Long Division

by Jane Berentson

  “No, not yet. The super-duper-fancy, ultra-delicious brownies have yet to arrive.” He chuckles a bit. “Hey, did you write to Henderson’s wife about the knitting group?”

  “Oh, yeah. I did. I’m going on Thursday.”

  “Well, you don’t sound very excited.” I was trying to. I’m a terrible actress.

  “I don’t knit, David. What am I supposed to do, bring a crossword puzzle or a pile of math quizzes to grade?” I’m trying to sound reasonable, but I know I just sound whiny.

  “No. You socialize. Tell stories and laugh and bond and stuff. They seem like cool ladies.” I agree, and then I say something about how it might help me feel less alone to be around people who are also alone in the same way. I don’t really believe this, but I could tell it’s what David wanted me to think. He shouldn’t even be worrying one tiny worry about me anyway. He needs to be looking both ways before crossing the convoy path and double knotting the laces of his boots. He’s barely been gone at all; I’m really doing fine. I don’t need knitting strangers at this point. And as I write this, I can’t help but think about how before he left he really emphasized that the ARMY was his JOB and that he was going away to do some WORK. Now, here he is trying to foist a bit of his JOB onto my LIFE. I’ve never asked him to sit in on parent/TEACHER conferences. Am I being a bad understander? Do I not want to meet the knitters because I’d rather wallow in my own loneliness than feel like I’m just one in a kabillion women who are doing the same?

  I could feel the exasperation swelling on both sides of our conversation, so I steered us away from the knitters, hoping that by the time I reported back to David regarding Mrs. Angie Spice Henderson and Co., I’d have something more positive to say. We spoke for a few more minutes about normal things—life, lust, when I should change the oil in my car. It was really pretty nice. And as I was hanging up the phone I knocked the bed lamp over onto the floor. It broke with a loud snapping sound and a flash. Not fazed by my complete clumsiness, I left it on the floor and rolled into sleep position—just happy that the boom of the crash sounded nothing like a gunshot.

  4

  Today my book is called Dear John, but it’s not a book anymore. It’s a reality television show on Fox. I just got off the phone with my friend Monica from college, who works for them in development. You see, she was helping me write this proposal for a new series that documents the lives of wives and girlfriends of soldiers at war. And it was accepted to film a pilot episode! Angie Spice Henderson and I are flying to L.A. tomorrow to talk to the producers and sign the contract. Aside from The 301st Company Stitch Bitches, we’re going to find three or four other women (and maybe one man) in similar situations. Some will have children. Maybe one will be the wife of a private contractor. One will have to be pregnant, maybe even due in the next few months. Camera crews will follow us around while we cry and change diapers and obsessively flip through news channels. They’ll zoom in on the photographs of uniformed men on our refrigerators. They’ll pan the still-masculine areas of our closets and the vacant men’s soft-ball cleats in our garages.

  And there will be funny moments too. Annie Harper composing letters to the White House about her therapy reimbursements. Little kids discovering pretend weapons of mass destruction in their tree forts and saying things like No, I’m Saddam this time. It’s my turn. Hopefully, they’ll abstain from a gross patriotic soundtrack and anything too political.

  I’m pretty sure America will love it. We can sell ad time to companies like Ford and Oscar Mayer and Coca-Cola. My students will get to be on TV, and they’ll love that. They’ll love me even more than they already love me. And maybe that could spawn a whole spin-off series: Miss Harper’s Class: A Reality Show for Kids.20 People will start to send me mail and presents. A kind billionaire may even offer to fly me in his private jet out to Qatar to meet David when he’s on his five-day leave. That episode can be an hour-long special. Commercial breaks just after the cameras watch us giggle and close our hotel room door. So I guess you could say things are looking up.

