Some Man (1984)

I finished crying almost at once. The cat sat at my feet and whined. The kettle started to whistle, and the neighbors turned up their country and western music. I steeped the Lipton for about five minutes till the tea was black as coffee.

“That’s what I get for doing the right thing. Trying to get the kid a good education. Should’ve left her in public school. Toughened her up. Given her karate lessons, something. Kept her safe from religious fanatics.” On a notepad I scribbled, Buy hamburger.

The tea throbbed in my blood like speed. My speed days were long gone, like Jeff. If I hadn’t adopted Elizabeth, I could’ve been with Jeff in Boston right now. Civilized condo, Wall Street Journal. He probably went in for goddamned aperitifs. But I was stuck with doing the right thing, using my cum laude degree and a reference from the boss to save my sister from a foster home. I was a bulwark of my neighborhood association, hosting meetings once a month for the likes of Crazy Harry, who got off his balloon tire bike just long enough to eat the free sandwiches.

In the bedroom I brushed my hair and smeared some lipstick on. Well, I was in the mood to drive men crazy, though that had never been my forte. I headed over to the Harvest. a musty-smelling bar that attracted would-be artists and punkers. Even though we laughed up our sleeve at half the regulars, Jeff and I used to be fond of Big Dave and his string of women.

Big Dave was the first person I saw. He was standing at the bar, hugging a large woman whose tits overflowed from her tube top. Typical. I smirked at him. “Hi, Dave.”

“Sally, where’ve you been?” He patted my head with a huge hairy hand. “Hey, don’t you need Big Dave to pat your head any more?”

“I finally got over that asshole,” I said. “He’s in Boston now. In a condo.”

Dave shook his head. “Shit, they complain the Moonies brainwash people. Why doesn’t someone investigate the law schools?”

“Dave.” I wasn’t in the mood to discuss Jeff. “I need something stronger than beer. What do you recommend?”


Three margaritas later, I was shooting pool with a real scumbag. In Elizabeth’s lingo, he was a “hunk a la mode”: blond, muscular, tanned, definitely in the running for Lifeguard of the Year.

“I’m Buck,” the guy told me. “Buck Rogers. Wanna take me on for a game of pool?”

Glad to meet you. I’m Nancy Drew.”

“Nancy, huh? I’ve heard the name. Good to know you.”

I’d never played pool in my life. As a girl, I despised games. Dancing was cool, so was swimming, but I loathed anything reminiscent of Christmas Day at the relatives’. No ping pong, no pool, and under no circumstances would I so much as shuffle a deck of cards. But I picked up the cue at the Harvest as if I’d been playing with the cousins every holiday of my life.

“Nancy, this is not to insult you, but the white ball is supposed to stay on the table.”

“New rules. You play with me, you play my way. I say: let’s get creative. Let’s whack the red ball around for awhile. Let’s do it like checker: you be black, I’ll be red.” I squinted and aimed the stick at the red ball, which bounced around the table before rolling to an aimless stop.

Big Dave applauded. “Way to go, Sal.”

“Nancy. I’m Nancy tonight.” I was starting to sweat when Buck suggested we step out for some air.

Close up, entangled in those lifeguard arms, I could see his foundation makeup. I had never embraced a man who wore makeup. “Buck,” I asked, “what’s that on your face?”

“I’ve still got to go to work tonight. Part of my job is looking good for chicks like you.” He kissed me. His kisses failed to trigger a respondent charge.

“Let’s just be friends, Buck. Let’s talk about your work.”

“What’s to talk about? I used to work for the city, mowing cemeteries, shit like that. Right now I’m working three nights a week as a dancer at the Cat’s Meow. If you don’t believe me, get a load of my costume.” Out of his jeans pocket he pulled a leopard-spotted bikini.

“You’re serious? You dance in that?”

“The pay’s not bad.” His eyes narrowed at me. “If you think I’m going to stand here and be mocked out, think again.”

I edged away from him, then stumbled into the bar. I sat down on the barstool next to Dave. “I think I need protection.”

Dave laughed. “I sort of wondered what you were messing around with.” He massaged my shoulders. I leaned into him. Sometimes big is all you need.


In the morning I called in sick before riding in Dave’s truck to the Tastee Diner for breakfast. Nothing on the menu looked good. Finally I ordered toast. Dave had steak and eggs.

“Dave, I hope you’ll forgive me for sort of busting up you and that woman last night.” I peeled the cellophane top off a tiny jam container.

“Sally, no, I was flattered. I’ve always liked you. Any time.”

“Well, I like you, too. I hope I didn’t act like a jerk last night, that’s all.”

“You surprised me. Nothing wrong with that.”

When I put down my knife, he was smiling at me. I reached for his hand. “What a nice guy. The nicest man in the world maybe. Willing to rescue a desperate woman.”

“You make me sound like a plumber or something. Now shut up, eat your breakfast. Decide when I get to see you again.”

When I got home, Elizabeth was sprawled on the couch in front of “The Today Show.” I went into the kitchen to make coffee, ignoring her even when she trailed after me, huddled in a blanket like a refugee.

She demanded, “Why aren’t you at work?”

“I called in sick. Why aren’t you in school?”

“I was worried when you didn’t come home last night. I got scared and spent the night at Lydia’s. Where were you?”

“Up to no good, little girl. Maybe I’m pregnant, too, and we can be unwed mothers together. Does your school have a program?”

“You shit. You’re such a bitch. Why are you taking it like this? You know I’m into the pro-life thing.”

“I’m your sister, not your friend, pal. Now that you’re going to have this baby, it’s every man for himself. I’m not going to sit back and watch you ruin your life.” I picked up a mug labeled SALLY and rinsed it out in the sink.

“Well, I hope you spent the night with somebody nice. Otherwise, you’re no better than me, asshole.” Elizabeth started to cry. The long side of her asymmetric haircut hung down on her face. Her shoulders shook.

“Elizabeth.” i sighed and poured the coffee. “I just don’t see where those nuns get off encouraging fans of Prince and Madonna to have babies.”

I took the coffee out on the fire escape. The weather was unseasonably warm. The pigeons wheeled around the narrow strip of sky between our tenement and the next one. My leg itched. The cat’s fleas had launched their spring attack. I scratched. When I closed my eyes I imagined Big Dave. It was nice to be with a man not my type. Maybe he would be my new type.

Elizabeth was singing, “Burning down the house.” She opened the door and stared at me. “Are you napping out here? I made us lunch. Aren’t you ever going to talk to me again?”

“I’m imagining new vistas, Elizabeth. Leave me to my hangover.”

Why had I thrown away the money on Catholic school tuition? But then the phone rang, and, groaning I had to go inside to talk to someone on the other end. “Some man,” Elizabeth told me.

Flannel Pajamas

Rose was half aware of her blankets: three over her, one underneath. It was the perfect sleeping bag when one didn’t have a husband.

Rose dreamed. She had moved into the river house. She had not been able to keep away. Everything was the way she liked it. it was clean...it was clean.. it was clean. Binkie loved the back yard. They were happy and comfortable. But Ben was gone. Suddenly she was wandering around the house, hoping he was in the next room, but when she got there he was gone.

She woke up. The river house! She sat up and moaned. She drank a glass of water. No, she was in her new house. A Victorian, actually. An old house. The blankets were warm, ,her flannel pajamas were warm, her flannel sheets were warm.

When had Rose first worn flannel? When she borrowed a shirt from a college boyfriend? She had never felt anything like it. Her mother, Carrie Underwood, had not dressed her daughters in flannel nightgowns. They had slept in their undershirts (no Underwood woman wore a bra).

Wearing her boyfriend’s shirts had made Rose feel sexy. It was something women learned from the movies. (Goodbye, Charlie?) Rose’s boyfriend’s shirts were down to her knees.

