Smart Women (36 page)

“You made it up?”

“Yes.”

“All this time you’ve been telling me who knows the way of the world and who doesn’t, you didn’t know what you were talking about? It’s not some ancient Pueblo saying?”

“No.”

“But why?”

“I wanted you to think I was exotic and very wise.”

“But you are!” Michelle said. “You didn’t have to go and make something up for me to believe that.”

“Are you angry?”

Michelle looked around her room, focused on the cactus, and said, “No . . . because even if you did make it up, it’s true. Some people know the way of the world and some don’t.”

“But you loved him anyway,” Gemini said.

“Yes.”

“Even though he was no good for you.”

“He gave me exactly what I wanted,” Michelle said “He gave me experience.”

“But was it worth it?” Gemini asked.

Michelle’s eyes filled up. “I don’t know yet. If I live, then I guess so. If I die of a broken heart, then probably not.”

“You’re not going to die of a broken heart,” Gemini said. “You’re too smart for that.”

“I don’t think it has anything to do with being smart,” Michelle said.

43

S
ARA COULD NOT BELIEVE
that Eric had left town without saying goodbye to her. And after promising to wait until she grew up, until her braces came off her teeth, after promising to be there for her first teenaged birthday, which was coming in just a few weeks. She’d had it all arranged in her mind. How Eric would sit next to her at the table, and then, after she’d blown out the candles on her cake, the way he would kiss her. She could almost feel the softness of his lips on her face. She had believed him when he’d made those promises.

Michelle had been the one to tell them that Eric was gone. She’d said it one night at the dinner table. “Eric left town. He won’t be back.” She’d said it in a very small voice and everyone except Stuart had stopped eating and looked up at her.

“So, The Acrobat took off,” Stuart said, biting into the skin of a baked potato, “without even so much as a goodbye. Nice guy.”

Michelle shoved back her chair, stood up, and raised her glass of apple juice, as if to make a toast. Then she turned and threw it in Stuart’s face. “Asshole!” she cried, running from the dining table. A moment later her bedroom door slammed.

“Jesus!” Stuart muttered, wiping off his face with his napkin.

Sara expected Margo to give Michelle hell. You didn’t just throw a glass of juice in someone’s face and get away with it. But instead, Margo said, “Really, Stu . . . was that necessary?”

“What?” Stuart asked. “What’d I do?”

Margo just shook her head. Then she turned to Sara’s father. “I better go down and see how she’s doing.”

Sara opened her mouth to speak, but Daddy covered her hand with his own and she knew that she should shut up and stay out of it. After that she wasn’t hungry anymore, so when no one was looking she passed the rest of her pot roast to Lucy, who sat under the table, waiting.

Every night after that Sara could hear Michelle crying herself to sleep. Probably Eric had made a lot of promises to Michelle too.

Ten days after he’d left town, two postcards arrived from Eric. Sara collected the mail from the box that afternoon and read both of them. One was addressed to Michelle. It had a picture of a beaver on the front with
Greetings from Oregon
printed above it. On the back, Eric had written:

Dear Michelle,

Just a line to say you’re a great girl and that knowing you was a great pleasure. Hope to see you again some day.

Yours,
Eric

The other was addressed to Margo. It had a picture of the Columbia River on the front. On the back it said:

Dear Margo,

Thanks a lot for your hospitality while I was in Boulder. I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to all of you. Please tell Andrew, Stuart, and, of course, Sara, that I hope to see them again. You’re a swell family.

Sincerely,
Eric

It would have been nice if he had sent a card just to her, Sara thought, but at least he had mentioned her by name.

Margo didn’t seem all that interested in Eric’s card, so Sara asked if she could have it.

“Yes,” Margo said. “Just don’t let me see it around.”

Sara knew that Margo hated Eric, but she did not know why, unless all mothers hated their daughters’ boyfriends. She wondered if her mother would hate Griffen Blasch, this new boy in her class who was not exactly her boyfriend, but who she secretly liked, even though he was so shy he never spoke to her.

Not that what she felt for Griffen Blasch was anything like what she felt for Eric, but being in love with Eric was kind of like being in love with Matt Dillon or some rock star.

Sara took the postcard to her room and hid it in her bottom drawer, with the Polaroid pictures of Margo and her mother’s blue silk blouse. She turned on her radio and tuned it in to KPKE Rocks the Rockies. They were playing “Love Is the Drug.”

Later that night Sara walked into the bathroom and found Michelle standing over the sink, a pair of scissors in her hand. “Oh, I’m sorry,” Sara said. “The door wasn’t locked.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Michelle told her.

“What are you doing?” Sara asked.

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“It looks like you’re cutting Eric’s postcard into tiny pieces.”

“That’s exactly right,” Michelle said as the pieces fell into the sink.

