When You Look Like Your Passport Photo, It's Time To Go Home (2 page)

In retrospect, if you have to lose your luggage, traveling down the Sepik River is the best place to lose it. It's a fairly laid-back country that gives a California lifestyle the pomp of a coronation. There were ten of us—mostly Australians—who boarded the Melanesian Explorer for our trip down the Sepik.

The ship was comfortable and clean, but it had an African Queen quality to it. I say this because we boarded right after dinner one night in Madang and when we awakened, I strolled out on deck with a cup of coffee only to realize we hadn't left the dock yet. Humphrey Bogart was still fixing the motor.

The cabins were air conditioned and were listed in the brochure as having showers, but all I saw was a toilet. When I mentioned this to my husband, he said, “Look up.” I hadn't done that since the snake incident. But sure enough, a small nozzle came out of the ceiling, making it possible to sit on the commode and shower at the same time if you were on a tight schedule.

Ironically, I had no trouble filling my time on the Explorer. I read and slept, and one night a mosquito asked me to dance after dinner.

A word about mosquitoes. There are two kinds of people in this world: those who do not attract mosquitoes and those who do. I not only belong to the second group, but I have documented proof that mosquitoes actually subscribe to a newsletter telling the whereabouts of feasts like me. They then book passage on commercial planes (first class) and get to wherever I am.

People think mosquitoes are all alike. They are not. Alaskan mosquitoes are equipped with rotary blades like a helicopter. They will hover two inches from your face and hum like a barbershop harmony convention in progress.

In the South Pacific, because of their size, mosquitoes are required to file flight plans. They make virtually little sound. The only hint you have that your entire body is under attack is that your tan goes pale. It's like giving blood at the Red Cross without the cookie.

In between navigating the river, we would stop off at small villages and visit large two-story structures called Haus Tambarans. These are where the talents of the Sepik flourish: wood carvings, jewelry, primitive masks, and story boards crafted by local artisans. The natives have a unique way of bargaining you never see in any other part of the world. I picked up a rough-hewn carving of a mother and child and asked, “How much?” The man smiled and recited in perfect English, “First price, $300. Second price, $80.” He waited anxiously for my decision.

Sometimes at night when you entered a village by torchlight because there was no electricity or you watched the men of the village digging out a new canoe while their children splashed naked in the river, you had a fierce urge to protect all of it from hemorrhoid commercials and Golden Arches. After a while, you even stopped fighting the inconveniences and gave in to them. I got used to being the only non-nursing mother in an airport. If the plane was full, a “frequent flyer” wearing nothing but “arse grass” around his waist (which is exactly what it sounds like) would smile a red betel-nut smile, pull a sack of onions into the aisle, and sit down beside you. (Hey, they'd put their mothers in the overhead racks if that's all the room that was left.)

At an open market one day, a Papuan New Guinean asked if I had a husband. I assured him I did. I couldn't believe he asked me to point him out. You could hardly miss him. He was the one with the whitest legs in North America and the only one in the country laller than a car.

“Are you his only wife?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “We're Catholic.”

He said he was too, and he had three wives. I wondered what the Number One Jesus Man would have thought about that.

As light reluctantly entered the room in Kundiawa, I realized with relief that things had quieted down a bit. It had been a while since I heard glass shatter or guns explode. I felt rotten. My head ached, my body alternated with chills and fever. Occasionally, my bones felt like someone was snapping them in half. Crawling along the floor until I reached the bathroom, I switched on the light. It was not a pretty sight. My eyes were bloodred and my vision wasn't great. My skin had a yellow pallor. I dropped to the floor and crawled back into bed where I shook my husband awake.

“I don't want to panic you, but I wanted to say goodbye and tell you your second wife will rot in hell before I tell her where my dinner ring is hidden. I harbor no bad feelings for being dragged to this godforsaken place where they have never heard of Liz Claiborne.”

“It's stress.” He yawned. “Try to get some sleep.”

