Amanda Bright @ Home (12 page)

Amanda could barely listen. Outside the door, Ben’s sobs had subsided. She heard the secretary say sharply, “Stay on the bench please!”

“… and as it’s nearly the end of the school year, we think Ben should seek further treatment over the summer. He may require medication. I have the names of therapists who specialize in these types of behavioral issues. I’ll write them down for you. I’m pretty sure they would be covered by your insurance.”

Amanda opened her mouth to protest, but Sheila Phelps cut her off. “I’d urge you to seek help for Ben,” she said. “We’d be very sorry if Ben was unable to return to the center next September.”

The three women forced smiles in her direction, and the meeting was over.

“Let’s go get your sister.”

Ben had tied his shoelaces into knots.

“Are we going home?” he asked. His face brightened. “Can I watch TV?”

Amanda gathered up his knapsack. “Oh, maybe. Sure. What the hell.”

Ben didn’t ask if he was in any more trouble. That was the great thing about being five, Amanda thought. Back at the house, the children raced upstairs, arguing about which program they were going to watch, while Amanda paused outside. From her front porch, she had a fine view into her neighbors’ adjoining one, uncluttered by tricycles, sand buckets, and strollers. Indeed, the only evidence of human occupation on the other side was a single flowerpot filled with dirt and the pointy brown stalks of a geranium that had died some months ago. Amanda rarely saw her neighbors. They were a young couple who left early in the morning and returned late at night. Amanda had gathered that he did something at the State Department, while she worked somewhere in Treasury. They wore government security passes but not wedding rings. The woman usually made a brief fuss over the children when she saw them; the young man seemed to regard them, when he noticed them at all, as weeds that needed pulling.

Upstairs, a fight had broken out. Amanda heard Sophie weeping piteously that it was her turn to pick a show. Ben insisted that “Mommy said
I
could watch TV—not you.”

“Mommy will choose,” Amanda said, striding into her bedroom and snatching the remote control away from Ben. “Oh look, it’s time for Herman.”

Herman was a friendly dragon on the public education channel who sang about safety rules and sharing.

“Not Herman!” groaned Ben. “He’s so stupid!”

“Shh, Ben, don’t use that word.”

“I
like
Herman,” Sophie sniffled, settling into the pyramid of pillows atop her parents’ bed.

Amanda found the station; another show was just ending.

“It’s on after this.”

A cheerful woman wearing striped overalls was displaying shoe boxes that she had spent the past half hour decorating. One box was covered with sandpaper and patterned with tiny seashells. “I thought this would make a fun container for those memories from the beach,” the woman explained. “And this one—” She held up another box elaborately pasted with cutout illustrations of Victorian dolls and trimmed with lace. “—is perfect for keeping a little girl’s treasures safe.” She waved her manicured hand across a group of boxes that, with construction paper, she had turned into a herd of wild animals. “These are terrific for storing all those little toys you never know what to do with. Kids love them.”

What woman has
time
for that nonsense? Amanda thought scathingly. Look at all the brainpower and creativity that went into conceiving such ridiculous objects! God, she would rather be dead than spend her afternoons glue-gunning shoe boxes!

“Oh, Mommy, can we make them?” Sophie squealed excitedly. “I want the zebra!”

“I want the lion!”

Amanda switched the channel. “Where’s Herman gone?”

On flashed a cartoon that Ben had only ever been allowed to watch at Christine’s house.

“Yay! Space Rangers!” yelled Ben.

Sophie popped her thumb out of her mouth. “Herman!” she wailed.

Amanda looked back and forth between them. She remembered Ben’s morning at school.

“Okay, Ben, just this once.”

Amanda picked up the bawling Sophie and carried her downstairs. “You can help Mommy make lunch—”

“No!”

Amanda deposited Sophie on the kitchen floor, where she flailed around, crying. Amanda opened the dishwasher and began to tidy up the breakfast mess. The phone rang.

“Darling, why don’t you put the knives and forks away for Mommy like a big girl,” she pleaded. Sophie buried her face in her hands. Amanda answered the phone.

“I tried calling you half an hour ago,” said Susie’s voice, rather imperiously. “You weren’t there.”

“I do go out sometimes, you know.”

“Guess who called me?” Susie did not want to waste time on Amanda’s whereabouts. “
Jim Hochmayer.
”

“Really?” Amanda’s eyes were following Sophie’s progress with the dishwasher. The little girl had pulled herself up and stomped over to the machine, but she wasn’t putting the cutlery away; she was playing dolls with the spoons and forks.

