Open House Read online

  “I went to Tiffany’s. I got china. And silver.” I won’t mention the bracelet. No need to get into that.

  “You’re kidding!”

  “No.”

  “You don’t like that stuff.”

  “Well, I never did before, but now I do. I just want . . . something different. I’m going to live another way. I have to live another way. I mean, even things like learning not to be afraid of the dark. Did you know I’m afraid of the dark? I lie awake at night now, wondering who’s in the basement getting ready to come upstairs and murder me and Travis. I keep a fish knife under my bed.”

  “A fish knife?”

  “Well, I’d never used it. I figured I might as well use it. It’s very nice. Pearl-handled.”

  “I’m sure the killer will appreciate that.”

  “That would be a pretty nice change, being appreciated.” All the things I really want to tell Rita are stuck in my throat. I cannot say them, it’s too embarrassing. I sat in the middle of the living-room floor and howled like a dog, Rita. I’ve been contemplating “accidental” death. I bought a book on self-esteem, and when the author said to make a list of what I liked about myself, I couldn’t do it. I could not write down one thing. After two days, I made one that kind of copied the suggested list, then hid it in my underwear drawer, then burned it. I can’t think straight; my head is full of cobwebs. I have to concentrate really hard to open a can of soup.

  Gently, Rita says, “Sam, why don’t you get away for a while? Come out here. I’ll take time off from work, I’ll take care of you.”

  Why don’t I visit Rita? She lives in a beautiful house in Mill Valley, in Marin County. I could fly out to San Francisco tonight, lie around in the hammock in Rita’s beautiful backyard tomorrow, staring at the gently rounded hills, at the ocean glittering in the distance. We could eat avocado and tomato and sprout sandwiches, take long walks, make bouquets of the extraordinary wildflowers that grow everywhere. Rita’s husband, Lawrence, is a humanities professor, gray-eyed and bearded and calm. He casts coins for the I Ching. He is an inventive chef, and he cooks at least twice a week. He would leave us alone when we needed to be left alone, join us when we wanted him to.

  Rita always puts fresh flowers in my room, as well as a huge box of chocolates and a National Enquirer. She plays the music she and I used to listen to when we were roommates: the Temptations, Janis, Odetta. We talk for hours, laugh until we cry.

  Finally, though, I say, “I can’t come out there. Travis is in school. I can’t just pull him out. And I don’t want to leave him with David.”

  “Leave him with your mother, then. She loves to try to wreck him.”

  “I think I need to hang around. I mean, this is hard for him, too.”

  “Oh, I know. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to underestimate any of this. I really don’t. How is Travis, anyway?”

  “Mostly not talking. I think he thinks it’s just a big fight.”

  “Is it?”

  “No. It’s been coming for a long time. I don’t think he ever loved me. It’s sort of astonishing, isn’t it?” I start to cry. Again.

  “Oh, honey,” Rita says. “I know how this hurts. I’m so sorry. I wish I could be there now, I’d do something.”

  “I know you would. It would be something wonderful, too. What would it be?”

  “Well, I would . . . I have no idea, actually.”

  I laugh, blow my nose. “So you always thought he was a jerk, huh?”

  “I really did.”

  “Did you talk behind his back?”

  “Constantly.”

  “I hope you mentioned what a terrible dancer he was. Absolutely no sense of rhythm. Not that he knew that.”

  “We covered that, I’m sure. As well as that reptilian gesture he made whenever he cleared his throat, sticking his chin out that way. And Sam, I know you feel awful now, but I think, in the end, you’ll be so much better off without him. You used to wear mascara to bed.”

  “Well.”

  “And when you had Travis, you were embarrassed that David saw the umbilical cord.”

  Oh God, I’d forgotten that. But it’s true. I’d felt bad about how ugly it was.

  I hear the clock chime three. “I’ve got to go, Rita. Travis will be home soon.”

  “Call me tonight.”

  “What for?”

  “I need support, okay?”

