Remind Me Again Why I Married You

by Rita Ciresi

  The red wine served that evening felt rough on my tongue, but Lisa obviously had no objections to the taste. I forgot which glass she was on—her second or her third—when she told Cynthia, “Even though we have only one kid, we want four or five. Bedrooms, that is. Not that we plan on having quadruplets or anything. I mean, one bedroom for us, one bedroom for our son, Danny, and then Ebb really should have a place to park his fax machine—which right now is squatting at the bottom of our bed—plus I really, really need a room of my own to work in.”

  “Eben told me you didn’t work,” Cynthia said. “Outside the home, that is.”

  Lisa stabbed a piece of chicken on the edge of her fork. “I work,” she said. “But I tell people—and I make Ebb tell people—that I don’t, because I’m totally embarrassed by what I do.”

  “Now I’m dying of curiosity,” Cynthia said. She looked at me mischievously. “What does she do, Eben?”

  “I never speak for Lisa,” I said.

  “Tell me what you do, Lisa.”

  Lisa took another generous swallow of wine. “Well,” she told Cynthia, “you know how some little girls dream about getting married and having two-point-five kiddos who puke all over the white picket fence?”

  Cynthia nodded.

  I nudged Lisa’s foot under the table.

  So Lisa said, “Ebb is nudging my foot under the table. He doesn’t want me to tell you that my girlhood dream was to be on The Ed Sullivan Show. I swear I wanted nothing more out of life than to hear Ed announce—”

  I tried not to wince as Lisa hunched her shoulders, gripped her elbows, and said à la Sullivan, “ ‘And now—ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls—I give you Lisa Diodetto, that most marvelous of female ventriloquists!’ ”

  The two other couples sitting at our table looked over at Lisa as if she belonged in a loony bin. But Cynthia seemed delighted by Lisa’s killer imitation. “You make a marvelous Ed,” she said.

  “Oh, that’s nothing,” Lisa said modestly. “You should hear my Louis Armstrong.”

  “Cynthia does not,” I said, “want to hear your Louis Armstrong.”

  “Maybe later,” Cynthia said.

  “Don’t encourage her,” I said. “Or we’ll be here all night, listening to Robert Goulet and Daffy Duck and Friedrich the boy soprano from The Sound of Music.”

  “But I still don’t understand exactly what she does, Eben.” Cynthia looked deep into Lisa’s eyes. “Are you a stand-up comic?”

  “Not intentionally,” Lisa said.

  “Then are you an impersonator?”

  “Yes,” Lisa said. “I’m a novelist.”

  “A novelist!” Cynthia said. “How fascinating! Where can I find your books?”

  “In my too-tight-lingerie drawer,” Lisa said.

  “I don’t understand,” Cynthia said.

  Lisa shrugged. “I haven’t published any novels yet.”

  “Do you have an agent?” Cynthia asked.

  “Well, I—”

  “Take it from an agent,” Cynthia said. “You must get an agent. An agent can make all sorts of wonderful things happen for you. But may I ask? What’s your novel about?”

  “The plot,” Lisa said, “is too complicated to explain.”

  “Is it autobiographical?”

  “Maybe halfway.”

  “Is it a romance?” Cynthia asked.

  “I guess you could call it a love story of sorts.” Lisa stared down in disgust at the remains of her baked potato. “But lately—the more I look at it—the more I want to call it a complete piece of excrement.”

  “You should be proud of your work,” Cynthia said. “Don’t you think, Eben?”

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  “Well . . .” Lisa hesitated. “Part of me is kind of proud that I write. But then there’s this other part of me that says to myself: God in heaven, girl, compared to every other woman on the planet, you are Chief Weirdette.”

  “Chieftess,” I corrected her.

  “Huh?” Lisa asked.

  “Chieftess,” I said. “Weirdette. Both should be feminine.”

  Lisa cocked a thumb in my direction. “Meet my editor.”

  Cynthia smiled at me. “Are you one of those supportive spouses who reads every draft? And cheers the author on until the final i has been dotted?”