  That was all obviously a lie. Tonight, after a thrilling two hours with the knitting group, I passed up karaoke with Gus and his new girlfriend to sit at home waiting for David to maybe call. All the knitting wives were really very nice and really very cool and only spoke in army-abbreviation-speak for about half the time. They are mostly a few years older than myself, except for this raging goth chick, Danielle, who got married when she was eighteen and is now a whopping nineteen. She’s from Texas and said she was so ready “to get the hell out of there” last year when she married her high school sweetheart and moved to Tacoma where he was stationed. Now she’s going to beauty school, loves the Tacoma music scene, and misses her husband, Chuck, desperately.

  “At least I have our two pit bulls,” she said at one point.

  “Dogs are great,” I responded. It was my first contribution to the conversation in several minutes. DOGS ARE GREAT. Wow, David. This is so rich and stimulating.

  Angela Henderson has a beautiful home and made these delicious biscuit-wrapped baby cocktail sausages with four (4!) different dipping sauces. And although varieties of mustards do impress me very much, and although it was kind of a release to rant about the scratchy sound quality of our phone calls from Iraq and sadly shake our heads about a recent helicopter crash, in the end, the women were still strangers and Miss Harper did not have fun. The night would have been better spent with Gus. Or even my own sweet mother. Maybe if I’d known the women before and we were already invested in each other’s lives somehow, I would feel better; trying to muster up a connection with them now just feels contrived and artificial. Angie baby, your honey dill sauce blew my mind, but I don’t think I’m quite ready to start that cabled scarf.21

  So I came home instead of joining the knitters for a drink downtown. I ended up watching the season finale of The Bachelor on TV, where the dude totally made it seem like he was going to pick Rachel but ended up giving Sharon the final rose. What a load of shit! Sharon is a vapid slut whose boobs will probably drop with that rose’s first petal. What was he thinking? I was so mad I batted an empty yogurt cup with my spoon at the television. And I actually hit it! I started thinking about how fake all those people seem. How everything they say seems so scripted and generic. They talk about “deep connections” and “sharing genuine moments,” but then the camera just shows them saying things like, Yeah, I love spending time with family, and Communication is sooo important to me. Then they giggle and do something gross like put food in each other’s mouths. Then they make out. Maybe I’m just jealous because I haven’t made out in a while. But mostly I’m mad because I know my life (and probably Angie Spice’s and Danielle’s lives too) is crispier, heartier, more amusing, and more real. Just two seconds of me slapping my own sleepy hand as it accidentally reaches for the triangle of David’s perfect toilet paper would show people. I’m real. This is life.

  I’m real.

  This is life.

  I’m real.

  This is life.

  Wipe carefully.

  Dip carefully.

  Eat carefully.

  Give roses carefully.

  Do everything carefully.22

  5

  Today I’m calling my book Don’t You Call Me a Hero.

  My mother took me to a quilt show. She likes to plan little mother/ daughter outings for us. Many of these events are rife with girliness—things that she cannot drag my father to. There are some outings that I enjoy (opening nights of Jane Austen movies) and others (scrapbooking workshops) during which I work very hard to conceal my distaste. We often go to lunch at cafés where they ask you, “Would you like to sit in our tea garden?” To which I usually say something like, “Oh, you grow tea out there?” and the waitress, who is surely told to perform with unfaltering cuteness, says something like, “Oh no, dear, the garden is for drinking tea.” Then I order black coffee. Then my mother gives me a look.

  So yesterday at the quilt show, while we were wa
lking through aisles of colorful, detailed patchwork in a private high school’s gymnasium, my mother said, “You know, Annie, I’ve gotten a few e-mails from David recently.”

  “You what?”

  “Don’t act so surprised. You gave me his e-mail address before he left. I like to know how he’s doing. He’s such a sweetheart.”

  “I know. I just didn’t expect you guys to be e-mail buddies. How much does he write you?”

  “I don’t know. I think I’ve gotten three e-mails from him. But I wrote him first.” My mother rubbed her fingertips along the border of a small square quilt. “Tight stitching.”

  “What do you guys talk about?”

