Diary of an Alcoholic Housewife (18 page)

I scanned my dangerous-behavior list. There was the time I lit my hair on fire after dragging my long, permed ’80s locks through a candle I was using as a cigarette lighter during an office Christmas party. I showed up at the newspaper I was working at the next day nursing a wicked hangover. Co-workers who’d arrived at the party after I’d left—my friend, Petra, had driven me to her house to sleep it off after she’d clapped her hands to my head and put out my hair—were disappointed that I wasn’t bald and scarred. Petra had gotten to me quick, and I looked like I did most mornings.

Further down the list were the numerous cars I’d sideswiped while I was drunk, the strange men I’d met in bars and left with to do drugs (thank God I was never raped), and the time my boyfriend, Jean-Pierre, and I were tripping on mushrooms and having sex while speeding down Lake Shore Drive.

“What problems have you tried to fix with drugs?” the questionnaire asked. I wrote: Feeling edgy. Feeling overwhelmed. Feeling angry. Feeling sad. Feeling inadequate.

Sara nodded as we went over my questionnaire. “Okay, Step Two: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity,” she said. “A lot of people skim right over the ‘can restore us to sanity’ part. Focus on that before you move onto Step Three.”

I wasn’t insane. I didn’t need to be restored to sanity. But as I looked over my questionnaire, it appeared I was insane.

“Max told me drinking wasn’t a problem of mine,” I told Sara.

“Oh sure,” Sara laughed. “Max knows best.”

“Max made another drinking comment just this morning,” I continued. “We were talking about my grandmother being ninety-four when she died, and Max said, ‘The oldest person living is 122, and she starts every day with a shot of whiskey in her tea. I guess her alcoholic thing is working for her.’”

Sara snorted.

“Hey,” I said, changing the subject. “I think I’ve gotten Kelly out of my head. I think I’m done. Sorry for boring you with her for so long.”

“It wasn’t boring,” Sara said. “Having friend issues is totally normal for people who have friends left when they get sober. You need to talk about it to let it go. I didn’t have any friends left when I got sober. It had gotten embarrassing.”

Max slid open the sliding glass door and walked out onto the deck where Sara and I were sitting. He handed me the phone. “It’s Kelly,” he said. I felt my face flush.

“Hi,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Hey,” she said. “Are we still on for lunch today?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Twelve thirty?”

“Yep.”

“Okay, see ya then.”

“See ya.”

I hung up and put the phone on the table. “That was Kelly,” I said sheepishly. “Max is going over there to play later.”

Sara nodded. I couldn’t read her therapist face.

Ryan and Seth were running around outside Kelly’s house when we got there. Ryan had slept at Seth’s the night before, and Kelly had invited Seth over to play.

“I made shrimp rolls,” Kelly said, walking me out to her patio. The boys ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and chicken nuggets at one end of the patio while Kelly and I ate shrimp rolls.

“Liv and Reed were up at our beach house,” Kelly mentioned. “Liv was so overly cautious and paranoid about the kids having fun.”

“Oh?” I said. Liv had recently told me that Kelly and Joel were letting the kids light fires and shoot BB guns unsupervised until she and Reed put a stop to it.

“Remember when Max put on his ‘bulletproof’ vest and had Ryan shoot him with his BB gun?” Kelly asked with a laugh. “I told Liv, ‘If you’re going to have issues with Seth shooting BB guns, you better watch out when Seth goes up to Wisconsin this summer with Max.’”

“What?” I said, not believing my ears. “Ryan never shot at Max. Do you think I would let your kid use mine as a target? I was sitting in the backyard with Max and Ryan the whole time they were shooting.”

“Remember? He had on his SWAT team vest and …” Kelly started.

“And his SWAT helmet and goggles,” I finished. “Max put them on because of ricocheting BBs. He and your son were shooting at Hot Wheels cars they’d lined up on the roof of the plastic Little Tikes car Max used to drive around the yard when he was a toddler. The BBs were ricocheting off of the plastic car and a couple hit him, so Max put on his SWAT gear.”

“Well, Ryan said he was shooting at Max.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

Kelly, a notorious story embellisher, stared off into space, apparently trying to sift fact from fiction.

“Mom, will you get Van out of here?” Max shouted. “I want to play with my friends, not him.”

