The Hazards of Sleeping Alone (46 page)

“Mom, come on,” Emily says, with a thin laugh. “It wasn't all
that
happy.”

Charlotte pauses, flustered. “Yes it was.”

“
You
weren't happy.”

“Emily, that's not true—” she protests, then stops.

Emily drops her arms to her sides. “Maybe you felt happy,” she concedes. “You just never really seemed it.”

“But how can that be?” Charlotte is genuinely stunned. “I was always happy around you. I was
happiest
around you. Remember that night you came home from Seattle—”

A look of apology flashes across Emily's face, and Charlotte knows then, for sure: she doesn't remember. She and her daughter have very different versions of those years on Dunleavy Street. And not only do they remember different things, they remember the same things differently.

Charlotte sets down the rolls of ribbon. “How did I seem?” she says, voice soft. “I hope I wasn't miserable.”

“You weren't miserable. Just—worried.”

“You mean fussy?”

“No. It was more than that. You were kind of-a spaz. I mean, a subtle spaz, but still. Checking the locks a thousand times, tiptoeing into my room when I was sleeping …”

She remembers the palm reading Emily gave her at age ten, clutching Charlotte's hand in her sturdy little fingers, pronouncing her future with such earnestness:
You shall not be sad. You shall smile every day.

“You knew I came and checked on you?”

“Of course I did. You were a subtle spaz, but not that subtle,” Emily laughs, then her voice grows gentle. “I mean, it's not a bad thing. I always felt—safe.” She smoothes her dress down over her stomach, then looks up and meets Charlotte's eye. “I just don't want you to think you were happy in the old house so you can't be happy in this one.”

Walter's family arrives first, in a van from Crystal Springs Water Cooling Systems. They honk as they pull into the driveway, and greet Emily with kisses and hugs. Walt Senior is toting a jug of spring water on his right shoulder. Ambrocia is wearing a bright orange dress and hauling a duffel bag that says
I'm Too Blessed to be Stressed.
Walter's sisters hang back, wearing identical dark blue skirts with silver studs arcing across the back pockets.

“Come on,” Walter says, poking them forward. “At least pretend to be friendly. This is Charlotte. Charlotte, these are my sisters, Danita and Tanisha.”

“Very nice to meet you,” Charlotte says.

They smile shyly, but Walter steps around them and wraps her in a hug. “Good to see you, Charlotte.”

“You too.” They've exchanged a few e-mails over the last few months, but this is the first time Charlotte's seen him since Thanksgiving. Everything about him looks thinner, she thinks, less vivid somehow. His frame is narrower, his hair razored close to his head. Even his energy seems depleted. She follows his gaze across the room, to where Ambrocia is standing in the corner, talking to Emily.

“I'm glad you came,” Charlotte says.

Walter turns back to her. He musters his old jovial smile. “Better get used to it,” he says. “Once the baby gets here, you won't be able to get rid of me if you tried.”

His smile stretches wider, as if straining to be positive. Charlotte reaches out and, lightly, touches his shoulder.

“Coming through!” Walt Senior calls out. He strides past them and dumps the water jug on the kitchen floor, where it lolls like a beached animal. “For you,” he says to Charlotte. “Best stainless steel cold water reservoir on the market.”

“Oh, you didn't have to—”

“Uh uh,” he says, wagging a long finger. “It's a gift. For having our son as your guest.” He bypasses the handshake and kisses her on the cheek. “Walt Nelson.”

“Charlotte,” she says. “Rainer-Warren.”

“Nice icemaker,” he says, tapping the finger on her refrigerator door.

“Charlotte!” Ambrocia is heading her way with arms flung wide. “Finally!” she says, smothering her in a hug. “The other grandmother.”

“Finally,” Charlotte agrees. Funny to think how rattled she was the first time Walter hugged her; now it's clear where he gets it.

“Can you believe it?” Ambrocia steps back, fingering the cross around her neck. Her fingernails are painted gold, each one at least two inches long. “
Grandmother?
I still feel like I'm eighteen.”

“Oh, I know.”

Ambrocia's daughters wander by wearing identical bored expressions. She hisses their names, then jabs two long nails at the corners of her mouth. The girls oblige her with begrudging smiles.

