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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781467042369 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 11/14/2011 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 120 |
| File size: | 267 KB |
Read an Excerpt
Two Weeks
By S. W. FELDMAN
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2011 S. W. FeldmanAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4343-9303-6
Chapter One
It's taken me a long time to stop obsessing about something that was never real. most of what happened in those two weeks was my own revelation, and he was just the conduit to my own electrical charge. I felt sad when it was over, because I knew it was a moment that was destined to be buried in time.My brief encounter with Jack was a turning point—a defining moment in my life. I needed someone to be there and to listen to something I had to say. I needed that rush. This man I barely knew listened to me when I needed it the most, and I would never be the same.
I was the mother of boys. After years of trying my hardest to tame the wild kingdom, I finally had a beautiful little girl, but because there were so many boys before her, she spent much of her girlhood trying not to run for dear life. even though the boys were her role models, her little legs buckled beneath her after jockstrap-slingshots and pizza boxes were aiming for her head.
As their mother, somewhere along the line I begged for mercy. I pleaded for the bloodletting and mountains of filth to subside, to be granted a reprieve, a breath, just one minute to myself. Then, out of the blue, I was blindsided by the silence. I was not prepared for the void and the heartrending lump in my throat that I got when they grew up and started leaving home.
My house was a chaotic disaster for more years than I could count. I have washed so many loads that I have replaced the washing machine three times having endured hundreds of cold showers due to the strain on the hot-water heater.
But unlike a daughter, who never fails to remind you that most of your wardrobe should be taken to Goodwill and your lipstick is an outdated shade, your boys make you feel like a queen. Sometimes you become the meanest queen of the castle, taking their car keys, grounding, yelling, and threatening until you realize another chore-chart-making plan has gone asunder. And as much as the quiet now in the house leaves distant echoes of hysterical panic over finding the perfect wig for Halloween or screeches of delight at a shiny new Christmas bicycle, nothing could be more meaningful to me than my caboose of a daughter at seventeen climbing onto my bed in the morning and throwing her leg over mine.
My husband, Alex, has seen all the bad hair days and the fluctuating pant sizes. He has endured the scorched turkeys and crunchy gravy prepared by a wife too young to know or too busy to care. We are breathless. We are tired. We have won the war but must maintain the state of the union. This is our quest.
September 29
It seems like a usual day as my fist attacks the snooze button from underneath a huge heap of covers. I knock the blasted thing so hard it falls off the nightstand and onto the floor. I hope that I have killed it.
The ear-splitting racket reminds me that it's time to drag my tired body out from underneath my coziness and compel myself into the cold morning air to run those dreaded three miles—my daily obsession.
Like every morning, I go in to revive my daughter, Annie, for school. This morning, she will have a difficult time coming to life after a lengthy night of hitting the books. I wake her for the early breakfast that she has planned with her girlfriends, knowing she will need to shower and do the customary primp in spite of her ever-so-traditional not-a-morning-person mood. I lug myself out of bed and hit the bathroom, only allowing a half-stare at the mirror, knowing that the dreary sight can ruin a perfectly good Monday. any life I have left in me has been sapped. I recognize that things are uncertain with my marriage and my life, and a numbing headache is all but a given. It will only be a matter of time before the throbbing in my forehead begins its thing.
I am thick around the middle due to sheer boredom. I exercise relentlessly just to break even so I don't develop a morbid, channel-surfing existence, but I am out of control in my life, and I'm sure that with the empty nest looming, I'm on the verge of cracking at any moment. The dreams and fantasies that I once had had are fading into bowls caked with day-old cereal and sticky floors that I don't want to take the time to clean.
After Annie leaves for school, I decide to make a cup of coffee only to find the coffee jar is empty. My inventory control is a tad off lately.
I go to my Southern belle, born-again-and-again neighbor for my coffee fix and realize she is having her biweekly prayer meeting—the Supplication Sisters. I don't want to pray with the sisters, I only want my damn coffee, but I figure I'll just get through it for the caffeine. This time, I'm not in my usual accessorized pajamas but am actually in my pajamas, standing at her kitchen door with an empty cup, bed head, and crap in the crevices of my eyes.
I say my hellos and pretend-pray a moment, but I'm dying to split so I can get my coffee on. They plead with me—"Please won't you stay, my dear Emily"—and urge me to stop apologizing for my threadbare flowered flannel with the ripped crotch and the broken pearl buttons and be a part of the verse they're sharing. I look around the room and can't believe my life has come to this. Don't get me wrong, God and I go way back, but these women are so not me. They are the embodiment of confident, contented, spiritual, dignified, and accessorized women, and I know, as I stand there in my fuzzy slippers and ratty hair, that I can't merely say, "Could I just have my fucking coffee, please?"
