Wild Things

by Karin Kallmaker

  It was a small comfort that Meg would take money from me. "Where do you want to go?"

  She sniffed. "I don't have any choice. I've got no way to pay the rent and the student subsidies died with Abe. I'm coming home for a while."

  "Do Mom and Dad know?"

  "No, but I have a secret weapon, and that's David. They won't leave their grandson, even if he is half Jew, on the doorstep." David let out a squall as if to confirm his powers of persuasion. Meg said, "I've got to go. Will you front me some cash? I want to get out of here by Monday. I was going to call you today. I really was."

  "Of course," I said. "I'll send a cashier's check by overnight mail. Meg, I'm so sorry."

  David's cries were increasing in volume, but I heard her say "So am I" before she hung up.

  Meg was right, my parents would never shut David out of their house. If they let him in, Meg had to come too.

  Then I realized that all of us would be under the same roof again. We'd grown up, but I didn't want to fall back into childhood roles. I had a hard enough time with the adult ones.

  James slipped into my office, startling me out of my daze.

  "Sleeping with your eyes open again?"

  "I just had the most civil conversation with my sister I've had in over two years."

  "Death will do that," he said cynically. "I wouldn't take it as a predictor of future behavior."

  "I won't," I said slowly. "Or maybe I will. I don't know. She's coming home..."

  James snapped his fingers and I started. "You are alive. I thought you were an amazing simulation."

  I gazed at him for a moment. "Do you get on with your parents?"

  "Not in the least, he said. He fiddled with the end of his tie. "We haven't spoken since the last family funeral, as a matter of fact."

  "Humph. What did it feel like, when you finally went your separate ways?"

  "I remember a long, dark passage with a bright light at the end. Finally, I reached the light. Then someone slapped me on the butt."

  "Be serious," I said, frowning.

  He took offense. "I am always serious. And I've always been on my own. About eight years ago I decided not to pretend anymore. I can't say I've missed them."

  "What made you an outcast?"

  When he didn't say anything, I retracted the question. "Sorry, that was too personal, wasn't it?"

  "Someday," he said very seriously, "I will tell you all about a lifetime of being vaguely normal. Here's my Trib. Dilbert's quite apropos today."

  "Thanks," I said as he shrugged into his backpack with a wince. "That looks heavier than usual."

  He sighed and prodded his side as if it hurt. "It's full of assistant professor type work. Something an associate professor wouldn't know anything about."

  "You're not going to make me feel guilty about getting tenure. And I'm still teaching in the college, no graduate seminars or anything so exciting as that." He'd been trying to make me feel guilty since the beginning of the quarter.

  "I should have chosen history. Less competition than English." He grunted as he tightened the backpack straps.

  "That's a laugh. It was sheer luck it opened up and sheer luck I got it."

  James favored me with a sullen glare. "If you had half an ego I'd enjoy deflating it."

  "I do so have an ego," I protested.

  "How old are you?"

  "Thirty-four, and I know where I live, thank you very much," I snapped. James could be so aggravating sometimes.

  "See you on Monday," he said and I watched him stride down the corridor.

  I looked down at the Tribune he'd left me and discovered he had folded the apartments-for-rent section so it was the first thing I'd see. The vertically-challenged interfering little so-and-so.

  3

  He that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surety be put to death.

  — Exodus 21:17

  Sydney hummed along with Tracy Chapman's "Talkin' Bout a Revolution" and grinned as Cheryl looked at her over her glasses. "I do get out sometimes, you know."

  Cheryl raised her precisely defined eyebrows. "Yeah, boss. As if that song isn't ten years old. You want me to tell Gina to turn it down again?"

  Sydney shook her head and glanced at her watch. "It's after seven. She's good enough to stay, so let her enjoy her music. Tell me we're on the last item."

  "We are. Mark O Leary wants you to come to a private dinner, just twenty people or so. Next Wednesday at eight."

  Sydney started to shake her head. "I've got... I suppose I can postpone the ALP dinner meeting. Or they can go ahead without me. Confirm that I'll be there."

