Love Stories in This Town

by Amanda Eyre Ward

  “What a sick, sick man,” says my mother, looking at the paper over my shoulder. Her hair is still pinned in curls, and she has given me my toast with honey. She is rotting from the inside, I can smell it.

  “You got that right,” calls my father from the living room. His oxygen tube almost drowns out the television. I can see my father's face, and it is gray and resentful.

  I don't say anything, but I know they are wrong. I saw Joseph Davidson in the flesh. I knew the look in his eyes. I wish my parents would just be quiet. I will call James today, and I will give him back his ring. “Please understand, James,” I will say. And then I will tell him what I should have told the masturbator: There are plenty of things worse than having a home, and doing what you have to do to stay there.

  The Stars Are Bright in Texas

  They told us the baby was dead, and two days later we were on a plane to Texas. We were moving, and had to buy a house. We'd always rented, and all our furniture was from Goodwill. We'd never had a realtor before. We were going to be rich.

  In my carry-on bag, I had three magazines, an apple, and two bottles of prescription pills: an antibiotic and a painkiller. I swallowed one pill from each bottle as we taxied down the runway, leaving Bloomington, and my dead baby, behind.

  It hadn't even been a baby, my doctor said, despite my morning sickness, tender breasts, and anticipatory purchases from A Pea in the Pod. It was just a mass of cells, the wrong egg fertilized. Though my husband, Greg, knew more than any of us about chromosomal abnormalities, he was superstitious—he was convinced it was because he was drunk or stressed out from his pharmaceutical company interviews when we conceived. That night had been a heavenly memory: the smell of a fire, snow falling quietly outside our bedroom window. Now it was just a storm and a mistake.

  We landed at George Bush Intercontinental Airport. Joe, from Lone Star Realty, picked us up in his mother-in-law's gold minivan. He wore a Mexican wedding shirt that would be soaked through by the end of the day.

  Our friends Daniel and Jane had recommended Lone Star Realty. Daniel finished his PhD in molecular biology a year before Greg, and we watched with fascination as he went through the recruiting process. When Daniel slipped his wrists into the golden handcuffs, which was what we called pharmaceutical jobs, he and Jane went to Texas for a weekend and returned with stories of giant houses, hot brisket, and a dip called queso. Daniel, too, had considered a teaching job, but PharmaLab's glittering promises were too wonderful to resist. “Once you're in, you never get out,” mused Daniel, who had shaved his grad-school beard for interviews, revealing a small, pale chin.

  “But why would you want to?” Jane asked. “Did we tell you we're getting four thousand square feet? And a flipping pool! We're twenty-six.” She shook her head with wonder.

  “I'm twenty-eight,” I said.

  “See what I'm saying?” she replied, gesturing at our dumpy Bloomington apartment, where I had just microwaved us two mugs of Earl Grey. Daniel and Jane were away the weekend we visited Houston, but promised to throw us a pool party when we arrived for good.

  I tried to ignore the way Joe's hands shook, the fact that he took a wrong turn getting to the first house, and then said, “Hey, now this is cute!” as if he'd never visited the neighborhood before. We were looking at houses in the Woodlands, the planned community north of Houston where PharmaLab was located. We could live in a real city, Daniel had told us, but the commute would be a bitch.

  The first house was on Pleasure Cove Drive. It was made of limestone, and had an orange roof. The “country kitchen” included a wood-paneled refrigerator, and the nursery was furnished from the same Pottery Barn Kids catalog I had on my bedside table. This mother had chosen the Lullaby Rocker and Ottoman in cranberry twill. I had wanted butter twill.

  “Did you see the country kitchen?” asked Joe. “How about the master suite?” He seemed overly excited.

  The master suite had pictures of Chicago sports teams all over one wall. A wedding photo featured a blonde with a dazzling smile. The husband was not such a looker, but hey. Someone was reading Who Moved My Cheese? in bed. The other one was reading Star.

  Greg was in the yard, under a sign that said MARGARITAVILLE!

  “I hate it,” I said.

  “Oh,” he said, “okay.” We moved toward the minivan.

