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  Several round faces looked at me in horror. Therapy up the road, I predicted. Anal retentiveness, eating disorders, obsessive-compulsive behavior, extreme perfectionism. Maybe a run for political office.

  Austin’s customary dot was the orange one closest to the door. He sat for a minute on a green dot across the way, then sighed. Standing up quickly, he made his way back to his original space, where Molly Greene was now sitting. Very politely, he said, “Excuse me, could you please move your vagina? It’s on top of my dot.”

  Later, when the kids were out of earshot, I asked June, “How old were you when you first said that word?”

  “What word?”

  “The word that Austin said.”

  “Oh, vagina. I don’t know, I guess about the same age. Why?”

  *

  “Vagina,” I said to the steering wheel on my ride home. I made my voice a little bit deeper. “Vagina. Vagina, vagina.” I tried “penis” to see if it was easier. Growing up at my house, the boys all had nicknames for their penises. Michael’s was Duckie. He used to talk to it while he played in the bathtub, and Christine and I listened from the other side of the bathroom door. Billy’s was Herman and I forget what Johnny’s was. The girls figured we didn’t have anything to name, I guess. And by the time we’d grown breasts, we were too old for the name game.

  As soon as I got in the door, I pulled a liter bottle of seltzer from the refrigerator and took a long drink. It was one of the guilty pleasures of living alone, drinking right from the bottle and not having to worry about spreading germs to anyone. That and not having to sit down to eat a meal. Then I checked my phone messages — just one from Carol. I thought about ignoring it, but knew she’d simply call again.

  “Oh, my God, listen to this,” Carol said as soon as I admitted it was me on the other end: “Radiant, soulful dynamo, drop-dead gorgeous inside/out, 5’4″, brown/ brown, naturally slim DWF, 38, seeks compassionate, emotionally aware, funny, curious, creative, sensuous, ambitious, genuinely nice S/WW/DWM, 33-48.”

  “Geez.”

  “Yeah, they’re all like that. I think we’re going to have to buff yours up a bit. Definitely drop the joke about the toilet seat, nobody would get it anyway, and make you sound a little more glamorous.”

  “Okay, whatever. Listen, I’m going to make some dinner now. So, let me know if you need any help or anything.”

  “Sarah, it’s your ad. Show a little interest.”

  “Okay, what’s WW?”

  “Widowed.”

  “Why not just W?”

  “Because that’s for white.”

  “Fascinating. It’s a whole new world. I’m going to go eat now, okay?”

  “Jesus, Sarah. Okay, I’ll enhance it a little, and call you back so you can phone it in.”

  “What? Can’t you just mail it?”

  “No. You record it over the phone, too. They still print the ads in the newspaper, but people can also just browse by phone. They give you a voice mail box and anyone who wants to meet you leaves a message there. That way you can screen your responses. And guess what? The first eighteen words are free.”

  “Great. I’m going to go eat now, Carol. Good-bye.”

  I have an old frying pan that I’ve had ever since my mother let me take it to my first apartment. It’s about half the size of an average cast-iron pan, and perfectly oiled and seasoned from years of use. I opened a can of Prudence corned beef hash at both ends. Using two fingers, I shoved the whole meat and potato cylinder out one end and into the pan. I flattened it evenly into the bottom until it made the thick round shape of a smiley face. I carved out two holes for eyes and made a great big slash of a smiley mouth.

  I washed out that morning’s cereal bowl, shook it dry, cracked three eggs into it. Then I scooped out two of the yolks and threw them away to make the meal guilt-free. I scrambled the rest of the eggs with a fork, adding pepper and freeze-dried chives, then poured them into the open spaces.

  While dinner cooked, I opened a Sam Adams Oktoberfest and drank from the bottle. I burped and didn’t have to say excuse me to anyone. I jumped up to sit on the kitchen counter, and dangled my feet, bouncing my heels against the cabinets. The black soles of my shoes would probably make scuff marks on the white cabinets. Oh, well.

  I sipped my beer until the eggs were set. I tried singing a few lines of “Blues in the Night” into the mouth of the bottle, even though I knew it made me look like a loser. “Sarah,” I said aloud, “you are such a loser.”