  Upstairs, I wash my face, reapply some eyeliner. Then I take off all my clothes and stare at my naked self in the bathroom mirror. I turn to the side. Good breasts. But the beginning of dimpling at the tops of my thighs. And there is my stupid, flabby stomach. I wonder at what age pubic hair turns gray. I don’t see how people who were married for a long time can ever take their clothes off in front of another person. Another lover. How can there ever be another lover? The hands would be wrong. The face. The smell. You’d open your eyes from a kiss and . . . what? No map.

  I put my clothes back on. Then I head downstairs to make some peanut-butter cookies for Travis. Also chocolate chip.

  It’s Friday, the weekend looming ahead. Tonight we’re going out to dinner, to an Italian place on Newbury Street that has no business charging what it does. We’ll valet park. We’ll get appetizers before our entrées and dessert after them. “To drink?” the waiter will say, and I will consult the wine list, pick by price.

  “I DON’T WANT an appetizer,” Travis says. He is trying to keep his voice low, but he is agitated. We are seated at the restaurant after having been shown to our table with a certain restrained condescension. It is early, five-thirty; no other customers have the poor taste to be here. Most of the waiters sit in a small, white-coated group at a table in the back of the room, lazily gossiping, laughing, drinking what looks like ice water with lemon slices in it.

  “I just want spaghetti with butter and cheese.”

  “Yes, well, you can have that,” I tell him. “But wouldn’t you like to start with something else?”

  “Start what?”

  “Start your dinner, honey.”

  “Spaghetti is my dinner.”

  “Yes, but you can have an appetizer as well. You can have both. Come on, you know that.”

  “Fine.” He snaps his menu closed, slumps back in his chair. He yanks at his tie, loosening it.

  “So!” I say. “What will it be? You can have anything you want.”

  “I don’t care. You’re the one who wants it. You pick.”

  I straighten in my chair, smile at the approaching waiter. He is so elegantly gay I feel ashamed of myself, of my predictable domestic status. Breeder. Divorced. Knowledge of nightlife and art scene nil.

  The waiter stands before me, raises an eyebrow. “Have we decided?”

  Antipasto? I’m thinking, a little panicked. Shrimp in lime vinaigrette? And then, because Travis is right, this is all only exhausting, I say, “Spaghetti with butter and grated cheese for my son, please. And for me, too. Don’t be stingy with that Parmesan, either. Two Cokes, no ice. Four cannoli. And the check.”

  “All right,” the waiter says, and accompanies the snappy motion of his pen sliding back into his breast pocket with a tight smile.

  “All right!” Travis yells, and sits up straighter.

  “Travis?”

  He looks up at me, fearful, I know, of being told he’s talking too loud.

  “Why don’t you take off that tie?” I slip my heels off, lean back in my chair.

  Travis removes his tie, coils it into a neat arrangement at the side of his plate. Beside it, I lay my belt.

  Hours later, after Travis and I watch Star Wars twice, he falls into bed. I wash up and go into my bedroom, intent on reading one of the new books I bought the other day. I turn back the bedclothes and then, just like that, all the good feeling I’ve built up today seems to drain out of the soles of my feet. I stand there for a while. And then I get down on my knees, and whisper, Help me into my folded hands.

  5

  ON MONDAY MORNING, RIGHT AFTER TRAVIS
LEAVES FOR school, the phone rings. When I answer it, I hear an extremely irritated voice say, “What the hell are you doing, Sam?”

  “Oh. Hello, David.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m standing here, David. I’m standing here talking on the phone. What are you doing? Where are you?”

  “At work.”

  Not in his car in the driveway, then, calling to see if I’ll take him back.

  “I just had a conversation with John Hurley at the bank. Very interesting. It appears that a large check was written to Tiffany’s last week. By you.”

  “That’s right. I needed some dishes.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, I suppose this is one way for you to get back at me. Rather unimaginative, I must say.”

  “I suppose you must. Not nearly as original as packing a bag and moving to a hotel.”

  “Sam, I’m calling to tell you I’ve transferred most of the money into another account. I’m sorry, but you really leave me no choice.”

  He . . . ?

  Oh, God.

  Well, fine, then. Fine. What should I have for breakfast?

