A Piece Of Normal

by Maddie Dawson

  In the old days, this would have ignited a whole organizational Support Brigade in the colony, with people sorting out who would bring the meals, comfort his wife, and visit him in the hospital. The phone lines would have been burning up. But not anymore. In the deafening silence from the telephone, I look across the bay at the shuttered windows belonging to Anginetta and the Artertons and the Wiznowskis, and I can't believe no one even cares. But there you go. The colony is an altogether different place from the one I'd been imagining.

  I drop by the hospital in the afternoons after work and bring Leon brownies, which are his favorite. He tells me they're talking CT scans, MRIs—all those alphabetical things. He does a little comedy routine, in which he makes his expression very serious and says, "So I had the DUI and the MRC, but then they also wanted the HIW, and so they hooked me up to the TR19..." Okay, so it's not very funny. But how many stroke patients can come up with really good jokes? Finally they let him out, and he says it's because they're sick of him making all the other patients laugh and misbehave.

  "Does he feel bad that no one else from the colony comes to visit?" I ask Krystal one day.

  She shrugs. "He doesn't talk about it, but when the phone rings, I notice he perks right up, and gets himself all ready to have a conversation; and then when it's for me, or it's just a telemarketer, he gets kind of quiet for a while. Just stares out the window."

  That does it. There have to be some changes made around here. When I get home, I call up Virginia Arterton and say to her, "Leon Caswell came and shoveled your walk every single day when Bob was sick in the hospital. And now he's had a stroke, and you've got to help him."

  She sighs. "I don't know what to do for him."

  "Bake a cake. Fry some chicken—no, don't fry chicken. That'd be bad for his arteries. Go play a game of cards with him. Call him on the phone. Come on, Virginia, you know exactly what to do." I hang up before I can hear her make a list of phony excuses.

  ***

  Maggie comes back from her trip to Santa Fe, and we go to Claire's for lunch to catch up. She has a sensational tan and lots of things to tell me, including the news that Problem Husband had sex with her exactly three times that week—a record!—and that each time, she managed to display her decoy birth-control devices in a convincing way. And she got to meet all his co-workers, including his secretary, Ashley, who is just the nicest person—and thank goodness, because if she weren't so sweet, Maggie would really have to be jealous of her. After all, as she and Ashley calculated one day by the pool, Mark spends probably twice his waking hours with Ashley rather than Maggie. But anyway, she goes on, her voice rising and falling in her excitement, she poked about ten additional holes into her diaphragm, egged on by the hotel maid, to whom she told the whole story one day when all the office people (including Ashley) had gone out to play golf.

  "So, we'll see what happens," she says. I can see how much she wants this, even though I think she's crazy. Throughout this entire Ashley story, all my nerve endings have been going ping ping ping, but I don't say anything. Besides, what's done is done. It's now up to fate. "So how are you?" she says, taking a bite of her vegetarian lasagna.

  "I don't know how I am," I tell her. It's kind of a bad day, actually. Casey has taken to lopping off the last paragraph of every letter I answer, as a way of forcing me to make the column snappier, and I've just come from an argument with him about that. I shift around in my seat and halfheartedly try to fill her in on everything: Dana's flight to Teddy's house, my conversation with Gracie, and then, of course, the huge talk with Dana when we sorted things out.

  "But Dana's back with you now," Maggie says. "So what's wrong?"

  I look out the window at the people walking along the sidewalk, none of them Alex. That's probably good. I don't know if I'm ready to face him yet, not in this restless mood I'm in. I'm not even sure I can explain to Maggie what I'm feeling. I don't even know myself.

  "I know she's back, but everything's still the same, like the talk never happened. I mean, here we had that quote unquote huge breakthrough, if you want to call it that, and we both now understand what she went through as a kid and how that explains why she acted out as a teenager, and then why she had to dress all in black chains and go be a tambourine girl. But now that we've had that talk... well, she's just the same Dana, flitting around and acting like she owns my life or something. Flirting with Teddy all the time and making a big deal over how much she just adores Simon, jacking up the music way too loud and keeping me awake nights talking and talking... do you know what I mean? I feel like she's the real person in the house, and I'm just her pale, bland assistant or something."

