The Perils of Pauline

by Collette Yvonne

  “Your baby brother?”

  “I don’t have a baby brother.”

  “Good thing,” says Serenity. “What’ve you got?”

  Johnny unzips the bag, pulls out a plastic margarine tub and pops the lid: “He’s my new pet.”

  “No, no, no, whatever it is, don’t let it out,” I shriek.

  “No worries.” Serenity shrugs. “It’s only a caterpillar.” All the Story Hour kids crowd around Johnny to poke the caterpillar.

  “Don’t squeeze it,” says Serenity. “If you squeeze it, the insides come out and it won’t work anymore.” Then she adds, “I think we should read The Very Hungry Caterpillar today.” All the kids shout their approval.

  I go into my office to work on my quarterly taxes. I don’t mind the kids nor the taxes as I’m very excited. Michael is taking me out to dinner tonight at the coolest new restaurant in town. Everyone is talking about this place and Bibienne says it’s impossible to get a Saturday night reservation.

  We’re taking a chance dining in public but I’m sick of hanging out at the student residence; it feels weird and sophomoric, like everyone knows what we’re up to. I’ve taken to wearing my hoodie and pulling it up around my head and pretending to be all east side as I go in, hands in my pockets, head down and shuffling. Tonight I will lose the hoodie and give him everything he wants.

  I meet Michael at the residence and we drive to the restaurant. The waiter delivers tall glasses of cold Chablis to go with our starter, the gingered apple and fennel soup. For my main I’ve chosen the Salmon Tagine while Michael orders the Green Tomato Penne. Funny, I haven’t seen Michael eat meat for months.

  “Did you quit eating meat?”

  “Yes. Last summer. I told you that months ago.”

  “Oh probably. I guess you did. I forgot.”

  “You don’t hear half the stuff I tell you.”

  “Maybe you haven’t noticed but I have a lot on my plate these days.”

  “No kidding. You need to slow down. Maybe you could go on a silent retreat and meditate.”

  “A silent retreat? That sounds like fun. Sign me up right now ‘cause I’ve got all kinds of time. Come on Michael, I have to look after the store, the house, the kids, all by myself. My mother calls me every day because she can’t figure out how to work her television remote or her debit card or even unlock her own car. I’m up to my neck in paperwork. How can I possibly drop everything to go on a retreat?”

  “You don’t need to drop anything. Just … never mind about the retreat. You don’t have to go on a retreat. Just be present in the moment with whatever you’re doing. Pay attention and listen when someone is talking to you.”

  “Fine. Next time a customer yells at me because the book they wanted is out of print, I’ll try that.”

  “See? Your egoic mind is creating all this unnecessary anger.”

  “My egoic mind? What about your egoic mind which is always judging me and telling me that I need to listen to everything you say extremely carefully and take detailed notes because there might be a test later?”

  Michael sets down his spoon. “I don’t get the feeling that you’re into this anymore.”

  A flood of contrition washes through me. “I’m sorry. I am into this. I was looking forward to tonight. I don’t want to have a fight with you.”

  “But you are fighting me.” Michael shakes his head and looks away. I can tell his egoic mind is feeling pretty snarky.

  The service is horribly slow around here. While waiting for the main course, I try slipping off my shoe and running my foot up the side of his leg while waggling my eyebrows, a trick that usually has him sucking my toes in seconds, but no dice. He pulls his leg away and leans back in his chair.

  The Salmon Tagine is dry and the gingered apple soup has provided me with a splash of ginger-flavored heartburn. We drive back to the residence in silence. As we pull into the parking lot I can’t take it anymore. Michael has gone off into a silent retreat huff and I don’t have my hoodie. “Just drop me beside my car, Michael.”

  He throws his car into reverse without a word.

  As soon as I get home, I remember Olympia wanted me to sew a badge on her Brownie sash. It’s eleven p.m. but I need to ride the range a little longer. I pull out the sewing kit and thread a needle. The phone rings. It’s Donald.

  I tuck the phone under my ear and attempt to untangle a knot in the thread. “You’re calling too late. The kids have already gone to bed.”

