7. Sometimes I tell him he’s snoring when he’s not snoring so he’ll sleep in the guest room and I can have the bed all to myself.
8. Ambien (once in a blue moon), fish oil tablets, multi-vitamin, B-Complex, calcium, vitamin D, gingko biloba (for mental sharpness, well, really for memory because people keep saying “That is the third time you asked me that!”).
9. A life with surprises. A life without surprises. The clerk at 7-Eleven licking her finger to separate the stack of plastic bags and then touching my salt and vinegar potato chips with her still damp licked finger and then sliding my potato chips into the previously licked plastic bag, thus doubly salivating my purchase.
10. I hope so.
11. I think so.
12. Occasionally, but not because I’ve ever seriously considered it. I’m the kind of person who likes to imagine the worst, that way the worst can never take me by surprise.
13. The chicken.
14. He makes an amazing vinaigrette. He remembers to change the batteries every six months in the smoke alarms. He can do minor plumbing repairs, so unlike most of my friends I never have to hire somebody to fix a dripping faucet. Also he looks very good in his Carhartt pants. I know I’m avoiding answering the question-I’m not sure why. Let me get back to you on this one.
15. Uncommunicative. Dismissive. Distant.
16. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
17. We’ve been together for nineteen years and three hundred and something days, my point is very, very, well.
This is easy. Too easy. Who knew that confession could bring on such a dopamine rush?
Suddenly the front door is flung open and Peter yells, “I call the bathroom first.”
He has a thing about not using the bathroom at school, so he holds it all day. I close my laptop. This is also my favorite time of the day-when the empty house fills back up again and within an hour all of my de-cluttering is for naught. For some reason this gives me pleasure. The satisfying inevitability of it all.
Zoe walks into the kitchen and makes a face. “Tuna casserole?”
“It’ll be ready in fifteen minutes.”
“I already ate.”
“At volleyball practice?”
“Karen’s mother stopped on the way home and got us burritos.”
“So Peter’s eaten, too?”
Zoe nods and opens the fridge.
I sigh. “What are you looking for? I thought you just ate.”
“I don’t know. Nothing,” she says, closing the door.
“Dang! What did you do to your hair?” asks Peter, walking into the kitchen.
“Oh, God, I forgot. One of my kids was playing hairdresser. I thought it was kind of Audrey Hepburnesque. No?”
“No,” says Zoe.
“No,” echoes Peter.
I slide the elastic out of my hair and try and smooth it out.
“Maybe if you combed it once in a while,” says Zoe.
“Why is everybody so comb crazy? For your information, there are certain types of hair that should never be combed. You should just let it dry naturally.”
“Uh-huh,” says Zoe, grabbing her backpack. “I’ve got a ton of homework. See you in 2021.”
“Half an hour of Modern Warfare before homework?” asks Peter.
“Ten minutes,” I say.
“Twenty.”
“Fifteen.”
Peter throws his arms around me. Even though he’s twelve, I still occasionally get hugs. A few minutes later, the sounds of guns and bombs issue forth from the living room.
My phone chirps. It’s a text from William.
Sorry.
Client dinner.
See u 10ish.
I open my laptop, quickly reread my answers, and hit Send.
7
From: researcher101 ‹[email protected]›
Subject: #13
Date: May 5, 8:05 AM
To: Wife 22 ‹[email protected]›
Dear Wife 22,
Thanks for your first set of answers and for getting them back to me so quickly. I have one question. In regards to #13, did you mean to write “children,” not “chicken”?
Regards,
Researcher 101
From: Wife 22 ‹[email protected]›
Subject: Re: #13
Date: May 5, 10:15 AM
To: researcher101 ‹[email protected]›
Dear Researcher 101,
I’m sorry about that. I suspect my chickens, I mean children, are to blame. Or more likely auto correct.
Best,
Wife 22
P.S. Is there any significance to our numbers or are they just randomly assigned? I can’t believe I’m only the 22nd wife to participate in the survey.