  "What did you think would change?" Maggie says softly.

  "I thought... I guess I thought that maybe she'd be more responsible." Responsible. Is that the word? I twist my napkin around in my fingers. "But she isn't. She still acts as if life for her is just one big, giddy smorgasbord, all spread out for her to pick whatever she wants next. She's just like she used to be. Go be an event planner in Hawaii? Terrific! Grow vegetables and take care of babies in Vermont? Sign me up! Go back home to Branford and move back and forth between your sister's house and her ex-husband's house? Why not? She doesn't put a stake in anything. She just... takes whatever's out there and... oh, I don't know. It's like she's just always cruising for the next thing and the next."

  Maggie's watching my face. "While you stay in the same old job that insists on devaluing your work, and you work hard to make sure Teddy's love life is all fine and dandy, and that Dana is all adjusted and happy and feeling right," Maggie says. "Not to mention your insistence that the whole colony should just hum along like it used to twenty years ago—and getting mad when it doesn't."

  "Yeah," I say. I laugh a little bit. "Yeah, that's it. Why can't people behave like I want them to?" I rail up at the ceiling, in mock frustration. Then I take a sip of my water and settle back in my chair. Something else occurs to me. "But you know, Mags, when I went and did that demo tape with Alex, I got so excited about actually being able to answer somebody's real question in a real way, and hearing my voice say those things. It's so hard to answer on the spot, though—do you remember when we were kids and we'd play those trust games with the Scallopini? Just let go and fall backward and have faith that someone will catch you? That's what this is like. You just start talking into the microphone and you just have to trust that you're going to say something intelligent, because you don't have time to edit yourself. It was such a rush!"

  She says, "So... what happened? They didn't have a job for you after all?"

  "Well," I say. "Well."

  She's looking at me expectantly.

  I look around to make sure Alex isn't there, and then I lean forward and speak in a low voice. "This is the worst of it, really. I've fallen a little bit in love with Alex, and then I found out he's married, even though he doesn't live with his wife, and—well, he knows how I feel because we almost kissed. Or rather, I almost kissed him the day of the taping, and now I know he just thinks I'm pathetic. He feels sorry for me. And so, obviously, I can't take the job."

  "Oh," she says and sits back. "My, this is serious."

  "Married or not, he's still the person I think about. I've got to figure out how to stop. Dana, of course, would just take up with him and get her heart broken, and then have to move to Paris or something to get over him, and there she'd meet a musician and they'd hook up... and on and on and on..."

  I'm running on like this when I realize Maggie is staring at me, trying not to laugh.

  "What?" I say.

  "I'm just so happy for you. You actually used the word love, you know that? I don't know why you're fighting so hard. It's so clear how this is going to turn out—clear to everybody but you."

  "How's it going to turn out?"

  "Um, how does the song go that we used to sing? Alex and Lily sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G... " I sing along with her: "First comes love, then comes marriage... But oh no, Lily, he's already
M-A-R-R-I-E-D."

  Okay, so it doesn't quite fit the fine. She gets the idea. Only she doesn't care. "I think you need to trust, just like you did when you went on the air," she says, gathering up her purse and getting ready to go. "I'm quite positive that he doesn't see you as pathetic—and so what that you let him know you like him? I'll bet he was delighted. If you ask me, you should take the job and see where things lead." She hesitates a moment and touches my shoulder. "You know, you could be a little more like Dana, and the world wouldn't end."

  AUGUST COMES in with rain and thunderstorms. One stormy day, Alex comes to see me at the paper—for no apparent reason other than that he has some free time—and then he can't leave because it's storming so hard outside that he can't ride his motorcycle back. I am so glad to see him that my hands go all clammy. He sits in my office and tells me that he's talked to his boss and she really is very interested in talking to me about having the advice call-in show on the air, and have I thought more about it?

