A Taxonomy of Barnacles, page 13
“There’s nothing wrong with getting involved with a married man as long as you don’t expect anything from him. I, for one, have had several mutually satisfying affairs.”
“Who on earth,” Bell shrieked, “would have an affair with you?”
“Several people.” Barry grinned devilishly. “I can tell you if you want to know.”
Bell, of course, did not. She did, however, suddenly need the privacy of her bedroom and rushed back to it in the hopes that a short nap would bolster her for lunch with her mother.
7
Addictive Tendencies
Bell and Bella had grown apart when Bell turned thirteen and had yet to grow back together. They could barely be in the same room for an hour before clenched jaws turned to harsh words, passive-aggressive comments to searing insults. They were angry in all the traditional ways. Bella was hurt by Bell’s dismissal and, as a result, demanding. Bell was angered by Bella’s demands and, as a result, dismissive. Over the years, mother and daughter had drifted so far apart they barely seemed like family. But now, Bella saw an opportunity. For the first time since Bell was a child, Bella had something her daughter needed: relative peace and quiet. Enthused, Bella invited Bell to come live with her, removed, if only by a spiral staircase, from the madness downstairs. Before making this drastic move, Bell opted for a trial run, suggesting that mother and daughter share a casual luncheon to decide if cohabitation was possible. Before leaving for her mother’s apartment, Bell phoned Bella and asked her to agree to avoid a preset list of inflammatory topics.
No expense was spared in the design of Bella’s new apartment. In fact, it sometimes seemed to Barry that the expenses had been intentionally increased. For the spiral staircase, Bella had hired an architect, designer, and civil engineer, determined to replicate the central staircase at the Metropolitan Opera House, a plan that combined glass, steel, wood, and marble in a sort of material homage to the four seasons. The marble, pink to signify spring, was cut from a quarry in Madras to which only sacred elephants had access, thus increasing the cost of transporting the already expensive stone. Though the back stairs of the apartment only offered a fraction of the space required to replicate the acclaimed design, Bella persevered with the modest mandate that scale be respected even if proportion could not. So, with blatant disregard of fire codes and building zoning laws, she hung a garland of orange tape over the back stairs, thereby forbidding emergency exit and ironically providing additional encouragement to her daughters to exit via fire escape. Luckily, because she occupied the top floor of the building, she was able to pursue her renovations without upsetting other tenants besides her ex-husband, who occupied the floor underneath.
Despite the slow pace of construction on the apartment, the staircase was completed relatively quickly allowing Bella fluid movement between her previous and future homes. The staircase was draped with an oriental carpet with scarlet and miniver accents meant to invoke royalty, held in place with iron runners, and completed with a twinkling gold banister that squeaked if you held on to it as you walked or, as Benita did despite her mother’s scolding, rode it to the lower level. The staircase emptied directly in front of Barry and Bunny’s bedroom, allowing Bella to wince at Bunny when she happened on her fussing in front of her mirror and once, when chance and misfortune collided, to pause at the closed door of the bedroom and eavesdrop on a heated lovers’ quarrel. And while the staircase afforded Bella obvious amenities, it served as a literal and symbolic pain in Bell’s backside. For the duration of her childhood, her mother’s bedroom had been right next door, allowing Bella to waltz in and out as though the space was not her daughter’s bedroom but merely a dressing boudoir. It was fitting that now, all these years later, her mother was living right directly above.
Due to these negative associations, Bell opted to take the elevator instead of climbing the spiral staircase to her mother’s apartment. Perhaps because she’d only woken up two hours earlier, she found it comforting to re-create the sensation of traveling.
Bell greeted Jorge with the usual mixture of fondness and fatigue.
“Good morning, Jorge,” Bell said.
“Morning?” he chided. “I’ve already been working for hours.” Over the years, his eyelids had drooped gradually as though due to gravity.
“What’s the matter, Jorge?” Bell asked.
“Nothing,” Jorge said. He sighed almost imperceptibly.
“What is it?” Bell asked, looking Jorge in the eye.
