The Actor and the Housewife

by Shannon Hale

  “That doesn’t really make sense. Are you half asleep?”

  “You know, I think I am . . .” Her eyelids fl uttered.

  Felix picked her up and settled her into bed, sliding the comforter over her shoulders. She meant to say good night, but the lights blinked off and the door clicked shut, so she sank into her pillow and set about dreaming of sugarplums.

  Felix was the first one up in the morning. He was as giddy as a little kid, watching everyone unload the stockings, exclaiming at each gift as if it were the first time he’d seen it. Then he brought out gorgeously wrapped gifts of his own, leaning forward with anticipation as each was opened. When he unwrapped the Jacks’ gifts to him, even the purple socks from Sam, Felix gushed.

  “Purple socks! My man, this is precisely what I wanted this year. You have made me one happy bloke.”

  Later, over cinnamon rolls, Felix asked her, “Is this what Christmas morning is like every year?”

  “Pretty much.”

  He stared into his mug of hot chocolate, and in Sam tones said, “Awesome.”

  The rest of Christmas Day was a flurry with Mike’s family and Becky’s family. For his own sake, Felix absconded to some private club in Park City. When Becky and the kids returned home late that night, he was still gone, but there was a new leather sofa set in the family room, replacing the mangled flowered couch.

  “How did you get those delivered on Christmas Day?” she asked him the next morning.

  “Me? I’m not responsible. And frankly, I find it appalling that the police don’t do more to protect the honest citizens of Layton. Reckless thieves, breaking into homes, pilfering chesterfields and leaving behind these disgusting totems wrapped in dead animal skin. Egregious!”

  Felix left on December 27, New York–bound for a couple of days, then on to Devonshire.

  “Mum and I thought we could ring in New Year’s together. Herbert promised to spend a lot of time at the pub. Noble of him.”

  Becky squeezed his arm. “You’re such a good boy.”

  Felix shrugged.

  “She needs you. She needs you desperately. No matter what happens and how useless it feels, know that she needs you. You’re saving her just by being there. It’s the best Christmas present you could give a mother.”

  The visit seemed to go well—at least, Felix didn’t complain about it. Much. It wasn’t for weeks after he returned to London that Becky discovered diamond earrings in her jewelry box, because she rarely opened the thing, only stumbling over them when she did because she’d been hunting for a safety pin. She gasped. They were round and huge, sparkling like lit fuses.

  When she called to thank/scold him, he said, “I’ve been wondering about those. So . . . did you read the card?”

  “There was a card?”

  “Check on your dresser.”

  She didn’t find it immediately, and fearing it contained something obnoxious, like a check, she put it off . Then one day while hunting for her keys, she found a red envelope fallen beneath her dresser. She opened it. No check. Just a note.

  Dear Abby,

  I am madly in love with my best mate of eleven years. It is a tricky maneuver to change from best mate to lover, and I know she will have bounteous objections, but I must tell her how I feel. Do you have any suggestions?

  Signed,

  Devilishly Handsome in Devonshire

  “Holy crap,” she whispered after she’d read it a dozen times. She was clutching the letter so hard, it ripped. “Holy crap. Holy. Crap. Holycrapholycrapholycrapholy—”

  “What’re you doing, Mom?” Hyrum was standing in the doorway in his basketball uniform, squinting at her seated on the floor.

  “Nothing. Nothing. I just . . . I sat down for a second. Do you need something?”

  “Uh, yeah. I’ve been waiting in the kitchen for like ten minutes to leave for my basketball game. You said you were looking for your keys.”

  “Yes, right, that’s right. I’m coming. Here I come.” She looked at her hands. All she was holding was the letter. “Where are my keys?”

  Hyrum groaned.

  It wouldn’t be amiss to say that Becky was a bit spacey all day. Once, she even accidentally cheered when the opposing team scored a basket. On the court, Hyrum rolled his eyes.

  She kept one hand inside her purse, gripping the letter in private.

