Long Division

by Jane Berentson

  This was our last conversation in the flesh:

  “Annie, I love you. I’m going to miss you so much.”

  “I know. This totally sucks.”

  “I’ll call as soon as I can.”

  “Okay.”

  “I love you, babe.”

  “I love you too. Keep track of your limbs!”

  Keep track of your limbs!!! Who says that? They should have handed me a goddamn handkerchief, and then maybe the blinding white cotton would have induced some tears. Some reasonable reaction. He smiled anyway, but in a sad way. Not sad “my-girlfriend-is-a-heartless-spaz sad,” but more “I-can’t-believe-this-moment-is-really-here sad.” And of course I really was sad. And of course I’m not really a heartless spaz all of the time. I’m still sad. And we’re keeping track of our limbs.

  I crossed my legs and folded my arms once my mother and I sat down to quiche.

  “You’re not hungry?” she asked.

  “Meh. Not really.” I picked up the copy of Us Weekly on the table. An Olsen twin was dangerously thin. “An Olsen twin is dangerously thin, Mom.”

  “And you’ll be too, if you don’t eat,” she said, pointing to my quiche with her fork as if I’d forgotten where it was. I stabbed a chunk of melon, gave it a spin, and ate it. I knew my mother was thinking that my lack of appetite was directly related to someheinous Boyfriend-at-War anxiety, but really, I had eaten two very ripe bananas on the drive over. And a muffin. The mature twenty-four-year-old would have simply owned up to the untimely binge and assuaged her poor mother’s worries. But I didn’t do it. I pushed my food (so lovingly prepared!) around my plate and acted like a pouty, despondent, can’t-be-comforted brat. “Don’t you want to talk about it, Annie? Tell me how you’re feeling or something?” She did the eyebrow thing again when she said this.

  “I don’t know, Mom. I feel like shit. I’m sad.”

  “You don’t really seem sad.”

  “Well, I am. Sad people can still care about the Olsen twins.”

  “Oh, Annie.” She said it again, this time with wisps of exasperation. She asked me more questions about the send-off. And I answered them, trying to make it sound nice.

  “It will go so much faster than you think.”

  “Ugh, Mom. That’s what everyone keeps saying. But a year is a year is a year.” Then I told her that time only seems to slow down or speed up when you’re not paying attention. Like when you’ve been drinking too much in college or when you haven’t read the newspaper in weeks. I’m going to be paying attention. It’s going to be a year. She said she didn’t quite understand what I meant. She poured us both more coffee, and I could tell that she was pleased that I had begun to open up—albeit with goofball speculations about the perception of time.

  “I mean that’s it. It’s long. It’s going to be exactly as long as it’s going to be.”

  “Well, I guess that’s sort of a realistic viewpoint.” My mom looked confused and I think a little surprised. Did she expect me to be announcing how proud I was of David? (Of course, amid the frustrating situation, there is still much room for pride.) Did she want me to make political forecasts? Or maybe just weep weep weep? I knew I was failing to meet some behavioral expectation she had for me, and although I knew her intentions were the kindest, I didn’t have the energy to play a role I couldn’t even define. So I steered the conversation to a place where I could safely exit. I think we ended up talking about gardening. I mentioned the need to clip my sweet peas.

  “I need to go, Mom. Thanks for the food and everything,” I said. I meant it too. I did appreciate the foods. I would appreciate them more when I ate the leftovers (quickly ushered into foil packets and Tupperware) the next day for breakfast. And I appreciated that my mom was so set on being there in case the weep weep weep actually happened. Maybe we were both equally perplexed that it had not.

  “Of course, sweetie. Now don’t ever hesitate to come over. I know you’ll be busy with school soon, but call me.” She hugged me again, and though I do love being hugged by my mother, I was annoyed by the way it lasted longer than usual. It had to be a special your-boyfriend-left-for-war hug. Wrapped in my mother’s arms, I could almost see myself reaching into my pocket for a white handkerchief, pulling it out, and flailing it around. Let me go! I surrender! Let me out! Instead, I stayed there and returned the hug as best I could until she let go and kissed my cheek.

