Best Staged Plans (6 page)

“Look what we found!” Shannon yelled one day as they clunked their way back down the stairs.

Shannon handed me two empty bottles of Boone’s Farm apple wine.

Luke held out a well-worn copy of the February 1988 issue of
Playboy
. “Read me ’tory,” he said.

“Oh, those wayward boys,” Greg said, grabbing it from Luke.

“I’ll take that,” I said, grabbing it from Greg.

A week or two somehow turned into six. Things were getting tenser by the minute at Greg’s mother’s house, so we decided to focus on finishing the master bedroom and move all four of us into that. It was a huge room, almost as big as the rumpus room. It had the added bonus of an attached sitting room, so we’d be able to put the kids on their own mattresses in there.

The big drum sander we rented to refinish the floor had a tendency to eat its expensive sandpaper. It also liked to take off as if it were possessed. If we overcompensated and held it in one place for a moment too long, it made angry gouges in the wood. When one of us would melt down in frustration, the other one would jump in, and eventually Greg and I managed to get the floor sanded. We moved on to two coats of Minwax stain, followed by three coats of satin gloss polyurethane.

We painted the ceiling and walls a soft pearl white, and the trim a shinier, brighter white. We wanted simplicity, tranquility, a sanctuary. We needed a room that looked undeniably clean.

We moved our stuff in and celebrated our first night in our new home, sitting in a circle on the shiny wood floor with a large cheese pizza in the middle. We toasted with cheap champagne and juice boxes.

“To our great big beautiful new house,” I said.

Shannon started to cry. “I want my old house back,” she sobbed.

Luke crawled into Shannon’s lap and started to cry, sounding exactly like Shannon. “Me want Grammy’s house,” he sobbed.

After the first night, Greg and I hung an old white sheet between the bedroom and the sitting area with masking tape. When the kids were fast asleep, if we were really, really quiet, we could even make love again.

THE CABINET DOORS AND DRAWER FRONTS
were stacked neatly against one wall of the kitchen, as fresh and white as twenty-nine slices of Wonder bread. Carrot and ginger soup simmered on the stove. A baguette nestled in a white paper bag stretched across a clean counter.

For a split second I wondered if I’d somehow walked into the wrong house.

I pulled the trash compactor open. Two empty cartons of Trader Joe’s carrot and ginger soup sat on top, along with the crumpled plastic from a bag of shredded carrots and the papery skins of several cloves of garlic.

I lifted the lid off the pan and gave the soup a stir with a wooden spoon. I tasted it. I added a generous shake of dried ginger. I tasted again and added some crushed red pepper flakes.

A meal hadn’t been cooked from scratch in this kitchen in ages. We were all about assembling now, adding spices and fresh ingredients to premade, healthy, if slightly boring items. Brown rice, black beans, and chipotle salsa mixed with shredded meat from a cooked rotisserie chicken. Frozen turkey meatballs baked and added to whole grain pasta and organic marinara sauce. Hummus and tabbouleh with chopped romaine and shredded veggies on high-fiber roll-ups. Grilled wild salmon arranged on a bed of organic baby lettuce mix.

I was just as over cooking as I was over this house. But I’d taught my family to assemble well, and if they got hungry enough, they actually would.

I opened the fridge, took out a clear plastic box to rinse the mixed greens inside, then put it back and shut the door. The trick was not to jump in. Greg had an annoying tendency to start meals, only to back off the moment I got involved.

I decided to inspect the cabinet doors instead. I put on a pair of readers and bent down to pick one up.

It was stuck.

“Don’t even tell me,” I said out loud.

I wiggled the cabinet door back and forth. When it broke free, it pulled a jagged strip of paint from the next cabinet door with it.

“What is wrong with this picture?” I yelled.

I thought it was an excellent question, but my words merely echoed from the deep recesses of a kitchen full of doorless cabinets.

I turned off the carrot soup. It was only a clever decoy to divert my attention from the fact that my husband was off playing tennis with his lunatic friends, even though the weather had turned cold again and everyone in their right mind knew that normal people do not play outdoor tennis in New England in March. They sell their house and go play tennis in a warmer climate.

