“What are you doing?” she asks, frowning.
“I don’t like grapes in chicken salad.”
“Well. It happens to be good.”
“You know, all through school, you put butter on my meat sandwiches. And I told you I didn’t like butter on my meat sandwiches. But you did it anyway. I didn’t like butter on meat sandwiches, and I don’t like grapes in my chicken salad!”
“Well, I’ll tell you what. You just call up Good Housekeeping and you tell them that they don’t know what they’re doing. I’ll bet they’d appreciate that. They’d probably give you a free subscription.”
“They probably would.”
Silence.
Then I say, “Listen, how are you, Ma? Louise is worried about you.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I have no idea why. You’re the one she should be worried about!”
“She said she thought you were depressed.”
“She should know better than that. I don’t get depressed. I’m absolutely fine.”
I sit back in my chair. “Oh, why not? Why don’t you get depressed?”
She stares at me, wide-eyed.
“Why don’t you? I mean, everybody does, once in a while. Everybody should, once in a while. It can be good for you to feel bad.”
She takes a bite of her sandwich. “This is delicious.”
“You know? Seriously, Ma.”
She puts down her sandwich, looks at me. “You want to know why I don’t get depressed? I’ll tell you why. I never saw the point of it, Sam. I don’t delve into things too deeply. It’s better that way.”
“How would you know? You don’t have any means of comparison. You glide along like . . . You never even . . . When did you ever let anyone get close to you? I mean really close, to the real you.”
She looks at me, a long-lasting thing that makes me feel as though I’m being slowly drunk. Finally, “I don’t know how you can say that, Sam,” she says quietly.
“Well, it’s true! You have this . . . It’s impenetrable, your constant, crazy cheerfulness. It’s an insult! It keeps people from you.”
She nods, slowly. Then there is the ridiculous sound of the kitchen cuckoo clock, signaling the half hour. I look at my watch. “I have to go. Oh, Ma, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I said that. I’m just . . . I don’t know, I guess I needed to yell at someone. I’m sorry.” I stand, reach for my coat.
She takes our plates to the sink, starts running water.
“I’m really sorry. I’m a jerk.”
“It’s all right. You’ve got a lot on your mind. I know you’re not yourself.”
I stand watching her. I don’t know what to do. I’ve got to go.
“I’ll see you later.”
“Sam?” She shuts off the water, turns to face me. “You’ll find this out when Travis gets older. But your children never really grow up for you.”
I start to say something, then stop.
“You protect your children. You must always protect them.”
“From what, Ma?”
“From everything that’s sad, or wrong, or scary. I mean, you try. That’s what you’re supposed to do.”
“But . . . That’s not what I believe. I believe children are entitled to the truth.”
“How much truth, Sam?”
I don’t answer. What is the answer?
“I know I embarrass you, I’ve always known that. But I have to get through life in my own way. It pleases me to be happy. And it pleases plenty of other people, too. Yes, it does. Louise, for example.”
“Are you serious?”
“Louise does not have a problem with me. She loves me very much. She may not tell you that, but she does.” I stare at my mother’s carefully made-up face, and suddenly I see that same face many years ago, shortly after my father died, when she came out of the bathroom after having been in there for a very long time. “Now!” she said. I was sitting in the hall, spinning jacks, and I looked up at her. “I think this style is much better, don’t you?” She showed me some modification she’d made to her hairdo, and I nodded, then returned to my jacks.
