II.

They were late, but then again, that was expected; Johnnie’s knack for severe delay was such that it was almost on par to some sort of secret superpower (his not-so-secret superpower being his pout, his widened eyes, and all other paraphernalia associated with ingratiating cuteness). Shifting her bag onto her other shoulder, Sierra continued to float from one side of the arrivals lounge to the other, waiting patiently for the inevitable collision with the human cannonball.

Life would, of course, be far easier if Sierra was allowed to simply step into one of the cabs that prowled the JFK terminal, but Johnnie, like his mother, was a ‘traditionalist’; that is to say, he would sit for hours at his low plastic table and slave over a new A4 banner that usually said something like, MOMMY OVER HERE (Janelle was in charge of the spelling), and once the bubble writing was coloured to his satisfaction, Johnnie would proceed to decorate the remaining white space with geometric shapes that could, with the aid of bad lighting and hallucinogenic drugs, pass as hearts and flowers and miscellaneous animals. And as he was always so disappointed that he never had a chance to use the banners properly, Sierra always felt that the least she could do was allow him to meet her at the terminal.

Ah, she thought, smiling thinly; here they are, then. She had just spotted, three inches away from the left ear of a balding businessman, a flimsy rectangle that said: MOMMY, I AM OVeR HERE!! (The almost invisible e, squashed as it was between the V and R, had very clearly been a last-minute addition.)

Excusing herself as she edged her way through the crowd, Sierra walked quickly towards the three-strong welcome party, bracing herself as Sean lifted Johnnie (still waving his banner) carefully off of his shoulders and placed him onto the ground. Six feet from the linoleum, his little feet were already beginning to run, causing him to stumble for a few steps before finally falling into a toddle-sprint.

“Mommy!” he squealed, and Sierra stooped down in anticipation of his leaping into her arms.

“Oof!” she wheezed, nearly falling backwards from the impact; and then, “Ah! Careful, Bambi; careful careful ow!” Johnnie’s brown hair, though meticulously trimmed, was long enough to cover his eyebrows, but stopped short of actually falling into his eyes. It was, in fact, the perfect length to get caught in Sierra’s earring, thereby causing maximum pain with minimum effort, and they remained crouching for a minute or two longer until Janelle, boyfriend in tow, arrived to snickeringly detangle.

“Aw, Bambi,” she cried, distraught as she looked down at the latest in personalized airport greetings and silently tried to decide whether the yellow animal in the corner was a giraffe or a llama, “Bambi, it’s all squashed.”

“It is? Oh.” And Johnnie stared at his latest masterpiece for a moment longer before hanging his head, saddened. Sierra nodded along in her false grief, and pressed her lips against his hair.

“It is very sad,” she sympathized, handing Janelle her bag and using the handle of her suitcase to hoist herself up. “There goes a genuine Petit Chou.”

“Excuse me?” Janelle queried, still clutching Sierra’s bag as she navigated her way around Johnnie to kiss her friend’s cheek, “A Petty Shoe? What?”

Sierra caught her son’s gaze, and together they giggled the giggle of co-conspirators, and like all truly diabolical co-conspirators the world over do, they giggled the giggle in perfect unison.

Janelle watched the giggle unfurl with dread gnawing at her stomach.

“Oh God,” she said, “What the hell have you two done?”

Sierra’s reaction – the clapping of a maternal hand over each innocent ear – was instantaneous and, as we shall soon learn, hypocritical.

“Janelle!” she hissed, ignoring the way Johnnie wriggled in her arms in search of escape, “I can’t believe you’ll use that language in a non-biblical context! What?” she added at Sean’s prompt snigger, “What?”

Janelle averted her gaze and coughed into her hand, telling herself that she really shouldn’t be deriving so much pleasure from her friend’s imminent embarrassment.

“Well, Johnnie, you see, he… Well um, he… God, there’s really no way of putting this gently, is there? You see, Si, Johnnie… Well, Johnnie… is a regular listener of Mommy’s radio show.”

“TV,” Johnnie corrected whilst above him Sierra’s face turned first blank and uncomprehending before slowly moving across the valley to the realm of dawning horror. “T-V. It’s only rodeo if you can’t see people.”

