I convinced Maya to cut out of work early and come to Dedham for a walk. She showed up 25 minutes late because she had issues wrangling her three rescue dogs. Simon refused to get in the car. She couldn’t coax or bribe him with treats and he’s far too heavy to lift.
Simon, who is the newest to the group, has a glass eye, is the size of a pony, and is as stubborn as a mule. Quite a contrast to Harpo, the Corgi-German Shepherd mix, and even Jeanie, who is some sort of labra-rigamarole. When Maya talks about them as a group, she refers to them as “the rescue dogs.” It doesn’t matter that they’ve assimilated into their suburban lifestyle with plush dog beds and organic chewies, they will always be “the rescue dogs.”
My walks with Maya are my sanity and the winding trails around the magnificent rocks of Wilson Mountain usually bolster my mood, but yesterday I was stressed out about having slept with Elliot and I was pissed at Maya for showing up late. Not only did I not tell her about Elliot, I lied to her about Marsden. I was feeling testy and competitive and annoyed. And now I feel regretful and ashamed. Why did I not confide in her?
Maya has been saving my ass since I met her—literally—in Terminal C at Logan Airport. I remember the moment we met. I felt a tap on my back. I turned around and this stunning woman on the short side of short said, “I’m sorry if this is inappropriate, but I thought you’d want to know that your skirt is tucked into your underwear.” I reached back and felt my skirt wadded up and stuffed into my undies. “Oh my God, this is so embarrassing,” I screeched, to apparently draw more attention to myself.
Maya said, in her raspy voice, “Don’t worry, it happens to me all the time.”
I could tell by looking at her that wasn’t the case. She was luminescent, even in airport lighting.
A week later, I was in Trader Joe’s and felt a tap on my back again. “Excuse me,” said a woman who looked like she popped into the supermarket for a few healthy snacks on her way home from the gym, “Didn’t we meet last week at the airport?” I instinctively reached back and to my ass—pants on. No wadded-up skirt stuck into saggy mom-undies this time.
We chatted in the chips aisle and figured out that our kids went to the same school and that she had done publicity work for a theater that had produced two of my plays. We exchanged phone numbers and got together the following week for coffee. We had people in common, favorite books and movies. We had endless things to talk about and became instant confidantes. It was friendship at first sight. That’s a thing. I’m sure of it. I bet it happens more frequently, and can be more powerful, than love at first sight. Maya is my rock. She got me through Elliot’s affair and my divorce and now she’s pushing for full restoration, personal and professional. But for some reason I am resisting. I’m not only resisting; I’m finding that I’m getting annoyed with her. I don’t know why.
Maya’s one of the smartest people I know. She’s got a photographic memory, but unlike a lot of people who have access to encyclopedic amounts of information, she isn’t constantly letting you know all the things that you don’t know. She knows you know what you don’t know, and she never says, “I can’t believe you didn’t know that.” She understands there are different types of intelligence, and she is equally game to gossip, play shrink, give unsolicited advice, as she is to discourse on 19th-century Russian playwrights.
She does brag about her kids though. She was telling me about their family dinner. That’s another thing she does, she always calls it “family dinner.” Why can’t it just be dinner? Her rescue dogs are dogs and family dinner is dinner. I don’t know why she feels the need to qualify everything, to sweeten the pot. Her pot is already so sweet. Sam and Marina, two of the most interesting, talkative, engaged teenagers I’ve ever met, cooked an authentic Medieval dinner—described as chicken with cameline sauce, venison in sorrel verjuice. I could practically taste the tart flavors mixed in with the ginger and cinnamon, and I kept saying, “This sounds amazing. They are amazing.”
Marsden is not amazing. Not like that. And I want him to be. I want to see how it feels to not be the one with the struggling son, the failed marriage, the complicated mother, the otherwise involved father. I wish Marsden would regale me with his brilliant ideas about comprehensive immigration reform and tell me that he was thinking he’d like to study public policy in college.
I lied to Maya while we walked yesterday. I rationalized it to myself while we were walking. I’m a storyteller and storytellers tell stories, and that’s what I was doing. But shouldn’t I be a truthteller? Isn’t that really the point of storytelling—to get to the truth?
I told her that Marsden and I had a family dinner together last night too, and I pronounced “family dinner” so slowly and loudly, it was as if I was talking to a non-English speaker. I told her that Marsden was talking again. That I couldn’t get him to shut up.
The truth was that Marsden and I drove to Panera Bread, picked up sandwiches to go, and chowed them down on the car ride home. Our conversation didn’t get beyond, “How’s your sandwich?” “Good.” “Mine’s good too.”
I blame the Kennedys for creating a family dinner crisis in America. The mythology that’s developed around their dinners—those beautiful, brilliant, strong-jawed Kennedy kids debating geo-politics over dinner, as matriarch Rose and patriarch Joe peppered them with questions, has screwed up the very American ideal of dining alone. Aren’t we supposed to be a country built on self-reliance and individualism? Shouldn’t we promote eating alone in front of the TV or computer screen?
We used to have family dinners, but even back then they were fraught. We’d claim our seats at the table, always the same seats, and I struggled to create a conversation worthy of a Kennedy. Maybe these dinners were the first signs of Marsden’s retreat into a petulant silence.
ME: Marsden, did you learn anything interesting at school today?
MARSDEN:
ELLIOT: Mom asked you a question. Did you learn anything interesting at school today?
MARSDEN:
ME: Marsden?
MARSDEN: Oh? What?
ME: Did you learn anything interesting at school today?
MARSDEN: Nup.
ME: Nothing? Really?
MARSDEN: It’s school, Mom. We don’t do a lot of learning. They just want you to think we do.
ME: Aren’t any of your classes interesting?
MARSDEN: English is good, I guess.
ELLIOT: What spices did you put in the tomato sauce?
ME: I’m glad you like English. So, who here knows the name of the president of South Africa?
MARSDEN:
ELLIOT: Here’s a hint. It’s not Nelson Mandela anymore.
ME: Marsden, do you know who the president of South Africa currently is?
MARSDEN:
ELLIOT: Marsden, Mom asked about the president of South Africa?
ME: Marsden?
MARSDEN: What?
ELLIOT: Mom asked you a question.
MARSDEN: I know.
ME: About the president of South Africa.
MARSDEN: I told you.
ME: I didn’t hear you.
MARSDEN: Maybe you should get your hearing checked.
ME: Marsden, do you know who the president of South Africa is?
MARSDEN: Why do you care so much about South Africa? Are you planning on moving there?
And so it went. Night after night. Me always asking about the president of South Africa. Marsden never looking it up. Never answering.
Our fraudulent family dinners were a metaphor for my fraudulent marriage. I hate that I lied to Maya. And right now, I hate doing these Morning Pages.