“Not until you tell me a story,” I said stubbornly.

He took a deep breath. “All right, which one do you want to hear?”

“Tell me the one again about what we are doing here.”

“Very well.” He smiled. “But you've got to promise me that you'll go to sleep ... no more stalling ... no more drinks of water....”

“There is no water,” I reminded him.

“Right. Well, once upon a time, many many years ago, there was a young princess who lived in the suburban kingdom of Centerville, Ohio, with her handsome prince and their three children. It seemed like a storybook existence except every summer when all her friends went on journeys to magic places, she took care of their houses, brought in their mail, and fed their dogs. As if that wasn't bad enough, every summer the Semple family visited their cottage—”

I quivered. “I always get a chill at this part.”

“I know,” he said softly. “As time went by the princess put her royal foot down and said, 'There has to be something more to summers than this! I'm going to travel all over the world and feast at the banquet table of life....'”

I slept.

Centerville, Ohio

As the front door of Helen and Hal's house slammed shut, I deposited her house key in my slacks pocket like a matron at a maximum security prison. I didn't relish telling Helen and her family when they returned from Hawaii that their bird had died. Or that her Boston fern went into cardiac arrest the day after she left.

As I made my way across the yard connecting our houses, I wondered if Helen's mother would mention to her that when she dropped by to stock the refrigerator for their return, I thought she was an intruder and called the police. Silly me. Her mother had probably forgotten the incident by this time.

I tossed Helen's mail and her newspaper in a cardboard box in the hallway by the front door and made a mental note that tomorrow I would have to eat the three bananas she had left on her drainboard. They were starting to attract fruit flies.

How many summers had I housesat for Helen? How many times had I waved goodbye as they honked their horn before they pulled out of the driveway headed for paradise? How many picturesque postcards had found their way to our mailbox? Our family never went on vacations. It was always something. No sooner would we get the Christmas bills under control than the transmission fell out of the car, the clothes dryer caught fire, or the orthodontist wanted $2,000 to straighten the teeth of a kid who never smiled anyway. This year it was, “Daddy! Daddy! Our grass is wet and squishy under my bedroom window and it smells!”

I didn't understand it. Helen and Hal didn't make any more money than we did, yet every year they pored over brochures, planned, saved, and traveled. The four of them returned invigorated and ready to face another fifty weeks of mortgage payments and car repairs.

We had had one vacation since our marriage. Because my husband was a social studies teacher, the senior class offered to pay our way for their class trip to Washington and New York if we would serve as chaper-ones. Someone should have warned us that the only place you can tour comfortably with thirty-five sexually active seniors is Arlington Cemetery. (And then only if you connect them to a single rope and have them walk in single file.)

A horn honked in the driveway, interrupting my moment of self-pity. It was the Semples, Howard, Fay, and their three kids . . . right on schedule.

The five of them stopped by every summer from Rochester, New York, on their way to visit Howard's brother in California. It was all too predictable. Fay would hop out of the car and say, “Let's get unpacked. We have so much to catch up on.” We'd catch up after fifteen minutes and spend the rest of the time talking about gas mileage, lawn diseases, and people who died whom they said we remembered but we never knew. Actually, we didn't know Fay and Howard real well.

When they lived in Centerville, their daughter Sissy took piano lessons from the same teacher as my daughter. We met every year at the piano recital. For three years in a row, Sissy played “There's a Fairy in the Bottom of My Teacup.” No one had the heart to tell the Semples the kid had reached the level of her incompetence. At one of these recitals, my husband inadvertently spilled punch down Fay's back. A conversation ensued. She told him that they were moving to Rochester because Howard had a job offer. My husband, Bill Inter-Continental, said, “Don't be a stranger. If you ever get back to Centerville, pop on by.”

Fay carried her klutzy little makeup kit (which was never more than three feet away from her body) inside while I kicked one large suitcase on wheels and balanced a weekender and a duffel bag under each arm.

“Does Bill still spill drinks down women's backs?” She giggled.