“Rode—Johnnie, what have we told you about being ingratiatingly cute?” Sean piped up as he and Sierra awkwardly shook hands. Johnnie nuzzled further into Mommy’s shell-shocked arms, his cheek rubbing against the fabric of her shirt. “Rodeo,” he insisted. “You can see people on the rodeo.”

“Johnnie…”

The boy scowled, leaned back as far as Mommy’s insistent death-grip would allow, and in a tone of voice well beyond his four years, one month and twenty-six days of existence, hissed, “You said I mustn’t. You said that I only pretend to confuse words with each other and not understand basic grammar just to get chocolate and attention. You said I take advantage of Mommy’s maternal nature, and I should stop because it’s not very nice, but I won’t stop because she gives me ice cream whenever I get it right, so there.” Then he giggled and nuzzled back into Sierra’s arms with the far more babyish reply of, “I miss my Mom-my.”

“Oh my god, you heard…?”

Watching them, Sean grinned and shook his head. “Fair enough,” he shrugged, wrapping his fingers around Sierra’s somewhat-forgotten suitcase whilst prodding his girlfriend’s waist. “Should we get going?”

“Sure,” replied the redhead before turning back to her transatlantic guest. “Ready, Si?”

But Sierra wasn’t; as a matter of fact, she looked as though she would never be ready again.

“Johnnie…” she whispered weakly, “Bambi, baby, Bambi, baby… Oh, Johnnie… We talk on the phone nearly every single day, and you never said…?”

Johnnie turned his eyes – his big, beautiful brown eyes, his father’s eyes (Sierra’s were blue), eyes that reminded her of a certain Disney fawn from which his pet name was derived – onto his mother, and called upon the second manifestation of his not-so-secret superpower.

In other words, he pouted.

“I sorry,” he said meekly. “Sorry, Mommy; did I do something wrong?”

“Oh Bambi, NO!” Sierra squeaked, taking Janelle’s silent hint and tailing the couple towards the exit, “Not at all, Johnnie, not at all.” Desperate for something positive to rise from the ashes of this horrifying new development, she added in what she hoped was an educational tone, “Pas du tout.”

“Pah – do – too,” Johnnie repeated slowly, and looked up at Mommy with expectant eyes.

“Very good, Johnnie. Very good.”

“You mean tray bon,” Johnnie corrected, smug.

“Close enough,” murmured the Englishwoman distractedly, manoeuvring gracelessly pass an army of trolleys and thanking Sean for taking charge of her luggage once she had caught the couple up.

“Oh, Johnnie!” she whined, and if she wasn’t holding on to her baby, Sierra would have raked her hands through her hair. “Oh God Johnnie, if I’d known that you were listening—”

“Watching,” corrected Johnnie, ever the pedant.

“—watching Mommy, I would’ve never—” Hitherto undetected alarums caused Sierra to pause, considering. “I would have, er… said hello to you.”

Johnnie, whose mouth was widening in anticipation of discovering, once and for all, what kahnt really meant, stopped, momentarily distracted.

“…A special hah-lo?” he asked, because you could never be too sure about this sort of thing.

“A very special hallo.”

“…Just for Johnnie?”

“Just for Johnnie.”

“Oh,” said Johnnie, apparently believing her little white lie. Then he nestled into her arms with a sigh and was silent, content.

“I wuv you, Mommy,” he said sweetly, as Sierra strapped him into the baby chair on the backseat of Sean’s practical Ford and fiddled with her own seatbelt.

“I love you too, Johnnie.”

Johnnie nodded to himself and wriggled slightly in his raised seat, small hands smacking out a staccato rhythm as Sean carefully manoeuvred the box on wheels he considered to be a car. Timing, he knew from experience, was of the essence, but prior knowledge did not stop him from asking, barely 70 seconds later, “Mommy? Did you get me any chocolate?”

·&·

The rest of the evening followed the established pattern of all of Sierra’s visits; the abandonment of luggage, dinner at an average restaurant in which Janelle glowered at Sierra for allowing Johnnie to sip her wine, and then back home for a classic Disney movie (Alice in Wonderland) which Johnnie, stuffed with food and drained with excitement, didn’t finish because he was sleepy. The usual bedtime rituals occurred; Johnnie brushed his teeth all by himself whilst Mommy slipped into something more comfortable and, jet-lag triumphant, the pair fell asleep in one another’s arms.

