I wait a little while until everyone seems to settle in and I can be sure that no one is going to sit near me. Then I pull out his book and hold it in my hands. His book. He wrote it. It’s a juicy romance, and on the cover there is an image of two lovers on a beach at sunset. I’d usually scoff at this sort of drivel, but it’s different when you know the person who wrote it. It’s so...impressive. I have the cover masked with a different book jacket—a respectable Jonathan Franzen cover. He’s too smart for most people to get, so I feel safe that no one in this crowd will ask about it because they won’t know what it is.
I turn each delicious page with shaky fingers, stopping after every paragraph or two to peer over the book and make sure no one’s hanging out behind me. Linda Singer likes to creep over with her purse-wine and try to hand it out to all the moms. She could be lurking along the fence, trying to be subtle. I feel totally paranoid. It’s hard to look away from these filthy pages. Each one lustier than the last—inner thigh caresses and nipple sucking.
I hear Ben in the distance, so I hold my hand over my eyes and squint against the sun to see him. Oh no. A kid pushed him and now he’s crying. Shit. Practice is from five to seven and it’s barely five twenty. I have been looking forward to these two hours of reading time all day. Sometimes, if Coach Joe can get everyone to quiet down, the crisis will pass. Nope. Not this time. Ben’s lying next to third base, kicking his heels into the orange clay; he’s got Gavin McCullen and the biter kid crying now too, all feeding off of one another’s howls. That’s it. Joe looks my way, and I nod, stuffing my portable chair into its vinyl carrying case and crossing to third base.
I kneel and go through my steps to calm him. A soft voice and praise.
“You’re doing a great job, bud,” I say, lightly touching his shoulder. I hand him his Dumbledore action figure. He takes it and twists its head, but it’s not going to be enough today. I tell him that we can go if he wants and he charges across the field, a small, marching silhouette, headed toward the car. I see him sit on the curb and make Dumbledore walk across the bumper while Joe talks to me.
“Maybe he’ll want to come back after a little time,” Joe says, but I know my son, and I can tell when there will be a quick recovery and when he’s done. His eyes change when he’s about to vehemently refuse to do something. Forcing him is not how to handle it. Joe blows his whistle abruptly, causing me to yelp.
“No spitting, Jason!” His attention is across the field, pointing at, presumably, Jason, who shrugs and looks around to pass the blame.
“Sorry,” Joe says. He’s realized he’s blown my eardrums out with his aggressive whistling.
“It’s fine.” I dismiss it and dig for my keys.
“New haircut?” he asks. Even Collin didn’t notice the layers I added. I think I blush a little.
“Oh, sort of.”
“Looks nice,” he says, smiling. Joe Brooks has one of those personalities. He always asks people about themselves. Maybe it’s a police tactic to draw people out, because who doesn’t love to talk about themselves? It makes people feel good and open up. I thought he was an asshole in high school. He was popular, always had something to prove, and girls threw themselves his way. He asked me out a couple times junior and senior year, but I rejected any interest he showed out of principle. I was not going to be another girlfriend of Homecoming King Joe Brooks. I guess that was just a part of being young, his obnoxious arrogance, because here he is now: local cop, volunteer coach for special needs kids, of all things. One of the moms, Julie, says he does it because it attracts women more than if he’d gotten a puppy. He does play a large part in the moms’ fantasy lives, but he smashed all of these rumors by actually just being a stand-up guy over the years.
“Thanks, Joe,” I say, involuntarily smoothing my hair with my fingers.
“I can try getting Ben back in the game if you want me to take five and go and talk with him.”
Not many people would go out of their way to deal with Ben. It’s so kind. I feel bad about all the bias I’ve held against Joe over the years without any real justification.
I might have said yes, but I already know it’s not happening, and maybe if I get Ben to the promised DQ and then home early, I can sneak in a chapter or two before Collin and Rachel get home.
“Thanks, but I think we’ll just try again next week,” I say and he puts his hand up for a high five like I’m part of the team. I reluctantly slap his hand, feeling a bit condescended to, but it’s just his way, I suppose. His hand lingers on mine a moment longer than it should.