From: researcher101 ‹[email protected]›
Subject: Re: #13
Date: May 6, 11:23 AM
To: Wife 22 ‹[email protected]›
Dear Wife 22,
Both of our numbers are randomly assigned, you’re right about that. With each round of the survey we cycle through 500 numbers and then with the next round we begin at 1 again.
Regards,
Researcher 101
From: Wife 22 ‹[email protected]›
Subject: #2 upon second thought
Date: May 6, 4:32 PM
To: researcher101 ‹[email protected]›
Dear Researcher 101,
“Bored” is not the reason I’m participating in the study. I’m participating because this year I will turn 45, which is the same age my mother was when she died. If she were alive I would be talking to her instead of taking this survey. We would be having the conversation I imagine mothers have with their daughters when they’re in their mid-forties. We would talk about our sex drives (or lack thereof), about the stubborn ten pounds that we gain and lose over and over again, and about how hard it is to find a trustworthy plumber. We would trade tips on the secret to roasting a perfect chicken, how to turn the gas off when there’s an emergency, how to get stains out of grout. She would ask me questions like, are you happy, sweetheart? Does he treat you right? Can you imagine growing old with him?
My mother will never be a grandmother. Never have a gray eyebrow hair. Never eat my tuna casserole.
That’s why I’m participating in this study.
Please revise my answer to #2.
Best,
Wife 22
From: researcher101 ‹[email protected]›
Subject: Re: #2 upon second thought
Date: May 6, 8:31 PM
To: Wife 22 ‹[email protected]›
Dear Wife 22,
Thank you for your honesty. Just so you know, subjects frequently revise their answers or send addendums. I’m very sorry for your loss.
Sincerely,
Researcher 101
8
18. Run, dive, pitch a tent, bake bread, build bonfires, read Stephen King, get up to change the channel, spend hours on the phone talking to friends, kiss strange men, have sex with strange men, flirt, wear bikinis, wake most mornings happy for no good reason (likely due to flat stomach no matter what was eaten night before), drink tequila, hum Paul McCartney’s “Silly Love Songs,” lie in grass and dream of future, of perfect life and marriage to perfect one true love.
19. Make lunches, suggest to family they are capable of making better choices; alert children to BO, stranger danger, and stray crumbs on corners of lips. Prepare preteen son for onset of hormones. Prepare husband for onset of perimenopause and what that means for him (PMS 30 days of the month rather than the two days he has become accustomed to). Buy perennials. Kill perennials. Text, IM, chat, upload. Discern the fastest-moving line at the grocery store, ignore messages, delete, lose keys, mishear what everybody says (jostling becomes jaw sling, fatwa becomes fuckher), worry-early deafness, early dementia, early Alzheimer’s or unhappy with sex and lif
e and marriage and need to do something about it?
20. Burger King cashier, Royal Manor Nursing Home Aide, waitress Friday’s, waitress J.C. Hilary’s, intern Charles Playhouse, Copywriter Peavey Patterson, playwright, wife, mother, and currently, Kentwood Elementary School drama teacher for grades kindergarten through fifth.
9
“Alice!” William yells from the kitchen. “Alice!” I hear his footsteps coming down the hall.
I quickly close the Netherfield Center questionnaire window and log on to a celebrity gossip website.
“Here you are,” he says.
He’s dressed for work: khakis and a pale purple dress shirt. I bought him that shirt, knowing how good he’d look in that color with his dark hair and eyes. When I brought it home he’d protested, of course.
“Men don’t wear lavender,” he told me.
“Yes, but men wear thistle,” I said.
Sometimes all you need to do to get men to agree with you is call things by another name.
“Nice shirt,” I say.
His eyes dart over to my laptop. “Gwen Stefani and the Sisterhood of the Terrible Pants?”
“What do you need?” I ask.
“Oh, those are terrible. She looks like Oliver Twist. Yes, I need something but I forgot what.”