Rose woke up and didn’t want to be here. She felt like..Dorrie. Wake, woke, awake. Where could she go in the middle of the night? In an ice storm? Could she fly to...Austin? Austin City Limits...Das Kapital...Texas, her old state, where she had gone to school. Her book was on the bedside table. Rose was reading The Awakening. She had discovered she had two copies of the same Penguin. Rose must have borrowed her mother’s book or maybe she had ordered two copies because she was mad. She had purchased two copies of a Wilkie Collins novel from Dover and had been too exhausted to send it back. (Well, it had only cost $5.) She had given it to someone in her book group.

The middle of the night. The ice storm. Thunder, rain on snow. Ice on branches. Branches down! They cracked and dropped.

Step on a crack, you’ll break your mother’s back.

Rose went outside and picked up some branches. Binkie leaped in the snow. Binkie wasn’t wild about the snow. He loved Rose, though. He missed her during the day. She hadn’t taken him for enough walks lately. They both hated the snow.

Now she shoveled snow in the dark, the only woman outside in flannel pajamas and a coat at 5 a.m.. The bracing white snowy world was tranquil. She smoked a cigarette on the steps after she had cleared the branches from the sidewalk. She was awake because she was worried. What would she do with this huge house? Because she would have to kick Dorrie and Gabrielle out. It was against her religion, but life was getting too weird. Gabrielle was popping into Rose’s living room and kitchen all the time and acting as though they were best friends. Rose had told Gabielle she needed to be alone but Gabrielle didn’t take a hint. And reluctantly Rose had allowed Dorrie to move back in because her brother wouldn’t allow her to stay even for a short time after her hospitalization. Dorrie was like a ghost. She barely spoke. She was on something strong: Haldol? It had turned her into a zombie. it couldn’t be Haldol. They must use something else these days. Haldol was...I Promised You a Rose Garden? Well, some old book.

Oh God, oh God.

The only solution Rose could see was to divide the house into apartments, and she didn’t want to.

She sat on the step and did not know what to do. What she wanted? Honestly she wanted to stop having dreams. And she wanted to figure out what to do about Dorrie and Gabrielle. She knew Gabrielle would be all right, but she didn’t know what to do about Dorrie. She thought Ben should marry her. She did. That was the best thing that could happen.

Rose called Ben on her cell phone. She knew she should not. But he answered. He was awake. Roaring awake.

I’m not going to marry Dorrie, so fuck off.

You should take care of her. I’m in despair. And I think she could take care of the house for you.

Well, I can’t marry her. You cannot make me marry her.

Yes, I can, she said firmly. And she whispered something into the phone.

No. I don’t believe you would do that.

Oh, I would.

It was something she knew. She was the only person who knew it. Almost the only person who knew it. Something that had happened between Ben and Dorrie. Rose had met a social worker recently at a party. The social worker had told her Dorrie’s sad story, not knowing that Rose had been Ben’s wife.

Rose had gone home and swallowed a Xanax, though she hadn’t taken Xanax in a long time. It was just an old prescription.
.
Rose went inside. She crawled into bed and Binkie hopped up on the covers. Then she had the worst dream: Ben was dead. Dead as a doornail. (Marley’s ghost.) They found him in the river. (Our Mutual Friend.) He floated on the river, white as a ghost, finally as thin as he wanted to be, a skeleton.

It seemed in the dream that his father, a friend of the Kennedys, had contracts out on Rose, Dorrie, Kent, and a number of other friends of Ben. Because somebody had killed Ben. Ben had so many friends that it was hard to imagine anyone killing Ben. But girlfriends and the river...the River House. It was something to do with Ted Kennedy and Mary Jo Kopechne in the river.

Rose screamed and woke up.

Somebody screamed, Is something happening?

Just a bad dream, Rose yelled back. Was it Gabrielle or Dorrie? Who cared?

It was Gabrielle. God, what’s wrong? Could I make you a cup of coffee? It’s 5:30.

No. I’ll go back to bed now.

Satan?

Rose watched Sister Act whenever she was depressed. Whoopi Goldberg. Very funny. Megan would have called it mindless. Rose laughed her head off.

SCENE: A CONVENT, SOMEWHERE IN SAN FRANCISCO

Whoopi: Where’s the phone?

Maggie Smith: Who are you going to call?

Whoopi: Satan?

Whoopi, hiding from the mob in a convent. Missing Vegas, she revisited her Catholic childhood. This is a nightmare, she kept saying.

Who are you going to call? Satan? Might as well. He could hardly be worse than God, Rose thought. She thought about her Catholic marriage to Ben.

Eve calling Satan? That’s what Rose was doing these days. Bad girls had more fun. Cigarettes, “I’m so tired from balling,” as she used to say to her friends, Nancy Mitford’s books. Fun. Eve must have felt so relieved when she ate the damned apple. What was God thinking of? He was monstrous. Apples are good for you. Vitamin A. The goddamned serpent had some sense.

Apple computers also had a lot going for them. Apple. Steve Job’s joke?

Rose had always loved Satan in Paradise Lost. The hero. So much more personable than God. And sensible. Not what Milton had had in mind at all. God had no sense at all. She also wasn’t crazy about God in the Old Testament.

Jesus was a sympathetic figure in Paradise Regained. So she did like Milton.

So she had had two Gods: that of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. That of the Old Testament and the New Testament. She loved the Satan of Paradise Lost, the Christ of Paradise Regained.

A two-headed God?

Rose was Satan. That’s what she’d been told on the day her store, Rock Bottom Rig, opened. The priest visited her. He was her favorite priest. The priest she and Ben knew. He told her what she was doing was wrong, that it was not humorous, that it was unholy.

You’re supposed to be pro-life.

Guiltily she thought about the pro-abortion marches she had attended. She could never tell the priests or the nuns. They had anti-abortion posters in the shelter. March, march, march. Marching for abortion, against the war, against capital punishment: what she had done with Ben. The most important thing she had done with Ben.

I am prof-life, she said, thinking she was in favor of justice and against capital punishment. Caput punishment. The head. The head was supposed to be determined by God, not judges and juries. Who often made mistakes. Mob justice.

Attica, Attica!

Atticus Finch.

There were no Atticus Finches. He was a character in a novel.

O.J. must be guilty, everyone said. How did they know? That had always puzzled her. She hadn’t watched the trial, had been appalled when she saw O.J. on the highway in his SUV tracked by police. Was this America? O.J. in his SUV on TV, doubtless frightened to death. The court playing to the TV audience. If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit.

Somehow she hadn’t believed any of it. It had just been too bizarre. Like other TV trials.

When the priest left, several customers came in. Juliette, Wolf, her book group, and their friends. They laughed, had coffee (free), bought books and T-shirts.

Ben came in. You’ve really lost it.

What do you mean?

What is this?

It’s my store.

She quoted Roethke’s “In a Dark Time”--she had been quoting Roethke all day--she had decided to learn one poem a day, so she could quote it to customers:

What’s madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance? The day’s on fire!
I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.
That place among the rocks--is it a cave,
Or winding path? The edge is what I have.”

That’s upbeat, Ben said.

I haven’t lost it, she said coolly. She wore a T-shirt that said, “The natural inheritance of everyone who is capable of spiritual life is an unsubdued forest where the wolf howls and the obscene bird of night chatters.”--Henry James, Sr.

The door jingled. College students came in. She assumed they were college students. Dressed in black, multi-pierced, tattooed, the women with hair dyed burgundy brown, the men with shaved heads or almost shaved. Dragging book bags and laptops.

I want that T-shirt, said one of the men, studying her.

She sold one to him.

Ben stood in the background. He looked ready to bash everything. He did not try to be nice to the customers. She had never seen him so angry.

The girls bought The Bastard of Istanbul. On sale. Rose told them how good it was. She was selling it because one of the characters overdosed, was revived by aunts and her mother, and began to want to remember instead of to blow everything up, linked to family by an Armenian-American cousin who was connected to history.

Everything is connected. Is connected. Connected. How many writers had known that? Had figured it out?

And the musicians knew. She could hardly listen to some of REM’s horrifying lyrics.

Rose told Ben he had to go. He said no, she was still his wife. She said no, they were getting divorced.

Kent jingled in. Ben said, What are you doing here?