  Cheryl made a note, then looked at her over her glasses again. "Is Mark O'Leary cultivating you?"

  Sydney was annoyed for a moment, then reminded herself that at least six other attorneys had tried to hire Cheryl away from her in the last year alone. "Let's just say I'm willing to be cultivated, but not plowed."

  Cheryl snickered in her prim way. "Have you made up your mind? Are you really going to run? I've never been a senator's assistant."

  "I haven't been given the go-ahead to run for it—"

  "As if you've ever waited to be asked for anything," Cheryl said, a fond smile etching deep lines in her olive-toned skin. She smoothed her meticulously knotted scarf.

  "Well, Mark O'Leary isn't opposed to the idea, which means I can at least consider it."

  "He's not a nice man," Cheryl said. Nice was a virtue to Cheryl.

  Sydney thought that was an understatement. "I wouldn't wear a belt around him — it would only give him a better chance of hitting you below it."

  "You sure you want to go to his dinner?"

  "I want him to leave me alone. I think he'll have to get to know me better to see that I really do mean it. So I'll go."

  Cheryl flipped her notepad shut and neatly threaded her precisely sharpened number 2 Ticon-deroga through the wire spiral. Sydney tried not to smile. Cheryl's action signaled that as far as she was concerned, the day was over. In the morning she'd remove the pencil, resharpen it precisely, and open the pad to start the day.

  "I would stay," Cheryl was saying, "but Mr. Fluffy has to have his bath tonight."

  "You're the only person I know who bathes her cats. Lord knows Duchess could use one, but I wouldn't live to tell."

  "She doesn't know who the human is and who the cat is," Cheryl said. Cats were a serious business to her.

  "She knows full well who the cat is, she just refuses to acknowledge any change in cat status since Egypt."

  "You spoil her," Cheryl said from the doorway. "See you in the morning."

  Sydney went back to editing her brief and found herself humming to Gina's tape. This time it was Melissa Etheridge. Gina couldn't spell worth a darn, but she had good taste in music. She called out, "How's it going, Gina?"

  The reply came back muffled. Gina was probably having a Snickers. "Fine. I'll have the first ten pages done in another five or so."

  Sydney picked up the papers she had reviewed and took them to Gina, who was indeed eating a Snickers as she huddled over her keyboard.

  "Here's the next ten pages or so. Have a bite?"

  Gina handed her the candy bar without looking up. "You shoulda had dinner."

  Sydney savored the chocolate. Sometimes it made her feel almost as good as Glenfiddich used to. "I should have had lunch, too."

  Gina glanced at her, then said, "You don't need to lose an ounce, you know. I think you're perfect, not that you've ever noticed."

  "Gina..." Sydney sighed. "Let's not start that discussion again, okay?"

  "Okay," she said. "I have a new gal, you know. So you're safe, girlfriend." She glanced up, her dark eyes twinkling. "At least for now."

  "Gina, you're a flirt," Sydney said, walking back to her office. She heard Gina mutter "And you're an icebox" and knew Gina meant her to hear, so she didn't respond in kind. Gina was harmless, but even a little light banter could be misinterpreted — not by Gina, but by anyone else still wor
king in the office.

  As she picked up the next page of the brief, she remembered Gina's attempt at seduction. Gina would never know that Sydney had been tempted, just like she was tempted to have a drink at least once a week. But Sydney didn't give in to such temptations any more. Drinking had almost cost her her life and her family. An affair could cost her the dreams she had cherished for the last eight years.

  * * * * *

  "What starts a revolution?" I glanced at my students, noticing that I had, as usual, the attention of about two-thirds of the class. "Come on, it was your reading assignment. I'll make it easier. What started the French Revolution?"

  Guesses ranged from a nobleman running down a street urchin with his carriage (Victor Hugo, apocrypha), to a new tax (factual), to a particularly spectacular and wasteful party thrown by the aristocracy (probable). Starvation, poverty, disease, imperialism, exploitation, child labor, too many writing assignments, and general misery were also suggested. Then the more involved students, of which thankfully there were a half-dozen, began to lump causes together.