  To my surprise—but, really, why should I have been surprised by anything that came out of Lisa’s mouth that evening?—Lisa told a whopper lie. “Ebb goes over every word I write. Until—I swear—his voice is on the page as much as mine.”

  The evening finally was over. After Lisa told the valet who helped her into the car, “I greatly admire your manners, young man,” I was thankful I was the one sitting behind the steering wheel. Lisa leaned back in the passenger seat with a grin on her face that seemed to say, Wheeeeeee! I suspected that in the morning, when Danny jumped into bed between us and hollered, “Mommy! Daddy! Wake up and be my parents!” Lisa would crack open her eyes and groan, “Where did this child come from? And how can I fulfill my maternal duties when the room is spinning?”

  I knew Lisa was truly pizzled when I turned on the front-windshield defroster—which blasted us both with stale, hot air—and she did not complain. But at least she had enough wits left to register the change in temperature. She threw her coat off her knees and kicked off her shoes. She rubbed some of the condensation off the side window with her gloved hand and said, “For once, going to a party wasn’t so bad.”

  I kept silent for a few moments. Then I said, “You forgot to ask Cynthia if she owned a punch bowl.”

  “I am positive she does not own a punch bowl.”

  “And you forgot to comment on the color of the wine.”

  “The wine? What color”—Lisa hiccuped—“was the wine?”

  “The same color as my tie.”

  “Oh, bullshit,” Lisa said. “It was burgundy. Could you turn off that defroster now?”

  The windshield wasn’t totally clear, but I snapped off the defroster.

  “Did you like Cynthia?” Lisa asked.

  “In what way?”

  “Enough to work with her, you . . . you . . . you lovable dunderheart.”

  “Kindly refrain,” I said, “from such malicious name-calling.”

  “Okay,” Lisa said. “You . . . you . . . you lovable dunderhead. Tell me what you think.”

  What did I think? I thought Cynthia had all the qualifications of a successful real-estate agent. She was a member of Century 21’s Million-Dollar Club. She had given me satisfactory answers to all of my questions about her credentials, how many closings she had presided over last year, and how far under the asking prices of the properties her clients had paid. And yet she was distracting. In a way that disconcerted me.

  “You’ll be doing most of the house-hunting,” I said. “So you tell me what you think.”

  “I definitely want to work with a woman agent,” Lisa said. “I just think it would be weird, marching in and out of strangers’ bedrooms with some guy I don’t even know.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “That might be dangerous.”

  “Dangerous! For who? Whom? Who-the-whom-ever?”

  “You. Never mind him.”

  “Him! How him?”

  “Because you’d roast the poor guy—on a spit—in your book.”

  Lisa hooted, then pounded her chest with her fist. “He Big Man—With Turdish Tie—Hath Spoken!”

  I shook my head. “You have drunk,” I said, “entirely too much of that lousy wine.”

  “Yeah. Well. In vino”—Lisa hiccuped again—“veritas. So I vote for Cynthia. I really like her hair.”

  “What does her hair have to do with it?”

  “Everything. If I like Cynthia’s taste in hair and clothes and jewelry—which I do—that means I probably like her taste in homes and her taste in—” Lisa looked so dreamy-eyed that I thought she would say men. But then she said, “Meaningful things. Like novels.”

  “I can’t
believe you told her that you were writing a novel,” I said. “You never tell anyone that you’re writing a novel.”

  “So maybe I’m tired of being undercover,” Lisa said. “Tired of being Little Miss Incogito.”

  “Nito.”

  “Whatever. I’m just tired of being a nobody.”

  “You’re not a nobody, Lisa,” I said. “You are a wife and a mother—”

  “Like I want that written on my grave? She Fetched Slippers—”

  “I don’t own slippers.”

  “—and Sold Overpriced Gift Wrap for the PTA. Like I like keeping my real self secret?”

  “Your real self,” I said, “is anything but secret. Your real self is—”

  “Pissed,” Lisa said. “You’re pissed, aren’t you, Ebb—”

  “I think that word more adequately describes your frame of mind.”

  “—that I told Cynthia I wanted a room of my own?”

