Wife Living Dangerously (14 page)

Frankie opens hers next. “Oh! I love this one! ‘A thorny someone in your life is actually bipolar. Be compassionate and tread
lightly.’”

She claps her hands. “Get it? Therapy fortune cookies! Coming to a Chinese restaurant near you. Don’t you love it?”

“Are they really coming to a Chinese restaurant near me?” Annie asks.

“Well, no, not yet, exactly. The problem is, the Chinese restaurants already have their suppliers. There’s a lot of loyalty
there, you know. So I’m having a little trouble breaking in. Plus they don’t exactly understand the concept. You know, it’s
not easy explaining therapy to a non-English speaker.”

“I think it’s a great idea,” I say. “Forget the Chinese restaurants. How about something more offbeat and, I don’t know, experimental.
Like that burrito place downtown, the one with all the kitschy Elvis stuff.” I snap my cookie in half and pull out my fortune.
“Let’s see here. ‘You are sexually attracted to a tall, dark stranger but he is only a projection of your shadow self. Beware.’”

L
eslie Keen is off on one of her Sex on the Seas seminars, in which she and a boatload of university retirees take a cruise
to Cancun while discussing “Foreplay in the 21st Century” and playing shuffleboard. Meanwhile I’m evaluating Kiren Parnell’s
proposal for an exhibit on burlesque queens of the forties and fifties. Though these gals were undoubtedly the inspiration
for many a wet dream, they are chaste by today’s standards, June Cleavers in fishnet and pasties, with their perfectly coiffed
hair and overdone eyebrows. Princess Tom-Tom, with her titanic feathered headdress, painted tom-tom, and one-piece bathing
suit. Bubbles Coquette, “America’s most exciting bosom,” is wearing what looks like a Mardi Gras mask with giant ram’s horns.
Franki Valone is billed as an “exotic danseuse”; her specialty is the “dance of the sacred parrot.” Greta Goodly, “the Farmer’s
Daughter,” has six big brass cowbells attached to her panties. Most of these women would be in their late seventies or eighties
by now. I wonder if any of them are still alive and whether their bodies have held up. I feel sad. I need fresh air. I slide
the photos and pad into a big manila folder and take my work outside.

“Julia!”

I turn, but see no one. I hear it again. “Julia!”

I look up to see Evan Delaney standing at his crankcase window, grinning at me. He is shielding his eyes from the sun with
one hand, holding a black mug with the other.

“Taking a break?”

I nod. Even at this distance, I can see the divot in his chin.

“Come up and have a cup of Turkish coffee with me,” he calls out, waving his mug. “I just made a fresh pot.”

“I can’t.” I wave my folder in the air. “I’ve got a ton of work. I’m already running behind.”

“Ten minutes. Please. Just enough to revive you.” He smiles again. “I insist.” Then, plaintively, “I’ve been grading papers
and I’m ready to climb the walls. I need the distraction. Please, Julia.”

I don’t really need the revivifying effects of coffee but how could I resist the “Please, Julia”? I climb the three flights
to his office, brace myself at the top landing, and wait for my breathing to assume a normal rhythm. I don’t want Evan to
see me panting like a fat plumber.

He meets me at the door with a steaming mug. “There you go.”

Evan is wearing jeans and a black T-shirt advertising the East Newark Motorcycle Club. He smells of pipe tobacco and spice
and something else, something natural and warm and entirely male. I look out through the windows, down to the spot where I’d
stood only moments ago, on the stone path from which I should never have strayed.

“Nice view,” I say. I work very hard not to notice too much about that office. I don’t want to absorb anything. I want to
leave there as clean and smooth as when I’d walked in.

Evan Delaney’s office looks designed for quiet contemplation. Two chairs near the window, two bookcases filled to capacity,
a healthy ficus, a happy spider plant that hangs from the ceiling and trails to the floor. There are two framed prints; one
a lush woodland scene in greens and golds, the other a black and white portrait of John Coltrane. He hands me a speckled gray
mug with a sculpted handle. On closer inspection I see that the handle is in the form of a nymph, arms outstretched above
her head, back arched, naked. I slip my finger around her elongated waist.

“A gift from May Jones-Clayton at Oxford.” Then, as if in response to my jealous musing, he adds, “She gave one to all the
discussants. Rather nice, isn’t it?”

