Animal Husbandry

by Laura Zigman

  Self-help books:

  10 @ $22.50 229.50

  Research materials (books, magazines, notebooks, etc.) 210.50

  Cigarettes:

  1 pack per day @ $2.25 per pack 821.25

  Kleenex:

  1 box per week @ $1.25 per box 65.00

  Häagen-Dazs:

  3 pints per week @ $2.69 per pint 419.64

  Agnes B. hommes striped T-shirt 98.00

  Reupholstery for what-will-become-of-me couch 600.00

  Total Compensatory Damages: $2833.89

  Punitive Damages:

  To punish defendant for inflicting excessive and undue emotional damage on plaintiff and to deter defendant from repeating injurious behavior:

  $1,225,500.00

  Hedonic Damages:

  Compensation for loss of quality of life and self-esteem, hopeful outlook on future, personal happiness, and missed social-interaction opportunities:

  $1000 per day $ 365,000.00

  TOTAL DAMAGES $1,593,333.89

  THE MORNING AFTER

  Man has places in his heart which do not yet exist, and into them enters suffering in order that they may have existence.

  —Léon Bloy, 1846–1917

  Two blurred figures—a man and a woman—cross a charming room: cozy, warm, with red-velvet walls and a fire burning in the fireplace. Voices are heard, as is a persistent heartbeat: Flub-dub. Flub-dub. Flub-dub.

  “God. This apartment is great! It’s huge!” the man says.

  “I know,” says the woman. “How did you hear about it?”

  The man scratches his head. “I don’t know really. I’ve never been on this street, let alone seen this building, but it’s as if somehow I sensed it was here.”

  They proceed through the vast, fabulous apartment, discussing furnishings and how they will decorate it. They kiss, hold hands, and move into the bedroom.

  Flub-dub. Flub-dub. Flub-dub.

  “Now that we actually have a bedroom, I think we should buy a bed,” the man says. “A real one, with a headboard and a footboard. One that’s not directly on the floor.”

  The woman sighs, obviously moved with emotion. “A bed of our own. That we’ve slept in only with each other. God. I can’t believe this is happening.”

  The man sighs, obviously moved too. “Me either. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. It’s as if some kind of destiny has brought us together, and brought us here. I love you, Evelyn.”

  “I love you too, Ray.”

  Flub-dub.

  [POST-NIGHTMARE SCREAM DELETED.]

  I woke up late the next morning, my head aching from a hangover, my heart pounding from the dream. I felt numb with sadness and misery and crankiness.

  After I showered and made coffee, I went into the living room with my cup and sat down at the table to smoke and think. I desperately needed to figure out what to do with my anger so I wouldn’t kill anyone.

  Old Cows who discover New Cows are fit to be tied.

  I was on my second cup of coffee and my third cigarette when Eddie got up and came out of his bedroom. He’d been out very late the night before with friends from out of town. I wasn’t looking forward to telling him about my mind-altering discovery. The humiliation and the embarrassment would be too much; I didn’t think I could take any more of either.

  He tied the belt of his robe and smiled at me, still warm and fuzzy from sleep.

  I shifted my gaze out the window. He walked over to the table, took a sip from my coffee cup, pulled a cigarette out of the pack and lit it.

  “What’s the matter with you?”

  I stared at him again. “Ray’s fucking Evelyn.”

  Why beat around the bush, right?

  Eddie raised an eyebrow. “How’d you find out?”

  “She wore his shirt to work yesterday. A shirt I bought him.”

  He looked at the lit end of his cigarette and sat down at the table across from me. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  I nodded, completely unconsoled. “Thanks.”

  “Were you surprised?” he said.

  I waited a beat to make sure I’d heard his question correctly. “Excuse me?”

  He shrugged. “I’m not. They spend a lot of time together. I mean, look, he’s attractive, she’s attractive, they’re healthy normal people of the opposite sex. It’s just not that big a leap to make, that’s all.”

