This Is My Life

by Meg Wolitzer

  Then she remembered something. “What about my mail?” she asked.

  “Your mail?” The dean stopped bouncing.

  “Will it be forwarded to me, or can I have someone pick it up from my mailbox?” Opal asked. Her father would be writing to her soon; it was important that his letter did not get sent to the apartment, where Dottie would find it.

  “Well,” said the dean, “I’m sure you could have a friend pick up your mail for you. You’ll still retain your mailbox. We think of this as a leave; it’s not permanent. Look,” he said, “would you like me to approach your parents? It might make it easier.” But Opal said she would do it herself.

  When she got back to her room she called her mother, who listened as Opal stuttered out the news. When Opal was done, Dottie told her it wasn’t terrible, it wasn’t the end of the world. “I don’t want you to crack up under all that pressure,” Dottie said. “I’ve read about kids who freak out at these pressure-cooker schools.”

  “You’re not angry?” Opal said. “Or disappointed?”

  “No,” said Dottie. “So it’s not the best time in the world for you. So we’re both having a little trouble. Look, Opal, you’ll come home and we’ll spend time together. We won’t starve; we won’t have to do a mother-daughter act on skid row.” She was quiet for a minute. “I think I should tell you something, though,” she said, her voice strange. Opal tensed. “I’ve met someone,” Dottie said.

  For a moment Opal didn’t know what her mother was talking about. The phrase, coming from Dottie, made no sense. Opal thought for a moment. “Like a man?” she asked.

  Dottie laughed. “Yes, ‘like a man.’ To my knowledge he is a man, in fact.”

  Opal felt her whole body flex, then stiffen. Over the years she had assumed that her mother had taken occasional lovers. There had sometimes been men in Dottie’s hotel suites when she was on tour, and as a child Opal had heard sounds in the background over the telephone: the flushing of a toilet, or laughter that was frankly male. “Just a minute, Opal,” her mother would say, then she would cover the phone so all Opal could hear was something that sounded like the captive roar inside a seashell. Dottie had never come out and actually spoken of these men, and Opal had assumed they were just accessories and didn’t really count. Dottie had always seemed self-contained: a huge, autonomous machine that ate and joked and generated its own heat and light.

  But now Dottie was talking about this man, Sy Middleman, and saying that she wasn’t sure she was falling in love, but that she felt comfortable with Sy. “It’s just the thing I need,” Dottie said. “It makes me forget about my problems for a little while. I thought I should tell you now, before you come home, so you’re not too shocked. Sy’s been spending a lot of time around the apartment.”

  Opal listened as her mother told her the story of how she had met him. Sy was a garment manufacturer who had been called in as a consultant for the Dottie Engels Collection, and he was the only man who would listen to Dottie’s ideas, the only one who paid any attention when she got up the nerve to speak during merchandising meetings.

  “When you get home, I’ll tell you everything,” Dottie said to Opal. “We’ll stay up all night talking.”

  “All right,” said Opal, but her voice faltered.

  “Will you be okay until then?” Dottie asked. “You know, taking a semester off isn’t the end of the world. If you need it, then you shouldn’t be ashamed. And advertising a line of clothes isn’t the worst thing either. We’ve got to keep these things in perspective, both of us.”

  That night Opal sat on her bed and looked around her small dormitory room, trying to memorize its dimensions, the molding around the doors and windows, the slope of the floor. In a week she would start to dismantle this room, taking down the print of the Arnolfini Wedding Portrait from the wall and the books from the shelves. Her friends, when they heard the news, would come to visit one by one. As a joke, Peter would cover the mirror and Tamara would wear black.

  I am being suspended, Opal would explain, and the word implied that she was still somehow fastened in place. But that wasn’t what she felt at all; what she felt was that she, too, was slipping. It was a part of her lineage: a family act that performed without a net.

