Wife Living Dangerously (20 page)

“Very far?” she asks.

“As far as it can go,” I say.

“You mean… ?”

“Yeah.” I slump in my seat and throw my face into my hands. I try deep, measured breathing. I look up. “Now what?”

“It’s not too late to back out,” she says. “So, okay. You made a mistake. And you’re obsessed. Addicted, maybe, you know?
Hey. It happens. No shame in that. Now. If I were you, I’d try to replace this obsession with
another
obsession. Something healthy and productive. Something that will take your mind off the professor completely.”

“Such as?” I am exhausted and hopeless. I already know that Annie’s idea, whatever it is, will not work. I’m wasting her time
and mine. I have a stack of work at the office. My laundry room is so stuffed with dirty clothes that I can’t get the dryer
door open. I haven’t tended my garden in months; the only thing that isn’t dying are the weeds. “What do you have in mind?”

“Well, such as exercising? You’re always saying you don’t have the energy to work out, right? So now you take all this, this
drive,
and you work it off. You could go to the Y. Hey, you could join my spinning class. Thirty minutes on that bike and you’ll
be too
tired
to think about this guy, believe me.”

I look at Annie’s earnest face and feel a wave of depression wash over me. “I hate exercise bikes.”

“Okay, okay, spinning’s not for everyone, I understand that. How about a hobby? You don’t really have a hobby, do you? Have
you considered a hobby? My sister bought herself a loom. She’s making everyone blankets for Christmas. That’s, like, twenty-nine
blankets. She’s insane. You think you could get into weaving? Or what about knitting?”

The last time I tried knitting I made a single sock big enough to fit a Rastafarian’s dreadlocked head. I’d joined a knitting
group for camaraderie and instruction but felt nothing but humiliation when it came time to “share” our projects. Some of
the women were working on elaborate Fair Isle sweaters, a few were knitting up bulky woolen tote bags, which would be sent
through the washing machine for “felting,” a process that turns ordinary wool into soft and fuzzy felt. One ambitious college
girl was designing a Mexican wedding dress. And there I was, with my gigantic Rasta Man sock hat. The knitters were polite
enough to keep their mouths shut but I eventually lost my motivation and stopped showing up. Somewhere in my basement is a
large cardboard box containing fifty-nine assorted skeins and knitting needles in twenty-three sizes and in every style, smooth
bamboo to slick aluminum, double pointed to circular. I have needles as small as toothpicks and needles as long as my arm
and I will probably never use any of them again.

“I’ve got it.” Annie smacks the edge of the table. “Start a collection! Julie. Remember when we went antiquing in North Carolina?
And you didn’t buy anything? Remember you said you always wished you collected something.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“So that’s it, then. You start collecting. My friend? Carrie? In Santa Fe? She collects penguins. She spends all her free
time online, eBay, bidding on penguins. Ceramic penguins. Pewter penguins. Vintage penguins. Windup penguins. She’s got a
life-size penguin in her foyer, scares the hell out of me. It’s like a full-time job, collecting those things, I’m not kidding.
But
fun,
Julia, fun as all get out.” She stops to catch her breath.

“Annie, I’m sorry. This is ridiculous. Are you hearing me? I am falling in love with this man. I want to be with him all the
time. I’m fantasizing about my husband driving his car off a bridge so I can be with Evan for the rest of my life. I want
to kill myself and you’re talking about penguins?”

“Yes, I’m talking about penguins. An affair is a choice, Julie, and unless I’ve missed something here, it’s not a choice you’re
prepared to make. So all I’m saying is, make another choice. Redirect your mental energy. It’s a behavioral thing. Come on.
Isn’t there something you’ve always wanted to collect? I don’t know, maybe those pretty cups and saucers? Or metal lunch boxes
from the fifties? My sister collects anything to do with My Little Pony, though I don’t get it, to be perfectly honest. Think,
Julia,
think.
Isn’t there something you could collect?”

Her question feels suddenly important to me, portentous, the kind of question a guidance counselor might ask, a question whose
answer could change the course of one’s life. “Well… I always thought it might be fun to collect cookie jars. My mother
had a few.” Trina couldn’t afford an extensive collection, and had nothing as valuable as the retro chic jars in the window
of Hazel’s, the vintage housewares boutique on Beck Avenue, our city’s two-block “arts district.” She kept her cigarette money
in an orange mushroom over the stove. On the Formica table in the center of our small kitchen was a jar made to look like
a San Francisco streetcar in mustard yellow, a gift from a boyfriend in California. A smiling pig in a chef’s toque held up
the half-empty boxes of Alpha-Bits and Cocoa Puffs like a bookend. Trina thought this one might actually be worth some money,
and tried to pawn it for cash but it turned out to be a cheap reproduction.