My life has become a housewife cart-and-pony show.
I drag my weary and humiliated self back to the house and make my coffee. Alex calls and tells me that he wants me to make some garlic bread for dinner—monday night, spaghetti night. Every Monday night is spaghetti night. He gets his car washed the fifth of the month and mows the lawn on cue every Saturday afternoon between lunch and the cocktail hour. His shoes are lined up like dominoes in the closet, and his ties are monotonously color-coded. Alex has a strategy for everything. It's somewhat comforting to know that dinner is already planned, but spontaneity is history.
There is no al fresco Mediterranean restaurant for me with a bottle of Chianti Classico and a view of Capri. There is no glance, laughter, or stomach flip. There is no conversation. There is just Monday spaghetti night. This must be what death feels like: nothing to look forward to except for my dessert to scarf and my pillow to snuggle. Life is becoming a drain.
Things were not always so dull and regimented, for Alex and I had met in college, when life was Woodstock and shoes and bras were optional. We adored each other instantly. I knew even then that we had nothing in common, but it didn't matter, because we had an extremely deep connection. much of that deep connection, of course, was manifested through sex, food, and a touch of marijuana, but it was intensely felt nevertheless.
We never liked the same books. To Alex, heavy reading is the Atlas. We never related to the same music, movies, or the same people. He didn't dance anymore. Dancing is the perfect metaphor for sex and rockin' the nasty with Alex was a thing of the past. It's pretty clear. You've either got the pulse of kick-ass funk or the curse of the white man's overbite.
Alex wasn't much of a warm, attentive type, but our history was long, and we just fell into a lifetime of wedded bliss. Years of great sex turned into,
1. sleeping with the kids or the dog, or both the kids and the dog,
2. do-it-as-fast-as-you-possibly-can-and-get-the-job-done sex,
3. do-it-while-you-are-half-sleep-and-don't-remember-it sex,
4. the unaffordable but efficient $179-a-night hotel sex,
5. updating-your-inventory-list-while-having-it sex,
6. and, finally, every man's dream: no sex at all.
Oy.
Alex rubs my feet, asks me if I am thirsty in the middle of the night, and usually sleeps in another room. We have all but survived a sizeable household of kids, are closing in on the twenty-fourth wedding anniversary, and haven't had a decent conversation for at least a year. I'm relatively sure that Alex will never dance again.
We live in a bland, upscale Midwest suburb, which to some Caucasian types sounds like utopia but to me is living in hell. This town is known for inventing Jack and Jill bathrooms, having eighteen-hundred-dollar swing sets, super-sized SUV's, ten-foot ceilings and twenty-five-foot egos. The women here are flawless, diamond-studded Stepford housewives whose children don't drink, swear or share bedrooms. my one neighbor was aghast when my daughter yelled díckhead out of the window to her brother when she was three years old. Is it that people don't want you to see that dickhead side of them, or do they actually not own one? I haven't determined that yet. I am a huge dickhead, and I am proud that at least I know it.
Raising children is a very satisfying and rewarding experience, but making the transformation into the consummate "wipe me, Mommy" person does have its drawbacks. If you aren't careful, it takes a great deal of your confidence away and can make you feel as articulate and attractive as a bag-lady without a pulse. For years, I forgot simple phrases and kept losing what I wanted to say or how to say it. My consignment clothes were stained very badly with the badge of dishonor, pleading, "someone, anyone—please just give me a break."
I don't know who I am anymore. I transport myself virtually as if I'm flying over countries I've never visited. I fret over uncertainties and dwell on mindless details. I corner strangers on the street with hyperactive conversation after only one cup of coffee. I find this planet absurd yet extraordinary, and am gripped with anxiety that life is fleeting knowing my time to make my mark is far too short. I obsess over leaving this earth after making a difference somehow, even in the line at the grocery store. I stay up at night worrying about lost children who aren't my own, people being buried alive under earthquake rubble, my daughter driving alone at night, mother cows crying for their babies, and my family members drowning in my pool when they aren't even anywhere in the state. It's exhausting.
I refuse to waste precious time reflecting on who the next neighborhood watch co-chair will be, whether or not my diamond ring is polished, or the amount of dust on my bedroom ceiling-fan when life seems so unfair to so many. Why do I feel compelled to think I can rise above suburban complacency, unearth my potential of greatness, and appreciate the sheer power of my bizarre eccentricities when even finding a decent crease-color for my eye shadow is beyond my capacity? I am so in love with this strange, wonderful, brilliant and scary world that I am in awe. Am I the only one who stares out into the starry sky at night and wonders where in the hell we are?
