Dancing Naked at the Edge of Dawn (31 page)

He tries to interrupt me, but I have to tell him some things right now before I get too boozy, before I move from that sincere place of alcohol-induced honesty to the “tell everything” phase that will have me saying things I will deeply regret in the morning. I so want him to know these things and remember them. I have to say them.

“Bob, I loved it when you made coffee on Sunday mornings and left me a cup in the bathroom. I loved the way you taught the kids how to drive without yelling at them and how you took Shaun to college because I couldn't stop crying. So much of what we had was okay, you have to know that, Bob. So much of it was great, really great.”

He cries, which is something I did not expect. He takes my other hand and tells me how he feels like an ass because he could never tell me I was beautiful and a wonderful mother. He apologizes for not buying me flowers the day I got my second master's degree. He tells me how it was just easier for him to back away and how it never even seemed like I missed him.

“You are very beautiful, Margaret,” he tells me. “Smart and wise and kind, so damn kind. There isn't anyone else like you. I want you to be happy too, I do. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”

Oh, Bob. Oh, Bobby.

We have a very long and wild dinner. We relive all the years we spent together, remembering the fights and the baby diapers stuck in the toilet and the way his mother tried to shame us into having another child and how he waited outside in the car while I finished my orals, so I wouldn't feel so alone. I had forgotten that. There are so many things we had both forgotten.

“Bob,” I tell him after the wine and before the dessert and at the moment we realize we will have to take cabs, one back to the geranium's home and one to our little house in the suburbs. “Bob, we have to remember the good stuff. It might take a while because I haven't gone all the way through my horrid angry phase yet, but promise me that we'll remember the good stuff?”

“But I feel like it's all my fault.”

How I wish, Bob, how I wish.

“It was me too,” I tell him. “Never knowing for sure. Waiting for someone else to do something when I was the one supposed to be doing it. It was a we deal, Bob. Both of us.”

In what I can only describe as the miracle of mixing distilled grains with a last glimpse of love, we agree to almost everything. Selling the house, splitting the accounts, me keeping the Palace—which results in a fairly huge amount of tears on my part—the kids' schooling. We decide to take turns going through the “stuff” we have accumulated.

“This seems too easy,” I say as we try to douse the evening with strong coffee so we can at least walk to our taxis.

“There's nothing easy about it,” he responds. “A part of me will always love you, sweetheart. We share those kids, a past, so many years. I owe you the dignity of this. Going out quietly. Getting on with it all. It's part of my penance, you see, but it's not painful at all. Not at all.”

“Not painful?”

“The dignity part. Everything else is making me ache. Of course, it would have to be you who did this. It was always you.”

Is it possible, I think as I balance myself on chairs on the way to the bathroom, that someone else could have been appearing in the bathroom mirrors all these years? Maybe my life has been one of those Blessed Mary events like the kind of miracle where women making punch see the face of the Virgin Mary when they pour the mix into the water. I never felt strong or powerful or in control of anything in my life. How could Bob think that I had a clue of what was happening?

In the end we share a taxi. He rides all the way home with me, walks me to the door while the taxi waits and holds me for a moment. “How familiar,” I think. The way my arms remember their way across his shoulders, the way my head turns to the left when he tips his head, the feel of his breath at the very edge of my hair, the same cologne he has used for fifteen years, the way his heart sounds like a wild horn under my ear. We stay like that for a long time, the taxi driver reading patiently while we embrace. I want to remember. I want to remember everything about this moment and what is essentially the last second of my married life. Through the living room window, I watch him leave and my heart sails just a bit. It sails with him as he goes home to his lover, his new life, with my heart in his pocket at least until he gets to her door. At least.

Dr. C is amazed the following week when I tell her what happened. I almost think she is disappointed that I am getting better.

“I knew you would be fast, because everything was so close to tumbling over when you came in the first time,” she tells me, fingering her coffee cup as if it were on fire. “It's good, it's all good.”

But I want to know if it's over. She laughs when I ask her.

“Oh, I hope not, darling. Can't you see another mountain off in the distance?”

“It's cloudy.”

Then I admit that I'm scared.

She knows this. Dr. C knows everything. We work on a small plan. She tells me I may be flying now, but a couple of good days aren't a sign of nirvana.

“Look what's happened to you in just a few months, Meg. When you stop, when you get to the next point, you have to be ready to crash a little bit. String it all out, say it now.”

I do. Infidelity. Gay son. The Palace. Aunt Marcia's lover. Divorce. Looking for a place to live. A new career. My mother's breasts.

“Shit,” I say, suddenly a bit panicked.

“It's a load. A lot of stuff. None of it bad. Can you see that?”

I have to close my eyes to do it. The breeze kicks up, but I would kind of like a strong wind.

As I leave, I make an appointment for the following week. Dr. C smiles because this was my idea. She knows I'm hunting for a place to live. She knows my mother's tests are due in. She knows I must call my son. She knows.

Elizabeth knows all of this also. She tells me she's in it for the fun. Apartment-hunting. Looking for a flat. She's the one who told me to move to Andersonville, the funky Chicago neighborhood where openness is a must. “Such diversity. You'll never have to go to a movie again. You'll just look out your window.”

I agree that if I am going to change, I may as well get out of PTA heaven. It was never quite the right fit anyway. My cupcakes were never perfect. I just wanted to go home and read. Who cared if the kids had to miss one recess because not enough parents volunteered for playground duty? But I went anyway. I was always there. Smiling when someone showed me a catalog filled with baskets or plastic bowls. I never did fit, but there I was, and now I was cruising the funky streets in Andersonville.

