Once More with Feeling (10 page)

Several other heads in the group were bobbing up and down. The level of tension was dissipating rapidly.

“When we find that person to love,” Estelle went on, “all the parts of us that are on hold right now will reawaken. Positive feelings, sexual feelings ...”

Laura was shocked at how quickly her use of the “s” word shot the tension level right back up again.

“In the meantime it’s important for us all to think of ourselves as loving, caring beings. Sexual beings, as well. It’s important for everyone in the room to know how to pleasure themselves.”

Laura’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates.

“Women, especially, need to learn how to pleasure themselves. Men, too. It’s an important part of being human, especially now, when we’re all hurting so much. I know I pleasure myself regularly, and I’d like to impress upon everyone here how important a part of the human experience it is.”

It took everything Laura had to raise her eyes up off the floor. Sneaking a surreptitious glance around the circle, she saw that she was not the only one who’d spontaneously developed an all-absorbing interest in footwear. No one moved. Even Tom’s fist was frozen in midair.

For once, Merry was at a loss for words, even those memorized off bumper stickers. “Uh, thank you, Estelle. Does anyone else have something to, uh, share?”

If the awkward silence at the beginning of the session had been cavernous, the one that had now fallen over the room was Grand Canyonesque. Much to her own amazement, Laura found herself slowly raising her arm into the air.

Perhaps it had been Estelle’s bravery, her willingness to share such a personal side of herself—even though she would no doubt be getting phone calls from every male in the room—but Laura suddenly wanted desperately to share something she’d been holding back.

“Another new person,” Merry said, smiling uncertainly. “Do you, uh, also have something you’d like to share with the rest of us?”

Laura nodded. Her heart was pounding so loud she was certain all the others could hear it, especially since the room was still bathed in shocked silence.

“You’re Laura, right?”

“That’s right. There’s something that’s been bothering me, but I’m hoping that talking about it might help.” She drew in her breath, preparing to bare her deepest, darkest, ugliest secrets. “Every night I lie in bed, thinking up awful things to do to my husband.” Laura’s voice trembled. She kept her gaze fixed on the metal feet of Arnie’s chair, not able to look any of the others in the eye. “I’ve thought of putting dishwashing soap in his morning coffee. Adding castor oil to the maple syrup he puts on his pancakes. I’ve—I’ve even fantasized about putting sugar in his gas tank.”

A heavy silence had fallen over the room. They must think I’m evil, Laura was thinking. Slowly, fearfully, she raised her eyes, expecting to see shock, disapproval, even disgust, in the faces of her confessors.

Instead, she saw they were laughing.
Laughing.
Not at her, either. They were laughing with her.

“Those are great ideas!” cried Arnie.

“We’ll have to add them to our list!” said Dawn, the heavy gold chains draped across her massive chest glinting in the fluorescent light as they moved up and down in time with her loud guffaws.

Laura eyed them with astonishment. What surprised her even more than their reaction, though, was her own. What a relief it was to be spilling her guts and finding out she wasn’t alone. Almost as if she were experiencing a physical sensation, she could feel her anger slipping away. For the first time in weeks she truly believed that at some point she would actually begin to feel better.

Laura grinned at the others, thinking, And it’s
okay
to feel anger.

Chapter Six

Laura closed the door
of the bedroom firmly, steeling herself for one more long night, holed up in her room ... alone. It was Halloween, and Evan, disguised as a pirate who shopped at The Gap, had already been out for hours, prowling the streets in search of tiny Milky Ways and Snickers bars. Glancing out the window, she saw that her quiet residential street was alive with ghosts, goblins, and ghouls, trick-or-treat bags clutched tightly in their greedy little hands.

Zigzagging across the street was a little girl, ten or twelve, dressed like a hippie in a crocheted vest, bell-bottoms, and love beads. It depressed Laura to think that what had been her favorite outfit back in high school was now passing for a costume. Outside her front gate were three older boys dressed like the villains from her books, Johnny Jaguar and Lenny Leopard, complete with black leather jackets, combat boots, and bracelets with metal studs. Laura hoped they were only dressed that way because of the holiday.

