Fairy Tale Blues (9 page)

My breath caught in my throat, cutting off my ability to swallow my sip of chai.

I corrected myself: only five years
out
of a long marriage.

Annie

 

 

T
his morning when I woke up, I realized four days had passed since Dad left, and I was boldly going nowhere. Creating my instant home took only an instant, and now I needed a life to live in it. I could no longer lie here in bed, patting my head over how brave and wonderful I'd been to set up a home for myself in a new place. But in a fresh swell of pride, I patted my head again anyway.

Surrounded by strangeness, I had replayed the lesson I'd learned two decades ago as a new mother: whatever you fed and tended repeatedly became your own—no matter how red and alien it was or how shrill it screamed. So I had filled my new shelves and cupboards and corners, then tended my odd assortment of trinkets and—snap your fingers—I'd created a place I cared about.

By now moldy leftovers even resided in my refrigerator, I discovered when I padded out to the kitchen in my nightgown. I peeked inside a plastic dish. In Florida you didn't just toss food into the trash can; the process of decay began the moment anything left refrigeration, and the process moved fast. Which was the reason, my father claimed, that the residents rarely left air-conditioned homes, cars and shopping malls. “You begin to rot the minute you step out the door,” he'd said.

I returned the food to the refrigerator, made coffee and gathered my breakfast to carry to the porch. My first delivered newspaper lay on the landing, wisely sheathed in plastic. Wisely, since a hit-and-run cloud could spill tubs of water without notice of wind or thunder. This very crime of nature probably accounted for the beads of water filling the porch screen and jeweling on top of the newspaper's orange plastic wrap like garish sequins. I dabbed a toe in a pool of rain water on the landing and found it warm. I stepped in with both feet and watched the blue-green triangle of ocean over the rooftops.

I felt listless—literally without a list, a to-do list—for perhaps the first time in my adult life. Back home I had yearned for days with nothing scheduled and had savored the idea of their emptiness with a kind of mental sensualism. I wiggled my toes in the puddle, then stomped, splashing water up my ankle bones. With the morning's heat this puddle could dissolve sugar. So warm, organisms were probably hatching between my toes. For a painful moment I longed to stand on my log porch in Wyoming, cross-country skis in hand, breathing cold, slicing air, ready to head out with my three dogs before going to work. I pictured on the door the wreath that I'd made from scavenging the slopes and folds of Snow King Mountain behind our house. Leathery Oregon grape leaves in purple and scarlet, sagebrush, wild rose hips, juniper and snowberries. And on top, a robin's nest from last spring. She had built her nest on the wreath, then laid four blue eggs in it. Jess and I had to stop using the front door for a few weeks, but we got to watch the whole drama of baby birds hatching, being fed by a pair of solicitous parents and then applaud when the young birds learned to fly to the porch railing and back.

This morning I felt like both the baby bird testing its wings and the anxious parent looking on.

I returned inside the screened porch for breakfast and found my coffee was the same temperature as the puddle. I opened the newspaper. Along the edge of the third page a large ad announced
Last day to sign up.
This was either synchronicity or any old idea would have sounded good to me, due to my need to accomplish something tangible with my time down here.

Only a dozen of us stood in line to sign up for late registration, probably because it was so late. Classes would begin at the Gold Coast College Monday, after the weekend, but I had just realized this morning that a college campus accounted for the spread of trees and grass where I had been taking walks when I didn't go to the beach. I sincerely hoped my mental fog would lift soon, as I was apparently missing quite a lot with my head down, lost in thoughts about Jess and home.

The campus had once been a pineapple plantation, and I read yellowed newspaper clippings about life on the plantation, framed beneath glass, as the line moved along the hallway, until I ran out of them and was left to stare at a huge map of the United States hanging over the registrar's desk.

From behind me a woman said, “Ever notice how Florida hangs off the continent like a flaccid penis?”

I turned, knowing I'd see someone interesting.

