Кэндес Бушнелл - Four Blondes

He wasn't impressed that she was going to Smith in the fall, and he didn't care that she was number three in her high school class (tolerable only because the two students above her were boys). She learned that in certain situations, achievement and intelligence were not a guarantee against being treated badly, and she vowed never to be in that situation again. Winnie's birthday is coming, and James is scared.

Winnie has a sister and a brother. Everybody loves Winnie's brother. He graduated (from?) UCLA film school and just finished an important documentary about adolescent sex slaves in China. (He sold it to The Learning Channel. Nobody is worried about him.) Everybody is worried about Winnie's sister, Evie ("Evil" Winnie calls her sometimes), who is two years younger than Winnie. Eight summers ago, Evie had to go to rehab. Hazelden. Since then, she changes her mind about what she wants to do every six months. Actress. Landscape architect. Singer. Real estate agent. Novelist. Movie director. Fashion designer. Now she wants to be a journalist. Like Winnie.

The week before, Evie showed up at a very important, very serious party for a journalist who had just written a book about a right-wing politician. (He was a New York Times journalist who wrote a book about every five years. His books are always favorably reviewed in The New York Times Book Review. This is what Winnie wants for James.) Evie's blouse was un buttoned too low «ind she was showing off her breasts. (She used to be fairly flat-chested, like Winnie, but a couple of years ago, her breasts mysteriously grew. Winnie thinks she had breast implants, but they never talk about it.) Evie walked right up to the important journalist and kept him engaged in conversation so no one else could talk to him. The other women were fuming. They stood around the crudités platter chomping on carrot sticks. They rolled their eyes and gave Evie dirty looks. But they couldn't "take care of Evie the way they normally would have, because Evie was Winnie's sister.

The next day, Winnie got a phone call from a female colleague who found out that Evie had gone to the important journalist's hotel room and spent the night with him. "Winnie, I just want you to know that I'm not going to judge you by your sister's behavior," she said. Then Evie herself called. "I think I'm going to get an assignment from The New York Times, " she squealed.

"Stay out of my life," Winnie warned her (quietly). Then she added (cleverly), "Why don't you get a job at a fashion magazine, if you want to be a journalist so much?”

"Oh no," Evie said. She swallowed loudly. She was drinking a Diet Coke. She drank five Diet Cokes a day. (Just another thing to be addicted to, Winnie thought.) "I'm going to change my life. I'm going to be really successful. Just like my big sis.”

Evie is a mess, and sometimes James wonders if he should have married her instead.

James sees Evie as little as possible, but every year he asks her to help him pick out Winnie's birthday present. At first he did it "as a treat for Evie" (it was good for Evie to spend time around a man who wasn't a user, an asshole, or a scumbag—and Winnie agreed). But then he realized that she was attracted to him.

He calls her up. "Evie," he says.

"Hey, bro," Evie says. "Did you hear about my night with ... ," she says, naming the serious important journalist. "And I might get my first assignment.

With The New York Times. I think That’s pretty great, don't you?" Evie is always chipper, and always acts as though her behavior is that of a normal, decent person. (She is in denial, James thinks.) "Ifs Winnie's birthday," James says (staying in control by getting right to the point).

"I know," she says.

"Any suggestions?" he asks. "I think I want to get her something from Barneys. Jewelry.”

"No, Jimmy," Evie says. "You can't afford jewelry worth giving anyone.”

(This is why everyone hates you, he thinks.) "So what, then?" he says.

"Shoes," she says. "Winnie needs a great pair of high-heeled sexy shoes.”

"Okay," he says, knowing that high-heeled sexy shoes are the last thing that Winnie would want (or need). He agrees to meet Evie in the shoe department at Bloomingdale's. He hangs up the phone and feels scared.

Then he realizes he has a hard-on.

On the day of Winnie Dieke's thirty-eighth birthday, James Dieke wakes up and is scared. Winnie Dieke wakes up and is depressed. Not that she has anything to be depressed about. She has, after all, hit all her life landmarks in style: first job at twenty-two, first major assignment for a prestigious magazine at twenty-seven, met future husband at twenty-eight, married at thirty, established herself as a "serious journalist" at thirty-one, co-op apartment at thirty one, pregnant at thirty-two, own column at thirty four.

For the past few weeks, Winnie has been spending a lot of time (too much time, which she knows should be spent thinking about other things, like ideas) reminding herself of everything she's achieved. Reminding herself how clever she is not to be one of those desperate single women (like Evie). But something is wrong.

Winnie doesn't want to admit it (she never wants to admit that there possibly could be anything wrong with her life), but that something might be James.

Lately, she's been worried about James. (Irritated, actually, but worried is such a better way to look at it.) James hasn't been holding up his end of the bargain. He should have written a major, important work by now (preferably about politics: so easy, considering the political climate), which would have elevated her status in the journalistic world as his wife (she didn't take his last name for no reason). If James had written an important, influential book by now, they would have access to more important, influential people. They would be more important, influential people. But instead, James keeps writing the same kind of pieces. And agonizing over them. Half the time now, James calls her up during the day and says, "I can't write. I'm stuck. I'm blocked.”

"Oh please, James," she'll say. "I've got a kazillion things going on. I've got the CEO of a major corporation on the other line. If you're blocked, go to the supermarket and pick up something for dinner. And make sure it doesn't have any fat in it." Then she'll hang up. She wishes he would just get on with it. James is frustrated and Winnie is frustrated but they can't talk about it.

When Winnie tries, when she gently suggests (the way shrinks are always telling you to do it, picking the "right" moment, when you're both relaxed) that maybe he should really get to work on a book proposal, he sulks. He turns on the TV and watches some idiotic, mindless show like Hercules. Sometimes Winnie freaks out and unplugs the TV. Sometimes she just screams. But the argument always ends with Winnie shouting, "Do I have to do everything? Do I have to work and take care of our child" (even though she doesn't really take care of the child—the nanny does most of the caretaking, and Winnie only spends an hour with him in the morning and two hours in the evening) "and keep our careers on track? Do I have to make us famous?”

"We're already famous," James shouts back (thinking, You make me sick and why did I marry you?

but never having the nerve to say it, because Winnie would probably leave and people would find out). "We're as famous as we're going to get, Winnie. What else do you want me to do?”

"I'm doing more," Winnie says, calmer now, because she doesn't have the stamina to go on screaming forever (but she does, James thinks, have the stamina to do enough screaming). "Why don't we move to Washington?”

"I don't want to rrove to Washington. All my editors are here," James says. And then he plugs in the TV or retrieves the remote control from where it has been flung under a chair, and goes back to watching Hercules.