Amanda Bright @ Home (17 page)

“I think—” Bob began, but was immediately cut off by O’Toole.

“Yeah, like who? I’m finding it hard over here to shed a tear for billionaires like Hochmayer—and let’s not forget Jack Chasen and TalkNet. They’re hardly getting ‘crushed to death.’”

“I think what’s important to remember,” Bob managed to say, “is that the government is not seeking justice for Jack Chasen or Jim Hochmayer.” He pulled himself up in his chair. “We’re not seeking justice for Megabyte—”

“I’ll say—” Kachinski murmured.

“We’re seeking justice for the consumer. That’s our job and we’re going to do it.”

O’Toole snorted.

“With those words, let’s take a break,” said Fallow. “When we come back, we’ll be joined by Congressman Smathers, who’ll give us the dirt on his controversial sanitation bill.

“Thank you, gentlemen.”

“You’re sure I did okay?”

“Yes. Positive. Really, you were fine.”

It was the next morning, and Bob and Amanda were pushing through the weekend crowds at the National Zoo. Minutes would pass without him speaking to her, and when he did, it would be to return to the subject of the show.

“I still think O’Toole came off as really biased.”

“She did.”

Bob nodded to himself and slipped back into thought. Amanda had to remind him to pause at the giraffe pavilion, where a reticulated giant was straining to reach some of the last unstripped leaves from a buffet of trees. Bob had been distracted since he woke up: Saturday was his morning to make breakfast for the children, but Frank Sussman had telephoned just as Bob was about to pour their cereal. He took Frank’s call instead, and the children retaliated by banging their empty bowls. Bob stormed up to the bedroom where Amanda was reading the paper and, while clutching the portable phone in one hand, pantomimed angrily with the other for her to get downstairs and quell the rebellion. By the time he reentered the kitchen, Amanda was rinsing the dishes and the children had fled to watch television. He fixed himself a cup of coffee and, without any acknowledgment of the favor she had just performed, launched into Sussman’s reaction to the show.

“He thought it went great, really great. He said the important thing was to look strong while telling them nothing. It’s easy to get trapped into saying more than you want to on these types of programs, but you can’t let that happen. You’ve gotta stay on message, gotta repeat yourself if necessary. He feels I did that … They didn’t land a blow on me … The department was pleased …”

“That’s good,” Amanda said, without raising her eyes from the sink. She noticed, though, that Bob seemed more anxious than he had been the previous evening, when any doubts he might have harbored about his performance were eclipsed by the sheer triumph of having survived his first brush with combat television. He returned home flushed and high-strung, burbling about how he “really landed one” on Kachinski and “did you see the look on O’Toole’s face when I said—?” He was no calmer in bed where, in what felt more like a relief exercise than an act of affection, he groped and thrust himself upon her. Amanda acquiesced—even though she was tired, even though it was late, even though she would normally have protested at serving as sexual paramedic.

Today, however, all mood of victory had drained from Bob, and he was consumed with doubts about how the battle had looked to his generals. He had wanted to go into the office straightaway, but Amanda reminded him that Saturday was their one family day together and he had promised to take the children to the zoo.

Now, as Bob stood before the giraffes, perspiration forming damp continents on his
campaign for tobacco-free children
T-shirt, she saw that he was glancing around impatiently and calculating how soon he could leave.

“Jesus, don’t they have an Arctic pavilion? Where the hell do they put the polar bears in this weather?”

Amanda unfolded the map she had picked up at the entrance. “They don’t have polar bears. They have an
Amazonia
exhibit. That’s the tropical rain forest—”

“Yeah, well, we don’t need an exhibit for that. We’re living it. What else?”

“There’s something called
Animales de Latinoamerica.
I think that’s where they have the tropical birds, if I remember correctly.”

“Christ, why the obsession with hot places? You’d think, in this climate, they’d do the Himalayas. Or Antarctica. What’s wrong with Antarctica? Doesn’t anyone like penguins? They’re cute. They’re educational.”

“Bob,” Amanda said, trying to control her own exasperation, “there’s no need to be so irritable. What about the Ape House?”

