What Happens in Suburbia… (Red Dress Ink Novels)

by Wendy Markham

  How depressing, the way time marches on and everything—and everyone—changes.

  Why didn’t I ever worry about any of this until lately?

  Is it because life seems so much more serious when you buy a house and move away from all your friends?

  Is it because my identity was connected to my job, and my social life, and even the nonstop pace of the city?

  Who am I now, other than Jack’s wife?

  Is this it? Is this all there is?

  “Join in, Tracey,” Grandma commands during “Some Enchanted Evening.” “You know the words. Come on, even Stefania’s singing.”

  When she’s not dry heaving. And—P.S.—she doesn’t know the lyrics. She barely speaks English, for God’s sake.

  Under happier circumstances, I’m sure I’d think she’s a good sport. But in my glum mood, I find her spunk annoying.

  Luckily—well, depending on how you look at it—the South Pacific medley comes to a crashing halt when we have to make yet another premature stop so that Wilma—who insisted at the previous stop that she didn’t need to use the ladies’ room—can use the ladies’ room.

  And—no, I am not exaggerating—we stop again a half hour after that so that Stefania can upchuck again. At least this time, she makes it to the toilet.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” I ask when she emerges from the stall, looking shaken.

  “I am great!” she more or less snaps at me, and who can blame her?

  Here she is in a foreign country, poor girl, trapped in a car with a couple of Broadway-belting babes and a lousy driver in the midst of an identity crisis.

  I find myself softening a little.

  When she said she wanted to see New York, I’m sure this wasn’t what she had in mind.

  I definitely owe her a bells-and-whistles sightseeing tour of Manhattan. Ordinarily, I avoid tourist traps, but now that I haven’t set foot in the city for nearly a week, I find myself craving certain things. Maybe not a double-decker tour bus down Fifth Avenue, though.

  Maybe it’ll be good to have her and Grandma around for a few days. I mean, what else have I got to do? Besides unpack boxes and try to find my way around a strange town and wonder about the meaning of life. My own, anyway.

  The trip drags on, and on, and on; we’re just four gals on the open road, singing, puking, stopping to pee so often that I’m thinking of raiding my grandmother’s luggage for Depends and making Wilma put them on.

  Kathleen calls Wilma’s cell phone so many times that I instill a new rule: all cell phones in the car must be turned off for the duration of the trip.

  Of course, there are only two cell phones: Wilma’s and mine.

  Before turning it off, I call Jack to tell him where we are and that we’ll be a little late or, more likely, a lot late. I don’t want him to worry.

  His phone bounces right into voice mail. He probably forgot to charge it again. I leave him a message.

  As we head out of the Catskills and start to close in on the metro area, it’s dark and of course it starts to rain, and the traffic builds until there are blinding headlights and speeding cars everywhere.

  The others have long since sung themselves hoarse, thank God, so at least I can focus on not getting us all killed.

  Still, after a particularly close call with a dump truck that had to be doing eighty, I ask, “Does anyone else want to drive the rest of the way?”

  Stefania pipes right up with a claim that she’s not allowed to drive in this country. I’m not sure I believe her, but then, I’m not sure I want to put my life—sorry as it is—into the hands of someone who learned to drive just a few years ago at most, and quite possibly on the opposite side of the road.

  “I would, but I have night blindness,” Wilma tells me.

  Yeah, don’t we all. With a clenched jaw, I hit the brakes as a tractor trailer changes lanes without signaling, cutting me off.

  They all scream like they’re taking the downhill plunge on the Dragon Coaster.

  “I’ll drive!” That, of course, comes from Grandma.

  I happen to know my mother made her give up her license a few years ago after she came home one afternoon with bright yellow paint on the dented fender of her Caprice Classic and no clue how it got there.

  There are no Yellow Cabs in Brookside. I’m convinced that somewhere, there’s a school bus that’s a little worse for the wear.

  “It’s okay, Grandma,” I tell her wearily, “I’ll drive. We’re almost there, anyway. There’s only another hour or so to go.”

