Tales From the Crib

by Jennifer Coburn

  We were now visitors in what was once our home. As the distantly familiar feel of the Michigan spring swept across our bodies, we were free in a way we hadn’t felt in a long while. The only reminder of my real life was my swollen breasts in desperate need of relief.

  Zoe spotted a group of students walking with their stuffed backpacks. She held her hands in the air as though she were about to drop on a roller coaster and shouted “Wheeew!” They looked at her and smiled. “Savor the moments,” she shouted at them. “Savor your freedom, kids, because these moments are fleeting. Drink them in through every pore of your soul, sweet warriors of youth,” she shouted, as she let the breeze slip through the fingers of her hand that dangled from the window.

  “Wow, Zoe, I thought you had to have kids to have a midlife crisis,” I said of her comment.

  “What?”

  “What, what? Sweet warriors of youth?”

  “Too much?” she asked. “A bit.”

  “I just wanted to give them some advice. You know, enjoy it now.”

  I remembered bleeding Barney offering a similar refrain and laughed.

  “Where to, my little drive-by fortune cookie?” I asked Zoe.

  We decided to have a bi-bim-bob at Steve’s Lunch even though it was just 11:00 A.M., but when we arrived at our standby Korean restaurant, it was gone. It was still a Korean diner, but they now called it Rich Jesus Christ. I kid you not. Now, I don’t want to disrespect anyone’s religious beliefs, but what exactly does Jesus have to do with bi-bim-bobs?

  “Wanna try it? “ I asked. “Probably the same menu at least.” There were many of the same items on the menu, but Rich had redecorated. Once a comfortable hole-in-the wall, the diner was now a self-conscious attempt at hip modernity. Teacup-sized, brightly colored, smoked-glass covered light bulbs. The light-board menu was no longer discolored yellow. And sadly, all of the letters were applied neatly. Not a one missing, or even crooked.

  After twenty minutes, Zoe and I left. The waitress was overwhelmed dealing with the seven customers at the counter, and never got around to taking our order. Two doors down was a new Korean restaurant we’d never seen before. It had a red awning and several full tables that all seemed to have food on them.

  “So tell me about this new setup with you and Jack,” Zoe asked as her food arrived. “Last time we talked about it, he went into a coma.” We laughed, not because his accident was funny, but the way she said it made it sound as though our chat was the cause of it.

  “It’s pretty much what I told you,” I began. “Jack and I wanted two things that seemed incompatible, but we’re making it work. We wanted Adam, but we also both wanted out of the marriage,” I stretched the truth for ego’s sake. “So we’re living together as co-parents.”

  “Wait a second, Lucy,” Zoe said before working her chopsticks to her mouth. “I never knew you were thinking about divorce. Last I heard you were seeing that marriage therapist.”

  I savored the taste of my youth, and filled Zoe in on Jack and my years of struggle. The bi-bim-bob at the red awning place was actually better than Steve’s, and yet the meal was a letdown. I missed my lower standards. I missed taste buds that had been dulled by a dormitory cafeteria.

  At the same time, I missed my youthful dreams. I missed an age where I thought anything was possible because it actually was. I missed believing that I would write a novel, Jack would paint, and the two of us would live in a place of boundless natural beauty and art. It was over Steve’s bi-bim-bobs that Jack and I talked endlessly about the artist community we were going to start. In fact, Jack drew the design of the property—our main house and the surrounding bungalows—on a napkin from Steve’s.

