Careful or You'll End Up in My Novel
by Patti See

"Your heart is rent." - Golda Meir

One night I dream that my ex-husband’s new girlfriend arrives at his house with her daughter. I don’t know if Tiffany has a daughter, but in my dream the little girl is three or four, dimpled and blonde like my son Alex.

Tiffany introduces her: “Alex, this is Alex,” she says. I watch my Alex’s stunned face as this girl, Alex, jumps into his dad’s arms. 

A week or so later I dream that I’m walking up the driveway — my old driveway at the house Rob and I own where he still lives with our son, the driveway I paid for with my first book advance — and I see my Alex and Tiffany sitting at my picnic table. She’s 20-something with red hair pulled back in a ponytail. (I don’t know her age or her hair color, since I’ve never met her). In my dream, she and Alex sit at my picnic table and laugh and laugh.
 
My dreams are so transparent and irrational I could weep. Am I worried that my son will be replaced or that I will be? 
Rob and I were separated for six years and now divorced for the past 18 months.  All these years, Rob has let me hang out at his place to be with Alex after school, an arrangement that has turned me into a visitor in my own house but has made my son’s life easier. Four nights a week I make dinner for the three of us.

One Sunday, early evening, Rob calls me down to the kitchen to ask when I plan to leave since Tiffany is on her way over to watch a movie. My first reaction is to thank him for being straightforward about it. How mature of us.
 
When I’m halfway home I realize he asked me to leave the house I still own so his girlfriend could come over and spend time with my son. It didn’t matter that I’d been with Alex most of the day, helping him edit his 10th grade English project, or that my partner Hugh was waiting for me.

The next afternoon while Alex does his homework, I start the dishes. I like to tidy up before I make dinner at Rob’s. I focus on the kitchen and the bathroom, two areas I try to keep clean. There are piles everywhere: unread mail and newspapers, discarded pop and soup cans on the countertop. Four or five shotguns stand in the corner of the living room, waiting to be cleaned after hunting season three weeks ago now. Antique skis lay across the futon to keep the dog from sleeping on the couch when no one’s home. I’d make a joke about “Sanford and Son,” but I know it would hurt Rob’s feelings. I’m washing a second wine glass when I realize I’m doing my ex-husband’s date dishes. I put the glasses, still soapy, back on the countertop. 

I find my pink suede slippers on the enclosed back porch, although I know I left them by the front door last night. The first time this happened, Rob told me he didn’t want them to get dirty among the boots. It finally dawns on me; he doesn’t want his girlfriend to see my slippers.
 
As I pack up my pink slippers and my toothbrush, I remember that it’s still my house, my son, my driveway. Progress (I keep telling myself on the drive back to my house) is progress.
  
For nearly five years I’ve kept my love life separate from my son’s life. In part because I didn’t want to share Alex on the one night a week he stays with me. I also never wanted to deal with the testosterone-induced tree-peeing that might accompany Rob knowing his wife and son are hanging out with another man. I never expected to experience my own pissing contest.

I call my friend Barbara, who has over 10 years experience with sons hanging out with their dad’s girlfriends.
 
I tell her I that I’m embarrassed about how jealous I am.

“That your ex has a girlfriend?”

“God, no,” I say, “That another woman gets to spend time with my son.”

She says, “Wait till you see them out somewhere. That’s the worst. I remember running into them in a restaurant and thinking, ‘Hey, that’s my family.’”

I tell Hugh how upset I was when I realized Tiffany gave Alex some of her scrap-booking materials for his semester-long autobiography, a project with which I was helping him. I say, “How silly is that, to get pissed over stickers and other frilly stuff?”

Hugh says, “So, she’s a scrap-booker?” Somehow that makes me feel better.

He tells me about visiting his ex-wife at her new condo across town. He says, “Next to her bed was a picture of my daughter on another guy’s shoulders, the two of them smiling. It really pissed me off.” This had to be years ago, and he’s telling me for the first time. His refrigerator is covered with pictures of his three kids and me. Until now, I never wondered what Hugh’s ex-wife must think about that. She left her marriage house behind, like I did, but does she sometimes still feel territorial? 
Later in the week I take a closer look at the supplies Tiffany gave Alex. “What cool stuff she brought you,” I say to Alex, loud enough for Rob to hear. “How nice of Tiffany.”  Neither of them knew I had to practice saying her name in the car so it wouldn’t stick in my throat the first time I said it. 

“Cool beans,” Rob says. It’s a new phrase he picked up, perhaps from her.

That afternoon I discovered an early Christmas present she gave Alex: a subscription to Running Times. A woman I don’t know is buying my son gifts — this may take some getting used to.

Rob calls me the morning of Dec. 24. I’m winded from jumping rope. 

“I just want to figure out the day,” he says, “And to give you a head’s up. Tiffany came over last night and gave Alex an Xbox 360.” 

