Sometimes I imagined dumping all of Peter’s things in a corner and saying, “This is your corner.”
Maybe I was trying to help him. Even with, “I don’t want you wearing that jacket and looking like a moron.” Future me would cringe every time.
I followed him to the rack of leather jackets, trying to find anything better. I pulled out one, but it had fringe, and so I kept looking. Too big, too small.
“Hey, Jake, check out my new jacket.”
“Cool,” Jake said.
“See,” Peter said, “Jake likes it. I like it and it’s cheap, and check this out.” He flashed the lining at me. “It has a world-map lining. Isn’t that funny?”
“Please don’t,” I said. How could I walk down the street with him? Jake watched us. Oh god. Maybe it would be better to let him buy the thing and then accidentally on purpose spill something on it or throw it away, and it would remain a mystery what happened to Peter’s great jacket.
“Jake, what do you really think? I don’t like it.”
“Well, you know,” Jake said to Peter, “it’s kind of puffy around your waist. Leather should be sleek.” Thank you, Jake! I couldn’t believe it; he was helping me. I tried not to smile so as not to rub it in.
“What about this?” I pulled out a suede blazer. Peter tried it on. The color was a light tan, darker would be better, but it fit him.
“It’s nice.” He looked at the price tag. “But it’s forty-five dollars.”
“Peter, that’s nothing for a suede blazer.”
“But I want a jacket I can wear every day.”
“You need a new blazer, and besides, there’s nothing else here.”
“Actually they do have one, you just don’t like it. I’m not like you with your hipster bullshit. I just want a nice leather jacket,” he said. I was his old, fat mother. Was I being an asshole? Why couldn’t I just let him buy the fucking thing? Wasn’t I a total embarrassment all the time? Wasn’t it the least I could do? But I was the one who had to look at the thing.
“I really do like this blazer, though,” he said.
Sue showed up, holding a shirt over her arm and a dress with flowers on it. This was a dress you wore for your man to bend you over and bang you. That should be in one of those Vogue articles: “Drive Your Man Crazy by Wearing Clothes for a Wholesome Tween.”
“The blazer fits a lot better,” Jake said.
“Yeah,” Sue said. “But it’s not, like, for the winter. I mean, it’s just a blazer.” Fuck you, Sue.
“Whatever. I guess forty-five dollars isn’t that much, right?” Peter said, eyeing himself in the mirror.
“No, honey, it’s nothing if you really like it.”
Disaster averted.
We had to go to dinner at a place with a decent wine list, Peter said. So that left two options, both Italian. We finally picked the closest one. I was covered in sweat again. Peter held my hand. I kind of hated holding hands.
Dinner was a nightmare even though we took sad, sober Grace back home first. An enormous plate of spaghetti with bland marinara sauce and a few little pieces of sausage. I tried to eat it, but I couldn’t put a dent in it. I pushed the plate forward. Peter and Jake reminisced about some childhood Christmas when they were so poor their father had given them each an apple. I didn’t understand why they laughed. Something like Stockholm syndrome.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, and held up my phone. Peter gave me a dirty look. I’m thirty years old and an adult, and these people are adults, I thought. Why can’t I smoke if I want to?
I turned the corner and stood between two cars on the gravel driveway. I looked up at the sky. Stars. That real pitch-black only found in suburbia or rural areas. No streetlights to brighten up the night. Crickets. The weirdest part of leaving the city was hearing all the sounds you normally didn’t hear. I called Amy.
“What’s up? Sorry I got off the phone in such a hurry earlier.”
“It’s okay. I have food poisoning.”
“Oh god, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, been puking all day. How are you?”
“We went bowling and to the thrift store. I can’t figure out if they like me. I don’t know how to talk to people.”
“Everyone likes you.”
“I know, but I have to be a PG-rated version of myself. It’s hard for me not to curse and be sarcastic all the time. I don’t even know when I’m being sarcastic. I’m so sarcastic all the time.”
“Maybe you’d be better here then, with these fucking weirdos. The sister farted while we were watching National Lampoon’s Vacation, and then told everyone she had to change her underwear.”
I laughed.
“It wasn’t funny. I know it sounds funny,” she started laughing too. “How did we end up like this?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, Maya, are these really our lives?”
“I know. I wish Peter would just leave me already. I treat him like shit. It’s obvious I don’t love him. Then I wouldn’t be stuck in this rut, and maybe I could, like, have a life.”
“You could never dump people.”
“I know. I just treat them like shit till they leave me, which, if you think about it, is a nice thing to do, because then they can hate you and not feel rejected and sad.”
“Peter’s never going to leave you.”
“I know. As I Lay Dying of Boredom, that’s what my memoir of being married to Peter will be called.”
“Boring is better than a lot of things,” she said.
“No, boring is the worst, because you’re, like, ‘I’m not being beaten to death; I can live like this,’ and then the years go by. You know?”
“I gotta go puke.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. Honestly, I kind of like puking. It’s spiritual for me, like a release of everything.”
“That’s beautiful and gross. Take care.”
I looked up at the dark sky over this little shitty town. How did people live in this quiet, where you could hear all of your depressing thoughts? Peter appeared out of nowhere. Where did he come from? How long had he been there? He didn’t say anything.
“Hey, honey,” I said, and we kissed.
“Hey, look, they know you smoke.” And before I could say, “What?” Jake and Sue turned the corner.
“It’s okay. Sue smoked when I met her,” Jake said, smiling.
“I’m sorry I lied to you guys. I just didn’t know how to broach the subject.” I put out the cigarette. Immediately I wanted another.
“Can I bum one?” Sue asked. There was more to Sue than met the eye.
And then the four of us walked down the lonely, quiet street, me and Sue smoking while Jake and Peter walked ahead of us.
Back at the house, we all stood around the kitchen and retold the day’s events. We showed them the things we got at the thrift store. At one point, Jake spilled his apple juice on the floor, and I grabbed a dish towel and wiped it up before Sandy could bend down with her crummy hip.