by Wendy Wax
Settling for coffee, Kendall carried the steaming mug into her office and set it next to her computer monitor. Still looking for comfort, she checked her e-mail and found one each from Tanya, Faye, and Mallory giving her hell for sneaking out on them. Each message ended with the instruction, “Call me.”
When the phone rang, she practically leaped for it, thinking it was one of them, but it was Sylvia, which she would have known if she’d taken the time to look at the caller ID. At the sound of her agent’s voice, Kendall envisioned a new family crest, something fancy in Latin for Avoidance at All Cost. Avoidus, avatas, avant?
“Hello?”
“Boy, you sound like shit,” Sylvia said.
“Thank you,” Kendall replied. Catching a glimpse of herself in the computer monitor, she added, “I look like it, too.”
Taking a deep, hopefully bracing breath, she waited for Sylvia to get to the point of her call. Since it was Sylvia, this took about two seconds.
“I talked to Jane at Scarsdale this morning. If you want to give them back that thirty thousand dollars in order to terminate your contract, I can make it happen. But I don’t advise it. Brenda Tinsley is notoriously vindictive. I think you’d be better off giving them the book and then moving on.”
Kendall, of course, didn’t have the money anyway and given the state of her marriage, she couldn’t quite picture Cal dashing off a check out of their savings. For all she knew he was already squirreling away everything he could; yet another thing she should be paying attention to.
“Kendall?” Sylvia’s voice broke the silence. “I know this is really hard, but you’re a pro, you can do it. While you’re writing I’ll start putting out feelers at other houses. How far along are you?”
Kendall closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She hadn’t written a single page, not one. She’d originally been very excited about the idea—a book about four writers at various stages of their careers loosely based on her, Mallory, Tanya, and Faye. But with all the bad news and lack of interest from Plain Jane, Kendall had been unable to hold on to that enthusiasm. Then the kids had gone off to college and left the house so empty she couldn’t seem to think. Then Cal had started disappearing physically and emotionally and she’d gotten caught up in the possibility of winning the Zelda.
“Kendall? You can meet your December first deadline, right?”
Kendall instructed her brain to do the math. It was August 1; that would give her exactly four months, which was one hundred pages a month. If she worked six days a week, she’d have to write five to six pages a day. She normally wrote a book a year and took up to seven months for the actual writing of it, but she knew plenty of people who wrote much faster. With the kids gone and her time her own, she should be able to manage it, assuming she didn’t let the story meander or take any wrong turns.
Except, of course, for the fact that she could barely think, let alone write. And if her marriage actually ended . . . No, she could not let herself go there. “Sure,” Kendall said, trying to sound perky, willing to settle for upbeat. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”
For anyone but her at this time in her life.
“Good,” Sylvia said, and then added in an uncharacteristically gentle tone, “You’re very talented, Kendall. Don’t let them throw you. Just get this book done and then we’ll find you a more appreciative home.”
Kendall lay on the couch the rest of the afternoon in a half-awake, half-dozing state, flipping from channel to channel until she settled on Turner Classic Movies. Houseboat with Sophia Loren and Cary Grant was the afternoon feature.
The phone rang periodically, but she didn’t answer even when she saw Faye, Tanya, and Mallory’s numbers on the caller ID. Her misery didn’t seem to be interested in company.
With no food in the fridge and the idea of actually dressing and leaving the house unimaginable, she began to forage from the pantry. A bag of chips, two granola bars, and a handful of ancient vanilla wafers got her through the day. At 9:30 that night, she dragged herself back up to Melissa’s bedroom, locked the door, and climbed into bed, where sleep eluded her until long after Calvin had come home and rapped on the door. “Kendall?” he’d called.
She squinched her eyes shut and pretended it was all just a bad dream.
“Damn it. This is unbelievable. You can’t think we’re going to be alone together and not talk to each other?”
As if this would be the first time this had ever happened.
“At least give me a sign that you’re alive,” he said.
She knocked three times on the wall behind her head then shouted, “I’m alive! But I have nothing to say to you!”
Kendall listened to him stomp off then spent the rest of the night staring up at the ceiling trying to understand how her life had unraveled so rapidly. At dawn she fell into a fitful sleep and was once again awakened in the morning by Cal’s voice on the other side of the door. “Kendall, this is ridiculous. I’ve got to leave for the office. Open the door so we can talk.”
She remained silent. After all these years of begging him to communicate more, it figured he’d want to do it now when there was nothing he was likely to say that she’d actually want to hear.
“I’m not leaving until you at least answer so that I know you’re alive,” he shouted.
Kendall debated whether to respond or not.
“Seriously, Kendall. If you don’t answer right now, I’m calling nine-one-one and then I’m going to break down the door.”
For a moment Kendall actually considered remaining silent just to see if he’d follow through on his threat. But since her goal was avoiding a discussion with Calvin, she reasoned that his coming into the room via battering ram or otherwise would make that close to impossible.
“I’m alive,” she shouted back. “And I’m not stupid.” She let him think about that for a couple of seconds. “Now go away and leave me alone!”
