Emily's Books (A Mother's Boredom)

Emily looked at the furniture in her living room, one arm crossed over her chest the other held a flute glass half full with orange juice and champagne.  She didn't like the look of the room, and the feel had become too familiar.  She needed to change something.  Too many days had been spent looking at the same colors, the same contents.  This was especially true of the book shelf.  The spines of the books were all where they had been placed nearly two years ago.

She had dusted around them, kept the edge clean.  The only change was where her husband and son now had a full shelf devoted to DVD's.  They had collected them over the last year and now they had begun to stack them.  Her husband argued reasonably that he didn't see the need to rent them when he could buy them just as cheap.

All of the titles, all of their content, was for them, distasteful little things, action sagas where a man overcame all odds to get revenge, movies full of gore and crass jokes.  There were few romantic comedies because she preferred books.

A housewife, a good housewife, needed a long distraction to take her mind off the persistent day.  She could have hours, pockets of time really, when there was nothing for her to do.

The first was after the kids had gone to school.  At first she sat in front of the television like she had known others to do but this was too boring, so she tried exercise.  She ran for an hour, her body became thinner, her husband took notice but she couldn't keep it up every day so it became a once every three days thing.

The second was after lunch which was usually short.  Much of her time went into preparing the salad or whatever she would eat.  Never very fond of comfort food she preferred light lunches like tuna with no mayonnaise, fruits and vegetables in the Spring and the Summer.  It was easy enough to prepare a lunch and eat it when she was alone.

Then there was the time between lunch and when the kids returned from school.  She used to believe that mother's spent this time cooking.  Many do.  But she found an easy method by making dishes that could be thrown together in minutes then baked or set to simmer.  Same thing with the laundry, though when she had to iron it did add time.  She could set the machines, come back and swap loads, everything at her convenience.

The third was after dinner when the kids were doing their homework and hubby was in his office.  She loaded the dishes in the washer, turned on the machine.  Sometimes she didn't unload the machine and the next day she would set the table with everything from the machine.

It was all too easy.  So she read.  Her favorite escape was romance but she took pride in her eclectic purchases and she didn’t keep the romance on the living room shelf.  Those had their own shrine in the bedroom.  No out here she kept her intellectual books, her coffee table books.  Though no one ever asked if they were hers.  Once when hubby's coworkers were over one mentioned to him the variety of books he had read.  He just nodded, never correcting that the books were his wife's.

Admittedly at first she bought the books the store was trying to sell her.  That is until she bought too many books about the Civil War as told by white men.  After that she sought out titles and authors on her own.  She could be inspired by an event in her life or something she read in the newspaper.

One of the last on her block to still get the newspaper, reading it took almost a half hour.  She skipped many parts though, especially about the war.  It's not that she didn't care.  She wanted desperately to care but what had been simple became complex, depressing.  When she saw all the yellow ribbons in her neighborhood, on the backs of cars, she knew it affected her every day.  So she said a prayer for the soldiers, a short prayer.

This usually made her wonder if she should spend more time at the church.  If she could help out in her community.  Then she would stand at her window and look out at the quiet street, during the school year rarely did a occur drive by, and if it was then it would be a housewife off to go shopping.  Sometimes she would be one of them fleeing her home.  She wondered if others saw her pass by and thought the same things.  She didn't care if they did.

But if they did then she might have something in common with someone.  They could have something to discuss.  She had read all the books to discuss issues of race, religion, politics, even sexuality.  When she tried to talk to hubby he would avoid the discussion saying he had gotten all of that out of him in college.  Now he just wanted to work, return home, eat and then sleep.  When he told her this she thought about going back to school, part-time classes at the local community college, but that would really take away time from her family, unlike reading where she could stop when needed.

No, she had her books, forever the same and enduring.  They could fill all of her hours.

She sometimes wondered if she should try to share her books, maybe join a club.  This was the most appealing idea of all.  But then she could see it interfering with her kids or hubby.  For instance she had to attend Justin's swim-meets occasionally.  Though not so much anymore, not after he got over swimming around in a Speedo in front of kids his own age.  In fact she guessed it could be embarrassing these days.  Bad enough that his sister was a Freshman.

And Anne, just entering high school, she was changing.  She didn't like the things she used to, didn't have the same friends, and she started wearing black.  Goth, she had read about this, both sides.  But the strangest thing about her daughter was that she was still a part of the church youth group.  Two boys she palled around with dressed like her.  One boy even wore black lip stick.

