Lauren Takes Leave

by Gerstenblatt, Julie

  I look around the living room as if I’m seeing it for the last time, and think, I wish I had spent more time here with the children. I love my home and, even though they sometimes drive me crazy, I love Ben and Becca. I feel safe here, in this warm family room that Doug and I created for our little family. For a moment, I have trouble remembering why I felt I had to run away.

  The longer Doug and the officer are gone, the more I wonder what type of trouble I’m in with the police. Am I about to be charged with child abandonment, for leaving the kids with Laney? Or is he here to arrest me for a work-related crime? Do people get thrown in jail for leaving an uninspiring substitute teacher in charge of their English class for more than three days? It seems unlikely, although, based on my experiences over the past few days, I’d be hard pressed to say that anything is really unlikely anymore.

  I imagine I’ll be arrested any minute now, as soon as the officer is done looking in my walk-in closet or whatever he’s doing. I hope Doug remembers to tell him that we’ve got central air now, too. That’s a nice selling point. Then I mentally slap myself back to reality. Tears roll down my face, regret mixed with humiliation and fear. I wonder how long I’ll be locked up and what my sentence will be: community service? Or something real, like a few months in one of those country club–like women’s facilities in Bedford? Maybe I can plea insanity and get placed in an outpatient psychiatry program, with other upstanding citizens: moms, wives, and teachers who just went off the edge one day like I did, and only looked back after it was too late.

  Although, I’ve got to say, I’m not feeling all that much regret right now. What did I really do wrong? I mean, sure, I lied to my employer and my family. I drank a lot of alcohol and peed in someone’s bushes after gouging her face with my heel. I got on a plane and hung out with a bunch of cool people, famous, infamous, and non-famous alike. I kissed a man who is not my husband, after watching him do the worm. I got a tattoo and danced on a parade float.

  Instead of acting forty, I acted like a college freshman on her first spring break.

  But! I also helped some friends in need. Kat was going off the deep end with the psychic hotline. After kissing Shay Greene, she needed to vacay pronto, and thanks to me, that was possible. And when Jodi’s grandmother died, who was there to make sure the body could get on the airplane in a timely fashion? Well, Tim Cubix did that, really. Tim Cubix and me.

  Tim Cubix and me.

  That cracks me up in like ten thousand different ways.

  I can’t wait to tell Doug all about it.

  Then I remember I can’t, and I feel lousy all over again.

  When Doug and the policeman don’t return after about eight minutes, I start to freak out. I wonder if Doug is trying to blackmail the guy by showing him my meager jewelry collection, or teaching him how to hack in to a popular pay-per-view porno website for free.

  I stand up and move around the downstairs, trying to locate where they are on the second floor. I hear murmuring above me from the far side of the kitchen and know that they are in the office over the garage, where we keep the computer.

  Creaking on the back stairs lets me know that the men are coming down to the kitchen. I grab a magazine from the pile of mail and pretend to be flipping through it at the center island, casually, as they enter the room.

  “So,” I say, gathering my courage. “Do you need to take me down to the courthouse or something? Book me on charges of abandonment or reckless endangerment or cutting class or whatever it is you’re here for?”

  Doug’s head snaps up and he looks at me with sheer confusion. The police officer does the same. “You, Mrs. Worthing?”

  “Yes. Me,” I say, feeling very brave, holding my chin high in the air, like an actress playing the role of a falsely convicted death row inmate about to be taken to the electric chair.

  “Well, I can’t see why I would do that.” He laughs uncomfortably, shifting his eyes toward Doug.

  Doug shakes his head and locks his eyes on mine. “Lauren. Martha Carrington thought you had been murdered. The officer came here to question me.”

  “What!” I drop the magazine. Doug’s finger moves to silence me again, but I won’t stay quiet, not this time. “I’m not dead!”

  The officer laughs. “Yes, well. I can see that.”

  “Not dead yet,” Doug mumbles, raising his eyebrows at me.

