Meg felt heroic as she sat down to save her healthy marriage before it needed saving. The book promised she could do it, declared in bold gold letters on its cover, “Rescue Your Marriage!” Given the right directions, Meg knew she could do anything. Decorating books helped her to create a relaxed, yet classic look in her already stunning house. Exercise books kept her always athletic body in shape. And “How To Raise Baby A to Z” hadn’t failed her yet. When Alyssa was only four days old, Chapter Three told Meg that the baby should have a nickname, a loving little spark that would always let her know she was special. Meg remembered looking at her new daughter, sleeping in the bassinet. She looked so much like Paul, Meg’s husband, and at first, Meg nicknamed her Paulie. But that sounded too much like a parrot, so she switched to alliteration and wordplay and called her Paulerina and Paulie-wollydoodle and Paulie-Peeps. Eventually, she shortened it all to Peepers.
Peepers was five years old now and insisted on using her nickname all the time, even at school, proof of how special she felt. Books just weren’t wrong.
Meg was deep into the first chapter of marriage-salvage when Peepers ran by with a doll stroller. “Peepers, remember?” Meg called to her daughter’s back. “No running in the house!” The A to Z book said that a gentle reminder of the rules worked every time. But Peepers kept running. She sang a tune again and again and Meg reasoned that Peepers probably didn’t hear the warning over her own lyrical voice. Meg listened closely; the song was unfamiliar. The A To Z book said that a child’s song often gave clues to her innermost feelings, her thoughts and her troubles. This song had three syllables and Peepers put the emphasis on the second, roaring it while barely mumbling the other two. “Hmm-TOR-mms,” Meg heard. “Hmm-TOR-mms.”
She tried to block it out and concentrate on her marriage, but every time Peepers dashed by, all the words in Meg’s book blended into that three-syllable sound. Finally, she grabbed the back of Peepers’ shirt. “Peeps,” Meg said. “Peeps, we don’t run in the house. And what are you singing?”
Peepers leaned into her shirt, pulling it taut, her toes straining and her heels lifted with the desire to be in motion. But then she sank back against her mother’s knees and accepted a hug. “A song I made up,” she said. She patted her flat chest. “Me, by myself. About my new doll.”
Meg looked inside the plastic stroller and saw the doll that Paul brought home last night. It was an ugly thing, with green and purple hair, bruised eyeshadow and ketchup lipstick, dressed in frayed bellbottoms and a tie-dyed shirt that proclaimed, “Attitude—My Way or the Highway.” Paul said it was supposed to look like a teenager. A Jive-Diva Girl, it was called. When Meg asked why Peepers would possibly want a Jive-Diva Girl, Paul shrugged. “Maybe as an inspiration? Besides, it was on clearance.”
Meg shuddered. In her book, “Wise Financing: Making Sense With Cents,” it said to never buy anything on clearance. Through some convoluted formula that Meg couldn’t quite follow, it showed that clearance items only made the stores richer and the customers poorer.
In the stroller, the Jive-Diva Girl was wrapped in a baby blanket. The blue-lidded eyes looked out of place, peering over the pink bunnies and lavender duckies. “Can you keep it down a bit, Peeps?” Meg asked. “Mommy’s trying to read.”
Peepers squinted at the book. “Res-kew-Your-Mar-marrrr-marrrry-age,” she sounded out. “What’s a Mary-age?”
“It’s marriage. And it’s what a mommy and a daddy have. They’re married.”
“Oh.” Peepers straightened her tugged-sideways shirt. “My song is about my doll’s name.” She moved away, walking, Meg noted, and whispering her song. Which was worse. Now it sounded like “Psssss-TOR-hissssss.”
Meg sighed and tossed the book to the couch cushion. “All right, I give up. What did you name your doll and what’s the song?”
Quickly, Peepers turned back and sank down on one knee. Throwing her arms wide, she bellowed, “Clit-TOR-is! Clit-TOR-is! You’re the best one FOR us!”
Meg instantly snapped her legs together. Then she tried to relax and return to her original position, but she couldn’t remember what that was and suddenly, every position she took seemed suggestive. In the A To Z book, they warned that you should never let your children know when you’re shocked or panicked, especially over sexual matters. It could cause the child to have such extensive trauma, she’d never lead a fully developed sexual life.