Then all at once the other guests start arriving. The book group. Howard and Meg. Mara and Anthony. Ruth O'Keefe, dragging Ernie. Introductions are made, greetings exchanged, presents piled in the foyer. Mara and Anthony say hi to Joe. Meg shakes hands with Emily. The book group clusters instantly around Walter. Bea hops from group to group, gathering purses and coats. Six months ago Charlotte had lamented the fact that the condo had no presence of memory. Now the place was cracking open, filling up.

“Excuse me,” Charlotte says to Ambrocia, and threads her way across the foyer. On the far side of the living room, she can see Joe and Howard shaking hands. She finds Bea unveiling an enormous pinwheel of cold cuts, and leans close to her ear. “Can I leave you in charge for about twenty minutes?”

Charlotte starts off quickly, fueled by a combination of giddiness and disbelief. She's just left a houseful of guests, most of whom have never met, and is zipping down Route 9. She won't be gone long, she tells herself, she'll slip back in before they even know she's missing. Still, sitting at a red light outside the Super Fresh, guilt almost makes her turn the car around. Then the light changes, her foot falls onto the gas pedal. The minute she's in motion her worries start fading, receding like the speck-sized buildings in the rearview mirror.

As she nears her destination, Charlotte takes the drive more slowly. She knows it like the palm of her hand: the intersection where Emily ran her bike into a stop sign, the corner where she waited for the middle school bus, the parameters of her trick-or-treating. As she turns onto Dunleavy Street, she recognizes the slight dip in the pavement outside the Fullers', the Carmichaels' invisible fence that Emily always called inhumane. She pulls up next to the curb in front of the Watsons'—they've repainted their garage, she notes—then, feeling vaguely criminal, cuts the engine and gazes at the house across the street.

Even after almost nine months, it feels instantly familiar. She enters with her eyes. Meandering up the front walk, she sees the grass starting to sprout from the cracks; they look nicer if you keep them tweezed, she thinks. She wonders how many times she walked up and down that path—thousands? millions?—dragging groceries, pushing Emily's stroller, following Joe's long loping strides. She remembers when they came to tour the house, a few months before their wedding. Their footsteps had echoed on the bare floors, bouncing off the walls of the vacant rooms, and Charlotte had been daunted by the strangeness—both the empty house and the man guiding her through it, squeezing her shoulders when the Realtor's back was turned. Now Charlotte's eyes mount the three steps to the front door, the tiny porch bordered by forsythia just starting to sprout yellow flowers. The bushes are starting to encroach, she thinks, and is mentally trimming them back when the screen door bangs open and a boy pops out.

Charlotte knew, of course, that new people were living here. Still she is shocked by the sight of him. The boy looks about twelve or thirteen, dressed in the baggy jeans that are the fashion these days, covered in pockets, crotch hanging to the knees. He
hunkers down on the bottom step, shrugging off the yellow backpack hooked to his shoulders. As he starts rummaging inside it, Charlotte's eyes float above his head. She notices a new brass knocker on the front door. The curtains in the upstairs windows are pale green. The orange tot finder decal from Emily's window isn't there anymore.

The boy has retrieved a video game from his backpack, oblivious to Charlotte. Even from a distance, she can see his concentration as he hunches over it, shoulders jerking, thumbs jabbing buttons. Had she still been living on Dunleavy Street, the sight of a strange woman watching the house would have had her hovering around the windows. Given enough time she would have concocted all kinds of sinister scenarios about kidnappers and spies, when the reality was only this: a harmless middle-aged mother tearing up in her front seat, a woman who had moved out almost a year ago but never left.

A car slides up in front of the house, honks once. In the front seat are a blond woman and another boy about the same age. Probably going to the movies, Charlotte thinks. Maybe the mall. The boy on the step lingers a few seconds, probably resolving whatever car chase or explosion is happening on his tiny screen, then scoops up his backpack, trudges down the walkway, climbs in the backseat and slams the door. As the car pulls away, Charlotte wipes at her eyes. She takes one last look at the house on Dunleavy Street, then starts the car and heads home.

Unnoticed, Charlotte slips in the front door. Sounds of voices and laughter spill from the living room. Pausing in the foyer, she holds very still and listens—at last, she thinks, maybe this is what a foyer is for. She can distinguish the high pitch of Bea's voice, the low pitch of Walt Senior's. Joe's quick, sarcastic staccato,
countered by the new water cooler's slow, steady glug. She hears Walter laugh heartily, Ambrocia exclaim, “Really?” Their voices tumble over each other, rising and falling in an unfinished chorus, the collective sound at once strange and familiar. At first Charlotte can't define it, then she realizes what it is: the sound of a house settling into itself.

