How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life

by Mameve Medwed

  “Screw you!” I yell, even though I know the voice is computer-generated.

  I will not be deterred. My stomach growls. Go, Abby, go! it seems to be coaching from its roiling, churning acid reflux pit. This is the new Abby, the one who gets to the bottom of things, who won’t give up. I riffle through the yellow pages and find the newspaper’s main number. I remember calling that number not so long ago in my due diligence attempts to find out if Todd was who he said he was.

  “The Boston Globe. Phyllis speaking. How may I direct your call?”

  “Oh, Phyllis.” I sigh as if I have been re united with my best friend after de cades of tragic separation. “Just the person I’ve been searching for.”

  “How can I help you?”

  “Let me count the ways. I need to get in touch with one of your reporters.”

  “No-brainer. If you give me his name I can put you on to his voice mail.”

  “That’s just the problem.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’ve been leaving messages on his voice mail for the last two weeks. He hasn’t returned any of my calls.”

  “Did you try his e-mail address?”

  “Endlessly. To no avail.”

  “Well.” She pauses. I can hear wheels churning. “Our reporters are very busy. Out in the field. Checking their facts. Why don’t you just leave another message.”

  “It seems a lost cause. I’ve jammed his tape already. His machine is probably out of order because otherwise I know he’d get back to me.”

  She offers a noncommittal hmm.

  “His name is Todd Tucker. He writes for City and Region.” I twist the telephone cord around my wrist. “I hope you can give me his home phone.”

  “We’re not allowed to reveal that information.”

  “Maybe you might make an exception?” I wait. “Phyllis?” I purr.

  “No exceptions.”

  “I completely understand. But these are special circumstances. Extraordinary ones.”

  “Under no circumstances are we allowed to give out home phone numbers.”

  My throat catches. I produce a slight choking sob. “But I’m his sister. Tanya,” bursts from my mouth. Where did that come from? I wonder.

  Does she laugh? Maybe she’s simply clearing her throat because then she asks, “His sister? Tanya Tucker? Isn’t that a country singer? Grand Ole Opry, if I remember right?” She groans. “Come on, I wasn’t born yesterday.”

  I stop. I take a deep breath. “Okay. Okay. I’ll tell you the truth.”

  “Which won’t make me budge. But tell to your heart’s content. I’m just about to start my coffee break.”

  I think about what to say. How to preserve my Tanya anonymity. I decide to leave out Antiques Roadshow and the chamber pot since Phyllis, surfing channels, might turn me up one night on PBS. Besides, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear she’s a reporter-in-training, beginning at the receptionist’s desk like those crack L.A. agents who claim their humble mail-room origins. “It started out strictly business,” I explain.

  “It always does.”

  “He was doing a story on me.” I pause. “Then, later, pretty soon after, it became something more.”

  “What more?” She waits. “The usual?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  She lowers her voice. “Are you suggesting sexual harassment was involved?”

  “I’d have to admit it was consensual. Though what wasn’t consensual was the information he extracted from me against my will.”

  “In a moment of passion? When you weren’t thinking straight?”

  “How do you know?”

  “Been there, done that,” she confides. “Don’t get me started.” In the background a keyboard clicks. A coffee machine hisses. “And you want to find out if he’s going to use it? If he’s going to put it in the Globe?” she goes on.

  “Exactly.”

  “Men,” she says.

  “Men,” I say.

  We sigh in solidarity, followed by a mutual sisterly silence as we both scroll through our bad-men personal histories.

  “Good-looking?” she asks.

  “Very,” I concede. I picture the cleft in Todd’s chin. As soon as I do, I want to counter it. “But he’s a terrible driver,” I point out. “A lot of road-rage potential.”

  “I hear you.” She clears her throat. “Listen,” she says, “I’m in this great support group, Women Addicted to Married Men.”

  “That’s not quite my problem.”

  “Lucky you.”

  I don’t feel so lucky, but I’m not about to get into a my-problems-are-worse-than-yours contest with Phyllis, who is fast becoming my new best friend. Not to mention my therapist.