Annie claps her hands together with the earnest enthusiasm of a kindergarten teacher. “Perfect! See? Cookie jar collecting
is in your blood. I knew it. Okay. So. When you get back to the office, go straight to eBay, go to the search box, and type
in cookie jars. See what comes up.”

“I can’t use my work computer to bid on cookie jars, are you kidding?”

Annie gives me the kind of look you reserve for your kid, the one who can never seem to remember that the tag goes in the
back. “Julia, Julia, Julia. What are we going to do with you?” She checks her watch, a slender gold-tone Timex her father
gave her on her sixteenth birthday. “We’ve got a little time. Let’s hit the antique mall. Come on, Julia. Don’t make that
face. It’ll be fun!”

Nineteen minutes later Annie and I are pushing through the double doors of the Cambridge County Antique Mall, four cramped
floors of old, overpriced crap and the unmistakable stink of mold, mothballs, and dead people’s things. Naked rubber dolls,
gaudy rhinestone jewelry, decrepit Fisher-Price toys, beaded dresses for flat-chested flappers, rusted old farm tools. One
booth is devoted to small beady-eyed raccoons and possums, stuffed, posed, and mounted on varnished pine slabs. Another is
filled with delicate figurines manufactured in occupied Japan. There’s a booth with vintage housewares from the forties, cherry-covered
cotton aprons and metal cabinets and cat-head string holders.

“Oh! This one’s a winner!” Annie is holding a cookie jar with two hands, like a trophy. “Today’s your lucky day, Julia Flanagan.
This one’s a McCoy, and I believe it’s worth at least three times what they’re asking.”

“Really?” It’s a bloodhound, rump sticking straight up in the air. The tail serves as a lid handle. It’s ugly, but the fact
that it might have been dramatically underpriced stirs the prospector in me, and Annie seems so excited to have discovered
it, I feel I’ll be letting her down if I don’t buy it.

T
onight while Michael is playing at a place called Little Pig’s Tavern, and after I put the kids down for the night, I go online
and register myself on eBay. When the first screen appears, I am overwhelmed by the myriad options. I could bid on everything
from leather backpacks (starting at a penny) to Vespa scooters to time shares in Costa del Sol. I can bid on entire wardrobes
of gently used clothes for every member of my family. Just for the heck of it I type in “kidney” and am relieved to see that
human organs are prohibited by eBay, as are babies, animals, and Nazi memorabilia.

I could easily have spent the next six hours exploring the site, but I stick to my purpose. I register myself as DivineMissJ.
I type “vintage cookie jars” into the search box and wait. There are nineteen pages of vintage cookie jar listings, three
hundred sixty-three jars in all. At this point I calculate that I have gone thirteen minutes without thinking of Evan Delaney.

I scan the offerings. There it is. My mother’s smiling chef pig cookie jar, but this one is authentic and currently going
for $34. I match that price and enter a maximum “proxy” bid of $55 and stare at the screen. I reload the page. The cookie
jar is now up to $57.50. Someone named I_Luv_Pigs had outbid me. I’ll be darned. I plug in another bid and hit the button.
Now I am the high bidder. Three minutes to go. I reload the page. I_Luv_Pigs outbids me again. Damn that woman. I am poised
to place another bid, $99.75 this time. I don’t hit the “bid” button. I wait and watch the clock. Two minutes left. One minute.
Forty seconds. Twenty seconds. Now I place my bid. I’ve won! I realize that I’m sweating. I wonder if this is how it feels
to play the horses.

Nineteen Evan Delaney-free minutes.

It is nearly two in the morning and I am staring at a ceramic crocodile. The seller, Uncle_Alberts_Attic, describes it as
a “vintage treasure,” and “a must-have for any serious collector.” I click to enlarge the picture by two hundred percent.
The crocodile is holding a dull yellow sign between spiked claws. EAT MY COOKIES. His mouth is gaping, not in a menacing way,
but as if he’s in the middle of a seizure. Stubby snout, big nostrils, long eyelashes. Actually, he looks more like a cockroach.
According to my
Ultimate Guide to Vintage Cookie Jars,
“Cookies Croc” was made by Mandy’s L.A. Originals, manufacturer of hundreds of “whimsical” cookie jars from 1947 until 1969,
the year Mandy Millstein’s son took over the family business and promptly destroyed it. The jar has received no bids. I study
the crocodile’s expression, which could be described as pained and trapped and possibly deranged. I offer five dollars. I
am the sole bidder. Ten minutes later, the auction is over and the Cookie Croc is mine. I feel a momentary pang of buyer’s
remorse, then remind myself that I’m a collector now, and even the most hideous cookie jar is a vintage treasure, a must-have
for every serious collector.

