for like the ninety-millionth
incredibly annoying time,
even when I’m not doing it.
Someone
so brand-spankingly new
that he doesn’t find
a single thing about me
incredibly annoying yet.
Or even a tiny bit annoying.
I want to be with someone
unannoyable.
I WANT A NEW HUSBAND
Someone who’s not still laboring,
after all these years,
under the false assumption
that he could get me to change
if only he could come up with
the exact right combination of words.
Someone who can comprehend the fact
that just because I don’t agree
with what he’s saying,
that doesn’t mean
I haven’t heard
what he’s said—
like if I’d really
been listening to him
there’d be no way I could disagree.
I want a husband
with whom I have
no disagreements.
I WANT A NEW HUSBAND
Someone who won’t insist
on going on and on and on and on
and on and on when we’re fighting,
till each word he flings at me
feels like a poisoned dart
piercing my skin.
Someone who never says,
“You’re angrier than I am.”
whenever I get angry,
who never says,
“I would never do that to you.”
whenever I do that to him,
who never says, “No one but you
has ever complained about that.”
whenever I complain about that.
I want
to be with someone
about whom I have no complaints.
FIREWOOD
I brace for the first thwacks
as Michael raises his ax
to fell what’s left of our pepper tree.
I feel the sharp cracks
as he splits her bare grayed limbs
into logs.
Together we stack them
on the covered porch by our front door,
the two of us grim as reapers.
Our pepper tree
will never offer shade again,
never give shelter,
never spread wide her arms,
inviting our daughter
to climb up into her lap.
OUR BACKYARD LOOKS SO BARREN NOW
As barren as me.
And so empty—
like a well drained of its water.
I stand in my bedroom,
looking out through
the open French door
at the terrible gap
where our pepper tree
once stood.
It’s as though our garden
has had its two front teeth
knocked out.
THEN–PINKIE STARTS YAPPING
I glance next door
and see Jane step into their yard.
She’s got a whining Madison
perched on her very pregnant belly.
The little girl rubs her eyes,
then notices that our tree is gone.
She points at the stump
and bursts into tears.
“What happened?” she wails.
“What happened?”
Jane tells her our tree got sick.
So sick that we had to cut it down.
This does not go over well
with the overtired toddler.
She starts flailing her arms
and kicking her chubby little feet.
Jane tries to sooth
her scarlet-faced, frenzied moppet.
But Madison will not be stopped.
She screams and screams and screams.
What happened? I think to myself.
What happened…?
ANOTHER CALL FROM SAMANTHA
Michael and I
each grab an extension
and hang on to them like life preservers.
She tells us
that there’s a thunderstorm—
right now, right outside her window.
“It’s awesome!” she says.
Then she holds the phone out
so that we can hear the rumble rocking the air.
She holds the phone out
so that we
can be there…
I don’t get it.
Why do I feel so homesick
when she’s the one so far from home?
A CHAT WITH DR. HACK
“Why don’t you give me the good news first?” I say.
I’m trying for sarcasm, but it seems
he’s mistaken it for an affectionate jibe
because there’s that chuckle of his—
the one that makes me feel as if
my skin’s being rubbed off with a grater.
He says he’s got lots of good news today:
my mother’s polymyositis
appears to be in remission.
And now that he’s managed
to wean her off the steroids,
she’s finally stopped hallucinating.
I hug Secret to my chest.
For a split second I feel as weightless
as an astronaut in deep space.
But then Hack nails me with the bad news:
he says the withdrawal from the steroids
seems to have brought on an agitated depression.
So he’s started my mother on Prozac,
because she’s refusing to go to rehab
and she’s hardly eating.
Though, he says, the good news is
that she was twenty pounds overweight
when she was admitted.
So,
chuckle, chuckle, chuckle,
grate, grate, grate,
a little weight loss
might actually be
just what the doctor ordered.
“Oh, and when I saw her today,” he adds,
“she did mention suicide—but only in passing.
We’re keeping an extra close eye on her, though.”
UNITED FLIGHT #3534
I’m hurtling toward Cleveland
at five hundred miles per hour.
A few minutes ago,
right before the plane took off,
Laura’s mother
called me on my cell.
“I seem to have started a trend,” she said.
“Now Wendy’s parents are getting divorced!”
Which is why
as I sit here gripping the armrests,
listening to a trio of howling babies
bawling with utter abandon,
I’m thinking how good
it would feel to toss back my head,
fling open my mouth,
and join them.
THE VISIT
I show up at the hospital
armed with a bouquet of yellow tulips,
a stack of cooking magazines,
and a batch of Sam’s defrosted brownies.
I peek into my mother’s room
and feel my stomach tighten.
That woman in there looks like
someone else’s mother—
her cheeks are withered apples,
her eyes frightened and much bigger
than they should be.
Even her nose seems to have grown.
She’s sitting up in bed,
wringing her hands,
her hair
a tangled gray tornado.
As soon as she sees me,
she starts moaning my name.
Then she bursts into tears.
So I do, too.
But when I wrap my arms around her,
she quiets like a small child.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she whispers.
“I am, too,” I whisper back.
Then I offer her a butterscotch brownie,
which she politely declines.
I arrange the tulips in a pitcher,
find her brush, and try to tame her hair.
“Tell me how you’ve been,” she says.
A wave of relief washes over me—
and suddenly I want to tell her everything.
I’d climb right into her lap if I could.
But as soon as I start pouring it all out,
telling her about my troubles with Michael—
she interrupts me.
