Even though I knew what I wanted to do, I sat for a moment, indecisive. I knew I shouldn’t, but where exactly had being well-behaved gotten me? Stuck in a loveless, childless, hopeless marriage. Now work—that was good. But that was because I threw myself into teaching to distract me from my crappy personal life.
Defiantly, I hopped off the couch and made my way to the hallway where my laptop sat in its crocodile-patterned tote bag. I dragged it out and booted it up. Then I went to the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea and let Felix out. No need to worry about the teakettle waking Spencer. He would sleep like a log for the rest of the night. He always did, which was so irritating. Why did I have to be the one with insomnia?
Since I was awake, I would go online, look around, see what was out there. Lots of people found companionship online, even love. What would be the harm in just looking at the dating sites out there? Everybody did it. In fact, just the other day I heard that forty percent of people who had online dating profiles were already married.
I heard my mother’s voice in my ear. “Yes, dear, and if everyone jumped off a bridge would you do it too?” I shoved Bunny Davenport’s meddling out of my mind and sipped my cup of Sleepytime Tea. I sat back down with my laptop and surfed a few dating websites.
I was only doing it for fun. Of course I would never act on any of my searches. I was just doing “research,” finding out who was out there. Perhaps it would become a harmless thing I did on weeknights when my husband was “working late” with one of his leggy twenty-year-old paralegals.
A guilty pleasure, so to speak
But they sure wanted a lot of information on these dating sites. Hmm. I didn’t know how to describe myself. Dark-haired schoolteacher with hazel eyes who has a tendency to speak too loudly when she gets overly excited? Nah. Bookworm who likes to celebrate the month of her birthday rather than just the day, and has always wanted to learn to dance the tango? Nope. Reality TV addict who loves dogs and hates to work out? Definitely not. That sounded lazy. Really, I just like watching Survivor.
The forms they required me to fill out were daunting, and I didn’t really want to go on any dates. I just wanted to browse and fantasize about going on dates with handsome men. You know, like shopping an internet catalog. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be anything that easy.
After jumping through hoops, filling out several forms, and creating an email account just for my new “hobby,” I still hadn’t seen any guys I would be interested in dating… or even daydreaming of dating. The antique mantel clock dinged three o’clock in the morning, and I wished I could throw rotten tomatoes at the screen.
All those hours of lost sleep and nothing to show for it. Crap. I dragged myself back to bed, lay down next to Spencer’s snoring form, and finally fell asleep.
The next morning was rough. By the time I woke up, Spencer had already left for work. It was probably better we didn’t see each other. On a typical day he left for work before I got up and came home from work after I was asleep. Some marriage.
My lack of sleep showed in the mirror. I had bags under my eyes that made me look like I’d taken a punch or two. Rummaging through my makeup drawer, I finally found the hemorrhoid cream, a trick I’d learned from a Texas beauty queen during sorority rush years ago. The stuff worked wonders on puffy eyes.
I plopped some drops into my bloodshot eyes and tried to recall if you were supposed to wear pink eye shadow on tired eyes, or was it that you were never supposed to? I sighed. Unable to remember, I applied a serviceable brown and threw a brown eyeliner stick into my bag.
After tossing on a shirtdress and a pair of low heels, I ran a brush through my wavy, unruly hair and walked out the door. The makeup could be applied in the car during the red lights. It was already shaping up to be that kind of day.
A few hours later, the colorful little classroom was filled with the sounds of merry children singing to a song that played on the outdated CD player in the corner.
A blond-haired little boy ran up to me. When he talked, air whistled through the empty space where his front teeth used to be. “Mthh Davenport, look! I got paint all over my sthirt!”
He certainly had. A big green splotch covered the belly of his shirt. His mother was a stickler for neatness. I sighed. “What happened to your paint smock, Thomas?”
“Dunno.” He shrugged adorably, and I stopped feeling cross with him.
“Well, let’s go see if we can get that out before your mommy comes to pick you up.” Thomas nodded and I took him by the hand to the sink in the corner of the room, where I beckoned for my teacher’s aid to help Thomas wash out his shirt.
Monday through Friday, I spent seven a.m. to four p.m. teaching kindergarten at the Southfield Country Day School. My days were filled wiping snotty noses, herding chubby-faced children, and teaching them their ABCs and 123s. However, these days we were supposed to be teaching children to read in kindergarten as well. This was fine in theory, but unfortunately the ability to read is a developmental skill that some children would not be able to grasp until they were in first or second grade. Those who didn’t “get it” right away weren’t necessarily less intelligent, they just weren’t ready yet, the same way some children weren’t ready to be toilet trained by age two.
But I understood that there had to be a framework for all children, so I went along and taught the curriculum as best I could.
That afternoon, when the children had all gone home, my friend and fellow teacher Jackie popped her head in my room. “Hey. Wanna grab a cup of coffee?” she asked.
“Not today. Can I get a rain check?” I replied. Jackie taught first grade across the hall and I’d known her since we had been in grade school ourselves. She got married around the same time I did—six years ago. She had a set of two-year-old twins she’d have to pick up from daycare soon.
“Sure. Maybe I’ll run some errands before I go pick up the twins.” Jackie tried to find “adult time” whenever she could, and we had coffee together most days after school before she went home to her second job, being a wife and mother to a pair of whirling dervishes.
“Sounds good. Bye.” She left and I gathered up my things and headed to the parking lot. Most of my friends had children, and sometimes I felt like I was the only woman of reproductive age who didn’t. Spencer and I had never gotten pregnant naturally, and just about the time it occurred to me that one of us might have a plumbing problem in the reproductive realm, I realized I didn’t really want to have children with Spencer. I wasn’t convinced he would be a good father, and our marriage wasn’t a happy one. Having children seemed more likely to make things worse than make them better.
I knew plenty of people who had babies to save their marriage, and from what I’d seen it never seemed to work. It only put off the inevitable. And even though I knew I was in the middle of a marriage that would inevitably dissolve, I didn’t have the courage to end it, but neither could I delay it by bringing a baby into the world.
It was a simple case of inertia. A body in motion stays in motion, while a body at rest stays at rest.
That was my marriage. A marriage that sucked and would continue to suck.
A couple of hours later I curled up with some Chinese takeout, Felix, and Netflix. Felix enthusiastically agreed to the arrangement, snuggling up next to my legs and wriggling under my arm to be petted and maybe snatch a bite of shrimp fried rice. The evening I’d planned suited my mood perfectly, and I’d practically decided I didn’t need a man when Spencer came home and spoiled everything.
When he walked into the bedroom, Felix barely looked up, and I kept my eyes trained on the television.
“Hey!” Spencer said, clearly looking for a response.
“Oh, hey.” I did my best to look uninterested in his sudden presence. Sure it was evil, but I couldn’t help myself. Unbidden, my brain conjured up an olfactory memory of last night’s perfume that would linger much longer than the original.