Free The Mistress's Daughter by A. M. Homes Page B

giddy and into a husky sort of mania—on the verge. “I can’t believe I’m seeing you.”
    She takes my hand and kisses it.
    Before anything else happens I want to run to a pay phone and call my friend. “Remember when you asked me if I was going to kiss her…well, she kissed my hand. Did she know we had that conversation? Is my phone tapped? Is this the difference between what one is born as and what one becomes, hardware versus software, nature versus nurture?”
    She kisses my hand and I want to run.
    I follow her into the restaurant. She orders a Harveys Bristol Cream, I order a Coke. I have never seen someone drink Harveys Bristol Cream. I only remember it from ads; suave couples in front of a fireplace, drinking Harveys.
    I feel suddenly defensive; under her gaze, I sense I am not measuring up. She is sitting there in her old rabbit jacket and I am across from her in my best clothes. She never graduated high school and I have multiple master’s degrees. She is the one who for months begged to meet me and I am the one who avoided her. I tell myself it is not about surfaces. I tell myself everything will be all right.
    â€œI’m having lobster,” she says.
    â€œAnd what will you have?” the waiter asks.
    â€œNothing, I will have nothing.” I have nothing, I am nothing. Nothing suits me fine.
    â€œHave lobster,” she says.
    I am allergic to lobster. “Nothing is good,” I tell the waiter.
    She talks about Atlantic City. She says that she has left her job—I don’t know if that means quit or was fired—and is going to open a beauty parlor with a couple of “wonderful operators.” She talks, about anything, everything, without the awareness that the person sitting across from her is both her only child and a complete stranger.
    Her lobster arrives, she pulls meat from the claw, dips it into a silver pot of butter, and pops it into her mouth. She brings the claw to her eye, looking to see if there is more. Nothing is enough. I stare, wondering how she can eat. I can barely breathe.
    â€œDid your father send you something for your birthday? He was going to send you something very nice.”
    I can’t help but remember the gold-plated locket that’s appropriate for an eight-year-old. The gift, apparently, was her idea—they discussed it beforehand.
    I am a thirty-two-year-old woman sitting across from my mother and she is blind. Invisibility is the thing I live in fear of. I implode, folding like origami. I try to speak but have no words. My response is primitive, before language, before cognition—the memory of the body.
    Her lobster finished, she removes her plastic bib and orders another drink.
    â€œI have to go soon,” I say.
    She takes out a cigarette case and extracts a long, thin cigarette.
    I check my watch.
    â€œWill you ever forgive me?”
    â€œFor what?”
    â€œGiving you away.”
    â€œI forgive you. You absolutely did the right thing,” I say, never having meant it more. “Really.” I get up.
    â€œI have to go,” I say. I flee, leaving the woman in the rabbit coat alone with her Harveys Bristol Cream.
    â€œWill I see you again?” she calls after me.
    I pretend I don’t hear. I don’t turn around. I walk out of the restaurant and cross to the other side of the hotel; I don’t breathe until I am safe on the other side.
    My friend is in the Oak Bar. Several minutes pass before I am able to say anything.
    â€œWell, what was she like?”
    â€œI have no idea.” In retrospect, I think I was in shock.
    â€œAll you all right?” the friend asks.
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œTell me,” she says.
    Someone else, another mind, might extrapolate from her demeanor, her gestures. All I can say is, “Dusty Springfield.”
    â€œWhat would you have liked from her?” the friend asks.
    â€œLiterally? I would have liked it if