Live a Little

by Kim Green

  “Me?” I think of the shiny notebook with Hello Kitty grinning blankly on the cover, of all the goodies inside that I would love—love— to get my hands on, to fondle like pirates’ booty dripping through my fingers. Truthfully, ethics haven’t stopped me from plundering the pages of my daughter’s journal; it is the fear of learning something nasty—and quite possibly true—about me or Phil that gives me pause.

  Sue continues, “Yeah. I was just thinking about your conversation with Tay, and I got this feeling like Tay wasn’t telling you everything. You know, a feeling. So I read it after she went to school this morning. She keeps it inside the leg of her snowboard pants, up on the top shelf of the closet, just so you know. It was the third place I looked, after the mattress and the sock drawer. Anyway, girlfriend’s not a virgin.”

  “Not . . . ?”

  “. . . a virgin. Nope. Fortress breached, I’m afraid.” Sue drags her grilled-cheese sandwich through the puddle of ranch and

  gnaws the edge. “Do you know a kid named Lindsay?”

  “She’s Tay’s best friend.”

  “Well, best friend and Taylor have been plotting to get you and Phil back together.”

  “What?” My eyes drop to the dessert menu and soak up two words: banana split.

  “They thought that if Taylor had a crisis, you and Phil would have to spend more time together. And that would, you know, reignite things between you. And he’d move back in. Boom— marriage saved. Mom’s happy, Dad’s happy, kids don’t have to move in with Grandma and Grandpa Wheatgrass while Mom cracks up.”

  “What kind of crisis?”

  “They were considering a bunch of stuff, but pregnancy, drug overdose, and shoplifting addiction were the leading contenders.”

  My mind dredges up a snapshot of my son and Ronnie Greenblatt carving a trough in Micah’s bed. “Did they make up the stuff about Micah, too?” I say, trying not to be too hopeful.

  Sue smiles and strokes her tummy. “No, that’s real. And she did steal a lip gloss from Walgreens a couple months ago, but she felt guilty about it.”

  “I see.” I don’t. “Well, isn’t this just great.”

  “Anyway, she’s fine. A little hurt over the Biter thing, but she’ll get over it. We all did.”

  Yeah, and it only took me a quarter century.

  “Did she say anything about, um, me?” My throat shrinks to about the diameter of a cigarette. I don’t expect reverence or even understanding after my recent performance.

  Sue nods gravely, which I take to mean I should halt this line of inquiry. I immediately imagine the worst: Mom is such

  a dork. She has cancer, and she’s having an affair with this guy young enough to be her son. She looks, like, totally huge next to him. Maybe if she dies, I can have her vintage leather trench coat.

  “She thought you were pretty cool in Mexico,” Sue offers. “And she knows she’s been a bitch to you sometimes, and she’s sorry.” She taps my hand. “Don’t tell her I did it, okay?”

  “God, no. I’m planning on you adopting the kids if something happens to me and Phil. I don’t want to ruin it.” Cut to an image of Taylor’s tear-streaked face, her eyes blinking fearfully under a layer of blue mascara while she begs Phil and me to get back together. “In fact, I was thinking of asking you to adopt them now,” I say with just the teeniest bit of truthfulness.

  “Anytime,” Sue says, finishing off the last chunk of animal fat on the table. “She could wait tables for me at Tamarind. It’s not a bad career option for an orphan. Pre-orphan,” she amends.

  To enter the H. Arnold Tater Academy, you have to drive through a set of curlicue wrought-iron gates that are better suited to an Ivy League university or a Hapsburg palace than a year-round suburban K–12. This show of affluence is meant to remind all ye who enter here that however tempted you may be to whinge about the tuition, it’s all going toward a good cause: your child’s likelihood of befriending a Greek shipping heir.

  I’ve never felt particularly welcome here, myself. Maybe it’s my Pale of Settlement roots, the ghetto proclivities that incite me, still, to gnaw the necks of chickens with the hope of tapping in to marrow, two whole generations after my people fled the Old Country. Maybe it’s because of Phil and his extraordinary ability not to get promoted to dean after fourteen years of teaching tenth-grade math. Or maybe I’m just too plump and swarthy.