  "I don't think we should alk-tay about it ere-hay," I say. "Casey may have the place ugged-bay."

  He laughs. "Your answers in the newspaper are getting orter-shay and orter-shay," he says. "I loved the one today, from the guy who asked if there were any circumstances under which he would be allowed to read his girlfriend's mail. And you wrote: 'Her death.' Whoo! I got a chill reading that."

  "Did you? That took me nearly twenty seconds of hard writing time, I want you to know."

  He's smiling steadily at me. "I can't help but notice that you're wearing a hat again. Have you been fooling around in the hair dye again?"

  "Dark roots," I say. "And now it's in bad condition."

  "Let me see."

  "No way."

  "Come on. You know I'm in sympathy. Let me see."

  "Absolutely not."

  "You know," he says, "as your hair consultant, I think it's time I told you that I have a little bit more of an interest in your hair than I've copped to."

  "Uh-oh. Is this another Full Disclosure, Truth in Advertising clause?"

  "Yes, it is, as a matter of fact. My sister is one of the great hairdressers of all time, and her studio is just on George Street—and anytime you want to go see her and have her fix you up, just say the word. I've got her secret phone number."

  "Really."

  "Yes."

  "And you've withheld this information from me this long?"

  "I didn't want to brag about my connections. But now that I'm trying to woo you to my"—he looks around and whispers the words—"radio station, I am ready to pull out all the stops."

  "Let's go," I say, standing up.

  "What, now? It's storming out, and also I have to call her first."

  "Ah, ah, ah! You're not backing out now, are you?"

  "Just how is it that you can leave whenever you want? Don't they care where you go in this so-called journalism organization?"

  "Hey, I've written my six words for tomorrow's three letters," I say. "Let's go. We'll take my car. Leave your bike here, and we'll come back for it. Come on, come on. Get up! Let's go. March."

  I can't believe I'm acting this way with him. I suppose it's the only way to keep myself from falling at his feet.

  ***

  His sister is named Cherie, and she's his twin sister, older than he is by seven minutes, she tells me. She has sandy brown hair like his, and the same blue eyes, but she dresses all funky—today in a patchwork skirt with big chunky coral-colored stones for jewelry—whereas he's sort of preppy looking. I like her immediately, just the way she gets so happy when she sees him. She has this great little salon, decorated with scarves and paintings instead of the usual hairstyle posters, and sure enough, she takes a look at me and says she knows just what I need. My hair needs retouching, and a deep conditioning treatment—and actually, now that she thinks of it, blond may not be the right color for me.

  "Not blond?"

  She squints at me, frames my face with her hands. "It's too harsh for your coloring. I think you need depth. I hate to say it, but you need your natural color back."

  "Boring brown?"

  "I know. You were tired of it. But it's really your true self." She thinks a moment. "I know! We'll add some nice rich auburn highlights to it."

  "Okay," I say at last.

  Alex smiles at me in the mirror and nods. "I told you she'd know what to do with you," he says.

  He's sitting in the chair next to me, spinning in circles the way Simon would be doing if he were here. He stays there with me the whole time Cherie's working on me, teasing me a little when she has my hair all foiled up and sticking straight up in the air. He says I look like a satellite dish. I tell him I look like The Rooster, and then I have to explain that that's what we call Casey when he's not around.

  "Hmm, I wonder what my staff calls me when I'm not there," he muses. "When you come to work at the station, you have to promise to get the insider info and then tell me."

  "If I come to work at the station, hell will have frozen over, and there'll be no such things as nicknames for bosses anymore."

  "Why aren't you going to work with him?" Cherie asks. "He'd be a nice boss, wouldn't he?"

  "Well, I'm really a writer," I tell her. "And I'm just not sure I could do a radio show day in and day out. It seems much riskier to give advice live on the air than to write it down. You know?"

