How to Be Single (40 page)

She rang her mother's doorbell. She lived on a quiet little street in Somerville. No one answered. She rang again, surprised—Ruby had called and told her she was coming. She walked down the driveway, around to the back of the house. Shelley was in the back raking leaves. She was now sixty-eight years old, with dyed light brown hair, which had streaks of gray in it and was cut in a short, curly little bob. She had Ruby's body—round, voluptuous, but with the added weight that comes from deciding to grow old gracefully rather than spending every spare moment at the gym. Unseen, Ruby watched her mother for a moment; she looked hearty. Comfortable in her own skin. She wondered how happy she was these days. Her mother looked up.

“Ruby!” she said, coming over and giving her daughter a big hug. “It's so wonderful to see you!”

Of course it is, because you're my mother and I'm your daughter and all mothers are always happy to see their children. There must be a reason for that.

“You look great, Ma,” Ruby said, meaning it.

“So do you! So do you! Let's go inside!”

After Ruby showered and changed, she walked into the kitchen, where her mother had the tea ready. “I made some cinnamon toast, too! Just like the old times!” Ruby smiled, thinking that was such a nostalgic thing to do. Every time it snowed, there would always be cinnamon toast waiting for Ruby when she came inside. It was her mother's little tradition, one that was passed down from her own mother. The tea for them was an adult tradition, one that they shared down to the idiosyncratic detail. They both liked weak American tea—Lipton will do just fine, thank you very much—and when together, like today, they knew implicitly that they would share a tea bag between them. She sat down at the table.

“Tell me all about New York. What's going on?”

Some people have sophisticated mothers, ones they can talk to about their abstract thoughts and who can tell them where to go to buy the one bra they're looking for.

That was not Shelley, which never bothered Ruby a bit. Because what you got instead of someone who might have seen that documentary about Sudanese refugees was a mother who reacted to everything you did with complete wonder and glee. You got someone who wanted to hear everything about Manhattan and your business and your life because it was all still so exciting to her.

“Well, a new restaurant opened in the Village,” Ruby said, “but no one can get in because it's always filled with the owner's friends. It's pissing everyone off.”

“Really? That's so interesting. Are there a lot of celebrities there all the time?”

“Every night.”

Ruby's mom just shook her head. “That's not right.”

Ruby smiled. “It's not.” She sipped her tea and picked up a piece of cinnamon toast. She took a bite.

“Mom. I've been wondering. About what it was like for you.”

“What it was like how, dear?”

“Well, you know, as a single mother.”

Shelley rolled her eyes. “Oh, it was hell. It was awful. I had a miserable time.”

“Were you lonely?”

“Honey, I was so lonely that I thought about killing myself on a number of occasions. I'm not joking. It was horrible, it really was.” Shelley sipped her tea. “So who is the owner of this restaurant? Is he famous, too?”

“Yeah, sort of. He runs a magazine.” Ruby tried to get her mom back on track. “So, it really was just as awful an experience for you as I remember?”

“Oh, I'm sure it was worse than you remember. It was the worst time in my life,” she said, with a little laugh.

Ruby took another sip of her weak tea and burst out crying. She put her elbows on the table and her head in her hands. “I'm sorry, Mom.” Ruby looked up at her mother. “I'm sorry you were so unhappy. I'm so sorry.”

Ruby's mom put a hand on Ruby's arm and leaned in close, smiling. “But don't you see? I'm fine now. I'm happy. I have friends and my garden and I go out all the time.”

Ruby started to sob even harder. “It's too laaaaate! You needed to be happy back then! So I could think it was okay to be a single mom! It's too late!”

Shelley looked at Ruby, trying to take this in. She didn't feel attacked, just terribly sad. She touched Ruby's shoulder. “But honey, you're not like me, you're nothing like me! If you want to be a single mother, you won't be like me at all!”

Ruby leaped out of her chair, with tears streaming down her face, her voice choked and trembling. “But I'm just like you. I like tea and I'm depressed and I stay in bed and I cry a lot and I'm really, really lonely.”

Ruby's mother got up and put her hands on Ruby's shoulders. “Well, if you're so much like me, then do what I did. Get yourself to a doctor and get yourself on a nice antidepressant. Lexapro worked for me.”

Ruby looked at her mother, surprised.

