What Doesn't Kill You

by Virginia DeBerry

  He drove me home in the beat-up yellow Opel Kadett he called Sunshine. It had no backseat so there was room for his Fender Rhodes. We parked around the corner from my house and talked until the windows fogged up about life, about the future, about all the songs he had written. “Music that will make things better. Songs that bring the world together.” He spoke a lot in rhyme. Back then I used to think it was deep. And speaking of deep, when we kissed I felt like he touched my soul and showered me with stardust. I talked like that when we were together, heaven help me, and that was just a kiss. I mean, many had knocked on that door—nobody had come in, but I was ready for him to ring my bell.

  I always thought I’d be nervous the first time, but with him it was like I had found a seventh sense, way past the five I knew. Beyond intuition, inner vision, superstition, all of it. Those were the days of his hole-in-the-ground apartment on West Nineteenth Street. It was three steps down from the street, and from the front window we could watch people’s ankles go by. But it was our private universe. We’d eat baguettes and butter, bowls of grapes or Alpha-Bits, smoke a little herb sometimes, laugh, dream…oh yeah, and do it ’til I couldn’t hardly walk. I could listen to him fool around on the piano for hours, making up songs about anything—pizza, sneakers, everlasting love. And the closer we got, the more the balance in my life went straight to hell.

  We’d go to Monday-night jam sessions at dive bars so he could play and maybe connect with a musician looking for a sideman or a record label A&R person out to discover the next musical genius. We’d drag in late, I’d end up skipping class and feeling guilty, like I was letting Olivia down. But I always went to work. For once I had plenty to talk about. Him. His energy and creativity, the places we went, the people he introduced me to—everything about being with him made me feel special. In no time, he let me keep his life organized the way I did Olivia’s. He let me—first sign I had lost my mind.

  My parents lived on my case, said I could not march in and out of their house when I felt like it. I told them I was grown. Where have I heard that lately? Anyway, Mom suggested I move, since there couldn’t be but one grown woman in her house and she had that covered. Daddy said a grown man ought to have a job. I said music was his job. He said the fools playing accordion in the subway could say the same thing. Clearly, we were having a failure to communicate.

  None of that mattered, though, because we were in love. I knew it because he wrote a song that said so and put the tape in a Walkman he gave me for my birthday. I was dumbstruck when I heard it—dumb being the operative word. I think he got carried away too, because next thing I knew we were headed to city hall. Sounds stupid, but I can’t even remember whose idea it was to get married. One day we were sitting in Sunshine, parked in a Jack-in-the-Box lot eating burgers and watching a wedding at the church across the street. He said something like, “Can you imagine us getting married?” And I must have said, “Yes.” By the last slurp of my vanilla shake he had tied the straw wrapper in a bow around my ring finger and we were engaged. I still have that stupid thing in my jewelry box somewhere—keep meaning to toss it. Next thing we were exchanging “I dos” and chunky silver rings that looked more like car parts than jewelry. A guitar player he knew named Melvin and his girlfriend, whose name I never did know, stood up for us. Guess I could have asked Olivia, since she was in on it from the beginning, but that felt kind of weird. I mean, I didn’t tell anybody, including Mom and Dad. Anyway, our honeymoon consisted of a romantic trip on the A train out to Rockaway Beach, where we walked hand in hand in the sand—avoiding cigarette butts, pop-top tabs and broken glass, and celebrating our new lives together.

  “We’re married! Surprise!” After my parents moved beyond shock, I think they were relieved. I was officially off their watch. They gave us the double mattress and box springs I asked for. It was all we could fit in the apartment, and the twin bed was getting a little too cozy. Then they bought themselves a new living-room suite in honor of their empty nest.

  Olivia spied my ring soon as I walked in the door. She was unusually subdued. I figured she was hurt that I didn’t confide in her before I took the plunge, but maybe she saw the writing on the wall. She and Eliot had eloped too. She did come around though, gave us a hand-blown glass vase. I still have it. She also understood when I said I wanted to leave school for a while. That’s when she invited me to come on full-time. She had moved manufacturing to a small plant in New Jersey, and she was having the loft remodeled to make room for a sales staff. She couldn’t pay me benefits yet, but she’d started talking with lawyers about how to structure her kitchen-table company into a corporation. If I hung in a little longer the company would turn that corner. I never hesitated. I wasn’t about to give up my spot as first employee. That’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing. It was a relief, finally being out of school. I wasn’t exactly a dropout, since I had some kind of degree, and the extra money was right on time.

