Diana Abu-Jaber - Birds of Paradise

“When did you two start seeing each other?” Brian asks.

The girl smiles. “Seeing each other?”

Stanley takes her hand. “Actually, Dad, Nieves and I are living together.”

Brian gives a sort of huff at the same time that Avis feels something tighten, a bone pressing against her heart. “You’re living together?” he asks.

Nieves’s crossed leg bobs up and down. Stanley has an odd, guilty expression now, his cheeks flushed. “She just moved in. This month.”

“To your apartment?” Brian is openly astonished. Stanley lives above the market in a bleak one-bedroom in downtown Homestead. Attached to the apartment is a small studio he uses as overflow for the market’s storeroom. Brian and Avis used to joke about Stanley being married to his work. How quickly things change, Avis thinks. Brian squeezes her limp hand. “Now, but don’t you think you kids—”

“We’re having a baby,” Nieves interrupts.

“What?” Avis is breathless. “You mean someday ?” But of course — it rushes in on Avis — she doesn’t mean “someday.” At last Avis understands what she’s been seeing all along — the blue shadows under the girl’s eyes and her puffy face. Avis turns to Stanley — who is staring at Nieves — and it’s like peeling back a series of transparencies. There are the sloping bones of his adult face; there is the sugar-milk skin of Stanley at four. “Stanley?”

Stanley lowers his gaze to the floor, forearms balanced on his knees. He’s the picture of remorse and Avis feels an almost pleasurable impulse to scold him. She reminds herself, he isn’t much younger than she’d been, barely twenty-seven, pregnant with him. “Obviously the timing isn’t the greatest,” Stanley mutters. “With the business taking on all this new debt, plus the tax hike…”

“How pregnant, or, I mean — far along — are you?” Brian asks Nieves. Avis hears a bounce in his voice. “Are you taking folic acid? Have you seen a doctor?”

Folic acid! Now Avis reaches for her husband’s hand. She wants to protect him. Nieves looks at him warily. She’s dressed in low-rise jeans, shiny sandals with just a filament of leather over the toes, a satiny, clinging top that looks like underwear, and a pair of sparkling loop earrings. “I’m probably due in the winter I guess.”

“It was pretty, you know, unexpected,” says Stanley, as if he’s learning all of this for the first time. “We’re still figuring things out.”

“It’s marvelous!” Brian blurts; he turns to Avis: his eyes are damp. “We think it’s wonderful, of course,” he says. “Congratulations, you two.”

“But we need money,” Nieves says. “Stanley was supposed to tell you? We really do. Right away.”

Stanley’s face is a dark putty-color.

“Oh. Yes,” Brian says.

“You already knew about this?” Avis releases his hand.

“No, no — not the baby! Nothing about the baby.”

The baby .

“Stanley was supposed to tell you,” Nieves says.

“What?” Avis’s voice wobbles; her neck feels hot.

Brian puts his hand on Avis’s arm while addressing Nieves. “Remind me—”

“One hundred twenty-six thousand dollars,” Nieves says. “We have to get that much, or it won’t work.”

“Oh, this is ridiculous!” Avis says. She doesn’t care for this girl. She places her hands square on her knees — they feel knobby; the bones in her back feel sharp as piano keys. Already a querulous old lady. “A hundred twenty-six thousand ? My God, how do you expect us to come up with that sort of money?”

Stanley starts shaking his head heavily. They’ve bailed him out a number of times in the past with small gifts, disbursements, a few thousand here and there; one loan of twenty-five thousand, which he’d partially paid off and they’d forgiven the remaining seventeen. But this sounds like extortion to Avis — this dreadful girl, using the threat of a grandchild. Another thought comes to her: could they even be sure that the child is Stanley’s? She must discuss this with Stanley in private. But he’s looking at her now as if he were embarrassed or disappointed. “Mom, I talked with Dad — I mean we thought we could get away with eighty thousand before but our other investors — their money’s tied up—”

“It’s true, dear,” Brian interrupts, his hand curved around her forearm. “We did discuss this — Stan and me. I’d been meaning to talk it over with you — well, we’ve both been so busy.” He lowers his head, touches the back of his neck reflectively. “It’s hard to know exactly the best moment for these things.”

“Stanley— tell them,” the girl says.

Stanley’s gaze rests a beat too long on Avis. “I didn’t want to worry either of you.” He rolls forward to put down his cup. “The thing is… the owner of my property keeps getting approached by commercial developers — I guess Homestead is getting kind of hot all of a sudden.”

“I knew it,” Brian bursts out. “Dammit. Goddamn gold-diggers.”

“He’s a good guy — Calvin Mails, the owner. He’s trying to work with us, but there’s all these sorts of crazy numbers flying around and he’s ready to sell.”

“We can buy the building and land for five hundred K,” Nieves cuts in. “Basically, that price? He’s doing us a huge favor because he loves Stan. He could probably get almost twice that. But it means we’ve got to raise twenty percent just to qualify for the loan. Plus a little extra for closing costs and expenses.”

“Of course, of course…” Brian mutters, glaring at his lap.

“All our money’s been going right back into the business — it’s been strictly subsistence living — for both of us,” Stanley adds, linking his fingers with Nieves’s.

“You remember?” Brian chides, brows lifted. “I warned you!”

“Dad.” He sighs through his nose. “I didn’t have the money to buy the place five years ago any more than I do now. Twenty thousand or a hundred. It might as well be the moon.”

“Well, but twenty is a whole other—”

“Dad, believe me — we’ve tried — literally — everything we could to avoid coming to you. But once we’re owners, it’ll be different. The market’s really healthy. I don’t know exactly when, but — I swear — we’ll pay you back soon. With interest.”

“Interest isn’t the point here, son. And actually, interest rates on business loans—”

“It doesn’t matter!” Nieves erupts. “What matters is that if we don’t buy the building we’ll lose the market. We can’t even afford to relocate — there is no place cheaper.”

Avis’s body fills with adrenaline tremors. She holds the lapels of her blouse closed in her fist, presses the silk against her throat. It is intolerable. The problem, as she sees it, is this — this Nieves . Where did she come from? Look at her, slouching, her tight shirt, the blebs of fat just beneath the corners of her sulking mouth. She thinks she can just waltz in here and take their son and their money? And now she’ll produce a child to torment and blackmail them with — threaten to never let them see the baby unless they do as she says. The first grandchild. Their feelings are immaterial: Avis and Brian will have to dance to this girl’s tune. It is unbearable, absolutely unendurable.

Avis stands. She is gratified to see a spark of anxious curiosity on Nieves’s face. “No,” Avis says, her voice ridged with emotion. “It’s not fair. This isn’t right or fair.”

“Dearest.” Brian’s hand lingers on her wrist; she yanks it away.

“I won’t do it — I won’t do any of whatever you think you’re cooking up,” she says to Nieves. “I’ve been tortured enough already, thank you very much.”