Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons

by Lorna Landvik

  There was a quick rap on the bathroom door. “Honey, where’s the powder?”

  My one-celled amoeba mind evolved in seconds to the mind of a mother trying to track down an object. “On the bassinet.”

  The door cracked open and Jerry poked his head in.

  “No, it’s not. I looked there.”

  “Mommy,” said Joe, pushing the door wide open. “Gil pooped.”

  “Babies’ll do that,” I said.

  “Yeah,” said Flannery, “but not like Gil. Really, Mom, I’ve never seen a baby who can poop so much. Why’s it so foggy in here?”

  Without invitation, my entire family had joined me in the bathroom. As any mother of small children knows, while time alone is a rare and precious commodity, bath time alone is almost a religious experience. Gil was clinging like a little monkey to Jerry, his eyes wide, as if he couldn’t quite grasp that the wet-haired thing submerged in bubbles was his mother. Plus he absolutely reeked, nullifying the hibiscus scent of the bubble bath.

  “Jerry, please, can’t you change the baby?”

  “Well, that’s what I’m trying to do, but I can’t find the powder.”

  “Mommy, do you want some of my toys in there?” asked Flannery, opening up the linen closet. “They’re right in here.”

  “No, Flan, I’m fine, I—”

  “I want that!” said Joe, grabbing a plastic boat out of the old dishwashing tub we kept the bath toys in.

  “No!” said Flan, grabbing the toy out of her brother’s hand. “These are just for when you take a bath!”

  Joe reached out to take something of Flannery’s, which in this particular case was a hunk of her hair, which made her scream, which startled the baby, who probably wanted nothing more than a nice clean diaper, which made me yell, “Will everyone please get out of here, now?” which made everyone leave with hurt feelings, which wrecked my warm bubbly religious experience, which made me cranky for the rest of the night, which is why I must get a lock for that bathroom door.

  So of course when I finally got to bed, it was a not unfamiliar scenario: husband and wife were travelers with two different destinations in mind: I wanted nothing more than to visit the Land of Nod, and Jerry was hoping for a quick trip to Sex World. Don’t get me wrong: Jerry does more around the house than any other husband I know (he had been with the kids practically all day) but, pardon the expression, that’s still jack shit. Of course, he has a full-time job, but so do I; I just don’t get to leave the house to do it, I don’t get to dress up for it, I don’t get paid for it, and the world at large seems to think it’s pretty inconsequential. Oh, and did I mention that calling in sick is unacceptable?

  See? Mess around with my bath, and this is the mood I bring to bed.

  “Mmm,” said Jerry, nuzzling my ear. “You smell good.”

  “Jerry, I’m so tired,” I whispered, as if even talking was too much of an effort.

  “Mmm,” said Jerry, continuing his nuzzling. This was not the answer I’d been hoping for, but he didn’t seem to mind when I rolled over; he just pressed his body against mine and started stroking my hip bone. I must admit, I like when he strokes my hip bone; I feel like I’m being sculpted by a sculptor who really loves the medium he’s working in, like my skin is the clay he’s going to turn into something curvy and amazing. So in spite of the fatigue that made me want to sleep into the next week, I found myself responding to Jerry, found my body moving along with his, found my lips wanting to meet his, and just as I rolled over to really get things going, the baby cried.

  We froze and for a few moments we were nothing more than ears; straining to tell what kind of cry it was and more importantly, would it be short-lived. It wasn’t.

  “We could ignore him,” I said, kissing Jerry’s upper lip. “He shouldn’t be hungry.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Jerry, kissing me back.

  But this was not a baby who was going to somehow calm himself back to sleep; this was a baby who wanted someone else to do that job.

  “He’s going to wake the whole house up,” I said, finagling my way out of Jerry’s embrace and reaching for my robe at the foot of the bed.

  “No,” said Jerry, “I’ll go see what he needs. You stay here.”

  The thing is, this was no halfhearted gesture; I knew Jerry really would get up and see what Gil wanted. And that’s why I loved him.

