Say When by Elizabeth Berg
“Did you know I called my mother the night before she was going to mail the invitations and asked her not to?”
He stiffened. “No.”
“Well, I did. I knew we shouldn’t go through with it. And my mother just said something like, ‘Oh, honey, everybody feels that way before they get married. You’re just nervous.’ And then I thought of how you’d feel if I told you I didn’t want to get married. And I just liked you so much, you were my friend, and I didn’t think I’d ever…” She shrugged. “So. Here we are.”
“Well, thank you for telling me, Ellen. I feel so much better, now.”
“Don’t, Griffin. This isn’t easy for me, either. Do you think it’s easy for me? So many times I sat at the kitchen table in the morning after you and Zoe left and I cried. Just…cried. I’d sit there for hours, sometimes. A lot of times I’d get dressed just before Zoe came home.”
How could this be? He imagined himself at work: having meetings, swapping jokes with colleagues, sitting oblivious at his computer, while at home his wife wept into her cornflakes.
When had she stopped telling him things? Had he really been so unaware? He remembered a cartoon he’d seen as a child. A man was driving down the street, and when he turned to look casually behind him, he saw that half of his car was missing. Then he crashed. Only then. Griffin remembered what he’d thought, too, when he’d seen it: Why’d the guy look? Why didn’t he just keep going?
“Once,” Ellen said, “I went to a psychic for help.”
“Oh, terrific.” Griffin imagined the scene, his and Ellen’s marriage being dissected by some heavy-accented woman wearing a kerchief knotted on her head and wondering how much she could get out of this sucker.
“I was desperate, I felt desperate. I’d sit with you at the dinner table every night and I’d be hating you, because I was so lonely and so…flat. And you didn’t see it. You were so satisfied, and I was getting sadder and sadder and you just didn’t see it! You’d chew and chew and ask Zoe how school went and tell me you were out of underwear and you did not even look at me, Griffin. And we never went anywhere. Every time I suggested something, you’d find some excuse not to go. All you ever wanted to do was go to work and watch television.”
“We went places!”
She said nothing. The silence said, Yeah, right.
“So why didn’t you say something?”
“Oh, God, Griffin, it just…It seemed redundant. I mean, it was like my arm was ragged and bleeding, right in front of you. Why, then, would I say, ‘I’m hurt’?”
“That isn’t fair. You didn’t have any bleeding arm! I mean, I knew you were moody sometimes, you’d go through periods where you didn’t really want to talk to me. But this happens, in a marriage! You just have to go through these things, sometimes!”
She put her hands on either side of her head, viselike. “Oh, you just make me want to scream! You knew I was having an affair, Griffin! Why didn’t you say something?”
He stopped what he was about to say, that he didn’t know why. Because he did know why. It was quite clear to him, in fact. “I was afraid if I said anything, you’d leave me, Ellen. That’s why I didn’t say anything.”
She nodded. “Perfect.”
“Are you going to move in with him?”
“No. I don’t know what I’ll do. I can’t keep living here with you. It’s too late for us to do anything about this. It’s over. I just don’t know what to do about Zoe.”
“Zoe will be just fine.”
“How can you say that!”
“Because it’s true. I am every bit as capable of taking care of her as you are.”
“But what will you do when your vacation time is up? You can’t hire someone to take care of her!”
“I can and I will. You don’t make all the decisions, Ellen. You’re only one half of the team, here.” Unbidden, the young waitress popped into his head, and he willed her image away. “You don’t decide things unilaterally for Zoe, and you don’t decide anything for me. We’re just roommates, remember?”
She lay back down, pulled the blanket over herself.
“And I think I will meet Mr. Piston. Yes, I believe I will.”
She said nothing, reached over to turn out the light.
“Did you hear me?”
“Yes, I heard you. Never mind. It wasn’t a good idea.”
“Well, it has to happen sometime. Let’s get it over with. Hey, I’ve got an idea. Let’s double date!”