  Yeah, that would be true, say, on a sunny, midafternoon midweek day in March. But on a rainy Sunday night on the first official weekend of summer, when everyone and their brother is returning to the tristate area after a weekend away, one hour takes three.

  When at last I pull up in front of Wilma’s condo, she pretty much bolts from the car. I bet she’d be content to leave her oversize luggage behind if I didn’t drag it through the rain to her door.

  “Thank you, Tracey,” she says. “Have a wonderful week with Grandma and Stefania.”

  “If you want to come into the city with us one day—”

  “Oh,” she says, “I don’t think I’ll be able to do that. I’ve got a lot going on.”

  Wow. Is it possible that she’s as over me as I am over her?

  Too much togetherness is never a good idea, no matter how much you adore someone. All I want is to get back to normal with Jack.

  Except…

  There isn’t any normal. Not anymore. We live in a strange place, and I don’t have a job, and Jack has a hugely important job that kept him at the office most of the weekend, and now I have to contend with Grandma and Stefania and, oh yeah, a three-legged couch.

  Can your life be any more abnormal, Tracey? you may be wondering.

  Why, yes, dear reader, I assure you it can.

  Because I lead the pack into my new house to be greeted by—no, not Jack—but the Screaming Jesus.

  At first, I don’t even recognize the wailing toddler in a red beret standing by the back door, and assume that A) there are multiple chapeau-wearing Screaming Jesuses in the world, and B) I’ve got the wrong house—an honest mistake when one is new to the neighborhood, right?

  Right.

  Unfortunately for me I’ve got the right house, and there is only one Screaming Jesus, and she’s here, and—my God, she stinks to high heaven.

  Jack materializes to greet me with a quick, fierce hug.

  “Welcome home,” he shouts above the din. “Look who just popped in for a visit!”

  “Hi, Tracey,” a raccoon-eyed Kate says miserably, huddled in a chair in the corner of the kitchen.

  “Kate? What are you doing h—”

  “I’m Tracey’s grandma,” cuts in Grandma, who, like Glen Close in Fatal Attraction, will not be ignored. She sashays over in her high-heeled white pumps to shake hands.

  Kate sniffles and manages a tiny, “We met at the wedding.”

  Jack to the rescue: “Grandma, you look so beautiful! Come on in, we’re so glad you’re here.” He gives her a hug, then turns to Stefania and introduces himself.

  “Very nice to be meeting you,” she tells him as the Screaming Jesus continues to scream and stink up the room and Kate sobs, “Billy left me. And the nanny quit.”

  “Oh, Kate…” I wrap my arms around her. “I am so, so sorry.”

  “What am I going to do-o-o-o-o-o-o?”

  I feel my own eyes filling up with tears. “I’m sorry,” I say again helplessly.

  “Aaaaahhhh!” screams the Screaming Jesus, whose beret miraculously stays jauntily perched on her blond head as she tears around the room with a loaded diaper. Yes, folks, we have our very own Mad Crapper right here in the suburbs.

  My grandmother winces and looks down at her, then up at me. “Who is this unhappy little French girl?”

  “Grandma, Stefania, that’s little Katie, Kate’s daughter,” I tell them across Kate’s blond head. “She’s two. And she�
��s not French.”

  But—mon Dieu!—is she unhappy!

  “Can she chew gum?” Grandma asks Kate, rummaging around in her old-lady purse.

  “No…I’m afraid she’ll choke.”

  “How about a jawbreaker?” Grandma produces a lint-covered one.

  “No!”

  Grandma goes on searching, Katie continues howling and Kate resumes sobbing as Jack and I exchange a resigned glance.

  Then Stefania reaches down and plucks Katie off her feet and carries her into the other room. Moments later, the screaming subsides and we hear Stefania crooning something in Polish.

  A moment later, she sticks her head into the kitchen, holding the now-cooing but still-ripe tot. “You have diaper?”

  Kate wordlessly hands over the chic black bag hanging on the back of her chair. No quilted pastel paisley diaper bag for this mom.

