Long Division Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  9.5

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogueish Thing

  Appendix I - Roll Call: Miss Harper’s Class 2003-2004, Franklin Elementary, ...

  Appendix II - Physical Descriptions of Humans in This Story and Other Facts of ...

  Appendix III - Known (and Interesting!) Anomalies of Water

  Appendix IV - Stupid Things I Considered Calling My Memoirs

  Appendix V - Cool Facts About Chickens

  Acknowledgements

  A PLUME BOOK

  LONG DIVISION

  JANE BERENTSON grew up in rural Washington State. She is currently working on an MS in adolescent Spanish education at Pace University and teaching high school Spanish. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

  Praise for Long Division

  “With humor and heart, Jane Berentson paints a vivid portrait of Annie Harper. Charming, complicated, and very real, Miss Harper is a new kind of woman on the home front.”

  —Shari Goldhagen, author of Family and Other Accidents

  “A clever, deftly written novel.”

  —Kitsap Sun

  PLUME

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700,

  Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Published by Plume, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Previously published in a Viking edition as Miss Harper Can Do It.

  First Plume Printing, July 2010

  Copyright © Jane Berentson, 2009 All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  The Library of Congress has catalogued the Viking edition as follows:

  Berentson, Jane.

  Miss Harper can do it: a novel / by Jane Berentson.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-45609-5

  1. Young women—Fiction. 2. Diaries—Authorship—Fiction. 3. Long-distance

  relationships—Fiction. 4. Soldiers—Fiction. 5. Self-realization—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3602.E7515M57 2009

  813’.6—dc22 2008041836

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE AT QUANTITY DISCOUNTS WHEN USED TO PROMOTE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES. FOR INFORMATION PLEASE WRITE TO PREMIUM MARKETING DIVISION, PENGUIN GROUP (USA) INC., 375 HUDSON STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10014.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For all teachers and all soldiers, but mostly for my

  parents, Dan and Susan Berentson, who are each

  technically neither, but in many ways, both.

  1

  Today I’m calling my book Wartime Alone Time: When Abstinence Fights for Freedom. Technically, presently, it’s still called raindropswhattheflipamIgoingtosay.doc, and it’s a Microsoft Word document I created on my computer three days ago. To celebrate the commencement of my writing career, I had purchased a bottle of moderately priced scotch and settled down to my laptop with a loosely knit wool scarf draped dramatically around my shoulders. I don’t particularly enjoy scotch, but drinking it seemed to be the right kind of tortured artist thing to do. It was raining a good, thick curtain of Washington rain outside, and I watched drips of water scoot and slide down my kitchen window. I thought: Now am I supposed to describe these raindrops and then draw together some sort of complicated metaphor where they’re, like, representing my life? Then I turned to my blank screen and typed:

  raindropswhattheflipamIgoingtosay

  I saved the file and closed the computer. I took my glass of scotch to the sink and tossed it down the drain. It just didn’t feel right. I was going about this all wrong. So now, with a whopping three days of perspective under my belt, I’m ready to really bust out the words. My memoir: my rules. (My memoir rules!) 1. There must be a title. 2. I must abandon my inhibitions; abstain from analyzing my intentions; and simply GO GO GO. 3. I can always fix it later; scrub out the shocking indignities and shine up any shards of integrity, intelligence, or humor.

  I think Wartime Alone Time has a certain snap to it. I can imagine Tom Ashbrook or Katie Couric pronouncing it nice and slow—crisp and clear on the t sounds. Media professionals can make any title sound sophisticated and weighty.

  Today we’re talking to Annie Harper, a courageous young woman who will discuss her new book, Wartime Alone Time: When Abstinence Fights for Freedom, a poignant, fresh memoir recounting the year she and her boyfriend, a U.S. Army soldier, spent apart while he was serving in Iraq. Thank you for joining us, Annie . . .

  Oh, it is my great pleasure to be here, Katie.

