Forged in Grace (19 page)

Marly
’s lips are pressed together tightly, as though she’s working on another insult, then she says, “I bet he did.”

I feel the bait but refuse to take it.
“Marly,” I say softly, “I’m not going to stop being your friend, you know, just because I’ve made a couple new ones.”

Marly
’s body goes very still, like a doe the human hikers can’t see. She looks away, out the kitchen window, then slides one hand to her belly. “You worry about the weirdest shit, sometimes, Grace,” she says, then turns away and walks with heavy footsteps back to her room.

Shame rushes hot to my face. I
’d make a perfect figure for Gus’s portraits right now. If she isn’t feeling threatened, then why is she acting this way?

Chapter Seventeen

Marly’s flipping tiny pancakes on her griddle when the buzzer rings. “Shit,” she cries out, as though she’s still expecting something terrible to turn up on the other end. As she stands there considering the buzzer, the acrid smell of burnt food clouds the room. Marly jabs the button to let the person talk.

“
Marly? It’s your mother.” The words are matter of fact and crisp, like an order. Marly stares at the intercom. “What the hell does she want?”

“
I don’t know, why don’t you ask her?”

“
Easy for you to say, Grace.” For a moment she looks at the buzzer as though it is responsible for summoning her mother, but then presses it.

Several minutes later, there
’s an insistent rapping, symmetrical in its sound. Marly opens the door with the same sluggish effort of a teenager letting a parent in her room. “Sonya,” she says to the woman standing there.

“
I hate when you call me that.”

Marly
’s mother is shorter, denser and more wiry than Marly. Her hair is platinum blonde and her skin is taut, as though someone were holding it behind her head. Her make-up is clean and simple, and she’s dressed in a beige, conservative skirt and blouse. With pearls.

“
It’s your name,” Marly says, and her index and thumb fingers twitch together, as though they’d love nothing more than to grip a cigarette.

Sonya walks into the apartment with the all-business stride and gaze of a real estate agent.
“No art? Marly—it’s so empty.”

Marly folds her arms and nods.
“Next insult?”

“
It’s not an in—” Sonya’s eyes land on me, and in their gaze I expect to see typical shock, or years of regret. But I see nothing, she looks away so fast. Not even a hello.

“
Why are you here?” Marly asks, folding her arms in such a way that she draws attention to the mound of her belly, which is still small, but Sonya can’t take her eyes off it.

Sonya speaks, head tilted down, as though to her fetal grandchild.
“I’m separating from Bryce, I have inheritance money to burn, and I miss my daughter.”

Her eyes are still at belly level but she doesn
’t ask. Marly snorts. “You’re not even divorcing him? Just separating? La-dee-fucking-da.”

“
You should be happy,” Sonya says, as though words can will Marly to change her mind.

Anger pinches in Marly
’s features, hardens up her softness like plaster of paris. “I would have been happy if you’d never married him.”

Sonya plunks down on the couch in such a similar limbs-akimbo way to Marly that I almost laugh.
“You’ve always had an irrational grudge against him. He could never replace your father, whom you can’t even remember.”

“
I remember him,” Marly says simply. “He smelled like mint, which I think he grew in a little box on the windowsill. He ate weird food that you complained about, stuff without oils and no meat. He jogged every day.”

For a moment Sonya
’s eyes widen as though with surprise, then she coils that smile back into place. Her cheeks don’t budge. “You don’t remember those things. I told them to you.”

Oh how I wish I could creep out of the room unseen.

“Well I remember that I felt loved once, and after he dropped dead, never again.” Marly extends an arm out and bangs it accidentally into a lamp, then clutches it back to her chest.

“
Your grandmother left me a sum of money,” Sonya says, announcing the end of the subject in such a familiar way that I know where Marly learned the strategy from. “I thought I’d come and try to celebrate. See my girl. Treat you to something you want.”

“
I have everything I want.” Marly turns and looks at me. “Grace and I are happy.”

The restaurant is my nightmare. Bright lighting, a single floor of tables pressed close together so that we
’re in hearing distance of one another’s conversations and poking distance with our forks. The waiter, tall, thin and early balding, looks only at Sonya and Marly. I would need a collar and a leash to rise in his estimation. Even though I didn’t want to go with them, Marly insisted, whisking me off out of earshot to cajole me. “Please don’t leave me alone with that woman. I don’t know what I might say.”

After we
’ve been served drinks and sipped through an ungainly silence, Marly asks her mother in a tone that almost sounds concerned, “So what will you do now?”

Sonya sighs and pulls her napkin onto her lap as though it can protect her, then shakes her head. And for a moment I feel sorry for her.
“The father,” she says then, abruptly. “Is he the one in the wedding polaroid? I don’t see a ring.”

Behind Marly, an elderly woman with her hair in an elegant bun and a pearl necklace that puts Sonya
’s to shame, stares at me. It takes me a moment to realize her gaze contains none of the pity or fear I’m accustomed to seeing; she’s actually glaring at me, as though I’ve injured or insulted her.