What occurs to me, now, is that what my mother had been doing all that time was weeping. With astonishing quiet. And that when she was done, she’d washed her face, fixed her hair, put on lipstick, and then gone out to the kitchen. She turned the radio on low and made dinner so that it would be ready when it always was. And then she smiled and chatted empty-headedly or fussed at her daughters all during dinner, preempting any kind of real conversation, preempting any questions, and then she put her daughters to bed, still smiling, still dispensing random advice about this and that, and her daughters squirmed and rolled their eyes and felt their love lessen year by year, eroded by embarrassment, by a terrible, defeating kind of resignation that told them she would never be different. But what did Veronica do after she put us to bed? I wonder now. And I imagine a mother who took a mask off her face, then pushed hard into a pillow to weep for the loss of her husband, for the loss of the life she was supposed to have, for the only man she ever—I actually gasp, thinking this now—loved. And it comes all at once to me, it comes at this instant, that my mother simply lost too much and repaired herself in the only way she was able; that, in fact, she is continuing to repair herself, hour by hour, the pendulum of the cuckoo clock swinging in the light and the dark of all the days that have passed since my father died at this same brown wooden kitchen table.
“Ma,” I say. “I’m so sorry.”
“For what, honey?” There it is, the vacant brightness in her eyes, evidence of the invisible amputation that I have missed forever, until now. She comes over and hugs me. “Don’t be sorry. I’m just fine. You tell Louise that, all right?”
“Yes,” I say. “I’ll tell her.” And then, “Want to come to dinner tomorrow night?”
“Not tomorrow. I’ve got a date with a new fellow.” She makes a giddap sound. “A Charlton Heston look-alike and I’m not kidding. It’s his son that I want you to meet, by the way.”
“Okay.”
She blinks. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I . . . He is divorced, honey, a couple of times. Well, three. But he doesn’t have any children. And he—”
“It’s all right. I’ll meet him.”
I slide my coat on. My arms feel unreal to me, sewn on. At the door, my mother says, “His name is Jonathan. J-O-N-athan, that kind. I’ll have him call you.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t rush anything, now. This is just for fun.”
“Ma . . .” My mother waits, expectantly. One eyebrow has been drawn in slightly lower than the other, and it is nearly more than I can bear. “I won’t rush,” I say. “Don’t worry.”
As I am stepping into the car, my mother leans out the door to call, “How about if I come for dinner Thursday night?”
“Fine,” I call back, realizing I forgot I asked her.
11
I AM STANDING AT THE LIVING-ROOM WINDOW, WATCHING for King’s car. He is taking me to the employment agency he works for. “You don’t need any experience for lots of these jobs,” he’d said. “Alive and ambulatory, you’re in their A-plus bracket.”
Lydia, who is on the sofa with a large-print novel, sighs and puts her book down.
“What,” I say.
“Are you grinding your teeth? Is that the noise I’m hearing?”
“I’m not grinding my teeth.”
“I could have sworn.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“Are you nervous?”
“No!” I cross my arms tightly over my chest.
“It’s hard, I know. But you’ll be all right.”
I go to sit beside her. “It’s just, I’ve never felt so . . . I mean, I think about getting a job at McDonald’s, and I worry that I won’t be able to work the cash register.”
“Oh, I think you could probably manage that.”
I check my watch, get up to l
ook out the window again.
“He’s not due quite yet,” Lydia says. “Don’t worry. He won’t be late. He’s not the type.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean he cares. He pays attention. He’s not the type to disappoint.”
“Right. As opposed to the type I married.”
Lydia hesitates, then says, “I wonder if I might ask you something.”
I turn to face her. “Of course.”
“Did you think life would be easy all the time?”
“No!”
“Are you sure?”
A horn honks, and I jump up. “Here he is! I’ll see you later.”
“Good luck. And take your time, I’ll be here when Travis gets home. I’ll have him help me make dinner—he’s quite good at making meatballs.”
“Thank you. And Lydia?”
“Yes?”
“I really didn’t think it would be easy all the time. I just didn’t know how weak I was.”
“Well. That’s where you’re wrong.” She pulls her cardigan up higher over her shoulders, resettles her glasses on her nose. “You’ll see.”
KINGS WAITS FOR me while I fill out the application and have an interview. Then he takes me to a diner. He orders coffee; I order the cheeseburger platter deluxe.
“So?” he says.