By the time Greg got home and turned off the stove himself, the carrots would be mushy. By the time we got this stupid house sold, we’d both be too old to play tennis. Our carrot ginger soup would have to be strained so we wouldn’t choke on it.

I opened the cellar door to yell down to Luke in the bat cave, since Greg was just responsible enough to have left him in charge of the soup. Then I pulled it closed again, wiggling the handle until the century-old couplings clicked back into place. I mean, what was the point?

I’d just take the botched cabinets out to the side yard and start sanding, one cabinet at a time. And then I’d paint the cabinets myself, because at least that way I could make sure they were painted the right way.

I’d pretend I was my own client. I’d finish painting and stage this house until it was ready to sell itself. The offers would come flying in, and we’d go flying out.

“Mmm, smells good,” Greg said as the kitchen door closed behind him.

I glared at him over the cabinet door I’d managed to unstick. “You’re going to have to start using the front door,” I said. “We need all the chi we can get around here.”

He put his cold hands on my shoulders and gave me a sweaty kiss over the ruined cabinet door. His eyes were bright and his cheeks were pink, and if I didn’t have to do everything all by myself, I’d probably look that good, too.

He beamed at the door between us. “Not bad, huh? The Lukester and I took care of those puppies in record time.”

The good news was at least we were past the real puppy stage of our lives, because if we had one I sure as hell knew who’d be taking care of it. I pushed past Greg and stomped through the mudroom and out to the garage. Twenty-nine empty liquor boxes were scattered everywhere, like the remnants of one seriously wild party nobody had even bothered to invite me to.

I grabbed a sheet of sandpaper and carried the cabinet door out to the side yard.

“What time do you want to eat?” Greg yelled from the doorway.

I ignored him and started sanding. And sanding. As if I could somehow sand my way through all the layers of paint on this old wooden cabinet door and into the next part of my life.

Greg and I had been married to each other for more years than we’d been single. It was amazing that couples like us even bothered to fight at all. I mean, pick a marriage, any marriage, and basically it’s the same five fights over and over again. You might as well just number them.

“Three,” the wife would yell.

“Let me explain,” her husband would say.

“Four,” the husband would accuse.

“I did not,” his wife would argue.

Back in high school, if my friends and I didn’t want to do something, we used to have an expression: “Let’s not and say we did.”

That’s exactly how I felt about having the same old getting-the-work-done-on-the-house fight yet again. It’s not that I was dodging the confrontation. It’s just that I’d been there so many times, I knew exactly how it would go—who would say what, how it would end—and the thought of doing it again bored me to tears. So, let’s not and say we did. I’d rather have a root canal. I’d rather repaint the cabinets.

“Soup’s on!” Greg yelled from the house.

I kept sanding.

The storm door slammed shut. Greg strolled out, wearing sweats and a hooded sweatshirt.

He stopped in the middle of the driveway. “I wasn’t sure if you heard me.”

I kept sanding. “I heard you.”

“Did we miss a spot?”

“The paint wasn’t dry. The doors are all stuck together.”

When Greg let out a puff of air, you could see his breath. “So, what, now you’re going to play the martyr instead of asking us to fix them?”

I stopped sanding. I crossed my arms over my chest. “I am
not
playing the martyr. I am trying to get the cabinets unstuck, sanded, and painted in this lifetime.”

Greg shivered. “Come on, it’s freezing out here.”

“Right. Funny how it’s never too cold for tennis, but when there’s work to be done, it’s suddenly freezing out.”

Greg shook his head. “Why do you always have to do that?”

Two!
I wanted to yell.

“Do what?” I said instead.

“Why do you always begrudge me the things I enjoy? I could be out drinking or gambling or screwing around. . . .”

“How about this,” I said. “Help me get the house on the market and I’ll buy you a girlfriend to celebrate.”

Greg took a few steps in the direction of the house, then stopped and turned around again. “The thing I don’t understand is, what’s the big rush?”

One!
I could have yelled. It was like I was Drew Barrymore, only older, and instead of
50 First Dates
, I was stuck having the same day over again, day after day, week after week, as the female lead in
50 First Fights
.

