2
I have always thought that part of my problem is my name: Patty. That’s what my parents named me. Not Patricia. Patty. Patty Anne Murphy. Sounds like one of those huge dolls that walk like Frankenstein’s monster. Sounds like a huge, Irish-Catholic, curly-headed doll, not a desirable woman whom you want to marry and impregnate.
I don’t know what my parents were thinking. Well, yes I do. I asked them recently, and they said they were thinking it was a clean and healthy name, a fun name.
Fun? I said.
Yes, they said, and then both of them started getting that hurt look that makes you feel like you’re beating a puppy.
“You can change it,” my mother said, sniffing, and I said no, no, I liked it, really, I was just wondering how they chose it.
“Why?” my mother said, happily suspicious. “Do you need names?”
Ma, I said, and she said all right.
She doesn’t care if I’m married or not. Not anymore. She’s crazy about children, too. She understands the overwhelming want I have. She thinks the hell with a husband, if I can’t find one—just have a baby. She’ll help me, my brother and sisters will help me—they’ll give me a million hand-me-downs. Probably Elaine could even pitch in on the weekends, she said, the last time she got going on this. Elaine could do a little baby-sitting on the weekends so I could go out and show houses, couldn’t she? Might do her some good. My mother is mystified as to why neither Elaine nor I have married and had children. I don’t exactly have a lot to pick from. Elaine’s problem is that she has too much to pick from. My mother also told me about those services they have now, Parents in a Pinch, had I heard of them?
“Ma!” I said, finally. She smiled primly, then rose from the dinner table to clear the dishes, pointedly refusing my help. A dubious punishment, in keeping with her usual methods. Both of my parents were always terrible at punishing; if, for example, you were sent to your room, one or the other of them would inevitably join you up there.
People say, Wow, your mother’s pretty liberal. But they’re missing the point. The point is, she makes me feel so much worse. At work, when I’m supposed to be doing comp sheets, I sit at my desk, my hand over my uterus, thinking about how I have so few good eggs left. I imagine my inventory: rotten eggs, eggs empty of insides, misshapen eggs, all tumbling down my weepy fallopian tubes. And every now and then a really good egg, perfumed and made-up and beribboned, calling out, “I’m ready!”, her little voice echoing in the vast darkness. “Yoo-hoo!” she calls, to no one. My uterus drums its fingers, yawns, wonders whether it should close up shop early, what’s the point.
I once went to a bookstore to see if I could find something on keeping my eggs healthy. I didn’t see anything, so I went over to customer assistance. I waited in the longer line, so I could have the woman, and then I said, very quietly, “Would you have anything on … you know, keeping your eggs healthy?”
“KEEPING YOUR EGGS HEALTHY????” the woman asked.
I blushed, nodded.
“This would be a COOKBOOK, right?” she asked, and started punching keys on her computer. She looked up at me over her half glasses, her spiky earrings swinging.
“Um …” I said. “Sure.” And then I stood there and waited until she told me why yes, they had a book called Safe Food that would probably be exactly what I needed. Thanks, I said. And actually went to the shelf she pointed to. Actually looked through Safe Food, which had many frightening graphs and statistics and boldfaced definitions of digestive ailments. I looked through it for what I thought was a respectful length of time and then I put it back on the shelf. I felt like I needed to wash my hands. And then I felt bad for not buying the book, because the woman had gone to the trouble of looking it up.
This is how I am. It’s really bad in small stores. If I go into one, I have to buy something. Otherwise I worry about hurting the feelings of the people who are working there. “You’re so crazy, what do you think?” Elaine always says, when I buy useless items that I often donate to the Salvation Army without taking them out of the bag. “You think everyone who comes in that store buys something? You’re allowed to just look.”
“I know,” I say. “I just look, sometimes.” But not in small stores.
