I Like You Just Fine When You're Not Around (8 page)

Macie chimed in, “I totally get what you're saying, Mrs. Harmeyer.” She stood up behind her desk. “There's no small claims court for marriage. No place to tattle. No place to get a reality check and pass around time-outs.”

“That's it!” shouted Jean. “We'll call it
It Ain't Business, It's Personal
, with Dr. Tig Monahan.”

“Or call it
Is That Fair?
” Macie clapped her hands.

Tig scowled, putting her fingers to her lips to shush them. “Why would anyone care what I have to say? I'm not a lawyer, and I hate those sanctimonious television judges.”

“You're still thinking inside the box,” Jean said. “This isn't court. It's radio. You'll have the power of the airwaves behind you. The world needs a hand when a couple is stuck between ‘Hey, this isn't fair' and ‘I want a divorce.' Right now, that place is more mythical than the G spot.” Jean looked at Macie and said, “The real G spot is defining what's fair play in marriage and accountability. Now that would feel amazing.”

Macie grinned and said, “My G spot is at the intersection of ‘up yours' and ‘kiss my ass.'” Then, with a little less conviction she added, “But that's probably why I'm not in a relationship.”

Unconvinced, Tig said, “Don't you want a lawyer; a moderator? Someone who does this for a living? One of those collaborative divorce people, maybe?”

“God, no, I don't want a legal authority on my show. That's up to our listeners. We'll have all the appropriate disclaimers, ‘These are not the opinions of the radio station' . . . blah, blah blah. We'll say this isn't counseling or should not be substituted as counseling, and that you're not to be held responsible.” Jean walked over to Tig. “Look, I knew this was going to set off all your moral bells and whistles because, the other day aside, I know that you're a caring, careful therapist. I didn't come to you because you're a loose cannon. I want a balanced opinion of fairness. You will get to say fair or not fair. You will be supporting people, validating what they already know is true.”

Tig raised her hand. “I have no interest in being the resident Kevorkian on marriage. I hate divorce and what it does to people.”

“That's fine,” said Jean with conviction, “then never suggest it. We will put that into the disclaimers, your position on divorce . . . that you know that it is necessary in some situations where either psychological or physical abuse is present, but should not be the first level of remedy or something like that. Our lawyers will write all that stuff. You can oversee that.”

Tig considered this. “I would listen to people's stories and give them a kind of reality check? Like: ‘No you're not crazy; making you wear a fireman's hat to bed every night is definitely one-sided.'”

“Exactly. In the beginning, before people call, you could talk about some of your counseling experiences, give stories of couples. You know, changing the names to protect the guilty and all.”

“No way, Jean. Look. This is not what a counselor does. We don't tell tales; we don't judge and punish.”

Jean's iPhone buzzed. “It's my assistant.” She narrowed her eyes and said, “Dr. Monahan, you're going to need an assistant. Macie, are you interested?”

Macie blinked and answered without hesitation. “I'm totally in, Dr. M, let's do it.”

Jean continued to smile. “Dr. M, yeah, I like that. Okay, now I have to go. I'm having a Bite Me cake from that dog bakery in town, Baking No Bones About It, be delivered to Newman just before he leaves the office today. Don't you love it? It was my assistant's idea. A copy of the bra photo is going to be stuck on the top.”

Jean winked at Macie and trained her eyes on Tig. “Think about it; let's at least try a pilot.” She handed Tig her card. “You can come to the studio, meet our lawyers, and tailor this to your specifications. You'll see. This is going to be great. What else have you got going on?” Waving over her shoulder, she strode out through the parted glass doors.

Tig put her hands on the reception desk's cool marble surface. “What just happened?”

“I'm not sure, because I haven't actually seen it happen before at this job, but I think you just moved on.”

Already deep in thought by the time she reached the double doors, Tig almost didn't hear Macie call out.

“Dr. M?”

Tig turned, an expectant look on her face.

“I almost forgot to tell you. A nurse from Hope House called.” Macie read from the telephone pad in her hand. “Your mother wants her keys back.”

