Catch My Drift Page 5

  At the end of Alex’s Christmas visit, Lorna was preparing to drive him back to Derek’s when she found him in the kitchen, eating from a glass bowl of leftover stuffing. He was wearing his old sheepskin coat, a coat he’d left behind the first time. Every day that Alex was gone, Lorna had noticed that coat folded over the chair in the bedroom and meant to hang it up. Seeing him wear it, ready to leave with it, Lorna was forced to admit that all this time, the sheepskin on the chair had been a small comfort. She wasn’t ready for it to go. She put her hand on Alex’s back. She thought she could feel his heartbeat through the worn fabric. By the time they were upstairs, she suspected that touching him was a mistake. But in bed, Alex cried. He shuddered and clung to her. He apologized until it began to embarrass her.

  Lorna checked her watch. It was still three hours before they said they’d leave. She drank another lukewarm glass of water. It was the first time she’d left Jed and Cara home alone at night. Jed would be watching Saturday Night Live, and Cara would be doing god knows what. She’d become strange lately. The night before, Lorna had found Cara hunched over her desk, writing punch-out Valentine cards to her father, signed “Lorna” or “Loo.” In a nervous sputter, she said it was just for fun.

  A sharp rap on the door startled Lorna as she reapplied her lipstick. “Just a minute!” She blotted her lips, flushed the toilet, and then ran the tap for several seconds. She emerged to a queue of four or five women and hurried past them, the shame of a too-long bathroom visit blooming in her cheeks. She paused at the top of the stairs, her fingers on the metal rail. Laughter burst up from below. Her face burned. She really, really didn’t want to go back down.

  Lorna crossed the hall and tucked herself into the spare room. She examined the pile of coats on the bed: some leather, some wool, but mostly the neon ski jackets that were so trendy now. She had a sudden urge to slide right under the tangled sea of strangers’ outerwear, to be completely buried in cool pinks and greens. She hadn’t been sleeping well. Late at night, she would look at the easy O of Alex’s sleeping mouth and couldn’t understand it. He was the betrayer, so why was she the one awake with guilt? Perhaps guilt was the wrong word.

  Alex’s sheepskin coat was sliding off the bed. She sat and pulled it into her body, the pilled collar rubbing against her chin. Who was Alex talking to now? Did he wonder where she was? Would he look for her? Did she want him to?

  Since returning home, Alex had become good at hanging his clothes. He bought a rowing machine for the basement, did occasional groceries, and was doing his best to quit smoking. But they hadn’t had sex since Boxing Day. This reality pecked at the back of Lorna’s mind. Riding the bus home from work at night, she would think: OK, today’s the day. Tonight we’ll get back on track. But once home, Lorna was quietly grateful when Alex, exhausted by the efforts of being well-behaved all day, fell asleep in front of Night Court.

  Lorna lay back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling fan, a thick layer of dust visible on its slanted blades. Anything? she thought. He would give up anything?

  On one level, Lorna understood this. She and Alex hardly had the chance to be kids like the ones downstairs. At twenty years old, they’d become parents. They’d done it all over again two years later with some vague idea that another baby would prove — to whom, exactly? — that nothing had been a mistake, that they were living the lives they wanted to. But, of course, they’d always known it was a mistake. They’d agreed to that much in the ski hill cafeteria. Alex was earning money to go back to California. Lorna had a degree to finish. His eyes on the hill of skiers through the cafeteria window, Alex told Lorna he could get the name of a doctor, someone who’d helped out a co-star on Dog Daze. But they never made any calls.

