Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons

  “I can’t sit down, Mama, I’ve got ants in my pants.”

  “Then’s all the more reason to sit down,” you said. “ ‘Cause then you’ll squish ’em.”

  I thought this was about the funniest thing ever, and I laughed and then you laughed, and I even allowed myself to plop into your lap. Lo and behold, you didn’t toss me out like a hot potato.

  “Do you know why I called you Faith?” you asked, pushing aside a hank of my hair to whisper in my ear.

  ” ’Cause you thought it was a pretty name?” I asked.

  “Well, yes, it is a pretty name, but the reason I named you Faith is because as soon as I saw you I believed in you.”

  I remember wishing the earth would stop spinning right then and there because I wanted to be in that moment forever, in your arms that still smelled of the sun, with your words that you believed in me tucked away in my ear forever.

  “What’s the matter?” Wade asked, putting down his fork and steak knife.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, feeling as groggy as someone waking up out of a trance.

  “You look like you’re about ready to cry.”

  I patted the corners of my eyes with my fingertips. “Oh, my. I was . . . oh, Wade, I just had the nicest memory of my mother.”

  “Did you, honey?” He reached across the table to take my hand. “Tell me it.”

  So I told him.

  “Well, that’s how I feel, Faith. I believe in you too.”

  I pressed my lips together; I didn’t want salt water splashing all over my lobster thermidor.

  “Thank you,” I said finally. “But you’ve got to understand, my mother didn’t tell me things like that very often . . . ever . . . at all.”

  Wade shook his head, getting that disgusted look I hated to see.

  “I’m glad she’s not alive, Faith, because if she was, I’d—“

  I squeezed Wade’s hand. “Don’t get all worked up, honey, it’s nothing.”

  “Well, of course it is, Faith! I hate thinking of your mother—your own mother—being such a shit to you. Mothers are supposed—” But before he got a chance to finish telling me what mothers are supposed to do, the strolling violinists came over and we could pay attention to something other than the one nice thing my mother ever said to me.

  But that was such a big thing, Mama! The first time I saw you I believed in you. Why had I forgotten such wonderful words?

  We continued our celebration when we got home Mama, if you understand my drift, but after Wade went to sleep, I decided to get up and write you this. I was just so high!

  Then on my way to the little room both Wade and I call our office, I passed Beau’s room, and Mama, the noise I heard coming from behind his door stopped me cold. He was sobbing, Mama, sobbing as if his whole world had crashed down on him.

  “Beau?” I said, knocking on his door. “Beau, honey?”

  I didn’t wait for him to answer, just went right on in there and sat on his bed. He must have stuffed his fist or his pillow or something in his mouth, because his sobs were as muffled as echoes. I put my hand on his back, and it bucked up like he’d been shocked.

  “Beau, what is it?” I asked, and sat there for the longest time. My leg was falling asleep and I thought, okay, I’ll leave, he doesn’t want to talk, and then he said, “Mama, I feel like no one loves me.”

  Take a dagger to my heart and twist it as you plunge it in.

  “Honey, how can you say that? I love you so much there aren’t even words for it, and your dad loves you, and Bonnie, and your grand—“

  “They all love Beau, but that’s not really me.”

  “Who’s the real you?” I said, rubbing his muscular back. “Superman?”

  The reason I tried to make a little joke, Mama, is I was just so scared when he said that. What did he mean?

  “Yeah,” he said finally, “I’m afraid they think I’m Superman.”

  There was such resignation in his voice, Mama, but I didn’t want to pay attention to it, didn’t want to ask him what it meant, because I was scared. So instead I laughed like all was right with the world and the only thing he had to worry about was acne or getting his driver’s permit.

  Then I kissed him on the cheek and told him to get some sleep. As I closed the door to his room, I knew I had closed another door that he would never again open to me, and I felt terrible but in a way relieved.

