Still Life with Husband

by Lauren Fox

  Later that night, Kevin emerges from his office, blinking. He retreated there after dinner, mumbling something about instructions for a food processor. Kevin takes work home sometimes, but I know that he finished this project days ago. (He told me how he struggled, as he always does, with the cautionary phrases: Beware of sharp blade? Blade is sharp and dangerous? Keep fingers away from blade? Don’t touch the blade, idiot?) But I didn’t argue with him. Instead I took my time doing the dishes, and then I spent the rest of the evening aimlessly channel surfing, replaying the day’s events over and over in my head. Again and again, I recalled the rhythm of David’s breathing, the weight of his body, and I had to close my eyes. I wonder if he’s thinking about me.

  “What, um…” Kevin looks around, disoriented, scratches his head. He always does this, takes a few minutes to shift from his computer to his life, from his brain to me. I’ve always found it endearing, and right now it makes him seem even more innocent and vulnerable than it usually does, as fragile as a baby bird. I hate myself. I press the mute button on the remote control but keep the TV on. I look at him and wait. “What kind of errand were you doing today?” he asks, finally.

  “I told you, I zoned out in the store. I’m really sorry I came home with that ridiculous bag of groceries.”

  “No, Emily,” he says with a sigh. “I don’t care about that. I mean, what kind of errand were you doing for Dick today?”

  In a better mood, Kevin likes to refer to both my boss and the actual journal as “Dick.” I had forgotten the lie I concocted about that errand. I rub my eyes, trying to think fast, covering for myself by acting tired and confused, pretending I’m still oddly spacey. “Oh, right.” What kind of errand was I doing? What kind of errand was I doing? I let the remote control fall from my hand to buy myself another moment, then I bend and retrieve it. My mouth is dry. What the hell kind of errand was I doing? “Dick wanted me to drop off a manuscript with one of the reviewers across town,” I say, straightening in the chair. This is something I have had to do on occasion; local scientists at the Medical College or Marquette or the infertility clinic on the west side of town often review papers for Male Reproduction. It’s more than plausible! I’m relieved, so I keep going. “Then he had me wait while the reviewer read it and made his comments.” I flash what I hope is a little smile. “I had to wait in this guy’s office for an hour!” I scratch my wrist with the remote control. “He had a fish tank,” I add, inexplicably.

  “Oh,” Kevin says. “Because I called you at work before I got your message, and Dick said you’d called in sick.” He takes off his glasses, looks at them, and puts them back on. “I was worried. I almost came home.”

  My first thought is, You heard I was sick and you almost came home? Shouldn’t you have just come home? Then I realize, of course, that I wasn’t sick. “Well, you know, Dick isn’t playing with a full deck these days,” I say. “He obviously got confused. I think one of the secretaries was sick today. I’m glad you didn’t leave work for me.”

  “Yeah,” Kevin says. He stares at me for what feels like a long time, then turns and heads back into his office, where he’ll likely stay until after I’m in bed. If I didn’t know my husband to be both blinkered and supremely trusting, I’d say he looked unconvinced.

  poor little eel

  lonely and blue

  looking for love

  simple and true.

  searching the deep

  for affection uncheap,

  she placed her bid

  on a fine friendly squid

  and could finally rest

  in his comfortable nest;

  lonely no longer,

  the grateful young conger

  swam gladly amid

  her fine friendly squid.

  so why, one would wonder

  was she destined to wander?

  as if on a whim

  determined to swim

  away from his pleasing, eight-armed embrace

  back into the ocean’s competitive race.

  was it adventuresome, eely abandon

  that caused her to search for a different companion?

  she found nothing more than a fisherman’s net

  poor eel, swimming blindly

  in a sea of regret

  I’m conducting an affair. I’m standing in front of the high school orchestra that is my life, waving my hands madly, trying to get the oboes to stay on key, the trombones to come in on cue, the cymbal players to quit horsing around. Everything is out of control. But if I close my eyes, it’s music I hear.

  It’s Saturday afternoon, and Kevin is at an all-day Hasting seminar on warranties. “We have to stay up to speed on federal regulations,” he said to me this morning, dabbing at a tiny dribble of milk from his cereal that was running down his chin. “There’ll be an attorney there. And lunch!”

