“You’re home early.” Bruce’s voice sounds lower than usual.
“Yeah. Something overcame me today,” I say with my face flush.
Bruce is making me feel girly, making me relieved to know I haven’t hardened into some unmeltable Clarisse figure, some stoic Kathryn, or some sad Amy.
“That’s not a béarnaise sauce I smell,” he says, pushing his boyish hair out of his face. “I mean, whenever I smell something good coming up the elevator I just have to assume the smell belongs to the neighbors.”
“Yeah, wish they’d invite us over sometime.”
“Yeah, nobody invites us over. Why doesn’t anyone invite us over?” He’s laughing now.
“Would you invite us over?” I say, offering him the dregs of the sippy cup.
Bruce seems to actually think about this. “Maybe if Brigid would give the theatrics a rest.”
“Or if Owen changed his own diapers,” I add.
“Or Kevin stopped eating with his hands. And Woof Woof promised not to eat shoes. Yeah, we have promise as future dinner guests.” Bruce pours more wine into the sippy cup and lets me have first dibs, all without letting one hand leave my waist.
“We’ve got to change that damn dog’s name,” I say.
“Woof Woof is a fine and telling name.”
“Yeah, Woof Woof is the name that tells everyone his owners were too lazy to bother coming up with a real name.”
“We were too tired to think of something, which is different than lazy. And besides, Kevin couldn’t speak very well. He just kept saying ‘Woof.’?”
“But Kevin’s seven now,” I say wistfully.
And like that, we suddenly realize that five years have slipped by and we haven’t gotten around to naming our beloved dog. We’re pathetic.
“They say these years go fast,” I tell Bruce.
“That’s so damn corny. I can’t believe I’m married to someone who speaks like that.”
“I’m not your wife. Your wife doesn’t talk like that. I talk like that and I cook. Your wife doesn’t cook.”
“Damn right she doesn’t.”
“I’m replacing your wife tonight, giving her a night off,” I say in some June Cleaver tone. “Can I pour you a drink in a real glass? Get you your slippers?”
“Do we even own slippers?” Bruce asks while rubbing his non-wife’s backside. I pretend to not enjoy my caveman husband. “No. We’re slipperless.”
“Did I tell you that your real wife can cook?” I grin and hold each of his shoulders with kitchen mitts that I’ve put on my hands.
“I know she can,” he says, “but she doesn’t.”
“Poor you,” I say. “That’s got to be hard.”
“You know what’s hard?” he says, looking down at his pants.
We laugh.
Something about the smell of meat raises the testosterone level in my husband and he lifts me as easily as he would a kid and takes me Neanderthal-style back to our perfectly-neat-and-without-one-toy-on-the-floor bedroom and I allow him to have his way with me. I fumble with the oven mitts still stupidly on my hands but he shakes his head no, as if this is some domestic fantasy of his, and I blissfully relax into letting him be in charge. Without thinking once about small feet and high voices that will come at any minute, we rock each other’s world.
In the moments that follow, we’re in that sweet spot where one is both vulnerable and able to listen well. This is also the moment before the meat will begin to burn so I have to talk fast. I inhale and let it rip:
“So about a dozen senior women at Feagin Dixon were invited to meet with B. Gruss,” I say.
“B. Gruss? Haven’t heard his name in a while. What the hell type of name is B anyway?”
“It’s not a name. It’s an initial.”
“Like fill in the blank, like Brahmin or Barnacle Bob or Batman or—”
“Or Bruce. Yeah. So can we stay on topic here?”
Bruce shifts to his side and his shoulder is angled and bulging like that of a man in his twenties. He crinkles his face. “So a meeting. Will you do bong hits together and then figure out new ways to make money?”
“No, that’s another bank that has the chairman pot smoker. This guy’s addicted to caffeine and stuff you get a prescription for. Anyway, Gruss invited me to a lunch to discuss women’s issues at the firm and this is big because he doesn’t hold too many meetings and when he does, they matter. I’m thinking of speaking up and outing myself as a non–team player. I want your approval.”
“My approval? Do you need the shoeshine guy’s approval too? Lady, I’m the crushed bug. You don’t need anything from me,” he says.