Max Schaffer’s father (but not his mother) during a parent/teacher conference.
My Uncle Richard during a commercial break in a Thanksgiving Day football game.
And I’m sure there are others I’ve already forced myself to forget. Sure, I understand that it’s supposed to be nice and all—people expressing their sympathy or empathy35 and letting me know that they’re sorry I’m in such a shitty position. But really, all those sap-infused hugs and saggy eye corners and It must be toughs and keeping you in our prayerses are really just over the top. It’s making me feel like David is already dead. Like I should be worrying more than I am actually worrying and that I’m not crying enough while I toil away at the hoop of my gimongous love-and-loneliness quilt. I mean, tapestry. Whatever.
I spend Thanksgiving at my Aunt Carol’s house, and she is the Hug-Master 2003. Carol and her partner Rebecca,36 who are both usually so cool—standing beside me in fiery political debates, keeping me from flinging gravy across the table in response to Uncle Richard’s über-Christian, pro-life tirades—were out-of-character, out-of-control schmaltzy.
“I know a really good therapist, Annie. Are you seeing someone?”
“No. I’m not, but I don’t think . . .” Carol reaches across the coffee table to place her hand on my hand, which is not looking for affectionate touch, but really just trying to pick up my coffee.
“Rebecca’s sister’s husband spent six months in Afghanistan with the National Guard, and she saw this doctor who specializes in this kind of thing.37 She loved him. Helped her a ton. She was spacing out at work. Her whole herb garden died because she just wasn’t herself. And she counts on that basil each year to make her famous Christmas pesto.” I don’t grow herbs. I want to tell Aunt Carol that, but I don’t. I keep listening. “And Dr. Grinstead, he even directed Janice toward this organic farm out in Puyallup where she was able to buy basil in bulk and make the pesto after all. We have half a dozen jars or so from last year. Rebecca, go grab Annie some of Janice’s pesto.”
I think about Janice, my aunt’s girlfriend’s sister whom I’ve never met, all chipper and optimistic, tearing leaves of basil off impressively green plants and tossing them cheerfully into a food processor. Dr. Grinstead has mellowed her neurosis, pepped up her melancholy loneliness, and replaced her worry with all-natural, pesticide-free produce.
“We can give you his number, Annie.” Rebecca has returned, hands proffered forth with the pesto. There’s a perfect bow of red ribbon tied around the lid.
“Sure,” I say. “What the hell. Why not?”
The Saturday after Thanksgiving I visit Mrs. Schumacher. I have to schedule all my visits in advance, and that kind of bothers me. Jean—arm-flab Jean—says it has always been the policy. They just can’t have people dropping by unexpectedly at all hours. She gives me no reason as to why it’s impossible. Policy is apparently reason enough. I reckon it’s because there are certain times when the staffers tranquilize the residents or tube feed them for days on end so they can dominate the televisions and read Soap Opera Digest undisturbed.
I rap lightly on Mrs. Schumacher’s door, and she says, “Come on in, Annie.” It pleases me enormously that she knows it’s me and that she says my name like I belong to her. My dad’s mother died when I was young, and my mother’s mother has always lived in Arizona, never able to leave the sun for more than a few days at once. As Grandma Ardelle gets older, her condos keep moving closer and closer to the first tee. Presently she claims she can call my grandfather, Bruce, home from the clubhouse by barely raising her voice. He’s usually drinking at the bar and he can hear me. Honestly, we’re that close. None of us grandkids took up golf. They’ve always been disappointed.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Schumacher. How are you?”
“It’s Loretta, please. And I’m fine. Fit fine shape, actually. Suzanne and I walked three miles yesterday after lunch.” I don’t know who Suzanne is, and something makes me doubt that Loretta left her room all week. But I smile.
“Wowza. That’s quite the trek.”
