“You’ve got to see this,” I began, but I wasn’t fast enough. Her arm shot out and her hand grabbed mine.
“Oh, Carla, life is just too sad, isn’t it?” Then she cried. I didn’t say anything—it’s one of the luxuries of friendship, being able to cry without explanation. I rubbed my thumb over her knuckles and offered her a wad of paper towels. Finally she wiped her eyes.
“I can’t do this any longer,” she whispered. “Hand me my purse, okay?”
I reached over and pulled it out from behind the couch. She shuffled around inside and threw a postcard at me. “He’s in New Mexico now. Supposedly. The bastard.”
The postcard showed horses grazing over a grassy plain, mountains in the background. “Welcome to Ruidoso, New Mexico,” was printed across the bottom.
“This has got to stop.” Her face was pale, her eyes beady and awful.
“Don’t read them,” I suggested. “Throw them away. Have someone else get your mail.”
“I would, but…” I allowed her her excuses—how could I not, when I had so many of my own? I hadn’t been putting much effort into my painting lately. I told myself I was too tired or too stressed, too hungry or too emotionally detached. Really, I was too afraid. It takes guts to paint, and lately I haven’t been feeling very brave. My porno dolls are safer. It’s all surface; I don’t have to dig in and reveal parts of myself.
“…didn’t know if I should forgive him for…,” Sandee was saying.
“Forgive?” I interrupted, thinking of last week’s diary lesson. “Listen, did you ever try writing?”
“I don’t have his address.”
“Not to Randall. To yourself.”
Sandee stared at me quizzically.
“Like a diary,” I said. “Or hey, maybe a letter.” I leaned forward. “What would you write to Randall in a letter? What would you say?”
Sandee sat silent for a moment.
“You wouldn’t have to send it. We could, I don’t know, have a ceremony. Burn it, or drive out to Beluga Point and throw it in the inlet.”
“Can I do it in the bathroom?”
“I-I guess so.”
“All that enamel will make me feel safe.”
While Sandee shuffled off to the bathroom with a notebook and pen, I sketched a quick watercolor draft for my next Woman Running with a Box painting, dabbing with a tissue to give it a muted, faraway feel. The woman’s hands were clenched in a running pose, her knees bent, her bare ankles surprisingly thin and delicate. How would they ever hold her up? Her high-heeled shoes had been replaced with a pair of sturdy Nikes, and on the ground behind her was a towel with the Holiday Inn logo and a box of Sleepytime Herbal Tea. I was shading out the bottom of her ear when Sandee returned.
“Here.” She handed me two notebook pages of writing. “I printed so you’d be able to read it better.”
“You sure?” I put down my brush and wiped my hands over my pants, black and purple paint smearing across my thighs. “Isn’t it kind of personal?”
“Not any longer.” She sat at the kitchen table and stared at my painting. “This is wildly bizarre,” she said. “It’s every woman, isn’t it? Every woman running, a metaphor of sorts.”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I think it has something to do with my grandmother.”
The minute I said that, I knew it was true. The woman looked nothing like my grandmother, yet I knew she was in the painting; I could feel her there, breathing around the edges.
“Can I sleep on the couch?” Sandee asked. “I don’t feel like driving all the way home tonight.”
“Blanket’s in the closet.”
“Wait until I fall asleep to read the letter.” She lay down on the couch and pulled the blanket over her shoulders. “And listen, can you read it in the bathtub?”
I shook my head yes.
“Promise?”
“Sure.”
“It’s just one of those letters that needs to be read in the bathtub.”
After she fell asleep I sat cross-legged in the dry bathtub and read the letter. I cried at the end. I couldn’t help it. It made me feel so soft inside, not just for Sandee but for myself, too.
Dear Randall:
It snowed yesterday morning, sticky flakes falling down across the backyard and covering the old toilet you dragged back there the year before you left. We took pictures of each other sitting naked upon it, remember? I looked for those pictures but I can’t find them. You must have taken them. Or maybe I threw them out when I finally realized you weren’t coming back. I threw out so much! Now I want it back. I want back the Washington Redskins football jersey you used to wear when you chopped wood. And that old shaving cup you said came from your grandfather, even though it had a Kmart price tag peeling off the bottom. The Kmart is gone now, can you believe it? No more blue-light specials, no more cheap tube socks. I cried when I heard, cried harder than when you left. It’s easier to cry over stores than people, you taught me that. Stores don’t have to do anything. They squat there looking all smug and satisfied and still we visit them.
