Wife 22: A Novel

by Melanie Gideon

  Peter’s school takes their green very, very seriously. Plastic is forbidden. Cloth napkins encouraged. During spirit week the Parents’ Association sells bento boxes alongside mugs and sweatshirts.

  Peter shrugs. “I’ll probably get some crap.”

  I do a quick calculation in my head. Drive twelve miles to REI to buy a new mess kit on Spare the Air Day, a day I should be carpooling, or at the very least taking the bus. Arrive at REI to find the only mess kits in stock are made in Japan. Leave defeated, because I will get in trouble (with Zoe) if I buy a mess kit that had to travel over three thousand miles to get to Oakland. Paper plates it is.

  “If anybody asks, tell them the carbon cost of getting a new mess kit far outweighs using five of your mother’s paper plates, bought in 1998, back when greenhouse gases were a result of gardeners eating too much cabbage for lunch.”

  “Black beanie or green?” asks Peter. He holds up the green. “Green. And did you remember to get the wet wipes? I want to have a backup in case the showers are disgusting. I hope they let Briana and me share a tent. We told Mr. Solberg that we were like totally platonic, we’ve been best friends since fourth grade, and why shouldn’t tents be co-ed? He said it’s under consideration.”

  “Under consideration means no, but I’m going to wait until the very last minute to tell you,” I say.

  Peter groans. “What if I get stuck with Eric Haber?”

  Peter won’t shut up about Eric Haber. What a jerk he is. How loudly he chews, what a terrible conversationalist.

  “Then offer him the black beanie,” I say.

  I suspect Peter has a crush on Eric, but is too scared to admit it. I’ve read the LGBT literature, which says my job is to remain open-minded and wait until my child is ready to come out. To push him into this revelation before he’s ready will do nothing but scar him. If only I could come out for him. I’ve imagined it so many times in my head. Peter, I have something to tell you and this may come as a surprise. You’re gay. Possibly bisexual but I’m pretty sure gay. And then we would cry with relief and watch Bonanza reruns, which is something we already do, but it would feel different now that we had shared the burden of his secret. Instead, I try to subtly broadcast my approval for his pending life choice.

  “Eric seems like a cool kid. Maybe you want to invite him over for a playdate.”

  “Will you stop saying things like ‘cool kid’ and ‘playdate’?”

  “Well, what should I call it? When your friends come over?”

  “Coming over.”

  “That’s what we used to call it in the ’seventies! Yes, that was thirty-something years ago and things were different then, but what’s not different is that it’s still hard to be in middle school. Changing bodies. Changing identities. One day you think you’re this person. The next day you’re somebody else. But don’t worry, it’s all normal. All a part of—”

  Peter’s eyes drift up to my head. “What’s up with those orange highlights?”

  I finger a strand of my hair. “That’s what happens when the color fades. Is it really orange?”

  “More like rust.”

  The next morning I drop Peter and Zoe off at school, and on my way to work I notice Peter’s pillow in the backseat. I’m going to be late as it is, but Peter will be so uncomfortable sleeping on the ground without his pillow. I race back to his school and get there just in time. The bus transporting the seventh-graders to Yosemite is still in the parking lot, its engine running.

  I climb onto the bus, the pillow tucked under my arm. There’s a moment before anybody notices I’m standing there when I search frantically through the crowd, thrilled that I have an opportunity to spy on my son in his natural habitat.

  I spot him in the middle of the bus, sitting next to Briana. His arm is around her and her head rests on his shoulder. It’s a startling sight for a few reasons. One, it’s the first time I’ve seen my son in any sort of intimate position, and he looks disturbingly natural and disturbingly mature. And two—because I know he’s faking it. He’s trying to pass as straight, which breaks my heart.

  “Pedro, your mother’s here.”

  Could there be four more humiliating words whispered on a bus?

  “Pedro forgot his beanie baby,” somebody from the back of the bus sings out.

  Yes, yes there could.

  “I’ll give it to Peter,” says Ms. Ward, Peter’s English teacher, sitting a few rows back from where I’m standing.

  I clutch the pillow tightly—mortified.

  “It’s okay. Just give it to me,” she says.

  I hand her the pillow, but remain frozen in place. I can’t stop staring at Briana. I know I shouldn’t feel threatened, but I do. In the past year she’s transformed from a gawky, mouthful-of-braces girl to a very pretty young woman wearing skinny jeans and a camisole. Was William right? Am I that afraid of losing Peter, to the point of feeling competitive with a twelve-year-old?

  “You should go now, Mrs. Buckle,” Ms. Ward says.

  Yes, I should go before Pedro, your mother’s here turns into Pedro, your mother is bawling because she can’t bear to be away from you for twenty-four hours. Peter is slumped down in his seat, arms crossed, staring out the window. I get into my car and bang my head softly against the steering wheel while the bus pulls out, then I put on my Susan Boyle CD (the “Wild Horses” track, which always makes me feel plucky and brave) and dial Nedra.

  “Peter has a beard,” I cry. I don’t have to explain to Nedra that I’m not talking about facial hair.

  “A beard? Well, good for him! It’s practically a rite of passage. If he is gay, that is.”