  "It's not just one thing," said the only student in class who showed flashes of passion for the subject. "It's a lot of little things until finally one more — even something silly — is just too much to bear."

  Their assignment for Monday, met with groans, was to create a table to compare and contrast the causes of the American and French Revolutions. It was only noon, but I resolutely left my office and got on the El, armed with the Tribune apartments-to-rent section.

  What starts a revolution? What prompted Eleanor, married five years to Louis of Prance, to make her first appeal for divorce on the basis of consanguinity? Louis had been a second son and had trained for the church. Had she finally realized she had married a monk, not a king? Had she become utterly bored with the dullness of Louis's court, finding it empty of direction and intellectual pursuits? It mattered very little because the same abbes who found her not too closely related to Louis for marriage found so again. Eleanor stayed married to Louis, at least for a while longer.

  A revolution — even a personal one — does begin from a lot of little things. For me those little things were deeply buried memories surfacing again. Not just Renee Callahan, but what life had been like before Meg left home.

  As the El clacked towards North Avenue, I thought about what it would be like to see Meg every day and spend my evenings trying to make peace between her and our parents. It had always been my role and I didn't want it again. Meg and I got along better on our own. Meg's coming home, even for a few months, seemed like a sign to me. It was time to conquer some territory of my own.

  I had spent the previous evening looking at my bankbook and playing with a budget. Today I studied my bankbook again until the El stop near Lincoln Park. I had paid off my student loans ahead of schedule by applying all of my previous royalties to the balance. My paycheck over the last few years had helped with household expenses and had finally paid off my parents' mortgage. Now I was free of debt, had an advance for Eleanor and a substantially increased paycheck because I was tenured. The only large sums of money I spent were on travel, and I needn't go to Europe again next summer. There was no economic reason to live at home. I thought about where my relationship with Eric might lead, but decided that was irrelevant to today. I had to think about now, not what might be. That left the larger reason — honoring the traditions of my parents and our church.

  I told myself that if Joan of Arc had lived to be thirty-four, she wouldn't have lived at home either. Of course I was no saint. Despite my intentions to relegate Renee to the back of my mind, I had dreamed about her last night and woke up in a sweat. Say that you want me, I could hear her whispering. The memories of my anguish made my head throb. I had thought I was over it. I wanted to be over it and over her. But when I finally slept again, I dreamed once more, but this time only of sex. Sex and Renee, and my body so tightly tuned to her that she played me in her own symphony.

  I had awakened just after daybreak in a different kind of sweat and found myself reaching for James's too-tempting apartments-for-rent listings. I couldn't stay in the house with my long-choked anger, not with Meg and a baby and Michael who spent all his time either indifferent or angry. I needed space. The baby could have my room.

  Looking for an apartment was my act of revolution. Millions of children finally step away from their parents and live to tell. Meg and Michael had both done it. Well, Michael was a man and that made a difference to my parents. Meg hadn't even looked back, but she was younger and, somehow, accommodating Meg became important for everyone around her. My parents had always tried not to upset Meg rather than the other way around, she being of a delicate, ultrafeminine constitution. I was made of sturdier stuff. My father might hit me, but I would survive.

  Renee had nothing to do with my feelings of being closed in and trapped. I told myself this lie, knowing it was a lie, over and over. But the way my body felt after thinking about her — I couldn't understand it and I didn't want it. Nor did it help to think of Eric. I was having trouble thinking at all. My life had been so orderly until I had seen her again. And now everything seemed to be happening all at once: Eric, Meg, Renee and feelings that just wouldn't go away.

  Lincoln Park was a nice, collegiate area, and I found myself writing a check for first month's rent and security deposit for an apartment on Menominee, just a few blocks from the El. Close transit was important because I didn't want to buy a car. Cabs would still be affordable for me after dark. The apartment was in an older building and would get bright morning sun. The hardwood floors creaked pleasantly, and the lake breeze would pass through its three rooms: large living room, tiny kitchen and bedroom a little larger than I was used to. It suited me perfectly, and I could move in right away.

