Amanda Bright @ Home

by Danielle Crittenden

  “Bob and I don’t really discuss—those things.”

  “Anyway, he’s taking me to Sonoma,” Susie continued, naming a chic restaurant of the moment. “Fabulous, huh?”

  “Fabulous.” Susie had dated rich men before, but Amanda believed this was her first billionaire. Also, possibly, her first date with a man nearly twice her age.

  “How old is he by the way?”

  “I’m not sure. Sixty, maybe sixty-one.”

  “That old?”

  “He looks and acts about ten years younger,” Susie said defensively. “Besides, his jet is young—brand-new in fact.”

  “Susie!”

  “I’m joking.”

  “Well, he did seem nice.”

  “Yeah, a happy contrast to Brad. Jim liked you, too. He really admires what you’re doing—being at home and all that. He said he knows how tough it can be. His own wife did it.”

  “What happened to her?” Amanda asked, with suspicion.

  “I read somewhere that they split. A profile in some business magazine. She sounded like a real starter wife. You know—girl he met in college, raised the kids, ran the house, but couldn’t keep up with him when he became a big success.”

  Starter wife! Amanda hung up the phone. At times Susie could have the opposite effect of an alchemist: she had a way of taking whatever humble piece of gold Amanda possessed and transforming it into cheap metal.

  Amanda nearly tripped over Sophie, who had grown bored with her family of forks and was lying on the floor again, coloring Amanda’s shopping list. Amanda finished unloading the dishwasher and leaned against the counter, looking around at what to do next. What had she been going to do today anyway? Put in some laundry, book dentist appointments, run to the grocery store. But it was nearly lunchtime, the kids were home early, and … it had all gotten away from her again. Maybe Bob was right—maybe she was getting hopeless.

  Amanda wanted to call him at work and tell him about Ben. Normally it would have been the first thing she did when she got home. But given the friction between them, she didn’t dare. Whenever they were at war with each other, Bob would treat her like a potential plaintiff at the scene of an accident. His manner grew stiff, hypercorrect, almost courtly, as if he were determined to say or do nothing that could further a claim against him. Would you like me to take out the garbage or shall I leave it where it is? Will you be saving dinner for me or should I plan to pick up something at work? Thank you, but I’m happy to get coffee for myself. His behavior would only provoke Amanda further, and that morning she had found herself slamming his coffee down on the table with a belligerent “It’s Friday, so obviously you should take out the garbage.” He took a sip from his mug and replied calmly, “Fine. I will.”

  Amanda sighed. She felt completely alone on her little island of problems. What had Liz said? Her friend’s words came back like a mantra: Own it, own it, just own it.

  Amanda left Sophie coloring to inspect her living room. God, how had she let it get this bad? The layers of toys, papers, pens, and books resembled geological strata, dating as far back as a year ago. How often had she passed by that half-clothed Barbie doll on the mantel or the monster puppet under the wicker chair and made a mental note to herself to put them away? The puppet’s ghoulish grin seemed to mock her: Ha! Ha! I’m still here! Then there was the stack of magazines and catalogs she had been meaning to go through. Amanda checked the date of one at the bottom—a catalog selling, what else, useful containers to organize things. It dated from last summer. She flipped through its pages—gorgeous photographs of exquisitely arranged rooms—lingering over its descriptions of woven willow baskets “lined with French cotton toile, perfect for fruit or soap,” “stainless-steel apothecary cabinets,” and “heirloom-quality, hand-painted toy chests.” Amanda paused over a display of decorative brass hooks in the shape of bees and sunflowers, upon which to hang “a straw boater or perhaps a bouquet of dried lavender.” Amanda had never possessed a straw boater or bouquet of dried lavender, but she felt suddenly that she ought to possess such things or at least be the sort of person who would.

