There is a click as they unlock it, and then my kids are in front of me, jumping around with excitement. “Hi, Mom!” Evan says and gives me a clinging hug, and I want to just bury my face in his hair and keep him with me, not have him be in this house that feels too fancy and rich for any of us, including Peter. Especially Peter, who grew up in a house owned by the church for which his father worked, around the corner from public housing projects. Peter, who went to a pricey private school in the suburbs on a full-ride, low-income scholarship. Peter, who started working when he was still in grammar school, delivering newspapers in the freezing cold, who spent his free time in high school stocking shelves and cleaning floors at Tops supermarket. Peter, who worked his way through college and graduate school making and delivering pizza in Ithaca, New York.
Now, walking on the concrete path embedded in the wide green lawn, past the large fountain in the center where water gently rolls down wavy white columns and the smell of salt water infuses the air, I can see how hard he is working to create a life that is a million miles from the one he left in upstate New York.
He is waving to me from the roof, pulling the bill of his New York Knicks hat up so he can see me bearing witness to this new, more sophisticated life, the trimmings of which I’m about to see: heavy modern furniture from stores I didn’t even know existed; cupboards packed full of Whole Foods groceries, bottles of expensive wines, top-shelf vodka and tequila and special glasses from which to drink them; art purchased not just because it’s pretty but because it’s also an investment; silverware from a special silver maker in Santa Fe, New Mexico; pots and pans so heavy and serious-looking, you feel you’re a better cook just by holding them.
I wave back, taking in the surroundings. The house sits on a hill, and from the amount of construction going on, it seems like the neighbors are trying to one-up each other with glass-fronted additions that reach higher and higher into the sky, angling for as much of the ocean view as space will allow.
I walk through the front door and see the room to my right. It has a concrete floor with an area rug over it. It’s not furnished yet, but there are the full-length glass window-doors I’ve heard so much about, the ones that slide noiselessly open to the backyard.
“Mom!” Anna yells. “Look at this….” and she rolls the glass doors open. “Isn’t this so cool?” Yes, I’m thinking, it is so cool. Evan’s band could practice here, instead of in my hot, stuffy garage with the door closed so the neighbors don’t complain.
“Yeah, that’s incredible!” I say, thinking if they gave Academy Awards for best actress-in-a-divorce, I would win, no contest. That’s how genuine I think I’m being. That’s how excited I am pretending to be. It’s hard for me to focus, however, because my mind is a million steps ahead of me, thinking about how my kids will never again have a sleepover or party or band practice at my house. That soon they will be spending more and more time at Dad’s, opting for the half-mile walk to boogie board at Torrey Pines State Beach rather than the quarter-mile walk up to the strip mall in our neighborhood for groceries at Windmill Farms and tacos at Guadalupe’s.
“Careful, Anna, roll it back slowly,” Peter cautions, as the window-doors are closed and we head upstairs for the rest of the tour. “Careful on the stairs,” Peter says quietly to me. “Bamboo is kind of slippery.” Being considerate of the unblemished floors, I have taken off my shoes and am padding around in socks. But Peter is right, the wood is completely smooth even though I can see the narrow, individual planks. In the waning sunlight, it is the color of pale honey. I look out over the living area, one big room essentially, that contains the kitchen, the dining area, and the living room. Peter takes me through the kitchen, pointing out all the unusual flourishes, like a spice drawer with wooden cutouts for each bottle, and the recessed warming drawer, a metal compartment next to the oven that exists solely to keep food warm.
Peter tells me most of the furniture is from one store. “I don’t have time to be constantly shopping around, it’s too much. I liked all the furniture at this one place, so I worked with a decorator there,” he says.
The furniture, although new, looks oddly familiar. After we leave the living room and head down the hall, I figure out why. It looks like a high-priced law firm waiting area. Everything in muted blues, grays, and browns, the leather furniture heavy and solid and serious.
The kids run ahead, down the hall to Anna’s room. One of its walls is painted a deep, vivid pink. The queen-size bed frame, Anna tells me, is made from the wood of recycled train tracks. From India. I wonder if the fuel required to import them from India cancels out any environmental gain from recycling the wood, but don’t say it. Peter is standing beyond the door’s threshold, smiling at Anna, then looking at me. She lies languidly on her bed, illustrating the different ways its size—unlike her twin bed at my house—allows her to stretch out. “You can jump on it too,” she says.