…Of course, that had been in the evening: 4am found Sierra seated outside on the set of steps leading up to the entrance of Sean and Janelle’s home. For no particular reason, she had woken up at an ungodly hour and, with nothing else to do, had slipped outside for a quiet smoke, wishing to keep as great a distance between her Bambi and her tobacco as possible. Besides, Janelle hated cigarettes.

As she fully intended to return to bed, she was still dressed in her pyjamas, the powder-blue set Johnnie had ‘bought’ for her the Christmas before last. The vest had a picture of a blue baby elephant pouring water over its head, and there was a corresponding image of the same elephant holding a red balloon in its trunk appliquéd to the back pocket. (She vaguely wondered what the manufacturer intended the customer to store in it, but the answer her mind provided her with led to activities she’d prefer not to associate with her son.)

The night air was slightly cooler than the day, but as a New York summer was always teetering on the brink of unbearable, Sierra welcomed it. That being said, she had brought with her one of Janelle’s jackets, not to wear, of course – she was unlikely to contract frostbite on a summer night – but in order to protect her pale blue shorts from whatever dust and dirt there may be. She had also stolen Sean’s keys – he was always leaving them around, and besides, she didn’t want to lock herself out. Her fingers curved around the key ring as she thought of him, palming them tightly in subconscious reassurance.

As of this moment, Sierra Verne was completely alone – completely alone, and utterly lonely.

She was also crying, but this she did silently, almost distantly, as though her tears were beneath her notice.

Her cell, she was pleased to see when she had first slipped out of the bed, was fully charged; she had slipped it into the aforementioned back pocket as she padded softly towards the door, and though she had pulled it out before sitting down, it had only just occurred to her to turn it on.

She did so, and was surprised to hear two consecutive beeps that indicated she had two unread texts; the only Americans she had informed of her visit had been Sean and Janelle, and they didn’t have this number, so how anyone el – oh right! Her blog. Sierra chuckled, shaking her head, two carefree gestures which contrasted with her continuous tears. Even though the mini mystery was solved, she still hesitated, her finger hovering on the button. She sighed, blinked rapidly, and re-read the back-lit text: You have 2 unread messages. Read now? Her eyes drifted down to the two options available: Yes; No.

Very, very slowly, Sierra chose No. The message disappeared with a prompt beep, revealing the blue jewel butterfly Sierra used as a background.

It was only right and natural for a demi-expat with a well-rounded social life to have two phones, but people always raised their eyebrows when Sierra confessed she had four, which was why she told no-one of her technological quartet. Now that she was a little more awake, Sierra realized that her personal cell was still attached to the wall; it was her, um… professional phone she had brought with her on her early-morning excursion. And god knows, but she didn’t want to be bothered with work at this time of the morning.

…Actually, she’d rather not be bothered with work ever again. The only reason she’d kept the number – the only reason she’d kept the phone, as a matter of fact – was because she’d paid for it with her then-boyfriend’s well-earned money.

Or so she told herself.

Sierra laughed through her tears, and hurriedly turned the phone off. Temptation may call, but she, Sierra Verne, would not answer.

The woman closed her eyes and inhaled one more time before plucking the cigarette from her lips and dropping it carefully onto the steps below her. She watched as the butt continued to glow, a bright, lazy orange, before slowly fading away, a pile of dust-coloured ash on the slate step. Then she rose, patted down her shorts, dusted off Janelle’s jacket and quietly slipped back inside. It was only when her fingers had wrapped around the doorknob leading into the guest room that Sierra stopped, pulled up the material of her vest, and sniffed.

The unmistakeable scent of tobacco wafted up to greet her.

Panicking, she grabbed a fistful of her hair, brought it to her nose, and inhaled.

Oh god… she cursed, and slammed her palm against the door in frustration. Then she swore aloud, realizing that on the opposite side rested her Bambi, dead to the world; her knuckles wedged themselves between her teeth, muffling any profanities that sought to escape whilst her cheeks flushed red with embarrassment.

When she had herself under sufficient control, Sierra very carefully opened the door, pulled back the curtain and, with the aid of a streetlamp, sifted through her unpacked things in search of towels and spare nightwear. She found a shapeless nightdress, but it appeared that she’d left her towels at home. Well, never mind, she thought with a shrug; she haphazardly shoved the rest of her garments back into the case, gently closed the lid, tiptoed across the room to pull back the curtain, and left the door slightly ajar as she crept towards the bathroom.