“All right,” he says, and hollers over to Ben, “Good job, champ!”
Ben doesn’t look up from his fantasy world. I get him in the car with the promise of ice cream and leave, wondering if I’ve just been flirted with or if the guilt I’m wrestling with is causing delusions.
Collin calls after picking Rachel up from cross-country practice and they decide to meet us for a burger and ice cream. It’s a rare occasion that we veer from our local, organic dietary guidelines. Collin and I both cook and share a love of the farmers market. We bonded over the belief that a child’s palate is largely developed depending on what they’re exposed to early in life, so we have been strict about leans and greens at every meal, but lately, I’ve been a little lax. The news of now ice cream and burgers has Ben in the backseat whooping and singing a song about waffle fries that he’s composed, impromptu. He sees a woman hollering at her kid, blocking the only parking spot as we pull in.
“Fat ass, fat ass, fat ass,” Ben starts to repeat. “Waffle fries. Fat ass thighs!”
“Ben! That’s not very nice to say, is it?” And he is quiet, afraid burgers may be taken from him if he continues.
“Ricky!” the woman calls. She’s carrying a full tray of large Cokes in one hand and three greasy DQ bags in the other. I silently calculate the grams of sugar in a soda that size while I wait for them to clear the way.
“Ricky Jr., you get your skinny, little butt right out of the way, right now.”
The child pays no attention. He just continues mimicking Karate Kid moves, kicking high and creating his own sound effects.
“Whaaa. Kwaaah.”
The woman is stuffed into blue sweatpants and a long, stretched-out, stained T-shirt with Got Milk? scrolled across the front. She’s helpless to catch him. She waddles off the curb and moves closer to her son, giving us an anxious wave of apology.
“Now, Ricky Jr., I mean right this very second, or you will not have this Blizzard. I’ll give it right to your sister, and don’t you think I won’t!” Ricky still doesn’t seem convinced. “And no fries. You’ll eat a salad!” Ricky scurries to his mother’s side and quickly shifts his attention from karate moves to jumping up on her, trying to snatch a Coke from her tray.
After negotiating a spot in the packed parking lot for some time, I stand in line at the walk-up window. There are four red plastic tables with attached benches where Ben sits, on his best behavior, watching the busy patio with delight. There are families—moms and dads bent over dripping cones, children running around them in circles or calling emphatically for them to “watch me, watch me” while they perform some unimpressive activity like jumping off the six-inch curb or dabbing a dot of ice cream on their nose and laughing as if it were a great accomplishment.
A Celine Dion song pipes through the speakers and I feel inexplicably depressed. I treasure family nights like this, unexpected and serendipitous, but I want to be anywhere else right now. I want to be by myself. Just for a little while. I shouldn’t have suggested this.
When we are all finally finishing up and Ben is delighting in crumpling up the oily burger wrappers and making multiple trips to the trash with each of our plastic trays, Rachel is weighing the pros and cons of trying out for cheerleading when school starts. The paper tray liner has two columns she’s written in crayons pilfered from the Kid’s Corner. She’s t
reating it like the most important decision she’ll make in her life. Collin is ever attentive and indulgent.
“I’ll look like the biggest loser though. I can’t even do the splits. I’d be like the only one on the team who can’t do the splits.” She looks at me sideways for a moment as she goes off on her diatribe, harboring anger that I didn’t put her in dance when she was young. All the other girls started at five years old and she didn’t show interest until twelve, so it’s my fault she “totally sucks.”
“You’re tall,” Collin tells her. “It’s much harder to do the splits when you’re tall. Girls would kill for your height.” He always says the right thing. She softens.
“Really?” she asks, self-consciously.
“You’ll get the splits down. It just takes longer for tall people,” I add. Her dance teacher is Linda Waters who, I happen to know, is looking for extra cash and offering private lessons; it came up at a brunch with Gillian and the girls recently. Linda happens to have the misfortune of being young and very pretty, so naturally, all the women hate her. Why doesn’t she just work the pole at Bottoms Up Gentlemen’s Club across town, Liz had joked.
