The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus (2 page)

The first one catches my eye

as I fly down the freeway rushing

to get to the doctor's office on time

and pretty soon that's all I can see—

streaming across the pavement

in blurred black streaks

as though

the road's mascara

is running.

I don't want to fixate

on these desperate claw marks,

these permanent records of calamity,

but I can't seem

to stop myself

from staring at them

any more than I can stop myself

from careening toward

my fiftieth birthday—

the one that's rushing at me

like a cinderblock wall while I try

in vain to slam on my brakes.

I learn that pumpkin pie

and lavender

are aphrodisiacs.

I learn that the French term for crabs

is
papillons d'amour—

butterflies of love.

I learn that the average

speed of ejaculation

is twenty-eight miles per hour.

And I'm just about

to learn the identity

of “the next awesome sex prop”

(which

the magazine says

is probably in my
purse!)

when,

much to my chagrin,

the nurse calls me in.

Eighteen years ago, when Dr. Stone

squirted the icy gel across my stomach,

then turned to examine my womb

on the pulsating screen

and I saw Samantha for the first time,

saw her heart fluttering like a tiny fan

with the effort of pumping that blood,

my
blood, through her veins,

saw the shimmering beginnings

of the perfect little person

that my body was so effortlessly

knitting,

I couldn't have imagined

how I'd feel on
this
day,

eighteen years later,

when Dr. Stone would squirt that gel again

then turn to examine my ovaries

on the pulsating screen,

and announce so casually,

as if talking about the weather:

“You can stop using your diaphragm now.”

And I certainly won't miss

the diaphragm.

But I
will
miss

the knowing—

the knowing

that my body

still has that flame

glowing at its center,

that same steady light,

that fire

ready to ignite

a freshly forged life,

yearning for its turn,

its freeing,

its chance

to burn

in a brand-new

human being.

My biological clock

has ticked its last tock.

And the finality of this fact,

the that's-thatness of it,

hollows me

like a gutted pumpkin

and leaves me

with a sense of loss so deep

that all I want to do

is sleep.

Maybe my doctor's news

wouldn't have caused

such awful blues

if Samantha

hadn't just begun

applying to colleges—

none of which

are within a thousand-mile radius

of home.

Maybe his words would have hurt less to hear

if thoughts of my looming empty nest

hadn't caused such a splitting in my chest

that in the last few weeks,

on more than one occasion,

I'd nearly dialed 911.

If my doctor

had picked a better day,

if he'd broken the news in a gentler way,

maybe I wouldn't be wandering

around the house right now

with my throat so tight I can barely breathe,

trying not to panic about next fall,

when Michael and I will be living alone

for the first time in seventeen years,

roaming through these rooms,

drifting through these tombs—

two lost strangers

trying to fill

all this space

by ourselves…

It's my mother.

“Hi, Mom,” I say, trying to sound cheery.

“What's wrong, Holly?” she asks.

That is so annoying.

“Nothing is wrong,” I say.

“Do you want to talk about it, dear?” she asks.

“No!” I say,

feeling more transparent than Saran Wrap

and terribly sorry for myself.

There's a brief silence, then my mother says,

“So…How's the weather in California?”

“Sunny,” I sigh. “I am so tired
of sunny.”

“It's sunny here in Cleveland, too,” she says.

“But with that crisp October tang in the air.

I had such fun raking the leaves this morning…”

“Mom,” I gasp, “you're eighty years old!”

“Don't rub it in.”

“But you shouldn't be raking leaves!”

“Oh, bosh!” she says, “I'd have jumped

in them, too, if my handsome new neighbor

hadn't been watching me from his window.”

“Geez. You might have broken something!”

“You're right,” she says with a girlish giggle.

“I might have broken my neighbor's heart.”

I can't help smiling at this, but then she says,

“What about
your
heart, Holly?

Why is it so heavy today?”

So,

of course,

I tell her everything.

And when I finish,

she says, “Your baby-making days

may be over, but you will always be
my
baby.”

