And I turn around to gape at her incredulously. (I had forgotten she was even there.)
"Don't you ever hear her?" my wife continues stridently, and runs toward my daughter as though she intends to smack her. My daughter flinches, but holds her ground steadily, glaring insultingly up into my wife's eyes with stubborn defiance, daring her, with a small, cold smile, to do more. "What have I ever done to you?" my wife shouts af her. "What have I ever done to her that she should hate me so much? Look at her! Don't you see the way she's looking at me right now?"
"Christ, yes!" I shout back at my wife. "What the hell do you think I was talking about? Why the hell do you think I kick her out?"
"And you — you're no better!" my wife accuses me. "You don't care either, do you?"
"Oh, Jesus!" I wail.
"Nobody in this house gives a damn about me," my wife laments. "Nobody ever loved me. Not in my whole life. Not even my own mother. Am I so horrible? What did I ever do to you or anyone else that you should all hate me so much? What makes me so horrible that you should all feel you can treat me this way? Tell me."
"Oh, shit!" I groan disgustedly.
"Don't talk to me that way."
"Must I really spend the rest of my life in rotten conversation like this?"
"What's so rotten about me?"
"Nothing."
"What do I do that's so horrible?"
And I find myself wondering once again just what in the mystifying hell an able, well-read, fairly intelligent, sensitive, personable, successful minor organization executive like myself, sound in health (if not in tooth), provocative in wit, still virile and still attractive to many susceptible ladies my own age and much younger, is doing engaged seriously in such a low, directionless argument with two such people (children) as them, my shallow, melancholy, slightly inebriated, self-pitying wife (I often try to figure out what it was I ever saw in her so long ago that made me think I loved her and wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, except her good and willing ass, which is still not so bad and now even more willing. All in all, in fact, in the long run, I think I enjoy fucking my wife more than I do any of the others, although most of the ones I have gone with a second tune or more have been pretty good, too, and full of very surprising surprises, for a while. Jane in the Art Department will be a headache — I sense that already; she is gullible and unsophisticated and she likes to talk; her skin will be so clear and smooth it will almost hum to my touch, but she is still too young and pleasant, or simple-minded, to make much sense to me now. Some girls laugh a bit too loudly at just about everything amusing I say and drive me batty, between erections, once I recognize they laugh so readily and talk too much. That will be young, sweet, pleasant Jane. I know her already. But I also know I will grab for it lecherously at the next company party or sooner; and that I don't think I will want her to keep on working there with me after I do: she is a present I intend to give myself for Christmas this year, or earlier, and I am already in the process of wrapping her up) and my depressing, self-centered, self-pitying daughter, when I would much rather be concentrating on something else, on those two speeches I want to begin outlining (I like to get started on important things well in advance, on a long convention speech in case I am moved up into Kagle's job by then and am nominally in charge of the whole affair, and on my customary, unexciting, three-minute speech about the plans and activities of my department in case I am not moved up into Kagle's job and am still working for Green, who probably won't let me give it this time, either. I hate Green and will never forgive him or forget him for what he did to me at the convention by not letting me speak. I really don't want Andy Kagle's job — I never did want to do that kind of work or have power over so many people — but I will be heartbroken now if they don't give it to me: I will feel betrayed and disgraced, and I will want to slink away alone into someplace dark and weep and never come out. I am too weak to refuse it, and too vain to be indifferent to the honor. I don't even really need the extra money) and on the list of changes I will want to recommend when I am promoted into Ragle's job. (I will want to show Arthur Baron and Horace White that I am ready. There are people in nearly all our offices I will want to be rid of. I wish I could be rid of Green now, although I don't know who could replace him.)
"Tell me," my wife repeats shrilly. "What do I do?"
"You give me," I answer, "a pain in the ass. Both of you!" I add emphatically, with a long, warning look at my daughter to let her know unmistakably that I am including her also this time in my ire, and to deprive her of that pasty, crafty glee she customarily evinces whenever I turn abusive to my wife.
"Don't yell at me," my wife snaps.
"I wasn't yelling," I explain. "I was speaking emphatically."
"I can yell too, you know."
"You are."
"And don't say things like that to me, not in front of the children. Ever again. I don't care how you talk to me when we're alone."
"Like what?"
"What you said."
"Then stop being one."
"You're so clever."
"I know."
"It's no wonder they use such filthy language, when they listen to you. It's no wonder they talk to me the way they do."
"Oh, stop."
"I'm not going to let you talk to me with such disrespect," my wife goes on vehemently. "Not anymore. Not even when we're alone. I'm not going to put up with it. Do you hear me?"
"Fuck off now," I tell her quietly. "Both of you." My wife is stung. Tears spurt into her eyes. (I am sorry immediately. I feel small and shameful already for having said that.)
"I could kill you for that," she tells me softly.
"Then kill me," I taunt.
"I wish there was someplace I could go."
"I'll find one."
"I wish I had money of my own."
"I'll give it to you."
"That's some way," my daughter observes softly in a petulant tone, "for a father to talk to a fifteen-year-old child."
"Go — " I begin (and pause to conceal a smile, for her reproof is humorous and ingratiating, and I am tempted to laugh and congratulate her) "- away to boarding school."
"I wish I could."
"You can."
"You stop me."
"Not anymore. And that's some way," I exclaim, "for a fifteen-year-old child to talk to her father."
"I didn't —»
"Yes, you —»
"I only started —»
"— and you know it. I get — you know something, kid? I bet you'll never guess in a million years what I get from all these frank and honest discussions of yours that you insist on having with me."
"Headaches."
"You guessed!" I declare, hoping that I will be able to make her laugh. "I get piercing headaches," I continue (pompously, after I fail, for I feel myself inflating grandly, and crossly, with a delicious thrill of outrage. I am nearly ecstatic with grievance, and I forge ahead vigorously in joyous pursuit of revenge). "Yes, I get piercing headaches from all those brain tumors and cerebral hemorrhages you keep giving me. And stabbing chest pains from all the heart attacks you keep telling me you wouldn't feel so unhappy about if I got.I would feel unhappy if I got one! In fact, I'm starting to feel pretty damned miserable from having to listen to both of you tell me all the time how miserable you feel." My wife and daughter are silent now and cowering submissively (and a flood of self-righteous gratification begins to permeate and sweeten my throbbing sense of injury. I feel so sorry for myself it is almost unbearably delicious. I also feel mighty: I feel potent and articulate, and part of me wishes that Green or someone else I yearn to impress, like Jane, or Horace White, or perhaps some terribly rich and famous beauty with marvelous tits and glossy hair, were in a position to witness me so fluent and dominating). "I'm sick," I remark misleadingly in a falling voice, just to puzzle them further a moment. "Yes, by now I am sick and tired of having both of you people come barging in here, into my study, whenever you feel like it, just to tell me what a lousy husband and father you think I am."
"You were reading a magazine," my wife remarks.
"You too?" I jeer.
"We're going."