Wife 22

by Melanie Gideon

  But never mind them. William kissed me deeply on the sidewalk, fed me bites of his pizza, and sometimes when nobody was looking, copped a quick feel. Outside of work we were either arm in arm or hands in each other’s back pockets. I see these couples now, so smug, appearing to need nobody but one another, and it hurts to look at them. It’s hard for me to believe that we were once one of those couples looking at people like us, thinking if you’re so damn unhappy why don’t you just get divorced?

  49

  Lucy Pevensie

  Not a fan of Turkish Delight.

  38 minutes ago

  John Yossarian

  Has a pain in his liver.

  39 minutes ago

  So sorry to hear you’re feeling unwell, Researcher 101.

  Thank you. I’ve been spending a lot of time in the infirmary.

  I assume you’ll still be in the infirmary tomorrow?

  Yes, and the next day and the next and the next until this damn war is over.

  But not so ill that-

  I can’t read your surveys-no. Never that ill.

  Are you saying you like reading my answers, Researcher 101?

  You describe things so colorfully.

  I can’t help it. I was a playwright once.

  You’re still a playwright.

  No, I’m wan, boring, and absurd.

  You’re funny, too.

  I’m quite certain my family would not agree.

  Regarding #49. I’m curious. Have you ever been to the Taj Mahal?

  I was there just last week. Courtesy of Google Earth. Have you ever been?

  No, but it’s on my list.

  What else is on your list-and please don’t say seeing the Mona Lisa at the Louvre.

  Tying a cherry stem with my tongue.

  Suggest you set the bar a little higher.

  Standing atop an iceberg.

  Higher.

  Saving somebody’s marriage.

  Too high. Good luck on that.

  So listen, I have to press you a bit further on your refusal to answer #48.Resistance of this sort usually indicates we’ve touched upon a hot-button topic.

  You sound like the Borg.

  I would guess your aversion has something to do with the way the question was posed?

  Honestly I can’t remember how it was posed.

  It was posed in an entirely clichéd way.

  Now I remember.

  You’re insulted by a question that has been so clearly designed for the masses. To be lumped into a group is an affront for you.

  Now you sound like an astrologer. Or a human resources manager.

  Perhaps I can ask #48 in a way that you might find more palatable.

  Go right ahead, Researcher 101.

  Describe the last time you felt cared for by your husband.

  Come to think of it, I prefer the original question.

  50

  Alice Buckle

  Bloated

  24 minutes ago

  Daniel Barbedian Linda Barbedian

  You do realize posting on Facebook is not the same as texting, Mom.

  34 minutes ago

  Bobby Barbedian Daniel Barbedian

  Check no longer in the mail. Tell Mom.

  42 minutes ago

  Linda Barbedian Daniel Barbedian

  Check in the mail. Don’t tell Dad.

  48 minutes ago

  Bobby Barbedian Daniel Barbedian

  Tired of funding your social life. Get a job.

  1 hour ago

  William Buckle

  Ina Garten-really? Golden raisins in classic gingerbread?

  Yesterday

  “I saw a mouse yesterday,” says Caroline, unpacking vegetables from a canvas bag. “It ran under the fridge. I don’t want to freak you out but that makes two this week, Alice. Maybe you should get a cat.”

  “We don’t need a cat. We have Zoe. She’s an expert mouse catcher,” I say.

  “Too bad she’s still in school all day,” says William.

  “Well, maybe you can fill in for her,” I say. “I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”

  “This rainbow chard looks amazing!” says Caroline.

  “Except for those little bugs,” I say. “Are those mites?”

  William paws through the chard. “That’s dirt, Alice, not mites.”

  William and Caroline are just back from an early-morning trip to the farmers’ market.

  “Was the bluegrass band there?” I ask him.

  “No, but there was somebody playing ‘It Had to Be You’ on a suitcase.”

  “It’s pretty,” I say, fingering the yellow and magenta stalks, “but it seems like the color would leech out once you cook it.”

