Long Division

by Jane Berentson

  I am not thinking of giving you any historical account of battles or following the varied fortunes of war. . . . I only aim to give you an insight into the home life which you can never find in any history of the times—.

  She’s done it. It’s like she’s wrote my fucking thesis statement for me back in 1876. By goddamn mother-loving candlelight! It takes just moments of scanning the editor’s introduction and the first few pages of the text to ascertain that Annie Harper wrote this journal for her daughter. For the sake of posterity. It occurs to me that this is a concept that my generation might be neglecting. Perhaps it relates to the whole lack-of-artifacts problem. What will our electronic era leave behind? Big, fat nothing. Especially when we only care about being recognized now. Off I went, trying to document, not for the educational purposes of others, but for the benefit of myself. Give me kudos for my bravery and charm. Don’t let me bother giving guidance to my descendants. Let me be hapless in my commentary. No worries if the things I say grow to shame my future children and cause them to legally divorce me in their early teens. No problem! I do not mind! I realize I’ve been silent and stunned for a few long moments, and I look up at Gus, who hasn’t moved.

  “How did you find this?” I turn to the copyright page and see that the book was published in 1983 by the Flower Mound Writing116 Company in Denton, Texas.117 There was a second printing.

  “The Internet,” Gus says.

  “The Internet?” I say, like I’m the old Annie Harper and have never seen a typewriter.

  “Yeah, you know. The World Wide Web.” Gus looks a little nervous.

  “You Googled me?” I don’t mean it to sound so harsh and accusatory.

  “Yeah. So what. I Google stuff.” I let the awkwardness settle for a moment, and then I hug him. I feel his fingers clasp momentarily behind my back and I get one nice breath of fabric softener and something vaguely breadlike.

  “Thank you so so much, Gus. This is amazing. An artifact. A treasure. You are a treasure finder.” We let go.

  “You’re very welcome. I knew you’d like it. And I thought maybe it could help you some.”

  “I’m getting by,” I say. Silence. Silence. Silence. “Hey, it’s summer. I made it to summer.” Our smiles widen simultaneously because we both know it’s coming. I’ve lobbed Gus an easy one and he’s winding up, ready to blast it out of the park. His voice is robust and so happy when he says it:

  “It’s gonna be a great summer!”

  21

  For obvious reasons, today I’m calling my book Annie Harper’s Journal , and I’ve just discovered that copyright rules don’t apply to titles. Just the actual text. So I can use it. Flower Mound Writing Company will have to print thousands more copies because after everyone reads my book they’ll naturally want to read her book too. And I don’t have to worry about being all good anymore. If I move forward with the idea that this writing is a mere log, a raw, uncut journal (rather than a neatly wrapped, Chicken Soup for the Wartime Soul memoir), then who will blame me when my heart emerges a little black and tattered? I can tell the truth and hopefully not be loathed for it. Who knows? Maybe Annie Harper the First will be just as much a sicko. And people will love to read the two texts together. Serious Literature people will write academic papers about the similarities between the Annie Harpers. What my book says about her, and hers about me. Some great-great-great-granddaughter of Annie Harper the First will probably contact me and we’ll be interviewed together on The View.

  After Gus left my classroom,118 I sat down in the Book Nook with Annie Harper’s Journal. I had this rush of hope similar to when I found the soldiers’ wives’ blogs. I thought: Here it is. An artifact. This must be helpful, authentic, and sincere, because someone thought it was worthwhile to print a thousand copies and sell them for $7.95 apiece. I read the first ten pages or so, where Annie described the political state of Mississippi before the war and how her grandfather raised her to be more literate than the average Southern girl. Other Annie Harper had a writing style that was confident, proper, and direct. She saved heavy emotional lines—When the polls closed November 4th, 1860, Liberty covered her face with her mantle and fl ed from her unhappy children, to return no more for sixteen years—for when she really wanted to drive her point home. But after those first ten pages, I got bored. I wanted to hear Annie Harper talk about Annie Harper. Emancipation, Secession, Whigs, all very important Civil War things, but hey, Mrs. Harper: You guessed wrong. We can find all that in the “history of the times.” I want to know how bad she misses her husband. I want to know what she’s cooking for dinner. Oh wait, what her slave is cooking for dinner. I hate Annie Harper.

