The Worst Thing a Suburban Girl Could Imagine

by Melissa Bank

Back in his den, he said, “Let’s see what you’re reading.”

  I handed him Deep South. “I don’t even know what this is about, except bugs,” I said.

  “I keep rereading the first chapter.”

  He looked at the first page. “It’s about a writer who wants to be the next Faulkner.”

  “I got that much,” I said. “But what if he is the next Faulkner?”

  “He ain’t,” Archie said, turning a page.

  “But I can’t just say that,” I told him. “I think Mimi wants me to write reader’s reports.”

  “These are for Mimi?” he said.

  I nodded.

  “All of them?”

  I nodded.

  He looked at me, and I could see that he understood what I hadn’t wanted to tell him.

  “Write: ‘This guy wants to be the next Faulkner, and maybe he is, but I can’t get past the first chapter.’”

  “That’s all I have to say?” I asked. “And I can stop reading it?”

  “Yes, dear,” he said, handing the manuscript to me. “Let’s see the rest.”

  He read the first chapter of all the manuscripts I’d brought, and said, “Nothing wrong with your judgment.” Then he asked why I didn’t like each one and, using my words, dictated the note I should write to Mimi.

  Without a word about my demotion, he explained nuances of my position in the new H–- hierarchy, describing office politics I’d been oblivious to.

  “I should know this already,” I said.

  “No,” he said. “How does anyone learn anything?”

  I said, “I feel like I’m Helen Keller and you’re Annie Sullivan.”

  “Helen,” he said fondly.

  I pretended to sign and mouthed, “You taught me how to read.”

  He had a barky laugh and I laughed just hearing it.

  Then I admitted what a terrible time I was having with Mimi. I told him that she looked at me like she couldn’t tell if I was smart or not, and that I actually became stupid around her.

  He said, “You have no idea how smart you really are.”

  I said, “Did you sleep with her?”

  He said, “No, honey.”

  ~

  “These notes are great,” Mimi said the next afternoon.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “But the reader’s reports you wrote before were a lot more thorough,” she said.

  I was about to say, I’ll write reports if you want me to, but then I pictured having to read the bug novel all the way through. Instead, I repeated something Archie had said: “It doesn’t seem like an efficient use of my time.”

  She looked at me as though I’d spoken without moving my mouth. Then she said, “I guess notes are okay.” She dismissed me from her office by saying, “Thanks.”

  I heard myself say, “No problem,” which I’d noticed non-native English speakers sometimes said instead of You’re welcome.

  ~

  Archie had to go to a dinner party, but he suggested I work in his den. He said, “If you want me to, I’ll look over your work when I get home.”

  I didn’t want to go back to Ritaville, and my office was fluorescent desolation. I said, “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

  He said, “Why would I mind?” He told me that the key was where it always was (under the gargoyle’s tongue) and to make myself at home.

  I did. I read in the leather armchair, with my feet up. I finished all the submissions I’d brought and wrote notes to Mimi. Then I stretched out on the sofa with the copy of Loony he’d given to me.

  I woke up to him covering me with the afghan.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Do you want to wake up and go home,” he said in a low voice, “or sleep in the guest room?”

  “Guest room,” I said.

  ~

  Archie told me he was reading a manuscript by a neurologist, and it made him wish he could talk it over with my dad.

  They’d met only twice, at my aunt’s funeral and then at the shore, a visit that gave new meaning to long weekend. What I remembered about it was that Archie had smoked a cigarette on the dock and thrown the butt in the lagoon. I’d looked at him as though he was a terrorist threatening our way of life and said, “We swim in there.” My voice sounded as haughty as my mother’s had the time a handyman had parked on our lawn and I’d told her, “You can’t expect everyone to know your rules.” The whole weekend was like that, hating Archie and then hating myself for it.