  And then I left. I stopped at the gourmet supermarket on the way home. I purchased a Swiss Gruyère, a Spanish manchego, a small log of herbed goat cheese, and a smoked Dutch Gouda. Three types of crackers. And a baguette!

  Lactase is this stuff your small intestine produces to break down the two sugars that form lactose, the main sugar in milk. At eight P.M., I ate the Swiss Gruyère. If for some reason you don’t have enough lactase in your small intestine, the lactose gets down to your large intestine still intact. Around quarter to nine I ate the Spanish manchego. 6 There it ferments with some bacteria that are just hanging out being otherwise quite healthy. I ate the herbed goat cheese and licked my fingers clean. And this fermentation, this rumbling in the colon, produces some nasty, treacherous effects. Your guts basically freak out. I ate the smoked Dutch Gouda, savoring its hearty, woody finish. Excess gas, cramping, and loose, painful stools. Most humans on earth are lactose intolerant. But not most humans in North America.

  The crackers disappeared. The baguette was blasted into a storm of crumbs. The coffee table in my living room became the front line of an epic battle: dairy versus carbohydrate. Both sides suffered severe losses. I basically destroyed everything. You might even call it hysterical. I asked David once if the lactose intolerant were allowed to join the army.

  “Sure they are,” he said. “The army takes anyone.”

  “But then does the army supply you with Lactaid7 or soy substitutes when you’re out on secret missions?”

  “I don’t know. Probably not.”

  “So you have to waste space that could be used packing books or photographs by toting your own little packets of Lactaid or dehydrated soy milk?!?”

  “Just don’t eat dairy.”

  Just don’t eat dairy.

  I didn’t sleep well that night. Maybe I did it on purpose—the cheese binge. Just so I wouldn’t sleep. Fed my lactase-lacking intestine all sorts of yummies I knew that it couldn’t break down. So my feet would wear paths to and from the toilet. So my body would physically protest that first evening spent alone. So I would feel as miserable as I suspected I should have before my lips even hit the salty Swiss Gruyère. Yeah, it was pretty bad. I almost called my mother from the toilet to say, “See, Mom?! See! I am freaking out. I am crazy upset about my boyfriend’s risk of injury and death and that he might have to shoot guns at innocent people! Mom, I am so upset that I ate pound upon pound of fancy cheese!”

  This is Wartime Alone Time. There is no rain on my windows at the moment, and I have no idea what to expect.

  2

  Today I’m calling my book Spoon the Air because that totally relates to both of us. David spends about a hundred hours a week with this software satellite million-dollar computer stuff that scans the air for enemy business. I can only speak about it vaguely because he can only speak about it vaguely. Not because he’s inarticulate, but because the army often makes you sign a vagueness pact8 when it comes to speaking to your family and friends about certain types of work. (So he scoops at the air to find stuff.)

  And me, I’m getting used to spooning it too. The curve at my hips that grew accustomed to the pressure and warmth of his body is now cupped by the small patch of air under the blanket. I bought a new comforter that weighs about fifty pounds, and it actually feels great. Like that lead blanket at the dentist. Funny thing is, now sometimes I wake up with my mouth feeling all full. Like those cardboard X-ray things are choking me in my sleep.

  It’s been thirty-three days since he left now. I’ve received fourteen e-mails and seven phone calls. Not really so bad. The time difference
makes it tough to talk on the phone. He’s something like nine hours ahead and working this insane night shift for the first six weeks. And I’m at school all day, and I can’t really answer my phone during reading groups or Mega Math Olympics.9 The first time we spoke was so great. He told me about the long-ass plane rides and the mess hall and the soldiers his company is replacing. They got ribs their very first night! David surely would not be eating ribs if he were still here with me.

  A conversation I remember:

  “You cook too much chicken, Annie,” David said.

  “Well, I really like chicken. And it’s cheaper than beef or pork,” I said.

  “You should really get your own chickens or something.”

