It's About Your Husband

by Lauren Lipton

  “Good.” He lowers the phone. “Now: Simon says, step away from the garment bag.”

  I take two steps backward.

  “I’m going to put these things in the closet now.” He waves the phone at me one last time. “Don’t make any false moves.”

  I’ve got mail.

  There in my e-mail box, hidden among a now astonishing landslide of obscene Matemarket propositions, is a reply from the man I sent an e-mail to:

  TO: NewGirl

  FROM: BuzzBuzz

  SUBJ: Hi

  Phone number?

  “Now what?” I ask Val that evening, after I’ve invited myself over to her apartment.

  “Give him your phone number.” Val steps around me and pulls back a curtain behind the front door to reveal her kitchen: an indentation in the wall with a half-size stove and a sink piled high with dirty dishes. She crouches in front of the mini-fridge and produces a bottle of mouthwash and a bottle of vodka. “Want a Breath Blaster? It’s a shot of Grey Goose with a Scope chaser.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “You spit out the Scope,” Val clarifies.

  “No, thanks.”

  “I could make you a Forest Fire in the blender.”

  The appliance in question is in the sink, with three inches of murky liquid inside it. I pass.

  Val slurps a healthy shot from the vodka bottle, swallows, takes a glug of mouthwash, swishes it around in her mouth, and steps into the bathroom. She emerges wiping her mouth on her wrist and jumps onto the sofa, onto which she’s tossed an unopened bag of potato chips. “So.” The way she says this and claps her hands together reminds me of Vickie. “You talk to him for three minutes. If he sounds good, go out with him. My computer is right over there. Go send him your phone number.”

  “I’ll do it when I get home.”

  “Now,” Val orders.

  It can’t hurt, I suppose. I sit down at Val’s computer. When I’m finished, I study her memento collage. Running horizontally across the wall above her desk, she has strung half a dozen slender steel cables, to which she’s clipped concert and museum tickets, postcards, bar menus scrawled with phone numbers, and dozens of photographs. Most are of people I don’t recognize, but there is one of a teenage Val and Vickie in caps and gowns.

  “High school graduation. Happiest day of my life,” Val says, watching me from her spot on the couch. “Did I look bizarre, or what?”

  It’s a wonderful snapshot of the twins standing in the sunshine with their arms around each other, their heads thrown back at the same angle, laughing. In the photo, Val wears no makeup, or perhaps a touch of mascara. Her hair is nearly identical to Vickie’s, in style and in what must be the twins’ natural color: a perfectly attractive sandy brown. Except for the dated perm and fluffed-up bangs, it’s the prettiest I’ve ever seen Val look.

  “When did you and Vickie get so different?”

  Val comes up next to me. “When I rejected the bourgeois life.” She pulls down the photo and studies it, then gives it to me. “Country club weddings, volunteer work, Ivy League husbands—I can’t believe she buys into it.”

  “Being married isn’t all bad.”

  “No doubt. First you trade great first-time sex for tedious sometimes sex. Then you have a man in your house, drinking your beer and expecting you to clean up after him. I bet Vickie makes up all these stories about Steve because she’s bored out of her mind.” She returns to her spot on the couch, lies on her back, rests her feet on the sofa back, and says from upside down, “I swear, if Steve just let Vickie loose in Saks every day, none of this cheating stuff would ever cross her mind.”

  I work on rehanging the photo, trying to align it in the absolute center of its allotted length of cable so there’s an equal amount of empty space at either end. “Does Vickie know anyone named Jessica?”

  “How would I know?”

  Let me rephrase that. “You really don’t think Steve is capable of cheating on your sister?”

  Val sits back up, pulls open the potato-chip bag, and stuffs a chip in her mouth. “Hard to say.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s like,” crunch, crunch, crunch, “if you had a window into his thoughts at any given moment—say walking down the street—he’d be thinking about mortgage rates or golf before he’d be wondering whether the girl in front of him was wearing crotchless underpants. Then again, the guy is a Republican-voting, East Side-living, moneymaking Ken doll. Do I believe he has it in him to cheat? Sure.”

