Megan wanted to go home. It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy staying at Rose’s and Ben's house by the river. But it wasn't even Thanksgiving and she was bored. She tried to write her history. She sat in bed, writing in her notebooks, the books about the ‘60s spread out all around her. But she couldn't work.
She watched CNN and waited for the mail. The mail was an event. Ben and Rose received packages almost every day. Rose rushed home from work to see the mail. Megan had never seen so much mail. One day they received a gourmet coffee maker, another day they received some mugs from England imprinted with the covers of old Penguin paperbacks (JANE EYRE, 1984, DUBLINERS, and THE COMMON READER), then a basket of soap, hand lotion, body mousse, shampoo, and facial creme.
God, you get a lot of stuff. Can I have the body mousse?
Sure. Take it. I know it’s silly. But we don’t have much time to shop till after the Shakespeare thing, Rose explained. So we order stuff.
Well, so do I. But not all this.
Some of it’s for Christmas. The coffee maker is for Mom. The Penguin mugs are for the nieces and nephews.
I want a Penguin mug.
You shall have one. Are you 1984?
I am 1984, but I prefer THE COMMON READER, Megan confessed.
Megan spent a lot of time taking bubble baths. She read in the bath, leaning her head against the inflatable pillow. She thought about the 1960s. She thought about Ken Kesey, Tom Wolfe, and Isabel Colegate. But she didn’t read them in the bath. She read frivolous novels in the bath. She had almost finished the POLDARK books and had advanced to Ivy Compton-Burnett’s novels. Rose had an Ivy Compton-Burnett Omnibus, an old paperback with three of the novels, that was perfect for reading in the tub. Rose got a little snippy with Megan when she saw the damp pages.
Do you have to read in the bath?
Sorry, sorry. I do read in the bath. I’ll read one of my own books.
Maybe something that doesn’t matter. This omnibus is out of print.
Megan didn’t know what body mousse was, but it smelled like lemons and she rubbed it on her arms and legs after her bath. The facial creme was something basic, recommended by dermatologists, in a very large jar. Megan spent a whole day with the dermatological creme on her face. It was amazing creme. When she rubbed it on her hands, all the lines instantly disappeared. For a minute she saw her youthful beautiful hands again and then the lines bounced back. She hoped that the creme would soften her face. She imagined her face smooth and sleek.
Thanksgiving. She was supposed to be doing some linoleum block project for Rose: printing some design on a linen tablecloth. She drew designs while she watched CNN. What was Thanksgiving? A cornucopia? Squash? Turkeys? Nothing seemed quite right. Finally she decided to go with the cornucopia.
She had fewer panic attacks at Rose’s. Rose was somehow calm, unhappy like all the women in their family, but intense about her cooking, happy to come home every night and tread around the kitchen in stocking feet, making casseroles. She made a sweet and sour lentil dish to die for.
Megan still had creme on her face when Rose came home. Rose wore egg white masks, now Megan had her mask of greasy creme. They were so different. Megan knew somehow she was going to take the facial creme when she went home. Megan had never understood what it meant to have things. Her lifestyle was different. It was more about marijuana.
If she could get off the drugs, as her neighbor once yelled at her. She had been out in the street, sweeping leaves with a broom and occasionally stopping to gather some. Her neighbor had stopped his car and yelled, You’re in the way. Get off the drugs!
Good God. She had been on the drugs, as he put it, for a good forty years.
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