by Laura Zigman
* * *
I let Teddy go into the building first before I go in to track down Mr. Noah or Grace—whomever I find first—which turns out to be Grace. Same zip-up fleece; same beverage-equipped nylon knapsack; same plastic container being snapped shut with a loud and proud freshness-burp. She waves, friendly and conspiratorially, as I open the glass door to the office.
“Have you decided about the People Puppets?” she coos.
“We need to talk first.”
“Of course,” she whispers, pulling me off to the side of the office. “The tuition credit. Now, if you’re able to take two People Puppets, we can give you more money. Close to a full month’s worth, which would bring your account almost, but not quite—but almost!—current.” She opens her knapsack, takes out a file folder, and quickly flips through the papers inside. “Nick and Phoebe, who lead the puppet company, are a couple,” she says, rolling her eyes and shrugging, as if to say, Young people! Who knows?! Then she shows me printouts of each of them, like mug shots. “So they’d be a logical pair to take.”
I ignore the pages she’s holding up. “Tell me about the Secret Pooper.”
“Excuse me?”
“The Secret Pooper. The Mysterious Defecator. The Crazy Shitter. Whatever you’re calling the person who’s gone to the bathroom on the floor of the middle school. Twice.”
She lets out a short panicked gasp. “Who told you about that?”
“My son, of course!” My voice is suddenly shrill but I don’t care. “Why haven’t you informed parents? Why haven’t you told us? We have a right to know that our kids could be in danger.” I want to poke her but I don’t.
“I’m sorry, Judy, but I’m late for Spanish,” she says, racing now around the big teachers’ table, collecting her things—folders and books and a big ceramic mug of tea that produces so much steam I wonder if it’s full of dry ice. Unlike last week, when she chased me down the hallway and wouldn’t leave me alone, she barely looks at me now.
“I can’t believe there’s been no official word about this extremely disturbing situation. I mean, how many emails went out to parents last year about acceptable brands of organic non-GMO gluten-free pancake mix for the annual pancake breakfast?” When she doesn’t answer, I do. “At least twenty.”
“Accommodating dietary restrictions is something the administration and the school community take very seriously.”
“More than informing parents and protecting children from a potential psychopath-situation?”
She stops and makes a frownie-face by pulling down on both sides of her mouth with her fingers. “Oh, Judy. I can’t believe you’re that kind of parent.”
My mouth drops open. “What does that mean?”
“It means you’re totally overreacting. It’s not a ‘situation.’ It’s a small problem that we’re taking very seriously. We’re trying to get to the bottom of it.”
I make a frownie-face with my mouth, too. “Pardon the pun.”
She doesn’t laugh and neither do I. I get the distinct feeling that she’s hiding something—at the very least she’s minimizing the problem. Willful ignorance and denial seem to be their only strategy.
“Do you know who’s doing it?”
“No. But we’re looking at every single middle-schooler, since they’re the ones with access to this building. Even the quiet kids.” She doesn’t blink. “Especially the quiet kids.”
My stomach drops. I suddenly remember everything I told her that day after my presentation—how worried I was about how introverted Teddy had become. “What does that mean?” I’m so afraid she’s referring to him that I’m tempted to apologize.
“It means, no one is above suspicion.” Grace stops at the glass door before opening it. “Oh, and Judy?” she says, pointing to the sling. “Next time, leave the dog at home. Without an official therapy vest and the accompanying paperwork, pets are not allowed in the school.”
“The dog’s name is Charlotte.”
“I don’t care, Judy.”
“Well you should.”
“Well I don’t.”
“Well that says a lot about why this place is turning to shit. Literally.”
“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”
I give her the finger, but only from inside the sling and only after she’s turned around to leave her office.
The Arrival of the People Puppets
The following week, two full-size People Puppets wearing costumes constructed from everyday recycled materials sit across from us in the living room—People Puppets on one couch, humans—and a dog—on the other. The scene is freakish enough, but I’m still unnerved by the creepy encounter with Grace—tempted even, out of an abundance of caution, to cancel the housing-in-exchange-for-tuition-credit deal we’d made. What would stop her from sending the People Puppets into our house with cameras or recording devices to get information on us? (“Someone could be—and probably is!—spying on you right now—with their smartphone”), I’d thought while I tried, and failed, to fall asleep. But I decided not to. Canceling seemed like an escalation, and while I didn’t like her and didn’t trust her, keeping our agreement in place seemed like a de-escalation. That, and the fact that we still needed that stupid tuition credit so that Teddy wouldn’t have to leave school.
“So, I’m Judy, and this is Gary.” I can feel myself break into a big nervous smile.
The puppet on the left answers first. “I’m Phoebra the Zebra. Well, Phoebe in real life. And this is Nick the Llama.”
I repeat the words slowly, and so does Gary—Phoebra. The. Zebra. Then: Nick. The. Llama.—but nothing poetic happens. We exchange glances, afraid we’re already doing it wrong.
“Don’t worry,” the Llama says. “It’s not you. It doesn’t rhyme. But for whatever reason, that’s my name anyway.” He leans in for Gary’s hand, then stops short. “Oops. Let me take my ‘hoof’ off first.” They shake, and then he puts the hoof back on.
