Things You Should Know Read online

  “Honey, are you all right?”

  “Leave me alone.”

  “I hope she didn’t get into the liquor—should I check?”

  “I hate you.”

  Happy New Year.

  She gives it one last go—if they don’t answer, she is going to call Mrs. Lasky, one of the neighbors, and ask if things are as odd as they seem.

  Her mother answers on the first ring.

  “Where were you?” she blurts.

  “I was in the closet, looking for something.”

  “I’ve been trying to call you for hours, why do you sound so strange?”

  “Strange?”

  “Breathless.”

  “I was in the closet—foraging. What do you mean you’ve been calling for hours, we just got home. We had concert tickets.”

  “I didn’t know where you were. I was worried.”

  “We’re adults, Susan. We’re allowed to go out.” She pauses. “What day is it?”

  “Wednesday.”

  “You usually call on Sunday.”

  “I was thinking of coming home.”

  “When?”

  “This weekend.”

  “Well, I don’t know what our schedule is like. I’ll have to check. What’s new?” her mother asks, changing the subject.

  “Not much. I must have dialed your number a hundred times—first I couldn’t get through, then I got the machine, and the last few times some man answered. I was beginning to feel like I was losing my mind.”

  “That must have been Ray.”

  “Ray?”

  “A friend of your father’s.”

  “Daddy doesn’t have any friends.”

  “This is someone he met at one of his classes—I think he’s lonely, he brought his cat. It’s good you’re not here.” She is allergic to cats.

  “I thought it was me, I thought I dialed wrong. Why didn’t he identify himself? Why didn’t he say, Green residence? Why didn’t he just say—I’m the one who’s out of place?”

  “I don’t know,” her mother says.

  “Did Daddy go with you to the concert?”

  “Of course—he drove.”

  “What was this Ray doing at the house when you weren’t home?”

  “Haven’t I mentioned him?”

  “No.”

  “Really? You would think I would have—he’s staying with us.”

  There is a long pause.

  “Mother—could you just check with your doctor, could you just say, my daughter is concerned. She thinks I don’t remember. She thinks I forget. Could you do me the favor and ask the doctor if everything is all right?”

  “The truth is when I’m in there, I don’t think of it.”

  “You forget.”

  “I’m in that paper gown. Who can think of anything when you feel like at any second it might come undone?”

  “How long has this Ray been around?

  “A couple of weeks. He’s a lovely guy. You’d like him. He’s very tidy.”

  “Is he paying rent?”

  “No,” her mother says, horrified. “He’s a friend of your father’s.” She changes the subject. “Where’s Steve?”

  “At the game.” As she says it, she hears Steve at the door. She hurries to get off the phone. “I’ll call you tomorrow, we’ll figure out the weekend.” She snaps the bedroom light off.

  She hears Steve in the living room, opening the mail. She hears him in the kitchen, opening the fridge. She sees his shadow pass down the hall. He is in the bathroom, peeing, then brushing his teeth. He comes into the bedroom, half undressed. “It’s only me,” Steve says. “Don’t get excited.”

  She doesn’t respond.

  “Are you in here?” He turns on the light.

  “I just spoke to my mother.”

  “Yeah? It’s Wednesday—don’t you normally talk to them on Sunday?”

  “There is a strange man living at the house. He’s been there for two weeks—she forgot to tell me. A friend of my father’s.”

  “Your father doesn’t have any friends.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Maybe if you’d waited and called on Sunday, he wouldn’t have been there.” Steve pulls his T-shirt off and drops it onto the floor.

  “Not funny.” She gestures toward the hamper. “I was thinking I should go and see my parents this weekend—that’s why I was calling. I haven’t been in a long time. But I can’t exactly go home if this guy is there.”

  “Stay in a hotel.”

  She sits up to set the alarm. “I’m not staying in a hotel. Am I going to have to do some sort of intervention, kidnap my parents and reprogram them?”

  “It’s deprogram.”

  “How’s Bill?”

  “Good.”

  “Did you ask him what you should do?”

  “About what?” Steve punches at his pillow.

  “Us.”

  Steve doesn’t answer. She thinks of her parents, her parents’ marriage. She thinks of her parents, of Steve, of having children, of when they stopped talking about it. She wishes they had children. He thinks it’s good they didn’t. She still wants to have one. “It’s not going to fix it,” he says. She doesn’t want the child to fix it. She wants the child because she wants a child and she knows that without Steve she will not have children. She rolls away from him. There is an absence of feeling, a deadness, an opaque zone where there used to be more.

  “Breathe,” Steve says to her.

  “What?”

  “You weren’t breathing. You were doing that holding-your-breath thing.”

  She takes a deep breath. Sighs.

  “Do you want me to come with you to your parents?”

  “No.”

  In the night, in the subtlety of sleep, they are drawn together, but when they wake it is as though they remember—they pull apart, they wake up en garde.

  “I know it’s been hard,” he says in the morning as they’re getting ready to go.

  “What should we do?” she asks.

  “I don’t know,” he says.

