by Donnna Salli
“Uhhh, well. I don’t know. I mean, it’s not something we’re talking about.”
“Talking don’t do it, dearie.”
When I got home from school the next evening, the bird was gone. I’d known, somehow, it would be, but my heart dropped anyway. There were lights at June’s. I knocked. As soon as she saw me, she put an arm around me. “Toni. Come in. Iris and I are having some coffee. Can I get you some? Look, Iris. It’s Toni from upstairs. She was tending that bird with me.”
June’s kitchen was hot and smelled of beef stock and yeast. Iris looked up from the table. She was holding her cup solidly in both hands, and she put it down carefully and nodded. “Brrrrr,” she said. It startled me. “Brrrrr,” she said again.
“No,” June said. “I meant the bird with the hurt leg.”
I wasn’t following the conversation. Iris picked up the cup again and drank without taking her eyes off me. “Brrrrr,” she said, and this time the syllable had a demanding pitch. June laughed.
“Oh, she doesn’t want to see that old thing, Iris.”
There was no satisfying her, though, and June finally said, “She wants to show you her room. She’s got something in there she likes to show to people.”
“Oh. All right.”
June helped Iris up from her seat. She said, “She has trouble with her balance.” I trailed behind, June and I taking one slow step for every three or four of cautious Iris’s.
When we got to her room, Iris grabbed me by the hand and steered me to a birdcage hanging by her bed. Its door hung open, and the bottom was lined with pink floral shelf paper. Taped to the hanging perch, as if on a high trapeze, was a picture of two girls about middle-school age. It was an old picture— grainy and yellow with age. Iris gestured at it, slid a hand to the back of my neck, and guided me to a closer look.
“That’s her and me,” June said. She shook her head. “When Moko, my parakeet, died, I cleaned the cage and set it by the door for Ben to take to the basement. But Iris took it in her head she had to have it in here. When I saw what she’d done, I took the picture out, but she got really mad and put it back in. I just left it. She likes to sit in that chair there and look at it.” June swooped up what looked like underwear, peeking out from under the bed. “Wouldn’t you like to know what would make her do such a thing?”
After all these years, I still think about Iris, that uninhibited and authentic way she reached for me and pulled my head exactly where it needed to be. I think about June, who was exactly where she needed to be. I know I’ll never see them again. But they’re forever in my head. As for the ducks . . .
My parents couldn’t bring themselves to slaughter them. They gave them to my uncle, who invited them for duck dinner and received a fast refusal.
After our breakup, Sam couldn’t accept that I might not get over what had caused it. We’ve met for breakfast at least once a week, and one morning the waitress skittered up to the table with a tower of dirty plates balanced in her arms. She was young and in a flurry. People were stacked up like cordwood, waiting for empty seats. She dropped the plates onto our table and whipped out her order book. “What can I get you?”
“A cup of coffee—” I began.
“With cream,” Sam finished.
I shot him a look. “Since when have you started ordering for me? Do your dates these days suffer some sort of disconnect between the mouth and the brain?”
“My dates?” he said. He beamed a smile at the waitress, who wore MARY in black letters over her left breast. “Mary,” he said. “Would you want to stay married to someone this delightful in the morning?”
Mary blushed under the smile. She looked disconcerted. “Uhhhh,” she said and glanced toward the pass-through window, clearly hoping somebody’s omelet was up.
“Well. I would,” Sam said.
Dream on, I thought. I flipped a page of the menu.
Sam laughed. “I’ll have coffee, too, Mary. How about you get that? Then we’ll order.”
Mary slid the order book into her pocket and swept up the syrupy plates. When she’d gone, Sam said, “It bothers you.”
“What?”
Truth was, anything he said or did bothered me. But he didn’t need to know.
“That I could be seeing someone.”
“Sam,” I said. I knew the affair was over. He’d told me, and I’d heard it independently via the grapevine. He stopped seeing her right after I moved out. “I wouldn’t care if you were seeing the Queen of England.”
“Rang her up. She doesn’t go for California boys.”
“Well, that’s good for England. It’s good to have intelligence in your queen.”
