The Antelope in the Living Room: The Real Story of Two People Sharing One Life (12 page)

CHAPTER 13

I
LOVE TO SHOP.
No, don’t argue with me. I do. I shop like some people breathe. It’s just who I am. And I don’t even have to buy (sometimes). I just like to look. I like to see the outfits in window displays and walk through Anthropologie and try to figure out why designers hate women enough to bring back floral-printed skinny jeans. Because let’s be honest: if they don’t look good on the mannequin, then they aren’t going to work on a woman who actually has more to her hips than plastic makeshift bones.

However, I was a big fan of the patterned skinny jeans back in 1985. I had some floral Guess jeans that would make you cry with jealousy and longing. Or at least they would have back in 1985. Those jeans, paired with some jelly shoes, a new polo, and a ribbon belt were a lethal combination as I walked the halls of George
C. Marshall Middle School with the bilevel haircut favored by softball players everywhere.

But that was back when I had thighs the size of a thirteen-year-old girl because, well, I was a thirteen-year-old girl. Not to mention, my hair was enormous, and that helped tremendously in creating some sort of distraction from all the flowers across my rear end.

Anyway, when we got married, I was under no illusions that Perry would share my love of shopping. This is a man whose wardrobe consists of three plaid shirts, six Columbia fishing shirts, jeans, and khaki work pants. He also has a large, sombrero-like hat that he wears in the sun since he’s a landscaper and spends a good part of his day outside. To quote the J. Peterman catalog, “It combines the spirit of Old Mexico with a little big-city panache.” Or to quote Caroline, “Daddy looks like the man from
Curious George
.”

When we got married, my clothes took up our entire master-bedroom closet and the coat closet downstairs in our townhome. Perry’s clothes took up less than half of the tiny guest-room closet. This is where I also have to tell you that he hangs all his clothes on wire hangers. I just can’t even.

For a while I lived under the illusion that I was going to turn him into my very own Ken doll and create a spectacular mix-and-match wardrobe for him. Think Garanimals meets George Clooney.

But there is only so much rejection a girl can take. Only so many times you can hear, “Why do you want me to wear clown shoes?” when you bring home a pair of trendy black loafers or watch somebody gag like a cat hacking up a fur ball when they try on a beautiful green sweater you found on sale at J.Crew because they think the neck is too tight.

Guys don’t understand that sometimes fashion isn’t comfortable. Do they think we really want to wear the belt over the sweater and a pair of Spanx leggings that don’t allow us to breathe properly until we take them off at the end of the day? No. Of course we don’t. But it looks good. Like Billy Crystal as Fernando Lamas used to say, “It is better to look good than to feel good.”

No woman puts on a pair of four-inch heels and thinks,
These feel heavenly. I could walk for miles.
We put them on and immediately plan out how many times we can sit down during the day and know that by the evening we will want to cut off our feet with a dull butter knife because that would be less painful.

But the majority of men dress for comfort. Although I guess the invention of the pajama jean indicates this isn’t a purely male phenomenon. However, I believe few things indicate how far we’ve fallen as a society more than pajama jeans. Is it not casual enough to wear jeans? We have to turn them into something that feels like pajamas? The same goes for the Snuggie. For goodness’ sake, just wrap yourself in a blanket. Don’t try to turn it into some type of apparel you can wear around. Coco Chanel is rolling in her grave.

My grandmother wouldn’t leave her house without a full face of makeup even if she was on her deathbed, and now we wear pajama pants to the grocery store. Dear America, do better.

I can’t remember exactly when I gave up on my Ken doll fantasies for Perry’s wardrobe. Maybe when I realized Ken might not be a straight man. Whereas Perry hasn’t owned a hairbrush since he got rid of his mullet in 1989. Given this information, why did I think he would ever agree to wear a sweater vest?

Oh, I kid. I’d never want a man who wears a sweater vest.

(There was a time in college when Gulley and I attended a Christmas formal and ended up in a debate over who had the worst date. I won because my date wore a Christmas-themed sweater vest, and that is the nicest thing I can say about him.)

But every now and then, shopping with Perry is unavoidable. This usually occurs when Gap quits making the style of jeans he’s been wearing for the last six years and I insist he has to go to the store with me to find some new ones. Because ain’t nobody got time to bring home sixty-two pairs of jeans for her husband to try on.