Kent said, Is there a problem? I’m a partner here.

Ben slammed out of the store.

What was that?

She found a Kleenex and blew her nose. Okay. I’m fine. We’ve sold $1,000 worth of merchandise.

On the first day?

Yes. And I got into graduate school. A fellowship at Snowden U.

Good God. This calls for a celebration.

Rock Bottom

Rose amused herself by planning a suicide T-shirt business. She sat writing slogans and researching appropriate quotes.

“Put the coffeecake in the oven, not your head, Sylvia Plath.”

“Put the needle in the tapestry, not your arm, Kurt Kobain.”

“Put the sandwich in the refrigerator, not your mouth, Mama Cass.”

“Don’t overdose, overcome, Ox.”

“Bite a bonbon, not the bullet, Ernest Hemingway.”

“They may be your heroes, but they’re my fucking friends.”--Approximate quote about musician drug overdoses by Pete Townshend, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

"I feel the jagged edge with which my contemporaries died".--Robert Lowell, "For John Berryman, 1914-1972"

“You Might As Well Live.”--Dorothy Parker

Rose would call it Rock Bottom Rig. She could see the store: T-shirts, caps, commando hats, hoodies, nightgowns, military bags, messenger bags, cross necklaces, tights, socks, wall decals, pillows, cotton wallets, sheets, and more, all inscribed with suicide slogans. She would sell books and music by suicides and even sewing kits (needles), fake tattoo kits (needles), and pill bottles of candy as a joke. Also anti-suicide equipment and literature: classics and CDs so absorbing you would never want to die, self-help books, calming creams, candles, massages (an in-house masseur or masseuse?), delicious coffeecake, and coffee.

Why are you laughing so hard? Megan asked.

Rose explained. The Grim Reaper has come and gone. She told Megan about her store idea.

Megan laughed. Oh my God, I love it. May I work there?

If you move to Snowden.

Never. Open it in Philly.

Never.

Jim picked up Megan, the three of them went out for pizza, and then Jim and Megan left.

That night Rose clicked on her computer and looked at her bank balance. Good news: she had stopped spending money except for a small DIY amount on the new house. When she sold her half of the River House to Ben, she would have enough to open Rock Bottom. She would do it. She made her business plan. She would force Ben, a lawyer, to do the paperwork . And while she ran Rock Bottom (which would attract people if she kept changing the merchandise), she would go to graduate school . She wanted to do something new, something mindless, something where she could work at home. And computers were so absorbing. You could casually spend a whole day and night s doing a new program or repairing something. Repairs would be easiest. The stupidest people sometimes did the repairs. She had written several programs herself. At her job the computer guys often were slow, kept the system down for days, while Rose could fix it in a few hours. She couldn’t rat because then they would hate her. She knew, however, that they wanted to extend their hours so they would seem more necessary. Sometimes she got so exasperated she fixed it herself, but more often she went home and did her work on her excellent Apple.

Maybe Dorrie and Gabrielle could work at the store. She didn’t know what to do about them. Rose might be able to pressure Ben to let Dorrie and Gabrielle live in the River House. Dorrie was his responsibility. Ben should marry her. That was Rose’s real feeling. Marry Dorrie. Ben could take care of Dorrie. He could be kind.

How Rose had loved Ben!

I don’t anymore, she said. It was hard to remember. It was as though she had amnesia.

But computers were a new world. Better than architecture. She was fed up with architecture. She wanted a whole new life.

The next day she went to the bank with her business plan.

Are you serious?

Yes, I am. Free speech and all that. It doesn’t encourage people to commit suicide. Quite the contrary.

Yes, I see. But who will shop there?

Everybody. The hip and the young. The gen-xers and the gen after them. That’s why it’s probably best if I don’t work there myself. They’ll want somebody at the counter with a nose ring and black clothes. Of course, I could wear black clothes.

She got the loan.

She was very excited when she told Kent. He was laughing so hard he could hardly believe her.

I want in. Can I be your partner? And why can’t you just work here in computers if that’s what you want?

No, I want a Ph.D. I want to go to school. I want time for myself.

Why?

Because I’ve become kind of a nut. Living with Ben was driving me nuts. There’s a kind of nut who spends her life waiting for a phone call.

A Dorothy Parker nut? You might as well live, Kent laughed. But seriously I want to be your partner.

The Pumpkin Eater's Wife

Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater
had a wife and couldn’t keep her,
Put her in a pumpkin shell
and there he kept her very well.

Megan had an inspiration. She hoped Rose would not remain Ben’s wench. So Megan was now a Dadaist sculptor. She put the TV, the computer, and the dishwasher on the lawn. This latter had taken some doing because Megan was not a product of Curves or any other cartel of gyms. She balanced the computer and TV on top of the dishwasher. She stuck a rubber ball on top of the TV with tape. And then she found she longed for some dope. When she finished, she sat in the quiet house and smoked. Gabrielle had found dope for her (“No problem,” Gabrielle had laughed).

The dope was awful. Megan couldn’t smoke it. She tapped out her joint on the ashtray and read a book by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Darkover, Darkover.

When Rose came home after emending a CAD error made by an insane junior partner, she wanted to lie down. As she walked from the bus stop, she saw from half a block away the electronic equipment on the lawn. She sighed. She was lucky it was still there. She was lucky somebody hadn’t come along and taken her things. Why did Megan have to make her so weary? The junior partner’s error had been bad enough. It had destroyed the computer system until Rose found the problem. She had worked with her eyes red from crying because the computer guys were in Venezuela or Nicaragua on some kind of vacation. Nothing like working in tears.

Rose really knew computers.

What was her computer doing on the lawn? The TV, okay, maybe she could see. But the computer?

It’s Dada, Megan explained. It’s because you are not Rose. You have Kleenex all over the house, you cry over The Gilmore Girls, you are living with a heroin addict.

Rose said, I want my computer back.

Rose had typed on her computer: Decrees: She would not return to Ben. Ben would not get her back and move into the Big House.

Rose was not Sylvia Plath.

Rose was not the pumpkin eater’s wife.

Rose had decided she was not the pumpkin eater’s wife when she took the bus on Monday to inspect the river house for Dorrie and Gabrielle. The house was a mess. Her beautiful, beautiful house she had done so much work on. Ben had grown up rich, not poor white trash, so how had he managed to destroy the house? What values? A towel covered with shit was flung on the floor. Had he wiped his ass with the towel? There was water all over the bathroom floor. Had he splashed it or did he need to call a plumber? There were condom packages in the bedroom beside the bed: ready for his girlfriends?. In the kitchen three empty dish detergent bottles were knocked over on the kitchen counter (after all, why throw them away when the trash was a few paces from the sink) and a plant sprayer, a pile of Penguin mugs, and two pans mildewed in the soap. She could barely unstick them from the soap. The refrigerator was filled with old food and smelled.

She simply cried. This had to be hostility. She had never seen such rancor.

Ben would not clean it.

She would have to sell her half of the house. She would not clean it, either.

Ben would not have a chance to destroy the Big House, as he called it.

Megan had put the stuff on the lawn because she thought Rose had turned into a crying zombie but Rose did have sense. Rose knew her expiration date was past . Divorcing Ben would be a rung, a big rung up the ladder away from death, but there would be no new boyfriend. Middle-aged men had ego problems. They wanted to stay young. They wanted young wives.

She had dyed her hair. She regretted it now.

She thought she would get out of architecture and into computers because she wanted a mindless job. Computers were made to break. She would go back to school and get a Ph.D. in computers.

That sounds really stupid, said Megan.

Rose sighed. Help me bring in the TV and the dishwasher.

TV

Megan watched CNN. She hated TV. She disliked “Desperate Housewives,” “Martha Stewart,” "Jericho," and the other shows Rose watched.

But if you stayed with Rose, you watched endless TV.

Megan embroidered, like Penelope weaving, and waited for Jim to call from the road. She kept making mistakes and redoing the rose. (Yes, it was a rose. Megan was exasperated. Couldn’t you have gotten me a cat or a dog or a lion or an angel?)

