Outside the Ordinary World

by Dori Ostermiller

  One morning, Mr. Robert showed up with a potted bougainvillea, a white bag of croissants and an enormous orange. He set his gifts on the entryway table, ruffled my hair. “Hey, twerp—next time I see you, we’ll ride horses on the beach. How does that sound?” But before I could answer, he seized my mother’s shoulders and whispered, “It’s done, Lainie. I’ve served her the papers.” Then he kissed her long and hard. Her eyes fluttered and her neck went slack, like a sunflower stalk whose magnificent head had become too heavy to support. I didn’t know what Mr. Robert’s message meant, but it seemed to unearth her. After he left, she called in sick to her modeling agency and spent the day thumbing through old photo albums.

  Mom’s friend Sammy started appearing in the afternoons, bearing bottles of pickled okra and red cherry peppers. On smoggy summer evenings, the two women would lay by the pool in bikinis, nibbling Sammy’s offerings, their middle-aged bellies luminous and soft against the warm cement. Mom would dip her long hands in the water, splash her face with a resigned laugh, forgetting to censor her talk in front of my sister and me.

  From what I could gather during these conversations, men were pretty much the same wherever you went—rude, unfathomable, more transient than petunias—and though it was best to stay away from them, they seemed the only subject worthy of conversation. A few days before Dad’s return, Mom said something to Sammy about Mr. Robert being “more human than most of them,” and Ali countered with, “What’s the point, Mom, if they’re all so grodie?”

  “Yeah,” I echoed, “besides, you have us.” My mother looked at Alison, then me, void and flustered, as if we had suggested that purple elephants grew on our plum trees—as if we’d handed her something useless and fantastic.

  “Well,” she finally said, “it’s like having a car. I mean, just because cars are dirty and difficult and expensive to maintain, you wouldn’t want to be without one, would you?” I nodded, wondering what kind of a car Dad would be in her metaphor. A black limo? A Ford pickup like Theresa’s dad drove? A silver Mercedes like Mr. Robert’s?

  So as Dad and Alison pulled back into the driveway in the red Corvette, as he showed off the eight-track player and the shiny engine, I decided that my father had chosen the perfect vehicle to represent him. This car was mean, quiet and fantastically fast, he explained, and if we played too near it, the alarm might go off. It was an impractical car, Mom protested, made of fiberglass—much more fragile than it looked—and might shatter into splinters if you crashed it. My father assured us he had no intention of crashing.

  After we’d fiddled with every button on the dash, our parents led Alison and me into the family room and sat us around the oak game table. My mother sat beside me and Dad stood behind Ali, rubbing his hands as if to warm them. Then Mom asked, in the voice of a ten-year-old, what we thought of their marriage.

  Ali laughed—it sounded like a bark. Then we all fell silent while Dad cleared his throat as if trying to dislodge something. Finally he said, “Your mom and I have been talking about whether I should stay. And, well. We don’t know.”

  “What do you mean?” wailed Ali, her cheeks still pink from her ride in the Corvette.

  “You see,” Mom said too cheerfully, “what we mean is—how would you girls feel if we got a divorce?” We were quiet again, digesting this word that each of us had thought, but no one had uttered aloud. Dad clicked his tongue. Alison put her face in her hands and started to sob. I felt as if the top of my scalp was going to fly off like a Frisbee.

  “I’ll hate you both forever,” I blurted. My parents looked as stunned as I was, and Mom whispered, “Why, Sylvie!” I wasn’t sure why I’d said it; after all, it had been nicer, in some ways, with him gone. I couldn’t have explained—not for years to come—my urgent sense of apprehension. So I told myself it was because divorce was a sin—I’d heard Pastor Wilkins say so in one of his sermons. And besides, the kids at school with divorced parents weren’t doing so hot.

  “So,” Dad said, “is that how you feel, too, Ali?”

  “It’s not fair,” she answered between sobs. “Why can’t we just be like normal families?”

  “Oh, Ali, sweetie.” Mom grabbed Alison’s wrist and Ali yanked it away. “Oh, honey, please.” Her eyes brimmed, and I felt sick, knowing that if Mom started to cry, I would, too, and that would leave only Dad, and we were always doing that to him—leaving him out.