“The entire state,” she continued, staring up at the map, “says to the world, ‘I'm just not that into you.' ” She grinned when I laughed and said, “Hi, I'm Marcy ‘Empty-nest Syndrome' Marden. What have you decided to be now that your divorce is final?”

“Gosh, is it that plain?”

“I hit it right on?”

“No, you're actually off quite a bit. But similar setup.”

“After we're finished here, let's meet at the Green Bottle Café, and you can tell me how psychic I am.”

I signed up for five classes, a full load. When seeking diversion, accrue college credits at the same time was my motto. Besides, I'd always felt slightly embarrassed about not having a full four-year degree, since I had dropped out after two years when Jess and I married and moved to Jackson Hole. After that, life never sent a strong enough invitation to finish off the final two years. The nearest college to Jackson Hole was a hundred miles away in another state and over two scary mountain passes, often closed due to avalanches in the winter. Cam and Saddler attended the only university in Wyoming, located on the other end of the state in Laramie, four hundred fifty miles away.

But I was receiving a strong enough invitation now. A sense of accomplishment could only help my case down here, feeling as I did that I was playing hooky from my real life. Now I had a reason to be here. “Oh yeah, I left my home and husband abruptly because I needed to get down to this little town in Florida real quick and sign up for college classes.”

That may take some editing, but it could possibly work as a general excuse back home.

My best friend and old college roommate, Gina, probably wouldn't fall for it, and neither would my sons. I had plenty of time before meeting Marcy for lunch, so I strolled around campus and chose to sit on the low, sloping trunk of a palm that grew almost horizontal before lifting its bristly brush of fronds into the sky. I hadn't called my sons yet and hoped to practice with Gina and maybe learn a few tips from her about telling the boys my story. Since Cam and Saddler had just been home for Christmas and New Year's, they would have been alarmed if I'd phoned too soon after their return to school. By waiting to call, I hoped to set a more relaxed tone for my news.

Gina covered her shock at hearing about my marriage sabbatical as smoothly as I knew she would. I told her I was worried about telling the guys about it.

Gina said, “Just tell Cam and Saddler the truth, like you did when they were toddlers: ‘Mommy loves you very much and everything is going to be fine.' ”

I said, “That worked remarkably well once. Maybe it will again.”

“But tell me the grown-up version. What's up, sweet girl?”

“This is as much as I know for sure: Jess has been AWOL from the marriage; I've been AWOL from myself and somehow I got the bright idea that a winter in Florida would solve everything.”

“Your bright ideas are always on the mark, Annie. Just follow the lights along the path one step at a time, and you'll come out right where you want to be. I believe in you.”

“Don't make me cry. I'm in a public place.”

“Just to let you know you're heading in the right direction, concerning Jess, both Jim and I have felt his distraction the last couple years, too. He's such a bighearted guy and so much fun to be around, but his avoidance patterns have seemed to pop into stronger relief lately. It always makes me think about his mother's accident. Not to be too simplistic, but with both the guys off to school, life is opening up all over again for the two of you. . . . It's just a time, Annie, for stuff to come up. Maybe Jess is thinking about things.”

“You and Jim are going through the same thing now with your kids gone.”

“And we're bumping up against each other in whole new ways. We don't have any serious trouble, but neither of us has any traumas in our backgrounds either, especially ones we don't talk about to anybody. Jess does.” Gina added, “Sorry. I may be way off here. I'm just scrambling to give you a handle on this.”

“No, you're right. That is a big piece of it.”

Gina assured me that I'd figure it out and reminded me to try to enjoy myself while I was working on it. I told her I met a woman whom I was having lunch with today.

Gina said, “That's good. But don't like her better than me, okay?”

“Fat chance.”

I snapped my phone closed and held it in both hands on my lap. Thank goodness for Gina. I could use half a dozen friends like her, but never had time to make them. Then I straightened my back and called my older son, Saddler.

