I didn’t think he’d ask that. Mom would never ask anything in this area. I took a deep breath.
‘I guess, compared to most other women I’ve talked with, we have as good sex as most.’
‘Do you have orgasm?’
He looked me straight in the eyes.
‘Not always. But I can get it off myself when I want. I don’t need Danny for that.’
I never thought I’d be able to talk about this with either of them.
‘He doesn’t beat you, or drink secretly, or take drugs or anything, does he? Does he have other women?’
‘No to the first questions. The last one, I don’t think so, so far. I think I’d know.’
‘So it just comes down to your being bored with him. Do you think you’d be bored with some other man?’
‘I don’t know. Dad, I’ve been all wrapped up with Danny since I was sixteen. I don’t know how I’d feel around another man.’
‘Maybe you ought to find out, before you do anything drastic, Kate. Remember you’re going to hurt both Danny and Wills, probably yourself as well, if you do go through with this divorce. These are some pretty nice people. Make sure.’
‘But, Dad, you aren’t really asking me to go out and have affairs are you? I don’t think I’d like that.’
‘Well, then why not make the most of what you have? It isn’t the worst situation in the world.’
‘You aren’t asking me to live my life out with a boring man?’
‘Lots of other people do. Men live with boring women and women with boring men. Sometimes boring women live with boring men, that’s the way it is.
‘You know, Kate, you can’t say you didn’t really know Danny when you married him. You two had been like married for two years before you actually went through the formalities. It was a free choice. You must have had some idea.’
I grew quiet. I knew I had to stick it out some more. I didn’t want to. I wanted to take Wills and just split. Dad then asked me if I’d spoken to Camille, my younger sister.
‘She’s had a lot more experience than you, Kate, even though she’s five years younger. There’s something of the street-fighter in her. Ask her opinion about what her life’s like. She’s free as a bird. I’m not sure she can really fly but there’s plenty of sky around her. Ask her what she thinks.’
I hadn’t talked with Camille about anything. She’s so aggressively positive about things and, like Mom, always sounds as if she’s living in some high-school play. But it was an idea.
Wills came in and grabbed Dad by the hand and pulled him out into the yard to be pushed by him on the swing. I’ve pushed that swing so often I’ve developed monster shoulder-muscles. I spread out on the couch and cried for the first time in weeks.
Well, I did divorce Danny. It was messy, and the lawyers were the only ones getting anything out of it until Danny and I sat down and worked something out ourselves. I didn’t want alimony, only what Danny could afford for child-support. We’d split whatever we could make on the house, but it wouldn’t be much.
Danny lost his job at Honeywell Bull, as did a whole lot of other people, and he returned to selling steel, but with another company. He moved back to Venice, a small apartment.
I figured the only way I could support myself and Wills was to finish my degree and earn a teaching credential.
It was an uphill battle at my age with a child, but I enrolled at ASU, Arizona State University, and wangled a couple of jobs on campus. One was in the geology department, where I thought briefly of becoming a geologist, both because it paid well and because so many of the geologists were men. There wasn’t much female competition, either. The other was in the German department, where I was in charge of putting out their bimonthly periodical. I learned plenty about writing and publishing – although I almost got fired when they discovered my written German wasn’t as good as my spoken.
I enrolled Wills in a nursery school on campus and paid his bill by putting in a few hours a day there. I was very busy, but also surprised at how well I could do in my classes now I was motivated.
Dad and Mom came through with some money once in a while to help cover the bad spots, but in general, I was on my own. I was growing more and more confident, both as a student and as a woman. I began going out and liked being able to pick the men I wanted instead of being locked in with one.
I did the first half of my practice teaching at Arizona State and applied to do my second half at the American School in Paris, where Mom taught. I wanted to get back to Europe. I never really fit into the American scene.
So, at almost thirty, I came home, lived with Mom and Dad on their houseboat, and learned how to teach. I felt closer to the family than I ever had before. The boat, like the mill, had never been one of my favorite places, but now I loved it. Mom and Dad had a knack for finding places that were unique.
Dad took Wills to the French school every morning and picked him up in the evening. It was tough for Wills, but I think he had a good time with Dad. He began to learn some French, and the river-banks were a terrific place for a seven-year-old boy to play. He made friends with a few French kids, despite the language barriers.
He loved going to the top of the Eiffel Tower. He varied between calling it the ‘Awful Tower’ and the ‘Eyeful Tower’ but said he liked it more than Disneyland. He also enjoyed climbing up on the lead roof of Notre Dame with Dad, the two of them looking as if they’d just conquered Everest. Neither Mom nor I could look at them; we both have a terrible fear of heights, as does my brother, Matt. There are four children in my family. I’m the eldest.
I received good reports on my teaching and a high recommendation from the head of the school. I had done my practice teaching in first grade and decided to remain at this level – kindergarten or first grade. It was the same grade levels as Mom taught. It turned out that when my younger sister Camille did her practice teaching later, at La Jolla in California, she would come to the same decision. It runs in the family. I never thought Camille and I would wind up kindergarten teachers.
2
When I’ve finished my practice teaching, I sit down to write out a curriculum vitae that will sound good. Although I did graduate cum laude from Arizona State, I hadn’t quite finished my credential. It’s hard finding a job in an overseas school without at least two years’ US experience. But I decide to try anyway.
I mail out sixty letters, then buy a Eurail pass and start on my journey. It’s May. Mom is still teaching, Wills is in school. Dad says he’ll take care of Wills when Mom isn’t home. I hate to depend on them so much, but there’s no other way.
I travel at night from one city to another. I sleep on the train to save hotel bills. I do quite a bit of criss-crossing Europe, looking for the night train-rides that are about eight or ten hours long. When I get off a train in the city where I’m going to be interviewed, I head to a phone, confirm the rendezvous, then look for a reasonable restroom where I can put myself in order. I take more ‘bird-baths’ in sinks of train stations than I ever thought I’d take in my whole life.
Most of the interviews are discouraging. People are usually interested in the fact I can speak French, German, and English, and have a good academic background, but they hold the lack of experience against me. I try to beef my résumé up with my nursery-school teaching in Idylwild and Phoenix, but it doesn’t help much.
After two weeks on the road, with one or two interviews every day, I still have nothing definite. The next stop is near Munich. In fact, I have one interview at an international school right at the head of the Starnberger See near the city of Starnberg. We lived nearby, in Seeshaupt, when I was a child and Dad was on sabbatical from his teaching. It’s only a half-hour trip