“No, you can’t,” says Peter, and I laugh.
Now we’re in the hall bathroom, and I’m getting a demonstration of the gravity-defying sink. The water stays within the confines of the sink’s implausibly shallow basin, although it appears it will spill over any second. “Look, Mom, look at this. Look how cool this is,” Anna says.
“Wow, that is amazing!” I say, sounding like a kindergarten teacher. Evan shows me again. “But look here, Mom, look under here,” he says. “It’s leaking.” And sure enough, water is slowly dripping from a tiny space where the pipes join into a plastic cup beneath the sink. Evan is always on the lookout for potential disasters.
“I’ve got to get that fixed,” Peter adds.
We move to the last room in the hallway, the master bedroom. There’s Peter’s bed, a California king, simple and elegant, with matching side tables, matching side lamps, and a fantastic mid-century modern dresser he bought from the previous owners. It’s hard to look at the bed, knowing he is having sex in it. Probably a lot of sex. Peter is cycling through various girlfriends, all younger than he is, whom he meets on Match.com.
“Mom, look how big this closet is!” Anna pulls me toward the walk-in closet, with shelves so high, even six-foot-tall Peter has to stand on a step stool to reach the one at the very top. And then we turn around to face the bathroom, the pièce de résistance, with its magnificent centerpiece: a sleek modern version of a claw-footed tub, only without the claw feet. It’s so smooth and white it could be made of alabaster, carved by some Italian artist. There’s the same crazy-shaped sink as the one in the hall bathroom, only twice as wide. The shower looks the same too, only bigger and with a high-tech showerhead. Peter sees me peering at it. “I wanted a really strong stream, you know, because my back always hurts.” I nod. “Of course,” I say. In a corner of the shower I can see a bottle of women’s shampoo and what looks like a bar of fancy soap, the kind that has pieces of oatmeal or flecks of lavender in it.
Finally, the kids have had enough. My tea is lukewarm, the sun has set, it’s time to go. We all walk back down the hallway into the kitchen. “Mom, you didn’t see the roof!” Anna says. “Next time,” I say.
“Can we go up there now, Daddy? Can we show Mommy the roof?” I look at Peter, hoping he can see how tired I feel. He does. “Let’s wait until it’s daytime and Mommy can get the full view, okay?” Anna sighs. “Whatever,” she says.
The kids run down to their rooms to grab their backpacks and everything else they’ve brought with them for the weekend. Peter is standing behind the large center island, fiddling with a knob on the stove top. “So what do you think?” he asks, looking up at me. “Really, isn’t it so me? It’s like the perfect house for me, isn’t it?” He is looking at me so clear-eyed, so earnestly. I can feel the anxiety and envy and fear in my chest relax a little, at least temporarily. Why Peter wants my approval I’ll never know, but he does, and so I give it. He is always so sure of himself, of his decisions, always the smartest guy in the room. Should he go to
law school? Yes. Should we buy a house? Yes. Send the kids to private school? Absolutely. Roth IRA or iBonds? IBonds. When my editor at The New York Times offered me the chance to do a monthly column, it was Peter who convinced me to take it. “What if I don’t have enough time for it each month, because of the kids or other work? I’m not sure I can handle it,” I had said. Peter didn’t hesitate. “You should definitely do it. It’ll be important for your career, and you can do it. You never miss deadlines, and you won’t now.” He sounded so confident in my abilities that I took it on. And he was right, it opened up other opportunities for me.
Which means that even though I loathe his arrogance, I also count on it. I count on Peter to know the answers. Lots of people count on him for that; it’s what lawyers and scientists and scientists-turned-lawyers do—they give us the answers.
“It is, Peter, it really is,” I say. And I mean it. This house is totally his taste, sleek and modern and spare and cold. And expensive.
“You would have liked this, wouldn’t you? If we were still together?” he asks.
It’s a statement that’s simultaneously heartbreaking and nasty, him needing me to tell him this was the right thing to do while letting me know that if I’d just been a better wife, all this could have been mine too. Was it the right thing to do? To buy a house he couldn’t afford, that will just tie him more tightly to a job he hates? I feel exhausted. “I don’t know,” I say, being vague. “It’s beautiful, of course, but I like places that are a little cozier. It definitely fits you though. I can really see you here.”
