Inside the health food store, Russ plucked a sprig of parsley and ate it. Buddy laughed and came around the counter. Russ started laughing, too. Then Lijy came through the beaded curtain. She walked slowly, haltingly, her stomach swollen. It was obvious she was several months pregnant. She started laughing as well. Chic threw the binoculars down on the passenger seat. He suddenly felt very cold, even though it was the middle of summer. The inside of the car began to spin. He took a deep breath. He closed his eyes. He had a choice—to keep living the lie, or start living the truth. An idea came to him. It was perfect. All he needed was an hour. One hour. All of this would be behind him in an hour.
He started the car and stepped on the gas, squealing out of the parking spot. He sped through town and got onto the interstate, heading toward Peoria at eighty miles per hour, cutting off several other cars along the way. (One driver shook his fist at Chic.) When he reached Bergner’s, he pulled up in front of the store—ignoring the parking lot—and shut off the engine. He took the binoculars with him. He banged into a woman coming out of the store, nearly knocking her over. Once inside, he looked right, left. In each direction were racks of women’s clothes. He put the binoculars to his eyes. He scanned the store. Nothing. He spotted an employee folding pants at a display and ran up to her. She was older, with gray hair, and wore a pantsuit.
“Where are the dolls?”
Without looking up, she pointed toward the back of the store.
Chic trained the binoculars in the direction she was pointing. “I don’t see them.” He turned the binoculars on the woman.
“Why are you looking at me with those things?”
“I can’t stand to see reality for what it is. It’s ugly. Where are the dolls?”
She pointed toward the back of the store again.
“You know what? You’re not helpful. No one is. We’re in this alone. All of us. My father died. My son died, too. And do you know what? There’s nothing I can do about it. That’s the truth.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No you’re not. No one is sorry. We say it but we don’t mean it. What we mean is, ‘I’m glad it didn’t happen to me.’”
“I’m just trying to make you feel better.”
“You can’t. And that’s the problem. Now, tell me, the dolls?”
When Chic burst into the house an hour later, Diane was upstairs in the bedroom. He was carrying a shopping bag from Bergner’s, and the binoculars dangled from around his neck. He was grinning and sweating.
“Turn off the goddamn radio and get down here,” he yelled.
“Chic, you know not to interrupt me when I’m . . . ”
“Get down here!”
The radio clicked off, and a few seconds later, Diane came down the stairs.
“I bought you a present.” He put his hand into one of the bags. “It’s in here somewhere. Hold on. Wait a second. Here it is.”
Diane noticed that what he took out of the bag was still on a hanger and small, like a dishrag, maybe smaller. He put it behind his back.
“Guess which hand.”
“Chic, I don’t want to guess.”
“Guess.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Will you just guess?”
“The right.”
“Nope. The left.” Then he revealed his gift—a pair of stringy, black underwear. “I got medium, but they look, I don’t know—maybe they’ll be a little tight, but that’s the point, I guess.”
“Chic . . . ”
“I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier. Look at these. I mean . . . if these don’t put you in the mood . . . ”
“I’ve gone through menopause. A little early. The doctor said. Who cares what the doctor said. I’ve gone through menopause early.”
Chic looked at the underwear. He looked at his wife. She was a long way from that delicate high school girl she used to be. “Menopause?”
“That’s when women stop having their . . . ”
“I know what it is.” He sat down on the coffee table.
“Are you going to pass out? You look pale.”
He set the lingerie down and put his fingers to his neck. He’d tried, but now it was official. Nature was taking its course, and he was stuck in the eye of the storm. Everything was crashing around him.
“We’re going to get past this, Chic. We just need to change our attitude. It’s just going to take a little effort, but we can do it.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I want to believe it. Imagination is the true magic carpet.”
“Did you come up with that?”
“No, that’s Dr. Peale.”
He took out his notebook.
“So, are you going to be all right?”
He put his fingers on his neck. “I haven’t passed out yet.”
She smiled. “Remember when I told you I was pregnant?”
“I do.”
“You got ice cream all over the carpet.”
Chic smiled. He looked up at her. “Diane, I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too.”
“I’m truly sorry.”
“Me too.”
“I really am. I didn’t . . . I mean . . . who would have known . . . it’s just that . . . you know . . . how could we have . . . it’s just . . . I guess . . . I’m sorry.”
“I know you are.”
“I’m very truly sorry.”
“I know.”
He stared at her, trying to lock eyes. She looked away. He waited for her to look back at him. When she did, he made an intense, squinty face, trying to lock eyes again.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.
“I’m sorry.”
“Quit looking at me like that. What are you doing?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Chic, please.”
“I’m trying to make a connection with you.”
“You’re overdoing it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop it.”
Fourteen
Mary Geneseo & Chic Waldbeeser
June 24, 1998
Mary parked the minivan across the street from a tiny brick bungalow surrounded by oak trees and giant Bradley frat houses. Chic figured this was where she lived. The bungalow reminded him of the house on Edgewood Street where he had lived all those years with Diane. It looked lonely and sad. He could hear Peale preaching on the radio and imagine Diane sprawled out in bed, eating cookies dipped in peanut butter.
