23: I tell a lie
Originally emailed on Apr. 23, 1999
Last Saturday, I spent the day at Miriam's old house, helping her and Nona and Harriet go through fifty years' worth of accumulated junk. Miriam moved into their new house a few weeks ago, even though her old one is still on the market, and she packed only what she thought she wanted and needed. "Everything else you can just get rid of," she told Harriet. "I just don't have the energy to deal with it all." But she had second thoughts when she heard Harriet on the phone with estate liquidators. Suddenly she started remembering a favorite sweater she'd saved from when she was first married, and some letters her husband wrote her when he was in the service during World War II, and the two surviving place settings of her grandmother's fine china from 1862. Of course, she couldn't remember where any of these things were, so we all rolled up our sleeves and started going through it all, drawer by drawer, closet by closet, box by box, so that she could keep a few treasures.
I give Miriam credit--she's letting an awful lot of stuff go. But on Saturday, making my dusty way through boxes of baby clothes, circa 1950, and cupboards full of things she'd picked up at garage sales in the sixties on the off chance she might need them someday, I cursed her packrat ways with venom in my heart. I cleaned out one kitchen drawer full of recipes clipped from newspapers; they'd been accumulating there in sedimentary layers since 1971 (the oldest clipping I found that included the corner of the page with the date and the name of the paper), and going through them was like excavating an archeological dig. Thirty years of cooking trends in panoramic splendor. Harriet didn't help much, looking over my shoulder periodically and snatching any recipes that looked good to her. "I'm not cleaning these same damn clippings out of your kitchen drawer in another thirty years," I told her. "I draw the line."
In the evening, we all split up to take showers, and then met for dinner at a steak place. I brought Ed along to dinner, the first group dinner he'd joined me at since we reconciled last month. Nona and Miriam seemed pleased to see him, but Harriet was just this side of nasty, beginning stories with, "Oh, Ed, you remember right after Christmas when we all took the boys tobogganing, and they decided to take Hot Rod on the toboggan with them--oh, I forgot, you weren't there that weekend. Well, but you remember when Louella started her new job, and her boss told her that she should only take 45 minutes instead of an hour for lunch because everyone knew women went to the bathroom more often than men, so she'd probably use up her other fifteen minutes in the ladies' room, and Louella told him she thought she'd hold it all day and use the fifteen minutes to work on her sex discrimination lawsuit--oh, no, that's the week you were at the monastery learning 101 Spiritual Healing Practices for Men with Wounded Egos and couldn't be reached by phone no matter how much anyone might need to talk to you."
I said, "Harriet, if we're going to wander down memory lane, let's get Miriam to tell us some stories about when she first moved into her old house." I looked expectantly at Miriam, who said, "Well, you know, Wallace and I bought it when I was pregnant with Harriet's Aunt Kate, that would have been in 1948. It wasn't a new house, you know. It had been built in 1924, and the folks we bought it from had raised six children there. They still had three teenagers at home when they sold the place." She paused to let us appreciate what it must have been like to raise six children in her little three-bedroom house, and Harriet jumped in.
"Grandma, with all due respect, I've had enough of that old house for one day. I want Louella to tell us how her date with May went on Tuesday evening. I hear you invited her in after the movie?"
I smiled sweetly. "You know what? That extra-large margarita went right to my bladder. Harriet, how about a trip to the little girls'?"
In the bathroom, I lit into her. "What is with you, Harriet? I've never seen you be so mean."
"Louella," she said, "I just don't get what you're doing with him."
"Well, what's it to you?" I asked. "That's my business."
"But, Louella, it's a friend's duty to speak up when another friend is doing something stupid, like letting a guy waltz out of her life without so much as a fare-thee-well, and then letting him just pick up where he left off as if she'd done nothing for months but wait around for him."
I said, "In the first place, Ed has not been quite so cavalier as that. In the second place, we've hardly picked up where we left off. We were talking about moving in together, for crying out loud, and now we're just seeing each other, maybe twice a week. And I'm seeing someone else, too. Ed and I are just hanging out together, trying to figure out if there's anything still between us."
"Hanging out together," Harriet said. "Is he going to sleep over tonight?"
"That's none of your business," I said, "but probably he will."
She sighed. "And yet on Tuesday you offered May a cup of peppermint tea and then sent her on her way with a friendly but dry kiss."
"Excuse me," I said, "but are you implying that if I sleep with Ed that somehow obligates me to sleep with May, too?"
"I just don't think you're giving her a fair chance. You're not treating her and Ed the same."
"Why should I?" I asked. "Ed and I have a history, a relationship. The sum total of my history with May is a few group dates, two lunches, and one bad movie."
"For most lesbians, that's practically marriage vows," Harriet said.
"I'm not a lesbian," I said. "I'm a bisexual with a confused boyfriend."
"Well, you're acting like a stupid straight woman, letting your boyfriend walk all over you. Why can't you give May a fair chance? She's a real quality person, Lou, and she likes you a lot."
I counted to ten. "A) It's not fair of you to stereotype straight women as spineless drones in servitude to men. B) I'm sure May is a quality person, and I like her too, but I want both to move slowly and to sort things out with Ed before I let things with May progress. C) Ed is also a quality person. He's just been in extraordinary circumstances lately. D) Harriet, I love him, so give him a break, OK?"
