Thanks for the Memories (16 page)

able opportunity to gain strength and learn about myself, thereby turning this terribly tragic affair into something hugely positive. But the Lady does not arrive, knowing this is no easy gig for her. She is well aware the two people who are currently hugging me close can see through her words and right to the heart of me. My friends’ hugs are longer and tighter today; they consist of extra squeezes and pats, which alternate between a circular rubbing motion and a light pitter-pattering on the back, both of which I find surprisingly comforting. The pity in their faces hammers home my great loss, and my stomach suddenly feels queasy, my head fully loaded again. I realize that swaddling myself in a nest with Dad does not hold the superhealing powers I’d hoped for. Every time I leave the house and meet somebody new, I have to go through it over again. Not just the entire rigmarole, but I have to
feel
it all, which is a far more tiring thing than words. Wrapped in Kate and Frankie’s arms, I could easily morph into the baby that they in their minds are coddling, but I don’t, because if I start now, I know I’ll never stop. We sit on the bleachers away from the other parents, most of whom are sitting alone reading or watching their children doing unimpressive sideways tumbles on the blue rubber mats. I spot Kate’s children, six-year-old Eric and my five-year-old goddaughter, Jayda, the
Muppet Christmas Carol
fanatic I have sworn not to hold anything against. They are enthusiastically hopping about and chirping like crickets, pulling their underwear out from in between the cheeks of their behinds and tripping over untied shoelaces. Eleven-month-old Sam sleeps beside us in a stroller, blowing bubbles from his chubby lips. I watch him fondly, then remember again and look away. Ah, remembering. That old chestnut.

“How’s work, Frankie?” I ask, wanting to act as normal as possible.

“Busy as usual,” she responds, and I detect guilt, perhaps even embarrassment. I envy her normality. I envy that her today was the same as her yesterday.

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“Still buying low, selling high?” Kate pipes up. Frankie rolls her eyes. “Twelve years, Kate.”

“I know, I know.” Kate bites her lip and tries not to laugh.

“Twelve years I’ve had this job, and twelve years you’ve being saying that. It’s not even funny anymore. In fact I don’t recall it ever being funny, and yet you persist.”

Kate giggles. “It’s just that I have absolutely no idea what it is that you do. Something in the stock market?”

“Manager, deputy head corporate treasury and investor solutions desk,” Frankie tells her. Kate stares back blankly, then sighs. “So many words to say that you work at a desk.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, what do you do all day again? Wipe shitty asses and make organic banana sandwiches?”

“There are many other aspects to being a mother, Frankie,”

Kate puffs. “It is my responsibility to prepare three human beings so that if, God forbid, something happens to me, or when they are adults, they will be able to live and function and succeed responsibly in the world all by themselves.”

“And you mush organic bananas,” Frankie adds. “No, no, hold on, is that before or after the preparation of three human beings?

Before?” She nods to herself. “Yes, definitely mush bananas and then prepare human beings. Got it.”

“All I’m saying is, you have, what, seven words to describe your paper-pushing job?”

“I believe it’s eight.”

“I have one. One.”

“Well, I don’t know. Is ‘carpooler’ one or two words? Joyce, what do you think?”

I stay out of it.

“The point I’m trying to make is that the word ‘mum,’ ” Kate says, irritated, “a teeny, tiny little word that every woman with a child is called, fails to describe the plethora of duties involved. If I t h a n k s f o r t h e m e m o r i e s
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was doing what I do every day at your company, I’d be running the fucking place.”

Frankie shrugs nonchalantly. “I can’t speak for my colleagues, but personally, I like to make my own banana sandwiches and wipe my own behind.”

They do this all the time: talk at each other, never to each other, in an odd bonding ritual that seems to pull them closer when it would do the opposite to anybody else. In the silence that follows they both have time to realize what exactly they were talking about in my company. Ten seconds later Kate kicks Frankie. Oh, yes. The mention of children.

When something tragic has happened, you’ll find that you, the tragicee, become the person that has to make everything comfortable for everyone else.

“How’s Crapper?” I try to sound upbeat as I ask after Frankie’s dog.

“He’s doing well; his legs are healing nicely. Still howls when he sees your photograph, though. Sorry, I had to move it from the fireplace.”

“Doesn’t matter. In fact I was going to ask you to move it. Kate, you can get rid of my wedding photo too.”

Now on to divorce talk.

