The Divorce Express

by Paula Danziger

  It did scare me a little, though, and I know he was upset when he got off the phone after talking to her.

  He’s okay now. After the call, he went out and worked on his painting. It’s so beautiful . . . filled with nature and bright colors. I think he’s doing the right thing.

  If only he gets accepted to a gallery, everything will be fine. It is kind of strange, though, living in this really nice house with a swimming pool and worrying about money. It’s a weird kind of poor.

  “The new painting really looks good.” I continue to work on the lunches.

  “Bob Miller saw the painting, likes it, and wants it for the new house he’s building.”

  “Oh, Dad. That’s fantastic.” I stop taking cookies off a sheet and hug him.

  He whirls me around the kitchen. “It is wonderful. And—guess what? We’re using the barter system. He’s getting the painting and we’re getting three cords of wood and he’ll help install our new wood stove.”

  Wood stoves save on heating bills. In the City, heat always comes up like magic in radiators and the landlord is responsible. In Woodstock, people try to keep the oil costs down by using wood. I wish we didn’t have the wood stove, since it’s installed right in the fireplace. It’s not so pretty.

  Sometimes I feel like a pioneer. When you live in New York City, you never think about raccoons eating your garbage, or pipes freezing up, or trading for firewood. You do think about stuff like garbage strikes (I always think that phrase sounds funny. Can you imagine a bunch of garbage looking at each other and saying, “Hey, man, let’s go out on strike”?) You also think about getting mugged. I know lots of kids there who carry extra money so that if they get mugged, the muggers don’t hit them for not having enough. There are lots of good things about New York City, so I don’t want people to get the wrong impression. Plays, music, museums, more kinds of people and experiences. I’m lucky to have both places.

  The phone rings.

  My father picks it up.

  It’s my mother. I can tell by the way he talks to her, kind of friendly but a little guarded. It’s changed over the years. At first it was kind of awful. Then it was kind of a false getting-along. Now it’s pretty good. I guess that parents go through stages when they split up.

  Mine sure did—the fighting and anger—then the distance—and making me feel caught in the middle. After the divorce they try to be “civilized.” I know that there were even times that they missed each other. I know for a fact that after the divorce they even slept with each other once in a while. It was confusing. Now they act like people who have a past history together, but only a future of knowing each other because of me.

  He motions to me. “It’s your mother. Why don’t you take this upstairs?”

  I run up the steps and pick up the phone to hear her saying “Yes. Things are going wonderfully. Traveling’s great. Money’s not bad. It’s very exciting.”

  “I’m on,” I let them know.

  My father hangs up.

  At first my mother and I talk about general stuff, like how school and work are going and how we miss each other.

  Finally she lets me know what’s really happening. With a sigh she says, “I just wanted to call. I miss you so much. Sometimes I feel so lonely. I feel like I’m not a real part of your life anymore.”

  I try to convince her that’s not true, but I do know that it is different because I don’t see her every day.

  Then she tells me that she and Duane have broken up.

  I debate saying “No loss” but keep quiet.

  Now she’s crying. It’s over. She’s sad. She’s lonely. She wishes I were there to keep her company. She’s sorry that she’s laying all of this on me, but she needs someone to talk to.

  It’s almost as if my mother’s forgotten that I’m the daughter and she’s the mother.

  I tell her that it’s going to be all right, that she’ll meet someone else, someone better . . . or do fine by herself.

  Finally she says, “I guess this isn’t fair to do to you. I just miss you. Three weeks apart is a long time, and this year is the first time in sixteen years that I’ve lived alone this much.”

  What to say is a problem. I love her and want to make things all better for her but why can’t I just be a kid, one who has parents with problems they can handle by themselves? Or even better would be parents without problems.

  After we finish talking, I go back downstairs.

  “How’s your mother?” my father asks.

  “Fine,” I say.

  FAMILY. Rearrange the letters and it spells MY FAIL. I’m not sure that I know any families that really get along, except Dave’s and the Parsons and they moved to Minnesota.

  I wonder how Rocky and her family are doing. Do raccoons ever divorce? If so, who gets custody of the kids?

  Oh, well—I can’t control my parents’ ups and downs. It’s hard enough to cope with my own.

  I think about Phase Three and wonder if it’s going to work.

  I’ll find out soon.

  CHAPTER 17

  That’s as far as CITE A FEAR got. We put up a large piece of brown paper on the wall by the cafeteria entrance, and the kids started writing on it.

  Beasley pulled it down. He also gave detention to one kid he caught writing on it, Pete. Pete wrote the terrible poem but he shouldn’t have gotten detention. He got the rhyme scheme almost right.

  Personally I think that Pete carried the protest a bit too far, lying down on the floor and yelling stuff like, “I regret that I have but one life to give for my stomach.” “Don’t shoot till you see the whites of their bread.” And “Ask not what your food service can do for you—but what you can do for your food service.”

  Anyway now he’s a martyr for the cause. He’s got two days of detention and has to write a poem apologizing.

  The boycott’s working. Only about ten kids cross the cafeteria line.

  We were going to have picket lines and carry signs but decided that we could get into trouble for that, and there was no need to do it.