  As we drove to another house, Joe chatted with himself. “Silly flooring choices,” he said, and “tiles from the wrong period.” He turned on Treasure Cove Drive and stopped in front of a faux Victorian. “Right,” he said, running a hand through his hair. He told us the price of the house, which was one hundred thousand more dollars than we could afford, even with the handcuffs.

  I looked back at Greg, who shrugged. He was wearing a light blue shirt I had sewn for him—it was the color of his eyes. He had a fresh haircut, and looked weary but optimistic.

  My brother, Adam, a devotee of HGTV, would have loved the house on Treasure Cove. It was solid brick—so unlike the house we had grown up in, which shook during Georgia thunderstorms—and had a media room with a wet bar and a giant deck for entertaining.

  I was feeling woozy and dreamy. In a stranger's bathroom, I changed my Maxi Pad. The bathroom had a Jacuzzi tub. I wrapped the old pad in toilet paper and stuck it in my pocket. My blood—which had cushioned the mass of cells— dripped into the toilet bowl. In the tub, someone had lit berry-scented candles. I began to feel ill. I took a few breaths, then composed myself and joined my husband, who was admiring the skylight above the bed. A stitched pillow proclaimed THE STARS ARE BRIGHT IN TEXAS. It was a mass-produced piece of junk. Perhaps no one had the time to hand-stitch in Houston. Perhaps no one had a motto worth hand-stitching. THE HOUSES ARE BIG IN TEXAS, I thought. THE HAIR IS BLOND IN TEXAS. WHAT AM I DOING IN TEXAS?

  In the minivan, I said I was too tired to trek around anymore. “Sweetie,” said Greg, “we only have this weekend. …”

  “How about a Diet Dr Pepper?” suggested Joe. “Got a twelve-pack in the cooler.”

  My empty womb was starting to cramp. “I just don't feel so well,” I said. “I'm on antibiotics.”

  Joe smoothly put the car in gear. He talked about strep throat, how he always used to get strep throat as a kid, always taking antibiotics.

  “Let's hit a few more houses,” said my husband. “Kimmy, you rest in the car. I'll let you know if anything's amazing.” The doctor had suggested we cancel the trip, but I had already covered my shifts, and I wanted so much to fly somewhere new, somewhere else, and buy a home. Our apartment was grimy, despite the curtains I had made from vintage fabric. The previous tenants had left old pots and pans; there was even a towel in the bathroom that said RANDY.

  “You'll be completely wiped out after the procedure,” the doctor had said, as I lay on a gurney, an IV in my arm. I was given an anti-nauseal called Regulan.

  “I feel a bit weird already,” I said.

  “Hm,” said the doctor, leaning in. I was her first operation of the day: I could smell the hair dryer and Aqua Net. “Do you feel anxious, jittery, like you want to jump off the table?”

  “I do.”

  “It's the Regulan,” said the doctor, matter-of-factly. But I was also about to go into surgery, to have what was left of my baby scraped out. We had prematurely named the baby Madeline or Greg Junior.

  “You'll be in la la land in a sec anyway,” said the doctor.

  She was right. The next thing I knew, a nurse said, “It's all over. Now don't forget Doc's instructions.”

  She pulled back a white curtain, and there was Greg, his eyes red. “Mouse,” he said, and he tried to smile.

  The nurse continued, “Dr. O'Brien told you the surgery was fine, and you asked when you could have a margarita.”

  “What did she say?” Greg and I asked in unison.

  “She said Sunday.”

  It was Friday night when Joe dropped us at the Hilton Garden Inn, but we ordered margaritas anyway at the Great American Grill. The espadrilles I had
bought for the trip were already giving me blisters. We were depressed.

  “I can't imagine myself in any of these McMansions,” I said, poking an ice cube with my straw.

  “I'm not hungry, but I'm getting fried chicken,” said Greg.

  “I miss it,” I said. Greg slid his chair next to mine and took me in his arms.

  “I know,” he said. “Me too.”

  Three nights before, I had climbed into bed and said, “I have a little blood in my underwear.”

  “What?”

  “But I looked on the Internet. Something about old blood, sometimes, like making room for the growing uterus or something. I don't know.” I felt a sick excitement, speculating that I'd get some extra attention and maybe see the baby on an early sonogram, paid for by Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

  “It's probably nothing,” Greg had said, putting one hand on my stomach and the other on his fruitfly genome data.

