Free We Are Water by Wally Lamb Page A

couple of times, just the two of them. It’s not that I’m ungrateful that Viveca’s made an effort with my daughter. I appreciate that she has. But both times when they got back from those lunch dates, Marissa was carrying boxes and bags from Bergdorf’s. Viveca’s bought her that Jimmy Choo handbag she loves, the Prada platform pumps that I’d break my neck if I ever tried wearing. Designer things that an aspiring actress and part-time waitress could never afford. As good a kid as she is, Marissa’s always been a little too status conscious, and it’s almost as if Viveca is trying to buy her affection. And apparently it’s working. What was that thing Marissa said last week when the three of us were at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square? When she pointed out that children’s book? “Look. Heather has two mommies just like me.” It made me feel defensive on Orion’s behalf. She’s his daughter, not Viveca’s. . . .
    What’s wrong with me today? Why am I worrying about all these things that probably don’t even matter? I walk around the apartment, wandering aimlessly from room to room. Passing the guest bathroom, I look in at Minnie. She’s down on the floor, wearing her knee pads, scouring the grout between the floor tiles. Viveca’s a stickler about clean grout; she has Minnie use some bleaching agent to get it white. I walk past my poster, ANNIE OH: A SHOCK TO THE SYSTEM! February 1–March 31 at viveca c gallery. She went all out for that show: ads in the Times , the New Yorker , and New York . Hired that publicist who got me those TV interviews that I was such a nervous wreck about. . . . Back in the kitchen, I grab the remote and change the channel. On the Today show, that Dr. Nancy lady is cautioning Ann Curry about some new medical thing we all have to worry about. I channel-surf past Cookie Monster, cartoons, cake decorating. On CNBC, they’re talking about the global economy—the looming debt crisis in Greece that the Germans may or may not rescue them from. Viveca’s mentioned the possibility of Greece defaulting, too, and how, for some reason I didn’t understand, it could be good for her business if the euro is devalued. It’s funny: she identifies so strongly with her Greek heritage. You would think she’d be more concerned about the country’s balance sheet than her own. . . . The old movie channel’s showing Mildred Pierce . There’s Joan Crawford with her shoulder pads and severe eyebrows, talking to her maid, who I recognize. Whom I recognize? It’s that little actress from Gone With the Wind —the slave with the squeaky voice who didn’t “know nothin’ bout birthing babies.” Slaves, maids: it wasn’t as if the studios were going to hire that actress to play anything else. At least Viveca doesn’t expect Minnie to show up at the apartment in one of those old-fashioned uniforms with the little hat and frilly apron. Minnie wears the same clothes most days: her beige Sean John sweat suit and her plaid canvas sneakers. Marissa tells me that Sean John is that rap guy, Diddy or P. Diddy or whatever he calls himself. One time when she was here, she complimented Minnie on her taste. Told her she liked Sean John clothes, too. And Minnie had smiled her toothless smile and told her she picked it up “for cheap” at a street fair in Newark. . . . On the Christian channel, the pompadoured host is chatting about Jesus’s love with a plump old lady in a pastel party dress and bright red lipstick. I suddenly realize it’s Dale Evans. She died, didn’t she? This must be a rerun. My foster mother, the first one, used to send me to school every day with an American cheese and mustard sandwich and an apple inside a rusty Roy Rogers and Dale Evans lunch box. (No Thermos like the other kids; I had to drink from the fountain.) Roy and Dale were passé by then, and I was jealous of the cool lunch boxes some of the other girls in my class carried: Dr. Kildare , The Beverly