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To: Wife 22 <Wife22@netherfieldcenter.org>
Dear Wife 22,
Both of our numbers are randomly assigned, you’re right about that. With each round of the survey we cycle through 500 numbers and then with the next round we begin at 1 again.
Regards,
Researcher 101
From: Wife 22 <Wife22@netherfieldcenter.org>
Subject: #2 upon second thought
Date: May 6, 4:32 PM
To: researcher101 <researcher101@netherfieldcenter.org>
Dear Researcher 101,
“Bored” is not the reason I’m participating in the study. I’m participating because this year I will turn 45, which is the same age my mother was when she died. If she were alive I would be talking to her instead of taking this survey. We would be having the conversation I imagine mothers have with their daughters when they’re in their mid-forties. We would talk about our sex drives (or lack thereof), about the stubborn ten pounds that we gain and lose over and over again, and about how hard it is to find a trustworthy plumber. We would trade tips on the secret to roasting a perfect chicken, how to turn the gas off when there’s an emergency, how to get stains out of grout. She would ask me questions like, are you happy, sweetheart? Does he treat you right? Can you imagine growing old with him?
My mother will never be a grandmother. Never have a gray eyebrow hair. Never eat my tuna casserole.
That’s why I’m participating in this study.
Please revise my answer to #2.
Best,
Wife 22
From: researcher101 <researcher101@netherfieldcenter.org>
Subject: Re: #2 upon second thought
Date: May 6, 8:31 PM
To: Wife 22 <Wife22@netherfieldcenter.org>
Dear Wife 22,
Thank you for your honesty. Just so you know, subjects frequently revise their answers or send addendums. I’m very sorry for your loss.
Sincerely,
Researcher 101
8
18. Run, dive, pitch a tent, bake bread, build bonfires, read Stephen King, get up to change the channel, spend hours on the phone talking to friends, kiss strange men, have sex with strange men, flirt, wear bikinis, wake most mornings happy for no good reason (likely due to flat stomach no matter what was eaten night before), drink tequila, hum Paul McCartney’s “Silly Love Songs,” lie in grass and dream of future, of perfect life and marriage to perfect one true love.
19. Make lunches, suggest to family they are capable of making better choices; alert children to BO, stranger danger, and stray crumbs on corners of lips. Prepare preteen son for onset of hormones. Prepare husband for onset of perimenopause and what that means for him (PMS 30 days of the month rather than the two days he has become accustomed to). Buy perennials. Kill perennials. Text, IM, chat, upload. Discern the fastest-moving line at the grocery store, ignore messages, delete, lose keys, mishear what everybody says (jostling becomes jaw sling, fatwa becomes fuckher), worry—early deafness, early dementia, early Alzheimer’s or unhappy with sex and life and marriage and need to do something about it?
20. Burger King cashier, Royal Manor Nursing Home Aide, waitress Friday’s, waitress J.C. Hilary’s, intern Charles Playhouse, Copywriter Peavey Patterson, playwright, wife, mother, and currently, Kentwood Elementary School drama teacher for grades kindergarten through fifth.
9
“Alice!” William yells from the kitchen. “Alice!” I hear his footsteps coming down the hall.
I quickly close the Netherfield Center questionnaire window and log on to a celebrity gossip website.
“Here you are,” he says.
He’s dressed for work: khakis and a pale purple dress shirt. I bought him that shirt, knowing how good he’d look in that color with his dark hair and eyes. When I brought it home he’d protested, of course.
“Men don’t wear lavender,” he told me.
“Yes, but men wear thistle,” I said.
Sometimes all you need to do to get men to agree with you is call things by another name.
“Nice shirt,” I say.
His eyes dart over to my laptop. “Gwen Stefani and the Sisterhood of the Terrible Pants?”
“What do you need?” I ask.
“Oh, those are terrible. She looks like Oliver Twist. Yes, I need something but I forgot what.”
This is a typical response—one I’m used to. Both of us frequently wander into a room bewildered and ask the other if he or she has any idea what we’re doing there.
“What’s up with you?” he asks.
My eyes fall on the bill for the motorcycle insurance. “Well. I wish you’d make a decision about the motorcycle. It’s been sitting in the driveway forever. You never take it out.”
