The Perils of Pauline

by Collette Yvonne

  How touching. My own mother has re-gifted me.

  As usual Mom is armed with highly unsuitable gifts for the kids: for Olympia, a marionette with a million billion strings that tangle as soon as you look at them, and for Jack, a giant box of fireworks: Li’l Red Devils, screamers, rockets, Roman candles and giant Mexican sparklers. Jack is jumping up and down: “I can get $15 apiece for the screamers at school.”

  Olympia immediately shrieks, “If Jack gets to take his screamers to school, I wanna take some too.”

  Good thing school has let out for the summer. I warn both of them that under no circumstance are any fireworks to be taken to school or anyplace else for that matter, nor are they to be used without proper adult supervision. No one is to touch them until after dark tonight when we can have a backyard show.

  I look over at Donald who steadfastly refuses to make eye contact with me. A little relaxed family fun and togetherness sure wouldn’t hurt right now.

  Mom wants to go over her itinerary: she’s dividing her summer vacation between Brian and Ted. Brian will accompany her on her cruise through the Greek Islands and then she wants to play golf in Pebble Beach with Ted “because Phil might be there” and she “misses him.”

  She leans down to pet Jasper, her aging, cranky, and incontinent Schnauzer, who crouches under the table, growling and baring his teeth at Donald every time he shifts position.

  “I was hoping you would take Jasper while I’m gone. I couldn’t bear to place him in a kennel.

  Donald’s head snaps up. Now he wants to make eye contact. He looks me in the eye in a way that says he is not on board with taking the dog. I stare back at him in a way that says: Nice, Donald. And here Mom is your big fan, too. Donald says: Seriously, no. I glare back at him: Be supportive. Mom didn’t want to do anything much after Dad died. Now she’s just trying to get out and enjoy herself. Like Jasper, I want to lie under the table and growl and bare my teeth at him, too. I smile at Mom and say, “Sure. Of course.”

  Home at last. Jack and Olympia run ahead into the house with Jasper and George. Donald’s face goes all pissy when he surveys the state of his car. Jasper is a big shedder. George likes to press his nose against the windows. Olympia dribbled a trail of purple fruit punch clear across the back seat. In a fit of temper, Donald flings the offending juice box onto the front lawn.

  “Who is supposed to pick that up?” I ask.

  Donald ignores me and tosses Jasper’s dog blanket on top of the juice box.

  “You’re acting like the mess is somehow my fault.”

  “You gave Olympia the juice box.”

  “She was thirsty. How come your car is off limits? You don’t mind when my car gets trashed. You seem to think you are exempt from all this parenting stuff.”

  “Give me a break.”

  “No, I’m sick of this. Give me a break. You conduct your life as if you live in a hotel room with maid service. You come and go as you please and, when family stuff intrudes and I’m not on it, boy, someone’s head’s got to roll.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  Donald furiously scrubs at the juicebox stain with George’s blanket.

  “We could start communicating for a change.”

  “That’s rich. Communicate? You didn’t bother to ask me whether I wanted to look after your mother’s dog.”

  “I will take care of the dog, okay? Don’t worry. You won’t have to lift a finger. It’s not like you are around here to help much anyway.”

  Donald flings the dog blanket onto the ground and turns to me, his jaw clenched with rage. “You want me to leave? Give me five minutes, I’ll pack my bags.”

  “Fine!” I shout. “Why don’t you go move in with your big-hearted girlfriend?”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You know what I mean. Are you sleeping with her?”

  “Who?”

  “Lindsay.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Donald turns his back to me and yanks Jack’s box of fireworks from the trunk, setting them on the ground. “I’ll go to a motel.”

  “That sounds like a fair and affordable plan. You walk away and leave me holding the bag. What about the kids? What do I tell them?”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  I snatch up Jasper’s bag plus the box of fireworks and head into the house, pausing on the doorstep to watch Donald shake out George’s dog blanket. I shout, “How about go sleep in the spare room?”

  “You got it,” Donald yells. Dropping George’s blanket, he jumps behind the wheel of his car, and guns it out of the driveway. Is he going for a drive to cool off? His office? Lindsay’s apartment? Who knows.