“What are we doing here?” he asked.
Mary didn’t answer. She was lost in thought, the voices screaming at her. “Shut up,” she whispered. “Just shut up.”
“I’m sorry. You brought me here.”
“Nothing. Not you. Come on.” She got out of the minivan and hurried across the street.
Chic slid out of the passenger door and followed her across the street. In the front yard, she crouched down next to a tree. She stood up and hurried across the yard and around the side of the bungalow. Chic trailed after her, cradling the duffel bag close to his chest. They huddled against the side of the house. He was out of breath.
“What are we doing?” he asked. Rock’ n’roll music—whining electric guitars—blasted from a third-floor window next door. Two co-eds passed on the sidewalk and didn’t notice them in the side yard.
“Follow me. Stay down.” Mary crept along the house, avoiding the basement window well and a coiled garden house. She reached the rear of the house, where she sat with her back against the bricks. Chic sat down, too, and tried to feel his pulse in his neck, but Mary knocked his hand away. “What are you doing?”
“Taking my pulse.”
“You’re not dying. You’re fine. It’s him.” She motioned toward a window directly above them.
Chic looked up. All he could see was a cloud of gnats swarming above their heads.
“Look!”
“What are we doing?”
“Just look, will ya.”
>
Chic periscoped his head through the cloud of gnats, so he could see into the sunporch that overhung the backyard. Sitting on the porch was Mary’s husband. He didn’t look at all like what Chic had expected. Instead of a big, burly guy with hands like a railroad worker’s, he was older—about Chic’s age—and rail thin like a slice of lunch meat, with a head full of white hair. He wasn’t wearing any socks, and Chic could see his bony, white feet. He was sitting in a wheelchair with a blanket in his lap and seemed to be asleep or . . . wait a second, was he? Chic had seen dead people before. Is this what she wanted to show him?
“You see?” Mary asked.
“Did you . . . you didn’t?”
“What?”
“Kill him?”
“No. Jesus. I didn’t kill anyone. He’s sleeping.”
“Who takes their lover to see their husband sleep?”
“We’re not lovers.”
“We sure seemed like it in your minivan yesterday. And what about this afternoon? All that stuff at the restaurant.”
“We’re friends.”
“You have an odd way of showing friendship.” He swatted at the gnats, which had descended on them like a rainstorm. “Do you like me, Mary?”
“Of course I like you.”
“What do you like about me?”
“Well, you’re . . . you’re honest. Very honest. I’m not used to that.”
“So you like honesty?”
“If you’re going to bring up Florida again, please don’t.”
“I’m just saying that if you like me, even a little bit, you have to consider it.”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“Truthfully?”
She nodded.
“I have a masturbation problem. And I’m afraid of women. Sex, I mean. Both. It’s a long story, actually. Do you know why I want to go to Florida?”
“You don’t have to tell me. I think I get it.”
“It’s symbolic. Do you know what that means?”
“Yes, I know what that means.”
“Some people don’t. Florida represents a new start. For me. For you. For us.”
“I know.”
“But it’s ironic, too. Do you know why it’s ironic?”
“Because we’re old.”
“I didn’t expect you to know that. We’re old. That’s right. And old people don’t get new starts.”
She looked at him. “I hear these voices in my head.”
“Like crazy voice?”
“More like thinking voices. This constant chatter. They’re always arguing.”
“I’ve got that. Everyone does. That’s nothing.”
“But, I don’t know which one to listen to. I used to know. But now I don’t.”
“Is one of the voices telling you to go to Florida?”
She nodded.
He swatted again at the gnats. “These things are driving me crazy.”
“Why do you live in a nursing home?”
“It’s assisted living, not a nursing home. I could leave if I wanted to.”
“You don’t have to live there?”
“I signed myself up. Lots of people do. You could.”
“How much is it to stay there?”
“Let’s not talk about that. Let’s . . . are these gnats bothering you?” He swatted at them again.
“Quit swatting at them.”
“I’m trying to get rid of them.”
“You can’t get rid of them.”
“Jesus. They’re everywhere. They’re getting in my eyes.”
“I think I should take you home.”
“What . . . why? Let’s just . . . my God. Get these things away from me.” He was using both hands to swat at them.
“Stop doing that. You’ll make it worse.”
Chic kept swatting at them, but it wasn’t any use. They had engulfed his head and were orbiting around him like hundreds of tiny moons.
Chic & Diane & Buddy & Lijy & Russ & Baby Erika or, the Waldbeeser family, fast-forwarding through some years
1973–1982
One evening in early 1973, Chic drove out to the Mackinaw River. He parked on the gravel turnoff and walked out onto the bridge downriver from his brother’s house. With the binoculars, he had a straight-on view into Buddy and Lijy’s life. Lijy was sitting on the sofa, holding their new baby, Erika. Russ was sitting on the floor beside them. Buddy came into the living room and scooped his baby daughter out of Lijy’s arms and held her up in the air. She smiled and slobbered. Lijy laughed, and so did Russ and Buddy. The laughter made Chic so jealous that he had to calm himself for a moment so that he didn’t fall over the bridge railing into the river. Putting the binoculars back to his eyes, he saw that the entire family was now sitting on the sofa. A camera was set up on a tripod across the room. Erika was in Buddy’s lap, Lijy’s arm was around Russ, and Russ’s arm was around Buddy, who was holding a cord to snap the camera shutter.
