In These Times the Home Is a Tired Place: World War II in the Central Pacific

Staring Contests

119 Staring Contests She sits on the brown carpet looking at me, two naked Barbies in front of her, but she isn’t playing with them. I peek at her over my paperback, and she raises her eyebrows and lets out a gasp. Her cheeks turn pink, but she doesn’t look away. “Let’s go to the school,” I say. “You like the swings?” She nods. She watches me stand, yawn, fix my ponytail, and then I stop with my hands in the air, my mouth open, and it’s my turn to stare. This is a game I won’t lose to a four-year-old named Lindy. Minutes go by. A bird caws outside. A car door closes, a woman talking, mad about yellowed grass. My arms ache. Lindy keeps her eyes on me, keeps me frozen as she gathers her Barbies. There’s sand at the school, a big box of hard brown sand. The Barbies are going nude-beaching. k Michael’s at the apartment when I get home, the room smoky from hamburger grease. “Five minutes too late!” he yells, meaning he’s already started so I’ll have to cook for myself. “I told you not to bring that crap here anymore.” I throw my book on the futon, then my purse, jacket, shirt, shoes, pants, bra, underwear. 120 IN THESE TIMES THE HOME IS A TIRED PLACE “But you’ve got the good pan!” He kisses the air as I walk by. “You’re using the good pan? I bought that special for my veggies.” “I’m done. It’s yours.” “You’ve got it all tainted.” In the bedroom, my robe’s where I left it, slung over the seat of my chair. I pull it on, the knobby cotton soft and sweetly pungent with a couple weeks’ sweat. “I can’t use it anymore,” I say, back in the kitchen, watching the sleek black pan sizzle in the sink. On the couch, Michael lifts his burger; ketchup plops to the plate. “It’s just a job. You’re taking it too seriously.” “What’s wrong with taking it seriously?” I drop to the couch beside him. He hums in pleasure as he chews, some made-up song. “Nobody serious has ever been happy. It’s two ends of a continuum .” He takes another bite and starts humming again. k Lindy on the playground is like Lindy at home: her world’s a sphere with a four-foot diameter. She sits her Barbies on the ledge of the sandbox, their feet touching the sand but not breaking the surface. She leans back on her heels, watching them, leaning forward to adjust a bare, shiny limb this way or that, oblivious to the smack of the basketball, the girls dancing by the fence, the kid screaming obscenities on the swing: the reason we didn’t go there in the first place. The woman knitting beside me sighs. “His cat,” she says, tearing long silver needles through the yarn so furiously it’s hard to believe she’s pulling something together. “I told him not to let it out. But his cousin Roger has an outdoor cat.” I nod in sympathy. Lindy has the dolls facing each other in the sandbox. Staring Contests 121 “I said if he’s going to scream he’s got to do it outside.” One Barbie reaches over and touches the hand of the other. k “She’s just in,” Michael says into his cell phone the moment I open the door. He walks from the kitchen, jams the contraption into the crease of my shoulder. Kisses the air above my temple. “Michael tells me you’re watching your boss’s kid every day.” I kick the door shut and glare at his back by the stove. I smell peppered meat. He’s using the good pan. “Just an hour or two after work,” I tell my mom. “Her husband’s in the hospital. I’m getting paid for it.” “I thought you’re getting paid to design brochures and recipe cards. God bless those furry animals! Save them! Oh won’t you save them? And those little red peppers you draw just so.” I struggle out of my jacket, my shirt. The pants are tougher. I throw the phone down to unhook my bra and take off my underwear. “Ah,” I sigh, picking up the...