“He didn’t even wait the usual few days. He wants to see me right away—tonight, for dinner.”

“That’s not surprising. He did seem taken with you at the party.” Amanda waved at Sophie to get her attention. “The drawer!” she whispered. “Put them in the drawer!”

“
Amanda,
” said Susie impatiently,
“do you know how much money he has?“

Amanda was taken aback. “No. I don’t even know what he does.”

“
Jim Hochmayer?
Hasn’t Bob ever mentioned him? He’s the founder of Texas CompSystems—he’s worth
billions.
”

“Oh,” said Amanda, absorbing the information. She took the spoons from Sophie and began putting them away herself. (“Those are my princetheth!” Sophie protested.) “What’s he doing in Washington?”

“He’s up here all the time to lobby Congress. This week he’s here to talk to Senator Benson about the Megabyte hearings. He’s on Justice’s side, for God’s sake, I thought you’d know all about him.”

“Bob and I don’t really discuss—those things.”

“Anyway, he’s taking me to Sonoma,” Susie continued, naming a chic restaurant of the moment. “Fabulous, huh?”

“Fabulous.” Susie had dated rich men before, but Amanda believed this was her first billionaire. Also, possibly, her first date with a man nearly twice her age.

“How old is he by the way?”

“I’m not sure. Sixty, maybe sixty-one.”

“That old?”

“He looks and acts about ten years younger,” Susie said defensively. “Besides, his jet is young—brand-new in fact.”

“Susie!”

“I’m joking.”

“Well, he did seem nice.”

“Yeah, a happy contrast to Brad. Jim liked you, too. He really admires what you’re doing—being at home and all that. He said he knows how tough it can be. His own wife did it.”

“What happened to her?” Amanda asked, with suspicion.

“I read somewhere that they split. A profile in some business magazine. She sounded like a real starter wife. You know—girl he met in college, raised the kids, ran the house, but couldn’t keep up with him when he became a big success.”

Starter wife! Amanda hung up the phone. At times Susie could have the opposite effect of an alchemist: she had a way of taking whatever humble piece of gold Amanda possessed and transforming it into cheap metal.

Amanda nearly tripped over Sophie, who had grown bored with her family of forks and was lying on the floor again, coloring Amanda’s shopping list. Amanda finished unloading the dishwasher and leaned against the counter, looking around at what to do next. What had she been going to do today anyway? Put in some laundry, book dentist appointments, run to the grocery store. But it was nearly lunchtime, the kids were home early, and … it had all gotten away from her again. Maybe Bob was right—maybe she was getting hopeless.

Amanda wanted to call him at work and tell him about Ben. Normally it would have been the first thing she did when she got home. But given the friction between them, she didn’t dare. Whenever they were at war with each other, Bob would treat her like a potential plaintiff at the scene of an accident. His manner grew stiff, hypercorrect, almost courtly, as if he were determined to say or do nothing that could further a claim against him.
Would you like me to take out the garbage or shall I leave it where it is? Will you be saving dinner for me or should I plan to pick up something at work? Thank you, but I’m happy to get coffee for myself.
His behavior would only provoke Amanda further, and that morning she had found herself slamming his coffee down on the table with a belligerent “It’s Friday, so
obviously
you should take out the garbage.” He took a sip from his mug and replied calmly, “Fine. I will.”

Amanda sighed. She felt completely alone on her little island of problems. What had Liz said? Her friend’s words came back like a mantra:
Own it, own it, just own it.

Amanda left Sophie coloring to inspect her living room. God, how had she let it get this bad? The layers of toys, papers, pens, and books resembled geological strata, dating as far back as a year ago. How often had she passed by that half-clothed Barbie doll on the mantel or the monster puppet under the wicker chair and made a mental note to herself to put them away? The puppet’s ghoulish grin seemed to mock her:
Ha! Ha! I’m still here!
Then there was the stack of magazines and catalogs she had been meaning to go through. Amanda checked the date of one at the bottom—a catalog selling, what else, useful containers to organize things. It dated from last summer. She flipped through its pages—gorgeous photographs of exquisitely arranged rooms—lingering over its descriptions of woven willow baskets “lined with French cotton toile, perfect for fruit or soap,” “stainless-steel apothecary cabinets,” and “heirloom-quality, hand-painted toy chests.” Amanda paused over a display of decorative brass hooks in the shape of bees and sunflowers, upon which to hang “a straw boater or perhaps a bouquet of dried lavender.” Amanda had never possessed a straw boater or bouquet of dried lavender, but she felt suddenly that she ought to possess such things or at least be the sort of person who would.