Dr. Norman Vincent Peale’s radio program, The Art of Living was still going strong in 1977, forty-two years after its premiere. (It would air for a total of fifty-four years.) Diane owned almost all of his books, The Power of Positive Thinking, Stay Alive All Your Life, Reaching Your Potential. She spent entire days sitting on the couch, holding a doll and listening to Dr. Peale or paging through one of his books. She wasn’t bowling anymore. She wasn’t doing much of anything. She watched Hee Haw on Friday nights. Occasionally, she cleaned, or cooked (if putting a pot roast in the slow cooker was cooking). She went to the grocery store once a week. She ate all the time. Chic would often discover her in the middle of the night leafing through one of Peale’s books and eating peanut butter toast or Twinkies. When he came home from work, she’d be eating popcorn or potato chips or hot dogs, a mess of bun crumbs on the front of her nightgown.
Chic became curious about Peale’s appeal. If Diane was getting insight from him, maybe he could, too. So he started listening to The Art of Living. During the program, he kept looking over at his wife, hoping to spot something in her face—merriment, understanding—but she just sat there with a dull half smile on her lips and a glazed expression in her eyes. One night, he asked her what it was about Peale, what the attraction was. “Does it help?” he asked.
“Does it look like it helped?” she answered. Listening to Peale’s message of positive thinking for the past twenty years hadn’t made a positive difference in her life. Yes, she was still here, breathing (though even that was getting harder, as she was starting to get short of breath often, like when she climbed the stairs or pushed the grocery cart to the car in the Stafford’s parking lot). However, she was still a very big woman, had been a very big woman for almost fifteen years, would be a very big woman until the day she died. Every single day, she still went into Lomax’s old bedroom and held one of the dolls. (Lomax would have been almost thirty now, and probably married, maybe with children of his own.) Peale wanted her to think differently about her life, to think positively, and if she did that, everything would change. She had tried to do as he asked, but the only thing that happened was she got older. For a time, she blamed Chic. Now, what was the point? She was too tired to blame anyone. She just wanted to be left alone; she just wanted to eat, to feel the fizzle of soda in her mouth, to chew a hot dog and taste the sharpness of the mustard mixing with the tanginess of the ketchup. If she could just sit on the couch and eat forever, that would be better, that would make everything better.
Across town, Buddy and Lijy rocketed into their future, the proud parents of Erika Waldbeeser. When she was a baby, Buddy had loved to hold her and make faces at her. Now that she was older, he liked to hold her hand while the two of them walked up and down the gravel driveway. He read books to her. He sat on the floor and helped her learn shapes and colors. He carried a wallet picture with him, and whenever a customer came into the health food store, he took out the picture and talked and talked and talked about his daughter. Russ took a real interest in his sister as well. He took her for nature
hikes along the Mackinaw River and pointed out the different kinds of trees. When they got home, he showed her pictures of the trees and quizzed her on what type they were. She entered kindergarten the smartest kid in Middleville, according to Buddy. In class one day, she made a crayon drawing of her family. Each member—Buddy, Lijy, and Russ—was represented as a different-color stick figure with a different geometrical-shaped head. Buddy swooned over the drawing. He marched it into the bedroom where Lijy was taking a nap, woke her, and insisted the drawing was the work of a young genius. He called Erika’s teacher and asked her if she’d ever seen something so creative in her entire teaching career. The teacher told him that it was a “solid effort.” Buddy framed the picture and hung it behind the counter at the health food store. He told customers that Erika was destined to paint or draw or maybe do clay sculptures. One day, he bought her some clay and sat her down at the kitchen table and encouraged her to make something, but she told him she just wanted to go outside for a walk.
Sometime in the early 1980s, Lijy received an envelope in the mail without a return address. She knew immediately that it was from Ellis McMillion. She took the envelope outside, dug a hole in the ground, and buried it. That chapter was behind her now, and she never, ever wanted to think about Ellis McMillion or her mistake again. They—all of them—were in a better place. Buddy had gotten beyond her mistake, and Russ was a well-adjusted boy who accepted the lie she had told him about who his father was. (Even if the lie was built atop another lie.) Sometimes, she felt guilty about lying to her son. She’d always meant to tell him the truth, but somehow the right time never presented itself, and then he was in high school, and she tried to imagine herself sitting him down for a talk, but she always anticipated it going terribly. He’d be mad at her. He’d be sad. He’d be hurt. He’d be so many things, so she chose not to say anything, and she did her best not to think about it, even when he did something that offered a painful reminder, like pushing his glasses up on his nose.
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