The Breakdown Lane

  The woman, an Amanda Senter, a name that seemed oddly familiar, wrote and asked permission to call.

  “Julieanne Gillis,” she said when I picked up.

  “Yes?”

  “The last time I saw you, you were hiding under a piano.” It was that, then. The Dad thing. “I was your father’s agent, Julieanne, for a very short time a very long time ago, when I was very young. Before I moved to the other side of the desk. You probably saw me twice in your life. But when I read your poem, I thought Ambrose would like knowing that I recognized his girl’s work.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “It’s kind of fun.”

  “And what do you have in the trunk?” she asked.

  “The trunk?”

  “I mean, do you have enough poems amassed for a collection? I see it as a sort of woman’s triumphal rejection of the old male rule…and they’re kind of fun. You know, a poem to read when you’re furious at him.” I had no idea what she was talking about. The poems I had written were the poems I had written. Four. There were no odd slips of paper and jottings of consummate power tucked away in my drawer, to be found with breathtaking consequences by the children after my death.

  “I’m an advice columnist,” I said. “I’m not a poet.”

  “Why not let me be the judge of that. I have my own imprint now. I do very few things….”

  I ended up, conscious of the firm, approving stare of my father from on high, sending her two. One of them I wrote after we got off the telephone, in perhaps twenty-five minutes.

  Some Days Are Better Than Others

  There is nothing wrong with me

  A new body wouldn’t cure.

  How about a side of spinal fluid?

  Got that in the color pure?

  There is nothing wrong with me;

  But I need a couple legs, size eight.

  Then I’d be secure

  Little larynx tune-up, diaphragm tuck, pair of new eyes,

  Some agile hands, a brain that works not just in reverse,

  Or maybe just a promise, say, nothing worse?

  Just settle for me, order filled, not my three.

  Just that. I’ll endure.

  Promptly, the following morning, she wrote me and told me she’d cried upon reading it. I thought she must be going through some rough times mentally. She talked about positioning and presentation, about line drawings or the lack of them.

  “Wait, Miss Senter,” I finally said.

  “Amanda,” she replied.

  “Amanda, just what are we talking about here?”

  “Well, poetry, as a rule, isn’t a major seller. But what I’m thinking is that, there are enough women out there who’ve been dumped, or who have gone through similar trials, for all sorts of reasons, that we could almost present it as a book of friendship, of solidarity….”

  “A book?”

  “We can’t offer you much.”

  “I don’t have a book of poems! How many poems go in a book?”

  “Twenty-four, I think. I see it small, very rich-looking, almost like a thickish greeting card….”

  “It would take me six months to write twenty-four poems!”

  “Well, we wouldn’t expect them for a year, at least. But we can give you five now and five upon acceptance.” She meant thousands. I was grateful to be sitting down. A year’s worth of therapy and home schooling. More if I petitioned the school district and won, so they had to pay for Gabe’s schooling. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. “I’m sorry it’s not more, Julie.”

  “Well, I think it would be nice to be public.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Published. I think it would be nice.”

  “So it’s okay? Who is your agent?”

  “Uh. I have to get in touch with her.” I had to think of something. I had to think of an old (and that would mean really old) friend of my father’s I could call, to ask for the name of an agent. But I didn’t know any of those people! Not as an adult! They knew me as a little girl in my high school uniform. I called Cathy at her office, and was too tense and excited to remember to ask for her by name. “I’d like to talk to the psychologist.”

  “She’s in session.”

  “I’d like to have her call me back.”

  “Are you suicidal?”

  “No!” I burst out laughing. “It’s…Julieanne Gillis. She’s my house-mate. Cathy Gleason.”

  “Oh! I’m sorry, Missus Gillis.”

  Cathy and I spent the evening looking at the spines of my father’s signed books. We picked out the name of a woman who had at least a hope of being alive and sentient, found her agent’s name in the acknowledgments, and when I called, she not only remembered me, she greeted me with the vocal equivalent of open arms. She was glad to go over my contracts. She’d love to have me to her home for dinner, next time I was in New York (next time I was in New York?). She knew my father would be proud. She thought the advance was a little on the stingy side, and she would try to keep foreign rights out of it. “We can pick up money on foreign sales,” she said. She might as well have been speaking in Aramaic. She used words I had heard my father use, but I had been trying to ignore the words at the time.

  The publication of my poems was a terrifying crack in an opening door. I was afraid that the light from that opening door would hurt my eyes. I was afraid I would disgrace my father. I was afraid for the world to see what seemed, to me, like the little pages of scribbles Aurora held up at the dinner table. (“I have an excusement to make,” she would say, “I wrote a column.”) Abruptly, the trip to Boston was no longer a source of anxiety. It was a relief.

  Matthew met me at the baggage claim, carrying a Patriots fan card with the words GILLIS PARTY written on it. “Enough with the Patriots jokes,” I said, meaning it. “How far is it to your house?”

  “About twenty minutes if the traffic is good.”

  “I don’t think anyone has ever said anything else to me,” I told him. It struck me funny.

  “What?”