• • •

Tig drove home, her mind filled with conflicting thoughts about advice-giving, fairness, and whether she should even work or not. “To job or not to job, that is the question,” she said aloud. It was a relief to quiet her heavy thoughts about Pete and her family momentarily. She unlocked her front door and stepped inside. Thatcher, having been returned from the neighbor's house, sat curled on the couch under the bay window.

“Glad to see you had your usual afternoon, soaking in the rays. I hope you got my taxes done between naps. Scooch over; you're taking up the whole seat.” She inched the large dog over and sat, running her fingers through the surprisingly soft, wavy hair.

“Do you miss Grandma? I bet you do. I bet you're lonely when you're here by yourself.” Tig lifted her face to the late afternoon sun and closed her eyes. When she opened them, she noticed the dust and dying plants on the bay windowsill. She broke a dead leaf off of a philodendron and the entire plant came up, the roots dry and brown.

“Did you know, Thatcher, that some plants have green leaves and sometimes actually bloom?”

A pile of mail lay scattered on the coffee table, including her cell phone and mortgage bill. An empty coffee cup ringed with a dark stain sat next to a crumpled napkin and an uncanceled check made out to Hope House.
Disarray
, she thought.
Trepidation. Proliferation
.

In her mind's eye, she saw her young mother's handwriting on vocabulary lists attached to the refrigerator. Her mother's unlined, smiling face.

“You girls will thank me when you're eating with the president of the United States of America and he talks about the
proliferation
of wealth or some such thing. You will be one of the few at the table who will know what he is talking about. You'll not only know what he is talking about, but you'll also know which fork to use. He will comment on what remarkable young people you are. I hope I'm alive to receive your thank-you letters.”

Tig turned her head. A note in Pete's handwriting still hung on the back of the door:

Hallie. You live here. Do not go outside. The address is 612 Buena Vista Way.

Tig buried her face in Thatcher's hair. The dog's soft ham-slice of a tongue brushed Tig's chin.

“I hope you know that you must live and proliferate good health way beyond your doggie years. You know, if I ever am crazy enough to get married, you have to be my maid of honor. Wendy will just have to deal with it.” Tig sighed. “Speaking of Wendy, did my negligent sister call yet?”

Thatcher yawned her huge, exhausted, you're-keeping-me-awake-with-this-silly-talk yawn.

Tig looked at her phone and considered whom to call about the radio offer, then went to sleep.

She woke in the night, turned to spoon Thatcher, and tried to recapture a dream, the tail of which sifted through her mind and sailed out of her grasp. Instead, Tig thought of her mother. Her memory played back, always clearer just on the edges of sleep. She recalled herself as a little girl in her mother's wedding gown. She biked everywhere, her lean tanned legs pumping the pedals of her blue Schwinn two-speed, a long chestnut braid sailing like the tail of a kite straight out behind her, the knot of a shimmery yellow ribbon hanging on for dear life. She could almost feel the ivory satin of the dress flap like the incredible wings of an albino bat, just shy of the spokes and gears of the bicycle. Her bottom narrowly missed the boy-bar on every quick down stroke and jerky upswing.

She would push forward over the handlebars, reaching out to meet the wind, racing the boxelder bugs, dandelion wisps, and voices from last night. She hated when her mother and sister fought; hated the clenched teeth, scrambled faces, hissing snake-like sentences, and slamming doors.

Tig would hitch up the shoulder of the buttery gown of her mother's wedding dress and grab the greasy hem, tattered by rough patches in the road. She shoved it into the waistband of her red gym shorts. She had been a prototypical eight-year-old girl, dress-up gowns mixed with skinned knees and scabs still healing on the palms of her hands. She loved how nimble she felt when she jumped off and grabbed the dress without tripping and landing in the hedges. She skidded into Mrs. Shaft's driveway, shaving down the toe of her tennis shoe and slicing a marigold to the quick as she made the turnaround. She was a genius at dodging obstacles and keeping track of her extremities without insult; something her sister, even at her advanced age of thirteen, couldn't quite master.

She'd walk her bike around to the side of her next-door neighbor's yard, and pull herself into the tire swing. If Tig swung up just right she could fold herself into the center, unobserved, sway and think. She remembered to pull up the dress and tuck the train and tulle into the tire. She thought she looked like the chrysalis in her second-grade science room, a caterpillar wrapped in silk, deaf and protected.