“Ah, Joyce.” She shakes her head and looks at me sadly. “That’s my favorite photo of me. I looked so good at your wedding. Can I not just cut Conor out?”

“Or draw a little mustache on him,” Frankie adds. “Or better yet, give him a personality. What color should that be?”

I bite my lip to hide a smile that threatens to crawl from the corner of my lips. I’m not used to this kind of talk about Conor. It’s disrespectful, and I’m not sure I’m completely comfortable with it. But it
is
funny. Instead I look away to the children on the floor.

“Okay, everybody.” The gymnastics instructor claps his hands for attention, and the crickets’ hopping and chirping momentarily
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subsides. “Spread out on the mat. We’re going to do backward rolls. Place your hands flat on the floor, fingers pointing toward your shoulders as you roll back to a stand. Like this.”

“Well, looky-look at our little flexible friend,” Frankie remarks. One by one the children roll backward to a perfect stand. Until it gets to Jayda, who rolls over one side of her head in the most awkward way, kicks another child in the shins, and then gets onto her knees before finally jumping to a stand. She strikes a Spice Girl pose in all of her pink sparkling glory, peace fingers and all, thinking nobody has noticed her error.

“Preparing a human being for the world,” Frankie repeats smartly. “Yup. You’d be running the fucking place, all right.” She turns to me and softens her voice. “So, Joyce, how are you?”

I have debated whether to tell them, whether to tell anyone. Other than carting me off to the madhouse, I have no idea how anybody will react to what’s been happening to me, or even how they should react. But after today’s experience, I side with the part of my brain that is anxious to reveal.

“This is going to sound really odd, so bear with me on this.”

“It’s okay.” Kate grabs my hand. “You say whatever you want. Just release.”

Frankie works valiantly not to roll her eyes.

“Thanks.” I slowly slip my hand out of Kate’s. “Okay, here goes. I keep seeing this guy on the street.”

Kate tries to register this. I can see her trying to link it with the loss of my baby or my looming divorce, but she can’t.

“This gorgeous, handsome man.” I smile. “I think I know him, but at the same time, I know I don’t. I’ve seen him precisely three times now, the most recent being today, when he chased after my Viking bus. And I think he called out my name. Though I may have imagined that, because how on earth could he know my name?

Unless he knows me, but that brings me back to my being sure that he really doesn’t.” I stop there. “What do you think?”

t h a n k s f o r t h e m e m o r i e s
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“Hold on, I’m way back at the Viking bus part,” Frankie says doubtfully. “You say you have a Viking bus.”

“I don’t have one. I was on one. With Dad. It goes into the water too. You wear helmets with horns and go ‘Aaaagh’ at everyone.” I go close to their faces and wave my fists to show them. They stare back blankly.

I sigh and slide back on the bench. “So anyway, he keeps reappearing.”

“Okay,” Kate says slowly, looking at Frankie.

There’s an awkward silence as they worry about my sanity. I join them on that.

Frankie clears her throat. “So this man, Joyce. Is he young, old, or indeed a Viking upon your magic bus that travels the high waters?”

“Late thirties, early forties. He’s American. We got our hair cut at the same time. That’s where I saw him first, at a salon. He said he liked my cactus.”

“You brought that cactus to a hair salon?” Kate says, horrified. I nod, not caring now how crazy this all sounds. “He has one too.” I frown. “And somebody else does too, but I can’t think of who.” I search my memory again.

“Your hair is lovely, by the way,” Kate says to change the subject, gently fingering a few front strands.

“Dad thinks I look like Peter Pan.”

“So maybe this man remembers you from the hair salon,”

Frankie reasons.

“No, it felt weird from the first time at the salon. There was a . . . recognition or something.”

Frankie smiles. “Welcome to the world of singledom.” She turns to Kate, whose face is scrunched up in disagreement. “When’s the last time Joyce allowed herself a little flirt with someone? She’s been married for so long.”

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“Please,” Kate says patronizingly to Frankie. “If you think that’s what happens when you’re married, then you’re sorely mistaken. No offense, Joyce. No wonder you’re afraid to commit.”

“I’m not afraid, I just don’t agree with it. You know, just today I was watching a makeup show—”

“Oh, here we go.”

“Shut up and listen. The makeup expert said that because the skin is so sensitive around the eye, you must apply cream with your ring finger because it is the finger with the least power.”