As for herself, she was determined to get some work done. But when she sat down at her word processor—the blinking cursor commanding, “Create! Create!”—she couldn’t help going off into her own world, the one in which she, not a giraffe, was the main character.

There was one important lesson she’d learned from skimming all those magazine articles while standing in line at the supermarket. And that was that it took two to tango.

Here I am, blaming Roger for the failure of our marriage, she thought, staring at the blank screen. But what about me? What was my role?

Looking back, replaying scenes she’d much rather have erased from the hard drive of her mind, Laura was forced to face the fact that, in her marriage, she’d become someone she didn’t like very much. She’d taken on the role of victim, a person no longer in control of her own life. And it had changed her.

Her desperation had been reflected in the sound of her voice. Underlying her pleas to be heard was a current of frustration and anger, giving it a harshness that, for some reason, always made her think of the farmer’s wife as she ran after the three blind mice, brandishing her famous carving knife.

Her resentment was apparent in her actions as well. The way her husband kept sending out messages that said she simply didn’t count, year after year after year, was bound to affect her. Attempting to live in a situation like that was comparable to stuffing more and more garbage into a brown paper bag. Sooner or later the seams were bound to burst, leaving you with a monumental pile of coffee grounds and banana peels all over your shoes.

The way in which her own peels and grounds had periodically come rushing at her without any warning frightened her. Laura could feel her checks burning, red with shame, as, sitting alone in her bedroom, she remembered one particular instance, a year and a half earlier. Roger was still working for the water-filter company, a job that paid an hourly wage in addition to commissions. It was late at night, and the two of them lay in bed without touching, having tacitly agreed to designate the center crease in the sheet a demilitarized zone.

The topic, as was so often the case, was money—the fact that there wasn’t enough of it. Laura was attempting to conduct a brainstorming session with Roger. This was much more than an intellectual exercise. April fifteenth was only a few weeks away. Not only was it time to pay taxes; it was also the season for stashing away a few thousand dollars in the form of IRAs, anticipating the time when both Laura and Gertrude Giraffe would be ready to retire.

As usual, she had earned most of the money that kept the Briggs-Walsh household running. But she was careful not to dwell on that point as they lay side by side in the dark. Long before, she’d learned that doing so served no purpose except to make further discussion impossible.

“I know one thing I could do.” Roger was surprisingly forthcoming. His usual response in this type of discussion was defensiveness. Laura’s ears perked up at the optimism she heard in his voice. “I could show up at work an hour earlier. Instead of leaving at nine, I could leave at eight. If I put in an extra hour every day, that would add up to ... let’s see.”

Maybe there really is a way out of the financial mess we’re in, thought Laura. Maybe Roger and I really can work it out ... together.

To celebrate, they’d made love. She’d felt much freer than usual, doing things with her fingers and lips and tongue she’d never dreamed she was capable of. It was one of the few occasions when Laura was able to forget that someone was keeping score.

The next morning, she was humming as she trotted downstairs at ten minutes to eight. Their night of passion was only partly responsible. Even more was the fact that, for once, she and Roger had seen eye to eye. They had confronted a problem and worked out a solution. They were moving toward something better ...
together.

She found him sitting at the kitchen table in his bathrobe, unshowered and unshaven, sipping coffee and reading Evan’s
Kid City
magazine.

“Roger!” she cried. “It’s ten to eight!”

Lazily he glanced at the clock. “Yeah ... so?”

“I thought we’d decided you were going to start leaving for work earlier.”

He cast her an odd look. “I didn’t mean
today!”

The fury that rose up inside her was instantaneous and uncontrollable. It was only partially directed at him. She was angry at herself for allowing herself to be duped again. For believing in Roger ... only to be proven a fool. For being naive enough to believe they’d actually made a step forward, when in reality they were still knee-deep in quicksand.

