The King and the Quirky Read online

  Contents

  The King and the Quirky

  Copyright © 2019 Heather Siegel. All rights reserved.

  Dedication

  Intro

  Granola Girl

  Sire

  Courtship

  Court

  Kingdoms

  Namesake

  The Castle

  Princess Julia

  The Great Divide

  The Uprising

  Crusades

  Vanquished

  Hail Mary

  Royal Counsel

  Ablutions

  The Coronatio

  Abdication

  More From the Tribe:

  Praise for The King and the Quirky

  Heather Siegel has an awesome sense of humor and a penetrating view of what contemporary marriage is all about. And as a newlywed, I was thrilled to read about all that’s in store for me! This is a page-turning, laugh-out-loud tale of triumphant love, and self-love, and a cautionary story of both when to compromise and when never to give up or give in.

  -- Neesha Arter, author of Controlled: The Worst Night of My Life and Its Aftermath

  Heather Siegel’s latest is a love story for the ages, but not in the way you think. While her vivid descriptions of falling for her soulmate make it impossible for the reader not to travel back in time to their first love, it’s Siegel’s keen insight that gives the reader the gift of watching her - a strong, independent, wits-about-her bad ass - fall back in love with herself. In a time where women’s freedoms and choices are in danger, Heather Siegel takes back her power, her life, and her spirit in a true story of love, loss, and finding out who you really are. This is a must-read for anyone who’s been looking for themselves, and everyone who has never thought they had to.

  --Lauren J. Sharkey, Inconvenient Daughter

  [The King & The Quirky] is a powerful memoir of a process that will be familiar to many women: one which involves the remarkable task of reconsidering life’s goals and possibilities within and beyond the traditions of marital bliss and connection… [Siegel’s] memoir represents an important survey of both the evolution of hope and self and the end results of such pursuits, creating an accessible, humorous, involving account highly recommended for women at various stages of growth.

  --Diane Donovan, Midwest Book Review

  With wit and insight, Heather Siegel offers a fresh look at an ancient institution. Leaving no cultural assumption unturned, she illustrates how marriage can be a clarifying crucible for the bravest of us, pushing us to encounter each other in all our complexity, and making us the better for it.

  — Rebecca Baum, author of Lifelike Creatures

  Heather Siegel does the rarest of things: she speaks the truth about marriage with warmth, wit and lacerating self-awareness. With an uncanny eye for detail, Siegel teaches powerful lessons that should be required learning for anyone in love: Chemistry and compatibility are not the same. The first few months of your relationship bears little resemblance to the next 40 years. You can’t change your partner but if you can accept each other’s flaws and repeatedly choose kindness over resentment, you can create a happy life. The King and The Quirky is a singular accomplishment: a deeply personal story that is universal to any reader who has ever been married.

  --Evan Katz, dating coach and author of four books, including Believe in Love

  Heather Siegel takes a deep dive into matrimony and motherhood… Witty, big-hearted, and brutally honest, Siegel keeps us engaged as she takes us through her trials and tribulations, heroically evolving into a person of her own—all the while questioning conventional notions of love and happiness. An inspirational and memorable read.

  --Esther Amini, author of Concealed: A Memoir of a Jewish/Iranian Daughter Caught Between the Chador and America.

  The King and the Quirky

  A Memoir of Love, Marriage, Domesticity, Feminism, and Self

  Heather Siegel

  Regal House Publishing

  Copyright © 2019 Heather Siegel. All rights reserved.

  Published by

  Regal House Publishing, LLC

  Raleigh, NC 27612

  All rights reserved

  ISBN -13 (paperback): 9781947548954

  ISBN -13 (epub): 9781646030224

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019941546

  All efforts were made to determine the copyright holders and obtain their permissions in any circumstance where copyrighted material was used. The publisher apologizes if any errors were made during this process, or if any omissions occurred. If noted, please contact the publisher and all efforts will be made to incorporate permissions in future editions.

  Interior and cover design by Lafayette & Greene

  lafayetteandgreene.com

  Cover images © by Marchie/Shutterstock

  Regal House Publishing, LLC

  https://regalhousepublishing.com

  The following is a work of fiction created by the author. All names, individuals, characters, places, items, brands, events, etc. were either the product of the author or were used fictitiously. Any name, place, event, person, brand, or item, current or past, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Regal House Publishing.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Dedication

  Intro

  “There is nowhere like Long Island.”

  —T.B., Dix Hills, married twelve years

  “Long Island is pretty typical of U.S. Suburbia.”

  —J.G., Oyster Bay, married nine years

  Intro

  I used to feel bad about killing the mice. Ten years ago, I would cup spiders, even mosquitoes, and free them outside. Once, I saw a squirrel get clipped by a car—his little gray body hurtled from street to sidewalk. I swerved to the side of the road and rigged a stretcher from an old Gap TT-shirt and manila folder containing tax documents. I scooped up the terrified animal, slid him into the bushes, and covered him from the neck down with my T-shirt.

