Notes From the Underwire: Adventures From My Awkward and Lovely Life (6 page)

If I could keep her inside forever, I would. But that would involve none of the rest of the family ever opening a door or a window, not even for a second. Eventually, we must buy groceries or sign for a package and Lady Death will slip through any open portals relentless and stealthy as a Mossad enforcer. In truth, were we to never open the door, I’m convinced she would amuse herself by killing and eating us…When I hear about domesticated cats being introduced to Australia and decimating local populations of birds and small mammals, I imagine maybe five or six of Lulabelle’s cousins methodically stalking an entire continent, eradicating anything smaller than a mature wallaby.

Rupert and I stared at the tiny dead mouse under the Bench of Random Objects. Not wanting to play mouse corpse tug-of-war with the dog, I shoveled the little carcass onto a shirt cardboard and carefully walked it through the house toward the trash bins outside, Rupert prancing at my heels the whole time. Crossing the dining room, I noticed Lulabelle curled up asleep on a chair—a benign vision of shiny fur and plump, pettable rump. The night before, she had allowed Alice to dress her in doll clothing. Rupert continued to angle for the new chew toy in the cardboard dustpan. I sharply commanded him to “Leave it” and he looked abashed. In the end, I thought, dogs are domesticated, cats are appeased. I stopped for a second to enjoy Lulabelle’s peaceful aura, her sweet sleeping silhouette. Then I dumped her rent check in the trash bin.

IF YOU HAVE RUN OUT OF REASONS TO BE GRATEFUL IN
your life, try being grateful that I am not currently trying to help you. I am very bad at helping.

I was dropping Alice off at school one morning when I mentioned to my friend Veronica that I was heading to a nearby neighborhood to buy a particular kind of embroidery thread. My destination was a sweet, bucolic little village that managed to retain its midcentury charm while Los Angeles sprawled around it like a rash. Let’s call it Mayberry.

“Oh, I love Mayberry,” Veronica said. “I have to go down there at some point this week and put up fliers for my son’s soccer team pancake breakfast fund-raiser.”

“Do
you
have to do it, or does it just have to get done?”

“It just has to get done, I guess.”

My heart swelled. I could be helpful! “Let me do it. I’m going there anyway.”

Veronica looked pleased but doubtful. “Are you sure? You’d just have to put a few up in the coffee shop and the bookstore, but it’s still a hassle.”

“It’s nothing, I’ll be there anyway,” I said, and hugged her in a way to indicate I live to do pancake-based errands. “Put a flier in the coffee shop. Put a flier in the bookstore.
How hard can it
be?”

Yeah, I said this out loud. I think the universe might have actually soiled itself laughing.

If I had done only what she asked me to do, it would have been just that easy. Everything started out so well. I found street parking with money left on the meter; that always puts me in a good mood. The employees at the local coffeehouse motioned me toward a cork board over which was a handwritten sign that read “Neighborhood Events.” How easy could this be?

I love Mayberry for many reasons, but one of them is that the people here liked 1962 so much they never actually left it. There is a nonchain pet store. There is a nonchain family-owned bookstore. The bank is part of a chain but it’s a relatively small chain and they hand out candy at Halloween. The main street has a sewing-machine repair shop, for heaven’s sake. I might be alarmed by sewing machines but I’m charmed that people out there still use them enough to require a repair shop. When I walk around this village all I want is a pillbox hat and a purse that snaps closed. Not surprisingly, they also have a needlework store, which is why I had come here to begin with. I got my embroidery thread and I tacked up another pancake flier. I was so pleased with my general goodness that I might have beatified myself, if such a thing were possible. That’s when I noticed a tiny ballet studio across the street.

You know
, I thought virtuously,
I’ll go that one extra step and put a flier in the ballet studio. Mothers sit in ballet hallways for hours, some of them are sure to want to support a local soccer team by eating carbohydrates.

Glowing with the blended sensation of accomplishment and errand-combining, I trotted across the street and approached the front door. The lights inside were off but the door was unlocked. I stepped inside.

“Hello?” I warbled.

There was no response.

I walked farther down the dark hallway, figuring someone was teaching a class in the back studio. I located the reception desk and saw no one. A cool breeze swept up my spine. It occurred to me that either someone had forgotten to lock up the night before or I was about to become the first scene in an episode of
Law & Order.
At best, I’d be the innocent bystander who discovers the tutu-clad corpse; at worst I’d be the innocent bystander, strangled by toe-shoe ribbons, who is later described by the detective as “dying for a career break.” Either way, I decided that outside the building was a good place to be.