And, for reasons I can't quite fathom,

her words are as soothing

as a cup of chamomile tea.

This time,

it's my editor Roxie calling

(who's twelve years old, if she's a day)

to remind me that I'm way behind

on the deadline for my book.

My heart starts beating

at warp speed

as the usual cocktail

of adrenalin, guilt, and despair

floods through my veins.

I swallow hard,

and then explain

in a wobbly voice

that, lately, my muse

seems to have deserted me.

This does not result

in the sympathetic pep talk I was hoping for.

Roxie just sighs and says she's holding

a spot on the fall list for me,

but she can't hold it forever.

I apologize profusely.

Then I click off,

climb onto my bike, and pedal down

to the beach.

I trudge along the shore,

trolling for inspiration,

scanning the chalk-dashed sea

for dolphins,

but finding none.

My eyes drift

to the trash cans,

dotting the sand

like the smokestacks

of a fleet of buried cruise ships.

I glance up and see

a lone gull flying into the wind,

like a puppet bird

suspended from invisible strings,

making no forward progress—

just like me.

I plop down in front of my computer

and promise myself that I won't budge

from this spot (not even to pee)

until I've written at least one poem.

But a second later

I glance out my window and see Michael

bursting out of his art studio

above our garage—

his long white hair wild,

his eyes even wilder,

smudges of purple paint on his face

and on his T-shirt.

I stiffen as I watch him

stomp down the steps

and storm across the backyard

toward my office.

He ignores

my clearly posted

DO NOT DISTURB sign

and flings open my door—

informing me that because I failed

to answer his email about his aunt's offer

to take us to lunch on Thursday,

he never got back to her.

And now it's Wednesday

and what must she think?

I clench my teeth, but say nothing.

I know where this is heading.

Michael says

if I'd bothered to answer his email

he wouldn't have forgotten

to respond to his aunt.

“Why are you blaming
me?”
I say.

“Both
of us forgot.”

Michael fumes a bit,

then grudgingly admits I'm right.

“But, having
said
that,” he adds,

clearing his throat in that pissed-off way of his,

“if you'd answered my email in the first place

none of this would have happened.”

I glance at the clock—it's almost two.

The whole day is slipping away

and I haven't written a single stanza.

I can't waste another minute arguing.

But if I tell Michael I want to stop—

he'll say the reason I want to stop
now

is because he's just said something I know is true

and I don't want to concede the point.

But I tell him anyway, and he says,

“Of course you want to stop
now—

I've just said something you know is true

and you don't want to concede the point.”

I am one big growl…

My husband

has many fine qualities.

He's not the uptight, irritating,

finger-pointing stinker

that that last poem

makes him out to be.

Michael has oodles

of endearing attributes.

It's just that

at the moment,

I can't seem to think

of a single one.

Saving me

from what surely would have escalated

into another one of those

excruciating endless arguments.

I whiz past Michael with a smug shrug

and rush down the hall to open the door.

There stands Cousin Alice—

my self-appointed sister substitute

and best friend in the world.

Alice is sobbing,

in that advanced hiccuppy stage,

her tears turning her carefully made-up face

into a swirling abstract painting.

My own eyes well up instantly

at the sight of her.

I lead her inside,

sit her down on the couch,

and hold her till she's capable of speech.

At which point, she tells me that Lenny,

her longtime pain-in-the-ass live-in boyfriend,

has run off with an old crush of his

who he bumped into at his high school reunion.

“She's not even young and hot…” Alice wails.

“My boyfriend left me for an
older
woman!”

And while she pours out all the gory details,

Michael slips into the room with a tray.

On it is a bottle of cold chardonnay, two glasses,

some sharp cheddar, and some Ritz crackers.

He places the tray on the coffee table,

squeezes Alice's shoulder, flashes me

an I'm-sorry-about-what-happened-before smile,

then slips back out of the room.

I think I just remembered

a couple of my husband's endearing attributes.