  She should have been buoyed up by the fact that her mother had fallen in love, but somehow she was dubious. What kind of man could Dottie love? she wondered, and what kind of man could love Dottie? Opal tried to imagine someone substantial enough, someone tough and generous and a little raucous. The only person who fit this description was Dottie Engels herself. Dottie was hopelessly reflexive, Opal thought; she would have to have herself cloned if she wanted true companionship.

  “Your mother is an original,” the babysitters used to say, watching Dottie perform on late-night television. It didn’t seem likely that Dottie had really found her match; what seemed likelier was that she was desperate, and in her desperation she had begun to flail. She would take anything: an ad campaign for fat women’s clothing, and a man who listened to her when everyone else no longer would. The thought of Sy Middleman depressed Opal in advance.

  “So?” Tamara would say, if Opal told her about Sy. “So what’s the big deal? Your mother’s a grown woman, she hasn’t been married to your father for ages. I think it’s nice that she’s finally found someone. It isn’t your life, you know. Leave her alone already.”

  But Opal dreamed about her mother, saw her laughing and talking with poise on a talk-show stage. She saw the familiar sweep of dotted material, and the head of hair blown up like a skillet of Jiffy Pop. Opal clung to this image, even though it no longer existed. But that was all that anybody was left with, really: a series of stills that could be brought out and sifted through occasionally, as though visiting the permanent collection of a small museum. That was the only way Opal could maintain contact with her family, the only way she could get them all together.

  The desire to keep a family together seemed primitive. Opal remembered watching The Parent Trap, in which Hayley Mills, playing identical twins, schemed to reunite her mother and father. There had been something frighteningly determined about the awkward split-screen image of those twins manipulating their parents’ lives, forcing them into an awkward meeting and finally an embrace.

  But all Opal wanted was to see everyone in the same room. It was a simple, visceral desire. She wanted to line her family up, the way she used to line up her stuffed animals on a windowsill. No one kept still in this family; everyone kept springing free and disappearing for extended periods of time. She thought again of her father, and wondered if he would write her this week. Then she began to think of Erica.

  The last time Opal had telephoned Erica, it had been at Dottie’s request. “Please,” Dottie had said, “call your sister up and make sure she’s all right. I’m so worried about her, down there in the East Village, living God knows what sort of a life, and she doesn’t want to talk to me. Do it for me, Opal, and don’t tell her I told you to call.”

  So Opal dialed her sister’s number, and was relieved that it was Erica who answered and not her terrible boyfriend. “I just called to say hi,” Opal said. She glanced up at Dottie, who had busied herself at the other end of the room and was actively pretending not to listen.

  Erica’s voice was level. “Is Mom there?” she asked.

  “No, of course not,” said Opal.

  “Put her on,” Erica said, and Opal went silent. Then she shrugged and held out the telephone to her mother. Erica was not stupid; she knew she had been set up, and Opal didn’t blame her for being angry. There wasn’t exactly an antagonism between the sisters; that was too forceful a word. It was just easier, Opal knew, for Erica not to have to think about this failure of a family. And yet there were times when Opal longed to talk to her. She wished they still had their walkie-talkies from childhood, and could signal each other when they were feeling bored or melanc
holy. She remembered the way Erica’s voice would split right through the layers of static.

  Opal wanted to come out and say: Our mother has fallen in love. She could imagine Erica’s sharp intake of air, then the slow release. No shit, Erica would say. Tell me all about it. And Opal would launch into everything she knew, filling in the blanks. Maybe she would even tell Erica that she had written to their father. She didn’t even like Erica anymore; she was embarrassed at how Erica had turned out, so big and formless, so freaky, and yet Erica had been there over the years; she was the only other witness.

  —

  Opal’s suspension began on a Sunday. She packed her dorm room up in boxes and had them shipped to New York, and then she took the train down by herself in the early evening. When she arrived at the apartment, she rang the buzzer three times but there was no reply, so Opal let herself in. The apartment was odorless and quiet, but the living room was softly lit. Dottie was probably home.

  “Hello!” Opal called, putting her knapsack and keys down on the hall table.

