An Actual Life, page 5
Sometimes I do what I call have a daydream. It is always about Rock Hudson and I do it in the bed with the shades pulled down. Sometimes I am afraid what if I died in this position? Would everyone know what I had been doing? It would be so embarrassing. Or could I just before I died realize that I was having a heart attack or something and move my hands away? I hope so. Now when I do it I always think, Now if you start to die, just move your hands a little bit and nobody will know. But this is all a total secret. Suppose Maddie ever found out that her mother died while in the midst of this practice?
If I did die, I wonder if Buddy would instantly marry Irene. They would raise Maddie up as if she were their child. I keep thinking about Irene’s stomach. She turned away so fast when she saw me.
Buddy comes home very tired most of the time and just falls asleep. He flips on the news and lies down on the floor and falls asleep. I say, “Buddy, why don’t you sit in the chair? Why don’t you go lie down on the bed? Why don’t you take a shower?” Nothing works. He never pays any attention to anything I say. So of course then the rest of the night I have to step over him.
He’s gone almost every night now what with one thing and another. Chick came by the other evening. Buddy was already at class. “Hey, Virginia,” he said, but I didn’t think to open the screen door. “Buddy’s out,” I told him, “as usual,” I added, because I’m getting mean in my old age.
But Chick stood there anyway. The porch light was attracting bugs and he brushed a moth away from his face. “Can I come in anyway?” he asked. “Well, of course, Chick,” I said, but I couldn’t imagine why he was here. He looked around the kitchen as if he’d never seen it before. He touched the red placemat and the napkin ring with Buddy’s napkin in it. He picked the top off the sugar bowl and put it back again gently. “I got that at the flea market,” I said. “Fifty cents. Want some iced tea?”
“You fixed the place up nice, Virginia,” said Chick, nodding. “Nice and cozy.”
“Well, it’s really Dot’s kitchen,” I said, “to be truthful.” Although I do like to put up a few nice pictures so there is a poster of the famous lily pond by Monet over the sink and another one of Notre Dame in the hall by the telephone. I found these both at the flea market. Two dollars apiece including the frames which Dot said were quite old, maybe thirty or forty years old.
“Well,” said Chick, staring at my apron which is new with red and white checks. “You added something. I don’t know.” This is just so typical of Chick not to notice that there is art on the walls now, not just pictures cut out from magazines of pies and cakes and Thanksgiving turkeys which is what Dot likes. It is so funny, too, because Dot is a terrible cook.
“Why, thank you, Chick,” I said, surprised. That was very nice of him to say. “Some people don’t notice anything,” I said, meaning Buddy, of course.
“Oh,” said Chick quickly. “Irene’s working three days a week now and taking classes at night. I guess you could say she’s pretty busy right now.” He looked glum.
Well, I didn’t know Irene was taking classes this summer and my skin got cold and clammy. Suppose she and Buddy were meeting every time they went to so-called school? I thought I’d faint dead away. Luckily Maddie began to stir, she has a little sniffle and I heard those snorts she makes when she’s starting to wake up. I went to the fridge and took out a bottle. I set a pan of water on the stove to warm and put the bottle in it. “Keep an eye on that, Chickie, will you?” I asked and went to get the baby. I always feel better when I’m holding her even if I’m upset. I picked her right up out of the crib although she wasn’t really waked up. I just wanted to hold her. I love how warm and heavy she is inside her little nightgown and she feels so good against my shoulder.
I sat down with Maddie and her bottle. “What’s Irene taking?” I asked after a minute.
“Bookkeeping.” Chick stared at Maddie’s little feet. “I think.”
“Bookkeeping!” I said, all relieved. “How hard!” Buddy is taking abnormal psych.
“Yeah,” said Chick. “I know.”