  Was this what Liz meant? Surely not. Liz had been pushing her to value the more mundane aspects of housekeeping. The catalog made tidying up seem like modern design work, while Liz could lecture for a quarter hour on the lost “art” of scrubbing. Amanda preferred the catalog’s view, but sympathized with Liz—the ability to “keep house” did seem as vanished a skill as candle making or butter churning. Aside from spraying surfaces with cleanser, Amanda did not actually know how to “clean.” Her mother knew: Amanda had occasionally overheard her directing the housekeeper to use vinegar on the tile or instructing on how to remove grape juice stains from one of Amanda’s blouses. But Ellie Bright had not passed this knowledge on to her daughter. Indeed, it was knowledge her mother seemed vaguely embarrassed about possessing, something she once dismissed with the comment, “Women of my generation were expected to know these things, but that was all that was expected of us.”

  So long as Amanda had employed a housekeeper herself, her ignorance didn’t matter. The woman arrived every Friday morning while Amanda was at work. She brought her own tools and colorful bottles of solutions with her, like some primitive shaman. After she worked her magic upon the linoleum and wood surfaces, they shone for days with a brilliance Amanda was never able to replicate. Amanda did not bother to find out how the woman did it. She treated chores as things to be “gotten through” in order to have time for more meaningful pursuits, such as taking the children to the park or teaching Ben to read. She took her mother’s attitude that this kind of work held no value—its worth could not be calculated in dollars and cents. Its very nature was as evanescent as footprints along breaking surf: the progress she made one day was gone by the next. Floors needed mopping again, counters wiping, beds making. Every day dumped fresh flotsam at her feet—another load of dirty laundry, another basket of ironing, another child’s knapsack full of papers to be sorted and filed.

  Maybe, Amanda thought as she bundled up the magazines and catalogs, maybe the very value of housework lay in its seemingly pointless repetition. The ceaseless cycle of chores created the rhythmic tide of a home. The small act of making lunch every day for Sophie, as trivial as it might seem to Amanda, was for her daughter an event of ritualistic importance. The little girl carried the plates to the table. She set out two forks, “one for me, one for Mommy.” She carefully folded the paper towels Amanda used as napkins into neat triangles.

  The menu rarely changed: buttered pasta noodles with carrot or celery sticks on the side. Sometimes Sophie requested a sandwich, but she seemed to prefer eating the same meal day after day, not because she loved it especially, but because of its certainty. The noodles arrived as predictably as high tide. They were as essential in conveying to Sophie the fundamental stability of her world as Amanda’s presence in her school lobby every noon or the lullaby Amanda had sung to her every bedtime since Sophie was born. When Amanda reflected upon her own childhood, her happiest memories settled on the bowl of tomato soup and the grilled cheese sandwich her mother had prepared for her at lunchtime for seven years—until Amanda’s parents divorced and her mother decided that cooking regular meals was no longer part of her job description. The housekeeper took over, and the soup and grilled cheese never tasted quite the same again.

  Amanda carried the papers to the recycling box and switched on a pot of water. She admired Sophie’s finished picture, and called Ben down to lunch. After they had finished eating, Amanda proposed an idea—that the three of them tidy the whole house together.

  “You can do your toys, Ben,” she said before he could protest. “Pretend you’re a general, and the toys are soldiers, and you have to ready them for battle. Sophie, you can help Mommy downstairs.”

  She put her daughter in charge of organizing the pot cupboards in the kitchen. Sophie took to the work with zeal, using a tea towel as an apron. Amanda, meanwhile, brought a box of green garbage bags in
to the living room and began ruthlessly dividing the junk into piles to be kept or thrown away. An hour later, she had amassed four bulging sacks of trash and created a reasonably civilized-looking sitting area. Ben had finished his task and begged to try the vacuum, which was now whirring overhead. Sophie was making soapy swirls with a sponge on the kitchen floor. Amanda moved on to the other rooms. As late afternoon approached and the bags collected outside by the trash, the house felt pounds lighter, as if it had gone on a superdiet, and Amanda’s mood had improved as well. She realized how much the clutter had been preying upon her subconscious, how much it had lurked in the periphery of her vision, encroaching upon her mood. She might even have time to make a proper dinner.