“What?”

“I've been on an antidepressant for the past year. It's changed my life.”

“You…what?” Ruby stammered, still trying to process this news.

“There's no reason for you to be walking around depressed. There's no good reason whatsoever. You should get a prescription, too.”

Ruby sat down at the kitchen table again. It was shocking. Even after the countless nights spent crying, the days of not being able to get out of bed, Ruby had never even considered taking an antidepressant. It hadn't even crossed her mind. And yet here in the suburbs, her unsophisticated mother had beaten her to it.

She spent the rest of the day sitting at her mother's kitchen, crying. She told her about the fertility drugs, about not being able to go through with it, about how she remembered how miserable her mom was, and how it made her leave the doctor's office. It was Shelley's turn to start crying.

“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I should have tried harder to hide how unhappy I was, I'm so sorry.”

Ruby continued to cry as well, saying, “It's not your fault. How could you have hidden that? You did your best, I know that. I do.”

“Yes, but I wish someone had told me…”

“What?”

“That it was also my job, besides feeding you and getting you dressed, and making sure you did your homework, it was also my job to somehow make myself happy. For you. So you could see that. I'm so sorry.”

Ruby reached over and held her mother's hand. “There's no way you could have done it all. There's no way.” Then she and her mom sat there the rest of the day, talking and holding hands, making each other feel better and sipping their Lipton tea.

Georgia's children were staring at Mark Levine. Mark Levine was smiling a wide, closed-lipped smile, as if he had just caught something in his mouth that he didn't want to let out, but wanted to make sure everyone knew he was happy.

“So,” he began. “How are you two today?”

Beth and Gareth looked at him blankly. Georgia had some sort of satisfaction at this. Her kids instinctively knew he was an asshole and that they shouldn't talk to him. His lips went back to their closed smile. He tried again.

“I'm here because your mother and dad want me to find out how you two are doing now that your dad isn't living here anymore.”

Silence.

“For instance, I heard that one night you were left all alone, isn't that right? And were you scared?”

Georgia looked down at her hands. She felt beads of sweat popping up on her forehead. She had never before realized how much energy it could take to
not
kill someone.

Again, silence. Blessed, hostile, sullen, child silence.

Mark Levine looked at Georgia. “Maybe it would be best if I spoke to them on my own?”

Georgia looked at him, startled. “But…I didn't know that you're allowed to…”

“We are absolutely allowed to question the children without you in the room. For your protection, I have a tape recorder so it's not just my word you'll have to take.”

Georgia, of course, wanted to protest, but considering how the last meeting went, she decided to restrain herself.

“Of course you can. I'll just go into my bedroom and shut the door.”

“Thank you,” Mark Levine said. “This shouldn't take too long.”

Georgia stood up and looked at her children. Her children who were now her judge, jury, and executioner. Her moody, fibbing, childish, adorable, bratty, unpredictable children who were now going to have every word they said written down as if they were the Dalai Lama. Georgia glanced at Gareth.
Last week he had an imaginary friend who was a giant tarantula. Yeah, talk to them about who they want to live with. Motherfucker.

“Now you talk to Mr. Levine, okay? Tell the truth and answer all his questions. We both want you to just say how you feel, okay?”

She then walked slowly and confidently back to her bedroom. When she got to her room she closed the door and threw herself on her bed, buried her face in a pillow, and let out as loud a scream as she dared. After a moment, she sat up and stared into space.

Georgia wondered how she had gotten here; to a place where a court might rule that she was an unfit mother. She thought about her marriage. Images started flashing before her eyes of the fight she had with Dale on the street once about how he never picked up the mail. She thought about how she would snap at him in the morning, because he always dumped coffee grounds on the counter—and there's nothing she hated more than having to wipe up coffee grounds and then wrestle them off the sponge. She thought about how stupid she thought he was for never knowing how to use the microwave, or how angry he would get when the paper wasn't delivered correctly, but would never bother to call and complain about it. She wondered when she started disliking him so much, and when she became so unrestrained in making him aware of that. It must have been after the kids came. She heard that was common in marriages. Why was that? After they are done procreating, do women subconsciously decide the man has fulfilled his duty, and so they let him know in big and small ways that they have no use for him any longer? Why would she feel that way? It was not like she wanted to be a single mother. It was not that she wanted to go out and date again.

