Anna is a woman I met years ago at a Mexican Wedding. We had a late night tequila fueled chat on a hill above the warm ocean. Years go by and our names get tossed about with fondness but little or pretty much zero facetime. Finally we just remet days ago at a baby shower. The Mexican wedding has now resulted in a baby shower for the knocked up bride. Anna saw me and Clementine and marched over in a jumpsuit- she's the only human I know who makes a jumpsuit look smarter than it is. She's a supergoddess. And on Sunday she upbraided me for not updating the blog more frequently. Since she is a paying customer and 6 feet tall, I instantly agreed.
And I do have an update but I've been ruminating on how to dominate this story with a Spalding Gray-esque New England buddhist brilliance. But it isn't coming. Perhaps it's just a scary snapshot of the future. And it was a timely reminder to get my story straight.
So, I'm standing by this trough, which is around 20 feet long and narrow and silvery- like a gutter that one might put above a garage door. But this trough, resting about 2 feet above the grass, was filled with scoops of sprinkled and whipped creamed ice cream. It was also surrounded by intense toddlers, resembling a team of little people working an assembly line where the job is to taste-test ice cream with pink plastic spoons. If you squinted it looked like the kids were clearing leaves and debris from a gutter. Clementine was eating and laughing and not dropping any ice cream on her dress. A feeding trough instead of a high chair was making all sorts of sense to me.
Suddenly, The Lovely Girl was standing beside me. Slender, lovely, pale, with glossy wisps of golden wheat-colored hair surrounding her face. She was probably seven but exuded the world weariness of a fourteen year old. Either her dad is old or her mom's a supermodel or both. She was the kind of seven year old who's too old-souled to even be a child actor. Like Charlotte Gainsbourg but in Crew Cuts clothing.
She was watching Clemmie hoover 7 simultaneous scoops of ice cream with suspicious glee, as if waiting for to someone to yell- "Hey, you, stop eating ice cream outta my gutter!"
The too-wise child studied me with huge expensive blue eyes and an expression not unlike what an agent looks like when she needs to drop you from her roster.
'Why did you have to adopt her?"
Even though I kind of wobbled from the question, I love how abrupt kids are. They suffer no tedious propriety. No wind-up. No, "Hi, I'm Lulu and I'm curious about this child you are acting like a parent to."
Of course explaining my entire life for the past five years, or an invitation to read my blog didn't seem appropriate chatter over the ice cream trough, so, I smiled too hard like a grown up does at kids that don't belong to her.
"I couldn't have a baby of my own, and I wanted to be a mother, so I adopted her."
Lovely Girl didn't nod or smile back. She just went on, like a journalist digging beneath the talking points.
"Why did her mother give her away?"
I blanched, looking instinctively at my kid, who was entering Sugarland Express, and unaware she was being discussed. And my mind coughed. What's my smart, pat polite party line about what compels a woman to give a baby up for adoption? I had the answer for grown ups, but not for kids, and not in front of my kid. I inhaled, thinking hard.
"Why didn't her real mom want her?"
I didn't realize how California I had become, but when I opened my mouth, I was sooooo the Center for Non-Violent Parenting.
"Well, her mother-- I'm her mother, but her birth mother loved her very much and, and, and wasn't able to take care of her so she made the awfully difficult decision to give her up for adoption. That's how much she loved her. And we met and liked each other and she gave her, the baby to me and I'm raising her like my very own child. She is my child."
I didn't know I could sound like a brochure, but I can. While I was relieved in the moment, I was starting to feel slightly anally probed. I casually reached for a spoon and started sipping at the melted ice cream. It was fairly clear that everyone either felt gross or was going to at any minute.
Suddenly I had an idea. I turned on Lovely Girl.
"How old are you?"
"Seven."
"Do you know any adopted kids?"
And from there we had an actual conversation. About her school friends who were adopted and what that was like and how not a big deal it really was. There was no mussing of hair or even awkward fake hugs, where you gingerly hug from the collarbone up. I didn't even get Lovely Girl's name or meet her parents and she wafted away and it doesn't qualify at all as a teachable moment for anyone except me.
I have to get my story straight and I have to do it soon. We are going on three playdates this weekend and as my kid grows and her language grows, so will her ability to understand the questions from other kids.
Right now she beams at me with the purity that sees no difference between us. But that will change. And it's coming soon. Goddamn it.
Here you go, Anna. Thanks for the nudge.