  “Come with Mommy,” Amanda said, fetching Sophie, who had unspooled the paper towels and was using them to shine the front of the fridge. “We’re all going to the store.”

  “I’m almost finithed,” the little girl replied, brimming with self-importance. “We being mommieth today, right?”

  “Oh, mommies do other things too, sweetie,” Amanda said reflexively. “Great big important things like … fly airplanes, run for president, and …”

  Sophie gazed up at her.

  “… clean the kitchen.”

  At the supermarket, Amanda bought chicken, broccoli, and a box of couscous—items she knew how to cook. Impulsively she threw in a package of scented candles and capitulated to Sophie’s demand for some wilted, plastic-wrapped marigolds to make the table look “pwetty” and Ben’s counterdemand for chocolate cupcakes for dessert.

  Back home, Amanda found the recipe she had clipped from the Sunday Times—one that she’d been meaning to make for weeks. It was nothing fancy, just breasts of chicken marinated in lemon, oil, and oregano and baked in the oven. Amanda fished out the flowers from the shopping bag.

  “Do you want to put these in a vase for Mommy, sweetie?”

  The little girl eagerly arranged the marigolds in a small chipped vase that Bob and Amanda had been given as a wedding present. While the chicken soaked in its herbal bath, Amanda asked Sophie to set out mats on the dining room table and place the flowers in the center.

  Amanda was just turning down the couscous when she heard Bob’s key in the front door. His voice called out “Hello!” and then muttered, with surprise, “Jeez!” Amanda’s anger had subsided, but she didn’t rush to greet him.

  The children came running downstairs.

  “Do you like what we did, Daddy?”

  “I thet the table!”

  Bob’s footsteps followed the children into the dining room.

  “Wow, look at this place! Are we eating in here tonight?”

  “Mommy wanted to.”

  “Where is Mommy?”

  “In the kitchen. Cooking dinner.”

  Bob poked his head through the dining room door.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi,” she returned, checking the couscous.

  He entered and poured himself a drink.

  “Would you like one?”

  “I don’t like Scotch.”

  “I could open some wine.”

  “I’ll have some with dinner, thanks. Not yet.”

  “What are we having?”

  “Chicken.”

  “Mmm.”

  Bob busied himself with uncorking a bottle of wine and filling a bucket with ice. Amanda kept her back to him, ostensibly monitoring the pots on the stove. She was sick of fighting but felt Bob should be the first to make amends.

  “You’ve been busy today, I see.”

  She didn’t like the way he said that—with a hint of smugness, as if she had spent her day cleaning to atone to him for the night before.

  “I had some extra time.” She shrugged. “Ben came home early.”

  Amanda had not meant to introduce the topic of Ben yet—not until they were on better terms—but there, it had slipped out, and frankly, she wasn’t altogether sorry. Don’t think you’re the only one who’s had a long, tense day.

  “Ben? Why was Ben home early?”

  “Because he was suspended.” Amanda said this calmly but her hands were trembling. She switched off the pot of couscous and began hunting through the cupboards for a serving dish, studiously ignoring Bob’s look of alarm.

  “Suspended? Five-year-olds don’t get suspended!”

  “Apparently they do.” Amanda found the bowl she was looking for and began emptying the couscous into it, spilling a few grains onto the counter.

  “What happened? Amanda, please—talk to me!”

  Sophie wandered in, followed by Ben. Amanda handed the bowl of couscous to Sophie and asked her to take it to the table. “You can carry in the salad, Ben,” she said, adding, in a terse whisper to Bob, “I think we’d better discuss this later.”

  She reached into the oven and removed the chicken to the countertop.

  “Here,” Amanda said, thrusting the oven mitts at Bob. “Why don’t you take in the chicken?”

  At dinner, Bob reverted to defendant mode. Evidently the extent of his apology to her was the offer of a drink. Amanda served him his chicken with an air of defiance, as if daring him to compliment her about it. He didn’t. The children, unaware, burbled on.

  “Do you like the flowerth, Daddy? I picked them.”