“So, it was easy!” I shed my coat, toss it into the corner of the booth. I feel good. I feel great.
“I told you.”
“The woman who interviewed me looked like she was twelve.”
“Ah. The senior staff member, then.”
“They said they’d call as soon as tomorrow.”
“They could.”
“Maybe we’ll get a job doing something together!”
“I’m moving mattresses tomorrow. Warehouse.”
“Oh. Never mind.”
My burger is delivered, and I take a bite, then say around it, “I told my mother I’d go out with someone she knows.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. I wanted to do something for her.”
“What about you? Is it something you want to do?”
I salt my french fries, eat one. Two. “Not really.”
“You might have a good time.”
I shrug, offer a fry to him, which he refuses. I wonder if he’s dieting. If he lost weight, he’d be a very attractive man. But I would miss something. I’ve grown accustomed to his size. It’s comforting to me.
“Your husband was an asshole,” King says suddenly.
I look up, stop chewing.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s okay. It’s true.”
“It’s hard to hear criticism about someone you love, though. I know that.”
I start to say I never really loved David, then don’t.
IN THE CAR on the way home, I tell King, “I feel so comfortable with you.”
“Yes.”
“I mean, from the very beginning, I felt as though we were friends.” I shiver a little. The car is cold.
He turns up the heat, reaches behind him for a blanket, tosses it on my lap. “Me too.” And then, “You know, I’ve just started to date out of the personals. So don’t feel bad about your mother fixing you up.”
“Really? Have you had good experiences?”
“Mostly, I’m too fat.” It is mild, without rancor, the way he says it. “I tell them on the phone that I’m heavy, they usually say it’s no problem, but then I show up and most of the time they get that look. You know? That look?”
“So what do you do?”
He shrugs. “I tell them never mind. I say it’s okay. I go home and read, or go to the movie by myself.”
“Well, they’re . . . They ought to give you a chance.”
“Yeah,” King says, smiling, and suddenly I see him as a little boy, home from school, innocent and hungry, holding pulpy papers in his hand that he will offer up to his mother. And then he is himself again, pulling into my driveway. “Here you are.”
“Thank you,” I say.
“Thank you.”
I laugh. “For what?”
“I don’t know.”
I open the car door, and he says, “Well, I do know.” I wait, expectantly, and he says, “I’ll tell you another time.”
12
EARLY SATURDAY MORNING, LYDIA AND I ARE SITTING AT THE breakfast table looking through the personals ads. We’re seeing if anyone looks better than the blind date I have set up with Jonathan for tonight. “Here’s one,” Lydia says, squinting at the tiny print. “He’s forty-three, he’s financially secure, he likes dining out, travel, and walks along the beach.”
“Oh, they all say that. Honest to God. Read a few more. They will all say that. What I want to know is, when I go to the beach how come I don’t see hundreds of available men walking up and down looking for women? You know, expensive sweaters wrapped around their shoulders, airline tickets in their pockets?”
“Well, of course it is almost winter.”
“I know, but even in summer I never see any.”
Lydia considers this, frowning, fingering the handle on her teacup. “I’ll bet there were some available men there. You probably just weren’t really looking.”
“No,” I say. “They weren’t there. There were just families yelling at their kids not to drown and teenagers walking around like billboards, acting as if their bodies would never change. They’re so oblivious to the fact that they’ll get older. Sometimes I want to grab them and say, ‘Hey! I used to look just like you! Haha-HA!!’ ”
“Yes,” Lydia says. “That’s what I want to say to you sometimes.” She sips her tea.
My God. Of course that must be true. Of course it must! What’s a little cellulite next to a face full of deep wrinkles? What’s a face full of deep wrinkles next to infirmity? When does the time come when you stand in front of your grown-up woman’s mirror and feel contentment for what you see? Ever?
“Well now, look at this,” Lydia says, pointing to the ads. “This really does sound good—he’s an artist—a painter; he has season tickets to the ballet; he likes big dogs. Oh, but he’s a much older gentleman. He’s more for me.”
