George and Lizzie

by Nancy Pearl

  On a week when he had no other out-of-town travel scheduled, George flew to Santa Fe and he and Lizzie drove the three girls to Tulsa. It was I-25 to I-40, I-40 to I-44, and finally I-44 to Allan and Elaine’s. They stayed for a whole week. All the way there they sang songs and tried to be the first one to see all the letters of the alphabet on license plates and billboards. Lizzie read Alice in Wonderland to them on the way to Tulsa and Through the Looking Glass on the way home. She taught them how to play “A . . . My Name Is Alice.” George told jokes and funny stories about when he was a little boy. Elaine and Allan spoiled all of them and most importantly the trip gave Marla and James some time alone with each other.

  Early one afternoon when the girls were at school and Marla was napping, Lizzie tiptoed into James’s room to check on him. She expected to find him dozing—he was on massive amounts of pain medication—but he smiled when she came in. She sat down in the chair next to his bed and took his hand. “Dearest James, I know you’re worrying about how Marla is going to manage, but I want you to know that of course I, George and I, will always be there for them. I promise you that with all my heart. You and Marla and the girls are my family . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  James squeezed her hand. In the months since his diagnosis it had gotten more and more difficult for him to speak, but he said hoarsely, “I know you will.” They sat quietly for a few moments and Lizzie could see that his eyes were starting to close, but before he fell asleep he whispered, “Lizzie, I have to tell you something. I pushed that Ouija-board thingy around, even though I promised I wouldn’t. Do you think that’s going to go on my permanent record?”

  “Oh, James, I think I’ve always known you did. I love you,” Lizzie said, leaning over and kissing his cheek.

  The service at the graveside was not to be borne, but of course everyone had to bear it. They stood in a line, clutching each other’s hands, George, India, Marla, Beezie, Lulu, and Lizzie. While James’s colleagues and students spoke movingly and sincerely about how fortunate they’d been to know him, Lizzie had the confusing thought that the only way this funeral could even be marginally okay was if James were there with them, someone else was dead, someone they didn’t know or at least didn’t care about, and the three of them—she and Marla and James—were all completely stoned on some of his best weed, as they had been so much of the time in college. It was too bad, Lizzie thought, that the one single person in the whole world who would appreciate this thought was Marla. It was certainly no use telling George; he disapproved of drugs on principle. George. A huge wave of resentment and anger swamped Lizzie. How could George have that stupid way of looking at the world? How dare he say that James’s death wasn’t a tragedy? She caught his eye and said, silently but distinctly, “This is a tragedy. You are absolutely, totally, completely wrong.” George shook his head, but whether he’d been able to read her lips was unclear. All those adverbs. The chances were he hadn’t.

  When they lowered the casket into the ground, India turned to George and said, with wonder in her voice, “That’s my daddy down there.”

  Someone behind them heard her and let out a sob. Lizzie thought it was James’s mother. George squatted down so he was close to India’s height. “I know it is, honey,” he said. “Should we say good-bye to him now?”

  India nodded. They all said their last good-byes to James, husband, father, and dearest friend.

  Later that afternoon, after everyone else had gone, Lizzie and Marla were sitting on the big screened porch, watching another beautiful sunset, while inside George played Parcheesi with all three girls. There were simultaneously shrieks of laughter and groans of despair as the four of them moved their counters around the board. From what Marla and Lizzie could tell, Lulu had just landed on the square George was on, sending his piece back to the beginning.

  “George is wonderful,” Marla said. “He’s so good with them. They love him. Kids can tell the difference between someone really having fun playing with them, like George, and pretending to have fun, like my parents.”

  “I know,” Lizzie said. “I know that.” She sighed and spoke again. “Do you think there’s a statute of limitations on being punished for all the awful things we did when we were kids?”

  “I hope so,” Marla said. “But when James got sick I started thinking that maybe it was some sort of retribution for giving up the baby.”

  “Oh, no, Marla, don’t think that. It’s absolutely not true. You should talk to George. He could help you see how wrong thinking that is.”

  “Lizzie, do you hear what you’re saying? As if you listened to anything George says.”

  “Oh, me. Don’t go by me. I’m George’s only failure. The black cloud in his sky of cerulean blue. You should read his fan mail. Evidently immediately after people listen to George, they suddenly become happy. They’re cured, if that’s the right word.”

  The Parcheesi game was over. Lulu had won, George finishing a very distant last.

  A few days later Marla told Lizzie that it was time she and George went home. “I’ve got to see if I can do this on my own. There’s a lot I have to figure out, and you guys have stuff to figure out too.”

  “You know that if you need me for anything, anything at all, I’ll be back.”

  “I know that,” Marla said.

  Everyone piled into the car to take George and Lizzie to the Albuquerque airport. They all cried as they hugged and kissed good-bye. Lordy, we’ve sure done a lot of crying on this trip, Lizzie thought as they started walking into the terminal. “Wait,” India yelled, bolting after them, leaving Marla, Beezie, and Lulu standing by the car. “I want to hear the story of the paste fight again.” Which was probably the best thing that could have happened, because the three adults started laughing. Marla gave Lizzie a final hug and whispered, “Go home and make a life with George.”