  I go inside to stand in the foyer, and try to slow my breathing. I still have Jack’s box of fireworks in my hands. There won’t be any fun family fireworks party in the backyard tonight that’s for sure. We just had our big show in the driveway. I stub my toes kicking the front door closed and shove the box into the back of the hall closet.

  After days of silence, looks like Donald is making a bid to come out of the spare room tonight. He’s offering to take me out to dinner at a classy restaurant in the city. No kids. He says he wants to talk. I accept his invitation, as I can’t recall the last time we visited a dining establishment that doesn’t boast a drive-thru window.

  The waiter brings us a bottle of cold Chablis and a basket of warm rolls. Evidently, Donald knows a thing or two about fine wines and Boston’s coziest bistros. I wonder how he knows about this place? But who cares: I’m starving. There’s no need for him to whisper herbed garlic nothings in my ear—all he needs is a pat of pesto butter and he’ll have me licking his hand. Looking around, I realize that he’s the tastiest-looking man in the room. Maybe a romantic night on the town is just what we needed.

  Alas, between scarfing down all the rolls and digging into my Chef’s Special Antipasto Platter, I can’t remember the last time we made dinner table conversation without extensive interference from the kids. I wish Donald would spill my drink or at least yell, “Yuck, I’m not eating this crap.”

  We can’t continue staring at each other over an expanse of linen, crystal and candlelight forever.

  Here goes: “So? How was your day?”

  Donald: “Terrible.”

  Me, with real concern: “What happened?”

  Donald: “Nothing. The usual pricks.”

  The usual pricks? No, Donald must be mistaken; the usual pricks work in the parking lot at Dingwall. I launch into a tirade about the guys who ticketed me twice last week when I was only five minutes late for the meter, and they saw me coming. Somehow this cheers Donald up.

  By dessert, Donald has warmed up past monosyllabic communication and, changing the topic, utters a complete sentence: “I bought a new TV today.”

  Me, swallowing hard: “What?”

  “It’s huge. The definition is unbelievable and it has the fastest refresh rate on the market.”

  “But we don’t need another gigantic television. I thought we agreed to repaint the front porch …”

  “You agreed we were repainting the front porch.”

  I am suddenly furious. Donald is going out buying himself new toys as if nothing’s wrong. “When do I ever get to agree with you on anything anyway? You’re hardly ever home.”

  Donald’s jaw goes rigid. “What do you want me to do? Quit my job?”

  “Stop saying that. Of course I don’t want you to quit your job. You could start by talking to me once in a while.”

  Donald leans back in his chair and folds his arms across his chest. “Here I am. What do you want to talk about?”

  “Forget the porch. Maybe we need to figure out why we aren’t getting along. I think we need to get into counseling.”

  “Forget it. I’m not going to talk to some ooogie-woogie whackjob about our personal business.”

  A vision of Lindsay swarms into my head. “Then maybe you would prefer to talk about our problems with a lawyer?”

&nbs
p; “If that’s what you want, fine by me.”

  Donald grabs for his suit jacket. I snatch up my purse. Neither of us speaks all the way home. Upon arrival home, Donald stamps upstairs and slams the door on his way into the spare room.

  CHAPTER 8

  Bona Fides

  Bona Fides: In personnel recovery, the use of verbal or visual communication by individuals who are unknown to one another, to establish their authenticity, sincerity, honesty, and truthfulness. See also evasion; recovery; recovery operations.—Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms

  Monday morning, 3 a.m., I fall into bed, exhausted, essay at last completed. My eyes won’t close. I mash the pillow about, get up and take some aspirin, then lie back down. What’s wrong? Should I run another spellcheck on my essay, due today? How do I check that it makes sense? My neck feels like a tangle of ropes. Nope. There’s something more going on here. Maybe it’s because my car needs new tires? Without a regular paycheck, my bank account is emptying rapidly. Is that it? Tires and money and my poetry essay? All things I can handle. What else is wrong? Thunder rumbles in the distance. Ah.