He abandoned the playful approach. “Toni. Don’t you see I’m waving a white flag here?” He leaned across the booth—his hand nearly connected with mine. I pulled it away, reached for a napkin. “Look,” he said. “I’ve got it coming, I know it. Anything you want to throw at me, I deserve. You want to call me a son of a bitch? Go ahead. Paint my portrait in camel dung? Baby, I’ll buy it—I’ll hang it on my office wall. What’s it going to take? What, Toni, do I have to do?”
“I don’t know what you have to do,” I said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. All I know is it fucking hurts.”
Two coffees clattered onto the table from half a foot up. Three containers of half and half rolled like a craps throw behind them. Sam caught one just as it skittered into his lap and flashed Mary a grin. “No cream for me, thanks.”
“Sorry,” Mary said. She flipped the order book open and said, a little fearfully, “You two decided?”
How could a woman not fall for Sam?
His field is actuarial science. At the time we met, he was working for a big insurance company in town. After the rally, a bunch of us went out for coffee, and I told Sam I was a grad student in sociology. He brightened. “We’re a perfect match,” he said. “Think about it—we’re both interested in statistics and patterns. You with your hair cinched up in the ivory tower, me getting my pencil dirty in the real world.”
I thought, What a charmer. And as I thought it, I knew I could marry him. Sam’s got his own ideas. I haven’t worn my hair in a bun a day of my life—I wouldn’t be caught dead in one. He knows it. But he loves giving me grief, and he loves emphasizing that real world thing, as if he really and truly believes that everyone who teaches at the college level has their pinhead up their ass and Flubber on their shoes. We went around and around about it. Sam saw at once it was a button to push.
So much for soul mates. I like haute cuisine. Sam accommodates that by buying a bird-hunting license every year and serving partridge under glass. But on his own he’ll go for spaghetti or burgers. I’m inclined toward concerts or the theatre—he’d rather take in a pro game or go fishing. I’ll take Mozart, Bach, or Sibelius. Sam will listen to anything. He was on a Todd Rundgren kick the year we met. For our one-month anniversary, he stood on my porch with a little yellow guitar and serenaded me with a sexy rendition of “Hello, It’s Me.” The song was already an oldie, but the lyrics were right. I’ve always been guilty of thinking too much, and it’s about right that Sam and I would choose as our song one about a failing relationship.
Not long after we were married, we had a bizarre episode. In bed one night, a spinning, silver disc burrowed into Sam’s cranium. We’d been asleep, and he started screaming. I had never heard anything like what was coming from the man next to me. I was sure, if Sam’s voice pitched any higher, his vocal cords would snap.
“Sam,” I said. I placed one hand firmly on his shoulder, so as not to startle him. “Wake up. You’re dreaming.” My touch, my voice, had no effect. I shook him, said, “Sam. Wake up.”
His screaming stopped in one shocked inhalation. He snapped to a sitting position and brought his hands to his head. He said, in a voice that sounded stoned, “Something like the blade of a circular saw came spinning at me out of the dark—it tore into my forehead just above my nose. I did not want that thing in my head. I
f it . . . Jesus . . . if it got in, I’d be dead.”
“It was a dream,” I said, to reassure him. I’ve since come to understand it—the abject fear of extinguishment that jerks one from sleep. But that night I didn’t. I lay awake until the window shade hovered rectangular and white, the tape in my head stuck on What is he afraid of?
I love to tell people about Sam’s trip to Boston to visit his brother. He left on Sunday and came back on Friday—it wasn’t like he was strapped for time. As a memento, he brought me a potholder that looked like Paul Revere’s lantern. I thought, Where’d he get this? Not Beacon Hill. I laughed and hung it over the stove. I made a big thing out of using it every day, and an even bigger thing out of showing it to some ladies from church when I had them over. Most of them smiled politely. A few actually liked it. Mabel Gunderson oohed and aahed. She said, “Paul Revere! Oh, for cute.” My friend Rena, who was my roommate when I went back to Madison, busted up, laughing. Her husband, Richard—who she was dating back then and who I used to juggle potatoes with, they were flying between us—is now pastor at Pelican. That’s the name of our church, hence, the bird on the roof. Rena complained endlessly about finding spuds under all the furniture. It was Richard’s apartment—I don’t know why she was cleaning over there. She looked at Sam’s lantern potholder and said, “He brought you that? With the entire metropolis of Boston to choose from, he brings you that?”