  “I’ll provide adequately for Travis. And for you as well. But not so adequately that you can buy twelve thousand dollars’ worth of merchandise at Tiffany’s on a random Thursday afternoon.”

  Shredded Wheat with strawberries? Eggs?

  “Sam?”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you listening to me? Do you understand?”

  I hang up. Then lift the receiver and hang up again, harder. Then take the phone off the cradle, lay it on the kitchen table.

  I’ll get a job. I’ll make my own damn money. I’ll rent out David’s study, and maybe the basement, too. That will do nicely to help to pay the mortgage. I’ll keep the house, not sell it, as David said we must. I live here. Travis lives here. And I will stay here. I will, in fact, do whatever I want to do. Use the chain saw in the toolshed, which David said was too dangerous. Wear purple eye shadow, which David said was too tacky.

  As for now, I’ll go out and take a long walk.

  I start for the door, then look at the phone, lying on the table. We tried to reach you, Mrs. Morrow. But your line was busy. The principal signed the release form for the surgery.

  I put the phone back in the cradle, take a step, and hear it ring. I pick it up. “I heard you.”

  “Heard what?” my mother asks.

  “Oh. Ma. I thought you were David. He just called.”

  “And?”

  “He needed to talk about finances. Nothing, really.”

  “Well, speaking of finances, I found a coupon for forty percent off a permanent. Are you interested?”

  “I don’t want a perm.”

  “I think it might look very nice.”

  “You use it, Ma.”

  “I have a perm!”

  “Well, I’ll bet one of your friends can use it.”

  “That’s a thought. You remember Angie Ryan? I’ll give it to her, she needs a lift. Her husband should be institutionalized. Do you know what he did to that poor woman last week?”

  Oh, well. I pull out a kitchen chair. Sit down.

  TRAVIS IS UPSTAIRS doing homework, and I am sitting at the kitchen table, making a list.

  1. CALL DAVID TO COME AND GET ALL HIS SHIT, I write. Then, fearing Travis will see it, I erase SHIT and substitute THINGS. In parentheses I add, SO HE WILL HAVE WHAT HE NEEDS.

  Next I write: 2. POST SIGN IN FRANCO’S SUPERMARKET FOR ROOMMATE(S?).

  Then, 3. JOB.

  A job doing what? I imagine filling out the application. Last job? Girl singer in rock band. References? “Roach” Davis, lead guitarist.

  I wonder whatever happened to him. He might have made a career out of being a studio musician; he was really good. He could roll joints with one hand, and he taught me how, too. Now, there’s something useful I might put on my application.

  Oh, what can I do?

  What do I want to do?

  I rest my head on my arms, close my eyes, recall something that happened many years ago. When I was a first-grader, I once went to the bank with my mother. Outside, sitting against the wall on a red, worn blanket, was a man with legs that ended somewhere around his knees. His tan khaki pants were folded neatly beneath his stumps, and the matter-of-factness of this horrified me. The man held a cigar box out, rattled the change inside it, and smiled up at us, squinting against the bright sun. Then he tipped his straw hat and asked, “Can you help me out, ladies? Spare a little change?” I burst into tears so loud and heartfelt my mother immediately pulled me away, brought me back to the car, and rolled up the windows. “Shhhhh, it’s all right,” she said, dabbing at my face with a hankie and looking nervously about. And I said, no, it wasn’t all right, the man didn’t have any legs, he couldn’t even stand up. My mother said well, yes, that was right, but the man was here all the time, and he was happy, really, he liked sitting outside the bank and collecting money. This made me cry all the harder, until, exasperated, my mother finally pressed a dollar bill in my hand and told me to give it to the man, but to be sure not to touch him. I wiped my reddened face on the hem of my dress, then walked slowly over to give the man the money. “Thank you, little lady,” he said, and I told him he was welcome. And then I did touch him, I reached out and touched his arm and he put his hand over my hand and that was when I stopped hurting.

  I sit up. Maybe I can get a job in the nursing home a few blocks away. Every time I pass it, I look in the window to watch bits of activity: a woman dressed in a pastel sweat suit being pushed in a wheelchair down the hall; a circle of people in what looks to be a community room, singing. I’ve always had the urge to go in there and offer something. Maybe I will now. “I don’t really have any job experience,” I imagine saying. “But I really like old people.”