I’m still breathing heavily. Rob and I agreed about 10 years ago that we wouldn’t buy PlayStation or GameBoy or Xbox or anything else that turns kids’ brains to mush. I’m so stunned I’m speechless. 

“Wow, pretty expensive gift. What is she, a drug dealer?”

Rob laughs. “She got a hot smokin’ deal on it.”

“I’m serious. Is she a drug dealer?”

“No, she does electrolysis.”

I laugh — a laugh that says I won’t burst into tears just yet.
 
“She waxes your back. Is that where you met her?” I laugh and laugh.

“Maybe,” he says. “She runs Smooth Stone Electrology Institute.”

“Oh, that’s great.” I tell him I’ll pick Alex up after lunch.  
 
“Cool beans,” Rob says as a sign off.

I’m still laughing when I hang up. Then I put my head down on the kitchen countertop and cry. Fucking Xbox. I can’t believe it. 

When I stop to get Alex in the afternoon, he’s planted in front of the TV playing some kill-‘em-all game. He doesn’t look up when I walk into the room. 

I say, “Well, I protected you from this shit for 15 years. You’re on your own now, my son.” Alex doesn’t notice my voice crack. This line, too, I had to practice in the car.
 
Rob laughs uneasily. “Hot smokin’ deal,” he says again, still pitching. “It also plays DVDs and CDs.”

“Great,” I say. “I’m sure Alex will love it.” 

“Cool beans,” Rob says.

I don’t believe for a second that Tiffany bought an extravagant gift for Alex without asking Rob first, but I’ll play along. I don’t know yet what this Xbox 360 will come to symbolize for us. In the least, it’s another addition to my list, “Things I’d Never Do to Rob.” It comes after #17: Take our son to a cousin’s wedding, get drunk and throw up in the bushes — and not be able to drive Alex home, so let him sleep in his contacts at a relative’s house. #18: The next day, blame drunkenness on someone spiking your drinks.
 
The surprise Xbox makes #10—Forget Mother’s Day, 2004—not look so bad in comparison.

I stew all afternoon. Later in the day I call Karen, my best friend since first grade. What will she say to make me feel better, “That prick,” or “You’re kidding?” Her boys have been gaming since they could talk.  Still, she let’s out a big movie gasp. 

I tell her, “Fucking Xbox 360.” I’ve been waiting all day to say this to someone. “I can’t believe it made me cry on Christmas.” 
 
“Oh, Pat.” She gives me a comfort laugh.

That night at Hugh’s, I tell him what I’ve already come to think of as “the long, stupid Xbox story.” His college-age sons have been playing since it came out. In fact, I suddenly realize that every parent I know has sons who own an Xbox. Maybe that’s not the point. 

After I’ve ranted, “Xbox 360,” at least six times, I say quietly, “What if Alex likes her more than me?” I’ve wanted to say this out loud for weeks. I start to cry. It’s been a trying Christmas Eve.

“You’ll always be his mom,” Hugh says.

I fall into his lap. “But what if he likes her better?” I know how pitiful I sound. I could only say this to Hugh.

“Then he likes her better.”

I smile. “But you don’t think…”

“How could anyone?” he says and holds me close.

If it weren’t the holidays neither of us would be this dramatic. We know the same kid pain; who chooses which parent and when? And the sting that accompanies it — always. 

Hugh tells me he’s decided to “Be a reed,” like a willow in the wind, in order to get through this Christmas. “Whatever anyone wants to do, whenever, is okay by me. I’m a reed.”  His body sways in a goofy dance.

“You have three times the kid pain that I do,” I say.

“Maybe,” he says.

“Or maybe I have three times the pain because it’s all concentrated on one child.”

He laughs. “Be the reed,” he says, still swaying. 

I spend the rest of Christmas Eve with Hugh and his kids. I understand the irony; I’m hanging out with some other woman’s children and simultaneously jealous that another woman might be with mine. This would never happen to any of our mothers.

We sit in front of the fireplace and open gifts. I have a carefully chosen book for each of Hugh’s children along with one other item: a soft flannel shirt, a Sierra Club duffel and moccasins with tie-dye laces. After an hour, Hugh’s13-year-old daughter goes back to her mom’s house to spend the evening with Hugh’s ex-wife and, we suspect, her new boyfriend. One son is off to work. They both hug me tight when they leave. 

Until recently it never occurred to me how Hugh’s ex-wife must feel about me. Maybe I am someone else’s Tiffany. I can’t think about that right now. Just get me through Christmas.

Early the next morning I work out to a Neil Young CD. When I’m stressed, only exercising helps me get through, not Hugh’s being the reed.

“Only love can break your heart,” Neil Young sings.  I think it’s the most profound line I’ve ever heard, and I play the song over and over.

“Amen, Neil,” I say. I jump rope and cry.