I am poised to log off when I hear the chime indicating that I’ve received e-mail. It is now 3:00
A.M
. It’s probably junk, I tell myself, yet one more invitation to
GET OUT OF DEBT NOW
! or
SEE TEENAGE VIXENS HAVING SEX
! or
REFINANCE YOUR HOUSE TODAY
! or
TRY THIS PENIS ENLARGER, GUARANTEED
! I move tentatively to my mailbox. The message is from edelaney. Moving slowly, as much to preserve the moment as to avoid
it, I double-click on his name and hold my breath.

You mentioned that your son Jake likes motorcycles. There’s a Road Rage expo at the convention center this Saturday. Thought
Jake might enjoy getting up close and personal with the bikes. I’d be happy to serve as your personal tour guide. I’ll be
there at noon if you’re interested. e

Michael will be playing at a retirement party at Casino Bar on Saturday, and both girls, miraculously, will be attending birthday
parties. And though I’d vowed to stay away from Evan Delaney, I feel comfortable accepting this invitation because it’s really
more of an invitation for Jake, not me. There could be no appearance of impropriety with Jake there. With Jake there, I was,
above all and to the exclusion of all else, a Mother. A good mother, the kind of mother who seeks out enriching and engaging
opportunities for her young son, even if it means giving up a Saturday afternoon, usually reserved for laundry and bill-paying.

I type:
Thanks for the invitation! Jake and I will be there. J.

I replace the exclamation mark with a period, change the J to Julia, and then change it again to Julia Flanagan and send it
off. This is fine, this is good, this will be just fine, no problem, it’ll be fun for Jake, it’ll be fun, it’ll be fine.

I don’t hear Michael open the door and saunter up behind me. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“No, yeah, I don’t know. It must be the nasal decongestant.” A lie. “Non-drowsy formula. I’m wired.” I know he can’t possibly
have seen the message from Evan, but I am nonetheless frozen with panic.

He kneads my shoulders slowly, with as much strength as a half-asleep man can muster. “I didn’t realize you had a cold. Poor
baby.” My husband leans over to kiss my mouth but I put my hand up. “Don’t. Germs.”

He kisses me anyway. “I don’t care.” He kisses me again, touching his tongue to my lower lip. “Come back to bed. I miss you.”
He takes my hand and tows me gently to the bedroom.

“Hey. Will you teach me how to whistle?”

“Sorry, but I’m married.”

“Lucky guy.”

Michael holds me close but he is too tired for sex. As I float into sleep, with Michael’s arm draped heavily across my chest,
I can hear the computer’s faint chime across the hall.

Like a dog show or Star Trek convention, a motorcycle expo is a closed society, a realm of experts and enthusiasts, of inviolable
customs, charismatic personas, and a palpable thrill bordering on hysteria. And as with dog shows and Star Trek conventions,
at the Road Rage expo I am an interloper. The last time I was in this exhibit hall was two years ago, for ASETE, the American
Sexuality Educators Textbook Exhibition. Constricted like sausage in a somber gray suit and cramped black pumps, I staffed
the Bentley booth from eight in the morning until six at night while Leslie Keen flirted with visitors and posed for the press
alongside the giant penis we privately called Fred, after her boyfriend. Fred was made entirely of granite, six feet high
from base to tip, eight and a half inches across, cold to the touch and dull from all the handprints. It took two men and
a forklift to install the thing and even though I thought Fred was tacky and urged Leslie to leave him in the storage room,
she insisted that we needed a gimmick to distinguish our booth from the rest.

Today it’s a different milieu, same theme. The Road Rage expo is all about sex. The imposing bikes, the babes with big rumps
and leather shorts, and the men, all tattoos and belt buckles, rippling muscles and heavy harnessed boots. The air is thick
with pheromones, the floor covered in sawdust, Charlie Daniels thumping from speakers the size of my potting shed. Mullet
heads in Confederate flag T-shirts mix uneasily with the J. Crew Sunday riders, and both groups stand in awe and admiration
before Harley-Davidson’s sleek FXDL Dyna Lowrider. I am amazed that I’ve made it to the convention center in time; I’d driven
nearly the whole way behind a green minivan that crawled like a dung beetle and stopped for every yellow light and shuffling
pedestrian. Jake is bug-eyed as I lead him around the Harley exhibit. He is wearing his Spiderman backpack, which I’ve stocked
with grape juice boxes, a Ziploc bag of animal crackers, a disposable camera, and paper and pen for autographs, in case we
run into anyone famous.