Nona stuck her head in the door. "The steaks are at the table. Are you going to come eat, or should I just bring your knives in to you so you can battle to the death?"
"I don't know," I said. "Harriet, are you going to be nice to Ed?" She was silent. "For my sake?"
"For your sake," she said. "But I will still be mean to him in my heart."
Over dinner, Harriet kept her word and made polite conversation with Ed, but whenever she caught my eye when he wasn't looking she pantomimed attacking him with her oversized steak knife. I frowned at her, but I was laughing inside.
Back at home, Ed said, "I don't think Harriet approves of me."
"She thinks you abandoned me in my time of need," I said, "and that I made it too easy for you to come back."
"Well, I did abandon you," he said.
"And I did make it too easy for you to come back," I said. I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth, and saw Ed's toothbrush in the cup, too. His special sensitive-teeth toothpaste sat on the counter, along with his razor, his mouthwash, his Clinique for Men dry skin soap, and his medicated foot powder. His electric beard trimmer hung next to the mirror in a special rack he'd hung up sometime that day. Ed came into the bathroom after me. "Do you mind if I pee?" he asked, lifting the toilet seat.
I finished my ablutions and left him diligently flossing. In the bedroom, I threw my shirt, socks, and underwear into the hamper, and hung my skirt up in the closet, shoving a half-dozen of Ed's shirts aside to make room. When Ed came into the bedroom, looking cuddly with his hairy belly hanging over his white jockey shorts, I was sitting naked on the edge of the bed, brooding.
"Get in bed, honey," he said. "It's too chilly to sit around with no clothes on." He tossed the jockey shorts into the hamper and got under the covers. I could hear him saying his prayers just under his breath. When he had finished, Isaid, "Amen."
"Amen?" he said. "You don't even know what I prayed for. You don't even believe in prayer."
"Whatever," I said. I crawled in beside him and cuddled up. "Ed, I lied to Harriet."
"What did you tell her?" he asked.
"I told her that you and I were seeing each other a couple of times a week, and that I was taking things slowly with May."
"Ah," he said. "Instead of telling her that you'd decided to dump May and let me move in here."
"Somehow, it just didn't come up," I said.
He was quiet for a minute. "Are you having second thoughts?" he finally asked. "Because I haven't sublet my apartment yet. I could always move back. We could pretend I just packed heavy to spend the night. It's just a few boxes. A few dozen boxes."
"A few hundred boxes," I said. "No, I'm not having second thoughts about you moving in. Just about telling people."
"Well, I can see why," he said. "I thought Harriet was going to cut my heart out at dinner. Am I really that bad?"
"No," I said. "Not that bad. She's just not as forgiving as I am."
"Maybe if I seduced her," he said. "I softened your heart with multiple orgasms; maybe I could do the same for her."
" Multiple orgasms?" I said. "I wish. No, I think you'll have to take another tack with Harriet. Like being really really nice to me for a really really long time."
"OK," he said, and kissed me. He turned out the light. Then he said, "Ella, you know I am sorry. I wasn't much of a boyfriend for awhile there."
"I know," I said. "It's OK. I forgive you." I stroked his belly.
"I'll do better," he said.
"You are doing better," I said. "Really, it's fine. We've talked about this before." I snuggled tighter against his side.
"I know," he said. "I just never feel like I've been able to say it right, so that you know how truly repentant I am, and how much I love you."
"I know," I said, kissing his neck. "Truly repentant. Love."
"And I guess I can't quite believe you forgive me, that there's not still some piece of the whole mess that's going to rear up and bite us somewhere down the road."
I climbed on top of him and rested my forehead on his. "I forgive you. I have forgiven you a thousand times over. I just wonder whether you've forgiven yourself." I nuzzled my lips into Ed's neck and wiggled in a subtle yet suggestive manner.
"That's what Pastor Bob says." Ed is in counseling with Pastor Bob. "He says my whole problem is an unwillingness to forgive my own mistakes."
"Pastor Bob is right," I said, stroking his foot and leg with mine.
"Pastor Bob says God has forgiven me, and that it's hubris to refuse to forgive myself, as if I'm implying that I know better than God."
I sighed and rolled off Ed. "Pastor Bob is right," I said. "Except maybe about the God part. But it also works if you substitute 'Louella' for 'God' in that sentence."
"I would feel better," Ed said, "if you had told Harriet the truth. I wonder if maybe you're ashamed of me, or if deep down you think you've made the wrong decision."
"I'll call her now," I said. I got out of bed, put on my robe, and went downstairs. The living room was full of Ed's boxes, and I made it through without stubbing any toes by the light of the streetlamps outside. In the kitchen, I dialed Harriet's number, and then May's.
When I got back upstairs, Ed asked, "Did you really call Harriet?"
"And May," I said.
"What did they say?"
"I don't know," I said. "I got machines at both places." I took off my robe and got back into bed.
"So, you'll tell them tomorrow." Ed curled up behind me, spoon-wise.
"Oh, I told them," I said. "I left messages both places."
"You didn't!" Ed said. He embraced me and pulled me tight against him.
"Well, I told Harriet's machine that you moved in today while we were at her grandmother's. But I just left May a message saying I'd try her again in the morning."
"Thank you," Ed said. He lifted my hair and kissed the back of my neck.
"Mmm," I said. "You're welcome," and fell asleep.
© Copyright 1997-2001 Su Penn. Design by David Dierauer.
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