The Story of Beautiful Girl Page 9

  “I appreciate the help with diapers. As for eating, what you have here will do just fine.”

  “Whatever you say, Mrs. Zimmer.”

  “I’ll set the soiled diapers out later. Would you mind leaving the tray at the door?”

  “We’ve come prepared to provide luxury dining in your room.” He gestured with his foot, and a young boy missing two front teeth pushed a cloth-covered cart next to his father.

  Martha felt her face fall into the familiar teacher’s smile, the one that shaped her cheeks every September, when new students settled at their desks and turned their eyes forward. It was an easy smile that felt like the opening of a door and inspired those on the other side to walk in.

  “And who’s this?” Martha said.

  “Ricardo,” the boy said, half-shy, half-assertive.

  “Aren’t you helpful, Ricardo,” she said.

  He giggled. “I’m good with the little paintbrush, too.”

  “I’m good with the roller!” a girl called from someplace just out of sight in the corridor.

  “Wait your turn, Rose,” Henry said, his voice indulgent.

  “I’d like to give you more to do, Ricardo,” Martha said, “but it would be just fine if you left the cart and the tray out here. I’ll bring them in myself.”

  “Are you coming to dinner later?” Ricardo asked.

  Henry said, “She doesn’t know yet, Ricky.”

  He looked as if he wanted to say more. Then he caught himself and muttered to Ricardo and his unseen siblings about the customer always being right. Father and son set down the food and walked away from the door, toward a gaggle of suddenly talkative kids.

  Martha had no idea she was so hungry until she wheeled the table in. The meal was pure home cooking—scrambled eggs, fresh bread, jam, bacon, and unusual and delicious pastries that Graciela must have learned to make growing up in Peru. Martha savored every bite.

  Then she moved to the bassinet. This impulse to look endlessly at the baby made Martha feel sheepish, yet she couldn’t resist sitting on the floor and touching the apple-round, irresistibly soft cheeks. The baby started, then relaxed, and Martha noticed how her hands had been held as fists all this time. The ability to make a fist is apparently instinctive, she decided, thinking about the ways they had been put to use throughout history. She touched the tiny fist, wishing she could keep this baby from ever knowing about war—and then the baby opened her hand and grabbed Martha’s pinky. Martha giggled; the baby was holding her. Astounding. A person comes into the world with a fist—and a grasp, she thought. Yes, we are built to fight one another, but also to embrace. How cleverly we are created.

  Then Martha remembered Earl’s gaze averting when they passed a church. Created, she thought again. She herself had given little thought to how we are created or whether she wanted to resume attending church.

  Yet there was so much to read on this perfect face, whose every feature had come from nowhere. No; every feature had come from a mother—who’d escaped a place so cruel, she wanted to hide her baby. This baby had also come from a father—who was not the numbered man. Was the father another resident? Maybe one with only the faintest understanding of what had happened between him and Lynnie? Maybe one who’d loved her, even if she’d not loved him? Though maybe she hadn’t even liked him. Maybe she’d been—

  No, Martha could not let herself think that.

  She quickly slid into other, perhaps even harder, questions. If the perfection of this baby’s face might be construed as proof of the divine, what did the imperfection of a handicapped body or mind prove? Did it argue against the existence of a larger power, as Earl felt after they’d buried their son? Or that, if there was such a supreme being, he could err?

  The baby relaxed her grip, and Martha pulled her hand free.

  Martha paced the room, running her hand through her hair. It would be unwise to drop into a spiritual abyss. She had too much to think about and barely enough energy to run a bath. Hoping to divert her thoughts in the way to which she was accustomed, she opened the desk drawer and found stationery and a pen. She flipped through her address book, searching for someone to whom she could write a letter. Yet the correspondents who’d welcome theological questions would be stymied by her immediate concerns, and vice versa. Besides, she was hardly prepared to reveal her predicament. She laid down the address book, listening to the whistle of the wind, the baby breathing. She set the stationery before her. She picked up the pen. And as the ink made its first mark, she found herself writing a letter to someone with whom she’d never corresponded before. Using the fine penmanship that had led years of students into script, Martha wrote, “In case I am not around to tell you, here is how you began in the world.”

  “Mrs. Zimmer?”

  “Oh,” Martha said, startled, her hand to her chest.

  She turned to the door, pages of writing beneath her hands. The room was dark again.

  “I hate disturbing you”—this time it was Graciela, her voice softer than Henry’s and laced with her Spanish accent—“but you need a visit.”

  Martha drew the door open.

  Graciela stood in slacks and a turtleneck, holding a tray. “We worried when you didn’t come for dinner. I made you a nice meal. I brought fresh diapers, too.”

  Did Martha detect a slight note of annoyance in Graciela’s voice? She did, after all, have several children to look after and a hotel to run. Of course she’d be annoyed that Martha wasn’t following the house schedule. How rude of her. “I’m so sorry to have put you out.”

  “We were just worried about you.”

