Melanie Gideon - Wife 22

“We’ve made lots of pacts. Open the window-it’s boiling in here.”

We’re sitting in the car out in the driveway. It’s the only place we can talk privately. He starts the car and rolls down the windows. My Susan Boyle CD comes streaming out of the speakers at a high volume- I dreamed a dream in time gone by.

“Jesus!” says William, shutting it off.

“It’s my car. You’re not allowed to censor my music.”

I turn the CD back on. I dreamed that love would never die. Jesus! I turn it off.

“You’re killing me with that shit,” groans William.

I want to run to my computer and do more budget projections, projections out to 2040, but I know what they’ll reveal-with all of our expenses, including sending both of our fathers checks every month to supplement their paltry Social Security, we have about six months before we are in trouble.

“You’re forty-seven,” I say.

“You’re forty-four,” he says. “What’s your point?”

“My point? My point is-you’re going to have to dye your hair,” I say, looking at his graying temples.

“Why the hell would I dye my hair?”

“Because it’s going to be incredibly hard to find a job. You’re too old. You cost too much. People aren’t going to want to hire you. They’ll hire a twenty-eight-year-old with no kids and no mortgage for half the salary who knows how to use Facebook and Tumblr and Twitter.”

“I have a Facebook page,” he says. “I just don’t live on it.”

“No, you just announce to the world that you got fired on it.”

“ Free can be interpreted in many different ways. Look, Alice, I’m sorry you’re scared. But there are times in life that you have to leap. And when you don’t have the courage to leap, well then, eventually somebody comes along and pushes you the fuck out the window.”

“You are reading Eckhart Tolle! What else are you doing behind my back?”

“Nothing,” he says dully.

“So, you’ve been unhappy at work, is that what you’re telling me? What is it that you want to do now? Leave advertising altogether?”

“No. I just need a change.”

“What sort of a change?”

“I want to work on accounts that mean something to me. I want to sell products that I believe in.”

“Well, that sounds lovely. Who wouldn’t want that, but in this economy I’m afraid that’s a pipe dream.”

“It probably is. But who says we shouldn’t go after pipe dreams anymore?”

I begin to cry.

“Please don’t do that. Please don’t cry.”

“Why are you crying?” asks Peter, suddenly appearing at my window.

“Go in the house, Peter. This is a private conversation,” says William.

“Stay,” I say. “He’ll find out soon enough. Your father’s been laid off.”

“Laid off like fired?”

“No, laid off like laid off. There’s a difference,” says William.

“Does that mean you’ll be home more?” asks Peter.

“Yes.”

“Can we tell people?” asks Peter.

“What people?” I say.

“Zoe.”

“Zoe’s not people. She’s family,” I say.

“No, she’s people. We lost her to the people some time ago,” says William. “Look, everything’s going to be okay. I’m going to find another job. Trust me. Get your sister,” he says to Peter. “We’re going out to dinner.”

“We’re celebrating you getting fired?” asks Peter.

“Laid off. And I’d like us to think of this as a beginning, not an end,” says William.

I open my car door. “We’re not going anywhere. The leftovers need to be eaten or they’ll rot.”

That night I can’t sleep. I wake at 3 a.m. and just for kicks decide to weigh myself. Why not? What else do I have to do? 130 pounds-somehow I’ve lost eight pounds! I’m shocked. Women my age don’t just magically lose eight pounds. I haven’t been on a diet, although I am still paying monthly dues for my online Weight Watchers program, which now I really should cancel. And other than my pathetic attempt to run with Caroline, I haven’t done any exercise in weeks. However, other people in my household are exercising like mad. Between Zoe’s 750-sit-ups-a-day regimen and William’s five-mile runs with Caroline, maybe I’m burning calories by osmosis. Or maybe I have cancer of the stomach. Or maybe it’s guilt. That’s it. I’ve been on the Guilt Diet and I haven’t even known it.

What a brilliant idea for a book! Diet books sell millions of copies. I wonder if anybody else has thought of it.

GOOGLE SEARCH “Guilt… Diet”

About 9,850,000 results (.17 seconds)

Gilt Groupe

Luxury designers and fashion brands at up to 70% off…

Working Moms… Guilt

I may feel a tiny twinge of guilt when the maid is washing my sheets and I’m eating an expensed lunch at Flora…

Guilt-Free Sushi

Guilt-free sushi eating may be complicated…

I’m not in the market for discount designer clothes and though I am a working mom, I’ve never felt guilty for having a job, and Zoe doesn’t allow me to eat sushi-well, certain kinds of overfished sushi like the common octopus, which is not a hardship for me-but hurrah!-there’s no Guilt Diet on Google.

“We’re in business!” I relay to Jampo, who is sitting at my feet. I write myself a note to look into the Guilt Diet in more depth once it’s morning, when I’m pretty sure it will reveal itself to be the most ridiculous idea ever, but you never know.

I log on to Facebook and go to William’s wall. He has no new update, which oddly disappoints me. What did I expect him to post?

William Buckle

Wife forced me to listen to Susan Boyle, but I got myself fired so I deserve it.

William Buckle

Wife looks mysteriously skinnier-suspect she’s ingesting tapeworms.

Or more likely something along the lines of-

William Buckle

“The past has no power over the present moment.” Eckhart Tolle

43.After that night celebrating William’s Clio, a torturous three weeks went by. Three weeks in which William ignored me. Our lunchtime runs abruptly stopped. If he had to talk to me he avoided eye contact and looked at my forehead, which was deeply unsettling and made me blurt out stupid things like according to our focus groups what people (women) really want to know about toilet paper is that it doesn’t tear while you’re in the middle of using it due to the fact that men wash their hands far less than women and if they do wash them most of the time they don’t use soap. He also reverted to calling me Brown, and so I could only conclude he (like me) was drunk that evening and had absolutely no memory of the knuckle-grazing incident outside the bathroom. Or after sobering up was totally embarrassed having stared at me all night long and was doing everything he could to pretend it never happened.

Meanwhile, he and Helen were inseparable. At least three times a day she flounced into his office and shut the door, and every night she collected him and off they went for Rob Roys at the Copley Hotel, or to attend some fancy event at the Isabella Gardner Museum.

And then, just when I’d accepted an invitation from a friend to be set up on a blind date, I got this email.

From: williamb ‹williamb@peaveypatterson.com›

Subject: Tom Kah Gai

Date: August 4, 10:01 AM

To: alicea ‹alicea@peaveypatterson.com›

As you’ve probably noticed, I’ve been home sick for the past two days. I’m craving Tom Kah Gai. Would you bring me some? Make sure it’s from King and Me, not King of Siam. Once a mouse ran across my feet while eating at King of Siam. Thanks very much. 54 Acorn Street. 2nd Floor. Apt. 203