For Tommy, provider of the married love—and in memory of his father, Gerald Franklin,
1933–2016
CONTENTS
Married Love
One Doesn’t Always Wish to Converse on Airplanes
Still Have the Playbill
Small Talk at Evanston General
Goner
I Come from a Long Line of Modest Achievers
Why I’m So Well Read
Mommy Wants a Glass of Chardonnay
Safety Scissors
I Was Not Going to Be Your Typical
Why I’m Switching Salons
I Survived the Blizzard of ’79
Married Love, II
Your Turn
Returning from Spring Break, Junior Year at Notre Dame
Small Fry
Orange-Shaped Hole
11. And I’ve Been Searching Ceaselessly for You Ever Since, Mon Amour
Heating and Cooling
“If You Were Born Catholic, You’ll Always Be Catholic”
Disharmony
Bad Break
What I Think About When Someone Uses “Pussy” as a Synonym for “Weak”
Low-Budget Car Dealership Commercial
Nine Months in Madison
Proof
The Neighbor, the Chickens, and the Flames
Married Love, III
Two Phone Conversations
Another Reason I Love My Mother
Galore
Home Button
Some Childhood Dreams Really Do Come True
Our Friend the Memoirist
The Visitation
Daughter, They’ll Use Even Your Own Gaze to Wound You
Married Love, IV
My Father’s Reminiscences
I Knew a Woman
Now I Glance Up the First Time They Call My Name
Sweet Nothing
What I Learned in Grad School
Expiration Date
Emulsionar
When People Bemoan the Commodification of Art
Another Missing Chapter in the Parenting Handbook
Pass the Vodka
The Grief Vacation
When They Grow Up
A Reckoning of Kisses
Salvage
Married Love, V
Addendum to “Salvage”
Notes
Acknowledgments
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Heating & Cooling
MARRIED LOVE
In every book my husband’s written, a character named Colin suffers a horrible death. This is because my boyfriend before I met my husband was named Colin. In addition to being named Colin, he was Scottish, and an architect. So you understand my husband’s feelings of inadequacy. My husband cannot build a tall building of many stories. He can only build a story, and then push Colin out of it.
ONE DOESN’T ALWAYS WISH TO CONVERSE ON AIRPLANES
but this tanned, fit couple—white-sweatered, like tennis pros—seemed eager to talk, so we talked. No, their final destination wasn’t Denver. They’d continue to Hawaii after the layover. How awesome, I said, Hawaii. Is it a special occasion, an anniversary? They grinned at each other, like You tell her. No, you.
Their thing, it turned out, was scuba diving with metal detectors. They dove at popular honeymoon spots on Oahu, because, they said, the first time those rich Japanese brides hit the water, their new diamonds slid right off. The couple said they didn’t always find a ring, but overall they’d found enough to fund their vacations.
“That’s . . . wow,” I said.
They grinned at each other again, and took a sip from their Bloody Marys, then she gave his biceps a squeeze. Her diamond ring broadcast sequins of light on the tray table. I envisioned how, after netting a big rock, they’d perform exceedingly athletic hotel sex. Their avarice was so unabashed that it was difficult to keep despising them, but I, large of righteousness and small of diamond, persevered all the way to Denver.
STILL HAVE THE PLAYBILL
I peaked early, fourth grade. I had the lead in Mary Poppins. Mr. Banks was played by Vince Vaughn. Yes, that Vince Vaughn, though at that point he was nobody, just another kid like the rest of us. He didn’t go to Hollywood until after high school.
I don’t particularly recall him as being the one destined for stardom.
SMALL TALK AT EVANSTON GENERAL
And what is it you do? he asked, after a moment of silence. My mother was in the bathroom exchanging her dress for the cotton gown.
I had the sense that he was asking to fulfill some kind of med school training: Engage the patient’s loved ones in conversation.
Five outlandish occupations pinged through my head, all lies. But I knew I shouldn’t mess with him. I needed to get him on our side and keep him there. I’m a writer, I said.
A rider? A light turned on in his eyes, suddenly as blue as his scrubs. He put his fists up and bounced them: a cowboy bounding over the plains.
No, I said. A writer. Which now seemed to require a gesture, so I held up my imaginary pen and wiggled it.
Oh, he said, all business again as my mother came out of the bathroom. Well, he said, me too. He untied her gown with one hand and slipped the black Sharpie from his pocket with the other, clamped it between his teeth to remove the cap, then drew dashes on my mother’s naked chest, indicating where his scalpel would go.
GONER
That Friday, after morning Mass, the priests visited our third grade to announce a meeting for prospective altar boys.
I went. Me, Beth Ann. Why did I go? First, I was attracted to the pageantry: the costuming with the alb and the cincture, the procession with the cross and the thurible filled with incense. I wanted to arrange the credence table—the corporal, the cruet, and the ciborium. I wanted to raise the aspersorium of holy water into which the priest dipped the aspergillum before raining blessings on penitent heads. When he lifted the Eucharist, I wanted to twist the cluster of brass sanctus bells, alerting our souls to transubstantiation, bread and wine miracled into Body and Blood. And clearly I wanted to fill the chalice of my mouth with the wine of those words.
