Once More with Feeling

by Cynthia Baxter

  “The first thing we have to do is get you a good lawyer,” Claire insisted.

  “The first thing we have to do,” Julie said softly, “is ask Laura how she’s handling this.”

  “Actually, not too badly,” Laura said in an even voice. “I feel kind of calm. Accepting. A little dazed ... Of course, it could be the Valium.”

  “Poor Laura.” Julie reached over and patted her hand. “I knew I should’ve come over last night and walked on your back.”

  Laura shook her head slowly, unable to look her friends in the eye. “I’ve known for years it would come to this,” she told them. “I didn’t want to admit it, but deep down, I never doubted it. Not when Roger and I haven’t been able to talk to each other since ... since ... ever.”

  “I know.” Claire was nodding enthusiastically. “Men really are like creatures from another planet, aren’t they? They think differently, they talk differently ... and they certainly have a different standard for table manners.”

  “Not all of them,” Julie said quietly. “Not George.”

  Julie had been living with George Stanton—a man Laura invariably thought of as “sweet, gentle George”-for close to five years. From what Laura could see, they were the ideal couple, often held up as an example of how a man and a woman really could sustain a loving relationship.

  “Just remember, Laura,” Claire went on, “you’re not alone. You’ve always got us.”

  “You’ve got Evan, too,” Julie reminded her. “And your writing. Don’t forget that.”

  Claire rolled her eyes upward. “Thank God for work. If it hadn’t been for that, I don’t know how I ever would have gotten through my divorce.”

  “Just don’t be too hard on yourself,” Julie said soothingly. “It’s going to be a long process, full of ups and downs. Expect to go through a grieving process. You’ve heard of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s theory, haven’t you? That there are five stages of grief?”

  Laura nodded. “Denial, bargaining, anger, depression, and finally acceptance.”

  “Hah!” Claire countered. “Listen, ladies, I’ve been through this. And I’ll tell you what the five stages are. First comes giving all his fifteen-hundred-dollar suits away to the Salvation Army. Second is consuming every ounce of chocolate in the entire state. Third is going on a shopping spree, buying gold-sequined halter tops and black leather jeans. Four is lying in bed for two weeks with nothing but six boxes of Kleenex. Five is—”

  “Claire,” Julie protested gently, “I’m not sure Laura needs to be hearing all this right now.”

  Claire waved Julie away with her hand. “I’ve got something better than advice. Here, Laura. I brought you the name of my lawyer.” Reaching into her purple shoulder bag, she pulled out a business card. “If you’re looking for revenge, he’s your man.”

  “Revenge?” Laura repeated. So far, the concept hadn’t even occurred to her.

  “Of course. You want to get back at the louse, don’t you?” Claire’s expression was poisonous.

  “I—I hadn’t thought about it. I’ve been too busy thinking about more concrete concerns. Like where I’m going to live. What’s going to happen to the house.” She swallowed hard. “How we’re going to tell Evan.”

  “You’ll work all that out over time,” Julie assured her. “But for now, I’ve got a suggestion, too.”

  “Another lawyer?” asked Claire, looking interested. “One who’s even more ruthless than Irwin Hart?”

  Julie reached into her purse and pulled out a tattered clipping from a newspaper.

  “Don’t tell me,” said Claire. “A recipe for chicken soup.”

  “It’s an article about a support group for people going through a divorce,” Julie replied, smoothing out the crumpled piece of paper on the pink linen tablecloth. “It meets once a week, at the Y. I think you should go, Laura. Or at least consider it.”

  Pushing the article toward Laura, her eyes moist and filled with concern, Julie added, “It might help.”

  ‘Thank you.” Laura tucked both contributions into her wallet. “Now, how about ordering? Getting divorced makes a person hungry.”

  “I told you!” Claire cried. “You’re in Stage Two, the chocolate-eating stage!”

  * * * *

  Laura stared out the window at an autumn evening that was already fading to night. October had always been her favorite month, but this year she found the drying leaves and early dusks threatening, a reminder that winter was looming in the wings. She longed to hibernate—or at least spend the evening curled up in bed with an engrossing novel and a bag of M&M peanuts.

