by Sarah Smiley
Then, as soon as I hoisted myself into the passenger seat and saw Melanie’s ironed khaki pants and white button-up shirt, I was reminded again that she was probably the only spouse who saw the night for what it was: a meeting.
“How are you?” she said and patted my knee. Her eyes sparkled, but I knew she wasn’t wearing any makeup. Melanie never wore makeup.
I rubbed my hands together in the warm air blowing from the vents. “Freezing. How about you?”
“It is unseasonably cold, isn’t it?” she said, looking over her shoulder and easing out of the driveway. Then she reached for the radio and adjusted the volume. “Oh, I love this song,” she said.
I paused to listen but didn’t recognize the lyrics. The music was mostly violins and an organ. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard this before,” I said.
Melanie smiled distractedly, then hummed along.
As we drove out of the neighborhood, her boxy SUV eclipsed patio homes sitting so close together you could spit out the kitchen window and hit the neighbor’s stucco. Melanie lived in the same part of town, but in a different, more sophisticated subdivision, where her large vehicle looked a little less out of place.
At the first intersection, Melanie carefully turned the corner and merged onto a busier road, singing in a breathy voice, “Thy word is a lamp unto—”
Her hands were set steadfast at “ten and two,” and she looked ridiculously petite behind the wheel. I smiled to myself when I thought what she must look like to someone on the street: a small head with wispy hair the color of sand, all but swallowed up by the brown Suburban.
“Thy word is a lamp unto—” she sang.
Christian music! I fidgeted in my seat, suddenly feeling like I took up too much space. Maybe it was the irony of listening to religious music less than twenty-four hours after throwing my panties out the front door and watching them land willy-nilly across the lawn. Maybe it was the fact that as I slammed the bedroom door the night before I screamed, “I hate you!” and Dustin’s eyes welled with tears. Maybe it was the fact that I felt totally out of control, and secretly, I worried something was wrong with me—wrong with my marriage.
Did Melanie ever feel confused? I turned to look at her, and the way her profile stayed serene as she weaved in and out of traffic told me probably not.
I decided not to acknowledge the music and instead said, “I really appreciate the ride, Melanie.”
She turned and smiled. Her skin was as milky and smooth as velour. “Sure thing!” she said. “I’m glad to have the company.”
Melanie’s daughter, Hannah, was only a few years older than Ford, but somehow Melanie seemed more like my mother than a mother of my generation. At times she was out of touch—like the way she dreamed of naming two girls Mary-Kate and Ashley, sincerely having no idea who the Olsen twins are—yet other times she shocked me with her hints of style (Ray-Ban sunglasses, chic jogging stroller, a stylish red Acura she only drove on special occasions). Melanie exuded some kind of parental quality, and although she never talked intimately about her relationship with her husband, on the rare occasion I saw them kiss or hold hands, I recoiled like a kid walking in on his parents.
Maybe it was Melanie’s motherliness that attracted me to her, despite our differences. Maybe it was the doilies on her coffee table, or the painted wood church she used to cover a box of Kleenex. Whatever the reason, something about her frequently caused me to inappropriately announce my feelings in her presence.
“I really think this predeployment stuff is getting to me,” I said suddenly, but Melanie didn’t flinch. Perhaps she had already grown accustomed to my unfiltered bursts of emotion.
“I’m so on edge,” I said. “I mean, on the one hand I want to spend as much ‘quality time’ with Dustin as possible before he goes, but on the other hand, he’s driving me out of my mind and I can’t wait for him to just leave already! Maybe it’s knowing what might happen over there in Iraq. Somehow it feels different this time.”
I was rambling, so I bit my lip and clutched my sacklike purse closer to my lap. I hadn’t thought I was nervous about the meeting, but now I felt like a fake. There I was, the one who had grown up in the Navy, and I was terrified.
“Have you tried praying about it?” Melanie asked. “Maybe you should come to my Bible study group sometime. I’d love to have you come with me.”