  What . . . what . . . should I . . . I mean, I can’t possibly . . . what should I do? Should I . . . I can’t even . . . is he serious? No, he can’t . . . we’re not even . . . this is . . . I mean, me and Felix? It’s a joke. Isn’t it?

  She knew it wasn’t. Why would he say this now? How long had he been feeling it? Or was he just being noble and making a sacrifice so he could pay her bills and take care of the family?

  At three A.M. she wrote a response, sealed it, and went out into the freezing March night in her slippers to mail it before she could reconsider.

  Dear Passably Handsome,

  I’m sure your best friend loves you, but there are too many obstacles:

  1. You live on different continents for half the year.

  2. She has a large family who needs her.

  3. She gave her heart to her husband and it will never be fixed and whole again. It just won’t. It’s scientifically impossible.

  4. You have very different religious beliefs.

  5. You’re British, and she doesn’t drink tea.

  6. It’s just a harebrained idea anyway, and if you actually had to spend more time together, you’d drive each other crazy, and after all your twenty-year-old girlfriends, the sight of a naked forty-five-year-old mother would throw a chilly bucket of water on the old libido, and then you wouldn’t get to be best friends anymore.

  Felix phoned a few days later.

  “Hello gorgeous.”

  “Hi.” She could hear her own voice was tight.

  “Do you really mean it? What you said in the letter?”

  “I do.”

  “I mean the bit where you say you love me?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Because I—”

  “I can’t, Felix. I’m not over Mike. I’ll never be over him, and I don’t want to be.”

  “That doesn’t matter. I won’t try to be Mike. You know I’d have no hope. We’ll just be us but closer.”

  “Yes, that whole ‘lover’ stuff . . . You know I don’t live that way. I’ve never been with anyone besides Mike, and we waited until we were married. The idea—”

  “That’s beside the—wait. You’re telling me you’ve never slept with anyone but Mike? No little romp in college, some postparty spontaneous slap and tickle with a bloke you never saw again?”

  “Ick. Seriously—ick. I don’t know how people can do that. I don’t enjoy using public toilets—why on earth would I . . . would I romp with someone I don’t know? The germs, the disease, the awkwardness, not to mention the immorality, the social depravity, the—”

  “The reckless abandon, the freedom, the sexiness of giving over to the purely sensual, the rush of—”

  “Felix, I’m going to stick with ‘ick’ on this one.”

  “Yes, I rather thought you might. Well, if you’ve really sworn to be chaste, then . . . I’ll chase you.”

  “Oh gag. That was a bad line.”

  “Really? I’d been saving it up for a special occasion.” She could hear some tapping, as if he were scolding a countertop with a pen. “But I don’t understand. How could you know if you and Mike were compatible enough to marry if you’d never—”

  “Ha!” she said.

  “I don’t think I’m going to let you get away with just ‘ha.’ ”

  Rats. She’d hoped he would, because the question had nicked her guilt gland. She had often thought the same thing about her sister, Diana—how could she have known Steve was the guy without even kissing him? It was crazy! A kiss was the answer to a question, a kiss was a portal into the soul. She’d always thought Diana was loony not to test her future husband fir
st with at least one kiss.

  Oh ye hypocrite, she thought. So she tried to answer as honestly as she could.

  “I knew . . . I just knew. We were compatible in every other way. And I suspected that in that aspect . . . you know . . . we would be too, because of his . . . well, his smell.”

  “He must have smelt pretty good.”

  “His pheromones practically danced down my gullet and straight to my ovaries. I was so attracted to his scent that I knew we’d have beautiful babies. Our eyes met, and our genes sang arias to each other. That’s what makes me suspicious about Internet dating—what happens when people fall in love without smelling each other first?”

  “I never knew you were so feral.”

  “I’ll tell you what—a lot of people procreating with incompatible genes, mutant children flooding the earth.”

  “So,” there was a Definite eyebrow-wag tone to his voice, “do you find my scent compatible?”

  That stumped her. “I . . . don’t know. It doesn’t matter. It’s not as if we’re going to be having children together.”

