American Wife

by Curtis Sittenfeld

  A few weeks earlier, Arthur had, according to Jadey, announced that she needed to lose weight; since then she’d refused to have sex with him. Although I sided with her, the story felt incomplete. As off-color as Arthur could be, he wasn’t cruel, and I couldn’t imagine he’d expressed the thought as bluntly as she claimed; I even wondered if he’d been answering a question she’d asked. In the time since I’d met Jadey, it was true she’d gained about thirty pounds, but she was still very pretty. She’d become softer, less girlish, but she wasn’t a girl, she was thirty-eight years old, and what was wrong with looking the age you were? I myself had gained probably ten pounds in the last decade, mostly weight that I’d never quite lost after Ella’s birth, and it seemed like a worthwhile trade-off. I said, “Do I dare ask who it is you’re planning to have an affair with?”

  “Let’s just say all applications will be considered seriously.”

  “This is a terrible idea, Jadey.”

  “Oh, come on—don’t be the morality police.”

  “Well, it is a terrible idea morally, but I was thinking logistically. Can you imagine getting a divorce, having to share custody and being apart from Drew and Winnie?” None of Charlie’s brothers and their wives had sent their children to boarding school, a precedent that greatly relieved me; I would have fought hard against sending Ella. “Or how about this,” I said. “Picture Arthur remarrying.”

  Jadey shook her head. “I’d slit his throat first. Though wouldn’t it be fascinating to know who he’d pick? I’ve always thought he had a thing for Marilyn Granville.”

  “She’s married.”

  “So am I.”

  “You’re much cuter than Marilyn,” I said.

  “I am, aren’t I?” Jadey smiled at me sideways, mock-flirtatiously, but then she frowned. “Too bad Arthur doesn’t think so.”

  “Does he know how upset you are?”

  “It’s been almost a month since he visited the hospitality deck on the S.S. Jadey, so he should figure it out soon.”

  “Has he initiated sex and you’ve refused?”

  “Has he initiated it?” Jadey said. “Alice, is the pope Catholic?”

  “And you’ve said no?”

  “Sixteen-year-old virgins say no. I demur.”

  “Jadey, I just worry. Sex is important in a marriage.”

  “I don’t even miss it. It had gotten so predictable that I felt like we’d already done it before we started—I had to pinch myself to stay awake. I recently realized I’ve been married to Arthur for almost half my life. Can you believe that? Why didn’t someone tell me that twenty-one was way too young to commit to another person?”

  “My doctor says you should have sex twice a week.”

  “And you listen?”

  “Well—” Generally, I was less forthcoming than Jadey about topics I considered private. There was no one I confided in more, but I also was aware that Jadey’s greatest asset and her most serious downfall was that she was a talker. Years before, for Christmas, Charlie had given her a pillow he’d found himself and been quite proud of, supposedly modeled on one owned by Alice Roosevelt Longworth. It had a white background and said in green print: IF YOU DON’T HAVE ANYTHING NICE TO SAY, COME SIT BY ME.

  Jadey and I had gotten this far into the conversation, though, and it didn’t seem fair to be coy, so I said, “I try for once a week.”

  “Do you enjoy it?”

  “Sometimes I’m not in the mood beforehand, but I’m still glad after. It makes me feel close to him.”

  “Do you always, you know, grab the brass ring?”

  “Mostly,” I said. “Occasionally, I’m just too tired.”

  “I only can if the kids are out of the house.”

  “No wonder it’s not as fun. Maybe you should buy some books or movies or something.”

  “You mean pornography? Is Alice Blackwell recommending pornography?” She adopted a prim tone. “As I live and breathe—”

  “Jadey, come on.” I nudged her. Two men were about fifty feet away, cruising toward us in a golf cart, and there was a 90 percent chance—such was the Maronee Country Club—that we knew them.

  “You two don’t use it, do you?” At least she’d lowered her voice a little.

  “Charlie looks at magazines once in a while.”

  “Doesn’t that bother you?”

  I shrugged. “Men tend to be more visual than women.”

  “Does he take matters into his own hands, so to speak?”

  “I suppose.”

  “You suppose? Well, where’s he when he’s looking at them, and where are you?”