  “Sorry, little guy. I’m just so sorry.” I blinked back the tears, trying not to ruin my edgy black liner; they came anyway, and I cried for his pain as well as the injustice of mankind’s selfish need for more roads. After finishing my errands, I returned to check on him. He was gone. Had I saved his life?

  I liked to think so.

  “Either that or you gift-wrapped a meal for a hawk,” my husband said when I told him the story ten years later. We were setting down mouse traps in our farmhouse kitchen. My cats, who had kept the mice at bay for years, had died of old age by then, and we were now reliant on Ace Hardware to ward off little black droppings.

  I hadn’t gone straight for the snap-and-kill devices my husband had left under the sink. “For when you’re ready to get real,” he’d said. Instead, I’d held my ground and tried the sonic plug-ins and the spearmint pouches that looked like oversize tea bags. But eventually droppings sprinkled the floor around the stove, peppered the insides of cabinets and drawers, and littered the bottom pantry shelf.

  I didn’t want to get real, and I sure as hell didn’t want to concede. But vaguely aware that the droppings were a metaphor for all I could no longer control in my life, and possibly even for the gazillion resentments I clung to, I reached under the sink, smeared peanut butter onto the yellow plastic faux cheese bits, and hoped for a small victory.

  Still, it was shocking that first time I found the innocent creature served up on that little wooden board, eyes bulging, head hooked in place. I felt terrible. Did he really deserve this cruel death?

  The second time, I felt a little more pragmatic about it. Mice did carry disease, and I had a child to worry about now. By the third mouse, I’d developed a utilitarian stoicism. I mean, what had to be done, had to be done. But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that, every now and then, I felt a touch of sadistic satisfaction as I dropped the trap into the garbage pail.

  “I warned, you, motherfucker,” I actually whispered aloud one morning. And that’s when it hit me.

  Marriage can really change a person.

  Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, in and of itself. Unless, of course, you realize you don’t actually like the person you’ve become and want to get back to your old self but don’t know how.

  Then what?

  Well, first, you recognize you’re not alone, understanding this metamorphosis can happen to the best of us, to women who once lit pathways for themselves, who commanded their careers and listened to their dreams, or, at the least, to those women who once operated as independent beings in the world before they entrapped themselves in marital bliss (or as I like to call it on a bad day, the identity-sucking vortex of domestic life).

  Second, I suppose you do what you do when you’ve lost anything—say, your keys. You retrace your steps to where you last saw them.

  Granola Girl

  “It’s hard to believe there is only one person for you in the entire world.”

  —A.H., Huntington, married thirteen years

  Granola Girl

  I was handling things all by my grown-up, thirty-four-year-old self. Frothing milk with one
hand, I spurted chocolate sauce onto a floating pile of homemade whipped cream and spun around to expedite a tray of steamed, sugary concoctions.

  “Order up!” I tapped the bell, the kind found on the counter of an old-fashioned reception desk. The nearest employee, Ronan, a freckled computer engineer with milky skin, a red afro, and Pavlovian reflexes, whisked off the tray in time for Jen, a modern dancer with a swinging black ponytail, to pirouette toward the next one landing down.

  But no matter how nimbly, on this or any given Saturday night, we served the eighty or so guests crammed onto velvet couches, tufted ottomans, and precarious chairs purchased from the Salvation Army, which could snap and break at any given moment, no matter how loudly we called to one another—table three still waiting on a Turkey Zest! table fourteen needs their Oreo Granita—it all felt at the time like a dream in which we couldn’t run fast enough.

  And for ten years, I’d loved every second of it.

  “Table nine’s staring,” I informed Craig, a twenty-two-year-old “triple threat” with purple-tipped hair, ginger skin, and an outgoing personality he hoped would land him a part in Broadway’s Rent.

  “On it.” He loaded his arms with plates and disappeared into the mayhem.

  I beamed, proud of his multi-tasking abilities, proud of the whole staff. Since the inception of the coffeehouse, I’d rarely had to fire anyone; the place did it for me. You either had the ability to remain calm and steady as people swarmed this cozy 1400-square-foot space, threatening to knock over your teetering trays, while the folk musician’s jacked-up volume rattled the windows and mirrors, the blenders and steamers roared, and the hostess yelled into the makeshift microphone of her cupped hand, trying to keep track of the names in her notebook and the made-up times she’d told them (half hour wait, one hour wait, an hour and a half wait), because there was really no way of knowing who was here for the dessert, music, after-movie treat, or night out—or you didn’t.