  “It might have been prudent,” I said, “to withhold that information. It might have been prudent—”

  “I don’t want to be prudent!” Lisa said.

  “Obviously,” I said. “Or you wouldn’t have told her that we have a fax machine at the bottom of our bed.”

  “But we do have a fax machine.”

  “That doesn’t mean you have to tell people.”

  “Oh, phooey,” Lisa said. “You told your friend Josh about the fax.”

  “Josh is our accountant. He needs to know these things so we can take the home-office deduction.”

  “Well, Cynthia needs to know these things so she can find us the kind of home that reduces our chances of getting audited by the feds.”

  “Tell Cynthia . . . what you want. But my point is—”

  “Well, my point is,” Lisa said. “My point . . . Shit. I don’t know what my point is. I just feel like I can really talk to Cynthia.”

  “I hope you don’t,” I said. “Really talk. Too much. With Cynthia.”

  “What are you driving at?” Lisa asked.

  “I’m trying to tell you—if we decide to work with Cynthia—that I hope you’ll remember that this is a business relationship, not a friendship.”

  “Sure,” Lisa said.

  “Involving large sums of money.”

  “All right. I know how much a house costs, Ebb.” Lisa leaned over and switched down the heat. The car suddenly felt much quieter, which made Lisa’s announcement seem all the more surprising. “I’m thinking about getting a job.”

  “What for?”

  “To make some moola.”

  “But we don’t need the moola.”

  “Well,” Lisa said, “at the risk of sounding like Betty Friedan—which, of course, is only slightly better than looking like Betty Friedan—I need some self-respect! Besides, you’re always telling me that I should get out of the house more. Make more friends, be more social—”

  “But you have Number Two.”

  “I wish you’d stop calling my novel that,” Lisa said.

  “I would,” I said, “if you’d just tell me the title.”

  “I’m Sorry This Is My Life.”

  I blinked. “Catchy.”

  “I thought so.”

  “Where did you come up with that line?”

  “Never mind,” Lisa said.

  “When can I read it?” I asked.

  “When I’m on the absolute last draft.”

  “What’s your deadline?”

  “I don’t have a deadline,” Lisa said in a crabby voice. “And I don’t have a publisher and I’ll probably never even have any readers besides you. So I’m thinking of going back to work—”

  “But then we’ll run into all sorts of problems,” I said. “Face it, I can’t ever come home to help you out with Danny. And pretty soon you’ll get pregnant again—”

  “That doesn’t seem to be in the cards.”

  I glanced over at Lisa. She was staring resolutely out the window at the darkness of the pine trees on the side of the road. For the second time that evening, I wanted to reach out and touch her hand—but didn’t. Of course, I was driving. And somebody had to keep a hand on the gearshift. Somebody had to steer, and somebody had to brake, just in case . . . well, just in case a rabbit scurried out in front of the car, or a deer suddenly leaped from behind the trees, or a woman who happened to be my wife said something that made my heart thud harder than any animal hitting the fender. . . .

  “Oh, Ebb! Stop! Where are you going?”

  “Home,” I said.

  “But you just passed the turnoff. We have to pick up Danny!”

  “Oh,” I said. “I forgot about him.” I looked at Lisa out of the corner of my eye. “Some father, huh?”

  Lisa looked down at her hands. “Actually, you’re a pretty good father, Ebb.”

  “And you’re a . . .” I cleared my throat. “You’re a pretty good mother, Lisa.”

  As I pulled into the left lane to make a quick U-turn, Lisa craned her neck and gazed into the empty back of the car. “If we’re such whopping-good parents,” she said, “then how come neither one of us remembered to bring the booster seat?”

  I shook my head, then laughed. “Does the man in your novel have children?”

  “One.”

  “Boy or—”

  “Girl,” Lisa said.

  “And what wise words have you written about parenthood?” I asked.

  “That it is marvelous. When it isn’t ghastly.” Lisa looked at me slyly. “Care to hear my thoughts on marriage?”

  I sighed. “I think I just did.”

  “I might have more to say on the topic.”

  “No doubt I’ll get to read all about it,” I said. “But when?”

