“Something like that. But you wouldn’t want to say potty-head to very many people, even if you meant it just in fun.”
“I’m going to be in first grade next year.”
“I know you are, Portia,” I said, following her conversational left turn. “You’re getting to be a big girl.”
She picked up a Lego half person—a head on top of an open-ended half circle—and placed it inside the tower.
“That’s the princess who wants to be rescued.”
I found another person and placed it on the drawbridge.
“Here’s the prince who’s coming to save her.”
Holding the princess to the window, she shouted, “Poopy potty-head!” Then she looked at me, wary and mischievous at the same time.
“She’s saying that out of meanness,” she said. “And that’s why the prince won’t rescue her.”
“Maybe he will anyway,” I said, and the Lego prince in my hand took a giant leap so that he hovered by the tower window. “It doesn’t matter what you call me, my darling princess, I still love you!”
I’ve seen clouds pass over people’s faces, but what passed across Portia’s sharp little features was the sun.
“Oh my darling prince,” she said, her Lego princess jumping up and down, “I love you too!”
I REALLY ENJOYED THE classroom mock counseling sessions. That morning, with a fellow seminarian from Pierre, South Dakota (whose dimples, I couldn’t help noticing, were deep enough to hold water), I had been counseled as to how to handle my excessive gambling, and I counseled him about his rampant alcoholism. I went home feeling like I was Dr. Joyce Brothers and C. S. Lewis rolled into one. Parishioners, bring on your problems, your fears and phobias: I can handle them. My hubris lasted until the early evening, when Grant came over, asking if I’d like to take a walk.
This put me on immediate alert. Whatever Grant and I do together always involves some kind of chair; our sedentary friendship does not involve exercise. But I grabbed my jacket and off we went, down the block toward the creek.
The second clue I was given that something was wrong was that Grant wasn’t saying anything. (I sometimes wonder if naturally quiet people get boisterous and noisy when they’re upset.)
“Maybe I should just shut up,” I said after failing to get any kind of response after what I thought was my very funny recounting of the counseling session (“And then I said, ‘Money’s the least valuable commodity you lose when you gamble’ “).
“Earthling, earthling—do you read me?” I said as he walked with a haze over his face, seemingly oblivious to me or his surroundings. “This is Uranus.”
No response.
“Grant, look—there’s an albino squirrel!”
He looked to where I pointed, startled.
“Aha, you are conscious.”
When his eyes met mine, a section of my heart caved in. I had seen sadness and I had seen terror, but I couldn’t think of the last time I’d seen them together.
“Audrey, Stuart’s HIV-positive.”
This is the picture postcard that was frozen in my memory: an impossibly blue October sky, red and gold leaves lying on the grass like discarded pompoms of Team Nature. Minnehaha Creek was meandering its way down to the river, its water brown and foamy as root beer. It was the kind of day that deserved a big bow around it, the kind of day that made you happy to be in the human race because this was a gift too big for just one person . . . and yet if it was so beautiful, why was I suddenly wishing for yesterday?
“Grant,” I said, and it sounded as if I had swallowed the desert. “Grant.”
His arms were around mine and mine were around his, and we stood until our brains were able to send messages that jump-started our legs. We staggered to a park bench as if we’d both been punched in the stomach.
“He called me this morning,” said Grant.
My reflex was immediate: I whispered, “Bastard.”
He had been coming in and going out of Grant’s life, claiming first that he couldn’t live without Grant and then that he couldn’t live with him. When I first met Stuart, I’d had him pegged as the stable one in the relationship; he was so calm and self-assured, while Grant seemed flighty and insincere. Stuart wore the beautifully cut suits, the grown-up clothes, while Grant belted his pants with scarves and wore shirts the color of poster paint. But Grant’s flamboyance only accessorized his deeper qualities, which were kindness and generosity and a heart as loyal and true as I had ever known. Grant never strayed from Stuart, even when he tried to convince me that “this time I’m absolutely through with him.”
