Mother May I(19)

She reached into my purse and mimed pulling it out. It was as invisible and unpresent as my actual daddy, but I could almost see the faint outline of the card as she waved it at me. I was VP of the drama club; she knew this would work. She’d given me her own name, Elizabeth, and she was the boldest girl I knew. Plus, the long version sounded classy, a rich-girl name that put a swagger in my step.

As we blew through the doors into Rave as if we already owned everything inside, I proclaimed, “If I put more than two hundred on this card, Daddy’ll kill me!”

Betsy laughed and answered just as loud. “He didn’t kill you last time.”

I don’t know if we fooled anyone. I doubt that the minimum-wage girls working the store even cared. We had a blast, though, trying on bustiers and plaid microminis so short I felt daring taking two steps out of the dressing room.

I’d kept that imaginary Visa with Betsy’s long-form name. I took it with me anywhere that I felt out of place, as if it could buy me tickets. I’d had it with me the day I met Trey.

Now, as the Lyft driver turned in to the Botanical Garden, I could feel it in the bottom of my bag, infused with Betsy’s leftover magic. It felt realer tonight than the actual cards in my wallet. It turned me into my best friend, boldly wearing someone else’s dress, smiling easy as I headed to a place where I did not belong to do something that I should not be doing.

The bracelet pinched. Somewhere far away, back in Decatur, that pain tethered me to a woman, some mother, I’d left screaming and writhing on the floor. She was not here. She could not be here.

The sedan was pulling up to the front entrance when the Bluetooth chimed in my ear. I answered on the first ring, one hand reaching up robotically to touch the button.

“Hello?”

I could hear Robert making small, snuffling noises. I could hear the breath of the mother who wasn’t me, and yet she was the one who held him. It was almost panting, short and shallow. Three breaths and she still had not spoken.

“Hello?” I said again.

“Are you there yet?” She sounded urgent, but also tinnier, farther away. Had they reached her destination? I thought so. The air on the line sounded different. No traffic sounds. At least Robert was no longer rocketing down a highway in her lap. She’d taken him a few minutes before 5:00 p.m., which meant he could be no more than four hours away from me. No, less than that. She’d stopped for at least half an hour to talk with me.

“I am.” I closed my eyes.

“You’re not!” she insisted, as if she knew. Was the daughter in place already, watching for me, or was she only reacting to the quiet on my end of the line?

“I’m right outside. Getting dropped off now.” A tremor had come into my voice. The car had stopped. “Thank you,” I told the driver, and got out. Ahead, a group of four men emerged from a dark, sleek sedan, chatting and laughing. Faint music drifted toward me from inside.

“Bree!” someone called, and I waved in their direction, smiling wide.

“On the phone, sec!” I called back, then pointed to my ear to indicate the Bluetooth.

“Oh! Tell Trey we’ll miss him tonight.” It was Michael something, a young associate.

I nodded and turned away. “You hear?”

“All right, then.” They were definitely somewhere else. Not in a car. “Maybe I should stay on the line with you. Listen in.”

“No!” I’d pulled Betsy over my raw skin, but now I felt her shell trembling, and my voice shook. Those soft, sleepy baby sounds could crack me. “I’ll text as soon as it’s done. I can hear . . . I can’t . . .” A small hysteria was rising in my voice. I was losing control of what my face was doing. I grabbed the bracelet, pressing it upward, feeling the good dig of it into my arm.

“All right, all right,” she said. Her voice was trembling, too. “Go on, then, but remember, my daughter will have eyes on you. You’d best do this thing.”

“I promise,” I said.

She hung up.

I stood by the curb, head down, clutching my purse, until I was Betsy again, bold and calm. Then I strolled toward the entrance to give the man with the clipboard my name. Saying it felt like a lie.

He checked the list, then smiled. “Have a good time, Mrs. Cabbat.”

I hurried through the Botanical Garden’s winding paths, passing beds and buildings and huge, living statues made of wire frames covered in plants. They had a medieval theme happening this season, with a twenty-foot-high dragon in a thousand shades of green, leaves overlapping like scales. He faced a flowery knight on a blooming white horse’s back.

I wound my way toward the sounds of a jazzy piano and a woman singing, torchy and low. Coming around a curve, I almost ran into a group of people. Three couples, the men in sleek suits, the women in cocktail dresses. I didn’t recognize any of them, so they were probably clients.

“Excuse me,” I said, passing them.

I was a little out of breath. I made myself slow down. I could not arrive sweaty and tumbled. God, this would be so much easier if Trey were with me. I wouldn’t have to work so hard to be a woman who belonged here. Trey pulled me into conversations, his hand resting lightly on my hip, putting me at ease with his coworkers and clients. With him I didn’t need Betsy’s carte blanche Visa.

He’d always done this for me. His gaze had made me confident from the first time it landed on me. I’d been in the middle of an uncomfortable acting-class assignment, quaking inside, when our paths first crossed.