“With whom? Donna?”
“Who’s Donna?” He honestly didn’t know.
“The woman who called here tonight when we were at school. Zoe took a message. Who is she?”
Ah. The Santa woman. But to Ellen, he said, “Someone I met.” He’d leave it at that. “Good night.”
Donna might like the book. He’d give it to her, next time he saw her, tell her he saw it and thought of her.
He turned on the bedroom light, sat wearily on the bed, loosened his tie. This day had lasted forever. Time was distorted now, undependable, a measure of nothing but levels of grief. He took off a shoe, held it high, and let it fall to the floor—Ellen was just below him. Then he heard Zoe calling him.
He found her sitting up in bed, her lamp on, holding something in her hand. “Look!”
“What is it?”
“My tooth!”
“Hey! Congratulations! Do you want to rinse your mouth out?”
“Yeah.” She got out of bed, stumbling a little, and Griffin held her arm as they walked to the bathroom. After Zoe rinsed her mouth and the tooth, she held it up to the light. “Do teeth have guts? Like way inside, do they?”
“No. They have soft insides, called pulp, but not guts, really.”
“Oh.” She admired the tooth a bit longer, turning it this way and that. Then she turned to Griffin. “Where’s Mommy?” Her cowlick, the same one he had, was at half mast. Griffin wanted to reach out and smooth it down, but he was afraid if he touched her, he’d gather her in his arms and start to cry, taking this bright moment of pleasure away from her, burying it under the pain of the people who were supposed to take care of her.
“Mommy’s downstairs.”
“How come?’
How come. He was about to say she’d gotten hungry, when Ellen appeared at the doorway. “What happened?”
“My tooth came out!”
“Oh, boy!” She hugged Zoe to her, smoothed her cowlick down. “And that was a big one, wasn’t it?”
Zoe opened her hand, showed her mother. “Ahhh,” Ellen said. “And you know the tooth fairy really, really likes those big ones.”
“Mom.”
“What?”
“There is no tooth fairy.”
“Oh? Then who is it that leaves money for you under your pillow when you lose a tooth?”
“You do.” And then, “…Right?”
Griffin waited for Ellen to argue with Zoe, to draw her once more into some harmless fantasy that her parents enjoyed as much if not more than she. But Ellen didn’t do that. She took in a breath, looked at Zoe for a long moment, and then said, “You’re right. There is no tooth fairy.”
Zoe’s smile faded just slightly. Then, “I knew it!” she said. “I knew it all along, anyway!” She looked down at the tooth. “But…What do I do with it, then?”
Silence. And then Griffin said, “I’d like to buy it. I’d really like to buy it. Will you sell it to me?”
Zoe handed him the tooth. “You can have it, Dad.”
“Five bucks,” Griffin said. “Would five bucks be all right?”
“I said you can have it.” She looked at Ellen, then back at Griffin. “I’m going back to bed.” She walked out, her back straight and so small.
Ellen rinsed the last traces of blood from the sink. Then she turned to look at Griffin. What was in her face, besides pain? Ambivalence? Pleading? Was she realizing what Griffin had, that the next time a tooth came out, only one of them would be there?
She smiled sadly.
Griffin didn’t answer. He left the bathroom and went into the bedroom, closed the door. He heard Ellen turn off the bathroom light, then go back down the stairs.
He undressed, put on his pajamas, and climbed into bed, lay there staring out the window. Then he got up and went into Zoe’s room.
Her eyes were closed. “Zoe?” he whispered. He wanted to offer her some reassurance, tell her that he would take care of her tooth and everything else, don’t worry, never worry. “Zoe?” Nothing. He knelt beside the bed, pulled the covers up higher, and lightly kissed her cheek. He would never leave her. Never.
