George and Lizzie

by Nancy Pearl

  But still she tried.

  * The Alphabetical Marriage *

  On nights when Lizzie slept and George sat at his desk, supposedly preparing for his next talk, he was actually compiling an alphabetical list of all the ways that he and Lizzie were different. As probably could be predicted by anyone but George, the list turned out to be profoundly depressing, but there it was.

  It ran, as lists should, from A to Z. In this case, from “apples” to “zoos.”

  Apples: Winesaps (preferred by George); Granny Smiths (preferred by Lizzie).

  Bubble gum: George was horrified when he discovered quite early in their relationship that Lizzie still chewed bubble gum. “You’ve got to stop,” he implored her. “It’s just terrible for your teeth. And your jaw.” But Lizzie loved the taste of Dubble Bubble gum and adored blowing bubbles, and had not yet given it up.

  Children: George couldn’t wait to be a father; Lizzie couldn’t wait for George to stop saying that he couldn’t wait to be a father.

  Dogs: Irish setters (George); cocker spaniels (Lizzie). Lizzie’s preference for cockers was almost entirely due to a book called Bonny’s Boy, which she’d checked out from the library at the impressionable age of ten. After searching for years, she finally found herself a copy at a book sale run by the Ann Arbor Public Library. The copy she bought might even have been the copy she’d read over and over as a child.

  Eggs: over easy (George); over hard (Lizzie).

  Forgiveness: Naturally George believed in forgiveness; it was a core tenet of his philosophy. Lizzie, as she once told George, did not have a forgiving bone in her body. This worried him, as he felt that, whatever was causing Lizzie’s unhappiness, the first step to ameliorating the pain was to forgive herself. It didn’t, however, look to George like this was happening anytime soon.

  Grapes: green and seedless (Lizzie); red with seeds (George, because he thought the seeds made him slow down and eat fewer).

  Hamburgers: George ordered his burgers medium rare, while Lizzie wouldn’t eat anything that looked un- or undercooked. George couldn’t fault her for this, though, knowing she had many memories of those mostly raw turkeys at the Bultmanns’ Thanksgivings.

  Itching: George left mosquito bites strictly alone; Lizzie scratched them until they bled, which meant that after a Michigan summer she had scabs and scars in various stages of healing all over her arms and legs.

  Jazz: George’s favorite album of all time was Miles Davis’s Shades of Blue; Lizzie only liked music with lyrics. She didn’t get jazz at all and, sadly for George, found listening to jazz (or classical music) boring. “So shoot me,” she said to George when he expressed amazement at this.

  Kimchi: George, having been introduced to it by his Korean American roommate his freshman year at OSU, loved it. There were no Korean restaurants in Stillwater, but Jae’s mother always brought some with her when she flew in from Los Angeles. Lizzie tried it once at a fancy restaurant in New York but disliked it intensely. Too spicy.

  Listerine: George actively discouraged his patients from using this particular brand of mouthwash. He didn’t think it was worth the trouble or was at all necessary to subject oneself to the burning sensation taking a capful would cause. Lizzie loved that sort of painful experience. It felt like an appropriate punishment for everything she’d done wrong. You might as well also add love in here too, George thought gloomily. He still held on to the hope—fat chance of it happening, though—that someday Lizzie would love him as much as he loved her.

  Magazines: George’s favorite magazine was Consumer Reports. It was his holy book, his scripture. He read it cover to cover every month and never bought anything—from towels to tires—without checking it first. One year the editors raved about the Toyota Camry and afterward George refused to buy any other make or model of car. To George’s shock (and, it must be admitted, a bit of awe), Lizzie never checked any reviews at all before she made a purchase. Lizzie preferred the New Yorker, which she read in this order: cartoons, poetry, “Talk of the Town,” stories, “Shouts and Murmurs,” and finally the articles. George could never really connect with the short stories and felt that much of the time the New Yorker’s articles were, quite frankly, way too long. They did both read Sports Illustrated cover to cover.

  Nightclothes: briefs (George); T-shirts belonging to George (Lizzie).

