Aunt Erma's Cope Book (3 page)

looking for Mr. Goodbody

the HEROINES of these books were always the same. A woman, disenchanted, going through life with a nose tissue in one hand and an absorbent towel in the other, decided to go it alone.

She was always tall with “long legs that stretched luxuriously under the sheets.”

Her stomach was flat, “belying her three beautiful children.”

She had never known ecstasy before.

She had also forgotten about the medical school degree she held until one day when she was lining the knife-and-fork drawer with Contact she ran across it.

She felt guilty about leaving her husband with the three children, $565 a month mortgage payments, a pregnant cat, and a toilet that ran, but “she has to start liking herself” and she can only do that by taking charge of her own life.

At my age, I didn't have the stamina for a rerun. I had begun to note that my body could only do one thing at a time—digest lunch or sit upright.

I wasn't ready to assume the responsibility for the oil changes in my car. I had no curiosity as to where furnace filters went. And besides, I was too domestically geared. (Once when I saw Tom Jones performing in Las Vegas and everyone was throwing their hotel room keys at him, I gave in to an impulse and threw mine. I didn't realize until two days later I had thrown him the key to our freezer.)

Displayed along with the books on married women with a “single” wish were the marriage manuals. They were a trip. I hadn't felt so frustrated since we tried to assemble a bicycle in the closet on Christmas Eve with two washers missing and the instructions written in Japanese.

It made us wonder what we did with our time before Dr. David Reuber invented sex. (One book, How to Build a Relationship for Pennies in Your Own Home, even came with an applause sign for over the bed.)

But it was the testimonials to freedom that intrigued me. In a way, I was filled with envy at the heroines . . . especially their zest for living. How my life paled by comparison. All my friends seemed to be moving on to new adventures. A lot of 'em had returned to work . . . some for the money, but most because they needed the rest. Some of my friends were returning to school and the rest of them were redecorating their empty nests with white shag and mirrors.

Me? I was in a holding pattern. None of mine had abandoned the nest and there was no hope in sight.

My daughter thought the red light on the stove was a hidden camera; my son led the life of a hamster; and my other son considered employment a fad like the hula hoop and mood rings.

They were all at the awkward age.

Too old for Dr. Dentons . . . too young for Dr. Scholl's.

Too old for curfews . . . too young for me to go to sleep until they were home.

Too old to advise . . . too young not to need it.

Too old to wash dishes . . . too young to stop eating.

Too old for an income tax exemption . . . too young for Medicare.

I wish I could be like Mayva. She didn't care what her kids did as long as they had clean hands.

It seemed like I had spent a lifetime giving, loving, and sharing. And you know what giving, loving, and sharing got me? It got me a drawer full of dirty pantyhose, a broken stereo, and a wet toothbrush every morning.

It got me a camera with sand in it, a blouse that died from acute perspiration, a sleeping bag with a broken zipper, and a transistor radio that “suddenly went dead, Mom, when it hit the pavement.”

Other women my age didn't have kids wandering in and out of their closets like a discount house.

They borrowed my tennis racket, my car, my luggage, and my mouthwash. And my binoculars. I had almost forgotten about my binoculars. When I asked my son what happened to them he said, “They're in my room.”

“Well, why don't you put them back where you got them?”

“Why would you want to hang on to a pair of broken binoculars?”

They were driving me crazy with their irregular hours, their slovenly habits, and their lack of responsibility around the house. Besides, they had reached the point where they had learned all of my adult expressions and were using them on me.

“Are you going to clean your room today?” I asked.

“We'll see.”

“It worries me when you're out until all hours of the morning.”

“Big people should not worry about little people. We can take care of ourselves.”

"Well, I don't like it and I'm not going to put up with it.

“Don't use that tone. You're just tired and crabby. Why don't you take a little nap and we'll talk about it when you wake up.”

I had visions of my being the oldest living mother in North America with children at home. I'd be ninety-five and my daughter would be borrowing my last clean pair of SuppHose, my sons installing an automatic Genie door on the refrigerator . . . and every Mother's Day having them chip in and buy me another tooth.

