Free The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards by Robert Boswell Page B

rushing to you with an armful of roses?”
    “Not a word,” Monica said and sipped her tea.
    “I’ve written my Pauly, my youngest boy. Handsome like Clark Gable, but with better skin. An electrical contractor with his own truck like they’ve got to have, and dating a woman whose name he won’t remember in a year. Trash, forgive me for saying it.”
    She quickly made the sign of the cross, touching her fingertips to her lips at the beginning and again at the end. Monica had made Mrs. Nighetti teach the gesture to her during one of the visits. It took some flair to make it compelling.
    “I forgive you,” Monica said, which made Mrs. Nighetti flap her big hands and laugh.
    Monica let her eyes roam the photographs for the one that might be Pauly. She had never met him, but his mother had written to him about her. No doubt he pictured Monica in his mind, thought about her, imagined her body, her life. What was that if not fame? The Chin was picturing her right now, she guessed. Not to mention the Stalker and Mr. Chub. Brian. She touched her fingers to her lips and crossed herself in the quick solemn manner that Mrs. Nighetti had taught her.
    Sally ran her slow gallop, arms flailing, across her father’s grassy yard to Monica’s open arms.
    “She took a nap,” the new girlfriend called out, sitting on the steps, keeping her distance. “’Bout an hour and a half.”
    A frightened bird, Monica thought, eyeing the girlfriend. “Chirp,” she said aloud but beneath her breath. “Thanks,” she yelled, her voice as vibrant and happy as she could make it. She lifted her daughter into the car, buckled her into the car seat Brian had given them. “What did you do today, sugar?”
    “Play,” she said, taking on her car personality, the sweetly quiet child who stared out the window and clapped for dogs and trucks.
    Brian would be upset about the car seat in the front—the instruction booklet recommended the rear—but Monica thought it only fair to Sally to let her ride beside her mom. What did Brian know about raising children, anyway? His own daughter was a mess. A fat, moody adolescent with pimples and an attitude. It occurred to Monica, as she pulled into traffic, that his daughter, when she’d been tiny, had probably seemed as sweet and perfect as Sally. It was not possible that Sally could turn out so badly. Monica had gotten high with Brian’s daughter a few times. All after Brian had left her. A way to keep in contact with him, even though he didn’t know about it, and his daughter didn’t know who Monica was. “I’m the love of your father’s life,” she imagined herself saying.
    From her car seat, Sally clapped at a passing truck, saying, “Big.”
    Her life is in my hands, Monica thought, steering them down the freeway, her hands resting at the bottom of the steering wheel.
My hands
, she thought, picturing a close-up of them: her fingers fill the screen, the delicate bones almost visible beneath the skin. Some actresses had stand-ins for their bodies, she’d read. It was never Nicole Kidman’s breasts you saw, but some perfect girl without a face. Did her lover know that her breasts were famous?
    Monica planned her evening as she drove. She would stop at Casa Azul briefly to see how huge Brian’s wife was, to see if his daughter wanted a ride somewhere. She would stop at Alpha Beta to get milk and Pampers. She would drive by Brian’s house without even glancing at it. She would get to the trailer in time for the last half hour of
Sesame Street
. She would read Mr. Chub’s letter again. She might begin the biography. Notes about his condominium, the way he walked, the way his beautiful breathless voice rode the air. He had wanted to know whether she’d bathed, which meant he had pictured her naked. She would mention the shiny vacuum, and the belts in his closet, the custom-made shoes that gave him balance. And his shirts, all those shirts, the way they faced the same direction, one after another,