“No,” Yolanda says, straightening her purse on her lap, drawing herself together in preparation for leaving. “I don’t need a counselor.”
“I think it’s best.” Dr. Konecky picks up the phone and calls for a floater. To Yolanda, she says, “Someone will meet you in 209, just down the hall. And it goes without saying, I hope, that driving is out. With the loss of vision and coordination—”
“Right.”
On her way to reception, Yolanda passes Room 209, head down, expecting to be caught, but she escapes without a hitch. As her copay is being processed, Yolanda gestures vaguely at the line of photos on the wall above reception. Dr. Konecky is frozen in a wan, stretched smile. “That Dr. Konecky doesn’t look so healthy herself.”
The receptionist laughs, then composes himself. “You be safe out there,” he says, handing her the receipt.
Friday afternoon, and Angel is curling her hair in preparation for the Smart Starts! Open House. Connor fusses on a receiving blanket on her bedroom floor. She thinks of it as her bedroom—hers and Connor’s—despite the fact that the bookshelf holds an array of Valerie’s yearbooks and plastic Garfield figurines, about thirty years of Yolanda’s Cooking Light magazines, and a couple of indeterminate glazed clay mounds made by Angel herself, if the initials gouged into the base are to be believed. Angel loves this room more than she ever loved her bedroom at home, perhaps because she hasn’t ruined it with her personality. She especially loves the mirrored bureau and matching nightstand, cream with gold accents and curved legs, which Valerie declared she’d always hated. The sixties-tackiness makes her feel bohemian. She likes to imagine them in the brick loft space of her future, which will be spare and tasteful with maybe a single bright silk scarf dropped lazily on the gleaming wood floor.
Even in these long, exhausting days, when she’s constantly yanked by the needs of the baby’s body and her own, Angel keeps the duvet smooth, her lotions and baby toiletries lined up on the bureau, label out, as if they are still on display in the store. In this tiny enclosed piece of the planet, she is in control of her life.
Connor squawks from the floor, first experimentally, then warms to a sustained wail.
“Simmer down, hijito.” She subjects a piece of hair to a mist of hairspray and then coils it around the hot iron until the scorching chemical whiff reaches her nose.
She’s nervous, because it’ll be her first day back at school in a month, and because tonight’s the night she’s going to ask Brianna to be Connor’s godmother. Brianna likes her. Brianna at least likes her more than she likes rebellious Lizette, or sanctimonious Jen. She’s made Connor as cute as possible for the occasion. He’s wearing a mite-sized turquoise polo and tiny plaid golf pants with a little fabric belt, and socks that actually match for once in his life. Earlier, she sprayed his whole head with water, which made him flinch and sneeze, then combed his hair so the long strands at the front cover the bald spot at the back. “Zero years old, and you’ve already got a comb-over. Not good, baby.” His eyes are slits, as if he’s considering sleep but is still interested in the world’s goings-on. He is irresistible. Brianna won’t be able to stand it.
The other part that makes her nervous is that she’s going to be driving the whole way. It will be the longest drive she’s made, and she can do it, of course she can do it. Angel is pretty sure that driving with her father is not technically legal, since her father isn’t technically a licensed driver, at least not until November, but her grandmother is coming straight from work. Her father argued that in a larger sense he is licensed, that his license is merely suspended, not revoked or canceled. Her father knows how to drive. And he’s been sober since Easter—two months—her grandmother and dad have both been making a big deal about it—so that’s a comfort. Anyway, all Angel needs from him is another set of eyes and maybe a pointer here and there. Angel gets quite a bit of pleasure out of driving her father’s truck, because he’s always been so vain about it. She knows it bugs him, riding impotent in the passenger seat as she presses inexpertly on the gas and they lurch forward.