  Mainly Lorna blamed herself for what happened after the ski hill visit. Her father’s stroke, one week later, made time seem stiller than it was. In the Albany hospital, when he told her that his life’s real joy had been his daughter, it was such an out-of-character thing for him to say that she wondered if she’d been missing something all these years. Teachers and other people’s mothers had always told Lorna how fortunate she was to have such a wonderful father, and it surprised her, because there wasn’t anything she thought of as exceptional about her dad. Her father was a responsible man, which she supposed now was really what people meant, but he’d never been affectionate or warm. So when he said that thing in the hospital, she wondered if, through some eerie near-death means, he actually knew something he wasn’t saying. She thought he might be giving her a sign and let herself wonder. Maybe she and Alex could get used to a baby: just love the thing and be happy. She thought of the hopeful photo of her mother at the hospital. Then, after her father died, after the funeral and the month of bewildering lawyers’ meetings, after she’d decided it was crazy to look for signs from a dying man, it was too late for any doctor worth his salt to do anything for her and Alex.

  Lorna heard girls laughing in the hallway. Or wait? Was it crying? She hoped they wouldn’t come in. Lorna swung her legs up onto the bed and began to cover herself in jackets.

  There was a time when Lorna felt more bitterly about her choices, about the life she missed out on. Washing a week’s worth of dishes at midnight, the kids finally asleep, Lorna would fantasize about the many ways she could have — should have — rebuffed Alex that night in the rain after Ballantyne’s. When Jed was born, people told Lorna she was lucky that Alex had stuck around, but he wasn’t really there. He was never home enough, especially for someone who didn’t exactly work, and whenever he was home, he just felt in the way. It annoyed her the way he watched the kids eat, sleep, and stumble with the same look of amused expectation as a six-year-old in front of Bugs Bunny. They’re real! She wanted to scream. They’re real, and they shit! Ten years ago, if a little genie had turned up with the offer, she would almost certainly have gone for a do-over of her life. She had devoted serious thought to the moment she would go back to in time — sometime before the accident, obviously, but sometime before Kenneth? She would run through the possibilities — the pros and cons — as though this were an actual real decision she would someday get to face. She lay in bed in the morning, waiting for her children’s fussing to turn serious, stealing time to consider the question.

  But listening now to the weeping girl in the hallway, Lorna felt sure you couldn’t pay her to be nineteen again. Of course there was romance in the idea of having it all ahead of you, but she couldn’t pinpoint much from her early twenties that she particularly wanted back. It would be too risky — so much could go wrong. She’d miss her children. She had a good job at a top market-research firm, even without her degree, which was something considering the economy. She’d pieced together a decent if not spectacular life from a one-night stand. Plus, she didn’t particularly want to go to Europe.

  Lorna dug her hand deep into the worn pocket of Alex’s jacket, gritty along the seam. She felt a few pennies, a lighter, and a folded square of paper. Her first thought was that she was touching a note, but as she pulled it out, she saw an ordinary receipt. She scanned for illicit items: cologne, flowers, condoms? The first thing was potatoes. The second, honey-baked ham. Lorna folded the receipt. Ham and mashed potatoes was her favourite. As a child, ham was the only roast her father could make. Alex knew that. She had a vision now of Alex bent over the oven, his face flushed with heat. Tomorrow he’d play the dutiful husband on Valentine’s Day, and she would act delighted by his generosity. She wanted to feel touched, even relieved by the receipt and the fantasy, but she did not.

  Lorna rolled over on top of the coats. This was the guilty feeling she couldn’t put her finger on. This was what kept her up at night. They were pretending again. Pretending they were living the lives they wanted. They could go on this way, but the real truth was, Alex would do anything to be young again. When the chance came — and sooner or later, with some woman or other, it would — he’d take it. She knew too much to believe otherwise. Lorna refolded the receipt and slipped it back in
side the pocket. It would be easier if it had been a note.

  About ten minutes passed before the doors opened with a soft swish. Lorna froze on the bed, half her body covered in coats. She heard Derek’s sandpaper voice. “Is that her?”

  “Loo?”

  Lorna sat up fast, blood rushing too quickly to her temples. She blinked at the two men standing in the door, backlit by the hall.

  “Everything OK?” Alex asked.

  Lorna looked at Derek. “I’m sorry. It’s a nice party,” she said. “I’m just not feeling well.”

