Split-Level

by Sande Boritz Berger

  For the last time, my eyes searched the cabbage rose wallpaper on which I’d scrawled secret messages in a girlish cursive between green vines in every corner of the room. I filled the trunk of my Dodge Dart and transferred everything to the spacious home of the Pearls—folks who seemed to offer the taste of freedom I’d always hungered for.

  Part of me has never forgiven my parents for making me move the neat pink montage of my childhood—the flash cards of another time I’d left in their safekeeping. So, when they call tonight, as they do every Sunday, after the rates go down, and I hear their upbeat duet, I revert back to become their onerous teenage daughter. Even though I’d wanted to leave them for quite some time, how dare they leave me?

  “Hi, dear, it’s us. How’s every little thing in Wheatley Heights?”

  “Ah, pretty good, I guess.” Who else could you possibly be?

  “It must be quite chilly up there in Jersey.”

  “No. It’s not bad, really.”

  “How are our little girls?”

  “Fine, I told you, Mom, everything’s fine.”

  As soon as my father reminds me he’ll be sending the plane tickets for our visit over Christmas, I feel guilty for sounding like an ungrateful brat. I attempt some oomph to match his enthusiasm, though I imagine Dad, phone pressed to his ear, watching grains of salt slip through an hourglass.

  “So, how’s the weather down there, Dad?”

  “Gorgeous! Sunny and in the eighties.”

  I’ve learned most Floridians lie about their weather, especially northerners who left everything, once dear, to move twelve hundred miles away.

  “Hey, Mom, remember last year when I sat at the pool with my ski jacket over my bathing suit?”

  “Of course, Manny Gluck still talks about your crocheted bikini. He thinks you’re the spitting image of me.”

  “Wow, Mom, nice compliment from the Man!”

  “There’s more, but I don’t want to get your father jealous. So, please put those darlings on the phone, oh, and one more thing … when will Donny be joining you?”

  “You know how backed up the factory gets around the holidays, so he can’t be sure.”

  “That’s nice. So, you’ll have some time apart.” A tinge of worry kicks at my belly as I digest my mother’s words. She’s great at making pronouncements about all the things I stuff down and try to forget.

  “Becky! Lana! Pick up the phone.”

  While my father hangs up precisely at five minutes, Miriam lingers on her extension, until Dad hisses in the background, “Okay, wrap it up.” Frugality defines him.

  At 3:00 a.m. I sit up, ruler straight, thinking I hear my mother’s familiar gabble coming from our cedar-lined walk-in closet. She is whispering, “What you’ve always needed, Alexandra, is a real man.” Her words spark some interest, then dwindle. Later in the day, while I’m loading a wash of mostly Donny’s jeans, they return. Real man catches me by surprise, resounding in my ears like the dull chant of a transcendental mantra.

  In the back of my mind lives the fact that for the past seven years, my mother has gathered a plethora of ammunition to prove Donny’s immaturity—ever since I first said, “I want to marry him.” She actually tried to give me an out on the night of my engagement party after everyone had gone home. Mom sat at her gilded vanity table pulling off her false eyelashes, storing them in a plastic box the way a child might store an insect. Staring into the mirror, she said that to her deep dismay, during the festivities, she’d discovered Donny in her bedroom rummaging through her drawers. He was in the company of his old high school flame, Julie. Julie, a C cup, just happened to be married as well as very pregnant.

  I fled the room crying, but my mother followed me. She refused to budge while I telephoned Donny to press for details. Shocked by my accusation, Donny swore up, down, and sideways, he was only trying to help Julie who’d felt chilly and asked for a sweater. My adorable fiancé convinced me his attempt at chivalry was no big deal.

  “We can send back the gifts,” my mother coaxed, perhaps testing me. An instant later she lifted a Baccarat vase and held it to the light, her aqua eyes multiplying through the crevices of the crystal. “Alex, darling, look, isn’t this spectacular?”

  She’d already arranged an elaborate display of Gorham silver and Noritake china. Alongside these gifts she’d stacked a set of embroidered bed linens with our soon-to-be initials—APD—the indelible stamp of my new identity.