  I didn’t take my eyes off his face. He knew something I didn’t. “Don’t tell me—”

  “What?”

  “Don’t tell me you knew.”

  “No. I didn’t know. But I suspected.”

  “You suspected? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Jane, they’re always together at the office. They go to work parties together. I’ve seen them eat off each other’s plates. And, when I go over to Evelyn’s desk to shoot the shit, Ray always seems to appear, as if to reclaim his territory.” He paused. “I assumed you wondered about them too but just didn’t want to know.”

  I felt like the biggest idiot in the world. While I had wondered, I had never gone further than that—not because the idea had never crossed my mind that they could be involved but because I’d never sensed any spark whatsoever between them. They seemed like, you know, friends.

  “Well, I know it’s hard for you to comprehend, but not everyone fucks everything in sight just because it’s there.”

  “At least I fuck,” he said.

  “And so would I if there were someone halfway decent around to fuck with.”

  Eddie’s mouth dropped open, and he started to laugh, and despite myself I laughed too. But the humor of that exchange passed quickly.

  “I’m worried about you,” Eddie said.

  I glared at him. “Why?”

  “You’re letting this thing consume your life. You have to get over it.”

  “Oh, I’ll get over it,” I said, reeling with hunger to start plotting and planning anew. “I assure you, I’ll get over it.”

  “How?”

  I got up from the table and headed off toward my hole.

  “Where are you going?” Eddie said.

  “Out,” I said, slamming the curtain.

  Before I left the apartment, I called Joan and told her to meet me at the Bull and Bear at the Waldorf for Bloody Marys. I took the subway uptown and arrived there first, then sat down at a table by the window and ordered a mineral water with ice and lime. Outside, Lexington Avenue was empty. But the Bull and Bear wasn’t. As usual on summer weekends in New York when the city emptied out of natives, only tourists and lonely people wandered the streets and sat in bars to escape the heat.

  Joan arrived sweating, her hair afrizz.

  “You look terrible,” she said, and wiped her face with the napkin.

  “You should talk.”

  “I know. There has to be a cure for our hair.” She sat down and signaled the waiter. “What, no booze?” she said, pointing to my glass. “Or is that straight gin?”

  “No booze,” I repeated calmly and seriously. “I need to be clearheaded and sharp. I need to have my wits about me.”

  Joan ordered a Bloody Mary. “For what?”

  I smiled my best psycho-smile.

  Old Cows take bovine-icide extremely seriously.

  “Nothing will make me feel better unless he dies a slow and painful death.” I squeezed the lime wedge into my mineral water and stirred the ice cubes with my finger.

  Joan looked at me. There was a momentary flash of concern in her eyes, but it seemed to pass. She knew what it was like to feel this way.

  “Where does he even get the time to fool around so much? I mean, he’s still living with Mia.” I shook my head. “I guess Evelyn’s sweet and stupid enough to swallow that brother-sister bullshit whole.”

  “Youth,” Joan said.

  We stared at each other.

  “I want him to die,” I pronounced.

  “Yes, I know.”

  “No, I mean, I want to bury him in print.” I took one of Jo
an’s Marlboros and lit it.

  She sipped her Bloody Mary and lit a cigarette too. “You mean, like, writing another piece?”

  I grinned. “Only this time I want to get specific. Really specific. Like, do a case study on him—an ultraspecific case study. I’m going to fucking nail him to the wall this time.”

  Joan seemed afraid to interrupt me. She didn’t say anything and waited for me to continue.

  I pulled a book out of my bag—Sexual Selection: Mate Choice and Courtship in Nature (Gould & Gould, 1989)—and opened it to a chapter I’d marked. “You see, there are three kinds of monogamy. Permanent monogamy is a pair-bond that lasts until the death of one member.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Serial monogamy,” I continued, “is when a pair rears its offspring together but then immediately finds new mates.” I flipped the page. “And then there’s annual monogamy, when a pair stays together through one breeding season but then finds new partners the next year.”