I was sorry I had brought it up. Irene was yelling at him last week in the Acme because he forgot to deposit his paycheck and they were overdrawn. I was there when she got so mad at him and I was very sorry to have heard it. We had just turned into the coffee aisle and Buddy was holding Madeline on his shoulders and she was pulling on his ears and squealing and biting his hair and Buddy was smooching on her feet. Then there were Chick and Irene standing in front of the Maxwell House and Irene stared at us like we were strangers and she started right in on Chick who had forgotten his wallet and it seemed they couldn’t write any checks for two days and Irene only had four dollars left over from fixing the truck. We heard every word of it, it was like aimed at our direction almost. “I’m sorry, Irene,” said Chick. “Really. But there’s no need to get so het up about it.” I had never heard anybody actually say “het up” before. Buddy looked uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to do.
“What the hell are you staring at, Buddy-boy?” Irene snapped and Buddy opened his mouth to say something but closed it again. Chick trailed off after Irene down the aisle and Buddy paid for our stuff and we got out of there.
Tonight I had an example of how insane Chick can be. He told me he wants to let a bus run over his foot. He told me he has always wanted to try it. He thinks it would feel good. “So intense,” he says, “just pressed like that against the asphalt.”
“Chickie.” I looked him straight in the eye. “Promise me you’re kidding, right? Promise me you’d never do such a crazy thing. It would be really bad.” But he wouldn’t promise.
“There are eighty-seven bones in the human foot,” he said instead. I believe there are quite a few more. I almost let him hold the baby but decided not to. Who knows what crazy vibrations might jump from him to Madeline? He was very nice to her, though, and he tickled her feet. I never really talked to Chick before. I don’t know what his real name is and I’m afraid to ask him. Suppose his real name is Chick?
Before he left I wanted to tell him I don’t understand at all about the bank but thought I shouldn’t mention it. He was aiming an imaginary rifle at the ceiling and firing off a few bullets. He does this when he’s nervous. He would never kill a duck, though, we had a discussion about it once. He would never kill a duck or a deer or anything like that. He doesn’t even really enjoy fishing. When I got up to get some cream I noticed he has a cowlick on the top of his head. Two of them, in fact. I never thought any part of Chick could be cute but cowlicks are so sweet, really. I don’t know why I never noticed them before. After a while he left. I still don’t know what he came over for.
Dot came by later to say good night. “Was that Chick Freund’s car I saw a while ago?” she asked.
“Uh-huh,” I said. I was sleepy and already in my nightgown. Dot was wearing her old pink bathrobe and no slippers. Her apartment is just back of the house. She had a million pink curlers in her hair. It is so terrible because her hair always comes out straight anyway.
“What did he want?”
“I don’t know,” I said. Which I did not.
“Where’s Buddy?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Class.”
“Everything all right over here?” asked Dot. She seemed suspicious all of a sudden as if she wanted to look under the bed, or in the closet. She kept picking up the cups and plates and she even picked up the bunch of bananas and looked in the bowl as if somebody might be hiding underneath.
“What do you mean?” I said. “Of course everything is all right. Why wouldn’t it be all right?” Why should I tell Dot that Buddy is never home. She would not say one thing except be patient with him. I know her. I am being patient. This is as patient as I know how to be. Besides, what else can I do except throw things at him?
But Dot just shook her head.
How long did Irene and Buddy go out?” I ask Dot the next day.
“Whatever do you ask that for, hon?” says Dot. We are drinking our afternoon iced tea.
“Just wondering. I wondered how long, that’s all.”
“On and off for a couple, three years. Long time ago.”
“Actually,” and I take a deep breath, “actually, Dot, I was wondering if she was ever really terribly fat. She just seems like the type who might once have had a weight problem of some sort. I noticed once her stomach looked so full of stretch marks. You know what I mean?” Dot’s face is a worried blank, if such a thing is possible. A worried blank. Maybe Dot does not know the meaning of stretch marks. She has never had a baby herself and she has always weighed exactly ninety-eight pounds. “I know this sounds ridiculous but I keep not knowing if maybe Irene was either tremendously fat or if possibly she might have had a baby once.”
“Whatever put such a notion into your head?” Dot shakes her head now and a bobby pin goes flying off. “Don’t stuff your head with nonsense, Virginia. Who have you been talking to?” Dot isn’t looking at me, she is putting cookies on a plate for us.