“Monday,” Jorge said with a small proud sniff, “is my seventieth birthday.” He pouted slightly to great effect. “And I have to work.”
“That’s awful,” said Bell. “You shouldn’t have to work on your birthday. When I turned twenty-nine, I took the day off. Of course, I had just been fired. But I still stand behind it.”
Jorge nodded and looked to the floor.
“I know,” Bell said suddenly. “I’ll run the elevator on Monday.”
“That’s crazy,” said Jorge.
“No,” said Bell. “It’s the best thing I’ve thought of in weeks.”
“It won’t work,” said Jorge. “Mr. Finch will tell the management.”
“Nonsense,” Bell said. “I’ll take care of it. You just enjoy your birthday.”
And though Jorge offered various reasons why this was a truly terrible plan, Bell insisted. She could be very convincing when she put her mind to it. After promising to speak to Mr. Finch and to show up on Monday at the strike of eight, Bell persuaded Jorge to enjoy his weekend and, for the first time in thirty years, to stay home on his birthday. Pleased, Bell filed the plan in her mental list and alighted at her mother’s landing, determined to jot down a reminder before she forgot her promise.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Bella said breathlessly before Bell had fully entered. “Peter Finch called the building board again and told them my guys need to stop at five o’clock so he and Anne can eat dinner in peace. Luckily,” Bella smiled conspiratorially, “the doormen are on my side. They hate Peter because he scolded them for sitting down during their shift.”
The speed of Bella’s construction had been delayed by the size of her workforce. The “force” consisted of two guys whom she had hired to do the work of ten, in an effort to cut costs. Also, she had cut a deal whereby they worked off-hours, including evenings and weekends, a decision that further contributed to their slow pace and sizable ruckus. Mrs. Finch’s renovation, on the other hand, had only taken six months. This was, of course, an occupational perk. Mrs. Finch was an established interior decorator who was owed favors by all the carpenters, craftsmen, and wallpaperers in the city. Mrs. Finch was also an immaculate woman who, in spite of her busy schedule, managed to write all of her Christmas cards, write personal notes to the important recipients, stuff each envelope with photos of the twins and any cocker spaniels in the house at the time, and address every single one by December first.
“I can’t stay for long,” Bell informed her mother.
“Fine,” Bella replied. “We’ll eat in a second. But first you must sit and listen to my poem.”
Bell felt something like nausea rise and bubble in her throat. Her mother was capable of producing this physical effect. But, too weary for an argument, Bell manufactured a faint smile and looked for somewhere to sit in the wreckage of tarpaulins, paint cans, and ladders in Bella’s living room. Finding nowhere, Bell walked to a sawhorse and leaned on it gingerly.
The poem was not entirely bad, but the imagery was too distracting for Bell to appreciate Bella’s natural lyricism. Among the images in the first stanza were a “muscular thigh,” a “naked groin,” and a “shivering crotch.”
“Wow,” said Bell. “It’s wonderful.”
“You think?” Bella grinned.
Bell nodded vigorously. “I’m not sure how I feel about the word ‘crotch.’ Maybe ‘pelvis’ would work better. It might be more subtle.”
Bella considered this suggestion for a moment, then shook her head definitively.
“No, I like ‘crotch,’” Bella decided. “It’s an onomatopoeia.”
Since the divorce, Bella had taken up numerous artistic pursuits and her apartment attested to this fact. Though partially hidden by sawdust, Bella’s photographs hung proudly on each wall. One wall displayed a series of New York City skyscrapers, another trees from Central Park, another naked men.
“You’re not the only artist in the family,” Bella teased.
Bell cringed, nodded, and silently repeated the following mantra: I’m nothing like my mother. I’m nothing like my mother. I’m nothing like my mother. This, after dying a spinster, was Bell’s greatest fear. It was, like most fears, at once logical and absurd. Its logic, dictated by the transitive property—if A=B and B=C, then A=C—caused Bell to make the following deduction. A: Her mother’s life was tragic. B: She was a lot like her mother. Therefore, C: She, like her mother, would live a tragic life. The easiest way to anger Bell was to tell her she looked like her mother. The easiest way to terrify Bell was to use any of the following clichés: “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” “From little acorns, great oaks grow,” “History repeats itself,” and other versions of the notion that life is a repetitive story and family the most predictable one.