  After lunch, we walked down South State Street, a quaint main street lined with an eclectic blend of people, trees, and shops. On every telephone pole, and posted in every shop window, were fliers for open -mike poetry readings, political demonstrations, comedy performances, and edgy bands. One sign invited students to a free Japanese brush-painting class. Another handwritten sign was a vegetarian looking for a roommate. Several people had posted listings for dirt-cheap summer rentals. For a moment, I considered spending the summer in Ann Arbor with Adam just to be back in this environment. I felt in Ann Arbor the same way I did in the city—like everything was happening and I was missing it all when I wasn’t there. I suppose there are several spots on earth where each one of us feels completely at home. For me, they are Ann Arbor, St. Mark’s Place, Washington Square Park, and the Westerbeke Ranch in Sonoma County, California, where an overpowering scent of eucalyptus leaves lulls me into a state of believing my world—both inside and out—is at peace. Sitting on the outside patio of Dojo’s on St. Mark’s Place with a good book is also a Lucy spot. Under the arch at Washington Square Park, where I can still imagine my father playing piano as dogs leap for Frisbees near the fountain in the background. Then there was Ann Arbor, where there was so much to be absorbed, no one person could possibly take it in. But instead of causing me anxiety, it gave me comfort. Jack wouldn’t hear of me taking Adam away for so long, but perhaps I could convince him to come to the art festival for a weekend.

  Right across the street from the red awning was the fraternity house where Richie lived. I could see the single turret of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house where we used to smoke pot and watch the sun set during spring semester. In front of his house was a large dirt pit, which was watered down into a mud bowl every homecoming weekend so two rival fraternities could play football. As Zoe and I walked past the frat houses on the expansive Washtenaw Avenue, I noticed that while Richie’s house remained in custody of the SAEs, Phi Delta Theta house across the street was replaced by new Greek letters I could no longer read.

  Hoping to avoid the subject of whet her or not this co-parenting arrangement was torture, I asked Zoe about the status of her and Paul. “Funny you should mention it,” she said, laughing softly. “We’ve broken up, too. But we’re staying together for the sake of the apartment.”

  I laughed. “You are?”

  “Honey, we’ve got a rent-control two-bedroom in the Village. I’m not moving, and Paul’s no idiot. He’s not going anywhere.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep,” Zoe nodded.

  “So are either of you dating again?”

  “I am. I have no idea if he is or not.”

  “Will it bother you to see him with other women?” I asked as we turned back toward the main campus. As we window-shopped at our familiar haunts, like Middle Earth and Ulrich’s, we took note of a few new stores and their contrast with the old. A latex-and-leather-laden condom boutique faced off with the campus institution, the Village Apothecary, a drug store that would’ve fit in perfectly in Cape Cod circa 1950. It wasn’t until we reached the West Engineering Building Arch, where Jack proposed to me, that I repeated my question to Zoe.

  “No, I think it’ll be a relief to see him with someone else. I won’t feel so guilty about dumping his sorry ass.” I wondered if that’s how Jack felt about me.

  To get to the Diag, the grassy center of campus, we needed to pass under the short tunnel of the West Engineering Building. It made one’s entrance that much more dramatic to have the sunlight sparkle through the treetops as the cool stone arch diminished into the foreground. It was almost as if a curtain was lifting for the opening scene of a show.

  On center stage was a cluster of scrappy-looking boys sitting on Mexican blankets with backpacks tossed on the grass. Three were playing hacky sack, two were leaning back on their elbows watching foot traffic, and one was reading a beat-up paperback by Milan Kundera. “Let’s go see if we can score some pot from those guys, Lucy,” Zoe said with a childlike excitement.

  “I can’t smoke,” I reminded her, pointing at my boobs.

  “Oh, yeah,” Zoe said, clearly disappointed.

  “Well, let’s go chat ’em up anyway,” she coaxed.

  “Zoe, they’re half our age!” I said pretending to be appalled. Still, I didn’t have t
he energy to flirt with college kids.

  “Do it for me?” she pleaded playfully.

  As we approached the blanket of boys, my heart sped with fear of rejection. Funny, I had no desire to flirt with these guys, but I would’ve been devastated if the feeling were mutual. “Hey, boys!” Zoe said. They sat up and looked a bit startled, as though they might be in trouble.

  A guy who looked an awful lot like Ben Affleck caught before his morning coffee tentatively returned Zoe’s greeting. His brown hair was molded by a pillow. His broad chest was covered by a thick cotton Michigan t-shirt with an unbuttoned forest-green flannel shirt on top of it.

  “How’s it going?” She sat down next to them as I was still a few steps from reaching the blanket. “You guys go to school here?” They nodded. “I’m Jenna, and this is Taylor. We’re at the law school.”

