“No, I am not. He owns his own shop.”
Travis snorts. “Is he like, gay or something?”
“As a matter of fact, he is.”
Travis stops smiling, pushes away from the table.
“Where are you going?”
“My room.”
“Travis,” I call after him. “Come here for a minute.”
He turns, reluctantly.
“What’s the matter?”
“You’re getting really weird, Mom.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He shakes his head, continues upstairs, slams the door to his room.
I push his chair back under the table. Am I getting weird? Well, who should live here? An accountant and his wife and his 1.4 children? I have to take who I can get. I open the door to the freezer, look to see what we can have for dinner. Chicken. Anything weird about that?
Later that afternoon, Travis calls me to his room. I close his door, sit on his bed, and smile at him, sitting at his desk. Finally, “What’s up?” I ask.
“I want to live with Dad.”
Well, there it is.
“Okay?”
“Travis, what brought this on?”
“I don’t want to live here. There’s too many people.”
“Well, I have to have people living here in order to keep the house. You know that. Don’t you want to keep the house?”
“I don’t care.”
“Well, I do.”
He turns away, sorts through some papers, mumbles something.
“What did you say?” I ask.
“You don’t have good judgment.”
I laugh. “Who told you that? Dad? Did he say that?”
Travis shrugs.
“Listen, Travis. Didn’t you like Lydia?”
“Yeah, and she’s gone.”
“Well, it’s not my fault! She got married! But I picked her! That was my judgment that picked her!”
“I know! But you also got that crazy girl in the basement! She’s crazy!”
I sigh, lean back on my elbows. What to say? Perhaps the truth.
“Well, that was kind of a mistake. But she doesn’t hurt anyone. She’s quiet. Maybe we just need to give her some time.”
“I don’t want to stay here, Mom. I don’t want to live with you!”
There, in the center of my chest, a splitting feeling so strong I wonder if something really has split. “Travis—”
“Can I just live with Dad? Please?”
“He can’t take you, honey,” I say quietly. “He works too late. He can’t be there for you after school.”
“I don’t care.”
“But you can’t come home alone.”
“Yes, I can!”
“Travis, you’re eleven years old.”
“Lots of kids my age come home alone! Way younger kids! It’s no big deal. I don’t even want you to be here when I come home!”
“Oh. I see. Well, I didn’t know that, Travis.”
I really didn’t. I need to get away from him right now. I need to cry. I need to punch the too-wide surface of my bed. I need to lean out the window and scream, “Just wait a minute!”
“Could you tell me something, Travis? Is it because of the roommates we have here that you want to live with Dad?”
“Not only.”
“Okay,” I say. “Okay.” I go over to kiss the top of his head. “It’s okay.” And then, on feet that have no feeling, I walk to my bedroom, where I close the door quietly and sit on my bed until the sky darkens, and it is time to make dinner for my son and the crazy girl in the basement who is making us both crazy, too.
26
“So kick her out,” Rita says. “Big deal. She’ll like it, it will confirm everything she believes about life.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“I just can’t do things like that. And anyway, she’s just a kid!”
“Yeah, like Linda Blair was just a kid in The Exorcist. Get rid of her.”
“But what would I say?”
“How about, ‘Move out, you malcontent? You’re ruining my life’?”
I sigh, lean back against my bed pillows, stretch my legs out and look at my toenails. They are newly painted, a deep pink color. The polish was a gift from Edward, a sample he didn’t want. Along with about thirty other bottles. I am rich in nail polish. And gels. And sprays. Some of which I gave to my mother, who is suddenly wildly enthusiastic about my choice in roommates. She and Edward get along beautifully. Last time Veronica came for dinner, he helped her on with her coat, reminded her about her appointment for a perm relaxer. “He’s darling,” she told me on the phone the next day, after she’d returned from the salon. “And his shop is as elegant as his room—the things that man can do in such little space!”
True. Edward has a way of making a place look both warm and contemporary. I wanted him to do my entire house, but he insisted it was fine the way it was. “Just get rid of a few of the philodendrons,” he said kindly. Sometimes I stand in Edward’s light and airy room for relief after I’ve been in the basement and have passed by the hellhole that is Lavender’s room.
“How’s Travis doing?” Rita asks.
“Well, now he wants to stay here, but I think it’s only because David didn’t really want him there. I mean, he didn’t say he couldn’t, but—”
“Yeah, I know,” Rita says. “I know just how he’d do it. All that silky talk about how he’d really love to have him, but his job, his business trips.… To say nothing of the fact that he couldn’t fuck his girlfriend on the sofa after dinner.”
“It’s hard for him,” I say.
“Oh, please!”
“No, I mean it’s hard for Travis. He’s gotten pretty friendly with Edward—well, who wouldn’t, he’s incredibly likeable. But it is weird, you know, this rent-a-room thing, all these changing personalities.… I’m sure Travis just wants things to be the way they used to be.”
“Do you really think so, Sam?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I really don’t know. One day he’s fine; the next day he’s awful, and taking everything out on me. Naturally David’s always the hero, because he’s never here.”
“Oh yeah? Well, tell him David wanted to name him Edgar.”
