Love and Other Natural Disasters (16 page)

"Well, don't you look
relaxed," she said, smiling.

"I am. I feel like
Gumby."

She laughed. "I don't know if
I mentioned this, but it's women's day at the baths. Men and women alternate
days. I think one of the days is coed."

"You didn't mention it, but
that's good news."

"Oh, come on. You have to get
back out there. Mingle a little."

"I'll mingle with my clothes on,
thank you." I was nowhere near ready to do that, either. I hoped she'd
drop the subject.

"Ready to go in?" she
asked.

I nodded, and we entered the
communal baths. The term conjured images of a dank, subterranean space
populated by obese Eastern European women with garlic emanating from their
pores. Instead, we found ourselves in an airy room with slate blue walls and a
tiled floor the color of sand, recessed lighting, and a few ornamental Japanese
lanterns. There were two large round pools, one hot and one cold. Along the
sides of the room were showers (we'd been asked to shower before entering the
pools), a sauna, and a steam room. There were sleek deck chairs made of bamboo
next to the pool, and a woman was lying naked on one of them, eyes closed, her
body taut and glistening. I'd never had muscle tone like that, even before the
children. I wondered if that was how Laney looked. Even though Jon had never
done anything with her, he probably fantasized about her a million times. He
could have been fantasizing about her when...

"I'm taking a shower," I
said abruptly, and as I washed, I tried my best to shake myself free of Laney
and Jon. I was in there a long time.

Afterward, Lil and I went to the
sauna. We could hear women's voices as we pushed open the door and were
rewarded with the robust smell of cedar.

"... he actually gave me a
copy of that book, He's Just Not
That into You.
I mean, instead of
telling me he's just not that into me," said one naked woman to her
friend. I couldn't help casting a furtive glance to see what he wasn't that
into. She looked better than I did, but not by much. Her breasts were high and
firm, but overlooked a somewhat paunchy midsection. Her face was understandably
flushed, and her hair hung dark and limp to her shoulders. "Hi," she
said to us, with a somewhat embarrassed laugh.

"Hi," Lil and I said.
"I hope you weren't that into him," she added. It was the kind of
remark I would never make to a stranger, but somehow, with Lil, it always came
off well. She butted into people's conversations, and they liked her for it.

Case in point, the woman laughed.
"Three dates."

"Three dates and he's buying
you literature? See, you must be hot shit." Lil gave one of her engaging
smiles, and both strangers laughed with her.

We all settled into companionable
silence, and when the women got up to leave, covering themselves with the
towels they'd been sitting on, they said good-bye to both of us, but mostly to
Lil. "Good things are coming your way," Lil said by way of farewell.
"Really, I'm very intuitive."

The stringy-haired woman said
thanks, and they shut the door softly behind them. "So you're a psychic
now," I teased.

Lil shrugged, her eyes closed.
"You don't have to be Miss Cleo to see that after that guy, there's
nowhere to go but up."

"At least he was honest."

"Yeah, an honest coward."

"I guess I mean, she's better
off knowing sooner than later."

"Let me take a wild guess
here, and say that you're really talking about Jon. The whole
if-I'd-known-then-what-I-know-now game." She made eye contact, albeit
sleepily.

"It's hard to play that game
once you have kids. I mean, you can't truly regret the relationship that gave
you your kids."

"Sure you can. I do." She
shifted her position, and I looked away, but not before I noticed she was
completely shorn down below. Utterly
bushless
. She'd
had a child, and now she was a child again herself, in a manner of speaking.
The result was
shudderingly
graphic.

"You do? You regret
Patrick?"

"When I bother to. It's not
the same as regretting your kids. Separate Jon from your kids and I promise
you, you'll sleep better." She did a full-body yawn, without a trace of
selfconsciousness. "I'm ready for the pools. How about you?"

After the spa, Lil and I had a late
lunch at one of my favorite restaurants in the city, a great little bistro with
buttery walls and mahogany accents. I had wine with my
cassoulet
,
and wondered if I'd be struck down for such decadence, for drinking in the
middle of the day, for this glow that had nothing to do with motherhood or men.
I loved that Lil thought guilt was a useless emotion that she refused to
indulge. The implicit permission to be just me was the best part of being with
her.

But my mood changed rapidly during
our car ride back to the suburbs. I felt like stamping my feet and shouting,
"But I don't want to!" I didn't want to return to the land of
cleanliness and thirty-year-old architecture, where you drove everywhere and
pretended you could control everything. As we passed through downtown, I eyed
the crowds of people who looked like they were leading a thousand different
kinds of lives; I didn't want to return to where there was only one. On my
block, everyone had children, and conversations about children.

I missed living among artists and
students and childless couples and lesbians. I missed all the paper: flyers
stapled to telephone poles, the bulletin board at the Laundromat, even litter
in the streets. I missed the detritus of real life, the reminder that life is
messy and exciting.

I knew I was romanticizing it. I
knew why Jon and I had made the choice we'd made. But I couldn't feel it just
then. All I could feel was that I was stuck in that house, and Jon was going
back to the city. Jon would be the one to live in its vibrancy.

I found myself imagining his
apartment in bitter detail. It would probably be in the
Haight
or the Mission or maybe in North Beach. It would be small, a studio, but it
would have an eat-in kitchen. He would rent it furnished, so it would be
nondescript at the beginning: a pullout couch, maybe in imitation leather, a
kitchen table, an end table. But then he'd give it character. He'd go into the
neighborhood shops every few days and find little gems, like etchings or lamps
or a funky cabinet to hold the wine collection he'd start. He'd buy lots of
glass because he wouldn't have to worry about fingerprints or kids knocking
things over. There would be nothing from
Ikea
. He'd
have a favorite cafe. He'd walk everywhere. He'd meet his neighbors. Maybe he'd
start dating one of them. Or maybe Laney would fly out, and this time, they'd
do what they'd both wanted to do the first time around.