I wish you would call. I want you to call so I can hang up on you. I want to hear your voice, hesitant and low.
“Sandee?” you’ll say. “Sandee-bean?”
I’ll hold the receiver tight, I’ll be so happy to hear your voice!
“Listen,” you’ll say. “I made a mistake. I’m coming home.”
That’s when I’ll slam the phone down, Randall. I’ll hold it high above my head and let it crash down. I want you to hear my anger. I want it to ring in your ears for hours and days and weeks.
My anger is all I have left of you. It’s eating me up inside. It’s like cancer, only worse, because you can fight cancer, you can cut and slice it out, you can zap it with radiation, kill it with chemicals. I can’t do anything with my anger except hide it. I tuck it down below my breast, right next to my belly. Every time I eat, I’m feeding my anger. I’m feeding you, you bastard, you fucking spineless coward. I’m feeding you and feeding you and I’m hoping if I eat enough I’ll push my anger down and it will finally push out of me. Like a birth. Like contractions. Like labor pains, not of love but of hate. Because you can’t hate someone unless you love them, I found that out after you left. You did that to me. You gave me that gift. But I’m not going to thank you. I’m not going to say anything except that I hope that you’re lost somewhere and you’re so thirsty you can’t stand it. When you finally reach a glass of water, you can’t even remember the word, you reach for it and what leaks out of your mouth is my name.
Drink me, Randall. Drink me and choke.
Thursday, Nov. 24
Laurel invited Jay-Jay and me over for Thanksgiving. Junior was out of town on a business meeting and she was “cooking light.” I envisioned turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie. Instead, she served two kinds of potatoes and two kinds of beans. That, along with a basket of Parker House rolls, was our Thanksgiving feast. Laurel sat at the head of the table. Her hair was dirty, and she wore a shapeless yellow dress that made her look like an oversized lemon.
“Where’s the rest?” Jay-Jay strained his neck hopefully toward the kitchen.
“The rest?” Laurel asked absently.
“The turkey.” Jay-Jay was getting impatient. “You know, with the gravy and the fancy stuffing and the salad with the nuts.”
Laurel took a bite of mashed potatoes and stared at her reflection in the fork handle.
“I’ve never liked nuts, remember, Carla? Remember how I never liked nuts and Mother always made me eat them?”
I remembered no such thing, but I nodded and chewed a particularly obstinate strand of green beans. The other beans were lima, and the potato scalloped, the top crust unbroken. None of us liked scalloped potatoes, not even Laurel, which said a lot for her mood. Halfway through the mashed potatoes, she started bitching about the weather. Wasn’t the forecast a load of crap? It was supposed to be sunny. I glanced toward the window. We were in the midst of a snowstorm, the roads c
logged with stranded SUVs, the sky the shade of a dirty aquarium.
“But don’t worry, Hank says the sun will be out tomorrow.” Laurel’s voice was hard. “He says that the skiing conditions are great, a soft, powdery snow that makes for fast speeds.”
“I didn’t know you skied.” I glared across my plate of beans.
“I don’t. Hank was supposed to teach me.” She jabbed a slice of scalloped potato with her fork. “‘Supposed to’ are the operative words.”
“Where’s Uncle Junior?” Jay-Jay interrupted. “Isn’t he supposed to be here?”
Laurel stopped in midsentence, the potato frozen in front of her mouth. “He had to go down to Seattle for work,” she said. “But I’ll save a plate of leftovers.”
“Does he know about this Hank guy?” Jay-Jay’s voice was stern. “Does he care about all this weather talk?” Jay-Jay stared challengingly at Laurel. Even though Junior has the personality of a gerbil, he and Jay-Jay have always been close. They play computer games and are designing a robot out in the garage.
“Why…,” she began, her face flushing. “Why, of course your uncle Junior knows Hank.”