  “Maybe we should put it in a salad,” suggests Caroline.

  William snaps his fingers. “I’ve got it. Let’s do Lidia’s strangozzi with chard and almond sauce. Ina’s gingerbread will be perfect for dessert.”

  “I vote for salad,” I say, because if I am forced to eat another heavy meal I will strangozzi William. He’s found a new hobby, or should I say reignited an old passion-cooking. Every night for the past week, we’ve sat down to elaborate meals that William and his sous-chef, yet-to-be-employed Caroline, have dreamed up. I’m not sure what I feel about this. A part of me is relieved to not have to shop, plan meals, and cook, but another part of me feels uprooted at the sudden shift in William’s and my roles.

  “I hope we have durum semolina,” says William.

  “Lidia uses half durum, half white flour,” says Caroline.

  Neither of them notices when I leave the kitchen to get ready for work.

  There are only three weeks left before school ends, and these are the most stressful weeks of the year for me. I’m mounting six different plays-one for every grade. Yes, each play is only twenty minutes long, but believe me, that twenty-minute performance takes weeks of casting, staging, designing sets, and rehearsal.

  When I walk into the classroom that morning, Carisa Norman is waiting for me. She begins crying as soon as she sees me. I know why she’s crying-it’s because I made her a goose. The third-grade play this semester is Charlotte’s Web. I look at her tear-stained face and wonder why didn’t I give her the role of Charlotte. She would have been perfect for it. Instead I made her one of three geese, and unfortunately geese have no lines. To make up for this, I told the geese they could honk whenever they wanted to. Trust themselves. They’d know when the honking moment was right. This was a mistake, because the honking moment turned out to be every moment of the play.

  “Carisa, what’s wrong, sweetheart? Why aren’t you at recess?”

  She hands me a plastic baggie. It looks like it’s filled with oregano. I open the bag and sniff-it’s marijuana.

  “Carisa, where did you find this!”

  Carisa shakes her head, distraught.

  “Carisa, sweetheart, you have to tell me,” I say, trying to hide the fact that I’m horrified. Kids are smoking pot in elementary school? Are they dealing, too?

  “You’re not going to get in trouble.”

  “My parents,” she says.

  “This belongs to your parents?” I ask.

  I think her mother is on the board of the Parents’ Association. Oh, this is not good.

  She nods. “Will you give it to the police? That’s what you’re supposed to do if you’re a kid and find drugs.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  “CSI Miami,” she says solemnly.

  “Carisa, I want you to go enjoy recess and don’t give this another thought. I’ll take care of it.”

  She throws her arms around me. Her barrette is about to fall off. I re-clip it, pulling the hair back from her eyes.

  “Shut the worry switch off, okay?” This is something I used to say to my kids before they went to bed. When did I stop doing this? Maybe I should reinstitute the ritual. I wish somebody would switch off my worry.

  In between classes I fight with myself over the proper course of a
ction. I should take the pot directly to the principal and tell her exactly what happened-that sweet Carisa Norman narced on her parents. But if I do, there’s a possibility the principal might call the police. I don’t want that, of course, but doing nothing is not an option either, given Carisa’s emotionally labile state. If there’s one thing I know about third-graders, it’s that most of them are incapable of hiding anything-eventually they will confess. Carisa can’t take back what she knows.

  At lunch, I lock the classroom door and Google “medical marijuana” on my laptop. Maybe the Normans have a medical marijuana card. But if they did, surely the marijuana would be dispensed in a prescription bottle-not a ziplock baggie. Maybe I could ask a professional how they typically dispense their wares. I click on Find a Dispensary Near You and am about to choose between Foggy Daze and the Green Cross when my cell rings.

  “Can you do me a favor and pick Jude up from school today? This bloody deposition is running late,” says Nedra.

  “Nedra-perfect timing. Remember you said that thing about not informing on kids to their parents when we went to How to Keep Your Kids from Turning into Meth Addicts night at school? That I should learn to keep my mouth shut?”

