by Judy Blume
“You’re not going to give this room to the Brat, are you?” Michelle asked, as she and Margo were painting the trim around the windows.
Margo had anticipated that question and was surprised it had taken so long to come. “No, I think it should be Stuart’s for the rest of this year and then, when he goes off to college, it should be yours. We’ll give Stuart’s old room to Sara so that when she comes over she’ll have a place to sleep.”
“All this trouble for one weekend a month?” Michelle asked.
“Andrew is hoping she’ll come more often once she has her own space. And this will give all of us more privacy.”
“So you’re saying that next year this room will be all mine?”
“Yes . . . if you want it.”
“What about when Stuart comes home from college?”
“I guess he can have your old room.”
“I think he’d rather have his old room.”
“Well, we could certainly arrange that.”
“But that would mean the Brat would wind up with my old room.”
“I think we shouldn’t worry about this now.”
“Don’t you ever think things through, Mother?”
“Some things.”
“I like to think things through totally,” Michelle said. “I like to know what’s going to happen next.”
“No one can know exactly what’s going to happen.”
“I like to try.”
“You have to bend a little, Michelle. Otherwise life gets to be unbearably hard.”
Michelle turned away. “Who paid for this room anyway?”
Margo felt herself stiffen. She was not comfortable discussing the financial arrangements between her and Andrew and she did not know why. “Andrew and I split the cost fifty-fifty.”
“Does that mean that part of the house is his now?”
“No, but if I decided to sell I’d pay back his share.”
“Suppose you get married . . . what happens then?”
“We haven’t discussed it.”
“Do you think you will . . . get married?”
“I don’t know. Does it matter to you?”
“I wouldn’t mind . . . then I wouldn’t have to worry so much.”
“Honey, it’s my life . . . you don’t have to worry about it.”
“I do have to worry, Mother. Suppose next year you come home with someone else and I don’t like him at all?”
“It’s unlikely that I’ll be coming home with someone else next year.”
“But you can’t guarantee that, can you?”
“No, but things are working very well between Andrew and me. You can see that, can’t you?”
“Yes, but it’s only been a couple of months.”
“The first months are the hardest,” Margo said.
“Not according to this book I read about affairs. It said that affairs last three to six months and then poof, the magic is gone.”
“Well, since it’s the end of February, it’s already been six months and the magic is still intact.”
Michelle gave her a long look, then said, “I’m going out to build a snowman.”
Margo sighed and went upstairs to the kitchen. She put the kettle on and grabbed a wedge of Gouda. One minute Michelle seemed to be an old woman, taking on the worries of the world, the next, she was a child, building a snowman. Margo found the child easier to understand.
“IT’S FABULOUS!” Clare said, a few hours later, as she stood in the middle of the new room. She had stopped off at Margo’s on her way back from driving B.B. to the airport to catch a plane to Miami. B.B. had called Andrew early that morning to tell him her mother had had a stroke and to ask him to look after Sara while she was away.
“I’d take it for myself if I were you,” Clare said. “It’s so much roomier than your bedroom.”
“I know,” Margo said, “but we don’t want to give up the bathroom or the hot tub.”
“I guess I wouldn’t either. Especially the hot tub. I wouldn’t mind a soak right now. It’s been a long day.”
Margo checked her watch. “Good idea.”
Clare sprawled out on Margo’s bed while Margo stepped outside to get the hot tub going. When she came back inside she closed the sliding glass doors and leaned back against them, blowing on her hands. “It’s cold out there.”
“You’re telling me?”
“How did it go this morning?”
“Two hours to get down to the airport. We’d have missed the plane except it was delayed.”
“How was B.B.?”
“Couldn’t tell, really. She slept most of the way to Denver. Didn’t say a word about her mother.”
“She doesn’t deal well with reality,” Margo said.
“How can you say that?” Clare asked. “She has the best business sense of anyone I know.”
“In her personal life, I mean.” Margo went to her closet and pulled out two terry robes.
“I can’t discuss B.B. with you, Margo. It’s too hard. I feel disloyal. I know now what it must be like for kids caught in the middle of their parents’ divorce, because I sure as hell feel caught in the middle. On the one hand I’m glad that you and Andrew are so happy. On the other, I hate seeing B.B. so unhappy.”
“I don’t want to see her unhappy either. But it’s not as if I stole him away,” Margo said. “They’d been divorced for years.”
“I know . . . I know . . .”
“And she’s got Lewis. He seems like a nice man.”
“He is . . . but something’s wrong . . . I can’t put my finger on it, but it scares me.”
“I think it will all work out. It just takes time. The tub should be ready now.”
“Good, my bones are aching,” Clare said. “Do you remember having had aching bones when you were younger?”
“I’ve only become aware of my bones recently,” Margo said, laughing.
“See what I mean? Our bones are aging,” Clare said, as she undressed, “like the rest of us.”
“I refuse to believe it.”
