Little Disasters

by Randall Klein

  “Well,” I say, taking a step toward a prim Elspeth, “nothing but that could bribe me, I love a woman / only in Effigie, and good Painting as much as I hate / them—I’le do’t, for I cou’d adore the Devil well painted.”

  I lean forward and kiss her. Ted directs me to sustain it, that I’m kissing her with intent, a rake who is, in the gray areas of Restoration comedy, sexually assaulting a series of semiwilling women. So I kiss Elspeth, who has remarkably soft lips, who holds the kiss and doesn’t stiffen when my hands go to her hair, to the back of her neck, pulling her toward me. And then we break.

  Something suddenly feels terribly wrong. The room has gone silent, airless, like I’ve overstepped all professional bounds. I swallow back a wave of nausea, a rush of bile into my throat. Elspeth meets my eyes, but only flicks her eyelashes at me, like erasing a bad memory.

  “Foh, you filthy Toad, nay now I’ve done jesting.”

  Michael Gould

  Eight Months Ago: November 10, 2009

  Our code word is ice cream. If either of us brings up ice cream at any point, that’s a signal to the other that a spouse knows. Rejected code words included pineapple, narwhal, and conjunctivitis. We decided this a week ago, walking hand in hand through the old site of the World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, Queens, hinterlands where moral laws do not apply.

  Hand in hand is something new. We’re playacting at couplehood, classing up our movie by giving it a plot, rather than just framework dialogue around sex scenes. I called us fuck buddies and Jenny got genuinely offended, insisted that we were, at the very least, sexual chums.

  “What do we do if one of our significant others finds out?” I broached the subject first. Jenny strolled blithely onward, ever closer to the steel globe. I had to ask her twice so that she knew this topic needed some addressing.

  “If Fenn finds out, I’ll tell him you raped me. If Rebecca finds out, I’ll tell her you raped me.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “I can tell. You have your serious voice on. It’s very monotone. It’s your beige voice.”

  “So take me seriously, and then we can go back to debating what animal you think you could take in a fight.”

  Her lightbulbs strobe. “We’ll pick a code word,” she chirps. “And I could fuck up a bear. Kick it right in the face.”

  That eventually led to ice cream. And Jenny demonstrating for me that she could kick a six-foot bear in the face.

  I can’t envision the scenario in which Jenny tells me she has a strange craving for ice cream and I’m not hearing this from underneath Paul’s fists, or wherein I tell her that a new ice cream place opened up near me and she’s not distracted by a howling, sobbing Rebecca, but in the event that we are all together and one of us brings up ice cream, the other person has been duly alerted.

  *

  • • •

  Rebecca looks up from the counter. “Do you like ice cream?” She spreads homemade vanilla ice cream between two peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. Homemade cookiewiches. She’s making dessert. Always making dessert. Hearing the words, though, registering her question, I’m momentarily taken aback. Does she know? Does she know everything? Is my wife omniscient? “What?” I shoot back, a tad too clipped.

  “I can’t remember you ever eating ice cream. That’s all. Some people don’t like cold.”

  “No. I like ice cream. There are just always cookies.”

  She smiles. “If you ate ice cream you’d feel like you were cheating on my cookies?”

  For fuck’s sake, Rebecca. We’d laugh about this if we were capable of laughing about this. Instead I smirk and continue to Swiffer the floor. Jackson kicks his legs in his Pack ’n Play, grunting to himself. He’s pooping, the grunts a convenient timer to let me know I have about ten minutes before he’ll need changing.

  Rebecca strides over, shoves a bite of peanut butter cookie in my mouth. “Tell me if this tastes weird.”

  I roll the masticated ball around on my tongue. “No. Why?”

  “I changed peanut butters. The collective I was buying from raised its prices. I asked if I could be kept at the old price given the volume I buy, and they said no, so I went with a different collective.”

  “How cutthroat. Gimme more cookie.” She obliges me with the rest.

  She goes back to spreading, to shaping perfect hockey pucks. “Three years with the same supplier. They thought I would pay it because … I don’t know. I worked it out. Depending on orders, I’ll save between six and eight hundred dollars a year. But it adds up. And …” She pauses, gathers herself. For an endless second I think she’s about to tell me she’s pregnant again. “I’m thinking long-term. Five-year plans and hiring delivery people and expansion.”