  After two rounds of margaritas, we went to our hotel room. Greg took a shower and joined me in bed, smelling of the hotel's ginger citrus shampoo. When he fell asleep, I was alone in a humid city.

  I was six when a man approached my mother near the perfume counter at Dillard's. Once in a while, she took us shopping in Atlanta, about an hour from our hometown of Haralson, Georgia, population 143. The man asked my mother if she'd ever thought of being a model. She laughed in a way I had never heard, showing her throat. She said she was happily married with two small children. The man told my mother they had nannies in Paris, who were called au pairs.

  In my memory, the man had dark hair and shiny skin. He wore a suit and tie. He handed her a card and said, “Just promise me you'll think about it.” My mother was a rare beauty, he said.

  She looked at the card, her forehead creased. She said, “I'll think about it. Okay, I will, I'll think about it.” She bought a shirt for my brother and a plaid jumper for me, and then she drove us home.

  She was beautiful, my mother. She'd rest her long, bare arms on her knees and stare into space while I tried to capture her attention. She didn't cook, like other mothers, or put name tags in my clothes. I can imagine her hanging my new dress in my closet, mulling her options. Did she even hesitate? Lighting a cigarette, dialing the number, packing her suitcase.

  I don't know if she made it to Paris, or became famous there. Whatever she found, I hope it brought her happiness. I hope it was better than my brother and me.

  At ten the next morning, I climbed into the front seat of Joe's mother-in-law's minivan. Greg was in the back, next to the cooler. We drove south, heading into a neighborhood I loved immediately. There was a big park with a swimming pool, and a jungle gym surrounded by moms holding take-out coffees.

  “Okeydokey,” said Joe, looking through a messy pile of papers, each a possible place for us to live. “Okay, now,” he said, “we're a few blocks from the Ginger Man, a good little bar.”

  Greg and I locked eyes happily.

  We walked into the house, and it was perfect. High ceilings, a big open kitchen for me to cook in, or learn to cook in. A bonus craft room, where I could put the Singer sewing machine my father had given me when I graduated from college three years before. I found Greg in a second garden, off the bedroom. He stood with his hands on his hips, gazing up at the canopy of trees. When I approached, he turned and looked at me.

  “We found it,” I said.

  “I could love this,” he agreed quietly.

  “Yes,” I said. My mind swam with visions of us: reading the paper on the front step, walking across the street with towels slung around our necks, tucking someone into bed in the kids' room. I opened the freezer and saw ice-cream sandwiches. I thought, I love ice-cream sandwiches.

  Maybe it was the caffeine—which I was drinking for the first time in months—but the next few houses were a blur. We chattered about mortgages and contracts. As Joe drove, I furnished the house in my mind: a sleek couch in front of the fireplace—maybe leather? I imagined myself in the craft room, sliding fabric under the needle, really making a go of Madeline Designs, now that I no longer had to waitress every night.

  Joe's cell phone rang. “Hello?” he said. “No, no,” he said. “Couldn't have been me.” He snapped the phone shut and turned to look at us. “Somebody took the key to the first house. That was the owner. He's pissed.” He shook his head and chuckled.

  I looked at Greg, who said coldly, “Why don't you check your pockets, Joe.”

  Joe's phone rang again. “What?” he said. He started to flush. “Well, okeydokey,” he said. “I-I-I …” He stopped talking and nodded, then closed the phone. “I guess we're the only ones who've been there. But I just don't—”

  “Watch out for the divider,” said Greg in a steely voice.

  As we doubled back to all the houses we'd seen, I tried to calm my husband. “It's going to be perfect,” I said, as he muttered, “total waste of our time.” After Joe found the key to our dream house, locked in another house, he called the owners. “Hi there, Joe Jones, Lone Star Realty,” he said. “The funniest thing—”

  “Don't turn on University,” said Greg from the backseat. Joe turned on University. We sat in traffic caused by a construction site—a site we had driven by earlier—in complete silence.

  By lunchtime, we had returned the key. The house looked better than ever. A lemonade stand had been set up by the park. A little boy rode by on his bicycle, a wrapped birthday present in the basket.

