The Shape of Desire (10 page)

“Oh, that sounds great!” I exclaim. “When did you want to go?”

“I don’t know, sometime in October? Before it gets too cold. Though, you know. Chicago. There could be snow on the ground before Halloween.”

I calculate rapidly. Dante left my house seven days ago. That means he’s not likely to be back for two weeks or more. I simply don’t want to be gone if there’s any chance he will be around. It’s really only safe to make future plans when he’s actually in my house and I know he’ll be gone soon.

“Can we be kind of flexible about it?” I say. “There’s this project coming up at work in a couple of weeks—this big client we’ve been trying to land—and I know we’re all going to have to work through the weekend to get a proposal ready. I just won’t know which weekend that will be until the project comes through. Can I let you know when I have a better handle on it?”

“Sure. All I know is that I can’t be gone
next
weekend, but after that I’m clear for a while.”

“I’ll call you.”

I
drive home in a nasty rain, my car loaded with Tupperware containers of food and my heart lightened by conversation with loved ones. I’ve promised my mom I’ll send her a book I enjoyed, given Sydney the
name of a website that sells dress pants for tall women, and signed up to sponsor Beth’s walk for the food pantry. I’ve remembered that most of life is about small, essential connections, so unobtrusive, so elastic, that you scarcely realize they’re actually holding you together. The big ones—the great, grand emotional bonds—those are the ones that break, the ones that fail you, the ones that give way and send you careening toward the foot of the bleak and jagged canyon. It’s the tough, gnarled, unadorned ties that really do bind, that never let you fall all the way down into darkness.

I
’m getting ready for work the next morning when a news item on the radio causes me to freeze before the mirror. All I’m wearing is underwear and a robe; I’ve just started to sweep mascara on my right eye when the announcer’s voice stops my heart.

“Police are investigating the murder of a woman whose body was found early this morning in the northwest corner of the Mark Twain National Forest, not far from Rolla. She appears to be in her mid to late twenties and she may have been carrying an infant. Police have found a diaper bag at the scene, but no evidence of a baby.”

The professional voice pauses to make way for another man to speak, this one in the hesitant and nasal tones of someone not trained for radio. “It’s too early to say what might have happened, but there is some speculation that the woman was killed so that someone could steal her child. We’ll know more once we identify the body.” There is the muffled sound of a reporter asking an indistinguishable question, and the sheriff—or whoever he is—answers. “We haven’t determined cause of
death yet. No, not a gunshot wound. No, not blunt force trauma. I’m afraid I can’t be more specific than that.”

I stop listening. I put down the mascara brush, my left eye still unenhanced, and go straight for my purse to dig out Christina’s number. When she sleepily answers on the third ring, I almost collapse to the floor. My hands suddenly begin to shake.

“Oh, thank God,” I whisper into the receiver.

“Hello? Who is this?” she says, sounding more alert and more annoyed.

“It’s Maria Devane. I’m sorry, did I wake you up?” It’s only seven in the morning, and she’s still on maternity leave; she might not have planned to get up for hours, especially if Lizzie kept her awake all night crying. But I don’t care if she’s tired, I don’t care if I’ve ruined her morning, I’m just overwhelmingly relieved to realize that she’s alive.

“Dante’s Maria? What’s wrong?”

“There was a story on the news just now. A woman murdered near Rolla and her baby missing. I just thought—I mean, there must be thousands of women in Rolla who have babies, but I—just for a moment I—and it’s not like either of your brothers is likely to notice right away if you go missing—”

“You were worried about me? Oh, Maria, that’s so sweet. But I’m fine. Lizzie’s fine. She’s sleeping here in my room in the bassinet.”

“I’m so glad. I heard the story and I—Well, I wouldn’t have been able to relax all day until I knew you were all right. I’m really sorry if I woke you up.”

“What time is it?” Over the phone line I hear the rustle of bedclothes and then her little
eek
of dismay. “Crap, it’s after seven! I have a doctor’s appointment at eight thirty! I must have slept through the alarm.”