  I’m on my third cup of black coffee, heart racing, when I get the urge to sneak a peek at A Sensuous Life in 30 Days wisdom. I skip the chapter on masturbation (but dog-ear the pages) and jump directly to maintenance—addressing issues exclusively of the upper body. It is definitely time for a tune-up, and the trip to Florida has become my incentive for change. Just yesterday I was overjoyed to receive an invitation from my only Florida friend, Sophie Woodman, to attend her husband’s birthday party a few days after Xmas.

  I turn to the section on hair and makeup, which professes one should: Accent the good features and hide the bad. Thumbing through some women’s magazines, I dismember the bodies of seriously thin models that make Twiggy appear chubby while I contemplate a new hairdo. I’d like something manageable, yet sexy, and stylish.

  I think of Rona, crowned with a head of thick chestnut hair. She travels two hours monthly to have it coiffed short and sleek. “Mario really knows my hair,” she has said so often I worry I’m beginning to understand the importance of that statement. And what, I wonder, does my hair say about me?

  In McCall’s I find a softer, less severe version of the Jane Fonda shag. But, unlike me, Jane has a perfectly chiseled nose and could wear a dripping mop and look terrific. I’d refused my mother’s offer of a nose job as a sweet sixteen gift after she pressed a black comb against the bridge of my nose to show me how much better I could look.

  I call Perry’s Place—an upscale Wheatley Heights salon, never expecting to hear an appointment has opened up for this afternoon. The time works well with my schedule. I’ll get Lana from nursery school and then shoot over to pick up Becky. I grab the slot before I change my mind, because the prices at Perry’s are outrageous, more than I’ve ever paid for a haircut in my life. Since the salon is just thirty minutes from Louise and Ben’s, it makes sense to leave the girls with Gussie, the Pearls’ sometimes caustic, rarely cheerful housekeeper.

  I have some time before my appointment, and while Gussie plays a game of Old Maid with the girls, an idea comes to me: I’ll try on my wedding dress and surprise Becky and Lana, but especially me if I can fit into the size 6 silk organza gown that has been stored in a special box provided by Bliss, my grandfather’s bridal store, and placed in a basement closet with my other memorabilia.

  I sneak away from the cozy warmth of the kitchen and walk down the one flight to the basement. Immediately my nostrils take in a strong mildewed aroma, one I remember from other basements, but never the Pearls. I open the heavy steel door behind the staircase and am surprised to see the interior so clean, if not barren. A large water stain, resembling a small pond, is spread across the curled carpeting. Pushed into a corner is one dilapidated carton. My scrawl, in black magic marker, is visible on the outside. I tug open the cardboard flaps, relieved to find several pieces of Nana’s Noritake china. I’d never had the complete set, but I’d planned to find white plates someday to coordinate with the ornate edging—when I turned fifty and needed to set a formal table. This is a good sign, I think; maybe my other things have been moved around as well. I take the steps two at a time, anxious to ask Gussie, who is known for locating misplaced objects.

  Upstairs, I find Lana sitting with her head in her hands; she has crocodile tears spilling across her cards. “Mommy, I’m going to be an Old Maid, Gussie said so.”

  “Lana, angel, that’ll never happen, but it’s not the worst thing in the world. Lots of women decide to never get married.” Who do I know besides my poor Aunt Leda, crippled at ten years old with polio?

 
I stare through a slightly embarrassed Gussie. “Do you know what happened to all my things that were stored downstairs?”

  “Nope, can’t really say. All I know is it got awful damp down there in September. That week was something else, it rained cats and dogs.”

  “You’re telling a fib, Gussie,” Lana says, sticking her chin out. “It can’t rain animals.” Gussie chuckles but diverts her glance. She seems to prefer the girls’ attention at this moment.

  Guessing Ben must have moved the boxes to one of the bedroom closets, I search, frantically, until I decide to call the factory. As soon as she hears my voice, two octaves higher in the middle of the day, Louise shrieks, “Is everything all right!”

  “Yes, yes, but I’m at your house, and I can’t find my stuff, all I’d stored in your basement after my folks moved to Florida. Remember all the cartons and a long garment bag holding a gown … my wedding gown?”