  What he remembered about the weekend was how much he’d enjoyed sitting on the porch with my dad. They’d talked mostly about publishing and books, and now Archie realized that my father had just wanted to put him at ease. “He was so cordial to me,”

  Archie said. “If that weekend was hard on him, he didn’t show it.”

  I remembered my father’s relief at our breakup, though he’d never said a word against Archie.

  Archie was watching me. “What did your dad say about me that weekend?”

  I said, “He said you were charming,” which was true.

  ~

  We cracked open our fortune cookies and traded the little slips of paper, as we always had. My fortune was about the value of wisdom over knowledge. His was “Great happiness awaits.”

  When he took a bite of his fortune cookie, I said, “Don’t eat it—Jesus! Now it won’t come true!”

  And he spit it out in his napkin.

  I said, “You know what I’ve always loved about you?”

  “What?” he said, resting his chin on two balled-up fists in imitation of a swooning schoolboy.

  “You’re willing to swallow your pride to make me laugh,” I said. “Or spit it out in a napkin.”

  ~

  I said, “The good news is that these are the last manuscripts from my archive.”

  I said, “The bad news is that these are the last manuscripts from my archive.”

  He said, “Let’s go to bed.”

  III

  I once read that no matter how long an alcoholic was sober, as soon he went back to drinking he would be exactly where he was when he’d left off. That’s how it was with Archie and me.

  I filled his closet with my clothes. My shampoos and conditioners lined the ledge of his tub. He stocked his refrigerator with diet root beer and carrots.

  We ate dinner together every night, out or in.

  Before bed, from the upstairs bathroom, he’d announce, “I’m taking my Antabuse!”

  I didn’t know what to say. I tried to think what the right answer might be. Then I’d call out, “Thanks,” as though I’d sneezed and he’d blessed me.

  I knew he wanted to have sex if he put on aftershave before bed. I called it his forescent. The sex itself was manual labor. I was there for what happened afterward—

  the tenderness that didn’t come any other way.

  Sometimes, we slept face to face, with our arms around each other; one night I woke up and his mouth was so close to mine I was breathing his breath.

  ~

  The only friend I told at first was Sophie, the anti-Archiest of them all. I was afraid to, but she didn’t even seem surprised. She said, “Does he make you feel better?”

  I said he did.

  “He’s not drinking?” she said.

  I told her about Antabuse and the poker chip from AA.

  She looked over at me, and thought. Finally, she said, “But don’t give up your apartment, okay?”

  I told her that my aunt’s apartment wasn’t mine to give up, and that it hadn’t occurred to me to move all the way in with Archie.

  She said, “Call me if it does.”

  ~

  Archie asked if I’d told my parents about him, and I said I hadn’t. “How much longer are you going to keep me in the closet?” he said. “It’s dark in here. And I keep stepping on your shoes.”

  ~

  I was going home to the suburbs for the weekend, and Archie gave me a copy of Loony for my father. Then he said, “Let’s go.”<
br />
  “Let’s go?” I said.

  He carried my bag around the corner to Hudson Street and hailed a cab. He actually got in and rode with me to Penn Station. He acted like I was a sailor, shipping out.

  While I stood in the ticket line, he went to Hudson News and got Tropical Fruit Life Savers and goofy magazines— DogWorld, True Confessions, and Puzzler—for my train ride. We held hands walking to the staircase for my track. It was hard to go. I said that I worried he’d be lonely. He kissed me and told me not to worry. He said, “I’m the last person you should be thinking about.”

  ~

  That weekend looked just like the ones I’d spent at home before finding out about my father. But I knew now what was underneath. We had lunch out on the patio. We talked and read. Puttered. We ate dinner by candlelight. We acted like we might go to the movies and never went.

  When I woke up on Sunday, my mother had been up for hours, gardening. Over breakfast, she told me she was having the house painted in a few weeks. She showed my dad and me the paint chips, all varying shades of white, and pointed out which white was for which room.

  “Alabaster seems too formal for our bedroom,” he said, joking.

  “It is sort of pretentious,” I said. “And coconut for the bathroom? I don’t think so.”