Everyone else seems to understand the Mommy thing, and as usual, I am out there in La-La land, not knowing quite how to have it all or how to organize my life and everyone else's life. Knowing how to love well enough is a far cry from being a proficient hausfrau, which (no one tells you when you sign up) is part of the territory of motherhood—the most challenging, unpaid treadmill ride of all time.
I fully admit that I do not begin to measure up in the housewife department and that I have felt frustrated and besieged by it for years. I am not good at it, and frankly, as far as I am concerned, in the long scheme of one's journey in life, who really gives a rat's ass if you can eat off a floor?
Why is it that everyone else seems to get it, and I don't? Are they pretending? does everyone feel inadequate? Why is it that some of these women love their vapid lives and don't dream anymore about far away places like Provence and Bali? I am swept away by fantasies all day long about being on Broadway or being a jazz singer at some café in Paris.
These sensuous images clog my mind and make the day-to-day laundry a murky and relentless fog. most of these women seem content, know what they want out of life and are satisfied with what they have become. I will never be, because there are not enough days of the week, hours of the day, and minutes of an hour when unbridled passion for life doesn't drive me. I yearn for the stomach flip of the unknown and the long deep breath of wanting more. My heart races with a glance or a word, and the relentless pursuit to find it.
Are these women truly happy? Could this, perchance, be why depression is rampant and Prozac is the new dodge-ball? Why is the hole in their heart crying out for a plug in their emotional dike? If men and women are truly from different planets, then how can they possibly be expected to take a vow and be together for more than a year? Howard Stern doesn't get it if he thinks that a turn-on is all about great abs and a good foreplay technique. do men have any clue what women would do for them if they would just pay attention? are men aware of just how much it satisfies a woman to be really listened to or heard?
If men are hot for their libido, then give them a lesson on their ears and not on their penises, because if they could learn to really listen, women would spread them on a cracker and then lick them off the floor.
I know this because of the two weeks that changed my life.
September 30
I didn't hear the alarm this morning and slept in. Trashy morning television or running? Okay, maybe I'll just walk today. I will walk off that piece of cherry pie from yesterday, or it will stay on my gut for the rest of the week. I'll get the tape measure and measure myself for the diet journal. No, wait, it's already Tuesday. Time for a new clean page for the journal. A new page. A new week.
Demi Moore. That's right, Emily, do you think Demi Moore would be contemplating this? Of course not. And the nice fresh-from-the-bakery jelly Danish would not be sitting in the microwave waiting for her. Dr. Phil and his nauseating trinity of positive self-talk: I am absolutely ravishing; I am a very pleasant person; I have a marvelous self-esteem. Face it, Emily, you are nothing but a heifer scarfing down your second Danish. Put it down, Em. So, what are you? Twelve?
The phone rings.
"No, Alex. I didn't pay the Master Card yesterday."
For godsake. Is it the only thing he ever thinks about? We are a business, Alex and I. We are the frustrated CEOs of the Corporation of Unpaid Bills and anger, with nothing to share now except kids and a house. A soon-to-be-empty house. I am so tired of it all. As a matter of fact, I am so fed up that I may get the urge to rearrange the silverware drawer for the second time this month. Alex hates it when I move things around. He hates change, but I must admit I do find sport in watching him panic in his search for flatware.
My husband ignores me. He comes home at night, talks ad nauseum on his cell phone, and then sits down with the usual comatose gape and his paper. Then, he drinks dinner and plops in front of some football game or sitcom. The lump is thickening in my throat again. That's the routine. Hi, how are you? You stay downstairs on your phone and I'll stay upstairs so we can ignore each other for the whole week. I am swallowing the lump down my throat now. My head is pounding like mad. No one even knows I live here. I don't bitch, I don't moan, and I am so easygoing about my lifestyle that I am going to fucking strangle myself.
I may go to the attic tonight and crank up my darkest Rachmaninoff CDs and choose a nice piece of Samsonite for my escape. Hopefully the intensity of the music won't disturb Alex's Raymond rerun in the family room. I won't be taking much with me for my departure—just a small nylon tote for now. I'll get the cash advance on the Visa and take out a chunk to last for a while. I'll go to my friend Chris, who will understand and not tell any of the other neighbors that I was her stowaway. I will have to support myself, but I could always call my doctor brother for another loan. I'll apply for food stamps and pick up the cheese they give away to the poor people, go to church pantries to get the basics, and shop at Goodwill for everything except underwear. I could do it, somehow. I wonder whether he will let me take my piano.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Two Weeks by S. W. FELDMAN Copyright © 2011 by S. W. Feldman. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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