Amanda Bright @ Home

by Danielle Crittenden

  “Do I look okay?” she asked him.

  “Hmm?”

  “Do I look okay?”

  He paused his highlighter pen. “Don’t you feel well?”

  “I don’t mean that. I mean, do I look—do you still find me—attractive?”

  Bob adjusted his expression to one of lawyerly inscrutability, as he always did when he suspected Amanda of asking him a trick question. “Of course. Why do you ask?”

  “Really. I want to know.”

  The files were whizzing behind Bob’s eyes as his brain searched for the correct answer.

  “I think you look beautiful,” he said, not altogether convincingly. “I always have. Really.”

  She laid her head upon his prickly chest. She heard him sigh and place his papers on the bedside table. He draped his arm across her.

  “What’s bothering you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Have I done something to make you think I don’t think you’re attractive?”

  “No—”

  “Then why do you ask?”

  “Because—” It seemed too humiliating to explain.

  “Because?”

  “Because I just looked at myself in the mirror, and, I don’t know, I look older.”

  “You are older. But then, so am I.”

  “With men it doesn’t matter.”

  “With you it doesn’t matter.” Bob grasped her chin and forced her to look at him. “Christ, Amanda, you’re still young. Your face looks the same as the day we met.”

  “And the rest of me?”

  “So you’ve had two children. So you’re a bit fuller. It doesn’t make you less attractive.”

  But I will get older and less attractive. Then what?

  She got up to brush her teeth.

  “Are you coming to bed?” he asked. He sounded hopeful.

  “In a minute.”

  In the mirror above the sink, Amanda saw a drab woman with blue ditches under her eyes, a brush listlessly marking time between bared lips. She spat and turned away.

  Bob was waiting for her. She could sense his eagerness across the room. How long had it been? She couldn’t remember exactly—a couple of weeks, maybe. Admittedly, making love to Bob these days felt like one more thing she had to cross off her to-do list.

  On the dresser lay a candle and a book of matches. Her fingers moved toward them, hesitated, and then flicked off the lights instead. As she made her way to the bed in darkness, she experienced again that dizzying feeling of stepping upon a wire with nothing below to catch her if she fell.

  Chapter Six

  “I NEARLY FORGOT,” Bob called out the next morning, while descending the stairs. “Are we free next Thursday?”

  Amanda was nagging the children to put their shoes on.

  “Gee, let me think.” She placed her index finger on her chin. “Monday—you’ll be working late. Tuesday—you’ll be working late. Wednesday—you’ll be working late. Thursday—I don’t know. Are you planning on working late?”

  “Okay, okay.” Bob took a sip from a mug of tepid coffee waiting for him. “You won’t be sarcastic when I tell you this. We’re invited to a cocktail party at Jack Chasen’s house. Do you want to go?”

  Amanda blinked. “Jack Chasen?”

  “Yes—you know, he’s the CEO of TalkNet.”

  “Yes, I know. We’re invited to Jack Chasen’s house—and you almost forgot to tell me?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said sheepishly. “It was a busy day.”

  She sat down on the hall floor to help Ben with his sneakers. “Good God, Bob, how are we supposed to go to that? We won’t know anyone there.”

  “We don’t have to go. I thought it might be fun. Chasen’s a down-to-earth guy. I’ve been dealing with him a lot lately, and he just asked.”

  Amanda pounded at the heel of Ben’s shoe until it slipped onto his right foot, and started on the second.

  “I have nothing to wear.”

  “So go buy yourself something.”

  Amanda looked at him skeptically. “With what?”

  “We can afford a dress, for God’s sake.”

  “Not the kind those women wear.”

  “You’re not those women. You don’t have to compete with them. Anyway, it’s just a cocktail party.”

  She raised herself, sighing, and said, “Ben, Sophie, get your backpacks. It’s time to leave. You’ll make Daddy late.”

  Bob handed Amanda his mug and hustled the children toward the front door.

  “Look, think about it, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “What are you up to today?”

  “I have that appointment with Ben’s teacher.”