  I’m sorry,

  Faith

  February 1980

  TO: All Angry Housewives

  FROM: Audrey

  It has come to my attention that we have been meeting as a group for nearly twelve years and we have yet to leave Freesia Court for a meeting. That is why I am extending this invitation to join me at the beach home of my consenting parents for one action-packed, memory-making, no-children-allowed weekend! Transportation and lodging provided. RSVP pronto.

  When Merit got the invitation, she wondered on which beach Audrey’s parents had a home. Was it a lake up north or maybe one in Wisconsin? And wouldn’t it be better to go in the summer? Or maybe Audrey had a winter holiday in mind—should she bring her ice skates? Either way, the idea of getting away for the weekend with just the Angry Housewives was an exciting prospect as well as a scary one.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll watch the girls,” said her sister-in-law, Joanie, who was now living in Minneapolis while her husband, Soren, taught bypass procedure at the university.

  “Oh, that’d be great,” said Merit, who in Joanie had found a friend, a sister, and a trusted baby-sitter. “It’s Eric’s weekend to take them, but you know him. . . .”

  With regard to Eric and his daughters, absence had not made the heart grow fonder; he canceled more of their scheduled weekend dates together than he kept, which suited the girls just fine.

  “He never plays with us,” said Jewel. “Whenever I ask him to play dolls, he always says, ‘Not now.’ ”

  “It’s true,” said Melody, nodding. “I used to think he wouldn’t play with us because we played girl things, so I started asking if he wanted to go to the park and play catch or basketball, but he never wants to do that either.”

  “I’m glad he never wants us around,” said Reni, “because I’d much rather be with you.”

  “Me too,” echoed her sisters.

  Merit was always touched by their loyalty but hurt by it too. Paul Forrest took an active role in his children’s life, having them every weekend. Dave, Audrey’s oldest boy, was even living with his father now for his last year of high school.

  “I felt like a real failure when he told me he wanted to live with his dad,” Audrey had admitted to Merit, “but it seems to be working out best for Davey and for Paul. He’s finally seeing what it’s like to be a parent twenty-four hours a day, although he does have his Cynthia to do the laundry, cook the meals, et cetera, et cetera.”

  Paul had married an associate’s legal secretary, a five-foot-two twenty-five-year-old with poofy blond hair and a slight lisp.

  My exact opposite, Audrey had thought the first time she saw her. But her boys told her how nice Cynthia was to them, and Audrey recognized that kindness toward them demonstrated a largesse of heart, and so she was nice back. Paul, grateful for the civility of both ex and present wife, matched it with his own, resulting in an easy relationship between all parties. While Audrey wasn’t above joking about Cynthia to her friends, she couldn’t imagine a better failed marriage, and she was well aware of how much the petite, sibilant speed typist had to do with it. She even had a positive effect on Davey, whose personality ran the gamut from angry to sullen.

  “My parents divorced when I was eleven,” Cynthia told Audrey over the phone, “and hoo boy, did I take it out on the rest of the world! So I talk to him—when he lets me talk to him—about my own experience, and I think it helps him.”

  “It does,” said Audrey. “Thank you. Last time he was here he helped me with the dishes and we even sang along to the radio. We were actually enjoying being in each o
ther’s company! I can’t tell you when that last happened.”

  “I’m glad, Audrey,” said Cynthia, but the long pause after she spoke indicated to Audrey that something else was on her mind.

  “Now, I’m only saying this because I’m concerned,” she said finally. “But have you noticed how Dave is, well, sort of mean to his brothers?”

  Air filled Audrey’s chest, and she expelled it in a big sigh. “Yes, he’s been that way all his life. Paul always says brothers are like that.”

  “That frustrates me about Paul too,” said Cynthia conspiratorially. “But it’s not true. Bryan and Michael get along wonderfully; sure, they fight now and then, but it’s never mean-spirited. Not like it is with Dave.”

  “What should I do, Cynthia?” It was funny; it seemed so natural that she solicit advice from her children’s stepmother.

  “Well, I like to point it out to him,” she said. “Not in front of anyone, and as nicely as I can—usually I say something like, ‘Dave, try to remember how your brothers look up to you and how much it hurts their feelings if you’re mean to them.’ ”

  Audrey swallowed, wanting to cry. If she had been a different mother—more vigilant, less laissez-faire, more like Cynthia—would Davey not be a bully?

