The Slippage: A Novel by Ben Greenman

parcel-post truck rumbled around the corner. It was probably headed for the Zorillas’; the wife had lost her job and was working from home, buying and selling collectibles. But it pulled up at the head of William’s driveway and a young black man with dreadlocks hopped out. “Oh, look, a package,” William said. “I should go get that.” He bid a quick good-bye and went back to his house. The package was addressed to Louisa, a box of unrevealing size and weight from a catalog house he didn’t recognize. He carried it inside, flipping a waist-height wave back across the street, but the door was already closed.
    That night, he and Louisa were watching TV, a crime drama they had joined halfway through and were trying to piece together. “Your phone,” Louisa said. William shook his head and let it ring. Later in the bathroom, he checked for a message; there was none, but he had her number now. He slept encircled by the memory of Emma as she stood there in the doorway, saying his name like a question.
    Louisa was up before him, already in the kitchen, menacing the coffeemaker. “This machine,” she said murderously. “It won’t listen.”
    The old machine had expired with an electrical puff. “I’ll get a new one,” William said, but he preferred store-bought coffee, and so he forgot, and Louisa reminded him, and he forgot again, and finally she sighed with exasperation and said she was going online to call in the cavalry.
    The cavalry, which had been designed by an award-winning Swiss architect, was a chrome sphere with a recessed instrument panel that promised, according to the box, “total control over the coffee-making experience.” For the moment, it seemed to be exercising total control over Louisa. “Damn it,” she said. “I can’t get this to do what it’s supposed to do.” She put both hands on the sphere and lifted it off the table as if it were a head.
    “Which is?”
    “Turn on?”
    A piece that looked important gleamed on the counter. “Maybe that’s something,” William said.
    “That’s from the old one. I think. Or the rice cooker. I don’t know.” Louisa returned the head to the counter and scooped food into the dog’s dish. She had set out a small bowl of cereal for William and a glass decorated with the Statue of Liberty. “So what’s your day like?”
    William filled his glass up to the crown. “I don’t know. The usual. Tote that barge, lift that bale.” He began to hum.
    “Don’t sing,” she said. “I don’t want to have to stay in a hotel.” Marriage, having grown tired of labor, resupplied old plots and conflicts, snippets of familiar dialogue. “It could be worse. At least you don’t have to deal with curators all day long. Nothing’s worse than a female martinet.”
    “You’re going to have to help me out with that one,” he said. “I failed zoology.”
    Louisa laughed, but only briefly, and William moved into the space the silence created. “Hey,” he said. “I ran into Eddie Fitch and he invited us to a party. It’s a theme party, kind of.”
    “They always are,” Louisa said. “What’s this one?”
    “Southern Christmas.” It was based on something that Helen Hull had told Gloria: “She was talking about how when she was growing up in Manitoba, she had so many signs that autumn was changing into winter. Now there’s no good way to tell.”
    “So Gloria decided to do it for her?”
    “I guess.” William opened the gate the rest of the way. “It’s kind of a welcome-wagon party for the new people, too, I think. Have you met them yet?”
    “Not really,” Louisa said. “So this will be a good way.” She put the butter back.
    “Yeah,” William said. But he pinched the bridge of his nose when he said it. An old affair across the street: it was a secret he had to keep, a spot of frostbite on his memory. Tom had said that conventional morality left something to be desired, but William thought the problem was that it left nothing to be