  “I mean that no one has ever said anything to me except ‘It’s about twenty minutes from here.’”

  “And all clocks in store windows are set for twenty minutes after eight.”

  “Isn’t that because it’s when Abraham Lincoln died?”

  “No,” he said. “I think it’s because it shows the hands better. The hands of the clock.”

  “I think it’s because of Abraham Lincoln. And don’t mess with me. I’m a trivia expert. And the strangest thing happened.” I had rehearsed this revelation. Girlish and flirtatious? Proud but somewhat bewildered? Surprised yet confident? “There’s going to be a book. Of my poems.”

  “Julieanne,” his reaction was different from what I’d expected. Very un–football fan. A quiet approval. A proud, proprietary nod. We passed through the center of a small town called Briley, and headed down a country road. When he turned in at the columned house, I thought he was stopping to buy eggs. “My humble abode.”

  “It’s a fucking mansion!” I said. “I’m sorry, Matt. For cussing. I hang around a sixteen-year-old. But I never imagined…” A cream-colored horse watched us with amused, kindly eyes as we passed. “That’s my girl’s girl, Diva. My horse is Carver. Kelly gave him to me. The name? It’s her idea of a surgery joke. He’s a good old boy, though.”

  “I used to ride,” I said, thinking of Central Park, my mother in her jodhpur boots.

  “We can take a turn tomorrow,” Matt said eagerly.

  “I couldn’t sit a horse now.”

  “Don’t be so sure. With Carver, you just have to let him do the driving.”

  “Matt, you’re one of those guys who’s always thrashing off to do something, aren’t you?”

  “I guess,” he said, taking my suitcase out of the trunk. “That a bad thing? I stand still all day, using my hands to make tiny motions. So I like to make big motions in my time off. It makes sense.”

  “So what do you want to do hanging around with a lady who used to
be able to jump three feet into the air and now has to take her time going up three steps?”

  “There’s more to life than thrashing around,” he said, and opened the door.

  It looked like my memories of Tuscany, from a summer when I was nine or ten. Golden walls and thick green rugs. Brick-red furniture with striped pillows and a chandelier that looked like Cleopatra’s barge. I flopped down on the couch, from which I could see the long table, cherry, plain and shining and the kitchen with its painted tiles and strings of garlic. “Hey, congrats to your decorator.”

  Matt nodded, then shrugged. “I picked up junk because I liked the colors. I bought the chandelier when Peter Mangan sold the prototype from a restaurant I like to go to in Seattle.”

  “You did this yourself?”

  “I hate, you know, single guys with white walls and navy blue furniture….”

  “I do, too, but how do you do all this?”

  “Listen, I have one kid in college. I didn’t plan that. Even with doctor’s hours, that leaves a lot of time on your hands. You decorate a house. You take piano lessons. I don’t know. Suzie and I traveled. I never felt…I always wanted another child. I still do. Don’t laugh. People do it all the time at our age.”

  “I’m not laughing. I have a three-year-old. People think I’m insane.”

  “Do you want tea?”

  I nodded.

  “Y’know what Brits call the tea they take at four o’clock? Solace. Isn’t that kind of cool?”

  “I like it. It sounds like another word I like. My parents were sort of Episcopalian. Vespers. I liked that word.”

  We drank the tea as the light outside sank and the lights in Matt’s house, and outside, among the trees, obviously on a timer, rose in mellow increments. “When are the guests coming?” I asked. “I want to lie down, maybe take a shower. If you can show me where I’ll be sleeping?”

  He led me down a short hall to a room with a bed I knew I’d need a three-step ladder to climb onto. I meant only to lie there for a moment, but when I woke, the room was black. Despite myself, I called out, “Help!” And I could feel, smell, Matt beside me, his clean woody scent, within a moment. “I’m sorry. It was so dark. I thought my eyes were acting up.”

  “Does that happen much?”

  “It used to.”

  “Not now.”

  “No.”

  “Can you see down the hall?” I could see candlelight, immaculate cloths on the shining table, and as my senses returned, coming alight one by one, I could smell the aroma of garlic, roasted.

  “Are people here?” I whispered. “I have to dress….”

  “Take your time,” he said. “No rush.”

  He turned on the lights, in the bathroom—the tub actually did have steps—and left me alone. I bathed carefully, finger-brushed the silly short hair for which I’d come to have a rough affection, and put on my soft black dress. I brushed the color across my nose and applied lipstick that barely had any color, best for older women, the girl at the drugstore said. I looked good. Now, my shoes. I opened my shoe bag. Running shoes. Boots. I sat down on the bed, ready to weep. I could see them, exactly where they were now, on my desk chair, each of them in its own little cotton bag. “Matt!” I called. There was music on. Something soft, old. Julie London. Funny guy. “Matt!” I couldn’t hear him excuse himself from a conversation, but he was carrying a bottle of wine when he came to my door. “I forgot my shoes.”

  “You’re just this…sweet, delicate—”

  “Be quiet! I don’t want anyone to hear us! I can’t walk out there in my stockings!”