  “I helped Mommy with the salad.”

  “We have a special dessert.”

  “I chose it.”

  “No you didn’t—I did.”

  Bob lavished upon them the praise he withheld from Amanda and helped himself to seconds. Amanda, meanwhile, silently took in the spectacle of her tidy rooms, which had given her such a sense of satisfaction just an hour ago. She had dug up some old framed family photographs to line the mantel, and regrouped the furniture so it didn’t look quite so much as if it had been dropped in place by the movers. Even their dirty sagging sofa, with its cushions plumped and straightened, looked vaguely respectable—like some small ruffian forced into a jacket and tie to await the arrival of company.

  At the end of the meal, Bob rose to clear. The children ran off to play in their newly immaculate bedrooms, and Amanda followed Bob into the kitchen.

  “Now are you willing to tell me about Ben?” he asked, pouring himself another Scotch.

  “It’s not about being willing—“

  “Amanda—” Bob seemed as weary of fighting as she was. “Just tell me, okay? Let’s stop making a federal case out of everything.”

  She wanted to challenge that last remark, too, but restrained herself; instead she described what had happened to Ben that morning with the matter-of-factness of a reporter. She saw Bob growing outraged.

  “So they suspended him over a cookie?”

  “The way he used the cookie,” she corrected. “You know, they think Ben is violent.”

  “How is Ben taking it?”

  “It’s hard to say. He seems fine—or at least, he did when we got home and I let him watch TV.”

  Amanda began scraping and rinsing the plates.

  “It’s just so ridiculous!” Bob fumed. “I did those things as a boy. We all did those things!”

  “We did a lot of things that are now considered wrong.”

  “Do you think we ought to get him out of there? Change schools, maybe?”

  “You’re always saying yourself we can’t afford a different school.”

  “I don’t mean private school. Won’t he be old enough for public school next year?”

  Amanda stopped what she was doing and looked at him incredulously. “Is that what you really want for him?”

  “We may not have much choice from the sounds of it.”

  “But you saw the public school!” Amanda was now stacking the dishwasher, but with such force that Bob edged in and took over the job. “We were both there! The syringe in the playground … all those kids crammed into one class … the teacher who couldn’t spell …”

  Amanda filled a pot with warm soapy water and started to scrub at it angrily.

&nbs
p; “Then what do you think we should do?” Bob said with rising exasperation. “I’m not getting your point. You know our finances as well as I do. I’m happy to go over them again—”

  “No—”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “Just that I don’t want to put him in public school.”

  “So you want to keep him at the center?”

  “No.” She placed the pot on the rack to dry, and started in on another. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Yes, yes you do—you seem to be suggesting there’s another choice. What choice are you suggesting?” He closed the dishwasher and switched it on. “Because the only other choice is for me to leave government and find a job that will pay for private school. Is that what you’re suggesting?”

  “That’s not the only choice.” In her hotness, Amanda realized that she had backed herself into a corner.

  “So tell me another.” Bob was waiting for her answer, patiently drying the second pot she had smacked down on the counter.

  “I could get a job.”

  To her surprise, Bob did not treat this as an absurd proposition.

  “That would work,” he agreed, putting the pot away. “If that’s what you want to do, then yes, you’re right, we do have another choice.”

  “I don’t know if it’s what I want—” she said helplessly.

  “Oh boy. Let’s not go back to that again. I think we covered that ground fairly extensively last night.”

  “Well, you obviously don’t appreciate anything I do here,” she shot back. And as she marched off, leaving him with the rest of the dishes, Bob called after her, “Hey, you were the one not speaking to me.”

  Chapter Nine

  SHE FOUND CHRISTINE sitting peacefully in the backyard, paperback and glass of white wine in hand, enjoying the lazy passage of Sunday afternoon.

  “So remind me,” Christine said, glancing up with a wry smile. “What were our mothers complaining about?”

  This was, Amanda had learned, Christine’s long-running joke with herself. At age forty Christine had become “everything my twenty-year-old self would have considered my worst nightmare.”