  “Oh yeah,” another chimed in. “What do you teach?”

  There wasn’t an ounce of malice or sarcasm. They just honest-to-goodness assumed we were professors, rather than law students, as Zoe had hoped to portray. Perhaps this is why she adopted the pseudonyms of the twenty-something set.

  “We’re students,” she said, laughing. A part of me wanted to just lie on my back and watch the sun glitter through the leaves. Another part was drawn into Zoe’s tale.

  “Law’s our second career,” I added. Am I supposed to be Jenna or was I Taylor?

  One of the hacky sack boys teased, “Too rough out there in the real world for you, so you had to come back to school, eh, Jen?” His inadvertently keen observation made me want to cut off his overgrown goatee with a plastic cafeteria knife. But at least I knew that, since he directed his words to Zoe, I was, in fact, Taylor.

  They chatted for a while as the hacky sack game resumed and Kundera was once again being read. I rested my head on my purse in the grass and watched the leaves. I used to do this all the time in Ann Arbor. I rolled my head from side to side and watched the sunlight filter in through the various patterns of leaves. I could do this at home. We do have trees in Caldwell. But I never do.

  Zoe and the Ben Affleck lookalike were heavy into conversation. When he introduced himself as Adam, I had to refrain from announcing that he shared my son’s name. I knew Zoe would kill me for any reference to our already precarious status as thirty-somethings. I wondered what my Adam was doing and whether he missed me. Of course, I knew he was having a fine time with Susan and Jack, but I hoped he missed me a little. With that thought, I heavily withdrew my wish. I was becoming Anjoli and my child’s feelings for me were more important than his well-being. I hated myself for hoping my son would long for me while I was away. But truthfully, I feared he wouldn’t notice my absence, and if he didn’t even realize I was gone, what good was I when I was there? Candace once said that motherhood amplifies your natural tendencies. For her, this was a good deal since she was kind and nurturing. For neurotic and self-flagellating me, it was less than a bargain.

  “So, do you know where we can score some weed?” I heard Zoe ask. I wondered if kids even called it that anymore.

  “This isn’t, like, a sting or something, is it?” Adam said, half kidding.

  “It’d be entrapment,” I said, still on my back.

  “No, it’d be entrapment if she asked me to sell her some, not if she’s just asking where,” he returned.

  “So, you do have some?” Zoe said eagerly. “It’s been soooooo long, Adam.” She paused. “I am not a cop, okay?!”

  “Okay, it’s back at my apartment.”

  “Great!” Zoe said.

  “Not great,” I said.

  Zoe crawled on her knees over to me and whispered, “Why not?”

  “Because I came to Ann Arbor to see the town, not sit around some dirty college apartment watching you get stoned. And before you say anything, you’re not going alone. You have no idea who these people are. You’re being completely reckless just because you and Paul broke up and you need a little thrill.”

  “Um, Lucy. You’re, um, well, you’re wet,” she whispered.

  “Pul-ease!” I whispered, laughing. “I am not even slightly- ”

  “I mean you’re leaking,” she interrupted.

  Looking down at my red shirt, I saw two wet stains the size of cantaloupes. “This’d be a deal breaker, wouldn’t it?” I laughed.

  She turned her head toward the cluster of guys who were now completely reimmersed in their pre-Jenna-and Taylor lives. I think Zoe realized that chasing rainbows never leads to a pot of gold. It just leaves you feeling tired and stupid. “Hey, guys, nice chatting with you, but we gotta run.”

  Adam tried to be polite by asking where we were going, but clearly he didn’t care. “Taylor’s implants are leaking,” Zoe said, as every head within ear range turned to look.

  For the rest of the weekend, we quietly walked around Ann Arbor taking inventory of what was old and what was new. What had changed and what had remained the same. Very few things were in just one column, least of all us.