  My mother was good at being kidded; she rolled her eyes in pretend annoyance. Then she said, “I want the house to look its best,” with a fervor that stopped me.

  My dad heard it, too. “The house looks good now, Lou,” he said, to the tune of, This is paint we’re talking about.

  I went with him to do errands, and we stopped for fruit and vegetables at what had once been the Ashbourne Mall. Lord & Taylor was now a farmer’s market, and the department where I’d bought my first bra now sold organic produce.

  In the parking lot, I saw the Ashbourne Witches, a mother and two daughters, who still had long shags and still drove a rusted red Rambler. They’d terrified and thrilled me as a child, when my friends and I spied on them; the lore was that the Witches returned clothes they’d worn.

  He thought it was as funny as I did. He said, “I guess that’s the worst thing a suburban girl could imagine.”

  ~

  It wasn’t until just before I left that I remembered to give him Loony. I didn’t mention that the book was from Archie.

  My dad seemed pleased, reading the jacket. He flipped through the first pages, and I saw at the same moment he did that Mickey Lamm had inscribed the book to him.

  “That was the reading I told you about,” I said.

  He drove me downtown to the train station. He kept the top down on his convertible but rolled up the windows, so it wasn’t too blowy for us to talk. Mostly, he wanted to know about my life in New York. Was it getting any easier with Mimi? What did I like about my job? Was I still considering getting a dog? How was Sophie? Had I met anyone interesting?

  ~

  When I got to Archie’s that evening, he said, “How’d it go?” I told him that my father seemed pretty good, a little tired maybe, but otherwise his usual self.

  Archie was still waiting, and I realized just before he said, “You didn’t tell your dad about us?” that he’d expected me to.

  That’s why he’d had the book inscribed.

  I thought aloud why I hadn’t; I said something like maybe I was trying to protect my father as he’d protected me.

  Archie glared at me. “You’re equating me with a fatal blood disease?”

  “That’s not what I mean.” Then I realized the truth: “I wasn’t thinking about you,” I said. “I was just being with my dad.”

  He gazed at me. “You’ve grown up, honey.”

  It felt good to hear it. I thought maybe he was right. Then it occurred to me that if I really had grown up, I wouldn’t want to be told.

  IV

  Mimi came by my office and asked if I was free for lunch, and I said, “Sure.” She was in a girlsy-whirlsy mood, and linked arms with me walking to the restaurant.

  I felt like I was going to have a great time with her, and I was surprised when I didn’t.

  She wanted to talk about men—“boys,” she called them, regardless of age. All the ones in her life seemed to be in love with her, except maybe her husband. He loved her so much that he hated her.

  She told me that she’d recently had dinner with her second husband, a Southerner, who still called her “Sugarpie.” Just as sweet was the author who’d taken her to the Yankees game last night; she hoped he’d stop by the office today, so I could meet him.

  Archie had told me I could probably learn a lot from Mimi, and I wanted to. I looked at her eyebrows; how did she get them so perfect?

  I nodded as she spoke, which was all that was required, until she asked me if I was seeing anyone. I said that I was, and when she said, “Who?” I could tell that she already knew. Even so, when I told her, I felt like I’d sold something I should’ve kept.

  After lunch, she said that she was getting her hair colored and wouldn’t be coming back to the office.

  I said, “Your hair is dyed?”

  “Colored,” she said. “Never say dye.”

  ~

  Following Archie’s advice, I had lunch with an agent I liked. The agent had once worked with Mimi and sang her nickname, “Me-Me-Me-Me.”

  It was almost 3:00 when I got back. There was a note on my chair from Mimi: “Come visit.”

  When I went to her office, she didn’t offer her perfume.

  “Sorry I’m late,” I said. “I had lunch with an agent.”

  Her voice was like dry ice. “If you’re going to be late, just let me know, okay?”

  “Sure,” I said, which came out shir; around her I sometimes developed a no-running-water Appalachian accent.

