The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus Read online

  in vain to slam on my brakes.

  WHAT I LEARN FROM COSMO WHILE WAITING TO SEE THE DOCTOR

  I learn that pumpkin pie

  and lavender

  are aphrodisiacs.

  I learn that the French term for crabs

  is papillons d’amour—

  butterflies of love.

  I learn that the average

  speed of ejaculation

  is twenty-eight miles per hour.

  And I’m just about

  to learn the identity

  of “the next awesome sex prop”

  (which

  the magazine says

  is probably in my purse!)

  when,

  much to my chagrin,

  the nurse calls me in.

  ULTRASOUND

  Eighteen years ago, when Dr. Stone

  squirted the icy gel across my stomach,

  then turned to examine my womb

  on the pulsating screen

  and I saw Samantha for the first time,

  saw her heart fluttering like a tiny fan

  with the effort of pumping that blood,

  my blood, through her veins,

  saw the shimmering beginnings

  of the perfect little person

  that my body was so effortlessly

  knitting,

  I couldn’t have imagined

  how I’d feel on this day,

  eighteen years later,

  when Dr. Stone would squirt that gel again

  then turn to examine my ovaries

  on the pulsating screen,

  and announce so casually,

  as if talking about the weather:

  “You can stop using your diaphragm now.”

  MICHAEL AND I DON’T WANT ANY MORE CHILDREN

  And I certainly won’t miss

  the diaphragm.

  But I will miss

  the knowing—

  the knowing

  that my body

  still has that flame

  glowing at its center,

  that same steady light,

  that fire

  ready to ignite

  a freshly forged life,

  yearning for its turn,

  its freeing,

  its chance

  to burn

  in a brand-new

  human being.

  BUT NOW–I’LL NEVER BE PREGNANT AGAIN

  My biological clock

  has ticked its last tock.

  And the finality of this fact,

  the that’s-thatness of it,

  hollows me

  like a gutted pumpkin

  and leaves me

  with a sense of loss so deep

  that all I want to do

  is sleep.

  BAD TIMING

  Maybe my doctor’s news

  wouldn’t have caused

  such awful blues

  if Samantha

  hadn’t just begun

  applying to colleges—

  none of which

  are within a thousand-mile radius

  of home.

  Maybe his words would have hurt less to hear

  if thoughts of my looming empty nest

  hadn’t caused such a splitting in my chest

  that in the last few weeks,

  on more than one occasion,

  I’d nearly dialed 911.

  If my doctor

  had picked a better day,

  if he’d broken the news in a gentler way,

  maybe I wouldn’t be wandering

  around the house right now

  with my throat so tight I can barely breathe,

  trying not to panic about next fall,

  when Michael and I will be living alone

  for the first time in seventeen years,

  roaming through these rooms,

  drifting through these tombs—

  two lost strangers

  trying to fill

  all this space

  by ourselves…

  THE PHONE RINGS–SNAPPING ME BACK TO THE PRESENT

  It’s my mother.

  “Hi, Mom,” I say, trying to sound cheery.

  “What’s wrong, Holly?” she asks.

  That is so annoying.

  “Nothing is wrong,” I say.

  “Do you want to talk about it, dear?” she asks.

  “No!” I say,

  feeling more transparent than Saran Wrap

  and terribly sorry for myself.

  There’s a brief silence, then my mother says,

  “So…How’s the weather in California?”

  “Sunny,” I sigh. “I am so tired of sunny.”

  “It’s sunny here in Cleveland, too,” she says.

  “But with that crisp October tang in the air.

  I had such fun raking the leaves this morning…”

  “Mom,” I gasp, “you’re eighty years old!”

  “Don’t rub it in.”

  “But you shouldn’t be raking leaves!”

  “Oh, bosh!” she says, “I’d have jumped

  in them, too, if my handsome new neighbor

  hadn’t been watching me from his window.”

  “Geez. You might have broken something!”

  “You’re right,” she says with a girlish giggle.

  “I might have broken my neighbor’s heart.”

  I can’t help smiling at this, but then she says,

  “What about your heart, Holly?

  Why is it so heavy today?”

  So,

  of course,

  I tell her everything.

  And when I finish,

  she says, “Your baby-making days

  may be over, but you will always be my baby.”

