While I'm Falling (8 page)

H
ER DAUGHTER HAD CALLED
her crazy. Or told her she was acting crazy. (
I did not call you crazy,
Elise-the-lawyer would say.
I said you were acting crazy.
) True. And, Natalie admitted, thinking back, maybe she had sounded a little unhinged just now on the phone. She had been talking to Elise about her last name, about how she was considering a change. “Just something I’ve been thinking about,” she’d said, bending down to pet the dog, trying to sound cheerful. Just before the phone rang, Natalie had actually been thinking of something far more pressing and worrisome than her last name. But she didn’t want to burden either of her daughters—and with Elise, especially, she didn’t want to sound pathetic. So she’d come up with something else to talk about, a distraction, the first thing to pop into her head. She may have rambled a little, perhaps. But she didn’t think anything she’d said had sounded
crazy.

Then again, Von Holten was the last name of her daughters, her life’s work, and it seemed so unreasonable that at the end of it all, Veronica and Elise would have the same last name as their father, and she would be the one on the outside, as far as nomenclenture went. Also, she had to admit she was attached to the name. Natalie Von Holten had been her name for longer than it hadn’t been. Until the day the Realtor advised her to paint over the mailbox, the side of it had read “The Von Holtens,” even during those last few months, when she was the only one still living in the house. She was the one who had hand-painted the letters just a few years earlier, using custom-made calligraphy stencils she’d bought at a hobby shop.

“Mom?” Elise had asked. “Are you okay?”

Elise was always driving when she called, stalled in traffic on some California freeway, and so Natalie had just chalked up the uncharacteristic softness in her older daughter’s voice to a dropped headset, a bad connection. She didn’t know she was being
evaluated.
So she’d kept going, explaining herself, holding the phone with her shoulder while she lowered herself to the floor, using her hand to gently guide Bowzer beside her. Yes, she told Elise, she was fine. She was a little tired. Things were getting crazy at the mall, everyone revving up for the holiday seasons, marking down the old merchandise. Here, she worried she was complaining again, being negative about the job she hated, pulling her successful daughter down. She smiled, thinking it would show in her voice. She went back to talking about her name. The normal thing, she told Elise, would be for her to go back to her maiden name. But she’d never liked being Natalie Otter.
Like the animal,
she used to say, instead of spelling it. In grade school, she had hated it; the name had been the butt of many jokes.
Are your parents Otters? Is your mother an Otter?
There was also the slightly more subtle pun, each tormenter truly believing he or she had come up with something new:
Natalie Otter do this. Natalie Otter do that.
Teachers were the main offenders. They did it to lots of kids.
Hi ho!
to Gwendolyn Silver.
Mary, Mary, quite contrary. Do you have a question…Mark?
Even in her annoyance, Natalie had felt bad for these teachers: the profession itself seemed to force regular people to attempt comedy for a captive audience. But she had longed for a name immune to their desperation, a name with weight and dignity, one that didn’t make people think of an animal that belonged to the same biological family as the polecat, the badger, and the weasel. She’d found all that, and so much more, at the age of twenty-one, when she’d fallen in love with Dan Von Holten.

“So why not just come up with a new name?” she’d asked Elise, though she was really asking herself. That’s what Maxine had suggested. Maxine worked in cosmetics. She was almost seventy, and she spoke to all the younger workers with the same friendly authority she used when telling customers they shouldn’t use so much blush. “Come up with something you like,” Maxine had said, hands raised, fingers extended so her long, acrylic nails looked like talons. “It’s your name, honey. It’s your life. You know what I’m saying? At some point, you’ve got to stop and ask yourself: why should everything be decided for me?”

It was a good question, Natalie decided, and she started to give her ideal last name some thought. It energized her, this idea of getting to start anew, to choose something just because she liked it, or even just to make a name up. And then Elise had called. Foolishly, naively, just trying to distract herself, Natalie had run some of these names by her ever-so-rational and steady older daughter, all in a misguided attempt to sound upbeat. “Natalie Nevermore?” she’d asked Elise, with a little laugh, though she wasn’t really joking. “Natalie Northrup?” She’d always loved alliteration. “Natalie Nouvelle? Natalie Valentino. Natalie Wood!” Irreverent, perhaps, but a conversation starter!

Elise got very quiet. And then told her she was acting crazy. And then told her there was an accident up ahead, snarled traffic, and that she had to go.

Now Natalie sat on the floor of her apartment and watched the news with the sound turned down, free to wallow in private, to think how unfair it was that she could have spent her most vital years pouring all of her wisdom and understanding of the world into her daughters, guiding and nurturing them to the best of her ability, only to have one of those daughters grow up and decide, in the middle of a very bad day, that she was nuts. Or acting nuts, whatever. Natalie looked at the phone with narrowed eyes. Elise was probably already calling Veronica, spreading the news of their mother’s demise. Everything would be taken out of context.