"Hey," Lil said.
"What's eating you?"

"I just miss the city."

"That's your nostalgia
face?" she asked, not buying it.

"I was thinking about Jon
renting an apartment in the city."

She nodded. "Enough
said."

As we pulled up to my house, I
said, "I just wish I could hold on to a good mood longer."

"But it was fun while it
lasted, right?"

I reached over and hugged her.
"It was," I said, squeezing. "Thanks for everything."

"No problem. Now get in there
and greet your monster-in-law."

I was laughing as I got out of the
car, though there was nothing funny about seeing Sylvia. We'd had little
contact over the past months, as Jon had been in charge of her time with the
grandkids. My antipathy toward her had dimmed a bit because she'd done
something completely unexpected: she'd shut up. No visits, calls, or even
letters to tell me that I was ruining my family—her family—and when I called
her the other day to suggest she watch Olivia during my day out, she didn't
make a single judgmental statement. On the contrary, she seemed appreciative
that I was giving her the opportunity for extra time with the grandkids. That
morning, when she showed up at the house, she was more than civil, verging on pleasant.

Still, I was wary as I opened the
front door. I followed the sound of Jacob's voice and the smell of unfamiliar
cooking into the kitchen, telling myself to breathe, that she was on my turf.

You wouldn't know it, though, from
the way she'd taken over the kitchen. She was standing at the range, spatula in
hand, as Jacob sat at the kitchen table, action figures in front of him. Olivia
was lying in her Moses basket on the chair next to Jacob, sleeping soundly.

"Mommy!" Jacob said,
noticing me. He clambered down from his chair, and I was relieved that he
seemed happy to see me. I hugged him extra long. Then I kissed the top of my
fingers and placed them lightly on Olivia's head, wanting to have some contact
with her, but not wanting to wake her up.

"Hello, Eve," Sylvia
said, shooting a quick glance in my direction before opening the oven and
peering inside. Then she added brightly, "We're having latkes. And
kugel
for dessert."

Give her an inch, she moves into
your kitchen and makes a traditional Chanukah dinner. "We might be all out
of ketchup," I said.

"Latkes are best with sour
cream and applesauce. I brought some." Sylvia beamed at Jacob. "How
was your day, Eve? Jacob was just telling me about his."

"It was good."

"I've never been to a spa
myself." Sylvia flipped the latkes carefully but expertly. "I thought
we'd all have dinner together." She looked me full in the face with
nervous expectation, and I suddenly got it. With Jon leaving the house, his
position uncertain, hers was even more precarious. Maybe she thought I'd try to
keep her from her grandchildren if she didn't turn us into family quickly. Ten
years of being with her son, and she'd never wanted to be my family.

I didn't know I could still be hurt
by Sylvia after all this time. "I'm not hungry," I said, getting to
my feet before she could see the tears in my eyes. "Enjoy your
dinner."

Once behind my closed bedroom door,
I curled up in my bed, trying to block out the smell of the latkes. The phone
rang, but I didn't answer it. After four rings, Tamara's excited voice filled
the room.

"Eve, Eve, are you there? Oh,
I was hoping you'd be there. I have some news. Some fantastic news. I'm getting
married! Clayton did the greatest proposal. He got my last-period class in on
it. All the girls were swooning. Call me as soon as you get this, I want to
tell you all about it. Well, maybe not tonight, actually. We're going out to
dinner to celebrate, but I had to call you first. It's just, like, holy shit!
Now I have to plan a wedding. What do I know about planning a wedding? Okay,
I'll stop going on now. Call me!"

It wasn't so long ago that nothing
could have kept me from picking up the phone. It wasn't so long ago that Tamara
and I were like sisters, and that I had every reason to believe in marriage.

I didn't feel up to calling Tamara
back, but I dove for the phone when I heard Charlie's voice through the
machine. We'd barely said our hellos before I was blurting, "Jon and I are
officially separated."

In the pause, I could picture
Charlie's face, the different expressions passing over it before he settled on
a response. "Is that good?" he finally asked.

"It doesn't feel good, but I
think it's good."

"Huh. I never see things like
that."

"I'm lonely, Charlie. You have
no idea how bad it is."

"You miss Jon?"

"I don't miss how we are
together now."

"But you miss him."

"I've had him with me for a
long time."

"Half your life," Charlie
said.

I couldn't help but laugh.
"Where'd you learn to do math?"

"I never did cotton to your
book
learnin
'," he said, in a put-on hick accent.

"So what about you? Have you
gotten a job yet?"

"These things take time. You
can't rush perfection."

"Oh, you've got big plans,
have you?"

"I've decided not to make a
move until I know it's the right one."

"So you're standing
still," I said.

"Pretty much."

Then it came to me. "Since you
were so good at the avuncular thing last time you were here, what do you think
about doing it full-time? Just for a little while," I added quickly.
"I'm headed back to work, and I looked at a few day cares, but none of
them felt quite right, and it'd be so much better for Liv to be at home, with
family." I was thinking of Jacob, too, how much he loved Charlie and how
good it would be for him to have a man around more of the time.

"You want me to be your
nanny?"

"I prefer the term 'uncle.'
Listen," I said, warming to my own idea, "it'd be so good for me to
have the company, and for Jacob, too. This is a better place than Mom's to
figure out your next step, and just think of all the women who'd be attracted
to a sensitive uncle like you."