  “Like … Ray and you?” Joan asked tentatively.

  I snorted. “Except for the fact that I didn’t find a new partner, and he didn’t even wait a whole year.” I put the book back in my bag and leaned across the table. “You see, my idea is to tailor the concept of annual monogamy to fit Ray. I’d propose the notion of semiannual monogamy and back it up with his case history.” I sipped my water and felt cleansed and heady with purpose. “Of course, I’d change his name and all that other bullshit for the magazine.”

  Joan nodded slowly. “I’ll take it to Ben once you’ve done a draft, and if he approves it, I’ll try to figure out how to get it in as soon as possible.” She pulled out her date book and made a few notes. “When do you think you’ll get started on it?”

  I signaled the waiter for the check. “Now.”

  I spent the week writing the article, and by the following Monday morning Joan had it on her desk. She brought it into her editorial meeting for review, and by three o’clock Tuesday afternoon she called to tell me that it had been approved but that because of a summer double-issue and various other space constraints, the earliest it could run would be October. On stands: September 21.

  A year, almost exactly, from my last mate with Ray.

  That night I sat on the what-will-become-of-me couch, feeling drained and exhausted from finishing the column and all that had precipitated it. But I was also exhilarated at the notion that revenge was finally in sight. I leaned my head back, closed my eyes, and breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Which was when Eddie came home.

  I heard him pour himself a drink in the kitchen, then walk slowly down the narrow hallway to the living room. He smiled at me, then sat down at the table with a copy of the previous month’s Men’s Times article. Apparently he had a different term for the male sailfin’s behavior described therein.

  “Off-ramp,” he said.

  His feet were up on the table, and he was noisily chewing two pieces of Nicorette at the same time. He was trying to give up cigarettes because Denise, his latest teenage girlfriend, had just told him she wanted to marry someone who smoked.

  I looked up. “What?”

  Eddie took his feet off the table and reached over to the magazine and pointed to a paragraph on the second page.

  “Why males participate in gy-ro-genetic reproduction, or whatever the fuck it’s called,” he said. “I think it’s because they’re using the new female as an off-ramp from the other female.”

  I rolled my eyes. “First of all, it’s gyno, not gyro. And second of all, the whole point of the other useless female is to lure the new female.”

  Eddie stared at me. “Well, maybe it’s both.”

  I stared back.

  “Take Stephanie,” he said, “the girlfriend whose name you didn’t bother to learn. I knew I wanted to break up with her, and as soon as I did, I simultaneously knew I needed a good reason to do it: another girlfriend. By getting involved with Denise, I was able to leave Stephanie, and because of my ‘sadness’ over leaving Stephanie, I was able to get involved with Denise more quickly and more deeply.”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute” I put my fingers to my temples and pressed as hard as I could. “Is that really true? Is that how you really think? That women are fucking off-ramps?”

  Eddie looked up at the ceiling and chewed his gum faster. “Not consciously, no. In fact, it just kind of came to me now, as I was saying it.” He looked rather pleased with himself. Then he threw his head back and laughed maniacally.

  I sat up straighter and looked at Eddie suspiciously. “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  He crossed one leg over the other and swung his foot back and forth. “Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means, I’m on to you and Joan. I know about ‘Dr. Goodall’ ”

  My heart was racing. I looked over at the magazine on the table and then over at the television, which I wished were on. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He threw his head back and laughed again. “Oh, come on! I heard you two in the living room that night. You thought I was asleep, but I could hear you, plotting away.” He reached across the table and took a cigarette out of my pack and lit it. “Hit the bar, hit the bar, hit the bar, food!” he said, pawing the table as if it might dispense a food pellet.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Then I turned back toward Eddie.

  “If you ever open your fat fucking mouth to anyone about this, I will personally take out an ad in The New York Times and tell everyone what an unbelievable slut you are, and then I’ll plaster copies of your love letter all over the office.”