I had my lines down cold. I opened my eyes wide to show my incredulity. “
Rush?
” I said. I shook my long-suffering head. “It’s been practically forever.”

“I think we’re making good progress.” Greg had his lines down, too.

In most fights, one of you gets to win. But in a marriage, you can’t even savor the thrill of victory. By definition, you’re supposed to be on the same side, which really takes the fun out of trying to beat an adversary into submission. The best you could hope for was to make the fight go away.

“Listen,” I said, taking a stab at some improv. “I know it’s a lot of work, a lot of stuff, a lot of memories. Sometimes it feels overwhelming to me, too. But the sooner we finish, the sooner we can get on to the next part of our life.”

Greg looked at me. “What I want to know is what’s so wrong with this part of our life.”

After Greg disappeared into the house, I stood outside for a long time. I wasn’t even sanding anymore. I watched the fiery orange sunset drop and turn the night from dusk to dark. A scattering of stars began to twinkle, and the full March moon peeked through the tall evergreens flanking the edge of the driveway. I’d read that because it heralded the time to start tapping maple trees for syrup, it was sometimes called the full sap moon.

And if I let my husband confuse me, then I’d be a full sap, too.

CHAPTER 9

“B
UT I
LIKE
IT
in the bedroom,” Mrs. Bentley said.

“Sorry,” I said. “An elliptical machine in your bedroom isn’t going to get this house sold. It’s bad feng shui. The only working out going on in here should be of the romantic variety.”

Mrs. Bentley’s cold hard stare made me think that not a lot of hot sex was happening in her bedroom.

But who was I to talk? Resentment between Greg and me was growing like spit in a petri dish. Before we knew it, we’d be sleeping in separate beds, and couple time would mean watching the same show on televisions in different rooms. Luke would feel the vibes and start cooking his ramen noodles on the radiator down in the bat cave.

Even when they were little, both kids could smell a fight between us, no matter how calm we pretended to be. Luke would climb under the kitchen table with one of his plastic dinosaurs and pull his blankie over his head.

Shannon was more direct. She’d stamp her foot. “Go hug Mommy,” she’d say to Greg.

“Mommy doesn’t want to be hugged right now,” I’d say. “Even though she loves Daddy very much, sometimes she gets mad at him, and that’s okay.”

Shannon would give Greg a push. “Hug her anyway.”

Greg and I both grew up in households where outbursts of rage were followed by long stretches—weeks, even months—of frigid silence, and then suddenly everything was all right again. Nobody ever explained to us how people got from one stage to the other. So we spent our first years together figuring it out on our own.

If something bothered me, I’d get it out right away and move on. Greg, on the other hand, let the little things go. Then some random day one of those same little things would set him off, and he’d present me with a detailed list of every other little thing he’d pretended to let go in the last, say, three months.

Fused together, the list seemed unreasonably long in my opinion, and Greg’s laid-back attitude up to that point felt like an elaborate entrapment scam. So I would click into high-drama mode, pack a suitcase, and announce that life was too short to put up with this shit and thanks for the memories but I was out of here.

Greg would wait until I was almost to the door. He’d apologize. I’d apologize. We’d have great sex and put the suitcase away.

About three years or so into this pattern, I’d just finished an ovation-worthy speech and was flamboyantly pulling my suitcase out from under our bed.

Greg watched quietly. Finally he said, “Aren’t you still packed from last time?”

I looked up at him.

He raised his eyebrows.

We both totally cracked up.

Right after that, we ditched the birth control and I got pregnant with Shannon. And as much as I’d never completely lost the knack I’d inherited for high drama, and Greg could still be a virtuoso of silence, we tried to set a better example for our kids.

We also vowed early on to always present a united front and never to talk about each other to our children. When Luke was younger and I told him it was time for bed, he knew better than to run to his dad to try to get a reprieve. And when Greg was driving me crazy, I knew better than to bad-mouth him to Shannon.

I shook my head to bring myself back to Mrs. Bentley’s bedroom. I borrowed the painters to help me carry the heavy elliptical downstairs.