  “Next time,” George promised, hugging each of the girls again. “I’ll tell it as often as you want.”

  The flight to Dallas was uneventful and on time, but now Lizzie and George were stuck there. The terminal was shut down until a torrential rainstorm, with its accompanying lightning, passed through. It would be at least, the gate agent’s voice underlined and then repeated his last two words, at least ninety minutes before they’d begin boarding the plane. And maybe longer. They should all just relax. Easier said than done, Lizzie thought. She’d finished reading Ian McEwan’s newest novel, Atonement, just the night before and couldn’t imagine starting another novel until Briony didn’t feel quite so real to her. She thought she shouldn’t have left Marla alone. Hadn’t Lizzie promised James as much? That she’d always be there? What did that mean exactly, “always be there”? This was the sort of question that George most loved, and in the past he and Lizzie had many excellent Non-Difficult Conversations about issues that didn’t revolve around Lizzie’s unhappiness.

  “I’m going for a walk,” she told George. “I’ll be back.”

  She was just getting a drink of water when she heard the static-y stutter that preceded a loudspeaker announcement in every airport that Lizzie had ever been in. She waited, thinking it might be about their flight. It was not.

  “Will Dr. Jack McConaghey please check with the gate agent at gate seventeen.” And once again: “Will Dr. Jack McConaghey please check with the gate agent at gate seventeen.”

  Whomp. Lizzie felt the same way as when she’d been slammed in the stomach trying to dodge that malevolent ball during recess in elementary school. She leaned over and put her hands on her knees and tried to breathe normally. Could it really be Jack, after all this time? Was it really possible she could walk—she double-checked the number of her own gate—twelve gates away and find him?

  Yes. It was obviously possible, because she was now on her way there.

  But wait. She paused and asked herself why she wanted to do this.

  Because it might be Jack.

  But what if it was? What would that accomplish, finally seeing Jack? Really, Lizzie, what w
ould it accomplish to see him?

  You know that I always look for him in the cities I go to. So if it isn’t Jack I can just forget it and go back to my gate and wait for the plane.

  Ah, but what if it is Jack? How would she feel if he didn’t even recognize her? After all the years of his living so large in Lizzie’s memories, what if she couldn’t pick him out from all the other men at gate seventeen? And what would she possibly say to him after more than a decade? Was she going to accuse him of abandoning her? We were in college, Lizzie told herself. In college, girls break up with the boys they’re dating all the time, and vice versa. It’s normal behavior that often leaves people unhappy. Look how it’s made me desperately unhappy for such a long time.

  But then you went and built up this elaborate fantasy that if only you were with Jack everything about your life would be different and better, she thought. And I see that that’s ridiculous. First of all, James would still be dead. Second, and this is the important part, it’s your own unhappiness, Lizzie. It’s always been yours. Maybe, just maybe, George has been right all along, that you’ll never be happy until you can believe in the possibility of happiness. Maybe you’ve been using Jack all these years to avoid confronting that.

  Lizzie slipped the bracelet off her wrist and ran her finger over the engraved words. They had been worn down a bit, but she could still make them out. “Shall love you always.” Perhaps that sentence was no longer true, although she had certainly believed it to be true, once. She started to put it back on and stopped. Quickly, so she wouldn’t get cold feet, she went into the nearest bathroom and, making sure that no one was looking at her, left the bracelet on the side of a sink and walked purposefully back to gate five.

  She could see George, now sitting on the floor, laughing while he did coin tricks for a little boy. George, who loved her despite everything she was or had said or done. There’d been no more loudspeaker announcements since the first two, so presumably Dr. Jack McConaghey, whether he was her Jack or not, had made his way to gate seventeen. He was there. No planes had left. She was here, moving steadily toward George, and, finally, home.

  There is a kind of love called maintenance

  Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it;

  Which checks the insurance, and doesn’t forget

  The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs;

  Which answers letters; which knows the way

  The money goes; which deals with dentists

  And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains,

  And postcards to the lonely; which upholds

  The permanently rickety elaborate

  Structures of living, which is Atlas.

  And maintenance is the sensible side of love,

  Which knows what time and weather are doing

  To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring;

  Laughs at my dryrotten jokes; remembers

  My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps

  My suspect edifice upright in air,

  As Atlas did the sky.

  —U. A. Fanthorpe, “Atlas,” from  Safe As Houses (Peterloo Poets, 1995)

  Acknowledgments

  During the years I worked on George & Lizzie, I was extraordinarily fortunate to have the support of both friends and family. Thanks especially to my daughter Eily Raman, who read and critiqued the manuscript several times and was also happy to talk with me about George and Lizzie anytime I wanted to (which was frequently); to Alan Turkus, who encouraged me from the very beginning to keep writing about George and Lizzie; to Karen Henry Clark, who sent me detailed emails about the project; to Jim Lynch, who stepped in at just the right moment with helpful comments and suggestions; and to Danielle Marshall, who contributed so much to the novel’s existence in the world.