Charlotte moves into the kitchen and scans her guests, tangled in unlikely combinations. There's Linda, Meg, and Ambrocia clustered appreciatively around Bea's left hand. Walt Senior explaining to Kit and Marion the virtues of Crystal Springs Water Cooling Systems. Ruth talking energetically to Bill, who wears a look of pained politeness. Ernie rubbing against Bill's leg, while Mara tries to pet him from where she and Anthony sit squashed in the pink bubble chair. Walter's sisters huddling on the hearth, whispering, clutching cans of rootbeer. Joe holding court with Sandy, Cathy, and Rita, who is laughing too loudly at something he just said. Howard and Walter talking in the corner, next to the wooden crib.

Seated in the middle of the room, surrounded by gifts, Emily is the only one to notice Charlotte. Their eyes meet and Emily smiles. Charlotte smiles back. Then the scene shifts, the tableau moves, and Ambrocia is leaning down to talk to Mara and Anthony. Linda turns to admire the crib. Howard and Bea share a laugh, Bill touches the back of Bea's neck. Emily looks up as Walter bends down to whisper in her ear. Standing in the doorway, Charlotte watches for just a moment longer, then she joins the party.

YOUR FIRST BOOK, GETTING OVER JACK WAGNER, WAS A FUNNY NOVEL WITH A TWENTY-SOMETHING, POP CULTURE-SAVVY PROTAGONIST. IN THE HAZARDS OF SLEEPING ALONE, THE TONE IS MORE SERIOUS AND THE MAIN CHARACTER IS A FORTY-SEVEN-YEAR-OLD MOM WHO THINKS M.C. HAMMER IS PRONOUNCED “MCHAMMER.” WHERE DID THE IDEA FOR THIS BOOK COME FROM?

Actually, from sleeping alone. Or more accurately,
not
sleeping. About three years ago I was having an impossible time sleeping through the night. I finally became so annoyed at all the time I was wasting tossing and turning that I decided to do something useful with those wasted hours: I would write about a woman who couldn't sleep. I planned on it being a short story, all taking place within the parameters of one sleepless night, but suddenly there was a boyfriend, and an ex-husband, and an upstairs neighbor. I kept trying to shove them out of the way because I wanted to keep the scope tighter, just about a mother and her daughter, but the “story” took on a life of its own.

YOU'RE ORIGINALLY A SHORT STORY WRITER, ISN'T THAT RIGHT?

I wrote primarily short stories when I was working on my Master's [at the University of New Hampshire], published several of them
in various magazines, and and now I teach a short story workshop at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and at the New School in New York. I love the form—I think in many ways it's much more difficult than the novel. You're trying to do so much is so little space. The length of a novel used to intimidate me, but now I find it rather luxurious. With stories, there's this continual process of reinvention, creating new people and figuring out their problems, their histories, their states of mind. There's something comforting about just sinking in with the same characters for years on end, feeling your knowledge of them deepen.

THIS CHARACTER MUST HAVE BEEN SOMETHING OF A STRETCH. YOU'RE OBVIOUSLY NOT FORTY-SEVEN.

For whatever reason, I think I've always felt older than I am. I'm told when I was little I preferred to hang around with adults. So getting inside the skin of a person older than me felt comfortable. Despite the difference in our ages and experiences, there are fundamental parts of Charlotte I understand. We're both observers, with rampant imaginations. In general, I don't think emotion—worry, fear, loneliness—is age-exclusive.

STILL, IT WOULD SEEM EMILY, HER TWENTY-TWO-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER, MIGHT HAVE BEEN A MORE NATURAL CHOICE FOR POINT OF VIEW. WHY DID YOU CHOOSE TO WRITE THE BOOK FROM CHARLOTTE'S PERSPECTIVE?

I suppose I wanted the challenge of looking at the mother/daughter relationship from the mother's vantage—to try walking around in different shoes. But ultimately this is Charlotte's story, and Charlotte's journey. She's the character with the most at stake and the most potential for change. Though Emily changes by the end of the book, she's more open from the outset, more adventurous. Emily's realizations remind me of the kind of maturation my friends and I went through in our early and mid-twenties, being faced with adult decisions and starting to see our parents as human beings. But for Charlotte, so set in her ways, so fearful of trying
new things, growth would be much harder to achieve—both for her as a character and for me as the author, trying to make that growth feel earned.