  “Yeah, David, you’re right. I should. You know, that’s a great idea.”10

  During a phone call last week, David told me this story about Beanie Babies. I wouldn’t be surprised if I hear it again three weeks from now as an e-mail forward from my mother. Goes like this:

  This guy who works with David is called Flores. He’s already been in Iraq for several months and has been teaching David to use some secret equipment. Anyway, several weeks ago Flores received a package from his grandmother’s church somewhere in Texas. Among the things that people usually send soldiers (toothpaste, beef jerky, car magazines) were a dozen or so Beanie Babies. The ladies of St. Charles Catholic Church included a note for Flores to hand out the toys to Iraqi children who might want them. And Flores, because he really did appreciate the toothpaste and the beef jerky and the car magazines, did as told. He gave those legume-stuffed bears and kitties and lizards right out to Iraqi children he ran into. The son of the barber in their camp. Some girls playing in a field just outside the compound. A kid selling illegally burned copies of The Sopranos on DVD. Flores didn’t really think much of it.

  A few days later, while he’s leading a convoy for something protected by the vagueness pact, his vehicle is forced to stop in the middle of the gravel road. A small girl of about five or six is standing right out in the middle of the convoy’s path. Once Flores and his men get closer, they can see the fuzzy head of a stuffed Beanie peeking out from under the girl’s bare arm. She’s pointing to the road. To the earth. To an irregular patch of dirt just meters in front of the vehicle’s tires.

  Pointing to a land mine.11

  I had asked David for Flores’s first name. He didn’t know it.

  “But you work with this guy a ton. Didn’t you ever see it somewhere or think to ask?”

  “No. He’s just Flores.”

  So for my purposes I’m going to call him Ray. Ray Flores, saved by a Beanie Baby!

  “And what kind of Beanie Baby was it?”

  “I don’t know, Annie. Flores never said. It was just a Beanie Baby.”

  So for my purposes, it’s a polar bear. Ray Flores, saved by a polar bear!

  Yesterday I went to Wal-Mart, which is something I typically try not to do, but I figured just this once wouldn’t taint my soul completely. I purchased nine small plush puppies, six cans of Play-Doh, and six boxes of twenty-four-pack crayons. I seriously considered the forty-eight-pack crayons because they include my favorite color, Jungle Green, but if Iraqi children don’t already have crayons (and they obviously don’t have jungles), then I guess they really won’t know what they’re missing.

  This morning I sent the toys, along with three sticks of deodorant, a batch of brownies vacuum-packed with this machine my neighbor the commercial fisherman has, a copy of the latest Best American Science and Nature Writing collection (that I just read and that I know David won’t read, but maybe someone in his company might enjoy), a basketball magazine, and two pounds of beef jerky. Oh, and a pink low-rise V-string that I don’t wear anymore because it chafes in all the wrong places. I sent that too. But I’m not telling anyone.

  When you send packages overseas you have fill out this customs form, listing the entire contents of the parcel. So I wrote “TOYS, DEODORANT, TREATS, PERIODICALS, BEEF JERKY, UNDERGARMENTS.” The woman12 at the post office asked me to be a little more specific about TREATS, so I crossed it out and wrote “HOME-MADE CHOCOLATE CHIP FUDGE BROWNIES WITH A SWEETENED CREAM CHEESE SWIRL AND COCONUT SPRINKLES,” which was really quite ridiculous of me because they were actually just plain brownies made from a Betty Crocker mix. I didn’t think until after I wrote it and it was in a big bin across the counter that David would probably read the customs slip and think he was getting some extravagant, homemade creation. I was just annoyed at the lady. But I already wrote David an e-mail about it, and I’m sure he’ll understand because he knows I’m just a strange bird sometimes.

  After the post office, I met my friend Gus at the bowling alley. Neither of us really bowls, but Gus will sometimes refuse to meet at conventional places like coffee shops or bookstores. I often accuse him of being that guy who always has to be different just for the sake of being different. And he usually takes the criticism well. Gus is basically the smartest person I know. He studied philosophy and math at Yale and loves to joke about how the meaning of life is probably just embedded in an algorithm we haven’t found yet, and that when someone does find it and owns the rights to it, only the wealthy will be able to buy it and only the really smart wealthy people will be able to understand it and those people will just keel over and die when they find out the truth and then humanity will be left with common folk, thick-skulled heirs and heiresses, and brilliant poor people to get things going right again. Wow, I totally just botched his theory trying to write it here. I promise it makes more sense when he explains it.