“Yeah, we’re leaving,” I shouted back and carried my plate and glass to the kitchen. I grabbed Van and Kelly walked us back to the car.

“You know,” Kelly began, “I’m spending way too much time with peripheral people—my kids’ friends’ mothers. I hardly get to see my real friends anymore. I was just asking Joel, ‘What is it? Everyone from playgroup goes out to lunch, breakfast, to the movies, but no one calls me. It’s like they don’t like me.’ The only time I see anyone from the old playgroup is at book club—and at the last book club Tina was going on and on about her kids and it was driving me nuts. And Rosy, I felt like I was going to crawl out of my skin sitting next to her.”

“Really?” I said, remembering how chummy Kelly and Rosy were and how agitated I was sitting next to Kelly.

Kelly nodded and grimaced. “It’s like Rosy’s mad at me but won’t tell me why. She’s a grudge-holder. So whatever it is she’s mad about she’s not going to let it go.”

“Why don’t you ask her what’s bothering her?” I asked, feeling like I was in a Dali painting.

“No,” Kelly said. “I asked her one time and she said, ‘You just irritate me. It’s just you. It’s just you being you.’”

I wanted to kiss Rosy.

“I will never forget that,” Kelly said, tearing up. “I can still hear it. I’ll never forget it. Another time, when Rosy and I were at my beach house for the weekend, she commented on how quiet it was and I told her how nice it was to spend time up there by myself. She told me, ‘Maybe you should spend more time by yourself and reevaluate your life and your priorities.’”

“Wow,” I said, admiring Rosy.

“You know what it is?” Kelly asked. “She treats me like shit, like her family. She treats her father like shit, her mother like shit, her sister like shit, and I got too close. You know what else? Rosy will ask me, ‘Have you seen Fiona lately? No? I just saw her the other day. How about Karen? No? It was so great getting together with her for lunch. When’s the last time you talked to Brenda? I just talked to her yesterday.’ She tries to hurt my feelings, rub it in.”

“Really,” I said, wishing I had the guts to say, “Maybe the flaws you see in Rosy are your own.”

Kelly shook her head and wiped her eyes. “I think about this stuff all the time and it’s making me sick,” she said.

“I know what that’s like,” I said.

“Mom!” Van called from the car seat where I’d buckled him in.

“I gotta go,” I said, nodding toward Van. “Hang in there Kelly, and thanks for lunch.”

I don’t know how many times I’d heard someone in a meeting say, “It’s not about you,” and it finally clicked. The crap with Kelly wasn’t about me, it was about Kelly.

Van and I got home and the phone rang. It was Linda, the assistant director of Van’s preschool. She wants me to write down my field trip experience and send it to the director. Linda confided that the preschool wants Isabel and Casey gone, and a letter from me would help. I told Linda I’d write the letter and hung up, but I have mixed feelings. I don’t want to be the cause of Isabel and Casey losing their jobs, however much I think they deserve it.

[Saturday, June 21]

I played tennis with Eve this morning. I’d been looking forward to getting serve pointers from her, but Eve was horrible. She couldn’t return a ball to save her life. She also wanted to sit down after every few strokes and drink iced tea and smoke.

While we were on one of our many tea breaks, Eve told me she was an art major, a nurse, a pharmaceutical rep, and an interior designer. “Mel and I are closing on a lake house in Antioch,” she said. “You want to drive out and see it?”

“I should go home,” I told her. “Charlie wants to go bike riding at one thirty. I need to watch the kids.”

“Oh, we’ll be back in time,” she said. “I’ve got to show it to you. It’s a cute little place on the lake. Come on. It’s a beautiful day. We’ll get a tan while we’re driving.”

“If you’re sure we’ll be back by one thirty.”

Eve and I hopped into her yellow convertible. I figured her for a fast driver, but Eve was one of the slowest drivers I’ve ever had the displeasure to ride with. Cars honked at us every few minutes but Eve seemed oblivious.

“Let’s stop at Darcy’s,” Eve suggested. Moments later, we pulled into Darcy’s driveway. We were at Darcy’s for more than an hour.

“I’ve got to be home at one thirty,” I reminded Eve.

“Oh, then we should go,” Eve said.

We got on the road and after a long slow drive, parked behind a house. We walked inside. The house needed a lot of work and the owner was inside painting.