“I tried that. He said he likes the name Edgar.”
“Oh, he does not.”
I look at my watch. “Yikes, I have to go, I have to get ready.”
“What are you doing tonight?”
“Actually, just … Travis is spending the night with someone, and I was feeling sort of terrible, so I called King. I’m going over there, he’s going to make us dinner.”
“You’re going to his apartment?”
“Yeah.”
“First time, right?”
“Yes, and don’t get all excited. We’re just friends, I told you. And anyway, I think he found a girlfriend.”
“He did?”
“Yeah, somebody he met from the personals. He says she didn’t get repulsed, so maybe the next time they go out, they’ll elope.”
“Really?”
“Well, no, but—”
“No, I know not elope, but is he … serious about her?”
“I think so.”
“How does that feel?”
I laugh. “Fine! We’re just friends.”
Silence.
“We are!” I look at my watch. I probably should get off the phone, we’ve been talking long enough.
“You know, Sam, once I asked you about something, I can’t remember what it was, but I said, ‘Well, what are you getting out of it?’ And you know what you said? You said, ‘What do you mean?’ ”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, Sam, that at some point you need to start thinking about what you want and going after it!”
“I … We’re just friends, Rita.”
“Fine. Call me later. I’m dying to know what his place looks like.”
; I hang up the phone, shrug off a feeling.
The phone rings again. King.
“Hey!” I say.
“Something’s come up,” he says. “I’m sorry to call this late. But I have to move our dinner to another night.”
“Oh! Okay.”
“I’ll call you.”
I hang up the phone. King’s new friend must have called. And why shouldn’t he nurture this new relationship? God knows a good one is hard to find.
I go into the bathroom, take the rollers from my hair. Edward did a nice job—he gave me a very pretty color. I realize I’d really been looking forward to seeing what King thought. Well. Another time.
The house is so quiet. Empty—Edward off for the weekend, Lavender out somewhere, too. I go downstairs, look in the refrigerator, put some water on to boil for a hot dog, then turn the burner off.
An hour later, I am lying in bed, staring at the wall. Downstairs, I can hear the television I’d tried watching, and then left on for the company of the voices. A commercial is blaring. Well, it’s all commercials, even the programs are commercials.
I get up and go to the bathroom to look at my hair again. Awful. What was I thinking? I wet a washcloth, rub it on my hair to see if anything will come off. No.
Back in the bedroom, I stand by the window, arms crossed, looking out. No one is on the street. No one is ever on the street. Everyone stays inside. I wonder what they’re all doing, if anyone is acting as lost as I am. What would happen if you could lift the roof—make for a real open house—and look inside? What would you see? Surely some of the behavior would be no odder than mine.
Oh, why isn’t there a Community Center for People Who Need a Little Something? If people would only tell the truth about the way they felt, it would be busy all the time. There could be folding chairs arranged in groups, people sitting there saying, “I don’t know, I just wanted to come here for a while.”
I look down at my arm, hold it up to the light to look closely at the flesh. The other day, my skin looked like crepe paper. It still does. It’s older, that’s all. These things keep happening, these changes that I notice all of a sudden. Yesterday I saw an ad in the newspaper about retirement planning, and I stared at the group of old people, apparently having the time of their lives, sitting around a small table where they were eating dinner. There were three women, one man, all smiling at each other. I tried to put myself in the picture, saw myself in my seventies, desperately flirting. I couldn’t imagine it. How will I ever retire? From what? But this is clearly the middle of my life. Next, I get old. My God. It occurs to me that I must have thought I would actually have a choice. “Next?” someone with a clipboard would yell. And then, “Okay! Sam Morrow. So, will it be your fifties next? Or would you like to do your thirties again?”
Even the imperturbable King seems to have felt the ungentle pressures of middle age, though of his own variety. The other day he showed me a photograph he’d found of some famous astrophysicist, standing outside in what looked to be the Southwest. There were low, violet-colored hills in the distance. On the ground were bushy brown weeds, small rocks, and the imprints the man had made in the dusty soil. The sky overhead was blue and vast, solid-seeming. But a thick line of darkness lay across the foreground, night creeping in.
There was a telescope nearby, aimed upward, graceful and vigilant and ready to reveal the mysteries. But the man ignored it. Instead, he directed his gaze into a baby carriage, where a tiny fist was raised, as though in greeting. The man had one hand on the carriage bar and one hand in his pocket; his feet were planted wide apart, and he was smiling. He looked as though he were at peace, grounded by the more common miracle. “I see this and I just wonder,” King said. “I mean, it made me wonder.”
“Yes,” I said softly. Only yes. When what I’d wanted to say was, “What do you mean, though? Do you mean the human connection is stronger? Better?”
I turn from the window, think about what I might do to console myself. It used to comfort me, as a little girl, to look at my mother’s jewelry, most of which had been passed down through Veronica’s family over many years. I used to try on the heavy gold bracelets, the pearl necklaces, the rings, all at once. I liked pinning the brooches in a line down my chest, the fabric of my shirt sagging from the weight.