  I am beyond grateful to Tara Parsons for her insightful and rigorous editing, as well as the entire Touchstone team. George & Lizzie (and I) couldn’t have asked for a better home.

  Thank you to everyone at Victoria Sanders & Associates.

  Thank you to Kale Sniderman for letting me use his name and a tiny bit of his life.

  Thank you to Hedgebrook for two challenging and rewarding weeks in a cabin of my own.

  As a favor to me, way back in 2011 Amy Schoppert asked her friend Rabbi Elizabeth Wood about Jewish funerals. The words that Rabbi Gould uses in her conversation with Lizzie in George & Lizzie are adapted from the answer Rabbi Wood provided. Although I doubt they remember this email exchange, I am grateful to them both.

  Thank you to Terence Winch for allowing me to use his poem “The Bells Are Ringing for Me and Chagall” and to Dr. R. V. Bailey for permission to use U. A. Fanthorpe’s poem “Atlas.”

  And thank you to all the writers whose books have given me immense pleasure over the years.

  A Touchstone Reading Group Guide

  George and Lizzie

  Nancy Pearl

  This reading group guide for George & Lizzie includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author Nancy Pearl. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

  Introduction

  By the time Lizzie meets George, she has already been through so much heartache in her life that she finds it difficult to believe in love. Lizzie’s past has been shaped both by parents who seemed to have use for her only as a psychological case study, by the twenty-three starters on her high school football team that Lizzie slept with as a lark, and by Jack, the love of her life, who went home one summer and never returned or contacted Lizzie again.

  In contrast, George is full of optimism about life and happy with his chosen career as a dentist, and he possesses a deep-seated love for his family back in Oklahoma. Despite their differences and Lizzie’s uncertainty about her feelings for him, they marry. But for Lizzie, it takes more than marriage to forget her troubled past and believe herself worthy of their relationship. Only when she is faced with tragedy and true loss is Lizzie is able to tell George some of the secrets she’s kept from him. By doing so she begins to learn what happiness means, and to forgive everyone, including herself.

  Topics & Questions for Discussion

  1. Revisit the scene in the bowling alley beginning on page 5, when George and Lizzie first meet. How do their very different responses—Lizzie’s laughter and George’s annoyance—prefigure their very different approaches to life? Does the collision between their bowling balls act as a kind of omen for their future?

  2. When Andrea and Lizzie first conceive of the Great Game, Lizzie shares her reasoning behind wanting to follow through on the ide“When my parents find out about it , , , they’ll finally have to realize that I’m not who they think I am. . . . I honestly think they never loved me at all.” Do you believe that Lizzie participates in the Great Game only because of her strained relationship with her parents? What reaction was she hoping to elicit from them? Is it the failure to get the attention or reaction she wanted that haunts Lizzie into adulthood?

  3. How do George and Lizzie compare to one another? Do you think they live up to the maxim “opposites attract?” If George is “softhearted,” how would you describe Lizzie?

  4. Discuss Jack and Lizzie’s brief relationship. Why do you think it continues to be so important to her? What is it about Jack that so fascinates Lizzie? Do you think it is truly Jack that Lizzie loves—or is it an idea he represents?

  5. Consider for a moment the structure of the story. What effect do the interspersed recaps from the Great Game have on the narrative of George and Lizzie’s relationship? Like Lizzie, are we as readers meant not to forget the past even as we learn about Lizzie and George’s relationship?

  6. In many ways Allan and Elaine, George’s parents, are meant to represent the “good” parents in the novel, the ones who do things right. How do they compare to Mendel and Lydia? Do
you think Lizzie’s classification of her parents as terrible human beings is fair?

  7. The novel is titled George & Lizzie, but much of the story centers on Lizzie’s past relationships. Ultimately, is this Lizzie’s story only? Is George primarily a supporting actor in the story of Lizzie’s self-acceptance?

  8. When Marla and Lizzie meet the first day of college, it is obvious they are going to be lifelong friends. It is Marla, after all, who first got George’s number at the bowling alley, and it is Marla who pushed Lizzie to accept George’s invitation to come to Oklahoma with him for the holidays. Lizzie jokingly even says, “Yes, mother” in response to Marla’s ideas about shopping for Chanukah gifts. Is Marla a surrogate mother to Lizzie? Do you think her willingness to step into a mothering role has to do with her earlier abortion?

  9. When George first reveals he is in love with Lizzie, he says, “You’re probably one of the most self-centered people I’ve ever met. And, oh yeah, I’m pretty sure that I’m in love with you, although I can’t imagine why.” Does a version of this scene—where George puts himself in a vulnerable position—happen again in the novel? Does this vulnerability speak to the depth of George’s capacity for love, or perhaps to Lizzie’s inability to love?