  “Not a problem.” Derek clapped Alex’s arm, leaving them alone to deal with their boring, thirty-something issues.

  Alex took a step into the room. “You’re not feeling well?”

  “I just got tired.”

  He sat down at the edge of the bed. She could smell beer not just from his breath but his pores. “I thought you’d like to meet everyone.”

  “I know,” Lorna said. “I’m just not up to it. I thought I was, but I guess I’m not.”

  “So. You want to leave?”

  She knew he didn’t want to go. “I can take my own taxi.”

  Alex rubbed his chin. He looked over at the beer cans lining the window. “I’ll come.”

  “Really, I’ll be fine. Stay as long as you want.” Lorna stood and searched for her own coat, finding it in a small pile that had slipped to the floor. Gratefully, she put it on.

  “I’ll walk you out at least.”

  “If you like.” Lorna grabbed Alex’s coat off the bed and handed it to him. She thought about the receipt. She should have taken it, a memento or something, but it was too late now.

  Alex took the coat and then gave it back. “That’s not mine,” he said. “I wore the Sunice.”

  Lorna remembered now. The cab they had taken to Derek’s turned sharply onto his block; she’d fallen against Alex’s shoulder, the rough neon shell crunching against her cheek.

  Alex moved Lorna aside to rifle through the spread of winter gear, spilling more coats onto the floor. He found his turquoise ski jacket and gave it a spank to straighten it out.

  The sheepskin in Lorna’s hands smelled of loose tobacco and melted snow. She held onto it just a moment longer.

  Ernie Breaks

  Summer/Fall, 1988

  At the end of every school year, Mom gets Jed and me a passing present. This year we asked for skateboards or a puppy, but Mom suggested goldfish and the conversation was over.

  Mom picks me up at three thirty to take me to the tropical fish store that some guy in her Quit4Life group owns. It’s a long drive, she says, but worth it because we’ll get a deal. Jed has a pool party, so he doesn’t get to be part of it.

  There’s a thick tangle of plants in the window of the store, and inside it’s dark and wet, like walking into someone’s mouth.

  “Yoo-hoo!” A short, chubby man comes up and smiles so big I can see the gold wrapped around the back of his teeth. He kisses Mom on the cheek.

  “Isn’t Gary’s store neat?” Mom says all loud and chirpy, like I’m six years old. It drives me nuts when Mom changes her voice to make people like her. To make people give her a deal.

  “We’re looking for a passing present for Cara and her brother,” Mom says. Mom doesn’t tell Gary that Mrs. Connelly said my progress in math over the last year makes me a borderline candidate for Room 12. Jed calls it the retard room.

  Gary rubs his hands together. “Very nice, little lady,” he says. “Very, very nice.” And then for no reason that I can see, he says, “Shall we go fishing then?” in an English accent.

  Gary shows Mom and me a tank full of white fish with black lines running through them like prison uniforms. “Angelfish,” he says, drawing a line on the glass with his finger. “Graceful, huh?”

  “No, not an angelfish,” I say. “Jed won’t like them. They sound gay.”

  “Cara!” Mom’s neck turns the color of a ham.

  “Well, now,” Gary says, giggling.

  “I’m so sorry, Gary,” Mom says, practically falling over. “I think we might have meant something different there.”

  “That’s all right, Lorna. I can see that.” Gary wipes his fingers on his shirt. “Have you ever thought about a turtle? Turtles can be a lot of fun.”

  The turtles at the back of the store have red ears and are smaller than Oreos. Gary grabs one from the tank and drops it in my palms. I squeeze my arms together and let it waddle up the pale alley of skin, its bobbing head like a mushy green marble. A turtle’s not a puppy, but it’s so ugly that it’s cute.

  “I don’t know,” Mom says. “Turtles sound like a lot of work.”

  “Do they bite?” I ask.

  “He may snap at you if he feels threatened,” Gary says, “but you almost never see that. They’re peaceful. Not like those pretty angelfish. They’re mean bastards when they fight.”

