Кэндес Бушнелл - Four Blondes

The world is not right. (Or is it right, and she's not? Maybe she's like the dumb kid in the class. But she knows she isn't. Dumb. Sometimes she thinks there should be a test for dumbness while a baby is still in the womb, and all the dumb fetuses should be aborted. She knows what the argument against it would be: "Who will decide what dumb is?" She has the answer: She would. She'd be happy to decide.) Then she checks the sites of the ten or so other writers she and James know who have published books in the last year. She checks their sales ratings. If the ratings are very bad, like around 286,000, she can't help it. She feels good.

She has to stop doing this. But she can't. If s research. What will happen if James writes a book? She wants to be prepared. She will have to numb herself against the inevitable bad reader reviews. She knows she can't take them personally, but she will. She takes everything personally. Especially herself.

Maybe it would be better if James didn't write a book. (Maybe it would be better if they moved to Vermont and worked for a small local newspaper. After two months, it would be like they were dead everyone they knew would forget about them, and Winnie isn't ready to do that. Yet.) The phone rings. She picks it up. "Yes/' she says.

"If s me." (If s James.) "Hi," she says. She suddenly remembers that she has all these things to do. Like work.

"Are you okay?" he asks.

"I'm stressed. I've got a kazillion things to do." You've always got a kazillion things to do, and I wish you'd shut up about it, James thinks. Wondering: Why don't you pay attention to me? Why don't you make me feel good? Why is it always about you?

Aloud, he says, "I got a call this morning. From Clay. Tanner's coming to town.”

"Is he?" Winnie says. She isn't sure how she feels about this information yet.

"He has a movie premiere. On Thursday.”

"Ugh," Winnie says. For the first time in days, she knows that James is thinking the same thing she is. "Another—”

"Yup. Bang-'em-up, shoot-'em-up, big-budget movie, courtesy of Paramount Pictures.”

"I suppose we have to go," Winnie says, emitting a long sigh.

"You don't have to," James says. "But I'm going to.”

"If you're going, I'm going," Winnie says. "Fine," James says in a small voice. "Don't you want me to go?" Winnie says. Threatening.

(Why does she always become immediately threatening? James thinks. Even wasps let you swat them away before they sting you.) "I do want you to go," James says. "But you hate things like that.”

"I don't.”

“You do.”

"I don't hate them. I think they're boring. You know how I feel about celebrity worship.”

“Tanner wants me to be there," James says. "I'm sure he wants us both to be there. But that doesn't mean we have to do whatever Tanner wants.”

"He's only in town twice a year," James says. "I want to go.”

(I'm sure you do, Winnie thinks. So you can ogle dumb blondes.) "Fine," she says. She hangs up the phone.

Now she has to be "concerned" (a much better word, more accurate than "worried") about James for a week. Specifically about what he's going to do (how he's going to behave) when Tanner is in town. She will spend hours (time that should be spent doing something important, like thinking of ideas) reacting to James's as yet unenacted behavior. She will obsess over if/then scenarios. Such as: If James stays out all night with Tanner (again), then she will divorce him. If James flirts (pitifully, desperately) with the actresses in the film (again), then she will lock him out of the house. If James drinks too much and throws up out the cab window (again), then she will throw all his clothes out the window. (James does not understand that he is skating on thin ice. Very thin ice.) His black marks are mounting: She's known him for ten years and still can't trust him. He doesn't do exactly what he's supposed to do. He can't be relied upon (even to get the right groceries at the supermarket). He acts like a baby (he is a big grown-up baby).

He's turning out not to be important. (And he doesn't pay the bills.) She might (actually) be better off without him: It would mean one less person to take care of. Winnie hits a button on her computer and goes to her e-mails.

Her assistant comes into her office. Winnie looks up. The assistant's dark hair is messy. She is wearing sloppily applied red lipstick; a short black skirt with no stockings; a rumpled black V-neck sweater (at least she is wearing a bra); clunky black shoes. She looks like (pardon the expression) someone rode her hard and put her away wet.

The assistant flops down on the couch. "What’s up?" she says. (What's up? Like Winnie is the assistant and has just plopped into her office.) Winnie is never sure how to respond to this greeting.

"How are you?" she says. Briskly. Reminding the assistant that this is an office. And she is her boss.

The assistant picks at her manicure. Fingernails painted a mud brown. "I've got a urinary tract infection. I'm wondering if I can take the rest of the day off.”

Someone did ride her hard and put her away wet.

"No," Winnie says. "I've got that big Internet conference this afternoon and I need you here. To cover the office." (The magazine is expanding their Web site, and they want Winnie to be involved. Very involved. It could mean more money.) "It hurts," the assistant says.

(Winnie wants to tell her—scream at her—to stop having so much sex, but she can't.) "Buy some cranberry juice. And take five thousand milligrams of vitamin C”

The assistant just sits there. "Is that it?" she asks.

"Is what it?" Winnie says. "What you just said.”

“About what?”

"About you know.”

(No, I don't know, Winnie wants to scream.) "I don't understand.”

“Neither do I.”

“About what?”

"Whatever," the assistant says. She stands up. She goes back to her cubicle. (Like a dog.) Winnie tries to concentrate on her e-mails. Her shrink tells her not to envision if/then scenarios. What if Tanner kept James out for two nights and James slept with prostitutes? What then?

She can't help herself. She can never help herself.

In the week before Tanner comes, Winnie is concerned and James is excited. They both know something bad could happen, and they're going to have to talk about it.

James and Winnie know when Tanner comes to town, James can get away with doing bad things. Tanner is bad. (He's a bad influence.) Tanner is so bad, in fact, that when James does bad things with him, Winnie always blames Tanner. Winnie thinks (knows?) that James would never do these bad things if it weren't for Tanner. And she's right. James wouldn't. He doesn't have the guts to defy Winnie. But Tanner does. Tanner doesn't care what Winnie thinks. (He probably thinks she's boring. Which James is beginning to think himself. He wishes Winnie would do something interesting, like go away.

Then maybe he could fall in love with her again.

Or find somebody else. Like a six-foot-tall Swedish woman with large breasts.) Winnie would like to control Tanner (the way she controls James), but she can't. Winnie can't do anything to Tanner.

Tanner is a big movie star and Winnie is not.

Tanner is a celebrity. Compared to Tanner, Winnie is an insignificant journalist. Compared to Tanner, Winnie is a woman. Women don't mean anything to Tanner, except as something to have sex with. (James wishes he could feel the same way. If he did, maybe then he would feel like a man. But he can't. Winnie is the mother of his child. She grew their son inside her body. Green stuff came out right after his son emerged, and he wished someone had warned him it was coming. It was like the green stuff in the body of a lobster. Sometimes, when he is performing oral sex on Winnie, he thinks about the green stuff. He can't help it. He feels guilty. And sometimes he thinks about that time he had sex in college. With the crazy girl. Who asked him to fuck her up the butt and then gave him a blow job afterward. He felt guilty about that too.) But more than anything, Tanner is a man. When James and Tanner were roommates at Harvard, Tanner had one or two different women every weekend.