  “Audrey, he’s basically a good kid,” she said, sensing Audrey didn’t want to speak or was incapable of it. “He’s just got the most testosterone in the family.”

  “Don’t tell Paul,” said Audrey. “He thinks he owns that title.”

  “You’re telling me,” said Cynthia, starting up her hissing laugh again.

  WHEN AUDREY AND MERIT COMPARED single-mother stories, Merit always went away wishing Eric could find someone who was good for him, who could help him and thus help her and the girls (but then again, she would never wish Eric on any woman), whereas Audrey would think how much easier life would be if her boys were the all-for-one-and-one-for-all team Merit’s girls were.

  “But we’re not going to talk about kids or ex-husbands at all on this weekend,” Audrey told Merit when she came over to discuss the particulars of the invitation.

  “We aren’t? What’ll we talk about?”

  Audrey turned the burner on under the teakettle. “Besides the book? I don’t know—geothermodynamics, the hostage situation, Robert Redford’s jawline . . .”

  Excited, Merit clasped her hands together. “So where are we going to go? Where’s your parents’ beach house?”

  “Malibu.”

  “Malibu,” repeated Merit. “Is that the name of the lake or the town?”

  Audrey studied her friend for a moment; she was never quite sure when Merit was being naive or trying to be funny.

  “It’s a town,” said Audrey with a laugh.

  Merit’s eyes widened. “Malibu as in California?”

  “That’d be the one.”

  The excitement drained out of Merit as if a plug had been pulled.

  “Oh, Audrey, and I was so looking forward to this trip.”

  Audrey opened a cupboard. “Do you want any saltines? Or I’ve got some Oreos around here somewhere. And what do you mean, was?”

  “Well.” Looking flustered, Merit waved her hands. “How am I supposed to manage a trip to California? I barely make ends meet, Audrey.”

  Audrey closed the cupboard and, crossing her arms over her chest, looked at Merit. “You read the invitation, didn’t you?”

  Merit nodded.

  “Then don’t you remember what it said on the bottom? Transportation and lodging provided.”

  Merit’s finger probed the dimple in her chin. “You mean to tell me you’re going to pay my way to California?”

  “Why not? I invited you, didn’t I?”

  “Audrey, I could never accept such a generous gift.”

  “Of course you can, Merit. Just like my grandfather—who loved to share—gave us the gift of all his invention royalties.”

  “Is that the grandfather who came to visit you after he died?”

  Audrey nodded. “And the one who keeps reminding me of his generosity every time I get a check.”

  THE FIVE WOMEN clinked imaginary glasses.

  “To Audrey, the hostess with the mostess.” Faith covered her mouth. “I mean the host with the most.”

  “To sunshine in the middle of February,” added Slip.

  They clinked glasses again and then again after Faith’s next toast.

  “To luxury.”

  They waited for Kari, but when she didn’t speak, Audrey said, “To Flicka.”

  It was the only thing that cast a shadow on their sun-splashed afternoon.

  A half hour earlier, they had arrived at Audrey’s parents’ beach house, although “beach house” seemed something of an understatement for a five-bedroom hacienda attended by a housekeeping couple.

  A flare of envy shot through Faith: This is where Audrey gets to spend her vacations?

  “My goodness,” whispered Kari.

  “We owe it all to my grandfather,” said Audrey, picking up Kari’s whisper. “And the whirligigs he invented.”

  “Whirligigs,” scoffed Slip. “Jerry says only Henry Ford did more to revolutionize factory assembly.”

  “Get her,” said Audrey, elbowing Merit. “She sounds like a tour guide.”

  “This place needs one,” said Slip, looking up at the vaulted ceilings and balcony overhanging the great room.

  They debated what to do, and Audrey’s suggestion (take a nap) was outvoted four to one in favor of Slip’s (take a hike).

  And so it was that they had just climbed a hilltop that smelled of sage and cypress, paying a spontaneous tribute to the dog that had been Kari’s companion for years.