  “Oh yes.” He kissed her quickly. “I’m sorry to miss it. Let me know how it goes.”

  Ben’s teacher, Ms. Burley (“That’s Ms. not Miss”), was the sort of person with whom it was impossible to have a light exchange of pleasantries. A quick hello might be greeted with, “Ben forgot to bring in his coins for math again yesterday.” A fast dash into the classroom to deliver a forgotten lunchbox could provoke a five-minute discourse on personal responsibility. Amanda wasn’t her only victim: Ms. Burley regarded parents generally as barriers to education. On the first parents’ night, shortly after the term began in September, Ms. Burley had lectured the assembled adults on such matters as the correct tools for learning (“pencil cases must be twelve inches by four inches—nothing else will be considered acceptable”) to instilling proper work habits in nursery students (“this year the children will receive a minimum of thirty minutes of homework per evening—this will prepare them for the increased workload they will face in kindergarten”). The ideal parent, Ms. Burley noted, perceived learning opportunities in every daily activity. Bath time offered “the perfect chance to demonstrate specific gravity, using simple toys that sink or float.” A walk through the neighborhood could easily be turned into “an exercise for identifying grid patterns.” Cooking dinner was, of course, basic chemistry. To prevent slacking, Ms. Burley would send a “suggested” exercise home every day for parents to complete with their children, such as counting all the clocks in the house or adding up the change at the bottom of Mommy’s purse. Amanda was dubious of the benefit of these exercises to Ben, but she was certain they accomplished Ms. Burley’s main objective, which was to make a mother feel that however much she was already doing for her children, it was still hopelessly inadequate.

  Amanda entered Ms. Burley’s classroom that morning at the agreed-upon time. The room was dark; the children had gone to recess and the lights were switched off. Amanda thought she might have made a mistake—maybe the appointment was the next day—but a rustle behind an open supply cabinet indicated the presence of Ms. Burley.

  “Come in, come in,” the teacher said, emerging with a sheaf of papers. “I’m here.”

  Physically, Ms. Burley was unprepossessing. She was slight and short and dressed in the dowdy but practical clothing of a nursery school teacher—baggy blouse, leggings, and scuffed leather flats. Her personality expressed itself in the sharpness of her movements and the permanent expression of dismay pinched upon her face.

  “The lights were off—I wasn’t sure.”

  “I don’t believe in wasting power. We can see well enough. Please sit down.” Ms. Burley invited Amanda to pull up a child’s chair that was three sizes too small for her. She settled herself in the upholstered swivel chair behind her desk.

  “I want you to look at these.” Ms. Burley handed Amanda a stack of Ben’s crayon pictures.

  “Oh yes, he loves drawing.”

  “I can see that. Just look at them closely.”

  The first picture showed some childishly scrawled airplanes with bright orange and yellow explosions bursting around them. Ben had labeled the drawing “WW1.” Amanda turned to the next one, which was similar, except that it was labeled in the same uneven writing “WW2.” Continuing through the stack, Amanda came across “WW3,” “WW4,” and “WW5.” Thi
s last was especially bloody, with little stick figures strewn on the ground, red crayon spurting from them. Amanda placed the pictures back on Ms. Burley’s desk.

  “So, what do you think?” Ms. Burley asked her.

  “Ben’s an optimist?” Amanda said, hoping to elicit a smile from Ms. Burley.

  “That’s not what I think,” the teacher replied sternly. “I think what we have here is a troubled boy showing early signs of an obsession with violence.”

  Amanda frowned. “I—I don’t think that’s right. I wouldn’t say that Ben is ‘obsessed’ with violence—”

  “Then how do you explain these drawings? And it’s not just the drawings.” Ms. Burley waved her hand in exasperation. “There is not an object in this room that Ben has not at some point turned into a weapon. Last week it was the blackboard eraser.”

  “I don’t know. I can’t explain it.” Amanda picked up one of the drawings to study it again. “We certainly don’t encourage violence at home.”