  “It depends on the circumstances. Is it about sex?” says Nedra.

  “Yes, I’ll pick up Jude and no, it’s not about sex.”

  “STDs?”

  “No.”

  “General all-around sluttiness?”

  “No.”

  “Plagiarism?”

  “No.”

  “Drugs?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hard drugs?”

  “Is pot classified as a hard drug?”

  “What happened,” sighs Nedra. “Is it Zoe or Peter?”

  “Neither-it’s a third-grader. She narced on her parents, and my question is should I narc on her narc back to her parents?”

  Nedra pauses. “Well, my advice is still no, stay out of it. But trust your intuition, darling. You’ve got good instincts.”

  Nedra’s wrong about that. My instincts are like my memory-they both started fizzling out after forty or so years.

  Please go to voice mail, please go to voice mail, please go to voice mail.

  “Hello.”

  “Oh, hi. Hiiiiii. Is this Mrs. Norman?”

  “This is she.”

  I ramble. “How are you? Hope I haven’t caught you at a bad time. Sounds like you’re in the car. Hope the traffic isn’t bad. But jeez, it’s always bad. This is the Bay Area after all. But a small price to pay for all this abundance, right?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Oh-sorry! This is Alice Buckle, Carisa’s drama teacher?”

  “Yes.”

  I’ve been teaching drama long enough to know when I’m talking to a mother who’s nursing a grudge over me casting her child as a goose in the third-grade play.

  “Ah, well, it seems we have a situation.”

  “Oh-is Carisa having a problem learning her lines?”

  See?

  “So listen. Carisa came into school quite upset today.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  The brusqueness of her voice throws me off. “You allow her to watch CSI Miami?” I ask.

  Oh, God, Alice.

  “Is that why you’re calling me? She has an older brother. I can’t possibly be expected to screen everything Carisa sees.”

  “That’s not why I’m calling. Carisa brought in a baggie full of pot. Your pot.”

  Silence. More silence. Did she hear what I said? Has she put me on mute? Is she crying?

  “Mrs. Norman?”

  “That’s simply out of the question. My daughter did not bring in a bag of pot.”

  “Yes, well, I understand this is a delicate situation, but she did bring in a bag of pot because I’m holding it in my hands right now.”

  “Impossible,” she says.

  This is the grown woman’s version of putting her hands over her ears and humming so she doesn’t have to hear what you’re saying.

  “Are you saying I’m lying?”

  “I’m saying you must be mistaken.”

  “You know, I’m doing you a favor. I could lose my job over this. I could have brought this to the principal. But I didn’t because of Carisa. And the fact that you might have some medical condition for which you have a medical marijuana card.”

  “A medical condition?”

  Doesn’t she understand I’m trying to give her an out?

  “Yes-plenty of people use marijuana for medical reasons; it’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Minor things, like anxiety or depression.”

  “I am neither anxious nor depressed, Ms. Buckle, and I appreciate your concern-but if you insist on continuing to harass me I’ll have to do something about it.”

  Mrs. Norman hangs up.

  After work I drive to McDonald’s and throw the baggie full of pot into the Dumpster behind the restaurant. Then I drive away like a fugitive, by which I mean obsessively looking into my rearview mirror and driving twenty miles an hour in a forty-mile-an-hour zone, praying there wasn’t a video camera in the McDonald’s parking lot. Why is everybody so rude? Why won’t we help each other? And when was the last time I felt truly cared for by my husband?

