“I know you meant well. You always do. I know that. But it has the opposite effect,” I said. As soon as the words were out, I knew that whether or not Jack understood what I meant, I would never be bothered again by his directives. He could’ve looked at me right then and there and told me not to be dramatic, and it would’ve rolled right off me because for the first time I realized that he alone did not have the power to dismiss me. Every time he made a dismissive comment, I had the choice whether or not I would accept that dismissal. I braced myself for his thick retort, but instead he just said, “Okay.”
“Okay?” I repeated.
“Yeah, okay.”
“Okay . . .” I asked, extending the word to provide a blank for Jack to fill in.
“Okay,” he said. “I won’t do it anymore.”
“Oh,” I replied. “Okay.”
“Can you stay like that for a sec?” Jack asked, reminding me that I was naked with my thighs spreading across the bathtub rim like batter hitting the skillet and expanding to a pancake.
“Get out of here!” I closed the door on him.
“No, seriously, Lucy, I want to grab my sketch pad.”
“You want to do what?”
“Sketch you. Sitting there at the tub.”
“No way!” I shrieked. “I look like a cow. Why do you need the piano tuner’s number, by the way?” I asked, remembering the original reason for his entrance.
“I’m going to take up the piano again,” he said.
“Again? You never played.”
“I quit when I was nine. I’ve always regretted it.”
Yeah, well you quit our marriage when I was pregnant. Any regrets about that?
“Oh, well it’s in my Rolodex.”
“Seriously, Lucy. Can you stay there for a few minutes so I can sketch you?”
“You’re out of your mind! What, are you having a fat girls exhibit at the gallery?”
“I’m going to start painting Renaissance women in contemporary environments. You know, like a Rubenesque nude with a laptop? The two worlds intersecting on my canvas.”
“You hate the Renaissance!” I reminded him. “You al ways said the Renaissance was bullshit. What happened to the tar-and-bone sculpting Jack I knew?”
“What’s wrong with expanding my artistic tastes a bit?”
“Jack, three weeks ago you were painting flowers—live flowers, no less—now you’re asking me to pin up my tendrils and let you sketch my Rubenesque ass?! This is more than a little expansion of your artistic tastes.”
“Lucy, in seven months I’ve seen the child I thought I’d never have come into the world, and fully recovered from an accident every expert seems to agree should have killed me. Now is the perfect time in my life for a little Renaissance.”
Two hours later, Adam was asleep and my naked butt was pressed against the bathtub as Jack sat behind me and sketched my image in pencil. “You’re sure no one will recognize this as me?” I asked.
“Depends how many people you’ve shown your ass to, Lucy,” Jack quipped.
I shuddered at the memory of Eddie, the cook. “No one who’d ever be at an art gallery,” I turned and winked.
“Still love the jocks, ay, Luce?” Jack said, laughing. He never took his eyes off the page or me. “Seriously, I’m not even going to show the woman’s face in this painting. No one will know it’s you.”
We talked about Adam, Jack’s visit with his mother, the exhibits coming to his gallery, and my recent magazine articles. After we’d exhausted news and current events, Jack and I spent the next half hour in comfortable silence. I enjoyed hearing nothing but the pencil tapping against Jack’s sketchpad. I could tell when he was doing long, soulful strokes versus furiously quick dashes and dots. I loved that it was all me. With Anjoli as a mother, I never had the chance to grow comfortable as the center of attention, but now as the subject of Jack’s undivided focus, I could see why she loved it so much.
To sit still and naked might seem boring to some. In fact, just hours ago I would have said that I didn’t have the patience for it, but there was something about the exposed vulnerability that gave the experience the edge I needed to make it exciting. And still, while discovering this quiet comfort, I can always manage to say something stupid to break the mood. Making some sort of preemptive degradation of my body was like a nervous tick. “It’s been more than an hour, Jack. I hope you’re done with at least one of my ass cheeks by now,” I said, laughing.
He said nothing.
“Jack, did you hear me?”
