Long Division

by Jane Berentson

  LORETTA’S ENTHUSIASM ABOUT THE SURPRISES IN DESCENDING ORDER

  Backgammon: “Hot dog! Have we got a night ahead of us! My son once won two hundred dollars playing this game.”

  Sugar-free spice drops: “Delightful. Except the green ones taste like fermented toothpaste.”50

  Clock radio: “I wake up with the sun, Annie Harper. And I don’t listen to the radio.”

  I guess two out of three isn’t bad. Turns out Loretta avoids the news on all fronts. She says it’s all just depressing and reminds her either of what she is missing (“trapped in this hellhole”) or of how the world is falling apart (“that terrorism gobbeldygook”). I ask her if she likes music, and she says that she does and that there’s a stereo in the common room where the residents play jazz records and compact discs. She’s glad the holiday season is over because “there’s only so much Neil Diamond a woman can handle.” We laugh, and I hope I’ll be so funny at her age.

  We resolve to give the radio a try. I tell her that KPLU, the local NPR station, only plays jazz, and by this time of night all the news shows have already broadcast. The game is fun. The music is smooth and gentle. We end up talking about the contraceptive methods of each generation, and I learn more about the diaphragm than I thought I’d ever like to know. Apparently, they were as commonplace as egg creams in the 1950s. I tell Loretta about the birth control patch that I was on before David left and how my boobs increased a whole cup size when I first got on it. She says she should try it.

  Around ten P.M., halfway through our third game (Loretta is kicking my ass), the languid tones of a sax solo are interrupted by breaking news. Loretta says, “Ah, shit. Breaking news,” and I laugh until the reporter’s snappy words start to take form in my ears.

  Major bombing.

  U.S. army base.

  Just outside of Baghdad.

  No confirmed fatalities.

  Dining hall tent.

  Feeds hundreds of soldiers.

  Suicide.

  Bomber.

  Fire.

  Chaos.

  Instantly, my body lurches into a mess of strange sensations. It’s like I’m standing on the edge of a slippery bridge with no railing. It’s like the delayed heartburn of carnival food. It’s like the dread of a hefty credit card bill. It’s both the swirl of being wasted and the emptiness of a hangover. It’s like every bone is a funny bone and I’ve hit all of them on the cold edge of a concrete wall. Something is stinging, pulsating, jolting through my body. It’s like I crashed a car that doesn’t belong to me. It’s like I served undercooked cupcakes to my entire class and every student is bedridden with salmonella in the same dreary hospital wing. It’s like being pressed under a pile of rocks, choked by a lumpy rice pudding, stung by a queen bee in the eyeball. It’s almost debilitating.51

  I’m clearing the rice pudding from my throat when the reporter confirms what I already know: Camp Warhorse. David’s camp. Yeah, there are like twelve thousand something soldiers there, a Burger King, and a spa,52 and the odds of David being in that particular dining tent at that particular moment probably aren’t too dismal, but I can’t help it. I am totally freaking out.

  Somehow, amazingly, despite the blinding bee stings and the funnel-cake heartburn and the credit card debt and the wicked hangover, I manage to pull myself together and leave Violet Meadows. I don’t know how long I listen to the broadcast—motionless, probably drooling—but at some point Loretta has put the game away and waddled over to the bed to fetch my coat. “Go to your mother, sweetheart,” she says as she hands me my jacket. She’s pulled my car keys from the pocket and is reaching up, dangling them in front of my eyes. Oddly enough, they don’t seem to be making any noise.

  As I drive home, everything is still weirdly silent. I don’t turn the radio on, as a safety precaution, and I concentrate on keeping my hands at ten and two and making slow, deliberate stops and turns. And I don’t go to my parents’ house. Listening to my mother (though her intentions are always the best) and the thick, hyped-up tones of TV reporters seems like a recipe for extreme drama. I know I’ll be able to kick up enough on my own.