I start heading down the stairs and call for the kids. “Okay, okay!” they scream, running to the front door. I pack their stuff into my Prius, and they spend a few minutes hugging Peter and saying goodbye and telling him what a great weekend they had. My window is rolled down and Peter leans into it. “Thanks for coming up to get them and see the house,” he says. We are being uncharacteristically kind to each other tonight. “I wanted to,” I say. “I’m really glad I got to see it. It’s beautiful. And the kids love it.” He raps on the windows in the back as a goodbye to all of us.
It’s dark as I back out of the driveway and the house’s outdoor lights come on, illuminating the tufted seagrass out front, the small palm trees, the enormous garage door, the gray cinderblock wall. Peter is in the kitchen, and from the outside it is a sweet scene of domesticity—the couch, the silver lamp that curves over it, the dining table beyond, Peter opening cabinets to rustle up some dinner for himself—all of it silhouetted against a muted yellow light. Unlike the past two years, when Peter rented small apartments and condos that came furnished, he owns this house, one he believes reflects who he is or, perhaps, who he aspires to be.
Regardless, he won’t be moving year to year anymore, and that means Anna and Evan won’t have to continually readjust. Now the three of them have a home; they have stability. It feels like a new beginning, for him and for all of us.
■ FOUR
Labor Day Weekend 2014
THREE YEARS LATER ANNA is starting college and we are headed, as a family, to move-in weekend at the University of Michigan. Anna, Evan, and I are on the sidewalk in front of my house, ten bags of luggage—eight of them Anna’s—lined up neatly on the driveway. I imagine we look like a vacationing family that’s been abandoned in the middle of suburbia. We are waiting for Peter to pick us up and take all of us to the airport, where we will board a plane bound for Ann Arbor.
It’s the edge of a holiday weekend—the Wednesday before Labor Day—and the airport will likely be a zoo. Peter is already half an hour late. “We’re going to miss the plane!” Anna shouts at no one, furious and teary-eyed. We crane our collective necks to the right, aiming to see around the corner and spot Peter’s black Tiguan. Finally, there is the unmistakable sound of tires skidding on gravel to announce his arrival, and then the car is racing up the driveway, nearly hitting the luggage before Peter brakes.
“You were supposed to be here thirty minutes ago. What the hell?” I say, flinging bags into the back of the car. “Dad, we’re going to miss our flight!” Anna shouts.
“We’re fine,” Peter says, oddly upbeat even though it’s barely seven A.M. and he is not a morning person. He and Evan are taking out the bags I’ve thrown in and reorganizing them so they fit. Anna is brooding and anxious and excited all at the same time. “Let’s go, let’s go!” she says.
The car is so crammed full of luggage that my son is sitting in the trunk area, wedged between a gigantic blue duffel bag and a red suitcase. I can’t even see Anna across the backseat, buried as we are beneath bags of clothes, toiletries, and all the other stuff she is taking with her. Peter offered to drive—and he has the biggest car so it made sense—but with all the luggage that needs to be checked, I am worried we really may miss the flight. I can’t find the seat belt so I am hanging on to a suitcase during what is becoming one of the wildest rides of my life. Peter is driving 85 MPH on side streets. Then he’s on the freeway, cutting everyone off and weaving in and out of lanes as he flies toward the airport. I have never seen him drive like this, but I haven’t driven with him in about a year. Anna and I get motion sick easily, but he’s taking no prisoners this morning. In the last year or so he’s become increasingly short-tempered, and I am afraid to say anything that might set him off, so I just hold on.
He is about to make a left turn onto the Pacific Coast Highway, which parallels the airport, only he’s in the rightmost lane of three, a lane that has a right arrow painted down its center to make it clear to drivers there is only one option. It feels like a kind of fever dream as I watch Peter cut across two lanes of traffic to make the left, while everyone around us is leaning on their horns and giving him the finger. He just keeps going, eyes straight ahead. I look at Evan, but he’s got his eyes closed. Peter screeches up to the airport’s valet parking—three times what it would cost to park in the regular lot—gets out of the car, and lights a cigarette. I peel myself out of the backseat and walk over to the luggage carts.
“I’m never driving with you again, ever,” I say, realizing at the same time I will have to drive with him for the next four days. “What?” Peter says, taking a deep drag of his just-lit cigarette and shrugging. “We made it, right? And in plenty of time.”