  “But there’s another group across the hall,” she proposes. “Women Who Hook Up with Men Who Treat Them Wrong. They do these amazing visualization exercises…”

  I can only imagine. “I’ll bear that in mind,” I promise.

  “Good.” She clicks her tongue. “Okay. Just this once. In sisterhood.” She rattles off some numbers.

  I write them down.

  “And, Tanya…?”

  “Yes?”

  “You know where to reach me. If you ever want information on the group. If you ever want to talk.”

  Despite the warnings from my stomach, I take another gulp of Chardonnay. My nerves are more important than my guts—though I’ll need strong nerves to have the guts to make this call. I slosh some more wine down my throat. I hope my words won’t slur. I dial.

  A woman answers. “Hullo,” she says. In the background I can make out the blare of the television and the mounting excited tones of a quiz show host. Will you choose the home entertainment system or go for the gold? I hear him shout. Some countdown music strikes a migraine-inducing drumbeat. The audience cheers. A child starts screaming. “Where’s my Cap’n Crunch?” he or she yells.

  “Quiet, Chip,” the woman orders.

  “Excuse me?” I say.

  “What do you want?” she demands.

  I must have made a mistake. Maybe I dialed wrong. Or perhaps Phyllis misled me, keeping to her newspaper receptionist’s oath. “Is Todd Tucker there?” I ask anyway.

  I’m waiting for the woman to say, Sorry, wrong number, to say, You’ve reached Tom Tucker’s Plumbing Supply. Instead she asks, “Who wants to know?”

  “This is Tan—” I begin, then correct myself. “This is Abigail Randolph, one of Mr. Tucker’s interviewees.”

  “He should have been here a half an hour ago. I’ve got a fetal ultrasound scheduled, and he promised to be home to watch Todd Junior. Wait, I think I hear his car pull in. That bum.”

  I fall into the chair. That bum, I second. “If you don’t mind,” I say. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Depends. The minute his key’s in the lock, I’m out of here.”

  “Do you have a dog?”

  “No way. Todd’s allergic. Besides, he hates all animals.”

  I start to hyperventilate again. I drop my head to my knees, telephone still at my ear. The wails of Cap’n Crunch turn into Daddy! Daddy! Behind that I can distinguish a few spousal you assholes, underscored by terrible traffic. There’s such contrapuntal harmony I could have been listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir—asshole, sings the soprano; Cap’n Crunch, warbles the tenor; traffic, croons the alto; all voices meld, then rise toward a mutually orgasmic crash of cymbals just as the quiz show host cries out, You’ve hit the ten-thousand-dollar jackpot!

  “Someone’s on the phone for you,” the woman snarls.

  “Who now?” I hear.

  “One of those ditzy space cadets you’re always writing about.”

  A door slams. The TV switches to the child-friendly sounds of Sesame Street. “Hello,” Todd grunts.

  I take a running leap. “Is this Todd Tucker, the man who was married for two minutes, the dog lover, the owner of Wordsworth, the appreciator of Flush, the poet, the nineteenth-century English lit major, the Browning admirer, the repo
rter who had his way with his interviewee on a four-poster bed in a New Hampshire B and B in the Old Man of the Mountain Room?”

  I hear a single, laser-sharp gasp. Then silence.

  I go on. “Let me introduce myself. Abigail Randolph. The ditzy space cadet you’re writing about.” I wait a beat. “To quote your wife.”

  More silence.

  I count to twenty. “Well?” I demand.

  No sound except for the falsetto of a Muppet singing a hymn to the number eight.

  “Answer me!”

  “Calm down,” he says.

  “You have some nerve.”

  “Charm and betray,” he answers.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Charm and betray. It’s what we learn in J-school. It’s the number one tool in any reporter’s bag of tricks.”

  I open my mouth. I slam it shut.

  “All in a day’s work,” he continues. “Nothing personal.”

  Nothing personal? This man’s bodily fluids have seeped from between my legs. He has inserted his penis into all of my orifices. He has pressed my nipple between his lying lips. He has stuck his two-faced face into my underpants. Nothing personal?