  Louise’s long pause gives my stomach time to rise and curl. The organ ingests the news before my brain. “Oh, Alex, they were all ruined,” my mother-in-law answers. “We had quite the flood from all that rain.”

  “What? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

  “You had a lot on your mind at the time. We didn’t want to upset you.”

  Tears rush to my eyes, surprising me. Gussie hands me a box of Kleenex. Becky and Lana are squealing, running up and down the hallway, playing tag. “And I guess after a few weeks, we forgot to mention it. You know, Alex, when you moved to New Jersey, you should have picked up those boxes. And the gown, well, the thing was stinking up the entire basement. It was unfortunately mildewed.”

  I feel trampled upon, flattened like the silvery water bugs lying dead upon the basement floor. I imagine my beautiful gown floating on a sea of tears, buoyant, but formless and empty—the satiny label of Bliss Bridals sewn beside the zipper. Bliss, Bliss, Bliss. My grandfather’s one-of-a-kind creation for me—a labor of love.

  “I’m saying I wish I’d known.”

  “Sorry, dear, I assumed Donny would have told you by now,” Louise says.

  “Donny saw the boxes?”

  “Well, of course. They were sopping, and he had to help Ben carry them to the curb. Listen, honey, you’re busy now making a new past, new memories every day with your beautiful children and your wonderful husband. Can you try to let this go?”

  “I guess I have no choice.” I am on the verge of losing my patience with Louise, but Becky and Lana are within earshot.

  I sink into a chair at the kitchen table, half listening, as Louise changes the subject to her dear friend’s recent diagnosis of melanoma. I rub my aching temples. All we are talking about are scraps of moldy paper stuffed into scrapbooks, and yards and yards of wrinkled fabric, what was once my wedding dress. While tangible, everything I saved told a story. I’d carted these things into an unknown future, allowing glimpses at who I used to be.

  There were letters and unrhymed poems from a first love, my high school boyfriend, Jonathan Tanner—words I wanted to read again. On a rainy afternoon, the day I had selected my wedding gown, Jonathan appeared out of a guilty daydream and leaped onto the same car of my train. Rain-soaked and shivering, we sat beside each other, speechless, like limp marionettes the entire ride home. Just as the train was pulling in to our station, he took my hand and squeezed it till it hurt. The doors opened, and he rushed out, disappearing onto the crowded platform into the pounding rain.

  Now, six years later, sitting in the hairdresser’s chair at Perry’s Place, I’m aware of the rapid clip-clip of razor-sharp scissors. If I turn into them, I’d be maimed for life. I squeeze my eyes shut. I couldn’t care less what happens to my hair. It’s only hair. It has roots. It grows back. I take a mental inventory of all that may have been lost in the great flood of September—the unremarkable event that sent the relics of my past to the curb, where they were crushed by the undiscriminating jaws of a Brooklyn garbage truck.

  Donny walks in later than usual. The girls, already fed, are downstairs hosting a tea party for their stuffed animals. He checks through a stack of mail, glances up, and begins peeling open a manila envelope. Not a word about my hair. How can he not notice my new shaggy layers? How the cosmetician taught me to highlight my eyes using a brush and a tiny pot of kohl.

  “Donny, did your mother mention I called this afternoon?” I’m standing alongside him, peering over his shoulder at a catalogue for barbecue tools.

  “No, I was out most of the day buying supplies.”

  “She told me what happened to the boxes I’d stored in their basement. How everything had to be thrown out.”

  “Boxes?” Donny rips the piece of mail in half, checks the table for more.

  “Do you think you could at least look at me?”

  “Hey, babe, your hair looks amazing! Come on, turn around!” It’s hard not to grin at his compliment. Automatically I become a spinning top for him. Donny sees me now, therefore I exist.

  “Were you ever going to tell me that my wedding gown, scrap-books, letters, and God knows what else were dumped?”

  “Are you positive I didn’t tell you? I’m certain—”

  “I think I’d remember something as important as that. Did you happen to go through any of my stuff?”

  “Huh?”

  “Was anything salvaged? There were letters I’ve had forever.”

  “Oh, you mean from that goofball you went with who couldn’t spell for shit.”

  “I knew it! Mr. Curiosity wouldn’t have missed an opportunity to snoop through my things.”

