across her teeth. “It tastes salty,” she says. “Hairy. I think I’ll stick with Pepsodent.”
“Right. Stick with Pepsodent,” I say. I want to add that there are some things she should not stick with, however.
When we finish our tea, I go into the house and head upstairs. I climb into bed, think about how you never quite know what really goes on in someone else’s house, even when you share a common wall. Which of course we all do. I wonder if Alice has wanted to tell me this before, if she has sat alone in her living room, head in her hands, hurting, while I vacuumed or raided the refrigerator to take a bite of the Milky Way I keep hidden in the baking-soda box. I think about Ed with another woman while Alice is at home leafing through cookbooks, looking for something interesting to make for dinner. She stays home to raise Timothy, to make salad dressing from scratch; Ed whispers into the ear of another woman, who giggles and then says through her pouty, glossed lips, “Oh, we’re
bad
, aren’t we?” Life is so unfair, I’m thinking. And then I laugh. As if I didn’t know that.
I know I have a hard time dealing with real life. I know I glorify the past. Alice calls me Nostalgia Woman. I say, What about you, you’re not so modern, you don’t even work. She says that has nothing to do with it; she doesn’t wish shelived fifty years ago. Well, I can’t help it. Open marriage. Isn’t that liberating, one person being given permission to break the other’s heart. I think it was better when promises were kept. When people meant what they said, or at least tried to. I’ll take the guys in bow ties working in the gas stations over sullen men slumped in chairs behind bullet-proof glass, who take your money with a kind of hatred.
T he next day, when the kids are in school, I go to the grocery store with Alice. I need everything, so we go to the huge Super Save, which has what seems to be a drugstore built into the middle of it. I throw Q-Tips into my cart, then wait for Alice, who is standing in front of the boxes of hair dye. She picks one up, puts it down, picks up another, puts that down. “What are you doing?” I ask.
“Just looking.”
“Are you going to dye your hair?”
“I might.”
“What for?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know.”
I want to ask her if she’s out of her mind. I want to tell her that instead of dyeing her hair she should ask
him
to change. Instead, I pick up the ash blond, hold it up to the side of her head. “How about this one?”
“No, not blond,” Alice says. “I’m sure
she’s
blond.”
“Right. You’re probably right.”
Alice looks at my hair. “No offense.”
“None taken. Mine’s dirty blond, anyway.”
Alice picks up a box with an auburn-haired model on the front. “You think?”
I look at the model. She is wearing a blue scarf around her perfect neck, smiling with her perfect mouth open to reveal perfect teeth. She would look quite lovely bald. “Yeah,” I say. “That’s the one.”
Alice puts the dye in her cart next to the Cheerios, walks away too nonchalantly. Later, when I’ve gone to see Jay, I bet I know exactly what she’ll do. She’ll buy gorgeous underwear, a new nightgown not made for cold nights. I look at Alice’s straight back moving away from me, sigh quietly. It happens to the best of us.
In front of the chicken bin, I tell Alice about a friend of mine who dyed her hair a different color every week. “It was fun,” I say. “I always kind of admired her, playing around like that.” I throw a package of drumsticks in my cart. “That girl is the same one who used her vagina to perfume herself.” An older woman standing next to us looks up, moves away.
“She used
what
?” Alice says.
“Didn’t I tell you about her? She stuck her fingers in her vagina and then rubbed the stuff behind her ears. She said it made the men crazy.”
“
That
is so dis
gust
ing,” Alice says.
“I
“Right. Stick with Pepsodent,” I say. I want to add that there are some things she should not stick with, however.
When we finish our tea, I go into the house and head upstairs. I climb into bed, think about how you never quite know what really goes on in someone else’s house, even when you share a common wall. Which of course we all do. I wonder if Alice has wanted to tell me this before, if she has sat alone in her living room, head in her hands, hurting, while I vacuumed or raided the refrigerator to take a bite of the Milky Way I keep hidden in the baking-soda box. I think about Ed with another woman while Alice is at home leafing through cookbooks, looking for something interesting to make for dinner. She stays home to raise Timothy, to make salad dressing from scratch; Ed whispers into the ear of another woman, who giggles and then says through her pouty, glossed lips, “Oh, we’re
bad
, aren’t we?” Life is so unfair, I’m thinking. And then I laugh. As if I didn’t know that.
I know I have a hard time dealing with real life. I know I glorify the past. Alice calls me Nostalgia Woman. I say, What about you, you’re not so modern, you don’t even work. She says that has nothing to do with it; she doesn’t wish shelived fifty years ago. Well, I can’t help it. Open marriage. Isn’t that liberating, one person being given permission to break the other’s heart. I think it was better when promises were kept. When people meant what they said, or at least tried to. I’ll take the guys in bow ties working in the gas stations over sullen men slumped in chairs behind bullet-proof glass, who take your money with a kind of hatred.
T he next day, when the kids are in school, I go to the grocery store with Alice. I need everything, so we go to the huge Super Save, which has what seems to be a drugstore built into the middle of it. I throw Q-Tips into my cart, then wait for Alice, who is standing in front of the boxes of hair dye. She picks one up, puts it down, picks up another, puts that down. “What are you doing?” I ask.
“Just looking.”
“Are you going to dye your hair?”
“I might.”
“What for?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know.”
I want to ask her if she’s out of her mind. I want to tell her that instead of dyeing her hair she should ask
him
to change. Instead, I pick up the ash blond, hold it up to the side of her head. “How about this one?”
“No, not blond,” Alice says. “I’m sure
she’s
blond.”
“Right. You’re probably right.”
Alice looks at my hair. “No offense.”
“None taken. Mine’s dirty blond, anyway.”
Alice picks up a box with an auburn-haired model on the front. “You think?”
I look at the model. She is wearing a blue scarf around her perfect neck, smiling with her perfect mouth open to reveal perfect teeth. She would look quite lovely bald. “Yeah,” I say. “That’s the one.”
Alice puts the dye in her cart next to the Cheerios, walks away too nonchalantly. Later, when I’ve gone to see Jay, I bet I know exactly what she’ll do. She’ll buy gorgeous underwear, a new nightgown not made for cold nights. I look at Alice’s straight back moving away from me, sigh quietly. It happens to the best of us.
In front of the chicken bin, I tell Alice about a friend of mine who dyed her hair a different color every week. “It was fun,” I say. “I always kind of admired her, playing around like that.” I throw a package of drumsticks in my cart. “That girl is the same one who used her vagina to perfume herself.” An older woman standing next to us looks up, moves away.
“She used
what
?” Alice says.
“Didn’t I tell you about her? She stuck her fingers in her vagina and then rubbed the stuff behind her ears. She said it made the men crazy.”
“
That
is so dis
gust
ing,” Alice says.
“I
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