Problems (9 page)

“Peter!” I yelled. No one else said anything. I guess we were not supposed to literally shout.

Peter nodded, “Yup.”

Sue dug one out. “I am thankful for having a mother who taught us the value of sacrifice.”

No one said anything. Finally Sandy said, “Marcie.” Marcie nodded. So Marcie was Peter's mother's sister. They didn't really look alike. Marcie was as skinny as a jackrabbit, with a dyke haircut and a warm smile. Sandy's face was as long as Sunday, and her body was wide and heavy, like mine would be if I ever had kids and got to sixty.

“I am thankful to Jesus,” some number or chapter of the Bible I didn't really hear, “and have been thinking and praying on the idea of judgment and hoping the Lord will guide me to a state of mind where I will not cast judgment on anyone.” I pointed to Rick. “That was you, huh?” He nodded. I told myself I should quit guessing and give other people a chance.

I wished I could stop talking. I couldn't stop talking. I had nothing to say.

“I am thankful for not living in poverty, being in pain, or having too little or too much, but most of the time feeling all right, and even good, full of good food and wine, and good company like tonight.” There was a general mmm and aw.

“A writer wrote that,” Darren said, and everyone nodded. “Maya, was that you?”

I nodded. When in doubt, just ramble a little, Kerouac style.

Peter's mother gave me an approving nod. “Very nice,” she said.

It was Peter's turn. “I am thankful for friends, new and old,” he read. He refilled his wine glass. He was obviously wasted.

Grace guessed, “Sue?”

Sue nodded. Friends new and old. Hallmark bullshit.

It was my turn. I took one out. “I am thankful to the Lord for keeping me safe and well during my travels.” Grace had just come back from Italy.

I had completely lost interest. I mentally replayed how impressed everyone had been with what I wrote.

“After dinner the men sat on the living room floor and sang songs while the women cleaned up the kitchen,” I told my therapist a week later, and then buried my head into a pillow.

“Where were you?”

“I lingered in the kitchen, but every time I grabbed a pot and took it to the counter, there was no space for it, so Sandy had to move this huge, heavy blender, like, just so I could put down the mashed potatoes. I was making things more difficult for her. I started doing the dishes, but she said, ‘Don't worry about it. There's a dishwasher.' Sue was loading the dishwasher and made me feel dumb for not thinking of it. I am not good that way. I don't know how she seamlessly blends in and knows where everything goes. Some people can just get into the rhythm of things, but I never know how. But then I feel bad that I'm not helping, like I'm being rude. The truth is I don't really want to help. I just
don't want to look like an asshole, and it's not fair, because men aren't expected to do this stuff, like there's this rule if you have a vagina you are programmed to wash dishes or sweep the floor or whatever. Also, you know when people say, ‘It's okay, I'll do it.' Are you supposed to do it anyway or take their word for it? Because I always take their word for it. Some people really don't want you to be all up in their shit, so how are you supposed to know?”

“Were you this anxious the whole time?”

“No. Once I just gave up on trying to help, I went and sat on the living room floor and listened to music, and everyone was so happy. It was weird. I didn't know people did stuff like that in real life. It made me so uncomfortable.” I talked with my hand over my face.

“What about it was uncomfortable?”

“I am jealous he grew up in this warm, loving environment where people cared about things, like writing, and people just liked each other. Whenever my family got together for the holidays, all the kids just sat in front of the
TV
while our parents talked about money, houses, the prices of this or that, real estate. It was awful. No one in my family even knows I can write, but I write a few lines on a piece of paper and Peter's family is impressed.”

“Every family has their problems. They were probably on their best behavior for the holidays,” she said.

“No, I mean, maybe, but at least they could fake that well. I felt it. It was nice; they actually listened to each other. At first it made me anxious and crazy, but once I got drunk, it was really nice.”

“What about a family being warm and polite makes you anxious when you're sober?”

“I always have this feeling I'm going to fuck it up somehow. Like I'm walking on eggshells, and then it's this impulse control thing. I keep thinking,
What if I just said ‘Fuck' really loud? What would happen?
”

The morning after Thanksgiving, I woke up shivering. I had to pee. I lay there until I was in physical pain. I poked Peter in the face.

“Whhhat?” he yawned, after the third or fourth poke.

“I'm freezing.”

“So?”

“Fix it,” I said.

