Wife Living Dangerously (4 page)

“That’s very nice of you to say. Not the shooting yourself part. I mean, everything else.” I smoothed my skirt primly and
straightened my posture. I found myself drawn to Leslie Keen. Thrice divorced, feisty, and in perpetual motion, Leslie was
a minor celebrity in the field of human sexuality. She had successfully marketed the Bentley as a brand name, extending its
reach far beyond the enclaves of the academy and straight to the masses. She had her own call-in radio show and for a couple
of years hosted a nationally syndicated TV program,
Let’s Talk About Sex.
Though she is fifteen years my senior, she could pass at a distance for a college girl, thanks to Botox, a forehead lift,
and a diet limited to whole grains and fresh greens. Once when we were working through dinner and ordered in Chinese, Leslie
ate only a tiny plate of steamed bok choy, no sauce. When I asked how she could possibly be satisfied with such a small serving,
she smiled confidently and said, “Julie, it doesn’t take a lot of fuel to run this lean machine.”

It does, however, take a lot of Dexedrine, as I discovered one day when Leslie asked if I’d stop by CVS on my way into work
to pick up a prescription. When I handed her the bag she winked and said, “Let’s keep this
entrez nous,
shall we?”

Working for a speed addict, I’ve come to learn, is like being one of those tornado chasers, ever watchful for foreboding cloud
formations, always plunging into turbulence while everyone else is driving in the opposite direction. Leslie Keen is a rainmaker,
the university’s most successful magnet for grants and private donations, but she is also at the center of the university’s
most destructive storms. Three months ago she held a press conference to announce her endorsement of mutual masturbation as
a form of safe sex for teenagers. At 2:00
A.M.
over weak coffee in her catastrophically messy kitchen, I helped her craft a face-saving public statement when all she really
wanted to say was, Fuck you, fuck that, fuck this whole fucking job; the following day I stayed late to field phone calls
from angry parents, concerned politicians, and eager talk show hosts. And only last week I booked guests for her radio show
when she was too wasted to make it to the office. “You’re so good to me,” Leslie sobbed into my shoulder, gin vapors wafting
from her mouth. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Michael and I are spinning in our own orbits these days, two planets in two entirely separate solar systems. Tonight he misses
dinner with me and the kids, doesn’t get home until 9:14, pauses to kiss me, then goes upstairs to tend to Homer’s cage, which
he’d moved last week from Caitlin’s room to his study. (Caitlin, who’d lobbied hardest of all for a pet, hasn’t even noticed
that the rat is gone.) My husband checks his e-mail and spends the rest of the night in bed clicking through channels.

When Michael and I were still in that foggy-eyed stage of early marriage, we vowed that we would never retreat to solitary
spaces. No matter what tumbled across our path, we would confront it together as allies. Other marriages became our antimodels.
My divorced parents were one. His bickering folks were another. But the ultimate antimodels were Janet and Harry Hobart, veterinarians
who lived across the street from our first apartment on Skerwin Avenue in Ann Arbor. After too many piña coladas at a block
party, Janet admitted that she and Harry sometimes went for weeks without verbal communication. One frigid February morning,
Janet slipped on the wet spot her husband had left after his shower, smacked her head on the bathtub faucet, and lay there
unconscious for hours until she eventually choked on her own vomit and died. Harry didn’t discover her body until 11:00
P.M.
that night, when he went into the bathroom to floss his teeth. This was the cautionary tale Michael and I referred to again
and again as we renewed our commitment to a long, happy, and communicative marriage. “Do me a favor,” he’d joke. “If I’m not
back from the bathroom in a half hour, come check on me, okay?”

As I fold laundry this morning, I come across my pink Victoria’s Secret camisole with matching tap shorts and realize that
Michael and I haven’t had sex in seventeen days. Our sex wasn’t as spontaneous as it had been before parenthood, but it was
as sturdy and dependable as an Oldsmobile: once a week, usually on a Friday, between the kids’ bedtime and David Letterman.

