The F Word

by Liza Palmer

  The three women nod. They understand. My mom takes the shampoo from me. She squeezes some of it into the palm of her hand and hands the bottle back. I hold on to it. She turns me around, I tilt my head back, and she starts washing my hair.

  “Go ahead and rinse,” Mom says. I step under the water and let the water stream over me. When I open my eyes again I catch the tail end of a shared glance of concern between the three women. Catching me catching them, Mom instructs me to hand her the conditioner. I do. I tilt my head back once again as she works the conditioner into my hair. I rinse. They wait. The locker-room sounds feel so far away. Excited little girls and hair dryers and toilets flushing. Mom twists my hair and gently lays it over my shoulder with a pat. She doesn’t go back over to her shower. Time passes. The showers run.

  Where do I start?

  “Adam has been cheating,” I say. The women wait. “On me.” They all nod. They don’t look at one another. I want them to rage and scream, but they don’t. They just listen. “For years. He’s been doing it for years.” Quiet. “With a lot of women.”

  “Okay,” Mom says.

  “So what happens now?” Mrs. Stanhope asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “What can we do?” Joyce Chen asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say, tears springing to my eyes.

  “Okay.” Mom nods and walks over to her shower to rinse off the soap that is starting to cake on to her skin. The sounds from the locker room wane as the little kids stream out for their swim lessons.

  “It’s my fault,” I say. The three women react in unison.

  “I seriously doubt that,” Mrs. Stanhope says.

  “I don’t think so,” Joyce Chen says.

  “No way,” Mom says.

  “I know … I know you’re supposed to say that, but even you have to admit that…” I pause. They wait. I look down at my imperfect, naked body. “That all of my body stuff is kind of a lot for him to deal with.”

  “Honey, this is not about your…,” Mom hesitates. “Body stuff.”

  Joyce Chen shakes her head.

  “Please,” Mrs. Stanhope says with disdain.

  “If I were more free. Confident. You know, in … the bedroom. Hell, if I were more free everywhere,” I say, unable to look at them.

  “Honey—” Mom starts.

  “I was just never very good at it,” I say, totally embarrassed. I can’t believe I’m saying this stuff. I must be fucking desperate.

  “Did you ever think that maybe he wasn’t very good at it?” Mrs. Stanhope asks. Mom shoots her a look and she throws her hands up, her shower poof throwing suds across the tiled wall.

  “You think he wouldn’t have gone looking elsewhere even if you were ‘good at it’?” Joyce Chen asks.

  “Cheating is never about sex, honey,” Mom says.

  “Then…”

  “Men need to be adored,” Joyce Chen says. Joyce is on her second marriage. She’s much happier now. They met in a pottery class. He was her teacher. It was all very scandalous for a while and Joyce loved every minute of it. Her first marriage did not end well and now I’m thinking I know why. “If they don’t feel like the big man at home, they will find a woman who will oblige them.”

  “It’s the whole secretary thing,” Mom says.

  “But, isn’t it also about trying to find the spark again?” I ask.

  “It’s less about that than you’d think,” Mom says. She shuts off her shower. We follow suit.

  “For some men it’s also the whole madonna/whore thing. You’re his wife, he can’t ask you to do certain things, so he dot dot dot,” Mrs. Stanhope says. We grab our towels and make our way out into the emptying locker room.

  “Dot dot dot?” I ask.

  “I assumed you didn’t want me to get into it?” Mrs. Stanhope says with a wry smile, still stark naked.

  “Quite right. Quite right,” I say.

  “To this day, I don’t know why men think we … aren’t curious, too,” Mrs. Stanhope says.

  “I remember my first husband—it was right outside of my lawyer’s office, just after we signed our divorce papers. I don’t know if that detail is funny or tragic,” Joyce Chen says.

  “Both,” Mom says.

  “Both,” Joyce Chen says, laughing. “He was trying to tell me that he had to turn to these other women because I wouldn’t have been into the stuff he was doing with them. So I asked, like what?” Joyce Chen smiles.

  “Good for you,” Mrs. Stanhope says.

  “So, even after it was all over, he was still trying to make it your fault,” Mom says.

  “Oh, naturally. I was so frigid and cold, Polly. You know that,” Joyce Chen says.

