Loose Ends

by Raskin, Barbara;

  A chilling shiver slipped down the skin of her arms as Coco remembered a long-forgotten conversation concerning whether or not a woman should sneak out of bed after initiating a new love affair to redo her face in the towel-shielded light of a strange bathroom, to avert the danger of her new lover waking up first in the dawn’s cruel light to catch a glimpse of a makeup-smeared, baggy-eyed, frizzy-haired old witch who had magically sneaked into his bed during the night while he was sleeping, (like in a Shakespearean comedy) to replace the beautiful Jewish American Princess with whom he had retired.

  Oh, Lord, Coco moaned. I am afraid.

  Now, get a grip on yourself, Dr. Finkelstein cautioned from Normandy or Scandinavia or wherever he was touring with his wife and his 2.5 manageable children in a Volkswagen bus. Don’t bolt.

  twenty

  “I won’t,” Coco said in a perfectly audible voice. “I won’t flip out.”

  Why don’t you start making the sandwiches, her helpful post-lib lobby suggested.

  Slowly Coco pushed her chair away from the table, stood up, and went over to the breadbox. Make sandwiches, she ordered herself. Make sandwiches and do not taste anything. Do not lick off a single knife. Do not get one drop of mayonnaise or one dab of peanut butter on your fingertip. Do not put one potato chip between your lips or you will die slowly of interminable terminal lung cancer at Sibley Memorial Hospital starting tomorrow. Do not finger-swipe any excess filling protruding over the edges of a squishy sandwich when you squeeze the bread together.

  Now. Sandwiches: Mike loves bologna, Jessica peanut butter and jelly, white bread and mayonnaise for Nicky with nothing else on it. Buttered toast for Josh—not too dark. Set toaster back to L. Barbecue potato chips wrapped in individual Baggies so they don’t fight. Start opening, unwrapping, spreading, scraping, slicing, covering, wrapping, closing. We can stop at Seven-Eleven for Slurpies. Put in cookies. Fruit: one plum, one apple (yellow for Jessica), one bag of watermelon balls, scooped out like Mrs. Silverman does it, for Mike and Josh. Look under the sink for big brown grocery bag. Do not notice any roaches rushing Maypole fashion around the pipes. Please, dear Lord, do not let me see a mouse. Stand up. Stand up fast. Grip the chrome edge of the counter so you don’t faint and scare your children.

  Don’t bolt. Don’t faint.

  Please, Gavin, please call up right now.

  She ran back to her chair to sit down, sick and dizzy, in her little executive suite next to the telephone. The dog was scratching at the screen on the back door. Coco reached out her hand and then stopped. Was it really the dog? her new prefab paranoia inquired. Was it really Happy? Perhaps it was a rat scratching at the door this time. Maybe Coco would turn the knob and see a huge black rat wag its tail and walk right in. Wasn’t the scratching just a little too loud? Maybe the rats had watched Happy to learn how to get inside. Certainly lots of rats learned more complicated tricks than that in laboratories. If they could master ringing a bell for food pellets, they should certainly be able to get the knack of scratching on a screen to gain entry into a gloriously dirty crumb-filled kitchen. Rats weren’t stupid.

  Coco opened the door a crack, barricading it with a braced foot, peeked through the slit like the bouncer in a speakeasy, recognized Happy, and let him inside.

  Then she reached over and dialed Gavin’s office number.

  “Hello.”

  “Is Gavin there?” Coco asked, surprised that anyone had answered.

  “Who’s calling please?”

  “Who’s this?” Coco repeated in a cold white rage.

  “Susan.”

  “Susan who?”

  The world was suddenly populated exclusively by Other Women—sees and libbers, hookers, and hippies, careerists and communards—slim, beautiful, unattached creatures available daily for sin during lunch time or all day on weekends.

  “Who is this?” Susan asked irritably, usurping all authority.

  “This is Mrs. Burman,” Coco choked.

  Any minute now someone was going to storm into the Burman house, probably by scratching on the back door until Coco opened it and come then inside to rip Coco’s Mrs. off her epaulettes. And then—then—who would she be? just Coco? Like Vera or Viva or Hildegarde or other first-namers-only? What would Coco Burman do without her Mrs.? Would she become the first lady to go around town calling herself Mzzzz, like a German messerschmidt about to bomb London?