“This meal sucks!” Jay-Jay bolted from the table. “It’s supposed to be Thanksgiving! Turkey and cranberry sauce, not Hank and beans.”
Jay-Jay ran upstairs and slammed the bathroom door. Laurel looked at me helplessly.
I shrugged. “He likes Junior. You can’t blame him. They do a lot of stuff together.”
She pushed back her plate, threw her head on the nicely ironed tablecloth, and sobbed.
“What am I going to do, Carly? My life is a mess.” She sniffed and wiped her nose on the edge of the tablecloth. “I think Junior knows. He hasn’t said anything but he looks at me all squinty-eyed, like he’s trying to see inside my head.”
I murmured and patted her shoulder.
“He left last night without saying good-bye. He just walked out the front door. He’s supposed to be home Saturday, but what if he doesn’t come back, Carly? He hasn’t even called. It’s like he’s purposely ignoring me.”
I didn’t mention that Laurel had been ignoring Junior for months. I kept up my pats and murmurs while upstairs, Jay-Jay flushed the toilet over and over again. Finally, Laurel rubbed her eyes, sat up, and let out a groan.
“I’m going to be sick again.” She rushed for the downstairs bathroom. When she came out her hair was damp, her mouth naked and vulnerable without lipstick. “The flu,” she said shakily, as she sank down on the couch. “Can you hand me the afghan?” I covered her up and cleaned off the dining room table. By the time I finished putting away the leftovers, Laurel was asleep. I moved the coffee table closer to the couch, added a glass of water and a handful of napkins, and called for Jay-Jay. He clomped down the stairs with his hair slicked back and a wad of toilet paper wedged in his sock.
“Get on your coat,” I whispered. “Laurel’s sick.”
“Hank’s a stupid name,” he complained on the way home.
“It is,” I agreed, keeping watch for an open restaurant or a fast-food joint. I was starving. I needed protein.
“Mom, don’t get mad, okay, but Uncle Junior has dirty magazines in the bathroom,” Jay-Jay said excitedly. “Under the good towels.”
“You should have stayed downstairs.” I pulled into an espresso stand and ordered two sandwiches, hot chocolates, and banana muffins. I rummaged around my purse for money but found only Kleenex and a hunk of Killer Bee’s chew bone.
“Aunt Laurel had clothes all over the place,” Jay-Jay said. “And a shoe in the sink. A blue shoe, Mom. In the sink.”
“That’s why you stuffed toilet paper in your sock?” I wrote out a check I knew I couldn’t cover.
Jay-Jay shrugged and rooted around the bag for his share. “It made me feel better.”
I handed my tainted check to the unsmiling woman and as we drove away, I imagined toilet paper stuffed inside my own socks. The rustle of paper against my ankles would be reassuring, like an itch or a scratch. Like someone touching me when I didn’t realize I needed to be touched.
Monday, Nov. 28
“Charity isn’t about giving money to the poor as much as giving to others,” the Oprah Giant wrote in today’s blog. “When you give what you have the least of, you are giving the most.”
This was a relief to me, since I didn’t have much to begin with. I was busy listing the few good deeds I had done over the years when Laurel stormed in.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” she demanded.
“I have a dentist appointment later this afternoon.”
“I’ll just leave you a Post-it note then.” She shuffled around the junk drawer. “Don’t you at least have one goddamned Post-it?”
I gawked at her in amazement. Laurel never swears; she says it shows poor taste. “Can’t you just tell me?”
She sat down at the table and mumbled.
“What?” I covered my diary with my hand so she couldn’t peek.
“The clinic,” Laurel said. “I need the name.”
I kept writing; I had no idea what she was talking about. “In Arizona,” she continued. “The one—”
“The abortion clinic?” I was incredulous. “You’re pregnant? But you’re a Republican.”
“I know that,” Laurel sobbed.
“But…” I couldn’t imagine Laurel doing anything as messy as having an abortion. She wouldn’t have the strength to push her way through the protesters. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I am. I’m late. Two weeks.” She sounded offended. “A woman knows these things, Carla.”
“You need to get one of those testers,” I told her. “They have them at Carrs and Walmart.”
She looked up at me, her eyes wide. “Oh, Carla, could you get one for me. Please?”
