by Lamb, Wally
Independent of Viveca, I’m financially comfortable now—more than comfortable, actually, because of what collectors pay for my work. Well, independent of Viveca and independent because of her, too. My art is sold exclusively at her gallery, and I’m the featured artist on viveca.com. But I remember what it’s like to live a nickel-and-dime life. To count on waitressing tips—a couple of pounds of change per shift, plus dollar bills and the occasional five or ten. I doubt Hector would be putting on that gray doorman’s uniform and standing in the lobby every Saturday and Sunday if he didn’t need the extra income. Still, he’s always so good-natured. Hector may be the most noncynical New Yorker I’ve met in the four years I’ve lived here. . . . Unless it’s an act. Maybe that big, warm smile of his hides his resentment. “The service people aren’t your friends,” Viveca warned me once, shortly after I moved in here. “Nor do they want to be. Be respectful of that.”
One time? This was shortly after I began staying at Viveca’s but before we started sleeping together. A customer at viveca c—an investment banker—had just bought one of my pieces for thirty thousand dollars, and I was feeling so flush and free that I opened a window and tossed out a hundred-dollar bill. I watched it flutter end over end toward the street below, then looked away before it landed. I didn’t want to see anyone scrambling after it, or worse, two people fighting over it. I just wanted to imagine someone with a hard life happening by and getting a nice surprise. Picking it up and being on their way, a little less burdened because of that unexpected hundred-dollar bill.
I sit down at the table, unpeel a banana, and eat it while I work on the Sudoku puzzle I ripped out of yesterday’s paper. The Esclusivo Magnifica plays its little snatch of classical music, signaling that the coffee’s ready. I get up, grab a mug, pour, sip. Back in Connecticut, when Orion and I were first married, I’d reuse tea bags to economize. At the grocery store, I would buy whatever coffee was on sale that week: the store brand or Yuban or Chock full o’Nuts. Chock full o’Nuts is that heavenly coffee. Better coffee a millionaire’s money can’t buy. Ha! Guess again. This coffee from our high-priced machine is bracing and delicious. So shut up and enjoy it, Annie. You can’t have it both ways—live like this and resent it at the same time. Stop being such a goddamned hypocrite.
I give up on the Sudoku puzzle; this one’s too hard and I’m not that good at them in the first place. In fact, I stink. Numbers, logic: that’s never been my strong suit. On TV, Mario Cuomo’s son—the cute one, not the politician—is reading the news. I’m getting a yogurt out of the fridge when I hear him say something about Cape Cod. I look up. They’re showing footage of great white sharks cruising the water. Has Orion heard about this? He loves swimming in the ocean. I’d better call him. Mario’s son says that the Cape’s merchants and innkeepers are worried that this last hurrah of the tourist season will take a major hit during what’s already been an off year because of the bad economy.
You’ve reached the voice mail of Dr. Orion Oh. . . .
I don’t get it. Why hasn’t he changed his greeting yet? Orion left his practice at the university over a month ago, opting for early retirement—something I still don’t understand. Why would a workaholic do that so abruptly? And why, all of a sudden, does he want to sell the house after he was so adamant during the divorce negotiations about not selling it? About staying put whether I’d left or not.
If this is an emergency, please call . . .
I was shocked when Orion took Viveca up on her offer to use her beach house for his Cape Cod getaway. He’d refused at first, but then he changed his mind. Why? Whatever’s going on with him, I don’t think he’s shared it with the kids. I talked to all three of them this week, and none of them voiced any worry about their father. Has he met someone? No, that can’t be it. If he had, Marissa would have wormed it out of him and called me. Andrew and Ariane can keep a secret but not their little sister.
There’s a long, long beep, which means he hasn’t been picking up his messages. “Hey, there. It’s me,” I say. “Have you left for the Cape yet? I just wanted to tell you, in case you haven’t heard, that they’ve been spotting sharks up there. Be careful, okay? I hope you’re well. Call me.”
Marissa’s probably right. I should learn how to text-message. “Daddy hardly ever answers the phone, Mom. But whenever I text him, he texts me right back,” she told me yesterday. Well, good for her, but I’d prefer to talk to her father—to hear it in his voice that he’s doing okay. Or not. When you’ve been married to someone for as long as Orion and I were, you can hear in a conversation if something’s wrong—not so much in what’s said as the way it’s said. The inflections, the hesitations . . .
