Bob Rooney was midway through both a hangover and a bowl of Post Fruity
Pebbles on the Saturday morning his wife slapped a whammy on his world by
slamming a pale pink Post-It note onto his chest. Peeling the pastel square
from his maroon sweatshirt, he squinted at her loopy, uphill cursive. "I'm
Done Talking," she'd scrawled.
"I'm supposed to understand this?" He pushed the cereal aside,
swallowing back frustration at the thought of how quickly neglected Pebbles
became soggy rainbow clumps, then squinted up at his wife of five years. Her
hazel eyes narrowed as she folded slim arms across her chest, then spun
around on the toes of one Nike like a badly trained ballerina before stomping
up the back staircase to the second level of their home.
"Claudia --" he called after her, then crumpled the note into a mashed
pink ball, bouncing it across the table to a clumsy stop next to the flowered
sugar bowl. "Women," he mumbled then, but quietly, so as to be heard only by
Tag, their faithful five year old terrier-and-who-knew-what-else mutt,
sprawled in a wide rectangle of sunlight beneath the breakfast nook's bay
window.
"I guess your Mom has temporary insanity, huh boy?"
It was only when Tag coked his head and blew air from his nose, a dog
snort of derision, before following the path most recently taken by his
female master, that Bob Rooney knew he was in trouble.
"She never stays mad," he decided, shaking his head and dragging the
cereal close again. But sodden Pebbles made for a rotten breaakfast, and a
clenching in his gut told him he'd finally pushed his wife too far. Coming
home late had been one thing. She'd yelled, but it hadn't been the first
time. What dug the hole, he decided, had been his response. Of all the
words he had to choose from, "Will you just shut up?" shouldn't have been his
final selection.
I'll just wait, he thought, until this blows over.
Bob Rooney was still waiting on Sunday morning. He'd spent a miserable
night on the futon in the guest room, having discovered a sheet from a Big
Chief writing tablet resting on his pillow upstairs. "Bob," she'd printed in
square, symmetrical block letters, "you never learn. We don't communicate.
If you want this marriage to last, you're going to have to work."
As if fifty plus hours per week in the office wasn't work! This was an
outrageous price to pay for coming home a few hours late.
"I don't get it," he said Sunday night, brushing her arm as she whipped
past him, watching as she deposited an armload of fresh towels in their
bathroom. "You're mad about Friday, and I'm sorry. Dinner ran late. I
promised to be home by nine, Claud. It's not my fault the guys wanted to go
for drinks, and --"
Scowling, she whipped a slim notebook from the back pocket of her jeans,
wrenching a pen from a front pocket and scratching furiously before thrusting
the note at him.
"You didn't call," he read. "Look, I didn't even know what time it was."
She turned away, hunched over the notebook again, and a moment later,
held out another sheet of paper.
"Twelve-thirty. You could have called," she'd written. "You want me to
shut up, I will. From now on, if you want to communicate with me, write it
down."
"Write it down?" He shook his head, beginning a slow, residual pounding
behind his eyes. Tylenol seemed the greatest priority, but first, he needed
to smooth things over with his wife. She was, after all, going to be around
a lot longer than the headache. "C'mon, Claud, this is the craziest--"
She turned away, tucking the towels neatly onto shelves over the bathtub.
Snatching the Big Chief sheet from the pillow, he fumbled in the night stand
for a pen, mumbling under his breath. "This is crazy. We don't have time
for this," he wrote, slapping the note down hard on the bathroom counter to
get her attention. She scanned it, frowning. "Worst case," she scrawled
back, "we might actually communicate. It's high time for that."
"Fine," he wrote, his squirrely script growing smaller, his hand cramping
as he gripped the pen hard. "Have it your way!"
A scowl twisted her narrow features as she read this last. "This is a
marriage," she wrote across the top of the sheet, "not a Burger King."
Claudia Rooney did not hold grudges, one of the qualities Bob loved most
about her. In their five years together, she'd been angry at him more times
than he could remember, but always, within twenty-four hours, he'd been
forgiven. "I guess I messed up," he'd say, or send flowers if that didn't
work, and life invariably went on. He'd never intended to hurt her feelings.
It was just, he'd explained, an inevitable part of a man and a woman sharing
the same roof without shooting each other. Claudia had, until now,
understood that.
That thought brought Bob Rooney bolt upright in bed at seven a.m. the
following Sunday morning, and he fumbled on the night stand for the slim
notebook he'd grudgingly begun carrying as the only means of communication
with the woman who'd ignored anything that came out of his mouth for the past
eight days. On page three he'd written, "Where's my new blue tie?" and she'd
scrawled, "in the third drawer down," across the bathroom mirror with a bar
of Irish Spring. Page four was Tuesday's, "What's for dinner?" and she'd
scratched, "Cornish game hens" across the wipe-off pad on the fridge.