  They don’t say anything more. She is afraid to talk, afraid of what is happening, afraid of what she is feeling, afraid of what will happen next, afraid of just about everything.

  The morning meeting is adult undergarments—Peer Pampers. There are boxes of the product on the conference room table. The client opens a box and starts passing them around—a cross between maxi-pads and diapers, there’s something about them that’s obscene.

  “What we’re selling here is a new gel insert—it’s incredibly absorbent,” the client says. He is the only one truly comfortable handling the product—he rips one of the diapers open, pulls apart the crotch area to expose the insert. “This is it,” he says. “It sucks up water, up to ten ounces. Our research shows the average void is four to eight. The older you get, the more frequently you urinate and with slightly less volume, so we’re estimating approximately six to seven ounces per use.”

  A junior creative executive picks up one of the garments and, as though giving a demonstration, pours his coffee in. “Afraid to have your morning cup because it runs right through you? Try these.”

  For a tenth of a second it’s funny and then, as a liquidy brown stain spreads through the material, it becomes a problem. Blushing, he puts the dirty diaper in the trash.

  “Not a good idea,” someone says. “A very poopy diaper.”

  “That’s all right,” the client says. “Accidents happen.”

  “It’s a control issue,” she says, trying to pull the meeting back to order. “How to feel in control when you are out of control. Picture a man in his car stuck in traffic, a woman strapped into her seat on an airplane, she coughs. But she doesn’t look stressed; in fact she’s smiling. When everything around you feels out of control, help yourself feel in control. One less worry.”

  “Don’t make it seem like we’re encouraging people to piss their pants,” the client says.

  “The idea is to encourage people to
lead healthy, normal lives, not to let bladder control issues stop them from activities that are part of everyday life. We’ll spend some time with these,” she says, gathering up the diapers. “Give us a call next week.”

  The client stands. There’s a wet spot on his suit.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he says, “but it’s not that. In the car on the way here—my muffin flipped. I got jam all over me. Imagine me,” he says, “going through the day with a wet spot on my suit selling adult diapers.”

  “There’s a one-hour cleaner down the block, maybe they can do something for you,” she says.

  “Now that’s a good idea.”

  Steve calls. “I was wondering if we could have dinner?”

  She thinks two thoughts—he wants them to work it out and he’s leaving. Either way, whatever it is, she doesn’t want to hear it. She isn’t ready.

  “I have plans,” she says.

  “Yeah, what?”

  “I’m meeting Mindy for a drink. She’s coming in for a matinee and then I’m meeting her.”

  “Well, I’ll see you later then. What should I do about dinner?”

  “Don’t wait for me,” she says.

  She has no plans. She hasn’t talked to Mindy in six months.

  “Are you okay?” Steve asks.

  “Fine,” she says. “You?”

  “Fine,” he says. “Fucking fantastic.”

  After work she goes to Bloomingdale’s. She wanders for two hours. She is tempted to take herself to a movie, to take herself to a bar and have a drink, to get home really late, really drunk, but she doesn’t have the energy.

  “Are you finding everything you need?” an overzealous sales associate wants to know.

  What does she want? What does she need? She is thinking about Steve, trying to imagine a life apart. She’s afraid that if they separate she will evaporate, she will cease to exist. He’ll be fine, he’ll hardly notice that she is gone. She hates him for that. Will she start dating? She can’t picture it, can’t imagine starting again with someone else.

  When she gets home, Steve is on the bed, channel surfing. “I ate the Chinese—I hope you weren’t saving it.”

  “I ate with Mindy,” she says.

  She goes into the kitchen. Dials.

  Ray answers.

  “Hello, is Mrs. Green there?”

  “May I ask who’s calling?”

  She wants to say—you know damn well who’s calling, but instead she pauses and then says, “Her daughter.”

  “One moment.” There is a long pause and then Ray returns. “She’s not available right now, may I take a message?”

  “Yes, could you ask her to call me as soon as she is available. Thank you.” She hangs up.

  “Find anything?” Steve calls from the bedroom.

  She doesn’t respond. She stands in front of the open fridge, grazing.

  The phone rings. “It’s deeply disturbing to call home and have to ask to speak with your parents. What does that mean, you’re not available?” she says.

  “I was in the bathroom. I fell asleep in the tub.”

  “Why didn’t he just say that?”

  “He was being discreet.”

  “You’re my mother. Does he know that?”

  “Of course he knows.”

  “Why was he answering the phone? Why didn’t Dad get it?”

  “Maybe Dad was busy, maybe Dad didn’t hear it, he doesn’t hear as well as he used to. We’re old, you know.”

  “You’re not old. Who is this Ray character anyway? How much do you know about him?”

  Her mother doesn’t say anything.

  “Mom, are you there? Is he right there? Can you not talk because the guy, the guest, the visitor, Ray, is right there?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “Yes, of course, he’s there? Can he hear you? Can you not talk because he can hear you?”

  “No, not at all.”

  She stops for a minute, she takes a breath. “I feel like the SWAT team should be setting up next door with sharpshooters and a hostage negotiator. Are you all right? Are you safe?”

