Good Grief: A Novel

  I remember admiring a teacher this much. In fourth grade I fell in love with Miss Brown. Everything about her was brown—long brown hair that swept across her back and a brown wool beret. She even drove a little brown Celica. During science class Miss Brown took us for walks in the woods to pick up litter, which she said was terrible for the environment. She was beautiful, unlike the third-grade teacher, Miss Dillon, who had a bulbous mole on her chin and a disposition that flashed like lightning, threatening to shut down recess at any moment. “Can Miss Brown live with us?” I begged my mother. I felt Miss Brown would make a perfect addition to our too-small family.

  “No, sweetie, she has her own house.”

  “I’m slow,” Crystal says now, snapping her lighter on to light a cigarette. “That’s what my mom said.”

  “Well, I’m sure she meant slow as in it takes you a while to find your coat slow,” I tell Crystal. “She didn’t mean stupid slow.”

  “You can’t say that to kids,” Ruth says incredulously, frowning at Crystal’s cigarette.

  “Whatever,” Crystal snaps at her. “I’m, like, flunking pre-algebra.”

  “You are not flunking,” I tell her. “You retook that test and got a C. That’s a big improvement.”

  Crystal looks away and slides a hand up the sleeve of her jersey. I know she’s picking at the scabs on her arms. She hasn’t cut herself for almost two weeks. She’s made a pact with her psychiatrist, promising to call her if she feels like cutting. Meanwhile, she’s taken to compulsively drawing Xs in her notebooks, the pen slicing through the paper as she presses down.

  “You’re smart,” I tell her. “You don’t need Mr. Matthews or your mom or Tiffanie and Amber to tell you that. It’s just true.”

  The praise makes her flinch. I feel like a dumb self-help cassette tape, but I know if I complimented Crystal ten times a day, she still wouldn’t feel good about herself. She’s the only person I know whose self-esteem is lower than mine right now.

  “Maybe you just need a little help with math and science,” Ruth offers.

  “That’s what the tutor’s for,” I agree.

  Crystal shrugs. “My mom says I can’t keep the tutor because it’s expensive.”

  “I’ll pay for it,” I tell her. “It’s not that much.”

  “Whatever.”

  “No, not ‘whatever.’ We’re going to get your grades up.”

  “Even if you don’t get into vet school, there are lots of other jobs working with animals,” Ruth says.

  “Like what?” Crystal grumbles.

  “Like working at a pet grooming place, for example,” Ruth stammers, uncertain.

  “Great, cutting dogs’ toenails.”

  “No, and training dogs,” Ruth adds. “Maybe training Seeing Eye dogs, and—”

  “Or working with horses,” I offer. “You know, brushing them.”

  “Horses are expensive,” Crystal says. I can see her mother’s logic at work here, telling Crystal that anything other than going to school and watching TV is too expensive.

  “People pay you to take care of them,” Ruth says.

  Crystal carves her thumbnail into the paint on the wicker tabletop.

  “How much time have you put into this project so far?” I ask her, nodding at the mica. “Honestly? About fifteen minutes copying that card out of the encyclopedia?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, we just need to spend more time on it.” I say this firmly but kindly, just like the mom in the salad dressing ad who insists that her daughter gently tear the lettuce.

  When Chef calls me into his office Wednesday afternoon, I wonder if I’m getting fired or demoted again.

  “Sophie, may I see you?” He pokes his big bearded head out of his office, juts out his plum of a lower lip.

  “Just a minute.” I set down the sifter, leaving a white spray of cake flour like a giant snowflake across the counter, and jot down how many cups I’ve measured so far.

  If he fires me, maybe I’ll start my own little bakery selling the savory cheesecakes I’ve been refining. The recipes are mine, after all. I’ve surfed the Web for tips on creating a business plan. My heart thrummed in my chest as I considered gambling my nest egg on my own little shop in town.

  Chef pushes his door shut. His jeans and flannel shirt hang neatly from a hanger on a hook on the back of the door, and his toque sits at attention on the corner of his desk.

  “Have a seat,” he says, shuffling papers. My pink slip? News that you have to sit down for is never any good. I lean back in the Windsor chair, the spindles jabbing my spine.