  Not buying food was enough. The cafeteria was stuck with about eighty billion hot dogs (you know the kind—they float them in water with little globs of grease) and beans (the pale orange ones with watered-down sauce). Some of the stuff they could freeze, but a lot of it they couldn’t.

  It’s really wasteful to throw it away with people starving in the world, but I’m sure they’d die of malnutrition from our cafeteria food anyway.

  The cafeteria workers come out, look at all the kids eating homemade lunches, and shake their heads.

  Beasley walks in, looks like he’s going to say something but doesn’t, and storms out.

  We go on with our classes, but somehow cafeteria is what everyone focuses on, the kids at least.

  Some teachers ignore the whole thing. Others like Mr. Cohen, the Civics teacher, use it to teach us history or literature. They talk about Henry David Thoreau, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr., all people who protested without use of violence.

  The boycott goes on for three days.

  My father and I continue to make extra lunches.

  My mother calls every night, and I try to tell her what’s going on, but she’s kind of wrapped up in her own problems and just wants me to listen.

  I try not to think about her too much and try to concentrate on the boycott. That’s a lot easier to deal with.

  It’s fun. We all trade our lunches with each other. Some of the kids are bringing great food. I eat tofu, alfalfa sprouts, and mung bean salad. And a sandwich made of pickled herring and radishes. Never again will I eat a sandwich like that.

  By the end of the third day Beasley makes an announcement over the loudspeaker.

  “All students willing to work on a committee to change school menus are invited to a meeting next Tuesday night. Interested parents are also invited. Please plan to buy lunches again. We will do our best to serve food that meets your requests, within reason.”

  The cheering can be
heard all over the school.

  We won the battle, fair and square.

  Nobody really even lost, because the food will be better for everyone.

  CHAPTER 18

  Date Night with Dave—it sounds like some cable TV show but it’s not. It’s my first chance to be alone with Dave.

  I get dressed. Basic jeans and sweater.

  I guess I should feel really uptight and nervous since this is Dave’s and my first date, but I don’t.

  We’ve been walking to class and talking on the phone a lot.

  Mostly I just feel happy that I’ll be able to spend some time with him—without interruptions like some teacher saying, “Move along now—don’t be late for class,” or my father saying, “Phoebe, if you don’t get off that phone soon, it’s going to be permanently attached to your ear,” and Godzilla the bus driver yelling.

  I look in the mirror to check myself out. Brown hair to my shoulders, brown eyes, pale skin saved from total whiteness by a touch of blush-on—an okay but not great body. I don’t think that anyone’s going to ask me to pose for the cover of Glamour, but I don’t think it’s necessary to go out into the world covered by a yard-size Hefty garbage bag either.

  I put on some jasmine oil and go into the living room.

  My father’s sitting down, reading the Woodstock Times and laughing at one of the funny Homecoming ads. Not only are the ads great, I love the store.

  He looks up and says, “Phoebe, you look beautiful.”

  I go over and kiss him on the forehead. “You just say that because you’re my father.”

  He shakes his head.

  I look at him. He’s not wearing paint-covered clothes. In addition to the handmade sweater he bought when he and Mom went to Scotland, he’s got on a new pair of jeans. He looks pretty good for an older man.

  The phone rings.

  He shakes his head. “It’s for you. It’s always for you.”

  I get it.

  It’s Rosie. She’s getting ready to baby-sit.

  Rosie and I tell each other what we’re wearing. Even though we both try to do things that don’t conform, in some ways we are typical. What’s the use of having a best friend if you don’t tell each other what you’re wearing and get the other person’s reaction?

  Rosie says softly, “My mother’s really in a good mood tonight. I bet she’s got a date with someone special. She hasn’t been this up in a long time.”

  “Did you ask her?”

  “She said it was private and smiled.” Rosie continues. “You know—parents and their other lives.”

  I look at my father, who’s still reading the paper, and wonder about what changes he makes when I don’t go into the City over the weekend. I bet Mindy has to cope differently, too, when Rosie’s father is on tour and she stays in Woodstock.

  I don’t think there’s anyone serious in my father’s life or he would have told me. We once made a deal that if there was ever anyone who might be in the running as future stepmom, he’d let me meet her and get used to the whole thing. That happened only once—when we were in New York—but it was soon after the divorce, and my father got involved too fast. I hated her. Alexandra. She used to call me “sweetie pie” and pretend she was crazy about me. But she wasn’t. Kids know stuff like that. Anyway all she really wanted to do was get married. They knew I couldn’t stand her. I don’t know why he ever thought about marrying her. Maybe because he was just used to being married. Anyway he ended it. Phew. Close call.

  The doorbell rings.

  Dave.

  I don’t believe it. He’s gotten his hair cut. Now you can see his eyes. He still looks great, but I liked his hair longer.

  Dave and my father shake hands.

  They look each other up and down, trying not to let it show, and then my father “casually” starts asking questions.

  “How are you? How old are you? Have you been driving long? What time do you expect to be home?”

  I giggle. “Dad—Dave’s a solid citizen, honor society, never a car accident.”

  “I used to be a Boy Scout. You know what good clean lives they live.”

