leaving
her apologetic and defensive. “Sorry. I’ll focus. We’ll be back in the saddle by the fall season.”

“I hope so,” Greer said. “I certainly hope so.”

At home, Elm’s doorman informed her that Moira and Wania had beaten her home. As soon as she opened the door, Moira yelled, “Mommy​mommy Mommy​mommy​mommy,” and threw herself into Elm’s legs.

“Hi, bunny,” she said, shuffling forward.

Wania sat on the couch in front of the television rebraiding a long strand of hair. “Afternoon, Ms. Howells.” She was from Jamaica, and Elm understood approximately 30 percent of what she said. Once she told Elm that the “peenters” had come, and Elm asked, “What?” three times until she pretended to understand. It wasn’t until that evening, lying in bed, replaying the day, that she realized Wania had meant “painters.”

“How was school?”

“Fine,” they both answered automatically.

“Andrew was really funny today,
mon
.” Moira had picked up Wania’s Jamaican slang. It drove Colin crazy, but Elm found it amusing. “He made this noise in art class like this”—Moira blew a raspberry into her forearm—“and everybody really laughed. Even Mrs. Buchner.” Elm was half listening, flipping through the mail. Bill, bill, package of coupons, labels from the Children’s Aid Society, cable television offer, cable television offer, cable television offer. “And, Mom? It sounded like he farted,” Moira explained, in case Elm didn’t get the joke.

“Funny,” Elm said, placing her hand on Moira’s snarled hair, a continual struggle. She had practically come out of the womb with a mess of tangles, and no amount of conditioner would keep them from forming. Elm had given up on attempts to brush or braid it, and let Moira attend her tony private kindergarten wild-headed.

Seeing that her mother wasn’t interested, Moira danced around in circles for a moment, and then settled in front of the television.

“You know, Wania,” Elm said. “You can go, if you want.”

“Are you sure, Ms. H?” Wania perked up.

“Yeah. I’m not going to the gym or anything today. Is there dinner?” Elm lived the ultimate New York stereotype. She couldn’t cook, Colin
couldn’t cook, and their housekeeper/nanny couldn’t cook. Instead, Wania bought prepared food at Citarella or Eli’s Vinegar Factory every day.

“Chicken fingers,” Wania said, pointing to Moira, “and spinach-stuffed chicken breast.”

“Perfect,” Elm said. “Thank you.”

Wania stood and went over to the closet. She put on her coat and took out her woven bag. “Is it rah-nig?” she asked.

Elm couldn’t understand her. “Rah-nig,” Wania repeated. Elm shook her head.

“Mo,” Wania called.

“Raining,” Moira said, head glued to the television set, where Dora the Explorer was skipping down the adventure path.

“Oh,” Elm said. “No, not yet.”

“See you Mahnday.” Wania stepped around the couch to plant a kiss on Moira’s head. Moira reached around and patted her shoulder without turning. “Bye,” Wania said softly, calling Moira an endearment that Elm heard as “beetle nut.” “Have a nice weekend, now.”

The door closed. It was quiet except for the overexcited television, but the volume was low enough for Elm to tune it out. She went into her room, and sat on the bed to take off her shoes. She put them away, then undressed completely, leaving her suit on her bed. Moira came in while she was in her underwear. “Mom? Will you play restaurant with me?”

“Sure. I’ll have the chicken cordon bleu and a Caesar salad.” Moira pretended to write this down on an imaginary pad of paper.

“And what do you want to drink?”

“You mean, What would you like to drink?”

“What would you like to drink?”

“Cherry soda, please.”

Moira ran into the living room to whip up the imaginary meal. Elm lay back on the bed, crooking her elbow over her eyes. She needed to get up and start reheating dinner and play with her daughter and figure out how to get her sales figures up and how not to be demoted to some honorary position in her family’s firm, and how to get over the paralysis that threatened to overtake her at every moment.

But for now it felt so good to close her eyes and let herself be empty. She wasn’t anything, not mom, not boss, not wife, not friend. She was
driftwood, a cloud, and she gave herself three minutes of unconsciousness that wasn’t sleep but rather absence until the cordon bleu and cherry soda were ready and Elm flooded back into herself.

“Where’s Wania?” was the first thing Colin said when he walked through the door. Elm fought a frisson of jealousy.

“Sent her home,” she said, watching his face, suspicious.

“Oh,” he said. The little hair he had left, white blond, clung to his head like seaweed. His face was inscrutable. Elm realized he was just commenting on the scene, performing a “find the differences in the two pictures” exercise.

He popped a carrot stick in his mouth, and then tried to kiss Elm on the cheek clumsily. “Where’s Shrimp Salad?” he called.

Moira ran out of her room. “Daddy, I asked you not to be so silly,” she chided.

“Ya did, did ye? Be not remembering that, I wasn’t,” he said, putting on his Irish hillbilly accent. Moira loved it, copied it like a mynah bird. It was almost their secret language. Elm understood it, but was unable to reproduce the sounds or words. She knew she should find it sweet, but she felt left out.