  Nedra, like William, is still on the fence about Peter’s sexuality.

  “So this is normal?” I ask.

  “It’s certainly not abnormal. He’s young and confused.”

  “And humiliated. I just completely embarrassed him in front of the entire seventh grade. I was going to ask him to help me color my hair and now he hates me, and I’ll be stuck doing it myself.”

  “Why aren’t you going to Lisa?”

  “I’m trying to cut back.”

  “Alice, stop catastrophizing. Things are going to turn around. Does the beard have a name?”

  “Briana.”

  “Lord, I hate that name. It’s so—”

  “American, yes, I know. But she’s a sweet girl. And very pretty,” I add guiltily. “They’ve been friends for years.”

  “Does she know she’s a beard?”

  I think of the two of them nestled together. Her eyes half closed.

  “Doubtful.”

  “Unless she’s a lesbian and he’s her beard, too. Maybe they have some sort of an agreement. Like Tom and Katie.”

  “Yes, like ToKat!” I say. I hate the thought of Briana being duped. It’s almost as sad as Peter faking he’s straight.

  “Nobody calls them ToKat.”

  “KatTo?”

  Silence.

  “Nedra?”

  “I’m getting you another subscription to People, and this time you’d better damn well start reading it.”

  27

  “You are so sweet to let me stay with you until I get settled,” says Caroline Kilborn.

  I stand in the doorway, unable to mask my shock. I expected a younger version of Bunny: a blond, elegantly dressed and coiffed young woman. Instead a bare-faced, freckled redhead beams at me, her hair scraped back impatiently into a ponytail. She’s wearing a black formfitting skirt and a loose tank that shows off her toned arms.

  “You don’t remember me, do you?” she says. “You told me I looked like a doll. Like Raggedy Ann.”

  “I did?”

  “Yes, when I was ten.”

  I shake my head. “I said that? My God, that’s so insensitive. I’m sorry!”

  She shrugs. “It didn’t bother me. It was your debut at the Blue Hill Playhouse. I’m sure you had other things on your mind.”

  “Right,” I say, wincing, trying to shake the unwanted m
emory of that night from my head.

  Caroline smiles and rocks on her heels. “It was a great show. My friends and I loved it.”

  Her friends, her fellow third-graders.

  “Are you a runner?” She points at my dirt-encrusted sneakers, which I’ve thrown into a planter, which contains nothing but dirt because I can’t seem to remember to water anything I plant.

  “Uh, yes,” I say, meaning twenty years ago I was a runner but now I’m really more of a jogger, okay, a walker, okay, a person who strolls to her computer and counts it as her daily 10,000 steps.

  “Me, too,” she says.

  Fifteen minutes later Caroline Kilborn and I are going for a run.

  Five minutes later Caroline Kilborn inquires as to whether I have asthma.

  Five seconds later I tell her that wheezing sound I’m making is due to allergies and the fact that the acacia has just bloomed, and perhaps she should run ahead as I don’t want to prevent her from getting a good workout on her first day in California.

  After Caroline has sprinted out of sight, I step on a pinecone, twist my ankle, and fall, tumbling into a pile of leaves while praying, please don’t let me get run over by a car.

  I needn’t have worried. A car does not run over me. A far worse thing happens—a car stops and a kindly old man asks me if I need a ride home. Actually, I’m not really sure what he asks because I am wearing my earphones and desperately trying to wave him on, in the way that you do after you fall, saying things like I’m fine, I’m fine, when it’s clear you’re not. I accept the ride.

  When I get home I ice my ankle, then head upstairs, but first make a detour into Zoe’s room. I see her latest acquisition from the vintage clothing store, a 1950s crinoline, thrown over the back of a chair, and I remember the pair of striped bell-bottoms I had in high school and wonder why I didn’t have the courage to dress like she does, in one-of-a-kind clothes no other high school girl has, because as far as my daughter is concerned following the trends is as bad a sin as saying “plastic” when they ask you what kind of bag you want at the grocery store. I open her closet door and while I’m rifling through her size-4 shift dresses I wonder what is going on in her life, why she won’t tell me, how she can be so self-possessed at fifteen, it’s unnatural, it’s intimidating—is that my yellow cardigan?

  I have to stand on tiptoes to reach it and when I grab it, a box of Hostess cupcakes, a box of Ding Dongs, and a box of Yodels come tumbling down, as well as three pilled, oniony-smelling cardigan sweaters. One should not buy vintage sweaters: BO never comes out of the wool—I could have told Zoe that had she asked.

  “Whoopsie.” Caroline stands in the doorway.

  “Zoe’s door was open,” I say.

  “Sure,” says Caroline.

  “I was looking for my sweater,” I say, trying to process the fact that Zoe has secreted away boxes of bakery products in her closet.

  “Let me help you put those back.”

  Caroline kneels beside the boxes, her brow furrowed. “Is Zoe a perfectionist? So many girls her age are. Would she have alphabetized them? Cupcakes, Ding Dongs, obviously Yodels go last. Can’t hurt to alphabetize just in case.”

  “She’s got an eating disorder,” I cry. “How could I have missed it!”