“Yes. Very good for my heart. I used to walk eight miles to high school as a girl. Eight miles!” Oh my goodness gracious. Loretta has pursed her lips in this way that is simultaneously smug and challenging. I’m waiting for her to add “in the snow” or “barefoot” or “leading a cow on a prickly rope.” It’s eerie when people say exactly what you’re expecting them to. Like they’re doing it on purpose to freak you out. I wonder if I ever seem so scripted or if I ever say such pat, predictable things on purpose, nudged forward by some easily amused side of my subconscious. What does Loretta expect of me? What does she want me to do? Or bring? Oh shit, I think. I should I have brought something. A potted poinsettia. A copy of Vogue. A plate of Thanksgiving leftovers wrapped in foil, the roll prebuttered. Something makes me think that the Violet Meadows Retirement Center doesn’t even use real butter. They slather frozen peas in margarine. White toast with margarine. Squeaky wheelchairs lubed with margarine! I realize I’m thinking too long and not talking and completely failing as a conversation partner. More time. Another moment. She’s looking at me, smiling at me in this I know what you’ve been up to sort of way. Like this is exactly what she expected me to do: clam the fuck up. “Any hot hands of poker lately?” I say this after about fifty years of staring, smiling, staggering silence. It’s a miracle she’s still alive.
“Well, I did win a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar bet yesterday. That nurse Martha was here when it happened. You can ask her if you don’t believe me.”
“I believe you,” I say.
Silence. Silence. Silence.
Silence!
And then I think about my family at Thanksgiving. My loose-lipped mother, the hugging aunt and her lover, my father piping up at inappropriately high volumes every now and then. Uncle Richard talking through bites of stuffing, parsley pieces dangling off his yellow teeth. Christ, how they can talk! Talk. Talk. Talk. Question. Question. Question. And oh, the things they asked me!38 And with all my demanded answering, it was the first Thanksgiving I didn’t fall victim to the agony of severe gluttony. Didn’t end up moaning on the floor of the dining room dreaming of elastic waistbands and religious fasting.
“So Mrs. Schu—I mean, Loretta—did your husband write often when he was away?”
“Away?” She looks confused.
“Away at war. Did he have time to write you?”
“Oh, sweetheart, all the time.” She smiles and motions for me to take a seat on her bed, and I feel so privileged. Like she’s letting me into her front room with the plastic slipcovers and the lamps that are dusted more times than they are ever lit. Her bed is mushier than I expected and better smelling. A bizarre mix of Aqua Net hair spray and chamomile—both chemical and comforting.
Loretta launches into a monologue of love stories. Ron wrote her daily, but the letters usually came in groups of five or six. To save money during the war, she moved back in with her parents in rural Kansas, and they only had a post office box three miles away in town. She rode her bike in every day to check the mail. Rain or shine. And when it was snowy, she hoofed it. She kept the key for the box around her neck on a sturdy gold chain, a first anniversary gift from Ron. Real gold, she said. She still has it. She’d still have the key too, if the post office hadn’t made her give it back when she moved.
“And what did he write about?”
He’d tell her he missed her and draw pictures of the two of them together. Cartoons of their wedding day and their future babies. He’d tell her every move his company made and what he had for dinner and where the latest, safest place was to store her precious photograph. In his first aid kit. The lining of his combat helmet. In between double layers of socks. Tucked in the pages of a mini Bible. Right over his heart.
“Do you still have all the letters?”
Of course she kept all the letters! Until they were lost by a shady group of movers when Ron was back and they left Kansas for Washington and a logging job. Loretta is quiet for a few min
utes, and I wonder what else the shady movers might have shadily misplaced. Her childhood diary? Some special dried-up flowers?
She’s staring out the window, and I take this moment to really look at her. I’ve been told that I’m not very observant. I always compliment haircuts a week too late. I don’t notice when stoplights are erected in places I’ve never stopped before or when a Tupperware dish of moldy leftovers is festering right at eye level in my refrigerator. So I purposefully try to really take a good, long look at Loretta. The gray frizz of her hair. The tips of bobby pins pointing out of her bun that I imagine are her original bobby pins. The only ones she’s ever owned. I can see her pulling them out at night and gently sliding them on to a tattered piece of cardboard with a faded 1930s-style logo. The edges worn round and soft. Or maybe she keeps them in a small aluminum tin that was once the home to the throat lozenges that chased away a 1941 cold. Loretta Schumacher, a woman who has never lost a bobby pin.