I arrive at Rob and Alex’s to open gifts together. Rob offers to make breakfast, I think, as a peace offering. He burns the pancakes and cooks the scrambled eggs till they resemble rubber. Alex says he’s not hungry, and I eat the eggs with lots of cheese.
 
Our gift for Alex is a high school letter jacket. We didn’t want to buy one and have all the accoutrements sewn on before Alex could choose a size, so Rob has wrapped his old letter jacket from the rival high school across the street from Alex’s. This is our joke on him, part of our tradition of giving a feeling in addition to a hold-in-your-hands present.

As Alex opens it, I realize Rob used the cardboard box from the Xbox. I say, “I can’t believe you got another one of those. Like one wasn’t bad enough.” Alex laughs.

After some coaxing from me, Alex puts on Rob’s old jacket so I can take his picture. He holds his own track letter and pin over the coat.

After we’ve opened our gifts, I notice a Sam's Club sticker on the side of the empty box.  My face flushes. Xbox 360 and Sam's Club — two of my least favorite things. Rob and I used to make fun of Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club shoppers. I nearly start to cry again. 

Rob looks at his old letter jacket slumped under the tree. “Cool beans,” he says.
 
On the kitchen counter, next to a pile of mail, is the book I gave Alex for an early Christmas gift when he stayed at my house last weekend. My homemade bookmark pokes out at the top: “What I Like about You.” I had listed my favorite things about him. “Like he’ll ever look at that again,” I think, and escape to the bathroom.

Fucking Xbox and fucking Sam’s Club.  I say it to the mirror one more time before Alex and I leave for my parents’ house.

At work the next day I tell my older, wiser friend about our first Christmas with Tiffany.

“She’s obviously trying to buy him,” Joan says. 

I nod. It’s unbelievable that I never thought of it. I nearly ask her: Rob or Alex? Okay, probably both.

Joan says, “Whenever you feel guilty, this will remind you why you were never a good match for your ex.”

So, that’s why she makes big bucks as a counselor; she can sum up my current experience in two tidy lines.

Two days after Christmas I go over to hang out with Alex, since I know Rob will be gone all day. I find a small card on the coffee table in a snarl of unread newspapers. The handwriting can only be Tiffany’s — For Alex. My face flushes again, and my hands shake as I open it. Though he’s a foot away, Alex is oblivious. He sits inches from the TV playing “Call Of Duty.”

You’ve been working so hard lately, I thought you might need to play just as hard to balance it all out. (She is so pimping my son.) After working on your autobiography with you I thought this might be very aprapo [sic] (appropriate)… 

She helped him with his autobiography?  I don’t think I can read on, but I can’t help myself. Apropos? Who uses that word? And misspells it?
 
She signs off: As Ever, Tiffany. What the fuck does that mean, “As Ever”?  

I put the note in my pocket. Now I’m jealous and pathetic. 

“Mom, look at this,” Alex says. “Look at this shadow from the gun. See that? It changes colors.”

“Cool,” I say.

To calm myself, I clear off the rest of the coffee table, put the newspapers and gift-wrap out for recycling. I stuff Tiffany’s note in one of the bags. Alex plays on. 

I start the laundry. “I’m just going to play this while I digest,” Alex calls to me. The pancakes I made you an hour ago? Another woman in this house is making me snippy.  How many LOL’s in electrolologist? 

“Okay,” I call back. 

Within minutes he turns off the game.

I find a new gray t-shirt in the bottom of the bathroom hamper. It says, “Careful, or you’ll end up in my novel,” in obnoxiously large black letters — size large, so it’s got to be Alex’s.

It’s probably from Tiffany. Still, I have to ask.

I find Alex in his bedroom doing crunches on the floor. 

“Where’d you get that gray t-shirt?” I ask.

“For Christmas.”

“From whom?”

“Tiffany,” he says. He doesn’t look up.

I laugh. 

“I know. It’s kind of dumb,” he says. He lifts his legs to his chest.

“Why would she get that for you?” I’m trying my best to sound nonchalant.

“I don’t know. Maybe because of my autobiography. I’m never wearing the shirt.”

I could have told anyone that. “Too bad I saw it,” I tell him. “You could have re-gifted it to me.”
 
He snorts out a laugh between reps.

When I’m alone in the kitchen I laugh out loud. This woman is definitely trying too hard.  For the first time, I almost feel sorry for her — almost.

Patti See's stories, poems and essays have appeared in Salon Magazine, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Journal of Developmental Education, the Wisconsin Academy Review, the Southwest Review and HipMama, as well as other magazines and anthologies.  She is the author of “Higher Learning: Reading and Writing about College,” 2nd edition (Prentice Hall, 2005) and a poetry collection, “Love’s Bluff,”(Plainview Press, 2006). Patti teaches developmental education and women’s studies courses at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

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