It was different from the quarrels her parents used to have. Those were bitter, harsh battles that went on and on into the night. When the bickering started, Ellen would freeze, cramps clawing at her stomach. It was dangerous to do or say anything that might call attention to herself. Fear stalked the room, waiting to throw her into the fire of their anger.
She never knew how to talk things over with Al. All discussions aren’t arguments, are they? What would happen if she’d said what she really thought? Most of the time, it probably wasn’t worth raising the question. Like making the bed. Was that something really worth fighting over? Or was it the excuse for something else? Was there something he wasn’t naming that was fulminating inside?
She shakes her head. It’s confusing and unsettling. She hates herself for a lifetime of spineless behaviour. The constant caving in, placating. Being eternally wrong. What would she do today if the situation repeated itself? The honest answer is, she doesn’t know. She really doesn’t know.
The busboy returns. He wants to clear the table. She glances at her watch, surprised at the time.
“Sorry,” she says, pushing back her chair.
“That’s okay. It’s nice out here,” he replies.
She walks her bike across the highway, in the pedestrian lane. Maybe she’ll stop at the library on the way home and see if there are any other books about bike trips. She mounts and pedals slowly, enjoying the feel of her foot against the pedal. It’s a nice, solid sensation. She’s pleasantly surprised that it doesn’t feel like exertion anymore. Her muscles don’t burn and scream and her lungs don’t gasp and wheeze.
The handful of cars in the parking lot confirms that the library is open. She parks the bike, locks it carefully, and pushes the door open.
The same four women, in the same polyester track suits, sit at the same table. Do they live here? One catches Ellen’s eye and smiles, nodding her head slightly. Was this what she took for a sneer last time? Ellen can’t imagine what was wrong with her. They look like perfectly nice, friendly old ladies, wearing perfectly nice, practical clothing. Ellen returns the nod, smiles, and walks to the computer.
The books she’d hoped to get haven’t been returned yet. Should she look for something else to read? She spends a lot of time reading lately. Why is that? She was always an omnivorous reader but these days she consumes books at a frantic rate. She hears her daughters’ voices in her head.
“Get a life, Mom. Get out and do real things with real people.”
It was good advice several years ago when they first said it. Maybe it’s still good.
So, what sort of real thing should she do, and which real people should she do it with? It’s a pleasant puzzle that Ellen rolls around in her head, savouring the options open to her.
And what, that voice interrupts, are those options?
There’s always a job.
Right, the voice agrees. With the highest unemployment level since the Recession and with your wonderful work record — that single year of weekend clerking while you were in high school and nothing since — there’s probably a line of employers just waiting for you to walk in.
So, okay, getting a job might not be that easy.
She dismisses the problem. She’s not ready to tie herself into a regular schedule just yet. It’s one reason why she hasn’t looked for a volunteer job. She’s done lots of that. It’s great stuff. Good for the community, good for the individual. There are lots of advantages to volunteering, but she’s not ready for that kind of commitment either. And it doesn’t help pay the bills. What Ellen really wants to do is take some time for herself and do something totally outrageous.
She wants to ride her bike to California.
All the books from the library, all the maps, all the videos have stopped being daydreams she teased herself with. It’s become something real, with a texture of its own. California. She rolls the word around in her mouth, tasting it, feeling it. She’s suddenly serious about the trip, more serious than she’s ever been about anything.
After she does it, she’ll go on and do whatever she has to do. But not yet. Just this once she wants to do something for herself. Something no one will approve of. She knows that already. So she won’t tell anyone. There it is again. Why such fear of disapproval? No one is writing a report card about her; no one except herself. And she’s not ranking herself very highly.
Ellen thinks again about her daughters’ comments. Get a life. Find some real people. Easier said than done.
Her parents had moved a lot, so almost every year she went to a different school. Each year, Ellen’s mother repeated the same litany: “You’ll make new friends in no time.”
But she didn’t. All through her school years, she met other children, learned their names, and became acquainted with a few, but they never became close friends. It was as though they had built-in radar that warned them not to invest in this friendship because it wouldn’t last. And it didn’t. At the end of the year, they inevitably moved again. At the next school, she saw other girls walking together, talking in the private shorthand of long-time friends. But that closeness eluded Ellen. She never walked with someone in that way, nor talked with someone in that way.
Growing older, she discovered it was easier to find new boyfriends than make girlfriends. Boys could present a problem, but that was easier to deal with. If a boy was too persistent, she dropped him and found another boyfriend. Her parents didn’t want her to become involved with boys, so she never mentioned them at home.
In her early teens, she did go to a few parties. Her father would delivered her to the door and call to pick her up at 10:00 p.m. She was pinioned on her embarrassment when he turned up at the door, stepping inside the front hall to wait for her. Just standing there, he cast a pall on the evening. She left, not when the party ended, but when he thought she should be home.
“Please, Dad,” she begged. “I can come home with someone else. And it isn’t far to walk.”
He shook his head, adamant, angry.