“I’m having second thoughts about renting it,” he told Eve. “My family and I enjoy it too much on the weekends.” I looked out the front window at the lake and private pier.

Eve laughed. “I’m going to show my friend around.”

Eve and I walked out on the pier. “I thought you said you were buying the place,” I said.

“Whatever gave you that idea?”

“You said you and Mel were closing on it.”

“I never said that.”

I stared at her but didn’t press it. I looked at my watch. “It’s two o’clock, Eve. I wanted to be home at one thirty. I need to go.”

I had already called Charlie and given him a heads-up. When Eve finally dropped me off, it was three o’clock. As I got out of the car, I told Eve, “Charlie’s going to be pissed.”

“He’ll get over it,” she said and took off with a wave of her hand.

[Sunday, June 22]

Charlie, Max, and I went fishing on my father’s boat. I grabbed my father and hugged him the second I boarded. Two days ago, a radiologist told my dad, in a roundabout way, that he had terminal cancer. My dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer early this spring and had surgery to remove his prostate. There was evidence he still had cancer because he still had a PSA count and he began radiation, but two days ago, his PSA count was higher than ever and his radiologist told him, “I’m sorry, there’s nothing more I can do for you.”

The bright sun glinted off the water as my dad drove his Sea Ray forty miles north of Chicago to his favorite perch fishing spot. He dropped anchor and went below. He emerged with a Bloody Mary in his hand.

“Mom said your PSA count is up,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, with a half laugh. “The radiologist looked at me and said, ‘There’s nothing more we can do.’”

“What does that mean?”

“Means I’m a dead duck.”

“There’s gotta be something else. There are new drugs, new treatments. Don’t jump to any conclusions just yet. Wait until you talk to your oncologist. I’ll go to your next appointment with you. When is it?”

“The thirtieth.”

“You’re gonna be okay,” I said, feeling sick to my stomach.

My dad nodded.

We didn’t talk about cancer the rest of the day. We got down to fishing and caught thirty-eight fish. Charlie and Max and I got ready to leave, and my father hugged me extra tight and kissed my cheek. I hugged him tight and kissed him back.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you, too.”

I looked at my dad and there were tears in his eyes. “I want to see my grandkids grow up,” he said.

“Yeah, me too.”

[Monday, June 23]

Audrey is back in town. She and I were supposed to go out and do something with our kids today, but instead, Audrey called and suggested coming over to my house for a barbecue.

“Why don’t we go out for dinner at a kosher restaurant?” I suggested. “I’ll probably use
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ingredients you and your boys can’t eat. Besides, you can’t eat anything cooked on my grill.”

“Some friends gave Nehemiah and me a portable grill for our wedding,” Audrey said. “I’ll bring it over and pick up kosher meat.”

“Are you going to bring all the food?” I asked. “Last time you wouldn’t eat my salad because the dressing had vinegar in it and the vinegar had to be kosher. Your kids couldn’t drink my juice because it contained grape juice and grape juice has to be kosher. And you wouldn’t eat my bread because it had honey in it and honey needs to be kosher.”

“Well, you know all that stuff now,” Audrey said. “You know what to avoid. Make a salad and corn on the cob. Make sure you get dressing and margarine that has these kosher symbols (she listed several). Make sure the labels don’t say dairy. If the label says ‘de’ that’s okay, it just means the plant produces dairy products but there’s no dairy in it. And get the kids some popsicles and look for kosher symbols.”

Audrey arrived at six thirty with her boys and an unassembled grill still in the box. I helped Audrey assemble her grill and got the kids drinks while keeping an eye on Van and boiling noodles I’d toss with margarine. Audrey had thrown packages of strip steak and chicken into my refrigerator before we started assembling her grill. When we’d put the grill together, she began slapping raw meat all over my countertops. There was enough chicken and steak to feed twenty people. As she unwrapped each steak, she left bloody cellophane wrappers wherever they stuck. I pulled blood-dripping pieces off my sugar bowl, coffee maker, and wall, and began wiping and disinfecting all infected surfaces. Next, Audrey began scraping feathers off the two kosher chickens she’d brought. I opened my refrigerator to get my salad ingredients. There was another package of meat wrapped in a plastic shopping bag on the top shelf. Blood was dripping out of it and spattering my food below. I began cleaning the food and the refrigerator. I looked at the clock. It was seven thirty.