Balancing Acts (32 page)

“Hey, remember our move from Union Square to Brooklyn?” Mona asked.

“I still have the scars to remind me.”

“How did you manage to fall directly into that mirror?”

“What did you expect? We were loading the truck ourselves during rush hour on one of the busiest streets in Manhattan. I was a little stressed.”

“How old were we?”

“Twenty-three, I think? Or maybe twenty-four?”

“Babies,” said Mona.

“Shattering glass must be a thing for me. I dropped an entire box of framed photos down three flights of stairs earlier today.”

“Yikes.”

“I wonder what that reveals about me psychologically.”

“What what reveals?”

“The broken-glass thing. Am I predestined for bad luck?”

“No, you're just a complete spaz.”

“Yeah, I guess.” I took another swig from my bottle, relishing its fizzy chill, and placed it beside me.

“What am I going to do without you?” asked Mona softly. “I'm going to be so bored.”

“Nuh-uh. You have a million friends to keep you company.”

“Facebook does not a friend make. It's not the same.”

“I know. But we'll Skype and visit each other all the time. Flights are so cheap, Mona.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She lit another cigarette. I opened my mouth to protest. “Cigarettes don't count today. Listen, if you hate—what's this place called that you're moving to? Farmtown?”

“Farmwood.”

“Right. If you hate Farmwood, you can always move back. It's a one-year contract, right?”

I sighed in response and looked up and down the block. Over there was where Josh had kissed me for the first time—a
lingering peck that had turned into more and from which I had broken away, flustered and talking a mile a minute.

From the beginning, I had known that he was special, that he possessed a kindness and reliability that no one who had gone before possessed. What's more was that I still really liked him despite all that. Pre-Josh, I'd had a penchant for man-boys who couldn't even commit to a sandwich.

I put my arm around Mona. I disagreed with what she had said. It just wasn't true that we could move back here if Farmwood was a bust. Even if we did, New York would always know that we had strayed. She was the kind of city that was entitled to hold a grudge.

2

J
osh emitted a deep burp that rattled the cab of our moving truck.

“You're not going to complain about the food we just ate for the rest of the night, are you? And blame me?” he asked.

“Maybe.”

We had just inhaled an entire aisle of a Quick Mart. I groaned as I peeled my sweaty thighs from the vinyl seat.

“Oh look, there's a piece of Chex Mix in my bra.” I reached into my left cup and pulled out a tiny pretzel O. “Are we there yet?”

“Almost.”

I hung my arm out the window and undulated my wrist in the warm air. While Josh had been down to Farmwood a few weeks earlier to rent our house, I knew nothing about our new city, or the South for that matter. I'd never been below the Mason-Dixon Line before.

“Is it like
Steel Magnolias?”
I asked. “Lots of women in big-brimmed hats and tiny purses? Floral prints and in-home salons?”

“What's
Steel Magnolias?”

“You've never seen
Steel Magnolias?
” He shook his head. “You're missing out.” I stared out the window. “Josh, what if we hate it there?”

“If we hate it, it's one year, Sarah. One year. Do you know how quickly one year flies by?”

“Yeah, but then what?”

“It's a year for you to figure some things out, Sar. You hated your job, right? You hated New York. This is a chance for you to spend some time figuring out what it is that will fulfill you, you know? I'll be making decent money, and the cost of living is like, nothing. You can score a relatively relaxing day job and take it easy for a bit. We'll make a baby.”

“Yeah, a baby.” I forced a smile.

Whenever Josh brought up babies, a giant clock descended from the sky and hovered over my head like a UFO. It was go time, despite the fact that I had about a million reservations about my maternal aptitude—reservations that I had not breathed a word about to Josh. Our plan had always been
to have kids. If I waffled now, I would be reneging on my part of the bargain and breaking my husband's heart in the process. I kept telling myself that I would get over it, that it was just stage fright, and as testament to that mantra, I had gone off of my birth control a month earlier. Still, every time we had sex, I uttered a silent prayer that my eggs were playing hard to get.

“As much as I hated my job, there was a sort of twisted comfort in it,” I said, changing the subject.

“You took comfort in the complaining?”

“Well, that, and also, I was good at it. Granted, I may not have reaped any creative fulfillment from it, but I got the job done and then some. Plus, it's all I know. What if I can't do anything else?”

“Sarah, of course you can do something else. You just need the freedom to figure out what that something is.”

“You're right. It's easier to marinate in the cesspool of your own displeasure than to actually do something about it. No, I'm glad we're moving, I really am. I needed a kick in the ass, obviously. I'm just scared.”

“I am too. But I think this vulnerability will be good for us. I really do.” He reached over and squeezed my thigh. “Look out, here's our exit!” He crossed one lane, and then two, and then we were officially off the highway and that much closer to our new home. A home that claimed more than one and a half rooms—that had a yard, even. I hadn't lived in a home with a yard in eighteen years.

