Pug Hill (13 page)

Lawrence, the guy who said his name first in the last round, gets up and all but skips to the front of the room.

He stands upright, his lips in a tight, prim smile, his eyes traveling slowly around the room. With each person he sees, he stops and gives a small nod. He spreads his hands wide out to the side, such an open and welcoming gesture, for anyone, let alone the public speaking impaired.

“Hello, everyone. I’m in real estate by day, but my true calling is
poetry.
I’m a poet, yes,” he says and smiles widely, more like grinning, and nods his head. “I’m so looking forward to getting to know everyone, and working together, and sharing my poetry with you. I thought, if you’d like, I could read one right now.” He looks to Beth Anne who is still darting concerned glances in the direction of the door.

“Yes, Lawrence, that sounds like a lovely idea,” she tells him, “but we’ve got some more to cover tonight, so let’s look forward to your poem at presentation time.” Lawrence’s proud posture changes, becomes deflated as he returns to his desk very slowly, as if at any moment Beth Anne’s mind will be changed, and she will call on him to read.

“Thank you, Lawrence,” she says in the direction of his head, which is now laid down upon his desk. “And thank you, class. I’m sure we are all looking forward to working together and getting to know each other, and helping each other in the weeks to come.” Everyone present, except of course for Lawrence whose face is still hidden from view, darts their eyes around.

“Okay then, so before we continue, I’m wondering if we should wait for Lindsay and Jessica.” Beth Anne’s voice sounds the slightest bit flustered; for several reasons, I don’t think it should. First of all, the public speaking class teacher’s voice shouldn’t waiver, it’s more than a little unsettling. And also, you’d think Beth Anne, being a public speaking teacher, among other things, would be used to things like people running red-faced from rooms. You’d think it might be a little bit par for the course.

“Would anyone like to go look for them?” she asks. I, for one, wouldn’t know where to look, though in my experience the bathroom would be a good start. I stare at the floor, and no one else ventures a response.

“Okay then,” she continues, smoothing down her skirt in front of her, “it’s interesting that Lawrence has brought up his poetry. One of our assignments will be to select, and then read a favorite poem to the class.”
Two roads,
I think,
diverged in a yellow wood.

Beth Anne continues speaking, “Public speaking can be very, very difficult. It is something many people fear. The human body’s response to fear is often an adrenaline rush, in preparation of flight. Since often the option of flight is not the best one,” she says as her eyes dart once again to the door, “the result is that we get sweaty, nauseated, our hearts and pulses race, among other symptoms.” I hear someone exhaling, and look up to see Amy rolling her eyes as she lets out an exasperated breath.

“Most people would rather be in a casket than delivering the eulogy,” Beth Anne says and smiles. I guess that’s pretty true, but I doubt this can be news to anyone here, even if it is a pretty good one-liner. And who doesn’t like a good one-liner? Well, me, for starters.

“In the weeks to come, we’ll learn many techniques for being an effective public speaker. We’re going to work on different relaxation techniques. We’re going to work, of course, on practicing, and we’re going to work on some different exercises that will help take you out of the moment, help you forget that what you’re doing is frightening and scary. We’ll do certain things that will hopefully make you forget you are public speaking.” Beth Anne smiles approvingly, individually at each of us, slowly making her way around the horseshoe.

“It’s important to remember though,” she adds on now in an extra soothing tone, “that what will help you will be very personal. Maybe it’s counting to ten, maybe it’s picturing the audience in their underwear. Think about what will work for you.”

Amy raises her hand.

“Yes?”

“I don’t think that’s really fair. Aren’t you supposed to tell us what works?” Amy asks, her tone a bit snappish, aggressive.

While there is a small part of me that agrees with her, I don’t want to subscribe to the hostility. I’m sure it’s wrong to feel so hostile to Beth Anne, so early in the process. So, instead, I picture Alec in his underwear.

“Practice works, getting out of the moment works,” Beth Anne says, not missing a soothing beat. “It will be an individual journey, but one we’ll all take together. Next time we’ll work on relaxation techniques, and then we’ll talk more about the assignments.