This forced shopping adventure actually happened recently when Perry mentioned he was in the market for about three new pairs of jeans because he needed something nice to wear to church and out to dinner now that the weather was allegedly cooling off. Let’s have a moment of silence for the fact I’m married to a man that puts denim in the category of formal wear. My friends at
Downton Abbey
would be outraged.

I knew Gap had made some changes when the shirt I bought Perry for his birthday was way too small, thanks to clothing manufacturers’ decision that men need to wear shirts with an “athletic cut.” And yes, perhaps athletes should wear “athletic cut” shirts if they want to, but forty-year-old dads with bad backs and a penchant for Nilla Wafers should not be expected to live up to that standard.

(In all fairness, I certainly wouldn’t want to have to wear something labeled as “athletic cut.” It’s too much pressure. How about an “I like to watch television cut” or an “I ate mashed potatoes with gravy for dinner last night” cut? Let’s try to live in the real world.)

Anyway, the men’s denim section at Gap rivals the women’s
section. There are boot cut jeans and straight jeans and authentic fit and easy fit and loose fit and skinny fit. And please, just say no to some men’s skinny fit jeans. That is forty-seven kinds of wrong. Unless you’re the worship leader of a really trendy church and wear a scarf even when it’s ninety degrees outside and say “Dude” without irony.

When I told Perry he was going to have to actually walk into a store with me and try on jeans because neither of us would survive the process of my bringing home every single type of jeans in whatever various sizes he might need, he wasn’t thrilled. So we waited for a rainy day when there was nothing better to do than be stuck in a “boring store” (his words), and we went out to eat breakfast first because we figured a good meal might help our nerves. (My nerves.) Then we stopped by Gap on our way home.

Y’all. Perry didn’t even know where Gap was.

If something ever happens to me, I’m going to need someone to step in and do a fashion intervention for my family.

(I’m currently taking applications. People who own pajama jeans need not apply.)

We walked in, and I showed him the jeans section. He began to read the different jeans descriptions out loud: “SITS LOW ON WAIST. SLIM THROUGH LEG. BOOT CUT OPENING.” And then he’d move to the next one: “SITS LOW ON WAIST. RELAXED THROUGH LEG. STRAIGHT LEG OPENING.” After Rain Man read all the descriptions, he grabbed three different types of jeans in only one size and headed to the dressing room while I followed him.

And then I waited outside by the three-way mirrors like I was Kevin Arnold’s mother in an episode of
The Wonder Years
. “Plenty of room in Kevin Arnold’s crotch area.”

Perry came out first in the Easy Fit, and I was immediately alarmed by the size of the back pockets. I can only assume that the
Easy
in Easy Fit means that it’s easy to fit a bunch of stuff in your back pockets, because they were like clown pants. Which means they would have looked great with those black loafers I’d brought home a few years before. Maybe add a big red nose and a rainbow Afro to complete the look.

Next up were the Straight Fit. They were much better. And last he tried on the Boot Cut, which were my personal favorite but caused him to do some sort of move to show me how uncomfortable they could potentially be. I had no idea he was planning to perform gymnastics in his new jeans. But apparently he spends his time in jeans doing a lot of squat moves and leg lifts. He can kick and stretch just like Sally O’Malley.

And then, because I am me, I suggested he try on some more. He said he was finished, and I silently vowed that our days of shopping together were over. Just because we vowed to love each other for better or for worse does not mean we have to love each other in a shopping situation.

Especially when he saw the price tag and couldn’t get over jeans that cost $54. But that’s probably because he thinks all my jeans only cost $15.

(See chapter 7 on budgeting.)

So we left Gap and drove home to order them online because online orders were 25 percent off, plus I had a coupon for an additional $20 discount that I’d left in my desk drawer because I really wanted to use it to buy something for myself and not jeans for someone who doesn’t even get excited about new clothing and acts like he’s doing these jeans a favor by allowing them into his closet.

(Don’t judge me about the coupon. I’m just being honest. It
was going to go toward the purchase of a sweater that was in need of a good, loving home because I am a humanitarian.)

About an hour after we got home from Gap, Perry grabbed his keys and said he was going to Whole Earth to buy some new socks. And, RUDE, he didn’t even ask me to go with him.

Personal shoppers get no respect.

Which is why I’ve decided to retire. Until the next time he needs new jeans.

CHAPTER 14

L
IKE A LOT OF YOU,
I grew up in the age of the talk show. Phil Donahue, Oprah, Maury Povich, Sally Jesse Raphael and her red glasses. People airing all manner of personal business and throwing skeletons out of the closet with no shame.

