I walk down the hall, smell something with curry cooking. (A neighbor, sticking her head out of her door and into the hall, a wave of blond hair over one eye: Oh, David! Hello! I thought I heard you out there! Want to share a little something with me tonight? Again?) I push the button for the elevator, wait a second, then head quickly for the stairs. It is too big, what I’m feeling. I have to keep moving. I still . . . what is it? Love him? Is that it? Need him? Want him?
I miss him; I love how he looks, how he dresses, how he smells.
I get into the car, look into the rearview mirror and see, for one split second, Veronica. This is all her fault. At the heart of things, I am my mother’s daughter, always making too much out of too little, really liking the scent of country-fresh furniture polish and the sight of a clean bathroom. I am a prisoner of genes wearing aprons.
But it was enough for me, the way our family lived. Maybe that was wrong; maybe I should have wanted more. But I didn’t. I knew things were far from perfect, but I was content sitting outside with my coffee on spring mornings, admiring the daffodils Travis and I planted, thinking about what to make for dinner that night. I liked attending school conferences with David and listening to dressed-up teachers talk about our son. I liked going to the hardware store every Saturday, all of us in jeans and T-shirts; and I liked watching videos every Sunday night while we ate takeout Chinese from the cartons. I would actually wake up on Sunday mornings a little excited about doing it, even though we did it every week. Perhaps because we did it every week. It was enough, to light a fire in the winter so that we could all toast marshmallows, to look out the window in the summer at David mowing the lawn and Travis riding his bike around in self-absorbed circles, a half-moon of dirt above each elbow. When I got up in the morning and set the table for breakfast and smelled the first whiff of French roast and unrolled the newspaper to lay it flat on the kitchen table by David’s place (the comics by Travis’s), that was enough for me. What is the matter with me, that this was enough?
I shiver, put my hand to my forehead. Where is the fever? Where is that damn fever? I need it. I need it bad, as Travis would say.
He is still my son. No matter where he is, he is still mine.
17
AT TWO O’CLOCK ON THANKSGIVING DAY, I AM LOOKING AT A fashion magazine I brought home from the drugstore. I also got eleven other magazines, three tabloids, a Snickers bar, a box of chocolate-covered cherries, four colors of eye shadow, three lipsticks, bubble bath, a party-size bag of Chee-tos, floral-scented furniture wax, and a designer razor—very nice, made to fit precisely into the hand. Well, into the designer’s hand. I lick my fingers and turn the magazine pages by the lower right-hand corner, slowly. Louise used to read magazines like that, me sitting beside her on the sofa. It seemed a queenly ritual. I had always wanted to turn the pages too, but Louise wouldn’t let me. Well, look how far I’ve come. My very own stack of magazines. They have helped me not to think about Travis eating dinner with David and his girlfriend. A little.
Most of the clothes in the magazine look like a kind of joke to me. And if the style isn’t, the price is. But here is a perfume sample—free. I tear it out, rub it on my wrist, inhale deeply. Not bad. I’ll buy some, if ever in my life there comes a time to wear perfume again.
A twenty-one-pound turkey is in the oven. Janis Joplin’s “Ball and Chain” is on the stereo. I have always loved this song. When I was in the band, the guys and I used to gather in the basement bedroom of the keyboard player, where our equipment was kept; and we would play albums through the band’s huge speakers. Not just Janis; we played Monk, and Vivaldi, Hank Williams and Keith Jarrett. We played Earl “Fatha” Hines and Dinah Washington. James Brown, Howlin’ Wolf. Sometimes I would look around the room, at the way the guys’ appreciation looked less like joy than anguish. Every nuance in the music was played out in their faces—you could see it in the movement of their eyebrows, the shape of their mouths, the rhythm of their nodding. Fingers tapped on knees, feet were often going, too. Their eyes were closed; I would have said they were not exactly on the planet Earth. One night after a gig when we were eating cheeseburgers at an all-night diner, the guys all agreed that they’d rather be blind than deaf. I said no; if it came to that, I’d want to see. But often, when I was onstage and deep into a song, I could feel it too, that singular lift, that sense of being filled up and taken over. Complete, and wanting nothing else.
