Unraveling

by Owen Thomas

  Hollis might have heard the answer, which was an overly casual Oh, just Gayle, with the added, if you must know. He might even have inquired why Gayle required a labor-intensive letter rather than a phone call. He might have, but he did not, for just at the moment he had asked the question, the entirety of his attention seized upon the stack of mail perched on the far edge of the table.

  He blinked. Refocused. Looked again.

  That Hollis recognized the magazine – even in its opaque plastic covering, poking out from between the clothing catalog and the latest issue of Forbes and the collection of bills and solicitations – was not for a moment lost on Susan.

  “Want your mail?” she asked, again with her irritating, newfound insouciance.

  “Oh. Do I have mail?”

  “That is your magazine, isn’t it?”

  Forbes was, in fact, his magazine. Susan had never read it, at least as far as he knew, and he usually read it cover to cover. When he was done with a Forbes, he filed it away chronologically on the top shelf of one of the three bookcases down in his study. There was no doubt that the Forbes belonged to Hollis.

  But Hollis knew that Susan was not talking about Forbes.

  She was talking about Playboy.

  “Forbes? Yes. That’s mine.”

  “Well, yes. Forbes. And the other one.”

  “Other one?”

  Susan stood up again and leaned over the table and deftly sorted the stack into two piles. She turned, handing him the bills, the Forbes … and the other one.

  Hollis received the stack in his free hand. The wrapping had been sliced open.

  …Then why can’t I?

  Why can’t you what?

  Why can’t I express my dissenting views?

  You can. You are.

  But according to you, Senator, that is an un-American thing to do.

  “I opened it by mistake,” she said. “I didn’t realize until… well, until I saw it.”

  “Saw what?” said Hollis too sharply.

  He knew exactly what, of course. He knew that what was done was done. Pretending ignorance was probably the dumbest thing he could possibly do. But he was not, at the moment, accountable for his own words. His response was automatic. Historic. Scripted.

  “What did you see? What is this?”

  “It’s a Playboy Magazine, Hollis.”

  “What?”

  “Playboy. You know… Playboy? It’s really okay, Hollis. I’m not trying to embarrass you. You’re a grown man, for goodness sake, you can look at whatever pictures you like to look at.”

  “I don’t know what in the Hell you’re talking about, Susan.” He dropped his new Pack Mule workout bag and with his liberated hand fumbled through the mail, frowning severely. “I don’t subscribe to Playboy. You know that.”

  He slipped his fingers inside the wrapping, pinched the top of the magazine, and extracted just enough to identify the logo, nestled within a tangle of auburn wisps.

  “Well this is just a mistake,” he said. “I don’t…”

  “Hollis.” Susan scowled comically, swatting the air. “Really. It’s okay.”

  “Susan… I’m telling you…”

  He had been genuinely confused for the first five or six seconds. He had not, after all, subscribed to Playboy Magazine. Not intentionally.

  But the explanation had come soon enough. He had, he recalled, joined the Connoisseurs’ Club some months back, which had explained everything in a flash.

  “Hollis, really, I don’t even care. Okay? I don’t. That’s your business.”

  …Ms. Donnelly, I can see that you are just itching to…

  Yeah, Wolf, I don’t understand that at all. First of all, the war in Iraq is doing nothing to protect my freedom. The war in…

  That’s preposterous. That’s just…insulting.

  You know, Wolf…

  Senator, let me finish…

  The Connoisseurs’ Club was nothing but a marketing ploy by the Twisted Cork Wine & Spirits Shop. He had been fool enough to say yes, when the brunette cashier, holding hostage the bottle of 1997 Verget Chablis Valmur that he had selected, asked if he wanted to join. He had not particularly wanted to say yes. But he had.

  For a low annual fee, Connoisseurs’ Club members would receive a quarterly newsletter with inside scoop on the best labels and vineyards from around the world, plus a five percent discount on top of any Twisted Cork advertised specials, plus a free Twisted Cork Connoisseurs’ Club corkscrew, plus – and here the clerk, having almost forgotten this part, had leaned toward him across the counter such that her breasts had pushed out against the fabric of her shirt – special magazine discounts. The discounts, she had told him, applied to any magazine on the list of a dozen or so magazines that appeared on the same touch-screen device that had just licked the magnetic strip on his credit card and that was waiting for a decision.

