The Hazards of Sleeping Alone (37 page)

“You said so yourself once. Remember?”

“I do.”

“At graduation.”

“Yes.”

They are quiet for a minute, sniffling, as the cold reasserts itself.

“Are you cold?” Charlotte asks. “Want to go in?”

“In a minute,” Emily says. “I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings, Mom. Some of those things I—”

“Don't be,” Charlotte stops her. “You didn't.”

And she means it. Their conversation has left her hollow, wrung dry, but the feeling is a good one: exhausted and depleted but lighter, somehow. She looks around at the world, noting that it appears unchanged. The moon hasn't tilted, the stars haven't gone out, the house behind her is still standing. You can have an honest conversation, and the world doesn't flinch. There's something almost addictive about such honesty. To get a thing off your chest, out of yourself—it's like cleaning out the rooms of a house, paring down the old stuff to make room for the new.

Charlotte looks out at the stars, really looks at them for probably the last time before she leaves New Hampshire. Tomorrow, she'll return to the paler lights of New Jersey: the dim glow of the patio bulb at 7:00
P.M.,
the streetlamps that diffuse like ink stains into foggy nights. She looks up and feels the vastness of the universe, and the smallness of herself; but tonight, the connection feels different. The universe is no longer something to recede comfortably into, but a landscape in which she has to move forward, strike out, carve a tiny place. A line pops into her head, one Emily used to have pinned to her bulletin board in high school, spiked pink letters chopped out of a magazine:
Get A Life!
Charlotte used to think it sounded harsh, and was glad when it was eventually smothered by more relevant clippings and cartoons and corsages. Tonight, though, she is beginning to see its value.

“But how?” she hears herself ask.

“How what?”

Charlotte's voice sounds thin, faraway. “How do I get my own life?”

Emily stands. For a second Charlotte thinks she might be frustrated, heading back inside, but she drops to her knees beside her. “Just think about what you want out of life.”

The night hums around Charlotte, swelling in her ears. “What if I don't know?”

“Then you figure it out,” Emily whispers. She leans toward her mother, resting her head in the empty space between her chin and shoulder. Charlotte flinches, surprised by the contact, then cradles the back of Emily's head with one hand. She closes her eyes for a moment, breathing in her daughter, then gazes out into the night beyond her.

C
harlotte picks through the small pile of mail on her kitchen table. Electric bill. Visa offer. Coupon ValuPak. She'd asked Bea to collect the mail while she was gone, leave it hidden under one of the chair cushions on her patio. She wonders, briefly, if Bea shuffled through the envelopes, examining the return addresses, then feels a flash of guilt remembering the time Emily stole her then-anonymous upstairs neighbor's Victoria's Secret catalog.

She should feel more tired, Charlotte thinks. She left New Hampshire at dawn to avoid traffic, but the drive had been endless anyway, clogged with chugging mufflers, steaming windows, weary travelers crawling back toward home. Yet now, she feels oddly alert. Disjointed. She looks out the window at the night sky, but the stars are bleached by the safety lights perched at even intervals around the parking lot. If she closes her eyes, she hears a hum, but it's unnatural, a choir of appliances and heat. She looks at her blank, orderly kitchen and wishes there were more disarray. She's come back, physically, but feels none of the sense of home that should accompany her return. Eventhough
she went through the motions of settling in—easing out of shoes, watering plants, sorting mail—she felt herself being extra careful. She walked softly, tore envelope flaps tenderly, made sure the dried New Hampshire mud on her shoes didn't touch the foyer tiles—as if reentering the house of a stranger.

When she hears a knock, Charlotte glances at the time: 8:35
P.M.,
though it feels much later. She peeks through the window and sees Bea's profile: dressed in Friendly's uniform, face frozen in a cringe.

“I didn't wake you up, did I?” She winces as Charlotte opens the door.

“Oh, no. I was just—”

“Writing? Am I bothering you?”

“No, no, not at all.”

“You're sure?”

“No. I mean—” In fact, Charlotte is surprisingly glad to see her. She is wearing a gold nametag that says:

Friendly
You Bet We Are!
BEA

“Yes,” she says. “I'm sure.”