  And, for reasons I can’t quite fathom,

  her words are as soothing

  as a cup of chamomile tea.

  AS SOON AS I HANG UP THE PHONE, IT RINGS AGAIN

  This time,

  it’s my editor Roxie calling

  (who’s twelve years old, if she’s a day)

  to remind me that I’m way behind

  on the deadline for my book.

  My heart starts beating

  at warp speed

  as the usual cocktail

  of adrenalin, guilt, and despair

  floods through my veins.

  I swallow hard,

  and then explain

  in a wobbly voice

  that, lately, my muse

  seems to have deserted me.

  This does not result

  in the sympathetic pep talk I was hoping for.

  Roxie just sighs and says she’s holding

  a spot on the fall list for me,

  but she can’t hold it forever.

  I apologize profusely.

  Then I click off,

  climb onto my bike, and pedal down

  to the beach.

  I trudge along the shore,

  trolling for inspiration,

  scanning the chalk-dashed sea

  for dolphins,

  but finding none.

  My eyes drift

  to the trash cans,

  dotting the sand

  like the smokestacks

  of a fleet of buried cruise ships.

  I glance up and see

  a lone gull flying into the wind,

  like a puppet bird

  suspended from invisible strings,

  making no forward progress—

  just like me.

  WHEN I GET HOME FROM THE BEACH

  I plop down in front of my computer

  and promise myself that I won’t budge

  from this spot (not even to pee)

  until I’ve written at least one poem.

  But a second later

  I glance out my window and see Michael

  bursting out of his art studio

  above our garage—

  his long white hair wild,

  his eyes
even wilder,

  smudges of purple paint on his face

  and on his T-shirt.

  I stiffen as I watch him

  stomp down the steps

  and storm across the backyard

  toward my office.

  He ignores

  my clearly posted

  DO NOT DISTURB sign

  and flings open my door—

  informing me that because I failed

  to answer his email about his aunt’s offer

  to take us to lunch on Thursday,

  he never got back to her.

  And now it’s Wednesday

  and what must she think?

  I clench my teeth, but say nothing.

  I know where this is heading.

  Michael says

  if I’d bothered to answer his email

  he wouldn’t have forgotten

  to respond to his aunt.

  “Why are you blaming me?” I say.

  “Both of us forgot.”

  Michael fumes a bit,

  then grudgingly admits I’m right.

  “But, having said that,” he adds,

  clearing his throat in that pissed-off way of his,

  “if you’d answered my email in the first place

  none of this would have happened.”

  I glance at the clock—it’s almost two.

  The whole day is slipping away

  and I haven’t written a single stanza.

  I can’t waste another minute arguing.

  But if I tell Michael I want to stop—

  he’ll say the reason I want to stop now

  is because he’s just said something I know is true

  and I don’t want to concede the point.

  But I tell him anyway, and he says,

  “Of course you want to stop now—

  I’ve just said something you know is true

  and you don’t want to concede the point.”

  I am one big growl…

  BUT DON’T GET ME WRONG

  My husband

  has many fine qualities.

  He’s not the uptight, irritating,

  finger-pointing stinker

  that that last poem

  makes him out to be.

  Michael has oodles

  of endearing attributes.

  It’s just that

  at the moment,

  I can’t seem to think

  of a single one.

  THEN SUDDENLY–THE DOORBELL’S RINGING

  Saving me

  from what surely would have escalated

  into another one of those

  excruciating endless arguments.

  I whiz past Michael with a smug shrug

  and rush down the hall to open the door.

  There stands Cousin Alice—

  my self-appointed sister substitute

  and best friend in the world.

  Alice is sobbing,

  in that advanced hiccuppy stage,

  her tears turning her carefully made-up face

  into a swirling abstract painting.

  My own eyes well up instantly

  at the sight of her.

  I lead her inside,

  sit her down on the couch,

  and hold her till she’s capable of speech.

  At which point, she tells me that Lenny,

  her longtime pain-in-the-ass live-in boyfriend,

  has run off with an old crush of his

  who he bumped into at his high school reunion.

  “She’s not even young and hot…” Alice wails.

  “My boyfriend left me for an older woman!”

  And while she pours out all the gory details,

  Michael slips into the room with a tray.