  …You know, Wolf, it sounds to me like Ms. Donnelly would rather that Saddam Hussein still be in power, rather than in custody awaiting trial …

  Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 911. Nothing.

  You’re wrong. That is simply wrong. Now, I have access to information …

  “You’re obviously having fun with this, Susan, but I resent the suggestion that…”

  “For Pete’s sake, Hollis. I’m telling you I don’t care.”

  “And I’m telling you, Susan, that this is not my magazine.”

  Yes, he had told the clerk. Sure. Why not? The cashier – she could not have been more than twenty-three or twenty-four – had confirmed his mailing address and then tapped the screen with her finger. There were not many magazines on the list that had even remotely appealed to him. He was not interested, for instance, in auto mechanics, or computers, or guns. No fewer than four of the magazines reported on movies and celebrity gossip. He did not care to read every month about sailing or surfing. That left astronomy, political current events, sports, and … well, sex.

  Sure, he had considered Playboy. It had been right there at the bottom of the first column of choices. But he had considered that particular option only fleetingly; only long enough to conclude – after looking up at the clerk, registering her smile and her very white teeth and surmising that she would be privy to his selection – that if he was really interested in good political writing, which would be the only thing Playboy really had to offer him, then he may as well get one of the current events magazines. And, after further reflection, maybe what he was really interested in after all was sports. He did not subscribe to any sports magazines and hadn’t it been about time he did so? A good sports magazine was something, by golly, that he could share with Ben.

  “It’s not your magazine?”

  “No. It isn’t.”

  “It has your name on it.”

  “I said it’s not mine.”

  “So… you just have no idea.”

  So he had actually made a conscious decision to reject Playboy. Instead, he had deliberately opted for Play Book, which was a magazine all about Big Ten football, written mostly from a coaching perspective. Hollis knew now, tragically, that when he had tapped the plastic wand to the touch-screen and made his selection, his aim had been less than true. The uncomfortable fact was that he had had trouble seeing the damn screen. The print was tiny and too light.

  Nor had he possessed the physical precision required to manage the electronic transaction. Anymore it seemed that a man had to have surgical skills, bomb-defusing skills, ship-in-a-bottle-building skills just to make it through a damn checkout line. The little touch-screen, in its tiny, ghostly print, had required that he use the plastic phallus, which was attached to the screen with an unruly black wire, to touch a thin line of text corresponding to the desired magazine title and to entirely avoid all of the other thin lines of text, wavering in the electronic ether, that corresponded to the titles in which he was not interested. This was a task roughly comparable to skewering the heart of a housefly with a ski pole as it buzzes hither and yon. The
whole thing made him feel … old.

  The clerk had seen consternation on his face. She had smiled and asked if he needed help. He had winked. Waved her off. Touched the damn screen. He hadn’t needed her help. It was done. The words Playboy Magazine had seemed to flash once just before the screen changed, but that had been no cause for concern. He had touched Play Book and he was goddamned sure about it. The likelihood of a computer malfunction had seemed too remote to warrant saying anything to the cashier. She had handed him his receipt and that was that.

  And all of that – the explanation for the magazine to which he had not subscribed – had been clear to Hollis within seconds of identifying the protective plastic wrapping on the dining room table. And yet, confronted with Susan’s unstated accusation, there was only one response. Only one direction.

  “No. No I don’t. I don’t have any goddamned idea, Susan. It’s not mine.”

  “Why are you so angry?”

  …Wolf, I’d like to finish my point if the Senator is quite finished.

  Yes. Please go ahead.

  Thank you. This war has nothing to do with protecting our safety...

  “I’m not angry. You just won’t listen. You never listen, Susan. You insist on making everything more difficult than it needs to be and if that means turning your nose up and your ears off, well, then so be it.”

