Claire
By Sunday, I was fried. I couldn’t spend one more second alone with my thoughts, so I grabbed my phone. “Mary, I need you to listen to me. You have to give me a class back. One freaking class, you hear me? I can’t do this, and I deserve to teach at least one class. I’m worthy of at least that for all the shit I’ve done for the department,” I rambled with false authority.
Overhearing splashing in the background, I realized I’d interrupted her Sunday with her family.
“Can’t do what exactly?”
“This.Nothing. Sitting around my house, staring into space, giving myself pedicures. It’s boring. I’m picking at my cuticles, peeking out my window, wasting away to nothing. Even my damn skin itches to do something.” I stared at my bare feet on the coffee table. My nails were a bright shade of pink, drying after being painted for the second time this weekend.
Through the phone, she yelled at Peter, her youngest, to leave his sister alone and then got back on the line. “Not nothing, you mean life. You can’t do life. Why the hell are you giving yourself pedicures? Go get one, take a spa day, treat yourself right. For once.”
“I don’t want to go for a spa day. Feels too frilly, too much. It’s girlie and luxurious. Whatever, I don’t know why I’m explaining myself to you. What I do know is I can’t seem to find a damn place for myself. I’m failing at nothing. You gotta give me something.”
“Not nothing. Life,” she repeated.
“Whatever you want to call it. Teaching is my life, and now I don’t have that. I’m drowning in nothingness.”
I got up to stand in front of my closed mini blinds, crunched my chin and neck to cradle the phone, and propped one slat open with my pointer finger. The pickup parked in Aiken’s driveway called to me. As if I’d been spotted, I quickly moved away from the window and fell into my reading chair. Mary was quiet on the other end of the line, waiting for me to whine, or emote, or complain. She’d been through this before.
“Case in point,” I said, “you’re sitting by the pool, the sun is shining, and everyone I know is out playing tennis or running or mowing their lawn or taking in a round of golf. I’m spread out in my comfy chair with the blinds closed, drinking stale coffee. I need to come back to teach a class. My students need me. I need them. Please…”
“How long have we known each other?”
I rolled my eyes. She always went with this speech.
I hated you in the fifth grade because you had boobs. We double-dated for prom, I was in your wedding to David, and I was there when he walked out on you for the floozy. With no boobs, mind you…
I could’ve recited her speech in my sleep.
Her monologue continued. “I was there when Abby was born. I was there when Abby was taken.”
The rest sounded like thewah wahof the teacher in the Peanuts cartoons.
“I’m being here for you now. It’s been three years, Claire. Life’s a bullet train, passing you by like a withering, stagnant, dying tree on the side of the road.”
“Wow, don’t leave out any punches.” My voice was hoarse, tears threatening to spill. My eyes slammed shut. She wasn’t wrong.
“I can’t watch anymore. You’re a psychology professor, for God’s sake. You need to jolt yourself out of this. You can’t grieve forever. Please don’t cry,” she begged. “I don’t want to be harsh, but it’s time.”
“I want one class back. One summer class. Give me back Intro to Human Development, and I’ll try to do more...”
“Try to do what? Bury yourself in lesson plans, office hours, and grading papers? It’s summer session. These kids didn’t sign up for hell. They stayed on campus to take easy credits and live life...like you should be doing. One sec.” Without even bothering to mute the phone, she hollered, “Peter, take five. I told you to leave the girls be.”
“I should let you go.” I leaned forward, bracing my chin in my hands and my elbows on my thighs. I was a sad sack of nothing. Unfortunately, Mary was right. At least when I taught, I had students to brighten my day. Seeing their eager faces, hearing the rumpling of the papers and backpacks, even the incessant dinging of their phones made me feel somewhat whole again.
“Want me to come over?”
“No!” My butt came off the chair, and I stood there cradling the phone between my neck and chin in the most uncomfortable fashion. Smitty raised his head off the floor at my sudden spurt of energy.
“Oh, that was pretty emphatic for just a no.”
“It’s nothing.” Mary would sniff out the hottie next door like a coonhound in heat.
“Mmm, did you forget we went to school together, graduated with our PhD’s together? I may be an administrator now, but I’m a therapist at heart. You’re the one who went for the developmental crap. Not me. I like to analyze and scrutinize everyone put in front of me, and you just dealt me a tasty, tasty morsel.”
“Really, nothing. It’s…just…I’m still in my pajamas, and I don’t want you to find me like this.”
“Claire Richards, get out of those jammies, shower, and put on heels with whatever else you have. We’re going for a drink. A mimosa or something. It’s long overdue. We haven’t done it in months. I’ll be there in a half hour, so be ready. Or I’m taking you out in what you’re wearing.”