Is it the wedding? The fact that it will be in Three Rivers? Is that what’s bothering him? I didn’t want to not invite Orion. It’s doubtful that Andrew’s coming, but both of our girls will be there, and I know he’d like to see them. And Donald and Mimsy are driving up from Pennsylvania; Orion’s always liked my brother and his wife and he hasn’t seen them in ages. Still, I don’t want him to feel that he has to attend. Yesterday, Viveca’s assistant e-mailed me the list of who’s coming and who’s declined and apparently Orion hasn’t sent in his response card yet. . . . I was delighted, though, to see Mr. Agnello’s name on the list. I want to introduce Viveca to the man who validated my artistic efforts all those years ago when I was struggling against self-doubt, wondering if I should stop kidding myself and just give up. Mr. Agnello must be in his nineties by now. He and I have exchanged Christmas cards for twenty-something years, and when I didn’t get a card back from him this past Christmas, I was worried that he might have . . .
Is it because I’m marrying a woman? Is that why Orion hasn’t responded? He’s never been homophobic, but maybe this strikes too close to home. Bruises his male ego. That time when we met with the lawyers to negotiate the terms of the divorce, he’d already been drinking. I could smell it. And it wasn’t exactly the cocktail hour; it was 11:00 A.M. I’d wanted to say something to him about it after we left, but I didn’t. I was still trying to figure out what the new rules were about such things, now that we were almost divorced. The other day, I tried imagining what it would be like if the shoe was on the other foot—if he had left me for a man. It was a ridiculous exercise: picturing two hairy-chested men in bed with each other, one of them Orion. LOL, as Marissa would put it. LMFAO.
The truth, whether Orion believes it or not, is that I hadn’t left him for Viveca. I’d left him for New York—for the opportunities it offered me, creatively and commercially. What developed between Viveca and me had been unplanned, unpremeditated. . . .
My “defection,” Orion had called it on that awful Sunday back in Connecticut when I finally admitted that Viveca and I had become involved, that I’d fallen in love with her. I was “a Judas,” he said. I could get my own goddamned ride back to the train station, because he sure as hell wasn’t taking me there. He was through with being “a fucking sap.” I’d had to hire a cab to New Haven, and on the train ride back to the city, I’d kept replaying our argument. If I was Judas, then that made him Jesus Christ, right? Well, maybe he should come down from his cross and take some of the responsibility for the fact that our marriage had failed. Which of us had practically raised Andrew and the girls single-handedly all those years when he’d leave for work early and come home late? Sit in his office all day and into the evening, counseling college kids about their problems? What about my problems? What about the fact that I felt frustrated and neglected all those years while he was playing savior to those troubled students of his and then coming home and feeling sorry for himself because of the toll they took? Drinking his beers and falling asleep by nine when I still had laundry to fold and put away, and three school lunches to make for the next morning, before I could go down to my gloomy little studio and grab a measly hour or two for my work.
Thank god the bitterness has subsided on both our parts. We have our kids to thank for that and our mutual investment in their lives, our shared
worries about their unhappiness and their safety: Ariane’s failed romances, our worries about where Andrew’s military career might take him, where Marissa’s impetuousness might take her. Our concern for our kids’ well-being binds us despite our divorce. Will always bind us. And he’s come around, made an effort with Viveca despite the fact that I can tell he doesn’t like her. . . . Whether Viveca understands it or not, I still care about Orion, which is why I’m worried about him. Why, maybe, I shouldn’t have put his name on the guest list—made the decision myself instead of listening to Marissa’s “Daddy’s an adult, Mom. He can decide if he wants to go or not.” The last thing I want to do is make him feel he has to come if it will be too weird or too painful for him. . . .
I don’t know. Marriage, parenting, divorce: it’s a complicated equation, but there’s no sense in pretending that we don’t still have feelings for each other, no matter who failed who. Or is it “whom”? Fifty-two years old and I still don’t know the difference. What mistake had I made that time when Marissa, in the middle of her bratty teenage phase, called me on my bad grammar? “Her and I”: that was it. Ariane and I were making supper, and Marissa was leaning against the counter, trying as hard as she could to annoy me. And I was doing everything I could to show her that she couldn’t get my goat. But when I happened to mention that I’d run into Ruth Stanley at the post office, and that “her and I” hadn’t seen each other in ages, Marissa felt obliged to let me know how stupid I was. “It’s she and I, Mother.” Whenever she was mad at me back then—which was most of the time—I was “Mother” instead of “Mom” or “Mama.” She went on to inform me that the way I murdered the English language embarrassed her in front of her friends, and so when they came over, would I please do her a favor and not speak to them? Well, that hit a nerve. I burst into tears, furious with myself for letting her see me cry. But then Ari had jumped to my defense. Had turned to her little sister and demanded that Marissa apologize to me. She did it, too. Ariane’s easygoing for the most part, but she can be fierce in the face of injustice. I’ve often thought she would have made a good lawyer. In the wake of Marissa’s remark, I’d gone out and bought one of those Dummies books on grammar. I studied it, spoke self-consciously for a while. I’m pretty sure it’s no matter who failed whom, now that I think about it, although I don’t remember why. . . .