Strip malls, fast-food joints, farm stands, screened porches,
and sprinklers passed us by in the summer twilight. I took a deep breath in, relishing the smell of grass clippings, barbecue, and heat. In the city, summer smelled like burned asphalt, rotting trash, and body odor. This was nicer. Much nicer.

“I'll take you by the school tomorrow,” said Josh. “It's such a gorgeous campus. Still bummed about the rents down there, but what could we do?” Homes closer to campus ran for a much steeper rent than those farther out, so Josh had picked accordingly.

I nodded absently as the strip malls disappeared and the scenery turned to grass and trees exclusively. A little country living would be good for me. Maybe I would start an organic baby food business from the garden I would create—like Diane Keaton in
Baby Boom
minus the planting, gardening, or pureeing. Okay, never mind.

“Just how far out from campus are we?” I asked.

“It's not so far. Once we have the car we won't even notice.” He had purchased a used car from a fellow faculty member. He was so excited about it—finally, we wouldn't have to schlep our groceries, dry cleaning, and laundry— but whenever he spoke about it I felt like I was listening to Charlie Brown's teacher.
Wah wah wah wahhhh, transmission, wah wah wahhhh, gas mileage.

The last time I had been behind the wheel, I was eighteen. I'd never had a car in high school, relying instead on the kindness (and sometimes resentment) of my friends, and when we went home now to visit my mother or Josh's par
ents, they drove everywhere. I used my license for identification purposes only. Driving was as foreign a concept to me as those people who claimed they “forgot” to eat. My brain could not compute.

Once Josh had signed on for the job and our move was imminent, I had told him repeatedly that I was apprehensive about driving, but he always brushed me off.
You're better than you think,
he would say.
You just need some practice.
I would nod absently in response, hoping he was right. I had never gotten over my first and last interstate experience, with my mother frozen in fear by my side. “YOU HAVE TO LOOOOK!!!!!!” she had screamed as a monstrous tractor trailer veered out of the way of my reckless merge.

As more greenery passed us by and Josh didn't appear to be slowing down in any way, shape, or form, my anxiety mounted. Walking to civilization and any type of gainful employment did not appear to be an option. And forget about grocery shopping. The wheels of our trusty granny cart—our old neighborhood's version of a Lamborghini— were not cut out for off-roading. Perhaps I could take up gardening after all. It could sustain us completely. Vegans in Virginia. Better yet, I would write a cookbook:
The Virginian Vegans.
I envisioned photo spread after photo spread of butter beans and lettuce wraps, Josh and I laughing uproariously over two jars of sweet tea on our front porch. Finally, Josh turned off the road.

“The house is fantastic,” he said, “which makes up for the
fact that we're a little farther out than I'd like to be.”
A little farther out?
“Sar, we have brand-new bathroom fixtures.”

“No!”

“I waited to tell you.” I had been dreaming about a bath-room that had been built post-1965 for what felt like my entire adult life. A faucet that didn't leak; floor tiles that did not wear the grime of fifty years of bare feet; an actual bath-tub as opposed to a stall shower that could only be shaved in if the water was turned off—these were the things I pined for during my New York apartment-dwelling existence. Not to mention, a bathroom free of wildlife.

“Remember the pigeons?” I asked.

He laughed. “The image of you standing over me, white faced and shaking with a shampoo bottle in your hand, will stay with me forever.”

Before moving in with Josh, I had lived in my own studio apartment in the East Village. Grimy and tiny, it had reeked of chicken and broccoli from the Chinese restaurant next door, but it had been mine. For that reason alone, I had done my best to turn a blind eye to its faults and probable health code violations, the worst of which was the presence of two pigeons in my shower one morning.

They had squeezed through the partially open window and were happily crapping down the side of the wall when my bleary-eyed self had discovered them. Not knowing what to do, I had grabbed the shampoo bottle and waved it in the air like a maniac, which had no effect on the birds, who re
garded me with Zen-like stares. I had run to the bed, where Josh slept like a baby, and hovered over him, shaking, until he opened his eyes shortly thereafter. Ever my hero, he had cranked open the window and basically shoved them out as I cowered behind the commode.

“I still worry that I contracted something from those beasts,” he admitted now. I reached over and massaged his neck.

“No pigeons in Farmwood, I bet.”

“Nope.”

At the end of a street of well-spaced-out homes with carefully manicured yards, there was our house. It was gray stucco with white shutters, and its airy front porch claimed a cozy wooden swing hanging from the rafters. The sweet smell of honeysuckle perfumed the pink air.

“I can't believe this is home,” I whispered, taking Josh's hand. “It's so pretty.”

“I know, right? It's a real house. Why are we whispering?”

“I don't know.” I laughed as a firefly flitted by the wind-shield. “Let's go in.”

 

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