  “Sorry. My meetings went over. You sound tired. Is everything okay?”

  “Do you want the entire list or just the broad strokes? For starters, Jack’s teacher called me today and he’s on the war path again.”

  I tell Donald how Jack and Olympia have joined forces as a kind of tag team of wayward behavior at school so I get to have a nice chat with one of their teachers or the principal almost every day. All Donald says is, “Hmm.”

  “Ouch. God, I just stabbed myself.”

  “What?”

  “With a sewing needle.” I pop my bleeding thumb in my mouth and keep talking: “Then there’s George. The course of antibiotics is finished and I’ve soaked that dog’s paw to death but he’s still limping. Intermittently, of course. Never in front of the vet. Dr. Loewen thinks George has extra sensitive footpads. Now George is supposed to wear leather booties whenever he goes outside. The booties cost a fortune and he hates them.”

  Donald says hmm.

  “And the bathtub faucet is leaking again. I can’t remember the name of that plumber who we called last time. Do you?”

  “Beats me.”

  I stab my thumb again in exactly the same place. “Ouch!” I can feel myself losing it. “Beats me? Hmm? Is that all you can say to me? I’m drowning here and you’re being totally useless.”

  There’s a long intercontinental silence where we glare at each other across the 49th parallel and then Donald says, “What do you want? You want me to fix the plumbing? Fine, I’ll book a flight right now, this minute, and come home and fix the plumbing.”

  “I didn’t say … look, you know what? Next time I’m going to tell Jack’s teacher to call you at work.”

  “Fine. I would be happy to talk to her.”

  “Him.”

  “Him?”

  “Yes, him, Jack’s teacher is a man. You don’t even know his name, do you?”

  “I know his name: it’s Morton, right? I forgot for a second there. Give me a break. What’s the school phone number? I’ll call him tomorrow.”

  “See? That’s my point. I know the school number by heart and you, of course, don’t. That just goes to show … Wait a minute, I dropped something.” I set down the receiver and crawl under the table to retrieve my spool of thread. And bonk my head.

  This is so not working for me. Tomorrow I need to go out and buy a headset, so next time Donald and I can have a more convenient, hands-free argument.

  Serenity’s cat has crapped in the basement again, underneath the laundry sink where it’s dark, cramped and slimy. I crouch down on my hands and knees to peer into the corner where, no doubt, a rabid spider with 360 degree vision is guarding its lair.

  The sight of three separate mounds of cat poo brings out the arsenic-and-old-lace urges in me. Maybe it’s the cat’s time? She already had a grey muzzle, failing vision and highly unpredictable kidneys when Serenity rescued her from a shelter over two years ago. As I close my fist over the paper-towel-draped squishy mounds, I’m warming to my end game.

  I go upstairs to find Serenity. She’s lying on her bed reading What to Expect When You’re Expecting, the book propped neatly against her bump. Obviously Serenity isn’t expecting to have to pitch in on any household chores now that she’s in such an advanced delicate condition. She’s only five months along. Holy hell. When I was nine months along with Serenity, I was still squeezing into my combats and shuffling into the detachment every day.

  I cross my arms and wait for Serenity to pry her nose out of the book. She glances
up and scowls at me.

  “Your cat pooped in the basement again.”

  She points at the book. “Toxoplasmosis. It’s a disease that pregnant women can get from cat shit. I can’t go near it.”

  She’s right of course. This is the same excuse I used on Donald to get out of changing the cat litter during my pregnancies with Jack and Olympia. It even worked on him while I was breastfeeding.

  “What about washing the dishes then? There’s no prohibitions in your book against doing dishes is there?”

  “Those dishes downstairs aren’t mine.” She points to a heap of crusty plates and glasses littering the floor at the end of her bed. “Those are mine.” She pauses, but before I have a chance to open my mouth she adds, “I’ll do them later, aight?”

  “I’ve been cleaning up after Scratches every day for a long time now. I think you could either help out some more or something’s gonna give. I can’t do everything around here you know.”