  “Annie Sue Harper, glad to see you,” he said when I walked in. He was playing with the joystick on that impossible toy-grabbing crane game. I could tell that he wasn’t actually playing the game, but imagining it or calculating something about the mechanics of it all. And Sue is not my middle name. Gus just says things like this. And Gus is not even his real name. It’s Michael. But his father, Rex,13 started calling him Gus around age four when a young couple named Miriam and Michael moved in next door. Miriam would always yell for Michael (her husband) from all parts of her house and her yard. Her voice wasn’t shrill and annoying, but rather pleasant and beckoning. So four-year-old Michael would often wander over. Miriam never picked up on why, but didn’t mind at all having Gus/Michael around. And sometimes she’d give him Popsicles and tell him about when she used to live on a houseboat, which Gus/Michael absolutely loved.

  But Rex got sick of Gus/Michael being at the neighbors’ all the time, so he bought a bag of Popsicles and made a plan. He was reading Lonesome Dove at the time, so he chose to call little Michael Gus after Gus McCrae. “Hey Mikey, I’m reading this book about a really cool cowboy named Gus. How would you like to be called Gus?” Apparently, Michael accepted the name change with little hesitation. This was before the 1989 miniseries, of course, but whenever people hear the story, they always point out, which is in fact very odd, that Gus does look strikingly like a young Robert Duvall. In ninth grade when we read To Kill a Mockingbird and watched the film in class, Gus was stoked to learn that Duvall also played Boo Radley. “I feel so much better about my name now,” he had said. He was also fond of saying, “Imagine how different my life would be if my father had chosen to call me Woodrow.”

  “Annie Sue Harper, glad to see you.” He did tilt his baseball cap as he said this. It was very Gus McCrae-esque.

  “Hey Gus, how are you?”

  “Meh. Reasonably well. And you?”

  “Just okay.” I hoisted my handbag on my shoulder as I said this, and we walked toward the counter to check out shoes. I was wearing flip-flops and forgot to bring socks because I’m a moron, so I suggested we just have a beer and some deep-fried ravioli in the lounge. Gus insisted I wear his socks.

  “I’m immune to most foot fungi,” he said.

  We bowled two games.

  Game one: Annie 68, Gus 149

  We talked a lot about our friends from high school. The couples that married and divorced in b
etween presidential elections. The Mormon guy who made heaps of money with Amazon. I told him about how I ran into Charlene Wilson—this girl he once dated, smoked weed with, and wrote stupid poetry with—at the bank. I told him how she was remarkably overweight and that she pretended not to see me.14 I could see Gus suppress a smile at my mention of Charlene’s corpulence because he pretends not to be superficial and evil like we both sometimes are.

  Just two months ago Gus returned from a two-year stint as a Peace Corps volunteer on the Caribbean island of Dominica. It’s one of the tinier, poorer West Indies, and Gus split his time there teaching high school sex ed and doing bookkeeping and accounting projects for small farmers. He’s always quoting Mr. Lionel Spence, one of the farmers he worked for. “As Lionel Spence would say, ‘If it’s growin’ righ’now, it will still be growin’ tomorrow.’ ” According to Gus, Mr. Spence was very wise. Gus also enjoyed describing how the two jobs complimented each other. Mr. Peter Benoit’s farm produced both bananas and cucumbers, so there was never a shortage of props for condom demonstrations.

  As we reached the middle of our first bowling game, he confessed how hard it’s been for him to acclimate back to the USA lifestyle. “So many cars,” he said. “Everyone is in a hurry.” He stayed with his dad for the first several weeks and just recently moved into his own place. I asked him if he considered going back to New Haven, and he said he’d had enough East Coast for a while. He was standing over the machine that shoots the balls back up, waving his fingers over that sweat-blowing hand fan when he said, “I’m just glad you’re around, Annie.” He smiled. “It feels like I don’t know too many people in Tacoma anymore.” And after he turned to chuck his ball down the lane, I shouted to his back, “I’m glad you’re here too.”