Shout Her Lovely Name

by Natalie Serber

  “You and Ben decided that you would claim traditional family roles, you as mother and homekeeper; you made a huge sacrifice—your independence, your career.”

  “I didn’t want to miss out the way my mother did. I was supposed to be lucky, staying home.” In the beginning, it was as if Cassie had pricked her finger on a spinning wheel and fallen into a deep enchantment. She napped with her babies, paced the dark living room when they needed comforting at night, breathing in the vanilla and sour-milk scent of their skin. Her hand curved around a warm skull, a soft, wet mouth pressed to her nightgowned shoulder. Cassie would sway, gazing out the window at a stoplight cloaked in fog—red, green, red. Stop, go, stop. Its faint glimmer reflected off parked cars, off the cable-car tracks that marked the street like veins. Ben and Ethan asleep, Edith growing drowsy on her shoulder, Cassie’s family was precious as water cupped in her palms and there was nothing she could do to stop it from seeping through her fingers except hold tight and still for as long as possible.

  “Now as your children grow and engage in adult behavior, your role is shifting. You have to define yourself outside the family unit. You’re all three—Ethan, Edith, and you—struggling with individuation.”

  “Didn’t I already do that in my parents’ house?”

  He pursed his lips and shrugged.

  Pulling out of her parking spot, Cassie grinned at herself in her rearview mirror. Seth had called her alluring.

  Ethan served himself dinner, carefully segregating his food: glazed carrots far from the meat loaf, salad on a separate plate. “Mom-dude, to commemorate his half century, Dad and I are getting tatted up.”

  “If he does, I am def getting my nose pierced.” Edith swiveled her head from Ben to Cassie, causing her bluish hair to swirl like a ragged shawl around her shoulders. The dye hadn’t taken well over Edith’s red hair; rather than brazen, the desired effect, her hair had come out toilet-bowl-cleaner blue after a pee.

  “Smurf, this is bigger than you and your nose, it’s about manhood. Me and Dad—connecting.” Ethan banged his fist against his chest.

  Cassie floated a wry glance in Ben’s direction but he was involved with opening a bottle of Bordeaux. Ethan had been pushing the tattoo idea since last June. Both Cassie and Ben, in rare accordance, insisted he wait another year, until he was eighteen. It wasn’t that they fought about parenting—Ben mostly deferred to Cassie, but he was always telling her to lighten up. While she erred on the side of control, Ben was more about freedom. It was the veal-versus-feral argument all over again, only this time, when it was her children and not a book, Cassie was on the veal side. Most often she and Ben settled in the center. When Ethan’s tattoo yen came up, Cassie initiated an anti-tatt campaign by e-mailing him images from badtattoo.com—a man with a pickle in the center of his forehead, a pair of unicorns humping on an anonymous girl’s dimpled low back. Ethan never responded to the e-mails but Cassie was enthralled by the search. The worst tattoo, she never forwarded: a penis with your name here tattooed up the shaft. When her screen filled with the image she’d gasped—first at the pain and then at the idea that people could be so easily swapped out.

  Edith declared she hated meat loaf. Ben filled the wineglasses. Ethan sallied forth with his tattoo campaign. It was a rare pleasure, the ting of forks against plates, the smell of garlic and meat, hum of voices. Cassie made herself pause. Next year her confident, tattooed boy would be away at college and Edith would suffer under intensified parental scrutiny, and then sweet Edith, a tiny gold hoop gleaming in her nostril, would head off to college as well. She felt the speed of it pass through her and her hand went to her chest. Pay attention now to your unsullied children.

  Out their dining room window, light leached from the day. Crows gathered to complain in the linden trees, and all along the street porch lights glowed, offering slight comfort to the deep violet sky. The neighbors’ Prius arrived home. Last weekend, these neighbors had set about their seasonal decorating campaign—pots of gold and sienna mums, an autumn-leaves flag. When Mike and Carol’s last kid left for college, flags became Carol’s thing. Carol had a flag for every holiday, Groundhog Day, Arbor Day, and Earth Day, even National Ice Cream Day. She taught appliqué classes in her living room. Staring out the window with a bowl of cereal last Saturday morning, watching Mike and Carol heft large pumpkins from their trunk, Edith had declared, “Celebration-fucking-Nation is at it again.”