  At this moment, Shae comes into the room. Serenity smiles winningly, stretches her legs out and wriggles her feet. Shae plops on the end of the bed, lovingly places Serenity’s left foot in her lap and begins to massage her instep. Serenity grabs a bottle of lavender oil from her bedstand and hands it to Shae who uncorks it expertly.

  Serenity points at her book again. “You know, it says here that raspberry leaf tea is good for the uterus.”

  Shae runs her oiled hand up Serenity’s shin and Serenity closes her eyes. The room shrinks.

  I back away but not before overhearing Serenity giggle and Shae saying something about how soft pregnancy makes a woman’s skin.

  When did Donald ever rub my pregnant feet with essential oils, brew me a cup of raspberry leaf tea and admire my pregnant shins? When’s the last time I had a foot rub or any kind of rub for that matter? I wonder if Michael is still mad at me? I could try texting him, a safe way to test the water. I run downstairs and sit on the couch with my phone. I wish you could come over and rub my shins tonight. I sit back to wait for a response.

  Scratches leaps up onto my lap. She expects me to pet her. Her ears are charming in their delicate soft prettiness. “Are you my little kissyface cat? Yes, you are. Oh, yes you are.” She purrs, loudly, and stretches up her chin for a tickle.

  I’m a pushover.

  Michael’s text message comes back swiftly. “Your shins, my place?”

  By the time I get over to his apartment Michael has ignited a big mess of violet tealights. From the door of the apartment he has made a path of candlelight leading into the bedroom, which he has transformed into a shelter of erotic delight complete with essential oils, red silk sheets and sandalwood incense.

  I remove my coat and push one of the candles on the desk away from the blinds. “We better be careful not to burn down the residence.”

  Michael takes my coat and kisses the nape of my neck. “You’re going to be burning very soon. Think of me as your personal sex guru.”

  He picks up a book from the coffee table. “I got this book on tantric sex. It’s all about achieving heightened intimacy. Using these techniques, we can connect on the deepest levels, mentally, physically, and spiritually.” Michael holds the book up with both hands, like he’s delivering a report. The cover has a picture of a radiant couple, both emitting waves of rainbow light from all their chakras. He adds, “With practice, tantric sex can give you an orgasm that can last 10 to 15 minutes.”

  “Let me see that.”

  I flip through the pages, pausing to examine some of the hand-drawn illustrations. The tantric men all sport alarmingly large lingams and the women appear serene and unafraid for their yonis.

  Michael points out that, for beginners, concentrating on the simpler basic positions should do the tantric trick. He’s keen to start with the Yab-Yum position and, after half an hour or so, move on to Scissors, and then Dancing, then Cow, then Shiva, then Shakti and maybe some Kneeling too. A half hour for each is about right.

  I do the sex math in my head. “That’s three and a half hours. I have to get up early.”

  “Maybe we can cut it back to 20 minutes for each then.”

  I check my watch. “It’s getting late. How about 10 minutes?”

  “15?”

  I run another calculation in my head. “Oh alright.”

  Tantric sex is awesome. The idea is to move the energy around the body. I did well as, about seven minutes in, my ear lobes grew hot. As soon as we changed over to Scissors, the energy all plunged down to Michael’s pointiest part, real quick and then it was a fast clippity clip to the finish line.

  I’m hooked. Next time I want to check out the chapter on the ananga ranga. Whatever it is, it sounds incredibly sexy.

  Michael suggests that I might want to work on my PC (Pubococcygeus) muscle exercises so I can become more proficient at the Vadavaka, a gripping technique. Tightening the pelvic floor area is an excellent way to enhance the flow of the life force, called prana. Right. This sounds like old school kegels to me. Mom is always at me about doing my kegels too; now Michael is jumping on the bandwagon.

  “I’ll exercise my PC’s at work all day long,” I promise.

  “That’s a good idea. When you’re standing at the cash register—hey, why not every time you sell a book, think of me and do some squeezes.”

  He’s seriously deranged. Most of the time I’d rather squeeze the customers’ necks.

  As I put on my coat, Michael hands me a CD. “I bought you something. To help you with stress,” he said. “And to apologize for what happened at the restaurant.”