  “Have fun,” I said. I walked Kevin to the door in my ratty pink slippers and old bathrobe and handed him a bottle of water and his glasses. He kissed me on the cheek. I watched him as he walked happily down the hallway. “Don’t work too hard!” I called out, his footsteps echoing down the stairs. That was three hours ago.

  Now, David pulls up in front of my apartment building, sees me, and waves. In the week since we’ve slept together, this will be our first public outing. I feel bold and reckless. I spring up from the bench where I’ve been waiting for him and blow him an extravagant kiss. I’m wearing sunglasses. My hair is held back in a bright blue scarf. I could be anyone.

  Just before I came outside, I scribbled “Out for a walk” on a scrap of paper and left it in the middle of the kitchen table, on the off chance Kevin would come back early. “Home soon,” I wrote, and the word “home” looked strange and skewed to me, bumpy and distorted, all its connotations of warmth and honesty spiraling away in light of what I was doing. But I didn’t feel guilty. I felt thrilled.

  I slide into David’s little white car and brace myself for a wet greeting. Brian the dog, too big for the tiny backseat, wags his tail so hard it thumps against the rear windshield. He licks my hand lovingly, although I’ve never met him before. David’s friend Roger broke his leg recently, so today we’re taking Roger’s greyhound to a dog park. David drapes one arm around me and squeezes my shoulder. There is never a time when I don’t want this man.

  “Hi, boys,” I say. Brian shoves his snout into my neck and sniffs me. I pat him on his head, which is disturbingly slim. David turns to me and smiles, and I think my heart actually stops for a second.

  “He likes you,” David says.

  “Oh!” I say, suddenly embarrassed.

  David turns back to the steering wheel, still smiling. “Smart dog.”

  I click my seatbelt. “Smart, huh? Isn’t this the dog who once ate a dirty diaper?”

  “Well, true,” David agrees, merging into the traffic of our busy street. “So maybe ‘smart’ is too strong. But he’s clearly a good judge of character.” Brian is nuzzling my face now, breathing his foul dog breath directly up my nose.

  “Cats are more discerning,” I say, scratching behind the dog’s soft, floppy ear. “I respect that. Dogs are sluts. Aren’t you a slut? Aren’t you? Hmm?” Brian licks my cheek.

  “I had goldfish growing up,” David says. “Now there’s a discriminating pet. You can’t buy their love.”

  “Goldfish?” I say, as the dog tries to climb from the backseat onto my lap. “Just goldfish? That’s tragic. Were you raised in an orphanage?”

  “Did I forget to tell you that my last name is actually Copper-field?” With his right arm, David gently eases Brian’s front legs off me.

  “Poor little foundling.”

  He glances at me, then reaches over and tucks a loose curl behind my ear. I consider suggesting that we find a motel. There is an easy closeness between us that somehow coexists with the sharpness of desire, and I have the sense for a moment, as we speed toward the park, that I am flying. I have never felt this way about anyone.

  The exurba
n hinterland of New Germany (pronounced, inexplicably, with a hard G) is twenty minutes outside the city. When we turn down the back road toward the dog park, Brian starts barking and turning around in awkward circles, his nose twitching furiously.

  “Why is this dog named Brian?” I ask.

  “It’s Roger’s older brother’s name.” David veers into the gravel lot and pulls into a space. “He thought it would be funny.”

  “It is, in a weird way.” David holds the dog by the collar as I unhitch the fence into the park, then he lets go. Brian barks again and then takes off, faster than I had expected. For the first time, it clicks with me that greyhounds are racing dogs. I’ve never been to a dog park. Do most dogs stick close to their owners, like shy toddlers? Are there rules about this kind of thing? “Should we go after him?” I ask.

  David reaches for my hand. “He’s getting away! Quick, do you think you can catch him?” In a flash, the canine lightning bolt is thirty yards from us and gaining. David leans into me, his shoulder against mine. “It’s a dog park. They run free.”