I attempt to laugh but the sound is more like a whuffle. “Good thing I called, then.”

The timbre of her voice changes. I can tell she’s out of bed, moving
around the room, probably putting slippers on or sorting through an underwear drawer. “I was thinking about calling you anyway. I’m coming to St. Louis on Friday, and I was wondering if you’d be able to watch Lizzie.”

“This Friday? Day or night? I don’t have much vacation time left, but I’d love to keep her in the evening for you. I’ll even keep her overnight if you like.”

“Oh, that would be wonderful, but are you sure? Your very first time with her?”

I hope she can hear the smile in my voice. “Don’t listen to what Dante says about me. I’m perfectly comfortable with babies.” I pause and then add, “Though it might be a little different if she changes shapes on me. You’d have to tell me how to handle
that
.”

Christina’s laugh is merry. “Well, she hasn’t done it so far for me, so I don’t think you have to worry about it,” she says. “I’ll call you later with more details, okay? Right now I have to get ready.”

“Yes, yes, go! I’ll talk to you later,” I say. “Can’t wait to see you on Friday!”

As I hang up, I’m smiling, genuinely excited about the chance to see little Lizzie again. But my body still has that loose, rubbery feel caused by having too much adrenaline dumped too suddenly into the bloodstream. How quickly we can go from nonchalance to terror and then veer in a completely new direction, straight toward anticipation.

How easily the progression could have gone another way. I don’t know what I would have done if Christina hadn’t answered the phone. I spend the rest of the morning trying not to wonder about that.

T
he week drags by with all the reluctance of a child going to the dentist. Lunches with Ellen and Marquez are the highlights, since Marquez has new information about Caroline and Grant. They’re
planning a vacation together; he’s seen the travel brochures on Grant’s desk. We maintain the website for a travel agency in the building next door, and they keep us supplied with fliers about special deals to Prague and London and Las Vegas. I think we get a discounted fare, too, but I’ve never used their services, so I don’t know for sure.

“He might be going with a friend, or his brother, or anybody,” Ellen objects. “That’s not proof.”

“They’re going to be gone at the same time,” Marquez replies. “Check the calendar.” We all have to fill in our planned absences on a huge wall calendar mounted outside the lunchroom. “He’ll be gone for six days, she’ll be gone for ten, but they overlap for
all
of his days. I’m telling you, they’re planning a trip.”

“Where are they going?” I ask.

“Italy, I think.”

“Wow, that’s romantic.”

Ellen frowns at me. “
None
of this is romantic, Maria. It’s all sad.”

I shrug. “You don’t watch enough old black-and-white movies,” I say. “
All
grand romance is sad at the core.”

“Well, now I’m depressed,” Marquez says.

“Have a French fry,” I say. “It will cheer you up.”

Oddly, I have another meal with Kathleen, too, and not one of those random we-accidentally-happened-to-be-in-the-lunchroom-together encounters. She drops by my desk on Thursday afternoon, seeming nervous and shy as a girl about to ask a boy to the Sadie Hawkins dance, to see if I might want to plan lunch the next day.

“It’s just so hard to get through Friday,” she offers as an excuse. “It’s so much better if I can break up the day.”

I’m not sure what we’ll find to talk about for an extended period, but I don’t feel I can turn her down. “Sure. Where do you want to go?”

“There’s a new Pasta Pronto just down the street. We could be there and back in an hour, easy.”

“Sounds good.”

I don’t actually dread the meal, but I can’t say I’m looking forward to it. I don’t feel like sharing confidences, and Kathleen and I don’t seem to have much in common. But our Friday outing is enjoyable enough as we’re both cheerful, the food is pretty good, and we have a ready-made topic in discussing a coworker who was fired for insubordination the day before. When that palls, I tell her I’m going to be babysitting overnight for a friend.

“Oh, that will be fun!” Kathleen exclaims. “Sometimes I keep my neighbor’s little boy for her. But he’s a terror. If he wants something, he will
not
stop screaming until you eventually give in and hand it to him. I’m always worn out by the time she comes to get him.”