  I try to concentrate on Val’s mementos, but a tingle comes into the hand Steve touched yesterday. I clench both hands into fists and dig my fingernails into my palms. My nails are so short I can barely feel them. I open my hands. “He did tell me once he was trying to get his affairs in order.”

  “You’ve spoken to him?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I’ll bet.” Crunch, crunch. “Will one of his affairs be with you?”

  “I can’t believe you would even suggest such a thing!”

  “I was joking,” Val says. “Why is your face so red?”

  BuzzBuzz calls the next day. I can barely hear him over the blasting techno/rap on his end of the line, and my first thought is that there’s no way this person and I will ever get along, but the conversation gets better once he turns down the volume. He tells me he’s a mural artist who lives and works in a formerly abandoned warehouse in a Brooklyn neighborhood called Dumbo—Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. He asks if I’d like to come see his loft, but when I stammer that it might be better to meet somewhere more public, he apologizes and suggests a friend’s gallery opening next Saturday, a week from today, in the Meatpacking District. But aren’t Saturday nights for bridge-and-tunnelers? I ask. He laughs. “I am a bridge-and-tunneler.”

  After our conversation I sign on to Matemarket to read his profile. He’s never been married and has no children. He has broad shoulders and a noble forehead. He likes Vietnamese food and doesn’t own a television. To my surprise, I find I’m looking forward to the date. Maybe it is time I got out there.

  TO: Iris Hedge

  FROM: Steve739271

  SUBJ: Wife Coach

  Never did give you the pointers I promised yesterday at Rubicon. I’m happy to, if you still want them.

  What is this doing in my in-box? I never gave Steve my address. I wouldn’t have opened it had the subject line not rung a bell. Having done so, I hate that I feel a shiver of delight.

  TO: Steve739271

  FROM: Iris Hedge

  SUBJ: RE: Wife Coach

  Still want them. We also need to set up that payment schedule right away for the clothes. I’d rather give you the money instead of working it off. I can give you $100 a week for now and more once I’m working.

  It’s hopeless. I can’t afford $100 a week, and even at that rate it will be next year before I’ve paid Steve back. My little voice hisses, It’s your fault. You let him talk you into buying those clothes.

  But they’re so beautiful. It’s Steve’s fault for taking me into a store with prices he knew I couldn’t afford.

  I add another line to my message.

  It isn’t appropriate for you to be sending me e-mail. Don’t do it again.

  Click. Now to get back to what I was originally doing: researching Sandy Christmas’s company.

  An instant-message window appears on my screen.

  Steve739271: Ilona gave me your e-mail address. Hope you don’t mind.

  Now, this is intrusive. I type in,

  Iris Hedge: But since you bought me clothes, now you own me?

  and hit the reply button. His answer pops up nearly instantaneously.

  Steve739271: It’s a loan, not a gift.

  Iris Hedge: Where are you?

  Steve739271: At work.

  Iris Hedge: It’s Saturday.

  Steve739271: People have been known to work on Saturday.

  Iris Hedge: What does Steve739271 mean?

  Steve7
39271: Nothing. Got it just now for e-mailing you. You want pointers or not?

  The thought of getting bonus information for Vickie assuages somewhat my guilt at accepting expensive clothing from her husband—to say nothing of my guilt at knowing he’s taken a special Internet handle just for me.

  Iris Hedge: You seemed friendly with Ilona.

  Steve739271: Do you want the pointers?

  Iris Hedge: Do you go to Rubicon often?

  Steve739271: Pointers? Yes or no?

  Iris Hedge: How do you know her?

  Steve739271: Again, I’d rather you kept our shopping spree to yourself. No need to discuss it with Vickie.

  Iris Hedge: Yes, yes, I know.

  Now I’m sneaking around like I’m the one having the affair.

  Iris Hedge: What did you do to get a VIP discount?

  Steve739271: Pointers? Don’t have much time.

  Iris Hedge: OK, give me the pointers.

  I figure it will take him a few minutes to reply, so I go to fix myself a bowl of cereal. I need it to quell the nausea that’s crept back. When I return to the computer he still hasn’t answered.

  Iris Hedge: Hello?

  Steve739271: Patience.

  Iris Hedge: I’m trying.

  The man is insufferable.

  Steve739271: I meant that as a pointer for Vickie. A lot of women lack patience.