I pictured Melanie with her group, and an image of women with bows in their hair came to mind. Yet I was surprised by the lump of emotion that rose in my throat.
Kate’s house was on the other side of town, or “across the river,” as locals like to say, in a fancy planned community with concrete swans spitting water in graceful arcs at the entrance. She was older than I, although not by much, so I surmised this higher standard of living (hardwood floors, track lighting) was due to the fact that Kate was a career woman, and always had been. In other words, Kate had her own money, and probably more of it than our pilot husbands.
When Melanie and I came into the house, dozens of women were already sitting on a sea grass rug in the open living room. They were chatting and throwing back their heads with laughter, while perfume blanketed the air like netting. I felt uncomfortable—and maybe a little responsible—for Melanie, who is sensitive to strong odors and isn’t the chatty type.
Several women called out, “Hey, guys” and “Have a seat” when they saw us come in, but I just waved and scanned the room, looking for a spot where the least amount of small talk would be necessary. Social situations make me restless, and I would rather have banged my head against Kate’s plaster walls (painted in shades of taupe, no less) than make small talk about the weather.
I followed Melanie to the kitchen, where she planned to do the adult thing: say hello and thank you to the hostess.
Kate was filling wineglasses with a deep red merlot when we came in. Her platinum hair and rings sparkled under the track lighting and her bright red lips spread into a toothy smile when she turned to see us.
“Oh, my gosh,” she cried. “I’m so glad you guys could make it!” She squeezed my shoulder.
“Hi, Kate,” I said. “Thanks for hosting this month.”
“Oh, but of course!” she said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m a wreck. I just can’t believe my baby is leaving! Can you? I mean . . . our babies!”
With her manicured red nails and dangly earrings, Kate didn’t look much like a “wreck.” And what was it with all this “baby” talk? I had to move away before I started to hate her, which was unthinkable because I had admired Kate since the day we first met.
I excused myself to go to the restroom and found Jody in a candlelit sitting room just outside the kitchen. She might have been the only wife there with a healthy helping of appetizers piled on her plate, and she was definitely the only one with a can of beer. She had on blue jeans and a T-shirt with the name of some softball event from 1989 printed across the top. Her attitude toward these meetings was to simply survive the night unnoticed, like a kid who doesn’t want to be called on in class. But this outfit and tennis shoes, tinted green from cutting the grass, actually made her stand out all the more.
“I’m glad you came,” I said, coming up beside her.
She rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe I’m here. Steve had to practically drag my ass out the door.”
“Well, it will be a good experience for you, I’m sure,” I said, laughing. “Take a good look around. These are the women who will become your family in the next few months.”
We both peered around the corner into the living room, and Jody nearly choked on her chicken, because just then, the women—with their cackling laughs and flashy smiles—did seem like creepy Cub Scout moms in an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
This wasn’t Jody’s first deployment, but it was the first time she planned to “stick it out,” as Navy wives often say. The last time our husbands left, Jody went home to her mother in Minnesota. Some spouses see this as “cheating,” and Jody certainly felt her share o
f pressure to do it right this time. When she came back at the end of that last deployment, we wives treated her like the only person who had evacuated before a harmless storm, saying things like “Oh, you wouldn’t remember so-and-so, because you weren’t here then” and “That must have been when you were gone” or “Gosh, if only you had seen what it was really like, Jody.”
I, for one, was proud of her for choosing to stay this time, but mostly for selfish reasons. Jody lived three houses away from me, and she was the only person I knew who allowed her two young boys to play putt-putt on the living room rug. Somehow that was a comfort to me.
“Where’d you get the beer?” I asked. From the smirk on Jody’s freckled face, I knew I had walked into a trap.
“You want one?” she said. “Follow me.”
We walked through the kitchen, beyond the track lighting, and out the front door with stained glass.
“Where are we going?” I said, doubling my step to keep up.
“We’re going to get you a beer.” Her hands were shoved in the back pockets of her jeans.