  Whatever the cause, as I park the car and go in search of my daughter across the vast expanse of putting-quality lawn, I feel the usual frisson of unease that Tater engenders in my gut. The kind you feel when you’ve sneaked into an extra matinee at the multiplex and are expecting the manager’s hand on your shoulder at any moment.

  As I enter the administration hall, a passel of first-graders parts around me, shrieking and giggling in that joyful, liberated way only kids can.

  Tater tots.

  “Hi. I’m Taylor Rose’s mother. I’m wondering if you can tell me where she is this period?” I say to the secretary, a hollow-cheeked thirtysomething with narrow shoulders and stylish eyeglasses. “It’s not an emergency,” I add, wondering if I’ve inadvertently initiated some sort of security process I’ll later regret.

  Skinny Shoulders—Ms. Swain, I see by her nametag—taps some keys on her computer and asks for my ID.

  “P.E. with McLeod. Do you know where the gym is?”

  “I think so.”

  Ms. Swain releases me, and I wander across the quad toward the barnlike building that is the gym. Since my kids’ sports take place mostly on a field and in the pool, the gym is not a place I’ve visited much over the years.

  The locker room smells (appropriately) of sugary perfume and sweat, McDonald’s and talcum-sprinkled clove cigarettes. I meander around shower puddles, trying to repress the sensory-memory leap back to high school. Inside the gym, it is a flasher’s wet dream, replete with teenage girls in half-shirts and hip-baring short shorts, swatting each other’s bare flanks as they lope back and forth across the basketball court.

  Two of Tay’s friends, Madison and Savannah, spot me in the doorway first.

  “Hey, Mrs. Rose.” Madison Platt has always been my secret favorite, her splash of pimples, too-large nose, and unselfconscious donkey laugh calling cards for lasting friendship.

  “Tay, your mom’s here!” Savannah Jain calls. Savannah is one of those girls whose popularity is no mystery; the girl is self-obsessed, witty, occasionally mean, and almost eerily good-looking.

  Taylor trots over, her grace, athleticism, and general air of entitlement stopping my heart, as always. “Mom, what are you doing here? Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, everything’s fine, honey. I just wanted to talk to you for a minute about something.”

  Taylor climbs up into the bleachers. Together, we ascend to the highest pew. Taylor’s steps slow near the top, and not from fatigue. I am pretty sure she understands what’s happening. Coming to school, something I haven’t had to do since she was, oh, eleven or so, is bound to send a message.

  “Are you doing okay?” I say pointedly.

  “Um, yeah.”

  “Is there anything you want to clarify, like about our conversation the other night?” Giving her the chance to fess up on her own, so I don’t have to risk accusations of diary violation.

  “Not really. Oh, I got an A on my trig midterm.”

  “That’s great, honey. Anything else?” Slightly cooler.

  “No?”

  “Taylor, the first time is something you remember for the rest of your life. I’m not saying it’s always going to be like it was that time, but there it is.” I shut my eyes and conjure a young Ren White lying next to me, propped on his elbow, focusing on my face as if it is the best, most compelling face he has ever seen. “There’s something about it being your first time that makes the person you do it with more important than he really is. That makes you more vulnerable to his actions.”

  She turns to me, her foot kicking the bench in front of us. It is not a struggle
to summon the feeling reflected on my daughter’s face: the one that compels you to relinquish the illusion of adulthood and wallow in being somebody’s baby when life begins to seem a little more complex and unmanageable than you’d originally envisioned.

  Taylor’s eyes fill. “We did it. Me and Bite. It wasn’t what I thought it was going to be like, I guess. It didn’t hurt that much or anything. It just . . . I thought it would be easier. More like, you know, fun. It wasn’t, like, gross or anything, just nothing, you know? I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I felt so stupid. I kept thinking about the other girls he had sex with and how I was probably the worst one, because I waited so long and didn’t learn how to do it when I was younger.”

  Waited so long? I don’t know whether to scream or laugh or ululate at this revelation. Beneath us, the two half-court games churn on. Somebody gets a ball to the nose, and the action grinds briefly to a halt while the player is escorted off the court with an ice pack on her shmecker.

