The Slippery Year

by Melanie Gideon

  FOR BHR AND BGR

  Author’s Note

  Some names have been changed to protect identities. In a few instances timelines and events have been compressed.

  Introduction

  WE SHALL NOT CEASE FROM EXPLORATION

  AND THE END OF ALL OUR EXPLORING

  WILL BE TO ARRIVE WHERE WE STARTED

  AND KNOW THE PLACE FOR THE FIRST TIME.

  —T. S. ELIOT, FOUR QUARTETS

  One day when I was sitting in the carpool line waiting to pick my son up from school, it occurred to me that I had been sleepwalking through my life. This realization wasn’t precipitated by some traumatic event. I did not have cancer. My parents had not abused me. I was in a good marriage to a kind man. But something wasn’t right. I felt empty—an unrelenting, existential kind of emptiness. By all markers I was living a happy enough existence, but somehow I wasn’t feeling it.

  I had the sense that darker times were coming—any fool knows an abundance of light casts a long shadow. Still, right now I was well. I knew exactly how my afternoon would unfold. In a few minutes I would spy my son walking down the street swinging his backpack. We would stop at the market on our way home and buy a chicken to roast for dinner and some cream for our morning coffee—all those simple pleasures awaited me. It was a perfectly lovely moment. Why then, wasn’t I inside of it? How had I slipped away? And most important, could I pull myself back?

  The Slippery Year is the story of how I come to terms with my happily ever after. It’s a conversation—personal and universal, funny and heartrending—about all the things that matter: children, the Sunday paper, sisters, good-hair days, dogs, love, loss, the passage of time, and all the reasons to go on living even when the only thing we can be sure of is that one day it will all end.

  So who am I? I am a woman who forgot Julia Child came to my house for dinner (she came to my engagement party, too—I forgot that as well). I am a woman who is discovering the advantages of invisibility (I finally have a superpower), a woman who wants to fall in love with her husband all over again (if only he would stop buying vans on the Internet). I am one of the millions who is currently walking around in a daze, no longer recognizing herself, wondering Is this all there is?

  This is the story of my slippery year.

  September

  WHENEVER MY HUSBAND CASUALLY SAYS, “HEY, HON, COME TAKE A LOOK at this Web site,” I know it’s going to cost me. All of our largest purchases have been preceded by my being summoned to his computer in this manner. So when he says this a few weeks before his birthday, I knew it’s really going to cost me, and I don’t mean just financially.

  “Check this out,” he says, pointing. “Isn’t it cool?”

  I glance at the Ford E-350 on his screen. It looks like the sort of vehicle that shuttles retirees to the local mall. “Kind of,” I reply.

  He frowns and says, “It’s not just any old van. It’s a camper. It would be perfect for us. You said you wanted to see the West.”

  I do want to see the West, in theory anyway. In fact, seeing the West was one of the reasons we moved with our nine-year-old son, Ben, to California. But travel takes so much planning, and as I’ve gotten older I’m increasingly less willing to tolerate discomfort: the crowds, the traffic, everybody trying to reach the same place at the same time.

  His fingers pound at the keyboard. “It’s got captain’s seats.”

  “What’s a captain’s seat?”

  “That means it’s very, very comfortable.”

  “Nice,” I say, getting back to my book.

  Ten minutes later, he says, “I’m going to get one for us.”

  “Us?” I say.

  “Yes, us—you know, you and me?”

  The subtext being: Aren’t you lucky you married a man who wants to buy a family van as his midlife-crisis vehicle instead of a Porsche Carrera GT?

  The good news is he finds a used van. The bad news is it’s in South Dakota. So he pays somebody to fly to South Dakota, pick up the van and drive it back.

  “It’s an amazing deal,” he says. “It only has fifteen thousand miles on it, and the woman is a motivated seller.”

  Once the van is on its way, my husband tells me the truth. The woman was not the original owner; her son was, or had been. He bought the van to go kayaking in the most untouched places. Then one day he went out in his boat and never returned. This van delivered him to his death. And now his heartbroken mother had sold it to us.