We had five places to look at and Elizabeth was determined that I would choose one of them. I was determined to go one entire day without crying.

“Remember how we all had old bricks and boards for bookcases in college?” she says as I weave in and out of traffic, thinking that I may have to sell my car if I lived in the city. “I had a friend who almost drove herself mad after she was married and up to her ass in kids because she wanted to live alone with her books and bricks.”

This is how Elizabeth talks, rambling on and on about people and places that she seems to think have a connection to what is happening now.

“Screw the bricks,” I say. “It's hot. I'm going for windows.”

We look at three apartments that make me want to weep. All are dirty, small and expensive. I have not done this in a long while. A really tiny part of me wants to go back to my home with grass in the front and a sidewalk that ends up in another little neighborhood where people grill pork chops and bounce balls against the side of a garage. Then that damn breeze kicks up again. It's not a city breeze either. It's gotten here directly from Mexico. I have not mentioned the occasional breeze from the jungle to anyone and I decide to wait before I say anything. I'll know when it's the right time. Even a blossoming woman such as myself can only take so many people looking at her sideways in one day. The breeze, however, is perfect—a woman could almost dance naked through a breeze like this.

“I think it's going to be the next place,” I say finally. We have been drinking water and fanning ourselves with the rental section of the local newspaper. Two men are kissing on the corner when we pull down the street for the next viewing. There's a famous women's bookstore, Women & Children First, down the block, bars, coffee shops, a place to work out. If I don't like this place, Elizabeth might take it. It's sort of what heaven should look like if such a place exists beyond earth, she tells me.

I know right away, even before we go inside. It's the lower apartment, and there's a fenced-in yard that is very private. That's what the ad says anyway. We pull into the skinny driveway and there is a woman leaning against the side of the house in a beige linen suit, reading glasses on the edge of her nose, fortyish, tall, a string of silver pearls bobbing between her breasts. She owns the place. She apologizes for being in a hurry, smiles brightly at Elizabeth, who leans right into her when she talks. “Here we go,” I think, “what was I doing bringing her out in public like this?”

And the house is red. Not a wild red, but a maple-leaf-turning-from-yellow kind of red, with a light purple trim and green doors. There are metal sculptures that could be whatever you want them to be lined up in two roving rows next to the house. Beds of wildflowers. Nice bushes. Looking at this house makes my heart happy. I'm smiling.

Everything is new old. She's redone the entire building, financed it herself, hired her pals to do the work while she runs a huge gourmet bakery. I'd be the first person to live there since she finished construction. The walls inside are a blank canvas. There's a fireplace. That's all I see before I say, “I'll take it.”

“All righty, then,” she responds, smiling. “Any chance you can tell me who you are first?”

I start laughing and cannot stop. I laugh until I can't breathe, and the landlordess, identified only as Sally, starts laughing too. She looks smart. Sally must know I am heading into a new life. She asks me what I do, will I live alone, asks for a reference or two, then asks me if I know three people who happen to share an office two doors down from me at the University. They are misplaced women's studies professors who are waiting for their new offices to be finished one building over.

“Small world,” she says, still smiling. “I think you need this place, Meg.”

We finish looking through the two bedrooms, the dining room—which I immediately know will become my office—and the small kitchen—perfect for someone like me whose meal of choice is wine and crackers. I want to sell Sally my soul, write out a check, lick the dust off her sandals, but she tells me she has to make a few calls first.

“I have a partner, and I really have to see if you are who you say you are.”

There's that smart scent I picked up.

Elizabeth watches Sally as if she is about to light herself on fire. I can't imagine Elizabeth giving up her funky house and moving into the upstairs flat, but I'm pretty sure she is at least thinking about it. There is something terribly sexy about the city. Something wild and alive, especially if you are used to wide lawns, garages and all the useless space. It's a world I have only traveled through for a very long time, but I feel the weight of all its promises as I stand in what I hope will be my kitchen and write out phone numbers.

I try very hard not to be distressed about the possibility that Sally the Wonderful might not want a soon-to-be-divorced woman with a teenage daughter living in her light orange bedroom. I try not to be distressed about what I still must do and how I have to sort through all those years of shit and touch all the memories associated with the shit. I try not to be distressed about my first night alone in this new house and all the steps I need to take to make that happen. It would suddenly be very easy to lie down in the driveway.

“You know, I only rent to people who I want as neighbors and friends,” Sally tells me. “It has to work all the way around. I live upstairs. It's a big deal to me.”

Here it comes. I must be too frumpy. She can tell I used to bake cupcakes.

“I think it would be grand to have the energy of a teenager around, even for a little while. You're gorgeous,” she tells me, resting her hand on my arm. “If you promise to invite your friend here over for sleepovers, I bet we can make this work.”

My gawd. She's flirting with both of us. What will Tomas say? What should I say?

“Elizabeth may have to spend the night with you,” I tell her, which tells her everything. “It might be crowded down here.”

When we get to the car, Elizabeth roars. I could probably drive on her energy. I may never need to buy gas again.

“Do you realize how lucky you are to find this place?” she demands.

No.

“Do you know that you are the thirty-sixth person who has looked at it?”

Where have I been?

“Do you know who she is?”

No. Tell me, Elizabeth. She is having this conversation alone. I just turn occasionally and nod. She hasn't even bothered to put on her seat belt.

“She's on the City Council, for God's sake. She's one of the most powerful women in this city. She knows everyone. She's been an activist for years. It's Sally. Sally Flannery Burton. She's written a book. She has lunch with people like Hillary Clinton. She wants you to live in her apartment! Right next door to her!”