The motorcycle takes up precious space in our small driveway. More than once I’ve accidentally tapped it while pulling in.
“One of these days I’ll start driving it again.”
“You’ve been saying that for years. And every year we keep on paying the excise tax and the insurance.”
“Yes, but I mean it now. Soon,” he says.
“Soon what?”
“Soon I’ll be driving it,” he repeats. “More than I have been.”
“Mm-hmm,” I say, distracted, going back to my computer.
“Wait. That’s all you want to talk about? The motorcycle?”
“William, you came looking for me, remember?”
And no, the motorcycle is not all I want to talk about. I want to have a conversation with my husband that goes deeper than insurance policies and taxes and what time will you be home and did you call the guy about the gutters, but we seem to be stuck here floating around on the surface of our lives like kids in a pool propped up on those Styrofoam noodles.
“And there’s plenty of things we can talk about,” I say.
“Like what?”
Now is my chance to tell him about the marriage study—oh, you wouldn’t believe the ridiculous thing I signed up for and they ask the craziest questions but it’s for the good of science because you know there is a science to marriage, you may not believe it but it’s true—but I don’t. Instead I say, “Like how I’m trying, completely unsuccessfully mind you, to convince the third-grade parents that the geese are the most important roles in the school play, even though the geese don’t have any lines. Or we could talk about our son, Peter, I mean, Pedro, being gay. Or I could ask you about KKM. Still working on semiconductors?”
“Band-Aids.”
“Poor baby. Are you stuck on Band-Aids?” I sing that line. I can’t help myself.
“We don’t know if Peter is gay,” says William, sighing. We’ve had this conversation many times before.
“He may be.”
“He’s twelve.”
“Twelve is not too early to know. I just have a feeling. A sense. A mother knows these sorts of things. I read this article about all these tweens coming out in middle school. It’s happening earlier and earlier. I bookmarked it. I’ll email it to you.”
“No, thank you.”
“William, we should educate ourselves. Prepare.”
“For what?”
“For the fact that our son might be gay.”
“I don’t get it, Alice. Why are you so invested in Peter’s sexuality? Are you saying you want him to be gay?”
“I want him to know we support him no matter what his sexual orientation. No matter who he is.”
“Right. Okay. Well, I have a theory. You think if Peter’s gay you’ll never lose him. There’ll be no competition. You’ll always be the most important woman in his life.”
“That’s absurd.”
William shakes his head. “It would be a harder life for him.”
“You sound like a homophobe.”
“I’m not a homophobe, I’m a realist.”
“Look at Nedra and Kate. They’re one of the happiest couples we know. No one discriminates against them and you love Nedra and Kate.”
“Love has nothing to do with not wanting your children to be discriminated against unnecessarily. And Nedra and Kate wouldn’t be happy if they didn’t live in the Bay Area. The Bay Area is not the real world.”
“And being gay is not a choice. Hey, he could be bisexual. I never thought of that. What if he’s bisexual?”
“Great idea. Let’s shoot for that,” says William, leaving my office.
I log on to Facebook once he’s gone and check my news feed, scrolling through the status update chaff.
Shonda Perkins
Likes PX-90.
2 minutes ago
Tita De La Reyes
IKEEEEAAAAA!!!! Hell—somebody ran over my foot with their shopping cart.
5 minutes ago
Tita De La Reyes
IKEEEEAAAAA!!!! Heaven—Swedish meatballs and lingonberries for $3.99.
11 minutes ago
William Buckle
Fall, falling …
1 hour ago
Wait, what? William has a new post and he’s not quoting Winston Churchill or the Dalai Lama? Poor William is one of those Facebook posters who has a hard time thinking of anything original to say. Facebook gives him stage fright. But this post has an undeniably ominous ring to it. Is that what he came to talk to me about? I have to go ask him what he meant, but first I’ll send out a quick post of my own.
Alice Buckleis educating herself.
DELETE
Alice Buckleis stuck on Band-Aids.
DELETE
Alice Buckleblames her chickens.
SHARE
Suddenly my Facebook chat pops up.
Phil ArcherWhat did the poor chickens do?
It’s my father.
