Pavane for a Suburban Mother

On a Saturday, the parking lot of farmers’ market is like a giant playground filled with bigger, meaner kids all waiting to knock into you. There is nothing more intimidating than a Main Line mother in a Land Rover who is gunning for the same parking space you’ve scoped out. She’ll cut you off without a thought, while jabbering away into her cell phone, completely oblivious that she’s driven the wrong way on a one-way lane to do it.

Someone honks at me when I cross the parking lot and block the progress of her SUV to an open parking space. I jump a little, scoot between the parked cars, and count myself lucky that I wasn’t run down and left like a grease spot on the asphalt.

Once inside the bustling farmers’ market I wander from stall to stall. I’ve forgotten what I wanted, but I meander among the bright green and yellow gourds and fat orange pumpkins, the fresh bunches of crimson radishes and deep purple eggplants. The flower stalls feature ghosts and witches scattered among the bright fall mums. Halloween has come to the farmers’ market. I can smell apple cider in the air along with the usual coffee.

I buy carrots, apples and butternut squash along with a cup of warm apple cider. Then I manage to find a lone table squeezed into a corner of the small lunch section and stare out into the parking lot.

Usually I see at least ten or more people I know at the market, but today I have been mercifully anonymous. I’m not sure what’s happening to me. Why I find it easier and easier to slip out of my life and into this quieter place. I stir at the cider, and feel my eyes fill with tears I blink away. I am a stranger in my own life.

I suppose the problem is that I’ve always drifted along with the current because I’ve been afraid. I’ve never wanted to stand out. I’ve always wanted to blend. No controversy please. Nothing unpleasant.

I dance along the edges of friendship, because friendship is a tenuous thing. It slips away quick as a whisper. I am a good friend, but I never hold on to anyone too tightly. I never talk too freely, nor drink too much. Not even with my husband, especially not with him. We dance our stately dance, always in perfect time, always in step, never quite touching.

Each year seems to weigh more and more heavily upon us, and the silences, the things unsaid, grow deeper and darker. The children John was so eager to add to our little circle have enriched us at a cost. Every year I feel as though a little portion of myself has chipped away. I am no longer me. I’m John’s wife or someone’s mom. It is little wonder that I must be introduced to John’s co-workers over and over again.

I swallow the dregs of my cider and stand up, gathering my packages. The air feels a little colder as I walk to my car. In the bright sunlight, I am little more than a passing shadow.

Walter

Walter Grindle sits in a small cubicle in the corner of the office that doesn’t have windows. On two sides he faces sickly green walls on two sides half wall, half glass. Walter believes he is the office manager because his father owns the company, but Marsha Goldman who sits in the opposite cubicle—the one with windows on two sides—is the real office manager.

She gives Walter petty jobs, like taking inventory and adding up the day’s invoices. Walter loves numbers. He hunches at his computer, his fingers tap tapping at the keyboard as he inputs figures and smiles because he believes he is doing important work. Marsha doesn’t have the heart to tell him that the computers have already calculated the day’s figures and incorporated them into the weekly, monthly and yearly totals. They will be automatically updated at 5:31 p.m. Walter does do a very nice job of keeping track of the inventory, however.

“Hey, Cindy,” Walter says looking up from his computer.

Cindy Sautherton halts and takes a breath to compose herself. “Yes, Walter?”

“I noticed that you took a box of legal pads last week. You didn’t fill out a form.” He holds up one of his specially designed color coded forms for her and waves it. His smile stretches across his rubbery face, and she stares at his pink gums and tiny square teeth. His black glasses ride up his nose and behind them his small black eyes leer at her. He shakes the form again. “Come and get it.”

She exchanges a look with Jeff Wong who rolls his eyes in sympathy. Jeff sits right outside of Walter’s office and is subjected to a constant barrage of jokes and remarks that only a man of extraordinary patience could endure. Jeff is a Buddhist. Though he has been born and educated in the United States, he has begun to pretend he doesn’t understand English very well.

Cindy walks into Walter’s cubicle and reaches for the form. He holds it just out of reach.

“Say the magic word,” he says.

“Please, Walter. Will you give me the form, so I can get back to work?” Cindy generally is good at handling Walter, but today her patience is frayed. Today she has three reports to finish and a presentation to prepare. Right now she just wants the goddamn form. “Give me that, Walter.”

