The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

by Rebecca Miller

  ‘About a month ago.’

  ‘What medications are you on?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘What about sleep aids?’

  ‘Never. I don’t take pills. I even take liquid vitamins.’

  He looked up at her, surprised. ‘Do you have a history of sleepwalking?’

  ‘A couple of times, when I was little. But this – I cook in my sleep. I smoke, which I don’t, I mean I do a little now, but that’s – I drove the car! To a convenience store. I was dreaming about being in a mall and there was a lion taking a crap in a flowerpot and I went to pick it up and it turned out to be a potato. At first we thought it was my husband, but then we set up a camera …’ Her voice had risen; she was being voluble, humorous, as if telling a funny story at a party. She didn’t know why she was acting like this. She felt breathless. ‘… and, surprise, surprise, it was me!’

  The doctor looked at her, thinking. ‘I’m not a sleep specialist, but some of my patients have problems with night mobility. Usually it has something to do with medication, or … dementia, which is clearly not the case here. Um … do you mind if I ask you a personal question?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is something upsetting you, or causing you stress?’

  Tears came to her eyes instantly. Irritated, she wiped them away with her pinkie.

  ‘I don’t know.’ An image of the beach, the day Gigi died: garnet flecks on her white dress, a flash of sky, then under bottle glass green water, swirling sand. She hadn’t wanted to come back up.

  ‘I can give you some medication which may keep you sleeping through the night. It doesn’t always work. I mean, it’s a sleeping pill. It depends on your tolerance.’

  ‘Oh, God, I can’t start taking pills.’

  ‘You could grind them up in applesauce. Or put a lock on your bedroom door and have your husband hide the key.’ Dr Schultz smiled wryly. ‘I know it doesn’t sound very scientific, but it would keep you inside. Listen, sleepwalking is not considered a psychological problem, it’s neurological. But stress can play a part, especially in adult-onset cases. I’ll give you a prescription. But it seems to me that you could benefit from a short period of psychotherapy. Just to … get your thoughts in order. You’ve made a big transition and … you seem like you have a lot on your mind.’ She had her hand on the doorknob, was just about to turn it, when he asked: ‘Do you have any hobbies?’

  ‘Hobbies?’

  ‘Yes. Anything you like to do – just for yourself.’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Hobbies can be helpful,’ he said.

  She thanked him and walked out the door, the image of his gleaming scalp and shiny eyes burned into her mind.

  Pippa slapped her purse onto the coffee table. Herb looked up from his paper.

  ‘He basically thinks I’m off my nut,’ she said. ‘He gave me a prescription for sleeping pills and the name of a psychiatrist.’ She brandished the business card in the air. ‘Notice it’s not a therapist. That’s because Dr Schultz thinks I’m going to need medication … and a locksmith.’ She started giggling. ‘He suggested we bolt the bedroom door from inside, and you hide the key. Oh, and I’m supposed to take up basket weaving.’ She felt hysteria creeping up on her.

  ‘You mean every time I have to get up and pee in the night I’m gonna be fumbling around looking for the goddamn key?’ he said. ‘Some doctor.’ Herb looked at his wife. Two distinct red spots had appeared on her high-set cheeks, tears of laughter sparkled in her eyes. She seemed so alive.

  ‘It’s weird,’ he said. ‘Ever since we moved to the old folks’ home, you look younger every day.’

  She drove back to the mini-mall to pick up some photographs she’d had developed and buy fruit at Shaw’s. They had some organic produce. Pippa was acutely aware of how poisonous the world was these days. Cell phones, cordless phones, computers, microwaves, vegetables, meat, carpeting – you name it, it was shedding some sort of toxicity. No wonder everyone was getting cancer. Pippa bought six ripe black plums and a big bunch of grapes. She collected her photos, then stood in line in the parking lot, outside the fishmonger’s truck. The man drove all the way down from Maine every Thursday; she felt guilty if she didn’t buy anything from him. Today she would buy a pound of clams, make spaghetti with clam sauce. Herb loved that. It was hot in the parking lot. She took the envelope with the photos in it from her purse and started flipping through the images: Herb reading, Herb eating cereal, views of the living room. Some pictures from a month ago, when Grace had come to see the place for the first time before going off to Kabul, her intelligent eyes red from the flash, hard mouth set.

