Love the one you're with

twenty-two

For the next few weeks, as Andy and I settle into our new home, I do my best to stay on the road to redemption. I wake up every morning and give myself rousing pep talks, repeating chipper cliches out loud in the shower-things like, Home is where the heart is, and Happiness is a state of mind. I tell Andy and Margot and Stella, and even strangers, like the clerk at Whole Foods and a woman behind me in line at the DMV, that I am happy here, that I do not miss New York. I tell myself that if I can only will these things to be true, my record will be expunged, my slate cleaned, and Leo forgotten for good.

But despite my best, most pure-intentioned efforts, it doesn't quite work out that way. Instead, as I go through all the moving-in motions-whether it's arranging our framed photographs on the built-in bookcases flanking our stone fireplace, or perusing the aisles of Target for Rubbermaid storage containers, or poring over drapery fabric samples with Margot's interior designer, or planting white caladiums in big bronze pots on our front porch-I feel out of sorts and out of place.

Worse, I have the nagging, sinking feeling that I was more myself on that red-eye flight than I have been in a long time-and that I've made a mistake in leaving New York. A big mistake. The kind of mistake that brews resentment and dangerous fissures. The kind of mistake that makes your heart ache. The kind of mistake that makes you long for another choice, the past, someone else.

Meanwhile, Andy's contentment, bordering on outright glee, makes me feel that much more alienated. Not so much because misery loves company-although there is an element of that-but because his happiness means that our move is permanent, and I will be stuck in this world forever. His world. A life sentence of sitting in traffic and having to drive everywhere, even to grab a cup of coffee or a quick manicure. Of sterile strip malls and no late-night dinner delivery options. Of mindlessly accumulating shiny, unnecessary possessions to fill the empty spaces in our sprawling home. Of falling asleep listening to absolute unsettling silence rather than the satisfying hum and pulse of a city. Of still, sweltering summers with Andy off playing golf and tennis every weekend and no chance of a white Christmas. Of saccharine-sweet, blond, blue-eyed, Lilly Pulitzer-wearing, Bunco-playing neighbors with whom I have virtually nothing in common.

Then, one morning in August, just after Andy leaves for work, I find myself standing in the middle of the kitchen, holding his cereal bowl which he carelessly left on the table, and I realize that it's not such a subtle feeling anymore. It's full-blown suffocation. I practically run to the sink, toss his bowl into it, and phone Suzanne in a panic.

"I hate it here," I tell her, fighting back tears. Just saying the words aloud seems to solidify my stance and make my feelings both official and entrenched.

Suzanne makes a reassuring sound and then offers, "Moving is always tough. Didn't you hate New York at first?"

"No," I say, standing over the sink and almost basking in feeling like a downtrodden, taken-for-granted housewife. "New York was an adjustment. I was overwhelmed at first… But I never hated it. Not like this."

"What's the problem?" she asks, and for a second, I think she's being sincere-until she adds, "Is it the doting husband? The huge house? The pool? Your new Audi? Or wait-it's gotta be the sleeping in late and not having to get up and go to work, right?"

"Hey, wait a second," I say, feeling spoiled and ungrateful, like a celebrity whining about her lack of privacy, insisting that her life is soo hard. Still, I continue, believing that my feelings are legitimate. "It's driving me crazy that my agent hasn't called with anything and I spend my days snapping shots of magnolia trees in our backyard, or of Andy puttering around the house with his toolbox, pretending to be handy… or of the kids on the corner selling lemonade until their nanny glares at me like I'm some kind of child molester… I want to work-"

"But you don't have to work," Suzanne says, cutting me off. "There's a difference. Trust me."

"I know. I know I'm lucky. I know I should be thrilled-or at least comforted by all of… this," I say, glancing around my spacious kitchen-with its marble counters, gleaming Viking stove, and wide-planked, cedar floors. "But I just don't feel right here… It's hard to explain."

"Try," she says.

My head fills with a litany of my usual complaints before I settle on a trivial but somehow symbolic anecdote from the night before. I tell her how the little girl next door came over peddling Girl Scout cookies and how irritated I was as I watched Andy labor over the order form as if it were the decision of a lifetime. I imitate him, exaggerating his accent-"Should we get three boxes of Tagalongs and two Thin Mints or two Tagalongs and three Thin Mints?"

"It is a pretty big decision," Suzanne deadpans.

I ignore her and say, "And then Andy and the little girl's mother made twenty minutes of small talk about their two degrees of separation-which, apparently, is a lot in this town-and all their mutual acquaintances from Westminster-"

"The one in London?" she asks.

"No. More important than that little ole abbey in England. This Westminster is the most elite private school in Atlanta… in all of the Southeast, my dear."

Suzanne snickers, and it occurs to me that although she wants me to be happy, on some level she must be relishing this. After all, she told me so, right from the start. You're an outsider. You're not one of them. You will never really belong.