Back in his bed, Griffin thought about Zoe’s classroom, about Mrs. Pierce. He wondered if Zoe fell a little in love with her teachers, as Griffin used to. He always brought a present to his teacher on the last day of class, and once, in fourth grade, asked to be given money to pick something out by himself. He’d given Mrs. Vandalia a lacy, light blue half-slip. “Well!” she’d said. “Thank you very much, Frank!” Then she’d quickly stuffed it back into the box. Griffin had understood his error when the class burst out laughing. He’d been very glad it was the last day of school.
Griffin closed his eyes, folded his hands and rested them on top of his stomach, let out a long breath. The last day of school. The weather would be so warm, all the classroom windows open, the sound of lawnmowers and birds and distant airplanes calling like siren songs. Occasionally a bee would meander in through an open window, seduced by something like geraniums blooming boldly on the sill. It would fly slow and heavy for a while, buzz angrily and pick up speed when it became aware of being trapped, then die an ignoble death at the hands of some boy who ignored the impassioned, high-pitched pleading of the girls. The oversized geography books worked particularly well. Once, Griffin had been an accomplice, had lent Vince Larson his book because Vince always forgot his at home. But afterward, Griffin had felt terrible, and brought the dead bee home with him. He made a vain effort to revive it, offering it honey on a toothpick, blowing toward the bee’s mouth in a crude attempt at mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. When it was clear that nothing was going to work, he’d put the bee in a single-serving cereal box padded with toilet paper and buried it in an apologetic backyard ceremony. He’d added blossoms from his neighbor’s rose garden to the box and marked the grave with one of his better cat’s-eyes.
Last days were always anticlimactic. You’d lost the regular feel of things—work hadn’t been serious for weeks, not with spring as a relentless saboteur. You could never say exactly when things had started changing from middle to end. But when the last day came, and it was all over, you were ready for it, because of what had begun so quietly inside you without your even noticing.
From downstairs, he heard the irregular, muffled sounds of Ellen crying. He got out of bed, closed the door, opened the window, then lay down in the exact middle of the bed and fell asleep.
Chapter 10
In the morning, when Griffin came downstairs, Ellen was sitting at the kitchen table. He moved past her, saying nothing, and poured himself a cup of the coffee she’d made. When he started past her again, she said, “Griffin? Do you have a minute? I need to tell you something.”
He sat down across from her, attempted a neutral smile. A May I help you? smile. The skin below her eyes was bruised-looking, translucent in the morning light. Her face sagged. “You look terrible,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“Didn’t you sleep well?”
“Did you?”
“Actually, yes.”
“Well, good for you. Listen. I’ve been thinking, Griffin. Maybe it’s best if we really do live as roommates for a while. You do what you want and I…will, too.”
He said nothing, stared off to one side of her, sipped his coffee.
“Do you think we can try that?” she asked.
“You may recall that it was my suggestion.”
“Yes. So, since you went out last night, tonight will be my night. All right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll make dinner, I just wanted to tell you.”
“Okay.”
“And then, right after dinner, I’ll go out. I’ll remember to take my phone.”
He got up, put his cup in the dishwasher. “Yeah, fine, Ellen.”
She looked down at her hands. “I suppose there’s no point in continually apologizing. I guess we just have to let this thing unfold in the way that it will.” She waited. For what? For him to offer resistance? Encouragement? Reassurance? Well, he wouldn’t. She could do whatever she wanted, so long as she understood one thing: He was done with her. He would make that clear to her tonight, after Zoe was in bed. She would not quite believe him. At first.
“I’ll get Zoe up,” he said, and headed back upstairs.
In her bedroom, he peeled back Zoe’s bedclothes, then sat down beside her.
“No,” she said.
“It’s time to get up, Zoe.”
She groaned.
“Want to go out with me after dinner and get a new video game?”
Now she was awake. She sat up excitedly. “What one?”
“Whatever one you want. You pick.”
“Any thing?”
“That’s what I said. I have to go to work a little early this morning—I won’t be at breakfast. But you get up and get ready for school, and I’ll see you tonight.”
“Okay. Any game, right?”
“Right.”
