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 nature.”
“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.”
Well, this is not sexy thinking. I should be doing sexy thinking. I dig through my drawer, pull out a red nightgown with a revealing top, a slit high up the side. I undress quickly, then pull the nightgown over my head and get into bed. I’m freezing. This damn nightgown is freezing! Why can’t I masturbate in flannel pajamas? Oh, but I can’t, I can’t do that, it would be like having sex with Mr. Rogers. This nightgown is sexy. I just need to wait a minute. I’ll warm up. I close my eyes, shiver, rub my hands up and down my arms. There, that’s better. And now I open my eyes, look down at my breasts.
Well, there they are, old Mutt and Jeff. Flat as pancakes. I sit up, push them together with the sides of my arms. There. I pull the nightgown up, put my hand to myself, rub gently. Nothing. A fleeting thought of some recipe I saw yesterday in a supermarket cookbook, a casserole that actually looked good, it called for spinach, feta cheese, rice, and … lemon, was it lemon?
No. No recipes. Well, what can I think about? Men. Of course, men! I envision a naked man. Not David. A new man, someone I don’t know. There he is, there’s his nice chest, his fine, muscular arms. Oh, but there’s that awful-looking equipment, just hanging there. It is awful looking, women’s bodies are so much prettier than men’s. That stuff men have, just out there. The veiny penis, throbbing away in midair as it rises to attention. And those wrinkled testicles, the way they loll about in the hand like warm water balloons. I mean, the very word “testicle” is disgusting. Clitoris. That’s a nice word. Sounds like a flower. Sounds like your aunt from England, visiting, with tins of butterscotch and yards of grosgrain ribbon.
All right. Concentrate. No testicles. The new man, with a bathing suit on. A blue Speedo, turquoise blue. Nice eyes, nice chest, nice back. Wonderful hands. I close my eyes, rub some more. Nothing!
I open my eyes, grimly pull down one side of my nightgown to stare at my naked breast, rub myself again. When I do, my breast shakes a little. It’s kind of amusing. And a little grotesque. Which is to say, not sexy.
I lie back down, blow air out of my cheeks, put my hand to myself and rub hard. Harder. Nothing. The hell with it. I’ll put on my jeans, go downstairs, and see if I can find an episode of Father Knows Best.
At ten o’clock, I’m hungry. But I don’t want to eat alone. I dial King’s number. He answers on the first ring.
“It’s me, Sam,” I say. “You’re home!”
“Yeah, I just got in.”
“Did you bring home leftovers?”
“Pardon?”
“Did you bring home leftovers? You know, turkey?”
A long silence and then, “No.” And then, “Oh! Right! It’s Thanksgiving!”
“Well … yes. Didn’t you go eat dinner somewhere?”
“Yeah. Taco Bell.”
“Oh, King, I wish I’d known. I would have invited you to eat with me.”
“It’s okay. I’m not comfortable eating dinner with a lot of people I don’t know. I usually don’t even realize it when holidays come around. I get caught up in something, and—”
“It was only me. It would have been only me.”
“Oh! Why didn’t you call me?”
“Well, I thought for sure you’d gone to your parents’. Or somewhere.”
“Do you have any leftovers?”
“God, King. Come over, can you?”
“Ten minutes,” he says, and then there is a dial tone. Which is the sweetest sound I have heard all day.
18
Friday night, I am brushing my teeth before bed. All of a sudden, I burst into tears. I have a sudden impulse to turn quickly around, to see who is doing this to me. But I’m doing it to myself, I guess. I try ignoring it, take a little walk down the hall with my toothbrush. Tears keep coming, and when I come back into the bathroom and lower my head to spit into the sink, they fall and mix in with the toothpaste. This seems wrong. Unholy. As though the least I could do for myself is to separate the pain from these mundane tasks.
“Sit with your pain,” a woman once told me when I was still a student. “Learn from it. It will make you strong.” I don’t even remember what I was upset about at the time. I don’t think that will ever happen with this pain, I don’t think I’ll ever forget this. Some things make for a psychic limp, and this is one of them.
I go downstairs into the kitchen, open the refrigerator, close it. Go into the family room, turn on the television, turn it off. I go over to the bookshelf to see what movies are there. A lot of Christmas movies. A lot of Disney for Travis. And there, the home movies. Videos of David and Travis and me. I reach for one of those tapes, then put it back on the shelf. And then I take it back out and put it on, wrap up in a quilt, and watch it. Once, I laugh aloud at Travis as an eight-month-old, crawling along the kitchen floor, a bagel in his hand. “Oh, look at that face!” I say aloud. To no one. Well, to David. Well, to no one.
19
Rita is sitting on the kitchen table, her stockinged feet on a kitchen chair. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says. “I see a bunch of good ads in here! Kind of makes me want to start dating, myself.” She is looking through a fat booklet of personals we found in an ice-cream store. I’d told her not to bother; there wouldn’t be anything good in them. It’s so sad, a whole book of people advertising themselves like used cars. And yet I’ve begun reading them, more and more often.