  When I get in the house I jump right into worst-case scenarios. David is dead, so I’ll be hearing from his mom soon. I go into my room and change into sweatpants and a hooded sweatshirt. I pull the hood up and the long sleeves down over my hands. I fetch a glass of water. David is dead, so I’m taking two weeks off of work to mourn. I walk to the laundry room and find this pair of thick red socks with rubber tread on the bottom.53 I put them on and slowly pad into the living room. I find the remote, settle myself in my regular television viewing position, and sit very still for many minutes. David is dead, so I’m calling the White House tomorrow.

  I pull my feet up under my body and finger the rubbery Vs of the tread marks. I try to think about something mundane like how the invention of rubber and plastics has changed the world, but it doesn’t last long and I know I’m not fooling myself. David is dead, so is a long-term girlfriend considered a widow? I get up and find the cordless phone and my cell phone. I line them up on the coffee table next to the remote: the little ranks of my own fragile army. All I have between a bright future and a miserable one.

  I turn on the TV. And it’s weird because I’ve never watched it like this: with urgency and a desperate need to extract information. Yeah, I’ve taken notes about insects from programs on the National Geographic Channel, and I spent weeks after 9/11 glued to the set—stunned and crying. But the pace of the television was fine then. I couldn’t handle more facts on the reproduction of fig wasps, and the fewer stories of devastated New Yorkers, the better. I didn’t necessarily ache for a higher pace of information. But this is killing me.

  I flip back and forth between CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC, and even Fox News. It’s the eleven o’clock news hour, and everyone is just saying the same thing over and over, but with slight changes every ten minutes or so. Eight deaths turns into twelve deaths turns into twenty-one. The largest incident of soldier fatalities in a U.S. camp since the beginning of the occupation. No one knows how the bomber entered the camp. Twenty-two U.S. soldiers, two U.S. contractors, and three Iraqi cafeteria workers. That’s where the numbers level out, and they stay put past midnight. Once the reporters run out of hard, vital facts, they begin adding more sentimental details to their broadcasts.

  “Hundreds of army soldiers shaken from their peaceful meal of chicken fingers and macaroni—allegedly a dining hall favorite at Camp Warhorse—by a substantial bomb detonated near the serving line.”

  Chicken fingers! I know this sounds silly, but these are the two words that finally flip the switch on my tear ducts. Up until this point, I’ve been solid, in control of my limbs and bodily fluids, moving gracefully around my house, courageously dragging my heart behind me on a rope made of my large intestine. I’ve been doing okay. But I know David Peterson. I arguably know him better than anyone in the entire galaxy knows him. I know his favorite spot to floss his teeth and about his fear of moths. I know that when he’s been drinking he tends to sleep with his eyes partially open. I know that he stirs his coffee counterclockwise with his right hand, which is highly unusual. And I know that David Peterson does not skip out on chicken fingers.

  One of the first meals we shared was at one of the university cafeterias. I’d taken a bit longer to compose my feast at the salad bar, and I sat down to find David with one of those disgusting baskets from the deep-fry line. The grease was settling into the paper lining, rendering it transparent and disgusting. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ll never turn down a hot onion ring at the proper occasion, but a meal composed solely of foods that rely on large quantities of oil for their preparation—there’s just something wrong with that. Petty as it may seem, I almost wrote him off right there, sure that he’d be lifting those crusty chicken fingers and dunking them oafishly into a brimming ramekin of ranch dressing. I despise ranch dressing. People typically blame the “freshman fifteen” that often afflicts young coeds
on the overconsumption of high-calorie beers, but for those who dine at the University of Washington cafeteria system, there’s an entirely different culprit. It’s ranch dressing. Girls splash it on tacos and pizza. It’s a dipping sauce for not just vegetables, but also breadsticks and sushi rolls. I swear to God, I’ve seen a guy swirl it into marinara sauce. Chicken fingers, with their carby/protein balance, provide a natural venue for the white, globby fat. And when I looked over to see that David had positioned another plate to his side, and that it contained a small pile of carrot sticks, a modest sea of applesauce, and two ramekins of honey (his chicken-finger dip of choice), I decided to give him a chance. He doesn’t eat like a gluttonous, unrefined teenager. He eats like a five-year-old kid. And an extremely polite one who observes appropriate condiment ratios and never chews with his mouth open. His love for childish foods (pigs in blankets, celery with peanut butter) has actually become quite endearing.

