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| Living in the City by Rita Marie Keller |
| ISBN: 1-59113-202-9 |
| For my thirtieth birthday my husband, Rich, decided to give me a house. There was no surprise you�re-over-the-hill party, but never mind. Now I have this house I don�t want to live in, in a place I wouldn�t even think of visiting.
So when Rich said, �Let�s go for a drive,� I thought he was taking me to my surprise party, which he probably spent months planning. That meant I had to find something elegant to wear, something that didn�t make me look like an over-the-hill frumpy housewife. For half an hour, I stood in the door of our closet, rejecting one outfit after another: a red Spandex mini dress, an orange suede skirt, and a black wrap around with slits ending at mid-thigh. They were clothes I wore when Rich and I were still dating over ten years ago and clothes I�m embarrassed to picture myself wearing now. Not that I could squeeze into them. Back then, my clothes were a snug size five. Since then, I�ve ballooned to a size ten, and my wardrobe has become variations of a frumpy uniform�baggy sweatshirts which hang over Rich�s rolled up sweatpants. Rich came in tapping his foot. �Ready yet?� He was still in his corporate clothes, a conservative blue suit, with perfect creases going down the front of his pants, and a paisley tie. Usually he changes into jeans the moment he gets home from work, so this was another clue that there would be a surprise party. I flung out a gold sequined dress I bought in the early eighties but never wore. The price tag was still attached. �What do you think?� �Isn�t that a little much?� Oh, a casual party, I thought and dropped the gold dress on the heap of other rejected clothes. I probably also didn�t want to broadcast the fact that I already had been out of high school on the cusp of the disco and punk rock eras, though everyone at the party would know it. His blue suit appeared and disappeared through the opening of the closet. �Come on.� �Just a minute.� I grabbed a pair of black pants and a white blouse. It was casual but not too casual and not too dressy. At least that�s what the clerk at the Bon Ton fitting room had said to me when I was trying it on. I figured she meant it was a generic outfit for any occasion, so I bought it. Finally dressed, I emerged from the closet. Rich said, �Let�s go.� �Wait. I have to do something with my hair. It�ll only take a minute.� In the mirror I watched him slump against the door and light a cigarette. �Do I look thirty to you?� I said half to Rich, half to myself through a mouthful of bobby pins. �I don�t know. What�s thirty supposed to look like?� �I thought that when you hit the big three-o, some sort of change comes over you. I don�t feel a thing. Did you feel anything?� �I don�t know. That was a few years ago.� �Five to be exact,� I giggled. Rich started pacing and blowing smoke into the air. I twisted my hair into a knot and poked pins at different angles. �Think I should get my hair cut? I heard once you hit thirty, women aren�t supposed to have long hair.� He shrugged. �I don�t know. I kind of like it.� �Well, at least you don�t have to worry about that. You don�t have much left.� He was not amused. Though he�d never admit it, I know he�s sensitive about his hair. Ever since his sandy hair had given way to gray several years before his thirtieth birthday, he started checking his hairline, measuring his slowly expanding bald patch on the back of his head. �Come on. How long is this going to take?� Ten minutes later, we left the apartment. He held the car door open for me, something he doesn�t do so much anymore. Another confirmation that it was a special occasion. �Do I look okay?� �You look fine.� He waved me inside. �Where are we going?� I asked again, as he drove through Kiehlton County. We passed the colonial-style houses, once occupied by the founders of Kiehlton, now converted to apartment buildings. �It�s a surprise,� he said, grinning. As we passed the bologna plant on the way out of town, that sweet pungent smell which hangs over the town intensified. I smiled at the memory of my father carrying me through the plant on his shoulders on payday, every Friday. All the women he worked with, wearing their hair nets and plastic gloves, tugged my pigtails and pinched my cheeks. In their shrill Pennsylvania Dutch voices they said, �Oh my, you�re growin� like a weed!� And they�d slip me pennies. Before we left, my father always gave me a slice of bologna. With my pockets jingling with pennies, I�d climb in the car and wolf down the bologna before we got home. The smell would linger in my hands hours afterward. ************************************************************************************* He stopped the car on a brighter street lined with brick duplexes. �We�re here,� he said. Here? Only the left side of the duplex was habitable. The other was on the verge of condemnation�or at least I thought it should have been. The battleship gray paint was cracking and peeling off the porch. A torn screen door hung on one hinge. A jagged crack split the grimy front window. No house in Kiehlton ever looked this way. Except for the converted properties on Main Street, homes were never abandoned. They were maintained and preserved for future generations. The left half of the duplex had been maintained in that way, though I don�t know why someone would want to stay in the city. The porch was painted red and lined with flower boxes spewing geraniums and pink chrysanthemums. A straw wreath with sunflowers and gold lotus pods welcomed whomever would approach the front door. Black shutters framed their gleaming front window. A wisp of a woman, with a complexion not quite black but too dark to be white, sat cross-legged on a porch swing. Except for a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, she would have passed for a prepubescent girl wearing too much makeup. Her bright pink mouth blew tendrils of smoke toward a hanging basket. Rich opened the car door. �What are we doing here?� It was a long way from Kiehlton to be holding a surprise party. My mother never would have made the trip. Rich held out his hand and led me up the steps of the battleship gray porch. The woman waved her beer can. �Hi Rich.