  Logically, there seemed no good reason why that little store with its giant wooden coffee cup for a sign, mismatched couches, red velvet drapes, vintage candle holders, and sunflower and orange walls covered in pieces by local artists—a place I was told time and again seemed transported from Williamsburg, Manhattan, or San Francisco—should have done well, smack in the center of working class Long Island suburbia. Especially in the town of Wantagh, known for an Irish-Catholic crowd, pubs, diners, churches, and houses decorated in Victorian dark wood paneling and traditional-style furniture. Nor did it seem obvious why Wednesday’s Open Mic was standing room only, why Psychic Night would book weeks in advance, or why the place would garner a reputation in the local press and media as a destination nightlife spot, drawing people from all walks of life, ages, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and towns.

  Except maybe to me, that independent being, operating not only in the world but who also trusted instinct to guide her. To that person, everything about the place made sense, beginning with the fact that I bet on the contrarian theory: Long Island had no place like it and that meant no competition. Besides, I’d reasoned, why should Williamsburg or Manhattan or San Francisco have all the fun anyway?

  Also, I cared about every square inch of the place, which, as any small business owner knows, creates a good portion of the magic. Every angle of every sequined or furry throw pillow needed to be just so, every corner scrubbed, every deck of cards returned to its pack, every syrup bottle polished with its label facing outward, every tea infuser and spoon sterilized clean and shiny, every dessert decorated in an approved design of geometric patterns and flowers using plastic-tipped bottles of chocolate, orange, white chocolate, and berry elixirs. Now and then, when an employee went rogue and created, say, a toothpick stenciling of a human profile, she knew to come to me first for approval.

  Somewhere along the way, I’d surmised that people wanted to be entertained when they went out, or maybe I just needed that. But why look at bland lamp shades when you could read quotes on them, scribbled in fabric marker? And the trouble is, if you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.—Erica Jong. Why order mundane things like hot chocolate and coffee, when you could instead order Hot Mocha Cocoa and The Third Rail? Why read off the backs of the employees’ T-shirts something pedestrian like Staff when, instead, you could read the motto, Liquefy the Soul, which no one understood, including the owner and the employee who came up with it.

  Not that this last point mattered. The employees always had an excuse for why they forgot to wear their shirts, and I was okay with that, knowing the real reason was because they wanted to show off their personal style, which also contributed to the place’s charisma.

  Yes, it all made perfect sense to me inside my insular little bubble. It was life outside, that alien world of mainstream Long Island suburbia, I couldn’t understand. In-laws, soccer championships, parent-teacher conferences: a life that moved with the flow of the stream instead of against it?

  Boring!

  Or so I told myself.

  One particular Saturday night—sometime in October 2003—this ten-year streak of mine would suffer an interruption. And what would come next I can’t blame anyone for, except myself. And society. I can blame society, and poets, and painters, and fairy tales, and my friends, and magazines, and television print ads, and self-help classes, and spirituality, and the couple at the coffeehouse I’m about to describe, and my parents, and Obama. Kidding about Obama. He wasn’t even elected yet, but he gets blamed for everything else, so why not? He and Michelle still make their love partnership seem like a one-in-seven-billion connection, which as much as anything, may have chipped away at my resistance.

  “Heath, any chance you can bring this to table twelve?” Gia asked, scrunching the crescent of studs over each eyebrow she planned to take out once accepted to medical school. I scooped up the plate and headed for a twenty-something couple nuzzling each other on a gold velour loveseat.

  “Brownie sundae?” I auctioned. Getting no answer, I set the dessert down along with two gleaming forks.

  “It’s beautiful,” the girl said, tears in her eyes. She waved her newly minted hand to let the diamond catch the light from the hanging lamp above.

  Audrey Lorde was quoted on the lampshade above her: Our visions begin with our desires.

  “Wow, congrats,” I offered.

  “You know, we actually met here,” the guy said.

  “Really? That’s fantastic,” I lied, my gut prickling. Neighboring people swarmed the couple, offering congrats. I edged back to slinging sugar and milk, the needling sensation continuing. But why? As I rang people up and blended drinks, I stole glances at the couple. Maybe I somehow felt complicit that another couple was swallowing the Kool-Aid, and I’d provided cups for sipping.

  It was hard to take marriage seriously in this land of commercialized wedding factories, bridal shops, and Bridal Expos, especially at this age, when everyone was getting hitched—and un-hitched. To finding your great love! To meeting the one! To your everything! I would no sooner toast my champagne glass, when I’d have to open my couch for a friend transitioning back to her single self. It’s like we don’t even know each other anymore. Of course, some couples seemed to be doing okay, but I was hard-pressed to name one married person I knew, or even one person in a long-term relationship, who would still vouch for their “everything.”

  And here’s where the tale really unraveled for me—that we could have an “everything.” As I saw it, this meant having three intangible abstracts within one person, which I’d so far experienced in bits and pieces with different people at different times. These abstracts were: eroticism, romantic love, and companionship, all rolled into one person like a perfect burrito.

  How was that possible?