Happiness Sold Separately

by Lolly Winston

  “Maybe he’s stealing from us,” he gripes.

  “What? Don’t be ridiculous,” Elinor replies.

  “Why’s he so flinchy? There’s an aura of guilt around him like bad aftershave.”

  Elinor considers this. Roger is nervous around Ted. When Elinor first introduced the two, Roger got so flustered he dropped a bottle of lemon oil, shattering it in the driveway.

  He just has a little crush on me, Elinor thinks. Is that so hard to imagine? I might be attractive to a young stranger, too!

  Elinor is relieved when it’s time to go back to work the following Monday morning. There are no babies or strollers at the office. Before leaving home, she calls her CEO and asks that he please not tell anyone other than her assistant about her miscarriage. He gives her his word. When she arrives, there’s a huge bouquet of white roses from him on her desk with a simple card—Welcome back.

  People stream into her office all morning to say hello. “How was your sabbatical?” they ask with envy.

  “Great!” Elinor barks.

  “What did you do?”

  “I . . .” She should have thought of a story. “Read, slept, nothing very interesting. Yard work. You know how time flies.” Got separated, reconciled, miscarried. Slept with a tree surgeon. Elinor hopes her smile isn’t too forced, hopes her hands aren’t visibly shaking. It was such a minor detail, but she had really looked forward to shopping for maternity clothes for her second and third trimesters at work.

  Midmorning her boss stops by, sitting on the edge of her desk and hiking up a pant leg. “It’s great to have you back.”

  “Thanks. Thank you so much for the flowers.” She reaches into her desk for ibuprofen. Her perma-grin has given her a headache. “It’s good to be back.”

  “Like I said,” he tells her, “you are the best international employee relations lawyer in the Valley, as far as I can tell. I’d love to get you over to Ireland to handle this acquisition. Believe me, I’d sleep better at night.” He stands and looks at her kindly. “Ted like Guinness?”

  Elinor wishes she was the best in the Valley at something else—at being a wife, at being a mother. At being a woman—a woman who can conceive and carry a baby to term. “Let me think about it,” she says, managing one last smile. “Let me talk to Ted. It sounds great. It does.”

  By Wednesday, Elinor can’t wait for the first week back at work to end; she’s afraid she’ll burst into tears in the middle of a meeting. Yet when Saturday finally comes, it seems weekends will be the most difficult time to get through. All those families strolling down the street and playing in their yards. Elinor tries to keep her spirits up as Ted fixes them buckwheat pancakes and turkey bacon for breakfast on Sunday. After cleaning up the kitchen, she starts a to-do list. Get, she writes. Get what? She was sure she had thought of something a moment before.

  “I’m not so sure about this,” Elinor says when Kat stops by to pick her up for their book group. “I don’t think I should go.”

  “Maybe it’ll be good for you to get out of the house?” Kat holds up a bottle of Chardonnay and a plate of little quiches.

  This month they’ve finished The Aeneid, which Elinor does want to discuss. “Okay.” She grabs her jean jacket. She has a thing or two to say about Aeneas, whom she thinks is a wuss.

  As with all suburban gatherings among women, the conversation begins with children, husbands, teachers, and soccer, always circling back to children. Elinor sips her tea. “Can we go?” she asks Kat through clenched teeth.

  “Ten minutes,” Kat whispers. “Ladies,” she says to the group. “Shall we get started on our book?”

  “I gotta tell ya,” Janice Meads says, swiping a hand through her cropped brown hair, “I don’t love it any more than I did in college. Maybe it’s me, but I find it . . .” She looks at the ceiling, grasping for a word. “Inaccessible.”

  “Nice way of saying boring,” Doreen Whiting chimes in.

  “It’s so sad,” Fran says. “I mean the part with Dido and Aeneas. That just gets me.”

  “I know,” Kat says.

  “Me, too,” Elinor agrees. “And this time I felt angry with Aeneas.” The women look at her with interest. “I mean, when you get right down to it, it’s a very Silicon Valley story. They’re in love, but he puts work ahead of love.”

  “He’s duty-bound,” Kat says.

  “Exactly,” Elinor agrees. “But it’s duty to the company instead of duty to his family. He loves Dido. But then he gets called by the gods to go to Rome and he ditches her.”