[Let it be noted that before I left, I carefully tacked a flier to the bulletin board.]

Back outside, I weighed my options. There was no emergency number on the door and no security system to call. I walked into the lingerie store next door. In keeping with the general tone of the block, this was not a shop packed with ribbony bits of silk underwear hinting at depravity. It was the place that answered the question: “Where can I possibly get a huge pointy-cupped bra and a holiday-themed housecoat?” I asked if they had a contact number for the dance studio. They did not. They did, however, tell me that there was a police annex just around the corner.

Police annex? Doesn’t “annex” mean extra bit? This is an extra bit of a police station? Like a third nipple? That couldn’t be right. Here in Mayberry “annex” probably meant small yet perfectly formed offices filled with clean-cut young people eager to walk into dark buildings. I walked briskly over to the police station, which not only wasn’t a station, it wasn’t even big enough to count as an annex. If it ate a lot of protein and got
enough sleep, it might grow into an annex. Right now, it was a deep closet, a place where you could pay a meter ticket or get fingerprints done for security reasons. Still, it was an official police station. I got to the door and noted a sign that read: “Open from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.” I tried the door; it was locked. I checked my watch; it was 1:00 p.m. I knocked a few times and waited to see if Deputy Fife would emerge from the back room rubbing his eyes, but no luck. I’d have taken Otis the Town Drunk by this point. I walked into the shoe repair place next door. The cobbler smiled welcomingly.

I gestured to the wall he shared with the police.

“Do you know why the office might be closed?”

He thought.

“Sometimes, if it’s quiet, they don’t come in.”

I guessed the local hooligans, whippersnappers, and roustabouts must have been in the pokey. I walked back to the ballet studio and paced outside a few more minutes, then determined that calling 911 was in order. I was promptly routed to a phone system that asked me to “Press one if this is an emergency.” Standing there on the street, I faced one of my civic conundra. Was this an emergency? Was arterial blood clotting on the sprung floor six yards away from where I dithered? I didn’t know. Was it
not
an emergency? Did I want to be one of those people who clog up the 911 system with calls complaining about how the neighbor is stealing my newspaper again?

I did not. I just wanted someone to walk into this dark building who wasn’t me.

I didn’t press 1 and waited in the silence.

I walked back to the bookstore while I waited and bought a cup of tea. After five minutes or so, I checked my cell phone. I
had been disconnected. I redialed 911 and again I didn’t press 1. But this time, being familiar with the subtleties of the 911 hold signal, I kept an eye on the readout. Almost instantly, I had been disconnected again. Apparently, admitting you weren’t trying to remove an icepick from your own sternum meant the 911 system kind of wanted you to go away.

I called 911 again. This time, I pressed 1.

I waited.

I waited.

I waited. The silence was piercing. On 911, no one thanks you for your patience or lets you know that you’ll be taken in the order received. No one ever even hinted our call might be monitored for quality assurance. I guess when your life is unpleasant enough to require a call to 911, you just want to take it for granted that everyone knows what they’re doing.

I checked the phone; I was still technically on hold, which was something like an improvement from before. For fun, I checked my watch; I had walked in the ballet studio twenty-five minutes ago. All I wanted to do was run away, but of course I couldn’t, because no one else seemed to know this stupid door was open, and there was still a chance that some innocent ballerina was being defiled with a leg warmer, and
would no one pick up my emergency call
?

It was at that moment that I saw a police car head down the street. Finally, a good guy with a gun! I raced after the police car, yelling like some sort of deranged do-gooder, spilling tea all over myself, saturating the one flier I had left, and managing somehow to disconnect myself from 911.

Of course, the police car sailed on, and disappeared. But at least I had a new piece of information. The police car had the
name of a nearby city. Mayberry’s peace and stability were the responsibility of an adjacent municipality. All it took was one call to information, and I was connected to that city’s police department.

And put on hold.

I waited.

I waited.

I waited.

I was disconnected.

Of course, between holding the dregs of my tea, my cell phone, and the pulpy mass that was the last flier, I hadn’t actually written down the number so I had to call 411 again. They put me through.

I waited.

I waited.

I…wait, I got someone!

I gabbled in relief, “Hi, I’m standing on a street and I walked into a building, which shouldn’t be open but it was, and it was dark, and I think maybe someone didn’t lock it last night, or maybe there’s been a crime, and who wants to be the person in the first scene of
Law & Order
, right? Anyway…”

“Where are you located, ma’am?”