She spoke only to Tag, and at the end of a week, Bob looked forward to
her conversations with the dog. Her, "good Tag," and "you're my sweetpea,
aren't you?" as she stroked his ears or offered Milk Bones started an acid
pang in his stomach. That gentle tone of voice used to be reserved for him.
What he got now were hastily scrawled notes, a feeble smirk twisting her lips
as she wrote them. The dog even got his smiles now.
Bob Rooney should not lose his status as reigning Sweetpea of the Rooney
household to a mutt, and he wanted Claudia to know that, but words wouldn't
come. He settled for a block printed, "You used to be accommodating."
Claudia stirred beside him, then slid upright, squinting down at the
notebook and blinking sleep from her eyes. Sighing, she gently removed the
pencil from his hand. He watched as she wrote in the loopy, up and down
scrawl of someone who badly needs a first cup of coffee. One sentence told
him the Claudia of quick draw forgiveness had vanished:
"Accommodating? I'm your wife, not a Holiday Inn."
Tag chose that moment to leap onto the bed, covering her face with wet
dog kisses. "And I love you, too," she said, lowering her face into his fur.
In the shower, Bob Rooney battled the sudden jealous impulse to take the
dog for a little Sunday drive...and forget to bring him back. What stopped
him was realizing that if the dog disappeared, he might never hear his wife's
voice at all.
"So I'm telling you," he said the next Friday afternoon, staring
desultorily at a half finished cheeseburger, "we haven't talked in two
weeks." Confiding in Tom Jensen, his lead sales associate, felt like the
desperate act of a drowning man. In a decade of friendship and Friday
lunches, they'd never discussed anything personal, especially marriage.
Until now, it hadn't been neccessary.
"Not one word? You're serious, Bob? Nothing?"
"Just notes."
"So you're saying, when you leave your shoes on the floor, she doesn't
scream?
"She puts Post-It notes on them."
"What about when you're driving somewhere in the car? No directions?"
Bob nodded. "None, he said, which spurred Tom on, his beefy face flushing.
"No comments on table manners? Spending habits? Little moustache hairs in
the sink?"
"I told you -- just notes. Sometimes just nothing. We don't call each
other at work anymore, either. I tried voice mail yesterday, and she
answered with a note taped to my aftershave." He shrugged, lacing his
fingers around an icy bottle of Michelob. "The woman only talks to the dog."
A broad grin split Tom Jensen's face as he gestured to the waitress for
another round. Then his brows furrowed and he leaned in close, on his
elbows. "Well, what about...you know. Can you fire up the old romance
without talking?"
Bob shrugged, remembering the previous night, finally plunking Tag from
the narrow space between them in their queen sized bed before lightly
brushing the hair back from his wife's face and tentatively drawing her into
his arms. "That's the only thing we don't need notes for," he admitted.
"But Tom, I don't even get a note after that. I mean, I really miss..."
Tom waved both hands like a rookie cop directing traffic at his first
accident scene. "Whatever you did," he said, the grin straining his jaw,
"Tell me what it was, all the details. I've been trying for fifteen years to
get Annette to stop yakking at me. You're living in a gold mine, man.
You've created the perfect woman!"
No, Bob thought, staring idly into his beer. I think what I've really
done is to destroy her.
In a perfect world, Tom Jensen assured him, wives wouldn't speak.
"Appreciate it," he said almost daily. "No nagging, no phone calls at the
office, no annoying squawking all day long on the weekend. If you have to
worry about something, worry she'll start up again."
Life in a perfect world wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
As the weeks wore on, Bob felt as he had during last year's business trip
to Taiwan, when he'd endured a month on the wrong end of the world,
surrounded by people whose English was, when he heard it at all, broken and
fumbled. He'd called home every night, relaxing into Claudia's chatter,
reveling in intimate, inane conversation with another human being. In
Taipei, it hadn't been the strange food or unfamiliar customs that provoked
the loneliness. It had been the absolute absence of the essential friendly
banter between concerned human beings that reminded him of his personalized
slot in the parking lot of life.
I might as well be in Taipei, he thought, clicking off the TV in the
middle of Seinfeld and turning to his wife, contentedly settled in the Lazy
Boy with Tag at her feet. "Claud, we've got to talk this out."
Shrugging, she slid her spiral bound, college ruled notebook toward him
across the table and leaned forward hopefully. "Write it down," she'd
scrawled across the top sheet.
"You're impossible!" He stomped from the room, stopping on the stairs as
the phone rang. His anger evaporated as Claudia chatted with a girlfriend.
When she laughed, his stomach clenched, remembering the times the laughter
had been his.
A perfect world, he decided, is the worst return address I've ever had.
But write it down? Bad enough that he'd gone through a dozen Post-It notes
and one spiral notepad covering just the basics, like, "Where's my socks?",
"What's for dinner?", and "Meeting at six, be home seven-thirty." Now she
expected him to put his feelings on paper, to write down what was going on in
his head.