  “She would have loved running around these hills,” said Kari. “When she could run.”

  A week earlier Kari and Julia had taken Flicka to the veterinarian. She could no longer walk, so Kari and Julia had carried her to and from the car in a blanket.

  “Do you want to be with her while she goes to sleep?” asked the vet, who had given Flicka her first shots as a puppy.

  Kari, her vision blurred with tears, turned to Julia.

  “Why don’t we, Mom?” said Julia. “I think Flicka would like that.”

  The old dog managed to look up at her owner as Kari placed her hand on her head. Her tail thumped once on the steel table.

  “Yes, Flicka,” she said softly. “Remember how I got you? I had run into one of Bjorn’s good friends—this was a couple years after Bjorn died—and he mentioned that his golden retriever just had puppies, and I said, ‘Oh, Bjorn and I always talked about getting a retriever,’ and a couple weeks later, the doorbell rang, and there he was, holding you. I always thought of you as a gift from Bjorn, because you always knew how—” Her voice broke.

  “You knew how to take care of Mom,” said Julia, who had heard this story many times. “You slept at the foot of Mom’s bed, and whenever she was feeling really sad, you’d stop whatever you were doing and put your head in her lap.” Julia placed her hand over her mother’s, and the vet widened his eyes and clenched his jaw; he had found through years of practice that his tears only made everything worse.

  “And then when I came along,” said the poised twelve-year-old, “you weren’t jealous or growly or anything—in fact, whenever I felt sad you always put your head in my lap.”

  A spasm punctuated by a sob surged through Kari’s body. She saw the pain in her dog’s milky eyes, and she knew that if she was going to make Flicka’s last moments peaceful, she’d have to buck up.

  “So you go to sleep, my dear, true friend,” she said, scratching the retriever behind the ear (throughout the day she would hold her fingers to her nose and smell her old dog’s smell, and in fact did not wash that hand all day so she could go to sleep with the scent of Flicka close). “We will never forget you.”

  “KARI?” asked Merit softly. “Are you all right?”

  The older woman pushed her fingers under her sunglasses to wipe her eyes.
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  “Yes,” she said, and her cheeks bulged as she blew out a lungful of air. “Although I was thinking, there ought to be a word for a person who loses their dog—you know, like widow or widower—because really, you do feel widowed in a way.” She sniffed. “As silly as that sounds.”

  “I don’t think that sounds silly,” said Slip. “Although I’d be lying if I said I’ll feel anything but relieved when Pepe dies.”

  Pepe was a yappy little Chihuahua Gil had brought home one day. (“Mom, look—Kyle Price is moving to Wyoming and he said his mom said they couldn’t keep their dog anymore and I said we’ve always wanted a dog and oh, Mom, can we keep him, please? Please?”) Unlike Flicka, who had let the neighborhood kids dress her up for the annual circus, had fetched thousands of balls thrown by them, and had let them use her as a pillow when they were exhausted by their games, Pepe didn’t like anyone but Gil touching him and would quiver and growl if anyone had the audacity to try.

  Kari managed a laugh. “I’m not really sure he’s a dog, Slip.”

  The mood brightened then as they exchanged stories about their favorite and least favorite dogs. Most grateful for it was Kari, the one who most needed the mood brightened. And as they began hiking back to the house, as a warm Californian breeze ruffled through her hair, as the Pacific turned somersaults on the sandy beach below, she thought that once again the Angry Housewives had done their jobs.

  They wound up having their book discussion in a biker bar.

  “Holy cow, look at all the motorcycles,” said Faith as they pulled off the winding road and into a dirt parking lot.

  “This is where we used to have hamburgers when we were kids,” said Audrey, getting out of the car. “You should have seen this place then.” She swept an arm out. “None of these houses were here.”

  “I can’t imagine it being more beautiful than it is now,” said Merit.

  “And I return the compliment to you,” said Audrey, curtsying as she opened the screen door for her friends. “Get a little California sun on your face and you’re absolutely dazzling.”