The problem with the phone, she considered, was that you couldn’t see the other person’s face or surroundings. You couldn’t know what kind of situation you might be interrupting with your friendly call from California just to say hello. Elise, for example, had no way of knowing that her mother had, only moments before the phone rang, come home from work to find this note taped to her door:

Dan, she imagined, had a couch. He’d moved into a furnished condo, leaving everything from their old life behind, like a crab scooting out of a shell. She had been left with the mess, the garage sales, the sorting, the throwing away. And in the middle of all this, the dog, moments after a seizure, had peed on one of the emerald green cushions of the living room sofa. Natalie had actually been a little pleased, the dog’s infirmity providing her with an excuse to get rid of the sofa, which was symbolic, she’d decided, of her old life with Dan, which also seemed a little peed-upon, ready to be thrown away. It would be fun, she thought, and equally symbolic, to replace it with something new, something striped, maybe, something contemporary, with a hide-a-bed for when one of the girls came to visit.

She’d tried. Sometimes, after work, instead of leaving the mall, she headed straight to the furniture sections of the big department stores, just to see what was out there. She’d sat on striped cushions and pressed her fingertips against cotton twill. She’d quickly gotten overwhelmed by the selection, and also the massiveness of the decision. In those first few months, she was still so raw, and so unsure of herself. After the divorce, such a big failure, she just didn’t want to make a bad choice.

So she’d waited too long on the couch. Now, even if she found one she liked, she wouldn’t be able buy it.

She’d started to make new friends, other substitute teachers and sales associates at DeBeck’s. When they stopped by, they teased her about not having a couch. “You’re waiting for Prince Charming to bring his own sectional?” Maxine had asked. “I don’t know. As cute as you are, it’s a tough market, honey. You may want to break down and get your own.” Natalie laughed, politely, and blamed Bowzer, though it wasn’t as if he peed in the house all the time. He was still a proud dog, full of dignity, waiting by the door when he needed a walk. But still, with a couch, once would be enough.

Bowzer was beside her now, lying on his side, one ear flat against the beige carpet. She scratched the back of his head and looked up at the television. A man pointed at map of Kansas City, the word “ICE” spelled out in all caps, the letters themselves appearing frozen, hovering in the foreground. A crawler at the bottom of the screen warned of freezing rain coming earlier than expected, just before early morning rush hour.
“…treacherous sidewalks, downed power lines, a good day to stay home if at all possible…”
Natalie frowned, looking out the dark windows. Tomorrow was Friday, a big day for teachers calling in sick. She would probably get a call for a job in the morning. Beside her, Bowzer started to tremble so violently that the tags of his collar jingled. Chasing rabbits, Dan had called it. Maybe mild strokes, said the vet.

She waited until he calmed, and then moved her hand over his head, her fingernails gently working through his soft fur. She’d known, when she signed the lease, that the complex did not allow pets. She had not thought Bowzer would still be with her. She had planned to take him to the vet as soon as the house sold. They would give him the shot. It would be a clean end, Maxine had advised, humane. Dogs were physical creatures; they didn’t live in their minds, but in their bodies; and we weren’t doing them any favors when we kept them around long after the fun was gone. “Kind of like husbands,” she’d added, laughing, but then grew serious again. She said Natalie needed to start thinking about herself. She knew what she was talking about. She had been through a divorce herself. And Natalie was still young. She still had so much potential.

Natalie said she didn’t feel young. Maxine had waved her off.

“Trust me,” she’d said. “You’ll be surprised how young forty-nine seems once you’re sixty-seven.”

It was a nice thing to say, but something about this had gotten to her. Maybe it was that forty-nine did not seem so far away from sixty-seven, especially when she considered that she and Dan had raided his retirement account during those last, expensive years. She looked away from Maxine, at her own short nails, and tried to think of something else. But she could feel the tears welling. She bit her lip. She hated that she was a crier. They were on break, sitting on a table in the windowless back room of DeBeck’s, their mocha smoothies already finished. Natalie had to be back on the floor in five minutes. She would refold scarves. She would verify credit cards. She would smile and say, “Can I help you find anything?” to teenage girls in designer jeans who would look through her as if she weren’t there.

“Okay, then.” With that, Maxine scooted herself off the break room’s table and back into her high heels. “Be smart. Look out for you. You wanted an apartment with good security and a month-to-month lease? And miracles of miracles, you found one? You need to take it. Honey. Listen to me. You’re hanging onto the dog because you’re hanging onto the past. This is a big time for you, a crucial time. The dog, Methuselah, he has to go.”

She knew Maxine was right. Yes. That was what had to be done. And really, how had she ended up with the dog anyway? Veronica was the one who had wanted the dog. Dan had told Veronica she could have a dog. Why, Natalie wondered, should she be the one left with him after everyone else had moved on?