  51

  KED3 (Kentwood Elementary Third Grade Drama Parents’ Forum) Digest #129

  KED3ParentsForum@yahoogroups.com

  Messages in this digest (5)

  1. Was it fair of Alice Buckle to give the geese no lines? Weigh in, people! Posted by: Queenbeebeebee

  2. RE: Was it fair of Alice Buckle to give the geese no lines? Look, I know this will likely be an unpopular position, but I’m just going to come right out and say it. It’s not realistic to think that every kid in the play will have a line. It’s just not possible. Not with thirty kids in the class. Some years your kids will get lucky and get a good role. And some years they won’t. It all balances out in the end. Posted by: Farmymommy

  3. RE: Was it fair of Alice Buckle to give the geese no lines? No! It’s not fair. And it doesn’t all balance out. Alice Buckle is a hypocrite! Do you think she ever cast her children as geese? I think not and I can prove it. I have all the school play programs dating back ten years. Her daughter Zoe was Mrs. Squash, Narrator #1, Lion Tamer with Arm in Cast and Lazy Bee. Her son Peter was Fractious Elf, Slightly Overweight Troll, Bovine Buffoon (everybody wanted that role) and Walnut. Alice Buckle has just gotten lazy. How hard can it be to make sure each child has at least one line? Perhaps Mrs. Buckle has been teaching drama for too long. Perhaps she should think of retiring. Posted by: Helicopmama

  4. RE: Was it fair of Alice Buckle to give the geese no lines? I have to agree with Helicopmama. Something is very off with Mrs. Buckle. Shouldn’t she be keeping track of each class? The plays they’ve done and the roles each kid has performed over the years? That way she could make sure everything was equitable. If your child had a one-line role last year, well, then this year they should have a lead. And if they have no lines-well, don’t even get me started. That is simply unacceptable. My daughter is heartbroken. Heartbroken. Posted by: Storminnormandy

  5. RE: Was it fair of Alice Buckle to give the geese no lines? May I make an observation? I’m pretty sure that how many lines your child has in his or her third-grade play will have no bearing on his future. Absolutely none. And if, in fact, I’m wrong, and it does, I would ask you this: consider the possibility that a small role might be a good thing. Perhaps those children who had only one-line roles (or perhaps, no lines at all) will end up with higher self-esteem. Why? Because they will have learned from an early age to deal with disappointment and to make the best of a situation and to not quit or throw a tantrum when something doesn’t go their way. There are plenty of things going on in this world right now that are worthy of being heartbroken over. The third-grade play is not one of them. Posted by: Davidmametlurve182

  52

  54. “Hi, Mama,” she shouted cheerfully, when we pulled up to the curb. It was nearly
midnight, and William and I were picking her up from the last dance of the school year.

  She stuck her head in my window and giggled. “Can we give Jew a ride home?”

  “Who?” I said.

  “Jew!”

  “Jude,” interpreted William. “Goddammit, she’s wasted.”

  William quickly rolled the car windows up, just seconds before she threw up on the passenger-seat door.

  “Got your phone?” asked William.

  We knew this moment would come, we had discussed our plan, and now we sprung into action. I bolted out of the car, my iPhone in hand, and started taking photos. I got some classic shots. Zoe, leaning against the car door, her fleur-de-lys crinoline splattered in vomit. Zoe, climbing into the backseat, shoeless, her sweaty hair stuck to the back of her neck. Zoe on the drive home, her head lolling on the seat; her mouth wide open. And the saddest one: her father carrying her into the house.

  We had gotten this advice from friends. When she got wasted-and she would get wasted, it wasn’t a matter of if, but when-we should document the whole thing because she’d be too drunk to remember any of the details.

  It may sound hard core but it worked. The next morning when we showed her the photos she was so horrified that, to the best of my knowledge, she hasn’t ever gotten drunk again.

  55. I had William all wrong. He wasn’t some blue-blood, entitled, silver-spoon, Ivy League elitist. Everything he had he’d worked his ass off for, including a full scholarship to Yale.

  “Beer?” his father, Hal, said to me, holding the refrigerator door open.

  “Would you like Bud Light, Bud Light, or Bud Light?” asked William.

  “I’ll take a Bud Light,” I said.

  “I like her,” said Hal. “The last one drank water. No ice.” Hal gave me a huge grin. “Helen. She didn’t stand a chance once you came into the picture, right, slim? You don’t mind if I call you slim?”

  “Only if you called Helen that, too.”

  “Helen was not slim. Zaftig, maybe.”