A cappella, they began to sing:
I'm on my way and I won't look back. I'm on my way and I won't look back, I'm my way, oh yes, I'm on my way.
I asked my mother to take me there. I asked my father to take me there. I asked my teachers to take me there. I'm on my way, oh yes, I'm on my way.
Tears fell unchecked down Liz's cheeks. Casey thoughtfully produced a Kleenex.
“Your mascara's running,” she said, helpfully.
A
fter the performance, Liz waited proudly outside with the other parents, who were all now slightly rumpled and clammy-looking, as if they were just wakened collectively from an afternoon nap. The eager young performers soon cascaded out onto the street. Most of the mothers were carrying flowers, and Liz mentally kicked herself for not thinking ahead. She would take Coco to the nearest Korean grocer and have her pick out her own bouquet. Then they'd walk over to the gelato shop and she'd buy Coco whatever she wanted. The topping of her choice, even those cavity-inducing gummy bears. Liz's buzz had worn off and she had come down enough to grab a hold of herself. No more tears for her, just one bright smile for her precious daughter, which she carefully arranged on her face.
Cries of joy escaped from the crowd. Families clustered happily around Ms. Evans, Mrs. Aguado, and Mrs. Livingston as the kindergarten teachers shook each child's hand and handed them over to their respective guardians. No sign of Coco anywhere.
Liz packed in closer. Mrs. Livingston saw her anxious expression.
“Coco B.'s in the restroom,” said Mrs. Livingston. She nodded toward the door. “It's okay. You can go inside.” A total breach of protocol, a parent going in the out exit, but what the hell, Mrs. Livingston's happy but tired manner seemed to say. It was practically the last day.
Liz entered through the red doors. The air was cooler in the school foyer than it was out on the sunny sidewalk. She walked down the corridor and to the left, where the bathrooms were located. She opened the door.
There was Coco, surrounded by a gaggle of giggling girls. Clementine, Coco S., and two girls Liz didn't recognize. And in the center of the pack, Coco B. Coco Louise Mei Ping Bergamot. It took Liz a moment to fully identify what the commotion was all about.
To the delight of her audience, Coco was rolling her narrow hips from side to side while she fluttered her fingers in fanlike motions across her flat chest. Then she pressed her palms against her thighs and suggestively pulled up the hemline of her skirt. Her audience giggled and cooed.
I love to love you, baby
, Coco sang in a breathy, high falsetto.
I love to love you, babyâ¦
Clementine sucked her thumb.
“Coco,” said Liz, sharply. She could feel the perspiration on her neck and shoulders freeze.
Coco stopped for a moment. “Hi, Momma,” she said, with a wide smile.
She turned around, wiggling her buttocks in the air.
I'm feelin' sexy, why don't you say my name, little boyâ¦
The girls giggled and screamed.
Still bent over, Coco reached down beneath her pleats to lift her skirt.
“That's enough,” Liz said, her voice shaking with anger. She grabbed Coco by the arm.
Coco's eyes went wide. She looked terrified.
Liz tried to make her voice more neutral. Even to her own ears, what came out sounded phony and faux-nice. The way an adult would speak in a cartoon.
“Girls, why don't you all scoot along outside. Your parents must be wondering where you are.”
Clementine took her thumb out of her mouth.
“Scoot along,” said Liz, shooing the girls through the door. She still had her fingers tight around Coco's wrist. Coco was squirming.
“Ouch, Momma, you're hurting me,” said Coco, loudly. “Keep your hands on your own body.”
“Shush, Coco,” said Liz. “Be quiet.” She put her palms on Coco's shoulders and started steering her out the door. “We're going home.”
“No ice cream?” said Coco, turning back to look at her.
“Yes, no. Yes, I don't know,” said Liz. “Just go.”
She gave Coco a little shove forward.
“You didn't like the concert?” said Coco. She stopped and looked up at her mother. Her eyes were brimming.
“Oh no, yes, of course, it was wonderful, honey, the concert was amazing. You were wonderful, honey,” Liz said. “I'm sorry I snapped. I just want to get out of here. Mommy's feeling claustrophobic.”
“Could you hear my voice?” Coco said.
