Aftertaste - Meredith Mileti [64]
And then, pulling away slightly, Fiona prods my scalp with her fingernails. “Hmm, you’ve got a few little, gray nasties you might want to take care of. You’re back on the market now. And you have such pretty hair. I have a great girl up the street on Murray Avenue who can take care of that in no time.”
In the end, I’m not able to face it, either Bunko or, appealing as it sounded, having my nasties chemically treated. I call Fiona the following Thursday afternoon, pleading a headache, an excuse I know she doesn’t buy. When she comes over to pick up the food for the party, she slips me a piece of paper with a name and a telephone number on it. With a knowing look, she tells me that everyone needs help now and again and that even she on occasion has found it helpful to seek advice and counsel. Notwithstanding the permed hair and surgically altered breasts, she instantly conjures the specter of Mary Ann. Not wanting to risk losing another chance at mental health, I tape the scrap of paper to my bathroom mirror where it remains, the edges curling from the damp and the numbers fading into an inky stream where I manage to splash it nearly every time I brush my teeth.
For so many years Grappa took up the better part of my life, and I’m now missing it like a severed appendage, the wound still fresh and deep. Often, I lie awake wondering what’s on the menu or remembering how it felt to roll out the pasta dough on the marble surface of the workstation, or how it smelled to open an entire crate of fresh lemons that had been sitting in some warm delivery truck all morning, their skins sweating lemon oil.
Finally, in desperation, I register Chloe and myself for a mom and baby Gymboree class that meets weekly at the Jewish Community Center on Forbes Avenue. It’s the kind of thing I’d always wished I had time to do when I was working. Maybe I could even make friends with some other mothers. Of course, most of the other mothers are still married to the fathers of their babies, and they all seem to know each other already. In New York, at least I could count on several single parents and a few same-sex couples, which might have made me not feel so different, but this is Pittsburgh, not New York. Chloe enjoys it, though. There are all sorts of slides and swings, things to feel and crawl upon, and I take delight in watching what she can now do. She’s pulling herself up and, last week, reaching for a bubble, she even let go for a couple of seconds before falling.
The following week when we arrive, I notice an older woman with a Latino child. She probably is the grandmother or, judging from her graying hair and lack of Latino coloring, the nanny. Her charge, a little boy a bit older than Chloe, fusses and strains in her arms. I’m pushing Chloe on the pony swing when they sidle up to us. “How old?” she asks me with an anxious smile.
“Almost eleven months. And yours?” I ask her.
“Carlos is about fourteen months. We think, anyway. I found him in a private orphanage in Guatemala. They didn’t keep particularly good records.” She smiles and shrugs. “Obviously, he’s adopted.” She seems nervous. “I’ve only had him for two weeks.” She tries to put him in the swing next to Chloe, but he seems to be glued to her hip, handfuls of her hair clenched in his tiny fists. She gives up quickly, then reaches up and swipes away a wisp of hair that Carlos has pulled loose from her ponytail. She looks exhausted.
“He doesn’t seem to want to do anything. He clings to me, but I can’t seem to soothe him.” She’s swaying rhythmically to the cheerful music, but Carlos is buying none of it. He reaches beyond her to the large, brightly colored yoga balls behind us on the gym mats and shrieks.
“Maybe we’ll give those a try,” she says with a sigh.
At the end of class we all assemble in a circle. Carlos and his mother look around, not really knowing what to do. I catch her eye and pat the gym mat next to us.
“It’s ‘The Bubble Song,’ I tell her, when she and