This misguided tenderness of heart may account for my dismal record at work. My low number of sales. I have been at Rodman Real Estate for two years and I have sold one house. Which I did the first week I was there. It was a $3.2 million house and I just happened to answer the phone at the right time. The buyers had always admired the house and the moment it came on the market, they snapped it up. They told me how to do everything; they’d bought and sold a lot of houses. They were so rich! I wonder sometimes when people are that rich if they get annoyed that they can only get so good a brand of toilet paper, a kind anyone can have. You know, there they are in their luxuriously appointed bathroom, with the gold fixtures and the Italian marble floor, and all they can put on their $700 dispenser is quilted Northern.
I am currently living off the last bit of my profit from that sale, and waiting for the next fluke. It has to happen soon or I’ll have to find another job, which I really don’t want to do. Because even though I am lousy at it, I love the real estate business. I like helping people find a home where they think they’ll be happy. And I like seeing how other people live, imagining myself frying eggs in this country kitchen, watching television in that blue-carpeted family room. Here I am in the English garden that you get to through white French doors; there I am in my library, the walls lined with oak paneling, the leaded-glass windows reaching from floor to ceiling. Or, my favorite: Here I am in a little bedroom in my little cottage that is right on the water. I am in my baby’s room, rocking her, listening to the rush and pull of the waves outside the window, and singing a made-up song into an ear more shell-like than shells. My baby’s fist holds tightly onto my finger, even as she fades into sleep. I look at the faint scribble of vein across her tiny eyelid. I pick up her foot, examine her littlest toe, softly exclaim my delight.
Always back to the same place, lately.
It’s an obsession, I’ll be the first to admit that.
Anyway, in real life, most of my showings are to the Berkenheimers, who are looking for a vacation home. Crystal Cove, Massachusetts, where I live, has an interesting mix of small cottages and huge mansions, and everyone seems to get along. Upscale restaurants and those that serve dinner specials for $3.99 exist side by side; the cooks smoke and chat outside their backdoors. You can shop at Theresa’s, where the elegance of the decor makes customers speak in hushed tones (and you can pay $140 for a cotton summer dress); or you can shop in the basement at Winkle’s—that’s where they have their women’s department, in the basement. There are no changing rooms—you take it all off in the aisles and inspect yourself in mirrors that are hung on support columns and filmed over yellowly with time. There isn’t a woman alive who wouldn’t appreciate a mirror like that on certain days, if not, in fact, on most days. NO MEN! the big sign hanging above the stairs down to the basement reads. Because of that sign—held up, I happen to know, with dental floss—you don’t have to worry about some guy seeing your torn underwear, or your belly in the not-held-in position. It’s like a locker room for women of all ages—without the worry of an upcoming game. I like to hang out there even when I don’t need clothes. I like to hear the support that women give each other, biting their lips and telling the truth about whether back fat shows in a bathing suit. (“Just tuck it in,” I once heard a woman tell her friend. “And then hold it down with duct tape. That’s what they do on Miss America.” “Is duct tape waterproof?” her friend asked, and the room stilled to listen to the answer.)
About half of us live here in Crystal Cove year-round, and we practically congratulate each other when we pass on winter-deserted streets. The rest pull in for Memorial Day, leave after Labor Day. Their pretty houses sit empty the rest of the time, alarm console lights glowing day and night, although most theft around h
ere has to do with skateboards.
The Berkenheimers live in a suburb north of Boston and their apparent vocation is driving here a few times a month and looking at every low-cost piece of property on the market, many of which they have already seen. Once Muriel, the wife, asked to see one of the most expensive mansions. Artie, her husband, started yelling at her.
“It’s just for fun, Artie,” she said. “Which you have forgotten how to have. About forty years ago, you forgot.”
“About forty years ago I had something to have fun with,” he said.
She took off her gigantic black sunglasses, turned around and stared at him sitting in the backseat of my car, sweating a little. He always has to sit in the back because if Muriel sits there, she gets nauseated. “Excuse me,” she said. “Have you had a good look in the mirror lately? You want to know from forty years ago?”
