Wife 22 by Melanie Gideon

you ever tried to get a parking space at the Whole Foods in Berkeley after nine in the morning? Impossible.”
    “I’m not going to quit my job,” I say. “And even if I wanted to, I can’t, because William just got demoted.”
    The Mumble Bumbles exchange worried, see-I-told-you-so looks.
    “It’s okay. He’s doing some soul searching. It’s a midlife thing,” I say.
    “Alice,” says Tita. “The point is—you might start acting a little crazy. Do things that you normally wouldn’t do. Does that sound familiar? Anything like that happening to you?”
    “No,” I say. “Everything’s normal. Everything’s fine. Except for the fact that Zoe has an eating disorder. And Peter is gay but he doesn’t know it yet. And I’m taking part in this secret study on marital satisfaction.”
    What the Mumble Bumbles knew, what was unspoken between us, what need never be explained or said, was that nobody would ever love us again like our mothers did. Yes, we would be loved, by our fathers, our friends, our siblings, our aunts and uncles and grandparents and spouses—and our children if we chose to have them—but never would we experience that kind of unconditional, nothing-you-can-do-will-turn-me-away-from-you kind of mother love.
    We tried to provide it for one another. And when we failed at that, we offered shoulders to lean on, hands to hold, and ears to bend. And when we failed at that, there was lumpia and waterproof mascara samples, links to articles, and yes, vodka-laced tomato juice.
    But mostly there was the ease that came from not having to pretend you had ever recovered. The world wanted you to go on. The world
needed
you to go on. But the Mumble Bumbles understood that the loss soundtrack was always playing in the background. Sometimes it was on mute, and sometimes it was blasting away on ten, making you deaf.
    “Start from the beginning, honey, and tell us everything,” says Tita.

34
    37. And then one day, standing in front of the Charles Hotel, he unplugged my earphones from my Walkman, put them into his Walkman, and for the first time it seemed like we were having a real conversation. It went something like this:
    Song 1: De La Soul, “Ha Ha Hey”: I’m a white guy who likes watered-down hip-hop. Occasionally if I’ve had enough to drink I will dance.
    Song 2: Til Tuesday, “Voices Carry”: It would be best if we spoke to nobody of these lunchtime runs.
    Song 3: Nena, “99 Luftballons”: I was a punk for three weeks when I was thirteen. Are you impressed?
    Song 4: The Police, “Don’t Stand So Close to Me”: Stand so close to me.
    Song 5: Fine Young Cannibals, “Good Thing”: You.
    Song 6: Men Without Hats, “The Safety Dance”: Over.
    Song 7: The Knack, “My Sharona”: You make my motor run. My motor run.
    Song 8: Journey, “Faithfully”: An adverb that no longer describes me.

35
    From: Wife 22
    Subject: Friends
    Date: June 4, 4:31 AM
    To: researcher101
    I think it’s time we became friends. What do you think about using Facebook? I’m on Facebook all the time and I love the immediacy of it. And wouldn’t it be nice to chat? If we each put up a page and friend only each other we can retain our anonymity. The only problem is that you have to use a real name, so I’ve set up a page under Lucy Pevensie. Do you know Lucy Pevensie from
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
? The girl who stumbled through the wardrobe and found herself in Narnia? My children always accuse me of being lost in another world when I’m on online, so it makes a strange sort of sense. What do you think?
    All the best,
    Wife 22
    From: researcher101
    Subject: Re: Friends
    Date: June 4, 6:22 AM
    To: Wife 22
    Dear Wife 22,
    I don’t typically communicate with subjects via Facebook due to the obvious privacy issues, but it seems you’ve found a way to work around that. I