“Nobody.”
“Irene doesn’t interest me. This is the only subject that interests me,” says Dot, patting Madeline’s head.
I have to agree with her on that. Maddie is the most beautiful baby in the world. I must have imagined the whole thing. Maybe it was the bad light in the dressing room.
“But did she?” I ask Dot a minute later.
“Did she what? Who?”
“Did Irene ever have a baby?”
“Now why would you ask a silly thing like that?” says Dot, but in a much calmer voice. “Now that I think back it seems Irene was always fighting her weight.”
The first day of every new month you are supposed to say “Rabbit rabbit” before you say anything else. I cannot get Buddy to do this. I don’t see why he can’t oblige me on these small important matters. It is such an easy thing to do. “Where are my socks?” says Buddy. “Where’s the comb?” He didn’t even eat fish on New Year’s Day which everybody knows is good luck. Buddy ate a cream cheese and jelly sandwich.
Dot has bought something new for Maddie and it comes in a big white box. Maddie can’t open the box by herself so I take the top off and Maddie reaches in and first she pulls out little fistfuls of tissue paper which she likes very much. She looks around at us very seriously, a bunch of pink tissue paper in either hand. “There’s more, Madeline,” I tell her. “More! Look in the box!” She leans over and peers inside. “Ohhh,” I say.
“Ohhh,” says Maddie and she pulls out a darling pink hat with a big pink satin bow right in front. She puts it right on top of her head and looks at us. “Like it, like it,” says Maddie.
“Oh, you look so pretty,” says Dot.
“You really do,” I say. “Say thank you to Dot,” I say.
“Soo-soo,” says Maddie.
“Dot, that is just the prettiest thing I ever saw,” I say, truthfully. “But you shouldn’t have spent so much money! I just know a hat like that must cost a fortune.”
“Well, it’s worth it if it puts a smile on your pretty face, Virginia,” says Dot, which makes me burst into tears for no reason. It is so ridiculous. Then I look at Madeline who looks like a little flapper or something with the beautiful pink satin bow already crooked on her head and I can’t describe how cute she is. I can’t describe how I feel when I look at her, as if everything inside me were suddenly curly.
Maddie won’t take her hat off. She wears it everywhere. She wants to take it into bed with her at night. Soon the bow looks a bit grimy but we have decided to let her have as much pleasure out of it as she can, me and Dot. “Either every day is a special occasion or every day is a piece of you-know-what,” is Dot’s theory of life.
Last night we were supposed to go out for supper, just me and Buddy, and who is there already? Irene and Chick, who looks like a sad sack. Chick and Irene do not seem to be getting along so well. I mentioned this to Buddy. He said he hadn’t noticed. Well, that’s a lie. I know for a fact he never takes his eyes off Irene if we run into her. And when she’s cross with Chick I recognize Buddy’s little smile as the smile of a person who thinks there is some hope for himself in the love department. I can tell Chick is upset. He looks unhappily over at me. It isn’t like they’re even touching each other. Buddy and I are on one side of the blue booth and they are on the other. It’s just that Buddy and Irene only talk to each other. Chick and I might as well be on the planet Mars. “Remember that time down the shore?” Irene might begin, and Buddy will say, “Which time?” and Irene says, “The girl in the red bathing cap? That time?” and they both go into spasms of laughter while Chick and I just stare at each other. Or “Remember that time with the ducks?”
Har har har. I finally said it. “Har har hardeehar har,” I said. Folding up my napkin.
Everybody looked at me. So I said it again. I had their attention finally.
“Har har har. It’s so funny I forgot to laugh.” I realize this was childish of me but after all, they never let us in on anything.
“What’s up your ass?” asked Buddy.
“Buddy!” said Irene. “That was rude!” You could tell she meant it. Well, that was nice of her but I can fight my own battles. But then she reached across and slapped his hand and that made it into another joke. He was holding a spoon with sugar and it went all over. “Hey,” he said, but you could see he loved it. I wanted to squeeze the ketchup into his eyes.