Wanda would have handled it differently. Wanda was the heroine in the book I was reading, Wanda's Cry of May Day. What a woman! One day she just marched out of a pillowcase bingo game and into a singles salad bar, where she ordered a spinach salad with bacon bits. Within three minutes she had struck up a relationship with a man with a tossed salad, bean sprouts, and Thousand Island dressing. She slept with him before their salads digested.

The next day she got a job as vice president of a TV network and threw herself into her work. But she couldn't forget the tossed-salad-with-bean-sprouts-and-Thousand-Island-dressing encounter.

She tried. She produced a documentary in Greece, a miniseries in Russia, and got her Ph.D. at nights. TS with BS and TI called her every day, but she knew what she wanted.

Less than ninety-six pages later she married him, settled down, and on the last page was playing pillowcase bingo and for the first time in a long time felt good about herself.

My husband and I were at the beach when I finished the last chapter. I looked down. I had buried my varicose veins beneath the sand. The flies were going crazy over my hair spray.

My husband was sitting next to me swathed in beach towels to avoid the sun, balancing the checkbook.

It wasn't exactly the surf-and-sand scene in From Here to Eternity.

Okay, so I was content to live vicariously through Wanda and all the others, but was it wrong to want to shift to the next plateau of my life? I approached my daughter with the problem.

“I don't know how to tell you this, but you are keeping me from shifting gears and going on to the next phase of my wonderfulness. Another year or so and it may be too late.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“I guess what I'm trying to say is there are a lot of colleges away from home that provide an opportunity for a person to mingle with people from all kinds of different and exciting backgrounds. In an atmosphere of this sort, there is room to grow and to mature. Isolation from family usually forces one to take charge of one's own life, make one's own priorities, and carry them out without interference. Do you know what I am trying to say?”

She put her hand on mine, “If you wanted to go away to school, Mom, why didn't you say so? We'll manage. We'll eat out a lot.”

“You don't understand,” I said, biting my lip. “Life is divided into many cycles. We have an infant cycle, a childhood cycle, a teenage cycle, a married cycle, and the Grape-Nuts cycle. The end of each cycle is a little frightening because it means change and change means adjusting, but one has to move on, do you understand?”

She nodded and I felt reassured.

“It's a big decision to enter into the next cycle, but if one keeps in mind there are friends who are supportive, striking out on your own isn't bad.”

“If you and Dad wanted your own apartment,” she said, “why didn't you say so? We never dreamt we were getting in your way. This house has to be a lot for you. What you're saying is right. If you feel like you want to come back from time to time, we'll all still be here.”

I was locked in forever with a countertop of dirty glasses, nose tissue left in jeans pockets, and corn pads that patched the water beds.

“You should be putting your own life together,” I said, making one last stab at it. “You have to learn that clean pantyhose do not perpetuate themselves and the meaning of life is more than an herbal connection. If you go away to school you will be responsible for yourself. You'll find self-reliance, independence, feet! Yes, feet. There's a whole group of people out there you've never met before. They're called pedestrians.”

“You are saying you want me to bug off? Split?”

“I wouldn't have phrased it that way.”

“Am I getting close?”

"Your father and I love you, but it's time to move on.

“I understand,” she said. “After this semester ends, I'll start shopping around for a college farther away from home.”

Why was it every time I did something that was good for the kids, I felt rotten?

While in the library returning Wendy's Pool Table Fetish and Other Fantasies I met my friend Nancy.

We talked about my holding pattern and the exodus of my firstborn, then she smiled and said, “It should be apparent what is wrong with you. You're going through your midlife crisis.”

“It sounds redundant,” I said.

“Believe me,” said Nancy, “I know where you're coming from. You feel used up, unfulfilled, unappreciated. Your life is in the Twilight Zone. And you live in fear. Fear that your children are writing a sequel to Mommie Dearest. Fear of dying after you've just eaten a crummy, tasteless salad with a low-calorie dressing. Fear of going to a partner-swapping party and no one wants to swap with you.”