  “Why can’t you just live separate for a while, and write love letters back and forth?” I suggested. After all, this seemed to have worked for Mr. Robert. “Maybe that would straighten things out.” Elaine bit her lip, then started to laugh. I noticed how big her teeth were, square and perfect, like horse teeth. We always teased her about the size of her mouth, but those teeth were the most beautiful part of her face. Now she was laughing painfully, clutching her ribs. Soon we all were laughing, as if I’d said something hysterical. The laughter was metallic, like a bundle of silver wires being pulled too tight, like something was going to give.

  “Well.” Mom sighed, blotting her eyes with her ring fingers. “Okay, then. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to work this out, God willing. We’re going to hang in there.”

  “Really?” Ali looked up, dubious. Dad hoisted his left eyebrow.

  “There’s no reason why we can’t, is there, Don? Other couples have done it with worse odds.” She sounded vague, as if reciting something she’d once read in a magazine, in a dentist’s office. Does this mean no more Mr. Robert? I wanted to ask.

  “Right. Of course we can, if that’s what we want.” Dad gazed at her pointedly. “People just have to want things bad enough. We’re a family, after all. A family.” He nodded, his hands claiming Alison’s shoulders. Then, as if unsure what else to do, he dropped his chin, shut his eyes and murmured, “Let’s pray.”

  We all followed suit, though I fluttered my eyelids open enough to see him reaching for Mom’s hand, her thin fingers curling around his crooked pinky as he mumbled, “Lord in heaven, bless this family with Your grace and help us to do Your will, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.” I felt like I was in a TV movie, an After-School Special.

  “So it’s settled then?” Dad cracked his knuckles. “I’ll just bring in my things?”

  He hesitated, wincing. Mom smiled feebly. I tried to remember if I’d ever seen him kiss her mouth the way Mr. Robert had. Would we still go horseback riding on the beach? Dad headed for the garage and Ali bounded after, eager, it seemed, to reinstall him. My mother and I stayed put. I took her hand, which felt brittle and freezing. “The heat must be getting to me, angel,” she muttered. “It’s unbearable. Let’s go make some iced tea, shall we?” Then she got up and walked down the hallway toward her bedroom.

  That night, Mom made overcooked lasagna and we ate around the dining room table like normal people, napkins smoothed over our laps. We talked about school schedules, my mother’s modeling (which Dad suggested she give up, now that he was back), Dad’s new partner. Ali seemed her old, buoyant, pre-teenage self, filling up the silences, chatting about ninth-grade teachers, her plans to try out for the cheer leading team in September.

  “Over my dead body,” muttered Mom.

  “What’s so bad about it?” Dad opened a bottle of red wine, offered her a glass.

  “Yeah, Mom. All my friends are trying out, and besides, it’s good exercise.”

  “You know I don’t drink wine, Don. That hasn’t changed in the past three weeks.”

  Then, silence.

  “Theresa’s cat is having kittens in a few days.” I realized that now—while we were trying out happy domesticity—was as good a time as any to ask. “She said we could have one if—”

  “I won’t have you cavorting around in one of those getups, Ali. Hanging out with Leslie Brown every Saturday night.”

  “She’s a pretty cat,” I insisted. “Half-Persian, I think. You’d like her, Ali.”

  “You can’t shelter them from the world forever, E
laine,” muttered my father, helping himself to more lasagna.

  “Leslie’s a totally sweet guy,” said Ali. “You just don’t like that he’s black. And anyway, it’s not a getup—it’s a skirt and halter top!”

  “I’d take care of the kitten myself,” I tried. “I’d even change the litter box and—”

  “In any case, Ali, those football games are all on Sabbath, so it’s out of the question.”

  “Oh, I get it. It’s okay for you to wear halter tops, but not me?”

  “Why can’t we just have one little pet like everyone else?” I practically screamed. They all stared at me and I winced, anticipating a slap. Instead, my father was watching me with interest, one eyebrow raised, so I continued. “It’s just—Theresa has like sixteen animals. It’s just one kitten I’m talking about. It might cheer people up around here.”

  “We’ll see,” Dad agreed, refilling his glass. Then he winked, ever so slightly, and for the first time in many months, I felt the stirrings of hope.

  After dinner, he suggested we all take a ride in his new car.