  Unfortunately, the reality portion of my marriage set in pretty soon. The part about What’s for dinner? Who’s doing the laundry? And, What time are you coming home? Still, life was more Newlywed Game than Divorce Court. We even drove his piece-a car to Key West to salute the sunset for our first anniversary. Sometimes I hung out when he played, but I headed home early so I could get up and go to work. After I nudged him a little—OK, a lot—and made a few phone calls as his “manager,” he started hustling commercial jingles, which he informed me were artistically beneath him. I said I’d be happy to cash the checks if it was too painful. But he was tickled silly first time he heard a jingle he did for a local tire chain on the radio.

  Amber was as much a surprise to me as she was to her father. One morning I slapped on my Apricot Sage Crème as usual and promptly washed it off because the smell was making me sick. When I got to work the smell of everything including Wite-Out made me want to puke, and Olivia said, “Bet you’re preggers.” I said she was nuts. That’s why I never gamble.

  After several days of needing a clothespin for my nose, I swallowed my pride, which always sticks in my throat, and found a clinic. It was filled to the rafters with women and wiggling children and strollers and crying babies and overworked nurses—it sobered me up from my bohemian romance in a heartbeat. When I got the official word from a doctor that I had company, I wanted to go cry to Mom and Dad, but I distinctly remembered telling them I was grown, so that was out. Papa Bear was so excited he stayed up all night writing a lullaby. I stayed awake too, worrying about paying for college, baby food, and a car with a backseat. Then the arguments started. I wanted him to look for a job, at least part-time. He said a job would waste the creative hours he needed to compose. Right. I reminded him he wasn’t Ashford or Simpson yet. Then he decided we should move to LA, since more recording was coming from the West Coast. I ended that when I said the one of us who did have a job worked in New York.

  By my fifth month I craved sweet potatoes, and I wasn’t real happy with my marathon prenatal clinic visits, or that we were searching in Salvation Army stores for a crib. I told Mom we didn’t want to waste money on something the baby would only need a short time. That’s how he explained it to me and I halfway bought it—maybe a third of the way. But she was not interested in having her grandbaby sleep in a used crib. “You got a new bed, didn’t you?” So she bought one, which made me feel about two feet tall. And worry about what kind of life I was—we were—bringing a baby into.

  I didn’t talk about the bad stuff at work—my misery did not want company—but I’m pretty sure Olivia knew I wasn’t a happy camper. She never said anything directly, incorporating M&D Enterprises moved to the front burner and Olivia arranged for hospitalization. When she told me, I didn’t know what to say, for once. I just hugged her. We got kind of gushy for a second, then we laughed because her boobs and my belly took up so much space we couldn’t get very close. I wasn’t the only newly covered employee, but I sure was relieved to cross that off my worry list.

  During that same time Olivia was having he
r own family trauma. After a long bout with Eliot and Hillary, she relented and agreed to let her daughter enroll in an exclusive boarding school in Switzerland. So my child was coming as hers was going. One afternoon a little after she shipped Hillary off, Olivia was repotting my philodendron, which by then was a six-foot vine I nicknamed Rapunzel, and she suggested I bring the baby to work with me, the way it used to be when Hillary was small. I think it made us both feel better. And it meant Mr. Music would not have to be Mr. Mom. I was never too sure how that was going to work out.

  Amber arrived a week early, and from the moment we met I was in love. And I loved my little family trio. My six-week maternity leave was the happiest time in my life. I was his baby, Amber was our baby, and la la la la la la la la la means…the song couldn’t last forever.