  The day is bright and breezy, almost cold. We meander across the hard dirt ground toward a picnic table. We’re in a small clearing; there are wild, branch-covered paths and reedy bogs all around—dog paradise. The park is crowded with hearty-looking pet owners, young couples, families with small children, single guys circling the perimeter. A symphony of variously pitched barking rings out. Two middle-aged women stroll nearby, discussing recipes for homemade liver treats. “Sneezer loves the liver brownies,” one says, “with beef hearts and just a touch of cumin. He prefers beef liver to chicken, but Olaf’s not as picky!”

  David sits down on the bench and pulls me onto his lap. “Mmm, liver brownies,” he murmurs into my neck. “Beef hearts.”

  “Oh, baby, don’t stop,” I whisper, and we kiss, just gently, the continuation of a joke. But then, David’s hands are working my scarf loose from my hair, and my hands are moving under his shirt, my fingernails on his back. We make out for a while, frenzied as fifteen-year-olds, and I wonder, fleetingly, if my chin will be chapped from his stubble, and how I will explain that away. I can feel the hard muscles and the heat of his legs against mine. His back is smooth. My hands travel downward and come to rest just above the waist of his jeans, and we kiss and kiss. Just as things are veering toward inappropriate for a public place, we stop, pull away.

  “Whew,” David says, out of breath, handing me my scarf. I push my hair back from my face.

  “Young love,” someone says. I glance around, terrified. I was sure we were safe here, certain I wouldn’t know anyone at the dog park, as far away from my life as a Christian rock concert, a rodeo. For a second, I’m almost paralyzed. But it’s just one of the liver brownies ladies, eyes fixed on us, amused. I hadn’t realized they had planted themselves at a nearby picnic table. David turns to them, unembarrassed, and smiles. I slide inelegantly off his lap.

  “Where’s your friend?” the other lady, the one with a pouf of teased hair, asks pleasantly.

  “Our friend?” David says.

  “Your canine companion,” the brownie baker says, laughing. “Did you forget who you came here with?”

  “Brian!” I say, startled. “Where is he?”

  “Brian!” David calls, standing. “Brian?”

  Just then, Brian comes bursting out of the underbrush like a bullet, a slightly overweight yellow lab trailing behind him.

  “Oh, look!” Teased Hair says, clapping her hands together. “My Anastasia’s found a friend!”

  “How wonderful,” Liver Brownie exclaims, and then, to us, confessionally, “Anastasia can be a bit shy.”

  “And insecure,” Teased Hair says. “She has some body image issues.”

  David looks at me, his eyes wide. I nod at the ladies. Well, why not? Anastasia and Brian romp and play, taking turns chewing on a stick and barking at each other. The ladies are laughing and delighted, and I feel tugged into this happy story, this innocent dog park friendship: the shy girl meets the dumb jock and, against all odds, they grow close. “Good boy, Brian!” He’s so sociable! And nonjudgmental! He has hidden depths. I’m suddenly as proud as a parent.

  Just then, as if on cue, Brian climbs on top of poor, unsuspecting Anastasia, who lets out a surprised, high-pitched yelp. Teased Hair yelps identically. “Ope!” she cries. “Ope! Oh, no! No, no, no! Bad dog! Bad dogs!” She claps her hands together again, this time in distress. Her friend looks at us accusingly.

  “Um, Brian?” David calls. “Hey, guy! Um, hey?” But he’s starting to laugh, and the “hey” gets caught in his throat. “Hey?” he tries again, as Brian and Anastasia continue their lewd business.

  “Anastasia Althea!” Teased Hair scolds with surprising force, but even she seems to realize that this is a losing battle.

  David has, by now, sat back down next to me, his face buried in his hands, his whole body shaking with laughter. “Oh, God,” he murmurs from behind his hands. “I can’t look!”

  “Oh,” I tell him quietly, “you really should.” The dogs are humping, the liver ladies are glowering at us—helplessly, disapprovingly, our oversexed behavior of a few moments ago clearly now being cast in a new and sleazy light.

  Brian and Anastasia finish. Brian stands next to her, sniffs the ground, nonchalant. Anastasia barks. David, peering out from behind his fingers, whispers, “Too bad we don’t have any cigarettes.”

  “Too easy,” I say. “This is like shooting fish in a barrel.”