Of course Megan had stayed behind with Rose, though Jim, Jason, and April drove back to Philly on Sunday. Megan sent Jim out to buy her an embroidery kit before they left. She said she had to have something to do because she knew she would spend long hours sitting with Rose while Rose cried.

The Underwood women never cried. Carrie, their mother, had believed in teaching them other outlets: art, crafts, the piano (which they had all abandoned). Rose was crying. She was a wreck. She told everything to Megan and allowed Jim to listen, since he had not felt up to hiking with Jason and April. Anyway, Jim was fascinated by Megan’s sister. She was just like Megan, only more polite.

But polite wasn’t as good as bitchy. That was Megan’s opinion. The truth about Rose was that she allowed Ben to turn her life into “Desperate Housewives.” She had allowed him to come over to see her a couple of times after Dorrie was committed by the court to the psych ward. (If Dorrie’s brother had let her stay with him while the doctor adjusted her medication, she wouldn’t have had to go the hospital.)

You let Ben come over? Megan was incredulous. She imagined this was how Dorrie must have felt about Rose and Ben.

Of course. We talked about the divorce. And I was so sick. I had the flu.

Divorce?

Well, it’s not definite.

Nothing is definite with that guy. He wants you--he wants you in the psych ward with Dorrie. Wouldn’t that be the greatest? Two crazy wives?

Rose tried to explain. He's not all bad. He's just messed-up. Not much worse than we are. Spoiled by rich parents.

Then where is the money? He doesn't give you much money.

It seemed Ben wanted to move into the “big house,” as he called it, and give the river house to Dorrie and Gabrielle rent-free.

You’re not considering that? Did you sleep with him?

Oh, shut up. This is very stressful for me. I don’t know whether I should take him back or not.

You should NOT.

I’m not really asking you.

Then why am I here?

Crying, Rose said, Because I have to talk to someone.

Jim said, You’re doing very well without him.

Megan looked at him. She batted her lashes over and over like Rachel Griffiths on “Brothers and Sisters” (another of Rose’s shows). She didn’t know what it meant, but suspected that it meant, “Don’t do that.”

Jim said, What?

She’s not doing well. She’s crying.

I’m not doing well, Rose admitted.

Jim left. Megan embroidered. Megan had never, ever seen anything worse than the TV Rose watched with Gabrielle . Apparently this was their secret life: they sat in the entertainment center den at night with their eyes glued to the machine. Did they even see it? Gabrielle probably didn’t: she was on the nod. Rose seemed to want nothing more than to gobble it up along with the pastry she ate (she made croissants every other day and had gained weight). Rose used to be a reader. Where were her books? If Rose and Gabrielle saw what Megan saw, they would never watch it. They didn’t have cable: a good thing or God knows what they’d find. Megan was exasperated. She ate the rigatoni takeout from an Italian restaurant and stared at her sister and Gabrielle.

“Desperate Housewives.” Women with lip jobs. A dead woman’s voice. Was this what America wanted to watch? Megan couldn’t imagine it.

Rose and Gabrielle also watched “Brothers and Sisters,” a show about a family with problems. Big problems. Rose and Gabrielle explained it to Megan. The father, who owned Ohigh, a produce company, died of a heart attack. Then the "brothers and sisters" found out about his debts and his mistress. At first they tried to hide it from their mother. Sally Field found everything out in time. Now the mistress (a real slut) was acting very seductive with one of the young sons (whom she persuaded to go into the vineyard business with her). She also had an affair with the dead man’s brother-in-law. She also worked at Ohigh now. How likely was that?

Megan had major problems with this show. First, Rachel Griffiths kept laughing when she was supposed to be crying, her mouth twitching because her lines were so dotty, as far as Megan could see. No one edited out her mirth. The other actors weren’t caught laughing like this. Somebody had it in for Rachel Griffiths.

And what were Sally Fields and Callista Flockhart thinking? Shouldn’t they be in a better show? Even “Desperate Housewives”?

They were just too good for the show.

There were no men worth looking at except for Tom Skerritt, who had apparently been written out of the show. He was the dead father, occasionally back for a flashback.

This show sucks. Three therapy sessions in one show?

Megan, you are the most negative woman on the earth, said Gabrielle, laughing.

Megan was not going to be told what she was by a 30-year-old addict. And Rose stuck up for her.

You don’t understand Megan. You don’t know her at all. She says what she thinks all the time.

Everybody used to be critical, Megan said.

Back in the sixties? Gabrielle sneered.

The sixties, the seventies, the eighties, the nineties. You name it, darling. It’s your generation and the Greatest Generations who have shut us up.

Gabrielle laughed. Megan sighed. No one could ever shut her up. Not even you, Gabrielle Whoever-You-Are.

Megan hoped Rose would throw Gabrielle out of the house. And soon.

What?

They decided to take a road trip. The whole family. All of them. To Snowden, a town Megan called “Loserville,”a town her sister had lived in for years. Megan kept telling Rose to get out of Loserville, to move to New York, where she could forget Ben and do "real" architecture. But Rose was a sap. She didn't consider fleeing Loserville. Moving to a new house was all she could do.

Don't go back to Rockville, Megan sang.

She loved her son, in her way. They hadn't traveled together in a long time because she had been busy writing her book about the '60s since his father's death and he had been busy with his job, with his girlfriends. The trip was the last thing she had considered. Jason wanted to console his aunt. He secretly wanted Rose and Ben to get back together, but knew it would not be possible.

What I want most in this world...he said drily to Megan.

Oh, honey. I want that for you, too. Whatever you want. On the trip Megan planned to ask her son about marrying April, if he were happy in his reporting job (she suspected that he was not).

As soon as Megan learned that Jason intended to bring April, Megan tried to get out of it.

I’ll fly. I’ll take the train.

No, don’t do that. I haven’t seen Aunt Rose in a year. April and I will drive. You won’t have to worry about it.

Megan couldn’t sleep that night. Why did she hate April? The next day she couldn’t even get dressed. She watched soap operas. One of the characters had been married to the mother, daughter, and granddaughter of a family. The plot had been stolen from Hardy's The Pursuit of the Well-Beloved. Jason should go ahead and do that, as far as she was concerned, marry three women of different generations. Anything was better than fat April.

Jim came home and didn’t understand why Megan was pale, wearing a huge old shirt with holes and ancient red bell-bottoms that had belonged to Jason, unwashed, a nervous wreck. He didn't understand that she was trying to remember what it was like to have a son, who her son had been, why he was now the man who would marry April.

She couldn’t cry. Tears didn’t run in the Underwood family. They got depressed. They were wooden. They didn’t express emotions. Some thought they didn't feel.

I can’t stand April. Please, please, please come with me and sit in the back seat so I don’t have to talk to them. Jason may not be the prize of creation, but why would he marry this cop?

He seems to be in love.

Don’t you think it’s just to get back at me?

For what?

Megan sighed. By today’s standards Megan had been immoral, a hippie mother who had allowed her son to take drugs, flunk out of English class while publishing poems in little magazines, and hitchhike on the weekends . Megan had been called to the principal’s office repeatedly because Jason’s IQ was off the charts but he wouldn’t work. Words had been his life: let him have words. He’d written poems on walls: graffiti poems on the school walls, ont he walls of downtown buildings. In the end he got off without a fine because his girlfriened, the mayor's daughter, went to his school, and the mayor intervened and called attention to Jason's talent. The poetry stayed on the walls. The teachers were furious.

It was amazing Jason got out of high school alive. He'd wanted to take the GED, but Megan and her husband insisted that he graduate.

Now he wanted to marry a policewoman.

He adores you, Megan. But, okay, I’ll go.

The trip to Snowden took only three hours. Megan wanted to stop at an old-hippie restaurant known for its epicurean Molly Katzen-like breakfasts of omelets, quiche, and casseroles, but she was voted down.

Let's just get there.

Snowden was a dump, just as she'd remembered it. Well, the buildings weren't tall enough. People worked here who couldn't work anywhere else. Rose should be in New York. She adamantly believed that. Or Philly, for Christ's sake.

