Leaving Sophie Dean

by Alexandra Whitaker

  “But your marriage is not Matthew’s and Hugo’s business,” Florence said, drinking lemonade at Sophie’s. “You don’t need your children’s permission to divorce—that’s not how it works.”

  Sophie sighed. “I know. But here’s another factor. They can’t sleep on the sofa bed in my kitchen forever.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They’ll need their own room eventually. I’ve only got two bedrooms, and the workroom is essential. I have to start making a living soon—I’m using up my savings fast. I guess I just need a bigger apartment. It’s ridiculous, but I feel so attached to this place. Irrationally so. I have to move, though, and that’s that. Find a nice big place with room for everything.” Adam’s floor plans flashed into her mind—her independent work space, the boys playing happily, glimpsed through the French windows across the courtyard, the sense of wholeness and safety that would give. She could fill the patios with plants.…

  “Hey!” Florence shrieked suddenly, making Sophie jump. “Look!” She pointed at the glass of lemonade Sophie had just raised to her lips. “My God, would you look at that!” The cork coaster that Sophie had set down to protect the table had adhered to the condensation on the bottom of the glass. “You have achieved bevel-meter! That’s what it’s called when the coaster sticks to the glass like that—bevel-meter.”

  “And is this a”—Sophie hunted for the right phrasing—“a recognized scientific phenomenon?”

  “You ever been to Boise, Idaho? A bar called ‘Humpin’ Hannah’s?’”

  “I…don’t think so.”

  “That’s where the achievement of bevel-meter first received formal recognition. Of course it’d been happening to people for years, but it wasn’t until late one night in ‘Humpin’ Hannah’s’ that the three morphemes—beverage, level, and meter—came together to form the term we use today. There are purists who measure the distance the coaster travels before it becomes unstuck and falls—that’s the ‘meter’ part—but I call that pedantic. The point is, it’s called bevel-meter, and it’s a real achievement! This calls for about a million beers!”

  * * *

  About half a million beers later, during the drinking of which Florence also achieved bevel-meter, twice, Sophie confessed that Adam had asked her to come back and that she’d been seriously considering it. “Oh, Flo, what if these last months have just been a kind of time-out, and now my married life is meant to begin again? The same only better, having learned from our mistakes, forging a new and more equal relationship based on mutual blah, blah, blah? Isn’t that the conclusion the mature, responsible mother of two would draw? It’s not the conclusion I want to draw, but there it is!”

  Florence’s reaction was not what Sophie would have predicted. “Well, I’m glad to hear he wants you back. He’d be crazy if he didn’t,” she said, lifting her beer bottle to her lips. “What does Henry think about it?”

  “Henry?” Sophie was evasive. “Does that matter? Isn’t it only what I want that counts?”

  “God, Sophie, do you really need to ask that? Of course—jeez! I’m just curious.”

  “Oh. Well. Henry doesn’t give advice, really. He thinks it’s all up to me. I just have to look into my heart and I’ll make the right decision.” She made a face. “And he’s right of course. He always is.”

  “I know he can’t advise you, that’s obvious. What I meant was, how does he feel about this?”

  “Oh”—Sophie tossed one hand up carelessly—“that I couldn’t tell you. I don’t completely get Henry. He likes me, I know, but everything for him is kind of loose and easy. People are free, they don’t belong to each other, and when you love someone, you just want them to be happy, whatever that takes. He says there’s no such thing as a wrong decision, and people are free to change their minds—that kind of thing. He’s so well adjusted that he doesn’t really count. He said it himself, he’s not one of my problems.”

  “I think I like Henry!”

  “Yeah,” Sophie agreed listlessly, “he’s great. But I need to feel firmer ice beneath my feet so I can, you know, stride out.”

  “Hey, you strode out with Adam, and you still plunged into subzero waters.” Florence swallowed some beer, then added angrily, striking the table with her fist, “And bobbed back up like a seal with a fish in your mouth!”