The only thing to do is to focus back in on the tension between mother and daughter.

“Don’t know who the father is. Could be one of so many,” Marly says.

Sonya closes her eyes just briefly, as if she wants to weep but won
’t allow it. “So you got the wedding annulled, I hope.”

Marly shrugs.
“Might keep him, for the tax deduction.”

“
Why is it so hard for us?” Sonya tosses down her napkin. “Just a simple conversation.”

Marly throws back the remains of her Perrier like it
’s a shot of vodka. “Are any of our conversations really simple, Mother? You don’t mind all the elephants crapping right in the middle of the room, I guess. I, on the other hand, can’t stand the stench.”

“
Keep your voice down,” Sonya says. “Are you taking medication?”

Marly just about slams her glass onto the table.
“Oh yes, you broke it, now get medical science to fix it!” Her voice is shrill.

Sonya frowns into her chest as though she regrets coming, too.
“You are just like your grandmother.”

“
Shame you didn’t let me stay with her when you moved away, where at least I would have not been so miserable.” Marly chances a quick glance at me, but it’s more like she’s using her eyes as pointers. Her mother smiles tightly at me, and asks me one question:

“
How are your parents?”

I open my mouth wondering how in hell to explain, but Marly does it for me,
“Don’t ask if you don’t really care about the answer,” she seethes at Sonya.

Our waiter returns and takes our order. Before returning to the kitchen, he harks to the crooked finger of the elderly woman behind us. He bends in close to her, then pulls back as though she has bad breath. He nods, then trundles off purposefully. I prefer focusing on this little play rather than what
’s happening at our table.

“
Bryce and I are splitting up. Why doesn’t that make you happy?” Sonya says.

“
What’s her name?”

“
Oh just stop with that.”

Marly looks away. An older manager type now pauses at the gray-haired woman
’s table, and I realize that she’s red in the face. I can hear her voice, not what she’s saying. But in the moment before the manager turns away from her, I feel it. By the time he approaches our table, I’m already pushing out my chair.

“
Madam,” he says softly to Sonya. “I wonder if you would mind us moving your table to one over there—” He points to one that, while it couldn’t be called hidden, is well out of eyeshot of the woman who was glaring at me.

“
Excuse me?” Marly says.

“
It’s just that we have such a full house and need to reapportion our stations to make it easier on the waiters,” he says tersely, not looking at me.

“
It’s okay, Marly.” I put my napkin back onto the table. Frankly I’d like nothing more than to leave right now.

“
Really, it’s just a little move,” Sonya says, somewhere between placating and pleading.

Marly whirls on her.
“They want us to move because that little biddy doesn’t want to look at Grace. You know it and I know it. I don’t pretend that things aren’t happening right in front of my fucking eyes!” Marly says, shrilly.

“
Oh no.” The manager holds up his arms in protest. His cheeks have gone red.

“
Don’t bullshit me.” Marly takes my arm just as the waiter delivers our food.

“
Marly,” Sonya warns in a low tone. “Our food is here. It’s a little move, what does it matter?”

Marly
’s hand twitches as though she is about to slap someone, and her energy has the momentum of a train rumbling down a track.
Marly slumped on the floor, blood from cuts that went too deep turning the edge of her yellow dress sunset orange. “They want to send me away, Grace. They think I’m uncontrolled.”

“
It matters because Grace is my friend. And I won’t eat at an establishment that would ask her to move to satisfy one OLD BITCH.” Marly lifts her voice on the last two words and the offending woman looks away.

“
You’re being childish.” Sonya’s voice is like a blade.

“
That may be, Mom, but now you can’t send me away because you don’t like it when I tell the truth!”

Sonya is mid-protest when Marly steers me out of the restaurant. When we
’re enough distance away to satisfy, she pulls out her cell and calls a cab company, but keeps walking.

“
You’re really just going to leave her there?” I ask, when she hangs up.

Her hair crackles out around her face when she turns back to me, adding to the bulk of her stomach, and she seems bigger than life.
“You’re not pissed about what just happened?” she counters.

In moments like those I am a steel container.
“Marly, frankly I’m surprised by how
rarely
something like that happens.” I keep my pain and shame so far inside me I’d need a key and a code to unlock them. “Thirteen, even ten years ago it hurt a lot. I spent nights crying myself to sleep after running into people like that old lady. But I’ve lived with it, every day, okay?”

Before I can get a read on how she
’s feeling, she bursts into tears.

“
What did I say?”

She
’s crying too hard to answer me, messy tears that make her nose run, her make-up washing off in big streaks. I fumble in my little purse for a tissue and hand her a crumpled one. I wait for it to subside, but it doesn’t, even by the time the cab pulls up. A line of women in sparkly silver leotards and fishnets emerge from across the street, though we are not on The Strip, and I have that fractured feeling of a dream where the meaning is trapped inside a density of symbols. I shove her into the backseat of the cab.

“
Everything okay?” the driver asks, as Marly moves on to the hiccupping stage of crying.

“
As good as it’s gonna get,” I say, and give him her address.