Only when the warm water was soaking her hair and running down her cheeks did she allow a sound to escape: a low, somewhat suppressed giggle – she was remembering the circumstances which had led to her suspension in the first place. At the time, she had been first shocked, then angry; she had felt that the final sentence was harsh and unfair; she had felt tricked and trapped; she had worried about her overdrafts. But now she was back in New York, now she was 3,470 miles away from her monthly bills, she couldn’t help but see the funny side.

Because Sierra had been (officially) unemployed when she had moved back to London and couldn’t afford the city’s exorbitant rents, Julian Christie had kindly allowed Sierra to move in with him, only for a little while, until she got back on her feet, on account of their being old friends. But with the aid of red wine, late-night conversations and laughably mediocre housework, their old friendship was rekindled and though the relationship remained strictly platonic, the pair fast became inseparable, which quite frankly ruined their respective love lives as everyone assumed that they were a couple.

Which was why, on the day that Julian left for work to interview whoever it was that Radio 4 could afford to interview that week, Sierra had tailed him right into the radio station, partly because she was extremely attached to him, partly because she’d have to trot down to the studio an hour later and offer her humble opinion on the latest releases anyway.

She should have spent those extra sixty minutes at home; she really, really should have waited, because it just so happened that the interviewee of the week was an ex of hers, and this ex just so happened to be an ex with whom she had parted on bad terms, and if she remembered correctly, those bad terms had included her slamming the door on him right in the middle of their final argument, and she did remember correctly because the break-up in question had occurred only six days before she had followed Julian into the studio that fateful Friday afternoon.

It was actually quite funny, if you stopped and thought about it.

Nevertheless, she had put aside her own personal resentment to offer him some coffee, comment on the weather, and ask him what he was doing there in the first place, slyly asking if he’d hoped to ‘accidentally’ run into her. Rupert’s glare was so withering that she nearly turned to stone before replying that actually, he was here to discuss his literary debut, Slate – a novella, with seven semi-relevant short stories for padding – on Julian’s book panel, and she should have known that because she had made the arrangements, remember? At her blank look, he reminded her that Slate had been published only last month, remember? For god’s sake, he’d dedicated the entire volume to her, remember?

“I’m sorry, Rupert,” she’d shrugged, “but the only thing I can remember is that awful row we had. But oddly enough – oh, you’d laugh at this – I can’t actually remember what that had been about either…”

Rupert spilt his coffee, his hand was shaking so violently; but when he spoke, it had been in a calm, detached sort of voice: “It was because I had ‘accused’ you of being unfaithful—”

“For god’s sake! Rupert, Julian and I are just fri—”

“—as well as distant, unsupportive, self-involved, unwilling to invest in our relationship…” He tailed off, looking at her pointedly. Offended, she raised her chin defiantly and tried to look as disdainful and overbearing as her five and a half feet to his 6’ 1” would allow.

“Oh? You did, did you?”

“Yes!” and it seemed to her that he both grounded and barked out that single simple syllable. “But – and you wouldn’t believe this, Si – you just brushed it off.”

“I did?”

“Oh yes; you laughed and said that I was just being whiny and needy and paranoid—do you remember that, Sierra?”

He’d spat out the last five words whilst simultaneously shoving the half-drunk coffee into her hands, staining a very expensive Karen Millen blouse she couldn’t afford but had bought anyway, and stormed off to ask the receptionist something both irrelevant and unimportant. He was already settling into the studio, chattering with two more established authors when she had returned from her unscheduled journey to the bathroom; the tension crackled between them as she chose a seat around the circular table that had seemed so gratuitously big when it was just her and Julian but now seemed too small.

Well, fine; let it be like that. Two could, after all, play that game.