  “Sometimes if he can’t fall asleep, he goes into the bathroom.” Simultaneously, I felt that we had veered into territory that was none of Jadey’s business, and I also felt that being married to a man who every so often looked at pornography, or who masturbated, wasn’t a big deal. And yes, Charlie definitely masturbated, he did it to Penthouse—he didn’t subscribe, but he bought an issue every few months, and while we didn’t exactly talk about it, he also didn’t try to hide it. It would have horrified me if he left a magazine in the living room, or if Ella found one, but since he was discreet—he kept them in the locked bottom drawer of his nightstand—I didn’t mind.

  I sometimes got the impression that because of my frequent reading, I was less easily shocked than the people around me, that I knew more factual information—about sex, yes, but also about typhoons or folk dancing or Zoroastrianism. In addition to reading a novel every week or two, I subscribed to Time, The Economist, The New Yorker, and House and Garden, and if I found an article particularly interesting, I’d see what I could track down about the subject at the Maronee public library.

  Jadey was saying, “Don’t you feel like him looking at other women is an insult to you?”

  “I just assume most men notice other women, and most women notice other men. You obviously do.”

  She laughed. “That’s the problem—I can’t think of anyone to have an affair with.” The golf cart passed by us then, and one of the two men on it called out, “Ahoy, Blackwell ladies!” I recognized them as Sterling Walsh, who owned a real estate development company, and Bob Perkins, who was a good friend of Charlie’s brother Ed.

  Jadey turned to me and nodded once meaningfully at the back of the golf cart. “Definitely not,” I said. “Arthur’s much more appealing than either one.”

  “Are you at least going to support me on my diet? I can never stick to one when I do it by myself.”

  “You don’t need to go on a diet. Just eat sensibly, and we’ll walk more often. We should walk in Halcyon, too.” Our families both were going for the month of July and into August; Charlie and Arthur would return at intervals to Milwaukee.

  “Have you heard of the one where you eat half a grapefruit with every meal?”

  “Oh, Jadey, girls in my sorority used to try that, and by the third day, they’d see a grapefruit and gag.” But I was struck in this moment by my immense fondness for Jadey. Though her upbringing had been more like Arthur’s and Charlie’s than like mine—her father had made a fortune as a cement supplier, and she’d been raised in a house as large as Harold and Priscilla’s—I still felt that as Blackwell in-laws, we were expats who’d found each other in a foreign country. I said then, “I want to ask you something. Have you ever thought that Charlie drinks too much?”

  Jadey furrowed her brow. “The Blackwell boys know how to enjoy themselves—not Ed, but our boys do. But no. I mean, what would Chas do drunk that he wouldn’t do sober, right? Same with Arthur.”

  “No, I agree.” It was such a relief to hear her say these things—they were almost identical to one side of the argument I’d been having with myself for the last few months. “How much does Arthur drink on an average night? For instance, if you’re all having dinner?”

  “He has a few beers. Hell, I have a few beers. Hell, Drew has a few beers. I’m an awful mom, right?” She laughed. “No wonder everyone thinks people from Wisconsin are lu
shes.”

  “So Arthur has, what, three beers? Or more?”

  “Alice, let’s quit dancing around this. How much does Chas drink?”

  Slowly, I said, “Well, it’s mostly whiskey these days, and I guess about a third of a bottle, but maybe a little less. It’s hard to say, because he buys the cases wholesale.”

  “A third of a bottle every night?”

  “I think so.”

  “And does he act drunk?”

  “Last week, he banged his forehead coming into the kitchen, like he’d misjudged the width of the doorway. But it’s more that he’s not in the best mood. He’s not mean, but he’s discouraged. Don’t repeat any of this to Arthur, obviously.”

  “What, you mean while we’re making sweet love?”

  “Charlie never plays squash in the morning anymore, he never takes Ella to school,” I said. “I don’t know if it’s because he’s hungover or just—I don’t know.”

  “Have you asked him about it?”

  “I tell him to go easy, but I wouldn’t say he listens.”

  “Well, I’ll watch for anything unusual when we’re at Maj and Pee-Paw’s on Saturday.” Jadey made a face. “Although I guess these aren’t normal circumstances with the brouhaha in Indianapolis—if this reassures you at all, Arthur was in the foulest humor when he got home last night.”