“But why?” Sara asked. “It was such a cute picture of a beaver.”

Michelle just snorted.

T
HE NEXT DAY,
after school, Sara went to Jennifer’s house. They were upstairs in Jennifer’s bedroom and Sara was holding Jennifer’s hamsters while Jennifer cleaned out their cage. The hamsters felt soft and furry, but their feet squiggled as they tried to get away from Sara.

“Have you talked to your mother yet?” Jennifer asked, as she removed the newspaper from the bottom of the cage.

“Not yet,” Sara said.

“She’ll probably call for your birthday.”

“Probably,” Sara said. But she wasn’t sure that her mother would even remember her birthday. “Margo and my father said I should have a party.”

“What kind of party?” Jennifer asked. She lined the cage with clean newspaper and sprinkled cedar shavings onto it.

“A birthday party,” Sara said.

“I know that,” Jennifer said, taking the hamsters from her and returning them to their cage. “I mean, what kind of birthday party?”

“Whatever kind I want.”

“A boy-girl party?”

“Whatever.” The hamsters ran around in their wheel, making a whirring sound.

“Have a boy-girl party,” Jennifer said. “I’ll help you write out the invitations and we can plan it together.”

“I don’t know,” Sara said. “My mother wouldn’t want me to have a boy-girl party. She’d want me to invite six girls over for pizza and a movie, then we’d go back to my house for cake and ice cream.”

“You’re always thinking about what your mother would want,” Jennifer said, “instead of what
you
want. You’ve got to start thinking for yourself, Sara. After all, it’s
your
life.”

Sara walked across the room and looked out the window. The sky was clear and very blue. A bunch of kids were roller-skating on Mapleton.

“Listen to this . . .” Jennifer said, rattling the newspaper. “Omar says,
Today is a big improvement over yesterday, particularly in connection with your love life, social activities, or various recreational pastimes. Give a party.
”

Sara turned around. “Omar says that?”

“Yes, right here,” Jennifer said, tapping the paper.

“Hmmm . . .” Sara said, “maybe I will have a boy-girl party. And maybe I’ll invite Griffen Blasch.”

“I knew you liked him!” Jennifer said.

The baby started to cry then and Jennifer went into the nursery to get him. He was fat and adorable and Sara watched as Jennifer expertly changed his diaper.

It would be very nice to have a baby, Sara thought. A baby would need you. A baby would love you, no matter what. Now that Sara got her period she could have a baby if she wanted. If Eric came back when she was, say, eighteen and wanted to have a baby with her, she might. Then they would buy the blow-up house on Sixth, the house that was made of foam and looked like it belonged to some other planet, and she would go to C.U. and become a vet and Eric would open a motorcycle shop downtown and she would ride to her classes on the back of his Honda, the way Michelle had.

“Do you think your mother and Bruce will have another baby?” Sara asked.

“No, my mother only had this one because Bruce wanted the experience of being a father. My mother didn’t need another kid. She already had the three of us. Maybe your father and Margo will have a baby. Then you’ll find out what it’s like when you’re not an only child.”

“I’m not an only child,” Sara said. Jennifer passed her the baby. He grabbed a fistful of her hair.

“Stuart and Michelle don’t count,” Jennifer said, rubbing her hands with baby lotion. “They don’t belong to either one of your parents.”

“I’m not an only child,” Sara said again.

“You are too, Sara.”

“No. I had a brother, but he died.” Sara was surprised at how easy it was to say. “He was ten. His name was Bobby.”

“Baa Baa,” the baby said.

part four

44

F
ROM THE MOMENT
Margo took her seat on the grassy field of Boulder High School she choked up and could not speak. The idea of her son graduating from high school seemed not only a monumental event in his life, but in her own as well. She had kissed Stuart’s freshly shaved cheek that morning, telling him how proud she was to be his mother, telling him how handsome he looked in his cap and gown.

He had flushed and said, “I feel pretty weird dressed up this way.”

Out of uniform, out of his chinos and alligator shirt, he looked much younger to her, like a boy dressed in a man’s costume.

The last few weeks had been so filled with the pain of her children Margo had hardly had time to deal with her own. On the day that Stuart received five college rejections he had locked himself in his room and when he came out, hours later, although he had been accepted at one school and wait-listed at another, he had said, “This is the saddest day of my life since the divorce.”

His remark had cut into her, bringing back all the old divorce guilt, and for a moment she could not respond. It was the first time Stuart had admitted the divorce had affected him at all.

“It’ll be okay,” Margo had said finally, trying to comfort him. “Believe me, Stu, it’ll all work out.”

“That’s what you always say. That’s what you told me when you and Dad split up.”

“And I was right, wasn’t I?” she asked. But, of course, she had no way of knowing.