“Gorillas!” Ben exclaimed, turning away from the giraffes. “I want to see the gorillas!”

“Gowillath!” seconded Sophie from her stroller.

“Fabulous,” muttered Bob. “I wonder if they use deodorant in this weather.”

“It’s all the way toward the bottom,” said Amanda, still studying the map. “It’s going to be a hike.”

“Who wants to see the elephants?” Bob said with sudden enthusiasm. “Big huge elephants! Like Babar and Queen Celeste! And look—they’re
right over here!
”

Ben squeezed through the onlookers to a spot by the fence and Bob hoisted Sophie to his shoulders. They gazed at the dusty, desultory creatures, and after a few minutes, Sophie said, “Now gowillath.”

“You’re sure you’re not ready to go home?” Bob asked as he lowered her. “The elephants are the best part.”

She scrambled back into the shade of her stroller, a small princess in her palanquin. “No,” she said imperiously. “Gowillath.”

Bob pushed the stroller forward with a sigh. Ben trotted on a few feet ahead of them. The morning heat felt as if it were rising with every pace they took. The sun was not yet overhead, but already the temperature hovered near ninety degrees. Amanda felt guilty that she had dragged Bob outside on a day like this, and resentful that she should feel guilty. He barely saw the children these days, and she could hardly be held responsible for the weather.

Nonetheless, he was behaving as if it were somehow her fault. He was no longer preoccupied but openly annoyed at having to walk to the Ape House. He grunted rudely when they were halted by a group of Japanese tourists photographing each other in the middle of the path. Amanda wondered what she might say to placate him but then decided it wasn’t her job.

“What a day to come here!” he exclaimed, as the Japanese dispersed. “How much farther are the damn gorillas?”

“They’re just beyond the white tiger.”

“Tiger!” Sophie called out. “Want to see tiger, too!”

Bob wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Of course you do.”

“Bob—” Amanda said warningly.

He resumed pushing. They followed the path around a bend and came upon a heavily fortified concrete pen. The tiger was splayed out on a rocky ledge, with all the ferocity of a tabby cat dozing on a windowsill. Sophie and Ben clutched the fence and growled at it. Bob and Amanda parked the stroller and sat down on a low wall a few feet away. Amanda fanned herself with the map.

She had been wanting to speak to Bob about her decision to return to work, but there had been no opportunity. Judging from his mood, this would not be the best opportunity either, but she did not know when else she might have his attention, and Amanda urgently needed to know what he thought. When she had first blurted out the idea, Bob had seemed supportive, but Amanda did not know if that had simply been a bluff. She didn’t think that he had given the idea any further consideration; she had done little else but. Yet now that she was on the verge of confiding her decision, she hesitated, as if exposing it to the air might cause it to shrivel up like a seedling that has not yet taken root. Amanda urged herself on—to seize the chance while the children remained distracted by the tiger.

“Were you serious the other day—when you said you didn’t think it would be a bad idea if I returned to work?”

The abruptness of her question flustered Bob. For a moment he looked defensive, as if she had just lobbed an accusation.

“
Did
I say that?”

“You said—you
agreed
—that it was an option.”

“
You
raised it as a way we could afford to send Ben to another school. And I said, yes, that would be a way to do it. But I wasn’t
urging
you to do it—”

“I understand,” Amanda said patiently. “And I’m raising it again, as a real possibility. I’ve been thinking hard about it—about returning to work in the fall, when the kids start school again.”

Bob seemed reassured that she was not returning to their old argument, but he didn’t immediately offer her an opinion. She expected him to launch into a debate over the negative and positive consequences of such a decision—that was his usual way of discussing big family issues—but instead he remained silent and, if possible, appeared even more preoccupied. He fluttered the front of his T-shirt while his gaze wandered over to the children, where it found Ben sticking his arms through the fence.

“Don’t do that, Ben.”

“What do you think?” Amanda pressed.

“You know what I think,” he replied, his eyes still on the children. “You should do what you think is right.”

“But is it right? Sophie will be in school next year for a full day, but I’ll have less time to take care of things at home …”
C’mon,
she thought,
I can’t decide this entirely for myself. I need you to tell me it will be okay.

