“I'll be careful.”
“No!”
He stared at her.
“I'm too pissed now. I don't want you to touch me, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I can see we're going nowhere. It's like you said, this isn't a negotiation, and you're not changing your mind without leaving here tonight. You won't let go of her and come back to me yet, which is what you should do. So do something else for me.”
“What?”
“Go, Craig.”
“I'll take you home. I said I would.”
“I don't want you here right now. You need to grow up. See what's in front of your face. That she's not real. I am real, and I am here for you when you figure that out.”
He loved the idea; she saw it in his eyes, but the well-trained gentleman in him rose to the occasion, offering up token arguments which she easily dismissed.
“How will you get home?” he said, finally giving in.
“Don't worry. I can take care of it.”
“It's very… generous of you, Gretchen.”
“No, it isn't. It's pure selfishness.” She was adamant, and he was eager to get back to his new lover. He left, cell phone open, finger punching away.
Katie's mother came back into the room looking vaguely around. “Forgot her apple juice,” she said, checking under the sheets. She finally found what she was looking for on the counter beside the sink. “She loves apple juice.”
Well, Mom did seem a little on the dim side, Gretchen decided. Nobody left apple juice in bed.
But she sure loved her wayward, screwed-up daughter.
Gretchen swung her leg over the side of the bed and pressed the red button to summon a nurse. Somebody needed to get her a wheelchair, to push her out to the curb. By the time she got home tonight, Craig would have gone to Julie's apartment.
What would Craig do when Julie didn't answer her door? Probably the same thing he had done all evening with the cell phone. He would try and try again. At some point, maybe days down the line, he would get it through his thick skull that Julie was gone.
She hadn't been hard to take care of. Soft, not a suitable match for Craig, Julie wasn't someone with the strength to prop him up. She was certainly no match for Gretchen.
Gretchen had followed her and Craig on Friday night. They went to a restaurant, the restaurant where Gretchen and Craig always used to eat together. Now Gretchen couldn't go there anymore. She would be too embarrassed for their waiter, Harold, to witness her humiliation.
To Gretchen's surprise, Craig hadn't gone home with Julie. At least he had told the truth about that. He left her at the doorway to her building. They kissed while Gretchen watched. Then she followed his new woman all the way back into the dinky, dark apartment house. Gretchen knocked on the door and Julie answered.
Flimsy, insubstantial person. Gretchen would have known better. She had all night to finish, because she and Craig had fought earlier about her drinking. She had stomped off to stay at her mother's, supposedly. Julie's kitchen was full of things Gretchen knew how to use, even if she didn't usually use them.
That Saturday night dancing with Craig, she had seen the specter of Julie coming toward her in his eyes even though she knew it was impossible, that Julie was gone, but with that traveling car wreck of a thought, she had fallen. In that moment, she had succumbed to fear and weakness, and this was her punishment. She accepted it. She took responsibility. She didn't have to like it: visible injury. Weeks of disability. So she learned her lesson. You take control; you accept consequences.
Would he come back begging? Or would he waste a lot of time searching for Julie first?
Maybe he would call the police.
But they would never find her. No one would ever find her. Julie, as it turned out, was a clean freak. She had more bleach stowed below her kitchen sink than a hospital. And Gretchen, messy in her own life, knew how to clean, she just didn't like it much.
He had no one else. She had also spoken the truth when she said he wouldn't have had the courage to leave Gretchen without someone waiting in the wings to substitute. He needed a woman to anchor him. He would be unhappy without one.
Gretchen would think some more on unconditional love and forgiveness. She would forgive him his infidelity, and he would have to forgive her, too. Maybe she would tell him someday exactly what she had done with Julie when things were settled, after she was pregnant and he was happy with the outcome of unveiling all these secrets, even if he didn't much like knowing them. Well, she didn't, either.
She made a mental note that he would have to take some parenting classes before the big event. He didn't seem to understand that you have to let people be who they are and love them anyway. You forgive them their piercings, their abscesses, their strayings, their excesses, their lack of control. You love them anyway, with your whole heart.
She leaned over to use the bedside phone. She punched in a nine and then the number.
“Mom?” she said. “I need your help.”
Sandstorm
JUNE 3
At night I take pills to sleep. They don't go very well with the brandy I drink starting at eight or nine. When the alarm clock goes off at six the next morning and my husband gets up, swearing, to take his shower, I rise painfully and put on my glasses. Even so, as I make my way into the kitchen, I can't seem to make my eyes focus.