Gary looks from one puppet to the other. He’s so confused he doesn’t even know how to form a question, but I know exactly what he’s thinking: let’s leave.
“I thought you were”—he searches for his words—“puppeteers. Like the Muppets.”
“No. We’re the actual puppets.”
“We don’t just hold the puppet,” Phoebe clarifies. “We become the puppet.”
I point to my sling. “Kind of like me and my dog!”
The first of many birds appears on my head.
“Exactly!” Nick says. “See, I’m the llama and the llama is me. But who am I and who is the llama? Where does one end and the other begin?”
There’s a bird on Nick’s head.
Gary nods. “Not to be an asshole, but I have no idea what that means.”
“It’s okay. Most people don’t get it.”
Gary leans forward. “But you work with children. Isn’t it important that they get it?”
“Children do get it!” Nick says. “Because life is still full of mystery and magic for them!”
Gary snorts. I ignore him. “Teddy used to totally be into magic,” I blurt. “Back before he became a joyless teenager. We still have his black satin cape in the basement.”
Teddy turns sideways in the doorway, as if he’s trying to slip in between the molding and the wall. “See?” I point, and everyone turns. “He’s trying to make himself disappear right now!”
“Mom. Stopppp.”
Nick waves at Teddy. “Do you like puppets, dude?”
Teddy shrugs, smiles shyly. “They’re okay I guess.”
Nick turns to Gary. “Do you like puppets?”
Gary’s mouth actually drops open. He shoots me another desperate look. I know exactly what he is thinking: Seriously. We have to leave. But how can we leave early from our own house? Since he’s not answering Nick’s question, I decide to talk for him, thinking, ironically, that in doing so he’s like my puppet. “In theory, Gary likes puppets,” I say. “But in reality, Gary is terrified of
puppets. He’s actually terrified of all costumed characters.”
“Judy—” He tries to stop me, but it’s too late—I’m already blurting the alleged origin story of his phobia: one of Gary’s first jobs in college, at a Chuck E. Cheese–style restaurant, as one of three costumed mice playing on a tiny stage in front of families eating shitty pizza.
“He told me that he got almost all the way through his first shift, but suddenly the music stopped and he pulled off his giant mouse costume head and started screaming: ‘I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!’”
There’s a bird on Gary’s head. “The air-tube-mouthpiece-thingy inside the head part was blocked.”
“With anxiety,” I whisper.
“I couldn’t breathe, man!” Gary erupts, before catching himself and looking around, embarrassed. “Sorry.”
I adjust the dog on my lap and pretend everything is fine. “So, how did you get into puppetry, Phoebe?”
“My moms were founding members of this puppet theater at Bennington College,” she explains. “They still perform—in fact, they just did a puppet adaptation of The Vagina Monologues. They wear these huge vagina costumes, made out of dark red velvet, and ohmygod it’s totally embarrassing.”
Nick turns to Gary, man-puppet to man. “Dude. You have no idea.”
I can see Gary doing the math in his head—dog sling, vagina costume, same thing. “I think I do.”
“Not that there’s anything wrong with vaginas, Teddy,” Nick explains, a sage in llama’s clothing. “They’re beautiful. I mean, I’m not sure how much you know about stuff like that.” He turns to me and covers his mouth with his hoof. “Sorry.”
“No problem,” I lie, as if I’m totally fine discussing vaginas in my living room with Teddy blushing in the doorway. I quickly change the subject. “Were your parents into puppets, Nick?”
“My father was. He loves everything to do with theater. Which is pretty much why my mother divorced him. Which was kind of a big deal. At the time.”
“Well, that’s something you two have in common!” I say, elbowing Gary. “Gary’s parents got divorced and he still hasn’t gotten over it!”
Nick points down at his costume shamefully. “Neither have I. Hence the career switch.”
“You weren’t always a puppet?” Gary asks.
“I went to law school because my mother wanted me to but I never practiced because I never took the bar. I hated it. It just wasn’t me.”
“It wasn’t me, either,” Gary says, softening. “I dropped out after my first year at Georgetown to play music.”
“I didn’t know you went to law school,” Teddy says. I watch as something—surprise? confusion? disappointment?—crosses his face. “Jackson’s dad is a lawyer.” It’s the first time I realize that Teddy is deep in the age of comparison—seeing himself and his family in relation to others, though what he thinks about those differences I have no idea, except that I’m sure I come up short compared to other moms who don’t wear the family dog.
“I thought I’d told you,” Gary says absently. He’s a terrible liar. “Sometimes you just know that something isn’t for you and law school wasn’t for me. I couldn’t take the pressure. I was practically hospitalized after the first year.” He laughs to make it sound like a joke, even though it’s fairly close to the truth. After dropping out, years before we met, he’d spent the summer living with his mother in his old bedroom in New Hampshire, the one with a twin bed and airplane wallpaper, and decided to go back to music, his true passion. If not for his anxiety, which got more and more debilitating, he would have had an amazing career, I’m sure of it.
