m review — social commentary & satire — one day in the life of denise ivanovich
One Day In the Life of Denise Ivanovich
by Kelly White
Denise did not like to oversleep. Time was something she carefully tried to manage, as time seemed so unnervingly unmanageable. She sat up, heart pounding, vision blurring. She had only slept for a couple of hours, again, and she was plagued with the vivid, violent dreams of the sleep deprived.
This time it was her daughter who was dying. Denise frantically tried to stop the slippery, warm life that gushed from her daughter's mouth, her eyes, and her ears. Denise could not stop the flow of blood. She willed the images from her mind, slid her feet into her slippers and shuffled downstairs.
Outside, the cold, steady rain continued to fall. Denise flipped through the pages of the latest selection from her book group. They had assured her she would love Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. It was a book that most women had read by the time they had reached her age. But Denise had only been to one meeting, and only because Michael had encouraged her to attend. He thought she should try to meet some women with similar interests, but Denise wasn't sure she had found her niche. They discussed Ann Roiphe's Fruitful: A Real Mother in the Modern World and because Denise was new, they politely asked for her opinion first. Flattered to be asked what she thought about anything at all, she burst out with what she thought to be a lucid yet subtle critique of the book. Encouraged by a misinterpretation of the looks on their faces, she finished off by boldly declaring that it seemed to her as if Ann Roiphe must write with a metronome at her side. The speech was met with a light cough, averted eyes. She hadn't known that this was the group's favored author. Denise determined to make a better impression with next month's selection.
The dog gently nudged Denise's leg. She looked down at the little Bichon, and he looked intently into her eyes, willing her to understand his wishes. They bought Caesar for the children just over a year ago. The breeder had characterized the dog as hypoallergenic, but with high emotional needs. And while Denise was grateful that he did not shed, she resented his constant surveillance of her every move.
She got up to let the dog out and her heart skipped a beat in that particular tha-thump way that it often did when she hadn't slept. She steadied herself with a hand on the counter, told herself it was just another preventricular contraction. Michael assured her they were harmless. She thought maybe she should have taken something last night: Benadryl, Ambien, Sonata, Halcion, Lunesta, Trazadone, or even Seroquel. She had tried and disliked them all. Still, Michael would be irritated if he knew that she had not slept again. He thought it was pure stubbornness; she suffered needlessly. The kitchen clock beeped several times to remind her that it was time to get the children up for school and she started at the sound.
Michael would just be arriving at the hospital, rounding on his patients. Denise pictured him walking briskly from patient to patient, his concerned blue eyes attentively scanning their faces. At their wedding, everybody told her how lucky she was. He was tall, attractive, and successful and she was, after all, rather chronically overweight. It seemed an unlikely match. But fifteen years had passed; Michael and Denise had two children. The girl, just 7, was in the second grade and the boy, already 11, was in the sixth. Denise knew she was lucky; it was perfect. But she felt somehow frozen in time, waiting for her life to begin.
Denise was making the children's lunches when the doorbell rang. A young man holding a clipboard stood at the front door. "Sorry to bother you so early," he said. "When we did your early winter deep root fertilization on the trees and hedge, I noticed that the arbor vitae in the back are beginning to deteriorate. If you don't keep the leaves raked out from under that hedge, the root rot may kill it." It took a moment for the meaning of his words to take shape. This must be the arborist and therefore today must be Wednesday. She asked him to wait, found her credit card, and handed it to him. She watched him as he jotted down the numbers. His concern for the hedge appeared genuine and Denise marveled at it. She smiled, nodded, and promised to request that the lawn service remove the dangerous leaves.
On her way back to the kitchen, Denise glanced at the list of errands she had compiled the night before. The appliance service engineer was scheduled to arrive by 9am and she needed to get the children to school first; she would have to hurry.
Many of Denise's days were spent alternating between the van and the house, but she preferred the van. She drove only the tiny circuit required to complete her errands, but the van, at least, offered the illusion that she was actually going somewhere. Denise was sometimes tempted to drive south and keep driving south until she encountered a warm, bright sun. But somehow she always ended up right back where she had started, the circuit complete.
Denise rushed the children from the house, their backpacks overflowing with pages of homework, their hands loaded with lunches and band instruments. Denise managed to get back just in time to greet the service engineer. Then she began to tidy up. She walked from room to room, picking up the debris of their life and putting it all in order. It was, indeed, Wednesday and that meant that the cleaning service would be arriving soon. These ladies always arrived in pairs or trios and they were quick to emphasize to Denise that if she wanted her house to be cleaned, she must at least pick up before they arrived. She was relieved that she did not have to be there to greet them; they had a key, and her credit card number was on file.