  “In here!” her mother called back, and Opal headed in the direction of the voice. She found her mother in her bedroom, sitting in front of the vanity in a kimono. Dottie stood and embraced her, and Opal let herself be wrapped for a moment in fabric and perfume, while her mother asked about the trip, about her mood, about whether or not she was hungry.

  “You’re getting all dressed up,” Opal said when they had disengaged and Dottie was sitting back at the vanity, fiddling with the back of a pearl earring. “Are you going somewhere?” Opal asked, and Dottie told her that she was going out for the evening with Sy.

  “I hate to be away your first night home,” Dottie said, “but Sy got these tickets ages ago. Bobby Short. I figured you could amuse yourself for tonight.”

  Sy arrived half an hour later, before Dottie had finished dressing, and Opal let him in. He was short and soft around the edges, with a damp, downturned mustache. Sy appeared loud and coarse and amiable all at the same time, and he possessed one surprising feature: his clothes. As a garment manufacturer, he had access to elegant, beautiful clothes: unstructured linen suits in pale wheat tones, ties with intricate, delicate patterns etched in the weave, Italian shoes that were as glossy and tapered as race cars.

  “I think I’ll wander around until your old mother is ready,” Sy said after he and Opal had shaken hands and exchanged a few awkward words in the doorway.

  It was clear that Sy had spent a lot of time in the apartment, and Opal watched as he walked casually through the living room. He picked a few browning leaves off a coleus, and then he plucked a handful of pistachios from a silver bowl on the table. Finally he sat down on the couch and unfolded the daily crossword puzzle from his breast pocket. “Care to join me?” he asked, but Opal shook her head. “I’m a fanatic about puzzles,” he said, and he uncapped his pen and gazed off into space for the answer to the first clue.

  Finally Dottie was ready. She entered the room quietly, her perfume slightly preceding her, and Opal saw that she was wearing one of the dresses from her line of clothes. Her hair was swept up off her neck, and her head seemed smaller than usual. Or was it just that her body was larger than usual? Since she had fallen in love with Sy, Dottie seemed to have been eating more than she used to. Sy believed in excess, Dottie said, and he often took her to twelve-course banquets at a dumpling house on Mott Street. He referred to her flesh as “love handles,” and he grabbed her by the waist and swung her around like a Tilt-a-Whirl.

  Opal watched her mother and Sy together, saw the way they touched frequently, using small, understated gestures. Dottie lightly fingered his collar, and he rested a hand on her hip as they stood at the door.

  “We’ll be home very late,” Dottie said. “You know where everything is; just help yourself.” Then they were off. Opal stood and stretched, listening for a moment to the uncompromising quiet of the apartment. There was no chorus of stereos up and down the hallway, no whiffs of dope and hot-plate cuisine, no one accidentally setting off a fire alarm with a Frisbee. All she could hear was the intermittent hum and whir of the refrigerator making ice, and the sound was lulling, deadening. She knew she would have to do something while she lived here, or else the semester would just keep unrolling, with Dottie and Sy breezing in and out of the apartment and Opal stationed once again before the TV.

  —

  Two days later, Opal sat in a chair in Ross Needler’s office while the lights on his telephone blinked and a secretary kept coming in to silently hand him pink memos. Opal glanced above his head at the assortment of photographs on the wall. Somewhere up there, in that collage of faces, loomed her mother. Opal tried to peer at the wall surreptitiously.

  “Top row,” Ross said, “all the way on the left.”

  Opal was embarrassed. “Sorry,” she said.

  “Why be sorry?” Ross asked. “If my mother was on somebody’s wall, I’d want to look too.”

  “Not if it was the post office,” Opal said.

  “Very quick,” said Ross. “Just like your mother.” He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Look, I don’t know of any real jobs,” he said. “Nothing that pays, anyway. You have no experience whatsoever, and you’re young. I could maybe find you an internship, but it would be scut work. Nothing challenging, but you might have fun. In fact,” he said, “I do know someone who owes me a small favor. If you’ll bear with me, I’ll see what I can do.”