  “Thank you.” Stefania disappears again.

  “Who is that person?” Kate asks, looking discombobulated.

  “She’s Stefania,” I say with a shrug and notice, out of the corner of my eye, that my grandmother has begun opening and closing cupboard doors, snooping.

  See what I mean? Filter gone.

  “Grandma, let me show you around the house,” Jack says quickly, and sweeps her from the room.

  I sink into a chair next to Kate and squeeze her hand. “Tell me what happened.”

  She wipes her streaming eyes and manages to choke out, “Billy said he doesn’t love me anymore. He loves that…person.”

  “Marlise?”

  “I can’t even say her name. He said he wants a divorce. Do I have to give him a divorce, Tracey?”

  “You mean…legally?”

  She nods.

  Good question.

  Does she have to give him a divorce?

  I sure as hell would—no doubt about that.

  And she definitely should—no doubt about that, either.

  But—have to?

  “I…don’t know.” I shake my head.

  “If I don’t have to, then I’m not going to.”

  “But, Kate, do you really want to force him to stay if he doesn’t want to?”

  “Yes! I don’t want to be divorced. Anything’s better than being divorced.”

  “That’s not true. You deserve better than Billy, Kate. Look, remember when I was head over heels in love with Will? And you kept trying to make me see him for what he really was?”

  “He was an ass. And gay.”

  “He wasn’t gay. He was definitely an ass. But I couldn’t see it because I thought I was in love with him.”

  “This is different. We’re married. We have a child.”

  Kate’s right. It is different. I have no experience with divorce or single motherhood. Just an ancient breakup with a heterosexual ass.

  What am I supposed to tell her?

  How am I supposed to help her?

  All I have to offer is an ear, and a shoulder and a spare bedroom without a bed.

  “I’m glad you came here,” I say, hugging her again.

  “I didn’t know what else to do. And I can’t go back home without him. I don’t want to be there if he’s not.”

  “You can stay here as long as you want.”

  She wipes tears from her swollen eyes. “Thanks, Tracey.”

  I leave her to pull herself together and go look for the rest of the gang.

  I can hear voices and my grandmother’s tap-tapping heels overhead. Before I reach the stairway, I spot the couch.

  Which—can it be my imagination?—is no longer listing, but seems to have sunk a few inches since I last saw it.

  I step closer, turn on another lamp.

  It is a few inches lower.

  I reach out and give it a little nudge. It wobbles.

  “Jack, honey?” I call. “Can you come down here for a sec, please? Alone?”

  He does—and appears grateful to be summoned away from Grandma until he sees what I’m looking at.

  “What’s with the couch, sweetie?” I ask, not wanting to jump to conclusions.

  “Mitch and I fixed it. See? No more broken leg.”

  “I see, but…why does it seem so…close to the ground?”

  “We had to smooth off the top of the leg the movers cut because it was on a slant. Then it was shorter than the other legs, so we had to cut them to even things up.”

  I bend over and take a peek at the four wooden stumps, no longer than my pinkie finger.

  Then I rise and look at Jack.

  “What? You wanted me to fix it. So I did.”

  “Thanks,” I say, clenching my jaw, not sure whether I’m trying to keep from yelling, or laughing, or crying.

  “Tracey?”

  We look up to see Kate, standing in the archway and holding a wad of sodden tissues.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you have any bourbon? I think I need a drink.”

  Jack and I look at each other.

  “No bourbon,” Jack says, “and it’s a Sunday night, or I’d run out and buy some for you. How about a Bud? Mitch and I bought a case and there’s some left.”

  Kate looks blankly at me.

  “It’s beer,” I tell her. To Jack, I say, “She doesn’t drink beer.”

  “Hay-ell, Tracey, right now Ah’d drink mouthwash,” is her anguished reply.

  That night, late, Jack and I lie on a layer of blankets on the hardwood floor of our new living room.

  It’s warm and muggy now that the rain has passed, and all the windows are open. Through the screens we can hear crickets chirping and the porch gutter dripping. It’s been a long time since I’ve lain awake listening to night sounds.

