Mothered (80)
She joined her merry band of coworkers.
“Your dress is fabulous,” said Allison, knocking back the last of her drink.
“It really is,” Barbara agreed. “Where did you get it?”
“It’s one of my sister’s designs.”
The group murmured appreciation and praise, though Grace—looking down at the shimmering fabric—was suddenly uncertain if she should give Hope all the credit. Hadn’t Grace originally drawn this dress for Mona?
Her colleagues erupted in a chorus of laughter, casting glances at her. Grace smiled uncertainly; she hadn’t heard the joke.
“What did I miss?” she whispered to Miguel. When she turned she saw it wasn’t a cocktail he was withdrawing from his lips but an oxygen mask.
“I’m sorry, Grace,” he said. “You got the short straw.”
“What straw? We didn’t pick straws.”
The stylists threw back their heads and laughed again. Grace didn’t know why it had happened, but somehow she had become the buffoon, the party’s involuntary entertainment. She looked to Miguel, wanting his support, his reassurance, but he was busy with his oxygen mask, sucking in air.
“Who’s going first?” Barbara asked.
Allison waved a floppy, drunken hand. “Me me me!”
Going first for what? Allison came toward her, wielding her favorite pair of scissors. Did she intend to cut Grace’s hair?
She backed away from Allison. “What are you—”
Before the question was fully out of her mouth, Allison leaned forward and snipped through one of her dress straps. Grace uttered a noise as if she’d been injured, but she wasn’t in physical pain. She clutched the ruined fabric against her chest to keep her dress in place. A thousand accusations cycloned through her head—You bitch! You ruined Hope’s dress! What the fuck is wrong with you! Before she could protest, Demetri stepped forward, scissors gleaming, and snipped off her hand.
What?
Grace opened her mouth to scream, but no sound emerged. Her head wouldn’t turn, her neck wouldn’t bend, but she could see her other arm in her peripheral vision and . . . It was made of card stock. She was two dimensional. Her severed card-stock hand floated to the floor.
One by one the stylists stepped forward, hair shears at the ready. They made a quick cut here, a little snip there. Snick-snick-snick-snick. When they stood back to assess their work, Grace saw her beautiful paper dress on the floor, slashed to pieces. The entirety of her other arm was on the floor too, so she couldn’t even cover her naked paper self. Her coworkers grinned and nodded, pleased with their butchery.
No sound would come from Grace’s throat, and she discovered her mouth was stuck in an O shape. She tried to swing her body toward Miguel, needing his refuge, but the movement made her lose her balance. She felt herself toppling backward, but she fell softly, gliding on her back toward her huddled tormentors. They resumed talking and drinking, unaware of Grace, a paper carpet, at their feet. The ma?tre d’ came to show the party to their table. Without another thought they walked over Grace, her gaze fixed on the ceiling, and left her behind.
51
Grace could tell without getting off the sofa that the electricity was still off. The refrigerator was silent. None of the lamps had come back on. She was grateful for the morning light, a reprieve from the stifling darkness. Coco was spread out on the coffee table beside her, sleeping peacefully. It really didn’t matter what time it was (6:49 a.m.), nor did it matter when Duquesne Light now believed the power would be restored—but she called anyway. One o’clock p.m. After they’d missed their previous estimates, Grace wasn’t holding her breath.
The night had lasted forever, a decade longer than usual. She got up and shuffled to the kitchen. For additional light, she opened the back door. What she really wanted was coffee, but of course the coffee maker wasn’t operational. Nor could she heat water up on the stove. Could she let the tap water run until it was scalding hot and jury-rig a cup of java? She had the water running, her finger under it to monitor the temperature, before her brain kicked in. She turned the faucet off: she had an electric water heater; there was no hot water.
She stood there, hungry and thirsty, overwhelmed by the sensation that her entire house was a broken toy. Lacking other options, she filled a glass with tap water and got a box of crackers out of the cupboard. Before she headed outside, she dashed off a quick note—DO NOT OPEN!—and taped it to the refrigerator’s handle, just in case her mother had recovered enough to come downstairs wanting her morning fruit shake.
Barefoot and still in her nightshirt, Grace sat on her back stoop and ate crackers. The neighborhood was quiet, the air cool and dewy, and the daylight a notch underdeveloped. It was lovelier than she’d expected. Refreshing in its nascent emptiness.
It felt like the world was shifting backward in time—not by days or months but centuries. We’re becoming primitive. She imagined having a firepit in her backyard, where she would cook her meals and make coffee. And every morning a new routine would develop where she’d come out and wave to her neighbors, who’d also be at their backyard firepits. The dreamlike quality of her life was omnipresent as she pondered a future without the internet, without washing machines and hair dryers, toasters and vacuum cleaners. She’d heard somewhere, likely on a TV show, that everyone in past eras stank, that even the wealthy ladies and gentlemen rarely bathed or washed their hair. Savages in silk finery.