“You don’t need anyone,” I say ruefully. Lydia is wearing a gift from Thomas: an ultra-soft, navy blue robe with a thin line ofred trim. In the pocket of the robe had been a folded-up sonnet about sleep, one of Thomas’s favorites that he had copied out for Lydia in his tall, back-slanted script.
“I know,” Lydia says, smiling. “In fact . . .”
“What?”
“Well, maybe I shouldn’t say this yet. I’m not absolutely certain, after all. But Thomas and I are thinking about getting married.”
I sit back in my chair, wordless. I see Lydia at the altar, her veil being lifted. And there is Thomas, his face illuminated with love and hope, bending down to kiss her.
“What do you think?” Lydia asks.
“Well, I . . .” What about me??? “I think it’s wonderful, Lydia. I just . . . That’s really wonderful! When?”
“Well, at first we thought June, of course. But then, considering our ages, Thomas thought maybe we’d better just go ahead and do it as soon as possible.” She looks meaningfully over the top of her glasses at me.
“So. You’ll be moving out, then.”
“Yes, I’ll be moving into his place.”
Damn. I’ll have to find another roommate. I recall seeing a sign only yesterday on the bulletin board at a bookstore: FEMALE COLLEGE STUDENT SEEKS ROOM. CAN TEACH JAPANESE. At the time, I’d thought idly of calling her, thinking it would be nice to have one more roommate; the heating bill has been much higher than I thought it would be. Now I think I’d better go to the bookstore as soon as it opens this morning and get the number, have the woman over for an interview right away. It might be nice, having a young Japanese woman around. That black hair, that soft voice. I am making terrible assumptions, I know, I am possibly even being racist, but I can’t help it. T
he woman will sit at the kitchen table in a beautiful turquoise kimono, cut an orange into six even slices.
And then I look over at Lydia and my fantasy dissolves into regret. I have loved sharing a house with her. I like it when she sits at the kitchen table slowly folding towels while I make dinner. I like seeing the strip of light coming from under her door when I go to bed at night; it makes me, however irrationally, feel safe. We occasionally watch old black-and-white movies together late at night, sighing with equal implausibility over young Robert Mitchum, over Clark Gable. We have begun to talk like girlfriends, to reveal the small and intimate things that one collects like cards for a good hand on the way to forging a real friendship. I know that Lydia likes pea soup with the ham bone in, gin rummy, the jolting thrill of cold sheets at night, a certain brand of outrageously expensive cold cream that comes in a frosted glass jar with a pink top. She will wear only silk slips. In some ways, in such a short length of time, Lydia has become a better friend to me than Rita. But now she is going to leave. I try smiling, but I feel terrible. Abandoned again. Perhaps this will be a condition, like anemia: Chronic Abandonment.
“It won’t be for a while, Sam. I want to give you at least a month’s notice. And as I said, I’m really not completely sure, yet.”
“Well, why wouldn’t you do it?” I ask. The phone rings, and I ignore it.
“Why wouldn’t I? Oh, I don’t know. I kind of like my independence. And to tell you the truth, I’ve really enjoyed living here with you. I feel as though I’ve gotten younger, in a way. And I adore Travis—we’ve become real pals.”
“I know,” I say. Travis has been teaching Lydia to play his latest computer game. Last night, jealous, I stood in the hallway with the laundry basket on my hip, peeking into Travis’s bedroom. I saw Lydia sitting beside Travis, listening to him tell her things he had never told me. The only thing he has told me recently is that Lydia’s bird recognizes him, calls him by name whenever he speaks to it, whereas every time I say anything to it, the bird falls silent. I can’t imagine a parakeet saying, “Travis,” but never mind.
I go over to the sink, rinse out my cup. “I do wonder,” Lydia says, “if getting married at my age isn’t awfully foolish.”