Meg took a deep breath, then took Peepers by the shoulders. “Do you mean clitoris?” Meg stated the word carefully, using the real pronunciation, with the emphasis on the first syllable. She learned it long ago, in college, when she read the book, “Meet Your Body, Treat Your Body.”
Peepers nodded. “Yep, clit-TOR-is. I love that word. Ms. BigBrain taught us.” The teacher’s name was actually Ms. Barbain, but Paul changed it after Peepers’ first month in her kindergarten classroom, a month filled with science experiments and dramatic plays and strange 3-D plastic puzzles. Ms. Barbain insisted on a steady stream of odd supplies, empty 2-liter bottles and button-filled baby food jars, baggies of sand from backyard sandboxes, even plain white bars of soap that Meg learned later the kids carved into animals, brandishing real knives! Meg was appalled, but Paul laughed and changed Ms. Barbain’s name and now Meg couldn’t get Peeps to say it correctly. The A to Z book said if parents allow their children to ridicule adults, the children would learn to disobey and disrespect.
“You mean Ms. Barbain, Peeps, remember? And why was Ms. Barbain using that word?”
Peepers pulled the Jive-Diva Girl from the stroller and tossed her into the air. The blanket went flying, but Peepers caught the doll by her purple-green dreadlocks. “For learning about our bodies. What makes girls girls and boys boys.”
Meg remembered seeing the announcement last week in the kindergarten’s newsletter for the “Body Language Unit,” but this wasn’t what she expected. She thought it was odd that kindergarteners would be taught what it means when people cross their arms or legs or when they lean forward or straddle a chair. Her own book, “How To Make Your Body Say What You Feel,” was far too complicated for children. Meg was amazed at how much a cocked eyebrow could say.
But this was something altogether different. This was real life. Meg still quietly asked Peepers if she wiped her hoo-hoo after using the bathroom; she didn’t think Peeps was ready for the real thing. Peeps had never even seen her father naked. The A to Z book said children shouldn’t be taught what they aren’t ready for. Meg would have to call the principal again.
She shut her eyes and pinched the skin above her nose, a method she learned in a stress-relief book. “Peepers,” she said, “it’s pronounced clitoris, not clit-TOR-is. And it’s not a good name for a doll. It’s not a name at all, not like Meg or Paul or Alyssa. It’s a thing. A body part.”
“I know. But it sounds neat.” Peepers tucked the doll back into the stroller. “And that’s how Ms. BigBrain says it. We saw pictures.” She nodded firmly, as if the pictures somehow validated the way her teacher pronounced the word. Then she started to walk away. Over her shoulder, she said, “I heard Ms. BigBrain tell Mr. Parker if we show our someday husbands where our clit-TOR-is is, we’ll be happy.” Peepers spun around a corner toward her bedroom. “I’m already happy,” she yelled, “cuz I have a new doll! Her name is Clit-TOR-is!” She slammed the door.
Meg wondered if the slam meant Peepers was angry. She sat for a moment, then rubbed her temples and pinched her nose again. She made a mental note to talk to Ms. Barbain about inappropriate comments near the presence of children. She was sure there was a chapter on that in the A To Z book and she planned to refer to it. Ms. Barbain had a lot to learn about dealing with children. Then Meg decided to leave Peepers alone for now. The A to Z book also stressed that children sometimes needed their own space…parents too. Meg returned to saving her healthy marriage.
Later, Meg wandered into the kitchen. It was dark enough to start turning lights on, so Paul was due home soon and supper needed to be made. She wondered what time it was and how long she had. She looked toward the birdcage clock, suspended from her kitchen ceiling, and automatically rolled her shoulders.
She bought the clock on their honeymoon when they stopped at an antique mall a mile away from Niagara Falls. Meg saw the golden birdcage, a bird inside spreading its wings and preparing to fly. Fly from what, she wondered. Who would want to leave a golden cage? She touched the bars, felt the fine twine of thin gold braided together. Reaching carefully through, she stroked a wing. She’d never had a pet. She picked the birdcage up and brought it to the cashier.