But when they pulled up in front of Rose's house, everyone was impressed. It was a Victorian, with a tower, moldings, dormer windows. Mauve with brown trim and brown molidngs.

Rose opened the door, looking shiny and rested. Her clothes were new, some kind of designer jeans and loose sweater (hard to find among the tight sweaters that were the style). Her hair was new: cropped, shingled, and dyed.

You look like a flapper, Megan said.

Rose laughed. I’ve made Jason's favorite coffee cake. Jason, April, Jim, come in.

She threw her arms around Megan and whispered, What are all these people doing here?

Wow, this house is mammoth. What an improvement over the river house, Megan said loudly. Then, when the others had gone inside, she said, Jason wanted to see you. And he wanted to bring his fiancee. So I demanded that Jim come, too.

Rose cried. I need to talk to you alone.

Well, we’ll send them out to hike or something.

It was a huge gathering of souls, sitting in the living room, drinking coffee, spilling coffee cake crumbs, talking loudly while Bob Dylan sang on the CD player, "Blood on my saddle...."

Good God, there’s nothing here but Dylan. Where are all the CDs? Megan asked, sitting cross-legged on the floor.

I left them with Ben.

How about all your Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and Billie Holliday and Keith Jarrett records?

I have had other things to think about, you know.

This was unthinkable. Megan had to have her music. Rose needed music. Why did Rose have only Dylan? Rose was idiotic.

They were talking about Dylan, apparently April's favorite singer (she knew everything about his music, exactly when each song had been written and recorded: really boring), when an emaciated woman in jeans, with a skinny aging little face, peered in. I’m going to see Dorrie at the hospital. Anything you want me to take her?

It was obvious to everybody that she wanted to see Rose’s family, but Rose didn’t mind. Megan did. Rose introduced Gabrielle and went into the kitchen to wrap a piece of coffeecake in foil.

Motherly to the end, said Megan. She lets Gabrielle take coffeecake to the schizophrenic who cheated with Ben.

She seems very interesting, Jason said.

Who? April asked.

Oh...the tenant. Jason hurried into the kitchen and struck up a conversation with Gabrielle about Arabic literature. Pretty soon Gabrielle took off her coat and sat down to discuss Munif, whom Jason had read in translation.

The cake’s ready, Rose said, frowning. She wasn’t going to encourage Jason with Gabrielle.

Who was that beautiful woman? he asked after she left.

Beautiful? You mean the anorexic drug user? April asked.

What do you mean, drug user? Jason asked.

Gabrielle is a heroin addict. She teaches and is working on her dissertation. But she is an addict, Rose said.

Jason’s face fell.

April and Megan exchanged looks. They smiled at each other. Megan realized this was probably her “bonding” moment with April.

What’s so funny? Jason asked.

It’s tragic about the skinny heroin addict, Megan said with a straight face.

Isn’t it? said fat April. Have another piece of cake, Megan.

I think I will, April. Thank you. I might have two more pieces of cake.

Rose started laughing.

What? asked Jason.

Rose teared up and rushed out of the room. Megan heard her sobbing in her bedroom.

What? asked Jason.

Megan disappeared.

Jason and April

April, the policewoman, was as ridiculous as Megan anticipated.

Tall, homely, and chunky, April was unlike the beautiful female detectives in TV series, unlike the P.I. in Sara Paretsky’s famous mysteries, and didn’t match Jason’s dignified Lincolnesque looks. April apparently hadn't worked out since she’d begun driving a black-and-white five years ago. April looked as if she’d been eating omelets and pancakes at the diner every free minute.

Oh no. This couldn’t be Jason’s fiancee.Her son deserved slim. Fat Megan Underwood, weighing in at 175 pounds, had been nothing if not thin in her youth. She was nothing if not cool now. Suddenly her mother’s manners kicked in. April wouldn’t notice Megan’s aloof disapproval because April was stupid, but Megan embraced Jason and said coolly, How do you do? to April. Jason flashed her a look. Jason knew what she was up to. April, however, was overly friendly and ignored Megan’s signals. She insisted on giving Megan a bottle of wine:

This is something a wino recommended. I’ve arrested him many times.

Jason laughed. Megan tried to laugh. Winos? She hadn’t heard anybody talk about winos in years. The term was alcies, if she remembered.

April told a long story about the wino. She had apparently arrested him for sleeping drunk in the tunnels under the city. He ate macaroni and cheese in the cafeteria in one of the tunnels and then tiptoed around the corner and drank his bottle of wine and went to sleep. He loved his cell at the jail and enjoyed his breakfast of pancakes, which she brought him from McDonald’s. He told her all about life on the streets, preferring to sleep underground whenever possible as he didn’t have a tent and didn’t care to live in a box in a homeless encampment.

She helped him get into rehab--he was a drunk, not stupid--and then found him a job at a parking ramp. Minimum wage. Now he lived in a rented room. It was a dump, next to a bar, but she visited him often and brought him posters and books. He had a CD player. His favorite singer was Frank Sinatra.

Jason bought him a complete set of Sinatra, April said.

Jason held April’s hand.

Megan wanted to throw up. Of all Jason’s girlfriends, why did this have to be the one.

She asked aggressively, Why did you have to arrest Jack in the first place? Why not let him sleep in the tunnels?

For God’s sake, Mom, I did a profile of Jack. You read it. You know why she had to arrest him.

Oh, yeah. Megan smiled tenuously. She pretended she had read all of Jason’s articles but often didn’t. This wouldn’t have been her kind of thing. Jason was her son but he wasn’t her favorite writer. He was too green. He was callow. He believed everything people told him. She wouldn’t have believed anything Jason had found out about Jack, recovering alcoholic and parking ramp attendant.

For supper she had made soup. She hadn’t felt like cooking. It was chicken broth with potatoes, carrots, and a few noodles. She realized she should have made something else.

What else could she put on the table? She looked in the refrigerator. There was lettuce, mushrooms, and an old carrot. She made a salad, made oil and balsamic vinegar dressing.

Where was Jim? She hoped he’d bring dessert. This dinner was inadequate.

She put it on the table, bravely smiling. Jim’s late. We’ll start without him.

Jason made a face. Leftovers soup? You made leftovers soup, Mom?

Jason, I don’t cook.

The soup’s good. How do you make it, Ms. Underwood?

Megan, Megan said automatically.

She opens a can of broth, then she throws in potatoes and vegetables, then she throws in noodles at the end, said Jason.

Shut up! Megan swatted him across the table. This is homemade broth.

Jason rolled his eyes. Homemade from Swanson?

Jason! April laughed.

April liked her food. She ate two bowls of soup. There was none left for Jim. She ate all the salad.

Megan wanted to eat a hundred brownies watching her eat.

Finally Jim came home with the brownies. Special triple peppermint brownies from a bakery. Megan ate two just because she was bored of being a role model for fat April.

Jim was very nice to April. A good thing because Megan wasn’t that person. Jason came into the kitchen and said, What’s with the soup? Are you upset that I’m marrying a policewoman?

Megan sighed. I’m sure April’s very nice.

You would have made chicken for anybody else.

Well, I’m disappointed. I hoped she’d come in uniform.

You’re a pig.

Don’t talk that way to your mother.

She’s not just a policewoman. She’s a sweet, fun, charming person. Better fun than you actually, because she’s not stoned all the time.

I’m never stoned anymore. I gave it up. And of course she’s fun. I just didn’t feel like cooking after a big meal last night.

She eats. Like you, Mom.

Megan sighed. She was not going to align herself with a policewoman.

Underworld

Jason announced on Valentine’s Day that he was getting married, though Megan wasn't listening. She was preoccupied with the thought that she hadn’t gotten a Valentine’s gift for Jim. Perhaps she could send Jason out to buy a DVD so it would be here when Jim got home from work. Then Jason told her about his fiancee. Everybody announced these things on Valentine’s Day. It was so corny, like chick-lit writers appearing on Martha Stewart. Jason declared, I’m getting married.