And yet, when the time came, she hadn’t been able to do it. Days after the house sold, when she was starting to pack in earnest, Bowzer rallied. He jumped up beside her in bed one night, just as he’d done as a puppy, nestling against her chest. During the day, he lay on the floor next to whatever box she was packing, chewing his rawhide, his very presence so reassuring, concrete proof that she was not as completely alone as she felt. During that month of packing, she’d tried hard to be ruthless. She had a garage sale and sold everything of Dan’s. He had left only what he had not cared about, and there was little satisfaction in selling, for two dollars, the leather briefcase she had bought him upon his graduation from law school. Or in throwing away the poem she had written for him on their fifteenth anniversary. As for the photo albums, she couldn’t throw them away—most of the pictures of Dan had Elise and Veronica in them. So she packed them all in a box and drove them to Veronica’s dorm. She did not ask. She just handed them over, repeating in her head the mantra Maxine had taught her.
Be smart. Start looking out for you.

The day before she moved to the apartment, she’d actually taken Bowzer to the vet. Maxine had offered, several times, to come along; but Natalie had wanted to go alone. That was her first mistake. And then, instead of giving the vet instructions, she’d asked for his opinion. The vet had sighed, bent over, and looked deeply into the dog’s cataracted eyes. “He’s still eating. And getting around okay. I’d say the old boy has some good times left.” He’d scratched the dog’s ears and looked down at him fondly. It was the same vet they’d gone to when Bowzer was a puppy, when the girls were young. Veronica, still in grade school, had cried when he got his distemper shot.

Veronica. Natalie looked out the window again, worried about the coming storm. She reached for the phone, but stopped herself. Veronica would be fine. She took the bus from her dorm to her classes. If she went to her classes. Natalie frowned. Veronica had warned that her grades would be low this semester, and Natalie wondered if she was spending all her time with the boyfriend. She herself had moved in with Dan when she was in school. She’d lied to her parents, her sorority sisters covering for her. They got married a year after she graduated. She’d been in such a hurry.

Someone knocked at the door. Bowzer raised his head and barked, looking in the wrong direction. She put the phone down and stood, peering through the peephole. She recognized the apartment manager’s puffy face and jerked her head away.

“I know yous in there, lady.” He sounded both bored and annoyed. “You want to talk with me through the door so everybody hears, that’s fine. But in the end it’s the same.”

“Uh, just a moment. I’ll be right there.” She picked up Bowzer, one hand supporting his bad hip, and ran back to the bedroom. She’d already put a pillow for him in the closet. “Stay,” she whispered, though she shut the door. Even before his senility, the dog had never been particularly obedient. She ran back to the front room. The hallway in front of her apartment was unheated, and when she opened the door, she felt a wave of cold roll over and through her. Oddly, and unhelpfully, she thought of Twain:
Shut the door! Not that it lets in the cold but that it lets out the cozyness.

“Yes?” she asked brightly. She knew she had a friendly face, a bright-eyed suburban-mom-liness about her that many people liked and trusted. Her whole life, she had been asked to watch strangers’ bags, bikes, and children. “What is it, dear?” she asked, maybe, in her desperation, piling it on a little hard.

“You know what it is.” He didn’t smile. The apartment manager was in his twenties, maybe, unappealing in every way she could think of, a red ski hat pulled down almost over his eyes. He stood with his legs spread wide, his arms crossed, his chin jutted out so his head tilted back just enough to gaze at her from underneath the hat. “I just talked with the owner. No dogs means no dogs.”

“Oh.” She didn’t say anything else. She was thinking they could come up with some reasonable plan together. She smelled curry cooking, maybe coming from the apartment across the hall. When he said nothing, she started again. “Yes. I’m sorry I lied.” She smiled. “I don’t usually lie. I didn’t know what else to do. You see, he’s old. I thought…I just need to…”

“You just need to move out,” he said.

She shook her head. She continued to smile. This was a misunderstanding. “No no,” she said, as if he’d asked her a question. “I’ll take care of this soon, maybe, um, within the week…”

“The owner doesn’t care what you do now. He doesn’t care if you ice the dog or not. You lied on your application, lady. For months I been telling you to get rid of the dog. Now we’re done talking. You got twenty-four hours. The dog goes and so do you.”

She stopped smiling. She stared at him, angry, and then, when she realized her anger would not affect him, afraid. It was true—she’d heard correctly. He’d actually used these words, “iced,” “you got twenty-four hours.” And something about this, his low language, punctured her where she was still soft, making her realize all at once that she had truly slipped down into a different world where kindness held no currency and age earned no respect. She would have to stop expecting mercy. She would have to adjust the way she talked, and the way she thought, about everything and everyone.

Be smart. Start looking out for you.