Michael likes to tell people I seduced him with my whistle and he’s probably right. I learned how to whistle in seventh grade
from Cathy Sinclair, who shared a desk with me in homeroom. Cathy was from New York and she said that everybody in New York
knew how to whistle because how else would you call a cab? She showed me how to make a little circle of my thumb and forefinger,
press back on the tip of my tongue, shape my lips around my fingers, and direct the breath in just the right way to produce
a loud, strong, enduring trill. I used to be shy about whistling like this, full throttle with two fingers in my mouth. I
thought it was vulgar and unladylike, something my mother would do. I also thought it was unnecessary since taxis don’t cruise
the streets here looking for passengers; anyone who needs “car service” would summon it with a phone call.

Over the years I’ve come to appreciate my whistling skill. People admire it, especially men, who turn their heads to find
the source of this eardrum-puncturing sound and smile when they see it’s coming from a girl. Whistling is also very handy
when you want to express intense enthusiasm but don’t have the energy to applaud, during the rousing curtain call of
Les Misérables,
for instance. The way I figure it, one or two good whistles are worth three minutes of steady applause and it won’t leave
you with sore palms.

I went to my first football game in graduate school, Michigan against Penn State. I’d gone with a fellow teaching assistant,
Henry Cochran, who had only recently begun to wear his hair in braids because he learned that his father’s great-great-grandmother
might have been part Ojibwa. Henry had never been to a football game either and sat through the game grading papers. But I
was quickly sucked into the crowd’s excitement and when our team made a critical touchdown I jumped to my feet, pulled off
my glove, stuck my fingers in my mouth, and let loose with a skull-shattering whistle.

A guy wearing a navy blue Michigan knit cap turned around and stared at me. “Did
you
do that?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Can you teach me?”

Michael Flanagan was a third-year law student. I recognized him from student legal services where I’d gone for help with a
problematic landlord—Sheba Horton refused to return my security deposit. Even though I’d left the apartment in pristine condition,
she’d insisted that I’d violated the terms of the lease because I repainted the dingy walls. I was assigned to a hairy girl
named Rebecca Turk and I distinctly remember wishing that I’d gotten the tall guy in the flannel shirt instead. With his face
full of freckles and thick crimson hair he looked like someone who could slip into a McElvy family portrait and pass for one
of my cousins. Considering that I had no cousins, and considering that I did not in fact have a family portrait, this boy’s
familiarity was profoundly appealing to me. I assumed I’d never see him again. But here I was, on this bone-cracking day,
teaching him to whistle.

“Make a circle with your fingers. Like this.” I touched the tip of my thumb to my forefinger.

“Like this?”

“Yes. You’ve got it.” His enthusiasm for this endeavor made me laugh. I wanted to kiss his soft pink lips, wanted to touch
every one of his freckles, run my finger over the slope of his nose. “Now put your fingers in your mouth, and sort of flip
your tongue back and down.”

“Like this?”

“Yes. That’s right. Now tense your lips a little and blow.” I produced one of my more restrained whistles; I didn’t want to
show off.

He kept his eyes locked on mine as he followed my instructions but what came out wasn’t a whistle, just a hollow whoosh.

“What am I doing wrong?”

“I think it’s the way you’re holding your fingers.” I stood on the tips of my boots and peered into his mouth. “And your tongue.
You need to… here… let me show you…” As I reached up to adjust his fingers he took my hand and held it there
with my fingertips resting against his cool lips. He gave me a look that seemed to say,
I could make your head explode if you let me.

But I didn’t, not for another year, not until we were married.

My new husband was an eager, adventurous lover who believed that sexual technique could be cultivated like any other talent,
flying a kite, for instance, juggling, or cooking Indian food. He had been initiated at the tender and highly adrenal age
of sixteen by a divorcée who had hired Michael and his brother Dave to care for her four parakeets whenever she was out of
town. Both boys got fifteen dollars but only Michael received the bonus.

His lovemaking was intuitive and hungry and he was always pressing me just past my comfort zone, boundaries I’d arbitrarily
set for myself in the absence of experience; I didn’t know enough to know what I’d enjoy. But Michael was a persuasive teacher
and I a willing student; my repertoire quickly expanded as he showed me that my body could be explored in ways I’d never imagined
and all of it felt good. Sex was as natural as breathing but also a little bit naughty, exotic, and purloined. Michael would
tease me while I was on the phone with my boss, slip a hand into my panties in the crush of a tightly packed elevator, flick
his tongue against my cheek at a church picnic, which appeared as a polite kiss to anyone who happened to be watching.

I’m not sure when things began to change, maybe between kid two and kid three, or maybe when Michael moved from Legal Services
to Weimar Bott. I’m just not sure.