  Reality, round two: bundling Amber in the quilted snuggle sack Olivia made and carting her to work, mightily pissed because he was still laid up in bed. Problem was, I wasn’t seeing any record deals or hearing any Top Forty tunes, and it just didn’t look like he was trying that hard. I mean, I watched Olivia build a company out of stuff she cooked up in a pot in her kitchen. I was willing to help him, but we had a baby to support and I was doing most of the supporting. And I used to keep Amber up later than I should when he was out because I was lonely. And worried. His rhymes were getting on my nerves and I wasn’t about to admit any of it. My parents may have bought the mattress, but I made my own bed. I was going to sleep in it—or burn it.

  Then I came home one day and he was wearing a jacket and tie and said he’s got a job teaching piano, at my old alma mater, of all places. Oh happy day. It was perfect—for a few semesters. I liked the way it sounded too—professor—OK, he was an instructor, but the students called him professor. I was executive assistant to the president and CEO of a corporation. That was my title after the reorganization. My salary got fancier too. But after a while he’d come home mad. Nobody in the department knew what they were talking about. They were mediocre musicians infecting students with their lack of creativity—he was always dramatic. The longer it went on, the more frustrated he got. I’d tell him to chill. It was just a job. He’d blow up and tell me music was never just a job. Then Amber would cry, so we’d stop fighting—at least at first. And we’d play Old Maid, or ride the horsey, and her little grin was enough to keep us in check.

  By the time Amber got to pre-K we had the scheduling down pat. I’d drop her off in the morning. He’d teach his classes, then pick her up and keep her until I got home. Then one day he said he had a fight with the department chairman and quit. You what?! I told him he’d better kiss and make up. But he had a plan. He and one of his students, a talented sax player, were going to drive to LA in Sunshine. They’d share expenses and make the record company rounds. That was a plan?! Well, I went off—told him to grow up. He said if I didn’t believe in him, why were we together? You can feel where this was heading. He went west. Said he would send for us when he got settled. I was through. I had stuck my neck out to be with him and he left us. Period.

  My folks said we could always come home, but I knew I’d lock horns with Mom over Amber. Besides, Nineteenth Street was home. Life was simpler without having to worry where we could park the car and not get a ticket, or whether we were disturbing the genius at work. And I was handling my business—working, taking care of my child. I did not need my parents or my ex, and I was way too busy for moping and hoping and sorry songs. Except for those nights I cried until I fell asleep, but that didn’t count. Nobody saw it. He kept sending tapes of the stuff he wrote about breaking up and making up. Seems like our marriage was just a source of material, and I was tired of hearing my life in C major. I sold his precious Fender Rhodes. He left that too and it was in my way. That got a rise out of him. I’m still waiting for the song about it.

  In the meantime, I had a life to live. Money was tight, but Amber never knew it. I spruced up the apartment, then moved to a bigger place when the man upstairs left. I took computer classes so I could at least pretend I knew what the consultant was talking about when it was time to set up Markson’s system. Amber was as smart as they come and I rode her teachers to get her in every enrichment program they had going. We took advantage of all the city had to offer—museums, plays, concerts—you name it, we went. For a while Amber even took riding lessons at the stable near Central Park. Hillary’s old boots and helmet fit her great, but Amber wasn’t into horse manure. Neither was I, which is why I went ahead and divorced her father. He wasn’t too keen on my vibe when I had him served, acted all surprised. Well, I was surprised when he tossed his duffle bag in the car and took off, so we were even, but I never bad-mouthed him to Amber. Promised Daddy I wouldn’t. Besides, she knew who was there for her every day. Truth was, my ex gave me the best gift I ever got—my daughter. She was my rock, my strength, my happiness. Amber kept me focused.

  And Olivia had given me a job to grow into. She was growing too, traveling the world—Zambia, Nepal, Ecuador—looking for local suppliers of the natural ingredients she used. She hired a PR firm and spoke out about nurturing the planet. That brought us more attention, and Markson & Daughter products became available in more high-end outlets. She dressed more like a grown-up, got a better haircut. Me too. There was still something special between us, especially when nobody was around and we shared one of those “Can you believe it?” moments, but the days were mostly full, and they were more about business. So I hadn’t exactly hit the lottery, but it had become a pretty great gig. On our fifteenth anniversary I had the card I swiped from the placement office framed and gave it to her, which cracked her up. “I still believe it was destiny,” she said.

