The Husbands by Holly Gramazio

Author:Holly Gramazio [Gramazio, Holly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2024-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

“How long is this song?” Lauren says.

“I don’t have, like, a whole line for everyone. It’s more about how much time I spent there, you know? If I think I owe them.” He shrugs, a little sheepish.

She starts asking for more details, but the burritos arrive. They compare food stories while they eat, his worst takeaways, her husbands and their least-inspiring dishes.

“A fried lettuce thing,” she says, that was an early husband. “A big baguette stuffed with cheese and chopped-up fake bacon and microwaved, god, it was disgusting. Oh, and so many of them have a special bolognese recipe. And it’s never good.” Usually when this happens the husband has an Italian ex-girlfriend from whom he learned a supposedly authentic yet surprising recipe, with one special touch: anchovies (twice), Worcestershire sauce (three times), coffee (once), buttermilk (once, particularly bad).

“Oh yeah, some of mine have that too. Like, their high-school girlfriend Maria whose sexy aunt told them to put coriander in it or something.”

“Look,” Lauren says, and leans forward. “You’re going to stay for a few days, right? I’ll make up the spare room and we can call in sick in the morning?”

“Yeah,” he says, “of course. Of course. I mean, apart from anything else, I’d love to not meet another new wife tonight. You were the fourth, I had a bad run. Kids everywhere.”

“You had—no, never mind. Let’s get everything set up.”

The bed in the spare room has been stripped, presumably after Bohai’s mum’s visit, but there are more sheets in the cupboard. She can’t, however, find any men’s pajamas.

“I do sleep naked a lot,” he says apologetically, looking in drawers. “I might not have any. Shorts?”

She finds some underpants (boxers, it turns out) and a T-shirt, passes them over.

“Weird, isn’t it,” he says. “Happy to lie with no clothes on next to a wife I’ve never met before, but as soon as we’re both in on it I want to stay dressed and take the other bed.”

It’s true: she’s had plenty of strange naked men in the house lately, but this one knows he’s a strange man, and that makes all the difference.

“Night,” he calls out from the spare room, through the open door and the landing and into hers, “sleep well.”

“You too,” she calls back. “Hey, have you had any other wives called Lauren?”

He laughs. “I don’t think so. Had a Laura.”

“That’s acceptable,” she calls back. It’s like a sleepover, like camp. If she strains, she can hear him breathing as she falls asleep.

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