  “Did you tell my wife anything?” Todd asks. Faux casual.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  “Actually, I would.” His voice curdles with the milk of uxorial kindness. “We’re expecting a baby. I wouldn’t want her upset.”

  “Funny how you didn’t think of that in the Granite State. In the Old Man of the Mountain Room.”

  He ignores my New Hampshire references. “Did you tell her anything?” he repeats.

  And now, reader, here’s where you’ll be most proud of me. Charmed and betrayed. Seduced and abandoned. I nevertheless manage to collect myself. I harden my heart and pervert my brain cells into the dark criminal mind of the blackmailer.

  “It depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Did you write that article yet?”

  Another, this time longer, silence ensues. I sense the fog of Hamlet indecision seeping through the wire. Will he settle for the home entertainment center? Will he go for the jackpot? Cap’n Crunch versus Special K? Corn shellers over the King’s Arrow? Ladies and Gentlemen: In this corner lies journalistic integrity. In that corner, domestic tranquillity, however tainted by lies. Place your bets.

  I’ve placed my bet.

  Ladies and Gentlemen: We have a winner here.

  He clears his throat. “Funny you should mention that article. I’ve just decided to trash it. The whole subject—the Antiques Roadshow, your Cambridge family, those sappy Brownings, a chamber pot of all the disgusting things—was bound to put my readers to sleep. To think that I slogged through that novel by your friend Bickford Potter. What a piece of junk.”

  “Asshole!” I scream. And for the zillionth time that day, I slam down the phone.

  I must admit I take to my sofa. I must confess I shed a few tears. For old, generic breaking-up’s sake. You are well rid of him, I tell myself. The signs were all there. His driving. His lying. His sex manual skills. I’m sure he was the kind of kid who drowned kittens, who pulled off the wings of butterflies. Was I so desperate that I could overlook such blatant character flaws? I picture myself in bed with him. What I see is so bad, so pathetic, I have to stuff my pillow over my eyes. I am a fool. I am a motherless girl. I am adrift without a moral compass. I shed a couple more tears. But—big but—the article is not coming out, I marvel. I have silenced a member of the press. Wait till I tell Lavinia.

  I stop. Maybe I won’t tell Lavinia. Maybe I, Abigail Elizabeth Randolph, the duped, betrayed, abandoned, can work my way to the end of my cycle of misery. I think of the six wives of Henry VIII. Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived. I can certainly produce a variation on that rhyme for my own faltering relationships. Yet maybe, like Catherine Parr, wife number six, I could survive and surmount the difficulty of a not-up-to-par, not-up-to-Parr, consort. She outlived three husbands, including Henry, and went on to marry the man of her dreams. An inspiration I’ll tuck away for future revisiting.

  But for now, enough about me. Enough about men. Enough about me and men. A subject worthy of a doctoral thesis in sociology. Or sociopathology. Let’s move on to a smaller, more manageable, less male-o-centric front. I raise my fist in a V for victory. I take a bow. Could it be possible that for once in my whole sibling-free-but-not-free-of-sibling-rivalry life, I am holding the upper hand over Lavinia?

  Thirteen

  This morning’s the deposition. I didn’t sleep all night. I tossed and turned, caught between the Scylla of the chamber pot and the Charybdis of Ned. Or should it be the other way around? Mine mine mine, kept running through my head like the tantrum of a toddler. The chamber pot is mine. As for Ned, he once was mine but I’d sent him away. For all the right reasons. I had no choice. Charm and betray. Did every man I ever met go to J-school? Is it a rule in the XY-chromosomes-training manual to coax what you want from a woman and then leave the dried-out hollow husk the way we girls might learn how to sew on a button and brown a roast? Oops—twenty-first-century correction—the way we girls might study how to be a titan of industry and double-cross your best friend? One thing I am sure of: I no longer want to see Ned again. And yet all night all I could see was Ned. His face. The sculpted edge of his jaw. His cockeyed smile. The little yellow glints in his irises. How his eyebrows rose in astonishment at the beauty of nature, the eloquence of a line of verse. The way the light had singled him out at St. Barnaby’s Chapel haloing him like a saint.