So she tossed her hair, giggled like a teenager, and promptly snuggled up to Arthur Hopkins, whom Julian introduced as the creator of a commercially successful and critically well-received book series, something about government conspiracies and the aristocracy that was being filmed somewhere in Scotland. It sounded to Sierra absolutely dire, like some sort of less ambitious Da Vinci Code, and she had never made what she’d thought of that over-hyped bilge a secret, but nevertheless she pretended to be interested, and made sure that Rupert saw how her body was always angled towards forty-something Arthur, how her eyes remained fixed on his face, how she was always whispering into his ear…

The first half-hour plodded along with no sign of retribution in sight, and Sierra found that the initial shock of seeing him at her work slowly ebbing away; after all, even if Rupert had chosen to publicly air their dirty laundry (and he wouldn’t, for the sake of his own privacy, if not hers), then the most that would happen was that he’ll publicly humiliate himself, and nobody would blame her for walking out on him as rudely as she had. Honestly, what had she been so worried about?

But after the first twenty-five minutes of Julian bantering with Arthur and Sierra making the occasional contribution that proved why she critiqued films rather than books, the topic turned, as it inevitably would, to Slate. Julian, with a nervous smile, introduced Rupert to the listening public and read out the brief synopsis on the jacket before turning back to Sierra’s ex and opening the interview with the obligatory positive comment. Considering how she had been silently taunting him for the first half of the programme, Sierra thought that Rupert responded to Julian’s half-scripted queries with admirable composure, talking briefly about his background, his influences, why he wanted to write and what he wanted to say.

Then Julian had asked him about the actual book:

“Actually, I didn’t have to use my imagination quite as much as you’d think, given the subject; much of the plot is a fill-in-the-blanks, what-if scenario, but very little of the characterisation was fictitious – Slate was inspired by a real-life story, a real-life person.” He paused then, his eyes meeting hers briefly. Then he smirked, and outlined the novella in as sketchy a way as it was possible to do without the listeners losing interest, and Sierra had to bite the inside of her cheek and resist the urge to squirm as he talked of his heroine’s emotional trauma, a central point; at the very start of the book, she had given birth to her rapist’s son, and had suppressed.

“You know something, Rupert?” Sierra asked, pretending as she did that she had never met him before that afternoon, “Cynics might accuse you of writing about, um, writing on, er, controversial subject matters in the hopes of, ah… of achieving…” But as god was her witness, Sierra had lost the ability to speak; her mind was still reeling from the discovery that not only had Rupert written about her, he had actually written about her as she was undergoing a… well, a particularly traumatic experience. So instead of politely accusing him of writing about rape and abduction with the hope of making the bestseller lists, she instead asked if the woman who had inspired him knew of this; had he asked her for permission?

“As a matter of fact, I did.”

“No you didn’t!”

“I did, actually, but the thing about you—the thing about this woman, let’s call her Rachel—”

“What, after your character?”

“Well, why not? After all, I did dedicate it to ‘the real-life Rachel’ rather than use her actual name. I don’t think she’d appreciate being named; she’s not exactly the sort who thrives on media attention.”

“How chivalrous of you.”

Rupert smiled, and began to speak at length about the real-life Rachel, admitting freely that he had idealized her in the book, because the real Rachel was apparently a lying whore who was always borrowing Rupert’s money and sleeping with Rupert’s friends. He spoke of how she took advantage of the misfortune that had befallen her four, five years ago to wheedle everybody around her into doing whatever she wanted, the regularity with which she’d stuck needles into her arms, and how in the end it was very hard to feel sorry for her, despite everything she had been through, because at the end of the day she was just a selfish, heartless bitch. (Here Julian interjected, saying that it was time for the book panel to end and the film programme to begin, but he was ignored.) Rachel was vain, Rachel was shallow, Rachel didn’t care about anyone but herself. Rachel was also unbalanced, apparently; she’d much rather get angry for no reason than allow her true feelings to show. And as for her mothering skills—

“Shut up! I was supposed to start my slot ten minutes ago, but my god, the amount of self-indulgent whining that’s coming across – and you’re exploiting her too! I don’t know what the rest of you gents think, but if I was Rachel (which I’m not), I’d count myself lucky to have escaped; after all, who would want to spend any amount of time with a snobbish, hypocritical, self-serving—” –And it was here that a little voice in Sierra’s mind had piped up, You know, bastard’s too good a word for the likes of him.

Et voilà; one admittedly inappropriate swearword, which had the desired effect of dispersing the book panel and beginning the mercifully guest-free film programme, and the not so desirable effect of Sierra’s suspension. She closed her eyes, shook her head, and sighed. Her hand reached out to turn off the tap and she stepped carefully out of the bath, grabbing a towel as she did so.