  Opera: George tolerated it; Lizzie didn’t have the patience to sit still through even one performance. Ditto ballet.

  Patience: George had it in unlimited quantities. Lizzie had none.

  Queen of spades: George played it safe while playing Hearts, only rarely trying to shoot the moon. Lizzie’s favorite card in the game was the queen of spades, and whenever it looked even remotely likely she went for broke.

  Regret: George didn’t believe in it. There was nothing to be gained from regret. You can learn from your experiences and decide to do something different next time, but that’s different from regret. Regret was a dead-end street, a dark alley on a cold night. It took you nowhere. Edith Piaf could sing (in French) with great conviction that she regretted nothing, but Lizzie regretted almost everything she’d ever done. She reveled in regret, George believed. He found it greatly frustrating.

  Sex: Obviously, but George didn’t want to think about that. Shampoo, then, instead. George grew up with a terrible hang-up about dandruff and thus relied on Head & Shoulders shampoo. He kind of liked the smell of it too. Lizzie hated its medicinal odor (it reminded her of Mendel) and kept begging George to switch to another brand.

  Tea: No, thank you (George), give him coffee anytime; Assam (Lizzie).

  Umbrellas: George appreciated the usefulness of umbrellas but only for other people. A harsh thought would never cross his mind when, during an Ann Arbor drizzle, a small person uneasily navigating with a too-large umbrella blocking much of her peripheral and even face-on vision bumped into him. Lizzie, on the other hand, took an umbrella with her if the forecast even hinted that rain was possible. Rain frizzled her hair. She bought umbrellas like other people buy packs of gum at the airport. Nearly every place she and George had traveled to, every conference, every speaking gig, she’d found it necessary to purchase a new umbrella because she’d neglected to bring one. But because Lizzie refused to spend the money necessary to buy an umbrella that might actually last longer than one or, at the most, two uses, she had accumulated a large collection of them, most now in various states of disrepair.

  In downtown Ann Arbor once—because she was, indeed, one of those small people whose vision is blocked by their overly large umbrellas—Lizzie ran into a policeman who then indicated in no uncertain tones that he was not particularly happy with her. “You can’t even call this rain,” he snarled. “Put that damn thing away.” She got the feeling that he wished he could have given her a ticket for reckless walking and endangering a police officer.

  Valentines: George, blessed (according to himself) or cursed (according to Lizzie) with extreme sentimentality, would have given Lizzie a valentine every day of the year. Lizzie considered February 14 a manufactured holiday and bought George a card only because she knew it would make him happy. “Here’s your Valentine’s card, George,” she’d say. “You know I only got it because I knew it would make you happy.” Well, in fact it did make him happy.

  Wine: red (George). Red wine gave Lizzie a headache. If she was going to indulge, she’d rather have prosecco. Or Riesling. Even better was switching away from wine and drinking beer. Oh yes, and the memory of vodka, straight from the freezer.

  X-Men comics: George began buying these when he was about ten. Although he lacked the earliest ones from the decade before he was born, he had what almost anyone would consider an enviable collection. In recent years he’d begun scouring eBay to fill in the ones he was missing; Lizzie didn’t see the point of them and George hadn’t been able to convince her to read more than one issue.

  Yams: George couldn’t tell the difference between a yam and a sweet potato. Unless it was
clearly labeled at the store, he was unable to tell which was which. This was fine with him, since he didn’t find any difference in the way they tasted either. Lizzie disagreed. They did taste different.

  Zoos: George enjoyed visiting zoos. When he was in nursery school, his class went on a field trip to the Oklahoma City Zoo. Just at the point that all the kids were standing directly in front of the elephant cage, the biggest elephant trumpeted. Everyone (probably including one or two of the teachers) began screaming in panic. Was the elephant now going to wrap his trunk around the bars and twist them enough to set himself and the other elephants free, thereby trampling the mostly three-year-old crowd underfoot? But George was entranced with the noise itself and the way it echoed and reechoed throughout the stone building. He knew that old elephant wasn’t going anywhere but rather just showing off for the audience. He wasn’t scared at all. Lizzie, on the other hand, wouldn’t set foot in a zoo. Seeing the animals caged in, no matter how spacious the cage, made her too sad.