“Very.” I settle into a threadbare wingchair and take a sip. I’ve never had Turkish coffee before. It smells inviting. It
tastes like dirt. I try not to grimace.

He gestures toward my Vanessa and squints. “What’s that about?”

“Oh, this?” I reach up to touch the ponytail. “Nothing. A clip-on thing. Just until my, you know, perm grows out.”

“I see.” Evan sips his coffee and keeps his eyes on me. His stare feels like a laser beam. “Uh, I’m assuming your husband
didn’t approve of the curls?”

“He hates it.” I should feel guilty for sharing this. I don’t.

“Oh.”

I notice for the first time a chipped front tooth and I am mesmerized by that tooth. I imagine feeling its contours with my
tongue. I bite the inside of my cheek to stop these thoughts. Jesus, God. What is happening to me? I don’t want to look at
him, his mouth, his chipped tooth, his strong hand gripping the mug, the way a few curly black hairs peek from the top of
his T-shirt. I force myself to fix my eyes on the painting over his desk.

Evan follows my gaze. “Betrayal of Arthur,” he says. “I bought it at a flea market in London.” He points to a couple embracing
on the forest’s mossy floor. “Do you know who they are?”

“Tell me,” I say.

“Well, that one’s Lancelot, most noble and courageous of the Knights of the Round Table. The naked woman in his arms, that’s
Guinevere, beloved wife of Arthur, the most honored woman in Camelot.”

“They look like they’re having, uh, fun.”

“Yes.” Evan points to a small figure at the bottom of the canvas, partly hidden behind verdant branches, a quiver of arrows
slung over his back. “How about this fellow over here? Do you know who he is?”

“I’m assuming that’s Arthur?”

“Yes. He is lying in wait.”

“Why?”

“Well, according to legend, Arthur suspects, rightly, that his wife and favorite knight are lovers.” (This word, “lovers,”
from this mouth is enough to trigger a full-body flush.) I arrange my face into a facsimile of composure. “So he tells everyone
he’s going hunting. And he is, though not for game. He’s hunting for the truth. And as you can see by this painting, he is
about to find it.”

I stare at the picture, and for a moment I see my husband there at the bottom of the canvas, hiding behind a bush, balding
head and khaki Dockers.

“I really should get back to work,” I say.

“Of course.” Evan jumps to his feet.

“Thanks for the coffee.”

“The pleasure,” he says as he walks me to the door, “was all mine.” As I reach for the doorknob a photograph slips from my
folder and falls to the floor. Evan bends down to retrieve it. He turns it over. “Ah. Lorelie, the lovely and charismatic
girl in the clamshell,” he reads aloud.

We stand there for a moment, awkwardly, while Lorelie, with her soft curves and conical pasty’d breasts, looks back at us.
I take the postcard from his hands and stick it into my book.

As I reach for the doorknob, Evan steps back to pull something off his desk. “Ah! I almost forgot.” He hands me a folded sheet
of paper. He shoves his hands in his pockets and encourages me with a tilt of his square, stubbly chin. “Go ahead. Take it.”

“What is it?”

“It’s an idea for an exhibit. At the Bentley. You can read it later.” He pushes a stray curly lock out of my eyes, a gesture
so dear and loving I want to scream. “I don’t think the Bentley’s done anything on courtly love, am I right? I thought it
might be, uh, interesting. To work with you. On this. I mean, I was thinking, my chair wants to see more interdisciplinary
work. This seems perfect. Don’t you think?”

“I do.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Really.”

“It just came to me. I was preparing for class, reading this poem which I’ve probably read a hundred times before, it’s one
of my favorites, and I thought of you. And then I thought of the Bentley, and well, that’s when it came to me.”

I try not to dwell on the fact that one of his favorite poems made him think of me. He thinks of me when he’s working. He
thinks of
me.
Stop it, Julia. This is a business conversation. Evan is proposing an exhibit idea to the assistant director of the Bentley.
I’ll mention it to Leslie and if she likes it, we will move forward. It’s all very straightforward. With any luck she’ll hate
the idea and I won’t have to see Evan Delaney again.

I find myself wondering whether he likes to sleep late, eat breakfast, read the paper in the morning, if he drives with both
hands on the wheel or just one. And then, when I allow myself, the other questions: What does his mouth taste like? What does
he wear to sleep? A T-shirt and underwear, just bottoms, or nothing at all? Does he have sex with his eyes open or closed?
And when I’m feeling especially daring, I wonder how he looks when he comes. Eyes closed or open? Any noise or words? Does
he fall asleep right away or rouse himself for more?

