The Hazards of Sleeping Alone (5 page)

“Oh! Well, they're just—that's just great. Grew them in your garden!”

Her enthusiasm is too much, she can feel it, but it's better than the awkward quiet a moment before. Charlotte isn't used to awkwardness around Emily. When Emily used to arrive for visits on Dunleavy Street, there would be an immediate flurry of activity, familiarity, dropping bags on the floor, flopping on the couch, digging through mail, rifling through the kitchen cabinets. “Well, here, here, come in, come in,” Charlotte blusters, shutting the door. “Let me give you a tour of the place. This is the foyer.”

“God, Mom. You have a foyer?”

“I didn't specifically
ask
for one, but you know. It comes with the place.”

Emily nods. She probably considers living in a condo community “selling out.” A house with a style and layout exactly like
all its neighbors, no personality of its own. Charlotte is comforted by the predictability of the complex; Emily probably finds it stifling. Dehumanizing. Depending on her mood, she might start comparing it to some kind of Communist state.

“I don't spend much time in here,” Charlotte prattles, “but, you know. Nice for greeting guests.” She heads quickly toward the living room before Emily can ask her to elaborate on who these guests might be. “And this is the living room.”

The clop of Emily's boots disappears as they step onto the plush carpet.

“Are these my digs?”

“If it's not comfortable, you could sleep in my—”

“It's great,” Emily says, dropping her duffel on the neat stack of pink bedding. Charlotte readies herself for some comment about the room's neutral tones, “the color of pantyhose.” Instead, Emily wanders toward the built-in shelves lined with their framed photos, tiny tea sets, careful rows of books (one for the book group, one health/nutrition, one loans from Emily). She kneels down to peer at the fireplace that, despite the bundle of cedar logs in the cast-iron basket, hasn't yet been touched.

“I was thinking we could use it while you're here,” Charlotte volunteers. “It just hasn't been quite cold enough yet.”

Not to mention she's too paranoid to build a fire on her own. The flames might leap out of the grate, a burning ember might fly onto the carpet, she would have to stay awake until every last bit of ash was cold, oh—she feels tired just thinking about it.

“But this weekend it's supposed to go down to the thirties,” she says, “so we could definitely build one. Would you want to? That would be cozy, wouldn't it? A fire? I always wanted a fireplace on Dunleavy Street.”

Emily says nothing. Which isn't like her. Maybe she's concentrating
on absorbing the place, taking it all in before unleashing her assessment. She pauses in front of the thick, tweedy curtains that conceal the sliding glass door.

“What's out here?” Emily reaches into the curtains and taps glass.

“That's the garden patio,” Charlotte says, quoting from the brochure. “Isn't it nice? Let me open it up so you can see.”

As a rule, Charlotte keeps these curtains closed. As far as she's concerned, the “garden patio” is the condo's biggest drawback. She doesn't like to be reminded of the half inch of glass separating her from potential robbers, murderers, rapists, wild animals. Every night at 7:00
P.M.,
the porch light automatically snaps on; from inside, the curtains emit a faint yellow glow.

Charlotte tugs the cord, and the heavy curtains shrug apart, creaking on their metal hinges to unveil a perfect square of smooth fake stones. The patio's only furnishings are two metal lounge chairs and a glass-topped table with an umbrella poking through the middle, bound tight as a swizzle stick. Under the glare of the lightbulb, the glass tabletop is marred with stray leaves, sticky pine needles, bird droppings. The puffy, flowered chair cushions are still folded and stacked in the corner, exactly where Charlotte found them.

Emily leans into the glass and cups her hands around her eyes. Charlotte watches a moth attack the porch light as she waits for Emily to speak. It's amazing how much her daughter's opinion matters. The opinion of a person whose diapers she changed, whose temperature she took, whose milk she made—a person she herself created.

After what seems like several minutes, Emily turns. “This room must get great natural light.”

Charlotte thinks she can literally feel her heart swell. “Well,
yes,” she says. “I guess it does, now that you mention it.” She gives the cord a few tugs, smothering the window in tweed again. As she heads for the hallway, her steps feel more confident. “The bathroom,” she says, snapping on the light.

Emily points to the fish on the walls. “Yikes.”

“Oh, I know. Aren't they awful? I try not to look them in the eye.” Charlotte laughs, swinging open the lacquered bedroom door. “And last but not least.”