“Didn't you bring a sweater or something?” He rolled over to face the wall. He was always rolling over and facing the wall. It was no use. There was no way I could fall asleep again. The only way I had fallen asleep in the first place was all the Xanax and the wine. Then the nausea hit. It was my second day of being clean. I made myself get out from under the covers and find the Suboxone in my purse. I put it under my tongue and then took two Xanaxes. Suboxone dissolving underneath the tongue is unpleasant. It made me gag. I was covered in sweat and shivering. I went back to bed till the Xanax kicked in. I took a shit in the bathroom. Popped two more Xanaxes. You can't be too frugal with the Xanax the first few days. Soon the Suboxone would kick in and give me a nice buzz and some energy. I couldn't imagine doing this without any meds. I would be naked in the corner, bawling and vomiting, my shit-covered drawers on the floor, and no one on Earth would sit in that room without praying I would fall asleep for a while. Peter would leave me to hang out with his family or to work or whatever. He wouldn't take a wet rag and wipe my face. He wouldn't try to feed me a spoonful of broth. He would tell me to take a shower. He would lay out clean clothes. He would gasp with relief as soon as he walked out the door and could think whatever he wanted. Bad things. And because marriage is really a war, he would have new weapons to use against me: “Oh, the junkie says I'm an alcoholic.” I found my phone and put my smokes in my coat. After I took a piss, I went to the fridge. I had already decided I wasn't going to eat today, but I wanted to look at the food like a weirdo.

Peter's mother and father came into the kitchen. “Where'd you guys go?” I asked, shutting the fridge. I was slurring a little
and having a hard time standing.
Don't lean on the fridge. Don't furrow your brows like every word they say takes all your concentration to understand
. I put my face back in the fridge. Was it rude to dig around someone's fridge? They said to make myself at home, but had they meant it? Why couldn't people just say what they meant?

“I had some blood drawn for my surgery next week,” Sandy said.

“What surgery?”

Rick smelled the milk.

“Hip surgery,” she said. That's why she waddled.

“Are you in pain?”

“Well, it's gotten worse, but once they replace the hip, it should be fine,” she said, washing a dish. If it had been my mother, no one would have heard the end of it. “Here I am with a broken hip, but don't mind me. I'll just end up dying here, washing your dishes.”

“I'll be right back,” I said, not bothering to show them the phone. I would be making idiots of us all if I kept pretending I wasn't going out to smoke. I must have reeked.

The day was bright, and the air was crisp and clean. The Suboxone must have started to kick in because I felt a surge of euphoria. I knew I was going to have a horrible time in the bathroom, but right then I felt pretty awesome. A little too awesome. Giddy. Excited. Kind of manic. I walked over to the shed and lit a cigarette. Then I heard a car door slam. Fuck. I put out the cigarette on the ground.

Jake, Sue, and Peter were milling around the kitchen in their boots and coats. I embraced Peter and kissed him. “Why is everyone dressed? Where are we going?”

“Rake leaves,” he said.

“Are there enough rakes?” I asked, praying to an imaginary god there were not.

“Yeah.”

We walked outside. Leaning against the shed were four rakes. I ran back into the house and grabbed my iPod.
Some Young Buck, some Lil Wayne, some Jay-Z should keep me pumped
.

Everyone spread to opposite corners. I picked up a red rake and walked to the far left of the yard. Jay-Z, in my ears, “Ain't no love, in the heart of the city.” The sun was out and warmed my face. I had boundless energy. I formed the leaves into a pile like connecting the dots, forming the smaller piles into one large pile. When I had most of my corner of the yard raked, I yelled for Peter. He looked up at me and shook his head.

“Maya, that's where the leaves are going to be dumped.”

“What? I don't get it,” I told him.

“Where you're raking, that's where the leaves are going to go. We are going to take all the leaves in this yard,” he waved his hand, signifying the rest of the yard, “and put them in this corner,” he said, pointing at the ground I'd just cleared.

“Why wouldn't we throw the leaves away?”

“We gather them all in that corner,” he repeated, sounding like a little kid. I cracked up. I couldn't stop laughing. Peter smiled, but I could tell he was trying to figure out if I was high or crazy.

I looked over and saw Sue laughing with a wheelbarrow full of leaves, with her cute little hat, her pink pj's tucked into a pair of cowboy boots. Where did she even get a wheelbarrow? Jake helped Sue, both of them laughing, like in a montage at the beginning of a cheesy sitcom, rushing across the yard. I watched them dump the big mass of wet leaves into the corner I had worked so hard to clear.