“Oh, JULES, it’s FABulous.” Leslie is wearing a pink Chanel suit, opalescent hose, and pink pumps. I can never decide if my
boss looks fashionable or if she looks like an after-dinner mint. “And PERfect timing! There’s a new grant out of the dean’s
office. Interdisciplinary Education in Art. IDEA grant, very clever. Partly funded by the Bean Family Foundation. Wait a second.
I have it right here.” Leslie spins around in her chair and clicks the mouse. “Wait. Wait. No, that’s not it. Fuck it. Wait!
Here.” She clicks a few more times and begins reading aloud. “IDEA grant interdisciplinary blah blah excellence in educational
approaches to blah blah promoting the academic unification of distinct blah blah blah yada yada yada the usual crap.” She
turns back to me. “It’s ours if we want it. The whole medieval thing’s very fundable right now. And all the other proposals
suck.”

“How do you know?”

“Let’s just say I have my sources in the dean’s office. The guy can’t give head to save his life. But he makes a great Spanish
omelette.” She turns back to the computer, a few more clicks. “Shit. FUCK. It’s due Friday. Can you get me something by Friday?
Nothing fancy. I’ll write the grant. I can do it in my sleep, for Christ’s sake. I just need
something
to go on. Please, Jules? I’ll be your best friend for life.”

I’m not sure what to expect when I unfold the paper Evan gave me. What if it isn’t a medieval poem but a love letter, a passionate
declaration, or something explicitly sexual? But when I finally allow myself a glimpse I see that it is in German.

I find Evan’s office number in the campus directory. “There’s a problem,” I say, fully aware that this new project gives me
license to call him anytime I crave his voice, which I don’t plan to do but the option is tantalizing. “This poem, it’s in
German.”

“It is? Oh. Sorry. I meant to give you the translation. I’ve got it right here on my desk. Why don’t you stop by? Or I can
drop it off.”

“No, that’s okay,” I say, rubbing my wedding band like a talisman. I don’t want to see him. I already feel myself slipping
and I can’t let it happen, not me, not ever. “Just put it in campus mail. No rush.”

I look again at the poem, letting my eyes scan the hard consonants and clipped syllables in search of a familiar word. I’ve
always been fairly good with languages. I decide to try decoding it myself, now. The prospect of finding some provocative
message in Evan’s note is too thrilling to bear. My heart thumps as I climb the dark stairwell to the Bentley library, sequester
myself in a carrel in the back, and begin picking apart the paragraph with a German-English dictionary I’ve found in the reference
section.

Is aber daz dir wol gelinget, so daz ein guot wip din genade hat, hei waz dir danne froiden bringet, so si sunder wer vor
dir gestat, halsen, triuten, bi gelegen.

In forty minutes I have only managed to get through the first few words and there is no love message hidden here. In fact,
the passage makes no sense. “However with it hope for success, with it one guot (?) recover or recuperate from thence with
your…” This cannot be modern German.

I am ready to abandon the project. Then I remember Mrs. Hoffman who owns the German bakery. I recall that she offhandedly
referred to her “other life” when she taught Germanic languages and linguistics at the University at Gottingen. She and Albert
were fired in 1935. They fled first to Cuba, then the United States in 1956. “We didn’t care so much about losing our jobs,”
she told me. “We were happy to escape with our lives. Professor, baker, I care? As long as we were alive, and we were together.”

Albert Hoffman died of a heart attack last year and Nina took over the shop, the only real bakery left in this town, all the
rest having been extinguished by chain supermarkets and their fake bakery departments where nothing is ever mixed from scratch,
just thawed and heated or simply transferred from the back of a truck. I loved everything about Hoffman’s, the heavily shellacked,
slopey hardwood floors, the prim white cardboard boxes and the thin cotton string used to secure them, the air, thick and
spicy and intoxicating, the display cases filled with honeyed loaves of hutzelbrot and hazelbrot, the nutty rum-glazed pfeffernuesse
cookies and raspberry-filled linzer tortes.

“Let’s see what we have here.” Mrs. Hoffman adjusts the reading glasses she wears on a beaded chain around her neck. “Ah yes.
Old German. Probably written sometime between 800 and 1500.” She begins to read. “Should it happen that you are successful
and a sweet woman grants your request…” She looks at me.