Summer, 2006.
Two months before my book is due to come out, I and my dad are painting my living room and dining room a sort of golden color called Clair de Lune. Dad is my regular painting buddy partially because my husband likes the walls just fine the way they were when we moved and basically refuses to get involved.
And partially because he’s also a semi-pro at it. Dad used to paint houses all summer long while all the other teachers and administrators at the high school were taking their summer vacations. He did it so mom could stay home, and for some of the fun extras we had, like the used speed boat, and trips up north.
Now he paints just to hang out with me, I think. It must be that because it doesn’t make him any money. We live just a few blocks away, and yet I never seem to have any time to see him and mom. But, I keep finding new things to paint because I’m constantly nesting and perpetually lousy at picking paints. When I run out of rooms to paint, I get sick of the color and we paint on a new one. And I don’t mind that my husband won’t paint because dad is good with the edging except for when he’s in a hurry, which is all the time.
No matter. I’m not much of a roller. And anyway, we’ll probably be painting over it in six months when I realize the color is all wrong. What the hell is a Clair de Lune, anyway?
We talk about politics a little (but not too much because he voted for Bush twice in a row and boy howdy what a can of worms that can be). We talk about the state of the schools today compared to how they were when he was a dean of students in the 70s and 80s. We drink loads of coffee, and when we’re almost done, we call mom, who comes over with muffins from Kowalski’s and tells me how good the walls look, while I say “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll know better when it dries.”
Today, we are painting one long wall gold because I think it will tone down the electric blue walls we painted last month on the adjacent family room walls. I am of course wrong, and will later paint over the electric blue with more of the gold, and not be entirely satisfied, but at last be entirely sick of painting these particular rooms and ready to move on to others in the house.
While we are painting, my husband Jim is in my office (which is a salmon pink color I am about ready to say goodbye to) searching, apparently, for advanced reviews of my book.
My book is set to come out in August, and I am trying not to think about it while simultaneously entertaining fantasies about enormous fame and wealth and movie rights and first-class plane rides and life-sized posters at the Manhattan Barnes and Noble where I will be signing books from noon to 3 on a Saturday afternoon.
Small things have already begun happening, which only fuel the fantasy. I have started giving some interviews to the local newspapers. A couple of local libraries are requesting readings. I have been assigned a “publicist” named Jana, whose job it is to coordinate all of this. I have a publicist. At any point during the day or night, I can be heard to say, “I have to call my publicist back,” or “I better check with my publicist.” These words should generally be followed up by the beep-boop of the keyless entry on my Saab 95 and while I am talking to some other famous author on my Blackberry. (That is a phone, right?)
I shouldn’t even be painting my own walls, as a matter of fact. My publicist should probably be doing that. But I am painting, and I have paint in my hair. I’ve also gotten paint on my Target jogging pants, which I didn’t plan to do because I like them. I don’t know how all the ladies on the decorating shows on HGTV manage to paint and re-furbish and move furniture in their knee-high boots and halter tops when I can’t even pour the stuff into the paint tray without taking a bath.
I’m making this observation to my dad when Jim comes in with a look on his face that I can’t read, which after 12 years of marriage, is rare. He appears irritated, yet optimistic. It’s a good news/bad news sort of expression. It says: “Honey the cat just horked up a hairball in the bedroom …. But at least he missed the area rug.”
“Publisher’s Weekly reviewed your book.” That, I will learn, is the good news.
The good news is that Publisher’s Weekly doesn’t review just every book. They don’t have the time. Though I’ve never heard of them, they are quite well respected within the publishing industry. This is what Jim is telling me when I realize what he’s trying to do. The good news is that my book mattered enough for them to take a good long look. The good news is that my book is on the radar. The good news… the good news… the good news…
As a 911 dispatcher, I know a little rule about repetition. It goes like this: The more a person repeats him or herself, the more likely it is that there is something else, something more important, that he or she wishes not to say.
The bad news is that the cat horked up on my book, figuratively speaking.
“Are you ready?” says my husband. “OK, I’ll read it to you. But just bear in mind…” Continued preparatory words follow. I pour another half a gallon into my paint pan and douse the roller real good. No sense in falling behind.
Jim reads the review like one who is checking the ingredients label on his Little Debbie snack cakes for the very first time. The news is not good. Lots of junk in there. Nothing but sugar and additives. If I had a box of Little Debbie snack cakes right now, I would eat the whole fucking thing. Jim reads on and on. Someone certainly spent some time on this one. Man or woman? I can’t tell, and there’s no byline, but I get a female vibe. The words are big and long, and portend only bigger longer words ahead. It bugs me that nobody signed the thing, so I’ll never be able to name the doll I plan to stick the needles into. Jim stumbles over the bad words, pulls back his voice over the worst ones. They wind around the room to where my dad is, perched on a 6-foot ladder, edging the top of a doorway. They wind back around, bounce off the floor, and creep back toward me, where they wind around my neck like a scratchy wool scarf being pulled ever so tightly.
Two words leap out at me: crass and amateurish. Certainly not part of the fantasy.
I imagine the poster in the window of the Manhattan Barnes and Noble: “Join us for a book signing with Answering 911 author Caroline Burau this Saturday from noon to 3. Her writing is crass and amateurish! Free hot chocolate.”
Jim finishes, says, “Well, it’s obvious this person had a bad run-in with law enforcement, or something.”
My dad says, “I just don’t see that at all, honey. I just don’t even see it. Not one bit.”
I love these two men so much, I could cry.
From the basement, I hear the faint sound of a cat, percolating like a coffee maker. One of my three cats is about to vomit, but it’s OK because the basement is all linoleum, except for the rugs of course. I try to judge, from the sound, which one of my three it could be. Squeak often lets for a long wail before losing her lunch. Sesame is more of a rocket-puker, having drank too much cold water too quickly. Isabel is all business. She just lines up, aims for the rug, and lets it fly.
The phone rings, it’s my publicist calling my husband back about the review. When they’re done chatting, Jim offers me the phone. I silently point to my paint brush and shake my head, no.
“It’s OK, I’ll give you the highlights,” he assures me. But I don’t want to talk about the review. If I stop rolling, then dad will get ahead of me with the edging, and the paint will look patchy because too much time elapsed between the one and the other. And frankly, in the minutes since Jim read us the review, my dad has picked up the pace big time. No sense in dwelling in negativity. The longer this takes, the longer we must wait for mom to bring the muffins.
Later, I will punch the door and hurt my hand a little. Not a moment I’m proud of, but the door lived.
I probably deserve every word. The entire time I was writing the book, there was a voice from the depths, telling me I shouldn’t even be writing it. I was a rookie writer and a rookie dispatcher, and these things should be left to people better qualified than me.
I stand back from the long wall we are painting. I wish I’d have picked a different color. You just never can tell about this stuff until you get it on the walls, and then it’s too late, and you’ve already spent half the day farting around with tape and tarps and buckets.
Maybe I’ll like it better when it dries.