  “That’s right, darling. Just some old-fashioned, highly compatible lovemak—”

  “Aah! Don’t say that! I cannot think about you that way and retain any shame. Besides, I don’t believe in sex outside of marriage.”

  “I’m talking marriage here, sweetheart.”

  The wind was knocked out of her as hard as if she’d fallen two stories onto her back. “Marriage? Are you serious?”

  “Becky, are you going to make me beg? Is your reluctance based on real trepidation, or are you just trying to torture me?”

  “Mike and I,” she paused to take a breath. “We were married in a temple. It wasn’t just till death do us part. We believe our marriage was sealed for time and all eternity, that we’ll be husband and wife forever.”

  “So that means you can’t marry anyone else?”

  “No, I can marry again, just for the ‘time’ part and leave off ‘all eternity,’ but—”

  “Then it’s settled. I don’t believe in the ‘all eternity’ anyhow. I only want to be your fellow for the rest of this life, till death do us part.”

  “No, Felix, it won’t work. It just won’t. I’m sorry.”

  He was quiet. Her heart squeezed.

  “Felix? Sweetie, are you okay?”

  “In that case . . .” His voice twanged with wickedness. “In that case, I’m going to have to romance you off your feet.”

  She gasped. “No you don’t . . .”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so. Becky Jack, may I woo you?”

  “No.”

  “Ha! That ‘no’ was so weakly spoken I’m going to ignore it entirely.” He chuckled. “This is going to be fun.”

  “No it’s not! No you’re not! Don’t you dare, Felix Callahan.”

  “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. You’ll have to wait and see.”

  “You’re so aggravating! I don’t know why I let you hang around.”

  “Because of my swoon-worthy looks?”

  “You’re tolerable, but you’re no Cary Grant.”

  “He was milquetoast compared to what you’re going to get. I’m going to woo you until your knees go soft.”

  “Argh!” She hung up the phone.

  In which Becky Jack gets romanced

  It started with flowers. Delivery vans showed up hourly, handing over an indecent number of overflowing vases, turning her home into a Thomas Kincade painting. Soon every flat surface sported a bouquet—not sun-flowers this time but roses, lilacs, gardenias, lilies, jasmine, all fragrant varieties so there was no corner of the house where she could escape their rich scent.

  She came home from the grocery store and discovered a CD player on her front stoop, Kenny Rogers singing “Lady” on repeat play. She wondered who in Utah was doing Felix’s bidding—some hired assistant, a concierge service? It was a little bit creepy.

  Two days later, she woke to a second CD player outside her bedroom window playing “Islands in the Stream.” She let it play, listening with her eyes closed, her big toe wiggling to the beat. She was really changing her mind about that song being lame.

  The next day, it was “Short People.” She put her face in her pillow to stifle the laugh. She was trying to pretend none of this was happening, but she was running out of places to put the CD players. All the fl at surfaces still held flowers.

  That sort of thing went on for a few weeks—songs, flowers, chocolates in the mail, a housecleaning service showing up and explaining that they were paid through the end of the year. All that time he didn’t return her calls, which was so irritating, because he was the one person alive in the world she would have liked to tell about a ridiculous wooing. Instead, she was showered with distant attention but kept from speaking to her best friend. And she missed him.

  Then she started running into the man himself.

  First at the grocery store. She was pushing a cart down the cereal aisle, searching for Hyrum’s favorite brand of raisin flakes, when she collided with another cart.

  “Excuse me,” she started to say, until she saw who it was. “What on earth are you doing here?”

  “Oh, hey there, Becky,” he said, speaking with a suburban mother accent. “Do you shop here too?”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “Well, this is my first time in this store. I only just moved into the neighborhood.”

  “Moved into the . . .”

  “Mm hm.” He picked up a box of cereal, pretending to be very interested in the list of ingredients. “I’m renting a fl at over on Fort Lane. One bedroom, but I love the location.”

  “You’re lying. Are you lying?”

