Free This Is My Life by Meg Wolitzer Page B

in her face when she spoke like this, and it was difficult to watch.
    Erica had thought about telling Dottie about Jordan, but finally vetoed the idea. She didn’t know what she would say when her mother asked specifics. Jordan wasn’t someone she particularly liked, so how could she explain herself? It was better kept as an awful secret, something that existed only between Jordan and Erica, and which they both knew enough to keep under wraps.
    Now the cab pulled up in front of Jordan’s building. A doorman came and opened the door for him, and Jordan hopped out, not saying a word. They would see each other on Monday, and not before; this was understood.
    Back in her own apartment, Erica walked down the hall andfound an envelope, addressed to her, lying on the table outside the den. It was a thick letter with a return address in Indiana. She stood, woozy in the light, and opened it. “CONGRATULATIONS MISS ERICA ENGELS!” it read. “YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED FOR INCLUSION IN THE HIGHLY PRESTIGIOUS ‘WHO’S WHO OF AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’!” This was absurd; she was standing in the hallway with dilated pupils, winded, aimless, and someone wanted to put her name in a leather-bound book. Erica balled the letter up and stood with it in her fist.
    From inside the den she suddenly became aware of someone talking. It was Joey diSalvo, practicing impressions. “My fellow Americans . . .” she heard him say. “Do you know who that is?” he was asking Opal. “No? That’s our president. Did I do my Cagney for you? Let me run that by you . . .” And Opal was no doubt just sitting there, patiently listening.
    â€œYou dirty rats,” Erica heard, then the voice grew harder, more insistent. “
You dirty rats
,” it wheezed.
    Dozens of voices were known to come from that room, entire bewildering monologues about politics and sex and pushy women, and impressions of people about whom Opal and Erica knew absolutely nothing. All the voices had begun to meld together into one. Joey diSalvo was just another babysitter, just another comedian trying desperately to become famous.
    â€œI know you’re too old to need supervision,” Dottie had explained to Erica, “but Opal isn’t, and I didn’t think you wanted the burden of being a full-time babysitter for her. So please bear with me, Erica.”
    Each of the sitters had his or her own particular style. Joey diSalvo cooked elaborate pasta dishes and did impressions andpreened before the bathroom mirror; Mia Jablon smoked cigarettes and played board games; Danny Bloom complained about his dormant love life, offering details that were intensely personal; Lyman Huddle ignored Erica and Opal completely, and spent the evening listening to jazz with headphones on. He would sit in the butterfly chair in the living room and close his eyes and roll his head in slow circles. Hours would go by. Occasionally, as if prompted by some silent alarm, Lyman would surface, unclamping the headphones and blinking in the light. “You girls need anything?” he would ask softly, and when they said no, he would return to his cave of music.
    Tonight Joey diSalvo talked on and on; who knew how long he would make Opal sit there? Erica continued down the hall and went into her bedroom. In darkness, the room was cool and blank but still familiar. Erica sat on her bed for a moment, letting her eyes adjust. She thought of her mother in a hotel room across the country, coming in alone after a late performance. Or perhaps Dottie wasn’t alone; maybe there was a man with her. It sometimes seemed to Erica that her mother must have a secret life that involved men. Once in a while Erica could hear a man’s voice in the background when Dottie called from California. “Oh, that’s just a friend of mine,” Dottie would explain. Erica wondered if her mother sometimes lay in a broad bed with one