  “And the worst part is, the . . . uh . . . condom kind of came off, Mom. Um. . . inside me? It was so disgusting. I was so scared I was pregnant or something. Then I got my period. So I knew I wasn’t.” My daughter draws a long finger over a crack in the bleacher seat, pokes at it. “Bite called me back once. To ask if he left his iPod headphones at our house.” She smiles, and I spot redemption in the grin and feel proud (this in spite of the fact that much of the preceding detail is, according to Hello Kitty, not quite accurate). “I gave them to Sarafina,” she says.

  “C’mere.”

  We hug. I envision us thirty years from now, commiserating about pain-in-the-ass teenagers and male treachery. With this vision, I realize that my definition of parenting success has shifted from its original focus on rampant bliss, achievement, and daily phone calls from my brilliant and devoted offspring to survival and any relationship with my kids that is warmer than estrangement.

  “He’s such a dick, Mom.”

  “I know.” In two years, when you go to college, you’ll start to say “prick.”

  “I hate him.” Pause. “Everyone knows.”

  I hug her tighter. Don’t worry. Next week Samantha Mosley will get wasted and give somebody head in the bathroom, and they’ll forget all about you and that ass-tart Biter.

  “I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean to lie to you and Dad. It just happened.”

  Tell me about it.

  “It takes a lot of courage to tell me now. But I’m not surprised, honey. That’s the person you are. I’m proud of you.”

  Taylor adjusts her gym uniform and wipes her eyes, where half-moons of azure mascara have pooled. I use my finger to wipe a smudge from her cheek; it comes away glittery.

  “Can Dad come over early tonight? Can we order pizza?” she says.

  CHAPTER 26

  Friends of Baron von Münchhausen

  Arlo Murphy and I have always had an understanding. The understanding is, he treats Sue Banicek like a goddamn queen, and I allow him to be part of Sue and Sarafina’s life. I don’t know why he is suddenly finding it hard to uphold his part of the bargain, but I intend to find out.

  “Hey.” I tap Arlo’s shoulder. His wife beater is plastered to his back. He is nearly swallowed by the innards of a motorcycle, which lies dismembered on the floor of his Mission District warehouse.

  “What?” Without turning.

  Hmm. I sense a distinct reduction in friendliness. “Arlo, come on. I want to talk to you.”

  “Nothin’ to talk about.”

  I decide to go straight for the big guns. “Sarafina’s crying herself to sleep every night, Arlo.” Okay, a small exaggeration, but I thought I saw a few tears last week when we rented Erin Brockovich (Arlo looks a lot like the Aaron Eckhart character).

  Arlo sits back on his boot heels. “Goddammit, Raquel.”

  “Let me buy you a beer.”

  Five minutes later, we are holed up in the Phone Booth, a puny dive that caters to anyone seeking the chance to rub up against an unemployed drunk while enjoying her libation. Arlo is working on a Guinness and pretzels; I stick to my usual Sierra Nevada pale ale and Ziploc bag of baby carrots.

  “Sue doesn’t know I’m here,” I say as an opener.

  Arlo scratches his beard. I can tell getting him pissed off and sick enough of me to promise things is going to be challenging. He is not Phil. He is not Ren. He is not moved by conventional henpecking. My original plan—to badger and berate him into taking Sue back and raising the baby properly—is not going to work. Foolishly, I have borrowed a strategy from my own tumultuous marriage playbook; Arlo Murphy is going to require a different tactic. I decide on a flattery ambush with a drop of motherly censure.

  “You know, even though you have done my best friend wrong, I still like you. I can’t help it. I don’t think I could say that about any of the others. Not a one.” I look him straight in the eye. “That doesn’t mean you aren’t being a complete asshole.”

  He looks embarrassed.

  “You know you love her, so what in God’s name are you doing?”

  “She knows I don’t want children.”

  “You’re already raising Sarafina. What’s one more in the scheme of things?” I lie.

  “We had a deal. Woman broke it.” He wipes a froth of Guinness off his lip.

  “For the love, Arl, listen to yourself. You sound like a refugee from a fifties spaghetti western! She didn’t do it on purpose. These things happen. And we deal with it. We don’t run away and stick our head in a carburetor. Nobody’s perfect. Birth control isn’t perfect. Hell, self-control isn’t perfect.