The moment Emily steps into the bedroom, Charlotte is struck by what a comfort it is to have her in it. These four walls have already contained so much anxiety, so much fear, so many exaggerated dreams and overblown nightmares, that the mere fact of Emily's presence punctures some of that unreality somehow, connects the room to the real world. Next time she's scared at night, Charlotte thinks, she'll remember Emily being here.

Gratefully, she watches as her daughter moves around the room. She is as thorough as a prospective buyer: peeking in the closet, peering through the plastic slats of the blinds. Charlotte tries to see the room as her daughter would, but has spent so many countless hours staring at every crack and crevice that it's impossible to view it now through fresh eyes.

“Cool fan,” Emily says, swatting at the gold chain dangling from one of the ceiling fan's wooden fins.

“It is nice, isn't it? Not too much of a breeze, but enough. Enough to keep me cool if I need it.”

In truth, Charlotte rarely uses it. The whirring noise is too distracting. Like the Dream Machine, it's capable of concealing other, more important, sounds.

“Do you like the hardwood floor?” Charlotte asks, as Emily wanders toward the dresser. “The realtor said hardwood is popular
these days. At first I wasn't sure, but it looks nice, don't you think?”

“Yeah. It's nice.”

Emily hasn't commented on the Dream Machine sitting by the foot of the bed or
The Miracle of Mindfulness
on the bedside table. Instead, she pokes listlessly in Charlotte's jewelry box. Charlotte is sure her daughter has no interest in her bland clipon earrings and unassuming gold chains. In the mirror above the dresser, she has a perfect view of Emily's blank expression. Something is clearly bothering her, something more than a long ride. She's lacking her usual spunk, her spirit—her engagement with the world.

“Honey,” Charlotte ventures. The chain from the ceiling fan swings slightly. “Is everything all right?”

Emily doesn't look up, doesn't change expression, as if she's been expecting this. She fingers a knotted clump of necklace chains. “I'm fine.”

“Are you sure? Are you tired from your drive? I could make you some tea. Or coffee? I could make you coffee.”

“That's okay.”

“How about a nice hot bath? I bought some lavender bubbles. And something called a bath glove.”

Emily looks up. “You use a bath glove?”

“Well, no. I bought it for you.”

“Oh.”

In the mirror, Charlotte sees a smile.

“Remember last time you were here, you were taking lots of baths? Do you—are you still?”

Emily shrugs. Without her usual volume and energy, she looks smaller. A wisp of a thing, really. Her corduroys hang loose on her hips, boots are weighing down her feet. Under the bandanna,
her naturally big eyes look enormous, like the starving children on those infomercials.

“It's just that”—Charlotte inhales—“you don't seem like yourself.”

Emily clicks her tongue ring slowly, once, twice, like a metronome, as if measuring her response. Then she gives the tongue a decisive click and claps the lid shut on the jewelry box. “It's all good,” she says, turning and smiling broadly. “I'm good. Just starving. Got anything to eat?”

Charlotte stashes the arugula in the produce bin—she'll have to use it during Emily's visit, but what on earth will she make?—while Emily starts opening cabinet doors. It feels good to be in the kitchen: a place of briskness, efficiency.

“What do you feel like eating?” Charlotte claps her hands. “I have egg salad, I have fruit salad—”

“You have Suddenly Salad.” Emily yanks the box off the shelf and frowns at it. “Is this for real?”

Charlotte laughs, always the good sport. “It's not as bad as it sounds,” she says, then opens the freezer to reveal a box of Boca Burgers propped against a bank of diet dinners-for-one. “I have Boca Burgers, honey. Want a Boca? It'll take ten minutes.”

But Emily is surveying a shelf of boxes: pasta, rice, instant mashed potatoes. “Mom,” she says, “do you realize almost everything you eat is off-white?”

Charlotte laughs again. She knows her food and clothes are easy bait and accepts this as part of her role as “the dowdy mom,” especially if it will make Emily feel more like herself. She can't stand knowing her daughter is in pain and wants to find the origin immediately: trace it, name it, like a sound in the night. Watching Emily poke in these unfamiliar cabinets, it
occurs to Charlotte she might feel unsettled by the new house. She hadn't anticipated this, but it would make sense. It would be strange if Emily
didn't
feel a little displaced. The house on Dunleavy Street was the only consistent home she'd ever known—the place where she'd had her own room, her closet, her bulletin board full of concert tickets and photos and dried corsages. It was the den where she studied for every test, the living room where she curled in front of the TV under a pile of fuzzy afghans, the pantry she shut herself inside to talk on their single phone—a rotary attached to the kitchen wall—before convincing Charlotte to get a cordless.