  “There’s not enough room for all four of us,” Mom protested, referring to the so-called backseat, which was big enough to fit a large duffle bag, maybe, or a dog.

  “The girls can squeeze in back,” my father insisted, slurring his r’s. “Don’t you think I’d buy a car with room for my babies? Don’t you think I might consider that, Elaine?”

  “I’m not suggesting you didn’t, honey,” she said, clearing the last of the dishes. “I just doubt it was your primary concern.”

  “What the hell’s that s’posed to insinuate?”

  “Besides,” she trilled, piling things in the sink, “you’ve had too much to drink.”

  He was silent, swilling the wine in his glass. I could see his jaw muscles flexing, his tongue probing the back molars. I, too, was worried he’d had too much, but even more worried that he’d storm out again, drive off to wherever it was he disappeared to when he got mad. So I said, “Come on, Mom, I haven’t been for a ride yet. Ali got to go already—”

  “Yeah, and I wanna go again,” my sister chimed.

  “You won’t regret it, ladies.” Dad tossed the keys high in the air, caught them in one fist. I was surprised and encouraged that he could manage this, and my mother must have been, too, for she agreed, wiping her hands on the dishrag and following us out the door.

  The warm breeze rifled the eucalyptus branches as we drove up La Loma to La Sierra to Skyline Drive, where Stacy Frey—Theresa’s other best friend—lived. Stacy’s dad didn’t have a red Corvette, though; she and all her big, blond brothers could never fit in the back of a sports car, I mused as we made a sudden sharp left, veering into the blackened foothills.

  I grabbed my father’s headrest. Ali and I barely had enough room to sit sideways on the bench seat, our knees colliding in the center. I was spooked and thrilled by the engine’s deep roaring, the night wind ripping through the T-top and ravaging our hair, tires squealing around each bend as we rose higher and higher—high enough to see the lights of Orange County shuddering below. The air was sharp with the memory of brush fires. My father swerved to avoid a huge tumbleweed lurching down the road, and Mom just leaned her head back, clenching her eyes the way she did on roller coasters, giving in to the ride. I wanted to give in, too, but I couldn’t. It was like the moment at the carnival when you look around and understand how makeshift it all is; how ramshackle the machinery you’ve been trusting your life to.

  As we rose round another bend, I wondered: Was my father exciting or just scary? I remembered the drives to Tijuana, when he insisted on stopping in the middle of the desert to shoot at coyotes, the night swims where he switched off all the lights without warning, turning the pool inky black, the camping trips where he got us so worked up with Bigfoot stories, we couldn’t fall asleep. I remembered all the Christmas nights when, after the presents were opened and the decorations removed, my father would chop the Christmas tree into brittle thirds. Then he’d shove them crackling into the fireplace, humming carols, nearly burning our house down while Ali and I screamed, as we were screaming now, blazing up Saddleback Mountain in my father’s amazing toy—flying through darkness.

  2004

  THOUGH I AVOID SEEING HIM IN PERSON, THEE-MAILS come every night now. I read them late at the corner desk, after Nathan has given up on the ten o’clock news, slumped sideways on the futon couch. After I check the girls and recheck them, I pour myself a glass of red wine, settle into my mother’s green antique chair—the one Nathan calls my boudoir chair—and turn on the computer, hands throbbing, fingers trembling like a junkie’s.

  He writes strange things, tells me a hundred ways to let my garden grow wild, writes the scientific names of plants because I want to know: Rhus aromatica—fragrant sumac; Viburnum cassinoides—Northern wild raisin. He writes about a high meadow we’ve both visited, separately, on the northern California coast near Goat Rock, where the cows follow you to the lip of the sea, their brown eyes like the eyes of spirits. He writes about the first time he saw me, at my art opening two years ago—how he knew then our paths would collide. I dissect his syntax, lean into my restlessness, surprised that it feels like grief.

  Saving the e-mails in a file marked “household liabilities,” I bury it deep within two other folders, shoved in an inconspicuous corner of my hard drive. Sleep comes late and badly. My dreams are thick with hard, broken bits of the past, like pieces of beach glass turned smooth by time and tossed back out again, onto the raw shores of consciousness.

  “You’re telling yourself it’s okay because you haven’t consummated it,” says Theresa sagely on the phone one afternoon. I’ve confessed to my old friend because it’s impossible to keep anything from her for long.

