Wife Living Dangerously (9 page)

“On the other hand,” he continues, “what is a university if not a place for the exchange of free ideas? Here’s an opportunity
to talk about art—or bad art as the case may be. Let it be a vehicle for debate and learning. Is the university expected to
capitulate just because one group or another declares something offensive? It’s an unhealthy precedent, I think. Don’t you?”

“I agree,” I say, wishing he would say my name again. “An unhealthy precedent.” I feel drugged. I have to get out of here.

“Good. I guess we’re done then.”

“I guess.” I begin reluctantly to rise from my seat but Evan isn’t moving.

“The truth is I only agreed to this committee because my chair says I need to boost my service record. Before they’ll promote
me to full professor. Apparently I’m not enough of a team player. I’ve only been on two committees since I joined the faculty.”

“How come?”

He shrugs. “I guess I’ve been too busy working. A professor who’s too busy to serve on the bake sale committee? Scandalous.”

“Come on, your department doesn’t really have a bake sale committee.” I pause. For a moment it seems plausible. “Does it?”

He smiles with those twinkly eyes and mumbles something that sounds like “charming.”

“So what’s your excuse?” he asks, leaning back and wrapping his arms around the chair back to stretch, shoulders enticingly
well defined.

“What do you mean?”

“You know, why are you here? I’m sure there are far more important things demanding your attention.”

Do I admit to an overbearing boss, bouts of insecurity, my unrelenting need for approval, a husband and children at home?
I consider the tacit hierarchy of conversational intimacy; the levels of truthfulness one scales, degrees of information one
allows, as a relationship develops.

“My boss asked if I wouldn’t mind standing in for her.”

Evan smiles. “You’re a Girl Scout, aren’t you, Julia Flanagan?”

I stare at the legal pad in my lap and say nothing.

The committee regroups and votes to keep the mural but also agrees to give the activists a four-by-six-foot wall space in
the same lecture hall on which to present their views. Our group’s next charge is to develop guidelines for the student display.
This will require yet another meeting.

“To save time,” Donatella Pope calls out, “I’d like partners to meet once more before our next meeting. Okay, people?” More
claps.

“Best idea I’ve heard all day,” Evan whispers. “Listen. Julia. As long as we have to meet again, why don’t we do it, you know,
over, uh, dinner? Um, how do you feel about Italian? Sotto Voce? Three weeks from this Friday? That would be…” He pulls
a battered black date book from his back pocket. “The twenty-sixth. Would that work for you?”

Whoa, Nelly. First of all, night is
night.
I was thinking maybe coffee at 10:00
A.M.
, preferably in the faculty cafeteria. Second, Friday night is a
date
night. And Sotto Voce isn’t just a restaurant, it’s a
romantic
Italian restaurant, so named for its hushed, almost conspiratorial ambiance; every table in that place seems to be a table
for two in the back.

“Okay,” I hear myself say, and immediately catch a look of relief, possibly gratitude in his eyes.

“It’s a date, then,” he says, and I think, Please don’t use that word. This isn’t a date, Professor Delaney. It is a business
meeting.

The following day I decide to work from home, if for no other reason than to avoid Evan. Working from home has other advantages,
of course, the absence of Leslie Keen being chief among them and the chance to stay in pajamas all day being another.

But working at home is also an isolating experience; I go out for the mail or just to breathe the unair-conditioned air and
see nary a soul. Then again, Larkspur Estates is nary a neighborhood of people. It’s a neighborhood of cars. Big, shiny luxury
trucks and zippy little imports, black Hummers and cobalt blue Roadsters and creamy Lexus convertibles. The house diagonally
across the street has four vehicles, yet, confoundingly, there are only three drivers in the family. Given that I’ve never
actually seen anyone leave or enter the house, the various configurations of these vehicles are like crop signs: spontaneous,
mysterious, inexplicable.

6:00
A.M.
: Corvette in garage, SUV and van on driveway, Thunderbird parked outside house.

9:45
A.M.
: Thunderbird gone, Corvette on the driveway, SUV in garage, van on street.

3:00
P.M.
: Corvette gone, Thunderbird in garage, SUV parked on street, van gone.

6:00
P.M.
: All four vehicles gone.

10:00
P.M.
: Corvette in garage, van gone, Thunderbird on street, SUV now parked across the street.

Why?