  “Hollis, I… I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I’m trying to tell you that what you read or don’t read is not my concern.”

  “No. Susan. That is not what you are trying to tell me. It just isn’t. With a smirk on your face, you are trying…”

  “I’m not smirking… I…”

  “…you’re trying to insinuate, against all evidence to the contrary, that I have subscribed to …”

  “Evidence to the contrary? It…”

  “…Playboy Magazine…”

  “It has your name on it. They delivered it to your address. Our house. “

  “And you think it’s sooo funny. You’re trying to suggest that I’m a dirty old man. Well I’m neither dirty nor old and I don’t need you looking over my shoulder.”

  “Oh come on. How many times do I have to say that I don’t care what you do, Hollis? What you read. What you drink. Where you go. Who you see.”

  “Who I see? Who I see? Is that what this is all about?”

  “It’s not all about anything.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Look. You do whatever you want to do anyway, whether I like it or not. I count myself lucky to be included in anything at all in your life. So just…”

  “Well that’s rich, coming from the woman who just up and skips out on her family on a whim to play hippie.”

  Susan recoiled, blanching as she processed the words that he had not really meant to say; words calculated somewhere deep in the cellar of his brain to drown her new and silly freedom in a bucket of guilt. Words he had told himself were unnecessary because Susan was in the grips of a natural process that, in due course, was sure to lead her back to normalcy. Words that would make it seem as though he had been hurt by the ease with which she had left him for her own interests. Words that suggested vulnerability. Words that showed fear. Words that would only make things worse.

  Susan crossed her arms, defensively. Almost cradling herself. Her lips thinned with the pressure. Hollis wanted to take it back. To cover his tracks. A laugh, a smirk. Something. But it was too late.

  …You will feel differently madam if half of this county, possibly your half of this country, is obliterated by one of Saddam’s WMD’s.

  What WMD’s?! Senator? What WMD’s?! There are none.

  Yes. There are. Yes…

  “Is that what you think I was doing? Playing hippie? You think that was all a game of pretend for me?”

  “Yes. Susan. A game of pretend. I think it’s a game of escape. A game of I don’t like being a grown up with adult responsibilities. A game of boo-hoo I’m tired being a mother and a wife. A game of sit around the campfire and gaze into our navels and sing crappy songs and feel good about ourselves by pretending to change the world …”

  “Wow…” Her mouth is a disbelieving gape.

  “Yeah. Wow. A game of holding hands with … with… lesbians to prove that anything is still possible…”

  “Hollis…”

  “Well anything is not still possible, Susan. You are who you are. You’re a wife. You’re a mother. You’re a heterosexual.” He gestured dismissively at the blue notebook. “You can stop with the love letters there to your girlfriend and…”

  “It’s not a love letter.”

  “Whatever it is. You can just stop. You have a real life and you need to live it. Just drop the charade.”

  “What charade, exactly? The one where I pretend that you still have some interest in me? The one where you care two hoots about what I’m interested in? The charade where I pretend not to notice you disappearing every night downstairs so you can drink yourself to sleep?”

  “That’s crap. That’s ridiculous.”

  “What, the charade or the passing out in your chair every night? Which one is ridiculous? Both maybe. How about the charade of me pretending that we still have a relationship with any kind of emotional intimacy, let alone sex? How about …”

  “Oh, don’t lay that on me…”

  “Really? No? When was the last time? How many years, Hollis?”

  “You know I’ve tried. You know I’m more than willing. One touch from me and you’re like a turtle retracting into a shell.”

  “Oh…I can’t believe…”

  “Which is fine. I’m not going to force myself on you, but don’t go making it my fault. You’re the one who has turned into the great Ice Queen. I wonder if you were as chilly in Peebles. In those hot tubs…”

  “You’re jealous? You’re jealous of an imaginary… Hollis, it wasn’t about sex at all. It was about the war. And not all of those women were lesbian. Most of them were not lesbian. I’m not a lesbian.”

  “No. You’re not. But how many of your hot-tubbing protesters know that?”

