told him hundreds, literally hundreds of times , I’ve said the words: The prenup is pure business. It’s not for me, it’s not even for my parents, it’s for my parents’ lawyers. It says nothing about us, not you and me.
He walks over toward the kitchen, tosses his wallet and wilted dollars on the coffee table, crumples a piece of notepaper and tosses it in the trash with a series of credit-card receipts.
‘That’s a shitty thing to say, Nick.’
‘It’s a shitty way to feel, Amy.’
He walks to our bar – in the careful, swamp-wading gait of a drunk – and actually pours himself another drink.
‘You’re going to make yourself sick,’ I say.
He raises his glass in an up-yours cheers to me. ‘You just don’t get it, Amy. You just can’t. I’ve worked since I was fourteen years old. I didn’t get to go to fucking tennis camp and creative-writing camp and SAT prep and all that shit that apparently everyone else in New York City did, because I was wiping down tables at the mall and I was mowing lawns and I was driving to Hannibal and fucking dressing like Huck Finn for the tourists and I was cleaning the funnel-cake skillets at midnight.’
I feel an urge to laugh, actually to guffaw. A big belly laugh that would sweep up Nick, and soon we’d both be laughing and this would be over. This litany of crummy jobs. Being married to Nick always reminds me: People have to do awful things for money. Ever since I’ve been married to Nick, I always wave to people dressed as food.
‘I’ve had to work so much harder than anyone else at the magazine to even get to the magazine. Twenty years, basically, I’ve been working to get where I am, and now it’s all going to be gone, and there’s not a fucking thing I know how to do instead, unless I want to go back home, be a river rat again.’
‘You’re probably too old to play Huck Finn,’ I say.
‘Fuck you, Amy.’
And then he goes to the bedroom. He’s never said that to me before, but it came out of his mouth so smoothly that I assume – and this never crossed my mind – I assume he’s thought it. Many times. I never thought I’d be the kind of woman who’d be told to fuck herself by her husband. And we’ve sworn never to go to bed angry. Compromise, communicate, and never go to bed angry – the three pieces of advice gifted and regifted to all newlyweds. But lately it seems I am the only one who compromises; our communications don’t solve anything; and Nick is very good at going to bed angry. He can turn off his emotions like a spout. He is already snoring.
And then I can’t help myself, even though it’s none of my business, even though Nick would be furious if he knew: I cross over to the trash can and pull out the receipts, so I can picture where he’s been all night. Two bars, two strip clubs. And I can see him in each one, talking about me with his friends, because he must have already talked about me for all that petty, smeared meanness to come out so easily. I picture them at one of the pricier strip clubs, the posh ones that make men believe they are still designed to rule, that women are meant to serve them, the deliberately bad acoustics and thwumping music so no one has to talk, a stretch-titted woman straddling my husband (who swears it’s all in fun), her hair trailing down her back, her lips wet with gloss, but I’m not supposed to be threatened, no it’s just boyish hijinks, I am supposed to laugh about it, I am supposed to be a good sport .
Then I unroll the crumpled piece of notebook paper and see a girl’s handwriting – Hannah – and a phone number. I wish it were like the movies, the name something silly, CanDee or Bambie, something you could roll your eyes at. Misti with two hearts over the I’s. But it’s Hannah, which is a real woman, presumably like me. Nick has never cheated on me, he has sworn it, but I also know he has ample opportunity. I could ask him about Hannah, and he’d say, I have no idea why
He walks over toward the kitchen, tosses his wallet and wilted dollars on the coffee table, crumples a piece of notepaper and tosses it in the trash with a series of credit-card receipts.
‘That’s a shitty thing to say, Nick.’
‘It’s a shitty way to feel, Amy.’
He walks to our bar – in the careful, swamp-wading gait of a drunk – and actually pours himself another drink.
‘You’re going to make yourself sick,’ I say.
He raises his glass in an up-yours cheers to me. ‘You just don’t get it, Amy. You just can’t. I’ve worked since I was fourteen years old. I didn’t get to go to fucking tennis camp and creative-writing camp and SAT prep and all that shit that apparently everyone else in New York City did, because I was wiping down tables at the mall and I was mowing lawns and I was driving to Hannibal and fucking dressing like Huck Finn for the tourists and I was cleaning the funnel-cake skillets at midnight.’
I feel an urge to laugh, actually to guffaw. A big belly laugh that would sweep up Nick, and soon we’d both be laughing and this would be over. This litany of crummy jobs. Being married to Nick always reminds me: People have to do awful things for money. Ever since I’ve been married to Nick, I always wave to people dressed as food.
‘I’ve had to work so much harder than anyone else at the magazine to even get to the magazine. Twenty years, basically, I’ve been working to get where I am, and now it’s all going to be gone, and there’s not a fucking thing I know how to do instead, unless I want to go back home, be a river rat again.’
‘You’re probably too old to play Huck Finn,’ I say.
‘Fuck you, Amy.’
And then he goes to the bedroom. He’s never said that to me before, but it came out of his mouth so smoothly that I assume – and this never crossed my mind – I assume he’s thought it. Many times. I never thought I’d be the kind of woman who’d be told to fuck herself by her husband. And we’ve sworn never to go to bed angry. Compromise, communicate, and never go to bed angry – the three pieces of advice gifted and regifted to all newlyweds. But lately it seems I am the only one who compromises; our communications don’t solve anything; and Nick is very good at going to bed angry. He can turn off his emotions like a spout. He is already snoring.
And then I can’t help myself, even though it’s none of my business, even though Nick would be furious if he knew: I cross over to the trash can and pull out the receipts, so I can picture where he’s been all night. Two bars, two strip clubs. And I can see him in each one, talking about me with his friends, because he must have already talked about me for all that petty, smeared meanness to come out so easily. I picture them at one of the pricier strip clubs, the posh ones that make men believe they are still designed to rule, that women are meant to serve them, the deliberately bad acoustics and thwumping music so no one has to talk, a stretch-titted woman straddling my husband (who swears it’s all in fun), her hair trailing down her back, her lips wet with gloss, but I’m not supposed to be threatened, no it’s just boyish hijinks, I am supposed to laugh about it, I am supposed to be a good sport .
Then I unroll the crumpled piece of notebook paper and see a girl’s handwriting – Hannah – and a phone number. I wish it were like the movies, the name something silly, CanDee or Bambie, something you could roll your eyes at. Misti with two hearts over the I’s. But it’s Hannah, which is a real woman, presumably like me. Nick has never cheated on me, he has sworn it, but I also know he has ample opportunity. I could ask him about Hannah, and he’d say, I have no idea why
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