  “Yeah,” Cathy says. “I mean I didn’t get that far, but right on.” Cathy’s husband is a VP of marketing who’s never home in time for dinner or the kids’ baths. While she rarely finishes the books, Elinor likes her because she drinks wine and laughs easily.

  “Why can’t Dido go with him?” Kat muses.

  Janice says, “She has to stay and take care of her kingdom.” Janice is serious about everything, even spinach dip. Once she debated the merits of green onions versus chopped red onion for a full five minutes.

  “Why, though?” Elinor likes Kat’s idea. “She’s so heartbroken; she’s not going to be any use to the kingdom. Why can’t she give it all up for love? Aeneas gets a job transfer, she goes with him.” Elinor slaps her thigh. “Screw the kingdom.”

  Doreen cringes. Once again, Elinor’s a little too rough around the edges for suburbia. She switches from tea to wine. Now that she can have all the caffeine and alcohol she wants, she can veer between beverages. She even made an Irish coffee one afternoon.

  “Duty schmoodie,” Kat agrees.

  “What does she have to lose by going?” Fran asks. Elinor likes how Fran is a sensitive, hopeless romantic. “Except she can’t really go because he doesn’t ask her,” she adds sadly.

  “Bottom line, he has no free will,” Janice says. “It’s the same in all these Greek stories. Which is why I find them so inaccessible.”

  Quit saying inaccessible, Elinor thinks. It’s so pompous.

  “Coffee anyone?” Sharon the hostess asks.

  “Love some,” Doreen says. “I am exhausted. These brownies are soooooo good.” She turns to Sharon. “Where’d you get the recipe?”

  “From Matty’s class cookbook. They did it as a fund-raiser. It was such a cute idea. The teacher got each mom to contribute a recipe and the kids made illustrations for them and wrote a sentence about what they liked and then they had it copied and bound at Kinko’s and they sold them. They raised like nine hundred bucks!”

  “Did you try the oatmeal raisin? Yum.” Elinor swallows a chunk of cookie, trying to push aside her grumpiness.

  “Well, I can’t bake anything, because my kitchen’s being remodeled,” Doreen says with exhaustion, as though this is a horrific imposition. “Does Matty have Mrs. Matson this year?” she asks Cathy.

  “Oh, my gosh. Taylor loved her,” Sharon chimes in.

  “Just listen to how mad Dido is!” Fran says to Elinor. She reads from her book. “‘If divine justice counts for anything, I hope and pray that on some grinding reef midway at sea you’ll drink your punishment. . . . !’”

  “She is definitely going to slash his tires,” Elinor agrees.

  “Oh, my gosh, you are such a nut,” Cathy says to Elinor with affection.

  Elinor turns to Fran, the only one who seems interested in actually discussing the book. “But you know, I think Aeneas chooses to have no free will. He knows what’s right but he won’t do it because he’s pussy-whipped by the gods.” She wishes she hadn’t said this so resentfully.

  “Okaaaaaay,” Janice says.

  Kat laughs at Elinor’s interpretation—a hyena chuckle that is too loud and too late. Janice scowls. The others clear their throats and look to each other uncomfortably. They seem to sense that this is really about Elinor’s marriage.

  It’s a warm evening, and Elinor imagines diving out the open living room window to escape. No one gets her. Doesn’t anyone get her? Why should they? She’s a b
arren, bitter, self-pitying grouch. And she hates this book club. She smiles and loosens the grip on the stem of her wineglass, afraid she might snap it in half.

  Cathy and Doreen sit on either side of Elinor and Kat, leaning over them as they return to their chatter about their children’s teachers and after-school activities.

  Kat flips through her book, reading the little notes she’s written in the margins. Earlier, Elinor balked when she saw that Kat had written in her book. “Why not?” Kat argued. “It’s my book. I like to look back at my impressions.” Good point, Elinor decided. She started writing in her book, too. This is what she likes about being forty. You stop sweating the little stuff. Maybe because the big stuff threatens to crush you.

  “Kat, does Jason have Bill Swanson as his soccer coach?” Doreen asks.

  Kat looks up, smiling mildly.

  “Elinor,” Cathy says, lowering her voice and leaning close. “Here we are going on and on about kids. I’m so sorry you miscarried.”

