Magnetism Page 15

  This offer is startling, because it is out of character. But I tell her that there’s no need, that I’m a big girl now.

  This night there is a full moon and the room glistens. Except for the new bed, and the firm mattress, the furniture is from my childhood bedroom. I think about Jerry Lewis’s past-it voice on the last song, and then, as I slip to sleep, I think about catching fireflies. They are best captured at dusk. When it’s too dark it’s impossible. They’re only random sparks and never close enough to catch. One summer I spent every evening leaping about in our front yard, a big glass sauerkraut jar in one hand and the lid, with its nail-punched holes neatly spaced, in the other. I don’t remember how successful I was or how long they lit up once I captured them, but even now I can remember the weight of the jar and the feel of the stretch in my arms.

  Then for a few minutes more I think about Mom’s life now without Dad. She seems to have made neighbourhood friends and she tells me about them on the phone. I fantasise about just upping sticks, quitting my job, and moving back here to be near her instead of a thousand miles away. It would be nice to be near her. I could get another job. The warm weather is appealing. I wouldn’t be lonely. I only moved from Phoenix with Chip – for him and his job. Without Chip there’s nothing to keep me in Tulsa any more.

  In the morning, I risk a bath. Mom disapproves of baths. She says showers are much better because they don’t take so long. She’s not worried about the environment, it’s just one of her obsessions, but water is healing and a good soak would do me good.

  I’ve lost weight, and when I lie down my stomach seems even flatter than it did yesterday before I left home. I lather up the soap and then it falls, sliding between my fingers like something alive. I swish around but, every time I catch hold of it, it slithers from my hand, slipping away from me and hiding again. I realise I’m making a lot of noise, so instead of soaking as I’d intended to do I end up climbing out quickly and draining the water. I dry the bath and find myself pouring some water on the shower screen to mislead her but this doesn’t work. When she comes downstairs she says, ‘You should have cleaned the tub. I hate soap-scum tidelines.’ But she doesn’t give me the lecture I’ve heard a hundred times before so I think she’s making an effort to be nice.

  The news is on TV while we’re eating our breakfast. ‘When did the weather man get promoted?’ I ask. ‘That fat guy is now news anchor.’

  Mom says that he’s not Jim-Bob, he’s gone over to KCRW Radio. Back east in Chicago or somewhere.

  ‘Sure looks like him.’ We both study the set. Maybe this guy isn’t quite as fat as I remember, but he’s got the same goofy grin. He’s saying that there’s a new clinic opening up offering IVF to women over fifty.

  Mom says, ‘Do you think in the end it was the kid thing?’

  I suspect she’s been holding on to this question for a week now, since I told her Chip had left. In fact, Chip had been gone nearly two months by the time I told Mom. I couldn’t tell anyone what had happened, because I didn’t want to acknowledge it myself. I couldn’t sleep, I barely dragged myself into work. I’d never felt so bad, and the worst of it was that I felt ashamed. He said it was nothing to do with me in a way which made me sure it was only to do with me.

  ‘No,’ is what I answer. ‘There’s much more to it than that.’ I don’t say that it’s clear now that we were too different. He doesn’t have any imagination. I have too much.

  ‘Is Chip gay?’ She asks. This must be her theory B, but she explains that the weatherman gone to do radio was gay, that’s why she thought, while we were talking, that she’d ask. ‘Is he?’

  ‘But KCRW is LA.’

  ‘That explains it,’ she says. ‘A person can get away with more personality in California. California has a lot to answer for.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s gay.’

  ‘I read about it. He is.’

  ‘Not him. Not Jim-Bob. Not the guy on TV. Him. Chip.’

  ‘A lot of men pass. I’d say it was extremely common – gay men getting married to put people off the scent.’

  This is not a comfortable conversation. ‘Mom, I really, really, really don’t think he’s gay, but of course I can’t be sure.’ It’s the truth because how much does anyone know about someone else in reality? That’s the next thing I say: that a person can’t ever be sure of anything, not one hundred per cent sure.

  She grins. ‘Well, honey, that’s a change, for you.’