  You’re willing to throw away a whole relationship because of a mistake that reveals absolutely nothing about the way you really feel about each other? About how happy you can be while you get old together?”

  “Sounds like the pot calling the kettle black,” Arlo says simply.

  I freeze. Dear God, he’s right.

  This is the first thing I think as I ponder Arlo’s observation on the cesspool that is the Rose marriage. The second is: What if, contrary to popular opinion, there are worse things than a ten-year-old affair when it comes to the survival of a marriage? What if I’m the one throwing the baby out with the bathwater? What if I don’t take Phil back and he turns out to be a genius at IRA investment?

  Embarrassment makes me aggressive. “How could you possibly kick her out of her own house? With Fina? At a time like this. That is low.”

  “I never said she had to get out of the house. Of course it’s her friggin’ house. I just walked out. I’ve been sleeping on the floor of the shop.” Arlo pulls a bag of chew out of his pocket and looks at it yearningly. I hope no other woman gets to benefit from Sue’s housebreaking methods. “Did she tell you that?” He looks pissed.

  “Uh, not exactly.” She did. Maybe she was just lonely?

  “Look,” I say, hoping he doesn’t resume the habit on my watch. “Let’s cut the crap. Do you know what Sue told me when she first met you? She said, ‘Arlo is the only man I’ve ever known who makes me feel like everything that came before was worth it, because it led me to him.’ ”

  “She said that?”

  “Yeah.” What’s a little paraphrasing among friends?

  Arlo wraps his huge hand around the sweaty stein. “My dad was the biggest shit of a drunk who ever lived. This”—he raises the beer—“is a problem for me sometimes. I like it too much. I don’t think I can give it up. I feel like I gave up enough for people, when I was a kid, in ’Nam, in. . . Fuck it.”

  “No one’s asking you to change. If Sue didn’t think you were good father material, you wouldn’t have spent a day with Sarafina. You wouldn’t have spent a minute with her.” Of this, I am sure.

  “I just don’t want any kid of mine to live with this.” He sloshes the beer.

  I grab Arlo’s mitt of a hand. “Then he won’t.”

  “Munchausen syndrome,” Sue says. She picks up the stack of printouts. “ ‘A so-called factitious disorder in w
hich the patient repeatedly reports physical injury or evidence of disease, when in actuality, he has caused the symptoms. The illness is named after Baron von Münchhausen, an eighteenth-century German known for his pathological telling of falsehoods. Although its sufferers may injure or harm themselves, Munchausen originates as a mental illness and must be treated as such by health practitioners.’”

  I cross my legs and try to levitate to my happy place. Sue has decided that I am mentally ill. If it is her cause du jour, there is not much I can do about it.

  “Faking an attention-getting or chronic disease? Check. Engaging in behaviors that perpetuate contact with the medical establishment? Check. Going so far as to hurt oneself? Check. Reluctance by patient to allow family contact with health-care providers? Check. Extensive knowledge of medical terminology, including pharmaceuticals and surgical procedures? Check. Eagerness to undergo medical testing? Check. Oh my God, listen to this one: ‘Identity problems or low self-esteem.’ Check, check, check!”

  “All I did was fake a couple of doctors’ appointments and shave my head. I didn’t even nick myself,” I say.

  Sue drops the pile of papers on her dining room table. “I think you have it. You need to see a psychiatrist right away.”

  “Wouldn’t that just aggravate the condition because I’d be going to another doctor?” I tease.

  “Why can’t you take this seriously? I’m just trying to help you.”

  I lean over and flick off the kitchen TV before Laurie can come on and annoy me further. “Sue, I don’t have Munschnauzer, or whatever it’s called. Haven’t we talked enough about this already? I can’t come clean until I know for sure the telethon money’s been good and spent and Laurie’s job is secure and, you know, other stuff. Besides, I think you have to benefit from the attention you get from the illness itself. The way I see it, I’m benefiting from my own steam, from my own work, and the cancer only indirectly.” I inhale a quasi-furious breath. “I can’t very well claim to be a breast-cancer advocate and survivor artist if I don’t have it!”