  Iris Hedge: Maybe because we have to put up with men like you.

  So I’m picking a fight. Steve’s marital observations have put me in a fighting mood. It’s time he got a piece of my mind.

  Steve739271: Out of time now. Will e-mail you the rest. See you Tuesday.

  Darn!

  Iris Hedge: Wait!

  Steve739271: Still here.

  Iris Hedge: Who’s Jessica?

  Iris Hedge: Who’s Jessica?

  Iris Hedge: Who’s Jessica?

  EIGHTEEN

  More patient?” Vickie sounds staticky out of my cell phone. “How? And when did you see him?”

  It’s late Sunday afternoon, and I needed to escape my apartment, so I’m walking up Amsterdam. “I bumped into him on the street, if you can believe that. Not accidentally-on-purpose, either—really accidentally. We chatted for a minute or two, so consider this bonus material. And I figured out a way to keep crossing his path, so you can keep getting your pointers.” It’s truthful enough, I suppose; I just hope she doesn’t ask how, exactly, I achieved this.

  “That’s great,” she says. “Go on.”

  I try to steady the inconveniently tiny and slippery phone against my cheek while sliding my right foot out of my mule. This is one of my few still-acceptable pairs of shoes and, at Simon’s suggestion—insistence—I’m trying to wear something other than the sneakers. But my instep has already begun to chafe under the leather strap. My shoes were never this hateful when I spent most of my time in them sitting in Los Angeles freeway traffic. “He wanted me to pass along that generally speaking, when he doesn’t seem to want to talk to you, it isn’t because anything is wrong. He’s just in a quiet mood and needs time to himself. He says you could help him get out of it faster by letting him be alone instead of asking him what’s wrong.” I carefully step over a pair of discarded men’s pants splayed across the sidewalk. “He says it’s the best way to handle the situation. Personally, I would find it almost impossible.”

  It’s not my place to provide commentary on Steve’s advice, but I can’t shake the conviction that I’m leading her down the wrong path. After getting Steve’s e-mail last night with his latest pointers, I went into my mail controls and put a block on Steve739271. There. No more surreptitious messages from Vickie’s husband.

  “It does seem impossible,” Vickie says.

  I breathe a deep sigh. Maybe it’s sinking in. “Vickie, have you ever been to Rubicon?”

  “That boutique with the no-name designers? Never been. It’s not really my thing. I’d rather buy a label I’ve heard of. Why? Did you want to get on the list? Maybe Val knows how. But back to the tips. They’re hard to follow, but I could at least try.”

  “Vickie. It’s none of my business, but are you sure it’s a good idea to follow everything that Steve—ow!”

  “You okay?” Vickie sounds concerned. Must be the weak cell phone connection.

  “It’s my shoes. They’re ripping my feet to shreds. I have to stop at Duane Reade and buy Band-Aids.” There’s a drugstore up on the next block.

  “Forget that.”

  “Vickie, forgive me for inconveniencing you during your oh-so-busy Sunday, but I’m getting goddamn Band-Aids!”

  This isn’t like me. What would Joy have to say about it? That I’m releasing my pent-up anger as the first step up the “stairway of healing”?

  “I didn’t mean don’t stop at the drugstore,” Vickie replies. “I only meant don’t bother with the Band-Aids. They’re useless. They get wrinkled up in your shoe and make everything worse.”

  As a matter of fact, I’ve suffered Band-Aid bunch-up many a time and have thought about going a few steps further and simply binding each foot from toe to ankle with surgical tape. I would, too, if it seemed that it would work.

  “What you need is to stop and get yourself some antiperspirant. Get Placid. Not regular Placid, Ultra Placid—the one in the pink can. See, the reason you’re having trouble with your shoes is because your feet sweat. Sometimes just the tiniest bit, but it’s still there, and then when you walk more than a block or two, the moisture causes friction with your shoe, and you’ve got a blister. So you spray your feet with Ultra Placid every morning before you put on your shoes. Antiperspirant equals no sweat. No sweat equals no blister.”

  It’s astounding. Here I am getting practical, nonjudgmental help from Vickie, and if that weren’t enough, years ago I helped Sandy Christmas/Cassandra Krysakowski recruit a couple of dozen women for Placid, and not one of those women mentioned—what is that medical term? “Going off-label”?—for blister prevention. What a marketing opportunity Placid’s brand managers are missing. (“New Ultra Placid for Feet!”)