  “Look. I want to speak with Gavin Burman.”

  “I’m sorry. He’s not in.” An old Saturday Evening Post cartoon, of a gorgeous blond sitting on the boss’s lap while informing the wife via telephone her husband wasn’t available, popped into Coco’s head.

  “Where is he?”

  “I think he’s out of town. He said he couldn’t be reached before Wednesday.”

  Coco’s rage and terror united. For a brief moment she believed that Gavin was right there in the office and that she should get dressed and hurry over there to catch him in the act, not accepting her call. But then an even more threatening idea occurred. Maybe Gavin really wasn’t at his office. Maybe he really hadn’t rented a room somewhere. Maybe he had run away with Sylvia. Maybe they had just taken off—for the weekend or forever.

  Confronted by a stubborn silence on the wire, Coco committed a last feeble old-style act of pre-lib vengeance, and hung up the telephone without saying good-bye.

  Incredible. Amazing. Coco’s total loss of power was symbolized by the fact her name meant absolutely nothing anymore over the telephone. Her name now was only a noise—not a status report. The next thing she knew, she would begin receiving telegrams recalling all her charge and credit cards. Obviously American Express knew that a lady without a Mrs. wasn’t good for heavy bills. Of course they would call in all her cards. There was probably a federal regulation. Deserted mothers are not eligible …

  Terrified, Coco picked up the telephone and dialed Sylvia’s number. There was still no answer. Then she called the D.C. Women’s Political Caucus office. After many rings a lady answered, but she had never heard of Sylvia Brydan. That was only small consolation compared to Coco’s curiosity. Where had Sylvia and Gavin gone? To Rehoboth Beach to weekend in one of those marvelously atmospheric A-shaped cottages on the Delaware shore? Did Sylvia have a car? Or did they just rush over to the Hilton? But no, Gavin was too smart for that. Coco could get out the Yellow Pages and begin phoning every hotel in the metropolitan area, but they were probably registered under a false name. Should she call the police and report Gavin missing? But then what would happen if they found him—them? Anyway, they were probably in that furnished room Gavin had rented, on top of a secondhand mattress kissing and fucking and sucking and licking and dicking. Was he, right at this moment, giving Sylvia one of his magnificent finger-jobs? But no, Sylvia was probably a clit lady. “Clit it,” she’d say, hip to the fashions. Clit and Tit Sylvia. Clit-’n’-Tit.’

  Slippery with perspiration, Coco’s elbow, cocked on the edge of the table, suddenly slipped from beneath her so that she almost fell off the chair, jarring both her body and soul. It seemed as if the kitchen were bobbing up and down like a cork upon the water, and it took a long time before she heard a narrow electronic voice repeating, “Your telephone is off the hook. Your telephone is off the hook.”

  Coco stood up, replaced the receiver, took the two last Stelazine from their windowsill perch and downed them with cold coffee. Dr. Finkelstein had not even been professional enough to provide her with a prescription for more tranquilizers while he was cavorting through Europe.

  A little before one o’clock, Coco started the troop movement out of the house. First she carried Josh’s stroller in from the patio, rolled it through the house, and carried it down the front stairs, spitefully lifting it completely off the ground rather than bumping it down the steps so that the unwiedly weight could further aggravate her temper. Then Mike helped her carry Nick’s trike outside. Then she helped Mike balance his two-wheeler on the thin curbing along the stairs, stopping it from spe
eding out of control down onto the sidewalk. The red wagon was easy, because it was parked in the front hall (Coco had promised to pay Jessica and Sarah a dime apiece if they pulled it to the park), but then Happy escaped through the open door and Coco had to chase him across the street and carry him back into the house. By the time all their vehicles were strewn across the sidewalk, Coco had a skinned shin, a smear of grease on her denim shirt, a bruised elbow, and a raw rage pumping through her shrunken veins.