Was this what Liz meant? Surely not. Liz had been pushing her to value the more mundane aspects of housekeeping. The catalog made tidying up seem like modern design work, while Liz could lecture for a quarter hour on the lost “art” of scrubbing. Amanda preferred the catalog’s view, but sympathized with Liz—the ability to “keep house” did seem as vanished a skill as candle making or butter churning. Aside from spraying surfaces with cleanser, Amanda did not actually know how to “clean.” Her mother knew: Amanda had occasionally overheard her directing the housekeeper to use vinegar on the tile or instructing on how to remove grape juice stains from one of Amanda’s blouses. But Ellie Bright had not passed this knowledge on to her daughter. Indeed, it was knowledge her mother seemed vaguely embarrassed about possessing, something she once dismissed with the comment, “Women of my generation were expected to know these things, but that was all that was expected of us.”

So long as Amanda had employed a housekeeper herself, her ignorance didn’t matter. The woman arrived every Friday morning while Amanda was at work. She brought her own tools and colorful bottles of solutions with her, like some primitive shaman. After she worked her magic upon the linoleum and wood surfaces, they shone for days with a brilliance Amanda was never able to replicate. Amanda did not bother to find out how the woman did it. She treated chores as things to be “gotten through” in order to have time for more meaningful pursuits, such as taking the children to the park or teaching Ben to read. She took her mother’s attitude that this kind of work held no value—its worth could not be calculated in dollars and cents. Its very nature was as evanescent as footprints along breaking surf: the progress she made one day was gone by the next. Floors needed mopping again, counters wiping, beds making. Every day dumped fresh flotsam at her feet—another load of dirty laundry, another basket of ironing, another child’s knapsack full of papers to be sorted and filed.

Maybe, Amanda thought as she bundled up the magazines and catalogs, maybe the very value of housework lay in its seemingly pointless repetition. The ceaseless cycle of chores created the rhythmic tide of a home. The small act of making lunch every day for Sophie, as trivial as it might seem to Amanda, was for her daughter an event of ritualistic importance. The little girl carried the plates to the table. She set out two forks, “one for me, one for Mommy.” She carefully folded the paper towels Amanda used as napkins into neat triangles.

The menu rarely changed: buttered pasta noodles with carrot or celery sticks on the side. Sometimes Sophie requested a sandwich, but she seemed to prefer eating the same meal day after day, not because she loved it especially, but because of its certainty. The noodles arrived as predictably as high tide. They were as essential in conveying to Sophie the fundamental stability of her world as Amanda’s presence in her school lobby every noon or the lullaby Amanda had sung to her every bedtime since Sophie was born. When Amanda reflected upon her own childhood, her happiest memories settled on the bowl of tomato soup and the grilled cheese sandwich her mother had prepared for her at lunchtime for seven years—until Amanda’s parents divorced and her mother decided that cooking regular meals was no longer part of her job description. The housekeeper took over, and the soup and grilled cheese never tasted quite the same again.

Amanda carried the papers to the recycling box and switched on a pot of water. She admired Sophie’s finished picture, and called Ben down to lunch. After they had finished eating, Amanda proposed an idea—that the three of them tidy the whole house together.

“You can do your toys, Ben,” she said before he could protest. “Pretend you’re a general, and the toys are soldiers, and you have to ready them for battle. Sophie, you can help Mommy downstairs.”

She put her daughter in charge of organizing the pot cupboards in the kitchen. Sophie took to the work with zeal, using a tea towel as an apron. Amanda, meanwhile, brought a box of green garbage bags into the living room and began ruthlessly dividing the junk into piles to be kept or thrown away. An hour later, she had amassed four bulging sacks of trash and created a reasonably civilized-looking sitting area. Ben had finished his task and begged to try the vacuum, which was now whirring overhead. Sophie was making soapy swirls with a sponge on the kitchen floor. Amanda moved on to the other rooms. As late afternoon approached and the bags collected outside by the trash, the house felt pounds lighter, as if it had gone on a superdiet, and Amanda’s mood had improved as well. She realized how much the clutter had been preying upon her subconscious, how much it had lurked in the periphery of her vision, encroaching upon her mood. She might even have time to make a proper dinner.