“Now tell me about the brownies.”
So I begin to tell her that Samantha
baked them especially for her—
but she interrupts me again.
“Now tell me how you’ve been.”
So I start talking about how worried I am
that I’ll never be able to finish my book—
but she interrupts me again.
“Now tell me about the brownies.”
So I try one more time,
but I’ve barely begun—
when she interrupts me again.
“Now tell me how you’ve been.”
And all the while
the woman in the next bed
is quietly chanting,
“Help me, God. Help me, God…”
Help me, God.
MY MOTHER FINALLY NODS OFF
I rush out into the hall to escape the chanting,
and somehow manage to trip a man
wearing sky-blue scrubs,
whose stethoscope goes flying
as he crashes to the floor.
“Omigosh,” I say. “I am so sorry!”
I reach down to help him up
and when our fingers touch,
a strange shiver runs through me—
like I’m a character in a tacky romance novel.
The man flashes me a dizzying grin,
and I notice that he’s tall and pale and lean—
handsome in a vampirey kind of way,
with incisors that almost make me wish
he’d bite my neck.
I take in his graceful forearms,
his mile-wide shoulders,
his utter and complete silver-foxiness.
And when he locks his George-Clooney eyes
to mine—I’m thirteen again.
I can feel my cheeks flushing,
my pulse quickening.
“Is there…a doctor in the house?” I ask lamely.
And when he starts chuckling
I nearly keel over:
it’s Dr. Hack!
THAT’S THE BAD NEWS
And
it’s also
the good news.
Because now that I know who he is
I won’t even be tempted
to jeopardize my marriage.
Not that he’d ever be interested in me.
I mean, I’m not exactly having
a good hair day.
And he must be
at least ten years younger
than I am.
But when he takes my hand in his to shake it,
he seems to hold onto it
a beat longer than he should.
“And whom do I have the pleasure
of being tripped by?” he purrs.
“I’m…I’m Holly…Myra’s daughter.”
His smoldery eyes widen.
“And I’m Dr. Hack!” he says.
“I had no idea you were…coming.”
I wish I could think of a clever reply
but I’m too busy trying not to faint—
because now his eyes have begun to wander
and I can feel the heat of them
roaming over every curve
of my body.
Or maybe
I’m just having
one heck of a hot flash.
I’M BLUSHING IN PLACES I’VE NEVER BLUSHED BEFORE
No one has looked at me like this
in a very long time.
I’d given up hope
that anyone ever would again.
Is he interested in me?
He can’t be…Can he?
Aw come on, Holly. Don’t be an idiot.
This whole thing is all in your head…
But then he bats his ludicrously long lashes
and says, “It’s so amazing to finally see
the face that goes with the voice.”
“It sure is, doctor…” I murmur.
“Please, Holly,” he says,
with a smile that turns my legs to linguine,
“call me Griffin.”
“Griffin…” I repeat, as if in a trance.
What is going on here?
If he snaps his fingers
will I start unbuttoning my blouse?
How can I be swooning
for a man I detest?
How can I be drooling
for such a complete idiot?
How can I be besotted with a man
who has proven himself to have
about as much bedside manner
as an alarm clock?
I HAVE GOT TO GET A GRIP
But it’s like Griffin
is a thousand-watt bulb,
and I’m a moth with a death wish.
I watch, transfixed,
as he lets his thumb drift across
his lower lip—
exactly the same way
I saw Brad Pitt do it once on TV
when he was flirting with Barbara Walters…
My own lips begin to tremble…
Goosebumps rise on my arms…
My wedding band throbs on my finger…
Then, Griffin says,
“Why don’t we go up to my office,
where we can…talk?”
Is it just my imagination,
or by “talk” does he mean
“have mind-bogglingly hot sex?”
Of course it’s my imagination.
Though I take a quick step back,
just in case.
And trying hard to remain strong,
I say, “We do need to talk.
About my mother!”
But when he rests his hand
on the small of my back
and guides me toward the open elevator,
I can feel my resolve
melting faster than butter
on hot toast.
GRIFFIN PRESSES THE BUTTON FOR THE FIFTH FLOOR
And even though
both of us see a nurse
dashing down the hall
to try to get here before the doors close,
neither one of us
makes a move
to press the button
that would hold them open.
I FEEL AS IF I’M IN A DREAM
The doors slip closed,
like the velvet curtains
of a confessional.
We
are completely
alone.
As we begin
our ascent,
Griffin turns to gaze at me.
I don’t know
which is rising faster—
the elevator or my blood pressure.
We pass the second floor…
the third floor…
the fourth floor…
And then, without warning, we jolt
to a halt between the fourth
and fifth floors!
I GASP AND STIFLE A SCREAM
My knees
nearly buckle
as a slow smile
spreads across Griffin’s face—
a smile
that somehow makes me feel
like he’s the wolf
and I’m Little Red Riding Hood.
Or maybe I’m the w
olf!
Or…shit! Maybe I’m the grandmother…
Oh, I don’t know.
It’s all so confusing…
Griffin strokes his chin, studying me.
Then he cocks his head to the side,
points a slender finger at me, and asks,
“Is someone a little claustrophobic…?”
And a split
second later—
the lights flicker,
sizzle,
and go out!
“SOMEONE” IS A LOT CLAUSTROPHOBIC!
But that’s the least of my troubles.
I am so lit with terror and temptation,
I’m surprised I’m not glowing in the dark.
“I’m…fine,” I manage to squeak.
A faint red emergency button