I was good; I was a very good singer. I was once approached by a man from a well-known talent agency who wanted to back me as a solo act. He told me he’d bankroll everything, down to my wardrobe. “I’d need to bring the band,” I said, and the man said no, I didn’t need them. I said I wouldn’t be interested, then. “Are you crazy?” the man said. “I’ll get you a record contract! You get out on the road for me for six months and I guarantee I’ll get you a hell of a contract.” I still remember every detail of this—the guy leaning forward in the red leather booth of the club where we were playing that night, his cigarette burning low. He pushed his Scotch off angrily to the side, yanked up his sweater sleeves. He was wearing an expensive gold watch. He was a handsome man, balding, but handsome. “I don’t think so,” I said, and the man said I’d better be sure, he wouldn’t ask again. “I’m sure,” I said, and the guy sat back, blinked. “I don’t get it,” he said. “Do you have any idea what you’re turning down, here?” I stared at my hands, shrugged. “What,” he said, “are you sleeping with one of them?” I looked up quickly, denied it. But I was. I was sleeping with the lead guitarist—Stevie, we called him. And I wouldn’t leave him. Later, when I told him what I’d turned down, he told me I was crazy. Which hurt my feelings. “I didn’t want to do it without you,” I said, and Stevie said, “Sam, I’d have taken a deal like that in a second.” Of course he would have. He was already interested in someone else, though I didn’t know it until a few weeks later.
No offers like that had ever come again. I sang until I got engaged to David; and then I stopped singing.
I pick up the CD cover, look into Janis’s eyes. She was a musical genius who never did find love. Never did. Janis had a beauty that men probably never appreciated. It was in how she felt things, not how she looked. Although there was a kind of hard beauty to the way she looked, too. It was there. But men came, and then just left her. All the time. At least she had something to do with her anguish—nobody sings pain like she does.
I look at my watch. Time to baste the turkey again. I love basting the turkey. Every time I open the oven, I eat some stuffing. Early this morning, just as the sun was starting to come up, I made stuffing the old-fashioned way, dipping slices of stale white bread into hot water, tearing it apart, seasoning it with fragrant leaves of sage, and onions sautéed in an ocean of butter. I made cranberry sauce, and when it was done put it into a dark blue bowl for the beautiful contrast. I was thinking, doing this, about the old ways of gratitude: Indians thanking the deer they’d slain, grace before supper, kneeling before bed. I was thinking that gratitude is too much absent in our lives now, and we need it back, even if it only takes the form of acknowledging the blue of a bowl against the red of cranberries.
I’m having baked sweet potatoes, and white mashed potatoes, and green beans, and a spinach/mushroom casserole, and pumpkin and mince and apple pies. A mixing bowl and beaters wait in the freezer for when it’s time to make the whipped cream.
I actually stood in the grocery store yesterday staring at a Cornish game hen for a long while before I came to my senses. So what if I’m alone? So what? I happen to be having a very good time, yes I am. I’m glad I lied to my mother, glad I refused Veronica’s invitation to have dinner with her and her boyfriend and told her I was eating with the neighbors.
I baste the turkey, eat a forkful of stuffing. Oh, it’s so good. I eat another forkful. One more.
Back in the family room, I stretch out on the sofa, close my eyes. I’m beginning to understand how being alone can be wonderful. You can do whatever you want
! Travis and David both hate Janis Joplin, for instance. But now, I can blast her the whole live-long day. Which I very well might. I put on another one of her CDs, turn the volume up thrillingly high. I think of the boombox man with a new understanding: if someone were to tell me to turn this down, I too would tell them to fuck themselves.
After the CD ends, I go into the dining room to lay out a white linen tablecloth. I set my place with my Tiffany’s china, put candles in the holders. And now I will get dressed for dinner. Another bath first, even though I was in the tub for an hour last night with the tabloids. I start the CD over, grab Vogue, and head upstairs.
I turn on the water, hot, hot; then sit on the edge of the tub and open the magazine. There is an advertisement featuring a model in gorgeous underwear: diaphanous blue, a pearl here, a bow there. I inspect the woman thoroughly. Well. She is a very lovely girl.