“I can get along without sex,” he’d told me more than once. “I mean, come on; there’s always chocolate.”
“He called me from Miami,” Grant continued now, a little jag in his voice. “Not to alert me, but to accuse me. He said that he wanted to thank me for giving him AIDS.”
“That bastard,” I said, but it was way too small a word for my rage.
“I started crying—as much as I didn’t want to, I couldn’t help it, Audrey—and I told him that was impossible. He knew he was my only lover.”
“Ever?” I asked, taken aback.
“Ever since our first date way back when.” Grant shrugged. “What can I say? I’m one of the last old-fashioned girls.”
“I wonder how many men Stuart had,” I said bitterly. “I’m sure every time he ran out on you he found someone else and—”
Holding up one hand, Grant shook his head. “It’ll drive me crazy if I think like that, Audrey.”
“When are you getting tested?”
“Tomorrow. Will you go with me?”
“Of course I will. What else can I do?”
“Well,” said Grant, who’s not afraid of seizing a moment, “how about letting me join the Angry Housewives.”
“You still want to be a member? You haven’t mentioned it for years.”
“I’ve never stopped wanting to be a member; I just quit asking because I got tired of always being shot down.”
OUR VOTE for his inclusion was unanimous.
“Let me be the one to tell him he’s in,” said Faith, “since I was the one who kept him out for so long.”
“He’d like that,” I said, sending up a balloon of thanks to God for another sign of grace.
MIRACLE OF MIRACLES, Grant tested negative.
“Although I am going to get another test in a couple of months,” he told the Angry Housewives at his first official meeting, “just to make doubly sure.”
“So how could Stuart have it and not you?” asked Slip.
Good old Slip, I thought; can’t talk about her own sex life but doesn’t mind asking someone else about theirs.
Grant helped himself to a bowl of grapes. (I had racked my brain trying to figure out what scary food to serve along with our Stephen King discussion and had come up with nothing more unusual than grape “eyeballs,” cupcakes with gumdrop tombstones, and a cold pasta salad I had tried to mold into a brain. It was not my finest effort.)
“Well,” he said finally, “we haven’t been together for—”
“Never mind,” said Slip. “It isn’t any of my business. I’m just glad you’re okay.”
“Me too.” He took in a deep breath. “Wow. To be given a clean bill of health and be invited into the Angry Housewives . . . well, let me toast my good fortune.”
“Here, here,” said Merit, picking up her glass.
After we had all toasted, Faith said, “I’m sorry I voted against you for so long, Grant. I was just . . . scared.”
“That’s why your vote now means so much to me,” he said.
“I was so scared,” repeated Faith, the tip of her nose growing pink. “You know, I was in denial about Beau being gay and . . . well, I’m sorry I was mean to you.”
“You weren’t mean,” said Grant. “Just a little cold. But now you’re warm, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the rise in temperature.”
“I just think of pe
ople being mean or cold to Beau because of what he is and I can’t stand it. I can’t stand to think that I was one of those people.”
“Don’t worry about it, Faith,” said Grant, and I could tell he was eager to get the focus off himself and onto the meeting. “Now, when am I going to learn the secret handshake?”
“Secret handshake?” said Merit. “We don’t have a secret handshake.”
“You don’t have a secret handshake?” said Grant, his voice dripping with disbelief. “What kind of two-bit book club is this?” He tsked, shaking his head. “All right, then, teach me the secret pledge.”
“Secret pledge?” began Merit. “We—”
“Ah yes, the secret pledge,” said Slip. “Can we trust him with it?”
A log popped and the fire threw up new flames.
Slip’s smile would have made a fox’s look benign. “Okay. How does it start again, Faith?”
Faith’s shoulders bounced once in a quick laugh. “Actually, it’s so secret, I’m a little unsure how it starts. Audrey?”
All eyes were on me, and most of them were twinkling.
