The Elegant Out

by Elizabeth Bartasius

  The warm sun and pregnancy talk made me feel rather good. Maybe we could be fat and happy one day, sitting side by side, snickering and eating chocolate chip cookies like we used to in our college dorm room.

  I touched my belly again, thinking of Gabe and the “should we?” conversations we’d been having. Despite glorious weather, I suddenly got chilled. I didn’t want to tell Maureen that the question of having a baby was on my mind constantly—that I could feel the weight of that question inside me, growing into a very big deal.

  Chapter 10

  Blog

  Two weeks went by and I hadn’t written a thing. Maureen left a message on my voice mail: “When is the next blog post? Your fans need it.” My fan club remained in the single digits, including Maureen, a few other girlfriends, and maybe my parents if they ever got online.

  Robin said in one of our writing coach calls, “You have to share your posts on Facebook. Tell people. It’s just because you don’t advertise yourself.”

  True, I didn’t, because I did not want to write a blog. Not really. Blogs as I understood them were meant to “market” my writing, but I didn’t care about marketing. I just wanted to write. Besides, what nutcase has time to market herself when life is already full with working-mommying-chauffeuring-wifeing-busying? In my thoughts, I could hear those same auto-responder excuses that had been passed down for generations. The never-ending parade of time-money-safety rationalizations marching through the ideology of normal folks on public streets, in the nursery schools, in writing groups, on the internet. While rationale may be their guise, the perpetrator is no less than fear. So great are the artists’ jitters, it’s no wonder Barnes & Noble stocks a slew of books on how to conquer them.

  Yet, I carried on with the assertions of why I couldn’t do the work. Those innocent bystanders I called family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and strangers in the checkout line were the soldiers in the trenches, blasted over-and-over-and-over-and-over again by me defending my limitations. I made such a good case against myself as a writer—the arguments were rarely challenged. Who would bother to dispute the plight of the overworked mother? No matter how many do-gooding souls awarded me an innocent verdict, I would simply craft another story about why I couldn’t-wouldn’t-shouldn’t pursue the gift I’d been given. I don’t know if anyone actually believed my alibis of motherly-wifely-altruistic duties. Perhaps they too needed to hide from their deferred dreams, and so granted me a pass. Or maybe they were busy digging their own holes; they couldn’t be bothered to help plug up mine. Maybe my women friends too felt pulverized by the terrifying “what ifs” and couldn’t see their way out of an all too familiar, gendered-excuse fog. So really, who has time to advertise, or even write, when one is scared to death that they might actually have to test hopes and dreams? To test whether or not she is valuable for more than making babies?

  At the same time, I sought vindication for the absence of my writing. The guilt of not writing stagnated like a birdbath breeding mosquitoes. I was again strangled, captured in the grip of motherhood and desire. The metaphorical hands around my neck burned into my psyche, and I curled up. I couldn’t put my feelings out into the public space. I couldn’t take the chance Tom would read them. What if he used them against me, like he said he would so many times over the years? What if he actually used my own beautiful words to take Jack away from me?

  I wanted an out, and I clung to anything that would justify my withdrawal. I emailed Robin with my latest attempt.

  “A.J. Jacobs is a terrible blogger. His website was only updated a year ago. He’s only written one blog post a year. And he’s got two best-sellers.” I made my argument, wholeheartedly, mind you, to Robin, as I simultaneously scanned the author’s online presence. Surely this was affirmation that I wouldn’t have to blog to be read, that I could skip the technology, the social media shenanigans and just go straight to the real stuff: writing a novel that could stay hidden in digital folders on my desktop.

  “Who the hell is he?” Robin asked in reply.

  “Editor-at-large for Esquire. Author of Know It All and A Year of Living Biblically. He’s the crème de la crème, right up there with Elizabeth Gilbert.” My heroes, I thought.

  “Ah! That explains it. When you become editor-at-large for Esquire, I won’t make you blog either!”