But on the bright side, she thought, leaning back over the bath and wringing her hair of excess moisture, on the other hand, this did mean that she had two more weeks to fawn over her Johnnie, for which she was of course very, very grateful. True, her financial payment plans were ruined for the foreseeable future; she’d have to tell all her friends that for her birthday, she wanted nothing more than cash. Or, failing that, very expensive clothes and footwear, preferably with the receipt; you know, just in case…

Sierra straightened, rubbing the towel over her hair and face and meticulously working downwards. Because of the early hour, she chose to let her hair dry naturally, or rather, let her hair become as dry as it can be whilst mummified in a towel.

Johnnie was still sleeping peacefully when she had snuck back into the guest room; in her thirty-five minute absence, the boy had rotated ninety degrees and was now stretched horizontally across the double bed, his arms and legs bent at such angles that it soon proved impossible for Sierra to lie down at all.

“For god’s sake,” she muttered, carefully rounding up and mass-redistributing Shrek, Nemo, Thumper, Kevin (a T-Rex with soft cloth teeth), Sophie and Danny (a mother and son kangaroo combination), and finally, Alex (giant parrot). Cuddles, wrapped tightly in Johnnie’s arms, she left well alone.

“Budge up, Bambi,” she whispered cheerfully, slowly peeling back the covers and gently lifting the comfortingly-heavy body of her son. He was precious; he was priceless; to feel him stir and turn towards her was worth all the media invasion and emotional trauma in the world. Tenderly, she lowered his dark head onto the pillow in a manner that could almost be described as reverent, watching his chest rise and fall. Then she slipped in beside him, her arms encircled him, her lips pressed against his smooth, flawless forehead.

Judging by the light filtering through the curtains, dawn was beginning to break; and if she knew her Bambi as well as she thought she did…

It didn’t happen at once; it didn’t even happen in the first five minutes, or ten, twenty, but eventually, Johnnie started to twitch; first his fingers, then his toes, then his nose and eyelids. Sierra bit her lip to suppress a giggle, watching him wake in silence.

Johnnie’s brown eyes slowly fluttered open, and then closed again; he yawned and turned in her arms, burrowing deeper into the pillows, chasing after sleep. After a while, he looked up to see her smiling down at him.

“Good morning, Johnnie.”

“You mean bon-jour,” he corrected, stressing the last syllable in that delightfully sanctifying manner of his. Some people, Sierra knew, would find Johnnie’s pronunciation – of English words, as well as those of other languages – to be vaguely irritating, but Sierra had always adored it because it seemed to her that Johnnie found words and language fascinating; every word he spoke, he spoke with a quiet awe, an unspoken deference, and if people mistook it for mispronunciation, then so be it.

“Very good,” she said, stroking his hair. Johnnie tilted his head back and nipped playfully, determined to bite off his mother’s fingers.

“Tray bon,” he corrected, half irritated.

“Très bon,” she agreed, and Johnnie nodded, satisfied.

“Mommy speaks very bad French,” he told her disapprovingly.

“At least Mommy speaks French.”

“Bad French,” the boy insisted.

“Oh, does Johnnie want Mommy to stop teaching him French then?”

“NO!”

“Then shut up and give Mommy a kiss.”

“Why?”

“To show you’re sorry.”

“What I sorry for?” Johnnie pouted petulantly. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No; but will you kiss me anyway?”

Johnnie tilted his head and narrowed his eyes, considering.

“Okay,” he agreed, and reached up for her cheek. Sierra giggled, delighted, and turned her head so that her nose pressed against his, pulling him closer so fast that he squeaked: “Mommy!”

They stayed locked in that position for a minute, maybe two, doing nothing more than basking in each another’s affection. It was always like this, on Sierra’s first morning.

Johnnie was the first to move, wriggling until he was able to look up into her smiling eyes. He opened his mouth but hesitated, unsure.

“Yes, Bambi?”

That seemed to be a good sign, he noted, drawing even closer and whispering his query into her hair.

“What was that?”

“Wh…” (whisper whisper whisper)

“Speak up, Bambi.”

Johnnie closed his eyes and swallowed, suddenly nervous. He reached up for Sierra’s nose and pulled, bringing her face closer. Then he coughed, and swallowed again.

“…Mommy?”

“Yes, Johnnie?”

“…What a kahnt?”

-&-