  “It’s such a chore being your friend,” Mom says. And they all laugh.

  I didn’t know any of this. They’ve never talked like this in front of me. Would I have opened up to them earlier if I had known, would I have shared earlier? Or would I have said nothing and felt smug about how my marriage was perfect and not like Joyce Chen’s? Sadly, it would have been the latter.

  “So what was he into?” Mrs. Stanhope asks.

  “It was some role-playing thing. I was expecting … well, something a bit more daring than that. When I told him that it sounded like fun, he … well, first he accused me of lying and once that wore off, he just stood there … looking shocked,” Joyce Chen says.

  Standing in front of our lockers now, we all dry off, put shower caddies away, and start the process of getting dressed. Once again, the ease of it all is stunning. How did I lose this? How did I go from the freedom I felt climbing into the back of that airport shuttle to this? I’ve made my entire life that fucking Groot costume.

  “It’s the shocked thing that made it impossible to initiate sex in the beginning. I remember being so—” Mrs. Stanhope stops. Thinks.

  “Ashamed,” Mom says.

  “Ashamed,” Mrs. Stanhope repeats.

  “I mean, we didn’t know anything about sex before we got married,” Joyce Chen says.

  “I remember my mom knocking on the bathroom door, walking in, and handing me this Kotex pamphlet that said, ‘So, You’ve Become a Young Lady,’ and then just walking out. That was the sum total of my sex education,” Mom says.

  “All I knew is that when my Dad’s boxers were on the floor in the morning, that meant they’d had sex the night before,” Joyce Chen says, laughing. “Whatever that was.”

  “Charlene Lyle. She was this neighbor girl who completely embraced the whole seventies free-love thing. She used to tell me all about her conquests and I just ate it up,” Mrs. Stanhope says.

  “There’s always a Charlene Lyle,” Mom says.

  “I still had my white gloves in the lingerie drawer along with the birth control pills I was hiding,” Mrs. Stanhope says.

  “So ashamed of anything remotely racy and yet this ‘sexual revolution’ thing was raging on, telling us to loosen up,” Joyce Chen says.

  “Back then, none of us knew anything about sex. I mean, I finally figured things out, but that had nothing to do with Clay,” Mrs. Stanhope says with a wink. I look confused.

  “Never go into a woman’s bedside table, darling,” Joyce Chen says. They all laugh. I still don’t understand. This dawns on each of the three women just as I realize what they’re talking about. Too late, of course, to stop what’s about to happen. The moment is like that split second right before you trip—how everything moves in slow motion and it feels like it takes hours to hit the floor. Paralyzed. Helpless.

  “Livvie, honey, have you never used a vibrator?” Mrs. Stanhope asks. Thwack. The words hit me like falling facedown on a marble floor. I can feel my face redden and almost choke on my own spit. This only makes Mrs. Stanhope and Joyce Chen laugh more. Thank god, Mom has the sense to be busy in her locker at this exact moment.

  “What?” I blurt.

  “We’re getting a bit sidetracked. This is clearly a conversation for another time,” Mom says.

  “Or
never,” I say.

  “Like Jane said—maybe it wasn’t you that was bad at it,” Joyce Chen says.

  “How can someone else make you feel good, if you don’t even know and love your own body? You getting naked is a good start, though, hon,” Mrs. Stanhope adds.

  “I don’t know what’s worse, my husband cheating or having to have this conversation about…,” I say, waving my hand around.

  “It’s called masturbation, dear,” Mrs. Stanhope says, pulling her clothes from her locker and starting to get dressed.

  “Oh my god,” I say.

  “I remember my mother talking about a friend of hers being called an ‘Anybody’s Girl’ after she got a divorce,” Mom says.

  “A divorce,” I repeat, dazed. The three women stop.

  “Is that what you want?” Mrs. Stanhope asks.

  “I don’t know. Adam—”

  “It doesn’t sound like Adam has a problem with the marriage,” Joyce Chen says.

  “Sounds like it’s working just fine for him,” Mrs. Stanhope says.

  “Has Adam talked about divorce?” Mom asks.

  “No.” I dry myself off and take my bra out of the locker.