  My mind sets the way-back machine to the early days after my deployment to Afghanistan. Sleep and normalcy were impossible after months of brutal heat, rumbling in convoys up and down steeply winding rock-strewn roads. Every so often, we stopped to wait for an All Clear, passed around cheap Pakistani cigarettes in the shade of the trucks with the bab-bap-bap sound of mortar fire in the distance, the smell of burning phosphorus in our noses. Afterwards, all too often, I saw the blood-soaked uniforms piled up for cleaning in the supply depot. Everywhere I saw dusty faces, always the dusty faces. Back at home, Serenity, barely 4 years old, clung to me constantly, for fear I might disappear again. My ex, a veteran himself, drank himself to sleep every night and punched holes in the walls. I asked the dentist for a mouth-guard to keep me from grinding my teeth. I chewed several packs of gum every day. Then I asked for a divorce.

  A few months after my divorce, I met Donald. A few more months went by, and he started staying late every weekend night, slipping away before Serenity woke up. One night, I had one of my episodes in the middle of the night: boom, boom, boom, the ground shakes beneath me. An RPG blast. That was close, really close. Serenity needs her blue blanket. We have to bug out but I’ve lost it somewhere, I can’t find it. I scrabble around in the dark. It must be in my kit bag. Where’s my barracks box? I have to find it. There’s sand and razor wire everywhere. Here’s the blanket but it is torn and dirty, tangled up in all the wire. My throat is raw, there’s that smell of burning phosphorus, the insurgents are here. It’s time to go. I choke, my throat fills with sharp grit, as my weapon sinks into the sand, disappears. I fall on my knees in the sand to dig. Without my weapon, I can’t protect my baby girl. I dig and dig. My hands come up empty, the sand pours away between my fingers. I cry out her name. Serenity.

  A pair of strong arms circled my waist and held me tight. A calm voice whispered into my ear, “It’s just a little thunder, it’s okay, you’re safe, it’s okay.” I cried, “No, no, you don’t understand. Please, help me, I don’t know where Serenity is and I have to find her, she’s lost in the desert.”

  “No, Serenity is fine, she’s asleep in her room, and you’re at home, you’re safe with me. At home.”

  He scooped me gently from the bed and set me on my feet. Taking me by the hand, he led me down the hall to Serenity’s room. “She’s right in there. Go see for yourself.”

  In the faint glow of the nightlight, Serenity’s face was soft with sleep, her chubby little hands clutching her blue blanket to her cheek. I dropped to my knees beside the bed and watched her breathe. Serenity’s eyes opened and she immediately wrapped her arms around my neck. “Mommy, you stay with me.”

  I glanced back at Donald hesitating by the door. I didn’t know what to do. Donald whispered, “I’ll go. She needs you.”

  “Please don’t go,” I said. “Stay with us.” I picked Serenity up and carried her back to my room, and we snuggled in with her. It felt just right, nestled between Serenity and Donald, the three of us together, safe and warm. With my arms wrapped around Serenity, and Donald’s arms wrapped around us, we slept, a family.

  In the morning, I woke up, alone in the bed. I found Serenity downstairs, seated at the breakfast table, eating pancakes decorated with chocolate chip smiley faces. Donald, shaved and dressed for the day, kissed me good morning and handed me a cup of coffee, fixed just the way I like it.

  Now he’s slumbering in the next room. I can hear him snoring through the wall. So near but so far. We’re still barely talking since our dinner out. I don’t know if he called his lawyer or if he was just posturing.

  All he ever worries about is his career. I wonder what he dreams about? Lindsay, maybe? The ropes in my neck loop into a tight noose.

  My list of worries just got much too long. Time to stop obsessing and get some sleep. Tomorrow I have to get up earlier than usual to get the kids ready for their day camp. As the Jeep is going in for brake realigning today, I’ll have to ask Donald to help. He can drive the kids to camp while I can take the bus. I find my earplugs in the bedside drawer and close my eyes tight to wait for a sleepy feeling which fails to arrive.