I told her.

“That’s not our jurisdiction, ma’am.”

I spluttered, “But I just saw one of your cars drive past here!”

She waited that extra second, which lets the speaker know she’s said something stupid.

“Ma’am, I can’t tell why the police car was there. Maybe they were going to lunch. It’s not our jurisdiction.”

“Then whose jurisdiction
is
it?”

She told me. I called. I was placed on hold. Ten minutes later a dispatcher got on the line.

“Hi,” I said dully. “I’m in front of a building that is unlocked, and probably shouldn’t be. Could you please fix it?”

She asked the address. I told her, and held my breath.

“Can you wait for the police officer?”

“Hell yes, I can wait!” I crowed happily.

I had reached that magical stage in my helpfulness ritual where I slid so far into a secondary problem that I had completely forgotten the original task. As far as I could remember, I had been born on this corner waiting for someone to arrive and walk into a dark building. The police officer appeared a few minutes later. He was reassuringly big.

I explained: Dark building…nobody inside…came right back out…called for help.

“Yeah,” he said, matter-of-factly. “You don’t want to be the person who finds the body, like on
Law & Order
.”

I swear, I heard angels singing.

I HAVE READ ABOUT EVERY CAMP OPTION IN SOUTHERN
California, and I’ve noticed a couple of patterns. First of all, the people who write camp brochures are crazy for exclamation points! It’s as if they worry we might not understand how much fun their camp is unless they’re shouting at us! Really! Second, I’m convinced they are all using the same picture of the same three children, carefully chosen for diversity and attractiveness, smiling blissfully and holding up a frog. It could be a hiking in the Sierras camp or computer camp in the basement of the local vocational school, but it’s the same three kids and that same damned frog.

And there are so very many camps. At first, I was swamped and humbled by all the wonderful and enriching ways that Alice could spend the summer. Seventy or so brochures later, I noticed they had other things in common besides that damned frog. There were definite types. In case you haven’t gotten around to finding the right camp yet, here are some of your options:

• CAMP UTOPIA: Now in our seventy-fifth year, Camp Utopia provides the ideal environment for children to grow into young adults and future leaders. Our activities include archery, horseback riding, swimming in our very own lake, toasting
marshmallows while singing under a starry sky, and making memories to last a lifetime!

Some former campers have called Utopia “The finest hours of my childhood” and “The place that taught me how to be a person of honor and integrity.” All of our camp counselors have a Master’s degree in Childhood Development, and our Camp Leader, Mr. Robby, received a Presidential Commendation for his work with children!

Camp Utopia is currently accepting wait-list applications for the week of August 20–24, 2017. Siblings and children of former Utopians and U.S. senators will receive first priority.

• CAMP ACADEMIA: It’s summertime, and the living is easy…for losers! Here at Camp Academia we know that a month not spent boning up on standardized testing skills is a month other kids leap ahead of your child. We will make sure your five-to thirteen-year-old spends a productive day memorizing prime numbers, practicing their Chinese vocabulary, crafting the perfect essay, and boning up on the periodic table!

But it’s not all #2 pencils here at Camp Academia! Each afternoon, campers have an hour of
Yoga for Stress Management and Excellence!
Our cafeteria serves only high-Omega 3, 6, and 9 foods! And each week ends with a camp-wide game of Junior Jeopardy. Camp tradition says the first child eliminated has to wear a T-shirt printed with “I’m on my way to community college.” Our kids are wise
and
wacky!

Camp Academia has a few spots left for the most motivated students. Please note on the application whether your child is
prone to nervous tics, uncontrolled weeping, or stress-related skin conditions.

• CAMP EXHAUSTIA: Does the thought of having the kids around the house all summer make you crazy? Let us help! From nine to three every day, our campers run up and down a sand dune carrying heavy weights. At lunchtime, we challenge campers to eat their lunches while doing push-ups: good exercise and good coordination!

For a small fee, we have before-camp and after-camp programs where your child will learn teamwork by helping excavate a new swimming pool for the campgrounds, or building electric transmission towers…all by hand! If you think your child needs even more goal-oriented physical activity, this summer we are offering a special program:
Camp Persona Non Grata
, where we pick up your child directly from his last day of school and take him to work on a logging operation in Oregon until the Sunday before Labor Day. Our lucky campers spend all day, every day, in the forest, hauling cut trees over to our very own sawmill. Mother Nature meets noisy machinery! The kids have a ball!