  “It seems like he’s been perfectly comfortable being married to you all these years. Even with the…,” Joyce Chen thankfully trails off. I snap my bra in the back and pull my shirt out of the locker.

  “A lot of marriages are more partnerships than—” Mrs. Stanhope stops. Thinks. “Him cheating doesn’t necessarily mean divorce, unless you want one?”

  “I thought it was a phase. We’d talked about how we were going to start having kids after we’d been married for ten years, so I thought he’d come around. I don’t even know…”

  “Honey, what about what Mrs. Stanhope asked? Unless you want a divorce?” Mom asks.

  “I know that the answer should be yes. Without any hesitation, but…,” I say, stopping.

  “None of us takes divorce lightly, but if you’re…,” Mom trails off. Thinks. “If you’re disappearing, then maybe it’s time you thought about it.”

  “Disappearing,” I repeat.

  “Something to think about,” Mom says.

  I’ve never talked about this out loud before. And it’s painful. What deal did I strike with the Fat Me to keep me silent all these years? What happened to me? “How did I let this happen?”

  “First, you need to stop blaming yourself. Adam made a choice. A series of choices,” Mom says, pulling her shirt over her head.

  “But, so did I,” I say. They all look at me. “I knew. I knew the whole time. And I said nothing. To him. To you. To anyone. Because I didn’t want people to think that my perfect marriage was anything but. I allowed this to happen.” I stop. “And I’m still allowing it.” I sit on the bench with just my bra on. “I did this.”

  I put my hand over my mouth to stifle the sobs that finally explode. Mrs. Stanhope and Joyce Chen look to Mom. Mom sits down next to me and I crumble into her. Between heaves, I mutter “I did this” over and over. Mom smoothes my hair and tells me it’s going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay. But, I’m not sure she’s right this time. This could be the first time I’ve driven my own mother to lie.

  Everything blurs around me as I cry. And all I did was simply acknowledge how I’ve been living for the past ten years. Is it only ten? Is that the big trapdoor at the bottom of this sobbing? That it’s been going on longer than ten years? Or is it just one trapdoor after another? If I’ve built this entire life on secrets and lies and I’ve disappeared into some role like Caroline, what happens when I finally walk off the set? Am I nothing? Have I made a deal with the devil and lost my soul because I only valued outer beauty? Have I gambled and lost? What have I done?

  What have I done?

  “Okay … okay,” Mom says, swaying back and forth with me.

  The tears feel like opening a bottle of seltzer and the bubbles stream to the top and there’s that split second where you think maybe not … and then it explodes everywhere and you don’t know when it’s going to stop and can you get to the sink and how much more can there be? It’s out of control and you can’t figure out where it’s all coming from.

  And I knew it. I knew it was going to be like this. My hope—my last thread of a hope—was that once all of it got out I’d be fine. I’d know what to do next. I’d be fixed. Just like that. See? I was good. I dealt with it. I got naked in the showers. I cried, okay? Now can we get on with it?

  I thought all my problems would be solved first, when I lost the weight and then when I got naked in the shower.

  I’m still making this about appearances. Still making this skin deep. It’s not about the weight. It’s about the shame. Thinking my imperfections make me worthless and unlovable. And cutting carbs can’t lose that.

  I’m afraid it’s like that lamp I have in the living room with the broken spoke in the lampshade. No matter how many times I fix it or have it welded or, as a last resort, duct-tape it, it’s just broken now.

  The only fix is getting a new lamp.

  Am I broken now? Or was I always broken? Was I that lamp with the duct tape and everyone knew it but me?

  The tears subside to a manageable whimper. Mom pulls me into a standing position for the second time today. Joyce Chen hands me my sweats and Mrs. Stanhope helps me step into them. Joyce Chen threads my arms through my sweater as Mom combs my hair. They gather their things and dole out mine between them. Lockers are slammed shut.

  “Let’s get something sweet. How does that sound?” Mom asks.

  “Good,” I say, hating that the mere act of speaking unleashes an entirely new wave of pain. We walk a few steps toward the door of the locker room. “Thank you.” I look at each of the women. “For being kind.”