  She overhears a mumbled conversation: “Oh thank you. Just milk, no sugar, thanks Ray.” There is a slurping sound.

  “Where does this Ray sleep?”

  “Downstairs, in your brother’s room. What train are you planning on taking?”

  “I think I can get out early, two o’clock.”

  “We’ll look forward to seeing you. Stay in touch.”

  She hangs up.

  “When are you leaving?” Steve asks.

  “Early afternoon—I’ll go straight from the office.”

  “Should we talk?” he says.

  “Are you seeing somebody?”

  “No. Are you?”

  “No. Then we don’t have to talk.”

  She walks into the bedroom. “This is how we’re having a conversation, yelling back and forth between rooms?”

  “Apparently.”

  “Is this how Bill told you to do it?”

  He doesn’t say anything.

  “There’s some man living in my parents’ house. Can’t the rest of it wait?”

  “Do you want to have a code word so you can tell me if something is really wrong?”

  “I’ll say, it’s unbelievably hot. And that means call the police or something.”

  “Unbelievably hot,” Steve says.

  “And if I say my toes are cold, that means I’m confused and you should ask me some more questions.”

  “Hot house/cold toes, got it.”

  In the morning, Wendy’s desk is too neat.

  “Did she quit?” asks Tom, the executive who shares Wendy with Susan.

  “She just needed a day off; the computer got to her.”

  By nine there’s a temp in Wendy’s place, a woman who arrives with her own name plate—MEMORABLE TEMPORARIES, MY NAME IS JUDY.

  “Worst thing is not knowing someone’s name, looking at her and wondering, Who is she? How can I ask her to do anything—I don’t know her name. Now you know, it’s Judy. And I’m here to help you.”

  “Thank you, Judy” she says, going into her office and closing the door.

  “I have an appointment outside—I won’t be back,” she tells Judy at one-fifteen, when she emerges, wheeling her suitcase down the hall.

  “Have a good weekend,” Judy says with a wink.

  The train pulls out—she has the sense of having left something behind, something smoldering, something worrisome—Steve.

  The train pushes through the tunnel, rocking and rolling. It pops out over the swamps of New Jersey, and suddenly instead of skyscrapers and traffic there are swamps, leggy white egrets, big skies, chemical plants, abandoned factories, and the melancholy beauty of the afternoon light.

  She takes a taxi from the train. Directing the driver toward home, she descends into a world that is half memory, half fantasy, a world so fundamentally at her core that it is hard to know what is real, what is not, what was then, what is now.

  “Is there somebody home?” the driver asks, pulling up to the dark house.

  “There’s a key under the pot,” she says, giving away the family secret.

  It is twilight. She stands in the driveway, with her suitcase at her feet, watching light fade from the sky, wondering why she came home. On the telephone line above her, four crows sit waiting. The trees press in like dark shields, she listens to the breeze, to the birds still calling. Across the way she sees Mrs. Altman moving around in her kitchen. In the house that used to belong to the Walds, someone new is also doing the dinner dance.

  She stands watching the sky, the branches of trees blackening against the dusk. There is a rustling in the woods beyond the house. She glances at the brush, expecting to see a dog or a child taking a shortcut home.

  Her father pushes out, breaking twigs along the way. He is carrying a brown paper bag and a big stick.

  “Dad?”

  “Yeah?”

&nbs
p; “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I walked.”

  “Did you have car trouble?”

  “Oh no,” he says. “I didn’t have any trouble. I took the scenic route.” Her father peers into the carport. “Ray’s not here? I must have beat him.”

  “Where’s your car?”

  “I left it with Ray. He had errands to run. I had a very nice walk. I went through the woods.”

  “You’re eighty-three years old, you can’t just go through the woods because it’s more scenic.”

  “What would anyone want with me? I’m an old man.”

  “What if you fell or twisted your ankle?”

  He waves his hand, dismissing her. “I could just as easily fall here at home and no one would notice.” He bends to get the key. “You been here long?”

  “Just a few minutes.”

  Her father opens the door, she steps inside, expecting the dog. She has forgotten that the dog is not there anymore, he died about a year ago.

  “That’s so strange—I was expecting the dog.”

  “Oh,” her father says. “I do that all the time. I’m always thinking I shouldn’t leave the door open, shouldn’t let the dog out. We have him, for you, if you want,” her father says. “His ashes are on the shelf over the washing machine. Do you want to take him with you?”

  “If we could leave him for now, that would be good,” she says.

  “It’s your dog,” her father says. “So, how long are you here for?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t usually stay long.”

  She takes her bag down the hall to her room. The house is still. It is orderly and neat. Everything is exactly the same and yet different. The house is smaller, her room is smaller, the twin bed is smaller. There is a moment of panic—a fear of being consumed by whatever it is that she came in search of. She feels worse, further from herself. She looks around, wondering what she is doing in this place, it is deeply familiar and yet she feels entirely out of place, out of sorts. She wants to run, to take the next train back. From her bedroom window she sees her mother’s car glide into the driveway.

  “Is she here?” She hears her mother’s voice across the house.