  The salary doesn’t have to be much, if I can find roommates. The important thing is that I do something that’s meaningful to me, that’s the truth for me. I’m going to start telling the truth. A woman I know once made a New Year’s resolution to tell the truth, and I remember thinking how extraordinary—and how difficult—that would be. You make such a resolution and no matter what someone asks you, you have to answer honestly. Think of it!

  “I’m working in a nursing home,” I say aloud, trying it out.

  The phone rings and I answer it distractedly. A man clears his throat, then says, “Yes. I’m looking for Sam Reynolds.” Reynolds. My maiden name. It must be a high school reunion, I think, and answer with some excitement that yes, this is Sam. I always loved Greg Mulvaney, the pitcher on our baseball team: dark, Italian, dimples. I never told him. Maybe he’s divorced now, too. A slow dance, a tentative confession . . . perhaps on both of our parts. Who knows what could happen? I push the bowl of potato chips I’ve been eating away from me.

  But then the man says, “I’m Stuart Gardner. Your mother gave me your number.”

  “. . . Oh?”

  “She told me you might be willing to meet me. Say, for a drink tonight? She thought we’d have a lot in common.”

  “Did she.”

  “Yes, she did. For one thing—”

  “What was your name?”

  “Stuart. Stuart Gardner. Like the museum.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, you know, I really think it’s a little soon, Stuart. My husband—did my mother tell you?”

  “Yes, I’m very sorry. She said he’d died over a year ago, though, and she thought you might be ready for . . . just a drink, is all I’m talking about. Or coffee, whatever.”

  “I’m sorry, Stuart. I really don’t think so.”

  He sighs, a petulant sound that makes me sure I wouldn’t like him anyway, then asks, “Well, would you at least be willing to take my number?”

  “Oh, sure.”

  “You have a pencil?”

  I do, of course, but I do not pick it up. “Yes, I have one.”

  “It’s six-four-nine. . . .”

  I repeat the numbers back slowly, then
say, “Okay!”

  “I really think we’d get along,” Stuart says. “Your mother’s told me a lot about you.”

  “Maybe after a while. I’ll call you when I’m ready. But I’m still having flashbacks, you know. I still see his face when I, you know, shot him.”

  “You . . . ?”

  “Just kidding.”

  Silence.

  I hang up, realize I have broken my vow to tell the truth already. But I will get back on track right now. I pick up the phone, punch in my mother’s number. When Veronica answers with her usual happy and expectant “Yes, hello?” I yell, “What is the matter with you?”

  “Sam! Is that you?”

  “Don’t get me a date! With anyone! Ever!”

  “Oh, did Stuart call you? He’s the nicest man. You’ll just love him.”

  “Wait a minute. Wait a minute! I just said, don’t do this! And you’re acting like I’m thrilled, like I just made plans for a rendezvous in Paris!”

  Veronica chuckles. “Well, not a rendezvous. Not even a date. Just a drink, sweetheart. That way, you find out a little about each other. Then you date. Dinner, maybe a movie, although you can’t really talk in a movie, I never did understand going to a movie on a first date. But dinner in a nice, oh, say, French restaurant, flowers on the table, not too expensive, but something that—”

  I lean against the wall, instantly exhausted. But I manage to say, “Ma. Listen to me. If anyone else calls me, I will hang up on them. I swear I will. I will just hang up.”

  Silence.

  “Do you hear me?”

  “Sam, you sound awfully blue. I’m worried about you.”

  “I will hang up!”

  “Well, fine, then. You just mope all you want to. Little Miss Blue. Some people revel in their misery. Some people just love to be unhappy.”

  “I need to find my own way, Mother.”

  “Well, good for you. You want to weep and gnash your teeth and carry on, go right ahead. Have a good time. That’s really great for Travis, too.”

  “I am not gnashing my teeth. I’m getting a job. And roommates.”

  “Roommates?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re going to open your house to strangers? Oh, Lord.”