  And this was true. She and Bob did not allow what they called “war toys” in the house. The only exception to this rule was a plastic figure of General George Patton in his cavalry uniform, equipped with two miniature pearl-handled revolvers, a gift from Bob’s father last Christmas. Amanda had immediately reproached her father-in-law for the present. “You know how we feel about guns,” she had said. “We don’t want Ben growing up to be a criminal.” “Or a war hero,” the old man had muttered under his breath. Ben, who understood at once that this was exactly the kind of toy his parents would never permit him to own, ripped it from its cardboard wrapping and kept constant watch over it, lest it “vanish” like the last Christmas present his grandparents had bought for him: a commando costume complete with a machine gun that lit up and made electronic zapping noises when fired.

  “I’m not suggesting you encourage violence,” Ms. Burley was saying. “What I’m wondering is, are there problems at home?”

  “No—”

  “Any changes recently? Upheavals?”

  “Look, I really don’t think Ben’s behavior is that unusual—for a boy, I mean. Perhaps it’s because his grandfather is a veteran; Ben likes to hear him tell stories, and maybe these pictures just reflect a—a historical interest in war, like a lot of boys have …”

  “We needn’t revert to sexist stereotypes to see that Ben has a problem. The other boys don’t engage in this obsession.”

  “Ben’s best friend—Austen Saunders—likes that sort of play. They’re always shooting at each other! I put a stop to it, of course—”

  “It would be improper for me to comment on other children in the class,” the teacher replied stiffly. “But let me put it this way: I haven’t had to call in any other mother to discuss a similar problem. Other mothers, however, have called in to complain about Ben.”

  Amanda suddenly felt her gut shrivel up. Oh, why had Bob not been able to join her at this meeting?

  “I want this addressed before we promote Ben to kindergarten,” Ms. Burley continued ominously. “It would be very tough on him if he couldn’t be promoted with his friends.”

  “I see.” Amanda searched her brain for another line of defense but couldn’t find one. “What do you suggest?”

  “Well, before school ends for the summer, I’d like him to attend a few sessions with our guidance counselor. With your permission, of course. Dr. Koenig is excellent at dealing with these kinds of problems.”

  “I think—”

  They were interrupted by the yells and laughter of the class returning from recess. Ben saw his mother from the hall. With a whoop of excitement, he yelled, “Attack!” dived into the room, and rolled across the floor to her feet.

  “—that would be fine,” Amanda finished.

  Ms. Burley pursed her lips. “Good. I’ll tell Dr. Koenig. She will call you.”

  Amanda extricated herself from Ben’s grasp and led him to his desk.

  “I’ll see you later,” she whispered, ruffling his hair.

  There was no time to get home before Sophie’s dismissal so Amanda lingered in the lobby, brooding over this latest condemnation of Ben.

  The front doors squeaked open and slammed. Their echo carried down the empty corridor. Only gradually did Amanda become aware of another presence. The “at-home dad” was hovering near her. His usually squalling toddler was fast asleep in his stroller.

  “Hey, Amanda.”

  “Hey, Alan.”

  “What’s up? You seem—kind of upset.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “You look as if the Republicans have started drilling for oil in Rock Creek Park.”

  He sat down in his usual place on the floor, shifting to give her room beside him.

  “I’ve just come from speaking to Ben’s teacher.”

  “Oh. That’s always fun.”

  “Yeah, like dental surgery, right? Especially with Burley. Wait till you get her. She thinks Ben is too—” Amanda couldn’t bear to use the word violent so instead she said, “robust.”

  “Huh.” The father’s huh was not uttered with the astonishment Amanda expected; Ben’s reputation had apparently extended into the lower reaches of the nursery school as well.

  “I just don’t understand it,” Amanda went on. “At home Ben is so sweet. He plays for hours with his sister. They barely ever fight.”

  The father stretched out his legs and idly rocked the stroller with one foot. “That’s one of the problems with this school,” he said slowly. “They’re always trying to put your kid into some sort of box. But I tell myself, that’s the world, right? The world is always trying to put you into some sort of box, and you may as well learn early on how to fight your way out of it.”