  Tonight she was expected to shine, however. Months earlier she’d arranged to do a book signing at the grand opening of a new Book Bonanza. Back then, garnering a little publicity had seemed like an exciting opportunity. At the moment she would have preferred having several teeth pulled.

  The clock next to the bed warned her that it was getting late. In addition to finding a suitable outfit and a pair of shoes she wouldn’t be embarrassed to wear in public, she had to put something in her stomach.

  That meant venturing into the kitchen.

  Ever since she’d told Roger she wanted a divorce, the tension in the house had been like that of an embassy under siege. Laura vacillated between trying to avoid him at all costs and wanting to fight. “This is my house, too” resounded through her brain a dozen times a day.

  Laura usually opted for avoidance. She spent hours lying low in her bedroom, busying herself with tasks like organizing her earring collection. Tonight, however, she had no choice but to head downstairs. As she did, she put on the same mean expression she wore whenever she rode the New York City subways.

  Her worst fears were realized. Roger was standing at the counter, microwaving the last hunk of leftover lasagna that Laura had had her eye on. She headed toward the refrigerator. Studying its contents, however, she realized tonight’s dinner was going to consist of a bowl of Cheerios. As she moved around the kitchen, gathering the things she needed, Roger pointedly ignored her.

  Then she reached for a spoon out of the silverware drawer at the same moment he grabbed a fork. Their hands brushed against each other. Instantly both of them withdrew.

  “You know,” Roger said evenly, “I think it’d make sense for us to work out a schedule for using the kitchen. That way we won’t have to run into each other.”

  “If you moved out, we wouldn’t have to go through this,” Laura countered through clenched teeth.

  “Oh, sure,” he shot back, his tone instantly icy. “You’d love that, wouldn’t you? That’s exactly what you’d need to turn around and sue me for abandonment.”

  “I wouldn’t do that, Roger! I just want to ease some of the tension around here. Not only for my own sake, but for Evan’s as well!”

  “Right. I can just picture your lawyer rubbing his hands together greedily.”

  “I don’t have a lawyer.”

  “You will.”

  “All right; I will. But I have no intention of getting anything more out of this divorce than my fair share.”

  “Hah! The key word here is fair.”

  “I’m not going to accuse you of anything.” Laura’s voice had become pleading. “Don’t you know me well enough to believe that?”

  He stared at her coldly. “I thought I did. But it turns out I don’t know you at all.”

  While Laura sat hunched over at the kitchen table, mechanically shoveling Cheerios into her mouth, Roger stomped around the kitchen. He slammed the door of the microwave. He rifled through the knives in the drawer with such ferociousness that it sounded like clashing armies, punctuating his movements with angry snorts.

  By the time Laura was backing the car out of the driveway, she wondered how she was going to get through the evening. What she wanted to do was indulge in a good cry, not gossip about giraffes and snakes.

  Her only hope was for a meager turnout—so pathetic, in fact, that the store manager would take pity on her and cancel the e
vent. And so her heart sank when she drove into the strip mall’s parking lot and saw Book Bonanza’s neon lights blazing through the dark autumn night, beckoning to the literate wayfarer. The blown-up faces of famous writers, most of them long dead, gazed out earnestly from the store windows. As if all that weren’t enough, the Book Bonanza people had even brought in a cappuccino machine and a huge glass jar of biscotti.

  Standing with her nose pressed against the window, Laura watched the throngs that had turned out for the store’s opening night. Customers perused the stacks of best-sellers piled up near the front door, lovingly fondling the pages of Danielle Steel and Dean Koontz and John Grisham. They leafed through magazines with obscure titles like The Organic Herb Gardener and Wood-Look Office Furniture Monthly. A few stood half-hidden behind shelves, surreptitiously reading cartoon books.

  Laura swallowed hard. She didn’t know how she’d ever get through the evening. A tribe of butterflies began doing gymnastics routines in her stomach.

  “Excuse me,” she said with all the enthusiasm she could muster, cornering a young woman in an official-looking navy blue blazer and white name tag. “I’m Laura Briggs.”