“I could hear your voice,” Liz said.
She put her arm around Coco's tiny waist, and they started walking toward the side exit.
“Liz!”
At the sound of her name, Liz stopped and turned. Backlit from the sun outside, she could see Sydney's smoky silhouette in the open doorway of the school.
“Have you seen my Clemmie?” Sydney called from down the other end of the vestibule. “Mrs. Livingston said she was in the girls' room.”
“Must be the one on the second floor,” Liz said, and kept walking.
“W
hat now?” says Richard. He was hoping that the call would be a return from Carmichael or, God willing, the long-lost Strauss, when he heard Lizzie's wavering voice. “What is it and why can't you handle it?”
He doesn't have time for this. He needs Strauss to call him. He needs to prepare himself for the meeting with Scott Levine. He needs to win over Carmichael. Why on earth hasn't Strauss called? It is almost five o'clock. Strauss has been incommunicado all day; whatever it is, can't be good. “Come to think of it, why can't you handle anything, Lizzie?”
“Do you have to be such an asshole?” says Lizzie.
“Do you have to be such a bitch?” says Richard. Without thinking, he swings back at her. He's never spoken to her that way before. Nor she to him.
He hears a sharp intake of breath and then Lizzie hangs up the phone. He stares at the receiver in his hand. Another first. This is the year of firsts.
And since this is the year of firsts, first he contemplates letting her stew. Then his better nature gets a hold of him. He picks up the phone and punches in his home number.
She lets it ring. Once, twice, three times. “Come on,” Richard groans out loud. It rings again and then the answering machine picks up.
“Lizzie, honey, pick up the phone,” says Richard, knowing that he is being recorded. “Pick it up.”
“Hello,” she says, coming on the line. He can hear her trying to control her voice.
“I'm sorry,” Richard says. “I shouldn't have said that. It's just that I've been waiting all afternoon for a phone call, a call that hasn't come.”
Silence.
“I'm under a lot of pressure, Lizzie,” Richard says. “And it would help me a lot, a lot, if you took care of things with the kids.” He says this with what he intends as patience, but even he hears the frustration bubble out. “I mean, isn't that the deal?”
“The deal? There's a deal?”
“You know what I mean,” says Richard.
“I never thought of it in those terms before,” says Lizzie, as if musing out loud, “but⦠I do do the lion's share of things for the children, I did move to New York for you, I did back-burner my career to help you build yours⦠Is that what you mean by âdeal'?”
“Come on,” says Richard. As if she ever truly had a career. As if she hasn't always been something of a dilettante.
“I have a PhD from Stanford; you have a PhD from Stanford. I turned down that postdoc at Harvard so you could go to the World Bank. Who had better grades? Who won more awards?”
“You turned down that postdoc because you were pregnant,” says Richard.
“You were the one who wanted a baby then!” Lizzie says. She is so furious it sounds like she is spitting. “Someone had to take care of him.”
Richard feels outside his own body as he speaks. He feels as if someone else is speaking through him. The cold, hard facts funneling out of his mouth.
“The reality is this: the financial responsibility for the family was mine then and it is mine now. I haven't had the luxury you've had to be conflicted. And at this moment, I'm under tremendous pressure to keep the whole thing going. I don't need you calling me for every little hiccup.” He takes a breath, confesses: “They won't let me back in, Lizzie. Do you know how that feels?”
“I'm sure it feels awful, Richard,” Lizzie says quietly.
He pauses. He wants to tell her what is going on with him. At the same time, he wants to impress her. To comfort her. To let her know it will be all right. Old habits die hard.
“Scott Levine called me, out of the blue. He wants to have a drink. If things don't work out for me here, I think there's a possibility for me over at Lehman. I've heard that they're looking for a chief economist. Maybe it's time to make real money.”
“You're going to become an investment banker?” Lizzie says. She sounds incredulous. “I left Ithaca and the life we loved, where the children were safe, where they were happy, we traded all of that in for this horrible, ridiculous mess so you could be a banker? What next, you're going to be a Republican, Richard? You're going to go work in the Bush administration?”
“Do you have to be such a child?” He feels like slapping her.