Bea's wince relaxes. “Okay, then. Good. I probably sound like a worrywart, but I just saw your car out there and thought I'd check in, make sure you got the mail, you got back okay …”

Charlotte has no trouble understanding this impulse. When Emily was growing up, she used to make her call home whenever she arrived anywhere: a friend's house to sleep over, Joe's house after her plane landed in Seattle, her dorm room after driving back to Wesleyan after a vacation. Charlotte would
worry until she heard Emily's voice on the line.
I'm here,
she would report.
Made it. 10-4.
On the road trip Emily took during college, Charlotte had had her checking in from phone booths all across the United States, her voice altered by any variety of poor connections: staticky, whiny, faint, underwater, on the moon.

But never had Charlotte been on the receiving end of such concern. Looking at Bea, listening to her ramble on apologetically, her disjointed feeling is suddenly lifted and replaced by a different feeling: home.

“You okay?”

“Oh yes,” Charlotte says, returning to the moment. “Fine.”

“You must be wiped out. I should let you get to bed.”

“No, that's okay. Really. In fact—I was just going to make tea.”

Sitting in Charlotte's kitchen, the two women fill each other in on their Thanksgivings. “Tell me everything,” Bea instructs, and Charlotte believes she really means it. So, as she boils water and opens up a Pepperidge Farm Sampler, she does. She tells Bea about the tofurkey, about the Hawaiian roommate, the litter box controversy. Bea snorts at the Feminist Health Collective and shakes her head at the unlocked cars. She howls at the discovery of the Love Butter (adding, “Wal seemed kind of kinky”).

By the time Charlotte runs out of stories, Bea is staring over the rim of her teacup. “Well, your weekend was a lot more exciting than mine was.” She lifts the cup and takes too big a swig, as if not used to handling drinks so delicate. “I served cranberry sauce out of a can, and Bill fell asleep in front of the TV at seven-thirty.”

“It was just the two of you?”

“Oh God, no.” Bea puts her cup down and runs two fingers
along the creases at the corners of her mouth. “I'm exaggerating. It wasn't really that boring. My sister dropped by with her husband and their two kids, and a couple of the girls from work came for dessert. And Bill's mom, of course.” She rolls her eyes and reaches for a Chocolate Chunk. “Mrs. Dunne. That's what she makes me call her, if you can believe it. Mrs. Dunne.” She bites into her cookie. “She's a piece of work.”

“Why's that?”

“Oh, typical overbearing mom stuff,” Bea says, chewing. “It's her way or no way. Or actually, Bill's way. Like Thursday—here's a classic example—she insisted on putting mini marshmallows in my sweet potatoes because that's how Bill likes them. The man's forty-two years old, mind you. Not that the mini marshmallows are the problem, I don't care if he likes mini marshmallows, I think it's
cute
he likes mini marshmallows. Believe me, that's nothing compared to some of the things customers at work ask for.” She takes another bite, crumbs sprinkling down the front of her uniform. “Men in three-piece suits asking for their ice cream with extra gummy bears. Men begging for a cone hat on their sundaes. Men ordering their pancakes tie-dyed.”

“Tie-dyed?”

“With the M&Ms baked in. Some even whisper, can they have the whipped cream hair and the bacon ears put on too? Let me tell you something. Kids?” Bea leans in, as if imparting top-secret information. “Friendly's isn't for the kids. Kids can have ice cream any time they want. Friendly's is for grown-ups who have to feed their childhood cravings. Bottom line, Char, it's for men with mother issues.”

She leans back again and pops the final chocolate nub in her mouth. For some reason, the nickname doesn't bother Charlotte when Bea uses it. With Joe it always sounded ultra-chic, and
therefore patronizing, as if he used it to emphasize just how much it didn't fit. With Bea, it sounds like a different name entirely. Its shortness isn't blunt and breezy, but intimate, familiar, the mark of a good friend.

“So anyway,” Bea says, brushing crumbs from her lap. “Mrs. Dunne shows up with this bag of marshmallows in her purse. Her
purse.
Unsanitary, if you ask me. But she whipped them right out as soon as she saw I didn't have any. She was probably thrilled I forgot.” She crosses one leg over the other, nylon scraping nylon. “I mean, God love the woman, she's just being protective. She's a mom, through and through.”