And there were always couples with marital problems on those shows who shared that they decided to have a baby because “we thought it would bring us closer together.” Or teenage girls who got pregnant in an attempt to keep their boyfriends. There were also people who were there for free paternity tests, but that’s an entirely different subject.

The point is that even before I had a child of my own, I thought this was flawed logic. How could bringing in a helpless little person make two people grow closer if that’s all they had going for them?
It seemed like the equivalent of declaring you’d like your house to be cleaner so you’ve decided to adopt a family of monkeys.

I mean, sure, I guess there are times when people initially bond over sharing a life-shaking event. Look at Jack and Rose in
Titanic
. They found true love in forty-eight hours on a sinking ship, but in the end she couldn’t even make room for him on that piece of broken door. (Really, Rose? You couldn’t scoot over about six inches for the LOVE OF YOUR LIFE? His heart could have totally gone on if you hadn’t been such a door hog.) You have to think that long-term, Rose might have whined that Jack couldn’t provide her with the luxury she’d become accustomed to, or complained that she was tired of him being an artist, and the whole thing about being from different worlds wouldn’t have been nearly as romantic. Or maybe I’m just too much of a skeptic.

I really don’t mean to compare having a baby with being trapped on a sinking ship. They are totally different experiences, unless you count the fact that both can make you feel completely helpless and at the mercy of something bigger than you, and possibly like you might die.

Perry and I had been married for five years before we decided to have a baby. (You can read the whole entire story in my first book,
Sparkly Green Earrings
, available in bookstores or on a garage sale table near you right now. Probably at a very discounted rate.) We were in our early thirties, and it seemed like it was time to start a family. At least that’s what our parents kept telling us.

Apparently we are a fertile people because I was pregnant the very next month. And then I had a miscarriage. Perry and I were both heartbroken, but I think these things affect women differently than men. Because while we both experienced a loss, it was something that happened inside my body. Between the hormones
and the sadness, something shifted in me. Depression settled in, and I spent a lot of time just wondering how soon I could go back to bed. I was a far cry from the generally happy person Perry was used to.

I had fallen and couldn’t get up. If only I’d had one of those helpful pagers like they advertise on TV.

Truthfully, I look back now and realize that whole experience marked our marriage in a permanent, lasting way. I can almost draw a line between “before miscarriage” versus “after miscarriage.” We’d had arguments and financial struggles and other problems in the first five years of our marriage because, well, that’s marriage. But this was the first really hard, heartbreaking thing we’d experienced together. This was the first thing we couldn’t just decide to buck up and be positive about.

(Why did I just use the term
buck up
? Have I watched too many
Happy Days
reruns recently?)

The morning of my scheduled D & C, Perry drove me to the hospital and was right there holding my hand before I went in and the moment I woke up after it was over. And then, because he knows my love language, he drove me through Shipley’s to get a chocolate donut on the way home. I was still slightly altered and/or high from the anesthesia, but I kept reaching for his hand and saying, “I JUST LOVE YOU SO MUCH. I REALLY LOVE YOU.” Because apparently medication makes me indifferent to pitch and decibel level. But I was speaking the absolute truth. I’d never loved him more because up to that point in our marriage, I don’t know that I’d ever been so aware of how much he loved me.

It was the moment I realized he didn’t just love me when I was fun or pretty or cooking spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. (I make unbelievable spaghetti and meatballs. It would make you
fall in love with me too.) He loved me when I was hurting and depressed and crying tears that didn’t seem to end and wearing the same pajamas four days in a row. This sounds so weird to say since we’d been married for five years at that point, but it was the first time I realized he really was going to stick with me for better or for worse. We were in this thing even when it got really ugly and maybe smelled a little bad. And by “it,” I mean me.

We walked through a difficult six months and came out the other side stronger and better. It was like we’d transitioned to a real, grown-up version of marriage. And so when I got pregnant again, we believed we were more ready than ever to take on the monumental task of raising a human.

Yes. Like you can ever be prepared for that type of responsibility or sacrifice.

At one point about halfway through my pregnancy with our daughter, Caroline, Perry was in Colorado chaperoning about sixty high school students on a ski trip. Normally I would have been on the trip with him, but I had a host of issues with riding a bus for seventeen hours with high school kids before I ever got pregnant, so there wasn’t really even a remote possibility that I was going to attempt that kind of torture while carrying a child. He’d arranged to have a few other female chaperones on the trip, but they’d all had to cancel at the last minute.

