Ever since the therapist said, “Rebecca, if only you’d let go once in a while, relax, flow, you’d be a lot happier,” I’d been trying to write in the lotus position. Which meant wearing my daughter Courtney’s old sweat pants. Which meant crossing my legs on the edge of the black swirly chair Peter left behind two years ago when he trekked off into the Colorado wilderness, holding only a backpack, a lantern, and the over-manicured hand of Dellie Rhodes.
By page three, my soul, wherever it was, probably soared, but my body screamed, “Straighten out and get me coffee!”
“Mom, I have to be at camp in twenty minutes.” Courtney pounded on my door. “Are you ready?”
“Coming.” I unhinged my legs, and finished draft two of “Teaching Your Kids to Say No to Drugs.” As I turned off the computer, I wondered if Courtney used drugs. She looked and acted pure, but she was fifteen, and you couldn’t be too careful. At least that’s what Peter, high atop a pristine peak, wrote in his letter last February. The letter explaining how an ascetic living off his girlfriend’s watercolor sketches of wildflowers couldn’t be expected to pay child support, now could he? Pressure about money clouded his life, put a taste bitter as scorched squash in his mouth. And so on, with the P.S. about drugs.
“Mom, are you listening? Are you ready?”
“Sure, honey.” I turned off the light, and imagined standing on a mountaintop, punching Dellie in her artistic little nose. She falls backward, crushing a Rocky Mountain columbine. A state trooper happens along and hauls her off to jail. For life.
Peter begs for mercy. He bribes me with the gold watch he uses to time his morning meditations. He hands me the notes for his proposed book, Get Away. I sail these papers like awkward birds over the hilltops. Then I hit Peter so hard his wire rims fall into the raging ravine, and he is left, alone on a hill, noteless, timeless, and essentially blind.
“Remember your glasses, Mom.” Courtney guided me to the car.
I started the old brown Chevy wagon, left over from the days we masqueraded as a happy suburban family. Courtney pulled a mirror from her purse and gazed into her own eyes.
“So, how are you?” I said, driving toward the day camp where Courtney worked.
“Fair.” She tossed the golden mass of hair away from her face, and I wondered, again, how two curly-haired, brown-eyed people, anchored to the world by glasses and freckled arms, had produced such a beautiful child.
“Any word from Scott?”
“He’s dating another counselor.” Courtney looked toward the window and my stomach ached. I didn’t want Courtney dating a college man, yet I hated Scott for staying away from her and breaking her heart.
“What are you going to do?” I asked, stopping by the pool area.
“Either get him or get over him.” Courtney added a dash of lipstick, and tucked her T-shirt into her white shorts. “I’ve got a ride home. See you tonight, Mom.” A brush of hair, a hint of a kiss, and then outdoors to be swarmed by kids. My daughter, tall and blond, walking slowly with a petticoat of children.
As I drove home, I imagined the lean tent of the therapist’s fingers as he said, “You’ll find someone who’ll love and cherish you.” As if I wanted that. I thought of Alex, an associate editor, whom I yearned for. Three weeks ago, we had dinner, but then Alex went the way of Scott. Dating another counselor? Now he was as distant as Peter’s mountain, and each blue line he penciled on my manuscript was an affront, a criticism.
“What do you want to happen?” The therapist spoke calmly, his words slow as the flow of honey.
I want Peter back, I thought, I want someone to help me raise Courtney, I want someone to love me, but I said, “I don’t know.” Wanting so much was an insult to the aesthetics of the therapist’s lovely beige room.
“World peace,” I said, as I went back to my word processor. Someday they’d ask me to host the Miss America pageant. Then if I muffed my cue or forgot my charming smile, if the hem of my spangly dress suddenly fell, I’d say, “World peace,” and everyone would applaud, all the shimmery bosoms, glistening fingernails shaking, everyone smiling and clapping, and everything would be all right.
I finished my article, changed into a respectable summer dress, put on some makeup, including the white stuff that magically removes any hint of despair or circles around the eyes, and drove over to the office of City Magazine.
Was I dressing up for Alex? I asked myself.
No, I answered — which was one reason I was still in therapy. “Denial was a survival skill fifty years ago.” The therapist stared at the Hopi Indian print on the wall as he talked, stared so his words wouldn’t burn directly into my soul. “But these days it’s dysfunctional, dangerous.”
Peter had accused me of having no sense of adventure, and here I was, living on the edge of danger with every other thought.
I parked in front of the magazine’s office and walked down to door number four.