  ‘What do you mean? How come you said that? I don’t think it’s a change for me.’

  ‘Nothing,’ she says, but I want to know. She squeezes her eyes shut. She decides to tell me that she means nothing, doesn’t have any idea why she said it. ‘Forget it,’ she says with her eyes still screwed shut. Then she starts to tell me about one of her friends, who she plays Mah Jongg with. The connection is that it turns out this woman had a husband who turned out to be gay. She caught him in bed with another guy. It was a shock but the signs were there all the time. ‘I’m telling you, it happens a hell of a lot of the time, and we should feel sorry for these men. Imagine the shame. And their poor wives who have to live with it. What a terrible thing to marry someone who doesn’t want you, to live with that. It’s a disappointment to be rejected by someone who is supposed to love you, who has promised to love you. Imagine the sorrow.’

  ‘Huh, Mom?’ I can’t listen to all that she’s saying. I am calculating what time it is at home now and what Chip is likely to be doing, when she suddenly says, ‘Anyway, enough of gloomy talk. Mandy said to me the other day, “Cindy, you are consistently lucky.” She thinks bridge is a matter of luck,’ Mom says, ‘which explains her half-wit playing. If you think it’s luck it takes away any incentive to improve. She’s useless.’

  ‘Why’d she call you Cindy? Your name isn’t Cindy.’

  ‘She probably thinks it is.’

  ‘Why would she think it? Have you given her a phoney name? A pseudo-name?’

  ‘A name is not important. She probably thinks I’m someone else. It’s no big deal. Sometimes it’s hard to remember things. We’re getting on. All of us. None of us are kids.’

  ‘You’re not that old.’

  ‘Some days I am. Some days I’m ten years older.’

  I tell her that I think it’s weird that she’s spending time with a bunch of people who can’t even remember each other’s names.

  ‘Mandy sounds a bit like Cindy. Maybe she’s got me muddled with herself. Maybe she thinks we’re sisters – twins, maybe.’ Mom giggles. ‘Twins … It would be nice to be a twin.’

  ‘I wanted to be a twin,’ I say.

  ‘I could never have had another child, honey. Because you were enough. You were perfect.’

  My mother has never said anything like this before. I am touched, and softened by the fact that I was enough for Mom and Dad. At some point in my life I was adequate.

  ‘And your shitty idiot husband. He is such a schmuck to let you go,’ she says.

  I don’t point out that we didn’t leave it long enough for him to let me go. He went.

  Four hours later, over lunch and with another bottle of wine open between us, I ask, ‘So, if I’m so perfect, what did you really mean about what you said, earlier?’ I ask. ‘About me.’

  ‘Nothing.’ Obviously we didn’t have alcohol with breakfast, but we ploughed through a hell of a lot last night and here we are about to do it again. I wonder how regularly Mom drinks now as I watch her downing her first glass.

  ‘Yes, you did mean something. Tell me.’

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  Then I do it. I don’t have to, I know I shouldn’t, that there is nothing to be gained from pushing this point, but still I go and say, ‘Just tell me, what you meant. I won’t get mad. I just want to know. What did you mean?’

  She places her glass down. ‘The thing is, honey, you said it: nothing in this world is ever actually black and white. People are complicated. I just think that finally understanding that everything is mo
re complicated than you might realise is a real change for you.’

  ‘It’s not that nothing is. I wasn’t talking about everything. I know things are not always unambiguous. But sometimes they’re clear-cut.’

  ‘You’ve always wanted to straighten things up, straight lines – like how you lined up your dolls. Sometimes it can’t be done, that’s all. You don’t need to pick at everything. Some things are best left. Let sleeping dogs lie. Live and let live. Don’t sweat the small stuff. In fact, you’re very controlling, honey.’

  ‘You’re calling me controlling? You with the no-soap and the bath thing.’

  ‘You’re upset,’ she says. ‘You said you wouldn’t get upset.’

  ‘Dad is dead,’ I tell her. ‘He didn’t leave. He fell off the roof not because he lost his footing but because you weren’t there. You could have saved him but you killed him.’