Her shoulders are still rather angular, and the smooth curve of her upper back is ever so slight—a tall blade of grass yielding to a very gentle breeze. She’s wearing slippers and the kind of wool socks I would guess are unbearably itchy. But then maybe she knit them herself years ago and made sure to choose a soft, nonabrasive yarn. While her husband schlepped missiles around on a submarine, Loretta sat in front of her mother’s stately wooden radio, knitting socks and scarves and the optimistic plans for an entire life together.
She breaks the silence by asking me about my Thanksgiving. I divulge a few small details about my family, the kinds of conversations we had. Then we trade horror stories about Jell-O salads and tasty recipes involving canned yams. I tell her that marshmallows and gelatin are both made from the by-products of cooked horse hooves.
“Nonsense,” she says. “And I’m made out of cloves and motor oil.” I honk out one of those uncontrollable bursts of a laugh and zip my hand up to my mouth to cover the smile. I love Loretta Schumacher. I let her hug me on the way out.
9.5
Chapter 9.5 is to be printed in that cool disappearing ink that lasts for a few days but then magically dissolves into reputation-saving blankness. This part will be cut out for sure for sure for sure. Nobody should have to read this shit. Not even a prisoner in a very stringent prison where reading is banned. Even if he gets his hands on this chapter because some demented cafeteria worker has rolled a piece of paper up inside his chicken potpie. Even if that prisoner hasn’t read a single word in fifteen years and is so starved for print that even just staring blankly at the shape of the letters feels kind of good. Even if he’s murdered fourteen babies and raped the entire female population of Alaska. Even if he’s stolen every dime from his sick mother and dumped shipload upon shipload of toxic sludge into the ocean on purpose. If he stares at the letters long enough they will start to make sense. But still, even he shouldn’t have to read it.
Please kill me now. Or at least lock me up with that prisoner guy and let him have at me with his plastic spork. One last surge of gory joy before he gets caught for reading contraband materials and sent to the chair.
Subject: notes and notes and notes
Date: November 26, 2003 06:22PST
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Good Morning, Sunshine of the US ARMY!
You know I’m such a horrible secret keeper, but I’m getting anxious and I have to ask. Did you get the package from my class yet? Huh? Huh!!!? We sent you a totally awesome package. Did you give the notes to your co-workers? Please let me know when you have a chance. Marco Antolini keeps asking if the “big tough soldiers liked our haikus.”
Fondly,
Miss H.
Subject: RE: notes and notes and notes
Date: November 28, 2003 03:03PST
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sorry, Annie. I did get the cards and the candy, but I haven’t had a chance to look through them or pass them out. You know how it goes. So many people are sending us stuff and we don’t really have time to sit around gushing over it all. Love, D.
Subject: RE: RE: notes and notes and notes
Date: November 28, 2003 06:58PST
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected] long can it take
just seventeen syllables
to read one or two
kind words from afar
of kids who actually care
sad to hear you don’t
Subject: RE: RE: RE: notes and notes and notes
Date: November 30, 2003 02:43PST
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Annie, Didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Just so much going on here. I’m sure you can make up something cute to tell the class. Tell them we loved the poems. We’ve hung them up in our bunks. Whatever. Please don’t be mad at me. I love you.
Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: notes and notes and notes
Date: November 30, 2003 06:42PST
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Why don’t you hang one in your bunk?
p.s. I am mad.
Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: notes and notes and notes
Date: November 30, 2003 22:00PST
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Because that’s where I hang your picture.
p.s. You are crazy.