I set the Victoria’s Secret things aside for later, but Michael is asleep by the time I’m done brushing my teeth. I lie there
a long time under the glare of my full-spectrum reading lamp and listen to my husband snore.

Inspired by an article in a women’s magazine (“Twenty-one Ways to Keep Romance Alive & Kickin”) Michael and I are going on
a date. Our evening will be a study in marital compromise. He gets the action movie—in which a famous grizzled actor and nubile
young actress survive a plane crash, detest each other, have sex, and get rescued—and I get sashimi. For the kids, I managed
to snag über-babysitter Heather Cradduck who charges eight dollars an hour but comes equipped with a backpack full of diversions
including her own Game Boy, which she handles with the virtuosity of a nine-year-old.

The movie is at the Superplex in theater six, the one that smells like sewage and tater tots. In the canvas tote bag I got
for renewing our membership to public radio I have packed a box of Junior Mints purchased not at the movie concession but
at the supermarket, along with two tangerines and two bottles of water. This is the first time in my life that I’ve sneaked
food into the movies (not counting the Metamucil wafers I brought to the movies when I was pregnant with Jake and perpetually
constipated). I feel like a heroin mule. Michael and I sit silently as a series of movie trivia questions appear on the screen.
Which actor was a world-class tobogganer in high school? What movie featured Eddie Murphy and a talking schnauzer? Based on
a quick survey of the audience, Michael and I are easily and predictably the oldest people here because that’s what happens
when you live in a college town. If we’d wanted to be among grown-ups, we should have seen the documentary about the migration
of Canada geese.

“My, my, look at all this loot,” Michael says, peering into my bag, pulling out the Junior Mints. “What
is
all this?”

“I’m living dangerously.”

“You’re what?” Michael slips his arm around my shoulder, fingers resting gently across my right breast. I remember how my
husband enjoyed making out in movies. Actually, he still does but I’m always afraid one of the Bentley’s student interns will
be sitting right behind me. As I said, this is a small town. And I’ve never been comfortable with public displays of affection.
Michael leans over and kisses me softly on my neck.

“Living dangerously?” he whispers, and kisses me again. “Sounds intriguing. Tell me more.”

“Never mind.” I know I’m supposed to be breaking all kinds of rules and I don’t want to disappoint my friends, but the truth
is, I regret bringing this stuff into the theater. I’ve read that theaters really don’t profit from ticket sales, only from
the refreshments they sell in the lobby. If all of us carried in our own snacks and soda, movie theaters would be forced to
raise ticket prices even higher and eventually they’d all have to shut down, which would, in turn, put Hollywood out of business.
I don’t want to be responsible for the demise of the movie industry. I eat one of the tangerines, which seems to have filled
the entire theater with its citrus scent.

I fall asleep right around the time the baggy-faced actor is kissing the twenty-four-year-old’s creaseless neck. I don’t wake
up again until Michael gently nudges me with his elbow.

“Sweetie. Wake up. Movie’s over.”

I open my eyes to see the credits rolling and ushers sweeping out the aisles.

“What did I miss?” I wipe the drool off my cheek.

“Not much.” Michael leans over to kiss my nose. “Here’s an idea. Next time why don’t we send the kids to the movies with the
sitter so we can stay home and fool around.”

“Sounds perfect.” But what I’m really thinking is, unlikely scenario, my dear, hopelessly optimistic husband. The last time
we had a couple of hours to ourselves at home was six months ago, when my in-laws took the kids to a concert in the park.
Michael and I agreed to meet in bed after we’d checked our e-mail. We managed to get half our clothes off before we both fell
asleep.

Tikumi is a Japanese restaurant in the Brewster Village Square, which isn’t a square at all but a strip mall between two gas
stations. The Japanese sushi chefs at the front of the restaurant welcome new arrivals with a halfhearted ritualistic greeting
in their native tongue. The waiters are American college students, some of whom seem to have made an earnest effort to appear
Asian, flat-ironing the hair, drawing eyeliner at an angle, speaking with a faint accent. Half of the tables in this wheat-hued
room are low to the floor and have cushions for seats; it is understood that if you choose to eat in this area you will first
remove your shoes. Michael prefers to sit at a “real” table because he doesn’t like being sock-footed in public. Actually,
neither do I.