  “Do you miss having central air?” I ask Jack in a whisper, lying with my head cradled on his upper arm.

  “No. Do you?”

  “No. I might, when it’s August. But it’s kind of nice to have the windows open.”

  “Yeah. It would be even nicer if we were in our own bed upstairs.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  Grandma and Kate are in our bed. Stefania’s on the duct-tape-patched air bed down the hall, with Katie beside her in a porta-crib Kate had the presence of mind to bring.

  “Kate does know that Stefania isn’t an au pair, right?” Jack asked when he found out where everyone was sleeping.

  “Of course she knows. But Stefania’s the only one who can make Katie stop crying and anyway, you’ve got to admit, Stefania didn’t seem to mind much. I actually think, of the three roommate choices, she’s got the best deal.”

  Kate drank herself into a beer haze of grief and finally collapsed into bed—ours—sometime after midnight, and Grandma—well, she was Grandma. She had plenty of advice for everyone—marital counsel, decorating tips, toddler-parenting guidance, even job-hunting hints for me. I took her with a grain of salt, as always. Thank God Kate was too piss drunk to absorb much of anything other than more alcohol, because Grandma basically told her to go back home to her philandering husband and look the other way.

  “So how long is everyone staying?” Jack asks, grunting as he changes position, forcing me to move my head onto my pillow, which is old and thin and springy.

  “Grandma and Stefania fly out on Saturday morning. Kate and Katie…who knows?”

  “So it’ll be almost a week before we get our bed back?”

  “At least. Sorry.”

  Jack sighs in the dark.

  Then he says, “Oh! I almost forgot to tell you. Raphael called earlier. He said he’d tried to call you on your cell a few times but it kept going into voice mail.”

  “I had to turn it off while I was driving.” I decide not to tell him that was because his mother was driving me crazy with her phone. And in general.

  “Did you tell Raphael I was out of town?” I ask Jack.

  “Yeah. He seemed upset that you hadn’t told him. I said it was a last-minute trip because your mother had been sick. He was upset you hadn’t told him that, either.”


  “He’s so self-centered.”

  “He’s Raphael.”

  I sigh. To be fair, there really was a time when Raphael would have known my every move. We used to check in with each other by phone every time anything out of the ordinary happened during the day. But I realize now that I didn’t call him when I needed help with the couch, or when I found out my mother was in the E.R., or when I was fired.

  Why not? Isn’t that what friends are for? Don’t they vow to be there for each other in good times and in bad?

  No. That’s a spouse.

  You don’t take a solemn, official, legal vow with your friends. They’re allowed to leave, without so much as a separation agreement.

  Friends come and go. It hurts, but it’s a fact of life.

  I guess I always thought my friends were the exception, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe Raphael and I really are growing apart, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

  “Tell me about the new job,” I say, to take my mind off the depressing stuff.

  “It’s a lot more responsibility. And a lot more travel. Are you okay with that?”

  “Do I have any choice?” I shoot back, then add a hasty “Sorry. I didn’t mean it to come out so cranky. I’m just tired from the drive.”

  “Well, you can sleep in tomorrow morning.”

  I wish I could see his face, because I can’t tell if he means that as a dig.

  “I’d gladly get on the train with you and go to work if I hadn’t been fired.”

  “The train is no picnic. Mitch and I had to stand all the way to White Plains Friday night.”

  “Mitch. Right.” How could I forget he was here this weekend? “How did he like the house?” I ask Jack, who hesitates.

  “He…liked it.”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “He just said it needs a lot of work. Which it does.”

  “What else did he say?”

  “Nothing much. He was mostly pretty bummed about the couch.”

  “Yeah, well, he would be, considering that he practically lived on it from the day we bought it. Let me guess—did he say I shouldn’t have let the movers chop off the leg?”

  “As a matter of fact, he did.”

  Of course he did.

  I open my mouth to retort, but then something occurs to me.

  Maybe Mitch was right.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have let them chop the leg off the couch.