Orion and Viveca have that much in common, at least: their intelligence and good educations, the way they know how to say things correctly without having to think about it. Viveca’s fluent in three languages, and he used to do the Times crossword puzzles in pen. Complete them most Sundays. Odd how they both got mixed up with me, the girl with three years of high school and a G.E.D. It’s funny. In all the years Orion and I were together, I can’t remember him ever correcting me. And the only reference Viveca’s ever made was that time, shortly after I started living here, when she kissed me on the forehead and called me her “Eliza Dolittle.” Do little: I’d assumed she was implying that I didn’t help enough around the apartment. But later that same day when she came in and I was running the vacuum, she pulled the plug and reminded me that that was Minnie’s job. It wasn’t until weeks later, when they were showing My Fair Lady on the old movie channel, that I finally got it: in Viveca’s mind, I was unschooled Audrey Hepburn to her upper-class Rex Harrison. It was what that marriage counselor Orion and I went to that time called “ouch moments”: when your spouse said something that felt hurtful. You were supposed to speak up immediately, let them know. I never called Viveca on what she’d said, though. It was weeks after the fact, and she probably wouldn’t have even remembered making the comment. And anyway, Viveca’s never corrected my grammar, either. She probably just cringes in silence whenever I make a mistake. Maybe that was what Orion did all those years, too. . . . That day when Ariane jumped to my defense after Marissa embarrassed me, I invited my A+ daughter to let me know whenever I said something wrong. I knew she’d be gentle about it. Clue me in privately. But Ariane never took me up on it. She was not only the best student of my three, but the kindest, too—more compassionate than either her twin brother or her little sister. She has her father’s temperament, his need to help others. Which is probably why she’s a soup kitchen manager, not a lawyer. She and her father have always been close. Ariane is Daddy’s girl. When I told her that morning that we were getting a divorce, she was immediately defensive on Orion’s behalf, and that was before I told her the reason why I was divorcing him. My god, when I did tell her, she was furious with me. But she came around, started speaking to me again soon enough. My mother is leaving my father because she’s in love with a woman, she must have decided. It is what it is. . . .
When I called Ari yesterday to let her know I wanted to pay for her flight in from California for the wedding, she said, “No, no, Mama. You don’t have to do that.” But I want to. I appreciate her making the effort. San Francisco to Boston: how much would that cost? Four hundred dollars? Five hundred? She can’t afford that. Not on whatever she makes managing that food bank out there. Her annual income is probably less than what Marissa makes on the residuals from that insurance commercial she’s in. That thing runs so often: Marissa as a newlywed shopping with her “husband” for insurance from that blissed-out saleswoman with the headband and the big hair. How much must that actress make? She’s on TV all the time, on the radio, in pop-up ads on the Internet. She always acts so hyped-up about the insurance she’s selling, it’s as if she’s taken amphetamines or something. I’m just going to write Ariane a check and send it to her, no matter how much she protests.
I offered to pay for Andrew’s and his fiancée’s flights up from Texas, too, but he says he doubts they’ll come. Can’t spare the time. It bothered me that he said it with such disdain. I told him I was looking forward to meeting his bride-to-be but that I understood, of course. Still, I got the message: he doesn’t approve of my marrying Viveca. I’m just not sure if he’s resentful on behalf of his father, his gender, or his newfound religious conservatism.
Of my three kids, Andrew was the least likely, I would have figured, to embrace evangelical Christianity. On the contrary, he was always the one most likely to break the rules if not the Commandments—the only one of the three his father and I ever had to sit in court with. The marijuana arrest, the shoplifting arrest, the time he and his high school pals got drunk and spray-painted those school buses. And then, at the beginning of his senior year, those hijacked planes hit the Twin Towers, and it changed him. I can still see him, glued to the TV on that awful day, tears running down his face. When he started in about how he wanted to be part of America’s response, it had frightened me.