It wasn’t hard to spot Jody’s car. Even if it hadn’t been parked diagonally in the driveway, with one tire dug into Kate’s grass, the purple minivan (affectionately called “Barney”) with a Harley-Davidson plaque where the front license plate should have been was hard to overlook.
I opened the passenger door and the smell of McDonald’s chicken nuggets and dirty socks hit me at once. It was an aroma I had come to expect from Jody’s car, and it was as comforting as knowing I’d have to throw baseball mitts and golf shoes to the floor before sitting down.
Jody fell into the driver’s seat and released her thick brown hair from a ponytail. Strands of wavy, air-dried hair fell around her face, and the smell of Pantene rose in the air. She wore her hair up so often, she had a permanent bump in the back of it.
With the ponytail holder clasped between her teeth, she rummaged through partially melted ice in a cooler on the floor, then handed me a beer. I cracked open the wet can and shivered. Jody had hers clasped between her legs, and I watched with curiosity as she effortlessly looped her hair back through the band—now wet from her teeth. My hair is so slippery and straight, it takes a good amount of teasing and “goo” to get it into a ponytail. I could never just “flip it back” the way Jody often did.
I took another sip of beer and exhaled as the tingly liquid cooled my throat and chest, and then my stomach.
“I think Melanie’s trying to save me,” I said.
“What do you mean by ‘save’?” Jody asked.
“You know, like she thinks I need saving . . . like I’m a bad person or something.”
“Get out of here,” Jody yelled. “You are way too sensitive. What on earth makes you think Melanie is trying to save you?”
“She was playing Christian music in the car.”
“So?”
“So I think it was on purpose.” I took a sip of beer and closed my eyes. Then I jerked upright again. “Hey, wait a minute. Why didn’t you carpool with us?”
“Well, I would have, but Melanie didn’t offer me a ride.”
“You see! That’s my point! She wanted to isolate me. That’s what they always say about those ‘saver’ people. They try to get you away from your support network.”
Jody laughed and smacked me over the head. “What’s the matter with you? Maybe she tried to call and I wasn’t home. We took the kids to play mini-golf today.”
Jody’s theory was entirely plausible. She and her husband, Steve, are the only people I know who still don’t have an answering machine or call-waiting. Getting in touch with Jody is a complicated process consisting of dialing her number every ten minutes, then acting casual and a little less obsessive when she finally answers.
“Well, I don’t know,” I said, “but just imagine if she knew about Cute Doctor!”
Jody took a sip of beer. “Oh, she’d have you praying about that one for sure. And also for this.” She held up the can and smiled.
“Speaking of,” I said. “I found one of the doctor’s prescriptions in my pajama pants last night.”
Jody’s eyes grew wide. “You never got it filled?”
“No. I mean, you know me—I was too afraid.”
“Oh, well,” she said, “at least you didn’t keep the prescription to stare at his name all day. That would be—”
“Obsessive?”
“Exactly.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “It’s not like I would just stare at his signature or anything.”
I looked away and out the window just as headlights pierced the darkness and swept across the interior of the minivan. “That’s probably Courtney,” I said.
Jody looked at the clock. “Maybe we should get her a watch for her birthday.”
“Wouldn’t help,” I said, knowing full well that not having a watch wasn’t Courtney’s problem. She is notoriously late to every event, which is ironic because she considers books like Service Etiquette something other than bathroom reading material.
A car door thumped closed in the distance and I peered through the dark window to see. There was the silhouette of a woman, backlit by the streetlight and burdened by a heavy bag, making her way up the driveway. “Yep, that’s her,” I said, turning toward Jody again. “What do you think she has in that big purse of hers?”
“Some vitamins? A hair dryer? Who knows?” Jody rolled her eyes, then pounded on the window.
Courtney jumped. “Who’s there?” she called out and shaded her eyes with her hand.
I couldn’t help but laugh; Courtney was so fragile.