  The officer clears his throat and looks chagrinned. “Well, thank you for presenting me with your very alive wife, Mr. Worthing. It seems that I won’t be needing you to come down to the station with me after all.”

  I wait for him to leave, but he’s pretty rooted to the spot. I look up, wondering what the holdup is. Then the officer looks at me.

  “Mrs. Carrington was quite agitated when we spoke on the phone yesterday. She said you had been acting erratically—calling the school and then hanging up in the middle of a conversation, hiding your face from her at the doctor’s office—and she feared that you were in an abusive relationship, too fearful to reach out for help. I’ll give her a ring once I get back to the station, but I think you should call her yourself. Once she knows the facts, I’m sure she’ll be much relieved.”

  The facts? The last thing I want Martha to know are any and all facts.

  Although she did try to, you know, save me from Doug, the wife-beating murderer. Which is nice of her, in a completely misguided way.

  The cop seems embarrassed, and I wonder exactly what Doug was showing him upstairs. But then his words confuse me. “I just wanted to say…my cousin Bill is trying to marry his longtime boyfriend, and, well, even though I think it’s kinda weird for a guy to marry another guy, I don’t think it’s my place to stop him, if that’s what he wants.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  “So, I just really wanted to thank you for your hard work in raising awareness and all that money to help support gay rights.”

  I want to say, What you talking ‘bout, Willis? But I catch a look from Doug that says, Just go with it, so I plaster a smile on my face and nod imperceptibly. “Why, yes, of course. It’s my pleasure.”

  He’s not quite through with me, yet, though. “And I was really sad about the earthquake in Haiti. So terrible, what happened.”

  “Indeed,” I say, reaching to the floor and retrieving the magazine I had dropped, my thumb pressed into a cover shoot of Ruby Richmond. “May I show you the way out?” I gesture for him to follow me, and we exit the kitchen together and head down the hall toward the still-open front door.

  The officer turns to me one last time. “So, when you get that autograph for me of Mr. Cubix and Ms. Richmond, could you just make sure the inscription reads: Look who’s dead now? It’s my favorite quote, from Black Dawn Redux.”

  I swallow my surprise. “Absolutely!” I chirp. “They will be just delighted to do that for you, officer!”

  Then I close the door behind me with my full weight and turn, sighing with relief.

  Doug is already there, standing in the hallway, which makes me jump with surprise. He does not look happy.

  “You left a paper trail a mile high, Lauren. Every time you bought something and charged it to our Visa card, I knew where you were and what you were doing, okay? Lunch on the beach at the Loews Hotel, Miami? Drinks at the Clevelander? No big mystery. Not to mention, you wouldn’t be able to use your cell phone all week long if you were really sequestered! Now, do you mind telling me what the fuck is going on?”

  Chapter 28

  My mouth is wide open and I’m really, really, really thinking about spilling my guts and telling Doug the whole truth and nothing but, till death do us part or whatever, when the door opens and my kids sort of tumble inside with Laney.

  “Hi!” I cry out, staring into Ben’s and Becca’s round, blue eyes, both smaller versions of my own. I grab Ben and hug him to me. “I missed you guys so much!”

  “Mom!” he shouts. “You’re back!”

  Becca joins the chant. “Ma! Ma!”

  “You g
ot taller,” I tell him, letting him go and measuring him against my torso. He beams with pride. Then I pick up Becca. She smells like sugar and Play-Doh and is even pudgier than I remember her being on Wednesday.

  Nothing makes me love my children more than being away from them for two days.

  “Ah! You are home!” Laney sighs, looking totally wiped out. Her hair has leaves in it and has been pulled out of its ponytail, into a sort of rat’s-nest halo. Although there are bags under her eyes, she looks completely delighted to see me, and immediately begins handing off the children like batons at a relay race. She props open the door with one foot, afraid that if it closes, she might never be allowed to leave.