  It was all so depressing, right?

  * The Strong Safety *

  Leo deSica’s dad, born and raised in Italy, taught in the Romance languages department at the U. He really wanted a soccer-playing son instead of one who played strong safety on the football team, but when Leo pointed out to his dad that they lived in America now and his high school didn’t even field a soccer team, Dr. deSica acquiesced to his son’s choice. Gaby Craft, Leo’s girlfriend, was one of the girls who were particularly vicious to Lizzie when the news of the Great Game trickled out. In truth, Lizzie didn’t much blame her. Leo was incredibly sexy and Lizzie often wondered if his Italianness had anything to do with it. A different kind of girl might have tested this theory out by traveling to Italy and picking up men to sleep with, but Lizzie had stopped being that different kind of girl once the Great Game ended.

  * A Long Drive with Lizzie, Marla, * Beezie, Lulu, & India

  Late in August 2000, James flew to Santa Fe to start preparing for his job at St. John’s College. George was busy working on a book he’d sold to Crown, so Lizzie and Marla and the girls drove from Ann Arbor to New Mexico by themselves, transporting, among other possessions, a plastic swimming pool that they did their best to securely fasten to the car’s roof.

  It was a great trip. Beezie (four), Lulu (three), and India (two) took to the long hours in the station wagon as though they were born to travel the interstates. Marla attached India’s pacifier to a piece of ribbon and pinned it onto her shirt so it would always be there for her. They stopped at every rest area (and often supplemented those stops with the bathrooms at gas stations or McDonald’s) because Lulu was still nervous about her big-girl pants. Beezie read Frog and Toad Are Friends over and over again to her sisters, even when they weren’t listening. They had Dairy Queen cones every night (it seemed that every town had a Dairy Queen near the highway) and slept in the same room, which inevitably made for unevenness of sleep quality but gave them all a lovely sense of togetherness.

  They stopped in Tulsa and stayed with Elaine and Allan for a few days, then hit I-40 for the final push into Albuquerque and finally on to Santa Fe. Marla and Lizzie talked and talked and talked. It was almost like being back in college.

  “Why are you still wearing that bracelet?” Marla asked. “Doesn’t George wonder why you always have it on?”

  “George is the most uncurious person that I’ve ever known. He never really notices anything. I could lose all my hair overnight and the chances are he wouldn’t even comment on it,” Lizzie said. “But if he ever did ask, I’d tell him I found it at a garage sale or something. He’s also gullible,” she added unnecessarily.

  Marla took her eyes off the road for a second and looked at her. “Don’t lie to George anymore, Lizzie. It’s not fair to him. It’s sad enough that you’re really lying to him by not sharing things, but an out-and-out lie is so destructive. Is what happened with Jack still so important to you? It’s been years. Why does it still matter?”

  “That’s sort of what George says. Oh, not about Jack, but about how much I still despise my parents, even though they’re moldering in their graves. Or why I hate myself so much. He thinks that I’m much too attached to my thoughts. That I hold on to things too long. But I have no idea what he means. They’re your thoughts, right? How can you not think them?”

  Marla struggled to answer. “I don’t know, but people do it. I think I let go of things, or at least try to. You have to, really, otherwise you’re weighted down with all those cumulative bad memories. James and I used to talk about that baby missing from our lives, whether it was a boy or a girl, whether we could find out who adopted it, whether we’d ever forgive our parents, why we just didn’t say ‘Screw you’ to them back then and get married after I got pregnant. I mean, you know, it was so present. It was always there in our lives. But if we kept that up there’d be no place for anything else. And now we just acknowledge that all that awful stuff happened, that maybe we made the wrong decision, that we were just kids. We were just kids. You have to forgive yourself eventually, right?”

  Marla used the rearview mirror to check on the girls. Beezie was turning the pages of her book from back to front, Lulu was eating graham crackers, and India was napping. They were fine.

  “It’s going to be so hard with you not in Ann Arbor,” Lizzie said. “We have to write at least once a week.”