  I’ve resolved to set Annie Harper’s Journal aside for a few weeks. I need some time to recoup from the flurry of the end of the school year, to get my ducks in a row for summer, and to lasso my heart so I can sink my hands into its most ridiculous nooks and crannies and pull out a reasonable prognosis regarding sweet, sweet David Peterson. I want to give Annie Harper’s Journal a good, serious study. I want to come back to Gus for a critical discussion about all the interesting ideas and observations that I will certainly glean from the text. I don’t want him to think I tossed the gift away; I just want to give my name twin the serious read she deserves. More on Annie Harper the First to come. I promise.

  Interesting Thing:

  On the way home from my last day (the real, no-students last day) at Franklin Elementary, I stopped at the farmers’ market119 to pick up some of the season’s first strawberries and some fresh greens for dinner. The farmers’ market is in the parking lot of a shopping complex that includes a Goodwill, an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet, and a sex store. But the location manages to be a good fit for the market and draws a varied mass of customers: couples who stumble upon the market after picking up a few S&M toys; hip, alternative high school kids who just purchased second-hand Levis; and those who come by every week on purpose. And since it’s a farmers’ market—loaded with organic things earthy and leafy—I wasn’t surprised at all when I ran into Gina. She was examining a bundle of scallions, peering into their tubey roots like they were actually alien tentacles about to communicate some brilliant message about the future of humanity. I walked over to say hello. I hadn’t seen Gina since the camping trip, so I thought it would be nice to catch up.

  “Oh hey, Annie,” she said. It wasn’t as enthusiastic as her usual let me tell you about the great nonprofit I work for voice. “I didn’t know you shop at this market.”

  “Yeah. My school’s just down the street. I come here a lot. Doris’s goat cheese is amaz—oh right, vegan. Sorry. But yeah, I come here. How are you?”

  “Pretty well. I’ve been kind of down about Gus and all, but it’s fine.” What? My first thought was that since I last saw him two days before, Gus had suffered some major accident. Fallen off a ladder. Crashed his delivery van into the side of the bowling alley. Why hadn’t someone told me? Someone would tell me. My next thought was that he’d decided to move to Tibet or something and had just told Gina. But Gus would also tell me right away if he were moving to Tibet. He’d at least tell me he was thinking about it. Gina read my silence as confusion. “He told you we broke up, didn’t he?”

  “No. He didn’t tell me.” And then I tried to think of all the right things to say, but I’ve never been good at condolences. I wasn’t about to tell Gina how flawed Gus was or that she’d get over him in no time. I really didn’t know much about the intensity of their relationship. And secretly inside I was thrilled by this news. Nothing against Gina, nothing at all, a lovely woman she is. In another version of this universe, perhaps she and I are bosom friends. My tongue swept around the inside of my mouth searching for an appropriate word to unite us as women, to offer her comfort, and to wholly conceal an elation derived from a situation that had brought her such lousy sorrow. So brilliantly I said, “That’s too bad. Have you tried these beet greens?” And incredibly, Gina responded well.

  “Yes, I love beet greens
.”

  “Me too.”

  Silence. Silence. Silence.

  “You’re lucky, Annie. You know that, right?”

  “Because I work so close to this market?”

  “No. Because you have a terrific best friend.” And then Gina gave me this look of extreme envy. She picked up a tomato and raised it to her nose. Took a breath. Here it seemed like Gus had broken up with her and she’s calling him terrific. Such maturity blows my mind. But there was a heavy sadness too. Like she believed that now, since she was Gus’s ex-girlfriend, she would never be great friends with him like I was. Her Gus phase—her access to his bizarre imagination, incredibly thoughtful memory, and Max Schaffer-esque curiosity—had abruptly ended. The whole thing has made me consider that perhaps my longings for my own Gus romance are likely as advantageous as they are ridiculous. Her fallen eyes and forced smiles have convinced me that the risk of losing him is sooooo not worth it.

