“I saw The Wrestler by myself today. It was really good. You missed out.”
“You didn’t ask me.”
“I asked you three weeks ago and you weren’t interested.”
“You said you didn’t want to go out!”
“That was a different issue….”
Maybe we were arguing about why we couldn’t get another cat again. I couldn’t remember.
“Then on my next few days off, you go to the MALL all day with your girlfriend.”
“So? WE didn’t have any plans.”
“I’m saying we only get a couple days off together when I’m off and then you go and plan stuff with other people.”
“…”
“…”
“I’m going to see Confessions of a Shopaholic with my girlfriend tomorrow afternoon. It’s the only day she can get a babysitter.”
“Fine. I’m seeing Friday the 13th anyways after my dentist appointment.”
-
My old lady dentist was replaced with a young pretty dentist with dark brown eyes and the complexion of Rashida Jones. The plaque at the front desk said she was married to Ramesh, did volunteer work in South America, and owned two cats.
When they had their hands in my mouth, she and her assistant talked about Clive Owen and the subtleties of various dental cements.
Two cats.
-
When I went to get my haircut, the only available hairdresser was an even younger pretty girl. She walked like a new fawn, in high heels and bell-bottoms.
She played with the static in my hair. Asked how long I’d been a doctor. Was amused by the one grey hair in my sideburn. She clipped it.
She offered to trim my eyebrows. Amy stopped doing that a couple years ago. I don’t know why. I said, “Sure.”
It was like being scratched behind the ears again.
-
The next morning, Amy gave me a kiss before she left for work. Different.
-
The day after, my mom came over to visit.
“Hey, I found a dance class for us this Sunday,” I told Amy, “If it gets to be a regular thing for us, I was going to drop jiu jitsu.”
“Okay, sure.”
Later, while she was bathing the kids, she casually mentioned,
“The office is going out for drinks tomorrow after work. Since your mom is over to help with the kids, I said I’ll go. I’ll be a little late.”
But my mom’s over so WE can go out, I thought to myself so hard that I’m surprised the bathroom mirrors didn’t crack.
“… Who’s going?”
“Me, Seymore, [female], [female]….”
“…”
Seymore. I hate that little fucker. He’s short, peppy, and might be my wife’s best friend at work. Whenever I stop by the office, he jokes like we’re buddies,
“So are you and Amy working on baby number three?”
I’m always tempted to reply with,
“Are you?”
He already has three kids of his own.
He recently transferred out of his other department to work under … my wife.
“Seymore’s like one of the girls,” she always says.
Right.
-
“Amy seems to go out a lot,” my mom says.
“Only when you’re here,” I say.
“I’m just saying, son.”
“Shut up, mom.”
-
I was so quietly mad. They say you shouldn’t keep your feelings locked inside because they fester and rot and your insides get scooped out like a Devil’s Night jack-0-lantern. When I was little, I used to get so mad at my younger brother and he never knew. I’d sit at my desk with blood boiling in my veins. He’d innocently walk in and start playing or reading or daydreaming on my bed just for the company, I realized. Then I’d stop being mad at him every time. Must have happened a hundred times and he never knew.
-
In bed that night, Amy was reading The Reader. I don’t know anything about it, except that there’s an affair between a woman and a younger male.
I turned off Passive Jon and Psycho Kate Plus 8 Too Many. I defiantly put in Breakfast At Tiffany’s. I sat on my side of the bed. Amy was still reading.
Once it started, she finally noticed.
“You haven’t watched this yet?”
“No.”
She put her book down and started watching too.
“She’s way too thin. You can see the tendons in her jaw.”
“Hey it’s that A-Team guy.”
“Oh, this is the one where Mickey Rooney does that racist shit, isn’t it?”
“She just met him and now she’s laying her head on his naked sweaty chest?”
“Her hand is right next to his penis.”
“And it’s probably still sticky too.”
“It’s like they’re married.”
It felt good to have my wife’s head laying on my chest. Watching and talking together. This is what it’s supposed to be like – like we’re married.
“Isn’t her cat cute?” I had to throw it out there just once.
She fell asleep before the end of the movie. As usual. It perplexes me how she can do that. The ending is the payoff. The point. I guess she saw it before:
“I love you.”
“So what.”
“So what? So plenty! I love you, you belong to me!”
“(tearfully) No. People don’t belong to people.”
“Of course they do!”
“I’ll never let ANYBODY put me in a cage.”
“I don’t want to put you in a cage, I want to love you!”
I don’t either. I love her.