“And a year after that he opened for Aerosmith!” I say super enthusiastically, citing his résumé highlights from memory, since aside from a few grainy old videos, pre-iPhone quality, I’ve never seen Gary perform live in a big venue. Except for small bars and coffeehouses, he’d stopped playing with his band before we met, and I’ve always wished I had known that version of him.
“Our band did,” Gary corrects.
“Dude! Impressive!” Nick says.
“It was a long time ago,” Gary says, changing the subject. Reminiscing always makes him uncomfortable—how does he explain to people what happened to his promising future, how does he square the present with the past, when he barely understands it himself? “I’m in snacks now. Ordering, stocking, and restocking beverages and crunchy, chewy, salty, and sweet nut and protein bars. It’s a low-pressure job. Relatively. Unless you run out of Kind bars right before the four o’clock rush.” He pauses, then lowers his voice to an intense whisper. “But I do miss playing sometimes. I went to hear a band last week and I was like, man, I want to do that again someday.”
“Last week?” I’m confused. “Before or after couples therapy?”
There’s an awkward silence.
“You guys go to couples therapy?” Teddy asks, inching into the living room.
Gary sighs. “Thanks, Judy.”
I turn to Teddy. “We just go once in a while. For maintenance. Like going to the gym.”
Teddy’s eyes narrow. “You guys fight all the time, so I don’t think it’s working.”
Everybody laughs, and Teddy’s face relaxes, brightens. Even adolescents love the power of cracking people up.
“We do not!” Gary says.
“You’re scaring the People Puppets, Teddy! Now they’re not going to want to stay here!” I turn to Nick and Phoebe. “We absolutely do not fight all the time, I swear! Plus we have a great dog!”
“We love dogs!” Phoebe says.
“Not that any dog care will be required, since, as you can see, I’ve got that covered.” I hug the dog through the cotton, then stick my hand inside the sling for a calming hit of fur. Yum.
“As you can see,” Gary says, “Judy wears the dog.”
Nick and Phoebe shrug inside their giant costumes. “That’s cool. That’s cool,” Nick says. “Everyone has their thing.”
“It’s a long story,” Gary explains, “which I’m sure Judy will eventually tell you—she tells everyone at some point.”
“Because I’ve worked past my shame.”
Gary nods. “Yes, she’s worked past her shame.”
“Shame was very big in my family.”
“Shame is big in everyone’s family, Judy.”
I ignore Gary. “I used to be embarrassed about the sling but I’m not anymore. This may not be who I am forever but it’s who I am right now.” I have no idea what I’m talking about. (“Professional social workers ‘meet people where they are’ and so should you: how self-acceptance is the secret sauce of self-help.”)
“We certainly hope it’s not who you are forever!” Gary says, elbowing me lightly.
“But it’s who I am right now,” I repeat. (“Looking for a life anthem? Edie Brickell FTW: ‘What I am is what I am.’”)
“Indeed it is.”
The bird on my head has a bird on its head, which I take as my cue to stand up and head toward the kitchen. “How about a house tour?”
* * *
I won’t lie: it feels strange to have giant costumed characters in our house, knowing they’ll soon take over the snoring room, which will force Gary and me to share a bedroom again, albeit temporarily. The sound of their hoof-shoes on the wood floors, the way the fabric of their oversize clothes catches on doors and stair banisters, how they need to bow their papier-mâché heads under light fixtures and entry moldings: it’s what I do all the time, too, I realize now. Maneuvering the sling in stairwells and around furniture, I’m always conscious of my width in tight spaces and squishing the sling when necessary—and this ability to navigate daily life encumbered by such a protrusion suddenly feels like an actual skill, one I could list on a résumé, which I should probably start sending out at some point to supplement the Well/er work. But for now I try to stop looking at them like they have birds on their heads, and try to remember instead why they’re here and why we’re doing this: for the money. And for
Glenn. And to move past our still point.
We all head toward the kitchen, but before I can even finish showing Phoebe our “open pantry” (which is really just a closet that was missing a door when we bought the house and which we never bothered to fix and ended up filling with makeshift shelving) and brag about our love of organic grains and commitment to #MeatlessMondays (in truth, we had just one vegetarian Monday) to help save the planet—all lies—Teddy peels off to go back upstairs, and the men—Gary and Nick—slip down the other stairs to the basement, where they will undoubtedly be up to no good in no time.
I raise an eyebrow to Phoebe. “I guess Gary is going to show Nick his etchings.”
Behind her I suddenly see the side of a giant box of Frosted Flakes, Gary and Teddy’s favorite, sticking out from behind a small prop-box of the ancient grain farro, its florid electric-blue packaging screaming ignorance and a complete and willful disregard for health and nutrition, and making me wonder yet again what kind of parent I am. I want to reach behind her head and cover it with the nearby box of polenta and two cans of pinto beans, which are probably expired, but there isn’t time, and if she caught me it would only make things worse. How would I possibly explain that I was pretending to swat at a nonexistent fly or clear away a nonexistent spiderweb because I was trying to hide some stupid highly processed food?
“Nick’s not gay, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she says, sweetly, without a trace of annoyance or rage, the two main emotion-molecules that make up most of everything I feel when I’m around people. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”