  Like Ms. Couric would endorse a book that is anything less than poignant. The president will read it too. He’ll have to. Even though I plan on making fun of him about a million times. Even though I’m going to rip apart all of his decisions and all of his speech patterns and all of his everything that just might lead to the man I love being killed whilst driving a truckload of toilet paper across Baghdad—old W. will still read it. And then he’ll invite me over for dinner at the White House to have some sort of civil, intellige
nt conversation. I’ll wear something very nice and chat it up with the first family. What a fetching necklace, Laura. Jenna, don’t you just love this wine? They will all certainly adore me. W. will stand, raise his glass, and toast Annie Harper, peace, and the American Soldier. And by the time I leave, I’ll have convinced his sorry ass to reimburse me for the hefty therapy bill I will accrue this year while David is gone.1

  And as for the When Abstinence Fights for Freedom part of the title, it’s an aspect of wartime coping that’s recently fascinated me. David will be gone for at least 392 days on a mission that is supposed to be saving people and helping them. Something that is supposed to be working toward big abstractions like freedom and peace and progress. A considerable laundry list for 392 days, that’s for sure. Not that I’m a big counter or anything, but he did tell me and I did remember. Three hundred ninety-two days equals thirteen menstrual cycles, but only two times paying my car insurance. It all depends on how you look at it. But right now, in the early stages, I’m a little hung up on nature. I keep thinking about the grandly arrogant act of taking two happily mating creatures and ripping them apart for a significant length of time. David and I have been living blissfully for over two years in the great barking zoo that is Tacoma, Washington. We’ve been galloping back and forth to one another’s respective dwellings (mine a tiny one-bedroom rambler; his a dank, unadorned officer’s apartment on base), picking mites from each other’s hair and swapping bushy pieces of bamboo: peaceful inhabitants under a shared dome of safety. Thriving in our contained, functioning ecosystem! And now someone has stepped in, and for reasons I don’t entirely understand (because I am such a simple animal), shipped him across the world to another, more volatile, cage. So because I keep thinking about this zoo creature business, I keep thinking about this: Aside from 392 days of worrying and missing and taming my imagination and counting my lucky stars, it will be 392 days of no sexual intercourse (When Abstinence Fights for Freedom). Commence the repression of all mating urges now! So now when I watch or read something about Lonesome George—that poor, poor mateless creature2—I can raise my drink (not scotch) in a toast of solidarity. To our celibacy, Georgie! To our thick, thick skin!

  In wondering about historical patterns of female wartime alone-ness, my mind conjures up this image of the loyal woman at home as a diligent provider or worker bee or tireless organizer. Ration-coupon stashers. Child-rearing nurturers. Enthusiastic sign toters. And there’s this vague memory of a Greek (or Roman?) lady whose husband was gone for something like fifty years and she just kept knitting and knitting 3 some ginormous blanket until he got back. It was one of those epic battles that lasts for decades, to the point where no one really remembers why it started in the first place. It’s always something about border disputes or crowns or rights or beautiful women. Or oil. All this to say, if there is a woman at home, she is doing something.

  whattheflipamIgoingtodo???

  raindrops . . .

  whattheflipamIgoingtosay???

  fucking sliding scooting raindrops!

  Two weeks before David left, we took a road trip. Packed a tent and an inflatable mattress into his car. Drove down the Oregon coast, stopping at small towns to buy saltwater taffy at shops with wind socks out front and picnic tables out back. Gas prices were ridiculous, but we didn’t care. The whole trip held this weird pressure to be absolutely marvelous, but at the same time to be just normal old David/Annie fun. Like each meal had to be irrefutably tasty, but no different from a meal under any other circumstances. Our final cheeseburgers together had to be juicy-thick with bacon. Steaming curly fries on the side. But we could not say anything about it out loud. We could not name them The Special Before-You-Leave-For-War Cheeseburgers; we just had to enjoy their drippy meatiness and know that they were. And that’s kind of how I feel about attempting to write a memoir. Am I allowed to label the cheeseburgers here? How much sentimental smarminess will the U.S. military ration out to a gal like me? How much, Georgie?

  No, not you, my dear lonesome tortoise comrade. The other Georgie.

  So as I conclude this first (but on the second attempt) writing session, let me slap down a thesis statement that I aim to keep flashing in the front of my brain throughout the duration of this year and this project.

  Dear Annie,

  You must write to provoke, elicit, and understand your deepest emotions. To coax them out and paint them plain and ugly. Sweet and/or bitter. In documenting how you pass this year, you will hopefully come to understand something more profound about yourself, David Peterson, Lonesome George, George W. Bush, and maybe (if you’re lucky), the ENTIRE UNIVERSE.

  Fondest regards,

  Annie Harper

  Nine days after David leaves, school starts. I’m not as prepared this year. Last year I spent hours coloring in the SpongeBob name tags for my kids’ desks. Making sure all the colors matched the actual hues of the show. I had six weeks of lessons planned. There was a field trip arranged and this very elaborate calendar to count down the days until the end of the year. This year we’re not counting.