  “He tells me about his company. How he misses you.” She nudged me with her elbow as she said this, and somehow, for some reason, I wanted to vomit. Puke all over a blue and white masterpiece called “Paisleys on Parade.” David hadn’t told me he was writing my mother, or that she was writing him. It’s stupid, but I can’t help but feel a little betrayed. He should spend that time writing more to me. Telling me more than the temperature and the condition of his boots. Saying ‘miss you, I love you’ in a different way for once. Painting me a picture of his life because from his news and the news, I still can’t really tell what it’s like.

  “Oh, and he told me how you joined the knitting group with some of the other wives. That’s so great, Annie. I bet the support—”

  “What? I did not join. I went once. And I’m not going back.” I hate it when I talk to my mother this way. It’s plain awful. Hearing my words screech so loud and so snotty and so insensitive makes me feel I’m not qualified to be a teacher. Before my mother’s cheeks totally dropped, I tried to backpedal. “I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean to erupt like that. It’s just that I don’t think the group is for me. I don’t knit. I don’t know them. I’d rather just spend the time with the friends I already have . . . and you and Dad, of course.” She smiled.

  “David did sound kind of excited about you joining, but I’m sure he’ll understand why it’s not quite your cup of tea.”

  We neared the end of the quilt show. It was set up like a maze. Quilts hanging from portable, wheeling chalkboards and volleyball nets. The PA system was playing the kind of country-string-quartet-type music that sounds like everything is right in the world. The harvest is good. The cattle are healthy. The town well hasn’t dished out cholera in decades. There were women at the end of the maze selling fresh fudge and small cuts of fabric. And of course they were smiling at each other like everything really was right in the world. A quilt on every bed! A bed for every human! And I couldn’t help but think about Greek/ Roman lady and her endless wartime tapestry. I looked at all the elaborate blankets draped around me—barely swaying in a breeze that had snuck in. And for a moment I did think they were beautiful. And for a moment I did think that maybe Greek/Roman lady knew what she was doing. And for a moment I even considered picking up some fabric and a beginner’s quilting book. Fuck, maybe even some goddamn yarn. But then I saw a kid nuzzling his face up to a quilt in a very normal, playful way. He had those sneakers with the lights on the heels and a very faint Kool-Aid mustache. His mother turned around and squawked at him, “Timothy. Timothy, stop that. I told you not to touch the quilts.” Not to touch the quilts! How ridiculous! Blankets are for nuzzling and having sex under and getting crumbs on and puking on if you have to. I started to think about how many normal-sized quilts Greek/Roman lady could have made in the time she wove that ginormous one. How many families could she have helped? Families whose equally lonely mothers didn’t have the time or the servants to waste all day crying over a loom and making blankets. What a fucking bitch, I thought.23 Right there at the end of the quilt maze, my mother could see the scowl on my face. And Timothy’s mom is a bitch too, I continued with my hate-fest. Go ahead and touch the quilts, I say! My mother would never snap at me like that. She may be a sneaky boyfriend e-mailer, but she is not a stern, wrist-slapping barker. My mother is warm and soft and touchable. “Annie, what are you frowning about?” she said.

  “Oh, nothing. I’m just hungry. Sorry.” I tried to smile.

  “Well, come on then. Let’s go vote for our favorite quilt and I’ll take you to lunch. I know this place with a great terrace. In the fall, they have . . .” I followed my mother to a sickly cute painted mailbox with a slot on the top. We were to vote for our favorite quilt and the winner got some fat ribbon, a gift certificate to A Stitch in Time, and a place of honor at next year’s show. My mother held the mini number-two pencil to her lips for a second, pulled her eyes up to the top of her head like she was thinking real hard. She looked just like one of my students pausing in a history test. Grasping and searching for some element of truth that could garner at least partial credit. She quickly scribbled something down.

  “Come on, Annie. Vote. People really rely on this for feedback.” I grabbed a slip of paper and a pencil and wrote “Puke on Parade” really fast. Before she could see, I slipped it into the mailbox, and we left.

  That was Saturday. Sunday, my friend Hillary called and asked me to go Rollerblading on the water.