She thought about Sam and buying herself all those flowers. She thought about dancing on top of the bar and the man telling her to get off because he wanted a hotter girl to get on. She thought about chasing the guy down at Whole Foods. It was all coming in flashes, each image more humiliating than the next. And of course, she thought about the Bryan frenzy that caused her to feel the need to run out of the house, leaving her two children alone.

She realized then that she really had gone crazy. And she had no one to blame but herself. In the marriage, she felt entitled to have unbridled irritation for Dale at any time, with any provocation. Then, being left by Dale made her feel entitled to act without any restraint whatsoever. Somehow she had lost control of herself, and now she had lost control over her own motherhood. She sat wondering what her kids could possibly be saying about her. She remembered when she was called to the school after Gareth had hit another boy. She came and talked to the principal while Gareth sat on a bench in the hall outside, nervous and ashamed.
Well, the tables have certainly turned, haven't they?

After about twenty-five minutes, which was an eternity, Georgia decided to peek her head out and see what was going on.
I am their mother, after all.

“Just making sure everything is all right!” Georgia said, with her body in the bedroom, her head leaning out into the hallway.

Everyone was where they were before, the two kids on one sofa facing Mark Levine on the other. No one seemed particularly traumatized, no one seemed particularly angry at her.

“We're actually done, perfect timing,” Mark Levine said.

There was nothing in his demeanor to suggest that anything particularly earth-shattering or indicting had been said. He gave Georgia his usual tight smile, said good-bye to the children, and left.

Georgia looked at her children. They didn't seem upset or angry. But still, she wanted very badly to ask them to act out the entire twenty-five-minute interview. But instead, Georgia did something she hadn't done in a very long time;
she showed restraint.
Georgia walked into the living room and up to Beth and Gareth and sat down next to them. She gently asked, “Are you guys okay?” They both nodded. She looked at them carefully, to see if there was anything that needed to be done. “Do either of you have any questions?” They didn't say anything. They looked okay; unharmed.

“Okay, then. Who wants a snack?”

B
asically, I cried all the way to India. And by this point, I didn't care who saw me. The man next to me asked if he could change his seat (which he was able to do) and two flight attendants asked me if I needed anything.

When I arrived, a friend of a friend of a friend of Serena's from the yoga center, a woman named Amrita, was going to meet me. I had no idea what would make this perfect stranger be willing to do this, but I was very grateful. I didn't have the will to be adventurous and strong. I had an image of India of lepers begging on the streets and cows running rampant. But I also read
Time Out Mumbai
between crying jags on the plane, and I couldn't imagine that a city where they had a
Time Out
review of performance art would also have cows and begging children. So, I didn't know what to expect.

As I walked into the airport, the first thing I thought was that it didn't look very different than any other airport I had been to, just less modern. It had the white walls and floors, fluorescent lighting, signs telling you where to go. But after I got my bags and walked outside, I knew I was in India. There was chaos everywhere. Men standing next to their dilapidated taxis were calling loudly to passengers coming out of the airport. Cars were jammed up against one another, honking and trying to get out of the parking lot. The air was thick and hot. There was an odd, unidentifiable odor everywhere.

If I weren't meeting Serena's extended friend, I might have had a nervous breakdown right there. But as soon as I walked out, a beautiful woman with long, thick black hair, and wearing jeans and a loose-fitting cotton tunic, came up to me. “Excuse me, are you Julie?”

“Yes I am. You must be Amrita.”

“I am. Welcome to Mumbai.”

We got into her little car and she took off. It was dark, so it was difficult for me to really see out the window. But I thought I could make out makeshift huts and lean-tos on the sides of the road, and people sleeping out on the street, but I wasn't sure. I was hoping I was mistaken.

Amrita cheerfully asked me about my project.

“I heard you're writing a book about single women all over the world.”

I cringed. It was really the last thing I wanted to talk about. I straightened her out.

“I'm here just to find comfort. I've heard it's such a spiritual place.”

Amrita nodded, silently. Well, she didn't really nod. She had this odd little habit of bobbling her head in a way that made you not really sure if she was saying “yes” or “no.” She also had a habit of honking an enormous amount while she was driving, a habit most of the other drivers shared with her.