Before she even had a chance to contemplate what she was going to do, she grabbed the magazine out of his hands and hurled it through the kitchen doorway. It landed in front of Evan, sitting cross-legged on the living-room floor, stuffing fistfuls of Cheerios into his mouth as he built a Lego missile launcher.

Evan let out a shriek, sending a shower of Cheerios all over the room. Laura barely noticed. She was too busy screaming at Roger. And then her anger completely took over. She grabbed him by the lapels of his bathrobe and shook him, yelling something she could no longer remember.

Oddly enough, she remembered perfectly well what she’d been thinking.
Listen to me!
her heart cried out to him, aching to be heard.
Hear me! For once, make me feel that what I think, what I want, matters!

The encounter left her shaken. Has it really come to this? she wondered, distraught as she picked Cheerios out from between the cushions of the couch after Roger and Evan had left the house. Have I actually resorted to violence—me, a woman who routinely lures renegade spiders onto an index card so I can return them to the great outdoors rather than squishing them with a rolled-up newspaper?

Sitting at her word processor, aware that a full fifteen minutes had passed and not a single word had appeared on the screen, Laura came to the conclusion that while it did indeed take two to tango, someone had to lead.

* * * *

The sound of the doorbell prompted Laura to peek out the window. Down below, Swamp Thing and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle were shuffling impatiently on her front steps. Their beaming mother stood at the gate. Laura waited to hear the heavy tread of Roger’s footsteps hurrying across the living room. Instead, she heard the doorbell once again—this time two short, irritated blasts. The amphibians were getting restless.

Where’s Roger? she wondered. As far as she was concerned, she’d done her share. She’d bought the candy, put it in a big bowl near the front door, and turned on both the porch light and the string of plastic blinking pumpkins to let seekers of sugar know this household was ghoul-friendly. Now it was his turn.

When the doorbell rang half a dozen more times in quick, annoying succession, Laura tore down the stairs.

She flung open the front door just in time. The disappointed trick-or-treaters were only too happy to make a quick comeback, even though they openly registered their disapproval of candy bars that contained nuts. Laura marched right back into the house, fury rising inside.

“Roger? Roger, where are you?”

She found him in the kitchen, sipping a cup of decaf and perusing the newspaper.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

His eyes never left the sports page. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Didn’t you hear the doorbell?”

“Of course.” When he finally glanced up at her, his look was so hostile she almost wished he hadn’t.

“It
is
Halloween.”

Roger stared at her blankly. “So?”

“So?
So?
So answer the door, for heaven’s sake! You
are
still living here, after all! Drop a few Snickers bars into some poor little kid’s trick-or-treat bag—”

He lowered his newspaper onto the kitchen table. “Do you honestly expect me to lift a finger to help you?”

She stared at him, taking a few seconds to regain her composure. “Good point. Why should things be any different now?”

“Oh, sure. I never did a thing around here, right?”

“Something like that. Even when you were home— which was rare, since you always seemed to have someplace more important to go—you were so turned off to what was going on around you that you wouldn’t even have noticed if ... if Elvis was living in our basement. You refused to have the slightest bit of involvement with me or Evan—”

“And why do you think I turned off to you? Whose fault was that?”

“Maybe your defenses were just too strong for you ever to open up to anybody.”

“Me? What about you?”

“What
about
me?”

“You certainly never opened up to me sexually.”

It took Laura a few seconds to recover from that one. “How could I,” she said evenly, “when you were always so critical of me? You didn’t like my body, you were always telling me I was fat, that I could never please you—

“Well, let me tell you something. You know all those nights I told you I was going downstairs to watch
Star Trek
1
?
That’s not all I was doing, lying there alone on the couch in the dark!”

Slowly the meaning of his words sank in.

“It’s just as well,” she shot back. “At least on those nights, I didn’t have to bother having to fake an orgasm!”

Bull’s-eye. Roger’s shock registered openly on his face. “You’ve been faking orgasms?”