And why am I standing at the bathroom window staring at my neighbor’s driveway when I should be working? Why am I finding
it nearly impossible to find my copy of a 1940s sex manual entitled
A Modern Guide to Marital Happiness,
a book one of the graduate students has agreed to read and index for me? Why haven’t I called my husband at work, just to
say hello, as I’ve done almost every day for the last eleven years?

Michael does eventually phone me to tell me he loves me and remind me that his new glasses will be ready at Goggles this Saturday
and I should remind him to pick them up.

Goggles is more than an optometry shop, it’s a cross between Hooters and
Charlie’s Angels,
a brilliant marketing ploy geared toward attracting upscale male myopics. Optometrist Tim Larson employs three female assistants,
an elegant blonde, a vivacious and chemically enhanced redhead, and a raven-haired knockout. Rather than having them wear
those fake lab coats (we all know they’re not doctors, not even close), Tim has his girls dress in evening wear—sparkly tops
with plunging necklines, slinky skirts, strappy sandals. All three wear glasses. I suspect they don’t need to. That would
be another of Tim Larson’s marketing ploys. You see? Men
do
make passes at women who wear glasses.

As much as the place irritates me, I will never say anything about the Goggles girls and I can thank my mother for my self-restraint.
“Men hate a jealous woman,” she’d say. This was perhaps the most important of the handful of tips my mother had dispensed.
Tighten your bra straps so your boobs don’t droop. Tight ponytails will give you headaches. A Wal-Mart checkout line with
three men will always move faster than the line with one woman. Don’t cry in public. Don’t eat spinach salad on a date.

And never, ever,
ever
let a man know you’re jealous.

When I was in high school and miserable because I spotted my boyfriend driving around town with the exceedingly busty Pamela
Newton, my mother said, “If Jesse McNamara wants to drive around town with another girl, get over it or cut him loose.” A
Newport hung perilously from her lip as she hemmed the bottom of my prom dress. “Nothing in this world’s uglier than an insecure
woman. All clingy and whiny and shit. Men hate that. Believe me, Julie-bell, it’s about as sexy as a housedress.”

When my husband was nearing the end of law school and preparing himself for job interviews, he determined that it was finally
time to switch from his gold aviator glasses to contact lenses. He excitedly returned home from the ophthalmologist with a
bag full of stuff, special storage cases and cleansing solution and, of course, the lenses themselves, packed into a tiny
white cardboard box labeled with Michael’s name and prescription. It was the first time I’d actually seen a contact lens up
close. I couldn’t believe there could be so much precision and corrective power in something so small and flimsy. It was a
miracle, really.

Michael spent two hours trying to get those little miracles into his eyes. He reached around his head with one hand like a
yogi to pry his eyelid open, and with the other hand struggled to stick the thin plastic disc onto his eyeball. Again and
again he assumed this position, always with the same results. Either he couldn’t get the lenses off his fingertip or he couldn’t
get it centered on his eye or he’d drop it into the sink and have to start from the beginning, rinsing and reaching and prying
and sticking, to no avail. He finally got them in and hated the sensation.

“It feels like I have a fucking piece of Saran Wrap in my eye,” he yelled from the bathroom. “How does anyone LIVE like this?”

“People live like that all the time,” I yelled back. “Didn’t the doctor tell you that you just have to get used to it?”

“I’ll NEVER get used to it. I HATE this.”

“Fine. So don’t wear them. You look cute in glasses.”

“You really think I look cute?” He was standing in the door frame now, glasses back on, smiling and trolling for more compliments.

“Better than cute. Sexy. Like Superman.”

“You mean Clark Kent,” he said, unbuckling his belt with one hand, groping under my blouse with another. “Clark Kent was the
one with the glasses.” This was before we had real jobs and children and a mortgage and soccer games and piano lessons. We
had each other. We had sex.

Today is Saturday and Michael’s new glasses are ready. When we walk into the lushly carpeted “visionary boutique,” which is
how Tim Larson advertises his place, we are immediately approached by Marguerite, the trio’s buxom redhead. “You’re looking
dapper today, Mr. Flanagan,” she murmurs, with all the finesse of a seasoned courtesan. She picks a bit of fluff off his collar
and I want to kick myself for not picking it off myself when I noticed it back at the house. “What’s your pleasure this afternoon?”