The service engineer called her into the laundry room for a report on the state of the washer and dryer. She was instructed on the proper technique required to clean the washer with a disinfectant. He had taken care of it for now, but the threat of mold was ever present. Denise nodded, smiled, promised to keep abreast of the mold, and handed him her credit card.
The dog was scheduled to be groomed at 11. Denise sat Caesar on the front seat and turned the radio up. Denise always made sure the van windows were up because Riverview was, above all, a quiet community. She breathed a little sigh as she turned out of her neighborhood into the general traffic heading downtown and let the loud music flood into her. She glanced over at the dog. He was hunched down into the leather seat, panting lightly. Apparently, Caesar didn't much care for Van Halen.
Denise dropped the dog off quickly, not pausing to chat, and promised to be back in exactly one hour to collect him. She considered buying herself a treat, perhaps some Italian chocolate. Chocolate just seemed to take the edge off and Denise had spent enough sleepless nights reading Michael's neuropsychiatric journals to know a little bit about this process. She knew that chocolate contained its very own cannabinoids. She knew that the anandamide in chocolate was much smarter and more specifically targeted in the brain than the psychoactive substance in its harsh cousin marijuana. Denise congratulated herself on having picked up a few useful facts from her fifteen years of marriage. Nevertheless, she hesitated. Chocolate was fattening and it occurred to her that in Riverview a possession charge was most likely more forgivable than being overweight.
Denise decided to get the chocolate anyway, but not just any chocolate. She wanted organic, low sugar, high antioxidant chocolate with a minimum of 51% cocoa content. The higher the cocoa content, the higher the phenylethylamine content, she reasoned. And Denise knew that phenylethylamine, naturally present in chocolate but also produced by the body, plays a critical role in feelings of passion. Phenylethylamine levels peak during orgasm, and the right chocolate, Denise had learned, could induce similar feelings of bliss. In this respect, Denise felt that Ghirardelli was superior to any of the Belgian chocolates. And right now she wanted some. Her cell phone began ringing again; it was Michael. He reminded her to pick up the dry cleaning. Hadn't she remembered that he would need his suit for a speaking engagement this evening? Denise promised to pick up the suit, she didn't mention the chocolate, and she began driving to the dry cleaners, turning away from the health food store and the life-giving phenylethylamine.
After picking up the dry cleaning, Denise did not have time to get to the health food store, so she turned the van around and headed instead back toward the dog groomer. She knocked politely at the back door, where it seemed to Denise that all dog groomer's have their entrance, and went in quietly. Caesar was still on the table, and the groomer looked exasperated.
"Caesar is impossible today," the lady said, turning to Denise. When Denise did not respond, she continued. "He's drooling and breathing hard." It was suggested that Denise take the dog to the vet and ask for a sedative. She suggested Denise watch The Dog Whisperer, Friday night, 8pm, channel 273. Precise instructions were written down. Denise promised to get the sedative, and she handed the lady her credit card.
Denise drove Caesar home, with the radio off, and quietly put him in his kennel. It was 12:30. She didn't have to be at the school until 3:00. Denise was then overcome by an odd, paralyzing sensation. It was an urgent sense of boredom. It was as if she had no time, that there was, in fact, not a moment to spare, but that she hadn't anything to do. There must be something besides bunko, book group and bible study, she thought.
The ladies in her bible study group believed that a wise and beneficent father would save them. With equal fervor, Denise believed that a great and yawning nothingness awaited her. She knew this the way they knew that Christ was present in all the storms of their daily life. I suppose I could try and catch a class at the Club, she thought. The new Pilates instructor is supposed to be incredible. But, no, she couldn't quite stomach scooped bellies and spandex. If it was exercise she wanted, all she had to do was go upstairs to the exercise room.
A treadmill awaited her, but lately their son had taken to keeping his dwarf hamster in the room. Denise hated rodents but she had agreed to buy the thing because this particular species was blessed with a ridiculously short lifespan. Her son had named the furry ball Blackberry. Blackberry lived in a plastic multi-colored cage which sat on the ping pong table, right next to the treadmill. Denise figured she could endure anything, for a short time, yet she found it profoundly unnerving that the hamster insisted on running in his wheel alongside her when she was on the treadmill. It always seemed that the little rodent's black eyes were fixed steadily on her as they ran their paces. It sometimes seemed, and she knew this was silly, as if the animal was challenging her. "Oh, not exercise!" she said, shuddering, and all at once it came to her. She would go shopping! Denise decided to shop for shoes. Parisi and Nadalini, Lorenzi, Cavali, Prada and Versace; Italian shoes might just save her!