  Now Mike trudged past the flowerpots up his walkway. A moment later the light came on, blanching his porch with a hospital-waiting-room glare (Mike had switched out all his incandescent bulbs for energy-savers). Mike’s empty-nest passion was going green. Carol had made him a reduce, reuse, recycle flag.

  Cassie switched on her energy-hogging light, and the dining room bloomed in her window, an intricate diorama of their family reflected on the glass—the round oak table, mismatched candlesticks, a bough cut from the persimmon tree with clinging orange fruit, haphazard pile of newspaper, the teenage daughter staring down a hunk of meat loaf on her fork, the wry father sipping wine, the nearly grown son talking around a mouthful of carrots, the mother lingering. She imagined them part of a natural-history-museum exhibit. But what was revealed? Their diorama held no lasting evidence of any of them. It was specific and temporary.

  “Don’t let your meat loaf,” Edith sang.

  Ben shook his fork at Edith, a jokey remonstration.

  Ethan slung his arm over Ben’s shoulder, and Ben, cheeks flushed from wine and attention, grinned. He was convincible about the tattoo, Cassie could tell, and so could Ethan. Ben was a sucker for his children’s attention, and Cassie loved his susceptibility.

  “What are you picturing, son?”

  “State of California on our biceps.” Ethan slapped his thin arm. Even with his hours of drumming, Ethan hadn’t filled out like his father. He was lean and long, good on the basketball court, great drummer, decent student.

  Ben rolled up his sleeve; he never missed an opportunity to flex his muscles. Slapping his biceps and glancing over at Cassie, he asked, “You like?” Then as an aside to both kids, sotto voce, “I drive your mother wild.” Ben worked hard at staying in shape. Every day either the gym or a long run, recounted in full detail while he undressed at the foot of the bed. She had to allow he had a great body, well-muscled long legs.

  “State of California?” Cassie asked.

  “All the hipster kids have them on their forearms,” Edith said. “They wear plaid flannel shirts, drink Peet’s coffee, and smoke Camels. They’re word.”

  “Shut up, Blue Ranger,” Ethan snapped, his eyebrows creeping dangerously high.

  “Bite me, douche brain,” Edith said.

  “Hey!” This time both Ben and Cassie spoke up.

  “Ethan, please say you don’t smoke?” Cassie held a slab of meat loaf midair over Ben’s plate. This would mean a whole new category of e-mails, cancerous lungs and permanent tracheostomies. Ethan grinned across the table at his sister. A threatening smile that said I can tolerate you because I am better than you, termite.

  Edith stuck out her tongue, then mumbled, “Massengill.”

  “Please!” Cassie’s throat went tight, gripped in the fist of her family. Why couldn’t they be discussing the sociological ramification of tattoos, how the need to decorate our bodies might separate us from all other animals and from one another. It very well might be what makes us human, what makes us individuals. That would be interesting. That would be safe. Unlike smoking and cancer and sex and speaking like a pimp. “Can we please just enjoy dinner? I worked hard to cook a nice meal. I cut up prunes and bacon for this dumb-ass meat loaf.”

  Ben’s fork clattered against his plate. “Where do you think Edith gets it?”

  It was barely warm enough to leave the windows open. From the bed Cassie listened to the easy give-and-take of a conversation as the last of the night’s dog walkers passed their house. “Does my weight feel good?” She pressed fully onto Ben, ankles to shoulders, her f
ace against his neck.

  He moaned his affirmation.

  Cassie lifted his T-shirt and then hers, bringing them skin to skin. She’d read recently that newborns should have at least four hours of skin-to-skin contact each day and the recommendation made her wonder: Had she failed her own children? She started to ask Ben, “Honey, do you think . . .” but he put his hand over her mouth.

  “Don’t talk. Don’t think,” he whispered.

  She was hyperaware of the sensations—warm, smooth, alive. How many hours should adults have? She felt an urge in her hips but allowed only slight pressure toward Ben. Sex was a commodity in their bedroom, with an unspoken tally kept of who instigated when. Lately, Cassie had been the initiator. She craved sex—not lovemaking, nothing tender, something brutish, two wrestlers going at each other. Was it the final cry of her ovaries? Reproduce! Ensure the survival of the species! Maybe that was what the cougar phenomenon was about. Middle-aged ovaries blogging and writing books and producing TV shows about their yearnings toward strong-gorgeous-too-young-to-marry sperm. Another developmental milestone.

