Wife 22 (5 page)

The 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.

M
y 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.

“Is there a paper trail?” asks Nedra.

“No. Yes. Maybe. Does email count?”

“Of course email counts.”

“I’m taking part in a survey. An anonymous survey. On marriage in the twenty-first century,” I whisper into the phone.

“There’s no such thing as anonymity. Not in the twenty-first century and certainly not online. Why in God’s name are you doing that?”

“I don’t know. I thought it would be a lark?”

“Be serious, Alice.”

“All right. Okay. Fine. I guess I feel like it’s time to take stock.”

“Stock of what?”

“Um—my life. Me and William.”

“What, are you going through some sort of midlife thing?”

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

“Answer the question.”

I sigh. “Maybe.”

“This can only lead to heartbreak, Alice.”

“Well, don’t you ever wonder if everything’s okay? I mean not just on the surface, but really, deeply okay?”

“No.”

“Really?”

“Really, Alice. I
know
everything’s okay. You don’t feel that way about William?”

“It’s just that we’re so distracted. I feel like each of us is a line item on the other’s list that we’re just hurrying to check off. Is that a horrible thing to say?”

“Is it true?”

“Sometimes.”

“Come on, Alice. There’s something else you’re not telling me. What brought all this on?”

I think about explaining to Nedra about my tipping-point year, but honestly, as close as we are, she hasn’t lost a parent and she wouldn’t understand. She and I don’t talk much about my mother. I save that for the Mumble Bumbles, a bereavement support group that I’ve been a member of for the past fifteen years. Even though I haven’t seen them recently, I’m Facebook friends with all of them: Shonda, Tita, and Pat. Yes, I know it’s a funny name. We started off being the Mother Bees, then became the Mumble Bees, then somehow it morphed into the Mumble Bumbles.

“I just wonder sometimes if we can make it through another forty years. Forty years is a long time. Don’t you think that’s worth examining now that we’re nearly twenty years in?” I ask.

“Olivia Newton-John!” shouts Kate in the background. “That’s who I meant to say you looked like. The
Let’s Get Physical
album!”

“In my experience it’s the unexamined life that is worth living,” says Nedra. “If one wants to live happily ever after, that is—with one’s partner. Darling, I’ve got to go and see if I can do something about this hideous shag. Kate’s coming at me with bobby pins.”

I can hear Kate singing Olivia Newton-John’s “I Honestly Love You” hideously off-key.

“Do me a favor?” says Nedra. “When you see me, do not tell me I look like Rachel from
Friends.
And I promise we’ll talk about marriage in the nineteenth century later.”

“Twenty-first century.”

“No difference whatsoever. Kisses.”

Fell?
Now I’m officially worried. I’m about to text William when I hear the unmistakable sound of the motorcycle being gunned in the driveway. I log off Facebook quickly. The kids are still at school, William has a client dinner, so I jump to the obvious conclusion.

“We’re being robbed,” I whisper to Nedra on the phone. “Someone’s stealing the motorcycle!”

Nedra sighs. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“How sure?”

This is not the first time Nedra has received such a call from me.

Once, a few years ago when I was doing laundry down in the basement, the wind blew the front door open and it slammed into the wall with a bang. In my defense, it sounded like a gunshot. I was positive I was about to be robbed while I was musing about whether a load of whites really needed fabric softener. Robberies weren’t that unusual in our neighborhood. It’s a reality Oaklanders live with, along with earthquakes and $5-a-pound heirloom tomatoes.

Panicked, I stupidly shouted, “I’m calling my lawyer!”

Nobody answered, so I added, “And I have nunchakus!”

I had bought a pair for Peter, who had recently signed up to take tae kwon do, which unbeknownst to me he would be quitting two weeks hence because he didn’t realize it was a contact sport. What did he think the nunchakus were for? Oh—he meant tai chi, not tae kwon do. It wasn’t his fault so many of the martial arts begin with the same sound.

Still no reply. “Nunchakus are two sticks connected by a chain that people use to hurt each other. By whirling them around. Very fast!” I shouted.

Not a sound from upstairs. Not a footfall, not even a creak from the hardwood floor. Had I imagined the bang? I called Nedra on my cell and made her stay on the line with me for the next half hour, until the wind flung the door shut and I realized what an idiot I had been.

“I swear. It’s not a false alarm this time,” I tell her.

Nedra is like an ER doc. The scarier the situation, the calmer and more levelheaded she becomes.

“Are you safe?”

“I’m in the house. The doors are locked.”

“Where is the robber?”

“Out on the driveway.”

“So why are you talking to me? Call 9-1-1!”

“This is Oakland. It’ll take the cops forty-five minutes to get here.”

Nedra pauses. “Not if you tell them somebody’s been shot.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Trust me, they’ll be there in five minutes.”

“How do you know that?”

“There’s a reason I get paid 425 bucks an hour.”

I don’t call 9-1-1—I’m a very bad liar, especially when it comes to lying about somebody I love bleeding out—instead I crawl on my hands and knees to the front window and peer out the crack in the curtains, my cell in my hand. My plan is to snap a photo of the perp and email it to the Oakland police. But the perp turns out to be my husband, who peels out of the driveway before I can get to my feet.

He doesn’t return until 10:00 that evening, at which point he walks through the front door weaving. Clearly he’s been drinking.

“I’ve been demoted,” he says, collapsing onto the couch. “I’ve got a new job title. Want to know what it is?”

I think of his recent Facebook posts,
Fall, falling, fell
: he sensed this was coming and didn’t tell me.

“Ideator.” William looks at me expressionlessly.

“
Ideator?
What? Is that even a word? Maybe they changed everybody’s titles. Maybe Ideator means creative director.”