  “No, I’ll go,” I said, tying the robe. “I’ll calm him down and then I’ll see what I can do for you.”

  “Mmm, can’t wait.” Jerry reached out and cupped my rear end as I got out of bed. “Hurry back.”

  Gil’s pacifier had fallen out of his crib, and after blowing away all traces of germs, I stuck it back into his grateful mouth. With some pats on the back and some reassurances that he was my good little boy, he was asleep.

  I raced back to the bedroom, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but the detour this traveler had been willing to take was now blocked off. Jerry lay on his back, his jaw sightly unhinged, sleeping. I climbed into bed, hoping to wake him with my throat clearing and little tugs of the blanket, but he was not only in the Land of Nod, he had staked a claim there, had been elected mayor there. And I knew that it didn’t matter how exhausted I was—some taunting force would keep me awake, would punish me for wanting to see to the needs of husband and baby. I lay there in the dark for a while, sighing great put-upon sighs, but then I reached for the nightstand and the thing on top of it that might not guarantee me quick passage to Nod, but at least would entertain me until I got there: my flashlight, and underneath that, the book we would be discussing at tomorrow night’s meeting.

  Sister Ignatius taught me in Sunday school that “in the beginning there was light,” but to me, it was always an incomplete sentence, which God should have known to amend: in the beginning God created light . . . to read by.

  June 1970

  HOST: AUDREY

  BOOK: Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask by Dr. David Reuben

  REASON CHOSEN: “I think it’s obvious.”

  Merit had practically swooned when I announced my sexciting selection, saying she wasn’t sure Eric would like her to be reading a book like that.

  Then hide it from the a—hole, I’d wanted to say, but contrary to popular belief, I am capable of censoring myself, especially with regard to Merit’s husband, about whom Merit never joked or allowed others the courtesy.

  “Oh, come on, it’ll be fun,” Kari had said. (I don’t know if it’s motherhood or what, but Kari keeps surprising me by her willingness to jump into anything.)

  “Well, how are we supposed to discuss a book like that?” Faith had asked, pulling at one of her earrings. “I mean, it’s not as if we can identify with a particular hero or discuss the symbolism of the missionary position.”

  “I for one wouldn’t mind discussing the symbolism of the missionary position,” Slip had put in. “Think about it—the man on top, dominant and in control, converting the woman, i.e., the native, by whatever means possible.”

  A laugh had burbled out of Merit.

  “I was just thinking what my father would say about that,” she had explained.

  Faith was the most imaginative when it came to hosting a meeting—she always decorated and served food that tied in with the book we were discussing, but tonight, I was truly inspired. In keeping with the Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex theme, I had made several artful yet tantalizing arrangements; on one platter long spears of bananas nestled between peach halves decorated with a frill of parsley; on another, pineapple rings encircled bratwursts. There were hard-boiled eggs in one bowl and sunflower seeds in another. No doubt about it—I had set a table that would be banned in Boston.

  My two older boys (Davey and Bryan had a brother now, ten-month-old Michael) were at Paul’s mother’s for the evening, and Paul had called from work.

  “As long as you’re having a girls’ night in, I thought I’d have a boys’ night out,” he said, “un
less you’d rather have me there to mix drinks and fetch hors d’oeuvres.”

  I laughed at the improbability of that occurring.

  “I don’t know, we probably could use a bouncer. I mean, when you’re discussing a book about sex, anything could happen. . . .”

  “Hmmm, maybe I should come home after all.”

  “You’d probably learn something,” I said, and after I hung up I thought how nice it was to be joking with my husband again. We had had some rocky times—the first few months after Michael was born it seemed our words were aimed at each other rather than spoken—but the easy teasing that had always been a mainstay of our marriage had finally come back.

  I checked on the snack mix in the oven (pretzel sticks and Cheerios) and just as I grabbed a pot holder, the knowledge that Paul was having an affair rushed through me.

  “Oh, my,” I said, thinking that rather than the hot flashes my mother had complained about, this was a cold flash, as if an ice storm had suddenly stirred up in my heart and blew its frozen winds through my body.