Perry, bless him, ended up being the chaperone and small group leader for ten fourteen-year-old girls during that trip. He’d call me every night after he got back to his hotel room and report that they’d put gel in his hair or that they’d used something called a “straight iron” on him. On the last night of the trip he called to
tell me that someone had a pair of scissors, and he wasn’t sure what happened, but the girls all started cutting one another’s hair and the next thing he knew, three of them were crying in the bathroom while the other girls gathered outside the door and tried to console them with loving statements like “It will grow back” or “It doesn’t look that uneven from the left side.”

In short, he was slightly traumatized by the whole experience.

He arrived home from the trip on Wednesday afternoon, and I was scheduled to have an ultrasound the following Friday. It was the big ultrasound. The ultrasound that can tell you if you’re having a boy or a girl. And if you think I was going to wait to find out that piece of information, then you don’t know me at all.

Of course, it wasn’t like I really needed the ultrasound to tell me I was having a girl, because I’d known that for a long time, thanks to the science of peeing on some Drano crystals and seeing them turn a lovely shade of seafoam green. Not to mention that I felt like I was getting some divine inspiration through Neil Diamond every time I heard “Sweet Caroline” on the radio.

On the way to the doctor’s office that Friday morning, Perry looked at me and said, “I know we’re having a girl.” I thought maybe Neil Diamond had been speaking to him, too, because Neil just has a way (to move me, Cherry), but he said that he knew when he was on that ski trip surrounded by all the chaos and squeals of those girls that God was preparing him for life with a daughter. And as much as he didn’t understand all the drama and the high-pitched voices and the nail polish and why they thought it was a good idea to cut each other’s hair, he knew that a baby girl was exactly what he wanted.

And, sure enough, there was a girl on the way. When she made her arrival on August 3, 2003, our lives were forever changed
 
—and
so much for the better. But please note I said for the better, not the easier. Bringing a third person into a marriage can be a challenge even under the best of circumstances.

Especially when you feel like your husband still gets to hunt or fish whenever he wants and you’re home with a toddler who screams loudly just because she likes to hear the sound of her own voice or drops a sippy cup on the floor forty-eight times because gravity is a new and exciting concept.

I remember Gulley telling me she’d never disliked her husband more than when their son was two weeks old and she was up at three in the morning changing poopy crib sheets for the fourth time that night. Then, to make matters worse, she heard a loud chomping, cracking sound and realized the dog was eating one of the wheels off the bassinet they’d borrowed from a friend, which was when she sank to the ground in tears and utter defeat. All while her spouse slept peacefully in the next room.

In his defense, he had to go to work the next day and her new job was to stay home with the baby, but that’s just it. As a new mom, your life changes overnight. Your priorities change, you forget to brush your teeth, you aren’t sure how you’re ever going to balance all your new responsibilities, and it’s overwhelming. Not to mention that your body that used to be almost purely recreational has become much like a dairy cow but not as delicate and petite.

It’s a change. And life isn’t just you and your husband sleeping in on Saturday mornings but instead becomes ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS to see who gets to sleep late or who has to get up with the baby in the middle of the night or who has to change the sixth diaper that would make even a person without olfactory senses gag.

And you can’t help but wonder what you used to do with all your spare time. What was life like before you had to hire a babysitter or sweet-talk the grandparents if you wanted to go out to dinner or to a movie together? It’s a distant memory.

But Perry and I, like most couples before us, adjusted to our new normal. We made schedules and took shifts and learned to share the responsibilities that came with our new role as Mama and Daddy. And, in what is either a high or a low, we even began referring to each other occasionally as “Mama” and “Daddy.”

Ultimately, Caroline has brought us closer together and made our marriage stronger because we share this remarkable little person. There are no two people in the world who love her and want the best for her like we do, and we’re united in that. And sometimes when Perry is getting on my last nerve, I’ll see him helping Caroline with her homework or cuddled up with her on the couch, and I’ll fall in love with him all over again because I’m reminded what a good daddy he is and how he loves our girl.

I think having a child is like various tests a couple will face throughout a lifetime together. You either let the struggles and challenges draw you closer in or create resentment. The key is having a good foundation of friendship and respect and love.

And a whole lot of prayer for God to cover everything with his grace.

And maybe remembering to make room for the love of your life on the floating door when it feels like the ship is going down.