It wasn’t until they got back to the hotel that she realized it was a clock. She thought it might be a music box and when she lifted it above her head to find the winder, she saw the clock face flat against the bottom of the cage’s base. There was a key taped to the side and when she wound the clock, the bird sang on the top and half of every hour. It kept pretty accurate time, so they hung it in their apartment for three years, then from the kitchen ceiling when they bought the house. Her book, “Kitchen Savvy: Create More Than Meals In Your Kitchen,” said that it was particularly important to have something striking here, one of the easiest rooms to go cliché.
The clock was definitely striking, everyone commented on it. But it was also really annoying. The only way to tell the time was to stand directly beneath it and look up. Every month when she wound it, every day when she stood under it, Meg swore at the inconvenience. But it was too pretty to throw away and too accurate to ignore. Meg’s Thought of the Day calendar once read, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” So the clock stayed. And Meg never put another clock in the kitchen because it seemed silly and redundant to have two clocks in the same room. So telling the time meant a crick in the neck and a whispered curse each and every time.
Meg rubbed her neck in anticipation and walked toward the clock. Peepers ran past her and looked into the fridge. “When’s supper?” she yelled as she disappeared behind the open door.
“Hang on, I gotta look at this stupid clock first.” Meg put her hands on her hips and craned her neck. “Probably about a half-hour.” Her neck twinged, a shivery pain that ran down between her shoulder blades. “Damn, I hate this clock.” She instantly regretted swearing. It was one of those topics in the A to Z book headed with a big scarlet NEVER. It only took one slip for a bright child like Peepers to pick up an inappropriate word. Like clit-TOR-is.
Peepers looked at her, then up at the clock. “Pretty bird,” she cooed. “Pretty Seymour, sing so pretty.” She smiled at her mother. “Just look at your watch, Mommy.” She waved a thin wrist, sporting a bright yellow Winnie-the-Pooh watch.
“Seymour?” Meg looked down at her own silver Liz Claiborne, bought at full price, then back up at the clock.
“I call him that. He’s my pet.” Peepers went back to the fridge.
Meg shook her head. “Don’t have a snack now, Peeps,” she said. “You’ll spoil your supper.”
“Aw, Mommy. Just something little.” Peepers held up a shiny apple, her pink fingers curled like ribbons against the red skin.
Meg pulled out her new cookbook. “Don’t blame me if you can’t eat a bite of your yummy supper later,” she said. The A to Z book said you should never make an issue out of food.
The new cookbook was called, “Tempt and Tease Your Tastebuds!” She bought it the other day, with the Marriage book and one other at a sidewalk sale outside Schwartz’s Books. Three for a dollar. A bargain. Meg nearly passed them up, thinking of the Wise Financing book, but then she reasoned that the books weren’t really in a clearance sale. They were in a sidewalk sale. The signs were yellow and black rather than bright red with slash marks. And the deal only worked if you bought three.
Meg opened a page at random and looked at the recipe. The first direction was, “Blanch your chicken.” Meg quickly turned the page.
Peepers leaned on the counter, tilting her head sideways to read the book’s title. “Tem-pit?” she asked. “Tastebuds?”
“These things in our mouths that let us taste,” Meg said. “And tempt. Make them want to eat.” The next recipe called for a double-boiler. Meg turned the page.
“Daddy’s tastebuds like sketti and meatballs,” Peepers said. She bit into the apple, the crunch sounding like crisp snow under a boot.
Meg shivered and smiled. “Spaghetti,” she said. “It’s pronounced spaghetti.” The next page read, “Set your pastry blender on—”
“And my tastebuds like sketti and meatballs too,” Peepers said. “Best of anything.” The bird clock went off, breaking into a tinny music box tune that Meg was never able to place. Peepers leaped across the floor, turned a graceful pirouette on bright purple sparkly sneakers, and left the room. Meg heard her singing, “Seymour’s a bird, he’s my pet, he’s my pet!”
Meg started to look up to check the time, but then looked at her watch instead. Her neck relaxed. Her stomach growled and she thought of the long half-hour before supper. After stacking her new book along with the dozen others on the dusty baker’s rack, she turned to the fridge.
As she prepared spaghetti and meatballs, she ate an apple.