  “Charlie’s grilling steaks for dinner as we speak,” I said. “Would you eat Blackwell meat right now?”

  She nodded. “It wasn’t Blackwell. More people would have gotten sick by now, and you can bet we’ve got guys talking to every ER in the region. The poor people at that sports banquet, huh?” We both were quiet, surrounded by the country club’s smooth green grass, a spring breeze rising and carrying with it the smell of soil. Jadey said, “That’s the problem with being married to them. We’re forced to see how the sausage gets made.”

  AT DINNER, I did manage to eat the steak, though I wouldn’t have said I enjoyed it. Without consulting Charlie, I fixed Ella a peanut-butter sandwich instead—it would have made me far tenser for her to consume Blackwell meat than for me to—and Charlie either didn’t notice or chose not to comment. After dinner, Ella took a bath and I washed her hair, a request I was sadly aware that she’d stop making of me in the near future, and then I climbed into bed with her and read aloud from The Trumpet of the Swan; for me, this was the sweetest part of every day. Before I turned out the light, Ella summoned Charlie—she shrieked, “Daddy! Daddy, it’s time for me to be tucked in!”—and he came as called. About half the time, he’d rile her up more than settle her down, tickling her, dancing, making such outrageous noises or faces that she’d be squealing and jumping on the mattress, but on this night, he was so subdued that she whispered after he’d left, “Is Daddy mad at me?”

  I ran my hand over her hair, smoothing it out against the pillowcase. Ella had a ridiculously girlish bedroom, all pink and white (we’d let her pick it out), and she had a double bed, which seemed indulgent for a third-grader, but it was actually the bed I’d had before I married Charlie. “Daddy’s not mad,” I said. The phone rang then, and I heard Charlie answer it.

  “Can I rent Dirty Dancing this weekend?” Ella asked.

  “You can rent Dirty Dancing when you’re in seventh grade.”

  “Mommy, it’s not really dirty just because that’s what it’s called.”

  I leaned in and kissed her forehead. “Time to go to sleep, sweetheart.”

  WHEN I ENTERED the den, I was startled to find Hank Ucker sitting in an armchair, watching the ball game with Charlie. Without standing, Hank bowed in his seat. “The maternal glow positively emanates from you, Alice,” he said. “You call to mind a Renaissance Madonna.”

  “I see her more like the trampy singer Madonna,” Charlie said, and grinned. “Come here, baby.” When I stood beside him, he affectionately patted my rear.

  “Hank, I didn’t realize we’d have the pleasure of your company tonight,” I said. “May I offer you something to eat or drink?” It was almost nine o’clock, so I wondered how long he planned to stay. As far as I knew, Hank still lived in Madison. Though I hadn’t seen him for a few years, I’d heard he’d left his position as chief of staff for the minority leader of the Wisconsin State Senate to help run the U.S. Senate campaign of a Republican from Fond du Lac, a man who initially hadn’t seemed to have much of a shot but in recent weeks had pulled ahead of the incumbent in several polls.

  “A glass of ice water would be superb,” Hank said.

  Charlie, who was drinking whiskey, chuckled. “Still living life in the fast lane, I see.”

  Hank smiled his slow, untrustworthy smile. “As ever.”

  I slipped away to the kitchen, filled a glass for Hank, and when I returned to the den, they were talking about Sharon Olson, the incumbent against whom Hank’s candidate was running. “A shame that had to come out about her taste for men of the Negro persuasion,” Charlie said, grinning. Hank’s candidate’s polling numbers had no doubt been bolstered by the recent revelation—this did not seem revelatory to me, but revelation was the word the local news programs used—that Olson, who was a white Democrat, had had a brief and childless first marriage to a black man in the late sixties. Olson was now remarried to a white lawyer with whom she had two teenage sons and a daughter, and I didn’t see how her earlier marriage had much bearing on anything (the first husband had long since moved to Seattle, where he, too, was an attorney), but a series of ads was running that showed her and the groom holding hands at her first wedding, accompanied by ominous music and concluding with a question posed in stark red letters against a dark screen: IF SHARON OLSON HAS BEEN LYING TO US ABOUT THIS . . . WHAT ELSE HAS SHE BEEN LYING ABOUT?