  Lisa didn’t answer until we pulled into the baby-sitter’s driveway. As we walked up to the lit house to pick up our only (and cranky) child, she sadly said, “Maybe next month.”

  “Next month you’ll let me read your book?” I asked.

  “I meant . . . oh God, never mind what I meant.”

  I held out my arm and drew her against me, then awkwardly kissed the top of her head. I didn’t want to repeat it—because by now it was beginning to sound more like a threat than a promise. But nevertheless I told her, “Okay, next month. Next month we’ll try again.”

  FRIDAY, MARCH 20, 1992

  SPRING BEGINS

  CHAPTER THREE

  LISA

  On the first day of spring, I woke up with a start. Ebb grabbed the blankets I must have thrown off in the heat of the night and turned his back to me, emitting a single grunt of unmistakable sexual pleasure. I bit my chapped bottom lip. Of course, I had my own nocturnal fantasies. When Ebb used to travel a lot—and the only man I could actually get my hands on during the day was the squiggly, giggly Danny—my dreams had been populated with commando soldiers, tae kwon do masters, surgeons in full scrub, and once even a matador who held me tightly in the clutches of his red cape. Still, it didn’t seem possible—it didn’t seem fair—it didn’t seem right!—that Ebb could be making it in his sleep with some tigress when I was lying right by his side.

  I reached out and touched Ebb’s arm. “Wake up,” I whispered. “You were having a nightmare.”

  “I was?”

  “Yes, you were having sex with another woman.”

  Ebb let out a sleepy sigh.

  “And it snowed,” I said.

  Ebb rolled over onto his back. “How do you know?”

  “Look at the skylight.”

  The skylight above our bed resembled the bottom of a thick block of ice. I raised my head and peered at the lit face of the clock on Ebb’s side of the bed. It was 4:47 A.M.—thirteen minutes before Ebb usually woke—when a snowplow pushed down our dead-end street and a pair of yellow-white high beams swept over the walls like searchlights. Ebb and I lay there, watching the lights of the lumbering plow play upon our walls, until the plow finally cleared the street and receded. Then the rumble of the plow was replaced by a fearsome noise coming from acr
oss the hall: a series of snores more suited to a sumo wrestler than to a five-year-old boy with bad adenoids.

  I groaned. Danny always had been a mouth-breather—and prone to one ear infection after another—but lately he had been snoring with such ripping vigor that he woke us both during the night as often as a newborn baby.

  “Do me a favor,” Ebb asked.

  I pulled the blankets over my face. “No. No favors. Not at the crack of dawn.”

  “Just call the otolaryngologist sometime today.”

  My voice sounded muffled beneath the blankets. “But, Ebb, I don’t want Danny to have surgery. What if they cut out his vocal cords instead of his adenoids?”

  “Adenoids are behind the nose, Lisar.”

  “What if they give him too much anesthesia?”

  “It’s just like twilight sleep,” Ebb said.

  “But what if he never wakes up?” I asked.

  I waited for Ebb to say something typical, like Please put a brake on your imagination, Lisar. But in the silence that followed I could almost hear Ebb thinking along with me, What if his heart stops on the operating table and we can’t have any more children and we spend the rest of our lives blaming ourselves for making this one dumb decision?

  Ebb took my hand and brought it quickly up to his lips. I shivered, and Ebb pulled me closer. I put my head down on his bare chest and Ebb tucked the sheet and the heavy wool blankets around my shoulders. We used to sleep under an electric blanket—with dual controls—until the doctor told us that the currents were linked to higher miscarriage rates. Now I slept in flannel pajamas, while Ebb (Mr. Stoic) continued to sleep in just his Jockeys.

  “I just don’t want anything bad to happen to Danny,” I said.

  “I know,” Ebb said.

  “On the other hand—”

  Ebb sighed. “I know.”

  “He’s really been a pain in the ass lately,” I said. “I think he’s afraid to move.”

  Ebb smoothed his hand over my hair. “I forgot to ask: How did the house-hunting go yesterday?”

  “Fine,” I said. “Cynthia and I looked at two places.”

  “You didn’t have time for three?”