I am not a girl. I am a woman coming into middle age who has had the rug pulled out from under her. And I am trying to reorient myself and I haven’t yet. I walk around with ghosts ahead of me and behind me. Pieces of my old life. Pictures of how it used to be: David coming in the front door, home from work. Travis showing him his homework, leaning on the side of David’s chair. A movie on Friday night, someone to go with. This is my new life: I push pain away all day, and the moment I put my arms down it walks into me and has a seat.
I undress and stand before the full-length mirror for some time. Then I throw the magazine in the garbage, climb into the tub, lean back, and close my eyes. I take in a deep breath, breathe out. Breathe in again; and then let go. This is not the time in my life to try to look like a model. This is the time in my life to do other things. Janis sings in the family room below me, a song about trying harder.
All right: the red against the blue, the sound of the birds in the morning. The sugar smell in bakeries. The smoothness of fabric moving under my hands into the teeth of the sewing machine. The movement of the ocean, the break of light every morning, every morning.
“Hey,” I say softly, just to hear the sound of my own voice. I sit perfectly still, hear the tap drip, then drip again. “Hey!” I yell. “I’m here!”
I begin to soap my legs. And to sing, softly at first; then loudly. I feel a rush of power that is something like sex. Only better. I start to cry. But this crying, it’s so different.
AT FOUR O’CLOCK, I light the candles, then go into the kitchen to load up my plate. Back in the dining room, I sit at the head of the table. David’s place. No. Mine. I clear my throat. Spread my napkin on my lap, pick up my fork and knife. And stop. Travis and David and I always used to say three things we were grateful for (one year, Travis said “farting”), but I don’t think I want to do that alone. A prayer, then; a type of prayer.
I bow my head, close my eyes. “Thanks,” I say. “Thank you.” And then, after a long pause, “I know it could be a lot worse.” Then, “If you’re real . . . If there is something, I hope . . . Well, whatever you are, whatever you may be, thank you for Travis. For all the good I have in my life. Even now.”
I open my eyes, spear a piece of white meat that I’ve drenched in gravy, which is quite the best I’ve ever made. Next I take a bite of mashed potatoes. Very nice. The green beans, also very good. I reach for the salt, accidentally hit my water goblet with it. The crystal rings, just as it should, and the sound goes on and on. And on.
I go into the family room, turn the radio on to the classical station. There.
Back in the dining room, I stare at my plate. What I really like is the taste of foods mixed together. Well, why not? Who’s watching me? Is this not yet another benefit of being alone? I mix my food together, then take a bite. Delicious, but disgusting to look at. Zoo food. Also a little, perhaps, demented.
I go into the kitchen to dump what’s on my plate into the garbage disposal. Now I’ll start again. I load up my plate once more, sit down at the table, take a few bites, and look around the room.
It’s too big in here.
I go to sit at the kitchen table. Much better. Homier. I take another bite, and realize I am full. How many times did I taste that stuffing? I take a deep breath and undo the button to my skirt, which has gotten much too small, try one more bite, but it’s no use. I’m just not hungry.
I change into my jeans and clean up, which takes quite a while. The turkey pan, especially. Cleaning up after Thanksgiving should never be done alone. There should be a group of people, chatting—relatives who have known each other for years, husbands and wives who love each other’s company, old friends, new friends. Anybody. I should have eaten with my mother and her dumb boyfriend.
I have quite a few leftovers. Enough for thirty, approximately. I can barely fit them into the refrigerator. I never even whipped the cream. For what? I don’t want any of the pies I made. I see them lined up on the counter, imagine them looking at each other and shrugging. Then I go out for a walk.
NOTHING IS ON television, Bruce Springsteen is absolutely right; fifty-seven channels, and nothing on. Is it fifty-seven? Maybe it’s sixty-seven. It could be six hundred and seven and still nothing would be on. I turn off the television and look at my watch. Eight-thirty. I could go to bed. By the time I got ready, it would be close to nine.
I don’t feel like reading. I just finished a novel last night, and after I was done, I stared for a while at the author photo on the back, wishing I could call the woman and say, “I really liked your book. It says here you live with your two daughters. Are you divorced?”