  I picked up the only potholder Kevin didn’t take with him when he left. He said he was taking the potholders because he did most of the cooking anyway. As if it would matter who used to cook when he was gone. I wrapped the potholder around the handle of the frying pan, picked up a fork with my other hand, and ate the whole thing, smiley face, smiley mouth, smiley eyes, right from the pan.

  Carol called back while the pan was soaking and I was watching a rerun of The Brady Bunch on Nick at Night. “It’s all set,” she said. “I even recorded it for you. Nobody could ever tell our voices apart on the phone anyway.”

  Alice, the housekeeper, was about to give the Brady kids a lecture on minding their own business. I tore myself away. “Thanks for asking, Carol. You didn’t talk in a really sexy voice or anything, did you? And what did the ad end up saying?”

  “Oh, it was pretty much the same.”

  “That tells me a lot.”

  “Trust me, Sarah. Anything I changed was for the better. Anyway, to check the responses, you dial 1-800-555-3967. Your box number is 991184, and your password is D-A-T-E. Actually, the numbers are 3283, but I changed it to DATE so you could remember it more easily. Plus, DATE’S a good omen, I think.” I ignored the cutesiness, but wrote the information down obediently because Carol would only give it to me again if I didn’t.

  I knew I should have asked Carol more questions, made her tell me what the ad said. And I knew, absolutely knew, that I should call in, right now, to hear it for myself. On some level, several layers down, I even wanted to know what it said, if she sounded like me, if we’d attract any interesting men. I was also sure that if it were someone else’s ad, I’d be dying to hear it.

  But because it was my ad, it seemed somehow too risky. If I became overly interested in it, I might start to imagine a life beyond the one I’d botched. And if I hoped for a new life, I’d be crushed if one never surfaced. I remembered visiting my grandparents, my father’s parents, when we were young. In the alley behind their triple-decker in Worcester, my brothers and sisters and I would play wild games of hide-and-seek, punctuated by earsplitting screams and gentler trills of laughter. My grandfather would suddenly appear, looking out over the petunias that cascaded from the window boxes on the third floor. He’d always say the same thing: “And what are you little hellions looking so happy about down there? Don’t you know that happy is for the next life?”

  I waited until The Brady Bunch was over and went to bed without bothering to brush my teeth.

  *

  “You’re sick?” I said into the phone in my classroom. “Well, I mean that’s too bad, I’m really sorry, but don’t you know someone who can fill in for you?” I took a deep breath. “You don’t know a single other soccer coach anywhere? I mean, don’t you people have a network?” Last week I’d had to fill in for the jewelry-making teacher, a student from Mass Art I’d managed to track down through Carol. She’d claimed to be sick in the kind of raspy whisper that made me think she was lying, that she really had a project due or a hot date. I’d taught the class myself, and we’d painted pasta, mostly penne and ziti, with poster paint and strung it to make necklaces and bracelets — an admittedly low-end project compared to the Sculpey beads they’d made the week before.

  Shit, who was I going to find to teach soccer in three hours? I dialed my brother Michael’s work number. “Hi, it’s Sarah. Can you do me a huge favor?”

  “Fine thanks, and you?”

  “Sorry, Michael. Listen, you know the after
school program I’m running? Well, I’m desperate for a soccer coach for this afternoon and — ”

  “Annie and Lainie have a game at three. I’m coaching.”

  “Damn. Could you use a few more players?”

  “Yeah, that would go over big. The other team would have us thrown out of the league for bringing in ringers.”

  “Do you know anyone I could ask?”

  “Not really. Why don’t you just coach it yourself?”

  I tried to imagine the soccer equivalent of pasta necklaces, but came up blank. “Michael, I know absolutely nothing about soccer. What will I do with them?”

  “Do you have balls and drill cones?”

  “Yeah, the school bought them for the program.”

  “Well, give the kids one of each and tell them to make up their own drills.”

  *

  “What’s yours?”

  “Chocolate chip. Wanna lick?”

