Page 30 of The Night the Lights Went Out
“Just great. Fabulous.”Awful. Heartbroken. Lonely.She said none of those things. He didn’t deserve them. He didn’t deserve to know how much she still hurt, or that all he had to do was say he wanted her back and she would be lost again, all her strength and resolve dissolved like smoke.
“Good,” he said. “That’s really good. You look great, by the way. Like you’ve lost a lot of weight.”
She bristled. If she had it would be because she no longer had an appetite. A broken heart could do that to a person. “Thank you,” was all she said.
“Oh, before I forget.” He fished something out of his pocket. “I found this in your old nightstand. It had rolled to the back and got stuck behind a bunch of pens and pencils. I think it’s one of David’s.”
He placed a yellow-hatted Lego construction worker in her outstretched hand. “Thanks,” she said, unable to meet his eyes.
The children rushed out of their rooms, Lily limping to protect her ankle, kissing Merilee before jumping into their father’s car.
“I’ll bring them back in a couple of hours,” Michael said as he opened his car door, then waited for a moment as if searching for the right words. “Call me if you need anything, all right? Anything at all.”
She nodded, standing there and waving as they pulled down the drive, red dust blowing in her face. She clutched the Lego man in her hand, feeling all the losses in her life at once, and wondering how long it would take until the hurting and the missing would stop.
Ten
THE PLAYING FIELDS BLOG
Observations of Suburban Life from Sweet Apple, Georgia
Written by: Your Neighbor
Installment #4: Memory Care and Botox Parties
As much as I avoid driving—what with having to dodge the families of deer and overly enthusiastic and road-hogging bicyclists on our narrow country roads—I do have to venture out from time to time to stock my pantry and do all the other errands needed in our suburban lives.
Something I noticed this week as I gritted my teeth and ran my errands—the excessive number of day care centers and retirement villages. Day cares and senior citizen neighborhoods are sprouting like mildew in our bucolic suburb. Does anybody else see the humor here? The same children raised by caregivers see a natural progression toward housing their aging parents in much the same fashion. Reminds me of something I read once, about being nice to your children because they will one day pick your nursing home. Don’t get me wrong; these institutions are necessary given today’s lifestyles. But it does make me think.
And what’s with all these “memory care” buildings attached to the residential halls at the senior citizen villages? From what I’ve seen, memory doesn’t need caring for after it’s gone. Just call it “The Forgetting Place” or “Home for People Who Can’t Remember” and be done with it. Because that’s what they are. I think I’ve had enough of euphemisms.
Along the same lines as euphemisms is the overuse of the word “party.” I’ve always associated the word with birthdays and retirements—things to be celebrated. No longer just for housewarmings and dinners, the word “party” is now being used alongside “karaoke,” “Pampered Chef,” and “Botox.” This last one really confuses me. How could going to someone’s house where a (hopefully) qualified person lays you down on a sofa and injects a botulism toxin into your face be considered—in any sane person’s world—a party? And shouldn’t a person be insulted just to be invited? Lastly, what does a person bring as a hostess gift for these gatherings—Band-Aids?
Yesterday in line at Kroger, the two women in front of me were talking about a Botox party they were going to that evening in one of our gated neighborhoods—that I won’t name just in case you noticed your tennis partner looking less wrinkly today even after all those years in the sun. They kept looking back at me, and for a horrified moment I thought they were going to invite me, too. I was torn between slapping them if they did and pretending I didn’t speak English. Luckily, I remembered that I’d been trying out shades of foundation in the drug aisle and had left two streaks of different-colored makeup slashing across my cheek, making me look like an Indian. Excuse me—Native American.
While at that same Kroger, I spotted the recently involuntarily downsized third-grade math teacher in line at the pharmacy counter. I assumed she wasn’t there for birth control, seeing as how that ship has already sailed, but probably for prenatal vitamins.
I’d only seen her before at a distance, but up close it’s easy to see why a married man—or any man with eyes—would find her attractive. And young. I think she’s barely out of college. She’s a dead ringer for a lingerie catalog model, with perfect skin, thick dark hair, and a warm smile. It’s the smile that gives her away as a teacher, though. That slow and patient smile teachers of all small children use when explaining something in that way of theirs. I wonder if she was good at her job. I wonder if she misses it and regrets the choices she’s made.
While I was there pretending to look at different shampoos, another woman, apparently the mother of one of her former students, recognized her, too. She’d bumped her cart into the teacher’s, so she couldn’t pretend that she hadn’t seen her, and she spent the entire time not looking at the expectant mother’s belly and not saying anything more than how hot it was outside.
And then I got distracted by free samples of Talenti gelato and lost sight of the teacher. If you haven’t tried that gelato, don’t. I think it must contain a controlled substance, because after one bite I found myself purchasing four small containers in different flavors. I guess the former teacher isn’t the only one with self-control issues. Except if I gain a few pounds it won’t wreck a family.
Speaking of life’s upsets, we are smack-dab in the middle of hurricane season here in Georgia. We’ve had a hot and dry streak since June, which always gets me worried. And not just about the weather. If you read the arrest reports in theSweet Apple Heraldlike I do, you’ll notice there’s hardly been a full column of late. And even though we’re winding up for a hotly contested mayoral race, there hasn’t been an ugly word or unsubstantiated claim made by either side as of today. I feel something brewing in the air, like a warm wind blowing westward over the Atlantic from Africa, the official birth of a hurricane. So check your hurricane shutters and stock up on bottled water. A storm is coming.
And now for today’s Southern saying: “That’s as handy as a back pocket on a shirt.” I went to Walmart last week to purchase some necessary items and saw that they had hand soap on sale in those really big containers. Packaged with them was a hand pump to screw into the top when you were ready to use it so you don’t have to go through the aggravation of pouring the soap into a smaller container. Except when I got home I discovered that the pump didn’t fit on the container. I spilled about half the soap trying to get it to work. When I finish cleaning up all the soap off my bathroom vanity and the front of my shirt, I will be sure to take it back to Walmart (in a sealed bag). And when I dump that soap on the customer service desk, I will say, “This is about as handy as a back pocket on a shirt.”
So when you’re headed to Walmart to stock up on storm-preparedness items, don’t forget the bread and milk, but for goodness’ sake, leave the giant tub of hand soap on the shelf.
• • •
MERILEE
Merilee sat at a small table by the window of Cups, the local coffee shop, and closed her laptop. She hadn’t been aware that Tammy had been fired. Not that she was surprised—Tammy was single and her students were young. Merilee just wasn’t sure how in this day and age a woman could be dismissed for such a transgression. Maybe it was parental pressure and the promise of a full salary leave. Regardless, she found no pleasure in the news. She had once liked Tammy Garvey, when she was still the enthusiastic and fresh-faced math teacher who made Lily love math. Merilee hated what Tammy had done, but she couldn’t bring herself to hate her. But that didn’t stop her from thinking ill thoughts or calling her bad names in her head.
The aroma of fresh-brewed coffee and baking muffins against the visual backdrop of oak tables and brick and wood walls and floors made the coffee shop feel homey and charming; it was the place everybody congregated, since the marketing-genius owners had strategically placed it in close proximity to three public schools and Windwood Academy.
It was right after school drop-off, and Merilee used the opportunity to surreptitiously glance around at the clusters of moms at the various tables to see if any of them seemed to be reading the blog on their phones or other devices, or if any of them were trying not to stare or point. She could always tell when someone was talking about someone else, or trying to get them to look when they talked out of the sides of their mouths, as if moving their lips would give them away. And then the person being spoken to would pretend to admire the décor around the vicinity of where the object of the conversation happened to be.