  Chapter 11

  Two Connors

  The inherited conversations of my family linger, over decades, in a bar of soap. To this day, when I smell Zest at my grandmother’s house, I hear her voice telling us about her visits to India and Spain, and her walk along the Great Wall of China. I recall the chatter exchanged between my mother and aunts while they whisked gravy over a hot stove for Thanksgiving turkey. They complained about their husbands; the men could do no right. They complained about their Welbourne stomachs (named after ancestors of women before them) that grew bigger, sticking out more and more as they got older. For decades Grandmother declared, “I must get rid of this tummy,” pressing on the round lump with her hand as if it were an iron going about the job of flattening. Then she’d reach across to my plate and eat a handful of French fries.

  The same words, the same eating habits, the same routines, the same conversations bubbled up, again and again, like the soap, all blue and zesty, smelling of perfumed chemicals. As an adult, I found comfort in these repetitions, just as I did when I was seven, running around barefoot at Grandmother’s beach house, catching hermit crabs and shooting pool in the basement with cousins.

  Zest has been in the family for decades, at least four, and though I’ve moved to different states and on to Dr. Bronner’s certified fair trade organic oil soaps, I’m glad that Grandmother has not. Because for a week or two each year, when I visit her and shower in the guest bath, I wash myself with memories of the old days when Granddaddy let me drive his riding lawn mower, and Uncle Johnny caught mullet in the Intracoastal with his big net, and Mom would find chalk in the tool room to draw hopscotch squares in the driveway, and all the crazy family would gather for Christmas dinner, or Easter, or Halloween when Grandmother would come to the door wearing a tall, pointy black witch cap and an ugly, green, rubber wart nose. When she cackled, I felt cozy, cherished, and at home.

  Grandmother loved being the witch for her grandchildren.

  She loved dancing.

  She loved to travel to faraway lands.

  She loved to talk about things in books, in the millions of books she read, like the drones who mate with the queen bee and die upon ejaculation.

  And she loved when I called her “Grandmother.”

  “It sounds so distinguished,” she used say.

  What we didn’t say, I learned, was just as powerful. We didn’t talk about the anxiety disorders many of them suffered or how to manage them. We didn’t talk about my grandfather being left by his mother during the Depression, the affair my grandmother believed her husband had, or my aunt’s teenage anorexia.

  Over the years, as my grandmother shrunk a little more, as she turned wobbly on her feet, as she stopped dying her hair, showing that gorgeous head of glistening white, Grandmother became Granny. My mother now calls her this, as do my aunts, my cousins, and my brother. I even call her this. But sometimes, I remember how she enjoyed being Grandmother, and that is what I called her when she answered the phone that sweet November day.

  “Happy Birthday, Grandmother!”

  “Oh, thank you! Did you hear Lizzy-bet? We are going to have two Connors.” I could almost see her puckered lips squirting out the word “two” like a sputtering garden hose.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Jennifer is having a baby. They’re naming it after your dog.” She chuckled. “Do you want to talk to Jennifer?” She set the phone down without waiting for me to answer, and I heard her call my cousin’s name as if she were about to break out in a song.

  Had she walked through life singing her words before I knew her? I could imagine her swaying her hips like I’d seen her do a million times before
, and wondered from whom in her family she’d inherited her spirit. Or did it come with old age? Would I inherit her quirkiness as I entered my later decades? Or was I already quirky? As a writer-at-heart, I felt wacky, fun even. Perhaps my grandmother was also an artist? Though the only thing I’d ever seen her create were grocery lists written on the back of envelopes.

  I must have inherited my desire to write from someone. My mother “hated” writing even a birthday card, yet her sister wrote novel-length letters. My aunt, the black sheep creative writing professor, living a loner life in Montana, cranked out books she wouldn’t let anyone read. I found the words “loner” and “afraid to put my work out there” inside a trunk of my own inherited conversations around writing. Those conversations tangled themselves through many layers of self doubt: I certainly didn’t want to be like my aunt, anxiety-ridden, sending home ribbons her pedigree dogs won in place of turning up at Thanksgiving dinner.

