The deck extended out from the house, resting on boulders and who knew what else. The bleached wooden planks were beginning to show signs of rot, and there were three areas that sagged if you walked over them. Owen would tell male dinner guests from the city that the deck had “at least two, maybe three winters to go before we have to replace it,” and they would sip their beers and nod, a khaki-clad conspiracy of cluelessness. Still, Lucy found herself thinking, the backyard was beautiful. An acre of rolling grass rose to a jagged (and thus authentic) rock wall, likely erected by cow farmers over a hundred years ago. In Lucy’s mind, the stones held back the dense woods, offering both protection and temptation. It was one of the reasons they’d bought the house.
“Can you please start the coals, Owen?” Lucy said.
“It’s too early.”
“It’s not too early.”
“What’s the rush? We’re conversing. Have some cheese.”
Lucy reached for one of the cheeses, a Rogue River Blue that Thom and Victoria had brought that clocked in at thirteen bucks for a quarter of a pound. Lucy had taken it out of the paper and was reminded of her life in New York, her life before Beekman, a life of paying fifty-two dollars a pound for Oregon cheese.
“It works for them for one reason,” said Owen. “There are no women involved. They’re not married to women, and they don’t step out of their marriage and have sex with women. There’s no craziness. Sex can be just sex.”
“I can have sex be just sex. I used to be able to, at least,” said Victoria. “When I was younger.”
“Me too,” said Lucy.
“I think it’s a huge myth that women can’t have meaningless sex,” said Victoria. “You should see these millennials in my office. All they do is have sex, all the time. The girls, the guys. They’re not worried about getting AIDS or getting pregnant or being called a slut. They’re all vociferously opposed to slut-shaming in any form.”
“Slut-shaming?” Owen asked, rotating the cheese plate and slicing off a hunk of Jasper Hill cheddar.
“Yeah,” said Victoria. “It’s a thing.”
“How many people did you have sex with before you got married?” Victoria asked Lucy.
“I’m not drunk enough to answer that question at a dinner party.”
“This isn’t a dinner party,” said Victoria. “It’s the four of us having dinner on your deck because you couldn’t get a babysitter. How is Wyatt, by the way.”
“Wyatt is Wyatt,” said Lucy. “He’s in our bed with the iPad while we violate all the rules of good parenting.”
“Is he still…” Victoria wrinkled her brow with sympathy.
“It’s not going away, Victoria. Wyatt is who he is,” said Lucy. “How is Flannery?”
“Fine,” said Victoria. “Good.”
“He got into St. Ann’s,” said Thom.
“Have you cut his hair yet?” Owen asked.
“Nope,” said Victoria.
“You gotta cut that kid’s hair,” said Owen. “We put your holiday card on the fridge and Wyatt would not believe me when I said Flannery was a boy. He kept laughing every time I said it.”
“We’re your friends,” said Lucy. “We wouldn’t bring it up otherwise.”
“I love Flannery’s hair,” said Victoria.
“I’m starting to think we should cut it,” said Thom.
“We’re not going to cut it.”
“He has a girl’s name and girl’s hair,” said Lucy. “Don’t you think that’s gonna be hard for him?”
“Nobody ever forgets him,” said Victoria. “It’s his thing.”
“It’s your thing,” said Thom.
“It’s my thing that is now his thing and that’s how motherhood works.”
“Could you please start the coals, honey?” Lucy asked.
“The coals heat up very fast.”
“People come to our house for dinner, they want to eat before eleven o’clock at night. It makes it hard to sleep.”
“I’m the grill master. I know my coals,” Owen said.
Lucy pointed at Victoria and said, “You are my witness. I am on record as saying that we should have started the coals already.”
“The coals take ten minutes to heat up, tops,” Owen said.
“That is not true, but I’m silent on this subject from here on out,” Lucy said, and then she reached across the table and helped herself to more wine.
“You want the truth?” Lucy said, leaning against the avocado-colored kitchen cabinet. Lucy and Owen had planned on installing new cabinets since the day they set eyes on the house. Instead, they’d pretended for each other that they’d grown used to them.
“Yes,” Victoria said.
“I’ll only say if you will too.”
“I’ll say, I don’t mind,” said Victoria. She was dressing the salad while Lucy watched. “Fourteen.”
“That’s a good number,” said Lucy.
“I feel pretty happy with it,” said Victoria.
Lucy pointed both of her thumbs at herself and announced, “Twenty-seven.”
“Twenty-seven?” said Victoria. “Seriously?”
“I was a bit promiscuous. In college,” said Lucy. “And after college.”
“She whored it up, my wife did,” said Owen, who was kneeling in front of his wine fridge and studying the bottles.
“Don’t slut-shame me,” said Lucy.
“No slut-shaming!” agreed Victoria. “What about you, Owen? How many women did you sleep with before you met dear Lucy here.”
“I don’t know,” said Owen, getting to his feet with two bottles of Ridge zinfandel.
“You don’t know?” said Victoria.
“Nope,” said Owen. “No idea.”
“It was a lot,” said Lucy. “A lot a lot.”
“Yeah,” said Victoria. “Thom too.”
“I think I’ll start the coals.”
“I’m not sure it’s safe for you to be around fire, honey.”
“I’ll help him.”
“Great,” said Victoria. “Now they’ll both go up in flames.”
Everyone loved Owen’s marinade. There were lots and lots of compliments on the marinade as they sat on the deck and ate dinner with linen napkins and the Laguiole steak knives with rosewood handles Lucy’s cousin had given them as a wedding present. God, men and their marinades, thought Lucy. You’d think they’d figured out how to split the atom when all they did was put some Worcestershire and soy sauce into a Ziploc bag.
“I’m at the age when women start to go crazy,” said Victoria. “My girlfriends are all going nuts. If their husbands knew half of what was going on, their heads would never stop spinning.”
“Why?” Owen asked. “What’s going on?”
“I can’t tell you. This is a secret all of us are keeping from all of you.”
“Give us one example,” said Owen.
“Okay, I have a friend, who I will not name, who is married,” said Victoria. “And she makes out with people.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like at a bar, she’ll make out with someone,” said Victoria. “She does it at least once a week.”
“Who goes to bars?” asked Lucy. “Who has time for things like that?”
“She makes the time,” said Victoria.
“Do I know her?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“That means I know her.”
“You do.”
“Spill it.”
“Perfect Jen.”
“Perfect Jen makes out with strangers at bars?”
“She does.”