  “What? They make water Rollerblades now? How does that work?” I had asked. I don’t know how I got so obnoxious. Maybe because I hang out so much with third graders.

  “You know what I mean, Annie. We used to do it all the time in college. Go Rollerblading on the waterfront.” I told her yes, even though I didn’t really want to go. But I haven’t been exercising much lately, and I hadn’t seen Hillary since last spring. So we went.

  Strapping my skates on, I noticed they felt tighter around the ankles than I’d remembered. Hillary’s skates fit perfectly. I watched the white tips of her shiny fingernails carefully buckle the straps. It’s hard to talk while Rollerblading, but we managed a decent, half-shouting conversation. Hillary didn’t know about David’s deployment, though she should have. Our web of friends from college had its kinks and tangents, but the lines usually went through. I knew that Josh Bowers and Maria Rodriguez were getting married. And that James Carver, that slimeball from the crew team, had lost his job selling insurance because of some scam. But Hillary didn’t know that David was gone. After the first few minutes of skating, she snagged my attention from a nearby ice cream vendor with her question. “So how’s David doing? You guys still together?” Hillary and I were never great friends.

  “Yeah, but he’s been deployed.” The wind rattled my voice, muffling it in velocity, like it too wanted to obscure the truth.

  “He’s unemployed? I thought he was still in the army?”

  “No, he’s been deployed. He’s in Iraq now.” Hillary stopped adjusting the waistband of her gym shorts and gave me the look that everyone gives me. Like I caught pinkeye from helping orphans. Or like I adopted a two-legged kitten and engineered prosthetic legs to help it walk, but then it died. Or like I just shaved my head (even though I have an unsightly birthmark) and donated the hair to one of those leukemia-patient wig-making charities. Like I’m doing something so brave or making some amazing sacrifice. But when really I did nothing. I fell in love with a nice man who just happens to have a job that has taken him away from me. Who just happens to work for an entity that has a shitload of guns and an odd sense of what constitutes “helping out.”

  “Wow, Annie. That’s got to be tough.”

  “Yes. Yes, it is tough. But it’s just a dumb situation. Dumb circumstance.” I looked out to the bay. The tame waters of the Puget Sound were only slightly glistening in the afternoon sun. A few small boats puttered around, and a gray castle of industrial something pumped out steam on the other side of the shore. It was only kind of pretty, but fine to look at while skating.

  “Have you guys been able to talk much? When is he coming back? Is he in a dangerous place?” Hillary spat out the usual repertoire of questions, and I forced the exhausted lump of neurons in my brain to pull up the tattered file that contains my usual answers. But I’d rolled to a stop.

  My left ska
te had just run over something soft and lumpy. I wanted it to be ice cream, but it was not. It was dog poo, and I was barely surprised. If anything, I was relieved. The ten gross minutes it took to wheel my skate back and forth on the grass, to fill a littered coffee cup with sea water and flush it through the bearings—those were ten minutes I had to not tell Hillary about my life. The mundane but genuinely sad details of a girl whose boyfriend is at war.

  Funny thing, shit, how it can distract you from its other forms!

  Recently, on the telephone . . .

  David: So you’re really not going back? Won’t they be offended? [pause]

  Annie: Why would they be offended? We just met. I wrote Angie and told her that I already have too much going on and that I also have a book club that meets once a week.

  D: You’re in a book club?

  A: No. But I’m sure I will be someday. And I do read a lot. That’s kind of like having my own private book club. I didn’t want Angie to think that I was quitting the knitters because I didn’t enjoy their company.

  D: But you didn’t enjoy their company. That’s why you quit.

  A: So?

  D: So you could have given them more of a chance. There are guys here that I couldn’t stand when I started working full time. But people can grow on you. Eventually you’ll find out you do have stuff in common and that you can have fun together.

  A: I don’t want to have fun with them. I have fun at school.

  D: Jeez, Annie.

  A: What?

  D: I thought you were a hard worker. Building new relationships sometimes takes a little work, you know.

  A: I don’t want new relationships.

  D: Right.

  A: Right.

  D: Anyway.