Milk (15 page)

Toys we had as kids, or wished we had: maple wood blocks, rowing carts, Lincoln Log trading posts and houses, the original Radio Flyer wagons, pine tables and chairs, maple stoves—most everything is wood. This catalog is done in black and white, some sepia, appealing to customers' secret love of the fifties and early sixties. The same thing my copy is supposed to do: invoke Leave it to Beaver, Dennis the Menace, innocence with a little butch wax, hair ribbons, Keds, the old thermoses with the glass inside. I write:
Remember playing in the twilight up and down the street? You and the gang? Kick-the-Can, Red Rover, Capture the Flag
.… Nowadays people are just getting home from work at twilight, after stopping off at daycare first, then the market. Kids are tired, cranky, parents are exhausted, and nobody knows their neighbors anymore. I write copy that sells an idea, the illusion of a lost era.

I scroll through the file and start in on the new products, thumbing through the pictures and product information the advertising director has sent. The original Skittles game, a tumbling mat, a giant floor puzzle, miniature pool table, pogo stick, see-through models of a man and woman.

Like Jackson and myself, only we're not see-through—rather, opaque and hard to decipher. Yesterday, when I said goodbye, I kissed him on the cheek. A sisterly kiss or the kiss of Judas? Part of me hoped never to see him again, part of me saw this was unreasonable, impossible.

…
educational. Every organ colorful and realistic. Perfect for budding surgeons
. I change
surgeons
to
doctors
.

Done.

The plane starts its descent into San Francisco Airport. I'm met at the gate by Meadowlark's advertising director, Bill somebody, forty-five-ish.

“We'll check you into your hotel later,” Bill says in the car, followed by questions about how am I liking Southern California and do I intend to stay? Each time I answer, he nods quickly and volleys back a comment. “California's still the land of gold for me, Theo. Never wanted to live any other place.” His idea of small talk, then he cuts to the chase. “Wait till you see our seasonal stuff,” he says. “Dresses like out of the Czar's Russia.”

Nausea races through me; Bill's cologne trapped in my sinuses, as if my nose is buried in the glands of some animal. “Bill? Could we open a window, please?”

“No problemo.” Exhaust-tinged air fills the car, a slight improvement. “You have kids, Theo?”

“No, not yet.” Just a little fetus.

“You can pick one out to take home,” he says.

“Pardon?”

“One of the dresses, Theo. You got a little niece?”

“Nephews.”

“Have one of your own someday, eh? A little girl?”

If I do, I think, she won't be dressed like the Czar's Russia. As we continue north on 101, it occurs to me I won't be working for Meadowlark much longer. Once the baby's born, I'll weed out the companies I don't like.

I've only quit one other catalog before, one of the first children's catalogs I joined, a doll company, which is how I got into children's to begin with. Jackson and I shared an office in our house at Stonewall Creek, a situation we didn't always like, but neither of us would move. “You work in the bedroom.” “No, you.” “But it'd be more difficult for me to move. I have more stuff.” “No it wouldn't. I'll help you. Besides, this was your idea.” “What?” “Sharing an office.” “I thought it'd be romantic.” Erratic silence while we attended to our own work, punctuated by my curses as I neared a deadline.

As for the dolls, they were perched around the office, smiling their pink petaled smiles. Jessica and Callie and Laura and Monique, who lived in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Period dolls—Colonial, Victorian, Pioneer, Turn-of-the-Century. I had to write about them as though they were real little girls: Jessica, who lived in Vermont but spent the summer with her cousin Polly in New York, even visiting the fanciest ice cream parlor in the city! Laura, who caught her very own fish! With her very own fishing rod and bait basket (complete with plastic grasshoppers and a frog)!

The dolls had dolls of their own, naturally, and sometimes even those dolls had dolls. And if that weren't enough, you could buy outfits to match your doll's—dresses, nightgowns, shoes—as well as storybooks about the doll's adventures. Which is about the time I quit, when I got promoted to writing books about Jessica, Callie, Laura and Monique, and (I was told excitedly), there were plans for cookbooks, calendars, a magazine.

No thanks, I said.