  “You have to give it back,” I tell him. “He died in it.”

  “He didn’t die in it. He died in his kayak.”

  “Well, he might as well have died in the van,” I say. “He was in the van right before he died.”

  My husband sighs.

  I want him to be happy, us to be happy. It seems every day we hear that another couple has decided to call it quits. More often than not in our circle, the wife leaves the husband. When talking divorce with these women—mothers, like me, of school-age children—we speak in a shorthand that ricochets around in my head like the rhymes of Dr. Seuss.

  They say: Feeling dead. Dead in bed. Too much snore. There’s got to be more.

  I say: Turn his head. His head in bed. You’ll have no more. No more snore.

  Now, there are plenty of good reasons to end a marriage, but each time I hear of another impending divorce I can’t help but reevaluate my own marriage. Do I want more? Does he? And how do I know if what I have is enough?

  When the van finally arrives, I realize it is not the same as the one in that first picture I saw on the Web site. This is no ordinary van for transporting the elderly. It’s a 4×4 Rock Crawler version, with tinted windows, a roof rack and a camper extension that explodes out the top. Built to climb rock gorges and traverse rivers, our van also features on its front bumper a cattle-guard contraption that must have been handy when plowing through herds of wildebeests in the Serengeti but is presumably unnecessary in the suburbs.

  As I circle the van, trying to hide my shock, our neighbors drive by in their Taurus. The man sticks his head out the window, pumps his fist at my husband and gives a yodeling hoot of solidarity. The woman shrugs her shoulders at me, her face scrunched up, as if she’s thinking, “How will this affect our property value?”

  The hulking black behemoth is so big it spills out of our driveway and into the street.

  “It’s more of a truck than a van,” my husband concedes.

  “Yes,” I say. “Yes, it is.”

  “Just give it a chance,” he says.

  I feel turned inside out, but it’s his insides that I’m wearing on my outsides. Every time I walk out the door, it’s there: 10,000 pounds of metal, gears and after-market hydraulics, announcing to the entire neighborhood that someone in this house is having a midlife crisis.

  He attempts to woo me with the van’s charms—the things he thinks will appeal to me: the shower, the portable toilet, the diesel engine.

  The diesel engine! Diesels can go a million miles, he claims, and in a pinch they can run on corn and potatoes. The downside to diesel is that we can barely hear one another above the roar of the engine, and communication with Ben, who seems to be about eight feet behind us in the backseat, is impossible.

  So we develop a primitive sign language consisting of exaggerated gestures. Imaginary spoon to mouth: Are you hungry? Finger pointed at crotch: Need to go to the bathroom? Mother’s head cupped in hands: Why didn’t I look at that Web site more carefully?

  My husband tries to bring me on board by asking for my input: “Let’s talk about where to go on our first camping trip.”

  “What about Oregon?” Ben suggests.

  “Baja?” says my husband.

  “San Francisco?” I volunteer, which is ten m
iles away.

  My husband orders maps from AAA. He sketches out routes. He talks weather and strategies for trading off on driving. He doesn’t yet realize I have no intention of going anywhere in that thing. It smells of mold, plus my husband confesses that you have to empty the toilet by hand.

  “What’s the point of a Porta Potti if you have to clean it out every time you use it?” I ask, trying not to gag.

  “It’s for emergencies. Like if we’re stuck on the highway in a blizzard.”

  “Why would we be stuck on the highway in a blizzard?”

  “That’s the whole point. That we could be stuck in a blizzard. Wouldn’t that be fun? We’d be the only ones on the highway all cozy and warm.”

  Because everybody else, he fails to add, would have listened to the weather forecast and stayed home.

  Eventually I have to tell him: “I’m not coming on the camping trip.”

  “You want us to go without you? Seriously?”

  “Yes.” What I really mean is: No, I don’t want you to go without me, but I don’t want to go where you’re going.