“That's not true,” I said. “I may complain but I have a fulfilling life.”

“I've seen your social calendar,” said Nancy. “It looks like it belongs to a shut-in. Have you never awakened in the morning, looked into a mirror, and said aloud, 'I am never going to be Ambassador to Uganda. My legs will never fit into a boot without a zipper. I will never successfully grow a Boston fern or win the Reader's Digest Sweepstakes. I am built like a caftan'?”

“Nancy,” I said. “Whatever I am, I do not talk to myself. And I do not live in fear of anything. I am a perfectly well-adjusted person.”

“Look,” she said, “I've got a book that not only tells you what crisis is going to appear next in your life, it tells you how to deal with it. It's called Packages and each chapter deals with one little bundle after another of what is in store for you as you reach a certain age. It's like seeing your future before it gets here.”

I didn't think about Nancy or the book until a few days later. As I brushed my teeth, I looked into my reflection in the mirror and for no apparent reason said out loud, “Breathes there a woman with soul so dead / Who never to herself hath said . . . My God! I'm talking to myself.”

I went to the library and checked out Packages by Gayle Teehee.

is there life after packages?

If THERE'S anything my life had been, it had been predictable. You could set your clock by it. Acne at twelve, marriage at twenty-two, labor pains at twenty-six, Miss Clairol at thirty, Sara Lee at thirty-five, and turtleneck sweaters at forty.

I certainly didn't need a book to tell me the twenties had been traumatic, the thirties illusion-shattering, the forties restless and the fifties . . . my God, only two pages titled “Resignation” jammed between turtleneck sweaters and the index.

Packages didn’t waste words. (I guess they figured there wasn't time to waste.) They said I was living in an age of fear. Fear of unfulfillment. Fear of what people thought of me. Fear of poor health. Fear of old age.

That wasn't true. I didn't fear old age. I was just becoming increasingly aware of the fact that the only people who said old age was beautiful were usually twenty-three years old.

In my heart I just refused to believe that Shirley Temple Black was toilet-trained. Oh, there were a few moments of sensitivity. On a trip to renew my driver's license the man behind the counter asked the date of my birth in a loud voice. They tell me I slammed him against the wall, locked my forearm against his throat, and shouted, “Let us just say I'm somewhere between estrogen and death!”

Packages said I had a fear of not knowing what life held for me . . . fear of being abandoned . . . fear of being alone. Were they kidding? As a woman who once named the NFL in an alienation suit, I wrote the book on loneliness. When someone cloned Howard Cosell, I'd begin to worry.

Fear of loss of interest in sex (that was scarcely a problem to a couple who viewed an R-rated movie for the plot) and a fear of phobias.

I slammed the book shut. It was obvious. I was late for my crisis and it had started without me. Why, I didn't have a phobia in the world.

I was feeling rather pleased with myself when my daughter bounded into the house, threw her car keys oh the table, and said, “Guess who's pregnant?”

“Give me a hint.”

“Bunny's mother, Barfy.”

“Get serious,” I laughed. “Barfy is a year older than I am and two years younger than Mickey Mouse.”

“Tell her. She thinks she's Bugs Bunny. I think it's neat. How come you don't have another baby? In a few years we'll all be gone. What will you do to replace us?”

“I'll get measles.”

“A lot of my girlfriends' mothers are getting pregnant. They say having babies makes you feel ten years younger.”

“Than what? And what girlfriends' mothers? Name names!”

“There's Wheezie's mother, Wizard. Cooky's mother, Corky, and possibly Holly's mother. Berry.”

When she was gone, I slumped dejectedly into a chair. I had never been so depressed in my life. What was happening? I had an antique quilt younger than Berry. So there was one fear of midlife I hadn't counted on— Guinnessaphobia: the fear of having a baby after forty.

I couldn't do it. I didn't care what they said about caboose children being such a bonus. If it happened, I'd adjust, but under anesthesia I'd deny I ever said it.