  Alex laughs. "She's brilliant on the air. I think she just fears I'm a lothario who would corrupt her."

  "A lothario? No one says lothario anymore," his sister says. "Anyway, that's not the way you are at all. Don't even flatter yourself."

  He meets my eyes in the mirror and smiles.

  "Now, now, don't you get into this," he says, teasing her. "Lily and I already know we have a little chemistry thing going that could easily lead to disaster. So don't try to push us together. It's hard enough as it is for us to resist each other."

  I can't believe he's told her this, but she just laughs. "You're a smart one," she says to me, and then she sends him out to buy us milk shakes, saying that now that it's no longer raining, it's too hot to work without the prospect of ice cream drinks.

  I'm afraid that once he leaves she's going to tell me she's guessed what a crush I have on him, and that I'll end up pumping her for information about his wife, trying to discern if he's likely ever to get a divorce, as well as get the whole lowdown from the twin sister's point of view, which has got to be oh so valuable. But she's cool. Instead she tells me all about a letter she's been tempted to write to me, asking for advice. She's getting married in three months, and her fiancé wants his nickname, Skip, on the invitations instead of his real name, which is actually Deuteronomy. She laughs and says he's never been called that, but her parents say if his given name is Deuteronomy, then that's what has to appear on the invitations.

  "My father says, 'No daughter of mine is having it formally engraved that she's marrying a guy named Skip Storm,'" she says. "Like that's the important issue here." She shakes her head. "It's been battle after battle with them. First they tried to push me into having a big formal wedding like Alex had, and I said no. Then they wanted me to wear a white chiffon wedding dress, and I'm wearing a plain long deep blue skirt and a sun hat. After that, they wanted a big churchy thing with a priest, and I'm getting married in a field. So now Skip's name is where they're digging in their heels."

  I sit there trying to imagine what kind of people would name a kid Deuteronomy Storm, and trying not to start hooting with laughter, when she leans down and whispers to me, "Just want to tell you this before Alex comes back because he doesn't like to talk about it. But I don't think his marriage is long for this world. I think last rites may be in order."

  "Well," I say, keeping my face very neutral, which means not meeting her eyes in the mirror. "That's too bad. I feel sorry for him, but I'm not the kind of person who would ever root for somebody's marriage to end."

  She looks at me and bursts out laughing. "Like hell you're not, girl! Who do you think y
ou're talking to? I see you sitting here thinking it right now. He's cute, isn't he? My little baby brother."

  "Baby brother? I thought you were his twin."

  "Did I not mention the seven minutes by which I am older?" she says. "And I've made the most of those minutes, believe me."

  "You know," I tell her, "I think the wedding invitation has got to say Skip. If you give in now with the Deuteronomy, you'll hate yourself."

  "See? That's what I'm talking about," she says. "You're smart. I like that. You just have to take better care of your hair. Treat it like it's a patient and you want it to live. I want you to come in for deep-conditioning treatments every week for a while until we get it back on track."

  "Well... " I say.

  "And," she whispers, "I'll keep you up to date on the demise of Alex's marriage."

  Alex sits sideways in his car seat and studies me while I drive him back to the newspaper office to get his bike. The sun is now hot and the air is filled with humidity. I try not to mind being stared at. And besides, to ask him to please stop would only make him too happy. He's just in that kind of mood. I tell him I like his sister a lot.

  "Yeah," he says "She's great. So, Brown. How's your sister?"

  "Also great. She's back at home now. Doing fine."

  "Back at home? Oh, yeah. She moved in with the ex. I remember. Wow! So she's back? But are they a couple?"

  "No," I say. "They say no."

  "Well, I think they're a couple."

  "They're not. He was doing aromatherapy on her."

  He starts laughing so hard I think he might fall out of the car. "She had to have live-in aromatherapy? Man, that must have been a tough case." He looks at me for a long, uncomfortable minute. "How is it that you're such a great advice columnist and yet one of the more gullible people on the planet?"