by Maria Semple
A year later, still miffed after the Wonderwall, I got over my bad self and actually signed up for my first volunteer job, as a parent driver for a school visit to Microsoft. I was in charge of four kids: Bee and three others, including this kid Kyle Griffin. We were walking past a bunch of candy machines. (Microsoft has candy machines everywhere, set so that without putting in money you can push a button and candy will come out.) Young Goodman Griffin, because his default is low-grade destruction, whacked a machine. A candy bar dropped down. So he just started banging the shit out of the machines, and all the kids joined in, including Bee. Candy and soda tumbled to the floor, the kids screaming, jumping up and down. It was too fabulous, something out of A Clockwork Orange. Just then, another group of kids, chaperoned by the principal herself, happened upon our mini-droog rampage. “Which one of you started this?” she demanded.
“Nobody started it,” I said. “It’s my fault.”
What does Kyle do, but raise his hand and rat himself out. “It was me.” His mother, Audrey, has hated me ever since, and she’s gotten the other moms in on the action.
So why didn’t I switch schools? The other good schools I could have sent Bee to… well, to get to them, I’d have to drive past a Buca di Beppo. I hated my life enough without having to drive past a Buca di Beppo four times a day.
Are you bored yet? God, I am.
In a nutshell: Once when I was a kid, there was an Easter egg hunt at the country club, and I found a golden egg, which entitled me to a baby bunny. My parents weren’t at all amused. But they grimly bought a hutch and we set up the bunny in our apartment on Park Avenue. I named the rabbit Sailor. That summer, I went away to camp, and my parents repaired to Long Island, leaving Sailor in the apartment with instructions for the maid to feed him. We returned at the end of August to find that Gloria had run off two months prior, with the silverware and Mom’s jewelry. I ran to Sailor’s hutch to see if he’d made it through alive. He was backed into the corner, shivering, and in the most wretched condition: he had become so malnourished that his fur had grown horribly long, his body’s attempt to compensate for his slow metabolism and low temperature. His claws were an inch long, and worse, his front teeth had curled over his lower lip so he could hardly open his mouth. Apparently, rabbits need to be chewing on hard things like carrots; otherwise their teeth will grow. Terrified, I opened the cage door to hug little Sailor, but, in a spastic fury, he started scratching my face and neck. I still have the scars. Without anyone attending to him, he had gone feral.
That’s what’s happened to me, in Seattle. Come at me, even in love, and I’ll scratch the hell out of you. ’Tis a piteous fate to have befallen a MacArthur genius, wouldn’t you say? Poof.
But I do love you,
Bernadette
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14
From Paul Jellinek
Bernadette,
Are you done? You can’t honestly believe any of this nonsense. People like you must create. If you don’t create, Bernadette, you will become a menace to society.
Paul
PART THREE
Menace to Society
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14
Griffin family Christmas letter
’Twas the week before Christmas
When all through the house
So much mud began flowing,
Our things it did douse.
We moved to the Westin
But did not despair
When we saw that the rooms here
Are beyond compare.
Warren dons a fine bathrobe,
And I in my cap,
Each eve we head poolward
For long winter laps.
At night we love nestling
All snug in our beds
While visions of room service
Dance in our heads.
So whatever you’ve heard
Which has given you fright,
We Griffins are fine.
“Have a swell Christmas night!”
*
From: Soo-Lin Lee-Segal
To: Audrey Griffin
Audrey,
I’ve been a nervous wreck trying to track you down after I heard about the mudslide. But I just now received your fabulous Christmas letter. That’s why you’ve been so quiet. You were busy turning lemons into lemonade!
Who knew the Westin was so luxurious? They must have fixed it up since I was there. If you ever get bored, I insist you move in with us. After the divorce, I converted Barry’s office into a guest room and added a Murphy bed, where you and Warren can sleep, although it’s a smidge tight with my new treadmill. Kyle can bunk with Lincoln and Alexandra. But be warned, we’ll all have to share the one bathroom.