As Amrita tapped on her horn, she said, “Most of the yoga ashrams are outside of Mumbai. Were you planning on going to one of those?”

“Yes, my friend Serena suggested one.”

She kept driving and honking. I squinted out the window and saw a young couple zip by on a moped. The woman was wearing a sari and it flapped in the wind as she rode sidesaddle.

Amrita spoke again. “I think this idea of how to be single is a very good one. There are many decisions we have to make when we're single. Very important ones.”

She furrowed her thick, black eyebrows. She seemed to have something on her mind. I couldn't help but ask…

“What decisions do you have to make?”

Amrita shrugged. “I'm thirty-five. My family is pressuring me to get married. I have been dating, hoping for a love marriage. But…”

She looked like she was about to cry. Here's the last thing I felt like hearing about: someone else's lousy love life. But I took a deep breath and listened.

“The last man I dated had no money. I paid for everything. Dinners, movies, even trips. My family thought I was crazy. They said he was using me. One time, we went shopping, and he asked me to buy him a sweater. And I did! Then he broke up with me, just like that.”

Tears started to fall down her cheeks. I felt like Angela Lansbury in
Murder, She Wrote.
Every time she went anywhere, even on vacation, the poor old gal stumbled across a murder. Everywhere I went, relationship dramas seemed to unfold.

“He said I was too independent, too focused on my career.” The tears kept falling. She kept driving and honking. I nodded, trying to be sympathetic.

“Yeah, well, it seems like he didn't mind your career when it could buy him a sweater.”

Amrita bobbled her head vigorously. “Exactly. I think I dated him so long because my family hated him. I thought they were being racist, because we're Brahmins, and he's Vaishya. But now I see they were right.”

I looked out the window again and saw what appeared to be an entire family on a moped. A father, mother, son, and daughter all squeezed in together. I blinked. Yep, that's what I saw.

I was extremely tired. I was so grateful to Amrita for allowing me not to have to take a cab from the airport, but I really just wanted her to shut up.

“So now, I am letting my family find him. They have been looking on the matrimonial sites and have picked out some men for me. Their horoscopes look good, and so I'm going to start meeting them.”

Okay, that woke me up. Matrimonial sites? Horoscopes? As we drove into the city through narrow streets, she told me about the popularity of the matrimonial sites, which are just like dating sites but for the specific purpose of arranging marriages. She told me that often it's the family that puts the son or daughter's photo up.

“Well, that's kind of great, sparing the actual people the embarrassment and hassle of doing it themselves.”

Amrita's eyebrows rose. “But that's not why they do it. They do it because it's understood that parents know better who would be a good match for their children than the children themselves.” I thought of my own romantic decisions. This idea was beginning to make sense to me.

She also explained the important role the horoscope played in matchmaking, all about the planets and moons and birth time—I got the impression that it wasn't the same kind of astrology that the
New York Post
employed to tell me what kind of day I was going to have.

“If the astrology is not a good match, I won't even meet the man.” I was definitely not in the West Village anymore.

We parked near where I would be staying, a modest “economy” hotel in South Mumbai. As Amrita helped me roll my luggage down the street, I realized that these single Indian women have something that we American women don't really have: a backup plan. They can go out into the world, discarding their families' outdated views on marriage to look for love on their own—and if it doesn't work out, their moms and dads and aunts and uncles and cousins and sisters-in-law are more than happy to swoop in and get things cracking.

“Would you like to meet my sister tomorrow? She decided on an arranged marriage, and she's very happy.”

I looked at Amrita, surprised. I was planning on spending the day crying and then maybe figuring out how to get to the ashram Serena recommended. I was over the whole “research” aspect of this trip and was looking forward to just doing shoulder stands and drinking mango lassis.

“I think it might be good research for your book.” I didn't know how to tell her that I'd rather gnaw off my arm and beat myself over the head with it until I passed out than go talk to a happily married couple about how in love they are. So instead, I said, “I'd love to.”

“Good. I'll pick you up at noon? Is that okay?” I agreed and checked in.

My room was small, with two double beds, a television, and a desk. It was no marble-covered Bali bungalow, but then we're not in Bali anymore, are we? Or China. We're in India. And I still didn't quite understand what that meant.