  She doesn’t look at me. She says quietly, ‘It’s too late.’ But I’m going on, breathless. My heart is thumping. ‘And now my husband has left. It’s made me feel real bad, Mom. I didn’t expect him to. I didn’t think it would end like that. Why can’t you understand? I feel terrible and you just want to tell me what’s wrong with me.’

  ‘No, honey. You can’t know everything. That’s my point,’ she says. ‘That Chip, he’s one fucking idiot.’

  We drink all day and then, in the evening, I phone Chip at his new apartment.

  He answers on the second ring. He doesn’t have the decency to sound different; his voice is exactly the same.

  I don’t say hi. In an even voice I say I’ll be back by the end of the week. He’d better have hauled every bit of sorry-ass crap of his out of our place, or else it’s to the Goodwill, and he should know I’m changing the locks as soon as I get home because I don’t ever want to see him again.

  Even though I tell myself it’s probably better to be the person who tells the other to go, when I slam the phone down I discover my hands are shaking.

  ‘Good for you,’ Mom says. ‘That’s telling him.’

  ‘But maybe I still love him.’

  ‘I know, honey,’ she says. ‘That’s because he was the love of your life. He’ll always be the one. Especially now he’s gone. But you can get on with things. You’ll love again, I’m sure, but you should know he’ll always be the one. That’s the gospel truth.’

  ‘What a shitty thing to say. How can you say that? How’s that supposed to make me feel?’

  ‘Well, think about it. What a waste it’d be. I mean all this feeling. What would it all mean, what would it be worth if you didn’t love him a whole lot? Don’t you get it? It’s okay. It makes sense, you’ll see.’

  Finally, I cry, and cry, and cry.

  When I’m in bed, she kisses me on my forehead, like I was a little kid, and she sits with me until I pretend I’m asleep. The sound of her tired sigh as she leaves the room is soft and warm. It’s totally real, and totally sad.

  1985

  The Seahorse

  Dad has opted to stay up at the lodge and Mom and I are on the grass resting in the shade of some big prickly tree. Chip referred to his guide book about Utah and when he set out the loungers for us he announced that above us was an Alligator juniper. He didn’t notice the sarcasm when Mom said, ‘Thanks for putting my mind at rest.’

  Right now, he and Kimberly are at the lakeshore throwing rocks in. The faded guidebook bulges from his back pocket. It’s the sort of hot and hazy and too-humid day that makes my mind as well as my hair go all frizzy.

  Mom looks nearly asleep but I know she isn’t. She’s waiting for me to say something because, though she might not know exactly what I’m riled about, she knows I am fuming about something. I caught her watching me from the back seat of the car on the drive here and she can read my mind.

  Every time I look at Kimberly I see Joanne, her mother, Chip’s ex. He insists that Kimberly phone her mother every evening and before they talk he spends a couple of minutes telling Joanne the things that we’ve done each day, even though this is exactly what Kimberly will be repeating. Last night he called me Joanne in his sleep. We can’t have a vacation without dragging Joanne along with us.

  When Kimberly turns to wave up at us now, I grin and wave wildly back, rocking the lounger. She’s not yet ten but this girl is not just cute, she’s well on her way to beautiful. She’s like a chestnut colt.

  ‘Well, that’s a nice picture.’ Mom opens her eyes. ‘The two of them.’

  ‘Don’t,’ I tell her.

  ‘Don’t what?’

  ‘You know. Leave it.’

  She settles back down and waves her hand in the air, brushing me away.

  ‘What time can we go back?’

  ‘We’re going back for lunch. We’re here until it’s time to eat.’ We came out here because he and Kimberly could do a hike; and since the route, Chip explained, was circular, Mom and I wouldn’t have to go along, but the idea was for us to be together, sort of.

  ‘You’re as bored as I am. Admit it.’

  ‘We can’t leave.’

  ‘I want coffee.’

  I leave Mom to walk down to Chip. He’s holding his daughter’s hand and I see how she really is growing like a weed, just as he teased her at breakfast. She’ll soon be as tall as he is. This is the first of the two weeks she spends with us in the summer.

  I feel like an intruder but, even so, I take his other hand to get his attention. ‘I know it’s early but Mom’s had enough,’ I say. ‘It’s real hot.’