  If that was the writer’s life, I didn’t want it. My aunt had been my earliest writing role model, and I could now see, for years, I had worried my family might think I too was cuckoo should I pursue the tainted life of a writer. Cuckoo like my mother who studied drama, only to give it up for a husband and babies; literary arts were not the “practical” reason to spend a hundred grand on college. Cuckoo like her sister who hid in Montana alongside her molding manuscripts. Besides, as my father pointed out with a chalk chart drawing on my little brother’s blackboard: many strive, only a very few succeed. I couldn’t have them thinking I’d put my energy into an oddball pursuit, with no ribbons to show for it.

  “There are many ways to be a writer, you know? You don’t have to be weird. You could be an acidhead like Jack Kerouac or an alcoholic like Truman Capote or suicidal like Sylvia Plath,” said the familiar inner voice that wove stories in my head. While the voice only spoke to me in my mind, I sensed it was separate from me. A guide, of sorts. A muse. I sensed its playfulness, and imagined if the muse had a physical shape and mobility, it would hang upside down on my shoulder like a monkey.

  “Or,” continued the muse, “you could be prolific like Stephen King.”

  At Robin’s urging, I’d just finished reading King’s book On Writing, in which he suggests committing to write a thousand words a day.

  “Of course, you can do that, no problem!” The muse dismissed my concern before I could even think my zillion excuses. “Plus, the man takes walks in the afternoon and places his desk on the side of the room so his life is the focus. You too, could create a healthy balance. You could have it any way you like it, really.”

  But could I really make that commitment? Could I let go of the inherited conversations that told me “it’s not practical,” and writers end up alone in the woods, poor, and the subject of behind-the-back conversations at family gatherings?

  What exactly do writers do, anyway? It occurred to me that committing myself to writing would mean that every breath and action would have to be that of a writer, starting with the declaration.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake, writers write,” the monkey muse said, and then added, “They read. They research too.”

  Research? I thought. I had never appreciated digging through tomes to find data.

  The muse continued, “Writers write and write and write, then they practice writing. Then they write. They learn about stories and the process of writing. They write some more. They get feedback from respected professionals. They write some more. They write some more. They write some more. They talk to other writers. They attend writers’ conferences. They learn about the publishing industry. They write and write and write. Then they pitch their stories, they write query letters, and they send them to literary agents. They peddle their writing. Sometimes, they read their writing out loud, even to an audience of one. But mostly, they fucking write.”

  I’d almost forgotten I was in the middle of a call when my cousin got on the phone, interrupting my manic interaction with the muse. “We aren’t copying you, I promise. We just really like the name Connor.”

  “Yes, yes, it’s fine,” I said, my head elsewhere, thinking of Stephen King’s advice to write one thousand words a day. “It’s a good name. Congratulations!”

  We chatted a bit about I don’t know what, and by the time she handed the phone back to Granny, I had a vision:

  A young woman, blonde curly hair. She’s been sexually abused. She lives on a lake. Held captive. By her father? Her husband? A teacher? Someone in the small town where she lives?

  The image of the girl in my mind was so powerful that an idea took hold, hanging tight in a violent ocean, still vulnerable to currents, like a seahorse grasping coral.

  The girl’s only spoken 545 words since her fifth birthday; she keeps count. The words are all she has. She must be selective of what she says and to whom because the words can set her off. She withholds so many words, words she loved to say, but fears she can’t. No matter what the school professionals say, no matter how the neighborhood kids peg her, no matter what the townspeople say, she won’t budge, because she knows she will die when the one thousandth word is spoken.

  “Elizabeth-y. You still there? I can’t hear you.”

  “Yes, I’m here.” I felt excited by my idea—one thousand words, then she dies. I was pretty sure it was an original idea; the first, cool, original story idea I’d ever had. (Until Eddie Murphy came out with a movie, but that is another story for another day.)

  Why was I so nervous, then? It was only writing. It was only words. My muse had gone silent, only Granny spoke again.