Sh. Wait. I’m watching this. She knew she was being rude. It’s Jane Green and Jennifer Weiner. I especially like Jane Green. But Weiner is so aggressive Green barely gets to say anything.

Don’t you want to hear about April?

Sh. Megan knew that was very mean but she felt her blood pressure going up. She had to control her reaction. She had to be a cool mom. So she pretended to care about chick-lit and said, I love Jemima M.

Is that a chick-lit book? April reads those books.

Sh. it’s almost over.

Megan listened to the novelists say they wrote “faction,” not fiction, and that their books were fact turned into fiction.

I would never have known that, she said with a straight face.

You’re going to love April. She’s a cop. What could be more feminist?

Megan was cool about it. She sipped her Coke, real Coke, not Diet, because you only live once, and she didn’t particularly want to get cancer from whatever was in Diet Coke. It was a bit stunning to learn that Jason was marrying a policewoman after his upbringing. What could she say? She remembered the time she had been cuffed by a policewoman at an antiwar demonstration. She could hardly call that cop a feminist and still remembered the vicious way the cop had knocked her down and hauled her into the back seat of a black-and-white. The handcuffs had hurt like hell. She’d screamed, Help!, but no one had been able to help her. The cops were everywhere.

When do I get to meet her?

Tomorrow? We’re going out tonight. We got a package deal: first the casino and then he hotel.

I don’t want to hear it. She would never take a package deal, ever. She would never go to a casino, take a cruise, do any of those other old-people things. Jason was, what, 26?

She popped open the box of candy Jim had given her and Jason ate several chocolate-covered caramels, which he identified by the swirl on top. He and Jim had the same tastes: football, nachos, chocolate-covered caramels. The two were somehow all-American guys who watched the Superbowl on TV while she watched them in amazement. Jason had never been a sports guy. He had been a post-hippie environmentalist kid who smoked dope with his parents and printed out the chapbooks of poetry he wrote on his computer. The poetry wasn’t too bad. He had a journalism degree and an MFA. Now he was stuck working on a newspaper.

Megan couldn’t believe Jason was going to marry a cop. She had hoped he would marry Rose’s alternative newspaper friend, Ashley. That had been Megan and Rose’s plot. Jason was going to drive Megan to Snowden on the weekend so she could comfort Rose while she was falling apart. Jason and Ashley would meet and perhaps they’d fall for each other. He could save Ashley’s newspaper from failing.

Now he said he wanted to marry a policewoman.

Megan pretended everything was all right but she was fed up. She knew all mothers hated their daughters-in-law. All mothers schemed against them. it was like a Roman empire thing, an American empire thing. She had been through it herself long ago when her mother-in-law had wanted to kill her in society. She had told everybody that Megan had been arrested. She hadn’t told them that it had been for marching against the war. Megan’s mother-in-law’s friends had assumed she was some kind of whore because Megan had worn very sexy clothes in those days. Megan looked at the pictures and couldn’t believe it.

No wonder her bottled-up mother-in-law had hated her.

Megan counted on hating April. it wouldn’t matter much. It was wisest not to mention it. If she broke them up, Jason would just end up hating Megan.

When Jim got home, she was delighted. He was the perfect boyfriend.

What a day. What a day, he kept muttering. But we’ll still go out for dinner.

What about “What a day?” What happened?

No, no, you don’t want to know.

Megan put on a dress. It was too tight. She was so fat! She tried on another dress, a loose dress she could get away with, and put on a necklace, a ridiculous beady necklace that a niece had given her, probably made for her. Did she have any earrings? She couldn’t find them. There were still holes in her ears.

Should she put on makeup?

She looked in the mirror. A fat woman in makeup. Hm. Which was worse? A fat woman with or without makeup? Everybody wore eyeliner. Megan had never cared for the look. It made her look like a raccoon.

In the end she went without makeup.

You look great, Jim said. Jim looked good: not lank and Abraham Lincolnish, like her son Jason. He was wearing jeans.

Megan laughed. She wondered why she was wearing a dress if he was wearing jeans. They were going to their favorite African restaurant. The restaurant was in an alley. Why were hip Philadelphians dining in an alley? Because the food was good.

She idly told him that Jason was getting married.

He’s old enough.

But he’s only 26 and he’s marrying a policewoman.

Jim laughed. That might not be a bad thing. They know a lot. They know the underworld.

Do I want a daughter-in-law who knows the underworld?

Why not?

They ate their food, drank their wine, and did not discuss the marriage. They were too old.

Valentine's Day

Valentine’s Day. Rose woke up and groaned. Weddings on Regis and Kelly. She watched, entranced by the white dresses and tuxedos. She was fascinated by weddings, especially TV weddings. She regretted that she did not have a wedding album. She and Ben had had a small wedding: no pictures. Only their dysfunctional families and a few friends attended. She had worn a lovely blue dress that belonged to her friend Juliette (“something borrowed, something blue”) and he had worn jeans and a crisp white shirt. They were married on a politician’s houseboat by a priest. Very casual. They had had their honeymoon on the boat. Neither one had the faintest idea how to drive it so they stayed in the harbor. They ate takeout and watched TV.

Dorrie’s wedding had been equally casual. Ben had told her all about it. He and Dorrie had been married in a state park,Dorrie barefoot in a peasant dress with a cut-off ragged hem and a scarf over her hair, Ben more traditionally clad in a suit jacket over T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. Then after a few years Dorrie had taken off for Seattle, disgusted by Ben’s “life-style.” That's when she had been diagnosed as schizophrenic. Now Dorrie had been hospitalized again. The doctor told her brother he had seen her worse, but she was suffering from religious delusions and needed new meds. He had suggested that she stay with her brother and take her medication at his house instead of in the hospital. Dorrie’s brother didn’t want her around.

I have a family.

Rose felt guilty when she heard this. If Dorrie hadn’t slept with her husband, she could come back. But Rose was very upset.


Dorrie’s brother said Dorrie was getting muddled and enraged because her Sacred Heart pictures weren’t at the hospital.

Ooh boy, he said. I’m a Catholic, but this is too much.

She has 130 Sacred Heart pictures, Rose said. I don’t know where she got them. I’ll get someone to take them to the hospital.

Rose had a cold. Bird flu, she called it. She filled a thermos with tea and orange juice and went upstairs to Dorrie’s room.

Rose sat in the bed on Dorrie’s room, surrounded by Sacred Hearts. She tried to imagine what it was like to be Dorrie.

She read in Dorrie’s Catholic Encyclopedia: “...the devotion is based entirely upon the symbolism of the heart. It is this symbolism that imparts to its meaning and its unity, and this symbolism is admirably completed by the representation of the Heart as wounded. Since the Heart of Jesus appears to us as the sensible sign of His love, the visible wound in the Heart will naturally recall the invisible wound of this love.”

The symbolism of the heart. She tried to remember what she’d learned in Catholic school . The heart with the thorns had looked glorious, briefly, when she was seven. She had been given the picture in grade school, probably before her first communion. The nuns gave all kinds of holy cards, scapulars, and prayer books. She had put the Sacred Heart picture on the wall. Her mother had had a fit.

Blood and gore. No, that’s not how we remember Jesus in our house. Her mother had put up a wooden crucifix instead.

But Jesus suffered: Jesus died for our sins. Jesus loved so sacredly that his heart symbolizes his whole person and his eternal love, she’d said.

Her mother would not allow the Sacred Heart picture.

Rose almost wished she had Dorrie’s values. It must be simpler. Her mother had taught her the Sacred Heart was vulgar.

As she took down the Sacred Heart pictures and put them in a bag, she cried. Ben had sent Rose a valentine yesterday: a box of candy, roses, and a Rolling Stones CD. “Start me up”? What the hell was the symbolism of “Start Me Up”? Rose felt exasperated. It was nothing to do with valentines or sacred hearts. Rose felt like sending the whole thing to Dorrie at the hospital. Well, she couldn’t send the candy. She had eaten it. Probably why she felt so sick. Even though she’d eaten the whole box she’d lost three pounds. A sure sign she was sick.