  A little puff of air escaped from the red vinyl cushion as I collapsed on the kitchen chair. It was no use trying to talk myself out of what I knew to be true, and my absolute certainty scared me almost as much as the idea of Paul’s affair.

  “Why’d you make me see that?” I whispered, speaking to my sixth sense or ESP or whatever freakish thing it was that enabled me to know or see things that maybe I wasn’t supposed to know or see. “Why couldn’t I have been left in the dark, like most other wives?”

  I had to laugh then, a thin and brittle laugh, before I got up to take the snack mix out of the oven.

  THE DAY AFTER HIS BURIAL, my grandfather had come to visit me in my bedroom. I was eleven years old, a big girl whose breasts had passed the budding stage and gone into full flower, a girl who already had her period. Still, unlike poor Trudy Himmler, whose hormones had kicked in almost as early as mine and who always hunched over, trying to hide all evidence of her maturity, I wasn’t beaten down by these two events; in fact, my confidence was as much a part of me as my big feet or my wide brown eyes and just as likely to always be there.

  “Poppie!” I had whispered, not in fear, but in surprise.

  My grandfather was dressed not in his burial suit but in the clothes he wore to garden in, and he tipped his straw hat as he sat on the edge of my bed.

  “Poppie, what are you doing here?”

  His bright white dentures were revealed as he smiled, and even though I didn’t hear his voice, I heard him.

  He told me everything was all right, that he was in a place of such peace and wonder it made earth look like the “cartoon compared to the feature.”

  I was delighted at the analogy; Saturday matinees had been our regular date.

  When I asked him why he had to die, he told me—without speaking—that it was his time and he had come back only to tell me that he was in a better place and not to feel too bad about his dying.

  “A little bit bad is all right,” he said, the twinkle still filtering through his rheumy eyes, “but not real bad.” He also told me I had a gift and not to be afraid of it.

  “What kind of gift?”

  “You’ll know.”

  I wasn’t sure if he put his arms around me, but I sure felt as if I’d been hugged, and then he was gone.

  The next morning, my mother nearly choked on her poached egg when I told her about Poppie’s visit.

  “Is that supposed to be some kind of sick joke? Because it’s not funny!”

  “It’s not a joke—he did come to visit me and he told me he was in a better place and that I had a gift.”

  “I’m warning you, Audrey,” and I think it was only when I flinched that she realized she was holding up her arm, as if to strike me.

  She knelt down and took me by the arms, pressing her fingers into them. “I’m sorry, Audrey, I wasn’t going to hit you,” she said, her voice hoarse, “but what do you expect me to do, hearing such nonsense?”

  “It’s not nonsense, he really—”

  “Audrey, please, I just lost my father! This is not helping me, so please—stop talking like a crazy person!”

  And I did. I kept to myself all the odd things that happened to me; didn’t tell anyone about the day when the principal came to the classroom and before he said anything I knew that Blake Rothman’s brother had been killed that afternoon (in an archery accident, it turned out); didn’t tell anyone about the time I was going to Bell’s Double Bar Ranch for my riding lesson and knew, before I opened the door, that old Jim, who cleaned the stables, would be lying on the floor, dead (I didn’t know the cause, an aneurysm, and didn’t even know what an aneurysm was—all I knew was that I’d find him dead); didn’t tell anyone about all the many little things that I knew were going to happen before they actually did.

  I was so good at not telling anyone that eventually I was able to convince myself that I too didn’t believe in such nonsense. By my teens I was no more prescient than the next person—I might occasionally know who was on the telephone before I picked up the receiver, but so did a lot of people; I might know what was inside a wrapped present before I opened it, but that was only lucky guessing. I believed I had keen intuition and nothing more and was relieved of the burden of knowing more than I wanted to . . . but this past spring I had woken Paul up out of a dead sleep and told him to call his sister Marilyn in Oconomowoc and tell her to get everyone out of the house.

  “Wha—”

  “Just do it!”

  Cursing me for my ridiculousness, Paul had nevertheless dialed the little Princess phone we kept by the bed, and when his sister answered he launched into an apology but was abruptly cut off.