“Did you want to see the place on Deer Run?” I asked my windshield.
“She’s crazy,” Artie said, waving his hand. “Mrs. Nutty Fruitcake.”
“I’ll show it to you,” I said.
“Well, of course we can’t afford it,” Muriel said, her voice low. She pulled a handkerchief out of her purse, dabbed at her nose with it, stuffed it back in her purse. I saw a banana in there, dangerously ripe, and half a bagel, entombed in plastic wrap.
“I know you can’t afford it,” I said. “I don’t mind. It’ll be fun.”
“We should maybe wash first,” Artie said.
There was a moment of silence. Then Muriel said, “Oy, you hear this? ‘We,’ he says. Like I’ve got a problem. Have I got a problem? I don’t have a problem.”
This is the way it goes with them. But they always treat me to lunch in a nice place because they feel so terrible about never buying anything. And their grandchildren are adorable and sometimes they’ll bring one along. And then while they argue loudly in other people’s kitchens, I take the little boy or girl outside to play. Sometimes there’s a swing set. Sometimes we look for things on the beach. Sometimes we find something good—blue beach glass in a perfect oval shape, a shell with all the pinks of an A+ sunset, a crab scuttling away to safety.
It’s not a terrible job. I mean, the Berkenheimers and I got to look at a beautiful house for a good forty minutes that day. The kitchen was roughly the size of a basketball court. There was a third-floor game room with a mahogany bar and a huge pool table, the requisite stained-glass lamp hanging low over the center. Artie and I took a few shots while Muriel inspected the bathrooms. She came up to the game room clutching her chest. “Solid marble,” she whispered. “Pink! I swear to God.” The closets were cedar; there were beautiful parquet floors; the swimming pool had a nice view of the ocean. You could be in the water looking at the water. We had a good time. We had a lot to talk about over lunch. And when I got back to the office, there was a message for me. A family of four, moving here for sure, needed a place within the next two or three weeks. “Even you can get a sale out of this,” my boss Michael told me. Nicely—he really likes me. He’s married.
But I didn’t make that sale. Angela Ramsey did, she was working on the day they finally found a house, while I sat at home with the flu.
But the point is, there’s always hope, you never know.
As in, the egg comes down the fallopian tube. The sperm leaps out with a box of candy. They get along. They really get along. Nine months later, I really am nursing a baby in the rocker—and soundlessly crying with relief. I tent the baby’s head with her receiving blanket so the tears won’t fall on her. And what color is her hair? Mine, exactly.
It hurts like a knife blade, this longing. If anyone knew how often I think about having a baby, I’d die of embarrassment. Which would take care of the problem, at least. But my plan is to not have it come to that. My plan is to get going right now in a very scientific and purposeful way that will lead to marriage and pregnancy. A husband and a child. The specifics of the plan I’m not too clear about. Only the intention.
3
On Saturday, I go to the library and look at the shelf that has books on relationships. There aren’t many, but there’s one called Mr. Right? Right! that seems promising. The jacket says this is a realistic approach to forming a relationship that is virtually guaranteed to lead to marriage. The author, a nonthreateningly attractive blonde woman, sits in a chair in what appears to be her office. There are many books on the shelf behind her, but you can’t read any of the titles. I wish you could. I want to trust this woman. If I liked her books, we’d be off to a good start. I stare into her eyes: blue, friendly. Her jewelry is a simple gold wedding ring and a watch with a brown leather band. Pearl studs. She is wearing a white, long-sleeved blouse, open at the throat, blue jeans, and red cowgirl boots. At the end of her bio, it says she lives in New York City with her husband and infant daughter. Infant daughter, huh? I slam the book shut, go to the desk to check it out. Mary Ann, the fortyish librarian, leafs through it before she hands it back to me. “Let me know if it’s any good,” she says. I notice for the first time her ringless left hand. “All right,” I say. We nod at each other.