  Some saint. I know I am well rid of him. I’m positive I made the right decision when I sent him away. Proved by the silence of these last years. Proved by how well I moved on and had subsequent, however doomed, relationships. Still, if I could not care less, then why is he haunting my sleep?

  Stockholm syndrome, I diagnose. I am identifying with my oppressor. Patty Hearst has nothing over me. I feel a sudden chill. Wasn’t Tanya her name when she was a soldier in the Symbionese Liberation Army? A name I dredged up from my subconscious to use for my own purposes? I picture her in fatigues waving that machine gun. I see myself on TV clutching my chamber pot. Will the real Tanya please stand up? Unlike me, Patty Hearst went on to marry, have a family, act in movies, attend charity balls. She survived her legal troubles. This Tanya is just beginning hers.

  My head pounds. I swallow two aspirin. If I’m suffering from Stockholm syndrome, however, there’s a cure. I’m identifying with an oppressor I could avoid if I’d only give up the chamber pot. Yet here’s the rub: in this case the cure is worse than the disease because I can’t surrender my casus belli, this source of misery. Why? Because it’s also the source of my salvation, my antiques credentials, and the foundation I can build my business on. Besides, it’s mine. And so few things seem to be mine these days; I’ve lost so much.

  Usually I try not to dwell on my losses. Not that I’m some Pollyanna who can always separate the gold from the dross, as you already know. As you also already know, I do have a tendency to whine about those who done me wrong as well as my own failings, not to mention the flaws inherent in an imperfect society. But I’m making a huge effort to improve my character. If character is destiny, then I’m determined to whip mine into better shape.

  Nevertheless, dwelling on my losses this particular morning is just the fuel I need to feed my anger for the deposition. I’m coaching myself to get mad at the other team so that I can walk away victorious, hoisting a ceramic trophy that once contained the metabolic waste of a famous poetess. Let’s face it, sometimes aren’t life’s ironies just too much?

  I’m coaching myself because—frankly—I think Mary Agnes is falling a little behind in her training exercises. I showed up two days ago on the dot of three for my prep session. By the time she called me into her office it was four-fifteen. I’d read two issues of People, one New Yorker, then half a Wall Street Journal (someone had swiped the stock listings; not that I wanted t
hem). I was about to ask for the bodice ripper paperback splayed open on the receptionist’s desk when the buzzer sounded. This prompted the same receptionist with terrible taste in literature to announce in a hoity-toity all-rise-for-the-king voice, “Attorney Finch will see you now.” I was tempted to tell her I’d seen Attorney Finch in Snoopy pajamas; I was tempted to add that I too was a high-powered, overly booked professional. There are other lawyers in the Greater Boston area, I wanted to point out. Other lawyers who don’t make important clients wait. But I didn’t. “Thank you so much.” I bowed and scraped. I made my sheepish way to Mary Agnes’s office, living proof that the meek do not inherit the earth.

  Once I was inside the heavy paneled doors, it was pretty clear to me that the needs of Abigail Elizabeth Randolph—both legal and emotional—were not marked top priority on Mary Agnes Finch’s daily planner. Piles of paper littered her previously pristine desk. Five phone lines blinked with pulsing red lights. In the corner a fax machine was grinding out enough paper to provide Christo and Jeanne-Claude sufficient material to wrap Faneuil Hall. Secretaries and associates rushed in and out carrying blue-backed documents. Mary Agnes’s hair was askew; coffee stained her lapel. She looked at me as if she didn’t know who the hell I was.

  “Abby,” I supplied. “Here for deposition coaching.” I clicked my heels together. I added a smart salute.

  She didn’t smile.

  “I thought you’d forgotten about me. I ran out of things to read and nearly filched the Harlequin romance from your receptionist.”

  No amused appreciation turned up the corners of her lips. She didn’t apologize for keeping me waiting. She didn’t invite me to sit down.

  I sat down. Someone knocked on the door, then opened it an inch. “Ginsburg and O’Connor are waiting in the conference room,” informed a disembodied voice.

  “Ruth Bader? Sandra Day?” I asked.