Samantha 2 ships in three months, so of course Elgin Branch decides now is the perfect time to go to Antarctica, the only place on the planet with no Internet. It’s my responsibility to make sure things run smoothly while he’s off-grid. I must admit, though, there’s something thrilling about remaining completely unruffled in the midst of his mercurial demands.
You should’ve seen him this morning. He chewed out some women from marketing. I’m no fan of those marketing gals myself, traipsing around the world staying at five-star hotels. Still, I took Elgin aside afterward.
“I’m sure you had your hands full at home this weekend,” I said. “But you must remember, we’re all working toward the same goal.” Boy, did that silence him. Score one for us, Audrey!
*
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 15
From: Audrey Griffin
To: Soo-Lin Lee-Segal
Oh, Soo-Lin!
I must confess, the Westin is nothing like I described in my holiday verse. Where do I begin?
All night self-closing doors slam, the plumbing chugs whenever a toilet is flushed, and any time someone takes a shower, it sounds like a teakettle whistling in my ear. Families of foreign tourists save their conversations until they’re standing outside our door. The mini-fridge rattles and hums so much you think it’s about to spring to life. Garbage trucks screech and collect dumpsterfuls of clanging bottles at 1 AM. Then the bars let out, and the streets fill with people yelling at one another in gravelly, drunken voices. All the talk involves cars. “Get in the car.” “I’m not getting in the car.” “Shut up, or you’re not getting in the car.” “Nobody tells me I can’t get into my own car.”
That’s a lullaby compared to the alarm clock. The housekeeper must run her rag along the top of it when she cleans, so it’s been going off every night at a different wee hour. We finally unplugged the flippin’ thing.
Then, last night at 3:45, the smoke alarm started chirping. But the maintenance man was AWOL. Just as we were adjusting to this nerve-grating sound, the radio alarm in the next room went off! Full-blast, half-static, half-Mexican talk radio. If you ever wondered what the walls at the Westin are made of, I have your answer: tissue paper. Warren sleeps like a log, so he was useless.
I got dressed to go hunt for someone, anyone, to help. The elevator door opened. You wouldn’t believe the band of degenerates that tumbled out. They looked like those horrible runaways who gather across from the Westlake Center. There were a half-dozen of them, full of the most unspeakable piercings, neon-colored hair shaved in unflattering patches, blurry tattoos top-to-bottom. One fellow had a line across his neck imprinted with the words CUT HERE. One gal wore a leather jacket, on the back of which was safety-pinned a teddy bear with a bloody tampon string hanging out of it. I couldn’t make this up.
I finally tracked down the night manager and expressed my dissatisfaction with the unsavory element they allow into their establishment.
Poor Kyle, who’s two rooms over, is feeling the stress. His eyes are always bloodshot from the lack of sleep. I wish we owned stock in Visine!
On top of all this, Gwen Goodyear is trying to haul in Warren and me for yet another Kyle summit. Considering our circumstances, you’d think she’d give us a grace period before cranking up that boring old tune. I
know Kyle’s not the most academically minded, but Gwen has had it in for him ever since Candy-machine-gate.
Oh, Soo-Lin, just writing this transports me to the halcyon days when we were happily collecting outrages about Bernadette! What simple times those were.
*
From: Soo-Lin Lee-Segal
To: Audrey Griffin
You want to be transported back? Well, Audrey, buckle your seat belt. I just had the most devastating conversation with Elgie Branch, and you’ll be shocked to learn what I just did.
I’d put Elgie in a conf. room for an 11 AM all-hands. I was running around fulfilling laptop requests, expediting furniture exchanges, authorizing battery orders. I even found a missing ball for the foosball game. All I can say about life at Mister Softy is: when it rains it pours. When I got to my office—did I mention, I finally have a window office!—no less than six coworkers told me Elgie had come by looking for me, in person. He’d written a note on my door for everyone to see, asking if we could have lunch. He signed it EB, but some joker had come by and changed it to “E-Dawg,” one of his many nicknames.