“So did I, but every day I look into the mirror and see more signs.”
“I only look when I have to.” Margo knew that wasn’t exactly true, but she liked thinking of herself as a person with more important things on her mind than how she looked, except, of course, for that week in L.A., when she’d realized she no longer had the body of a young girl.
“If we had been ugly kids we’d be better off now,” Clare said.
“Why . . . you think it’s easier for ugly people to adjust to growing old?”
“Yes, I do. It’s losing your looks that’s hard. If you never had them in the first place you wouldn’t miss them.”
“I’ve heard that about money,” Margo said, “but never looks.”
“About money, I wouldn’t know.”
Margo knew that Clare never thought about money. It had always been there for her, like her eyes or her teeth. Clare’s money made some people afraid, especially men. To Margo, money meant freedom from economic dependence, which is what kept her sister Bethany from leaving Harvey. But people with a lot of money never knew what to do with it. It complicated their lives. She did not want money, or the lack of it, to dominate her life again, the way it had right after her divorce.
They stepped outside, threw off their robes, and shrieked as they lowered themselves into the steaming tub.
“Has Andrew started the new book yet?” Clare asked after a few minutes.
“No, he’s still doing research and he’s been so busy with the new room, he hasn’t even had time for that.”
“I can’t stand having Robin around and not working . . . it’s
driving me up the wall, although next week he’s flying to Montana to look for land.”
“Really?”
“Yes, he’s got this idea that he wants to ranch . . . says he needs to get in touch with nature.”
“You’re not going to Montana, are you?” Margo asked.
“Can you see me in Montana?” Clare asked, laughing. She stopped abruptly, “He’s bored,” she said. “He’s never satisfied. I don’t know what we’re going to do.”
Margo reached over and touched Clare’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know you were having trouble. I know how much you want it to work.”
“What I want doesn’t seem to matter. God, I wish he’d grow up, face up to responsibilities, make a commitment and keep it. You know what he says . . . that women spend their lives building nests and men spend theirs flying away from them—that women are interested in loving, but men are only interested in fucking. He says he doubts he could see a nipple without wanting to suck on it. I tried to point out that that’s because his development was arrested at the infantile stage. He says plenty of men follow their cocks through life. I told him fine, but if you’re going to follow yours and it takes you beyond our bedroom, forget it, because I won’t be here waiting next time. And I won’t. I wish I’d never let him back into my life.”
“If that’s the way it is, let him go, Clare. You were doing fine without him.”
“I know . . . but I went and got my hopes up thinking it would work this time . . . that we’d both learned a lot. Why do smart women keep getting themselves involved with schmucks?”
Margo laughed. “I love it when you use words I taught you.”
“You taught me schmuck?”
“Didn’t I?”
“Margo, schmucks are not necessarily Jewish men found exclusively on the East Coast. Schmucks can be found everywhere, sometimes where you’d least expect them.”
“I feel really lucky to have found Andrew,” Margo said. “I feel so lucky I’m embarrassed.”
“You don’t have to be embarrassed. You are lucky.”
“That’s not to say we’re without problems.”
“When you’re without problems,” Clare said, “you’re dead.”
THAT NIGHT AFTER DINNER Andrew and Margo and the three kids played Monopoly in front of the fire. Lucy sniffed at the board, at the Monopoly money, then settled down for a nap with her head in Michelle’s lap.
“She likes you,” Sara told Michelle.
“Animals always do,” Michelle said.
“So how come you don’t have any animals?” Sara asked.
Michelle looked at Margo.
“We have a pig,” Margo said.
“You have a pig?” Sara asked.
“A wooden pig,” Michelle said. “It’s Mother’s little joke.”
“Oh, that pig,” Sara said.
“I wanted a cat,” Michelle said, “but Mother wasn’t able to handle any extra responsibilities.”
“That was three years ago, Michelle,” Margo said. “And at that time . . .”
“Cats are easy,” Sara said. “They take care of themselves. All you have to do is feed them. You want me to look around for one for you?”
“We’ll have to discuss that,” Margo said. “We don’t want to jump into something . . .”
The conversation was interrupted by the telephone. “I’ll get it,” Margo said, relieved.
“Maybe it’s Mom,” Sara said.
It was Lewis, telling Margo that her number had been left on B.B.’s answering machine. Margo explained that B.B.’s mother had had a stroke and that B.B. had flown to Miami to be with her. She promised to have B.B. call him in Minneapolis as soon as she heard from B.B. herself.
“That was Lewis,” Margo said to the group. “He wondered why he couldn’t reach B.B.”
“I thought it would be Mom,” Sara said.
“It’s your turn, Mother,” Michelle said to Margo. “You’re on Park Place.”
B.B.’s call came half an hour later and after it Sara lost interest in the Monopoly game. She yawned several times, until Andrew asked “Tired?”
“A little.”
“Want to get ready for bed?”
“Where am I going to sleep?”