  Marla agreed. “I don’t really know what I’m going to do without you. We should set a regular time every week to talk too.”

  “We have to stay in each other’s life,” Lizzie said.

  “Of course we will. How could we not? We’re going to spend our golden years together, remember, playing with our grandchildren.”

  Marla returned to their earlier topic. “You know that James and I never liked Jack all that much, right? I know you’ve said the sex was great. So what? It’s not doing you any favors, this obsession with him. It’s never done you any favors. I still can’t believe you don’t see that.”

  “I did know how you felt about him. James told me one night when I couldn’t sleep, but, Marla, you didn’t really know him. Jack loved me. I know he did, and I loved him.”

  “Okay, fine, I accept that you loved him. But, Lizzie, it’s been, like, seven years since he left. You’ve been married to George for almost five of those years. Give it up already. Literally, give up that bracelet.”

  “Well, he can’t get in touch with me now since I became a Goldrosen,” Lizzie said. “Why did I ever let George convince me to change my name?”

  Marla ignored what seemed irrelevant to her and focused on what was central to the discussion. “If he’d wanted to get in touch with you, he would have found a way. You know that.”

  Lizzie did know. She just didn’t want to admit it either to Marla or herself.

  “I still think that he was so freaked out about the Great Game he couldn’t stand being with me.”

  “But you told me he said he was fine with it.”

  “I don’t think I said that. Oh, he compared me to some girl in his high school who everyone would sleep with but no one would date. He apologized, sort of, but who knows if he meant it? And then he left for home so soon after that. God, I wish he’d never seen that article. I wish he’d only read the Paris Review and never picked up Psychology Today. I hate myself for what happened. And the Ouija board said so, do you remember?” Lizzie continued stubbornly. “It predicted that I’d marry a Jack M. And who else could that be but Jack? It’s definitely not a George G.”

  “Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie, I cannot believe you’re quoting a Ouija board. You’re being ridiculous. Probably James pushed that thingy around to make you happy.”

  “He said he didn’t. He promised.”

  “Let it go, Lizzie.”

  “If only I’d had different parents. Or if only Maverick and I hadn’t broken up. Or if I hadn’t known Andrea in high school. None of this would have happened the way it did.”

  “Oh, Lizzie,” Marla sai
d sadly. “George is right. You definitely do think too much.”

  * Dr. Sleep (2) *

  Before George met Lizzie, he’d considered himself a good sleeper. That is, he’d stay up until a decent hour, say eleven p.m., watch the news, floss, brush his teeth, get into bed, close his eyes, and lie awake for five minutes or so thinking (in the fall and winter) about how the Cowboys (Dallas and OSU) were doing. In the spring and summer he was usually so tired from the pickup basketball games he played that no sooner did he close his eyes than he was asleep. The ups and downs of real life didn’t cause him any trouble. That, however, was “BL”—before Lizzie showed up in his life.

  George’s current ongoing sleep problems were due to two issues. The first was that Lizzie seemed incapable of having a Difficult Conversation between the hours of nine and five, or even early in the evening. Whatever else happened in their bed—be it good, bad, or indifferent—for too many years Lizzie lured George into having their most Difficult Conversations just as they were moving toward sleep. This was not pleasant for either of them, yet Lizzie seemed unable to alter her behavior. The second was that Lizzie’s insomnia was infectious. Sometimes George felt that Lizzie’s anxiety was radiating out into the atmosphere, so that it was impossible not to inhale some of it if you breathed at all. Once George got even a whiff of Lizzie’s agitation, he was a goner, and the two of them would get out of bed and sit in kitchen together, companionably drinking hot milk.

  But whenever George fell asleep before Lizzie did or if she woke up in the middle of the night and heard George quietly snoring next to her, she’d toss and turn with great abandon and, when that didn’t work, she’d first kiss his back, then nudge him, not gently, and whisper, “Are you awake?” even when she knew he wasn’t. In response to his reluctant admission that, well, yes, he just happened to be awake, she’d say plaintively, “I can’t sleep. Will you play a game with me?”