Whenever Bell was struck by her similarities to Bella, she immediately retraced her steps. When Bella announced that she loved photography, Bell swore off the visual arts. Since Bella liked vanilla, Bell loved chocolate. Since her mother liked squash, Bell played tennis. Since her mother loved Latrell, Bell was mean to him, and so on. Bell constructed her personality in opposition to her mother, never once stopping to note that her father loved chocolate, too, and also treated Latrell badly. Still, Bell was comforted by these distinctions, even if it meant ignoring her instincts. Bell, like her father, was too near-sighted to see that due east is eventually and simultaneously due west.
“Please excuse the state of the apartment,” Bella said gaily, as though she were an elegant hostess entertaining royalty. She may as well have apologized for the fact that one prized piece of porcelain was missing from her collection of Fabergé eggs. Her arms were full, a tray of food balanced precariously in one, a sheet of plywood in the other. “Bell, we have to eat in the bedroom. You don’t mind, do you?” Bella laughed frivolously and turned on her heel.
Bell mumbled that she didn’t and followed her mother down the hall. The floor was covered with plastic sheeting and blockaded, every few feet, sawhorses demarcating missing patches of floor. Bell stopped suddenly as her mother leapt expertly over one such chasm.
“Oops. I should have warned you,” Bella said. “Say hello to Vlad.” Bella said this so loudly and so close to Vlad that Bell had no choice but to comply.
Bell stopped at an open door on the hall and waved reluctantly. Vlad was one of Bella’s two workers, a lascivious Russian who leered at Bell unapologetically whenever she visited. Once, while she was house-sitting for her mother, Bell caught him in the act. She had slept late on a Saturday morning in spite of the hammering. Vlad, working in an adjoining room, noticed that Bell’s blanket had slipped to reveal a pair of leopard-print underwear and a juicy sliver of thigh. When Bell awoke, she realized her audience, covered herself, and glared. From that day on, there was no love lost. Every time Bell and Vlad made eye contact, they were honest about their intentions: he, to leer in dirty ways and she, to give him dirty looks.
While Vlad’s questionable work ethic contributed to the slow pace of the renovation, another man was responsible for prolonging its completion. Don, Bella’s other guy, a burly carpenter, consciously prolonged the endeavor for no better reason than his financial gain. When pressed, Bella suggested Don’s pace might have something to do with his feelings for her when clearly, though she wouldn’t admit it, she was quite in love with him. She would only admit how much fun it was to “make decisions” with him. She loved calling the lumber people and saying “we” wanted oak planks. She loved calling the ceramics supplier and saying “we” wanted marble tile. In her twenty years of marriage, she had never been a “we,” much less ordered tile with anyone, so could she be blamed for wanting a competent man with whom to make a home?
Bella’s upstairs wing, though the same size as Barry’s apartment, seemed decidedly smaller. Its size was diminished by the shortage of light in the main hallway and the odd melancholic sounds that bounced back and forth as though someone was weeping inside each adjoining room.
Bell continued down the hallway, squinting to better avoid sudden drops. Once in the bedroom, Bella’s familiarity turned to finesse. She maneuvered through the room with the confidence of a surgeon. In one motion, she placed the plywood plank across two closely-spaced stacks of books and gracefully set the tray of food upon this new makeshift table. “Not bad, n’est-ce pas?” Bella smiled and allowed herself a devil-may-care laugh.
Who did she think she was? Bell wondered. Why was she acting like a seasoned baroness, undaunted by the challenge of an unexpected luncheon party? This is insanity, Bell decided; the failure to notice the difference between your dreams and their decay. Inhaling deeply, Bell repositioned her chair to face a wall covered with plastic.
“You’re hungry,” Bella announced, commencing their ritual. First, Bella scanned her daughter’s body. Second, Bell tried to guess the fluctuation in her weight by the look in her mother’s eyes. “Bell,” Bella said sternly, abandoning formality. “Those baggy pajamas don’t fool me for a second. Why are you starving yourself?”
