Toni Morrison: God Help the Child

Brooklyn puts her elbow on the table and covers my hand with hers. “Aw, girl, you’re still in shock. I’m not going to let you make any plans until this rape stuff wears off. You won’t know what you want until then. Trust me, all right?”

I’m so tired of this. Next she’ll be insisting I see a rape therapist or attend victim fests. I’m really sick of it because I need to be able to have an honest conversation with my closest friend. I bite the tip of an asparagus stalk then slowly cross my knife and fork.

“Look, I lied to you.” I push my plate away so hard it knocks over what’s left of my apple martini. I mop it up with my napkin carefully, trying to steady myself and make what I’m about to say sound normal. “I lied, girlfriend. I lied to you. Nobody tried to rape me and that was a woman beat the shit out of me. Somebody I was trying to help, for Christ’s sake. I tried to help her and she would have killed me if she could.”

Brooklyn stares open-mouthed then squints. “A woman? What woman? Who?”

“You don’t know her.”

“You don’t either, obviously.”

“I did once.”

“Bride, don’t give me scraps. Let me have the full plate, please.” She pulls her locks behind her ears and fixes me with an intense glare.

It took maybe three minutes to tell it. How when I was a little girl in the second grade, a teacher in the kindergarten building next to the main building played dirty with her students.

“I can’t hear this,” says Brooklyn. She closes her eyes like a nun faced with porn.

“You asked for the full plate,” I say.

“Okay, okay.”

“Well, she was caught, tried, and sent away.”

“Got it. So what’s the problem?”

“I testified against her.”

“Even better. So?”

“I pointed. I sat in the witness chair and pointed her out. Said I saw her do it.”

“And?”

“They put her in prison. Gave her a twenty-five-year sentence.”

“Good. End of story, no?”

“Well, no, not really.” I am fidgeting, adjusting my neckline as well as my face. “I thought about her on and off, you know?”

“Uh, uh. Tell me.”

“Well, she was just twenty.”

“So were the Manson girls.”

“In a few years she’ll be forty and I thought she probably has no friends.”

“Poor thing. No kiddies to rape in the joint. What a drag.”

“You’re not hearing me.”

“Damn straight I’m not listening to you.” Brooklyn slaps the table. “You nuts? Who is this female alligator, besides being pond scum, I mean. Is she related to you? What?”

“No.”

“Well?”

“I just thought she would be sad, lonely after all these years.”

“She’s breathing. That not good enough for her?”

This is going nowhere. How can I expect her to understand? I signal the waiter. “Again,” I say and nod toward my empty glass.

The waiter lifts his eyebrows and looks at Brooklyn. “None for me, cookie. I need cold sobriety.”

He gives her a killer smile full of bright and bonded teeth.

“Look, Brooklyn, I don’t know why I went. What I do know is I kept thinking about her. All these years in Decagon.”

“You write to her? Visit?”

“No. I’ve seen her only twice. Once at the trial and then when this happened.” I point to my face.

“You dumb bitch!” She seems really disgusted with me. “You put her behind bars! Of course she wants to mess you up.”

“She wasn’t like that before. She was gentle, funny, even, and kind.”

“Before? Before what? You said you saw her twice — at the trial and when she clocked you. But what about seeing her diddling kids? You said—”

The waiter leans in with my drink.

“Okay.” I’m irritable and it shows. “Three times.”

Brooklyn tongues the corner of her mouth. “Say, Bride, did she molest you too? You can tell me.”

Jesus. What does she think? That I’m a secret lesbian? In a company practically run by bi’s, straights, trannies, gays and anybody who took their looks seriously. What’s the point of closets these days?

“Oh, girl, don’t be stupid.” I shoot her the look Sweetness always put on when I spilled the Kool-Aid or tripped on the rug.

“Okay, okay.” She waves her hand. “Waiter, honey, I’ve changed my mind. Belvedere. Rocks. Double it.”

The waiter winks. “You got it,” he says, hitting “got” with a slur that must have earned him a promising phone number in South Dakota.

“Look at me, girlfriend. Think about it. What made you feel so sorry for her? I mean, really.”

“I don’t know.” I shake my head. “I guess I wanted to feel good about myself. Not so disposable. Sofia Huxley — that’s her name — was all I could think of, someone who would appreciate some…something friendly without strings.”

“Now I get it.” She looks relieved and smiles at me.

“Do you? Really?”

“Absolutely. The dude splits, you feel like cow flop, you try to get your mojo back, but it’s a bust, right?”

“Right. Sorta. I guess.”

“So we fix it.”

“How?” If anybody knows what to do, it’s Brooklyn. Hitting the floor, she always says, requires a choice — lie there or bounce. “How do we fix it?”

“Well, not with no bingo.” She’s excited.

“What then?”

“Blingo!” she shouts.

“You called?” asks the waiter.

—

Two weeks later, just as she promised, Brooklyn organizes a celebration — a prelaunch party where I am the main attraction, the one who invented YOU, GIRL and helped create all the excitement about the brand. The location is a fancy hotel, I think. No, a smarty-pants museum. A crowd is waiting and so is a limousine. My hair, and dress are perfect: diamondlike jewels spangle the white lace of my gown, which is tight-fitting above the mermaidlike flounce at my ankles. It’s transparent in interesting places but veiled in others — nipples and the naked triangle way below my navel.

All that’s left is to choose earrings. I’ve lost my pearl dots, so I choose one-carat diamonds. Modest, nothing flashy, nothing to detract from what Jeri calls my black-coffee-and-whipped-cream palette. A panther in snow.

Christ. Now what? My earrings. They won’t go in. The platinum stem keeps slipping away from my earlobe. I examine the earrings — nothing wrong. I peer at my lobes closely and discover the tiny holes are gone. Ridiculous. I’ve had pierced ears since I was eight years old. Sweetness gave me little circles of fake gold as a present after I testified against the Monster. Since then I’ve never worn clip-ons. Never. Pearl dots, usually, ignoring my “total person” designer, and sometimes, like now, diamonds. Wait. This is impossible. After all these years, I’ve got virgin earlobes, untouched by a needle, smooth as a baby’s thumb? Maybe it’s from the plastic surgery or side effects of the antibiotics? But that was weeks ago. I am trembling. I need the shaving brush. The phone is ringing. I get the brush out and stroke it lightly at my cleavage. It makes me dizzy. The phone keeps ringing. Okay, no jewelry, no earrings. I pick up the phone.

“Miss Bride, your driver is here.”

—

If I pretend sleep maybe he will just get the hell out. Whoever he is I can’t face him to chat or fake after-sex cuddle, especially since I don’t remember any of it. He kisses my shoulder lightly, then fingers my hair. I murmur as though dreaming. I smile but keep my eyes closed. He moves the bedclothes and goes into the bathroom. I sneak a touch to my earlobes. Smooth. Still smooth. I am complimented constantly at the party — how beautiful, how pretty, so hot, so lovely, everyone says, but no one questions the absence of earrings. I find that strange, because all through the speeches, the award presentation, the dinner, the dancing, my baby thumb earlobes are so much on my mind I can’t concentrate. So I deliver an incoherent thank-you speech, laugh too long at filthy jokes, stumble through conversations with coworkers, drink three, four times more than what I can gracefully hold. Do a single line, after which I flirt like a high school brat campaigning for prom queen, which is how I let whoever he is in my bed. I taste my tongue hoping the film is mine alone. God. Thank you. No handcuffs dangle from the bedposts.