The woman wanted the moon.
Bob Rooney was halfway through a bowl of Raisin Bran on a Saturday
morning one month later when his wife appeared before him, sliding into the
opposite seat in the breakfast nook, carrying the slim reporter's notebook
that had become as much a part of her daily apparel as her wide gold wedding
band. Opening it to a fresh sheet, she scrawled one short sentence and slid
the notebook toward him.
Raisin Bran wilted as he stared down, cereal bowl swiped to the edge of
the table and hunger forgotten as a wide grin split his features. "You're
what?" he said, then scowled down at the notebook.
"For Pete's sake," he said, then printed, "You're sure?" and slid it back.
"Positive," she scrawled, finishing with a printed, "Bob, we have to
talk."
"Well it's about time," he said, his grin widening, then fading when she
pointed to the notebook. Reluctantly, he picked up the pen and wrote,
convinced he'd make her see logic with one sentence.
"If we don't talk," he wrote, "this baby will never learn to communicate."
A slow smile twisted her lips as she stared down at the page, then neatly
penned, "Not true. We've talked for years and we still don't communicate."
"Claud," he pleaded, catching her hand as she rose from the the table.
"Honey, please. This is our baby we're talking about. Don't you love me?"
She nodded, which encouaged him to tighten his grip on her hand. "Honey,
please. I want us to be the way we used to be."
She shook her head slowly, touching his cheek softly before gently
twisting her hand loose and scratching out two sentences beneath his one.
"Write it down," he read as she walked from the room. "I want something
better than what we used to be."
"This is serious, Tom. My wife is having a baby in three months and the
only words we've exchanged are breathing instructions in Lamaze class. I've
begged her, I've reasoned with her, I've --"
"Whoa!" Tom held up one hand, leaning back as the slim blonde waitress
cleared their luncheon plates. "Look, I'm still not totally understanding
why you want to ruin a perfect situation, but--"
"Because I'd like my son -- she left a note on the fridge yesterday that
the ultrasound said it was a boy -- I'd like him to know how to talk, Tom."
"If Claudia's talking to the dog, she'll talk to the baby, too. He won't
grow up mute. And you'll talk to him too, Bob. That's how kids learn.
Look, I still say, if everything else is good between you two, and it sounds
like it is, why mess with it? Do you have any idea how many men would kill
to be in your shoes, Bob? You've found a way to shut down the perpectual
squawking machine. You ought to enjoy not having to listen to that cackling
all day long."
"I'd do anything to start it back up again, believe me."
"A fool's words," Tom observed, his grin fading. "But if it's that
important to you, give her what she wants. Write it down. You know," he
said, lowering his voice as if discussing a corporate takeover. "Feelings
and stuff. And don't worry," he continued, "this whole thing has made you
kind of a hero in the office, but if you have to cave in, I'll never tell."
"Claudia, I miss the way we used to be," was crumpled into a ball and
rolled into the fireplace. "Honey, you're important to me, and --" was
folded into an airplane which nose dived outside the living room. "I think
this has gone far enough," became an origami duck, drowned in the last dregs
of a glass of milk as eleven p.m. quiet settled on the house and Bob Rooney
clicked off Jay Leno, staring down at the blank sheet of notebook paper
before him. The notebook was half used now, and he flipped idly back through
several pages of nearly identical entries: "How are you feeling today?"
"Would you iron my white shirt?", "Can we have meatloaf?", with her cryptic
responses printed beneath them.
All I want for Christmas is a squawking machine, he thought, staring
dejectedly at Tag, curled into a ball at the opposite end of the couch. The
inevitability of replacement by a human baby had not sat well, and as the
weeks wore on, the dog's nights on the couch increased.
"You miss her too, don't you boy?" Bob whispered, Tag's response two
sleepy tail thumps.
"Me too," Bob said quietly. "I've learned that much," he confessed,
scratching the dog's ears and remembering the soft sound of her, "You're my
sweetpea, aren't you?" missing it as much as he missed the high pitched wail
of, "Bob, get those dirty shoes off my carpet now!"
I've got a list a mile long, he thought, I just never knew it until she
stopped talking.
Feeling uncomfortably like John Boy Walton, Bob Rooney started writing.
He woke to a strange, wondrous sound.
"Bob, wake up. Come on upstairs."
"Claudia?" He fumbled upright, squinting into the bright light of the
lamp he'd left burning, his eyes falling to the six sheets of paper he'd
covered before falling asleep. She held them in one hand, wiping moisture
from the corners of her eyes with the other.
"They're just notes," he explained, reaching for the papers. "I wanted
to get it right, Claud. It's just a list, just brainstorming, it wasn't
intended to--"
"Oh Bob," she said then, tucking the sheets into a pocket of her robe and
reaching out for him. "Just shut up, will you please?"
"Not on your life," he said, wrapping his arms around her, pulling her
close. "And you'd better not, either."
