Leave me floundering on the tennis court as the tranquillizer kicks in, and imagine …
Charlotte, in her kitchen, with her autobiography students, who have reshuffled all their afternoon plans and trekked half-way across the city so that they can prove themselves flexible to the needs of a working mother.
God! The humiliation! She ought to have just told them. What is there to be ashamed of, anyway? It’s not her fault! She’s not the infesting party! She always checks her children’s hair! She could – if she were that sort of person – tell that bitch headmistress where to look for the culprit. If she were a tattle-tale. But she is not going to get Becky into trouble. No, siree. Charlotte covers for her friends, even when they let her down. It’s her nature.
The person she is really angry at now is herself. Why had she suggested having her students over to her house? How had she thought it would be possible to conduct a class in such chaotic circumstances?
One of her students – Doris – has left the group and is out in the back yard smoking a cigarette. Or rather, jabbing it at her lips, pacing back and forth, exhaling through all her orifices. Now she is coming up to the window and shouting at it. What, is she angry? Charlotte doesn’t know.
I ought never to have let them see me here, she says to herself as she surveys her other students’ faces, as she sees how hard they are trying not to look at the lunchboxes and jackets strewn all over the floor. What had they made of her? This woman who screamed at her children, and then threw them two boxes of fruit rollups, commanding them to go into the den and ‘just watch anything’. This woman who said excuse me, there is something I have to do before we sit down, and then proceeded to open the washing machine door and let water pour all over the floor and cry, ‘God damn you, Trey!’ This woman, who then called up Trey at a gym to leave him a clipped Hitlerian message – not about the washing machine, but about his ‘contractual obligation’ to buy trail mix, or else – can this woman be their serene, eternally patient and composed teacher?
Charlotte knows they all know why she had to abandon her class for the nursery school. If they didn’t pick up the allusion from Dottie herself – ‘How old are you, honey?’ ‘I have animals in my hair’ – then all they had to do was look at the bottle of headlice shampoo standing on the stove, with the printed assurance: ‘REMOVES HEADLICE AND THEIR EGGS.’
Charlotte’s eyes wander from the washing machine – what is in there? – to the answering machine clicking on and off – who is trying to reach her? – to the unacceptable game show the children are watching on TV. She can just see them squirming on their beanbags. They have begun to accuse each other’s heads of blocking the screen. Their squeals are muffled by the washing machine, which has gone into its spin cycle. It sounds as if there’s nothing in there but a sneaker and a double sheet.
Somehow this reminds her of Becky. Becky, who never has to try. Why is it that men only care about looks?
She can’t allow herself to continue thinking in this vein. She has to attend to her class. To practicalities. Like supper, and headlice, and trail mix.
How can she be sure Trey will even remember to go shopping? What if he buys things that contain preservatives? When is she going to shampoo the children’s hair, and wash their brushes and sheets and clothes and prepare for tomorrow’s 10.30 class? What if Trey has forgotten what trail mix is? What if that’s him on the phone? What if Ophelia is trying to get through to her? What if it’s important? These are the questions that whirl around in Charlotte’s head as she watches a raisin do a slow circular dance on top of her washing machine.
She is interrupted by a sharp rap on the plate glass window. It’s Doris, saying something hostile but inaudible. How is Charlotte going to find out what went wrong? She looks around the table, hoping her other students will give her some clues. They are all smiling at her. Sadly.
‘I guess I should try to speak to Doris alone,’ Charlotte says.
‘Again?’ says one student.
Again?
What is happening to her? Before she can ask anyone, Doris comes inside. ‘Let me tell you what I cancelled FOR THIS,’ she yells. ‘I was supposed to visit my sister in the hospital and take her this present. I was supposed to meet my husband at the Embarcadero Centre. Instead, I come here to listen to you say nasty nothings and … well, all I can say is the hell with you.’
‘But Doris, maybe if you …’
‘There is no excuse for antisemitism,’ she says.
Antisemitism?
‘Doris. Please. Sit down. Let’s talk.’ But Doris is out the door.
Doris is half-way down the block when Charlotte sees she has forgotten her Macy’s bag.
She throws open the door. ‘Doris! Doris!’
Charlotte starts running after her. Until she realizes she can’t leave the children alone in the house.
How can one person do it all? The headlice, the trail mix, the doctor, the lover, the husband, the children, the job … and now, as if that weren’t enough, there’s Becky. Her lipstick! Her carelessness. And the stud! The gradebook! And she called this liberation? When was the last time she had done something for herself?
She goes back inside. Throws the Macy’s bag across the room. Picks up the phone. Dials Becky’s number, and tells the bitch what she thinks of her.