  “Becca ate some Doritos at the park. She needs a bath tonight because she didn’t get one yesterday, and she has some paint stuck in her hair. See?” Laney points to the offending bits of blue, then inhales in order to finish the rest of her diatribe. “Ben is hungry and ready for dinner now, and also he needs some help with his spelling because he has a test tomorrow. Becca’s teacher called and said she has been bullying some of the boys on the playground. Bye!” She waves, grabbing her giant pocketbook, which probably has something of mine stuffed deep inside.

  “Thank you!” I call. “Have a great weekend! See you Monday!”

  This last comment stops her short. She turns around on the steps leading to the driveway, shaking her head. “Not Monday. It’s my vacation next week. I’ll see you the week after, remember?”

  I try to rack my brain for some sort of clue, a memory of a conversation, letting me know that I’m not hearing this information for the first time.

  “South Beach, Miami. Remember? With my girlfriends? For spring break?”

  Oh, the irony.

  Laney must have told me this, might have even asked my permission before scheduling the trip, though she doesn’t always. But something about it doesn’t feel right. How could I forget a huge issue like my babysitter leaving for a week?

  As if sensing my hesitation, Laney continues. “It’s the same time as your school vacation,” she prods. “You told me I could go.” Now she’s pouting, arms crossed defiantly across her chest.

  This is what it’s going to be like to have teenagers, I realize. I’m not going to like it.

  “What day is today?” I ask no one. Doug has taken the kids into the kitchen and hasn’t even been a part of this conversation. I now step all the way outside to address Laney. “My school vacation begins the week after, on the twenty-fourth. This Monday is only the seventeenth.”

  “Oops!” Laney says, not seeming the least bit regretful. “See you in two weeks, then!”

  Great. As I watch her disappear down the driveway with her huge pocketbook bulging, I feel almost certain that my favorite cover-up is going to Florida after all.

  Once the children are asleep, I find myself alone with Doug in our bedroom. I pretend to busy myself with unpacking the rest of my bag.

  “So…” Doug begins. “Are you going to answer my question or not?”

  The old Lauren certainly would have given in by now. She might have cried, or begged for forgiveness, or apologized a thousand times over. Although, who knows what the old Lauren would have said or done, since she probably wouldn’t have taken leave in the first place, right?

  The post-Miami me decides on an offensive attack, albeit in a loud whisper so as not to wake the kids down the hall. “I might ask you the same. What the hell is going on here, Doug? What could you have possibly said to that police officer when you disappeared upstairs to make him think I can get him an autographed picture of Tim and Ruby?”

  “Tim and Ruby, huh?” he says, a dimple creasing his left cheek. “Those are some familiar terms you’re using for mega superstars.”

  He is really handsome, my husband. And, so far, he hasn’t yelled at me, or given me the silent treatment, or marched right out of the house. So far, he hasn’t done any of the things that I thought he would do. He’s surprised me. He’s been patient, even in the face of being questioned about my alleged disappearance and possible murder.

  “Lauren, it’s time,” he says, looking tired, looking sad. “You need to tell me.”

  And so I do.

  Well, everything but the kiss.

  When your husband of twelve years listens to your story, the one in which you do not act like the good mother, teacher, daughter, or wife that you have always been, you cry. You cry because, for the first time in a long time, he’s listening.

  He listens, and he hears you. And he says that he doesn’t know how you grew so far apart so fast, and that you’re not the only one to blame. He tells you how much he missed you, not just while you were on leave but for months and months before then. He tells you that he’s so anxious about work that he doesn’t know how you are going to make ends meet. You tell him that you recently spent a lot of money frivolously but that you’ll tutor and make it up somehow. But you make it clear that you are keeping the shoes, the bag, and the sweater. He tells you that the Botox looks okay, but he would prefer you grow old naturally and gracefully with him.

  You tell him that, sometimes, you can’t breathe. That life as his wife and as the mother to these beautiful sleeping children and as the teacher to these sixth graders feels claustrophobic and stifling. You tell him that, sometimes, you’re not sure who you are anymore because you’re only defined by your relationships to other people.