As I headed out, he appeared at my door, wearing shoes.
“I thought we could bicycle,” he said. It was such a nice day, we decided to get some sandwiches at the deli downstairs and bike to a nice spot off campus.
Because I’m new to Samantha 2, I didn’t realize we have a dedicated fleet of bicycles. Elgie is quite an acrobat. He put one foot on the pedal and skated along with the other, then swung it over the seat. I haven’t been on a bike in years, and I’m afraid it showed.
“Is something wrong?” Elgie said when I veered off the path and onto the lawn.
“I think the handlebars are loose.” It was the damndest thing. I couldn’t keep the bike pointing straight! As I got back on, Elgie stood on his bike with both feet on the pedals and jiggled so he didn’t fall over. You think that’s easy? Try it sometime.
I finally got the hang of it, and we zoomed along. I’d forgotten the freedom that comes with riding a bicycle. The wind was fresh against my face, the sun was shining, and the trees were still dripping from the storm. We rode through the Commons, where people were taking their lunch outside, enjoying the sunshine and the Seahawks cheerleaders, who were doing a demonstration on the soccer field. I could feel the curious eyes upon me. Who’s that? What’s she doing with Elgin Branch?
A mile away, Elgie and I found a church with a lovely fountain courtyard and some benches. We unpacked our sandwiches.
“The reason I asked you to lunch,” he said, “is what you said this morning about having my hands full at home. You were referring to Bernadette, weren’t you?”
“Oh—” I was shocked. Work is work. It was very disorienting for me to switch gears.
“I’m wondering if you’ve noticed anything different about her recently.” Elgie’s eyes welled up with tears.
“What’s wrong?” I took his hand, which I know probably sounds forward, but I did it out of compassion. He looked down, then gently extracted his hand. It was fine, really.
“If something’s wrong,” he said, “it’s my fault as much as it is hers. It’s not like I’m around. I’m always working. I mean, she’s a great mother.”
I didn’t like the way Elgie was talking. Thanks to Victims Against Victimhood, I have grown expert at detecting the signs of being victimized by emotional abuse: confusion, withdrawal, negotiating reality, self-reproach. At VAV, we don’t help newcomers, we CRUSH them.
C: Confirm their reality.
R: Reveal our own abuse.
U: Unite them with VAV.
S: Say sayonara to abuse.
H: Have a nice life!
I launched into the saga of Barry’s failed businesses, his trips to Vegas, his Intermittent Explosive Disorder (which was never diagnosed, but which I’m convinced he suffers from), and finally how I found the strength to divorce him, but not before he successfully drained our life savings.
“About Bernadette…,” he said.
My face flushed. I had been talking a lot about myself and VAV, which I have been known to do. “I’m sorry,” I said. “How can I help?”
“When you see her at school, how does she seem? Have you noticed anything?”
“Well, to be honest,” I said carefully, “from the beginning… Bernadette didn’t seem to value community.” “What does that have to do with anything?” “The underlying principle of Galer Street is community. It’s not written anywhere that parents have to participate. But the school is built on unspoken assumptions. For instance, I am in charge of classroom volunteers. Bernadette has never once signed up. Another thing, she never walks Bee into the classroom.”
“That’s because you drive up and drop off the kids,” Elgie said.
“You can do that. But most mothers prefer to walk their children into the classroom. Especially if you’re a stay-at-home mom.”
“I guess I’m not understanding,” he said.
“The foundation of Galer Street is parent participation,” I pointed out.
“But we write a check each year, on top of tuition. Isn’t that participation enough?”
“There’s financial participation, and there’s the other, more meaningful participation. Like traffic duty, baking healthy snacks for Talent Night, brushing hair on Picture Day.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I’m with Bernadette on this—”
“All I’m trying to do—” I felt my voice rising and took a breath. “I’m trying to give you a context for the tragedy this weekend.”
