That night I sent Edgar a drunken, rambling, self-pitying email about the injustice of it all. Why did everyone insist on bowing down to Frances? Couldn’t they see what a mediocre writer she was—not to mention a pathetic excuse for a mother? In reply, he invited me to lunch.
He ordered a bottle of Bordeaux and a tray of oysters and told me the whole story. Apparently, the public’s response to Kitten was a cultural phenomenon. Absolutely unprecedented. Rarely had regular folks loved a book so much that its critical reception turned into white noise.
“It was her timing that . . .” He exploded his hands like fireworks. “The country was deep in a recession, and unemployment was through the roof. People were antsy. Angry.” He sat back. “The Bad Seed came out in 1954, lighting the creepy-kid-genre fuse.” He ticked off on his fingers. “Then Rosemary’s Baby in ’67, The Exorcist in ’71, and Carrie in ’74 whet readers’ appetites for more, but for one with something meaningful to say. Concerning, say, the new wave of child-rearing and marginalized groups like the Native Americans. Not that we used those words back then.”
I rolled my eyes. Hard to imagine my mother as anyone’s ally.
“It wasn’t Pulitzer Prize quality—we all agree; she just accidentally gave the people what they didn’t know they wanted.”
When a book or movie or song hits it big, he went on to say, one of two things happens: either the object of adulation sees the praise for what it is and keeps their feet on the ground, or they believe their press and demand ass-kissing in perpetuity. The latter was clearly the path my mother had chosen. Edgar didn’t blame Frances entirely. He said no sane person could have kept both feet on the ground, not with that level of fame.
He didn’t have to tell me the rest. I’d lived it. Frances dated billionaires, actors, and politicians. Wed four of them—conceiving me with #2, who died six months after the wedding in a motorcycle accident—and divorced the rest shortly after the unions. Then the Internet came, intensifying the Kitten craziness one-hundredfold. A whole new generation of the Kitty Cult took over and spun things into overdrive.
There were reams of books in Kitten’s wake, one every six months—mostly horror, speculative, or science fiction. A highly rated anthology series for TV, Frances Ashley Presents, which pretty much managed to rip off both Hitchcock’s show and The Twilight Zone. A reboot of the original film, this one featuring an ensemble of hot young actors and a darker, edgier script.
“There’s one thing I’ve never understood.” I took a long, slow slurp of Bordeaux, trying not to appear like this was the central question, the main reason I was sitting there with Edgar. “Why did Frances decide to have a child? She never told you she wanted one, did she?”
He just looked at me.
“She was single, wildly successful, and didn’t have any responsibility beyond her career. I mean, I know I was a surprise, but there are ways to deal with those.”
He beckoned the waiter.
“Sir?” The waiter clasped his hands. Bowed.
“Another bottle of the same, please.”
The waiter swirled away.
Edgar was quiet for a minute, then refolded his napkin. “Your father wasn’t right for her, Pip. And she knew it, even before he died, God rest his soul. You were a different story. And after you came, she couldn’t imagine her life without you. You changed everything.” He tilted his head and smiled. “Darling, precious, magnificent you.”
Ah, yes. Magnificent, precious me.
Behind closed doors, Frances may not have taken to motherhood, but in public, she was Supermom. She loved to talk about me in interviews. When I was a little bit older, she took me as her escort to events and movie premieres, showed me off at celebrity-studded parties and book conventions. By thirteen, I’d become nearly as famous as her. Had learned how to deflect intrusive questions, duck fans, and pose on the red carpet like a pro.
In private, I was a mess. A moody, twitchy, difficult kid. I had trouble talking to strangers and using public bathrooms. I suffered from chronic night terrors, wet the bed, and flinched when fans mobbed my mother.
At our lunch, Edgar tried to explain her contradictions. “I know she doesn’t show it in the conventional way, Pip, but Frances does love you. Very much. Look past your anger, if you can. Let her prove herself to you.”
I sighed. This was just Edgar doing his job—mediating, working the deal, utilizing all the skills in his agent wheelhouse. It was in his best interests, after all, keeping my mother and me on speaking terms. For his livelihood, he needed the Frances Ashley machine to run smoothly. I could pretend for him. And I did for a while.
But now . . .
Now that he was sick, everything was different.
He couldn’t keep Frances and me together from a hospital bed. If this illness was as serious as it seemed to be, if he left me, I didn’t know how long the tenuous bond between us would hold.
I looked up, exhausted from my thoughts, and caught the reflection of my face in the hospital lobby’s glass doors. It was raw and red from crying.
So this was what it was like to lose someone you loved. It felt like someone tearing your heart free of its veins and arteries with their bare hands. It was agony, but, in a strange way, the sadness felt cleaner and truer than anything I’d felt before.
I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, snagged a tissue from my purse, and blew my nose. Time to get out of this place.
KITTEN
—FROM CHAPTER 3
After Fay had gotten settled in her room upstairs, she joined Delia Murphy in the library. The girl’s mother launched immediately into her instructions.
“Kitten is to be allowed to play any game that amuses her, with no restriction whatsoever. Mr. Murphy and I believe children should be encouraged to pretend.” She was straightening the desk as she spoke, moving piles of paper from one spot to another. Fay noticed one pile was moved to the same place three times. “Giving free rein to imagination stimulates the intellect. Kitten is allowed to pretend she is a wild pony, a pirate, or a fairy princess, and we do not interfere.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Fay said meekly. This was certainly not the way she’d been raised, but it sounded healthy to her. Adventurous and free.
Ashley, Frances. Kitten. New York: Drake, Richards and Weems, 1976. Print.
Chapter Six
Frances’s apartment smelled of the housekeeper’s organic lemon cleaner. I didn’t know what there was to clean in this mausoleum, but she still showed up every morning from ten to noon, regardless. Asa must’ve told her I was here. She had stocked the fridge with two neatly arranged rows of sparkling water and diet soda, bagels from Inman’s, and a stack of boxed meals from Moto, a nearby sushi restaurant.