  “Nope.” He emphasized the “p” noise, popping the word in his mouth, and smiled wickedly before his faux-normal demeanor returned. “Well, I should go. I have quite a shopping list to fill. You know how it is. See you round!”

  He winked as he left.

  It was weird how hard her heart was pounding.

  On Friday, the kids came home from school with Felix stories.

  He’d been a guest speaker in Polly’s twelfth-grade English class, explaining the process of making a movie based on a book.

  “When he left, Mrs. Elkins called after him, ‘Come anytime!’ and then batted her eyelashes. Then all the girls were swarming around me saying, ‘He’s so hot!’ And I was like, ‘Ick. He’s like my uncle.’ ” It was a big, bold paragraph for Polly to speak, and it made Becky extremely proud.

  Then he showed up in Hyrum’s social studies class, prearranged with the teacher, to give a British perspective on current world events.

  At lunch period, he met up with Hyrum and Polly. He brought a large take-out lunch for them to share, and they sat on the school lawn and ate and talked.

  “What did you talk about?” Becky wanted to know.

  Polly shrugged. “Just stuff. He asked us about stuff , school, friends, you know.”

  “Did you talk about me?” Becky asked.

  “No, Mom. We were just hanging.”

  “Everyone was staring at us,” Hyrum said. “It was pretty cool. I mean, I knew Felix was famous, but I didn’t know he was cool famous. I thought he was, you know, snooty famous, like old-people famous.”

  That afternoon, Felix made an appearance at Sam’s fifth-grade class. “He was our phys ed teacher for the day. He knows all these cool soccer moves. He calls it football. And he told us stories about how in England people kill each other over football. Killing people over soccer! That is so cool.”

  The next encounter was at Sam’s soccer game on Saturday. Felix was wearing a purple shirt, the Tigers’ color, and had a purple megaphone. At least he hadn’t painted his face.

  “All right, Sam!” he’d holler from the front row of the bleachers. “Great block! Come on now. Don’t let him get away. Go Tigers!”

  Becky sat on the other side of the bleachers and tried not to let her Felix-glaring interfere with her Sam-cheering.

  The
Tigers were down several goals, and Sam was looking glum. When they had a break, Becky expected her boy to come over for some cheering up. Instead, he went to Felix.

  Felix gave some sort of soccer advice that involved using shins and knees, and Sam nodded, his mouth open as if he were literally eating Felix’s every word. When Sam left to run back to the game, Felix rubbed the boy’s head in a fatherly fashion. Sam was grinning.

  The Tigers lost in the end, badly in fact, but it didn’t matter, because in the second half, Sam scored a goal. Becky had never imagined that Felix could yell so loud, jumping about, shouting Sam’s name and pounding the air with his fi st. You would have thought his team had won the World Cup.

  She invited him to join them for some celebratory ice cream, and he spent the entire time absorbed in Sam and recounting details of his inspired playing.

  “Did you see how you used your shins to keep the ball away? It was a bloody brilliant move. Tell me what you were thinking when that redheaded kid tried to steal the ball from you.”

  “I was thinking, no way! This is my ball. You’ll have to wait your turn.”“

  “ I knew it. I knew you had the warrior spirit. A champion in the making.”

  Sam positively glowed. “The British know football, Mom. It’s in their blood. Felix has met Pelé and Beckham, and he says I have the same wild look of a champion.”

  “Of course you do, sweetie.”

  Felix barely paid any attention to Becky until they’d gone back home. Sam ran into the house to tell Hyrum about his game, while Becky and Felix stayed out under the April afternoon sky, leaning back against the car and staring up into blue.

  “He’s a good kid,” Felix said. “I like him much better now that he can talk.”

  “Are you doing all this to show that you could play the part of his daddy?”

  “No. He already has a daddy. I’d just like to be his mate and his mum’s husband.”

  “Felix—” she started to say, but he took her hand, kissed it, and walked away.

  “I have a date with another woman. Don’t be jealous—she’s eighty-two.”