  The woman stared at her blankly.

  Run! thought Laura. Get out while you can!

  Instead, she pointed to the four-foot poster six inches away from the woman, featuring a full-color blowup of the cover of The Mystery of the Missing Mangoes. “The author who’s autographing tonight?”

  “Oh, right! I’ll get the manager.” The woman’s smile quickly vanished. “What was your name again?”

  Laura recognized the person who ran the show right away. She was the energetic one, the woman who looked as if she knew what she was doing. She walked quickly, purposefully, pausing every so often to tuck a book further back on the shelf so that it was lined up with the others or to prop up a fallen volume on a display table.

  “Laura?” she said, sensible heels clicking efficiently against the floor. “I’m Jennifer Norris. Thank you so much for corning tonight. We appreciate your taking time out of your hectic schedule to be here.”

  Laura suddenly realized how lucky she was to be out of the house for the evening. And here the manager of Book Bonanza thought Laura Briggs, author, was doing her a favor.

  “I’m hoping you’ll autograph my copy of Helena Hyena Has the Last Laugh,” Jennifer went on. “I made a point of bringing it from home. Of all your books, that’s my favorite. I adore that part where Helena Hyena gets back at Johnny Jaguar and Lenny Leopard by laughing all the way to the riverbank.”

  Laura felt better already.

  “But for now, come on back here. I’ll show you where you’ll be reading—

  “Reading?” Panic rose up. “I thought I was just autographing.”

  Jennifer waved her hand in the air casually. “Oh, we always like to start off with a short reading.”

  “How short?”

  “Fifteen or twenty minutes, for children’s books.”

  Laura gulped. For the past few days, ever since she’d so innocently invited Phil Donahue and guests into her living room, she’d been unable to focus on words on a printed page. Even instructions on a cake-mix box had been beyond her. An air of surrealism hung over everything. It was like living in Salvador Dali’s world. Now, without the slightest bit of preparation, she was expected to act out the roles of a prim giraffe, a couple of trouble-making cats, and—if Jennifer had anything to do with it—a giddy hyena.

  “I, uh, hadn’t realized—”

  ‘There’s no problem, is there?” The store manager frowned.

  “Oh, no.” Laura forced a smile, and began planning her reward for getting through the evening. It was a toss-up between Pepperidge Farm and Haagen-Dazs.

  “Attention, book lovers,” a loud voice blared over the loudspeaker system. ‘Tonight Book Bonanza is pleased to present Lauren Briggs, reading from one of her best-selling children’s books.”

  “Uh, that’s Laura, not Lauren.” She cleared her throat. “And, to be honest, none of my books were actually bestsellers. Of course, the Norwegian translation of Lizards Need Hugs, Too sold remarkably well—”

  “Take a seat up here.” Jennifer gestured toward a podium. “Here’s my copy of Helena Hyena. You will indulge me, won’t you?”

  Laura nodded meekly.

  ‘Tell you what. Get yourself settled, and I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  You’ve read to eight-year-olds before, Laura reminded herself, sitting on the thronelike seat in the middle of an elevated platform. All around her were brightly painted wooden cutouts of well-known characters from children’s literature: Curious George, the Berenstain Bears, the ubiquitous Barney. Their presence made her nervous. In the first place, they were all better known—and better loved—than she was. In the second place, those characters were stars to small children, those who tended to steer clear of books with words in them. Still, she willed herself to be calm, reminding herself that it was only an hour out of her life. Two, at the most.

  Wearing a self-conscious smile, Laura waited. Looking down at the huge store spread out before her, she felt she understood what the expression “lonely at the top” was all about.

  At that moment she couldn’t possibly feel worse. Her throat thickened as she took a brief inventory of her life. She was trapped in a house with a maniac who was taking out years’ worth of anger on an unsuspecting microwave. Her son was so confused about all the tension in the house that he spent more time interacting with imaginary superheroes than with his own parents. And here she was, relegated to the humiliating role of supplicant, sitting alone in a corner of a bookstore, forcing a smile, wishing desperately that someone—anyone—would pay attention to her.