  “Oh, but you can, unless your feet are cold.”

  “What will your guests think?”

  “The whole party’s here,” he said.

  “But you sent me an invitation.”

  “You’re the party,” he said. “Come on.” The table was set for two. Pasta waited for a simmering peppery sauce. He’d filled my wineglass, exactly half.

  I stood on the tiles. There was nothing I could think of to say.

  Matt said, “Don’t be mad.”

  “I’m not mad. And I’m not scared. Don’t get me wrong. I can’t think of the word for what I am.”

  “Shocked?”

  “No.”

  “You think I’m an asshole?”

  “No,” I began to laugh. “No, I don’t think you’re an asshole. You’re not the class nerd, Matt; you’re a catch.”

  “I’ve waited thirty years to take Julieanne Gillis to dinner. I wanted to do it up right.”

  “Don’t get all, you know, funny. No, I mean defensive.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Is everything ready?”

  “It’s a dish, okay, look, it’s the only dish I can make. It can sit here all night while we talk and it’ll still taste the same. We can have some cheese, first.”

  “I was thinking you’d show me the rest of the house.”

  “Okay!” he said heartily, putting down the wine. The staircase that rose like a wave out of the front foyer had, I counted, seventeen steps. I looked at Matthew. “Julie, let me help,” he said.

  “I’m not a teeny-weeny woman, Matt.”

  “But I’m not five one anymore, honey.” The “honey” about did it. Something splintered, and I began to cry.

  “What did I do?”

  “You called me honey.”

  “What, I didn’t mean anything—”

  “No, I mean, I felt so, I don’t know, cherished. I haven’t felt that way in a long time.” As I said it, I realized that I meant a long time, as in years. And so he carried me up all those seventeen steps, without having to stop and pant. Down the hall to his room where he lay me down gently on the bed.

  “I have to tell you, this disease, it’s about nerve endings, Matt. It takes forever for me…”

  “That’s what I was hoping,” he said.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Song of Solomon

  EXCESS BAGGAGE

  By J. A. Gillis

  Distributed by Panorama Media

  Dear J.,

  I’m 51 years old, and I’m a widow. I’m pretty, okay? I’m in good shape. I have two kids, good kids, never in trouble. Two years after my husband passed, I signed up with one of those Internet dating services. My best friend, she writes, and she wrote my profile. I’m a librarian. I love to dance. I love motorcycles. I got a lot of hits. A lot of dates, two or three with men I really liked. But as soon as Mike whined about something, or Cheryl, my daughter left her shoes and book bag on the floor, or argued with me about the car keys, the calls stopped. They don’t want the complications. Well, they’re not complications, they’re my kids, and I think they’re, like, value added. Good people. There are no good men left out there. All the good ones? Taken or gay. I’m not going to fool around with a married man. This is it, huh?

  Fed up in Philly

  Dear Fed,

  I hate when people say “I know how you feel” because usually they don’t, or they say it because they just don’t want to hear about it anymore. I do know what you mean. My husband ditched me for a girl half my age when I was in my forties, and though I didn’t know it, I had multiple sclerosis. If I can find a good man, anyone can. And I did. They are out there. Keep dancing, sister. Chance favors those in motion.

  J.

  I woke up alone in Matt MacDougall’s massive bed, and began to laugh wildly. He hadn’t heard me, because he nearly dropped the coffee mugs he’d carried up when he got to the door and saw me kicking my feet and howling.

  “I can’t believe this. I’ve spent the past year selling my clothes and feeling like something wet that crawls along the edge of walls, like I’d never see the sun. Now, I’m sitting here in the mansion built by my eighth-grade dance partner. I slept with you, and we made love and it worked, Matt! I never thought I’d do that again!”

  “Do you always wake up this happy?” he asked, flopping down in his (blue-and-white) sweats.

  “No, sometimes, I wak
e up terrified that I’m not going to be able to see out of my left eye that day. Or knowing I’m going to have to take my shot. And always by myself. Unless Rory’s on the end of the bed. But the next time I do that, I’m going to, you know, I’m going to remember last night. Because it was mine, Matt. I want to thank you for giving me this wonderful morning.”

  “Julie,” he said.

  “I’m not crazy, Matt. I just want to thank you.”

  “But are you hungry?”

  “Oh, we forgot to eat! Your pasta. All that work. My half glass of wine!”

  “I got up and put it away. We can have it tonight. You were out like a light!”

  “Uh, satisfaction will do that to you. Very careful guy, you are.” I reached out for my coffee, holding my wrist with my left hand. “My hand is damn shaking. I mean, my damn hand is shaking. No! Not right now! Out damned hand!”

  “Don’t worry, Julie. Let’s get this straight. I don’t care. I mean, I care so much I don’t care.” He kissed me, on my overnight mouth, and together, with me lost in one of his huge terry robes, we walked carefully down that sky-suspended staircase, into a kitchen filled with sun. “Give me your coffee cup,” Matt said. “I want to give you the good stuff. My mom’s china.” I sat down. There was a cup at my plate, and a sugar bowl with tongs.