Lauren Takes Leave (37 page)

“Thank you!” I call. “Have a great weekend! See you
Monday!”

This last comment stops her short. She turns around on the
steps leading to the driveway, shaking her head. “Not Monday. It’s my vacation
next week. I’ll see you the week after, remember?”

I try to rack my brain for some sort of clue, a memory of
a conversation, letting me know that I’m not hearing this information for the
first time.

“South Beach, Miami. Remember? With my girlfriends? For
spring break?”

Oh, the irony.

Laney must have told me this, might have even asked my
permission before scheduling the trip, though she doesn’t always. But something
about it doesn’t feel right. How could I forget a huge issue like my babysitter
leaving
for a week
?

As if sensing my hesitation, Laney continues. “It’s the
same time as your school vacation,” she prods. “You told me I could go.” Now
she’s pouting, arms crossed defiantly across her chest.

This is what it’s going to be like to have teenagers, I
realize. I’m not going to like it.

“What day is today?” I ask no one. Doug has taken the kids
into the kitchen and hasn’t even been a part of this conversation. I now step
all the way outside to address Laney. “My school vacation begins the week
after, on the twenty-fourth. This Monday is only the seventeenth.”

“Oops!” Laney says, not seeming the least bit regretful.
“See you in
two
weeks, then!”

Great. As I watch her disappear down the driveway with her
huge pocketbook bulging, I feel almost certain that my favorite cover-up is
going to Florida after all.

Once the children are asleep, I find myself alone with
Doug in our bedroom. I pretend to busy myself with unpacking the rest of my
bag.

“So…” Doug begins. “Are you going to answer my question or
not?”

The old Lauren certainly would have given in by now. She
might have cried, or begged for forgiveness, or apologized a thousand times
over. Although, who knows what the old Lauren would have said or done, since
she probably wouldn’t have taken leave in the first place, right?

The post-Miami me decides on an offensive attack, albeit
in a loud whisper so as not to wake the kids down the hall. “I might ask you
the same. What the hell is going on here, Doug? What could you have possibly
said to that police officer when you disappeared upstairs to make him think I
can get him an autographed picture of Tim and Ruby?”

“Tim and Ruby, huh?” he says, a dimple creasing his left
cheek. “Those are some familiar terms you’re using for mega superstars.”

He is really handsome, my husband. And, so far, he hasn’t
yelled at me, or given me the silent treatment, or marched right out of the
house. So far, he hasn’t done any of the things that I thought he would do.
He’s surprised me. He’s been patient, even in the face of being questioned
about my alleged disappearance and possible murder.

“Lauren, it’s time,” he says, looking tired, looking sad.
“You need to tell me.”

And so I do.

Well, everything but the kiss.

When your husband of twelve years listens to your story,
the one in which you do not act like the good mother, teacher, daughter, or
wife that you have always been, you cry. You cry because, for the first time in
a long time, he’s listening.

He listens, and he hears you. And he says that he doesn’t
know how you grew so far apart so fast, and that you’re not the only one to
blame. He tells you how much he missed you, not just while you were on leave
but for months and months before then. He tells you that he’s so anxious about
work that he doesn’t know how you are going to make ends meet. You tell him
that you recently spent a lot of money frivolously but that you’ll tutor and
make it up somehow. But you make it clear that you are keeping the shoes, the
bag, and the sweater. He tells you that the Botox looks okay, but he would
prefer you grow old naturally and gracefully with him.

You tell him that, sometimes, you can’t breathe. That life
as his wife and as the mother to these beautiful sleeping children and as the
teacher to these sixth graders feels claustrophobic and stifling. You tell him
that, sometimes, you’re not sure who you are anymore because you’re only
defined by your relationships to other people.

When your husband of twelve years tells you that he loves
you, truly, madly, and deeply, whoever you are or think you are, but that if
you ever pull another stunt like that he really will kill you, you kiss him.

And then you have sex with him.

Twice.

I have never been so excited to talk to my principal in
my whole life. I’ve been up since six a.m., just waiting.

