“But, Hazel,” he continued, his voice finally lowering, “do you know how much money Byron has?”
“Listen,” Hazel begged. “I know you want to have a private sexual revolution with Diane and I am all for it. I have noise-canceling headphones.” This was a lie. She certainly used to have these and so many other gadgets, but she’d made a point of not packing a single product from Byron’s company.
It killed her to admit that the Serenity Combination Head Massager/Internet Browser did sound excellent right about now. The device, no bigger than a set of earmuffs, expertly rubbed users’ temples while a beam of light projected images of any search term spoken aloud. Back when Hazel was in college, there was a thin grocery-store-brand chocolate cookie that she’d gotten addicted to; the plasma donation center where she’d sometimes sell her fluids for drug and cheeseburger money gave them out as a post-session bonus. They tasted a little biscuity (Hazel’s dorm roommate refused to eat them, saying that the cookies seemed designed as treats for an imaginary species somewhere between “golden retriever” and “human toddler” on taxonomy charts). But there was something gratifying about the base simplicity of their flavor. And due to their exceptionally granular surface, they performed the bonus duty of polishing Hazel’s lips as she ate. When she wore the headphones, Hazel liked to zone out to close-up stills of this cookie’s exterior. She zoomed in on them hundreds of thousands of times until the pictures looked like photographs of some faraway planet’s chocolate terrain.
“He made you sign a prenup, right? You walk away, you get a mere pittance?”
The question inspired Hazel to look down at her father’s hand, then at Diane’s, and yes—there were rings; they must have had an informal union of sorts that morning.
“It’s super complicated and legal,” Hazel replied. She figured this would shut him up. Complexity was like kryptonite to her father—there was no difference in his mind between “elaborate” and “convoluted.” Steer clear of fine print was one of his favorite sayings, which Hazel supposed could be good advice, but he had a super-inclusive interpretation of fine print that made it hard for him to eat at restaurants. He also had a phobia of lawyers. Her mother used to exploit this; Hazel could always tell when her parents were fighting because there would be a courtroom drama loudly blaring on the TV.
And it was true; the prenup was exhaustive. It had caused her father’s lawyer phobia to rub off a little on her too. She’d signed it in one of Gogol’s conference rooms and still remembered when the legal fleet arrived with the document: they’d all appeared to be wearing the same suit and moved nearly in tandem, like synchronized swimmers. It was one of the only times she’d ever seen Byron not looking at a screen of some kind; he’d watched her sign each page. There’d been an interpreter of sorts seated next to her, telling her the essence of what each major paragraph was saying—mainly noncompete clauses so technology companies couldn’t hire her and glean insider secrets—though the interpreter also worked for Gogol. Hazel had been welcome to bring her own attorney, but since she wasn’t entering the marriage with any money or assets of her own, she hadn’t seen the point.
The settlement she was supposed to get in the event of a divorce would be a lot of money to most people, and had seemed like a lot to her at the time of signing. She actually hadn’t paid much attention to the amount—was it just under a million?—or to anything else. Hazel remembered thinking this exact thought: There is no way I can lose. She’d come to realize that she could, and had. Byron would never allow a divorce.
“He’s bad enough to give up the lifestyle you must be accustomed to now? How is that possible? I don’t see any bruises on you!” Her father’s anger momentarily caused him to hold Diane in a more precarious fashion, like she was a full grocery bag he was clutching while berating a small pack of children. Then he gripped the doll around her waist and locked his fingers together.
It was a little mesmerizing to Hazel, the way he maneuvered the doll against his body like a pair of skis or a similarly unwieldy piece of large sporting equipment. His current grip made Hazel remember a documentary about old-growth forests she’d watched with her father once—protesters were chaining their arms around trees to try to prevent them from being logged. What’s the problem? he’d asked, pointing to the screen. Saw right through their arms if they feel so strongly about it! “It’s a harsh economy out there, squirt. You’ve got zero job experience in the field of that degree you never finished. You’re cute, I mean I think you are; your dad thinking you’re cute is no uphill battle. But, Hazel. I’ve seen the TV office sitcoms—you’re too old now to compete with ‘intern cute.’ Is he cheating on you? I’d imagine that’s tough, but you might consider looking the other way. It seems worth it for a lifelong ride on the money train. What a voyage! Why interrupt it?”
“Well, Dad. The train got a little inhospitable.” Had she just polished off the last of the beers? She had. Hazel knew she was drunk, but for the moment this was a secret her internal self was managing to keep hidden from the rest of the world. It had been such a long time since she’d gotten tipsy. Her speech and posture actually seemed to have forgotten how to be drunk. Was it possible to get drunk in your mind but not in your body? Byron had always refused to have beer in the house, which was Hazel’s drink of choice. There was a microharem of top-shelf spirits, carefully cultivated for guests, but she never partook. They seemed hexed to Hazel, like potent gentrification elixirs: She feared they’d begin eating away at her tacky proclivities the moment they touched her lips. Drinking them would make her less her, somehow, so she usually just abstained. That had been one of the central ironies of her marriage: She’d loved their courtship because it had made her feel like she was someone else, and that had been all she’d ever wanted. Until she married Byron and had to be someone else full-time. Then all she wanted was to go back to being herself and hating it again. “If only it were a simple case of infidelity.”