“So,” she says brightly, glancing toward the clock and then the door. “Until next time. Should anyone wish to address any matters privately, I’ll stay for a few minutes after class.”

Lawrence at last raises his head from the desk. Everyone begins to gather their things and put on their coats. There are a few murmured thank-yous as we all head out to the hall. As we wait for the elevator, no one speaks. Everyone stares straight ahead. Instinctively, I cross my arms in front of me. The elevator door opens and we all pile on. I think the same thing I always think when I’m on a crowded elevator.
How awful really would it be if this thing stopped?

“Hope, it’s your mother.”

“Hi, Mom.”

“Are you still sleeping at this hour?” I look at the clock, nine-fifteen. I usually don’t sleep this late, even on Sundays. I’m usually more awake by now. I wonder if I am depressed and that is why, at nine-fifteen, even though that’s not
that
late, I am still asleep. I could be depressed.

“No,” I tell her.

“It sounds like you were.”

“I’m not,” I say getting out of bed and heading to the kitchen. I want to say I’ll call back, after I’ve run downstairs to the new intimidating Starbucks that now must be part of my life, to get a coffee. Yet there are possibilities: possibilities that such a statement could possibly result in an entire conversation devoted to why, at the age of thirty-two,
¹
I do not have an ounce of domesticity in me and do not even make coffee in my apartment. Rather than admit that I’ve just woken up, rather than explain that I did make coffee, just last week, I pour myself a glass of water and think of a latte, one from Columbus Bakery. I listen to my mother as she exhales heavily through the phone.

“How’s everything?” I venture, trying to infuse my voice with as much cheeriness, as little sleepiness, as possible.

“Well, you know the party is on May seventh,” she says, matter-of-factly. I can picture my mother looking at her desk calendar, various party-related tasks and organizational feats written out from March to May.

“Yes, I know.”

“What are you doing the week leading up to it?”

“Uh, I imagine working?”

“I’m hoping that for the week leading up to the party, you might be able to take some time off and come out to help Dad.”

“What’s wrong with Dad?” I ask, alarmed now. Mom sounds tense and angry, over something more than the color of my hair or my inability to match my foundation to my skin tone. Something is wrong. I reach out for the kitchen counter, hold on to it; I need support.

“No, your father’s fine, but I’ll be traveling.”

“Oh, okay,” I say, and take a moment to regroup, relax.

“Um.” I hesitate for another moment, think of my vacation time for this year. We get three weeks a year at the museum, and to date, I have taken none. I think of the romantic Caribbean vacation that Evan took with his girlfriend before me. He told me all about it once. The mentioning of how he and I should take a trip that I was sure would follow on the heels of such information never came. I shouldn’t think like this.

“Sure,” I say, “I don’t see why not. But you sound weird. Is everything okay? Are you sure Dad’s okay?” It’s important to double-check things.

“It’s nothing like that, Dad’s fine. It’s just a lot for him out here with the dogs and all, if I’m not here to help.” My parents currently have three dogs, less than they’ve had at other times, but granted, Mom does have a point. These particular three dogs, Betsy, a neurotic-to-the point-of-possibly-insane Jack Russell terrier; Captain, a half-blind, diabetic Pembroke Welsh corgi, who very sadly was just diagnosed with cancer; and Annabelle, the French bulldog of whom we have spoken, are a bit of a production.

“So you can come?”

“Um, yes, I’m sure I can come, let me just check at work tomorrow. I’m sure it’s fine. Where are you going?” I ask. “Just out of curiosity,” I add on, because even though she has said that everything is fine, to me she sounds pretty much on the verge.

“I’m going to Canyon Ranch for the week.”

“Oh,” I say, “that’ll be nice.”

“Well, yes,” she says, and exhales again.

“Mom?”

“Yes?”

“You sound a little bummed for someone who’s just planned a trip to Canyon Ranch.”

“Yes, well, I guess, everything isn’t okay,” she sighs. “It’s Darcy.” It is
always
Darcy.

“The commune again?” I ask.

“Yes, the commune. And you know, C.P. in general.”