  Dear Dr. Finkelstein … Coco paused on the top stair to address a mental letter to her doctor. I do not have the strength. I simply do not have the physical or emotional strength to do this. We haven’t even left yet, we haven’t even embarked, and I’m exhausted and impatient and totally obsessed “with the idea of pulling all that shit right back up the stairs when we come home, and everybody will be hot and tired and Josh will be crying and Nicky will be carrying on while I schlep all the bikes and trikes and tykes back up where I started from.

  “Can we take Happy with us?” Jessica asked, puckering up her face to squeeze out a few tears when she received the expected negative.

  “No,” Coco said angrily, foreseeing a long hot search for the dog’s collar, which would be separated from the leash because Josh liked to unhook them and invariably left one part under some chair and the other under something else. It had taken Coco four infants to learn to look for car keys or coin purses under places rather than on top of things.

  Right on schedule Jessica burst into tired tears and slouched down on the top step near the front door.

  Coco recalled several recent child-beating stories in the Washington Post. “Jessica,” she said calmly, “if you carry on now, if you cry one more minute, I am going to slap you and send you to your room and take Sarah home.” (Coco was just like Mrs. Silverman—yelling at her kids right in front of their friends—no holds barred.) “Now, Mike, please carry Josh downstairs and put him in the stroller,” Coco panted. She wiped her face with a dramatic sweep of her hand, a throw-away gesture for any invisible drama critic who might be watching Coco’s far-off-Broadway production of This Is My Life, pulled Jessica to her feet with two fierce fingers dug into her shoulder, and gave her a sturdy push down the stairs. “Get going, missy. I mean it, march.”

  Then Coco began a series of round trips between the house and the sidewalk, loading the rear basket of Joshua’s stroller with paper diapers, his bottle, her wallet, his suntan lotion, her keys, Kleenex, and a spray can of bug repellent. Her stomach felt hard and distended. Finally, just as she slammed the door, while Josh screamed hysterically in his stroller, Coco heard the phone ringing in the kitchen, and for one glorious moment she knew that it was Gavin, calling to apologize, to recant, to restate his love, and to say he was returning home.

  So she began to run—first down to the stroller to get her keys and then back up the stairs to unlock the door, and then finally she began to race through the hallway toward the kitchen. She had only heard five or six rings, but there was an ominous extra second of silence just before she lifted the receiver so that she half-expected, no, knew, that the dial tone would leap up in her ear. Still, she remained frozen as if playing a big Disappointment Scene for her movie, holding the telephone with a stunned expression on her face until Jessica ran into the kitchen.

  “Mamaaa. Nicky hit Sarah and Sarah wants to go home,” Jessica reported in a voice that predicted hysteria.

  “Okay. Come on,” Coco said, backing Jessica into the hall. “I’ll see what’s happening.”

  “I think Nicky should go see that counselor you know, because he’s three and he still talks baby talk and he’s always hitting my girlfriends.”

  “Keep quiet, Jessica,” Coco ordered, stepping outside. “Where’s Mike?”

  “He’s waiting up at the corner,” Jessica answered sweetly, delicately edging away from her mother’s wrath.

  Coco slammed the door shut again and started down the stairs. “Sarah, honey, would you like to push the stroller? You can if you want to.”

  “I think I want to go home,” Sarah said with freckled-faced flatness.

  “Oh, don’t go,” Jessica pleaded, clenching her fists in impotent urgency. “Oh, Mama, please tell her not to go.”

  “Come on, Sarah,” Coco said gaily. “Nicky’s sorry and you can push Josh.”

  Coco got Nicky onto his trike, gave the back bumper a firm push with her foot to start him up the hill, and began to maneuver the girls into position. Get them going, she thought, put them in motion, and everything will be okay. Dear Lord, if I’m going to do this, please let me do it without every one of my nutty kids doing his own number right now when I don’t have the strength for it. Also, that phone-call bit was unnecessary so we’ll be even-steven if you make the kids behave.

  Up the block she could see Mike, sitting straight and patient on his bike, waiting for them, and that was when Coco’s spirits lifted and flew out of her body for a moment, winging toward her son—up at the corner—loving his young strength and decency. Her breath was coming in short, shallow strokes, as if she had been running for miles, but she continued to hop and skip along the sidewalk, trying to stay close behind Nicky’s trike so she could shoe him forward when his little legs failed in their fight against the incline. Her chest ached and there were occasional shots of pain from her shoulders that moved down under the arms toward her chest when she looked backward to check on the girls pushing the stroller.