  At the beginning of class, I hand in my essay. Michael quickly launches into a long lecture on critical theories addressing the linguistics of visionary imagery vis-à-vis the inherent abstractions within pre-postmodern syntactical structure. Or something like that. After an hour of verbal gymnastics, he pauses to ask if anyone has questions. One student wants to know if early modern ambiguous linguistic theory will be on the midterm. Michael laughs and says, “Maybe, maybe not.”

  He goes back to lecturing on Ezra Pound and imagism. I want to lay my head on my arms and take a nap.

  Finally, class is over and we are free to go. It’s baking hot out here. I sleepily trudge around the parking lot until I am practically dripping with sweat. Where on earth did I park the Jeep?

  Michael pulls up alongside me in his car, and rolls down his window. “Everything okay?”

  Suddenly, I remember about the brakes. “Fine. I’m, uh, looking for the bus stop.”

  “It’s back that way.” Oh God, I hope he didn’t see me zigzagging around the lot, stupidly searching for the Jeep.

  “Can I give you a lift?”

  “Yes, that would be awesome.” As I run around to the passenger side, I swipe the perspiration from my face with the back of my hand.

  Michael tosses his briefcase from the passenger seat into the back seat on top of a huge jumble of books and boxes. “Sorry. Research papers. For my doctoral dissertation,” he says, as I climb in.

  More books are scattered on the floor of the passenger seat. I pick them up and hold them carefully on my lap, relishing the blast of cold air from Michael’s air conditioning.

  “You can toss those books in the back with the rest.”

  There’s a silence as he winds his way from the parking lot and eases into the traffic lanes outside the campus gates. Sitting next to me in the cool car, Michael smells nice, a mixture of leather and citrus, the same aftershave he wore the day he rescued me from the roadside on his motorcycle. I remember leaning into the curves with him and gripping the bike with my thighs. I feel a blush of warmth coming straight up from my core heater. No air conditioning in the world can help me now.

  Michael finally speaks up. “So, what other courses are you taking at Dingwall?”

  “Financial Management and Organizational Behavior. I’m a business major. Your course is my liberal arts elective.”

  “What did you do before?”

  “I was a Consultant for Wifi-Robes. Before that I was in the army for seven years.”

  Michael’s eyes widen. Either he’s impressed or he thinks I’m crazy. “The army? Why did you join the army?”

  “Everyone asks me that. Most people say they joined up because of the challenge. I just didn’t have a better p
lan when I finished high school. Mostly it was because of my Dad. He encouraged me. And it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “And was it? A good idea?”

  “I don’t regret it. Everyone talks about doing their time, you know, like it’s prison, but I’ve never met anyone who truly regretted it in the end.”

  “Except maybe the ones who don’t make it home.”

  “Yeah, maybe some of them. And some of the ones who get hurt.”

  Michael snaps his head to stare at me. “Some?”

  Judging by Michael’s reaction, I can tell he doesn’t get it. Civilians rarely do. Maybe that’s why veterans don’t talk about their experiences much. Even if you get hurt, it was a choice you made and you don’t regret it. On the contrary, you feel a sense of pride.

  Softly, I say, “It’s hard to describe. You get caught up in the life and the army becomes like family. You’re part of a team, and you believe in what you are doing. It’s about fighting for freedom right? I know that sounds corny but it’s true. It’s a totally different way of life. I mean, you do get to see the world.” I laugh and add, “But not necessarily a part of the world you’d want to see.”

  Michael gives me a quizzical look.

  “I did a tour in Afghanistan.”

  “Ah.”

  “The Middle East is beautiful but you can’t go out walking around. Because of the mines. Most of the time it was a ton of hard work. I was a supply tech. We slept in plywood huts and ate a lot of bad pizza in the mess hall. I had a daughter at home. At the end of my deployment, my time was up. So, I got out.”

  “So what’s next? After you get your degree?”

  “I don’t know yet. I was thinking maybe I’d start my own business. Or become a self-made billionaire. Whichever comes first.”

  Michael laughs, showing a set of attractive crinkles around his eyes.

  “What are you going to do after you get your doctorate? Go for tenure track?”

  “I guess that would be next.” Michael looks less than excited by the thought.