  Rebecca smiles to herself, not wanting to share something so immodest, so gauche, with me, but wanting me to see it nevertheless. It’s the look she gave me the first time she ever wore fancy lingerie for me, my cotton-brief girlfriend trying on something with straps because that was what I was supposed to like. It’s the look I catch her giving when I’m holding Jackson, proud of herself for forming a perfect baby in her own body. “What changed?” I ask her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve been doing this since you were a teenager. Why now are you thinking big?”

  “Not big, just bigger,” she corrects. “Some of it is Jolie. She’s on her feet now. But a lot of it is you. You and your parents. You’ve invested time and money in me, and I don’t want anyone to think they’ve just been supporting a hobby. If I have investors, then this is a business, and I should treat it like one.” She punctuates with a nod.

  “A baking empire,” I assess. “You’ll be bigger than Mrs. Fields someday very soon.”

  “I’m going to take that bitch down,” Rebecca says. “Now leave me alone, I have to finish these before they get here.”

  We have company coming. Rebecca insisted, given the amount of time I spend over there, that we invite Jenny and Paul to our house for dinner. She wrote an invitation in cursive on thick paper stock, put it in my hand to give directly to Jenny, who accepted it from me like it was a dead mouse. When Jenny read it, with her face pinched tight, I thought she’d cry, but that’s not Jenny’s mode. Her eyes go liquid, but they don’t spill over, or at least not in front of me. Instead she stared at the invitation, almost sounding out each word, studying it. “I’ll need a night to think this over,” she told me, like I had offered her a job.

  It’s not lost on me how difficult this must be for her. For Paul, as well. It’s strange how little I consider his feelings now, as if he’s her butler. For the both of them, seeing the kids of strangers has to be difficult enough, but Jackson was born the same day in the same hospital, and he’s going to be in the same room.

  I’m being insensitive by not being reverent the way Rebecca is. Rebecca pumped so that Jenny would not need to see her breast-feed, and so that she can drink with Jenny. Rebecca’s goal is to have Jackson asleep and in the next room minutes after Jenny and Paul come in, treading the line between hiding him and appearing like we’re hiding him, as if we’re worried that they’ll abscond with our son. I watch my wife mash dessert together, scrape off the sides, and I’m ashamed of myself, because she is perfect every second and on my best day I’m the sum of my flaws. The doorbell rings, Rebecca shoves the adultery code sandwiches into the freezer and tosses Jackson into the shaken baby chair.

  “Welcome.” I take Paul’s and Jenny’s coats, lead them into our apartment. Paul hangs shyly behind Jenny, looking every bit the bed wetter at summer camp. His eyes watch Jenny while her eyes search out my son. Rebecca moved him and his chair to the kitchen counter. His chin glistens with drool, his eyes droop at half-mast, well on his way to his next dream about breasts. Jenny offers a perfunctory smile to Rebecca as she walks past, walks right up to Jackson. He doesn’t register her presence, just continues to do his infant thing, build synaptic bridges and ignore the profound moments around him. The room holds its
collective breath.

  Jenny turns to us. “He’s beautiful,” she says, and then wipes her cheek where a tear is supposed to go. Paul gives her a hug and they stand over Jackson, cooing at him, making those soft sounds. Rebecca sidles up to me, curling her arm around mine, mirroring Paul’s pose.

  “I think his diaper is full.” Jenny laughs through the crying. Rebecca’s crying. My wife, tears already streaming down both cheeks, the world’s pain her own, laughs along and picks up Jackson. He fusses in his tiny voice, no longer vibrating, not asleep, and not pressed against a boob. “Can I go change him with you?” Jenny asks.

  Rebecca nods gratefully, and the two women go into Jackson’s room to wipe away tears and feces. Relieved we’re past that, I turn to Paul, “How about a drink?”

  “Yes, please.” I pour us both bourbon, seems fitting.