  So when I hear this, when I hear the sleek, sophisticated news lady say the goofy words “chicken fingers,” I know instantly that David is dead. I can see his square jaw behind the counter, smiling as he lifts his tray for the cafeteria worker to drop the breaded (rhymes with dreaded) poultry onto his plate. Yes, please, he says. And then the plate shatters. And then his head shatters. And then my whole life shatters. I know it. Well, I don’t know it. But I feel like I know it. I really really feel it. I really really feel like shit.

  I run to the bathroom and vomit four times because I am a horrible, fucked-up person. I return to the television, and I’m tempted to throw it out the window, because I have been thinking the worst possible things. Really, they’re awful. I nearly hate myself because of them. As I’m sitting there sobbing, wiping my snot on this throw blanket that I know is dry-clean only, I think about my book. This stupid whine-fest book. Well, what a better book this will be, right? The boyfriend dies. The girl is faced with a timeless, brutal sort of mourning. Will I be able to pace everything out to form a satisfying plot arc? How much of the post-David-death story should I include? Will it sell better because he dies? Will I have to wear black for all my TV interviews and book signings? All very sick sick things. Who fantasizes about how they will capitalize on their lover’s death? I do. I did it! I am a horribly evil person. And I knew this. I knew it before I even started thinking it. Did I really want to throw the television out the window? Or did I want to do it because it makes my story better for the book? Can I even lift a television?

  I cry and cry about that, and then I cry harder because I’m crying about my own evilness more than I am about my boyfriend’s death. Then the phone rings. It’s the landline, and I snap out of my fetal crying position like a popped kernel of corn. I look at the caller ID. It’s my mom. I know I’m in no condition to speak to her, but something about seeing her number on the screen zaps a little sense into me. I brush my hair back and sit back down. Let the machine pick up. “Hey, Annie. It’s Mom. I’ve been watching the news. Hope you’re not too worried. I imagine everything’s probably fine. Let me know when you hear from David. Love you. Bye.” Everything’s probably fine! She imagines! My mother’s voice is so cool, so sensible, like she hasn’t fretted one baby fret of fret. And she’s probably right. I mean twelve thousand people, twenty-two dead. That’s not horrible odds. I decide to perform some statistical experiments.

  I turn the TV back on. It’s CNN on commercial break. I tell myself that if the next advertisement uses the word “the,” then David is alive. I figure that out of every twelve thousand commercials there are probably only twenty-two that completely avoid the use of the English language’s most popular article. And those are commercials with no words at all. I squeak when the first one opens with “At the Mattress Warehouse, you’ll find exactly the night’s sleep you’re looking for!” Two “thes”! The phrasing of the sentence makes me think of people sleeping in the Mattress Warehouse, and I resolve that I’d sleep in a Warehouse for the rest of my life if it meant David not being dead.

  I realize that I’m losing it and that waiting and sleeping is the best I can do. He will call. Or he won’t call. Sooner or later, I will know the truth. I take a double dose of sleep aid, and as I fall into that hazy, drug-enhanced sleep, I manage to round up three more completely miserable thoughts.

  1. By hoping my brains out that David is not one of the unfortunate twenty-two, I am wishing death on other people.

  2. I ended our last phone call with the words, “Peace in the Middle East, my brother.”

  3. If David is dead, will I have to wait several years before it’s appropriate to have sex again?

  See you in hell! Look for the flaming cave with my name on it!

  I wake up to the sound of my cell phone chirping from the living room. It’s my mother, and I feel guilty for ignoring it again. I flip on the television, and nothing much has changed. They suspect that the bomber was one of the camp’s contracted Iraqi barbers who had managed to hide his allegiances and involvement with the Ansar al-Sunnah Army. I wonder if he had ever buzzed the hair of any of the now-slain soldiers. I try to plan out my day. I need to do laundry. Pay some bills. Go grocery shopping. Should one do these things whilst her boyfriend’s life is in the air? I really don’t feel like doing much of anything. Lying on the couch, staring at the walls for minute after wretched minute, seems like all I can manage.