By seven, though, I am dressed and presentable in my high heels and my suit. My hair is clean and curled, sprayed so it will not stray during the day. I have cooked breakfast for my husband and packed his lunch, and he has left for work, ten minutes late as always.
Time to wake Abe and Molly. I bring their dishes to the table and they eat, gloomy and half-conscious, complaining. They dress and pick up their heavy packs and leave for school. I feed and walk the dog, throw a load of clothes in the washer to dry tonight, sweep the floor, unload the dishwasher, call the repair shop about the car, and stamp the letters my husband asked me to send to his relatives in Michigan. I have almost forgotten to get the chicken out of the freezer to cook tonight. Taking one last glance around, I lock up and walk down the path, which needs weeding, toward the car.
It is time to go to work.
The radio weatherman says it's going to be a hot summer. Summer, winter, the seasons don't matter. All that matters is the traffic, the dog, Abe and Molly, my husband-and Leo, my boss.
When I arrive at five past eight, they are all waiting for me-Leo and Carol, who is Leo's secretary, the students who are helping with the phones, the stacks of papers, the phone messages. Leo is the community college president, and I am his executive assistant. I work for Leo from eight to five every day, and from eight to ten in the evenings, trying to catch up, and on Saturdays, when Leo has his meetings to get ready for the Accreditation Committee. The Accreditation Committee is always coming and we are always preparing for it.
During the lunch hour, I go to the grocery store. Carol fills in. Lately she has been getting messages wrong and spending too much time smoking in the ladies' restroom. She has problems at home. Leo is threatening to fire her. She sits in my office and cries and I try to comfort her.
The student workers never last long. Only Leo and I are always here. I have actually been here longer than Leo, almost twenty years. For ten of those years, Leo and I had an affair. I wonder now how I found the time.
I believe my husband knew about the affair, but he runs the local Ford dealership and Leo has referred many customers to him over the years and buys his cars there himself.
Anyway, Leo moved on a long time ago.
Leo wants to become chancellor of the district community colleges. He is very busy with meetings with representatives and he travels a lot. When he is gone, I run the college for him.
It is two thirty. Leo is still at lunch. I have called back twelve people, most of whom were not available, met with representatives of the local Latino group regarding hiring more Latinos at the college, prepared the paperwork to fire the food services manager for drunkenness, and prodded our business services manager regarding the delays in preparing next year's budget. More people are waiting outside. I am dictating memos to Leo about all of this.
The day passes as usual, in a blur of frantic motion. I have accomplished much, but I don't know what, exactly.
Due to construction, it takes almost an hour to drive home.
Molly does not come home after school. She has been sleeping with her boyfriend for five months and she chooses not to follow parental rules anymore. I make calls, find her, and go pick her up, her face sullen and hostile. Abe is in his room, on the Internet, where he stays from four to twelve every day.
I cook chicken and rice and make a good salad. Molly will not eat because she had a hamburger after school. Abe takes his food to his room after a sharp exchange with his father. My husband sits down in his La-Z-Boy and picks up the remote, and I settle down at the kitchen table to write a short speech for Leo to deliver over the weekend to the Association of Realtors.
About eight I start drinking my brandy. By eleven I have finished the speech, washed two more loads of laundry, given the dog a bath, and nagged Abe into taking out the trash.
I open up a book. I used to love to read, a long time ago. The words swim before my eyes.
JUNE 10
In two days summer vacation begins at my college. Leo is reviewing his commencement speech, which I completed last night. I am helping the students sign his name to the certificates of graduation. The acting director of food services has walked off the job, so I have to get over there and figure out how to serve two thousand people at the reception on Saturday night.
JUNE 12
Leo's speech was very well received, and he was complimented many times on how well the reception was organized.
The students are gone. In September they will return, blurred, interchangeable.
Molly has left for New York City with her boyfriend. She left a note saying she would be in touch. I call her boyfriend's parents and we talk for a long time, but can't decide what to do.
JUNE 13
Today is Sunday. It is quiet at my house. My husband is selling cars and Abe is in his room clicking his mouse at the computer monitor. Laundry, the floors, the bathrooms, dusting, the windows- Sunday is the day I clean house.