  She said, “There’s a novel Dorrie acquired that I want you to edit, Jane.”

  I’d edited a dozen novels by then, but knew I was supposed to be excited and tried to act like I was.

  She said, “No one’s expecting you to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”

  I said, “So, you’re expecting a vinyl purse?”

  She said, “Just make it the best sow’s ear it can be.”

  ~

  I thought the novel was silk as it was. But knowing how Mimi felt about it, I spent a whole week editing the first chapter. Before I went on to the second, I decided to show it to Archie.

  He told me that I was hyperediting, treating it as though it was a test.

  “It is a test,” I said.

  “You’re thinking about Mimi,” he said. “Think about… ” he turned to the title page, “Mr. Putterman.”

  As soon as he said it, I knew that he was right and I was glad I’d asked him. I beamed at him.

  “You love me,” he said. “Don’t even try to deny it.”

  ~

  I got lost thinking about Mr. Putterman; I didn’t delete a comma without picturing his reaction and asking myself if it was necessary. I averaged about a page an hour, and the next time I looked at my watch, I saw that I was already forty-five minutes late to meet Archie.

  I arrived at the restaurant, saying, “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

  Archie didn’t seem annoyed. “I was just beginning to worry,” he said. “Let’s get you something to eat.”

  Later, though, in bed, he said, “Are you asleep?”

  “I was,” I said, our standard joke.

  “You don’t want to be late, honey.” He smoothed my hair. “It tells the people you care about that they can’t count on you. That’s not the message you want to give—especially now, with your dad sick.”

  “You’re right,” I said. I asked him to help me.

  “Just think about the person you’re affecting,” he said. “Think about Mr. Putterman.”

  ~

  I met Sophie at Tortilla Flats, where my ex-boyfriend Jamie worked as a bartender—

  just while he decided whether to open a restaurant of his own, direct movies, or apply to medical
school again. We were friends now, though I hadn’t seen him since I’d gone back to Archie. When I told him I had, his face didn’t change. Then he looked at Sophie with an expression that said, Look out for her. And she shrugged, I’m doing the best I can.

  At the table, she and I talked about everything but Archie until our second round of margaritas.

  “Since you haven’t brought up sex,” she said, “I’m assuming there hasn’t been a miraculous improvement.”

  I said, “It doesn’t feel like a problem the way it used to.”

  “That is a problem,” she said.

  ~

  Archie and I went up to his farmhouse late Friday night. I was sleepy, but I stayed awake to talk to him while he drove. He didn’t ask me to play the old car games—

  Capitals, Presidents, Twenty Questions, or Ghost—which collectively revealed my lack of knowledge on every subject.

  Instead, he asked quizlike questions about my father: What trait I admired most in him (equanimity); what expression he’d said to me most while I was growing up (“Don’t take the easy way out, Janie”); what my earliest memory of him was (sitting on his shoulders during a parade).

  When Archie said, “We’ll have our own little girl one day,” my eyes went wide in the dark.

  ~

  We woke up to chilly rain. We ate breakfast at the diner and then wandered around town. I went into the Fish ‘n’ Tackle, thinking I’d make earrings out of lures, but they were all too shiny or feathery, too lurey.

  In the afternoon, Archie lit a fire. I read Mr. Putterman. He read Mickey’s new book.

  By early evening, we were both restless.

  He said, “Why don’t we go out for dinner and a movie?”

  I said, “Methinks a better plan was never laid.”

  He suggested asking Caldwell, his professor friend, to join us. I made a face.

  “You look like Elizabeth when she was thirteen years old,” he said.

  I said, “Caldwell seems about 113.”

  “Don’t be ageist,” he said.

  “He has a bad personality,” I said. “He interrupts.”

  “He’s fascinating if you get him talking about Fitzgerald,” Archie said. “He wrote the best book on Scott in the field.”

  I said, “I’ll read it.”

  He shook his head.