  My father grins. “I hope that you got a merit badge for proper conduct on a date.”

  Dave grins right back at him. “Yes, sir. I also got one for not making fathers worry unnecessarily.”

  “Fine.” My father nods.

  I can tell that they like each other. Good. I don’t mention that while Dave might have been a pillar of the Boy Scout community, I dropped out of Brownies before I even got into Girl Scouts. And the only badge I hope that Dave earned was in lifesaving—specializing in mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

  As we walk out the door my father yells after us. “Dave.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I was once a Boy Scout too. Watch it.”

  Finally we’re out the door.

  Dave and I look over at the reservoir. It’s beautiful, clear, starry, a full moon.

  It’s also very cold. Winters in Woodstock are frigid—it’s only November and already I’m freezing, even with my new coat, boots, and leg warmers on. I’ll probably thaw out in the spring.

  I shiver, and Dave puts his arm around me. “We better get into the car.”

  I nod, shaking a little.

  He guides me to the car and opens the door. “I know—you can do it yourself but not with your hands in your pockets.”

  I get in on my side.

  He gets in on his, turns on the motor, and takes my hands in his to warm them up.

  “Tiny hands,” he says, putting his right hand flat against my left one.

  “I know.” My teeth are chattering a little. “I buy my gloves in the children’s department.”

  He smiles and, still holding my hand, kisses me.

  I kiss back.

  We look at each other and smile.

  “Dinner,” he says. “How about The Little Bear?”

  I love that place. Chinese food. I nod.

  He puts the car into gear, and we drive up the road. It’s easier now to see the houses that were hidden when the trees had leaves. Woodstock, changing seasons, is a magical place . . . familiar but new.

  As we drive I say, “You got a haircut.”

  “I got a lot of hair cut.” Dave frowns. “I know—bad joke . . . bad haircut . . . . My mother said if I wanted to borrow the car, I had to go to the barber. I can’t wait till I save enough money to buy my own car . . . . Does it look awful?” He runs his hand over his forehead.

  I shake my head. “No. I was just looking forward to pushing the hair out of your eyes.”

  “Pretend,” he says.

  I do, as he pulls into the parking lot of the restaurant.

  As we park I see a car with a deer tied to it. Hunting season. It makes me sick.

  It must show, because Dave says, “It bothers me too. Don’t look.”

  He parks far from that car and we go into the place.

  We walk up to the woman who is to seat us. The restaurant looks crowded, as always. I hope we don’t have to wait too long.

  “A table reserved for Shore,” Dave says.

  This kid’s got class, I think.

  Once we get seated at a table near the stream, I look out the window. It’s the same stream that Rosie and I sat by, only it’s much farther down the road. I think about how happy I am.

  We order ginger ale and look at the menus.

  My parents and I used to come here a lot before the divorce, but my dad and I haven’t been here lately.

  I say, “This isn’t cheap. We’re definitely not at a fast-food place. Let’s go dutch.” Even though I’m not sure I’ve got enough money with me to pay.

  He shakes his head. “Not this time. I raked a lot of leaves to pay for this. It’s worth it.”

  “This meal could probably have paid something toward buying your car, a tire at least.” I decide not to make him feel uncomfortable and say, “I know this menu. I want the chicken, veggies, garlic, and mushrooms. It’s my favo
rite.”

  “Good. I’ll order the shrimp and the appetizer assortment for two.”

  “Great. I love to share.” I can feel my mouth start to water.

  This is definitely not cafeteria food on the way.

  As we eat he tells me more about his family. “It was the pits being the youngest. My older brother and sister always used to pick on me. When we visited my grandparents’ farm, Doug named a stream after himself. Denise got the bridge.”

  “What about you?” I say, trying to coordinate my chopsticks around a dumpling.

  “They named a puddle after me.”

  I laugh. “Not fair.”

  “It was seasonal. Besides, the puddle only filled up when it rained.”

  We both laugh.

  He continues. “And once they were both remembering how our grandmother used to warn them to be careful when they walked in the field or an eagle would swoop down and get them.”

  “That must have really scared you,” I say.

  He shakes his head and smiles. “No one ever warned me. In fact, when I was older Doug said he’d taught me to say ‘Here, birdie’ and then sent me into the field . . . . We tease each other a lot but really do care.”

  “I miss a lot being an only child.”

  He nods. “There are good and bad things about having a brother and sister, but I mostly like it.”

  I think about how Rosie is the closest thing to having a sister, but it’s not the same as being in the same house.

  We both talk about a lot of stuff—growing up, what we like.

  I like hearing that he’s got a family that gets along so well. I hope that this one doesn’t move to Minnesota too.

  I really wish I weren’t an only child. If there were another kid, we could share the responsibility of our parents.

  By the time Dave and I eat our way to the fortune cookies, I’m talking to him about the thing that’s bothering me the most. “Dave, you know I have to be in New York a lot of weekends . . . and over some vacations . . . and part of the summer.”

  He nods and frowns. “I know. I almost didn’t ask you out because of that. I went through it with Cindy. But I like you a lot, so I guess we’ll have to live with it.”