  After several hours of wall staring and disgusting thought thinking, I get up to brush my teeth, realizing that I haven’t done so since the morning before. Then the phone rings again. I run to the living room, toothbrush in my mouth. The screen says 012345678 and my heart soars. The corn dogs settle down, the swelling around my bee-stung eyes instantly disappears, and my kids come running, ruby-faced and healthy, from the front doors of the hospital. The salmonella is gone because I know that 012345678 is some weird shit that shows up on the screen when David calls from the satellite phones on base. He’s alive! “You’re alive!” I say as I pick up the call, except that my mouth is full of toothpaste spit foam and it comes out as “You lie!”

  “What? Annie, is that you?” I spit my toothpaste into the water glass on the coffee table.

  “Yes! It’s me! And it’s you! You’re okay! I’ve been eating my chicken fingers off worrying.” And then I ramble off a dozen other questions, and David, though noticeably shaken and somber, seems to benefit from my barrage of joy. His tone lightens, and I tell him like a million times how worried I was. He wasn’t even in the dining hall. Ironically, he was getting his hair cut.

  “Plus, Annie, I work days now. Only the night shift guys eat chicken fingers at nine A.M.” I didn’t even think of that. That the fated meal was happening midmorning. But I didn’t care. I felt amazing. You could have thrown me in a vat of moldy ranch dressing and dunked my head under for minutes at a time—and I’d have been fine with that.

  12

  Today I’m calling my book While Fleeing the Coop of Terror.

  After I spoke with David I drove straight to Violet Meadows. I called my mother on the way and explained to her in this really calm, grown-up way that David is fine and that it’s really quite a miracle that he was able to call me so soon. You see, Mother, (I’m such an expert on all things army) they must notify the family of the deceased before they can let anyone else call or e-mail home. It prevents information or misinformation from reaching people in the wrong ways. I think the military should use that exact language in their official literature. I actually just learned all this from David ten minutes before, but I told my mom like I knew all along. Like I’ve always been this super-informed army girlfriend. I think my maturity impressed her. She was very nice about it all too. She said if something like this happens again that I should come over to their house and let her and my father distract me somehow. I tell her that that’s probably a good idea.

  As soon as I saw Loretta I raised both of my fists to ear level and said “Wahoo” in a quiet but triumphant voice. Yeah, it kind of felt inappropriate, but I didn’t much care. She told me t
hat she knew he’d be fine. She could feel it in her joints.

  “Oooh, so you have the clairvoyant type of arthritis,” I said. She laughed at my joke. Loretta sat down in her rocker, and I plopped carelessly on her bed like a teenager. And then I kind of told Loretta everything. It was as if my brief tango with extreme pain had left my tongue fast and floppy. Like when people get put under anesthesia and wake up in midsentence, talking to the doctor about their most intimate ideas. I told her about all the sick fantasies I had and the way I was almost sure that he was dead. I really, really believed it for a while.

  “Do you think that because I believed it so seriously that I wanted it to be true? Am I really that demented?”

  “Sweet Jesus, no, Annie. A woman’s instincts can’t always be right. And under such unusual stress, there’s no telling what our assumptions are feeding on. It’s likely you were just preparing yourself for the worst. Don’t mistake your defense mechanisms for darkness, dear.”

  Sweet Jesus, Loretta is so wise.

  She went on to tell me about how when Ron was away, she used to fantasize that if he died, she’d hook up with this guy Lars Svenson. “He had a crush on me all through school, and I knew he’d be trying to court me the instant Ron arrived home in a casket.” Loretta said she liked to imagine being with Lars because it meant that if Ron was gone, she wouldn’t always be alone and wounded. Even if the worst happened, she’d find a way to get by. For a moment I thought that Loretta was even more fucked up than me—planning her next romance while the present one was still intact. But when you think about it, it kind of does make sense. Creatures reproduce because we are replaceable. Human connections fire up again and again and again. Soul mates, schmole mates. I’ve never bought into that crap.