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This gives her the advantage, not that she needs it.
My wife is a fine actress.
I know that.
If only Mary did.
She doesn’t, and Gina makes a terrible hostess, forcing my hand. I offer Mary the tea and shortbread Gina pretends to have slaved over. “That’s for the Forresters, remember dear?” she tells me with a pretty smile.
This is a lie. The Forresters are our closest neighbors, about a mile away. Gina hates them. Everyone in this town hates them. I think she just wants to punish me by denying me a cookie; little does she know her cooking is punishment enough. Hopefully, she’s better at baking. “I’m sure they won’t mind if there’s a little missing.” I take a cookie and stuff it in my mouth. “How can I resist?”
She moves the plate away. “Try.”
“Come on now,” I say, chewing the worst-tasting cookie I’ve ever had. “Is there anything you do thatisn’tirresistible?”
Mary sighs wistfully. “Newlyweds.”
While Gina is looking at Mary shove a shortbread wedge in her mouth, I covertly spit my cookie into a napkin. I don’t want to offend her, but I do. I can tell by the way she looks at me. She hates it when I let my manners slip.
“I hope you don’t mind my dropping by,” Mary says, gulping her tea.
I cross the room, lean back against the counter, and fold my arms across my chest. Gina’s looking at me like she wants to eat me alive, and maybe she does. Sex is the only glue holding this marriage together. That, and maybe the fact that I’m deathly afraid of her. More so of losing someone with whom I have so much in common. I smile at Mary. “Not at all.”
Mary looks at Gina. “It’s just when I heard you were under the weather… I thought I might pop over and see if there was anything I could do.”
“I’m fine,” Gina says.
“She’s fine,” I agree. “The heat makes my wife restless.”
Mary starts coughing then, and she takes a long time to stop.
“Gina is always happy to have company,” I tell her, offering more tea. “She gets lonely out here—and you know what they say about lonely women.”
Mary doesn’t realize it wasn’t a question. This is clear because between coughing fits, she says, “What do they say?”
I look at Gina and see white-hot rage. “Why don’t you tell her, darling?”
She brushes me off and angrily clears the table. We fucked here just this morning. It was possibly the best sex of my life. “He’s being facetious,” Gina says to Mary. “I could never get lonely out here. How could I?” she says, looking at me. “When there’s so much that needs tending to.”
Here we go again, with the same tired argument.
“If walls could talk,” Mary stammers. She looks terrible. Her face has lost all color, and she looks half-dead.
What the fuck?
I probably should have confronted Gina earlier, but would it have changed anything? I don’t know. Maybe this isn’t her fault. Maybe it’s just a coincidence. People die every day.
“Yes,” I say, eyeing Gina. “If walls could talk.”
I get the idea for a story, something to lighten the mood. Mary looks happy; still half-dead, but happy at least. My wife accuses me of making her sound larger than life, but her reputation precedes her. It didn’t take long before the women in this town started turning up at the front door to see what’s in the water.
Whatever it is, I suspect it’s not good.
I suppose it takes two to tango. Remember how I said a good man holds a mirror up so his woman can see herself?
It’s true.
I don’t get far into the story before our guest collapses onto the floor, clutching her pearls. She sort of folds in on herself. She seizes for a minute or so, and then she is still.