Agitated and exhausted, she waited for him to leave for work, then pulled on her robe and dragged downstairs. There she skimmed through her e-mails while munching on a breakfast of Ritz crackers and chocolate bits. She didn’t go back into her office or near her computer that day nor did she see any reason to shower or dress. Whenever her thoughts strayed to the manuscript she should be writing or the husband she should be talking to, she’d scavenge something from the pantry and carry it back to the couch for consumption.
She cried and ate stale marshmallows while watching Do ris Day and Rock Hudson trade insults in the romantic comedy Pillow Talk. By late afternoon when she began flipping between talk shows, her body had worn a comfortable hollow in the family room couch and Oprah was on her way to becoming Kendall’s new best friend.
Despite her attempts to numb it, her brain raced madly, changing gears so rapidly that she couldn’t hold on to a thought long enough to examine it. She did nothing all day, but felt as if she’d climbed Everest and then been trapped on its peak surrounded by air that was too thin to breathe.
Desperate for sleep and without any plan other than avoiding Cal, she went upstairs at 6:30 P.M., locked herself in Melissa’s room, and took two sleeping pills, telling herself that if she could just get a full night’s sleep she’d be able to think again.
In Melissa’s bed she breathed in her daughter’s still-girlish scent, closed her eyes, and finally fell into a dark cocoon of sleep. For a time she floated in the nothingness, her head bound to the pillow, her fears tunneled far off in the distance. And then there was a soothing, disembodied nothingness that stretched out into infinity.
She woke at noon, slow and dim-witted, and when she ventured out of her sanctuary, the house was silent around her. On the kitchen counter she found a note from Calvin. “I’ll be home early. Don’t bother locking the door. We’re going to talk.”
Four or five times that day she reached for the phone to call Faye or Tanya or Mallory, but she couldn’t make herself dial. She sat at her computer trying to work herself up to writing, but after a full hour the only words on
the screen were “Chapter One.” After a second hour she’d added, “Page One.”
When she clicked over to e-mail and saw messages waiting from Faye, Tanya, and Mallory, she cried, but didn’t read or return them.
She was still sitting at her desk staring despondently at the blinking cursor when a phone call came in from Scarsdale Publishing. Too numb to weigh the pros and cons, she answered.
“Hello?” The quiver in Kendall’s voice betrayed her and she followed it up with a sniffle that she hoped would be attributed to a cold or allergies.
“Ms. Aims?” The voice sounded breathy and unsure.
“Yes.” Kendall groaned inwardly. It had to be some sort of bookkeeping or technical question. She should never have picked up.
“Ms. Aims, this is, um, Lacy Samuels. I work for Jane Jensen at Scarsdale.”
The name was vaguely familiar, but she had no face to go with it. “Yes. Have we met?”
“Well, no. I, um, just graduated from Smith. I’m Jane’s new editorial assistant.”
Kendall waited impatiently, much too drained to engage in small talk with Plain Jane’s slave labor.
“So, um, I’m calling because Jane has asked me to take over your next book for her.”
At first the sleeping pill grogginess protected her from the truth. “I’m sorry,” Kendall said. “What did you say?”
“I’ve, uh, been given the honor of editing your next book. I just wanted to, um, introduce myself and let you know how much I’m looking forward to working with you.”
Kendall’s brain was starting to kick in now and she really wished it wasn’t. “Did you say you are going to be my editor? That you are going to edit my book?”
“Um, yes, yes, I did. Jane apparently, um, feels that I can bring something to your work.”
The silence stretched out and the girl kept trying to fill it. “And, of course, there’s, um, so much I can learn from you.”
Kendall tried to gather her wits about her. It was, of course, a clear indication that Plain Jane didn’t plan to waste a moment of her time or an iota of Scarsdale’s resources on Kendall’s last book for them.
“How old are you . . .” Kendall looked down at the name she’d scribbled on a nearby envelope, not remotely concerned whether the question was PC. “. . . Lacy?”
“Well, um,” the assistant said quietly, “I’ll be twenty-two next week.”
Kendall couldn’t bring herself to speak. She’d thought things couldn’t get any worse than they already were, but she’d been wrong.
“But I was at the top of my class,” Lacy Samuels assured her. “And everyone says I’m very mature for my age.”
Kendall hung up the phone and sat, unmoving, for what felt like an eternity. She didn’t go to the pantry to forage for food nor did she get up to wander the empty house or burrow back into her spot on the sofa. All of those actions were beyond her.
She was still staring out her office window when Calvin drove his BMW up the driveway and pulled it into the garage. It was 3:00 P.M., she hadn’t showered or washed her hair for two days, and she was still wearing her bathrobe. She waited, suspended in time while he entered the house and walked into her office then sat on the loveseat to her left.
After all her ducking and weaving, she still wasn’t prepared for the blow he dealt her. Scarsdale’s repeated jabs had weakened her; Calvin’s uppercut sent her crashing to the mat.
“Kendall?” Her husband’s tone bore not a trace of the quarter of a century they’d been together.
Kendall kept her gaze on the cherry tree outside her window and wished she were the squirrel currently perched in the fork of outstretched limbs. If Calvin noticed her unkempt appearance, he made no mention of it. There was little more than a moment’s hesitation before he spoke.