“Why don’t you take some private lessons to get you ready for tryouts?” I say.
Immediately, I wish I could take it back. Now I am unabashedly buying my child’s adoration because I feel guilty about something she knows nothing about. Three out-of-character moves in a few days. Shit. But it’s already out there.
“Really? Are you serious?” She looks to Collin, who shrugs in agreement. “Oh my God!” She flings her arms around me. “I’m gonna go and call Katie and tell her, can I?” She’s almost across the parking lot before I nod. She leans against the car, gesturing wildly as she talks to her friend.
“You’re feeling pretty generous today, huh?” Collin asks lightheartedly. I redden.
“I guess. I’m not sure why I said that. I just hate seeing her down on herself... I don’t know.”
“I think I know why you said it,” he says. The blood in my face drains.
“Sorry?” I ask.
“I think this writing group stuff has really boosted your confidence—made you—I don’t know...happier. You need the time away, you know, just to have something that’s just yours. I think it’s great. You seem different.”
“I do?”
“In like a really good way.”
“Oh.” I smile at him, and then look down, picking at the paper corners of Rachel’s list on the table. Ben saves me from having to respond. The tower of wadded up wrappers he’s constructed on top of the trash can was knocked down by some asshole kid, and Collin leaps into dad mode, distracting him, showing him the elaborate ice cream cakes in the display case. I gather up our things quickly and meet them near the front door so there is no danger of resuming our conversation. I can’t stop thinking about Luke Ellison, and I’m afraid that it’s showing—that my behavior seems off—even though it’s just an innocent fantasy.
When we get home, I tiptoe into Claire’s room. The canned laughter from her sitcom underscores her snoring. She’s fallen asleep in her wheelchair with her head back, mouth agape. I remember a Mother’s Day, years ago, when Collin took the two mothers in his life to Woodhaven Country Club. Claire and I sat sipping Brandy Alexanders in sundresses while Collin swam in the pool with the kids.
Claire had held a long white Marlboro in her thin fingers, and through threads of exhaled smoke, she spoke about her work at the university. She taught anthropology, and was explaining all of her exciting research and her upcoming trip to Uganda. She was lovely. I aspired to be like her. Whenever she visited us from Santa Fe, I doted on her. I was captivated by her stories, her worldliness. She was charming, sophisticated. And not the big house, ugly charm bracelet, married into fortune, fake sort of sophisticated I’m often surrounded by. She’d earned it.
Now, when I take off her soiled diaper, I try not to think about that woman who jetted around the world and told dirty stories we laughed and shrieked over on the deck at night, pinot grigios in hand. I clean the mess and shift her into her bed. When her eyes are closed, I slip a surgical mask over my mouth, for the smell. No matter how much disinfectant one can use, dying is a smell that just refuses to be cleaned. I hate to offend her, so I only cover my nose when she is fast asleep.
When I place a clean sheet over her and turn off the television, I notice it’s faintly dark now. The kids must be in their rooms because the only sound is ESPN on in the living room and Collin on another call about the hospital that’s too close to the goddamn train track.
I slip out onto the deck for the fresh air. The light over the door attracts masses of insects. Thick beetles drop onto the thin concrete stoop and collect themselves. The temperate dusk air is dense with mosquitoes and the chatter of crickets sound from the tall prairie grass and the jungle of weeds in the wooded area just beyond my view. It’s peaceful.
I sit at the edge of the pool, looking ahead, past the rusted-through jungle gym set, focusing on a dilapidated pool table in one of the storage sheds along the long, fenced yard. Boxes of Christmas ornaments, a calcified fish aquarium, and last autumn’s garbage bags of leaves with pumpkin faces are all piled up on a worktable, brittle with neglect.
I try to understand the reason for this finger of pain pressing against my throat. I’m not the only one to have felt this. I’m sure this sort of thing happens all the time. “Get it together,” I say softly to myself, and then go inside to start Ben’s bedtime routine.