  His burst of bitter profundity surprised Amanda, and she glanced at him sideways, uncertain how seriously he meant to be taken. He was still staring straight ahead, but his expression was not angry; it was bemused—as if life were always dealing him predictable blows. Her eyes lingered on him for a moment more—she hadn’t ever really taken him in like this; they had always conversed hurriedly, among the other waiting mothers, their attention half focused on the stairwell—

  “I suppose you must encounter that mentality all the time—being an ‘at-home dad,’” Amanda suggested.

  “Yeah. Actually, I’m a playwright, not that anyone ever bothers to find out. I work at home because it’s more convenient and economical, and sure, I can watch Dylan while Lisa’s at the office. But it’s difficult—Nabokov warned of the perils of the pram in the hallway …”

  “Are you able to get much writing done?”

  “I work during Dylan’s nap and again late at night. Right now I have a play being workshopped in Maryland. Fortunately they rehearse on weekends.”

  “That’s great.” It didn’t sound promising, but still, it was something creative, something Amanda couldn’t even imagine accomplishing herself. Guiltily, she recognized that she, too, had succumbed to boxlike thinking in regard to Alan. No matter how much she endorsed the idea of a father at home, when confronted with a fortyish unshaven man in tennis shoes and jeans pushing a stroller, Amanda could not help but think: Loser. She corrected her opinion now. Alan’s scruffiness was his defiance of convention, his way of expressing his artistic integrity. For the first time she appreciated, in the sinews of his arms, in the sweat faintly spotting his T-shirt, that as well as being an attentive father, he was also very much a man.

  “What’s your play about?”

  “You know, you’re the first person here to ever ask me that?” Alan said, impressed. “I’ve sat here and chatted with dozens of mothers and we’ve never gotten beyond school stuff.” He lowered his voice, for the mothers he referred to were beginning to arrive and collect around them.

  “My play,” he went on, almost whispering and causing Amanda to lean closer, “challenges exactly these kinds of stereotypes. My protagonist is a homeless man who is not really homeless. He’s a young man who comes from inherited wealth and con
tracts AIDS. His family rejects him. He rejects them in return and everything they represent. He spends the last months of his life on a journey through the streets, defying the preconceived ideas we have about the homeless and people with AIDS.”

  “That sounds—really good.”

  “It’s coming together okay,” Alan replied modestly. “My last play was put on by the downtown Y. It was about—well, it’s hard to sum it up in a nutshell, but basically it addressed gender issues through the eyes of a transsexual prostitute. The Warner was thinking about producing it for its ‘New Playwrights’ series but I think they found it too challenging.”

  “I’d love to see your play.”

  “I’ll invite you to the opening.”

  The bell rang and they stood, smiling at each other.

  “Sometime we should have a coffee together. It’s good to get out and, you know, talk to other adults,” Alan said, giving his sleeping baby an accusing look. “And you tell Ben to keep being—what was it?—robust. All he’s doing is breaking out of the box.”

  Amanda touched his shoulder. “Thanks.”

  “Are you feeling okay now?”

  “Yes—way better.”

  “That’s good—although I like seeing you angry. There’s fire in you, too.”

  Chapter Seven

  THE HOUSE EVEN had a name: “Merrymount.”

  The car wheels crunched to a stop in the raked gravel. They were greeted by three valets in tuxedos.

  “Good evening, sir,” said the first, accepting Bob’s keys. The second waited patiently for Amanda to unlock her door so he could open it, and bowed slightly as she emerged. The third handed Bob a claim ticket. None registered the slightest reaction to their car. It was driven a few feet away to join a line of BMWs, Porsches, and Mercedes parked in front of a six-door garage.

  Bob and Amanda gazed up at the house. Its imposing facade of new orange brick was an opulent jumble of architectural styles, as if the owner had decided he could afford everything: Georgian roof, neoclassical pillars, Palladian windows. A row of perfectly symmetrical boxwoods stood sentry by the porch. All natural foliage seemed to have been banished to the rear of the house.