  Chapter 29

  Susan returned to Chicago just after Independence Day weekend. Her presence made my house seem like a home, and it terrified me that once she left, the peaceful sense of domesticity she created might dissolve. There was something about having an older person—an older woman who’d raised children—around the house that took some of the pressure off me. I didn’t have to feel as though I had all of the answers because not only was Susan a wealth of knowledge about childcare, she was readily willing to admit that she felt just as lost as I did when she was my age. As she left, she took me aside and assured me that everything would work out for the best. I’ve always been a bit skeptical when people made this overly general prediction, but when Susan said it I believed it. I asked her what was for the best, and she shrugged. “I don’t know, but whatever happens, I believe it will be the best thing for everyone,” she said, smiling slightly.

  Susan’s modest demeanor puzzled me. She could spew out these Yoda-like philosophies effortlessly, then smile shyly like a little girl embarrassed to admit she needed to pee. My mother’s entire body was a mood ring. Her face, her body, her hats would all reflect her feeling du jour.

  I wondered if she’d talked to Jack about our relationship during her four weeks with us. How was she so sure that everything would work out for the best? Does every one get the gift of centeredness in their senior years? Or is it a perk of being gentile?

  When I returned from Ann Arbor, I found Jack out in the backyard painting. Flowers—in watercolor, of all things! Adam tried to pull himself up with the netted walls of his playpen and look at his father’s creations. Soon, he’d plop down, pick up a toy, then quickly become distracted by a bird resting on a branch overhead. I thought the forced time off would drive Jack crazy with boredom, but instead, he looked more alive than I’d seen him in years. When he told me about what Adam had done that day, his whole being was animated and filled with an uncomplicated joy.

  Soon, he grew tired of suburban landscapes and starred painting in oils again. He was starting to venture out of the house on his own and took a camera with him everywhere he went. He wasn’t quite sure what he was looking for, but said he wanted to have a camera with him because he knew it was out there to be captured by him.

  A combination of two things made me disrobe entirely. It was 102 degrees outside and, in an effort to economize, Jack and I resolved to not turn on the air conditioning. And second, every time I bathed Adam recently, he splashed so much water, I ended up more drenched than Desdemona on the cobblestone road. As I took off my clothing, I tried not to glance in the mirror. I stepped on the scale at the gym the week before and saw that I was five pounds heavier than before I got pregnant. This was the thinnest I’d been in nearly a year and a half (I refuse to speak in months!), but still wasn’t the body I’d dreamt of. Every time I flipped through magazines, I’d try to negotiate deals with the gods of beauty. When they refused to come to the bargaining table, I contemplated which surgeries I’d need to look like
Angelina Jolie. After realizing that would be the full Angelina Jolie transplant, I settled for her face and figured I could work on the body. My lactating breasts were fabulous, but the stomach they rested on was downright global. I was thankful that Adam was in the bathtub, needing my full attention, or I would’ve been tempted to play that awful game where I pull my extra thigh flesh and hold it in fists behind me so I could see how I’d look after liposuction.

  As I sat down on the edge of the bathtub, I felt the cool porcelain press against my thighs. The pressure of the tub against my legs accentuated the presence of cellulite on my thighs and butt. I placed my thick ankles on each side of Adam’s bathtub chair and suddenly saw only his face. He looked at me and cooed, revealing the slightest hint of a first tooth. The smooth bottom row of gum line was pierced by what looked like a grain of rice lying flat. I noticed the smallest pieces of him and he overlooked the biggest of me. Adam never saw cellulite. He didn’t notice that his old room, my old womb, had barely snapped back into shape. He just saw his mommy. As I took comfort in this small space where my appearance did not matter, Jack opened the door and asked if I knew where to find the phone number for the piano tuner. Startled, I shouted for him to leave.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Lucy,” Jack scoffed. “It’s not like I haven’t seen you naked before.”

  My body angst is not ridiculous to me, I seethed. “I am not being ridiculous and even if I was, Jack, I have every right to be if I want!” I shouted. “Do you have any idea how sick I am of you telling me that my feelings don’t matter? It’s so presumptuous and it completely shuts down any chance of intimacy we might have.” Ooops. I tried to wipe up my verbal spill. “As co-parents, I think we need to be able to have a platonic intimacy, an open dialogue so Adam can see how healthy relationships function.”

  “All I meant was- ”