She thought about her son again, poor Justin.  She had suspected all his life that he was gay but never wanted to say anything about it.  She didn't know if she could see him wearing lip stick but there was always a connection to him in her thoughts when something like that came up.  She thought back to when he used to skip around the playground.  His first-grade teacher called and told her.  She responded that she was happy he wasn't fighting.

In junior high some boys had beat him up in the locker room.  Her world became exciting then, she had something to do.  Kept him home for two days while his face healed.  They didn't talk much but she did sit with him while he watched movies.

Those movies, the ones that slowly were taking over her book shelf.  Well it was a family book shelf but still.  It had started with just a few.  Then she removed some books, then a few more, and the last time hubby pulled the last books out, stacked them on the dining table.  She could have yelled at them for doing that.  Instead she put the books in the bedroom.

She eyed the shelf.  Movies were fine, a good drama could make you cry and a good romantic comedy could make you laugh and feel optimistic.  None of the movies on the shelf were like that.  She would have to go out and buy her own movies.  Though they could fill her day they didn't have the presence of a book, the weight or engagement.

And it occurred to her what she could do.  She could buy them their own book shelf, a smaller one where they could keep all their DVDs.  She removed the DVDs, stacked them on a nearby chair.  This was her second window of time, before the kids got home.  If she acted quickly she could come back with a nice unit, place all of the DVDs in it and replace her books to their rightful place.  Her hands moved more quickly.

When she was done she made sure the windows and back door were locked, collected her purse and keys, locked the front door and went to her car.  She knew she had to be fast.  But she had to be safe.  Driving and shopping were her favorite parts of her day and not for the reasons some may expect.  Not because driving got her to the store and she could spend hubby's money at the store.  She liked to drive because she could forget about everything else.  She liked to shop because when she held the cash or credit card in her hand she had a sense of entitlement.  Just by her dress, when she walked into a store the employees took notice.

Picking out a bookshelf was not as easy as she thought it would be.  She wanted to match the color then the design.  This took enough time that she decided to order dinner instead of worrying about making anything.  As she stood paying she ordered the food, two large pizzas.

She arrived home before the delivery man.  Justin stood in the kitchen, shirtless.  Another boy sat looking through the DVDs.

"Hey mom," Justin said.  "How come all the DVDs are stacked like that?"

She looked to the boy who didn't look up.

"Who's your friend?"

"Oh this is Mark.  He's on the team with me.  We were going to go out tonight.  He has his parent's car."

She smiled politely.

"Well maybe Mark can help you unload the car."

"Did you get groceries?" he asked.

"No, but I got a bookshelf for those DVDs.  When you bring it in put them on it.  And put it over there by the television."

Justin signaled to Mark who followed him out to the car.

"And I ordered pizza," she said.  But he was outside and she didn't know if he had heard.

Moments later Justin and Mark returned, though it was light they both carried the bookshelf.  They placed it beside the television like she had asked.  A pizza deliver man stood in the doorway a few moments later.  She took money from her purse and paid the man.

"I suppose it would be okay if your friend had a few slices," she said.

"Oh, no thanks.  We were going to get dinner," Mark said.

"Yeah mom, thanks but we have to go," Justin added before he retrieved his shirt from the back of a chair.

They were gone, a gust of wind barely able to fit through the closing of the door.

"Huh," she said to herself.

She eyed the DVDs.

The phone rang and she noticed there was a message on the answering machine. She picked up the phone.

"Hello, Beck residence," she said.

"Hey mom, I'm over Tyler's place.  Don't worry his parents are home.  Anyway they want me to have dinner here.  Is it okay?" Anne asked.

Emily eyed the pizza.

"It's fine honey," she answered.

"Thanks mom,"

Emily hung up the phone, pressed the playback on the answering machine.

"Hey honey, it's me, I got stuck working late tonight.  Hope you didn't go to too much length cooking.  Anyway I will be home before ten.  Love ya," hubby said.

The message ended.  Emily eyed the book shelf.  Then with a sigh of resignation she picked up the pizzas, slid the chair to the shelf, sat on the floor, opened the top box and began to place DVDs.  She thought of her day, her family.  Gone now, but there would come a time when they would need her she just had to wait.