“Do you think I can call her yet?” I ask Doug from my
perch at the kitchen island. “Do you? Do you?” The clock reads 9:01 a.m.

“I think four coffees is about three too many,” he says,
handing me the phone. “You’re shaking like a Chihuahua.”

I flip over the middle school faculty handbook, which
lists everyone’s home phone numbers. I have committed Martha’s number to memory
after staring at it for the past few hours.

“Lauren!” she says, picking up on the first ring. She
sounds quite jolly for a Saturday morning. “I heard from that nice police
fellow! You’ve been found!”

I laugh along good-naturedly before taking a deep breath
and replying, “Well, to tell you the truth, Martha, I’ve never been more lost.”

We agree to meet for coffee in an hour, at a local spot
called the Grind. “My treat. There are some things I should probably explain,”
I say.

“Me, too,” she says.

The line goes dead, but I find myself still holding the
phone to my ear. Did I hear her correctly?

I spend that hour driving Ben to a basketball game and
taking Becca to gymnastics.

“Mom, tie my sneakers and put some more air in my ball,”
Ben demands as we head out the door. He stands in the foyer like an invalid,
waiting for me to get him ready for his activity.

My body moves toward his out of some remembered,
instinctive reflex. Then I pull back, willing myself not to blindly obey.

Instead, I cross my arms and give him a knowing look.

“What?” Ben asks. “Oh, right.
Please
,” he adds.

I shake my head. “Try again.”

“She wants you to do it yourself!” Becca explains,
reveling in the fact that she can simultaneously score points with me while
upsetting her brother.

Ben gives me a long stare, which I hold, until he breaks
the trance by dropping the basketball on the wooden floor and bending down to
tie his laces. Next, head still down, he picks up the ball and heads out to the
garage, where we keep the air pump.

My children hop out of the car, listen to their coaches,
and play nice with the other members of their teams. It seems that, as long as
my children are busy and apart from each other—and slightly afraid of me—this
day will go smoothly.

There is a silver lining to this trend of overscheduling
one’s children, I’m telling you.

The Grind is dark and slightly grimy, and it has that
heady smell of freshly ground coffee beans. I inhale deeply and move past the
students from the local college who are lining up for their morning Joe and a
homemade flaky croissant. Before I had kids, I liked to come here and grade
papers on weekend mornings. The scent of coffee would get trapped in my hair; I
would pull it to my face and relive it for the rest of the day. Someone should
make a perfume that smells like the Grind, because I’d totally wear it.

It’s no surprise that Martha is punctual, arriving at ten
o’clock on the dot. I watch her for a moment before revealing my location in
the back of the cramped, beatnik-inspired space. She readjusts the stiff, black
pocketbook on her arm and then hesitantly touches her hairsprayed coif.

Martha is nervous.

I get her attention by standing, calling out her name and
waving, a big smile plastered on my face. I am not sure what to expect from her
today, but an offensive attack of kindness can’t hurt.

I have already purchased us two coffees and some blueberry
scones, not really caring what she’d like to eat or drink.

“Lauren!” Martha blinks at me, and I think there might be
tears in her eyes. We stare at each other for a moment as I wait for her next
move. As I’ve mentioned, Martha’s age slides somewhere between fifty and a
hundred and fifty, depending on the occasion and how the light hits her. (Her
oldest look is under fluorescent lighting while disciplining a child; her
youngest look is at sunset while disciplining a parent at the annual school
picnic.) Today, perhaps because I’m seeing her completely out of context,
perhaps due to the fact that she’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt, she looks more
youthful than ever before.

Martha grabs me in an awkward embrace, my torso bending
toward her while my butt hovers over my wooden chair, hands pinned to my sides.
When she lets go, I sort of fall right into my seat.

“Well!” I say. “That was a bit unexpected.”

“Yes,” she agrees. “It’s odd for me to admit, even to
myself, but it seems that I am happy to see you alive.” She smiles sadly.

“Gee, thanks.”