“Things haven’t been so good between us for a long time,” he said.
Oh, God, she thought, it’s really happening. She drew in a breath and kept her eyes on the squirrel who was gnawing on something he held in his front paws.
“When the kids were at home, it made sense to try to keep up appearances for them.”
So that was all he’d been doing, keeping up appearances.
“But now that they’re gone, well, life’s too short to spend it pretending.”
She had a wild thought that Calvin had been watching Turner Classic Movies, too. Because everything he said sounded like it had been lifted from an old movie—and a bad one at that. Her husband of twenty-three years was dumping her and the best he could do was string a bunch of clichés together?
When she finally turned to face him, she fared no better in the dialogue department than he had. “You’re seeing someone, aren’t you?”
The words hung in the air between them, a trite accusation that came nowhere near addressing the gulf that stretched so wide between them.
“Yes,” he said, without a hint of apology. “But I don’t see any reason to get into that.”
Something hot and heavy surged inside of her at the unfairness of it all. Her publisher didn’t want her anymore and neither did her husband. They both just expected her to do whatever the hell they wanted and then quietly get lost.
The squirrel dropped whatever it had been clutching and used all four paws to spring onto another branch and trip lightly down the trunk of the tree to the ground. Kendall watched it scamper off.
What did it say about your life that you envied a four-legged rodent with a bushy tail?
“No,” she said. “Of course you don’t. You’ve never seen any reason to consider anyone else’s feelings or point of view. You just make decisions and we’re all supposed to go along with them.”
His jaw clenched at her response, but that was his only reaction. She had the feeling he’d rehearsed this whole scene, hackneyed dialogue and all. Probably while she’d been holed up in Melissa’s room. Or maybe for a long time before that.
“I want a divorce,” he continued. “I have an attorney and I think you should find one, too.”
Part of her wanted to shout, “Fine! Who needs you?” and stomp off to find someone who would represent her; someone who would take him to the cleaners and make him rue the day he’d done this to her and the kids. The other part of her wanted to curl up in a tight little ball and pretend this conversation had never happened. Avoidus, avatas, avant. She should have stayed in Melissa’s room longer; there was one thing she’d been right about—she absolutely could not handle this right now.
Panic began to kick in; her fight-or-flight instincts stirred. Her fists clenched in her lap as thoughts bombarded her. And then, oh, thank you, God, that soothing numbness took hold, filling and surrounding her. She didn’t black out this time, but everything slowed and went slightly out of focus. Neither of them moved and yet Kendall could feel the distance between them widen.
One singular thought swam through the undercurrents of her brain and broke through to the surface: She didn’t have to do anything about this right now. Not one thing.
She looked into Calvin’s eyes and read the urgency there, his burning desire to be done with her so that he could continue to do as he liked.
But Calvin Aims’s wants and needs no longer had anything to do with her. For the first time since she’d met him twenty-five years ago, she didn’t owe him any special consideration. She didn’t owe him anything.
She felt his growing impatience, but it no longer carried any weight. If she wanted to, she could simply go back and lie down on the couch in the family room and watch Oprah and eat her way through the pantry. Just because Cal wanted an answer didn’t mean she had to give him one. In fact, the very fact that he wanted one was all the more reason not to give it.
“I’ll think about it,” she finally said quietly, grateful for the merciful numbness. “Maybe you should take some things with you when you go.”
Cal’s face telegraphed his surprise. Clearly during his rehearsals he hadn’t wasted any time imagining how she might react. But then imagination had nev
er been her husband’s strong suit.
Slowly she got up from her chair then turned and walked away from him. In the family room, she fit her body into its groove in the couch and pulled the old afghan around her then aimed the remote at the television. Oprah’s theme song came on, drowning out the sounds of Calvin going through dresser drawers up in the master closet as well as his clomping down the stairs and the slam of the garage door as he left.
Then she flicked to The Kristen Calder Show, which was also broadcast from Chicago and whose host had been hailed as the next Oprah. Her guests were a woman who’d gone to jail for maiming her abusive husband and another who’d driven the sports car her husband had given to his girlfriend into the deep end of their swimming pool—a crime for which a jury of her peers had refused to convict her.
“Right on, sisters,” Kendall thought, as she lay wrapped in her cocoon on the couch. But in her current numbness she couldn’t imagine ever marshalling the energy to punish Calvin for his crimes. She wasn’t even sure she could make it to the pantry.
At the moment, as far as Kendall could see, she had absolutely no reason to move at all.
6
If my doctor told me I had six minutes to live,
I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.
—ISAAC ASIMOV
Tanya Mason sat at the flaked Formica dinette in the mostly silent trailer. From the back bedroom her mother’s snores sounded in a dead-to-the-world rhythm that originated in a liquor bottle.
From the second bedroom came the occasional snuffle or sigh from her daughters accompanied by the squeak of the metal springs on the old iron bed that took up most of the room. Later, when she finished this chapter, Tanya would squeeze in between them to grab the three to four hours of sleep that would see her through her breakfast shift at the Downhome Diner on Thirty-fourth Street South and the afternoon at the Liberty Laundromat, just around the corner.