  “Thank you. It’s been hard. Thanks.” Elinor nods, willing back tears. She wishes now that she hadn’t told every neighbor and checkout clerk that she was pregnant. But she and Ted saw the heartbeat, twice. Dr. Weston had asked them to bring back the baby for a visit.

  “You know,” Doreen says, “I think everything happens for a reason.”

  Elinor empties her wineglass and puts it on the coffee table. “Thanks, but I don’t. I don’t think everything happens for a reason. I don’t think the Holocaust happened for a reason. I don’t think Joanna Fried found a lump in her breast for a reason.” Joanna is their mutual neighbor. She’s too sick from her chemo to come to today’s meeting. Who came up with this simplistic catchall silver lining? And its twin: If it didn’t happen, it wasn’t meant to be!

  Elinor smiles at Doreen. “Thanks, though,” she repeats. She slides off her chair, quietly retrieving her jacket and purse from the corner.

  She tiptoes toward the front door, leaning into the kitchen to thank Sharon on her way out. “I’m not feeling well. Everything was great, though.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry—”

  “Migraine.” Elinor hears Kat’s voice from behind her.

  Elinor darts for the door. Kat hurries behind her. They stumble onto the porch, quietly pulling the door shut after them.

  “Okay, sorry.” Kat loops her arm through Elinor’s. “Bad idea. I think my book-club days are numbered.”

  “I shouldn’t have been such a crank.”

  “We’ll start our own two-person book club,” Kat says.

  As they make their way down the front walk, there’s a snapping sound followed by the sharp spray of a sprinkler head shooting up and drenching their pants. Kat shrieks with laughter, tugging Elinor down the sidewalk.

  “Where to?” Elinor asks, trying to catch up.

  “Ray and Eddie’s? Game of pool?”

  Elinor runs faster. “Yes! Game of pool.” If she were Dido, that’s what she would have done when Aeneas left town: gone to the bar for a pitcher of beer and a game of pool.

  It seems that almost every day now, Elinor has to add something to her things-to-avoid list. Her latest nemesis is the “Baby Back Ribs” jingle from Chili’s restaurant—a relentless ditty that goes: “I want my baby back, baby back, baby back! I want my baby back, baby back, baby back!” A chorus of voices joins the a cappella doo-wop frenzy, sending Elinor diving to shut it off the radio or TV. Apparently Chili’s has carved out a big budget for the ad, which plays constantly. And no matter how quickly Elinor axes the song, it burrows into her psyche like a splinter under her fingernail.

  One morning she’s in the shower when the ad comes on her bathroom radio. She leaps over the edge of the tub, sloshing soap and water, and frantically presses the POWER button on her boom box, but the electronic keypad is shot. You press VOLUME and the stations change, and you press POWER and nothing happens.

  “I waaaaaaaaant my baby—back . . .”

  “Shut up!” Elinor can’t pull the plug from the wall, since she’s wet, so she hammers at the POWER button with her clog. The CD compartment pops open, and the CD inside cracks in half. She’s huddled over the mess, dripping and cursing, when she sees Ted’s bare foot in the doorway. She peers up at him. He’s holding out a towel for her.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks.

  “Off,” she begs, pointing and backing away.

  He pushes the buttons, then yanks the plug from the wall.

  “It’s that damn baby-back-rib ad.” Elinor clutches the towel to her chest and points at the radio.

  “The what?”

  How could Ted not know this song? Why isn’t the world crashing down around him, too? “The rib ad. You know, I want my baby back . . .” Elinor looks at Ted. He seems so calm. The circles under his eyes are gone. He can sleep again.

  “Oh! Well, this thing’s a piece of junk.” Ted jams the boom box on top of the trash can, as if to show it who’s boss. “Let’s get you a new one.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” Elinor dresses, towels off her hair, and smears on some lipstick. She remembers that her sweater is in the dryer and pads to the back of the house, pulled by the warm allure of the laundry room. The load of clothes is still tumbling. She stands and listens to the click-click of buttons and snaps. She imagines Ted’s jeans tossing with hers, their pant legs intertwined. She imagines their strings of DNA tangled into one little person pulling at the suede fringe on a pair of cowboy overalls. The heat emanating from the dryer is like a heating pad for her lingering cramps. She moves closer, folding herself over it, pressing her belly to the front and her chest and cheek to the top. She clutches the sides as though giving it a hug.