This is a typical response-one I’m used to. Both of us frequently wander into a room bewildered and ask the other if he or she has any idea what we’re doing there.
“What’s up with you?” he asks.
My eyes fall on the bill for the motorcycle insurance. “Well. I wish you’d make a decision about the motorcycle. It’s been sitting in the driveway forever. You never take it out.”
The motorcycle takes up precious space in our small driveway. More than once I’ve accidentally tapped it while pulling in.
“One of these days I’ll start driving it again.”
“You’ve been saying that for years. And every year we keep on paying the excise tax and the insurance.”
“Yes, but I mean it now. Soon,” he says.
“Soon what?”
“Soon I’ll be driving it,” he repeats. “More than I have been.”
“Mm-hmm,” I say, distracted, going back to my computer.
“Wait. That’s all you want to talk about? The motorcycle?”
“William, you came looking for me, remember?”
And no, the motorcycle is not all I want to talk about. I want to have a conversation with my husband that goes deeper than insurance policies and taxes and what time will you be home and did you call the guy about the gutters, but we seem to be stuck here floating around on the surface of our lives like kids in a pool propped up on those Styrofoam noodles.
“And there’s plenty of things we can talk about,” I say.
“Like what?”
Now is my chance to tell him about the marriage study-oh, you wouldn’t believe the ridiculous thing I signed up for and they ask the craziest questions but it’s for the good of science because you know there is a science to marriage, you may not believe it but it’s true-but I don’t. Instead I say, “Like how I’m trying, completely unsuccessfully mind you, to convince the third-grade parents that the geese are the most important roles in the school play, even though the geese don’t have any lines. Or we could talk about our son, Peter, I mean, Pedro, being gay. Or I could ask you about KKM. Still working on semiconductors?”
“Band-Aids.”
“Poor baby. Are you stuck on Band-Aids?” I sing that line. I can’t help myself.
“We don’t know if Peter is gay,” says William, sighing. We’ve had this conversation many times before.
“He may be.”
“He’s twelve.”
“Twelve is not too early to know. I just have a feeling. A sense. A mother knows these sorts of things. I read this article about all these tweens coming out in middle school. It’s happening earlier and earlier. I bookmarked it. I’ll email it to you.”
“No, thank you.”
“William, we should educate ourselves. Prepare.”
“For what?”
“For the fact that our son might be gay.”
“I don’t get it, Alice. Why are you so invested in Peter’s sexuality? Are you saying you want him to be gay?”
“I want him to know we support him no matter what his sexual orientation. No matter who he is.”
“Right. Okay. Well, I have a theory. You think if Peter’s gay you’ll never lose him. There’ll be no competition. You’ll always be the most important woman in his life.”
“That’s absurd.”
William shakes his head. “It would be a harder life for him.”
“You sound like a homophobe.”
“I’m not a homophobe, I’m a realist.”
“Look at Nedra and Kate. They’re one of the happiest couples we know. No one discriminates against them and you love Nedra and Kate.”
“Love has nothing to do with not wanting your children to be discriminated against unnecessarily. And Nedra and Kate wouldn’t be happy if they didn’t live in the Bay Area. The Bay Area is not the real world.”
“And being gay is not a choice. Hey, he could be bisexual. I never thought of that. What if he’s bisexual?”
“Great idea. Let’s shoot for that,” says William, leaving my office.
I log on to Facebook once he’s gone and check my news feed, scrolling through the status update chaff.
Shonda Perkins
Likes PX-90.
2 minutes ago
Tita De La Reyes
IKEEEEAAAAA!!!! Hell-somebody ran over my foot with their shopping cart.
5 minutes ago
Tita De La Reyes
IKEEEEAAAAA!!!! Heaven-Swedish meatballs and lingonberries for $3.99.