The next day, I was back in the car with Amrita. The difference between driving with her then, as opposed to the previous evening, was the difference, well, between night and day. As we spoke about her sister Ananda, it was difficult for me not to notice the poverty now fully visible outside my window. On the highways, you could see crumbled and dirty buildings that seemed more like bunkers than places to live. But going into the town where we were supposed to be meeting her sister, I saw the images that one might see taken by any photojournalist in any third world country: the naked children on the street walking next to what had to be raw sewage. Children, not in school, but playing on heaps of rubble. Older children banging on pieces of tin scraps, as some kind of menial job. And mothers walking around, barefoot, in and out of their little makeshift huts, right on the side of the road. When our car came to a stop, a little girl banged on my window. She had a dirty face and big black vacant eyes, and she kept putting her fingers to her mouth, in a gesture that seemed to be her way of saying she was begging for money for food. Amrita saw me look at her.

“Don't give these children money. It's all organized crime. They have to give the money to someone who is in charge of this neighborhood. They go to you because you're white and they think you'll feel bad for them.”

I looked at the girl as she kept putting her fingers to her lips. Well, I did feel bad for her, actually. Was I really supposed to just drive by without doing anything? Yes, I was. And we did. As we drove through this village, right by the ocean, I decided I didn't want to become the cliché. I didn't want to be one of those tourists who go to India and then come back and tell people with that tone of overwrought pity in their voice, “Oh, India, the poverty there, it's just
unimaginable.
” This wasn't my country, this wasn't my problem, and I don't know a damn thing about anything.

We drove up a road and into a high-rise building with a wraparound parking lot. Over to the side there was a lawn area, green and lush with trees and bushes and benches. This seemed like a fancy place to live, by Mumbai standards, even though the building, no matter how high-end, seemed to be covered in a thin layer of soot. But come to think of it, that could be said of all Mumbai.

The few things I felt I knew about India before coming here was that one must never,
ever,
drink the water. This was such a serious issue that I read you shouldn't even brush your teeth with the stuff, and as much as possible, turn your face away from it when you were showering.

But here I was, sitting in front of this woman, a woman who had allowed me into her home, who was about to talk to me about her marriage just to help me with my book, who was now holding out a glass of water for me to take.

“You must be thirsty; it's very hot today.”

I took the glass and watched her watch me not drink from it. Not wanting her to think that I thought her water, and thereby her home, was dirty, I took a sip.

“Thank you. I appreciate it.” I imagined the germs and the parasites now swimming down my throat and into my intestines.

“Amrita told me that you are writing a book about love and being single all over the world?” Ananda asked.

I nodded my head politely. “I am. It's been a very interesting experience.”

Ananda and Amrita sat on a sofa together, with me in the armchair across from them. One of Ananda's daughters, around five years old, came and sat on her lap. She had short black hair with a little pink plastic clip pushing her bangs back.

“So, Amrita said that you decided to go with an arranged marriage, instead of a love match?”

Ananda nodded her head. She seemed excited to speak. “Yes. I had just finished my master's in psychology. I wasn't sure what I was going to do next, but I was thinking about going to get my doctorate. I had been dating on my own, like Amrita.”

I looked at the two of them. I had found Amrita to be very attractive, but now seeing her with her sister, I saw that Ananda was probably the one who was considered the prettiest. She was more petite than her sister, and her delicate features made her seem a bit more regal.

“I wasn't like Amrita. When my parents would tell us every now and then that they had a boy they wanted us to meet, Amrita would always refuse.” She put a hand on Amrita's shoulder. “I would at least humor them.”

Amrita shrugged her shoulders, a bit regretfully, it seemed to me. She jumped in to help with the story. “So one day, my parents said they wanted her to meet someone. So this man came with his family to our home. The families talked for a bit…”

“And then we went on the terrace to chat. He seemed nice. After twenty minutes he asked what I thought. I said, ‘Okay, why not?' So we came downstairs and told our parents that we would get married.”

They both started laughing at the memory of it. Ananda continued. “My parents were shocked. You should have seen their faces. They thought this was going to be another boy I just sent away.”

Amrita added, “When she called me and told me, I thought she was playing a joke on me. It took her a half hour just to convince me that she was serious…”

I was so confused. “But…I don't understand…was it love at first sight? Were you just tired of dating?”

Ananda shrugged. “I don't know. He seemed nice.”