  People think you only need to separate laundry by color. But it’s good to separate it by texture, too—by the heaviness of the fabrics. You don’t want to mix towels with T-shirts. The towels end up soggy, while the T-shirts shrink. Meanwhile, you’ve wasted energy.

  Heat soothes Elinor’s abdomen. She squeezes the dryer, pleased by its solidness.

  “El, you okay?” Ted asks with concern.

  Elinor lifts her cheek from the dryer, sets it back down. “It’s warm,” she says.

  “Oh.” Understanding and relief fill Ted’s voice. Elinor’s surprised when his waist presses against the small of her back, his crotch against her bottom. He bends so that his chest covers her back and his arms and hands hang over hers. Turning his head the other way, he rests his cheek on her ear. Elinor tenses at first, thinking she’ll feel crushed. But Ted is careful with his weight. She feels draped by his body, even warmer, safer, consoled. Do they really need the rest of this big house? Couldn’t they just live in the laundry room from now on? Hunker down with the Bold and Cheer? It takes Elinor a moment to realize that the tears on her cheeks aren’t hers.

  17

  Gina’s at work when she gets a call from the school principal, who wants her to meet with him and Toby.

  “I can come Tuesday or Thursday morning,” she says, pulling her appointment book from behind the fitness counter.

  “I’m afraid I need you to come in right now, Ms. Ellison,” the principal says. “There’s been an incident and Toby is in the office with me. He’s been here three times already this week.”

  “An incident? Three times?” Gina’s stomach tightens. She hopes Toby hasn’t hurt anyone or himself. Maybe he’s damaged property—something expensive she won’t be able to pay for.

  The incident, Gina learns when she gets to the school, is really just a prank. Toby sneaked through the nurse’s office, into the teachers’ lounge, and into the women’s restroom, where he put ketchup packets under the toilet seats. Mrs. Fritz’s linen skirt was completely stained with ketchup.

  “You have to stick them right under those two rubber things at the front of the seat,” Toby explains, bouncing in his seat, “or it won’t work!”

  The principal glares at Toby incredulously.

  Gina sighs, relieved that no one has been hurt. Of course, this is not th
e reaction the principal is looking for.

  “Toby!” she scolds. “I’m sorry,” she tells the principal. “I’m just relieved that no one was injured.”

  “Yet,” the principal says. Gina suspects that he’s a bit misplaced, this principal. Maybe he should be in the army. She was in the middle of a session when she left the gym, leaving a client to do most of her workout on her own. Something tells Gina that if she were a man, the principal wouldn’t have insisted she leave work immediately.

  “Please give Mrs. Fritz my apologies. Certainly I, we, Toby will pay for her dry-cleaning bill.”

  “That would be appropriate.” The principal looks at Toby. “Clearly, there’s been no discipline at home, Ms. Ellison.”

  “That’s not true—”

  The principal isn’t interested in what Gina has to say. “Now, Toby,” he says. “What do you think we should do about your behavior?”

  “Kick me out of school.” Toby looks at the floor.

  “Is that what you’re aiming for?” the principal asks.

  Toby shrugs.

  “Why don’t we have you visit with the school psychologist, Dr. Chambers? He’s a nice man.”

  Gina coughs. She had to go to her school psychologist once, after Tina Taylor cut off Gina’s ponytail during art class. The boys called Tina “Tiny Titty Tina Taylor,” so she in turn was mean to girls in the class. Her mean streak culminated the day she cut off Gina’s hair. After that, Tina was sent to a sort of reform school. Gina was traumatized by the event—by the loss of her hair and the humiliation of crying in front of the entire class. Other than root beer Dum-Dums, the psychologist had little to offer. She couldn’t replace Gina’s hair, just as Dr. Chambers can’t make Toby’s father call more often. Toby looks at Gina and rolls his eyes. Gina wrinkles her nose, suppressing a smile. For a moment, they are in something together.

  In the car on the way home, Gina is at a loss for what to say to her son. Lectures, pep talks. She’s tried it all. “Toby, I’m tired of trying to make you happy and convince you to be good,” she says, looking across the seat at him. He’s twisted away from her, looking out the passenger’s window. She has the urge to hug him, to squeeze his small chest and rub his sharp shoulder blades. “What do you want? Do you even know what you want?”