  My next stop was a furniture store where I purchased a bedroom set, a big computer desk, living room furniture, and two large rugs, all for delivery the following Tuesday. I indulged my love of soft blues and purples in everything I picked out. Cookware and other essentials I could acquire by catalog when I felt the need for them. In less than three hours I had completely changed my life, and I had enough time left to buy a bouquet of tiger lilies to take to Liz's party.

  * * * * *

  As I approached the house where I had grown up, I braced myself for the inevitable. It was childish, but helpful, to imagine I was Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, Countess of Poitou, Queen of France, Queen of England, who would not for even one moment have allowed anyone to question her choices.

  I waited to make my announcement until the dinner dishes were done, my father had finished his after-dinner whiskey, and we were all settled in the kitchen.

  My parents were shocked into silence, but Michael said heartily, "Good for you!" I sent him a grateful smile, and for a moment he looked like the old Michael.

  "Now wait just a second," my father said, his already florid face reddening. "I absolutely forbid it. What will people think?"

  "They'll think I'm thirty-four, with a good job of my own, and am capable of standing on my own two feet."

  My mother, one hand pressed to her heart as always during crisis, said, 'It's because of Eric, isn't it?"

  "No, it has nothing to do with Eric."

  "But he'll visit you, won't he," she persisted suspiciously.

  "Of course he will."

  "A good Catholic boy would visit you under your father's eye," my father pronounced. "You'll turn out just like Meg."

  "Leave Meg out of it," I said, my voice rising. I would not argue about whether her marriage to a Jew was tantamount to living in sin. "I am not Meg. I will make my own mistakes. But I am moving out. On Tuesday."

  My mother's breath caught and for a moment she looked sad.

  "It's okay, Mom, I'll come by all the time. For Sunday Mass, too." I patted her hand.

  She slid it out from under mine. "If you're doing anything shameful, don't bother."

  Michael, hugging his bad right arm against his side, sai
d softly, "Be careful, Mom. It cuts both ways."

  "No," she said sharply. "If your sister insists on doing this thing, then she must take the consequences. This Eric is not a nice boy like I thought. Lutherans ..." She spat the word in much the way she spat the word Jew.

  Michael muttered just loud enough for me to hear, "Like I can't name six popes who killed people."

  "Mom, I'll be okay," I said patiently, trying not to laugh at Michael. "I'm not moving in with him."

  "This is not funny, young lady. And you'd better not be living in sin," my father said. His voice deepened as he summoned up his worst tone of condemnation. "I would rather see you dead than a tramp."

  I stared at him and slowly stood up. "At least now I know what thirty-four years of obedience have gained me. Nothing. I move out and now I'm a tramp?"

  "Why else would you want to leave the protection of your father?"

  "I'm a professor now," I said passionately. "I'm a full-grown woman."

  "He only wants one thing," my mother said. "You won't get a ring from him."

  I exploded with rage I hadn't let surface for years. "I'm doing this for me," I shouted. "I want to live in the twentieth century!"

  "Faith Catherine Fitzgerald!" My mother was on her feet now. "You won't speak to your father in that tone. I won't have it."

  I gritted my teeth and said, "I will not let him call me names simply because I want to be independent."

  "Maybe we are old-fashioned," my mother said, with a hurt sniff. "Perhaps you would have preferred we ignore our responsibilities. I never had the chances you've had, I had babies to take care of, and I was the wife of the head usher of St. Anthony's Cathedral. We do what we must, and I won't have you criticize me for it."

  I softened my tone. "I'm not criticizing you. I'm just saying I'm old enough to be my own keeper."

  "I forbid it," my father said.

  I turned from my mother's pained, accusing glare to confront my father. Michael was pale. He watched the exchange like someone at a tennis match being played with grenades. Since his accident he hadn't cared enough to argue about anything.