  Fortunately, the baby began crying. “If you’ll excuse me,” Martha said, turning toward the room. “Would you mind putting—”

  She felt the door give as Graciela came inside. “Please. I know what you are feeling. No one should do this alone.” She marched over to the bassinet and said, peeking in, “Hola, little one.” Then she set the new tray on the dining cart. “I will care for her while you eat.”

  “I can’t—”

  “You can.” Graciela moved over to the baby and picked her up.

  Martha was mortified, standing there in her nightgown. Her hair must be filthy. The room must look like a fright.

  Graciela went into the bathroom to change the wet diaper. Relieved to have someone take charge and in no state to resist, Martha sat down for her dinner.

  “Let us take a walk today,” Graciela said one morning.

  For six days now, she’d been stopping by when she and the five children vacuumed the corridor in which Martha and the baby were staying. Graciela would retrieve dirty diapers and deliver new bottles of formula. Henry, busy with building projects, had come by three times a day with trays of food. Martha had not asked for these services, yet she was grateful; left to her own devices, she fell into a hole of too many questions, too much sleeping, and a trance of bassinet gazing. At one week old, the baby already held her in her gaze.

  “A walk?” Martha asked. “It’s almost December, and we’re in the mountains.”

  “We can stroll inside the resort.”

  “I enjoy being in the room.”

  “We will take the baby. You need to get blood moving in your veins.”

  She gestured beside her in the hallway. Graciela had come with a baby carriage.

  Martha’s earlier relief at being cared for bloomed all the more in her chest. She put on one of her two dresses and combed her hair. Then she set the baby inside the carriage.

  “The resort is a zigzag,” Graciela said, turning the carriage to the right as they stepped outside Martha’s room. Worn carpet lay on the floor, and flimsy paneling covered the walls. “It was falling down when we bought it.” She laughed. “It still is.”

  But as Graciela pushed the carriage ahead, the corridor seemed a wondrous place. Martha felt as if she’d been in the room her whole life.

  “Down at the one end, where you came in, is the lobby. The fireplace is the oldest thing about the resort.
We’re thinking of having marshmallow roasts on Friday nights. It is one of the ideas Henry has to draw people here.” Graciela pushed her luxurious hair behind her ears. “The dining area, he is going to paint that. We will have a game room, too. Henry has a lot of ideas to make our resort popular.”

  They zigged into a new corridor. These were separate buildings that had been connected.

  “Out that way”—Graciela waved her arm—“is a beautiful lake. It is why we picked this place.” She went on, her voice lower. “When Henry first brought up the idea of leaving our life in Brooklyn, I have to admit, we quarreled for months. He told me we could find a place where the children could run free, I could set up my potter’s wheel, our son Alfonzo could practice his drums without bothering neighbors. Then we came to see this hotel.” She made a little laugh, as if recalling that first trip, and said, her voice brighter, “And when we walked around and he saw so many possibilities, and then he showed me the lake, well, he just won me over.”

  Martha looked at Graciela with surprised admiration. This marriage was not the conspiracy of somber coexistence Martha had lived. Graciela and Henry were quite different, yes, and did not always agree, yet they helped each other along until they came to share the same dreams.

  They passed into a corridor with peeling paint, and as Graciela talked about the amount of effort that lay ahead of them and how she simply had the faith that it would all work out, Martha wondered how she would respond if Graciela pressed her about the duration of her stay. A week was already longer than her lie would have required. How much more time could she and the baby remain here?

  Back at the door to room 119, Graciela said, “The kitchen is that way. You can make your own meals, though it would be such a pleasure to have you join us. And you,” she said into the carriage.

  Martha fit her key in the door. “You and Henry are being very considerate.”

  “It is good to be able to help someone out. But,” Graciela said, “I have a question.”

  Martha felt her grip tighten on the knob.

  Graciela reached into her skirt pocket and withdrew an envelope. Martha made out that it was addressed to the hotel and had a postmark from Well’s Bottom. She also recognized the handwriting though could not place it. Oh, no, she thought, even though it was improbable that the School could have found her.

  Graciela said, “One of your other students wrote us.”

  Right. Martha had forgotten. She’d felt so desperate about the new baby, she had completely forgotten the plan. Now it came back. It had been Eva’s idea to write letters to Martha’s students. Not all of them, of course. Just the few with whom she was closest, the ones who were, or had become, deeply appreciative of their time in her classes. The handful who seemed most likely to offer assistance—which included Henry. This letter helped explain why Graciela and Henry had been so generous for so many days.

  “When did you receive this?” Martha asked.

  “Right after you arrived.”

  And they hadn’t said anything.

  “It is lonely out here in the sticks,” Graciela said, her voice taking on a wistful tone. “We have been here a year and you are one of our only guests. I’d love for you to stay as long as you’d like.”

  “I’m very… Thank you.” Martha reached for the carriage, then thought to add, “What else did Eva say?”

  “She said we should not ask questions.”

  Eva was as trustworthy as Martha could have asked for. She’d picked wisely.

  “You said you had a question,” Martha said. She lifted the baby and muttered, “She’s such a good baby,” hoping this would stave off whatever it was that Graciela had to say.