“Tig!” she'd heard her mother's voice calling once. Shoving herself further down into the tire, she smelled rubber, musty leaves, and the mothballs that had previously kept her mother's dress pristine.

“Tiger Lily, where are you?” her mother had called impatiently, on her way to annoyed. Tig had about three minutes before her mother added her last name to the call. She wasn't really in trouble until then; three strikes you're out, and then came the wooden spoon. Her mother never hit her with it. It was like a wooden exclamation point she held in her hand for emphasis.

Let her wait,
she remembered thinking, to show she could be independent. She would kick the inside of the tire hard, and flakes of black fluttered down from the sides.
Five, four, three, two, one
.

“Here I am, Mama. I'm coming.” She would call this in just a minute, but first wanted to torture her mother a bit longer before she answered, make her wonder if she had run away or been eaten by Hothead, the neighbor's pit bull.

“Come on in here and get cleaned up. It's time to start thinking about dinner,” her mother called. Softening, she added, “Grab your bike, Tig. We're having your favorite dessert later.”

Tig had stepped through the door, looking up as her mother reached out and cupped her chin. She loved her mother's hands.

Tig, the child, loved these times with her mother. Hallie was always so busy taking care of animals or fighting with Wendy that these times stuck out in Tig's memory. She recalled looking up at her mother, moving only her eyes so as not to disturb her. The tiny lines at the corners of her mother's eyes made them look like the soft sympathetic eyes of a whale, small and wise. Once, curled in her mother's lap, she had commented on the wrinkles, meaning to say how beautiful they were. Her mother had not been pleased by the compliment and grumbled about getting older.

Tig gazed up at her mother, saw that her mother's eyes rested on the oak tree outside, but it was her mother's mind where Tig longed to go. Unfortunately, there was a sign on her mother's face that read
Keep Out
. Sitting with her this way was like riding in the passenger seat of a car and not being able to see over the dashboard. Finally, unable to remain quiet, Tig said, “Mama?”

“Yes, Tig?” her mother said, without looking down at her.

“Can you tell me about the day you first saw Daddy?”

Her mother took a long breath and washed her hand over her face, like a washcloth wiping away the dust on the memory. “Oh, sweetie, you've heard this story a hundred times. Can't I tell another?”

“Please, Mama, I just like to hear it.” Tig put on her best pleading face as she gazed up.

Resigned, her mother said, “I was sitting in a huge class at the university, a chemistry class. He had on one blue sock and one white sweat sock and the nerdiest glasses I had ever seen, black frames with scratches all over them.”

She didn't speak or move, thinking that if her mother forgot about her, she might go on to serve up another new piece of the pie.

“I noticed he had really short nails,” her mother went on. “The kind you get from biting them right down to the nub. I kind of thought it made him look flawed and sensitive. I guess I was right about that.” She sighed and then said, “He had on an old brown sweater with worn cuffs and a tiny hole where the neckband met the shoulder seam. I told him I could sew it for him.”

Her mother paused again and said in a new voice, the one she reserved for when the delivery boy dropped the newspaper just short of the stoop, or when the garbage men tossed the cans around, “I don't mind telling you about your dad, but we should talk about who he really was, the real man behind the story. But, why? It's just the three of us now,” she said with conviction.

Tig remembered her discomfort with her mother's change from reminiscent to practical. She remembered wriggling out of her mother's arms, sliding onto the floor like Robin down the Batpole, throwing her arms up and skimming out of the wedding gown all in one motion, leaving the gathered luxury in the lap of her mother.

“I can do a cartwheel. Do you want to see?” Tig had said as she pitched her body upside down just short of a plant resting on the windowsill. When her mother didn't even yell at her, Tig brought up Wendy.

“Wendy says you should get married again. She says boys are nice.”

Her mother touched the small snags on the gown's bodice and said, “Wendy should know.” She sighed. “I probably shouldn't have let you wear this thing to play in, but I just thought it was such a waste sitting up in my closet; what's the point?”