Standing up, I struck a classic assembly reciter’s pose, elbows out, each hand around the opposite wrist. I stood for a moment, screaming internally for inspiration to come. Suddenly Henry Fonda’s black-and-white face came into my head (I’d just seen The Grapes of Wrath on the classics channel) as well as his stirring, you-can’t-beat-me-down speech.
“Wherever there’s a book to read,” I said, my voice gravelly, “I’ll be there.”
I ignored the hoots and hollers.
“Wherever there’s a friend in need—”
“Hey, you rhymed,” noted Grant.
I glared at him for interrupting the flow. “I’ll be there.”
“Wherever there’re potluck lovers to feed . . .”
Merit and Kari stood up like soldiers and joined in on the chorus, and I don’t know who made the alteration but we all said it: “We’ll be there.”
“We were all going to have the pledge tattooed on our bodies,” Slip said to Grant as she too stood up. “But it’s a little long.”
“Wherever there’s . . .” My mind scrambled, trying to think of more rhyming words.
“Wherever there’s a woman with a mean husband from whom she needs to be freed . . . ,” offered Merit, speeding up the words so they’d fit the meter of the rhyme.
“We’ll be there.” Now everyone was standing and lending their voices to the chorus.
Kari took a tiny step forward and her words came out faster than Merit’s. “Wherever there’s a baby who needs to have its diaper changed because it peed . . .”
“We’ll be there.”
“Wherever anyone has questions about their creed . . . ,” I said.
“We’ll be there.”
“Wherever anyone needs to spill their guts,” said Faith, “without judgment or . . .” She looked wildly at the rest of us and then (talk about grasping at straws) added, “Or feels like quoting Margaret Mead . . .”
Irreverent laughs interrupted the chorus, and then an adjustment was made to it—I think it was by Kari—“Angry Housewives will be there.”
“Wherever,” began Slip when we’d composed ourselves, “people are given lousy diagnoses, or need advice about their kids, or want to learn about blow jobs, or get tired and need someone to take the lead . . .”
“Angry Housewives will be there.”
I wondered when I had dropped my pose to hold Merit’s and Slip’s hands, but I had. We were all standing there, holding hands like a prayer circle, an encounter group, or a team before the big game, and I thought, Okay, I’m gonna lose it, but then Slip asked Grant if he’d mind reciting the whole thing back to us.
“Actually, I was thinking this might be a good time to dig into the dessert I brought. I didn’t bring anything to fit the theme of the book—horror doesn’t exactly inspire a lot of recipes—but some people have said it’s the best dessert they’ve ever tasted.”
“Ooh,” said Faith. “What is it?”
“Well, it’s called I Must Be Dreaming Cheesecake. It’s chocolate drizzled with caramel and—”
But we didn’t let him finish. Really, I’m surprised someone wasn’t bloodied in our mad scramble to beat one another into the kitchen.
May 1995
HOST: KARI
BOOK: My Antonia by Willa Cather
REASON CHOSEN: “I needed my Cather fix.”
When Anders’ wife Sally died, his will to live followed suit. Kari went over to her brother’s house as much as possible, cooking up meat loaf dinners (you’d never know it was his favorite, the way he picked at it), playing card games (inevitably, he’d lay his hand down after a few plays and stare off), and trying not to get too annoyed at the television set, which as far as she could see was never turned off.
Her brother, so interested in life, now hadn’t the strength or interest to open up a newspaper, turn on the radio, or ask Kari about herself and Julia. His wide interests narrowed to one single subject: how much he missed his wife.
“I’m worried about him,” said Randy, the one child of his who didn’t live states away. “He won’t even come to our house for dinner.”
“That’s right,” said Beth, Randy’s wife. “He says he doesn’t have an appetite.”
“I know,” said Kari. “It looks as if he’s lost at least ten pounds.”
“When Nichol brought over her new baby,” said Randy, “he cried and cried, saying how it wasn’t fair that he got to see their first great-grandchild and Sally didn’t. Nichol felt terrible.”