“Yes,” he brushed off my comment. “Very funny.”
“I was just thinking that you’re probably sorry you asked me to pose once you realized how big I am.”
“Lucy,” he said, not looking up. “Your body is a work of art.”
“Oh, it’s a piece of work, all right.”
He put down his sketchpad in what may have been annoyance or sympathy. Or both. “Why do you always have to do that?!”
“Do what?”
“Make jokes.”
“I’m Jewish, that’s what we do,” I said in an accent like my aunts’.
“There you go again!” Jack said, exasperated. “I know plenty of Jewish people who don’t need to make a comedy routine of their lives to hide discomfort.”
“When did you become the next Dr. Lee?” I asked, hoping we could drop the topic and go back to my growing enjoyment of being sketched. “What Jews do you know who don’t make comedy of their lives? It’s part of the religion. I’ll bet you think all that Hebrew at bar mitzvahs is prayers, don’t you? Fooled you, didn’t we? It’s stand-up.”
“My God!” he shouted. “Do you even know when you’re doing it?! You did the same thing when we lost the babies. You kept accusing me of not wanting to talk to you about it, but the truth is I couldn’t stand listening to you turn our situation into your own personal tragic comedy about your self-diagnosed inability to maintain a pregnancy.”
Who was this man? For the past several years, he was the guy who shrugged and answered my pleas for discussions with one- or two-word responses, mainly consisting of “Dunno.” Now, he was accusing me of emotional distancing through humor. Was he reading pop psych books on the side? Did Natalie take him to a relationships workshop? I loved that he was finally opening up to me. It’s just that I hated what he was saying. I’d always imagined the day when Jack and I had a heart-to-heart; it would go something like this.
Him: Lucy, I’ve been such a jerk these past few years. The miscarriages were hard on our marriage. You were strong, but I shut down. I’m sorry I’ve been such a detached, emotionally withdrawn prick. I’m going to spend the rest of my life making it up to you.
Me: Jack, I’ve been waiting so long to hear those words. I’m not going to dwell on what an inconsiderate rat fuck you’ve been all these years. I’m just going to let go of all of the pain you’ve caused and focus on rebuilding this marriage.
Him: Thank you, Lucy. You won’t regret it. Having almost lost you, I now realize how lucky I am to have you as my wife. Oh yes, and I was an idiot to call you “kiddo” all these months.
Then we would kiss and live happily ever after. What was all this crap about me having some culpability for the demise of our intimacy? I hated him for straying so far from the script. I hated him for being so on the mark.
Chapter 30
Real Confessions was once again in the national media, Zoe at the center of it. The show was immediately cancelled when it was discovered that a handful of unscrupulous priests were encouraging parishioners to fictionalize steamy confessions for the sake of good television. These few churches were simply desperate for the money, Zoe explained to Larry King. The vast majority of the show’s segments were of honest-to-goodness repentant sinners. Publicly, she was unflappable. But privately, she called to cry, then feared her phone lines were bugged. Before she could ask, I offered her refuge in Caldwell, which she immediately accepted. Candace and her casserole posse once again s
tocked our fridge. She even sent over a doula to give Zoe a therapeutic massage, which was amazingly generous considering she didn’t even know the producer on the sacrificial lam.
I hadn’t heard from Anjoli in over a week, which meant a backlog of drama. When people return to work from vacation, they often come to the realization that vacation is just a euphemism for delayed work. There is no vacation from Anjoli; just delayed drama.
“Guess where I’m heading this weekend, darling?” she shrieked excitedly through the phone.
“Just tell me,” I said.
“No, guess!” she said, pouting with her voice.
“Brazil,” I returned flatly.
“How did you know?”
“Because last time we spoke you said you felt weighed down by the toxicity of your breakup with Dr. Comstock.”
“That relationship was wretched for me,” she said. I’m sure you have his wife’s utmost sympathy. “Do you know how unhealthy it is to hang on to anger?”
“Cancer,” we said in unison.