Meg sat on the couch that night, trying to read her third new book while her husband watched basketball on television and Peepers colored at their feet. Meg looked over Peepers’ shoulder and discovered that Paul also brought home a Jive-Diva Girl Activity book and Peepers was busily filling in various mopheads with an atrocious shade of neon green. Clit-TOR-is sat on the corner of the coffee table.
It was hard to concentrate on the book with the noise of the cheers and her husband’s accompanying grunts of approval and the skritch-scratch of crayons. But she tried. This book was the most important one of the bargain three, called, “Are You Hurting; How To Know For Sure.” Meg struggled through the third page of the first chapter, “How To Know Who You Really Are,” when Peepers suddenly sprawled over her knees. Meg jiggled her legs up and down, bouncing Peepers, but unfortunately also bouncing the book in the most seasick way, when Peepers suddenly knocked the book out of Meg’s hands and onto the floor. She shrieked, “Mommy! Where’s it hurt?” She grabbed Meg’s face in both hands and repeated at top volume, “Where’s it hurt? Where’s it hurt?” Meg recognized this as her own refrain from times Peepers ran in crying from playing outside or down in the basement or in her own room. Now Peepers lunged onto Paul’s lap, who sat there gaping, and she beat on his chest. “Help her, Daddy! Help her!”
“What?” Paul and Meg both said together.
Meg scooped Peepers up and rocked her. “Calm down,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with me, what are you talking about?”
Peepers quickly kicked free and rolled to the floor. She grabbed the book, holding it out of Meg’s reach. “Are You Hurting!” she yelled.
Paul began to laugh and he took the book from Peepers. “Sweetheart,” he said. “It’s just a book. That’s all. There’s nothing wrong with Mommy.”
Peepers stood ramrod straight and tears rolled down her flushed cheeks. “Mommy? Nothing’s wrong?”
“No!” Meg reached for Peepers and hugged her tightly. “I’m fine, Peeps. It’s just a book I’m reading.”
“But then…” Peepers pulled away and again took Meg’s face in her hands. “If you’re fine, how come you’re reading a book about hurting?”
Meg opened her mouth, then closed it. She tried again, but no words came out. Finally, she said, “How about some hot chocolate and popcorn?”
Peepers cheered and leaped off Meg’s lap. “Lemme help! I get to put the bag in the microwave!” she said and ran for the kitchen. “Hi, Seymour!” Meg heard her yell at the birdcage clock.
Meg got up slowly, then trembled a smile at Paul. “It’s just a title,” she said. Before she followed Peepers, she took the book and tossed it behind the couch.
In bed that night, during the Late Show, Meg told Paul the Jive-Diva Girl’s name and the story behind it. He laughed. Meg waited a moment, uncertain, then laughed too.
“But can you imagine teaching little kids this stuff?” Meg asked. “And then not using the right pronunciation!”
Paul turned off their television and settled down onto his pillow. “What do you mean?”
“It’s clitoris, not clit-TOR-is,” Meg said.
“I think it’s both, actually.”
Meg sighed. “Paul, I’m the woman. I know how it’s pronounced. It’s not like I tell you how to pronounce penis. Or testicle.”
He smiled and closed his eyes.
“Okay, hang on, I’ll prove it to you.” Meg got out of bed and crossed to the computer desk they shared. She got out her dictionary and paged through the C’s. Then she found it.
Or them. Two pronunciations.
She quietly closed the book and got back into bed.
Paul snuggled close. “So?”
“She’s right,” Meg said.
Paul rubbed his hand lightly over her breasts.
“I can’t believe it. Peepers was right.” Meg started to roll away, but Paul caught her and held tight.
“You know, we’ve been married for umpteen years now.” Paul rose up on his hands and knees. “And you’ve never shown me where your clit-TOR-is is.” He smiled and worked down her pajama bottoms.
Meg laughed. “Well, that’s silly, you know where it is.”
“Hmmm?” His hands touched her here, then there. His face hovered over her thighs. “Show me, Meg. Where is it exactly?”
Meg grimaced, but took his hand and guided it. “Well, it’s right… right…there. OH!”
She gasped and fell headlong into happiness.