So what do you think, Mr. Prisoner? Do you want to claw your eyeballs out? Do you wish your tubesocks were just a little bit longer so you could fashion them into an effective noose? Don’t you think I’m a melodramatic, overreacting, unsympathetic, selfish prat of a woman? Is it people like me who remind you why you defied society in the first place?
little by little
the teacher on the home front
her brain turns to mush
10
Today I’m calling my book So Very Alone, because I’m having a huge-ass pity party.
Winter break! Winter break! Winter break! Of all the perks of being an educator in America, the glorious chunks of vacation time are certainly up there.39 Any teacher who claims that three months of luxurious holiday wasn’t a factor in choosing a career path is full of crap. Those few weeks between Thanksgiving and winter break pass in a whirl of chaos and cookie crumbs.40 The kids can’t concentrate with the hope of new PlayStations and skateboards glimmering in their eyes, so I usually slack a bit and give in to several long, uninspired sessions of cutting paper snowflakes.
Last week when I was driving Max to his violin lesson, he asked me about Gus.
“Your friend Gus is pretty cool, Miss Harper. Is he an art teacher?”
“Nope. He’s an artist.” I told Max about the windows at the Dairy DeLite and how Gus had recently created a winter wonderland where the reindeer have actual fuzz on their antlers.
“That must be so fun,” Max said. “Can we paint our classroom windows?”
“Probably not, unfortunately, but I can ask Gus if he needs a helper when he does the Valentine’s Day display next month.”
“You mean like hearts and kisses and stuff ? No, thank you.”
“I’m sure you two could make more of it,” I said.
“Maybe dinosaurs?” Max asked, and I immediately pictured a T. rex in a slinky red negligee and long, exaggerated eyelashes. It was really a stupid image, but one Gus would probably be willing to try.
“Yeah, maybe.”
Later, Max invited me to his holiday violin recital. He told me there would be cookies, punch, and wine for the grown-ups. I asked him if he’d be performing Han Solo, and he actually got my Star Wars reference and laughed. “Yes, I do have a Han Solo part,” he said. I told him I’d love to go and that I hoped the force would be with him.
Max’s concert is Saturday the twenty-third, the day after the last
day of school. I drag Gus along because I know Max will be happy to see him. I pick him up at his apartment and we argue in the car whether it’s appropriate to bring Max flowers. Gus tells me that eight-year-old boys don’t want flowers, don’t like flowers, will not know what to do with flowers. I argue that Max is remarkably sophisticated and will both understand and appreciate the traditional gesture. I pull into the florist anyway, we bring the battle inside, and exit shortly after with the compromise of a small potted cactus. Gus was shocked that the florist didn’t carry Venus flytraps.
The concert is quite lovely. I was expecting shrill, window-cracking tones and the discomfort of watching young, chubby fingers struggle to emulate the athleticism of movements that were invented by wiry old men who possessed the kind of genius that disregards both pain and hunger. But Max and his small ensemble (a flautist, a pianist, and another violinist) are pretty fucking good. Gus even looks over at me a few times and does that pretentious music-snob nod of approval. Every now and then I look down at the flecks of dried paint on his khaki pants. White and beige and taupe that nearly blend into the fabric. He catches me staring a few times and bounces his legs to the music in response. We exchange smiles. The venue is warm and comfortably lit, and the folding chairs are padded; I could have sat through at least another dozen concertos.
After the performance we drink wine in the lobby with the Schaffers and other miscellaneous family and friends, and though I hardly know anyone and they hardly know me, it all feels so welcoming. “I’m Max’s teacher” is all I have to say and it is enough. The mother of the flautist, who is trendy and pretty and seems to be about my age, gives me a weird flirty look and whisper-asks if Gus is my boyfriend. I snort a little bit and drop a big chunk of my sugar cookie. After bending to pick it up I say, “Oh, no. We’re just old pals.” The woman gives me an odd look, and it’s a moment before I realize I’ve placed the cookie piece from the floor carelessly into my mouth. Her face goes flirty again and she says “Well, he’s really cute. Do you know if he’s seeing anyone?”
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