Female Trouble by Antonya Nelson

Author:Antonya Nelson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2002-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Happy Hour

When she went to her lover’s house, she carried a little feather pillow she’d slept on for twenty years. It was small, so she could stuff it in her backpack where it made what she hoped was an unremarkable lump. Soft down, no heft whatsoever. Like a princess, she required this pillow and no other.

These excursions out the door with her backpack were supposed to be to walk the dog. The dog obliged by trotting along on a leash, slashing the air with his yellow tail. Andrea walked a few blocks, then stepped into the pickup truck of her lover. The dog, accustomed now, hopped in after, at her feet. The truck bed did not interest him.

Behind Andrea, in her pink house, she imagined her three children and her husband receding in the distance, growing tiny as she sped away. After their days at work and school, they arrived home disgruntled, ready to fall apart in front of people who would let them cry. They would be watching television, eating comforting crackers, her husband having the first of a few harmless beers. It was just possible that her husband sat there berating himself: here he was watching cartoons like a big silly boy, drinking beer, while his wife went walking for the health and sanity of all.

It was healthy, Andrea thought fiercely, to have an affair now. She didn’t think the health part was obvious; there weren’t calisthenics involved. Hardly any muscles, except her heart, of course, which rose and fell and pounded and swelled and would no doubt end up broken, sooner or later. Still, this secret destination every few days seemed indubitably good for her. Thinking of her lover made life pleasant, and not only for Andrea. Everybody benefited from her obsession: in the mornings, when she used to be resentful, she now woke cheerfully to indulge the children’s sullen sleepiness. She let her husband lounge in bed while she whipped up French toast and whirled around the kitchen and bedrooms finding socks and shoes, stuffing three different brands of chips into three different sack lunches, vigilant with the various schedules each child kept, the allergy medicines, the favorite cereals, trimming the crusts off her son’s sandwiches while reminding the youngest girl to go potty before sitting at the table. In love, as Andrea felt herself to be, she was a model mother. She sat among her beautiful children and felt stunned: to be a member of this exclusive club, one she’d never dreamed she’d be allowed to join. In order to win their approval and to amuse herself, she made the pets talk, get some of their complaints off their chests while the children laughed. In love, she had a lot of extra energy and wit. She was the life of the party. She lost some weight. She gave her husband a blow job, just out of joy.

Before she’d fallen in love, things had not been so good. She sometimes arrived home from work and began

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