  “You have been here a week,” Graciela said, “and we still do not know. What is her name?”

  By the end of the second week, Martha and the baby were venturing out for walks on their own. By the end of the third week, they were spending their days in the hotel lobby, warming themselves by the fire, the children taking turns holding the baby. At the end of the fourth week, Graciela suggested Martha take the baby to a doctor friend of theirs. “She needs her first examination.”

  Graciela drove. The day was windy, with snow across the mountains and valleys, creeks turning sapphire in the cold. Martha wanted to hold up the child and say, Look at the world! It’s yours! Instead, she thought, for the first time in all these weeks, about the letter she herself had received from Eva. It read, “Oliver came across tire tracks running right up to the woods, so we know a search party has been looking for the missing man. But the tracks did not go to the house, which must mean they’re still not aware of the baby.” Eva didn’t ask how long Oliver would need to keep working, so in Martha’s reply she’d sent Eva a check for twice the amount they’d discussed, prolonging a discussion of time while worrying that the postmark could lead to her being found.

  The white-haired doctor worked in his house. Telling him she was the grandmother, Martha placed the child on a baby-sized table and was pleased to see that even though her easy child (her easy child) was unaccustomed to doctors, she had no trouble looking him in the face and cooing when he touched her skin.

  The doctor made pleasant conversation, mostly through the child. “You’re looking so healthy,” he said. “So well cared for.” Finally, near the end of the exam, he said, “And does your grandmother need a birth certificate?”

  Martha looked out the window to the snow. “Yes.”

  The doctor said, “I’m going to need two things to write this up. The first is the truth.”

  Martha looked at him.

  “I know from Henry that you’re a trustworthy person, and therefore this child must be in your possession for a good reason. You can tell me. My career is a story of secrets.”

  She took a breath and told him; and when she finished, the doctor fed an official form into his Smith Corona and typed, “Father: Unknown. Mother: Unknown. Address: Unknown.”

  Then he looked up. “The other thing I’ll need is her name.”

  Martha shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  That dusk, Martha stared out at the trees. Presenting herself as a grandmother already seemed as if she were betraying Lynnie. How could she go so far as to give the baby a name?

  It was terribly unfair. Here Martha was, getting her pinky grasped, her heartbeat matched, and her face watched as if it were the face of the sky. She was dressing and bathing and feeding this baby. She was relishing the pleasure of pushing her in a carriage. Lynnie was getting no more than a bitter memory.

  A wind bowed the tops of the trees in the night sky, and the thought came to her: The best way to hide something is not to conceal it from sight, but to give it a convincing disguise. Coming to care about the baby made them look as if they belonged together. Becoming her grandmother and naming the baby were ways to belong together. This was not betrayal; it was an act of conscience. Loving this child was the right thing to do.

  On Christmas Day, when Martha’s students arrived at her farmhouse only to find a note on the door saying, “Martha went visiting this year, check back in 1969,” Henry came into the lobby of his New York hotel and told his children, and Martha and the baby, that he wanted to celebrate the holiday in a particularly festive way. When the children asked how, he said he’d show them that evening. “It’s Papa’s plan for attracting guests,” Graciela said, glancing to him with a knowing smile. “It works in Central Park, so maybe it will work here. But we all have to dress warmly.”

  As the sun was setting, Martha dressed the baby and herself in layers, then joined Graciela and the children while they roasted marshmallows in the fireplace. Martha still had no name for the baby. Yet when she looked at Graciela and the children, and saw so much trust and affection in their faces, she knew she and the baby shared those same feelings when they looked at each other, too.

  Henry came in the front wearing a top hat and Victorian coat. “Ladies and gents,” he said in a British accent, “your adventure awaits.” He bowe
d and doffed his hat.

  Everyone hurried outside, and there, standing on the circular driveway before the hotel, was a horse-drawn coach. It was twice as high as they, with a handsome, curved shape—“like Cinderella’s coach!” Rose, the oldest daughter, exclaimed—and the horses’ harnesses jingled with bells. His idea, Henry explained with excitement, his breath showing in the night air, was for him to take young couples in this coach down to the lake and back. It would be a romantic place for a man to pop the question and honeymooners to sip champagne. And tonight, his family—and Martha and the baby—would get the first ride.

  The coachman held the door open. Martha, with the baby tucked under her coat, stepped aboard. She sat on the seat facing the front. The others piled in, and Henry pulled a sheepskin blanket across their laps. “This’ll keep you toasty,” he said, and closed the door.

  Henry and Ricardo climbed onto the driver’s seat in the front. “Giddy-up,” they said, shaking the reins. The bells jangled into the night.

  The ride was slow and beautiful. Graciela and the children pointed out their sledding hill, the ice-skating pond, the place where Papa planned to build a gazebo. She talked about how Papa had won her over right along this path, when he talked of buying this very carriage. “Sometimes you think you know what you want,” she said, hugging her children, “until you see how much more you can have.” Martha watched the silhouettes of the trees. Lining the ridge of the mountains, they nodded at her in the wind.