I ran into a man who looked like my high school biology teacher as I waited in the Walmart checkout with Laurel’s pregnancy test. He glared as if about to ask if I still cheated on homework assignments, but luckily another line opened up and I escaped. When I got back home, Laurel was huddled in my bed. She stayed there all afternoon and only came out for supper.
We were eating microwaved pancakes, microwaved eggs, and toast with Smucker’s grape jam because Laurel said breakfast food was the only thing she could stomach.
“You look funny,” Jay-Jay said, examining her.
“I have a terminal illness,” Laurel said.
“Jennifer P’s mother has cancer,” Jay-Jay said. “She’s bald and wears hats from Ecuador.”
“I’m not dying,” Laurel said. “I’m just getting fat.”
“Oh.” Jay-Jay lost interest. “What’s for dessert?”
After we finished I threw the dirty dishes into the sink with a sprinkling of laundry soap, since we were out of dish detergent, and followed Laurel into the bathroom.
“Read the directions again,” she said.
I read them slowly; then I handed her the plastic tester and started to leave.
“No!” she shouted. “Stay with me.”
I pulled out last month’s Oprah magazine from the pile by the toilet, plopped down on the edge of the bathtub, and reread Dr. Phil’s column. His bald head shone benevolently from the glossy pages.
“I can’t pee,” Laurel moaned, her pants sagging around her ankles. “Nothing’s coming out.”
I ran the water, but that didn’t help.
“Stand out in the hall,” she demanded.
I stood out in the hall and waited.
Finally she called me in and handed me the tester. Pee dripped over the rug as I carried it to the sink. Laurel sat on the toilet, eyes clenched.
“Don’t tell me if it’s bad, promise?”
I watched the little plus sign slowly darken. I didn’t say anything.
“Say something!” she shouted.
“I, well, I, I mean it might not be…” My voice trailed off.
“Just say it. Spit the fucking words out.”
“You’re pre
gnant.”
Laurel collapsed on the floor. Her shoulders shook. “Junior is going to kill me. I’ll have nowhere to go.” She looked up at me, her face drained of all color. “You’ll let me stay here, won’t you, Carla? When Junior kicks me out?”
“That’s not going to happen,” I said. “He’ll be happy to have a child, once he gets used to the idea. I mean, he and Jay-Jay get along so well, and—”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Her voice was deadly, horribly calm. “It’s Hank’s.”
“Junior doesn’t have to know.” I was shocked by what I was saying, but my words wouldn’t stop. “They look a lot alike, the same coloring and hair. What difference does it make? You’ll be the one doing all the work.”
“Junior will know.” She laughed hysterically. “He’ll definitely know. Junior can’t have kids. He had testicular cancer when he was young. He’s totally sterile.”
“Oh.”
Laurel crouched on the floor and cried and cried. I patted her back, and when that didn’t help, I did what I used to do with Jay-Jay when he was inconsolable. I led her to the rocking chair in the living room, took her in my lap, and rocked her back and forth, back and forth, her head on my shoulder, her tears wetting my neck.
“There, there, it will be okay,” I murmured in my mother’s voice. “Shhh, now, shhh, honey, it’s okay, it’s all going to be okay.”
Words of comfort, lies, the things we want to hear, but it worked. Laurel relaxed, her body growing heavier and heavier. Her hair smelled of lavender shampoo, and her chin dug against my collarbone, but I didn’t stop. I kept rocking.
Wednesday, Nov. 30
Gramma would have loved Alaska in the winter. She loved the nights; she said the dark was for secrets, that we all had something we were afraid or unwilling to share.
“Every secret a lie,” she said. “You keep them in your pocket, you don’t show nobody. That make it a lie.”
I had many secrets: That I wanted to be an artist but was afraid to try. That I wanted to quit my job but was afraid there was nothing better for me out there. That I wanted to be touched but was afraid to let anyone get close enough to try. I wanted a man (Francisco?) to walk up to me, slip his hand across my back, and smile, like a scene from a sappy movie. I wanted to lay my head against his chest and smell his familiar smells. I wanted the security of knowing that I would be touched, not fucked, like what Barry and I did, but touched in a way that said my body was sacred to one person on this earth.
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