  My husband and son continue the trip discussions without me. They decide their inaugural camping trip will consist of a Saturday night in Point Reyes, about fifty miles from our house. One last invitation is extended, and I politely decline. Finally I am off the hook.

  The morning of their expedition I climb into the van to load it with their requested dinner supplies: hot dogs, Gummi Worms and chocolate soy milk. Reaching into the cabinet, I discover something wedged into the very back. It’s a map of the Big Sioux River in South Dakota, left behind by the young man who died.

  I feel strangely dislocated as I trace the blue tributaries with my finger. I imagine him looking at the map on his final day and asking himself, Where do I go next? He couldn’t have known that “next,” for him, was not going to be a very good place. But what choice did he have? Stay home?

  His zest for life (or more to the point, my lack of zest) is startling to me. Is it possible I am the one having the midlife crisis?

  I used to be less afraid. In the early years of our marriage, my husband and I climbed mountains, ran Class 3 rapids in a rickety canoe and camped along the way. On rainy nights we slept in a tent, and on starry nights we slept outside. We were in our twenties; our needs were simple.

  We lived dangerously, which is to say we were up for anything. We didn’t think about what things cost. We thought only about the cost of not doing things. Which is exactly why—I suddenly understand—my husband has bought the van for us.

  And then, just as suddenly, news of Ben’s rescheduled soccer tournament ends the excursion—for the moment, at least. But there is no stopping my boys; they decide to simply camp in the driveway.

  From the window, I watch them depart. Ben is beside himself with excitement, clutching his pillow, his Nintendo DS pressed to his chest like a Bible. He looks as if he is going to the moon. They wave to me as they climb aboard. Soon I hear the whoompwhoomp of a bass and shrieks of laughter—they are having a dance party.

  I’ve hardly had a night to myself since my son was born. Back in the house I pour myself a glass of wine and eat my Burmese takeout. Later, stretched out in bed, surrounded by stacks of books and magazines, I revel in my creature comforts. But as the hours pass, a vague unease settles over me, an odd kind of claustrophobia that isn’t about the physical space I’m in, but the sheltered life I’m living.

  Sometime after midnight, I finally push aside the covers, grab my pillow and drag myself from my warm bed. Outside, the chilly air smells of eucalyptus and toasted marshmallows. In the distance an owl hoots. I know the mattress will be stiff, the headroom cramped, and I won’t sleep. But I open the van door and climb in anyway. The two people I love most in the world are out here, along with the promise of a richer, more adventurous life.

  Once we leave the driveway, that is.

  The misc is piling up all over again,” says Ben the next morning.

  He’s hanging upside down like a bat from what is optimistically referred to as the van’s penthouse bed.

  It takes me a moment to realize he’s talking about the miscellaneous folder I made for him, in which I’ve told him to stuff all his schoolwork that he doesn’t quite know what to do with but he might need sometime in the future.

  “Well, that’s good,” I say. “That’s what the folder is for—to contain the misc so it’s not floating around in your head.”

  “What’s good about that?” says my husband.

  Recently I confessed to him that I was feeling stressed and, well, a little down. He told me he wasn’t surprised. I just had to get organized. All I needed was two lists: A for personal and Z for work. Then I needed to rank things according to importance. For instance, he proposed, A-1 might be having sex five times a week. A-25 might be purchasing that Mulberry bag. I told him I had a list already, thank you very much, and all I needed was a highlighter to know what task I needed to accomplish next. And it’s true. I do have a list. The same list I print out every week that has had the same things highlighted for the past five years: finish household catastrophe plan (earthquake, fire, avian bird flu, mudslide), begin using meat as condiment rather than as main course, explore the possibility I may have ADD.

  “Hey, Ben,” my husband says, “would you like me to help you get organized? I have a system that will make you feel a lot less anxious about all that misc.”

  “No, thank you,” says Ben.

  My husband sighs. “Latte?” he says to me.