  “I know, I know.” Sophie sighed. Then, with renewed energy, “But meanwhile I have to figure out where to live! In a bigger apartment, with Adam in his dream house, by myself, or with the boys. Or would it be unfair now to take them away from Adam. Or what? Where? Whither? Whence?” She laid her head on her forearms on the table and moaned. “I’m like a cub reporter, shouting my WH-words to the heavens.” She lifted her head. “Remember that in grade school? A good newspaper report had to cover the answers to all the WH-words?”

  “Yeah. I think ‘whither’ and ‘whence’ are archaic, though.” Florence screwed the tops off two more bottles of beer and passed one to Sophie. “Here, Scoop, bottoms up. What about living at Henry’s place?”

  Sophie picked at the label on the bottle. “Not an option.” Then she closed her eyes and slumped, suddenly remembering something else. “Oh, and I forgot to tell you. To top it all off, get this—L told me it’s dangerous to work from home. So all my plans crumble. If I can’t work from home, what good is a bigger place? What good is anything? Oh, God, I can’t believe that all this time has passed since Adam and I split up, seven long months, and here I am right back at the beginning with nothing settled, my whole life up in the air all over again. I wish that damned Valerie had never moved out. First she screws up my life by taking Adam, then she screws it up all over again by dumping him. Do you realize that my entire life is dictated by my husband’s lover, a woman I don’t even know? How surreal is that?”

  But what about having your entire life dictated by your husband’s lover’s best friend—the dissolution of your marriage set into motion by her casually, what’s more, as the result of a petty dietary rivalry? And if Sophie had known that a few months before, at that vernissage, she had actually drunk a friendly glass of champagne with that meddler-at-two-​removes in her affairs—and quite liked her—she would have been certain of Dalí’s hand in the matter.

  Sensing that things were starting to deteriorate, Florence took control of the situation. “Okay, Sophie, listen. I have no idea what you should do, but…” She paused dramatically and took a swig of beer to prolong the suspense. “But I will tell you a rule that will help you to solve problems—any problem, big or small—all your life long. Now, listen carefully.” Holding one finger in the air, she spoke slowly and emphatically, making audible quotation marks around her words. “One problem is only a problem. But two problems are already pointing to a solution.” She held her arms out and beamed. “So there you go!”

  “Wait. Say it again?” Sophie screwed her face up in an effort to understand through the haze of beer.

  Florence obliged, in the same clear, lilting voice. “One problem is only a problem. But two problems are already pointing to a solution.”

  “No.” Sophie shook her head. “No, I don’t get it.”

  “Yes you do. Just think about it. It means that you’re lucky if you have more than one problem. Because multiple problems sort of intermingle… and snag on each other… and where they intersect…” Florence ground to a halt. “Well, you know,” she finished off testily. “Don’t make me pick at it. This kind of thing makes less and less sense the more you— Just let it bob on your brain waves for a while until it sinks in. Think of it: an idea bobbing gently, up and down, on the waves of your brain, until eventually it’s accepted and it flutters slooow-ly, slooow-ly down, and it’s absorbed into the calm blue sea of your understanding.”

  Sophie followed this explanation with a frown. When it was over, she blinked. “Florence, do you understand what the saying means?”

  “Uh… not really. It’s a pearl that was passed on to me, but I could never make heads or tails of it, t
o be honest.”

  “Oh. I see.” Sophie picked up her beer and opened her mouth to drink from it but spilled it down her shirt when Florence grabbed her arm, yelling, “You’ve achieved bevel-meter again!”

  Indeed, the coaster was firmly affixed to the bottom of her raised bottle. While Sophie’s mind clawed for the possible implications of this, Florence tossed her head back with satisfaction and stretched her arms wide. “Oh, Sophie, it’s bevel-meter again. And by God, it’s an achievement!”

