— Let’s say you’re both. People do more than one thing, don’t they? I did.
— Sure. It’s just that I was hoping to have a through-line here.
— Can’t you go back to the TV chapter and revise again so that you write a play instead of a novel?
— I could. But that’s kind of a pain in my ass.
— Practicing six hours a day was a pain in my ass.
— The thing is, novelist is so much closer to the truth.
— But how interesting is it?
—. .
— I think playwriting has more dramatic potential. Also, isn’t every other character in every book already a novelist? Or a journalist?
—. .
— I’m right!
— You’re not right, Mom, it’s a very hyperbolic statement.
— You know there’s some truth to it.
—. .
— Okay, moving on, can you at least give my guy a regular name?
— What do you have against an Italian name?
— I don’t have anything against them. I just think that’s your preference, not mine. Plus, the most exotically named person I ever dated was Herschel.
— Oh, I remember him, he was very sexy, and his mother was a porn star.
— That’s not actually true.
— She showed her tits.
— Can we get back to my fictional boyfriend’s name?
— What would you like him to be named?
— I like the name of the person I’m with. If I’d written him into my life, I might have given him the name he actually has.
— You’re with someone? Oh, sweetheart!
— Yes. I’m with someone.
— What’s his name?
— His name is Ben.
— Benjamin! That’s a really nice name!
— Just Ben. I mean, yes, Benjamin, but just Ben.
— I want to call him Benjamin. It’s more actory-sounding. And it’s not Italian.
— Fair enough.
— I’m really sorry I didn’t get to meet him. He sounds wonderful.
— I haven’t told you anything about him.
— I’m sure he’s wonderful.
So you and Benjamin, the stray dog actor, who is also a director and writer, you get together and decide to form a theater company. You rent a space somewhere in Chicago, wherever it’s cheap, some crummy location south of downtown. I don’t know Chicago all that well outside the Loop. The first few years at the Betsy and Benjamin Theater Company are financially iffy, you pour a whole bunch of money into it that you don’t have, but the two of you are hugely proud, and the notices are good, and you keep moving forward with it until you get a huge grant from the NEA or wherever—
— HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
— that allows you to rehab the space and advertise properly and get larger audiences in.
— Is this your idea of a resolution for me?
— Yes. I thought you weren’t about happy endings. This is happyish. It’s a compromise.
— When did I say that?
— Maybe I’m just giving you what I wish you’d give me. I didn’t have the happiest ending.
— I know. But I’m going for a sort of realism here. An imagined realism, anyway.
— Mmf.
Final Word
Just before you return to Baton Rouge, Carolina arranges for you to audition with New York City Opera. This audition does not get you into the company on the spot, but it goes well enough that Carolina reports back that they’ll see you again in a year’s time, and that now is the moment for you to move to New York and fully dedicate yourself to studying. It’s a dazzling prospect, but you remind Carolina that you have a husband and a child. Life gives us difficult choices, Carolina says. You go back to the Barbizon that night, draft a letter. Many versions go into the trash. You should really fly home to tell Fred in person what you’re planning, but you also know that if you do that, and if I start asking any questions about how long you’re going to stay this time and if it will be forever, that you’ll only end up postponing the inevitable. So you write your husband to say that you’ve decided to rent an apartment, and that you hope he’ll reconsider coming to live in New York, though you’ve talked about this, and he’s already said that he’d live almost anywhere but there. He’s a small-town boy and Baton Rouge is plenty big enough for him. He writes a letter back to this effect, adding that he doesn’t think New York City is any kind of place to raise a child, especially right now; reminding you, again, of his godforsaken perfect childhood in Mount Pleasant, telling you that he watches the CBS Evening News, that the crime rate has never been higher, and that he has strong reservations about the effect that will have on Betsy, her safety, and so on. You write back to say that the Upper West Side is perfectly safe, and that the public schools there are considered quite good, and that the culture that she’ll have access to in New York is impossible to put a value on, and that you want more for me than you’d had in dullsville Muscatine for eighteen years, where the most stimulating topic of conversation was that nasty old grain smell. (Breathing it in was bad enough, talking about it day after day seemed like enough to drive anyone away forever.) After two more letters, Dad’s done enough thinking about this for a while, and says he wants to wait to talk further until you return to Baton Rouge. When you get there, he tells you that Betsy is going to stay put and that’s his final word on the subject, and you accept this for now, because he is the man; but “final word” gets stuck in your head, and you promise yourself right then that yours will be the final final word.
But for now you leave me behind with him, delaying, again, the conversation that is coming. You do keep returning to Baton Rouge, though a little less often, and two years later, when you are accepted into the company at New York City Opera, you write another letter, this time asking for a divorce, and managing to convince Dad to bring me to you rather than him forcing you to come down one last time to collect me. Children need their mothers, you tell him. Dad is as angry as Dad ever gets, which is to say that some vague but recognizably unpleasant feeling that some other person might recognize as anger stirs within him, an odd, unfamiliar rush of heat in his hands and feet, though he appears to have no need to explore it further. He’s been my primary caregiver for the last three years, and all evidence shows that I’m well adjusted, bright, and happy in Louisiana with Dad, and he tries to remind you of this as calmly as he can, but he already senses that he’s losing, and he can physically feel his anger as it deflates into something like sorrow, which is also not a feeling he wishes to experience, and so he rather abruptly stops talking, and from here forward, almost no dialogue will ensue between the two of you that doesn’t serve some practical purpose. He knows I’ve missed you, and since the conventional wisdom at this time is that kids go with moms, with little consideration given to other details of care, you say This is happening, Fred, you can bring her or I will, and he relents and brings me to New York, and leaves shortly after. And almost as soon as he’s gone, it flashes through your mind that this was a terrible decision, that you should have left me with him, that I had been well cared for, and that if you had done that, you’d be free from the huge responsibility you now face, to provide for a child with the minimal income provided by the opera company. But these are not thoughts you like, these are not things mothers think, so you redirect. Best to put it outside you. You and Dad haven’t discussed money yet, you’ll do this by mail as well, and during the separation, until a legal agreement is reached, he’ll send thirty-two dollars a month for my food and clothing, which to your mind is a small fraction of what is needed, and to his mind and calculations is exactly what is already being spent, and so therefore should be sufficient.