  She watched as he spun a fat Rolodex file. Years before, Ross used to squeeze the flesh of her face and call her “kiddo,” and he would bring an armload of presents when he came to the apartment. He and Dottie would sit in the den all night, and Ross would have a big notebook open on the coffee table, or sometimes an adding machine. Together, they figured out salaries, schemes, dates for performances. The room always seemed rosy and swollen with smoke.

  Ross hadn’t changed dramatically since then, Opal thought. He had always looked old to her, his face long and lined. Now Ross made a few brief phone calls, and finally he located an assistant director friend who said he would probably be able to give Opal an internship at the television show Rush Hour. It was strictly gofer work, Ross warned her when he hung up. “The staff is young and smart,” he said, “and the ratings are good, as you know, so there’s a decent morale around the set. They’ve already been renewed for next season.”

  Rush Hour had been enormously popular at Yale. There always seemed to be a group of people clustered around someone’s television set every Friday night at ten to watch it. The show had a frenetic, young cast: souped-up, razzing men and women who sang and danced and improvised their way through the hour. The format was modeled after the old Mickey Mouse Club, with cast members lining up and calling out their names at the beginning of each show. One of the men would always announce himself as “Annette.”

  Before Opal could thank him, Ross said, “I wonder what your mother will say.”

  Opal shrugged. “She’ll be pleased, I hope,” she said. “She thought it was great that I was coming to see you.”

  “Well,” said Ross, “I once mentioned Rush Hour to her, just in passing. I was talking about how there was a new wave of young talent out there, and your mother argued that there hasn’t been a decent comedy show on TV for years. It’s hard for her, I guess; you really can’t blame her.” Opal agreed. “You know,” he said, “she’s had a long, solid career. Over ten years. Compare that with most other performers, and it’s incredible. Dancers are lucky if they last until twenty-five—their knees go and they get arthritis—and singers’ voices are shot way before they’re old. Some of the folksingers from the Sixties—those girls with their long hair and sweet voices—they sound like crap now, they really do. You can hear them on all the telethons. Dottie isn’t necessarily done yet, you know.”

  “Do you think she could really make a comeback?” Opal asked.

  “Oh, who
knows?” said Ross. “A career gets sleepy for a while, so you put it on hold. I’ve seen people snap back like you wouldn’t believe. They appear somewhere for the first time in years, and then they get letters from people saying, ‘Oh, we thought you were dead.’ There’s a chance of reincarnation for your mother; she’s just got to be patient.” He shook his head. “I just want to make sure that she’s doing all right, you know, emotionally. I thought maybe you could tell me that.”

  “My mother’s fine,” Opal said. “Really.” Ross kept watching her, waiting for her to elaborate. “She’s fallen in love,” Opal added in a small voice, and she realized, as soon as she said it, how much she had wanted to tell someone. She looked for his response.

  “Oh?” Ross said. “That’s news. I’m glad to hear it. Anyone I know?” Opal told him about Sy. “Your mother deserves to be in love,” Ross went on. “It’s been a long time.”

  He fingered a few of the pink sheets of paper on his desk, and Opal stood awkwardly to leave, thanking him for his help. She had told him about Dottie, and now it was done. It didn’t matter that she had told him, particularly; what mattered was the simple act of telling.

  Opal thought back to the monologues she had listened to as a child, the rush of words that had poured out at her over the years. “Just listen to this,” Dottie had said. “Just listen to this,” the babysitters had said, and Opal had sat very still in her chair, patiently listening, until all the words ran out.

  Twelve

  When Jordan left the hospital, he refused to take his identification bracelet off. Erica was reminded of those girls in her high school who had worn POW and MIA bracelets even when it became apparent that no one was ever coming home. There had been something dramatic about it, the way the girls had compared wrists in study hall, reciting unfamiliar names as though they were the names of lovers. Now Jordan lay in the loft, his long arm dangling over the edge as he slept. Erica walked by and saw the strip of plastic, his own name typed in faint purple ink. He had been wearing the bracelet for weeks now.