Invisible(7)

    There was a particularly ugly scene one day when Antonia was three. She was playing quietly in a corner of the living room, when Fabienne lit into Brandon for not taking her out to places where she would be seen. El Morocco and other places where famous movie people went, and she could be noticed by a director or producer. It was not a world Brandon frequented, and he didn’t want to. He was traveling most of the time, and wanted peace and quiet when he came home. He was thirty-six years old, and still building a small empire, which provided them a good income. He began fighting back, and accused her of being a bad mother, and not what he expected of a wife, in exchange for what he gave her. He tolerated her aspirations and delusions about an acting career, but after four years, it had become tiresome, and he was fed up with her constant demands.

At some point when Antonia was four or five, the arguments between her parents became more vicious. They were constant by then, and since she was the subject of many of them, with Fabienne blaming Brandon for her very existence, and his blaming her for how little she did for either of them, Antonia somehow got the impression that the battles between her parents were her fault. She hadn’t been shy before, but she became more reticent then, afraid to come out of her room and cause another fight when her father was home, or do something that would send Fabienne into a rage when they were home alone. She was less afraid and more outgoing when the babysitter was there.

    At six, the teachers noticed how shy and uncommunicative she was at school, and called Fabienne and Brandon in to discuss it with them. She was obviously a bright child and did well in her classes, but most often, she kept to herself and played alone. She made no friends at school, and spoke as seldom as possible. She was introverted, although she observed everything around her with a keen eye. She was an observer but rarely a participant. Brandon had noticed it at home, but his years of keeping his distance from her, in order not to anger Fabienne and cause a jealous scene, had taken a toll on his relationship with the child too. He no longer felt close to her, and he was a stranger to her. She seemed to vanish into thin air at home, and hid in odd places with a book or a doll.

By the time she was seven, Brandon thought Antonia was decidedly odd and unlike other children. She had become the invisible child in their midst. He had to search for her when he came home and wasn’t too tired to deal with her. Sometimes he didn’t bother because whatever he did infuriated Fabienne, whose acting career had fizzled out by then. She had to beg her agents for work. She wasn’t marketable, and was known now to be ill-tempered and difficult on the set. She was an unhappy, unfulfilled woman, and took it out on anyone who crossed her path. Her blatant narcissism was running rampant. Her most recent employer called her a bitch and fired her on the set.

    Brandon wanted her to give up her dream of acting then, stay home, and become a wife and mother, which sounded like a death sentence to her. She was home less and less after that. And so was Brandon, as he immersed himself in work to escape his unhappy home and angry wife. Sometimes when he got home at night, Fabienne was out, and a sitter was there, and he had no idea where Fabienne was. It was a relief not to have to deal with her when he came home from a trip or late from work.

Through her acting classes, Fabienne had connected with a group of aspiring actors and actresses and often went out with them at night so they could be seen. She never admitted it to Brandon, but they went to Studio 54 almost every night, the most exciting, decadent nightclub in New York. Everyone went there, actors and models, famous movie stars, artists, and unknowns. Directors, producers, playboys, businessmen. There was a party there every night, with live animals or midgets or some wild décor. People left together to have sex, or stayed and used cocaine. Fabienne got into cocaine with her friends, and several times left with men she didn’t know, and came home afterward and tiptoed into the apartment early in the morning. Brandon didn’t say anything about it, but he could sense easily that she was out of control.

Antonia hardly saw her mother during her Studio 54 days. It was the wildest nightlife in New York. Fabienne met Andy Warhol and a number of famous people there, and became a regular on the scene.

Brandon was beginning to panic about her coming home late every night, and he could no longer hide from the fact that their marriage had disintegrated. Fabienne wasn’t made to be a wife or mother. Their union had lasted for eight years. She was thirty-two years old, Brandon had just turned forty and wanted more than Fabienne was capable of as a wife. Antonia needed a mother, and she had neither mother nor father now. Her mother was always out, and started meeting her friends to use cocaine in the daytime. And Brandon was either traveling or came home late at night himself, too tired to deal with the complications at home. The only constant in Antonia’s life was the babysitter who took care of her, and felt sorry for her. She was a kind Jamaican woman, and had children of her own. Antonia liked her, but wasn’t particularly attached to her. She had seen dozens of babysitters come and go. Fabienne fired them on a whim, regardless of whether Antonia liked them or not. She’d been devastated several times when she’d lost one she’d loved, so she no longer allowed herself to get close to them. Antonia felt unwelcome in her own home, and rarely saw her parents. She knew her mother didn’t like her, Fabienne said so openly.

    Brandon was trying to figure out what to do about all of it, when he came home one night and found Fabienne packing her bags. He could see that she was high, and wondered how long that had been going on, and why he hadn’t noticed before that it was becoming a chronic problem. He didn’t see enough of her to observe if she was drunk, on drugs, or sober.