“Yes, not to mention wrinkles,” she continued. “Louise Hay says- ”
“Mother,” I interrupted. “Louise Hay didn’t say that. I did, and I was kidding.”
There it was again. My kidding. Was I pushing away my mother’s fear of her own mortality—and wrinkles—by making jokes at her expense?
“Mother, I hope you find what you’re looking for in Brazil,” I said and meant it.
“Oh yes, darling. Let me not forget my big news.” Uh-oh. “Are you ready?”
“I’m ready.”
“Are you sitting?”
“For Christ’s sake, Mother, tell me what’s going on!”
“Kimmy is getting married!”
“Married?! Did she and Geoff get back together?”
“Nope,” Anjoli said, loving the elongation of the story.
“Someone new?”
“Not at all new,” Anjoli said like a carnival gypsy.
“Kimmy’s marrying an old guy?”
“I didn’t say it was a guy,” Anjoli said.
“She’s marrying an old woman? Wow, how did we miss that one? You’d think with a family like ours, she would’ve come out of the closet years ago.”
Anjoli laughed, amused at her ability to string me along. “Think outside the box, Lucy,” she said, which I must say was an especially poorly timed expression to use immediately after discussing elderly lesbians.
“Okay, someone old who’s neither a man nor a woman,” I pondered, as if it were a riddle.
“I didn’t say old, darling,” Anjoli said. “I said Kimmy didn’t just meet this person.”
“This person who’s neither male nor female.”
“It’s a woman.”
“So Kimmy is a lesbian?”
“Lucy, hang on to your hat,” Anjoli said , forgetting that it is she, not I, who wears hats. “Kimmy is marrying her self.”
“Brilliant!” I said without thinking.
“It’s an assertion of her independence and self-love that- ”
“No, I get it. I get it. It’s brilliant. Want to go in on a super deluxe vibrator for the shower gift? Seeing how she loves herself so much,” I said. Shit, was I doing it again? Was I using humor to distance myself from my authentic feelings? I paused to consider it. Nah, this was actually funny. Marrying herself?! Only in my family would someone come up with this wacky idea. Only someone in our family would love it. Or would others, I wondered. Would other women think Kimmy’s idea of loving herself enough to have a solo wedding ceremony was clever?
A week later, I got my answer.
We received your pitch for the feature about the bride who’s marrying herself. It’s exactly the type of piece our readers will love. Glamour caters to smart, savvy, educated, modern young women who know the importance of a healthy relationship with themselves. It’s a smart idea that gets across a powerful message in a fun, creative way. And you’re right, it doesn’t hurt that she’s a knockout. Call me as soon as you can so we can discuss the details and set up a photo shoot with Kimmy.
After reading the e-mail, I screamed with joy and ran downstairs to find Jack spooning applesauce into Adam’s now double-toothed mouth. “Good news?” he asked.
“The story I pitched to Glamour,” I began, struggling for breath. “They like it! They want me to write it.”
“That’s great, Lucy! Congratulations.”
“I’m so excited,” I continued. “I’m a little scared, too. This is huge. I mean I’ve never written for such a major magazine. Wow, I wish I could just enjoy this without immediately getting anxious about it. Just five minutes of celebration would be nice every now and then, you know?”
“That’s gotta suck,” Jack said, clapping his hands to encourage Adam to do the same with his.
“It does,” I said. “Hey, I want a do-over.” I ran back upstairs and descended again. “Hey, guess what?!”
“What??’ Jack played along.
“I got that gig with Glamour I told you about last week. They liked my story idea.”
Jack smiled. “Gee, Lucy, that’s great. Feel like celebrating?”
“Yes!” I burst into laughter and jumped around my kitchen. “You would not believe how much they pay, Jack!”
“Good for you!”
“Wanna get a babysitter and go out to celebrate?” I said without thinking.
“Sure,” he said without hesitation. Smiling, he added, “I hope you don’t fuck it up, Luce. It’s a mighty big magazine.”
