On Turpentine Lane(16)

Neither parent picked up on that theme. Finally, my father said, “It is working out. Well, the place is a mess. It smells like paint and turpentine and cigar smoke. I feel like a real artist. It’s romantic, in a Greenwich Village or Paris-in-the-nineteen-twenties kind of way.”

“Look where it’s led,” said my mother. “Your father is the new Chagall.”

“Now tell me about the house,” said my dad. “Turpentine Lane, correct? You have fire, theft, homeowners?”

“I mean to. I will. You have to see it. It’s such a sweet little place. All it’s missing is the picket fence.”

“Of course I want to see it. It’s just a matter of when.”

“He’s on deadline,” said our mother. “Apparently working day and night.”

“A fortieth-anniversary present for a Miami couple, based on Chagall’s Wedding 1918, but I’m adding all three kids—they commissioned it—not just the one cherub hovering above the couple.”

“And I think I know what Faith will be getting for a wedding present,” Joel said. “I mean, whenever, whoever . . . someday.”

“Or a housewarming present,” my father said. “You just have to name your artist. A Van Gogh? A Magritte? A Rothko? Or I’ll surprise you.”

“One thing at a time,” my mother said. “Let’s just say, God forbid, you lost your job. Would you be able to make the mortgage payments?”

I said, “I don’t want you guys to worry. What’s the worst that’ll happen? I get fired, I sue, I put the house on the market? Someone else will fall in love with it exactly the way I did.”

All of that was met with nervous smiles. Was it my job outlook, my choice of property, my choice of fiancé, or just an unconvincing delivery? I couldn’t tell.





12





The Confluence of Bad Things


MOST PEOPLE EXPECTING IMMINENT probation would show up at their office and stage something like a sit-in. Not me. I called in sick.

Tried you at work. You ok? my mother texted. I didn’t phone her, didn’t want to be engaged in a mother-daughter heart-to-heart when Stuart inevitably returned one of my calls. Each time I’d tried him, I got only his outgoing message defining his journey and informing me that his “callback metabolism was slow, so please be patient.”

I texted my mother: Needed a mental health day.

You home? she wrote back.

Approximately fifteen minutes after I answered yes, my doorbell rang. It was she, more dressed up than usual for midmorning, in a ruffled blouse and a pleated plaid skirt I’d never seen. Her greeting was “May I say something?” which was accompanied by a pained maternal puckered brow.

“Not if it’s going to upset me.”

“I hope it doesn’t. It won’t be about Stuart, per se.”

I waited.

“Are you going to invite me in?”

I opened the door wider, revealing my oldest nightgown, a faded once-blue flannel thing that my college roommate would have recognized.

“None of my business, but that needs to go straight onto the rag heap,” she said, striding past me to collect and wash last night’s wineglasses. Eventually I pitched in, wiping the table halfheartedly.

She relieved me of the sponge and sat down. “I’d like to know, has Stuart called?”

“Not since yesterday.”

“When yesterday?”

“During the horror show. I told him I was in the middle of a crisis so I couldn’t talk.”

There followed a not entirely restrained diatribe, allegedly about all of mankind—about attention being paid, about putting someone else’s troubles before your own, about returning someone’s calls. At minimum!

I said, “If you’re trying to get me more upset, congratulations. You’ve succeeded.”

“I have to ask. What are you getting back from Stuart? What does he give you besides the obvious?”

“What’s the obvious?”

“A boyfriend! A partner! Someone to go out with and, I assume, sleep with.”

“All of the above.”

“But when?” she cried.

“All the time, in theory.”

“In theory? What does that mean?”

“It means . . . when he’s not out of state.”

She closed her eyes. Her lips moved but no words came out until she promised aloud not to say anything critical, given the confluence of bad things. “You need his support. You need the simple courtesy of—”

“Yes, I do! And I don’t need your couple’s therapy. I don’t want to be on the defensive! I want everything to be all right at work, and I want credit for getting the stupid swimming pool upgraded.”

“Has anyone called from work?” she asked.

“Maybe. I haven’t answered my phone.”

“Is that wise?”

“It makes sense if I’m having a breakdown.”

“Which you are not. No one in our family has breakdowns. You’re just angry and worried. And I wouldn’t be surprised if you were a little heartbroken.”

I said, “It’s all mixed up—the anger, the disappointment. I think I have posttraumatic stress disorder, so I can’t tell which percentage, if any, of the heartbreak is Stuart’s fault.”