The Caryatids

"Who belongs at the head of the table?"

"John's dad should sit there. The Governor. But somebody shot him."

" You belong there."

Radmila bit her lip.

"You know that you belong there, Mila. You. So, don't waste any more time. The mourning period is over. We're sick of mourning anyway. You end the mourning for us. You just tweak your soundtrack, you dress to kill in total star-style, you prance to the head of the Family table and you just sit down. You don't ask anybody's permission. You just belong there, and you pass us the mashed potatoes. You can do that. You have to do that. Because I can't do it. Nobody else is willing or able."

Radmila pulled at a sweaty lock of hair. "I'm the head of the Family?"

"No. You're the heart of the Family. I'm the head. The head doesn't matter all that much-because I've been doing all the thinking lately anyway, and nobody ever notices."

Glyn was her best friend. Radmila had to let her down easily. "If that would work, I'd do it. But Toddy's kids won't let me do it. They're older than us, and they've got priority."

"That's the key," said Glyn. "Because you're not an older woman. You're a young woman, so you can give the Family children. The next generation. Futurity. That's what you announce to them tonight."

"I gave them a child already."

"No," said Glyn soberly, "you say you plan a major Family expansion. The patter of dynastic little feet. You want to have lots of children. Seven children. You promise them that. And you mean that when you say it."

" Seven children? Who, me?"

"Toddy had seven children. If you count me. A matriarch needs motherhood. That's why they will let you do this. It's because you're the mom, that's why. That's a pretty weird kind of power, but it's the kind that brooks no dissent."

"You've really thought a lot about this."

"I'm rich, but I'm not stupid."

"I'm way too busy to expand the Family by having seven kids. I have my star obligations. We have other women in the Family. Let them have more kids."

"They're all too busy, too. No woman ever has the spare time to get pregnant. Especially a rich woman. No rich and famous woman wants to lie on a couch burping ice cream while her belly button turns inside out. Bearing kids is demeaning, hard work: it's work for the poor. But do you want to run the Family? Those are your dues. You give them children and a dynastic future, and they will bow the knee to you. I promise you they will. They have to."

Radmila understood why this mad scheme had sprung into her best friend's head. Neither of them had ever been in a conventional family: with a father, with a mother...They were two women who had both come into the world by other means entirely. This coup would finally put them at the center of things.

"You're proposing that I bear six more of John Montalban's children? John would like some say about that."

"John will do whatever you tell John to do. I know that John has been with Vera, and John is with Sonja, too. That's very bad. He's a head case about you and the others. But you're the one who married him."

"You know that what John did to me is unforgivable. The fact that those women exist is appalling to me. I hate them. I hate him for loving them."

"Yes, Radmila, I know all that. That fact is burningly, blazingly obvious to me. I know that better than anybody. I'm exactly like you: so I know all about that. You're the only one in the world who can't stand it."

Radmila's heart was pounding in her ears.

"Listen," said Glyn, her face rigid. "I cried a lot these last few days. I cried a whole lot about my own big drama-trauma, and I have made up my mind. I grew up. My mother's dead and I grew up. I have new grief, so I got over my old grief. I want you to do the same for me. Just grow up. Get over your past. Get over being Radmila Mihajlovic. Get over her, she's as dead as Toddy Montgomery. From now on, you have to be different. Because you're not the little lost clone girl with no real mommy and daddy. You are the star. And you will become a megastar. I promise."

"Why are you saying all that to me? You know that will make me crazy."

"I can say it because you're not crazy, Mila. If you were crazy, I might forgive you for the crazy way you behave. I know that you're sane: but sometimes, you are just too damn stubborn to live. I know all about you, the three sisters, your brother Djordje..." Glyn stopped. She smiled in sweet reminiscence at the thought of handsome Djordje. That was never a pleasant thing to see.

"I know about the three dead girls, and the horrible ways that they died. I know about your mother. My so-called mother was a piece of work...but your so-called mother doesn't even walk this Earth!"