  “Does that really work?”

  “City girl’s secret weapon,” Vickie answers.

  I haven’t forgotten about the more important issue: Who’s Jessica?

  Unfortunately, infuriatingly, predictably, Steve signed off without answering the question and didn’t address it in his e-mail. But Vickie seems happy with the information I do pass along; not just the part about allowing Steve some quiet time, but that she should make an effort to pay attention when he does have things he wants to talk about. I tell Vickie, “He says women are always asking men to share their feelings, but when men do, half the time we either don’t pay attention or we get mad.”

  “That’s because the only feelings they ever share are the complaining, critical ones.”

  Something else to bring up with Steve. Even though he won’t listen.

  “I’ll try, anyhow,” Vickie continues. “I’m writing everything down.”

  The woman deserves credit. She seems to be taking this very seriously. And though I want to give Steve a good, swift kick, his advice is hitting home for me, too. When I was first dating Teddy, he used to tell me he loved me ten times a day. After we moved in together, he almost never did. We had fights about this; I’d insist it was proof there was something not right between us. Did I just not pay close enough attention? According to Steve, after the early dating phase men show their love instead of talking about it: “They cook you dinner and come sit next to you on the couch when you’re watching TV.” Now I remember all the times I’d arrive home late from work, and Teddy would be in the kitchen making me a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. “Thought you’d need zees,” he’d say in a French-chef accent.

  “Iris,” Vickie says, “I want to start paying you again. Now, don’t argue. You’ve been so clever with all these accidentally-on-purpose meetings. He clearly has no clue you’re working for me. And I know you need the money. How does our old arrangement sound?
One hundred dollars an hour, one-hour minimum? Just keep track of how much time you spend with him, and I’ll give you the cash. In fact, tell me how much time you’ve already put in and I’ll reimburse that, too.”

  “You’d really do that?” I reach the Duane Reade and wend my way through the cramped aisles. As usual, the shelves are chaotic and every third item is out of stock. But I find one last can of Ultra Placid.

  “Why not? It’s his money, anyway.”

  What if Joy is right and there is such thing as karma? What if my luck really is turning? Money from Vickie will tide me over until I start working for Sandy. My little voice tries to remind me that when I do start working for Sandy, I won’t have time anymore to help Vickie; and that I shouldn’t be accepting payment from a woman whose husband is buying me clothing. I refuse, absolutely refuse, to listen.

  I spend the rest of the day doing chores I’ve been meaning to get to forever. I sort through a few more boxes in my storage loft, still without finding my corkscrew, but I do locate a single wineglass. I call Evie in Palmdale to wish her and Doug a belated happy thirteenth anniversary. I play exterminator in my e-mail box, gleefully obliterating every last message from Matemarket. I spend some time searching the Internet for names of friends I haven’t spoken to in ages. “Jadey Aldebaron” comes up empty. So does “Audrey Vogel.” I search for “Valerie Benjamin” and then “Val Benjamin” and find some mentions on a vintage-clothing bulletin board. It appears that four years ago she was trying to track down a specific black Jantzen swimsuit from the seventies and a matching black rubber swim cap with white rubber daisies, but it’s unclear if she succeeded.

  “Vickie Benjamin Sokolov,” in every possible combination, turns up nothing. “Steve Sokolov” gets sixteen pages’ worth of mentions, but none seems to be the right Steve Sokolov. I don’t think he’s the Steve Sokolov who races NASCAR or the Steve Sokolov who heads up the Destin, Florida, Chamber of Commerce or the one in Missouri who keeps a detailed online journal about morel mushroom hunting. Then, in a moment of inspiration, I think to find the Web site for Empire Property Management. I click on “Our Brokerage Team” and scroll down the list until I find “Steven Hart Sokolov, Associate Broker.” All his biography reveals is that he has been with the company for ten years, has a bachelor’s from Yale and a Wharton MBA, and specializes in industrial and commercial sales and leasing. No mention of anything personal, not even that he’s married, and there’s no photo of him, just an empty square that says “Unavailable.”