Wunderland(15)

Ava had called the Jane twice, to no avail; “Madame” was not answering her line. She’d manned her fire escape for a full half hour after putting Sophie down, finishing off the last of the Paul Masson and two Parliaments from her emergency pack. She’d even called the Chock full o’Nuts across the street, though given Ilse’s critique of its coffee (“They should call it ‘Chock Full of Nothing’?”) it seemed an unlikely destination. Sure enough, the manager reported that no, she hadn’t seen the “nice older lady” to whom Ava had introduced her yesterday at breakfast.

Propping the window open, Ava combed her memory for hints her mother might have dropped about her intended destination. But in retrospect, Ilse had been almost pointedly vague about her plans, simply saying she’d be “doing some exploring in the city.” When Ava offered to accompany her, she’d snapped, “I’ll be fine,” with a familiar crispness that meant This is not up for discussion. As usual, Ava had not pushed her for detail.

Now she stared down at the darkening sidewalk with its desultory lovers, its blowsy pilings of garbage and Jackson Pollock splashes of spilled liquids, food, and canine waste. What if Ilse had taken it upon herself to “explore” the Bronx or Harlem on her own? As omnipotent she’d always seemed to Ava, she was still a middle-aged German woman, used to German order and courtesy, German efficiency and punctiliousness. She was about as prepared for nighttime New York as she would have been for a solo safari in the Serengeti.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a low, lingering croak from the bedroom, a cross between a cough and a squeaky door hinge. Ava held a lungful of smoke, praying it was just one of Sophie’s sleep sounds. But it grew steadily into a wail that was weak, but most definitely awake.

Exhaling in annoyance, she stubbed the cigarette out in her wilting spider plant and set her glass down on the counter. So it had now officially closed: that brief window within which she and her mother might have enjoyed the dinner she’d worked so hard on all day.

God damn her.

By the time she’d reached the crib Sophie had pulled herself to her feet and was shaking the railing like a tiny asylum inmate. This in and of itself wasn’t unusual. As Ava drew close, though, she immediately sensed something was wrong. The infant’s scream was weak and husky, more a plea than a protest. Her face was pale, her eyes red and swollen. Picking her up, Ava pressed her lips against her daughter’s forehead and her fingertips to her delicate ear. Both were burning.

“What’s happened, Liebchen?” Cradling the baby against her chest, Ava hurried to the bathroom, praying the thermometer was where she’d last left it. She hadn’t had to use it very often, since Sophie was unusually hardy for a baby (another trait she’d inherited from her grandmother). Now Ava had to fumble for a few seconds—in the medicine cabinet, in the toothbrush jar—before locating the device under the sink, mixed into a broken set of Clairol curlers. She shook the mercury down and cleaned the bulb before wrestling Sophie onto her stomach back on the bed.

By now the baby’s screams had faded into whimpers: rhythmic yelps that were actually harder to hear than full-on howls. As she inserted the thermometer, Ava resisted a violent urge to wail along with her daughter as she waited for the reading:

103.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

A moment of panicked paralysis: the highest Sophie had ever hit was 102, about a year ago. Luckily Livi had been there and was able to call a fellow psychology student who also happened to be a nurse. Ava tried to remember what the advice had been at that point: something about cold washcloths? Cold baths? Or had it been frozen peas? So much had happened since then, and on so little sleep. It was like trying to remember a different lifetime.

Pulling Sophie into her lap, Ava reached for the bedside phone, punching in the number so familiar to her now it was essentially muscle memory.

“Hello?”

“She’s got a temperature.”

Her best friend didn’t need to ask who. “How high?”

“103.4.”

“Shit.” An audible exhale (was Livi smoking? Ava wondered). “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s your mom?”

“I don’t know.” Ava felt her throat tighten. “She was supposed to be back by seven thirty.”

“Christ. Okay. Don’t panic.” Livi’s voice shifted into a harder, quicker register; her let’s get this shit done tone. “I don’t know if Fran is even in town,” she said. “But let me try her. Okay? If she’s not, Daniel might know someone.” Daniel was Livi’s current boyfriend, a burly amateur boxer who was also an EMT. “Just sit tight. If I don’t call back in ten, you call me. All right?”

Ava nodded, by now too anxious to even verbalize a response. Hanging up, she rested Sophie’s head against her shoulder and rocked gently, feeling the baby’s heart skittering against her skin as she tried to think through the heavy haze of heat and alcohol that seemed to have filled her head. What had happened? When she’d put her daughter down she’d seemed lethargic, yes. Maybe even a little clingy. But Ava had attributed both to Sophie’s napless state, to the heat. If her skin had felt warm, she’d assumed it was from being held against Ava’s own body in an oven-hot kitchen.

A sudden, warm dampness on her bare thigh: she’d forgotten to rediaper. “Fuck,” she said.