Where'd You Go, Bernadette(40)

I launched into the saga of Barry’s failed businesses, his trips to Vegas, his Intermittent Explosive Disorder (which was never diagnosed, but which I’m convinced he suffers from), and finally how I found the strength to divorce him, but not before he successfully drained our life savings.

“About Bernadette…,” he said.

My face flushed. I had been talking a lot about myself and VAV, which I have been known to do. “I’m sorry,” I said. “How can I help?”

“When you see her at school, how does she seem? Have you noticed anything?”

“Well, to be honest,” I said carefully, “from the beginning… Bernadette didn’t seem to value community.” “What does that have to do with anything?” “The underlying principle of Galer Street is community. It’s not written anywhere that parents have to participate. But the school is built on unspoken assumptions. For instance, I am in charge of classroom volunteers. Bernadette has never once signed up. Another thing, she never walks Bee into the classroom.”

“That’s because you drive up and drop off the kids,” Elgie said.

“You can do that. But most mothers prefer to walk their children into the classroom. Especially if you’re a stay-at-home mom.”

“I guess I’m not understanding,” he said.

“The foundation of Galer Street is parent participation,” I pointed out.

“But we write a check each year, on top of tuition. Isn’t that participation enough?”

“There’s financial participation, and there’s the other, more meaningful participation. Like traffic duty, baking healthy snacks for Talent Night, brushing hair on Picture Day.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I’m with Bernadette on this—”

“All I’m trying to do—” I felt my voice rising and took a breath. “I’m trying to give you a context for the tragedy this weekend.”

“What tragedy?” he said.

Audrey, I thought he was joking. “Haven’t you been getting the emails?”

“What emails?” Elgie asked.

“From Galer Street!”

“God, no,” he said. “I asked to be taken off those lists years ago… hang on. What are you talking about?”

I proceeded to tell him about Bernadette erecting that billboard and destroying your home. Hand to God: he knew nothing! He just sat there, taking it all in. At one point, he dropped his sandwich and didn’t even bother to pick it up.

My phone alarm beeped. It was 2:15, and he had a 2:30 skip 1:1.

We bicycled back. The sky was black, except for a brilliant white cloud patch where rays of sunshine broke through. We rode in a darling neighborhood of little bungalows cuddled together. I love the gray-green-putty colors against the leafless cherry trees and Japanese maples. I could feel the crocus, daffodil, and tulip bulbs underground, gaining strength, patiently enduring our winter, waiting to burst forth for another glorious Seattle spring.

I held my hand out and whooshed it through the thick, healthy air. What other city has given birth to the jumbo jet, the Internet superstore, the personal computer, the cellular phone, online travel, grunge music, the big-box store, good coffee? Where else could somebody like me ride bikes alongside the man with the fourth-most-watched TEDTalk? I started laughing.

“What’s wrong?” Elgie asked.

“Oh, nothing.” I was remembering how crushed I was when my father couldn’t afford to send me to USC and instead I went to the UW. I’d hardly been out of Washington State. (And I still have never seen New York City!) Suddenly I didn’t care. Let everyone else travel all over the world. What they’re searching for in Los Angeles and New York and everywhere else is something I already have right here in Seattle. I want it all to myself.



*

From: Audrey Griffin

To: Soo-Lin Lee-Segal



Do you think I woke up this morning and drank a big cup of stupid? Wouldn’t it be convenient if Elgin Branch knew nothing of his wife’s swath of destruction? I shared your tale with Warren, who suspected the same thing as me: Elgin Branch is attempting to establish a paper trail so when we sue him for everything he’s worth, he can claim ignorance. Well, that trick won’t work. Why don’t you tell that to E-Dawg next time you’re littering at a house of God? He didn’t receive any of the emails! What a pantload!

*

From: Audrey Griffin

To: Gwen Goodyear





Please check the all-school email list and confirm that Elgin Branch is on it. I’m not talking about Bernadette, but Elgin Branch specifically.



*


It was Kennedy’s birthday that night, and her mother works nights, so Mom and I did what we always do, which is take Kennedy out for a birthday dinner. That morning at drop-off, Kennedy was waiting for me and Mom to pull up.

“Where are we going, where are we going?” Kennedy said.

Mom rolled down her window. “The Space Needle restaurant.”

Kennedy screamed with joy and started jumping up and down.

First Daniel’s Broiler, and now this? “Mom,” I said. “Since when did you get so supercool about restaurants?”

“Since now.”

On the way to homeroom, Kennedy had a hard time containing her excitement.