Ben was responsible. Calling Rose on the phone and sleeping with Dorrie, leading both on. Rose refused to see Ben.

She picked up her phone when he rang. Go see Dorrie in the hospital, Ben. And take these Sacred Heart pictures she wants. You might as well marry her.

I can’t do that.

You have to see her at least. You made her sick. You can make her better. You know that.

It wasn’t my idea to take her home. She was crying .

You could have said no. How can you put it all on her?

I didn’t know she’d get sick. She looked normal.

Didn’t it occur to you she was already sick or she wouldn’t have been acting like that? When has Dorrie ever wanted you back? Anyway,I thought you wanted to get back together with me.

You wouldn’t let me see you.

So you slept with Dorrie? If you don’t go see her and make her feel all right, I’ll never speak to you again. Do you realize she was saying hundreds of Hail Marys because she believed she had sinned?

Hundreds?

Hundreds.

Ben came by and picked up the Sacred Hearts. Rose wanted to fall into his arms. She was so tired. She had used up a whole box of Kleenex and had to go out for more. Why not just let him move in so he would get the Kleenex for her?

Look at this, he said. One sex act with me and she turns to Jesus. Isn’t that a good thing?

Rose swatted him. Get out of here. Do what it takes to make her better. Tell her we’re getting divorced and you want to marry her.

But I don’t want to marry her, Rose. You know you’re going to let me move back in.

Oh, get out. And get me some Kleenex on the way back from the hosptial.

Sacred Hearts

Rose, you have to listen to me. (Sniveling.) .

Ashley? Is that you?

It’s about Ben. I need to tell you something.

I don’t want to hear it. Rose sighed. People had done this to her for years. They had seen Ben with a woman and wanted to let her know.

It’s not a little thing. You need to know it.

I honestly do not want to hear it, Ashley.

Ashley was a much younger woman who had worked as a model and now edited an alternative newspaper, obviously because her father had put money into it. She had no experience. She had never worked on a newspaper. Her father had, in fact, bought the paper so she would have something to do. There were no jobs for people of her generation. So she and the other “slackers” in her age group, liberal arts graduates from state universities, wrote features, reviews, and opinion pieces with very little reporting to back them up. Daddy took care of the lawsuits. Ben tried to explain to the reporters that they needed to interview, read documents, and research the facts. But Ashley had an MFA and left the editing to others and wrote short stories and poems, which she sometimes published in the paper. It was hard to sell ads around Ashley’s poetry, as her father and Ben tried to explain to her. She and her friends did what they wanted: the paper never made a profit. Rose liked Ashley because she was fun and because she never flirted with Ben. Ashley was was addicted to gossip, a beautiful brunette who wore tiny glasses and looked like one of the Dixie Chicks, and very kindhearted--so kindhearted that she gave work to all her friends.

It’s about that woman in your house. She’s meeting Ben.

That woman? Who? Rose, of course, did not have the faintest idea. She felt confused. Dorrie was the schizophrenic ex-wife so Rose automatically ruled her out as “that woman.” Gabrielle was a heroin addict. She doubted that Gabrielle would get involved with Ben. Gabrielle was having an affair with drugs. But who else was there?

Do you mean Gabrielle? Rose asked

Is Gabrielle the one with brown hair, very skinny, middle-aged?

Oh, no. Rose almost dropped the phone. She couldn’t bear to hear what was coming.

I don’t want to interfere but she shouldn’t be living in your house. I think she’s called Dora. Ashley was crying.

Thank you, Ashley. I did need to know this. You did the right thing.

Rose put down the phone on the couch. She was stunned. Then she picked it up again. She called him up, furious. There was no answer. Of course there was no answer. Sunday night? Why would he be home on Sunday night?

Ben, call me up immediately when you get this.

She went upstairs and batted on Dorrie’s door.

Dorrie said, I’m praying. I can’t come to the door.

I have to see you right now, Dorrie.

Dorrie opened the door. She was clutching a rosary and the walls were covered with Sacred Heart pictures. She was wearing old sweatpants and had obviously been kneeling on the pillow beside the bed. She had lost a dramatic amount of weight in the past week and looked ill. She needed to wash her hair.

It struck Rose that Dorrie had gone crazy again. She didn’t care, though. What have you been doing with my husband?

Dorrie shrieked and tried to shut the door. I did sleep with him once but I went to confession. I’m in hell.

Do you think you can fuck Ben and live off my hospitality? That’s very nice, isn’t it? I got you the part in that damned play and got you out of that apartment and you’ve been borrowing Gabrielle’s clothes and feeling better. So then you go and fuck Ben, who is still my husband. Do you think Ben would see you for one minute if you weren’t connected to me?

I’ve said my Hail Marys. Hundreds of them. And I was Ben’s wife, too. His real wife.

His real wife? I’ve been his real wife for ten years. And I might divorce him but I haven’t yet and you can’t live off me if you’re going to see him. Go live off Ben.

Dorrie had behaved strangely for a couple of weeks. Now she screamed, I’m not seeing Ben but you don’t need to think you’re so good. You have me here for your own reasons. I painted your fucking walls and if I chose to have lunch with Ben when he asked me that’s my business. I slept with him once and I’m miserable now.

Well, that’s too bad. You have to leave. I can’t have you here anymore.

Dorrie screamed and closed the door.

Gabrielle showed up on the stairs. Wait, you can’t do that. She won’t have anything to do with Ben the saint again. That was a one-time thing. She’s been praying and spending her days with the nuns ever since.

I never want to see her again. Don’t you understand that?

Where would she go? If she leaves, I’ll have to leave too and be responsible for her and you know I can’t do that. I’m on the nod every night. She’s completely crazy right now and should probably be in the hospital. She won’t watch TV, she won’t read, she won’t wash her hair, she just prays for hours. All that normalcy is gone because she slept with the guy once. He’s more responsible for this than she is because he knows exactly who she is. She’s not somebody he picked up in a bar.

I can’t have her screaming in there. Rose looked at Gabrielle.

She needs to be in the hospital probably. I’m sorry, but I’ve been there before and it won’t kill her.

Why should I have to take her to the hospital?

Call her brother or sister or whoever.

For someone on the nod, you make a lot of sense.

Gabrielle went into Dorrie’s room to find her some other clothes while Rose called Dorrie’s brother.

After Dorrie left with her brother, Rose went into the living room to watch “Dracula” on PBS. She shook with sobs. She was tired of Ben’s betrayals.

And she never wanted to see Dorrie again, whatever Gabrielle said. But she called Gabrielle's brother anyway.

Did you take her to the hospital?

She's here right now. But we'll see how she is in the morning.

Hail Mary

“Dr. Warner smiled a little, shyly it seemed. Then? Why, then, I suppose there would be only one thing to do--gracefully.’ And so saying, he leaned back in his great chair and slowly raised his hands. ’The unhappy part of this business is,’ he went on, beaming helplessly, ‘I have an absolute horror of needles.’”--”The Night the Bird Blew for Doctor Warner” by Terry Southern

Dorrie was reading Terry Southern. Dorrie was going through a Catholic phase, so it was probably some sin, though she couldn’t think what. But she needed Catholicism now. Gabrielle had pinned a rosary on the bulletin board in the kitchen “to keep away vampires” and Dorrie had been offended. Gabrielle gave it to her and Dorrie wore it everywhere.

To keep the vampires away, she told Gabrielle.

She was down at the church shelter more than ever. Since sleeping with Ben she had started helping the nuns cook breakfast for Sudanese immigrants at an inner-city church, then cooked soup and washed dishes at the downtown church. She told the priest in the old-style confessional that she had committed adultery. She knelt in the confessional and listened to his lecture--only ancient priests heard confession in the confessionals--and then wasn’t sure of the number of Hail Marys she had to say. Was it twenty or was it two hundred? Her ears had popped at a Who concert in the ‘80s and she’d had tinnitus ever since.