With far too much adrenaline, I rushed over to him and swatted Jack’s head with the first thing I could find, which, unfortunately for him, was a hardcover book. “Oh my God!” I shouted, half laughing, half apologizing. “Your head! Did I hurt your head?!”
He looked at me quizzically. “Who the hell are you?”
“Very funny!” I said, still elated. “It’d be nice if you would stop using humor as a wedge.”
“Ewww!” he said. “Very good. Touché on that one, Luce.”
As it turned out, we couldn’t get a babysitter on such short notice. Anjoli said she normally would love to, but with just four days until she left for Brazil, there was simply too much to do. Kimmy was going to hear a band she was considering for her reception. Bernice and Rita were in Florida condo-hunting for a winter home. Zoe left for Paris three days after coming to stay with us. Candace always offered to babysit, but she’d already done so much, I felt too guilty to ask.
“Do you want me to run to Lo Fats for carryout?” Jack offered.
“I’ve kind of lost my appetite for that place,” I said.
“How ‘bout sandwiches?” he suggested.
An hour later, I was naked on the coffee table being sketched as I ate my sandwich. If this was a pickup routine, I was totally buying it. He said he saw some kind of irony in my pose. Whatever.
We never had simultaneous orgasms. Jack finishing his sketch at the exact moment I finished my sandwich was the closest we’d come to synchronicity. “Perfect timing!” I giggled.
“Yeah, how often does that happen?” Jack added.
“With us? How ʼbout never, Mr. Let’s Get Divorced in the Second Trimester,” I said, laughing. Did I just say that aloud?
“Did I just say that a loud?” I asked. He nodded. “I suppose you’re angry at me for making a joke.”
“No, I’m sorry that it worked out that way,” Jack said, heavily. Why couldn’t I sustain a moment of levity between us? “Lay back,” he commanded. He moved our floor lamp next to my body sprawled on the couch. Oy, I am so not ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille. I refrained from saying a word until I resumed breathing and relaxed into the heat of the lamp.
“Jack?” I said, almost asking permission to continue.
“Yes?”
“Remember when our whole life was going to be like this? Remember how you were going to paint and I was going to write, and we were going to build that arts community?”
He smiled, remembering.
“That was a great dream.”
“What happened to it?”
“We didn’t have a clue how much it would really cost to buy that much land, not to mention construction of our house and the cabins,” he said.
“How much would it cost?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“So we still don’t have a clue,” I said, smiling. “Does that mean I can still believe it could happen?”
“Lucy, you are writing. I am painting. Sometimes you have to compromise in life.”
“Jack, I’m living in New Jersey. I know all about compromise.”
“Do you hate it here that much?”
“I don’t hate it at all,” I said. “I just don’t fit here. It’s not home.”
“Where is, Lucy? Anjoli’s apartment?”
“I don’t know, Jack,” I said, accompanying the sound of his pencil charting me.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Lucy, but when you figure out where you want to live—not just where you don’t want to be—let’s talk. Until then, I really don’t know what I can do to make you happy.”
God, it had been so long since Jack had talked about making me happy as if it were his responsibility. I thought of Kimmy’s wedding, and corrected myself. It had been so long since Jack had talked about making me happy as if it was something he wanted to be part of.
He was silent for another ten minutes as he captured me on paper. “Jack?” I said tentatively. “Are you mad at me?”
He stopped sketching. “No, I was just thinking.”
“About what?”
“About how I wish I had my camera with me yesterday when I took Adam on the Staten Island Ferry.”
“Oh ,” I said, somewhat disappointed.
“I always have it with me, but yesterday I left it at home and I missed a great shot.”
“What was it?”
“There was this group of Orthodox Jewish girls on the deck of the ferry and the wind lifted one of their skirts. Her knees were still covered because she held her skirt down like Marilyn Monroe in that famous shot from The Seven Year Itch. Her covered head was tossed back and she was laughing, but she still had the faintest hint of embarrassment. It would’ve made a great shot.”
Tales From the Crib Page 20