  “Whoa,” says Caroline, calmly stacking the boxes. “Hold on. I wouldn’t jump to that conclusion.”

  “My daughter has a hundred cupcakes in her closet.”

  “Uh—that’s a bit of an exaggeration.”

  “How many in a box?”

  “Ten. But all of the boxes are opened. Maybe she’s got a business. Maybe she sells them at school,” says Caroline. “Or maybe she’s just got a sweet tooth.”

  I imagine Zoe cramming Ding Dongs into her mouth at night after we’ve all gone to bed. At least it’s better than cramming Jude’s ding dong into her mouth at night after we’ve all gone to bed. Yes, God help me, this is what I think.

  “You don’t understand. Zoe would never eat junk food.”

  “Not in public, anyway. Maybe you should see if she shows any of the signs of an eating disorder before you say anything,” she suggests.

  There was a time not so long ago when Zoe and I spent every Friday afternoon together. I’d pick her up from school and take her somewhere special: the bead store, Colonial Donuts, to Macy’s to try on lip gloss. My heart would seize with happiness the moment she climbed into the car. It still seizes with happiness, but I have to hide it now. I have learned to ignore her blank stares and rolling eyes. I knock when her door is shut and I try not to eavesdrop when she’s video chatting. My point is, other than this closet transgression, I am usually very good at letting her have a life—but I miss her terribly. Of course I heard the war stories from parents with older children. I just thought, as every parent smugly does, that we would be the exception; I would never lose her.

  “You’re probably right,” I say. “I’ll do some research.” I wince. My ankle is throbbing. It’s black and blue.

  “What did you do to your ankle?” asks Caroline.

  “I fell. After you left. Tripped on a pinecone.”

  “Oh, no! Did you ice it?” asks Caroline.

  I nod.

  “For how long?”

  “Not long enough, apparently.”

  Caroline jumps to her feet and stacks the boxes in Zoe’s closet. Expertly she folds the sweaters—“The Gap, every summer in high school,” she explains—and stacks them in front of the boxes. I hand her my yellow sweater. Caroline takes it wordlessly, puts it on the pile, then shuts the closet door. She holds out her hand.

  “Now. Let’s go get you some more ice.”

  28

  35. And so we had a secret. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we met in front of the Charles Hotel at lunchtime for a run. In the office we pretended that we didn’t work out together every other day. We pretended we didn’t know the shape of each other’s thighs, or the scars on our ankles and knees, or the brand of each other’s running shoes, or who was a pronator and who was not, or that we had matching farmer’s tans, which were soon remedied when May turned into June and we peeled off the layers and our shoulders turned the color of walnuts. I pretended that he didn’t have a girlfriend. I pretended that I didn’t know the mineral smell of his sweat and how exactly he sweated—always the same: a line down his back and vertically across his collarbone. I pretended I didn’t buy new running shorts, and practice running in them in front of the mirror to make sure nothing untoward showed, and that I didn’t rub my legs with baby oil so they gleamed. I pretended I didn’t obsess about how a running partner should smell, or whether or not to wear perfume and in the end settled on baby powder, which would hopefully convey the message naturally smells fresh and clean like a woman, not an infant. He pretended he didn’t notice when my breathing turned to small, almost inaudible moans when we sprinted the last quarter mile, the Charles Hotel in sight, and I pretended I didn’t have fantasies that one day he would take my hand, lead me up to a room, and into his bed.

  36. Having a secret is the most powerful aphrodisiac in the world and, by necessity, exactly what’s missing in a marriage.

  29

  From: researcher101

  Subject: Hope

  Date: May 30, 4:45 PM

  To: Wife 22

  Dear Wife 22,

  I took the liberty of codifying your last email—the emotion data points: longing, sadness, nostalgia, and hope. The last emotion might not seem evident to you, but there’s no doubt in my mind. It’s hope.

  I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but what I find most likeable about you is your unpredictability. Just when I think I’ve gotten a handle on you, you say something that throws me off completely. Sometimes the correspondence between subject and researcher reveals so much more than the answers.

  You are a romantic, Wife 22. I wouldn’t have guessed it.

  Researcher 101

  From:
Wife 22

  Subject: Re: Hope

  Date: May 30, 9:28 PM

  To: researcher101

  Researcher 101,

  Takes one to know one. Are you for real?

  Wife 22

  From: researcher101

  Subject: Re: Hope

  Date: May 30, 9:45 PM

  To: Wife 22

  Wife 22,

  I assure you I am very real. I’ll take your question as a compliment, and go one further and answer your next question so you needn’t ask it—no, I am not a senior citizen. Believe it or not, there are men in your generation who are romantics. Frequently we are disguised as curmudgeons. I look forward to getting your next set of answers.

  Researcher 101

  From: Wife 22

  Subject: Re: Hope

  Date: May 30, 10:01 PM

  To: researcher101

  I took the liberty of codifying your last email. The emotion points as I see them are flattered, chagrined, and the last emotion, which may not seem obvious to you, is also hope. What are you hoping for, Researcher 101?

  Sincerely,

  Wife 22

  From: researcher101

  Subject: Re: Hope

  Date: May 30, 10:38 PM