“Are you sure she’s not out to—” He stopped. “I mean, do you think she might be—” He was smart enough not to give voice to his hunch—that Harriett was out to get even with him for the job she’d lost. If nothing else, she had to know that befriending his wife would unsettle him. Why else would a woman like Harriett want to spend time with Celeste?
His wife chuckled lightheartedly. “No, Andrew,” she told him. “My relationship with Harriett doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
Hot and Bothered
“Holy shit.” Jo Levison cackled and let her Toyota Highlander slow to a stop. “What the fuck is going on over there?”
“Come on, Jo,” her husband groaned. “Language?”
“That’s nothing,” droned eleven-year-old Lucy from the back seat. “She says way worse when you’re not around.”
“Snitch!” Jo stuck out her tongue at the rearview mirror.
“She’s not the only one,” Art chided their daughter. “I’ve heard you two talking when you think you’re alone. It’s like listening to a couple of Hells Angels.”
“Yeah, well, sometimes fuck is the only word that will do,” Jo said. “You’d know just how appropriate it is in this case if you bothered to put down your fucking phone.”
Art finished what he was typing and peered over the rim of his reading glasses. When he cracked up, Jo had no choice but to join him. His booming laugh was one of the reasons she’d fallen in love with him in the first place. He could be such a prig at times, it was a relief to know he still had a sense of humor.
“What the hell is he doing?”
Brendon Baker was out on his lawn, yanking at the stem of an enormous weed that had consumed an entire flower bed. Jo had driven past his house just the previous day and nothing had seemed amiss. She certainly hadn’t noticed a giant, wicked-looking plant with toothed leaves, long white flowers, and egg-shaped seedpods covered in spikes.
“It’s like something out of Jurassic Park,” Lucy marveled.
They watched as Brendon tried to uproot the plant from a different angle. He bent over to grasp the stem at its base, exposing pasty white flesh and a fur-lined ass crack. Lucy and Jo both made retching noises.
“How would you describe the theme of this scene?” Art asked their daughter.
“The epic struggle of man against nature?”
Art turned to Jo and raised a pompous eyebrow. He’d been helping Lucy with her homework lately.
“I was going to say karmic justice,” Art said, “but sure—‘the epic struggle’ works too.”
The previous summer, the Levison family had been forced to pay a two-hundred-dollar fine when Art hadn’t found the energy to mow the grass one week. At the time, Jo couldn’t figure out who infuriated her most: her husband, who literally had nothing else to do, or the sadist who’d been waiting for Art to neglect one of his few remaining duties.
“Well, I say the motherfucker’s getting what he deserves.”
“Jo.” Art gestured toward the child sitting behind them. “You really want her speaking that way?”
“I wasn’t aware we were raising her to marry into the royal family,” Jo said. “Lucy, darling, which of the princes do you prefer? Gorgeous George or Luscious Louie? Though if you like Cuddly Charlotte, that’s lovely, too.”
“Which one of them is going to be king?” Lucy asked with characteristic bluntness.
“George,” Jo informed her.
“Then I’d choose George, throw him in jail on our wedding night, and take over the United Kingdom.”
Jo swiveled around to give her daughter a high-five.
“You’re setting a bad example.” Art was serious. He never knew when to let it go.
“How exactly am I setting a bad example?” Jo felt her palms grow damp against the steering wheel. The bubbling pocket of heat beneath her sternum began to spread through her body. “I’m raising my daughter to be strong and speak her mind.”
“You’re raising our daughter to get kicked out of sixth grade.”
Jo wheeled around toward him, ready to retaliate.
“Fuck the sixth grade,” said Lucy. “Didn’t we just decide that I’m gonna be queen?”
The car went silent. Then all three howled with laughter. Thirty feet away, Brendon Baker paused his labors and glanced over his shoulder. Lucy ducked below the window and the Levison family laughed even louder as Jo hit the gas and sped away.
Later that evening, Jo thought through the exchange as she stood in the kitchen with her second glass of red wine, waiting for a pot of water to boil. She and Art had narrowly avoided a confrontation, but others were sure to follow. Even when Jo knew one was coming, it still blindsided her. She always walked away feeling like she’d been T-boned at an intersection, and it wasn’t always clear who’d run the red light. Since she’d become the family’s sole breadwinner, the arguments had become an everyday occurrence. Art felt powerless, so he criticized Jo to drag her down to his level. It was all so pathetically transparent, and the unfairness made Jo want to rip him to shreds. She’d taken on the burden of supporting the family only to find herself tending to his fragile ego as well. She loved Art too much to point that out. She just wished he’d get a fucking job.
Jo heard Lucy whoop and glanced over at her husband and daughter. Lucy was on her feet, pumping her fists triumphantly over the Scrabble board while Art bowed down before her. He was an excellent father—warm, attentive, and eager to teach—just as her own father had been. Jo wanted that for her daughter, even if it meant carrying more of the family load. When her business had taken off, Art had resigned from his editing job to pursue his dream of being a playwright. She’d gone along with the plan, assuming he would be taking on more of the housework and childcare duties. Instead, she came home to a filthy house, a hungry child, and a husband who sometimes forgot to shower for days.
When the fights first began, Art swore he’d try harder. Homemaking just didn’t come naturally to him, he said. Dinners were burned. Bills went unpaid. Lucy was often forgotten at school. And slowly, chore by chore, Jo resumed doing it all. In the meantime, Art’s plays weren’t being produced. His agent dropped him. And thanks to a crippling case of writer’s block, he hadn’t typed a single word in months. Jo didn’t want to add to his worries. She prayed to whatever gods might be listening that Art would get his big break and they could go back to having a functioning partnership—before her rage detonated and destroyed them both.