  Hurrah! Our camping trip is over!

  “Great idea,” I say. “But let’s take the Subaru to Peet’s. It’s so hard to find parking. You wouldn’t want anybody to ding this little beauty.”

  “Relax. We can have a latte right here,” says my husband. “If you’ll just move your arm and your leg and your butt about ten inches to the left, I can make one for you.”

  “How about if I get out and stand in the driveway?” I say. “How would that be?”

  Being with the people you love most in the world is not the same as being trapped in a van with the people you love most in the world.

  I think my problem is more than just the van. I think my problem is vehicles of all kinds. I am not a person who should be allowed behind the wheel. I go a little crazy. For instance, when I am alone in the car here are some of the secret things I say:

  —What the fuck, buddy?

  —Could you go any slower, lady?

  —Drive much, asshole?

  For the record, only in the car do I call people buddy and lady and asshole. I think it’s an East Coast thing. My friend Renee, who is from New Jersey, says buddy and lady and asshole, too.

  “I have to pee and I’m not using the Porta Potti,” I say to my husband.

  “I’m peeing in the bushes,” says Ben.

  “Go use the bathroom and come right back out and your latte will be ready,” says my husband.

  His eyes are glazed, intent on the task at hand. He looks—well, he looks high. I know this look. He’s in love. With his van.

  When I first met my husband he drove a beat-up old Saab with the license plate KEEMO. I asked him if this was an alternate spelling for chemo, as he had just survived a bout with skin cancer, but he grinned and said, “Keemo-Saab-ay—get it?”

  Kemo Sabe. A friend or trusted scout. How he adored that car. I should have known what was coming.

  Sometimes I think my husband married the wrong woman. There are women who would love this van. Wives who would want nothing more than to hop in it with no notice and live the 4×4 lifestyle and bathe in a contraption called a sun shower every few days. Instead he has me. I know nothing about cars and the little I do know I instantly forget. Like how to open the hood. I can never find that little black lever and I’m always in a panic when I’m trying to locate it because the only time I look for it is when the car has broken down.

  Now, I am not inept in all car matters. I am an excellent parallel parker. I kn
ow exactly which lines move the fastest at the toll-booths and I weave my way in and out of traffic aggressively and artfully. I am sloppy, though. I don’t check the air pressure in my tires and I tend to ignore the squeals and creaks and leaks that are precursors to the engine’s warning light going on, leading to the car belching steam and the AAA guy glaring at me while waiting for me to figure out how to pop the hood. He might also be giving me dirty looks because my car is a pigsty It’s one of the few places in my life where I allow myself to be a slob. About twice a year I bring it to the car wash. Yes, mine is the car that says PLEASE WASH ME! on the back window, etched in the dust by somebody’s finger—a man’s finger, no doubt.

  My needs are simple. I just want a car that goes when I start it. Well, really what I want is a GPS. Well, really what I want is a woman with a kind voice who tells me when to turn left, when to turn right and who applauds me when I arrive at my final destination.

  My bad car juju started with my father’s brand-new 1972 Lincoln Continental. It was burgundy and had seats the color of meat. The leather was cool and smooth. It was pebbly and so much fun to lick and bite. And so I bit a chunk of leather right off my mother’s headrest. That she was sitting in the seat at the time was one mistake. My other mistake was that I was far too old to be chewing on car upholstery. I can’t remember my punishment, but I’m sure that it had something to do with being forced to eat a big steak, which may not sound like a punishment to you, but I assure you it was for me when I was nine.

  Then right after I got my driver’s permit came the episode with the Plymouth Valiant. The gas pedal got stuck. I circled the block once and my parents waved gaily at me. They waved a little less gaily the second time I came barreling around. The third time when they heard me shouting, “Help, help, I can’t stop!” they looked exasperated.

  “Turn the engine off!” yelled my father.

  I had no idea how to do that. Was there some sort of emergency turn-the-engine-off switch?

  “How?” I screamed.