“You should be polite,” Walter says. “If I tell my dad, you’ll get fired.”

“Fine. Tell your dad. Just give me the form.” She reaches over and snatches it out of his hand. She checks off legal pads, signs her name, and tosses the form back at him. “Here. Take your form.”

“I guess we aren’t having drinks tonight, Sin-Cindy.”

“We’ll never have drinks.”

Cindy walks out of his office. She hears Walter mutter, “I hate them all. I’ll tell Dad.”

He says that all the time.

She passes Tina and Jolene on her way back to her desk. “Take the long way to the ladies room,” she says. “His highness is in a mood. I hope you didn’t take supplies.”

Jolene sits back in her chair and folds her arms. “Why doesn’t his daddy stick him someplace useful? Like on a farm shoveling shit?”

Tina just giggles. “Oh, he’s kinda sad. Don’t you think?”

“Poor Jeff. If I was him, I’d wring the little bastard’s neck.” Jolene shakes her head.

The day passes slowly until it finally is five-thirty. Walter has enjoyed his afternoon, telling the new guy in accounting that he needs to work harder–of course, Marsha comes into his office and puts an end to his lecture. He’s sent Jolene a link to some new miracle diet because he knows she’s always trying to loose weight, and he has asked Ali, the new receptionist out. She’s said no.

At the end of the day, he asks no one in particular who is up for a round at the local pub. There are no takers. He watches his co-workers file out. No matter. He’ll get them next week.

Walter gets his coat and heads for the parking garage, but he recognizes the red Mini on the second level as Cindy’s. Across and down is a blue Toyota that he’s pretty sure belongs to Jolene.

Walter pulls in next to Cindy’s car and walks to the exit like a bloodhound on the trail. He heads to the pub everyone used to frequent, but no one from the office is there. He tries a few more on the street and is about to give up when he sees a place tucked into an alley.

Walter ducks down the alley and peers in the window. They’re all there at a big round table. Cindy and Jeff. Jolene and Tina. Ali, the new receptionist, and the guy from accounting. Even Marsha. They’re all sitting together and laughing like friends.

Walter swallows a few times and tries to will one of them to look up and see him, but no one does. He turns and walks back to the parking garage. He pulls out his keys and scrapes them the length of Cindy’s car before he drives home.

Music for Pain

“I’m so psyched. Tom and I’ve been dating for six months. It’s like a record for me.” Shannon felt the giant smile in her words.

“We’re hitting The Blue Diamond tonight,” Emma said. “Why don’t you stop by? There’ll be a bunch of us.”

“Okay, maybe.”

It seemed like a fun idea. Shannon figured it was time she introduced Tom to her friends. He’d met Emma and and her roommate Amy, but their schedules were busy. He liked to spend time with her. The new love phase Emma called it, but she was a cynic.

But Tom was in a great mood. When he appeared at her door, he said why not make an appearance after dinner? They’d have a few drinks and slip out. It sounded like a plan.

When they reached The Blue Diamond, it wasn’t too crowded. Emma had saved a table and seven people already crowded in. Tom pulled up two chairs and they wedged between Amy and a guy named Chuck. As the the bar became more crowded, Shannon found herself having to shout to be heard;more often than not, she found herself facing Tom’s back. Whatever he and Amy were discussing, it was intense.

The bar kept getting louder and more crowded, and she began to feel like she was an outsider. Chuck was talking to his buddies, and what the hell was with Tom?

When the band came on, Shannon excused herself to go to the ladies room, and by the time she got back the table was empty. Her friends had hit the dance floor. Tom was dancing with Amy, but she figured it was because she wasn’t there when the music started. When the song ended, the band slowed the tempo, and she watched Tom slide his arms around Amy. She fit perfectly, and smiled up into his face.

A third and fourth dance passed, and Shannon took a twenty from her purse. She dropped it on the table and walked to the door, ignoring the two guys who asked her to dance.

Outside it had started to mist a little, but it wasn’t cold. She didn’t mind the wet. Music drifted out from clubs as she walked: a hip hop here, a little techno there, and best of all some slow, sweet jazz that wrapped around her heart and squeezed.

She wasn’t going to cry. Not yet. She go home and turn off her phone.
Maybe she’d put on a little Ella and listen to that wonderful voice sing about heartbreak and pain. Then she’d cry. Oh yes. Then she’d cry.