“He does it for a living now.” I smiled.

The Semple family was not without talents. Howard had been training for the gargling Olympics all of his life. Every day, he began just before the sun came up, continuing through breakfast and again in the evening when everyone was in bed trying to sleep.

Fay had a gift for becoming “domestically dead” the moment she walked out of her own home. She did not know how to start a washer or plug in an iron, and had no curiosity as to how to turn on a stove. She just looked helpless all the time and whimpered, “If I knew where things went, I'd put them away” and then walked into another room to watch television.

One child, Howard Jr., could bounce a rubber ball against the house for fifteen hours straight. His brother, Edwin, stole anything that wasn't nailed down, and Sissy, who looked like a Hallmark greeting card, was a terrorist from hell. She would sneak up behind you, dig her nails into your flesh, and then look innocent when her victim cried out in pain.

Howard and Fay usually stayed about five days. One year they had been there nine days when a part went out on their car and they had to send for a new one. The dealership was behind the Iron Curtain.

That night, as I turned carefully in the bunk bed and pulled the Star Wars sheets under my chin, I thought about Fay and Howard sprawled out in our queen-size bed and wondered why we did it. Face it. The Semples didn't care about us. We were no more than a stagecoach stop-off, one of the last free meals between their destination and the California freeway. It was eleven o'clock. Howard was still gargling and Howard Jr. was bouncing a rubber ball against the side of the house.

Our guests would spend their mornings watching television while I finished my chores and packed the lunch. In the afternoons, we would do the “tours.” This included the malls, the air force museum, and the home of the Wright Brothers. As we pointed proudly to the homestead of the men who brought wings of flight to the world and changed the destiny of man, Howard punched Fay in the arm and said, “Looks like you're going to miss 'As the World Turns' again this afternoon, tootsie.”

The goodbyes were always tearful. . . for different reasons. The Semples were about to reenter a world of tipping, paying through the nose for food and lodgings, and doing their own laundry. Little Edwin was about to discover that hotel pictures are bolted to the wall and lamps are screwed to the nightstands. We had tears of joy. We were returning to our own beds.

We had survived another summer with the Semples. But something happened this particular year to change our lives. They had been gone two days when the phone rang. “This is Howard. I hate to call collect, but I'm in a gas station in Barstow, California. Sissy just told us she left her gerbil at your house. It's in a Quaker Oats box with holes in the lid. She left it on the back of the commode in the hallway.”

“No problem,” I said stiffly.

“The gerbil is pregnant,” he continued, “and it's pretty special to Sissy. As a favor, if you could just take care of it and the babies until we drop by on our way home, we'd appreciate it.”

As I hung up the phone, something in me snapped. I gathered the family around me and in a shaking voice announced, "The Bombeck Hilton will henceforth be closed during the months of June, July, and August. No more entertaining the parade of visitors who find their way to our driveway. No more housesitting for those around us who see the world and send us postcards reminding us to 'worm the dog' and 'soak the trees.'

"From here on in, we are going to be one of those families who feast at the banquet table of life. We're going to drink in the beauty of majestic mountains, nibble at historical shrines, and stuff ourselves on beaches drenched in solitude. The Bombecks are going to hit the road!

“By all that is holy, I will never host the Semples again!” The family's eyes were frozen on my clenched fist raised above my head. I was clutching the pregnant gerbil.

Closing Down the House

My husband said, “When you're leaving town, it is wise to tell as few people as possible.”

I hate it when he talks down to me. What does he think I am? Stupid? The only people I told we were leaving town were:

Tim, our paperboy, who had to tell his branch manager and his sub.

Ralph, our postman, who is not only going to hold our mail, but offered to put a note on the post office bulletin board for someone to cut our grass.

Helen, who has our house key.

My aerobics class and instructor, hairdresser, and dentist.

The entire waiting room at the kennel where I made arrangements to board the dog.

Marj at the bank, who made out our traveler's checks.

Shirley at AAA, who routed our trip.