  Joe took us out to lunch. I popped my pills right at the table and changed my Maxi Pad in the bathroom. I was not healthy. I ate a cheeseburger with avocado, cheddar, and bacon. I called my father in Haralson and said, “We found it,” and my father said, “That's wonderful, Kimmy.”

  Across the restaurant, Greg spoke excitedly into his cell phone. “Mom,” he said, “Listen to this, Mom …”

  Over lunch, we filled out the paperwork, making an offer for full price and then some. Joe assured us we would get the house. Between bites of his burrito, Joe told us he had just hit his stride at Enron when the shit storm hit. “Thought I'd give this real estate thing a try,” he said. He talked about his six-month-old baby, whom he called “Girly.” His wife, also an Enron-employee-turned-realtor, he called “Doll.”

  After lunch, we drank Diet Dr Pepper and looked at many houses that sucked, feeling superior.

  That night, I wore a strapless dress. It was deep green, and had a matching jacket with three-quarter-length sleeves. We wandered around the Woodlands, trying to find a restaurant where we could splurge, though we were nervous about spending every cent PharmaLab had promised and hundreds of thousands they hadn't. If we got the house, we could no longer say, “Oh, screw Big Pharma. Let's just move to Wyoming and live off the land.”

  Though we were outside, I felt as if we were trapped in a mall, with one neon-lit shop after another. All we could find was a Cheesecake Factory, and I've never liked cheesecake, so we returned to the Great American Grill.

  “Cheers,” I said, holding my margarita high.

  Greg brought his glass to mine, and said, “Cheers, my love.” We toasted ourselves, and the little family we would begin, as soon as I was no longer bleeding heavily. A week before, I had packed some Victoria's Secret Supermodel Sexy Whipped Body Cream into my suitcase. It would keep.

  The gold minivan pulled up as usual in the morning, but Joe was no longer at the wheel. Instead, Doll—whose real name was Sally—hopped out. She was short and plump, her red hair in barrettes. “Joe wanted a day with the baby, and I needed some adult time,” Sally explained. Her skirt was tight and orange, and she wore plastic jelly sandals. As we sipped coffee and ate bagels, Sally's phone rang. It appeared her phone was broken, and she could use only the speaker attachment.

  With Girly crying in the background, Joe told Sally that there was another offer on our dream house. We needed to name our best price right now, he said, and the owners would decide in the next five minutes.

  I felt flustered. The next five minutes? Neither Joe
nor Sally knew whether we should raise our price or not. “They could have a lowball offer,” said Sally. She added, “Or they could have a higher offer.” She took a bite of her bagel. “Yum,” she said.

  Greg had done some calculations on his laptop (he loved Excel spreadsheets) and concluded the house was worth less than the asking price. We decided to hold firm, and headed out with a list of addresses, waiting nervously for Sally's phone to ring. “Might as well keep looking, just in case,” said Sally. The flight back to our rental apartment and my dogeared copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting was at 4 P.M.

  On Scullers Cove Court, we entered an airless house where someone collected Hummel figurines. “This would be a great house for an older couple with no kids,” mused Sally. She stood in the hallway, telling us about Girly, and how she didn't like tummy time, but how Sally had to make her do her tummy time. It was so stressful, said Sally.

  Back in the minivan, we parked outside another (gigantic) house. “Whoops!” said Sally. “Y'all? It looks like I locked my purse inside that other house? And my phone's in it, and my Palm. And it's locked, oh, whoops! And we can't look at any other houses, cause my realtor key is also—”

  “In your purse,” Greg finished.

  Sally thought fast. “How about I drop y'all off for a nice lunch?” she suggested. “And I'll go get all this worked out? And y'all can have a real nice lunch?”

  “It's ten-thirty,” I said. “I don't want lunch. Our flight leaves in a few hours!” I was a wreck, admittedly.

  “Oh, whoops,” commented Sally.

  At the hotel concierge desk, Sally made some calls. Greg stared at his nice new shoes. The night before, we had made each other crack up by saying, “Diet Dr Pepper!” and “Girly!” Now, nothing seemed so hilarious.