  At home, I set my alarm and slide into bed. I have to get up early but the sleepy feeling won’t come. An hour ticks by. Maybe Michael’s CD will help.

  I slip the CD into my disc player and put on a pair of headphones. The program consists of a short intro from a guy speaking in a soft, soothing monotone telling me to sit up straight and meditate right followed by a chime to signal the start. Then 10 minutes of total silence and three chimes to signal the end. There’s also a 20-minute, a 30-minute and a one-hour meditation, all beginning and ending with chimes. In other words, Michael forked over $20 for a mostly blank CD.

  I call Michael first thing this morning to say thanks for the gift. Then I make the mistake of saying, “Ha, ha. I bought a big batch of blank CDs the other day, which is sort of like having the whole meditation boxed set.”

  His voice sounds terse. “I can’t talk now. I’ll call you later.”

  At lunch I phone Michael back again. “I’m sorry about that joke I made about the CDs. I love my present. Seriously. I should do more meditation.”

  “No worries. You don’t have to apologize. If you don’t enjoy meditation, that’s alright.”

  “I want to. It helps me to relax. I can see the benefits for sure. In fact, that thing you said about going on a silent retreat? The other night at the restaurant? I’ve been thinking about it and you’re right. A silent retreat would be good for me. My life is crazy. I need to make space for me.”

  At this Michael gets excited. “Excellent. I’m going on a retreat next weekend. If you can get away, I can probably get you in. I’ll talk to the guru.”

  What have I done?

  Preparing for my stress-reducing silent retreat weekend is building an anxiety bomb inside me. I may have to take Monday off work to decompress from this experience. I’ve never been on a silent retreat and I don’t know what to bring. Possibly duct tape or an extra sock to stuff in my mouth would be a good idea, as shutting up for two whole days might be impossible without a gag.

  I’m also wondering if I should pack in my pajamas or lingerie. Each person gets their own room. Maybe Michael and I can arrange a little hush hush visiting in the night?

  I have to be on the road by 4 p.m. so I rush out at lunch to the grocery store to stock up for the weekend. We are out of everything. I wheel my cart up and down the aisles looking for the peanut butter. Crunchy or smooth? I can never remember which one the kids won’t eat. I put two ja
rs of each type in the cart as lately Serenity has developed some pregnancy cravings: all she will eat is white bread with peanut butter and mini-marshmallows.

  Every time Olympia sees her downing a marshmallow sandwich, she flips out and wants one too. It’s hard to shop for kids who are engaged in a tag team of food dislikes: Jack hates onions, potatoes, and spinach; Serenity hates peas, asparagus, and yams; and Olympia hates everything else in the vegetable world. There is no meal they will all eat readily except for mini marshmallow sandwiches. Since Serenity is in charge for the weekend I better buy several bags. Shae can cook a mean roast so I toss in short ribs and a bag of carrots. You never know.

  I am driving, so I pick up Michael and we head out. It’s a four hour trip to the ashram so we can at least talk on the way and get it all out of our systems.

  First thing, Michael falls asleep. I drive along in silence. It’s good practice, I suppose.

  After a while, I feel sleepy. I poke Michael and tell him he has to take over the wheel. We switch places and, as I lay my head back on the headrest, Michael asks, “Did you get a chance to read over the guidelines?”

  I rummage for the retreat information in my tote bag. The guidelines are clear: Upon entry to the retreat grounds, please refrain from talking at any and all times. Reading, writing, journaling, or use of the telephone is disquieting and may be a barrier to your stillness practice. Following these recommendations carefully and mindfully will allow you to be in community with others in a supportive, respectful way.

  “What if there’s an emergency?”

  “In that case they will inform us.”

  “What if I get sick? Or what if I need something. Like toilet paper?”

  “If it’s necessary, you can write a note to the retreat organizer. And it’s a shared bathroom. Don’t worry. There will be lots of toilet paper.”

  “That’s good to know. But what if I’m at dinner and I want someone to pass the salt?”

  “Do you really need the salt?” Michael looks at me intently. “You realize you can’t talk at all for the whole weekend. No please, no thank you, no pass the salt.”