  “Come on, Mudder,” Nicky yelled.

  It was hot, and the air was heavy.

  Coco ran forward again, planted her foot on the bumper, and skipped a few steps to propel him forward again. And that was when she felt the first stinging moment of authentic remorse and grief for her marriage. As if she were approaching a funeral home, Coco experienced a stabbing sorrow, a desperate desire to return her life to its previous form, a yearning to have her marriage restored, in any way, under any conditions, so that Gavin would walk beside her again. Now that she had driven him away, banished him forever, she wanted her old life returned untouched, like the time she found her wallet at the lost-and-found in the basement of the Giant supermarket.

  I’m sorry, Gavin, she grieved. Please come home. Come back to us.

  The grief quieted her. She moved past the YES hippie house, and then, closer up near the corner, past the Women’s Commune, where she suspected liberated ladies hid behind the upside-down American flags which served as curtains on the front windows to watch nonemancipated, yea, counterrevolutionary middle-class mothers rolling their children toward the park in a caravan of various two-, three-, and four-wheel vehicles, victims and veterans of some battle by Brecht. But like Mother Courage, Coco straightened her shoulders and stood a little taller. Go ahead, laugh, you bitches, she thought bitterly, stopping herself at the last minute from silently calling them dykes. For what indeed was there to feel prejudice about? So what if some of them did look sort of butch? So what? What was so great about heterosexuality? What had it done for Coco, huh?

  “Mike, watch Nicky,” she yelled, because now, right there in front of the Women’s Commune; the uphill sidewalk turned into a sharp downhill slope. For seven years Coco had had recurring nightmares about one of her children inadvertently picking up speed at that point—in buggy or bike—and rolling down the hill, one fingertip out of reach, onto Connecticut Avenue to die instantly beneath the wheels of a Railway Express truck.

  “Okay,” Mike yelled back.

  So then Coco had another free moment to look sideways toward the cracks between the flags, to see if anyone was really watching her. Because Coco always felt sublimely self-conscious in front of the Women’s Commune, like a living example of a pre-lib, pre-pill, pre-legal abortion, pre-zero population-growth freak. And today her children, plus one extra, scattered and spread along the sidewalk, seemed so devastatingly old-fashioned, so counter-counterculture, so reactionary a statement about her 1950-ishness—planned or otherwise—that she felt her soul shrivel with insecurity as she t
urned to latch onto the stroller that Jessica was trying to slow down in the last lap of their perilous journey to the corner.

  “God, it’s hot,” Coco murmured when they were all safely braked and parked along the curb. Then she smiled at Mike, who had used his bike as a barrier near the street.

  “How does Mrs. Marshall get everyone across the street?” she asked casually. Coco would obviously have to push the stroller and hang on to Nick’s trike (with him riding on it or else running alongside holding onto the other handlebar) while Mike got the wagon down off the curb and took Jessica and Sarah across. But then who would take Mike’s bike? Did he go back for it by himself? And then who watched the kids on the other side when he returned for the bike if no one had stayed behind to guard it?

  Coco stood on the curb. “You know what?” she asked outloud so that everyone turned their faces upward to listen. “This is like the riddle about the man who had to take a wolf and a sheep and a piece of cheese across the river on his ferryboat. But he couldn’t leave the wolf alone with the sheep or the sheep alone with the cheese. Or something.”

  Suddenly Coco began to laugh. Sick, pathetic, helpless laughter came bubbling up like rude belches out of her mouth and nose. The children all stopped talking to stare at her and then Nicky smiled because he thought his mother was happy, and that was when Coco realized she wanted, very badly, to die, right there—to lie down on the hot dirty pavement, close her eyes and expire so that the damn police could just cart her body away in a paddy wagon and put out a dragnet to find Gavin and bring him in a squad car right back to this corner to assume and accept his responsibilities as a father on Macomb and Connecticut Avenue. And then he could try to get all his children plus Sarah safely across the street with their bikes and their trikes and their strollers and wagons.