“Do you and Ritchie ever plan to have kids?”

She looks wistful. “We’ve been trying for the past three years, but it hasn’t happened yet. I think—” She glances around the restaurant, as if people might be listening, and lowers her voice. “I think Ritchie has a low sperm count, but he won’t go to get tested, so I don’t think he’d be willing to—you know. Donate. So that we could try in vitro fertilization.”

This is skating dangerously close to becoming information I do not want to have in my head. “Maybe there’s nothing wrong with him,” I say.

“I had all the tests done on
me
,” she says, still in that almost-whisper. “I didn’t tell him, though. I didn’t want him to be mad.”

For a moment, I consider how exhausting it must be to spend your whole life placating the person you live with—guessing in advance what might set him off, always trying to steer the conversation or the activity into a channel he will find pleasing. I wonder what trade-offs make such an effort worthwhile. “Well, you’re both still young,” I say, though their window is narrowing if they’re both in their thirties. “Plenty of time for the situation to change.”

I’m relieved when a glance at my watch shows that our lunch hour is almost over, and we both rise to head back to the office.

“This was fun,” Kathleen observes as we step outside. “We’ll have to do this every Friday.”

I smile but don’t answer. I’m pretty sure I have just become Kathleen’s new best friend and I don’t know what to do about it.

C
hristina and Lizzie arrive at my door about fifteen minutes after I get home. Christina is dressed mostly in black heavily accented with silver accessories, and she strides through the door with the manic energy I always associate with her.

“Are we too early? I could take Lizzie down to McDonald’s for a half hour while you get settled. I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to get downtown at this time of day. Is there a Cardinals game in town, do you know? What will traffic be like?”

I ignore her for a few moments while I take Lizzie in my arms and exclaim over her sweet little face. She is just as beautiful as I remember, though even in two short weeks, she looks different to me. More filled out, more defined. More alert. More human. “Traffic will probably be bad for another half hour or so,” I say. “Why don’t you stay awhile and have something to drink before you go? And tell me everything I need to know.”

It turns out Christina has printed out a list of instructions that cover every eventuality she could think of: what to do if Lizzie cries, if she refuses a bottle, if she poops, if she vomits, if she spikes a fever, if she stops breathing. For only a couple of these, I am relieved to see, the advice is
Call 911
. “And I’ve put my cell phone number there at the bottom, see? And the phone number for my friend Annie’s house. That’s where I’ll be staying tonight. Call me if you have any questions at all.”

It is clear she is eager to get out of the house. Traffic or no traffic, she does not want to sit and have tea or a Coke. “Go,” I say, waving her toward the door. “We’ll be fine. See you in the morning.”

I
n fact, we
are
fine. Lizzie is an amazingly sunny-tempered baby, crying only in short, halfhearted bursts and easily soothed with food or attention or a clean diaper. Shortly after feeding her an evening bottle, I turn on Nickelodeon and pace around the living room, gently bouncing her in my arms. She watches me with an almost unnerving intensity, as if she is memorizing my face, trying to determine how it contrasts and compares with her mother’s, what makes me trustworthy, what makes me unique, what makes me safe.

I think she still comes in at less than ten pounds, so I am surprised by how quickly she grows heavy in my arms. Eventually I have to sit down so the armrest of the couch can take some of her weight. “You’re a big strong healthy girl, aren’t you?” I coo to her in that ridiculous happy voice people use with infants. “You’re about to break Aunt Maria’s elbow. Yes you are! Yes you are!”

Her face squinches up as she produces a sharp bark of laughter, and her tiny fists wave in delight. I know how she feels. I could laugh out loud; I could punch the air with joy. It is all I can do to keep myself from standing up again and carrying her to the credenza where I keep my phone books. I would page through to the A’s,
adoption services
, or the S’s,
sperm banks
. I can’t believe how happy it makes me to hold a baby in my arms.