  Gina and I exchanged a few more pleasantries. She told me about the band she’s joining, and I told her about my plans to visit Boston next month to see my friend from college, Michelle, and that I’ll probably see Stephen (our camping buddy) too. As we said goodbye near the green cartons of fresh strawberries, I saw her glancing at a young couple that wouldn’t let go of each other’s hands while trying to point out which carton of berries had the best stems for chocolate dipping. And though I don’t even know if chocolate is vegan, I could definitely tell that Gina was sad. I was too.

  I’m still puzzling why Gus didn’t tell me about Gina. Maybe he’d just broken up with her before he gave me the book and didn’t want to pull attention away from the moment of me diving into Annie Harper’s time capsule. That’s so like him. I can’t decide if I should call him—everyone needs to discuss a breakup—or if I should just wait until he tells me. And whoa now, here I am assuming that Gus broke up with Gina. She didn’t say. But the heaviness in her eyes made it seem that way. The way she called him terrific and me lucky. She didn’t seem horribly conflicted.

  I just got off the phone with David. It was the super lame kind of talking that everybody does, but that nobody ever includes in books or movies because it’s too fucking dull. Unless the people are naked. (We were not naked.) Or unless the people are dangling from a rooftop by a shredded rope and trying to calm themselves by regular chitchat. (We were not dangling from a shredded rope.) Or unless the talking is really just in the place of some other more important conversation that one or more of the people just can’t get herself to have or even admit to needing to have.120

  David: So how was the last day of school?

  Annie: Oh, it was nice. Kind of sad. I’ll miss them, of course.

  D: But you’re free now.

  A: That’s right. Free for the summer.

  D: Wish I was121 free.

  A: No kidding. Home stretch, though, right?

  D: That’s right.

  A: Just a few more months.

  D: Just a few more months.

  Silence. Silence. Silence.

  D: How are your parents?

  A: They’re good. Yours?

  D: Good. Excited for me to come home.

  A: Of course they are.

  And maybe it’s because he’s always so tired and I’m always so tired + conflicted + guilt-stricken + confused, but I swear this has been the oomph level of our last four telephone conversations. It’s like we should just record them and play them to each other when we pick up the phone. Mundane-a-thon 2004! Summer Mopefest Live! Don’t touch that dial! No wait, go ahead. Then come back in three minutes and you’ll hear the same damn thing. Here this is supposed to be a rich, vivid (however difficult) experience for us—especially him—and we’re talking about how our mothers are doing. (!!!???!?!?) Isn’t my mother supposedly telling David how she’s doing? He never asks about my students anymore. In years past, he could tell who my favorites were before I could. Because I’d be sharing anecdotes about the cutest ones and whining to him about the yay-hoos and spitting off my life’s details like I absolutely had to tell him. Like I’m this wet, heavy Washington cloud that needs to get the rain out at least once a week. And I knew more about his life. Who in his company was getting promotions and who was failing their PT tests. He hasn’t told me about a pregnant army wife all year!122

  I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and so I’m going to try to map out a theory. Here goes:a. Relationships require sharing because sharing and knowing things about one another makes humans feel close.

  b. Sharing requires time to communicate.

  c. David and I have little time to communicate.

  d. I am a teacher, and therefore, sharing is even more important for me, as it stands for harmony and community.

  e. If there is a lack of sharing, the intensity of emotion between two people dwindles. Without concrete anecdotes to elicit sympathy, mutual joy, and admiration, the couple must rely on past experiences to sustain a feeling of closeness.

  f. The past is boring. I know it already.

  g. I want to know what David is doing now.

  h. I want David to care about what I am doing now.123

  i. The gestation period of an elephant is twenty-two months.

  j. If humans were elephants, one of David’s buddies’ wives could be completing her first trimester.

  k. Annie Harper the Second is one loony organism.