  When your husband of twelve years tells you that he loves you, truly, madly, and deeply, whoever you are or think you are, but that if you ever pull another stunt like that he really will kill you, you kiss him.

  And then you have sex with him.

  Twice.

  Chapter 29

  Saturday

  I have never been so excited to talk to my principal in my whole life. I’ve been up since six a.m., just waiting.

  “Do you think I can call her yet?” I ask Doug from my perch at the kitchen island. “Do you? Do you?” The clock reads 9:01 a.m.

  “I think four coffees is about three too many,” he says, handing me the phone. “You’re shaking like a Chihuahua.”

  I flip over the middle school faculty handbook, which lists everyone’s home phone numbers. I have committed Martha’s number to memory after staring at it for the past few hours.

  “Lauren!” she says, picking up on the first ring. She sounds quite jolly for a Saturday morning. “I heard from that nice police fellow! You’ve been found!”

  I laugh along good-naturedly before taking a deep breath and replying, “Well, to tell you the truth, Martha, I’ve never been more lost.”

  We agree to meet for coffee in an hour, at a local spot called the Grind. “My treat. There are some things I should probably explain,” I say.

  “Me, too,” she says.

  The line goes dead, but I find myself still holding the phone to my ear. Did I hear her correctly?

  I spend that hour driving Ben to a basketball game and taking Becca to gymnastics.

  “Mom, tie my sneakers and put some more air in my ball,” Ben demands as we head out the door. He stands in the foyer like an invalid, waiting for me to get him ready for his activity.

  My body moves toward his out of some remembered, instinctive reflex. Then I pull back, willing myself not to blindly obey.

  Instead, I cross my arms and give him a knowing look.

  “What?” Ben asks. “Oh, right. Please,” he adds.

  I shake my head. “Try again.”

  “She wants you to do it yourself!” Becca explains, reveling in the fact that she can simultaneously score points with me while upsetting her brother.

  Ben gives me a long stare, which I hold, until he breaks the trance by dropping the basketball on the wooden floor and bending down to tie his laces. Next, head still down, he picks up the ball and heads out to the garage, where we keep the air pump.

  My children hop out of the car, listen to their coaches, and play nice with the other members of their teams. It seems that, as long
as my children are busy and apart from each other—and slightly afraid of me—this day will go smoothly.

  There is a silver lining to this trend of overscheduling one’s children, I’m telling you.

  The Grind is dark and slightly grimy, and it has that heady smell of freshly ground coffee beans. I inhale deeply and move past the students from the local college who are lining up for their morning Joe and a homemade flaky croissant. Before I had kids, I liked to come here and grade papers on weekend mornings. The scent of coffee would get trapped in my hair; I would pull it to my face and relive it for the rest of the day. Someone should make a perfume that smells like the Grind, because I’d totally wear it.

  It’s no surprise that Martha is punctual, arriving at ten o’clock on the dot. I watch her for a moment before revealing my location in the back of the cramped, beatnik-inspired space. She readjusts the stiff, black pocketbook on her arm and then hesitantly touches her hairsprayed coif.

  Martha is nervous.

  I get her attention by standing, calling out her name and waving, a big smile plastered on my face. I am not sure what to expect from her today, but an offensive attack of kindness can’t hurt.

  I have already purchased us two coffees and some blueberry scones, not really caring what she’d like to eat or drink.

  “Lauren!” Martha blinks at me, and I think there might be tears in her eyes. We stare at each other for a moment as I wait for her next move. As I’ve mentioned, Martha’s age slides somewhere between fifty and a hundred and fifty, depending on the occasion and how the light hits her. (Her oldest look is under fluorescent lighting while disciplining a child; her youngest look is at sunset while disciplining a parent at the annual school picnic.) Today, perhaps because I’m seeing her completely out of context, perhaps due to the fact that she’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt, she looks more youthful than ever before.