For a small
additional
fee, we can keep your busy beaver right through the Labor Day weekend and deposit him directly into the first day of school.

When applying, please attach a copy of the child’s Ritalin prescription (we like to pair roommates of similar dosages).

• CAMP DIVA: Does your six-year-old demand
Turandot
on the way to school? Does your fifth-grade son feel left out when no one wants to go with him to the Kirov Ballet? Camp Diva is
a loving, nurturing environment for the artistic temperament, ages five to thirteen. No class begins before 10:00 a.m., and we always have fresh espresso ready! We offer such classes as
The Oeuvre of Harvey Fierstein
,
Sondheim for Second-Graders,
and
Tantrum as Performance Art
.

This year we will be doing a full production of
Rent
, with our returning camper Brian Abromowitz starring in the role of Mimi. But new campers needn’t fret, because we’re going to need lots of great singers and actors to play colorful junkies and homeless people!

We offer food options for vegetarians, vegans, lactoseintolerant, glucose-sensitive, and the recovering eatingdisordered.

Please include a portfolio of your child’s work along with your application. Videotapes will be acceptable for dancers, actors, and singers, but please also include recent reviews.

After weighing all the options, here is the camp Alice
will
be attending:

• CAMP CASA: For nearly a decade, Camp Casa has been giving one very special child the kind of one-on-one attention she just won’t get anywhere else. She’ll feel a sense of accomplishment when she empties the dryer for the very first time. She’ll learn science by classifying all the spiders she finds in her backyard playhouse. She’ll take private cooking lessons and learn the traditional Camp Casa breakfast:
Cereal-eaten-without-needing-to-wake-up-Mother
.

Afternoon field trips will include the beach (for no additional fee, she will learn to operate a Dustbuster and remove
sand from the backseat), the park, the museum, her Aunt and Uncle’s pool, and Trader Joe’s.

Yeah, right. The reality is, every year I plan for a summer of mellow and inexpensive pleasures. And every year I lose my mind. The best way to describe my parenting skills is to use the model of comic improvisation. When doing comic improv there are a couple of hard and fast rules. If your improv partner walks in and says, “I’m your brother, home from an expedition to Australia where I was artificially inseminating koalas!” you can’t say, “No, you aren’t,” because that brings the improv to a screeching halt. It also makes the other actors onstage want to spit into your latte afterward. No, you must say, “Yes, and as I recall, you’re also a world-class opera singer.” You always say, “Yes,
and
…” The “and” is everything. The “and” keeps the story going. You add the opera part because most improv people live to ad-lib an opera about extracting koala semen. My whole life is a function of “Yes,
and
…”:

Can I carry my purse, the cat carrier, the library books, and a bag of dry-cleaning to the car? Yes,
and
I can carry a tray of cupcakes for Alice’s class
and
I can hold between my teeth the bag of live crickets for the class turtle.

Can I hike twelve miles? Yes
and
I can wear my iPod so I can listen to a series of lectures on the rulers of Byzantium
and
I can page through a back issue of
Foyer
magazine, leading to confusion when I later insist the Empress Theodosia was known for her fondness for recessed lighting.

Can I make sure my daughter has some pure, uncomplicated, relaxing down-time during her summer vacation?

Yes.

And
then I hear from a mom friend about a week-long science camp where the kids explore the chemistry behind cosmetics, and who would deny her makeup-fixated daughter the chance to discover the atomic weight of lip gloss? With any luck, Alice will fall in love with chemistry and be distracted from what seems like her inevitable path toward a lifetime behind the counter at Bobbi Brown. Don’t get me wrong; if learning the fifty-eight different names for lipsticks, which could all be described as “pinkish-brown,” is her vocational destiny then I will wish her well. But wouldn’t she make an even better saleswoman if she could pronounce all the ingredients? Also, the camp is cheap.

And
then her swim coach offers a week’s intensive swimming camp and happens to mention she’s using a pool only three blocks from the science camp, which is good because the swimming camp starts twenty minutes after makeup camp ends. Alice loves swimming. I love when Alice is tired. Also, her most agreeable friend is going. Also, it’s cheap. I quickly calculate that if I pick her up at the exact second science camp ends, scrape off the results of her morning’s experiments, hand her a snack, shout at her to eat the snack for the seven minutes between destinations, teach her to change into a bathing suit in the backseat while still eating, and catapult her through the pre-swim shower room, we can make it work.