Charlotte can still remember that beige phone cord, how it strained under the door to the pantry—or “Emily's Office,” as they later called it—and the serious tones of her daughter's voice leaking from within. On any given night, Emily would be dispensing advice to one of her many girlfriends or arguing heatedly with one of the boys in her class. Charlotte would try not to interrupt, but sometimes, if she was cooking, she couldn't help it. She would rap on the door, sing “Excuse me!” and reach in quickly to grab whatever ingredient she needed. Emily would be sitting on the floor, knees bunched under her chin, head resting against a shelf of canned peaches or Cheerios. “Hold on,” she would tell her caller, then press the phone to her chest until Charlotte closed the door. One afternoon, when Emily was a freshman, Charlotte found her at the kitchen table decorating a square of poster board with bubble letters:
EMILY' S OFFICE.
She wrote IN SESSION on one side,
OPEN FOR BUSINESS
on the other. They laughed about it and hung the sign on the doorknob from a piece of red yarn. Even after the pantry became a pantry again, and Emily and the cordless began disappearing to her bedroom, that sign remained on the pantry
the of doorknob until Charlotte packed it, last summer, in a box labeled MISC.

That's what the kitchen on Dunleavy Street felt like. A hodgepodge, a treasure chest, a room packed to bursting. The refrigerator door was crowded with scribbled notes, photos, coupons, postcards. In the “junk drawer” was a sludge of matchbooks, takeout menus, rubber bands, recipes ripped from magazines, extra packets of ketchup and sugar three inches deep. The kitchen—the whole house—had a sense of accumulation. History. Here at the condo, the refrigerator door was blank except for a Bed, Bath and Beyond coupon attached with the magnet Charlotte received in the mail from Millville County Electric.

“I was thinking,” Charlotte says, voice lurching as it always did when she broached an uncomfortable subject. “That it must be hard for you, honey, being here. At the condo.”

Emily faces an open cabinet, back turned.

“I know it's different from the house on Dunleavy Street. It's smaller, and the stove's electric, the closets aren't as deep …” Charlotte sucks in a breath. “I felt strange too, at first. But you get used to it. Believe me.” She pauses and asks, hopefully, “Is that what's upsetting you? Do you miss Dunleavy Street?”

Emily turns. She smiles, but it is a sad smile, the kind of smile an adult gives to a child who has said something so naive it is endearing. “It's fine, Mom,” she says. “I'm fine. Don't worry.”

Charlotte waits, wanting something more. A “but” or an “except for.” A sag of the shoulders, even a tear or two. Instead, Emily hops up on the counter with a burst of new energy. “If you really want to know what's upsetting me,” she says, “it's that my mother's taste buds are dying a slow death.” With a flourish, she grabs a wire whisk and stands up, head inches from the overhead light. “Charlotte Warren?” she announces into the whisk.

“Yes?”

“You are today's lucky winner.”

“I am?”

“You and your daughter and your deprived taste buds have won an exciting trip for three to”—she drums the whisk on a cabinet door—“a fabulous restaurant in southern Jersey. There you will try something new. Something exotic.”

“Oh, but I can just make something here—”

“We're going out.” Emily points the whisk at her. “No excuses.”

“But you must be tired from the—”

“I'm fine.”

“But,” Charlotte protests, voice rising, “it's almost nine o'clock!”

Emily's arms flop to her sides. “Fine. We don't have to
eat
out. We'll go get takeout and bring it back. How's that?”

Charlotte looks up at her daughter. She has lived this moment, felt this feeling, countless times before. Does she want to go out? No. She really doesn't. But she knows that once Emily has a plan, there's no stopping her, especially when it comes to exposing Charlotte to new things. Joe was the same way, always trying to cajole her into trying sushi, or mussels, or dousing her food in garlic or pesto or curry, then seeming disappointed—no, more than disappointed, truly
let down
in some larger spiritual way, as if Charlotte's basic moral fiber were in question—when she declined. Why, Charlotte wonders, is her taste in food a character flaw that needs correcting? She hates when people felt the need to
make
her adventurous: to sing in the car or dance at a wedding reception or try the bite of raw, pink, glistening fish dangling from the end of their fork. Why should it matter if she doesn't want to? If it doesn't bother
her,
why should it bother
them?