I go to get my own jewelry box, sit on the bed with it, take out my wedding ring, try to put it back on. It won’t fit. I put it on my little finger, then take it off. Let it be.
I put on my bracelets, all of them, all nine. Here is my double strand of pearls. Tenth anniversary. Ha, ha.
I have quite a few necklaces, too, and I fasten one after another around my neck. Then I go downstairs to get the giant Hershey bar with almonds that I bought yesterday and then put in the freezer so I wouldn’t eat it. Well, I’ll eat it now. After I eat dinner. I’ll have cereal, I want to try some of the heavily sugared stuff I bought Travis, hoping it would make him want to stay with me all the time.
I sit at the table, pour the multicolored cereal into a bowl, add milk. My arm is heavy and sparkling. I like it. Not lonely, not sad. I’m fine. And the cereal is good. I’m fine! I pour more in the bowl, have another spoonful, close my eyes to taste it better. But after this, what? I get up to take the candy bar out of the freezer so it can start defrosting. Then I check to see what else is in the refrigerator there might be a good movie on TV, there might be a good book around that I bought and never got around to reading, someone may call. Who? Who? and take a handful of raspberries from a little green carton and pop them in my mouth. Then, recalling that they are Edward’s and organic besides, I consider putting them back. But I can go to the grocery store and get some more to replace them! I eat a slice of cheese, a rolled-up slice of baloney. Then I sit down again to eat more cereal.
Maybe I should microwave the candy bar; it will never defrost. I drink the milk from the cereal bowl, reach for a napkin to wipe my chin, look up, and see Lavender Blue standing before me.
“Oh,” I say. “Hi.”
“Yeah, hi,” she says. “I just got in.” Then, looking at my bejeweled chest and arms, “You look nice!”
“Thank you. Would you like some cereal?”
“No thanks.” She holds up a book, sighs. “Homework. Although there is absolutely no point in learning about this.” She goes downstairs, closes the door after her.
I finish my cereal, put the candy bar back in the freezer, and head upstairs. I take off all the jewelry, put it away. Then I lie on top of my bed, the lights off. Resting before I go to sleep, I suppose. I wish I believed. I wish I could pray.
I get out of bed and onto my knees, bow my head. Somewhere, a couple lie in bed together holding hands, and they will stay together until one of them dies. They will not hate each other over the breakfast table, they will give thanks for each other’s presence. Somewhere, that is true. This is my prayer.
27
King and I are having dinner in his tiny apartment. When he called me last night, he confessed he was ill last time we were going to do this, and he was too embarrassed to tell me. Something … gastrointestinal.
“Was it—?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, quickly.
King’s apartment is furnished with the kind of mismatched but comfortable things you can still find at the Salvation Army. A sofa, a chair, and a reading lamp in the living room. A braided rug. A stereo. A brass iron bed in the bedroom, a white bedspread, a dresser. An old-fashioned bathroom with a claw-footed tub. A kitchen cluttered with cooking tools, bursting with them. And a tiny wooden table, where we now sit.
“I feel like my life is sort of out of control,” I say, “like I’m just not doing the right things. But it’s odd, because I’m also beginning to feel better than I ever did. Happier, I mean.”
“What’s wrong with what you’re doing?”
“I don’t know. Everything. I have such a strange job. And these roommates. My son thinks I’m nuts.”
“That’s his job. He’s pubescent.
He’d think you were nuts no matter what you were doing.”
“Well, yes. But it’s more than that. I feel like I should be … more like other people.”
“I never saw the percentage in that.”
I nod, watch him take a drink of wine. His eyelashes are so black. Long.
“How’s it going with … Laura?” I ask.
“Linda?”
“Oh. Yes.”
“I guess it’s all right. I need to … Well, there’s a lot I want to know.”
“And I’m sure you enjoy it, going out. Don’t you?”
“I do. But the whole thing is very new. I’ve never had much to do with women. There was that one time. But that …”
“What happened, anyway?”
He looks at me for a long time, considering something. Then he says, “Oh, well. It was a joke. Literally. I’d always been really shy, oversensitive—overweight, too, of course. I’d never tried to date, and then, all of a sudden in my first year of college, there’s this really gorgeous girl, after me. I couldn’t believe it. But she was pretty convincing. And we ended up in her dorm room one Sunday afternoon, and I—”
I say nothing, wait.
“We ended up in bed, and I was so …” He laughs. “Well, I got pretty emotional. I thought it meant … Well, I thought it was real, and I thought it meant everything. But it was a joke. The girl, Christy was her name, had made a bet with someone. She got a hundred dollars for sleeping with me.”
“Oh, King. I’m so sorry.”
“Somebody came in just after we finished and took a picture—they’d been standing outside the door the whole time. I guess they passed it all around.” He puts down his glass, leans back. “I never told anyone this before. I never thought I would. But it feels kind of good to tell you, Sam. Anyway, after that, I just gave up on ever … I let myself get completely taken up by what I was studying. Whatever that longing is, whatever it is that makes people want to be together, I made that need get met by what I learned. Everything is there, in science. Even human emotions, I mean. It’s as though they’re represented by certain universal laws. Remember when they found the naked stars—did you read about that?”