  “You’ve been doing a great job,” he mumbles.

  I’m waiting for the “but.” I notice a lopsided clay bunny on Chef’s desk that was obviously made by a child. Its head and ears are way too big for its body. I wonder if Chef has a kid or if he’s an uncle, if he’s got a soft spot somewhere.

  “George loves the savory cheesecake,” he continues. George is the persnickety owner of the restaurant who makes surprise reconnaissance visits. The first employee to spot George on the premises is supposed to yell, “Red light.” The first person to notice him leave is supposed to say, “Green light.” Then everyone goes back to sitting on the counters or swiping rolls out of the bread warmer.

  “And the hazelnut torte is delicious.” Chef closes his eyes and purses his thick lips as though tasting the torte. While he’s one of the last people I’d relish praise from, I’m flattered.

  “Thanks.” Get to the point!

  “I’m going to promote you to head baker.”

  “Really?” A promotion! A kooky swell of self-confidence warms my chest, like when you practice your Oscar acceptance speech in the shower despite the fact that you’ve never even acted. But it’s only a job as a baker, for God’s sake. It’s not as though I’m secretary of state. Who wouldn’t get promoted from this rinky-dink, college-student job? “But I’m the only baker,” I remind Chef.

  “True, but you’ll get a raise and have expanded duties. You’ll continue developing new recipes, order your own supplies, and manage the dishwasher. I may hire you a part-time helper so you won’t have as much prep work.” As he wheels his chair toward me, I catch his musky cologne and beef broth smell. “You’re a hard worker and you’ve got great potential. You’ll get your raise in your next paycheck.” Chef extends a doughy hand. I’m afraid a neck rub’s on the way, so I thank him and scoot out the door, bumping into the dishwasher, who’s on his way in to work.

  “Sorry, man,” he says. He always calls me man.

  Head baker. I turn back to my station, the late afternoon sun making the butcher block on the counter glow golden. Who knows, maybe one day I will open my own café. I picture customers sitting at sidewalk tables and tearing open sugary brioches, the sweet steam inside offering a bit of solace.

  Early one Sunday morning the phone rings; it’s Marion. She makes small talk for a few minutes, managing to be pleasant and insulting at the same time. She asks if I’ve had a chance to explore Oregon’s beautiful hiking trails and maybe drop a few pounds in the process. Then she asks me to put Ethan on the line. At first I think she’s joking.

  “Yeah, right, there are a few things I’d love to ask him,” I tell her. “Like where he put my passport!” To this day I haven’t found it. “Oh, and I’d love to be able to tell him that I got a promotion at work.”

  “That’s nice, dear. Are you trying cases now?”

  I realize she’s completely off her nut.

  “I’m a baker,” I tell her.

  “Ohhhh. A baker.” She always went overboard in tone when trying to feign interest in my life. “Is Ethan out mowing the lawn?” she adds impatiently.

  The lawn? Ethan? My breath catches in my chest.

  “No. He’s dead. Remember?”

  The buzzer goes off in Marion’s kitchen and she says she’s got to run and take cookies out of the oven for the church bazaar. She asks me to have Ethan call her when he gets back in, then hangs u
p.

  All week I think about calling Marion back, but I’m not sure what to say. It’s as though grief has finally found her and she’s denying everything, even denial.

  The college parking lot sparkles optimistically on the first morning of classes. But I don’t want to get out of the car. Students bustle toward the administration building with determination. They all look so young. Yesterday I couldn’t wait to join the culinary arts program, to conquer Pastry Workshop: Pies, Cobblers, and Fruit Crisps. I even signed up for a class in how to start your own small business and called Kit to ask him to keep a lookout for commercial rental spaces. “My dream is to start my own bakery,” I told him, caffeine and optimism sparking through my veins. But now my confidence has dwindled and my brain feels like a fruit crisp, bubbling over with anxiety, clear thoughts going soggy. Starting a new career means planning for the future. Without Ethan.

  The car heats up in the sun, and my notebook feels slippery in my perspiring hands. The thought of starting over always gives me either a rush of excitement or a crush of dread. Nothing in between.