  * * *

  The boys had been behaving badly all morning. They’d woken up fractious, bickered through breakfast, and then Sophie had brought them over to the park to play with their kites—a foolish move, since twisting kite strings and fickle winds can blacken tempers even on a good day. After numerous mishaps with the kites, hostilities between them reached such a pitch that Sophie made them sit and be quiet. They leaned their bottoms against the bench, keeping both feet on the ground, a minimum of conforming to the rule that they must sit. They scowled darkly, Matthew into the distance, Hugo at the knotted string in his hands. They frowned with the intensity of young children that is lost in later life: frowned with their whole bodies. Sophie resisted the urge to laugh at their thundercloud faces. Five minutes crept by, and she gave a curt nod to indicate that time was up. A bit more silence followed, broken by Hugo. “Mommy, why did Valerie go away? Were we bad?”

  Matthew looked anxious, sensing that this was not a thing to ask but eager to hear the answer, happy to ride on the coattails of his younger brother’s indiscretion.

  Interesting they should bring this up now—revealing the cause of their bad behavior, or clever manipulation, or a bit of both. She put an arm around each of them. “No, not at all. That’s not why she went.” Damn Adam for not explaining this! “She went because she and Daddy didn’t want to live together anymore. They changed their minds, and that’s okay. It’s not because of you. She does like you—very much.”

  “We were nice to her,” Hugo admitted.

  “I’m sure you were.”

  “And now we want you to come back.”

  She sighed and hugged them closer, propping her chin on Hugo’s head, her eyes resting straight ahead on a white point across the park, her mind on the two small bundles of unhappiness in her arms. Just one word from her would transform their lives. One word and they would be leaping with joy. She could make it all right, if only she would. To possess such power over them and yet not use it to make them happy—could that ever be justified? While she sat wondering, the point of white she had been gazing at resolved itself into a sign on one of the houses across the way, a skinny three-story house with high weeds in the garden.

  The sign said FOR RENT.

  * * *

  One problem is only a problem, but two problems are already pointing to a solution. The next morning Sophie phoned the real-estate agent named on the sign and asked some questions, and later she made a long, tentative call to Adam. Next she left a brief message for Henry. Lastly she wrote a polite reply to Clement in Abruzzi.

  In just forty-five minutes, she set all their lives on a new course.

  On her way out to mail Clement’s letter, she stopped to ask if Bertie would like to come along, and Dorina said yes. The old woman was looking frailer since her accident, but still beautifully turned out, with her silver hair swept up in combs. She brightened when she saw the address on the envelope in Sophie’s hand. “Oh, how nice!”

  Sophie pressed the letter against her leg, feeling a surge of panic. Of course Dorina knew Clement; they used to be neighbors. But it was imperative that—

  “You’ve written to my dear, dear fri—”

  “No!” Sophie shouted, and she clapped her hands over her ears. A graceless action, but it was all she could think of to cut off Dorina in time. Dorina started, Bertie barked, Sophie blushed.

  “I’m sorry I startled you,” Sophie said, lowering her hands. “It’s just that Clement is… very special to me, and I… don’t want to know anything about Clement, nothing at all, because…” She was about to grind to an embarrassed halt when she realized that there was no reason not to tell the simple truth, so she wound up unapologetically, “Because to me Clement is a magical beneficent spirit who could only be diminished by becoming a real person.”

  “Oh! Well…” Dorina touched the necklaces at her bosom. “How eccentric of you, darling. But who am I to talk? A woman who dresses for dinner en tête-à-tête with a dog!”

  “I don’t really need Clement now, not like in the beginning. But… Well, you just never know.”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll learn nothing from me. I believe firmly that mystery should be respected. All this meddling—it’s just plain hubris! I detest detective novels, don’t you?”

  Back in her apartment, Sophie stood with her hands on her hips surveying her treatment room with a touch of regret for what now would never be.