Also, I went to prove a point.
But I never got the chance. Before the meeting began, Father Mayer evicted me from the front pew. “I’ll be right back,” he told my classmates, then steered me by my shoulder to the sacristy where, behind a heavy door, a few old ladies bent over ironing boards. The altar society, he informed me, cares for the priestly vestments. This is where God calls you to serve. He fled, and I fled, and that evening in my best penmanship I tattled on him to Cardinal Joseph Bernadin. My letter ended, P.S.: And women should be priests! My mom loved the letter: how cute, our little women’s libber.
Now, a grown woman with children of my own, back in Illinois at my mother’s table, I read in The Trib that Father Mayer sexually abused altar boys. For decades. He’d been removed from St. Mary’s and sent to St. Edna’s, removed from St. Edna’s and sent to St. Stephen’s, removed from St. Stephen’s and sent to St. Dionysius’, removed from St. Dionysius’ and sent to St. Odilo’s. All those altered boys. Did the archdiocese, the Cardinal, know? Please. In the church files, there’s a contract Father Mayer signed, promising that at St. Odilo’s he wouldn’t be alone with boys under twenty-one. Because by then two of his altar boys had committed suicide.
After St. Odilo’s, he was sent to jail.
You can look all of this up, if you care to. Father Robert E. Mayer, pastor of St. Mary’s, Lake Forest, Illinois, 1975 to 1981. Call this fiction: I dare you.
I lay the newspaper down in a light that is no longer the light of my mother’s kitchen, but is the stained light of St. Mary’s, where solid pillars of dust propped up the clerestory windows. In this light I see it all anew, I see it all anew, and clear as a bell, as we say, as if cued by altar boys twisting the sanctus bells, announcing that something has been transubstantiated into something else, forever. The ironing women who lifted the blank communion wafers of their faces. The click of dress shoes as Father rushed back to the meeting, his robes streaming behind him like wings. A year later, his sabbatical. His goodbye pot-luck.
My outrage at not being chosen. My bad luck at being born a girl.
My classmate Donny O’Dell, who was chosen, during Mass that unseasonably warm Easter—he was holding high the Bible, rigid and dutiful, when suddenly he toppled backward. The whole congregation heard the sickening thwack of skull on marble, and as one, we uttered the same surprised Oh!—as if it were part of the Mass, as if a response had been inserted before the Agnus Dei—Oh! we cried, in a single voice—and how quickly Father was at his side, bending, lifting in his arms the small boy, Donny O’Dell, a boy even smaller than I was, Donny in his arms like Jesus removed from his cross, or, with his white alb flowing toward the floor, like a bride. And how Donny raised a hand to his head and opened his eyes and realized that he’d fainted and smiled sheepishly. How the parishioners laughed a relieved laugh to see he was okay. How the ushers led Donny outside into the fresh air. How later, filing out into the narthex, everyone laughed again with Mrs. O’Dell. Your son gave us quite a scare, Nance. For a moment, we thought he was a goner.
I COME FROM A LONG LINE OF MODEST ACHIEVERS
I’m fond of recalling how my mother is fond of recalling how my great-grandfather was the very first person to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge on the second day.
WHY I’M SO WELL READ
Once, when we were young and poor, my husband and I learned that an Irish friend was road-tripping across America with two Irish pals, so we invited them for a visit. They arrived sniping at one another. They’d had a falling out, and in fact after dinner they were to have a doozy in our driveway that stopped just short of fisticuffs, then go their separate ways. But, before this happened, when thanking us for the meal, one of the men opened his wallet and held out a fifty-dollar bill. Don’t be silly, we said, we’re not taking your money. He insisted. Thanks, we said, but no. He kept at it, clutching the bill. The more we rejected his money, the angrier he got. Finally, we accepted it. All I could figure is that he had plenty of dough, and felt bad that the three of them had argued, and wanted to make up something to someone, somehow.
Perhaps if we’d acquired the fifty through some usual channel, we’d have stored it in some usual place. But it wasn’t paycheck money, it was found money. My husband walked to the bookshelf, opened a book to its fiftieth page, slotted the bill there, then slid the book back. That way we could kind of forget about it, but we’d have it for an emergency: an elegant solution.
We were poor and young, I already said that, and dumb with love. One night, I was working at my desk when my husband wanted to frolic. He called for me and I delayed, needing ten minutes to finish my project, then ten more. Finally I heard a noise and looked up. He wasn’t there, but his penis was, jutting from the doorframe. Out of sight, he gyrated so his penis beckoned, like a crooking finger, and we both got the giggles. My camera was on my desk, and, still giggling, I took a photo, then followed him into the bedroom where we made our love.
Weeks later, when I picked up the developed film, it took me a minute to recall why I’d photographed my door. But oh, there it was: my husband’s penis. I showed him, and together we laughed. Then he moved to tear it up, but I stayed his hand. Let me keep it, I argued. Let me keep it someplace secret.
Into a book, page fifty.