  Mom laughs in a stupid sounding way, not even noticing that Gary’s saying bad words, too.

  The turtle yawns and looks up at me. “He likes you,” Gary says, tilting his head at us. “He knows you’ll take good care of him.”

  It takes a hundred years to pay for the turtle. While Gary and Mom drift around the store looking at tanks and filters and gravels, I hold the turtle outside in a clear, water-filled plastic bag. Mom’s always saying she’ll just be a minute and then takes a thousand. When Dad still lived with us, Mom ran into a shop at the Santa Claus Village once and didn’t come right back like she said she would. Dad banged the steering wheel and said, “Goddammit! Your mother will never come out of that store!” I cried until he made me get out of the car. Now I feel like Dad probably did then. I don’t want to be in charge of the turtle all by myself. It’s cute and everything, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it.

  When Mom and I finally get back to the station wagon, the sun has made the car so hot that I burn my belly on the metal seatbelt.

  “Whew! Watch that bag,” Mom says, rolling down her window. “After spending sixty dollars, I’m not in the mood for turtle soup.” She lights a cigarette. Jed says Mom’s only in Quit4Life to meet boyfriends. He says all the divorced moms do it. I wonder if she likes Gary, if he’s going to be her new boyfriend.

  “Did we get a deal?”

  Mom doesn’t answer. Then after a moment she says, “Cara, when you said that angelfish were gay, what did you mean exactly?”

  “I don’t know. They sound girly. Like kittens and ponies and stuff.”

  Mom crinkles her eyes as she sucks in the smoke. “It’s an adult word.” For some reason, I think of the back section of the video store with the cut-out panther and the purple curtains.

  “He said bastard.”

  She lets smoke out through her nostrils. “We don’t make references to people’s sexual preferences.”

  I jiggle the turtle in the bag and watch it bob up and down. “Do you think Gary is cute?”

  “You need to think before you just say things, Cara,” Mom says. “And for Christ’s sake, stop moving that bag around. You’ll make the turtle seasick.”

  At home we have our passing party with cake and ice cream. Jed thinks the turtle is the best. We call him Ernie because he looks and moves like Ernie Sherman, the guy at the drugstore where Mom buys cigarettes because she knows she won’t run into anyone from Quit4Life there. Jed wins the coin toss to keep Ernie in his room but lets me spend the first night in a sleeping bag on the floor. When we were little, Jed let me sleep in his bed whenever I got scared. I like the way he breathes when he’s asleep: low and slow and in circles. I wake up to Jed dangling Ernie over my face.

  We play with Ernie all summer. We bring him to Dad’s new apartment for a weekend and make obstacle courses out of toilet paper rolls and playing cards. We flood Mom’s rock garden to build a natural habitat with mudslides and drowning Barbies for Ernie to rescue. Jed makes a comic book about an Ernie with two different heads tucked inside his shell: Normal Ernie and Evil Ernie. He lets me make pho
tocopies of the book at the library so we can sell them some day.

  When school starts again, Jed’s in the new wing for seventh and eighth graders. I don’t get to play with Ernie so much because Jed stops letting me into his room after school. His friend Toby comes over every day so that they can play bloody knuckles and ignore me. Jed never helps with my math homework like Mom made him promise.

  After Thanksgiving we have a math quiz on fractions, and I can’t remember how to put the numbers together. Everyone around me is scratching things down like it’s a race. I look at what Valerie is doing to my right, but her arm is covering her paper so I can’t see. Valerie Calorie. We call her that because she’s fat. She also thinks she knows everything. Whenever she explains stuff, she sighs really loud and talks with her eyes half-closed so that you can see the purple veins in her lids. She already has boobs, but not in the way that is cool.

  I stare at the blank page and remember Mrs. Durant saying something about fractions being like a pizza that you cut into pieces. I draw a circle at the top of my page and cut some lines through it. I don’t understand why we have to learn about broken numbers. If something is broken, it’s wrecked and useless. If it’s not your fault, you usually don’t need to care about it.