  Well, no point in putting it off. Packing again, and so soon. Filling cardboard boxes. Dumping out drawers and finding that one rubber band, that one bent paper clip, the one small coin, and the one rolling marble that inhabit the backs of drawers all over the planet. She worked methodically, dismantling everything that she had assembled so recently, and with such hopes. Down came the charts, down came the books, the candles, the music. She left the futon for last and knelt for a moment amid the boxes and bare shelves to run her hand lovingly over it. Then she gave it a pat and rolled it up.

  * * *

  May Day was moving day. Sophie ripped open a box of books, watching Adam out of the corner of her eye. He was staring dazedly into boxes he’d packed himself only days before, as though he had never seen any of their contents before. “James, give me a hand, will you?” he said. “We need to clear some space in here.”

  “Sure thing.” James stacked three large boxes marked KITCHEN on top of one another and carried them down the hall, giving Sophie a wink as he passed. He was being friendly to her, too friendly, she thought, as if he felt she needed reassurance that he hadn’t usurped her place. He had been very helpful to Adam throughout the move, she knew. He, Adam, and Milagros had worked together packing up the old house, and the boys had helped, too, mainly by riding empty boxes down the stairs and vetoing the giving away of any toys. Now, at the unpacking stage, they all functioned together as a slick team, with Sophie the odd man out, unsure where things went, that well-intentioned but not terribly useful outsider who lends a hand at such times.

  “What you got there?” Milagros asked James fiercely as he came into the kitchen. He nudged a flap open with his chin and peered into the top box.

  “Pans, looks like.”

  “There by the stove. Now, get out of here.” He laughed and left her to it. She was arranging the kitchen the way she’d always wished the old kitchen were arranged—like hers at home. And why shouldn’t she, Sophie reasoned—she did lots of the cooking, and would continue to.

  Back in the living room, Adam was eyeing the chesterfield doubtfully.

  “You want to try it under the window?” James asked.

  “Do you mind?” Adam looked apologetic.

  “Hell no! We can’t see what it looks like till we try it.”

  Milagros had already unpacked the bathroom boxes, again according to a private system, so when Hugo asked for a washcloth to make a superhero cape for one of his teddy bears, Sophie reached automatically into the top drawer of the wicker commode, but there weren’t any there. She had to hunt until she found one hanging on the back of the bathroom door. Not a very convenient place for it, she couldn’t help thinking, out of the children’s reach like that. But that was all right.

  The men squatted at either end of the chesterfield and chose their handholds. “Got it?” James asked, and Adam nodded. Together they straightened their knees and lifted as if it were weightless. The times Sophie had moved it with Adam, it had been all she could do, straining on tiptoes, to keep her end from marring the floor. The men set it down gently in the
bay window, then drifted back together to examine the effect, their hands on their hips, both frowning.

  “What do you think?” Adam said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t like it?”

  “Oh, I like it. I’m just wondering where your table’s going to go, that’s all. That’s good light to work by. Seems wasted on the sofa.”

  “You’re right. Well… switch it back? Sorry about this.”

  “Hey, no problem. We have to get it right.” They hefted the thing again, and James said, “You know, once we rent an office, we can put this back in the window. It does look better there, no doubt about it.”

  Sophie knew, because Adam had told her that morning, that he wouldn’t be working from home for much longer. He and James were going to set up in business together, a little two-man shop, just as soon as James was fired. James explained to Sophie that he was going to wait and get severance pay instead of quit and walk away with nothing. Hell, the firm had exploited him for years; he might as well milk it for what he could get. Sophie asked what he would do if he wasn’t fired, but he said not to worry about that, he was doing “little things to help it along,” and both he and Adam laughed, an inside joke. Milagros already knew all about their new venture; others probably did, too. It felt strange to Sophie that Adam could take such an important career step and she not be the first to hear about it, or the second, or even the third. But of course that was natural now, just as it was natural for her not to know where the washcloths and the can opener were kept.