  ‘Hey.’ Pippa looked up. Chris was standing beside her. ‘Fish tonight?’

  ‘I thought so,’ she said. She was relieved to see him, surprised to be relieved.

  ‘I’m sorry about the other day,’ he said.

  ‘Oh … that’s all right.’

  ‘I’m a jerk.’

  ‘You’re not so bad,’ she said.

  ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘Oh, fine. Actually not so wonderful.’ She felt emotion rising in her again, waved the packet of photos in front of her face to fan it away.

  ‘I just bought some beer,’ he said. ‘Care to join me … after you get your fish?’

  ‘I can make tomato sauce,’ she said, waving her hand dismissively and abandoning her place.

  They walked to the river. Chris’s truck was parked there. He stopped at a small tree, almost entirely tented over with dense white webbing. ‘Look,’ he said, pointing. Pippa looked closely, saw caterpillars inching inside their translucent house, folding and stretching their black bodies. There were hundreds of them squirming around in there. It made her shiver. ‘Tent caterpillars,’ he said. ‘They’re all over the place. I’ve never seen this many. There’s going to be an invasion of moths this year.’ He climbed up onto the roof and held out his hand; she grabbed it and clambered up as well. They sat side by side and watched the river flow by, the current rippling the smooth, glossy water like muscle. Pippa was still clutching the photos in her hand.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Chris asked, pointing to the photograph of Grace.

  ‘My daughter,’ said Pippa. ‘She hates me.’

  Chris didn’t say anything. He took a sip of beer, and they both looked down at the river. The sun had moved, and the water looked metallic now, a band of pure silver-white, cutting through the trees. They stared until the light changed again, and the river reappeared. Pippa looked over at Chris. She felt strangely at ease with this person.

  ‘I bet she doesn’t,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Hate you.’

  ‘It’s just … she’s angry at me all the time. I don’t know why. I wish it was different. I miss her. I wonder …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If I got it all wrong with her.’

  It was getting dark. Pippa shivered. Chris took off his sweatshirt and put it around her shoulders.

  ‘You’re probably right about me,’ he said. ‘I probably should find a reasonable job. Something with a future.’

  ‘It was a silly thing to say,’ she said.

  ‘No. It was … it was thoughtful. But. I’m beyond the pale.’

  ‘So, what do you, I mean, you … drive around, take up residence in places, get a job, and …’

  ‘I try to be of help.’ He took a gulp of beer and shifted his weight. The metal of the roof let out a hollow thud as it buckled.

  ‘What about here? Who are you helping here?’

  He looked up at her, his thuggish, soulful face half-lit in the dying light, his deep-set eyes black holes. She felt her belly lurch, as though she had lost her footing and was falling.

  ‘I’m leaving soon,’ he said.

  She had an impulse to grab his arm, but she sat still. ‘Why?’

  ‘I can’t stay with my parents forever.’

  ‘Where will you go?’

  ‘Back out west, I guess. Or south.’


  He jumped off the truck, helped her down, then walked her back to her car. She waved goodbye. He winked.

  Every time she took her leave of him, he had to remind her that he was a crude waster. Yet she kept spilling her heart out to him. What the hell am I doing? she thought.

  Back in the condo, she made the pasta. During the meal, Herb seemed to be lost in thought. He glared at his plate as if she wasn’t there. She watched him, feeling awkward. She tried to remember how long it had been like this between them. Not always, no. They usually laughed so much. When had it gotten dried up like this? ‘I joined Dot’s pottery class,’ she said.

  ‘Good,’ said Herb without looking up.

  ‘Why do you think it’s good?’

  ‘Didn’t that doctor think you needed a hobby?’ A flash of dislike went through her. Asshole, she thought. Irritated, she got up and went into the bedroom, leaving Herb with the dishes. She wondered if she had ever done that before.

  He walked in. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘My mother used to lie on her bed like this with a plate of toast on her belly.’

  ‘I know,’ he said.

  ‘I should take your blood pressure.’

  He made an impatient gesture. ‘It’s fine. Okay then.’ He made a sort of false exit, then stood there.

  ‘I’ll do the dishes later,’ she said.

