that still believes every lyric Cole Porter ever wrote. What I’m trying to say is, I want to feel my pulse racing. I want to feel that old Van Gogh kind of love that makes a guy want to cut off his ear and gift wrap it. Come to think of it, I’m not growing enough hair anymore to cut off my ear for you, so maybe you’d settle for a dozen roses. Come to think of it, a dozen roses might be a little much for my budget. Maybe you’d settle for a card .
So here I am sitting on my back porch with an ice pack on my rotator cuff (I pitched last night), sipping a beer and listening to Ella. Now I’m going to toss this message in a bottle out to sea. Who knows? Maybe it’ll wash up on your shore .
T he year she spent with Mickey, this is how Claire lived her life:
Back home in Blue Hills during the week, she tried guiltily to be a perfect mother. That was her way of earning the right to be with Mickey. Even more diligently than before, she made sure she was home every night to read to Pete and Sally and tuck them into bed, sometimes getting back to work on ad layouts or account proposals once they were asleep. She hardly ever lost her temper with her children anymore, she was so happy and well cared for. She joined the playground committee at Pete’s school and volunteered to be a chaperone on Sally’s class trip to Washington, D.C. She typed her kids’ book reports without giving them her usual lecture about how she wasn’t anybody’s secretary. She got up before her children every morning to pack their lunches and get breakfast on the table and she made sure they had a good meal every night at six, even if it was just spaghetti. Before they ate she always made her children hold hands and sing grace. They say this is the dorkiest thing they’ve ever heard of, but she also suspects that if she ever stopped insisting that they do it, they’d feel vaguely disappointed.
Late at night she’d call Mickey, or he’d call her just to say good night, except for Wednesdays, when he played basketball. She counted the days until the weekend, when she’d see him again.
Claire went to divorce mediation with Sam that year, and to therapy with Pete and Sally. Eventually, when the therapist himself said he thought they’d done as much work as they could, for now, she let it go. “Your children still have some unresolved anger to work out,”, said Dan, the therapist, “but evidently they’re not ready to deal with it yet, and we have to respect that.”
Weekends Claire had her other life. As soon as Pete and Sally left for their father’s house Friday afternoons, Claire threw her own overnight bag in the back of her station wagon and drove to Mickey’s. She wore her new silk underwear and played the jazz tapes Mickey had made for her, timed to last exactly as long as the drive took her: two hours and fifteen minutes. Mickey would have dinner waiting, and he’d make her eat, even if she wanted to make love first. “Somebody’s got to look after you for a change, Slim,” he’d tell Claire.
From Friday night to Sunday afternoon, when she’d make the drive north again, she was nothing but his lover. She didn’t talk about the children with Mickey—not hers, and seldom his. He didn’t want her to do his laundry. If they went grocery shopping, they never needed a cart, just one of those plastic baskets you take if you’re going through the express line, because all you have is wine and jalapeños and fresh mussels and coriander.
Sometimes Mickey’s son, Gabe, would be with them for a night or two, but having Gabe around was nothing like having her children around. “You don’t even talk in the same voice when your kids are in a one-mile radius,” he’d say to her. “We can be having a conversation, then Pete asks you to make him a sandwich and you stop everything and do it.”
Mickey’s voice seemed to call to her through the brambles of her life, “ Come out, come out. This way .” She wanted to disentangle
So here I am sitting on my back porch with an ice pack on my rotator cuff (I pitched last night), sipping a beer and listening to Ella. Now I’m going to toss this message in a bottle out to sea. Who knows? Maybe it’ll wash up on your shore .
T he year she spent with Mickey, this is how Claire lived her life:
Back home in Blue Hills during the week, she tried guiltily to be a perfect mother. That was her way of earning the right to be with Mickey. Even more diligently than before, she made sure she was home every night to read to Pete and Sally and tuck them into bed, sometimes getting back to work on ad layouts or account proposals once they were asleep. She hardly ever lost her temper with her children anymore, she was so happy and well cared for. She joined the playground committee at Pete’s school and volunteered to be a chaperone on Sally’s class trip to Washington, D.C. She typed her kids’ book reports without giving them her usual lecture about how she wasn’t anybody’s secretary. She got up before her children every morning to pack their lunches and get breakfast on the table and she made sure they had a good meal every night at six, even if it was just spaghetti. Before they ate she always made her children hold hands and sing grace. They say this is the dorkiest thing they’ve ever heard of, but she also suspects that if she ever stopped insisting that they do it, they’d feel vaguely disappointed.
Late at night she’d call Mickey, or he’d call her just to say good night, except for Wednesdays, when he played basketball. She counted the days until the weekend, when she’d see him again.
Claire went to divorce mediation with Sam that year, and to therapy with Pete and Sally. Eventually, when the therapist himself said he thought they’d done as much work as they could, for now, she let it go. “Your children still have some unresolved anger to work out,”, said Dan, the therapist, “but evidently they’re not ready to deal with it yet, and we have to respect that.”
Weekends Claire had her other life. As soon as Pete and Sally left for their father’s house Friday afternoons, Claire threw her own overnight bag in the back of her station wagon and drove to Mickey’s. She wore her new silk underwear and played the jazz tapes Mickey had made for her, timed to last exactly as long as the drive took her: two hours and fifteen minutes. Mickey would have dinner waiting, and he’d make her eat, even if she wanted to make love first. “Somebody’s got to look after you for a change, Slim,” he’d tell Claire.
From Friday night to Sunday afternoon, when she’d make the drive north again, she was nothing but his lover. She didn’t talk about the children with Mickey—not hers, and seldom his. He didn’t want her to do his laundry. If they went grocery shopping, they never needed a cart, just one of those plastic baskets you take if you’re going through the express line, because all you have is wine and jalapeños and fresh mussels and coriander.
Sometimes Mickey’s son, Gabe, would be with them for a night or two, but having Gabe around was nothing like having her children around. “You don’t even talk in the same voice when your kids are in a one-mile radius,” he’d say to her. “We can be having a conversation, then Pete asks you to make him a sandwich and you stop everything and do it.”
Mickey’s voice seemed to call to her through the brambles of her life, “ Come out, come out. This way .” She wanted to disentangle
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