  His face was as pale as the moonlight that shone against the wall.

  “Paul?”

  He turned to me and in a low, strangled-sounding voice asked, “How did you know?”

  “I . . . I had a dream.”

  “A dream about a fire?”

  I nodded, although I hadn’t yet fallen asleep when the prickly feeling, as if all of my limbs had fallen asleep, had come over my body and I saw the picture of a burning house, my sister-in-law’s house.

  “Because,” continued Paul in his strange low voice, “because right after she asked me what I was doing calling so late, she yelled, ‘Paul, I can’t talk, I smell smoke!’ ”

  A shiver spasmed through me. “Call them back!”

  He tried several times, but there was no answer.

  Even though the covers were pulled up to our chests, the two of us sat shivering with our bodies pressed against the headboard, staring at the phone, as if willing it to ring.

  “Tell me about your dreams,” Paul said finally, and I did. I told him everything. I talked until the moonlight began to fade in deference to the flush of morning, talked until the phone finally rang with news from Paul’s sister that the space heater they kept in the three-season porch had been been knocked over—probably by the dog—and started a fire.

  “She said the whole porch is destroyed, but everyone got out safely, thanks to my phone call,” said Paul.

  Relief pumped through me and I couldn’t hug my husband tight enough, but instead of hugging me back, Paul pushed me aside.

  “I need a drink of water,” he said, flinging the covers aside as he got out of bed.

  “Could you bring me one too?” I asked, but he had darted out of the room like an animal who’s just smelled a hunter.

  “GIRLS,” I SAID as we all settled in the living room, “I think tonight we’re going to have to get a little stoned.”

  “You’re not serious,” said Slip. Watching me take a joint out of my breast pocket, she said to the others, “Oh, my God, she is serious. Not only does she want us to talk about sex, she wants us to be high on drugs while we’re doing it.” (How can Slip be so hip and yet so unhip?)

  I laughed, assuming she was joking. (It’s a trick I’ve learned—whenever someone disapproves of or disagrees with you,
laugh as if they’re just joking.)

  “I think it would enhance the conversation,” I said, firing up the joint my brother had given me. I drew in a big cloudful and held the skinny little cigarette out toward the general public.

  “What about the kids?” asked Kari.

  Her baby and mine, the only ones not left at home with a husband or sitter, had been put to bed before the meeting started.

  “The kids are sleeping.” Still holding my breath as I talked, my voice sounded like that of a Borscht-belt comic.

  “But what if Julia wakes up? What if she needs me?”

  “You’ll be fine,” I said, and then exhaled the sweet-smelling smoke. “Now hurry up before it burns down.”

  “Well, I can’t say I haven’t been curious,” said Kari, taking the joint. “I’ll just take one little puff.” She pursed her lips, and the end of the joint glowed red as she inhaled.

  “Oh, my,” she said, sputtering out smoke like a defective chimney. “Oh, my.”

  Slip laughed. “So I’m not the only one who can’t hold my marijuana.”

  “You smoke it too?” asked Merit, her voice as wide open as her eyes.

  “I’ve tried it,” said Slip, taking the joint. “But I always seem to cough out every trace of hallucinogen.”

  “Hallucinogen,” said Merit. “You mean if I smoke that thing I’ll see pink elephants or Satan or something?”

  “Only if it’s really good dope.” Seeing her stricken face, I reassured her I was just kidding. “Most likely you’ll just find everything hilarious.”

  Boy, did we. I have to hand it to old Merit—she took the joint and held it as if she had a live animal by the tail, but then inhaled like an old pro, only coughing a little. Faith was the one we had to badger; she sat shaking her head, her arms folded across her chest, acting as if we were committing a felony or something. I mean a deservable felony.

  “Come on, Faith,” said Merit. “If I can do it, you can.”

  Faith’s nostrils flared and she was perched on the edge of her chair as if she were contemplating escape, but after biting her bottom lip, she said, “It’s not a question of if I can do it, it’s a question of wanting to do it. But if y’all are going to gang up on me, then give it here.”