“You can sleep in my room,” Stuart said, “and I’ll try out the new room.”
“You’ll be cold,” Margo told him. “We don’t have the heaters in yet.”
“I’ll use my sleeping bag. It’s good for ten below.”
“That’s okay,” Sara said. “I’d rather sleep up here, on the sofabed. And I’ll keep Lucy with me for company.”
“What about our game?” Michelle asked. “Aren’t we going to finish our game?”
“Could we finish it tomorrow?” Sara said.
“I’m not promising I’ll play again tomorrow,” Stuart said. “If I don’t you can divide my properties.”
“It’s no fun that way,” Michelle said.
“Why don’t we leave the board set up on the coffee table,” Margo suggested, “and we’ll decide what to do about it tomorrow.”
“This family never finishes anything!” Michelle said.
“We finished the new room,” Stuart told her.
MARGO AND ANDREW WENT DOWNSTAIRS and listened to the news on the radio. Margo wanted to tell Andrew about Clare and Robin, about how Robin said men follow their cocks through life. But Andrew seemed preoccupied. Margo was feeling very tense herself. Maybe she was getting her period. Andrew turned off the radio and the lights. They got into bed. But they did not make love.
In the middle of the night Sara called out in her sleep and Andrew rushed upstairs to make sure she was all right. When he came back to bed he tossed and turned for hours. Finally he took a magazine and went into the bathroom. Margo was cold without him and pulled on socks, but she still could not sleep.
The next morning, after Sara and Stuart had left for school, the phone rang. Margo was in the bathroom, dressing for work. She heard Andrew saying, “What . . . when?”
She came out of the bathroom, carrying her hairbrush, and went to his side. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, the phone to his ear. His face was drained of color, his body tense. “What?” she asked.
Andrew shushed her. “Yes,” he said into the phone. “Yes, thank you for calling. I’ll be back in touch later.”
“What happened?” Margo asked. “Is her mother worse?”
“It’s not her mother,” Andrew said, hanging up the phone. “It’s her.”
31
MICHELLE THOUGHT SHE MIGHT be coming down with something, probably the flu. Gemini had it and so did half her class. Her head hurt and her body ached. She woke up thirsty and gulped down two glasses of orange juice, then felt incredibly nauseous. “I’m sick,” she announced in the kitchen, while everyone else was having breakfast. “I’m going back to bed.”
She had fallen asleep when the phone rang, waking her. Maybe it was the clerk at school, calling to find out where she was. She lifted the receiver off the hook and heard Andrew saying, “Yes . . . you have the right number.” Then some guy began telling Andrew this weird story—something about a cemetery and this woman lying on a grave in the rain. Something about a caretaker who had notified the police, giving them the number of her license plate because the woman had seemed dazed and he had thought she shouldn’t be driving. When the police had finally caught up with her she had been sitting in her car, in the middle of the Causeway, with her hands over her ears. She would not speak. She would not communicate in any way. She seemed to be extremely disturbed. They took her to the nearest hospital, Mt. Sinai, where she was being held for observation.
When the guy on the phone had finished talking A
ndrew said, “I see.” His voice was all trembly. Then the guy said something else, something that Michelle didn’t get and Andrew answered, “Yes, I do understand, but I’d like to call my personal physician in Miami and ask him to take a look at her first. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can, within the next few hours.”
“You’re her husband?” the guy asked.
“I was,” Andrew said. “We’re divorced.”
Suddenly it hit Michelle. They were talking about B.B. Michelle got a picture in her mind of B.B. sitting in her car on the Causeway, her hands covering her ears. And then the police, two of them, coming up to her car, knocking on the window, asking, Are you all right, ma’am? But obviously she’s not. One look and they can see they’ve got a case on their hands. They suspect drugs or booze or a combination. They search the car but don’t find a thing except her purse, with her wallet and her driver’s license. Hmmm, they say, Colorado. They compare the photo on the license to B.B. and agree that it is the same woman, even though her long red hair is sopping wet and her eyes have this wild, crazed look. She will not answer their questions. She will not speak at all. They try sign language, thinking she might be deaf. Still no response. They shake her, but that doesn’t work either. She just sits there with her hands over her ears and will not respond.
Michelle had had thoughts about blocking out the world that way, but she had never carried them to such extremes. When she had been in ninth grade a boy in her class had suffered from extreme mental exhaustion—that’s how the teachers had put it—and he had been sent off to some private hospital in the mountains. What Michelle remembered most about him was that when he smiled only one side of his mouth turned up. But how could someone like B.B., someone who was so beautiful, someone who had everything, go crazy? It didn’t make any sense.
Michelle turned her pillow onto the cool side. She was sure she had a fever. She was shivering under the weight of her quilt. She would probably miss a whole week of school.
She wondered if her father would take charge the way Andrew had if something happened to Margo, if Margo, say, was found on I-25 with her hands over her ears. Probably not, Michelle decided. She and Stuart would have to do it on their own.