  The liver ladies stand and glare at us some more. “Anastasia Althea,” Teased Hair yells, “Come!” An odd choking noise comes out of David’s throat and he turns quickly away from them; he’s laughing so hard, tears are rolling down his face. The ladies clip Anastasia’s leash to her collar a bit roughly, it seems to me, and they drag her away, possibly to some kind of dog convent; Brian bounds over to us happily and flops down at our feet. I imagine Anastasia mouthing, “Call me!”

  It hardly seems possible to feel this loose and free and happy; hardly possible, under the circumstances, to be laughing at anything. It is duplicitous, unforgivable, practically sinister to be creating shared memories and inside jokes with a man who is not my husband, and the Emily I thought I was would feel, at the very least, troubled by this—if not consumed by guilt, then at least distracted by a vague tightness in the chest. But here we are, at the dog park, David and I, next to each other, tired from kissing and laughing, and I’m free from the anxiety that should be holding me down; I am untethered. I drop my head onto David’s shoulder and rest it there. For what feels like a very long time, neither of us moves.

  EVERY NIGHT I SIT AT MY COMPUTER, AND DAVID AND I WRITE to each other, some nights for hours at a time. I told Kevin I’ve been proofreading manuscripts for Male Reproduction. October has been a productive month at the journal, I told him. Autumn is a notoriously busy season for the study of flaccid monkey penises, I told him. I keep a stack of papers next to my computer, in case he walks in. If he can hear the sound of my typing, if it makes him wonder, he never asks.

  It didn’t take long for the guilt to descend. How can I be doing this to Kevin, to the man I have loved for nine years? My intestines are squeezing together, an accordion of regret. How can the Emily who sits at the kitchen table on a Sunday morning and reads the paper and says, “We need more milk, Kev,” be the same Emily who, later that day, slides into a red satin bra and says, “I’m going for a walk?” The guilt seeps through me: when we’re eating dinner, when I’m putting away dishes, when I’m in the shower. It seems naïve now: I look back with fondness on the person who had no idea what this would be like, who didn’t realize that unfaithfulness moves overhead like a storm front. I never expected the humid swell of remorse to hang over me all the time.

  But if that were the only thing, then I would end it, wouldn’t I? If it were only regret, I would stop sleeping with the man who is not my husband. But part of me doesn’t care. Uglier than the act of betrayal itself is the part of
me that shucks off the guilt—that tiny husk of decency, the ability to feel guilty—and laughs in its face. I’m caught in the moment with David, emboldened by my very boldness. Some nights, it’s all I can do not to grab my coat, tell Kevin I’m off to have sex with another man, and dash out the door. In the narrow beam of light that illuminates my relationship with David, nothing lurks in the shadows, not even my husband, and I am happy. In bed, as the afternoon rolls past us, our bodies still radiating each other’s heat, sometimes I try to explain this to David, this rush. He only gets quiet and warns me to be careful.

  When we e-mail, we don’t talk about anything in particular. Sometimes, but less often than I would have thought before I had an affair, our e-mails are graphic. “Remember what you did to me yesterday? Remember the popsicle?” I try, but I can’t take it seriously, our version of cybersex, our pornographic haikus. “Yes, that popsicle was good.” And I get easily confused. What we did yesterday: Was it hot? Was it cold? Should I ask? More often than not, I steer the conversation back to familiar terrain. “Speaking of popsicles, it’s supposed to be unseasonably warm next week!” I’ve never been comfortable talking about sex, although I’ve always enjoyed conversation during it. Once, in the middle of making love, I asked Kevin how his day had been. He stopped, pushed away from me, and sighed. “Emily,” he said, “I was kind of in the moment there.”

  Instead David and I tell each other about our daily lives. I try to make mine sound lively and unpredictable by distilling a series of long, boring moments into charming anecdotes. I don’t tell him about the forty-seven manuscripts I logged and labeled. I tell him about the graduate student who stopped me in the hallway on Monday, grabbed my wrist, and said, “You look exactly like Cher! Before her plastic surgery!” I don’t tell him about the two-hour collating project I undertook to help Dick organize his office. I tell him about Dr. Viktor Yiannous, the brilliant but volatile researcher in the lab next door to the journal who, furious that his experiment had failed, pulled the fire alarm in a fit of pique and set off the science building’s sprinkler system.