36
We spent the next three mornings in Baltimore, first touring the city with Helen and then preparing for the actual event that they would cohost. She suggested holding it in Druid Hill Park itself on Sunday afternoon.
“Isn’t that a gamble with weather?”
“If you’re not willing to gamble, you’ll never win,” she said. “Having it in the park holds special significance. It’s one of the few integrated parks. It shows your dedication to the community’s needs—that’s where they wanted to build that civic center. And it means women can come because their children can play. That won’t work in a hall.”
Stuart’s mouth was hanging open by the time she was done speaking. “Close your mouth,” I whispered to him. “You’ll catch flies.”
He closed his mouth and glared at me, but there was far less malice in it than usual.
“You can admit I was right,” I said quietly.
“I’m not going that far. But you weren’t necessarily wrong.”
I grinned. That was good enough. And thanks to my cousin Marilyn, we had campaign money to rent a microphone, speakers, and a small platform to serve as a stage. Helen said she would deal with permits and making sure people were there.
“I can tell them I’m voting for you,” she said. “And for some, that will be enough. But you’re going to need to do more than smile and wave.”
“Would you be willing to look at my speech?” Michael asked. “I don’t want to make any missteps.”
She smiled. “You don’t think I’m letting you up there without knowing what you’re going to say, do you?”
“Believe me, ma’am, I wouldn’t even go up to that podium without your say-so.”
She leaned over to me. “I see why you like this one.” I started sputtering something to the effect of him being my boss, but she winked at me. “You’re giving yourself away now.”
Thankfully Michael and Stuart were discussing something else and missed that whole exchange.
The morning of the speech in Baltimore, I borrowed my mother’s Chanel suit again, and had just applied my lipstick, when my mother called to me from the hall.
“I can’t be late,” I said. “What is it?”
“Where do you keep the thermometer?” she asked.
I looked at my reflection in the mirror. Not today, I thought. “In the medicine cabinet,” I said lightly. “Why?”
“Debbie is awfully warm,” she said.
“It’s summer.”
My mother shook her head. “See for yourself.”
I found Debbie in her bed, and my heart sank. Even getting her to nap now was a struggle. She usually catapulted out of bed the second she woke up in the morning. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were closed, her chest rising and falling rapidly. “Oh, sweetie,” I said, sinking down next to her on the bed. “What’s the matter?”
She looked at me pitifully. “I sick.”
I felt her forehead with the back of my hand, then remembered Rosa’s trick. My lips were hovering just above her forehead when I realized I had lipstick on. I reached for a tissue from her nightstand and scrubbed until it came away clean and then pressed my lips to her forehead. I didn’t need the thermometer.
I swore softly. “That a bad word,” Debbie said.
“I’m sorry, darling. It is.” I stood up. “Mama is just going to get you some medicine to make you feel better.”
She grabbed my hand. “Mama, stay.”
I hesitated. “You’ll feel better with the medicine,” I said. “And Grandma will be here while Mama is at work today.”
She started to cry weakly. “Want you, Mama.”
I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose as she continued to cry. And then I gave in. “Okay. Mama will stay. Let me just get you the medicine and make a phone call, and I’ll be right back. Okay?”
She nodded, still crying, and I turned to find my mother in the doorway. “Can you grab the Tylenol Elixir from the medicine cabinet?” I asked. “I need to call the office and let them know I’m not coming.”
“You can go,” my mother said. “I’ll be fine with her.”
I looked back at my daughter in her bed. Debbie would be fine. Probably. But what if the Tylenol didn’t bring her fever down? I didn’t want to be unreachable and an hour away if she had to get to a doctor. And as much as I adored Rosa, when I was sick as a child, there was no substitute for my mother.
Slowly, I shook my head. “No. I’m going to stay.” She looked at me for several seconds, then nodded and went toward the bathroom. “I can give it to her,” I called after my mother.
“I’m perfectly capable of reading directions on a bottle,” she said.
My shoulders drooped as I returned to my bedroom. I sat on the edge of the bed and lifted the receiver, then dialed the number for the office, which would normally be empty on a Sunday. I had planned to drive my mother’s car there to meet Michael and Stuart to drive up to Baltimore together.
Stuart answered on the third ring. “Landau campaign.”
“It’s Beverly.”
“You haven’t left yet?”
I sighed. “Can you put Michael on, please?”
“He’s going over his speech.”
“Stuart, please.”
He huffed into the phone and then called for Michael, who came onto the line a few seconds later. “Beverly? Everything okay?”
I hadn’t cried when I caught Larry with Linda. Not when he threatened to sell the house. Not even when Robbie had colic, and I was so sleep deprived I thought I was going to lose my mind. But I was close to tears right then. This was my speech. I arranged this. If it went well, it would be the biggest victory of his campaign. And I had to miss it because I was a mother before anything else.
“Debbie has a fever,” I said thickly.
“Is she okay?”
“Likely yes. Kids get fevers, and it’s often nothing. But—”
“You need to stay with her,” he finished. It wasn’t a question. “Does she need to see a doctor? Stuart can drive you.”
I looked up at the ceiling to keep my suddenly moist eyes from spilling over. “No, no. We’re giving her Tylenol now and my mother is here with her car. But she wants me.”
“Of course,” Michael said.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what? You didn’t get her sick.”
“This is my job. Stuart wouldn’t miss a speech for something like this.”
“Stuart doesn’t have kids,” Michael said gently. “It’s apples and oranges.”