  Hank smirked. “A shame indeed. That poor gal.”

  I passed the water glass to Hank and said, “If you’ll excuse me, I have some reading to do. Hank, nice to see you.”

  Over an hour later, after I’d heard the front door open and close and a car engine start, I returned to the first floor. “Are you thinking of running for office?”

  “Jeepers creepers, woman, calm down.” Charlie’s voice was a little loose, and the whiskey bottle was, I noted, down to the dregs, but I couldn’t remember how full it had been before.

  “Given that it’s almost June, what race could you realistically enter?”

  “Seriously,” Charlie said, “calm down.”

  “You know I’ve never trusted Hank.”

  “And anyone who runs for elected office is a pompous shyster—right, baby?”

  “You’re putting words in my mouth.”

  He leered. “I can think of something I’d like to put in your mouth.”

  “Can’t you just give me a straight answer about why Hank was here?”

  We faced each other, him still sitting on the couch, me standing a few feet away, and he said, “I got a call from Arthur before Ucker arrived—turns out I was right that we weren’t to blame for the contamination. It wasn’t the store the sports-banquet folks got the chuck from that had the problems, it was the basement fridge where one of the athlete’s moms was storing it. Seems that a rat had gnawed the power cord.” Charlie raised his glass. “Bon appétit.”

  “That poor woman—she must feel terrible.”

  “I’m just glad we recalled one-point-two million pounds of meat. Good thing the Upper Midwest region is safe tonight from the scourge of Blackwell beef.”

  “You did the right thing.”

  Charlie gestured toward the TV. “You just missed John on Channel Twelve news. He said, ‘Our meat is not a crook.’ ” Charlie leaned back, chuckling at his own joke.

  “I’m glad everything is cleared up.” I took a seat and leaned forward to pull the latest issue of The New Yorker off the coffee table. “Did you know Yvonne Sutton had a baby?”

  “Who’s Yvonne Sutton?”

  “Miss Ruby’s daughter.”

  Charlie shook his head wonderingly. “You can’t say those people aren’t fertile.”


  “Charlie, Yvonne has two children. She’s not exactly contributing to overpopulation.”

  “I assume it’s a different father from Jessica’s?”

  “It’s her husband, and he also works at St. Mary’s.” I closed the magazine, which I wasn’t reading anyway. “I invited them over for lunch on Memorial Day.”

  “Wasn’t that egalitarian of you? Maybe they can show our daughter how to grow dreadlocks.” Several years before, for Ella’s fifth birthday, she had requested a Barbie doll. We’d bought one for her—Dreamtime Barbie, who came with her own miniature peach-colored teddy bear—but when Ella unwrapped the box, she burst into tears. She wanted a Barbie “like Jessica’s,” she kept insisting, and eventually, I figured out she meant a black Barbie. I ended up exchanging Dreamtime Barbie for Day-to-Night Barbie, who came with a pink business suit and a pink dress that had a sparkly top and a sheer skirt, whose skin was dark brown, and whose hair was black. I felt almost proud of Ella, and I think Charlie was amused, though he did say, “Show that to Maj, and you and Ella will both be excommunicated.” The irony was that while Charlie regularly remarked on his mother’s racism, he made offensive comments more often than she did. That he made them with a wink, he seemed to think, meant he was less culpable and not more so, and although I disagreed and particularly disliked when he used slurs in front of Ella, I’d long ago given up trying to edit him.

  In our den, I said, “Jessica is going to Stevens next year for junior high, which really makes me worry.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

  “It sounds like she’s a great student and does lots of extracurricular activities.”

  “Did you run into her recently?”

  “I saw Miss Ruby last night—when I was looking for you, I went by your parents’ house.” Mentioning that Miss Ruby had accompanied me to the play seemed unnecessary. I added, “I bet Jessica would thrive at a place like Biddle.”

  “Sounds like she’s thriving already.”

  “Do you know which school Stevens is?”

  Charlie grinned. “Where do you think I go to replenish my crack supply?” Then he said, “I’m not running for anything, okay? Hank came over so we could think about options for the future, but you’re right—it’s too late for this election year.”