What Came From Book Club

Book Club on Monday night was a little more interesting than usual. Having already read Meg Wollitzer’s “The Ten Year Nap”, a novel about a group of stay-at-home mothers in New York and it’s suburbs who abandoned careers in their late twenties and who, in their early forties, were in various stages of angst about whether or not that had been the correct decision and generally struggling en masse to figure out how they could collectively “Make A Difference,” “Add Something To The Universe” and in what leisure time remained, hold their marriages together and prevent their rear ends from sagging, I had a few more comments than most, having just read the book a second time.

But in all fairness, I usually have more comments than most, no matter what the subject is. Sometimes, like Monday night, I even say something I need to hear.

“The problem with the book for me,” I said, trying to hide the fact that as I spoke I was feeding Basil yet another piece of Babybel cheese and ‘accidentally’ dropping a Wheat Thin chaser to the rug for her, “is I could never get to suspension of disbelief, so a lot of it just fell flat.”

As flat, apparently, as the Wheat Thin, which lie salty side up on the rug. Basil glanced at it disdainfully, turning her attention back to the remaining cheese on my napkin. I tried to ignore both her and Julie, who was casting me one of those looks only people without animals can give. People who would never own a dog, who would limit themselves to a cat or a parakeet (she had both) and who therefore held an unspoken disdain for the whole, ‘feeding them people food and ruining them thing’ and its attendant evils. I couldn’t blame her, honestly. Until I’d started seeing Roy, I’d never been one to give Basil people food of any kind. Let’s just call the fact that I was then feeding her cheese straight from my hand just one of many things he’d changed in my life. I wasn’t convinced it was such a terrible change.

“So you couldn’t take the characters seriously?” This from Anna, who’d folded herself into a semi-Lotus position on my red and white trunk, cradling a glass of wine in both hands. “That, I don’t understand, Madeleine. I mean, if you look at their situations – they gave up careers. They invested everything in staying at home with their kids, and the kids are at the age, you know, starting school and everything and they don’t need so much from them as a parent anymore, and…”

“…And they’re all just turning forty,” Sara broke in, looking around my living room at where the six of us were variously situated, “so I guess I don’t see either why you’d have a hard time not getting into the story, or believing in the characters. Seemed pretty real to me.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t get into the story,” I said, “I just felt like they created a lot of drama where it wasn’t necessary. I think they were at a certain time in their life, and the questions they were asking themselves, all this stuff about what they wanted to do, what they’d left undone, what their ultimate goal in life was – I just thought that stuff was ubiquitous, I mean, you’re going to feel that way whether you have kids or not.”

“I thought they were all pretty submissive,” Julie piped in. “I mean, it was like their husbands made every decision on everything….”

“…And if they had been really good women all day and run the vacuum,” Rita added, “they got to take the minivan out to that café where they all met for breakfast to bitch about life in general.” She laughed, and waved Basil over for a bite of cheese, which I appreciated because it gave Julie someone else to raise her eyebrows at.

“I did feel the husband characters were more than a little invisible,” I agreed. “So yeah, I had a hard time understanding all their concerns about saving their relationships when the only thing you got to know about the husbands was they were overworked, overpaid, and not home very much. I wasn’t seeing a whole lot of relationship to even be concerned about.”

“OK then,” Anna said, pouring herself another glass of wine, “I guess we’ve heard from the single women side of the fence. Of course they were concerned about their marriages,” she finished, taking a long sip of wine. “I mean, I’m concerned about my marriage. Just like you,” she gestured to Anna, then to Jessie, who nodded in assent, “worry about yours. I mean, if you don’t worry about it every once in awhile, the whole damned thing can fall apart when you’re not looking…”

“Which could be,” I broke in, but not unkindly, “not a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. And I’m speaking only for myself,” I added, not wanting to turn the Book Club into one of those ridiculous consciousness raising sessions like those held by the women in the book or a debate on the relative merits of single vs. married, as we had such a nice balance of both in the room and nobody truly cared about that, anyway. “It just seemed to me, these women held onto a whole lot of the past, and there just comes a time in life when you have to decide what you really want, and be honest about what’s really just baggage you’re packing around.”

“Like cleaning a closet?” This from Julie, who was pointedly ignoring Basil, now seated at her feet by the ottoman, giving her best rendition of Piercing Dog Stare Which Will Not Be Broken Until I Receive Cheese.

I shrugged. It was as good an analogy as anything.

“So you’re saying these women packed around too many regrets?”

“Julie, I’m just saying I think they had way too much time on their hands. I think everybody thinks about the stuff they thought about, but I’ve never met anybody who actually had the time to think about it so much, or make such a big deal out of it, or be so angst-ridden over it. I guess,” I said, finishing my own wine and putting the empty glass on the end table, out of reach of the dog, “I think if they were all so allegedly intelligent they could have come to a few decisions, maybe taken a few steps toward being honest about what they wanted and what they wanted to do, and the whole book would have been five pages long instead of three hundred.”

“So if you had to take one thing away from the book,” Rita asked, what would it be?

“That’s easy,” I said. “Other than five dollars from the price, I’d say if you need to make a decision, make one, and then get on with your life. And if you’re surprised by a kid who grows older and gets less dependent on you as a parent as part of that, I guess you’ve forgotten that you were ever a kid and did the same thing. And,” I added, “if you’re forty – or even close to it, and you’re surprised that you’re asking yourself questions like are you really happy and what do you really want to do, and what do you need and what don’t you need, that’s odd. It happens in every book, every movie, every soap opera, and in everybody’s life. It’s not that tough to make a decision that yes, you want this or no, you don’t want that.”