Bob exhaled wearily and placed his hands on his knees. He seemed to want to make it very clear that it was Amanda’s idea to discuss the issue again, and that he was going to remain a neutral party to it.

“Are you thinking of working full or part time?” he asked.

“It would only make sense financially to work full time, don’t you think?”

“It depends.” He shrugged. “We can get by, obviously, on what I earn now. So the question is, are you returning to work so we can have more money, or are you doing it because you want to get out of the house?”

“Both,” she said honestly.

“Well then, you’re right—a full-time job would bring in real money. If it were just a matter of getting out of the house, there are a lot of other things you could do.”

Amanda was not finding this Socratic back-and-forth helpful. She could think through for herself what sort of work she would like to do—she
had
thought it through, down to the outfit she would wear on her first day back at the National Endowment, if it would have her. What she needed to hear from Bob was that her family would be fine—that returning to her old job would not impinge upon them.

“It’s just that—” Amanda faltered. “It’s just that—well, you talked about making us suffer for your idealism, and I’ve been thinking maybe I’ve been making everyone suffer for mine. Maybe it was idealistic of me to quit my job and stay home. Maybe it was even selfish of me. I can’t ask you to go to work at a firm you don’t want to, just because we could use the money. You’ve been carrying the load for three years. And the children—they’re older and don’t need me as much, and my income could be a real help—we could send Ben to a school where he might be happier, where they don’t want to send him to a therapist—give them both some of the things other kids have …”

“I’ve never thought of you as selfish.”

“I know—I’m not saying you have. But it amounts to a kind of selfishness, doesn’t it? Demanding that you support us all?”

“No, Amanda, I’ve never seen it that way.” Bob cautiously put his arm around her shoulder; the heat of his body was stifling but she did not pull away.

“Maybe you just weren’t cut out to be at home.”

“Maybe not.”

They got up and beckoned the children to follow. Sophie raced into the stroller and Ben clambered on the back, complaining that he was too tired to walk any farther.

Amanda told herself that Bob had given an answer to her question, but she wished he had given her something more—approval, disapproval, that sane army of pros and cons he could march out at will and that always brought logic and coherence to her feelings. Admittedly, she had dwelt very little upon the cons, whether out of fear or guilt—though it amounted to pretty much the same thing. Maybe Bob could be so agnostic on the matter because she wasn’t asking so much of him, really—just a nod of approval and a higher tolerance for a messier house. No, the people of whom she would be asking a great deal would be the very people whose opinions would not be solicited. Sophie’s little head was bobbing in the stroller in front of her, looking this way and that, trusting that she was being pushed in the right direction. Children, like ancient tribes, accept that their fate lies at the mercy of forces beyond their comprehension. One day Ben and Sophie would have their mother. The next they would find themselves among the children who arrived at school at seven forty-five in the morning for “Early-Bird Care” and who remained long past three o’clock for “Extended Day.” Instead of rushing to the embrace of Amanda at dismissal time, Ben and Sophie would join the daily shuffle of children into unused classrooms, where they would spend the next several hours gluing Popsicle sticks, waiting for their mother to pick them up. This image, above all others, was the one that most wobbled Amanda’s resolve to return to work.

“How do you think the kids will take it?” she asked Bob in a low voice.

“They’ll get used to it.”

Perhaps a similar image came to his mind, because the comment seemed to effect a change in his mood. As they came upon the Ape House he cheered up considerably—or at least enough to convince the children he was enjoying the visit to the zoo. He accompanied Ben and Sophie inside the smelly enclosure, and afterward consented to a round of ice cream cones; he did not lose his patience even when Ben immediately dropped his on the pavement, and had to be bought another.

When they returned home, everyone was filthy and hot. Bob showered and left for the office—“Got some calls to make and I’ll see if there’s any more fallout from the show”—but he promised not to be home too late. Amanda filled up the kiddie pool and, sipping iced tea, watched the children through the back window. It all came upon her in a rush—the return to a chaotic household, the pressure that would build up inside her like a steam kettle, the sudden preciousness of weekends, the smell of warm bananas in a child’s lunch box at the end of a long day.