There is silence on the line.
“Enough of this, Richard,” Lizzie says. “Our baby is in trouble. That's why I'm calling you.”
“I already put in a call to Jake's teacher. I'm on top of it,” says Richard.
“It's Coco. Are you listening? I'm calling you about Coco.”
“Not Jake?” says Richard. “This isn't about Chemistry?”
“Chemistry?” asks Lizzie.
The conversation is making no sense.
“He failed Chemistry. The final. He called me from school,” says Richard.
“He called you?” says Lizzie, the hurt apparent in her voice.
“I'll work with him, we'll get them to regive the test. If we have to we'll send him to summer school. I already have a call in to his teacher.”
“But his probation, Richard.”
“I know. I said I have a call in to the teacher. Historically, Carmichael's been fairly sympathetic.”
“He must be crushed.”
“I put in a call,” says Richard. “I'm taking care of it. Now, what's up with Coco?”
“It was after the recital,” says Lizzie. “I found Coco with a group of girls in the bathroom.” As she goes on, Richard listens.
A
fter Liz hung up, the phone immediately rang again. She let it ring, and then just as the machine picked up, she clicked on the receiver, thinking it was Richard. He'd been so angry; she'd never heard him so angry. There was a horrible new edge to their conversation that had never crawled into their fights before. She was hoping he was calling back, hoping they could find a way to make peace.
“Richard,” said Liz, a little breathlessly, into the receiver.
“Oh no, it's Casey,” said Casey on the other end.
Liz silently cursed herself for answering. The machine began to scream, that high buzzing sound it emitted in protest whenever it was interrupted. She never picked up. She almost always let the answering machine get her calls.
“Hold on.” She crossed the room to the bureau where the answering machine sat and frantically pressed buttons to stop the noise.
“Hello, hello,” she said. “Sorry about that.”
“I think this is the first time you've ever picked up,” said Casey. “I was expecting the machine.”
“I thought you were Richard,” said Liz, stupidly. She did a little verbal two-step to cover up. “I'm sorry, Casey. I don't mean to be rude, we're just in the middle of something here.”
“That's why I'm calling,” said Casey. “I'm calling as your friend.”
Liz felt her stomach drop.
“I just thought you should know that Sydney and some of the other mothers and I were gabbing after the musicale, and Sydney said you said you were ready to shoot yourself, not unkindly, Liz, but with concern, you know? And she said that you looked stoned and that Jake is under psychiatric observation⦠Anyway, I thought you should know that we're all concerned about you. As your friend, Liz.”
Thank God for friends, thought Liz. “Thank you, Casey.”
“Anything more I can do to help, just let me know,” said Casey.
“I appreciate it,” said Liz. “That's enough.”
L
iz must have sat on that corner of her bed for half an hour after Casey hung up. She was waiting for her hands to stop shaking and for her heartbeat to return to normal.
Then she went into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet and found a hair tie. She pulled her hair back into a tight ponytail. She turned on the water and washed her face, forgetting to first tissue off her makeup. She pulled a hand towel off of the ring that hung next to the sink and rubbed it across her cheeks and under the eyesâa rainbow of mascara and eyeliner and foundation and blush smearing across the terry cloth. She wet her skin again and lathered up and rinsed, and this time she used the back of the hand towel to dry off, and it came clean. She looked at her face in the mirror. Without makeup her skin was pale and thin. Translucent. You could see right through it into the tangle inside. The veins in her temples that had always looked like delicate blue tracingsâan architect's sketchânow bulged slightly against the skin in little gray knots. Liz looked older than she was used to. It was as if she were peering into her future face.
She left the bathroom and walked into Coco's room. Coco was sitting on her bed giving her stuffed animal Buster the Cat a tea party with real water and saltines and Mint Milanos she'd pilfered from the kitchen. Already there were several soggy puddles on her handmade quilt. That was quintessentially Coco. When she was two, she'd learned to climb out of the crib, and Liz would find her at 1:30 a.m. at her easel, in a smock, painting with watercolors. You couldn't hold this one back. The trick was to cultivate her without breaking her spirit, Liz thought. How exactly does one do that? Liz sat down on the bed.