Sara started to say something then, wound up looking at her watch instead, and finished her wine. “Well, we don’t know how it ends yet,” she observed. “I mean, even if we’ve read the whole book…” she broke off long enough to give me a sharp look but not an unfriendly one, “we could all still be surprised at the ending. Maybe they all get fearless in the end, and really do something.”

I supposed that was true, and started gathering empty wine glasses, carrying the nearly devoured cheese tray to the sink, well out of Basil’s reach, making a show of covering it in Saran Wrap even knowing full well it would become dog treats before the night was over. It was just a few minutes after nine and we were doing as we’d always done, finishing up the evening exactly on schedule. One of the reasons I’d always enjoyed Book Club as much as I did is the fact that we weren’t lingerers. We allotted an hour and we took an hour. No matter, really, how interesting the conversation was or not when the hour was over. You could always continue it on the phone later, if that’s where your heart lie.

“Well, you know what they say,” Sara said, the last to go out the door, “maybe you’ll like next month’s book better.”

“There’s always that.” I waited just a few seconds after closing the door, then unveiled the cheese and held a piece in one hand, dangling it over Basil, waiting for her to do the ballerina-esque twirl she did for Roy. I waited. And I waited. She remained firmly seated in front of the fridge, dog eyes lasering me with the She Who Must Be Fed Cheese stare until I gave in, and let her have the cheese.

I showered, and moved to the couch and HBO, turning it off after only a few minutes and opting for an Oprah magazine, then picked up my phone and looked at that, too. In particular at the text message from Roy that had come in earlier, the one I’d never anticipated, having been completely convinced the last I would ever receive from him was the one sent on Sunday, declining to allow me to return a vase and anything else of his I had. Even as verbose a personality as myself couldn’t formulate anything remotely resembling a response to that, so I hadn’t made one.

I had, though, been honest in my text back before Book Club. I’d told the truth and the whole truth about how damnably difficult it had been, since Saturday, to string together more than two minutes without thinking about him. How, regardless of Lainie’s contention that nothing lasts forever, not even heartbreak, (“especially,” she’d added, “when you’ve gotten a lot of practice at it”) and regardless of my own often proved true theory that losing someone was nothing a couple days of comedic movies and maybe a furniture painting project or two couldn’t fix, it was what it was, and what it was is that I felt like I’d lost a huge part of my life, and one I hadn’t wanted to lose. Much, I realized, like it would feel if I’d lost Basil.

Every so often, she gets an impulse seemingly from nowhere, when we’re out on a walk, or patrolling the Designated Dog Area on the south end of the condos, and does something I’d never understood. There she’d be, two feet or less from the human who loved her, who catered to her, who thought about her all the time, and who wanted to spend every minute possible with her (except, in all honesty, for those times when the human just needed time to herself and therefore thanked every star in the heavens for Doggy Day Care, no matter how overpriced), and for no reason I could understand, I’d take a step toward her and she’d run.

Really run.

I’d call her, give her the tried and true “Wait” command, and she’d be gone. As time goes by she does this less and less, her last incidence being at Roy’s and that, I supposed, was because she was in unfamiliar territory. That time, found by a woman who really only half-heartedly wanted to call the number on her collar and return her home, coming that close to losing what we had irrevocably, I think she got the message. She and I were just supposed to be together. Maybe that explains why, since that day, she’s not only never bolted, but makes it very clear at all times that she needs to know where I am, that I’m still there, and that I still love her.

“Why would you ever run from someone you love so much, anyway,” I said to her, settled in on the ottoman across from me. “I’d think you’re smart enough to know what you want, and you sure don’t want to belong to someone else. It would never be the same.”

I hate to say this because it sounds so cliché, but maybe that’s where clichés come from, anyway – real life. I had then what felt like one of those “Aha!” moments Oprah writes about, and realized maybe my dog and I were more alike than I realized. I looked again at my phone. I looked at my phone and told myself what I needed to do was go to bed and call it a day. It was after ten. I’d already texted him that Basil missed him, but had enjoyed the evening.

Or maybe, I thought, I needed to do a little better than the ladies in the book I’d just been discussing, and if I knew something needed to be done, I’d just do it and I wouldn’t dodge around it, I’d just put it out there for what it was, and not bog down in how it would be received or not because it was just something that needed done. I really didn’t, at that point, have anything to lose, and I had mores to say to Roy than what I’d texted.

Maybe he wouldn’t understand it, or maybe he’d misinterpret it, but at that moment none of that really mattered. What it came down to is cleaning the closet, as had been said earlier, and just moving forward without letting the past hold you back, spending all your time trying to figure out why the past went wrong so you could get the future absolutely right. Sounded like a valiant goal, except I had a sneaking suspicion that once you accomplished that and had the future lined out, you’d be too old to have much present left.

Maybe there comes a time you just have to jump in the pool, or wake up and realize you’re already in the deep end of the pool, and so you just hope you’re a better swimmer than you remembered.

I texted Roy:

“Speaking for me now that Basil has been spoken for, I miss you, in that I have to make a conscious effort not to think about you otherwise I think about you all the time. And I love you and feel like if you’re not in my life a pretty integral part of my life is missing and that sucks. And in all honesty that scares the crap out of me because I never really thought I’d encounter that again and likely explains why I keep sabotaging it – that and for an intelligent woman I’m not always ‘the brightest bulb’ and for some reason think love is best run away from before it surprises you one day and evaporates on its own. And as this is longer than any text ought ever be and more honest than anybody – even Basil, probably – has time for, I am going to step away from the phone, and go to bed…”

Which I did, and did knowing I’d gotten more out of that book than I’d realized.