So, that’s it. One week of insanity; the rest of the summer a balancing calmness.

And
then we get a notice from another mom telling me she’d procured Alice a spot at her daughter’s day camp. One does not just give these people money to take one’s child and allow
them to accumulate insect bites. No, one must be vetted by a preexisting family. Last fall, after hearing my friend’s daughter gleefully describe the fun she had at day camp that summer, I offhandedly asked my friend to put us on the list. Of course, I completely forgot about it because my name is on lists all over the city for all sorts of things, and no one ever contacts me. I also forgot about the list because my brain works like an Etch A Sketch; even the slightest movement causes it to go completely blank. We were all a little surprised to hear that Alice had secured a two-week spot at the desired camp. I reread the brochure and noted the swimming, the hiking, the T-shirt tie-dyeing day, the make-your-own-pizza day, the camp Olympics day, the…

I felt breath on my neck. Turning around, I caught Alice reading over my shoulder. Her cheeks were flushed, her pupils were dilated. She whispered, “Please tell me I’m going there.”

I had so eagerly awaited the day she started reading. That was a very long time ago.

“But,” I floundered, “you’re supposed to be relaxing.”

She poked her finger at the brochure and said, enunciating each word, “Arts
and
Crafts
and
Karaoke day.”

Fortuitously, this camp started the week after the chemistry and swimming marathon ended. This one wasn’t cheap, but Grandma graciously offered to cover the cost as a birthday present.

And we were done.

And
then I got a message from another mother. She had paid for both her kids to go to tennis camp and, owing to a poor decision involving a skateboard, a ramp, and several lawn chairs,
her son was now the proud owner of a compound wrist fracture. She was happy to give me the other camp spot, which I wouldn’t even have to pay for. She gave me the dates; tennis camp started the week after the day camp. It was a few minutes from the house. The sane voice in my head told me, “Unless Alice is part racing greyhound she will be sufficiently exercised for the summer.” But the sane voice is small and timid. It was drowned out by the loud chanting, “FREE! CLOSE! FREE! CLOSE!” I borrowed tennis gear and would send her off to discover the joys of whacking at a small yellow ball while sunblock dripped into her eyes.

We were two days from the end of tennis camp and, I must admit, I was glad. Alice had had nothing short of a perfect summer so far and she was completely content with the level of campitude, but I was starting to lose perspective. There’s something about packing a lunch for a child every day that drains the soul. The fact that I was trying to find the mini-bags of raisins and making sandwiches when it was over a hundred degrees outside just made me irritable and prone to lash out. We had three more weeks before school started. Alice could forage in the kitchen for food like her parents.

And
then the phone rang. It was another friend with children. She had decided to run a ballet camp in her house for the following week. Dance in the morning, crafts and swimming in the afternoon. She was inviting Alice. Ignoring the voices shouting “DO IT! WE’VE GOT A HALF-TANK OF GAS AND HAND-ME-DOWN BALLET SLIPPERS!” I
started to demur. I explained, “Oh, I’d love to, but Alice has been running around all summer. I think she’s too worn out for ballet camp…”

“No, I’m not.”

I put my hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and looked over my shoulder. How did my child manage to materialize out of thin air every time camp was mentioned? She bounced from foot to foot.

“I LOVE ballet camp!” she squealed in delight. I didn’t doubt her sincerity but suspected that under other circumstances, she would have shrieked “I LOVE brain-eating camp!” It was Pavlovian. Alice heard the word “camp,” squealed in delight, and automatically handed me my checkbook. My friend’s house isn’t close, but the price made up for it. On Friday, Alice was determined to be the third Williams sister, winning the French Open before she was old enough to vote. By Monday afternoon, she was certain the New York City Ballet was holding a spot for her.

Okay. Only one more week of Alice-shaped fun and Quinn-based driving.

And
then a friend of a friend decided to do a three-day etiquette camp the following week.
And
then Consort found a weekend golf camp for daddies and daughters.
And
then her friend’s karate instructor had an intensive beginners’ course. I assumed this sudden flurry of end-of-summer camps meant any parent with a skill they could teach to other people’s children had taken a look at their own bank statement.

I sat down one night in August and did the math. I, who had planned not to do any summer camp at all had already spent only slightly less on camp than I spent on Alice’s school’s tuition
the previous year. “Yes,
and
…” may be fun to watch at the Comedy Store but it’s toxic on your credit score. Alice came rushing up, waving a brochure.