“Nothing is up my ass as you so crudely put it, but I would like to go home now. I am sure Maddie is up. In case you have forgotten in all your interesting reminiscing, you have a daughter, and she just might want to see her parents once in a while.” This was ridiculous. I know it. I am always home of course. She sees us all the time. Or me, anyway. Plus it was me who wanted to go out in the first place.
“You want to leave?” said Buddy, looking all mad. “What gets into you, Virginia? We’re all sitting around having a nice time and suddenly you want to leave? How about you, Irene, you want to leave? Chick? How about you?” Buddy’s eyebrows were doing that thunderbolt thing on his forehead. You expect sparks to come out of his head. Chick was staring into his glass of water, poking the ice around with his thumb. Then he looked up at Buddy and he looked peculiar, like a grown-up, sort of. He had the funniest look on his face.
“Well,” said Chick, whom I now love, “I was thinking about turning in myself.” Then he spoke to me as if I were a genuine person with feelings and rights. “I can give you a lift home, Virginia, if you want.”
Well, I got out of the booth and took my hat off the pole and we left together. I didn’t even say good-bye to Buddy or Irene. Chick’s car smelled like old apple cores. “This is very nice of you, Chick,” I said, very formally.
“Don’t mention it,” said Chick. “My pleasure.”
“I hope you don’t think I was too rude just now,” I said. That wasn’t really what I meant. I didn’t think I was being rude at all, but I had to say it that way to feel Chick out.
“Buddy can be a real horse’s ass,” said Chick.
“Well, thank you for saying that,” I said. “He can, can’t he?” Chick didn’t reply. I thought maybe I should say something about Irene. “It was nice of Irene to tell Buddy he was rude. Please thank her for me.” I didn’t exactly mean that, either. The last person I want on my side is Irene.
“Tell her yourself,” said Chick, with a funny edge in his voice. I hope I didn’t hurt his feelings in any way. It was a short drive to our house so we didn’t say anything else. “Thank you so much,” I said, getting out. I felt quite nice again. I felt like a lady. I felt as if I were wearing a really nice gray suit and high heels and stockings. That’s how it made me feel, and that my hair was brushed. Not just in my old seersucker former maternity dress.
“Sweet dreams,” said Chick when I got out of the car. I thought that was very nice of him.
“You too, Chick,” I said, “sweet dreams to you too.”
And then later I felt so angry because it took Buddy hours and hours to come home. I almost called Chick. I picked up the phone and then put it down. It rang two seconds later. It was Buddy. “I’ll be home in twenty minutes,” he said. But of course he wasn’t. I don’t know what time he got in because I was asleep. He slept on the couch anyway.
Dot always winks at me on Sunday mornings if we get up late. I know she thinks we’ve been in there “having a party” as she puts it. I think she thinks we are always doing it. She would be so surprised to find out the last time was March and that was the first time since November. And I really am glad. I really don’t care. When I mentioned it to Buddy he said he didn’t like to feel any pressure. It had to happen spontaneously, he said, and he didn’t like feeling as if he had to all the time just because we were married. “Well, good,” I said, “because I don’t feel like it either.” Of course that hurt his damn feelings, I guess, because he didn’t want to talk about it ever again. I never knew boys were so sensitive. They seem to be most sensitive about their own feelings though, I have to say. Actually, I don’t see how we ever did it at all. If I think about it now it’s like we were two completely different people, not Buddy and Virginia at all, but two completely different people who were much nicer than we have turned out to be in actual life. And anyway, it’s not really all that interesting after you’re married. In fact, half the time you’re just waiting for it to be over. It is so boring, really. You want to drum your fingers on the bed while you’re waiting. I laughed in the middle once and Buddy got sore. “What’s so funny?” he wanted to know, acting all mad. “Nothing,” I said. “Really. Go on. Nothing.” How could I tell him I was imagining I was reading a book with my left hand over his shoulder with the light from our clock radio? And thinking he would never know and I could get a lot of reading done this way? I couldn’t say that, it would have hurt his feelings. They need to think you are paying attention to what they are doing. But sometimes your mind just wanders away.