Griffin dressed carefully for work, selecting a shirt his mother had sent him, which Ellen had never liked. In front of the dresser mirror, he straightened his tie, then applied a little cologne to his cheeks, to his neck. Ellen had never liked this scent, either—he’d gotten it a few months ago from a buxom young sales clerk who’d asked him suggestively, “Now…do you splash or spray?” He had never worn it because when Ellen had smelled it she’d made a face, then said, “Well, wear it if you want to.” He did want to, and now he would. He took the bottle over to the bed, sprinkled some cologne on the sheets. This was his bed, now. No more scent of Ellen permeating his subconscious.
He pulled up the window shade. The sun was fully out; it shone hard through the bedroom window. It was going to be a beautiful day.
He came whistling down the stairs, got his coat out of the hall closet. What the hell, maybe this really would be better for everyone. Who wanted to be married to someone who’d never wanted to be with you in the first place? What was he worried about? He was prime quality, top choice: a pretty damn good-looking man who was kind, who had a good job and a great kid and a wife who was stupid enough to be leaving him. A million women would go for him. A million and one. “Was she nuts?” they’d ask, and he’d say, yeah, she kind of was.
He left without saying goodbye, went out to the garage, got in the car, and started it. Good song on the radio. He’d sing along, something else Ellen never liked, owing to his inability to stay in tune. Or to remember the lyrics, big deal. But now he turned the radio up and sang along, more or less, at the top of his lungs. He put the car in reverse, backed out. From the street, he saw Ellen standing at the window and watching him. Arms crossed. Still as a mannequin. And as unreachable.
* * *
He called Donna from work. “Congratulations,” she said. “You passed the background check. You’re hired!”
“Just like that?”
“Well, we need you to come in for an orientation. A how-to-be-Santa class.”
“The fine art of ho-ho-ho-ing, huh?”
“More like what to expect. Some information on the more difficult questions kids might ask, and what you might say back. How to handle little emergencies.”
“What emergencies?”
“Well, to be honest, there was one where we had to call the police. A drunk rushed the set.”
“No kidding. What did he want?”
“He wanted to beat up Santa.”
Griffin frowned. “Really?”
“Did any kids see? Did anyone get hurt?”
“Not many kids were there, it was late. Maybe one or two. And…well, okay, Santa got his nose broken. But that was truly an exception! Most emergencies are much smaller in scale.”
“Such as…?”
“Oh, a kid pulls off your beard. Or wets on your lap. Or bites you.”
“…How much does this job pay?”
She laughed. “Nine dollars an hour, I thought I’d told you. But you’ll like it, I can tell.”
Griffin smiled. It was so nice to hear a woman laughing, to hear a woman speaking pleasantly to him. “Oh, yeah? How can you tell I’d like it?”
“I’m just really good at reading people. I can tell a lot about someone in the first few minutes. I was man advisor in my sorority—I gave instant personality analyses. I was really accurate, too—except when it came to myself. But that’s another story.
“Anyway, the orientation is tomorrow night, seven to nine. Can you make it? ”
He thought for a moment. Tonight was Ellen’s night. And so tomorrow…"That would be fine,” he said. And then, “Maybe we could have a drink afterward.”
She said nothing.
“Or coffee.” He felt a sudden plunge in his spirits. He knew nothing about her. Maybe she was a recovering alcoholic. Maybe she was a transsexual. It was horrible to have to start all over. I grew up in…I voted for…I have a sister and two brothers…That scar is from…The first time I this, the last time I that… It was exhausting to even think about.
But then when she said, “I’d love to,” he felt instantly better. Her cashmere sweater, her pretty blond hair. Her open smile. His penis rose, settled, and he shifted in his seat. “I’ll see you, then.”
After he hung up, he sat staring out the window. This is how it went, he supposed. You suggested things, they happened. One thing led to the other, it must have been this way for Ellen, too. She smiled back, she met him somewhere, they talked, he leaned over slowly and kissed her that first time.