“Uffda,” said Kari. “That’s not like him at all.”
“Libby’s his only great-grandchild,” reminded Beth, shaking her head.
Kari knew from her own bout with grief (and bout, she thought, was an apt word; dealing with a spouse’s death was like being in a boxing match and knowing you were going to get battered) that Anders might hear whatever advice or solace she had to offer, but that didn’t mean he’d listen to it. When Bjorn died, Kari had at least had youth and its resilience on her side; Anders was seventy-seven, and if he thought his life was over, it was likely that his body was going to be in agreement.
And so while it saddened Kari when one morning Anders failed to wake up, it didn’t surprise her. In his eulogy, Kari paid tribute to what she thought was most important about her brother: the great love Anders had been blessed with.
“He was a good man made excellent by loving so deeply,” she told the mourners at the funeral.
The Angry Housewives, who sat together in the scarred pew of the Lutheran church, each had their own thoughts regarding the eulogy.
Blessed is right, thought Audrey. Finding true love is as much of a gift as being able to paint or sing or understand nuclear fission. (In college, her youngest son Michael had finally been able to focus on academics rather than his fervid social life and had nearly completed his master’s degree in physics.)
Audrey wasn’t bitter that she hadn’t yet found true love; instead, knowing others had found it, she was hopeful that she might. And hope itself, she was finding, was enough of a gift.
Finding her talents and sense of irreverance better suited to guiding and counseling teenagers, Audrey was now a youth minister at a Unitarian church. She also volunteered Tuesday mornings at an AIDS hospice, giving whatever comfort she could to people whose need for it was like a mountain she knew she’d never be able to climb. Still, hope was her rope, her ice axe, her Sherpa guide.
Slip stifled a yawn, which was a reaction not to Kari’s words but to a fatigue that made her suspect lead had replaced all the blood in her veins.
Having never experienced this sort of weariness before, Slip thought she could will it away, and weeks later was astonished that the fatigue was stronger than her mind. As much as she tried to hide it—her high energy defined her more than her freckles or her size—Jerry couldn’t help but notice.
“I’m taking you to the doctor
,” he said one evening as he watched her trudge up the stairs, holding on to the banister as if it were a tow rope.
And he had, the day before, and now they were waiting for blood tests that would show what Slip was almost convinced was a potent case of anemia. It was the almost that bothered her. When Slip was certain of something, she was certain, but now a tiny moth of doubt flitted around in her head and she was unable to swat it away with assurances.
Pay attention, Slip scolded herself, but seconds later she was trying to talk herself into believing that maybe it was mononucleosis. I could have picked it up from a client at work or one of the kids’ friends. The moth thrummed its wings inside her head.
Slip forced herself to listen to Kari’s words. She had met Anders and Sally at the big events in Julia’s life, from christening to graduation parties, and it was true, the two of them had obviously still been in love. But true love doesn’t seem so miraculous when one has it oneself, and Slip couldn’t imagine anyone on the whole planet better suited for her than Jerry. She had no doubt that Jerry felt the same way. Her daughter Flannery, who had broken up with the second boyfriend she’d assumed was going to make the transition into being her husband, complained about it to Slip over the phone.
“If you and Dad hadn’t had such a perfect marriage, my standards wouldn’t be so high.”
“I’m sorry,” said Slip with a chuckle. “Not about my so-called perfect marriage, but about Loren. I know you thought he might be the one.”
“Oh, Mother,” said Flan impatiently, “ ‘the one.’ Does ‘the one’ choose you or do you choose him? Does ‘the one’ even exist?” She exhaled a long sigh. “At least I’ve got more time to work on my novel.”
Slip felt her eyelids, also weighted with lead, begin to drop. Jerking her head back, she opened her eyes as wide as she could, so that Faith tilted her head toward her and asked, “Slip, are you all right?”