  Ben flipped Cassie onto her back and kissed her shoulder. He drifted south and she squeezed his arms. In bed their communication was effortless. Of course sex had evolved (devolved?) over their twenty-year marriage, from the initial rough and greedy consumption, to easy and comfortable (dreary?), and then to the duty of exhausted new parents, to tender nostalgia (remember how it used to be?), and now the surprise of how it used to be all over again.

  Cassie wanted to say shocking, nasty things, to whisper words like cock, suck, fuck me hard, to throw her head back and reveal her pale, vulnerable neck. She slid beneath the covers, wrapped her hand around Ben, your name here, and squeezed, both her hand and her eyes tight. A woman’s need to be known is as basic as a sexual urge. She pictured Seth’s dark stare, the tightrope between them, as Ben pushed against her. Fuck me, Seth. Then she opened her eyes and there was Ben, his stare hungry, intent, unfocused, a hunter’s concentration that embarrassed Cassie. She used to close her eyes to offer Ben privacy, but now she closed them and thought, What’s on your mind, Cassie? She gripped the sheets and pushed back against Ben/Seth in her imaginary ménage à trois.

  “Everything,” she exclaimed, moving her hands up Ben’s arms, groping his triceps like a rock climber seeking purchase. She wanted Ben to recall this moment the next time he was at the gym doing dips or whatever he did to develop such wonderful arms, counting off his reps, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, and suddenly be aflame with desire for Cassie. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, yes.” And it was only a slight exaggeration.

  After, when she leaned over to turn out the light, she imagined the pale curve of her back like a Manet nude or a slice of ripe pear. She paused, wanting Ben to notice, to stroke his hand down the length of her spine and say, You are lovely. She tried to telegraph her longing through the absolute grace of her extended arm. But he was already gone, drifted into solid sleep. This was not the first time she’d imagined Ben admiring her back. During the middle months of her first pregnancy, Cassie lived in a constant state of amazement. She inhabited her body with another human being! She was a voluptuous poster child of strength, fertility, and energy. One morning, standing naked in a square of sunlight, reaching for a pair of green boots on the top shelf of her closet as she balanced easily on her toes, she extended her arm with such elegance she was sure Ben was astonished and overcome. She could feel his eyes, hungrily exploring her back, her ass, her newly luxurious hair. “Honey,” he’d said, “even your back is fatter.”

  Her first time, she’d been at a keg party in Pacifica with Jeremy Deak and was suddenly freezing and dizzyingly drunk. Jeremy drove her to his house. They didn’t have sex on his back seat. Jeremy hid Cassie in his closet while he said good night to his dad, anchored in his Barcalounger in the blue glow of the all-night movie channel. Jeremy’s mom worked the night shift at the cannery, and their house always smelled faintly of whatever was ripe: pears, green beans, yams, peaches. She may have thrown up in his car on the way over. She probably threw up in his car. When she woke the next day, naked in his bed, her head felt as if it were painfully cobbling itself back together. Her mouth was pasty with stale vomit, and Jeremy was gone. It took several attempts to overcome the spins and stand. When she couldn’t find her underpants, she pulled back the sheets and saw the silver-dollar-pancake-size spots of blood. Cassie was not on her period. It had happened and she didn’t remember a thing. Her head throbbed so painfully she couldn’t tell if she hurt down there as well, but she did feel slightly crusty. In the mirror she was too horrified by the catastrophe of her reflection to search for new womanly knowledge in her eyes. Her hair was massively snarled, her eyes smeared with mascara and iridescent blue shadow as if she’d been in a fight with a peacock. A note from Jeremy was taped to the corner—I’ll call you. Cassie dressed; she couldn’t find her purse, so she finger-smoothed her troll-doll hair, shoved his note in her pocket, and quietly opened the bedroom door. The TV was still on. Jeremy’s mom slept sitting up on the couch, her hair confined in a net, her feet in a tub of water. The living room smelled sweet, like fruit cocktail. Cassie nearly made it to the door.

  “Goodbye, Cassie,” Mrs. Deak said.

  “You too, Mrs. Deak.” Cassie answered as brightly as she could and then realized she made no sense. “Thanks for having me over!” Outside she found her purse, its contents strewn across the front yard—hairbrush, lip-gloss, a mimeographed page of algebra problems, movie-ticket stub, a Bic lighter.

