“Sorry,” said Owen. “I, uh, I thought since we’re just going to be here for a few hours it didn’t make sense to drive all the way to—”
The first two times he’d slept with Madison, Owen had picked a considerably nicer hotel, a Doubletree Inn near White Plains. They’d given him a warm chocolate chip cookie when he checked in and charged him two hundred and forty dollars for his three hours of midday extramarital bliss. It was unsustainable, spending that much on a hotel room, and Owen, after the second meeting with Madison, didn’t think she’d notice the absence of soft sheets and wireless access, the fact that there wasn’t a business center off the lobby or a complimentary breakfast buffet complete with a make-your-own waffle station. (She did like the warm cookie, however.) At the Doubletree, Owen had had her on the floor the first time, and then up against a window that looked out over a Bed Bath & Beyond, and finally they’d taken a shower together and washed each other all over with little tiny bars of extremely smelly soap.
“Turn the lights off,” Madison said to him now. “I don’t want to see any black and curlies.”
Owen flipped off the lights and started to unbuckle his belt.
“Take your top off,” he instructed.
Madison slouched out of her hoodie and then reached down and pulled her T-shirt over her head. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Her breasts were magnificent. They defied all known laws of breast gravity.
“Now your jeans,” he said.
Madison ran her hands over her breasts rather theatrically and then slowly down her stomach to her jeans. She slipped a hand inside and looked Owen directly in the eyes. Like so many of Madison’s moves, it had a rehearsed quality, like she had practiced it in front of a mirror after watching a lot of porn. Kids these days! Stop it, stop it, he told himself, this is not your problem!
“Do you want me to do anything special for you?” she asked.
“Um, let me think about that,” Owen said. “What kind of special?”
Suddenly, there was a pounding on the door. A real pounding.
“Is that your wife?”
“I would be truly surprised,” said Owen. “Let me check.”
Before he could look through the peephole he heard a familiar voice. “I know you’re in there, Owen.”
It was Izzy.
Of course, thought Owen.
“Let me in, Owen, or I’m gonna make a real stink.”
“Just go home, Izzy,” Owen said through the door. “I’ll call you later.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Well, you’re not coming in here.”
“Let me in or I’ll do something bad to your car.”
“Jesus, Izzy.”
“I’ll put rocks in your gas tank, Owen. I will fuck your shit up.”
“Calm down, Izzy.”
“I just want to talk to you. I swear.”
Owen was pretty sure she wasn’t joking. He didn’t want anything done to his car. He slid the chain off the door and opened it.
Izzy forced her way inside.
“Oh, nice, Owen. Real nice. I wonder how Lucy’s gonna feel about this.”
“Who’s Lucy?” Madison asked.
“Oh, shut up, you little skank,” said Izzy.
“Who’s Lucy?” Madison asked again. Being called a skank to her face didn’t seem to faze her in the least.
“My wife.”
Madison turned to Izzy and appeared genuinely perplexed. “Then who are you?”
“I’m his girlfriend,” said Izzy. “And you must be the preteen with the freshly waxed undercarriage.”
“Excuse me?” Madison said.
“You heard me,” said Izzy.
“Where are you getting this stuff, Izzy?” asked Owen.
“Oh, you idiot,” Izzy said. “I know everything. I’ve got you wired.”
Madison pulled on her T-shirt and sweatshirt and then headed out the door.
“I’ll call you,” Owen said.
“Oh no, he won’t,” said Izzy. “Say your good-byes, sweetheart.”
“Whatever, lady,” Madison said. “Enjoy the rest of your life.”
“You ginormous shit.”
“You told me two days ago that this was temporary,” said Owen. “Forget two days ago. We both always knew what this was, Izzy. You’re not allowed to act like this.”
“I never said that you could humiliate me,” she said. “I don’t remember signing off on that.”
“How is this humiliating you?”
“Oh, come on, Owen. Come on.”
“Honestly, I have no idea what you’re talking about, Izzy. You’re not making any sense. I’m going out to my car now. We can talk about this later after you calm down.”
“I’m not gonna calm down!”
“Well, I’m not going to talk to you until you do.”
Owen grabbed his belt and his jacket and sort of skipped-slash-ran out to his car while Izzy chased him, hitting him on his back with both of her fists.
“Goddamn it, Owen! Do not run away from me! I can’t believe you think this is okay! You owe me more than this, you prick! This is not okay!”
Somehow he managed to get into his car and lock the door.
He couldn’t find his keys. Please don’t tell me I left them in the hotel room. He dug around deep in his jeans pockets but they weren’t there. His old barn jacket was draped over his arm, and it had a million different pockets. He started searching through them as fast as he— Crash!
Izzy was standing by the door of her pickup truck, holding an empty wine bottle up in the air. “Get out of the car, asshole! Get out of the car or I will fuck your car up! I will fuck your life up, Owen! I’m not kidding, I will fuck your whole shitty little fake life up!”
Owen could feel the car key, but it was inside one of those strange pockets-behind-a-pocket that you had to figure out exactly how to get into— Crash!
Izzy, it turned out, had a lot of empty wine bottles in her truck. Like a conscientious drunk, whenever her recycling bin started to fill up too fast, she tucked a few in the tiny backseat under a black contractor’s bag filled with giveaways and then offloaded them at faraway places, shopping-center dumpsters and gas-station garbage cans.
“I’m not discussing this until you are calm,” yelled Owen through a cracked window.
Izzy threw the bottle straight at his face. It bounced off the window and exploded on the asphalt.
Keys!
The crazier Izzy got, the calmer Owen got. It happened when he fought with Lucy too, although he and Lucy rarely fought. (They rarely fought! They had a home and a child together! Why were they doing this? Why am I doing this?) A rare, completely apoplectic Lucy once told him that having a real fight with him was impossible, because the madder she got, the more he started to sound like a psychiatrist addressing a woman in a straitjacket. It was impossible to get a reaction out of him. And a reaction was clearly what Izzy wanted.
Fortunately, Owen had backed his car into the parking spot, subconsciously setting himself up for a quick getaway. By the time he got the engine started, Izzy was standing directly in front of his car wielding two jumbo bottles of Chilean chardonnay like martial arts weapons. He couldn’t move the car without running her over.