  ‘What about you, sweetie?’ Chip turns to ask Kimberly, instead of me.

  ‘I’m okay. I don’t care. Whatever you want to do will be fine.’ Kimberly says, directing her Miss America smile at me. I’ve been calculating the monthly alimony until Joanne remarries, and the child support Chip has to pay for the next eight years, but I now note that at least she won’t entirely clean us out financially: she won’t need thousands of bucks for braces. Her teeth are absolutely perfect.

  ‘We wanted to do a hike,’ he says. ‘I thought you’d like that, Kimberly.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ she says. ‘It’s just walking, anyway.’

  ‘I guess this sun isn’t good for your skin,’ he says. ‘You take after your mom.’

  ‘It’s okay. I’ve got stuff on,’ she says, smiling at me. I let her use my skincare (one of our little bonding things, another attempt not to be the wicked stepmother) and then bought her an entire collection of unnecessary creams and make-up when we went shopping for some vacation outfits. I want her to like me better than she likes her mother, because I want Chip to love me more than he ever loved her mother. Being nice to Kimberly is all part of my project; I’m being Disney Mom so I can keep Disney Dad interested.

  Chip thinks I like the idea of having a daughter to fuss and he encourages it. He doesn’t know he’s been paying for all of it. I use his credit card every time I spend money on his daughter.

  The lodge coffee shop is part of the gift shop. There are the usual T-shirts and caps, pens, notebooks and garish clocks built into inappropriate items. Chip has gone in search of Dad, to tell him we’re back. Kimberly is fondling a ceramic seahorse on a gilt chain. ‘I’ve got a real one of those,’ I tell her. ‘At home.’

  ‘A real seahorse? They’re not make-believe? I thought they were mythical.’

  ‘No, they’re real creatures. It’s the skeleton that I’ve got, of course. Not a live one.’

  ‘Where did it come from?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve had it forever. Probably came from a place like this, somewhere.’ I picture it now, in the tiny faded blue box, between two pieces of tissue wadding. A seahorse coffin. It’s incredibly light. I remember now the weight of the tiny skeleton. It was brittle and prickly, but fragile like strands of spun sugar. It still had an eye, or maybe it was just something stuck in there, to look like an eye.

  ‘Does it look like this?’ She’s holding the clumsy, ugly ceramic in the palm of her beautiful hand.

  ‘No, i
t’s much finer. Nature is immensely more delicate than anything man-made.’

  ‘Will you let me see it?’

  ‘Sure. Some time. In fact, I’ll give it to you. You can have it,’ I say impulsively. Then I choose a yellow apron to buy for Mom. She likes to take home mementos when we go places.

  Mom is at the cash register paying for a book entitled How to Change your Life in Five Minutes a Day. She hands it back to me to look at before it goes in the bag. The book has a glossy cover and is the size of a man’s wallet. There is one sentence on each page. The first page says: ‘Wake up five minutes earlier and spend time thanking God you’re alive.’ A page in the middle says, ‘Take your make-up off before going to bed.’

  ‘What do you want to change?’ Kimberly asks her.

  ‘Lots of things,’ Mom says, looking at me rather than Kimberly. Then she looks at Kimberly and opens her mouth. I quickly point in the direction of the ice-cream counter and ask Kimberly to go over and choose us the flavours, before Mom can say something poisonous and completely wreck everything.

  Up in the room, Kimberly tosses her Minnie Mouse suitcase on to the rollaway bed. We’ve booked a super-king bedroom along with the rollaway, but I can see that her bed is really far too small for her to sleep in comfortably. If she stays in a room on her own, Chip will be awake all night worrying about her. I figure if I mention the problem of the size of her bed, he’ll probably suggest that he sleep in a room on his own and I keep her company in here, or that he and she share a room and I sleep on my own. But, as neither Chip nor Kimberly has said anything about the miniature bed, I decide I won’t point it out, though I will remember for next time. Then suddenly I realise I am wondering if there will be a next time because actually, lately, I think Chip also prefers to sleep alone – or at least not with me.