  “Oh... honestly.”

  “Look, this is not a complaint. You get to do whatever you want with your… your sexuality. If you don’t want me…”

  “What. If I don’t want you then what? You’ll get it somewhere else?”

  “I didn’t say that, Susan. Christ. You never let up with that do you? Is it so important to you that I be a no-account womanizer? Does that help you in some way? Does that justify your new lifestyle?”

  “New lifestyle? Hollis, I have no idea what in the hell…”

  “Does that help you justify things?”

  “What things, Hollis? What things?”

  …Where are they, Senator, these WMD’s of yours?

  They’re in the desert, Ms. Donnelly. They’re in Iraq. Saddam’s a monster, but he was never a stupid monster. He has them well hidden. They are…

  “What things, Hollis?”

  “Drop the charade, Susan. It demeans us both. And you can drop the charade of pretending that you don’t care what I read or where I go or, as you tellingly put it, who I see. You can just stop it. Just stop it. You’re not fooling anyone. You care intensely about all of those things, Susan. Intensely. You care far too much. It’s way beyond taking an interest in what I do, where I go, what I read, who I see. You care so much that you assume the worst about me at every turn. You assume I’m a goddamned alcoholic. You assume I read Playboy and that…”

  “Apparently you do.”

  “I don’t!”

  “You don’t need to shout, Hollis.”

  “Yes. Apparently I do. Because you don’t listen. You don’t see or hear, you only assume what you want to assume. You assume that I have torrid affairs with girls half my age. You walk around obsessed with all of these dark speculations in your head and then you pretend that you’re above and beyond caring. But you’re not fooling anybody, least of all me. You’ve always tried to control everything abo
ut me. Everything. And suddenly, suddenly, ever since you became a born-again peacenik flower child, you’re oh so goddamned carefree and enlightened. You pretend that our marriage means so little that you’re completely indifferent to… to… everything. I could sacrifice virgins and shit on the living room carpet and you’d pretend that it was all just okey-dokey with you just so you can feel better about the things you do.”

  “Things that I do? That I do? What do I do except put up with your nonsense? What do I do except look the other way? No, you don’t shit on the living room carpet, you masturbate on the living room carpet.”

  “I was med…i…ta…ting.”

  “You were pleasuring yourself. And no, you don’t sacrifice virgins, but you court and flirt with and do god knows what else to women younger than your own daughter. So you tell me, Hollis: what do I do in this marriage but look the other way and pretend not to see what you have become? You think I don’t know about your drunken late-night rendezvous with the cable sex channel and a box of Oreos? You who are always too good for television and junk food and miss no opportunity to judge everybody else for it?”

  “You see? There you go again. What you do is assume the worst, Susan. You’re suspicious to the point of paranoia. You’re the most distrusting person I’ve ever known.”

  “And you don’t think that I have …”

  “It’s perfectly innocent, but you won’t see that. I have trouble sleeping, so I wander the house and turn on the television maybe to see if there is some report on the financial markets or the weather or the latest crisis facing our troops…”

  “The troops?! You’re gonna wrap yourself in the flag?”

  “…and you want to assume some sort of sordid bacchanal. I help out…”

  “You think I’m stupid?”

  “I help out…”

  “You leave crumbs everywhere and you never change the channel when you’re…. through… with whatever it is you’re doing.”

  “I help out the daughter of a friend and you assume I’m … I’m screwing her. It doesn’t matter that I’m not screwing anyone. That I haven’t. That I wouldn’t. It doesn’t matter how preposterous that is. You give me absolutely no benefit of the doubt. I meditate, I tell you I’m meditating, I actually try to explain meditation to you. I show you the mat. And do you believe me? No. Of course not. It’s much more fun to believe something that makes me seem disgusting and perverted. If I tell you I’ve had two glasses of wine, you assume I’ve had two bottles. I tell you I’m going to Wally Nunn’s retirement party and you think it’s an excuse to commit adultery. You look for opportunities to believe that I am lying to you. You look for opportunities to blame me.”