The last time we were at Goggles we happened to have Michael’s parents with us and my father-in-law took me aside and whispered,
“Is this an optometrist or some kind of whorehouse?” Michael’s father is from the Bronx and he pronounced the word “hoor-house.”
I made a face as if I was deeply offended but I agreed with him. After Marguerite had presented us with the bill—$490 for
one pair of glare-free, solar-sensitive designer spectacles—I began to understand the method behind Tim Larson’s hoor-house
madness. I have yet to grasp, however, how this approach could possibly appeal to female customers. When and if I need reading
glasses of my own, I’m going straight to Target.

“And you’re looking rather dapper yourself,” Michael says, glancing quickly away from Marguerite’s décolletage. “Hey. Has
anyone ever told you that you look like Nicole Kidman, but shorter?”

I shudder. “Can we pick up the pace a little?” I say. “Jake has to be at a birthday party in forty minutes.”

By the time we leave Goggles, our checking account is significantly diminished but Michael is florid and fribbling after Marguerite’s
lavish attentions. He made a point of inviting her to Legal Limit’s next performance.

“I know they’re expensive,” he begins, checking his reflection in the rearview mirror as he buckles his seat belt, “but I
think they’re worth it. I mean, there’s no one else in town with this kind of quality. You know?”

I say nothing.

“And the service is just phenomenal. Don’t you think?”

I grunt.

“Jules? Honey? Is something wrong?”

“Not at all,” I lie. “I’m just anxious to get Jake to the party in time.”

“Hey listen,” Michael begins. “About tonight. I know we’ve got a sitter lined up but I’ve got to go back to the office. It’s
the antitrust case. We’ve got to get our depositions wrapped up by Tuesday morning and I’m behind the eight ball. I’m so sorry,
honey.”

“It’s okay.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“You’re not just saying that?”

“No, Michael, I’m not just saying that.”

I am suddenly overcome by the bleakness of the situation. My husband works too hard, he doesn’t think I’m attractive enough
to provoke flirting, and it has been too long since we had sex. As we drive home together in silence, I promise myself that
I will find a marriage counselor. Something ominous is happening to our marriage and we’ve got to confront it before it gets
worse.

I
nstead of a marriage counselor I decide to go for something cheaper and faster. A new haircut. It is my mother-in-law’s idea,
actually. Last week, while Michael and his father are in the basement watching the game and well out of earshot (that’s her
modus operandi—no witnesses) Kathleen leans forward and says, “If you don’t mind me saying so…”

I should have shouted: FREEZE! PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR AND STEP AWAY FROM YOUR MOUTH! Experience has taught me that my mother-in-law
always prefaces her helpful suggestions with one of the following:

•  “If you don’t mind me saying so,” as in, “If you don’t mind me saying so, Caitlin is getting a little chubby. What do you
feed her?”

•  “No offense, but…” As in, “No offense, but you really need to hire a cleaning service, honey.”

•  “It’s really none of my business,” as in, “It’s really none of my business, but if you keep picking up the baby every time
he cries you’re going to end up with a spoiled brat.”

“Yes, Mom?”

“Have you ever thought about cutting your hair?”

“No, Mom. Why do you ask?”

I know why she asked. Because for my dear mother-in-law, a day without criticizing Julia is like a day without prune juice.
She just doesn’t feel like herself until she’s gotten all her crap out.

“Oh, honey, I don’t know. It’s lovely hair. It’s so lovely you could probably make a wig out of it. For cancer patients. A
Chinese girl in my aerobics class did that. So interesting. Your hair has to be something like a foot long. Have you ever
measured your hair? I think they say it has to be ten to twelve inches, I’m pretty sure. It has to be clean, obviously. You
just make a ponytail, lop it right off, stick it in a plastic bag, and off it goes. Some place in Ohio. And not just cancer
patients. Burn victims, people with that balding thing, what do they call it, aloicious—”

“Alopecia.”

“That’s it. So you mail your hair to them, and then they soak it in this chemical to sanitize it because of course you don’t
want to be sending germs to these poor people, they’re sick enough already, you know? God, it’s like when my cousin Roseanne
made me a casserole after my hysterectomy and I got deathly ill two days later and then she tells me that she was sick and
she sneezed all over it and when I said, Rosie, how could you DO that? She had the nerve to hang up on me, can you BELIEVE
it?” Kathleen pops a piece of celery into her mouth (as opposed to helping me chop it, I should point out). “Anyway, Julia,
I was thinking, your hair is just so, I don’t know,
bland.
”