“Ten o’clock is late enough for anybody. And nice girls don’t go walking the streets after dark.”
The summer Ellen turned sixteen, her mother offered to throw a birthday party for her. It was a great idea and Ellen was full of exciting plans. But no one she asked could come to the party.
“I’m not surprised,” her mom replied. “Most people are busy during the summer. Families go away on vacation. And some of your friends are working.” She busied herself with the meal she was preparing, leaving a long pause before adding, “Never mind. We’ll have a party later in the year, when everyone is back in school.”
Ellen wonders why she suggested it in the first place if she didn’t expect anyone to come. They moved again. Ellen didn’t know anyone at the new school. The party was never mentioned again.
When she met Al, they hung out with his friends.
“You’ll like them,” he told her. “We all grew up on the same street. Except for Stephen. He didn’t move to our street until we were in grade four. He’s the newcomer.”
Ellen can’t remember a single person from her grade four class. She didn’t remember going to kindergarten. Her first clear memory of school was from grade eight, when a girl who sat near her skipped a grade. Ellen remembered her only because everyone said she was teacher’s pet and that’s why she skipped.
Even high school was a blur. She remembered about ten names. Four of them were people everyone knew, the “in” group — the first to wear the latest fad to school, the first to streak their hair in colours, the first to carry their books in backpacks.
She had known who they were, but they didn’t know her. They said hi when they passed in the hall, but they said hi to everyone. Ellen had desperately wanted to be one of them, but didn’t know how.
“Hey, look! Ellen’s got her sweater on backward,” Lloyd chortled.
Her mother glanced across the kitchen and smiled.
“Doesn’t it hurt to sit against the buttons like that?�
�� Lloyd asked.
“Is it so no one can tell if you’re coming or going?” her father teased.
“This is the new way to wear cardigans,” Ellen had explained. “It’s the latest style.”
A few months later, there was another fashion “must have” — an angora collar.
“Please, Mom,” she begged. “Everyone has one. I’ll never ask for anything else, but I really, really want an angora collar.”
“They’re too expensive,” her mother replied.
Ellen knew that she could buy a pair of shoes for the price of the collar, but she didn’t care. She wanted one like she’d never wanted anything in her whole life.
A few days later, her mother had a surprise for her. She’d made a fur collar. Ellen recognized the fur. It had been trimmed from her mother’s old coat.
Ellen took the collar in her hands, fighting to hold back tears. She didn’t know what to do with it. It wasn’t angora. It was the wrong colour. It was cut wrong. It was wrong, wrong, wrong.
“Thanks, Mom,” she said, trying to breathe normally. “That’s wonderful.”
She put it in her drawer. She never wore it.
Soon after, the “in” group wore something else. It didn’t matter. Ellen never made it into their group. She never made it into any group.
Ellen joined the High School Annual Society, because they were always short of help. She joined the band. There was no place for her violin, but the band master handed her a trumpet. After school, when the popular kids turned out for team sports — track and field, cheerleading — or just hung out together, she had an excuse for not joining them.
“Sorry, I’ve got band practice,” she would say.
Even when there was no practice, she would stay and work on the trumpet by herself. It was an ugly instrument that left her lips red and swollen and her cheeks aching, and filled her mouth with the taste of brass. Still, she stayed with it during the year she spent at that school.
She fast forwards to graduation. She and Al got married. Within a few years, most of his buddies were married, too. The couples saw each other socially once in a while, but Ellen wasn’t included in the “wives group” that met for lunch, or shopping, or to swap babysitting when someone had a hairdresser’s appointment.
Once, they asked her to join them.
“Al, the girls are going to the Craft Fair on Saturday and they’ve asked me to go with them. I could maybe get a few things for Christmas.”
He had looked at her blankly.
“This Saturday?”
Something in his voice turned off her enthusiasm.
“Why — are we doing something this Saturday?”
He shook his head sadly.
“No. Not really. It’s just that Saturday is about the only day we have together. I look forward to our Saturdays.”
“It won’t be all day,” she protested.
The silence curdled around her. Then he smiled, a small, sad smile.
“I know. It’s just that our time together is so special. I’m being selfish. You go ahead and have a good time. I’ll stay here with the kids. Maybe we can do something together next Saturday.”
It sounded romantic. He loved her so much he couldn’t bear to give up any of their precious time together. How could she resist? She phoned back and made her regrets.
“I’m sorry. I forgot about something we’d planned for Saturday,” she said.
“That’s okay. We’ll get together another time.”
But they never do.
That particular Saturday, Al spent most of the morning at the building supply store getting sheets of plastic to put over the basement windows. Once he’d bought the plastic, it seemed silly not to put it up while the weather was still dry and he could work outdoors.
“It’ll be a lot warmer downstairs,” he told her. “There’s lots of room to fix up a playroom for the kids. And I’d like to put in a workshop. I really need a place for all my tools and stuff.”