  While I’m standing over the glasses he strides up to me, his body looming over mine. An arm with definition comes into frame on my left and I lean back and right, dormant playground instincts return at once. He gets close, so red alarms flash in my mind. Ice cream. Ice cream. Ice cream. Man pummeled as his son has diaper changed in the next room. But he leans in and says low, “After dinner, could we go get a drink?”

  “Just you and me?”

  “Yeah, got something I want to talk with you about,” he whispers.

  “… okay.” Ice cream. Ice cream. Ice cream. My body found by the warehouses.

  “Thanks. Just make it sound like your idea.”

  “Is everything all right?” Ice cream. Ice cream. Ice cream. Arms detached from torso, used as cudgels to beat man to death.

  “Yeah, I don’t mean to be so weird. Just—I need some advice.”

  Advice. Like on whether to castrate you before or after I crush your windpipe. Ice cream. Ice cream. Ice cream.

  The women come back. My women, in a manner of speaking. Jenny holding my son. She’s got him awkwardly cradled, holding him the way you would a small dog. But she’s grinning from ear to ear. And Jackson is fast asleep. “He’s going to watch us eat,” she announces. “Sort of.” Jackson is once more laid in the low hum of his chair while Rebecca, tears dry and jaw set, launches into hostess mode.

  —

  Dinner, in two informal courses

  FIRST COURSE

  Sangria-marinated hanger steak, rosemary potatoes, honey-and-tangerine-glazed carrots. Served with an apology by the hostess for being so “informal,” summarily brushed off by the guests as being unnecessary, further apology presented and disregarded, with praise in response that everything smells amazing, finished with heartfelt platitude at just being glad to get together with friends and agreed to with the perfunctory raising of glasses.

  WINE PAIRING

  An entire bottle of Beaujolais, split between two women

  Unlike our first dinner, the conversation moves in fits and starts. I’ve been cutting and semiassembling the shelves in my studio, bringing them piecemeal to Greenpoint, installing them against the wall and screwing them together, having sex with Jenny, and following it up with a drink at one of Greenpoint’s many wonderful bars, but none of these topics seem appropriate dinner conversation. Jenny nudges Paul into talking about the play he’s doing, which I could feign interest in, but he balks at discussing it. Evidently experimental theater operates on a code of silence. Rebecca gives an update on the cookie business that occupies three minutes, and then we’re silent again, only the soporific buzz of Jackson’s chair filling in the empty space. Rebecca has sucked her lips as far back as they’ll go; this is her horrified face. I recognize a portion of it in her realization that she doesn’t know these two people very well, that she’s overestimated their friendship, and a portion that she did not come to the table prepped with a litany of topics to discuss and feels herself to be an inadequate hostess, even though she spent most of the morning with her breasts in a machine.

  Rebecca refills the wineglasses once they hit the halfway point. A drunk guest is a chatty guest.

  “What made you decide to have a child?” Jenny slices into her steak, asks with her head down. I defer to Rebecca on the answer, it’s inevitably hers to give. I would say, were I put on the spot, that having a child, or at least trying to have a child, feels like one of those assignments you’re given at the beginning of the semester that you can get done at any time, but it will be due and it counts for 60 percent of your grade. I married the woman; I got the steady income; I built the nest. From there all it took was minimal pressure. Rebecca never made passive-aggressive comments or sighed loudly at other children, just stated plainly that she’d like to try to have a child, and it made sense. I couldn’t think of a good reason not to. And I love my wife fiercely and have wide tracts of fertile land in my heart upon which a child can roam. That as well.

  And she got pregnant. In sum, I got my shit together, love my wife, couldn’t think of a reason to pressure her into an abortion. Hence why I stare at Rebecca for her answer, something more palatable that I can ape.

  “I … can’t remember,” Rebecca says, to my surprise. I’m aghast. I actually have to put down my utensil, stare at her like she just made a rape joke. “Don’t give me that look of horror, Michael. I grew up taking care of my sister, and I guess I’m just such a homemaker.”

  “Don’t say homemaker like it’s a dirty word,” Jenny chides.

  “Sorry. I don’t mean it pejoratively. I guess I just couldn’t complete that picture I’ve had in my head until there was a Jackson involved. Baby to teenager, even when he’s surly and hates me, it still feels right.”