“Mom,” Bell started. “You promised.”
“I said no talk of weight,” Bella snapped. “I didn’t say no matters of life and death.”
In an effort to counteract her anger, Bell focused on her mother’s own weight gain. Bella’s body would be called a classic “apple” to her daughters’ “pear.” Accordingly, Bella’s legs never suffered much change, but her middle, like the fruit, swelled slowly like an inflating ball.
Luckily, Bella’s attention span precluded a continued escalation. “I’m reading a wonderful book,” she said, then lowered her voice mischievously. “The writer is a very brilliant man. We had some times.” She giggled and looked out the window wistfully. “You know, the south of France is at its best this time of year.”
When, Bell wondered, did her mother lose touch? Was it sudden, like a religious awakening? One day, she woke up with a new set of beliefs? Or was it gradual, like standing in mud and realizing you’re in quicksand? Had she watched this strange reality dawn at a slow pace? Either way, her mother had undergone a conversion. Was it possible, Bell wondered, that this was an act, that Bella still saw the distance between her dreams and her daily life, that she designed this delusion to draw attention away from that gap?
“I’m sorry,” Bella said, taking a seat at the “table.” “It’s my fault you’re drawn to such abusive men.”
Bell’s chest stung as she inhaled. She wondered idly if she’d inhaled toxic gas. She glanced at the walls but found no wet paint. She looked to the window but found it closed. She searched her mind for some soothing sentiment but found only a stockpile of clichés. “Everything happens for a reason,” she tried.
“No,” Bella said. “Don’t deceive yourself. Reasons are written in retrospect.”
“Your daughters are good reasons though, right?” Bell asked. “If you hadn’t married Dad, you wouldn’t have had us.”
Bella’s eyes glazed over into a dull stare. She said nothing for several moments. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse, “Who knows what they would have looked like…”
“What who would have looked like?” Bell demanded.
Bella ignored the question. “I worry about your sisters,” she mused, moving on to a new topic without warning. “But I suppose they’ll be all right after their therapy…”
Bell looked on, now fully perplexed.
Bella shook her head as though to wring out a thought, then she jumped suddenly from her seat and cried, “Oh no. I’ve forgotten dessert.”
“Here, let me get it,” Bell said, standing up.
“No,” Bella gasped. “You stay here.”
Bella departed, leaving Bell to study the bedroom and to decide, for once and for all, to avoid her mother’s fate at all costs. This thought or the temperature in the room, Bell couldn’t tell which, caused her to shudder. She wondered idly how it was possible for an indoor room to get so cold. Turning her head she solved the mystery: The window behind her mother’s bed was lacking any glass.
Several minutes passed before Bella returned, empty-handed. She looked around the room nervously, like a child who has just stolen cookies, gave her clothes an optimistic tug, then sunk into her seat.
“What happened to the dessert?” Bell asked.
Bella looked at the floor, ashamed. “Bell,” she said, “I have a confession.”
“What is it?” Bell said.
Bella paused. “I can’t find my forks.”
Bell paused, confused, as the news registered. Was her mother speaking in code? But deciding that Bella meant this quite literally, Bell rebounded. “Never fear,” she said. She smiled confidently like a camp leader with a broken compass. With new determination, she rifled through objects on the table in search of something that might simulate prongs. But finding only a spoon, she used it to maneuver a piece of chicken to the best of her abilities. “Luckily, it’s tender,” she said cheerfully. “Who needs forks, anyway?”
Mistaking Bell’s efforts at optimism for condescension, Bella squinted, flared her nostrils and hissed, “Solus detertimus quod ispsum nostrus.” Then, leaning forward as though to share a morsel of gossip, she whispered the transition, “We only hate in others what we hate in ourselves.”
Humbled by her mother’s telepathy, Bell replaced her spoon on the table like a soldier disarming. Renewed, Bella heaped aggressively large portions on Bell’s plate before filling her own with restraint. The elaborate ceremony complete, Bella smiled cordially, said “Bon appétit” and promptly burst into tears.