Peter's father came out with a tarp. We heaped the leaves onto the tarp, and then Peter, his father, and Jake lifted the tarp from the sides and dumped the leaves in the corner. What the fuck was the point of this? Why weren't we throwing them away? I wanted to ask, but then I didn't really care either. We spent all
morning putting a bunch of leaves into a corner of a yard where they were going to get spread all over the place again. Whatever. Doing stuff was dumb.

Sue said, “They said it was going to rain, but it looks clear.” She gave me a gracious smile.

“So, kids,” Peter's dad said, “I want you to know when the economy gets bad or if you ever need to, you're all welcome to come back and live here. We can grow our own food, see.” He pointed to some ground. “That's where I grow vegetables . . . and you know, we could just all live here.”

My eyes got wet. I wanted to burst into tears imagining how he must have thought about this and was naive and sweet enough to think of all of us living here like this forever. Ignoring, of course, the weird paranoia about society crumbling.

“Dad, I don't think it's going to get that bad,” Jake said, looking slightly pained. And everyone kind of laughed, but I didn't, because a part of me
did
want to move there and grow our own food and get a dog and have dinner at the table every night and sit cross-legged on the floor and listen to them sing songs.

We headed into the house. I sat down at the kitchen table while Peter's mother scrambled eggs. I was ready to stuff my face again. Peter nudged my arm, and I went to the enclosed porch with him. We sat on the couch.

“I love you,” he said in my ear.

“Yeah, I love you too.”

“What's wrong?”

“I don't know . . . wasn't really into raking leaves.” There was a pause, and then I said, “Whatever, it was fine. I'm tired.” I said it as a way of getting out of the whole thing.

“You didn't have to.”

All of the sudden, he looked good to me. So clean. So wholesome, with his big smile and flannel and dark jeans. The fire was
going, and for the first time since I'd gotten there, I actually felt warm. I liked it there. “What do you want to do?” he asked me, putting his arm around my shoulders. He smelled good.

“I want to check out some thrift stores,” I said.

“I'll ask Grace and Mom if they know any.” He smiled and walked back toward the kitchen. I leaned my head back against the cold boarded-over window. Sometimes I felt this horrible ache, like I already knew whatever was happening would become a memory I would think of and cry about after Peter left me. A premature nostalgia, like when you took a picture and imagined what it was going to be like one day to look at it and remember how happy you had been. A part of me was always aware of how painful it would feel after the happiness wore off. So I was never really happy, like, ever.

We all got into the car to drive to Burlington. Jake drove. Sue sat in the passenger seat playing with the radio, and Peter and I were in the backseat with Grace. My head on his shoulder.

“Are you excited about the thrift shop?” he whispered into my ear, in the same tone he used when we were fucking and he'd say, “Yeah, you like that big cock deep inside your pussy?”

“Yeah, I can't wait.” I wanted to somehow convey how good I felt about him, but I didn't know how. If I took him aside and tried to express something deep, he would think I was trying to start some heavy fight. You couldn't say to a man, “I really need to talk to you.” No man on Earth has ever wanted to talk.

The consignment store was in a little crappy house. Peter bought two shirts that I picked out for him for two dollars each. It was the best situation for us: I got whatever I wanted, and he got to pay for everything without that pained look on his face. I found salt and pepper shakers that looked like cheeseburgers and a small blue suitcase with white stitching. Sue and Jake bought a similar suitcase that was more expensive, in better condition. We joked about how we should go on a trip together with our matching suitcases.
Grace tried on jackets, but she obviously did not get the whole thrift store thing. How you were supposed to find things that were either practical or totally silly, not “nice” things for a job interview. She tried on a worn green blazer from the Gap. Her fat strained the buttons as she stared into the mirror, and my heart broke for her. I guessed food was the only thing left once you took all the sinful stuff that made people feel good off the list. It hurt to see a hopeful look in her face, like, “Well, this isn't bad at all, hmm.” But she looked terrible. Her greasy ponytail, the hair frizzing out by her ears, her bad skin. I wondered if she had ever seen a penis. If she ever touched herself. She must have had urges. Maybe she did and then felt really bad or cut herself. Maybe she was in love with Jesus. Or she was in love with her father. It was weird how she always deferred to him. In some families, the daughter and the father are the couple in a nonsexual but still creepy way.