  Finally a lone figure appeared, a woman wandering out from the cookbook aisle. She did a double take when she caught sight of Laura. The woman’s face lit up.

  She recognizes me, Laura thought, smiling warmly. A fan.

  The woman hesitated, then began walking over to the platform.

  Things are already getting better. She’s going to ask me for my autograph. Laura sat up a little straighten

  “Excuse me.” The woman leaned toward Laura.

  “Yes?”

  “Could you please tell me where the ladies’ room is?”

  With a growl, Laura sent the woman off to find someone who got paid for spending time in the store.

  Yet, surprisingly, she felt better. The situation suddenly seemed so absurd she had no choice but to enjoy the ridiculous aspects of it.

  A few shoppers eventually straggled over. Two of them were men—divorced fathers, she speculated, desperate to find free entertainment for their fidgety offspring. Between them, they had three kids. The other adult was a woman, the doting mother of a beautiful blond-haired girl dressed completely in pink ruffles. Gingerly the adults lowered themselves into the teensy-weensy chairs arranged in a half circle in front of the stage. As for the children, they looked as if they had no intention of sitting at all, not for at least another six or eight years.

  The average age of the children, Laura estimated, was two.

  “Uh, Jennifer?” she whimpered, and began formulating her argument. Her books were geared toward much older children. Children who no longer sucked on book covers. Children who were able to refrain from scribbling with crayons across their favorite illustrations.

  But Jennifer was nowhere to be seen. Laura was on her own.

  She cringed when one of the fathers glanced at his watch and scowled.

  “I guess we’ll get started,” she said brightly. After clearing her throat, she began, “ ‘Not long ago, in a jungle far, far away—

  “Bah-nee!” a high-pitched voice suddenly screeched.

  Laura glanced up. She saw that the little girl was pointing gleefully at the purple dinosaur behind her.

  “Yes!” her adoring mother gushed loudly. “That’s right, Brittany! That is Barney! Good for you!”

  Laura cleared her throat once again
. “ ‘Not long ago, in a jungle—’ ”

  “I want to hug Bah-nee!” Goldilocks was already rushing onto the stage, her sticky fingers stretching toward the wooden model of the hottest TV celebrity since Big Bird.

  “Isn’t it past her bedtime?” Laura muttered through clenched teeth.

  But the little girl had already climbed up onto the platform, right behind Laura. She grabbed hold of the purple figure, throwing her pudgy arms around its neck. “Bah-nee! Bah-nee!”

  “Now, Brittany, you shouldn’t run away like that.” Brittany’s mom, looking more proud than annoyed, crossed the stage in front of Laura to retrieve her bouncing baby girl. “We have to be polite to the lady who’s reading us the nice story.”

  My story, Laura thought petulantly. I wrote it, Brit.

  She was about to cast them both a scathing look when she remembered that another five pairs of eyes were watching her. Instead, she did her best to smile indulgently at little Brittany, now wailing at the top of her lungs as her mother dragged her away from her dino love.

  “Let’s see, where was—oh, yes.” One more time, Laura cleared her throat. “ ‘Not long ago, in a jungle far, far away, there lived a giraffe named Gertrude. As all the animals knew, Gertrude was very good at—

  “Attention, book lovers!” the loudspeaker suddenly blared. “Tonight Book Bonanza is pleased to announce that we’re taking an extra twenty-five percent off all Stephen King novels. The supply is limited, so hurry over.”

  A restlessness instantly arose in the audience. Glancing up, Laura saw the two fathers exchange nervous looks.

  “ ‘As all the animals knew, Gertrude was very good at solving mysteries. Everyone—including Helena Hyena.”

  The shuffling of feet and the scraping of chair legs against the linoleum floor caused Laura to look up one more time. The two dads were wandering off, the adventures of good-natured Helena Hyena proving to be no match for those of Stephen King’s demonic characters. Sheepishly they slunk away, taking with them three quarters of the audience.

  Laura surveyed the half circle of chairs, now empty except for Brittany and her mom. She was about to beg off when the woman raised her hand.