  But maybe it’s not the strains of the situation that have brought us down. Maybe it’s the strains of the situation that have revealed a larger hole in what I thought was a sturdy and interesting relationship? If our closeness has always been grounded in plain banter and plain closeness, what kind of relationship is that? Besides one another, what shared interests do we even have? Beer? Snuggling? Badminton? Do I owe the W.A.R. and the George W. for tossing me into this lame situation that has ended up revealing something true? Has the tragedy of others saved me from a long life of yawned So how is your mother? I’m taking this issue to Loretta.

  “Loretta, David and I are growing apart.” I whinnied it out like a teenager complaining about his parents’ objection to buying him a drum set. Like I was blinded by my confusion, unable to extract any reason for why the obstacle even exists. I wanted an easy answer from Loretta. A quick, simple fix. I wanted to rail on the surface of a tight, loud snare.

  “Oh honey, of course you feel that way.” We were sipping lemonade made from lemons I brought and a dozen packets of Sweet’N Low. Loretta said she’s too old to worry about the health risks of artificial sweeteners. (“I’m already sterile, and my bones are petrified peanut brittle.”)

  “It’s not like you’ve been able to talk to him like you always have. That’s the hardest part.”

  “Not talking?”

  “Yes. Being physically away from someone you love is easy. If you can speak all the time and keep abreast of each other’s goings ons, you’ll be fine. You don’t need to be beside someone to have an intimate relationship. But if the communication isn’t regular—if you’re not writing and he’s not writing every single day and with specific information and feelings—then naturally, you’ll have drifted.”

  “Every day? Did you and Ron write every day?”

  “Of course. Why don’t you try it?” Loretta said this like she was suggesting a new brand of laundry detergent that is oh-so-conveniently on sale. So simple, child. Do a few loads of whites!

  “Well, David can’t get to the Internet every day, and I’m just now done with school.”

  “Man knows how to hold a pen, doesn’t he?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you know how to hold a pen?”

  “I certainly do.”

  “Then maybe you two just need to try a little harder these last few months. Go buy yourself a book of stamps, Annie Harper. Write your heart out to this man, if you love him.” Loretta is probably right. It’s not time to give up yet. Tough times don’t always constitute grounds for surrender. Maybe I do still love David. Maybe it’s just my dormant horm
ones mischievously poking me with goofy shit about Gus. How has Lonesome George held out for so long!? Annie Harper the First wouldn’t give up now. No sir-ee. I considered telling Loretta about the note David left me about the Laws of My Heart—just so she knows that I’ve got an escape clause. But I decided to keep it in and march onward into the frothy blur of a faded relationship. I’m hoping for clear, practical sunshine once I make it through. I’ve resolved to visit the post office on Monday and to tell David all about mine and Loretta’s shared theory and to try my best to feel like I’m in a relationship that’s more than checking the newspaper to make sure the other party hasn’t died. WAHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

  Okay, since I’m trying to be more honest with this writing tapestry, let’s just go with a modest “wahoo.”

  22

  Today I’m calling my book On the Tailbone of the Luck Monster.

  I had spent a pleasant afternoon at Spanaway Lake. It’s a small lake in one of the less savory neighborhoods of South Tacoma. It’s surrounded by a modest park with bike paths and picnic tables where local teenagers eat Taco Bell food and make out. It’s one of my favorite of Gus’s teasing points that he used to play live-action, role-playing Dungeons & Dragons there in junior high. I brought a book and the latest issues of the Economist and Us Weekly. Though I didn’t start reading the former periodical until I had breezed completely through the latter, I still felt like I accomplished much in the form of adult reading. I’d brought a tuna sandwich, two bananas, and a roll of those minty Girl Scout cookies that I’d frozen in the spring.124