11 minutes ago
William Buckle
Fall, falling…
1 hour ago
Wait, what? William has a new post and he’s not quoting Winston Churchill or the Dalai Lama? Poor William is one of those Facebook posters who has a hard time thinking of anything original to say. Facebook gives him stage fright. But this post has an undeniably ominous ring to it. Is that what he came to talk to me about? I have to go ask him what he meant, but first I’ll send out a quick post of my own.
Alice Buckle is educating herself.
DELETE
Alice Buckle is stuck on Band-Aids.
DELETE
Alice Buckle blames her chickens.
SHARE
Suddenly my Facebook chat pops up.
Phil Archer What did the poor chickens do?
It’s my father.
Honey, Alice. R u there?
Hi Dad. I’m in a hurry. Have to go find W before he leaves for work. Can we talk tomorrow?
Date tonight.
You have a date?? With who?
I’ll let you know who if there’s a second date.
Oh. Okay. Well, have a great time!
U not worried about me? STD’s 80% increase in people over 70.
Dad prefer not discuss yr sex life.
WHO ELSE DISCUSS SEX LIFE?
Caps means shouting.
WELL AWARE OF THAT. Thank u for check. It arrived early this month. Gd thing. Property taxes overdue. Stay. Talk 2 me.
Next month I can send more $. This month tight. Zoe lost retainer. Again. Did u change to energy efficient bulbs like I told u?
Will today. Promise. What’s new with u?
Peter may b gay.
Not new.
Zoe embarrassed by me.
Not new either.
Endless to-do list. Can’t keep up.
Dad?
Dad?
One day u look back & realize this is the best part of life. Going going going. Always something to do. Someone expecting you to walk in the door.
Oh, Dad. Yr right. I’m sorry.
:)
I’ll call tmr. B careful out there.
Love u
U 2
T
he smell of toast drifts into my office. I shut off my computer and walk into the kitchen in search of William, but everybody’s gone. The only sign of my family is a stack of dishes piled high in the sink. Fall, falling will have to wait for later.
10
My cell rings. I don’t have to pick it up to know it’s Nedra. We have this weird telepathic telephone thing. I think of Nedra and Nedra calls.
“I just got my hair cut,” she says. “And Kate told me I look like Florence Henderson. And when I asked her who the bloody hell Florence Henderson was she told me I looked like Shirley Jones. A Pakistani Shirley Jones!”
“She said that?” I say, trying not to laugh.
“She certainly did,” huffs Nedra.
“That’s terrible. You’re Indian, not Pakistani.”
I adore Kate. Thirteen years ago, when I met her, I knew within five minutes that she was perfect for Nedra. I hate that line you complete me, but in Kate’s case it was true. She was Nedra’s missing half: an earnest, Brooklyn-born, say-it-like-it-is social worker, the person Nedra could count upon not to sugarcoat things. Everybody needs somebody like that in their life. I, unfortunately, have too many people like that in my life.
“Sweetheart,” I say. “You got a shag?”
“No, it’s not a shag, it’s layered. My neck looks ever so long now.”
Nedra pauses for a moment. “Oh, fuck me,” she says. “It’s a shag and I look like a turkey. And now it seems I’ve grown this little Julia Child hump on the back of my neck. What’s next? A wattle? How did this happen? I don’t know why I let that slut Lisa talk me into this.”
Lisa, our mutual hairdresser, is not a slut, although she has also steered me in the wrong direction several times. There was an unfortunate burgundy henna phase. And bangs-women with thick hair should never have bangs. Now I keep my hair shoulder-length with a few face-framing layers. On a good day people tell me I look like Anne Hathaway’s older sister. On a bad day, like Anne Hathaway’s mother. Just do what you did last time is the instruction I give to Lisa. I find this philosophy works well in many circumstances: sex, ordering a venti soy latte at Starbucks, and helping Peter/Pedro with his algebra homework. However, it’s no way to live.
“I did something. I’m doing something. Something I shouldn’t be doing,” I confess.
Wife 22 Page 3