  “Well, it’s true.” Donny laughs. “The guy bordered on illiterate.”

  “You’re so wrong!” I grab the barbecue catalogue and toss it like a Frisbee; Donny ducks.

  “Yeah, like I give a rat’s ass.”

  “That’s the problem, Donny. What do you give a rat’s ass about? Me? Work? Let me know when you figure it out.”

  “I sure will schweetheart.” Donny winks, gathers his mail, and heads for the powder room.

  I picture him spread out on the vinyl beanbag in his parents’ basement, dissecting the letters from Jonathan and other short-lived romances I’d scampered through. Could he have plagiarized a romantic line, stolen it and used it on me again—words which might have sounded sweet to me only because they were vaguely familiar?

  Two weeks later, just days before we are to leave for Florida, Becky, Lana, and I come down with the wretched Hong Kong flu. “Your resistance must be terribly low,” says Dr. Carner, the former Dr. Hot, giving his explanation for all he can’t explain. Still I love his mellow, Perry Como delivery of diagnoses and remedies. I’m delirious, a beautiful word for a truly horrible state. My body feels like it was run over by an eighteen-wheeler—trucks that rumble on the turnpike, causing car windows to vibrate in their wake.

  Once fairly tidy, our bedroom resembles a Red Cross station during wartime. Formless pieces of laundry are scattered about the room, dripping off nightstands, much like the watch faces in a favorite Dali painting. The girls have brought books, stuffed animals, and Candyland to the foot of my bed, where they camp out on sleeping bags. While Becky deals with her illness by reading quietly, Lana, burning with fever, circles the room like a rabid dog. She climbs up on my bed, walks over my back, and then jumps off the other side. If I die here now, who will feed them?

  I hear voices coming from downstairs and wonder what Maria Callas is doing in my den. I’m relieved when I realize it’s a Saturday, and Donny is home blasting Madame Butterfly. Soon he appears beside our bed, carrying a wicker tray of hot tea, Uneeda biscuits, and jam. Ta da, presenting Donald Pearl at his best. I watch him place the tray on a chair and vigorously shake the thermometer. I’m hoping he’s using the oral kind and not the bulbous rectal as he shoves the tip under my tongue. I try to mumble: What time is it? How’s the weather? Am I ovulating? He jots something on a pad, reminding me of how, when I was in labor with Becky, curled and moaning on our bed, he’d kept a meticulous chart timing my labo
r pains. Sometimes Donny mothers more naturally than me. I studied tediously for the role and just happened to win the audition.

  Kneeling at my bedside, he stares into my face. I want to vaporize like the Vicks vapor rub all over my chest. My hair, my, oh so stylish, feathery cut, resembles an abandoned robin’s nest, and my pajamas are as dank as dust rags. Not a word is uttered, not a single word, and I think how convenient caring for an ill spouse can be, what an easy way to dodge all conversation. The sickness usurps the norm, replacing affection, sexual longing—all matters of the day. The metal blinds rattle in agreement as a cool draft races past my head, reminding me that winter never waits for an invitation. I dread the cruel isolation I feel when it arrives, the holding pattern created by the onset of shorter days, and the gloom paired with early darkness.

  Lana jumps on me again, this time knocking out my air. “Please send her away,” I moan, my face buried in my pillow. Donny scoops up Lana in his arms, and while she resists, her flailing legs hit a glass of water on the nightstand. “Leave it, just go, please.”

  “Come on, pumpkin,” he says. “Come downstairs and keep me company.”

  Lana throws her arms around Donny’s neck and peeks at me. I hear her whisper in his ear. “Is Mommy going to die?”

  “No, sweetie, of course not.” Donny chuckles.

  “Will I get a new mommy if she dies, Daddy? One who paints pictures too?”

  “Shhh! Let Mommy rest now, okay?”

  Lana’s words are perfectly enunciated in their terrifying inquiry. I hear them above the hum of the cold mist humidifier and the irregular rhythms of my heart. In her innocence, my child has raised the possibility of me being replaced. She has sounded the loudest bell of fear. It’s all I needed to hear to pull myself up in bed, to unravel my chapped feet from the blanket. Yet, when I stand, my whole body feels leaden.