“The thing is…” she begins, and then, thinking better of
it, stops herself.

I am intrigued; I want to know where this is heading.
“Please, continue.”

“I…I get the sense that you despise me. Don’t shake your
head at me, Lauren, and try to deny it. I see it in your eyes, have always seen
flashes of hatred there. And I just want to know
why
.” She rubs her hand
against her forehead, as if she’s in pain from all this thinking, and instantly
I know: Botox! That’s why she looks so much younger today, and that’s why she
was at Dr. Grossman’s on Tuesday.

The world truly is full of surprises.

Then I remind myself:
Focus, Lauren. Tell her why you
hate her.

And then,
Why do you hate her?

If there is one thing I have learned this week, it’s to
cut through the bullshit and be honest, with myself first, and then (mostly)
with others, even if that means I’m not going to come out looking perfect. I’m
thinking of Lenny. I’m thinking of Kat, and Jodi, and, for the most part, of
Doug. “I hate
you
because you hate
me
!”

There. That was easier than I thought.

Though now that I hear it out loud, it sounds really
stupid and childish.

Like we’re middle schoolers.

“This is about the department chair position, isn’t it?”
Martha twitches.

A week ago, my answer would have been a quick yes. But
now, with everything that I’ve experienced and reflected on this week, I have
to stall for a moment, to consider my response.

I tear off a corner of the scone and try to chew. It’s
stale and dry and I end up coughing bits of pastry into the space between us.
Cool,
Lauren, keep it cool
. I imagine myself at the Clevelander with Tim Cubix,
crying together over the way life is messy and, therefore, beautiful. I sip
from the coffee cup and answer. “At some point I guess it was about that job.
But now, it’s about so much more than that, you can’t even imagine.”

I tell her just enough about my trip to Miami to make it
sound more like a soul-searching weekend at a retreat in India than the
complete and utter pleasure bender that it was.

“I can’t imagine wanting to escape, hmm?” she says, her
hands folded tightly over the pocketbook in her lap. “Lauren, do you even know
anything about me?”

Only that you were fashioned in a mad scientist’s lab,
put together from parts of an old Buick LeSabre and several defunct
administrators, then sent to my school to try and ruin my good time
.

She blinks. “That’s what I thought. Nothing.”

And so, I look at her more closely and begin to wonder. Is
she married? There’s no ring. Does she have children? Or cats or dogs, a
backyard, a foot fetish? Where does she live?

I don’t even know how she takes her coffee, and I don’t
even care that I don’t know. I never asked.

Who’s the hater, now, Lauren?

“Mrs. Worthing—” she begins, and I think,
Great, we’re
back to that
. “I thought you were being abused.”

“Well, in a way, I was!” I say, trying to explain my point
of view, to have her really understand me for once.

She is not amused. “I thought the recent changes in your
behavior had to do with signs of personal distress.”

“But they were! I was distressed!” I counter.

She shakes her head and keeps speaking over me. “I
observed you, I asked around. And then, when your husband covered up for you
like that, I thought you were in trouble with him, like I had been, once, with
my husband. I called the police because of genuine concern for your well-being.
Someone once did the same for me and it saved my life.”

Well, piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining. I try to
imagine her being afraid, being hurt, being in danger. I try to see beneath her
cool surface, to the origin of the twitch, to the crack beneath. It’s hard to
fathom. “Really?”

“I don’t make a habit of lying.”

Yes, bad habit.

“I’m so…” I begin, about to say “sorry,” but then I look
up from my awful scone and see that she has
emotion
on her face.

I think of her cyborg-like manner, the distance she has
always kept from me and everyone else at school. And for the first time, I
realize that living that way must be very lonely, and possibly, very sad.

“I’m so glad you told me, Martha,” I say, reaching across
the sticky wooden table to take her hand.

She smiles sadly, wiping a few stray tears on the back of
her brown sleeve. “You’re still not getting that promotion, you know,” she
says. “Even if you are being nice to me.”

“Look at you, cracking the jokes.”