I begged Andrew not to go into the military. Said all the wrong things. Argued that all those stupid Rambo movies he had grown up watching were all just macho Hollywood bullshit. But Orion was wonderful. He calmed me down, reminded me that the last thing we should do was make our son defensive. He was eighteen, after all; he didn’t need our permission to enlist. Then Orion had gone online. Had gone downtown and talked to that recruiter. Armed with the information he had gathered, he had approached Andrew with that measured, logical way of his. Explained to him that if he went to college, got his degree, and still wanted to serve, he could enter as a second lieutenant and be eligible for Officer Candidate School. And so Andrew had gone off to school instead of off to war. . . . It was that goddamned organic chemistry class he was taking junior year in college that had wrecked everything. Filled him with self-doubt every time he flunked a quiz. That, and the fact that the girl he’d been dating since his freshman year had broken up with him. He hadn’t even told us he’d withdrawn from school and enlisted until two weeks before he was due to report for basic training. Well, at least he finished up his degree after he enlisted. Took care of that piece of unfinished business. . .
Now he’s found his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And my guess is that the god he’s pledged himself to frowns upon gay marriage. When Ariane sent me the link to the newspaper
article about Andrew’s engagement, it became obvious, more or less. Mr. and Mrs. Branch Commerford of Waco are pleased to announce the engagement of their daughter, Casey-Lee, to Mr. Andrew Oh, son of Dr. and Mrs. Orion Oh of Three Rivers, Connecticut. Orion’s and my divorce was finalized almost a year ago, and I haven’t lived in Three Rivers for the last four. Either Andrew is in denial or he’s lying to his in-laws and his bride-to-be. She’s a pretty little thing, a petite blonde. Casey-Lee: it’s a beauty contestant name. Somewhere along the way, I read or heard that Texas has had more Miss Americas than any other state. And those parents’ names—Branch and Erlene. Erlene: I’d bet any amount of money that she’s got big hair. There’s a brother that Marissa says everyone calls Little Branch. Big Branch and Little Branch: good god. Well, if Andrew needs to hide the fact that I’m marrying Viveca, I guess I can be discreet about it. But when they get married, I’m not about to fly down there and pretend that his father and I are still Mr. and Mrs. If I’m even invited to the wedding, that is. Maybe I’ll be expected to stay away, stay under wraps. What was that book they had us read in high school—the one where the crazy wife was locked upstairs in the attic? . . .
It’s ironic, really, that my son now seems to have an aversion to lesbians. He sure was curious about them when he was in high school. I remember that time when, after I’d told him a hundred times to go upstairs and clean his pigsty of a bedroom and heard “I will, Mom. . . . I’m gonna” that I finally gave up. Decided to go up there and do the job myself. And I did—with a vengeance. Filled up three big garbage bags with crap that I was going to throw out, whether he liked it or not. I was a woman on a mission. And when I went to flip his mattress, I discovered his stash of dirty magazines and all those gym socks that never seemed to make it into the hamper, most of them stiff with I-knew-what. . . . I didn’t much mind the Playboys and Penthouses. Half the teenage boys in America had those hidden away, I figured. But one of his socks was stuck to the cover of a magazine called Girl on Girl. I’d stood there, flipping through it—looking at all those hideous pictures of women having sex with cucumbers and other women wearing strap-on dildos. Fake sex, it was obvious to me, although it probably wasn’t to Andrew. They all had freakishly big breasts, and one of them, I remember, had areolas as big as the rubber jar opener down in our kitchen drawer. They all looked drugged. In the photo that infuriated me the most, two women were wearing nothing but cowboy hats and holsters cinched around their hips, and one was inserting the barrel of a gun into the other’s vagina. I flipped when I saw that one! Marched downstairs and out to the garage where Andrew was fiddling with the gears of his ten-speed. “Where did this come from?” I demanded, and when he saw what I was holding in my hand, even his ears turned red. He told me a kid in his homeroom had shoved it in his backpack without him knowing it. “Baloney!” I said. “You listen to me, young man. And look me in the eye, too.” I waited until he did. “Whoever took these pictures, and whoever publishes this garbage, is committing violence against women. You got that? And whoever’s looking at it is guilty, too. You have two sisters, Andrew. This junk is an assault on them and me and every other woman, including the ones in this picture.” He mumbled something that I didn’t catch. “What? I didn’t hear you. What did you say?”