I cocked my head and raised an eyebrow. It said, Whatever do you mean? The other ladies missed it, but Rena read it like I’d penned it on the counter top. We know each other well . . . almost too well. We’ve seen each other on some not-so-good days. She poked at the potholder with a look of disgust. “I’d put a good deal of thought into the next gift I gave Sam Heller, if I were you. Get my drift?”
I did.
I put a lot of thought into it. I can be very good at putting thought into things. The potholder theme appealed to me. It was familiar, yet inspired—the possibilities were endless. Every household should have potholders hanging on squadrons of nails. Sentimentalized, commercialized, in any sort of bad taste. What more unique expression of a unique relationship? The next time I left town, for a conference in Omaha, I scoured the city for the tackiest I could find.
In the wrapped and beribboned box I presented to Sam was a smiling, stuffed-steer oven mitt with a stalk of wheat in its teeth, the package guaranteeing the mitt to be entirely fireproof. I won’t tell you what Sam’s first sight of it prompted him to say. Nor did I stop there. Sam has in his possession today the most well thought out, most horrific potholder collection in existence. It’s been a source of satisfaction to me, and an ongoing lesson for him. Do unto your wives, oh ye husbands, as you would have them do unto you.
It’s been said, “Don’t get mad, get even.” Well, I’m here to report, if you do it creatively and with a light heart, revenge is as good as sex. Of course, the reverse is also true. Sex—it’s the best revenge.
I’ve had two relationships since Sam and I separated. The shorter and more recent one was with a man named Warren, twelve years my senior. Warren is charming and thoughtful— but he was in bed, without fail, every night at ten. And I do mean in bed, asleep. Still, we had some fun. He took me to his father’s sixtieth high school reunion. I loved listening to the class members’ stories. They’d seen amazing changes in sixty years. The end to the evening was especially memorable. A one-man band, accordion and harmonica, performed every hit from the thirties. I mean every one. It was a far cry from Paris—there’s nothing like it in the Big Apple.
The relationship before Warren was with a man twelve years my junior. The two were like book ends. Now, I didn’t set out to get laid by a younger man. The opportunity simply presented itself. After the separation, I signed up for yoga. It was innocently done. I was out of shape and feeling stressed. My instructor—I’ll call him Pete—turned out to be gorgeous. He could do things on a sticky mat I hadn’t dreamed possible. His adho mukha svanasana would turn a woman’s legs to K-Y Jelly. In English, that would be his downward-facing dog.
Pete was an alluring combination of types. He had the trim, muscular body of a Marine and the long hair and laid-back manner of the sprouts and granola club. Our class met in the evening. It was late June, and one night was so hot and humid the air-conditioner in the studio could barely keep up. After class, I did a quick change out of my yoga clothes while Pete was changing his. The timing was perfect. I bumped into him coming out of the johns and walked out with him. Flashing what I hoped was a beguiling smile, I said, “Pete. Would you like to have a drink? I’m buying. That is, if drinking’s not against your philosophy.”
He must have known I was hot for him. He smiled this Buddha-like smile and narrowed his eyes. “Do you never,” he said, “violate your own philosophies?”
The way he used the negative in the question—coupled with how close he was to me—threw me. I stammered, “I . . . I suppose.”
“Let’s go.”
I took him to La Crème, a quiet club known for its upscale clientele. It was wonderful. I hadn’t felt that way for a long time— I was intoxicated—and it wasn’t the two Golden Cadillacs that had rolled into my garage.
Oh, why be coy? I took him home with me. Sam would have shit if he’d known, which made it that much better. The AC was out and the house was a furnace, but we hardly noticed. We didn’t even make it to the bedroom. Pete pulled his yoga mat and roll out of his bag—the roll is this stuffed fabric tube— unrolled the mat on the living room rug, and flopped next to it, cross-legged. He patted the floor suggestively. “Let’s do a little yoga.” I dropped beside him like Plato at the knees of Socrates. Despite the heat, I was wearing my new beret—it makes me feel hot, the other kind of hot. Pete snatched it from my head and tossed it over his shoulder. “Something simple,” he said and centered the roll on the mat. “How about blades above the roll?”