� Her voice was raspy with a touch of an accent which definitely was not Pennsylvania Dutch. It didn�t match her prepubescent sized body. �Judy, this is my wife Cari,� Rich said. �Glad we�re finally meeting.� She hopped off the swing and buried her cigarette in a flower box before shaking my hand. When I was about to ask how they knew each other, a man burst through the door on Judy�s side. He wore a wavy ponytail, a gold hoop in his left ear and small round glasses. You wouldn�t see anyone like that in Kiehlton. I assumed he was Judy�s husband, though they seemed mismatched in some way. He and Rich shook hands, clapped each other on the back. �Hey buddy,� said the man with the ponytail and earring. He was Ron, and Judy�s husband, like I assumed. Judy offered me a beer, but I refused, though I probably should have accepted after what I saw next. Rich extracted a key from his pocket and unlocked the front door. He has a key? Then Rich motioned for me to enter, and that is how I ended up inside my birthday present. I follow Rich through the shadows. The ceilings sag, and plaster dust flutters down to the carpet with our every movement. The carpet is scratchy, the color of mud and smells like a wet dog. A water-stained colonnade separates the foyer from the main room, probably what once had been a living room. The robin�s egg colored walls are chipping. In the next room there is more sagging ceiling and more mud colored carpet with stains probably made by the wet dog. To our left an open oak staircase with fractured risers climbs above the dining room. Rich leads me past the stairs through the doorway on the other side of the room he says goes to the kitchen�or what is left of it. The ceiling is in the same dilapidated condition as in the other rooms. Gaping holes expose the lath. There are no cabinets, no stove or sink, only yellowed and cracking linoleum and a burn-marked Formica table in the middle of the room. Rich opens the door to our right, to a room with no walls and no ceiling. Overhead hangs a convolution of rusted pipes. �This will be the laundry room.� I shrug and walk toward the front door. �Isn�t this great?� he says, following me.� �Maybe for a rat.� �It doesn�t look like anything now, but look at the potential.� I stop, turn around. �What are you saying?� �Happy birthday, honey. This is it. Our new home,� he says stretching his arms and turning like a game show host. �Our new�what?� �Home.� �This place isn�t even livable.� He runs his hand up and down the colonnade. �Look at this. The woodwork is in great shape, except for a few water marks.� He twists around and points to the door frame. �See those rosettes?� He twists back and cranes his neck backward, pointing to the molding. �Look at the detail. The house has ten-foot ceilings. They don�t make them like this anymore. I got it for a steal.� �You�ve got to be kidding.� A siren drowns my voice. �I will not live in the city. And I�m not living here. What�s wrong with the apartment? Everyone in the building keeps to themselves. Here, you couldn�t sneeze without your neighbors hearing you. The yards are too close together, and people in the city are so cold you wouldn�t want to be close to them anyway.� �The neighbors aren�t so bad,� Rich shouts above the siren. �Ron and Judy next door are nice. And Judy�s a housewife like you.� The siren fades. I wince at the word, housewife. To me the word connotes I am content to stay at home and watch Oprah and soap operas all day instead of doing something productive with my life. At least that�s what Rich�s mother implies when she asks me whether I�ve found a job. But in the small corner of the world where I come from, being a housewife is acceptable and the norm, even in the nineties. Being a descendant of a long line of housewives, this is what I am expected to do, and this is what I do, though I don�t always understand what it means. �Ron says we should drop by for a beer.� �Then we�ll feel obligated to invite them over for dinner and buy them Christmas presents.� Another siren interrupts me. After it passes I say, �With you being gone three days a week, I wouldn�t feel safe here.� �We�ll get a dog.� �The yard isn�t big enough for a dog.� �It�s a three-story house. He could have one of the bedrooms.� �I�m not living here.� �I�ve signed all the papers. We move October first.� At this moment I was hoping to see all my friends running down the stairs shouting, �Surprise! Happy birthday! We really got you good.� But the stairs remain silent. �Okay Rich, nice joke. This house represents how old and dilapidated I�ve become. I get it.� I open the front door. �Now let�s get out of here and go to the party you�ve planned for me. We�ve given everyone enough time to get to the apartment.� Rich touches my shoulder. I jerk away. �I�m serious, Cari. This place is yours�ours.� I face him again. Tears sting my eyes. �What possessed you? How could you do this without showing me first?� His expression reminds me of a conversation we had ten years ago. We were honeymooning in Bermuda and drinking wine over a candlelit dinner. We held hands across the table, and he had the same starry look he does now. We shared our dreams of the future, the way newlyweds are supposed to. He told me he wanted to purchase and restore old houses and eventually, own an entire block in the city and have it named Arndt Terrace, or something like that. I told him I wanted him to see his dream, to take care of him and have a big family. I didn�t take him that seriously then, I guess, because we were in a tropical place and drinking a lot of wine, and people say silly things like that when they are on their honeymoon. I had meant the part about having a big family, though it hasn�t happened yet, but I never ever thought I would have to live in one of Rich�s dreams. �I�m not living here,� I say, walking out the door. �You can move here by yourself.� The door slams behind me. Copyright � 2002 Rita Marie Keller ISBN 1-59113-202-9 Published by Rita Marie Keller, Pennsylvania, USA. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Booklocker.com, Inc. 2002-2007 |