It’s Sunday afternoon. I’m melting butter for popcorn. Then we’re going to watch a dirty movie Rita ordered from the back pages of a woman’s magazine. Satin Nights, it’s called, for God’s sake. Rita had said she couldn’t resist it—“It’s made by women for women,” she said, “so there won’t be any of that Mount Vesuvius stuff the boys love so much.” She’d saved it to watch with me. Tonight, King is coming for dinner.
“Here’s another good one,” Rita says.
“Read it to me.”
“Okay, listen to this: ‘I am forty-five years old, very goodlooking, fit, financially secure, interested in someone who can share my joy at Bach and blue jays. I love ballroom dancing, cooking gourmet meals, live theater, rides into the country, antiquing, and honest conversation. Let’s be careful with each other, start slow and see where we end up.’ ” She looks up. “I mean, it’s a little dippy, but … nice. Let’s see what else is here.”
I watch Rita scanning the column, yanking absentmindedly at the collar of her sweatshirt. I’m so glad she’s here. She makes me remember who I am, that I am. I’ve laughed more these last couple days than I have in the last year. It is healing, laughter.
“I really like this one,” Rita says. “Listen: ‘Are you feeling strange about even reading this? I certainly feel strange writing it. But I’m looking for a sincere partner, someone who understands trust and commitment and sensitivity to another’s feelings. Looks and age unimportant; soul matters.’ ”
“Give me that,” I say, snatching the booklet away from Rita. I read the ad, stop chewing the popcorn I shoved in my mouth. “Amazing!” I turn the page, read a few more. “Wow, there are some good ones in here!” I turn back to see where the ads start. I’ll read them all. Finally, I find the bold-faced heading at the beginning of the listings. “Oh,” I say, and pass the booklet back to Rita.
She squints at the headline. “MEN SEEKING MEN. Oh. No wonder. Well, let’s see what the other ones say, the MEN SEEKING WOMEN.”
I pour the butter over the popcorn, mix it with my hands, wince at a hot spot. “I’ll tell you what they say. They say, ‘I’m an ordinary asshole looking for an extraordinary woman to be mean to. Must be beautiful and willing to pick up after me.’ ”
“Yeah.” Rita sighs. “You’re probably right.” She closes the booklet, pushes it aside. “So forget about men. You don’t need them. Start a garden.”
“It’s too cold.”
“Well, send away for catalogues. Start planning one. Just don’t go to a therapist, whatever you do.”
I sit
at the table, put the bowl of popcorn between us. “You sound like my mother. Why not?”
“Oh, I know, everybody goes. But I’m telling you, it’s a waste unless you’re really nuts. You’re better off using the money for something else. Every week, spend a hundred bucks on yourself another way. I know one woman who quit therapy and started doing that. One week she bought a hundred dollars’ worth of magazines and brought them to the emergency room ofa hospital—she’d been there once and all they had was Business Week, you know, Popular Mechanics. And then another week she bought a hundred dollars’ worth of lipstick.”
“Yeah, she probably got two whole tubes.”
“No, she went to CVS. She got a whole bunch. She said she tried this bright coral color, which she never would have done otherwise, and it looked fabulous on her, that’s all she wears now. She also did this really neat thing: she got four hundred quarters and left them by those machines where you can get gum balls, and rings—you know, those little prizes. And she just left the quarters there with a sign that said, TAKE ONE.”
“Well, that was dumb. Someone probably just came along and took all the money.”
“No! That’s what was so therapeutic about it. She stood around for a long time, watching little kids take just one quarter, then leave the rest. Can you imagine? She said it changed her whole worldview, restored her faith in humanity.”
“Well, I hadn’t even thought about going to a therapist. But now, seeing that you’re so violently opposed to it, I’m thinking maybe I ought to try it.”
“Let’s watch the movie,” Rita says.
I grab the bowl of popcorn, follow her into the family room, watch her bend slightly to slide the cassette into the VCR, then pull back to see better. We’ve both put off getting bifocals. “Not till the vision police come,” she always says.
It’s so good to see Rita’s sneakers tossed into the corner, her coat hanging in the closet, to know that I can rifle through her purse and ask questions about anything I find. And Rita can look through my purse, too, and my own life will suddenly seem more interesting to me. “That’s Travis last summer,” I’ll say, when Rita comes to his picture in my wallet, and then I’ll look at my son over Rita’s shoulder, really noticing his T-shirt, really seeing him as the age he is, rather than the usual mix of every age he ever was, mother-vision. No wonder he becomes so exasperated with me. He’ll be standing before me in man-sized shoes, arguing rightly to stay up later, and I will look straight into his eleven-year-old face and see him camped out on his potty chair, reading Goodnight Moon upside down.