  Backward

  Pippa liked the feeling of the spinning, wet clay between her fingers, the way it rose up like a wave as she pinched it, the gray disk of the potter’s wheel circling furiously between her knees. Transfixed by her power over the clay, Pippa let it grow too high, too thin. The pot listed, warped, then toppled and imploded, spiraling chaotically. It was her third class, and every effort had been a failure. The problem was, she wanted to make a vase with a long neck, not a stubby little potpourri container like everyone else in the class. She could tell her teacher, Mrs Mankevitz, a reptilian woman with a crooked back and bohemian taste in jewelry, disliked her for this. ‘Mrs Lee?’ she would say, ‘Still unwilling to work your way up like the rest of us, I see.’ On one such occasion, Pippa whispered to herself, as the teacher turned her hunched back to her, ‘Oh, go fuck yourself.’

  She hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but Dot’s head swiveled to look at her like a magpie spotting a rhinestone. Mrs Mankevitz halted, then turned slowly, long earrings tinkling, her toadlike face pale, her wide, lipless mouth set. ‘What did you say to me?’

  Pippa blushed. Fifty years old and still screwing up in the classroom.

  ‘It’s just that I don’t care if I end up with a perfect pot,’ Pippa explained. She felt the blood rushing to her cheeks, her throat tight. ‘I don’t need more clutter in my house. All I want is to feel the clay.’

  ‘Well, if all you want to do is play with clay,’ said Mrs Mankevitz, putting a veiny hand on one hip, ‘I suggest you take a block of it home with you and knead it on the kitchen floor. This is a pottery class, not Montessori.’

  Pippa looked around at the other members of the class. Six elderly women and a bearded old man, they all watched her complacently, curiously, as though chewing their cuds. Only Dot kept her eyes lowered, the coward. With a shock, Pippa realized she was being asked to leave. She felt sweat on her upper lip, her breath was shallow. She was trembling. She wiped her hands on a towel, took her jacket, her bag, and left.

  Once in the parking lot, she couldn’t face getting into her car. She didn’t want to go home. She didn’t know what to do with herself. It was eleven in the morning. Chris was asleep. Herb was in his office. She could go and see him. It was strange, Pippa felt, that she hadn’t thought of Herb first. That was wrong. She must pay more attention to Herb. She walked over to the building where his office was, pushed open the door, ran up the flight of stairs to his door, knocked. She already had her first sentence formed: ‘I got kicked out of pottery class.’ There was a little laugh in it, the way she was saying it in her head; already she was making fun of Mrs Mankevitz, her gypsy jewelry, the way the whole class had stared at her as though she had just admitted to a sex crime. Herb would crack up about it. She could hear shuffling inside his office. She knocked again.

  ‘Who is it?’ Herb asked.

  ‘It’s me,’ she called out. More shuffling. The door opened at last. Herb stood there, his clothes rumpled, his hair disheveled.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

  ‘I got thrown out of pottery class,’ she said. But it didn’t come out funny at all. It came out pathetic. She sat down on the couch and saw there was a towel spread out on it, but she didn’t really take it in.

  ‘I told the teacher to fuck off,’ she said.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ said Herb. His voice sounded so tired.

  ‘She’s a bitch, that’s why,’ said Pippa. ‘What’s this towel doing here?’ There was a long silence. ‘Were you eating and you didn’t want to mess the couch up?’ she asked helpfully.

  ‘No.’ He put his head in his hands.

  ‘What?’ There was a long silence then, it lasted a minute. Pippa’s eyes traveled around the room until they came upon a pair of jeans. And there, threaded through the belt loops, was Moira Dulles’s belt with the buckle, the silver star that she had admired. Pippa stood up, walked over to the bathroom door, and knocked. Then she tried the knob. The door swung open, and there was Moira, in Herb’s teal blue V-neck sweater, sitting on the rim of the bathtub, clutching herself, her cheeks shiny with tears. She looked up at Pippa. ‘Oh, Pippa … what have I done?’

  Pippa stood on the threshold, staring stupidly at her friend, unable to collect her feelings. They ran higgledy-piggledy, like a flock of sheep scattering before an oncoming truck. Shock, anger, hurt, disbelief – they scrambled in all directions within her. She was unable to harness a single one of them. She felt Herb’s hand on her shoulder. She shook it off, walked back into the office, and sat on the couch. He stood before her, frowning. Moira was sobbing loudly in the bathroom now.