Alex was hunched over a manuscript, pencil in his mouth, his ungainly black hair dashed severely across his head.
“Rebecca.” He stood up, took my folder, and shook my hand. I smiled, my arm too near the metal lamp that angled over his desk.
“Thanks for bringing the article. How’s the piece on night life at the convenience stores going?”
I released his hand, and sat like a businesswoman in a straight brown chair.
“So far, I’ve got two good interviews, a couple of worthy snapshots. This weekend, I hit the inner city. I’m borrowing Courtney’s punky clothes so I’ll fit in.”
“You’re certainly giving a lot to this article.” Alex stacked some papers on his desk.
I imagined Alex and me sitting in lotus at matching word processors. I’d write fiction — oh, the stuff of dreams — and Alex would write an exposé on the publishing industry. He’d stop occasionally to ask for a word, or to lean over and press into a kiss.
“So, the article will be ready in two weeks?” Alex said, which meant he wanted me to leave.
I remembered the therapist intoning, “Decide what you want and make it happen,” like I was the leader of a well-trained orchestra.
I stood up, brushed off my skirt, and blurted, “Want to have dinner Saturday night, before I do my research?”
Then the long pause, during which I wished the rejection would hurry and hit, so I could end the awful waiting.
“All right.” Alex seemed a little surprised by his answer. “How about Sydney’s at 8?”
Great, swell, fine, Sydney’s, a cheap dive, just the place to get mooded up for an evening with the weirdos who frequent the Gilham Road convenience stores.
I left, and spent the afternoon working on a confession story, “I Was a Middle-Aged Sex Machine.”
“Mother, what is this?” Courtney had come in and was reading the top page of my confession. She smelled of bubble gum and Coppertone.
“Courtney, if I learn to do these, it’ll mean a lot of extra money. Hot fudge sundaes, prime-time movies, and designer jeans.”
“Mom, Scott asked me out. He dumped that other girl. He said he made a terrible mistake.”
“And?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t go out with him. Forget the bastard,” a tantrum of voices inside me screamed. But I said, “What do you want to happen?” I sounded like the therapist.
“I love him.” Courtney sat on the floor, instantly in lotus, and plucked at the rug.
“Perhaps you should give him another chance,” I said, though I wished the rat would stay away from my daughter.
Courtney looked at me slyly. She’d said that about Peter at least once a week for the past year. How could she stick up for a man who wrote her every six months and enclosed a sketch by his mistress?
I didn’t mention my dinner with Alex. Courtney would say, “It’s OK to be assertive,” as if I were a duckling left out in the rain. I didn’t want her to give me advice about love.
“It’s OK to listen to other people, sometimes, Rebecca,” the therapist had reminded me. He had a lovely wife and kids, two cars, a real job, and he made lots of money. What could he possibly know about the problems of an impoverished, sexually insecure, single mother? Why did I look forward to talking to him?
All week, as I wrote the confession, as I formed the lead to my convenience store article, as Courtney and I ate dinners, drove to camp, watched “Dallas,” I thought of Alex. How great it would feel to be in someone’s arms, how great to be simply a person and not an ex-wife and somebody’s mother.
I envisioned Alex and me hiking in the mountains, meeting Peter and Dellie on a narrow trail.
“Hello,” I’d say to Peter, not acknowledging I knew him, not clutching at his L.L. Bean vest or looking urgently into his eyes. I’d take Alex’s hand and lead him higher. Peter would wonder, why doesn’t she want me anymore?
Finally, Saturday night came. I borrowed Courtney’s tight black jeans, her black shirt. She gave me green eyelids and tried to do something with my hair.
“Is the disguise working?” I said hopefully.
“Those jeans look great on you,” she answered, and I knew I looked like a neurotic writer snug in somebody else’s pants.
“How do I look?” Courtney wore a white sundress from the cover of a Danielle Steele novel. Scott, that older man, the horrid creature toying with my daughter’s heart, would arrive any moment.
“You’re beautiful.” Her disguise as a well-mannered teen was perfect.
“I hope this is the right thing,” she said, and suddenly I thought of Alex, wondered what the hell I was doing, letting someone know I was interested in him.
“Are you leaving already?” Courtney asked.
“Dinner with Alex,” I mumbled
“The editor? Do you like him?”
“Uh hum,” I said, feeling like I was undressing in front of the high-school football team.
“Really?” Courtney’s voice softened to sympathy. “What are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know.” I picked up my purse, my satchel with pens and paper, the tools of greatness. “Try to get him maybe. What do you think?”