Charlotte feels a pinch of self-recognition.

“It's understandable. I feel bad for her, really. Bill's dad died young, and she just doesn't have a whole lot else going on.” She exhales a stream of air, as if from an imaginary cigarette. “But spend five minutes with her and you'll know just why Bill turned out the way he did.”

“What way is that?” Charlotte reaches nervously for a cookie.

“Thinking everything will be done for him. Not taking initiative. And I'm not just talking about his dinner cooked and his laundry washed—although believe me, Mrs. Dunne would wash the socks on his feet if he let her. I mean the big stuff. The
life
stuff. Making decisions.”

Bea pauses then, and the pause feels heavy, freighted with the memory of another conversation. Charlotte remembers Bea's tears on her patio, her worries about Bill's laziness and fears of growing old alone.

“So,” Charlotte ventures. “How have things been?”

“Since the fight, you mean?” Bea sighs, blowing the air upward, making her bangs puff out. Charlotte can tell it's not true exasperation: it's affectionate. “Pretty good, believe it or
not. Sometimes you just need to have it out, you know? Sucks when you're in the middle of it, but when it's over, you can put it behind you and move on.”

Though at one time Charlotte might have accepted it as one of those dynamics other people understood and she didn't, this time she nods. “I think I know what you mean.”

“Yeah,” Bea says, but Charlotte wonders if she heard. She seems suddenly preoccupied, a faint smile pushing its way onto her lips. “We're doing a lot better. Matter of fact,” she says, “we're getting engaged.”

“What?” With that, Charlotte's assurance goes down the drain. “You are?”

“I know it must sound like a one-eighty, Char, but this is the way it goes with men. I'm telling you. Same thing happened with my friend at work, Lily.” Bea's speaking with her waitressy assurance, but her mouth is pinched, as if trying to squelch an enormous smile. “Her boyfriend John, he kept saying they'd get married someday, and what was the rush, and what would it change anyway, blah blah blah. Same old, same old. Then one day Lil packed up her stuff and was like, that's it. I'm done wasting time unless we're getting married. She moved out, and he proposed the next day. Kind of unromantic, but believe me, that's the way it goes ninety-eight percent of the time. Men need to be pushed to the edge. You got to have one foot out the door before they make their move.”

Not all men, Charlotte thinks, remembering Walter. She recalls their conversation in the barn, the diamond ring that appeared from the darkness. It was the one part of her weekend she couldn't bring herself to share.

“Well, congratulations.” She's not sure it's the right response—congratulating the
prospect
of an engagement?—but
Bea is glowing as she reaches for a Mint Milano. “So do you know when he'll … pop the question?”

“Oh, who knows,” Bea says. She dunks the cookie in her tea and starts nibbling on the damp end. “Could be a month, a year … I'll have to hold his hand through the whole thing, I'm sure. Probably remind him on a Post-it note. Probably drive him to Zales myself.” On the surface her words are bitter, but she is smiling as she's complaining, as if part of her enjoys Bill's typical-male cluelessness and her role in it.

“Will he move in upstairs then?”

“Where? Here?” Bea laughs. “God, no. We'll get our own place. Probably try to buy out closer to the main street. My place wasn't meant for a man, Char. There's not enough room up there for Bill's DVDs alone. And he cranks his music so loud, that cat lady would have a stroke.”

Charlotte smiles, happy to see her friend so happy, though the prospect of Bea moving makes a heavy feeling settle in her chest.

“Speaking of men.” Bea leans forward, eyes suddenly mischievous. “Guess who I saw Friday.”

“Who?”

“Howie.”

Charlotte feels as if she has been plunged into a tub of nerves, ice-cold and electric. She wraps her hands around the edge of the table and raises her eyebrows, going for vaguely inquisitive.

“Oh?”

“Yes,
oh.
And I told him about you,
oh.
And—” Bea pauses dramatically. “He said he wants to meet you.”

Charlotte's heart begins to gallop.

“I said I had to double-check first it was okay to give him your number. It is, right?”

Charlotte remembers how brazen she sounded the night before, telling Emily about her pending date, but the reality of it shakes her to the core. “I don't know.”