Stephen Dixon: Frog

“Great, we’re in the car, all packed, ready to go, apartment’s been raked, burners all off, windows up so no to little dust when we return, everybody buckled up? sitting back? — so let’s get out of here,” and he pats Denise’s knee, starts the car, checks the street through the rear view and his side mirror, looks over his left shoulder, truck’s coming, “Come on, come on, you’re not supposed to be here except for a delivery and you’re wasting our precious time, we’ve a long way to go,” truck passes, checks the mirrors again, over his shoulder, all clear, same in front, even the light’s green and with enough time to make it, and he goes.

“Where do you want to eat tonight?” he says to Denise at the first red light and she says “You made a reservation for the Breakwater, so do we have a choice?” and he says “I made it a while ago, but you said you might want to change things around a little and go to a seafood place in Cape Porpoise,” and she says “We can do that coming home, for you didn’t make a reservation for that night also, did you?” and he says “I was going to tonight — to be safe, since it’ll be the Thursday before the Labor Day weekend; but then I was thinking the Breakwater’s gotten so expensive and fancy with the candles and no wine carafes,” and she says “Still, it’s close to the Green Heron, so you can walk the girls to it and I’ll drive,” and he says “You feel safe doing it?” and she says “What, the equivalent of two city blocks?” and he says “But your feet, you say they don’t feel the pedals,” and she says “Not right off most times but I’ll go real slow, and back the car into the Green Heron parking spot so I don’t have to pull out in reverse,” and he says “I’ll walk the girls, get them on the porch or inside and run back and drive you,” and she says “That’s a waste of energy and unnecessary,” and Olivia says “Is the Breakwater where they have the rainbow sherbert I like?” and he says “Dot’s de platz, hon,” and Eva says “I want rainbow sherbert tonight,” and he says “Only if you finish all our dinners — OK,” to Denise, “we’ll stick with the Breakwater — it’s simpler — but maybe for the last time.”

“Dinner, why are we talking dinner?” she says, “we’ve got a few hours till lunch yet,” and he says “Same place in Holland, Mass — Goodalls, Goodwalls?” and she says “If we can make it before the girls starve,” and he says “I packed a food bag just in case — those baby bagels, carrot sticks and such, even a tahini-spread sandwich for you, so we’ll try for it?” and she says “Do we have to settle on it now?” and he says “You know me, I like to get most things done ahead of time so with a clear mind I can go at the few things I really like doing,” and she says “Why don’t you then get your gravestone made and engraved and obit written and invite the guests you especially want at your funeral and unveiling and related rituals? — perhaps a big blowout after,” and he says “Nice premortuary talk in front of the kids, and please don’t mention blowouts while we drive,” and she says “Just asking but when did you make the Breakwater reservation?” and he says “To make or break the makewater breakavacation — when the Green Heron opened for the season, so around April,” and she says “Don’t you find that a wee bit something?” and he says “Maybe even March, but remember a few years ago in May when I tried for a room at the Heron and they were booked through Labor Day, so we couldn’t even stay there coming back?” and she says “A small affordable unassuming room for a night in a chic summer resort is one thing, plus we had four cats then, but a large restaurant where there are many other restaurants of supposedly similar size, quality, prices and view? — the worst that could happen is we’d wait half an hour to an hour for a table which would mean the kids would play and bother us a little, I’d read and you’d get semibombed on two straight-up martinis at the bar,” and he says “Well, I made it off the office phone, same time I made the Green Heron reservation, for the latter made me think of the other, and here it is today and we’ve nothing to worry or later be bothered or me tomorrow hungover about and no hour to lose,” and she says “That is something, I suppose,” and rests her head back, feet up on the dashboard, big sigh, shuts her eyes.

That a way, close yourself off and pretend to be tired when you want to get out of it — not fooling him. And what the fuck she going on about and got to be so tired over? — she sorted the bedding and clothes, that’s all, and too much of them, meaning more than he needed to pack, while he did his own things and the rest of the work to get them on the road at almost the exact time they planned for: loading, cleaning, yesterday’s pickup for UPS, scavenging the neighborhood for boxes before buying them at the store, car oiled and lubed, tank filled, tires, making all the calls for the paper delivery up there and cut off here, getting the phone in and utilities turned on, instructions to the post office here to forward the mail and there to hold it, last-minute shop, bringing the kids’ library books back, all the necessary checks, monetary and otherwise, in addition to defrosting the fridge — worst chore there is, with that refrigerator, other than changing a tire, which he’s done once a summer for years so will probably have to do it this one too — and gassing and burning himself cleaning the oven. His father used to say to him “I work and you’re bushed, no doubt from watching me.” What’s probably the case with her is she resents he can run around like that and do so many things so fast and efficiently so bitches or tunes him out. But for going back and next summer he’ll say help him out some by taking care of everything she can do by phone and sitting at a table doing a few pen squiggles and she’ll probably say she’ll be glad to if he doesn’t ask her to do it long before she has to or if he hasn’t already done it. She’s right on a lot of it — he likes to get things out of the way too much — and she does have her illness, but at least give him a little credit for all he did. It’d be nice if they had something else to talk about now. A book, Chekhov story he just read and she’s practically memorized, an elaborately interpretable sociological subject or news events, something that could carry them smoothly through the next two tedious hours of the trip, or a string of those, some interesting part of his or her life the other doesn’t know of or has completely forgotten and which would bring other things to mind. He was always awful at thinking up conversation starters while she’s always been good at it, being that kind of teacher and more of a listener than he, but it’s not something he can ask her to do: Think up some good hot topics for talks, otherwise we’ll be bored.

She knows why she harped on him like that. Physically drained, leg muscles ache, right eye’s not focusing right, not enough sleep, bad night with her bladder — you’d think he would have said something this morning she woke him up so often last night — but mostly him pressuring them so they could get out by the prearranged time: get dressed, finish your breakfast, this bag ready to go? the medicine chest cleaned out? pulling the half-eaten bowls and plates away from the girls so he could clean the dishes and table, sweeping up, then yelling crumbs, more crumbs, because Eva was eating a croissant and dropping a few flakes, without asking her shutting the radio off and packing it when she was cooking and listening to a piano piece she wanted to know the name of, nagging her how much longer she thinks she needs, half-hour she said, half-hour to her is always an hour he said, can she make a half-hour a half-hour this time? Another woman might think it not endearing, not amusing, ludicrous for sure, but something his advance planning, and he does take care of lots of things she hates to do but more likely is unable to, so, “helpful,” though not quite that either. But his compulsiveness and occasional rudeness in carrying it through cancels his helpfulness. If only he could say that sometimes he does things just a bit peculiarly if not wrongly, she’d say let’s open a good bottle of red wine tonight for she sees a start on his part of some sort of self-awareness. And please, to keep the peace, no more word games that make little sense — she hopes that fakeavacation was only an aberration and not the running mood of the trip.