  What if I fail at this career, too? After all, public relations seemed like a wise choice. The Advanced Cutlery Techniques class description said we’ll learn to julienne vegetables and bone and ballottine a chicken, whatever that means. Maybe I should spare the chicken and drive home now.

  I start the car and look over my shoulder to back up. A new lime green Volkswagen Bug is perched for my parking space, a twenty-something driver peering eagerly over her steering wheel. Suddenly my parking space defenses go up. This space is mine. I’m late for class! I shut off the car and wave the Volkswagen driver on. She guns her engine and shoots to the other end of the parking lot.

  Honey, this is easy-peasy, I imagine my mother saying. She and her Delta Gamma sorority sisters always said “easy-peasy.” It’s not like it’s cordon bleu, Ethan would point out.

  I certainly can’t tell Ruth I quit on my first day. Besides, who’d screw up a pastry class? Okay, me, quite possibly. But so what if I do? I at least want to learn to bake the pear pie with cheddar cheese crust. Ask the teacher for pointers on my savory cheesecake recipes. Does the smoked fontina overpower the mushrooms? More important, am I going to work at Le Petit Bistro until I’m sixty-five? I yank the keys out of the ignition, shove them in my bag, squeeze the notebook to my chest, and climb out of the car.

  21

  “It’s a myth that people experience grief for a certain amount of time and then they’re over it,” Sandy says, clutching his clipboard to his chest and turning to scan the grief group circle. His baggy green fatigue pants and tan V-neck sweater make him look like a cross between Mr. Rogers and a private in the army fighting the war against grief. “Our culture assumes grief should be over in a year, so people may think they’re going crazy if they can’t ‘wrap it up’ by then.”

  Sandy begins every meeting with a sort of pep talk sermon, then invites discussion. I wish he’d open with a talk about intimacy, about what it’s like to sleep with someone other than your husband or Ben & Jerry for the first time in six years.

  Drew and I are soon to go on our fourth date, and I worry that it’s going to be horizontal. Nine of the fifteen pounds I want to lose cling to me like an overprotective mother who doesn’t want me to take my pants off until I’m married again.

  “My women friends are a little impatient with me,” says Gloria, who’s sitting next to me. She’s always draped in layers of woolen capes and smells cinnamony, like autumn. She lowers her voice and twists the tassels on her cape between her fingers. “They think I should be getting on with my life.”

  A man whose wife died of ovarian cancer nods.

  Roger says, “Fuck them.” Roger’s son was accidentally killed by a neighbor kid who was playing with a gun, and Roger’s the maddest person in the group.

  “It’s normal to feel angry,” Sandy says. “But we have to work on that anger.”

  Roger digs his fist into his thigh and says, “Okay.”

  “Sophie,” Sandy says, turning toward me, “we haven’t heard from you. Are you up to sharing your feelings today?”

  I don’t want to tell the group that I’ve felt better in the past month. That seems like a betrayal.

  “I still think of my husband every day,” I tell them. “But now I smile when I think of him. Sometimes I cry, but I don’t want to lie on the floor at the grocery store or inhale a whole box of Girl Scout cookies.” The group chuckles and nods encouragingly, all those faces like a gentle wave moving toward me.

  “How’s your dream journal going?” Sandy asks. We’re all supposed to keep a dream journal, and mine is the first-prize winner for cancer nightmares.

  I explain to Sandy and the group that I haven’t dreamed about Ethan being sick for several weeks now. No more hospital nightmares.

  “It’s such a relief,” I tell them, embarrassed because now I’m crying. Gloria drapes a woolen wing around me and I burrow toward her, breathing her chai smell.

  “After we’ve watched a loved one succumb to a terminal illness, it’s very helpful to be able to remember them before they got sick,” Sandy tells the group.

  The guy whose wife died of ovarian cancer nods, wiping his cheeks with the heels of his palms. He has a large Grecian nose and black hair that curls around his forehead. He looks so young for a widower.