I wish there were Sanskrit for that, but there’s not. It’s not a classic yoga pose. I squiggled onto my back and positioned the roll below my shoulder blades. I knew why he’d chosen the pose. It lifts the breasts. It felt luxurious and wicked to arch back and let him admire me. Ever the good student, I completed the pose by stretching my legs languidly and reaching overhead, letting my arms fall into a position of rest.
“Very good.” Pete spoke it right into my ear. “Now. Don’t move.” His hands began to ripple across my body, teasing, exploring. At first, he kept them outside my clothes, but then he slipped them underneath. “Toni. No moving.”
It was the most tremendous blades above the roll I’d ever experienced. Pete brought it to a glorious head by sliding onto me and drawing little circles with his pelvis. Everywhere. He was supple, he was firm. I thought I’d die. I pushed him off and began peeling out of my clothes. He watched, as if he had stepped back, then crossed the space between us in one fluid motion, his lips a swarm at my breasts, glazing, nibbling. Just as my lips were opening to beg, he covered them with his, then pulled free and drew his t-shirt up and over his perfected shoulders. His chest was tanned and glistening in the heat. I swear, he smelled like the woods in spring.
All he was wearing then was a pair of white shorts. I’d already surmised there was nothing underneath. By all that’s tender, lovely and true, it seemed a shame to take them off. They did the man justice. His thighs were faultless, with soft blond hairs that stood out against the skin. But as summer follows spring, the shorts came off. . . . How shall I put this? There’s a physical trait that can be thought of as the signature of a man, and Pete had an impressive one. It scrawled, it astonished, it turned me giddy, almost scared. It was good I wasn’t my younger self, or I might have run from the room. As it was, I briefly considered it. Pete pulled a plastic package out of a zippered compartment in his bag. It was a condom, something I hadn’t seen in years. He unwrapped and handed it to me. “Some parts of one’s philosophy,” he said, “must never be violated.”
Pete and I could tussle like minks, but we had no
thing to say to one another. Positively, absolutely zero. It was too bad— I mean, consider the possibilities. Maybe it was the age difference again, but it didn’t last. The euphoria dissipated in about four weeks.
The crash-and-burn Hank triggered when he barged into my office took place a couple years after Sam and I had moved in together. He’d relocated with me, but we were avoiding marriage religiously. I had my reasons to be wary of it—he had his. Those were the days before answering machines, and I used to turn off the ringer on my phone. I had to. People are one strange animal—they don’t know when to give up. It would set my teeth on edge to be hard at work and to hear this strident ringing, ringing, in the background.
As a partner, I was pathetic—I can admit it. I loved being with Sam, but by my schedule. The rest of the time was Toni Time. Sounds like a beer commercial. At least once a day, I’d pull myself away from my office and inhale some sort of gut bomb on campus. If Sam hadn’t stopped at the market, at home we’d have starved. No mice took up residence at the Sprague/Heller place. No bright-eyed little faces peeked out of our cupboards. Any mouse domestic unit foolish enough to have moved in would have vacated before the month was out, reduced to rodent skin and bones. And they’d have been grateful to be getting out at all, the human members of the household having a voracious look.
Like all men, frankly, Sam can be a prick.
But I’ve got to give him credit. He doesn’t mind a turn in the passenger seat, and, except for the obvious lapse of the affair, he’s generally more attuned to my state of mind than I am. On the evening Hank walked in on me, Sam had showed up at my office around dinnertime. He’d gone to Chang’s for takeout, and the sack he was carrying sent out a strong odor of ginger chicken, my favorite.
“C’mon, Toni,” he said. “Let’s take it home tonight. Blame it on me, tell anyone who gives you shit that it’s my fault. Say I’m lonely, I guilted you. Say I convinced you, against your better judgment. Better yet—tell ’em to stick their damn publications.”