5
WRITE ABOUT YOUR OWN LIFE. That’s what one of the bullet points in Jonathan’s handout said, so throughout the week, I have stolen pockets of time, here and there, to try to get my thoughts down on paper. I’m using my notebook to jot things down as they come. I have no time to sit in front of a computer right now: by the time the laptop booted up, I would inevitably be interrupted, so I’m...outlining. It’s...a start.
I write about Claire and the life that was robbed from her, about how I secretly lay a damp towel beneath her door at night so the smell of decay doesn’t spill into the hall and reach the children. I write about how I married the kindest man in the world, only to find that I almost never see him and how my whole world revolves around behaviors, de-escalations, meltdowns, doctors, medicines. It’s raw and honest and I’m nervous to put it out into the world, even though it’s just a few people at a bookstore.
I stand in the full-length mirror in our bedroom. It’s so strange for the house to feel quiet. Collin is really committed to taking the load on Thursdays for me. He took Ben with him to pick up Rachel from dance practice, and then took both of them out to dinner. I pull a couple of dresses I haven’t worn in a while out of the closet and hold them in front of me as I look in the mirror, scrutinizing each for a different reason. A dress to writing group? It’s humid outside, I tell myself. Nothing wrong with a summer dress. I choose a yellow sundress with a wisp of a sleeve. I slip on sandals, the fancy sort that have straps winding up the ankle. And then I apply mascara and look at myself a moment.
Collin said that the reason he’d told the bartender to buy me and all my friends a round at that college bar all those years ago was because of my long, chestnut hair. He said he hadn’t even seen my face yet, just the back of my head from across the bar, and he’d known. The kids love that story, but I tell him he’s full of crap and I saw him looking over all night. My hair is still long, but I haven’t seen it out of a messy bun on the top of my head in ages. And not the sexy, trendy, messy bun. The exhausted, droopy mom sort. Not flattering.
I release my hair from its knot. While I hold a flat iron to it, I wonder if Luke Ellison was flirting, which surely he was not, but if he were—what would he see in me? Constant stress has kept me thin, I’ll give myself that. I’m pushing forty, but as I examine myself in a fitted dress with my hair down around my shoulders, I feel almost sexy for the first time in... I could not begin
to guess how long. Or maybe not sexy exactly, but slightly less thrown together and frazzled. I’ll take it. I realize I need a massive amount of cover-up under my eyes to match the rest of my face. My age and fatigue are evident in the circles beneath them, but nothing some industrial-strength concealer can’t fix.
I run my fingers through my hair, smooth my dress with my hands and smile at myself in the mirror. I have a notebook with something resembling a story, and I have been excited for this all week. When I get in my car though, the ignition doesn’t turn over.
“Shit.” I hit the steering wheel with the palm of my hand a few times, willing it to work. We’ve only had to replace so much as the windshield wipers since we got this thing. It’s never broken down. I feel like the universe is conspiring against me for the hedonistic thoughts I’ve allowed myself to have. I try a few more times, but it just makes a clacking noise. When I smell gas, I know I’ve flooded it, trying too many times. Sonofabitch.
I call Collin, even though there’s nothing he can do. Maybe if they haven’t gotten to a restaurant yet, they can grab takeout and come back so I can use his car. He promised them “restaurant Thursday” while Mom is at her group, and changing a promise on Ben does not go over well. I decide not to ask him.
“Do you know how long you’ll be?” I say, and I can hear a group of waiters singing happy birthday to some poor sap at another table in the background. Rachel must have chosen the place this time. It’s clearly Barney’s Burger Barn.
“We just sat down, but we could probably get it to go, hon,” he suggests. He’s so sweet.
“No. No, no. That’s okay.”
“I hate for you to miss it. Take an Uber.”
“Really?” I hadn’t even thought of that. It’s not a flight I’m late for. It’s just a writing group. An Uber seems kind of...desperate. It should be easy to say that it’s not a big deal, and that I could use a little quiet time anyway, but I don’t. I find that, instead, I actually switch him to speaker so I can simultaneously open my Uber app while we’re talking.
Such a Good Wife Page 4
