The Original 1982 by Lori Carson Page B

successful. I don’t spend much time reading the directions, because you’re getting fussy and need to eat and have a nap before I leave you with Maria. My hair looks sort of blond in the darkish light of my living room, but in the bathroom, I can clearly see it’s green, and not a good green. I’m not sure what I’ve done wrong, but it’s too late to do anything about it now. I put on my makeup with one hand, holding on to you with the other. You keep reaching for my mascara wand and then my lipstick. Minnow, you really make me laugh.
    At about seven-thirty, I grab your diaper bag and your rabbit, your bottle, and a jar of carrots, and rush up the stairs to leave you with Maria.
    I hand her the bag and the bottle and the rabbit. But I’m slow to let you go. “She ate twenty minutes ago, and I just changed her diaper.”
    â€œDame la niña,” she says to me, her fingers wagging, and then to you, “Come here, mi gordita .”
    There’s a part of me that regrets handing you over every time. Maria sees it in my face. “Go have fun, Lisa. We’ll be just fine. Wave bye-bye to your mama.” She takes your little hand and waves it around. You look up into her face. “Good night, Mommy,” she says, and takes you inside.
    I make my way carefully down the three flights of stairs, in my high heels, to the street. I’m wearing a shabby coat over the velvet dress, but a man goes by and gives me a long whistle, and I almost forget my hair is green.
    On the corner I hail a taxi. “Sixtieth and Second,” I tell the driver. He’s got cool jazz playing on the radio. I look out the window as we fly across town. New York City has the best people watching in the world. You see couples in love, men in hats, women hurrying with shopping bags, all the different coats, boots, hairstyles, people of every color, age, and shape.
    It’s almost spring again. Only a year ago, I walked the streets of the Upper West Side, excited and nervous, wondering what you’d be like. I can almost see myself walk by. I was another person a year ago. I think of your father and feel deeply sad. I still miss him. It never becomes less. When I catch my reflection in the glass, I note again that I’ve become someone whose resting face falls into a mournful expression.
    As if the cabdriver can read my thoughts, he says, “Smile! It can’t be that bad.”
    This is one you hear a lot as a young woman, Minnow. Why do men think we enjoy being commanded to smile? I meet his eyes in the rearview mirror, but don’t give him what he wants.
    As we pull up to the theater, I see Jules standing on the red carpet in a long black dress. She’s lifting her chin and posing for the cameras. She’s as lovely as Grace Kelly. Walking past her, I feel a combination of two things: unbearable pride and uncomfortable envy. She sneaks a look at me over her shoulder and gives me her real smile, the one that says, Can you believe this craziness? I give her one back. The photographers jump to see who I am. I hope I don’t have lipstick on my teeth.
    But they lose interest quickly. “She isn’t anybody,” I hear one say.
    The movie is a complicated thriller involving the Israeli secret police, Russian spies, and the CIA. The plot is so confusing, I lose track of who is who. Jules plays two characters. She is a freedom fighter and a woman in a young lieutenant’s dream. As a soldier, her hair is shorn, her brow furrowed. She appears suddenly in a doorway. Then she’s running down the hall. As the dream girl, she wears a sheer white gown. Her platinum-blond wig falls over her face. When she tilts her head, the long wig parts like a curtain to reveal red painted lips.
    After the screening, I pile into a car with Jules and her publicist to go to the after-party at a nearby hotel. She is whisked away as soon as we arrive. I stand in line to get something to eat at