In this sea of blond girls in party dresses at the Meadowlark shoot, there are the rustle of petticoats and the harsh whispers of mothers commanding their daughters. One girl tiptoes by me, hands clad in white gloves—so she won't dirty her dress? Or are girls' gloves back in style?

Bill, the advertising director, is off talking to someone, so I'm alone with a bagful of swatches to rub between my fingers—for inspiration, Bill said, the Czar's Russia, ha ha.

Suddenly I notice, to my surprise, a couple of little black girls about to be photographed. Maybe Meadowlark has received a few complaints, or maybe the company has caught on to multiculturalism at last. In any case the girls look out of place here; they look real. As if they have real lives, parents who actually take them to playgrounds and let them run in the sprinklers.

It's the blondes who always get to me, their halos of hair, not a freckle on their pale listless arms. Are they drugged? Do they like this? Why do their mothers bring them?

I flee the photo shoot momentarily to check phone messages at home, home being the Alta Vista still, where the man at the front desk protractedly reads one message at a time, one each from Gregg and my father, another from a children's bed and bath catalog, and one more message from, as the balding man at the desk says, “your
Ahhnt Lyla
.” He takes great pride in being exact. “‘I talked to Corb, dear, and he told me your happy news. Congratulations.' You're to call her.” My happy news must be the pregnancy; the real news is that Corb and Aunt Lyla are talking again after all these years. I tell the man thanks, then return to the photo shoot. Klieg lights, props: gilt-armed chairs, fake marble pedestals, brocade curtains. The photographer steps up to the two black girls, in matching floral gabardine dresses, and checks his light meter. I close my eyes as much as I dare, the feathery blur of my eyelashes dimming my vision, a game I played as a child pretending to sleep, watching everything through slitted eyes. I'd test myself in the mirror, tipping my head upward to peer up under the lids—was it convincing, or could you see the shine of my eyes?

The photographer shakes his head. That brocade's too dark, he'll use a flash in addition to the lights.

Back in town, I've arranged to meet Gregg at Denny's.

I can still taste Twinkies in the back of my throat. I ate a whole package of them on the way over here, and now, trying to rinse out the memory, I drink my ice water. Even the water at Denny's tastes like Denny's, bland and impersonal.

Gregg isn't here yet. Fine with me; right now I'm fingering the menu, thinking—mashed potatoes, no gravy. Fried chicken. Salad, French dressing. Milk. I nibble a saltine from the basket, so dry it catches in my throat going down. I'm sick, sick, sick of saltines.

There he is at the door. Inwardly I groan. How did I ever think I could hide this from him? Even as long as I could've hidden it, three months, four, five …

“Hi,” I say glumly. To the waitress I say: “We're ready to order now.”

“I haven't even looked at the menu,” Gregg says.

“Have the chicken club,” I tell him, adding by way of explanation, “I come here all the time.”

“You do?”

“Yeah.” I stare unapologetically at the orange vinyl seats and the plasticized photos of meals on the wall. Next to us an elderly couple shares a sandwich and a bag of chips; only old people come here, or broke students, or the pregnant population. Pregnancy turns you into a philistine. You'll eat anything.

“Shall I come back?” the waitress asks. She's been standing here all this time, her pad out.

“I know exactly what I want,” I say and give her my order.

“Guess I'll have the chicken club,” Gregg says. “I hear it's pretty good.” After jotting this down, the waitress bustles away, her stockinged thighs rubbing together, an embarrassing sound.

“The problem,” I say, “is this.”

I don't say anything else. Can't force the words out of my throat.

“Oh, Gregg. Can't you guess what the problem is? Think.
Think.”

“Why is the fact that you're married a problem exactly? You left him, didn't you?”

I nod my head dumbly, posing the words in my mouth.
I am pregnant. You are not the father but I want to be with you
. Why can't I just say it? Am I so afraid of losing Gregg? Or does the pregnancy seem—still—not real?

“I left my husband,” I say. “Yes.”

“You're going back to him.”

“No.”

“You still have feelings for him.”