Stuart is a man, I thought bitterly. Larry wouldn’t have stayed even if Debbie had begged him.
“I’ll call you after,” Michael said. “You just take care of Debbie. Don’t worry about me.”
“I’m not worried. I wanted to be there.”
There was a pause. “I wanted you there too,” he said. “But family comes first. Always and forever.”
“We need to go,” I heard Stuart saying.
“I’m sorry again,” I said. “And do me a favor?”
“Don’t worry, I’m going to listen to everything Helen says.”
“I know that. I was going to ask you to kick Stuart.”
Michael laughed. “I’ll see what I can do. I’ll call you after,” he repeated.
Debbie’s temperature dropped within an hour with the Tylenol in her.
“I wish we’d had that when you were young,” my mother said. “We had to make do with ice baths and cold compresses.”
I shuddered. I had blocked those memories out. Tylenol was a relatively new medicine for kids, but when Robbie got chicken pox two years earlier, it had been a lifesaver.
Debbie spent much of the morning on the sofa in front of the television, while my mother took Robbie out to the park. She had suggested the club so he could go swimming, but I didn’t want her and her car that far away if Debbie took a turn for the worse.
Larry was going to need to pay for a car, I decided. Especially if my mother moved back home.
And if Sam lost, he had to find a job that paid better.
Debbie napped, and I tried not to worry about what was happening in Baltimore. Her fever stayed down with the medicine, and a telltale rash indicating roseola began creeping across her torso by the time she woke up.
“Phew,” I told her. “We can play connect the dots on your tummy, but at least it’s nothing serious.” She snuggled in tight against me, and I kissed the top of her head. If she wasn’t sick, she would have pushed me away, so I would take what I could get.
I made dinner, no longer worried about keeping the kids separate—Robbie had caught roseola just before his second birthday—and bathed them. Robbie went right to sleep, but Debbie asked to sleep in my bed.
“Just because you’re sick,” I told her.
“I be better tomowow,” she promised.
“It might take a few more days than that,” I said, smiling as she nestled up against me again.
I waited until her breathing had become regular to leave. She had her thumb in her mouth, which she had stopped doing months earlier, but I wasn’t going to worry about it right then.
I was, however, worried that I hadn’t heard from Michael.
But as I reached the living room, I stopped short. Michael was sitting in the chair opposite my mother, a drink untouched in front of him.
“How is she?” he asked when he saw me. I was too stunned to speak first.
“Sleeping,” I said finally. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to tell you how it went in person,” he said. “And make sure Debbie was okay.”
“A call would have been smarter. What if it was the measles?”
He grinned sheepishly. “I’ve had the measles. Mumps too.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know why I bother trying to tell you anything at all.”
My mother stood up. “Sit,” she said. “I need to go clean up in the kitchen. Michael, always lovely to see you.”
That kitchen was spotless, which I knew because I had cleaned it before I bathed the kids.
“So she’s okay?” he asked once she left.
“She will be in a few days. Roseola.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“You had it as a kid most likely,” I said. “Everyone gets it once. The pediatrician said it wasn’t serious when Robbie had it.”
“Good,” Michael said. Then he smiled—not his political smile. A big, goofy grin that made him look like a kid. “You should have been there—sorry, I know you couldn’t. But, Bev, it was ...” He shook his head. “Helen thinks there were two thousand people there at least.”
“Two thousand?”
“Not counting the kids. She was right about everything. You were right about everything.”
I should have been happy. And I was. But I was still upset I had missed the victory.
“Even Stuart said so.”
I chuckled finally. “He did not.”
“Well, maybe not in those words.” He smiled again.
“Tell me what happened,” I said, sitting where my mother had been.
He gave the long version, leaving out no details. We saw the way Helen appeared to be a celebrity in Baltimore when she took us around to see her part of town, but Michael had underestimated the drawing power she had. The event was slated to last an hour, and he said he stayed for four, talking to people who waited in a line to meet him.
“Bev,” he said, reaching across the gap between us to take my hand. “I think we can win this thing.”
I looked down at his hand on mine and remembered Larry’s threat. I didn’t know if it was the expression on my face or if he realized he had crossed a line, but he drew his hand back quickly.
“It’s late,” he said. “I should let you go. I just—I’m sorry. I was excited.”
“I appreciate it,” I said earnestly. “I do.” He stood and I followed. “I’ll walk you to the door.”
“Don’t worry if you need to stay with Debbie tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll handle Stuart.”
“I don’t give a hoot what Stuart says about it.”
“Still,” Michael said, lingering at the door. “If he says anything rude, I’ll give him that kick.”
We stood there smiling at each other until I heard my mother’s footsteps in the kitchen. “Right. Well, I’ll likely be there tomorrow. Now that we know it’s nothing major.”
“Whatever you need to do.”
“Thank you.”
He looked like he wanted to say something else, but the moment passed, and he put his hand on the doorknob. “Good night, Bev.”
“Good night.”
He looked at me one last time and then left. I leaned against the door once it was closed and exhaled.
“He’s gone, then?” my mother asked.
“Why are you saying it like that’s a question?”
She grinned at me mischievously. “I could have slept with Debbie.”
“MAMA!”
“What? Like I said, you’re a grown woman.”
I pushed past her. “I’m not having this conversation. Good night, Mama.”
“Where did I go wrong with you?” she asked with a sigh. “Good night.”