Trust Exercise(71)
“Just some guy who was visiting from England.”
“Does he know?”
“No.”
“And you couldn’t find him when you went over there?”
“No.”
“Any other ideas where to look?”
“No.”
All this was just a formality. Karen’s father didn’t want to deal with the guy any more than Karen did. “The place is an hour drive from here. They have classes to keep you at grade level. And church, obviously. It’s a God-centered organization. They’ll handle everything. And the adoption.”
“Okay,” Karen said.
“It isn’t fancy but it’s safe and it’s clean. You don’t need a hotel.”
“I know,” Karen said.
“It’s not cheap but it shouldn’t be cheap. For the sake of the babies. It’s not a vacation.”
“I understand. I’m sorry,” Karen said, which she was.
In a strange way it was the perfect place to say goodbye to God. At some point, without noticing, Karen had stopped believing in God. So there was something sweet and sentimental for her about living someplace where no one could shut up about him. “Thank you so much, Karen, for the unconditional love you’ve shown in seeking God’s will for the future of your child” was the kind of thing everyone from the math tutor to the caseworker to the janitor said every chance they got. And though she understood this was people euphemistically kissing her ass for not getting an abortion, it was still pleasant to be thanked and praised all the time, as if you were really “God’s gift,” another popular phrase. As her father said it wasn’t “fancy” but in fact it was a lot more like a hotel than anywhere else that Karen ever lived. There were vases of real flowers, and soothing Jesus music, and more vegetables and fruits than Karen had known existed. She had her first kiwi fruit here, for example. Years later—in fact, recently—Karen came to understand that she’d been pampered so much at the home because the home was a farm for growing White Christian Babies Without Health Defects of the type that’s so rare and in such high demand on the adoption market now. Even if she’d realized this then, she wouldn’t have enjoyed the time less.
Exactly a month after Christmas, as everybody from the OB to her caseworker noted, as if Karen had been extra clever this way, Karen had her baby. The baby was female. The feeling-state of labor can’t be kept in mind or called back to mind, although the final slippery escape, like a fish coming out, does turn out to be memorable. When her baby was clean, warm, and dry and all wrapped in a blanket Karen held it and smelled it and thought to herself, I will never remember this smell, and she was right, she has never remembered it. It’s always just out of reach, like a dream. Later on there was a prayerful ceremony in which Karen was praised some more, for her selfless Christianity in having chosen life. Then her baby was taken away to be united with her Forever Family, whoever they were.
Two weeks later Karen transferred back to CAPA. She drove her old car to school, arriving early so she could park in the front lot, where there weren’t many spaces. She wanted to avoid everyone that she knew and they parked in the back. It was cold and damp and the dampness made a sort of light haze that in her memory softened the light so that she felt hidden and somehow alone, as if she was actually going to succeed, and get through her first day back at school without having to see anyone. But it was a small school with all the same people every year and there was no way she’d even get through an hour without seeing them all. But even a few minutes without seeing them would have made a difference. There were teachers’ cars in the front lot but it wasn’t half full. Karen’s plan was to sit in the smokers’ courtyard, which opened off the cafeteria through a set of glass doors, so it wasn’t a good place to hide but at least you could see people coming. She knew there was nowhere to hide and the best she could do was to see people coming, but then she pulled open the heavy front door of the school and there was Sarah. Karen and Sarah looked at each other for just long enough. Neither stopped walking, Karen in, and Sarah out, the same door.
* * *
THE WAY MARTIN had written his play, the Girl doesn’t have a quick-change. If you’ll remember, in the penultimate scene the Girl and Doc go offstage, into the back room which we’ve previously seen through the propped-open door, and know to be Doc’s squalid home. Doc and the Girl close the door behind them, there’s a pause, the shot rings out, the lights go out; then the lights come up again on all Doc’s regulars sitting in the bar memorializing him, and only after they’ve said a few lines does the Girl appear, in her funeral clothes. It’s a quick-change for the set: in the blackout the actors playing the regulars get to their marks, the stagehands put the portrait of Doc and some wilted flowers and black bunting on the bar, etc. The Girl has more than enough time, between going through the backroom door with Doc, and reappearing, to do her own costume change. So Karen’s invitation to Sarah to be her dresser, in addition to being an inspiration of the moment, was also an idiotic gaffe. Karen did not need a dresser and Sarah would not need help realizing this. But in the weeks after Karen saw Sarah at Skylight Books, and before Sarah arrived to take up the sentimental task/have the funny old-times’-sake experience which Karen had offered despite it not existing to give, the staging of the play went through a series of evolutions that would almost make you think Karen had supernatural powers. First, David’s set designer created a window in the bar’s backroom door with a roller blind pulled over it, so that when Doc and the Girl went in the back room and closed the door, a spotlight threw their shadows on the blind, and the shooting could be seen in silhouette. Second, David decided that when the lights came back up he wanted the Girl already onstage, dimly visible to the audience if not to the regulars, so that when she stepped forward into the light, the regulars would realize she’d overheard them. This meant Karen couldn’t start her costume change until the lights went out, and had to complete it before they came up again. It would be a quick-change. “You’ll need someone to dress you,” said David. Karen waited for the nightly post-rehearsal at The Bar to tell David that Sarah would do it. “Sarah’s coming?” cried David.