  Eddie took a drag off his cigarette and stopped chewing. “What love letter?”

  I looked at him and smiled maliciously. “The love letter you wrote to the daughter of a famous network news anchor and were stupid enough to leave in the magazine rack in the bathroom. You met her for two seconds at some party, and then you wrote her a fucking love letter telling her how entrancing she was! And you couldn’t even spell the fucking word! You spelled it with an s—entransing!”

  Eddie doubled over and laughed so hard his Nicorette fell out of his mouth.

  I was laughing now too. “You know, there’s a clinical term for people like you, people who think they’re involved with someone even though the object of their affection doesn’t even know who they are: Erotomaniacs. Your entransing wife. In your fucking dreams!”

  When we finally stopped laughing, we both sat up and wiped our eyes. Eddie lit another cigarette and broke open a fresh piece of Nicorette.

  “Don’t worry, Jane. I won’t tell. Why would I want anyone knowing that I live with a sixty-five-year-old woman? It would ruin my reputation.”

  “What’s left of it.”

  He wiped his eyes again and put the gum in his mouth. “But seriously, Jane.”

  “Seriously what?”

  “I think you’ve gone far enough.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I mean,” he started slowly, “that I saw the draft of your third article. The one about semiannual monogamy.”

  I felt my face turn bright red with rage. “How do you know about that?”

  Eddie chewed his gum nervously. “I saw it. In your room.”

  “You went into my room and went through my files?”

  “It was on your desk.”

  “Bullshit,” I yelled. “It was not on my desk. It was in a file.”

  Eddie stopped chewing. “Okay. It was in a file.”

  I stared at him, incredulous. “How could you do that?”

  He shrugged, and shook his foot nervously. “I was worried about you,” he said. “Ever since you found out about Ray and Evelyn, you’ve been acting like a stalker. Look, you made your point already. The first two pieces were great. Interesting. Funny. Clever. Even I learned something. But you’re taking this column thing a little too seriously.”

  �
�So? That’s my business.”

  “Well, it’s my business too. We’re roommates.” He paused. “We’re friends.”

  “No, we’re not,” I said. “We’re not friends. We’re acquaintances. Partners in misery. Drinking buddies. You never gave me the time of day before I moved in here, and I can assure you, you won’t give me the time of day as soon as I move out—which I promise you will be very soon.”

  “Jesus, you’d better get a grip.”

  “I’d better get a grip? What about you? Talk about stalking. How many years did you pine over your beloved? Not to mention the number of replacements you’ve gone through and the speed at which you dispose of them. Don’t tell me to get a grip when there aren’t enough women in this city to fill the hole you think she left. The only reason this situation worked is because we needed each other. You needed someone to absorb your narcissism, and I needed a subject.”

  He stared at me, and I was shocked to see that he looked wounded by what I’d just said.

  “Is that what you think this has been? A research arrangement?”

  I didn’t say anything. I don’t know what I thought. Nothing had made any sense since the night Ray dumped me.

  He shook his head slowly. “Jane. It’s over with Ray.”

  “Over?” I stared at him. “Over? It’s not fucking over. It’s not over this time until I say it’s over.”

  “Why can’t you just accept the fact that he’s an asshole and move on?”

  “Because,” I said. “Because I can’t.”

  “Because why?”

  I stared at him and bit my lip to keep the tears from coming. “Because. I still love him. Because I never felt that way about anyone in my whole life.”

  “And someday you’ll feel that way about someone else.”

  I shook my head and bit my lip harder, but the tears escaped out of the corners of my eyes and down my cheeks. “No. I won’t.”

  “Yes. You will.”

  “No. I won’t.”

  “Jane. He’s not the last man you’re ever going to love.”

  I stared at him, and he stared back. Then he sat down next to me on the couch.

  “He’s not the last man who will ever love you.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut and covered them with my hand. The tears were unstoppable now.