"And then," I say, "when I think it's finally over, and we can go back to our mindless, numbing television watching-which by the way, feels like all we ever do anymore-the mother prompts her daughter to thank 'Mr. and Mrs. Graham' and for one disorienting second, I look over my shoulder for Andy's parents. Until I realize that I'm Missus Graham."

"You don't want to be Missus Graham?" Suzanne asks pointedly.

I sigh. "I don't want the highlight of my day to be about Thin Mints."

"Thin Mints are pretty damn good," Suzanne says. "Particularly if you put them in the freezer."

"C'mon," I say.

"Sorry," she says. "Go on."

"I don't know. I just feel so… trapped… isolated."

"What about Margot?" Suzanne asks.

I consider this question, feeling torn between a sense of underlying loyalty to my friend and what feels to be the sad truth of the matter-that, despite the fact that I talk to Margot several times a day, I have a slight feeling of estrangement lately, a feeling that began with her reproachful stare down at our going-away party-and has lingered despite our conversation the next day at the airport.

At the time I was grateful for her exoneration, her keeping me in the fold despite my transgression. But now I have the disturbing, chafing sense that she actually believes I owe her and Andy and the entire family so much. That I'm so lucky to be down here, in the thick of the Graham dynasty, and that I can't possibly miss New York, and that I'm not entitled to have any feelings about anything or anyone if it in any way deviates from their vision, their notion of proper decorum and good values.

What appeals to you the most is the very thing that will drive you crazy, I think-and it's really true. I used to love how picture-perfect the Grahams' world was. I admired their wealth, their success, their closeness-how even rebellious James (who finally moved out of his parents' guest house) manages to show up in church most Sunday mornings, albeit with bloodshot eyes and a distinct aroma of cigarette smoke on his wrinkled khakis. I loved that they all consult with one another before doing things, are fiercely proud of their family name and traditions, and that they all put Stella on a pedestal. I loved that nobody had died or divorced or even disappointed.

But now. Now I feel trapped. By them. By all of it.

For a second, I consider admitting this to Suzanne, but I know that if I do, it will be game over. I'll never be able to take it back or soften it, and someday, when the storm has passed, my sister might even throw it back in my face. She's been known to do that.

So I just say, "Margot's fine. We still talk all the time… But we're just not on the same page… She's so all-consumed with the pregnancy thing-which is understandable, I guess…"

"You think you'll get on the same page soon?" she asks, obviously inquiring about our plans to start a family.

"Probably. I might as well pop out a few kids. We're already all hunkered down as if we have them. I was just thinking about that last night… How our friends in the city who have kids make parenthood seem so palatable. They seem completely unchanged-the same combination of immature yet cultured. Yuppie hipsters. The urban mainstream. Still going out to see good music and having brunch at cool restaurants."

I sigh, thinking of Sabina, and how, instead of just taking her triplets to play dates and inane music classes, she also totes them to the MoMA or the CMJ Film Festival. And instead of dressing them in smocked bubbles, she puts them in plain black, organic cotton T-shirts and denim, creating mini-Sabinas, blurring generational lines.

"But here the converse seems true," I say, getting all worked up. "Everyone is a full-fledged grown-up even before they have kids. It's like the nineteen-fifties all over again when people turned into their parents at age twenty-one… And I feel us turning into that, Andy and I… There's no mystery left, no challenge, no passion, no edge. This is just… it, you know? This is our life from here on out. Only it's Andy's life. Not mine."

"So he's glad you moved?" she asks. "No buyer's remorse at all?"

"None. He's thrilled… He whistles even more than usual… He's a regular Andy Griffith. Whistling in the house. Whistling in the yard and garage. Whistling as he goes off to work with Daddy or off to play golf with all his good ole boy friends."

"Good ole boys? I thought you said rednecks don't live in Atlanta?"

"I'm not talking about good ole boy rednecks. I'm talking frat boy yucksters."

Suzanne laughs as I rinse the few remaining Trix floating in a pool of Easter egg-pink milk down the drain, and although at one time I might have found Andy's breakfast of choice endearing, at this moment I only wonder what kind of grown, childless man eats pastel cereal with a cartoon bunny on the box.

"Have you told him how you feel?" my sister asks.

"No," I say. "There's no point."

"No point in honesty?" she gently probes.

It is the sort of thing I have always told her when she and Vince are having problems. Be open. Communicate your feelings. Talk it out. It suddenly strikes me that not only are our roles reversed but that this advice is easier said than done. It only feels easy when your problems are relatively minor. And right now, my problems feel anything but minor.

"I don't want Andy to feel guilty," I say-which is the complicated truth of the matter.

"Well, maybe he should feel guilty," Suzanne says. "He made you move."

"He didn't make me do anything," I say, feeling a pang of reassuring defensiveness for Andy. "He offered me plenty of outs. I just didn't take them… I put up no resistance at all."

"Well, that was stupid," she says.

I turn away from the sink and, feeling like I'm about ten years old, say, "You're stupid."