“Practice on Alex, then go back and get Dad.”
Courtney walked me to the door. I realized how she longed for her father. Long ago she had forgiven Peter, and now she was ready for a mountainside chat with him. I could make that happen if I weren’t so full of the stuff of dysfunction.
“I’ll try,” I said. As Courtney stood beside me, I pictured the Vogue layout for the new line of Jungian sportswear, ivory anima, to express the tremulous woman, and ebony animus, for the beast that is really you. Courtney hugged me, and I cried, my eyeliner dissolving on my cheeks.
“Mom, it’s OK to go after something you want,” Courtney whispered. “Even if it isn’t Dad.” The strong arms of my daughter told me everything the therapist had said. And more.
“Learn to let go.” I imagined the therapist’s long legs stretching toward me. “Let go of anger and reach out to new things.” Like it was simple, something I should have thought of.
I let go of Courtney as Scott drove up. Courtney formed herself into a vision at the doorway, a picture of promise.
“Hi Scott,” I said, as I walked to my car. He looked at me strangely.
“Courtney, is your mother all right?” he would say as they drove away together. “She looks so different.” He’d be impressed when he heard about this assignment. Everybody loves somebody else’s relative who’s a writer. “Do you think she’d do a story on our new band?” he’d ask.
As I drove toward Sydney’s, I thought about floating down a brisk Colorado river, inner peace in inner tube, with Peter bumping along behind me, and Courtney coasting on a yellow raft ahead of us. Dellie was lost in the brush sharpening her pencils.
The restaurant was filled with off-duty truckers, big mamas, and potato-fisted babies pounding the metal tops of highchairs.
Alex looked proper and lost at the back booth. He wasn’t even reading. He was watching for me.
“Rebecca, you look great.” He sounded serious, but it could have just been my tight black pants.
I ordered the Saturday night special, pot roast and taters. We rearranged silverware while we talked about Alex’s book, a detective story with a lame, neurotic, intellectual hero, scared to come out of his room.
“I love this book,” Alex said, his eyes focused on a magic marker stain on the table.
“Fiction makes anything possible,” I said.
As I mushed around the potatoes, I realized I could describe a wildflower so breathlessly blue, Peter would beg me to take him back. “Write me a rose,” he’d cry, but I’d prick him with a thorny phrase instead. I realized I was scared to find out if I still loved Peter.
“Hurt and fear are underneath your anger.” The therapist’s words were like a blanket covering a chilled child. “Let the anger go. . . .”
In the cramped booth, I tried the lotus, but Courtney’s jeans did not allow it.
“What’s your first stop tonight?” Alex asked, as we each paid for our own dinner.
“Linwood Circle K. They’re supposed to have an interesting clientele.”
Alex walked me to my car. He seemed to be struggling with a tall thought, his hands safe in his pockets, his glasses dusty in the street light.
I wondered how I’d feel with his arms around me.
But “Good luck tonight” was all he said. And that, without a kiss, without a touch, without a look of longing, was a slap.
Mohawked teens and a flaccid old woman were my companions at the Quik Trip, my last stop of the evening. I watched the hustle of candy bars, Cokes, lottery tickets, the song of pinball machines, the loose talk of after midnight. I scribbled descriptions and dialogue in my tablet. If Peter found out I was hanging around in this dark neighborhood, he’d write, “We must set outstanding examples for our daughter.” As if parenting from a mountaintop were everyone’s ideal.
I bought a Cherry Coke, and was searching through my purse for seventy-nine cents when Alex walked in.
His face looked open and new, like he had learned something.
“I thought you might be ready for a break,” he said. “How about a cup of tea somewhere?”
He plunked the extra pennies on the counter, and I followed him out.
The moon was full, the street was noisy with the rattle of old cars and the shouts of beer drinkers. Teenagers clustered around the pay telephone booth.
“I’m not sure I’m over my ex-wife,” Alex said, as we walked to his car. “I don’t know if it’s fair to start anything with you. . . .”
“It’s OK,” I said.
Alex put his arm around me, and it felt comfortable, fine. I got into his car. What will Courtney think, I worried, if I come home late? Does this mean I’m abandoning her, like Peter did? Then Alex took my hand and pulled me closer. I saw Peter’s face, Dellie’s drawings, Courtney’s smile, all crowding me, asking me what I was doing. Alex’s lips touched mine. He kissed me, sweet and hard. I sent Peter on down the river without me.
This story originally appeared in Buffalo Spree.
— Ed.