I could call Rita. But why run up the phone bill? I’ll see her soon. Besides, Rita’s probably busy, having a terrific time, eating dinner with forty creative, California types, all of them mellow, all of them wearing contemporary jewelry and natural fibers and drinking the Napa Valley wines they’re so damn proud of. I hate eating with California people when they aren’t in California. All they do is talk about their superior produce, as though they are responsible for it, as though I don’t know that the only contribution they make is to pull up into the too-clean parking lot of the grocery store in their nonrust California car! convertible and fill it with avocados. When they eat in restaurants outside their own state, all they do is say, “In California,” loudly, as though it’s a credit to their personhood that they live there and they need to make sure the waiter and everyone else knows that they do. And why? No seasons, a bunch of airheads running around being so irritatingly happy you wanted to wring their necks. Everybody is happy there. Call directory assistance and you get some ecstatic person, thrilled to death that they live in California, they have a job in California. Who cares? Who wants to live in California?
Maybe I do.
I sigh, lean back in my chair, close my eyes. How come Rita gets such a good life and I get such a crummy one? How come Rita never has to shovel snow and has a suede checkbook cover? How come Rita’s husband adores her, sits lazily in his chair watching her, laughing at all her jokes? Once, when I visited them and the three of us were walking down one of the long, hilly streets of San Francisco, Lawrence turned to Rita and kissed her full on the mouth. Then, turning to me, he said, “I love my wife!” And I said, “I know you do,” feeling too much present, feeling in the way, knowing that David would never do that to me and would in fact object to seeing anyone else do it. “There’s a time and a place,” he’d say.
How come Rita is a television producer—creative, well paid, well respected; while the apparent outlet for my talents is as proprietress of the Hotel Meatloaf, temporary lodging in a wrecked suburban home? It occurs to me to get out my high school year-book, to call everyone and say, “I was just wondering. How did things work out for you?” Maybe someone would be in prison, and I could feel better.
I pick up the Martha Stewart catalogue, call the 800 number, ask the woman who answers the phone if she can give me Martha’s telephone number. She says, no, sorry, she can’t do that.
“I would really like to talk to her,” I say. “I need to ask her some things. Of a personal nat
ure.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am.”
“I went to high school with her,” I say. “We were pretty good friends. But we, you know, lost touch.”
“I don’t have her number,” the woman says. “I couldn’t give it to you even if I wanted to. Would you like to order something?”
“I wonder . . . would you mind taking my number, and asking her to call me?”
“Surely. What’s your number?”
I tell her, then say, “You didn’t even write it down, did you?”
“Yes, I did.”
Right. “Too bad you have to work on Thanksgiving,” I say.
“Oh, I don’t mind.”
“Do you have to say that?”
“No, I really don’t mind.”
“Because you know how people talk about Martha, how mean she is.”
“Did you want to order something?” the woman asks.
“Well, let’s see,” I say, leafing through the pages. “Anything in here you think is really great?”
“I’ll tell you what,” the woman says. “Why don’t you take a look and then call back?”
I hang up, toss the catalogue aside, look at my watch. Five minutes have passed. Great. I can go to sleep.
Upstairs, I sit gloomily at the edge of my bed. Maybe I should masturbate; probably part of my problem is that I haven’t been touched lately. It’s terrible not to be touched. I heard about a woman who got divorced and hadn’t had sex in three years. She went to a masseuse just to be touched, and she all of a sudden started crying and asked the therapist, “Please, can you just whisper ‘I love you’ to me?” The worst part of that story is that it was the masseuse who told someone, who then told everyone.
Well, self-love. That’s pretty safe. I have the time, God knows. I’m alone, God knows. And it’s not a sin; it’s not a sin; it’s not a sin.
I pull the curtains closed, think of what I might do to make things more interesting. Maybe I’ll put on one of the get-ups I used with David. Why not? They’re just sitting in the dresser drawer, hidden beneath my socks. If I’m not going to use them, I should give them to the Salvation Army. Wouldn’t they have fun, pulling that stuff out of the bin? “Hey, look at this!” some guy wearing a hooded sweatshirt would say, holding up one of my silk-and-lace teddies. And another, older, worker would say, “Yeah, we get that shit all the time. Price it at a buck fifty, buck twenty-five, whatever.”