  Cassie told this story on herself plenty of times, to girlfriends, to Ben. She even made up a name for that horrible walk across Jeremy Deak’s living room, the tramp-traipse. She usually finished up by saying that to this day fruit cocktail made her ill. The story garnered laughs. Of course the parts she left out—the part where Mrs. Deak said, “I can smell from here what kind of girl you are” and the part when Cassie realized her first sexual experience was stolen by Jeremy and the part where she was swallowed up in shame and loneliness—those were the only parts Seth would want to talk about. Which was why she hadn’t told him.

  “Should I get a tattoo?”

  Cassie hadn’t realized Ben was awake. She wove her leg over and between his, skin to skin again. “Really?”

  “If I do, when I see it—”

  “Forever, you know you’ll see it forever.”

  “I know, forever. But every time I do I’ll think about Ethan catching a glimpse of his own tattoo and remembering going with his dad. It’ll be like that drawing of the man holding the glass paperweight and inside it you can see a man holding a glass paperweight and inside that a man holds a paperweight, on and on.” In the dark of their room, Ben’s voice was soft as cotton. “It’ll mean something.”

  Cassie closed her eyes. Yes, when Ethan was fifty he might be sentimental enough to think it. Ben was sentimental right now and for that she loved him.

  The party details were coming together. Ethan promised to perform with his trio, Ménage à Trois (the name made Cassie blush), and Edith said of course she wasn’t an ass-wipe and would def tone down her language for the party even though it was dismal and sad the way Cassie insisted on controlling her.

  On Tuesday Cassie finalized the menu with the caterer: baby lamb chops with fig chutney, curried new fingerling potatoes, little gems of romaine with royale dressing, and the mini cupcakes. Cassie stared at the printed menu . . . baby, mini, new. Why not mature, significant, established? How about experienced fingerlings? Sensible lamb chops? Even the menu font was glaringly youthful. When asked to change it to something less frivolous, say, Bookman Old School, the caterer held up her right hand. Don’t you see, she’d asked Cassie with a sad, subtle shake of her head, it would set an entirely inappropriate mood for her food. Her food—she paused to choose words even Cassie could understand—possessed an intelligent joie de vivre.

  And, there it was, that word, joie. Ben noted its absence as he splashed delicious cream into
her piping-hot, brimming coffee cup. Seth had told Cassie early on that if he were to write a mission statement for her therapy it would focus on recapturing her capacity for joy. How about we trade jaded for joyful, he’d suggested. He’d said some more after that, but the phrase mission statement made her deaf to everything else. Cassie responded, How about we trade hackneyed for honest, trite for truthful? She exaggerated her Ts, verbally slapping him down. Seth hoisted his brows as if to say See? This is exactly what I mean.

  Cassie, intent on proving she was not void of joie, agreed to the menu font. But she asked that the fingerlings be mashed, a nod to the nostalgia zeitgeist. Middle age does not equal morose malcontent.

  The last thing that remained on her to-do list, shop for a new dress, was the thing Cassie hated most. When Blythe Cooper (rhymes with supper) phoned to RSVP that she and Bradley wouldn’t miss the party for the world, and by the way, why hadn’t Cassie been back to the book club, they missed her, Cassie found herself blurting that maybe Blythe would like to help her find a dress, and Blythe had said, “How Wonderful!”

  “Cassie, I want to thank you for inviting me.” Blythe clasped Cassie’s hand between her smooth, expensively ringed fingers. They were standing outside Anthropologie, a shop Cassie usually avoided as much for the boudoir pillows as for the frayed hemlines of the slutty Jane Eyre dresses. Not that she was against setting a mood in the bedroom or that she was a prude—she wasn’t—but Anthropologie was youthful shabby hauteur. However, today with Blythe, Cassie determined to keep her opinions to herself, even the most keenly held, that Anthropologie (the store, not the study of humankind) failed to recognize the irony of its faux gravitas name.

  “Cassie, the clothes here are exactly right.” Blythe kept repeating Cassie’s name as if she were committing it to memory. “They’re festive.” She flashed a clap-on-clap-off smile, and Cassie, who did not want to be accused of a lack of festiveness, flashed a smile right back. “Go into the fitting room and let me be your personal shopper.” She squeezed Cassie’s hand like a delighted toddler. “This will be such fun.”