  Finally, we outgrew the loft, but when we’d been looking at new space for a while she shocked me—said the tempo and hustle of the city was wearing her out. After a factory visit she had gone for a drive, stumbled on a farm for sale, fell in love and made an offer. So she was moving our headquarters nearby in central New Jersey. New Jersey?! Was she kidding? All I knew was the stinky part between the Holland Tunnel and the airport. Why would anyone want to live there? But she took me to the farm, showed me the wooden house plopped in the middle and where the lavender would go. Then we drove to the steel-and-glass office park where she had decided to move Markson & Daughter.

  What the hell was I going to do? Commuting was out. There was no train down the block from the office. There were no blocks in Princeton Junction—just big parking lots. Driving from Manhattan was out—the tolls, the traffic, the hide-and-seek parking when I got home—it made no sense. And I wasn’t about to look for another job. What could compare to the one I had?

  Amber took it better than I did—especially after she saw the place I found—a duplex with a fireplace and patio. The complex had tennis courts, a pool, and the rent was less than what I’d paid on Nineteenth Street. We were both excited when I bought my first car—a used white T-Bird I named Aretha because it was classy and flashy—and it had a backseat. Amber liked her new school, she met a boy named J.J. You know the rest.

  And as for Gerald, I met him at a car dealership when I decided to trade up. He leased my starter Lexus. I can’t exactly explain what attracted me. First thing I noticed was that he looked so precise—from the crease in his trousers to his shirt sleeves rolled up just so, like they were pressed that way. And his mustache was trimmed an eighth of an inch above his lip—always looked exactly the same, not a hair out of line. Gerald looked sharp, a little like my dad. I was feeling pretty happy with myself that day—living in the suburbs, picking out my first new ride. I don’t usually like salespeople following me around, but it felt more like he was keeping me company. It was gorgeous out when we went for a test drive and he directed me down windy little roads I’d never seen before, past houses with horses grazing and mums in autumn colors lining the walk-ways. I swear, we were gone an hour.

  Yes, I kind of knew I was flirting. For years I’d put myself on lockdown, being Amber’s mother. I hadn’t used that mus
cle in so long—it felt good. Besides, he wasn’t wearing any identifying jewelry. Gerald called all over North America to locate the coupe I wanted—shiny black with black leather interior. And I think he called me at work every day until it arrived. I started looking forward to it. When I picked up the car, he took as much time as I needed explaining all the levers and switches. Then, when he handed me the keys, there was a little silver T on the key ring that I know was not standard issue. Oh, and a card with his private cell phone number. Said he’d be happy to show me some more of those back roads and unexpected places. I don’t know, Gerald was smooth and steady, not artistic and crazy like my ex. I felt like he could actually do stuff, not just write songs about it.

  We went out a few times before he told me he was married. I swore I would never talk to him again. Except it’s like when you’ve gone all day without eating and you think you’re not hungry until you put a stick of gum in your mouth. Then you could chew the shrubbery. After a while I decided that in a way, his being married was a plus. I could have a snack now and then without turning my life—or Amber’s—inside out.

  Anyway, the offices of Markson & Daughter still had lots of greenery, but now it was maintained by a plant service. Rapunzel took to her new home—the office next to Olivia’s—and over time became a blanket of green on my credenza. Olivia got feelers from companies wanting to buy her out, but she wasn’t interested. “It would be like selling my child.” And speaking of children, Hillary never did come home. She married Viscount Somebody, became Lady Hillary and took up residence in his drafty castle. By the time Amber was in high school I’d bought a place that impressed even my mom, complete with landscaping and a lawn service, since I was living in the Garden State. That’s not too shabby. For years everything went great—until the morning Olivia didn’t show up.

  In all the time I’d known her she’d never been more than a few minutes late for anything, but that day she had a nine-thirty meeting scheduled, and when I hadn’t heard from her by ten o’clock I called her home, her cell—nothing. By ten-thirty I was on my way to her house.