She stayed upstairs, doing something or other. They would have spent the same amount of time together if she’d gone to the craft fair. The other couples they knew spent a lot of time together, going off in fours and sixes and even spending summer holidays together. They went in large groups to the lake where they rented adjoining cabins. Ellen and Al were never included.
Ellen wondered if it was her fault. Had she missed some signals somewhere? Had she forgotten to make the proper response? Was there some kind of pheromone she lacked, pheromones that everyone else had?
She couldn’t fault Al. He worked all week. He was increasingly busy in the evenings and on weekends. What with his sports teams and his meetings, he didn’t have much free time. And as he said, you couldn’t join a team or promise to serve on a committee and not show up. Ellen made sure dinner was ready as soon as he came home from work so he wouldn’t be late for whatever he was doing that evening.
When he didn’t have to go out, he spent time downstairs, working on the playroom, or in his workshop. Ellen wasn’t exactly sure what he did down there. He ate dinner, watched the news, and then disappeared downstairs. She didn’t see him again until the late night news came on, just before bedtime.
At times she heard him on the telephone, but she was never sure who he was talking to and she was afraid to ask. She only did it once.
“Who was that?”
“Just a fellow I know.”
“What did he want?”
“What is this, an inquisition? He wanted to talk to me, that’s all. If it concerned you, I’d tell you.”
Ellen held back her tears. She was being childish. He was right. She didn’t need to know about every little thing he did, or everyone he talked to.
Once in a while they would go to a Saturday night party at one of his friends’ homes. At intervals they would have a party at their home, when they were overdue for social payback. But the intervals grew longer and longer and she discovered that, while the Saturday night parties continued, they were no longer on the guest list.
They were drifting away. She wasn’t sure where, or what to do about it.
One night, when the kids were all in school, Al volunteered to stay home and babysit so Ellen could go to parent-teacher night.
“It’ll do you good to get out,” he told her.
“We could get a sitter so you can come, too,” she protested.
“No, that’s all right. I don’t mind staying home with the kids.”
“Don’t you want to meet their teachers?”
“You can do it. You know more about that sort of thing. Anyway, it’s hard to get a sitter on a school night.”
“It’s not that hard,” she countered. “We won’t be staying out late. The interviews are all over by 8:30 or 9:00 at the latest.”
Al nodded. “Yeah, but by the time we go somewhere for a snack afterward, it’s getting pretty late.”
“We can come home for a snack.”
Al shrugged. “No, it’s okay. You go. I’ll stay with the kids.”
Dutifully she went to the parent-teacher meetings and brought home vague reports on the kids’ progress. They got passing grades but she was sure they could do better. Was it her fault? Al’s fault? The teacher’s fault? She couldn’t put her finger on what was wrong. She hated to talk to anyone about it. It seemed disloyal to the kids, and to Al.
The pattern built over the years. Now, when she needs a friend, there is literally no one she can call.
“How are you supposed to make friends anyway?” she asks herself, crossly. Taking armloads of books from the library isn’t very effective. The only people Ellen sees are the librarians, who know her name only because it’s on her library card; but she doesn’t know their names and has never thought to ask.
She could maybe join a church group, but there’s a lot of baggage on that route and Ellen isn’t sure she could handle it right now. She’s beginning to understand why people join singles clubs. Meeting people and making friends isn’t as easy as everyone assum
es. As a joke, she makes up her own classified ad: married woman, non-smoker, seeking … Ellen can’t think of anything to put in. She doesn’t know what to ask for. She doesn’t know who she’s looking for. There’s a tremendous vacuum in her life, but she doesn’t know what to fill it with.
Do other people feel this way, too?
She thinks back to the day she got her bike. The young man at the mall told her to join a bike club.
“It’s more fun with other people,” he said.
She’s sure he was right, but she doesn’t know where the bike clubs are or how to reach them. She looks in the phone book, but there’s nothing listed in the yellow pages. She doesn’t know where else to look.
Ellen watches bikers along the highway. They’re usually men, very lean, and they travel in packs, like foraging wolves — heads down, teeth clenched, butts tight. Not about to accept a soft, undertrained female into the group. There must be some women out there, or other beginners.
Everyone has to start somewhere, she tells herself, even bikers.
What she needs is a group of neophytes, preferably pudgy, out-of-shape neophytes. It doesn’t matter if they’re male or female, just that she can keep up with them.
There’s a sport association office near the mall. She’s passed it hundreds of times. Surely they know about bike clubs? Ellen phones one day, before she can talk herself out of it. It seems to be a good starting point. The voice on the phone tells her there are dozens of bike clubs, ranging from the heavy duty racers to long-distance riders who go across North America. These are offered as opposite ends of a scale, but the entire scale is beyond her reach.
In desperation, she calls both groups. Both encourage her to turn out for a session with them.
“But I’m not a racer,” she tells the race group.
“No problem,” a cheerful young woman replies. “We weren’t racers when we started either. We go on lots of training runs and you’d probably enjoy that. When the competitions are on, the rest of us help out with timing, scorekeeping, marshalling, and that sort of thing.”
On the Rim Page 8