Hail Mary full of grace. She got more and more anxious as the church got dark.

We have to lock up now, someone said.

And she had to catch the bus. She ran out into the cold and said the rest of the Hail Marys, a hundred more for good luck, kneeling in her room.

Hail Mary. She had almost been a virgin again. She hadn’t had sex in years. And then she had slept with Ben. Why? Because he was her husband? Was he still her husband? In the eyes of the church, maybe. They hadn’t paid for an annulment. They had both thought that was too stupid.

But there was no excuse. Not really. She wanted to be a wife again.

How about Mary? The Virgin Mary, the Annunciation, the Assumption. It seemed logical that Mary would understand about sex and adultery. Or did she? Was the archangel the father of Jesus?

A nun had been scandalized years ago when she asked about that. Are you even a Catholic?

That night she couldn’t be still. Gabrielle was out. Rose was asleep. Dorrie didn’t feel quite right and thought she had forgotten to take her pills but wasn’t sure. Perhaps she was in agony because he hadn’t called. He hadn’t called. She was forty-five years old and still tortured when Ben didn’t call.

She looked at the bottles. What did she need? Lined up on the counter were morning antidepressants, morning anti-psychotics, evening antipsychotics, and sleeping pills. How many pills were too many?

Gabrielle, of course, popped them by the handful. Nothing hurts, she laughed. These things aren’t going to kill anybody.

Dorrie wasn’t sure. She thought she had missed her morning pills. In case you miss one, call your doctor, the pharmacist told her.

She didn’t believe in pills, but she was addicted. If they call you manic, schizoaffective, or schizophrenic, you never get out.

Geodon? Mm, mm, good.

Dorrie tiptoed downstairs. She needed to be near someone. Rose had said she could borrow books and CDs any time. She borrowed Southern’s book and doubted that Rose would notice. it made its way to Snowden because Megan, a very peculiar woman whom Dorrie had met a couple of times over the years, said she’d laughed so hard over it that she wanted Rose to read it.

Rose had declared herself bored by sentences like “Although Murray smoked hashish whenever it was offered, he seldom took the trouble to go over to the Arab quarter himself...”

Dorrie secretly thought it was funny. She was on prescription drugs and she was addicted to them. She might as well go to NA groups, she thought. She had smoked hashish many years ago. The time Dorrie took heroin...she hadn’t known she was taking heroin. Someone had given her something to smoke at a party. She had assumed it was hashish. It was laced. She hadn’t realized it. She relaxed. She didn’t quite know how Gabrielle felt when she shot up heroin but she had a fair idea. Gabrielle had offered to let her shoot up a couple of times. She’d always said no. But she wasn’t as horrified as she’d once been.

Gabrielle came in.

Finally.

You were waiting for me?

I have to tell you something. Dorrie wrung her hands.

What?

I slept with Ben.

What? Gabrielle dropped a book and a file. Oh no, that’s my Munif. I’ve been working on it all day.

Dorrie helped her pick it up.

But why did you sleep with Ben? I thought you were a saint.

It’s because he and Rose are separated. And because I used to be married to him. And because he asked me to lunch a couple of times. And because I got very pissed off that he was using me.

But what about Rose? We’re not supposed to betray one another by sleeping with each other’s boyfriends. That’s a soap opera. That’s The Bold and the Beautiful.

I know, I know. I went to Confession. I was supposed to say 20 or 200 Hail Marys, I’m not sure which. Rose has been sleeping with somebody at the gym.

What? I didn’t know that. I pray to God you used a condom.

Dorrie looked her straight in the face. I’m pregnant.

What?

I’m kidding. I’m forty-five, you idiot.

You got me.

But why do I want to see Ben again? It’s over, it’s been over for over 10 years.

Dorrie, forget about him. You and Rose are both sick. And it’s probably his fault.

Well, we're not Sylvia Plath...yet.

And it couldn't have been 200 Hail Marys. You're not that bad, Dorrie.

House of the Living

Dorrie, too, slept. She slept long hours, safe for the first time in years. No crazy guys in the halls and no gang members did drive-by shootings. It was a house of the living, not the dead. She used to call her apartment house the House of the Dead.

The house was warm. Heavenly warmth, 68 degrees! When had she last lived in a warm house? Before college, she supposed. She could vaguely remember sitting reading the Brontes in her parents’ house in stretch pants and a sweatshirt, not really needing the sweatshirt. Now Dorrie could relax in the warmth of the house, wearing only a nightgown and light sweater. Everybody in the twenty-first century seemed to live in arctic houses except Dorrie, Rose, and Gabrielle. Dorrie had never felt anything more terrible than the cold of Ben and Rose’s house. Gelid, frigid (poetry words). Beautiful glass, but a cold home. And in her apartment house the radiators had never worked. It had been impossible to relax. Blankets, sweatshirts, cocoa or hot water in cups just to keep her hands warm.

Now Dorrie sat in her bedroom, looking out the window at the frost on the trees. She dressed slowly in clothes she had borrowed from Gabrielle: tights, corduroy pants, and a turtleneck. The Dorrie in the mirror looked like Ben’s wife. She had not seen Ben’s wife in the mirror for many years. She combed her hair and considered putting on lipstick. Gabrielle’s, of course. Gabrielle had everything: eye shadow, blush, things she’d never used. But she had to be herself. She was meeting Ben for lunch. It was completely crazy: Ben had contacted her now that Rose had moved out. She knew he only wanted to talk about Rose. But she was happy. This was their second lunch.

She put on a tweed coat (borrowed) and went outside. The bus stop was two blocks away. By the time she reached it she had had to put on sunglasses to keep her eyes from tearing.

Bus, bus! Hurry! She jumped up and down. There was no one on the street. A few cars.

She climbed onto the bus and the driver was kind to her. He saw her every day now. She went to the nuns’ shelter most days and helped do the dishes, then had soup. Today she rode a little farther. Then she dashed into the cold to the lawyers’ pub where they had eaten when they first got married.

Ben was there. He kissed her. A kiss. She hadn’t been kissed in years.

Dorrie said, I waited a long time for the bus. But I don’t have a watch. I don’t know how long I waited. I just assume I’m late.

You’re not that late. I had to walk and it took a while. It’s freezing cold: I stopped in a McDonald’s for a minute to warm up. And I have long underwear. He pulled up his slacks so she could see.

Dorrie showed him her black tights.

They sat at the bar because there were no booths. They ordered soup. Ben looked thin. Dorrie was surprised. He usually was slightly chunky. A blonde with a stomach. Rose wasn’t feeding him anymore.

You should really have a sandwich.

So should you, he mocked.

She laughed. I’ve never eaten. But you have.

He looked at her. You don’t look like you’re eating at all. Are you all right?

I’m much better since I moved into Rose’s. I’m warm there. I do eat. Soup at the shelter. Cereal at night.

Instant oatmeal?

She looked embarrassed. Sometimes.

That’s what you fed me a lot! Then he got serious. How is Rose?

I don’t see her much. She goes to work, comes home, and sleeps.

Sleeps?

Yes, she’s still sleeping a lot. As I said, I don’t see her much. But she does come up and visit occasionally. She watches TV with Gabrielle and me.

This is a ridiculous situation. She should be my wife. I should be living there.

Ben, you maddened her. You brought this on yourself. Dorrie was starting to feel upset. There was only so much anybody could take. She had tried to explain to Ben years ago that being his wife was difficult. There were the politicians, there were the grants, there were his lovers. Women sobbing on the phone or making hang-up calls.

But you’re my friend now, Dorrie.

If I hadn’t been in your play, you wouldn’t even be speaking to me. You know that. I want to be your friend, but you just want to know about Rose.

Oh for God’s sake! You know I love you. Would it help you if I slept with you again? I don’t think so. You don't want to be one of my lovers, do you? I would drive you into a depression.

Like Rose? Rose is the one you love.

You do know that? She’s my wife.

I was your wife. Dorrie stood up. Suddenly she had had enough. She got up and walked away.

Dorrie. Ben came after her. Would you like to come to my house?