  ‘When did this start?’ Pippa asked.

  ‘Sometime after we moved here.’ Herb sighed. ‘I wanted it to just be an affair, Pippa, but it … isn’t. I know it’s horrible for you. I want you to have the money. You deserve everything.’

  ‘Keep the money. You’re going to marry her?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. At my age, it would be ridiculous. I just want to live, Pippa. It’s my right. You’ve been burying me for the last few years. I feel the earth in my mouth. Almost like you’re looking forward to it.’

  ‘How can you say that?’

  ‘You always said old age disgusts you. Why would I be an exception? I can feel you beginning to pity me, to be afraid of me. You’re already in mourning. Be honest.’

  ‘Yes, I am afraid of you getting old. Dying. It’s normal to be afraid.’

  ‘I don’t want to be normal, and I don’t want to be mourned. I’m not a ghost. I want to live. No one knows when they are going to die. You could die tomorrow. I want to be alive. Fuck you for making me feel like an old man!’

  ‘Herb,’ she said in a flat tone, ‘you are an old man.’

  Herb sat down hard on the couch and looked out the window, as if lost in thought. Pippa watched him become a stranger before her eyes. The transformation was almost magical in its completeness. Next door, in the bathroom, Moira started baying like an animal. Then she went quiet. Pippa heard heavy breathing, a clatter, and a thump. Herb and Pippa rushed to see. Moira was lying on the floor of the bathroom, blood all over her arms.

  *

  ‘Killing yourself with a disposable razor. I don’t think anyone’s ever done that before,’ said Pippa as she knelt on the bathroom floor, bandaging Moira’s scraped up wrists. Moira, her face slippery with tears and snot, was sitting on the lid of the toilet, staring vacantly at the wall.

  Herb stood awkwardly in the doorway. ‘She was in despair,’ he said. Pippa looked up at him sharply. He looked pale and clammy. ‘She loves you, you know,’ he added sheepishly.
>
  ‘You should take a nap,’ said Pippa drily. She still couldn’t feel anything. It occurred to her that maybe she had actually stopped loving Herb without realizing it. No. That wasn’t it. She remembered adoring him only this morning. Then why was she such a blank? Pippa had bought the first aid supplies only a week earlier, on impulse, to stock Herb’s office bathroom. As she taped the bandages around Moira’s wrists, something loosened from her mind and fell away, like a clump of earth from a crumbling dam. And all of a sudden, she was flooded with relief. It was her guilt that had fallen away, she realized, and landed right on Moira, smashed her to smithereens. Poor Moira. This was what guilt did to a person. Pippa felt time spinning back, back, back, until the bullet reversed out of Gigi’s brain and she was innocent of murder, innocent of betrayal.

  Pippa’s luck had finally run out. She was the victim now. She had passed the guilt baton to Moira, and she felt so empty! Calm, peaceful, sad. Drained of her sin, Pippa felt herself slipping away, like a shade, no longer flesh and blood, no longer here, even. She stood up.

  ‘That should do it,’ she said. Then she took her handbag from the couch and walked out the door, down the stairs. Her steps made no sound. Herb didn’t need her anymore. Nobody needed her anymore. Nobody at all!

  Swerve

  There was only one place to go. She drove over to the Nadeaus’ house, cut her engine, and sat there. Chris’s truck was on its own in the driveway. She went to his open window and looked in. He was sleeping. She dragged the ceramic toadstool to the house, stepped up on it, swung her leg over the sill, then squeezed herself through the window, but one foot got caught under the sash. She had to use her hands to dislodge her shoe, hopping to maintain her balance. Finally free, she turned and saw that Chris was watching her, smiling, his hands behind his head. ‘Hi there,’ he said.

  Pippa lay down on the covers beside him. ‘My husband is in love with a close friend of mine.’ She looked over at his face. The broken nose, slack mouth, and the dark, dark eyes, burning with spirit or disturbance, it had to be one or the other, with eyes like that. She felt a shock of tenderness and desire. Suddenly they were kissing. His breath smelled pleasant, earthy, like a pond. There was a knock. Dot popped out of the wall, dressed entirely in white terry cloth, a big blond bunny. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked. ‘I heard a sound …’ Wide eyed, Dot looked down at them, shock and embarrassment spreading across her features.