He picked Moira up. “I’m silly?
You’re
a silly silleen gob, y’are so.” Colin let her slide down his body to the floor. He asked Elm in his “reg-lar” voice (as opposed to “Daddy” voice) when supper would be ready.

“Whenever,” she said. “I’m just chopping carrots for salad. I can warm the chicken up anytime.”

“I’m hungry now,” he said.

“Then we’ll eat. Moira, set the table, please.”

A silence set in while they ate. Dinners were always like this. Elm didn’t understand why the family was reminded particularly of Ronan during dinner. They had rarely eaten together before; this was a new phenomenon. But his absence was acutely felt, his memory respected by a silence they had all tacitly agreed on.

Moira took one bite from each end of the three chicken fingers on her plate. She liked the ends, with the extra breading. She would have to be coaxed to eat the middle. Elm didn’t have the energy to fight this
battle again. She was so tired that even her toes felt fatigued, as heavy as doorknobs.

As if she knew what Elm was thinking, Moira said, “Mom, do I have to eat the middle part?”

“What do you think I’m going to say?” Elm asked.

Moira didn’t answer. She took a large bite and chewed it with snarled lips.

Colin shook his head, snapping out of a daydream. “Guess what,” he said to Elm.

“What?” Moira answered automatically, looking at the three chicken fingers intently, willing them inside her stomach.

“It looks like Moore is buying Omnard’s prescription brands.”

“It’s going through, then?” Elm decided there was too much salt in the ricotta stuffing of the chicken breast. She began the delicate process of unstuffing it.

“Inked today. As of tomorrow Maxisom, Norafran, and Extardol are all ours.”

“What’s that, Daddy?” Moira had gotten down to two chicken finger middles, the point at which her mother usually gave up trying to make her eat them.

“Medicine to make people feel better.”

“And what happens to their PR departments?” Elm asked.

“They get folded into ours, I suppose. We’ll have to see how it’ll shake down.”

“Shake out.”

“Excuse me?” Colin poured them each another glass of wine.

“Shake down is extortion. Shake out is seeing how something will turn out.”

“Right,” Colin said. “Are you going to eat those, Ballyreal?”

“No,” Moira answered seriously. “I don’t think I’ll be eating these.”

“Should we be worried?” Elm asked.

“About the chicken fingers?”

Elm narrowed her eyes. “About the shakeout.”

“What good would worrying do us now?” He balled up his napkin and threw it at Moira, who squealed and jumped off her chair to pick it up.

“No good at all, which doesn’t mean I shouldn’t do it.” Elm stood up to clear the dishes. “Do you want to give M her bath?”

“No bath!” Moira screamed. “I already took a bath.”

“No, you didn’t,” Elm said.

“But I don’t want to.”

“Yeah, well, we have to do a lot of things we don’t want to do in this life, don’t we?”

“Come on.” Colin picked Moira up. “We can sing the bath time songs.”

Immediately, Elm regretted speaking so harshly to her daughter. Sometimes the little girl’s spoiled nature irked her, but if it was anyone’s fault it was Elm’s. Nannies, lessons, only-child-hood—no wonder Moira felt put out by any request that went contrary to her wishes.

That night in bed, with the rain falling heavily again and the tires sloughing off water twelve floors below on the wet streets, Colin snuggled up against Elm, breathing into the hair on the back of her neck. “Y’all gonna give us some somethin’ somethin’?” he asked.

“Who’s that voice?” Elm asked. “You sound like a deaf frog.”

“Thanks.”

There was a silence. Colin ran his hand over her stomach slowly, polishing it.

“What are we going to do this year?” Elm asked the ceiling.

“About what?”

“Ronan’s birthday.”

Colin’s hand abruptly stopped. He pulled it back to himself as though she’d bitten it. “I don’t know.”

Elm said, “Maybe we should go away.”

Colin turned, giving her his back. He was angry, hurt, Elm didn’t know which. Why could she still not read his silences after ten-plus years of marriage? Was she not allowed to talk about Ronan? “Maybe.”

After a silence Elm spoke. “I was going to say that I think I want to have another baby,” she said. Until that moment, she didn’t realize that she’d been thinking about getting pregnant, wondering if having another child might somehow ameliorate her grief.

“Really?” Colin said. “Is this the right time, do you think?”

“I’m over forty now. I don’t know how long it’ll take,” Elm said. “And I don’t want to regret not having started sooner. Or having waited too long.”

“I don’t know, Elm. Things are just so up in the air right now.”

Elm looked at the headboard. The veneer was beginning to chip away, revealing the particleboard underneath. “I just feel like I’m ready.” She shrugged. “We’re ready.”

“Let’s see how things shake down at Moore first.”

“Meaning …?”

“Meaning you can let that worry you to sleep tonight.”

His tone may have been harsh, Elm wasn’t sure. Was he angry at her for wanting another child? Because she could explain to him that she wasn’t trying to replace Ronan. Rather, she wanted the distraction of a new baby, the joy of creating a life. She would let the idea sink in and they could revisit it another time when Colin wasn’t so worried about his job. She stared at the molding where the ceiling met the wall, slippery white painted wood like waves. She willed her mind still and concentrated, concentrated, until her gaze clouded over and she slipped among them.