“Hello, baby boy.” I loved calling him that. It always reminded me of the moment the obstetrician held the newborn Saddler up to me in the delivery room—twenty-two years ago now—and said, “You are the mother of a baby boy.” All that first night I didn't sleep, but just repeated those words to myself, “You are the mother of a baby boy.” I followed Gina's advice in that I confirmed that I loved him and paraphrased Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well. All manner of things shall be well.” I had been reading about this thirteenth-century nun in one of those secondhand books I had piled beside the sofa.

Saddler surprised me by saying, “Mom, you guys will be okay. You love each other too much. Come home soon, but have some fun while you're in Florida, okay?”

I promised I would, noting that was the second time I had gotten the advice to add some pleasure to my life. Then I phoned Cam. A similar assurance from me and another surprising response from my second son. “Dad won't know what to do with himself.”

“He won't?” That didn't sound like the man I knew, busy with his sports and search-and-rescue work, always outside, checking on the wildlife. “He's pretty busy, Cam.”

“But he schedules everything for when you aren't available. I'll call and see if he wants to come down for a game or something.”

When I hung up from that call, I sat a moment, smoothing my hand over the tree trunk beside where I sat. In the mirror each of my sons held up to my marriage, I saw that Saddler reflected the strength of love Jess and I held for each other, and he was right about that. From Cam I saw that he viewed his father as designing his life around mine, almost propped against mine. I'd have to think how right that was, because all along it had seemed the opposite was true: I designed my life around Jess.

 

When I arrived at the Green Bottle Café, I found I wasn't the only person Marcy had recruited. Two other women sat in the booth with her. Also strangers to each other, they were just introducing themselves as I approached.

“Sit,” Marcy commanded, and moved over to make space next to herself, facing the windows. Plate glass stretched the entire width of the café's front, broken only by a door in the center. Glass shelves across the windows held—who would guess?—green bottles. Hundreds of empty green bottles. Tall, squat, plain, fancy. I felt as if we were sitting inside an algae-covered aquarium. When I was introduced to Perry and Sara, I expected our words to bubble up toward the ceiling. I was feeling nervous as I repeated their names in my head: Perry and Sara.

I said, “Hi, Para and Sarie. I mean Perry and Sara.” If I'd been a blusher I wondered what color that would have made my face in this greenish light.

“Sara,” Marcy said, tipping her open palm toward a woman with a short single braid over her shoulder, “is returning to school for a paralegal degree because her husband says that brings in the most money.

“Perry, here . . . ” Marcy moved her palm to indicate a soft-featured woman with a clipped boy cut, long blond bangs to one side, somewhere in her early to mid-forties like Marcy and Sara. “You tell, Perry.”

“I am resorting to pleading with total strangers to listen to complaints about my husband, because I'm afraid I'll leave him if I don't vent, and to please don't tell anybody what I say, because people know my family around town.” She took a big breath and looked around the café. “I might take up drinking. Do they serve liquor here?”

Marcy said, “You don't need to take up drinking; you just need friends. AnnieLaurie is leaving her husband, too. We're all a mess. That's why I picked you to have lunch. That and your age—you're all grown-ups.”

“What age?” Sara asked. Perry mumbled a humorous thanks, and I felt glad to be sitting on an outside seat of the booth and began making up excuses in my head to leave.

“I thought we grown-ups could bond,” Marcy said. “Have you noticed we're in the minority on campus? And in town, for that matter. At school we are surrounded by children, in town by old people. Excuse me: ‘senior citizens.' ”

“I'm beginning to hate that phrase,” I said. The term was used excessively by advertisers in this state.

Sara said, “I'm not a mess.”

“You are if you're studying for a career your husband chose for money reasons. I know, because I often threaten to leave mine for saying annoying things like that.”

The waitress approached to take our orders, but I believed, like me, probably everyone except Marcy was thinking how they could get out of staying for lunch. Nobody ordered, but kept eyes glued to the menu, like me, probably without reading it.