“Wow,” Kate says drily. “You sure have revealed us married folk to be the fools that we are.”

I rub my eyes wearily and interrupt their bickering. “I know I sound insane. I’m tired and probably imagining things where there is nothing to be imagined. The man I’m supposed to have on the brain is Conor, but he’s not. He’s really not at all. I don’t know if it’s a delayed reaction and next month I’m going to fall apart, start drinking and wear black every day—”

“Like Frankie,” Kate butts in.

“But right now, I feel nothing but relieved,” I continue. “Is that terrible?”

“Is it okay for me to feel relieved too?” Kate asks.

“You didn’t like him?” I ask sadly.

“No, he was fine. He was nice. I just hated you not being happy.”

“I hated him,” Frankie chirps up.

“We spoke briefly yesterday,” I tell them. “It was odd. He wanted to know if he could take the espresso machine.”

“The bastard,” Frankie spits.

“I really don’t care about the espresso machine. He can have it.”

“It’s mind games, Joyce. Be careful,” Frankie warns me. “First it’s the espresso machine, and then it’s the house, and then it’s your soul. And then it’s that emerald ring that belonged to his grand-t h a n k s f o r t h e m e m o r i e s
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mother that he claims you stole but that you recall more than clearly that when you first went to his house for lunch he said,

‘Help yourself,’ and there it was.” She scowls. I look to Kate for help.

“Her breakup with Lee.”

“Ah. Well, it’s not going to get like that.”

“Christian went for a pint with Conor last night,” Kate says.

“Hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course I don’t; they’re friends. Is Conor okay?”

“Yeah, Christian said he seemed fine. He’s upset about the, you know . . .”

“Baby. You can say the word. I’m not going to fall apart.”

“He’s upset about the baby and disappointed the marriage didn’t work, but he thinks it’s the right thing to do. He’s going back to Japan in a few days. He also said you’re both putting the house on the market.”

“Well, we bought it together, and I don’t like being there anymore.”

“But are you sure? Where will you live?”

As a tragicee and future divorcee, you’ll also find that people will question you on the biggest decisions you’ve ever made in your life as though you hadn’t thought about them at all before—as though, through their twenty questions and dubious faces, they’re going to shine light on something that you missed the hundredth time around during your darkest hours.

“Is your dad not driving you insane?” Kate asks.

“Funnily enough, no.” I smile as I think about him. “He’s actually having the opposite effect. Though he’s only managed to call me Joyce once out of every hundred times. I’m going to stay with him until the house is sold and I find somewhere else to live.”

“You know at the hospital he told the nurse to check my bag for poteen in case I gave you any,” Kate says grumpily. “He still hates me.”

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“And he still loves me,” Frankie says happily.

“I’m going to tell him the truth about what happened, the next time I see him,” Kate says, and then turns her attention back to me. “That story about the strange man . . . apart from him, how are you really? We haven’t seen you since the hospital, and we’ve been so worried.”

“I know. I’m sorry about that. I really appreciated you coming, though.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Okay, I didn’t then, but I do now.”

I think about how to summarize how strange things have been since the hospital.

“I eat meat now. And I drink red wine. I hate anchovies, and I listen to classical music. I particularly love
The JK Ensemble
on Lyric FM with John Kelly, who doesn’t play Kylie, and I don’t mind. Last night I listened to Handel’s ‘Mi restano le lagrime’ from act three, scene one, of
Alcina
before going to sleep, and I actually knew the words but have no idea how. I know a lot about Irish architecture, but not as much as I know about French and Italian. I’ve read
Ulysses
and can quote from it ad nauseam, when I couldn’t even finish the audio book before. Only today I wrote a letter to the council telling them how their cramming yet another new ugly modern block into a traditional area means that not only is the nation’s heritage seriously under threat, but the sanity of its citizens too. I thought my father was the only person who wrote strongly worded letters. That’s not such a big deal in itself, but the fact is that just two weeks ago I was excited about the prospect of showing these new properties. Today I’m particularly vexed about talk of bulldozing a hundred-year-old building in Old Town, Chicago, and so I plan to write another letter. I bet you’re wondering how I knew about that. Well, I read it in the recent edition of the
Art and
Architectural Review
, the only truly international art and architectural publication. I’m a subscriber now.” I take a breath. “Ask me t h a n k s f o r t h e m e m o r i e s
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