Jody rolled down the window—a painfully slow process because it wasn’t automatic—and said, “Hey, hey, hey.”
“What are you guys doing in there?” Courtney said, coming closer to the car.
I hunched down to see across Jody and out her window. “Jody’s afraid of the Stepford Wives inside.”
Courtney frowned disapprovingly. “But you don’t want to miss the meeting.” She shifted her purse higher on her shoulder. Then she looked straight at me with her narrow blue eyes. “Especially not you, Sarah—not after last night.”
“What happened last night?” Jody looked back and forth between the two of us, and I knew she was feeling left out.
“Oh, well!” Courtney said. “Sarah calls me at midnight, crying about some laundry she threw out the front door. I tried to calm her down, but you know how she gets.” She smiled at Jody.
Jody turned in her seat to look at me again. Her expression changed from one of confusion and envy to one of concern. “What happened, Sarah?”
“Dustin was being a jerk, all right? I was having a mental breakdown about this deployment and he just sat there watching football.” I finished my beer and put the can inside a Happy Meal box at my feet.
“Oh, well, he was watching football!” Courtney said. “You didn’t tell me that part. You should know that men can’t be disturbed during a game.”
“Maybe zoning out with the game is Dustin’s way of coping,” Jody said, her knack for family counseling emerging. “Don’t mistake watching a good game—it was the play-offs, after all—for not caring.”
I got out of the car and walked toward Courtney. We hugged hello and exchanged the mandatory “you look nice” sentiments. Of all the women in the group, Courtney and I probably were the most alike. I understood things about her—such as her need to watch and comprehend Oprah on a deeper level than most—and I knew what she meant when she claimed to be “an inherently shy person who has trained herself to be outgoing.” People even said we look alike. We’re both short—or petite, as Courtney would say—with long, skinny fingers, short waists, and disproportionately large heads. (Well, actually, Courtney’s fluffy Barbie doll hair accounts for much of the size of her head, so maybe it is just mine that is large.)
Jody got out of the car and came to stand beside us on the driveway.
“I think I’ve hit a new low,” I said. “Growing up, I
saw my mom do a lot of crazy stuff before my dad’s deployments, but I can honestly say I never saw her throw laundry.”
“You should have called me,” Jody said, and I wondered then why I hadn’t. There were times when I went straight to Courtney, and other times when only Jody would do. Courtney speculated that I chose who to call based on the answer I knew I would get or, more precisely, the answer I knew I wanted.
I took a deep breath and stared out across the lawn. “It’s all Dustin’s fault because he keeps hounding me about the checkbook.”
“Geez! Would he cut it out about your finances, already!” Jody threw a hand up in the air. She knew Dustin well enough to say this; otherwise I might have been offended.
“What did y’all do last deployment?” Courtney asked. “Didn’t you take care of everything while he was gone?”
I rubbed my forehead. A headache was beginning to form across my brow. “I really can’t remember. It was all such a blur, with Ford being a newborn and all. Honestly, back then I never gave any of it much thought. I was merely surviving.”
This was only partly true. Yes, the first deployment was a sleep-deprived blur—how well does anyone remember the weeks after their first baby was born?—but standing there on the driveway, I was positively sure I hadn’t kept track of the checkbook. Me at the helm of our finances was like putting a knobby-kneed teenager in high heels. Dustin had never even considered leaving me in charge of the bills. So why was he taunting me with it now? Did he really have plans to hand over the reins this time? Or was it some kind of game?
“So what’s changed?” Courtney said, raising a thin, plucked eyebrow. “Why is it such an issue now?”
“I wish I knew. But something is different this time.”
The three of us stood in silence for a moment. I kicked the toe of my shoe against the ground and stared at white Christmas lights blinking on a house across the street. It was bad enough not to take the decorations down, but to turn them on a week past Christmas! Frankly, it was depressing, and the twinkling lights seemed to punctuate the heaviness gnawing inside me.