I was too tired for a new family. I fell asleep having my teeth cleaned. I dozed at parties that dragged on until ten o'clock. I couldn't cross my legs after a big meal. One 2 A.M. feeding and I'd have bags under my eyes that would take surgery to correct.

My intellect was dulled. I didn't know any more why God wasn't married, what the inside of a volleyball looked like, or how come my biscuit dough never laughed when you punched it.

I had been there. There were no surprises. I'd spent three rainy days with three kids with chickenpox with a broken washer. I'd fainted from blowing up swimming pools. I'd traveled through three states with a bag of wet diapers under the seat and two kids in the back arguing over a piece of gum with lint on it.

I'd wrestled with strollers on escalators, fights with holy water, and hysteria on the first day of school.

A few days later I saw Barfy in the supermarket. She had that pregnant stance, like a kangaroo wearing earth shoes. She looked tired.

“Barfy!” I said solicitously, staring at her stomach.

“What happened?”

“Would you believe I'm carrying it for a friend?”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “It was just such a shock.”

“It's okay. I get a lot of dumb questions. Like 'Good heavens, are you still walking around with that baby?'”

“I thought you were on the pill.”

“We all were. Wizard, Corky, and Berry. There are no guarantees, you know. Every day someone is suing the pharmaceutical companies.”

“No guarantees,” I said numbly. “I'll bet your family was surprised.”

“They're ecstatic,” she said. “They can hardly wait until it gets here. There are all kinds of promises to change it, feed it, and play with it, but I'm afraid it'll be like Winnie's baby. You remember Winnie. Her kids promised her she wouldn't have to raise an arthritic finger after the baby was born. She was suspicious, but at age forty-three, she finally gave in. When the baby was born she called her daughter to look at it. ”Well,“ said Winnie, ”what do you think of your new responsibility?“ Her daughter looked at the baby, shrugged and said, ”I changed my mind. I'd rather have a new Bee Gees album."

“Gosh, Barfy, isn't it weird being in the doctor's waiting room with all the young girls?”

“Sure, but things have changed nowadays since we had our babies. They breathe them out now. Everything is natural and your husband is with you throughout the birth. Remember how it used to be?”

“Do I ever! I became hysterical and frightened and begged for sedation. And that was just the first prenatal visit.”

“It's a whole new ballgame,” sighed Barfy. “Super-absorbent throwaways, shoulder slings to carry them around, no bottles to fiddle with, and a new relaxed atmosphere.”

“I'm sorry, Barfy, but I can't imagine a delivery without a hairdresser in attendance. That is just too primitive for me.”

That night I had trouble sleeping. All kinds of pictures flashed before my eyes . . . swallowing a diaper pin at age sixty-five, having my baby push me around in a stroller at the zoo, napping during delivery, receiving a pacemaker for Mother's Day, fighting the kid for the baby food, spanking my toddler for coloring on my Social Security check, becoming the first Medicare subscriber to put in a claim for delivery.

The fact was I didn't want to look my age, but I didn't want to act the age I wanted to look either. I also wanted to grow old enough to understand that sentence.

There was definitely a youth cult in this country where people worshiped at the shrine of taut skin and shiny hair. Where only concave stomachs made the billboards and second young wives were royalty.

If you had a wrinkle, you took a snip.

If something sagged, you took a tuck.

If it jiggled, firm it up.

If it stuck out, suck it in.

If it was gray, touch it up.

New faces began to emerge among my old friends. Faces that looked like masks. In fact, I had seen more wrinkles on a baby's bottom. I remember how excited I got one day when I discovered a cosmetic stick that would erase away the lines. I erased my entire face.

According to Packages you were supposed to have a no-panic approach to physical aging, but it wasn't easy when all around you emphasis was put on how old you looked.

I didn't face up to my age until one afternoon when I was lying on the sofa half asleep, half absorbed in the old movie Sunset Boulevard, starring Gloria Swanson and Bill Holden. I had seen it a dozen times, but loved it. It was the big scene. The one where Bill Holden is leaving the aging movie star, Norma Desmond. A line in his speech nearly brought me off the sofa. He said, “There's nothing tragic about being fifty, Norma, unless you're trying to look like twenty-five.”