“It's a little more complicated than that. I'm pregnant, Gregg. I'm going to have the baby.” I gaze at the half-eaten saltine in my hand, my husband's name on my lips. “The baby isn't yours. It's Jackson's.”

I wait for him to ask when did this happen. How far along am I. Something.

“Aren't you going to say anything?”

He stares at me, too stunned to talk. I touch his hand, but he pulls it away.

“I understand how you must feel.”

“No,” he says, “you don't.”

He won't look at me, but the miracle is, he doesn't leave.

When the food arrives, I devour my fried chicken, mashed potatoes, salad, and milk, lots of milk. I lick the mustache off my face. Gregg has pushed his plate in front of me; I finish off his sandwich. We sit closer and closer to one another until his arm is around me, my hand on my belly as if for balance. Wafting from the speakers is a muzak version of “The Cat in the Cradle”—a song I despise for its sentimentality. “The cat in the cradle and a silver spoon, little boy blue and the man on the moon.…” Tears are rolling down my cheeks.

F
IFTEEN

ARCADIA METHODIST HOSPITAL OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

NAME
  Marian Greer Mapes          
    HOSP. NO.
61621

SEX
  F   
AGE ON ADMISSION
 38
CITIZEN, ALIEN, NON-RESIDENT,

SINGLE, MARRIED, WIDOWED, DIVORCED, SEPARATED

DATE OF ADMISSION
   February 5, 1963

INFORMANT: The informant, Harold Mapes, is the husband of the patient. Mr. Mapes is 38-years-old and is presently a stock analyst. The address is 342 Bonitas St., San Marino, Calif. The informant appears to be an intelligent though nervous man who gives this information willingly and voluntarily. He shows concern but little insight into his wife's condition. The information can be accepted as reliable.

FAMILY HISTORY: The informant is not aware of any previous family history of suicide or suicide attempts, nor is he aware of any history of mental illness in the patient's family. The patient's father is retired, having been an attorney. The patient's mother is a housewife. It is unclear whether they know yet of their daughter's current hospitalization, or of this most recent suicide attempt.

PERSONAL HISTORY: The patient was born in April 1924 in Los Angeles. She has one sister in good health who is 41-years-old at this time. The patient grew up in a stable home, although the informant seems to have little knowledge regarding the childhood and early teenage years of the patient. The patient graduated magna cum laude from Stanford University and edited the school newspaper there, as well as served as President of Women Students. She was very ambitious, yet uncertain around people, possibly withdrawn. The informant and patient got married in 1951, after a six-month courtship, when the patient was 27-years-old. After marrying, the patient quit her job at an advertising agency and stayed home to keep house. According to the informant, the marriage was a happy one, sexually well-adjusted, although there was interference from the patient's parents. The patient bore three children: in 1953, 1956, and late 1960. The last child, a baby girl, died in early 1961, of crib death. The patient's symptoms, according to the informant, began even before the infant's death, sometime after the middle child was born. He notes that he would come home from work to find his wife agitated and crying for no apparent reason. He wondered if she had been drinking. In the past he has found empty liquor bottles in the trash.

PREVIOUS MENTAL ILLNESS: According to the informant, the patient's first mental breakdown occurred in early 1962, following a year-long period of depression probably precipitated by the baby's death. The patient was admitted voluntarily to Huntington Memorial Hospital for treatment and while there, attempted suicide by an overdose of Thorazine, prescribed by her psychiatrist at the time, Dr. Johnson. Lavage was administered, followed by the patient being transferred to St. Vincent's Hospital in Los Angeles for an extensive course of electroshock treatment. In Fall 1962, after another breakdown, another series of electroshock treatments was undertaken at St. Vincent's with the patient allowed to go home for three-week intervals between one-week sessions of electroshock.

ONSET OF PRESENT ILLNESS: Three weeks prior to her admission the patient became agitated and depressed, succumbing to fits of crying, fearing that she would once again suffer a breakdown. She expressed suicide ideation on at least two occasions to her husband who reported this to her present psychiatrist, Dr. Robert Gris. This was followed by a period of about one to two weeks when the patient seemed to feel better. Then without warning the patient was found lying unresponsive in bed one morning, having slashed both wrists.