  I didn’t know exactly how the ice cream cone drill got started, but it spread like wildfire. Now, all fourteen children were running around with their soccer balls balanced on top of the mouths of their orange drill cones. They were having a great time, and while it didn’t technically have much to do with soccer, I thought I’d let it go for a while to kill some time. I tried to think of a line about gross motor development and balance in case one of the parents showed up early.

  When the kids began to actually lick the soccer balls instead of just pretending, I knew it was time to redirect. “Hang on to your soccer balls and let’s make the cones into a big orange snake,” I yelled. A couple of the third-graders rolled their eyes but, still, they all helped me make a wiggly row of cones across the field. I lined the kids up and, sending the eye-rollers first to demonstrate, let them take turns kicking their balls through, weaving them around and around the long line of cones.

  I was feeling pretty proud of myself when Kate Stone emerged from the strip of woods between the school and the soccer field. “Nice job, Sarah,” she said, flicking a dried pine needle from her shoulder, “but next time you have to cover for the coach, lose the ice cream cones.”

  *

  Michael handed me a Heineken and walked over to lean against my kitchen counter. “How’d your soccer debut go?” he asked, then tilted his head back for a long slug of his own beer. The white tail of a dress shirt peeked out from under his black Adidas jacket.

  I opened my beer, took a sip. “Thanks. And thanks for stopping by. It was fine. I think it’s going to be a real pain to run this program, though.”

  “So quit.”

  “Yeah. Especially since I’m independently wealthy……”

  Michael was midsip. He opened his eyes wide to signal that he had something to say. I waited for him to swallow. “Are you okay, Sarah? Do you need money?”

  “I’m fine. Really. Or I will be as long as I supplement one low-paying job with another.”

  Michael looked tired. He put his empty beer on the counter, looked at his watch. “Maybe you should think about doing something else entirely. I mean, no spouse, no kids, no strings. Basically, you can go anywhere you want, do any thing you want.” Michael sighed. “Jesus, I can’t even imagine.”

  I looked around my kitchen, a week’s worth of the Boston Globe stacked randomly on the table, the day’s dishes not filling even half the sink. “Trust me. It’s not as glamorous as it looks.”

  “Yeah, I guess. Well, I better go. Phoebe will kill me if I don’t help the girls with their homework.”

  Michael has a point, I thought, as I waved to him while he backed out of my driveway. I could do anything. I tried to come up with an example, nothing ambitious or life-altering, just a toe-dipping kind of something to do. I flipped through my address book, dialed Lorna’s number.

  Mattress Man answered on the second ring. “Yup.”

  “Hi, this is Sarah Hurlihy from school. May I speak to Lorna, please?”

  Mattress Man didn’t answer. I waited, wondering if I should repeat myself. Finally, I heard Lorna’s voice. “Hey, Sarah, what’s up? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I was just wondering. Do you want to go out and do something? I mean, no rush, just one of these days?”

  Chapter 6

  I’ve lived in Marshbury all of my life, and never even knew it had a trailer park. My father was way ahead of me, of course. He’d not only located the trailer park; he’d found a woman there to date. Her name was Dolly and for some reason we were all having dinner at her home.

  Basically, it was a setup. Christine and Carol and their kids and I showed up at four for Sunday dinner with Dad, something several of us did once or twice a month, in varying configurations, whenever it worked out. Sometimes we brought food, sometimes we ordered out. If Dad wasn’t there, we ate without him.

  This time, when we showed up, he ordered us back into our cars and said, “Follow me.”

  He managed to pack all of himself into the black Mazda Miata he’d bought last year. He pulled on an ancient pair of brown leather driving gloves, smoothed his hair in the visor mirror, waited while Siobhan buckled up beside him. The grandchildren, even the oldest kids, kept careful track of whose turn it was to ride in Grandpa’s only passenger seat. Suddenly, both car doors opened again. Siobhan and her grandfather walked around to change places, stopping midway for a hug.

  “I know just what he’s saying to her,” Carol said to me. ” ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, will you look at this, my baby’s baby’s driving. God bless ya, honey. God bless ya all day and every day.’” Carol pulled on her seat belt, then turned to make sure the kids were buckled in. “We’ll see who needs an extra blessing or two once Lead Foot with Learner’s Permit gets going.”