FIFTY! NORMA DESMOND HAD BEEN FIFTY ALL THOSE YEARS? I had remembered her as ninety-seven if she was a day.

I watched in horror as she descended the staircase, the camera grinding away, the lights on her face. She was only a baby.

I turned on the bathroom light and scrutinized myself carefully. One was always led to believe that aging was a gradual process. It just wasn't true. I went to bed one night and in the morning was struck with all the diseases of the decade I had to live through for the next ten years.

Overnight, I developed a case of LOSS OF MENU. At first I blamed candle failure. Then small print. When I had to drop the menu on the floor to see it or ask the waiter to back into a far wall until I focused, it became apparent I needed glasses.

The next to strike was REUNION ANXIETY. I had dreaded it for years, but no one could have prepared me for the moment I arrived at my reunion and one after another said “You look fantastic!”

Everyone knows when you are twenty, the greeting is “How are you?,” and when you're thirty it's “What are you up to these days?” But when you're over the hill, the standard greeting is “You look fantastic!” Sometimes it's accompanied by the word “Really!,” which is supposed to offer you reassurance.

PREMATURE NOSTALGIA was predictable. Day by day I watched my high school years being satirized in TV sitcoms. My clothing came back into style and the music of my youth was being imitated and satirized. For a while I tried looking blank when someone mentioned Patti Page, but it fooled no one.

The HAVE I TAKEN MY PILL YET FETISH was the hardest to adjust to. One morning I looked at the window ledge over the sink and there was a line of pills to keep me operational. They never seemed to make any difference, they were just there . . . little bottles of pills with childproof caps. Despite them I still suffered from leg cramps all night when I wore heels to a party.

My case of MEMORY DEFICIENCY became a classic. I got on a salt kick. One week I ran out of salt and made a mental note to buy it. For every week after that for about two years, I bought a box of salt because I couldn't remember if I had bought it originally. Every time I tried to remember the age of my middle child, I had to go back to the year of his birth and count up. Memory deficiency got so bad with me, I forgot to repeat a piece of gossip I swore on my Grandmother's Grave never to divulge. But the worst disease of my midlife was a case of INSUBORDINATE BODY. In my youth, my brain would say to my feet, “Take that laundry to the second floor.” NOT ANY MORE. The legs rebelled and I stacked so many things at the bottom of the stairs I nearly killed myself.

I must have read the chapter on Resignation a hundred times and each time became more depressed. It sounded like I was approaching the prime of my senility.

We were going into the middle of July when my daughter announced she was going away to school in the northern part of the state. She was happy about it.

I confided to my hairdresser, Mr. Steve, about her decision: “Isn't that just like children? You devote your life to them . . . spoon-feed them, sit with them all night under a vaporizer, pack them with vitamins, straighten their teeth, curl their hair, care for them, love them, and they reach twenty or so and pick up and leave you.”

“I thought that's what you wanted,” he said.

“It's not what I wanted. It's what comes with my midlife cycle. Don't you understand? My life is all arranged for me. At a certain age we must shift gears and go on to the next phase of our life. I have no control over it.”

“Of course you have control over your life,” he said, swinging me around in my chair. “Tell me, what sign were you born under?”

I shrugged. “My birthday is February twenty-first.”

“Umm, I thought so,” he said. “Pisces. That explains everything. Forget all this mishmash about your life being predictable. I tell you you can control your own destiny if you just heed your sign. I swear by a book called Get Off Your Cusp and Live! by Jeanne Vixon. The moment I looked at you, I knew your moon was in her second decan, which added a secret longing to your Neptunian impregnability, and that the latter decan is augmented by tempestuous Mars, which offers energy and immeasurable support.”

“What does that mean?”

“Either you start using moisturizer around your eyes, sweetie, or lay in a supply of wood filler!”