“Well, the commune thing is hard,” I say, “but I don’t think she’ll ever really go.” Neither of us says anything for a while as I, and I imagine my mother, too, picture Darcy, beautiful, golden, and rather materialistic the last time I checked, giving up all of her worldly possessions and joining a commune with the much-loathed C.P.

And you might be wondering what we’re talking about, now that all of a sudden, seemingly out of nowhere, we’re talking about a commune, and someone, much-loathed, with the name C.P. Yes, I can see now that I probably should have mentioned this before. Let me try to catch you up.

For every guy who hasn’t liked me, or hasn’t loved me, or who has loved me but just in a really unproductive way, and for every guy who has left me, there are five guys whom Darcy has had to beat off with sticks. Darcy, at this point, has pretty much made a career, and a very successful career at that, out of having boyfriends who are head-over-heels in love with her; boyfriends who in turn, make careers of their own out of pledging their undying devotion to Darcy. And Darcy, entrepreneur of love that she is, has started up a side business of selecting, out of all these men who vie for her heart, the most annoying and insufferable of the lot. And steadfastly shoving them down everyone’s throat.

My theory has always been that all the attention she’s always received for being so pretty, somewhere along the way got old, so she had to find other ways to get attention. For the last decade or so, she seems to go about this by selecting truly weird, bizarre and awful boyfriends, embracing them wholeheartedly and insisting dramatically that everyone else embrace them, too.

For the last two years, it’s been C.P. C.P, by the way, is short for Crested Possum. Before you infer from my tone that I’m not being open-minded, or that I’m being prejudiced or something because Crested Possum is a Native American, I’d like to point out that Crested Possum’s real name is Bradley Klein, and he’s from Short Hills, New Jersey. But apparently in a past life, or it’s in this life, deep in his soul—I can never quite get it straight—he’s sure he was/is a Native American. And Buddhist. Jewish-Buddhist I think, and also Zen. And so, C.P. decided recently that what his Inner Guide wanted to do was to live on a commune outside of Albuquerque.

“I really thought once the commune thing came up, it would be the end of this whole nonsense with C.P.” Mom exhales again.

“I know,” I agree. No one ever thought that Darcy would actually consider packing up and moving to a commune outside of Albuquerque. But lately Darcy has taken to calling up my parents and telling them that if C.P. moves to the commune, she’s moving, too. And, as you might imagine, my parents think this is absolutely terrible, and if you so much as mention the word Darcy these days, the whole atmosphere just instantly changes.

“So, I’m taking Darcy with me to Canyon Ranch. I think it’ll help,” Mom announces after another pause. My mother is a person who believes pretty solidly that there aren’t many wrongs in the world that can’t be righted by a spa week, so this should not take me by surprise, but it does.

“Okay,” I say.

“Clearly, you can see how it will help,” Mom announces more than asks. “If nothing else, just some time away from C.P. will be a help. That C.P. is such a schmuck.”

“Yes,” I agree, “he is.” I listen to my mother exhale again. She is not finished yet, I can tell.

“Both my girls date schmucks, and for the life of me, I don’t know where you get it from. I never dated schmucks. I dated your father.”

“Well,” I say, and I do not know what to say. I want to say, I date a schmuck and the only thing that happens is you call me up and tell me he’s a schmuck and revoke his Jean-Paul Belmondo status. Darcy, simply because she dates a schmuck in a far more extravagant fashion than I do, just because Darcy, by her very nature is more extravagant and over the top than I ever am, gets a SPA VACATION! I say nothing though because to get noticed in the background of
all that is Darcy
is a battle I’ve fought my entire life and lost. And also, if she does really join a commune, I don’t want to be the one who complained about a week at Canyon Ranch. I realize at this point that I may sound unsympathetic. At this point, I think maybe I am.

“Speaking of schmucks,” Mom adds, “is Evan coming to the party?”

“Evan and I broke up,” I say and wait, just for a beat. I wait for, “Oh, that’s too bad, you must be upset being thirty-two and single.” I wait for, “I’m sorry dear, you should come to Canyon Ranch, too.”

“Well, that’s certainly for the best.”

“Yes,” I say, “it really is.”

“You’re okay?” she asks.

“I am, I’m fine,” I say, and then, “Can I say hi to Dad?”