  “It’s not like adultery in the biblical sense,” I try, cradling the remote with my shoulder while I tend to my neglected garden, fingers raking around the bases of overgrown basil plants. There’s an unmistakable chill in the air, this last week of September.

  “So, what is it?” Theresa’s voice is both kind and mocking. “An escape from intimacy with Nathan? A stage for your childhood demons?” In the background, I hear the insistent snorting of Bella, the Morgan mare she uses in her therapeutic work with clients. “Some sort of deferred revolt against the Adventist church? Oh, no, wait—you did that already.”

  “Don’t psychoanalyze me, Terri. You’re my best friend.”

  “What are friends for, Sy?”

  “Look, it’s not really the same as—”

  “As what? As what your mom did?”

  I sit back on my heels in the mud, my hands too filthy to grip the phone. “You don’t understand,” I say, tossing weeds into a pile. The last of the summer squash is barely visible through tangled masses of mint. My mother was right about mint—you can’t allow it free rein or it will devour everything else in the garden.

  “What, I don’t understand because I’m not married? Because I haven’t got any kids?”

  “Oh, Terri, shut the hell up. That’s not what I meant.” How can I even begin to explain it to her—this undeniable feeling of undertow, the deep distance from which I’m watching myself, as if there’s no real danger of drowning?

  “Look, I’ve got a client in fifteen minutes. Anyway, it seems like this conversation deserves a face-to-face.”

  “Sure, but I haven’t got time to drive to Vermont,” I explain. “I haven’t even cleaned my house since Hannah’s birthday party.”

  “Nathan has his problems, but he’s got a pure heart.”

  “Meaning I don’t?” I wipe my hands on my shorts, wishing my closest friend wasn’t a shrink. I remember a therapist I saw briefly in my twenties, who loved to use gardening as a metaphor for self-improvement. You “work the soil” and lay the foundation for growth. You “compost” the lessons of the past; cultivate patience, accepting the perennial grace of seasons. You sow the seeds, tend the new growth and blah blah blah. But it’s more complic
ated, I always wanted to protest. There are boulders and tree roots, storm fronts and longing, someone’s decomposing old work boot. There are the things you forgot to harvest, weeks of torrential memory, the three-hundred-year-old bricks of a shed foundation. Some days, you’re too damn tired to weed. Sometimes, you let nature have its way.

  “It’s just—it’s the thing you swore you’d never do, Sy—the same thing as your mom,” Theresa concludes. We are both quiet a moment, during which I can picture her securing the bulky saddle, waiting for Bella to exhale before she cinches the girth.

  “No.” I stab my trowel into the soil. “It’s not the same, because I’m not involving my children, am I?”

  “But they will be involved, eventually, if it’s taking up this much space.”

  “This much space?”

  “It’s taking up the same amount of psychic space as if you were screwing him,” she says tiredly. “And sooner or later, you will be.”

  “I have to go,” I snap. “I have to get cleaned up.”

  “Sylvie. I don’t mean to piss you off. I just—”

  “I have to pick up the girls and go shopping for dinner,” I state as if to remind her that I am still performing my duties, still a conscientious mother and wife with responsibilities to fill.

  All through dinner and homework, bedtime stories and algebra problems, my desire sits breathing beside me, impatient and warm as a living man. All through teeth brushing and dinner dishes, laundry sorting and good-night kisses, I am as frantic in my skin as a dog on a humid night—I can’t stand myself. I can’t help it.

  He writes about his German shepherd, Yuki, and her obsession with the hawk that lives in the white pine out his kitchen window. He tells me about his Rabbi father, his mother going crazy in a second-floor walkup in Queens, dreaming of Indonesia. He worries about Eli. He writes about a baseball field where he fractured his cheekbone, his guilt over locking his brother in the broom closet when he was nine. He begs my stories, and I give him fragments. I tell him about the brush fires I used to walk toward, a tornado I watched careen by our apartment in Chicago when I was four. I was raised on apocalypse, I tell him. He writes back, quoting Neruda: “Let us build an expendable day / without winding the hours…That day of all days that came bearing oranges…” His messages are, by turns, corny and mundane, insightful and self-pitying, clinical, horribly sexy. My nights hinge on them.