Denise drove to the mall, radio blaring, and was beginning to feel better. Her step was a little lighter as she strode past the colorful storefronts, arriving finally at her favorite shop. The clerks welcomed her warmly; she'd been shopping there for years. People knew her here. Trying on the shoes was pleasant and the clerks made her feel important. They cared about what she liked and didn't like. They didn't care about the rotting hedge, the moldy washer, the almost forgotten dry cleaning or the anxious dog, and Denise was really beginning to enjoy herself.
Just as the clerk was ringing up the purchase of a truly phenomenal pair of shoes, there was a short silence, and then, in a loud whisper the clerk said, "I'm very sorry, but your transaction has been rejected. Is it possible you've exceeded your limit?" A pink blush slowly rose to Denise's cheeks and she caught her breath as she carefully put the card back in her purse. She said she would purchase the shoes later. She promised to check into the problem with the credit card and she strode calmly out of the store, past the colorful storefronts, not stopping until she regained the safety of her van.
Denise drove home slowly, radio off. The rain continued to fall. So it had finally happened. She had exceeded her limit, and in that instant the thin veil that hid the fruitlessness of her existence was pulled aside. She knew she should be picking up the children soon. What would happen if she didn't show up? Of course they would call her at home, and on her cell phone. And then they would call Michael. He would have to go to the school, and he would be angry.
Denise entered the house quietly and locked the door behind her. Caesar was sleeping. She walked up the stairs to the bedroom, and locked the bedroom door behind her. She didn't want the children to walk in on her. She looked around the bedroom and walked into the master bathroom. She turned on all the lights until a bright warmth suffused the room. The cleaning service had come and gone; it was impeccable.
Denise opened several of the medicine cabinet doors all at once and looked at the rows of pill bottles. She knew that because most women chose to use pills, only sixty-five percent of female suicides were successful. Suicide by overdose is an inexact science, she thought.
"Absurd!" she said and she closed the cabinet doors. She searched through Michael's drawer until she found what she was looking for. She started the bath running and let her clothes fall in a heap on the tile floor.
She added some verbena bath gel to the steaming tub and a cloud of lemony bubbles rose out of the water. She switched on the stereo and the sound of Led Zeppelin's deep acoustic guitar filled the room. The water was almost too hot for her, but she managed to get in. She laid back and rested her head on the tub. She closed her eyes.
Denise picked up the razor from the side of the tub and looked at her wrist. She couldn't recall whether or not it might be better to cut the blue veins, those going to the heart, or the red arteries, those leaving the heart. She clenched and unclenched her fist until both became more prominent. In the end, she chose the biggest vein she could find. As the razor began to sink into her skin her stomach lurched, she felt dizzy and she thought she might throw up. "Stay focused," she whispered, concentrating on distinguishing between pain and fear. By separating sensation from emotion, Denise managed to stop her hand from shaking. She focused all her attention on the razor, and as she exhaled she cut lengthwise: a long, deep cut that ran almost the full length of her forearm. The razor cutting into her skin stung, and all that had been rising in her converged and released.
The blood was a beautiful, slick, glistening red; and how it flowed. She felt warm and sleepy as she watched the blood streaming from her arm in a steady rhythm of short, pulsing bursts. The bath bubbles were absorbing the blood and it seemed to her that she was being enveloped in a cloud of pink. She tried to recall the feng shui theory she had studied during the redecorating. Did pink signify partnership or harmony? She couldn't remember.
Her wrist throbbed a little, but not much. It occurred to her that she might have left a note, but she had absolutely nothing to say. This was not a dramatic exit; it was not a desperate cry for help from the dark of her soul. This was the natural and logical consequence of a process that had begun long ago. It was true, she had once been diagnosed with free floating anxiety disorder, but that was wrong. And with the preternatural clarity that only the dying possess, Denise diagnosed herself.
If I must name this problem, the problem that has no name, she thought, it is the failure to thrive. In clinical terms, one might say that her environment had simply failed to produce enough stimulation to support her development. In short, Denise had failed to develop along a proper timeline. But now, now she had finally and completely taken control of time. All of eternity stretched before her right now, in this instant. She could hear the telephone ringing.
Kelly White of Lake Oswego, Oregon
Kelly White graduated from Marylhurst University in August 2005 with a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies.
