Melanie Gideon - Wife 22

“At once?”

I nod. “They’re my Ambien. I can’t afford to become a sleep-eater.”

I read one page of one book and fall asleep. I’m awakened a few hours later by Peter shaking my shoulder.

“Can I sleep in your bed? I’m scared,” he snuffles.

I switch on the light. “ I see alive people ,” I whisper.

“That’s not funny.” He’s near tears.

“Oh, sweetheart. I’m sorry.” I flip back the covers on William’s side of the bed, feeling surprisingly sad that he isn’t there. “Climb in.”

John Yossarian changed his profile picture

John Yossarian added Relationship Status

It’s Complicated

John Yossarian added Interests

Piña Coladas

You’re still being blurry, Researcher 101.

I thought you’d be pleased. I’m filling in my profile.

It’s complicated is a given in any relationship.

Facebook only gives you so many options. I had to choose one, Wife 22.

If you could write your own Relationship Status, what would it be? I suggest you answer this question without thinking about it too much. I’ve found this kind of rapid-fire response results in the most honest answers.

Married, questioning, hopeful.

I knew you were married! And I believe all of those adjectives fall under the category It’s Complicated.

If you could write your own Relationship Status, what would it be?

Married. Questioning.

Not hopeful?

Well, that’s the strange thing. I am hopeful. But I’m not sure the hope is directed toward my husband. For the moment, anyway.

What’s it directed toward?

I don’t know. It’s sort of a free-floating hope.

Ah-free-floating hope.

You’re not going to lecture me about redirecting my hope toward my husband?

Hope isn’t something you can redirect. It lands where it lands.

True. But it’s nice you feel hopeful about your marriage.

I didn’t say that, exactly.

What did you say?

I’m not sure.

What did you mean?

I meant that I’m hoping to have hope. Sometime in the future.

So you don’t have it now?

It’s a little up in the air.

I see. Up in the air like you in your profile photo?

I hope we can have more of these conversations.

I thought you didn’t like chatting.

I like chatting with you . And I’m getting used to it. My thoughts come faster, but at a price.

What’s that?

With speed comes disinhibition: i.e. see first sentence in previous comment.

And that worries you.

Well, yes.

With speed comes truth, as well.

A certain sort of truth.

You have a need to be very precise, don’t you, Researcher 101?

That is a researcher’s nature.

I don’t like to think of you as being a fan of sickly sweet frozen drinks.

A lost opportunity for you, Wife 22.

“Is that Jude?” I ask.

“Where?”

“In the hair products aisle?”

“I doubt it,” says Zoe. “He doesn’t pay any attention to his hair. It’s part of his singer-songwriter vibe.”

Zoe and I are in Rite-Aid. Zoe needs pontoons and I’m trying to find this perfume I wore when I was a teenager. There’s a flirtatious undertone to my Researcher 101 chats that’s making me feel twenty years younger. I’ve been fantasizing about what he looks like. So far he’s a cross between a young Tommy Lee Jones and Colin Firth-in other words, a weathered, slightly banged-up, profane Colin Firth.

“Excuse me,” I say to a clerk who’s restocking a shelf. “Do you carry a perfume called Love’s Musky Jasmine?”

“We have Love’s Baby Soft,” she says. “Aisle seven.”

“No, I’m not looking for Baby Soft. I want Musky Jasmine.”

She shrugs. “We have Circus Fantasy.”

“What kind of an idiot would name a perfume Circus Fantasy?” asks Zoe. “Who would want to smell like peanuts and horse poop?”

“Britney Spears,” says the clerk.

“You shouldn’t wear that synthetic stuff anyway, Mom. It’s selfish. Air pollution. What about people with MCS? Have you given any thought to them?” says Zoe.

“I like that synthetic stuff, it reminds me of when I was in high school, but apparently they don’t make it anymore,” I say. “What’s MCS?”

“Multiple chemical sensitivity.”

I roll my eyes at Zoe.

“What? It’s a real affliction,” says Zoe.

“How about Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific?” I ask the clerk. “Do you carry that?”

When did tampons get so expensive? It’s a good thing I have a coupon. I look at the fine print and squint, then hand it to Zoe. “I can’t read this. How many boxes do we have to buy?”

“Four.”

“There were only two boxes on the shelf,” I say to the clerk when we get to the counter. “But your coupon is for four.”

“Then you need four,” he says.

“But I just told you there were only two.”

“Mom, it’s okay. Just get the two,” whispers Zoe. “There’s a line.”

“It’s two dollars off a box. It’s not okay. We’re using the coupon. We are a coupon-using family now.”

To the clerk I say, “Can I get a rain check?”

The clerk snaps his gum and then gets on the loudspeaker. “I need a rain-check coupon,” he says. “Tampax.” He picks up a box of tampons and studies it. “Are there sizes on these things? Where does it say it? Oh-okay. There it is. ‘Tampax, super plus. Four boxes,’ ” he announces to the entire store.

“Two,” I whisper.

Zoe groans with embarrassment. I turn around and see Jude a few people back. It was him. He holds up his hand sheepishly and waves.

After the clerk has tallied up our purchase and given me a rain-check coupon, Zoe practically sprints out of the store.

“I bet your mother never did anything like that to you ,” she hisses, walking five feet in front of me. “Cheap plastic bags. They’re practically see-through. Everybody knows exactly what you’ve bought.”

“Nobody is even looking,” I say as we reach the car, thinking how I would give anything to have had my mother around to humiliate me by buying too many boxes of tampons at the drugstore when I was Zoe’s age.

“Hi, Zo,” says Jude, catching up with us.

Zoe ignores him. Jude’s face falls and I feel sorry for him.

“It’s a bad time, Jude,” I say.

“Unlock the car,” says Zoe.

“I heard about your father’s job,” says Jude. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

I’m going to kill Nedra. I made her swear she wouldn’t tell anybody but Kate about William getting laid off.

“We’re in a hurry, Jude. Zoe and I are going to lunch,” I say, tossing my bag into the backseat.

“Oh-nice,” says Jude. “Kind of a mother-daughter thing.”

“Yup, a mother-daughter thing,” I say, climbing into the car. Even though the daughter wants nothing to do with the mother.