  On it is a bottle of cold chardonnay, two glasses,

  some sharp cheddar, and some Ritz crackers.

  He places the tray on the coffee table,

  squeezes Alice’s shoulder, flashes me

  an I’m-sorry-about-what-happened-before smile,

  then slips back out of the room.

  I think I just remembered

  a couple of my husband’s endearing attributes.

  ALICE AND I DRAIN THE BOTTLE

  Then, when Michael heads off

  to pick up Samantha from school,

  we teeter, arm in arm,

  down the hallway to my office.

  “I was gonna dump that bastard…” Alice says.

  “How dare he beat me to it!”

  “There’s plenty of other fish in cyberspace,” I say.

  Then we log on to Match.com and sign Alice up.

  We set right to work creating her profile—

  importing a recent sexy photo I took of her

  (okay, maybe not so recent)

  that makes her look a little like Liz Taylor.

  Next, we fill in the “about me” section.

  After heated debate, we decide to describe Alice

  as “a brilliant, optimistic, fifty-something goddess

  who hates taking long walks on the beach.”

  We describe her “ideal match”

  as “a brilliant, optimistic, fifty-something god

  who loves taking long walks on the beach by

  himself while his girlfriend gets a pedicure.”

  We share a giggle fit over this,

  and then Alice tugs me upstairs to my bathroom,

  insisting that we perform a ritual burning

  of my no longer needed diaphragm.

  “Can’t we just perform a ritual tossing out

  of my no longer needed diaphragm?” I plead.

  “No,” Alice says. “We cannot.”

  So we torch that sucker.

  This turns out to be weirdly liberating.

  (But note to self: never ever

  burn rubber in the house

  when the windows are closed.)

  WHEN MICHAEL RETURNS HOME WITH SAMANTHA

  Alice and I are racing around

  flinging open all the windows.

  Michael says, “What’s that awful smell?”

  “Yeah,” Sam says, “What died in here?”

  “A diaphragm,” Alice says, matter-of-factly.

  “A what?” Michael says.

  “A diagram…” I say, shooting Alice

  a will-you-please-shut-up look.

  “…A diagram…” I continue,

  “of…an outline…for…my book!”

  “It caught fire,” Alice says. “But don’t worry—

  we’ve got the situation under birth control.”

  I glance over at Alice

  and we fall into each other’s arms,

  bursting into hysterics at her terrible pun

  like a couple of stoned teenagers.

  Samantha wrinkles her nose with disgust

  and begins backing out of the room.

  “I don’t know what’s so funny,” she says.

  “And I definitely don’t want to know.”

  Then, she turns and bolts down the hall.

  Michael eyes the empty bottle on the coffee table

  and says, “I suspect you’re a wee bit too smashed

  to drive, Alice. Can I offer you a lift home?”

  “I’d rubber ride!” she says.

  “I mean, I’d love a ride!”

  And Alice and I crack up again,

  while Michael stands there, scratching his head.

  HALF AN HOUR LATER

  I knock on Samantha’s bedroom door.

  “What?” she barks,

  as though what she really means is,

  “Will you please leave me alone?”

  I peek inside and find her sitting on her bed,

  surrounded by an avalanche of college catalogs,

  her graceful fingers clicking away on her laptop

  at the speed of light.

  “How was school today, Sam?”

  “Fine,” she says, without looking up.

  �
�Want me to fix you a snack?”

  “Mom. I’m trying to finish this essay.”

  “I made spaghetti for dinner. Your favorite…”

  “I won’t be home for dinner. I’m going

  to Laura’s, with Wendy and Tess, to study

  for the bio quiz—we’re ordering pizza.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Okay…”

  She shoots me a glance that dares me

  to try to make her feel guilty about this.

  But I refuse to take the bait.

  “Sounds like an excellent plan!” I chirp.

  Then I close the door and sag against it,

  feeling as deflated

  as a punctured soufflé.

  But at six o’clock, right before she leaves,

  she pops her head into my office and says,

  “Sorry about dinner. Will you save me some?

  Your spaghetti rocks.”

  “So do you,” I murmur, and she rolls her eyes

  as if to say, Now don’t go getting all mushy on me.

  But then she asks, “Wanna watch Gossip Girl later?”