“What tragedy?” he said.
Audrey, I thought he was joking. “Haven’t you been getting the emails?”
“What emails?” Elgie asked.
“From Galer Street!”
“God, no,” he said. “I asked to be taken off those lists years ago… hang on. What are you talking about?”
I proceeded to tell him about Bernadette erecting that billboard and destroying your home. Hand to God: he knew nothing! He just sat there, taking it all in. At one point, he dropped his sandwich and didn’t even bother to pick it up.
My phone alarm beeped. It was 2:15, and he had a 2:30 skip 1:1.
We bicycled back. The sky was black, except for a brilliant white cloud patch where rays of sunshine broke through. We rode in a darling neighborhood of little bungalows cuddled together. I love the gray-green-putty colors against the leafless cherry trees and Japanese maples. I could feel the crocus, daffodil, and tulip bulbs underground, gaining strength, patiently enduring our winter, waiting to burst forth for another glorious Seattle spring.
I held my hand out and whooshed it through the thick, healthy air. What other city has given birth to the jumbo jet, the Internet superstore, the personal computer, the cellular phone, online travel, grunge music, the big-box store, good coffee? Where else could somebody like me ride bikes alongside the man with the fourth-most-watched TEDTalk? I started laughing.
“What’s wrong?” Elgie asked.
“Oh, nothing.” I was remembering how crushed I was when my father couldn’t afford to send me to USC and instead I went to the UW. I’d hardly been out of Washington State. (And I still have never seen New York City!) Suddenly I didn’t care. Let everyone else travel all over the world. What they’re searching for in Los Angeles and New York and everywhere else is something I already have right here in Seattle. I want it all to myself.
*
From: Audrey Griffin
To: Soo-Lin Lee-Segal
Do you think I woke up this morning and drank a big cup of stupid? Wouldn’t it be convenient if Elgin Branch knew nothing of his wife’s swath of destruction? I shared your tale with Warren, who suspected the same thing as me: Elgin Branch is attempting to establish a paper trail so when we sue him for everything he’s worth, he can claim ignorance. Well, that trick won’t work. Why don’t you tell that to E-Dawg next time you’re littering at a house of God? He didn’t receive any of the emails! What a pantload!
&
nbsp; *
From: Audrey Griffin
To: Gwen Goodyear
Please check the all-school email list and confirm that Elgin Branch is on it. I’m not talking about Bernadette, but Elgin Branch specifically.
*
It was Kennedy’s birthday that night, and her mother works nights, so Mom and I did what we always do, which is take Kennedy out for a birthday dinner. That morning at drop-off, Kennedy was waiting for me and Mom to pull up.
“Where are we going, where are we going?” Kennedy said.
Mom rolled down her window. “The Space Needle restaurant.”
Kennedy screamed with joy and started jumping up and down.
First Daniel’s Broiler, and now this? “Mom,” I said. “Since when did you get so supercool about restaurants?”
“Since now.”
On the way to homeroom, Kennedy had a hard time containing her excitement.
“Nobody ever goes to the Space Needle restaurant!” she shrieked. Which is true, because even though it’s at the top and it revolves—which should make it the only restaurant you’d ever go to—it’s totally touristy and the food is expensive. Then Kennedy did her growl thing, and tackled me.
It had been at least ten years since I’d been to the Space Needle restaurant, and I’d forgotten how awesome it is. We ordered, then Mom reached into her purse and whipped out a pencil and piece of white cardboard. In the middle, she’d written in different-colored markers, MY NAME IS KENNEDY AND I’M TURNING FABULOUS FIFTEEN.
“Huh?” Kennedy said.
“You’ve never been here, have you?” Mom asked Kennedy, then turned to me. “And you don’t remember, do you?” I shook my head. “We put this on the windowsill.” She propped the card against the glass. “And we put a pencil next to it. While the restaurant revolves, everyone will write something, so when it comes back around, you’ll have a card full of birthday wishes.”