  Joyce is the first to well up with tears. I imagine this is all hitting a bit too close to home. She pulls me in for a hug and just keeps squeezing. “You’re going to be okay,” Joyce whispers. I nod. Mom is rubbing my back and Mrs. Stanhope is keeping watch. Joyce pulls back and wipes the tears from my face. “Trust me.”

  “Okay,” I say. And I mean it. A smile and an efficient nod and we’re out of the locker room and walking through the lobby of the public pool. We push through the turnstile and head toward the outer doors.

  Joyce, Mrs. Stanhope, and Mom are now talking about their weeks. It’s comforting and I know that they are aware of that. It’s time to not have my sobbing be the center of attention anymore. And these three are queens at pulling focus from someone who is struggling. We walk down the path toward the parking lot and I get swept away in their chatter.

  I see Louisa first. She’s hard to miss. She has a tiny hot pink robe on, a lime green swimming cap, and her goggles are already pulled over her eyes. Wobbling just behind her is Tilly in a fluffy robe with little brown and black dogs on it. Her robe is listing open like an old man’s, revealing a black one-piece swimsuit. Her black swimming cap can’t contain her red hair and her goggles are sagging down over her tiny button nose. She minds none of this as she lumbers forward. A colt of a girl is herding them both, her flame-red hair pulled up in a long ponytail.

  “We’re late, you two,” she says. And just behind them, Ben trots up from the parking lot.

  “Found them!” he exclaims, holding up a set of water wings in triumph. And then he sees us. He slows his pace. I must look like a drowned sobbing wreck of a rat. He, on the other hand, looks amazing. Once again, the intimacy of his dishevelment takes my breath away. Worn-in sweats, a T-shirt with some sports team on it, and a hoodie that’s barely zipped up. His hair isn’t brushed and it looks like he hasn’t shaved since I saw him last. Which was two days ago. Jesus H. Christ. Has time motherfucking stopped?

  “Ben?” Mom asks, stepping in front of me. Bless her.

  “Ms. Morten, hi,” he says. Louisa and Tilly zoom and whip around one another making swooping noises. “It’s the caps and goggles. They think they’re pilots.”

  “A child’s imagination i
s magical,” Mom says. I smooth my hair. Swipe at my eyes. But, not too much. They don’t need to be any redder.

  “Oh, have you met Gretchen? My oldest?” Ben gestures to the older girl. “Gretchen, this is Paulette Morten, she knows Grammy.” Gretchen nods. Ben scans the other two women and me. “Jane Stanhope. Joyce Chen.” His eyes fall on me. “And Olivia Morten.” It’s so cliché and every part of me tries to fight against it, but Ben Dunn saying my name melts me like butter.

  “I think we met at the Christmas wrapping charity event at the Tournament House. Was it last year?” Mom asks, shaking the girl’s hand. Ben looks at me. I make eye contact with him for the briefest of moments. The kiss bursts through me. I look away. As does he.

  “I believe so,” Gretchen says politely. On the little grassy knoll just beside the path, Louisa flicks up her goggles and puts her hands on her hips.

  Ben and I make eye contact again. We both look away.

  “Looks like we’ve got a problem here. A problem with the wing!” Louisa announces, motioning to a rock.

  Tilly flicks up her goggles, pulls a Winnie the Pooh spoon out of her robe pocket, and barrels over to Louisa.

  “Weren’t you the one who was put in charge of all the hard-to-wrap items?” Mom asks. My nose is running. I swipe at it with the sleeve of my sweater. God, I hope he didn’t see that.

  “All those cheerleading gift-wrap fundraisers finally came in handy,” Gretchen says. Mom laughs.

  “Gretchen, can you take the girls on in?” Ben asks in his dad voice. I have to admit. It does something for me. Inconveniently. Gretchen nods. “We’re running late,” Ben explains to the three older women who he is positive are actively judging his parenting abilities. They are, of course.

  “You guys ready to swim?” Gretchen says to the two girls.

  “We’ll have to go by foot!” Louisa roars. Tilly pockets her spoon, flicks back down her goggles, and proceeds to the pool without a backward glance. Gretchen rolls her eyes.

  “I’ll see you in there,” Gretchen says to Ben.

  “Be in in a sec,” Ben says.

  “It was nice meeting you,” Gretchen says to all of us and runs after the two girls as they wind their way to the pool.