  “When the baby is born, you’ll have to bring your dog down so the two Connors can meet each other.” She snickered.

  “Yes, we’ll come visit. What about you? How are you, Grandmother?”

  “Oh, I’m fine. I’m not having any babies. I’m just looking at babies.” This mother of five had done her time. Her voice squeaked a little, and she whispered because her hearing aid got too loud for her when she spoke normally.

  “I love you, Grandmother.” I wished I could be with her to celebrate.

  “I love you too, Elizabeth-y.”

  We hung up, and I sat for a moment. Connor, our black, furry rescue mutt, came over to lick my hand. He wanted a walk. From now on, our family would have to qualify the name Connor every time we spoke it. Connor, the dog. Connor, the baby. I sat a little while longer, uncertain what to do next, feeling totally un-pregnant.

  Chapter 12

  Lies

  Iremember the night Tom proposed over buttery garlic bread and Abruzzo penne pasta. I remember saying yes and being happy.

  I remember Tom saying he loved me. I remember one morning he surprised me with champagne and strawberries because I’d said that’s what life ought to be about.

  I remember drywall dust settling on the carpet. His fist still clenched. Jack, two, crying from the scary, loud crunch of the broken wall. I remember shouting, clawing, a mongoose fighting for life.

  I remember believing if I made him feel better about himself, he’d stop hurting me, he’d do what was best for Jack.

  I remember writing a two-page letter to his family and mine, convincing them the divorce wasn’t his fault, convincing them he’d done no wrong. I remember hoping they’d believed me and pleading for us all to work together to love Jack.

  I remember crying and typing and hugging my knees to my chest.

  Chapter 13

  Mixed Doubles

  I did not win the man of my dreams in sixth grade. There were two: identical twins. Michael and Adam. Tennis players, just like me. We three had earned the top lineup on our small private middle-school team. Their mamma was our coach. I always played my matches on the court next to Michael. He’d call me EB for short and gave little words of encouragement between points. My friends said he liked me. So then I, naturally, decided to like him. It would have been a perfect match, a prepubescent André Agassi and Steffi Graf love affair.

  The only complication to this grand romance was that I
mixed up their names. For a year, I gushed about how madly in love I was with Adam. I made little hearts with E + A inside. All the daisies in my realm were picked clean from “He loves me. He loves me not.” My friends and I played the old-school game, MASH, gobs of times to determine whether we would live in a Mansion, an Apartment, a Shack, or a House? Three kids or twenty-one? Would my best friend be Barbara Mandrell or David Hasslehoff? More often than not, after the spiral had been drawn, the number of inside lines counted, and the wrong futures crossed out, the circled answers had revealed a promising fate with a mansion and my chosen stud.

  Adam was slow to act, though. Rather impatient, I decided to take action. I wrote, in the color of roses and romance from my favorite, fine ballpoint pen, a letter on college-ruled notebook paper. It read:

  Dear Adam,

  (I left the body of the note completely blank.)

  At the bottom, I signed it:

  Love, Elizabeth

  Surely any true love of mine would read between the fifty vacant lines. Surely he would know what I was too afraid to say, would know just what I meant in that second to the last word, “love.” Surely, he would know.

  I knew when he received the letter and felt all the emotion and desire I’d poured into the note, he’d come to me and we’d finally “go out.”

  I remember folding the notebook paper over and over again, into a thick, rectangular package, taking my time to let the flutter in my heart linger. A friend delivered the letter for me. Then I waited. And waited. Hopeful. Like an actress about to go on stage.

  The next day, our friend reported that Adam had crumpled the letter and used it to play kickball in the classroom.

  Clearly, he was no André. No use spending another moment on him. I was way too powerful and way too darn pretty for him not to like me. If he couldn’t see me as special, his loss. He could just jump in a lake and drown, all strangled up in the strings of his Prince racquet. That was done. Over. I went back to getting straight A’s and winning tennis matches; the stuff I was good at. The stuff I could count on. The stuff that got people to like me.