We’ll talk more later. I’ll take her out for a cup of coffee. I’ll say, “God, Mary Ann, are you miserable and desperate, too? I didn’t know that! I’m so glad!” It’s too busy to talk now; there are crooked lines of kids with crooked stacks of books pressed hard against their chests. You can tell the real book lovers; they stare silently ahead, reading the books in their minds already.
When I get home, I see Sophia, the neighbor who lives above my basement apartment, sitting out on the steps waiting for me. She has some mail in her lap, and I know why. She barely reads English, and what she does read she takes quite literally. Therefore junk mail gets her very excited. It’s up to me to set her straight over and over again; she never believes her husband when he tells her it’s all bullshit. Today is going to be exceptionally difficult—I see that the Publishers Clearinghouse envelope has arrived.
“I can be already winned,” she tells me, before I’ve even reached her. She holds up the envelope. “Here is numbers.”
I follow her into her apartment, sit at her kitchen table, sigh.
“This one is for true,” she says over her shoulder, as she hangs up our coats.
“Sophia—”
“No! Some one body does win this!”
I stare into her pretty brown eyes. She must be at least seventy, but she still has a beautiful face. “That’s right,” I tell her. “Some one person does win this.”
“So?”
“Fine,” I say. “I’ll help you. Did you pick out what car you want for the bonus prize?”
“There is car, too?”
“Yes.” I find the insert, show her.
Her eyes tear. “I never forget you help me.”
“Listen, Sophia, I just have to tell you, your chances are so, so slim. You understand? You do not have a good chance to win.”
“I pick red one,” she says. “Convergeable.”
“Fine. Good. What else have you got there?”
She holds up another one of the letters. “Here, I can buy plate of kittens from famous artist.” She shows me the color photo of the painted plate, blurrily displayed on a wooden holder. She shrugs, then muses in a high, soft, singsong voice, “I don’t know, what you can do with some thing like this.” She stares at the plate a little longer, then turns to me to ask, “Have you know of this artist?”
I shake my head.
She looks at the plate again, then puts the letter back in the envelope. “Okay. No thanks, I do tell them.”
“You don’t have to tell them. You can just throw it away. They only send it if you ask them to.”
“Oh. Yes. I forget.”
Next she shows me a white envelope with excited red print on the front. “This, I don’t know what is it.”
“It’s for car insurance.”
“I don’t have car.”
“I know. So just throw it away.”
She
puts the letter in her housecoat pocket. “When convergeable comes, I look on it again.”
“Let’s finish your entry, Sophia. I have to go make dinner. Ethan’s coming over.”
Sophia widens her eyes, clenches her fist, thumps at her chest with it. “Beautiful,” she says. “He is more than all what I seen in movie.”
I feel an illegitimate surge of pride. “Do you really think so?”
She nods, adjusts the wide strap of her brassiere. “Give me some picture of him to dream on.”
“I don’t think I have any.” Huh. I don’t think I do.
“I take one his sock, then.” She smiles, and the gold from her front tooth glints. “Is joke,” she says seriously.
“I know.”
Sophia never wears socks. She wears only orangeish-colored nylon stockings that she twists into knots below her knees. And then she wears Nikes with them, double-tied. She wears housecoats except on Sundays, when she wears severe dark suits and low heels and earrings that dangle just the tiniest bit.
Actually, I do have a pair of Ethan’s socks. A gorgeous brown paisley weave. Once when I stepped in an icy puddle on the way to his house, he gave me a pair of his socks to change into. On days when the blues suck the life out of me and I never change from my bathrobe, I wear his socks to add a little class to the outfit.
“You always make so much!” Ethan says.
“You can take home leftovers,” I tell him.
He sighs unhappily, eyeballing the huge pan of eggplant parmigiana that’s sitting on the table between us, approximately one-twentieth of it gone.
My phone rings. I answer it, hoping it is some interesting man who has just realized how much he cares about me. Then I can turn to Ethan and say, “Just leave, since you’re so ungrateful. Take your eggplant and get out of here. I’m busy.”