It couldn’t have been more than a few months later when we found ourselves desperate for dough. We walked to the shelf and removed the book in the upper left corner, turned to page fifty. No money. We opened the next book, the next. No money. We’d neglected to note which book contained the money, but knew where to look, forgetting that we tend to dip frequently into favorites, then reshelve them in the nearest space. We expanded our search. No fifty anywhere. And then I remembered the penis. Now we were searching for both. We checked the fiftieth page of every book in our house constructed of books.
We must have loaned them out. We do that, we can’t help it. We collect strays, lost students who need some pals, some protein, and sooner or later we’re incredulous, “But you’ve never read Hopkins?” or “You’d adore Denis Johnson,” and a few hours later the student is saying goodbye with a doggie bag and an armload of inspiration. But we couldn’t remember any recent borrowers, and couldn’t imagine asking about the bonus material, even if we had. Did we lend both books to the same student? If so, in what order? Fifty then penis, we decided, was slightly less salacious than penis followed by fifty.
It’s been nineteen years. Our house has more books than ever: not just poetry and fiction and memoir, but biographies, cookbooks, thrillers, graphic novels, mysteries. I love a good mystery. Like, where the hell is that photo? Even now, middle-class and middle-age, I never open a book without hoping for a fifty or a penis.
MOMMY WANTS A GLASS OF CHARDONNAY
If you collected all the drops of days I’ve spent singing “Row, row, row your boat” to children fighting sleep, you’d have an ocean deep enough to drown them many times over.
SAFETY SCISSORS
Watch what you say about younger sisters within older sisters’ earshot. You know, things like, “What beautiful curls the little one has! And what long eyelashes!”
Forty years later I can still feel the yank on my scalp as my four-year-old sister pulled my curls so she could shear them. Can still feel, as I sat trapped by the high chair’s embrace, her finger forcing my eyelid down. Can still hear the scissors’ snick, snick.
Funny, but what I wonder at now is not that she did it, but that when I realized she was going to do it, I didn’t struggle. She was going to do it whether I liked it or not, so I sat still. Even then, I had an instinct for self-preservation. And you see, I was right. I am alive, and she isn’t.
I WAS NOT GOING TO BE YOUR TYPICAL
WHY I’M SWITCHING SALONS
“We can put on a topcoat with glitter,” said the manicurist. “We’ve noticed you like attention.”
I SURVIVED THE BLIZZARD OF ’79
We didn’t question. Or complain. It wouldn’t have occurred to us, and it wouldn’t have helped. I was eight. Julie was ten.
We didn’t yet know that this blizzard would earn itself a moniker that would be silk-screened on T-shirts. We would own such a shirt, which extended its tenure in our house as a rag for polishing silver.
So I didn’t make up the blizzard, though it sounds made up, the grimmest of Grimms, wind chill forty below, three feet of snow and snow still falling. Later, a neighbor would tell of coming home after two nights away and having to dig down a foot to reach his keyhole.
My dad had a snow blower, which spewed sheets of snow out the side of its mouth. Sheets became walls reaching almost to the sky on either side of our front path. By tipping my head back, I could still view sky. It was snow-white and tearing itself into pieces and hurling them at us.
And then the world began shutting down. The airports, which was bad because Mom was in Toronto, visiting her sister. The schools, which was great for the first day, and good for the second, and then less good and less good yet. Because the roads were narrowing, the fridge emptying. Does this smell okay to you? Couldn’t watch Little House because Channel 5 only covered the blizzard. A motorist, dead of exposure in a stranded car. A snow shoveler, dead of a heart attack, ambulance couldn’t reach him. Coat drive, shelters for the ho
meless. Check in on your elderly neighbors, folks. If you can get out, that is. Amtrak trains abandoned like last year’s toys. Cars lining the highway, buried by snow, white lumps pierced by antennas. Family of five, killed when their roof collapsed. We were a family of four, but with Mom away, we were three. I got out of the bathtub to answer her crackling long-distance call.
Then it was Sunday so Dad said get ready for Mass. We didn’t question. He helped us tug and wriggle into our snow suits and we slid our feet into plastic bread bags before yanking on our boots. He shouldered open the door into the shrieking tunnel of white. We trudged between walls of snow to the unplowed road. Follow me, Dad said, step where I’m stepping, this part will hold our weight. Except sometimes we couldn’t match his stride or it wouldn’t hold our weight and Julie’s boot or my boot would crunch through crust and we’d plummet to the groin, feeling nothing below but more snow. On the count of three, Dad said, and hoisted us out, and we battled on, snow melting into our socks, heads lowered against the wind. When we reached the plowed road, we scrabbled down, easier walking. I couldn’t tell how far we had to go. It hurt to look up.
At last, the dark church loomed. We climbed the stone steps to the doors. Locked. My father raised his gloved fist and knocked. He must have known, even as he knocked, but still he knocked. No sign on the door announced that Mass was canceled. But why should the priests post a sign? Probably they couldn’t get out of the rectory themselves.
Right-e-o, said my father, slowly turning back the way we’d come. Right-e-o. Whatever he felt then, gazing out over the tundra, the alien tundra, all mailboxes and road signs and newspaper racks and parking meters blighted and buried, wasn’t something he shared. What he shared was, Home again, home again, jiggety jig.
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