  I’m still crying, and the guy whose wife died of cancer is crying, and Gloria’s crying, black capes shaking. Then everyone around the room is crying, except Roger, who is pounding his thigh with his fist. Sandy tells us it’s okay to feel terrible, and we feel terrible. It’s like Simon Says. The boxes of Kleenex make the rounds.

  “You’ve made remarkable progress, Sophie,” Sandy says.

  I shake my head and wave a hand at him dismissively, embarrassed by my grief gold star. Good girl. Good grief.

  “We’ve all made remarkable progress,” Sandy adds.

  Roger is pounding his fist on the side of his chair now, unable to cry. I remember feeling like him back at the grief group in San Jose— being the only dry-eyed one in the room, your crying machine out of order.

  Gloria stands, her silver bracelets jangling, crosses the circle to Roger, and crouches beside his chair. She takes his fist in her hands and brings it toward her chest, gently unfurling his knotted fingers one by one. Roger bristles, then relaxes and leans toward her. Gloria murmurs to him, her voice as husky as her woolen capes. Roger leans closer to hear what she’s saying—the tops of their heads almost touching. His shoulders begin to shake and he nods yes to something. She takes his other hand and squeezes it, too, then sets them both in his lap and crosses the circle back to her seat. Roger glances down at his hands, which are finally still, then closes his eyes.

  My next date with Drew is in two days, and I can’t lose nine pounds or acquire a firm butt or suntan by then. “You look great,” Ruth insists. “Shop for sexy lingerie if you’re really worried.”

  I drive to Medford and hole up in the JCPenney’s dressing room with an armload of slippery camisole tops. I finger the lace along a faux leopard number. Something like this under a sweater with jeans would be casual but sexy. The saleswoman, whose spiky orange hair looks like shag carpet, wants to know if I need help.

  “Do they offer liposuction at the salon upstairs?” I ask her.

  She giggles. “No, but you can get a bikini wax,” she whispers loudly through the slats in the door.

  “Can they wax away fat?”

  “Aw, honey, don’t worry. You’re petite. You can keep the lights down low if you’re shy. That’s more romantic.”

  The leopard camisole is silky and scratchy at the same time, and the spaghetti straps keep falling down, as though the top is rejecting me instead of vice versa.

  I spin in a half turn, dodging the pins on the dressing room floor, and have a three-way look at my figure. The fluorescent lights make my skin look blotchy and uneven, like old linoleum, and I’m certain these are someone else’
s thighs. Perhaps Margaret Thatcher’s. Attention, shoppers. If anyone is missing a pair of grand-piano-leg thighs, they have been found in the lingerie dressing area.

  I’m going to bring my savory blue-cheese-and-walnut cheesecake to try out on Drew, and a dark chocolate torte that I learned to make in class. I also want to show him the business plan for my bakery. He’s going to open a bottle of port he’s been saving for five years. The special occasionness of the port makes me nervous. It’s clearly been held for a historical event, such as the first time you sleep with someone. Everything about the date makes me nervous: the intoxicating port, the aphrodisiac chocolate dessert, and the amorous hour of our meeting—ten-thirty in the evening, after his show and my shift.

  The last person I slept with was my husband, and that was ten months and a hundred cartons of peanut-butter-cup ice cream ago. During my last life. The one that was supposed to be my only life. Ethan, my only love.

  Despite my layers of fleshy padding, my stomach growls forlornly. Do you think maybe there’s a little something for us at the department store café? it wants to know. Maybe a croissant? No! Nothing but tomato juice until after my potentially horizontal date with Drew.

  I lift my chin, arch my back, suck in my belly. I remember holing up back in San Jose on the air mattress in my barren living room and working my way around the crust of an entire pizza, tearing off one comforting chunk of warm dough after another. I dread the thought of Drew running a hand over my round belly and comparing it to the washboard abs of certain breathy actresses with phony British accents and pompous heirloom jewelry. But wouldn’t he tire of her bony shoulders and small breasts, which look as flat as drink coasters under those cashmere sweaters? Wouldn’t he crave a bit of voluptuousness?

  I switch to a lacy black camisole, but it’s as scratchy as wool against my skin.

  Certainly Ethan wouldn’t mind my new full figure. He always thought I looked great, even when I was in sweatpants with hurricane hair.