He stands there looking past me, in his leather jacket and T-shirt and his tan Lululemon lounge pants, sucking hard on the cigarette before tossing it to the ground and crushing it. “Are you out of your mind?” I ask, as Anna and Evan load up the luggage carts. “You almost killed us.” Peter laughs at me, at crazy, overly cautious Eilene. This is why I left you, he seems to be saying. Always making something out of nothing. So rigid. So afraid.
Somehow things work out. We get all ten pieces of luggage checked, make the plane, and later that night are in Detroit, waiting on a long line to rent an SUV before finally settling into our rooms at America’s Best Value Inn—the cheapest hotel Peter could find, at $65 a night. It is not such a great value, however, with its tiny rooms and stained, cardboard-thick walls. This first night Peter is sharing a room with Evan; I am sharing this one with Anna. Tomorrow, when we get to Ann Arbor, Evan will stay with me, and Peter will have his own room, in case he needs to work. Anna won’t need to share a room with any of us, as she will be spending her first night in a college dormitory.
“This is kind of gross,” Anna says, poking her head into the closet-size bathroom.
“It’s one night,” Peter says. “You’ll survive.”
The next morning, we head to the Ann Arbor Target, along with ten million other out-of-town parents, to buy the things our budding undergrad will need to survive dorm life. We start wheeling our cart up and down aisles, grabbing plastic storage bins, school supplies, extra-long dorm-bed-size sheets, putting them in the cart until it’s clear we’ll need another cart. Evan has left and headed to the electronics department and Peter has abandoned us briefly to get a giganti
c diet soda. He finds us putting a collapsible clothes hamper in the cart. “I can’t shop anymore,” he says. “I’m tired.”
“I know, but we’re getting there,” I say.
“Daddy, come on, it’s not taking that long,” Anna says.
But Peter has had it and sits down on a big blue bean bag chair in the college furniture section, leans his head back, and closes his eyes. “I’m just going to sit here. Get me when you have what you need.” There is a part of me that feels as I did in marriage, that I should let him sleep because he’s paying for all of this, and he’s clearly dead tired from working so much. And there is a part of me that thinks: If I have to do this, he does too. But Anna looks almost relieved that he’s going to sit out the shopping frenzy. Now she can take her time without worrying that Peter is bored or itching to get back to the hotel for a nap. He can just nap right here, in the middle of Target.
“Okay,” I say. “We’ll be back in twenty minutes.” I see Evan walking toward us. He sees his father trying to nap in the bean bag chair, so he flops down on one nearby and puts on headphones. Half an hour later, with two full carts, we are back in the furniture area. Evan unplugs his headphones. “Is Daddy asleep?” I ask, looking at Peter. I can’t tell if he’s just resting his eyes or if he’s really out.
“Yeah, I think so,” Evan says. “He hasn’t been up since you left.” I shake Peter’s arm gently and call his name. Then a little harder. He opens his eyes slowly, so deep in sleep I can see he’s struggling to surface; he keeps getting pulled back under. “Peter?” I say, more loudly. “Peter, we’re done. We’re ready to check out. You okay?”
He nods yes, then shakes his head a little to snap out of the fog and runs a hand up and down his face. “Okay, okay, I’m up,” he says, rising with difficulty from the low-slung chair and reaching down to grab his watery soda. After cashing out, we head to the Ann Arbor Regent Hotel. At two P.M., Anna’s designated “move-in” time, the four of us drive to the brick buildings known as East Quad to unload our daughter and all her belongings. Peter and Evan make trips up and down stairs with the contents of the car while I help Anna unpack her clothes and make up her bed, which is lofted above her desk. She is rushing me along, telling me she’ll finish up, it’s fine, it’s fine. She’s desperate for us to leave so she can get ready to go out and begin her college life in earnest. There are some girls she’s met waiting in the hallway to hang out with her, and their parents have already left. So Evan, Peter, and I say our goodbyes on the dorm steps and head to town for dinner. Our plan for this weekend is to get to know Ann Arbor tomorrow, maybe try and get Anna to have one more meal with us, and then on Saturday we will attend the university’s first football game of the season (without Anna, who will be sitting in the student section). The game was actually Peter’s idea.
Smacked Page 6