  The Miata backed out of the driveway and took a left. The rest of us followed obediently. Carol started in on me right away. “Have you checked your voice mail box?” she asked, reaching behind her to grab an airborne doll before Ian could catch Trevor’s pass. Without taking her eyes off the road, Carol handed the doll back to a screaming Maeve, who had a two-year-old’s amazing lung capacity and flair for drama.

  I gave Maeve a sympathetic look, and tried to ignore Carol’s question. “So, where’s Dennis?” I asked as if I cared.

  “He and Joe are playing golf, then grabbing something to eat. Payback for Christine’s and my shopping expedition last week. Well, have you?”

  “What?”

  “Okay, Sarah, do it now.” Carol handed me her cell phone.

  “I don’t have the number with me.”

  Carol reached into her pocketbook and handed me a neatly printed index card. There was no hope. I dialed 1-800-555-3967 as slowly as I could. An electronic voice instructed me to please dial my password. I changed Carol’s D-A-T-E in my mind to a more dignified 3283, and dialed it reluctantly. To hear your responses, please press one, the voice said. Although dialing a single number slowly is difficult, I did my best.

  You have eighteen messages. To hear them, press one. To save them, press two, to delete them, press three. I looked quickly at Carol. Her eyes were still on the road. I pressed three.

  “Nothing yet,” I said pleasantly.

  “I knew it. You are amazingly self-destructive, and I can’t even imagine where you’d be without me.” We were stopped at a set of lights on the west side of town. Siobhan was revving the engine of the Miata. Carol reached into her pocketbook again and handed me a cassette tape. “Play it,” she said, gesturing to the tape deck in front of us.

  “What about the kids?”

  “Okay, wait. We must be almost there. Where the hell is Dad taking us anyway?” The Miata took off with a small squeal of rubber the instant the light turned green. We followed, taking a sudden left into the parking lot behind a strip mall and then over a speed bump and down a dirt road. A sign read whispering pines park. Our three-car procession stopped beside it. Carol and I looked at each other. The good news was I thought she might have forgotten about my personal ad.

  Our father, after planting a q
uick kiss on Siobhan’s forehead, had lumbered ahead to the door of a mint-green-and-white trailer. Carol helped Maeve out of her car seat, while Ian and Trevor and I looked around carefully. A dozen or so trailers, each with a carport on one side and a couple of scrub pines on the other, flanked a rutted circular road. Several short red signs read speed limit 15 and slow down.

  Christine and her two kids got out of their car. “Shoeboxes,” said Sydney with her flawless pronunciation. “Shoeboffas,” Sean repeated. Christine shushed them and hurried to join us.

  “These are trailers,” Carol was saying. “Lots of people live in them in other parts of the country.” The kids nodded wordlessly. We all looked up to see the door open. A tiny full-figured woman wearing a tight pink suit opened the door. Standing on her tiptoes, she put her hands on our father’s cheeks and kissed him full on the mouth. They lingered and I looked down at my watch and timed it with the second hand.

  “Twelve seconds,” I whispered. “And I started late.” Ian and Trevor giggled loudly. Carol gave me her knock-it-off look.

  “Come in,” the woman said. “Daddy’s told me all about you.” We filed cautiously toward the door, adults herding the children ahead. “Come right on in and give Dolly a hug.” Obediently, we took careful turns hugging Dolly on the way inside. I tried hard not to stare, but I was fascinated by her looks. Beneath a pouf of pinky-blond hair and a delicate neckline, she looked like a female Jimmy Dean sausage whose casing had an extra tie at the center.

  Christine broke the silence. “What a lovely home you have, Dolly.” I bit the inside of my cheek and avoided eye contact with Christine and Carol. Siobhan looked bored. She reached up to check the positions of her earrings.

  There was so much furniture in the trailer that it seemed to have displaced the air. Heavy, dark items, including a china cabinet and an armoire, all crammed in end to end as if waiting to move back into a house. A large organ, its top either belatedly or prematurely holding the sheet music for “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen,” faced a sofa from a distance usually reserved for coffee tables. The sofa became the organ’s bench. A dining room table abutted the sofa’s backside, and was elaborately set for Sunday dinner.