  “So that’s a little bit of information about me, boys and girls. I’m very excited to have you all here this year. You will see soon enough that third grade is a blast. Does anyone have any questions?” A girl in the second row uncrosses her ankles and lifts her little tush off the seat as if her flailing arm has caused her to levitate. I did a real half-ass job making name tags for the desks this year. They’re rocket ships. The proportions are all wrong and they are really, really ugly. Squinting for the child’s name, I notice for the first time (even though I should have noticed shortly after making twenty-eight of them) that the rocket ship name tags are blatantly phallic.

  “Yes, Caitlin?”

  “Miss Harper, do you have a boyfriend?”

  “Why, yes. I do.”

  “Does he live in your bed with you?” The kids giggle at their peer’s gumption. Except they don’t know that it’s gumption because they don’t use words like that since they are eight. I almost giggle at her clumsy, childish rhetoric. But then it’s exactly her clumsy, childish rhetoric that evokes an image of a horizontal David with a comatose stare and swollen ankles: an invalid living in my bed with me.

  “No dear, he lives really far away.”

  “How far?”

  “Like, really, really far,” I say.

  “That’s not a very exact answer,” says Caitlin.

  “Well, I’m fucking sorry, but that’s all you’re going to get.”

  Okay, so I probably shouldn’t write fake moments of dialogue where I cuss out my students. Thankfully (and perhaps luckily), I have never cursed at a child. Now that I’m nine pages into this whole narrative experiment, I’m finding myself tempted to fictionalize. Not because I want to change the way I’m represented on the page—Annie Harper will do what Annie Harper will do—but more because mixing it up, imagining what could have happened instead of what already did, is simply more interesting. I never considered the boring repetition of documenting one’s own life. Something happens. Then you watch it happen again in your imagination as you write it down. If things don’t fire up, this project is in danger of becoming exceptionally tedious. I guess the second time—the writing time—is when I’m supposed to add the pretty words and the laugh tracks and the complex analytical questions. Don’t just make shit up, Miss Harper! You will fail the assignment with no chance at extra credit.

  If I had dropped the f-bomb like that, I’d have been out of a teaching job in minutes. Thank goodness my fuse is not so short. When Caitlin spat that sass at me, I simply sighed and said something like, “Well, let’s talk about VIP days!” or “Let me tell you about the hall pass!” My teacher persona isn’t easily rattled to the point that awful things escape. They brew, they fester, they tickle the insides of my lips, but they always stay inside. I rarely lose my cool.4 I rarely get hysterical.

  What’s weird about these first David-free weeks is that I seem to have a free pass for hyster
ia. People are genuinely expecting me to be all weepy and frazzled. The teachers in my school with whom I am relatively close have all commented on how “put together” I seem to them. Like it’s some incredible feat that I’ve managed to button my blouse the proper way and keep my bottom lip from dropping sadly to the floor. And then there is my dear, sweet mother. The morning David left, I drove to my parents’ house. My father was at work, of course, but my mother really insisted that I come by. She had it all oddly planned out. There was the special quiche she knows I love. Fresh melons all cut up. Kleenex strategically placed throughout the house in places I’d never seen it while growing up. On the bookcase. Near the kitchen sink. Had Kleenex always been there, and I merely too snot-free and happy to notice? My mom was just inside the door when I entered. Surely she had started brewing the coffee just as she heard my tires on the driveway gravel. She’s always been great at having coffee ready.

  “Oh, Annie,” she said. And she lifted her eyebrows with her arms as if they were both waiting to cradle my sobs or something.

  “Hey, mom.” It was supposed to be one of those big emotional moments. One of those times when you know exactly why you have a mother. I was supposed to collapse into the soft of her postmenopausal abdomen and transfer to her half of my grief and half of my worry and half of my depression. And we would share it.5 Instead, I complimented the new paint in the entryway, “Blue is so clean-looking,” and we went inside.

  That morning there had been this big flag-waving, yellow-ribbon, send-off hoopla. I hated it. I hated the other women waving yellow ribbons and white handkerchiefs. Actual cloth handkerchiefs! Who even uses those anymore? I know it’s supposed to be helpful. Remind us all that we’re not alone. It’s supposed to remind me that the mission is for something that someone somewhere thinks is a good idea. It’s supposed to make soldiers feel that we’ll be here smiling and waving and waiting—wearing the same low-cut tops—the whole damn time they’re gone.