  “He won’t hate you,” I comment.

  “He’ll hate you more,” she replies. “I’m sorry. I wish I could explain it better than that.”

  Jenny sighs. “Truth be told, once I was pregnant, I wanted a baby for this one. Fenn is just a beautiful man. I wanted to make a smaller version of him, even if it was diluted with a little of me.” She reaches across the table and grips Paul’s hand. “God, how do you have skin like that? Didn’t you have a single zit as an adolescent?”

  “I had many.” His perfect skin reddens, as does mine.

  “So yeah, that’s what I liked about the idea of a child. A little Fenn, making the same embarrassed faces at my torrential love.” Quick as a snakebite, Jenny flicks her eyes over my way, relishing the mixture of confusion and jealousy and sneering superiority passing like storm clouds across my face.

  That’s right, handsome man, you have marvelous bone structure. Your genetics sparkle and shimmer. And I’m fucking your wife in your bed. Hang that from the smooth planes of your perfect cheekbones.

  —

  DESSERT COURSE

  Cookiewiches

  WINE PAIRING

  An entire bottle of rosé, split between two women. Men share a look and retire to nearby bar for after-dinner beers before evening devolves into drunken shitshow.

  It falls to me to find a reason to get Paul out of my apartment and over to a beer. “I’m going to show Paul my studio,” I announce. Both Jenny and Rebecca look skeptical. “He’ll get a kick out of it.” He follows my lead, grabbing our jackets, kissing Jenny good-bye, promising to be back in a bit.

  “Are you two going to smoke?” Jenny asks.

  “I don’t smoke,” I reply, raising the involuntary eye roll from Jenny. Rebecca, on the other hand, gives me a knowing look. In her world, guys sometimes need guy time, and Paul and I are leaving so we can talk about our anxieties and fears without censoring ourselves because of women. Conversely, gals need gal time, and Jenny has no idea the penetrative thoroughness of the heart-to-heart she is about to engage in the minute the men leave.

  When Paul and I are outside, walking away from my apartment, he glances behind him and asks, “Where are we going?”

  “I’m taking you to a bar called Fort Defiance.”

  “Are we stopping by your studio?”

  “No.”

  “What will I tell Jenny about it?”

  I roll my
eyes. “Say I forgot my key, so we got a beer instead.”

  “Oh.” Paul takes quick steps to keep up with me. “I’m not good at lying to her. She usually sees right through it. I’m shit at hiding her birthday presents or keeping surprises from her.”

  I stop and assess this milquetoast man. “This isn’t espionage. We’re getting a beer. You wanted to talk, right?”

  He bites his lip. His entire demeanor says this isn’t the ice cream conversation. If he were going to beat the shit out of me, he would have been more excited to get out of the house; he wouldn’t have to rush to keep up with me. “Right,” he says eventually.

  At the bar, I order an IPA and Paul gets a stout. He turns and looks around the space, at the people eating dinner, at the other people sitting at the bar, gives a long look at the bartender. For a brief, horrified moment, I think he’s about to make an announcement, and is sizing up the room for how it will be received. But no, he’s checking for familiar faces. This is clandestine Paul. I sit, amused, watching him squirm. Did he lose his job? Is that what this is about? Or, it hits me: Is Jenny pregnant again? Oh no no no no no. No. And how long, I sidebar my own internal monologue, will I assume that every pause precedes a pregnancy announcement? When the fuck did that start?

  “So what’s up, Paul?” my voice strains.

  He gives one last pan of the room and tilts toward me. “So I’m in this show.” It’s going to Broadway, but I’m worried I can’t do it because Jenny is pregnant.

  I nod, deaf to the noise of the bar, numb to everything but Paul’s next few sentences.

  “It’s a Restoration-era sex comedy called The Country Wife. And it’s this avant-garde production, so I’m playing every male character.” So my masculinity is feeling pretty good now, as evidenced by Jenny’s nascent pregnancy.

  “I’m opposite an actress that I haven’t worked with before, but I know her, and she’s okay. She’s a good actress. And I have to kiss her, like, the entire play …” He trails off, pushing my train of thought off its rails. Jenny’s not pregnant, Paul just has … I don’t know what.